Category: cake

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cake food

black forest yule log

black forest yule log

Nigella just made Christmas dinner completely awesome for me this year. Along with her failsafe recipe for turkey, this yule log saved me from one of the things I don’t much care for: Christmas pudding. I do however, love chocolate and one more tweak converted it into one a riff on one my favourite things in the whole world: black forest gateau. Yummy.

(There was one thing stopping this being Christmas perfection for me: decorative pine cones. Could I find pine cones in the woods of Maldon, Rayleigh and Hockley combined? Could I ‘eck as like.)

This recipe is adapted from one in Nigella Christmas.

Black forest yule log (serves about 10 – 12):

For the sponge:

6 eggs, separated

150g caster sugar

50g cocoa powder

3–5 teaspoons icing sugar to decorate

For the filling:

1 jar black cherry jam

For the icing:

175g dark chocolate, chopped

250g icing sugar

225g soft butter

2 tablespoons kirsch

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Whisk the egg whites until thick and then whisk in 50g sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the yolks and remaining sugar together until thick and creamy, then stir in the cocoa. Fold in the whites a third at a time.
  3. Grease a large rectangular baking tray, put a generous sheet of baking parchment on top then grease that too for good measure. Pour over the batter and bake for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out the cooked sponge on to another piece of parchment and roll up gently to keep it’s shape for later.
  4. For the icing melt the chocolate gently in the microwave. Beat the icing sugar and butter together until smooth then stir in the cooled chocolate and kirsch.
  5. Unroll the sponge and spread over the jam, then roll back up again. Put on your serving dish or board at this point and then smooth over the icing. (You might want to trim off an end here to make a branch if you can be bothered). Use a fork or toothpick to make pretty woody lines in the icing, then store in a cool place until needed. Sieve over some icing sugar before serving.
Categories
cake food

delia’s christmas cake

I can’t possibly put a picture up of the icing abomination I made. I’m just not good at it.

Waitrose very kindly sent me Delia’s Christmas Cake in a box. I gleefully unwrapped it, opened the box and took out the contents.

Erm, is that it? Some fruit, some flour, some sugar, some nuts, some spice… and that’s about it. £10 for a box of store-cupboard ingredients where you have to provide your own icing / marzipan etc… So I dutifully made it (goodness that batter’s dense) and served it up on Christmas day. It was fine but no more special than any other rich fruit cake you care to make at this time of year.

I’m really glad they sent it to me as at full price it’s a swizz. At the moment they’re clearing out Christmas stocks at £2.50 while stocks last, which seems a bit fairer to me.

Categories
banana bread cake food walnut

walnut & banana loaf

I’ve never been a fan of banana. At all. But this year my daughter has developed a voracious appetite for them, which is great that she’s eating foods that I don’t, but on the other side means you occasionally get a few bananas knocking about at the end of their ripey life.

So Mrs Spud made some banana muffins and thy were great. So much so, I’m almost a complete convert to bananas in a dessert now. Still not sold on the fruit in it’s raw state, but baked I am fine with.

Hence a year ago I would never have attempted this, a walnut and banana loaf recipe from Jamie’s Great Britain. Someone in the office said I had to try it, so I did. It’s a fabulous teatime treat, all dark and fudgy, combined with this decadent chocolate orange butter.

Walnut and banana loaf with chocolate orange butter (serves 16 (apparently)):

100g walnut pieces, toasted

125g dark brown sugar

125g soft butter

2 eggs

100g plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

5 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed

For the butter:

100g dark chocolate

100g butter

75g icing sugar

Zest of 2 oranges

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Bung the walnuts in the oven for 5 minutes and tip them out to cool.
  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then sift in the dry ingredients. Mix to combine into a smooth batter then stir in the walnuts and bananas. Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for an hour or until a skewer leaves it clean.
  3. While that cooks, prepare the butter by creaming the butter and sugar together. Melt the chocolate gently in the microwave for a minute at a time until smooth. Grate in the orange zest then stir into the butter. Serve the cake in slabs, smeared with chocolate butter.
Categories
blueberries cake chocolate white chocolate

white chocolate and blueberry muffins

Oh man, these are so good. Bursts of tartness and then lovely sweet white chocolate… super!

I loved them so much I made another batch the next night. Er- of course I didn’t, that would imply I’d scoffed them all in one evening…

White chocolate and blueberry muffins (makes 8 – 10):

150g plain flour

50g caster sugar

½ tsp baking powder

75g blueberries

75g white chocolate chips

A pinch of vanilla salt

1 beaten egg

50g melted butter

100ml milk

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the wet ingredients and stir together. Don’t go crazy, a few lumps are fine. Pour into muffin tins / paper cases and bung in the oven for 22 – 25 mins until risen and golden.
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