The Story of the search for Almond & Apricot Bars

2 years ago, I went to Fernandez & Wells with Tommy, we had a sit down drink, she ordered a drink and something sweet, like she always does. We sat and she exclaimed that the raspberry jam bar that she just bit into was the best thing ever. ( like she always does ) and wanted me to try it. I refused. I just started baking and was gaining alot of post pastry chef weight. Of course, she would insist until I give up and take a pretend bite and with that tiny bite, I also thought IT IS the BEST THING EVER. Of course I had to have the recipe. I went home and started going online, flipped through all my books. No recipes for Almond & Raspberry bars.

I JUST COULDN'T find it!!!

I went to another shop in North West London ( who I will not name ) and there it was, another almond & raspberry bar! I was SUPER excited and was in between jobs so I applied for a part time position at that shop just so I could have the recipe. I got the job and was even More excited. I didn't get to do anything the first week except cutting butter and rolling pastry dough. But I was hopeful, that eventually they will let me make almond and raspberry bars. After 3 weeks, I still did not get to do it. I had to leave the job because it was only part time and i needed a full time job.

A few weeks later, I bought Bill Granger Holiday book and THERE IT WAS! Apricot and raspberry bars! Before you start yawning, here it is.

Recipe adapted from Bill Granger Holiday.

Preheat Oven at 180c

You will need a 8" Square Tin

Base - 

150g Butter ( soften but not too soft )

115g sugar 

2 Tsp vanilla essence

225g Flour

40g Cornflour

Filling -

250g Apricot Jam - I use bonne maman

Topping - 60g Butter 55g Sugar 200g Flaked Almond 2 Tsp milk.

Make the base first.

Beat butter and sugar until soft and fluffy, add vanilla essence.

Add in dry ingredients all at once until its semi combined, still abit crumbly.

Line the crumbs on the tin and flatten it with your fingers.

Bake in the oven until golden brown. It will take about 10-12 minutes. It doesn't have to be fully baked, just slightly golden brown on the top. Remove from Oven and let it cool for 7 minutes.

While the base is being baked in the oven, prepare the topping.

Melt butter on a pan and add sugar, flaked almond and milk. 

On low heat, keep stirring the mixture carefully until it looks glossy. ( about 2-3 minutes )

Take pan off heat and let it sit. 

Spread jam evenly on base and scatter almond mixture on the top. 

Bake in the oven for another 15-20 minutes until flaked almond looks golden brown. 

Thursday rainy day muffin and green bean mush.

I had some old apples i wanted to use up.

Crumble Muffins are great for rainy days

Apple Crumb Muffins


Recipe ( makes 12 )


120g butter, 165g caster sugar
2 eggs, 140ml double cream
250g plain flour 2 teaspoon baking powder 1teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt 
200g apples peeled and cubed ( i used pink lady )


Preheat oven at 175c.


1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Whisk in eggs.
2. whisk in double cream
3. Fold in sifted flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt. 
4. Fold in chopped apples. Spoon batter into muffin tins.


Bake muffins for about 20-25 minutes. Until golden brown. 


To make the crumble :


100g flour 80g butter 80g sugar


Mix flour and sugar, rube in cubed butter until mixture resembles bread crumbs.

green bean mush for green bean and white chocolate cake.

It's time for strawberries ♥

My first office order 

Strawberry cake

Last friday

Andrew the Jeweller, amongst other things.

We had the bestest lunch at Clarke's.

blueberry roll with lemon curd

Corn, spinach, caramelized onion quiche

Weird friend carrying flag bag

On Holiday at home!

I WILL be back soon.

A banana bread for Yae.

I buy alot of bananas and they always go too brown before I have time to eat them, so I make alot of bananan bread. They are good for gifting, most people like them, even the picky ones.

One of my earliest memory of banana bread was in college, I did not like baking nor did i know how to use a home oven. I had a friend Yae, whom I met in college who loved baking, and I remember her talking about baking quite alot. One time she stayed over and before she left for college, she woke me up and said that she had left a piece of banana bread that she had made in the fridge and told me to try it. ( I wasn't very interested still and just said yes to be polite of course, I was 19, I was still at a post rebellion age where i just couldn't be bothered with anything )  After a day or two, I saw a cake wrapped in a plastic bag looking abit sorry and squishy. I opened it and gave it a sniff and was not sure whether to take a bite or bin it. I took a bite after looking at it suspiciously and it was creamy, and soft and moist, it still had small bits of bananas in it and til this day, i still think it is the best one i've ever eaten. I never said anyting to Yae, but if you are reading this and you probably forgot about it. Thank you!

Yae also took me at my first ever farmers market in Santa Monica and introduced me to Trader's Joe. :)

This recipe is given to me by someone at work. The origins of the recipe comes from The Bread Bible by Rose Beranbaum. Dried cranberries have been replaced by fresh blueberries.

Banana Blueberry Walnut Bread

Ingredients

Will fit a 900g loaf tin.

113g butter, 200g sugar

2 eggs, 1 very ripe banana mashed, 1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup walnut ( toasted ) 2 cup + 1 tbsp plain flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt

2 cup blueberries

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add eggs.

Beat in bananas, vanilla essence.

Add flour, baking soda, salt and mix well.

Fold in Walnuts & blueberries. Be gentle while folding in blueberries so they are not broken.

Bake for 40 mins at 170c.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

_

Recipe - makes 2 8" tin

Ingredients.

Cake.

175g butter, 195g sugar

4 eggs, zest of 2 lemons, juice of 1 lemon

100g ground almond, 125g flour, 30g poppy seed

Icing.

3 oz soften butter, 6 oz cream cheese ( at room temperature ), 2.5 cup of icing sugar.

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Fully line your 8" tin with parchment paper, this will stick!

To make the cake,

Beat butter and sugar until soft and fluffy, add eggs one at a time.

Mixture will curdle but it is okay.

Add flour, poppy seed and ground almond in 2s. Add lemon juice.

Mix well.

Bake cake at 170c for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

To make the icing,

beat butter until soft and fluffy.

Add cream cheese, and beat until smooth.

Add icing sugar and lemon juice and beat well.

I store my cream cheese icing in the fridge as i like it slightly firm when i do the icing.

Enjoy!

Cookies ++ recipe

tommy ordered some cookies last week

I made extra.

For myself.

And D.

who

is

a

Anyway, heres the

.

.

.

Recipe

for

Vanilla Cookies

Makes 30 very soft and crumbly cookies.

Ingredients

215g flour, 60 cornflour, pinch of salt, 70g icing sugar, 215g butter 1 teaspoon vanilla essence Or 1 vanilla bean. ( I used vanilla bean )

You will need very soft butter for this. Make sure butter has been left out in room temperature in advance.

Preheat oven at 170c.

Baking time 17 minutes.

1. 
   
   Combine flour, cornflour, salt, icing sugar and sift.
2. 
   
   Beat butter until very soft and fluffy ( 1 minute )
3. 
   
   Add vanilla essence or vanilla seeds
4. 
   
   Add dry ingredients all at once. Mix until combined
5. 
   
   Pipe cookies onto baking tray if you have piping bags / star nozzle, if not roll cookies into 20g balls.
6. 
   
   Fridge cookie dough for 30 minutes in the fridge before baking.

Try !

Banana Bread Recipe

Banana Loaf

makes 900g loaf tin or 12 mini loaf tins

175c. 50 Minutes.

135g butter

200g sugar

2 eggs

4 bananas (cut & mash )

2 tsp vanilla essence

180g self raising flour, 50g whole wheat self raising flour

You can add 70g chocolate chips/70g dessicated coconut.

Beat butter & sugar til white and fluffy.

Mix in eggs, bananas, vanilla essence all at the same time. ( mixture might look slightly curdle but that is okay )

Fold in both flours.

Done!

We had green tea & chocolate trees.

Earl Grey Loaf Cake

This is a very simple loaf cake for occasions when you want something sweet but nothing too decadent. This recipe is adapted from one that a colleague gave me.

Earl Grey Loaf Cake

Preheat oven 175c.

Recipe

3 bags of earl grey tea ( leaves removed from bag )

60 ml boiling water

80ml milk

150g butter

160g sugar

2 eggs

200g Self Raising flour

Icing ( optional )

230g icing sugar

1.5 tbsp marmalade

3 tbsp orange juice - ( u can use water if you don't have any oranges )\

Beat butter and sugar til soft and fluffy. Seep tea leaves in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Add cold milk to tea. Add eggs to butter mixture. Fold in 1/2 the flour , then 1/2 the milk into the butter mixture. Repeat. Spoon mixture into a 900lb loaf tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.

To make icing-

Stir in orange juice and marmalade into icing sugar to make a slight sticky but runny icing and pour onto cake when its cooled down. The icing will help seal in the flavour of the cake.

Done!

It's too late to bake

so i make some pretzel knobblies.

someone bought these today.

Mini Chocolate Bundt Cake

we are testing this for the market this saturday at Patridges.

Vanilla buttercream cake.

Custy Lemon Madeleines

Madeleines hail from Commercy, Northeastern France. According to the New American Oxford Dictionary,

Madeleines are named after a 19th century pastry cook, Madeleine Paulmier.

This recipe makes about 18 slightly crusty madeleines.

4 eggs, 200g caster sugar, 140g cake flour , 1 tsp baking powder, 110g butter ( melted and cooled ),

3g baking powder, 1 grated lemon zest. some icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven at 175c
2. Grease madeleines pan with butter, fridge, dust flour and fridge again.
3. Beat egg and sugar til pale and creamy, sift flour and baking powder, slowly fold in flour in egg mixture, pour in melted butter ( make sure butter has been cooled to room temperature ), stir in lemon zest. Fridge batter for 10 minutes.
4. Spoon or pipe batter into madeleines pans, batter should have a slight holding consistency and should only be 3/4 full. bake for 15 minutes.
5. Depending on oven, check madeleines and remove from oven when madeleines are light golden brown on the sides.
6. Dust with icing sugar.

Malakof

Recipe

Ingredients

250g milk chocolate couverture
100g Cocoa butter/ ( or 50g butter, 50g chocolate couverture )
250 nougat paste/ praline paste ( OR nutella )
250 Flaked Almonds- toasted.
50g Pistachio

To finish
Tempered white chocolate.

Line and grease an 8 inch square tin.
Melt milk chocolate and cocoa butter in a bowl above a pan of simmering water. Keep temperature of melted chocolate below 50 degrees.
Add nougat paste/ praline paste or nutella with a large wooden spoon.
( avoid using a whisk if you can as it incorporates air and causes air bubbles to form)

Mix in flaked almonds and pistachio.

Pour into square tin and leave in fridge to set for 15 minutes.

When chocolate is just set, remove from fridge and spread a thin layer of white chocolate on the top. Leave in fridge for another 3 minutes.

Remove from fridge and cut into 1 inch squares.