Bake ing Off again

This week my baking plans were disrupted by my birthday, and the need for a chocolate cake, biscuits just wouldn't have done it for me!

I used this Mary Berry recipe and added about half a punnet of defrosted frozen raspberrys on top of the layer of ganache in the centre of the cake.  The raspberrys worked really well, their squishiness meant they actually were better than fresh ones (and about half the price too!).

Blackforest Roulade - Great British Bake Off Inspired

Ok so it didn't turn out to be a thing of great beauty but Mary Berry says that a bit of cracking is fine!!!

I used Mary Berry's recipe from here for the roulade.  Once it was cooked and cooled I splodged on some black cherry jam onto the roulade before the cream.  It was really lovely, not too sweet but very moreish.  I ignored Mary's request for good quality chocolate and used value dark chocolate and it was absolutely fine.

I was impressed with Mary Berry's recipe so have decided to try her chocolate sponge recipe (with an added extra of course!) for my birthday cake.

Flapjack Cookies

Whilst I was looking at crochet lampshades (of all things!!!) I spotted these oaty biscuits on Attic24 and decided they were just the thing for a quick bake today.  They were super quick and easy and taste divine, like a cross between a flapjack and a cookie.  Unfortunately after I had made them Mr T reminded me that he doesn't like flapjacks anymore but luckily Miss E loves them and I am more than happy to eat a few extra as well!

The recipe is super easy, just melt 100g of butter with 50g soft brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of honey in the microwave.  Mix it then add 100g of oats and 100g self raising flour and 50g dried fruit and mix.

I then lined a baking tray with greaseproof paper and splodged 16 blobs of the mixture, pressing them down slightly with a fork.  They will spread a bit so give them a bit of space.  Cook for about 12 minutes at gas mark 4 until they are just slightly golden.  I took them off the paper and onto a rack while they were still warm and soft and then ate some warm!!

Blackcurrant Cake

This year we seem to have quite a few blackcurrants growing on the bush in the back garden.  I wonder if it is trying to prove its worth after the one at the front went to a new home due to never seeming to produce more than about 5 blackcurrants!

Mum made lovely blackcurrant pies and ice cream with the masses of blackcurrants in our garden when I was a child, but as my pastry making is, lets say, in need of perfecting (!) and as I have no ice cream maker I tend to bake mine into a cake.  Its been a few years since I had enough blackcurrants to make it but this recipe makes a gorgeous cake if you are wondering what to do with yours.  The recipe says 4 oz of blackcurrants but it doesn't need to be exact, I wouldn't put many more in but it will work perfectly fine with fewer if your bushes aren't that generous!


Blackcurrant Cake

3 ½ ozs soft butter or marg
7oz caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
8oz plain flour
2 level teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons milk
4 oz ish blackcurrants
small amount of granulated sugar for sprinkling

Cream butter/margarine and caster sugar together.
Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Fold in flour and baking powder.
Add milk and stir in fruit.
Put into a 8in diameter cake tin lined with non stick paper.
Sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake (350 degrees F, 180 degrees C, Gas Mark 4) for about 50 minutes.
Cool slightly and remove from tin

Lovely warm with cream or custard but equally nice cold.  If you only have frozen blackcurrants they work just as well, no need to defrost add them in to the mixture frozen.

Rhubarb and Custard Muffins

Remember my rhubarb in this post?  Well it is absolutely huuugggeee now!



What to do with a glut of rhubarb?! Friends pass comment on it as they come up my path, small animals can hide in it and I am trying to find some new recipes to make use of it.  Last year a neighbour made me some rhubarb and custard muffins and they were delicious.  Today whilst the children had their friends over I searched online for a recipe but couldn't find one that I liked.  After reading a few I decided I would attempt my own recipe and they turned out a little flat but taste great.

Rhubarb and Custard Muffins

10oz plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb
4oz sugar
1 egg
5fl oz milk
5 fl oz natural yoghurt
2 fl oz vegetable oil
one stick of rhubarb,washed and diced to approx cm cubes
half a tin of ready made custard

Prepare muffin tins (I think you need to use cases here as the custard would stick if you just greased the pans).
Preheat oven to gas mark 5.
Mix flour, baking powder, bicarb and sugar in a large bowl.
In a jug mix up the yoghurt, milk, oil and egg until combined.
Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and add the rhubarb.
Mix just until combined, if you over mix they will be dry.
Put a spoon of the muffin mix into the bottom of each muffin case so that the bottom is covered.
Add a spoon of tinned custard to each case.
Put the rest of the mix on top so that you end up with two layers of batter with custard in the middle.

(At this point I realised I had over filled my cases so I would go for 14 muffins instead of 12 next time!)

Cook for about 20 to 25 mins until the tops are brown and spring back when touched.

As my rhubarb is home made the stalks are quite thick, if you are using supermarket dainty rhubarb you may want to use a stick and a half!

I used everyday value everything

My muffins are quite flat, as you can see from the photo.  I am not sure whether it was because I used out of date baking powder.  I will try them soon no doubt and will use fresh baking powder to hopefully get those tall cracked muffin tops!!

I reckon the ingredients, if you use everyday value/basic ranges and free rhubarb, come in at less than a £1 for 12 huge muffins.

If you have a go at these please let me know how they come out!

The run up to Christmas

Ella Muffins aka Banana and Custard Muffins

So the Great British Bake Off is back on tv, which means every Tuesday I need cake more than usual to enjoy eating while watching all the drama in the tent.  This Tuesday also had an even better surprise, the late arrival of my first niece, the first baby in our family since Miss E was born almost 4 years ago.  In Ella's honour I decided to bake once my two children were in bed and as I had no chocolate in the house ( disaster!) I had to ad lib on my usual banana chocolate muffin recipe.  A quick look in my food cupboard of doom and I realised I had a few tins of Everyday Value custard and a banana and custard recipe was born.

I googled to see if anyone had a decent recipe online but all the ones I found involved mixing the custard in.    I remembered a lovely rhubarb and custard muffin my neighbour made with our rhubarb earlier this year and decided to make my ordinary muffins and put a dollop of custard in the middle before cooking.

Here is the recipe I used, taken from Muffins Fast and Fantastic by Susan Reimer.

10oz plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarb
3 large well ripened bananas
4oz white sugar
1 egg beaten with fork
2-3 fl oz milk or water
3fl oz oil
half tin of custard

Preheat oven to 400F 200C GM6

In a bowl mix together flour, bicarb and baking powder.

In another bowl mash bananas well, add sugar.

Add banana and sugar mixture, milk, oil and egg into dry ingredients, stir until evenly mixed and no dry flour but don't over mix.

Fill each case about a third full then add a blob of custard, then top up with muffin mix.

Bake in oven for 20 to 25 mins

Weekend Treats - Lemon Curd Cake

The recipe is one I had saved from a magazine at least a year ago and I suddenly remembered it so decided to give it a go.  It is basically a 3 egg lemon sponge with lemon curd and whipped cream in the middle and a thickish glace icing made from lemon juice on the top.  It tasted amazing and will definitely be repeated again soon.  The recipe called for"good quality bought lemon curd or homemade" but due to my usual time and financial constraints I had to make do with Tesco Everyday Value lemon curd but no one seemed to notice, or were to polite!!

The Best Banana Cake Ever!

So proud of both children, it wasn't so long ago that Mr T would go nowhere near the mixer but now will use it on his own.  And cake making is much more relaxing now they can work together instead of fighting with each other, I even managed to knit a few stitches while they mixed everything up.

The recipe is from Whats For Dinner by Fay Ripley.  It is what I would call an ordinary banana loaf recipe but with a bar of dark chocolate added (really it should be a bar and a half but I only had one in!).  I always use the Supermarket value dark chocolate for cooking now, its great and less than 40p a bar!

I know it is a bit...burned on top but for some reason I struggle to get the middle cooked before the top gets a little over brown.  No one has complained so far though!

Chocolate Bread

Ok so first an apology, this recipe was sooo good the whole loaf was eaten before I could take a photo!  It's a really simple recipe from A Girl Called Jack blog, although I cheated and used my bread machine to do the hard work.

The recipe is here.  I used cold water and kept my chocolate pieces quite big as I wanted more chunks than chocolate dough.  I also didn't melt the butter, I just bunged everything into the bread machine and used the dough setting, then turned it out and baked it in the oven.  It was heavenly warm but was still really good the next day when the children were let loose on it!

Sunshine Bread

Since I found it I have been a keen follower of the blog A Girl Called Jack.  Her budget recipes are amazing, so far we have enjoyed the falafels, chilli, lemon and jam sponge puddings and today we made the Sunshine bread.

The recipe is here.  I don't think I weighed the flour out quite right as i had to add a lot more in to enable the children to knead it.  The resulting loaf is lovely, not too sweet but very moreish (in fact I made 2 so that both children could have a decent amount to knead so although this one is almost gone now we have another loaf waiting in the freezer)!

When your fridge gives you wrinkly lemons..

make lemon cakes!!!!!

Here is our family recipe, kindly given to my Mum by a lady who lives in her village.

Lemon Loaf Cake  Makes 2 large loaves

10oz sr flour
8oz soft butter
8oz sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons lemon curd

Preheat oven to 160 degrees (about 2.5 Gas)

Mix all ingredients with electric mixer

Put into 2 large loaf tins (greased and lined or whatever you need to do for your tins)

Cook for about an hour until done, my oven is slow so it may be done quicker in yours

Make topping by putting juice and rind from one lemon and some sugar into a bowl and microwave to warm and melt sugar (or do it in a pan, anything to melt the sugar)

When cakes are done leave in the tins and prick the tops then pour the drizzle over.  Leave to cool as long as you can/want in the tin to allow the topping to soak in

I usually leave one for immediate eating and the other I put in the freezer!

I didn't manage to take a photo straight away and this was all that was left when I finally got round to it!