I should have known when I handed Pete copies of the two books by the 'Baked' duo and asked him to choose his birthday cake that it wouldn't end up the way I had planned. I was hoping that he'd go for the grasshopper or chocolate malt ball layer cakes, but it only took him about a minute to hand the book back pointing at page 97 with an 'I want that one' expression on his face. My response - "Well that's not a cake but if that's what you really want for your birthday...". I couldn't exactly say no could I?
As usual the thing Pete most desired required one of the few kitchen items I didn't have so an emergency shopping trip ensued for a correctly sized pie pan and a giant bag of pecan nuts. That's where my griping ends however because I really liked making this recipe - baking up a pie makes me feel incredibly housewifey. I can imagine myself in a little wooden house in Texas whipping up pastry in a gingham clad kitchen, leaving the finished pie to cool on the window sill. Yes I am ridiculous, and I love it.
The pastry recipe was perfect coming together perfectly with the exact liquid amount stated and giving a smooth, easily rollable texture that didn't tear at all. The filling was very easy to prepare too. Please remember that the pastry needs to chill for an hour in the fridge before you roll it and line the pie dish and then needs to freeze for at least 3 hours before you add te filling and bake - I made, chilled, rolled it and then popped it into the freezer and then went to do my chores in town so when I got back I was ready to fill and bake it.
I agree with the lovely Baked boys that you should be generous with the bourbon - I used Jack Daniels Single Barrel Select which you can buy in most supermarkets now. It costs more than your standard bourbon but it's worth it - Pete likes bourbon straight up and the cheaper ones just aren't that nice that way. Unless you're exceedingly rock n roll of course, but we both drink for the taste not for the side affects!
Serve this pie at room temperature with a good quality vanilla ice cream at a dinner party or sat on the sofa while watching something appropriate like Boardwalk Empire and drift off into a time gone by where dinner parties were daily, men had impressive moustaches and ladies were only happy if they looked picture perfect. Can I go back there please?
Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie
Serves 8-10
Taken from 'Baked : New Frontiers in Baking' by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
Pie Dough Ingredients
200g plain flour
1.5 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
125g unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1cm cubes
100ml ice cold water
Filling Ingredients
250g pecan halves, toasted in a 200 C / 400 F oven for 10 minutes
3 large eggs
180ml golden syrup or runny honey (or light corn syrup if you can get it)
4 tbsp dark brown sugar (packed into the spoon)
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
pinch of fine sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp bourbon
200g dark chocolate in chips or chunks (or a half and half mix of dark and milk if you prefer)
Pie Dough Method
In a bowl whisk together the flour, sugar and salt and then add the butter cubes and toss to coat them. Pour into a food processor and give it a few pulses until the butter is in little pieces about the size of a hazelnut. Now drizzle in the ice cold water through the feed tube while pulsing the machine until it comes together as a ball - keep your eye on it as you may not need all the water.
As soon as this happens remove the dough from the processor, give it a very quick few kneads and then flatten into a disc and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate for a minimum of one hour and a maximum of 3 days.
When chilled remove from the fridge and roll out on a floured surface to about a 12" round. Drape over the pie dish and gently work it in folding any overhanging pastry under before crimping the edge. Wrap in cling film and freeze for a minimum of 3 hours (maximum 3 months) before filling and baking.
Filling Method
Preheat the oven to 170 C / 325 F then take 100g of the toasted pecans and chop roughly before setting aside.
Lighlty whisk the eggs in a large bowl until just combined and then add the syrup/honey, sugars, melter butter, salt, vanilla and bourbon. Whisk again until combined and then stir in the chopped pecans.
Remove your frozen pie shell from the oven and evenly sprinkle in the chocolate chunks. Pour over the filling and then top with the remaining pecan halves.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes, then remove and cover the pie edges with tin foil before returning to the oven for another 30 minutes. Test to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife into its centre - if it comes out clean it is done, if it comes out with clumps of filling stuck to it you need to bake for another 5 minutes and then test again.
Cool on a rack and serve warm or at room temperature. This pie can be kept covered in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Firstly, I'm really sorry about the bad quality photos on this post. This weekend was very hectic and I just didn't find time to photograph this cake in natural daylight and as it was quickly shot on my phone camera they really don't look that great.
But apologies out of the way, because this cake is absolutely delicious and super easy to make, as is the frosting. Really, you just dump everything in a bowl, mix it together and then bake. There's no butter in the batter which did worry me at first, however after tasting you really cannot tell - the banana keeps it so moist and the 4 eggs seem to make up for the lack of any other dairy. As Julie Powell once said "Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter" - but not this time Julie!
A hummingbird cake isn't usually frosted with chocolate, but as I have started a diet today I wanted to pack in as many possible calories yesteday and went all out, and I think it worked wonderfully. Adding a spoon of chocolate spread is an easy cheat to get a rich chocolatey frosting when you have forgotten to buy some chocolate to melt in... oops. If you would prefer, just omit the cocoa and chocolate spread so you have a vanilla frosting instead.
Hummingbird Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from a recipe by Paula Deen
Serves 12-16 people
Hummingbird Cake Ingredients
375g self-raising flour
200g light muscovado sugar
200g caster sugar
170ml vegetable oil
50g pecan nuts, finely chopped
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
200g crushed pineapple and it's juice (from a tin)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 eggs
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients
500g icing sugar, sifted
3 tbsp cocoa powder
200g full fat cream cheese, at room temperature 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk
1 heaped tbsp chocolate spread
Hummingbird Cake Method
Preheat oven to 170 C / 325 F, then grease and line three 8" baking tins and set aside.
Place all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and mix until well combined.
Divide between the three tins and bake, rotating the tins after 15 minutes, for 25-30 minutes until the tops spring back when you gently pressed with your fingertip.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from their tins and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting Method
Make sure your cream cheese and butter are at room temperature or you will have lumpy frosting!
Place all ingredients into a large bowl and mix until smooth and creamy and of a good spreadable consistency.
Cake Construction
Using a serrated knife trim the tops of the cakes so they are all flat.
Place the first layer onto your cake plate and spread on 1/4 of the frosting. Place on the second layer bottom side up and spread with another 1/4. Place the last layer on top, bottom side up again, and use the remaining frosting to cover the cake.
Notes
I reserved some of the frosting for piping on decoration and added a homemade florentine cookie as I had some left from earlier, but the cake looks just as lovely smoothed over and sprinkled with some more chopped pecans.
This cake is best kept refrigerated because of the cream cheese in the frosting - just remove it from the fridge 10-15 minutes before serving to take off a little of the chill.
I used this recipe from Delia for the florentine cookies, which were a present for Pete's Grandad on his birthday, but I added a little chopped stem ginger to them too!
Bacon. Bacon is great. In fact, most pork products are pretty fabulous. It's just a shame that it's one of the most fatty meats you can eat so we don't have it often, but occasionally I'll treat Pete and I to a tasty bacon sandwich for breakfast or a dinner of sausage and mash. However until now we had not tried bacon in a sweet baked recipe or dessert.
It's a pretty big thing in the USA right now - fancy a bacon, banana and peanut butter cupcake? Or maybe the famous 'Maple Glazed Bacon Apple Donut' from Dynamo Donut and Coffee in San Francisco? If you browse for some sweet treats on Etsy.com you're sure to come across chocolate covered bacon or bacon chocolate truffles.
As Pete and I are pretty addicted to Food Network we were made aware of these combos awhile ago and have always been curious as to whether it actually it good. My salted caramel cupcakes are awesome, so surely the salty bacon mixed with something sweet like chocolate would be great? Well, it is. Really really great actually. So great that I'll probably spend the next few weeks adding bacon to everything I cook - I'm now fairly sure that bacon will indeed enhance any recipe known to man.
There isn't so much bacon in these delicious slices so it's overpowering. You won't get a bit of bacon in every bite, but now and again you'll hit a chunk and be taken to heaven. The saltiness works SO well with the sweetness of the fudge and the creamy rich pecan nuts. I could indeed eat the entire tray if I didn't think that it would make me look like the very animal you get pork products from. Please try it, even if you think it sounds wrong. These blondies are so very very right.
Bacon on your creme brulee ma'am? Why yes, yes please.
Fudgey Bacon and Pecan Blondies
Makes 18 delicious squares
Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, melted
430g soft brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
280g plain flour
100g pecans, roughly chopped
100g vanilla fudge, roughly chopped
3 rashes of bacon, grilled until the fat is crispy and then chopped into little chunks
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350 F and line a 9" x 13"deep sided baking pan (or something similar) with greaseproof paper.
Whisk together the melted butter and sugar until well combined, then add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.
Sift together the baking powder, salt and flour and then beat into the sugar mixture for 2-3 minutes. Fold in the pecans, fudge and bacon pieces.
Spread evenly into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is crisp and golden but the inside is still moist. Slide a knife into the center and if it comes out pretty much clean with perhaps a couple of crumbs it's ready.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. It's really good warm, and really good cooled. Store in an airtight container.
Some bacon-licious links!
Woodhouse Farm - A Leicestershire based producer of excellent home reared meats including bacon, you can order online for delivery or they have a storefront you can visit.
Baconnaise - From the people that invented bacon salt, you can now buy bacon flavour mayonnaise! Comes in regular or lite versions, I am yet to try this stuff but shall be purchasing very soon to slather onto everything I can think of.
The Bacon Explosion - A truly ridiculous recipe for teh hardcore bacon lover. I do not condone anyone ever eat this as it contains 5000 calories and 500g of fat. Heart fail.
Love Food Hate Waste's Bacon Recipes - This is a really great site showing you how to turn leftovers into delicious a new meal along with proper portion sizes, food storage tips and more. This link takes you to the bacon recipe ideas but go to the homepage here for more frugal fun.
I should have known when I handed Pete copies of the two books by the 'Baked' duo and asked him to choose his birthday cake that it wouldn't end up the way I had planned. I was hoping that he'd go for the grasshopper or chocolate malt ball layer cakes, but it only took him about a minute to hand the book back pointing at page 97 with an 'I want that one' expression on his face. My response - "Well that's not a cake but if that's what you really want for your birthday...". I couldn't exactly say no could I?
The pastry recipe was perfect coming together perfectly with the exact liquid amount stated and giving a smooth, easily rollable texture that didn't tear at all. The filling was very easy to prepare too. Please remember that the pastry needs to chill for an hour in the fridge before you roll it and line the pie dish and then needs to freeze for at least 3 hours before you add te filling and bake - I made, chilled, rolled it and then popped it into the freezer and then went to do my chores in town so when I got back I was ready to fill and bake it.
