Peanut Butter & White Choc Brownies...

This is one of a few things that I made for my birthday. These mini brownies (or blondies) were ideal to take into work to share around. For us it was a given that we'd like them, peanut butter being something of a favourite. To me, the end result is not so much like a brownie, but is a very tasty, dense mini cake with the perfect contrast of salty and sweet from the peanut butter and white chocolate respectively. Moreish.

• Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar together. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
• Sift the flour and baking powders and add to the mixture with the chocolate chipe to form a dough.
• Spread into a square tin and bake at 170°C for 25 minutes until golden brown.
• Cool in the tin before slicing.

Notes:
• Taken from Rachel Allen's Bake

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Apple & Almond Cake...

I made this cake as we were desperate for some cake but had no butter in. So I started trawling recipes for something that could be baked without it and came across this recipe, then played about with it a bit. Mainly changing it from rhubarb to apple. The cake is light and tasty. The apples add a nice moist element and the crunchy topping finishes it off perfectly. I think there's plenty of scope here for development or customisation if you fancy. It's handy to have a tasty non-butter based cake recipe you can call on when needed.

• Beat the brown sugar, oil, egg and vanilla essence together.
• Gradually add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and milk to this mixture, until smooth.
• Stir in the apple, pour into a tin.
• Combine caster sugar with a tablespoon of melted butter (I used oil as obviously had no butter) and stir in the flaked almonds.
• Sprinkle this over the top of the cake then bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven (180°C).

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Hazelnut Cake...

This cake is divine. I saw it and wanted it immediately. But... we didn't have enought hazelnuts so had to wait. It's taken directly from Rachel Allen's Bake, with no modification besides the decorating (although i found it more practical to do things in a different order). There's no flour, just ground hazelnuts so the end result is moist, whilst the whipped egg whites keep it light. Sorry this photo is so boring, it doesn't to the cake justice really (see it in a different guise) but believe me* it tastes good.

Ingredients:
• 200g Hazelnuts
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 100g Butter
• 5 Eggs, separated
• 175g Caster Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method:
• Preheat oven to 170°C and line a tin with baking paper.
• Grind the hazelnuts on the food processor until finely ground; blend in the baking powder, cinnamon and butter to a coarse paste.
• In a bowl, whisk the egg whites thoroughly until you have stiff peaks.
• In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until moussey, then add the hazelnut mixture.
• Fold the whites into the hazelnut mix in 3 stages.
• Pour into the tin and bake for 55-60 minutes until the edges are coming away from the pan.
• It is suggested you don't open the oven during cooking until close to the end of the time.
• Cool for approximately 10 minutes in the tin before turning out to cool fully.
• Decorate with a little buttercream icing and chopped hazelnuts.

Notes:
* Don't take my word for it. I made this for a cake competition and came away with 'Best Tasting'.

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Grandma's Fruit Loaf...

This recipe of my Grandma's produces you a lovely moist, yet light fruit loaf with a subtle caramel/malt-y flavour. It's the ultimate fruit loaf. Well, if Grandma makes it that is. If anyone else tries you end up with something acceptable, but the magic isn't quite there. This is my latest attempt and was pretty decent considering I didn't have the 'secret' ingredient in.

The original recipe is for 2 loaves, which is why I accidentally photographed 2 eggs.

• Melt butter, sugar and half a cup of water in a pan over a medium heat.
• Add the fruit and leave to cool.
• Combine flour and nuts with 2 tablespoons of Horlicks (secret ingredient), then fold in the flour and the egg (beaten).
• Bake for about 1 hour at 150-160°C. You may want to cover the top half way so the fruit doesn't burn.

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Lemon Sponge Fingers...

I've been featuring a lot of cakes recently, so hopefully you have a sweet tooth. These don't need a lot saying about them, it's just a simple lemon cake cut into small pieces.

• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, gradually with a little flour if necessary
• Fold in the flour and 1 lemon's juice.
• Pour into a 20 x 20cm tin and bake at 170°C for 25 minutes.
• Turn out and cool on a rack.
• Meanwhile, mix your icing with the other lemon's juice and the icing sugar to a consistency that will spread easily, but not run off the cake.
• Ice the cooled cake and sprinkle the top with zest from your lemons.
• Cut into 'finger' slices.

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Bakewell Slices...

A classic cake slice, so much nicer when you make it yourself with the hint of real almonds, rather than the fake strong almond essence flavouring.


Pastry base:
(Requires 150g flour and 75g butter)
• Blend the butter and flour to the breadcrumb stage, then bind with a little cold water, milk or beaten egg, whichever you prefer. You can sweeten the pastry a little with some icing sugar if you like but it's not necessary.
• To keep things simple I pressed this dough mixture into 2 greased 20cm sandwich tins to approx 3mm thickness. You can of course roll it out and line the tin that way for slightly better results!
• Spread jam over the pastry and bake at 170°C for 5-10 minutes until it is beginning to harden slightly.
• Remove from the oven and cool in the tins.

Cake:
• Beat butter and sugar until creamed and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs and fold in the flour and ground almonds.
• Pour/spread over the jam tarts to no more than 1cm deep.
• Sprinkle flaked almonds over the top then bake at 170°C for 20-30 minutes until golden on top.
• Cool in the tins slightly then remove and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
• Mix the icing sugar with a little water until the consistency is just runny enough to drizzle over the tarts.

Notes:
• Makes 2 x 20cm tarts, 8-10 slices per tart. Could use a 22cm square tin or individual tarts.
• Raspberry or blackcurrant jam is best

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Black Bottom Cupcakes...

We received the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook for Christmas, and so with a friend's birthday on 1st January it seemed the ideal occasion to try something out. I chose these Black Bottom Cupcakes. The idea is simple, chocolate cake topped with a blob of cheesecake. They look tasty and are tasty... although I think I will make some modifications next time to make them even tastier!

Cake:
190g Plain Flour
120g Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa
½ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
40ml Sunflower Oil
125ml Water
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
(the recipe also lists 1½ tsp White vinegar, but I can't remember using that so am guessing I didn't!)

Cheesecake:
250g Cream cheese
60g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
½tsp Vanilla Extract
100g Milk Chocolate Chips

Icing:
250g Icing Sugar
80g Butter
25ml Milk
Drop of Vanilla Extract

• Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarb together, then add the oil, vinegar, vanilla and water.
• Spoon the mixture into muffin cases to about 2/3 full.
• To make the cheesecake bit, beat all the ingredients except the chocolate in a bowl with an electric whisk on a medium speed until light and fluffy (roughly the consistency of loose whipped cream). Stir in the chocolate chips gently.
• Spoon on top of the cake mixture and bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for about 20 minutes (until the cheesecake topping is slightly golden at the edges.
• Whilst the cakes cool, beat the icing ingredients together until pale and fluffy.
• Decorate the cakes and dust with cocoa or chocolate shavings.

•Notes:
• Officially this mixture makes 12. For me the cake mix made 9 and the cheescake about 18, so next time I shoudl probably have a bit less cake and a bit more cheesecake per muffin and it'll be about 12!
• Also, the recipe calls for 140g cream cheese, I couldn't get this to thicken up without the extra 100g.

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Chocolate & Chilli Fudgey Cake...

A colleague of mine brought this cake in to work a few weeks back. A few of our more conservative colleagues were not convinced, but I loved it and had a good few portions.
Naturally, I wanted to recreate it so got the recipe from her.

Ingredients:
300g Caster Sugar/Light Brown Sugar
250g Butter
3 Eggs
100g Plain Flour
100g Self-raising Flour
500g Dark Chocolate
1 or 2 medium-sized Chillies
200ml Double Cream

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a 20cm cake tin.
• Beat the butter and sugar together until creamed.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
• Melt 300g of chocolate, cool slightly and add to the mixture.
• Stir in the flour and finely chopped chilli.
• Bake for around 1¼ hours, leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin.

Icing:
• Melt the remaining chocolate and mix into the cream. Cool slightly to thicken.
• When the cake is fully cooled, spread the icing on top.

Notes:
• It’s hard to define how much chilli to put in. Chocolate masks chilli quite well, so I added finely chopped chilli to the mixture until I could taste it. The resulting cake has only a hint and a very slight tingle on the tongue. It also takes away the sweetness of the chocolate leaving just the rich flavour.
• Adapted from this recipe
• Makes at least 12 slices.

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Lemon Drizzle Cake...

This is dead simple, but extremely tasty. It is made from a straightforward Victoria sponge mixture, with the addition of lemon once baked.

• Preheat oven to 180°C, and line a standard loaf tin
• Beat butter and sugar until creamy
• Beat in eggs one-by-one with a little flour if looks like might separate
• Stir in flour and lemon zest
• Bake for 45-50mins (or until skewer comes out clean)
• Meanwhile, mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together to make a loose icing/syrup
• Leave in tin and use a skewer or cocktail stick to prick the top all over
• Gently and slowly pour over the icing so that it soaks into the cake and leave to cool in the tin. The icing will form a slight sugary crust and the cake will be intensely lemony.

Notes:
• Serves 8-10.
• No need to make this in a loaf tin, a standard round 20-23cm tin would do the job too.

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Blackberry & Lemon Curd Cake...

Usually I make this using raspberries, but as we’d been out picking blackberries I thought some were destined for this cake. It’s great hot or cold, with cream, custard or ice cream.

• Beat butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.
• Beat in the eggs one by one
• Stir in the flour and ground almonds.
• Spread over the base of a lined 20x20cm baking tin.
• Cover the top with small blobs of lemon curd and the blackberries. Nudge the blackberries into the batter slightly.
• Cook in a pre-heated oven (180°C) for 35-40 minutes.

Notes:
• The blobs of lemon curd should be no bigger than half a teaspoon, otherwise they’ll sink and become a sticky mess at the bottom of the cake. If they’re smaller they’ll float midway through the sponge.
• I see no reason why this couldn’t be varied to use other jams/marmalade and different fruit to create a variety of flavour combinations.
• Serves 10-12.

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