birthday blow away sponge and shiny new things

It was my birthday last Friday and my Mum baked a beautifully fluffy blow away sponge cake. However this was actually her second attempt. Her first cake went awry because she accidentally used self-raising flour instead of plain flour, resulting in sponges with flat edges and strangely domed centres. Always double check your ingredients folks!

Unfortunately I could only manage a tiny piece of cake due to the unwelcome stomach bug I woke up with that morning, but I can report it was as light as a cloud with a delicate, sweet vanilla flavour.

The chopped strawberries, jam and whipped cream filling kept the flavours fresh and light as well. As much as I love a buttery, heavily frosted birthday cake this was a lovely change. It could also be made completely dairy free by omitting the cream filling.

Although I didn't make the cake I'll include the recipe at the end of the post as I think it's worth sharing.

Birthday gifts this year included flowers, ferrero rocher, small pieces of jewellery and a stash of socks. You should see my sock drawer at the moment; it is positively overflowing with colourful, crazy prints. I love a good pair of socks.

Somewhat unexpectedly, I ended up with an overlocker for my birthday! On Monday morning I discovered through Char that Lidl had deals on Singer sewing machines and overlockers this week (retailing at about half their usual price) so I headed into town and grabbed an overlocker. My Mum also bought a new sewing machine for herself as she never got round to replacing her old one which broke years ago, so we're two very happy ladies.

Matchy matchy machines! This makes me very happy. I'm looking forward to producing clothes with professionally finished seams. On a side note, my Singer sewing machine is officially 10 years old this year. Whaaat?

And lastly, I'd like to introduce you all to the life size, cardboard cut-out Superman my brother bought for my birthday. Who knew owning a 2D Henry Cavill would be so much fun. He's proving to be quite a hit.

"Nice jugs, Jo."

"Ummmm why thank you, Henry."

He has also managed to scare the crap out of me on several occasions when I forget he's in the room. Such a stealthy guy.

Blow away sponge

4 eggs
4 oz caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
2oz plain flour
2 oz cornflour
1 level tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C/Gas 6 and grease/line two 8 inch round cake tins. Whisk the egg whites on a high speed until they form stiff peaks when the whisk is lifted from the bowl. (You can also do the bowl above your head trick to check!) Add the sugar, egg yolks and vanilla and give a quick mix. Sift together the flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl, then carefully fold it into the egg mixture with a metal spoon until everything is incorporated. The mixture should look quite pale and glossy. 

Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake for approximately 15 minutes until risen, golden and firm to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack. Sandwich together with chopped strawberries, jam and whipped cream. Serve with a dusting of icing sugar.

berry bakewell cake

I'd like to start off by saying a huge thank you to everybody who left advice on my last post regarding my not so successful bundt. The general consensus is that I should invest in some cake release spray so that's what I'm going to try next. I shall not be defeated by that bundt tin!

Hello photogenic plugs and sockets.

Now onto a cake which was a total success, woohoo! My Mum is a huge fan of almondy, bakewell flavours so I decided to make this pimped up Victoria sponge for her birthday last week.

It's a very simple cake but the addition of ground almonds and berries make it that bit more special. Basically if you love victoria sponges and bakewell tarts then you'll love this cake.

The nephews are excellent fire extinguishers.

I used frozen berries in this cake but I imagine fresh would taste even better. I was a bit worried about adding too many in case they would all sink and make the sponges soggy but thankfully this wasn't the case. If anything I think I could get away with adding a few more next time.

We have red blinds in our kitchen so if you're wondering why all my photographs are rose tinted that's why. I haven't gone all instagram toaster filter on you.

Ahhh just looking at that photo makes me want to bake the cake again. Apparently the last slice tasted even better the following day.

Berry Bakewell Cake

I naturally bake in imperial measurements (I'm old school like that) but I've converted the weights into grams. I hope they're right!

8oz/ 225g caster sugar

8oz/ 225g margarine (I used Vitalite as I wanted to make the cake dairy free)

3 large duck eggs (hen eggs are fine, as long as the overall weight is roughly 8oz)

8oz/ 225g self-raising flour

1 oz/ 28g ground almonds

a few drops of almond essence (add to taste)

roughly 2-3 ounces/ about 75g mixture of berries (fresh or frozen) for scattering

a few tablespoons of strawberry jam

Icing sugar for dusting

Grease and line two 20cm round cake sandwich tins. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Beat together the sugar and margarine for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle/split. Add a few drops of almond essence (to taste) along with the rest of the flour and ground almonds and mix until everything is fully combined. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins. In a separate bowl, give the berries a light coating of flour to stop them sinking in the mixture (you can cut some of the heavier berries such a blackberries in half to reduce weight.) Lightly press the berries into the surface of both cakes. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 25 minutes or until both sponges are golden, well risen and spring back to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack. Once cold, sandwich together with a generous amount of jam and serve with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

almond and apricot banana bread

I think this might just be my favourite banana bread. A big statement to throw around, but I really think it is.

Sometimes the tastiest things are made from leftovers and that's the case here. I had some left over dried apricots and blanched almonds from making the Christmas cake and two incredibly brown bananas sitting on the worktop so I decided to throw them together in a loaf.

The loaf has a good balance of flavours and textures: soft crumb, warm spices, juicy apricots and crunchy almonds. It's definitely a cake I want to bake again.

Almond and apricot banana bread

Recipe adapted from Hummingbird Bakery's banana bread

250g soft light brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 large very ripe bananas, about 225g in weight

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

140g butter/margarine (I used Vitalite to keep the cake dairy free)

75g mixture of chopped apricots and chopped blanched almonds (although I may add more next time)

25g ground almonds

a handful of flaked almonds to scatter on top

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and grease and line a 23 x 13cm loaf tin with greaseproof paper. Beat together the sugar and eggs until well incorporated. Mash up the bananas and beat them into the sugar/egg mixture. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ground almonds and spices and mix thoroughly. Melt the butter and beat it into the mixture until everything is combined. Stir in the chopped almonds and apricot pieces. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and scatter with a handful of flaked almonds. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 1 hour until firm to touch and a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

dairy free lemon drizzle traybake

Since discovering one of my nephews is dairy intolerant I have been making an effort to experiment with dairy free baking. Lemon drizzle cake is a family favourite so it was the first recipe I wanted to play with.

For this cake I used Mary Berry's lemon drizzle traybake recipe, substituting the softened butter for Vitalite dairy free margarine and the milk for soya milk.

The only noticeable difference through using a dairy free margarine was the texture. The batter was looser and it produced a very soft, moist cake with a smooth surface rather than the hard sugary top you usually get with a lemon drizzle. Flavour wise it was excellent and received thumbs up from everyone. I don't think anybody would have noticed it was dairy free had I not pointed it out.

If anyone else is new to dairy free baking (or gluten free baking) I highly recommend visiting iced gem bakes. I found her breakdown of dairy free margarines really useful.

Dad's birthday carrot cake

For Dad's birthday this year I decided to make a carrot cake. He has been growing vegetables this year so I thought it would be a great idea to use some of his homegrown carrots.

I used my usual carrot cake recipe as I like its chunkiness. It turned out slightly wetter than usual, and it was definitely fully cooked, so I'm putting it down to the amount of orange juice I added (it was a pretty big orange.)

I decided to keep this cake dairy free by using an orange glaze (just icing sugar with fresh orange juice) rather than cream cheese icing as we're fairly sure now that my eldest nephew is lactose/dairy intolerant. I wanted to bake a cake which everybody could enjoy.

Although I probably still prefer a cream cheese icing, the orange glaze complimented the cake really well. I'm on the look out for more dairy free bakes so I'd be delighted if anybody has any good ones to share.

Now for some funny photos! Dad has quite a few hilariously weird carrots. I used only the best mutants for his birthday cake :)

I drew eyes on the carrot on the right as his "growths" looked like an awesome moustache. You have no idea how much enjoyment I got from this.

Easily amused :)

Earl grey tea loaf

There's something a bit old fashioned about a tea loaf so it only seemed appropriate to photograph it with my 1940s Berylware crockery.

This loaf is a great way of using up questionable looking dried fruit as soaking them in the tea plumps them up beautifully. Nobody would know that they are quite possibly past their sell by date.

 

The fruit bursts with orange flavour in this very citrussy flavoured loaf although I think the star of this bake is the syrup topping. It's like a sticky, sweet marmalade. The zingy-ness of it contrasts well the heavier texture of the loaf.

I like to think that this is a healthy bake because of the amount of fruit it contains: dried cranberries, sultanas, raisins, orange and lemon. That's your 5-a-day covered! It's also dairy free.

My only slight niggle is the amount tea flavour. Although Earl Grey is a citrus tea (a black tea blended with the flavour of bergamot oranges) I felt its distinctive flavour didn't quite come through with this loaf (for me anyway) despite the overall flavour being very orangey. If I made this again I would perhaps brew the tea a little longer before adding to the dried fruit.

And that's the end of my mini tea series, hope you enjoyed it! A massive thank you to the folks at Whittards for giving me a lovely tea selection to bake with.

I'm also entering this bake into Kat's Sweet Leftovers Link Party as my dried fruit was on the brink of being thrown out.

Earl grey tea loaf

I came across multiple variations of this Jamie Oliver recipe online. I don't know what the exact recipe is, but this is what I did:

4 earl grey teabags (courtesy of Whittards)

100g dried cranberries

200g sultanas

100g raisins

1 orange, zest and juice

1 duck egg

200g golden caster sugar

400g self-raising flour

1 level tsp. mixed spice

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ginger

1 lemon, zest and juice

100g caster sugar

200ml water

2 earl grey tea bags

Pour 300ml of boiling water over 4 teabags in a jug. Leave to brew for 5 minutes then remove the teabags. Put all your dried fruit and orange zest in a bowl and pour in the brewed tea. Stir, cover with clingfilm and leave overnight (or if you're a night time baker like me, leave them to soak all day.)

Preheat the oven to Gas 4 and line a 1l loaf tin. Beat the egg in a separate bowl before adding to the soaked fruit. Then add the sugar, flour, spices and orange juice. Mix well and put into the tin. Bake in the centre of the oven for 1hr 10 minutes or until golden on top and a skewer/knife is clean when inserted into the centre of the loaf. Mine actually took about 1hr 30 minutes to cook, covering the top with baking parchment for the last 15-20 minutes to prevent it from burning. Start making the syrup in the last 5-10 minutes of the loaf baking.

For the syrup topping, place 2 teabags in a saucepan with the water, lemon juice and zest. Gently bring to the boil, removing the teabags after a couple of minutes. Add the sugar and bring back to the boil without stirring. On a medium heat let it boil steadily for 5-10 minutes until the mixture has reduced by half and is syrupy. Prick the cake and pour/brush the syrup on top of the cake and leave the loaf to cool in the tin.

Disclaimer: I was sent tea products to bake with as Whittards recognised that I'm a cake/biscuit obsessed crazy tea lady. They're a brand I enjoy and have purchased from before. I was not paid for this post and all opinions expressed are my own.