Stardust - Raspberry Marshmallow Cake

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true ...

("When You Wish Upon a Star" from the Disney film "Pinocchio")

Tomorrow, we have yet another sad farewell in my workplace, as Marian leaves us after more than half a year to go back to Uni. Marian is a bright, bubbly influence around our office, so she will be sorely missed. However, I am sure that she will go on to great things.

To mark Marian's farewell, I have made a very cute cake that I found in Ruth Pretty's Cooking at Springfield. Ruth runs a successful catering business in New Zealand, and is very well known there, but I originally learned of Ruth from one of the Kiwi food blogs that I regularly visit. While I was in New Zealand on vacation, I took the opportunity to buy one of Ruth's cookbooks, which don't seem to be stocked in Australian bookstores.

The cake that I made for Marian is the one which determined the cookbook that I would buy. Ruth calls it "Perfect-in-Pink Cake", but the yellow cake with raspberry jam, pink marshmallow and pink icing reminded me of an Iced VoVo biscuit (apparently a favourite with our new prime minister, Kevin Rudd). I decorated this very sweet concoction with a star in honour of Marian, one of our own stars!

To make this cake, you need the following ingredients:

Cake

3 eggs
a pinch of salt
175g sugar
50g butter, cubed
2 tablespoons boiling water
125g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Marshmallow filling

1 1/2 teaspoons cornflour
1 1/2 teaspoons icing sugar
1 tablespoon powdered gelatine
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
cochineal

raspberry jam

Icing

1 cup sifted icing sugar
1 teaspoon butter
5 teaspoons hot water
cochineal
cake lollies to decorate (eg cachous; non-pariels)

Make the marshmallow first. I recommend doing this the night before, as it needs time to set. Start by greasing an 18cm cake pan very well, then sift together the cornflour and icing sugar and use this mixture to coat the interior of the pan. Shake out any excess powder.

Put the gelatine in a small heatproof bowl and add the 1/4 cup of water. Stir until combined and set aside for the gelatine to soak up all the water.

Heat the sugar and the 1/2 cup of water in a small saucepan while stirring to avoid the sugar burning onto the pan. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, remove from the heat.

Heat the gelatine slurry over a bain marie until the gelatine liquifies, then pour into the sugar syrup and return the mixture to the heat and bring to the boil. You should then turn down the heat and boil the mixture for 15 minutes, stirring all the while so that the sugar doesn't burn onto the pan. Remove from the heat.

Allow the mixture to cool for about 5 minutes before pouring into the bowl of an electric mixer, combining with the vanilla essence and sufficient cochineal to colour the mixture a hue of pink to your liking. Beat the mixture until very thick (but do not overbeat) and pour into the prepared pan to set on the benchtop.

Once the marshmallow has set, make the cakes. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease 2 x 18cm cakepans well with butter, and line the base of each pan with baking paper.

Beat the eggs, salt and sugar together until thick and pale. Melt the butter in a bowl by combining with the boiling water and set aside. Sift the dry ingredients together, then fold into the batter alternately with the melted butter. Distribute the batter equally between the two prepared cake pans, and bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes.

Cool the cakes in their tins for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cakes are cool, spread one side of each with raspberry jam. Turn the marshmallow round out of its tin and place on top of the jammy side of one cake, then place the other cake on top of the marshmallow, jammy side down.

Make the icing by adding the butter to the icing sugar in a bowl, then adding the hot water to the mixture slowly until there is sufficient to melt the butter and make the icing the desired consistency for spreading on the cake. Colour the icing pink by adding cochineal until the desired hue is reached.

Spread the icing over the top of the cake. Place a cookie cutter of your choice of shape (I used a star) in the centre of the cake and pour in non-pariels or other cake lollies to fill in the shape of the cookie cutter, and press the lollies lightly into the icing while the cutter is still in place. Once you have secured the lollies in the icing, carefully and slowly remove the cookie cutter.

What issues did I have in making this creation? I found that despite generous greasing, my cakes stuck slightly to the sides of the cake pans, and I had to run a knife around the edge of each before turning out. Removing the marshmallow in one piece from the cake pan was a battle, as can be seen from the rough edges in my photos! Should I have used a springform pan? Maybe I should have lined the tin with baking paper, or used a silicone pan. Or maybe if I had not overbeaten the marshmallow, it would have come out more readily because it would have been more flexible. In the end, I was grateful just to remove the marshmallow from the pan in one piece, so I won't ponder these mysteries further until I make this cake again.

This one's for you Marian, you star - good luck!

Low fat beef stroganoff

About 4 years ago, I lost 20kg, and for the first 12 months I was so terrified that I would pile all the weight back on that I made the same stir fry every night, had a home-made ham, tomato and cheese toastie for lunch every day, and always took the same home-made low fat muffin in for morning tea. At that stage, I only owned one cookbook, and I rarely opened it. Dining wise, you can gather that this was a pretty boring year, and if I had lived with anyone at the time, they would never have tolerated it.

Thankfully, I have moved on from those dark days, and I have realised that you can still enjoy "normal" food in moderation without your weight blowing out. However, I still like to keep my calories down in my main meals so that I can indulge my sweet tooth a little more freely.

Tonight was one of those nights when rather than cooking, I felt like sitting down with a family block of Cadbury Dairy Milk and going for it. Luckily, common sense prevailed, and I cooked.

In line with my low calorie, low fat objective for main meals, I decided to make beef stroganoff from Michelle Trute's Cooking with Conscience. While this is nothing like the traditional favourite known by this name, resplendent with red wine and cream, it is still a tasty dish, primarily because of the tang from the mustard and the kick from the onion and garlic. I served it with boiled rice and cooked frozen veges (the lazy cook's standby!), and it made a satisfying meal.

Don't be fooled by the rather unlovely picture - it has a heart of gold! If you would like to try it, you can do so as follows:

1 chopped onion

2 crushed cloves of garlic

500g beef, cut into strips (or in my case, cubes!)

1 tablespoon plain flour

200g sliced mushrooms

1 teaspoon mustard

2/3 cup low fat natural yoghurt

Brown the onion and the garlic in a frypan sprayed with cooking oil. Toss the beef in the flour, then brown in the pan with the onion. Stir in the mushrooms, mustard and yoghurt and season with salt and pepper. After simmering for 1 minute, remove from the heat and serve on a bed of rice with vegetables of your choice. Serves 4-5. (I only use 100g of meat per serving because my dietician from weight loss days told me to use that as a guide for me personally, but I realise that this is not enough for everyone.)

Daring Bakers - Lemon Meringue Pie

He, he, he - I am rather excited because I decided to take the plunge and join that merry band, the Daring Bakers, who were kind enough to let me join. Jen from The Canadian Baker is hosting the January challenge, and I was pleased to learn that it was lemon meringue pie, one of my favourite desserts.

The recipe selected by Jen is quite different to the lemon meringue pies that I have made previously. I have made proper lemon curd before, but never using cornflour as a thickening agent, and not using quite as much lemon juice. However, I loved the decidedly lemony tang that the quantity of lemon juice in this recipe added to the curd, giving it a definite "kick" and balancing the sweetness of the wonderful marshmallowy sky-high meringue top - which was my favourite part of this dish!

Having made lemon meringue pie before, I was not concerned about my ability to pull off this challenge. However, it was not all smooth sailing. The first minor hitch was that my tart shell, which rolled out beautifully, decided to bake with a strange high bit on one side:

This didn't concern me too much - once the tart shell was filled, no-one would notice, and it added to the rustic home-made look of it.

The lemon curd filling went beautifully - it thickened up nicely and without a lump in sight, and tasted devinely tangy:

As mentioned above, I was dubious at first about the cornflour and the large quantity of lemon juice (3/4 of a cup), but needn't have worried.

My meringue also fluffed up a dream, and made a wonderful golden high top piled on the lemon curd filling:

Once the pie cooled, the meringue retracted ever so slightly from the edges of the pie, despite my being very careful to make sure that it extended all the way to the edges before baking. I also found when I cut the pie that there was a small amount of liquid between the meringue and the filling. It didn't really make the crust soggy, but it did leave a little damp ring. However, I feel lucky in that my lemon filling stayed set, as a number of other Daring Bakers found that their lemon filling turned out runny.

The taste of this pie was just devine. I first cut it on the evening it was made to share with a couple of friends after the movies, and they liked it. However, when I took the remainder to work the next day, I received delighted approbation from a number of my colleagues. They loved it! In my books, this gives it a big tick, and I would definitely make it again.

Do check out the other wonderful lemon meringue pies from the other Daring Bakers here.

If you would like to try your hand at this pie, the recipe is as follows:

Lemon Meringue Pie

(from "Wanda's Pie in the Sky" by Wanda Beaver)

Makes one 25cm pie

Crust

3/4 cup (180 mL) cold butter; cut into 1.2 cm pieces
2 cups (475 mL) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp (1.2 mL) salt
1/3 cup (80 mL) ice water

Filling

2 cups (475 mL) water
1 cup (240 mL) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 mL) cornflour
5 egg yolks, beaten
1/4 cup (60 mL) butter
3/4 cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon zest
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract

Meringue

5 egg whites, room temperature
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) cream of tartar
1/4 tsp (1.2 mL) salt
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) vanilla extract
3/4 cup (180 mL) granulated sugar

To Make the Crust

Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board (or countertop) roll the disk to a thickness of 0.3 cm. Cut a circle about 5 cm larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under, leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about 1.2 cm. Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

To Make the Filling

Bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from the heat and let rest 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the hot water, whisking until completely incorporated. Return to the heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. The mixture will be very thick. Add about 1 cup (240 mL) of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, whisking until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

To Make the Meringue

Preheat the oven to 190ºC. Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, beating until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.

Cool on a rack. Serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

Tasty lunchtime pasta

This week's pasta dish is from Jamie's Dinners, and has the unattractive title of "working girl's pasta". I am a solicitor, but not of that variety, so I have renamed it "Tasty lunchtime pasta". This describes it perfectly - I made it for lunch, and it's tasty!

There is a fair bit of scratching around to do as preparation for this dish, as you have to peel and crush garlic, chop tomatoes finely, deseed and chop a chilli, pit and chop olives, and zest and juice a lemon. For an impatient person like me who is trying to do a thousand things at once in the evenings, this blocks my flow a little. However, if you can overlook that, the end result is really delicious.

In a nutshell, you put 400g of dried penne on to cook. While that is bubbling away, you put some oil in a frypan, add 8 anchovies, let them melt, then throw in some capers, finely chopped olives (around 10), the chopped chilli, 5 small tomatoes (finely chopped), 2 crushed garlic cloves, the juice and zest of a lemon and 300g drained tinned tuna, and allow it to bubble away until everything is heated through. Once the pasta has cooked, drain it, reserving some of the cooking water, toss the hot pasta through the sauce, add a bit of the reserved cooking water if necessary to keep the pasta and sauce loose, and serve.

I divided this into 5 servings to take to work, and froze those which I didn't need immediately.

SHF #39 - Baking with Candy - Jaffa Cake

It's Sugar High Friday again this week, and this month, it is being hosted by CandyRecapper, who has chosen the theme of Baking with Candy. CandyRecapper's requirements are simple:

"You can do anything you want, as long as you use some kind of store-bought candy in it. "

I normally don't bake with candy, primarily because I eat it all before it gets a chance to go into baked goods ;)

I have combined this Sugar High Friday with another event - a birthday. One of my work colleagues, Dawn, had quite some time ago mentioned that her boyfriend, Craig, loves baked goods, and that he wanted me to remember that his birthday was 26 January - the same day as Australia Day. I'm sure he said this in jest, but I thought it would be great to surprise Dawn and Craig by making him a birthday cake.

Because Craig's birthday is on Australia Day, I wanted to use typically Aussie lollies in his cake. While Caramello Koalas are my favourite, I couldn't think of any way to incorporate them into a cake without mooshing them up. Also, Dawn hates chocolate cake, which would most naturally complement Caramello Koalas. Accordingly, my stroke of inspiration was to use Jaffas in an orange cake. Australian kids for generations have bought Jaffas at the movies and rolled them down the aisles to annoy the grown-ups in the cinema as they clattered across the floor during the film. I therefore thought it was fitting, in honour of Craig's birthday and Australia Day, to use Jaffas in my Sugar High Friday creation.

The recipe for the orange cake that I used as a base can be found here on Exclusively Food. I chose this recipe because most of the comments from those who made it were favourable, and mentioned that the cake was moist. (I hate dry cake!) I used all orange juice in making the cake, and to fit in with the SHF theme, I added 3/4 cup of Jaffas to the batter. (I almost forgot and had to stir in the Jaffas after I had put the batter in the tins!) Instead of one layer, I made two and sandwiched them together with extra icing.

I tried to break up the Jaffas before putting them in the cake, because they are quite heavy sweets and I knew that they would sink to the bottom of the cakes. Alas, my efforts were in vain, and the Jaffas did sink to the bottom (as you can see from the top picture). However, when I iced the cakes, I turned the layers so that the Jaffa-laden bottoms were in the middle of the cake, ensuring that it will hold together when sliced.

This cake tastes pleasantly buttery and orangy (I made a small test cake for myself in a muffin pan for tasting purposes). It also wafts a lovely citrus smell around the kitchen while baking. Because of the presence of the sweets, it is crucial to line the cake tins, because just like fruit, they had a tendency to stick (as I found out the hard way when I turned out my mini cake from the unlined muffin pan).

I simply decorated the cake with orange icing, extra Jaffas and letters cut from flat strawberry fruit bars. (I am off piping after several disasters trying to pipe on Racquel's birthday cake, including the fact that I couldn't seem to spell at the time!)

If you like using candy in your baking, make sure to check CandyRecapper's site for the SHF Baking with Candy roundup.

(Postscript: The roundup can be found here. Thanks to Candy Recapper for hosting this event and for the roundup.)

Groggy roast chicken

Sometimes, a simple twist on an old favourite can make all the difference. I have noticed since I started this blog that I make an awful lot of chicken dishes, and of those, that most of them are baked. I have always loved my Mum's home-made roast chicken, so I have had fun over the last year discovering new ways with roast chicken.

Recently, I acquired Nigella Express. I am a huge fan of Nigella's television shows, because she makes cooking look fun and sexy, and doesn't give a hoot about whether or not what she makes is low fat, low GI or otherwise sickeningly healthy. Nigella makes cooking and eating what you cook a pleasure - which is how it should be.

One of Nigella's dishes in Nigella Express is a brandied, bacony chicken. In a nutshell, it's just a roast chicken with fried bacon stuck in the cavity to flavour the chicken and with heated brandy poured over the top before roasting. I didn't have any bacon, but I liked the brandy idea because Nigella promised that it would give the chicken a crispy skin - and so it did.

Pictured above is my version of brandied chicken with roast vegetables. I simply heated a tot of brandy in a frypan to burn off the alcohol (not too much or it will evaporate completely!) and poured it over the chicken in the roasting dish. I tossed the veges in salt and pepper (and sumac for the pumpkin), sprayed them with oil to ensure they baked up with crispy skins, and baked the lot at 220 degrees Celsius for about an hour. This was really simple and hands off, and tasted delicious. It was also quick enough for me to make for dinner after work, when I am in serious couch potato mode.

Ginger cake

Another week, another Nigel Slater cake from The Kitchen Diaries. This time, I made his double ginger cake; well, sort of. I actually made a single ginger cake because I didn't have any stem ginger, which I didn't realise that I needed until after I had started making the cake. This is because I am such an organised person who always reads the recipe before starting - NOT!

I also found half way through that I didn't have enough golden syrup. When I made the pumpkin sultana loaf and I didn't have any maple syrup, I used golden syrup instead, so I thought I would try the reverse on this occasion, and make up the shortfall in golden syrup with maple syrup. Luckily for me, this worked a treat.

Although all of my sultanas decided to sink to the bottom of the cake, I was pleased with the result. It is a really nice, solid cake in a traditional gingerbread style. It is not overwhelmingly gingery (although it might have been more gingery if I had actually used the stem ginger!!), but is very pleasant tasting and moist, and has a beautiful golden colour:

To make it my way (as opposed to how you are supposed to make it), you need the following:

250g self raising flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

100g golden syrup

100g maple syrup

125g cubed butter

2 tablespoons sultanas

125g brown sugar

2 eggs

240ml milk (skim is fine)

Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin, and preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl and set aside. Warm the syrups and the butter over a low heat on the stovetop. Once the butter has melted, add the sugar and the sultanas, and bring just to the boil, stirring all the while, then remove from the heat.

Beat the eggs and milk together in a jug. Pour the syrup mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine, then stir in the milk mixture. Pour the liquid batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for roughly 40 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in its tin on a wire rack. Nigel recommends wrapping the cake in alfoil and allowing it mature for a couple of days before eating, but I thought it was great straight away.

This cake is good by itself, but in winter it would make a smashing dessert warmed up with hot custard poured over it.