The Technical Bake

Opposite the page with the recipe for the hazlenut and chocolate cake is the recipe for Rhubarb and Custard cupcakes. To me this is a combination I love and, encouraged by my Mam, I decided at the start of the week that I might attempt to make them. 


When I read through the recipe though I was put off...it looked complicated. Not only were there 4 different components to these cupcakes, they were four quite complicated components. Rhubarb compote (which I could not find so decided to make), custard (from scratch - I've only ever made it from custard powder before!), the sponge (the easier part?) and the buttercream (which included, in this instance, a sugar syrup brought to boil at 115 degrees and then combined into an egg white base before finally adding the butter). When I found out that my Mam had a sugar thermometer I had no choice but to go for it!


The sponge was a straighforward and quick all-in-one method and made a really nice light and moist cake. Whilst these were baking I made the custard. Again this was less difficult than I first imagined it would be and I may well attempt making it from scratch more regularly. All there is to it really is egg yoke, sugar, cornflour, milk +/- cream and vanilla. Mmmm! So I set that aside to cool and turned my attention to the buttercream. To be honest I was quite scared about this part. Mainly about ruining one of my Mam's saucepans by burning the syrup to it! 


I set it to melt (a combination of sugar and water) with the confectionary thermometer in the mixture. Meanwhile I started to whisk up some egg whites until they held soft peaks. Next came the tricky part. Continuing to whisk whilst adding the boiling hot syrup. I thought this would potentially be a disaster, especially because we have no free-standing mixer....So, I called my Mam to come and help. Finally we whisked in the butter (and a lot of it), bit by bit until a light sugary cream was formed. It tasted  yummy! Like melted marshmallows perhaps?

In the end it came together nicely. Another winner for me, but definitely not one I'll be making regularly cos it does require quite a lot of effort!
 ....I wonder whether there will ever be a recipe I don't like in this book?




***p.s. 106ers I miss you and I will bake again for you soon. Much love Xxx