Lemon and Poppyseed Cake

As is the tradition in January, I am on a no-carb diet.  Therefore I am totally avoiding temptation by only looking at pictures of deliciously sugary cakes, reading recipes and re-visiting how wonderful they tasted. I definitely don't feel like breaking my diet. At all.

Back in the Australian winter, which is in June because they're upside down, I spent a weekend out in the west of New South Wales staying at the home of my friend's boyfriend's parents.  Their house is surrounded by orange and lemon trees, all bulging with fruit, and has a beautiful kitchen so I couldn't turn down the chance to do some baking after a 4 month break.

When Starbucks first opened in my local town at home, all I ever had was a chocolate frappuccino and a 'skinny' lemon and poppyseed muffin. There was something about this combination of tangy lemon and crunchy poppyseeds with its' 'skinny' label that attracted me, and gave me the idea for this cake to use a handful of fresh lemons from the garden.

If I'm honest, I don't remember the recipe I used, except that it has three layers which makes me think its likely to be from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook....

All I can really remember is that I used the zest of 2 lemons to flavour the cake and a lot of poppyseeds poured and folded through carefully right before spreading the batter in the cake tins.  And the icing is swiss meringue buttercream, flavoured with lemon juice and topped with lemon zest.

It was pretty lemony and quite delicious.

Ginger Cake

At the end of November, whilst I was still in Australia, I flew up to Brisbane to spend some time with my father's side of the family who I've never met.  Its odd to meet people who share your name and ancestors but live on the other side of the world.

My great uncle Brian and I share a birthday; he turned 80 this year when I turned 25.  I arrived in Brisbane after his birthday so whilst I was staying with him and my great aunt, I wanted to make a cake, just because I could!

Brian requested a ginger cake because his mother used to make one when he was a boy and he hadn't had one since - no pressure! A look around led me to the Caked Crusader's blog and her recipe for 'Traditional Ginger Cake'. The blog of the baking superhero was one of the first baking blogs I followed when I became interested in baking , so I was pretty confident a recipe from here would be delicious!

One slight problem cropped up in the process however; I was shocked (not an overstatement) to discover that I couldn't get a jar of stem ginger in the supermarket in Australia. It may have been the branch I was in or this may be a national problem, but it meant no glaze for the cake and I used chopped candied ginger in the cake.  

Traditional Ginger Cake (from Caked Crusader)
225g self raising flour
4tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g unsalted butter
100g golden syrup
100g black treacle
100g light brown sugar
50g steam ginger, finely chopped
2 eggs
200ml milk

Icing
4 tbsps ginger syrup from the stem ginger jar
4 tbsps boiling water
200g icing sugar

1) Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 160C and prepare a 20cm square cake tin.
2) Use the rubbing-in method to combine the dry ingredients until they have a texture like bread crumbs. You can blitz them in a food processor if you have one/are lazy/have long fingernails.
3) Heat the golden syrup, black treacle, sugar and diced ginger in a large pan over low heat until the sugar has dissolved -  there should be no visible sugar crystals. Once dissolved, raise the heat and cook for a couple more minutes before removing from the heat.
4) Carefully beat the eggs and milk into the hot syrup - being careful means be aware that the egg may scramble as the syrup is hot and that looks weird and won't taste good!
5) Beat the crumb mixture into the syrup and stir thoroughly until combined.
6) Pour into the tin and bake for 40-45 minutes.  Allow it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing - cover the cake with glazed when it is in the tin by piercing it with holes and pouring the glaze over.

We had ours sans glaze with ice cream - it lasted for over a week in tupperware!

Happy Birthday to me!!

Its a sad day when the desire for a non-bloated tummy and the subsequent hangover stop you making and eating your own birthday cake until two days after your birthday, but needs must and so I have stuffed my face tonight quite happily with my favourite cake; coffee and walnut.

Beautiful!  The butter in the icing makes it so shiny and velvety looking, wonderful.

Its a 7" cake which is now my new favourite sized cake (is it weird to have a favourite sized cake?) so its nice and tall but chunky and the slices come out short but thick, so many short descriptive words.  Also the icing isn't coffee buttercream, its made with cream and melted, sort of burnt butter, and I like it (I like everything it appears).  I made it before a while ago and ate the whole thing with a fork, like a real lady.

Coffee and Walnut Cake (from the Great British Book of Baking)
175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
75g walnut pieces, chopped
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water or 1tbsp coffee essence

1) Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line two 7" cake tins; you can use 8" tins for a larger cake but I think they're cute in the smaller tins.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3) Beat in the eggs one at a time
4) Sieve in the dried ingredients and fold in with a metal spoon; fold in the coffee essence and nuts.
5) Bake for 25 minutes until the sponges spring back when you poke them.

Icing
125g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
3 tbsps instant coffee granules dissolved in 2 tbsps boiling water or 2 tbsps coffee extract
4 tbsps double/whipping cream
25g walnut pieces + extra if you want to decorate with them

1) Melt the butter until it goes frothy; heating it for slightly longer until it goes a pale brown colour gives it the stronger nutty taste I go on about liking.
2) Sieve the icing sugar into a heatproof bowl and add the melted butter, coffee and cream and mix together until smooth; stir through the chopped walnut pieces.
- The icing will need to cool before it can be used.

Latte Layer Cake

I must admit that the idea for this cake came completely from http://sweetapolita.com/blog/, a blog I am totally obsessed with, mines just a bit different.... I love lattes and when Dad asked me to make a cake for a family friend I thought this had to be a safe bet because I don't know anyone who doesn't like lattes (massive claim).

The sponge is just a simple victoria sponge, nothing fancy but I like it, its' reassuringly simple and perfectly flavoured when made well (obviously mine is always made well) so it acts as the vanilla element to the flavours of the cake.  The swiss meringue buttercream is lightly flavoured with both vanilla extract and a little coffee essence to give it a slight coffee kick and the pale latte colour.

The flavours are very delicate and the coffee and vanilla compliment each other nicely in the icing; I used 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1tsp coffee. Its worth playing with the taste as the icings mixed to make sure both elements are strong enough.  I am a fan of this cake.

Victoria Sponge (makes 2 x 7" cakes)
6oz butter
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
6oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
small glug of milk (technical measurement)

1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between additions.
3) Sieve in the dry ingredients and fold in carefully, adding the milk towards the end.
4) Spread evenly between the tins and bake for 25 minutes at 180 degress

Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe here; add 1 tsp coffee essence and 1tsp vanilla extract for flavour (change these according to taste) + a small glug of milk to help the icing soften a bit

Gran's Birthday Cake: Hummingbird and Chocolate

It was my Gran's birthday last weekend and as I couldn't make it up to visit her in person I sent my mum up with a cake (a fair replacement I'd have thought, it doesn't talk or demand sweets every 10 minutes). Gran likes fruit, nuts and chocolate in cakes so I saw this as a good chance to try making a recipe for hummingbird Cake from the Hummingbird recipe book.

The cake is essentially a carrot cake but using banana and pineapples for carrot and pecan nuts instead of walnuts. I've made a few different types of carrot cake so I liked the idea of the different fruit in this one. Traditionally, as with carrot cakes, the hummingbird cake is iced with cream cheese icing but I think its weird and it freaks me out so I went for a milk chocolate icing instead thinking it would make a fun flavour mix and chocolate makes everything better anyway (fact).

In taste and texture its quite similar to banana bread and according to my mum makes it seem wholesome so it could pass as a healthy cake I suppose.....  The chocolate doesn't overpower the flavour of the fruit either which I thought it would so thats good too.

Hummingbird Cake (from the Hummingbird Bakery; makes 3 x 20cm rounds)

300g caster sugar

3 eggs

300ml sunflower oil

270g peeled bananas, mashed (about 2 1/2 medium bananas)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

300g plain flour

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

100g tinned pineapple, drained

100g pecans chopped up smallish = extra to make it pretty

1) Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and prepare the tins

2) Beat together the sugar, eggs, oil, banana and cinnamon until the ingredients are well mixed together.

3) Slowly add the dry ingredients and beat until everything is mixed (too much beating and the cake will become heavy)/

4) Stir in the chopped pineapple and pecans.

5) Split the mixture into the 3 tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting (from the Hummingbird Bakery; double for the cake)

300g icing sugar

100g unsalted butter

40g cocoa powder

40ml milk

1) Beat everything together until creamy; the longer you beat it the lighter it gets

2) Eat whats left after you've iced the cake

Mini Birthday Cake

A few weeks ago I went shopping with my mum and got over excited by some small cake tins, 4.5" to be precise, so naturally I had to get two....

They made their maiden cake voyage(struggling for better words to use)wshen I went round a friend's at late notice and had no birthday cake to offer (it was his birthday a few days before) so a minature layer cake was perfect!

I love the combination of raspberry and chocolate so, as I had some raspberries in the fridge, I mixed fresh fruit through the batter before baking and popped a few on top because pink fruits are very masculine.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake (makes 2 x 4.5" rounds and a little batter is left)
4 oz self raising flour
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz butter
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 handfulls fresh raspberries

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and prepare the cute little tins.
2) cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy then beat in the eggs one at a time
3) fold in the flour and fresh fruit
4) Bake for 20 minutes

Chocolate Fudge Icing (makes enough to ice and fill an 8" layer cake)
2 oz butter
2 tbsps milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder
8 oz icing sugar
+ decorations

1) sieve the cocoa powder and icing sugar together and beat well with the remaining ingredients.
*the icing should not run or set*

(budget looking) Battenburg Cake

After promising to make my sister a battenburg cake for about 4 weeks I gave in last week when she was away and had a go.  I had it in my head the cake would be fiddly and difficult to make - I suffered through the first episode of this series of the 'Great British Bake-Off' and watched the contestants make some hash-jobs of the cake and a few beauties, so I wasn't overly keen to try!

However, the hardest part was lining the tin so I could cook both colour at once...mum did it for me because I couldn't quite work out how to (defiately worth going to University...) and then rolling the thing up in the marzipan.  As a result mine does like a bit budget but I did not make the fuss they made on the tv and I quite enjoyed making it so I'll have another go and try and make it look a bit better!

the batter was so pretty I had to take a photo

 If you look from further away you can see the pinching on the edges of the cake which distracts your eye from the gaps between the sponges where I didn't press them together enough because I had jam all over my hands.

Battenburg Cake

175g/6oz softened butter, plus extra for greasing

175g/6oz golden caster sugar
3 free-range eggs
175g/6oz self-raising flour
½ tsp vanilla extract
red food colouring

For the covering:6 tbsp apricot jam
                           500g/1lb 2oz ready-made marzipan
                           2–3 tbsp icing sugar, for rolling.

1) Preheat the oven to 190C and grease a 20cm/8in square, loose-based cake tin with butter.

            -Take a 30cm x 20cm/12in x 8in strip of baking parchment and make a 8cm/3in fold in the       centre. This will create a division in the cake so that the two differently coloured sponges can be cooked at the same time (or ask your mum for help)

2) Cream the sugar and butter until creamy, then beat in the eggs and vanilla then fold in the flour. 

            - half the mixture and colour one half pink with a few drops of red food colouring

3) Pour the batters into the tin, keeping the division in the centre and bake for 25 minutes - If the sponges have risen unevenly, press the surface gently until level (read this after you've made the cake then realise it would have helped).

4) To assemble the cake,place one sponge on top of the other and trim off the crusty edges so they're both the same size; cut the sponges in half lengthways to make four long rectangles.

5) Warm the apricot jam in a saucepan then press through a fine sieve.

6) Brush the long side of one of the sponges with jam and sandwich together with a sponge of a contrasting colour. Do the same with the other two sponges.

7) Sandwich the two pairs of sponges together like a checker board and brush the top and sides with jam.

8) Roll a rectangle of marzipan of about 40cm x 20cm on a surface dusted with icing sugar;large enough to wrap the cake completely, leaving the ends exposed, and be about 5mm/¼in thick.

9) Turn the cake upside down on the marzipan and brush the underside of the sponges with jam.

10) Wrap the marzipan around the cake, pressing it gently onto the surface of the sponges, and press the edges together to make a firm join.

11) Turn back over with the seam underneath, trim a thin slice off each end and pinch the edges so people don't notice if you botched it up anywhere and feed to anyone nearby.