January 10, 2013

Baking | Tea Rose Fondant Cake … and a floral giveaway #serenataflowers

“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
Hans Christian Andersen

A Tea Rose Fondant Cake … inspired completely by Peggy Porschens ‘Pretty Party Cakes’. I have had this stunning book by this very talented sugar craft artisit for years. It sits by my bedside and provides infinite hours of eye candy. I didn’t once think I could attempt her beautiful work; until yesterday …

I have long delayed making sugar paste at home. LONG! The one day I saw a fondant cake at The Great Cookaroo, sometime late last year, and I knew she had beaten me to it. Bah humbug! It still seemed pretty formidable to me, even though Ruchira convinced me it was quite easy. She made her fondant out of marshmallows.

Sugar Paste icing is a very sweet edible sugar dough usually made from sugar and glucose. It is sometimes referred to as fondant or sugar gum or gum paste. It can be used to cover cakes, mould features and create decorations for cakes and many other uses.

Then a few days ago I met a very talented Amrita at I Bake who commercially does cakes with fondant. She convinced me it was really easy to make at home. The sweet girl even offered to send a batch home for me to work with. Enough! It was time to give fondant from scratch a shot, and was promptly entered as a new year resolution; rather an update of one which has been long postponed.

Seems like flowers are ‘in season’!! A few days ago, I was asked if I’d like to host a floral giveaway for readers of PAB from the beautiful Serenata Flowers in the UK. Serenata Flowers is a gift shop where other then flowers, you can find chocolates and wine too. They are hosting a giveaway well in time for Valentines day.

The prize is a £30 voucher at Serenata Flowers, that should give the winner the chance to choose a nice gift. Delivery would only be to an address in mainland UK , the winner may live outside UK though. All you need to do is visit the site and leave a comment saying which bouquet you like best. The contest is on until the 31st of Jan, 2013, and the winner will be announced thereafter.

It was time to pair real flowers with edible ones, and also time to ‘fondant or sugar paste’! This was my first attempt at working with fondant and I have to say I loved it! The end result wasn’t perfect, creases that peeped through, yet it took me back many years. Back to those play dough times, flowers, leaves, roses …

I loved using the leftover bits to cut out ribbons etc. Later thought I could have done bees and butterflies too. Maybe the next time I feel so inspired, now that I can ‘do it’!! Fondant is therapeutic; makes you rediscover the inner child in you!

See the ‘cake’ platter? I have to confess that it’s actually a salad plate from Urban Dazzle. It’s a classic white, round platter. The interesting bit is the offset centre which gives you a slight forward tilt. It’s a great aesthetic platter to have, and happily one that doubled up as a cake plate as in this case.

Cookies, finger foods, cupcakes, fruit, candy seem like some other fun uses. Until I do salads in it, I’m enjoying its versatility! This Tea Rose Fondant Cake was the best baking beginning to my new year. I love you fondant!!

I learnt something else. Kids never grow up! You should have seen their eyes light up when they saw all that sugary sweet prettiness! I thought they were both way beyond it. Pictures of the cake furiously ‘WhatsApped‘, the urgency to have dinner done, the impatience to cut a slice, the happiness at devouring the cake {the vanilla buttermilk pound cake is wonderful on it’s own}… so worth the effort!

If you don’t want too much sugar overload you could always just do a 1 egg mini cake. The little one came away neatly and looked sweet on it’s own. The fondant recipe is minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker, which the kids gave me us on our anniversary 4 years ago. This was my first foray into the book … and I loved it!

So go on guys. Spread out some fondant if you are so inclined. Otherwise send someone you love a beautiful bunch of flowers from Serenata Flowers. Share some joy!!

Recipe: Sugar Paste / Fondant

Summary: A simple fondant recipe that was silky smooth and fun to use. minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

3 tbsp liquid glucose, warmed {I used Solar, an Indian brand}
1 egg white {or 20g egg white powder reconstituted according to maunfacturer instructions}
400g icing sugar

Method:

Place egg white in a large bowl, whip lightly with fork and then then stir in the liquid glucose. {It tends to harden very fast in winter}
Add the icing sugar bit by bit and gradually work in with a wooden spoon until it begins to form a paste. Gently knead into a ball.
On a very clean surface, knead it until smooth and pliable. Wrap with cling-wrap if not using immediately.
To colour, take small portions, or as required, ans knead in a few drops of the colour as desired. Keep the remaining fondant wrapped in clingwrap at all times.
On a very clean surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the fondant quite thin. Then cut into shapes with plunger cutters or hand make roses.
I fastened the flowers etc with egg white, though the book says to use royal icing.

Recipe: Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

Summary: A lighter version of the classic pound cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake is sandwiched with a light confetti buttercream, and makes a delicious base for the fondant art.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes {including cooling time, and time to make fondant decorations etc}
Ingredients:

Vanilla Pound Cake
240g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
275g vanilla sugar
3 eggs
130ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
To make buttermilk substitute
Take 130ml milk at room temp; add 1 tsp white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready.
Vanilla buttercream
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
225g icing sugar
50g low fat cream
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
2 tbsp rainbow confetti {optional}
Royal icing or egg white to secure fondant flowers etc onto cake.

Method:

Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake
Grease and flour the sides of a 7″ ring tin, or a 4″ round tin. Line the bottoms and sides with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract and scraped vanilla bean.
With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots.
Divide the batter between the two tins.
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean. {The smaller cake will get baked in 35-40 minutes}
Cool completely, then slice into two horizontally.
Vanilla butter-cream
Beat the butter, vanilla bean and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy.
Gradually add the low fat cream and whip to desired consistency.
You can add more {or less} depending on how stiff you want the butter-cream.
Assembling
Sandwich the cakes with a light spread of butter-cream with the confetti stirred in.
Give both cakes a thin coat of butter-cream to provide a base for the fondant.
Note: Use squeaky clean hands, counter, rolling pin etc when handling sugar paste/fondant as it is white and shows impurities very easily.
Take about 1/3rd of the fondant {If it is too hard, then briefly, heat it in the microwave wrapped in cling-wrap for 10 seconds. {Keep the remaining fondant well wrapped else it will dry out.}
Sprinkle the work surface with icing sugar, and roll the fondant out thin. {I kept it quite thin to keep the sugar intake a little lower}.
Gently transfer it onto the 7″ cake and press into place. I got a few creases but covered most up with flowers and leaves. Handle gently or it will tear. Trim the edges around the base.
Take 1/2 the remaining fondant and repeat with the smaller cake.
Place the smaller cake on top of the bigger one.
Take bits of fondant, one bit at a time, and colour them with liquid colour as desired. Using plunger cutters or your hands, make flowers, leaves, roses etc as desired.
Roll any remaining scraps and using a fluted or plain pastry cutter cut out ribbons to cover up the bottoms edges.
Use either royal icing or egg white to stick the sugar paste flowers, leaves or ribbons onto the cake.
Note: I used the microwave {10 seconds, high} quite often as the fondant kept getting hard as the weather was freezing cold at 6C.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

January 15, 2012

Baking | Giveaway| Book Review … Fred Harveys French Apple Pie with Nutmeg Sauce … & a Shabby Apron Giveaway!

“Baked apples are at the core of modern thinking.”
Naomi Kobuko

A rather unsettling beginning of 2012 with the internet playing truant for a plethora of reasons, blame nature for a lightning strike, or man for cutting the underground cables … whatever, but it left PAB very hungry. I’m back to fill the hollow feeling with a chic Shabby Apple Apron Giveaway, and a recipe for Fred Harveys French Apple Pie with Nutmeg Sauce. The apron and the pie both very charming with a promise of retro charm. The pie from a cookbook {Appetite For America} that goes even further, a trail that chronicles ‘meaty‘ chunks of American culinary history from the roaring twenties!!

First the giveaway. The Shabby Apple folk wrote in to say … “We appreciate the quality of your website and its air of culinary chic, and we’d love to offer your fashionable readers a Shabby Apple Giveaway! Shabby Apple’s “Boysenberry Pie” Collection of aprons features designer fabric in cheery prints and charming styles, blended together for a vintage-inspired look that’s altogether sweet. Each apron comes complete with a recipe for its namesake dessert.” … Whats not to love about these???

Shabby Apple, an online boutique of women’s dresses, casual dresses, skirts, and women’s apparel that caters to a need to make women feel feminine and beautiful. They offer flirty, stylish dresses a woman can wear just as comfortably in the office, at a family dinner, or on a date. Shabby Apple is a fashion company for women, by women, and of women. I’m giving away one apron from their Boysenberry Pie Collection to one lucky winner.

HOW TO ENTER: To win a Shabby Apple apron {value for $32-$40}, you must leave a comment before 22nd January, 2012, telling me you …

LIKE Shabby Apple on Facebook

Which Shabby Apple dress or item is your favorite by visiting the Shabby Apple site

…and have a USA shipping address

To continue the nostalgia of the old world charm, I’m going to tempt you into making a simple and delicious French Apple Pie, pulled out from the pages of history. Serve it with a simple Nutmeg Sauce and it sends you back many years. This classic eating house comfort food dish was tarted up by the head Fred Harvey baker at the Los Angeles Union Station way back in the 1920′s!!The recipe comes from an entirely devourable book “APPETITE FOR AMERICA: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire that Civilized the Wild West“, penned by Stephen Fried who says, “Over the years, Fred Harvey has become something of an obsession, because it seems that the more I learn about him, his family, his business, and his world, the more I understand about my homeland, and how it came to be.” So who exactly was Fred Harvey?

An Englishman who came to America in the 1850s, he built a family and a career and then, in his early forties, started a revolutionary business feeding train passengers in the Wild West along the Santa Fe railroad. He became something much better understood today: the founding father of the American service industry. Fred Harvey ran all the restaurants and hotels along the country’s largest railroad, the Santa Fe between Chicago and Los Angeles.

This curious Englishman turned out to be more than just a brilliantly successful manager of hotels and restaurants and a true Horatio Alger story come to life (during the time when Alger actually was writing those stories). He created the first national chain of restaurants, of hotels, of newsstands, and of bookstores— in fact, the first national chain of anything— in America.

The restaurants and hotels run by this transplanted Londoner and his son did more than just revolutionize American dining and service. They became a driving force in helping the United States shed its envy of European society and begin to appreciate and even romanticize its own culture.

I often find the son completely immersed in the history channel America, the Story of the US on TV … taking in the history of America, from the American Indians, the Henry Ford car model, the railroad, oil, civil war, Confederate army, Abraham Lincoln, the Vietnam War … an extraordinary series indeed of how America was invented.While he devours history taught this way, I devour this book which deliciously crosses paths with the TV channel, as Fred’s grandson Freddy was an original partner in TWA with Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. ‘Appetite For America’ takes you back many nostalgic years, where times were simple. Hospitality was a different ball game, and culinary trails and entrepreneurship developed in a remarkable way. Unlike the chains of today, the Fred Harvey system was known for dramatically raising standards wherever it arrived, rather than eroding them. It turns out that being a fast- food nation was originally a good thing!Fred Harveys success story and his methods are still studied in graduate schools of hotel, restaurant, and personnel management, advertising, and marketing. “More than any single organization, the Fred Harvey System introduced America to Americans,” wrote a historian in the 1950s. As Prof Fried says, “whether we know it or not, we still live in Fred Harvey’s America”.

Stephen Fried is an award-winning investigative journalist and essayist, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism.
Links {with recipes} you might enjoy: Fred Harvey Cooks, Fred Harvey Cookbook Project

Recipe: French Apple Pie with Nutmeg Sauce

Comfort food redefined. Takes you back to the good old days … a simple, comforting apple pie served with an even simpler nutmeg sauce. This classic eating house comfort food dish was tarted up by the head Fred Harvey baker at the Los Angeles Union Station way back in the 1920′s!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients & Method:

Recipe the Fred Harvey way!
{I made half portion. The pastry recipe I used is from here}
French Apple Pie:
Pare and slice eight cups tart apples and place in the saucepan with one-half cup water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook until tender, about five minutes.
Add one-half cup sugar, mixing gently to avoid damaging the apples. Using slotted spoon, arrange apples in pie tin lined with pastry.
In a small bowl, stir to mix one cup graham cracker crumbs, one half cup flour, and one-half cup sugar. Add one-third cup butter and a few drops of vanilla and stir thoroughly with a fork until mixture has a coarse, crumbly texture.
Sprinkle the graham cracker topping evenly over apples.
Place in oven pre-heated to four-hundred-fifty degrees and bake for thirty minutes, or until pastry turns light brown.
Nutmeg Sauce:
In a small saucepan, beat one egg yolk, one-half cup sugar and one-cup milk together well. Heat to just boiling and remove from heat immediately.
Add one teaspoon nutmeg and stir thoroughly. {I added 1/2 a scraped vanilla bean too}

You can find great deals at CentrSource, for everything in your life, even for foods and books.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

February 22, 2011

Baking | Blueberry Lime Buttermilk Pound Cake…and a giveaway

“Food imaginatively and lovingly prepared, and eaten in good company, warms the being.”
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

As a CSN Preferred Blogger, I was offered the option of another product review or giveaway. I chose the latter which I’d like to pass to my US/Canada readers. The giveaway is valid for US and Canada residents only, as CSN can only ship for free there, though if you have a US/Canada address or would like to gift something to a friend or relative there, do feel free to enter. CSN’s product categories cover everything from cookware, office furniture, bunk bed-office combinations and fitness equipment to gaming chairs, grills, greenhouses and much much more.

To win this ‘One-time-use $75 Gift Certificate’ all you need to do is to visit CSN Stores and tell me which product you would buy if you won this giveaway. Do leave a valid email address in your comment before midnight 01 March 2011. The winner will be chosen via Random.org and announced thereafter. He/she will have 48 hours to respond, else a new one will be drawn.

Now, back to writing about what I like best, BAKING!! Was baking chocolate granola for the nth time the other day, and the teen suggested using blueberries. Something went TING in my head, and I suddenly remembered my stash of dried blueberries that had arrived from the UK not so long ago. It was cake baking day too, so I decided to bake my fave recipe buttermilk pound cake with a twist of lime and blueberries.Blueberries & lime – a combination made in heaven, makes for beautiful pairing. The buttermilk in the pound cake gives it a beautiful, light crumb. The cake tastes very nice warm, and is great the next day as well. The dried blueberries rehydrate with the lime and buttermilk and add glory to the cake. This is one basic cake I make ALL the time, the recipe lives in my head.It’s an amazingly versatile recipe and takes any number of flavour combinations willingly. Versions I’ve tried before include lime buttermilk cake with a lime glazing, orange chocolate-chip, coffee chocolate-chip, plain chocolate, and even a chocolate-vanilla marble cake. See, I told you I make this very often, or at least used to until the teen began dieting…… She now checks the ingredients before taking a bite, and exhales a loud “ewwww!!!” if she as much as hears the word b u t t e r ! Drama in everyday life, so it’s been a while since I made this … 2-3 weeks actually. I did a tangerine yogurt cake yesterday {read low fat, oil not butter}, and will hopefully post that soon.

Blueberries Lime Buttermilk Pound Cake
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour {or 100% plain flour for a lighter crumb}
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup vanilla sugar
2 eggs
100ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Juice of 2 limes {or 1 lemon}
Zest of 2 limes {or 1 lemon}
2/3 cup dried blueberries
To make buttermilk substitute at home:
Take 100ml milk at room temperature and add 1 tsp of white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready to use.

Method:
Grease and flour the sides of a 8″ ring tin, or a 6″ round tin. Line the bottom. { I play safe line the sides too}.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Mix the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl with a whisk. Reserve.
Beat the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat in eggs, followed by the vanilla extract, lime juice and zest.
With the beater on low speed, add the flour mix and buttermilk alternately in three lots. Gently fold in the dried blueberries.
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥

~

As I write this post, my heart and thoughts are with the people of New Zealand which has been devastated by the most horrific earthquake. It just seems to unfair, so tragic … the scale of loss unbelievable.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India