Apples and dancing (I was told there might be dancing)

I am off to visit the wonderful Lady K today for some belated birthday revelry and of course I didn't feel I could arrive cake-less. For my birthday last year my parents gave me a card which had the words "birthdays are nature's way of telling you to eat more cake" on the front. I couldn't have put it better myself. Birthdays should always have cake.

I didn't feel like making a layered chocolate cake this year (and if I've remembered correctly I made K chocolate cupcakes last year) so I decided to go a bit off piste and do something completely different. Plus I need to be able to transport it easily on a bus for a few hours and a towering chocolate frosted masterpiece just spells disaster. So whilst curled up in front of the cricket on Thursday I pulled all my cookbooks one by one off the shelf looking for the perfect cake to make. Strangly, nothing struck me as being quite right. Then I happened to glance up at the television and catch the apple-filled fruit bowl in the corner of my eye and remembered this recipe.

I had apples, and it looked like I'd be able to get it safely on a bus, and having been given free-range by K to make whatever I thought would be a good I decided to go for it. I'm so glad I did, the smell of the apples coated in rum and spices filled the flat with the most tempting aroma.

I adapted the recipe slightly - no alcohol, now come on, if there's one thing that birthdays have to have as well as cake it's alcohol, and if you can combine the two all the better - and didn't have a tube pan so used a springform pan instead. Oh, and I changed the sugar and spices. I also made a sneaky test cake for us to have as dessert last night. Seriously, you have to test things that are presents for other people to make sure they're okay! The result? A nice dense cake lightly flavoured with vanilla and rum, topped with slightly caramalised spiced apples. The large version also has apples inside which I think will only make it more delicious. I think it would be very nice served warm (or cold) with a rum-raisin or vanilla bean ice cream. Ah, for the want of a KitchenAid ice-cream making bowl!
Here's the recipe as I made it. It makes a dense, not too tall, 23cm cake, probably quite a few servings, but for a birthday gathering it'll be just right.

Spiked spiced apple cake

6 apples,
1/2 tablespoon mixed spice
1/2 tablespoon nugmeg
dash ground ginger
5 scant tablespoons brown sugar
Rum (probably between one and two shots (25-50ml)


2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup blood orange juice (I also added a dash of lemon, of course I did!)
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
50ml rum


Preheat oven to 180C. Line and grease a springform pan (mine is about 23cm). Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with spices and sugar and pour over the rum. set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated. Then add the rum and stir until combined.

Pour half of batter into the pan. Spread half of apples over it (make sure you include some of the spiced rummy juices too). Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top (again adding the final juices from the bowl). Bake for about 1 then cover with foil to stop the apples burning, the apples should be slightly browned by this point, then bake for aprox 45-50 more mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool before turning out.

I hope you have a good weekend, I'm off to deliver cake and throw some shapes on the dance floor...(there were rumours of dancing, but I think I might just be seated in the pub, my shape throwing really isn't up to much)

Fixing things

I have been feeling very zen today. It might be because of these:



the nine blackberries I found whilst out walking this morning. I found a back route into the park, and I was kicking myself for having spurned the idea of carrying my camera. It was so wonderful to stumble across a wooded path that could so easily have been in the countryside rather than the city. Along the path were numerous bramble bushes which must have been laden with fat juicy berries a month ago. Alas I only managed to get nine (well ten actually, but in retrospect one wasn't edible). Next year though I shall be staking out that spot with my preserving pan at the ready!

The park too looked beautiful in it's dressing of gold and amber. I will have to go back before the wet winter truly settles in and take some photographs.

The rest of the day has been split between trying to rescue my newest chapter, and trying to rescue the cassoulet, alternating between brandishing a red pen and a red spatula. I think both tasks have been successful. I know this picture doesn't look all that exciting, or appetising for that matter, but believe me the rich spicy smell that was emanating from the pan when I boiled it to soften the beans was just marvelous. I think this, with a glass of the rich red wine that arrived yesterday, is going to be the perfect end to the day. I will post the recipe at some point, but I thought it would be better to at least get mine edible first!


In other random news I have been pondering this, as inspired by this. I was thinking of producing two, one of things to do and a separate thing of baking/cooking challenges. Hmmm. I have a month and a half to sort it out...I'd better get started!

I've usurped the Queen of Posting!

I didn't mean to usurp her position, it just happened. I wanted to show my Mum a good birthday, so I did the natural thing that any crazy devoted baking obsessed daughter would do. I sent a cake in the post! I mean, it's just not a proper birthday without a cake.

Thing is, I couldn't stop there. I had to send a present too. Now this year I had totally failed to find anything in the shops that I thought she'd like, and having no help whatsoever in the form of hints I had to fall back on the "I promise I'll get you something nice when we're on holiday" promise. Which still didn't help the fact that I didn't have much to give her on the day. Then I came across some blackcurrants. Sconto!

My Mum LOVES blackcurrants, and second to having them in a pie, blackcurrant jam is her favourite way to enjoy them. Now I wasn't about to attempt pie-posting - that really would require some extra special posting skills - but I reckoned that a jar of homemade blackcurrant jam would be do-able, and just the thing.

So I set off on a jam making adventure! It was lots of fun, and the smell in the flat was amazing and more than made up for England's continued inability to play decent football.

I simmered the fruit with some water:
Meanwhile sterilizing the jars:Then added the sugar:
and brought it to a rolling boil:
Then when it reached setting point I but it in the jars and sealed it, adding labels and preparing it for postage!

I packaged it with the cake and sent it off, relieved to hear the next day that it had arrived in one piece. I then had a lovely text this morning saying how pleased Mum was with the presents and cake and how I must now be crowned the Queen of Posting!

Well, I will accept the title for now, but I'm sure it won't be long before the real Queen of Posting (my Mum, who else!) will be back.

From a North East kitchen

We've been on a bit of a jaunt; a sojourn up North to visit my parents for a couple of days, and take some in-person birthday wishes to my father.

It wouldn't be a proper birthday without cake, and it wouldn't be me unless I took a little of the North London Kitchen to the North East. So I whipped together another Ottolenghi recipe to try for D's cake.


I also plotted with my Mum to make some bread on Friday so we could have a dinner of bread and salad. As I think I've mentioned, my adoration of all things bread comes from D, and this especially applies to the Italian breads, so with my Mum dutifully having made the ferment for the ciabatta before we arrived I promised to finish it and add some focaccia to the feast.


It all worked out very well indeed; the cake was ready for tea and cake when D got home from work, and a few hours later we had mounds of bread with fresh salad from the garden, roasted tomatoes and cheeses, served with great glasses of wine. Wonderful.

Apart from the great food and company there are other exciting things about being home: I get to use D's amazing camera. The pictures today come from his amazing Nikon, which somehow made even the ciabatta starter sitting on the side look exciting and professional. I've definitely got to get me one of those!

p.s. The only disappointing aspect of the weekend was the icing for the cake. It was supposed to be a lovely thick cloudy maple syrup cream cheese icing. Instead it was so runny when I mixed it that I had to add a tonne of icing sugar, which rather ruined the effect. According to everyone else it was fine, but I was very disappointed. Methinks perhaps it was because I used low fat cream cheese. I have never yet managed to get cream cheese icing to work. I think it'll get one more try, with a full fat cheese, then I might just give it up and look elsewhere for icing ideas.

Belated birthday cupcakes.

It was K's birthday in February and I had promised to make her birthday cupcakes. Problem is, she lives in Oxford and we've both been pretty busy this year already, so I didn't have a chance to see her until this week. We were off to see Blood Red Shoes at the Oxford Zodiac (part of her present!). Even though I was on the bus and wasn't sure if we'd have time to go back to her house before the gig I knew I couldn't let her down and still wanted to surprise her with some birthday cupcakey goodness.

So in the morning I dutifully wrapped her other presents and then set to work on the baking. I wanted to make something ultra indulgent. I decided on Uber double chocolate cupcakes with a dark chocolate ganache icing. I also decorated them with bright star sprinkles to give them an extra ounce of celebration and fun. I thought it would be just the thing to celebrate her birthday in style and keep us going after the gig!

I managed to find a wine box that fit them in perfectly and that I could both wrap and keep upright in my bag. It all worked out perfectly and she loved them.

Happy (belated) Birthday K!

Since I am currently curled up on the sofa watching a film there is no excuse not to post the recipe, which I adapted from the 500 cupcakes and Muffins book by Fergal Connolly.

Uber double chocolate muffins (makes six to eight muffin sized cupcakes)

Preheat the oven to 175C and line a muffin tray with papers.

4oz Softened butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz Self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3tbsp cocoa powder
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
50g dark chocolate chunks
50g white chocolate chunks

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix until the chocolate chunks are evenly distributed in the batter. Spoon it into the cases and place in the middle of the oven. Bake for 25 mins. They should rise until just level with the top of the cases. Allow to cool fully before decorating.