Tag Archives: jam

Dairy-free birthday cake

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Last week, I’ve been asked to make a dairy free birthday cake. I started to look around for recipes but soon realised that all of them were just a normal cake recipe only with dairy free margarine instead of butter.

It seems that in the uk, people are really used to using magarine in their baking, in France, it would just be shocking; it’s full fat butter or.. nothing.

So as a French lady, it’s how I bake. I only recently started to use half vegetable fat in some of my pastry recipes (as taught by my mother in law).It was really easy to find good dairy free margarine – so I was off!

I made a regular Madeira cake (you find the recipe anywhere, it’s practically always the same), using the contents of a vanilla pod for flavouring. The batter looked and smelled normal.

I was really scared as I took it out of the oven as the wait to cool down seemed soooo long but after cutting the top (to make it flat) and tasting it, I was relieved. It tasted just like a normal cake.

You might be thinking “well yeah, of course it worked, you French woman, I use magarine all the time in my cakes” but for me, it was something expected!!!

After some “marzipaning” and decorating, here is the final result.

Mylène

(Sort of) Chelsea buns

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Like a lot of people, I watched this year’s series of The Great British bake off.

One of the last recipes shown was the Chelsea bun. I never tried that kind of buns before so I decided to give it a go.

I read the complete recipe before I made it. (I didn’t really know if I had all the ingredients for the filling but thought it would be ok anyway) so when I had to prepare the filling, I read: dried apricots, raisins, dried cranberries, I realized I only had the raisins… I also didn’t have apricot jam to glaze them.
Actually, I had but when I opened the jar, it did the “fizzzzz” , like when you open a bottle of lemonade, so I wisely decided not the use it.

So I changed the apricots into dates, the cranberries into pecan nuts (my ultimate favourite) and the apricot jam into cherry jam.
I didn’t really fancy the icing on the top so I decided to go without it.

At the end, I was really happy I changed the recipe. The nuts give something else to the bun, the cherry jam makes them look so good.
Anyway, here’s the recipe.

For 12 buns, you’ll need:

– 500g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
– 1 tsp salt
– 7g of fast-acting yeast
– 300ml of milk
– 40g of butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
– 1 free-range egg
– 40g of sugar

For the filling:

– 30g of butter
– 75g of sugar
– 2tsp of cinnamon
– 100g of raisins
– 100g of pecans
– 100g of chopped dates

For the glaze:

– 1 tblsp of cherry jam, melted

Start by making the dough with all the ingredients, knead it for 5 to 10 min until elastic and smooth.

Leave it to rise in a warm place, uncovered for 1 hour.

After rising, put the dough back on the worktop, roll it out to get a big rectangle in front of you (about 40cm by 30cm).
Stick the end in front of you to the worktop by pushing it on it, this will make it easier to roll the buns.

Spread the butter on your rectangle, then the sugar and cinnamon and then your fruits and nuts. Press gently on them to make it stick to the dough.

Start to roll out that “sheet” towards you, you have to do it quite tight. You should end up with a big sausage like dough.

Cut that into 12 portions, and lay them on a baking tray, lined with baking paper and buttered. The buns shouldn’t touch each other yet.

Leave it for at least an other hour to rise. After that hour, the buns should start to join.

Bake for 25min, 200°C or until golden brown.

Brush each bun with the warm jam.

Eat warm or cold.

Mylène