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!

Lemon Chiffon Cake

This is a super light and fruity sponge which will make you weak at the knees due to its glory. Wow, I have really bigged this up....It might not be that amazing but it is good.

The reason it is so light is that it has no butter in it so it is also a little bit better for you but it is still cake so lets not lie to ourselves.

I then iced it with buttercream in the middle and plain old normal icing for the top. Just as a note know, going sparingly on the icing because the buttercream can really weigh it down.

Ingredients:
Cake:
150g caster sugar
80g plain flour
1/2 a teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
Zest and juice of 3 lemons
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Buttercream:
60g butter
120g icing sugar
1 tespoon lemon juice

Icing:
70g icing sugar
As much water as needed

Method:
Preheat the oven to 150 degree celsius fan

Setting aside a tablespoon of the sugar, mix the rest with the flour and baking powder in a bowl. In a second bowl whisk the egg yolks with the oil, lemon juice and zest and vanilla. In a third bowl, whisk the egg whites and the cream of tartar with an electric whisk until stiff peaks. Then add the tablespoon of sugar and whisk for 20 seconds. Add the egg yolk mixture in to the dry ingredients and mix, then fold the egg whites in two batches.

Transfer the mixture into two 20cm shallow sponge tins which have been greased with sunflower oil. and give them a couple of swift taps on your surface so that any air bubbles rise to the surface. 

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and firm when pressed. Invert the cakes to let the cool for about an hour before turning them the right way up. This method should prevent them sinking when the correct way up. 

While the cake cools prepare the buttercream. Whisk the butter until smoother and slightly paler in colour, then whisk in the sugar and lemon juice. 

Use the butter cream to stick the two cakes together, there may be some icing left over. 

Then pour a mixture of water and icing sugar over the top of the cake so that it drips down the sides, this should be a very thin layer.

You may want to add some form of decoration on the top so that it is looks a little more interesting.

Then, enjoy!

Custard Tarts

Sorry for the silence but I have just finished exams.... so we'll pretend that that is an acceptable excuse....

In my family, custard tarts bought from the supermarket last a total of 30 mins tops. They are just absorbed. But I find that they tend to be quite claggy so thought that perhaps they would be nicer if I made them myself. These are inspired by the recipe in the book, "John Whaite Bakes" but I wasn't sure about how well orange liqueur would go down with my 11 year old brother.

It is made by pouring a creme patisserie in to a rough puff pastry case which are then baked for around half an hour. This recipe has three parts basically, rough puff pastry, custard, combination.

Part 1: Rough Puff Pastry

250g plain flour
250g butter in cubes
1 tsp lemon juice
125-250 ml cold water

Rub some of the butter through the flour but not all of it, leaving a few larger chunks of butter.

Stir the lemon juice in to the water then pour the liquid solution in to the flour bit by bit pushing the mixture in to a ball.

Flour the workshop and place and roll the pastry in to a rectangle about 12cm wide and around 1cm thick. Fold each end towards each other so that they meet in the middle, brush off flour and then fold the two panels together.

Turn the dough a quarter turn and then roll in in to another rectangle as you did at first. Repeat the folds and then chill for 15 minutes. Remove from the fridge, refold the pastry twice and refrigerate until you need it.

Part 2: 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.

Part 3: Mixing

Preheat the oven 220 degrees celsius.

Sift a covering of icing sugar on to your work surface and roll out the pastry until it is about 3mm thick. Grease shallow bun tins with butter. Cut out circles of pastry appropriate in size to your tins and line them with pastry. Fill the pastry cases just over half way with the custard.

Place the tarts in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes - watching them carefully so that they don't catch.