Christmas Spice Mini-bundt Cake

When I found a mini-bundt cake tin in one of the local charity shops, I couldn't wait to try it out, even though I didn't really need to bake. Fortunately both children were coming for a family birthday dinner, so I could rely on them to take home some of the leftovers, to make sure we weren't left with too much to eat.

As I already had a chocolate cake I decided to make something spicy, and thought it would be a good opportunity to try out my tub of Waitrose Signature Spice mix - a blend specially made for the supermarket, containing cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, star anise, black pepper, tangerine oil and cloves. Waitrose is using this spice mix in a lot of it's Christmas products, such as mincemeat, cakes and puddings, as well as selling it as a spice blend for cooking

An online search for something suitable brought me to Nigella Lawson's recipe for a Cider and 5-spice Bundt Cake, which is similar to a gingerbread cake but uses 5-spice powder and fresh ginger. By my calculations, my little bundt tin was a quarter of the volume of the one used in the recipe, but I decided to err on the side of caution and make 1/3 of the recipe quantity (especially as scaled down recipes are simpler if you don't need fractions of eggs).

The scaled down ingredients were: 60mls sunflower oil, 35g light muscovado sugar, 100g black treacle, 1 tablespoon ginger wine, 60mls milk, 1 large egg, 100g plain flour, 2/3 teaspoon baking powder, pinch bicarbonate of soda, 2 teaspons signature spice mix.

The recipe was simply a matter of mixing wet ingredients and sugar together, and combining this with the flour, spice and raising agents - similar to traditional gingerbread cake, but as you're using oil instead of butter, no melting is required. I decided not to open a bottle of cider just for 80mls, so replaced that with a tablespoon of ginger wine and 60mls milk. I left out the fresh ginger and replaced all the ground spices with 2 teaspoons of the Signature Spice mix. My mini version of the cake took 30 minutes to bake at 170C, and was just the right amount of mixture for the tin.

Bundt tins always fill me with trepidation when it comes to turning out the cooked cakes - I think it's recipes that are at fault, rather than my technique, since I work consistently (using cake release spray), yet some recipes always work, and some always fail at turning out cleanly. Fortunately this recipe was one that worked! I contemplated using a lemon glacé icing drizzled over the cake, but realised that I wouldn't get it photographed before it got too dark, if I waited for it to cool, so I dusted with icing sugar instead.

I really liked the Signature Spice mix used in this way. The flavour was still similar to a gingerbread cake, due to the main ingredients being cinnamon and ginger, but the cardamom, allspice, pepper and cloves gave a more complex peppery edge to the flavour, which was almost savoury, and the aroma was quite different too. The cake was moist and close textured without being too dense - and I'm really pleased to have found a good (gingerbread) recipe using oil instead of butter. I'm sure I'll be trying a full sized version of the recipe at some point.

The seasonal theme for Tea Time Treats for December is Sugar and Spice, so I'm entering this cake. Tea Time Treats is co-hosted by Jane at The Hedge Combers and Karen at Lavender and  Lovage, who is this month's host

Brownies with Hazelnut Praline Crust

I sometimes go to great lengths not to waste food. I've been known to decide on dinner on the basis of half a tin of tomatoes in the fridge. So when I tried making hazelnut praline to decorate last week's chocolate cheesecake, and ground it too finely, there was no chance it would be thrown away.

I thought about incorporating it into a chocolate refrigerator cake (tiffin), but decided it would end up like finely chopped hazelnuts, and the flavour of the praline would be lost. I tried making balls of praline mixed with Biscoff spread, which I would place in brownie batter so that each square had a nutty 'truffle', but the mixture was just too sweet to be pleasant. In the end I decided just to sprinkle it over a tray of brownie batter and hope that the sugar didn't dissolve quickly, leaving just chopped nuts on the surface, or even worse, that the praline didn't just sink.

The plan worked just fine - the praline made a crisp crust on top of the brownie, which was a nice contrast in texture, and the crust still had the praline flavour of caramel and toasted hazelnuts. I used my favourite brownie recipe, which I don't feel quite as guilty about since I reduced the sugar content by 25%, scaled down to an 8" square baking tin. *The praline was made from 50g chopped toasted hazelnuts mixed into 50g of caramelised sugar which was spread out on a piece of baking parchment to cool, then broken into pieces and ground to a fine crumb after it had set.

Ingredients
140g unsalted butter
140g 74% plain chocolate
300g light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 medium eggs
160g plain flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
100g praline (see above*)

Method
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large bowl - I prefer to do it over hot water, but the microwave also works. Cool to lukewarm, if necessary, then mix in the sugar and vanilla extract, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then sift in the flour and cocoa and fold in.
Transfer the batter to an 8" (20cm) baking tin, lined with parchment paper, and sprinkle over the praline to give an even layer on top. Bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes until a test probe comes out with a few damp crumbs still clinging.
Cool in the tin then cut into as many pieces as you think fit. I make 16 pieces out of this size tin.

The only criticism I had of these brownies was that they were slightly overcooked. I didn't check until 30 minutes had passed, and they were past the optimum point for a really moist brownie by then. It doesn't spoil the flavour but it does make them slightly drier than I really like.

I will also be interested to see if the praline stays crisp for longer than a day or two - it takes us a while to get through a whole batch of brownies.

I'm entering these into the Tea Time Treats April link-up party - this month, with Easter in mind, the theme is chocolate. Tea Time Treats is co-hosted by The Hedge Combers and Lavender and Lovage, and this month's host is Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

As I'm short of baking time this month (I don't often bake more than once a week now, because we're both weight watching), these brownies will also be my entry into this month's AlphaBakes Challenge, which is the letter B. I realise brownies aren't very original, but it's better than no entry at all! AlphaBakes is co-hosted by Caroline at Caroline Makes and Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker, and Caroline is this month's host.

Semolina Cookies

One Batch of Dough, Two Delicious Cookies

The same basic dough is used for these Date Bars and Pistachio Cookies. It's a Dan Lepard recipe, given Middle Eastern flavours with pomegranate molasses, rose water and orange blossom water. I made one batch of dough from this recipe, and made a half quantity of the Date Bars and half a batch of these Pistachio Cookies.

I had decided to use semolina for this month's AlphaBakes Challenge (Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker has chosen the letter S), and was trying to decide between a cake  or biscuits when Janie of The Hedge Combers announced that the March Tea Time Treats challenge was for cookies and biscuits. The decision was made for me - I would make semolina cookies which could be an entry for both baking challenges.


Semolina seems to be common in Middle Eastern and Asian cooking, but is less well known in the UK as a baking ingredient. It's sometimes added to shortbread to make it crisper and crumblier, but is best known as the basis for the sort of milk pudding that we all hated at school! Semolina is the coarse centres of durum wheat grains, left after the flour has been milled away. 

I looked at many recipes for semolina cookies, which all looked similar, but they had small differences in the proportions of fat, flour and eggs, so that it was impossible to decide if one recipe was going to work out better than another. In the end I found Dan's recipe and was persuaded by the extra flavours added to the cookie dough. After trying it, I'm sure the dough on it's own would have made delicious cookies.

In the first recipe the dough is rolled out and wrapped around a filling of spiced date purée and in the second, chopped pistachios and a little more sugar is added, and then the dough is just rolled into balls. Both recipes were fairly straightforward - just a little fiddly - and gave good results. One tip I can pass on - if you are going to purée dried dates in a food processor, cut each one in half across the length, to check that the stones have been removed. I found two left in in my pack of dates. Trying to process a date stone could be a costly blunder!

The dough was a little dryer than I expected, and I eventually realised (after it was too late to put things right) that I hadn't added quite enough liquid, as I had used less of the rose water and orange flower water (mine are quite concentrated and I've been caught out in the past by following recipe instructions and finding out I'd used too much) but hadn't made up for the lower volume of liquid.

The dry dough was difficult to roll out and meant that the dough round the Date Bars cracked a little during baking. It was also difficult to incorporate all the chopped nuts for the Pistachio Cookies, but I'm not sure if that was due to the dryness, which made the dough crumbly, or the sheer volume of nuts - probably a bit of both.  At least I know how to remedy the problem - a couple of tablespoons of milk or water is all that is needed next time.

Additionally, next time I will flatten the Date Bars a little before cooking. This wasn't mentioned in the instructions, so I expected that they would flatten naturally during cooking to turn out as in the photograph accompanying the recipe (see the link above). As you can see from the photographs of my Date Bars, this didn't happen!

Both these cookies were delicious, in different ways. The Date Bars were the best - the moist spicy date filling and the crunchy sesame seed coating were a good contrast to the crumbly cookie dough.

However, with the Pistachio Cookies the added flavours in the dough shone through, particularly the rose water, as the pistachio nuts did not have a strong flavour.

AlphaBakes (rules here) is hosted alternately by Ros, of The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline of Caroline Makes.

Tea Time Treats (rules here) is hosted alternately by Janie of The Hedge Combers and Karen of Lavender and Lovage.

Cranberry-Date Crumble Squares...

...with an unusual added ingredient!

The AlphaBakes challenge (rules here) is hosted jointly by Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes. This month the challenge is hosted by Ros, and the random letter generator has thrown up the letter L. That means baking something whose name begins with L, such as Linzertorte, or something containing a significant ingredient beginning with L.

In a bid to find something really different from the most obvious ingredients, such as lemon or lime, I came up with Lentils. At first I was going to make something savoury, but then I found this really awesome Canadian site which throws lentils into cookies, desserts, brownies and cakes with wild abandon. I was really spoilt for choice, but in the end chose these crumble topped squares filled with dates and cranberries.

I followed the recipe as written, but I rubbed the chilled butter into the flour and oat mixture rather than mixing it in with a fork (how would that work?). I used a 50:50 mixture of spelt and wholemeal flour, as I didn't have enough spelt flour on it's own. When it came to making the filling, the instructions weren't really clear, so I chopped the dates into pieces the size of the cranberries. I used a mixture of fresh juice (from one small orange) and water, and added the zest of the orange too.

These squares were outstandingly tasty! I think this was mainly due to the thick filling of dates and cranberries, which cooked together to make something really different from either on their own! It's a combination of fresh and dried fruit that I've never seen before, and wouldn't ever have thought of on my own, but I'm really glad I tried it. The base was quite soft, although the topping was crisp and crunchy, and you would never guess that lentils were involved in any way. Despite the amount of sugar used, in both the crumb and the filling, the squares did not seem over-sweet.

Adding lentils has all sorts of health benefits - lentils have a low GI value, contain protein and fibre and are rich in several minerals such as potassium and iron. When cooked they add moisture to baked goods in the same way as fruit or vegetable purées, which means you can often cut down on the butter in the recipe, as in this one. A comparable oat square recipe would perhaps use double the amount of butter.

In addition to the health benefits of lentils, there are other ingredients in these squares which have health benefits - oats contain fibre and may help reduce cholesterol; wholemeal flour has more fibre than white; dates contain fibre and minerals and have natural sweetness; cranberries are packed with antioxidants and sometimes called a superfood. The squares are high in sugar, which can be worrying, but most people are happy to eat some sugar as an occasional treat. The other lower GI ingredients here balance the effects of sugar and would help keep blood sugar levels steady.


I think these health benefits probably also qualify these cranberry-date crumble squares for this month's Tea Time Treats challenge, which is to make something healthy (or thrifty) for a lunchbox. I'd certainly appreciate the energy and nutrients packed into a piece of this, when balanced with a low carb salad, or something similar. Tea Time Treats (rules here) is hosted alternately by Karen from Lavender and Lovage, and Jane from The Hedge Combers, who is this month's host.

Spiced Chocolate Bundt Cake

 - with a little pre-Christmas sparkle!

I noticed this cake in the January 2015 issue of Sainsbury's Magazine; the recipe wasn't in the magazine, but the pointer to the online recipe looked quite appealing.

I used the cake recipe exactly as written, even though I knew my bundt tin was too large, because I think a decorated ring cake can look more festive than a round cake. However, I used a different icing recipe, as I didn't have any cream to make a ganache. I used my old standby (from Mary Berry) for a dark fudge frosting; this consists of 175g plain chocolate melted with 30g butter, which is then removed from the heat and 2 tablespoons of syrup and 3 tablespoons of milk beaten in until smooth.  I usually use golden syrup, but for this recipe I used syrup from a jar of stem ginger.

I went to town on the decorations, even though the cake was to be eaten before Christmas, so that I could use this cake as an entry to December's Tea Time Treats challenge, which is for Glitter, Sprinkles, Candles and Shiny Stuff! I used crystallised ginger sprinkles, crunchy chocolate drop sprinkles (dark, milk and white), snowflakes and gold glitter, and I think I succeeded in making something suitably glittery.

The cake, which is a cross between a chocolate cake and gingerbread, is made by melting butter, chocolate, sugar, treacle and golden syrup together, before mixing in eggs and flour. This makes it quick and easy to make with just a bowl and spoon. The cake was very moist, but not too dense with a good crumb texture. The spicing was very subtle and reminiscent of  Lebkuchen, which made the cake very festive and gave the house a lovely smell as it was baking. The addition of tiny pieces of stem ginger, and the slight hint of ginger in the frosting adds an extra note to both the texture and flavour.

I think this cake would make a delicious festive-flavoured alternative to fruit cakes on the Christmas tea-table, particularly if made in the correct sized baking tin, so that it stood higher. Tea Time Treats, hosted jointly by Karen of Lavender and Lovage, and  Jane of The Hedge Combers, is in a suitably festive mood this month, and Karen, as this month's host, will be collating the entries and writing a round up at the end of the month.

Salt Caramel Flapjacks

A few days ago, I opened a tin of ready made caramel to make a toffee apple and pecan cake, which needed just 200g of the caramel. It turned out to be a waste of caramel, because although the cake was just about edible, it took twice as long to cook as the recipe stated, and was very dense and stodgy, and not particularly well-flavoured, as the added ingredients of apples and pecans were in quite small quantities.

As I was so disappointed with the cake, I decided not to even write a blog post about it, but you can follow the link above, if you want to know what to avoid!

That left me with roughly half a tin of caramel to use, and I also had some really good quality Sainsbury's gluten-free rolled oats that I wanted to compare with ALDI porridge oats and Tesco everyday value oats. Obviously, finding a recipe for caramel flapjacks was a priority, but it had to be a recipe that used the amount of caramel available.

It didn't take long to find this Annie Bell recipe for Salt Caramel Flapjacks. I was a little flabbergasted by the amount of butter, but I've cooked enough of Annie's recipes to trust her, especially as I was a little short on the amount of caramel needed. I had to use unsalted butter for the recipe, so added extra salt, in the form of 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavoured salt I happened to have in the store cupboard.

The recipe was simple to follow and quick to put together and cook. I cut the finished flapjacks into 16 portions - 25 seemed ridiculously small, although they would have been less calorific per portion! The results were absolutely delicious; my only criticism of the flavour was that I couldn't taste the salt. If (or, more likely, when) I make them again I will increase the amount of salt added. The flapjack was chewy and fudgy flavoured, and very rich. They were perhaps slightly on the crumbly side, but I think a few minutes extra baking will take care of that.

As for the oats - the gluten-free oats were miles ahead in quality - they were whole grains rolled flat, to make large crisp flakes. The Tesco everyday value oats were next in quality, with smaller, less crisp flakes ( I have to say that I've been using these for baking for years, with no complaints about the results). The ALDI porridge oats were very small pieces of flake, which probably make great porridge, but were too fine to give a good result if used on their own in baked goods. I think in future I will use a mixture of the Tesco everyday value and the gluten-free oats to improve the texture of things such as biscuits and flapjacks. But for things like cakes, where the coarser texture isn't as important, and perhaps not even necessary, I'll continue with just the Tesco oats.

I'm just in time to submit this recipe to this month's Tea Time Treats challenge, which is to produce food suitable for a bonfire night party. TTT is a cooking challenge hosted alternately by Karen of Lavender and Lovage, and Jane of The Hedge Combers, who is this month's host.

Beetroot and Chilli Brownies

I was shown this gluten-free brownie recipe a while back, and knew straight away that I wanted to make it. Flour is replaced with ground almonds in this recipe, and I find this type of gluten-free baking often works better for me than substituting gluten-free flour into my usual recipes. Using puréed cooked beetroot also means that the recipe can get away with using less butter whilst still remaining moist. Beetroot is naturally sweet too, so the added sugar can also be reduced slightly.

Once I'd made the brownies, I was surprised by how moist they were, but it was only some time later that I realised that I might have used too much beetroot. I just picked up a supermarket pack, assuming it was the right size, but it could have been up to double the amount I actually needed. I can't remember where I bought it, as it could have been any of the 3 supermarkets I regularly use, so can't easily check.

Apart from the excessive moistness these brownies were good to eat. The amount of cayenne pepper used was just enough to leave a warm after-taste in the mouth, without being overwhelming. Because the beetroot was puréed, it wasn't noticeable as an ingredient, either in the flavour or texture, but adding it does make one feel less guilty when eating a piece! The overall texture was a bit lighter than I like in a brownie - I prefer a dense chewy texture - but I'm happy to have another successful gluten-free recipe to add to my collection.

This month the Tea Time Treats challenge is to use vegetables when cooking for the tea table. Brownies are a relatively modern treat, but I suspect that nowadays  most people would expect one to turn up in the cake selection at tea time, so I'm happy to be able to submit this entry. Karen of Lavender and Lovage alternates hosting this challenge with Jane of The Hedge Combers, and as this month's host, will post a round-up of entries at the end of the month.

Double Cheese and Onion Soufflé Tart

This soufflé tart filling was a revelation! Good-bye soggy bottoms, farewell rubbery egg custard! I know that it is possible to make perfect pastry, blind bake to the exact point needed, get the custard into the case without spilling any, not have any cracks in the pastry for the custard to leak through, get the dish into the oven without any custard overflowing and get the exact set needed for the filling to be creamy rather than rubbery (and not soak into the pastry to give the dreaded soggy bottom) - but how often do they all come together to produce the perfect quiche?

I found the recipe on the Good Food website, and even though I've never made a soufflé, I found the idea of a soufflé filling for a savoury tart quite intriguing. In practice it was even better than I imagined - because the filling was quite solid (like a stiff meringue mix rather than cream), there was no liquid to soak into the pastry, or find the smallest crack to leak through. The pastry case could be filled to the brim without fear of overflow and the filling baked to a light springy texture, rather like a good baked cheesecake. The pastry case also released off the base  of the tin like a dream - something that has never happened when I make a quiche - and it stayed crisp for the three days it took to finish eating the tart.

Although I followed the recipe for the filling exactly, I made my own shortcrust cheese pastry, using 250g SR flour, 125g butter, 50g parmesan cheese and a little cold water. I used the pastry to line a deep 22cm loose-bottomed flan tin, and baked blind following the times and temperature in the recipe. The filling rose above the pastry during baking, and here was the only problem I encountered during making this tart - it was difficult to judge the end point of cooking. To be sure the soufflé was properly cooked, I turned off the oven after the time stated and left the tart in the cooling oven. This worked very well - the filling was cooked all the way through but still moist and creamy in texture. Once cooled, like all soufflés, it fell back to it's original level, but thankfully didn't sink in the middle, which was what I was fearing if it was undercooked.

The flavours in this quiche all worked well together - the sweet yet piquant caramelised onion chutney offset the richness of the soufflé filling, and the crisp pastry was a good contrast to the soft filling. I had picked a mild goat cheese, yet it was still evident that it was goat cheese being used - the flavour wasn't overwhelmed by any of the other ingredients. I'm not sure if this method could be adapted to make tarts with more solid pieces in the filling, such as bacon or vegetables, but  for a straightforward cheese tart this is so much better than a traditional quiche, and not that much more complicated to make.

The tart case only used 2/3 of the pastry, so there was plenty remaining to make some pesto pinwheels with the leftovers - the pastry was rolled to a rectangle, spread with a couple of tablespoons of pesto, rolled up like a swiss roll, chilled, then cut into 2cm slices and baked alongside the pastry case at 200C for about 20 minutes. (See the photo above.)

I'm sending this tart to Tea Time Treats (rules here), a baking challenge hosted jointly by Lavender and Lovage and The Hedge Combers. This month, Karen at Lavender and Lovage has asked us to produce something suitable for a picnic tea, and this tart certainly fits the bill - it would be easy to transport while still in the baking tin, and once cut is sturdy enough to be eaten by hand. It is also very tasty when eaten cold.

Rhubarb Shortbread Bars

With Coconut Flapjack Topping

After a slow start this year, my rhubarb has started producing stalks again - it's keeping us in occasional desserts while I wait impatiently for my gooseberries to ripen. The usual midweek dessert is just cooked fruit with natural yogurt, but the weekends are always a little more relaxed as far as calorific treats are concerned.

This recipe was devised with two of the regular baking challenges I enter in mind. This month's AlphaBakes challenge is the letter R (and I make no apologies for using rhubarb again, it's that time of year!) and the Tea Time Treats challenge is to make flapjacks and traybakes.

The base was made by rubbing 80g unsalted butter into 200g plain flour and 40g caster sugar, and pressing the crumbs into the base of an 8" square tin, lined with baking parchment. I made a small raised edge in case the fruit produced a lot of juice, and baked the base for 15 minutes at 190C. Although I've used this shortbread base before, in the same sized tin, it didn't work as well this time, and was a little fragile - I'm guessing the topping held it together better last time. I think I needed a thicker base with more butter to bind it - something with the more classic shortbread proportions of fat to flour.

When the shortbread was cooked I sprinkled two tablespoons of ground rice evenly over the surface - I find this excellent at absorbing excess juice when raw fruit is used in this sort of baking. I then topped this with 350g rhubarb, diced into cubes of  0.5-1.0cm in size. Practically speaking, this meant splitting two large rhubarb stalks in quarters, lengthways, then chopping each length into 0.5cm pieces.

The topping was made by heating together 60g coconut oil and 60g coconut flower nectar (a low GI alternative to beet and cane sugar) until the oil had melted, then stirring in 100g of porridge oats and 20g desiccated coconut. This was sprinkled carefully over the fruit to give an even layer and then the whole thing was returned to the oven for a further 30 minutes at 180C, until the fruit was soft and the topping a golden brown colour. The traybake was cooled in the tin before cutting into portions.

Apart from the fragile base, I really liked these bars. The sweet and sticky flapjack topping was balanced nicely by the tart fruit and the crisp shortbread. I had worried that the fruit might need sweetening, but the balance between the layers was just right. The addition of coconut to the topping added an extra flavour element that worked surprisingly well - I don't think I've ever tried rhubarb with coconut before!

AlphaBakes (see the rules here) is hosted alternately by Caroline Makes and The More Than Occasional Baker, who is running this month's challenge. Tea Time Treats (see the rules here) is hosted alternately by Lavender and Lovage and The Hedge Combers, who is running this month's challenge. Both hosts post a round-up of entries to each challenge at the end of the month.

Rhubarb Frangipane Tart

One of the nicest things about Spring is harvesting our home grown rhubarb, but this doesn't seem to be a good year; I think it's because it was a relatively mild winter, with no prolonged cold periods. Rhubarb definitely benefits from being cold during it's dormant period. Our apple trees have suffered from the strange spring weather too - only one had a good quantity of blossom, and one hasn't had any at all. Who says Britain has a reliable climate?

This recipe was devised mainly as a way of making a small amount of rhubarb go a long way, but also as my entry to this month's Tea Time Treats challenge, which is for open top tarts, pies and quiches.

I managed to take about 400g of rhubarb from our plants, without completely denuding any of them. Hopefully there will be more to harvest in the future, but the crowns aren't producing as many new leaves as in other years. I cooked the chopped rhubarb with 100g of sugar until most of the liquid had been driven off and it was reduced to a thick jam-like purée. This was spread into the base of a deep 20cm(8") diameter tart dish lined with shortcrust pastry - no need to blind-bake the pastry case for this recipe.

The frangipane topping was made from 100g each of ground almonds, slightly salted butter (softened) and golden caster sugar, 2 large eggs, half a teaspoon baking powder and a few drops of almond extract. These ingredients were just beaten together until light and fluffy, then spread carefully on top of the rhubarb, making sure to seal the mixture around the edge where it joined the pastry.  A few flaked almonds were scattered over the surface, then the tart was baked at 200C for 15 minutes. The oven temperature was then lowered to 180C and baking continued until the frangipane was golden and firm - the total baking time was about 40 minutes.

This is a dessert best eaten at room temperature. The rhubarb and almond flavours complimented each other well and the frangipane had a good chewy texture, contrasting with the crisp pastry and sticky rhubarb purée.

Tea Time Treats is a baking challenge co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and  Jane from The Hedgecombers. Each month we are invited to produce something suitable for a tea time spread, following the theme set by that month's host. This month's theme of open tarts, pies and quiches was set by Jane, who will post a round up of entries at the end of the month.

Apricot (and Chocolate) Linzer Torte

The theme for the Tea Time Treats Challenge this month is chocolate - not a difficult challenge for me, as a lot of my baking is based on chocolate (although less so now that I'm not baking regularly for CT). Although I've baked twice with chocolate already this month, I didn't think either of them were worthy enough to be a challenge entry, so I looked around for something a bit different.

This Linzer Torte recipe is based on a Mary Berry recipe from a book called 'Desserts and Confections' published in 1991, well before she became a TV celebrity. Surprisingly, I can only find one online reference to the recipe, here at Scandi Home; I made a few changes to the recipe - one out of necessity, one out of laziness,  one to increase the flavours in the pastry, and one to boost the chocolate content.

The pastry dough is made by mixing everything together in a food mixer - really easy for me now with my new Kenwood Chef mixer. I departed from the recipe and used 60g of ground hazelnuts and 60g of ground almonds (instead of all almonds), 265g plain flour, 200g caster sugar, 175g softened butter, 30g cocoa, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and the finely grated zest of a lemon. When everything is well blended, the ball of dough is halved. One half is used to line a shallow flan tin, by spreading and pressing into place using fingers. The recipe called for a 28cm tin, but mine was a little smaller - it was all I had!


The first step, however, before making the dough, is to make the apricot filling as it needs time to cool. 350g chopped dried apricots were simmered with 500ml of water and 100g caster sugar until the liquid was all absorbed or evaporated. The recipe used 250mls orange juice as part of the liquid, but I didn't have any to hand - I don't think it would have made a lot of difference to the final flavour, as dried apricots have a very concentrated flavour. The original recipe also sieved the cooked apricots to make a smooth purée, but I skipped this in favour of just mashing the fruit and having a coarser texture.

Before spreading the apricot filling over the pastry, I spread a layer of grated 100% cacao over the base; I estimated I used only about 30g, but it was very finely grated and went a long way! I hoped this would noticeably boost the chocolate flavour (it did!) and cut through what seemed an awful lot of sugar in both the pastry and the filling.

The last step is to make a lattice topping out of the second portion of dough. I had intended to make a real interwoven lattice, but the dough was too fragile, so I had to follow Mary's instructions to lay down a bottom row of strips, then a top row on the diagonal, pressing down the top row lightly to give the look of a lattice.

The torte was baked for 10 minutes at 200C then another 30 minutes at 180C - I baked it for a little longer than the recipe stipulated, as I thought the base dough would be thicker because of using a smaller tin. After cooling in the tin, the torte was dusted with icing sugar before serving.

The dough was short and crumbly - more like a biscuit than pastry; the apricot filling was sticky and strongly flavoured and the layer of chocolate really made the whole tart taste of rich chocolate. On the whole though, I think I prefer the traditional non-chocolate versions as the flavours of nuts and spices in the dough stand out more.

Tea Time Treats (rules here) is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from the Hedgecombers. The idea is to bake something suitable for the tea table, following the theme chosen by the host. This month's host is Karen, who will post a roundup at the end of the month.