Garibaldi Biscuits, with a flavour twist

I don't often fiddle about with biscuits, although I have become a fan of tray-bake cookies, where the dough is baked in a tray and cut into bars after baking. However, this recipe,  for Garibaldi biscuits, from last year's GBBO winner, David Atherton, intrigued me because of the flavours used - barberries, hazelnuts and fennel seeds, in addition to the usual currants.

I followed the recipe exactly, but as I didn't need any extra milk for the dough, I brushed the biscuits with water before sprinkling on the final dusting of caster sugar. Saved me opening a carton of milk just to use a splash of it.

Overall the recipe, and the results, were disappointing. I found it really difficult to handle the dough once it had been rolled to a rectangle of the correct size - it was almost paper thin at that point. Once the filling ingredients had been added, it was impossible to roll out the rectangle to the correct size a second time, because the amount of the filling just wouldn't allow the dough to be rolled out far enough. I managed to get it large enough to cut out 12 biscuits, but they didn't look anywhere near as neat as in the photo accompanying the recipe, as I couldn't cut through the filling layer cleanly.

After baking, the biscuits proved a huge let down, apart from the flavour - I really loved the combination of the tart barberries, the crunchy hazelnuts and the aniseed warmth from the fennel seeds. However, the biscuit dough was brittle, and again, the amount of filling created a problem in that, in places, the layers separated because there was too much filling for the top and bottom layers of dough to make contact when rolled out. This was necessary to hold everything together.

After this disappointment I checked other recipes online. The ever reliable Delia Smith uses a very similar dough - a bit more sugar and more milk instead of egg - but less than half the filling. I think this would enable all the currants/filling ingredients to become properly embedded in the dough. 

David Atherton seems to specialise in 'healthy' recipes, judging by those published in The Guardian newspaper, so I can see why he reduced the sugar in the dough, added the egg and increased the amount of filling, but for me the change in proportions between the filling and the biscuit dough spoiled the recipe instead of enhancing it.

I won't be trying this recipe again, but now that I've tried barberries for the first time, I'll be using them again in my baking. I think they'd make a lovely addition to Christmas mincemeat.

Apple Cake with Lemon and Chocolate Flecks

After being so impressed with a Honey & Co cake recipe I tried recently, I managed to borrow a copy of their baking book (called Honey & Co. The Baking Book) from the local library. The recipes looked every bit as appetising as I'd expected, and there are quite a lot that I'd like to try, so this book is definitely going onto my wish list.

This cake was first recipe I tried from the book, mainly because I had all the ingredients to hand. It was another amalgamation of flavours that you wouldn't necessarily think to put together  - I've never been convinced that lemon and dark chocolate works well together, let alone with apples in the mix. As before, the clever addition of unusual spices really made the cake something special, although I thought it might have had an even better flavour without the chocolate - and it's not often that I think chocolate is an ingredient too far! Technically, the cake wasn't a complete success either - it was a very liquid batter, which meant the apple pieces sank, and it was just a little too moist. It might have been more successful baked as a more shallow cake and served warm as a dessert!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons whiskey
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 apples (200g once diced, skin on) - Pink Lady recommended, but I used Jazz, and only needed 1 1/2 apples.
40g plain (70% cocoa solids) chocolate
2 large eggs
160g caster sugar
120g/130ml vegetable oil - I used sunflower
150g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg - about 1/3 of a whole nutmeg
1 teaspoon fennel seeds - ground in a pestle and mortar
a pinch of table salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare a 2lb/900ml loaf tin.
Mix the whiskey with the lemon juice and zest. Cut the apples into 1cm cubes, leaving the skin on, and toss them in the whiskey mixture to stop them discolouring.
Chop the chocolate into slivers - I shaved pieces off the block with a heavy knife to get flecks of chocolate - and put in the fridge to chill.
In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs until light and fluffy, then slowly whisk in the oil to make an emulsion.
Fold in the flour, baking powder, spices and salt with a spoon, then stir in the apple mixture (with the liquid) and finally the chocolate flecks.
Transfer the batter to the loaf tin and bake for about 55 minutes, turning after 35 minutes to give an even bake.
Cool in the tin for 15 minutes before removing.

Pistachio and Cranberry Loaf Cake

The first thing I'm going to say about this cake is that the flavour is amazing! I knew it was going to be something special when I scraped the last of the raw batter from the mixing bowl, just to get an idea of what it tasted like. The name of the cake doesn't do enough justice to the flavours within - as well as pistachios and dried cranberries there was lime, fennel seeds, cardamom and vanilla, which combined to make something unlike any of the constituent parts - I love it when that happens!

The recipe wasn't perfect and there are things I would change next time, but I thought I'd get the praise in first, as the nitpicking doesn't detract from what a great cake it was. I didn't realise when I decided to make the cake, that it was a recipe from Honey & Co, who specialise in Middle Eastern cooking. I can't find the recipe anywhere online - although if you have a subscription to the online Financial Times, I believe it was published there - but there is a book 'Honey & Co: The Baking Book', which is now on my 'must have' list, even if it doesn't contain this particular recipe!

Ingredients

200g SR flour
1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
5 cardamom pods - ground to a powder with the pods
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
100g whole pistachios, peeled
150g dried cranberries
zest of 2 limes
150g butter
150g caster sugar (the recipe specified golden)
2 eggs (I used large)
100g jam (the recipe specified a red jam such as raspberry or cherry)
the juice of 1 lime
about a tablespoon of demerara sugar to sprinkle on top (I used crushed raw sugar cubes)

The cake is made by the traditional method of creaming the softened butter and sugar together, with the lime zest and vanilla, then slowly adding the eggs. All other dry ingredients are added to the flour, then folded into the batter, then finally the juice of the lime and the jam is folded in. After the batter is levelled in the baking tin, the surface is scattered with demerara sugar, then the cake is baked at 160C in a large (1kg/2lb) loaf tin, for about 60 minutes, turning halfway through cooking so that it bakes evenly. Cool in the tin.

I baked at 160C in a conventional oven, and the cake took over 90 minutes to bake, so I think the temperature given must be for a fan oven ie 180C in a conventional oven. Things I did differently: I used the pistachios as they came from the pack (do they really need peeling?) and chopped them roughly rather than leaving them whole, and because I didn't check my storecupboard properly, I had to use apricot jam. Things I'd do differently next time - take the pods away from the cardamom seeds - they didn't grind to a powder very well in my spice grinder and left little bits of husk in the mixture; add the juice of the second lime, as the batter was quite thick, and the limes were small.

The cake was a little crumbly the first day it was made, but settled down overnight to something a bit firmer. The extra lime juice might have made it a bit less inclined to crumble, and a little more moist - the slight dryness is the only criticism I have (apart from the lack of clarity over the baking temperature).