Beaver Tails with Maple Buttercream Icing

Sometime after my girlfriend moved in with me, we started introducing each other to things like our favourite movies, books, TV shows and YouTube channels. In the latter category, one of Courtney's favourites is Simply Nailogical - ostensibly a nail art channel which has more recently branched out into a nail varnish brand (Holo Taco) and a stream-of-consciousness/discussion podcast (SimplyPodLogical). This may seem like a strange subject to bring up on what is technically still a food blog (even though it's been without updates in over a year because I started using Instagram for the majority of my foodie output), but there's a connecton, honest.

Basically, one of the recent episodes of SimplyPodLogical was devoted to discussing some common Canadian stereotypes and, during the course of the conversation, Cristine and Ben mentioned a chain of pastry shops called 'BeaverTails'. They are purveyors of what is essentially a flatbread version of the classic fried doughnut, with a variety of toppings on offer, from classic cinnamon sugar to various types of icing, chocolate spreads, crushed biscuits, fruit, etc.

Naturally, I was hooked.

Since they don't have any UK branches (and, y'know, there's the Lockdown to consider anyway) I looked into recipes for making Beaver Tails myself, and realised it was something I could probably manage quite comfortably, despite the fact that I've done very little cooking from scratch in ages, and what little I have done used recipes from Gousto, where all the ingredients came supplied in the proper, premeasured quantities, and the instructions were given in clear, simple stages. I've not bothered writing those up here because it seemed a little rude (not to mention legally shaky) to recreate their recipes, and because it worked better to simply photograph and Instagram the results.

But Beaver Tails... They're precisely in line with the raison d'être for this blog, so I couldn't resist going the longform option... Not least because I can demonstrate how adaptable these fried delicacies can be.

Ingredients:

Maple Buttercream

• Room Temperature Butter, salted or unsalted - I used salted (225g)
• Icing Sugar (120g)
• Maple Syrup (120ml)
• Vanilla Extract (2 teaspoons)
• Salt (a pinch, only if using unsalted butter)

Preparation Time: 5-10 minutes

Beaver Tails

• Hot Tapwater (60ml)
• Sugar (50g)
• Yeast (7g)
• Milk (60ml)
• Butter (3 Tablespoons)
• Egg (1)
• Salt (1 Teaspoon)
• Plain Flour (335g)
• Oil for Frying
• Topping (cinnamon sugar being the usual recommendation)

Preparation Time: Approx 2 hours, including resting

Tools Required:

• Large Mixing Bowl (for the dough)
• Medium Mixing Bowl (for the icing)
• Small, Microwave-safe Bowl
• Stirring Implements, eg. spoon, spatula, whisk (some form of electric mixer is recommended for some parts!)
• Sharp Knife
• Rolling Pin
• Frying Pan or Saucepan (of sufficient size to accommodate at least one portion of the dough)
• Tongs (because you don't want to burn your fingers with hot oil!)

The Process:
Let's start by making the buttercream, because doing that after making the Beaver Tails could be problematic. Cube the butter and dump it into the medium-sized bowl, then add the icing sugar and start to stir. While I'd heartily recommend some sort of electric mixer (either a stand mixer or an electric whisk), it's best to start this process off manually, either with a spoon or spatula, because the icing sugar will be inclined to puff out all over the place under the influence of an electric mixer. Once the icing sugar is at least partially bound into the butter, it'll be safe to switch over to electric. Add in the Maple Syrup, the Vanilla and, if using unsalted butter, a pinch of salt. Personally, I found it perfectly acceptable to cut out the middle-man and simply use salted butter - the combination of icing sugar, Maple Syrup and Vanilla is easily sweet enough to take the edge off the saltiness of the butter, and vice versa. Keep mixing till everything is as smooth as possible, then set aside.

Note that this mixture will be inclined to separate over time, and may not even bind into a particularly smooth consistency in the first place. This is a common issue with adding liquids to buttercream, but we're aiming for an authetic Maple Syrup flavour, and genuine Maple Syrup is very much a liquid. As long as you're not seeing clumps of butter, it's probably good to go, and will just need a little extra stirring before it's applied to the Beaver Tails.

Making the dough for the Beaver Tails themselves is rather more complicated a process than I've encountered for bread and cakes, largely because I've normally only dealt with ready-made mixtures. I think the only other time I've used yeast anywhere on this blog was in my failed attempt at crafting home-made Cream Soda, but we seemed to have some more recently-purchased yeast in our cupboards.

Start by pouring the hot tapwater into the larger mixing bowl with a teaspoon of sugar (this can be taken from the measured 50g - that still leaves plenty for the remainder of the recipe), add the yeast, stir and set aside for a few minutes so it can proof. What you'll end up with is an off-putting, yeasty-smelling, frothy beige mess. Believe it or not, this is a good thing.

Add the butter, milk, and the remaining sugar to a small bowl and microwave (carefully!) to melt it all together. Stir it up and allow it to cool for a few minutes before adding to the yeast mixture in the large bowl - it needs to be hotter than room temperature, but if it's too hot it could ruin the yeast. Stir the two mixtures together, then crack in the egg, add the salt and whisk together. Start slowly adding in the flour, a little at a time, and keep stirring until a dough is formed. Knead this for a few minutes, adding flour as necessary. The end result should still be quite sticky, but very definitely a dough rather than a paste.

Cover the bowl - if it has a lid, so much the better, otherwise cling film will do the job - and leave it aside somewhere warm to allow the dough to rise. About an hour should be sufficient, but I had to make way for Courtney to take an online cookery class at this point, and only returned to my dough quite late in the afternoon, by which time it was very puffy and smelt strongly of yeast. Beat the dough back down to its original size, then divide into eighths - I rolled mine into a fat cylinder, as that seemed the easiest way to cut it into portions semi-accurately. Roll these out flat, to something in the region of half a centimetre in depth, then set aside for frying. Just for fun, I cut a grid pattern on one side of mine... Not sure why, but the idea had occurred to me, and I was curious to see how they'd end up after frying.

Fill your chosen frying pan or saucepan with cooking oil, just enough that the dough sections will be able to float, then put on what's described as "a medium heat". I gather from the recipes I found online that you'd be aiming for about 180°C/350°F, but it's a tricky thing to judge because hobs aren't marked that way, and they often have different sized burners available, each offering a different range of temperatures. For me, "a medium heat" usually seems to be the lowest setting on the mid-sized burner, but that isn't entirely consistent so your mileage may vary. I ended up tearing off a small chunk of the dough and using that to judge whether the oil was hot enough.

Place the dough pieces into the oil carefully to avoid spitting or splashing. Depending on the size of your chosen vessel, you may have to do them one at a time, or you may fit two or three. Fry each side till golden brown - depending on the vaguaries of the hob and the actual temperature of the oil, this may be anything between 30 seconds to a couple of minutes... though I suspect I may have overdone a couple of mine. Once done, pick them out of the oil (allowing the excess to drain off) and add the topping of your choice while they're still warm.

The Results:
To be honest, this went better than I'd expected, albeit perhaps not perfectly. For starters, I didn't get all my ingredients ready and set out before waking up the yeast, so that was left going rather longer than recommended in any recipes (maybe about 15-20 minutes, while I got everything else together?). I'm not sure if there's an ideal point in the proofing process, after which something can go wrong... but certainly nothing exploded. I actually started the yeast off in a tiny bowl of its own rather than in the large mixing bowl and, by the time I started bringing everything together for the dough, it looked as though it would have overflowed if I'd left it there much longer.

Still, the dough came together very well, but it did leave me coveting those mixers with dough hook options, because mixing what ends up as quite a tough, sticky dough was not fun with a standard spoon. I also had trouble with the dough's stickiness... Sure, it's described as "sticky" in recipes, but how sticky is that? Once I'd mixed in all the flour and started kneading, quite a bit of the dough stuck to my hands. I suspect I should have added a little more flour at that point, but didn't want to overdo it. This is probably something I'd know better if I made bread regularly (and from scratch). Nevertheless, it rose very well in its covered-over bowl... and ended up being left for several hours rather than the recommended "one hour or so". Whether or not this worked in my favour, I'm still not sure. Beating it down and dividing it up was easy enough, so I figure I can't have gone too far wrong. My only concern was that there was a very strong yeasty smell to what was supposed to be quite a sweet dough - or so I thought.

Frying went well, but I'm still pretty vague on hob temperature settings, particularly with large quantities of oil. Plus, the dough had a habit of developing pockets of air underneath, so some of the individual doughnut-things ended up with patches on the underside that looked undercooked. Still, they puffed up nicely, and I was pleased to find that my grid patterns looked pretty good after frying. I tried one 'bare' after letting it cool a little, and have to admit that the yeasty smell persisted after I tore it open. It was light and fluffy, though, so a coating of cinnamon sugar would probably have overpowered whatever yeastiness was left.

I was aiming slightly higher than mere cinnamon sugar, though... and my Maple Buttercream icing made for an excellent topping. However, I'd got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the icing the day before I started making the dough. I first tried a small batch using a fraction of the necessary ingredients, and that turned out OK... But then I decided to make the full batch late in the evening, because I realised that my time in the kitchen would be interrupted by Courtney's cooking lesson, and I figured getting the icing done ahead of time would help. Storage presented a problem that I hadn't fully considered, though. I didn't want to leave it out overnight, so ended up stuffing it in the fridge. This naturally made it harder to dole out, even after stirring it thoroughly again to undo the separation that occurred, and it never quite became as smooth as one would normally expect of a buttercream icing.

I think I was a little hyperactive for a while after eating a completed Beaver Tail slathered with icing, so I didn't have a second. Later on came the sugar crash, which left me feeling a little unwell and headachy for part of the evening. The four Beaver Tails left after dinner were boxed up and stuck in the fridge, with the excess icing (because there was quite a lot!) scooped into a small plastic tub for storage in the freezer.

Not even the threat of another sugar crash was enough to deter me from having one of the remaining iced Beaver Tails for breakfast, and chilling them overnight certainly took the cloying edge off the icing, though the Beaver Tail itself had become a little dry and hard. They're definitely a dessert to be best enjoyed when fresh.

At Courtney's suggestion, I had another one - topped with three rashers of unsmoked bacon - for lunch, since the concept wasn't too far removed from some of the breakfast/brunch options I've seen available in American hotels. This, too, turned out to be delicious... and I'm not normally one to mix sweet and savoury on a single plate.

Delicious Failure: Makin' Cookies...

It has been absolutely ages since I did any significant cooking, but I fancied doing something special to take over to my parents' place for Christmas and, when I posed the question of what they might like, the first suggestion was a simple enough proposition that I didn't immediately regret making the offer: cookies.

A friend of mine has a recipe for something she calls 'cardiac cookies' (so named because they are potential heart attacks on a plate), in which small chunks of Snickers bars are wrapped in cookie dough and then baked. The list of ingredients is broadly similar to an average cookie recipe except for the addition of a half cup of golden syrup. I showed this recipe to my girlfriend and watched as panic, then horror worked their way around her face.

"Isn't there a bit too much sugar?" she enquired, nervously. "But, surely, that's the whole point!" retorted I in a jovial tone. Nevertheless, she remained uneasy...

A quick web search turned up several different options, the most likely of which was Millie's Cookies recipe, courtesy of the BBC Good Food website. It's a very simple recipe and cooks - according to their instructions - in about 10 minutes. That sounded just about perfect, but the recipe was a basic chocolate chip cookie, and I wanted something a bit more Christmassy.

The obvious option was white chocolate and cranberry (because why not shoehorn in "one of your five-a-day" into such a wholesome snack? There was a better than average chance my niece was going to have at least one, and she already has heart troubles), with a little extra something sprinkled on top. This 'something extra' was to be decided upon while browsing the Baking section of the local Morrisons (scene of many of my more whimsical purchases) and ended up being little white chocolate stars.

I also made one tiny addition to the ingredients, in the form of about a half teaspoon of cinnamon for this first batch of cookies, so I'll list all the ingredients just for convenience.

Cookies Attempt 1: The Christmas Sugar Rush

Ingredients:

• 225g Self-Raising Flour
• 125g Softened Butter (either leave it out of the fridge for a few hours or just microwave it - coincidentally, I did that in a dream recently, and seemed to think it went rather well...)
• 125g Caster Sugar
• 100g Dark Brown Soft Sugar (the original recipe actually calls for light brown, but I had some Tate & Lyle Fairtrade stuff in my cupboard)
• 100g White Chocolate Chips
• 100g Dried Cranberries
• 1 Egg
• 1tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1/2tsp Salt
• 1/2tsp Cinnamon (not required, but certainly adds to the flavour!)
• White Chocolate Stars (sufficient to scatter artistically atop the cooling cookies)

Preparation Time: about 10-30 minutes to mix it all up (depending largely on the state of the butter and the strength of your wrists!), then about 10 minutes to cook, allegedly...

Tools Required:

• 1 Large Bowl, for mixing everything
• 1 Small Bowl, for combining the flour, salt and - if you're using it - cinnamon
• 1 Teacup, in which to beat the egg
• 1 Sieve
• 1 Baking Tray or Biscuit Tray
• Greaseproof Paper (to line the tray)
• Mixing Implement of Choice

The Process:
As is often the case, it's wise to pre-heat the oven - about 180ºC for a fan assisted oven should be perfect - though you may want to leave it till the dough is ready to be separated into chunks as mixing it can take longer than the average oven these days takes to warm up.

Dump the two lots of sugar and the softened butter into your bowl and mix them up till you have a thick paste. I gather this is called 'creaming'. The first time we made cookies, my girlfriend did the lion's share as my wrists - weakened as they are by a deskbound day job - just could not cope. For the second set of cookies, I set to work while my girlfriend was out, and had to do it in several stages. Once 'creamed', lightly beat the egg and add it into the bowl along with the vanilla extract, mixing in thoroughly.

In another bowl, add the salt and cinnamon to the flour, then sift this melange into the main bowl via the sieve, mixing it all into what will become delicious cookie dough. Try not to eat it at this stage.

No, really, do try. Have patience: the cookies really are worth the wait.

Once the dough is sorted, add in the chocolate chips and dried cranberries, mixing them in as thoroughly as possible, considering the dough is pretty darned tough. Divide the dough up into about twelve parts and lay them on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. The original recipe claims that 7 minutes will be enough for the 'soft, doughy cookie' experience, while 10 minutes will just start to make them crisp around the edges. In the real world, it just comes down to how long you can bear to postpone the inevitable guzzling of your home-baked wonder-cookies.

Remove the baking tray from the oven then scatter the white chocolate stars over the top while the cookies are hot enough to soften the chocolate sufficiently that they adhere, but not so hot they just turn into vaguely star-shaped puddles of white chocolate, then leave to cool on the tray for a minute or so. Finally, transfer to a wire rack to cool fully. Or just eat them warm. It's your call.

The Results:
Sadly I didn't think to photograph this set of cookies, but they turned out rather well. Considering how large the chunks of dough ended up (far larger than 'walnut size', I can tell you!) they didn't merge into one ginormous, tray-sized Mega-Cookie, even though they flattened out nicely. Weirdly, I think they ended up in the oven for a little over ten minutes, but they remained soft and moist.

The addition of cinnamon gave them a slightly more Christmassy feel, and the white chocolate and cranberries complemented each other well. I think I delayed rather too long in adding the white chocolate stars over the top, as they tended to fall off rather easily, but the cookies went down well with my family. In fact, I left them over there, as my sister wanted to take some home with her.

Cookies Attempt 2: I Can See Rainbows...

This second set is a bit more recent - just yesterday, in fact. I'd been wanting to take another swing at making cookies ever since Christmas and, this time, wanted to do it all myself rather than wimping out and letting my girlfriend deal with most of it. Rather than just repeat exactly the same process, though, I wanted to try something else as the 'added ingredient'...

Ingredients:
The same as above, except:

• Forgot to add the cinnamon, damnit!
• Used Skittles instead of white chocolate chips and cranberries
• No white chocolate stars

Preparation Time: Far too long because I'm so out of practice in mixing things, even though the butter had been out for about 5 hours or so by the time I remembered I wanted to make cookies. 10 minutes in the oven.

Tools Required:
As above!

The Process:
Creaming the sugars actually got quite painful because it's been so long since I did anything like this... and, honestly, the last time I made meringue, I used an electric whisk. Since I spend most of my days with my hands poised over a keyboard and/or mouse, I'm afraid my wrists are wasting away.

Nevertheless, doing a little creaming punctuated by short breaks where I stifled cries of agony, I eventually managed to get to the stage of adding the egg and vanilla, and then the sifting-in of the flour and salt. As mentioned above, I forgot about the cinnamon until the dough was complete, which was pretty annoying. Ho hum.

My original thought had been to add little chunks of caramel or something similar but, while in Morrisons, my eyes alighted upon the bags of sweets in their confectionary aisle and, while I couldn't find caramel, I was intrigued by the possibility of adding Skittles to cookies. It may sound strange - and certainly my girlfriend cautioned against it - but if one can add Smarties/M&Ms to cookies, one can certainly add Skittles... and I had to increase the sugar content somehow, right? I didn't want my cookies, made entirely with my own hands, to be bland, did I?

So I dumped in about half a (174g) bag and mixed them in, then divided the dough into twelve more-or-less equal chunks, and placed them on the greaseproof paper-lined baking tray, as before. I set the kitchen timer for ten minutes and slammed the tray into the oven, planning to check in on the cookies at the seven minute mark.

Annoyingly, before even that point, they had spread and merged together, but still seemed far too soft to bring out of the oven. By the time the timer's alarm went off, the cookies were all golden around the edges, and one was even starting to look a little burnt in one corner.

The Results:
What I probably should have done was give the tray a half-turn, then put it back in for another 7 minutes or so, because the cookies I made all by myself were a little bit too moist and doughy at the end. They also adhered to the greaseproof paper rather too well, so they basically all broke as they were pulled off.

The lack in cinnamon didn't have too detrimental an effect on the flavour of the cookies - in fact, the fruity flavour of the Skittles managed to fool my girlfriend into thinking the cinnamon was in there. It didn't work quite as well for me, but they were certainly very tasty... if a little bland compared to the Christmas cookies.

I did manage to get photos of these, but only after my girlfriend and I had sampled some:

The day after I made these, they'd more or less reached the stage of behaving like proper cookies, though they still only reluctantly parted from the greaseproof paper.

And, yes, Skittles cookies are the Breakfast of Champions.

Last Course: Chocolate Macaroon Kit by Sainsbury's

Macaroons have become quite popular in recent years. Rarely have I attended a fan convention without finding dozens of stands inexplicably selling cupcakes, macaroons and other assorted fancies. Thusfar, while I've attempted various kinds of cake, I haven't made any smaller, lighter sugar-packed treats... Which is just weird, for me...

Since I tend to be fairly lazy in the kitchen, I'm a big fan of ready-mixes like Wright's flours and things like this kit by Sainsbury's (though I should mention at this point that a Delia Smith Christmas cake kit from 2011 2010 was 'unearthed' from the Stygian depths of my cupboards this last weekend, so make of that what you will!) as they remove the necessity for lots of careful measuring and a good portion of the mixing. The instructions tend to be minimalistic and optimistic, but they're certainly sufficient, and any mistakes made the first time round can easily be fixed on future attempts.

This kit was picked up by my girlfriend before she went home for the summer, but we only got round to making our macaroons this last weekend.

Ingredients:

• 1 Sachet Macaroon Mix
• 1 Sachet Icing Mix
• 2 Large Eggs
• 50g Butter
• 1tbsp Milk

Preparation Time: about 45-50 minutes... Longer if whisking by hand

Tools Required:

• Piping Bag (included in kit, but it's only a basic, paper one... use your own if you prefer)
• 2 Small/Medium Mixing Bowls
• Whisk (one of the electric variety may be preferable - there be meringue-making involved in this recipe!)
• Spoon
• Baking Tray
• Greaseproof Paper

The Process:
As with the Salted Caramel Cupcake Kit, the instructions are pretty good - on one side of the box, there's a simplified version with diagrams, on the other is a set of concise, step-by-step text instructions... But what the hell, why not write them out in my own way..? And with my own experiences of the process added to spice things up!

To begin with, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Bear in mind that the instructions reckon on producing twenty four macaroons (12 sandwiches, that is), starting with a 3cm diameter blob of mix, so it needs to be a fairly large baking tray. My oven isn't exactly massive, but I'd have thought it was about average... and yet I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to fit 24 blobs of the macaroon mix onto one of my baking trays... I probably should have used more than one, just to make it easier.

Separate the whites from the two eggs into one of the bowls (disposing of the yolks - they're not needed), then beat with a hand- or electric whisk. We tried using a hand blender for this, and I can confidently report that, unless you have a more whisk-like attachment to replace the usual blade, a hand blender is a terrible idea for making meringue - I ended up with a surface layer of light froth and a rather vile, bubbly white liquid underneath... and used a whole box of eggs in determining that whisking by hand was the only viable option until I get myself a proper electric whisk. Doing it by hand is incredibly tiring (as previously mentioned), and it took the two of us a good 15-20 minutes to do the 3 minutes of whisking listed in the simplified instructions. The end result should be stiff, and able to form good, stable peaks.

The instruction for adding the macaroon mix isn't the clearest: 'with a spoon, slowly fold the mix into the egg white'. For clarity, I'd recommend adding the mix a little at a time, folding it in thoroughly before adding more. It has to be done slowly to avoid ruining the meringue... It is just bubbly egg white, after all - burst all the bubbles and your mixture will be useless.

Once all the macaroon mixture is folded in, decant all of it into a piping bag and chop off the end. The one provided is basically made of thick, coated paper and isn't exactly easy to use unless you're an expert in origami - the paper won't always fold the way you'd want it to once the mixture is in there, and you're trying to squeeze it out the end. Squeeze out the mixture onto the lined baking tray, aiming to get something like 24 evenly-sized, well-spaced blobs. It was around this point I started wondering if the meringue was quite ready when I started folding in the mix, or if perhaps I'd gone too quickly. The completed mix was still very bubbly, but it was also extremely fluid, spreading out on the tray so that a 3cm blob (as recommended in the instructions) rapidly became 5cm.

Note that it's not necessary to preheat the oven for this recipe - you only turn the oven on once you're ready to use it because, initially at least, it needs to be cold, warming up slowly. With the baking tray in the oven, set the heat to 50C, and leave it for about 20 minutes, then increase the temperature to about 150C for 15 minutes more.

Once baked, take the macaroons out and allow them to cool fully before removing them from the grease proof paper. Here, again, we found our macaroons were possibly not quite right. Not only had they basically merged into one giant conjoined macaroon, they'd stuck fast to the tray lining all around the edges and were still rather gummy in the centres. We managed to create something like 19 blobs, and a good few of them didn't really want to separate from the grease proof paper. Whether they could have done with a little longer in the oven, or whether it was another sign that my mixing wasn't quite up to scratch, I'm not sure...

The icing is a simple case of mixing 50g of butter (which should come out of the fridge early enough that it's nice and soft for mixing) with a tablespoon of milk and the entire contents of the icing mix sachet. The butter should be mixed around a bit before anything else is added, to ensure it's smooth and easy to stir. The end result should be a nice, smooth paste, which is then spooned onto one macaroon and sandwiched with another.

Lastly, collect the macaroons onto a tray or plate and refrigerate until you're ready to eat them. Which will probably be immediately so try to restrain yourself for... I dunno, maybe half an hour or so?

The Results:
This humble blog has a long history of producing things that are gloriously cock-eyed or, as I prefer to put it, "lovingly hand-made", and these macaroons are no exception. Attempting to separate them from the grease proof paper led to much breakage and crumbling, but we managed to make nine whole macaroons... Some may have been reconstructed with pieces, using the icing as a convenient 'glue', some may have been seasoned with small strips of grease proof paper, but all were edible.

I really do think that either more whisking or the use of an electric whisk would improve the look of them... and/or possibly a touch more caution when folding in the macaroon mix... but, while broad and flat, the macaroons were quite light, if rather sticky. The icing tasted strangely buttery, but not unpleasantly so. It's entirely possible that leaving the box in my cupboard for a couple of months left the icing mix in less than optimum condition but, let's be honest, it's just sugar and cocoa powder. Perhaps, next time I make some of these, I'll use some extra to give it a more bitter and punchy chocolate flavour.

Neither small, nor perfectly formed... and three fewer than Sainsbury's reckoned

Last Course: The Fabulous Bakin' Boys Choccy Cupcakes & Triple Choccy King Cupcakes

I recently had a conversation with a friend about cupcakes. It had always been my understanding that 'cupcake' was a rather more neutral name for 'fairy cake'... Apparently this was an erroneous belief. 'Cupcakes', I learned, are defined by the extravagance of their topping. No mere plain icing, or chocolate, or fruit-slice-shaped jelly pieces. Cupcakes are larger than the average fairy cake (though not as large as the average muffin), and topped with positively opulent quantities of rich, buttercream icing and embellished with all kinds of interesting fancies... One look at a good cupcake should induce diabetes.

...Or at least, that's the general idea.

I must confess my complete ignorance of The Fabulous Bakin' Boys before seeing these two boxes on the shelves at my local Tesco. The packaging is certainly eye-catching, decked out largely in purple with magenta and white accents, and photos depicting what look to be fairly large chocolate cakes with an incredibly deep layer of chocolate-flavoured topping (Triple Choccy King Cupcakes), and light, fluffy plain sponge cakes with a suitable depth of the same chocolate-flavoured topping (Choccy Cupcakes). They both look really good in the package.

Then you open the box...

...And realise that the photos on the outside are basically 'actual size'.

The so-called 'King Cupcakes' are barely larger than the standard cupcakes, and those are pretty small. Closer, in fact, to the size of a traditional, modest fairy cake. Perhaps a little wider at the base, but otherwise nothing special. The depth of the topping doesn't compare favourably either - it may look deep (not as deep as the photos, but still acceptable), but the tops of the cakes have a shallow taper, so it's actually only deep around the circumference.

If that weren't disappointing enough, there's really nothing special about the sponges. The plain sponge easily lives up to its description, but the chocolate sponge is either similarly bland, or just not chocolatey enough to stand out against the topping.

To be honest, I'm a little confused by these products... They're 'cupcake' neither in terms of size nor presentation, almost as if they're just intended as a foundation on which one should build, rather than being a finished product in their own right. The packaging also spends a fair amount of ink expounding about its "new & improved design"... Really, who gives a monkeys about the packaging (other than the designers and the folks who paid them to design it)? OK, fine, trumpet about the cakes being packaged in a "recyclable carton"... but surely even that's redundant in this day and age..? Doesn't everyone know that cardboard is recyclable now, whether they make use of that feature or not?

Sadly this is one product whose only triumph is making me consider using my muffin tin to bake something sweet...

On Portion Sizes

What should be considered the more pathetic:

• The size of the individual choc-ices in a Sainsbury's 8-pack, or
• Deciding to have two for dessert because they seem so small

Answers on a post card (or in the Comments...)

Last Course: Mint Chocolate Truffle Tart

Because, let's face it, once you've made truffles, the logical progression is "How would that work in a tart?"

I'd actually intended to write up a Waitrose chocolate tart (the seriously tautological 'Seriously Chocolatey Tarte au Chocolat'), but took so long to get my head together during one of my quiet, non-blogging patches that I'd basically forgotten what it was like. Consider this not just an alternative, but a home-made spin on the same theme.

This is much the same process as making truffles, but the quantities and proportions of ingredients were altered, basically by guesstimate. So, without further ado...

Ingredients:

• 300g Dark Chocolate (I used 2 bars of Green & Blacks Organic Dark Cooks' Chocolate this time round, for convenience - 72% cocoa, "made with finest Trinitario cocoa beans with extra cocoa butter for easier melting", each bar made up of 30 5g pieces)
• 90g Unsalted Butter
• 80ml Runny Honey (the same Sainsbury's 'Light & Mild' Acacia as last time)
• 3 Large Egg Yolks
• Peppermint Extract (2 teaspoons, I used Star Kay White's Pure Peppermint Extract)
• Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case
• Cocoa Powder & Icing Sugar (optional, as decoration)

Preparation Time: About 10 minutes mixing, then just chill in refrigerator till serving time

Tools Required:

• Microwave
• Microwave-Safe Bowl
• Jar Scraper or similar (for stirring and smoothing out the mixture in the pastry case)
• Measuring Implements (cups, scales, etc.)
• 2 Small Cups/Glasses (for separating the eggs)

The Process:
Break up the chocolate bars into the bowl, then blast in the microwave, set to medium, for 30 seconds at a time, mixing with the jar scraper each time. This Green & Black's chocolate melted far more easily than Willie's, thanks to that 'extra cocoa butter'. On this occasion, I also gave the butter some time in the microwave, which made it even easier to stir into the chocolate. In fact, I was able to dump the whole 90g into the chocolate in one hit, and it really didn't take long for the few remaining lumps to melt in.

Slightly more honey was used for this version of the mixture but, considering the Green & Black's cooking chocolate is sweeter than Willies in its raw form, this isn't strictly necessary... In fact, it's entirely possible you could do without. Make sure to stir it in thoroughly if you are using it.

Add the mint extract next. Being alcohol-based, the Star Kay White stuff I used here took a lot of stirring to mix in properly - it seemed to want to just stay on the surface of the mixture. In fact, all things considered, the addition of this particular mint extract is the only reason the mixture took as long as it did to prepare!

Finally, as with the truffle mixture, separate and add in 3 (slightly beaten) egg yolks. The mixture should begin to thicken up noticeably. When it's all mixed together thoroughly, pour it directly into the pastry case. If you're lucky, the quantities listed above will leave you with enough mixture for about 10 minty truffles, so refrigerate any leftovers right along with the tart.

For an extra finishing touch, mix up some cocoa powder and icing sugar to sprinkle over the tart. The remains can be mopped up by whatever truffles you make.

The Results:
Confession time: this is another recipe where the quantities I've given above have been adjusted as a result of my efforts. I used more honey and only two egg yolks and the result was OK, but not quite right. Certainly, I used far too much honey (100ml, just for the record) and that, coupled with the mint, reduced the impact of the flavour of the chocolate. It still tasted like mint chocolate, and the mint was actually quite subtle... but excess honey coupled with the lower cocoa content in the chocolate didn't do the finished product any favours. 80ml is only a third again more than the quantity used for the truffles, so it should offer a more balaced sweetness. I also only used 2 eggs, and immediately realised my mistake when the mixture didn't gain the same initial texture as my truffle mix. Based on the approximate proportions, I determined that one egg yolk is needed for every 100g of chocolate melted, hence 3 yolks for 2 bars worth of chocolate. I toyed with the idea of breaking and separating another egg when I made this, but didn't want to risk it so late in the process.

I would also add that Waitrose ready-made Sweet Pastry Case is probably a bit too thick, dry and biscuity for this tart. Something a bit more buttery and soft would have worked better... and having less of it would have been a bonus, too, because the ready-made case is actually quite a thick crust.

All that said, this turned out to be quite a pleasant minty-chocolatey dessert. My parents were the first to sample it, and gave a generally favourable review, though it was a little tough to cut straight from the fridge (furthermore, my father would have preferred it without any kind of pastry case, but that would have made it one whopping great truffle, rather than a tart). Considering how ridiculously easy this is to make, and the vast range of ready-flavoured Green & Black's chocolate on the market (why didn't I just buy their mint chocolate?), there are many variations on this theme to be tried and, while I am certain to try some of them in future, they may not get such a thorough write-up.

This is actually a rather more extensive coverage with cocoa/icing sugar than I'd originally intended but, after a couple of accidents where great clumps of the stuff fell onto the tart, I decided I'd just spread the stuff around, rather than even try to make it look 'natural'. In retrospect, I probably didn't need to mix icing sugar into this batch, because the tart itself turned out sweeter than I'd expected.

And, of course, the leftovers went to make these:

And very nice they were, too.

Last Course: Off-Key Lime Pie

As previously mentioned, there is a vast gulf of difference between 'Key Lime Pie' and the things that are sold as 'Key Lime Pie' in supermarkets across the United Kingdom. Quite how cream ever became involved, I may never know (other than because we like our cream over here... Mmmmm, that full fat goodness!)... so why some insist on turning it into a cheesecake is, frankly, beyond baffling and into the realms of the frighteningly abstract. If Salvador Dali had been a chef, he'd have had nightmares about Key Lime Cheesecake.

What I aimed to do with this was recreate something akin to the traditional, Florida Keys recipe. Naturally, proper Key Limes were out of the question - they're hard enough to come by at the best of times but, right now, it's the middle of winter! Since I like my puns almost as much as I like my snacks, I figured calling it 'Off-Key Lime Pie' was a fun way to admit that it wasn't going to be quite right.

I decided to cut some serious corners with this first iteration, the idea being that I'd see how it turns out using bottled lime juice this time, and then revisit the recipe at a later date, and make it fresh. Also, Waitrose's ready-made Sweet Pastry Case was an absolute Godsend, because it meant no faffing about with rolling out pastry and finding a suitable tin to bake it in. The base actually has to be partly cooked ('Blind Baked' is the term) before the fillings go in anyway, so lots of time and effort were saved there.

Just to make this more fun, I made this while visiting my folks. There was no way I'd be able to eat the whole thing myself (no, really... 'Two-Puds' I may be... this is six, easily), and I figured it'd be easier to transport the ingredients than a finished pie... so I was working in a kitchen I'm not as used to as my own, and with both parents to-ing and fro-ing all the while.

Ingredients:

• Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case
• Condensed Milk (approx 325g to be used, so try to get a container of about that size. Carnation make one of 450g, which is what I used... but shop around!)
• 4 Eggs - to be separated!
• Essential Waitrose Lime Juice (1x 125ml bottle)
• 1 Fresh Lime (for the zest)
• Cream of Tartar
• Vanilla Extract (I used Ndali's 'Intense')
• Icing Sugar

Preparation Time: Approx 1hr 20minutes (before chilling in fridge), or 40minutes if using an electric whisk

Tools Required:

• 2 Medium Bowls - one for the pie filling, one for the meringue
• Whisk (this is one of those times when an electric whisk is helpful - it makes the meringue far easier!)
• Grater (for the lime zest)
• Measuring Implements - Condensed Milk is a liquid that is measured by weight, not volume, so scales are handy... US-style 'cups' can be quite helpful for some things: a half cup is the perfect size for the amount of lime juice and icing sugar used by this recipe.
• Baking Tray or Cookie Tray

The Process:
Preheat the oven to 160C (140C for fan assisted). Carefully separate the eggs so you have the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another. A little white in with the yolks won't be too important, but yolk in with the whites will be troublesome!

Add 325g of condensed milk into the bowl with the yolks and lightly whisk. The simplest method for gauging how much to put in is to weigh the container full, then pour some condensed milk into the bowl and weigh the container again. Once the container is approximately 325g lighter, you're done. Grate in some of the lime zest and add the lime juice (gradually, so as to avoid separation), stirring in well. Leave this for about 10 minutes, as the interaction between these ingredients will 'cook' the mixture to some extent, and it should thicken up. Pour the thickened mixture into the pastry case.

Next up comes the meringue, which is basically a case of whisking the egg whites. A lot. Once it really starts frothing up, add about a quarter of a teaspoon of cream of tartar, which should help things along. Once you have a soft, light foam, add about 6-8 tablespoons of icing sugar, one spoon at a time, while you continue to mix. The rule of thumb seems to be that the meringue ready if pulling the whisk out results in a fairly firm 'peak'. As the foam begins to firm up, add one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

The meringue takes absolutely ages to make and requires a lot of elbow grease. I would like to mention (read: boast) that I did mine entirely by hand (OK, I let my father do some whisking when my arms started to ache, but I did lots at the beginning and lots at the end). While whisking vigorously, I noticed that making meringue could be turned into an almost-full-body exercise, as I found my legs were moving slightly some of the time... If you're not using an electric whisk, one useful trick is to roll the whisk handle between your palms, back and forth (anyone who's ever been in Cubs or Scouts will recognise this as the traditional technique for making fire, using two sticks of wood), as this gives you something close to the effect of an electric whisk.

Scoop the meringue onto the lime mixture in the pie case, then scatter over the remaining lime zest. Put the pie onto a baking tray or cookie tray and bake for about 10 minutes. Note that, if you're not using a fan-assisted oven, you may need to turn the pie round halfway through to ensure an even cook. Cool slightly before chilling in the fridge, then serve chilled.

The Results:
As is traditional with this blog, I shall discuss the things I got wrong on this first attempt:
While I have noted temperatures of 160C/140C above, when I went researching Key Lime Pie, temperatures of 200C were recommended, and so that's more or less what I used. The end result was that the pie filling wasn't as well-set as it should have been and the meringue was rather more than 'golden brown'. Also, since the oven I used this time is not fan-assisted, there was a visible graduation in browning from the back (very brown) to the front (basically still white) of the oven, because I did not turn the pie halfway through.

Also, the quantities listed, while good, are perhaps a little excessive for the Waitrose Sweet Pastry Case I used. The lime filling was damn near overflowing before the meringue went on! There was also rather too much meringue but this 'problem' was solved by dolloping the excess onto a sheet of greaseproof paper, and baking some small meringues. I suspect that 3 eggs with a correspondingly reduced amount of condensed milk (and lime juice?) would have been preferable.

But, of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

And I have to say, despite setting the oven too high and having too much of everything, this turned out to be an amazing home-made dessert. One 125ml bottle of lime juice seemed to be the perfect quantity - the filling was smooth, but with a subtle citrus sharpness and a good lime flavour, and the meringue softened it nicely. I will say that Waitrose bottled juice (from concentrate) probably didn't work as well as freshly squeezed lime juice would, so I'm very keen to revisit this and do it 'properly' sometime soon. The lime zest in the pie adds a nice bit of texture and extra little hits of lime flavour, but the overall experience was smooth.

I don't think vanilla extract was traditionally an ingredient in the meringues my family used to make, but it really does boost the flavour, so I shall certainly remember it for my future efforts. It gives it almost a toffee-like hint - a single teaspoon really goes a long way. Also, I believe that electric whisks, while convenient, never quite manage the light, fluffy consistency you get from putting in the time and effort with a hand whisk.

Some other, similar recipes (such as Lemon Meringue Pie) tend to suggest baking the pie briefly before adding the meringue, then reducing the temperature for a final round of baking. I think I'll give that a shot next time: 10 minutes at 160C (140C fan-assisted), then cool and chill, then add the meringue and cook for another 10 minutes at 140C (120C fan-assisted).

For a first attempt at something quite daring (for me!), this really was quite amazing. I was very worried about separating the eggs - never having done it before - but it turned out to be reasonably easy, even with my mother watching over my shoulder for the first couple of eggs. In retrospect, I think I'd like to have taken advantage of the electric whisk, but making this entirely by hand was a very rewarding experience, even if it did leave my arms aching!

And, since I am so proud of this... Have some photos!

Note that the pie filling is yellow, not green... then compare and contrast with any alleged 'Key Lime Pie' you find in the shops. Home made pie wins.

Addendum 9/1/2012:
Remade this using only 3 eggs, 245g of condensed milk, the juice (and pulp!) from 3 fresh limes and the grated zest from 2. The end result was better, not least because I actually used the settings detailed above, rather than those I initially found in my research. The filling was rather more solid... or jelly-like, rather. The meringue was perhaps a little underdone, but was soft and light. Flavour-wise, it wasn't much different from the original... perhaps a touch less acid. I'm not sure the addition of actual lime pulp made much of a difference to the pie but, overall, I have to recommend the fresh version over the one made with 'lime juice from concentrate'.

No surprises there, I guess...

Pictures, you ask? Why, certainly...

It's obvious that the filling has worked better this time round, but whether this is due to the lower cooking temperature or the use of fresh juice, I don't know... Probably a mixture of both.

Volume-wise, it's nowhere near overflowing the case, like the first one. I'm honestly not sure that's an improvement. Also, even with only three eggs, there was still far too much meringue. I tried using the remainder to make some separate meringues but, again the times and temperatures I found online were utterly wrong, and the results were still soft and sticky.

I still ate them all, though...

Come on, what kind of fool do you take me for?

Last Course: Waitrose Key Lime Pie

Some years ago, I took a holiday in Florida, so it should come as no surprise that I've sampled Key Lime Pie that was actually made in the Keys.

With that in mind, it should also come as no surprise that most things I've found in the shops labelled 'Key Lime Pie' are but pale imitations of the true dessert.

Many of them are topped with rather too much cream. Many of them use a very obviously artificial colour to emphasise that it's Key Lime Pie ("it's all green and stuff, innit? Limes!"). There are those that are too sweet, there are those that are too bland. There are very few that follow the Conch tradition of adding a meringue topping.

Because that would be too much like Lemon Meringue Pie, wouldn't it?

Flavour-wise, Waitrose version is a fairly decent stab at a Key Lime Pie. It has a good, crunchy, biscuit crumb base (described as 'gingercrumb', though I cannot comprehend why - it doesn't taste gingery, and nothing obviously gingeresque is listed in the ingredients), and the lime mousse is subtly flavoured, yet has bite and doesn't have the unpleasant aftertaste one often finds in products claiming to be 'Key Lime Pie'.

But, other than the flavour, it really isn't Key Lime Pie by any stretch of the imagination. Alongside the condensed milk required by the traditional recipe, this thing contains double cream, crème fraîche and full fat soft cheese... So it's basically a lime cheesecake. A true Key Lime Pie should be made with nothing more than lime juice, egg yolks and condensed milk and, in the oldest recipes, this pie wasn't even oven-baked - the chemical reaction between the lime juice and the condensed milk was enough to 'cook' it.

The other thing to note is that yer actual Key Limes are often not dissimilar to lemons in appearance, albeit smaller, so the green colouring is hopelessly misleading. If any additional colour is needed for a Key Lime Pie, it should be yellow, not green. This one is very pale, but still green... and the little pieces of lime zest on the top are definitely green.

Waitrose attempt, therefore, is another one for the "It's Not Really Key Lime Pie" column. Nice as the 'gingercrumb' base is, it should have been proper pie crust. Sharp and limey as the flavour is, the mousse is all wrong. As a lime cheesecake, this is absolutely wonderful... But that's not what they're calling it.

All of which makes me think that, considering how simple the traditional recipe is, I should really attempt to make a Key Lime Pie myself. Of course, it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to buy any Key limes in any of my local shops, or even the larger supermarkets further afield, so I'll just have to make do with the normal kind.

Then again, considering how simple the traditional recipe is, I wonder why so few people actually follow it...

Last Course: Burtree Puddings

Ready-prepared cake and bread mixes weren't the only things I picked up at the Real Food Festival early this year; I also picked up some ready-made puddings. Three, to be precise, all from the amazing Burtree Puddings. Being gastronaut of the strictly amateur variety, I had never heard of Burtree, but their puddings are Guild of Fine Foods award winners.

This is where I admit I'd never heard of the Guild of Fine Foods either. Ahem.

Then again, when it comes to desserts, awards rarely figure into my thinking. All I really want is something tasty, sweet and filling. Three cheers, then, for Burtree.

Of course, I've taken so darned long to write up these puddings, I've decided to group them together, rather than giving them their own separate entries, as they truly deserve, but I hope to adequately convey how great these things are.

Chocolate Pudding:
Since there's a grand tradition of fail in this blog, I shall start by mentioning that my first portion of this saucy-cakey delight was somewhat overdone in the microwave. The instructions say "heat for 1-2 minutes (individual portions 20-40 seconds) until the sauce bubbles". Muggins here didn't notice the parentheses, and blasted an individual portion (about a third - have I mentioned I like my puddings?) for the full two minutes.

It's testament to the quality of this dessert, then, that the net result of this excessive irradiation was that the sauce pretty much boiled away, but the sponge pudding itself was utterly unaffected. It remained moist, smooth and incredibly chocolaty.

My second helping (NOT the same day, honest) went better, and so I was then surprised by how generous the topping of sauce turned out to be. In its semi-solid form, it seems like a fairly slim portion but, once heated and fully liquid, the topping goes a long way - not a single spoonful of sponge entered my eager gob without an ample coating of the rich tasty sauce.

Worth noting also is that the sauce is a simple-but-effective mixture of double cream, sugar, butter and Belgian chocolate with a 60.4% cocoa solids content... Truly extravagant, but much appreciated by this particular chocophile.

Ginger Pudding:
Confession time: I really like ginger cakes. I have many fond memories from my youth of gobbling up slice after slice (after slice, etc, etc) of ginger cake, savouring its spiciness and, for whatever reason, particularly enjoying the stickiness of its 'crust'. Burtree's Ginger Pudding is just like that, but with a sweet ginger sauce containing pieces of crystallised ginger. The label mentions 'ginger pieces', but I wasn't expecting them to be crystallised, so they provide an interesting, crunchy counterpoint to the soft sponge and the smooth, hot sauce.

The ginger flavour is probably a little stronger than the average ginger cake - comparable more to the Wrights version - but the sponge is more moist, even without the addition of the sauce.

Like the chocolate version, the layer of sauce doesn't look like much but, once molten, a little goes a very long way, and it adds immeasurably to the overall experiece of chomping through a portion of the pudding.

I'd actually bought a third pudding from the Burtree stand - the Sticky Toffee Pudding - but I ended up taking that over to my folks, and not staying for dinner that day or, indeed, anytime soon enough to have sampled it myself before it was guzzled.

Both of these, as mentioned at the start, are Guild of Fine Foods award winners - the latter received the gold award in 2006, the former achieving a '1 Star Gold' in 2009. I believe the Sticky Toffee won something as well, but no longer have the packaging to confirm this.

On the subject of the packagaing, it's very much functional - none of the extravagance you'd find in supermarket products. Each one comes in a foil tray with a foiled cardboard lid, and are wrapped in cellophane. The labelling is of the stick-on variety, with the basic label being a 2-colour print, and the details added by laser printer. Heating instructions cover both microwave and traditional ovens, and the ingredients list helpfully highlights potential allergens, such as Wheat Gluten. Peculiarly, the Chocolate pudding also notes that it 'may contain date stones', though a closer inspection of the ingredients reveals that dates are present in the sponge.

As a final couple of notes, when I bought these puddings, the guy on the stall told me they keep for quite a while - the Best Before date suggests about a month - but the chances of any of these surviving long enough to meet their BB date are very, very slim. I think the longest either of these lasted (once opened) was about a week. Since they start out in plastic-wrapped foil containers, as long as they're kept according to the storage instructions, I'd guess that a month is a conservative estimate on their lifespan - literally just 'at its best before this date', but still perfectly edible long after

Burtree's products aren't available in the supermarkets, but their website does carry a list of stockists (several in London, thankfully!) and, while they don't (currently) have an online shop, they will accept orders by email, and then phone to take payment (ie. credit card) details. Their website suggests that their products are available at the Virtual Farmers Market, but I couldn't find them today... They are, however, available from Love Your Larder's market.

Last Course: Cadbury's Hot Chocolate Orange Pudding (2-pack)

It's actually slightly bizarre that, when I go shopping, I spend very little time in the dessert aisles. Granted, most of my local shops have a paltry selection, but even when I go further afield, my fridge is filled up with main courses rather than puddings.

This purchase was something of a whim... I saw it, it sounded interesting, I thought I'd give it a go. It's one of those desserts that comes in small plastic pots (supposedly individual servings, but what kind of miser doles out servings this small from a home-made dessert? I've seen larger portions in a central London restaurant!) that just need a minute at full blast in the microwave to make them ready to serve.

And I have so say, portion sizes aside, it's an excellent idea, and a great convenience... there are a great many ranges of such desserts - frequently in 2-packs (which basically makes for about one proper snacks & the single man serving per pack), so chocolate sponge with a Cadbury's chocolate orange sauce sounds pretty much like a no-brainer, right?

As far as it goes, yes... the sponge is wonderfully moist, not excessively gummy, and has a subtly chocolate flavour - chocolate flavour sponges do sometimes overdo it somewhat with the flavouring - and the orange tang of the sauce complements it perfectly. It's not overly sweet, the balance of chocolate/orange flavour is pretty much spot-on, the sauce is perfectly smooth and didn't seem to develop a skin as it cooled. There's just enough of it to get a taste of sauce with every mouthful of sponge, without the pudding getting drowned in it.

The one and only problem I had with this dessert is warned on the packaging: when this thing comes out of the microwave it is hot. Really, really hot. So hot, in fact, that when I tipped mine out of its pot and onto a plate, and I was clumsy enough to let a finger get in the way, I ended up with quite a nasty burn on that finger.

Still, that won't dissuade me from eating the other one, or from buying this product again, or other, similar products, for that matter. While I might prefer the individual pots to be larger, these do make for a very quick and easy dessert that can be frozen, but which lasts pretty well in the fridge.

Last Course: Sainsbury's Tiramisu (2-pack)

Bizarrely, despite my sweet tooth and propensity toward multiple desserts when eating out, or even when visiting friends or family, it's remarkably rare that I bother with dessert at home.


When I first moved into my flat, I used to ensure I had at least one tub of ice cream on the go in the fridge... and normally have some Activia yoghurts tucked away somewhere... but, frankly, after sorting out my dinner, I rarely have the inclination to think about pudding. Currently, my fridge contains only a few things that could be considered to be a Last Course submission, and at least a couple of them have been in the freezer compartment for about a year. I'm not kidding.

OK, if it's something that requires oven time, it's almost understandable, but if all it takes is thawing, or taking out of a cardboard box, or pulling off the plastic lid... what's the problem?

I know, it's unfathomable.

So anyway. I mentioned a couple of posts back that I was going to start wittering on about desserts, and even mentioned that I was eating one when the idea hit me. I've also been emailed a nice, simple dessert recipe (which, coincidentally, involved booze as well), so I've really got no excuse for delaying this part of the whole foodie-blogging project any longer...

Sainsbury's 2-pack Tiramisu is a miniature - supposedly single-serving, though I'd argue that - version of a full-size Tiramisu, described thusly: "2 Pots with Savoiardo biscuits soaked with coffee topped with a mascarpone and Marsala wine cream and decorated with cocoa dusting". Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd always assumed that the base (biscuit? Really, Sainsbury's? Looks like cake to me...) had been soaked in booze because that's where the alcohol seemed most prominent to the taste. Perhaps it was a coffee liqueur..? I hadn't suspected for a moment that the liquid component - ever present in even the finest Tiramisu slices I've been served in restaurants - was coffee, based on nothing more than its colour. It's surely a very anaemic brew if it barely discolours the base.

Nevertheless, the packaging proudly trumpets its authentically Italian origins (again making me wonder why most Pizza seems to be made in Austria these days) so one must assume its preparation is equally authentic... But then, the briefest of research suggests Sainsburys have made a small mistake in their short description - they are Savoiardi biscuits, also known as Ladyfingers. The suggestion that these things are soaked in coffee, though, still confuses me. Some recipes even call for espresso. I'm not a fan of coffee - smells nice, tastes foul - and I'd always put my tolerance for Tiramisu down to a very limited use of weak coffee... Shows what I know, eh? Or at least, that what I don't know won't offend me...

But, getting back to the point... What I tend to like about Tiramisu is the counterpointing between the bitterness of the coffee, the creaminess of the topping and the sharp note of the alcohol. It's very easy to get it wrong, however, if the balance between components is off. In the worst cases, this results in a very artificial-seeming sugary irritation at the back of the throat that can ruin the whole meal, not just dessert.

Happily, I can report that this Sainsbury's 2-pack version does not suffer this particular malady, and turned out to be quite well balanced. It's not quite layered as one might expect - it seems to have two Savoiardi biscuits stacked at the bottom, with none of the topping in between, almost making it like a trifle without the jelly layer... but such oversights in preparation can probably be overlooked when one is simply trying to stuff one's face with a creamy, sweet dessert.

Shame the pots are so small, though...

Thought for the Day

OK, y'know what's missing from this blog?

Booze.

Shit. No. Done that one already.

What's missing, from a blog about food, written by a guy whose parents nicknamed him 'Pudding' when he was a nipper because that's all I ever wanted to eat, and whose colleagues nicknamed him 'Two-Puds' because I once had two rounds of dessert in a restaurant... is dessert!

But all that... (DUN)

Will... (DUN)

Change... (DUUUUUUUN)

snacks & the single man: Last Course...

Coming Soon... To a Blog page near you...
(like, right here... when I get round to it...)
(but obviously not right here... it'll be in a different post...)