Ultimate Lemon Drizzle Cake

Yeah, I said it. The ULTIMATE Lemon Drizzle Cake.

Let me tell you, reader, I have had my fair share of Lemon Drizzles, but this one? This one blows all others out of the water. As far as I'm concerned, when a recipe requires little effort and time, but produces fantabulous results, it's a winner.

This recipe comes from Paul Hollywood's How to Bake (not his new one, although be ready for an onslaught of rave reviews from that when I can eventually justify buying it...). 

This recipe uses lemon curd in the actual cake, which I was at first quite skeptical of, but now realise that it's the secret to the wonderfulness that is this cake. 

Ingredients:

- 125g caster sugar

- 75g butter, softened

- 150g self-raising flour

- 1tsp baking powder

- 2 medium eggs

- 1 tbsp lemon curd

- 2 and a half tbsp milk (semi-skimmed is fine)

- juice and zest from one lemon

- 2tbsp granulated sugar

- Preheat your oven to 180C (160 for fan ovens).
- Butter and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.

- Beat together the caster sugar and butter until it's light and creamy. You should notice a visible change in colour.

- Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture.

- Mixing all the time, add the eggs, lemon curd and milk to the mixture.

- Keep mixing until everything is well combined.

- Pour into your loaf tin, even it out with the back of a spoon or a knife, and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes. 

- MEANWHILE. Mix together your lemon juice, finely grated zest and granulated sugar in a jug, ready for when the cake comes out the oven.

- When the cake comes out, insert a skewer into it. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake it done! 

- Use the same skewer to prod a few holes into the cake.

- Pour your drizzle mixture evenly across the hot cake. The holes will allow some of the sugary lemony goodness to seep into the sponge.

- Allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

 - Serve with a cup of tea and I guarantee joy.

I bet, if you've ever done any baking before, you'll have a lot of the required ingredients in your cupboard already. Pop out and get the lemons and lemon curd (you should have it on your toast for breakfast the next morning, FYI) and you'll have a very easy but VERY tasty cake to give, share, wrap up and take to work, or just eat yourself.

Next weekend, I'm going to Cake International in Manchester, and the only friend I'm taking is my camera, so be ready for a somewhat different post...

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red velvet cupcakes? For Valentines Day? I am almost certainly the queen of originality here. Oh! Speaking of Valentines Day, I wrote you a poem:

Dear Valentine,

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Red velvet cupcakes are also red and, additionally, freaking delicious and if you don't make them soon then I'm afraid this you-and-me thing is probably not going to work out. It's not me, it's you. 

Ingredients:

- 60g unsalted butter 

- 150g caster sugar

- 1 egg

- 20g cocoa powder

- 1 and half tsps of red food colouring paster, mixed with a little water - total volume should be 40ml

- half a tsp vanilla extract

- 120ml buttermilk

- 150g plain flour

- half a tsp bicarbonate of soda

- 1 and a half tsp white wine vinegar

For the cream cheese buttercream:

- 300g icing sugar, sifted

- 50g unsalted butter

- 125g cream cheese

- Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3.

- Beat the butter and the sugar together using a freestanding electric mixer, a handheld electric whisk, or just whisk it yourself! Beat until light and fluffy and well combines.

- Add the egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.

- In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring paste (pre-mixed with water) and vanilla extract to make a very thick, dark paste.

Mmm...tasty. For this I just spooned a load of red food colouring paste into a measuring cup and added a little water at a time to form a scary red goop mixture.

The paste! Mine was actually a lot darker than it appears here but my camera lit it all up all prettily.

- Add this paste to the butter mixture and mix it thoroughly until the colour is even. Pour in half of the buttermilk and slowly beat it in.

- Add half of the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. There should be no streaks of an uneven colour. Add the other half of the buttermilk and beat again. 

- ...aaaand then add the second half of the flour and beat once more. Scrape the side of the bowl with a spatula to make sure all the sneaky bits round the edge of the bowl are in there. 

- In yet another bowl (this recipe is not very good for those who hate to wash dishes...), mix together the bicarbonate of soda and the white wine vinegar.

- IT GOES ALL BUBBLY!!

- I got very excited.

- Anyway.

- Add this to your cake mixture and beat it will until you're left with a smooth even texture.

- Spoon the mixture into paper cases (mine ended up making about 16 so you may need extra) and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. When they're done, a skewer poked into the middle of the cakes should come out clean. 

- Leave them to cool for a little while before transferring them onto a wire cooling rack. It is important that the cakes are cold before you put the cream cheese frosting on them.

- To make the cream cheese buttercream, beat the icing sugar and the 20g of unsalted butter together until well-combined. Add all of the cream cheese and beat it until completely incorporated. Continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

- Spoon it on, pipe it on, do whatever you see fit. I also mashed up one of the cakes and used its crumbs to decorate all the others!

- Enjoy! Try not to eat them all at once!

The lovely Rebecca with her birthday red velvets!

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes with Nutella Butter Icing

It has been TOO long since my last post and I am so very sorry about that. Life/work has been manic of late and I HAVE been doing a lot of baking (I was commissioned to make some Christmas cakes and cupcakes for people I work with. They paid me! In real money!) but I was so focussed on doing them well that I didn't really take photos till the end. I'll make a post with some pics in soon.

To make up for my atrocious posting habit, I made you something a little bit special. You know all those extra chocolates that you have lying around from Christmas?

No?

Me neither.

So I went out and bought a pack of Ferrero Rochers and some Nutella and made the cupcakes that will destroy all New Years' Resolutions. I won't tell if you won't.

Ingredients:

For the cakes - 

- 100g plain flour

- 20g good cocoa powder

- 140g caster sugar

- 1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

- a pinch of salt

- 40g unsalted butter at room temperature

- 120ml milk (recipe recommends whole, I used semi-skimmed, come at me)

- 1 egg

- half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
- 12 Ferrero Rocher chocolates

For the butter cream -
- 250g icing sugar
- 80g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 25ml milk
- 80g Nutella

- 30 mins before you're going to start baking, put the Ferrero Rochers into the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 170C

- Measure out the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl and beat it (either by hand or with a handheld electric mixer) until it forms a sandy texture.

- Whisk the egg, milk and vanilla essence in a jug until combined.

- Slowly add half of this to the flour mixture and beat till combined. Continue to add the milk mixture and beat it until the mixture is completely smooth. 

- Spoon a little of the mixture into your cupcake cakes.

- Remove the Ferrero Rochers from the freezer and place one into each cupcake case.

- Spoon the remaining mixture into the cases; this may not completely cover the chocolates but they should all be coated in the cake mixture.

- Bake for 20-25 mins until top of cakes spring back when poked and a skewer comes out of them clean.

- Leave to cool for maybe 20 mins before preparing your icing.

- Beat the icing sugar and butter together.

- Add the milk and beat till completely combined.

- Add the Nutella and beat that in until that's combined too (and check it tastes right!)

- I wanted to top my cakes with toasted hazelnuts but we were sadly lacking, so I made do with these cute little stars in order to make that same light-flecked-on-dark effect that Ferrero Rochers have. Next time I'll top them with something a bit more crunchy.

- Try not to eat all of them at once. 

I'm serious. These are probably my favourite cupcake I've ever made and I am having to sit up stairs to hide from them so I don't eat them ALL. I know they're a bit indulgent but they were SO simple to make and would make a great homemade birthday present, I think. 

Or make a batch and eat all 12 in one night. That's what gym memberships are for, right?

Christmas Cake

I went mad yesterday. Seriously mad. No really, like, I-want-to-thank-my-family-friends-and-boyfriend-for-supporting-me-through-this-hard-time, mad. 

It was my day off and I’d decided to make a couple of Christmas cakes. Not too wacky- this is the right kind of time to make them, which is why this recipe is coming to you now.

But, upon waking, my train of thought went something like this:

“So I’ll do the first part of these cakes when I’m up/dressed and then finish it later.”

“Could be quite time consuming, I should find a podcast to listen to.”

“Or music! Could put on one of my iTunes playlists as I make these Christmas cakes….”

“Christmas…”

“C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s….”

“Music...and Christmas…”

“Christmas...music….”

“CHRISTMAS MUSIC! MUST BUY AN 84-TRACK CHRISTMAS ALBUM FROM AMAZON IMMEDIATELY AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH”

At 11am, on Monday the 29th of October, my mother walked into the kitchen to the sight of me dancing to Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine whilst chopping dried fruit. 

And then Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.

And then In Dulci Jubilo.

I also made mince pies and scoffed a lot of them. I have no regrets. 

ANYWAY.

You should make a Christmas cake this year. They are fairly time consuming, but 90% of the time it takes to make them, you can spend asleep. Or being productive if you like. But I choose sleep.

The idea with Christmas cakes is that you make them now-ish, you wrap them up, feed them booze (I’ll get to that later), ice them just before Christmas and then eat them! It is SO WORTH making them yourself. You can decorate them how you like, you can alter the ingredients to your own preferences and you get the self-satisfaction of presenting it at Christmas as this crazy-impressive thing that actually isn’t that impressive. 

I'm going to break this recipe into 3 parts. Parts 1& 2 will be in this post, and part 3 will be in a month or two's time when I've iced the things.

Oh, p.s. if the ingredients look like a larger amount than what's in the recipe, that's because I doubled it to make two cakes.

PART ONE: The Fruity Bit - do this bit the night before you want to make the cake.

Ingredients:

- 450g (1lb) currants

- 175g (6oz) sultanas

- 175g (6oz) raisins

- 50g (2 oz) glace cherries, rinsed, dried and finely chopped

- 50g (2oz) mixed candied peel, finely chopped

- 3 tablespoons brandy

- Chop and weigh out the dried fruit and mixed peel into a mixing bowl. You can alter the fruit you use if you like, just keep the weights the same. For example, I had nowhere near enough currants. So instead of going to the shop like a normal person, I made up the weight with leftover currants and raisins, as well as dried prunes and dried apricots. It's fine.

 - Thoroughly mix in the three tablespoons of brandy.

- Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to soak for 12 hours.

PART TWO: The Cakey Bit - do this a month or two before you want to eat the thing.

Ingredients:

- 225g (8oz) plain flour

- half teaspoon of salt

- quarter teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg

- half teaspoon of mixed spice

- 225g (8oz) unsalted butter, softened

- 225g (8oz) soft brown sugar

- 4 eggs

- 50g (2oz) almonds, chopped (the skins can be left on)

- 1 dessertspoon of black treacle

- grated zest of 1 lemon

- grated zest of 1 orange

- Preheat the oven to 140C. Oh, and you'll need about 5 hours spare...

- Whisk together the butter and sugar in the largest bowl you have until it's light and fluffy.

- Whisk the eggs together in a separate bowl and add them to the butter and sugar a spoonful at a time. Whisk the mixture thoroughly after each spoonful until all the beaten egg is incorporated. Don't worry if your mixture looks a bit weird at this stage. It might split but adding the flour might fix this. This may or may not be the reason that there's no photo of this stage...moving on.

- Sift the flour, salt and spices into the butter-sugar-egg mixture and fold them in with a metal spoon. Try and keep as much air in the mixture as possible.

- Now fold in the boozy fruit, lemon and orange zests, chopped almonds and treacle until fully incorporated. 

- Take an 8 inch round cake tin (or a 7 inch square one) and line it with greaseproof paper. Spoon the cake mixture into the tin and spread it out evenly with the back of the spoon. Get a load of brown paper and wrap it around the cake tin, fastening it with string. Also, cover the cake mixture with a double layer of greaseproof paper with a 50p size hole in the centre. All of this helps to protect your cake from burning in the oven.

- Bake the cake on the lowest shelf of the oven for 4 and a half/4 and three quarter hours. It can sometimes take about half an hour more than this. Don't open the oven until after 4 hours. To test if it's done, gently press the top of the cake. If it springs back, it should be done.

- Cool for 30 minutes in the tin before transferring it to a wire rack. 

- This cake can be fed! To do this, used a skewer/toothpick/fork to make a few holes in the top and spoon brandy into the holes. Do this once it has cooled and then every now and again until when you want to ice it. Wrap the cake in greaseproof paper and then again in tin foil.

- Sit back, relax, and await my instructions on icing your magnificent creation. You bring the brandy, I'll bring the soundtrack. 

Rainbow Cupcakes

Something a little different this week, kittens. I made some rainbow cupcakes for a friend's birthday by using a very very very basic vanilla cupcake recipe, before jazzing them up with some food dye. If you need a recipe, just Google 'vanilla cupcakes' or look in the nearest decent baking book you own. 

Here are the photos from my baking session, be prepared to do a LOT of washing up afterwards....