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Baking round-up

It's been a while since I last blogged, but in fairness I've not made anything blogworthy. Nothing uber pretty, no recipes I thought were inspiring, but here come the pictures and the round-up of my recent bakes.

Coconut and lime cake - tangy. The sponge was quite unique in that it used 1/2 a grated block of coconut and it became very light and a different type of sponge to normal. Not chiffon, not victoria, not muffin, but different. The topping was a bit tangier than I wanted, but next time I'll get it to marshmallow properly. As a nice afternoon tea kind of thing, I'd make it again.


Low fat strawberry gateau - call it shortcake. This was an interesting proposition, and wasn't that bad. You had to accept that the "sponge" was more biscuit, but then there wasn't a raising agent and when you poured it onto the swiss roll tin it spread so thin the creases in the baking parchment showed and the cake curled when the paper curled from the heat.


What I did find was that it was near impossible to stick the nuts on the sides of the gateau. You know when you have cake and buttercream they say to hold it up and dip the nuts on, it's a lot harder when the cream is of a drippy soft consistency that fromage frais and low fat cream cheese makes. You'll have to forgive the two pictures, I didn't know which one I preferred and it is a rare occasion that I bother to pose it properly.


Lemon and mincemeat tartlets - Actually quite yum. Excuse the odd time of year for mincemeat, but you know that stuff lasts for years. What I keep forgetting is how hard it is to roll pastry thinly. Always use a polythene food bag under the rolling pin and it gets thinner without breaking. Awesome.

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