Category Archives: Sweet Food

Peach, Plum and Raspberry Hazelnut Cake

Posted on January 23, 2022 by The quirk and the cool

Although we’ve had a tough summer in Sydney with so much rain, stone fruit is just starting to come into its own. Not the best stone fruit that we’ve ever had, but in late January it’s lovely to have some beautiful peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. And of course berries are beautiful and plentiful and cheap at the moment!

I’ve been playing around with recipes involving stone fruit and ground almonds and hazelnuts. I’ve made a few upside down cakes which I’ve been very pleased with. This one is an “upright” cake with the fruit placed in the cake batter, some of it just showing through.

As usual, this is a food processor cake so it’s pretty quick and easy! You can serve it plain or drizzle some icing over the top, although it doesn’t really need it. It’s great served with cream, Greek yoghurt or vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

150g hazelnuts

150g butter

150g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

3 free range eggs

50g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

8 peaches and blood plums cut into quarters or eighths slices

A handful of raspberries (about 10-12)

Drizzle icing

1 tablespoon of lemon juice or rosewater

Icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C fan forced, 180 degrees C non fan forced. Grease a 23cm springform tin.

Put the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan and toast over a medium heat until just brown. Blitz half in a food processor until fine crumbs. Blitz the other half so that they are still quite chunky. Remove from the food processor. There’s no need to wash it – just use again for the cake batter.

Beat butter and sugar in the food processor until pale and well creamed. Add vanilla paste.

Add the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour at the same time with each egg. Mix in the food processor until each egg is incorporated. Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients by pulsing carefully. Some of the nuts will still be quite chunky which will give texture to your cake.

Spread the cake batter in the tin, smoothing the top with a spatula.

Arrange the peach and plum pieces in a circular pattern in the batter, pushing the pieces right into the mixture. Place the whole raspberries in between the stone fruit, just on top of the cake.

Bake for 35 – 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. If the cake is browning too quickly, cover the top with foil to prevent burning. When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Carefully remove from the base of the springform tin, removing the baking paper.

You can serve as is, or with a dusting of icing sugar, or a lemon or rosewater drizzle icing.

To make a drizzle icing, mix a tablespoon of lemon juice or a tablespoon of rosewater with enough icing sugar to make a drippable drizzle! Drizzle over the cake using a fork.

Serve on its own or with cream or ice cream.

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Posted in Cakes, Dessert, Sweet Food and tagged afternoon tea, hazelnuts, one bowl cake, Peaches, plums, raspberries, stone fruit. Bookmark the permalink.

White Nectarine, Ginger and Hazelnut Upside Down Cake

Posted on January 16, 2022 by The quirk and the cool

I love this cake as it’s so easy to make. It’s yet another cake based on stone fruit and a kind of frangipane mix, this time using ground hazelnuts.

You can make it with apricots, peaches and plums. And as it’s an upside down cake you get to see the lovely fruit on top of the cake!

Oh, and it’s all done in the food processor. Labour non intensive!

Ingredients

150g butter

150g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

3 free range eggs

100g plain flour

100g hazelnut meal

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground ginger

4 white nectarines, cut into thin slices

1 tablespoon of stem ginger pieces, sliced thinly (5-6 pieces)

3 teaspoons demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C fan forced, 180 degrees C non fan forced. Grease a 22 cm springform tin.

Beat butter and sugar in a food processor until pale and well creamed. Add vanilla paste.

Add the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour, hazelnut meal, baking powder and ground ginger mix at the same time with each egg. Mix in the food processor until each egg is incorporated. Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients by pulsing carefully.

Arrange the nectarine slices in the springform tin in a circular pattern, slightly overlapping. Place the ginger slices in between the nectarine slices. Spread over the cake batter, smoothing the top with a spatula. Sprinkle the mixture with the demerara sugar.

Carefully invert the cake onto a plate to serve.

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Posted in Cakes, Dessert, Lunch, Sweet Food and tagged afternoon tea, frangipane, hazelnut, morning tea, nectarines, stone fruit, summer fruit. Bookmark the permalink.

Blueberry Oat Scones

Posted on January 6, 2022 by The quirk and the cool

I’m a big fan of Claire Ptak and her bakery in London. It was a delight to visit last time I was able to travel to the UK, pre Covid! I love her book “The Violet Bakery Cookbook”, and some of the recipes in it have inspired this one.

These tasty morsels are a cross between scones and biscuits. They are quite dense, with ground rolled oats and blueberries.

The mixture is very crumbly and will be difficult to bring together into a dough, particularly with the frozen blueberries. But don’t worry, just pat the mixture into shape and by resting it, you can cut the rounds from the mixture.

Here’s my recipe. This makes 12 smallish scones. You could double the quantities for larger, more substantial scones.

Ingredients
100g rolled oats
150g plain flour
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
50g raw sugar or brown sugar
Zest of half an orange
125g cold unsalted butter cut into 1 cm chunks
150g creme fraiche
125g frozen blueberries

Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C fan forced. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Blitz the rolled oats in a food processor until finely ground. Mix all the dry ingredients plus the orange zest in a bowl or in a food processor. Cut in the cold butter by hand until the mixture resembles large breadcrumbs, or you can continue to use a food processor on pulse, but be careful not to overwork the dough.

Quickly stir in the creme fraiche until just mixed in. Stir in the frozen blueberries.

Turn the mixture out onto a floured board, and pat into a square about 3 or 4cms thick. Rest for 5 minutes at least, even 10 minutes.

Using a 6cm cutter, cut out rounds and place onto the baking sheet. You will probably get 8 or 9 from the dough, then you will need to gather up the remains of the dough and pat together (don’t re-roll) before cutting out the last few rounds.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the rounds are brown on top. You could check after 20 minutes to see how they are coming along. Take out of the oven and wait until the oat scones are cool before serving.

Serve on their own – they are sweet enough – or with homemade berry jam and Greek yoghurt.

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Posted in Biscuits and Slices, Bread, Breakfast, Healthy, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged afternoon tea, biscuits, blueberries, Claire Ptak, healthy, morning tea, oats, scones, Violet Bakery. Bookmark the permalink.

Orange Zest Shortbread

Posted on January 2, 2022 by The quirk and the cool

I made this shortbread for New Year’s Day yesterday. I think shortbread is one of the best things to come out of Scotland, not forgetting whisky!

It’s based on a Jamie Oliver recipe for chocolate orange shortbread, original recipe here. I left out the chocolate for simplicity’s sake, but by all means add this in. I think the orange is the star of this recipe!

It’s super simple. I made it in the food processor. After baking just leave in the tin before cutting into fingers.

Great for New Year – but don’t wait till then – a very nice tea time or coffee time treat any time of the year!

Ingredients

150g butter at room temperature

200g plain flour

50g golden caster sugar or raw sugar, plus extra to sprinkle

Zest of an orange

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease a 20cm square baking tin and line with baking paper.

Put the butter, flour, sugar and the finely grated zest of half the orange into the bowl of a food processor.

Gently pulse the ingredients until they just come together- don’t overmix.

Tip the mixture into the lined baking tin. With your hands pat the dough into the tin, being careful not to knead it. You will end up with a layer about 1cm thick. Don’t worry if it’s looks a bit messy, it will look fine after baking.

Prick the dough all over with a fork.

Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.

Take out of the oven, and leaving in the tin, mark fingers using a sharp knife. There’s no need to cut through – it’s just to help cut the fingers once the shortbread is cold.

Sprinkle over a little more sugar, and grate over the zest of the other half of the orange.

Leave to cool completely, and then cut the shortbread into fingers along the marked lines.

Remove the fingers from the tin.

The shortbread will keep well in an airtight tin for a few days!

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Posted in Biscuits and Slices, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged afternoon tea, biscuits, Jamie Oliver, morning tea, Scottish, traditional. Bookmark the permalink.

Speculaas Biscuits

Posted on December 16, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

St Ncholas Day was 6 December – so I’m a little late in posting this recipe for these delicious spicy biscuits, traditionally made for that day. But they are also eaten anytime during the Christmas season.

They are so fragrant with Christmas spice, and they make perfect edible gifts. Making them really puts you in the Christmas mood too!

This recipe is based on one I found from the brilliant people at SBS television here in Australia. You really need to stamp designs on them, and I have a couple of heavy duty Nordic ware stamps. I also have a fabulous maamoul mold, a traditional Middle Eastern pastry and biscuit mold. You put biscuit dough inside the maamoul, then turn the dough out with a lovely imprint.

But you could just as easily use any biscuit cutters.

The recipe called for a mixture of Christmas spices but I used a St Nicholas Spekulaas spice mix from Gewürzhaus Spice House in Sydney. I have included the ingredients for the individual spices as well as the pre-prepared mix.

Ingredients

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

150g firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, ginger and cardamom

(Or 1 tablespoon St Nicholas Spekulaas spice mix)

1/4 teaspoon salt

150g cold butter

Method

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, spices, salt and butter in a food processor and whiz until you have a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs.

Add a tablespoon of iced water and pulse until mixture just comes together. Do this carefully – don’t overmix!

The dough will be quite loose. Turn it out onto a board or bench top and bring together into a large ball. Wrap the ball in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the dough and make it easier to work with.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll the dough out – don’t go too thin or it will be hard to cut – and use any kind of biscuit cutter to stamp out shapes. Or if you have biscuit stamps or a maamoul mold use those!

Place the biscuits on the baking trays. Roll out any scraps of dough again and stamp out more shapes. Refrigerate the trays for 20 minutes to help the biscuits keep their shape.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. These biscuits are quite soft in the middle so they won’t bake hard.

Once cool enough to handle, remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Store biscuits in an airtight container for a week, or you can freeze the biscuits too!

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Posted in Biscuits and Slices, Small Baked Things, Sweet Food and tagged Christmas, cookies, festive, season, speculaas, spices, St Nicholas, traditional. Bookmark the permalink.

Yoghurt Rosewater Cake

Posted on December 3, 2021 by The quirk and the cool

This is my absolute go-to cake when I’m looking for something special and really easy!

I’ve posted versions of it twice before – but I was so pleased with this latest incarnation that I just had to write about it again.

I’ve simplified the cake through many bakes, and this latest version doesn’t t even need icing!

Give it a go if you’re looking for a cake that is fragrant, moist, with a delicate crumb, cuts well, keeps well and eats spectacularly!

Ingredients
250ml canola or vegetable oil
330g caster sugar
2 free-range eggs
280g Greek yoghurt
300g self-raising flour, sifted
2 tablespoons rosewater

To serve – icing sugar and fresh or dried rose petals, whipped cream and Greek yoghurt

Method
Preheat oven to 170 degrees C fan forced. Grease and flour a large Bundt mould or a 22cm cake tin.

Place the oil, caster sugar and eggs in the bowl of a food processor. Process until well combined. Pulse in the yoghurt, followed by the flour. Stir in the rosewater.

Pour the mixture into the bundt mould or the regular cake tin.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Just make sure you keep checking with a skewer for “doneness” after 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and cool for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To serve, sieve over some icing sugar, about a couple of tablespoons, and fill the centre with a few tablespoons of whipped cream and Greek yoghurt – or all cream, or all yoghurt. Your choice!

You can ice this cake, as I have done in previous versions, but it’s so elegant and pretty baked in a Bundt mould, it doesn’t really need it!

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Posted in Cakes, Dessert, Sweet Food and tagged afternoon tea, Middle Eastern, morning tea, oil, one bowl, rosewater, yoghurt. Bookmark the permalink.