Grapefruit Curd Celebration Cake

I have had enough of Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This may well be the last time I make it. There is a lot of work involved, and to be honest I know of several frostings which are just as malleable and are easier to make. And I don't have to worry about the copious amounts of fat repelling any food colouring, flavourings or even the meringue itself.

Yes, I am happy with this cake, and it was delicious, but the icing was far more work than it is worth. I usually make French Buttercream, which is similarly made, only it uses less fat and has never decided to ooze liquid whilst/after I pipe it onto a cake. I thought that this time I would try Swiss Meringue Buttercream again, since I hadn't used it in such a long time - now I remember why.

I think the main issue, aside from stability, is that I don't own a stand mixer. Instead, I have to hold an electric whisk for around 20 mins whilst slowly adding butter, during which time the meringue (which returns to a liquid almost as soon as the butter is added) flies around the room as the whisk comes into contact with a lump of butter and throws it around the bowl. Electric whisks generally don't have a slow setting, so there is no way to avoid the splatter. I'm honestly not sure how much meringue even stayed in the bowl this time. I found drops of meringue on the TV screen, which is over a metre from where I was working.

Don't get me wrong; Swiss Meringue Buttercream is lovely when it's made, as long as it's stable enough to hold onto anything you added to the fat. This Strawberry & Clotted Cream Jubilee Cake from a few years ago was made with Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and what I didn't mention at the time is that it started to weep the gel food colouring after a few hours. No baker wants to see their cake cry red and blue tears.

Ok, so my rant about Swiss Meringue Buttercream is over. If you want to see other cakes that I've made using this buttercream, scroll to the bottom of the post (please excuse the dodgy formatting). This will almost certainly be the last!

Alongside a huge battle with buttercream, I made Grapefruit Curd for the first time, with very satisfying results. I've seen a lot of recipes calling for large numbers of yolks or whole eggs, with or without cornflour, and varying levels of sugar, so I took my favourite parts from a few recipes (Sweetapolita, Bravetart and BBC Food). I'm very pleased with the results; the curd is a beautiful pink-orange and has just the right amount of tartness. I really enjoy the taste of grapefruit, but if they aren't your thing you could always add more sugar to taste, or use a different citrus fruit.

This cake was served at a January Clandestine Cake Club meeting (which is why there's no artsy cake slice photo today). I organise the events for the North Birmingham & Sutton Coldfield (UK) branch, so if you live nearby you should come along next time! The cake was delicious, and everyone was very complimentary, especially on the curd.

This Grapefruit Curd Celebration Cake is made up of four layers of cinnamon flavoured sponge. The first and third fillings between the layers are Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and the middle one is Grapefruit Curd. To make the cake into four layers, I made one deep cake in an 8" springform tin and froze it before dividing it into four. A cake turntable comes in very handy here; alternatively you could just double the recipe for the sponge and bake four 9" cakes in a normal cake tin.

Ingredients

Grapefruit Curd:

• 1 large Grapefruit
• 2 Egg Yolks
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 1 Tsp Cornflour

Cinnamon Sponge Cake:

• 200g Butter
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 50mL Sour Cream
• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

Swiss Meringue Buttercream (from Sweetapolita):

• 500g Butter (room temperature)
• 6 Egg Whites
• 90g Caster Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Recipe

Grapefruit Curd:

• Grate the all of the coloured grapefruit rind into a medium saucepan.
• Slice the grapefruit in half and squeeze the juices into the saucepan.
• Add the egg yolks and cornflour, then stir constantly over a medium heat until the liquid has thickened and started to simmer.
• Remove from the heat and strain into a sterilised jar. Can be stored at room temperature for up to six months until opened, as long as the jar is properly sterilised.

Cinnamon Sponge:

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Line an 8" springform tin with baking parchment.
• Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth.
• Fold in the sour cream until well combined.
• Sieve the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into the batter and fold in until well combined.
• The batter should have a soft dropping consistency; if not, add more sour cream.
• Bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from the tin and wrapping in cling film. Place in the freezer for at least 4 hours, and up to 2 weeks.
• Use a ruler (or do it by eye, if you're brave) and a palette knife to divide the cake into four slices.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

• Place the egg whites and sugar in a Bain Marie (a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water, ensuring that the base of the bowl does not touch the water), and stir constantly with a whisk until the sugar has dissolved into the whites. This is best tested by rubbing clean fingers together in the mixture - don't worry, it's not going to be more than luke warm - to check if you can still feel the sugar granules.
• Tip the egg mixture into a mixing bowl, add the vanilla extract and whisk to stiff peaks.
• Slice the butter into small chunks and slowly add it, one chunk at a time, until it has all been incorporated into the meringue.

Assembly:

• Put a dot of the buttercream onto the cake stand/dish you want to serve the cake on, then put one of the sponge slices on top.
• Pipe dots of buttercream on the sponge, until covered.
• Cover with a second cake slice.
• Dot the buttercream around the edge of the cake to stop the curd escaping. Spoon the curd into the centre of the cake and gently spread it so that there is an even layer. There may be some curd left over.
• Cover with a third cake slice.
• Pipe dots of buttercream all over the sponge slice, as before.
• Cover with the final cake slice.
• Spread the remaining buttercream over the top and sides of the cake. I chose to pipe more around the edge of the top of the cake, but do what you want. I then used gold sprinkles with hundreds and thousands sprinkles to decorate.

Previous Cakes Decorated With Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

 Cinnamon Raspberry Cake

                                  Mint Chocolate Cake

Pink Cake

                      Funfetti Cake

             Eight Layer Kahlua Cake

                            Blackberry Cake

Portal Companion Cube Cake

Chocolate Orange Blondies

2016 has been a year for the polarisation of a lot of people's political opinions. It can be difficult when a friend or partner, someone you respect, turns around and tells you that the things they believe in, and vote for, are so starkly different to your own. Dealing with those things can be difficult, and I'm not here to tell you how to do that. We British have a way of sweeping bad feeling under the carpet and getting on with it, but of course the emotions still linger.

However, I find that something that can bring people back together, and that there is rarely disagreement about, is cake. Everyone loves cake. Of course, there are those that say they don't like it, but I choose to believe that they are pretending not to like it so that they can enjoy their kale smoothies. (I test food products for a living, and juices containing kale always smell like grass. Why would you want to drink something that smells like grass?) So I suggest that you gather your people around a table with some hot drinks and serve them some cake, and break any tensions that might exist.

Even better, serve your loved ones these Chocolate Orange Blondies. For those of you who don't know, blondies are brownies made with white chocolate instead of dark chocolate. I used a concentrated orange flavouring (you could also use orange juice and zest) and sprinkled some chopped dark chocolate on top. These blondies were served at a Clandestine Cake Club event and many people commented that they tasted a bit like jaffa cakes. Perfectly dense and gooey, these Chocolate Orange brownies were definitely a crowd pleaser.

Side note: If you like the bowl in the top photo, head over to Dotcomgiftshop*. They sell a whole range of goods, but my favourites are their kitchenware. I love the designs on their bowls and plates. The bakeware section is also great; I got a great cookie cutter that will be used in a future post.

This recipe is based on these Double Chocolate Blondies. I used a concentrated orange flavouring, but using the zest and juice of one orange would also work.

Makes 24
Ingredients

• 400g Caster Sugar
• 375g Butter
• 250g White Chocolate
• 3 Eggs
• 300g Plain Flour
• 1Tbsp Baking Powder
• 5-8 Drops Concentrated Orange Flavour (to taste)
• 200g Dark Chocolate

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Line a brownie tin or roasting tin with baking parchment.
• Break the white chocolate into chunks and melt in a medium saucepan with the butter over a medium heat.
• Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, then the eggs, until well combined.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter and stir well, making sure to scrape around the bottom edges of the pan, as flour tends to get trapped there.
• Stir in the orange flavouring.
• Pour the batter into the prepared tin.
• Chop the dark chocolate and sprinkle over the top (as you may be able to see from the photos, I was actually very lazy here and just broke it into chunks. This also works.)
• Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, then check for a crisp-looking top and no wobble in the middle. Remember that the batter will continue to cook once removed from the oven, so to keep the blondie gooey you mustn't wait until a skewer comes out clean. If there is still a wobble, return to the oven for another 3-5 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

*I was provided with a gift card from Dotcomgiftshop, but was under no obligation to write any material regarding this, promotional or otherwise.

Anniversary Cake: Blackberries & Cream Cheese

This post marks two milestones in my life:

1: At the end of August I celebrated one year in Birmingham. It's been full of new experiences, and I have been so much happier than in any living situation beforehand. I live alone, have made a bunch of new friends, run my own corner of Clandestine Cake Club and love the city I live in. The city is so vibrant and full of culture. I love that I can walk out of my flat and be in the city centre in a matter of minutes. One day I will dedicate a post to all the amazing independent food and drink around here.

Birmingham is such a sharp contrast to my previous home in rural Cambridgeshire. I struggled to break into the tight-knit groups of people living there; everyone knew everyone and, as an outsider, people were generally unwilling to let me in (though eventually I met my two best friends and everything then became easier). The landscape was so flat that you could see for miles, but after a while I realised that all there was to see was farmland, and that is not enough for me. I missed forest. I never thought a person could miss trees.

I really feel like I could settle here, which is why this anniversary is worth celebrating; I hope it is the first of many.

2: On 8th October, this blog will be five years old! I can't believe that I have continued this through a large chunk of my Chemistry MChem degree, moving house four times and relocating around the UK twice.

To you this might be a fun baking blog full of boozy and inventive recipes (or that's the general theme I've gone for), but to me it is both a recipe book and a place where I can look back and relive memories. I regularly refer to this site when baking a favourite cake, or when I make an icing I haven't made in a while, and I always enjoy reading through the post to see where I was in my life when I wrote it.

I admit, I have pared back on the recipes this year - a big drop, considering once I actually posted something at least once a week - but I still enjoy blogging when the mood strikes me. When a cake is blog worthy, you will still hear about it! Altogether, in my time running Cake Of The Week I have written 260 posts. My very first post, Flapjacks, even included a segment called "Don't Make My Mistakes!" - I still make mistakes. I am not a perfectionist; I would class my technique as more "slap-dash", so yes, mistakes happen. Learning how to cover them up, or avoid them in the future, is all part of the fun of baking. For me, baking has always been about doing my own thing and following only the basic rules to ensure that I still make what I am trying to make.

This Anniversary Cake was as much a scientific investigation as it was a celebration. I've noticed that the sour cream in my Chocolate Fudge Cake creates this delightfully fluffy sponge, and milk has never come close to producing the same texture. So, when I had the time and will to make a three layer cake, I did a bit of an experiment. I used the same base recipe for all three layers, but I used a different ingredient to wet each cake: whole milk, sour cream and Greek yoghurt. The results were incredible!

As you can see, the milk cake rose much less than the others. The Greek yoghurt cake rose well, but then collapsed into a more dense version of itself upon cooling. The stand out winner was the sour cream cake, which both rose well and held its shape as it cooled. This marks my conversion to using sour cream in every cake recipe from this point onwards, though I will stress that every cake was still delicious.

The cake is filled and decorated with fresh blackberries and French Cream Cheese Buttercream. Delicious, but oh so rich. Also, from a practical point of view, the cake layers were too tall and the cake may have fallen over when I walked out of the room. That's definitely not how I made the mess pictured below, I promise...

The take away point here is that this is a cake worth baking. I used 7" springform tins to make a standard cake batter stretch into three layers, but a standard two layer cake made from 9" tins will look just as sensational. Get yourself some edible glitter! It makes everything better! Adding 50mL tequila to the batter wouldn't go amiss either.

Ingredients

Cake

• 200g Butter
• 275g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 150mL Sour Cream
• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 200g Blackberries

French Cream Cheese Buttercream

• 250g Unsalted Butter (must be at room temperature)
• 5 Egg Yolks
• 90g Caster Sugar
• 250g Cream Cheese

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Line three 7" springform tins with baking parchment.
• First, make the cake. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth.
• Beat in the sour cream until well combined.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter and fold in until well combined. The batter should have a soft dropping consistency. If not, add a little more sour cream at a time and stir well before checking again.
• Bake in the oven for 22 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Leave the cakes to cool completely, then remove from their tins and discard the baking parchment.
• Meanwhile, make the French Cream Cheese Buttercream. Put the egg yolks and caster sugar in a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of boiling water, ensuring that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water.
• Use a whisk to stir the yolks and sugar together until the sugar has almost completely dissolved into the yolk. 
• Immediately transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and whisk until the mixture is pale and has doubled in size.
• Chop up the butter into small cubes, and whisk these cubes into the yolk mixture one at a time. Ensure that each cube has completely blended into the mixture before adding the next.
• When all the butter has been added you should have a rich buttercream. Now whisk in the cream cheese until fully combined.
• Decorate the cake by spreading a couple of spoonfuls of the buttercream over the top of a cake layer, then covering it with blackberries. Cover with the next layer and repeat. When the third layer is on top, cover the whole cake with the remaining buttercream and then decorate with the remaining blackberries.

Raspberries & Cream Layer Cake

 

I love living in a city. Having lived in Birmingham for nearly 10 months, the novelty of having conveniences like a supermarket, clothes shops and a very cheap greengrocer less than a 5 minute walk from my house has not worn off. Don't get me started on the choice of bars and restaurants that are a short walk from New Street Station. If you've lived in a city for your whole life you might think this wide-eyed enthusiasm is close to insanity, but I spent my first 18 years living in the middle of nowhere, and later another two years in a dozy market town. Birmingham is awesome.

The raspberries for this cake were bought from the aforementioned greengrocer - 375g for £1 is a very good deal, in my opinion! I made the cake for a 'Summer' themed event at my local Clandestine Cake Club (which I also happen to run). I joined the club so I could meet new people, and though it has been hard to attract more than a handful of people to these events, I've made at least one friend through it so far. I would encourage anyone looking to meet new people to sign up to this club, as there are groups worldwide and it's a good excuse to bake and eat cake, not forgetting that it's completely free.

I know I haven't been around a lot this year... I have my reasons, but this does not mean that I'm giving up on Cake Of The Week; you might just hear a little less from me. If you miss me, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook, where I am much more vocal. (I have over 1000 followers on Facebook now! Wow!! I am flabbergasted.)

Before we dive into the recipe, I'm going to level with you. To make the ombre finish on the side of the cake, I used freeze dried sour cherry powder instead of freeze dried raspberry powder. I know. But, the cherry powder is pretty old and the flavour was faded enough for it not to be obvious what I'd done when we sat down to eat the cake. And I didn't have any freeze dried raspberry powder. Though guys, I'm sure this cake could only be enhanced by matching the flavour profiles in the decoration. Do what feels right to you.

Ingredients

• 200g Butter
• 275g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 50mL Milk
• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 600g Double Cream
• 300g Raspberries
• 2 Tbsp Freeze Dried Raspberry Powder

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a 8in springform tin with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and 200g of the sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth.
• Beat in the milk until well combined.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter and fold in until well combined. The batter should have a soft dropping consistency. If not, add a little more milk at a time and stir well before checking again.
• Transfer the batter into the springform tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool in the tin before removing it. The next part is easiest if you first wrap the cake in cling film and freeze for four hours minimum; if you don't have time you'll be fine, but prepare for cake crumbs everywhere.
• Next, divide the cake into three layers. This is easiest if you use a pallette knife and a cake turntable.
• Whip the cream to stiff peaks.
• Wash the raspberries and dry thoroughly before stirring into the remaining sugar, 
• Use half the cream and all but a handful of the raspberries between the cake layers. Spread a dollop of cream over a cake layer, then cover with raspberries. Lay a cake layer on top and repeat.
• Cover the entire cake in a thin layer of cake, filling gaps between the cake layers, in order to get rid of any loose crumbs that might ruin the presentation of the cake.
• Take 1/3 the remaining cream and place in a separate bowl. Add the freeze dried raspberries and stir well. The cream should take on a pink hue. Feel free to add more.
• Spread the pink cream around the bottom of the cake. Don't smooth it out yet.
• Spread the remaining white cream over the top and top sides of the cake. Now smooth the cake over using a pallette knife, removing any excess. As you move the knife over the cream, the pink and white cream should naturally blend. 
• Decorate with the remaining raspberries.

Blackberry Cake 2.0

I always try to keep this blog as something that I do for fun, and not work. It's been quiet around here for about a month, basically because I haven't felt like sitting down to write. I want to keep this site for quality, not quantity of publications. However, when I start to worry about leaving Cake Of The Week alone for a month, I remember that when I read other baking blogs I don't necessarily notice an absence of posts (apart from those that go on for many months) until it's pointed out to me in a post like this...

Yesterday I had a completely empty diary, so I decided to check out Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. It's set in this beautiful building from the 19th Century, right in the city centre. Coincidentally, the museum is celebrating its 160th anniversary this year, so there was a display about how the museum came to be. More surprising was the discovery that it was not just an art gallery, as I had assumed, but it has a whole section about the origins of Birmingham and life in the city from the 1700s. Did you know that Birmingham was once famous for its production of buttons and coins? It was fascinating, and there was so much to see that I couldn't even finish the display, let alone the rest of the museum. For the record, it looks like the museum also contains some historical artifacts. I look forward to seeing what those are!

This is Blackberry Cake 2.0 because I originally made another Blackberry Cake a few years ago. The difference is that here I used whole blackberries and French buttercream, whereas before I blended the blackberries into the batter and decorated the cake with Swiss meringue buttercream. Subtle differences that led to a noticeable difference in flavour and taste. I prefer to use French buttercream because it uses half as much fat, but either type is perfect for slathering onto cakes. They are also much less sweet than traditional buttercream, which is made with icing sugar and butter. Whole blackberries vs blended blackberries is just an aesthetic thing, really, so you can really do whatever you prefer here. Blackberry Cake 2.0 was a success at work, though maybe it's best eaten with a fork because the buttercream can get a bit messy if you use your hands!

A note on the blackberries: I used frozen blackberries, but fresh would work just as well, or perhaps even better. I tend to pick as many as I can when the fruit is in season and then freeze the majority for later use (mostly Blackberry & Apple Crumble, I won't lie). Frozen blackberries can now be found pretty commonly in larger supermarkets.

Ingredients

Sponge:

• 200g Butter
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 500g Frozen Blackberries
• 200g Plain Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 50mL Milk

French Buttercream:

• 250g Unsalted Butter
• 5 Egg Yolks
• 90g Caster Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
• Purple Gel Food Colouring

Recipe

Sponge:

• Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan and line two 9in cake tins with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined.
• Stir in the milk, followed by the frozen blackberries.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter and fold in until well combined.
• Bake in the oven for 22 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow the cakes to cool completely on a wire rack.

French Buttercream:

• Heat a pan filled 2/3 with water until the water starts to simmer.
• Place the sugar and egg yolks in a heat proof bowl over the pan, ensuring that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
• Stir the mixture constantly with a fork/whisk until the sugar has fully dissolved in the yolks (use clean fingers to test; it won't be as hot as you think).
• Immediately transfer the yolk mixture into a mixing bowl and whisk until it has doubled in size and is very pale.
• Ensure that the butter is room temperature, then take a knob at a time and whisk it into the yolk mixture, ensuring it is fully incorporated before adding more. When all of the butter has been added, the buttercream should be smooth, pale and glossy.
• Beat in the gel food colouring until you reach your desired shade of purple. Add a little at a time, because it can be hard to judge the intensity that the colouring will produce.
• Sandwich the cakes together with 1/3 buttercream, then spread the remainder over the top and sides of the cake. To get the swirled pattern on top, I dotted some more gel food colouring onto a spatula and gently touched it on the centre of the top of the cake whilst rotating the cake with my other hand. It helps to have an icing turntable!

I apologise for the contrast in quality between the first photo and the others. One was taken in daylight, the other at night time. If you've ever taken pictures of food, you'll understand what a difference this makes!

Banoffee Brownies

Sometimes I don't really know what I'm going to make until I turn the oven on. This time around, I'd had an idea for using a banana curd with dulce de leche, but wasn't really sure what the vessel would be. As I often do, I rolled the concept around in my head, temporarily landing on roulade, then Swiss roll, before eventually landing on brownies. Sometimes I just don't feel like making cake, or icing, or whatever. Today, brownies seemed like the best way to present these flavours.

The banana curd was something new for me. I asked around on Twitter for recipes and someone referred me to this one on Food.com. I tinkered with the recipe a bit (~ 400g sugar seems like way too much to add to four bananas), and was extremely happy with the result. If jam on toast is your thing, I highly recommend that you try this curd in it. It's better than mashed bananas because it's smoother, and you can store it for a time without it going brown.

These brownies are a definite winner. I topped them with a handful of pecans, but you can leave them out or use walnuts instead if you prefer. They add a nice crunch, contrasting nicely with the sweet and gooey brownies. Added bonus: they take very little time to prepare (after making the curd...) so they can absolutely be made on impulse as soon as you finish reading this post ;)

Before Christmas, the lovely people at Rex London listed Cake Of The Week as one of their 25 Brilliant Baking Blogs. Naturally, I was thrilled to about this! Not only was it flattering to read such a good summary of my blog, but also to be listed alongside some of the much more successful baking blogs in the UK. Dotcomgiftshop were also kind enough to send some vouchers to use on their products. My small flat has more than enough baking equipment, but I love their tableware selection. The bowl and plate in the photos in this post were purchased from Dotcomgiftshop using this voucher. I'll definitely be using this site in the future to find more stunning kitchenware.

Makes 18
Ingredients
Banana Curd (adapted from Food.com; N.B. makes about twice as much as needed):

• 2 Very Ripe Bananas
• 75g Butter
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 1 Tsp Lemon Juice
• 2 Egg Yolks

Banoffee Brownies

• 200g Dark Chocolate
• 375g Mayonnaise (switch for butter if you prefer)
• 500g Caster Sugar
• 3 Medium Eggs
• 225g Plain Flour
• 375g Tin Caramel/Dulche De Leche
• 20g Halved Pecans

Recipe

Banana Curd

• Mash the bananas until there are no lumps, then transfer to a small saucepan.
• Add the remaining ingredients, except for the egg yolks, and heat at a medium temperature for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before stirring the egg yolks into the banana mixture.
• Return to the heat and stir continuously until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. 
• Pour into sterilised jars. The Banana Curd can now be stored at room temperature for at least two months. Store in the fridge once opened.

Banoffee Brownies

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan and line a 9"x18" tin (or 2 x 9"x9" tins, like me) with baking parchment. 
• In a medium-sized saucepan, melt the chocolate over a low heat, then remove from the heat and stir into the mayonnaise.
• Add the caster sugar, and stir until well combined.
• Add the eggs one at a time, stirring until well mixed.
• Stir in the flour until well combined.
• Pour the mixture into the baking tin.
• Dot teaspoonfuls of half of the banana curd and caramel/dulche de leche on top of the brownie mixture, then use a spatula or knife to swirl them through the mixture a bit.
• Sprinkle the pecans over the top.
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, then for an additional five minutes at a time until the top of the brownie mixture doesn't wobble when you shake the tin. Don't cook it until a skewer comes out clean, as you would a cake, because then the desired gooey texture is lost. Remember that the brownies will continue to cook a bit after they are removed from the oven.

Disclaimer: I was given a gift voucher from Rex London with no obligation to feature their products on Cake Of The Week, nor to give a review of any kind. All opinions expressed on this blog are my own.

Hummingbird Cake [Low In Saturated Fat]

I turned 25 last week! Happy birthday to me. It was a fun day of shopping, watching The Hateful Eight and pizza with friends. In the UK and much of Europe, reaching quarter of a century in age means that I am officially no longer a Young Person, and therefore travel and other parts of life are about to get a bit more expensive. 24 was not such a bad age: I got a new job and moved to the city I had been hoping to live in, I went to Stockholm and I experienced my first hangover, to name but a few of the momentous events of the year. Here's to another good year, though I'd be happy if the hangovers could remain in the past ;)

This Hummingbird Cake is another example of baking with low levels of saturated fat and higher levels of unsaturated fats, which are widely believed to be better for you. This month I'm trying to bake healthier versions of my cakes; you can't stop me baking but I understand that the time of year calls for a little restraint on dessert. This cake is hence a compromise on that.

I used olive oil instead of butter, though to be fair Hummingbird cake traditionally uses oil anyway. The cake is packed with pecans, high in monounsaturated fat, and bananas and pineapple, which don't contain much fat at all and are generally pretty good for you! The icing is more of a cheesecake batter than traditional cream cheese icing. I find the icing sugar variety a bit too sweet, and this icing rounds the cake out nicely, though it's a little runny so I advise that you use it sparingly. I highly recommend it!

The cake recipe was copied directly from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, but I only used 1/3 the quantities because I wanted a smaller cake. I won't list their recipe for copyright reasons. The recipe below is for the icing, which can be used to decorate and fill a three layer cake, as in the the book, or you can use 1/3 the quantities below and make one layer like I did. If you don't have the cookbook mentioned above, here's a similar recipe from Jamie Oliver.

Cream Cheese Icing: Ingredients

• 250g Philadelphia Cheese
• 50g Butter
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• Ground Cinnamon & Chopped Pecans to decorate

Cream Cheese Icing: Recipe

• Cream the butter and philadelphia cheese together until smooth.
• Beat in the sugar and vanilla extract until the sugar has dissolved.
• The icing can be covered and refrigerated for several days until needed.
• Drizzle over the cooled cake (use sparingly as it's quite runny), then pile the pecans into the middle of the cake and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Cherry & Pistachio Brownies [Low In Saturated Fat]

The media is full of conflicting arguments on what is and isn't good for us, and the facts behind them are not always black and white. For instance, I thought that all fats were bad until I started analysing foods for their fatty acid composition (saturates, monounsaturates or polyunsaturates) at work.

My boss had studied lipids for his masters degree, and could identify olive oil just by looking at the chromatogram we use to obtain results on its fat composition. From his imparted knowledge about what fats do in the body, I learned that not all fat is bad; saturates are essentially bad for you, whereas mono- and polyunsaturates are generally good for you. Of course it's possible to get too much of a good thing, but the latter two types of fat are the "good fats" you hear about in the media, for instance avocados are high in monounsaturates.

For more information about this topic, there's a great article all about fats over at Vox.

I am in no way professing to know all about the pros and cons of different types of fat, but the knowledge that I have gleaned has taught me that eating foods lower in saturates is no bad thing. Therefore, I thought that brownies low in saturates would be great for Cake Of The Week's Healthy(ish) January.

To achieve the "low in saturated fat" claim, I had to swap butter for olive oil. This was not the simple switch I thought it would be; it turns out that using the same quantity of oil left the original brownies swamped in excess oil, so much so that I had to dab them with paper towels! Appealing, I know. In my second attempt, I used this advice from Nigella.com and opted for 80% butter weight for the oil. As always, the recipe for the brownies is based on my Healthy Brownies. The end result was almost exactly like a normal brownie, but with a denser, less cakey, texture. The oil flavour was just detectable, but considering that oil gives baked goods different properties to butter, I am very pleased with this result. My colleagues were so impressed that they went back for seconds.

Ingredients

• 200g Dark Chocolate
• 250g Vegetable Oil
• 3 Eggs
• 225g Plain Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 75g Cocoa Powder
• 100g Pistachios, shelled and chopped
• 100g Glace Cherries, chopped

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 180C and line two 9" square cake tins (or one 18" tin) with baking parchment.
• In a medium saucepan, break up the chocolate and add the oil. Melt over a low heat, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from the heat, allow to cool slightly, then add the eggs. Use a spoon to break them up and ensure that they are well combined with the chocolate mixture.
• Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the chocolate mixture and fold in. Stir until well combined.
• Add the pistachios and glace cherries, stirring well to ensure they are evenly spread throughout the mixture.
• Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Check that the top of the mixture is firm, but a skewer should come out with a lot of semi-firm mixture on it still. The brownie will continue to firm up and cook as it cools. If the top is still wobbling, return to the oven for another few minutes before checking again, and so on.
• Once the brownies are cool, slice up using a sharp knife (I got 18, but it really depends on how big or small you make them). Store in a cool, dry place.

Introducing Healthy(ish) January

How was everybody's Christmas and New Year? I hope that you took a break, ate too much, and spent some quality time with friends and family. Don't even begin to feel guilty about all that indulgence; we had to stuff ourselves because it's (supposed to be) winter, and we need all that extra energy to stay warm. If I can convince myself, I can convince all of you.

I'm planning to take a step back from the brandy cream, wine and chocolate this month and share my healthy(ish) recipes with all of you. In 2015 Cake Of The Week ran a Low Fat January, so I plan to do something similar this year. The media seem a little confused with regards to which ingredient they should now be demonising, and I do not wish to be a part of the hype. A lot of the sensationalist headlines hold no merit, and could do with a little more background reading of reliable studies. In a nutshell, this January will be known as Healthy(ish) January here on the blog. "Ish" because, let's be honest, cake can never truly be classed as healthy, much as I would like it to be.

I spend a lot of weekends running between Birmingham and other parts of the country to socialise, and I do turn 25 this month, but I'm hoping to share at least a couple of healthy(ish) recipes with you before February!

For more on healthy(ish) baking, check out the corresponding tab above (or follow this link). There you'll find information on using low fat and other lower calorie ingredients, along with a list of recipes that I believe are healthier than your average bake.

Baking With Spirit: Cranberry Eggnog Loaf Cake

It feels like I blinked and the year flew by. However, looking back, I have packed in quite a lot since January. For instance, I made this cake at the end of the 2014 Christmas period, too late to post on here and be relevant, so left it in my drafts folder and completely forgot about it. (Discovering this post couldn't have been more timely, as I have not had time to bake this weekend!) I knew that I would forget important details such as recipe and taste profile, so I was kind enough to write those down for myself at the time.

Quick note RE eggnog: It's not easy to buy ready made in the UK (except for the Starbucks variety, which I do incidentally love), so I've made my own for the past two years. I remember bookmarking the original recipe, but each year since I have not been able to find the bookmark for the previous year's recipe. Trying to guess which recipe I used last year has become a strange tradition, if you can call it that. So I think I used this BBC Food recipe last year, without the cherries. But I can't be sure. 

And now, I hand you over to 2014 (possibly early 2015) Janine:

The cake was perfectly moist, though a little dense (it possibly could have been left in the oven for another 10 minutes or so). The cranberries cut through the sweetness of the sponge beautifully, and the eggnog brings a great subtle flavour. This cake was tasty at all times of day (yes, I ate it for breakfast), and I'll be making it again. Do yourself a favour and make some eggnog, then put it in this cake!

Ingredients

• 200g Butter
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 250mL Eggnog
• 100g Fresh Cranberries, plus small handful for decoration
• 20g Dark Muscovado Sugar

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 170C/160C fan. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the batter is smooth.
• Sift the four and baking powder into the batter and add the cranberries. Fold into the batter until well combined.
• Fold in the eggnog. The batter should have a soft dropping consistency; if not, add a little more eggnog or milk and try again.
• Transfer the batter into the loaf tin.
• Sprinkle the extra cranberries over the top of the batter, followed by the muscovado sugar.
• Bake in the oven for 1hr -1hr 30, or until a skewer comes out clean. Check the cake at 1 hour, and then check every 15 minutes to ensure that the cake doesn't over bake.

Baking With Spirit: Spiced Up Bread & Butter Pudding

I know, I know...  Baking With Spirit posts: they're like buses. Months go by without a single one, and then two come along in the space of a fortnight.

                                                                                                     

Alas, the Technology Saga Of 2015 continues. In my last post I mentioned that I was having a long and drawn out battle with my laptop, and I am sad to say that I lost. It just refused to start up, even after being left "starting windows" for an entire eight hour work day, and I decided that it was time to let go. I now sit typing on a brand new, begrudgingly bought, laptop.

Getting used to Windows 10 has been one thing, but discovering that my external hard drive hadn't actually backed up my data was quite another. Not being able to access the hard drive left me with no option but to deal with the actual hardware and try to extract the data somehow. If you read my previous post, you'll know this is not my forte at all. Unscrewing the base of my old laptop and revealing the motherboard was completely new territory for me, and though I know it can't possibly be damaged any further, I still handled it like one probably handles a new born child, or some delicate, very ancient china.

Of course, this foray into the unknown could all have been for nothing if the hard drive is completely dead and cannot be restored, in which case all the recent photos that I haven't put on here or Facebook are gone, as are some useful documents like a spreadsheet that I use to budget. Oh, and my collection of logos and other information that I had stored for Cake Of The Week. Wish me luck, readers!

Now you may be asking yourself what a Spiced Up Bread & Butter Pudding involves. Well, it begins with soaking goji berries in spiced rum, and ends with a warm, spiced pudding that hits just the right spot at this time of year. This is adapted from the traditional British pudding, but here we use sour dough instead of white bread, and goji berries instead of raisins and sultanas (though these are totally acceptable if that's what you have in your cupboard). If you are foreign this dish may well sound revolting, but the creamy custard mixture is absorbed by the bread (day-old, or slightly stale, is best) to produce a soft, spicy and comforting pudding. Just trust me. Would I lead you astray?

Ingredients

• 100g Dried Goji Berries
• 50mL Spiced Rum (or enough to cover the berries)
• 300g/ Approx. 1/2 Stale Sourdough Loaf
• 80g Caster Sugar
• 300mL Milk
• 200mL Double Cream
• 3 Eggs
• 2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 Tsp Ground Nutmeg

Recipe

Adapted from Classic British Puddings by LOVE FOOD

• Put the goji berries in a glass or small bowl, and cover with the spiced rum. Cover and leave at room temperature for at least 12 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan and grease a medium sized oven proof dish with butter.
• Break the sourdough into small bite-sized pieces (tear rather than chop to get rougher edges).
• Use a spoon to evenly disperse the goji berries and any remaining rum amongst the bread pieces.
• Sprinkle most of the sugar over the bread, reserving a couple of tablespoons for later.
• In a jug, mix the eggs, cream, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg until well mixed. Pour over the bread and stir it around a bit to make sure it is evenly spread.
• Sprinkle the remaining sugar on top of the pudding.
• Cover with cling film and allow to soak for at least 15 minutes, but a couple of hours is better.
• Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until the custard has set and the pudding is starting to brown on top. Serve hot.

Baking With Spirt: Tequila Sunshine Cheesecake

Have you ever seen Zoolander? Remember the bit where Hans and Zoolander try to break into the computer? That's me with hardware. Printers, hoovers, televisions... You name it, I struggle with it. Having grown up with computers (we got our first one when I was seven), software is easy for me to get to grips with but if there's an external issue I am rather challenged. Cue my laptop keyboard suddenly deciding that random keys should no longer work. With my software talent (I use this word loosely) I've ruled out any driver or virus issues, so now all that is left is the actual keyboard itself being the problem. Here my expertise ends, so for the time being I'm making do with the on-screen keyboard and using my phone for writing full on paragraphs (like here on the blog). As I write this, I am also trying to break my laptop from a cycle of blue screening on opening the desktop, so it might just be time for a new one...

I hope that these issues will magically resolve themselves, but if not 2016 could be the year of a new laptop.

Now that I have shared with you just how mechanically challenged I am, let's talk about this cheesecake. Ever heard of a Tequila Sunshine Cocktail? Neither have I. Basically I wanted to put orange and tequila in a cheesecake, and wanted a snappy name for it. A classic Tequila cocktail is, of course, the Tequila Sunrise, containing tequila, orange juice and grenadine. Take away the grenadine and I believe this makes sunshine.

This rich and tangy cheesecake definitely has an adult feel to it. Please don't serve it to children because, if you weren't sure, this does contain a lot of tequila. The base is made from Bourbon Biscuits. (Non-British readers: these biscuits don't actually contain whisky; they are chocolate biscuits sandwiched with a chocolate filling. If you're ever making a cheesecake that goes with chocolate, I highly recommend that you give them a try for your base. If you don't have any orange extract, to hand, the juice from an orange should also do the trick.

Best served at an adult soirée, or as a decadent dessert, this cheesecake is well worth a try!

Ingredients

• 200g Bourbon Biscuits
• 50g Butter
• 1 Sachet Gelatine
• 400g Philadelphia Cheese
• 200g Mascarpone Cheese
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 3-4 Drops Orange Extract
• 25-50mL Tequila

Recipe

• Crush the biscuits into crumbs and stir into the melted butter. (Or blend it all together in a food processor - no need to melt the butter.) Press the biscuit mixture into the base of a 10" springform tin that has been lined with baking parchment. Place to one side.
• Prepare the gelatine as per the manufacturer's instructions.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the Philadelphia and mascarpone cheeses together with the caster sugar.
• Stir in the orange extract and tequila to taste - if you like your tequila, you may need more than the recipe states to get the balance right.
• Stir in the gelatine and mix until smooth.
• Pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base.
• To get the orange design on top of the cheesecake I swirled some yellow/orange food colouring gel through the cheesecake mixture before setting it.
• Place the cheesecake in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours. Should be kept in the fridge until served.

Caramel Apple Crumble Cake

It's Autumn again, and I couldn't go without showing you another apple & caramel combo. I don't know why exactly, but a chill in the air always sends me running for those ingredients. And crumble needs no explanation; it just makes everything better, don't you think? 

I made this cake twice: once to bring to work and once for some friends. It got some great reviews, and at work someone liked it so much that they had two slices, thus preventing someone else on the team from getting any. I mean, I couldn't exactly complain when I had a compliment like that, could I?

This Caramel Apple Crumble Cake has a crispy caramel and crumble topping which sits on a moist sponge filled with apple pieces. Perfect as a naughty breakfast, or an afternoon treat. Excellent with custard.

Ingredients

Crumble

100g Butter

100g Caster Sugar

100g Plain Flour

Sponge

200g Butter

200g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

2 Bramley Apples, peeled and chopped into chunks 

200g Plain Flour

1 Tsp Cinnamon

2 Tsp Baking Powder

Caramel

150g Caster Sugar

100mL (approx) Water

100mL Double Cream

Recipe

Crumble

• Place the ingredients in a mixing bowl and rub together with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Place to one side.

Sponge

• Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan and line a 10" springform cake tin with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat the eggs in, one at a time, until smooth.
• Fold the apple chunks into the batter until well combined.
• Sieve the flour, cinnamon and baking powder into the batter and fold in until well combined.
• Transfer the batter into the springform tin, then sprinkle the crumble over the top.
• Bake in the oven for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Caramel 

• While the cake bakes, put the sugar in a heavy-bottomed pan and cover with water. Heat on a medium setting until the water has boiled off and the sugar has turned golden brown.
• Remove from the heat and immediately whisk in the butter, followed by the cream.
• When the cake is removed from the oven, spike it all over with a skewer and pour the caramel over the top, ensuring that it covers the cake evenly.

Baking With Spirit Spotlight: Chocolate & Whisky Cake

It's been quite a while since my last Baking With Spirit: Spotlight post, so you can be forgiven for not knowing what this is all about. The gist of it is that I enjoy baking with booze, and I want to highlight some of the great recipes I find on the blogosphere (thus encouraging myself to make more of them). Today, the spotlight falls on Linzi at Lancashire Food's Chocolate & Whisky Bundt Cake.

Linzi made this cake back in 2012 as a thank you to some helpful care staff. She describes it as a "dark delight, with more adult flavour", and says that the alcohol can be changed to one of your choosing, e.g. rum or amaretto. This post actually features in an old-style Baking With Spirit challenge, under the Whisky Round Up.

Unfortunately I don't own a bundt tin, so I made my Chocolate & Whisky Cake in a 10" springform cake tin. I don't own anything for guidance with American cup measurements, so I guestimated using my knowledge of cake ratios.

How was it? Well, although I couldn't taste the whisky, apparently everyone at work could. I don't know what that says about me... The cake was dense and chocolatey, and a few (misguided) people thought it was a chocolate brownie. I think either I should have whisked more air into the batter, or a bit more raising agent could have been used, as the cake didn't rise very well. That being said, I would absolutely make this cake again, and it was so popular at work that some strangers stole a bit... can't say I blame them!

Make sure you check out Lancashire Food for the recipe and many more excellent sweet and savoury recipes.

Blackberry & Chocolate Cake

If you’ve been keeping up with me on social media, you’ll know that I recently came across a massive stock of blackberries. I’m very new to the area, but a friend of mine who knows it relatively well tipped me off on where to find them. The countryside is not for me, but at least there is a plentiful supply of wild fruit!

As you know, I don't really play by the rules when it comes to baking. My new work collegues had been pre-warned that I might bring in cake (about five minutes of my interview were spent discussing cake, which was not really anything to do with the job), but they don't know what weird and wonderful combinations they have in store for them! The first combination was this Blackberry & Chocolate Cake, and it went down rather well. Not everyone was a fan of the dark chocolate, but that's ok because they were in the minority. The more people eating my cake that aren't me, the better.

The sponge is full of blackberries, then sandwiched and topped with a dark chocolate ganache. It's very simple, but delicious too. Perfect as an afternoon indulgence.

Ingredients

• 200g Butter
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 200g Plain Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 300g Blackberries
• 50mL Milk
• 200g Dark Chocolate
• 100mL Double Cream

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan. Line two 9" cake tins with baking parchment.
• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat the eggs into the mixture one at a time until the batter is smooth.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter and fold in until well combined.
• Fold in the blackberries and milk.
• Divide the batter between the cake tins and bake for 22 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Turn the cakes out onto a wire rack and allow to cool.
• Meanwhile, make the ganache. Melt the chocolate and double cream in a saucepan over a low heat. Allow to cool, stirring occasionally.
• Sandwich the cakes together with half of the ganache and spread the remainder over the top.