The Big Tea Time Random Recipes Round-Up! Cakes, Pies and Biscuits…….

The Big Tea Time Random Recipes Round-Up!

Cakes, Pies and Biscuits…….

Thirty days ago, I announced that the September Tea Time Treats challenge was joining forces with  Dom from Random Recipes for one fun filled month, and here we are a month later, with a plethora of pies, cakes, biscuits, cookies, bakes and even chutney! So, here is my round-up of the entries…….posted with photos and links, and with the words of the entrants……and some of them have quite something to say! 

The Big Tea Time Random Recipes Round-Up!

Levi Root’s West Indian fruit cake with cream cheese topping…..Miss C Flash from Food, Glorious Food is a  a big fan of Levi Roots as being of Jamaican heritage, and has blogged several times from this book. She is always delighted to cook/ bake West Indian food and has had the opportunity of meeting Levi before at Notting Hill carnival and every time she makes or bakes from his cook books she remembers how friendly he was to her…….

NYC Crumb Cake from cakeyboi.com says……” I have followed the rules for number 20 and taken my actual books, closed my eyes, prayed for the best and I couldn’t have asked for better really! Although ‘Tea Time’ is a British staple, being a Yankophile as I am, NYC Crumb Cake was right up my street (should that be 5th Avenue?!)  I had never made it and I was quite impressed with the results! It comprises a moist cake on the bottom, with huge cinnamon flavour cookie type crumbs atop said cake”…..

Extra Moist Blueberry Muffins by Ros The more than occasional baker says……” This month, 2 of my favourite blogging challenges have combined to form Tea Time Random Recipes. It’s such a brilliant idea and I love it! Dom has been planning world domination for months and I’m sure this is a small step towards that goal 😉  It’s going to be a massive month of glorious, random tea time treats and I can’t wait to see the round up! The challenge was simple. Put together books that would have tea time recipes and randomly select one then randomly select a page. I dutifully did as I was told and came up with Scrumptious Muffins by Marc Grossman. It’s a lovely little book full of scrumptious muffins as the title suggests! “

Phil from As Strong as Soup made Bolton Flat Cakes…….”On opening the book at random, I found myself faced with Bolton Flat Cakes. The first thing to say about the flat cake is that it isn’t really a cake in the usual, modern sense. I recently posted a recipe for Eccles Cakes and I hope that I won’t offend anyone in Bolton if I say that these are in the same family (as are Chorley cakes and sad cakes). I was a little doubtful that I’d enjoy these but, actually, I thought they were lovely, old-fashioned treats – like portable versions of the jam tarts that I had as a kid”…..

Kate from What Kate Baked made a Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake and says…….” The days are getting shorter, the early mornings chillier, Strictly is soon to return to our screens but fear not! Because, Kate has shared the What Kate Baked guide to extending the summer…Ten ways to Prolong that Summer Feeling on her blog”……and some of her delicious chocolate cake.

Chris from Cooking around the World made  Tea Cakes and said…..” Dom at Belleau Kitchen conspired together with Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. So we are not dealing anymore with Random Recipes, but ….. with Tea Time Random Recipes. Well, you might have guessed something like that already by looking at the badge. How are we going to cope? I tell you. This should be no big deal. I even can select the book myself and just have to randomize the page. After reading the challenge, it was absolutely clear, which book I would take – even without thinking (if that makes any sense)”…….

Cooking up a Storm in a Teacup – Blue eggs and green tea ……..”Well with all the tea and the little blue eggs that a friend’s chicken laid, it was perfect timing for making afternoon tea. Especially as the theme for Dom/Karen/Kate’s random recipe this month is “teatime.”  The recipe book I chose was Merry Berry’s Simple Cakes. (Edit:whoops that should say Mary Berry!) It randomly opened at page 40, Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake. The great thing about Mary Berry’s recipes is that just like Delia Smith’s you know they are so well tried-and-tested that as long as you follow them correctly will work perfectly”……

Jean from BAKING IN FRANGLAIS made  PEAR AND GOAT’S CHEESE MINI MUFFINS and said…..”The mini muffins were an absolute delight.  The recipe makes 48 mini muffins – all the recipes in the book will make 48 minis or 12 standard muffins.  I didn’t need 48 so I made 24 minis and 6 regular muffins.  They were scrummy. Next time we have visitors, or a party, I shall be baking these delicious little morsels again………they would be perfect served as nibbles at apéro time I think”…..

Mainly Baking – Thumbprint Cookies.….”This particular recipe was for a plain cookie filled with Nutella, or a similar chocolate hazelnut spread. The only change I made to the recipe was to add some vanilla extract to the cookie dough. I also refrigerated the dough for the suggested 1 hour resting time, although the recipe didn’t ask for this. The instructions in the recipe said to roll the rested dough into balls, then flatten before making an indentation to fill with Nutella. I did this but wasn’t happy with how far the cookies then spread during baking – they became quite flat, with the later cookies spreading even further than the first ones shaped, perhaps because the dough was warming up by then”…..

Laura from How to Cook Good Food made Chorizo & Spring Onion Tea Bread  wrote….”The book  little son chose was “Totally Teabreads“. Page 92 revealed a “Sausage Cheese Bread”. If I was a good mother I would have cooked just that and my children would have munched it happily. But no, I selfishly turned it into a boldly flavoured chorizo and spring onion bread. Predictably all 3 children tried it and looked at me in a way that said “Here she goes again with the spice and onions. When will she learn we want sausage and mild Cheddar”.However, from an adult point of view (or discerning child) this is absolutely delicious. It’s light, fluffy and  savoury with a slight nubbly texture from the use of polenta. A perfect accompaniment to a bowl of Autumnal soup”…..

Mel at Sharky Oven Gloves – Blueberry polenta upside-down cake ……”I decided to use randomly pick a recipe from my A Treasury of New Zealand Baking book, which is full of baking recipes (shocking, I know) that are definitely tea time appropriate.  The random number generator on my calculator directed me to page 216, a recipe for blueberry polenta upside-down cake, which also calls for white wine and olive oil in the ingredients list.  Polenta, white wine, olive oil and blueberries?  In a cake?  Intriguing.  And an excellent excuse to clear out some of the frozen blueberry reserves currently taking up space in my freezer”……

 Under the Blue Gum Tree – Custard and White Chocolate Biscuits writes….”On a whim, I decided to do something a little different. I typed the words tea time into the search function on the BBC GoodFood website and lo and behold got 31 results. A whirl of a random number generator gave me a stupendous ’6′, which corresponded to these custard and white chocolate biscuits.I don’t bake biscuits very often as, for the calories, I would rather eat cake. But on the rare occasions I have made them, it never fails to surprise me how easy they are. This recipe was no exception and in less than half an hour, I had several trays of these custard laced, chocolate studded biccies cooling in the kitchen”….

Little Macaroons made Cheddar, Onion and Herb Wholemeal Scones and says….”So, while listening to Nigel Slater on the radio, extolling the virtues of savouring even the humblest piece of fruit at the table with a napkin and cutlery, I mixed up a batch of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Cheddar, Onion and Herb Wholemeal Scones. Very therapeutic it was too. I used up my spelt flour in place of the light brown in his recipe, rosemary from the garden, and included a few chunks of applewood smoked cheddar as well as the regular stuff I had in the fridge”……

 Susie from Fold in the Flour baked Chocolate Profiteroles with Raspberry Cream and wrote….”When I opened it, the recipe that the book chose for me was one for Chocolate Profiteroles. I was pretty pleased with this. I have made choux pastry once before, when I did the pastry introduction course at Eckington Manor back in March. I’ve wanted to try it again but just haven’t got around to it. This recipe intrigued me, though, as it uses cocoa powder to flavour the choux buns. I still love the idea of Chocolate Profiteroles which have a double dose of chocolate via the choux, but think this recipe could usefully be tweaked a bit. The choux was almost too chocolatey, and the first batch made at the higher temperature were decidedly bitter. The raspberry cream was lovely though, and complemented the dark chocolate ganache. It was just like a big ‘ol flavour bomb going off in my mouth”…..

Janet from The Taste Space made some Moroccan Tomato Chili Chutney tells us….”This month’s Random Recipe which was to randomly pick a tea time treat. I have a few cookbooks, but none with a section for tea treats, so I randomly flipped through cookbooks until I found a tea-appropriate treat. That’s when I pulled out Clock Book and it fell open to this Tomato and Chili Chutney, very reminiscent of tomato jam, although definitely more of a chutney with the vinegar. The cookbook paired it with fried crispy squid but like tomato jam, I figured it would be nice with a simple bread or cracker. I am a sucker for cinnamon, and paired with tomato and a sharp vinegary bite with a touch of heat from the red chiles, this was a unique chutney”……

 Lapin d’Or and More bake an old favourite, Rock Cakes and says….”So my solution to making the random choice was to get out my box of recipe clippings and select a good handful that for me were tea time treats (sausage rolls, pork pies, scones, gingerbread, sponge cake…)  and then to ask my other half to give me a number and we ended up with Rock Cakes”….

Janice over at Farmersgirl Kitchen says…”For my Random Recipe I decided to pick the two ‘Little Book of Treats’ that Susan, from A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate ,sent to me.  Both Susan and Karen have fabulous recipes featured in the 2012 edition of the book, which is sold at M&S Cafes in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. I was delighted to see that the recipe I’d chosen was for Lemon Drizzle Cake, both because it would work perfectly with the Berry Compote”….

Ruth from Makey Cakey made Candied Melon Oatmeal Cookies and says….”I then randomly picked a recipe, which turned out to be ‘Cherry & Oatmeal Cookies’ from page 201 in the Wholesome Cookies section. Since I didn’t have dried cherries in the cupboard I immediately headed off piste, and what with having to adapt it to being dairy free, I’m pretty sure what I ended up with was a fairly long way away from what the original recipe would have created. But please forgive them (and me) because at least they turned out pretty! And so to the question of what I substituted in place of the dried cherries. I’ll give you 3 guesses… Raisins? No. Chocolate chips? Nope. Nuts of some sort? No, no, no. What’s that you say – one more chance – OK! Candied melon? Yes!!! You’re spot on”….

Round Lemon Cake was made by Kiki at Kitchen of Kiki and says….” It took a few look ups to find a recipes, as this cooking book is having suggestions on tea targeted the different season. The first recipe I found was on making strawberry jam, which is a bite out of season being in September. The second recipe found by my fingers was then Rund Citronkage (Round Lemon Cake). This cake could be considered as a home-made version of the widely known Danish cake “citronmåne” (lemon mone). However, the taste is a million times better !!!!”……..

 Food Lust People Love made Scottish Shortbread -and was….” I was delighted when my random choice fell on Jamie’s Great Britain and then, coup of all coups, it opened to Scottish Shortbread.  I was sort of hoping for a savory treat because, as many of you know, I am not a big sweet eater but these biscuits are deliciously simple (only four ingredients!) and not too sweet.  I am, on the other hand, a lover of all things British, including my dear husband, so this challenge was right up my street, as they say on the small island”……

Tropical Fruit Flapjack Slices by Moi!  This recipe for Tropical Fruit Flapjack Slices has been adapted slightly, well quite a lot actually, I recently received a box of the most amazing Fairtrade and organic dried fruits and mushrooms from Tropical Wholefruitsfollow. I was sent packets of dried mango,  pineapple, banana, raisins, apricots as well as spiced apricot kernels, which are delicious. And, amongst my tropical bounty of dried fruits and fruit bars, were packets of mushrooms too, such as porcini, chanterelle and oyster mushrooms – I have enough dried fruit and mushrooms to see me through quite a few meals, but, I wanted to try some of the tropical fruits first, so, I added some dried bananas and pineapple chips to the standard Be-Ro flapjack recipe, as well as increase the flour and add two eggs, so my flapjacks became a flapjack tray bake!

Lincolnshire Poacher Pie – A Random Tea Time baked by Gary from Exploits of a Food Nut  who says…..”Tea time by my definition is the godfather of the days meals. A meal requiring hearty sustenance providing a good refuelling after a hard day’s work, school, college, university….well maybe not the last one but you get my drift.I had one thought when this challenge was announced and that thought was….PIE!!!”….

 Vanilla Clouds and Lemon Drops made a lovely Coconut Cake…….”When I stopped as I was extremely happy to discover I had picked her ‘Snow-topped Coconut Cake’ which was part of the Winter Wonderland tea menu. Since I love coconut and lime I was ecstatic, and after drooling over the accompanying picture for a couple of weeks I finally got round to baking the cake”…..

The Spice Garden and some Caraway Seed Cake.  ….”I was happy that this particular tea cake does not have the added layer of sweet icing or jam or any other embellishment – just a sifting of confectioner’s sugar atop. Yes, it has butter and sugar and liquor, but one can slice the loaf thinly and have a treat without breaking the calorie counter for the day” …

Caroline Makes….and her Puppy dog cupcakes! ……”Random Recipes and Tea Time Treats have teamed up this month so the challenge was to assemble all of your recipe books that contain cakes, biscuits and other tea time treats, and pick something at random. I did just that, and the book that my hand fell upon (OK, poetic licence there – I actually went all high tech and used a random number generator!) was none other than Hello, Cupcake! For those of you who aren’t familiar with the behemoth that is Hello Cupcake, it’s an American publishing sensation that encompasses books, a website, an app and even a calendar. They show you how to make cupcakes that look like animals, boxes of popcorn, shoes – they are known for their imaginative designs”….

Caroline at Cake, Crumbs and Cooking made Maple Syrup Butter Cookies and says…”Perfect – nothing says ‘Teatime’ to me more than biscuits. These were really quick and easy to put together. They’re a melting-moment type biscuit. I tried to find the recipe online, but find the AWW website very hard to navigate so I had to give up. They consist of butter beaten with maple syrup and a tiny dash of vanilla. This was my only real problem making them – the butter and maple syrup is supposed to become light and fluffy but mine split and wouldn’t do light and fluffy. Plain flour and cornflour is then added and they are piped onto prepared trays to be baked. They were fun to pipe (I like piping generally), if a little sticky”……

Apple Scones from Dancing Veggies says…….”I have a single Nigella Lawson book, but even that contains only a handful of Tea Time recipes.  So I decided to switch things up a little bit by allowing DV fans on facebook to decide what item I would be cooking.  In this case scones won, and in order to keep the random factor I then pulled all my cookbooks featuring a scones recipes.  From there Joy of Cooking was selected and then the classic scone recipe.  I decided to add some fresh fruit instead of the optional dried fruit, and it was a smashing success.  These scones were buttery and oh so moist, so now I’m wondering why this was the first time I ever attempted to make scones”….

Fennel & Ginger Chocolate Tarts by Chocolate Log Blog who says….” I took the two baking books that had British in the title from my bookshelves: British Baking by Petyon and Byrne and The Great British Bake Off by Linda Collister. CT did his usual trick and randomly selected one of them. GBBO it happened to be and page 189 was the number he picked, giving me Fennel and Ginger Chocolate Tarts. I was intrigued by the idea of incorporating fennel and slightly concerned it might overpower the tarts, but very willing to give it a try. The pastry part of it, I was less thrilled about: I have yet to grow into enjoying pastry making”…..

Dom over at Belleau Kitchen made  prawn cocktail cakes….”when, at the beginning of the month, I called The Viking from London to pick a random recipe for me I was really pleased with his pick… a classic British book from a classic British chef and an unusual recipe with a fabulous twist… what The Viking failed to tell me was the name of the chapter the recipe came from, which was ‘High Teas and Suppers’… how genius is that?… I would never in a million years have chosen to make these little beauties but they were quite simply divine… so easy to make and just so tasty with a wonderful little taste of the 1970’s”…..

Lou from Please Dont Feed the Animals made Lemon Meringue Cupcakes and says…..”These are not quite as good as a real lemon meringue pie, in my opinion, but they are VERY good for a cupcake.  I have filled my ones with shop-bought lemon curd so they are quick and easy to make.  I love lemon and the thrill of the wee shiver from the sharpness and I love gooey, chewy meringue so I knew these would be a great choice”……

Lucy from the Kitchen Maid with her Powder Puffs taken from Margaret Fulton’s A Very Special Cookbook…….”I have been thinking about these vicarage children all week, which seems to have crossed over to my Random Recipe choice. This month Belleau Kitchen is joining forces with the Tea Time Treats juggernaut that is Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked for a ‘Tea Time’ edition. I ended up with Margaret Fulton’s My Very Special Cookbook and after casually flipping to page 321, the word ‘vicar’ leapt out at me”…..

Crunchy & Snickety made some Hazelnut Cream Cheese Brownies……….”I know Brownies aren’t necessarily what you would associate as a British tea time treat, I think they’re far to good to miss out on, plus this is one of my favourite “treat” books.  I’ve cooked quite a few of the recipes already, the basic Fat Witch Brownie is fantastic, as are the PB & J Bars, oh, and the White Chocolate Bars and Banana Bread Brownies…  To pick a recipe I hadn’t tried before was going to take a bit of luck but the first page number I picked gave me Hazelnut Cream Cheese Brownies which was new to me”….

THANK YOU ALL! 

Please join the LOVELY Kate for:

Dumpsy Dearie Jam and Tea Time Treats for October!

Here is Dom’s Round Up here: Tea Time Random Recipe Round Up