Rhubarb, Blueberry and Damson Pie.

After this year's 'Harvest' we had a huge surplus of produce. With no jars left to fill with jam or chutney, this surplus headed for the freezer but I'd had enough of playing a game of tetris everytime I wanted some bread or fish fingers so I decided to defrost and use some of our Rhubarb and Damsons. 

I've never ever made a fruit pie before, until now, so I was a little nervous about how it would turn out after seeing how many things could go wrong on Great British Bake Off to bakers which are far more knowledgable than myself. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this pie was to bake and how well it turned out.

Ingredients:

200g Plain Flour

25g Ground Almonds

100g Unsalted Butter

1 Egg Yolk

100g Sugar

3 tbsp Milk

100g Blueberries

325g Rhubarb

325g Damsons

100g Caster Sugar
4 tbsps Plain Flour

Method:

1. I always like to make my pastry first as it needs to chill in the fridge. To do this, sieve the flour and ground almonds into a bowl and mix them. Then rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs before adding the egg yolk, sugar and milk.

2. Knead the dough on a floured surface for a few minutes then wrap in cling film and put it in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

3. Wash the fruit and put it in a large saucepan with the sugar. Cook for around 5 minutes until all the sugar has dissolved.

4. Drain the majority of the juices from the mix and transfer to a mixing bowl. Then add the plain flour and combine thoroughly. (I do this to ensure the mixture isn't too wet, otherwise it will soak the pastry and you'll end up with a 'soggy bottom')

5. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out onto a floured surface. Then line a greased pastry dish (I like to use a pyrex one) with around two thirds of the dough. Ensure that the dough is pushed well in and remove the excess from the edges.

6. Spoon the fruit mixture into the pastry, ensuring it is evenly distributed.

7. Roll out the rest of the pastry and use it to cover the top of the pie. Trim the edges and crimp them using a fork to ensure the bottom and top are joined.

8. Put a few slits in the top of the pie and brush over the pie with a little bit of milk, this will help it to be a nice golden brown colour when baked. If there is any excess pastry you may wish to put a design on top of the pie, leaves are traditional.

9. Bake for around 40 minutes at 190˚C. Once baked, dust with a little icing sugar before serving.

Enjoy!

CakesforDorothy xoxo

Cupcake Decorating.

It seems like forever since I clicked that 'new post' button and started typing but I think I'm back from my hiatus. Since my last post I've been busy with work experience, then a party (which I made a tonne of cakes for and then lost all the pictures of them) and before I knew it I was off to Uganda on a mini community project holiday. It took me about a week to recover from that and settle back into everyday life (it was more of a culture shock coming home than going out there) but this week I got back into my usual baking routine.

My auntie recently went on a cake decorating course and as I was staying at hers this week, we spent a lot of time practising her new skills and evidently passing them on to me. For the first cupcakes we added Sugarflair's Dusky Pink to the buttercream and for the second bunch we added a small amount of Grape Violet from the same brand. I highly recommend these food colourings because, although they are more expensive, you only need to use a tiny bit to get great results which means they last a really long time. We finished the cupcakes off with silver/pearl balls and various sprinkles which are readily available at most supermarkets.

Left - normal piping pattern, right - rose piping pattern

Today I attended a vintage cupcake decorating course at a local cake craft shop. I am absolutely astounded by the results and will be doing more in-depth tutorials on how to create the various decorations in the near future.

 

Enjoy!

CakesforDorothy xoxo

Great news! Thanks to my new blog design, you can now follow me on GFC to stay updated on new posts!

Orange Cupcakes with Chocolate Fudge Icing.

I generally like to find recipes for the ingredients that I already have instead of buying ingredients for a specific recipe, unless it's a special occasion or something I really want to try. I've been tempted by orange cupcakes for a while but usually I only have tiny tangerines which just wouldn't work. Therefore, I leapt at the chance to make them when I had some proper oranges.

Ingredients:

85g butter

85g caster sugar

1 egg

85g flour

25g ground almonds

1tsp vanilla extract

Juice and grated rind of 1 orange

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C. 

2.Cream the butter and mix in the sugar.

3. Lightly beat the egg and then add to the butter and sugar.

4. Fold in the flour and ground almonds.

5. Add the vanilla extract, orange juice and grated rind and combine thoroughly.

6. Distribute the mixture between 12 cake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden.

This is where I got a little adventurous. Everyone knows how perfectly chocolate and orange go together *cough* Terry's Chocolate Orange *cough*. Melting chocolate and drizzling it on top was an option, but a little too safe for my liking. I decided to use this chocolate fudge icing recipe and was slightly mislead by the piped icing in the picture. I was under the impression that the consistency of it would be thick enough to pipe on but it most certainly was not. I followed the recipe exactly (in fact, I only used 70% of the milk otherwise it would've been a complete disaster) and it was quite runny.

I removed the cases from the cakes, dunked the base and sides of the cakes into the icing and put them upside down on the plate. I then left them to set in the fridge for a few hours before realising that if I turned the back the right way round then they look like cake cases made of chocolate!

You may or may not have noticed an increase in the quality of my photos in this post as I got a DSLR this week. It's the Nikon D5100 with the standard 18-55mm lens. So far I'm very impressed with it but I'm still learning what are the best settings/ways to use it so bare with me! I've found a variety of online resources to get the most out of my food photography but I found this guide from Sally's Baking Addiction particularly useful.

I'm also now on Google+! I've had it ever since it began but never understood it as I have no friends who use it. However, I have now discovered that if you set it up correctly then it's a fabulous way to find like-minded people as well as discover and share some wonderful recipes and blogs. I found Chef Dennis Littley's post on 'How to be a Good Plusser' exceptionally useful, as well as his various other posts about Google+. You'd be a fool not to jump on the bandwagon now!

Enjoy!

CakesforDorothy xoxo

Follow me on Bloglovin' and Google+ to find out when I post new recipes!