Whisked Sponge Cake Swiss Roll Recipe (and other food)
July 22, 2007 at 2:15 PM
by Ashleigh
Just like that it's Sunday again ...
Where is it going and why is it going so fast?
I looked at Joe this week and remembered that Seb was just a month older than him when we went to Disneyland Paris for his fifth birthday. He was a little smaller than Joe too. Amazing. I can't even remember it. I can remember the events and I can remember the feelings, but I can't remember what he looked like or how he was. I guess this is why I have a blog and a camera!
We've eaten some awesome food this week. I made a swiss roll (roulade) using a whisked sponge cake recipe and filled it with blueberries and whipped cream. Usually I have some cake left to give to our neighbours but this time ... um.... we ate it all!
The whisked sponge is really easy to make.
You need 3 eggs, 100g sugar, and 75g plain flour (and 1 tsp baking powder if you want). Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large heatproof bowl over a boiling pot of water on the stove until they thicken, it's a bit like making a custard. Then fold in the flour very gently and swifly before pouring the mixture into the baking pan. Don't flatten the mixture with a spoon or knife, just tilt the pans to help it spread.
You can actually see the air bubbles as you do this, which is what you want because that makes the sponge light and airy. I used a bit of baking powder too because I wasn't about to have a flop.
Bake at 190C for 12 - 15 minutes in a swiss roll pan or 25 minutes if you have divided the mixture between two 18 cm cake tins. For a swiss roll, you need baking paper and you need to have your filling ready. While the cake is still warm take it out of the pan (holding the paper) and upend it onto a clean tea-towel. Tear off the paper and smooth the filling over the cake. Then, using the teatowel roll the cake up into a neat cylinder.
My recipe says to grease the pan and then flour or sugar the baking paper before pouring the batter in. I think it's better to grease the paper too, because I had a devil of a time getting the paper off the cake.
You can fill them with all kinds of things, like jam, lemon curd, more whipped cream with other kinds of berries/chopped fruit. Dust a little icing sugar or caster sugar over the top before serving.
I also made the Barmy Baker's 'Gram Danning's Fruit Kuchen'.
Oooh, it was wonderful. I used ripe Opal plums (not from my tree, but from the organic bag), and the cake brought out the tartness in the usually very sweet plums. The batter has the right amount of weight to hold the fruit motionless and I will definitely make it again. Once again, a cake without a huge amount of butter in it, so a bit less detrimental to the waistline.
Moving on from the sweet and onto the savoury.
You'll remember a while ago I wrote about Nigel Slater's Toast and how I thought he was a bit self-involved? Self-involved he might be, but it hasn't affected his ability to cook. I just made my first recipe from The Kitchen Diaries and I was incredibly pleased with the result.
I made oxtail casserole using his recipe and it came out almost exactly the same way that the oxtail my gran made used to. The only changes I made to the recipe were to use fennel as an added vegetable and to use water/more tomato puree instead of the wine. I haven't had oxtail for about 22 years, and this was a real treat. Best of all, oxtail isn't expensive here in Holland and can be bought in the supermarket. The kids really liked it too, which surprised me a little to be honest. I served it with slightly sloppy mashed potatoes and green beans.
The night before that we had spatchcocked* chicken baked in the oven with a selection of vegetables from the veggie bag and from the garden.
I have to tell you that when I came to Holland I was vastly disappointed in the chickens. Not only were they impossibly small (1 kg is about the maximum size you can buy), but they also seemed impossibly tough. Four years later I have a solution. Firstly, if I have to feed more than four people or if I want leftovers I have to cook two chickens (d'oh!), and secondly, marinade, marinade and marinade! I also spatchcock most of the chickens I buy because it cuts down the cooking time and the bird seems more tender when it's been prepared this way. It also allows it to absorb the marinade effectively.
I bought our most recent chicken on Tuesday and marinaded it right through from Tuesday night until Friday night. The mixture included leeks from the garden, garlic, onion, mixed italian herbs (too lazy to go and cut some fresh ones), olive oil, vinegar, chilli sauce and maple syrup. I just chuck in whatever I have but it must always have oil, an acid (the vinegar) and a sweet (chilli sauce/maple syrup/honey).
When I was ready to cook the chicken, I put my roasting tin over the heat and sauted fennel, onion, celery, carrots (cut diagonally), tomatoes (halved) and baby potatoes (scrubbed and halved), before quickly adding the chicken and allowing it to brown and then tossing the marinade juices into the pan. A few sprigs of thyme here and there and then into the oven at 200C for 45 minutes and at the end - lovely juicy chicken and roasted vegetables.
*To spatchcock a chicken, just cut along either side of the backbone with poulty shears. Push the chicken flat with your hands (you will hear a snap as the ligaments tear) and then impale it with skewers through the thick part of the thigh, across the breast and into the other thigh. This way you have nice handles to barbecue the chicken with or to take it out of the roasting tray/grilling pan.
Comments
Ash, you can buy top quality chicken and other cuts of meat from the organic butcher, Rob Rijks, at the "Biologische Markt" beside the Noorderkerk in Amsterdam on Saturdays.
www.natuurslagerijrobrijks.nl
He also supplies his wiede lamb and beef to what many consider to be the restaurant in the Netherlands, Restaurant de Librije, in Zwolle.
So was it a good weekend? How're the boys enjoying their holidays so far? And when are we getting together? :D
You made two cakes - dude, this post is worthless without pictures :p.
But Ash, where are the PICTURES?? You can't do this to us! The roulade sounds awesome - never made one myself but have always meant to. I did manage to make plum crumble last week as well as a white chocolate & raspberry cheesecake over the weekend which was DIVINE. And as for Nigel Slater, I haven't read Toast, but if my house were burning down, I would give serious thought to saving only his Kitchen Diaries. It is probably my favourite cookbook of all time! There is a recipe for roast lamb on crushed chickpeas with paprika in there that you MUST try - it's to die for :)
Oh, and I have tagged you for a meme btw:
http://www.cooksister.com/2007/07/tagged-by-foodb.html
I'm a recent import to The Netherlands and was also pretty suprised by the tiny chickens! We have a hotair grill that I love for cooking things like that in, it keeps things nice and moist =)
July 22, 2007 3:59 PM