Black Tea Velvet Cake

The car was vibrating, I was doing 40mph on an A road and there was this cake slash frosting tower sitting (rather unhygienically) on my passenger seat floor. I don’t think cars are supposed to shake at 40, but I’ll let mine off on the grounds of my horrific driving which has likely caused the thing a number of car-health related issues. Hannah from The Littlest Bakehouse and I are driving to Manchester from London in August for the Cake Hunter’s wedding (!!!), so this is my pre-warning to you both that we MAY not make it alive. 

Just a few fruit fell from the frankly pointless blueberry volcano I decided to fancifully pile the cake with. When I parked up, I quickly glued the bluebs back into place with icing, before the boyf jumped in and we made our way to Street Feast in Lewisham to celebrate his 24th day of birth. Suffice to say, he shortly followed with “Did you glue the blueberries on with icing by any chance?” (Face-palm). 

I never got to properly eat a slice of the cake, but he said it tasted pretty darn good, and we’ve been together since the exact birth of this blog - cue explanation as to why that is relevant…. Also I dipped syrupy offcuts into leftover icing ;)

We are that cringy ‘red velvet cake on Valentines’ couple. But last year, the Malteser chocolate malt cake I made on his birthday leaned to the left like a condensed leaning tower of Pisa performing a drag act. So I went with our valentine’s tradition but I cut out the food colouring, because the entire bottle, which is needed for a “proper” red velv, gives the cake a really noticeable sour tang. And regardless of the childish excitement a brilliant red cake instils in me to this day, I can no longer handle that tang.  

In with the tealeaves! The tea flavour is faint in this ‘tea velvet’, perhaps slightly masked by the cocoa powder, but we much prefer it to food colouring flavour. 

Black Tea Velvet Cake 

Inspired by the Pastry Affair's Black Tea Cake with Honey Buttercream

Ingredients

For the cake

• 250ml milk
• 150g high-grade tealeaves (or the leaves from 10 teabags)
• 180g unsalted butter 
• 420g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, large
• 485g plain flour
• 45g cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp lemon juice/white wine vinegar 
• 1 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp white wine vinegar 

For the syrup

• 100g sugar
• 150ml water
• Handful of high-grade tealeaves

For the icing

• 100g unsalted butter, room temp
• 600g icing sugar
• 250g full fat cream cheese 
• Handful of blueberries and toasted coconut shavings to decorate

Notes: There are a few lengthy steps in this recipe, like steeping milk and letting the cakes rest in the fridge before slicing, so it's best to start making the cake layers and milk tea a day ahead. 

Notes II: I know you’re looking at that icing recipe and wondering whether it causes diabetes. The sad fact is that frostings with cream cheese aren’t sturdy enough to ice the walls of cakes/create rosettes without that much icing sugar.

Method

1. Place milk in heavy bottomed saucepan with tea leaves, let simmer on a low heat for five minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight to further steep the milk, then strain the milk to remove the tea leaves. 
2. Line two 6 inch cake tins with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 160 C/180 Fan. Add lemon juice to tea milk and stir, then set aside.
3. Using either a freestanding mixer or electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, around 4 minutes. While mixing, add one egg at a time. 
4. In a bowl, sieve together cocoa and flour. On medium speed, add a third of the flour, then a third of the strained tea milk, alternating between both until everything is smoothly incorporated.  Take care not to over-mix!
5. In a small bowl, add the baking soda, then the white wine vinegar. It will immediately froth up, add it straight into the cake batter and gently fold in using a spatula. Divide among pans and bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake is coming away from the sides of the pan. 
6. Let the cakes cool to room temperature then cover in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours/overnight. Slice both cakes horizontally with a serrated knife so that you have four equal layers. 
7. Meanwhile, to make the syrup, add all of the ingredients into a saucepan and let simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes. Take off the heat, strain the tealeaves and pour into a jug and set aside. Poke several holes into the cakes and gently pour the slightly cooled syrup into the cakes – be sparing with the syrup – over soaking causes the cakes to tear. 
8. Beat the icing sugar, butter and just a tablespoon of the cream cheese together on high speed until light, fluffy and pale - around 2/3 minutes. Add the rest of the cream cheese and beat on medium speed until smooth and thick. 
9. Fill a piping bag fitted with a closed star tip (Wilton 2D) with a third of the icing. Build the cake layers by piping rosettes around the edges of each layer. Squeeze a dollop of icing in the middle of each layer and smooth off with a spatula before adding the next layer. Finish the top layer with the same effect and sprinkle with the toasted coconut and blueberries. 
10. Cake will keep for three days if kept covered and refrigerated. 

Love Em xx

Beetroot Crème Egg Brownies

In October I spoke about brownie baking being at the top of my list of things to do when I should actually be doing something else. I’ve been doing quite well, then, considering those salted caramel fudge brownies were the last I blogged about. 

Fast-forward seven months and a dissertation due in May. 

Behold crème egg brownies. 

With not a single word written and three other projects to hand in, if I don’t over indulge in the teeny stresses of student life on my blog, I fear there *might* be internal chaos. 

Tell a lie, I distinctly remember blagging on about my dissertation “idea” to two very patient ladies at the London Coffee Festival last weekend. They gave me such a good piece of advice that I’m going to share it with you even if pointless university degrees are not your thing: narrow your focus!! I suppose that could be interpreted into some sort of life lesson, too?

Taking that on board, here’s me trying to un-narrow my baking repertoire by adding a vegetable to brownies. And here’s me again trying to un-narrow my waistline by adding a vegetable to brownies. And heres me again topping each brownie portion with half a crème egg…. 

It’s Easter soon and therefore completely relevant and not weird, okay? 

Let me just round this off by saying that beetroot and crème eggs go REALLY well together. Admittedly, grated beetroot folded into a brownie and then topped with an overly sweet (and therefore only acceptable at Easter time slash all year) confection is a far cry from perfect – think savoury chunks that, better welcomed in a summer salad. 

But if you puree the beety goodness it isn’t so nuanced. Its there, but the only thing hitting you in the face with flavour will be the caramelized fondant from the crème egg. 

Beetroot Crème Egg Brownies

Adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chocolate & Beetroot Brownies 

9 crème eggs 

150g unsalted butter

100g coconut oil

250g dark chocolate

3 eggs

200g golden caster sugar

200g self raising flour

250g boiled and pureed beetroot (I used a hand blender)

Note: The beetroot overpowers (in a good way!) any rich butteryness you might expect from an all butter brownie so I chose to add coconut oil for a healthy balance. Because the fats are melted together in the recipe, using all coconut oil and no butter would work perfectly, as would using butter.  

Line a rectangular brownie pan with parchment paper or foil, grease, and preheat the oven to 180 C. Carefully slice crème eggs in half lengthways, using the indent on the chocolate as a guide. Place the butter, oil and chocolate into a medium bow and microwave on the lowest setting for 2 minutes, stopping and stirring every 30 seconds, set aside once fully melted. In a large bowl whisk the eggs and sugar until frothy, then pour in the chocolate mixture and stir until combined.Sift over the flour and fold, then the pureed beetroot. Pour the batter into the pan and dot with the halved creme eggs. Bake for 25 minutes until slightly risen and firm to the touch. Cool completely in the pan, slice up and serve.

PS, tips on how not to procrastinate are more than welcome!! 

Love Em xx

Goat's Milk Dulce De Leche Oreo Banoffee Tarts With Coconut Whipped Cream

On Sunday we sat down, scrolled through our Virgin Media Netflix and finally decided upon watching Armageddon. You know, that film with Bruce Willis running around all hot and angry whilst his daughter secretly kisses range boy Ben Affleck in his bed and Willis threatens to kill him. In the end, ol’ sexy Willis takes a lift down to the core of some meteorite and blows himself up, I think this was his way of giving his blessing, finally letting his daughter kiss Affleck till death do them part. His suicide act saves the world as well by the way, it’s beautiful, and anyone with eyes is capable of crying at this film. 

Unfortunately there is no hidden meaning behind my terrible synopsis and what’s going on in my life right now, I just thought I’d tell you about a film that’s been playing on my mind all week. Hopefully I can stop having visions of Willis now, please god.

Earlier that day, I baked the healthiest cookies - they contained no flour, no sugar, and zilch eggs! Just maple sweetness and oat flour, and a few hundred calories from the rich macadamias and chips of white chocolate, and they were nearly all eaten by the time we sat down to scroll through the endless list of films on the ol’ Netflix.

Naturally, this is the bit where I carry on telling you about how good these cookies were, and below there would be the recipe for them. And yes, they were really delicious, but they were also pretty damn ugly and so flat, that when you picked them up they fell to pieces and the macadamias looked like overgrown warts about to pop on a witch’s face. No camera angle or £14 dishcloth could do them justice, so I’m sharing our dessert from the previous Saturday instead, whilst I work on a solution to make these coconut oil laden discs more plump and cookie-esque, like The Flourishing Foodie's Maple Pecan Cookies.

These tarts are filled with a labour of love: homemade dulce de leche made with goats milk. They can taste so goat-y, but different brands have different goat tasting levels so try to use mild milk. The blended banana also goes a long way in softening the goat-y edge. And if the butter to biscuit ratio in the base looks a little frightening, it’s there to help you get over the fact that goat’s milk tastes like farm. Of course, you could just use cow’s milk, but goat’s milk adds a complexity to dulce de leche, one that cow’s milk will never succumb to.

Goat's Milk Dulce De Leche Oreo Banoffee Tarts With Coconut Whipped Cream

Makes five deep tartlets, eight regular tartlets or one 23cm tart.

Dulce De Leche

2 pints goat’s or cows milk 

Pinch of sea salt 

1 cinnamon stick (optional)

1 cup caster sugar 

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda in 2 tbsp water

1 banana

Base

1 cup Oreos

½ cup butter, melted

Topping

2 x 400g can coconut milk, refrigerated for 12 hours

Pinch cream of tartar 
Grated dark chocolate shavings 

Bring the milk, salt, cinnamon and sugar to a simmer in a heavy bottomed saucepan on low heat. Take off the heat and slowly add the bicarbonate of soda and water: this has to be added drop by drop to stop the mixture foaming rapidly. Keep the mixture at a medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until it turns a light brown, this will take about 1 hour 30 minutes. Stir the mixture every ten minutes, until it turns a light shade of brown. As soon as it starts to thicken, stir continuously until it’s a deep red colour. Take off the heat as soon as the caramel reaches copper-red. If the mixture is lumpy strain it through a sieve, then pour into a sterilised jar and refrigerate once cooled. 

Pulse Oreos in a food processer fitted with a blade attachment until just broken up. Slowly pour in the melted butter, keep pulsing until a wet and crumbly dough forms. Alternatively bash biscuits to a fine crumb with a rolling pin and stir in the butter. Divide the crumbs into five deep (or seven regular sized) loose-bottomed pastry cases and use a spoon to press the mixture around the sides and bottom. Refrigerate for one hour. 

In a large bowl add cooled dulce de leche and the banana, use a hand blender to combine the two until the banana is completely immersed in with the caramel. Or mash banana with a fork and fold through caramel. 

Take the coconut milk out of the fridge, open the can and separate the water from the blob of cream built up on top. Place the coconut ‘blobs’ into a bowl with cream of tartar and whisk until soft peaks form. 

Pour the banana filling into the pastry cases up to two thirds full. Spoon the coconut whipped cream on top, sprinkle with chocolate shavings and leave to set in the fridge for one hour before serving. 

Love Em xx

Gold Dust White and Dark Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies

There might be a white and dark chocolate chip coconut cookie beneath that thick sheen of radiant gold. There might also be a fat free black-eyed pea chip variation, and that stuff on top could be made of 24-carrot edible gold. Let’s be serious though. It’s Christmas very soon and your friends and family wont mind shitting out indigestible lustre dust. When there are homemade cookies blurring their vision, the people will eat.

Wrap them up in real girth-y ribbon and give these out as naked gifts, or, arrange them neatly on your super sweet Christmas town plate and share them with whoever walks through the front door. You should probably call the entire neighbourhood over because this recipe will make 18 extra large cookies. Scale them down from 75g portion sizes to 35g and you could easily feed 40.   

I’ve only tested this recipe once, but I can already vouch for it being one of my favourite cookies of all time. The high quantity of brown sugar means they get softer with age. The coconut flakes also lend a chewiness you’d find in a macaroon, pair that with the crunchy exterior of any good chocolate chip cookie and you have yourself a recipe that defeats the object of my Perfectly Rounded Chocolate Chip Cookie Post. You might not believe it but, yes, you can have chewiness without a tablespoon of corn flour.

Violet Macaroons

Violet Cakes' Macaroons

Ever since that afternoon I spent at Violet Cakes however long ago I have been besotted, foolishly besotted, by a macaroon.

Everything else of that afternoon seems distant in my memory now, apart from that golden, crispy, syrupy rounded mound of baked coconut.

Before my near death experience involving sugar, my only knowledge of a macaroon (the real deal, not the contemporaneous meringue kind, I’m talking about the poor macaroon that was overshadowed by that) came from a packet of 4 overly chewy macaroons commonly found in my aunts, or even dating back 10 years ago, my late nan’s flat – where there would always almost certainly be a packet of chocolate dipped store bought macaroons. But hey, I knew no better, and I still ate the whole bloody packet.

Who says the coconut cant be desiccated?! 

The recipe for Violet’s delicate, perfectly proportioned macaroon can thankfully be found in Leon’s Baking &Pudding’s book – I will take this moment to mention how lucky we are that Ptak & the founder of Leon live in the same neighbourhood. Leon is one of the best food chains in England, but truthfully, I bought their book for the macaroon recipe but I’m sure I will be dipping myself into some more recipes such as the Lemon Bars fairly soon (as should the poor soul reading this). 

What really sets this recipe apart from the rest is the addition of honey; it makes the world of difference through extra subtle sweet flavours on top of that already coming from the caster sugar (trust me, it works). It also makes the macaroons extra sticky, so sticky you will need to keep your paper towels well away until its time to wipe the stickiness from your fingers - licking is totally acceptable btw. 

The Recipe: Violet Macaroons

Adapted from Leon Baking & Puddings: Coconut Macaroons 

150g desiccated coconut 

150g caster sugar 

3 egg whites

3 heaped tbsp honey of your choice 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Makes 6 large macaroons 

Equipment

Deep, medium sized saucepan 

Ice cream scoop

The Method:

Place all the ingredients except vanilla into the saucepan and stir on medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and the bottom of the pan leaves bubbles when scraped across - about 7 minutes. 

Take off heat and leave to cool completely, about 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 C. 

Place baking parchment over a baking tray. 

Scoop level amounts of mixture straight onto the baking tray making sure they are slightly spaced apart. I used an ice cream scoop to get uniform macaroons. 

Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. 

Leave the macaroons to cool completely before removing from the parchment. This allows the macaroons to crisp up. 

The macaroons will lose their crispiness if stored in an airtight environment, so try to eat them ALL on the day of baking! 

So, here's the big question that's playing on both our minds - do you plunge yours in chocolate or leave them raw?

Love Em xx 

Miette Carrot Cupcakes

So here's my second Miette post! Miette Carrot Cupcakes! Carrot cupcakes were my second venture because the recipe included coconut, which interested me and I was eager to taste this concoction! The sponge was literally something else. You had the coconut complimenting the cinnamon, all whilst the corn oil was keeping everything incredibly moist. Fireworks. No ginger, no cloves, just cinnamon - trust me it works! These are being sold on Drysdale Street in NSP Cafe (off Old Street) this week, which is why I wasn't unable to dissect the cupcake so I could show you the inside! Hope you enjoy :)

The Recipe:

1 cup all purpose flour/self raising/cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon 

Half tsp salt

Three quarter cup corn oil

2 large eggs 

1 cup carrots

Half cup walnuts

Half cup desiccated coconut 

1 cup currents (optional)

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 pound cream cheese

Half cup unsalted butter 

1 cup icing sugar

The Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake cases. 
• Sift flour, salt, baking powder/soda and cinnamon in a large bowl and set aside. 
• In another bowl (or a freestanding mixer) whisk together the eggs and sugar for 2 minutes. 
• Gradually pour in the oil and whisk on high speed for one minute until the mixture emulsifies. 
• Now add the dry ingredients in one third at a time until smooth. 
• Add the coconut, carrots, walnuts and currents (if you used them) and fold in till well incorporated. 
• Using an ice cream scoop, divide the batter into the cupcake cases until each one is two thirds full.
• Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 
• For the frosting, sieve the icing sugar in a large bowl and set aside. 
• In a freestanding mixer, cream butter and icing sugar smooth. then gradually add cream cheese, till you have a smooth frosting.
• Ice as you please!

Mbakes x