World Baking Day & My Return To The Secret Recipe Club

My recent trips to Buenos Aires, Mexico and the US have made me absent from the Secret Recipe Club for months.  I've missed the SRC band of bakers! 
Life, right now, is a bit..fluid.  Though in the UK, I'm still not settled.  I miss my kitchen.  I'm living life from a suitcase.  There seems too many things to do and think about and conjuring up new recipes has, involuntarily, been put on the back burner.  The SRC is forcing me to focus.  This is good!  World Baking Day is making me very keen to get in the kitchen too.  Time to bake!

I was assigned the blog of two business partners, Serena Ball and Deanna -  Teaspoon Of Spice . The gals are registered dieticians who specialise in nutrition messaging, with a culinary focus.  Serena is  a bit of a cheese fan.  She searches out Illinois cheese makers with her husband and four children. She encourages everyone to try a new recipe or flavour every week.  (I wonder if they've tried aged tree nut cheese, like this one by Dr. Cow ?)  Deanna stays inspired to be creative in the kitchen for her husband and young daughter.

I enjoyed poking around in their virtual recipe library whilst hunting for a dish to try for the Secret Recipe challenge.  I was all set to make a vegan version of their Cucumber Avocado Soup with Moroccan Chickpeas and then I spotted their shortbread with rhubarb.  It being so close to World Baking Day too, I couldn't resist.  Serena and Deanna both write of their fond memories of a childhood where rhubarb was grown by their fathers and was an oft used ingredient.  I thought their Light Strawberry & Rhubarb Shortcake looked like it could become memorable for me too.  The rhubarb is full of Vitamin C, Vitamin K and a great source of fibre.  Their recipe is not vegan though, so I changed up the Original recipe. The fragrant, blushing strawberries brightened up a (typically) dull sky, English day.  I made shortbread instead of shortcake as I wanted the juxtaposition of the silky fruit compote and the cool melt-in-your-mouth vanilla cream cheese to the firm snap of the buttery shortbread.  Not only is it dairy free but it is gluten and sugar free too. I hope you enjoy it! 

Summer Strawberry & Rhubarb Shortcake 

Compote
1 stick of rhubarb
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
1/4 cup water

Vanilla Cream Cheese

Tofutti Original Cream Cheese

Vanilla extract (I use Baron, it adds a sweetness of vanilla and is alcohol free)

Pure Vanilla powder.  (I buy mine from a great little stall Borough Market in London, it has all manner of wonderful spices and herbs)

Shortcake 1/2 cup of vegan butter
1/4 cup coconut sugar
6 drops culinary lemon oil or 1 tbs fresh zest
3/4 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato flour
1/4 cup besan (chickpea) flour
1/3 teaspoon pink salt

Ready? Here we go...

Step 1 - Making the Shortbread

Add lemon oil (or zest) to sugar and butter and cream together.

Step 2

Sift the flours and salt.

Step 3

Gradually add the dry mixture to the creamed butter until just combined and forms a dough. 

Step 4

Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight) (or pop in the freezer for an hour)

Step 5 - Making the compote.

Make the sauce.  Chop fresh strawberries into four and the rhubarb into 1 inch cubes.  Pop into a pan of 1/4 cup water and simmer with lid on for 10 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup fresh strawberries and leave to cool. If your strawberries are beautifully ripe you shouldn't need to add any sweetener.  If not then just drizzle a little agave syrup or stevia to taste. The sauce can be made the night before and chilled (remove from the fridge and hour before serving to bring to room temp). 

Step 6 - Rolling out the shortbread. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove your dough from the fridge and place onto a flour dusted surface.  I usually roll mine on floured baking parchment. (easier clean up and sticks less)

Step 7

Gently roll out the dough to 5-6mm thick. Have a parchment lined baking tin ready. Use a cutter or, as I did, a glass with 3.5inch diameter, and cut out your biscuits (or for my USA friends..cookies) Lift the shortbread on to the baking tray.

Step 8

Pop into the heated oven.  Bake for 15 mins.  Remove from oven and leave to cool on baking sheet for 5 mins before gentle transferring to a cooling rack and (try) to leave them rest for a further 10 minutes.

Step 9 - making the cream cheese
Put the contents of the tub of cream cheese into a bowl.  Pour on 1 tbs of vanilla essence (1 tsp if yours in concentrated..do it gradually, to taste) and sprinkle over your vanilla powder.  With a spatula, mix to incorporate the black specks of powder and the carmel coloured essence.  

Step 10 - Putting it all together.  This is where you exercise your artsy side!

Assemble on pretty little plates.  Shortbread.  Spoon over the cooled sauce. Make tiny quenelles or just dollop four beads of sweet cream cheese.  Pop on another shortbread biscuit to make a little lid or hat.  Spoon over a little more sauce and add a few fresh, chopped strawberries.  Sprinkle over a pinch of coconut sugar.  Add a quenelle of cream cheese on the top and serve.

Check out all the other players in this months Secret Recipe Club too, right below this post.

Swedish Cake Toscakaka - Secret Recipe Club

Whilst I may be missing San Francisco and yearning for a place where my heart calls home, there are things about the UK I love. Friends. The ability to purchase good poppadoms. Radio 4. And my kitchen. When I turned the key in the lock and hauled my body, weary from 18 hours of returning Eastward, up the front doorstep...stepped into my kitchen I was flooded with nostalgia for my very own space. The pots, my red dutch oven, my chef knife, the little timer in the shape of a lemon that I never use and the soup spoon that is too large for my mouth. It was good to be 'home'.
I've not cooked for a couple of months, well I have cooked but not created or veganised any recipes, or baked a single cake or airily light sweet muffin. I'd been AWOL from the The Secret Recipe Club too. When I put the red apron over my head and set to work on my return recipe, I tied that bow around my waist with a satisfied tug. Oh, how I love to cook.


The Secret Recipe Club assigns you to a biog from the list of members, for you to secretly choose one of their recipes to make. All the while, someone else has also been secretly poking around in your blogosphere recipes ,to cook or bake one of yours. It is huge fun and I love the discipline needed get it cooked and written about on time, AND the chance to try recipes from blogs I may not have otherwise come across.

This month I was signed to the pretty pink blogging home of Avanika, a baker from Mumbai. She writes in such a fun way. You almost feel like she is right alongside you in a kitchen full of adorable smells of baking. I loved the fact that I am baking alongside a cook from India! I went through the history of Avanika's baking, and picked out three possibles for me to veganize. Creamy Lemon Slices, Crunchy chocolate bars but, owing to jet lag and a mountain of menus to plan and notes from my trip to assimilate I opted for the easiest option - Swedish Visiting Cake or Tosca Kaka to give it its Swedish name.

Avanika's recipe was very simple to follow and it took no time to make (and eat!).

Veganising the recipe altered up her recipe just a bit. I would suggest doubling her recipe also as it made for a very small cake. The quantity below will give you small a 7inch cake.

This is my version. I cut out some of the sugar and butter, turned it gluten free and made it vegan. Healthier AND 'yumsilicious'.

Ingredients

Heat oven to 180
lightly grease a 7 inch pan with vegan butter

1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
zest of 1 lemon
5 Tbs of apple sauce
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup almond flakes or slithers
1 tsp vanilla extract or the seeds of one pod
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp pink salt
4 drops lemon oil (optional)
1 tsp baking powder

Method
1. cream together vegan butter, sugar & zest, add extracts and salt and lemon oil (if using).

Fold in the flour and baking powder (sift the sorghum and baking powder together to ensure even distribution). Beat lightly for a moment and spoon into the greased cake pan.
2. bake until your kitchen is filled with the sweet smell of cake. Approx 30mins. Check if done if a tooth pick comes out clean.
3. leave to cool, put on a wire rack.

I LOVED this cake. It was moist, the palm sugar gave it depth and a chewy, caramely, crust. The subtle hint of fresh lemons gave the cake lightness and harmonised effortlessly with the almonds. I declare it a 'keeper'.

Thanks Avanika (smiles)