Raspberry Swiss Roll

What can be more lovelier than a nice cup of tea and a slice of home made Swiss roll?

This cake is so light and fluffy, it has no butter and no raising agent in it, the lightness is achieved by whisking eggs and caster sugar until really thick and pale, then the plain flour is sieved and very gently folded into the mixture, it is baked in a hot oven for 10 - 11 minutes.

Trev's Tasty Tip

Use home made Vanilla Sugar to enhance the flavour of the sponge, delicious!

Here's how to make it

Equipment

An Electric Mixer with Whisk Attachment

Mixing Bowl

A 12" x 8" x 1" Swiss Roll/Roulade Baking Pan (I use the Alan Silverwood anodised one)

Greaseproof paper to fit the baking pan

Greaseproof paper to turn out the sponge on to

Soft Plastic Spatula

A Small Palette Knife

Cooling Rack

The Recipe

3 Eggs

3oz Caster Sugar or Vanilla Sugar

3oz Plain Flour

2 Heaped Tablespoons Seedless Raspberry Jam

A handful of Frozen Raspberries

White Vegetable Fat for lubricating the greaseproof paper

A little caster sugar for sprinkling

The Method 

Preheat your oven to gas mark 7 (220C).

Cut 2 pieces of greaseproof paper to fit your baking pan, smear one of the pieces with some white vegetable fat, I use Trex or Cookeen, all over the paper on one side. Place the greaseproof paper with the greased side uppermost and gently tease it into shape to fit the tin. Lay out your other piece of greaseproof paper on a worktop or table and sprinkle with a nice layer of caster sugar.

Put the eggs and sugar into the mixing bowl and whisk at high speed until the mixture is very, very light and fluffy, you should be able to leave a trail on the surface of the mixture when you lift out the beaters, when they are turned off, which stays there for a while.

Sieve the flour over the mixture and use your spatula to gently fold it through, pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan scraping the bowl out gently. Tip the baking pan back and forth, corner to corner to move the cake batter so that it fills the tin evenly, do not spread the batter with a utensil, you'll press all the air out of it.

Put the tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 11 minutes.

Take the sponge out of the oven and turn it out onto the greaseproof paper that has been sprinkled with caster sugar. Quickly spread the raspberry jam over the surface of the sponge with your palette knife, break up the frozen raspberries and sprinkle them over the top of the jam. Quickly roll the sponge up lengthways, take one end of the paper and lift so the sponge starts to roll into itself, gently guide the sponge until it is all rolled up. Use the paper to roll around the newly formed Swiss roll and scrunch up the ends to keep it in shape. Place this little parcel of loveliness onto a cooling rack, leave to cool.

Once completely cooled, remove the sponge from the paper and sprinkle on a little more caster sugar. Store in an airtight container in the fridge if you are not going to eat it straight away, like that's going to happen!

 

Serve a good thick slice with some really good vanilla ice cream for a really lovely dessert.

Lemon and Lime Butterfly Cakes

These little beauties are made with a sponge that has very finely grated lime zest added at the creaming of the butter and sugar stage, the sugar, being slightly abrasive, helps to break the zest down and extract more of the fragrant oils that live in the skins of citrus fruits. They have had the tops cut out and the wells left behind were spread with really good lemon curd, I piped in some lime and vanilla buttercream icing, made with freshly squeezed lime juice and vanilla extract, topped them with butterfly wings made by cutting the earlier decapitation into two pieces and finished with wafer daisies and a dusting of icing sugar.

Very pretty and very delicious too!

Raspberry and Vanilla Butterfly Cakes

These little temptation ticklers are made with vanilla sugar, the tops are cut out and the holes filled with really good raspberry jam, topped with whipped vanilla cream, they are finished with a home-grown raspberry, sponge 'butterfly wings' and a dusting of icing sugar. They have been baked in greaseproof paper muffin wrappers to give them a little more height and then placed into foil cake cases after decorating.

Mmmmm!

Apple Crumble

As summer rolls on into autumn, the trees in the orchards of our great country creak and bend with the weight of their swelling fruits, the wind blows and a few fall off, an early gift from Mother Nature. 

Bramley Apples, sitting in a circle under their previous home, were my first little gift this year after a night of high winds. I cooked them with a little butter and sugar then stirred in a little ground cinnamon, I put them into a dish and set it aside to cool. The topping is made with plain flour, butter, ground almonds, caster sugar and ground ginger, I make up the crumble mix and put it into the fridge and put it onto the apple base when I'm ready to cook the crumble. After a slow baking, 45 minutes at gas mark 4, I took it out of the oven, sprinkled on a little caster sugar and let it stand whilst I made up some custard, Bird's on this occasion, with an extra boost of flavour which came from my vanilla sugar.

Hungry?

Apple Filling

4lb Bramley Apples

2oz Butter

6oz Caster Sugar

1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

Juice of a Lemon

Crumble Mix

6oz Plain Flour

3oz Cold, Cubed Butter

3oz Caster Sugar

2oz Ground Almonds

Pinch of Salt

1 teaspoon Ground Ginger

1 tablespoon extra Caster Sugar for sprinkling

Peel, quarter and core the apples, pop them into a bowl of cold water with the juice of a lemon to stop them going brown whilst you work. In a medium sized frying pan, heat the butter gently until melted and pour in the sugar, give it a stir, take it off the heat, slice the prepared apples and place into the pan, give it a stir and put the pan back on the heat, bring the contents to simmering point and let the apples cook for a few minutes until some of the slices start to break down. At this point, take it off the heat again and gently stir in the cinnamon. Adding it at this stage stops the cinnamon turning rather acrid. Put the apple mixture into a baking dish, put it on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

Make the crumble mix by putting the flour, salt and butter into a food processor and pulse it until you get a breadcrumb consistency, add the sugar, ground almonds and ginger and pulse it again. Pour the mixture into a container and put it into the fridge until ready to bake the crumble. Making the apple crumble this way means you wont get that sogginess that reminds you of school dinners! You will achieve a light, airy and crisp finish.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, pile the crumble mix on top of the apple filling making a hill effect,  don't press it down. Put the dish onto a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown. When cooked, take it out of the oven, sprinkle with a little caster sugar and place on a cooling rack. Let the crumble rest for around 20 minutes.

Served with custard or 'a la mode', American for 'with ice cream', or with a dash of thick cream, or all three, either way, you will have a heavenly experience!

Rose and Vanilla Fairy Cakes

Simple, elegant little cakes, a cup of tea and a couple of these make a perfect afternoon treat! These are made with vanilla sugar and topped with glace icing made with beautifully fragrant rose water and a touch of vanilla, topped off with a single pink non pareil.

What the world needs now, is love sweet love... and cake!

Christmas Pudding

This Christmas Pudding is absolutely delicious. Sadly, people are governed by their childhood experience of Christmas Pudding, most having tried quite heavy and bitter tasting puddings that lingered on the taste buds for days! Not this one, I have developed my recipe over the past 15 years, adjusting it slightly year on year, I have managed to achieve a rich and dark looking pudding that is light, fruity and not too sweet. It is crammed with figs, sultanas, raisins, freshly milled spices, Guiness and Amaretto liqueur. I also use Medjhool dates, they are sticky and toffee-like, not like those really dreadful 'cardboard' ones that used to sit around in the lounge from Christmas to Easter until they were un-ceremoniously dumped into the kitchen pedal-bin along with the strawberry and orange cream Cadbury's Roses!

I serve the pudding with an Amaretto sauce simply made with milk, cream, cornflour, sugar and a really hefty measure of Disaronno, fantastico!

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la...

Lemon and Vanilla Butterfly Cakes

Elegant simplicity! 

I made these using my Lemon Victoria Sponge recipe and divided the mixture into 12 muffin cases, cut the tops out with a serrated knife when they were cool, put a teaspoonful of really good lemon curd into the hole and spread it up the sides, piped in some whipped vanilla infused cream and simply finished them with a dusting of icing sugar and some pink and white non pareils (sprinkles). Delicious!

Ready for my close-up...

Mmm, mmm, mmm!