Bunminola Bakes

Soul soothing

Posted on 18th Sep 2021 by Bunminola Bakes

Thursday night found me baking again. It soothes my soul. And at the moment I have a soul that does need soothing.

I made some madeleines a few weeks ago and I thought they were delicious. So it seemed like a good idea to make them again. Also I had a meeting with my trainee on Friday morning, face to face rather than virtual and I thought it would be nice to eat these while we worked through personal development plans (PDPs) and other necessary topics.

They came out nice. For some reason these ones seemed sweeter and stickier than I remember from the very first batch. Nevertheless they still retain their orangey 🍊 goodness. They went down well at my meeting and were a nice little afternoon snack before I drove home.

As I write, it’s Saturday and I’m back to feeling out of kilter again. A result of two days of commuting which is exhausting and other mini disasters that are happening in my life right now. Things that are making me question my very existence, who I am and how I am, what I say, what do, what I don’t say, what I don’t do. It is deeply unpleasant and unsettling. I did all that in my 20’s and 30’s but I suppose you are never too old to reflect on your place and space in the world. I also ought to remember the good things in life, of which there are many. Just need to look and stand and sit in gratitude.

This morning after a much needed lie-in , I decided that I’d better get up and try and make the best of the day. I came downstairs to find just one, just one (!) madeleine left on the plate – seems Ignacio took the rest for his lunch at work today. That’s OK, I’m glad he is enjoying them. It did mean that I needed find something else to eat, as in my head I had planned a breakfast of 2 madeleines and a pot of tea. Instead I had a small apple and orange and a bowl of cornflakes with the pot of tea. It was quite filling and fuelled me up for the morning.

My friend from Australia bought me a copy of Middlemarch for my birthday and I have just this week started reading it. I think he enjoyed the book and being lost in another world and thought it might do me good to do the same. He was not wrong. I have enjoyed going back in time to another place and society all the while enjoying the peace of my garden.

And so the madeleines have gone, until the next time I feel like grating oranges!

Au revoir…

Ingredients

2 eggs
85 g caster sugar
2 tsp clear honey
4 cardamom pods, seeds only, ground finely using a pestle and mortar
2 unwaxed oranges, finely grated zest only
90 g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
90 g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100 g ground almonds
1 pinch fine sea salt
0.5 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), for dusting (optional)

Method

Put the eggs and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat together until pale and creamy.
Add the honey, ground cardamom and orange zest, and mix well.
Incorporate the melted butter, followed by the flour, ground almonds, salt and baking powder. Mix until evenly combined, then stir in the milk.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight, if you wish).
Preheat the oven to 200°C/392°F/gas mark 6.
Melt a little butter and, using a pastry brush, brush the recesses of a madeleine mould generously with it, then dust with a little flour, shaking off any excess.
Transfer 1 tablespoon (not too heaped) of the batter into each of the mould’s recesses.
Bake for 10–12 minutes, until nicely golden brown.
Once cool enough to touch, remove from the moulds. Repeat with any remaining batter.
Dust the madeleines with a little icing sugar, if desired, and serve immediately.

Reference: Sabrina Ghayour – Bazaar

Kilter

Posted on 15th Sep 2021 by Bunminola Bakes

Ingredients

unsalted butter 150g, melted, plus extra for the tin
eggs 3
caster sugar 175g
vanilla extract 1 tsp
plain flour 175g
baking powder 1 tsp
ras el hanout 1 heaped tbsp
buttermilk 150ml

TOPPING

icing sugar 75g, sifted
rosewater 2-3 tsp
dried edible rose petals to decorate (optional)

Method

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 and butter and line a 900g loaf tin with baking paper.
Put the eggs and sugar into a large mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to beat together until smooth. Beat in the vanilla, flour, melted butter, baking powder and ras el hanout, and mix until smooth. Add the buttermilk and combine well.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55 minutes or until cooked through and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.
To make the icing, put the sugar in a small bowl and gradually add the rosewater until smooth and drizzle-able. Once the cake has cooled, smooth the icing over the top. Sprinkle over the rose petals, to serve, if you like.

Orange, almond and cardamom madeleines

Posted on 31st Aug 2021 by Bunminola Bakes

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These madeleines are simply delicious. There aren’t really any other words for them. I made them last night after work.

They made for a lovely snack after dinner and a light breakfast with a cup of tea.

Ingredients

2 eggs
85 g caster sugar
2 tsp clear honey
4 cardamom pods, seeds only, ground finely using a pestle and mortar
2 unwaxed oranges, finely grated zest only
90 g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
90 g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100 g ground almonds
1 pinch fine sea salt
0.5 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), for dusting (optional)

Method

Put the eggs and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat together until pale and creamy.
Add the honey, ground cardamom and orange zest, and mix well.
Incorporate the melted butter, followed by the flour, ground almonds, salt and baking powder. Mix until evenly combined, then stir in the milk.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight, if you wish).
Preheat the oven to 200°C/392°F/gas mark 6.
Melt a little butter and, using a pastry brush, brush the recesses of a madeleine mould generously with it, then dust with a little flour, shaking off any excess.
Transfer 1 tablespoon (not too heaped) of the batter into each of the mould’s recesses.
Bake for 10–12 minutes, until nicely golden brown.
Once cool enough to touch, remove from the moulds. Repeat with any remaining batter.
Dust the madeleines with a little icing sugar, if desired, and serve immediately.

Reference: Sabrina Ghayour – Bazaar

Ras el hanout and buttermilk sweet loaf cake with rose icing

Posted on 31st Aug 2021 by Bunminola Bakes

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Bank Holiday Monday found me very low in mood and doubled down with a horrible migraine. I’m not sure why the two arrived at the same time. Maybe hormones or maybe a critical mass of minor life events. In any case I could not persuade my mind or my body that I needed to open the curtains or get out of bed. It wasn’t until I got a call from my mother telling me she was close to my house that I found the energy to move, put on clothes and make it downstairs.

It was as ever lovely to see my mum. She’d trekked across town to where I now live (which I lovingly call ‘the middle of nowhere’) to see if she could make the journey using public transport. Turns out that perhaps a Bank Holiday Monday was not the best time to do that but somehow through the kindness of strangers she made it.

I had not really prepared anything for her to eat, although there was plenty of food in the house. So I was feeling a little bit like a bad hostess, not helping my mood or my migraine. So I thought the least I could do was make a cake.

So I did.

I’d been looking through Sabrina Ghayour’s recipe book Bazaar earlier this week, wanting to find some inspiration for dinner. It was a fruitful exercise. I found a number of manageable recipes – mains, snacks and desserts and I’ve kept a digital note of them. This ras el hanout loaf cake jumped out at me because I was intrigued by a recipe that would put spices in a cake. Ras el hanout is a fairly new spice to my palate , I’ve only really started using it, more recently in a chickpea and cous cous recipe form Honey and Co which is now my go to recipe when guests come round. This thought of it a cake, was mind bending.

It was an easy enough recipe to make but seems that cooking with a migraine is perhaps a little distracting for me and I missed out an egg from the recipe. Only when I’d put the mixture in the oven and was wiping down the counters, did I notice the single egg, sad and alone in the ceramic blue egg holder. For a moment I did think of taking out the mixture from oven, cracking the egg into it and putting it back again. I think common sense prevailed and I carried on tidying up.

The finished product seemed just fine one egg down, in my opinion, lovely soft, moist texture. What I did struggle with in the end was the intense taste of the rose icing. I keep forgetting that a little goes a long way. And this went far, overwhelming in many ways. But somehow just OK with this particular cake with spice. And how was cake with spice? Very nice. Very nice. It was warm and comforting. Just the thing with a cup of tea to lift my mood and the migraine. I could feel the dark clouds rolling away for more cake I ate and tea I sipped. My mum liked the cake, which was a bonus. Between us we finished half the cake over the course of the evening.

So I’m quite pleased with this. It will make for a nice breakfast tomorrow morning. I’ll make it again, maybe titrate the rose icing a bit to suit my palate but it’s a winner for me.