Butterscotch Cake

There’s been a serious lack of cake around here recently. Although, if I’m being perfectly honest, there’s been a serious lack of anything around here recently. Despite a New Year’s Resolution I made to myself to post here once a week, I’ve been suffering a serious bout of ‘cooking block’ recently (it’s a bit like writer’s block, only with more washing up at the end of it.) While I’ve attempted to alleviate this by baking cake-after-cake-after-cake, none of them have been right. A Blood Orange and Lemon cake which involved simmering the fruits whole before blending them into a pulp resulted in a concoction which was lip puckeringly bitter. (It ended up being dumped in the bin while myself and Mr. McMc attempted to whistle the last post.) A Red Wine and Chocolate cake was OK, but slightly too chalky and dry to share with the class, while the hastily snapped pictures I took of it made it look like a gigantic disintegrating doorstop covered in splooge.

Finally, in a last ditch attempt to create something anything which was vaguely dessert-based for Easter dinner, I hit upon the idea of a Butterscotch Cake comprising of an ethereally light vanilla sponge coated in a layer of thick butterscotch.  It was simple, it was delicious and it didn’t require me to grate, boil or pulp anything that could fly out of my mixer and hit me right between the eyes (you may laugh at this, but – real talk – the other day an uncrushed lump of muscovado sugar flew out of the bowl of my KitchenAid and whacked me right in the forehead. I would have found it hilarious if I hadn’t been so shocked.) It was perfect – an addictive slice of buttery, caramelised sweetness which might just be one of the best things to ever come out of my kitchen.

I’d suggest serving it for afternoon tea accompanied by genteel finger sandwiches and tea served out of china cups, but I found that it was best eaten messily with my fingers while watching episode after episode of Community in my pyjamas. And while I’m not entirely sure my blogging mojo has fully returned, it was certainly nice to welcome its brief return with a saucepan full of butterscotch.

BUTTERSCOTCH CAKE (Makes 8 generous slices and 16 slim ones)

For the sponge, I used a mixture of demerara and golden caster sugar which added a nice caramel note. If you don’t have any demerara sugar, just use 150g golden caster sugar. The butterscotch recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen (have you bought her recipe book yet? You really should you know.)

You will need:

For the cake

• 150g unsalted butter
• 75g demerara sugar
• 75g golden caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt

For the butterscotch sauce

• 125g unsalted butter
• 109g muscovado sugar
• 1118ml double cream
• 1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
• 1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract, plus more to taste

Make It!

1. Bake your cake: Heat your oven to Gas Mark 4/150°c. Grease a medium sized springform cake tin and line it with baking paper.
2. Beat the softened butter and sugars together until they look light and fluffy. (You can do this with a wooden spoon if you have super-strong arms, but you might prefer to use an electric mixer for this bit.) Add the eggs, milk and vanilla essence and whisk again. The mixture should be thick enough to drip off a spoon and leave a trail in the bowl.
3. Sift the dry ingredients together. (I always use a trick I learned from Delia for this which involves holding the sieve at chest height to ensure that the flour gets a good airing as it falls down into the bowl.) Add the flours to the wet ingredients and gently fold the mixture together until everything is just combined. You don’t want to do this too roughly as then the sponge will lose some of its light airiness.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin, and smooth out with a spatula. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until golden and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the side while you get on with the important business of making the butterscotch sauce.
5. Make the butterscotch sauce: Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a gentle heat. Add the sugar, double cream and salt and whisk together until well blended. Bring to a very gentle boil and cook for about five minutes, whisking occasionally.
6. Remove from heat and add one teaspoon of the vanilla extract, stirring to combine. Dip a spoon in the sauce and carefully taste the sauce to see if you want to add additional pinches or salt or splashes of vanilla. Tweak it to your taste, whisking well after each addition.  Leave the sauce to cool for a minute until it has thickened slightly.
7. Remove the cake from the tin and place on a (large) plate. Pour the butterscotch sauce generously over the cake until it is fully covered. If you have any sauce left over, I highly suggest eating it straight from the pan with a large spoon until you feel a bit sick.
8. Once the cake is cool and the butterscotch sauce has hardened, slice the cake and serve with coffee. Leftovers can be kept in an airtight tin for up to five days (but trust me, it probably won’t last that long.)

Toffee Apple Cake

No one likes it when people moan about how busy they are (because hey, isn’t everyone incredibly busy? It feels like half of the people I know are currently ill from stress induced lurgy) but – real talk – life feels ever so slightly chaotic at the moment. I feel as though I live in a world of deadlines, stress and poor sleep patterns occasionally disrupted by the occasional visit to the pub. I’ve found myself desperately inhaling gigantic portions of spinach in an attempt to keep my iron levels up so I don’t fall asleep underneath my desk. It’s come to the point where I’m actually looking forward to my eight hour flight to New York (#humblebrag) next Tuesday as it will be eight hours where I can read, watch crap TV and drink cheap wine without worrying that I should be somewhere doing something.

I’ve mentioned before that when life gets too much for me to handle, I head to my kitchen to indulge in a bit of displacement-therapy baking. Baking-hell-hath-no-fury like a woman who’s on a deadline and is procrastinating by making a gigantic cake. This was the case in my kitchen last Saturday where I was putting real life at bay by closing the door and attempting to cook with every perishable ingredient I could find. The nice people at Fruitdrop, an office fruit delivery service, had recently sent me a box stuffed full of apples, plums, oranges and bananas. After eating a fair amount of the fruit (and forcing giant carrier bags full of bananas onto my colleagues), I decided to make a Bonfire night inspired Toffee Apple Cake.

I’ve adapted this recipe from one I saw on the Great British Bake Off. While the cake on there is an exotic creature full of caramel crowns and orange zest, this is a slightly more homely offering. However, looks aren’t everything, and this is full of squidgy toffee flavour (helped in no small part by the demerera sugar used in the sponge), warm, sweet wintry spices and a good whack of booze (I used Courvoisier, but any brandy will do. If you’ve got any Calvados hanging around, I’d suggest throwing that in there.) The proof of any pudding is in the eating, and when I took this cake to a party on Saturday night, it was quite gratifying to see it all gobbled up. If you want to get fancy, you could always smother it in custard, or a butterscotch sauce, but I preferred to just eat chunks of it whole while standing by my stove and basking in the radiance of a bit of much-needed-me-time.

TOFFEE APPLE CAKE

Adapted from a recipe originally seen on the Great British Bake Off

You will need:

For the toffee apple topping

• 200g caster sugar
• 3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced into medium-sized wedges (they should be roughly the thickness of a pound coin)

For the cake

• 225g unsalted butter, softened
• 125g demerera sugar
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 225g self-raising flour
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4 medium free-range eggs, at room temperature
• 60ml tbsp whole milk
• 2 shots of brandy (I used Courvoisier)
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Make It!

1. Thoroughly grease a medium sized springform cake tin (I like to spray the tin with spray oil for this – it works a treat.) Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.
2. For the topping, put a small saucepan over a high heat. Add the sugar and three tablespoons of water and cook until it the sugar melts and turns amber – do not stir at any point, although you may want to give it a quick swirl towards the end to ensure that all the sugar is browned. Remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour the toffee into the lined baking tin, taking care to cover the base completely. BE CAREFUL – hot molten sugar can burn you quite badly, and it’s also a bugger to get off surfaces once it’s cooled. Place the apple wedges in three rows on top of the toffee.
3. For the cake, beat the butter, demerera sugar and soft brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda and add a tablespoon of this to the butter mix along with one egg. Mix until combined and repeat the process until all the flour and eggs have been used. Stir in the milk, brandy, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour into the cake tin and gently smooth with a spatula.
4. Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Using oven gloves, place a cooling rack over the tin and flip the cake over, making sure that you take care not to burn yourself on any hot caramel that may leak from the tin. Leave to cool for five – ten minutes, then remove from the tin and set aside to cool completely.
5. Cut yourself a big slice of this bad boy and enjoy.

Introducing ‘The Flick’ and some Apricot themed recipes

Because arranging a wedding, writing a book and having a pretty intense full time job just isn’t enough for me to be getting on with, I’ve been spending my time recently working with some pretty awesome ladies on a new ‘lady blog’ (urgh, I really really hate that phrase). Allow me to introduce to you The Flick – a lady blog for women who don’t do lady blogs. As well as writing my usual scintillating prose here, I’ll be contributing a number of features there too. My official title is ‘Food and Drink editor,’ but Lord knows I’ll probably go on (at length) about other crap on there too.

We launched on Monday, and since then the response has been amazing. Although quite a bit of that may have been due to this absolutely brilliant video posted by my colleague Vanessa, where she road tests ‘the world’s most powerful sex toy.’ (It looks like a power sander, it plugs into the mains, it vibrates so hard that I could probably whip cake batter with it, and it terrifies cats. What more do you need?) Essentially, The Flick is brilliant, I’m dead proud to be part of the team, and you should all read it. And not just because there’s two (really quite good) recipes from me currently on there either.

The first is for this Apricot Upside-Down Cake, which is absolutely delicious and a doddle to make. Each slice of this is a riot of different flavours – a pale, fluffy vanilla crumb and honey sweetness tempered with spice from the cardamom and bursts of tartness from the apricots. There’s currently half of this left in my fridge, and I keep having to resist the urge to eat it in one full gulp with a flagon of Yorkshire Tea.

Of course, if you decide to make this, and find you have excess cake that you don’t know what to do with, you could always pull out your ice cream maker and throw it into Honey Ice Cream with Apricot Upside-Down Cake pieces. Oh yes. I went there.

I’m not going to pretend that I am the first person ever to have had the thought of whacking a load of cake into a load of frozen custard and reaping the sweet sweet rewards, but I will happily admit that I’m quite proud of this recipe. Apricots and honey are natural bedfellows anyway, so the two complement each other in a frozen dessert like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé in the video to Telephone. I highly recommend making this if, like me, you’re currently living in a climate which is something akin to living inside a lukewarm grey shower cubicle. It won’t bring the sun out, but it may make you feel just that little bit more Summery. If only for five minutes.

Anyway. That’s The Flick. Read us, comment on us, debate with us, and love us. I’m looking forward to seeing you on there.

Honey Spice Cake

I didn’t get Easter eggs this year. Don’t worry, I wasn’t too miffed about the situation – I’m more a savoury than sweet kind of girl, and Easter eggs just don’t taste the same if they’ve not been shattered by my younger brother headbutting them into little chocolatey shards. Instead, I spent my Easter doing what I do best. Baking. I’d like to think that if Jesus was around nowadays, he’d be less interested in people gorging themselves on chocolate, and more interested in people gnawing on delicious looking cakes and gigantic legs of lamb. Then again, if Jesus was around now, I’m sure he’d be a massive hit at cocktail parties with that whole ‘turning water into wine’ trick of his.

And so, on Sunday, I rolled my sleeves up and pootled off to ASDA on my bike for baking supplies. I originally intended for this to be a spiced stout cake, if only to attone for the Humingbird Bakery Chocolate Stout cake which I attempted to make (with a cracking hangover) for Mother’s Day, and which resulted in an overly sweet pile of crumbs which was only held together by a heart-attack-inducing amount of cream cheese. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Mainly because ASDA was closed, so I had to turn to the heathen cornershops of Bootle for salvation.

When life gives you a major supermarket-unfriendly-bank holiday that you’ve forgotten about because you have your head in the clouds, you have to improvise. So, I decided to replace the stout with some Hobgoblin ale, the black treacle with some honey, and glazed the bugger with a combination of icing sugar, and my old friend Mr. Ginger Cordial. What resulted was a beautiful, golden coloured cake, full of toffee flavours and a good whack of warming, zingy spice – like a giant toffee mince pie. It’s also wonderfully moist, a huge squidgey slice of comfort.

OK, so it may not have been particularly seasonal, but (if my poor recollection of my R.E. lessons from school serves me well), Jesus was more likely to relax with a delicious snack of honey when he wasn’t hanging out with his disciples than he was a giant chocolate egg…

HONEY SPICE CAKE (Makes one medium sized cake, containing 10-12 slices)

You will need:

• 360g self raising flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 5 pods cardamom – seeds ground in a pestle and mortar
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 200g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 150g firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 350ml ruby ale (I used Hobgoblin)
• 2 large eggs, beaten lightly

For the glaze

• 3 tablespons milk
• 100g icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons ginger cordial

Make It!

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c/gas mark 4. and butter a medium sized springform cake tin.
2. Into a large bowl sift together the self raising flour,  salt,  and the spices.
3. Combine the ruby ale, butter and honey in a medium sized pan, and heat gently until the butter has melted and is foaming slightly. Take off the heat, add the brown sugar and leave to cool.
4. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl, and add to the cooled honey-butter-beer mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until a firm, gloppy batter has been formed. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Leave it to cool completely before turning the cake out onto a cooling rack.
5. In a small bowl whisk together the icing sugar, milk and ginger cordial. Pour the glaze carefully over the cake, letting it drip down the sides. Brush the glaze over the the surface area with a small pastry brush until the entire cake is covered. Allow to stand for 30 minutes, or until the glaze is set.

Cardamom-Cinnamon Crumb Loaf

For various reasons (ostensibly because of “book research” but also because of “boredom”, “procrastination techniques” and “hangovers”) I’ve been watching a lot of food programmes recently which have been fronted by women.  These all tend to follow a bit of a pattern – a model-pretty female cook (usually in her mid 20s – early 30s), dressed immaculately in a vintage gown, floats around an urban landscape picking up artisan goodies for a little soirée she is holding for some friends that evening. After a few token shots of her chuckling with a homely shopkeeper and squeezing some ripe fruit with her perfectly manicured fingers, she wafts home to her giant, beautifully attired kitchen where she coos over some cake batter that she’s just whipped up in her hot pink KitchenAid. A few minutes later, and she’s constructed a beautiful multi-layed confection, swathed in picture perfect icing which she will then slice, take a dainty bite of and declare to be “divine!” or “swoonsome!” before she shoves it to one side, lest she be tempted to scoff the whole thing and ruin her perfect figure.

Of course, it’s churlish of me to be annoyed by these kinds of programmes. After all, they’re designed for the sole purpose of escapism – for people like me to lose themselves daydreaming about how they could attain that perfect lifestyle, where the biggest worry a girl can have in a day is whether her local deli is stocking her favourite brand of  icing sugar. “But these women are charming!” people tell me. “They’re sweet as buttons and wouldn’t hurt a fly! How could you possibly take offence to them? What’s so wrong about a beautiful woman making cake?”

Well, as a decidedly unbeautiful woman who is quite fond of making cakes, I think I’d quite like to see a bit more realism in my female-orientated food programming. Perhaps, just for once, I’d like to see a show which involves a  harassed looking woman (preferably with a face like a frying pan, but it’s TV and I know they can be funny about these kinds of things) running around a Sainsbury’s Local after work desperately wondering how the shitting hell she is going to fit in going for a run, making her tea and getting her Google Reader down to zero before she passes out on the sofa whilst watching Seinfeld. I’d like to see a woman show us how to cook a Sunday Lunch for her extended family whilst wrestling  with a force 10 port-acquired hangover and trying not to throw up in the gravy jug. I’d like to see a working woman with kids attempting to figure out how she’s going to cook a decent meal for them on a limited budget after finishing an eight hour shift.

Women aren’t stupid. And whilst there are many of us who enjoy baking, it’s a litle bit patronising to presume that we’ll fall over with joy every time we see a female chef whipping up some “naughty little treats” on TV. So come on production companies, cut us a little slack. Stop treating us like twee little imbeciles. Give us some blood and spice with our sugar.

And on that note, here’s some cake.

CARDAMOM-CINNAMON CRUMB LOAF (Makes one medium sized loaf)

For the loaf cake

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 200g unsalted butter
• 150g soft brown sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 200ml single cream

For the cardamom-cinnamon crumb

• 75g butter
• 75g soft brown sugar
• 75g plain flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• The seeds from 6 cardamom pods, ground in a pestle and mortar

Make It!

1. First, grease a medium sized loaf tin well, and heat your oven up to Gas Mark 4/200 degrees c.
2. Sift your plain flour and baking powder together in a medium sized bowl. Add the brown sugar and combine well with a wooden spoon.
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Leave to cool for around five minutes, then add the eggs, vanilla essence and cream.
4. Combine the wet ingredients with the flour and sugar mixture until a firm, sticky batter has been formed. If you find the batter to be a bit dry, add a touch more cream. Pour the batter into your loaf tin.
5. Now, make your crumb topping. Place the buter, flour, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom in a bowl and combine well with your fingers until rough sticky ‘crumbs’ have been formed. Layer these on top of the loaf cake batter.
6. Bake the loaf cake at Gas Mark 4/200 degrees C for around 45 minutes-1 hour. The cake is done when the crumb has become browned and firm, and when a toothpick comes out clear when inserted into the cake.
7. Serve with coffee and a side order of misanthropy.

Earl Grey Cake with Lemon Glaze

 ”Talk and tea is his speciality,’ said Giles. ‘Come along inside… We’ll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place.”

There may be something quite twee about starting a post with a quote from Wind in the Willows, but I firmly subscribe to the idea that tea and cake does make the world a better place. Saying that, I also believe that having a slice of cake for breakfast, dinner and tea constitutes a balanced diet. It’s a balm for the soul – guaranteed to make even the worst of situations seem that little bit better.

I woke up on Sunday after a riotous few days of eating, drinking and dancing, and realised I hadn’t made a cake in ages. The past few weeks have been ridiculously busy with work, wedding planning and other life admin, and I wanted to calm my mood by losing myself in a frenzy of whisking, bowl licking and icing.  So, I set about rummaging through my cupboards to see what ingredients I could combine to turn into something tasty.

Spring is in the air in Bootle at the moment, and, despite all the diurnal temper tantrums that March inevitably brings, there’s a real feeling of freshness, of the world reawakening after the long dark Winter months. I’d recently seen a recipe for Earl Grey Cake on the lovely baking blog Raspberri Cupcakes, and immediately knew that it was just the thing I was looking for.

The idea of putting bitter tea leaves into a sweet cake may seem like an odd one. But Earl Grey tea actually adds a lovely dimension to baked products, providing them with a lovely pop of citrus and bergamot without being overwhelming. A lemon glaze just gilds the lily slightly, adding a nice bit of zing. The overall effect is comforting and curiously addictive – both myself and Mr. Cay have kept creeping back to the kitchen over the past few days to sneak surreptitious slices. It may not look like much, but this cake might just be one of the best things I’ve baked this year.

EARL GREY CAKE WITH LEMON GLAZE

Earl Grey Cake recipe adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes

You will need:

For the cake

• 2 Earl Grey tea bags (about 3 tsp leaves)
• 60ml boiling water
• 80ml milk
• 100g butter, at room temperature
• 2 medium sized eggs
• 160g caster sugar
• 190g self-raising flour

For the lemon glaze

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 1 tbsp milk

Make It!

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line a medium sized cake tin. Empty the tea leaves from the tea bags into a cup and add the boiling water. Steep for 3 minutes then add milk to cup.
2. Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Then, add the eggs one at a time, beating until smooth. Next gradually add the flour and tea mixture, alternating between wet and dry ingredients. Beat gently until just combined.
3. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. After around five minutes, turn it out onto a wire rack or a large plate.
4. Whilst the cake is cooling, make the glaze. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon juice, lemon zest and the milk. Beat until smooth and glossy (feel free to add more icing sugar to the glaze if you feel it looks a bit thin)
5. Once the cake is sufficiently cool (this should take around twenty minutes or so), pour the glaze over it. I like to take a small pastry brush and brush the glaze over the sides so that it’s almost entirely covered with zesty sugary goodness.
6. Serve immediately. This cake tastes good when freshly made, and even better when refridgerated overnight.

Milk Chocolate Tart with Cherry Sorbet

It’s the last Friday of 2011, and, as is customary, I am currently sat in my pyjamas scoffing leftover Christmas chocolates and thinking about the events of the past year. 2011 has been a funny one for me. Whilst there’s been no deaths in the family, or even (bar Mr. Cay’s dodgy mouth) any major health scares, I’d  be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly glad to see the back of it. There’s been one too many mistakes and regrets for my liking – friends who turned out to be anything but, chances which I cocked up due to my own idiocy, loaves of elaborately sweetened bread which descended into mires of gloop. And let’s not mention the calimari I attempted to make last night which turned into a rubbery, soggy mess.

As it is, I’m immensely looking forward to 2012, with the blind idiocy of a person who is trying not to panic about just how much she has to accomplish over the course of the next twelve months. After all, it’s the year where I have to write a book, get married and turn 30 whilst attempting to retain my sanity amidst the chaos. I could panic about it all, but that would be pointless. As it is, tomorrow night I shall just raise my whisky glass, shout BRING IT ON WORLD! at midnight, and indulge in another slice of this Milk Chocolate Tart.

Prior to making this, I’d never had much luck with tarts. The pastry always turned out to be too soggy, or cracked, or just couldn’t handle the strain of a huge custard filling. But then I turned to that guru of all things baked, Dan Lepard. And what do you know, I think I may have finally gotten to grips with this whole ‘pastry’ lark.

The recipe for this Milk Chocolate Tart is based (very loosely) on his Pecan Crusted Bourbon Chocolate Tart. There, he suggests chilling the dough twice, which helps to keep it firm, and reduces shrinkage whilst baking. Because it’s the season to get down and get merry, I added a good shot of Black Grouse whisky to the Milk Chocolate custard. Black Grouse is a peated malt with overtones of caramel, sugar and a slight hit of smoke – and is just the thing to cut through the sweetness of so much chocolate.

The cherry sorbet is also a must when you’re serving this – its sharpness perfectly compliments the tart. Indeed, I quite enjoyed just eating it on its own – scooping it out of the tub with a big spoon when no one was looking. All in all, this is a dessert to savour -  a small slice of indulgence to enjoy whilst you’re seeing out the old year and welcoming in the new. Happy New Year (and, because I don’t say it often enough, thank you for continuing to read Little Red Courgette!)

MILK CHOCOLATE TART WITH A CHERRY SORBET (Serves 8-10 slices)

Milk Chocolate Tart adapted from a recipe by Dan Lepard

You will need:

For the Milk Chocolate Tart

• 125g plain flour, plus a little extra for rolling
• 25g caster sugar
• 75g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 egg yolk

For the filling

• 300ml double cream
• 50g soft light brown sugar
• 400g good quality milk chocolate, chopped (I used a combination of Green & Blacks, and Lindt)
• 75g unsalted butter, chopped
• 50ml whisky

For the cherry sorbet

• 400g cherries, washed and de-pitted (be careful when you’re de-pitting your cherries – I did it by squishing them and my kitchen ended up looking like the scene of a particularly brutal murder)
• 200g white sugar
• 150ml water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest and juice of a lemon

Make It!

1. Sift the flour and caster sugar into a bowl. Cut up the butter, add to the flour mixture and rub in with your fingertips until any lumps vanish.  Mix the egg yolk with a teaspoon of ice-cold water and add it to the bowl until a soft dough forms. Pat into a flat slab, cover it with cling film and chill in the fridge until firm (this should take around 20 – 30 minutes).
2. When you’re ready to roll, let the dough soften for five to 10 minutes at room temperature until pliable, then roll it out thinly on a floured surface (if you don’t own a rolling pin, you can use a floured empty wine bottle to do this). Line a tart tin with the pastry, then place the tart case in the fridge until it firmed.
3. Press a sheet of  greaseproof paper weighed down with baking beans against the base and side, bake at 170C (150C fan-assisted)/335F/gas mark 3 for 20 minutes, then remove the paper and bake for 10 minutes more.
4. For the filling, heat the cream until boiling, remove from the heat and stir in sugar until dissolved. Add the chocolate and butter, stir until both have melted, then stir in the whisky. Leave to cool until lukewarm, then beat the mixture slightly until it turns thick and gooey. Pour into the pastry case and chill until set.
5. For the sorbet: Place the cherries in a large bowl and macerate them with the side of a spoon until the flesh has turned pulpy. Put the cherries, sugar, water, lemon zest and vanilla essence in a heavy based, high sided saucepan . Place over a low to medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved turn up the heat slightly and simmer for 3-4 minutes until the mixture has thickened slightly (be careful whilst doing this – the mixture will bubble up very quickly once it reaches boiling point). Squeeze over the lemon juice and stir to combine.
6. Place the sorbet mixture into an ice cream machine, and churn for around 30 minutes until the mixture has firmed up, yet is still slightly slushy when prodded with a fork. Place in the freezer until ready to serve.
7. Serve the tart and the sorbet together with a large shot of your favourite poison.

Gingerbread Cake with a Spicy Orange Glaze

I have become mildly addicted to all things ginger recently. Personally, I blame the changing of the seasons. As soon as the temperature drops, I start seeking the fiery delights of all things ginger – from slugs of ginger wine in my nightly shot of whisky to huge glugs of ginger cordial thrown into a stir fry. And, once December rolls around, I also resume my annual quest for the perfect gingerbread recipe.

When I was a little girl, I was not the biggest fan of gingerbread. Most probably because my overwhelming memory of it is the tooth-chippingly-hard gingerbread people you find being sold in Greggs. But then I discovered the delights of gingerbread cake. And, as regular readers of this blog will already know, if there is one thing I like in this life, then it’s huge slabs of cake.

The road to this particular gingerbread cake recipe is littered with the carcasses of previous attempts. Attempts which have seen me using golden syrup and fresh ginger and too much lemon juice, leading to an end result which managed to be both overly fibrous and tooth-crackingly-sweet. But, during a recent trip to ASDA,  I  finally found the perfect solution to all of my gingery woes. Namely, the discovery of ginger cordial.

Seriously, this stuff is the business. So much so in fact that I’ve managed to go through nearly an entire bottle’s worth in the space of a day. Zingy, with a refreshing citrus punch, it provides just the kick you need to get this gingerbread party started. Whilst it may be gilding the lily somewhat, this (along with ginger jam and a good dollop of black treacle)  is used in both the loaf cake and the glaze, which provides with a real oomph. The end result is a cake which is as dark as a December night, sugary, sticky, dense and ever so moist. Indeed, I would suggest that  it’s the type of cake that you stick in your bag, and merrily munch on as you brave the Christmas shopping crowds. And if you’re wondering whether this really is the ultimate gingerbread cake, then why don’t you make it for yourself and find out?

GINGERBREAD CAKE WITH A SPICY ORANGE GLAZE

For the gingerbread cake

• 260g plain flour
• 113g unsalted butter
• 110g muscovado sugar
• 3 medium sized eggs
• 1 1/2 tbsps ginger jam
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tsps cinnamon
• 1 tsp powdered ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (I mashed mine up in my pestle and mortar)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 120ml black treacle
• 100ml ginger cordial
• 150ml semi skimmed milk
• Zest of an orange

For the spicy orange glaze

• 150g icing sugar
• The juice of an orange
• 1 tbsp ginger cordial

Make It!

1. Sift  the flour, baking soda, salt and spices together into a medium sized bowl.
2. Next, beat together the butter and muscovado sugar until they becomes dark and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well with a hand mixer after each addition. Make sure you scrape down the sides with a plastic spatula, so none of the mix escapes, flies off, sticks to a diamond hard sheen on your cupboards and slowly reduces the value of your house. Add the orange zest, black treacle, milk, ginger jam and ginger cordial and beat to combine.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture until it forms a thick, dark gloopy batter. Pour into a loaf tin, smooth the top with a spatula, and bake on 177 degrees c/Gas Mark 4 for 35-45 minutes. The cake is done when you insert a toothpick into it and it comes out clean.
4. Whilst the cake is cooling, make the glaze. This can be done by sifting the icing sugar together with the orange juice and ginger cordial, and mixing it together until it becomes smooth and glossy. Once the cake is lukewarm to the touch, brush it over the cake with a pastry brush. If your cake has cracked slightly in the oven, the glaze will run into all of the ridges for an extra sugar hit.
5. Serve with a mug of builders tea, and a dollop of lemon curd.

If you’re looking for another gingerbread recipe – this one for Guinness Pumpkin Gingerbread  from North South Food looks pretty tasty too!

Chocolate Chestnut Meringue Cake

Birthdays. Like Starbucks coffee, Harry Potter and the musical oeuvre of Lady Gaga, I have always found them to be slightly overrated. The only birthday I’ve ever really found myself getting excited about was my 21st which started with me drinking too much champagne on a train to Newcastle, and ended with me falling arse over tit down a hill whilst dressed as a PacMan ghost. Unfortunately, seeing as I’m turning the grand old age of 29, I fear I may be too old for that kind of thing nowadays.

As it is, I have learnt to lower my expectations when it comes to the annual celebration of the day of my birth. After all, what are birthdays but just another day – albeit another day where your parents call you up to cry and tell you the story of your birth (I was two weeks late, had to be pulled out with a pair of forceps, and the consultant told my Mum off because I’d made him miss Coronation Street). The best thing about the whole affair in my opinion is that they give you an excuse to legitimately drink during the day (I like to do my daytime drinking in the bath fact fans) and eat cake. Lots and lots and lots of cake.

Lets face it – most birthday cake is rotten. It’s usually too dry, covered in globs of disgusting buttercream and tastes like a one way ticket to a hypoglycemic coma. In my opinion, it’s high time it had a makeover. And what better way to reinvent the birthday cake by turning it into a Chocolate Chestnut Meringue Cake?

This cake is everything a dessert should be – a rich, flourless chocolate truffle cake topped with a firm, chewy, toothsome meringue. I had a tube of Créme de Marrons (aka sweetened Chestnut paste) that I’d found being sold for 99p in my local deli so I decided to throw that into the mix as well – lending the cake a nice nutty sweetness which cut through the denseness of the chocolate. I also finally relented and finally invested in a hand mixer which I found being sold for £6.00 in my local ASDA. Seriously people, if you don’t own one of these, I highly suggest that you go out and buy one as soon as you can. They’re amazing. All I want to do now is meringue the shit out of everything in sight.

As it is, I’ll just be content to bask in the gorgeous meringue joy of this cake instead – a cake which tasted pretty bloody good half an hour out of the oven, and even better the next day when all the flavours had melded together to form a slice of fudgey chocolatey delight. Birthdays may be overrated, but this cake certainly isn’t.

CHOCOLATE CHESTNUT MERINGUE CAKE

Adapted from Tartelette

You will need

For the cake:

• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 130g firmly packed light-brown sugar
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 200g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70% Cacao), melted and cooled
• 80g Chestnut Puree
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 tablespoons spiced rum
• A pinch of salt

For the meringue:

• 50g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 4 large egg whites
• 150g white sugar

Make It!

Bake that cake

• Cream the butter and brown sugar until pale and smooth. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping the bottom and sides of your bowl with a spatula if necessary. Add the melted chocolate, vanilla essence, chestnut puree, rum and salt. Mix well until fully combined combined.
• In a clean mixer bowl, beat the 6 egg whites until they have turned fluffy and soft peaks can be formed on top. Fold one-third of the egg whites into chocolate mixture and combine well. Fold in remaining egg whites, pour the cake batter into a well greased cake tin, and bake 25 minutes on Gas Mark 4/180 degrees centigrade. The cake is done when it looks  as though it has only just firmed up – don’t worry if a skewer doesn’t come out clean so long as it’s not too gloopy with uncooked batter.

Slam that meringue:

• Combine the chopped chocolate and cornflour in a small bowl, and set aside. Place remaining 4 egg whites in a clean mixer bowl and beat with a hand mixer on a high speed until they turn thick and frothy. With the mixer running, slowly add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form, about 8 minutes.

Assemble and Finish:

• Remove cake from oven. Using a large offset spatula, spread meringue mixture on top of cake using as little strokes as possible not to deflate the meringue, and return to oven. Bake for around 25 to 30 minutes until the meringue is lightly browned and crisp, Let the cake cool for around 30 minutes, before slicing and serving.

Apple and Sultana Spice Loaf

I’ve just spent a very pleasant few days at Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, where I listened to a lot of very eclectic, VERY NOISY music (personal highlights being Cloaks, Scorn, Teeth of the Sea, Klaus Kinski (a group of boys who played guitars and screamed at lot whilst jumping off masonry and wearing short-shorts), Zombi, Cut Hands and Silver Apples), drank a lot of booze and ate a lot of cake.

I’m pretty much convinced that as well as putting on some of the most interesting bands of any music festival currently taking place in the U.K, Supersonic also serves up the best cake. Myself, Mr. Cay and a few other miscreants all spent a lovely hour on Sunday afternoon munching on sweet treats and cooing over our friends John and Maria’s adorable baby son. I indulged in a slice of Apple and Sultana Loaf, which was heady with cinnamon, and just the thing to recharge my batteries after two days of having my eardrums beaten to a bloody pulp with ‘power electronics’.

I’ve thought about that cake a lot since returning to Liverpool, so, I decided to head to my kitchen and attempt to recreate it for myself. Whereas the version I ate seemed to only use cinnamon, I decided to make mine slightly punchier (and a bit more Autumnal) by adding allspice, ginger and nutmeg. I also layered the top with some apple slices which were then sprinkled with a bit more cinnamon (you can never have enough cinnamon in my opinion) and some demerara sugar.

The finished product reminded me less of a cake, and more of a tea loaf – the kind of thing which is ideal when toasted and served up with plenty of butter. It was just the thing to munch on last night whilst Mr. Cay and I sat around our house listening to Whitehouse and planning world domination. It also made a pretty decent breakfast this morning too, even if the noisiest thing I was listening to was politicians arguing on Radio Four.

Seasonal, spicy and sumptuous, this Apple and Sultana Spice Loaf is a doddle to make and a dream to eat. Why not bake some tonight? Listening to extreme noise music whilst you’re making it is optional though.

APPLE AND SULTANA SPICE LOAF

You will need:

• 300g self raising flour
• 150g muscovado sugar
• 100g sultanas
• 270g bramley apple sauce
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 medium sized Granny Smith apple
• 1 level teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 level teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon dried ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon allspice
• 5 tablespoons milk
• Pinch of salt

Make It!

1. Heat your oven to 200 degrees C/Gas Mark 6, and grease up a loaf tin. If you’re lazy, or just have a pound shop conveniently near your office (I LOVE YOU HOME BARGAINS), nab yourself a sillicon loaf dish for some loose change (you can thank me for this later).
2. Sift the flour into a large bowl, then add the raisins, muscovado sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, dried ginger and salt. Take a wooden spoon and mash the whole lot together until well combined.
3. Add the apple sauce, eggs and milk to the dry ingredients and stir until a thick gloopy batter has been formed. Spoon the mixture into your loaf tin and level out the surface with a spatula.
4. Chop your apple into thin slices, and layer these over the top of the batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and some demerara sugar if you have any handy (if you don’t, ordinary sugar will work just fine).
5. Bake the loaf in the centre of the oven for around an hour, or until it feels firm to the touch, and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle. Turn out onto a wire rack, and leave to cool for half an hour.
6. This loaf is great both on its own, or served toasted and slathered in butter. It also goes very well with a large mug of Earl Grey.