Raspberry Cake

My parents went to Henley Regatta today and wanted to take a cake for their picnic so Mum asked me to make the Hummingbird blueberry cake again but as I'm getting fed up of making the same things all the time I swapped the blueberries for raspberries to be more fun....

Mum iced it in the morning because the weathers been so warm and topped it with freshly picked raspberries from Dad's vegetable patch.

350g unsalted butter
350g caster sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
450g plain flour
2 tbsp + 2tsp baking powder
280ml soured cream
225g fresh raspberries (the blueberry cake asks for 250g but as raspberries are a moister fruit I used slightly less for fear of making the mixture too wet)
cream cheese frosting to finish

1) prehear the oven to 170C and grease the tin and dust it with flour; I use a 25cm ring mould and fill it 3/4 full which leaves enough mix to make 6 muffins as well)
2) cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3) add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
4) add the vanilla extract and beat well
5) add the baking powder and flour and beat to combine (I beat the mixture as little as possible once I've added the flour because I don't want it to get heavy and dry)
6) add the soured cream and beat again to combine
7) add the fruit and carefully stir with a large metal spoon

Bake it for around 35 minutes until the sponge is golden brown; leave to cool and ice!
I find keeping the icing in the fridge until I'm ready to use it helps it keep its shape and despite many (failed) attempts to use low-fat cream cheese, full-fat cream cheese makes the best icing.  Cakes aren't meant to be that healthy anyway...

Rasperry cake leftovers...

As the ring cake I made for mum had so much mixture left I added chopped up milkybar to the batter and popped it in a 1lb loaf tin in the oven for around 45 minutes at 150C (there was a LOT of leftover batter).

Lets call it an 'experimental' tea loaf because it looks a bit like one if you turn it upside down so you can't see the sunken bit in the middle of the cake.....it looks quite pretty though with its' chocolate glace icing!

Muesli Bars

Giles is working for the charity Practical Action at the moment and I'm going to see him this evening so, obviously, I've made something for him!  The team are out going door-to-door for hours at a time so I thought it would be nice to make something that could be wrapped up and put in your pocket as a snack without suffering the fate of the poor squashed muffins.

The recipe came from the Hummingbird Bakery book but, me being me, I forgot to buy half the ingredients so just upped the quantities and missed some bits out...

320g unsalted butter
240ml golden syrup
250g lift soft brown sugar
250g rolled oats
200g dessicated coconut
125g dried apricots (forgot these...)
60g dried dates (..and these...)
125g cornflakes (...so put in loads more of these..)
125g sunflower seeds
60g dried cranberries
125g shelled walnuts, chopped
125g raisins (..and extra raisins too...)

1) Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together over a low heat until melted and smooth
2) Combine the dry ingredients together (in a REALLY big bowl) and mix
3) Add the butter mixture and mix thoroughly until everything is combined
4) Press this into a prepared tray (33x23x5-cm lined with greaseproof paper) and press with the back of a spoon to flatten it.
4) Cover with more greasproof paper and place in the fridge with heavy things on top to flatten and cool overnight (Delia Smith's complete illustrated cookery guide did a good job...).

It took some persuading to get them to come out of the tray but when they did they held together perfectly and were quite easy to cut.

All packaged up and ready to go, except it was a tight squeeze in the box so one was sacrificed even though they aren't really vegan friendly....whoops