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.)

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.

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!

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.

Malteser Birthday Cake

When I asked Mr. Cay what kind of cake he’d like for his birthday, his answer was simple; “any cake, so long as it’s chocolate.” Which was fine with me until he added the proviso “and it needs to be PROPER chocolate too – not some of that 90% cocoa spiked with sea salt, chillies and lime you’re so fond of.” Ah. That was me told then.

In circumstances such as these, I’m forced to put my thinking cap on and think of all the different types of sweet treats that my other half is so fond of. A few years ago, I made a Konditor-and-Cook inspired Curly Whirly Cake for his birthday – a great monstrosity of a thing laden in sickly-sweet cream cheese icing studded with huge pieces of curlywurly bars. Once it was made; I stood back, admired my handiwork and attempted to pat myself on the back with my palette knife. Then I ate a slice and realised it was a one way ticket to type 2 diabetes. Whilst a birthday cake should always be delicious, it really shouldn’t be deadly – after all, no one wants to fall into a sugar coma on their special day.

For a while, I toyed with the idea of making the world’s largest Tunnock’s Teacake until I realised that I’d never made marshmallow before, and messing with industrial amounts of boiling sugar and liquid glucose in my small kitchen may result in me blowing up both my worktops and myself.  I was about to give up all hope and just stick a few candles into a Victoria sponge when, whilst munching on a bag of Maltesers, it hit me. Malteser Cake. Hallelujah.

I found this recipe for Malteser Cake on the lovely Afeitar’s blog, and may I just say, it’s possibly one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever baked. Mainly because it actually manages to taste like a giant malteser – from the Horlicks infused sponge, to the chocolate buttercream which is encrusted in a large layer of crushed malty goodness. It also looks pretty bloody impressive too – but then again, who can fail to be impressed by a massive sponge cake covered in rich chocolatey icing?

This is the kind of dessert you make on a lazy Sunday afternoon, with warm sunlight streaming through the window and good music on the stereo. Yes, your kitchen will look like someone decided to hold a dirty protest in there afterwards, but it’s well worth it. When I presented the finished article to Mr. Cay, he devoured his slice in record time before happily declaring it to be “the best birthday cake he’d ever had.” Which, I hope, more than made up for the fact that I’d managed to reduce the value of our house by splattering every avaliable surface with cocoa powder.

MALTESER CAKE (Recipe makes 8-10 slices)
Recipe adapted from Afeitar

You will need:

For the cake

• 150g soft brown sugar (muscavado sugar is best for flavour)
• 100g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 175ml milk
• 15g unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons Horlicks powder (or ovaltine)
• 175g plain flour
• 25g cocoa, sieved
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

For the icing and decoration

• 250g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon cocoa (I used Green & Blacks)
• 45g Horlicks
• 125g soft unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 2 x 37g packets Maltesers

Make it

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/170C. Butter and line two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich cake tins with baking parchment.
2. Whisk together the sugars and eggs until light and frothy. Heat the milk, butter and Horlicks powder in a small saucepan until the butter has melted and the mixture is hot but not boiling. Beat the milk mixture into the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the dry ingredients thoroughly. Divide the cake batter evenly between the two tins and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, by which time the cakes should have risen and will spring back when pressed gently. Let them cool on a rack for about 5-10 minutes and then turn them out of their tins.
3. Once the cakes are cold, you can get on with the icing – I used my stick blender for this, but it’s probably easier to use a food processor if you’re lucky enough to own one! Put the icing sugar, cocoa and Horlicks into a large bowl, and blitz to remove all lumps. Add the butter and process again. Stop, scrape all the excess off, and then blitz again, pouring boiling water down the side of the bowl until you have a smooth, glossy buttercream.
4. Sandwich the cold sponges with half of the buttercream, and then ice the top with what is left, creating a swirly pattern rather than a smooth surface. Stud the outside edge with a ring of crushed Maltesers (I mashed mine up in my trusty pestle and mortar and it was great fun) – these will also help to patch up any holes, lumps or missed patches of icing. Use any leftover maltesers to decorate the top of the cake – I used around one per slice. When you’ve done this, pop the cake in the fridge for an hour or so for the buttercream to set.
5. Serve in large slices, preferably with a cup of something warm and strong (be that tea, coffee, or even Hot Vimto).

Rhubarb Crumb Cake

Rhubarb. Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb. It’s a great word, isn’t it? The very mention of it starts the Roobarb and Custard theme (arguably the best children’s TV theme tune ever) playing in my head. And, I discovered today that the Icelandic word for ‘rhubarb jam’ is rabarbarsulta. Try saying that when you’re drunk.

I’m a (very) recent convert to rhubarb having only tried it for the first time a mere two months ago. If you’re wondering why it’s taken me 28-and-a-half years to try a vegetable that the rest of the Western world raves about, the only answer I can give to you on that score is that I had a rather deprived childhood. I don’t remember my family actually saying anything about disliking rhubarb, I just know that that it was never in my house when I was a child. Until I discover why this is, I’m just going to blame it on my American mother’s fear of strange English foods, and my English father’s distaste of anything stringy which can be stewed until it turns into a mushy pulp.

I love the colour of rhubarb – the shade of blushing cheeks on a cold December day. Such a beautiful vegetable deserves a better fate than being drowned in powdery Birds custard. Instead, it should poached in vanilla, anointed in ginger, tinted with sugar and cinnamon, and turned into something truly spectacular. Like this Rhubarb Crumb Cake.

Whenever I feel tired or sad, I bake. And this weekend, I felt absolutely exhausted after two solid weeks of running around the country and living off a combination of bourbon, Pro Plus and M&S sandwiches. My soul needed a bit of a pick-me-up, as did the rhubarb which was slowly turning to mulch at the bottom of my fridge. And what better pick me up is there for body, mind, and decomposing fruit than cake?

This cake is a bit of a mish mash of lots of difference influences, spices and methods. First, the rhubarb is caramelised in a mixture of butter, sugar, vanilla and star anise until it begins to candy slightly, and your kitchen smells like the inside of a sweet shop. Then, you layer the rhubarb with a ginger sponge and top it off with a cinnamon crumb. The end result is blissful, harmonious, and worryingly addictive -  like all cakes, it goes well with a nice cup of tea, but secretly I think it would work just as well if you decided to pair it with a shot of the hard stuff (i.e. whisky) too.

So, rhubarb. Like Doctor Who, going to bed before 2am on a schoolnight, and the collected works of Steely Dan, you appear to be yet another thing I’ve come to newly appreciate as I hurtle towards 30. Here’s to the start of a beautiful relationship.

RHUBARB CRUMB CAKE

You will need:

For the cake

•  50 g butter
• 250 g brown sugar
• 350 g rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 2cm chunks
• 200 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
•  2 eggs
• 200 ml buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon ginger jam
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 star anise
• 75 ml vegetable or sunflower oil

For the crumb

• 100g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Make It!

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Stir in 125g sugar, the vanilla extract and the star anise and cook on a gentle heat for about 5 minutes, until it begins to turn a golden brown colour.
3. Add the rhubarb, remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl.
5. In another small bowl whisk the egg and add the remaining brown sugar, the buttermilk, oil and ginger jam, and mix well.
6. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients, until they combine to form a liquid batter.Now, make your cinnamon crumb topping. To do this, just rub the butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl untilthe mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
7. Pour the rhubarb pieces into the cake tin, ensuring that it thoroughly covers the bottom. Then, pour the cake batter over this layer. Finally, sprinkle the cinnamon crumbs on top. Make sure that they’re all evenly distributed across the surface of your cake.
8. Cook in the oven for around 30-45 minutes, until the cake feels firm in the centre. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a serving plate.
9. Serve with a large dollop of whipped cream, or creme fraiche. This cake keeps in an airtight container for around a week.

Afternoon Delight: Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

Hello my poor little blog. It feels like I’ve been neglecting you a bit recently. Would it make you feel better if I said I’d been ill? And busy? And off having adventures involving Kimchi and Marmalade (that I really need to write up at some point before I dull the memory of all the important bits with liberal applications of alcohol)? No? Well, personally I wouldn’t blame you. So, let’s kiss and make up with some cake. After all, I’ve been led to believe that every bugger loves cake.

On Thursday, I finally managed to experience one of those rarest of things – a whole day to myself. I decided not to waste it lounging on the sofa all day watching America’s Next Top Model marathons, but by doing ribald and exciting things. Things I’d never done before. Like taking a ferry across the Mersey (which was great, even if it was achingly cold and I was subjected to a crackly Midi version of ‘Ferry Across the Mersey’ as we came to shore at Pierhead) and eating Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon whilst looking at my beloved Liverpool from the other side of the water. Drinking whisky at sunset whilst listening to The Durutti Column. Getting up to my armpits in flour and sugar and making Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake on a rainy Thursday afternoon because I could.

I love blood oranges. When I was at school, it was always a real treat to open your lunchbox and discover that your Mum have shoved one in there in a vain attempt to get your five-a-day down your neck. My favourite trick was to bite into them and pretend to be a vampire when all of that lovely ruby coloured juice splurted out across my hands and face.  A couple of weekends ago, I trawled Liverpool attempting to purchase some for a recipe, only to discover that Abel and Cole stocked them and were happy to pop them in my fortnightly veg box. You win some, you lose some I suppose.

Blood oranges truly are the star of this cake. Their sweetness bursts through the dense crumb, mellowing out into a slightly bitter undertone which complements the olive oil perfectly. Speaking of the olive oil, I can see that your eyebrows will probably raise a fair bit when you see how much is required here. However, trust me on this one. It is worth it. This humble ingredient provides the finished product with a moistness which is out of the world. I still have a slice tucked away at the back of my fridge which I intend to consume this lunchtime, and I can guarantee that it will still be as delightfully squidgey as it was on the day I baked it. I also thoroughly suggest dolloping whipped cream, honey or (if you’ve got any just lying around) chocolate ganache  on a slice which will transport a seemingly simple looking dessert into a brave new world of deliciousness.  Don’t be fooled by its rather understated appearance. This is a great cake.

BLOOD ORANGE OLIVE OIL CAKE
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

You will need

• Butter for greasing pan
• 3 blood oranges
• 200g white sugar
• 118 ml buttermilk
• 3 large eggs
• 156 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 219g self raising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Make It

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees/Gas Mark 4. Butter a  medium sized springform cake tin. Grate zest from 2 oranges and place in a bowl with sugar. Using your fingers, rub the  ingredients together until all of the orange zest is evenly distributed in sugar.
2. Supreme an orange: Cut off the top and the bottom of the fruit so that the segments are exposed and the orange can stand upright on a cutting board. Cut away peel and pith, following curve of fruit with your knife. Cut orange segments out of their connective membranes and let them fall into a bowl. Repeat with another orange. Break up segments with your fingers to about 1/4-inch pieces.
3. Halve remaining orange and squeeze juice into a measuring cup. Add the buttermilk to the juice until you have 2/3 cup liquid altogether. Pour mixture into bowl with sugar and whisk well. Whisk in eggs and olive oil.
4. Measure out the self raising flour and the salt. Gently mix the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Fold in pieces of orange segments. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake cake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until it is golden and a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then slowly remove it from the cake tin and leave it to cool. Serve with whipped cream, honey or chocolate ganache if you have any handy.

Dense Chocolate-Rum Cake

I’m really up against it at the moment. My life is full of work, deadlines, stress – that toxic brew which leads to me waking up each morning feeling as though my jaw has been clamped in a vice because I’ve been clenching it so hard in my sleep. And that’s without the psychic swipes I keep taking at myself for not blogging as often as I should. In such circumstances, there’s only one thing for it. I need to bake.

When some people get stressed, they go and hit a punching bag.  For others, the only way to work off their malaise is to go for a five mile run, or drink a tumbler full of whiskey and get into a fight. My personal release valve is none of these things. Indeed, I only feel that awful yoke of anxiety lift from my shoulders when I’m in the kitchen creaming eggs and sugar together, or thumping the living daylights out of a huge lump of dough whilst singing along to the radio. I come alive when I bake. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me.

So, last Sunday, I shoved my to-do list and my worldly cares to one side, broke out the chocolate, and decided to make a cake. A ‘Dense Chocolate-Rum Cake’ to be exact. It was supposed to be a straight up recreation of Nigella Lawson’s famous Dense Chocolate Loaf, but circumstances contrived to work against me. So, I decided to (for want a better term) ‘freestyle’ a bit. I’ve replaced the vanilla essence she uses in her recipe with dark rum (because hey, show me a person that doesn’t like rum) and I used Green and Black’s Dark Chocolate with Espresso Beans because it was just what I had in my fridge at the time.

The end result was magnificent – rich and delicious, with a dense consistency and an almost treacle flavour. The slight hint of coffee and rum complemented the dark chocolate perfectly, and it almost reminded me of a very grown up version of Parkin. Both myself and Mr. Cay ate huge slices of this with a vanilla spiked cream and a nice mug of builder’s tea, and suddenly all was right with the world.

This cake won’t write my work reports for me, blog for me, or even be accepted by my debtors in lieu of payment. But, when I’m eating it, it does make the world feel that little bit brighter. Even if it is only for five minutes.

DENSE CHOCOLATE-RUM CAKE (Makes 6-8 medium sized portions)

Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson

You will need:

• 225 g salt soft unsalted butter
• 375 g dark muscovado sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 large glug of dark rum
• 100 g best dark chocolate, melted (I used Green & Black’s Dark Chocolate Espresso Bar for a nice coffee kick)
• 200 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Make It!

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas5. Grease and line a 23x13x7cm cm (9x5x3in) loaf tin (or, alternatively, you can use a silicon baking dish). Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and rum, beating in well.
2. Next fold in the melted and cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but do not overbeat.
3. You want the ingredients combined: you don’t want a light airy mass. Gently add the flour, to which you’ve added the bicarb, alternately spoon by spoon, with 250 ml of boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter.
4. Pour into the lined loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven down to 170C/gas mark 3 and cook for another 15 minutes. The cake will still be a bit squidgy inside, so an inserted cake tester or skewer won’t come out completely clean.
5. Place the loaf tin on a rack and leave to get completely cold before turning it out. It improves if left for a day or so before eating. This cake will probably sink in the middle because of its denseness.