Carrot Cake

For a self proclaimed pastry geek I read some exciting news this week. Claire Clark the former pastry chef of the world renowned French Laundry is coming back to her home shores to do a pop up patisserie at Harvey Nichols in London (13th sept -18th Nov). You will be able to get afternoon tea (first two weeks) as well as individual purchases. The idea is to serve patisserie inspired by Claires childhood, so things like Jaffa cake macarons. Last year I heard she was coming to London to open her own place but in the end went to work in the Bahamas (told I was a geek). Hopefully the pop up is just a prequel to her opening her own patisserie but until then you could always look up her book Indulge. I bought it years ago and for some reason never baked from it and left it neglected. After I heard about the pop up it prompted me to delve back in and take another look. I’m not sure why I overlooked it because it really is a beautiful book and I actually found lots of things I wanted to make. I decided to try something simpler first, mainly because I wasn’t in the mood to try anything complicated but also because it was something I love, carrot cake. I don’t have a go to recipe and was hoping this might be it. The flavour is pretty good although I would up the spicing a bit as I found it fairly subtle. I was rushing a bit when I made It so didn’t make it perfectly and it was flatter than it was supposed to be be but it was still very good.

Great British Bake Off – Episode 2

I meant to write a post last week about my experiences of the show and of the cotswolds but never quite got around to it so this week I was prepared. I loved filming this weeks episode, the weather was so much better than the previous week. You couldn’t tell on the show but it rained almost the whole weekend and it was bitterly cold as well. Scotland was warm and sunny and when we were not filming we were out enjoying the sun. I also felt very comfortable in the kitchen compared to the week before, I was relaxed and excited to be there doing what I love.

For the first challenge we had to make biscuits and yes my definiton of biscuits includes cookies! I went with my oatmeal raisin cookies which were inspired by and adapted from a recipe from a New York bakery called Momofuku Milk Bar (original recipe here). The really interesting thing about the recipe is that they used milk powder to make crumbs to add a creaminess which I loved. So I played around and came up with a recipe using the same idea. For the show I adapted it further and changed the way I make them to make simpler and more straight forward. The recipe I used on the show isnt on the BBC website but my original adaption is here.

The Second Challenge was scones and, well… yeah I didnt do great on the challenge. I grew up on my mum’s wonderful scones and holidays in devon with real cream teas, but the ones my mum taught me to make are slightly more rustic so maybe ill just brush over this challenge…

The third and final challenge was the big one, macarons, meringues and choux buns. I make macarons a lot but not so much choux pastry and meringue but i wasn’t uncomfortable with them either. My macarons were filled with raspberry jam and a rose flavoured French buttercream. If you want to look at the recipes I use most often take a look at this post here.

Gevulde Speculaas – Dutch Spice Cake

So I seem to be on a bit of a continental kick at the moment. My last post used speculoos spread from Belgium, bought back from France and todays post is a recipe for Dutch spiced caked stuffed with almond paste, called Gevulde Speculaas. Yes Speculoos and Speculaas are basically the same thing but from different regions. Speculaas are from Holland and are spiced cookies, traditionally served on Nicholas’ Eve, but are now available year round. Speculoos are the belgian version and the difference just seems to be less spicing. Gevulde Speculaas translates as filled biscuit and that pretty much sums it up, the biscuit component is more cake like and has a wonderful mix of spices, this is then filled with a soft coarse almond paste. It is supposed to be the height of summer but currently it is pouring down with rain and is sweater worthy cold, so this recipe seemed perfect.