Torta Colombina, as I have called it, is an intensely orange-flavoured cake, with a topping of almonds and sugar that is crunchy on top and slightly squidgy underneath. It was inspired by the Italian Easter bread, Colomba Pasquale, which is similar to panettone, but baked in the shape of a dove. The real thing uses a brioche-like dough, and whilst it is certainly worth the 18 or more hours it takes to make, I wanted to devise something that evoked some of its flavours and textures but was quicker and easier to make.

I struggled to find a name for this cake that summed it up without being too prosaic or lengthy, and in the end went for the exotic-sounding Torta Colomba, which in Italian would most naturally mean dove-like cake, but could also mean Colomba-like cake. I hope any Italians reading this will forgive me!

The Clandestine Cake Club is the brainchild of Lynn Hill, a lovely lady of seemingly boundless energy, enthusiasm and dedication. In December 2010, ten bakers got together in a secret location to share the cakes they had made and brought along, all without any hint of judging each others efforts. The idea clearly chimed with the renewed national enthusiasm for baking, and since then the excitement on social media and widespread coverage in the press, on television and radio have all fuelled the extraordinary growth of the club, and there are now well nearly 200 groups all over the UK and in far flung parts of the globe, with more groups being created every week.

In early 2012, just after I had signed up as a member, Lynn put out the call for recipes for a Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook. I don’t often make big cakes, and one of my reasons for joining the club was to encourage me to make more. But as it happens I had just made this cake, and so I tentatively submitted it to Lynn. To my surprise she loved it. The rest, as they say, is history.

I know that Lynn has put an enormous amount of work into making the book a reality, and she and the publishers, Quercus (who also published the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series!) must be delighted with the results. It is a handsome book, with 120 recipes for cakes ranging from the familiar to the exotic, almost every one illustrated with a beautiful photograph.

Waterstones are holding a number of book launch events all over the country. You may find there is one in your area. As well as taking a look at the book, you will be able to meet members of your local CCC group, and sample some of their cakes. Who knows, you may even be inspired to join up and get baking cakes!

Ingredients

For the Cakes

• 175g soft unsalted butter
• The finely grated zest of 2 oranges
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon (a few drops) bitter almond extract
• 3 medium eggs
• 2 medium egg yolks (save the whites for the topping)
• 175g self raising flour
• 50g ground almonds

For the Topping

• 80g ground almonds
• 80g icing sugar (vanilla if possible)
• 2 egg whites
• 30-40g whole almonds
• 30-40g pearl/nibbed sugar (or crushed sugar cubes)

For the Filling

(Double these quantities if you want to coat the sides of the cake as well as filling it)

• 75g good quality orange curd
• 75g icing sugar

• Two 18cm loose-bottomed sandwich tins, about 4cm deep

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas Mark 4 (adjust for fan oven). Butter the sandwich tins, and line with baking parchment.

Beat the butter with the orange zest and caster sugar until light and creamy. Mix in the almond and vanilla extracts, then add the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and adding a little flour if the mixture starts to curdle.

Using a large metal spoon, fold in the ground almonds, followed by the flour. You should now have a light, but stiff mixture. Divide this equally between the sandwich tins and level the surface.

For the topping, mix together the ground almonds, sifted icing sugar and egg whites to make a rough paste. Dot this over the surface of one of the cakes, and then spread it out carefully, disturbing the sponge mixture underneath as little as possible. Scatter the whole almonds on top, followed by the nibbed sugar.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the uncoated cake is well risen, firm to the touch, and coming away from the edge of the tin. Leave the topped one in for 5-10 minutes longer, until the topping is a light golden brown colour all over. It may still be moist and sticky below the crunchy surface, so if you are testing the cake for doneness with a skewer just make sure there is none of the yellow sponge mixture on it.

Leave in the tins for 10 minutes before removing and cooling on a wire rack. With some careful juggling, you should be able to get the topped cake clear of its tin and lining without turning it over and so risking cracking the crust.

To make the filling, mix the orange curd with the sifted icing sugar. Add a little more curd or icing sugar as required to get a consistency like butter icing. Sandwich the cakes together, and if desired, ice the sides of the cake as well. Dust the top very lightly with icing sugar, to give a frosted effect to the almonds.

Notes

You do need deep sandwich tins for this cake. If they are less than 4cm deep, line the sides with a collar of baking parchment of that height.

You might be tempted to make the cake mix using the all in one method, but such mixtures tend to have a looser texture, and this could make it dificult to spread the topping on top.

You can make your own vanilla icing sugar by putting some icing sugar in an airtight container with a vanilla pod (you can use one you have scraped the seeds out of).

The cake made and photographed for the book is simply sandwiched with the filling. In the one shown above, I decided to coat the sides of the cake with the filling mixture as well (and so made a double quantity of the filling). I’ll confess that I did this to rescue the look of the cake, as I had been rather clumsy in removing the cakes from their tins and one ended up with chunks missing from its side.

I Baci di Dama sono l’oggetto della sfida di questo mese su Quanti Modi di Fare e Rifare, il gruppo on-line di cucina al quale sono stato felice di aver partecipato per quasi un anno. La ricetta è stata fornita da Artù, il cui bellissimo blog merita una visita per i tanti tipi di specialità regionali che ci regala. Lei ci informa che “i baci di dama sono dolcetti tipici Piemontesi, furono chiamati così perchè la loro forma creata con due calotte semisferiche ricordavano le labbra intente a baciare”.

Non sono sicuro che questo sia vero nel caso delle mie due versioni di Baci. Quelli a base di nocciole assomigliano più alla faccia di Kermit il Ranocchio. E quelli a base di arancia e mandorle mi ricordano più un sorriso imbarazzato che un invito a baciare. Ma non importa, sono deliziosi, e hanno un odore intenso di nocciole tostate o di arancia, che ti seduce anche da lontano. Nessun bisogno di labbre gonfiate qui!

Vorrei ringraziare Artù e Mamma Angela per la ricetta, e Anna e Ornella per tutto quello che fanno per organizzare e sopportare le sfide di Quanti Modi di Fare e Rifare.

Buon Anno a tutti!

Baci di Dama Tradizionali (più o meno)

Adattata dalla ricetta di Artù e Mamma Angela. Ho dimezzata la ricetta, e sostituito la farina bianca con quella di riso, come suggerito da David Lebovitz, per rendere i biscotti  più croccanti.

Ingredienti

• 125g g di nocciole tostate e pelate
• 125g di zucchero
• 150g di farina di riso
• Un grosso pizzico di sale
• 100g di burro
• (facoltativo) 2 cucchiaini di Fratello (liquore di nocciola)

• Circa 75g di cioccolato fondente

Nel robot (o a mano), sminuzzare finemente le nocciole con lo zucchero. Mettere in una ciotola con la farina, il sale, il burro e il liquore, e amalgamare con le mani fino ad ottenere un impasto più o meno sbricioloso. Se bisogna, aggiungere qualche cucchiaino di acqua per farlo più coerente.

Formare piccole palline (di 6-8g) e disporle su teglie foderate con carta da forno alla distanza di circa 2cm.

Cuocere a 160C (ridurre per forno ventilato) per 15-20 minuti, finché la base sarà leggermente dorata. Lasciare raffreddare in teglia.

Far fondere a bagnomaria il cioccolato fondente, lasciare addensare, poi accoppiare i biscotti con il cioccolato.

“Baci” all’Arancia e Mandorle

• 135g di mandorle pelate e leggermente tostate
• 100g di zucchero
• 135g di farina bianca
• Un grosso pizzico di sale
• 135g di burro
• La scorza finemente grattugiata di 1 arancia
• 1/4 di cucchiaino di estratto di vaniglia
• (Facoltativo) 1/4 di cucchiaino di estratto di mandorla amara

• Circa 75g di cioccolato, bianco o al latte

Nel robot, macinare le mandorle e lo zucchero fino ad ottenere una polvere fine.  Mettere in una ciotola con la farina, il sale, il burro, la scorza grattugiata e gli estratti, e amalgamare con le mani fino ad ottenere un impasto morbido.

Formare un disco di circa 2cm di spessore, avvolgere nella pellicola e raffredare in frigorifero per un’ora.

Tagliare dei pezzetti di circa 6g e formare delle palline. Disporle su teglie foderate con carta da forno, a distanza di almeno 2cm.

Mettere le teglie nel frigorifero per altri 30 minuti.

Cuocere a 160C (ridurre per forno ventilato) per 15-20 minuti, finché la base sarà leggermente dorata. Lasciare raffreddare in teglia.

Far fondere a bagnomaria il cioccolato bianco o al latte, lasciare addensare, poi accoppiare i biscotti con il cioccolato.

Nota

Se non avete un robot, va bene la farina di mandorle leggermente tostata.

Baci di Dama, or Lady’s Kisses, are a speciality of the Italian region of Piemonte. Crunchy and nutty, and sandwiched with chocolate, they are traditionally made with hazelnuts, but are also often made with almonds. I couldn’t decide which I fancied most, so I decided to try both.

The name derives from their supposed resemblance to a pair of lips preparing for a kiss. I have to say that I’m not too convinced by that at the best of times, but I certainly don’t think I would be rushing to kiss lips that looked like the biscuits I made. The hazelnut ones may have had something of the classic rounded shape, but reminded me more of Kermit the Frog than anything else, and the almond ones were distinctly flat, more like a sheepish smile than a pucker.

But I had no doubts about their eating qualities. The hazelnut ones had a lovely nutty aroma and a satisfyingly crunchy texture, with the taste of chocolate praline, while the almond ones were more delicate, with a rich orangey flavour and undertones of vanilla and almond. They would seduce you from afar with their perfume alone.

To see how luscious these kissing lips can be, pop over to La Casa di Artù. Artù’s recipe was the subject of this month’s challenge for the Italian cooking group Quanti Modi di Fare e Rifare of which I have been delighted to be a member for almost a year now. My thanks to Artù and Mamma Angela for their recipe, and as ever to Anna and Ornella, the indefatigable organisers of Quanti Modi.

Hazelnut Baci di Dama

Adapted from Artù and Mamma Angela’s recipe. Artù used almonds, as she is allergic to hazelnuts (a great pity, given that she comes from Piemonte, the home of some of the best hazelnuts in the world!).

I followed David Lebovitz in using rice flour, which adds to the crunchiness of the biscuits and also makes them gluten-free.

Makes approximately 30

• 125g toasted skinned hazelnuts (see note below)
• 125g granulated sugar
• 150g rice flour (or plain white flour)
• A large pinch of fine sea salt
• 100g unsalted butter
• (Optional) 2 teaspoons of hazelnut liqueur (I used Fratello)

• About 75g plain chocolate

• 2 baking trays lined with baking parchment

Pulse the hazelnuts and sugar in a food processor until they have a texture somewhere between fine sand and coarse polenta (the exact texture is not crucial). Go carefully, and stop if the mixture shows any signs of becoming oily.

Put into a bowl with the flour and salt then rub in the butter roughly. Add the liqueur (if using) then squeeze the mixture with your fingers until it comes together into a dough. You may need to add a little water. The dough will be more or less crumbly depending on how finely you ground the nuts.

Preheat the oven to 160C (adjust for fan).

Make little balls from the dough, about the size of a small marble (6-8g). Place them on the baking tray about 2cm apart.

Bake for 15- 20 minutes, until lightly coloured on top and golden brown at the base. Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Allow it to cool and thicken up, then use small blobs of it to sandwich the biscuits together.

To skin and toast hazelnuts.

Hazelnuts are distinctly dull or even a bit unpleasant in their natural state, so I would definitely recommend skinning and toasting them.

Heat your oven to 180C (adjust for fan). Spread the nuts out on a baking tray and roast for about 10 minutes or so, or until the skins have darkened and cracked and the nuts themselves are a rich golden brown colour. Check them regularly as they can go quickly from well done to overdone and bitter.

Tip the nuts onto a tea towel and gather up the corners like a bag. Put your oven gloves on, hold the bag closed with one hand and rub vigorously with the other. This should remove most of the skins, but don’t worry if some skin remains or a few nuts refuse to be skinned at all. Pick the nuts out of the debris.

Almond and Orange Kisses

These have a lighter, more delicate texture than the hazelnut ones, and are deliciously flavoured and scented with orange, with subtle hints of vanilla and almond. I particularly like them sandwiched with white chocolate, but milk chocolate works well too. They are also very nice “au naturel”.

Makes about 35

• 135g toasted blanched almonds (see note below) or toasted ground almonds
• 100g granulated sugar
• 135g white flour
• A large pinch of fine sea salt
• 135g unsalted butter
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• (Optional) 1/4 teaspoon bitter almond extract

• About 75g chocolate (milk or white)

• 2 baking trays lined with baking parchment

Pulse the almonds and sugar in a food processor until you have a fine powder. Go carefully, and stop if the mixture shows any signs of going oily. If using ready ground almonds, simply mix them with the sugar.

Put into a bowl with the flour and salt then rub in the butter roughly. Add orange zest, vanilla extract and bitter almond extract (if using), then squeeze the mixture with your fingers until it comes together into a soft dough.

Pat the dough into a 2cm thick disk, wrap in cling film, and chill for about an hour.

Take pieces of dough the size of a small marble (6g) and form into balls. Place at least 2cm apart on the baking trays. Return the trays to the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 160C (adjust for fan).

Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly coloured on top and golden brown at the base. Leave to cool for at least 5 minutes then transfer carefully to a cooling rack.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Allow it to cool and thicken up, then use small blobs of it to sandwich the biscuits together.

To blanch and toast almonds

Unlike hazelnuts, almonds are perfectly nice with their skins on and raw, but blanching (skinning) and toasting them does add something special to their flavour.

To skin the almonds, cover them with boiling water and leave for about 5 minutes. You will then be able to pop them out of their skins by squeezing them gently between your fingers.

To toast them, spread them out on a baking tray and put them in a preheated oven at 180C (adjust for fan) for 5-10 minutes, or until they are a light brown colour (not as dark as for hazelnuts). Check them regularly as they can go quickly from well done to overdone and bitter.

You can toast ground almonds in a similar way. They will need less time than whole nuts.

These Jammie Dodgers, Bourbons and Custard Creams are far more exciting than those that you would find on the supermarket shelves. With the possible exception of the Custard Creams, they look much more glamorous than their commercial counterparts, and they smell good too. They have a delicate, light, crunchy texture and, last but not least, are richly flavoured.

Someone once declared, after sampling one of the Jammie Dodgers, that it was the best biscuit she had ever eaten. Of course, such high praise could not occur without a great recipe to work from. This one will be found in Pam Corbin’s “Cakes”, which is one of the River Cottage Handbooks. As it happens, the recipe has also been published on the Guardian website. So I will confine myself to giving you some observations and hints based on my experience of making the biscuits.

General Notes

All three biscuits are made from variations on the same dough. It is very soft and needs to be well chilled before you attempt to roll it out. When you take it out of the fridge it will probably be too hard to work with, but a little gentle pressing and squashing should soften if up sufficiently.

I roll the dough between two sheets of cling film, with no extra flour. You might think the cling film would stick to itself, but it doesn’t, and you can re-use the same sheets several times.

To get the thickness even, I use some home made spacers. Although I also own some commercially produced “marzipan spacers”, these particular ones are simply lengths of 4mm thick wooden moulding. I place them on either side of the dough as I roll. Once the rolling pin grounds on these I know the dough is the right thickness.

I chill the rolled biscuits well, to help them keep their shape in the oven. I put them in the freezer on their baking tray for 10 minutes or so, but 20-30 minutes in the fridge would do just as well.

I bake the biscuits at 150C fan, and find they don’t need as long as suggested in the recipe, in fact only about 15 minutes in total. So I’d suggest you check them regularly. They won’t object to the oven being opened.

Jammie Dodgers

I use a 5.5cm plain round cutter and I get nearly double the 6 or 7 biscuits suggested in the recipe.

I dust the tops of the biscuits with vanilla caster sugar just before they go in the oven.

Bourbons

The suggested quantify of cocoa results in biscuits that are too strongly flavoured for my taste, so I now use 10g less. This still produces very chocolaty biscuits, with a flavour more like a brownie than a regular Bourbon.

I use a skewer, rather than a fork, to prick the biscuits, making two rows of holes along each biscuit. I think this looks more “authentic”, although I’ve since realised that strickly speaking there should be five holes on each side and not four.

I sprinkle the biscuits with granulated sugar just before baking.

It is hard to judge when these dark coloured biscuits are baked. I give them the same time as the Jammie Dodgers, roughly 15 minutes.

Custard Creams

Despite their rather plain appearance, these are still quite delicious.

I was concerned that the use of raw custard powder in the butter icing might result in a raw flavour, but this was not the case.

Happy New Year!

To view the gallery, click on any of the images below.

As it happens, I have done quite a bit of preserving in my time, but for various reasons I had fallen out of the habit. But on a recent holiday, I bought a jar of a rather lovely ginger curd, and have since been unable to find anything similar in the shops. So that was another incentive to don my preserving hat once more.

This curd has a quite mild ginger flavour, so it is best eaten with something that is not too robustly flavoured. My picture shows it with buttered white toast, made with delicious yellow-crumbed bread from Altamura in Puglia. I really enjoyed it spread on one of my Rowies. You could make some unusual “jam” tarts with it, which would be especially good if you used a rich buttery pastry. It would be nice simply dolloped on top of vanilla ice cream. No doubt you can think of lots of other possibilities.

The round up of recipes for Tea Time Treats will be found on What Kate Baked… from 1st November. Many thanks to Kate and also to Karen of Lavender and Lovage for organising this event, and for getting me preserving again!

Ingredients

Makes about 600g of curd

• 50ml syrup from preserved stem ginger
• 150g preserved stem ginger (drained weight)
• Juice of 1 lemon, strained
• 100g caster sugar
• 125g unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs

Method

Liquidise the ginger with the syrup and lemon juice. Remove or finely chop any chunks of ginger that refuse to liquidise. Pour into a large glass bowl and add the sugar and butter.

Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water, leaving at least 2.5cm between the bottom of the bowl and the surface of the water. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon or whisk until the sugar and butter have melted.

Beat the eggs and add them slowly to the bowl. Stir constantly for about 10 minutes, until the curd thickens.

Put into sterilised glass jars. Store in the refrigerator and use within a few weeks.

Notes

If you have a double boiler (or bain marie) pan, you could certainly use that. Some recipes suggest cooking the mixture in a single pan over a low heat, but I thought that in my hands that could be a recipe for ginger scrambled eggs (probably not very nice).

How soon you stop cooking after the mixture starts to thicken is a matter of taste and judgement. Bear in mind that it will thicken as it cools. If you want a runny curd, stop almost as soon as it starts thickening. For one that will stand up in peaks, continue until it is like a thick custard.

You can sieve the curd if you’d like a smoother texture.

I adapted the ingredient list from a recipe on Delia Online. The method was adapted from the recipe for Lemon Curd in Let’s Preserve It by Beryl Wood. Strangely, this wonderful book does not include Ginger Curd among its 579 recipes.

One of my favourite Aberdonian things were these rolls, which we always called Rowies, although their official name is Butteries.

Superficially they are like flat, round croissants, but really they are quite different. They have the same flakey exterior, but they have a distinctive flavour and smell, coming from the use of lard as well as butter to make the layers in the dough. They are also quite salty. The ones you buy in the shops contain much more salt than in this recipe, and are perhaps all the more tasty for that, but the high salt and fat content has led at least one celebrity doctor to call for them to be banned. I’d say don’t ban them, just don’t eat too many of them.

These rolls are delicious cold, or warm, or even toasted and spread with butter (yes, even more butter) and jam. They freeze well, and actually improve with keeping for a few days.

Ingredients

Makes 15 rolls

• 500g strong white flour
• 5g quick action yeast
• 15g soft light brown sugar
• 10g fine sea salt
• 350g warm water

• 250g salted butter (or use unsalted and add 5g fine sea salt)
• 125g lard

• Three 30x30cm baking sheets dusted liberally with flour

Method

To make the dough, mix together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Pour in the warm water and mix until combined. Turn out onto an unfloured surface and work or knead briefly, stopping as soon as the dough is smooth.

Return to the bowl, cover (with a shower cap or cling film) and leave to rise for about an hour until doubled in size.

Meanwhile, mix together the butter, lard (and salt, if using unsalted butter) until they are just soft enough to spread.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, flatten out into a disk, then reform into a ball. Roll it out into a rectangle 20 x 40cm. With the short edge towards you, dot a quarter of the butter over the nearest two thirds of the surface, then spread it out roughly. Fold the unbuttered third down over the middle and then fold the bottom third up over this.

Turn the folded dough so the shortest edge is towards you again, then repeat the rolling and buttering process three more times.

As you go you may need to scatter more flour on the work surface and/or the dough. If the butter is getting very soft, and especially if it breaks through the surface of the dough, chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Roll the dough out into a rectangle 30 x 50 cm and divide into 15 10cm squares. Don’t worry if they’re not all exactly the same size.

Take each piece and fold the four corners into the centre and press down to seal. Turn over and shape into a rough circle by tucking the edges under a little, then use your fingertips to prod the dough down and out to make a rough disk about 1cm thick. They should be thin and quite roughly shaped, with a dimpled surface.

Place on the well floured baking sheets. Cover with tea towels and leave to rise for about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220C (adjust for fan oven). Bake for about 15 minutes, until a lovely golden brown colour. Check them and turn the trays after 10 minutes.

Leave to cool on the trays for 5 minutes or so before transferring to cooling racks.

Mind you, I think I did inadvertently choose the most complicated recipe in the world. The process took hours and was extremely fiddly and frustrating. Icing the cakes was a nightmare, and after I had finally managed to get them covered I thought they looked dreadful. Feeling rather despondent, I set them aside to dry. But to my surprise, after I had put a few dashes and swirls of icing and some flowers and baubles on top, and placed them in cake cases, they looked a whole lot better, even quite pretty. They tasted good too. But I was still not convinced they were worth all the time and effort I had put into making them.

Now, if I found it so challenging to make these, in the comfort of my own home, with as much time as I liked at my disposal, imagine how difficult it must have been for the Bake Off men, with the accumulated pressure of having minimal instructions, a tight deadline, cameras watching their every move, and presenters and frowning judges milling around and interrupting them with questions. Not to mention the stress and emotion of it being the Final. I did not envy them, and I’m not all surprised that their cakes did not really make the grade.

Mine may have turned out reasonably well, but at the time I swore never to make them again, and I would very possibly have told anyone else that they would be mad to try. However, I may now be prepared to give them one more shot. Sarah Trivuncic has recently published a lovely little book called Bake me I’m yours… sweet bitesize bakes in which she describes an unusual method for icing them that certainly sounds worth a try. As it happens her recipe has also been published on-line at Stitch Craft Create. I’ll be interested to hear if any of you are brave (or crazy) enough to give it a go.

Simple and effective you might say, which could well be my motto when it comes to presentation of my bakes. Nothing too fancy for me.

But at the same time, I love the challenge of difficult and sometimes, I must admit, time consuming techniques. And so I made my own puff pastry, and what’s more using the ultimate six-fold method for the first time. Call me crazy, but I find it very rewarding and in a funny way relaxing to make this pastry. But you could certainly use shop bought, Jus Rol all butter puff for instance. Even better, if you can find it, is the one from Dorset Pastry. This was even recommended by my baking guru Richard Bertinet.

I’ve given methods for two quantities of pastry below. The first is the quanty I actually used. The second is the usual quantity of shop bought puff pastry. As it happens it’s quite easy to scale the recipe up or down as required.

Ingredients

To make 16

• 300g butter puff pastry
• 120g caster vanilla caster sugar

To make 20

• 375g butter puff pastry
• 150g vanilla caster sugar

• Two or three baking sheets lined with baking parchment
• A ruler

Method

Dust your worktop generously with caster sugar, and roll the pastry slowly and gently into a rectangle, 50x16cm if you’re using 300g puff pastry, 50x20cm if you’re using 375g. To stop the pastry sticking, lift and move it every so often, and redistribute or add more sugar to the worktop if necessary. Check the dimensions regularly with your ruler, and pat the pastry into shape as required.

Having made your rectangle, dust it liberally with sugar and run the rolling pin gently over it to press the sugar into the surface. Use your ruler to identify the middle of the long sides and fold each short side inwards to meet at this point, leaving a slight gap in the middle of about .5cm.

Dust the newly exposed surfaces with sugar and fold these into the middle once more. Dust again, then fold one whole side over the top of the other one. Press together gently, wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about 30 minutes to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 220C (adjust for fan oven).

Use a sharp knife to cut the roll into 1cm slices. Place these cut side up on the lined baking sheets, leaving plenty of space between them (a bit further apart than in my photo as some of mine met up in the baking). Gently separate the two sides of each slice to leave a slight gap for them to expand into. Dust again with sugar.

As soon as they go in in the oven, turn the temperature down by 20 degrees. Give them 10-12 minutes until they are a light golden colour, then take them out and turn them over using a palette knife. Watch you don’t burn yourself on the hot sugar. When you return the trays to the oven, turn them round and swap them between shelves, so they brown more evenly. Give them another 7-10 minutes until they are a lovely rich golden colour on both sides.

Transfer them immediately to a wire rack. Do not put them on top of each other until their caramelised coating has set as they will stick to each other.

I adapted this recipe from the one in The Great British Bake Off - How to Bake the Perfect Victoria Sponge and Other Baking Secrets (aka the book for Series 2 of GBBO).

Notes

The palmiers will almost certainly expand and brown irregulary, as mine did. This doesn’t affect their eating qualities!

The usual advice is to trim the rectangle of pastry to the required size with a sharp knife. I thought that might be quite a challenge, not to mention wondering what to do with the trimmings. So I preferred to just try and roll it out to the right size. This was actually quite easy. I was prepared to have a couple of raggedy palmiers at each end of the roll, but this turned out not to be an issue, as any imperfections disappeared in the bake. I did however place the end slices with their cut sides upwards. If your roll is particulary uneven at the ends you could always neaten them up before doing the slicing.

I used a shop bought vanilla caster sugar (Fiddes and Payne – a bit pricey, but very tasty). Of course you could make your own (you probably do – shame on me for not doing so!).

Variations

These were very good sandwiched around cream and raspberries.

You could use ordinary caster sugar. I’ve seen recipes that specify icing sugar and also granulated sugar. These would produce a different result, but no doubt equally delicious.

You could mix ground cinnamon or cardamom into the sugar. You could brush the pastry with melted butter before dusting with sugar. You could scatter with ground almonds or other nuts, or grated citrus zest. The possibilities are endless. I shall certainly be exploring some of them.

An English version of this post will be found here.

Vi rimando al blog di Mamma Vittoria per la ricetta e per la storia dell’ amata signora Maria (credo che sciùra significhi signora nel dialetto lombardo).

La ricetta, l’ho seguita più o meno alla lettera, facendo solo un piccolo cambiamento e un paio di “interpretazioni”.

Il cambiamento è stato quello di utilizzare degli agrumi canditi al posto della mela, solo perché ne avevo vicini alla scadenza. Spero che la sciùra approverebbe. Comunque, la sostituzione ha funzionato molto bene, ma proverò con la mela la prossima volta.

Ho usato un burro salato per la copertura, del tipo di Bretagna che contiene piccoli fiocchi di sale marino. Questo l’ha resa un po’ simile al “caramello salato” (tanto popolare in Inghilterra in questo momento), specialmente nei piccoli “pozzi” nella superficie.

Ho usato 240g di acqua in totale, per fare un impasto molto morbido e appiccicoso, che ho lavorato a mano invece di usare la planetaria (perché mi piace fare così).

Voglio ringraziare Vittoria, e la sciùra Maria per averci fidato la ricetta. E questo meso, devo ringraziare più del solito Anna e Ornella di Quanti Modi, non solo per l’organizzazione di questo evento, ma anche per un favore che mi hanno fatto (che resterà il nostro segreto).

Alla prossima!