Tea Party

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Freddie’s Christening and afterward everyone came over to our house for a little tea party. I had great fun baking small cakes which really are so easy to make. My only disappointment was the red velvet cake which wasn’t red and the icing was terribly sweet. It was made according to The Hummingbird Bakery recipe which sponge is nice rich and moist, mine wasn’t. I always skip the icing with red velvet as it gives me a mega sugar rush but I thought the cake has got to be finished and white chocolate icing split. Anyway, I won’t be sharing the red velvet recipe here.

However the small cakes came out very well.

Fig and frangipane tarts

Pastry:

250g butter

200g icing sugar

a pinch of salt

510g plain flour

zest of 1/2 lemon

4 large egg yolks

4 tbsp cold milk

Cream butter, salt and sugar, rub in the flour, lemon zest and egg yolks till it looks like bread crumbs, add the cold milk and combine. Don’t overwork it though otherwise it will shrink when baking (I actually was so terrified not to overwork it that mostly it was way too short, I finally mastered it). Wrap it in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 1h.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease 12 small pastry tins. Bake for around 8 minutes.

In the meantime prepare the frangipane.

285g of ground almonds

55g flour

255g butter

255g sugar

2 large eggs

1 vanilla pod or 1tsp vanilla extract

10 ripe figs for the topping.

Mix all the ingredients together. You can put it to the fridge for 1h to firm up but I don’t think it is necessary.

Fill the shells with frangipane and put 4 quarters of figs in each. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Chocolate and Nutella mini loaves

4 eggs

100g sugar

100g flour

80g cocoa

185g melted butter

small jar of Nutella

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and great 8-10 small loaf tins.

Beat eggs and sugar until light and creamy, add flour and cocoa, mix well, add the melted butter and combine. Place a spoon of batter into the tin, a spoon of Nutella and cover with a spoon of batter. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean. When cool sprinkle with cocoa or eat warm with a dollop of cream. Delicious!

Raspberry friands

175g melted butter

225g icing sugar

100g flour

125g ground pistachios (traditionally it would be almonds but I love the crunch of pistachios, Lebanese supermarkets sell great quality ground nuts or just wizz up the whole pistachios and leave a bit of larger pieces)

6 egg whites (perfect when you are making pastry shells!)

12 raspebrries

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Butter 12 hole muffin tin.

Combine all the dry ingredients and create a well, pour lightly beaten egg whites and melted butter into the well and mix together, don’t overdo it, it should be gooey and elastic. Pour into the tin, make them about 3/4 full. Place a raspberry in each. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. When cool sprinkle with icing sugar.