Jam Doughnut Bundt

This month's obsession is currently doughnuts. Particularly every single flavour Crosstown sells, all of the chocolate filled ones from Bread Ahead and, you know what, even a regular supermarket's jam filled when needs must. If you've never had any of these then you are missing you, I'm telling you.

There's certain things, like doughnuts, that I know will cause me more frustration than joy if I attempt to master them in my very own kitchen. Whilst I may be an avid baker, I am more than keen to leave certain things to the professionals.

Everything except combining my love of a simple one bowl bundt cake mix with all the joys of a doughnut, in one giant form.

And so here I present to you, a jam doughnut cake, or a giant doughnut if you will. Because I doubt very much I could replicate something as good as my market favourites.

Of course this is very much a cake and not made from dough, but all prep can be done in one bowl within 10 minutes. Forget making dough, kneading and proving, this guy is super easy going. Filled with your favourite jam, mine is always raspberry, and smothered in cinnamon sugar once baked.

Just remember to thoroughly grease your bundt tin for ultimate upturning and bob's your bundt uncle, a stress free bake!

J A M   D O U G H N U T   B U N D T
(Serves 8-10)

400g plain flour

2tsp baking powder

225g golden caster sugar, plus extra for topping

175g butter, melted, plus extra for topping

250ml full fat milk

2 eggs

half jar of raspberry jam

1tbsp ground cinnamon

• Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease a bundt tin.
• Add the flour, baking powder and caster sugar to a large mixing bowl.
• Whisk together the butter, milk and eggs in a jug before pouring into the dry ingredients. Gently mix until everything is just incorporated.
• Pour half the batter into the prepared bundt tin. Use a small spoon to smooth some of the mixture up the walls of the bundt tin in order for the jam to be fully enveloped during baking. Dollop the jam evenly around the middle of the bundt ensuring not to touch any sides. Pour over the remaining batter, smooth the top and bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool before upturning onto a wire rack to cool fully.
• As the bundt is cooling, brush with a little melted butter and scatter over cinnamon sugar to coat each side.

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Recipe: Spiced Christmas Jam

Each year I attempt to make some edible treats for gifts. Last year was the year for mulled wine kits and homemade giant scotch eggs. This year, something a little more simple and perfect to make in batches. Make a big stash of Christmas jam and you're all set to spread some festive jammy cheer to everyone you know!

Cranberries, berries, orange, cinnamon and cloves make this a real winter warmer. If you prefer something sharper, make the lot with just cranberries, or for those with a sweet tooth, half and half with mixed berries like raspberries.

You don't need a giant maslin (jam) pan but it does come in very handy for making big batches like this one. My pan is a 9 litre one from Domu, which should make up to a dozen jars of jam. Or, 9 litres of mulled wine! 

S P I C E D   C H R I S T M A S   J A M
(Makes 6 regular sized jars, double up or halve as necessary)

1 cinnamon stick

a few whole cloves

450g cooking apples like bramleys, peeled, cored and cubed

zest of 1 large orange or 3 clementines

200ml fresh orange juice

450g fresh cranberries

450g mixed frozen berries 

1kg jam sugar

1. Tie the cinnamon and cloves in  a square of muslin cloth. Add the apples, orange zest and juice into a large maslin pan and cook on a medium heat until the apples are soft, approximately 10 minutes.
2. Add the berries and continue to cook gently for around 5-10 minutes, checking the cranberries retain their shape.
3. Pour in all of the sugar and turn the heat up. Continuously stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Place a sugar thermometer in the pan and leave on a rapid boil for 10 minutes. 
4. At around 110 degrees the jam should be at setting point. To check, take a small spoon of jam on a chilled plate, leave to cool for a few minutes before pushing your finger through the jam. If the jam wrinkles then its ready. If its too runny then put back on a rapid boil for another 5 minutes.
5. Remove from the heat and take out the muslin bag. Leave to cool for a further 10 minutes and remove any scum from the top of the jam with a slotted spoon.
6. Warm some clean jam jars up either in the oven or with a swill of boiling water. Pour in the jam and seal with a lid. Leave to cool fully before labelling. 

Thanks to Domu for sending me a shiny new maslin pan for this post, next stop...mulled wine! 

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Bake Off Bake Along: Week 10 - Chocolate, Amaretto & Morello Iced Buns

Ten whole weeks has flown by. What will we all do with our Wednesday evenings now?

Baking along with the TV series has been both great fun and stressful. From the time my pastry fell apart, the nuts fell off my mokatines and my frangipane literally fell out the oven. I've also gotten over my fear of making pastry, kind of, and also brioche.

I'd have like to have made something more like a showstopper for my final bake. But then again, I'm pretty sure I've said that every week. Instead, for each challenge I've tried to work on things I've never made before as a good excuse to expand my repertoire.

And so, onto the final...

I chose to make iced buns a little differently. Regular iced buns remind me of the time someone once bought supermarket iced buns into the office. They were stale, lacking in jam and the lurid icing was too cloy. And just plain miserable.

I made brioche buns, stuffed them with morello cherry jam and frosted them with my favourite chocolate and amaretto ganache. For the brioche, I used a trusty Dan Lepard recipe and the filling recipe from my last bake for the frosting.

Unfortunately I didn't quite get enough jam in and the ganache was a little difficult to work with. I wanted it to cool slightly before frosting so as not to drip down the buns too much. But then it got too cool and too firm, and therefore a little lumpy once reheated slightly.

Here's a few pointers for brioche...

• ensure eggs and butter are at room temperature and dissolve the yeast into liquids at a warm to the touch temperature
• its best to use regular yeast, rather than a quick rising supermarket one, and the fresher the better
• be prepared to do a lot of mixing. For a long time you may think there's absolutely no way everything will come together to form a dough. Just keep adding small chunks of butter, bit by bit
• when the dough is ready and has come together perfectly, it'll cling onto the dough hook of your mixer and slap the sides of the bowl
• if kneading, the dough will feel sticky and loose. Persevere, otherwise adding more flour in will make the buns pretty tough
• butter helps to give brioche that nice rich flavour but also helps to shape the dough. If you need to shape the dough in some elaborate fashion, chill it for a good few hours to firm up the butter and it'll be more pliable
• the warmer your room, the quicker the dough will rise
• although, for optimum flavour, prove overnight in the fridge and leave to stand at room temperature for two hours before baking
• if you're making regular brioche and not frosting buns, brush the tops with egg yolk before baking for a super shiny top

And so that's it, my final Bake Off bake along recipe for the year!

Here's how I got on with the previous 9 weeks:

   

   

  

Thanks Amanda and Ala for hosting such a fun challenge x

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Recipe: Chilli Jam

It's been almost a year since I've lived in my own place. At the start I had great intentions to fill my window sills with happy herbs and flowers. But within the first fortnight I'd managed to kill off most of my plants, even those that didn't need much care. After an emergency visit to Mum's Plant Hospital for some much needed TLC they soon started to thrive.

Almost a year on, I've got to the stage of being able to keep things alive, just. After purchasing a chilli plant I've struggled to keep up with the amount it produces. There's only so much chilli a girl can have!

This recipe is easier than others I've tried and only needs 4 ingredients. It's a good way to keep up with my windowsill crops. Not to mention the boys in my family, they love this chilli jam!

Chilli jam
(Makes around 4 large jars)

150g fresh chillies, cut into 4
150g fresh red peppers, cored, deseeded and cut into chunks
1kg jam sugar
600ml cider vinegar

To sterilize your jars, wash them well in hot soapy water and rinse well. Place them on a baking sheet and leave in the oven on 140 degrees to dry.

Put the chopped chillies and peppers into a food processor and blitz. You may want to deseed the chillies depending on your heat preference or even so the jam looks smooth.

In a large wide pan, heat the sugar and vinegar on a low temperature until the sugar has melted, without stirring.

Scrape the chilli mix out of the processor and into the pan. Stir and bring to the boil. Leave boiling away at a high temperature for a further 10 minutes.

By now, the jam will be syrupy. Leave to cool for around 40 minutes. By this point the jam will have started to thicken.

Ladle into the prepared jam jars, seal tightly and leave to cool fully.

Recipe: Cherry and Ginger Swirl Loaf

Over my time of baking and blogging I've tried out a few recipes using jam as an ingredient. Its such a versatile ingredient to both sweet and savoury cooking that I don't think people use enough.

Take this recipe, a standard loaf cake, swap the cherry with raspberry jam and the ginger for lemon zest and you have transformed it to something more suited to Spring. Its handy to have one of these recipes in your repertoire to change up as you need from season to season. 

Come Winter/Christmas time, I'd be more inclined to go for marmalade and nutmeg or even a ginger preserve with orange zest.

In this loaf, I like to swirl the jam into the top of the batter. That way you get a nice fruity crust once baked. Unintentionally this one came out with a face in the first few slices...you may be able to notice!

Cherry & Ginger Swirl Loaf
(Makes a 2lb loaf, or 8" round cake)

175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on top
3 eggs
200g self raising flour
25g ground almonds
2 tsp ground ginger (or equivalent spice/zest of your choice)
4 tbsp Mackays Morello cherry preserve (or equivalent jam/preserve of your choice)

Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line the loaf tin.

Add all ingredients except the jam into a large mixing bowl and beat together until smooth, approximately 2 minutes. Pour into the loaf tin and smooth over the top with the back of a spoon. Spoon the jam into a piping bag (or sandwich bag), snip off the end and swirl onto the top of the loaf.

Bake for 40 minutes in the centre of the oven, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If there's some jam near the edges of the tin the sugar in it will catch and darken quickly, but it still tastes great.

Once cooked, sprinkle with the extra sugar and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. After which, turn out and leave to cool fully on a wire cooling rack.

This cake can be frozen for 1 month if needed.

Strawberry & Champagne Duffins

   I find Twitter to be one of the most useful blogging enablers. I get the sense of being in a little baking community where I can quite easily while away an hour or so chatting, exchanging tips and inspiration. But mainly, drooling over everyone's latest bakes that help to add to a never ending 'to-bake' list and an ever expanding bookmarks folder on my phone.

   So when I saw a tweet from the lovely people at Mackays asking for some bakers to join them and get baking with jam, I couldn't wait to join in. After an email suggesting a few ideas, a lovely stash of jams and curds arrived on my doorstep the very next day. At the very top of my 'to-bake' list was Duffins. One of those hybrid style bakes that people rave about. And because they sell them at my favourite cake place, I just had to give them a go.

   And now I know exactly why people rave about them. These are quite possibly the best things I have ever baked. Ever. I baked them last night and filled them this morning to take into the office but I'm already plotting alternative filling combinations. Custard and lemon curd. Apple and ginger. Lime and chocolate.

   I'm a little bit of a jam doughnut fiend. A popular choice for office birthday celebrations and also a reminder of eating them as a little person at my grandparent's. These Duffins, in case you didn't know, are a hybrid of a jam doughnut and a muffin. And because Mackays make an awesome strawberry and champagne preserve, they're just that little bit fancier!

Strawberry & Champagne Duffins
(Makes 22, recipe from Afternoon Tea with Bea)
     420g plain flour
     4tsp baking powder
     1/2 tsp salt
     1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
     330g caster sugar
     2 eggs, lightly beaten
     375ml sour cream/buttermilk
     2tsp vanilla extract
     130ml sunflower oil
Coating & dipping
     250g unsalted butter, melted
     300g caster sugar
     1/2 jar of Mackays Strawberry preserve with champagne

• Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease two 12 hole muffin trays.
• Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
• Add all the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Don't overmix.
• Spoon the mixture into the muffin tray, filling them three quarters of the way up.
• Bake for 22-30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
• Whilst the Duffins are baking, put the melted butter and sugar in their own shallow bowls and set aside.
• Once ready, remove the Duffins from the oven and tip out.
• Immediately dip the muffins in the melted butter, then roll in the sugar to liberally and evenly coat.
• Fill a piping bag with jam. Push the nozzle/tip through the top (or bottom if you want it to look neater) of the doughnut, up to midway. Pipe about 1 tbsp of jam inside each doughnut.

   I'm now left with one question...is it acceptable to have only champagne preserves from now on? To follow other jammy bakes, keep an eye on #bakingwithmackays