The Cake Slice January 2010: Red Velvet Cake

With over 50% of the votes, The Cake Slice bakers cake of choice to kick start 2010 was a Red Velvet cake. It seems we were all eager to start the new year off with a little colour and excitement. A Red Velvet cake is a unique and instantly recognizable cake due to its deep dark red colour thanks to a hint of cocoa powder and lots of red food dye. It has a soft and tender crumb thanks to the inclusion of vinegar and buttermilk in the cake and is often topped with a cream cheese or buttercream frosting. However, this cake is a little different as it called for a cooked milk based topping mixed with coconut and pecans which resulted in a nutty, nobly fluffy icing.

Red Velvet cake is relatively unknown here in the UK, although you do occasionally see it in London cupcake shops. I have only eaten it once, when I was in Chicago during the summer, and have longed to try baking one myself ever since, so I was particularly excited by this months choice.

I had no call for a large cake and so instead I halved the recipe and baked a batch of cupcakes instead. This also allowed me to use some of the cute red and white spotty cake cases I was given at Christmas. Just perfect for Red Velvet cupcakes!
The colour of my sponge turned out quite a lot darker than I expected, not the vibrant red colour I was anticipating but I think this was because I used gel food dye rather than the liquid version called for. Gel is more concentrated and so I reduced the amount – I now realize I reduced it a little too much, but the crumb still had a nice earthy red hue to it. Will add more next time!

The texture of the cake was wonderful. It was very light, quite tender and moist thanks to the buttermilk. It had a faint cocoa richness that paired with the sweet creamy topping perfectly, without being obviously chocolaty. The icing was soft and creamy and I loved its quirky nubbly appearance and texture. A bite resulted in a great contrast between the nutty sweet coconut icing and the soft cake beneath.

The icing itself was unlike any other icing I have made before. You heat some milk and flour together until it forms a thick paste, just like a rue when making a béchamel sauce. You leave the paste to cool and then beat in butter, caster sugar and a little vanilla. You end up with an icing the consistency of spreadable butter into which you stir the coconut and pecans. I was quite dubious about how it would taste but it was surprisingly smooth and creamy, thick without the need of too much sugar and I didn’t notice any graininess from the caster sugar either. Who would have guessed?! I think I still prefer cream cheese icing myself, but I would urge you to give it a go, for learning a new technique if nothing else.

Red Velvet Cake
(Recipe from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)
For the Red Velvet Cake
300g plain flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
225ml buttermilk (see note below)
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp red food colouring
200g butter
400g caster sugar
2 eggs
1½ tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cider vinegar or white vinegar

For the Coconut Pecan Icing
225ml milk
2 tbsp all purpose flour
200g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g sweetened shredded coconut
100g finely chopped pecans or walnuts


Method – Red Velvet Cake
To make the cake, heat the oven to 180C. Grease two 9 inch round cake pans and line them with waxed paper to kitchen parchment. Grease the paper and flour the pans.
Prepare three separate mixtures for the batter. Combine the flour and salt in a medium bowl and use a fork to mix them together well. Combine the cocoa powder and the red food colouring in a small bowl, mashing and stirring them together to make a thick smooth paste.
In a large bowl, beat the butter with a mixer at low speed for 1 minute until creamy and soft. Add the sugar and then beat well for 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl now and then. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one until the mixture is creamy, fluffy and smooth. Scrape the cocoa-food colouring paste into the batter and beat to mix it in evenly.
Add a third of the flour mixture and then about half the milk, beating the batter with a mixer at low speed. Mix only enough to make the flour or liquid disappear into the batter. Mix in another third of the flour, the rest of the milk and then the last of the flour in the same way.
In a small bowl, combine the baking soda and vinegar and stir well. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to quickly mix this last mixture into the red batter, folding it in gently by hand. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans.
Bake at 180C for 20 to 25 minutes (20 for cupcakes) until the layers are spring back when touched lightly in the centre and are just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pans.
Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks or folded kitchen towels for 15 minutes. Then turn them out onto the racks, remove the paper and turn top side up again to cool completely.

Coconut Pecan Icing
Combine the milk and flour in a small or medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking or stirring often until the mixture thickens almost to a paste, around 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and scrape it into a small bowl to cool completely.
Meanwhile, beat the butter with a mixture at high speed until light and fluffy. Add the sugar in thirds, beating well each time until the mixture is creamy and fairly smooth. Add the cooled milk and flour mixture and beat for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the sides now and then to combine everything well. Using a large spoon or spatula, stir in the vanilla, coconut and pecans, mixing to combine everything well into a thick, fluffy, nubbly icing.

To Assemble
Place one cake layer top side down on a cake stand or serving plate. Spread a third of the icing on top. Place the second layer, top side up, on top. Frost the sides and then the top of the cake with the remaining icing. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to help the icing set.
Makes one 9inch double layer cake or 24 cupcakes

NOTE: If you can’t find buttermilk, stir 1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar into 225ml of milk and leave to stand for 10 minutes before using.

Daring Bakers December 09 Challenge: Gingerbread House

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I was so excited by this challenge as for the last three years at Christmas I have been telling myself that I would make a gingerbread house and yet one never materialised. So when Decembers challenge was announced as a gingerbread house I knew this year would be THE year.

Rather than attempt a big gingerbread house I decided to halve the recipe and make a smaller version to adorn the top of my Christmas cake. We had the choice of two recipes but I went for Anna’s recipe choice from Good Housekeeping as I know and trust their recipes. The recipe can be found here.

The side walls for my gingerbread house I cut 8 x 8cm square and the front and back I cut 8 x 12 but then cut two diagonal middle points from the 8-12 cm height to create the middle points on which the roof would sit. The two roof pieces I cut 12 x 8 so that they would overhang the walls a little on each side rather than fit snugly on top. It sounds complicated but in practise it’s quite straightforward.

A few people on the forums were saying that the dough was rather dry and crumbly, and following other peoples advice I left my dough overnight in the fridge before using it and had no problems with it. I also cut out a little door from the scrapes to attach later in order to make it stand out more.

When you want to decorate the house you need to do it while all the pieces are still flat and separate. If you try and pipe icing onto an assembled house it will be very tricky and the icing will probably run where you don’t want it to. I piped on a few windows and attached the door and stuck on a wreath I had made out of fondant. I wanted the roof to look like it was tiled and I discovered that using large chocolate buttons was ideal as they were light enough not to add too much weight and blended in well with the rest of the house. I simply piped on lines of royal icing and then stuck the buttons on top, slightly overlapping them. I think it gives a good effect.

Assembling the walls and roof of the house was rather fiddly. I glued all the walls together first using royal icing and simply held them in place until the icing was dry enough to support itself. The roof was more tricky as it was set against the sloping sides and gravity naturally made it slide down. In the end I solved this problem by propping up the roof on either side with the weights from my weighing scales. I left it well alone for several hours until the icing glue had dried hard before nervously removing the weights…hurrah it worked! The roof felt quite sturdy and well attached. I had some mini snowflake sprinkles and decided to add these along the top edge of the roof to resemble crenulations which I think was a nice finishing touch.

After covering my Christmas cake in marzipan and fondant I simply placed the gingerbread house on top and decorated the surrounding cake with a few trees and an adorably cute snowman I made out of leftover fondant. I wanted the house to look like it belonged on in the scene, rather than just plonked randomly on top of the cake. I also added a little snowflake path and gave everything a light dusting with icing sugar. I love the look of it on the trees and rooftop, it makes it look as though there has been a light snowfall and very festive. I could almost imagine a little family sitting inside, enjoying Christmas day.

Thanks Anna and Y for choosing such a fun and festive challenge. Click to see a list of fellow Daring Bakers and their gingerbread houses.

For anyone who remembers me soaking the fruit and baking the Christmas cake a few weeks back, here is what it looks like after we cut into it on Christmas day. Packed full of sweet and moist fruits, some chewy, some soft or tangy and the occasional little crunch from the dried figs. The cake was light and nicely spiced with the odd nugget of an almond.

The Cake Slice December 09: White Chocolate Layer Cake

This month’s cake choice was particularly fitting for this time of year, especially as we had snow this week, a completely white cake. It comprises of three layers of white chocolate enriched cake, filled and topped with a sticky creamy white chocolate cream cheese frosting.

I was not particularly fond of this cake. That’s not to say there was anything wrong with it, I’m just not a lover of white chocolate so this cake was never going to be my ‘to-die-for’ cake from the start. Despite this I can appreciate that it was a very nice cake. The layers were dense yet still moist and fluffy and the frosting was incredibly smooth and creamy. It was very sweet, too sweet for my liking, but I suspect this is largely due to the white chocolate. My first thought on taking my first bite was Milkybar and I had images of the blonde haired Milkybar Kid float round my head which made me smile. It had that same sticky-sweet yet creamy taste and flavour to Milkybar. If you are a fan of white chocolate then this cake is for you as white chocolate makes an appearance in both the cake and the frosting.

I might try making this cake again, but replacing the white chocolate with dark as I think this would produce a lovely cake and would help balance out the sweetness.

As this cake was essentially our groups Christmas cake I set the group the extra optional challenge of decorating it with the theme – Snow. This seemed very fitting considering the cake itself was completely white.

I chose to decorate mine with some snowflakes I cut out of fondant using some very cool make-your-own-snowflake-design cutters that were an early Christmas present (thanks Mum!). I also dusted the top with some edible blue glitter which is something I only recently discovered and I think it adds a frosty nighttime feel as well as adding a little Christmas sparkle.

White Chocolate Layer Cake
(Recipe from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)
For the White Chocolate Cake
300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
115g white chocolate, finely chopped
110ml boiling water
200g butter, softened
450g caster sugar (I used 300g)
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
225ml buttermilk (see note below)

For the White Chocolate Frosting
175g white chocolate, finely chopped
350g cream cheese, softened
35g butter, softened
¾ tsp vanilla extract
375g icing sugar


Method – White Chocolate Cake
Heat the oven to 180C and grease three 8 inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of each pan with a circle of waxed paper or kitchen parchment and flour the pan.
Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a medium bowl, and stir with a fork to mix them well.
Bring 3 inches of water to an active simmer in the bottom of a double boiler or a saucepan that will accommodate a medium heat proof bowl so that it sits snugly over the water. Melt the white chocolate in the top of the double boiler or in the bowl over the simmering water. Stir often, and then pour in the boiling water and stir to mix well. Remove from the heat.
In a medium bowl, combine the butter and the sugar and beat with a mixed at medium speed to mix them together well. Add the egg yolks, one by one, beating each time to keep the mixture smooth. Add the white chocolate and the vanilla, and stir well to mix.
Add about a third of the flour mixture, and then about half of the buttermilk, beating with a mixer at low speed just long enough after each addition to make the flour or buttermilk disappear. Mix in another third of the flour, remaining buttermilk and then the last of the flour.
In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites at medium speed until they are foamy and opaque. Continue beating at high speed until they swell into thick, pillowy mounds and hold peaks that are stiff, but not fry. Add one third of the egg white mixture to the bowl of batter, and fold it in gently using a spatula. Add the remaining egg whites and continue to fold with a light touch, until the egg whites are blended in well, with only a few streaks showing.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pans and bake at 180C for 25-30 minutes until the cakes are golden brown, spring back when touched gently in the centre and are beginning to pull away from the sides of the pans.
Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks or folded kitchen towels for about 30 minutes. Turn them out onto the racks and peel off the paper and turn them back the right way up to cool completely.


Method – White Chocolate Frosting
In the top of a double boiler or a heatproof bowl, melt the white chocolate over hot, not simmering, water, stirring often. Remove from the heat once melted and let cool to lukewarm. Transfer the melted white chocolate to a large bowl, and add the cream cheese, butter and vanilla. Beat together at medium speed until you have a smooth sauce. Add the icing sugar and beat until smooth.


To Assemble
Place one layer, top side down on a cake stand or serving plate and spread it with about a fourth of the icing. Continue stacking and frosting each cake layer in the same way. Cover the sides of the cake with any remaining frosting.
Cover the cake and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Set the cake out about 30 minutes before you want to serve it.
Makes one 8 inch triple layer cake

NOTE: If you can’t find buttermilk, stir 1 tbsp lemon juice into 225ml of milk and leave to stand for 10 minutes before using.

Jordans Country Crisp Appreciation Society Day

Yesterday I was one of a few lucky bloggers to be invited to the first Country Crisp Appreciation Society day run by Jordans Cereals at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London. I was delighted about this as I adore cereal and have been eating Jordans products for many years. For those of you who don’t know, Jordans produce a delicious range of oat based mueslis, cereal bars, porridge oats and Country Crisp clusters. They are based in Biggleswade, in my own hometown of Bedfordshire and use only the finest natural ingredients in their cereals.

Some of the other cereal enthusiast bloggers were:
Kavita of Kavey Eats
Signe of Scandilicious
Mathilde of Mathilde’s Cuisine
The Muesli Lover
Greedy Diva
The Ginger Gourmand
Danny of Food Urchin
Maunika of Cook in a Curry

Jordans Country Crisp cereal has been around for several years, and comprises of clusters of oats and barley baked into various sized clusters. It comes in many varieties depending on what add-ins you have with it. I have always favoured the raisin one which has lovely giant chewy flame raisins mixed in with it. The crisp clusters are hugely popular and the whole Country Crisp range has now got such a fan base that Jordans have just launched a Country Crisp Appreciation Society. People can’t get enough of it and are eating it not only at breakfast but also baking with it and snacking on it straight out the box. As a result they have recently launched a honey variety which is designed with snackers in mind – bigger clusters with no add-ins to pick through, although, it does of course still taste great for breakfast.

After a meet and greet one of the two founders of Jordans, Bill Jordan himself then gave us a talk about the history and philosophy behind Jordans. He was ever so friendly and stayed to answer all our questions as we got down to some baking. Apparently it took 83 different recipes before they achieved the perfect cluster – now that’s dedication! Jordans were also the first to offer freeze fried berries in its cereal and all its oats are grown in the fields near the factory and to conservation standard.
Jordans head of taste, Kirsten, then talked us through a Country Crisp Pear and Chocolate Crumble Cake we would be baking using Jordans Chocolate Country Crisp. We were each given our own work space and ingredients and set about baking. It was a vanilla sponge cake, studded with chocolate chips, topped with a layer of Chocolate Country Crisp, sautéed sliced pears and a final sprinkle of more Country Crisp. The recipe can be found here. It produced a delicious cake and it was interesting to see how everyone’s cake turned out a little differently, even though we had all followed the same recipe. The way the pears had been sliced or the amount of Country Crisp topping made each one unique.

While our cakes were baking Kirsten talked us through the secrets to making new Country Crisp recipes. There are 3 different cluster bases, Vanilla, Nutty and Honey from which to add and create new products. Getting the clusters just right took a lot of research. Customers told Jordans they liked the big clusters but then complained that it was too much to chew if the pack only contained big clusters. Too many small clusters meant they weren’t clustery enough. Jordans have found that a mix of small, medium and large clusters is most successful. To do this they sort and grade the clusters after oven baking them to ensure every box is perfect. Even the add ins have proved problematic as high water content fruits like peaches proved too bland and the cut or shape of a nut dramatically changes the texture and mouthfeel of the cereal. It’s Kirsten’s job to taste and help develop the recipes – how fantastic a job does that sound!

We then got the opportunity to get creative and mix our own Country Crisp cereal using the oaty crisp clusters as a base and a fantastic array of add-in ingredients. I chose pecans, hazelnuts, giant flame raisins, pumpkin and sesame seeds, natural apple and apricot pieces and flaked coconut. I then went back and added a handful of dark chocolate curls – being curls they just melted in the mouth, and even sprinkled in a generous amount of cinnamon for an extra warming Christmassy scent. I was so excited by this as I absolutely adore cinnamon with nuts and chocolate, plus its meant to be very good for controlling blood pressure. Once our cereals were mixed we were then presented with our very own personalized country crisp cereal box complete with our picture and a short character description! How cool is that!!

I had a bowlful of the cereal this morning and it was divine. Nutty with crisp oaty clusters, chewy raisins, creamy coconut and the warming scent and flavour of cinnamon. If you live in the Bedfordshire area and fancy creating your own cereal mix then you can visit their shop in Biggleswade to stock up on all the raw ingredients they use in their own cereals or simply just pick up one of their ready made mixes from the shelves. I have visited the shop many times (it also sells a great assortment of herbs, spices and other gifty things) and found out yesterday that the lovely lady who runs it is actually Bill Jordans Mum!

It was a fantastic morning and we left with a bag full of our lovely goodies – pear chocolate crisp cake, personalized cereal and box and a couple of boxes of the Country Crisp cereal. Thank you so much to everyone at Jordans and Wild Card for arranging the day and it was great to meet so many cereal enthusiasts.

Sweet Potato Cake Cheesecake

After my experiments with the sweet potato cakes I was left with quite a lot of leftover cake and decided to try baking it into a cheesecake to give it a new lease of life. This may sound odd, but I was inspired by my trip to Chicago in the summer, where I saw a carrot cake cheesecake. This involved a thin carrot cake base, topped with cheesecake and another round of carrot cake. I didn’t actually taste it (I went for an Oreo cheesecake) but the idea has stuck with me.

For my cheesecake I crumbled some of the sweet potato cake and pressed it into the base of my tin, in place of the usual biscuit base. I then made a basic vanilla cheesecake mix, and cut the remaining cake into 1cm cubes. I stirred most of the cake cubes into the cheesecake mix and used the rest to top the cheesecake.
I was really excited to see how the cheesecake would look when I sliced into it and after an impatient wait for it to cool I had my first slice. The cheesecake was very incredibly smooth and creamy and the cake base was soft but held together well. Most of the middle cake cubes had drifted towards the surface but they had stayed fully submerged and although soft, were still different enough to add their own texture. The top cake cubes had turned a lovely golden brown and gone ever so slightly chewy. The little pieces of pecan nut I had used on top of the sweet potato cake were given a light toasting and added their own toasty nut flavour when you happened upon one.

The orange and spices from the sweet potato cake had permeated into the cheesecake itself and given it a lightly spiced flavour of its own. Quite unusual on first bite but addictively good. The whole thing reminded me a bit of bready and butter pudding, only with much more creamy filling. Just divine. So if you have a bit of leftover cake lingering in a tin, don’t throw it out – turn it into a delicious cake cheesecake instead. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Sweet Potato Cake Cheesecake
(Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson)
Ingredients
400-500g sweet potato cake (or cake of your choice)
50g butter
600g cream cheese
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Have a deep 8inch/20cm springform tin close at hand.
Weigh out 150g of the sweet potato cake and crumble it into fine pieces using your fingers. Melt the butter and pour it over the top of the cake crumbs. Mix together briefly and then press into the base of the tin. Press down well so that they form a flat base. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat again, followed by the egg yolks, eggs and vanilla.
Cut the remaining sweet potato cake into 1cm cubes. Lightly stir three quarters of the cake cubes through the cream cheese mixture. Do not over mix or the cake will start to break apart.
Pour the cheesecake mix into the springform tin. Scatter the remaining quarter of the cake cubes over the top of the cheesecake and press down so they are partially submerged.
Boil the kettle. Wrap the tin in a large sheet of foil and place it inside a deep baking tray. Place the tin in the oven and pour the boiling water into the baking tin, so that it comes half way up the sides of the cheesecake tin. Make sure your foil comes above the water level.
Bake for 55 minutes. Test if the cheesecake is done by giving it a gentle shake. If the centre ripples and looks very runny, then give it 5 minutes more. However, a gently wobble in the centre is fine as the cheesecake will continue to cook after you have taken it out of the oven.
Take the cheesecake out of the oven and baking tray. Remove the foil and place the whole tin on a cooling wire to cool.
When cool, place in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours to ensure it is sufficiently set.
When ready to serve, run a hot knife around the inside edge of the tin to release the cheesecake. Remove the tin collar and serve.
Serves 10-12
Makes one 8inch/20cm cheesecake

Festive Christmas Cake

Sorry for the delay in posting the next stage of the Christmas cake, things have been a bit hectic these last few days, but rest assured your soaking boozy fruit base won’t have come to any harm. The fruit should be plump, glossy and juicy by now and perfect for stirring into your Christmas cake mix to give a rich, moist texture and flavour. Peel off the clingfilm and inhale the fruits sweet, boozy, citrusy aroma, ahhh…it’s just heavenly.

When you have added the fruit to the cake mix just run a finger around the fruit bowl and taste the syrupy residue, it’s divine. The harsh raw note of the alcohol has mellowed and taken on the flavour of the fruits. The juices have become sweet and sticky while a wonderful rich fruity citrus flavour seems to explode in your mouth. It was hard to resist the urge to start eating the raw mix.

The cake mix is very easy to put together and contains its own Christmassy flavours of black treacle and an assortment of spices. This year I added ginger and cloves to help complement my choice of fruits. When you come to add the soaked fruit, you may think there is not enough cake mix for the amount of fruit, but a Christmas cake such as this is very densely fruited. Just think of it as the fruit being held together with cake, rather than it being a cake containing fruit.When spooning the cake mix into the tin it’s a good idea to create a little hollow or dip in the centre of the cake, this compensates for the cakes normal doming effect during baking and means you should end up with more of a flat surface on which to decorate later – we don’t want to have to cut off and waste any more of the cake than necessary!

During baking the cake will fill your kitchen with wafts of warm Christmas smells that linger pleasantly for several hours. Once baked, the cake is given its first ‘feed’ of some more Cointreau before being wrapped up tight. The cake will now be fed once a week until it’s time to decorate it just before Christmas. This ensures it continues to develop in flavour and stays moist – no chance of dry stale fruitcake here!

Festive Christmas Cake Base
Ingredients

225g plain flour
1½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
40g ground almonds
40g balanced almonds
165g light soft brown sugar
165g butter
1 tbsp black treacle
3 eggs
1 batch pre-soaked festive fruit mix (click to see)

Feeding
2 tbsp Cointreau (orange liqueur)

Method
Grease and line base and sides of a deep 8inch/20cm tin with greaseproof paper, allowing the paper to rise an inch above the rim of the tin.Pre heat the oven to 140C.In a large bowl add the flour, mixed spice, ground almonds, sugar, butter, treacle and eggs and mix together well using an electric mixer.Roughly chop the blanched almonds and add to the mix along with your pre-soaked boozy fruits.
Fold everything together using a spatula, making sure the fruit is evenly distributed.Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin, pressing down gently and smoothing the surface. Create a shallow dip in the centre of the cake mix to compensate for the cake doming in the oven. The dip should result in a flat surface when baked.Bake the cake for 2 hours and 50 minutes. (After 2 hours you can quickly cover the tin with foil if it is becoming too brown before baking for a further 50 minutes).Check the cake with a skewer, which should come out clean. Leave to cool for an hour in the tin.Measure out the Cointreau into a small bowl and prick the top of the cake all over with the skewer. Evenly drizzle over the Cointreau using a teaspoon.Allow the cake to cool completely before removing it from the tin but leaving the greaseproof paper on.Wrap it up well in clingfilm and leave in a cool dark place to mature for several weeks. ‘Feed’ the cake with an extra tablespoon of Cointreau once a week until required or ready to marzipan and ice just before Christmas.
Makes enough for an 8inch/20cm circular Christmas cake


Here is what I have been up to recently – my graduation! When I first started Uni I wasn’t sure it was really for me and a little part of me that never imaged I would actually get to wear the graduation robe - it felt like such an achievement to know I succeeded and it was a great day.

Stir Up Sunday - Festive Fruit Cake Mix

Today is stir up Sunday which means its time to dust off your pudding basins and hunt out your dried fruit as today is the traditional day to make your Christmas pudding and Christmas Cake. It’s called ‘stir up’ for the obvious reasons that you stir together your fruit mixes and it’s always held on the last Sunday before the start of Advent (next week) to acknowledge the start of the festive food preparations. This then gives your cakes and puddings four weeks to mature, develop in flavour and be ‘fed’ with Brandy or other spirits to give them that characteristic richness, moistness and boozy flavour.

Every year I bake the same Christmas cake recipe that I have tailored to suit my families tastes, but this year I felt like doing something a bit different and by simply changing some of the fruits included and the tray of soaking liqueur I’m hoping to end up with a different twist on my much loved classic. Below is the fruit base for the Christmas cake I’m baking this year but click here to see last years more traditional cake mix. The baking of the cake is to come!

I prepared and soaked the fruit for my Christmas cake yesterday, in readiness for baking today and I will be preparing my Christmas pudding mix today. It’s a fun festive tradition and I just love the colours and festive aromas you encounter along the way. Baking your own is so satisfying and rewarding that I encourage everyone to start up and stir up!

Festive Fruit Cake Mix
Ingredients
100g dried cranberries
75g glace cherries
175g dates
85g dried apricots
175g dried figs
½ Bramley apple
100g raisins
40g glace stem ginger
Zest of an orange
Zest of a lemon
2 tbsp Cointreau (orange liqueur)

Method
In a large mixing bowl place the cranberries and raisins. Quarter the cherries and add to the bowl.
Use a pair of scissors to chop the figs, apricots and dates into small pieces, similar in size to the quartered cherries.
Peel, core and dice the apple into ½ cm cubes. Finely chop the glace stem ginger.
Grate over the zest of the orange and lemon and drizzle over the Cointreau.
Give everything a good stir before covering with cling film and leaving to soak, plump up and macerate overnight.
Makes enough for an 8inch circular Christmas cake

The Cake Slice November 09: Burnt Sugar Cake

This months winning cake was a burnt sugar cake. The name alone instantly makes me think of bonfire night and sticky toffee apples. Burnt sugar cake encompasses all the scent and flavour of a deep golden caramel (burnt sugar) however, it is not called ‘caramel cake’ as this is often a white cake with caramel frosting, whereas this burnt sugar cake makes use of a golden caramel syrup which is infused into both the frosting and cake batter to give an intense flavour and aroma, the perfect cake for autumn.

I’ll let you in on a secret, I’m not a great fan of caramel. I don’t mind a little paired with other things but caramel on its own is just too sickly sweet for my liking and this cake sounded very very sweet. In order to tone down the caramel element, I decided to add a cinnamon spiced apple filling to my cake as apple and caramel are great flavour pairings. I used a sharp Bramley apple which helped combat the sweetness and made the finished cake taste rather like an apple tart tatin, only in cake form.

For the apple filling I lightly cooked the Bramley apple slices in a little butter until just beginning to soften before scattering over some cinnamon sugar which gave them a lovely bronzed look and made them smell wonderful.

A caramel syrup is required to add into the cake batter and frosting, and although this can sound rather daunting, it was quite simple. The sugar is first melted into a golden sugar goo, before boiling water is added and the goo turns into a glossy caramel syrup. I had never made a caramel where you add boiling water after the sugar has melted, but it worked well and resulted in a lump free syrup. My only advice would be to stand back when you add the boiling water, as the molten sugar is a lot hotter than the water and it foams up a bit as the temperatures collide, but it soon settles down again. It turned out crystal clear and such a deep amber colour that it almost looked red.

I didn’t have the right sized circular cake tins the recipe called for and so I baked my cake in two 8½ inch square tins instead. I was happy about this and everything was going well until I went to check on the cakes about half way through their baking time and that was when I saw DISASTER HAD STRUCK! One of the cake tins had a loose bottomed base and was rather ancient. It seems the base was no longer secure as the batter had gone soft and gooey in the heat of the oven and started to ooze its way out of the base and all over the bottom of the oven! I don’t mean a little bit, I mean over half the mixture was now burning into gloopy mound on the base of the oven. ARGGG! I quickly wrenched open the oven door and scooped the molten mass out onto a baking tray before it could start smoking and wrapped the dripping cake tin in foil, stuck it onto another baking tray and put it back in the oven and hoped for the best. All the door opening meant my other cake layer sank slightly in the middle… it was not going well. I ended up with one very thin cake layer and one cake layer with a dip in the middle.

I decided to make the best of it and assembled my cakes, being thankful of the apple filling which did wonders to hide the dip in one of the cakes. I filled and iced the cake with the caramel frosting and amazingly, considering the disaster that occurred, I don’t think it turned out too badly. As it had such an autumnal feel to it, I gathered some russet autumn leaves from the garden to scatter around the plate. Whew.

The cake itself was very pleasant, light and moist with a subtle caramel flavour which went wonderfully with the spiced apple. It tasted even better the second day once the apple juices had been absorbed into the cake. However, I found the frosting to be far too sweet. I think next time I would use a different one as all I could taste was sugar. I enjoyed making this cake despite its rather eventful baking session, afterall, life would be dull without a little excitement (although I could have done without having to scrub the oven!) Click here to see what my fellow Cake Slice bakers thought.

Burnt Sugar Cake
(Recipe from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)
For the Cake
360g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
225ml milk
200g butter
370g caster sugar (I used 300g)
4 eggs
110ml Burnt Sugar Syrup (below)

For the Burnt Sugar Syrup
225g caster sugar
225ml boiling water

For the Burnt Sugar Frosting
375g icing sugar
110ml Burnt Sugar Syrup (above)
50g butter
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 – 3 tbsp evaporated milk or normal milk

For the Apple Filling (my own addition)
1 Bramley apple
20g butter
1 tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Method – Burnt Sugar Syrup
Heat the sugar in a cast iron skillet or another heavy bottomed pan with high sides. Heat over a medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar melts into a clear brown caramel syrup. It should be the colour of tea. Gradually add the boiling water, pouring it down the sides of the pan so that if the syrup foams and bubbles up, you should be protected.
Continue cooking, stirring often, until the water combines with the syrup and turns a handsome brown syrup. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Store the cooled syrup in a sealed jar if not using straight away.

Method - Cake
Heat the oven to 180C. Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and stir with a fork to mix well. Stir the vanilla into the milk.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer at high speed for 2 – 3 minutes, until they are well combined. Stop now and then to scrape the bowl down. Add the eggs, one by one, beating well each time. Pour in 110ml of the burnt sugar syrup and beat well. Add a third of the flour mixture and about half of the milk, beating at a low speed, until just incorporated. Mix in another third of the flour and the rest of the milk. Finally, add the remaining flour.
Divide the batter between the cake pans and bake at 180C for 20 to 25 minutes until the cakes are golden brown, spring back when touched gently in the centre and begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let the cakes cool in the pans on a wire rack for15 minutes. Turn out the cakes into the wire rack to cool completely.

Method – Burnt Sugar Frosting
In a large bowl, combine the icing sugar, the burnt sugar syrup, butter and vanilla. Beat with a mixer at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl now and then to bring the ingredients together. Add 2 tablespoons of the milk and continue beating until the frosting is thick, soft, smooth and easy to spread. Add a little more sugar if it is thin, and a little more milk if it is too thick.

Method – Spiced Apple Filling
Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Peel, quarter and core the Bramley apple and cut into ½ cm slices. Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the apple slices. Cook for 1-2 minutes until just beginning to soften. Carefully turn over onto the uncooked side and scatter over the cinnamon sugar. Cook for 1 minute more before removing from the heat and leaving the apple to cool in the pan before using.

To Assemble
Place one layer, top side down, on a cake stand or serving plate. Scoop a third of the frosting onto the cake and spread to the edges. Gently arrange the cooked apple slices evenly over the top cover with the second cake layer. Frost the sides of the cake, and then the top until it is evenly covered.
Makes one 9 inch round cake