I'm quite fond of marshmallow fondant icing

Ever thought that fondant tastes like pants - yeah me too! This is fondant icing that is easy to make and tastes good.  The recipe below specifies mini marshmallow but marshmallows chopped up to the same size works fine.  Cups refer to have a standard mug size.  You will need extra icing sugar for dusting and I would get a travel spray bottle with a little water in it to get rid of the dustiness (vodka works better but not always practical, especially with kids cakes)

White Marshmallow Fondant
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Coloured Marshmallow Fondant
Gel food colouring (the more gel the stronger the colour
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Brown or Black Marshmallow Fondant Icing
2 tubes of gel colour will give you dark brown with this recipe
4 Cups of Mini Marshmallows
1.5 cups of Cocoa
3.5 cups of icing sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Method

1. Measure out the marshmallows into a bowl.  Sprinkle the water on top and into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until they are melted.
2. If you're adding colour, now's the time squeeze it on in there.
3. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa if you're using it.  It will seem like there's too much but I promise you'll need it all.
4. Start by working the marshmallow away from the edges of the bowl using plenty of the icing sugar to prevent your fingers from sticking.
5. Tip the contents of the bowl onto a surface and then knead for all your worth to encorporate all the icing sugar.  The final result should be smooth and elastic.  As it cools it becomes less malliable (great word) but a few seconds in the microwave will sort that out.

HEALTHY CHRISTMAS CAKE

This is stolen from Kate Farrells Facebook page.  Completely and unashamedly:

I made this one on monday, turned out beautiful. Plus its gluten and dairy free for those with allergies and intolerances. 

600 g mixed dried Fruit or a mix of the following (raisins, prunes, figs, apricot, currants, sultanas, dates)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract or paste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
zest and juice from 1 orange
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 eggs
200 g (2 cups) ground almonds
50 g walnuts

Preheat your oven to 150 C (fan forced)
Prepare a 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper lining the sides and the base.
Combine dried fruit, spice, vanilla, orange zest + juice, olive oil and eggs.
Add the almonds and walnuts and mix through.
Spoon Christmas Cake batter into your baking tin.
Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Check with a skewer to see if it comes out clean, if not bake for another 30 minutes.
Cover the top if necessary to prevent over-browning.
Cool, then remove from the tin and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month.

NOTE:
If you wish to soak your Christmas cake in orange liqueur, as soon as you remove the cake from the oven, skewer holes through the cake and drizzle over 1/4 cup orange liqueur so it can penetrate through the holes and infuse into the cake.

This cake can also be served as a pudding served with vanilla bean custard or thick natural yoghurt.

For nut allergies replace the almond meal for 1 CUP wholemeal or spelt flour and omit the walnuts. Add one more tablespoon olive oil.

20 serves per cake 
Nutrition per serve:
Protein: 4.4 g
Total fat: 9.8 g
Saturated: 1 g
Carbs: 18 g
Fiber: 3.3 g
kilojoules: 740
Calories: 177

Thanks to The Healthy Chef (www.healthychef.com)

Whiskey Fed Christmas Cake - The Preparation

And so I did start with the Christmas Cake

Add half a bottle of whiskey* to 450g of Dried Fruit** cover with cling film and pop it into the hot press for a day or so take it out and stir it every once in a while (twice a day) so that all of the fruit gets a chance to plump up and get a little drunk.  Think of it like a tea brack looking at you cross eyed!  By the time you get to mixing up this cake the whiskey will have combined with the sugars from the fruit to create an unctuous syrup.

*Jameson Whiskey

**This years dried fruit combination:
Dried Blueberries
Dried Cranberries
Flame Raisins
Currants
Golden Sultanas
Sultanas

Christmas Cake

BTW My Christmas cake is not close to being baked. I have bought an impressive array of dried fruits I just need to get my hands on a bottle of Jameson will post when I get cracking.

Christmas is coming...and I'll be getting fat ;)

About this time every year I get to thinking about Christmas or at least the food part of Christmas which is my favourite.

The reason I am thinking about Christmas so early is because I like a mature Christmas cake.  Many families have their own cake recipes and mine is no exception and in the spirit of generosity I will give you my Mamas recipe which is essentially an Oxford Lunch.  My own recipe for Christmas cake kind of evolved from that and became something else entirely.  My cake is a whiskey fed Christmas cake and the 9" round cake takes an entire bottle of Jameson over the following few months.  Last year I made almond paste for the first time (again with the whiskey) and it tasted infinitely better than the crap that I've been buying in the shops for years and it's really easy to make too.  Theres also a guide on how to apply almond paste.  This year I'll take a crack at making fondant for the first time and let you know how I get on.

I made Christmas puddings with my Mama every year but have never made one of my own.  This year I'll make a crack at it and I also have a version of it that is Gluten, Dairy, Egg and Sugar Free that I'm going to try (for my sister in law Melina) and a dairy free cream that goes with that.  I have recipes on Mince pies from last year and of course whiskey/brandy butter.  I also have a recipe for Mincemeat Gingerbread that you should take a look at for an easy winter pud.

For edible decorations there is nothing nicer than gingerbread which can be made into tree decorations and gingerbread houses which make lovely gifts too.  There is a huge range of easy to make greatly appreciated edible gifts for the christmas too.  Sweets, truffles, fudge, biscuits. I'll make, bake and post over the next few months and you'll find everything under the Christmas Baking label on my blog.

How to apply Almond Paste

This is my technique for applying the almond paste.  It may not be elegant but it is quick and effective.  The trick is to get enough icing sugar on the board so that it is not completely stuck (in which case it would tear, but will only move from the board on your encouragement).
You will need:

• A quantity of Almond Paste
• A sugar paste smoother 
• A rolling pin
• A pastry Brush
• Apricot Jam/ Marmalade 
• Icing Sugar (just enough for rolling out the almond paste)
• Wooden chopping board the size of the top of the cake.

Method

1. Dust your work surface with Icing sugar and roll out to 1cm thickness. 
2. Warm 2 tbsp of apricot jam or marmalade in the microwave and brush the top with it.
3. Place the board just above the cake so that it is centered and the top is completely covered and dislodge it from the board with a large knife.  (You shouldn't need to scrape it off it should fall off and directly onto the cake with just a little encouragement)  If that isn't the case then add a little icing to the paste and roll it out again.
4. Trim the top as you would a pie.  Brush the sides with the apricot marmalade.  Roll out the sides in manageable sections.  Apply to the sides of the cake.  Where you have a join in the sides overlap the two pieces and cut straight through the overlapped pieces and discard (or eat!) the trimmings so that you have two perfectly matching pieces.
5. Firmly rub the cake all over with the sugarpaste smoother to make sure that it sticks to the cake and that the Almond paste is one smooth solid coating.

Almond Paste

What is almond paste? Almond paste is the layer between the Icing and the Christmas Cake.  It provides a smooth even surface to ice a cake on.  I have to similes and you can pick one that makes most sense to you: 1. Its like lining paper when you're wallpapering or 2. Its like applying Smashbox Photo finish before you apply foundation.  I hate almond extract so I leave it out but it's really up to you.  This can be baked in the oven on the fruit cake without ever having to ice the cake just brush with a little egg white first.


450g Ground Almonds
450g Caster Sugar
3 Tbsp Whiskey
2 small Eggs
A few drops of Almond extract.

Method

1. Mix dry ingredients then make a hole in the middle and add the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.
2. Roll out with Icing Sugar
3. Apply to cake

Brandy Butter / Whiskey Butter

This is essentially alcoholic butter icing served with Christmas Pudding or Mince Pies.

Butter
Icing Sugar
Brandy / Whiskey / Whisky

Beat Icing into butter until the butter will take no more icing sugar the add a generous jigger of alcohol and beat again.  Chill in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

Mince pies

In this recipe I use a jar of Mincemeat in a simple shortcrust pastry base.  Shop bought pastry is fine but nothing beats the homemade stuff.  This is something really simple that can be done with kids or let them do on their own.  You will need Bun tin, Cookie Cutters - either two circular cutters one larger than the other for the top and bottom of the tart, or a circle for the bottom and a star shape for the top.  If you are using a circular top make sure to leave a slit or hole to let the steam out.


Shortcrust pastry 
Milk or egg for glazing
Icing Sugar
Mincemeat


Method

1. Preheat the Oven to 170C, Grease the tin
2. Cut the Top and the bottom of each pie to make sure you have the same amount of tops and bottoms (I have mis-counted before)
3. Place the bases in the tin.  Fill each with 1 generous tsp of mincemeat and cover with the top. 
4. Brush with milk or egg
5. Bake in the oven for 10-15mins until golden brown. 
6. Sprinkle with Icing Sugar and serve warm or cold with brandy/whiskey butter, cream or custard.

What is Mincemeat?

A preserve of dried fruit, spices, sugar and suet and sometimes alcohol common to Ireland and the UK. It would have originally contained meat as an ingredient as the name suggests but not these days.  Mincemeat is usually used to make mince tarts around Christmas time.  I could give you a recipe for mincemeat, but as I haven't got a tried and tested recipe, I won't post one here.  The truth is that you can buy good quality Mincemeat at a reasonable price.  I have it on good authority that Santa is a fan.

Mincemeat Gingerbread

Somethings you just know are going to work together but when I went to find a recipe I wasn't having much joy with this.  This is a Frankenstein of a recipe being that it has a little bit of this and a little bit of that but I've had to add a little cop on to it. This is a very wet batter but don't worry it cooks up just fine. It's traditional to use Molasses in Gingerbread but I'm not really a fan so I've used Golden Syrup instead and a little Muscavado Sugar as a nod to the missing Molasses.  When it was still warm I glazed with a little maple syrup.  I think though that I may increase the spices to double next time that I make it because that flavour didn't really come through.  When I do I will update this post.

50g Soft Brown Sugar
50g Muscavado Sugar
1 Egg
250ml Golden Syrup
250ml Hot water
200g Butter
375g Flour

1 1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 Jar of Mincemeat

Method

1. Preheat Oven to 175C
2. Cream Butter and Sugars.  Mix in a beaten egg
3. In a bowl mix together Golden Syrup and Warm water and allow to cool.
4. Sieve Flour, spices and baking soda together in another bowl.
5. Add a third of the flour mix to the butter, sugar and egg bowl and mix thoroughly.  Add half of the golden syrup mix and combine thoroughly and repeat until all ingredients except mincemeat are incorporated.
6. Fold in a jar of Mincemeat. 
7. Pour into a greased brownie tin and bake for 1 hour but be sure to cover with foil when it reaches a nice golden brown colour.  Use a cocktail stick or skewer to make sure it's cooked properly.  
8. Leave in the tin overnight to cool or serve warm with custard.

How to Line a Baking Tin

1. Grease the tin
2. For the base: 
1. Cut a piece of greaseproof paper slightly larger than the diameter of the tin squared
2. Fold the sheet in half, then in quarter, then in eights (it should be the shape of a pointy triangle with an untidy end).
3. Measure the paper with the pointy end in the middle and trim the edges so that it fits inside the tin.
4. Open it out and you should have a piece of greaseproof paper roughly the size of the base of your tin.
3. For the sides:
1. Measure the circumference of tin and add 3cm, Measure the height of the tin and add 4cm
2. Cut a piece of greaseproof paper to these measurements.
3. Make cuts along the length of paper 2cm deep to form a fringe. Fold these cuts upwards.
4. Place inside the tin along the sides with the fringe inside. 
4. Insert the base.

Freezing Cooking Dough

Even though cookies themselves cant be frozen, most cookie dough can be frozen but there are a few things that you need to bear in mind.

1. Use cling film or a freezer bag to wrap it up properly so that no parts are exposed
2. Label it and date it.You don't need to do anything fancy in fact a permanent marker will do the job.
3. Though it may vary according to ingredients a good rule of thumb is to use all within a month of freezing.
4. Basic Cookie dough can be sliced frozen and put straight but as a general rule I would say defrost thoroughly and continue as if the dough had just been chilled.

Maple Glazed Spiced Cookies

 This cookie or to be more accurate biscuit, has a shortbread base but provides an alternative to using sugar.  This recipe called for honey in the mix, but I think I may be the only person in Ireland who doesn't like the taste of honey, so I substituted maple syrup and then added a maple glaze. The spices lend themselves to Christmas time. 

150g Plain flour
1 tsp  of Cinnamon
1/4 tsp of Mixed Spice
1/4 tsp of Ginger
85g Butter
3 tbsp maple syrup + more for glazing

1. Preheat the oven to 170C
2. In either a food processor or stand mixer place the flour spices and butter and mix until combined - it should give you a dry breadcrumb consistency.
3. Turn the machine back on a low speed and slowly add all of the maple syrup, then turn the speed back up until a dough is formed.
4. Wrap dough in cling film and then pop in the fridge for 30 mins (or store in the freezer in a freezer bag until you're ready to bake them).
5. Roll out to the thickness of a coin and cut out shapes.  Place on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 10-12 mins (you want them to remain reasonably pale like shortbread cookies).  As soon as they are out of the oven brush them with maple syrup and leave to cool.

Raising Agent / Leavening Agent

Basic rule of baking if you want something to rise you will either need to use eggs and/or a raising agent of some description. You need bubbles to make cakes, breads and even some cookies rise.  The bubbles get warm in the oven they expand and your baking goods get lighter.  So the obvious question would be why are there so many types of raising agents and whats the difference between them.  Can you swap them?

Yeast - Typically used in breads, pizzas and bread based buns (Chelsea buns & Cinnamon buns).  It's not suitable for cakes as a general rule because yeast has a fairly strong flavour, especially in the case of sour dough.  Using yeast means taking time to leaven and knead the bread.  Yeast is a living organism that needs feeding (sugar of some description) and warmth to be kicked into action.

• Fresh Yeast - The best way that I can describe it that it looks like putty and smells like beer.
• Dried Fast Action Yeast - Powdered version of fresh yeast that is much more predictable 
• Sour Dough Starters - This is nothing shy of magic in my books. In the new year I will tackle the whole Sour Dough Bread thing.

Bread Soda / Baking Soda -Typically used for scones, cookies and Irish soda bread among many others. If you've ever made a Baking Soda Volcano you will know that if you add an acid to Bread Soda (who for those want it's proper chemical term it's NaCl -Sodium Chloride) it will fizz up and release a gas called carbon dioxide (CO2 this is the stuff we exhale).  This is a fairly instantaneous release of gas so only add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients when you're ready to pop it into the oven.  Cakes that have a high acid content in them such as a lemon based cake or a cake with either buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt in them will use baking soda as either the main raising agent or an additional agent to balance the chemical process and improve flavour.  This seems to be much more common in American baking recipes than Irish or UK equivalents.  I wonder of the origins I'm all ears if someone can enlighten (see the way I 'lightened' the sentence with a baking pun) me.

Baking Powder - Typically used for cakes.  Baking powder is composed of everything that you need   (Baking Soda and an Alkaline, a stabiliser (quite often Cream of Tartar) and some cornflour (so its not as at risk to moisture) in the correct ratios, to make a cake rise.  Typically a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon baking powder per 200g Plain Flour.  The actual baking powder recipe changes from company to company including one discovered by the man who created Birds Custard.

Self Raising Flour - I'm including this because even though it's not a raising agent it contains the correct ratio of flour to raising agent to make a cake rise, this makes life much easier.

Just a note on Scones and  Soda Bread if you have buttermilk use baking soda if you have fresh milk use baking powder