Sushi Cupcakes

Looking for a healthy snack? Sushi surely has to be on the menu... these cupcakes (or logs to be precise) are fondant-covered chocolate mud cake, cunningly disguised as healthful Japanese bite size sushi pieces.

I had huge fun making them, but it is not a quick undertaking. If you plan on creating some sushi cupcakes, give yourself three or four hours for the decorating process!

The first stage is to cut up your cake... in this case I used a rich chocolate mud cake, but it doesn't matter what type of cake as long as it has density and a fairly fine texture so that you can cut it and shape it easily.
I aimed for logs that were approximately the same size and shape as sushi pieces. Make them a little thinner and lower than you want to end up with - remembering the icing will make them bigger.

Then you need to roll out some white fondant icing and, having measured your chocolate cake logs, check with a ruler that your fondant is wide and long enough to cover the top and all four sides of the log in one piece.

Then dab a little water on the top and sides of the log to stick the fondant firmly, and drape it over the log, working the corners gently and cutting the edges to size. If you need to fold the corners over and there is a visible join, don't worry because this will all be hidden by your RICE GRAINS.

This is possibly the slowest and most ridiculously detailed fondant decoration I have done. I cut individual white fondant logs the size of rice grains (seen here larger than actual size). There reason it's slow is not because of the difficulty - they're not difficult at all. You do, however, need a lot of them. Like, hundreds.

As you are chopping up your rice grains, drop them in a pile of cornflour to make sure they don't stick to each other. They will dry and harden quickly - this is ok - it makes them easier to work with.

When you have enough rice grains, hold one fondant covered log gently by its top and base, and paint it with water to make it sticky, then sprinkle the grains onto it. They should adhere unevenly, like in this picture.
Do one side at a time, all four sides, but don't do the top because you will be covering that with fish, prawns etc.





Do all of your logs at once and have them all ready for the topping. If your rice grains become sticky, dredge them in cornflour again.

Then the fun part begins as you start your toppings!

Egg sushi - roll out bright yellow fondant thinly and cut into rectangles with a ruler. Make them slightly wider and longer than the log, and allow them to drape slightly over the corners like in the pic.

Then roll out some black fondant and cut it into strips. This needs to be very thin so that it resembles the paper-thin seaweed band of the real thing. Drape it carefully over the log, fixing it with a tiny drop of water. Beware do not get the water near the edges of the black band, because the colour will run onto the yellow fondant and look yuck.

Next make the sashimi tuna- easy!

Colour some fondant a pinkish red and roll it out to about .5cm thick. Cut a rectangle about the size of the log, then bend it a little to one side to make the shape a bit curved, and score it down the centre lengthways, then at an acute angle in sets of lines coming off the 'spine', like an arrow shape, for the bones.

For this caviar one you need a circle of cake, not a log shape. Cut a circle of cake with a circle cutter and cover the top and sides with white fondant, as described above. Then thinly roll out some black fondant, cut it into a long strip which is the same width as the height of the cake, and wrap it around the cake, using some water to stick it in place. Make sure there is a small amount of black fondant sitting above the top of the cake to act as a container for the 'caviar'.
For the caviar filling, using red fondant, chop small pieces about the size of a pea and roll them into spheres, then stick them on the top of the cake.

 For my personal favorite, the prawn nigiri sushi, you need to hand-sculpt a prawn body in white fondant - do this by making a cone shape, then flattening it and scoring it down the centre. Then roll the knife blade out of the scored line to create two rounded mounds with the scored line in the centre.

Get a separate piece of fondant and cut it roughly into a heart shape, then fashion the prawn's flat pronged tail from it. Score it with thin parallel lines.

Using some liquid food colour, paint the prawn with parallel stripes of yellow and orange. Use a deeper orange for the tail.

These are the prawn tails all laid out to dry after being painted. I laid them with the tail hanging off the edge of the plate so that they would dry in that shape and look really three-dimensional.

For the salmon nigiri, roll out a piece of pinkish red fondant and lay thin parallel stripes of white fondant on it, then roll again to adhere the two together. Cut rectangles the same size as the sushi logs and lay on top of the log, fixing with a drop of water.

Basically do whatever you can think of - I also did some white ones, as you can see here, and just scored them in a fishbone pattern.
A quick note, I also used a spray on culinary glaze with these - available from cake decorating suppliers. I was a bit suspicious of it, but it appeared to work well - it gave a bit of gloss to the sushi without making the colours run.
Enjoy your healthy snack! :-)

 

A traditional Linzer Torte ... with a sneaky gluten free option

A Linzer Torte is a wonderful thing.

Basically it's a cross between a cake and a pastry, made with hazelnut or almond meal, with a lattice top and a filling of blackcurrant or raspberry jam.

detail of the pastry lattice

There was an amazing Austrian or German cake shop in Melbourne when I was growing up called Fleischer's that used to make them. Fleischer's was in Chapel St, just around the corner from my Dad's toyshop in Toorak Road, and when I was little and was spending weekends with Dad, we would trot up there before we opened the shop on a Saturday morning, and get some little cakes to sustain us through a tough morning of toy-selling.

Fleischer's got me through many years of Saturday morning treats and the occasional cake for special occasions. I was delighted to see that Lori Leidler (Mr Fleischer) had contributed the recipe for his awesomely good Linzer Torte to Dean Brettscheider and Lauraine Jacobs's book Baker: The best of International Baking from Australian and New Zealand Professionals (Allen & Unwin, 2001).

I think Mr Leidler was being a bit sneaky though, because when I first made it, it didn't taste like the one I always had at Fleischer's. But when I replaced the ground almonds in his recipe with ground hazelnuts, it got a lot closer. AHAHA Mr Leidler, you can't fool a true Linzer devotee :-)

As there are some lovely people around me who are dietarily challenged, I experimented and found that this Torte works well as gluten-free and dairy-free (see my asterisks below), although I would always use wheat flour and a good unsalted butter if I have the option.

Linzer Torte

200g plain flour*
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
170g ground hazelnuts
110g castor sugar
1 tsp lemon zest, chopped finely
225g unsalted butter*
2 hardboiled egg yolks, mashed and cooled
2 raw egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
300g blackcurrant jam

glaze: 1 egg and 3 tbsp cream*, mixed together lightly

*for a dairy free option: substitute Nuttelex for butter and leave out the cream from the glaze; for a gluten free option: use a special gluten free flour such as Orgran All Purpose Flour, which is a texture-balanced mixture of maize, corn flour and rice flour - you can get this at health food stores.

Set the oven at 175C. Sieve the flour with the cloves and cinnamon into a large bowl and add the ground hazelnuts, the sugar, lemon zest, the butter (at room temperature) and the mashed hard-boiled egg yolks. Mix well to combine - I did this with bare hands, like the old fashioned way of creaming butter and sugar - this is because you can feel much better if the mixture is well combined. Add the raw egg yolks and the essence and work this into a dough.

 Form the dough into a ball - it will be very soft - and wrap in cling film; refrigerate for an hour to firm up.
Butter and flour a Springform cake tim with a removable base, otherwise you'll never be able to get the Torte out of the tin. (Remember if you are going gluten or dairy free you must take care to use your alternative butter and flour substitutes in this process or you will contaminate your cooking.)

Flour a bench top and press out three-quarters of the pastry, reserving the rest in the fridge for later.  Using plenty of flour because it will be sticky and soft, gently roll the pastry out to about 1cm thick, or until you have enough to cover the base and halfway up the sides of the tin. If the pastry sticks to the bench (and it will - believe me, it will) use a metal spatula to loosen it from the surface and get it into the tin. Patch any cracks or tears with oddments of pastry and press into the tim firmly.

Pour the jam into the pastry base....

...And spread evenly. A good quality European blackcurrant jam is desirable, although bizarrely, the dreaded Coles has started to produce their own brand which is actually fantastic - points to the evil empire for that one.

Apparently raspberry jam is also acceptable, but for me a true Linzer Torte has blackcurrant filling. 

Then take the remaining pastry from the fridge and roll out, cutting into strips about 1.5cm thick and as long as the diameter of the tin. Place the strips in a lattice pattern on top of the jam surface.

I found it difficult to be neat about this because the pastry is so soft - it tends to stretch, crack and stick to everything :-(

Brush the lattice with the egg and cream glaze to add some shine. Replace the Torte in the fridge for half an hour to firm up, then put it straight into the preheated oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the pastry is browning at the edges.

Remove from the oven and CAREFULLY run a clean sharp knife around the edge of the torte to loosen the sides from the tin, then leave it to cool and firm up for a while before removing the sides of the tin.

This keeps well for up to a week and can be gently warmed in the oven before serving to freshen it up. 

Happy eating!

Dates stuffed with pistachio marzipan

Now I know that not everybody in this world loves marzipan. But this is for those of us who do.

We know who we are... we sneak around at Christmas time stealing the thick layer of marzipan and icing off the fruit cake and discarding the cakey bit (because hardly ANYBODY is that keen on fruitcakes).













We pretend we like German Stollen for the sultanas when actually we can't wait to get to the little marzipan sausage in the middle. And the sight of glossy, colourful marzipan fruits makes us very, very excited.

 This is the sort of traditional European confectionary that I love. When I was a poor uni student I had a passion for Godiva chocolates, which were airlifted from Belgium and available at Daimaru (anyone else remember Australia's only Japanese department store?) They cost a fortune, and one of their lines was a marzipan-stuffed date which was coated in crunchy sugar, similar to this. I would have sold my grandmother for them... and nearly had to, because they were priced by weight and were quite a bit heavier than most of the chocolates.

I kind of made this up based on what I remembered and a few recipes that were similar. I was very pleased with the result and showed them to Mr Cupcake, who immediately said, "How cute... they look like little vaginas." I'm not sure if he meant that was a good thing or not. Anyway. Vaginas or not, Mr Cupcake could not be tempted by the stuffed dates because he's not keen on marzipan and also hates dates. So these were pretty much a dead loss in his book. Sorry Mr Cupcake :-(

A note for the dietarily challenged: these are gluten- and dairy-free.

Dates stuffed with pistachio marzipan

16 dates
80g pistachios
95g ground almonds
250g castor sugar
75ml water
1 egg white, lightly beaten
icing sugar
castor sugar for dusting

The dates need to be the best ones you can get, for instance in supermarkets go for the dates sold by weight in the fresh produce section because these are generally bigger, softer and juicier than the packaged dates on the dried fruits shelf.

Split the dates down one side, lengthways, and remove the stone. Then set them aside and make the marzipan.









Boil the castor sugar and the water in a small saucepan over a medium heat, stirring constantly until boiling, then boil the mixture without stirring until it reaches soft ball stage (116C, or you can test it by dropping a teaspoonful of mixture into iced water - if you can form it into a loose ball with your fingers, it's ready). Take off the heat and stir it until it begins to go cloudy - this is the sugar starting to grain. Then turn all the pistachios and almonds into the mixture along with the egg white, and stir well, placing it back onto a low heat and continuing to stir just for a few minutes until the mixture firms up a bit. 

Spread some icing sugar on a clean dry bench and turn the marzipan out onto it. Leave it until it's cool enough to work with your hands, then begin to knead it gently until it is smooth and pliable.







 

Add as much icing sugar as you need to stop it being sticky. Form it into a ball - this quantity will yield much more than you need for the quantity of dates, so cut off about a quarter of it to use immediately and wrap the rest tightly in cling film and refrigerate - it will keep for months.

 The texture should be fine and slightly speckled like this.

Roll small sausage shaped pieces about the same length as the dates.

Then gently prise the date open and place the marzipan log in the middle, pressing the sides of the date into it so there are no gaps.

Sprinkle or pat some castor sugar over the top to make a little sugary coating, Repeat with the other dates.

If you want a thicker, more opaque coating, brush the date and pistachio with a little egg white and then dredge it in sugar. This will dry to a crunchy pale coating. I have also seen these with one end dipped in white liquid fondant, which dries hard - it looks lovely too.

Keep in an airtight container or in the fridge.They should keep for at least a few weeks if stored well.

Action shot. Dates going everywhere.

There are many folks out there who are not keen on dates... if this is you, you can make these very successfully with walnut halves sandwiched together with the marzipan.

Dr Cupcake's double chocolate tart, two ways

As Winter gusts its way through Hobart, and the top of Mt Wellington starts looking like it has been dusted with fine icing sugar, rich dark chocolate is a necessity in the Cupcake household. So I woke up on Sunday morning, huffed and puffed my way through a short jog (so I could justify the indulgence to come) and started my chocolate plan of attack.

 Jamie Oliver, Martha Stewart, Chantal Coady all had chocolate tart recipes but I was looking for something very specific. In the end I adapted elements from all of them... this double chocolate tart has bitter cocoa in the pastry and 70% semisweet chocolate in its ganache filling.










 

I also made little tartlets.  These little babies are bite size and they're small enough for even people on horrible DIETS to consume.














Recipe is below, but here's the pictorial version...

The pastry is easy - all the dry ingredients get chucked in a food processor with the butter.











 

Then you add the iced water and pulse to make a ball of dough. You need to press this out roughly and wrap in cling film and chill for a while, because otherwise it's too hard to work. 

Butter the tart tins...

 When it's chilled, roll out - for small tartlets, cut a shape a slightly bigger circumference to the tin and push the pastry in, like in this pic, trimming the edges with a sharp knife.

For a larger tart, carefully pick up the rolled-out pastry and drape it centrally over the tin, then press it over the bottom and sides. Trim the edges with a sharp knife and use this extra pastry to patch any tears or gaps.

You should end up with something like this.

Blind bake the shells (instructions below) - these are what the tiny tart shells looked like when blind baked.

Make the ganache by boiling the cream and pouring it onto the chocolate pieces. With a few minutes of gentle stirring you will end up with a luscious, glossy mixture.

If you like, you could put a layer of something crunchy underneath the ganache - I say this because I used amazing stuff called Charlie's Choc Sugar, made by a company called Gewurzhaus. It's spicy, crunchy, and very sweet - the ingredients are cane sugar, cassia, coriander, clove, nutmeg and cocoa. Just adds something unexpected :-)

Fill the tart shells (with or without Charlie's Choc Sugar!) with the still-warm ganache and leave to cool. 

By this stage you'll be getting a great sense of achievement, because the glossy ganache makes the tarts look wonderful!

Decorate with your choice of topping... I found these beautiful bi-colour chocolate curls in an amazing new providore Bottega Rotolo in Bathurst St Hobart.












 

They taste yummy too :-)

For the larger tart a big dollop of cream just provided a bit more contrast.















Happy eating, chocophiles.... full recipes below.

Chocolate Pate Brisee (Sweet Crust Pastry)
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp salt
2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 to 1/2 cup iced water

Process all the dry ingredients and the butter (cut into small pieces)  in a food processor for about 10 seconds, or until the mixture looks like coarse meal or breadcrumbs. Then pour a small amount of the iced water down the funnel while blitzing the mixture again. Add this slowly because you won't need it all. When the mixture balls cleanly from the sides of the processor, you have finished. Discard any water left over and turn the mixture out onto some cling wrap, flattening it into a rough circle with your palm. Then put it in the fridge for half an hour (or the freezer for 10 mins) to chill.

Grease and flour your tart tin/s and set the oven to 190C.

Flour your bench and rolling pin and roll out the pastry, turning it regularly to make sure it doesn't stick to the bench. Don't overwork it. When it's about 4mm thick, line the tart tins as shown above.

You need to blind bake the pastry shell (this means you put the pastry in the oven and cook it without a filling - you need to do this when the filling you are going to use doesn't need to be cooked). Spread a layer of baking paper over the pastry and use pastry weights, if you have them, or gravel or small stones if you don't, to weight it down (this will stop the pastry puffing up when cooking).

Bake a large shell for 15 mins or until it's slightly springy to the touch. Bake small/mini shells for about 8-10 mins; instead of using pastry weights, you can 'nest' another shell on top of them when cooking (like when you're stacking the empty tart tins on top of each other). This will stop them puffing up just as well as pastry weights.

When the tart shells are cooked, turn them out of the tins CAREFULLY and leave to cool while you make the ganache filling.

Ganache Filling
300ml thick cream
330g 70% dark chocolate
2 tsp castor sugar

Chop or break the chocolate into small pieces, place in a heatproof bowl and leave aside. Turn the cream and sugar into a small saucepan and bring it to the boil (be careful, when it starts to boil it will boil up and spill over very quickly). As soon as it boils, pour it onto the chocolate, and stir gently while the chocolate melts. After a few minutes the mixture should be well combined, thick and glossy.

To put it all together, spoon the still-warm ganache into the tart shells and leave it to cool.

A Cake for the Parliamentary Princess

Last week there was a birthday in the office - it was the lovely Amy's birthday. Amy is generally known as the Parliamentary Princess because she is a whizz at managing all of the Parliamentary briefs and papers, and we all depend very much on her.

When it came to making a cake, obviously it had to be a cake fit for a princess... so I made a crown cake!

This design is borrowed from the amazing Paris Cutler of Planet Cake. Her original design was for a circular cake, and the increased space gave room for the letters 'PRINCESS' to be spelt out underneath the crown. However, because I wanted to go with a gluten free, dairy free orange syrup cake that tends to sink in the middle, I went for a loaf shape that would be easier to reverse top to bottom to get a flat top.

Instead of chocolate ganache as a base for the icing, I used very dark (70%) chocolate, melted and poured straight onto the cooled cake. I fiddled with it as little as possible, just leaving it to find its level. It took about an hour to firm up in the fridge. The chocolate tasted really lovely as a coating for the cake, but it made the cake really hard to cut!

Meanwhile I prepared the fondant by kneading in some pink gel colouring.

 

When I started on the crown, I made it in white and planned to coat it in some food-grade gold leaf flakes that I had in the cupboard but had never used. (Paris's design called for gold shimmer dust but I didn't have any.)

But when I tried to apply the gold flakes it was a bit of a disaster. They wouldn't stick on, and when I tried to moisten the surface of the icing to help the adherence, the flakes just rolled up into sticky chunks.

I abandoned the effort and remade the crown in yellow fondant, which worked quite well. The crown was hand cut and hand shaped - I didn't use a stencil, but you could if you wanted.

In the pic you can see the gold leaf experiment in the background and the new yellow crown in the foreground. 

I also made some little stars with a small cutter as additional decoration.

After rolling out the pink fondant and covering the entire top and sides of the cake, I rolled out some thin strips of white fondant, and created 'frills' by running a balling tool down one side (this thins out the fondant on that side and stretches it slightly so it is both thinner and more curvy).

Then, using a little water, I stuck these ribbons in a looped formation around the edges of the top, and finished them off by fixing a flat 'ribbon' at their edges, to hide the messy edge where they joined the pink icing.

I stuck the crown and stars on with a little water, and hey presto! Happy birthday Parliamentary Princess!!