Angel Cake for my Angel - Lola's 6th Birthday Cake

Happily, I grew up with a myriad of cakes, some made, some bought, that always make me smile when I re-acquaint myself with them. Despite the fact that when I was young, mass produced,'bought' cakes were probably filled with hydrogenated fat and various other nasties, we were all mostly ignorant of it and, frankly, that didn't matter. My propensity to wolf down a 'French Fancy' without it touching the sides was well known. Throw in there the Battenberg, the Jamaica Ginger Cake and anything a la Mr Kipling, and you get an idea of where I am coming from. Cake heaven.

Which brings me to Angel Cake. No, not Angel Food Cake, the cake made with tonnes of egg white and cake flour sieved God knows how many times, I mean Angel Cake, the cake with three tiers, a triumvirate of gaudy colour, sandwiched together with butter cream icing. I used to eat each layer at a time, pink last, licking the butter cream off the top of each layer. Dee-lish.

So, when I had the 'What sort of birthday cake do you want Lola?" conversation with Lola a few weeks back, she told me that she wanted one with hearts, flowers and "like a fairy" on it. A bit random. Anyway, after spying a cookie cutter which looked somewhere between fairy and angel, I remembered the Angel Cake, and in a haze of heady nostalgia I decided that Lola's cake would be a throwback from somewhere in the early 80s.

I am not running out of ideas, honestly, but I so liked the cake mixture for the Barefoot Contessa Sour Cream Coffee Cake which was the basis for my last blog post, that I decided I would be a fool to reinvent the wheel once more. I make two cakes for my kids' birthdays, one for each side of the family, and I decided that I would have to triple the recipe to have enough for the six layers required (three for each cake) and whilst this worked and was perfectly fine, what it did produce was a cake of epic proportions, twice, so epic that each cake had a slight slant and I needed more frosting than I have ever needed in my life, ever. I have adjusted the quantities here so that your cake is more perfectly proportioned than Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In a departure from the original, I sandwiched the layers with strawberry jam rather than butter cream, as I knew there would be a lot of butter cream on the outside of the cake. And the original was never covered in frosting anyway. And whilst you could have whatever colours your heart desires, I wanted that pink, yellow and cream combination that the 8 year old me remembers so fondly.

Angel Cake with Vanilla Frosting, using an adaption of the Barefoot Contessa's Sour Cream Coffee Cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

18 tablespoons (2 sticks) or a 250g pack unsalted butter at room temperature

2 cups caster sugar

3 large eggs, plus 2 medium eggs at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups buttermilk

3 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon salt

plus, food colouring - pink and yellow. I use pastes, and a little goes a long way. Beware!

Jam of your choice, for sandwiching the layers of cake

For the frosting:

(2 sticks) 250g softened unsalted butter

Between 5 and 7 cups of icing sugar (depending on taste - you might want more)

A little milk to loosen the mixture

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

food colouring (optional)

To decorate: sugar pastes, edible paint, flowers, hearts, cutters, whatever you fancy.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180c, and prepare 3 8 inch sandwich tins.

Cream together the butter and the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each egg is added.

Add the vanilla to the buttermilk and add this to the cake batter. The mixture might look split. Don't worry overly; it comes back when the flour is added.

Mix the cake flour with the baking powder, the bicarbonate of soda and the salt and added this gradually to the cake batter, mixing each addition in slowly and only until combined. When you add the last of the flour, finish the mixing off with a spatula.

You now need to split the mixture between the cake pans, and at this point it is a little faffy. Transfer about a third of the mixture into one of the cake tins. Transfer another third into a bowl and leave a third in the original mixing bowl.

Add your desired food colouring to each third and mix the colour in well so that the cake mixture takes the colour evenly. This may take a couple of minutes mixing.

When you are happy with the colours, transfer these mixtures into the two remaining sandwich tins. You could get someone to help you if you like.

Bake for about 25 minutes or so until the cake is springy to the touch and has begun to pull away from the edges. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

When the layers are cool, trim them if necessary to get them as flat as you can, then sandwich them together with jam. Put the cake onto a serving plate, lined with several smallish pieces of greaseproof paper, which will be take out from under the cake once you have frosted it to create a neat bottom to your frosting, theoretically.

To make the frosting, place the butter in a mixing bowl and beat vigorously until it becomes quite loose. Then gradually add the icing sugar, using a little milk if necessary to slacken off the mixture if it becomes too thick. Taste after each addition of icing sugar until you get the sweetness you desire.

Add the vanilla and mix in. Then , if you want to add a little food colouring, then do so. (I added the merest hint of yellow).

Beat the frosting until it is quite light, fluffy and of a spreadable consistency. This could take 5 to 10 minutes.

To ice the cake, get a pallet/spreading knife and a cup of boiling water, which you will use to spread the icing smoothly. Load the frosting onto the top initially, then using the hot knife, tease the frosting down the sides of the cake.

Once you have frosted the cake, use the knife to neaten up your coverage.

Your cake is now ready to decorate. I bought flowers and hearts, because life is too short to make them and because my cake decorating skills are best described as 'enthusiastic amateur'. For the angel/fairy, I rolled out some sugar paste and cut out the shape I wanted using a cutter. I then used edible food paint to make it look a little fairyish like.

Rewarded for getting it wrong: Vanilla cupcakes with mascarpone, maple syrup and toffee frosting

You see, the first advice anyone gives you about cooking is "Read the recipe!" And mostly, I do, but I was busy trying to do twenty jobs at once, decided that I wanted to blog a Barefoot Contessa recipe, thought I had missed the deadline to do so (as it happens, the deadline was a month away. I really need to sort my life out), so thought, I would hurl together her sour cream coffee cake but make it into cupcakes, as was suggested in the recipe. They have a streusel element to them which I forgot to do anything about when I hurled the batter into the cupcake tin and lashed into the oven. Then I thought, how does this streusel thing work again? It should have already been in the oven. Damn! Plan B.

Well, I had this notion that I was going to drizzle some maple syrup over the cupcakes because I thought that it would go well with the nutty, buttery brown sugared element of these gorgeous cakes, so it occurred to me that a frosting may be the way to roll. Cue experimental frosting.

I had some mascarpone in the fridge which I had bought cheaply because of its short date and had a kind of plan for it, but felt this would be a better way of using it. Combined with some butter and icing sugar, then a tablespoon of maple syrup, it created a frosting that was sweet with a syrupy undertone. As I always stress with frosting, it is not necessarily an exact science for me. After adding the butter and in this case, the mascarpone, I add icing sugar until I am happy with the sweetness, and if I find the frosting is a little thick, then I add a little milk. This frosting does need beating for a while too before it becomes fluffy.

A word on the batter mixture. Ostensibly this is a Ina Garten's recipe for sour cream coffee cake, which I changed firstly by subbing buttermilk for sour cream. Cake flour is created by adding cornflour to plain flour, creating a cake that is extremely feather light in texture and glorious to eat. To make, take a cup of plain flour, remove two tablespoons, then replace with two tablespoons of cornflour. Mix, then sift the mixture to ensure the cornflour is easily distributed. A faff, I know, but worth it if you want a 'light' cake.

Anyways, from the jaws of defeat...

Vanilla Cupcakes with mascarpone, maple syrup and toffee frosting

Makes 12

Ingredients:

 (American recipe = ingredients measured in cups; not a bad thing!)

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

3 large eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

2 1/2 cups cake flour (created using the information above, if necessary)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

For the frosting (Frosts 12 cupcakes generously, plus a little for those who like to scrape the bowl)

500g icing sugar (though be prepared to add less. Keep tasting until you're happy with the sweetness and consistency)

250g mascarpone cheese

100g butter

A little milk to slacken the mixture (if necessary)

1 tbsp of maple syrup (or to taste)

Toffee or caramel dessert sauce to drizzle over.

Method:

For the cakes, preheat the oven to 180c/350F. Prepare a cupcake tin with papers

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after adding each egg.

Add the vanilla and then the buttermilk.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and salt.

With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Don't over beat at this stage, instead give the mixture a final few mixes with a spatula, ensuring that the whole of the mixture is well combined.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake tin (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden and spring back when touched. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely before you frost them.

To make the frosting: Beat the butter together with the mascarpone to loosen the mixture.

Add the icing sugar gradually, allowing what you have added to be combined before adding more. Taste regularly to see whether the frosting is sweet enough, and add a little milk if the mixture is becoming too thick. When you're happy with the consistency, add the maple syrup and then beat the frosting thoroughly for a few minutes until it becomes fluffy and spreadable.

Spoon or pipe or swirl the frosting over the cold cupcakes. Drizzle with the toffee sauce.

Because I really want to go France: Normandy Pork

It has been too long actually. For someone who has visited France quite regularly it has been three years since I last took a little 'vacances' to a place that I really quite like. Anyway, come the end of the month, we will be wending our way south for a hop across the channel and a few days in Northern France, and whilst arrangements are not quite firmed up just yet, if we end up in Normandy then that will be just fine. Then I will have to brush the cobwebs off my A level French and see if I can get by without resorting to gesticulation and the horror of uttering "Parlez-vous anglais?" Hopefully, all will be well.

So, in premature celebration of our trip, I figured that something a little French might be in order. You will notice that much of my cooking of late has been Spanish or Italian in origin, and the country with the biggest gastronomic gravitas has been neglected somewhat. Here I aim to put it right.

I figure this dish is so called because of its apple content, and Normandy being the place of which I have memories of drinking the local cider and the glorious Calvados. I know that the region is famous for its use of butter and cream, the lush meadows and the happy cows producing the most beautiful dairy fare. Their use in this dish is what makes it so unctuous. In fact, 'unctuous' is the adjective I would use to describe Normandy, if I was being forced to.

Finn, the fussy one, loved this. Lola too, but Lola is easier to please. Getting Finn to eat a new dish without complaint doesn't happen often but in this case it did. I think he just 'got' the appley creaminess of the sauce and he ate the whole lot. He is my harshest critic, and to please him is a bonus!

The recipe is adapted slightly from the one in the brilliant 'Avoca Cafe Cookbook'. An Irish gem of a book...

Normandy Pork, adapted from 'Avoca Cafe Cookbook' by Hugo Arnold and Georgie Glynn Smith

Feeds Mum, Dad, Lola and Finn

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb diced pork (leg or shoulder)

1 tbsp of plain flour, seasoned generously with salt and pepper

2 tbsp butter

a splosh of vegetable oil

2 onions, peeled and diced

2 small to medium cooking apples, peeled and chopped

1/4 pint apple juice

1/2 pint strong chicken stock

1/4 pint of double cream

chopped parsley, to garnish

Method:

Toss the pork in the flour.

Melt the butter and the oil together in a large frying pan or casserole and add the pork in batches and saute until golden brown. Transfer to a plate. When all the pieces are browned, return the meat to the pan.

Add the onions and the apples to the pan and cook on a gentle heat for about 10 minutes or so until the onion is translucent but not coloured and the apple pieces have started to lose a little of their firmness.

Pour in the apple juice, scraping up any residue from the bottom of the pan. Add the stock, and then season up with salt and pepper.

Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, allowing the meat to cook gently for about an hour or until the meat is tender. If you want to reduce the sauce more at this stage then turn the heat up and boil the sauce to reduce a little.

Stir in the cream before serving and taste the sauce. Adjust the seasoning as required. Stir some parsley into the sauce if you like.

I served this with new potatoes and peas. Il était un excellent repas. J'espère que vous l'essayer!