I'm going to share with you the most delicious recipe for an afternoon tea layer cake, it's
the simplest recipe ever. It all happens in one tin, you can do it for a family, afternoon tea,
for a dessert, it's delicious. And it's a recipe from my brand new book called One
where every single recipe is made in one tray or one pan, so it's great for people that love food,
that like nice and simple things, and not too much washing up okay, so that's the whole vibe.
Tinned custard, yes you heard me right, tinned custard is the flavor of the 80s and all those
incredible sort of trifles and blancmanges and stuff like that. Strawberries, it's really good
to do this in season when the strawberries are really really good, and chocolate of course. And
we're gonna use scones that I've toasted, so let me show you how I make this because it's basically
a kind of trifle right, and we turn it out it looks incredible. So first thing we're gonna do is
make a cup of tea, yes you heard me right a cup of tea, because we are gonna use some lovely tea bags
to get some seriously delicious flavor happening. 400 millilitres goes into a jug and we're gonna
use four nice english breakfast tea bags. So let that infuse as you would your normal cuppa. On top
of that I'm gonna put a bowl and I'm gonna crack in 100 grams of good quality chocolate. So go to
the supermarket, I normally go for like 60-70% cocoa solids. So just crack it up like that, and
that subtle gentle heat from the steam from that boiling water will melt this chocolate.
So let that gently melt over the course of like three or four minutes while the tea is brewing.
So put the tray to one side. What I've done here already I've taken the liberty of toasting
eight scones, like they're standard scones that you get that's two packs
in a normal supermarket. Slice it into three, instead of two slice it into three, right. And
I've just put that under the grill and toasted it. And then strawberries. I'm just gonna take
the little stalks off the end like that. I might take the liberty of just like stealing a couple of
really pretty ones and just putting that to one side. And then we're just gonna slice them up.
You don't have to do it but, if the strawberries aren't quite as sweet, then you can just put a
little thimble of icing sugar like that. And that will just pull the moisture out and they'll start
to shine and they'll be utterly delicious. So just mix up the chocolate and that's nearly done there.
The tea is brewed, so we can remove the tea bags. So how do we get it into dessert form well,
get yourself a tray like I said, get some greaseproof paper, scrunch it up. Just make it wet
and that makes it quite nice and malleable, and it will go in all the little corners. So
in we go like that. And as soon as you've got that in what we can do
is start building this very fun dessert. So we'll take half of the scones, and what you'll get
is four by three scones in the bottom. So go in there with two-thirds of the tea. Then what I'm
gonna do is in your melted chocolate right, I'm gonna take one of these tins of custard and make
chocolate custard. And it's that simple. So get all of it out. So as soon as you've done that
just mix it up, it's the easiest chocolate custard you could do. So in we go
with the chocolate custard, get all of it in there every last bit, don't want
to waste any. Right let's get a spatula. So spread that, kind of like a sandwich really,
around the tin, right into the corners. The scones are currently kind of hard and toasted
and delicious but they're soaking now up the tea, and they'll absorb the chocolate custard as well,
and it'll kind of become one. So just make sure you get that chocolate sauce really nicely
distributed. And then in the middle we'll go in with a beautiful scattering
of strawberries. And then these last pieces of scone I'm just gonna dip them in the tea.
And there we go we're pretty much done. Very easy to put together, and then any leftover bits
of tea you can just drizzle over the top just like that. So in a way it's slightly reflective
of how you put together a tiramisu. And then last but not least just a little drizzle of elderflower
cordial it's the most fantastic ingredient, the flavour is bonkers and it's kind of like
sunshine and optimism personified all in one little drizzle.
And then we finish off with a little drizzling of custard. So this concoction,
this beautiful thing, now goes in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. I personally
like doing it the day before to get a job out of the way and just have it there. It will keep
you know, for a good two or three days, you know if you want to really do it in advance.
But now what we want to do is just let time allow all those scones to absorb all that loveliness. So
just put that custard into all the little cracks and crannies. So just whack it in the fridge,
and then I'll show you how to turn it out and dress it up, it's gonna be amazing.
Okay, so this has been soaking overnight and you can see it's absorbed quite a lot of the moisture
like that, so it's very very simple what we do. Get yourself a nice platter or board that that
will fit on top of, pull the paper to one side like this, and then just confidently pick it up
and turn it like that, very simple. There's not really much that can go wrong because we've got
the greaseproof paper, now if you look through there it's like a kind of stained glass window
and it's lovely to see the actual custard and the chocolate. We'll just pull that back
like that and it's just you know, messy gorgeousness. I mean even that wants to be licked,
yum. Okay, so how do we dress it up? So I think it already looks pretty funky myself.
I quite like the use of icing sugar and I think that that gives the quite savory scones a nice
sweet hit like that, so just give them a little tap. Get yourself a large chopper like this, get
yourself another little piece of chocolate like that - you're not going to use all of it - just
put it on a clean surface and just put it up next to your thigh like that. Just scrape the chocolate
towards you like that, and you'll get these lovely little slivers and shards of chocolate like this,
and it just looks cute right? So if you don't want to do that for whatever reason
that's fine, what you can do is just use a little grater.
But look it's a nice, it's a nice little texture, and it really is easy. So on top it goes.
So I'm very happy with that, all I would do now is take a couple of little strawberries
and just use those to pop around. So there you go lovely people, one tray, one book,
and one beautiful afternoon tea layer cake. Right let's have a little portion just so i can show you
what's happening on the inside. I mean that could probably serve quite a lot of people.
And if you look into it you can see the beautiful layers of the custard,
the chocolate, the strawberries, get in there...
Mmm! I love it, super simple, all done in one tray. So there you go guys that's the most
delicious simple dessert that you can do in one tray from my brand new book One, where everything
is either cooked in a pan or a tray and there's loads of beautiful recipes breakfast, brunches,
lunches, dinners, look it up in bookshops or online until next time take, care lots of love