Kugelhopf

So continuing along with the bake off you may have noticed I do not have a post for tarts and pies week. Well I did attempt to make a pie, I was terrified, a gluten and dairy free pastry was not an experiment I was looking forward to. The pastry I made was lovely and delicious, but it was meant to be puff pastry, something I never had problems with in the past,  and it turned out like shortcrust. I will reiterate it was lovely but I am not posting the recipe I used as it did not turn out as it should. I get to do pastry again soon though as next week is pastry week on the bake off! I show a picture of my pie to prove that I tried.

This week was the week of European cakes. The contestants had to make a European cake that was raised with yeast, a Swedish princess cake or a Hungarian dobes torte. I have never made a princess cake but I have eaten cakes consisting of sponge, jam, cream and creme pat and so I decided to go with the more interesting cake raised with yeast as I have never made/eaten one before.

I decided, like some of the contestants, to make a Kugelhopf. This is traditionally a cake raised with yeast, filled with fruit and cooked in a bundt tin. Like many of the contestants I changed my flavours, I went for cardamom, orange and almond. I also had the added challenge of making it gluten and dairy free.

I have also just remembered that this months letter for alpha bakes is K and so I will enter my Kugelhopf!

This is an experiment that worked and I am so so pleased with it, it smelt good baking, looked fantastic and also tasted great. It is very interesting, it is definitely a cross between bread and cake and those with palettes used to very sweet cakes will probably take a while to adjust. It is lovely as a plainer cake and dare I say it could even be eaten as breakfast (which I did). It does not keep so long so I have sliced it and individually wrapped slices and frozen them, I will refresh in the oven when I fancy a snack or breakfast.

Orange, cardamom and almond Kugelhopf 

380g GF flour (I used dove farm plain flour blend)
60g ground almonds
2 tsps xantham gum
Seeds of 15 cardamom pods, crushed in a pestle and mortar
120ml warm water
4 1/2 tsp active dried yeast (not instant yeast)
1/2 tsp sugar
120g DF spread (I used pure sunflower)
75g golden caster sugar
2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 tsp almond extract
Zest and juice of an orange
2 tbsp caster sugar
a little melted butter to grease
slivered almonds to decorate (optional


Place the warm water, yeast, and ¼ teaspoon sugar together in a small bowl. Stir until yeast is dissolved. Set aside for 10-15 minutes until the yeast is foamy

Place 220g of the gluten-free flour in a freestanding large bowl or the large bowl of a large stand mixer. Add the xanthan gum and cardamom and mix to combine

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter, sugar, and salt. Stir until sugar is dissolved, do not let it boil.

In a medium bowl whisk  the eggs together with the almond extract and orange zest. Carefully add the milk mixture in a slow, steady stream to the eggs and whisk well. Be sure to add the milk slowly so it doesn't curdle the eggs. 

Turn the mixer on low, or using a hand held electric whisk add the milk and egg mixture in a slow steady stream to the flour mix. Raise the speed to medium and mix until smooth. Lower the speed and add the remaining flour and ground almonds. The dough should be fairly sticky and smooth, but not too stiff. Turn off mixer and let dough stand for a few minutes.

Grease a bundt pan with melted butter. if desired stick slivered almonds onto the sides of the greased pan.

 Carefully transfer the dough to the pan and smooth it evenly. Brush the top with the melted butter to prevent it drying out. 

Cover with cellophane or place in a bag and let rise for 45-60 minutes in a warm place. The dough won't have doubled, but it will have risen quite a bit.

While the dough is rising preheat the oven to GAS MARK 6 . Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden and baked through.

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

To make a glaze put the remaining sugar and orange juice in a pan and heat gently until the sugar had dissolved, turn up the heat and reduce until the mixture is syrupy. Brush this over the cooled cake then enjoy.

Almond custard filled cardamom buns, Shrove Tuesday Scandinavian style!

I have a confession. It is Shrove Tuesday and I do not like pancakes.

Ok so that is not strictly true. I like fluffy home made american style pancakes packed with fruit and served with maple syrup, its a favourite weekend breakfast and you will find a number of recipes on the blog.

What I do not like is the French style crepe, which is what most households will have on pancake day. Now this throws up a conundrum. There is not time to have yummy fluffy pancakes on a weekday, and having pancakes I associate with breakfast after my evening meal feels weird and also is essentially like having two meals at once. I considered american style pancakes two ways as my actual evening meal, one with bacon and one with sweet things but was not enamoured with the idea.

It was when flicking through one of my many cookbooks that the problem was solved. Signe Johansen, author of Scandilicious baking tells us that in Scandinavia cardamom buns filled with vanilla cream and marzipan are eaten on Shrove Tuesday. In the book she offers a variation of these buns, instead of cream they are filled with an almond custard.

The almond custard are the version I have decided to make as they are much easy to adapt to be lactose free. Shrove Tuesday goodies sorted!

Almond custard filled cardamom buns (adapted from Scandilicious baking)

makes 6

80ml lactose free semi skimmed milk
15g butter
125g plain flour or white spelt flour (I used spelt)
15g caster sugar
Seeds from 5 cardamom pods, crushed with a pestle and mortar
1/2 sachet of fast action yeast
pinch of salt

100ml lactose free semi skimmed milk
Egg yolk
10g caster sugar
5g cornflour
1/2 tsp vanilla
15g blanched almonds

First up make the bun dough. Gebtly heat the butter and milk until just below boiling point, but do not bring to the boil. Set aside to cool. 

Mix the flour, sugar crushed cardamom pods, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Once the milk has cooled to room temperature add to the dry ingredients and mix until all the ingredients come together and are 'doughy'. 

At this point I placed two thirds of the dough in a lightly oiled frezer bag in the fridge to ferment overnight. I did this so we could have freshly baked buns on Shrove Tuesday. The remaining dough was placed in a lightly oiled bowl, covered with clingfilm and left to rise until doubled in size. If you prefer you could place all the dough in the fridge ready for you the next day or leave all of it to rise at room temperature if you are making them for consumption on the same day. 

While the dough is proving make the custard. In a bowl whisk together the egg yolk, caster sugar, cornflour and vanilla. Gently heat the milk until just below boiling. Add the milk a little at a time to the egg yolk mix, whisking all the time. Pour the all the custard back into the pan and, stirring all the time, heat gently until very thick. Transfer the very thick custard to a clean bowl and cover the surface of the custard directly with clingfilm to prevent a skin forming.

Roughly chop the almonds and toast them in a frying pan until they are lightly golden and smell amazing. Crush them up a bit more, I did this in a pestle and mortar then stir through the custard.

When ready to make the buns divide the dough into 6 equal pieces (if the dough has been in the fridge allow to come to room temperature). Roll into balls and place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet. Cover, leave in a warm place,  and allow the buns to prove for 15-20 minutes until they do not spring back when pressed lightly . During this time preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. 

Just before baking glaze the top of each bun with a little beaten egg and splash a little water in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Bake for 10-15 minutes, turning the oven down 20 degrees if the buns start to colour too much. 

The cooked buns will be golden and sound hollow when you tap them. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack then simply slice and fill with cold custard.

I can confirm that the flavour of these are absolutely delicious, the custard in particular is divine. I will update this post tomorrow and let you know if the slow prove makes any huge difference to the flavour. I suspect it will make a huge difference to the texture, I think they will be lighter.  

UPDATE: The buns left in the fridge overnight were a little lighter in texture and tasted really good.

Cardamom loaf cake

This just looks like a simple loaf cake from the outside but if we delve within it is packed with the exotic and aromatic flavours of cardamom and vanilla.

It is a lovely cake to enjoy with a cup of earl grey, but to be honest with any tea or coffee or even by itself this is the cake for me (for this week at least!).

Cardamom loaf cake

190g butter
170g caster sugar
The seeds from 15 cardamom pods crushed in pestle and mortar
tsp vanilla paste
3 large eggs
190g plain flour
tsp baking powder
2 tablespoons natural yoghurt 

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN and grease and flour a loaf tin.

Beat the butter, sugar, cardamom and vanilla together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scrapping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition. 

Beat in the flour and baking powder until just combined before finally beating in the yoghurt. 

Tip into the prepared pan and level before baking in the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until golden and a cake skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few moments before transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I completely forgot to take pictures of the finished loaf in my desire to eat it! It will keep in an airtight tin for a few days. The crust is AMAZING on day one! 

Coconut spiced caramels

This is the last of my homemade Christmas gifts. I made these for Mark who loves coconut and I liked the idea of the spicing.
It is an Annie Rigg recipe, from her amazing book Sweet Thing adapted ever so slightly considering what I had in the cupboard.

Coconut spiced caramels

vegetable oil for greasing
400ml (can) full fat coconut milk
6 cardamom pods
1 large cinnamon stick
50g dark brown sugar
100g light brown sugar
75g golen syrup
50g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt
225g caster sugar
2 tablespoons dessicated coconut

Grease the base and sides of a 17cm square baking tin and line with baking parchment.

Put the coconut milk into a saucepan and add the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick. Set over a low heat for 4-5 minutes to infuse the milk with the spices. Add the brown sugars, golden syrup, butter, vanilla and salt. Once the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved remove from the heat.

Put the caster sugar into a saucepan and add 2 tablespoons of water. Set over a low heat to dissolve the sugar. Do not stir. If sugar crystals form on the sides dissolve them with a pastry brush dipped in hot water. Bring the syrup to the boil and cook steadily until it becomes a pale coloured caramel, swirl the pan occasionally to make sure it caramelises evenly.  

Working quickly bring the coconut mixture back up to just under the boil. Continue to cook the caramel till it becomes maple syrup coloured. Take the pan from the heat and slowly strain the coconut milk mixture into it. Be careful, the mixture may hiss and splutter.

Return the pan to the heat and stir till smooth, and to dissolve any caramel that has hardened. Pop a sugar thermometer into the pan and bring to the boil. Stir frequently and continue to cook until the caramel reaches 118C. I used my thermospatula so the pan was not over crowded.

Remove the pan from the heat, whisk the caramel util smooth then pour into the prepared tin.

Lightly toast the coconut in a non stick frying pan over a low heat util golden. Scatter over the caramel and leave to set for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Tip out of the pan onto a chopping board and cut with a greased kitchen knife. Wrap each caramel in a piece of parchment paper, twisting the ends.

Best eaten within a week, though will keep for a couple.   

Annie adds ginger and star anise to the coconut milk along with the cardamom and cinnamon. I a) had neither of these, and b) one of my recipients is not so keen on ginger.

I do not think it mattered too much, the flavour of the spice comes through and makes a very different but delicious caramel.

I got the 'Sweet Thing'  cookbook for Christmas and I cannot wait to get properly stuck in and making some treats!

White chocolate, orange and cardamom breakfast rolls

So having said I would only bake one thing from each bake off week I have already made two from bread week. I was impressed with Ruby for making a peacock out of bread, something I would never have thought of, let alone have attempted! The judges were impressed with her flavour though too and not just its looks, and I have to say I was tempted to try it myself.

So these morning rolls were conceived, as I may have mentioned I was not going to make  peacock!

The recipe can be found here, along with the instructions for making the peacock, should you wish to try.

I divided the recipe by 3 and got 6 rolls.

To the basic mix I added the zest of a whole orange, and the crushed seeds of three cardamom pods. Once I had kneaded the dough I then added 1/2 of my chopped white chocolate and briefly kneaded it in.

After the first proving I rolled the dough into a rectangle, sprinkle over the crushed seeds of 3 more cardamom pods, a tablespoon of caster sugar and the remaining white chocolate. I then rolled up the dough, cut into 6 equal buns and then set on a baking tray covered with parchment to rise for a further 30 minutes.

At this point I covered the dough and left in the fridge overnight.

To bake the rolls I heated the oven to 140C (fan) and cooked for 20-25 minutes.

They were delicious. Thank you for the idea Ruby!

Cardamom and orange blossom loaf cake

I absolutely love cardamom in bakes, it has a hint of spice and adds a unique flavour and fragrance. This cake keeps well and is robust enough to wrap up and take to work as a fantastic mid afternoon 'pick me up' with a cup of tea. The orange blossom is a last minute addition and it just adds to the fragrant nature.

Cardamom and orange blossom loaf cake


190g butter
Seeds from 10 cardamom pods, crushed with pestle and mortar
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
190g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
25ml crème fraiche or natural yoghurt
1 tsp orange blossom water

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN and grease and flour a 900g loaf tin.

Beat the butter, crushed cardamom seeds and caster sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs in, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Add half the flour and baking powder and beat on slow until just combined. Add the second half and once again mix until combined. Finally add the crème fraiche and orange blossom water and mix for a final time.

Pour the mix into the prepared tin and level the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 50-55 minutes until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Banana and cardamom bread

This banana bread was a little bit if an experiment, I normally follow recipes, sometimes it is just a basic recipe that I use for inspiration, other times it is a hash of a few recipes but still, a recipe is involved somewhere.

This banana bread was a worry the whole time it was in the oven as I have to admit I went totally off piste and made it up as I went along.

The reason for this is that I love banana bread but find it can often be quite heavy, I wanted to lighten the cake, BUT in lightening it I did not want to make it too dry, banana bread is most definitely meant to be moist and lovely. So I used a ratio of roughly 65% butter, 35% 0% fat greek yoghurt.

I also find some banana breads overly sweet, I think the bananas are sweet already, especially if they are nice and black! So not too much sugar, though it is still needed for the cakes structure.

Finally I love cardamom and thought adding some would add a lovely warmth and go well with the banana.

Although I created this I do not claim to be original, if I searched google long enough I am sure other people would have similar ideas to me!

My main concern was that there would not be enough fat, and maybe it would not hold together or be too dry and crumbly. I need not have worried so much. The resulting banana bread is a perfect loaf, it is not dense at all but light and still very moist. I love the cardamom in it but this is of course personal preference and could be omitted or replaced with cinnamon or nutmeg.

Banana and Cardamom bread

3 medium bananas, overripe
70g butter
200g light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)
2 eggs
40g greek yoghurt
75ml buttermilk 
275g plain flour
tsp bicarbonate of soda
Seeds from 5 cardamom pods crushed in a pestle and mortar

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN. Grease a 2lb loaf tin, loaf tin sizes confuse me but I mean the bigger one. 

Mash the bananas well and set aside. Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla (if using). Due to the the ratio of sugar to flour it will not cream to a light and fluffy mass like other cakes. However persevere as it will become uniform in colour and texture with no lumps of butter, then it is ready.

Mix together the eggs, greek yoghurt and buttermilk, add to the butter and sugar and mix well. Mix in the mashed banana.

Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and crushed cardamom seeds and fold through the wet ingredients until everything is well incorporated.

Tip the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and level the top. Bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes, it could take up to an hour so keep an eye on it.

When a skewer comes out clean it is cooked, leave to cool in the tin for ~10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

This cake keeps for about 3 days and is delicious as it is, in my opinion it does not need spreading with more butter. Mind you if that's how you like it who am I to argue?

Cardamom, coconut and vanilla cupcakes

I absolutely love cardamom in baking, it adds such a lovely warmth and flavour to biscuits and cakes. The other week I had a fantastic cardamom crème brulee that reminded me just how much I love it.

I had some coconut milk left over from a curry on Friday and an idea was born. Coconut and cardamom are always combined in curries to delicious affect and I saw no reason why combining them in a cupcake would not be as equally delicious.

I only made 6, there are only two of us! The recipe is easily doubled.

Cardamom, coconut and vanilla cupcakes

For the cakes

65g butter
65g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
seeds of 5 cardamom pods, ground in a pestle and mortar
1 egg
65g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp coconut milk

For the frosting

60g butter
125g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
2 tbsp coconut milk


Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN and line a cupcake tin with cases. 

Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and crushed cardamom seeds together until very light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat for a further minute.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and add the flour and baking powder, beat until just combined. Add the coconut milk and beat for a further minute.

Divide the cupcake mix between the cases and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. When done the cupcakes should be golden and springy. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the the frosting beat together the butter, icing sugar, vanilla and 1 tbsp of the coconut milk until very light and fluffy, add the remaining coconut milk and beat again. Refrigerate for about 20-30 minutes. Once the cupcakes are completely cool pipe swirls of frosting onto each cupcake.

These cupcakes are lovely and light with the warming, aromatic cardamom really coming through. The cake is complemented perfectly by a creamy luxurious frosting.

I am giving these cakes full credit for helping me get through my science report! It is my firm believe that  cake will help any form of writers block/work issue.

Lemon and Cardamom cookies

I was very excited to receive the Hairy Bikers Bakation book for my birthday, and only one chapter in I wanted to make everything!

Waiting around for our internet engineer to arrive seemed an excellent opportunity to start baking from this great book.

Now it has to be said these may not be the prettiest cookies to look at but they taste divine. The bikers suggest you could use a cookie press to make them prettier, however I do not have one (but it has been added to my mental list of kitchen stuff I want!).

Lemon and Cardamom cookies (from Hairy Bikers Bakation)

Recipe makes 24

225g butter

150g butter

Zest of one lemon

250g plain flour

100g ground almonds

1 tsp of ground cardamom seeds (this is approximately the seeds of 10 pods ground with a pestle and mortar.

First line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 190^oC/fan170^OC

Grind up the seeds of the cardamom pods and set aside.

Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy.

Add the flour, almonds and ground cardamom, beat on slow to combine until the dough comes together. You may need to use your hands to get the dough completely together.

Roll into 24 balls and place onto the prepared sheets. Either stamp with a cookie stamp or flatten with a glass.

Bake for 12-14 mins until golden around the edges. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes on the sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack. They will crisp up as they cool.

So as I said maybe not the prettiest, I am going with the very rustic homemade look. But no matter as they are the perfect thing to have with a cup of tea.