Chocolate and Orange Drizzle Cake

Last Sunday yet again I was asked to bake a Lemon Drizzle Cake. Don’t get me wrong, this is a lovely cake but after two weeks of baking it every other day I’ve decided it was time for something new. I didn’t want to disappoint nor, for safety reasons stray too far from the requested type of cake, so I decided to bake a “off spin” drizzle cake, or in cook-speak take it to the next level. It was my first attempt and I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out but in the end I needn’t have worried as it was quite something if I may say so myself; a bit more moist and sweater than a lemon version but extremely tasty and satisfying.

I present to you the Chocolate and Orange Drizzle Cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 3 eggs
• 150g self-raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g unsalted butter, soften
• 1tsp baking powder
• Zest of one large orange
• 1tbs of fresh squeezed orange juice
• 2tbs chocolate shavings

For the orange drizzle:

• 50g granulated sugar
• Juice of one large juicy orange

The above ingredients will make a cake that fits perfectly in an 8” loaf tin.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C fan.

Grease and line your baking tin, or just grease it.

In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients being: flour, sugar, chocolate shavings and baking powder; add zest from one large orange, soften butter, eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice – mix all ingredients until smooth.

Pour into your earlier prepared loaf tin.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40-45min or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for a few minutes.

Prepare your drizzle by mixing the sugar with the orange juice. “Stab” your cake repeatedly with a toothpick and then slowly drizzle it with your mixture allowing it to soak in deep inside the cake.

Let it cool completely.

Cut, serve and enjoy!

Happy Baking!

Quick and Easy Lemon Drizzle Cake

Lately we seem to have become obsessed with a Lemon Drizzle Cake. In the last 2 weeks I have baked one seven times 🙂 It was proving very hard to “save” the cake until I could actually take some pictures, but a few days ago I succeeded, so here you go – my Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 3 eggs
• 150g self-raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g unsalted butter
• 1tsp baking powder
• Zest of one lemon
• Icing sugar for decoration

For the lemon drizzle:

• 50g caster sugar
• Juice of one large lemon

The above ingredients will make a cake that fits perfectly in an 8” loaf tin.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C fan.

Grease and line your baking tin, or just grease it if you have problems with making a perfect lining like me 😉

In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients being: flour, sugar and baking powder.

Add the zest from one large lemon. Due to possible wax coating on the lemons nowadays remember to wash it well before grating the zest (I like to keep it in a bowl of hot / boiling water for a few minutes first).

Melt your butter a little, so it is nice and soft (20sec in pulses in a microwave should do the trick).

Add the butter and eggs to your mixing bowl and beat all the ingredients until smooth.

Pour into your earlier prepared loaf tin.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40-45min or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for a few minutes.

Mix lemon juice with sugar and prepare to drizzle.

I like to remove my cake from the tin before drizzling begins and place it on a cooling rack.

“Stabbing” the cake all over with a little toothpick will help your drizzle to soak deeper into the cake, but it is an optional extra.

Drizzle your cake and allow it to cool…

When totally cool, sprinkle the cake with a little bit of icing sugar, which will give it a nice even finish.

If you want a more crunchy drizzle, use granulated sugar and for even more crunch go with icing sugar.

If you decided to give this cake a try and it is not lemony enough for you, just add a bit of lemon juice inside the cake during the mixing process and it will boost the lemon flavour right up.

Happy Baking!

House of Fraser – The Blogger’s Recipe Book and My Special Apple Pie Recipe

This is not just any cook book, oh no, this is a very special cook book… this is a cook book in which you can find on pages 16, 17, 18 and 19 my very own Special Apple Pie Recipe!

We have been published in a real cookbook; not just an e-book but an actual book that you can hold in your hands and physically turn the pages. I just love it!

As you can probably guess I am chuffed to bits over this.

The whole project started back in August. I received an email in which I was asked if I wanted to be published in a cook book. Hell yeah! Of course I wanted to have my recipe in a book. The big question was which recipe… in the end actually it wasn’t such a big question… from all the recipes we have covered I knew that my Mums Apple Pie was the one which deserved fame the most. For years it was a closely kept secret but once we “let cat out of the bag” there was nothing to hide anymore. The recipe was out there, so why not immortalize it in print in a lovely cook book from House of Fraser.

We re-wrote the recipe a little making it clearer and easier to follow. Then I had to bake one in order to shoot the “perfect” picture.

I think it worked.

The recipe reads well and the picture shows the pie in all its glory.

I feel very proud!

The whole book contains 14 recipes from UK bloggers; mostly cakes but who doesn’t love a good cake?

Just in case you had never heard about My Special Apple Pie Recipe before – here it is again – the new and upgraded version.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

6 eggs – yolks with whites separated

250g of unsalted butter

350g of plain flour

250g of icing sugar

2 tea spoons of vanilla sugar

3 tea spoons of baking powder

1kg of apples

Cinnamon (to taste)

Method:

1. Pastry

Mix the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and butter (ideally all ingredients should be at room temperature)
After the pastry starts to form add the six egg yolks, one at the time. Mix everything together until you are able to form a ball. Cover with cling film and pop into the fridge to rest.

2. Apples

Peel and core all the apples, using a grater shred them into small pieces. Once ready, put the apple shavings into a sieve to help get rid of any excess juice.

3. Preparation for meringue

Take a flat baking form – a roasting tin can be used if needed – grease the bottom and sides with some butter.
Remove your pastry from the fridge and split into two parts (¼ and ¾) – put the ¼ sized part back into the fridge for now; take the ¾ part, gently roll flat and place at the bottom of your greased baking form. Once ready cover the base with the shredded apples (make sure that they are not dripping with juice or you will end up with a soggy base, if necessary give them a squeeze with your hands before adding to the base). Sprinkle some cinnamon over the top of the apples. Now you are ready for the meringue part…

4. Meringue

Put the six egg whites into a mixing bowl. Whisk or beat until firm. When soft peaks start to form begin to add the icing sugar slowly. Once all the sugar is added and you are able to form stiff peaks stop whisking and with a metal spoon place the mixture on top of your cinnamon apples.

5. Topping

Once you have meringue covering the top of your pie; take the final ¼ of leftover pastry; and again with a grater grate tiny pieces on top of the meringue.

Bake in the middle of a preheated oven at 220C, after 10 minutes reduce the temp to 180C and bake for a further 20 minutes Or until the meringue peaks have a nice light golden brown colour.

Once cooled, you can dust with a little bit of icing sugar to make it look even more amazing.

Have fun if you decide to bake it!

What’s Cooking – Jaffa Cakes – we tried, we baked, we learnt

We are all, from time to time, tempted to try something new, at least I hope so… Last weekend we felt very adventurous so we decided to try making Jaffa Cakes. We knew that it would be time consuming and not so straight forward but still, it was something we wanted to try.

We searched the net for our perfect recipe but we couldn’t find one. We didn’t want to use any gelatine, so we decided to make stuff up as we went along.

Hmmm, it didn’t work out as we planned.

We finished the process and created 12, no, scrub that… 11 Jaffa Cakes… actually no… We baked 11 bases but ate one base as a test subject; so in the end we only made 10 Jaffa Cakes.

The process wasn’t as complicated as we first thought, but we did hit a few problems along the way.

Problem 1

All our bases stuck to the baking tray, we had to almost “chisel” them out.

Solution: Better greasing of the tin or bake them in muffin cases.

Problem 2

Our bases were cooked but tasted rubbish and didn’t even look the part.

Solution: Work out some better recipe and stick to it when the end product is perfect, this one was not; this should fix both the taste and the looks problem.

Problem 3

Our filling was way too powerful. We used Christmas Marmalade with Cranberries from Mackays, which we thought would be perfect and it possibly would have been if we hadn’t put half of the jar into just 10 Jaffa Cakes.

Solution: Use much less marmalade

Problem 4

Our filling kind of melted a little once we started pouring hot chocolate on top of it.

Solution: Place your half made Jaffa Cakes in the fridge for about 30 minutes to chill and firm up a little bit. Once you take them out to pour chocolate over them, the chocolate should set much faster, and then straight back into the fridge till fully set.

So you see, cooking and baking is a journey… with a giant learning curve… we tried something new and it didn’t really work out, but we did indentify the problems and we will try again… let’s hope next time everything will go according to plan.

So for now, I don’t have a Jaffa Cake recipe to share with you. Once we try again (and again if needed) and produce the perfect homemade Jaffa Cake then I will share it with you.

Did you have any kitchen related epic failures lately?

Personalised Cake from Baker Days

Last week I was picked as a one of the lucky winners to receive a personalised cake from Baker Days. Wins like this always put a smile on my face… free cake… yummm.

I could pick any design I wanted… and there is a lot to choose from, believe me. As Mark is poorly and off sick at this moment I went for a Get Well Cake, thinking it might cheer him up a little. So I ordered our cake and waited for it to arrive. To be honest with you I wasn’t expecting much… for some reason I have never had a good opinion about personalised cakes in general… I believe in most cases they are made for the looks not the taste… Baker Days proved me wrong! The cake we received was like nothing I was expecting.

It arrived in flat box, which as I later find out is called a letterbox cake… what a great idea!
I also noticed that the box comes without any trademarks or advertising
which is very good if you want it to be a surprise, no more discretely standing by the front door to make sure your the first to get the mail.

This is what you get inside your cardboard box…
and this was a totally unexpected surprise as the cakes we have had dealings with in the past usually come in a thin plastic see-through, unattractive looking box… here not only you get a cake you also get a card to go with it and some loveheart sweets how lovely.

The Baker Days cake arrived in a lovely metal tin, which will stay with you long after the cake is gone

The cake itself was just as advertised… perfect

And here is where the biggest surprise came…
We were expecting just a sponge cake but instead once we cut it, we discovered a lovely chocolate cake, which tasted divine! Something you could bake at home…
you can almost taste the love which was put into making it.

Cake didn’t last long… but it was the best – not home baked – cake we ever had

Thank you Baker Days.

In just under 2 months Mark’s Gran will celebrate her 99 birthday, so now we know where to get a cake for this occasion!

What’s happening when a man gets bored?

Last night I had to work some extra hours and to add to this I had to participate in a 1 hour online chat for which I had promised to take part in, so I was kind of busy all evening.

Mark wasn’t sure how to entertain himself so due to boredom he wondered into our kitchen and decided to create some snacks for us.

Look what I discovered once I finally left my office.

Midnight snack to suit all type of munchies

Isn’t this great (…well for me it is anyways)!

Tons of fantastic homemade goodies to munch on.

We had some cheese straws,
which were light and fluffy unfortunately they were all eaten last night

Individual apple and cinnamon tarts
with homemade custard nestled in a mountain range of light fluffy homemade puff pastry,
half of whom did survive till the morning were they were promptly eaten with coffee for breakfast

A selection of delicious meringues that have a wonderful toasted look to them.
Mark says it is from the soft brown sugars caramelising in the oven. They should last us for a while.

And to make things even better… look what Mark created this morning…

Marks Make It Up As You Go Along Trifle

He took some yoghurt cake he made a couple of days ago, put it in the bottom of the big bowl and poured some lemon and lime jelly over. That was last night, this morning the jelly was set and he added the rest of the home made custard left over from the apple tarts. On top of that is a chocolate mousse, I’m actually drooling with anticipation! Now he tells me that whipped cream, chocolate bits, fudge bits and of course some fruit to keep the healthy part of our brains happy are going on top.

I think we are going to have to invite the neighbours over…

What’s Cooking – Coconut Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust

Coconut Cream Pie with Gingersnap Crust

Looking in the cupboard Mark came out with some fresh ginger and a fresh coconut muttering he needed to use these. Now I am convinced that Mark is having a secret crush on a new lady called Anna Olson, a Canadian master baker who has a show on the food network channel, he never seems to be busy when she is on. On the plus side though after looking through his notes on her he did come up with this rather scrummy cake…

Ingredients:

Gingersnap Crust

• 3/4 cup + 1/3 cup unsalted butter or vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 1 cup golden brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup fancy molasses
• 1 large egg
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• sugar, for coating

Coconut Filling

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/4 cups coconut milk
• 2 whole large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut, lightly toasted

Cream Topping

• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon skim milk powder
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut, lightly toasted

Method:

1. For gingersnaps, preheat oven to 180°C. Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Stir in fancy molasses and beat in egg. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Add to butter mixture and stir just until blended. Shape spoonfuls of dough into balls and roll in sugar. Place 2 inches apart on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and press flat with the palm of your hand. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until edges are lightly browned and remove from baking sheet to cool.

These are the cookies Mark “destroyed” in order to make a crust for the cake
/such a shame

2. For crust, grind cooled cookies finely and measure out 2 ¼ cups of crumbs. Melt remaining 1/3 cup butter and stir into crumbs. Press into a 9-inch pie pan (or 2 6-inch springform pans) and chill until ready to fill.

3. For filling, stir sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a heavy-bottomed saucepot. Whisk in coconut milk, whole eggs and egg yolks. Heat custard on low heat, whisking constantly for 5 minutes. Increase heat to medium and continue whisking until custard thickens and becomes glossy, about 5 more minutes. Remove from heat and strain. Stir in vanilla, butter and coconut and stir until butter has melted. Pour immediately into chilled pie shell, let cool on the counter for 15 minutes, then chill completely before topping with cream, at least 4 hours.

4. For cream topping, whip cream to a medium peak, and whisk in sugar and skim milk powder (the skim milk powder stabilizes the cream). Top coconut custard with whipped cream, and sprinkle remaining toasted coconut on top as garnish.

Mercilessly copy and pasted from the wonderful Anna Olson.

What’s cooking – Black Forest Gateau

Black Forest Gateau by Gina Steer

We have a few very special friends over, so yesterday Mark decided to treat us to a special “cake”. We had a fabulous Black Forest Gateau 🙂

This recipe is an interpretation of Black Forest Gateau recipe from Cakes & Cookies Quick and Easy, Proven Recipes by Gina Steer

Ingredients List:

–          250g of butter

–          1 tbsp of instant coffee

–          350ml of hot water

–          200g of plain dark chocolate

–          400g of caster sugar

–          225g of self raising flour

–          150g of plain flour

–          50g of cocoa powder

–          2 eggs (medium size)

–          2tsp of vanilla essence

–          800g of stoned cherries in juice

–          2tsp of arrowroot

–          600ml of double cream

–          50ml of kirsch

Black Forest Gateau by Mark

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F about 5 minutes before baking. Lightly oil and line a deep 23cm / 9inch cake tin. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Blend the coffee with the hot water, add to the butter with the chocolate and sugar and heat gently, stirring until smooth. Pour into a large bowl and leave until just warm.

Black Forest Gateau by Mark

Sift together the flours and cocoa powder. Using an electric mixer, whisk the warm chocolate mixture on a low speed, and then gradually wish in the dry ingredients. Whisk in the eggs one at the time, then the vanilla essence. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the preheat oven for 1 hour 45 minutes or until firm and skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack. Place the cherries and their juice in a small saucepan and heat gently. Blend the arrowroot with 2 teaspoons of water until smooth, then stir into the cherries. Cook, stirring until the liquid thickens. Simmer very gently for 2 minutes, and then leave until cold.

Black Forest Gateau by Mark

Whisk the double cream until thick, Trim the top of the cake if necessary, then split the cake into three layers (this part did not work for us so well… we manage only 2 layers, but maybe next time…). Brush the base of the cake with half the kirsch. Top with a layer of cream and one third of the cherries.  Repeat the layering, and then place the third layer on top. Reserve a little cream for decoration and use the remainder to cover the top and sides of the cake. Pipe a decorative edge around the cake (if you can of course), then arrange the remaining cherries in the centre and serve.

Good Luck and Enjoy! (we certainly did!)

Cake International – Sugarcraft, Cake Decorating & Baking Show

Today we ventured to the Excel in London for the Cake International Show courtesy of Kevin Ashton, chef and food writer of WannaBeTvChef blog.

We had been very excited and were looking forward to the show especially that we had VIP tickets, which allowed us access into the VIP lounge… we were hoping to meet some celebrities 😉

Unfortunately the show did not meet our expectations. For a starter it was unbelievable crowded. Taking into consideration that it is only Friday, I cannot even imagine what will be happening over the weekend. Simply walking around was very difficult and every time we wanted to check something up close, we had to queue to get close to our preferred stall.

Secondly, the full show name is Sugarcraft, Cake Decorating & Baking Show, but there was nothing to do with baking itself. Most stalls had purely decorating stuff. No cooking or kitchen appliances, no kitchen aids, not even a sugar thermometer, which we wanted to buy…

I guess, it wasn’t what we were expecting, but still well worth a trip to London and a very good day out. The cakes which were taking part in the competition were truly amazing! Sometimes you can see them in various baking TV shows and they look so beautiful, but in real life, up close, some of them are just stunning, pure art.

yes, this is a real cake

Face Cake

Even though we did not get what we wanted from the show, we are very happy that we attended it. It opened our eyes on the decorating part of the baking process.

We also had a chance to meet Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood 🙂

Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood

If sugarcraft or a cake decorating is your cup of tea, you still have a chance to attend this year London’s show. It is open over the weekend 12-14 April. For full information please visit Cake International

Mind The Gap Cake

Prince Charming?

What’s Cooking – Apple Pie, Irena Style

This is my Mum’s recipe for her famous Apple Pie. I called it Apple Pie, Irena Style.

 

Every holiday, birthdays, family gatherings or any other special occasion my Mum would bake this pie, so we can share it with others. Every family has some speciality; my Gran used to bake yeast dough, my auntie Barbara would bake a Cheese Cake, my auntie Halinka would prepare gingerbread and My Mum would always have her Apple Pie.

When I left home for University I asked my Mum to teach me her secret. I wasn’t visiting home very often and from time to time I just wanted to bake myself this reminder of my family and happy childhood. Now I bake it for my family and friends, so we can all enjoy it.

Try it and you will love it.

 

Apple Pie, Irena Style

 

Ingredients:

6 eggs – yolks and whites separated

250g of unsalted butter or margarine

350g of plain flour

250g of icing sugar

2 tea spoons of vanilla sugar

3 tea spoons of baking powder

1kg of apples

Cinnamon (to taste)

 

How to make it:

1. Pastry

Mix flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and butter (ideally all will be at room temp)

After pastry starts to form add 6 yolks, 1 at the time. Mix all together, form a ball, cover with cling film and put into the fridge.

2. Apples

Peal all apples, use grater to shred into small pieces. Once ready, put into sieve to get rid of excess juice.

3. Preparation for meringue

Take a flat baking form – roasting tin can be used if needed – spread some butter into it.

Split your pastry ¼ and ¾ – ¼ leave in the fridge for now; take the ¾ part, roll flat and placed at the bottom of your baking tin. Once ready fill with apples (make sure that they are not very wet and juicy or you will end up with a soggy base). Add cinnamon on top of the apples. Now you are ready for meringue…

4. Meringue

Put 6 whites into a mixing bowl. Mix until firm. After about 5 min of mixing, add icing sugar slowly. Once extra firm and solid place on top of cinnamon apples

5. Topping

Once meringue is on top of your pie; take 1/4 leftover pastry; split into tiny pieces and put crumbs on top of meringues (you can also use a grater to do this)

 

Bake in the middle of the oven at 220C for about 30min. After the first 10 min, reduce the temp to 180C.

 

Once cooled, you can add a little bit of icing sugar on top to make it look even nicer.

 

Enjoy and please let me know if you had any problems with it and I’ll try and fix it for you. Happy munching… 🙂