It’s the most wonderful time of the year

It’s Christmas Cake time!  I usually make my Christmas Cake with sloe gin but I haven’t got any this year but what I do have is a lot of beer. When choosing which beer to use I did, initially, decide to use Beavertown’s Heavy Water as I  thought the sweet/salt/fruit/stout flavours would be interesting but then due to the scarcity of it (you need enough supplies to feed your cake weekly) and the fact that the cans I do have I want to drink all of I went with Rodenbach Grand Cru instead.  I thought I’d still get the sour/fruit/sweet hit that I want and it’s readily available.  Plus I bloody love it and will have to drink the rest of the bottle every time I feed the cake.  Oh life is hard!

The main challenge is keeping your mitts off of this cake until Christmas. I’ll be taking mine hiking in Buxton over the new year.  Hopefully it goes ok with Yellow Belly.

Ingredients

650g mixed dried fruit
zest and juice of 1 orange
150ml of your beer of choice
225g butter/marge
250g soft light brown sugar
1 tbsp of treacle
4 eggs beaten
250g plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
100g nuts (walnuts preferred but I had pecans kicking around)

Put all the dried fruit, zest, juice and beer in a bowl and soak overnight

Preheat oven to 180c/gas 4 and grease a 20cm tin.  Line the base and sides with paper making sure it reaches around 5cm above the tin and also line the outside of the tin with baking paper and fasten with string

Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy and toffee coloured and then beat in the treacle

Add the eggs a little at a time ensuring to mix well in between

Sift in the flour and spices and stir to a smooth batter

Add the fruit/beer mixture and nuts and stir until combined

Put into the cake tin and bake for 75-90 minutes until firm and a skewer put into the middle comes out clean

If your cake starts to get too brown on top cover it with more baking paper

Once removed from the oven make holes with a skewer all over and pour 2 tbsp of beer over it.

Once cooled, wrap in baking paper or foil and keep in an airtight container.  Feed with a quarter bottle of beer each week, sit back and enjoy the rest of the bottle

 

 

 

 

 

Kriek curd

So I pondered in a blog a few posts down about making a sour icing.  Well last week I decided instead to make a curd using kriek and put it inside some cupcakes with meringue on top to create a delicious kriek curd meringue cupcake monstrosity.   I wasn’t sure if it would work, plus I’d never made curd before, but somehow it worked wonderfully and tasted just like kriek! Note: this will make your kitchen smell of kriek all day.

Kriek curd (makes a jar)

300ml bottle of Kriek (open night before so it goes flat)
200ml lemon juice
250ml water
a handful of cherries
550g caster sugar (yes that much!)
130g cornflour
1/2 tsp salt
130ml soy cream
40g margarine (Vitalite is non-dairy)

Boil the cherries in the water until they have broken down and the water has taken on their colour.  Strain and retain the liquid.

Shove the kriek, cherry water, lemon juice and sugar in a blender and then pour into a large pan.  Put the cornflour in a small bowl and add tablespoons of the liquid to the cornflour bit by bit until you have a smooth paste.  Pour this paste into the pan and add the salt. Stir.

On a medium heat bring it to the boil and stir constantly until  the mixture becomes redder and thicker.  Allow to boil for a minute more then take off the heat.  Add the soy cream and margarine and allow to sit for 5 mins.

Pour into a sterilised jar and then sit at room temperature for half hour before sticking in the fridge for at least 2 hours to set.

Cupcakes (makes 12)

200ml soy or lactose free milk
Juice of a lemon
200g self raising flour
200g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp bicarb
1/4 tsp baking powder
80ml rapeseed oil
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4 and line a muffin tray with cases.

Mix together the milk and lemon juice and let it sit for 10 mins.

In a bowl mix together the flour, caster sugar, salt, bicarb and baking powder.  Add the milk mixture, the oil and vanilla extract and stir quickly until the ingredients are just combined, do not overmix.

Tap the bowl on the work surface, this stops the raising agents working too quickly, fill the muffin cases and tap again.

Plonk in the oven for 15 minutes, remove and cool.

Meringue

200g caster sugar
4 egg whites

Put the sugar into a small saucepan, cover with water (about 150ml) and bring to the boil. Meanwhile whisk the egg whites until just foamy.

Allow the sugar to boil for just 5-10 minutes or until it has reached the soft-ball stage (plonk a teaspoon in a bowl of water, if it makes a ball and you can squidge it between your fingers that’s soft ball), then increase the mixer speed to medium and pour the sugar onto the egg whites. Be very careful as the sugar is extremely hot. When all the sugar has been added, increase the speed to high and whisk until the underside of the bowl feels lukewarm. The meringue should have quadrupled in size and be very white, smooth and fairly shiny.

When your cupcakes are cool just cut a hole out of the middle of the cupcakes, fill with curd, trim and replace lid and then plonk the meringue on top.  You can either brown the meringue with a little blowtorch like I did (try not to burn the house down by setting light to the cupcake cases) or you can pop them under the grill but keep an eye on them as they will brown quickly.

Voila!

Both the curd and cupcakes will last a week.

Enjoy.

The Smoked Brown malt loaf

Both my father and my boyfriend love malt loaf.  I decided to treat my dad on his birthday this year by learning to make it and it was very successful with him exclaiming that “It’s better than Soreen!”.  My boyfriend likes to take it on long bike rides with him.

I picked up a staff bottle of The Smoked Brown from Anspach & Hobday and mulled over putting it in a fruitcake.  Then I remembered how much my dad and boyfriend like malt loaf and decided to stick it in one of them instead.

I adjusted the trusty BBC Good Food recipe I always use by reducing the amount of hot tea and replacing with beer. I also glazed with the beer first before glazing with the malt  The good thing about this recipe is that it makes two so if you’re nice and share one with friends you’ve always got a secret one stashed away for yourself.  Or, in my case, one for Dad and one for the boyfriend.  You also have beer leftover to drink whilst it’s baking.  Double winner.

It turned out well, not sure the smokeyness comes through enough but it’s very sticky and also a lot more fruity tasting.  Boyfriend gave it a big thumbs up. I’m afraid now I’ll be hassled to make it more often.

Recipe

Sunflower oil (for greasing loaf tins)
50ml hot tea
100ml beer
175g malt extract (you can get this in Holland & Barrett)
85g dark muscovado sugar
300g mixed dried fruit
2 large eggs, beaten
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb

I recommend slathering on salted butter before shoving it into your gob

Pre-heat your oven to 150c/Gas 2 and line the base and ends of your greased loaf tins.

Pour the tea, beer, malt extract, sugar and dried fruit into a mixing bowl. Stir well then add the eggs.

Tip in the flour, then quickly stir in the baking powder and bicarb and immediately pour into the tins.

Bake for 50 mins until firm and well risen.

While still warm, brush with the beer then with the malt extract and leave to cool.

Remove from the tins and proceed to stuff your face.

These last up to 5 days wrapped in foil.

I’d like to do a cupcake recipe with a fruity beer frosting, maybe a sour to get the sweet and sour element. Or could make a jam to go in the middle of a cupcake. Watch this space.

Chocolate stout cake

I have another passion other than beer and that is baking but I do sometimes like to join the two.  I am known for my chocolate stout cake (it’s a Hummingbird Bakery recipe so I can’t take the credit there) but I do execute it well if I do say so myself!  They suggest using Guinness but I usually go for a more chocolate based stout such as a Meantime Chocolate Porter or a Saltaire Triple Chocoholic (bonus: you get half a bottle to drink whilst it’s baking).  I recently made it using Anspach & Hobday’s The Porter which went down well with everyone at the brewery.

Am thinking of some more beer and cake marriages along the lines of a bitter fruit cake, smoked brownies or maybe a fruit sour icing.

For now here’s the chocolate stout recipe.  I am lactose intolerant and usually make my cakes dairy free but this one just doesn’t work without the cream cheese icing as you need it to cut through the richness of the cake.

Of course if you don’t like cake you can just have a beer for dessert; my personal favourite is Rebel Brewing’s Mexi-cocoa.

I am on holiday for two weeks now, expect tales of Icelandic beery adventures when I get back.

Hummingbird Bakery’s Chocolate Stout cake

• 250ml (9fl oz) Stout
• 250g (9oz) unsalted butter
• 80g (3oz) cocoa powder
• 400g (14oz) caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 140ml (5fl oz) buttermilk (you can make this by putting lemon in with normal milk and leave it for 5 mins)
• 280g (10oz) plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 50g (1¾oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 300g (10½oz) icing sugar
• 125g (4½oz) full-fat cream cheese (such as Philadelphia)
• Cocoa powder, for dusting (optional)
• one 23cm (9in) diameter spring-form cake tin

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F)/gas mark 3, then line the base of the tin with baking parchment.
2. Pour the stout into a saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until it has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm liquid. Mix together the eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk by hand in a jug or bowl, and then add this to the mixture in the pan.
3. Sift together the remaining sponge ingredients into a large bowl or into the bowl of a freestanding electric mixer. Using the mixer with the paddle attachment or a hand-held electric whisk, set on a low speed, pour in the contents of the pan. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to mix thoroughly until all the ingredients are incorporated.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (usually takes an hour in my oven). Set aside to cool, and then remove from the tin on to a wire rack, making sure the cake is cold to the touch before you frost it.
5. Using the electric whisk or the freestanding mixer with paddle attachment, mix the butter and icing sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter and it is fully combined with the sugar in a sandy mixture. Add the cream cheese and mix in a low speed, then increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.
6. Place the cooled cake on to a plate or cake card and top generously with the cream cheese frosting. The cake can be decorated with a light dusting of cocoa powder.