Cornstore Café

A trio of cakes

2010-08-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

Some photos of recent cakes at the Cornstore, just because they look pretty!

Chocolate meringue cake with blackcurrant conserve and whipped cream

Hazelnut meringue cake with raspberries and cream

Lady Baltimore cake - light orange sponge with a pecan, fig and raisin frosting

Pembrokeshire Tea Cake

2010-07-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

The new 'Rebecca's Riot' tea from the Pembrokeshire Tea Company has inspired us to make a similarly elegant cake to accompany it. The tea soaked sultanas keep the cake moist and tea makes the icing the colour of vintage oyster satin. Dried cornflower petals add interest (but not a lot of flavour)

Pembrokeshire Tea Cake

Feeds 12

200g sultanas

Pot of Rebecca's Riot tea (strong)

250g soft butter

250g golden caster sugar

250g self raising flour

1tsp baking powder

4 large free range eggs

Icing

300g sieved icing sugar

reserved tea

Oven 180C/350F/ gas mark 4

Soak the sultanas in the strained tea for about an hour then drain - keep the remaining tea for the icing.
Toss the sultanas in a little of the flour to prevent sinking.
Using an electric mixer beat the remaining ingredients until pale and fluffy.
Fold in the sultanas.
Spoon into a 25cm diameter tin which has been greased and base lined.
Bake for 45-50 mins until golden and springy.
Make a simple glace icing by adding enough of the tea to the icing sugar to make a spreadable icing
Leave to set
Make another pot of tea and cut a big slice of cake - enjoy!

Summer at the Cornstore

2010-07-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

So far it has been a pretty good summer, with our customers being able to enjoy the fantastic views from our quayside setting. Pembrokeshire Fish Week gave us the opportunity to try out some new dishes including a delicious seafood cawl with cockles, scallops and Welsh bacon, plus old favourites like our smoked mackerel pate, oak roast salmon with cucumber pickle & homemade soda bread and crab tart.With Pembroke Festival and Seafair Haven at the weekend we have had the added spectacle of numerous boats sailing into the Castle Pond. There is a rich history of maritime trading in Pembroke and the Cornstore is an important part of that heritage. Beams from old sailing vessels were used in the construction of the building and remain highly visible.

Strawberry Tarts

2010-06-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I make something that looks so good I don't want to sell it! Lovely crisp pastry shells filled with crème patisserie and topped with strawberries. Warmed redcurrant jelly gives a shiny finish and makes them look like something you might see in a smart Parisian bakery. They tasted pretty good too!

Fresh Coconut Layer Cake

2010-05-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

A seriously gorgeous cake, which is just as well considering the effort involved in extracting ONE coconut from it's husky exterior. If any of our customers were puzzled by the sight of me bashing a carrier bag with a rubber mallet on the steps outside, all is revealed! Once I'd pierced it, drained the milk out, cracked it, took the hard shell off, removed the brown skin and finally grated it - I was so exhausted I made the cake the day after! But I did have a lovely pile of moist fragrant coconut, a million miles away from the desiccated stuff.

We used this recipe from Delia Smith. The only alterations I made were to double the quantity of mascarpone in the frosting and omit the fromage frais, and I used more coconut to cover the cake than she suggests. Now where can I buy a ready prepared coconut.....?!

Another lovely cafe!

2010-05-19T13:35:00.001-07:00

Had a few days off recently and was able to treat my mum to a lovely lunch at 'Blooms and Beverages' in Saundersfoot. A winning combination of cafe and flower shop they do a good selection of lunchtime dishes in wonderful surroundings. I had a beetroot feta salad which was very generous and mum had Posh Beans on Toast - butter beans and chorizo in a tomato sauce. Too full for cakes and too hot for coffee, guess I'll just have to go back!

My lovely mum at

Blooms and Beverages, Rose Cottage, High St, Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire

Hoppy Easter

2010-04-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

Despite the awful wintery weather Easter is here and some new bakes have joined the roll call of springtime favourites. I have never made a proper simnel cake before, always do a cupcake version instead. This was lovely! Really moist with sherry soaked fruit and the marzipan layer. Controversially I put all twelve apostles on top - mainly because I wanted twelve portions!

No hot cross buns this year as it was too cold for the dough to rise.

Laura made these easter egg biscuits from the Popina Book of Baking and as you can see they are very close to the photo in the book. And that never happens! Dark chocolate biscuits, topped with white chocolate and jewel-like nuts and cranberries.

Come Dine With Me Round Two - Greek Night!

2010-03-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

My turn this week and I decided to go with a vaguely Greek theme. I say vaguely - mainly because I've never actually been to Greece and as it turned out a few dishes I wanted to make were actually Turkish or Middle Eastern. We did play Greek music all night though!

The table laid and ready for my guests.....

Kirsty's Big Fat Greek Dinner

Starter

A selection of Greek mezze including hummus, labneh,

dolmades, felafel, and garlic prawns

Entree

Santorini spanokopita, chicken souvlaki, tzatziki,

gigandes plaki, tomatakia gemista,

salata horiatiki and Ellinikos lemoni patatas

Dessert

Greek honey cake

with hazelnut yoghurt ice cream

Greek almond crescents

A few of these dishes are regulars on the menu at the Cornstore so the preparation was pretty stress free. The honey cake recipe was delicious - like a steamed pudding but very light. Not very keen on the ice cream from the same link though (couldn't get pistachios so I subbed hazelnuts). Hope that didn't lose me any points!

Happy St David's Day!

2010-03-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

It's been a glorious sunny day in Pembrokeshire and we have been celebrating St David's Day with the launch of our Pembrokeshire teas and a menu focusing on Welsh recipes and produce.

Our Welsh themed cakes included Huish Cake, Welsh Honey Cheesecake (adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe, Welsh Cakes, Bara Brith and Llangloffan cheese scones. 'Huish Cake' was a recipe I found in a book of regional cakes by Julie Duff, often used as a celebration cake for christenings etc. It includes ground rice, lemon zest and quite a high proportion of sugar, which makes for a fairly dry cake - not sure I'd make it again.

The specials board featured leek, potato and rosemary soup with Llangloffan cheese scones, cawl(lamb and vegetable broth) and a laverbread and Perl Las tart. It all went really well and our customers appreciated the chance to enjoy some Welsh treats!

CORNSTORE WELSH CAKES

Makes 12

8OZ SELF-RAISING FLOUR

PINCH OF SALT

¾ TSP MIXED SPICE

4OZ BUTTER, CUT INTO CUBES

3OZ CASTER SUGAR

3OZ SULTANAS

1 MEDIUM EGG, BEATEN

APPROX 1TBLSP MILK

CASTER SUGAR TO SPRINKLE ( OPTIONAL )

Sift flour, salt and spice together. Rub in butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and sultanas. Add the beaten egg and enough milk to make a soft dough. Roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of ¼ inch and cut into rounds with a metal cutter. Lightly grease a griddle or heavy frying pan and cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes each side until golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar and cool on a rack.

Cornstore Come Dine With Me - Julie

2010-02-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

You would think that after cooking all day the last thing we would want to do in our spare time is competitive cooking, but we are obsessed! For those who have never seen channel 4 'Come Dine With Me' the concept is a simple one. Each member of a group takes turns to cook for the others who then secretly score the host. Normally this takes place over a week but because we are so busy/disorganised it will be over two months.

Julie was our first host and her dinner had an Italian theme. Delicious canapes with prosecco on arrival, then bruschetta, lasagne and homemade ice-cream to finish. We had a wonderful evening and the food was lovely. Unfortunately the photos after the third bottle of wine were not up to much, but a video of the entertainment can be seen on Facebook!

Next dinner party will be mine......

Ffres launch and some new suppliers!

2010-02-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Went to a supplier to buyer trade event yesterday, which was a great opportunity to meet lots of local food producers. It was also the launch of Ffres, a web-based initiative concerned with food tourism in south west Wales. Very interesting day with lots of sampling of delicious goodies! My personal obsession with cheese was fueled by new products from Carmarthenshire Cheese Company - Boksburg Blue (creamy mild gorgonzola type) and Cowpots Ice Cream- Carousel (similar to brie) and an unnamed hard cheese from Pant Mawr, literally kept under the counter!

We are spoilt for choice with the range of fantastic produce in the area. Pembrokeshire won twelve True Taste awards last year - the foodie equivalent of the Oscars. I really want to incorporate more Pembrokeshire/Welsh ingredients on our menu. One area we will be expanding into over the next few weeks is leaf tea from The Pembrokeshire Tea Company. Yes, it is possible to grow tea in Wales! At the moment locally grown tea, fruits and flowers are blended with imported tea but the aim is for it to be 100% Pembrokeshire sourced in four years time. My favourite is the Dewi Sant - similar to Earl Grey, but new blends will introduced regularly. We will be serving the teas in the cafe and also stocking a selection to take away plus teapots to brew them in!

Seasonal Flavours

2010-01-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

A couple of new cakes this week. The first a basic lemon poppy seed cake, dressed up by baking it my new fluted ring tin from Lakeland. Lemon glace icing and lemon curd plus even more poppy seeds finish the cake.
Rhubarb and ginger are a classic combination of flavours. This recipe adapted from BBC Good Food '101 Teatime Treats' is a moist but light gingerbread with chunks of rhubarb. The rhubarb unfortunately sunk, but it formed a toffeeish layer on the bottom so not all bad!

The icing is our classic cream cheese icing with the addition of ginger syrup, and sliced stem ginger to finish.

Is it me or is it chilli in here??

2010-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

Today's experiment involved an old favourite, pineapple upside-down cake, being modernised with hint of lime and the smoky warmth of a chilli syrup. Obviously you can see the flecks of chilli, but I'm not sure you would be able to pinpoint it from the taste alone.

A very easy recipe which is featured in this month's issue of 'Delicious' magazine. It doesn't even involve making tricky caramel as the syrup is just an infused golden syrup

The only changes I would make would be to add lime zest to the sponge and perhaps increase the syrup to make damper and more sticky cake.

Pineapple and Chilli Upside-Down Cake from Delicious magazine January '10

Serves 8-10

225g unsalted butter

250g golden syrup

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

zest of 1 lime

567g tinned pineapple rings, plus 2tbsp of juice reserved

225g caster sugar

4 large free range eggs beaten

225g self-raising flour

Oven 180c/fan 160c/gas 4

Round tin 23cm base and sides lined - NOT a loose based tin!

1. First gently heat the syrup, chilli and zest for 2 mins in a small saucepan. Pour half the syrup over the base of the cake tin and arrange 7 pineapple rings in the base, in a single layer.

2. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, gradually add the beaten eggs. Fold in the flour and the juice to give a dropping consistency. Chop the remaining pineapple and fold in. ( Just realised I didn't read this part of the recipe! Oops..)

3. Carefully spoon the cake mixture over the pineapple and level. Bake for 45 mins until golden.

4. Cool in the tin for 10 mins, the carefully invert onto a serving plate. Pour over remaining warmed syrup and serve warm or at room temperature.

And in answer to the title question it is just me who finds our kitchen chilly! Except for two weeks in August.

A New Years Resolution!

2010-01-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

No, not a diet! I am going to try to post at least once a week. They may not be that long.....but at the moment the good intentions are there!

I was lucky enough to be away in Devon for Christmas, but since I've been back its been as busy as ever. Not selling so many cakes at the moment after all the excesses but plenty of warming soups and today I made cawl too.

Basically cawl is Welsh for soup, although it is generally taken to be a fairly substantial meat and vegetable stew. I use Welsh lamb, diced quite small and browned, which is then added to softened onions and a variety of root vegetables. Today it included parsnips, swede, carrots, turnips, celeriac, potatoes and finely shredded leeks which were added near the end. I cheat a little and use a good lamb stock cube as the liquid - ideally bones would provide the liquor. The other essentials are chopped parsley in the soup bowl, a hunk of cheese and crusty bread!

I thought a plainer dessert might appeal today so I baked an apple pie. Couldn't resist spicing it up a little though, and added rum soaked sultanas, nutmeg and cinnamon. The pastry is a lovely recipe from the Avoca Cafe Cookbook, very easy to handle and roll out for a crisp crust.

Pastry (enough for 10inch pie)

8oz unsalted butter

2oz caster sugar

2 eggs

14oz plain flour

Cream together the butter and sugar in a food mixer, add the eggs and continue beating. reduce speed and add flour. Mix until combined then wrap in cling film and chill for a couple of hours. Bring back up to room temperature before rolling out.

End of an Era

2009-09-13T10:26:00.001-07:00

Our Saturday girls Rachel and Abi are off to university and will be sorely missed. The traditional lurid leaving cake (I had ALOT of green fondant to use up!), plus bubbly and lots of presents.

Then a great meal at Seven Spice, Pembroke Dock. Goodbye girls!!!

Homity Pie

2009-09-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Homity pie (or Hobbit Pie as some of the girls insisted on calling it!) is something I've only started to make fairly recently. First tasted from the fabulous Black's Delicatessen in Chagford, Devon I assumed it was a West Country recipe but it would seem to be more derived from economy and thrift, so perfect for the current climate. My version may not be that thrifty - lots of cheese, cream and buttery pastry, but it is delicious. Similar to gratin dauphinoise - potatoes, onions and leeks are baked in a pastry case with garlic, cream and cheese. The recipe I based mine on included apples too which added an autumnal dimension, you can find it here
The pie waiting to go into the oven...

.....the pie just out of the oven. Although obviously great when it is hot, it also tastes lovely cold too - a perfect robustly vegetarian picnic dish or midnight snack!
We served it with our mixed salad to balance out the carb overload. Who are we kidding?

The BEST Cupcakes Ever!

2009-06-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes

This is one of my very favourite cupcake recipes from Leila Lindholm's book 'A Piece of Cake'. We now use this as a basis for most of our cupcakes/fairy cakes in the cafe and unlike traditional pound cake or Victoria sponge recipes which I find unreliable and too dense on a small scale, this ALWAYS WORKS!

Margaret at Kitchen Delights has published the raspberry version here http://kitchen-delights.blogspot.com/search/label/Leila%20Lindholm so I won't repeat it. The lemon version omits the raspberries in favour of extra zest of 1 lemon and 50g poppy seeds. I love the poppy seeds used as natural 'sprinkles' to decorate - love poppy seeds in most things really!

The other recipe I use, especially for weddings or parties is from Good Food magazine. They stay deliciously moist with the ground almonds and freeze perfectly without the icing. I normally decorate with cut out fondant flowers or crystallised violets/rose petals. Not artistic enough for proper sugarcraft work! For my cousin's wedding last week large red hearts covered with glitter made quite an impact. Keep it simple!

Romantic Rose Cupcakes

Jane Hornby BBC Good Food Magazine June 2007

Ingredients (makes 12 deep cupcakes)

150ml pot natural yogurt
3 eggs , beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g golden caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds
175g unsalted butter , melted
FOR THE WHITE CHOCOLATE FROSTING
100g white chocolate
140g unsalted butter
140g icing sugar

Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases and heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. In a jug, mix the yogurt, eggs and vanilla extract. Put the dry ingredients, plus a pinch of salt, into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.
Add the yogurty mix and melted butter, and quickly fold in with a spatula or metal spoon - don't overwork it. Spoon into the cases (they will be quite full) and bake for 18-20 mins or until golden, risen and springy to the touch. Cool for a few mins, then lift the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely. Keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days or freeze as soon as possible.
White chocolate frosting: Melt the chocolate in the microwave on High for 1½ mins, stirring halfway. Leave to cool. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Beat in the chocolate. Cover and chill for up to one month.
Up to 48 hrs before serving (or the day before if it's really hot), bring the frosting back to room temperature, then spread over the cakes. Keep cool, out of direct sunlight.

Easter Eggstravaganza

2009-04-20T14:45:00.001-07:00

The annual Good Friday 'will they or won't they rise in time for me to sell them' quandry! My kitchen in the morning in April is never particularly warm, although it does hot up by the afternoon. This time I made the dough the night before and left it to rise slowly overnight at a cool room temperature. By the morning, it had risen beautifully but the second proving took a lot longer than I'd hoped. Ideally I should have left them at least another half hour, but I had customers waiting for them.

Here are some buns waiting to go into the oven......

.....twenty minutes later hot, hot cross buns!

The basic recipe I used was from Delicious magazine, you can find it here;-http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/blogs/How_To_make_hot_cross_buns_249. The addition of allspice is something I would change for next time - I prefer a larger quantity of mixed spice for a more traditional taste.

The Cornstore Easter tree!

Nigella Lawson's Lemon Meringue Cake

A variety of Easter cupcakes - lemon poppy seed, mini simnel and almond with white chocolate frosting.

Valentine Cakes

2009-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Just a few images from the selection of cakes we produced for Valentine's Day. Very kitsch (everything heart-shaped, pink, red, glittery or all four!) but nearly everything sold by the end of the day, with lots of people taking boxes of cupcakes home.

This was supposed to be a meringue roulade but as it was too fragile to roll I cut the meringue into three lengths and stacked them with whipped cream, mango and passion fruit. Don't think anyone noticed!

A chocolate version of my carrot cake which I invented the day before. A really good combination of flavours with all the moistness of a carrot cake - recipe to follow!

It's the Cornstore so there has to be a cheesecake, and we found some strawberries that were actually very tasty despite being out of season. Shortbread base and then white chocolate in the filling.

A very light chocolate chiffon cake filled with raspberries and cream, then covered with a chocolate ganache. Thank you to Lorette for her heart-shaped tin!

Cornstore in the snow!

2009-02-12T14:52:00.001-08:00

My walk to work! Pembroke Castle on the distant left and the Cornstore distant right.

The Cornstore - as you can see we didn't get a lot of snow. This had gone by ten o'clock, February 3rd

Cinnamon Scones

2009-02-12T13:10:00.001-08:00

A new scone recipe this week and they were beautifully light. We filled them with whipped cream, bramble jelly and blackberries - voluptuous and delicious! The recipe came from Rachel Allen's 'Bake' and had more than double the amount of butter I would normally use. I had managed to buy some buttermilk too, which I always think makes scones especially light.

Preparations for our annual Valentine's cake extravaganza are underway. Just baked a trial batch of chocolate cupcakes which will definitely make an appearance. Lots of gorgeous photos to follow!

Sticky Toffee Banoffee Cake

2008-11-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

Although not a big fan of banoffee pie, it is a very popular combination of flavours. I always buy organic bananas when I see them reduced and keep them on a sunny windowsill until they are very ripe. Apparently you are supposed to be able to freeze ripe bananas and use them in cakes from frozen but I have only tried it once, not very satisfactorily. I hoped to get an element of sticky toffee pudding into the recipe, and was partly successful but the sponge needs tweaking. Originally found on the Good Food magazine website http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1998/ it is a simple all-in-one mix. I changed the sugar to half light muscovado, added 75g of chopped dates, extra banana in the filling and rum in the filling! So basically more OTT, but I think the dates would benefit from soaking (maybe in more rum...!). Definitely a recipe I will return to for further experimentation. Perhaps a different method (melting) and some additional spice.

Anyway it looked pretty fabulous and it nearly gave me a cardiac arrest when I sampled a slice - one of the perils of the job!

Sticky Toffee Banoffee Cake

Serves 10

Ingredients

200g butter, softened

100g caster sugar

100g light muscovado sugar

4 eggs beaten

200g self-raising flour

1tsp vanilla extract

2tbsp milk

75g dates, chopped small

2 mashed bananas, ripe

Preheat the oven to 190C/ 170C fan/ gas 5

Base line 2 x 2ocm round cake tins with baking parchment. Using an electric mixer or elbow grease, beat all the cake ingredient together until you have a smooth batter. Pour into tins and bake for 20mins until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool completely on a rack before filling.

Filling

3/4pt double cream

1tbsp icing sugar

2tbsp dark rum

Whip together until you have a billowing mass

2 bananas, sliced

toffee sauce ( I used half a jar of Epicure toffee sauce, warmed slightly)

Fill sponges with a layer of toffee, bananas and half the cream mixture. Then top with the rest of the cream and drizzle with toffee sauce. Best served as soon as possible.

Cornstore Café

2008-09-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is where it all began .....!

The Cornstore is situated in Pembroke in a beautiful part of West Wales. Originally an actual cornstore for the long demolished mill, it has been sympathetically restored to its former glory with many of the original features intact.

The upper floors are given over to retail and approximately one third of the space is occupied by the café, with additional seating and a kitchen in the Customs House building. This is where most of the cooking is done, with very limited space in the main café for food preparation. Not ideal, but workable!

I have been running the café for just over three years and its popularity with visitors and locals is increasing all the time. We are proud holders of the Pembrokeshire Produce Mark and source locally wherever possible. Our reputation for excellent cakes, interesting homemade soups and good value lunches means that demand occasionally exceeds space available. Fortunately the wonderful staff cope very well.

It has been a steep learning curve with a fair amount of disasters, but I'm still full of ideas and enthusiasm. Remember, however wacky a cake recipe sounds, it is cake so will probably still taste great!

The wonderful view of Pembroke Castle from the quayside.

FrouFrou Cake

2008-09-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

Thought I'd start this blog with one of the most popular cakes we make at the Cornstore, the FrouFrou Cake - a great combination of raspberries and coconut. Very girly in it's appearance and designed to appeal to 'Ladies who Lunch' and adolescent girls alike (for some reason the guys point and mumble 'I'll have the one with the raspberries')! For Valentine's Day we bake it in a heart shaped tin.
Originally the recipe appeared in Australian Women's Weekly 'Cupcakes and Fairycakes' and I have scaled the recipe up to fit a 24cm tin. It contains a lot of sugar which forms quite a thick crust to the cake, making it difficult to tell when it is cooked through. When cool I ice it with a cream cheese frosting flavoured with either rosewater or coconut essence that I managed to find at http:///www.jane-asher.co.uk/sugarcraft.php.
The recipe below is how it appeared in it's original format. I'm afraid I only had the patience to try the individual cakes once, and for me the ratio of cake to icing is too much in the smaller version.

Froufrou Cake - 'Cupcakes and Fairycakes' Australian Women's Weekly
Makes 12 cupcakes
Raspberry coconut cake
125g butter softened
220g caster sugar
3 eggs
75g plain flour
35g self-raising flour
40g dessicated coconut
80g sour cream
150g frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan and line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper cases. Beat butter, eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Sift in flours and stir in coconut, sour cream and frozen raspberries. Divide mixture between cases and bake for about 40mins.
Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

Cream cheese frosting
60g butter, softened
160g cream cheese, softened
2tsp coconut essence
480g icing sugar
50g toasted, flaked coconut
15 raspberries, halved

Beat cream cheese, butter and essence until fluffy. Gradually add sifted icing sugar. Remove from cases and spread cakes with frosting. Decorate with coconut and raspberries.