recipe: orange drizzle cake

I thought I'd resume normal service with a recipe, the first time in a long time I've posted one here. This is the result of an afternoon baking with mum yesterday. It started with some oranges that needed using, and developed from a Mary Berry plain fairy cake recipe. We decided to adapt the recipe to make one large cake and flavour it with the orange, and it was such a success that my mum made a second one today using clementines and shared it with the neighbours.

Orange Drizzle Cake

Makes one 12cm round cake. Prep time 15 minutes. Cooking time 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Ingredients

200g self-raising flour

200g caster sugar

200g softened butter

2 tsp baking powder

5 medium eggs

2 oranges

225g icing sugar

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan. Grease the sides and base of a 12cm round cake tin.
• Combine flour, caster sugar, eggs, butter, and baking powder in a bowl. Add the zest of both oranges and the juice of half an orange to the bowl.
• Use a whisk to beat the mixture until well combined and pour it into the cake tin.
• Bake in the oven for between 45 minutes and an hour, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. You may need to cover the top of the cake with tin foil to stop the cake browning too much.
• While the cake is baking, gradually add the juice of the remaining orange to the sieved icing sugar a teaspoon at a time, stirring until it reaches a suitable consistency for drizzling.
• Remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cooled, drizzle with the icing.

Cookery Calendar Challenge: January

It is great to be joining back in with Penny's Cookery Calendar Challenge this year. For January, I decided to revisit the same book I started with last time, Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook. However, this time I decided to go back to basics, and cook some dishes that I am familiar with. I thought it would be interesting to follow a recipe for dishes that I would normally cook without much thought and see if I learnt anything new. As a result, I must apologise, as none of these dishes are particularly inventive, or aesthetically pleasing, but I had fun even so!

First up was spaghetti carbonara, partly because I was already planning to make it so I thought I would lift out the recipe book. I know it is traditionally made with egg, but I usually avoid this and just do a bacon, cream and cheese sauce, because previous attempts have ended up liked scrambled egg pasta. Mary's recipe called for the traditional egg though, and it worked really well. I would not usually put parsley in either, assuming oregano would be the way to go, but it added a nice freshness that stopped it being too rich. A definite winner.

Next up, and I did warn that these dishes were lacking in attractiveness, was shepherd's pie. I would usually make cottage pie, so it was a nice change to use lamb mince, and the addition of Worcestershire sauce was a new one for me. The recipe also recommended discarding the fat once the lamb had browned, which I would not have thought to do, and really helped prevent the dish becoming too oily. This made a lovely Sunday dinner, and received plenty of compliments from Grandad and The Husband.

I actually made a third recipe from the book this month, though I have spared you the picture as I tried and failed to make lasagne look anything other than a sloppy mess. The end result was delicious, but the recipe was the source of much debate. I was surprised that it included celery, and that there were no mushrooms. I also tend to put the pasta on top of the ragu and then top with bechamel, and only put cheese on the very top, but this suggested ragu, then bechamel, then cheese, then pasta for each layer. The Husband was horrified that the top layer was ragu, bechamel and cheese, but without a final layer of pasta, as that is his favourite part. Considering the dish served eight though, I'm sure he had plenty of pasta to be going on with. I noticed that the recipe on the packet of lasagne sheets was very similar, and included celery, and layered the dish in the same way, so I considered this a lesson in the art of a traditional lasagne! The dijon mustard in the bechamel was a new one to me aswell, but it was one of my more successful attempts at white sauce (by which I mean it didn't require a sieve) so I shall again bow to Mary's superior knowledge.

Finally, I thought I might include a link each month to a recipe I have made from the bbc food website. This is always my first port of call when I'm looking for recipes, and so I thought it would be nice to include it here too (I hope Penny doesn't mind me expanding the scope slightly!). This idea has mostly arisen because today I had one of those fortuitous cooking sessions where I found a recipe that made use of all of the bits and pieces I had languishing in the bottom of the fridge. It started as a recipe for sausages and cabbage, but happily made use of the two carrots, soggy celery, leftover parsley and half peeled lemon into the bargain, aswell as the last few crusts from last week's loaf. It was an incredibly flavoursome sausage casserole, with a cabbage pesto (better than it sounds!) and breadcrumbs, and I can heartily recommend it.

Cookery Calendar Challenge: July

I'm afraid that in the great phone calamity I lost the pictures of the meals that I made for this month, and, typically, I hadn't instagrammed them or sent them to my mum! So, you shall have to believe that I did make the dishes, and accept an attempt at some artfully arranged herbs, that I still have leftover from the recipes.

Excuses out of the way, I decided to venture back to Jamie Oliver, and after my experience of the 15 minute meals, give the 30 minute meal book a try. I suspected that the recipes would take longer than 30 minutes, if the previous experience was anything to go by, and having long wanted to use this book I thought it might be realistic to do so before the baby arrives!

While both of the recipes took longer, between 45-60 minutes, I was really impressed with them both. The recipes are not without their downsides, they require lots of ingredients, and the cost mounted up. They also require more time than I would usually spend, and many more dishes and utensils, to the extent that when I was making the second recipe, The Husband came and cleared up after me as I was cooking just to try and get a head start! The book is clear at the outset about the equipment needed, and my long-neglected food processor was hoisted out, which again felt like excessive effort for saving time slicing a few vegetables instead of using a knife. 

All of this meant that I partially expected the recipes to be a let-down, I thought they would have to be really successful to feel that all of that had been worth it. I was, however, proved wrong, and was really impressed with the outcome of both. In fact, I went to the lengths of ordering some replacement parts for my food processor that have been lost at some point, which I think is clearly a sign that I was converted.

So, on to the actual recipes. The first was super-fast beef hash, with jacket potatoes, goddess salad, and butter beans and bacon. A few people have blogged the recipe previously. This was a serve it in lots of big dishes recipe, like most in the book, and it was a real success. Microwaving the baked potatoes then crisping them up on a hot baking tray in the oven worked really well, the hash was lovely (although the absence of the right attachment meant my veg were chopped much more finely - hence the new purchase for future attempts!), and The Husband has discovered a love of butter beans too, although I couldn't convince him to try the avocado dressing or salad.

The second recipe was the mustard chicken, quick dauphinoise, greens and black forest affogato. I will confess to leaving out the anchovies, and also knowing The Husband would not want cherries in the affogato, I replaced them with some frozen raspberries in mine that I already had in. This was a great dish, all of the parts were beautifully flavoured, and the dessert was simple but something a little different. 

What I really liked about both recipes was that they felt like complete meals, with plenty of vegetables, making them well balanced. I also found that there was a good amount of food, with the dishes that served four feeding us both well with more than enough for a second meal for two for the freezer. I enjoyed the salad for lunches for a few days after too. The recipes do require lots of ingredients, but the different condiments and herbs do seem to bring the flavours together well, and using the shortcuts such as the food processor and the microwave does make it possible to have dishes that would normally take a lot longer. I still don't think they are realistic for everyday cooking, or for week nights, but I do think, with time, they wouldn't be far off the 30 minute mark, and the results are well worth the effort.

It might be a little while before I get around to picking this book up again, as I guess our weekends might be somewhat different in the coming months, but I do look forward to trying some of the other recipes, and have already bookmarked a few that really appeal. I have picked a book for August, and for now am hoping to make the recipes, but watch this space! In the meantime, do follow the link below to Penny's blog and see what everyone else has been up to this month.

Cookery Calendar Challenge: April

In April, I chose the Hairy Bikers' Good Eating book, which is the third one in their Hairy Dieters range. I bought the first book in the range after watching the associated television series, and both that and the second one quickly became regularly used. The second one improved on the first by including cooking times and a range of serving sizes, but I hadn't ever cooked anything from the third book despite having it for quite a while.

The first recipe was for creamy chicken and tarragon pots with rosemary potato wedges. It was simple to make and the flavours were beautiful. We didn't have any large ramekins so made one larger portion which we then split between us. It could probably have done with some more vegetables on the side, but I do think this is one I would make again. 

The second recipe was for a beef and coconut curry with roasted spiced cauliflower on the side. This wasn't a complete success, although The Husband said he really enjoyed it. It is a definite weekend recipe, as it involved a period of marinading, followed by a very long, slow cooking process, I don't mind that particularly, it's nice to keep popping into the kitchen and doing a little bit more, but the final result was pretty underwhelming, and I found it incredibly salty, which I think might have been as a result of the marinade. I did like the idea of a spiced cauliflower alongside the curry as an alternative to rice, and I have made it again since as a side dish. I had to buy about six new jars for my already pretty well-stocked spice rack so I will have to look for some more recipes to make good use of them all!

I was glad to finally make use of the book, and it has made me tempted to try a few more of the recipes out of it too. To see what books other people have used in April, do pop over to Penny's blog to have a look at the Cookery Calendar Challenge.

Cookery Calendar Challenge: January

At the start of the year, the lovely Penny, of The Homemade Heart, announced that she would be doing a Cookery Calendar Challenge. The idea is beautifully simple, to pick a recipe book each month, and cook two new recipes from it. With kitchen shelves filled with much-loved but under-used recipe books, it sounded like a great challenge, with just the right amount of effort required. Particularly having decided this year to sign up for a weekly shopping delivery, which I order mid-week, saving us a few hours around the supermarket at the weekend (though I do miss wandering the aisles a little!), it has been really straightforward to sit with the book and add the required ingredients to the list.

So for this month I chose Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook. It has a great range of recipes, some really useful sections on basic techniques, and also introduces each chapter with an index of few of the recipes sorted by cooking time, a helpful feature I haven't seen in other books. 

I usually turn to recipe books for baking, so I thought I would use this challenge to try a few new savoury recipes. The first recipe, pork with chilli and coconut, has been quickly added to the household favourite list. It was very simple, and didn't require many ingredients, yet tasted really good, full of authentic Thai flavours. The meat does need marinating for 2 hours before cooking, so this was good to make at the weekend, and there were plenty of leftovers for a spare portion for the freezer.

I bought jasmine rice to serve with the dish, and it all worked together really well. I don't normally make dishes with these flavours, even though I love them, and it was the first time I had used creamed coconut. Luckily there were multiple sachets in the pack so I will definitely be making the recipe again! It even earned a high-five from The Husband, so the challenge got off to an auspicious start.

With an abundance of mince in the freezer, I decided to find a recipe to use some up, and opted for beef florentine. The recipe in my book is slightly different from that I have linked to, both are by Mary Berry, but the one I made included Gruyere, and didn't have mushrooms. In effect, it is minced beef in a tomato and garlic sauce, topped with a layer of cooked spinach, cheese and eggs, and then with a filo pastry lid.

I wasn't convinced all of the flavours would work together, there seemed to be a ridiculous amount of spinach, and cooking the beef in butter produced a very oily meat sauce as you can see above. However, I should have had more faith in Mary, it was really good, and I enjoyed it far more than I expected. It also proved to be really filling, serving us as dinner for two, lunch the next day, and dinner again the next night (plus a few bits of pastry off the top for Grandad when he came to visit), and I was still looking forward to it for the third meal! I did inadvertently add a big spoonful of ginger as I mistook it for the jar of garlic from the fridge, but luckily it didn't overpower it. I'd leave it out next time though! The only thing I'd change about this recipe was the fact that I tried to cook it after work, and it took a good hour and a half, which felt a bit involved for a week night.

So, the first month has been a resounding success, many thanks to Penny for such a brilliant idea for a challenge. I haven't decided for definite on next month's book, but I was very excited to get Jamie Oliver's 15 minute meals and 30 minute meals years ago and haven't ever gone beyond flicking through them, so they are looking high on the list. Really looking forward to seeing what other people have done this month, do feel free to join in over on Penny's blog.

Great British Bake Along: Mokatines

I will confess to going a little off menu with just a few of the ingredients this week. Rather than getting white fondant and brown food colouring I ended up with chocolate flavoured fondant. It seemed to work just as well with the recipe, and you only use a small amount so the chocolate wasn't overpowering. This was my solution to an absence of brown food colouring in the supermarket, and I was pleased with my ingenuity (small things!). The only coffee essence I could find was that large bottle of Camp Coffee and Chicory essence. I'm not entirely sure it was the right thing to buy, the chicory gave it a smoked flavour, which was lovely, almost like treacle toffee, but it was a bit more complex than just a coffee essence. I'm looking forward to finding some other recipes for this, apparently its a Scottish product, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to try them, it feels like the perfect winter ingredient.

Confession 2 - I failed this recipe on the first attempt. That beautifully bubbly genoise mix you can see above produced a thin rubbery sheet. Never one to waste cake I covered it in the coffee icing and decided to give up on the recipe for the evening. When I cut into it I found pockets of raw cake mix and lovely lumps of self-raising flour, which explained why it hadn't done quite what it should. I think I had been so scared of stirring it too much and losing the air I didn't mix it enough and it ended up in the bin. I think Millie could sense the impending disaster from the look on her face.

Confession 3 - It may be blasphemous to say so, but I disagree with Mary's recipe. The picture above is my first attempt at the coffee icing, and the second attempt looked fairly identical. I found a single recipe on the internet that also mentioned milk, which wasn't included in the recipe on either the BBC site or the GBBO official website. However, it seemed like a reasonable suggestion, and it turned out to be third time lucky, resulting in the much more appetising version below, although it was also slightly addictive. The first successful batch of this got poured over the cake that then got binned, but at least when I started again the next day I knew exactly what I was doing with this. I have included milk in my version of the recipe below.

Confession 4 - the sugar syrup did not go very well. This was my first ever attempt at a sugar syrup, and I did manage it much better by the time the mille feuille came around, but this ended up crystallising a little. Being a bit too lazy by this point to re-make yet another part of the recipe, I used it as it was but later regretted it, more on that later.

Confession 5 - Even my second sponge didn't rise brilliantly, despite the copious whipping and gentle folding. It was lacking in the rubber department, and there were no surprise bursts of uncooked flour, so I was happy enough to use it for the recipe. It did require some fairly delicate slicing, and there were one or two where I was grateful for the icing because it helpfully covered the bare patch of sponge on the top where I had cut it a bit fine.

Confession 6 - I think I went a bit overboard with the apricot jam, really daubing it on so that I could make sure they were properly covered in nuts. As a result, there was a strong apricot flavour which I thought took over from the coffee slightly, I wonder if a coffee icing (told you that stuff was addictive) might work better, or if it would look too messy where you could see it between the nuts.

Confession 7 - I ran out of the crème beurre. See my earlier confession about the sugar syrup. This meant that the finished mixture was full of lumps of crystallised sugar, and having put the mix straight into the piping bag, the nozzle kept getting blocked with these lumps. This meant that quite a lot of the mix ended up getting wasted as I had to keep cleaning out the nozzle, and so some of the finished cakes ended up looking like this one.

Confession 8 - Despite all of the above, I really enjoyed making these, and loved the finished result, they actually looked vaguely like they were supposed too, and tasted nice too. If you ignore the failed attempt, they didn't take all that long to make (by GBBO standards anyway!) and looked like time and effort had been put into them. 

Mary Berry's Mokatines

Recipe adapted from BBC Food

Makes 9 cakes. Prep time 1-2 hours. Cooking time 30 mins to 1 hour.

Recipe

For the genoise sponge

• 40g butter
• 3 large free-range eggs
• 75g caster sugar
• 65g self-raising flour
• 1 tbspn cornflour

For the coffee icing

• 50g butter
• 1 tbpsn instant coffee
• 225g icing sugar, sifted
• 3 tbspn milk

For the crème beurre au moka

• 40g caster sugar
• 1 large free-range eggs
• 75g softened butter
• 2tsp coffee essence

For decoration

• 4 tbspn apricot jam
• 100g chopped almonds, toasted

For the fondant icing

• 100g chocolate fondant OR 100g white fondant and brown food colouring

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan. Grease and line the sides and base of a shallow 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
• To make the genoise, gently melt the butter in a pan, then set aside to cool slightly. Put eggs and sugar in large bowl and whisk at high speed until the mixture is pale, thick and mousse-like, so that it leaves a trail when the whisk is lifted up. 
• Sift the flours together into a bowl, carefully fold in half of the flour into the egg mixture. Pour half of the butter around the edge of the mixture and fold it in. Repeat this process with the remaining flour and the remaining butter and then pour the mixture into the cake tin.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes until well risen and the cake springs back when lightly pressed. Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin, the turn onto a wire rack, remove the parchment and leave to cool.
• To make the coffee icing measure the butter into a small pan, and heat gently until melted. Remove from the heat and pour in the milk and add the coffee, stir until the coffee has dissolved. Add the icing sugar, mix until smooth and glossy and leave to thicken.
• To make the crème beurre measure the sugar and two tablespoons of water into a small, heavy-based pan. Heat very gently until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil steadily for 2-3 minutes, or until the liquid is clear and forms a slim thread when pulled apart between two teaspoons. (The syrup is very hot so handle with caution!)
• Put the egg yolks in a small bowl, and whisk lightly to break them up. Preferably using a stand mixer, add the syrup in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking the yolk continuously as you do so, until the syrup is incorporated and the mixture is thick and cold.
• In another bowl cream the butter until very soft and add the egg yolk mixture gradually. Stir in the coffee essence to flavour the mixture and use it to fill a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle.
• To assemble, slice the cold cake in half horizontally and sandwich the slices back together using the coffee icing. Trim the edges of the sponge and then cut the cake into 9 equal squares.
• Gently heat the apricot jam, then pass through a sieve into a bowl. Brush the sides of the cakes with a thin layer of jam and roll the sides in the toasted nuts until the sides are well coated.
• Pipe tiny rosettes of the crème beurre very close together around the top edges of each square. Keep the rosettes close together so they form a solid border, to allow the centres to be filled with fondant. Pipe another line of rosettes around the bottom edge of the cakes.
• Knead the fondant icing until it is soft, beat with a wooden spoon, or food processor, until smooth. Gradually beat in 4 tablespoons of water to make a thick liquid glaze, so that the consistency will pool in the middle of the cake. If using food colouring, add it to the mixture to make a coffee-coloured glaze. Spoon into the centre of the cakes and leave to set.

Great British Bake Along: Tennis Cake

So next up in the technical challenge was that well-known family favourite of tennis cake. This recipe is a mammoth one. I think, and this is no mean feat, that it may have won the award for most ingredients of any of the technical challenges, but at least all of them were readily available in a normal supermarket. No obscure only-available-online products this week. Having said that, I did need The Husband to do an emergency shopping trip part way through making the recipe. I ran out of gelatine and liquid glucose, having made two batches of fondant that went wrong. In what can only be described as a rookie error, I realised it was because I hadn't soaked the gelatine before using it. It resulted in bizarre plastic stringy bits scattered throughout the fondant, kind of like icing and dental floss in one, which while ingenious, is not necessarily a winning combination.

Third time lucky and I got lovely smooth fondant. The fruit cake was a beautiful recipe and definitely one I would make again. It was quite light rather than a typical dense fruit cake, and I loved the addition of pineapple to the mixture. It was a good job really, as this made a lot of cake. I ended up sending it into The Husband's work, as it wasn't really something we could have between us for dessert, it needed a crowd of people to even begin to make a dint into it.

Rather than buy a cake tin purely for the purposes of this recipe, I just used a deep square tin and then cut it to size. Having not quite thought it through, it meant that one side of the cake was not finished as nicely, being without the golden crust of the outer edge, but it did give me off cuts that I used to make mini cakes so pros and cons I suppose! The mini cakes also meant I could try the cake without cutting into the large one, so I didn't have to send a half deconstructed cake to The Husband's office.

Once I'd learnt how to use gelatine, the fondant and the almond paste went quite smoothly (no pun intended, but I couldn't resist pointing it out). The rest of the icing was less successful. I don't know what happened between the pink and the orange icings but as you will see from the pictures the pink held its shape fairly well, while the orange seeped and ran repeatedly. I kept putting it in the fridge and trying again, and every time I just ended up with another layer of collapsing rosettes pouring down the edge of the cake, so I gave up.

Even more frustrating was the white icing. The icing on top of the cake was fine, went on nicely, set hard, and looked fine. I did need an internet reminder to check what the lines of a tennis court should look like, but I think in the end I did a reasonable job (except for that awful orange stuff).

When it came to the nets, and the racquets, it was a completely different story. They piped well enough, and I even did spares, just in case (the horror of the Spanische Windtorte still haunts me). But they just would not set. They went in the fridge, they went in the freezer, I didn't quite go for Mat's approach of putting them in the oven but I was tempted. No matter what I did, or how long I left it (and I literally left it for hours, the cake was done, we went out, we came back), they were still mushy whenever I touched them.

I must have iced ten nets, without exaggeration. I thought it was the mix. As the icing on the cake had set beautifully, I tried to ice one just using that bag (it had a thicker nozzle on it), but that went the same way. I can only assume it was something to do with the paper I had iced it on, but goodness me if I know why. Every single net that I made, no matter how long I left them, or how much I froze them, invariably ended up like this.

So in the end we played net-free tennis. I iced a few racquets onto the top, so it looked slightly less like a randomly striped green cake. They weren't as neat as the original ones, but by this point I had rather had my fill of tennis. As far as Victorian cakes go, it seemed like rather a bizarre one to pick, and I have no clue what pineapple has to do with tennis, but none of this series seems to be about making well-known favourites!

The odd thing about this cake was the fact that there was nothing to bind the layers together. The almond paste, despite the name, was a dry marzipan that could be rolled out. So the cake had a layer of the almond paste, then a layer of the fondant, and they just sat on top of each other. The minute you tried to cut into it, or take a bite, the layers came apart. Having said all of that, it apparently disappeared quite quickly when The Husband took it into work so I don't think anyone minded too much! I was glad of the mini versions too, they were perfect for with a cup of tea as an afternoon treat.

Tennis Cake

Reproduced from BBC Food

Serves 12-16. Prep time 30 minutes to 1 hour. Cooking time over 2 hours.

Ingredients

For the cake

• 350g glacé cherries
• 1 x 225g tin of pineapple in natural juice
• 350g ready to eat dried apricots
• 100g blanched almonds
• 350g sultanas
• 2 lemons, zest only
• 250g unsalted butter
• 250g caster sugar
• 5 large free-range eggs
• 250g self-raising flour
• 75g ground almonds

For the almond paste

• 250g ground almonds
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 free-range egg
• 1 tsp almond essence

For the royal icing

• 3 egg whites
• 675g icing sugar
• pink gel food colouring
• orange gel food colouring

For the fondant

• 4 leaves gelatine
• 4 tbspn liquid glucose
• 1 1/2 tspn of glycerine
• 500g icing sugar
• green gel food colouring

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 160C/140C Fan. Grease a 23x15cm cake tin and line with a double layer of parchment.
• Rinse the cherries in a sieve. Drain and chop the pineapple. Dry the cherries and pineapple well, using kitchen paper.
• Quarter the cherries and roughly chop the apricots and blanched almonds. Place the fruits and nuts into a bowl with the lemon zest and gently mix together.
• In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. In a separate dish beat the eggs lightly. Add a beaten egg to the butter and sugar, followed by a spoonful of the flour, and repeat for all five eggs. 
• Fold in the remaining flour and ground almonds. Fold in the fruit and nuts and pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Level the surface. Bake for 2 hours, covering with foil after 1 hour, until a skewer inserted into the mixture comes out clean. 
• When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven, cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out, remove parchment and place on wire rack until cool.
• While the cake is cooking, make the almond paste by combining the ground almonds, caster sugar, and icing sugar in a bowl. Add the egg and almond essence and knead to form a stiff paste, but don't over-knead. Wrap in cling film and set aside.
• Make the royal icing by whisking the egg whites until they become frothy. Sift in the icing sugar one tablespoon at a time, whisking slowly as you do. Beat until the icing forms stiff peaks and cover with clingfilm.
• Make the fondant by placing the gelatine (already prepared as per the packet instructions!), 2 tablespoons of water, glucose and glycerine in a bowl. Place over a small pan of simmering water and heat gently until the gelatine has dissolved. Remove from the heat.
• Sieve half of the icing sugar into a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add the gelatine mixture. Use a wooden spoon to mix it together. Sieve the remaining sugar onto a work surface and tip the mixture onto it. Knead until it forms a smooth, pliable fondant. Reserve a small, thumb sized piece, and wrap with clingfilm. Gradually add the green colouring to the fondant, and knead until it is pale green and evenly coloured. Wrap with clingfilm.
• Roll out the almond paste into a rectangle and cut to 23x15cm to fit the top of the cake. Place on a silicon sheet that you have dusted with icing sugar. Roll out the fondant and cut to the same size and place on top of the almond paste.
• Divide the royal icing into three bowls. Colour one bowl using the orange gel colour, one using the pink gel colour and leave the remaining bowl white. Place most of the white icing into a pipping bag fitted with a number 3 (large) writing nozzle and pipe the outline of a tennis court onto the fondant, leaving a 2cm gap around the edge.
• On a silicone mat or greaseproof paper, pipe the outline of two tennis racquets, and an outline of a tennis net which is the same width as the tennis court you have piped onto the fondant. Place the remaining white icing into a bag fitted with a number two (small) writing nozzle and use it to pipe the strings onto the racquets and net. Leave to dry until they can be peeled off the paper.
• Place the pink icing into a bag fitted with a number 8 star nozzle and the orange icing into a bag fitted with a number 7 nozzle. Pipe a decorative border around the tennis court using the two colours of icing. 
• When the cake is cool, place the almond paste and fondant on top of the cake. Pipe white icing across the middle of the tennis court and place the net upright on the centre of the cake. Place the two racquets onto the cake, and use the reserved piece of white fondant to roll into a tennis ball and place along side one of the racquets.

Great British Bake Along: Flaounas

Another magical mystery Great British Bake Off recipe, peppered with bizarre ingredients. This time not one, but two, unusual little jars. Mahleb and mastic, to be precise. Do let me know if any of you use these in everyday cooking, particularly as I now have two jars to use up. I found these two ingredients on amazon, through a company called Steenbergs. This isn't a sponsored link, I was just impressed to find somewhere that stocked them, and that dispatched them so quickly that I ordered them after the programme on Wednesday and had them by Friday. Their website is a treasure trove of mystery ingredients!

This is the mastic, which came as crystals, but ground easily into a fine powder, and was a lovely excuse to use the long-idle pestle and mortar. I also really enjoyed making this recipe overall. The yeasted pastry was simple to make, and I found myself being quite impressed at how well it all came together.

Despite all of the attention that was given to the folding and shaping of the pastries in the programme, none of them looked liked the ones in the recipe online. The contestants seemed to have all gone for a square shaped pastry, whereas the recipe provided on the website advises a circular pastry folded into a triangular shape instead.

Once I got the hang of it they were really easy to make, and the shape looked quite effective. The sesame seeds were a little reluctant to stick at times, and I found the part of the recipe which asked you to layer all of the sesame seeds out onto a tea towel a bit messy, but it did work for constructing the pastries.

I made some with the sultanas in, but as neither The Husband or my mum like sultanas, I decided to do some without, to make them a bit more tempting! The cheese flavour wasn't that strong, particularly considering how much there was in the recipe, although I did use grana padano in place of the pecorino romano (purely because that was the closest I could find in the supermarket) so that may have been part of the issue.

Unforunately, as pleased as I was with these, I will not be baking them again, because I found the smell and flavour of the mastic really unpleasant, and quite overpowering. It is very aromatic, and as was mentioned on the programme, is quite like pine, but for me it was really off-putting. The Husband said he enjoyed them, and my mum said they smelled nice, so I think it is perhaps one of those flavours that is quite divisive, but after cheerily declaring how nice these were to make I was really disappointed not to enjoy eating them. I did try, both warm and cold, but they just weren't for me, and I'm not altogether sure what to do with the rest of the mahleb!

I would, though, use the yeasted pastry technique again, and I loved the appearance of the triangular shape with the filling. I think they could also work really well in a mini version for sweet or savoury canapes, perhaps with an onion and goat's cheese filling for example. They looked quite effective, and it was really simple to do, so it definitely wasn't a complete waste learning to make these.

Paul Hollywood's Flaounes

Reproduced from BBC Food

Makes 12 flaounes. Prep time 1-2 hours. Cooking time 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Ingredients

For the filling

• 500g pecorino romano cheese
• 250g halloumi cheese
• 75g plain flour
• 90g fine semolina
• 7g of instant yeast
• 2 tsp dried mint
• 100g sultanas
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 4 tbspn milk
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the pastry

• 750g strong plain flour
• 1 tsp mastic powder
• 2 tsp ground mahlepi (also known as mahleb)
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 7g instant yeast
• 60g unsalted butter, softened
• 450ml full-fat milk

For the glaze

• 200g sesame seeds
• Dash of white wine vinegar
• 3 free-range egg yolks, lightly beaten

Recipe

• To make the filling, grate the pecorino romano and the halloumi into a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the semolina, plain flour, instant yeast, dried mint and sultanas. In a jug, beat together the eggs and milk.
• Tip the flour mixture onto the cheeses and pour over the egg mixture. Mix with your hands, then cover and leave to stand while you make the pastry.
• For the pastry, put the flour, mastic powder and ground mahlepi into a bowl. On side of the bowl add the sugar and salt, and on the other side of the bowl add the yeast. Make a well in the centre and add the butter and 350ml of the milk. Combine to form a soft dough, adding the remaining milk as needed (you may not require it all).
• On a floured surface, knead the dough until smooth. Return it to the bowl, cover and leave for an hour.
• To make the glaze, place the sesame seeds and white wine vinegar in a small saucepan, with enough water to cover them, and bring to the boil. Drain the sesame seeds and lay them on a clean tea towel to dry.
• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan and line three baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.
• Divide the pastry into large pieces, and roll out on a lightly floured work surface until around 3mm thick. Use a saucer as a template to cut out 15cm rounds, until you have 12 of them. Press one side of the rounds into the sesame seeds to coat.
• To finish the filling, add the baking powder to the mixture, and divide it equally between the centre of each pastry round. For each round, fold the sides into three edges and bring to the centre to make a rounded triangle, leaving the middle exposed so the filling can still be seen.
• Place the flaounas on the baking trays and brush with the egg yolk. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/160C Fan and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and puffed up. Serve hot or cold

Great British Bake Along: Gluten Free Pitta Bread

As is fast becoming tradition, the first part of this week's technical challenge required me to source some unheard of ingredient in order to make the recipe. This week it was that store cupboard staple of psyllium husk powder, which I ended up purchasing online immediately after watching the show. I found it at a website that sells all sorts of powders and supplements, for what generally appear to be people far sportier than me. The powder was cheap compared to other places, and they did next day delivery which meant my weekend baking tradition could continue. Unfortunately they have since started sending me emails entitled "your journey starts here" featuring images of people with large muscles and tiny clothes. I feel like I have inadvertently joined a club which I really am not supposed to be a member of, but it is an intriguing insight into an alternative, protein-powder fuelled universe. Quite how anyone can start a journey based around something that looks like this is quite beyond me:

Just be grateful I didn't include the after picture, whereby, having left the powder to "thicken" I came back to a solidified, gelatinous mass that was an unappealing shade of brown, rather like a quivering lump of set chicken stock. It certainly didn't conjure up images of freshly baked bread.

The nigella seeds were another ingredient I hadn't used before, but I definitely plan to use them again, as they had a lovely aroma, and added great flavour to the bread.

Despite the mystery ingredient, in something of a revelation, after my previous experience with bread, I absolutely loved this recipe! Now it may be that I did something wrong, because despite the warnings that this would be a sticky dough, I found it really easy to manage. It rose really well, and I found it kept it's shape when I came to portion it and roll it. I had ended up leaving it to rise a little longer than required, as we took the dog out for a walk, and so I think I ended up with slightly bigger pittas than perhaps I should have.

The other thing that was great about this recipe was how simple it was. After the last few weeks of quite labour intensive, and time consuming, recipes, this felt like an absolute breeze, and far more realistic for home-baking. It was a nice change not to give up several hours of the weekend to complete a technical challenge.

The only thing about making 12 pittas, is that they're not quite as easy to use up as cake. It's a lovely gesture to call in to the neighbours with a few slices of cake, or some cinnamon biscuits, but dropping off a couple of pitta breads is just a bit weird. We did our best to use them up, eating some warm from the oven, and then having them with dinner at night, but within a few days they had gone a quite stale.

They weren't particularly pretty pittas, and they definitely weren't uniform. I ended up with lots of shapes and sizes. The flavour was really good, although I think I perhaps rolled them a little too thick as they had a consistency more like a naan bread. We had them with curry one night, and with a beef stew another night, and they worked well with both dishes, although they were a bit denser than normal pitta. I think some of this was down to it having over proved, resulting in quite a coarse, thick bread.

Overall though, I'm glad I had a go at these. I wouldn't have known they were gluten-free, and it was an easy recipe to make. I didn't get a decent pitta pocket in them all, some did, but I think I rushed some of them out of the oven too quickly. While I don't think this was my most successful bake so far, it was good fun, I made something new, and I finally found a bread recipe I enjoyed, which feels like a minor miracle. The next miracle will be tracking down the mystery ingredients for the next recipe!

Paul Hollywood's Gluten Free Pitta Breads

Reproduced from BBC Food

Makes 12 pittas. Prep time over 2 hours. Cooking time 10-30 minutes.

Ingredients

• 30g psyllium powder
• 750g gluten free flour
• 3 tbspn nigella seeds
• 15 g sugar
• 1 tbspn salt
• 21g instant yeast
• 3 large free-range eggs
• 1 tbspn white wine vinegar
• 6 tbspn olive oil

Recipe

• Mix psyllium powder into 300ml of cold water and leave mixture to thicken.
• Place flour and nigella seeds into a large bowl. Add the sugar and salt to one side of the bowl, and add the yeast to the other side of the bowl. 
• Crack the eggs into the middle of the bowl, add the vinegar, oil, and psyllium mixture and stir well until a dough forms. Gradually add up to 300ml water (although you may not need it all) to make a soft, slightly sticky dough.
• Flour a work surface, turn out the dough, and knead until dough is smooth. Return dough to the bowl, cover and leave for an hour and a half, or until dough has doubled in size.
• Heat oven to 220C/200C Fan, and place three baking trays in oven to heat.
• When dough is risen, turn out and divide into twelve portions. Flatten and shape each portion into an oval around 4mm thick. Lightly dust the baking trays with flour and place the pittas onto the trays.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly coloured and the dough has puffed up. Remove from oven and wrap in a clean tea towel to keep fresh.