Oooh I love the sharpness of lemon drizzle cake – the sharpness contrasting with the sweet tender crumb, the sticky syrup that drenches it and I’m helpless to resist crystallised rose petals and violets. This is a Nigella Lawson recipe and it works perfectly every time.

I haven’t got a picture of it sliced because I made it for Alex’s school Summer Fair ‘Guess the weight of the cake’ competition. I was about to start when it hit me. It’s a loaf cake made in a 450g tin. Oh dear. That would kind of give the weight away, non? So I got out my long tin (30x11cm), did 1½ quantity and all was well.

Preheat the oven to GM4/180C/350F and grease and line your tin, bringing the paper just above the top of the tin so you can pull it out when it’s cooked. The original recipe is for a 450g tin measuring 23x13x7cm. Mine is 30x11x7cm and takes 1½ the amount.

Zest your lemon and put to one side. My friend Emily sent me this microplane grater from the States. It’s nice to think about Em everytime you grate something – I recommend it.

Cream together the butter and sugar then very gradually add the beaten eggs and zest

Once that’s all combined, add the flour and a pinch of salt and the milk. Spoon into the lined tin and put in the oven for 45-60 mins, depending on your tin size.

Towards the end of the cooking time, put your lemon juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan

and heat very gently, whisking to dissolve the sugar.

Once the cake is golden brown and a cocktail stick comes out clean, remove from the oven and pierce all over with the cocktail stick or a skewer.

Transfer the syrup to a jug (makes the drizzle more of a drizzle than a dirty great tidal wave) and carefully, evenly pour over the cake. Pay plenty of attention to the middle so that it doesn’t just soak round the sides.

Let it sit in the tin and start to soak all the syrup up

At this point, I decided to harness the power of the sticky syrup and pressed my crystallised rose and violet bits to the top. Let it sit in the tin until completely cold.

A very pretty, very delicious cake.

—-

Lemon Syrup Drizzle Cake
adapted from Nigella Lawson’s recipe

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Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F
Grease and line a tin measuring 30x11x7cm *original quantity for 450g tin at bottom*

190g unsalted butter
265g caster sugar
3 large eggs
zest of 2-3 lemons (depending on size)
265g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
6 tblsp milk

Syrup:
juice of 2-3 lemons
150g icing sugar (in fact, I only had 120g and it made no difference)

crystallised rose and violet petals to decorate

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs and lemon zest.
Gently add the flour and salt, then the milk.
Spoon into the lined tin and bake for 55-60 mins – until golden and risen.

Towards the end of the baking time, put the lemon juice and icing sugar into a small saucepan and heat to melt the sugar. Transfer to a jug for easier drizzling.

Once the cake is cooked, remove from the oven and pierce all over with a cocktail stick or wooden skewer. Don’t stab it to death, but equally, be sure to pierce it all over.
Carefully, slowly and evenly pour the syrup all over the cake, giving it time to absorb the syrup.
If desired, press pieces of crystallised rose and violet petals on top.
Cool completely in the tin.
This cake keeps well if it gets the chance.

* Original recipe quantities for a 450g tin measuring 23x13x7cm*
125g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1-2 lemons
175g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
4 tblsp milk

syrup:
juice of 1-2 lemons (about 4 tblsp)
100g icing sugar

Sticky cinnamon buns. A yeasted dough, curled up around a buttery, sugared, cinnamon filling, sporting a buttery, maple and golden syrup top. Did I mention the pecans too? Far, far less intimidating to make than it might appear, these are wow. Just wow.

Combine bread flour, sugar, salt and easy blend yeast in a large bowl.

Melt unsalted butter into milk and let it cool to blood temperature

Add two beaten eggs to the jug and stir it all into the flour mix

Remove from the bowl and on to a floured surface then knead for 10 minutes

until smoother and elastic

Put into a large, oiled bowl. Cover it and let it rise somewhere warm for around an hour.

Whilst it’s rising, make the filling – put soft unsalted butter into a bowl with light brown and caster sugar – not forgetting 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Mmmmmmmmmm

and mix together to make the most heavenly scented paste

You’ll need a buttery syrup too – this is soft unsalted butter, light brown sugar and maple and golden syrup

all combined and ready to distribute amongst the muffin tins

So let’s do that. Now, depending on how large you like your buns (so to speak), you will distribute the syrup accordingly. The original recipe calls for 12 buns, therefore you would share the syrup amongst the 12 holes of the muffin tin. We, however, (and you won’t see this statement on my website very often) actually find them to be too big.

I know. Sit down and take a moment. I actually cut them smaller. Not only were they a bit big – that is, it was like having a meal rather than a snack – but in the oven they outgrew the muffin tins to the point of looking, frankly a bit silly and misshapen.

I aim to make the slices about 1″, which generally yields a very precise 17 buns. You have to laugh don’t you?

So, I smear 17 holes of 2 muffin tins with about 1 tsp of butter syrup, then share 100g chopped pecans amongst them. I left a couple devoid of pecans because Alex has taken against nuts.

If you’re not sure how many buns you want to make until you’ve seen their potential size, do this after you’ve sliced the dough.

Here’s the risen dough

Knock it down and on to a lightly floured surface again.

Knead it a few times just to get rid of any big air bubbles and generally smooth it again

Then roll it out into a large rectangle – somewhere in the region of 60 x 30cm – and take your cinnamon butter filling and slather it all over the dough. That sliver of work surface is my only working area and it isn’t 60cm long, so don’t fret over it.

Don’t worry about it not covering – it’s pretty thick

Roll it up into a swirly sausage from the long side and start cutting into slices – either into 12 slices if you want them huge, or into around 1″ slices if you want to get about 17 like I do.

Incidentally, I use a razor sharp knife and a gentle sawing action to avoid squashing the roll.

Sit each slice on top of your butter-syrup-pecan-smeared cup and whilst you’re at it, preheat the oven to GM4.

then cover loosely with some clingfilm and as the oven’s now on, let it sit in the warm kitchen for around 20 mins. It won’t rise tremendously, but it’ll get puffy looking and will fill the cup more fully.

Bake for 20-25 mins and then they’ll look like this…

Oh hello sailor.

That’s not even the business end – just hang on a minute.

Lay a large piece of parchment over the darlings and then cover that with a large roasting tin then flip the whole thing over. You want them upside down, see?

Because when they’re upside down, that means the buttery syrup and chopped pecans that you put in the cups is now on the top.

Golden.

Sticky.

And in this case, nut-free, buns

Licking your fingers afterwards is insufficient. Fainting with pleasure is possible. Giving half of these away was emotionally crippling. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

——

STICKY BUNS – schnecken

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(adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson)

dough:

500g strong bread flour

50g caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (7g) sachet easy blend yeast

150ml milk

75g unsalted butter

2 large eggs

syrup:

150g unsalted butter

2 tablespoons soft light brown sugar

4 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons golden syrup

100g pecan pieces, chopped

filling:

150g unsalted butter, softened

50g caster sugar

100g soft light brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 x 12-hole muffin tins, buttered

parchment lined roasting tin for turning the buns out onto later – big enough to cover the muffin tin

Method:

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl.

Melt the butter in the milk and allow to cool to blood temperature, beat in the eggs and stir into the dry ingredients to make a dough.

Knead for 10 minutes or for 5 in a machine with a dough hook.

When it’s springy and satiny, form into a ball, put in an oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Using an electric mixer, start the syrup. Beat the butter until soft and smooth and add the sugar, still beating.

Beat in the syrups and then divide the mixture between the muffin cups – about 1 tsp per cup. Smear the butter syrup across the bottom of each cup and half-way up the sides.

Top the butter syrup with the nuts in each cup.

Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4.

Blend the filling ingredients together in a small bowl.

When the dough’s risen, knock it back, knead once or twice to smooth and roll out into a large rectangle, somewhere in the region of 60 x 30cm. Keep at it – it will stretch eventually.

Spread the butter filling over the dough.

Roll up the rectangle from the long side, maintaining a firm, but not overly tight sausage shape.

You have options here. The original recipe suggests cutting the roll into 12 pieces, but we find that too large. So I cut them into approx 1” slices and pretty reliably get 17 buns. Odd.

Lay each slice swirly cut side up, on top of the nuts and butter-syrup in the muffin cups.

Leave to prove for about 20 minutes and when they’re slightly risen and puffy, then put into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, by which time they should be deliciously golden and cooked.

Lay a large piece of parchment paper the muffin tin to completely cover all the buns and place the roasting tin on top. Turn the whole thing the other way up and let it sit for a minute. Remove the muffin tin and reattach any stray nuts.

Serve whilst still warm. Any leftovers are best reheated in a low oven (or a quick blast in the microwave for the odd one or two).

]]> http://www.creamuntilfluffy.co.uk/sticky-buns/feed/ 4 http://www.creamuntilfluffy.co.uk/honeycomb-cinder-toffee/ http://www.creamuntilfluffy.co.uk/honeycomb-cinder-toffee/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:35:53 +0000 Anna http://www.creamuntilfluffy.co.uk/?p=1089

I’m sure there are lots of names for it. This is one of Nigella’s recipes and she calls it ‘hokey pokey’, so there you are. Make up a name and this is it.

We always called it honeycomb. Of course it has nothing to do with honey, but rather a lot to do with sugar and golden syrup. Fat free though – yes, really! Fat free! Unless you dip it in chocolate, but that’s a different matter.

Sweet, crunchy but chewy. And easy? Easy?! If you have 10 mins to spare and want to give someone a present that isn’t a box of dusty chocolates from the shop, then this is a choice to consider.

First, do yourself a favour and measure out 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda).  Also, get an 8″ square tin out and butter it well.

Put 200g caster sugar and 4 tablespoons of golden syrup in a saucepan.

Stir it around to vaguely incorporate it,

then put the pan on a low-medium heat to melt. Don’t stir it from now on. Swirl if you must, but no stirring.

See? It’s just melting in the bottom right…

Melting well now (this is a matter of a couple of minutes, incidentally)

So now you let it simmer for 3-4 minutes, until it’s darker – about the colour of maple sugar – don’t let it get too dark though. ‘Twill burn.

You can’t see the true colour very well in this pic, because the bubbles are lighter, but allow me to assure you, it was darker.

Now whip it off the heat and thrust the tblsp of biacrb in and whisk it in rapidly, but calmly. This is hot sugar – over enthusiastic stirring results in scars.

Poooooooof! Swell! Flump! *insert other words that indicate the chemical reaction*

Pour/scrape the sugary lava into the greased tin

and allow it to set.

It will firm up as it cools, but that might take a couple..a few hours. Mine firmed up pretty quickly, but I declared it ‘done’ after the most intensive pestering from Alex. Is it done yet is it done yet is it done yet. You get the picture.

Fiddle around with it by easing the sides of the tin apart slightly, sticking a palette knife down the side then turning it over and thrusting it out of the tin on to a cutting board. There’s nothing to stop you cutting it in the tin, but I like this tin dude, so I’m not cutting anything in it!

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet. (Man, it’s sweet)

Crunchy (Crunchie) …sweeeeeeeeeet

Chop it, splinter it, lick it off the board, I don’t mind one bit. Nigella suggests sprinkling it on to, or spooning through, ice cream. Whatever – as long as you don’t sprinkle it on roast chicken, I don’t think you can go wrong.

If you’re in a homemade sweetie mood, have a look at the Brown sugar fudge…

———————

Honeycomb

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200g caster sugar
4 tblsp golden syrup
1 tblsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

8″ square tin, well buttered

Combine the sugar and syrup in a saucepan.
Put the saucepan on a low-medium heat and allow it to melt. Do not stir at all. Evermore.
Allow it to simmer for 3-4 mins until it darkens a little – no darker than maple syrup though.

Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the bicarb.
Pour it into the well greased tin and leave to cool and set. Something in the region of 3 hours.
Chop, splinter and cut with a knife. Store in an airtight tin. (ha! store it! right! )

Intensely lemony, satin creamy pots with sweet, buttery shortbread. This recipe, adapted from one of Nigella Lawson’s (How to Eat) is pure joy; rich enough to satisfy but with enough zing that you don’t feel overloaded.
Once you had made the mixture it needs to sit in the fridge to steep. 2 – 3 days is the recommendation and I would definitely concur.

Before we start, let me say that when we eat these, we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?
Here we go.

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.

Juice them and add the juice and 285g sugar to the bowl

Add 6 eggs to the bowl, using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.

Add 300ml cream and combine that.

Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.
You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

When 2 or 3 days have passed, remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.
Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.
You don’t have to do this all at once, you know – take your time.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I go through this procedure to try and lose the fridge coldness from everything because once, something happened. I have a scary tale to share. Sit down with me and hold my hand.

Once after making and serving this, we were washing up and 2 ramekins had cracked, then broke in my hands. Cut me, it did. CUT my hands. Claret all over the place.  Can you imagine if they had finally given up the ghost during dessert? Eeek. Luckily, they held on until the washing up water finally did them in. Better than a mouthful of glass though.  Sorry about that near miss, Bob and Maria, but at least you never knew anything about it.

Oops.

Anyway. Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.

Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Now to the shortbread.

Put 150g softened, unsalted butter and 75g icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.

Add 150g plain flour and 75g cornflour and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine, from this

to this in about 3 kneads

You have 2 options now.
1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool).

Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Spoons are a-bakin’

Cooled spoons (I baked them longer than I normally would, just to get them a bit harder)

Cooled slices

Here’s the finished combo.
See how the shortbread dips in nicely? Lovely.

Lemon Creams with Shortbread
(adapted form Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to Eat’)
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Lemon Creams:
4 juicy lemons, washed and dried
285g caster sugar
6 eggs
300ml double cream

* Before we start, let me say that we like the lemons to punch you in the face and call you names, when you taste this; hence I have increased the recipe to 4 lemons from the original 3. It is an intense recipe there’s no doubt, but if you wish to be cautious, start with 3 lemons and once you’ve added the cream, taste the mix. If you can take some more lemon, go ahead and add the zest and juice of the 4th one. Are you man enough?*

Zest all 4 of the lemons into a bowl.
Juice them and add the juice, sugar and eggs to the bowl. Using a hand whisk, whisk them until they are well incorporated.
Add the cream and conbine that.
Transfer the contents to a large jug, cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least 2, but preferably 3, days. Yes, DAYS. It gets the flavour steeped in.

You now have 2-3 days to find at least 8 ramekins of 150ml capacity and a roasting tin that will hold them all. I often get about 10 ramekins ready – it’s better than scrabbling around for jam jars whilst sobbing hysterically.

Remove the jug from the fridge and leave it at room temperature for an hour.

Preheat the oven to GM2/300F/150C. Put the kettle on.

Give the mix another swipe with the whisk – just to combine, not to get air into it – and pour into the ramekins that you have sitting neatly in a roasting tin.
Once you have evenly distributed it, leave it to sit a bit longer. I do this to avoid the ramekins cracking in the oven – quite an important point really.

Pour hot – not boiling – water into the tin to come about halfway up the ramekins.
Bake for 20-30 mins.
They should be set, but with some wobble, rather than sloshing, in the middle, bear in mind they will set more as they cool.

Remove from the water bath and leave to cool. You can eat them when they’ve cooled, or once cool, refrigerate them until the next day. Get them out of the fridge 2-3 hours before eating them.

Shortbread:

Preheat oven to GM3/325F/160C

150g unsalted butter, very soft
75g icing sugar
150g plain (all purpose) flour
75g cornflour (corn starch)

Put the butter and icing sugar into a food processor and whiz to combine. Scrape to get all the bits.
Add the flours and a pinch of salt and process again to combine, scraping to get any stray streaks of flour back in.

Remove and lightly knead briefly to combine.

1st option.
Form into a cylinder, put in the fridge until firm, then slice and bake. I refrigerate it hard and use a very sharp knife to cut thin slices, but that’s because I like the contrast between the firm shortbread and the unctuous, silky lemon creams. Obviously, the thinner the slice, the firmer it will be. Dredge shapes with caster sugar if you wish.

2nd option.
Put a piece of clingfilm on the work surface, put your dough on top and cover with another piece of clingfilm.
Roll the dough out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters (I found some that were spoon shaped – that was cool). Bake them straight away. You could gather up the remainder, and roll that into a cylinder, fridge it and cut slices – best of both worlds.

Either way, place shapes on to a parchment lined baking tray and bake for 20-30 mins. Check that the top is dry and that the bottom isn’t still doughy.
Cool on a wire tray. Store in a tin; they keep well.