Madaleine squares

First, can I just say , these rather tacky looking cakes are the old English Madeleines not the sophisticated French biscuity Madeleines. After my previous Melting moments post I spent a bit of time flicking through the ever faithful Be-Ro book.

These fatless sponge cakes are normally baked in dariole moulds and usually end up looking like bright red coconut haystacks decorated with a glace cherry (the Be-Ro book LOVES glace cherries, lol) I decided to make them in the form of the more commercialised square version...mainly as I don't have dariole moulds, I must get some.

As I said, this is a fat less sponge cake, baked in a brownie tin, coated in jam and tossed in shredded coconut. They look tacky and old fashioned but they are a real treat.

Light as a feather too.

Madaleines

2 medium eggs

75g caster sugar

75g self raising flour

raspberry jam

shredded coconut

Heat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4.

Grease and line a 8 inch square baking tin

Break eggs into a bowl, whisk lightly, add sugar and whisk well until thick creamy and almost white in colour.

Lightly fold in the flour, place mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.

While the cake is cooling, gently heat the jam, about half a jar full (?), cut the cake into 12 squares, dip each square into the jam so it is completely covered and quickly toss into the shredded coconut.

Enjoy with a mug of tea.

Summer berry tart

The great British summer doesn't have much going for it, it can be wonderful, but more often than not it is a complete washout. However, nothing says British summer more than strawberries, in season right now they are tasting delicious.

This Summer berry tart is the perfect way to use them.

I used a recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'The family cookbook', this tart is a sweet pastry tart base filled with creme patissiere and covered in summer berries, I am using strawberries and raspberries.

Summer berry tart

Sweet pastry:

200g plain flour

50g icing sugar

125g butter

pinch of salt

2 free range egg yolks

Sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and rub into the flour with the salt, until it resembles very fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolks, stirring with a knife, using your hands, bring the dough into a ball.

Knead very lightly until it is smooth.

Flatten slightly, wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

Place a baking sheet in the oven and heat to 190c.

Roll out pastry and line a 23 cm flan tin with the pastry, trim any overhang and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Prick the tart base with a fork, line with baking parchment and fill with baking beads, bake for 15 minutes.

Remove baking beads and bake for a further 3-4 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool completely.

Creme patissiere:

50g unsalted butter

25g plain flour

50g caster sugar

2 free range eggs

150ml milk

2 capfulls of vanilla extract

Melt the butter over a low heat, tip in the flour and sugar, break in the eggs and beat until smooth.

Pour in the milk, stir continuously until thickened, turn off the heat and whisk until smooth.

Put back on the heat and cook for 2 minutes, stirring all the time.

Stir in the vanilla extract and leave to cool.

Fruit:
250g each of strawberries (halved) and raspberries

3 tablespoons of strawberry jam

Spoon the filling into the tart base and chill for 30 minutes.

Arrange fruit on top of the creme patissiere.

Gently heat the jam in a pan and brush over the fruit.

This tart is perfect for a summers day, light and fragrant and very adaptable depending on what fruit is in season.

Melting moments

I had some sad family news this week and spent quite a bit of time looking back at my childhood, I got thinking of my paternal Grandmother, I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger and she was always cooking, always good old fashioned food, the stuff that warmed you on the coldest winter days. Her house always smelled of fruit cake, and when I bake fruit cake I am always reminded of her house.


These biscuits, Melting Moments are what we would bake together, I loved them as a child, in fact I still love them just as much now even though the are rolled in dessicated coconut and adorned with a gaudy red glace cherry.

I suddenly thought of these biscuits today and knew they would be a perfect way for my son and I to spend half an hour together in the kitchen.


This recipe comes from the essential 'Be-ro' cook book, my Granny wouldnt have been without it.

I must say though that my Granny's original Be-ro book, which I inherited from her, saw better days long ago, I bought a updated version last year and found the Melting moments recipe had changed, the addition of half a egg was wrong and completely disappointing, these biscuits should be crisp and buttery not cookie like which was how the egg made them, after much searching, god bless the Internet, I have found, supposedly, the original Melting moments biscuits.



Here is the recipe, cook them, you'll love them:

5 ounces soft butter

3 ounces caster sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or 1 tsp of vanilla extract

5 ounces of self raising flour

desiccated coconut

glace cherries

Heat the oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Grease two baking trays.

Cream the butter with the sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla essence or extract.

Stir in the flour and mix well.

Roll walnut sized pieces of the mixture into balls and toss in dessicated coconut.


Cut each glace cherry into quarters, a quarter for each melting moment.


Place on baking trays, flatten slightly and place a small piece of cherry on each biscuit.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown but NOT dark brown.




This egg less original version of the recipe was perfect, these shortbread-y biscuits are crisp and melting, they instantly took me back to my Granny's kitchen.

They are perfect for children to bake too, my son loved tossing them in the coconut and would have polished off the tray of biscuits if I'd let him.

Rather amusingly, when trawling the net for the original recipe I found that these biscuits have a cult following. Try them!

George's toffee apple cake

George, from Culinary travels of a kitchen goddess has a truly inspirational blog, stunning recipes, stunning pictures and she uses the most wonderful ingredients. If that wasn't enough George is writing a much anticipated cookery book. As she approaches the final stages of writing she has asked many foodie bloggers to test and blog about her recipes.

I must admit looking through the recipe list I was spoilt for choice and have a few recipes in mind to test for her.

First up though is Toffee apple cake, please check out George's original post about this recipe and to find the recipe itself.

This cake caught my eye as it sounds wonderful, toffee and apples are a perfect combination and this recipe didn't disappoint.

The ingredients were all easy to find, in fact I had them all in the cupboard and the recipe was written very clearly, although the lemon oil listed in the ingredients wasn't mentioned in the recipe, as it came last in the list of ingredients I added it last, over the apples.

While the cake was baking my kitchen was filled with a gorgeous aroma, normally when you bake you can tell what you are baking by the smell coming from the oven, this cake was different, I got individual wafts of olive oil (used instead of butter), then toffee then wafts of Cinnamon and apples, it was a treat to the senses.

My cake took 10 minutes less time to cook than specified in the recipe, but I put this down to my very fierce oven.

The cake was delicious, dry and crumbly, again down to the olive oil, added moisture came from the apples which were cooked perfectly then complimented beautifully with the dulce de leche.

Would I do anything differently? Next time I would use a spring form tin, as I like to serve

my cakes on a cake plate and this is quite a large cake to manoeuvre.

Would I make this cake again? Yes, yes, yes!!!