Levi Roots: Sweet

Some nice people sent me a copy of Levi Roots' latest cookbook, Sweet.  I like it when people do that, unexpected little gifts cheer the world up.  I have however been watching the Olympics so much I haven't left much time for cooking, so it's taken me a while to give this book a go.  Sadly, here in the UK we appear to have bypassed summer, and nothing says summer so well as tropical fruit based desserts, and this book is full of them.

If I lived on a Caribbean Island I suspect that my sweet tooth would be more than happily catered for by fresh fruits, either eaten au naturel, in a fruit salad, or grilled in a rum and chilli glaze ...  mmm rum and chilli glaze.  I therefore suspected I wouldn't find much to get excited about in a book of Caribbean style sweet recipes, but I was wrong.  I don't live on a Caribbean Island, I live in England, and here it rains a lot, and in the winter it's cold and the nights are long.  There's recipes for barbequed fruit for both of the English summer weekends that encourage such behaviour, but there's plenty more for the rest of the year, with cakes, bakes and puddings galore, where the stodge-o-meter is turned all the way up to 11, but the zing of lime or ginger give it an exotic flavour.

There's a Jamaican take on dishes like Eton Mess, Tiramisu and Cranachan, which is kind of fun, though not something even I can pass off as authentic.  Sweet is well photographed and funkily laid out.  I am an old fart when it comes to the recipes themselves, I prefer an easy to read black font on a white background, but these are still very readable, and each step is sensibly described.  I'll dip into it when I need warming up.

Freddo Cake

I'd seen pictures on Pinterest of a fabulously turned out cake with an M&M's topping and a Kit Kat outside all tied together perfectly with a ribbon.  I know my limitations, if I'd tried the ribbon trick the whole cake would have burst through the M&M's and I'd have to rebrand it as a kind of American Eton Mess and serve it in bowls.

I tried a slightly easier version.  I was short on time so picked up a 6" Victoria sponge at the supermarket, and whipped together some basic buttercream icing.  I put a thin layer of buttercream all over the cake, then added a blob of buttercream to the back of each Freddo to 'glue' it to the side of the cake like little froggy sentries.  It took 12.  A bigger cake would take more.  You'll need to do calculations with pi to work out the circumference for a bigger cake, or just buy lots more Freddos and eat the spares.

I poured a pack of M&M's onto the top and shuffled them about until they were roughly even.  I'd intended to buy Smarties but M&M's were on sale.  Maltesers or chocolate buttons or even Rolo's would work I guess.

Twilight Cake - Nailed It!

Here's a bit of a blast from the past.  When Twilight was the teen sensation in our house I made a Twilight birthday cake.  The concept was simply to have a plain Victoria sponge cake and top it with buttercream.  If you squint a bit you can imagine this looks like the cover of the first Twilight novel, with two forearms showing on a black background, holding a red apple.  Unfortunately this is England, apples are green here, or maybe a bit brown, and I don't have any in the garden anyway so I used raspberries in an apple shape.  Also, buttercream is never going to turn black, no matter how much food colouring you use, so the background is grey.  The arms are pink though.

It was a nice idea, it didn't work out how I planned, but it tasted fine and kept me amused for an hour, so I nailed it!.

English Rose Cake

The Queen's 60th Jubilee overtook the UK last weekend.  Our street had a party, much silliness and fun were had.  I baked a cake.  There were plenty of Union Jack cakes made with strawberries, blueberries and cream, and one made with carefully arranged M&M's.  I'd like to claim I'd decided not to go for anything so contrived, but the reality was I couldn't be bothered to go shopping.

I'm claiming this as an English Rose cake, but I'm sure you could call it a Canadian Rose, or Irish Rose, or 'whatever nation you happen to be in that has edible roses' Rose cake.

It's a standard Victoria Sponge recipe, that, I think is White Cake, or Yellow Cake to folks outside the Commonwealth.  I sandwiched it with raspberry jam.

I used a buttercream icing with a scant teaspoon of rosewater and a single drip of red food colouring, it's easy to go overboard with either so add less than you think because you can always add more.

I topped it with rose petals from the garden.  Choose flowers that aren't quite fully bloomed.  Pull each petal really gently.  Check for greenfly or other creatures. Rinse them very gently and air dry, don't squish them.

I had to carry it down the street in English summer weather - think Gale Force 6 - so I pressed the petals down firmly into the icing to keep them in place, if I was just serving it at home I'd just scatter them on.

Blueberry Cinnamon Cake

This is an easy to make cake, that looks like it's really difficult.  I like that.

The cake itself is a basic Victoria sponge, go ahead and use your own favourite recipe, or if you're American, a white or yellow cake mix.  Add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and a teaspoon of ground mixed spice to the mix.  I use wholewheat flour in mine which makes it look more spicy and taste a little nuttier, but it's not essential.

Once the cake has cooled, sandwich it with raspberry jam.

The icing is a standard buttercream, but made with cream cheese instead of butter, again with a teaspoon of cinnamon mixed in along with a teaspoon of vanilla essence.  I used a 100g ~4oz pack of reduced fat Philadelphia, with 200g icing sugar.  spread it over the cake.  It will likely be a bit runny, if you want to avoid this, use half butter half cream cheese to solidify the icing a bit.  I didn't, and I was happy with the fluid nature, it added to the whole 'effortless' look.  Then just top with blueberries, they'll pull the icing outwards, and some will fall off the sides, allowing nibbling, and a rustic look.  You could use raspberries instead.

Demoralised Sweet Potatoes

These sweet potatoes are a delight.

• Pre-heat the oven - Hot, Gas 6, 200C, 400F
• Peel and cut the potatoes into chunks
• Boil them for 10-15 minutes, until softened but not mashable
• Pour olive oil onto a baking tray, toss the potatoes on it throwing on some spice.  I used some leftover fajita mix this time, but cumin is good on its own, with a little brown sugar if you're from the South, or Mrs Dash Extra Spicy
• Arrange the potatoes so they are flat side down and sprinkle on more spice
• Squash the potatoes a bit wish a masher.  Your aim is to 'demoralise' rather than crush them completely, you want to keep them as whole chunks, but with a higher proportion of surface area to caramelise
• Cook for 30 minutes, turning once, half way through, check they're at the level of crispness you want, cook longer if not.

Enjoy.

Estonian Cinnamon Roll

People like cinnamon rolls, I hold this truth to be self evident and am deeply suspicious of anyone who doesn't like cinnamon rolls.  It seems the Estonians have perfected the art of the cinnamon roll.  That's an achievement that any nation can be truly proud of.

There's two tricks in the Estonian armoury.  The first is to add cardamom to the dough.  I use a standard enriched dough, go ahead and use your favourite cinnamon roll dough.  I'm not sure how it would work if you use crescent rolls or somesuch, perhaps adding the cardamom to the cinnamon mix.  I ground the contents of maybe a dozen cardamom pods, about a teaspoonful into the dough ingredients when I threw them in the bread maker.

The second trick is when you've spread your cinnamon butter mixture onto the dough and rolled it into a big sausage you don't slice it into little buns, instead, slicing once, down the length of the sausage then twisting the two halves together, like a plait, but with only two threads.  Arrange the whole length of plaited sausage into a circle on a buttered cookie sheet, rest and bake, just as you would with your normal recipe, or the one that comes with your bread maker.

I'm not a big fan of iced buns, so serve it nude, but feel free to add your regular topping or dust with icing sugar if you're feeling fancy.

Thank you Estonia!