I've served my time

I tried, I really tried, but 9-5 office work really isn't for me. At first I loved it. I was in and out of the office running training sessions, and meeting new people. But as the months went on, and the time in the office longer, it became clearer that this wasn't going to be something I could do long term. I loved the people in the office and have made some great new friends, but sitting down staring at a computer screen is downright depressing, and even a little soul-destroying for me.

Who knows, I might go back to it, but yesterday, after much deliberation and financial pondering and deep philosophical conversations with N, I bid farewell to my colleagues and gave it all up.

Eek! So I am taking almost a 50% pay cut and am swapping the office for a (gorgeous) shop job. It sounds strange, but it seems to be working for me at the moment. It's a incredibly creative environment, and I am surrounding by a wonderful group of crafty inspiring people. It also means that for the most part I have my four day weeks back, hurrah! So hopefully I will be here a little more often with all sorts of baking and crafty goodness.

Despite my desperate desire to get out of the office, I was a little sad to leave it behind, and it's very difficult to take such a massive risk. I will no longer be in an academic environment, and I certainly won't have much loose change kicking around. But I'm hoping it will be the start of a new chapter, and some exciting new ventures.

As a little thank you to all my amazing friends and colleagues in my office I baked them one last treat. Little chocolate fairy cakes topped with cream cheese icing and sprinkles. I called them chocolate cheesecake cakes, as that's exactly what they tasted like. Yum! We had a picnic at lunchtime and then wine at the end of the day. A lovely farewell.

The cakes went down a storm and were gobbled up in no time. I won't post the recipe, instead I shall direct you to it's source, as I can't take any credit the delicious cake was all thanks to my lovely friend Rosy. The only thing I can boast about is the decision to put the cream cheese icing on it. It wouldn't be my usual topping, but I couldn't resist and the result was delicious. Make them this weekend and treat yourself, but beware, you'll want to make British fairy cake size ones as they are incredibly rich!

Well, I am off to enjoy my day of freedom with some housework. I'm so rock and roll!

"We don't like cricket...oh no! We love it!"

Nothing quite epitomises summer for me than cricket. If you've hung around here, or indeed spent much time in my company, it probably hasn't escaped your attention that I am a massive cricket fan.

There's just something so gosh darn civilized about a gentlemanly game that takes places at an almost leisurely pace over an entire day and include a break at 3.40pm for afternoon tea. If you're familiar with other bastions of gentlemanly culture, cricket may well conjure up images of fluffy clouds in blue sky, teams all decked out in white, and spectators politely clapping at the end of each over between mouthfuls of strawberries and cream and swigs of Champers. All of which should be accompanied by the soothing tones of Test Match Special (minus Boycott of course, nothing soothing there!)

The reality of course looks rather more like this:

Five hours of drizzle, rain and inclement weather. If you go to the cricket in England (rather than sensible places like the West Indies, or Australia) chances are you should pack for the arctic. N laughed as he saw me stuffing a quilt, raincoat, hat and scarf into my bag on Saturday, but true to my expectations I spent five hours at Lord's huddled underneath the aforementioned bedding wishing I'd bought some gloves as well.

That's the reality of the British summer. And I embrace it. Partly because I have to, and partly because no matter what at 3.40pm there is a break and out comes the tea and cake. If I do nothing else in preparation for an afternoon of cricket it is to prepare a cake. I've talked about this before, and fruit cake is almost always what I make.

But sometimes I need a little sunshine, and so sometimes I make something a bit brighter in the hope of tempting out the rays and casting off the raincoat. If you need a little sunshine, especially after a damp bank holiday weekend, I suggest you dust off your mixing bowls, search out some good lemons and have a crack at this. It's a great cake for transporting because it is incredible dense and holds up well. I think I might add a strongly lemony buttercream next time. But then again I might not.

Lemon Vanilla Yoghurt cake - makes one 9x5 loaf. (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)



1 1/2 cups Plain Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup vanilla yoghurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 large eggs
Juice and zest of two unwaxed lemons
1/2 cup vegetable oil


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Whisk together the cups flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, mix together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and oil. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, but mix thoroughly.

Pour the batter into the  pan and bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick of skewer in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack. Carefully place on a baking rack over a baking tray. While the cake is still warm, gently poke wholes all over it with a toothtpick and then brush the lemon syrup over it with a pastry brush until all the syrup is absorbed. Cool and then enjoy, preferably in front of the cricket.

Because you can put jam in everything.

The Jamvangalist strikes again! The cake I bring you today is a wonderful way to use up the dregs of marmalade that might be taking up several rooms space in your house cupboards. Okay, so I'm sure you don't actually have that problem, but when I am trying out new marmalades the half-full tester jars gradually stack up in our "breakfast" cupboard and because I try and eat nice boring healthy museli in the morning and so only have toast at weekends, I need another way to re-appropriate the half-filled jars.

I discovered this cake when doing all sorts of research in the run up to Food Junctions. In the spirit of "isn't preserving amazing and versatile" that I was trying to get across in my presentation I wanted not to have tasters of just jams and marmalades, but examples of the things you can do with them other than spreading them on bread. As a result I spent the evening and then morning before the talk frantically whipping up cakes, biscuits, tarts and slices all of which used jam, marmalade, curd or other preserves. It was the marmalade cake that was the first to go. It's moist, and whilst it doesn't taste too strongly of bitter orange marmalade, it does have a wonderful background hint of it, and a great depth of flavour.

It was so good that one participant actually prized the cake paper out of my hand and stood scraping the crumbs off it!

So today, I bring you my newly-found go-to marmalade cake. I used my "dark side" Seville marmalade, which is made with bitter oranges, all dark sugar (making it almost black, and very treacly in flavour) and a nice dash of smooth Irish whiskey. I also intend to make a version that uses my lemon marmalades. In fact, I might even try using other jams, as I get the impression it is highly adaptable and will suit many preserves and many tastes. It is adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe (of course) and so all credit must go to him really. Except I like my cake a bit darker and so have used light muscovado sugar instead of white, and didn't add orange blossom water, or any additional orange, or icing as I don't think it needs these extras. That said, a dash of lemon juice and perhaps some zest would probably make this cake really sing, but I shall leave that up to you.

Marmalady Cake - makes one large loaf cake.

175g unsalted butter, very soft.
175g light muscovado sugar
175g self-raising flour
3 large eggs
75g marmalade

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease or line a large loaf pan.

Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs a little and then add to the creamed mixture a little at a time, beating well between each addition. You want to make sure that you do this really well, I would probably even use a whisk next time because the dark sugar is less easily incorporated (or so I find). Next add the marmalade. I also chop the peel a little so you get nice bits of preserved peel all though the cake. Finally, in a swift firm action fold the flour into the batter until it is fully mixed, trying to whip in a bit of air as you go.

Pour the batter into the lined tin and bake for 40mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine was 40min bang on.

Leave to cool in the tin before turning out. Serve in thick slices.

Dump the grump.

I have days when I get a bit self-indulged with grumpiness. I sit tired in front of spreadsheets wallowing in "woe is me." Which is exactly what happened yesterday. You see, I got bitten by what a friend, looking at the size of my red swollen maddeningly itchy arm, surmised, was a horse fly. As a result I had taken about a gazillion anti-histamines in order to quell the irritating fire that seemed to have taken over my right forearm. The result, a grumpy, itchy and now very sleepy me. Turns out I hadn't thought that anti-histamines make you drowsy. Oops! 

Add to this the usual "what am I going to do with my life" existential crisis, and you get what in hindsight is a very ridiculous me.

So I was in the weirdest mood when I got home, and for some strange reason felt almost completely unable to keep my eyes open! I decided that there was clearly only one thing to do. 

Make cake. 

Because let's be honest, you can take all the medicine in the chemist and nothing quite hits the stop like a delicious easily thrown together bit of baked goodness. 

I wanted something light, and low in fat, and fruity, to be the utter antithesis to my droopy, indulgent mood. I wanted a reminder of the spring sunshine, and a kick up the behind to stop being so gosh, darn, silly about everything. I pondered a typical Victoria sponge, but decided I wanted something a bit different, and less daunting than a two-tier monster that only two people would have to consume. 

In the end I decided on a buttermilk cake. I had spotted Molly's a while ago, and as soon as I started wracking my brain for a light spring cake solution to my grump it appeared from the depths of my memory.  I adapted it a little bit, using blueberries, and adding a topping of cinnamon and sugar, and also using curdled milk as I didn't have buttermilk on hand. The result was a lovely light sponge, wih a great crumb and a delicious moist vanilla flavour, speckled with deep purple blushes of blueberries and a cinnamony-sugary crunch. We nearly demolished it in one sitting, and you're lucky I managed to snap a few pictures this morning as I know it'll be gone in no time tonight. 

I am now officially calling this my "dump the grump" cake. It won't be the last time I need to pull myself of out silliness, and so won't be the last time I make this cake....in fact I rather hope I am being a grump again soon...

Dump the Grump Cake - makes one 9" cake (or two servings! hehe)

1 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

2 oz softened unsalted butter

2/3 cup and 1 tbsp sugar, divided. 

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 large egg

1/2 cup of milk 

juice of half a lemon

3/4 cup blueberries (fresh or froze, but not thawed)

Preheat the oven to 200C and line or grease a 9" cake tin. 

Add the lemon juice to the milk and leave to stand for a few minutes so that it curdles.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat the butter and 2/3 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the vanilla and egg and beat well. 

Add the flour mixture to the batter slowly, alternating with the milk, begin and end with the flour. Mix until just combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Scatter the blueberries over the top. Combine the remaining sugar with the cinnamon and then sprinkle as evenly as possible over the top of the blueberry studded cake. 

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes, then turn out onto a rack until fully cool. Invert to right side up and serve. 

We didn't feel the cake needed any embellishments, but I'm sure a dollop of cream or creme fraiche wouldn't go amiss if you fancied it.

It never rains...

...but it pours, as the saying goes. As it happens, we've had more snow this week. Just a dusting, which, on the much-trodden London streets, hung in the air longer than it settled on the pavements.

But the pretty white flakes weren't enough to lift morale. There are more than a few battles going on at the moment, and I now understand why you can't deploy a single army to fight on multiple fronts. It's just too hard.

When the going gets tough there is one man who can make everything better. N is a saint, and despite bearing the brunt of the attack this week has managed to always make me smile and lift my spirits. So last night, while he was out, I decided to do a little something to lift his.This involved consulting the other man in my life who often puts a smile on my face. Nigel Slater. I know that sometimes it must seem like the Nigel Slater appreciation society over here (does this exist? and if not, why, not and can I be president?!). I do like other food writers, honest, it's just that on a cold February evening, when everything in life is a little bit rubbish, I want to read a book that feels like being wrapped in a duvet, and that's exactly what Nigel Slater's writing (and recipes) are like. They are utterly unpretentious, beautifully uncomplicated, and as warm and satisfying as a really good cup of tea. So, when N isn't here to give me that big hug, it is to the pages of The Kitchen Diaries, or Appetite, that I go running.

Last night was a double whammy. I started with his mustard and sausage pasta dish, and then finished with his coffee and walnut cake. Adaptations were made to both, but I think Nigel would take that as a complement, as intended.
It was definitely a comfort meal. Sausages, fried with onions, and then coated in cream and mustard, with a random addition of some roasted tomatoes, all mushed together with pasta. Then the cake, a classic sponge, spiked with a hit of coffee and a crumbling of nuts, sandwiched and topped with fluffy coffee buttercream. Perfect.

It feels like I am working on classics at the moment, carrot cake, coffee cake, Shrewsbury biscuits. Somehow it feels like that kind of winter, where we need something familiar easy and from a simpler time (which of course is a myth, as all times have their ups and downs, but you know what I mean).I deviated from the classic slightly by using pecans rather than walnuts. This is partly because we both prefer the slight caramel hint you get with pecans, and partly because when I went to the cupboard is was bare of walnuts. I think it worked really well, with the slight softness that pecans have providing more of a chew than a crunch in the light sponge. I think it will be even better today as the coffee has had time to develop. Perfect for that afternoon pick-me-up.

I also halved the recipe, and rather than making it in large sandwich tins made it in my little 7 inch ones. This made a smaller, shallower cake that is more suitable to a house of two people. You'll still get about eight servings from it, but they won't be quite such door-stop slabs as the original. You can easily just scale up and make a bigger cake if needs warrant. Coffee and pecan cake - adapted from Nigel Slater's recipe in The Kitchen Diaries.

For the cake:
88g softened unsalted butter
88g unrefined caster sugar
88g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
1 tsp instant coffee granules, disolved in 2 tsp hot water (or 2 tsp camp coffee)
35g pecans, toasted lightly then coarsly chopped

For the buttercream:
100g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar
1 tsp instant coffee dislved in 1 tsp hot water/ or 2 tsp camp coffee
aprox 1 tbsp milk
seven/eight pecan halves for decoration

Preheat the oven to 180C and line or grease two 7 inch round sandwich tins.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating in between additions. sift together the flour and baking powder and then gradually add to the mix. Add the coffee and beat to combine. Finally stir in the chopped nuts. Divide between the two pans as evenly as possible (don't worry too much about spreading or leveling the batter, it will do this as it bakes) and then bake for aprox 12 mins or until just golden and springy in the middle. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely before removing from the tins.

While the cake are cooling, make the buttercream. Beat the butter until very soft, and then add the coffee. Mix until well combined, and then add the icing sugar in three additions, beating well in between. Finally add enough milk to get the right spreading consistancy (it needs to be fluffy and spreadable, without being runny, I could describe the texture I got as cloud-like!). For me this was about 1 tbsp.

When the cakes are cool turn them out. Place one on a plate, use a third of the icing in the middle, and spread evenly on the cake, then top with other half of the sandwich. Then ice the top and sides with the remaining buttercream and decorate with pecan halves.

p.s. for those of you who asked for the cinnamon roll recipe, it's over here... This is actually a vegan version. To make the "normal" ones, just add an egg instead of the replacer powder, and use real butter. The only thing I think I've changed since first making them is to up the lemon zest in the dough (I like my things lemony!) and to leave the dough on it's initial rise for longer, as I find the flavour develops well after a longer rising time (like three hours if you have it, I just leave mine on the radiator and forget about it.). It doesn't need this, but I happened to have the time and liked the flavour.

Carrots aren't just for Christmas...they're for cake.

The first year we truly started to eat seasonally, no longer nipping out to supermarkets to pick up things, but relying almost completely on our box scheme and farmer's market, we found it rather tough. We thought we knew veg, we were smug vegetarians. Summer graced us with glorious tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Autumn held pumpkins and courgettes by the armful. We were doing fine, this seasonality malarkey was great. Until the strange shaped objects started appearing on our doorstep as winter deepened."What on earth is this?!" cried N in horror as he pulled a large brown stick-like object out of our box one particularly dark, damp evening in January. "They've even run out of parsnips now" he exclaimed, "they've resorted to sticks and twigs!" It was black salsify, and the first of many new introductions over the winter months.

Now? We're well seasoned at seasonality, we scoff at another root in the box (and cheat a whole lot by asking for the "deluxe" box during winter in the hope of getting something that isn't brown or white!) However, there are still times when I struggle with winter veg, and for some reason it's often the carrots that catch me out. I don't know why. I love them raw, and happily munch on them on days when I remember to pack them in my lunch. But more often than not they are forgotten about and then hastily added to meals at the last minute rather than being the star of the show.Then suddenly a few weeks ago I started craving carrot cake. I think I needed some brightness, a dose of vitamin D, or B, or C, or all three. I needed something that was fresh and yet comforting. I needed an all-rounder of cakes. One that wasn't just winter or summer, so no ginger cake (winter for me) or victoria sponge (the epitome of summer) would do. It had to be the perennial classic: carrot cake.So I dashed home, I hunted out the recipe and started pulling ingredients out of the fridge and cupboards. Then the huge flaw in my poorly-laid plan hit. I didn't have any carrots! A fit of "I must eat them before they go bendy" had struck and they'd been snuck into lunches and devoured. Oops!

But this week, I finally successed. I got in slightly earlier from work, and I even remembered the carrots. I managed to pull together the other ingredients, and off I went. It was worth the wait. I always forget how much I love this recipe. I didn't have icing ingredients, but I don't think it needs it. It lacks nuts for the same reason. This is my very own carrot cake recipe, and it makes me proud. I felt even prouder when N said "is there booze in this?" in a very approving tone, and I had to admit that no, there wasn't, and yet it tastes moist, and spiced and indulgent enough for you to expect a boozy addition.

Ladies and gentlemen, as an offering on this dark, damp, miserable Wednesday evening in February, a little something that I hope will lift your hearts and spirits.

Rebecca's very own carrot cake

I make this in a loaf pan, and sometimes ice it, and sometimes don't. It an adaptation of my pumpkin cake recipe, and one day I will post a marmalade version too. Until then, plain carrot it is. This manages to feel both righteous and indulgent. I wish I made it more often.

300g grated carrot
100g raisins
100ml light olive oil
175g self-raising flour
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice

Grease and line a large loaf pan (mine is about 4" x 10"). Preheat the oven to 150C.

In a large bowl beat the eggs. Then add the oil, sugar, carrot, raisins and mix. Then add in the flour, spices, and soda. Mix until combined. Pour into the loaf pan, and bake for aprox 1 hour 15mins (mine sometimes takes less, keep an eye one it) or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool before removing from the tin.

p.s. can we not mention the bad photos and the lack of good light here at the moment? Thanks, you're the best.

It's time for cake.

There's about to be a celebration. Just a little one, it'll involve going to the pub and drinking some very fine organic cider and ale. It will probably involve stopping on the way at the luxurious knitting shop and buying purple wool.



What's there to celebrate, I hear you ask? Well, a collection of little things that are about to coincide. Firstly, I think today I will finish the main writing of my thesis. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I think there are only a couple of hundred words left to write. Quite the achievement for me, especially considering how much baking I've managed to fit in around it! Secondly, I'm going Up North next week to visit the folks. They've just returned from the most amazing holiday ever, and I haven't been back since December, so it's time. I want to swap holiday photos, knit and sew with Mum and steal as many of my father's amazing photography skills as possible! Finally, it's about to be the weekend. It may seem silly, but it's been "one of those weeks" and not having to get up early tomorrow is such a great and wonderful thing that I think it warrant a raising of glasses. Many glasses!

I think you should all celebrate with me, and so I bring you cake. Yep, this is the very recipe I used for the wedding cake. You should make it, you should treat yourself this weekend because I think you deserve it. It's rich, chocolatey, incredibly moist, and doesn't involve any boiling of eggs! Go ahead...

I'm afraid aside from the finished cake I don't have many photos as I was a little tied up in making everything as perfect as possible to grab the camera - and those sticky chocolatey fingers weren't going anywhere near my nikon! I have however got a couple of the filling and icing process which I'll share because for large cakes the technique I used was really helpful.

Super Sexy Chocolate Cake - serves you! (and maybe a friend or two if they're very lucky)

This recipe makes a large three layer cake, and made up the smallest "tier" of the wedding cake. To make the larger ones I just made lots and lots of this batter and hoped for the best. I also baked it at a lower temperature for longer. I totally recommend you indulge in the cake and share it with friends. Trust me, those will be friends for life! The other alternative is to make a simple two-layer cake and freeze the remaining batter. It freezes and thaws so well that it could mean in a few weeks time, when you're craving chocolate cupcakes, you've got the wherewithal sitting waiting!

I did everything in my mixer (because otherwise my arms would have fallen off I made so many batches,) but I've written it out for mixing by hand because frankly it's such an easy cake turning on the mixer might seem like effort!

3 cups plain flour
3 cups caster sugar
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder

250ml Buttermilk

3 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
12 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
250ml
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line three 8" round tins (or two and keep some batter aside)

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and cinnamon, until combined. Add the butter and buttermilk and stir slowly until moistened. Once you're now longer puffing clouds of chocolatey flour in the air (I speak from experience, don't try this on high on your mixer!) you can start stirring faster until it's light and fluffy.

Whisk the coffee into the beaten eggs (the coffee must be cool or you'll cook the eggs, a big no-no!). Then add to the batter in 3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating only until blended after each time. Divide the batter among the prepared pans; each tin will take about 3 1/4 cups of batter if you're using three tins,

Bake for 38 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove and cool completely before taking out of the pans (these are really moist cakes, so heed this instruction!).

When stacking I filled mine with a layer of swiss meringue buttercream and then strawberry jam. To avoid over-spill of the jam I piped a ring of buttercream around the edge of the top of each layer, like this:

This not only stopped the strawberry jam escaping, but helped with the stacking and overall icing.

I used the following icing recipe and loved it. I was worried because lots of people say it doesn't work, but if you keep mixing it does. You definitely need an electric hand whisk, or better yet a mixer for this as you need constant whipping action. If you don't have one, and don't need the cake to last long (as if it would!) then I highly recommend whipping cream by hand into peaks and then icing the cake with that. It'll make it like chocolate, strawberries and cream, oh yeah!

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
12 oz butter, softened (the softer the better in my opinion)
1/2 cup of melted dark chocolate

4 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a big metal bowl over a pot of simmering water (I actually used the mixer bowl as it made the whole thing quicker and easier in the long run) until you can’t feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers.

Move the bowl to the mixer and whip the mixture until it turns white and about doubles in size. Watch for any steam or condensation, you do not want that getting into the mix or it won't whip properly (I put a tea-towel around the bowl as I lifted it to make sure)

Add the vanilla and whip to combine then add the butter a bit at a time whilst whipping (I was putting in about a tablespoon each time, I know it takes forever but it's worth it), then pour in the melted chocolate and the cocoa. Whip, whip, whip! It might seem like it takes forever to come together, (and you'll know when it does) but stick with it and you'll have a great icing and one that can withstand all sorts of pain (like travelling in a hot car!).

Mixed messages (and a VERY good cake)

Apparently today is the official first day of Spring, and the weather in London has certainly been in compliance. It's been fresh and bright today, lots of sunshine. The perfusion of yellow continues, as do the smiling faces.

There's only one problem, my brain and body are giving me some seriously mixed messages. Earlier this week I felt rather coldy (a highly unusual thing for me), it started over the weekend and managed to coincide with some gorgeous weather. Fortunately it also coincided with a serious football marathon, so being curled up on the sofa sniffling wasn't all bad.

My brain then seemed to take a leaf out of my body's book, and decided that it simultaneously wanted light salady spring foods, and yet wasn't quite ready to give up on the warming spice combination of winter. Cue a cooking and baking dilemma.
I was going to fight the urge to cling to these comforting foods, but forces aligned and I was destined not to. So I've been trying to make lighter main meals, and maintain the spices and depth in the baking, that way satisfying both needs and allowing the melding of the seasons (the chilly air from the last winds of winter with the warming sunshine and yellows of spring) to show in my cooking.

I spotted this caramalised onion and goats cheese cornbread on Smitten Kitchen and decided it would be the perfect thing to serve alongside the first roasted tomatoes and bright salad of the season. Oh, and it was yellow too! Ever notice how sometimes you spot a colour in one place, and then suddly start seeing it everywhere? (Hmm...I might do a "yellow" post this weekend) All I needed now was something to show winter I was every-so-slightly sorry to see it go.

I found a Guinness ginger cake on Andrea's Recipes and knew it would be perfect. It not only had the spice I wanted, but it made up for the fact that this year I was too busy watching the football to bake anything for St Patrick's day. Plus, it would fit in my new 9x9" pan. Fate.I adapted it slighty, and threw it together in no time at all while N took a conference call yesterday afternoon. There's something about him working from home that makes me even more prone to baking (I know, as if you thought that was possible!). It was quick to make, and was done in no time (really, make sure you watch while it cooks, it was done nearly 15 mins before time for me) meaning that it was ready and iced just in time for a 4 o'clock cup of tea. Perfect.
At first I wasn't sure it was gingery enough, but then the moist, but delicate crumb suddenly exploded with warmth in my mouth and I was hooked. It's not a ginger cake as for me there's not enough of a ginger flavour, but it is a gorgeously warm spice cake with a subtle touch of Guinness, and the zing of lemon icing really makes it. Definitely one of the best things I've made in a while, and I think it might be a whole lot longer now before I'm able to give up those winter flavours.
Oh, looking at the photos it's just occurred to me that with the white icing the little squares actually look a bit like pints of Guinness! How did I miss that?!

Guiness spice cake, adapted from Andrea’s recipes

Makes a 9x9-inch cake that I then cut into 16 little squares (don’t worry, you can eat two at a time, no-one’s judging you!)

160 ml Guinness Stout
240 g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1-1/4 tsp baking soda
2-1/4 tsp ground ginger
three or four good grinds of black pepper
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
88 g granulated sugar
37 g demerera sugar
60 ml molasses
50ml honey
170 ml groundnut oil


Place rack in center of the oven and preheat to 180C. Grease or line a 9x9” pan. In a small saucepan bring the Guinness just to a simmer then remove from heat. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, ginger, pepper, and cinnamon. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and molasses until smooth. Add the canola oil and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add the dry ingredients alternating with the stout (dry, beer, dry, beer, dry). Whisk abetween additions then mix at the end just until combined. Do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (I actually only needed about 40mins for mine, so keep an eye on it!). Place cake pan on a wire rack to cool. Once cool ice with a lemon glace icing. (I made this by just adding lemon juice to icing sugar, but leaving it very thick so I could spread it.).

Housekeeping: I've added a new link to the blog roll type thing I have. A good friend of ours is desperately looking for a job in New Zealand. In the theme of mixed messages, she had a job, but has told the position is no longer viable in the current climate. She has a visa, and a family who are ready to go, and now no job. Please, please, if you can help, take a look at her blog and read her story and pass it on. Thanks.

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)

Filling bowls and breaking scales

Yesterday I made the Christmas cake. A little late, as I was intending to give it at least three weeks to mature, but everything got the best of me, all good intentions had to be put aside, and yesterday it was. It'll still have at least a week to soak up a good sloshing of brandy, and then some time under it's icing coat before we dig in, and hey, at least I managed it in the end.

I very nearly didn't because of mis-reading the recipe, and misunderstanding just quite how large this cake was going to be. I know, I know, it said "feeds twelve...", but I thought it meant, feeds twelve with ickle slices and chose to ignore the "...somewhat generously" remark that followed. We're lovers of cake, how hard is it going to be to eat a bit of Christmas cake over the festive week? Ahem, perhaps a little harder than I imagined. There's a kilo of dried fruit in there, and half a pound of butter! It should keep though, so we can cunningly re-name it an Easter cake, because yes. it's probably going to last that long!

I adapted the recipe from Nigel Slater - of course! - adding a few of my own little touches, some due to mis-reading the recipe, some because I just think it's madness not to soak the fruit in port overnight! Nigel asks for 650g of dried fruit, like prunes, figs, glace cherries and candied peel, and then a separate 350g of currents, sultanas etc. I of course missed these separate instructions and dutifully made my 650g up of whatever dried fruit I fancied and had kicking around. In went figs, maraschino cherries (because I find even the dark glace cherries too sweet and plasticy), cranberries, sultanas, currents, peel in many forms. I smugly totted it up to 650g, and sloshed a generous glug of port over it and headed to bed.

It was upon re-reading the recipe the next morning that I discovered the additional 350g! Oops! So I made it up with more of the same. After all Nigel is one in favour of tweaking recipes, and a large variety of fruit is all good in my book.

It was at this point that I should have thought about how large a cake this was going to be, but I happily continued creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs, brandy, orange and lemon, then the dried fruits.

It was at this point, as you can see above, that I began to feel that even my large mixing bowl might not quite be up to the task. Folding new ingredients in was beginning to be a rather diplomatic task, with all efforts concentrated on managing not to mix, but more to keep the mixture in the bowl.

The the magnitude of this cake hit. I tried to add the flour, and so placed the bowl on the scales, and tried to set them to zero so as to just throw the flour and baking power in. Simple, I thought. Oh no, all I got was a rebelious error message! My cake was too heavy, it was over the weight limit!

This cake was going to be in a class of it's own!

So I used the bowl that once contained the dried fruit, and then with some more diplomatic folding, and scooping managed to get the mixture combined and into my carefully double-lined tin.


Two and a half hours later it appeared from the oven looking dark and very pleased with itself. I know it might sound strange, but believe me, this is one smug cake. It knows the indulgent goodness it contains. It is now tucked safely in a cake tin, where it will remain, quitely getting drunk on brandy top-ups, before I ice it next week. Stay tuned for that inevitably hilarious, and very messy episode!

For now, here's the recipe, as I made it:

Uber (smug) Christmas cake - feeds twelve GENEROUSLY!!!

1kg of mixed dried fruit of your choice, soaked overnight with a good slosh of port or bandy over them. (I didn't have them sitting in a bowl of alcohol, I just added enough to plump the fruits up a bit and give them some life after being stored in the cupboard)

250g softened butter
125g light muscovado sugar
125g dark muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
65g ground almonds
100g shelled hazelnuts
3 tbsp brandy (plus more for feeding)
zest and juice of 2 clemantines
zest of one lemon
1/2 tsp baking powder
250g plain flour

Line a 20cm round baking tin, with a removable base (I used springform) with a double layer of lightly buttered or greased parchment paper, making sure it comes at least 5cm above the sides of the tin.

Set the oven to 160C.

In a LARGE bowl, beat the sugars and butter together until light and fluffy and cappuccino-coloured. Add the eggs one at a time, don't worry if it curdles. Then slowly mix in the almonds, hazelnuts, dried fruit, brandy, juice and zests. Stir slowly until combined and then mix in the baking powder and flour, folding them lightly in and trying to keep everything in the bowl! Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Place in the oven for an hour, and then without opening the door turn the oven down to 150 and bake for another hour and a half. Check whether the cake is done - a skewer should come out with a few crumbs, but no raw mix on it. Leave to cool before removing from the tin.

Feed the cake by pouring brandy into it every week until Christmas. Cover tightly and store in a tin until needed.

I am not going to put a layer of marzipan over mine before icing because N doesn't like it, so I shall be just adding my royal icing layer next week. I can't wait!

Get your five a day - eat cake!

Doctors, politicians, nutritionists and all manner of other health "experts" keep harping on about needing to get our "five a day" of fruit and vegetables. Now, being a vegetarian, it's really not that hard to manage this, and quite frankly if you're veggie and you do find it hard you must be doing something very wrong indeed and might want to consider switching sides.

We usually eat a dinner that mainly consists of vegetables, albeit bulked out with some pasta, or bread or cous cous. But, if we might need a top up of veggie goodness, what better way to do it than by eating cake! Pumpkin and carrot cake to be precise.

A few years ago for Halloween my then flat-mate and I were the lucky recipients of quite possibly the largest pumpkin in the world. It was a gift from a friend who worked on the grocery stall on the market where I was tending the bread stand. He had promised that when Halloween came round he would get me a pumpkin, and wow, what a pumpkin it was. I could barely lift it into the van, and walking home I must have been quite a sight. An ickle person with an uber pumpkin. I must have been somewhat akin to a pumpkin on legs that afternoon.

Now, we gutted and carved it and "Gerald" did us proud. His leering face grinning at us for the whole Halloween weekend. Problem was, we then had a huge bowl of pumpkin flesh sitting in the fridge and no idea what to do with it. I was considerably less adventurous in the kitchen in those days, and after an experiment with pumpkin pie - loved by my housemate, hated by me - we ran out of ideas.

So I decided to do what any self-respecting person would do in that situation. I baked it into a cake! You get carrot cake, why not pumpkin. It's orange, and not too strongly flavoured and goes well in pie with spices. Thus was the birth of the pumpkin cake. It went down very well indeed. Light, moist and spiced it was a lovely autumn surprise.

That was three years ago, and for some reason I just didn't get around to making it again. No pumpkins came my way and alas the recipe I used went astry too.

Then suddenly Halloween rolled round again and I got my act together and bought us a little pumpkin. It didn't get carved this year, there just wasn't time. But it did make itself into a cake. I had to top up the amount of pumpkin needed with carrot, but I think this gives an extra dimension to the flavour. We ate it at half time during the match last night and it was really nice. I can't help thinking though that it will be nicer tonight having had a day to rest and the spices to develop.

I've been storing it in the fridge because of the high veggie content. Just take it out a little before serving so it reaches room temperature as it's nicer when not cold. I adapted this recipe from Rachel Allen's one in Bake. Mostly because it was the first one I found that used a loaf tin rather than sandwich tins. I topped it with orange buttercream icing. I would have preferred a less sweet cream cheese icing in hindsight, but didn't have the ingredients.


Pumpkin and carrot cake, with orange buttercream.

200g grated pumpkin
100g grated carrot
100g raisins (I probably would have soaked these in alcohol if I'd though ahead!)
100ml olive oil
175g self-raising flour
175g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fresh grated nutmet
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice

Grease and line a 5" by 9" loaf pan (I actually used one that was a bit longer than this and it stil worked fine). Preheat the oven to 150C.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, then add the oil, sugar, pumpkin, carrot and raisins and mix together. Sift in the dry ingredients and bring the mixture together. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the surface. Bake on a central rack for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before turning out of the pan.

Orange buttercream icing:

75g unsalted butter, very soft
175g icing sugar
zest of one orange, finely grated
2 tbsp milk
enough juice from the orange to make the icing come together.

mix the butter, zest and milk together, then add the icing sugar and combine. Add enough orange juice to make the icing wet enough to spread easily - though it should still be thick. Ice the cake when completely cool and leave in the fridge to harden the icing slightly before serving.

The loaf pan strikes again.

I did warn you that the loaf pan had been getting rather a bit of use in the flat this week. A while ago whilst browsing the archive of posts on one of my favourite food blogs I came across a recipe for "lemon yoghurt anything cake." On the post the cake had included blueberries, but it was pointed out that it had adaptability to such an extent that pretty much any aspect of the recipe could be changed and the results would still be amazing.

Hmm...almost limitless adaptability? That sounds like exactly my sort of thing! I'm sure it's clear enough by now, over 100 posts into my food blogging "career" that I just can't leave recipes alone. If there is any wiggle-room I'll find it and use it.

Knowing this about me, it will probably also strike you as rather strange that when I made the lemon blueberry yoghurt cake from the post I changed absolutely nothing. It just looked so damn good I didn't want to fiddle. Okay, that's not entirely true, I didn't have quite the same size loaf pan, so used my trusty bread one and hoped for the best. The result? A gorgeous moist cake backed with citrus and bursting berries that sat perfectly throughout the cake without a single one sinking!

I took it to our weekend Dungeons and Dragons session in Lancing and it went down very well. So much so that despite having had ice-cream and banana cake for dessert after lunch us adults whacked the kettle on for another cup of tea, if only for the excuse to break out the second cake! This is alas the reason why I don't have any pictures of inside the cake. It got carried to Lancing and then eaten so fast I didn't have a change to whip out the camera. Now there's an excuse to make another if I ever needed one!

The only problem with the cake - and it's not really a problem - was that it took ages longer to cook than the recipe sugested (over an hour and half!). I think this is because the loaf pan I used was a lot deeper. However it didn't seem to affect the flavour or texture of the cake. Once the top had browned, but the middle not cooked, I dropped the temperature to 150C and if I'd have had it I would have put a bit of foil over the top to stop it cracking quite so much. Then again, these cracks were rather pretty in my opinion and were perfect for hording the syrup you pour over the cake as its cooling.



If you want a nice summery cake, refreshing, moist and delicious, this is the one for you!

I won't post the recipe because I didn't change it at all, and it'll give you an excuse to visit Smitten Kitchen and browse a great blog.

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.

Wait a minute, this bread is cake

There seems to always be a glut of kiwi fruit in this house. I'm not really sure how it happens, we get them in our Abel and Cole box every so often but I swear they multiply in the fruit bowl. N has renounced them as a lunch box fruit after I insisted on packed them for him every day for about three weeks. This is acceptable for bananas, but not kiwi fruit apparently. I try and do my bit, eating them as "dessert" after my lunch, but somehow they still build up.

Last week I decided to try and do something different with them, and stem the glut, at least for a week. So I searched the Abel and Cole recipes, kindly provided on their website, and found one for kiwi fruit bread. Perfect, I thought, I can use up the excess and overripe fruit and at the same time produce some bread for lunch. I quickly wrote the recipe up into my scrapbook, not really paying attention to it, and put it aside for later in the week when our bread ran out.

Then, on Saturday morning, I got up, donned my apron, fished out the recipe and began to assemble the ingredients. "kiwi fruit, walnuts, raisins, sugar, honey, mixed spice, flour, eggs..." hang on a minute, that sounds an awful lot like cake! Oops. What the recipe was for really was kiwi loaf, like apricot loaf, you know the "loaf" that is actually just a long shaped cake. So much for my virtuous attempts to use up some leftover fruit.

Oh well, I decided to make it anyway, we'd just have to cope somehow!



It was rather nice in the end. Not as sweet as I'd expected, and with a definite kiwi tang, and slight crunch from the seeds. It went rather well with strong cheese and salad. We just had to remember that it was actually cake and so eat less of it at a time. Yeah, right!




Here's the recipe. From the Abel and Cole website, but adapted slightly by me. It's certainly a winning way to use up all those sneaky kiwi fruit that end up lazing at the bottom of the fruit bowl. But it's not really bread!

* 1/4 cup liquid honey (I cut this down ever so slighty)
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil (I didn't have quite enough so just used what I had)
* 1 egg
* 1&1/2 cups wholewheat flour
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice (I used this rather the
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* dash salt
* 1 cup raisins
* 1 cup chopped walnuts
* 1 cup kiwifruit pulp ( about 3 or 4 kiwis)

Beat the honey, oil and egg well. Sift the flour, spices and bakng powder and salt and add to oil mixture. Lightly stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon into an 8-inch oiled loaf tin and bake at 350°F / 180°C for 40-45 minutes and allow to cool before serving.