Mince Meat

First of all, my sincerest apologies dear readers for keeping you gripped to the edges of your seats for this weeks post, only to find it 6 days late! My bloggage absence was not because I have forgotten your cakey needs, it was I assure you because I was fulfilling them!

And now I have before you, mince meat cakes.

I hear the sounds of glasses dropping and shocked cries from my humble abode. But I must assure you dear readers, that I mean only the sweet variety of mince meat, that made with juicy raisins, sultanas, spirits and spices...and beef fat of course. That lovely, crunchy suet we love to find nestled in our mince pies...

Now, I am not a lover of the mince pie, I favour only one: The lattice patterned mince pies from Marks and Spencers, and I shall eat no other. But I have always loved cupcakes more. So I pondered to myself, why should I idly sit by at christmas, watching everyone around me enjoying mountains of mince pies, whilst I abstain from the joys of over indulgence?

And then inspiration struck. No longer shall I not feel sick with everyone else. I shall take their mince pies, and turn them into something even more delicious! Mince Pie Cake!

Now, it still needs a little work, but this was more of an experiment to see if mince meat in cake would even be tasty...and I was very pleased to be proven correct.

I literally made my trusty vanilla cake recipe (weigh 2 eggs, copy that amount in flour, sugar and butter, mixy mixy and add vanilla essence = CAKE!)

Then! Here's the special part. I added 2 heaped tablespoons of minced meat to this mix (I must stress, do make sure it's the tasty sweet kind, or you could end up with a rather unique tasting cake...) and then I chucked in a load of all spice! Christmas in a pot basically...

Mixy mixy...

Bakey bakey...

Let it cool off...whipped up some buttercream, basically 200g of butter and enough milk, icing sugar and vanilla essence until you think to yourself, 'yep, tastes good to me' for everyones buttercream preferences are different...there are some among us who find it too sweet sometimes, but we shall not speak of them...

Then to your overly sweet buttercream, add more all spice because it's delicious! Smother your cake in it, and hey presto you have a lovely mince meat and spiced buttercream cake which, I stress again, is DELICIOUS!

So for all you mince pie haters-cupcakes lovers; problem solved. Enjoy!

Notice the suet lurking in my mix...

Marshmallows!

I was distressed dear readers. There I was, with a packet of gelatin leaves who's expiry date was fast approaching, and I had no idea what to do with them. They were mocking me from within their packaged home at my lack of gelatin-related recipe knowledge. But I was not to be beaten by these gremlin gelatin leaves. I got me on my laptop, I typed in 'gelatin-related recipes' and there shining before me, like the sun breaking free from behind parted clouds, was the word 'Marshmallow', and I knew where my destiny, for that day at least, lay.

Now, this isn't a 'I'll start making these and assume I have the ingredients knocking about' kind of recipe...only to find that I do in fact have about 2 of the required ingredients and therefore must make the long, treacherous journey into town to buy the rest. Oh no. This required strange and fantastical ingredients like Gelatin leaves and 'Liquid Glucose'. I was scared readers, but I was excited.

So to the super supermarket I sped, found some Liquid Glucose next to my future husband Dr. Oetker, and stood before it in awe. It sounded so exotic and science-y. Behold, Liquid Glucose:

Controls the formation of sugar crystals...obviously...

So! After I had finished drooling over my new magical ingredient, I continued with my weird and wonderful marshmallow recipe! Which rather oddly, required me to 'soak my gelatin leaves'. After making enquiries, you don't actually have to have a bath with your gelatin leaves which I have to say I was a little relieved about. You do however soak them in a little bath of their own so they end up looking like a mound of weird, rubbery goodness:

Now, as if everything up to this point hadn't been strange, scary and complicated enough, next I was instructed to combine sugar, water and my glorious glucose in a pan and boil it. That I can handle. But being asked to place my SUGAR THERMOMETER!, actual scientific equpiment! into my concoction, well I have to say I nearly fainted. For at this point I realised I had committed my usual cooking sin of starting something without actually knowing if I have everything I will actually need...and besides I usually run a mile from anything requiring more than a good old fashioned spoon, so you can imagine my alarm at the idea of sugar thermometers...

Not to be dismayed though! I simply boiled it up anyway for the required 10 ish minutes and pretty much guessed using my internal sense of when a sugar mixture reaches 127 degrees/sheer hope, and carried on...

My sugar mixture at EXACTLY 127 degrees!...ish

Then FINALLY it's onto the easy part! Simply plop your gelatin into your sugar mixture, whip up your egg whites to the stiff white peaks we all know and love then slowly, carefully, gently and trepadatiously add your sugar mixture to the egg whites as they're still mixing.

As you can see if you look reeeally carefully at the above picture, there are tiny little bumps in the mixture. Being the amateur marshmallower that I am, I added my hot sugar mixture straight away to my egg whites and as logic dictates, hotness + eggyness = scrambled eggs! So i did get essence of scramble in my marshmallow mix SO to avoid scrambled marshmallow...unless you love it, allow your sugar mixture to cool in a cold metal jug after you add your gelatin for a couple of minutes so you don't end up with lumpy bumpy marshmallow.

So! Then you simply leave your mixture mixing for about 10-15 minutes until its stiff-ish and glossy. I would seriously recommend using or investing in a KitchenAid/Stand alone mixer if you're going to embark on the Marshmallow making journey, otherwise you will end up with some very tasty marshmallow, but no arms if you attempt to do it with a hand whisk. Your call.

Whilst the mixture mixes in the mixer, lightlly oil a baking pan or whatever container (not the inside of your mouth) with oil, icing sugar and cornflour to make for easy release when you tip out your marshmallow. It's RIDICULOUSLY sticky...I blame Mr. Glucose.

So once that's done and dusted ('scuse the pun) You attend to your marshmallow mixture. Taste it because everything must be tasted in its raw state even if it leads to mild food poisoning...

I am warning you though that in the case of our Marshmallow friends, it's even nicer in liquid form, so do try to restrain from eating it all from the bowl before you've at least attempted to let it set...I suggest having a judgemental friend or family member with you when making these as to eat liquidised marshmallow in front of said person would be to bring shame upon yourself and your family.

Doing it alone though is just good sense and a joyous, very tasty moment.

If you still have some marshmallow mixture left at this point, tip it all into your prepared container and simply let it chill out and relax for an hour or 2! I split my mixture into 3 flavours; Vanilla, Lemon and Rosewater then splashed some food colouring on top for added 'Oooh' and 'Aaah' factor. If you do add food colouring afterwards however, the top does remain quite sticky after the rest of the marshmallow has set which makes it annoying to cut, so swirl your colours in before you tip it into your tin for a beautiful swirly effect!

Then all that's left to do is restrain from eating it all before you can show it off...Good Luck!

Cakes in Fruit: Success or Epic Fail? You decide...

Now, depening on how you look at these babies, they're either very successful, or an epic failure. I'm on the fence.
These were an experiment: Can you bake cakes in fruit? Answer: Yes...and no. The no depends on how much of a presentation nutter you are.
The idea was to bake a nice little cake in the hollowed out fruit, pop the top back on, so when your curious father comes along to eat his daily apple, what does he find lurking in his apple a day? a CAKE! What better surprise could one hope for?!
So off I went, got me an apple, hollowed it out, made my magical cake mix, wrapped my fruit in foil! a) to prevent possible burning of fruity skin and b) I thought there might be a really clever, scientific logic behind doing it, and it made the whole thing look more experimenty...
So yes, fruit hollowed, mix in, fruit in oven, wait patiently, but nervously...
To my great surprise the cakes did actually start to cook and rise...and rise...and rise...right above their little tops. THUS preventing the genius behind the original design which was to pop the top back on for the grand cake-in-fruit reveal. But alas, it was not meant to be.

The good to be taken from this little experiment: As a cake in fruit, the apple skin went a little wrinkly, which doesn't exactly look appetising. The orange however did work rather well...except unless you're a little strange and love orange skin, you can't simply bite into and eat the entire thing; which you could do with the apple!
Cake in apple: I added cinammon for that classic apple n' cinnamon combo so that all tasted lovely. I could also pull the cake right out the apple which on the inside was a weird but nice mushy appley-cinnamony-cakey pudding with a nice warm, mushy apple skin SO, as a dessert with a lil' custard on the side could all taste rather lovely...

SO my friends, cake cooked in fruit? Technically: Brilliant. Aesthetically: Horrible. Taste: Rather nice.
Cake in fruit as a dessert: Stroke of Genius

(Possibilities: Cake in fruit could work better in a baking apple...Do feel free to try other fruits! I'm currently mulling over the idea of caked cooked in a raisin...shall report back soon...)