Rainbow Cake
Posted: July 1, 2017 Filed under: Cakes | Tags: decor paste, filling, joconde imprime, mousse, rainbow cake, sponge 1 Comment
Wotchers!
Regular listeners might remember, back in October (2016), my oven died a week before my daughter’s birthday, which ended up resulting in a six-month wait for an entirely new kitchen. I promised to make her a birthday cake when the new kitchen was installed, and the request was put in for a rainbow cake. A few glitches here and there, meant that I only got around to it a couple of weeks ago.
This is not that cake. That cake I didn’t photograph. That cake was just for her, and consumed at all times of the day and night, including breakfast, until she waved the white flag in defeat. The idea for this cake came out of that cake.
It also gives me an opportunity to have a bit of a rant over a pet peeve of mine, namely food colouring. Yes, in a post about rainbow cake, I’m going to complain about food colouring.
Regular viewers might remember previous rants including making-stuff-look-like-stuff-it-isn’t, featuring the infamous Come Dine With Me chocolate shoe incident. A few weeks ago, I revealed my dislike of over-the-top recipes. Rainbow cakes are now part of the Things-Which-Induce-Much-Gnashing-And-Grinding-Of-Teeth.
ANYHOO…
The usual way to make a rainbow cake involves seven layers of luridly-coloured sponge cake, interspersed with dollops of unnaturally-white buttercream. Then the whole is smothered with more highly-coloured sweets or fondant or buttercream, etc, etc. Sometimes the brightly-coloured sponge is mixed together in blobs, but in general the format is pretty standard, and it all involves So. Much. Food. Colouring.
But none of this is a patch on the über villain when it comes to coloured cakes, the Red Velvet Cake.
What originally started out as a reddish hue from a reaction between the cocoa and the vinegar/buttermilk has, in the 21st century, turned into a virulent-red chocolate cake dyed with food colouring. Bottles of the stuff. Modern, concentrated gel colours mean that not as much, by volume, is required, but still. It’s a chocolate cake, people. And it’s red. Bright red. Think about that. Enough colouring to turn a chocolate cake red.
And with both red velvet and rainbow cakes, the cake itself doesn’t strike me as being particularly nice, quite apart from the American penchant for making them up using *Matilda Response*[1] box mixes.
Moving on…
I wanted to see if it was possible to make a rainbow cake using the bare minimum of food colouring, that actually tasted nice, and so here we are.
The answer lies in the classic Joconde Imprime, which you may well remember from the Great British Bake Off Season 2 and my Chocolate & Orange Mousse Cake and the miniature Strawberry & Rhubarb cheesecakes from my Finale showstopper: A coloured, pound-cake paste is used to draw a design onto baking parchment, then frozen. A light, almond sponge mixture is then poured over and smoothed out, before baking in a hot oven for 5-7 minutes. When the cake is turned out, the pattern is visible on the underside of the sheets, which can then be used to make entremet-style desserts. ‘Course, back then, an orange squiggle or a red stripe was considered pretty cutting edge. Nowadays it looks tame.
Usually, the Joconde paste is piped into the desired pattern, but once cooked it can make for a rather clunky contrast with the sponge (pound cake mix vs light, airy Joconde). One solution would be to use a teeny, tiny piping tip but then it takes sooooooo looooooong to fill the parchment with a design.
I mixed a small batch of the joconde paste and divided it into seven, colouring each portion with food-gel colouring and white powder colour. I painted rainbow stripes on one parchment sheet, and two designs for the top of the cake on the other sheet. You could pipe the paste, but the thickness of the colour paste when painted on was extremely thin, leaving most of the vanilla sponge uncoloured and delicious as can be seen below. All the colour, with none of the bulk.
The inside of the cake can be whatever you like. This one is filled with two layers of strawberries in a cream-cheese cream, with the offcuts from the sponge being fitted together, jigsaw-style, to make a middle layer. Alternatively, you could make it a mousse or cheesecake or Eton Mess or buttercream – the possibilities are endless – although something that will ‘set’ will help the stability of the cake once it is removed from the mould.
You can make the rainbow pattern any design you like, however the stripes are very easy to match up, which helps to hide the join – see below. This 19cm diameter cake needed a strip of sponge almost 70cm long to form the sides – impossible to bake in a single strip.
A few more tips:
- You can make the sponge any flavour, but I got by far the best results (in terms of colour) from vanilla.
- Chocolate joconde makes the colours very muted and the blue/indigo/violet were almost indistinguishable. Avoid.
- Mixing in some white food colouring (powder) to the Joconde paste made the colours much stronger once cooked. Before baking, they are pale and more pastel in hue. Have faith!
- Make sure the decor paste covers the parchment entirely. Early experiments piping the colours and leaving gaps between resulted in large air pockets forming and spoiling the finished pattern.
- You can get an almost invisible join between the sides and the disc of sponge used for the top if you make sure your filling is almost to the rim and you mitre the edges of the sponges.
- The vanilla cream decoration was piped through a piping bag striped with neat gel colouring.
- Depending on the complexity of your design, you might want to spend time on it a day or two before you need your cake – once complete, it can stay in the freezer until needed.
Rainbow Cake
Joconde décor paste
50g unsalted butter, softened
50g icing sugar
50g egg whites
60g plain flour
rainbow food colours
white food colouring powder
2tbs melted, clarified butter
- Line two 45cm x 30cm (half sheet) baking trays with baking parchment and brush thoroughly with the melted butter. Clarified butter contains no milk solids that might scorch and spoil the colours of the design. Alternatives are cocoa butter or coconut butter.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then gradually add the egg whites, beating continuously.
- Fold in the sifted flour.
- Divide into seven small bowls, 30g in each bowl.
- Mix in the food colouring to each bowl until the desired shade is achieved. I also added about half a teaspoon of white colouring.
- Paint your designs for the sides and top of the cake onto the two sheets of buttered parchment.
- When finished, put into the freezer until required.
Joconde sponge
180g egg whites, at room temperature
25g granulated sugar
225g ground almonds
225g icing sugar, sifted
6 large eggs
2tsp vanilla extract
80g plain flour
85g clarified butter, melted
- Preheat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan
- Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
- Add the granulated sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks are formed.
- Scrape the meringue mixture into a bowl and cover with cling film to prevent the meringue collapsing, or if you have two mixer bowls, just swap over a clean one.
- Beat the almonds, icing sugar, vanilla and eggs in the bowl for 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Turn the speed down to low and mix in the flour.
- Gently fold in the meringue mixture using a large spatula.
- Put the melted butter in a small bowl and mix in a cupful of the sponge batter. Pour this back into the mixing bowl and gently fold into the rest of batter.
- Retrieve your Joconde paste designs from the freezer and lay them into your baking trays.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and smooth over. Pay special attention to the corners, where it is easy to accidentally leave the batter a little on the thin side.
- Bake for 5-7 minutes, until the sponges are cooked and springy to the touch and have shrunk away from the edges of the pan.
- Turn out by laying a tea towel onto a sheet of parchment, then flip the baking tray over onto the cloth. Peel off the paper to reveal the pattern, and lay it lightly on top of the sponge. Leave to cool.
- When cooled, cut strips of sponge to line the sides of the cake tin, ensuring the pattern is facing outwards against the sides of the tin. Cut a circle of sponge to line the base and lay it patterned-side down, in the bottom of the tin. Cut a second circle to make the top of the cake and set aside.
- Fill with the filling of your choice. Use the sponge cake offcuts to make a middle layer of cake if liked.
- Trim the edges of the sponge ‘lid’ and the sponge sides and join together.
- Lay a chopping board on the top of the cake to press it lightly and chill for an hour or two to firm up.
- Remove from the tin and transfer to your serving plate.
- Garnish as liked.
[1] No not that one. The one from the Hillaire Belloc poem: (Matilda told such Dreadful Lies) It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes!
Apple Tartlets 2017
Posted: June 26, 2017 Filed under: Desserts, Pastry, Puff Pastry, Shortcrust, Sweet shortcrust Leave a comment
Wotchers!
After six years I decided to revisit the Apple Rose Tarts I created for Season 2 of The Great British Bake Off.
These are essentially the same tarts, but with a bit of a make-over for the apple decoration. Looking less like roses, but still with a floral semblance, these variations are formed from a swirl of poached apple slices on top of a set apple compote.
You can, of course, use the filling from the originals, but this simplified variation means that these tarts can be prepped in advance, and then assembled just before serving, something that was possible, but rather tricky, with the rose tarts.
I also experimented with using puff pastry. The above shells were created by draping puff pastry over the back of a star-shaped tart tin. The shell on the left was made from pastry cut with a six-petalled cutter. The form on the right was made using a large circular piece of pastry. In order to ensure they kept their shapes, a second tin ‘sandwiched’ the pastry inside, and a wire rack place on top to hold them in place. They were baked at 220°C, 200°C Fan for 15 minutes.
Apple Tartlets
Apple Compote
600g Bramley apples
4tbs water
200g caster sugar
juice of 1 lemon
sweet shortcrust pastry, cornflour pastry or ready-rolled puff pastry
red-skinned dessert apples as required
1 litre apple juice
250g caster sugar
red food colouring (optional)
- Use the pastry to line and fully bake whichever tartlet shells you prefer.
- Allow to cool on a wire rack.
- When cooled, if not using immediately, store in an airtight container until required.
- Peel, core and chop the Bramley apples.
- Put them in a saucepan with the water and lemon juice. Cover and simmer over medium low heat until they become fluffy.
- Stir briskly to remove any lumps, then add the sugar and stir until dissolved.
- Continue to simmer until the mixture has thickened. Set aside.
- Prepare the dessert apples. If you have a mandolin that can cut 2mm slices, core the apples and slice them with that. You will need to cut these slices in half before using them. Otherwise, cut the apples in half from top to bottom, remove the core and cut into exceedingly thin, semicircular slices, 2mm if possible.
- Pour the apple juice into a saucepan and submerge the apple slices as you cut them , to prevent discolouration.
- Simmer the apple slices gently for 10 minutes or until tender – You need the apples to be soft enough so that you can roll them, but not so soft as to fall apart.
- Lift the apple slices from the syrup with a slotted spoon and allow to drain/cool in a sieve.
- When cool enough to handle, lay out the apple slices as follows.
- The slices should be laid exceedingly close together, so there is only about 3mm of each slice visible.
- The overall length of the strip of apple slices needs to be at least 15cm in order to be curled round into a form that will sit inside a single, cupcake-sized pastry shell.
- Cover the strips of apple slices until required.
- Add the sugar to the apple juice and stir until dissolved.
- Simmer over medium heat, until the juice has thickened into a syrup.
- Add a little red gel food colouring to tint the syrup, if liked.
- To assemble the tarts:
- Warm the apple compote and spoon 1-2 tablespoons into each pastry case. Allow to cool. As it cools, it will firm up and give support to the apple decoration.
- For each strip of apple slices:
- Lift the strip from the board and stand it on the flat base of the slices.
- Curl one end of the strip around in a circle until it meets the other end of the strip.
- Check whether the form is small enough to fit into the pastry shell. If not, ease the slices round into a tighter circle.
- Place the curled slices into the pastry shell. Keep a hold of the form with one hand until you’re sure it has all fitted inside. A cocktail stick is handy here for tucking in the ends of any sticking-out slices.
- When everything is tucked inside, you can stop holding the form, as the pastry case will support it.
- Use the cocktail stick, if necessary, to tweak the apple slices into place. I particularly like the subtle variations in the finished patterns, depending on the number and curl of the apple slices – see below.
- Brush the apple slices generously with the apple syrup, and serve.
In case you missed it:
This week on DejaFood.uk: Jane Newton’s mini chicken & bacon pies!
Tropical Curd
Posted: June 16, 2017 Filed under: Gluten-Free, Preserves 7 Comments
Wotchers!
This is a summery variation on the Honey Curd recipe published on the blog a while ago, but this time made with the pulp of fresh tropical fruits, perfect for sandwiching summer sponge cakes, filling pastry tart shells, or drizzling over Pavlovas and meringues.
There are lots of Tropical Curd recipes out there, but none that I have read have this mix of fresh fruit. The passionfruit is strong and tangy, the mango adds mellowness and the banana provides both bulk and sweetness so that only a relatively small amount of honey is required. This particular mixture allows all the flavours to be tasted: first banana, then mango and vanilla, and finishing with passionfruit. The use of fruit pulp also means that there is a generous quantity of finished curd, providing more than enough after the above serving suggestions for enjoying on scones.
Due to the moisture content of the fruits varying, you may well have some fruit pulp left over once the quantities below have been measured out. You can choose to just throw it all in together anyways, or you can just eat the mango/banana pulp, and dilute any spare passionfruit juice with cold still/sparkling water in the manner of a fruit squash (1-2cm in the bottom of a glass). Without sugar, it is a delicious and refreshingly tart drink.
Top Tip:
If you have no spare jars, I recommend purchasing jars of jam/marmalade/lemon curd from the supermarkets ‘basics’ ranges, emptying them out[1] and putting the jars through the dishwasher. The heat/soapy water will help to remove the label and for as little as 35p you have a perfectly serviceable glass jar with a self-sealing ‘button’ lid.
Tropical Curd
12 passionfruit
1 mango
2 bananas
1 vanilla pod
150g runny honey
2 large eggs
2 large yolks
60g unsalted butter
- Wash and dry 2 x 450g jars. Put them and the lids into a cold oven and turn the temperature to 120C/100C Fan and leave for 30 minutes.
- Cut the passionfruit in half and scrape out the seeds into a sieve. Work the pulp through the sieve to remove all of the seeds. Keep working the seeds and scraping the pulp from underneath the sieve until there is just a mass of black seeds left in the sieve, with no visible pulp. There is around 15ml of pure passionfruit juice in each fruit, so this quantity will make between 150 and 180ml of juice.
- Cover with cling film and set the juice aside.
- Prepare the mango. Hold the mango so the thinner side is towards you, then cut the two fleshy sides from either side of the mango pit, starting at the top of the fruit.
- Watch this video to see how to separate the mango flesh from the skin.
- Chop the flesh roughly and place into a jug.
- Use a stick blender to puree the flesh.
- Sieve the mango puree to remove any small fibres.
- Cover with cling film and set the puree aside.
- Peel the bananas and break them into chunks.
- Put the chunks in a jug and use a stick blender to puree the flesh.
- Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds.
- In a clean saucepan, put
- the vanilla seeds
- the scraped vanilla pod
- 100g of passionfruit juice
- 100g mango pulp
- 150g banana pulp
- 2 large eggs
- 2 large yolks
- 150g runny honey
- 60g butter
- Whisk over medium-low heat until the eggs have thickened the mixture. If you have a thermometer, the temperature needs only to get to 72°C.
- Fish out the vanilla pod and then sieve the curd whilst hot to remove any pieces of pod that have become detached during the whisking.
- Balancing the curd: This is where your own personal taste comes into play. The ripeness of the fruits you use to make the curd will also determine the finished flavour, which means that you might need to tweak the finished curd so that the flavours are balanced. Personally, I whisk in about 3 tablespoons of passionfruit juice at this stage, because the necessary heating has a dulling effect on the fresh burst of flavour that passionfruit has. If your bananas are very ripe, for eample, you might feel they are too dominant, and thus need to add in additional mango and passionfruit. It’s your decision. Remember: the flavour will change again as it cools/chills, so feel free to re-tweak the cold curd in order to get that perfect mix. Be sure to cover the curd with cling film as it cools, ensuring the film is in contact with the curd itself, to prevent a skin from forming.
- When you’re happy with the flavour, pot in the sterilised jars and store in the fridge.
Variation
For a lighter, less indulgent-tasting curd, omit the vanilla.
If your idea of tropical requires the appearance of coconut, feel free to slosh in a tablespoon or two of Malibu once the curd has been removed from the heat. Make further additions to taste once it has cooled.
[1] Having read the list of ingredients on a ‘basic’ jar of lemon curd, I have neither qualms nor guilt disposing of the contents down the sink.
Cheese Biscuits with Tomato Jam
Posted: June 3, 2017 Filed under: Bake Off Recipes, Biscuits 2 Comments
Wotchers!
A Bake Off recipe that never was, this week. Back in 2011, I was busy writing recipes for use on The Great British Bake Off, as all recipes had to be written and submitted before even one second of filming was completed.
Week 4 was Biscuit Week and right down to the wire I couldn’t decide whether to go with sweet Melting Moments or savoury Cheese Biscuits with Tomato Jam.
I love savoury, and the cheese biscuits were actually my first choice, because apart from being deliciously moreish, they provided a slight trompe l’oeil by looking a little like (sweet) Jammie Dodgers. I even found a special biscuit press/mould that had a little indent, perfect for holding a blob of the tomato jam. I’ve had a look around and can now only find it sold on one website, in Australia, so if you’d like one for yourself, you can find it here.
As the days ticked by, I wrestled with the recipe but just couldn’t get the biscuit texture to my liking. So at the 11th hour I made the decision to go with the Melting Moments.
Rummaging around in the cellar recently, I came across the biscuit mould and decided to look out the recipe to see if I could successfully tweak it to my satisfaction, and here is the result.
The two changes I made I picked up from reading old recipe books, which pleases me greatly because it demonstrates how something old can still have uses and application today. The first was to substitute cornflour for some of the plain flour, as first mentioned on here in the recipe for Cheese and Potato Pies. This added the crispness and crumbliness I had been missing in the original recipe. The second tweak was to use freshly grated nutmeg in the seasoning (ready-ground just doesn’t have the same flavour in this instance) that I discovered in Mrs Frazer’s (1791) recipe for Macaroni Cheese (included in my NEW book, Deja Food), and which adds a fantastically complimentary note to the cheese flavour.
Don’t feel obliged to make/use the Tomato Jam – tomato chutney is just as delicious and the biscuits can also be enjoyed without any adornment at all.
Cheese Biscuits with Tomato Jam
Makes approx 40 small biscuits.
100g unsalted butter
155g of plain flour
45g cornflour (US cornstarch)
1/3 nutmeg – grated
pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
60g grated parmesan cheese
A little cream or milk to mix
300g vine ripened tomatoes
1tbs tomato paste
50g caster sugar
2-3tbs lemon juice
pepper & salt to taste
- Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
- Put the butter, flours, seasoning and cheese into a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- With the motor running, drizzle in the milk/cream until the mixture comes together in a ball.
- Roll out to a thickness of about 1cm, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge until firm – about 1 hour.
- Cut out into rectangles 3cm x 5cm and arrange on a parchment-covered baking sheet. They can be fairly close together, as there is little spreading during baking.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes, turning the baking sheet around after 8 minutes, to ensure even colouring.
- When the biscuits are cooked through and golden brown, remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Best served/eaten on the day baked, they can also be stored in an airtight container and warmed through when needed to crisp up.
- To make the Tomato Jam.
- Cut a small cross in the tip of the tomatoes and place in a bowl.
- Pour over boiling water and soak for 2 minutes, until the skins split.
- Transfer to a bowl of cold water and leave for 5 minutes to cool.
- Remove skins and discard.
- Cut the tomatoes in half around the ‘equator’, and remove the seeds.
- Chop the tomatoes into 5mm cubes and transfer to a small saucepan.
- Sieve the seeds and transfer to juice/jelly to the pan also.
- Add the sugar and paste and simmer over a medium heat until the excess liquid has evaporated and the jam has thickened.
- Allow to cool, then stir through the lemon juice.
- When cold, season to taste.
- Spoon onto cooled biscuits as liked.
- Store any unused jam in a jar in the fridge.
Puff Pastry Ideas
Posted: May 29, 2017 Filed under: Pastry, Puff Pastry 3 CommentsThere’s a concept in aesthetics called The Uncanny Valley, where a person’s affinity for human replicas increases up to a point, then demonstrates a sharp drop as the lifeless lifelikeness becomes unsettling.
Eddie Izzard has a similar concept in his Circle of Cool: if you’re not careful you can end up circling too far round and you start looking like a d*ckhead.
I have my own version regarding food. I haven’t got a name for it yet, but I know it when I see it. In Izzard terms, you have average looking food, nice looking food, tempting looking food, aaaaaaand then we tip over into offputting: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3.
Banoffi Pie versions are especially guilty. It’s not a complicated dessert, it’s a pastry shell, caramel filling, banana, coffee cream.
“Oh but what if I just make the base out of crushed digestives, or, no, hang on, chocolate digestives!? Mixed with sugar. And butter, of course. And then make it sweetened whipped cream on the top, or maybe replace it altogether with a layer of chocolate ganache, with a little drizzle of chocolate sauce, and a bit of caramel sauce as well, and then sprinkle some…”
So yes. You don’t need to throw a hundred things at a dish to make it taste nice. Sometimes less really is more.
Which brings me on to this week’s post. Puff Pastry. Aaaaand that’s pretty much it. A bit of sugar, but basically it’s just a celebration of the simple pleasure of puff pastry: the crispness, the flakiness, the buttery crunch. You don’t need a lot else. The classic French patisserie item of Palmiers is precisely this, and they have retained their popularity for decades. I’ve decided to look at what you can do with a batch of puff pastry. And by batch I mean a roll of pre-rolled puff pastry from the supermarket.
*gasps and clutches pearls* You know you were going to do it – I thought I’d get in there first.
Make it yourself by all means. Have at it. Fill your boots. Me? I’m too busy and life is too short. Oh, I’ve made puff pastry myself in the past, and no doubt will make it again in the future, but there are no medals going for three days work – yes, three days, because if you were going to make it from scratch you’d want to make it properly, wouldn’t you? And I can’t be doing with ingredient snobbery. You’ll find no organic/free-range/grass-fed commandments on this blog – that choice is between you, your bank balance and your family. It’s none of my business and I wouldn’t dream of preaching. All the pastries you’re going to see in this post were made with supermarket puff pastry. And not even the all-butter one! And yes they are delicious.
So, ranting aside, with a little imagination, you can celebrate the glorious layering of puff pastry in a number of ways by baking it in shapes that take advantage of the way it transforms in the oven. Each of the following can be enjoyed as is, in the manner of palmiers, but you can also add just a couple of ingredients to dress them up: fresh fruit, whipped cream, icing sugar, ice-cream.
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- Toasts
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- Bows
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- Fans 1
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- Fans 2
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- Twists (top) & Butterflies (bottom)
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- Flowers
The designs that lie flat (toasts, fans) have slight differences between each side and can be used with the reverse side showing if a level surface is required. The shapes involving twists in the pastry are best displayed as cooked.
- To make Toasts and Bows, click HERE
- To make Fans 1, click HERE
- To make Fans 2, Twists and Butterflies, click HERE
- To make Flowers, click HERE
I’d love to hear how you get on, if you’d like to pop back and leave a comment, but no pressure.
Most importantly – have fun!
Puff Pastry Flowers
Posted: May 29, 2017 Filed under: Pastry, Puff Pastry Leave a comment
Puff Pastry Flower
These are fairly straightforward to make, involving only a little manipulation once on the baking sheet in order to arrange the ‘petals’. They can be made any size you wish, however the smaller they are, the more fiddley they are to handle.
Also, a word of caution, be sure you cut them the correct way, because if you make a mistake with your initial cut, and cut the wrong edge, the petals fail to be formed and it ruins the entire batch. So, no pressure.
You will need:
1 roll of puff pastry – chilled
caster sugar
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan.
- Sprinkle the work surface with caster sugar.
- Unroll the puff pastry and lay it onto the sugar.
- Sprinkle more caster sugar over the pastry.
- Use a rolling pin over the pastry to press the sugar into both sides.
- You can make the flowers any size. I suggest starting with pastry that is 20cm wide.
- Fold the pastry in half lengthways (to determine the middle) then fold each long side into the centre.
- Fold the pastry in half widthways (to determine the middle) then fold each short side into the centre.
- Fold the short sides into the middle again, to close the pastry up like a book.
- With the folded pastry facing you like a book, with the rounded side to the left and the side with two folds to the right, cut of the right-hand edges and discard.
- Cut 1cm thick slices and lay them flat on the baking parchment, with the cut edges upwards.
- Press the middle together slightly, then flip one of the ends around forming a twist.
- Spread out each ‘petal’ of pastry until they are evenly spaced.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes, turning the baking sheet around after 7 minutes to ensure even colouring. Don’t be tempted to take the bows out too early – they need to be nicely caramelised.
- Cool on a wire rack.
These can be served as they are, or alongside something creamy like fruit fool or syllabub, so the petals can be broken off and dipped into.
Puff Pastry Fans, Twists and Butterflies
Posted: May 29, 2017 Filed under: Pastry, Puff Pastry Leave a commentI’ve listed these three designs together because they are all initially made with the same method, varying only with how the cut slices of pastry are subsequently treated.
Puff Pastry Fans showing upper side (top) and underneath (bottom)
Puff Pastry Twists (top) and Butterflies (bottom)
You will need:
1 roll of puff pastry – chilled
caster sugar
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan.
- Sprinkle the work surface with caster sugar.
- Unroll the puff pastry and lay it onto the sugar.
- Sprinkle more caster sugar over the pastry.
- Use a rolling pin over the pastry to press the sugar into both sides.
- Roll out the pastry until it measures 60cm lengthways.
- Starting at one end, fold over 5cm, then continue to roll/fold the rest of the pastry until the entire length has been gathered in.
- The pastry will end up looking similar to this:
- Cut thin (5mm) slices and lay them onto the parchment, cut side facing upwards. Leave a 2cm gap between each slice.
- Cut off the end of each slice so that the folded pastry can open out into a fan shape during baking. For each line of fans, arrange the slices so that the cut ends are alternate, as in the diagram below. this will allow for the shapes to open up evenly and not become misshapen if they happen ro spread a little too far.
- To make the twists, slightly press the centre of a cut slice together, then turn the un-cut end around 180° to form the twist.
- To make the butterflies, cut and remove both ends of a slice and then form a twist as above.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes, turning the baking sheet around after 7 minutes to ensure even colouring. Don’t be tempted to take the fans/twists/butterflies out too early – they need to be nicely caramelised.
- Cool on a wire rack.
Variations
- You can obviously make these as big as you like, it merely involves rolling the pastry long enough and/or varying the size of the first fold of the pastry, but these are a nice, dainty size, perfect for enjoying with a cup of tea or coffee.
- You can also sandwich them together with a little smooth jam, preserve or conserve, or use them in place of wafers for an ice-cream sandwich.
- Another option is to combine them with some fruit and cream, for a delicate dessert pastry.
