Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Honey and Apricot Scones

Our theme for September 2012 was "Five-a-Day", or fruit and veg. The rule this month was simple - anything you baked had to contain at least one item from the fruit or vegetable family.

I had previously entered my Champagne Victoria Sponge recipe into a competition run by Natural Selection Foods and won a whole bunch of their dried fruits, so I wanted to use some in my baking for fruit and veg month. I chose the apricots as they were lovely and sweet, and really complemented the honey in this recipe.

225g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

50g butter or margarine

50g chopped apricots

2tbsp clear “runny” honey

100ml buttermilk

Beaten egg, to glaze

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 15-20 minutes

Makes 12 small scones

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Tip the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the chopped apricot, honey and buttermilk to the mixture and stir with a spoon until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for a few minutes, until the dough is soft and smooth.
4. Roll the dough out to around an inch thick, cut out small scones using a round cutter, then place these on the prepared baking tray, leaving a space between each. Brush with the beaten egg to glaze, then bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool – although scones are always best eaten slightly warm!
6. Eat as they are, or serve with jam and cream.

Happy Thoughts
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Oh, Pooh!

Disney bakes are back! Yay!! I had said I'd keep my Disney and Pixar baking collections up-to-date with each new release, so here we are with Winnie the Pooh. :-) Ok, ok, I know that this isn't exactly a new release - but when it was released I didn't realise it was in the Classics collection so I missed it *hangs head in shame*

At any-rate, I would like to get up-to-date with the Disney and Pixar movies, so Wreck it Ralph will follow shortly, followed by Monster's University (which is out next week!) and Frozen later in the year.  Exciting!

As with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, this bake could only ever be based on one thing: hunny (honey!) I baked a big honey cake for The Many Adventures, so this time I wanted to do something a little different: honey buns! The basis for this recipe was Paul Hollywood's Chelsea Buns, but I dechelseafied them and then honeyfied them to make them more suitable for our silly old bear. These buns are super sweet, sticky, and delicious!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

300ml milk

40g butter

1 tbsp runny honey

500g plain white flour

1 tsp salt

7g dried yeast

1 medium egg

For the filling:

3 tbsp honey

1tbsp cinnamon

For the topping:
100g icing sugar
2-3 tsps water

Prep time: 30 minutes (plus an hour and a half proving time)

Cook time: 25 minutes

Makes 9 buns

1. Pop the milk, butter and honey in a jug and microwave in 10 second bursts until the butter has melted. Leave to one side to cool down to a lukewarm temperature.
2.  Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl, then make a well in the centre and tip in the yeast. (This stops the salt from killing the yeast, don’t you know!)
3. Pour the lukewarm honey milk into the well created in the flour. Add the egg and then stir with a fork until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
4. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. You’re done when the dough is “smooth and elastic” (according to Mr Hollywood ;-) ) Pop the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for one hour.
5.  After the hours proving, the dough should have doubled in size. Tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out into an A4 sized rectangle.
6. Prepare the “filling” by mixing the honey and cinnamon together. Brush 2/3rds of this over your dough, leaving plenty of space around the edges as the honey is probably going to ooze out at the next step!
7. Carefully roll your dough up, swiss roll style, trying not to lose too much of that yummy cinnamon honey! Cut the roll into 9 slices.
8. Grease a baking tray and place the buns, cut side up into the tray, leaving no more than 2cm gap between each (Paul says we want them to bake together so that we get a lovely soft edge!) Leave these to rise for another 30 minutes whilst you preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190.
9. Once risen and rested, pop them in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and smelling lovely. If after 15 minutes the buns start to look a little too brown, just pop a bit of foil over them and let them continue to bake.
10. Remove the buns from the oven, and brush with the remaining cinnamon honey. Mix the icing sugar and water together to make a slightlyrunny icing, and drizzle this over the buns.
11. Allow them to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack, or a serving plate, if you can’t resist. These babies are best eaten warm!

Happy Thoughts

x

Quick Fix Pineapple Upside-Down Pudding

This is the third "quick-fix" pudding I'm posting, and it's likely not to be the last! I had a bit of pineapple that needed using up, and a big craving for some pudding, so decided to experiment with the Quick Fix Chocolate Pudding recipe to make a different variation.

Not the most photogenic pud, but extremely tasty!

The findings of this experiment - that it's incredibly dangerous to know how to make something so tasty in less than 10 minutes!! I think I actually prefer this one to the chocolate version.

A note on cooking times: I'm afraid that as this is a microwave pud, and as all microwaves are different you may find that puddings take a little more or a little less time to cook in your microwave. You'll know it ready because it will come away from the sides of the bowl slights and will be set but still sticky to touch.

Ingredients:
Butter, for greasing.
3 tbsp runny honey (even better if it's in a squeezy bottle!)
8 - 10 chunks of pineapple
50g margarine
50g soft light brown sugar
1 medium egg
50g self-raising flour
2tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 3 minutes
Serves: 4

1. Grease a microwavable pyrex bowl, then drizzle the honey around the sides and the bottom. Cut the pineapple into bite-sized pieces, then place these into the bottom of the bowl.
2. In another bowl, add the margarine, sugar, egg, flour and milk and vanilla extract and beat together until combined into a smooth, slightly runny batter.
3. Carefully pour the pudding batter over the pineapple and honey, then put in the microwave on a medium heat for 3 minutes. Allow to rest for at least a minute until turning out onto a serving plate.
4. Best served when still warm, with a little vanilla ice-cream! Hope you like it :-)

Happy Thoughts
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Rumbly Tumbly

Disney Classic # 22 - The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Well, it really didn't take me too long to come up with a cake for Winnie the Pooh - there was no way I could get away with NOT using honey as the main ingredient, so it was decided fairly early on that I'd be making a honey cake. And since we watched this movie on a cold November evening, I decided to make it a warm honey cake.

Pooh Bear approves of warm honey cake.

I used a recipe from my trusted BBC Good Food 101 Cakes and Bakes recipe book, (Devonshire Honey Cake, pg 12). I use this recipe book quite a lot, quite simply because I love it! I've not (yet) tried every recipe in the book, but I've never been disappointed with the recipes I have tried, and more often then not am surprised at how well the recipes turn out. Sure, I expect them to be tasty, but mostly they exceed expectations!

Anyways, I decided to serve the cake warm from the oven, as it was a rather chilly evening, and I also decided to use a honey syrup to top the cake, rather than just to glaze it with honey as the recipe suggests.


Prep time: 30 mins        Cook time: 1 hour      Serves: 8-10

Ingredients:
275g clear honey
250g butter (slightly salted)
110g dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
300g self-raising flour

1. Cut the butter into pieces and place in a non-stick pan with the honey and the sugar. Melt slowly over a very low heat, stirring occasionally. Once liquid, increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil for one minute. Remove from heat, and set 3tbsps of the mixture to one side to top the cake. Set the rest of the mixture to one side to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3, and grease and line a deep baking tin (I used a 7.5 inch tin and this was the perfect amount of cake mixture.)
3. Beat the eggs, and then add these in to the cooled honey mixture using a wooden spoon.
4. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, and then pour in the honey mixture. Beat this mixture until all of the flour is incorporated and you have a smooth creamy mixture.
5. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1 hour, until the cake is golden brown and springs back when pressed. If you are unsure, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and pull this out, if the skewer comes out clean the cake is done, if there is residue the cake needs a little longer!
6. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool slightly in to pan. Reheat the honey syrup that was set aside for topping the cake slowly over a low heat. Remove the cake from the pan (careful not to burn yourself!) and place on a serving dish. Pour the warm honey syrup over the centre of the cake and allow it to run down the sides.
7. Cut into generous slices and serve nice and warm! (The cake also tastes pretty good when cooled, but it is outstanding when warm!)

Next time we're watching The Rescuers, and I'll be making a cake based on one half of the heroic duo, Bernard!

Happy Thoughts

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