Egg Whites: Friend or Foe?

I generally try to avoid recipes that heavily involve the use of egg whites. Soft peaks, firm peaks, stiff peaks.....if I see those words, I automatically flick over to the next page.

Determined to get over my egg whites phobia, I recently tried two egg white based recipes.

The first was Angel cake from the Hummingbird Bakery book "Cake Days".

The cake was not as light as I hoped bit it did give me the opprtunity to use my new Bundt tin!

I thought "Fallen Angel" cake was a better description. The cake was just too dense, not light and airy like I had hoped.

But, the recipe had no butter or caster sugar so is good for those watching their waistlines.

Next up was Passionfruit Pavlova.

I used the Nigella recipe from "Kitchen".

Good old Nigella.

It really was the perfect pav.

The egg whites were whipped until stiff. You add the sugar whilst it is whipping which turns the mixture lovely and glossy.

Spread the mixture into a round disc-like shape and then bake in a low oven.

Just out of the oven!

I then topped with lightly whipped double cream and the pulp of five passionfruits.

The tartness of the passsion fruit against the cream works so well.

MMmmmm!

The meringue has a marshmallow texture to it - quite the opposite to shop bought meringues.

I don't think that I have gotten over my fear of egg white recipes quite just yet, but I'm getting there!

Nxx

Banana Cake with Toffee Sauce

You know when you have bananas that have gone too soft to eat?

This recipe is perfect for that.

The recipe was given to me by a former work colleague.

Banana Cake

Ingredients:-

4oz unsalted butter

6 oz caster sugar

1 egg

6 oz self raising flour (sifted)

2 ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 fl. oz milk

Method:-

1. Grease an 8inch pan and pre-heat oven to Gas Mark 4 / 180 degrees fahrenheit.

2. Cream the butter and then add the sugar and vanilla. Beat in the egg.

3. Mash the bananas and add to the creamed butter mixture.

4. Fold in the sifted flour.

5. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda into the milk and add to the mixture. Stir in gently.

6. Pour mixture into cake tin and bake for 40 minutes.

Now for the toffee sauce....

Toffee Sauce

Ingredients:-

100ml cream

4oz light brown sugar

4 oz unsalted butter

Method:-

1. Melt butter in pan together with the sugar

2. when the sugar is dissolved, stir in the cream.

3. Serve immediately.

The cake was yummy with the toffee sauce.

I had used a 9 inch cake tin so the cake was a little flat but it still tasted lovely.

Valentine's Day Cake

Okay, so I know I said I wasn't a massive fan of Valentine's Day BUT, Beks had bought me a heart shaped cake tin for Christmas.

How could I not use it this weekend?

I used the Betty Crocker recipe for White Cake.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups plain flour

2/3 cup margarine

1 1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

5 egg whites

Method:

1. Grease and line 2 x 8 inch cake tins (or make 24 cupcakes). Pre-heat oven to 350 degree fahrenheit / Gas Mark 4.

1. Mix together all ingredients except egg whites in a mixer on slow speed for 30 seconds, and then increase speed and mix for two minutes. Scrape down the sides.

2. Add egg whites and mix on high speed for a further two minutes. Again scrape down the sides.

3. Pour mixture into two cake tins and bake for 25 - 35 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. (The cakes took 45 minutes in my oven which is Gas).
4. Leave to cool and then sandwich together with frosting and then decorate.

I used a cream cheese frosting which I tinted pink.

I decorated with heart shaped chocolate dragees and a hot pink fondant heart for a bit of contrast!

But check out the inside of the cake.......

I tinted some of the cake mixture pink to make a pink and white layer cake!

I'm not great with big cakes, and I have to say it was a bit of a pallaver slicing the heart shaped cakes evenly!

But it was well worth it to to have the desired effect.

The cake was yummy too.

I generally use a yellow cake recipe, and had expected the white cake to be lighter, but it was actually quite dense!

Mr G was impressed with his heart shaped cake!

Nx

Cake Mixes

I have a confession to make.

I am obsessed with Betty Crocker cake mixes.

I don't generally use them but whenever I go the States, I have to bring home a few boxes.

I think it is the novelty factor, and the fact that we have a pretty limited supply of cake mixes over here.
They have so many over there: Red Velvet, Bananan Cake, Orange Cake, White Cake, German Chocolate Cake. The list is endless.

Even Cherry Chip Cake!

But one thing I have never seen until now is a Macaron Mix!

Beks went to France recently and reported back that you could get Macaron Mixes in a box!

WOW!

This brand did three types: Chocolate, Coffee and Raspberry.

Now if only I could speak French I could work out how to make them......

Marble Cake

Wow. It feels like forever since my last post.

I did make a lovely marble cake recently.
I love marble cake.

My Gran used to make it for me every birthday.

I can still remember the excitement of seeing all of the different colours- yellow, pink, chocolate and green.

As you can see, I made mine simple. Chocolate and vanilla.

I used my regular cup cake recipes quantities and swirled the mixtures together.

It was yum.

Betty's - Yorkshire's Finest

No baking this week folks as I've been working away from home. I am working in a lovely place called Harrogate which is in North Yorkshire. It is about 1 1 /2 hours away from Manchester so I've been staying there during the week. Have been missing Mr G like mad but luckily I have Betty's to keep me going! Betty's is a lovely tea room and there are branches all over Yorkshire but the first one opened in Harrogate in 1919.

They also have a shop selling a wide variety of breads, cakes and chocolates.
Including these macarons in Chocolate, Lemon, Pistachio and Raspberry.

They have a good range of pattiserie such as their famous puff pastry cream hearts...

....and the fabulous Engadine Torte which is a Swiss specialty with hazelnuts and meringue. Definitely my favourite.


They also do a Yorkshire Curd Tart which is a little bit like a dense cheesecake with raisins.

I also managed to explore Harrogate's only Cupcakery...

Cupcakes by Charley!

They have a good selection of cupcakes and also sell whoopie pies.

Alas, there were no peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes.

But they had a lovely Cookies and Cream cupcake.

The cake was really rich and decadent.

I also tried a Vanilla Whoopie Pie that was sandwiched with a strawberry buttercream.

As you can see it was huge and I was a little bit disappointed. The consistency was more like a Victoria Sponge expecially with the addition of the strawberry infused buttercream.

Wedding Anniversary

Our wedding cake was amazing. We had it made at a local cake shop - Richard's Cakes in Urmston. The cake turned out exactly the way I had imagined in my head. Five layers - each covered in ivory rolled fondant and covered with fondant roses. The bottom layer was fruit and the rest was chocolate. It was the best chocolate cake I've ever had. Without a doubt.

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, I made a mini wedding cake for Mr G. Richard's kindly agreed to make the cake for me- three mini layers.

I chose a completely different colour combination to our wedding cake.

I decided to use mini cut -out fondant circles to decorate the cake.

This is what I started with. The cakes were covered with buttercream to make sure the fondant stayed put.

I bought some ready tinted rolled fondant. I have been really pleased with the taste and texture of M&B's sugar paste.

I covered each cake with a different coloured fondant.

I also covered the cake board and decorated it.

I topped the cake with one of the roses from our original wedding cake. I couldn't bear to throw them away and we had both eaten our respective weights in icing and sugarpaste roses.

I was so pleased with the finished cake.

Happy Anniversary Baby!!