Halloween Inspired Chocolate Orange Batternberg

This week's #britishbloggerselection theme is Halloween so, here is a little throwback to Halloween 2010 at my friend, Rosie's birthday party! To this day, I still don't know what I was dressed up as...

 I didn't really do much this year, besides dressing Badger up, but I did make this cake!

A few weeks ago I made the most delicious batternberg using Rachel Allen's recipe. Her recipe is for one big cake but I made mine into mini ones, similar to the Mr Kipling cakes. 

A few days later I was in Costa Coffee and noticed their cake selection had a new addition - a chocolate orange batternberg. It was so yummy but I couldn't find a similar one in any supermarket. 

After a few weeks of practising, I came up with my own recipe. The cake is perfectly moist the orange is so fragrant! It's also a lot easier to make than you might think.

A few notes for this recipe: I added ground almonds to my cake but you can leave this out and make up the difference with more flour. This will make 2/3 big cakes depending on the size of your tray or 10/12 mini ones.

Also, you might be wondering - where is the Halloween inspiration in this cake? Well, it's orange...

Servings: 2/3 big cakes (8 slices each) or 10/12 mini cakes

Ingredients: 

250g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

6 eggs

250g self-raising flour

90g almonds

4tbsp cocoa powder

Zest of one orange

Juice of half an orange

1 tsp orange food colouring

50g chocolate (I used chunks and melt just before step 3!)

3tbsp apricot jam (warm this up just before step 6!)

500g marzipan

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180°c and line two cake tins with greaseproof paper.

2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy ( I used my new mixer!) Slowly add the eggs and continue beating until smooth (it won't go completely smooth but try as hard as you can!)

3. Divide the batter into two bowls. For the chocolate layers, add 110g flour (sifted), 50g almonds, the melted chocolate and the cocoa powder and mix well. For the orange layer add the remaining flour (140g) and almonds (50g), the food colouring and the orange zest and juice. Mix well until completely combined and then pour each batter into a cake tin. Bake for 25 mins until spongy to touch.

4. Once removed from the oven, leave to stand for 15 minutes before you transfer them to a wire rack. Leave until cold and then transfer to the fridge for an hour or two to firm up.

5. When you cakes are nice and cold, it's time to get trimming. Using a bread knife, level your cakes on the top and sides until they're all even. 

6. Coat one layer of sponge in jam and sit the other layer on top. Then cut the cake into three rectangles for large cakes or 10/12 for mini ones.

7. Then take your rectangles and slices lengthways through the brown and then orange (or the other way round!) Brush with jam and lay the colours in the opposite direction to get the batternberg pattern. Repeat for all other layers of sponge.
8. Roll out your marzipan divide into three or 10/12 pieces to fit around the cakes (dust with icing sugar if it's really sticky!) Spread each piece of marzipan with a little jam and roll around the cake. Press firmly, trim away the excess and dust with more icing sugar. Voila!

Such a simple cake to make and it's so tasty! I'm sure there are thousands of other combinations - if you have any ideas, leave them in the comments!

Also, if you make this cake, let me know what you think!

x

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Recipe: Portuguese Custard Tarts

 As well as fashion posts on my blog, I wanted to include some of the many recipes I have been trying out over recent weeks. 

Yesterday me and my boyfriend drove out of Chester to a bakery, which Simon claimed 'sold the best vanilla slices'. Unfortunately the bakery closed at 2pm on a Wednesday and we just missed it! So if anyone lives near Cheshire and wants to try, what is apparently the best vanilla slice, head to Lucas Smith's bakery and let me know what they're like!

After this little encounter (and some shop bought vanilla slices) I thought about other custard recipes and decided to try out one of my favourites - the Portuguese custard tart. I'm not sure what the exact difference is between a Portuguese tart and an English egg custard but can guess that they use different pastries (puff pastry in the Portuguese and shortcrust in the English) and the English one has a little nutmeg on the top (which I added to mine because it's so delicious!)

A few notes for this recipe: This is a variation of Bill Granger's recipe but I didn't want to use cream so it's been slightly adjusted (this makes each tart about 150 calories each!) Also, my bun tray is very shallow so this recipe would make 18 shallow tarts or 12 deep ones. I used my left over pastry and custard to test out some mini tarts. I don't really recommend them though because it's difficult to get the pastry really thin and the custard just disappears - but they look cute!

The cute mini ones! (They look the same size as the top picture but the plate and tarts are definitely smaller!)

And I used ready made puff pastry because time was not on my side for the homemade stuff!

Here is the recipe, have a go, they were so easy to make!

Servings: 12/18

Ingredients

3 egg yolks and 1 whole egg
115g/4ozs caster sugar
2tbsp plain flour
400ml/14.11 fl ozs semi-skimmed milk
2tsp vanilla extract
150g/5.5ozs ready rolled puff pastry 

Method

1. Lightly grease a 12 hole bun tray (or two if you are making 18) and take your puff pastry out of the fridge to warm slightly.
2. In a pan, whisk together the eggs, sugar and flour - it will go like a thick paste. Then gradually whisk in the milk (it will look a little watery but don't worry!)
3. Put the pan over a medium heat and keep stirring until it thickens (takes about 5 minutes)
4. Bring the pan to the boil, take off the heat and stir in the vanilla. It should be really nice and thick.
5. Transfer the custard into a cold bowl, cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming on top and leave to cool (I put mine in the fridge for about 45 minutes)
6. Next, preheat the oven to 200°c
7. Cut the measured dough in half and put one half on top of the other and slightly roll it to make them stick. (make sure this is in a long rectangle shape)
8. Then, roll the pastry up from the short end (like a swiss roll) and slice into 12 (or 18) rounds.
9. Lay the rounds on a floured surface, lightly flatten them and then roll to fit into the bun tray, pressing them down gently. I recommend rolling them quite thinly for a shallow bun tray as you want a good equal measure of custard and pastry.
10. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases (leave a few millimeteres of pastry at the top because the custard boils in the oven and may overspill) This is where I also added a sprinkling of nutmeg but you can leave this part out.
11. Bake for approx 25 minutes until golden with a few dark spots.
12. Remove from the oven and leave for five minutes in the tin before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

These are best eaten on the day that you make them as they tend to attract moisture after a day or two. Keep them in an airtight container and they will last for around three days (if you have any left by then!) 

I've also been reading up on some interesting variations involving lemon and orange zest and fresh raspberries. I'll have a go at some of these and report back!

Has anyone tried making these before? Do you have any variations on the traditional recipe?

x

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