friederike's Reviews
4 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 4Sort by: Title 
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BBC Good Food
(September, 2011)
Caramelised Lemon Cake : page 52
I only made part of this recipe, the (very impressive looking) topping, and used the recipe of a friend for the rest of the cake. And as I had quite some problems with the instructions for the topping, I was actually quite glad I could rely on my recipe for the rest of the cake.
The biggest problem was that you're supposed to heat 200g sugar and juice of one lemon in a saucepan until the sugar just begins to caramelise. However, given the quantities, in reality the sugar will never caramelise, only dissolve in the juice. I ended up doing the whole thing again, only this time adding only a few drops every now and then, adding the rest of the juice only once the sugar did begin to caramelise, and this worked so much better!
However, if, as instructed, you start out with this step and only after that begin to peel and slice the lemons, you might run into trouble again, as you will be busy for a while and the caramel will cool down and harden; luckily not too much in my case, but why risk it? It's so easy to just turn around the order in which you're doing things.
Then the caramel started leaking out of the springform tin I was using; not so bad while I was preparing the batter, but a lot worse while it was in the oven - I was glad I had placed a baking tray below, just in case. Just something you should realise, use another type of tin if you can.
Last, in the end I wasn't able to see the lemon slices at all - which for me had been the whole reason to make the topping. Perhaps it would help to not let the sugar caramelise at all (mine was a light brown before and after baking), but it would probably work even better if you used oranges (or clementines for size) or blood oranges instead. That said, even if invisible the topping was very delicious on top of an excellent cake, which is whyI'll give it 3 stars.
I had to use double the recipe my friend gave me to be able to fill the 23cm springform tin, but apart from longer baking times this wasn't a problem at all.
Served together with Nigels Slater's Chocolate Brownies, a perfect combination of sweet and sweet-sour, chocolate and fruit.
useful (1)
DB had this as a lunch box salad this week, and he didn't really get the idea behind it. On one hand you had the crunchy, uncooked cauliflower, on the other the strong blue cheese; neither of the two combined with the other nor took up any of the dressing.
useful (0)
Maple Pecan Beans : page 33
Very simple. I actually quite liked it, though it wasn't really special, but DB thought it was too sweet, and didn't like the sweetness with the beans. Both of us also agreed that the sauce was too liquid, and that it was difficult to eat the pecans together with the beans. However, I liked the crunch of the nuts with the beans.
We served this with Roast Pork with Apples and Mustard, which was a good choice in a way because I just imagined that maple being part of the pork dish - in that sense, it complemented one another very well. It probaly would have been maple-overkill in combination with my favourite pork-apple-dish, Sticky Maple Pork with Apples, but you still could just add some pecans, perhaps with a bit of butter and salt.
useful (1)
Roast Pork with Apples and Mustard : page 45
It's not exactly the first dish with Pork and Apples (and Mustard!) I've been making; and of all four, this one included, three are from the BBC (surprise, surprise!). And it's really not that different.
One important difference was the quantity of liquid added in relation to what it should be as a result - you don't need the 200ml stock at all. It's probably enough to just add the mustard and crème fraîche, carefully heating both (be careful with the crème fraîche to prevent it from shifting!), perhaps add a few spoonfuls of water and that's it. Additionally, if you use that much iquid, you tend to overcook the pork because you might hope that the sauce will thicken if you cook it just a bit longer - nope, it won't.
Of all previous versions (Pork and Apple Braise, Normandic Skewers and Sticky Maple Pork with Apples), I definitely most enjoyed the Sticky Maple Pork.
We served this with Maple Pecan Beans - a good combination, in a way, because the maple combined very well with the combination of apples, pork, mustard and sage (and pecans), but less so with the beans.
useful (1)