Apple, courgette and elderflower mini loaves: a pretty little taste of summer
What I love most about these cakes are the summery flavours and textures. The sponge is light as a feather with subtle flavours and the icing is soft and delicately fragranced. Finished with a pretty shimmer and a fresh rose petal on top, they’re lovely to look at and even lovelier to eat. Perfect for a summer afternoon tea.
The combination of apple and courgette gives these mini loaves a light, clean taste which is perfect as it is, however you could add some sultanas for another layer of texture and flavour. It’s important to weigh out the apple and courgette – if there’s more in the mixture than there should be it becomes too wet and the cakes collapse the moment they come out of the oven. Draining off any juice after grating keeps any excess moisture out. I tend not to pile the icing on too high because if there’s too much the sweetness and the elderflower can overpower the lightness of the sponge. With the right balance they’re an absolute joy to eat. A good quality, mellow loose-leaf white tea beautifully complements these cakes, served in a vintage fine china cup of course 🙂
Ingredients
Makes 12 mini loaves
Mini loaves:
1 small apple (approx. 150g before peeling etc) coarsely grated
1 small courgette (approx. 150g) coarsely grated
2 large eggs
150g caster sugar
100 ml sunflower oil
175g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
Apples and courgettes: subtle flavours and light textures
Icing:
100g unsalted butter at room temperature
200g icing sugar, sieved
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp natural elderflower essence (or a little more or less to taste)
For decoration:
Edible glitter (glacier white or equivalent iridescent white)
White rose petals
Pre-heat oven to 160c
Sieve flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and put to the side
Whisk eggs in a large bowl until fluffy
Add sugar in four parts, whisking well between additions. Whisk until thick and pale
With the whisk on medium, slowly add the oil to the egg mixture in a steady stream. Whisk until well combined, adding the vanilla after the oil
Add the flour mix into the egg mixture and whisk until just combined
Gently fold in the grated courgette and apple and fold until combined
Coarsely grated apple and courgette: fold gently into the cake mix
Divide the mixture into a 12 x mini loaf tin and bake for 25 – 30 min until cakes are golden and spring back to the touch. Leave to cool slightly then turn each mini loaf out of the tin and cool on a wire rack
Ready to go in the oven: fill each mould approx two thirds full (about 2 tbsps cake mixture)
To make the icing, cream the butter and icing sugar together until it passes the breadcrumb stage and starts to come together. Add the milk a little at a time – it may not need the full tbsp. Add the elderflower essence and continue to whisk on high until light and fluffy
Light and fluffy buttercream scented with delicate elderflower
Once cakes are cool, pipe the buttercream on top in whatever style you prefer. Sprinkle a little edible glitter over the icing and top each one with a rose petal
Pale and pretty: summery mini loaves lined up good to go…
Tia Maria babas served with orange Chantilly cream.
Rum babas always remind me of my mum. When I was a kid, and we went out as a family for a special meal, my mum would be over the moon if rum babas were on the menu. It was her absolute favourite dessert; her ultimate decadence (we’re talking the 80s remember, possibly the 70s…) I had never really understood what the fuss was all about until I tasted them recently in Italy where they originated and where they’re still as popular as ever. Now I understand.
And so I decided to have a go at making them but I wanted to play around with the syrup, adding Tia Maria instead of rum. I found a recipe which seemed fairly straight forward, looked out my dusty bottle of Tia Maria and set off on another adventure with flour.
Recipe
I used a Richard Bertinet recipe which I found here:
I didn’t want 18 babas however, so I halved the recipe which worked just fine. The only things I would say is that I should probably have made the full volume of syrup, just to make sure the babas were immersed more fully and had a little more syrup to absorb. And I’d say 3 hrs is the minimum soaking time – the longer you soak the better. I also skipped the lemon in the syrup because I wanted the orange to shine through.
I used half the recipe to make six fairly substantial babas in individual 6oz pudding moulds however if I was doing this again I’d make 9 as half the recipe allows: they were just a bit too big, even for die-hard pudding fans.
There was no chance I was getting the batter into a piping bag – it’s an interesting experience trying and I’d welcome any tips on this. I had to very slightly wet my hands with cool water before scooping out the batter for each mould and hope I was getting roughly the same in each one.
I served them with orange Chantilly cream because I thought the flavour would blend well with the coffee in the liqueur – it did. I used 200 ml of whipping cream and when whipped to a soft peak added 50 g sieved icing sugar and the finely grated zest of 1 orange. Perfect.
So, a few lessons learned. I’m going to try the recipe again, only next time I’ll make them smaller and soak them in a limoncello syrup – this was my favourite of the babas I tasted in Italy. I reckon they’d be lovely with a vanilla Chantilly cream and some candied lemons.
For now though, here are the Tia Maria babas in pictures. Hope you enjoy them if you make them. They got the thumbs up from my mum, the baba aficionado, so that’s a good sign 🙂
The ferment beginning to bubble after a couple of hours – ready to go in the mixing bowl (step 1 in the recipe)Mixing the batter on medium / high until it’s smooth and elastic (step 2 in the recipe)Half filling the buttered moulds with the batter (step 3 in the recipe) Two thirds full would have been too much for these 6oz moulds.The batter after it has been left to rise for around 50 minutes (step 4 in the recipe)Babas fresh out the oven (step 8 in the recipe) These took nearer 18 minutes because they were bigger.Leaving the babas to cool on a wire rack having carefully turned them out of their moulds (step 8 in the recipe) A perfect golden colour.Soaking the cooled babas in the cool syrup for a minimum of 3 hours, turning regularly (step 9 in the recipe)The syrup soaked baba, drizzled with extra syrup and served with fresh, zesty orange Chantilly cream.
Having been well and truly inspired by the sweet treats I enjoyed during my time in Italy, I wanted to create something which would be a lovely reminder of my time on the Neapolitan Riviera. One of my favourite Italian desserts was the delightfully easy to eat chocolate shortcake and one of my favourite flavours was that wonderful straight-off-the-tree lemon freshness. And so the lemon shortcake was created, bringing two of my loveliest foodie memories together.
They’re pretty simple and the flavours and textures together make them incredibly light, fresh and not too sweet. I like to pretty them up with two-tone buttercream but that’s just a personal preference: they’re just as lovely with the self coloured lemon buttercream. They’re gorgeous on their own with a cup of tea or they can be plated with a side of whipped cream and some sugar dusted berries for something a bit more special.
The basic recipe for the shortcake biscuits (using vanilla instead of lemon) is one of my go-to recipes which I use for empire biscuits, little shortbread bites and of course shortcakes like these. You could do 101 things with the basic recipe: I’m planning on making strawberry shortcakes next using strawberry puree rippled through Chantilly cream as a filling and a trio of berries on top.
Although it’s hard to get the real straight-off-the-tree lemons over here for this recipe, it’s worth paying a little extra for the closest thing you can find – the difference in flavour is incredible. I used imported lemons form Sorrento which were pretty close. The lemon curd is always best if it’s home made, but good quality shop bought will do just as nicely for this.
So enjoy these lovely little tastes of Italy – I hope every mouthful takes you to a place of blue skies and lemon groves 🙂
Lemon shortcakes
The lovely lemon: clean, fresh, simple…
Ingredients
Shortcake biscuits
225g unsalted butter cubed
90g icing sugar sifted
90g cornflour sifted
250g plain flour sifted
finely grated rind of 2 lemons
Filling
2 tablespoons lemon curd
125g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
juice of 1 lemon
yellow food colouring (optional)
Makes around 24 individual shortcake biscuits (12 complete shortcakes) with a little spare for a ‘taster’ biscuit.
You’ll also need 2 baking sheets lined with greaseproof paper, a 3”cookie cutter, an icing bag and a star nozzle.
Pre-heat the oven to 160 c
Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy (a hand held electric mixer works best for this)
Add the finely grated lemon rind along with the sifted flours and briefly whisk together until combined. Then work the dough with your hands, bringing it together. Turn out onto a floured surface.
Roll the dough out evenly to roughly ¼ inch thickness. Use the 3” cookie cutter to stamp out as many shortcake biscuits as you can from the first roll then bring the dough together, roll out again and repeat until you have as many biscuits as you can get.
Stamping out the shortcake biscuits with a cookie cutter
Space the biscuits well apart on the prepared baking sheets and bake for around 20 minutes until pale golden ( they may be ready a couple of minutes either side depending on your oven) When baked, remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.
Shortcake biscuits cooling on the cooling rack
While the biscuits are cooling make a start on the buttercream filling by whisking the butter and icing sugar together with an electric hand held whisk until it comes through the ‘breadcrumb’ stage and starts to come together. Add the lemon juice and whisk again until light and fluffy.
At this stage remove half of the buttercream into a separate bowl. Add a couple of drops of yellow food colouring into the original bowl and whisk until fully incorporated.
Dividing the buttercream to have two slightly different colours
Once the biscuits are completely cool, smudge a little lemon curd on the inside of each biscuit.
A little smudge of lemon curd on the inside of each shortcake biscuit
When you’re ready to pipe the icing, fill one side of the icing bag with the uncoloured buttercream using a palette knife, then ease the coloured icing in beside it so the bag is half and half.
One bag, two buttercreams…
Pipe the buttercream onto the bottom biscuits, (12) not going too near the edges.
Two tone icing piped onto the bottom biscuits
Assemble the shortcakes by gently placing another biscuit on top and finishing off with a dusting of icing sugar.
Lemon shortcakes dusted with icing sugar: the finished product
Picture the scene: you’re seven years old, you’re tucked up in bed with chicken pox and you’re listening to the soothing tones of Felicity Kendall on tape as she reads ‘The Bonfire Pudding,’ one of Dorothy Edwards’ ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ stories. It’s about a little girl so scared of fireworks that she stays home to make Christmas pudding with her Gran. As you listen you imagine the warmth in the kitchen and the smell of the lemon and orange and spices being patiently mixed together. Such is your enjoyment of this well loved, comforting story that you listen to time and again that it sparks in you the beginnings of a love affair with all things cake.
For Frances, who has been making her own Christmas puddings for twenty years now, bonfire night will forever be synonymous with that time in the year when preparations for the festive season begin and her home is filled with the delicious scents she remembers from that story.
Making and decorating her first Christmas cake at the age of eleven was a turning point for the young Frances, who by that stage was spending many an hour in the kitchen, experimenting with food and talking into an imaginary camera Delia Smith style. Following recipes (if it comes with instructions it’s do-able) led to one cooking and baking success after another and it very quickly became apparent that the magic of natural talent, combined with passion, was at play.
Raspberry and rose cream eclairs topped with white chocolate and pistachio.
For several years that talent was focused on cake decorating, as Frances experimented with styles and techniques to produce cakes for all kinds of occasions and tastes. There is no denying the level of skill involved in the cakes she produces, each showcasing skill, precision and passion galore. Her own personal favourite? The three-tiered Steampunk cake she created as a gift for her friend’s 40th birthday; a stroke of cake genius by anyone’s standards.
Frances’ all time personal favourite: the three-tiered Steampunk birthday cake
And of course it is her family, friends and colleagues who benefit most from the extraordinary talents Frances repeatedly demonstrates as she develops one new skill after another, always exploring, learning, perfecting… A suggestion that she might want to enter The Great British Bake-Off back in 2013 spurred her on to extend her repertoire and venture into the world of pastries and bread making. The highlight of this particular journey, which she talks about with sheer effervescent joy, was her five day bread course with Richard Bertinet last year where the exciting transformation of grain to bread, such a fundamental food stuff, awakened a whole new passion; a passion for the alchemy of baking. In learning old French methods she also discovered the messy business of sweet dough and learned that when it seems like nothing will come together you have to put your trust in the recipe and show the dough who’s boss. Needless to say, it was the first of what she hopes will be several courses to expand her knowledge and develop her creativity further.
Glistening golden hot cross buns
There have been competitions, cake clubs and numerous personal requests for cakes along the way which often results in Frances working in the kitchen until 2 o’clock in the morning, only to get up again a few hours later to start her day job: part time teacher, full time mum to 3 young children. It is not unheard of for her to get up at 5 am at weekends to shape viennoiserie so her children can wake to the smell of fresh baking. This is the level of devotion to good food and home baked produce we’re talking about…
A “Naked” wedding cake: lime & mint syrup soaked sponge filled with lime & mint flavoured mascarpone cream and finished with summer berries and pretty pink flowers.
When asked what it is that she so enjoys about baking it’s really all about the people; the ability to nurture and to show that you care, that you’ve been thinking about people. And that’s exactly what she feels in return when someone bakes for her. Her biggest joy is baking for her children and watching as they begin to develop their own talents in the kitchen, talents which meant they could whip up Nigella’s old-fashioned chocolate cake for her birthday last year with no help beyond the recipe in front of them. For Frances, the joy of eating a cake which has been made for her with love is equal to that which she feels when she bakes for others with love.
Of all the elaborate, beautiful, highly skilled cakes which Frances produces, what she likes to make the most, believe it or not, is her shortbread; it’s her specialty, baked in Hartstone molds which she has sourced from America to give the exact style and finish she wants. She also enjoys whipping up a batch of Nigel Slater’s brownies and experimenting with macarons; gingerbread latte and raspberry and white chocolate being two of her personal favourites. And when she isn’t baking, but fancies a good slice of cake, she either heads to Lovecrumbs in Edinburgh or Cottonrake in Glasgow; two of her most favourite cake places.
Chocolate Macarons
What’s so inspirational about Frances is her energy and enthusiasm; the constant drive to do more, learn more and give more of herself in her baking. And of course, as you’d expect from someone with that kind of talent who quietly works away producing one knock out bake after another, she is so absorbed in doing what she loves and loving what she’s doing that she hasn’t stopped to notice how great she really is….
@Francesbakes
@BertinetKitchen
@hellolovecrumbs
@NigelSlater
@Nigella_Lawson
@EdinburghBakers
@GlasgowBakers
You can also catch a glimpse of Frances’ world of cakes on facebook (Frances Bakes) where she shares photographs, recipes and stories about her cake adventures.
It's all about the cake 