Happy Birthday Mar!!!

I love the way the light from the candels is captured in this pic. This is a cranberry white chocolate cake I made for my friend Maryam to celebrate her 30th birthday pre-Christmas. Before making it, I asked her to name three of her favourite ingredients. She named as cranberry, nuts and chocolate. And as some foods are just meant to be together (call it food fate) I thought that these would go perfect! So all I did was whip together a basic cake recipe and added dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks. In hindsight I should have baked the cake with real cranberries, which would have given it a nice moisture. It being Christmas and my local Tesco not incredibly amazing at stocking some foods (although on a sidebar, they did have everything I could have asked for to make sushi) I stuck with dried. The birthday girl enjoyed it and so did everyone else. It was a light cake to finish off a light meal! And not too summery.

4oz olive oil
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
160g self-raising flour
dried cranberries

250g white chocolate

macademia nuts for decoraton

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4; 180C; 350F
Grease a cake tin

a) whisk together the oil and sugar until completely combined
b) whisk the eggs and add to the sugar/oil mixture in three batches always ensuring the eggs are fully combined before adding the next batch.
c) sift the flour into the sugar oil mixture and fold in until a nice dough is formed

d) fold in the cranberries and white chocolate
e) pour the dough into the cake tin
f) bake for roughly 45-50m or until a skewer comes out dry

Ice the cake with your favourite kind of icing. I made a white chocolate cream cheese icing. I think I have a problem. I don't make anything else at the moment. I must stray away!

Anti-season low fatish blueberry goodness

Despite the urge to bake something seasonal filled with candied fruit, an entire spice rack and marzipan, I had a half pint of fresh blueberries staring at me in the fridge last night and opted to make something delicious but not dangerous! I relaced the butter with olive oil and much to my delight it didnt alter the flavour of the cake at all! I figured it makes for a nice light sweet treat at a time when everyone is gorging themselves with mince pies, brandy cream and Christmas pudding. The cake came out really fluffy and not overly sweet. It also looks a little warped as I have one of those rubber cake tins and I use parchment paper to make sure that the cake doesn't stick.

Here is the recipe:

4oz olive oil
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
160g self-raising flour
half pint of blueberries

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4; 180C; 350F
Grease a cake tin

a) whisk together the oil and sugar until completely combined (I used my £14 Argos food processor)
b) whisk the eggs and add to the sugar/oil mixture in three batches always ensuring the eggs are fully combined before adding the next batch.
c) sift the flour into the sugar oil mixture and fold in until a nice dough is formed
d) pour the dough into the cake tin and sprinkle the blueberries on top
e) bake for roughly 45-50m or until a skewer comes out dry

Two notes:
I wrote this recipe off the top of my head so I may have gotten something wrong but I am almost positive I haven't!
Resist the temptation to continuously open the oven as it will affect the height and cakeiness of your cake!

Happy Baking!!

Happy Birthday Mr Jackson

Given the time of year as temperatures start to dip, leaves plunge off of branches and blustery winds make us want to stay inside and indulge in nice things, I thought this ginger cake was perfect my friend's birthday as it's spices and all around sugary goodness meant that it could be consumed with a glass of mulled wine while standing outside and watching fireworks.

The cake itself looks battered... and that's because it got a beating travelling from Mornington Crescent all the way to Leyton. Two tube lines and a lot of waking later, the icing had fallen off the sides of the cake. I iced it with a cream cheese icing (admittedly my favorite way to ice a cake these days) but don't think I put enough icing sugar into it. The extra icing sugar would have made it much stiffer. Ho hum.

The cake itself, however, was very good and the recipe I used came from the ladies who run a local cake shop called The Primrose Bakery. http://www.primrosebakery.org.uk/PAGES/Welcome.htm

The recipe is really user friendly but has a lot happening at once.

Here it is!

165g unsalted butter

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger

1 tbsp caster sugar

250g self-raising flower

2 tsp ground ginger

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

175g soft light brown sugar

3 large eggs

185g good quality dark chocolate

124ml golden syrup

250ml buttermilk

heat the oven to 180C or gas mark 4

Grease and line two 2X20 sandwich tins

1) Put the chopped ginger and caster sugar into a bowl, stir and set aside for a few minutes. In a separate bowl, sift the flower and spices

2) Cream the butter and brown sugar in a big bowl. Beat in the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. It might look a bit curdled but don't worry about it.

3) Melt 60g of chocolate in a double boiler. Pour in the syrup and whisk until smooth.

4) Add the melted chocolate and sugar ginger to the creamed butter and beat again. Next, add the dry ingredients in stages, alternating with the buttermilk, only beating so that the ingredients are just blended. Chop the remaining chocolate and fold into the mixture.

5) Divide the mixture between the two tins and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

The cheesecake that went horridly wrong

Making a bad cheesecake is like getting fired from a job: humiliating and sad. Now although on the outside, this cheesecake looks like it should have been a little (or large- depending on who you are) slice of cheesy heaven. But when I cut into it at a recent family gathering, I knew already it was going to be a disaster. The knife went straight through, and with a good cheesecake, the knife should feel like it sticks a bit. I have been obsessed with trying to make regular recipes low fat (only because I enjoy the challenge more than anything) and took no exception with this cheesecake. I know this isn't where I went wrong. It was too eggy. Too many eggs made it light and fluffy... so I have revised the recipe:

16 digestive biscuits

1/3 cup butter (I used low fat marg)

750g cream cheese (I used low fat)

3/4 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F or gas mark 4

1) break the digestives into a blender with half of the walnuts and whizz until a fine crumb develops. Melt the butter in a pan and mix with the cookie and nut mixture. Press into the bottom of a spring board pan and put in the fridge for ten minutes.

2) In the blender whizz together the cream cheese and 1/2 cup of the maple syrup until a fine consistency is reached. The blend in the eggs one at a time until well mixed.

3) Pour the mixture into the set cookie base and bake for 45-50m or until a knife comes out clean and the cheesecake has cracked

4) Once cooled, pour the remaining 1/4 of maple syrup over top the cheesecake and decorate with the remainder of walnuts

See if this works for you better than the original worked for me. Long live the cheesecake!

One Whole Pumpkin

So I loved this time of year so much as kid, not only because of the copious amounts of sweet treats, the costume or even Thanksgiving, but getting your hands into a freshly opened pumpkin is the best feeling! So I rekindled my pumpkin relationship after almost five years of separation and although I love "Jack" (my father's idea) I will have to do something with it. So now what do I do with the thing? I am all for baking with veg and pumpkin pie has always been a favourite of mine. But I'd like to do something different with it. Suggestions very much welcomed!

Chocolate Fudge Icing

I have discovered that when making icing for any old cake, the trick is in cream cheese! Add melted chocolate to whipped cream cheese and icing sugar and it ultimately comes out like fudge. Much better than making a butter cream icing... healthier too. Kind of. I recently iced my cousin's birthday cake with said concoction and it came out a treat!

Recipe:

250g light Philly

1 cup icing sugar

200g dark or baking chocolate melted

1) In a blender whip together cream cheese and icing sugar

2) in a pot on low heat, melt the chocolate while constantly stirring to ensure that nothing burns on the pan

3) Mix into the cream cheese mixture

4) Cool for 15mins

5) Spread all over delicious baked cake of your choice