POSTS TAGGED : cake

Raspberry Amaretti cake

Raspberry Amaretti cake

This is one of my favourite cakes to make.  It’s simple to make and gets great comments every time.  It’s lovely warm with cream or icecream as a pudding and just as delicious cold with a cup of tea.  This recipe makes one cake in a 20cm round cake tin.

Ingredients:

175g unsalted  butter, softened

175g caster sugar ( I usually use golden)

140g self raising flour

85g ground almonds

3 eggs

8 amaretti biscuits

150-200g frozen raspberries (fresh is also fine but I usually keep a stash in the freezer)

Method:

Heat the oven to 150c  

Put the butter, sugar, flour, almonds and eggs in a mixer and mix well together ( you can obviously use a hand mixer or do it by hand)

Put half the cake mix in the tin and spread it evenly. Arrange half the raspberries on top and then crush half the amaretti biscuits over the raspberries.
Put the remaining cake mix on top, arrange the remaining raspberries and finally crush the other half of the amaretti biscuits on top.


Bake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Raspberry and pear cake

Raspberry and pear cake

More gifts from the garden today led to an afternoon baking a cake.


I used this recipe from Rachel Allen’s ‘Bake’. It’s a variation of her Dutch apple cake

2 eggs
175g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
85g butter
75ml milk
125g plain flour
Zest of an orange
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
100g raspberries
2 pears thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 200c
Whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture is thick and looks like mousse ( this takes a few minutes)


Melt the butter and milk in a pan and then pour onto the eggs whilst whisking.
Fold the dry ingredients and orange zest into the egg mix and then pour into a square cake tin.


Arrange the pear and raspberries over the cake mix ( some will sink)
Bake for 10 minutes then reduce the oven to 180 and bake for a further 25 minutes.


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Autumn fruit and marzipan muffins

Autumn fruit and marzipan muffins

Our garden has certainly been fruitful this autumn. Plenty of pears, plums and raspberries to enjoy. The danger with baking is it is all too easy to make the same cakes over and over again as you know they work. So, I decided to spend an afternoon searching my many recipe books for new ideas that I could adapt. Here is one I adapted from my Ottolenghi recipe book.

480g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
110g melted unsalted butter
280ml milk
Zest of 2 oranges
100g marzipan

Autumn fruit compote
500g plums stoned and cut into chunks
250g raspberries
60g caster sugar
1 stick of cinnamon

To make the compote, put the fruit, sugar and cinnamon mixed together in an oven dish and bake for 15 mins at 170c. When it has softened and its lovely and juicy and sticky, take it out of the oven and set outside to cool.


Put the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in a bowl. In a separate bowl whisk the sugar and eggs together then add the milk and butter and combine it. Grate the marzipan into the mix and add the orange zest. Add 100g of the compote and mix.


Fold in the dry ingredients and spoon the mix into muffin cases.
Bake at 170c for 25-30 mins
Serve with the remaining compote


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Torta di Susine (Plum Cake)

Torta di Susine (Plum Cake)

I may have mentioned before that I have a bit of an obsession with cookery books, there is nothing I enjoy more than an evening reading through various books and planning what I might make. One of my favourite food writers is Tessa Kiros. I discovered her books when I went to Florence on a school trip! I was wandering around Sienna and buying as much food as I thought I could squeeze into my suitcase to bring back. In one little eaterie was a copy of ‘Twelve’ a Tuscan cookbook Tessa Kiros. The thing I love most about her books is their simplicity. I’ve since bought ‘Apples for Jam’ and ‘Falling Cloudberries’

Anyway, today I made a simple plum cake from Twelve. I’m not going to print out the full recipe as I really want you to buy the book ( it’s on page 212).
But you put plums in the bottom of the tin


you whisk the sugar, vanilla and eggs together until they are pale and fluffy


You add the flour, baking powder, melted butter and milk and mix to make a batter which you pour over the plums before adding the rest of the plums on top and sprinkling with sugar


And after an hour this is what you get


Not pretty and perfect but really rather delicious

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Plum crumble

Plum crumble

I LOVE crumble. There is something very comforting about it, especially when it’s in a big bowl with some custard ( and I often give myself permission to cheat and buy ambrosia ready to heat custard) My favourite crumble is Plum crumble.

You will need
For the filling:
A punnet ( or two) of plums
A little butter and some soft brown sugar
Halve and stone the plums and arrange them in a large fairly shallow dish. Dot a little butter over the plums and sprinkle over some soft brown sugar to taste


Put in the oven at 180c for 20 minutes to soften

For the crumble topping:
100g hazelnuts
75g butter
175g flour
110g Demerara sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Put all the topping ingredients in a food processor or mini chopper and blitz


Put the topping on the softened plums and return to the oven until the topping is golden brown and the plums bubbling underneath.


Serve with custard

Apple crumble

I use a mix of about 5/6 cooking apples and 4 eating apples ( usually cox or braeburns) peeled and sliced
I add 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves and 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the apples and about 25-30g brown sugar and mix well.


I make the same crumble mix as above but often replace the hazelnuts for almonds and add a little more cinnamon to the mix

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Lemon(ish) meringue cupcakes

Lemon(ish) meringue cupcakes

A few weeks ago we went to the Chatsworth farm shop suppliers fayre and I bought ALOT of curd. So the experimenting begins…..

For the cupcake
80g softened unsalted butter
280g golden caster sugar
240g plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
Zest of a lemon
2 large eggs
240ml milk
Lemon curd ( I used Chatsworth lemon lime and mandarin curd for a twist)
Preheat the oven to 190c GM5 and line a muffin tin with paper cases
Beat together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and lemon zest to make fine breadcrumbs ( I used a hand mixer)
Whisk the eggs and milk together
Pour the milk and egg mix into the dry ingredients and combine to make a smooth batter
Spoon into the paper cases ( I usually fill about two thirds full ) and bake for 20 minutes or until springy to the touch
When completely cooled cut out a bit from the middle of each cupcake and spoon in some curd before putting the bit of cake back in
Making the meringue topping
2 egg whites
150g caster sugar
Whisk the egg whites and caster sugar in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water for approximately 5 minutes (this is until the sugar has dissolved – when you rub some of the mixture between your fingertips it won’t feel grainy). Take the bowl of the heat and using a hand mixer mix until stiff peaks form and the mixture is thick and glossy.
Pipe this on top of the cupcakes and use a cooks blowtorch to brown the topping ( you could put them under the grill briefly if you don’t have a cooks torch)
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Hot cross bun pudding

Hot cross bun pudding

So I thought I’d use up some hot cross buns and made this up- it was really rather delicious….

Prepare the dish:
6 ish hot cross buns sliced in half and buttered
Few dollops of marmalade
Handful of raisins soaked in Cointreau


Butter the dish and layer the hot cross buns, raisins and marmalade

Make the custard:
500ml milk
500ml double cream
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 large egg
4 large egg yolks

Put the milk and cream in a pan and bring near to boiling point
Whisk the egg, the yolks and sugar in a bowl, when the milk and cream are near boiling pour over the whisked egg whisking continually

Pour over the hot cross buns and leave to soak in for a few minutes.

Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes at 160


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Raspberry bakewell cakes

Raspberry bakewell cakes

I was given some beautiful individual cake cases for Christmas and decided to try something different today. Here it is

250g unsalted butter
250g golden caster sugar
280g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
150 ml natural yoghurt
4 eggs
1 teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extract
Raspberry jam
Flaked almonds
Heat the oven to 160 (fan)
Using a hand mixer, mix the butter, sugar, flour, eggs, yoghurt, baking powder, vanilla and almond extract to make a smooth batter.
Spoon into the cases ( or you could do this as a cake if you like)
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes
Remove and quickly put a dollop of raspberry jam in each case and sprinkle with almonds
Bake for a further 15 minutes ( or until a skewer comes out clean)

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