nostalgic bakes: buns (fairy cakes)

I had grand plans for baking this Easter. Various recipes had been picked out to try, the baking cupboard was well stocked with chocolate mini eggs.... but when it came to the weekend I just couldn't be bothered. It all felt like too much effort.

However I had quickly baked some buns to take to a birthday party on Friday night and they went down really well. They're perfect party food: cute, dainty, light and quick and easy to put together. I can get two trays of these fluffy beauties baked and decorated well within an hour.

Knowing it wouldn't take me long, I made a second batch on Sunday for the family to enjoy. I had used Mary Berry's all-in-one method for the first batch on Friday, but for the second batch I went with my usual victoria sponge creaming method and I have to say I prefer the texture of the second batch. They definitely feel fluffier.

There was meant to be a couple of mini eggs on top of each bun with this batch but, ermmmm.... they kind of got eaten. Not all by me I might add, although admittedly that is a plausible assumption. I bloody love handfuls of mini eggs.

Baking plain, little buns gave me warm, fuzzy feelings of nostalgia as they were the main treats I baked growing up until the cupcake craze came along and broadened my (sponge based) horizons. It was both odd and brilliant that my favourite thing became trendy. You have no idea how excited I was when I could finally get my hands on different patterned and coloured paper cases. Thank you, cupcake trend! Now I can enjoy fluffy mouthfuls of sponge encased by dinosaurs.

As much as I love cupcakes, sometimes it's good to go back to basics. The humble, fluffy bun with its little paper case, modest covering of butter icing and childlike hundreds and thousands sprinkled topping will always have a special place in my heart/stomach.

Iced buns/fairy cakes

buns:
6oz caster sugar
6oz margarine/softened butter
3 large eggs
6 oz  self raising flour

icing:
icing sugar
softened butter

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line two bun trays with paper cases, keeping spares nearby in case you need more (I think I got 28 buns out of this mixture). Beat together the sugar and butter/margarine for 5 minutes with your mixer until pale, soft and very fluffy. Crack the eggs into a jug and lightly whip together with a fork before gradually adding to the sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour with the last lot of egg if the cake mixture starts to curdle/split. Add the remaining flour and mix until fully combined. 

Divide the mixture between all the paper cases (I find a heaped teaspoonful is about right.) Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they're well risen, lightly golden and bounce back when touched. Lift out of the trays and leave to cool on a rack.

For the icing I admit I guess amounts, dumping a pile of icing sugar into a large bowl and adding a small amount of softened butter to taste. I also add a drop of boiling water to achieve a good spreading consistency. Swirl a dollop of the icing on top of each fairy cake with a teaspoon. If you're in a rush it's ok to ice the fairy cakes whilst they're still a little warm, if anything it helps the icing spread! Decorate with sprinkles or mini easter eggs... if you haven't already eaten them.

salted caramel cake

I've finally jumped on the salted caramel bandwagon. How many years late am I?

One of my brothers gave me the new Primrose Bakery book for Christmas (probably with some not so casual hints from my Mum, hehe) and many a bedtime since then has been happily spent flicking through the pretty pages. I've generally not felt very inspired by the latest baking books for the last year or so (I think the market hit saturation point, there's only so many ways you can pimp up a sponge) but for whatever reason this book really appealed to me.

After the sort-of success of Mum's birthday caramel cake I decided to try the salted caramel cake recipe. The first batch of caramel was, as expected, a bit of a disaster: disgustingly salty and borderline burnt. Luckily I had enough cream for a second attempt and it worked perfectly. If you're unsure about the whole salt and caramel thing like myself, I recommend reducing the salt to 1/2 teaspoon. You can always swap out some of the unsalted butter in the icing for salted if you want to increase the flavour afterwards. It can be added but not taken out.

This cake was soooooo good. The flavour of the salted caramel icing reminded me of the tablet/candy Mum and I make every Christmas; so sweet and fudgy. It was definitely worth swirling the remaining salted caramel sauce on top of the cake for extra flavour, although I have to admit it was hugely tempting just to scoop it up with a big spoon and shove it in my gob. I'm glad I reined in my greediness.

The sponge itself was also pleasingly soft and fluffy. I don't think I've ever used cornflour in a sponge cake before, so that's a new trick for me.

This is definitely a cake to bake again. The memory of that thick, fudgy, caramel icing will be too hard to resist.

Salted caramel cake

Recipe from the new Primrose Bakery book, "Everyday" by Martha Swift:

The only change I made, other than the salt quantity, was not including the caramel chocolates/sweeties for the cake filling and topping. As much as I love caramel chocolates, I thought that would be sweetness overkill.

salted caramel:

100g granulated sugar

3 tblsp water

125ml double cream

1/2 - 1 tsp sea salt (not table salt)

Put the sugar water in a medium pan over a medium heat and wait for the sugar to dissolve. Gently swirl it every so often but don't stir as it will cause the sugar to crystallise. Once dissolved, whack up to a high heat and let the sugar boil until it turns golden in colour. 

While the sugar is boiling, put the cream and sea salt in another saucepan over a medium heat and cook until it starts "smoking" - hot but not boiling. Don't let it boil. Once hot turn it down to a low heat and if needed stir to stop a skin forming on top of the cream. 

Once the sugar has turned golden take it off the heat and quickly add a small amount of the hot cream whilst stirring with a wooden spoon to prevent any sticking in the saucepan. Add the remaining cream bit by bit, continually stirring, until it's all incorporated. Be careful at this stage as the mixture will be bubbling fiercely. Pour the caramel sauce into a heatproof bowl or jar and set aside to cool. 

sponge:

225g golden caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

210g self raising flour

25g cornflour

225g softened unsalted butter 

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp milk 

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4. Grease two 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper. Put the sugar, baking powder, flour and cornflour in a large bowl and mix until evenly combined. Add the butter, eggs, vanilla and milk and mix everything together until well combined, about a minute with a handheld or stand mixer. Don't overmix otherwise you'll end up with a heavy sponge.

Spoon the mixture evenly into the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 25-30 minutes until well risen, golden, springy to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

salted caramel butter icing:

150g softened unsalted butter

150g salted caramel sauce

300g icing sugar

Mix the caramel and butter together in a large bowl until smooth. Add the icing sugar and mix for at least a minute until the icing is nice and smooth. Use half of the icing to sandwich the two (cooled) cakes together and the other half to cover the top. Swirl any remaining caramel sauce on top for decoration.

outer space star wars cake

It was middle nephew's birthday last week and he put in an order for a Star Wars theme cake involving a death star. Considering Mum and I still haven't seen any of the films (yeah, sorry, we prefer Star Trek, whatever) and struggled to make sense of eldest nephew's Star Wars themed birthday cake last year, we weren't entirely sure how to make something not too complicated yet recognisable. Thankfully, I think we did a pretty good job with this cake.

Sometimes you need to pick your battles in life and for us it was avoiding fondant modelling. Purchasing little figures to decorate the cake made things so much easier, plus it gave the birthday boy extra toys.

To make the shape of the planet and death star I baked a small victoria sponge mixture in a little Denby cup and a glass pyrex bowl. Neat, huh? For the planet it was just a matter of covering with jam and marbled/painted fondant icing but for the death star we cut out a little hollow before covering with fondant and spraying it silver. I was worried it looked like a futuristic inverted nipple but it came to life as a death star, or at least some sort of sci-fi object, once all the "construction" lines were scored into the surface.

I still have absolutely no idea what the death star is. Hopefully not a boob.

The main cake acting as outer space was a plain traybake covered in marbled fondant icing. I liked the swirly, intergalactic effect of the marbling and it looked even more space-y once we stuck on silver balls for stars. I was also delighted to discover that silver balls are much kinder on teeth than they used to be. Gone are the days of breaking a tooth on them.

To make the cake surroundings more exciting Mum stuck all our inspiration/reference pictures around the tray. I thought that was a pretty smart idea, no wastage here.

I think if I get asked to make a star wars cake for a third time I'll have to admit defeat and actually watch at least one of the films. There's only so long I'll get away with making vague space themed cakes!

sour cream coffee cake

A deceptive title as this cake contains no coffee whatsoever. It should actually be called "best ever cinnamon and pecan cake." Seriously, this is one of my favourite cakes I've baked in a long time. And to think I only baked it as I wanted to use up left over sour cream!

Apparently this American classic is called a "coffee cake" as it's the perfect accompaniment to an afternoon cuppa. It certainly is, although in my case my cuppa is always tea.

It's one of those cakes where the flavours and textures wrap around your tongue in a very satisfying fashion.  The topping (and filling) is heavily cinnamon spiced, sweet and crunchy with demerara sugar and chopped pecans. Underneath all that delightful texture is a soft sponge packed with aromatic, sweet vanilla. Sour cream definitely brings something special to the party too. The soft cake crumb seems to absorb the vanilla flavour more than usual... or perhaps I'm just starting to waffling rubbish.

Basically, this cake is full on with flavour and texture. I love it. It completely exceeded my expectations. I'm tempted to buy more sour cream just so I can make this cake again!

On a different note, I noticed that it will be 5 years tomorrow since I started this blog. How time flies when you're having fun!

Sour cream coffee cake/ utterly brilliant cinnamon and pecan cake

Recipe adapted from The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook 
(double the quantities and you can bake it in a 2.5L bundt tin)

125g softened butter

200g granulated sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

125g plain flour

150ml sour cream (I didn't quite have enough so substituted 50g with plain yoghurt)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

100g chopped pecans

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

75g demerara (brown) sugar

Preheat the oven to 190C/ 170C Fan/ Gas 5. Grease a deep 18cm/7 inch round cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Beat together the butter and granulated sugar for a couple of minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well (you can add a tablespoon of the flour to prevent the mixture from curdling.) Pour in the sour cream and vanilla extract and mix until incorporated. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder then add to the other mixture. Mix until everything is combined.

In another bowl mix the demerara sugar with the chopped pecans and cinnamon. Pour half the cake batter into the tin and spread out evenly, sprinkle half the nut mixture on top, then cover with the remaining cake batter. Level the batter out again before sprinkling the remaining nut mixture on top. (I ended up not using all of the sugar/cinnamon mix, so add as much as you want.) Press the nuts down gently so that they stick to the batter.

Bake for 1 hour in the centre of the oven until firm on top and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.