Strawberry honey and lavender trifles, serendipity in a glass

A couple of weeks ago whilst browsing in TK Maxx I decided to treat myself to a madeleine tin and last weekend I finally got around to attempting to bake with the purchased tin, I researched quite a few recipes and I closely followed the instructions in my chosen recipe carefully buttering and flouring the tin,and deciding to add honey and lavender to the mixture.

Everything turned out fine, well mostly, other than not being able to extricate the madeline's from the tin, the actual sponge was lovely, well flavoured and light. I am not defeated and will try madeline's again but my first attempt left me with a quantity of beautiful sponge cakes that needed using up, so this trifle was born.

This easy fruity delight used the disaster sponges to great effect and ensured no waste, so definitely serendipity in a glass. According to Mr LF a trifle is not a trifle unless it contains jelly, I think this must be a hark back to his child hood so this one does contain a fruit jelly layer, but its optional.

What you need

• Quantity of sponge cake - crumbled (mine was flavoured with 1 tbsp honey and 1 teaspoon of edible lavender flowers)
• Splash of sherry or some other suitable alcoholic beverage (mead would be good too), if for children you could use fruit juice
• Strawberry jelly - cubes, crystals or made from juice and gelatine, I used sparkling fruit juice drink to give the jelly sparkle
• Chopped fresh strawberries
• Thick custard - homemade or custard pot
• Creme fraiche or whipped cream 
• Fresh fruit or sprinkles to decorate
• Small quantity of edible lavender flowers for decoration

What you do

• Take 4 glass tumblers and crumble the sponge cake into the bottom of the glass, splash with alcohol of your choice
• Top with a small quantity of chopped strawberries
• Mix up your jelly according to the instructions on the packet, I also make a stronger solution so I know it going to set well and pour into the glass about a third of the way up the glass.
• Place in the fridge to set fully
• One set top with custard and cream layers
• Chill again and then serve topped with a sliced strawberry and strewn with lavender flowers.

Mr LF ate 2 in one sitting, so I am taking that as a recommendation that they are good. Plenty of traditional trifle flavour but with a hint of honey and lavender.

If you fancy having a go at the madeline's (you may have better success than me) then this is the recipe I used and tweaked by adding lavender instead of vanilla.

I am linking up to Credit Crunch Munch which I feel is totally appropriate as Iam using my rejects as the basis of a new recipe. Jointly run by Fab Food for All and Fuss Free Flavours

And to No Waste Food Challenge over at Elizabeths Kitchen 

And lastly recipe of the week over A Mummy Too

Tumbleberry and yogurt iced lollies

Need to cool down, these gorgeous summertime treats are a doddle to whip up and are much better for you than the icy treats you buy from the shop. Made with fresh berries, some sugar and a little yogurt they have just the right amount of fruity tang to creaminess ratio to deliver a very satisfying ice lolly.

For many months I have been searching for the perfect iced lolly mold, ideally my perfect one would be metal where you can use wooden sticks, just like the one I remember from the 1970's from the little corner shop that made vimto lollies in summer. So far I have managed to buy a plastic one where the plastic handles snapped one by one and then a supposedly metal one which turned out to be plastic with a steel finish (and yes I did complain to the manufacturer - who frankly wasn't very forthcoming). So the search continues......

To make tumbleberry and yogurt lollies you need

• 500ml mixed berries (can be frozen and defrosted)
• 200-250g sugar (varies depending on mix of fruit you use)
• 75ml of yogurt (I used a Greek yogurt)
• Icing sugar
• Ice lolly mold and sticks

To make the mixture

• Start by making a over sweetened compote, using the berries, the sugar and just a drop of water to get the juices going in the pan. Once the berries are softened and the sugar dissolved, switch off the heat. 
• Cool a little and then sieve to remove pips and seeds and any tough skins.
• Cool and then taste for sweetness, what you are trying to achieve is just a bit too sweet before freezing. If you need to add more sugar then use icing sugar as this dissolves without heating.
• Once you are happy with the level of sweetness, mix in the yogurt.
• Pour into molds and insert lolly sticks
• Freeze for at least 12 hours

Ta dah Tumble berry and yogurt iced lollies, on a hot sunny day you will be popular.

                                                    

Laterly we are linking up to Bloggers scream for Ice Cream over on Kavey eats who's theme is Fruity ice lollies, this is perfect.

Strawberry, rhubarb and creme fraiche pavlova

We are currently dealing with a surfeit of eggs in our household (our chickens are in full production ! not that I'm complaining) so any recipe that uses a good quantity of eggs is welcome at the moment. I love Pavlova and still remember the first time I experienced this blousey confection at a friends birthday party when I was about 10 years old, I was blown away with the crunchy crumbly yet marshmallowy texture of the meringue offset by the creamy fruity centre.

This Pavlova uses local strawberries, some homemade homegrown rhubarb anise compote (see earlier post here) to contrast with a cream fraiche and yogurt centre which was slightly sweetened with a little icing sugar.

I love the rustic look of this dish, garnished with just fresh fruit and lemon balm leaves and it tastes amazing, I can't for the life of me recall why I don't make this more often........, I'm off to the kitchen for another slice.

What you need

• 4 egg whites
• 220g Caster Sugar
• Lemon juice - generous splash (this is to make the meringue marshmallowy in the middle)

For the filling 

• 1  pot of Creme fraiche
• Half a large pot of Greek yogurt
• Icing sugar, 1 tbsp
• Fresh fruit of your choice, I used local strawberries and rhubarb compote/jam
• A few lemon balm or mint leaves
• Icing sugar

What you do 

• Pre heat the oven to 140c / 275F, gas mark 1
• Prepare your baking tray with either using a silicone sheet or a large piece of baking parchment.
• Whisk the egg whites in a scrupulously clean mixer bowl until stiff, add the lemon juice and caster sugar whilst still whisking in roughly tablespoon amounts until all incorporated and the meringue is all glossy and shiny
• Scoop the meringue onto the prepared baking tray making a rough circle about 8 inches in diameter, make the sides higher the middle so it can hold the filling.
• Bake in the oven for 1 1/2 hours until very lightly golden and firm to touch,switch the oven off and allow to cool fully in the oven with the door slightly wedged open with a tea towel
• Once fully cool remove from the oven.
• To make the filling mix the creme fraiche and Greek yogurt with a little icing sugar, spoon into the centre of the Pavlova
• Drizzle with the rhubarb compote and top with fresh fruit
• Dust with icing sugar and dot with artistically with a few lemon balm or mint leaves

I am also going to use this post as an entry in this months cooking with herbs challenge as the recipe features the beautiful lemon sherbety leaves of lemon balm as a garnish. I think the dish would also work beautifully with elderflower scented strawberry compote. The challenge this month is hosted right here on Lancashire Food

                                                               

I am also linking up to Four Seasons Food Summer who's theme this month is red, well this is strawberry red. Created by Eat your Veg and Delicieux, its being hosted our on the Spicy Pear this month

Here is an instagram image of the partially demolished pavlova ! , very rustic but very very delicious.....

Double Strawberry Flapjacks

My hubby has recently joined a weekly walking club so its essential we always have a homemade cake or sweet treat ready for his lunch box. Flapjacks are practical for lunchbox duty as the tend to be robust enough not to disintegrate whilst being carried around in your work bag or rucksack.

This double strawberry version came about as I pimped my usual recipe with a packet of dried strawberries I had found in the store cupboard along with some strawberry flavoured chocolate drops.

What you need 

• Standard flapjack recipe here
• Dried strawberries - chopped into small pieces
• Melted strawberry flavoured chocolate drops

What you do

• Follow standard flapjack recipe but added chopped dried strawberry pieces
• Once baked and cooled, drizzle with melted chocolate
• Double strawberry flapjacks ! 

The stunning photography is by the talented Mr Lancashire Food.

CCC No 16 - Strawberry and rose swiss roll for South Lancashire CCC visit to Thru the Looking Glass, Wheelton (16th)

Summer is in full swing in Lancashire and we have been really lucky to snaffle a great venue for our June clandestine cake club meeting. Our meeting was hosted at the delightful vintage tearoom "Thru the Looking glass" tea room is situated in the quaint Lancashire village of Wheelton, just outside Chorley. This gorgeous vintage tea room is so cute and so beautiful, delightfully quirky and has beautiful teas, coffees and of course CAKE ! 

Lynn the owner is also a very talented Interior designer as well and she stocks a great range of fabrics and interior design products. Thru the Looking glass also prides its self in catering for gluten and lactose free diets as well. 

                                         

                           


                           

Delightful outside seating area

                                  

Our theme for our meeting was "Vintage Classics" taking its inspiration from the tea room and our members rose to the challenge wonderfully, producing an array of delightful summery vintage creations. My bake for this meeting was a Strawberry and Rose Swiss roll the recipe is below.

The cakes we enjoyed

• Toffee apple cake
• Black Forest cake
• Caramel cake
• Pineapple upside down cake
• Victoria sponge with cream
• Battenburg
• Cherry cake (apologies to Anne as I missed photographing your cake)
• Weetabix
• Strawberry and rose swiss roll

We had a wonderful time sipping tea and munching cake on a lovely sunny Lancashire evening, our members old and new had travelled from near and far and thoroughly enjoyed our hidden gem of a location. Many I am sure will be back in the near future to visit this lovely tea room.

What you need to make the strawberry and rose swiss roll

• 3 eggs - free range, separated
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 100g self raising flour - sifted 
• 170g caster sugar
• Fresh strawberries - hulled and halved and sliced
• 200ml double cream - whipped to soft peak stage
• 2 tbsp strawberry jam (thinned slightly with the cordial)
• Rose cordial
• Greased and lined swiss roll tin

What you do 

• Firstly pre heat your oven to 180c 
• Now whisk the egg yolks and vanilla paste with 3/4 of the caster sugar until pale, light and fluffy
• In a separate bowl now whisk the egg whites , gradually adding the remaining 1/4 of the caster sugar until you reach soft peak stage. I use my trusty Kitchenaid mixer.
• Now gently fold a large spoonful of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture to loosen it and the fold in most of the egg white mixture trying at all times to retain the air in the mixture, now sieve in the flour gently and fold in, finishing with the last of the egg white.
• Now that the mixture is well incorporated, pour into the prepared tin, smooth with a palette knife if necessary.
• Bake in the oven for 10 -15 minutes, until golden and well rise and tested cooked with a cocktail stick.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin
• On another piece of baking parchment turn out the sponge, quickly removing the top layer of paper.
• Using the remaining piece of baking parchment , gingerly roll the swiss roll up still containing the paper. This is so the roll can cool folded to prevent cracking.
• Whilst your roll is cooling, mix the whipped cream with the jam and rose cordial, just gently you are going for a ripple effect and prepare your strawberries.
• Once the sponge roll is cool, unroll and spread the whipped cream mixture across roll and the strawberries , then gently re roll using the paper to assist rolling it back up.
• When roll dust with icing sugar and decorate to your taste, I used strawberries and rose petals on a vintage plate inherited from my Nanna.

And here's a cheeky image of fellow blogger Rachel (Vintage Folly) suitably vintage styled enjoying the tea and cake !

                                                  

CCC No 9 - Strawberry Diaquiri Cake - Cake in the City

Our most recent meeting of  the South Lancashire Clandestine Cake club was our first in Preston city centre, in celebration of this event a theme of "Cake in the City" was chosen.. On a wild wet and windy night we arrived with our cakes at our lovely venue "Winckleys", a cute coffee shop in the historic centre of the city. 

Our very talented bakers certainly rose to the challenge of the theme and the event was well attended considering we were competing with Great British Bake off on TV and the weather too, members old and new brought along fabulous creations of a pina colada cake, mojito cake, strawberry diaquiri cake, handbag cake, red velvet cake, "parkin" cake and a pear and ginger cake. We all had a fabulous time and were very impressed with Winckleys which most of us hadn't visited before.

Winckleys serves a great selections of beverages and refreshments and uses some great local suppliers like the Ginger Baker too. Please pay this local independent coffee shop a visit when you are in the city and you are sure of a warm "Winckleys" welcome.

South Lancs CCC enjoying the cake @ Winckleys

For the event I made a Strawberry Diaquiri cake, here's the recipe if you fancy having a go, interestingly enough all the cakes that where representing cocktails were rum based cocktails, I wonder what that says about our membership.

Strawberry cake 

• 2 1/4 cups plain flour - sifted
• pinch of salt
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup of softened butter or quality margarine
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 2 large free range eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 3/4 cups crushed fresh strawberries

Method

• Pre heat oven to 180c / 170c fan
• Grease and base line 2 x 8" round cake tins
• Sift the flour, salt and baking powder onto a plate
• In your mixer combine the butter(or marg), sugar, eggs and vanilla
• Add the flour mix and strawberries in 2 halves to your mixer, mix until you have a well incorporated mixture
• Scrape into the prepared tins and smooth the top 
• Bake for 25 -30 minutes until the cakes test as done with a skewer or cocktail stick
• Cool in the tins, whilst still warm prick all over and pour over diaquiri syrup

Diaquiri syrup

• 50ml water
• 50ml white rum
• juice and rind of 1 lime
• 50g sugar

Method

• Heat the water and sugar to make a syrup, remove from heat and and lime juice and rind
• When cool then add the rum

Cake filling

• Sliced fresh strawberries
• Quantity of whipped cream

Decoration

• White chocolate dipped fresh strawberries
• White chocolate shards with strawberry popping candy

You can find Winckleys just off Winckley Square at 12 Winckley St, Preston. 

Almond breeze, strawberry breakfast pancakes

I never tried Almond milk before so I was really happy to receive a sample from Blue Diamond Almonds via  Foodies 100 to experiment with.

I really enjoy recipe development and particular like it when it working with healthier ingredients. Almond milk is a great alternative to skimmed milk especially for those who are lactose intolerant and its also 60% lower in calories too, contains no cholesterol and almost no saturated fat either. 

The range from Blue Diamond Almonds also includes a sweetened and chocolate version too, the challenge it to come up with a healthy breakfast recipe. After all breakfast is the most important meal of the day so way not make it a healthy one too !

Now I don't know about you but I love thick american style pancakes, served drizzled with maple syrup or agave nectar when warm, I can eat them at any time of day.


This is an easy recipe and can be made the evening before and left in the fridge, but it only takes moments to whisk up, the choice is yours. You could add any fruit you like, blueberries, raspberries, bananas , whatever you want.

Ingredients

• 175g plain white flour 
• Pinch of sea salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 large egg - free range
• 1 tsp syrup, you could also use agave nectar, maple or honey
• 150ml Almond Breeze 
• Sunflower oil
• Handful of Strawberries - chopped finely

Method

• Mix all ingredients , except the oil , in a large bowl

• Whisk until you have a smooth-ish batter, it will be quite thick
• Heat a heavy bottom frying pan
• Oil with sunflower oil, then wipe the excess with a folded piece of kitchen paper
• Drop approx tablespoon sized dollops into the pan , do not move it and watch for little bubbles appearing on the surface
• Once you see a few bubbles pop, turn your pancake and press gently down, until nicely golden on both sides
• Serve warm, sprinkled with more strawberries and drizzled with maple syrup or agave nectar.

Strawberry and elderflower jam

Another post featuring the delightful elderflower and that ever so delightful quintessential British Berry - the Strawberry. 

I like to make Strawberry jam ever year as I believe that the end result is far superior to any shop bought jam or preserve and you just can't beat strawberry jam on scones, on toast or in your victoria sponge.
Strawberry jam can be difficult to set as the fruit is low in pectin, so I tend to use jam sugar or add pectin powder to my jam so I am ensured a good set. I decided to add elderflowers to the mix to capture the beauty of the individual flowers and their fragrance and also some vanilla to further enhance the jams flavour.
I recycle my jam jars and  this recipe makes about 4 jars, so ensure they are washed and sterilised and warm in the oven ready for your potting.


Ingredients 

800g British Strawberries, hulled and washed
1kg jam sugar or ordinary granulated sugar and a sachet of pectin
3 large elderflower heads- snip off the tiny flowers and remove wildlife
2 tsp vanilla paste

Method 

Mash your strawberries into your jam pan and then add your sugar and pectin, slowly heat the pan until the sugar has melted, stirring frequently.
Once your sugar has melted increase the heat, keeping stirring until you have a good rolling boil which won't be stirred down, now boil until setting point or follow the instructions on your pectin as to long to boil.
Once setting point is reached stir in your vanilla and elderflower flowers and pot in to your warmed jars.
Allow to cool and store

Afternoon tea in the garden

In the recent spell of good weather (its finished now and we are back to a typical rainy cold english summer) afternoon tea in the garden was in order. So after a quick baking session, tea was served.

• Scones with homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream.The scones were made to a friends recipe.
• Cucumber sandwiches, I used the fab Valentine Warners recipe in What to Eat now.
• Sausage rolls- I must confess shop bought on this occasion, but you can check my earlier blog post for a great sausage roll recipe.
• Victoria sponge cake - a classic but in celebration of summer, a pink sponge filled with the classic jam filling 
• Lemon balm loaf cake as featured on an earlier blog post

Drinks were served from a selection of Pimms ,classic english tea and cloudy lemonade

Jamming !

After picking up a bargain of 2 kilos of fresh English strawberries at the market, jam making was in order. I always feel that homemade jam is far superior to shop bought, the flavour sparkles and is delicious on scones or in Victoria sponge.

I experimented with two different recipes, the first one was a "Pam the Jam" from River Cottage, the second off the back of the jam sugar packet. We will have to see which one comes out better, Strawberry jam is particularly problematic and can easily up as strawberry soup, so its all in the set.

Jam is a great addition to the store cupboard and preserves the fruit for those dark winter days.