My Saturday baking

Some days are for full-blown baking projects, others are more a case of checking what you’ve got in the kitchen, then deciding what to bake. Today is straddling both camps.

We have another birthday coming up in the house and I’m back on cake making duty. This one defiantly falls into the project camp. A couple of weeks ago I made a tiramisu birthday cake and although I’m not repeating the whole thing I am going to make the genoise sponge that formed the base of it. I find a genoise forms the perfect first block of a celebratory cake. It’s light and delicate texture is ideal for adding cream, fruit and other indulgent things. I once saw it described as the little black dress of the cake world, perfect for accessorising. That may be a little over the top but I know where they were coming from.

The cake is named after the Italian city of Genoa and associated primarily with Italian and French cuisine. Ingredients wise it couldn’t be more straight forward, consisting of just flour, sugar, butter and eggs. There’s no additional raising agent involved as the process is all about getting as much air as possible into the batter as you make it.

The first step is to melt some butter in a saucepan and then set it aside to cool. Next, the eggs and sugar are combined in a bowl and whisked to bring them together. Then it’s a case of keeping going for at least another 10 minutes, you do need an electric whisk for this. You’re looking to get the mix to a consistency where if you lift the whisk out, any that drizzles back into the bowl sits on top of the mixture for a few seconds before slowly sinking back in.

Once this has been achieved the flour is sieved into the batter and then gently folded into the mixture. Gentle is the word here as you are trying to keep as much as possible of the air which you have created with the whisking. I find it easier to add the flour in about three stages. Finally pour in the melted butter and fold again. It’s then a case of spooning the mixture into a lined tin and baking for approximately 25 minutes in an oven that’s been preheated to gas mark 6.

I’ll be making one of these later this afternoon and if anyone fancies a bake along you’ll need 4 eggs, 40gm of butter and 125gm each of plain flour and caster sugar.

Todays ‘check, then decide bake’ was when I made some bread this morning. I’d had a request for some ‘picnic’ bread as the plan is to take advantage of the current heatwave and eat outside this evening. A quick check of the kitchen came up with some walnuts and blue cheese and the results are going to be eaten soon

Ingredients 

This makes one small loaf. Double everything up if you want something more substantial.

• 225gm Strong White Bread flour
• 25gm Wholemeal Bread flour
• 5gm dried yeast
• 5gm salt
• 175ml warm water
• 50gm chopped walnuts…if you don’t have walnuts most others can be substituted for them
• 50gm diced blue cheese… if you don’t have, or don’t like blue cheese, use whatever you have.

Method

• Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a bowl and mix. Add the  water and knead for a few minutes until a firm dough is forming. Add the walnuts and continue kneeing until fully combined.
• Let the dough prove in a warm place for approximately 90 minutes.
• After  the first prove stretch the dough out to a rectangle. Don’t go too thin as it will split. Sprinkle the cheese over the stretched dough. Then starting from one of the long sides of the rectangle roll the dough up so that all of the cheese is inside. Twist the rolled dough into a spiral and place it on a baking tray, leave to prove for another hour.
• Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 and bake for approximately 35 minutes.