Rock Cakes

Coloured Cupcakes

2007-08-04T00:24:00.000Z

Having lost my baking mojo yet again I was forced to make a comeback this evening. Boy is having an impromptu sleepover at his aunties tomorrow night along with her friend and her two boys. Not only did I have to chuck on a load of washing to make sure he had some clean socks (note the summer holiday slacker!) but there was also the question 'Is there any cake?' so I had to come up with something in a hurry. It seems that getting rid of Boy for the evening comes at a price.

Those figures to the left, to the untrained eye, may just look like a bunch of muppets in costumes. Not if you are 6 years old, To Boy, being a Power Ranger is an actual job description and he firmly believes he will grow up and go to Power Ranger school for training. He wants to be the red one. I haven't had the heart to tell him that in real life the world does actually suck a fair bit and no amount of Mystic Morphers and Delta Blasting is going to change it. He quite happily goes through the day starting every sentence with 'When I'm Power Ranger I can watch tv/ go to the cinema/ blast down the neighbours gate whenever I like. The programmes are truly awful though. They don't appear to have any storyline whatsoever and are full of cheesy lines such as 'Welcome to my sty, hope you like it coz you're never leavin' which does make me laugh. I'm actually considering having that made into a welcome sign to hang in the front porch.

So Power Rangers were the inspiration for my cupcakes, I figured they would be popular with the boys. I had most of the colours of food colouring paste from other projects, the only thing I am lacking is a yellow which I also need for Girls' birthday cake in a couple of weeks (I'm attempting to make her a Teletubbies cake), I bought the coloured paper cases while in the cook shop searching for the yellow colouring. All the cakes are iced in matching colour apart from the yellow ones which had to be done in white which does ruin the effect somewhat. I also had nothing more exciting than the ubiquitous sprinkles to put on top but all in all not a bad effort for short notice.

The recipe I used was the one size fits all cupcakes made in muffin cases. They came out perfectly flat so no need to trim any peaks off them. According to a discussion on Damsels, peaks are made when the oven temp is too hot. Learn something new every day.

Apologies

2007-05-11T19:14:00.000Z

Sorry I haven't been updating lately. It's one of those small jobs that gets bigger and bigger until I'm scared of it and have no idea where to start! I have made a few good things and also the obligatory Bad Things have Happened. I have all the pics but there is something wrong with my computer at the moment and when I get pics from my camera a message comes up that I don't understand so that's got to be bad, right?

So if there is anyone still out there please check back and hopefully I will have some baked goods to show you.

Smartie Cookies

2007-02-15T00:17:00.000Z

This is the closest I get to a Valentines Day post as it was a total non-event in this house. I'm currently very cross with Mr AG as he made no effort whatsoever. I had a special meal planned but I thought why should I bother when he hadn't? At the moment we aren't talking. He of course has all the excuses under the sun.

Anyhow, back to the interesting stuff. I had a big tube of special edition pink Smarties in the cupboard left over from Christmas and thought they would fit in nicely for a Valentine baking session. Boy wanted to help as he is off on school holidays at the moment and very bored, but his food hygiene knowledge leaves a lot to be desired. I ended up telling him off and sending him to watch a DVD instead after he tried licking flour off the worktop (and no, he didn't learn that from me, and who would want to eat flour???)

I have a new book that I got this recipe from, it has quite a few interesting things I look forward to trying out. The cookie recipe is from there but I changed it slightly to have a mix of soft brown sugar and caster sugar as the brown sugar alone can be a bit overpowering. I also have a new and very lovely pink spatula. See, I'm easily pleased.

Smartie Cookies
Makes 14-16

115g/4oz unsalted butter, softened
50g/2oz caster sugar
50g/2oz light brown soft sugar
1tbsp golden syrup
0.5tsp vanilla essence
175g/6oz self raising flour
85g/3oz Smarties (sugar coated chocolate beans)

Preheat oven to 180c/Gas 4. Grease 2 baking sheets, or do them in two batches
Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy then beat in the vanilla and golden syrup
Sift in half the flour and work in with a wooden spoon. Add the Smarties and the remaining flour and work into a dough.
Roll into 16 balls and place spaced apart on the sheets allowing room for them to spread. Do not flatten.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden. For soft cookies be sure to remove them while the centres are still bubbling and pale. Leave them on the tray to firm up for 2-3 minutes then carefully remove them to a cooling rack.

Blueberry Muffins

2007-02-13T21:50:00.000Z

I bought a cheap punnet of blueberries and was looking for something exciting to make with them but inspiration was lacking so muffins it was. I haven't got a tried and tested muffin recipe so turned to Google and ended up even more confused than ever. Some recipes are made of some very dodgy things and others are just extra ingredients added to cake mix. Where is the fun in that? Most of them claim to be the 'bestest ever in the world x1000' (exaggerating now) so I took a stab in the dark and just chose one that hadn't got weird stuff in and they were fantastic! The recipe does seem a bit odd with the quantities but who am I to argue? I added some demerara sugar and cinnamon to the top as well. I'm also running out of ways to photograph my cakes, can you tell?

Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12

2 eggs
1 cup milk (250ml)
1/4 cup melted butter

1.5 cups plain flour
3tsp baking powder
half tsp salt
2tbsp white sugar

1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup white sugar

In a small bowl, whisk first 3 ingredients together till the sugar has dissolved
In a large bowl mix the next 4 ingredients.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry
Add the blueberries, flour and sugar and gently fold in
Fill 12 muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes at 190c/Gas 5

Marmalade Sponge Traybake

2007-02-13T21:26:00.000Z

I made this as a midweek lunchbox filler as I had bought a huge jar of marmalade for £1 and even I can't eat that much (all right, I can but lets keep that between us, ok?) Despite that and the orange juice it doesn't actually taste that orangey. I was going to put a syrup topping on but lost interest when the middle collapsed as I tried to get it out of the tin too early, so totally my fault! The recipe is from Gorgeous Cakes (again!) and is the base for the Heart of Gold cake.

Marmalade Sponge Traybake

180g unsalted butter, diced
180g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
5 tbsp orange juice
250g self raising flour
100g marmalade

Preheat oven to 160 fan/Gas mark 4/180c and grease a 23cm round or similar sized rectangular tin.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale, then incorporate the eggs and juice. Don't worry if the mix appears curdled. Stir in the flour and then the marmalade.
Pour into tin and smooth the surface and bake for 50 minutes until skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin then cut into squares.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

2007-02-08T10:58:00.000Z

I saw some raspberries in the supermarket and they were calling to me so I bought them and put them in the fridge and couldn't think of a thing to do with them that didn't involve cake. So cake it was. I had a choice of 2 recipes that are quite similar, the Ainsley Harriott one and this one on Muffin Recipes. As I had to use up all the raspberries I went for the second one. It made 20 cupcake size and 4 muffin size which came out a bit tougher than I would have liked, maybe could have done with reducing the oven temp a bit. I made the small ones to prevent the kids from eating too many. I've tried cutting up larger muffins and only giving them half but they are wise to it now and expect the rest! The smaller ones took about 17 minutes to bake.

Raspberry muffins with white chocolate chips

400g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100g white choc chips

2 eggs
125 ml vegetable oil
250 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 g sugar

150g raspberries

Preheat the oven to 200°C (gas mk 6, 400°F). Place the egg, oil, milk, vanilla essence and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat together until sugar has dissolved.

In another large bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the white chocolate chips - mix.

Add the liquid mix to the dry, and roughly mix it in - it does not have to be absolutely smooth. Add the raspberries last and mix very, very carefully not to break up the fruits (you can never avoid a few of them mixing in with the dough...).

Fill a muffin tray with paper muffin cases, and then fill each case approximately two thirds with the muffin mixture. Bake the muffins for 25 minutes.

Victoria Sponge Birthday Cake

2007-02-06T22:43:00.000Z

My Nigella cake stand got it's first outing recently and for a special occasion too! Boy was 6 years old. I've no idea how he got to that age so quickly, hasn't helped my broodiness one bit! I'm always a little bit fazed by celebration cakes as I have a deadline to meet (so no time for Bad Things to Happen) and it has to look at least halfway nice. Boy wanted me to make him a cake which I was secretly pleased about as he is very into Power Rangers and I thought he would prefer one of the themed cakes from the supermarket. I did look at them in a moment of desperation but the use by date was over 3 weeks away. There is something not quite right about a cake that keeps that long in my opinion. Sinister, I tell thee. He calls any sponge with jam and butter-cream 'birthday cake' so i thought that would be a good place to start. The recipe was from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell. From her instructions it says to bake it all in one in a 9cm deep baking tin which I don't have and to be honest, I don't think you need. All the mixture would have fitted in my 5cm deep tin I'm sure but I did it in two halves anyway as I wanted a nice flat top for the icing.

Victoria Sponge Cake

225g unsalted butter, diced (or spread suitable for baking, I prefer this)
225g golden caster sugar
225g self raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (I'm presuming it means level ones)
4 eggs (book says medium but I always buy large and it doesn't seem to make a difference)
100ml milk

Preheat oven to 170c fan/190c/Gas 5. Grease and base line one 20cm x 5cm deep tin, preferably with a removable base or two 20cm sandwich tins.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light
Add the eggs and milk and mix until incorporated
Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and mix until smooth
Transfer to tin(s) and smooth the top
Bake for 50 mins for whole cake and 30 mins for sandwich layers, until a skewer in the centre comes out clean. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and leave to cool.

Filling and icing
50g raspberry seedless jam
55g unsalted butter, cubed
110g icing sugar, sifted
2 tsp boiling water
1 pack ready-to-roll white icing, enough to cover 1 x 20cm cake

Trim the domes from the cake layers so they fit together as neatly as possible. I used the cut sides innermost to leave the flat base at the top.
Spread the cut side of one layer with the jam
To make the butter-cream whisk the butter, icing sugar and boiling water together until fluffy. Spread this on the cut side of the other layer and sandwich together.
Using about 3/4 of the white icing, roll out into a circle slightly bigger than the top of the cake. Spread the icing with warmed jam and smooth onto the top of the cake then trim round the edge with a sharp knife.

Then you can decorate with icing pens, writing icing or whatever else. I used the rest of the icing and made it red with some food colouring paste (liquid would make it too runny) and cut out a number 6 freehand. I do have some number cutters but they weren't quite big enough and to be honest I was rushing at this point as Z was due back from school and I wanted it ready for when he came back. It's not hugely artistic but was a lot better once the candles were on.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Brownies

2007-02-05T23:24:00.000Z

Apologies about the break in cakey updates again, I'll try and get back up to speed as soon as I can. I have been trying to sort out the house which has involved a lot of furniture shifting. I've also repeated a lot of recipes as I've been lacking in imagination and had demands for cake to meet. The lemon poppyseed loaf and the jaffa loaf have been done again a couple of times. I think they will become part of my permanent recipe collection. I keep all my recipes from online in a file. If they work they get to stay and if they don't they get chucked on the recycling pile as punishment for wasting my time! Saves me being overrun with too many bits of paper.

Anyhow, this recipe is an adapted version of one I copied and pasted from a forum ages ago. I wanted to make a white choc brownie for Mr Freak-of-Nature after trying this one, minus the chillis! It was more like a sponge traybake than sticky like a brownie. Still very nice though. It was the sheer amount of white chocolate buttons my children were given for Christmas that spurred me into trying again. Seriously, they would still be eating them at Easter as I am a mean mummy and only allow them a few at a time. The original recipe calls for 150g skinned hazelnuts. I looked at the ones in the supermarket and could only find ones with skins on and I have no idea how to de-skinnify them so I grabbed a bag of cranberries instead. If you know the secret of bald nuts let me know!

White Chocolate Brownies

125g white chocolate
100g unsalted butter
285g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
85g dried cranberries
225g white chocolate chunks or buttons
175g strong plain flour

Preheat oven to Gas 5/190c fan
Line a tin approx 20cm x 24cm with aluminium foil and grease lightly or use baking paper to line.
Melt chocolate and butter in a pan. This may look really separated and curdled but don't worry it will be fine once the flour is added.
Remove from heat and add sugar- stir until well mixed. Take time to do this stage or the sugar will not all dissolve in cooking and the brownies may be gritty.
Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla, cranberries and chocolate chunks.
Stir in flour thoroughly and pour into prepared tin.
Bake for 30 minutes in the centre of the oven.
A skewer inserted into the centre of the tray should come out slightly sticky- don't keep cooking till the skewer is clean as in other cake recipes or your brownies will overcook and be dry.
Remove from the oven and place on a rack. Allow to cool completely. Remove from tin, peel off foil, cut into squares and dust with icing sugar

Lemon Poppy-seed Loaf Cake

2007-01-10T18:54:00.000Z

Lemon Poppy-seed Loaf Cake

2 large eggs
zest and juice of one lemon
175g golden caster sugar
75ml plain yoghurt
150g self raising flour
1tbsp poppy seeds
50g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Topping
50g golden caster sugar
juice and zest of half a lemon

Preheat oven to Gas 6/200c/190c fan oven
Whisk eggs with lemon juice and zest, a pinch of salt and caster sugar to combine.
Stir in yoghurt and melted butter then stir in the flour and poppy seeds.
Pour into greased and base lined loaf tin and cook for 10 minutes.
Turn down heat to Gas 3/170c/fan 160c and cook for further 25-30 minutes, till a skewer inserted comes out clean.
For the topping mix together juice and sugar then pout over the hot cake once removed from oven. Leave to cool in the tin.
Can be frozen (without topping) for up to 1 month or stored in an airtight tin for 3-4 days.

Jaffa Drizzle Loaf

2007-01-10T18:34:00.000Z

Another loaf cake, I seem to be making a lot of them lately! This recipe is from BBC Good Food, a few of the Damsel girls were making it and I'm a big copycat so couldn't help myself. I made one for us and one for a Damsel I went to visit. I didn't manage to get the chocolate drizzly bits on either of them, the first because Mr AG pleaded with me not to *cough* FREAK *cough* and the second because it wasn't cool in time. Still lovely without.

Jaffa Drizzle Loaf

140g butter, softened
200g self-raising flour
1½tsp baking powder
200g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp milk
finely grated zest 1 large orange

To finish

3 tbsp orange juice
50g golden caster sugar
50g dark chocolate

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line the base of a 1.2-litre loaf tin. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat with a hand whisk or wooden spoon for 3-5 mins, until light and fluffy. Spoon the mix into the tin and level the top.
Bake for 40-50 mins, until golden brown and firm to the touch. Meanwhile, heat the orange juice and sugar gently in a small pan, stirring until dissolved. When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and spoon over the orange mix. Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
Break up the chocolate and melt over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave on Medium for 1-2 mins. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set.

Pancakes!!!

2007-01-08T00:08:00.000Z

It's not Pancake Day yet (or Shrove Tuesday if you prefer) but I had an unexpected gift from my mom. It's apparently called a tava which is used in Indian cooking. To me it is just a very shallow frying pan with a wonky handle and a thin base. I don't 'do' Indian cooking, it is far too complicated for me! If the urge for a balti and naan arises I just go to the take-away where they know what's what. It wasn't going to go straight to the back of the cupboard though. The first thing I thought of when I saw it was 'Pancakes!!' and I had the urge to make them straight away so we ended up having them that night for dinner. I only have a teeny tiny frying pan, it is fine for American pancakes but traditional ones have to be thin and BIG! and the tava fits the bill. Last year I made them in my wok which wasn't entirely successful due to it being so deep. The recipe I use is based on Delia's. I have tried hers a few times with the melted butter in and have found it was far better without, makes them a little too greasy. The mixture never goes lumpy for me during mixing which is a huge bonus.

Pancakes

175g plain flour
Pinch of salt
3 large eggs
300ml milk
100ml water

Sift flour and salt into a large bowl
Make a well in the centre and whisk in the eggs
Gradually add the milk and water, whisking after each addition until mixture is smooth. If the worst happens pass it through a sieve.
Leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes
Wipe the pan round with a kitchen paper with a little oil or melted butter then heat up the pan well before making the first pancake.
60ml makes 1 10" pancake.

Banana and Apple Loaf

2007-01-06T19:44:00.000Z

I got the Tana Ramsey book for myself at Christmas, even though it has meat things in and we are all veggie. I was lured by the homemade Jammy Dodgers recipe. I haven't made those yet but hope to do them very soon. I got put off proper JD's when I watched a kids programme that did a visit to the factory. It really is quite yuk and very offputting!

The first thing I have made is the Banana and Apple Loaf (yes, another banana recipe!) The kids had loads of chocolate and biscuits for Christmas so I hadn't baked anything to give them chance to get through it all but I had complaints from them (which I'm secretly pleased about!) so had to make this in a hurry. In Girls' case complaining consisted of pointing at every tupperware box she saw and screeching. It's nice to be appreciated.

Banana and Apple Loaf
150g light brown sugar
85g butter, softened
2 large eggs, beaten
4 medium bananas, mashed
1 apple, grated (it doesn't say if it's meant to be peeled or not, I peeled mine)
250g self raising flour
1/4 of a tsp fresh nutmeg (I used jar stuff)
1/4 of a teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin and preheat oven to 180/Gas 4
Cream together butter, sugar and eggs
Stir in the mashed banana and apple then sieve in the flour, nutmeg, salt and cinnamon
Mix well to combine, pour into loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until skewer comes out clean
Remove to a wire rack and cool for 30 minutes. Turn out from tin and continue cooling. Allow to cool completely before cutting into slices.
Serve. (Yes it really says this in the book, has it's own bullet point and everything. Do we need to be told? If so you really shouldn't be allowed to play with the oven.)

The resulting cake is quite dense, I'd have thought it would take more raising agent than just the self raising flour but it was fine. It smells lovely.

Mini Mince Pies

2007-01-06T13:48:00.000Z

Terribly late for a Christmas recipe I know but maybe something to keep in mind for the next one. I have been making them for two years running and they are so easy to whizz up in the processor. I ended up making 120 of them for family who asked me for them, if that isn't a recommendation I don't know what is! The recipe is from Waitrose and originally is meant to have lemon icing on the top. They are very nice that way but don't tend to store well so I decided to put a little lid on them instead. I hadn't got a cutter the right size and ended up using a camera film case. The lids don't need to be as thick as the main pastry shell and they do take a little longer to bake than the open ones. There is no need to press the patry into the tins completely, just position the edges to the top of the hole in the tin, once the mincemeat is in and they are baking the heat will push the case down to the bottom and there is less risk of it leaking.

Mini Mince Pies with (or without!) Lemon icing
Makes 36 or 24 with lids

Preparation time 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes chilling

200g plain flour
100g cold butter, cubed
25g ground almonds
50g icing sugar
1 egg, beaten (I use medium size)
410g jar of mincemeat (I use about half per 24 pies)

For the icing
8tbsp icing sugar
Zest and rind of 1 lemon.

Place the flour, butter, ground almonds, icing sugar and egg in a processor and whizz until it forms a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead slightly. Wrap in clingfilm and put it in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to Gas 6/Fan oven 190c/electric oven 200c. Roll out half the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin. Use a 6cm cutter to cut out 24-36 rounds (if making with lids use the remaining pastry rolled out more thinly to cut out smaller rounds) Then place each round in a section of a mini muffin tin. Add a small teaspoon of mincemeat to the middle (remember they sink a bit while cooking)

Bake until they are just beginning to brown (10-12 minutes. 15 minutes for ones with lids) Cool in tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack. If your mincemeat has leaked you will need to get them out before it dries too much and they stick. Allow to cool completely.

For the icing, mix the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to make a thick paste and drizzle over the top and add the lemon zest.

Happy New Year!!!!

2007-01-06T12:41:00.000Z

Apologies for the delay in posting, my New Year resolution of sorting out my house and life in general seems to have taken over a bit, resulting in an additional blog. I have been making and baking things all over the Christmas period, I had a few Bad Things Happen with some fudge I was trying to make. It suddenly went very granulated, I have no idea what went wrong but I think candy making is a skill I have yet to acquire. I got my BEAUTIFUL orange Kitchenaid. I had it well before the big day but felt so guilty I took my time getting it out of the box and using it. Mr AG has had to do a lot of overtime to pay for it which means he hasn't seen the children as much as he would normally. Girl is getting to the Daddy's Girl stage and seems to have missed him the most.

Other fantastic foodie presents I have received are a gorgeous Nigella cake stand in black from my Secret Santa on Damsels. Thank you Janice!! My sister bought me a set of number and alphabet biscuit cutters in a box. I will hopefully be making use of those for Boy's birthday that is coming up later in the month. I also had some Christmas themed ones I will put away for next year.

I didn't manage to take pictures of everything I made which is a shame as I finally perfected Baileys and White Chocolate Cheesecake, it looked fabulous. I learned from previous experience it sticks to the tin so I lined it to within an inch of it's life and it came out perfectly!

One-size-fits-all cupcakes

2006-12-18T18:37:00.000Z

It was Boy's class Christmas party today. I was hoping to make lots of little cakes for him to take in but the plan was that each child brought in their own food on a paper plate wrapped in clingfilm with their name on. So that rained on my parade a little. I suppose I can see the sense in it as they could have either ended up with mountains of food or none at all and I suppose offering food around to 60+ children takes time so I can forgive them (just about!) I promised Boy I would make him something cakey especially anyway. At least this is one thing I have minimal chance of making Bad Things Happen. I've been having one of those type of weeks to be honest. I've had to break out the emergency freezer pizza twice in a week. I seem to have lost my kitchen mojo. Just the thought of the wasted food makes me so ashamed. Jinxed, I'm sure.

Anyhow, continuing my obsession with mini muffin cases I decided to make my cupcakes teeny sized. Boy expressed a preference for Jelly Tots and I made them festive and green too. The recipe I use exactly fills 24 mini muffin cases or 12 cupcake cases so they are rounded and full when baked, but not overflowing or 12 muffin cases that are to be filled up with icing to the top Nigella-style. I like the way they don't peak and need trimming down before icing, they just go into a nice dome with minimal cracking on top. They are so light and fluffy too and don't stick to the cases.

One-size-fits-all cupcakes

4oz/110g butter (softened) or margarine
4oz/110g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
4oz/110g self raising flour, sifted

Preheat oven to Gas 5/190c
Cream together butter and sugar until light and well combined
Add the eggs and whisk until incorpotated
Add the sifted flour and fold/whisk in until mixture is fluffy with no lumps!!
Divide between 12 cupcake, 24 mini muffin or 12 muffin cases.
Bake for 10-20 minutes (depending on size of cakes) until a pale golden colour.
Ice with buttercream, frosting, sprinkles, Smarties, chocolate etc etc etc!!

I know it's tempting to shove all the ingredients in all at once and just mix but I think adding it in stages makes them a lot nicer.

Carrot conspiracy

2006-12-16T00:50:00.000Z

I'm not having much luck with carrot cake lately. First off there was this one I had to bin and now my tried and tested ancient Crank's recipe let me down. I've had my Crank's book since I was 15, it's so old all the pages are yellowing and have begun to fall out but I can't find a new one. It's not the recipe that is strictly to blame, I might have put the wrong flour in. I have some wholemeal flour but couldn't remember if it was self-raising or plain as it is in a storage jar that I didn't label. We had a problem a while back with those creepy crawly things you get in flour (weevils? I call them that anyway as it's a fantastic word) and they wiped out everything in my cupboard so now I make sure everything is sealed up in jars. Where the hell do they come from?
Well needless to say I ended up with a carroty brick, another total waste of ingredients! I do some stupid things sometimes. The bit missing off the end my mom ate and said it was nice but I don't trust her judgement, she likes eating burnt toast and dried up old breadrolls.

Must do better must do better must do better.

Blueberry and Apple Loaf Cake

2006-12-13T19:08:00.000Z

Please excuse the picture, I was having new camera trouble and that's the clearest one I managed to get before the cake was attacked in an after dinner frenzy. Boy managed to negotiate himself two slices as apparently it is 'really fantastic cake.'

I was having a pre-Christmas clear out of my freezer and I happened upon half a bag of blueberries I had bought to make Delia's Blueberry Muffin Cake. I wasn't overly keen on it and the rest of the bluberries got forgotten underneath the sweetcorn until today. Though to be honest I wish the sweetcorn was forgotten, it's vile stuff.

I didn't feel like making muffins and went online (ok, when aren't I online?) to find something else that I could make with my limited ingredients, I haven't been shopping and don't really feel like it in this weather! I'd probably end up letting the trolley blow into someones paintwork. I really do have to go tomorrow though or dinner will be very unusual.

Anyway I managed to find a simple recipe at my first port of call, Nigella.com. I didn't do the layering thing I just mixed the apple and blueberries into the mixture as I hadn't got anything to glaze the top and I thought the kids would prefer it like that anyway. I was a bit worried about using the berries straight from frozen I always imagine they will make the cake all purple and soggy. I rinsed all the excess ice off them just as a precaution. I was surprised when I cut into it and they had behaved themselves. Really pleased with this one, will definitely make it again.

Mince Pie Cakes

2006-12-08T18:05:00.000Z

I'm in a very Pimp-My-Xmas mood today, I have been shopping for candles that smell of Xmassy things, some wool to knit a pudding and I'm wearing my slippers with bells on that confuse the cats.

And also I made Little Mince Pie Cakes, aren't they cute? I bet you all know someone who eats mince pies and only eats the middle, leaving the pastry so these could be the answer. They go all hollow in the middle too so they are just like a mince pie with cake round the outside - genius! I think I will be doing these quite often in the next couple of weeks.

As for the recipe, I found it made 16 instead of 12 (in cupcake cases, maybe they meant muffin size?) At first I was a bit cross that they split a little on top but once the icing sugar is on I think it makes them look even better.

Banana Cake

2006-12-07T13:24:00.000Z

I know I already did one banana recipe but I happened across this one on the Dan Lepard site and it looked interesting so in the name of research (and to rid myself of the cluster of scary looking bananas under my sink) I gave it a go. It needed a lot of whisking so I was imagining it to be very light but for some reason it sank like the Titanic. Nice eh?My mate Bex - 1 Dan Lepard - 0 It is still perfectly edible, though a little dense and I like the addition of the cinnamon and ginger which I might try adding to the other banana bread recipe.

I will try his other recipes, he looks like a nice bloke with his cute little goatee beard and cheeky smile. Not that I'm easily swayed or anything. *Feels foodie-related crush developing*
And he loves cake. What more could a girl ask for?

Lemon Drizzle Cake

2006-12-07T12:33:00.000Z

This is my standby can't-think-what-to-make cake as I always have the ingredients in for it and it's quick and easy to do. Boy's token question as soon as he has finished his dinner is 'Mom, is there any cake?' so it's good for when I can't really be bothered (Yep, sometimes even I get bored of baking!)
It can be made in a processor but I don't trust mine anymore so I just pile it all into a bowl and use a hand mixer. It is quite versatile, I have made it as a loaf cake, in a round cake tin and also in muffin cases. My most recent purchase was a silicone cake bar mould, I was hoping to make them Mr Kipling style but I overfilled them a bit. Oops. Still very nice though and one of the cakes I am best at making.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

110g butter/margarine
170g self raising flour
170g caster sugar
4tbsp milk
Grated rind of 1 lemon
2 eggs

For the drizzle:
Juice of 1 lemon 3 heaped tbsp icing sugar.

Preheat oven to Gas 4/180c or Gas 5/190c for muffin size
Place all cake ingredients into a bowl or processor and mix until smooth
Place in tin of your choice and bake for 40-45 minutes, 15-20 for smaller size.
Mix syrup ingredients together, prick hot cakes with a skewer or fork and pour the syrup over. Leave in tin to cool completely.

Boiled Fruit Cake

2006-12-06T23:15:00.000Z

Not a very nice name for it I know but it tastes better than it sounds. The word boiled to me makes me think of eggs, cabbage, bacon and bunnies and other unappetising traditionally boiled things. I'm not very good with fruit cakes normally, I always seem to burn the tops of them and get the nasty bitter burnt fruit problem I mentioned before. This one is quite well behaved though, I think due to the fruit being rehydrated before baking. They do seem to take an absolute age to make which doesn't appeal to my impatient nature.

Boiled Fruit Cake

350g Luxury Mixed dried friut
110g butter or margarine
110g brown sugar
150ml water
225g self raising flour
1tsp mixed spice
2 eggs

Put the fruit, butter, sugar and water in a small pan and stir while bringing up to a simmer. Keep the heat low and stir frequently for 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and leave to cool
Sif the flour and spice and add to the fruit mixture. Add the eggs and stir to combine thoroughly.
Pour mixture into a greased and lined loaf tin or 7"/18cm round cake tin and smooth the top.
Bake at Gas Mark 3/170c for 30 minutes then reduce the heat to Gas Mark 2/150c and bake for a further 1-1 1/2 hours.
Allow to cool for 15 mins before turning out onto a wire rack.

And this is what it looks like. Please excuse my well used chopping board, I have been to Ikea since and bought new red ones. Not that I need an excuse to go to Ikea mind. It's one of my favourite shops. I would be quite happy living in one of their room set-ups, there is a fantastic kitchen with bright fuchsia walls that I like to wander round and open and close the drawers.

My house is very crowded and messy and we are trying to move so maybe I will have a nice kitchen one day. Notice how all my pictures are just of the cakes and not the horrible beige units and mismatched worktop.

Gingerbread Men

2006-12-06T21:00:00.000Z

I got this very lovely gingerbread cutter in the summer, it's cool. It has pokey bits inside to put on the face and buttons - great for non artistic people like me. I used to have a nice G-Man recipe from Tate & Lyle but I lost it when the website changed. I've also tried the Delia one, it is good but every time I have tried it I accidentally use dark brown sugar instead of light brown, I must have some sort of mental block as I only realise when it's too late. It comes out more of a German style like Speculaas, nice for Christmas.

I found this one on Handbag. It makes a really easy to handle, non-sticky dough that doesn't spread when it's baking and make everything look like weird blobs. I never use currants, burnt dried fruit has got to be one of the nastiest tastes ever!! I think it works best with half ginger half cinnamon.

Gingerbread Men

Makes 12

350g (12oz) plain white flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
110g (4oz) butter or block margarine
175g (6oz) soft light brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
4 tbsp golden syrup
currants, to decorate

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl. Run in the butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in the sugar and make a well in the centre.
In another bowl, beat the syrup and egg together.
Pour the syrup mixture into the well and mix to a fairly firm dough; knead until smooth.
Divide in half and roll out, one half at a time, on a lightly floured surface to a 5mm thickness. Using a gingerbread man cutter, cut out figures and place them on a lightly greased baking sheets.
Add currants to represent eyes and buttons. Bake at 190C/375F/Mark 5 for 12-15 minutes, until golden.
Leave on the baking sheets for 1 minute, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool.

When Bad Things Happen

2006-11-30T00:40:00.000Z

I'm very tired, a little bit burnt and extremely annoyed. And I'm not nice when I'm annoyed.

Tomorrow is Boy's school Christmas Fayre and they need stuff for the cake stall. Excellent I think, as I love making loads of things for that. I decided to make carrot cake, chocolate brownies and gingerbread men. I started at 7pm with the carrot cake, got that done, did everything else while it was cooling, went to put the icing on it and cut it up and OMG it was awful! Looking at the inside it is like a dense sticky mass, nothing like cake at all. It was the first time I'd tried this particular recipe as I know other people who had tried it and said it was really good. I have no idea what went wrong, maybe I didn't weight something correctly, I'll never know as it is sitting in the bin now. I'm not even going to think about the waste of food, money and time or I might cry! I don't feel confident enough about the brownies either so I will just keep those for at home.

I'm off to bed to sulk now, at least I have bypassed the urge to throw out all my baking things. Thank goodness for the gingerbread men as it's all I have to take in tomorrow.

Nigella's Birthday Custard Sponge - Supersized!

2006-11-24T13:26:00.000Z

Another birthday cake, my mother-in-law's this time. As I still wasn't feeling well I wanted to make something I had already done before to minimise chances of Bad Things Happening. I made this for my son's 5th birthday earlier in the year and had been looking for an excuse to make it again, it really is gorgeous.

BIRTHDAY CUSTARD SPONGE CAKE

200g plain flour
3 tablespoons Bird’s custard powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 eggs
225g soft butter
200g caster sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk

Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C, and butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

Put all of the above ingredients except the milk into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk a tablespoon at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.

Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack peeling away the paper.

For the buttercream filling:

125g icing sugar
4 teaspoons Bird’s custard powder
75g soft unsalted butter
1 ½ teaspoons boiling water

Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filing easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

For the chocolate icing:

60ml water
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125g caster sugar (or use 50g if using milk chocolate)
175g dark chocolate
1 pot hundreds and thousands

Combine the water, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat. Let it come to the boil and take it off the heat.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces if you are not using chocolate buttons and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.

Prong with candles, light them and sing!

Now I don't know if it's because my processor was still objecting strongly to having an orange to squish up for the muffins but I had a bit of a disaster with the first layer. I made up one whole quantity and put it in a 10" sqaure tin, it did the whole 'spookily puffy' thing which is quite scary as they do go quite big but settle once they are out of the oven. Anyhow, mine settled and it had big huge dents in it! I'm sure I mixed it for long enough. I was going to do it all again but I only had the 8 eggs needed for the cake so had to put up with it as it was. I wasn't chancing it going wrong for the top layer and did it with the hand mixer instead. As you can see from the pic it is way better than the first and had a lot better texture. The sponge is very light and it is quite tricky to get it out of the tin withough damaging the sides of it so I left it to cool for longer too.For the buttercream I made double the amount from the original recipe but stuck to the original for the chocolate topping as it made loads last time and it was all running all over the cake board. I left it to cool this time and spread it on with a spatula, I just can't do the decorative 'running down the sides' thing. As always I had a cake frill to hand, I'm getting very predictable!

This is the one I made for my son, I decorated it with white and milk chocolate buttons.

Orange muffins

2006-11-23T23:09:00.000Z

These went so quickly I only have a half-eaten one to show you! The recipe is from a fellow Damsel, who being Kiwi, bakes using measuring cups so I finally relented and bought some. I was very dubious at first about processing a whole orange. It didn't seem quite 'right' somehow, whizzing up the bit you aren't meant to eat. I changed my mind though when I tried some made by the lady herself (who is a fab hostess btw) I think they would also taste great with cranberries, I'll try that next time.

Orange muffins

Makes 12

1 whole orange
1/2 C orange juice (more if you're not using butter)
1 egg
1/2 C chopped dates or sultanas
125g melted butter (optional)
1/2 C wholemeal flour
1 t baking powder
1 C plain flour
1 t baking soda
3/4 C sugar

Cut orange into pieces and remove pips. Place in a food processor with the juice, blend until finely chopped. Drop in the egg, fruit and butter and blend briefly.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl, add sugar and pour over orange mixture. Stir till just combined, spoon into greased muffin tins.
Bake at 190/Gas 5 for 15 - 20 mins