Christmas Cake 2012 – Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree…

Last week was quite stressful. The hob over my oven developed a gas leek and had to be shut off from the mains (hopefully its getting fixed today), my boiler broke down and left me without heating or hot water and Thursday nights bad weather produced a layer of black ice so deadly on Friday morning, that I literally had to crawl on my hands and knees to the main road, trying to get out my driveway to go to work! I live down a long steep slope and there was no way I could even reach my car, let alone try and drive it. I kept falling over and two other people in my road tried to drive their cars and just slid backwards and crashed into other cars – I’ve never seen anything like it!

I got home on Friday feeling exhausted and ready for bed, only I couldn’t sleep. My mind just wouldn’t shut down. By 4am I had had enough and got up and decided to decorate my Christmas cake.

This proved to be a good idea as I spent a very tranquil couple of hours, rolling out fondant and marzipan and decorating the cake. I was listing to past downloads of BBC’s The Food Programme and Desert Island Discs while I worked, which I always fine fascinating to listen to. Before I knew it, it was 6:30am!

At the end I gathered up all the cake trimmings and had a little taste. It was sticky and fruity with a faint liquorice overtone. At first I was a little confused by this until I remembered that this year I had put some ground star anise in my cake mix. It really seems to have developed, giving a wonderful spicy liquorice note that was delicious against the subtle note of rum (the booze I used in the cake this year). I think its going to be the best Christmas cake yet!

I went for a fairly simple design this year. Christmas trees! I added a light sprinkling of gold glitter to add a little festive sparkle. Now I just need to get it down to my parents’ house in one piece to enjoy over Christmas. Can you believe Christmas is only a week away! Happy Holidays everyone.

To Decorate your Christmas Cake

Ingredients

500g fondant icing

250g marzipan

2 tsp Brandy or rum

Food dye

Ribbon

Icing sugar for rolling out

Trimming & Decorating the Cake

When ready to decorate, peel away the greaseproof paper and carefully level the surface of a cake using a bread knife. Fill in any tiny holes with fruit taken from the off cuts of cake (eat the remaining off cuts!)

Place the cake on a 7-8inch cake board that has a few dobs of royal icing on it, to keep the cake in place.

Dust a work surface with icing sugar. Roll out the marzipan and use the base of the tin to cut out a large circle. Brush the top of the cake with a little brandy or rum and smooth the marzipan over the top of the cake.

Roll out the fondant icing so that it is 2 inches bigger in diameter than the base of the cake. Brush the cake with brandy before covering with the fondant.  Drape the fondant over the rolling pin to help you lift it up onto the cake.

Smooth the edges and top with your hands and cake smoother if you have one. Cut off the excess fondant from around the base using a sharp knife.

Gather up the off cuts of fondant and dye as appropriate for decorations. Decorate the cake as desired and secure a ribbon or rope of fondant around the bottom edge of the cake.

Store in an airtight box until required.

Note: Click to see the link to this years Christmas cake recipe

Whole Clementine, Cranberry & Almond Cake

Clementines and fresh cranberries instantly conjure up images of Christmas and snowy winter days. They are only available for a few weeks of the year, so it’s important to celebrate them while they are here.

This cake is fabulously moist, with an almost frangipane texture and a fresh, sweet, citrusy flavour in each bite. It’s slightly unusual as it’s made using cooked and pureed whole clementines - peel, skin, flesh and all. This golden puree adds moistness and a wonderful fresh, zesty flavour to the cake.

A scattering of chopped fresh cranberries hide, nestled amongst the cake, shining out like vibrant ruby jewels when the cake is cut. Their tart zingy flavour adds a delicious contrast against the clementines natural sweetness.

The cake is quite cilosely textured, damp and incredibly moist making it ideal to serve for dessert as well as afternoon tea. I love how it also improve with age, becoming sticker as the ingredients mingle and meld together.

 

It’s also the perfect recipe to have in your repertoire as its naturally gluten and dairy free! Many people are nervous about gluten free baking, but this cake is made using natural familiar ingredients, so you don’t need to worry about buying any special ingredients. It’s the perfect example of how uncomplicated gluten and dairy free baking can be. The most exotic ingredient is the cranberries. More importantly it’s simple to make and amazingly delicious to eat.

Whole Clementine, Cranberry & Almond Cake

Ingredients
2 clementines, around 170g total

80g fresh cranberries

125g caster sugar
3 eggs
120g ground almonds

25g cornflour
½ tsp gluten free baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger

Decoration

1 tsp icing sugar

1 clementine, zest

Few extra cranberries to decorate

Method
Grease a 6 inch spring form tin with oil and line the base with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the fresh cranberries into a food processor and pulse briefly until roughly chopped but still chunky. Transfer the cranberries to a separate bowl and set aside.
Wash the clementines and place in a microwavable bowl, fill with water until the fruit is mostly covered. Loosely cover the top of the bowl with clingfilm and microwave on high for 7 minutes. (Alternatively, boil in a pan of water for 30 minutes, until soft).
Use oven gloves to remove the bowl from the microwave and drain off the water. Cut the clementines in half, remove the green stalk, any pips and chop roughly.
Place the entire clementines (peel and all), in a food processor along with the sugar and whizz to a pulp, scraping down the sides once or twice. A few larger shreds are fine.

With the mixer running, add the eggs, one at a time, and whizz until pale and foamy.

Sift in the corn flour and add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and almonds. Whiz together until a smooth batter is formed. There will still be a few shreds of clementine visible in the batter, which is fine.

Fold in the roughly chopped cranberries and pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for 40 minutes. It should be slightly risen and springy to the touch.
Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes in the tin, before turning out and leaving to cool completely.

To decorate, dust the top of the cake with icing sugar. Grate over a little extra clementine zest and decorate with a few extra cranberries.

Makes 1 x 6 inch cake

Serves 8

The Cake Slice November 2012: Shoo Fly Cake

This month’s Cake Slice bake marks the start of our new cake book, that as a group we will be baking from for the next 12 months. I can now reveal that the book is…Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson. It’s got a great variety of different cakes to choose form: cupcakes, angel food cakes, bundts and layered cakes.

The books début cake is an intriguingly named Shoo-Fly Cake. It’s a sticky molasses spice cake with a crumb topping. According to the book, it originated in Pennsylvania and was so named due to the cakes sticky top surface which attracted flies, which had to be shooed away!

I used black treacle in my cake which lent a gorgeous deep dark colour and heady aroma. Whenever I smell molasses or treacle it always makes me think of sticky gingerbreads, and indeed this cake does contain some ground ginger. The most surprising ingredient in this cake is a cup of strong brewed coffee. This not only adds a further richness to the cakes mysterious smoky bitter flavour but also enhances the dark inky blackness of the batter.

Before baking the cake is topped with a simple crumb mixture. Strangely, during baking my cake swallowed half the crumb topping on one side of my cake. I’m not sure why this happened on only one side but it resulted in a sort of yin and yang symbol on top, quite fitting I though, a contrast between the dark cake and the lighter crumb topping.

The cake is meant to be eaten warm and it was indeed fabulous like this. Soft, moist and intensely flavoured. On cooling I assumed the cake would be more like a sticky gingerbread, but I found it to be disappointingly dry. When reheated briefly in the microwave it went back to being soft and light, but I wouldn’t recommend eating it cold. I even tried leaving it for 2 days to see if the stickiness would develop, but it only got drier, which was disappointing. However, as the recipe specifies to eat it warm, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

I also found the crumb topping to be a bit odd. When eaten warm it turned soft and was a bit pointless and when eaten cold, it simply crumbled and fell off the cake. All in all I enjoyed the flavour of this cake, but I probably wouldn’t make it again. I have another gingerbread recipe I much prefer, that tastes delicious eaten hot or cold.

Click here to see the Shoo-Fly Cakes the thoughts of my fellow Cake Slice bakers

Shoo-Fly Cake

(Recipe from Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson)

Cake

200g caster sugar

170g butter

250g black treacle or molasses

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

350g gluten free plain flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

225ml warm strong coffee

Crumb Topping

70g light soft brown sugar

100g gluten free plain flour

60g butter

Method – Crumb Topping

Make sure your butter is at room temperature and cut it into small pieces. Mix the flour and sugar together in a bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour mixture using the tips of your fingers, like you would if making a crumble.

Work until the butter is broken down and a few clumps of buttery crumbs have formed. Set aside for later.

To Bake the Cake

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 9 inch round deep springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

Mix the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and spices together in a bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter and pour it over the sugar, molasses and vanilla. Whisk the mixture until combined. (It will be slightly grainy, this is fine). Whisk in the eggs, one at a time.

Add a third of the flour and fold together. Add half the coffee and mix again. Repeat the process with more flour, coffee and the last of the flour.

Pour the batter into the cake tin (it will be runny) and scatter over the crumb topping.

Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until risen and firm to the touch.

Allow to cool for 20-30 minutes before serving warm.

Reheat slices of any leftover cake before eating. Best eaten warm as a pudding and served with custard.

Makes 1 x 9inch cake

Gluten Free Spiced Christmas Fruit Cake with Rum

It’s that time of year again, (in fact it’s a little past it) but now is a good time to start planning your Christmas baking! Primarily the Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding. These actually get better with age and the longer they have to mature, the better. So hop to it!

The Christmas pudding isn’t traditionally made until Stir Up Sunday, which is the last Sunday of the month before Advent starts in December. So Christmas Cake is the place to start first.

Each year I love planning my Christmas cake. I always bake my own and the base is always the same, but I like to tweak it to be a little bit different/special each year. This year I decided to use a combination of orange juice and rum to soak my fruit mixture in. I’ve always used brandy before but have recently got really into the flavour of rum. I love how the fruit absorbs the soaking liquid, becoming all plump, moist and glossy.

To complement the rum I added a different mix of spices than usual, and more of them - mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom. I also upped the quantity of black treacle a little. The resulting cake smelt heavenly, the scent wafting through my flat, the essence of Christmas warmth and spice. It took a lot of restraint to resist cutting off a sliver and tasting it straight away. I know it will get better the longer it has to mature and a few more ‘feeding’ sessions with extra rum will only improve it further. As the saying goes ‘good things come to those who wait.’

I’ve also included the decorating instructions below, but its best to do this a few days before Christmas itself, but I thought it best to include them now, so that the instructions are all in one place.

Do you bake your own Christmas cake? Do you try different recipes each year or do you have a traditional family recipe you bake every year? I’d love to know. Feel free to adapt the fruits, spices and alcohol used in the recipe. As long as the average weights are the same, you are free to make it your own.

Gluten Free Spiced Christmas Fruit Cake with Rum

Ingredients – Soaking Mix

170g raisins

170g sultanas

50g dried apricots

50g glace cherries (check they are gluten free)

50g dried cranberries

30ml rum

50ml orange juice

Ingredients – Cake Mix

160g gluten free plain flour

20g ground almonds

120g dark soft brown sugar

120g unsalted butter

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cardamom

40g black treacle

Zest of ½ orange

2 eggs

(pre soaked fruit mix – above)

Feeding

30ml rum

Soaking the Fruit

Place the raisins, sultanas and cranberries into a bowl. Chop the cherries into quarters and add to the bowl. Chop the apricots into pieces, about the size of the sultanas and add to the bowl.

Drizzle over the orange juice and stir to coat. Heat in the microwave for 1 minute, stir, and heat for a further 30 seconds until just warm. (This makes the fruit softer and more susceptible to absorbing the soaking liquid).

Stir in the rum and then cover the bowl with cling film. Leave the fruit to soak for at least 24hours and up to 1 week, in a cool place to allow the fruit to plump up and absorb the rum and orange juice. I left mine for 5 days and stirred it twice in this time.

Bake the Cake

Lightly grease a 6.5inch deep round spring form tin. Line the base and side with greaseproof paper, letting the paper rise about 1 inch above the rim of the tin. Preheat the oven to 140C or 120C fan.

Weigh all the cake ingredients, expect the pre soaked fruit, into a bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined.

Add the pre soaked fruit, including any remaining juices and fold together using a spatula.

Spread the mix into the tin, creating a dip in the middle to allow for doming in the oven. Press down gently.

Bake in the oven for 2hours 10minutes until browned and quite firm to the touch. Allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before pricking the surface of the cake and drizzling over 30ml more rum. Cover the cake and leave to cool in the tin before unmolding. Leave the greaseproof paper round the cake and wrap it tightly in clingfilm. The longer the cake has to mature the more developed in flavour it will be.

Makes 1 x 6.5ch cake.

When ready to decorate

Ingredients - Decoration

500g fondant icing

250g marzipan

2 tsp Brandy or rum

Food dye to decorate

Ribbon

Trimming and Decorating the Cake

When ready to decorate, peel away the greaseproof paper and carefully level the surface of a cake using a bread knife. Fill in any tiny holes with fruit taken from the off cuts of cake.

Place the cake on a 7-8inch cake board that has a few dobs of royal icing on it, to keep the cake in place.

Roll out the marzipan and use the base of the tin to cut out a large circle. Brush the top of the cake with a little brandy or rum and smooth the marzipan over the top of the cake.

Roll out the fondant icing so that it is 2 inches bigger in diameter than the base of the cake. Brush the cake with brandy before covering with the fondant. Smooth the edges and top with your hands and cake smoother if you have one. Cut off the excess fondant from around the base.

Gather up the off cuts of fondant and dye as appropriate for decorations. Decorate the cake as desired and secure a ribbon around the bottom edge of the cake.

(I don’t have any photos of my finished cake yet, as its still in the ‘feeding’ stage)

The Cake Slice October 2012: Banana Walnut Cake

October is the last month that The Cake Slice bakers are baking from our current cake book, the suitably titled The Cake Book by Tish Boyle. Keeping to tradition, as it was our last month we were free to choose any recipe from the book we wanted to bake. Looking through the recipes there were so many delicious sounding cakes, but in the end I settled on a simple sounding banana walnut cake. There is something so pleasing about a humble banana cake and seeing as I have some overripe bananas sitting on the counter it seemed like the ideal choice

The recipe made a large 9inch round, but I decided to halve the recipe and bake it in a 2lb (18x11cm) loaf tin instead. Once baked, I decided to forgo the suggested cream cheese frosting as the cake was perfectly moist without it. This made it more of a snacking cake and meant I could keep it at room temperature, rather than in the fridge.

I substituted the flour in the recipe with some gf white teff flour, brown rice flour and a little xanthan gum. However something in my mix was obviously not quite right as the middle of the cake stayed sunken – it didn’t sink on cooling, it never rose in the first place! I’ve had this happen before and found reducing the baking powder helped, I’ll have to try it again and see. The middle was still fully cooked, no raw batter, so I didn’t really mind. It looked more rustic that way (that’s what I’m saying anyway).

The cake was also studded with little chunks of walnut and a few hazelnuts which added a nice crunch. The cake batter itself also contained some cinnamon and brown sugar which helped give it its pleasing golden brown colour and added a wonderful depth of flavour and a warming treacly note against the banana, which itself was quite subtle.

All in all a lovely flavoured cake. The banana and sour cream gave it a lovely soft and tender crumb. It was far too easy to keep going back to cut off another slice.

I’ve really enjoyed the recipes we have baked from The Cake Book, but am now eagerly looking forward to some tasty new bakes our next cake book. Come back next month to find out what it is!

Click here to see the Cake Slice blogroll.

Banana Walnut Cake

(Recipe from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle)

Recipe

180g plain flour (I used a mix of white teff & brown rice flour)

½ tsp xanthan gum (if making gf)

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp cinnamon

180g butter

150g caster sugar

100g light soft brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

120g sour cream

120g mashed banana (2 small bananas)

55g chopped walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease a 9inch round deep springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

Mix together the flour, (xanthan gum), cinnamon, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugars, a tablespoon at a time, beating until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla.

Mix in the mashed banana and sour cream.

Add the dry ingredients and mix gently until the flour is just combined.

Chop the nuts into chunks and stir through the cake mixture.

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 35 minutes until springy to the touch when gently pressed and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before releasing from the tin and leaving to cool completely.

Top with a light dusting of icing sugar. You can add a chocolate or cream cheese frosting if you want to be extra decedent.

Makes 1 x 9inch cake

Note: I halved the recipe above and baked it in a 2lb (18x11cm) loaf tin for 25-30 minutes.

Blueberry & Nectarine Yoghurt Cake

I love this time of year, when the fruit is in season, ripe and ready to be picked. It’s soft, sweet, juicy and actually has some flavour! I’ve been getting my fruit from the local market in Sheffield. It’s great as they usually have some of what’s in season. They always have bananas, apples and oranges, but things like peaches, plums and berries change with the seasons. Buying from markets not only offers variety but is usually a lot cheaper than supermarkets. On my first weekend here I picked up 10 huge plums for only £1 – yes 10! Some were a little over ripe and others a bit battered but it’s a natural product and once the squished ones are baked/stewed and munched with my morning cereal, no one would know the difference.

Last weekend I came away with bags of nectarines and a little box of blueberries and was determined to use some of them in a cake. During the week I’d also picked up a huge pot of natural yoghurt and so decided to make a yoghurt cake. I’ve not made these very often, but on the few occasions I have they have always produced lovely moist cakes. As dry cakes can be a bit of a problem when baking gluten free, I’m annoyed at myself for not thinking of it sooner, especially as it produced such a wonderfully moist cake. Oh well, at least I know now!

Almonds always go so well with fruity flavours so I added some in place of some of the flour in the recipe. It probably helped make the cake extra moist and tasty too. I decided to mix the blueberries into the cake batter itself and then fan out slices of nectarine on top. This worked well as the blueberries remained hidden inside the cake, trapping in their juices, while the slices of nectarine roasted in the oven and become wonderfully sticky and intense in flavour, helped by the light scattering of brown sugar added just before baking.

The texture of the cake was great. The outside was a rich golden brown, firm and slightly chewy, while the middle crumb stayed pale and creamy with a fabulous soft and tender texture. The yoghurt adds a milky freshness and helps keep it tasting light. I loved how the bursting blueberries really stood out against the pale creamy crumb.

Recently I’ve realised I’ve gone off cakes with mounds of frosting. They are fine for birthdays, but for everyday I find them a bit too sweet. A thin glaze or a dark chocolate ganache is much more appealing. I particularly love cakes like this. They need no embellishment at all, as the fruit and yoghurt cake itself are the stars of the show.

P.S. Hurrah for The Great British Bake Off starting again. I love this programme! There is no unnecessary shouting or dramatics and it’s truly about people who love to bake. It always makes me want to dash off to the kitchen and bake whenever I sit down to watch it, plotting what I’d do in their shoes. Now they just need to make a gluten free version….

Blueberry & Nectarine Yoghurt Cake

Ingredients

150g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm)

50g ground almonds
100g butter
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
200g full fat plain natural yoghurt
100g blueberries
1 nectarine

2 tsp gluten free baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Nutty Sprinkle
1½ tbsp light soft brown sugar
20g blanched almonds

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a deep 8inch springform tin and line the base with baking paper.
Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs on at a time, beating well between each one. Add the vanilla and yoghurt and beat again to combine. Don’t worry if it looks a little curdled at this stage.

Add the blueberries and fold them into the batter using a spatula.
Sift over the flour and baking powder, add the ground almonds and fold together, turning the bowl as you go until just combined.
Spread the batter into the tin and even out the top.

Cut the nectarine in half, remove the stone and slice into 5mm thick slices. Arrange the slices in a fan formation around the edge of the cake and place a few in the centre.

Roughly chop the almonds and scatter over the surface of the cake, followed by the brown sugar.

Bake in the oven for around 50-60 minutes, until a deep golden brown colour on top and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. It will be wet if you hit a blueberry!
Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before removing from the in and allowing to cool completely before serving. Store in an airtight container.

Can also be sliced and frozen on day of baking.

Makes 1 x 8inch cake

Whole Lemon, Almond & Rosemary Cake & Some Exciting News!

Before I get to the cake, I have some exciting news. I’ve been offered a job in Sheffield and I am moving there tomorrow! I only found out on Monday so it’s been a very quick and hectic turnaround trying to get everything sorted, but I’m very excited. However, I am going to be without internet for several weeks until they can send an electrician round to connect me with a phone line, so I will be MIA from the blog for a while. See you in a few weeks! Now for some cake to celebrate!

One of my favourite go-to cake recipes for an afternoon treat is this Orange Chocolate & Almond Cake. It’s a bit of a talking point as it’s made with a whole pureed orange, skin, pith, pulp and all. This gives it an intense orange flavour and helps keep the cake moist. It’s also made with ground almonds instead of flour and contains no butter or dairy and so the end result is both gluten and dairy free, although you wouldn’t know it.

Recently I began to wonder if I couldn’t make the same recipe, using another type of fruit instead. Apple and almond is a classic combination but apples are nothing like the texture of an orange and I wasn’t sure it would work. Instead I decided to stick with citrus and try a lemon version instead.

           

Not wanting to play things too safe I also added some rosemary extract that I’d recently discovered in a deli/farm shop. I’ve now idea what the extract is intended to be used for – possibly marinating meat? – but I couldn’t resist the change to try it out in the cake recipe. Lemon and rosemary always taste delicious when paired together with potatoes, so why not in cake!? You could also use some very finely chopped fresh rosemary if you don’t have extract.

I was a little nervous/excited to see how the cake would turn out and I’m relieved to say it was delicious! The cake was quite closely textured, but not heavy or dense, as you can see from the scattering of tiny air pockets. It was soft and tender and so delicious I had to go back for a second slice. The lemon wasn’t bitter or overpowering, and if fact could possibly even have done with a bit more lemon! I loved how each slice was speckled with little shreds of lemon, so pretty.

The rosemary flavour was only faintly there. It sort of lingered in the background, letting the lemon be the star of the show before starting to creep through as you finished a slice. I might try adding a little more next time to make the flavour more pronounced.

I finished the cake with a simple lemon glaze which added a lovely lemon zing to each bite. All in all a success and I’m now plotting my next non citrus whole fruit creation. I know this concept sounds a bit strange, but do give either the orange or this lemon version a go, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Whole Lemon, Almond & Rosemary Cake

Ingredients
1 large lemon, approx 140g weight

125g caster sugar

30ml extra lemon juice
3 eggs
75g ground almonds

50g brown rice flour
½ tsp gluten free baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 – 1½ tsp rosemary extract or 1 tsp very finely chopped rosemary

Lemon Glaze

3tbsp icing sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

Method
Grease a 6 inch spring form tin with oil and line the base with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Wash the lemon and place in a microwavable bowl, fill with water until the lemon is mostly covered. Loosely cover the top of the bowl with clingfilm and microwave on high for 10 minutes.
Use oven gloves to remove the bowl from the microwave and drain off the water. Cut the lemon in half, remove any pips and chop roughly.
Place the entire lemon (peel and all), in a food processor along with the sugar and extra lemon juice. Whizz to a pulp, scraping down the sides once or twice, although a few larger shreds of lemon are fine.

With the mixer running, add the eggs, one at a time, and whizz until pale and foamy.

Add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, rosemary, almonds and brown rice flour. Whiz together until a smooth batter is formed. There will still be a few shreds of lemon visible in the batter, which is fine.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes. It should be slightly risen and springy to the touch.
Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes in the tin, before releasing from the tin and leaving to cool completely.

Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together to create a thin spreadable glaze (add a tiny amount of water if needed). Spread over the top of the cake and decorate with a sprig of fresh rosemary.

Makes 1 x 6 inch cake

Squidgy Chocolate Muffin Cakes

I am so pleased I finally get to share this recipe with you. I created these little squidgy chocolate cakes back in my university days, a sort of muffin-brownie hybrid. I had the recipe saved on my laptop, which later went and died on me. I had my uni work back up but feared the recipe lost forever. However, last weekend I was looking back through my family’s old computer archives when I discovered a file called ‘Katie Laptop Backup.’ It turns out my Dad had taken a copy of all my files shortly before my laptop died, not just my uni work. Hidden amongst the essays and coursework was this recipe – hurrah! Thank you Dad! I was so excited and set about baking them at once.

They are just as good as I remember, despite now baking them using gluten free flour. They have a slightly chewy top crust which hides a squidgy chocolate middle, reminiscent of a brownie and then a cakey base. They are quite rich and packed with dark chocolate flavour.

The recipe only makes 6 cakes, created at a time when dark chocolate, butter and eggs seemed ridiculously expensive for a student, but I’m sure the recipe would double up easily. The rather shocking thing about these cakes is the temperature they are baked at – 200C. This means they only have 10-12 minutes in the oven and helps create the top surface while maintaining a soft and gooey centre. It’s not uncooked batter, more brownie like.

I also added a few white chocolate drops as decoration, which added little blobs of melty chocolate and a little sweetness. I shared them with my family and they were devoured in one sitting (there were 5 of us) with the last one being fought over. I’ve already been asked to make them again. My Dad wants me to try baking them with some cherries in the centre – sounds good to me!

Squidgy Chocolate Muffin Cakes

(Apple & Spice own recipe)

Ingredients

65g dark chocolate

110g butter

1 egg

½ tbsp rapeseed oil

60g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm) (‘normal’ plain flour works too)

80g caster sugar

12g cocoa powder

½ tsp instant coffee (optional)

½ tsp baking powder

24 white chocolate chips/small chunks

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C (yes, really that hot). Line a muffin tin with 6 paper cases.

In a small pan, melt the dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee (if using) and butter together until melted and glossy. Set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk together the egg, oil and sugar until it has turned slightly thicker and become moussy in texture, about 2 minutes.

Add the flour and baking powder and beat again.

Add the melted chocolate mixture and beat again briefly. The mixture will suddenly become very thick and glossy, this is how it should be.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cases and add 4 white chocolate drops or chunks on top of each one. Press them down until nearly submerged in the cake batter.

Bake for 12 minutes. They will be slightly risen with a crisp top surface, but still soft in the centre.

Leave them to cool in the tins for at least 20 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. They will sink slightly on cooling due to their soft centres.

Store in an airtight container and eat within 3 days.

Makes 6 cakes – easily doubled

Daring Bakers June 2012: Battenberg

I was so excited when this months Daring Bakers challenge was announced. I adore Battenberg cake, its quirky cream and pink squares, the soft fluffy sponge and best of all, the outer coating of intense almond marzipan. I’d never attempted to make one myself and have not eaten one since having to go gluten free. This made the challenge feel even more special and I was determined to get it right.

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

The part that I found most difficult was preparing the pan with a cardboard centre divide in order to bake two coloured sponges in the same pan simultaneously. I couldn’t get the divide to stand up, but thankfully another family member came to my rescue and held it in place while I spread the coloured batters on either side. I suspect if you were careful, you wouldn’t need to bother with the divide at all, as I don’t think the cake batters would spread too much into each other as they are quite thick. I may try this next time, especially as you trim the cake to size anyway.

After trimming I had my 4 strips of cake and was ready to begin assembly. As the sponges were delicately flavoured with almond and would be covered with almond marzipan I wanted to introduce another flavour element and decided to use some zingy lemon curd, instead of the specified apricot jam, to stick my cake strips together. This worked well as it was the perfect spreadable consistency and the lemon and almond flavour complimented each other nicely.

The assembly process is a little fiddly and time consuming, but it wasn’t difficult. My finished Battenberg ended up a little rectangular, rather than a perfect square/cube but for a first attempt I was more than happy with the results.

The checked pink and cream squares made it instantly recognisable and it sliced into portions without falling apart, the lemon curd and marzipan doing their jobs well. The sponge was wonderfully soft and fluffy and surprisingly moist considering the dry ingredients were more than a usual cake recipe. The thin spreading of lemon curd added just a touch of freshness and sweetness to the cake, and the almond marzipan was, naturally, fabulous. I love how it is wrapped around the whole cake so you can get a bit of cake, jam and marzipan in each bite – heavenly!

I made this cake for a coeliac friend who I had invited round for dinner. We had recently been talking about food we missed and she had actually mentioned Battenberg, so she seemed the perfect person to share it with. This recipe is by Mary Berry and I’ve seen she also has a more adult coffee and walnut version too, which I’m sure is delicious, but for me the pink and cream squares are part of what make it so special and so childishly nostalgic to me.

Click here to see other Daring Bakers Battenberg cakes

Battenberg

(Recipe adapted from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible)

Cake
175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
175gm gluten free self raising flour
3 eggs
65g ground almonds
¾ tsp gluten free baking powder
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract

¼ tsp xanthan gum (if making GF)
Pink food paste

To Decorate
100g apricot jam (I used lemon curd)
225g marzipan, natural

Cake
Preheat oven to moderate 180C and grease an 8inch/20cm square baking tin. Cut a large rectangle of parchment paper, the width of the tin. Cut a sheet of card the width of the tin and wrap it in foil. Then fold this inside the centre of the parchment, to create a wall/divide to go through the centre of the tin. Line the tin with parchment paper, creating a divide in the middle with the parchment covered card.
Whisk together the dry ingredients then combine with the wet ingredients in a large bowl and beat together just until the ingredients are combined and the batter is smooth.
Spoon half the mixture into the one side of the prepared baking tin.
Add a few pinpricks of pink food paste to the remaining batter, stir until the colour is thoroughly distributed, and spread into the second half of the divided tin.
Bake for 25-30mins until the cake is well risen and springs back when lightly touched.
Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool thoroughly on a wire rack.

Assembly

Once completely cool, trim the very edges of the cake with a long serrated knife to cut away of the browned surface.
Cut each coloured sponge in half lengthways so that you are left with four long strips of sponge.

Neaten the strips and trim the tops if necessary so that your strips are all the same length and height.
Gently heat the apricot jam and pass through a small sieve (I used cold lemon curd).

Brush warmed jam onto the strips of cake to stick the cake together in a checkered pattern (one yellow next to one pink. On top of that, one pink next to one yellow).
Dust a large flat surface with icing sugar then roll the marzipan in an oblong shape that is wide enough to cover the length of the cake and long enough to completely wrap the cake, use a ruler to help you.
Brush the top of the cake with the jam and place the cake on the marzipan, jam side down. Brush the remaining three sides with jam and carefully press the marzipan around the cake, making sure the join is either neatly in the one corner, or will be underneath the cake once turned over.
Carefully flip the cake over so that the seam is under the cake and score the top of the cake with a knife, to create a diamond effect. (I also crimped mine with an icing tool).
Neaten the ends of the cake and cut thin slices off both ends of the cake, to create a good presentation.

Store at room temperature and eat within 3 days.