Planning a genteel high tea on a Sunday afternoon? Lara Attard Bezzina from oliveoilandheart.blogspot.com helps you make the most of this sumptuous English tradition with a selection of foolproof recipes.
Shortbread
Ingredients
56g icing sugar
200g butter, slightly softened (but not melted)
280g plain flour, sifted
Vanilla extract/paste to taste
Method
Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla in a free-standing mixer (or electric mixer) until well incorporated. Add the sifted flour and mix gently into it, making sure it’s well mixed, but don’t overdo it.
Bring together into a ball, as much as possible avoiding using your clean hands. The whole idea of shortbread is that the butter melts in the oven, and you don’t want it to do any melting before that. The touch of a warm hand is enough to do that, especially when the weather is warm. In fact, I like to prepare shortbread dough on a cold day for this very reason!
Shape into a long sausage shape, wrap with cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 20 minutes to firm up and rest.
Take the dough out of the fridge about 10 minutes before you want to bake it (longer if it’s cold in the kitchen).
Preheat the oven to 180°C (don’t use fan force). Prepare a cookie sheet with baking paper.
Unwrap the dough, and using the back of a butter knife (this will give the cookies a rough edge) slice it up, approximately 1cm thick. Place on the baking tray, leaving a little space for slight spreading.
As soon as you put them in the oven, lower the heat to 160°C. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until just barely golden on the edges.
Cheat’s quiches
Ingredients
For about 24 mini quiches
2x12 cup muffin trays
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry
A teacup
100g feta
An onion, finely chopped and microwaved for a couple of minutes till soft
A couple of cubes of frozen spinach, defrosted, squeezed of most of the water and chopped
4-5 eggs
A dash of milk
Pepper, to taste
Method
Grease the muffin trays and turn the oven on to 180°C. Cut rounds out of the pastry, and place one in each muffin cup gently. There is no need to really press it in, but make sure there’s a dip in the middle.
Beat the eggs well with the dash of milk until nice and frothy. Season with pepper.
Place a tiny amount of onion, feta and spinach into each pastry cup.
Use a tablespoon to top up each pastry cup with the egg mixture.
Place in the oven (be careful not to spill the egg) and bake until the pastry is puffed and the egg looks cooked.
You can also follow the same recipe and fill with lightly-fried pancetta and racelette cheese instead.
Devonshire scones
The humble scone is an essential at any tea party. Their buttery goodness is the perfect vessel for piles of delicious jams and preserves, and clotted cream.
This recipe, adapted from the 1981 edition of the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, is very simple to make, but the important thing is to have everything at hand, and as cold as possible, especially the butter and milk.
Ingredients
450g self-raising flour
1 tsp salt
115g butter, chopped, very cold
55g castor sugar
280ml milk
beaten egg, to glaze
To serve: clotted cream and a variety of jams.
Method
Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add castor sugar, and mix to a soft dough with the milk.
Turn onto a lightly-floured table, knead quickly, then roll out to 1.5cm thickness. Cut into rounds (I like smaller scones, but you can make pretty big ones if you prefer); you should get around 20 scones, with a 7cm cutter.
Place the scones on a baking tray lined with baking paper, and brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake in a very hot oven (200 fan-forced) for eight to 10 minutes. Cool on a wire tray.
To serve, split (while still warm) and serve with good quality jam, clotted (or whipped double if you can’t find clotted) cream and lots of cups of freshly brewed tea.
Chocolate Guinness cake
If you want a dark, moist chocolate cake, this is the one for you. I was looking for a dark chocolate cake for Halloween, but a friend noticed this recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, and since I happened to have a can of Guinness, it was the perfect time to try it out.
This mix will be much runnier than many cake mixes, and at first, it does smell kind of beery. When checking whether the cake was ready, I touched it lightly and the cake sprung back anyway. Even though it did this, it still didn’t actually look cooked, but do not let looks mislead you.
If you are making a whole cake, it should take about 45 minutes, until the top is springy (bounces back when touched lightly) and a skewer comes out clean when put it through the middle.
Ingredients
For the cake
250ml Guinness
250g unsalted butter
80g good quality cocoa powder
400g caster sugar
2 eggs (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
140ml buttermilk (if you can’t find buttermilk, use runny, plain unsweetened yoghurt)
280g cake (OO) flour, sifted
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp baking powder
For the frosting
50g unsalted butter, softened
300g icing sugar
125g full-fat cream cheese
Cocoa powder, for dusting (optional)
Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C, then line your cake tin. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb together into a large bowl.
Pour the Guinness into a small saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until it has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm liquid.
Mix together the eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk by hand in a jug or bowl, and then add this to the mixture in the pan.
Add the liquids to the bowl containing the flour, and whisk on a low speed until incorporated, making sure you scrape down the sides and get it all well mixed.
Spoon the batter into the cake tin until two-thirds full. Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed. Leave to cool in the tin for about five to 10 minutes, then remove them from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
Make sure the cake is completely cold before frosting.
For the frosting
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Chop the butter into small cubes, and if it’s not soft, put in the microwave in five-second intervals until it’s soft and pliable.
Work the butter into the icing sugar with the back of a spoon. This is my method of preventing the whole kitchen becoming a cloud of icing sugar, as while it does smell quite nice, it’s also too messy.
Once you’ve worked the butter in, using the electric whisk (or free-standing mixer with paddle attachment), mix the butter and icing sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter and it is fully combined with the sugar in a sandy mixture. You can choose to cover your free-standing mixer with a clean teatowel at this point, to make sure the clouds of icing sugar don’t puff out. but if you’ve worked in the butter, this shouldn’t happen. Having the butter at room temperature really helps for this.
Add the cream cheese and mix in a low speed (I pulse it in until it’s combined, then increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy). Be careful not to overbeat the cream cheese frosting as it can go from voluminous and fluffy to runny in a surprisingly short amount of time.
You can beat the hell out of it for a couple of minutes though, as it does need to be nice and fluffy.
Place the cooled cake on to a plate and top generously with the cream cheese frosting. The cake can be decorated with a light dusting of cocoa powder.
Carrot cupcakes
Ingredients
For around 30 medium-sized cupcakes
300g light brown sugar
3 eggs
300ml sunflower oil (I actually only used half)
300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
300g carrots, grated
100g shelled walnuts, chopped
For the cream cheese frosting
300g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g cream cheese, cold
Method
Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Prepare two to three cupcake/muffin trays with two paper cups in each. Put the sugar, eggs and oil in a free-standing electric mixer, and beat until all the ingredients are well-incorporated.
Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice, salt and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well mixed.
Stir in the grated carrots and pecan nuts by hand, gently, until mixed through. Pour the mixture into the prepared cupcake papers (till about half full).
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown and the sponge bounces back when touched. Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
When the cakes are completely cold, spread or pipe the frosting on to them. If you have spare walnuts, chop them and sprinkle over the frosting.
Another idea also is to sprinkle cinammon/demarera sugar mix on top.
All about frosting
Frosting is a little funny sometimes. It might work out perfectly one time, and another time, it just ends up being a runny mess. Here are some pointers to help you get it right.
First of all, the most important things – it seems like a stupidly long list, but really, once you’ve made it once successfully, you’ll see it’s actually not hard!
• Icing sugar must be sifted.
• Butter must be real butter. No margarine could ever hope to be as tasty as butter. I have made buttercream with margarine and it left a horrible greasy film on the roof of my mouth.
• Cook with unsalted butter and soften it first. This does not mean you have to melt it; take it out of the fridge the day before (30 minutes before in summer).
• The cake must be completely cold before frosting; otherwise your frosting will melt into it.
• Low fat doesn’t work for cream cheese frosting, unless what you’re looking for is a softer, more melty icing. If anything, use less frosting on each cupcake, but don’t think for a second that the 20 per cent less fat in one ingredient is going to make an iota of difference to your diet.
• To colour your frosting, try to use powdered or gel dyes, as these do not affect the texture of the frosting. If you are using liquid, you should only be making pastel colours and using a few drops. If it’s cream cheese frosting, reduce the cream cheese by around a tablespoon.
• Once you have frosted the cakes, give them around 10 minutes before adding the sprinkles/small decorations.