Chocolate Berry Cake

It's a while since I posted. Not that I haven't been baking; just that I haven't seemed to have the time to sit down and write an entry. I have been asked for the recipe for this cake by a few folk though, so it made sense to record it here.

This is a triple layer sponge cake with a creamy butter icing. I chose to use raspberries, but you can substitute these for any type of fruit. I made it for a friend for Christmas as an alternative to the traditional fruit cake. This is a much lighter sponge, and the vanilla icing and raspberry jam filling mean that it won't be too rich.

Ingredients:

For the sponges:
3 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
4 1/2 Tablespoons Boiling Water
337g Soft Margarine
337g Caster Sugar
6 Eggs
337g Self Raising Flour
3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
110g Raspberries 

For the buttercream and filling:
Raspberry Jam 
400g Icing Sugar 
240g Butter (room temperature)
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Essence
4 Tablesoons Milk

Method:

Grease and line three 8 inch (20cm) sandwich tins and preheat the oven to 180 degrees (160 for a fan oven)/Gas Mark 4. 

Blend the cocoa powder and hot water into a smooth chocolate paste in a mixing bowl and allow to cool slightly. Next, add all the remaining ingredients (except the raspberries)to this paste and mix well until smooth and blended. Divide the mixture into three equal portions.

To one of the portions, add the raspberries and gently fold in. Then transfer each batch of batter to a tin and bake for about 25 minutes. The tops of the sponges should boune back when gently pressed, and a cake tester or knife should come out clean (there may be some raspberry juice in the sponge containing the fruit). 

Leave to cool in the tins for about five minutes before turning out. Carefully remove the greaseproof paper from the bottoms of the cakes and elave to cool completely. 

To make the buttercream, chop the butter into small pieces and mix til creamy. Gradually stir in the icing sugar and then add the vanilla essence and milk. Beat for five minutes to reach a creamy, fluffy consistency.

Take one of the plain chocolate sponges and spread a generous layer of raspberry jam on the top. Place the chocolate and raspberry sponge on top of this, and then spread a layer of jam on this sponge. Finally, place the second chocolate sponge on top to create your three layers. Using a palette knife or spatula, spread the buttercream on the top and sides of the cake. 

You can then decorate the top of the cake as you wish; pretty chocolate shapes go well and I chose popping candy milk chocolate crackers.

Fathers Day Chocolate Whisky Fudge

I recently purchased a Tala sugar thermometer, and have been keen to try it out by making some fudge. With Fathers Day approaching, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity. My Dad loves both chocolate and whisky, so this seemed like the perfect recipe to choose. This fudge has a smooth, creamy texture rather than a crumbly one.

Ingredients:

(makes 16-32 pieces depending on how generously you cut it!)

1 Tin Of Sweetened Condensed Milk (I used the light variety)
100g Unsalted Butter, cubed
225g Light Muscovodo Sugar
2 Tbsp Glucose Syrup
150g Dark Chocolate, broken into chunks
60ml Scotch Whisky

Method:

Grease or line a square 20cm tin. Put the condensed milk, sugar, butter and glucose syrup into a saucepan and heat until combined and smooth on a low-medium heat. 

Once the sugar has completely dissolved, turn the heat up to high and stir the mixture continuously until it reaches the "soft ball stage". A sugar thermometer is by far the easiest way to guage this, but if yot don't have one, it will take roughly 10-15 minutes for the mixture to reach this point. It will come away from the sides of the pan, and a small amount placed into cold water will form a soft ball. Once this point has been reached, remove the pan from the heat.

At this point, you want to add the whisky (there will be some pretty strong fumes from it, just to warn you) and the chocolate. Stir the mixture until the chocolate has completely melted, then pour it into your tin and smooth the top.

Leave the mixture to cool for about an hour before covering with cling film and placing the tin in the fridge overnight. This will give the flavours a chance to develop and make it much easier to cut. 

Gingerbread And White Chocolate Chip Cookies

These little biscuits make a nice change from ordinary cookies. The sweetness of the white chocolate works well with the heat of the gingerbread, and they have a nice "chewy" consistency rather than the hard crunch of a gingernut. They are perfect for giving as gifts, or for enjoying with the hot drink of your choice. This recipe will make about 35 biscuits, but of course this depends on the size. I chose to keep them small but they will work well as giant cookies too.

Ingredients:

400g Plain Flour
3/4 Tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
2 Tsp Ground Ginger
2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1/4 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
180g Salted Butter (room temperature)
125g Dark Muscovodo Sugar
40g Black Treacle
80g Golden Syrup
100g White Chocolate Chips
1 Egg

Method:

In a bowl, sift together the flour, spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg) and bicarbonate of soda. 

In a separate, larger bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add to this the egg, treacle and syrup and beat until thoroughly combined. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients - it's best to do it two or three tablespoons at a time to prevent the flour from going everywhere, especially if you are using a handheld electric whisk like me. Once you have a smooth mixture, gently fold in the chocolate chips. 

You should now have a slightly sticky, but not runny, dough. Wrap this in clingfilm and leave it in the fridge to chill for at least a couple of hours, but ideally overnight.

Once you are ready to make your cookies, preheat your over to 170 degrees (or 150 for a fan oven). Line a baking tray with a sheet of greaseproof paper, and take the gingerbread dough out of the fridge. I found it best to warm it up by working it in my hands for a minute or two before rolling it out. You want to roll it to a thickness of about 5mm. This will give the biscuits a nice, soft texture. Use the cookie cutter of your choice to cut your biscuits and place them onto the baking tray. Make sure you leave a decent gap between them as they will expand, and you could potentially end up with a single, giant cookie! 

Bake the biscuits for 12-15 minutes until they have risen and are a nice golden colour. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Mint Chocolate Aero Cakes

I was looking through my baking cupboard for some inspiration, and spied a mint chocolate Aero bubble bar. I'm really bad for purchasing sweets and chocolate randomly if it's something I think I could use on a cupcake. Or brownie. Or big cake cake. Or anything really. I say I spied it... what actually happened was that I opened the cupboard and it fell out... I took this to be a sign that it was time to use it. I've been using the Hummingbird chocolate cupcake recipe a fair bit recently, and thought it was time to experiment  bit and try adding my own twist to it. So I came up with these minty delights.

Ingedients:

(Makes 16)

Cupcakes:

200g Plain Flour

140g Caster Sugar

140g Light Muscovodo Sugar

40g Cocoa Powder (I used Bourneville)

1 Tsp Baking Powder
80g Butter/Stork (must be at room temperature)
240ml Milk (I used skimmed)
2 Eggs

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring 

Aero Bubble Bar (in mint)

Frosting:

350g Icing Sugar

175g Butter

2 Tsp Milk (I used skimmed)

1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring

Green food colouring

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (or 150 degrees for a fan oven) and prepare your muffin/cake tin. The recipe will do 16 medium sized cupcakes, but you can make 12 muffin sized cakes if you prefer.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, both kinds of sugar, butter, cocoa powder and baking powder until a nice sandy consistency is reached. In a separate bowl (or jug), beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and peppermint flavouring. Add about half this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined. Finally, add the remaining liquid and stir gently until smooth. 

I used an ice cream scoop to add mixture to each cupcake case. Then I placed a square of the Aero bubble bar in the middle of each case before adding more mixture to make the case 2/3 full. The Aero bubbles will work just as well. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cupcakes comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, cream together the butter and icing sugar. Separate this into two smaller bowls. To one, add the cocoa powder and to the other add the mint flavouring and food colouring, Mix these into the icing. Spoon the frosting into your piping back, alternating between the brown and the green. Once you have iced your cupcakes, top each with another piece of Aero. Eat.

Romantic Rolo Cupcakes

Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo? Or your last Rolo cupcake? Two of my work colleagues recently got engaged, so of course I couldn't resist the opportunity to bake. I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with a caramel icing, and a Rolo sneakily hidden in the centre.

Ingreduents:

Makes 12

Cupcakes:
200g Plain Flour
40g Cocoa Powder (I used Bourneville)
140g Caster Sugar
140g Light Muscovodo Sugar
1 Tsp Baking Powder
80g Butter/Stork (must be at room temperature)
240ml Milk (I used skimmed)
2 Eggs
12 Rolos (frozen)
1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Frosting:
4 Tbsp Toffee Ice Cream Sauce
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
160g Butter
200g Icing Sugar
Ready To Roll Regal Icing in Red
Edible Gold Lustre

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (150 if using a fan oven) or gas mark 6.

Put the flour, both types of sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder and butter into a bowl. Mix gently until you have a sandy consistency.

Beat the two eggs, then whisk in the milk and vanilla extract. Add approximately half the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until combined. Then add the remaining wet ingredients and gently beat until you have a smooth consistency, being careful not to overmix.

Spoon the mixture into your cake tins/papers until each one is about half full. Place a frozen Rolo in the centre of each, then add more mixture on top til about 2/3 full. If you don't freeze the Rolos, they will become hard and crunchy which does still taste nice. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, or until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. whilst the cakes are baking, feel free to eat any left over Rolos. Leave to cool in the tin for about five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

For the icing, cream the butter and icing sugar in a bowl. Once it has reached a creamy, fluffy texture, add the vanilla essence and toffee sauce. Beat again until thoroughly combined. The icing is then ready to be piped or spread over your cupcakes. Sprinkle some gold lustre over the icing.

Take the ready to roll icing, and cut out 24 small hearts with a cookie cutter. Make sure you roll this out quite thinly. Place the hearts on top of each cupcake with a slight overlap. 

Savoury Mince Pie

I thought today I'd try something new, and give some savoury baking a go. So I decided to have a bash at making a mince pie. I've never actually made a pie before, and also decided to follow my own recipe rather than one which had been tried and tested. Why make things easy?!

I have to say that I am pretty pleased with the result. It certainly doesn't look perfect, but it tasted delicious.

Ingredients:

Serves Six

For the pastry:
225g Plain Flour
50g Butter
50g Vegetable Fat
A little cold water

For the filling:
500g Lean Mince
One White Onion
Worcester Sauce\
One Beef Oxo Cube
Rainbow Pepper
Dried Basil
Gravy Granules
One Egg

To make the pastry, first sift the flour into a bowl before adding the butter and the vegetable fat. Rub this in with your fingertips until it reaches the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Add a little cold water, a tablespoon at a time, to bind this into a soft dough. It should not be sticky. Wrap this in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.

To make the filling for the pie, dice the onion and sprinkle the beef oxo cube over this. Brown together in a pan on a medium heat. Next, add your mince and brown this. Once this is done, reduce the heat to a simmer and the basil and rainbow pepper(to taste) and a dash of Worcester sauce. Mix up a tablespoon of gravy granules with a little boiling water to make a thick gravy. Then pour this into the pan with the mince, and stir. Take this off the heat while you roll out your pastry.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (or 180 degrees for a fan oven) and grease or line a nine inch pie tin. Place your pastry between two sheets of clingfilm and roll it out until it is quite thin. Place this in your pie tin and press it into the bottom before going round the edges. Trim off the excess, and roll this out again to make the top of your pie.

Spoon the filling into the pie ensuring it remains a little below the rim of the tin. Level it off with the spoon. Cover this with the remaining pastry and press the top and bottom together to make sure it is sealed. Prick the top five or six times in the centre with a knife to allow the steam to escape during baking. Beat your egg, and then brush this over the top of the pie to give the pastry a nice golden finish.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is a nice golden brown.

Banana and Butterscotch Muffins

We all have them - those bananas that we forget to eat, and so they sit in the fruit bowl and slowly turn black. Rather than throwing them away, you could try this delicious little Nigella Lawson recipe.

I used butterscotch chips (from Sainsburys), and I only used 100g rather than the 150g in the recipe. I actually found this to be enough as the chips became nice and melty, giving the muffins a satisfying gooeyness. Personally, I think any more butterscotch may have made them a little too sweet, but it's all a matter of your preference.

I found that the mixture produced 12 lovely big muffins with enough left over for 3 smaller cupcakes. I baked them all for 15 minutes, and this was ample time for the muffins to become nice and golden. They smelt so delicious that I ended up eating one straight from the oven and it tasted like a lovely sponge dessert. They are also yummy cold, with a strong banana flavour and the butterscotch cutting through for that sugar hit.

Percy Pig Cupcakes

I am currently addicted to the little porcine devil known as Percy Pig. For those of you not familiar with this character, he is a chewy sweet available from Marks & Spencer. He comes in many different varieties, and I decided that the original Percy would look very cute on top of a cupcake.

Percy comes in grape and raspberry flavours, and after being unable to find any cupcake recipes in these flavours which I felt would compliment him, I settled on a vanilla cupcake. I've made a few of the Hummingbird Bakery recipes, and have always found them to produce a delicious sponge, moist and light. The recipe I used can be found here.

The only change I made to the recipe was using skimmed milk instead of whole milk, and it produced the perfect amount of mixture for 12 standard sized cupcakes. I baked them for 18 minutes at 150 degrees in my fan oven, and they came out perfectly. I have never made buttercream frosting with milk in the recipe before, and was a little concerned that it may be a bit runny, but it actually came out beautifully. It tasted lovely and creamy on top of the cupcake, and the actual cake itself wasn't overpoweringly sweet. Again, the quantity was just about perfect for the number of cakes, and there was very little waste. I didn't pile it on as I wanted to keep the tops of the cakes relatively flat, but if you like lots of buttercream, you may need to make a little more.

I found that a 100g pack of Percy Pig sweets contains exactly 12. I bought two of these packs (they were on offer) just in case I needed any more, and may use the second bag to whip up another batch as these are a scrumptious alternative to chocolate cakes, and I think they look incredibly cute.

Rocky Road Muffins

If anything can brighten up a dreary Monday, it's chocolate. And gooey marshmallows. And more chocolate. This is a really easy recipe, and one that would probably be quite fun to do with kids too.

Ingredients

225g/8oz Plain Flour
55g/2oz Cocoa Powder (I used Bournville)
1 tbsp Baking Powder
Pinch Of Salt
115g/4oz Caster Sugar
50g/1 3/4oz Plain Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Mini Marshmallows (or big ones chopped up)
2 Eggs
250ml/ 9 fl oz Milk (I used skimmed as that's what I had in the fridge)
85g/3oz Butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (or 180 if using a fan oven like me) /400 degrees f/ gas mark. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin (either grease it, or line it with paper cases). 

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and then stir in the sugar, chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Lightly beat the eggs in another bowl before beating in the milk and the butter.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the beaten liquid ingredients into it. Gently stir until just combined. If you over mix it, it will become tough. I prefer to do the mixing by hand.

Spoon the mixture into the cases. An ice cream scoop also works brilliantly for this. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a cake tester (or cocktail stick!) can be pushed into the cake, and comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

When cooled, DEVOUR!!!

Although this recipe should make 12 muffins, I actually got 12 muffins and 6 smaller cakes out of it. Sadly, this means I have some extra cakes to eat. I shall be enjoying mine with a mug of Whittards Rocky Road hot chocolate.

Cherry And Almond Loaf

My dad asked me to bake him something with cherries in it, and when I stumbled across a recipe for a Cherry and Almond Loaf Cake, it sounded perfect.

This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, and I followed it exactly. I am aware that some people have experienced issues with the batter being too wet, but I did not find this. I did, however, need to bake it for an hour and 8 minutes for the middle to cook through. I used tinfoil over the top for the last 8 minutes to ensure the outside of the cake did not burn.

For anyone interested, the recipe I used can be found here.

This is a moist cake, perfect to enjoy with a cuppa. It should keep for up to a week in an airtight container, but I don't think there is much chance of it surviving that long...