Greek Honey & Lemon Cake

After last week's experiment with complete unfamiliarity, I wanted to retreat to safer ground this week. Browsing through one of my books, I came across a cake described as 'moist and tangy, a delicious afternoon snack'. Well, how can you resist an attempt at something like that? Although it does share one similarity with last week's - the use of beaten egg whites.
The first thing to try to trip me up was the listing of semolina in the ingredients. I'm thinking the dry semolina flour you can buy, and I'm going to substitute polenta. OK, not quite the same thing, but I figure close enough in texture, and might give it a nice colour. So I start getting all my ingredients prepared, and then I'm reading through the recipe more closely. The instructions for the semolina? Beat it in to the dry ingredients. Oops, so it's obviously not a dry ingredient then. OK, a quick trip round to the local shop is called for, and just hope they have a can of the stuff. They do, so that's alright.
The next stumbling point is that the recipe tells you to mix some of the wet ingredients together, but then fails to mention them again. What am I supposed to do with them? They obviously belong in the mix, but when and how? I figure I'll add them when the semolina goes in.
Anyway, in the end it seems to have turned out just fine. Maybe not quite honey and lemon-y enough, but there's certainly a distinct hint of both. A nice soft texture, actually almost like a cross between bread and cake. Definitely one to be made again.

Recipe:
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons honey
1 lemon, juice and finely grated zest
2/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup semolina
2 egg whites
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C. Line an 8 inch square cake tin with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and nutmeg.
Place the butter and honey in a pan and heat gently until melted. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
When the butter and honey have melted, remove from the heat. Stir in the lemon zest ad juice, and the semolina. Add the milk.
Gradually beat the liquid into the flour mixture, until fully combined.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture, until fully combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Sprinkle the top with the sesame seeds.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.

Chocolate Chip Angel Cupcakes

I decided to try something I've never tried before today. I've seen recipes for angel cake before, but they all seem to need to be baked in special pans. So when I came across a recipe for Chocolate Chip Angel Cupcakes on the Cooking Light website, I thought I'd give it a go.
Well, the recipe says it makes 24, but I thought I'd just make a half quantity - as it is, that made 10 cakes.
I suppose they turned out OK. They certainly taste fine. It's just, well, I guess I'm not sure quite what I was expecting. I think I may have left them in the oven too long. I certainly wasn't expecting the shrinkage and slight misshapenness of the resulting cakelets. I hadn't intended to ice them, but I changed my mind once I saw them. The icing used isn't the one in the original recipe, but a simple one made by melting butter and chocolate together (twice as much chocolate as butter) and adding icing sugar to give the desired consistency.

Recipe:
1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
6 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
50 grams dark chocolate, Green & Black's, 70%

Preheat oven to 325F/160C. Line a muffin tin with muffin cases.
Lightly spoon sifted flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine the flour and 6 tablespoons sugar in a bowl.
Put egg whites in a large bowl. Beat until foamy.
Add the cream of tartar and salt. Beat until soft peaks form.
Add 6 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until stiff peaks form.
Beat in vanilla extract and lemon juice.
Sift 1/4 cup flour mixture over egg white mixture; fold in. Repeat procedure with remaining flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time.
Fold in the chopped chocolate.
Spoon 3 heaped tablespoons batter into each muffin cup. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cupcakes spring back when lightly touched.
Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.

Dark Chocolate & Ginger Biscotti

Well, last weeks's honey rhubarb muffins went down well. Can't say the same for the rock buns - I'm really not impressed with them. Any of them left at the end of this week are going out.
So, another biscotti variation this week (again, based on One Smart Cookie). In the mood for some dark chocolate, and having some crystallized ginger in the cupboard, it seemed natural to put the two together. I wasn't quite brave enough to play around too much with the basic biscotti dough, so I settled for just chopping up the chocolate and ginger and adding it as chunks. I think it works quite well. You get something different with each bite - sometimes a bit of chocolate, sometimes a chewy hit of ginger, sometimes a bit of both. Maybe if I make these again, I'll try a chocolate dough, but all in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Recipe:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter -- softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
50 grams crystallised ginger, chopped finely
75 grams dark chocolate (I used Green & Black's, 70%), chopped

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking parchment.
In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the ginger and chocolate to this mixture.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Stir until just combined. If it seems dry, use your hands to complete the mixing until the dough comes together.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Divide in half. Shape each piece into an 8 inch by 3 inch rectangle.
Place the logs fairly far apart on the lined baking sheet.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until firm and starting to crack on top. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for about 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 275F/135C
Cut each log into 1/2 - 3/4 inch slices (12 slices per log) with a sharp knife. Place slices cut side down on the baking sheet.
Return to the oven for 15 minutes, then flip over and bake for another 15 minutes.

Rock Buns/Honey Rhubarb Muffins

Well, last weeks lemon biscotti seemed to go down well. Duncan took them to work, not realising I had plans for some of them. Luckily, he managed to rescue the half dozen I wanted to take to my dad.
A double baking session this week. I picked up some rhubarb on Saturday, and found an interesting sounding recipe for honey rhubarb muffins in one of my cookbooks; A Cook's Tour of Scotland by Sue Lawrence. However, since they contain fresh fruit, they won't last more than a couple of days. So I needed to make something else that would last a bit longer.
Browsing through one of my other books (Low-Fat Baking by Linda Fraser), I found something which I thought might turn out either pretty good, or absolutely awful: rock buns. Not something I remember having made before, so I had to have a go.
Both recipes seem to have turned out not too badly for the first try. I'm a bit disappointed with the muffins; they taste great, but seem to have fallen a bit flat. I did notice that the baking temperature was a bit higher than I'd normally expect for a muffin. Might try changing it next time. With the rock buns, I used different fruit; the recipe called for prunes and mixed peel, but I used dried apricots and cherries instead. The amount of liquid called for in the recipe also seems to make too dry a dough; I think I'll add a bit more milk next time.

Recipe: Honey Rhubarb Muffins
200 grams flour, self-raising
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
50 grams hazelnuts -- chopped and toasted
50 grams sugar, light muscovado
4 tablespoons honey
100 millilitres sunflower oil
100 millilitres yoghurt, skim milk
100 grams rhubarb -- finely diced

Preheat the oven to 200C. Put 10 muffin cases in a muffin tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together into a large bowl. Stir in the hazelnuts.
In a jug, whisk together the yogurt, oil, honey and sugar.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet ingredients, and stir briefly. Add the rhubarb and stir until combined.
Divide between the muffin cases. Bake for around 20 minutes until risen and golden.
Best eaten warm.


Recipe: Rock Buns
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 ounces dried cherries -- chopped
2 ounces dried apricots -- chopped
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sunflower oil
5 tablespoons skim milk

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking parchment.
Sift together the flour and baking powder.
Stir in the fruit and lemon zest.
Mix together the milk and oil. Stir into the flour mixture to make a dough - it should just bind together.
Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.