Showing posts with label Teatime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teatime. Show all posts
Jam Tea Cake. This is a wonderful breakfast cake that is sure to become a firm favorite with your family! Its been a favorite of mine for a great many years, and no small wonder!
Its moist and delicious from a rich sour cream, buttery and almond flavored batter. Topped with swirls of your favorite preserves and flaked almonds, it always goes down a real treat. Breakfast, brunch, coffee break, teatime, whenever!
Not only is it moist and delicious, but it goes together very quickly. This makes it ideal to whip together for last minute breakfast guests, and I can tell you, nobody has ever been able to turn down a piece of this!
It is the ideal showcase for the wonderful sweetness and flavor or homemade preserves. If you are lucky enough to have rhubarb jam in the larder, you are in for a real treat!
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
But it really goes beautifully with any flavor of preserves. Some favorites here are raspberry, strawberry, cherry, and mixed berry. Red colored preserves really show up nicely!
But blueberry and apricot, or peach are also nice. And don't forget lemon curd, or even, dare I say it . . . . Nutella. If you are not fond of the flavor of almond extract, you can use vanilla in its place.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE JAM TEA CAKE
Simple baking cupboard ingredients. There is nothing really out of the ordinary here. That's all a part of its simple charm!
- 1 1/2 cups (210g) unbleached all purpose plain flour
- 1/3 cup (65g) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
- pinch of salt
- 4 TBS butter, melted
- 2 large free range eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup (60g) dairy sour cream
- 1 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup (110g to 145g) thick fruit jam or preserves, or all fruit spread
- 1/2 cup (85g) flaked almonds
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
I have not made this using low fat sour cream, but I think it would probably work alright. You could also use plain unsweetened yogurt in the place of the sour cream if that is all you have.
I only keep one kind of butter in my kitchen, slightly salted. Oh how I miss the Lurpak butter I could get in the UK. It was the best.
All eggs are free range, large and organic if I can find them.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
If I don't have homemade jam to use I use the best jam my money can buy. I really like the Bonne Maman Jams from France, and no, its not just because of the jar. They taste good and have plenty of fruit in them.
You can also use spreadable fruit.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
HOW TO MAKE JAM TEA CAKE
This is probably one of the easiest cakes to make. It goes together just like a muffin or a quick bread in that you mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately and then beat the two together!
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 inch square baking tin and line with some baking parchment leaving an overhang on two sides.
Sift the flour, soda, and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and salt.
Whisk the melted butter, sour cream, beaten eggs, and almond extract together. Add to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth and fluffy. Spread into your pan evenly.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
Dot the top with the jam. Insert a butter knife straight into the batter and swirl it in gently a few times to distribute it through the batter.
Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top.
Bake in the center of the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand in the pan for 10 minutes before lifting out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
The batter is quite a thick batter. It is supposed to be thick. This is what prevents the jam from sinking all the way to the bottom.
You might think you are never going to be able to spread it out in the pan, but the back of a metal spoon helps to do this beautifully! I tend to dollop it into the pan in 9 big dollops and then spread it out from there!
Don't over swirl the jam. You want nice pockets of sweet preserves as well as a bit of swirl throughout the cake!
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
If you are fond of using jam in your baking there is no end to the recipes here in my kitchen using that fabulous resource. (We are real jam people!) Here are some of my favorites!
SMALL BATCH JAM CRUMBLE BARS - with the short bread base, jam filling and crumbled shortbread topping these tasty bars go down a real treat with a nice hot cuppa!
EASY JAM HEARTS - Heart shaped buttery cookies with scrumptious jam centres. No rolling out or cookie cutters needed. Dolloped on the baking sheet and shaped with your hands, they are very easy to make.
JAM DOUGHNUT MUFFINS - These are so scrumptious I once made them three times in one week! Moist and delicious with jammy centers and a cinnamon sugar coating.
.JPG "Jam Tea Cake")
This really is a fabulous breakfast cake. I guarantee your family is going to love it. Put the kettle on and make a pot of tea because a nice hot cuppa goes perfectly!
Note, I like to dust it lightly with some icing sugar to serve. It pretties it up very nicely!
Jam Tea Cake
Yield: Makes one 8-inch cake
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 55 Min
This fabulous breakfast cake goes together very quickly and is a great way to use up whatever jam you have languishing in the refrigerator. I especially love to use raspberry, cherry or strawberry jam. Its also a really nice way to showcase some of your homemade preserves.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (210g) unbleached all purpose plain flour
- 1/3 cup (65g) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
- pinch of salt
- 4 TBS butter, melted
- 2 large free range eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup (60g) dairy sour cream
- 1 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup (110g to 145g) thick fruit jam or preserves, or all fruit spread
- 1/2 cup (85g) flaked almonds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 inch square baking tin and line with some baking parchment leaving an overhang on two sides.
- Sift the flour, soda, and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and salt.
- Whisk the melted butter, sour cream, beaten eggs, and almond extract together. Add to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth and fluffy. Spread into your pan evenly.
- Dot the top with the jam. Insert a butter knife straight into the batter and swirl it in gently a few times to distribute it through the batter.
- Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top.
- Bake in the center of the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let stand in the pan for 10 minutes before lifting out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
I have shared a Swiss Roll recipe on here before. You can access my original post here. Swiss Rolls or Jelly Roll as it is also known is probably one of the favorite cakes of many people.
My mom didn't bake very often when I was a child. She worked full time, but when she did make a Jelly/Swiss roll, my siblings and I got very excited. To be honest we were even excited to get a store bought one.
Jam and cake, cake and jam, if its jam and cake everyone in my family is in seventh heaven. Simply put they are one of our favorite things, right up there with fish and chips!
Swiss rolls are the perfect cakes to bake for a weeknight or afterschool treat. Completely fat free, they are very easy to make and are one of what I consider to be no fuss, no muss cakes!
And yet, many people are intimidated by the idea of making a Swiss Roll cake. Today I want to demystify that notion and I wanted to try out Mary Berry's recipe for this beautiful fatless sponge.
She is the doyenne of the Great British Bake Off. I know she is no longer a part of that show, but to be honest in my opinion, she WAS that show and when she left, it lost a lot of its appeal for me.
She was always kind to the contestants on the show, even if she was being critical. Its called taking your medicine with a spoonful of sugar. Anyways, I like her.
Every recipe of hers that I have ever made has been impeccable. There have been no duds. I thought it would be fun today to share a tutorial with you on how to make a proper Swiss Roll a la Mary Berry! Her recipe is the best swiss roll recipe and I would expect nothing less!
HOW TO MAKE A PROPER SWISS ROLL CAKE
I took photographs of every step of my baking today's cake so I could show you every step of the way. One thing I always do when baking is to start with room temperature ingredients. My flour and sugar are always room temperature, but you might want to bring your eggs to room temperature. This is easily done by resting them in a bowl of quite warm (not boiling) tap water for a few minutes.
Measure your eggs and sugar into a clean, grease free bowl. Using an electric hand mixer (you can also use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment) you want to whisk these together for about five minutes. At that point you should have a light and frothy mixture which is thickish. Your beater/whisk should leave a trail or a ribbon when you lift it up out of the mixture. This is essential and there is no quick way to get around it.
Once you have achieved the proper consistency, you can start folding in the flour. You need self rising flour. (I tell you how to make your own in the recipe notes.) Fold this into the egg/sugar mixture using a rubber spatula as you are sifting the flour in. You want it to be thoroughly combined without any dry streaks but you also don't want to knock any air out of your batter that you have just gone to all that trouble of beating it in.
You want to be preheating your oven to 400*F/200*C. You also want to have a swiss roll pan buttered and lined with baking parchment. A Swiss roll pan is 9 X 13 inches in size.
You can also use a baking sheet of the same size so long as it has a lip around the edge. Your cake will rise approximately 3/4 to one inch.
Spread your batter evenly into the prepared pan, smoothing it out and making sure it gets into all of the edges. It is a cake that bakes really quickly so don't forget to put on your timer. It should be done in 10 minutes.
While it is baking prepared your paper that you are going to use to roll it up. Spread a sheet of baking parchment that is slightly larger than your cake tin on the counter and dust it all over evenly with finely granulated sugar.
The cake is done when it is golden brown and the sides have started to shrink away from the sides of the pan slightly.
You will need to invert the cake onto this sheet of paper as soon as you take it out of the oven. It should come out very easily if you have buttered your pan properly and lined it. But just in case, I do like to run a sharp knife down the long edge of both sides of the pan.
Once you have tipped the cake out onto the sugar dusted paper, you will need to remove the baking paper that is stuck to the bottom of it from where you baked it in the pan. Carefully loosen and slowly peel it off, discarding it when you are done.
Using a sharp serrated knife, trim the baked edges from all around the cake. Just cut a tiny sliver. If you have any kids in the house they will love eating these. Or you can throw them out to the birds.
While the cake is still warm and once you have trimmed the edges, you will need to make a score mark about 1 inch from one of the short edges of the cake, taking care not to cut all the way down to the bottom. Let your cake cool slightly and while it is still a bit warm, spread the jam in a thin layer all over the surface.
Using your paper to help you push the cake along, roll the cake up tightly beginning at the scored edge.
When you are done it will look like this. Don't worry if the jam has not come out evenly at all the edges. Just trim those away, again the kids will be more than happy to help you get rid of them!
And that's it. Your cake is done and it was reasonably painless I am sure!
I think Mary would approve of my cake. I got a nice tight roll on it and there is not too much or too little jam.
The texture is nice as well. Light and fluffy. Not rubbery.
The last thing you want is a cake that has the texture of an omelet. This cake is quite simply beautiful.
You can also easily vary the recipe and fillings if you want. Its just as lovely filled with lemon curd. You can also make a buttercream icing to fill it with, varying the flavor of that. Coffee buttercream is quite popular.
For a simply coffee flavored buttercream icing simply beat together 3 ounces (75g) of butter, with 1 3/4 cup (225g) of sifted icing sugar, 2 tsp milk and 2 tsp of coffee flavoring. (Camp is good for this)
You can make any kind of buttercream icing you enjoy. Strawberry. Lemon. Orange. Or even use a combination of vanilla butter cream and your favorite jam.
People also like to fill them with whipped cream and fruit. Strawberries or raspberries (or both) are very nice!
In this case I don't sweetened the cream, as the cake itself is pretty sweet. I do fold a bit of sugar into the sliced berries. 1 cup or 1/2 pint of cream whipped is generally sufficient.
For the holidays you can fill it with a thin layer of spiced buttercream and fruity mincemeat. Always nice, or you can fold some chestnut cream into some whipped cream and fill it with that. Yummilicious!
Its beautiful just as is however, for an every day teatime/afterschool/ treat. Swiss Roll. Its a good thing, and Mary Berry's recipe for it is excellent and fail-proof!
Mary Berry's Swiss Roll
Yield: 8
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 10 MinTotal time: 25 Min
This delicious fat-free sponge cake with its jam filling makes a delicious tea-time treat!
Ingredients
- 4 large free range eggs
- 1/2 cup (100g)fine granulated sugar (caster sugar)
- 3/4 cup (100g) self raising flour ( see note)
For the finishing and filling:
- 4 TBS finely granulated sugar
- 4 heaped TBS strawberry or raspberry jam
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400*F/200*C/ gas mark 6. Butter a 9 by 13 inch cake tin or rimmed baking sheet/jelly roll pan and line the bottom with baking parchment. Set aside.
- Beat the eggs and the sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until the mixture is light and leaves a trail/ribbon in the bowl when you lift out the beaters. This will take a good five minutes.
- Sift the flour over the mixture, folding it in with a spatula as you do so. Take care not to knock the air out of the batter.
- Spread the batter in the prepared tin, making sure you get it in all of the corners.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown and the edges the cake are beginning to shrink from the edges of the pan. Do not over bake.
- While the cake is baking place a sheet of baking parchment slightly larger than the cake tin on a counter top. Sprinkle the 4 TBS of sugar over top evenly.
- When the cake is one invert the cake onto the sugared baking parchment. Carefully peel the baking paper from the bottom of the cake and discard.
- Using a sharp serrated knife, trim the edges from the cake, and then make a score mark 1 inch away from one short edge, taking care not to cut all the way through.
- Let the cake cool for a few minutes to lukewarm. Spread the jam over the surface of the cake evenly. (Don't do this when the cake it too hot or it will absorb the jam which you don't want.)
- Working from the short edge that you made the score mark in roll the cake up firmly. Using the paper to push it along really helps.
- Cut into thick slices to serve.
Notes:
You can easily make your own self-rising flour by adding 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt to every cup of flour. I make mine up by 4 cups and it always gets used.
These wonderful peach scones are tender and delicious served warm from the oven. I can honestly say that I have never met a scone I didn't immediately fall in love with.
These beautiful scones are filled with lovely flavours and make the perfect bread to serve at breakfast, for a brunch, or for a ladies luncheon or tea party.
They use simple pantry ingredients. Things which we probably all have in our cupboards. They are super fast and very easy to make.
You can opt to use fresh peaches in them or tinned peaches, perfect for the winter months. Both work beautifully. Just make sure if you use the tinned option that you pat them dry really well.
I guaranteed they will be delicious with either option. Actually these scones are a brilliant way to use up supermarket peaches that are hard and less than their best. There is something about cooking with fruit that can bring the best out of what many might see as throw away fruit.
Have you ever done that? Picked up a punnet of fruits at the shops because they were a good deal, only to get them home and realise that there was no way under heaven they were every going to soften up enough to eat them out of hand?
I have done this and been disappointed many times by substandard fruits. Fruits that actually turn mealy instead of ripening to perfection. Problem no more.
Just cook with them. It is guaranteed to bring out their best. Trust me on this.
Cold butter is key when it comes to making perfect scones. Use your butter straight from the refrigerator, cutting it into smaller bits and dropping it into your flour base.
Proper scones use a rubbing in technique for the fats, rather than cutting. That is a part of the reason really cold butter is essential as well as working quickly. You rub the fat in with your fingertips, using a snapping motion.
Keeping you hands cool and working quickly is also key. (Its not hard to keep your hands cold on a winter's day actually. Not for me anyways.)
The cold butter actually helps to create little air pockets in the dough while it bakes. This makes for a lighter and more tender scone, with big fluffy layers. You also get a scone that is beautifully crisp on the outside, but amazingly light inside..
I have used poppyseeds in these, to help give a bit of contrast and additional texture. You can leave them out if you wish. I love poppyseeds in anything.
However, if you are serving them for a luncheon you may absolutely want to leave them out. Ladies really don't like to get caught with seeds in their teeth and poppyseed is notorious for that.
A light hand is also a necessity when it comes to making scones. Over-handling the dough creates a tough finish, so handle them as little as possible.
Just knead the dough very lightly and then pat into shape on a lightly floured surface. You will also need a lovely SHARP cutter, and then cut them out using a quick tapping motion. DON'T twist the cutter as you cut them.
Twisting not only results in a lopsided scone, but also ensures that the scones won't rise as tall as they would otherwise. By twisting you seal the edges of the dough and it has to work harder to rise.
A sharp direct up and down cut is best. I also try to get as many cuts as I can out of the first patting out. You can of course gather the scraps together and cut more, but these re-pats will not be near as nice as the first cuts.
There is a tiny amount of vanilla in these. Vanilla goes really well with the flavour of peaches. Surprisingly so.
You could of course use a vanilla paste, which is thick and lush and filled with lots of seeds, if you are lucky enough to have it. But in any case always use a good vanilla. Articially flavoured vanilla is always substandard and tastes, well . . . artificial.
Another flavour that goes well with peaches is almond. Feel free to use almond extract in the place of the vanilla extract to give these delicious scones a completely different slant!
I always like to brush the tops of my scones and add a bit of crunch. A bit of cream and some turbinado/demerara raw sugar does the trick beautifully!
If you are going to glaze them however, you may want to leave this step out. But I have done both before and been very pleased with the results.
This is a buttery crisp scone, moreishly flaky . . . filled with tender sweet
pieces of peach . . . crunchy poppyseeds, and infused with a touch of vanilla.
Once baked all you have to do is to decide what you are going to enjoy them with!
If
you are lucky enough to have clotted cream do serve these with ice cold
clotted cream. Clotted Cream, how do I love thee. Let me count the
ways . . .
It forms a buttery crust as it cools which is lush and delicious. It is very hard to replicate outside of the UK. I would recommend using whipped heavy cream in its place.
The glutton in me also loves to enjoy these with a jam or preserve of some sort. I favour apricot or peach myself, but raspberry would also be delicious and working very well with the flavours of the peach.
The hardest part about these is deciding wether to put the jam on first or the cream. What school are you from? I am a cream first kind of a gal. These will be delicious no matter what way around you decide to do it.
Washed down with hot cups of tea, it just doesn't get much better than this!!
Peach & Vanilla Scones
Yield: 10 scones
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 20 Mintotal time: 35 Min
If you need to you can also use drained tinned peaches in the place of fresh ones. Just dry them really well with paper kitchen towelling before chopping. These are delicious!
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups (500g) all purpose/plain flour (3 1/2 cups)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup (100g) caster sugar
- 1/2 cup (125g) butter, cubed
- 3 small fresh peaches, chopped coarsely
- 1 tsp poppyseeds
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 medium free range egg, beaten
- 7 TBS (100ml) whole milk (7 TBS)
- Cream to brush on the tops
- demerara sugar to sprinkle on the tops
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Set aside.
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the sugar and baking powder.
- Drop in the butter and rub it in with your fingertips, using a snapping motion, until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Stir in the chopped peaches and the poppyseeds.
- Whisk together the vanilla, egg and milk. Add to the dry mixture to make a soft dough.
- Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently. Pat out about 1 1/2 inch thick.
- Stamp out into rounds with a very sharp 3 inch round cutter. Place onto the baking sheet.
- Push any trimmings together and re-pat out to stamp out more rounds if necessary and also place on the baking sheet.
- Brush tops lightly with cream and sprinkle with demerara sugar.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.
- Serve slightly warm with clotted or whipped cream and apricot jam. Fabulous!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons