Sucker for Sailor Jerry's

Sticking with my new more, non-rambling side of decided I've decided to jump (almost) straight in today with a recipe. Nobody loves a rambler, except maybe National Parks...and small hills.

But anyway, my delectable recipe for today is that of a celebratory nature. It was a good friend's birthday yesterday, and I felt it granted me yet another excuse to make something I've never attempted before. In this mindset I took into account all of the information that I had at my disposal:

- He loves Sailor Jerry's Rum.

- He loves Tiramisu.

- I have an awesome Tiramisu recipe already at my disposal.

This left me with only the deliberation of the 'cake' part of the birthday cake. Though the translation of the classic dessert into a cake form wasn't exactly the problem, it was the choosing of how to do it. So I decided to stick with the most basic of basic tasks. Why fix something that isn't broken? I bequeath unto you my recipe for Tiramisu cake, Sailor Jerry's stylee.

Sailor Jerry's Tiramisu Birthday Cake Extravaganza

Feeds - 20 or so

For the Zabaglione filling and coating:

250g Marscapone Cheese at room temperature

2 egg yolks
10 tblsp caster sugar
150ml double cream, whipped
4 shots of Sailor Jerry's Rum
3 tsp strong coffee diluted in about 100ml of hot water
3 tsp vanilla extract

For the cake:
225g self raising flour
4 eggs
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

To decorate: I used two packets of chocolate gemstones from Hotel Chocolat, but whatever takes your fancy!

- Preheat the oven to about 180C/Gas mark 4/160C (fan assisted) and prepare three sandwich tins (line with parchment and butter the sides).

- It's best to make the zabaglione cream first so it has time to cool before icing - it can take up to 3-4 hours to cool and set in the fridge well enough to hold on the side of a cake. 

- Prepare a double boiler on the hob and leave it to start boiling. Whilst you're waiting beat the egg yolks until they start to foam, add in 6 tablespoons of the caster sugar and whisk up some more. Add two shots of the brewed coffee, two shots of Sailor Jerry's and two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

- Take this lovely little runny concoction over the double boiler and whisk it over the heat (keep whisking or it will curdle!) until it makes a sort of tan coloured custard. It'll take around 5 minutes or so of whisking, when this stage is achieved take it off the heat it doesn't need anymore. 

- Add in the marscapone cheese and mash it in until it's all smooth and creamy. Then fold in the whipped cream, trying not to knock out all the air! Taste it at this point, see if it needs any more sugar, rum or coffee, to your own taste, cover it in cling film, and pop it in the bottom of your fridge where it's not going to be disturbed too much.

- Well, lets not hang around lets get going with the butter and sugar for the cake. Start by creaming it up together so it looks all gorgeous and light. Then add in the eggs, one by one, mixing in between each one. If it starts to curdle, add a tablespoon of flour to make it gather again!

- Fold in the flour relatively carefully. You don't have to caress it like you would with a souffle but don't beat the living hell out of it and knock out all the lovely air you've just spent your energy making in the sugar and butter!

- Split between the three tins and make a little indentation in the middle of each one. This is quite a nice trick to use purely for aesthetic and decorating reasons, it helps to stop it rising so much in the middle so you can ice it easily. Bake for 15(ish) minutes, keep an eye on it after about 11-12 minutes to make sure it doesn't catch or brown too much. Test to see if it's cooked with a sharp knife (poke it in the middle and pull it out, if it comes out clean it's cooked, if not, pop it in for another 2 minutes or so).

- Leave this whole mess to cool down for an hour or two, go on, have a brew or something, you deserve it after all your moderately hard work so far. I'm not judging, promise!

- When everything's cool, you're ready to start assembling. To make the coffee and rum syrup it literally could not be easier. Bung whatever's left of your coffee mix, the two remaining shots of rum, and the four remaining tablespoons of sugar in a saucepan over the hob and get it up to a rolling boil. Keep an eye on it, and watch it reduce until it's reasonable thicker then it was before. Paint it on the tops and bottoms of each sponge and leave to cool and soak in a little - five minutes is about right.

- Assemble your cake in this general order. Cake>Cream>Cake>Cream>Cake>Cream all over! Smooth it all around the outside of the layers and you are sorted to decorate.

And it should come out looking something like the picture at the top of this lovely, kind of concise post! Hooray, this was a proud day for me. Despite my complete novice icing skills I still managed to make something that looks relatively beautiful.

And a shot of the lovely middle of the cake courtesy of the birthday boy

I hope you enjoy it as much as I, and the birthday boy, did.

Peace

JR

Drizzle Me This.

This post is purely for the liberation of this particular recipe. So, for now, your eyes are spared from my general ramblings. This cake was made for my best friend after I owed her money from an IKEA trip, I thought i'd try it out. Partially because she didn't specify what cake she fancied, and partly because I really really love lemon drizzle cake

I wish we had lemon trees like this in the UK.

It's a slightly edited version of another recipe I found a little while ago while perusing the internet. I, however, have no idea where it was from. But, thank you very much to whomever I borrowed this from, wherever you are!

Drizzle Kicks.
Makes enough for two piles of bitesize pieces or about 20 big (ish) slices

230g self raising flour

230g golden caster sugar - or granulated, whichever you have to hand really.

230g softened unsalted butter

Rinds and juice of two unwaxed juicy lemons (pick your mind up out of the gutter!)

4 eggs

Three tablespoons caster sugar (this one, however does need to be caster)

This cake is really really easy to make, and relatively quick!

- Firstly, naturally, preheat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 4/160C (fan assisted oven) and line a square tin. Just a note on this, it doesn't really matter how big the tin is, if you want smaller bites, use a bigger tin, if you want more of a thicker cake, use a smaller one, or you can make a lemon drizzle loaf if you like, it's quite versatile size wise. 

- Cream the butter and sugar together - aka, beat the hell out of it - until it's nice and creamy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing in between so it's nice and smooth. If it starts to curdle at any point whip a bit of flour in there to help if combine a little easier, and to help with the 'baking freak-outs'. 

- Beat in the flour quite tenderly, if you were using an electric mixer up until now, it's time to use a human touch, just so you don't knock every ounce of air out of it. 

- When the flour is almost combined add in the rind and stir in until all is well combined - 

NB on the rinds by the way: if you're grating with a box grater, use the smallest one you have at your disposal, otherwise you might end up chewing on a big chunk of rind, might be nice for some, possibly not for others, so make sure it's nice and fine. 
- Pour it all into your prepared tin and bake for about 35-50 minutes, depending on the size of your cake tin. If it's quite a shallow sort of thing you're going for, keep an eye on it, checking every two or three minutes after the 35 minute mark, it shouldn't go too golden!

- Once cooked to perfection, skewer a load of holes in the cake, ready for the drizzle-bits!

- Mix the caster sugar and lemon juice together in a small bowl, taste to make sure it's all alright. Not too sweet or too bitter, and spoon over the cake, getting it into all the cracks. It'll probably run to the side of the cake tin but it's not a big deal! 

- Leave to cool completely in the tin and until the sugar and lemon drizzle has crystallised and set a bit, take it out and cut up into lovely little pieces. And enjoy it.

It should look something like this little morsel!

I really hope you enjoy this cake as much as I do.

Peace

JR

Recycled Ganache.

The modern world is so very contradictory. On the one hand we are being indoctrinated to buy more of the newest, shiniest upgraded gadget. Whereas on the other, we are cussed and scalded for not recycling our old things. I don't want to go on about it too much because you know, it's quite boring, and nobody wants to be lectured, but i'll just leave you with the thought of "Recycling: It's kind of important".

Recycling, not just for hippies and the Good Life.

Apologies for the slight detour, but it is entirely relative to my views on food right now. In the past, there seemed to be this divide between a dish that is gourmet, beautiful, but expensive, and one that saved you a vast amount of money and helped those who were budgeting. If you 'recycle' your old meals - aka, using up your leftovers - it can still be construed as either being tight, or poor. It's obviously rubbish, and thanks to the promotion and growth of chefs like Jamie Oliver, Nigel Slater and the heavy influence of war time recipes, it's becoming less of an issue. But it still leaves me with the feeling that people are so contrasting in not only what they see as a consumer, but in their mimicking in daily life. It's not a new idea that people aspire to be amazing chefs, but it's not realistic. 


Food porn is just as unrealistic as actual porn, and dinners should be about more then how it looks (although, granted, it should have a place). TV chefs have thousands of pounds to spend on equipment, companies wanting to endorse their produce, and money to experiment during the day to figure out new recipes. It really isn't so different to actors paying thousands for hairdressers, make up artists, stylists and freebies for endorsing apparel. As amazing as it would be to have that freedom, you sort of have to make do with what is at your disposal. 

See, ration book knows where i'm coming from.

The idea i've bored my friends to death with is the mantra that food doesn't need to be expensive, and if you plan things right, you won't even need to use leftovers, because there won't be any. How many hundreds of generations have coped with the various strifes of food-related and economical disasters? Our generation isn't alone in having financial difficulties, we've had it pretty easy if you compare it to earlier ones, I think we can manage to get through it without too much moaning. There's nothing we can do about it really for now, the only thing we can do is work with the resources we have and get on with it.

Granted, if you want to save yourself a great deal of money, you might want to consider the idea of having one or two meat-free days a week, but you really don't have to if you plan it right. One of these days i'm just going to make a plan for you guys to download and be done with it. I am very well aware that reading about this stuff and doing it are two very divided notions, so i'll leave myself a little mental note to do some tables and carry on to foodie goodness.


I mentioned briefly last time that I fancied something minty. After several hours of skimming through books I ended up resigning to the fact that I'd just have to make something up because nothing was quite right. I'm openly quite glad when things like this happen; partly because when I make my own successful recipe I feel like a proud cat with kittens, and partly because I feel like a cross between this:

And this:

I concocted a vanilla sponge, with peppermint cream core and a rich peppermint chocolate ganache. Alas, I haven't quite perfected my sponge-ganache ratio so I won't include the recipe until it's right, but it did taste like a giant peppermint truffle.

I quite enjoyed the end result.

Next time I will indulge you with recipes and instructions for pipe-able, glaze-able and spreadable ganache. I think, perhaps, suited for those who think buttercream is a cop-out, but like things to look pretty. Huzzah. 

Peace

JR