Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Pie seems to be in fashion at the moment.  I was actually thinking of making one last week but put it off.  But in the last week I've seen post after post on FB, etc of Lemon and Key Lime pies so I have given in and whipped up my favorite version....

Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 packet digestive biscuits crushed
3 tablespoons butter melted

For the filling:
2 14oz cans sweetend condensed milk
200ml fresh lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
8 egg yolks

For the topping:
8 egg whites
100 grams caster sugar
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Method:

Crust:
Crush the digestive biscuits into a fine crumb.  You can use a food processor, but I just poured mine into a bowl and crushed with a heavy drinking glass until I had a fine crumb.  Melt 3 tablespoons butter and pour into the biscuit.  Mix well and press into a 9 inch pie plate.  Bake at 180C /350F/ Gas Mark 4 for 10 minutes.   Remove from oven and prepare your filling.

Filling:
Combine the condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and zest in a bowl and whisk until smooth.  Pour filling into prepared pie crust.  Bake at 180C/ 350F/ Gas Mark 4 for 10 minutes.  While your filling is in the oven prepare the meringue topping.

Topping:
Place eggwhites, sugar and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Remove pie from oven after first 10 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 150C/ 300F/ Gas Mark 2.  Spoon meringue onto the top of pie spreading all the way to the ends.  Use as much as you like, you may not need to use all of the meringue.  Use the back of a spoon to form peaks on the meringue.  Place pie back in oven and bake for approx 20 minues.  Keep an eye on it and remove when meringue is golden.

Cool completely then refridgerate over night (or at least 4 hours) before serving.

Probably the most delicious Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream recipe ever ...............

and its sooooo simple to make!

What you'll need:
225ml whole milk
160g sugar
a big hand full of fresh mint, washed
5 egg yolks
600ml double cream
chocolate chips

In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar while stirring until the sugar is dissolved, do not boil.

Remove from heat, set aside a couple of mint sprigs and add the rest of the mint to the milk mixture.  Let sit covered for 1 hour.

Seperate the eggs and place the egg yolks in a small bowl.

Return mixture to medium heat and stir for 1 minute.  Add a bit of the milk mixture (about 60ml) to the eggs a little at a time.  This is to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs so they won't cook when you add them to the milk.  Add egg mixture to the milk stirring constantly until the mixture thickens into a custard that coats the back of a spoon.  Remove from heat.

Pour the double cream into a medium bowl.  Put a fine sieve on top and pour the milk mixture into the cream through the sieve.  Discard any bits that do not go through the sieve.

Give it a stir and add the reserved mint sprigs to the mixure.  Refridgerate over night.

Remove the fresh mint  and add a bit of green food colouring, if desired,
before freezing in an ice cream maker.  Mix in chocolate chips and pour into a freezer container.  Freeze for 4 hours before serving.

Don't have an Ice Cream Maker? Don't worry!  You can still have yummy home made ice cream, it just requires a bit more elbow grease.   Pour the Ice Cream mixture into a freezer container.  Remove after 30 minutes and give it a good stir making sure the break up any frozen bits.  Continue this process every 30 minutes for 3 hours.  Then let the mixture freeze for 4 hours before serving.

Mommy I want Dora Cake...

I don't know why I thought I could talk him out of it.  My Son LOVES Dora.  And truthfully, it doesn't bother me that he is a bit obsessed with the cartoon.  I could think of worse things.  But all the party stuff looks so girly.  So I tried for over a month to convince him he wanted something else.  A conversation would typically go something like this.

Me browsing at pics on the computer:  Ohhh Evren, look at these cakes.  Do you like Spiderman?
Evren walking over to the computer:  I like cake.
Me while showing him pics of various cakes on the computer: What kind of cake do you want for your Birthday?  Do you want a Spiderman Cake
Evren: Nooo
Me: Do you want a Super Hero Cake
Evren: Noooo
Me: How about a Monster Cake?
Evren:  No Mommy, I want Dora Cake!

I might manage to distract him for a brief moment, but he would always come back to it.  So I gave in.  It had to be Dora.  So here is my attempt at a hopefully not too girly Dora Cake.

And just look at that grin :)  Priceless!

 Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet little Man.

Happy Pretend Birthday to Me!

I love sharing new tips and techniques I pick up along the way.  This one was truly one of those "why did I never think of that" moments.  I have always greased and floured my cake tins.  If you bake as often as I do, you get through alot of butter.  Save those butter wrappers and use them for lining your cake tins.  I was skeptical so I had to try it out.  

 I made some Swiss Meringue Buttercream and had a couple of wrappers left.

I pressed the wrapper in my tin and went around the edges with a sharp knife to trim the wrapper to the size of my tin.  

 And placed it Butter side up in my tin.

Then baked my cake.  

 I went around the sides with a knife to loosen them before tipping out onto my cooling rack.  

The wrapper peeled write off and my cake was perfect and did not stick to the tin at all.

I was recently the lucky recipient of a Dinkydoodle Airbrush :)  So this was my practice cake to get the feel for using my new airbrush.  The airbrush is amazing.  Love that I can get multitone effects on the icing.  You just couldn't get this effect colouring the icing the old fashion way.  I can't wait to have more projects and really get into using this amazing new tool.  Thank You Dawn!

LOL, I just had to share.  My daughter came up to me while I was typing this to inform me it is my pretend Birthday today.  I told her that was amazing and lucky because we have a pretend Birthday Cake.  So I guess we need to celebrate.

Happy Pretend Birthday to Me!

  

 

Chocolate Transfer Cupcake Wrap

 

 At Cake International in London a few weeks ago I picked up some chocolate transfer sheets for the first time.  I decided to try making a cupcake wrapper to experiment with them.  It was surprisingly easy and a very visually pretty and effect way to simply decorate a cake.  

You can find templates for cupcake wrappers online, but to be sure mine fit my cupcake I simply cut out one of the cases I was using to bake my cakes and traced around it. 

 

  

I traced 2 wrappers and made my outlines slightly taller and longer than my actual case.  

I cut out  both shaped and taped one together.  Set the taped one to the side, you will use this to help your wrapper hold its shape while it dries later. 

Take the other cut out and use it as a template to cut out your chocolate transfer sheet.  

Place the transfer sheet on a piece of baking paper.  Melt you chocolate and spread it as evenly as possible over your transfer.  Here I have used candy melts.  Please note if you are using actual chocolate you will want to temper your chocolate before using it on your transfer.

Leave to dry slightly for a couple of minutes, then carefully lift your transfer off the baking paper and place in the paper cup you made earlier to form your wrapper.  Slightly overlap where the ends meet.  Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to set. 

 When set, remove from the fridge and carefully remove the plastic backing from your transfer.  Note I said carefully :)  I manged to slightly damage mine at the end where the pieces overlap.  But it was OK, once it is iced it will still look lovely.   

 Remove the paper case from your cupcake and place your cupcake in your new edible chocolate wrapper.  

 Ice decorate and enjoy :)

Macarons

Of all people, I happen to be married to someone who does not like cake.  He gets annoyed with my "cake stuff'.  I don't let it get me down, I was baking long before we met but I have to admit I sometimes wish he would get excited about the things I make.  I've become accustomed to his lack of interest and understanding for my passion so I was a bit surprised when he did a double take in the kitchen yesterday.  Of course everyone in the house knows the rules, you can't touch it until I've taken my photos.  We woke up this morning and again he was asking about the Macarons.  It made me smile.  He will be pleased to know I have finished this post and they can now be eaten.  Finally I've made something he really likes!  But I guess it is hard not to fall in love with these delicious colourful little gems.

Ingredients:

175g icing sugar
125g ground almonds
3 large egg whites
pinch of salt
75g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla

For the filling:
100g butter
100g icing sugar

Method:

Sift together icing sugar and ground almonds through a fine sieve to remove any lumps and larger almond pieces.  Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer whisk eggwhites and a pinch of salt until frothy.  Continue beating eggswhites while adding caster sugar a little at time until well incorporated.  Add vanilla.  Continue beating until soft peaks form.

Fold in half of icing sugar/ almond mixture into egg whites and fold until blended.  Add the other half of icing sugar/ almond mixture and fold again until well blended.

At this point you can add the colour. Seperate the mixture if you want to make more than one colour.  I used Wilton Icing colours in Rose, Teal, Purple and Golden Yellow to colour mine.

To make the Macarons, line a cookie sheet with baking paper.

Note, you may already know this but I didn't and learned the hard way.  Do not use a baking stone for Macarons, use a metal cookie sheet.  I tried one batch with my baking stone and they ALL stuck.  All the ones I made with my metal cookie sheet came out perfect.

Add Macaron mixture to a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle and pipe circles onto the baking paper.  Try to keep them all the same size.  It may help you to draw circles onto the paper before piping the macarons to keep to a uniform size.

Once you have piped the macarons turn on the oven to preheat to 160C / 325F / Gas Mark 3.  Leave the Macarons on the counter for about 20 minutes.  You want them to form a crust on the top so that if you lightly touch them your finger will not stick to the top.  Don't put them in the oven until they have crusted on the top.  Once ready pop in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.

When done, remove from oven and let them completely cool before gently removing from the wax paper.

Mix together the filling.  I like to divide up and colour my buttercream filling to match the colour of the macarons.  Sandwhich together macarons with buttercream filling.  

Yummy!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:

350g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
75g butter
200g peanut butter
200g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
250ml milk

Peanut Butter Icing:
125g butter
125g peanut butter
500g icing sugar
1teaspoon vanilla
milk


Method:

Heat oven to 170C / 325F / Gas Mark 3

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Cream butter, peanut butter and light brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth, fluffy and light.

Add eggs 1 at a time and mix well.  Add vanilla.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk (begin and end with flour).

Spoon into muffin cases and bake until done.  Approx 22 minutes.

Makes 24 cupcakes.


To make the icing:

Combine butter, peanut butter, icing sugar and vanilla and mix with an electric mixer until smooth.  If icing seems to thick add milk a tablespoon at a time until you reach the right consistency.