Welsh Mini-Cakes

It's been a while since I've last edited my blog... I was actually trying to develop my filming and picture-taking skills, without much success I have to admit!!

Anyway, I thought it was time to post some of the things I've been up to in the past few weeks. I now am trying to bake at least once a week (if not more), usually on Saturdays when I'm not working.

A couple of months ago I bought this tiny little book titled "Muffin" and I have been making/baking some very nice recipes, which I am now sharing with you.

Here in Italy, muffins have started to become quite popular in the last few years and it is now very easy to find muffin pans, muffin cups and so on. I have bought my first set of non-stick muffin pans about two years ago, but then realized they were narrow at the bottom, getting wider and wider at the top. The muffins I baked directly in those pans had quite a strange "enlarged" shape, so distant from the perfect cupcake one I was admiring in books and cooking magazines. Therefore, I started scouting all of the cookware shops for another kind of pan and came across a silicone one which I thought was worth trying out: I love it, however I am not too confident in cooking stuff directly on the silicone and usually put the muffin cups in the holes.

Ok... enough with the talking!

Here is my first endeavour:

WELSH MINI-CAKES
Ingredients:
225 gr self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
55 gr of lard (I didn't have lard, so I used 110 gr of butter instead)
55 gr unsalted butter
85 gr brown sugar
85 gr sultanas
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp milk, if needed
[1 extra cup of plain flour, if needed]

Sift the flour and the pinch of salt in a large bowl. Add the lard and the butter and work them with your fingers until you have a grainy dough. Incorporate the sugar, the sultanas (I have let them soak in lukewarm water for about 20 minutes) and the egg. Mix everything really well with a spoon and, if the dough is too dry, you might want to add a tbsp milk.
Transfer the dough on a floured surface. At this point I noticed that the dough was way too soft and would stick on both my hands and the surface I was using. I then decided to add a little less than a cup of plai flour, up until I was able to knead the dough into a ball.
With a rolling pin, spread the dough out until it's about 5 mm thick and cut little discs out with a glass or a round cookie cutter.
Put very little butter on a non-stick pan and heat it up. When the pan is nice and hot, turn the heat down and place the discs in. Cook them for about 3 minutes on each side, or until they get golden, crispy and firm to the touch. Transfer on a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Here is what they looked like:

Enjoy!!!

Love, Alice

My First Blog Entry!

I thought over and over again at what I should type in as my very first entry...
Since I aim for this to become a nice little baking/cooking blog, I think it's best to start the whole thing with a nice recipe!
Sorry I have only one photo showing the end result... not very fancy but will definetly give you an idea. I made this really quickly to bring over at a dinner party last night.
I took this recipe from one of my mom's old cookery books called "Dolci a Occhi Chiusi" (translated would be "Desserts with your eyes closed"), and then made a few changes to suit the ingredients I had.

I am Italian, so my measurements will often be in gr/ml rather than cups!

APPLE PLUMCAKE WITH RASPBERRY TOPPING
Ingredients:
150 gr all-purpose flour
130 gr castor sugar
100 gr butter, melted
3 eggs
3 apples, grated
2-3 tbsp rum
some lemon zest + lemon juice
2 tbsp baking powder
150 gr raspberries
powdered gelatin (optional)


Turn on the oven and set it at 160°C.
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs with the sugar until you have a smooth and pale yellow mixture. Add the melted butter, the flour and the lemon zest and juice along with the rum. Mix well until all the ingredients are combined.
Add the grated apples and the baking powder. Pour the mixture into a plumcake tin lined with wax paper (I used a 30 cm long one) and bake it for 45 to 50 minutes, untit the tester stick comes out nice and clean.
Take it out and let it cool for at least one hour. In the mean time, prepare the raspberries by rinsing them in water and let them drain in a strainer.
Once the plum cake has cooled down almost completely, make an incision on top of it with a knife, giving it a rectangular shape and standing clear of the rim by at least 1 cm. Gently scrape up the surface of the plum cake that's inside the rectangle and proceed to fill it with the raspberries. Coat them with some gelatin and refrigerate for half an hour.
Serve it sprinkled with some icing sugar to taste.

Notes:

• I made this recipe with grated apples as opposed to diced apples so as to avoid them sinking at the bottom of the cake (even if I sprinkle them with flour, they never seem to float!), plus it gives a very nice texture to the whole plumcake. I also try to use a variety of apple that is a bit dry and not so much juicy, so the batter will not turn out as runny.
• I like to use gelatin on top of the raspberries, so that when you actually slice it up they won't roll all over the place but nicely stick together.

This is the end result... sorry for the not-so-fancy setting but I really had little time!