Pan Seared Scallops with Lime

I don't drink much but there is always an open bottle of tequila in my cupboard.  It's been the subject of choice between myself and a friend for a while so when Ocado scuppered my plans for sweet chilli scallops for tea tonight, tequila was the first thing I thought of as I quickly Googled a new recipe.

I've not much more to say on the subject other than this sauce is the best sauce ever (the one that I poured over the scallops, not the neat tequila).  I was surprised the recipe used parsley rather than coriander given the Mexican overtones, but the freshness worked really well with the piquant flavours of the tequila and lime. I could easily imagine making this again with many kinds of fish or perhaps chicken to go with a summer salad.

Some alcohol-based recipes are just a waste of really good alcohol, but this definitely isn't.  As I'm now making inroads on the rest of the bottle (well I have a margerita by my side as I type), I will finish this post here before I post something really dumb :)

You can find the recipe here.

Lil Ms Squirrel's Raspberry Margarita Polenta Cake

The theme for tonight's Clandestine Cake Club is "Sporty or Naughty" as a celebration of the forthcoming Olympics.  Having singularly failed to come up with a cake idea that is synonymous with Sport, I settled for Naughty, which basically means anything goes.

Ready for cake club

With time not being on my side, and a need to make something that I've never made before, I decided to go for a polenta cake, to further use some up some of the bag of polenta that's still languishing on my storage shelves.

The lovely Jacqueline from the Cake Boule blog recently wrote about a similar cake that was Mojito-inspired.  I loved this idea, but lacked the 7" cake tin to make it in.  I toyed with the idea of scaling it up to fit my eight inch tin but having read some theory on the Ruth from the Pink Whisk's website, I decided I didn't have the time or patience for that either (and her method required me to have a 7" tin to start with which kind of defeated the objective of the exercise for me).

A quick search turned up a similar recipe in Kitchen by Nigella Lawson.  The recipe is also available online which is really helpful.  And it uses a 9" springform tin which I have so there was no faffy adapting.

I then hit on the idea of using up some of the raspberry glut that my garden seems to be producing on a daily basis.  I know this makes my CCC offerings rather typecast - my last effort was an epic Raspberry and Lime Swiss Meringue Cake - but I figured that it would be a pretty twist to an otherwise flat, yellow cake.  Googling around for another recipe, I found this one from Jane Hornby on BBC Good Food.  I was intrigued by the idea of using frozen raspberries rather than fresh so I popped some in the freezer, mixing three quarters in with the batter and adding the rest ten minutes before the end of baking.  Given the often delicate nature of raspberries, it works really well.

The healthy/sporty factor was further increased by the lack of flour in the cake.  It's made with ground almonds and polenta so with the use of gluten free baking powder, it has some virtues.

My biggest baking problem is always time.  I never seem to have the time to savour the process.  It's something that's always squeezed in during Miss A's nap or before work (so at about 5am) or late at night just before bed time.  This often means I make mistakes or get a little stressed by missing ingredients.  The entire kitchen was turned upside down looking for the baking powder.  It's always to the right of the bunny biscuit jar.  But while I was away at the weekend, the husband took it upon himself to "tidy up".  I couldn't find it for love nor money so ended up making my own courtesy of this fabulous substitutes guide from Joy Of Baking.

Fresh from the oven

Everything was going smoothly.  I was thinking about the look and texture of the batter so I could comment on it for this post.  It had a lovely, sunny tinge yet was quite stiff and heavy.  Obviously from the almonds and polenta.  I popped it into the oven.  Started to tidy.  Found egg number three still sitting uncracked next to the bunny biscuit jar.  That serves me right for trying to bake without my egg-cracking assistant.  She would never have allowed such an oversight.

As for other adaptations, I replaced the one of the lemons with two limes and added 25ml of tequila and a pinch of sea salt to the syrup for the Naughty bit.  Just enough tequila to get a taste without putting you over the drink-drive limit.  Essential when driving back from cake club.  The salt to balance the sweetness of the sugar and give it that authentic margarita twist. It does make quite a lot of syrup, but if you spoon slowly, the cake will drink it in.

If I was serving this for dessert, I'd probably use a side of lightly whipped marscapone, thinned with a little creme fraiche, sweetened with some icing sugar and spiked with lime and a pile of fresh raspberries from my garden.

Will update with the verdict and some pics from cake club in the morning.

Raspberry Margarita Polenta Cake - Adapted from "Kitchen" by Nigella Lawson

for the cake:

• 200g soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
• 200g caster sugar
• 200g ground almonds
• 100g fine polenta/cornmeal
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 3 eggs
• zest 1 lemon and 2 limes (save the juice for the syrup, below)
• 200g frozen raspberries

for the syrup:

• juice 1 lemon and 2 limes
• 25 ml tequila
• pinch of Maldon sea salt (other brands are available, but Nigella would approve!)
• 125g icing sugar

• extra icing sugar to dust

• 1 x 23cm (9") springform or other round cake tin

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C (fan)/gas mark 4.
2. Lightly butter the base and sides of the baking tin then base-line with baking parchment.
3. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder.  Beat a third into the butter mixture followed by one egg.  Repeat until all the dry mixture and eggs are incorporated.
5. Beat in the zest, carefully fold in 3/4 of the raspberries (reserving the rest for decoration) then pour into the baking tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and decorate with the remaining raspberries by gently pushing them into the surface.  Take care not to push too hard!  Return to the oven for another ten minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and check with a cake tester which should come out clean.  The cake should be shrinking away from the sides at this point.  Place the tin on a cooling rack.
8. Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon and lime juice, tequila and salt with the icing sugar.  Once the icing sugar has disolved, carefully prick the sponge all over (in between the raspberries) and carefully spoon the warm syrup over the cake.
9. Leave in the tin to go cold before removing to serve.

If you don't need this to be gluten free, but want it to be nut free instead, you could replace the almonds with 200g of plain flour.

Updated: 2nd September 2012 - I've decided to enter this for the September 2012 Alphabakes competition.  The key ingredient this month should begin with 'P' so polenta cake definitely counts!

Raspberry and Lime Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Today was an ideal opportunity to test scheduled posting in advance of my summer holidays.  When this was published, I was several miles away from my mac at the inaugural Bath Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) meeting.  Stuffing my face with cake.  Excellent!

A vision of pinkness

The subject for the first CCC was 'Your Favourite Fruity Bake'.  Of course, with a blog to write, much as I wanted to make a tried and tested recipe, it made sense to try something new.  So I started with my favourite fruit - raspberries, which I will hopefully have an abundance of in my garden come summer - and it grew from there if you'll pardon the pun.  

I did think about adapting Jules Blueberry and Lime cake which I tried a few weeks ago.  Filled with raspberry curd instead of lime, it might have been just the ticket.  But then I got into researching raspberry curd recipes and happened across this blog post by Laure of The Buttercream and Chantilly Factory and the die was cast.

Just looking at the pictures reminded me of the my very favourite raspberry thing from my childhood - my mother's raspberry fool, with raspberries being her favourite fruit too.  She didn't make it nearly often enough but when she did, it was the best thing ever.  All it is is pureed raspberries mixed with icing sugar and whipped cream and piped into glasses.  If she's being posh, she will pour some raspberry juice into the bottom of the glasses so that when you pipe the fool in, the juice swirls prettily up the side of the glass.

Adding the drizzle

This cake looks just like it's covered in raspberry fool.  Except it's not.  It's covered in Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  Something that has scared the pants off of me when I've researched making it.  Now seemed an apt time to bite the bullet.

So with my own sponge cake forming the base and spiked with lime syrup, I set about learning how to not fear this particular type of buttercream.

It's completely unlike our beloved, tooth-rotting English buttercream.  You whisk egg whites and sugar in a bain marie and then whip them to within an inch of their life in a stand mixer as the cool and gain volume.  Then you drop in little blobs of butter - the little blobs actually amount to 300g in total, so it's by no means healthy.  You panic a bit when it looks like it's all gone wrong and split.  It starts to come together and then you accidentally drop a splash of water in and it suddenly starts to coagulate and you panic.  I think it just so happens that passing my wet hands over the top of the mixing bowl co-incided with it correctly mixing (after ten fraught minutes) and all was well.

Until I decided to refrigerate it.  And then when I left it out to soften, it went all weird.  Cue further panic that it had all gone horribly wrong until some research reveals it needs to be re-whipped for five minutes.  Four minutes and 58 seconds of praying later, it finally started to resemble what it had earlier.

It pipes really well, but quite frankly it is a bugger to spread.  Now I know why the cake on the other blog is totally covered with piping and fruit!  I guess it takes lots of practice and know-how to get it to spread evenly.  But I am happy enough that I managed to make it properly on my first attempt.

That pesky buttercream

And when you've used five egg-yolks for the curd, it's a good way to use up the five left over whites.  All in all, it's not that scary, so long as you've been forewarned about the various stages of it looking like it's all gone horribly wrong!

I will have to update the blog with the pictures from CCC later.

In the meantime, here is the recipe:

For the raspberry and lime curd, click this link

For the meringue buttercream

• 80g raspberry puree 
• 5 large egg whites
• 300g  butter
• 200g sugar

1. Place egg whites and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl.
2. Set bowl over 1 inch  (2.5 cm) of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk gently until the mixture reaches 140°F/60°C (or until sugar has dissolved and mixture is no longer grainy when you rub it between your (clean!) fingers)
3. Remove from the heat and using an electric mixer, whisk on medium speed until the egg whites are cool to touch (they should be cooler than your hand).
4.  Continue beating and gradually add the softened butter in tablespoon-sized pieces. It will first look watery or separated, but after 10-15 minutes, it will come together.
5. Once the desired, pipe-able consistency has been reached, fold in the raspberry puree until well incorporated.
6. The buttercream can be refrigerated for a  week or frozen for a month.  When ready to use, bring it back to room temperature, then whisk for five full minutes until it comes back together (it will look like it's split for the first four minutes and fifty eight seconds!)

For the cake

The finished cake

• 225g unsalted butter
• 225g golden caster
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 4 medium eggs
• Zest of three limes
• 50ml milk
• 1.5tsp vanilla extract

For the syrup

• juice of 3 limes
• 100g granulated sugar

For assembly

• 1 quantity of raspberry curd
• 1 quantity of meringue buttercream
• fresh raspberries

On show at Bath Clandestine Cake Club

1. Grease and line a 20cm round tin and turn oven to 180c/160c fan/Gas 4.  Ensure your oven is configured with a shelf about two-thirds of the way down and another one at the top of the oven. Place a baking tray on top of the upper shelf.  This will help to stop the cake from peaking in the centre.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy then add the rest of the ingredients and mix to a soft consistency.
3. Bake for approximately 1 hour (a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out dry with a few crumbs attached).  It may need slightly longer depending on your oven so if you need to return it to the oven, check every five minutes thereafter.
4. Meanwhile combine the granulated sugar and lemon juice for the glaze.  Heat in a small saucepan until reduced by about a third.
5. When the cake is ready take it from oven and skewer it. Pour over the syrup and allow it to cool in the tin.
6. When the cake is completely cold, place in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up - this gives it a firmer texture for slicing which works really well in warm weather.  Remove from the fridge and slice into three layers.  Spread the bottom layer with curd.  Replace the middle layer and spread this with layer of curd.  
7. Add the top layer and then use a quarter buttercream to ice the top and sides of the cake.  Refrigerate for thirty minutes and then another quarter the buttercream to coat a second time for a smooth finish.  Use the remaining buttercream to pipe decorations on the cake and finish off with whole fresh raspberries

Inside the cake

Jules' Blueberry and Lime Cake

Instagram, I love you nearly as much as I love this cake!

I woke up this morning to a very exciting email from a colleague this morning.  Thankfully being that it's Easter Sunday, it's nothing to do with  work.  It was just a fellow insomniac sharing a random bit of news.  That Instagram has finally arrived on Android.  It made my day more than all the mini eggs that I got.  And it was the perfect day for it as well because it's made the pictures of the lovely cake I baked today look even more special.

Nearly two hundred days into this challenge, I still don't think my mum quite gets what I'm up to but she's resigned herself to the fact that if I'm coming to stay for the weekend, I'm going to have to take over the kitchen for part of the weekend.  When she first dictated that we had to visit for Easter Sunday - because she had an egg hunt planned for Miss A - I said I would only come if I could make pudding.  She grudgingly agreed.  This then meant days of agonising how to transport a mousse cake (something I really want to try my hand at) from the far north of Wiltshire to the far south of Hampshire.  Not a great distance unless you are transporting a cake that will a) melt in the slightest bit of heat or b) not survive being driven round corners at more than 5mph.

Ready for the oven

During the recent heatwave I realised that I'd have to bake the cake here (I'm in Winchester as I type) for it to stand any chance of survival.  And whilst ruminating how much child free time I'd get (she doesn't sleep well when we're here) vs how much work the cake would take, I happened across a tweet from Jules (a different Jules to the Jules of Chocolate and Ginger Hot Cross Bun fame) about a gorgeous looking blueberry and lime cake.

I mentioned my passion for citrus cakes the other day and the whole idea of lime just suckered me in.  I've been wanting to make Lorraine Pascale's Mojitos Genoese for ages but it's one that needs to be made and eaten on the same day and I can't remember the last time (aside from Christmas) that I had house guests to cater for so it's another one that's still firmly parked on the 'to-do' list and is unlikely to be ticked off before this year's out.

Golden sponges

The bit that drew me to Jules' cake was the middle being sandwiched with lime curd.  Of course it had to be home made curd because I doubt that you could buy lime curd from regular shops in deepest, darkest Wiltshire - especially when the local Waitrose doesn't even stock cocoa powder!  People in Chippenham obviously don't make chocolate cake.  So last Sunday, I devoted that day's recipe to trying Sophie Grigson's lime curd.  And then I had to resist eating it all before the week was out.

I find blueberries can be a bit hit or miss on the flavour but we scored big time with the ones my mum bought from Tesco.  They were enormous and the flavour beautifully complemented the lime.  I was lucky with my limes too - sometimes they can be pretty hard dry (as the ones I had for my curd were), but the two I had today were beautifully scented and brimming with juice.

There's blueberries loose aboot this hoose!

My cake was a little dry which was my fault because my cooker is generally a bit rubbish when it comes to cake and I've gotten into the habit of having to exceed the stated baking time.  With my mum's cooker, I probably should've checked it at 25 mins as the cake was a little dry around the edge.  This could've been rectified with a little lime drizzle but I had no spare limes.  It tasted beautiful without and I actually enjoyed the crispy edges myself.  It's high up on the bake again list once this year is over.  Although I have a feeling that if I'm deluged with raspberries from my garden in the summer that I'll be making it again as a raspberry and lime cake.

It got rave reviews from the family.  With compliments being paid to the beautiful balance of different flavours and the fact that the amount of buttercream was just right and didn't make the cake too tooth-rottingly sweet.  I'm sure there won't be as much left when I get up in the morning as there is at the moment (if in fact, there's any know my stepdad's sweet-tooth!)

Thank you so much for sharing Jules!  You can find the recipe here.

My only gripe was when I served the cake, the blueberries all rolled off the top!  If I made it again, I'd probably spread a thin layer of butter cream or curd across the blueberry area to try and keep them in check :o)

Sophie Grigson's Lime Curd

This is curd recipe number three of four.  And has been made in preparation for the creation of an amazing lime and blueberry cake that I plan to make for Easter Sunday dessert.  That recipe comes from one of the lovely bakey tweeps that I follow on Twitter, @DomesticJules.  More about that next Sunday.

But in preparation, I decided to make my curd in advance as today's recipe.  I'd never tried making curd before this challenge, but it's one of those things that if you are ever in a competition like the Great British Bake Off, you're expected to make the curd from scratch, rather than using shop-bought.  Even if it's the best ever shop-bought in the world (and consequently tastes better than you could ever make it).

The first time I tried making curd, I picked a Nigel Slater recipe.  There's just something about him that made me believe that his recipe would work.  Which it did.  Beautifully.  I used it for filling macarons (which were a less successful recipe attempt), slathered it over Dan Lepard's Easy White Bread and mixed it into creme fraiche for a quick dessert.  Before discovering that actually, it goes mouldy pretty quickly and sadly it got consigned to the bin.

If only it would last until Feb 2015...

Pleased with my first attempt, I decided to give Jamie's Clementine Curd a go.  It sounded like the perfect thing to do something with for Christmas.  Thankfully I never established what I wanted to do with it, because first it went all scrambled eggy, then it wouldn't set and the result was just way too sweet.  Citrus is meant to be suck-your-teeth tart in my world.

So on to lime curd.  I don't know why limes are so much less popular than lemons.  But I love this flavour. As an adult, it's superseded my childhood love of lemon as my favourite citrus fruit.  You will rarely enter my kitchen without being able to find a lime somewhere.  Plus several lime halves in various stages of desiccation in my fridge - yup, I'm a bit slummy sometimes (well I prefer forgetful).

It gets squeezed into many chicken and fish dishes.  My favourite way to cook tuna is with a squeeze of lime and a generous sprinkle of pepper and sea salt.  One of my much-asked for recipes is for my key lime pie.  I love making that as you need to juice about 12 limes and the smell is just amazing.  I rarely drink, but my favourite alcoholic drink is a mojito, closely followed by a margherita.  My shower gel is made from limes.  If I could afford it, my kitchen would have lime green lacquered cupboards.  I love the fresh zingyness of it all.

Having Googled around for recipes, I settled on one by Sophie Grigson.  This seemed to have the highest lime-to-sugar ratio, but I still through an extra one in for good measure as it only specifies the number of limes to juice rather than a liquid volume.  I also like that it makes just a small quantity.  Just enough for the cake and a bit left over for Monday's breakfast so it won't go to waste this time.

Like Slater, Grigson cooks her curd in a bain marie.  When I tried Jamie's recipe, it was cooked directly in a pan and I still wonder if this is why I had trouble with it.  Who knows?  The one difference between Slater and Grigson's methods is that she suggests you sieve the eggs into the pan.  At the start, this seemed like a novel idea as the egg was slowly dripping into the bowl meaning I could keep my stirring pace fast, but not mental without fear of a huge lump of scrambled egg forming.  After five minutes however, the egg dripping stopped and I still had at least half of it in the sieve.  Worried that it had started to cook itself from the steam rising from the pan, I slowly dribbled the rest into the pan from the bowl of the sieve, thus defeating the object of bothering to sieve in the first place.  Definitely an unnecessary, faffy step.

Anyway, the recipe was successful.  It set and I'm left with a sweet, limey, wobbly curd.  It's not as solid as the Slater version, but perfect for using in Jules' recipe.  And best of all, home made and additive free so it has a lovely gentle yellow colour with green flecks from the zest, rather than the quite obviously artificial colour I've seen in shop bought lime curd.  Very excited about making the cake next Sunday now.

Mango, Pineapple and Lime Sorbet

This sounds like a variation on a theme of Thursday's blog, but after finding myself stuck with copious amounts of mango and pineapple which the child can no longer eat (you should've seen her face as I was chopping it up and had to say no, she couldn't have any) I had to make use of the fruit somehow.

Bonfire night is traditionally fireworks and curry night in the Crowdey household.  Well it was BC.  But now we are AC with Miss AC, the closest we get to fireworks is arguing over why we never remember to phone for the takeaway an hour before we're actually hungry rather than waiting to pick up the phone when we're hungry and are considering cannibalism by the time it arrives.

So no chance of a dinner recipe trial tonight.  Instead, I dug out the recipe for the aforementioned sorbet which has been kicking around in my BBC Good Food binder for more years than I care to remember.  It was one of those recipes that seemed like a good idea for a palate cleanser after a dinner party, but sadly, I've never held a dinner party in my life - hence no sorbet got made.

Whilst I was contemplating this recipe, I did some research based on the comments that it was too hard to scoop.  I discovered that there are no two ways about the ridiculously high sugar content if you want a relatively soft scoop.  Fibrous fruit like mangoes, strawberries and pineapple work best.  An ice cream maker is not essential although a mixing it during freezing every couple of hours will reduce the number of huge ice crystals.  And you should temper it for fifteen minutes or so before serving.

When the curry arrived, the sorbet was near perfect with just a tiny soft spot in the middle.  By the time we'd eaten and then watched an episode of Frozen Planet - a-MAZING TV! - my sorbet was indeed reminiscent of an ice block.  It was just about scoopable and I should probably have let it temper for fifteen mins before serving as advised, but being impatient to get the blog written, I forged straight ahead.

It was a little icier than I would've liked.  During the research I discovered that egg white may or may not help (beat in towards the end - it doesn't need to be whisked first though) but mostly commerical sorbet and ice cream is kept soft by the use of food grade anti-freeze.  Nice!  So I'll take my pure fruit slightly icy sorbet over commercial soft scoop sorbet every time.

Need to work on the composition of my pictures!

Simplicity in itself and cheek tinglingly tasty.  Based on the comments after the recipe though, I halved the fruit content but kept the amount of lime juice the same as I was wary that some commented it was too sweet.  This was definitely a good move in my humble opinion.

One other top tip is to use a reamer to juice the limes.  I have tried classic glass juicers, various electric ones (although not the citrus press that came with my Kenwood), heating the fruit in the oven or microwave and juicing it with a fork.  But none of these techniques work as well as the wooden lemon reamer I got from Ocado.  It's also a very satisfying activity.  And I just like the word.  Reamer.

• 3 limes - zest one, juice all three
• 100ml water
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 large mango, peeled, stoned and diced
• 1 large pineapple, peeled, cored and diced

1. Put the lime juice, lime zest, water and caster sugar in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for five minutes, removing any scum.  Cool.
2. Blitz the mango, pineapple and lime syrup in a liquidiser.
3. Pour into a freezer proof container and freeze for 4 hours.  Giving it a quick stir every hour or so helps it to freeze better.
4. Temper* for 15 minutes before serving

*Tempering ice cream and sorbet means taking it out of the fridge and leaving it at room temperature (unless the weather is scorchio - in this case, reduce the time)