lemon & blueberry teacakes

I definitely take after my parents and love looking for a bargain but to give credit where it's due, mum found this mini bundt tin when she went shopping on a weekend at Aldi and I absolutely love it! It's probably a couple of months back now when Aldi had these on special and they were only $4 each. There were a few other different shapes which mum kindly bagged for me and well, they've been sitting on my shelf waiting to be used. Well, what better way to test the bundt pan than with the recipe for lemon & blueberry teacakes I found in 'The Ottolenghi Cookbook'!

The quality of the pan is fantastic (I forget the brand now) but the thickness and sturdiness of the pan is comparable to your Baker's Secret & Wiltshire pans. Start by preheating the oven to 170 degrees. Leave the 6 hole mini bundt pan and 1 large bundt pan in the fridge for a few minutes, then remove and brush with plenty of melted butter. Return them to the fridge.

In a large bowl, cream together 280g unsalted butter and 280g caster sugar together until pale and fluffy. Break 5 eggs into a cup and mix lightly with a fork, gradually add the eggs to the butter mix, beating well until each addition has been fully incorporated. Once all the egg is incorporated, gently fold in 280g ground almonds and 65g plain flour. Add in the grated zest of 2 lemons, 100ml lemon juice (which works out to be the juice of 2 lemons) and 120g fresh blueberries. Be extra gentle when you fold in the blueberries so they don't break.

Take the moulds from the fridge. Spoon the mixture into the tins, reaching all the way up to the edge. You will fill exact 1 large bundt tin and make an additional 6 mini bundt cakes. Bake the small cakes in the oven for about 30-35 minutes, the large cake will take roughly 50 minutes. 

Best way to check if they're ready is to test with a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake, making sure it comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven and let them in their tins for 10 minutes.

Then turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

The recipe in the cookbook actually also has a lemon glaze which I thought was unnecessary. You'll end up gobbling up the cakes in the time it takes to make the glaze and this is literally what happened. I started eating one, then I had one cousin come over, I sent them home with 4 mini bundts, my aunt and mum shared one, then another cousin comes over and I send them home with the big bundt.

The texture of this cake is deliciously moist and there is a good pairing of the sour of the lemons with the sweet of the blueberries. My uncle tells me that the big bundt was gobbled up overnight as it was that delicious; I would've been keen to see how the texture of the big bundt turned out and whether it had cooked evenly.

Well mum is keen on me making this one again because she's a big fan of citrus flavours (lemon is probably her favourite) and well, after dividing the bakes amongst the various family members, we all ended up having very little. It's a good thing that berries have been reasonably cheap lately so costwise it won't be too expensive and to be quite honest, it's a real luxury to use fresh blueberries for baking. It's not like using frozen blueberries where you have them defrosting as you mix streaking the cake with colour and then subsequently leaving the cake a little undercooked/running when the frozen water seaps out during baking. Fingers crossed that berries stay cheap for a little longer!

white chocolate & cranberry biscuits

Equaling my obsession with Adriano and his macarons is my fascination for Yotam Ottolenghi and his cookbooks. I recently purchased his new cookbook 'Plenty' off Bookdepository (my favourite website in the world!) and have been drooling over its every page, eager to cook every single one of the recipes. Well I haven't quite got that far yet and actually, I bought Yotam's first cookbook 'Ottolenghi The Cookbook' when it first came out (pre. my discovery of Bookdepository) and only just the other week, made my first recipe from the cookbook. Seeing another blog post about the same recipe, it looks the 'White chocolate and cranberry biscuits' are naturally the first recipe to make!

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. In a large bowl, combine 100g softened unsalted butter, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 110g soft brown sugar and 25g caster sugar.

Gradually add in 1 lightly beaten egg.

Sift into the mix 90g plain flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda and then 80g rolled oats. Stir to combine. Mix in 60g chopped white chocolate and 75g dried cranberries (recipe also recommends dried blueberries for a more 'grown up' biscuit).

Scoop out a bit of the mix with a spoon and use hands to roll into a ball. Press the balls lightly onto lined baking trays. Make sure you leave a good 6-7cm apart as they tend to spreadh quite a bit.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until they a golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the trays before serving.

Makes 25-30. Here's my tray and the pic from the book - they turn out pretty much spot on.

Look at the crunchy crisp texture!

A handful of these were gobbled up as they came out of the oven and throughout the next day - I really do recommend this recipe but do be careful with leaving space between each ball of dough when it goes into the oven; I thought I'd left another room but had a tray of cookies that just started baking into one another! 

There's so many other recipes in the book which I want to make that I'm quite spoilt for choice! Probably will make the teacakes as I've bought a mini kugelhopf tin which is waiting to be used.