how to – Page 5 – Baking with Gab

Plum frangipane tart and efficiency

If you have a friend popping over without a minute’s notice, efficiency is key. I was in a position recently where I had 45 minutes to throw makeup on and prepare something for afternoon tea when I knew that I had used up most of the flour on this cake (coconut raspberry cake.)

So I whipped up this little gem – it’s fast, easy and super impressive. Tarts are usually a pretty impressive dish to serve to people, but a frangipane tart sounds even better, it gives it an air of French sophistication. Try telling your guests that it’s “just a little plum frangipane tart I threw together” without having the smuggest face ever.

The delicious filling of this tart is gluten free, so would be perfect for celiac or gluten-sensitive friends – just make sure you find a reliable gluten free pastry. I’m in the process working out a decent gluten-free pastry, so watch this space. If you’ve got any suggestions for a GF pastry, comment below!

Plum frangipane tart:

Serves 8-10

2 sheets frozen shortcrust pastry
100g butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ tsp almond essence
2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
1 ½ cups almond meal
2 large plums

Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease a 35×12 cm tart tin.

Thaw your pastry until it is malleable enough to shape into your tart tin. Prick the uncooked tart shell with a fork, line with baking paper and pour baking weights in. Pop it in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the tart from the oven, take away the baking weights and baking paper, then return to the oven for five minutes.

Make the filling while the tart is in the oven.

Cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla and almond essence, then the eggs and egg yolk, mix to combine. Add in the almond meal and give it a good mix.

Allow the tart to cool slightly before filling it.

Spoon the frangipane into the tart case and smooth out with a spatula. Don’t worry about being too precise, the filling with smooth out perfectly whilst in the oven.

Thinly slice your plums and arrange them as you please. I slotted mine in at a slight angle so that some of the flesh was showing, giving the tart a little pop of colour and allowing the sugars in the plums to be exposed to more heat so that they’d caramelise slightly.

Pop this back in the oven for 30 minutes so that you’re whipping it out of the oven just as your guests arrive. Allow the tart to cool before serving.

(I also used the baking time to throw on a face of makeup and attempt to tame my hair!)

Coconut raspberry cake with passionfruit glaze (and a big baking prize!)

Baking with Gab has its benefits. It gives me an excuse to cook and devour ridiculous amounts of delicious baked goods, it’s introduced me to the fantastic blogging community and it’s also created an outlet for my crazy dog lady tendencies.

And then there’s free stuff. It’s not very often that I host a giveaway, so when I do, I get pretty excited about it! The delightful people from the Cake Bake and Sweets Show have offered me a one day double pass to give away to one of my fabulous readers!

The Cakes Bakes and Sweets Show will be on at the Sydney Showground, Olympic Park on March 21-23, the winner can go on whichever day they want. Chef Duff, Dan Lepard, Adriano Zumbo and Eric Lanlard will all be there – you could be too!

There will be live demonstrations, fabulous stalls to buy baked goods and baking related products, and free tastings. FREE TASTINGS.

The ticket allows you entry into the live demonstrations – there are so many options I literally cannot choose which demos I want to go to.

To celebrate my excitement about the Cake Bake and Sweets Show, I threw a little tea party, because that’s what I do best! The coconut, raspberry and passionfruit cake is sweet, moist and perfectly suited to a nice black cuppa.

Coconut and raspberry cake:

1 cup coconut cream
¾ cups caster sugar
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups self-raising flour
1 cup of desiccated coconut
½ cup frozen raspberries

Sticky passionfruit glaze:

¼ cup sugar
3 passionfruit
2 tbsp water

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease and flour a 21 cm cake tin.

Mix together the coconut cream and caster sugar until the sugar has started to dissolve. Add in the eggs, flour and then coconut and mix until combined.

Gently fold in the frozen raspberries so that their colour doesn’t bleed out too much.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and pop in the oven for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, pop the sugar, passionfruit and water into a small saucepan and heat over a low flame until the sugar has dissolved. Keep stirring to ensure that the mixture doesn’t burn.

When the cake has cooled slightly, run a knife around the edge of the tin to free it up, then turn it onto a cooling rack. Turn the cake the right way up, poke holes about ¾ of the way into the cake with a skewer and then spoon the passionfruit mixture over the top, spreading it as you go.

You want the cake to still be warm when you’re pouring the passionfruit glaze over so that it seeps into holes. Aside from the taste, the great thing about the passionfruit glaze is that you can cover up the holes you poked in the cake earlier.

Allow the cake to cool completely before serving.

How to win:

To win the tickets, you must like Baking with Gab on Facebook and then email bakingwithgab@gmail.com, telling me which part of the show you want to see most and why. Have a look here to see what the Cake Bake and Sweets Show has to offer.

Entry is open to anyone, but you must be able to make your own way to the show. Competition close Thursday March 13^th at 11:59pm.

Looking forward to seeing your answers!

Chocolate cardamon pear cake and Autumn

I’ve still got a crazy amount of pears to work my way through. And it’s glorious. I wrote about being given too many pears last week and I’ve not yet run out of things to bake with them!

The weather in Sydney turned pretty dismal this week, so I’ve been poaching and baking and snuggling up with Norman at every opportunity.

It’s also the first day of Autumn today! This cake is perfect for Autumn because it’s not quite heavy enough for a Winter’s pudding, but it’s not too Summery either because of the almondy hints and the caramel notes created by the brown sugar. The chocolate and cardamom mingle beautifully to create warm, rich little mouthfuls, while the pear brings a lovely moistness to the cake.

Best served sprinkled with icing sugar, as it needs very little accompaniment. If you’re feeling especially indulgent on a dreary, rainy day, serve warm, with a dollop thick cream.

Chocolate cardamon pear cake

180g butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup almond meal
1 cup self-raising flour
¼ cup milk
1 tsp ground cardamom
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
2 pears

Preheat your oven to 180°C and grease and line a 21cm cake tin.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar until pale. Add in the eggs, followed by your almond meal. Sift in the self-raising flour and add in the milk to thin out the mixture. Mix the cardamom into the batter thoroughly, then fold the chocolate chunks in as well.

Peel and core your pears, then cut them into thin wedges. Arrange the wedges around the cake in whatever fashion you like, pressing them in slightly. I tend to organise them so that they fit neatly into slices once the cake is cooked.

Pop the cake in the oven for 50 minutes. Remove when a cake inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool before removing from the tin – this cake is delicate, so needs a little extra care.

Cream buns with mock cream and indulgence

It’s Valentine’s day today and I thought cream buns would be a cute things to post. I’m not really one for pet names, but I think that “my little cream bun” would be a rather adorable term of endearment.

Just me?

Anywho, I recently made these buns for a dear friend of mine (at his request!) and they were such a lovely treat to be able to share. They’re old school indulgence, the kind of thing I can picture my grandparents serving to friends at social events. They’re not showy, but they’re delicious and pretty enough to impress. Continue reading “Cream buns with mock cream and indulgence”

Raspberry meringues and simple joys

Not too long ago I posted a recipe for chocolate swirl meringues as an accompaniment to your Valentine’s Day – there is something about meringues that I equate with romance. Maybe it’s the intense amounts of sweetness, or their crisp lightness? Whatever the reason, you should definitely treat your loved ones to some meringue bites, because they’ll love you dearly for it!

People of all ages go a little weak at the knees for meringues, because they’re such a simple pleasure – egg white, sugar and joy. Continue reading “Raspberry meringues and simple joys”

Lemon pistachio cake and stories

I had such a lovely day. I explored a suburb near my home called Newtown – I went with friends and we tried a new café, explored a graveyard and went antique shopping. These are all things that everybody should do more often!

I loved that Brewtown Newtown served their tea on wooden boards shaped specifically to hold the teacup, teapot, creamer and spoon. The space was off King Street (the main road in Newtown), so things were a little bit more relaxed, and we were able to stay at our table long after we’d finished our meals and swap gossip. Continue reading “Lemon pistachio cake and stories”

Raspberry scrolls and hearts

I’m not really that big a fan of Valentine’s day. I love the idea of celebrating your loved one, and I love ANY excuse to bake, but I get a little jaded by the comparisons and expectations that couples have put on them as the day dawns. I would much rather a hand-picked bunch of flowers than a shop bought one, I’d rather a batch of home-made cupcakes than a box of chocolates – I love jewellery and pretty things, but I much prefer presents that are better thought out.

So when I saw heart shaped pastries on Pinterest, I started to think about what else I could make into heart shapes. Y’know, because baked goods + festive shaping = ultimate gift.

Ask anybody, it’s a well-known fact. Continue reading “Raspberry scrolls and hearts”

Boyfriend biscuits and quadruple chocolate

The Boy often gets irritated at my baking. Actually, it’s more my ingredients – he loves baked goods, he just isn’t very adventurous. I had to trick him into eating my chocolate basil crinkle biscuits (I simply omitted the fact that they had basil in them); he flat out refused to try my lemon thyme cupcakes; he didn’t like the earl grey poached pears that I made!

“I like what I like,” he says, like a true Yorkshireman.

So, in preparation for Valentine’s day, I’m sharing a recipe that even the pickiest of partners will like – a quadruple chocolate biscuit. They’re cake-like and they have four types of chocolate in them – who could say no to that?? Continue reading “Boyfriend biscuits and quadruple chocolate”

World Nutella day and adoration

Did you know that today is World Nutella day? No? How could you miss such an important world event? I’ve had it pencilled into my diary for weeks! I feel that I should declare that this is not a sponsored post (although I would totally be open to sponsorship by Nutella, because that would be DELICIOUS), I just really love the stuff.

The problem in my house is that Nutella tends to only last a number of hours, which means it’s rare that I get the chance to cook with it. Even if one of my family members manages to sneak a jar into the house, it is detected and devoured very quickly. We’re like truffle pigs for Nutella… Nutella humans?

I’m getting off track. Continue reading “World Nutella day and adoration”

Honey pots de creme and Valentines

On the weekend I posted some sweet little chocolate meringue morsels and promised an even sweeter dessert to accompany them. This is what you’ve been waiting for with baited breath (ha!) – honey pots de crème.

I’m slightly in love with pots de crème. They tend to combine a whole lot of cream with other, ~~equally bad for you~~ delicious ingredients; kind of like a custard that you can alter to be any flavour your little heart desires.

The first pots that I posted were Nutella, and they will always hold a special place in my heart, but these honey pots are a close second. They’re a super sweet idea for your Valentine’s day dessert (if you celebrate V-Day) OR they would be great to serve if you were having Winnie the Pooh over to dinner. Continue reading “Honey pots de creme and Valentines”