Classic Victoria Sandwich - the egg weighing way

I've always thought that one of the worst bits of being a parent is the birthday parties. Not the birthdays themselves - I love celebrating another year, the excitement, the presents (well may be not the coming in at 5, then 5.10, then 5.12 to open the presents - you see where I'm going) - but the parties give me a headache, and I am prone to cake-stress.

It's become something of a competitive sport, the birthday cake of today. I myself am not proud to admit to participating in this. When Blue was 4, I spent 15 - yes, 15 - hours, along with a few more hours that a patient and wonderful friend put in, creating a Thomas and the Troublesome Trucks cake. It was, if I do say so myself, completely awesome, but the stress of it all was almost too much to bear.

Of course, the look on his face when he saw it almost made it all worth it, but I vowed secretly that it would never be that elaborate again. That same day, the afternoon of his 4th birthday party, once the guests had left and it was just us again, he asked, in his scrummy, little boy way "Mummy, next year can I have Gordon and the Express?". I laughed (not nastily, you understand) and said "we'll see". And we all know what "We'll see" means, don't we now...

Anyway, every cake since has been a retreat a little further away from the Thomas cake.

Blue had a fire engine for his 5th birthday (if you didn't know what "we'll see" means, you do now), and a series of ever simpler cakes, and while Pink had a rather impressive dragon cake one year, she too has had to make do with pretty straightforward offerings ever since.

Blue was 10 recently. He's obviously got the hint, because he asked if he could have a Victoria Sandwich Cake with jam and cream.

Well of course, I was happy to oblige.

I have 2 sandwich tins, 20cm diameter, and when I've made sponge cakes before, I've followed a recipe and ended up with rather flat cakes. Clearly not enough mixture. This year, I decided that I needed to use 4 large eggs, and use the weighing eggs method.

You weigh your eggs in the shell, then use that same weight of butter, sugar and self raising flour. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Beat the butter till it's pale and soft, then beat in the sugar.

Once the sugar is beaten in, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, and adding a desseetspoon or so of the sifted flour if the mixture looks like it's curdled (mine ALWAYS does).

Beat in a teaspoon of vanilla essence, then carefully fold in the flour.

Divide between 2 20cm sandwich tins and bake for 25 mins or so.

Leave to cool then sandwich together.

My 4 large eggs (all 280g of them) worked a treat. We ended up with deep sponge (but not too much) which I slathered with Bonne Maman strawberry jam and 300ml whipped double cream. I would have chosen raspberry jam for preference, but it was Blue's birthday, after all...

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Ceredigion Calling - Carrot, apple & coconut cake with ginger syrup

So there I was all happy and skipping about the kitchen with a working Kenwood, and could I decide what to bake? Reader, I could not.

The thing is that in all the excitement of the big move, alot of other stuff has pretty much fallen by the wayside. I'm not saying I'm feeding the kids fishfingers EVERY night, but, you know, needs must and all that. Pasta and sauce is featuring very regularly.

Whereas before life was just normal, mad, family life busy, now it's KERAZEE busy. 

Blue is 10 at the weekend, and it's the Husband's actual 40th in a couple of weeks' time, and, oh yes, we're moving house.

There is an ever increasing list of jobs that need to get done.

Where the kids will go to school has been my main concern so far. From that flows everything else, subject only to the Husband's requirement to be within 20 minutes of his new place of work, and both of our insistence that we should live as close to the sea as possible.

I have tracked down most of the Mumsnetters based in Ceredigion (there aren't that many) and quizzed them endlessly for any information they have about primary schools in the area we will be living in. 

I have familiarised myself with a number of place names, short on vowels, long on great beaches and made a nuisance of myself on the phone to a number of long suffering headteachers. 

I have engaged in a very interesting debate with a very nice and helpful man at the responsible County Council over the existence or not of an intensive Welsh language course that the children may or may not be able to attend. 

I have worried that once I have found the perfect school, we won't be able to rent a house in the area.

As a result of my efforts, I have a spreadsheet and a series of appointments for a couple of weeks hence, when the children and I will visit these schools. Just call me Mrs Efficient.

When I am not pondering how the kids will handle being in a 'Welsh Medium' school (where the business of the school is conducted in Welsh, all of it, apart from the English lessons. As Blue's initial reaction to the whole enterprise was: "Well, I am NOT learning Welsh", you'll be pleased to hear that I have taken the coward's way out and for now have not explicitly informed either of them that this is likely to be a necessity. It will become only too apparent once we have visited the schools), I am tackling the cupboards.

The cupboards - and (to the Husband's unending irritation) the tops of the cupboards - containing the junk that I we have accumulated over the last nearly 15 years of marriage, and a few before that. In fact, not only am I Mrs Efficient, I have become Mrs Ruthless.  Mrs Ruthlessly-Efficient, perhaps? We have lived in our present house for 8 years, during which time the suggestion, nay the mere thought of getting rid of some of 'the stuff' would almost reduce me to tears. Yet here I am, chucking out the crap without a second thought.

You see for all the upheaval, the change has energised me. Not only are we lucky enough to have the opportunity to go and live in a beautiful part of the world, by the sea, with the security (as much as it is) of the Husband's job being in the same place, but the idea of starting afresh gives me a sense of purpose. Not that I won't miss our friends and the life we have here terribly. We are very blessed with the village where we are at the moment - we have some true friends, and life has been good to us while we've lived here. But ultimately, I think we're both slightly nomadic, and there is something appealing about putting down new roots somewhere else. I moved a number of times as a child, and then shuttled from Leeds to Newcastle, to France and back, then to York, to London, to Wiltshire and then to Hampshire, where we have lived in 3 different houses. I remember hitting the point 3 years back when I only had one address to put on any of those official forms where you have to state all the addresses you've lived in for the past however many years. I felt a little cheated...

So yes, where, before, the idea of sorting through the cupboards, endowing the charity shop with most of my worldy goods and (gasp!) giving away most of my back copies of the Good Food magazine (well, it's all online now, isn't it) to a good friend (although not the classic September 2009 issue), would have been something I would never have entertained in a million years, now, I'm relishing it. I actually  think the Husband is a little concerned - after I posted on Facebook a picture of my stash of currently empty jam jars* and offered them up to anyone who wanted them, I caught him eyeing me nervously, as if I wasn't actually his wife at all, but some strange alien being in possession of his wife's body. I still haven't made it to the "unalbumed photographs" cupboard - I need a couple of days and a bottle of gin for that one - but, you know, I'm making progress.

One of my other projects is eating up the produce in the freezers and all the tins of stuff that I have hoarded away in case of a nuclear winter. Otherwise, I will cry when we don't take it with us.

All the half used jars of this and that. We won't be moving till February, but I reckon I can reduce our foodbills quite significantly by actually feeding us as much as possible out of the cupboards. OK, so I guess as time goes by, the idea of chick pea and sprinkles soup may pall, but I bet I can get them to eat it at least once.

Which brings me (at last! I hear you cry) to the cake. A carrot cake, but I didn't have enough carrot, so some apple went in it. Mindful of my need to use up stuff in the kitchen, I added some dessicated coconut to the original recipe, and some syrup from a jar of opened stem ginger to flavour the syrup that I poured over the cake at the end. The original recipe is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's in River Cottage Everyday, but this is my version.

Carrot, apple & coconut cake - with ginger syrup

3 large eggs
150g caster sugar
just over 250ml sunflower oil
300g self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g dessicated coconut
Approximately 300g carrots, peeled and grated
1 large-ish apple (approx 50g) grated
100g golden syrup
50g syrup from a jar of opened stem ginger

Lightly grease a 23cm cake tin (loose bottomed if possible) and line the base. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

In your newly repaired, and isn't it wonderful, mixer (or using a hand held electric whisker thing or other contraption - including perhaps a wooden spoon) beat together the eggs and the sugar till light, foamy and slightly thickened

Pour in the oil and carry on beating for a couple of minutes

Sift together the flour, salt and bicarb and fold this into the mixture along with the coconut.

Fold in the grated carrot and apple, then scrape everything into the prepared tin and bake for around 50 minutes till a skewer comes out clean.

Stand the tin on a wire rack over a plate, and then gently heat up the 2 syrups in a pan. Use a skewer to make holes all over the top of the cake, and slowly pour the hot syrup over it, allowing the syrup to soak into the cake.

Leave to cool.

 

This is lovely while still warm as a pud, with creme fraiche, but has also been going down a storm in the lunch boxes this week.





*don't worry, there are still plenty of full jam jars that will be coming with us...

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Pumpkin Ginger Cake with Lemon icing

So a couple of things have irked me this week.

Firstly, at the weekend, the Husband got stuck into the kitchen and produced a much, much better Pumpkin Soup than I did the previous weekend. He followed a Jamie Oliver recipe, right down to frying the sage leaves first in the oil which you then cook your 'base veg' (the carrot, celery, onions type veg, not the ones shouting obscenities as you chop them up). It was delicious. Grrr.

Secondly, I watched an episode of GBBO. 

I know. Shoot me for my hypocrisy.

In my defence, there wasn't even an old episode of CSI Miami (my least favourite of the CSIs) running on 5 USA, and I was too tired to resist I'm nothing if not open to having my ideas challenged. 

What would Messrs Hollywood & Berry say about my icing? On second thoughts, don't answer that...

So in the interests of testing whether I was right in my views about this sort of TV programme, I decided to endure it. You'll be pleased (or not) to know that I remain firm in my view that this is really car crash TV for the middle classes, and quite exploitative in the way that it plays on peoples' emotions and feelings. All that smarmy niceness and then killer comments basically telling the contestants that their cakes were rubbish. And I still don't really know what it's all FOR? I mean, for a start they weren't really rubbish - those cakes. And secondly, we all know that there are thousands of amazing bakers all over the country producing stunning cakes (both in looks and taste). So why do we need to allow some of those amazing bakers to sob into their fondant icing potagers in public? Hmm?

Anyway, rant about the premise of the programme aside, I have to say that I found the actual baking very compelling, and I liked the vegetable bakes a lot. I am a big fan of veg in cake, and when I was flicking through some books and trying to work out what to bake for a coffee morning this morning, I was mindful of the fact that despite my soup, the Husband's soup and the curry I made for the Harvest Festival Supper, we had still not got through even one of the great big enormous pumpkins from the veg patch.

Now, I know Dan Lepard doesn't take kindly to having his recipes repeated on anyone else's websites/blogs, but I made so many changes to his Ginger Root Cake that I really think this can be called an original cake. For a start, I used pumpkin, rather than root vegetables. But whatever, I was really REALLY pleased with how this turned out. Light and with a lovely ginger flavour in the cake. And of course, lemon and ginger are a match made in heaven, so the icing was a must - and who cares that my attempts at artful drizzling were less than beautiful...

Pumpkin Ginger Cake 

2 large eggs
100g dark muscovado sugar
100g treacle (see top tip below for weighing)
150ml sunflower oil (plus a little extra for weighing out the treacle - see below)
160g grated pumpkin
4 balls of stem ginger, chopped fairly small
175g spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
150g icing sugar
juice of half a lemon

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan and line a 20cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Separate one of the eggs and put the white to one side, then beat together the whole egg and the separated yolk with the sugar till thick and foamy.

Add the oil and treacle. A top tip for weighing out the treacle is to grease the bowl you weigh it into very lightly with a little oil, also if you are spooning it out of the tin, wipe a little oil over the spoon too, then the treacle will slide out easily. Also works for syrup. 

Beat in the oil and treacle until smooth, then stir in the pumpkin and chopped ginger. 

Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and ground ginger, then stir this into the mixture.

Whisk the reserved egg white to the soft peak stage, then fold it into the rest of the cake mixture with a metal spoon.

Scrape the batter into the tin and bake for 40-50 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the tin, then make up the icing by mixing together the lemon juice and icing sugar. You want a pretty runny icing to drizzle over the cake.

I also made Dan's Lemon Butter Cake - which if you own a copy of 'Short and Sweet' (and if you don't I thoroughly recommend that you get one immediately) is on the next page to the Ginger Root Cake - but I pretty much followed the recipe for that, and I'd recommend you do too...

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Easy apple & almond cake - or what to do with a rogue can of apple compote

The scoutwives hate to waste food.

At the end of every camp we go through the left overs that have come back and divvy it up - what can be saved for the following year (or for other scout activities through the year) and perishable stuff that needs to get used up.

This year, when we got back from camp, we decided
 we had to do something with some tins

of apple compote that had come back from the Netherlands with us in 2011 from a jamboree we took the scouts to. The tins are very much still in date (good till 2016 no less), but somehow we've never got round to feeding the contents to the scouts. Having taken the tins on 2 camps since Holland, on our return from Derbyshire, we decided enough was enough, and each of us took possession of a tin.

Nigella has a recipe in Feast for a damp apple & almond cake, one of her fantastically easy, whizz it all up cakes, which has no butter, and no flour in it, so possibly a good one for those with gluten issues. The amount of ground almonds, eggs and sugar probably negates any benefit the lack of butter might otherwise have had for any one, so don't try and kid yourself otherwise.

It does have fruit in, though, so not all bad -  the puree of 3 tart eating apples. Bingo. I consulted Google and Lo! there is a website which gives an equivalent apples to puree quantity. But of course there is. 

It was American, so in cups, but I have cup measures, and all was well.

Of course, it didn't use up the whole tin of apple compote, but made a good inroad into it, and I gave the rest of it to the kids. They loved it.

The cake came with us as our contribution to a dinner party last night. I sifted some icing sugar over it and served it with some double cream which I whipped up with a couple of teaspoons of cointreau in it.

Apple & Almond Cake

11/3 (one and a third) cups apple puree/compote
1 tbsp lemon juice
375g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
8 large eggs
50g flaked almonds

Grease a 23cm springform cake tin with vegetable oil and line the base.

Whizz up all the ingredients apart from the flaked almonds, in a food processor.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake. Nigella says 45 mins but check after 35. Mine needed about 50 mins.

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Camping Cake

Camping cake comes in many forms. The main thing of course is that there is cake when you are camping and beyond that it's really up to you, but in case you were needing a bit more guidance, here are my thoughts on what constitutes good camping cake.

Let's get one thing straight. Delicate doesn't cut it. If you're going camping, the last thing you need is delicate cake. You need something fairly substantial. 

Anything that includes filling or buttercream is out on grounds of practicality and the fact that in the unlikely event that the weather is good, it's likely to melt.

If it's got oats in it, you're onto a good thing - you use up a lot of energy with all that fresh air and out of doors stuff. 

Ditto fruit/veg because if you can get it in cake form, well that's got to be a bonus.

It must be 'cup of tea' cake. Cake your tea would be too wet without. I'm not suggesting you're going to dunk it or anything, just that if you've got a cake that tastes perfect with a cup of straight up builders tea, you can't go far wrong.

This cake is based on one from the Camper Van Cookbook. I like the Camper Van Cookbook, although the recipes aren't necessarily ones I'd choose to cook while we're camping. Only a very few of the recipes are actually by Martin Dorey, and I'm not sure the author of the bulk of them has done much camping - her recipes are quite ingredient and utensil heavy, and time consuming. That's not to say they aren't good recipes - what I have cooked from the book while camping has always turned out well. Lamb Burgers with spring onions and feta and Lemon Cup Cheesecakes are particular favourites, but I remember the burgers took quite a long time to put together, and with limited utensils, out in the fresh air, I think I'd be just as happy with some good sausages...


There is, however, a section of pre-camp bakes: stuff you'd make to take with you, and I cannot recommend these highly enough. They are great cakes (and biscuits) that absolutely hit the spot in the fresh air. This one is one of Blue's absolute favourite cakes, and went down very well in Suffolk the other weekend .

Sticky Ginger Treacle Cake

200ml milk
3 tbsp treacle
100g butter
75g plain flour
200g soft brown sugar
125g porridge oats
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinammon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda

Line a 20 cm square tin with greaseproof paper and pre-heat the oven to 150C/130C fan.


Place the treacle and butter into a small pan with the milk and gently bring to the boil till the butter is melted. Set aside to cool a little.

Seive the flour, ginger, cinammon and bicarb into a large bowl, then stir through the sugar and porridge oats.

Stir the melted ingredients quickly into the dry ingredients, pour into the tin and bake for 45 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin, then cut into 16 squares and store in an airtight container. This is sticky cake (the name gives it away) so if you need to stack, separate layers with greaseproof paper. 

Of course, you don't have to go camping to make this cake, but I really think you should give it a go

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Healthy & Happy Banana Cinammon Loaf (with secret courgette) - a Random Recipe

The lovely Dom has been indisposed in rather an unpleasant way recently, so to make up for it, his Random Recipes challenge this month is to cook something 'Healthy & Happy'.

I must confess that my recipe is not quite so random as some of my previous entries, as I have very clear views as to what 'healthy & happy' means, basically that cake has to be involved. 

A salad may be healthy and tasty , and piece of grilled meat could be healthy and juicy, but 'healthy and happy'? Well, cake it has to be.


As a result, there was only one book on my shelf I could reach for, Harry Eastwood's "Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache" which I have delved into a couple of times recently. Basically a load of cake with veg - hidden or not.

For added randomness, I allowed Pink the privilege of choosing the recipe, and for her to have chosen this one is pretty random because it includes bananas which, in her own words "Well, I do like them Mummy, I just don't like the idea of them so I have to forget that it's a banana and then I like it." Nothing like a 7 year old's random views, is there? It also includes courgette which she avowedly detests. This is a big problem in our house, where courgette is on the menu pretty much from June (we've had courgette in the veg box for the last couple of weeks, and our own plants are growing nicely, thank you). May be she felt that if it was in a cake, it would be OK.


Well, she was right, if she did think that. You really can't tell there's any courgette in it. It's light and tasty and there's absolutely no hint of hidden veg. It's actually less banana-y than other banana loaves too, so perfect for those less enamoured with them. I made a Nigella based banana loaf at the same time which includes about 3 times the amount of banana, and consequently is much more so. 

There is no fat in the cake, in the form of butter or oil. Instead, you whisk up sugar and eggs, whisk in the banana then the courgette, then the dry ingredients (rice flour - gluten free) and finally some chopped nuts. 45 minutes in the oven and Bob, as they say, is your happy and healthy banana loaf.

2 delicious banana loaves - can you tell which is hiding courgette?

I made no changes to the recipe other than to use all brazil nuts instead of pecans and brazils, so I don't feel I can reproduce it here, but if you get a chance, do have a look at this book. This is the Banana Cinammon Loaf.

And now, I must fly - off for more 'healthy' at a pilates class. That's 'healthy and painful' by the way...

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No mobile phone? Don't worry, there's always Blackcurrant Slice

Do you carry your mobile phone around with you always?

I'm certainly guilty of treating mine like a 5th limb sometimes, carrying it with me everywhere, yet I can also get very irritated with other people doing the same. I remember one summer before the kids came along, when the Husband was due to go on operations, but we had been allowed to continue with a holiday to the north of Scotland provided he had his phone with him and remained in contact. It drove me mad - not least because the best mobile phone signal was out in the middle of the local loch (unsurprisingly given the prevalence of fishermen in the local community), so we had to make sure that we took the dinghy out onto the water everyday regardless of the weather while he stood there in the boat trying to get a signal and make sure he wasn't required back on darkest Salisbury Plain, while I tried to keep her steady. Not a situation guaranteed to enhance marital bliss, I can tell you.

But this isn't about him - it's about me. The problem is that sometimes, I don't have my phone with me and because I almost always DO have it with me, this can cause problems - or not, as it turns out.

The Husband is panicking a little because our currant bushes appear to be on course for a bumper harvest.

He'd found some blackcurrants in the freezer from last year, and texted me while I was walking Pink to Brownies the other night to ask me to get some preserving sugar so that he could make jam, but I didn't have my phone with me.

He was a little annoyed - not just because he'd been thwarted in his preserving ambitions, and because blackcurrant jam is a particular favourite. "You ALWAYS have your phone with you!" he said. "We need to make space in the freezer".

Well, it was a good job I didn't have the phone, because if I'd bought the sugar and he'd made the jam, I wouldn't have had any blackcurrants left to add to a cake.

This cake is a bit of an oddity, and you may look at the recipe, raise your eyebrows, and say  "Really?" but I'm here to tell you, it's a winner. We all loved it. The Husband thought it was quite tart, but then that's blackcurrants for you. And it didn't stop him having a second piece.

Using up some of the courgettes from the veg box also gives this cake more brownie points. I mean, it's too early in the summer to have too many courgettes, and I got 3 in last week's box. Getting some good recipes up my sleeve now thought will stand me in good stead for later on, no doubt. This cake started off as Harry Eastwood's Coconut Lime & Blueberry Slice from Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache, a book I'm turning to more and more at the moment for sweet treats, but as you'll see, I didn't have limes or blueberries, and not enough coconut...

Blackcurrant Slice


80g caster sugar
30g unsalted butter
 pinch of salt

100g dessicated coconut
50g oats

2 medium eggs
150g caster sugar
150g courgette, peeled & grated
zest & juice of half a lemon
120g rice flour
2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
200g blackcurrants (frozen is fine)

icing sugar

20cm square loose bottomed tin, lined with greaseproof, then lightly brush the greaseproof with sunflower oil. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan.

First, heat the sugar and butter together to make a paste then mix in the salt, coconut and oats and press into the bottom of the prepared tin. Bake for 10-15 minutes till golden, but keep an eye on it.

Make the sponge by beating together the eggs and sugar till light and pale, then add in the courgette & lemon zest, beat again, then finally add int he flour, baking powder, salt and lemon juice. Pour this quite liquid mixture onto the base, scatter the blackcurrants on top, then return to the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

Cool for a few minutes before seiving some icing sugar over the top, and serving up. We had it warm with some leftover sour cream and it was delicious.

 

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An Ode to Rhubarb - and a cake, of course

Rhubarb.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

In crumble, in jam, in cake.

With ginger. With orange, With redcurrants. With almonds. 

Roasted, stewed.

Unlike courgettes, a glut of rhubarb fills me with nothing but joy. 

It's been late this year, but it's here now, in all its glory.

And here's a cake worthy of this most glorious of ingredients, based on one I read on the wonderful Caked Crusader's blog, with a dash of Nigella's rhubarb cornmeal cake thrown in. 

Rhubarb, orange, almonds. Go on. You know you want to.

400g rhubarb
280g caster sugar
225g unsalted butter
zest and juice of an orange
125g self raising flour
100g fine polenta
1 tsp baking powder 
100g ground almonds
3 large eggs

Line a 23cm springform tin.

First slice up the rhubarb into 1 cm pieces and put in a bowl with 50g of the sugar.

Mix together the flour, polenta, baking powder and ground almonds in a separate bowl.

Beat together the butter and the rest of the sugar along with the orange zest and juice. It may take some time but eventually you get a thick lovely batter, into which add the eggs one at a time, followed each time with a spoonful of the dry ingredients. When the eggs are all combined, beat in whatever remains of the dry ingredients, then fold in the rhubarb and any juices that have seeped out as its been sitting in the sugar.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the oven at 180C for about an hour - until a skewer comes out clean.

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And the mystery ingredient is...

Swede. Honestly, it is. And it's really, really good - the cake I mean.

I've been very inspired since talking to the lovely lady who runs the Blackberry Cottage cake business - cakes with hidden ingredients - who I met at the Parsonage Farm Spring Market the other week. She'd sold out of her swede cake, but I was intrigued because I've had a swede pretty much every week in my veg box and frankly, it's getting a bit difficult to think of new and exciting ways to eat it. Yes, I raved about the soup, but  I'm only fasting on 2 days a week and I've only got so much space in the freezer. We've also had swede chips, as well as plenty of plain old mashed swede, and I've found an Ottolenghi recipe that I'll be trying out for a remoulade type salad, but cake? Really?

I turned for further inspiration to Harry Eastwood's gorgeous book Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache. I have had it for a year or so, but - oh the shame - have not made anything out of it. It's a beautifully presented book, loads of wonderful cakes that you can almost smell off the pages, very pretty and evocative photography, and each cake has a little 'personality' which stays mostly on the cute side of twee. She also uses LOADS of veg in her creations. It's great bed time reading. Not only that, but 2 different cakes using swede. A lemon & lavender loaf, and an orange & rosemary drizzle cake.



I opted for the second, having lots of rosemary in the garden and no lavender as yet, and the results, well, see for yourself.

The addition of rosemary to the drizzle syrup adds extra interest but the flavour works really well with the orange, and I promise, there's not even a hint of swede. The idea of using swede puree instead of butter is a brilliant one, and based on the success of this, I will be trying it out in other things. We don't have intolerances in our house, but I can see that it would be fantastic for anyone with a dairy intolerance. Also, it uses rice flour which is gluten free. Marvellous.

Finally, I should just mention that while you can of course chop your swede with a knife, I used my Tefal Fresh Express Max which I have received as part of my membership of the Tefal Innovation Panel. I have to say that of the 3 pieces of equipment I have received, this is the one I have been most ambivalent about. However, for this recipe, the chopping cone did the job, and made easy work of the swede.

Orange & Rosemary Drizzle Cake

400g peeled swede, chopped quite small
4 medium eggs (or 2 largish ones and 2 smallish ones, our chickens not laying to conform with Government standards)
50g clear honey
150g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 4 oranges
125g white rice flour
200g ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

plus (for the drizzle):

6 tbsp granulated sugar plus 1 for sprinkling
250ml water
8 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
6 sprigs rosemary

You will also need a lined tray bake tin

First deal with the swede - cover it with water, bring to the boil and cook for 7 minutes or so, till cooked. Drain, then blitz to a puree.

Combine the rice flour, ground almonds, salt and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. In another, larger bowl, whisk together the honey, sugar and eggs for a good couple of minutes, till frothy. Stir in the orange zest, the flour & almond mixture, and finally whisk in the swede puree till it's all combined. Scrape into the tin, smooth, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, turning once during cooking if necessary.

While the cake is cooking, prepare the drizzle by putting the 6tbsp of granulated sugar, water, orange juice and rosemary into a small pan. Bring it gently to the boil, and when the water is bubbling so you can't see the rosemary, remove the pan from the heat, and leave for the rosemary to infuse into the liquid.

Once the cake is baked, take it out of the oven, and still in the tin, prick holes all over the cake using your preferred cake pricking implement. Carefully drizzle the rosemary-scented syrup all over the cake (you may have too much - use your judgement) then sprinkle the final tablespoon of granulated over the top and leave to cool.

Although Harry Eastwood thinks her orange & rosemary drizzle cake is "... that moment when a white hot sunbeam inches over your cheek, and wakes you up with a smile...", suggesting a morning type of cake (breakfast, even??), having smelt it coming out of the oven, I think mine has great possibilities as a warm pudding type cake - I think it's the almonds - served with some mascarpone. I'll leave that thought with you.

I'll be adding this to the lovely Karen's Herbs on Saturday once May's challenge is open, for the rosemary of course, and also to Ren's Simple and in Season which looks like it's still open on her blog for April.

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Banana, cherry & coconut loaf - the low fat, low sugar version - but don't let that put you off

When my mum first mooted the possibility of replacing butter in baking with pureed prunes, I have to say, I looked askance, and scoffed internally. Nothing could take the place of butter. Particularly where cake is concerned. I've always thought that if there's cake to be eaten, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, embrace what you're consuming, enjoy it, and if you eat two or three slices, well, that's life just have one slice. 

So why I had the idea to substitute butter with pureed dates in this loaf cake is something of a mystery. Well, I suppose not entirely. It started off as a Nigella creation - the original appears in Kitchen, but although my bananas were squidgy, there weren't nearly enough of them so I started off my casting round for some banana substitute, wondering what would happen to the consistency of the loaf if I added grated apple. The pureed prune idea popped into my head from nowhere, but then I remembered  that while I might not have any prunes knocking around, I did have dates in the cupboard, and a plan formed. I used enough dates to make up the weight of bananas I was missing, and half the butter. More to see what would happen than anything else.

As dates are pretty sweet too, I took the opportunity to cut down the sugar. I know, what a killjoy.

But although it doesn't look pretty, believe me, this is mighty good cake - definitely sweet and substantial enough to feel like a treat, and very tasty.

125g pureed dates (well - pureed in so far as I whizzed them all up in the food processor)
62g soft unsalted butter
3 small-medium ripe bananas
75g caster sugar
2 large eggs
175g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g dried cherries
100g dessicated coconut

Line a 2lb loaf tin and pre-heat the oven to 170C

Melt the butter in a large-ish pan, then take off the heat while you mash up the banana and half the dates, beat the eggs together and sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb.

Beat the sugar and the other half of the dates into the cooled, melted butter, then beat in the mashed banana/dates and beaten eggs. Fold in the flour mixture followed by the cherries and coconut.

Make sure everything is properly incorporated, then scrape into the lined tin and bake. The original recipe says 50 mins, but check after 45. This version took quite a bit longer, but I realised my oven wasn't hot enough to begin with... I popped a bit of foil over the top to stop it catching.


Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

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Easter Baking Part 2 - Fruity Simnel Tray Bake

So along with the hot cross buns, I also made a tray bake heavily based on a recipe I found in April 2012's Good Food mag . Handily, it's on the website, so you can access the original recipe just there.

You see, along with Christmas and weddings, Easter represents another opportunity to embrace marzipan. Weddings don't come along very often these days - we've long passed the 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' stage when we seemed to be at a different wedding every weekend with the same crowd of people - and Easter, like Chirstmas, only comes along once a year, so the mazipan usage has to be maximised. There are other things I use marzipan for throughout the year - Nigella's easy almond cake is one of my all time favourites (although, come to think of it, I haven't made it recently. Better rectify that soon) - basically, butter and marzipan, 6 eggs and a little flour chucked in almost as an after thought. It is heavenly cake. I recommend it.

 

I liked the idea of this tray bake though, because we are out and about this weekend and having squares of cake to pack up in a picnic (I know, I shudder to use that word to describe what will in reality be us shivering in a huddle) appeals. Also, it uses a whole block of marzipan, some chunked in the batter, some grated on the top and some made into the 11 marzipan balls that represent the apostles (again) on top of the traditional simnel cake.




What you get is quite a squodgy, almondy fruit cake, topped with an almondy crumble, and finally drizzled with orange icing - and the marzipan balls. Not one, you'll have guessed, if you don't like almonds, but if you're a fan, this is one for you. 

I adapted the recipe quite a bit (unlike the Hot Cross Buns, which I followed slavishly). If you do use the Good Food original version, bear this in mind: they recommend a  20 by 30 cm tin. I used a slightly bigger tray bake tin - 23 by 30 - and it still made quite a deep thick cake. Also, by using 11 marzipan balls and dividing the cake into 12 with one piece without adornment, you get massive slabs of cake. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, I'm just saying. Also, it might seem like you end up with wasting the zest of a lemon and an orange - I made this at the same time as some hot cross buns and used the zests to flavour the milk for the dough.

Fruity Simnel Tray Bake

110g each of currants, raisins, dates and apricots, chopped quite small
zest of 2 oranges
juice of 2 oranges and a lemon
250g unsalted butter cut into chunks (at room temp)
250g soft light brown sugar
4 large eggs
200g self raising flour
80g ground almonds
1 heaped tsp each of all spice and ground cinammon
a good grating of nutmeg
500g marzipan - 200g cut into small chunks, 200g grated, 100g divided into 11 and made into balls
100g plain flour
100g flaked almonds
3 tbsp golden syrup
85g icing sugar
juice of another orange

30 by 23 cm tray bake tin, buttered and lined

Soak the chopped fruit in the juice of the 2 oranges and lemon for at least 2 hours - overnight if you are organised.

Pre-heat the oven to 160C/140C fan.

Beat together 200g of the butter and 200g of the sugar till light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Sift in the self raising flour, then mix in the ground almonds and spices, the orange zest, the soaked fruit (and any juice), and the marzipan. Stir it all in then pour into the tin, level and bake for 45 minutes.

Take the cake out and turn the oven up to 200C/180C fan. Make the topping by rubbing together the remaining 50g of butter and sugar along with the 100g plain flour (like a crumble topping). Add the grated marzipan, and stir in the golden syrup, taking care that the mixture doesn't clump - I found this nigh on impossible - I might just leave out the syrup next time. Sprinkle this over the cake and put it back in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

Once the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven, add the marzipan balls to the top, then leave to cool in the tin. Mix together the icing sugar and orange juice and drizzle over the cake, leaving the icing to set a little before slicing.

Happy Easter!

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