The festive season was the perfect time to have chosen cloves. We turned out a plum pudding at my family gathering, doused it in brandy and consumed with copious amounts of clotted cream. It was moist and full of rich molasses, reminiscent of all Christmases past. I recommend making your own - it's definitely worth it. I never liked shop bought Christmas puddings as they seemed to be stodgy and full of dried fruits that weren't plumped up - they were still shrivelled and not very pleasant to eat. When you make your own you can make it according to your tastes and pre-soak the fruits so they are juicy and plump. This recipe gives a surprisingly light and almost gooey pudding packed full of fruit with natural sweetness. Give it a go next year!
Cloves appear in a lot of Christmas treats - mulled wine, mince pies, Stollen, and of course Christmas cake. As it was Christmas and cloves were prominent I made these too - Dan Lepard's Black Christmas Cake as gifts. Instead of making a large cake I made five mini ones in tin cans. The only other amendments I made were soaking the fruit the night before in a generous glug of port and brandy, and the omission of treacle (and this was not a conscious decision, I just forgot!).
I experimented with the cooking times (as the recipe is for one large cake) and they came out well based on the first 20 minutes at 170C/325F/gas mark 3 and then another 20 to 30 minutes at 140C/275F/gas mark 1. You'll just need to keep testing the cakes with a skewer towards the end of the cooking time. Once the tins are cool enough to handle, turn them out and put them on a cooling rack.
Once cooled I wrapped in a couple of layers of baking parchment and put back in the cans (making sure the bottom of the cakes were also covered). For about three weeks I then fed the cakes with a tablespoon each of port and brandy every 5 to 6 days.
I then sliced each cake in half horizontally making 10 mini cakes and decorated them with buttercream and glitter.
This was my first attempt at different piping techniques (I usually use a spoon and palette knife) and plan to experiment with some more soon. YouTube has an amazing amount of videos demonstrating icing techniques. Here's the one I used for the design on these cakes...Flower/butterfly design but I would love to be able to make cakes like these...Dave's Cakes!
These little cakes were a huge success amongst friends and family, despite the lack of treacle! I did go a bit mad on the buttercream so I'd use less next time and maybe make the flavour stronger with lemon zest or almond extract as it was lost against all the strong dark flavours of the cake.
I hope you've enjoyed all the clove recipes. I've now selected my next ingredient so it's on to the next project...
I'd say you were very popular!!
ReplyDeletePerfect gifts.
:) I think they went down pretty well!
ReplyDelete