Rose Prince's Baking Club: baked Alaska

Equipment

You will need an 18cm/7in pudding basin and cling film, and a 20cm/8in cake tin, buttered then dusted with flour

For the raspberry ice cream

500g/1lb 2oz fresh or frozen raspberries

150ml/5fl oz double cream

3 egg yolks (save the whites for meringue)

2 heaped tablespoons caster sugar

For the cake

115g/4oz unsalted butter, softened

115g/4oz caster sugar

3 eggs, beaten

115g/4oz self-raising flour

For the meringue

3 egg whites

100g/3oz caster sugar

Put all the ice cream ingredients into a liquidiser or food processor and blend to a smooth and airy cream. Line a pudding basin with cling film and then pour the raspberry cream into it. Freeze for half an hour, stir (being careful not to disturb the cling-film lining) then freeze for another half-hour. Stir again then bring the cling film over the top and freeze until solid. You can use an ice cream maker if you want.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4 before making the cake base. Put the butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until light and creamy. Beat in the egg until you have a thick yellow batter. Sift the flour into the bowl, then carefully fold it in to the mixture. Spoon the mixture into the tin, then level with a knife. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted. Cool on a rack. When completely cold, you need to trim the cake, removing the outer edges to make a disc of sponge measuring about 19cm/7 ?in. Place this on a plate, ready to build the baked Alaska. Do not make the meringue until the ice cream is frozen and the cake completely cool.

Put the egg whites in a mixing bowl and use an electric whisk to beat until stiff. Keep whisking as you add the caster sugar slowly, then whisk for at least two more minutes until the meringue is very stiff and glossy. Spoon it into a plastic bag, ready to pipe.

Take the basin of ice cream out of the freezer, and place in a sink filled with lukewarm water for about 30 seconds. Be careful not to let the water splash the contents. Use a knife to prise the ice cream out of the basin, then turn it out onto the sponge. Peel off the cling film.

Immediately pipe the meringue all over the dome of ice cream; it should adhere quite easily. Use a palette knife to smooth it then make swirls and peaks to give it an interesting surface. Finally, light a blow torch and scorch the meringue all over, moving the torch swiftly from side to side so it does not blacken the meringue. The pudding is now ready to serve.

Your letters

Why do bakers fret about replacing wheat flour with fussy mixes of flour made from gluten-free grains, when there is a perfectly good product on most supermarket shelves? Auriol Chisholm is a big fan of one particular product: “I have done nearly all the Telegraph Baking Club’s recipes using Doves Farm gluten-free flour and they have been absolutely delicious,” she writes. “We eat them after our village choir rehearsals and they are hungrily devoured and admired.” This is as good a write up as any about the Baking Club’s recipes, obviously, but it is helpful to know since I do not test the recipes with gluten-free flour. Doves Farm plain white gluten-free flour is available from Doves Farm.co.uk at ￡2.09 for 1kg

Next week: Calzone – you will need strong white flour (“Caputo Blue” flour is ideal: casajulia.co.uk). Other ingredients include milk, canned tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, grilled preserved artichokes, buffalo mozzarella and sliced cooked ham.

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Can baking improve mental health?

Gloomy grey lemon-flavoured macaroons from the Depressed Cake Shop. Photograph: Safiyah Kelly

They say baking soothes the soul. How can it not? There is something so reassuring about the ritual – quietly weighing out butter, sugar, flour, cracking eggs, whisking, beating and folding. "If you're feeling a little bit?down, a bit of kneading helps," Mary Berry once said. It is not just indulging in the end results – the cake,?the biscuits, the scones – that helps to brighten up a blue day, but the?therapeutic process itself.

This perceived connection between baking and good mental health has sparked an initiative that will see several pop-up bakeries opening across the UK. During the first weekend in August, the Depressed Cake Shop will open at venues in London, Glasgow, Derby, Cardiff and North Yorkshire, with the proceeds going to mental health charities.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the organiser, Emma Thomas – aka Miss Cakehead – is?on to something with this idea. John?Whaite, who won the Great British Bake Off in 2012, recently brought out a cookbook, Recipes for Every Day and Mood, with a chapter dedicated to lifting the spirits. Whaite has experience of depression and describes baking as his escape. For him, it is "meditative", an act of "making something destructive into something constructive, and at the end?of it you've got something to be proud of, something to eat, something to show off".

Novelist Marian Keyes has also used baking to help her deal with depression. In her book, Saved by Cake, she writes: "Baking hasn't cured me. But it gets me through … To be perfectly blunt about it, my choice sometimes is: I can kill myself or I can make a dozen cupcakes. Right, so I'll do the cupcakes and I can kill myself tomorrow." Keyes and Whaite have spurred many bloggers to share stories of how baking helped with depression like this one who writes about how baking gave her a sense of achievement, or this young mother, who, overwhelmed after the birth of her baby, baked her way through Mary Berry's Baking Bible to help rebuild her confidence.

I know from experience how helpful baking can be. I baked fiddly vanilla biscuit thins in the days after my dad died. I don't know what spurred me into the kitchen, but baking tray after tray of biscuits let me focus on the present instead of my mind wandering into all sorts of places I wasn't ready for it to go. The simple act of bringing dough together and stamping out rounds gave me a focus. My biscuits kept burning at the edges, but eventually I got there. I?don't recall now whether we even ate them, but I do remember that getting them right in the end made a small part of me feel good. That particularly difficult time has long passed, but, like a?lot of people, baking still gets me through the odd days when things don't feel as if they are going my way.

"There's no scientific research to explain why or how baking helps to make you feel better, and it's certainly not a cure for depression. But it is therapeutic, and it helps many people," says Thomas (she was also behind the most repulsive cakeshop in the world, a pop-up at the pathology museum at St Bartholomew's hospital in London, selling cakes shaped into infected body parts to raise awareness of cancer and STIs). "Baking is creative, and instantly rewarding. I've realised that cake gets people talking, and the Depressed Cake Shop hopes to?get people discussing mental illness?and supporting mental health charities." Eventually, Thomas hopes?to set up a?series of baking therapy sessions and support networks across the UK.

The Depressed Cake Shop will be an?antidote to vintage-styled bakeries selling fluffy pink cupcakes with sprinkles on top. Instead, the pop-up shops will sell cakes made by amateurs, many with personal experience of depression. There will be gloomy grey lemon-flavoured macaroons, clouds of grey meringue and dark grey cupcakes, whose colours will only be revealed on?the inside.

For more information, visit the Depressed Cake Shop

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Of bicycles and baking

A spread for soaked cyclists. Photographs: James Bowden for the Guardian

What was the occasion?
Our cycling club has been going for 25?years, and this was our annual randonnee event. It's a day-long ride, with a choice of three circuits over 42, 64 or 100 miles, starting and finishing in?Truro.

It's open to anybody and we always have a real mixture of people taking part. One of our staunch regulars has been on every ride for the past 25 years, but then we also had a 14?year?old boy who'd never ridden with the club before who did the full?100-mile circuit, which was really?impressive.

There are plenty of homemade treats along the way. I've been doing the tea for about 15 years now. I spent the day in the middle of Goss moor, under a gazebo with a trestle table, a couple of kettles and lots of cakes.

We were expecting about 80 people, but only about 17 turned up, because the weather was so awful! There was a?small, 20-minute window when the rain let up, but otherwise it just rained?all day. Riders on the longer circuits passed through twice, so we witnessed them getting wetter and wetter. But everyone who rode felt great at the end of the course.

What snacks did you serve?
Lots of flapjacks, a lemon drizzle cake, raspberry and almond slices, various fruitcakes, traybakes, chocolate brownies – anything with a lot of calories in! That's the joy of cycling of course: you get to eat cake. We also had?bananas and homemade cheese biscuits, which went down very well. There was lots of tea and coffee to wash it all down, and then Cornish pasties from WC Rowe, a local baker, at?the finish line.

What did you talk about?
The weather, obviously! And about cycling in general, but also things like wild flowers, birds and theatre groups. Despite being soaked to the bone, everyone was in?good spirits. The cakes?definitely helped.

The nuts in this traybake provide a smidgeon of protein for the riders. We took a sugar sifter with us to add a dusting of icing sugar to the cakes, but the effect was somewhat random, owing to the strong winds.

Makes 24
250g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
200g butter, softened
250g sugar
2 large eggs
? tsp almond extract
200g raspberries
75g flaked almonds
Icing sugar, for finishing

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line a 30 x 20cm baking?tin with parchment.

2 Place the flour, ground almonds, butter and sugar into the food processor and blend to a fine crumble. Add the eggs and almond extract and?blend quickly. Spread the mix over the base of the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes.

3 Remove from the oven, carefully place raspberries over the base and sprinkle flaked almonds over the top. Return to the oven and bake for another 15 mins, until firm to the touch and the almonds are just toasted.

4 Cool in the tin. Sift a little icing sugar on top, cut into 5cm squares and?serve.

This recipe has been passed down and around. It's easy to make and always pleases. It's also easy to cut into bite-size pieces. We don't do plates and forks on the moor!

Makes 24
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
275g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
4 tbsp milk
Finely grated zest of 2-3 lemons

For the topping
175g granulated sugar
Juice of 2-3 lemons

1 Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/gas mark 3 and line a 30 x 20cm baking tray with parchment.

2 Place all the ingredients for the cake into a large bowl and beat for 1-2 minutes until well?blended.

3 Spoon into?the prepared?tin and spread it out until it is roughly level, then bake for about 35 minutes, then set on a rack to cool.

4 To make the topping, mix the granulated sugar with the lemon juice. When the cake has cooled slightly, spoon over the topping.

5 Allow to cool completely before cutting into 5cm-square pieces.

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Rose Prince's Baking Club: olive oil and carrot cake

Ingredients

240g/8 ? oz extra virgin olive oil

300g/10 ? oz soft brown sugar

200g/7oz grated carrot, squeezed to remove juice

1 inch of ginger root, peeled and grated

1 tsp ground cinnamon

4 eggs, beaten

120g/4oz walnuts, finely chopped

90g/3 ? oz ground almonds

150g/5 ? oz raisins

175g/6 oz plain flour, sifted

2 tsp baking powder

For the icing

240g/8oz mascarpone cheese

90g/3 ? oz softened butter

150g/5 ? oz icing sugar, sifted

To decorate

Dried safflower petals (optional). These are available from Fortnum & Mason. You can also use fresh marigold petals.

Butter two cake tins (20-22cm/6-7in), then line the base with baking parchment. Butter again, then dust with plain flour; or use 8 small cases (pictured).

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Beat olive oil and sugar together then add the other ingredients, one by one, until well blended. Divide the mixture between tins or cases; bake for 30 minutes or until the cakes feel springy when pressed. Cool in the tins.

Blend the icing ingredients together. When the cakes are completely cool, spread half the icing on one and then sandwich the two cakes together. Spread the remaining icing on the surface, then scatter over the petals.

Your letters

K Baynes queries the quality of cupcake cases. "Until a couple of years ago I did not have a problem with cupcake cases, but now once the cakes cool the cases pull away. Have you any ideas why this might be happening?" I asked David Trumper of Jane Asher Sugarcraft, who explained all. "She's right – this happens because many modern cases are not made with good-quality paper. Cupcake cases should be made with thick greaseproof paper so they look good but do not have an oily appearance. Squires makes the best, but other good brands are PME and Culpitt." I can personally recommend Jane Asher's shop, which sells more than 50 types of cupcake case, and all sorts of cake decorating equipment.

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Rose Prince's Baking Club: jam tarts

It might still be the fallow period for soft fruit, but we are furiously eating jam in order to clear the shelves in time for the summer berry glut. No matter how meticulously we plan to make enough jam for the year (plus a little more to give away as presents), there always seem to be half-a-dozen pots left sullenly on the shelf. It is a sad fact that once the new season's jam is made, last year's will remain at the back of the cupboard like the proverbial old hat.

April and May then become the season of jammy puddings; yet, as the weather warms up, the concept of a roly-poly or steamed sponge with jam seems too heavy. Queen of Puddings is a lighter, meringue-topped, eggy-breadcrumb-based dessert that will use up a good quantity of raspberry, strawberry or blackcurrant jam. So will a Bakewell tart, in an understated way, with a thin layer underlying its almond sponge.

My thoughts, however, have turned to jam tarts, a pastry that has been around for centuries but lately fallen into decline. I have never bought a jam tart that did not coat the roof of my mouth with clods of dry pastry crumbs, and which was not filled with a low-grade jellylike substance. Time to revisit, I decide, taking a jar of my mother-in-law's excellent raspberry jam off the shelf.

It seems to make sense to use unsweetened pastry for jam tarts when their contents are full of sugar, so the short pastry recipe I now rely on to line tart dishes or make a pie is the one to use. This is a pastry with a high butter content that can be rolled thin, and never shrinks. For this reason, it can also be trimmed to make a pretty rickrack edge with the use of a knife or an angled pastry cutter.

The pastry cases must be baked blind before the jam is added. This will not add much time or trouble to the process, but it ensures the pastry is very crisp after the second baking with the jam inside.

Makes 12

Equipment – 1 bun tray

For the pastry

185g/6 ? oz plain flour

125g/4 ? oz unsalted butter, from the fridge

About 50ml/2 fl oz water

For the filling: 350g/12oz high fruit (preferably home-made) blackcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, apricot or other jam

Sift the plain flour into a bowl. Cut the butter into dice and add to the flour. Lightly rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water then mix to a dough, first with a wooden spoon then knead lightly with your hands on a worktop dusted very lightly with flour.

Do not overwork the dough or the butter will warm up and the dough become greasy. Due to dry ambient conditions, or to the moisture content in the flour itself, you may need to add more water to make a smooth malleable dough. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a plastic bag or wrap in cling film, then refrigerate for 30-45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F/gas 6. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll into a large disc on a floured worktop. Roll very thin, until almost transparent. Use a 9cm/3 ?in-10cm/4in round cutter to make 12 discs (you may need to reroll the pastry a second time). Use a knife or the point of another pastry cutter (I have used a "star" cutter) to trim the edges, making a frill – this is optional. Line the holes in the bun tray with the pastry discs, then place a circle of baking parchment in each. Do not use greaseproof paper, because it sticks to pastry.

Place a few baking beans (dried haricot beans will do) in each tart case and bake blind for 10-12 minutes until the edges are dry and pale gold. Remove from the oven and take out the paper and beans. Fill three-quarters full with jam and place back in the oven. Bake until the jam begins to bubble and the edges are golden. Take out of the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the tin. Eat when completely cool – these tarts will keep for two days.

Your letters

Making a sourdough starter and baking sourdough bread remains a hot topic among Baking Club followers (column, April 8). Having made the starter, Peter Schedler writes to ask if it must be used all the time: "Once the starter is made, can one keep it for a week or more before using it?

"If so, should one keep it in a fridge, in the freezer or in a closed container at room temperature until such time as one has enough time to go ahead and actually make the bread according to your recipe?"

Once you have an active starter, it must be either "fed" or refreshed with a little flour and water, but you do not need to use it. Just keep in the fridge between refreshment, or use in baking. I find that the freezer kills some of the yeasts although other bakers swear a sourdough can be stored in the freezer.

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