So Harry wanted to impress us all with his baking skills and had chosen an old favourite from Delia's book. It might be an old favourite but Harry put his own contemporary twist on it and iced it beautifully. It actually looked better than a certain M&S cake I once bought at huge expense but that's another story! Anyway, we decided his cake had been uneaten long enough and watched impatiently as he sliced through the pink icing and into the moist sponge below. The cake was light and fluffy and the icing wasn't too sweet but just perfect. It looked good, it tasted good and it didn't last long! Here's some shots I took...the photos don't show the true skill employed in the decoration but you get the idea. Harry - your Hot, Sweet and Yummy Heart cake was fabulous. You and Delia are a winning team.
The recipe is below...
The cake recipe is Delia Smith’s classic “All-in-one” sponge recipe, taken from the classic book, “Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course”. I used 1.5 x quantities of the cake mixture in order to make a taller three-tier cake – but following the recipe as below will work perfectly well.
For the cake:
4 oz self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 oz soft margarine, at room temperature
4 oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
2-3 drops vanilla extract*
*original recipe states “vanilla essence”, but I recommend that pure vanilla extract, which has become available in the last 10-15 years, is used instead for better flavour.
For the cake:
4 oz self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 oz soft margarine, at room temperature
4 oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
2-3 drops vanilla extract*
*original recipe states “vanilla essence”, but I recommend that pure vanilla extract, which has become available in the last 10-15 years, is used instead for better flavour.
For the decoration:
1 x 500g pack of fondant icing
170g strawberry jam
Few drops pink food colouring
a little cornflour or icing sugar for rolling the icing
Instructions:
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 (170°C).
Two 7 inch (18 cm) sponge tins, no less than 1.5 inches (4 cm) deep, lightly greased and lined with greaseproof paper (also greased) or silicone paper.
Take a large roomy mixing bowl, and sift flour and baking powder into it, holding the sieve high to give the flour a good airing. Then simply add all the other ingredients to the bowl and whisk them—preferably with an electric hand whisk—till thoroughly combined. If the mixture doesn’t drop off a wooden spoon easily when tapped on the side of the bowl, then add 1 or 2 teaspoons of tap-warm water, and whisk again.
Now divide the mixture between the two prepared cake tins, level off and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for about 30 minutes. When cooked, leave them in the tins for only about 30 seconds, then loosen the edges by sliding a palette knife all round and turn them out onto a wire cooling rack. Peel off the base papers carefully, and leave to cool.
When cool, sandwich the layers together with jam. To make the heart shape, form the top of the heart by cutting away segments as shown on the first picture in the diagram. Then form the bottom of the heart by moving these pieces to the bottom of the cake – but to the opposite side of the cake from whence they came – as shown in the second picture in the diagram. These pieces can be trimmed slightly if necessary to give you a perfect heart shape. Use some more jam as “glue” to stick these pieces to the cake.
Then spread the cake all over with the remaining jam. Roll out the fondant icing 2-3 mm thick, dusting the rolling pin and the work surface with either some cornflour or icing sugar to prevent the icing sticking. Transfer the icing to the cake, smooth over, and trim away the excess icing. Colour the excess icing with the pink food colouring, and roll out. Cut out small heart shapes with a heart-shaped cutter and decorate the cake with these hearts, sticking them to the cake with a few drops of water.
1 x 500g pack of fondant icing
170g strawberry jam
Few drops pink food colouring
a little cornflour or icing sugar for rolling the icing
Instructions:
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 (170°C).
Two 7 inch (18 cm) sponge tins, no less than 1.5 inches (4 cm) deep, lightly greased and lined with greaseproof paper (also greased) or silicone paper.
Take a large roomy mixing bowl, and sift flour and baking powder into it, holding the sieve high to give the flour a good airing. Then simply add all the other ingredients to the bowl and whisk them—preferably with an electric hand whisk—till thoroughly combined. If the mixture doesn’t drop off a wooden spoon easily when tapped on the side of the bowl, then add 1 or 2 teaspoons of tap-warm water, and whisk again.
Now divide the mixture between the two prepared cake tins, level off and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for about 30 minutes. When cooked, leave them in the tins for only about 30 seconds, then loosen the edges by sliding a palette knife all round and turn them out onto a wire cooling rack. Peel off the base papers carefully, and leave to cool.
When cool, sandwich the layers together with jam. To make the heart shape, form the top of the heart by cutting away segments as shown on the first picture in the diagram. Then form the bottom of the heart by moving these pieces to the bottom of the cake – but to the opposite side of the cake from whence they came – as shown in the second picture in the diagram. These pieces can be trimmed slightly if necessary to give you a perfect heart shape. Use some more jam as “glue” to stick these pieces to the cake.
Then spread the cake all over with the remaining jam. Roll out the fondant icing 2-3 mm thick, dusting the rolling pin and the work surface with either some cornflour or icing sugar to prevent the icing sticking. Transfer the icing to the cake, smooth over, and trim away the excess icing. Colour the excess icing with the pink food colouring, and roll out. Cut out small heart shapes with a heart-shaped cutter and decorate the cake with these hearts, sticking them to the cake with a few drops of water.
No comments:
Post a Comment