My niece Phoebe hit 30 this weekend. 30 ! When on earth did that happen? To celebrate she had a big party with 80 people coming so it definitely called for a big celebration cake. When I was planning this I realised I don’t do cakes that often, and certainly not big celebration cakes. The…
Tag: Baking
Italian Meringue Butter Cream – The Story of a Rescue Mission
This weekend was my niece’s 30th Birthday party and I made her cake which will feature on the blog soon. Always wanting to do something new I decided to try my hand at Italian Meringue Buttercream. It seemed to have a number of advantages over the standard (and for me overly sweet) standard buttercream the…
Layered Mousse Cake 2 Ways – with lots of trouble
There are times in baking when trying something new, that you are stretched that little bit too much. For New Year’s Eve I decided to make another of Maren Lubbe’s (of Malus Köstlichkeiten) fabulous wonders, a Whisky and Chocolate mousse cake encased in stripy joconde sponge topped off with chocolate mirror glaze. The stripy…
Raspberry and Pannacotta Alpine Torte – fluffy, fruity and utterly delicious
As I have said in a previous post I have gone a little entremet mad since discovering Maren Lubbe’s wonderful blog MaLu’s Köstlichkeiten. This delicious thing (well actually 2 of them) was my contribution to the Boxing day lunch at my sister’s (the log on one of the photos was her rather marvellous creation) where…
Bûche de Noël – a Chocolate and Marzipan Christmas Repast
Every Christmas I hunt for an alternative to the traditional British Christmas pudding which as I get older I find I like less and less after the big Christmas day meal. Usually it is something involving meringue, but this year under the influence of Maren Lubbe’s blog MaLu’s Koestlichkeiten and the awfully produced Netflix Bake Off…
Raspberry, Marzipan and Poppyseed Mousse Cake – a luxurious treat
There were lots of things to celebrate last weekend: losing one stone in weight, being back in the house after months of builders, Christmas being on the way and my mother coming to stay. We had also committed to a return match for dinner with friends from the village; a date we wanted to keep…
Gooseberry Soufflé – a Risen Tangy Delight
The annual minuscule crop of Gooseberries was harvested a month ago and it is never enough to make jam with. I have 2 gooseberry bushes and this year one of them decided not to fruit at all (or the birds had them all) so I was left with about 700g of red gooseberries ripening at…
Paris Brest – Saddling up for more trials with Choux
I have been wanting to do a Paris Brest for a while. They look gorgeous in Patisseries and I am still not great with choux pastry, so a little practice was definitely on the cards. I am very glad I did. It is delicious, quite surprisingly light and well worth the effort. This little delight…
Black Forest (Cherry) Gateau – a much maligned German classic
It was back to the 1970’s this weekend with this German classic, the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, better known in English as the Black Forest Gateau. As we had friends for dinner, the beloved decided to embrace the theme so we preceded it with Prawn Cocktail (with an Asian twist) and Duck a L’Orange – more 1970’s Berni Inn you…
Chocolate Orange Genoise Cake – a venture into new territories
The plan this weekend was to do that 70’s classic, a Blackforest Gateau, though I prefer the name Schwarzwaldtorte as it is sounds much more exotic. It is a much maligned piece of deliciousness if done properly but it needs the right ingredients, particularly the special sour cherries which are not easily available in the…
Kärtner Reindling or Carinthian Reindling to you and me
Yes Carinthian – not Corinthian – and yes I had no idea a province of Austria was called Carinthia. Of course it isn’t. In German it is called Kärnten and it is a picture perfect alpine province of Austria which has just got onto our the travel list. This wonderfully swirled cake is the local…
Pesto Flower Loaf -Pretty and Delicious
Christmas is now well behind us, and our life has finally got back into its normal rhythm after a pretty gruesome start to the year. Sadly we are of the age when our parents’ generation is passing on and our contemporaries are succumbing to the scourge of cancer and other middle aged diseases. 3 funerals…
The Cottage Loaf 