Whisky Spice Cake

Bet you thought I'd start all this then have nothing to post, well ha, I have. Here's one I made earlier, last night to be precise and I did the icing this morning. Whisky icing for breakfast - yum! It's for my father-in-law's birthday which was sometime earlier in the week but we're going visiting today for take-away and tv watching. Whisky plays a big part in his life so I thought the more whisky-ridden the cake the better. I found out my camera can do extreme close-ups of raisins so humour me. You like?

One of my bugbears is blogs with nice cake pictures but no recipe. Actually another of my bugbears is the actual word 'bugbear'. I don't know where it originates from but it makes me think of giant creepy-crawlies with fur coats. Bleeuurgh. Anyway I will provide recipes where possible and hopefully not get stamped on by the copyright police. I will change the wording slightly. Rebel.



Whisky Spice Cake

225g raisins
5 tbsp Whisky
5tbsp water
115g softened butter
115g light brown soft sugar
2 eggs (free range please, people! Think of the chickens)
225g plain flour
1tsp bicarb of soda
1tsp ground mixed spice
115g walnuts, roughly chopped.

For the buttercream:

115g softened butter
225g icing sugar
2tbsp whisky
25g chopped walnut pieces.

1. Put raisins, water and whisky in a pan and heat until steaming. Take off heat and cover and leave to stand for half an hour. Go on the internet or watch Corrie or something.
2. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy (I like that word) Beat in the eggs.
   
3. Sieve together the flour, bicarb and spice. Fold into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir in the whisky sozzled raisins. Go on, eat a couple as well. Add the walnuts and mix thoroughly.
4. Grease and line a 8"/20cm round tin (I used my red silicone one) Smooth the top.
5. Bake at Gas Mark 3 ~ Electric 160c ~ Fan oven140c for 50 mins or until firm. Mine took 60.
6. Remove from oven and leave in tin for 10 minutes before turning out. I left it longer as Bad Things Happen when I take things out the tin too early. Leave to cool completely.
7. To make the buttercream whisk together the butter and icing sugar and stir in the whisky and walnuts.
8. SCARY BIT - Cut the cake in half throught the middle then sandwich the two halves together. Spread the remainder over the top and round the sides.
9. Store in an airtight container, will keep for 2-3 days.

And here it is! I didn't put walnuts in the buttercream because walnuts come in 100g bags ( do these people not know this?) and I was too cheap to buy 2 bags. Therefore there was only 100g in the cake instead of the recommended 115g. I chopped them very finely too as I think walnuts are creepy, like teeny little brains. Ick.
The recipe went well. It had two of my least favourite situations, the cutting in half and icing, but I coped really well and no tantrums ensued. The finished cake does look a little boring but I told you they never look very pretty. You might want to put some chopped walnuts on top or something.

An update - The Tasting

The cake was nice, not too dry but in my opinion the level of buttercream was just too overwhelming. If I made it again I think I'd just have buttercream in the middle and put just a plain frosting or some whisky icing on the top (I've made Malibu icing that way before, really nice) My father-in-law liked it so that's all ok. I didn't manage to get any pics of it cut, I wasn't in charge of that bit and it looked a bit butchered after. My in-laws get all their knives as free gifts from Readers Digest so it's not surprising really. Besides which I don't know how I'd explain taking pictures of cake to them, they don't know about my addiction to the internet.