Cupcakes, tarts and meringues for 50

Last weekend with an emergency gazebo purchased and two vats of curry on the hob, we threw a little party with over 50 guests in our garden. 

As it had been due to rain, my father made a quick fire dash to Argos and purchased a very fetching forest green gazebo with white detailing... ooooh stylish. But typically, once you spend £40 to protect your guests from rain it doesn't so now we are left with a glorified tent taking up valuable cupboard space... great!

Anyway the main point of this was that for the party I whipped up 70 custard and strawberry tarts and 55 cupcakes designed to look like "99" ice creams, along with a few dozen meringues. 

Strawberry Custard Tarts

These tarts are made up of rich shortcrust pastry which is baked blind which are then filled with custard and topped with sugar dusted strawberries. 

Rich Shortcrust Pastry
1 egg
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g plain flour
125g salted butter

Whisk the egg, extract and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved.

Stir the flour in to the mixture until it has an almost sandy texture.

Add the butter in cubes so that the dough can come together easiliy and knead gently for a few seconds.

Refrigerate for as long as possible, I left mine for about 24 hours and the pastry was considerably better for it! 

Roll out in to small discs and place in the buttered molds, cover the mold with grease proof paper and fill with baking beans or rice. Then bake for about 15 mins.

Once the pastry cases are done fill with the custard....

Custard

4 egg yolks
125g caster sugar
40g cornflour
500ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
25g butter

Whisk the egg yolks and caster sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture is slightly paler in colour. Add the cornflour and whisk well making sure that there are no lumps remaining.

Then heat the milk and the vanilla extract until the milk is on the point of boiling. Mix half the milk into the egg bowl, whisking continuously until the milk is well combined. Then pour this mixture into the rest of the milk on the heat and whisk constantly until the custard is thick enough to cover the back of a spoon.

Remove from the heat and stir for another minute before adding the butter. Stir until the butter is melted.

Pour until a bowl and let it cool a little bit before covering the bowl with cling film until you are ready to use it.

End
Scoop a spoonful of custard in to each pastry case and add one or two sugar dusted strawberries as decoration.

Summer Cupcakes

Sponge

• 125g caster sugar

• 125g soft unsalted butter

• 2 large eggs

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

125g self-raising flour

• 1 tablespoon milk

Icing 

140g butter

280g icing sugar

Some "Flakes" and sprinkles

Cream the butter and sugar together then slowly add the eggs, extract and half the flour in an alternating pattern. 

Fold in the remainder of the flour and if the mixture is still stiff, add the milk and mix.

Dollop a spoonful of mixture into each cupcake case and bake for about 12 minutes. Once out of the oven, leave to cool while you make the icing. 

For the icing, whisk the butter so it is smoother and slightly paler. Once it has reached this point slowly add the icing sugar until there are no lumps of butter. 

Put the icing into a piping bag fitter with a medium star shaped nozzle and pipe in a circular motion on to the cupcake. 

Cut up each "flake" into thirds and place in the icing of each cupcake. Then cover with some sprinkles.

I then used the egg whites left over from the custard to make meringues....which you can find a recipe for here...  http://girlbaking.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/perfect-meringue-recipe.html

For chocolate ones, add a tablespoonful of cocoa powder to the mixture at the end and then dust before baking. 

All these recipes make considerably less than I actually made but as a general guideline, I hope they are good! 

Enjoy and happy summer!

New Zealand Madelines

While I was in New Zealand over the summer holidays I found out that my relatives who live there had a Madeline tray. So it was whipped out and the opportunity was seized by all.

The mixture for madelines is very similar to that of a sponge except it has a lemon in it.

You start by whisking the sugar and eggs.

Demonstrated by my cousin Kiri

 You then add a lemon, in this case from their lemon tree in the garden.

The lemon rind has to be grated off in to the mixture, the rest of the lemon can be discarded.

Then the remaining ingredients are added and whisked to the normal cake mixture. 

You then dollop the mixture into the madeline tray and bake for about 15 minutes. 

They then come out of the tray and due to the lovely shape of the mold they look quite nice even if they are slightly burnt. 

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!

I am 16 today!! YAY FOR ME!! 

Anyway as this is cake themed, here is a cake-y Google which I was greeted with this morning... 

I was probably a little bit too excited by this but yes Google wished me a happy birthday. Jealous? 

And here is my birthday cake which my mother loving created and was delicious. It was an sponge covered in elderflower cream and strawberries, it was summery and light. AND HUGE! 

And now it is time for summer. 

Victoria Sponge

Now, everyone has made a Victoria sponge at one time or another, simply because it is so simple to do and you can create your own methods of making it. I have my own method but of course I have to try Annie Bells, after this I will write my own method up for you.

So, obviously her first step is to cream butter and sugar together. You then pour in all the eggs and mix it, which makes the mixture very lumpy and I was slightly worried by it.

Then you add the self-raising flour and baking powder which again I was sceptical about as I never put more than one raising agent in to a cake but it turned out alright in the end. The recipe says to add milk, which I don't put in unless the mixture is too dry.

Also it says to bake the cake for 50 minutes but my oven is very fierce so mine was cooked in only 25.

I then layered the cake up with strawberries and cream to make it extra summery.

I then place the second sponge on top of the cream and then dusted it with icing sugar over a strawberry leaf to make a pretty pattern - I am just so arty!

The cake although a different recipe to my own, it was still soft and light. It was very tasty but because of the stress of the recipe itself, as it is not mine, I don't think I will use it again. However it was good and a very summery and fresh cake especially with the cream and strawberries. 

Summer Berry Genoise

Wimbledon has just finished! And thus a light, fruity, creamy summery cake is needed.

A genoise is different to a normal sponge as it has no raising agents. The only thing that aids this is beating egg whites into stiff peaks, thus filling them with air! The yolks are also included in this sponge, whisked with sugar. And mixed with the remaining sugar and plain flour. And finally melted butter. It is then baked.

The cake is brushed with a rose water and honey syrup, after being cut open -  very badly...  

              

Finally the cake is filled with a whipped cream and fresh strawberry and raspberry icing - like thing.

I then put a few berries on the top to provide a bit of decoration and it was ready to eat! 

                                                     

So that is a delicious and summery berry which is light pudding but still lovely. 

Now all that needs to be said is....

WELL DONE MURRAY!

Next Recipe: Blueberry and Orange Muffins