A catchy title indeed.
Days before the country was thrust into lock down I managed to sneak in some surprise birthday cakes for a good friend of ours. I never intended to write about these but a request has been made. I veered so far off the recipe I used that it would probably be easier to just put it all down here.
I’ve found myself wanting to bake during this lock down but stopping myself as it is only the two of us and more concerning than eating too much cake is wasting too much cake. I’ve had to really think about what ingredients I have and what I want to use them in to give me maximum gratification. There is also no point making something that is best eaten day of baking. I want good hardy tin staples that will stay good for a week to come (remind me to share my version of Al Brown’s ginger loaf which I swear only gets better as the week goes on).
These cakes however are not good at standing the test of time. The fresh mascarpone for the topping really only lasts a day - it kind of looses its sheen and splits a wee bit after a few hours. If you were desperate to bake these during a lock down I would recommend making a fraction of the recipe to suit the size of your bubble or perhaps only making up the mascarpone each time you want to eat a cakelet.
I had originally intended to follow a recipe of The Cakers - her one for blackcurrant, lemon, and vanilla baby cakes with blackcurrant mascarpone topping. I didn’t have any blackcurrants, only raspberries and I didn’t feel like making lots of baby cakes (I had just made about 60 for a friend’s kitchen tea). When I went to bake these muffin sized cakelets I completely forgot to put the frozen raspberries into the batter. By the time I realised it was too late and I’d even forgotten to defrost the spare raspberry compote I had in the freezer. What I did however have was some spare rhubarb and strawberry compote (as you do) that was ready and waiting for me in the fridge which was handy because I was in a rush to get these out for delivery. Instead of including the fruit in the cake I cored out a hole in the centre and piped in a good dollop of the strawberry and rhubarb. I think in solving the problem I made the cake better than before, after all who doesn’t like biting into a good jammy filled centre?
Play around with using what fruit you have. If you have lemons I think filling these with lemon curd then mixing some of that curd into the mascarpone would be banging. The same does for raspberries or boysenberries. Let me know what you use and how you get on. Props to whoever manages to use feijoas.
Strawberry and Rhubarb Filled Cakelets With Not Too Sweet Mascarpone
Makes 12 regular muffin sized cakelets
Adapted from The Caker’s Blackcurrant, Lemon, and Vanilla BabyCakes With Blackcurrant And Mascarpone Icing in The Caker: Wholesome cakes, cookies, and desserts.
180g butter, softened
180g sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
180g ground almond
40g spelt flour (or regular flour)
Zest of two lemons
Juice of one lemon
2-3 red stalks of rhubarb, chopped into 2cm pieces
1 cup frozen strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste
200g mascarpone
Sliced almonds, freeze dried fruits, and flowers to decorate
Make the rhubarb compote by placing all of the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Stir regularly and use a spoon to gently break up the fruit and rhubarb as it cooks. Simmer for around 30 minutes until all the fruit has broken brown and it has thickened to the consistency of a runny jam. You can add a little more sugar to your taste if you like just make sure it is well dissolved before taking off the heat. Leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a twelve pan muffin tray with butter or cooking spray. Cut large rough circles of baking paper then in each cut lines inwards like a sun so that the pleats created fold over each other and will fit snugly into the muffin well. Do this for all twelve holes.
Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest until very pale. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl between each one.
Fold in the ground almonds and spelt flour then followed gently by the lemon juice.
Divide the batter between the twelve muffin pans and bake for close to 30 minutes. Check with a skewer and if it doesn’t come out either clean or gently covered in cooked crumbs then bake for a further 5 minutes until it does.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin to cool completely .
Once the cakelets have completely cooled remove any baking paper still stuck to them. The top of the cakes are the nice flat surfaces created by the bottom of the muffin pan. Take a paring knife and carve out a hole in the top of each cake. Don’t cut too wide but you can go reasonably deep just be careful not to cut right through. Eat the offcuts.
Either carefully spoon or pip the compote into each hole filling to just under the top. If you fill right to the top you risk having it spill out under the mascarpone.
Whip up the mascarpone for a minute or so so that it is nice and smooth. Take two to three spoonfuls of the compote and gently fold through. If you want a nice ripple effect don’t mix too much but if you want a nice homogenous pink colour then mix until that is achieved. Transfer the mascarpone to a piping bag with a wide round nozzle attached. Hold the piping bag about 1cm above the centre of the cake and apply a steady pressure so that the mascarpone spreads out to the edge of the cakelet then raise the piping bag to release and to create a tip.
Decorate with fresh edible flowers, sliced almonds, and freeze dried fruits.
Best eaten the day of baking x