Blueberry and Apple Loaf Cake

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.

Banana Cake

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

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

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.

Iced Lemon Curd Birthday Cake

It was my grandad's birthday last Saturday. There was some debate amongst my older rellies about whether he was 92 or 93 this year. I don't know myself, you kind of have to take peoples word for that sort of thing don't you? Anyhow, I made him a cake. The recipe was based on Delia's Iced Lemon Curd Layer Cake. I have made it before and it is lovely but it ended up as just a sandwich cake, there was no way I could have cut the layers in half as they were too thin and it would have totally fallen apart. I am usually very good at doing as I'm told in recipes but there is something about Delia that makes me want to rebel. This recipe was too small anyway, as birthdays call for Big Cake!!

I made the whole quantity of mixture in Delia's recipe and put it all into one 20x24cm tin, then when that was done made another one as I only have one tin that size (don't feel sorry for me, I have far too many baking things.) While they were cooling I made the lemon curd, which is one of the easiest, most satisfying jobs ever! Shove a load of stuff in a bowl, set it on a saucepan and walk away from it for 20 minutes. There was just enough to sandwich the two halves together. I had to trim the bottom layer a bit so they fitted together. All going well so far. Then I made the icing to go on top. I doubled the amount but it wasn't quite enough and it had started to dry with bald patches around the edges. I quickly made some more and tried to fill in the gaps but it was starting to look a bit lumpy where the first lot met the second so I covered it in 100's and 1000's and it looked ok. By this time it was 1am so I didn't really have time to make any major mistakes. I had bought a cake frill to go round the outside, I love those things they cover a multitude of ugly cake moments with the minimum of effort and all for 70p.

As I said before I just don't do decorating at all so shop bought plastic thingies and sprinkles etc are my saviour. Some candles were put on after but we didn't light them as it would have set off the smoke alarms at the old folks home and we didn't want that, it wouldn't have made us very popular.

So there we go. Not as sophisticated as Delia's layer cake but everyone liked it.

Hello cake lovers

This is my new blog, and it's all about cake and my attempts to make them. I'm not saying I'm fantastic or anything so don't be expecting the Statue of Liberty in sugarcraft, truth be told my cakes aren't usually very pretty but on the whole taste good and that's enough for me. I'm not here to show off either. If I f*ck up as I so often do, then the results will be here for all to see. Baking is just something I enjoy doing. I have a obsessively large collection of bakeware and always have every type of sugar and flour ready and waiting in the cupboard in case the baking bug strikes.

I'm mum (or mom, as is said round here) to 2 cake-loving children so my oven is kept very busy (so to speak) Boy is 5 years old and Girl is 14 months. She can already say 'cake' and has a penchant for lemon poppyseed muffins from Cafe Nero. I've been trying to recreate them myself but they aren't the same just yet. I have a husband who doesn't eat chocolate but I try not to hold that against him. Ok, I bloody hate that he doesn't eat chocolate. He's a freak, a freak of nature dammit!

The 'Rock' element of the blog title relates to my love of very noisy expletive-ridden music, mostly enjoyed in my car where I can sing as badly as I like and no-one can hear me.

So that's me. I hope you enjoy reading as it gives me an excuse to take pictures of my cakes. If nobody read then it would make me look quite sad.