Eggless Black Forest Cake

Since the Great British Bake off series was on I have been baking more than I usually do. I joined in a bloggers baking group on face book where a group of amateur bakers took inspiration from the shows weekly challenges and recreated the  many bakes that the contestants made. I really had fun participating and making new friends. It was a big learning curve for me, where I attempted things like homemade phyllo pastry, churros and mousse cake. All these bakes were really out of my comfort zone but the show really inspired me to rise to the challenges.
This week I was well and truly surprised when I heard that Tesco who were sponsoring the Bloggers bake had selected three winners, I am most excited to have come second place which is totally unexpected.

In  celebration of this win I have made an eggless black forest cake, Black forest gateau is one of my favourite flavours so this is a variation of it.

print recipe

Black Forest Cake

by December-02-2016

Delicious and moist chocolate cake flavoured with morello cherries and decorated with whipped cream and morello cherries and chocolate shavings.

Ingredients:

• 300 g plain flour
• 240 g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 60 g cocoa powder
• 75 ml sunflower oil
• 220 ml water
• 410 g black cherry pie filling
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 240 ml whipping cream
• 60 g icing Sugar
• Dark chocolate shavings 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/ 350 Degrees F.2. Grease a loose bottom cake tin and line it with grease proof paper.3. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa in a large mixing bowl.Stir in the sugar.4. In a jug add the oil, water,vanilla essence and vinegar and mix together 5. Fold the wet ingredients from the jug into the sifted flour mixture.6. Open the can of cherries and remove half the cherries and keep them a side for garnish. The remaining juice and cherries add to the cake batter and fold gently. Transfer the batter to the cake tin and bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.7.While the cake is baking, add the cream to a bowl and whisk it with the icing sugar to form stiff peaks. Spoon the cream into an icing bag fitted with a star nozzle. and keep the cream in the fridge to chill.8. Once the cake is baked, remove it from oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove it from the tin and leave to fully cool on a wire rack.9. Transfer the cooled cake onto a serving dish and pipe circles of rosettes on the the top of the cake with the cream. In the centre add the remaining cherries.Garnish with some dark chocolate shavings to finish off.

Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cooking time: 45 mins Total time: 65 minutes Yield: 1 cake /8 slices

I baked my cake in my new non stick 100% leak proof and watertight PushPan. The PushPan is easy to use, it 's base is sealed by a silicon gasket which prevents any leaks whilst baking. The pan ensures an even bake. it is dishwasher safe, ovenproof and freezer safe too. The PushPan range comes in various sizes and are perfect for all types of baking.

I was sent a press sample of the PushPan to test out, all views and opinions are my own. The PushPan  photos are used with permission.

As always simplyfood likes to give readers a chance to try the products we use in our kitchen. I am excited that I have 1 PushPan  to giveaway to one lucky winner.

How To Enter:

• Simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
• Entries can be via blog comment, Facebook, Twitter etc
• This competition is open to UK residents OVER 18 YRS  only .Please read the rules below .
• Leaving a blog comment is mandatory and failure to do so will void any other entries.
• Closing date - 18th Dec 2016 12.00 am
• Prize 1 8 inch PushPan

How Rafflecopter works:

·        You will need to complete the mandatory entry first – usually making a blog comment. You can do this by clicking on leave a comment at the bottom of the post and leaving your reply in the comment box.Please note your comment will not show immediately as it needs to be moderated however rest assured it will appear on the site, so carry on with rest of entries.

·        Login to Rafflecopter – click to see what the question is. Make a comment answering the question on the blog.

·        Go back to Rafflecopter and click the green button to tell me you have made a comment, this will unlock all the other options. All entries are checked to see that the mandatory question is answered, if its not all bonus entries will become void. 

·        Rafflecopter will tweet, like and follow on your behalf.

·        For information on how to find the URL of your tweet click here. 

·        For bonus entries you can return to this page and enter the daily bonus entries. 

·        If you are still unsure as to how Rafflecopter works please do check out this short video.

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mini Genoise Mousse Cakes

Week 7-Dessert week of GBBO has been and gone and the challenges to my mind are getting harder and harder. This week we saw contestants  make Roulade as the signature challenge, followed by technical challenge of making Marjolaine, a layered meringue with cream and nuts followed by the show stoppers Mousse cakes. All the bakes looked extremely difficult and you could clearly see the stress on the contestants faces as they struggled to create the perfect bake.

This week I have attempted to create my own version of the mini mousse cakes. I have used a vanilla genoise sponge recipe from GBBO and made a vegetarian mango and cardamon mousse topped with fresh mangoes and strawberries and finally finished off with a decorated chocolate collar around the mini cakes.

Some of the ingredients for my challenge this week were provided by Tesco

print recipe

Mini Genoise Mousse Cake

by Nayna Kanabar October-7-2016

Light Genoise sponge topped with delicious cardamon mango mousse and garnished with fresh mango and strawberries and pistachio nuts.

Ingredients:

• 50g butter (melted)
• 100g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 140g Plain flour (sifted 3 times)
• 120g Whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons Icing sugar
• 120g mango puree
• 1/2 teaspoon Cardamon powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla essence
• 8 Strawberries
• 1 Fresh mango
• 200g Milk chocolate
• 10 pistachio nut sliced
• 1 sheet Edible chocolate transfer

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/ 400 degrees F2. Line a square tin with grease proof paper and keep it aside.3.Place the eggs and sugar in large bowl and set it over a bowl of barely simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Beat with an electric whisk until the mixture is thick and fluffy then remove the bowl from the pan and continue beating for three minutes.4. Add the melted butter and then gently fold in the flour.5.Transfer the batter to the prepared cake tin and smooth the top.6.Bake the cake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.7. Remove cake from the oven and leave to cool.8.To make the mousse, whip up the cream with the icing sugar until it forms stiff peaks.9. Fold in the mango puree, cardamon and vanilla essence very gently. Place the mousse in the fridge to chill.10 Peel the mango and cut it into thin slices.Hull the strawberries and cut them into thin slices.11.Using a cookie cutter that is 6 cm in diameter, cut 6 round cakes from the large cake, any off cuts can be used for making trifle.12. Break the chocolate and melt it in the microwave at 30 sec intervals until its melted. Remove from the microwave and keep aside.13. Cut the chocolate transfer paper to fit around the cake rounds and cut 6 sheets. Make sure they are at least 1 inch taller than the cake as there will be need to be a cavity to fill the mousse.14. Place the chocolate transfers on a baking sheet and using a palette knife thinly spread the melted chocolate on the design,15 Place the tray in the fridge for the chocolate to semi set for about 5 minutes.16 Remove chocolate wrapper from fridge and wrap them around the cake rounds. Return the chocolate wrapped cake back to the fridge to set completely. (about 1 hour)17. Remove the chocolate covered cakes from fridge and gently peel off the plastic wrapper to expose the chocolate design.With a sharp knife level the top of the cups.18. Spoon the mousse on top of the cakes and return the cakes to the fridge for 30 minutes.The mousse has no gelatin so it will not set fully but the chocolate sides of the cake will hold the mousse.19. To serve garnish the mousse cakes with mango slices and strawberry slices and sprinkle pistachio slices.

Details

Prep time: 45 mins (plus chilling time 1 hour) Cook time: 30 mins Total time: 1 hour 15 mins Yield: 6 mini cakes

Submitting this to :
Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Fougasse

Its week 6 of Great British Bake Off  and the theme was Botanical week, contestants were asked to create a signature dish which was a citrus meringue pie, followed by a technical challenge of a French herby bread called Fougasse and finally a three tiered showstopper cake with flowers.

This week I have chosen to recreate the Fougasse, the recipe I used was one of Paul's original Fougasse recipe.

print recipe

Fougasse

by Nayna Kanabar October-2-2016

Beautifully flavoured with herbs and sea salt this Fougasse bread is perfect for serving with Soup.

Ingredients:

• 560g Bread flour plus extra for dusting
• 1 tablespoon fine semolina for dusting
• 10g Salt
• 7g Instant Yeast
• 350 ml luke warm water
• 2 Tablespoons Olive oil plus extra for greasing and drizzling
• 2 Teaspoons fresh rosemary finely chopped
• 2 Teaspoons fresh sage finely chopped
• 2 Teaspoons fresh thyme finely chopped
• 1/2 Teaspoon dried Oregano
• 1/2 Teaspoon Sea salt flakes for sprinkling

Method:

1. Add the flour, salt and olive oil and 3/4 water to a bowl of an electric mixer. Mix the flour until it comes together,it will be wet.2. Gradually add the remaining water a little at a time to make a soft dough, Add  the herbs and keep mixing the dough until it becomes elastic and comes together.3. Oil a big plastic container and transfer dough to it, cover and leave to prove for 1 hour until it doubles in size.4. Mix the dusting flour with semolina on a work surface and transfer the dough from plastic container to work surface.Knead the dough and divide it into two.5.Oil two baking trays and line with silicon paper .6. Shape each dough into a leaf shape and transfer it to the baking sheets. Cut two lines in the middle of the leaf shape and 3 diagonal lines on either side to make veins.

7. Cover the trays and leave to prove them for the second time for about 30 mins .Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C / 45O degrees F. 8.Brush the Fougasse with a little olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and oregano, bake the Fougasse in the oven until golden brown (approx 20 minutes) Remove from the oven and enjoy warm dipped in olive oil. 

Details

Prep time: 30 mins plus  (proving time for bread 1.30 mins) Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 55 mins Yield: 2 Loves

Submitting this to :
Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Veggie Phyllo Baskets

The great British Bake Off week 5 was all about pastry. The signature challenge was to create breakfast pastries, the technical challenge was to create a bakewell tart and the show stopper was to create phyllo pastry appetisers. I think this was by far the most difficult week especially as pastry  is very hard to make right.

For this week I have totally gone out of my comfort zone and decided to create Veggie phyllo baskets. This is the first time I have attempted home made phyllo pastry and it was the most difficult thing I have ever tried. I can't say that my phyllo pastry was 100 percent successful but it did have a few layers and did not have a soggy bottom.The most difficult part was to stop it tearing when trying to stretch it thin and then cutting it to line the muffin cases was a nightmare. It just kept sticking together. Below I am sharing my creation.

print recipe

Veggie Phyllo Pastry Baskets

by Nayna Kanabar September-24-2016

Crispy phyllo baskets filled with a spicy veggie filling.

Ingredients:

• 120g Plain Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• As required approx 60 ml Water
• 2 Medium potatoes peeled and finely diced (5mm cubes)
• 1 Medium carrot peeled and diced(5mm cubes)
• 50g Frozen Peas (coarsely ground)
• 3/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Chilli powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric powder
• 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1/4 teaspoon Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• 2 tablespoons Olive oil for brushing on the pastry
• 2 sprigs Fresh coriander finely chopped
• 6 Lime wedges

Method:

1. Add the flour, salt and one tablespoonsof olive oil to a large bowl.2. Gradually add the water a little at a time to make a soft dough.Knead the dough for 5 minutes after which cover and rest it for 1 hour.3. In a frying pan add 1 tablespoon olive oil when it is hot add the diced potatoes, diced carrots and the coarsely ground peas.4. Add the salt, turmeric, chilli powder,sugar, lemon juice, ground cinnamon and clove powder and mix it all together. Cook the vegetable mixture on a low heat for 7-8 minutes until all the vegetables are cooked. Remove the filling from the heat and leave aside to cool.

4. Knead the phyllo dough for a good 10 minutes. Divide the phyllo dough into two as its easier to work with and roll it out on a floured surface as thin as you can. Once you have rolled it out, using your hands stretch the dough further until its like tracing paper.6. Oil a muffin pan with the oil and then cut squares from the rolled out phyllo pastry and line the muffin pan with them. brush each square with oil before layering on the next sheet. Layer 4 sheets in each muffin hole. Line all 24 muffin case hole in tray with the layers of phyllo pastry, gently pushing the sheets in so that there is a cavity for the filling to be filled in later.7. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 35O degrees F. Bake the filo baskets in the oven until golden brown (approx 10-12 minutes)Remove the baskets from the oven and wait for them to cool.Fill each basket with the veggie filling.Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with lime wedges.

Details

Prep time: 30 mins plus  (resting time for pastry 1 hour) Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 45 mins Yield: 24 Baskets

Submitting this to :
Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Churros

Week 4 of the Great British Bake Off and the theme is batter, this is a first on the series where contestants have been challenged to create recipes using batter. This weeks the signature challenge was yorkshire pudding with filling, technical challenge was lace pancakes and showstopper was churros a Mexican fried doughnut. It was a really interesting challenge and it was great to see all the different combinations of flavours that the participants offered.

At simplyfood I rarely fry food and you will find very few recipes that are fried, I am fairly health conscience how ever fried food eaten in moderation is fine so this week I have decided to make churros. The recipe I have used is from Rachel's yoghurts, only modifcations I made were that I left out the eggs in the recipe as I have seen on google that you can make churros with out eggs too.I also chose to go for a non conventional shape and make my churros in spirals like pinwheels.

print recipe

Churros

by Nayna Kanabar September-16-2016

A delicious fried sweet doughnut that is flavoured with cinnamon sugar and served with a dipping sauce.

Ingredients

• 25g Butter
• 200 ml Water
• 175g Self raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1 tablespoon Rachel's honey Yoghurt
• 800 ml Oil (for deep frying)
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon for dusting
• 100g Sugar for dusting
• 200ml Rachel's honey Yoghurt for dipping with a extra pinch of cinnamon for sprinkling.

Method:

1. In a pan add the water and butter and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat and keep aside 2.Sift together the flour and baking powder and add this to the water and butter mixture and quickly mix the ingredients until they come together.Leave the mixture to cool slightly.3. Once the dough has cooled slightly add in 1 tablespoon of Rachel's honey yoghurt and mix it in thoroughly. 4. Cover the dough and leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.5.Place a large star nozzle into a large piping bag and fill it with the dough.6.On grease proof paper pipe 12 spiral pinwheel shapes making sure you leave space between them. Leave these a side to rest for 10 minutes.7.In a plate mix together the sugar and cinnamon and keep aside.8. Heat oil in a deep fryer to 190 degrees C. Once oil is hot test it by dropping a ball of dough if it immediately floats to the surface oil is ready.9. Gently lift off the piped churros off the grease proof paper and lower them into the hot oil. (Only fry 2-3 at a time , do not over crowd the pan)Deep fry them for 2-3 minutes until golden brown. Remove them from oil with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a plate with a piece of kitchen paper on it.Fry the remaining churros in small batches.10.Once all the churros have been fried sprinkle them with the cinnamon sugar.11. For the Dip pour some Rachel's honey yoghurt into a dish and sprinkle with a pinch of cinnamon.Serve the dip with the churros.

Details

Prep time: 30 mins (plus 30 mins resting time) Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 1 hr 25 mins mins Yield: 12

Churros are generally served with a dipping sauce, chocolate sauce is a firm favourite however I am serving my churros with Rachel's Honey yoghurt with a sprinkling of cinnamon on the top.

I took inspiration to create this recipe from GBBO, it is created in collaboration with Rachel's Yoghurts. The recipe used in this post has been adapted from Rachel's Yoghurts.

Submitting this to :

Great Bloggers Bake Off  with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Estonian Kringle-Cinnamon Bread

Week 3 of Great British Bake Off and the contestants were creating recipes with bread. Signature bakes was chocolate bread, technical challenge was the dampfnudel and the show stopper was a savoury plait. I had never heard of dampfnudel so was totally intrigued as to what it was. Sadly it was not something I wanted to recreate as the idea of steamed buns didn't really convince me.The show was really inspiring but at the same time I really felt sorry for some of the contestants as they struggled with their creations.

This week I decided to bake bread too, but I have not stuck to the brief of chocolate bread, instead I made Estonian Kringle, a plaited cinnamon bread . I wanted to make the bread eggless so after researching on line I got inspiration from a recipe for Cinnamon Rolls from Vegan Richa. The recipe uses aquafaba as an egg replacer. Aquafaba is the thick cooking  liquid created from cooked chickpeas. It is versatile in its uses as an egg replacer in many recipes such as meringues, mayonaisse, making mousse and baking.

print recipe

Estonian Kringle-Cinnamon Bread

by Nayna Kanabar September-10-2016

A delicious plaited sweet bread with cinnamon flavour.

Ingredients:

• 340g plus 1 tablespoon extra for kneading. White Bread flour
• 1/3 teaspoon Salt
• 200 ml Water
• 60 ml Aquafaba
• 1 tablespoon Sugar
• 1btablespoon Maple Syrup
• 2.5 teaspoons Active yeast
• 2 tablespoons Sunflower oil
• 2 tablespoons Sunflower oil for topping
• 75 g Brown Sugar for topping
• 1.5 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon for topping
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt for topping

Method:

1.Sift the bread flour into a large bowl and keep aside.2. In a jug add the warm water, aquafaba,sugar, maple syrup and the yeast.Mix together and leave aside for 20 minutes for the yeast to fully activate.3. Add the liquid to the flour in the bowl gradually until you get a nice soft pliable dough.4. Cover the dough and leave it to prove for 1 hour.5. while the dough is proving mix together the brown sugar 2 tablespoons of oil and the cinnamon and make a paste.6. Knock the air out of the bread dough and knead again.

7. Roll the dough out to a rectangle shape approx 12x14 inches.8. Spread the cinnamon sugar paste onto the dough and roll the rectangle up tightly from the long side to form a swiss roll.9. Leaving about 1 inch from the top, carefully split the swiss roll in the centre using a shape knife.10. Twist the the braidscarefully so that the open cut edges showing the layers are on show. Once you have twisted the bread form a wreath shape and place it on a greased baking tray.Make sure the the edges are pressed together so that they don't open during baking.11. Cover the tray and leave the bread too prove for a second time for 30 minutes.12. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C13. After the second prove, bake the bread in a pre heated oven for 25 minutes.14. Remove bread from the oven and leave to cool.

Details

Prep time: 2 hour Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 2 hour 25 mins Yield: 1 loaf

Submitting this to :

Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.

Iced Cardamom and Saffron Biscuits

I have been following the Great British Bake Off and last week was week two where the theme was Biscuits.The participants made Viennese whirls, iced biscuits and also ginger bread creations. I was totally taken with the iced biscuits and have created my own Ice cream shaped Asian flavour inspired biscuits.
These ice cream shaped iced biscuits have the perfect crisp break and taste simply delicious with the Asian inspired flavours of cardamom and saffron.

print recipe

Iced Cardamom and Saffron Biscuits

by Nayna Kanabar September-6-2016

Asian inspired iced biscuits with Cardamom and Saffron flavours.

Ingredients:

• 240g Plain flour
• 120g Sugar
• 120g Butter (room temperature)
• 60ml Milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Saffron strands
• 3/4 teaspoon Cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
• 90g Icing Sugar
• Few drops Brown and Pink food colour
• 2 tablespoons Water
• 1 tablespoon Coloured hundreds and thousands

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C2. Add the butter and sugar to the bowl of the Nutri Ninja and switch it on. Cream the mixture until its light and fluffy.3. Warm the milk up in the microwave for 30 seconds and add the saffron strands and leave aside to infuse.4. In a bowl sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda.Add the cardamom powder to the flour.5. Add the flour to the creamed butter and slowly add the saffron infused milk. Add a little at a time until the dough is formed.6. Remove the dough from the Nutri Ninja and leave aside to rest for 15 minutes.7. On a floured surface roll out the biscuits to 3 mm thickness and cut out ice cream cone shapes using the cookie cutter.8.Gently lift the biscuits one at a time and place them on a baking tray. Cut out all the biscuits and bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.9. Take the biscuits out of the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely.10. In a bowl sift the icing sugar and add a few drops of water to make a thick icing.11.Divide the icing into two bowls, colour one part brown and the other part pink.

12. Fill a piping bag with the brown icing and pipe the bottom of the cone with a brown outline. Fill in the outline with brown icing.Leave to set for few minutes.13. Fill a piping bag with pink icing and pipe the top of the ice cream cone with an outline of pink icing. Flood the centre of the outline with the pink icing and leave to set.14. Sprinkle some coloured hundreds and thousands on top of the pink icing for decoration.

Details

Prep time: 45 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 1 hour Yield: 24

 

I used the Ninja Kitchen System with Nutri Ninja to make my biscuit dough. The Ninja®Complete Kitchen System with Nutri Ninja® is a power machine that incorporates three appliances, a food processor, high speed blender and a nutrient extractor. Its 1,500 watt of power  is perfect for all kitchen tasks such as mixing, blending, kneading,chopping and whipping.

I am delighted to have this addition to my kitchen as its going to be very handy whilst I create some exciting challenges inspired by the GBBO.

Submitting this to :

Great Bloggers Bake Off with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps.