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Category Archives: Sweet Food

Cinnamon Poppy Seed Babkas

These pastries are delicious and are filled with cinnamon butter and poppy seeds, raisins and lemon zest. The dough is a simple enriched dough, made surprisingly with plain flour rather than strong flour. This gives the babkas a soft texture and they’re very easy to eat! These babkas are based on a recipe I learnt at a wonderful workshop run by Burnt Honey Bakery, in Copacabana on the central coast of NSW, here made with my own variations.

Instant yeast is used, and in this instance, if you can get hold of Le Saffre Instant Dried Yeast, all the better. It’s perfect for rising enriched doughs. If you can’t get hold of the brand, use standard instant yeast and increase the amount by 50%.

Ingredients

275g milk (room temperature)
1 free-range egg (room temperature)
9g instant yeast (use Le Saffre if possible)
510g plain flour
90g caster sugar
9g salt
80g unsalted butter in small pieces (softened)

Cinnamon filling

65g brown sugar
25g ground cinnamon
110g unsalted butter at room temperature

Poppy seed filling

50g raisins, chopped
20g poppy seeds
15g milk
50g caster sugar
Zest of half a lemon

Glaze

50g caster sugar
25g water
10g poppy seeds

Method

For the dough, mix the milk and egg together and whisk in the yeast. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Scatter the butter pieces through the dough. Add the milk, egg and yeast mixture. Turn the mixer onto low and mix to combine the ingredients. Continue to mix on low until everything is incorporated and the mixture looks like a dough. Increase the speed to medium and mix for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes check to see if the dough windowpanes. The dough should be lovely and stretchy, and pass the windowpane test if you pull and stretch a small section – it should be translucent.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or my favourite, a plastic shower cap, and leave to prove for 1-2 hours until doubled in size. Press the dough down, and then place the bowl in the fridge for 2 hours. The dough will develop some more plus firm up to help with the next stage of shaping.

Meanwhile make the fillings and glaze. For the cinnamon filling, beat the ingredients until smooth and creamy. For the poppy seed filling, blitz the raisins in a food processor, then add the other ingredients and blitz briefly until combined. To make the glaze, dissolve the sugar in the water in a saucepan over a medium heat, bring to the boil then remove from the heat and set aside.

Remove the dough from the fridge and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 10 pieces. Gently roll each piece into a rectangle. Spread each rectangle with some cinnamon filling, spreading to the edges. Place 2 or 3 dabs of poppy seed filling on the rectangle too. You don’t need very much as it’s quite strong.

Roll up each rectangle along the long side. Starting at one end, cut right down the middle longways, leaving a couple of centimetres at the top. Twist each strip together, and fold the ends together in a loose knot.

Place each babka on a baking tray lined with baking paper. You will need 2 trays. Cover each tray with a large plastic bag and place the trays in the fridge overnight or for several hours.

2 hours before baking, remove the babkas from the fridge to come to room temperature and for the final prove. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C fan. Place the trays in the oven and bake for 15 minutes until a burnished brown.

Remove from the oven and brush each babka with the sugar syrup, sprinkling with some poppy seeds.

Serve warm or at room temperature – these babkas are definitely best eaten on the day they’re made!

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German Potato Coffee Cake

Here’s a cake that’s made with potato – and it’s easy and delicious! It’s heritage is German, and it’s called a coffee cake as it’s traditionally served with morning or afternoon coffee.

This recipe is blast from the past – I found it in my original hand written cookery journal. “Tracy” a friend from those days, and a fine cook, had passed on the recipe.

I made it again this week, when asked to provide some potato recipes for the program for the play The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race.

It seemed a good enough reason to revive an unusual and favourite recipe from the past!

INGREDIENTS

2 medium potatoes
¾ cup sugar
1 cup sultanas
¼ cup chopped mixed peel
1 ½ cups full fat milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 cups self raising flour

TOPPING

1/2 cup sugar
½ cup self raising flour, sifted 
4 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons cinnamon

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C or 160 degrees C fan. Grease a 22cm springform pan and line the base with baking paper.

Peel the potatoes and put into a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain and mash well without any butter or milk. 

Add the sugar and beat well. Add the sultanas, mixed peel, milk and lemon juice and mix well. Fold in the sifted flour and spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.

To make the topping, rub the butter into the combined dry ingredients,

Crumble the topping over the cake, Bake for 45 – 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. The cake can be quite moist so may need that extra time. Keep checking after 45 minutes.

When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Remove the sides of the springform pan. Carefully remove from the base of the springform pan, peeling off the baking paper.

Serve on its own or with a little cream!

ANZAC Biscuits 2023

ANZAC Day is Tuesday 25 April. It’s time to get baking!

I’ve baked a few versions of the famous biscuit over the years, but since I discovered the “real deal”, the authentic recipe researched by The Cook and the Curator, the wonderful blog of Museums of History New South Wales, I haven’t looked back!

So here’s the recipe. Make these ANZAC bikkies and you will not only get the real thing, they will be utterly delicious!

I add golden syrup, as I love the toffee flavour it imparts. Most recipes do include golden syrup.

Somewhere I read in a recipe that browning the butter after melting it gives a greater depth of flavour. It really does! To compensate for the fact that you lose a little bit of the butter by browning it, I have added another 15g of butter to the recipe.

The Cook and the Curator note that coconut is an optional ingredient and it wasn’t added till the 1930s. By all means add some to to your biscuits, but personally I’m not a fan.

It really is a straightforward ANZAC biscuit recipe – very easy to put together and quick to bake.

Here is the link to the original recipe from The Cook and the Curator if you would like to know more.

Ingredients

165g salted butter

180g rolled oats

120g plain flour

125g brown sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

Method

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper. 

Place the butter in a small saucepan and heat until melted. Once the butter is melted, cook for about 3-4 minutes, swirling the pan often. The butter will foam and turn a golden brown. Remove from the heat and put into a bowl to cool slightly.

Mix the rolled oats, flour and sugar in a large bowl. 

Combine the melted butter and golden syrup in the same saucepan. Add the bicarbonate of soda and boiling water and whisk to combine. Remove from heat.

Add the butter/golden syrup mixture and stir until well combined. 

Take tablespoons of mixture and make into balls. Place the balls onto the baking trays, allowing space for spreading. Don’t flatten the balls!

Bake for 15 minutes or until biscuits are dark golden brown. Remove the biscuits from the oven and cool on the trays. The biscuits will firm up as they cool. Now remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store in an airtight tin. They keep well for a few days.

Red Apple Galette

This is simple apple tart I baked and blogged a while back. Recently I picked up some beautiful red apples from my local Orange Grove Markets. And as autumn is just showing its muted colours and the days are a little cooler, I rustled up another similar galette.

Made with yoghurt pastry (a variant on sour cream pastry) and with a pile of red apple slices, sugar and theme sprigs, this galette is a simple, rustic bake.

Ingredients

3 red apples, whatever you fancy. Crisp apples like Pink Lady are excellent
Lemon juice
1 free-range egg yolk, beaten, for glazing
Several sprigs of lemon thyme
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 free-range egg white, lightly beaten

Pastry
200g butter chilled
250g plain flour
125g Greek yoghurt

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan-forced. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Cut the butter into cubes and pulse with the flour in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Spoon in the yoghurt and continue to pulse in bursts until the mixture comes together into a ball.

Wrap the dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Core and slice the apples thinly, and place the slices into the lemon juice to stop them going brown.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out between two pieces of baking paper so that it is about 2cm thick, rolling into a rough circle. Remove the top layer of baking paper and carefully transfer the pastry to your lined baking tray, by turning the pastry over and removing the bottom sheet. 

Shape the round to neaten it if needed, and turn the outer edge up about 2cm in to make the sides of the galette.

Drain the apples slices and place in any artistic way you like on the tart.

Brush the 2cm edge of the galette with as much of the beaten egg as you need. Scatter some of the thyme sprigs over the galette and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar.

Place the galette in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. The galette should be golden brown around the edges.

Once out of the oven, leave to cool. To make the crystallised thyme sprigs, dip some more thyme sprigs in the beaten egg white, then dip in the remaining tablespoon of caster sugar. Leave to dry on a piece of baking paper.

Serve with the thyme sprigs scattered over, or add a dollop of cream or more Greek yoghurt.

Left Over Easter Egg Rocky Road

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It’s after Easter – and here’s a great way to use up all those uneaten chocolate eggs, if indeed there is still chocolate that’s uneaten at your place!

Left Over Easter Egg Rocky Road, or just simply Easter Rocky Road, is perfect to make after Easter and will keep, broken into big pieces, in an airtight jar or tin for a few weeks. Delicious!

My Easter Rocky Road is pretty simple – you can add pretty much what you feel like at the time.

Easter Rocky Road

Melt a 200g block of dark chocolate and a 200g block + half a block of white chocolate. Pour into a tin lined with foil, dark on one side and white on the other. Leave a little of each chocolate for splattering.

Using a skewer, run some pink food colourin through the white chocolate.

Place as many as you like of the following in the melted chocolate – pink and white marshmallows, Smarties or M and Ms, mini Easter eggs.

I scattered some freeze-dried raspberry powder over the Rocky Road too.

Splatter or drizzle the left-over dark chocolate on the white side and the white chocolate on the dark side.

That’s about it! Have fun and be creative!

Hot Cross Bickies

Another recipe from the Easter vault! A quick cookie/bickie that you can make in a lot less time than it takes to make hot cross buns. But maybe make these as well! This is a good recipe to make with kids too. The recipe is based on one from Donna Hay, with some tweaks.

Ingredients

125g softened butter
175g brown sugar
2 free-range eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
2 teaspoons lemon zest
375 self raising flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
80ml milk
80g sultanas
160g icing sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line 2 baking trays with baking tray.
Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor. Add the eggs and vanilla, making sure the eggs are well incorporated.
Add the lemon zest, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk and sultanas to the food processor and mix in. Be careful not to over mix in case you break up the sultanas.
Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes or until firm. Roll tablespoons of the mixtures into balls and place on the baking trays.
Bake between 10-15 minutes, depending on the hotness of your oven, until the cookies are pale brown. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking trays.
To make the icing, place the icing sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and mix to a paste. Place the icing mixture in a piping bag and pipe a cross on each cookie. You don’t have to be too precise, the flavour of the cookies is more important than a beautifully executed item! Or that’s what I think anyway.

Boozy Fruity Hot Cross Buns

These 2023 hot cross buns are an upgraded version of a previous 2021 recipe. I’m always keen to make the perfect hot cross bun, and I’m pretty happy with this version!

These buns are made with a sourdough starter and dry yeast. You could make this recipe without the sourdough starter – just add more dry yeast as suggested in the ingredients list.

They have a lot of fruit which has been soaked in Pedro Ximinez sherry, although any port or muscat would do. They also have puréed orange and candied orange for a real orange hit!

Ingredients 

Buns

300g mix of sultanas and raisins

40mls Pedro Ximinez or port or muscat

1 whole orange

625g strong flour

7g dried yeast (use 10g if not including starter)

12g salt

125g sourdough starter

Zest of 1/2 a lemon

I teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice

1/2 teaspoon each of ground ginger and cloves

50g brown sugar

30g golden syrup

2 medium free-range eggs, well beaten

60g unsalted butter, in small pieces

200g full fat milk at room temperature

150g apple juice

50g candied orange peel

Cross

50g flour

25g water

Extra free-range egg, for brushing

Glaze

50g caster sugar

50g golden syrup

100g water

Method

Soak the raisins and sultanas in the Pedro Ximinez or port or muscat for up to 3 hours to plump up the fruit.

Put the orange into a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for up to an hour until the orange is soft.

Let the orange cool, then cut in half and remove the pips. Purée the orange in a food processor. Measure 70g for the dough, and reserve the rest for another batch of dough. It freezes well.

Starting with the flour, add all the other ingredients (except dried fruit and candied orange peel) to a large bowl. Just make sure the yeast is on one side of the bowl and salt on the other.

Mix everything roughly together using a wooden spoon, just to amalgamate the ingredients. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.

Using the dough hook of an electric mixer, knead on low speed for 10 -15 minutes until the dough is soft, shiny and passes the windowpane test. This dough is initially quite wet, so it will take 10 minutes or more kneading to bring it to that lovely elastic consistency you are looking for.

Add the sultanas, raisins and any residual alcohol that hasn’t soaked into the fruit, and the candied orange peel. Mix for about a minute on low to distribute the fruit evenly through the dough.

Remove the bowl from the machine and cover with a plastic bag or tea towel. Leave to prove in a warm place for 2 hours.

The dough should have doubled in size. Carefully remove the risen dough from the bowl and place on a board or bench top which has been lightly floured. Putting a little more flour on your hands to stop the dough from sticking, flatten the dough to a rough rectangle, and fold in half lengthways. Cut in two and roll each half into a sausage.

You should get 16 large hot cross buns from the mixture. Take one sausage and divide into two, then divide each into 4 pieces.

To shape your buns, take one piece and roll into a ball, and with your cupped hand over the top of the ball, keep rolling on the board or bench top till you feel the dough tightening and developing a nice ball shape.

Repeat with remaining balls. Do the same thing with the other sausage.

Place the 16 balls – now buns – onto a large baking tray lined with baking paper.

Cover with a large plastic bag or a tea towel and leave to prove again. I prove this second time in the fridge overnight. You can also prove at room temperature for an hour or more until the buns have grown a little in size. (They don’t get huge – this happens in the oven.)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C fan forced or 190 degrees C non fan for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the crosses. Mix the flour and water together to make a dough. Place the dough on a clean surface dusted with flour and roll into a sausage about 1cm thick. Cut the sausage in half, and cut each half into 8 pieces. Roll out each piece again to make 2 thin strips. You should have 32 strips in total. Brush the risen buns with the beaten egg and lay the dough strips on top in the shape of a cross. Brush the crosses with egg too.

Put the tray into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the buns are a deep golden brown.

While the buns are baking, make the glaze. Put the caster sugar, golden syrup and water into a small saucepan and heat gently on the stovetop stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Simmer for 2 or 3 minutes until the glaze has thickened slightly.

Once the buns are cooked, remove from the oven. Brush the warm syrup over the warm buns, making sure you brush the sides as well.

These buns are best eaten on the day, preferably while warm, with lots of good quality butter.

The next day, split and toast and serve with, of course, more butter!

Hot cross buns freeze well too, so make a pile that you can store in the freezer and reheat as necessary.

NB Reheat in the oven, the buns don’t do well in the microwave.

Jamie Oliver and Paul Hollywood Hot Cross Buns

Every year I try different hot cross bun recipes or tweak my own versions. So here are links to recipes from the masters Jamie Oliver and Paul Hollywood.

These recipes make great buns or use them to give you inspiration to develop your own.

I have shown photos of each, with a link to my recipes in previous posts.

Making your own hot cross buns is fun, seasonal and very satisfying!

No 1. Jamie Oliver Hot Cross Buns from the Jamie Oliver website
https://thequirkandthecool.com/2016/03/26/hot-cross-buns-jamie-oliver-inspired/

No 2. Jamie Oliver Hot Cross Buns from Jamie Magazine
https://thequirkandthecool.com/2014/04/13/jamie-olivers-hot-cross-buns/

No 3. Paul Hollywood’s book “How to Bake” and it’s on his website too.
https://thequirkandthecool.com/2015/04/03/paul-hollywoods-hot-cross-buns/

Chocolate Easter Tart

Easter is coming up so here’s a delicious chocolate tart to serve on Easter Sunday – if you haven’t already had enough chocolate in the form of Easter eggs!

It has a rich dark biscuit pastry chocolate shell, filled with dark and milk chocolate. Chocolate three ways!

You need to serve this tart with fresh fruit and plenty of whipped cream or Greek yoghurt to cut through all that rich chocolate.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

175g unsalted butter
75g icing sugar
2  free-range egg yolks
200g plain flour
50g dutch cocoa

For the filling:

150g milk chocolate
150g dark chocolate
400ml cream
2 free range eggs +1 egg yolk lightly beaten

To decorate:

Strawberries, dark chocolate, fresh figs, or any other fresh fruit of your choosing. Grapes would be nice too.

Method

I make this pastry recipe in the food processor, but you could do it in an electric mixer or by hand. I use the food processor because it’s easy.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan forced.

Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a food processor. Add the eggs and yolk and mix thoroughly. Sift the flour and cocoa. Have 25ml of cold water ready. Add a little of the water and all of the flour/cocoa mix and pulse using the processor, stopping every now and then to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add as much of the water as you need so that the pastry comes together into a ball. Remove from the processor, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out the pastry on a surface dusted with flour  until about 5mm thick. This pastry is quite soft and delicate, be gentle, and you may need a little extra flour for rolling out. Line a 18cm or 20cm loose-bottomed tin with a circle of baking paper. The smaller tin gives you a slightly higher filling, the bigger a flatter tart.

Carefully line the tin with the pastry. Have a bit of overhang of pastry at the top – you can trim this after baking. Chill for 30 minutes. Line the pastry case with more baking paper and baking beans or rice and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and the beans and return the pastry case to the oven for 5 minutes until golden. Leave to cool in the tin, then trim any pastry edges.

To make the filling, place both kinds of chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. Put the cream in a saucepan on the stovetop and gently bring to a simmer. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Leave for a few minutes while the chocolate melts, then stir to make sure the chocolate and cream is combined.  Stir through the lightly beaten eggs, then pour the mixture into the tart shell.

Put into the oven, turn the temperature down to 140 degrees C fan forced. Bake for 1 hour or until the filling is just set and wobbles in the middle if you gently move the tin. You may need to cook a little less or more to get that set with a “wobble”.

Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin. Place in the fridge and chill for at least an hour, overnight is good. Bring the tart to room temperature before serving.

Simnel Cake 2023

Simnel cake is traditionally made for Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent.

I’ve been very interested in the Simnel cake, what it’s made of and its history. It’s a light fruitcake with two layers of marzipan, one layer baked in the centre of the cake, and one layer placed on top of the cake. The cake is adorned with eleven balls of marzipan, representing Jesus’ Apostles, minus Judas Iscariot. This last reference reminds us that this is an Easter cake, and can also be eaten during the Easter period and on Easter Day.

My version is baked in a slightly bigger tin than most recipes specify. I wanted a cake with a bigger diameter to serve more people. I went with blow torching the marzipan on the cake rather then putting it under a grill, as this was so much easier and you can control the heat source.

This year I made my usual recipe. It’s rich with marzipan, a good layer in the centre and plenty to decorate the cake. Instead of the traditional yellow ribbon to decorate, I went with red. And I added some green glacé cherries for the middle of the cake – eleven of course!

Ingredients

Marzipan

335 icing sugar

260g caster sugar

525g ground almonds

3 large free-range eggs

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons apricot jam (to stick the marzipan onto the cake)

Fruit cake

Juice and zest of an orange

Juice and zest of a lemon

500g sultanas, raisins and currants, in any mix you prefer

150g glacé cherries

225g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, allspice – any or all of these are fine, use what you prefer

3 large free-range eggs

175g soft butter

175g brown sugar

Method

Make the marzipan first, as this needs to rest for an hour or so before it goes into the cake.

Sift the icing sugar and caster sugar into a large bowl, and then mix through the ground almonds.

Beat the eggs with the almond extract and lemon juice in a separate bowl. Stir into the dry ingredients with a large spoon or spatula to make a rough dough. Use your hands to continue to turn the mixture into a dough that is able to be rolled out.

Put some icing sugar onto a work surface – bench top or ideally a large wooden board. Knead the marzipan for a couple of minutes until it’s a smooth dough.

Put the marzipan dough into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave for at least an hour, preferably two, to allow the ground almonds to swell and absorb some of the moisture from the eggs.

For the cake, put the orange and the lemon juice in a small saucepan and add the dried fruit and cherries. Bring to a simmer over a medium heat and heat for two minutes, stirring until the liquid disappears. Be careful not to burn the fruit by cooking it dry. Remove from the heat and leave to completely cool. Putting the fruit into a bowl and sticking it in the fridge can speed things up if you’re short on time.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C non fan forced, or 140 degrees fan forced.

Grease a 22cm spring form pan and line the base with two layers of baking paper.

Put the flour and spices in a large bowl. Whisk the eggs in a smaller bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer such as a KitchenAid until light and fluffy and well mixed. Make sure all the mixture, even at the bottom of the bowl, is well incorporated.

Add the whisked eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. To stop the mixture curdling – this can easily happen when adding eggs to butter and sugar – mix in a tablespoon of flour after each egg addition.

Gently fold in the flour to the rest of the mixture by hand. Stir in the dried fruit and the orange and lemon zest. Spoon half of the mixture into the springform tin, trying to get a smooth surface.

Working with marzipan. Divide the marzipan into three equal balls. Weighing them is probably the best way to do this. Wrap two of the balls in plastic wrap to prevent them drying out.

Place a large length of baking paper on your work surface and dust with icing sugar. Put the remaining ball ono the baking paper and cover with another length. Roll the ball into a circle that’s bigger than the springform tin. You can check this by putting the cake tin on top of the rolled marzipan and making sure the marzipan is 1-2 cms bigger than the tin.

Now peel the top layer of baking paper off the marzipan and put the marzipan circle carefully on top of the cake mixture in the tin, then peel off the remaining baking paper.

Put the rest of the cake mixture on top of the marzipan and smooth the surface.

Place the springform tin into the preheated oven and bake for about approximately 1 hour 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden-brown, and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. If the cake is browning quickly but is obviously not cooked, cover the top with some aluminium foil.

Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Then remove from the tin, peel off the lining paper, put the cake on a wire rack and leave to completely cool.

Marzipan topping. This cake is best decorated using the bottom of the cake as its flatter. Turn the cake upside down and put onto a plate or board to allow you to decorate.

Place a length of baking paper onto the work surface with more icing sugar. Put one of the marzipan balls onto the paper and cover with another piece of baking paper. As before, roll the ball into a circle that’s bigger than the springform tin. You can check this by putting the cake tin on top of the rolled marzipan and making sure the marzipan is 1-2 cms bigger than the tin.

Heat the apricot jam in a microwave on low, or in a small saucepan on low heat for a couple of minutes.

Brush the surface of the cake with the warm jam and cover with the marzipan circle. The circle should just hang over the edge of the cake. Press the marzipan gently onto the cake, easing out any lumps. You can neaten up any overhang that’s too long with a sharp knife.

Now take the remaining marzipan and roll it into eleven balls to represent the Apostles. Weigh the balls to make them uniform – 20g for small balls or 25g for bigger ones. In either case you will have marzipan left over – always welcome as a sweet treat.

Dip each ball into the warmed apricot jam. Position them round the outside of the cake.

Now for the fun part – get out your cook’s blowtorch and lightly scorch the marzipan topping and balls! Be careful not to overdo it. If you haven’t got a blowtorch, put the cake under the grill for a couple of minutes until scorched but not burnt.

Place the cake onto a serving plate or board. Put a yellow ribbon – traditional – around the cake. I went for a green ribbon, with its associations of the renewal of life, appropriate for the Easter season.

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