Displaying items by tag: cakes

A fellow Suffolk food blogger - lots of good recipes, especially baking .. that means cakes.

This multi function and award winning community building has a cafe, with enthusiastic staff and lots of homemade cakes. They tried to persuade me to have a full English breakfast, but for the sake of my arteries I settled for a capuccino.

Go upstairs to find out about the Pulham Pigs.

Cronuts are going to be the new cupcake.  Dominique Ansel bakery in New York has created the Cronut.  Half croissant, half doughnut. Customers are queuing for two hours to get their hands on one. My money is on Pump Street Bakery in Orford to be the first in Suffolk to have some on the shelf.

From the Pump Street bakery -  a Bear's Claw - something I had never heard of or tasted before, orginating from the northern USA and Canada.  It's so hard to choose from their selection of amazing bread, cakes, pastries and patisserie that we bought a box full of different things and half a dozen crisp fresh doughnuts filled with rhubarb jam and lemon custard. It made me want to say 'au revoir' when I left the shop.

A late arrival got us both in for a fiver (you have to pay for this one...) but most of the food people were still there. What a proliferation of pickles! Lots of the same thing (of the chili jelly/home-made tomato ketchup variety) with one or two interesting exceptions - home made drinks and hot food, and lots of suppliers from Essex. But we love Abroad, and of course Essex gave us Jamie Oliver. We tried ice-cream, crisps, chocolate, strawberry and raspberry vodkas (although they weren't keen on Inspector X's horseradish vodka suggestion...) rhubarb and ginger cordial, fresh lemonade (so easy, so nice) and a shark kebab (very close to my Caribbean heart...shark kebabs...)

Oh the choice? Where to go first? With so many foodie things on one day we did an extensive expensive dash around the county - first to Orford where we knew we were going to find treats because they have the Pump Street Bakery and Pinneys and then to the Greene King Beer Festival (they may have had food but it was more about the beer...)

At Orford I spent £80 in as many yards, starting with a fab strawberry tart (well, half of one, because even Inspector X and I can only eat so much in one day...) followed by (half) a pulled pork wrap with coleslaw, the best salami we have tried in a while, an oyster, a Bloody Awkward (which regular followers of suffolkfoodie will know is an espresso with hot milk on the side - ie a SMALL coffee not a GIANT coffee, in fact I think it's called a cafe con leche Abroad, but is still to catch on here...) Where was I... a chocolate mousse and a dessert wine. What we couldn't eat we bought home - two bottles of Hill Farm oil, two Hill Farm mayo, a pheasant scotch egg, a fennel salami, honey-salted caramels, peanut brittle; doughnuts, a bears paw (more later on that one...) portuguese tarts and some other little tarts with almond and plum whose name I've forgotten, hot mint jelly, three crabs and two huge skate wings. The only thing missing at Orford was hot food and a home-made drinks.

In the next few days we will tell you what we bought in BSE and show you ALL the sumptuous pictures of the food we found.

Once a month Shauna Tate invites keen bakers to join her at The Beaters Hut Bakers Club.  Shauna started the club last July and each month she comes up with a theme for the baking.  Last month I went along to Cheese. I ate so much and came away with enough food for the next day.  No judging takes place and all you need to do is bake or make something that can be shared beweent 8 to 10 people.  Next months meeting is on Monday May 27th and the theme is Picnic. All are welcome to attend although spaces are limited in order to allow everyone to get to meet each other.  I think this could become the perfect dating agency?  

Cheryl creates a wonderful range of chocolates, scrumptious cakes and brownies at Artistry in Cocoa. Newmarket which we mentioned earlier.  And here is her recipe:

Chocolate Cake with Ganache topping and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries.

For the Chocolate Victoria sandwich:
4 eggs
Softened Butter or margarine or a mixture of both
Sugar (granulated)
Plain Flour
Cocoa powder
Baking powder
Milk or water

Weigh the eggs.

Weigh out the same weight of butter/margarine and place in your mixing bowl.
Weigh out the same weight of sugar and add to the mixing bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Weigh out the same weight of flour, then remove a tablespoon and replace this with cocoa powder. 

Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and a teaspoon of baking powder together.
Break the eggs into a cup or jug and beat into the creamed mixture one at a time, adding a little of the flour mixture to prevent curdling as necessary. 

Fold in the rest of the flour with a metal spoon. 

Add a tablespoon of water or milk and mix in gently.  Dip your spoon in the mix and hold it above the bowl. The mixture should drop off your spoon to a slow count of 3.  If it takes too long add another spoon of liquid.  If you have accidentally put in a little too much liquid add a small spoon of sieved flour/cocoa.
Bake in greased and lined or greased and floured tins at   190C/fan 170C/gas 5   until the cake springs back to the touch.
Remove from the oven, run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake from the tin if necessary and invert onto a wire rack to cool.   

For the chocolate ganache coating :

200g- 300g milk or dark chocolate and an equal amount of cream.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces, bring the cream to boiling point and pour over the chocolate. 

Allow to rest for about 5 minutes to soften the chocolate then whisk until the mixture is smooth and glossy.  If the ganache is very runny you may wish to leave it to cool further before you cover the cake with it.  This can be done by pouring or spreading. Do not cover your cake until the cake itself is cold.

Melt some extra chocolate gently until it is almost, but not entirely, liquid and stir well to melt out any lumps until the chocolate looks smooth. 

Dip your strawberries holding by the stalks and place directly on the cake.  Please note that the strawberries should be dry or the chocolate will not stick.  If you wish to dip your strawberries in advance then place them onto greaseproof paper so that you will be able to remove them once set.

If you wish to pipe on the cake with the ganache you can make it with a little less cream so it will be thicker and whip it before use.  You can fill the cake with a layer of ganache or you could use sliced strawberries and whipped cream and top with ganache.

Phil, our Great British Bake Off Dish of the Day came to suffolk foodie towers to make us afternoon tea. Here are his amazing jam "philled" doughnuts.  Made with Paul Hollywoods original recipe.