Showing posts sorted by date for query sandwich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query sandwich. Sort by relevance Show all posts
I've been pretty laid out with my back this past couple of weeks and have not really been cooking anything new for the most part.
The pain has been pretty bad, but finally today I feel like I have begun to turn the corner somewhat and so I decided to do a new recipe to share on here. Lemon Splits!
It's okay if you don't know what they are. I had never heard of them either before I moved here to the UK. I have always loved Lemon flavoured anything.
Those lemon puff cookies were my favourite when I was growing up. Buttery lemon flavoured crackers put together with lemon icing. If you are a lemon aficionado you will know exactly the ones I mean!
I discovered these Lemon Splits in the grocery shop about a year or so ago. What they are is plain Welsh Cakes, without the spice and raisins, put together with a layer of lemon curd in the middle. My goodness but they are some tasty.
They don't always have them in the shops however so it is hit and miss as to if you can find them or not. I looked for a recipe online but couldn't find one anywhere.
I decided to take the bull by the horns and create my own. I have made Welsh Cakes in the past. You can find that recipe here.
Welsh cakes are really good. They are like a cross between a pastry and a scone in my opinion. Buttery with a short texture and oh so tasty, especially when served with a hot bevvie!
They are a very traditional Welsh teatime treat and you will find them all over Wales. They are extremely good I have to say.
All of the teatime treats in the British Isles are extremely good. They know how to bake good things!
So what I did was make Welsh Cakes, without the spice or the raisins . . .
Just plain . . . flour, butter, sugar and an egg. You might need to add a bit of milk to the dough, but my dough was perfect without it.
In fact I had to generously dust my board and pin with flour or it would have stuck too much.
I baked them on my Pampered Chef Griddle pan. You need to heat it so that its not scalding hot and not too cool.
You can use a heavy based non-stick skillet as well. The important thing to remember is to not have it too hot, or the outside will brown too quickly and they won't be done inside.
I heated mine over medium low and once it was heated I turned it down to low. This worked well for me, about 2 to 3 minute per side did the trick.
I knew it was time to flip them over when they started looking a bit puffy on top and were golden brown on the bottom.
When they were done they were golden brown on both sides and the edges looked dry. That's the best that I can explain it.
You can of course make your own lemon curd to fill these from scratch and I have a darn good recipe that you can find here.
But a really good quality store bought one works just fine also and sometimes that's all we have time for!
These are perfect! We both enjoyed them very much, even the "so-called lemon hater". Methinks he doth protest too much personally!
He scarfed two down right away no problemo! If you really don't like lemon, these would be awfully nice sandwiched together with your favourite jam as well.
Ohh, black currant jam or jelly would be lovely!
Yield: Makes 12 to 14
Lemon Splits
prep time: cook time: total time:
Traditional Welsh Cakes without the raisins, sandwiched together with lemon curd. Don't worry if you don't have a griddle or hot stone to cook them on, they will cook perfectly find in a skillet with a heavy base.
ingredients:
- 225g self rising flour (1 1/2 cups + 2TBS)
- 110g salted butter (1/2 cup minus 1 tsp)
- 85g caster sugar (7 TBS)
- 1 medium free range egg
- Milk (if needed)
- flour to dust the cutting board
- butter to grease the griddle (optional)
- good quality lemon curd to fill
instructions:
How to cook Lemon Splits
- Sift the flour into a bowl. Drop in the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine dry bread crumbs. Stir in the sugar with a fork. Beat the egg and stir it into the mixture to form a ball of dough, adding a splash of milk if you need it. (I did not need it.)
- Generously flour a board and then tip the dough out onto it, also generously flouring the dough. Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds using a 2 1/2 inch round fluted cutter. Re-roll any scraps and cut again, until all the dough has been used up.
- Heat a heavy grill stone or non-stick griddle pan over medium low heat until fairly hot. Brush lightly with butter if desired. (I didn't use any.) Add the welsh cakes and bake them for 2 to 3 minutes on one side. They should be golden brown on the bottom. Flip them over and bake for a further 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown on the other side. Try not to have the temperature of the griddle too high or they will brown too quickly on the outside and not be cooked in the centre. ( It was my observation that they were ready to flip over when the tops looked kind of puffy.)
- Remove from the pan with a spatula to a wire rack to cool.
- To make the lemon splits, sandwich two together with lemon curd in the centre. You can dust with some icing sugar to serve. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.
Did you make this recipe?
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My latest recipe has just been published on the Chef Knives Expert Site. This week I am sharing a delicious recipe for Cheesy Burrito Melts!
This fabulously tasty hot sandwich melt uses simple ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. Toasty English Muffins, kidney beans, sweet green bell pepper, tomato salsa (you choose how spicy you want it!), some minced spring onion, a few herbs and spices and rich cheddar cheese!
They go together in a flash. You can have them made and on the table in less than half an hour tops. They make a fabulously nutritious lunch which is a great source of protein (something we are all trying to get into our diets these days!) as well as being high in fibre, iron and calcium!
They are great for game nights when you are enjoying the latest match with your family, or for students who are up studying and need something quick and easy. You can bake them in the oven or in a microwave oven! They can also be easily assembled ahead of time and refrigerated, ready to pop into the oven 15 minutes or so before you want to eat! These are quite simply fabulous! You can find the full recipe and instructions on Chef Knives Expert!
I did have an internal debate with myself on whether to share these sandwiches with you or not. Lets face it they are not very attractive.
They kind of resemble a hot mess . . . but sometimes that can be a good thing. Sometimes the hotter and messier, the better!
I am enjoying a quiet Saturday as I sit and write this. Usually at the weekends, I like to bake a cake or some such.
Sometimes it will be a fancy cake, especially if we are celebrating something. More often than not it is a Victoria Sandwich Cake. This is quite simply, the best.
In all truth our favourite cake is the simple Victoria Sandwich Cake. That is the one we enjoy eating most of all, and the one I enjoy baking most of all.
I know I have shared it with you before, but can you ever share something that you love too many times? I think not . . .you can never have too much of a good thing!
My mother always filled our cakes with jam. With jam in the middle a cake needs no other adornment. Especially if you use really good jam. And I always do.
My father always loved cake with jam in the middle and it was something we all enjoyed. My jam of choice has always been Bonne Maman. It just has the nicest consistency and the right amount of fruitiness!
Jam is a very versatile ingredient. You can change the flavour of a plain cake such as this just by varying the type of jam you choose to use.
But it must always be a good jam. Homemade is good of course, but if you are buying your jam, make sure you get a quality one.
More often than not I will use strawberry jam. That is my favourite, along with raspberry which follows a close second.
These are what are the most traditional for this purpose. Any red jam looks great actually.
Here are some suggestions to shake it up a bit. Add a bit of lemon zest to the batter before baking and fill it with some wild blueberry jam.
You have yourself another tasty combination. The flavour of lemon and blueberries together is unmatchless.
If you add some freshly grated nutmeg and a bit of vanilla. Fill it with peach or apricot jam and your cake is lifted to an entirely different level.
Or you could fold raspberries into the cake and fill it with peach jam. Voila, a sort of a peach melba cake!
And don't get me started on lemon curd. Lemon curd in the middle is another favourite of mine. I completely adore Lemon Curd.
I could eat it with a spoon. Shhh . . . don't tell, but whenever I use it I always eat a cheeky spoonful. That's yours and my little secret now.
In the summer filling this cake with a layer of whipped or clotted cream and sliced strawberries turns this cake a beautiful indulgence . . .
You cannot get much better than a cake filled with softly whipped cream and berries. You do have to eat the whole thing on the day, but that is so not a problem!
This is a cake that can be as simple as you wish. It can also be as elaborate as you wish. It suits all occasions.
It is the Birthday cake of choice in this house and so quick and easy to whip up. You can seriously have one of these on the table in less than an hour, tops and that allows for cooling.
It is perfect for cold and dismal, rainy autumn afternoons near the end of September. A day when all you want to do is hunker in with a good book and a hot cuppa.
A day when you can pull a blanket over your knees and just hunker down. A day when you are wanting comfort of the utmost kind.
If ever there was a cake that you could consider to be a comfort cake, this is it. Comfort, pure and simple and most delicious.
Yield: Makes 1 7-inch cake
Victoria Sandwich Cake
Popular during the reign of Queen Victoria, this cake remains popular to this day, which is a huge testament to it's taste and ease of baking!
ingredients:
- 170g of butter (12 TBS,)
- 170g caster sugar (3/4 cup)
- 3 large free range eggs, beaten
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 170g self raising flour (a scant 1 1/4 cups)
To finish:
- strawberry or raspberry jam
- caster sugar or powdered sugar to dust on top
instructions:
How to cook Victoria Sandwich Cake
- Butter and base line two 7 inch sandwich tins. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.
- Sift the flour together with the baking powder.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light in colour and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
- Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, taking care to use a cutting motion so as not to knock out too much of the air that you have beaten into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, levelling off the surface. Make a slight dip in the centre of each.
- Bake on a centre rack of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen well, are golden brown, and spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes before running a knife carefully around the edges and turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled, place one layer on a cake plate. Spread with raspberry jam. Place the other cake on top, pressing down lightly. Dust with icing or caster sugar and cut into wedges to serve.
If I am lucky this will last us several days, but since it is a favourite of both of us, I don't expect that it will be around much longer that. Quick, easy and delicious. Qualities that are pretty hard to beat!
Up Tomorrow: Fried Egg Sandwiches (brought forward from the other day)
Its my husband's 81st Birthday today. Its also the anniversary of the day we first met in person. I always tease him and tell him I am the best Birthday Present he ever received. Most of the time he would agree with me . . . unless we are in the car. Then it becomes quite debatable. He says he doesn't drive. He just steers.
Two of Todd's favourite things are Victoria Sponge Cakes and Raspberry Jam Tarts, well any jam tart really . . . he just loves anything with jam in it.
You know how you create ideas in your mind of things you want to do . . . and you picture them all out and in your mind they come out looking fantastic . . . but in reality, they don't even come close to touching what you had envisioned them as being?
This is one of those things. Every time I look at it I laugh. In my mind I saw this beautiful Victoria sponge with two layers of butter cream along with a layer of sweet jam in the middle. ✓✓
Two ticks . . . one for the Victoria Sponge . . . two for the butter cream . . . and wait a third . . . ✓ for the jam, raspberry jam. Bonne Maman, only the best for my man.
Normally I don't put butter cream on top of a Victoria Sponge, just in the middle. The top is usually dusted lightly with either icing sugar or caster sugar . . .
But today I had the idea in mind that I was going to decorate the top with raspberry jam tarts, again Bonne Maman ones (I could have made from scratch, but was stretched for time). I wanted to put a layer of vanilla butter cream on the top as well, to hold the jam tarts in place.
I decorated each jam tart with a small dollop of butter cream and a sprinkle of hundreds and thousands cake sprinkles . . . and then placed them lovingly all around the outside of the cake. I had an extra one and so I cut it up into little bits to decorate around the candle in the middle of the cake.
I just used one big fat candle in a tiny Bonne Maman jam jar as a holder. (Bonne Maman figured big in my cake plans today!)
You would have to have a really big cake to sport 81 candles, so I reckoned one big fat one was as good as 81 smaller ones.
Its not the prettiest Birthday Cake in the world. Not near as pretty as I had envisioned when I was dreaming it up . . .
But it didn't really matter because Todd loved it . . . two of his favourite things . . . plus all of the love I put into it. He was quite happy with it. He's not hard to please.
The cake itself is a really good cake, with a lovely moist crumb and beautiful texture . . .
Homemade Vanilla Butter cream Frosting? You can't go wrong. Its delicious too . . .
Bonne Maman Jams, next to homemade, they are the best in my opinion . . . .
And their jam tarts on their own are also rather moreish . . . not sure if it worked all together. I dare not hazard a taste because the sugar in all of this would send me into a Diabetic coma, but my dear husband was one very happy Camper, and that's what counts.
Yield: 8
Raspberry Jam Tart Birthday Cake
This is the kind of cake you bake for someones birthday when their favourite things are a Victoria sponge and raspberry jam tarts!
ingredients:
For the cake:
- 170g butter (12 TBS)
- 170g caster sugar (1 cup)
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 large free range eggs, beaten
- 170g self raising flour (a scant 1 1/4 cups)
For the butter cream:
- 225g butter, softened (1 cup)
- 390g icing sugar, sifted (3 cups, confectioners, powdered)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 to 2 TBS double cream
To finish:
- 6 TBS of raspberry jam
- 8 raspberry jam tarts, plus one crumbled if desired
- hundreds and thousands cake sprinkles
instructions:
How to cook Raspberry Jam Tart Birthday Cake
- Butter and base line two 7 inch sandwich tins. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.
- Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light in colour and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture begins to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
- Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, taking care to use a cutting motion so as not to knock out too much of the air that you have beaten into the batter. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, levelling off the surface. Make a slight dip in the centre of each.
- Bake on a centre rack of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the sponges have risen well, are golden brown, and spring back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes before running a knife carefully around the edges and turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- For the butter cream, beat the butter and sugar together on low until well blended and then continue to beat on medium for another few minutes until it begins to become fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and 1 TBS cream, only adding the second one if needed until you have a frosting of spreading consistency.
- Pipe a tiny bit of butter cream in the centre of each jam tart and sprinkle with the cake sprinkles.
- Place one layer of cake on a cake place, top side down. (I like to anchor it in place with a bit of butter cream. ) Spread with half of the butter cream you have left. Spoon the jam over top of the butter cream and spread it out a bit with the back of a spoon. Top with the other cake layer, bottom side down. Spread the top of the cake with the remaining butter cream. Place raspberry jam tarts decoratively around the top edges of the cake and sprinkle the centre of the cake with some more cake sprinkles and some chopped jam tart if you wish.
- Serve cut into wedges.
Happy Birthday Todd. I am going to be spoiling you all the day through with little things. We doing his proper celebration on Wednesday next when Tina and Tony are coming over for a slap up roast dinner.
Up tomorrow: Homemade Gingernut Biscuits/Cookies
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