Last weekend was my husband’s birthday so the cake I baked had to be a bit special. After much deliberation we chose to make a few adjustments to an existing recipe and baked Chocolate and Raspberry Bundt Cake. The recipe is very similar to the Chocolate Orange Bundt Cake I’ve made before. However this one is loaded with fresh raspberries and a top tip – how to make your own buttermilk.
Chocolate and Raspberry Bundt Cake
So if you have a special occasion and want a tasty chocolate that will wow the crowds, then look no further. It is moist, rich and super chocolatey. My Chocolate and Raspberry Bundt Cake recipe is below.
With the long summer evenings and warmer weather finally arrived here on Skye my hens are laying well. So what to make when you have a glut of freshly laid eggs. Having never made it before Lemon Meringue Pie was high on my list. I love baking with citrus fruits so Lemon Meringue Pie ticks all the boxes.
Lemon Meringue Pie
My recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie uses the pastry recipe I have used in previous tarts which is fairly foolproof. Which only leaves two more stages to make. So here goes…my recipe is below! Continue reading “Lemon Meringue Pie”
Surprisingly I have never had a slice of Hummingbird Cake when I have been out for Coffee and Cake. Mainly because what was on offer had dessicated coconut in it and I’m not a lover of coconut. Most recipes I looked at for Hummingbird Cake didn’t include coconut anyway, so I’ve put that down to a personal preference on behalf of the baker. However they all included some
Hummingbird Cake
fabulous tropical fruits, mango, passion fruit, banana, orange and pineapple.
So here is my take on Hummingbird cake. It’s big, but totally worth it especially as we have all Bank Holiday weekend to enjoy it!
We were having a weekend away camping on the neighbouring island of Raasay. We needed a cake robust enough to survive the weekend and be carried in our rucksacks whilst out hiking. After a little bit of inspiration courtesy of my Gaelic tutor Weetabix Cake came out favourite.
Weetabix Cake
Weetabix is fruity, tasty, packed full of energy and is nice and robust for rucksack lunches. Even better, it is very easy to make and I had all the ingredients in the pantry! I eat two weetabix and fresh fruit every day for breakfast so I really didn’t have to look very far!
I haven’t baked for a couple of weeks as we are busy refitting the kitchen.
Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake
However the new oven is all connected and our new hens have just started laying eggs so a cake was in order. I find that a lot of recipes for Lemon and Poppyseed Cakes turn out to be uninspiring loaf cakes. This recipe turns a run of the mill Lemon and Poppyseed Cake into an indulgent Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake!
But first a giggle – the recipe calls for 4 large eggs! Five of my girls lay medium eggs and one seems to lay enormous eggs. I picked two of the huge eggs and two medium ones thinking that would balance out to about 4 eggs. The first two huge eggs I cracked into the mixture were double yolkers! A fab surprise but not quite what I was looking for in my cake. I had enough yolk but probably not enough egg white, so I threw in one egg white and crossed my fingers. As you can see the cake worked out well, and is very yellow. My ladies are fairly free range and love a bit of corn every day so in turn we get very golden eggs!
Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
225g Stork
225g Self Raising Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100g Golden Caster Sugar
100g Light brown sugar
4 large eggs
zest of 2 lemons – finely grated
20g poppyseeds
Filling:
Half a jar of Lemon curd
75g softened butter
250g sifted icing sugar
splash of milk
Method
Heat the oven to 160c fan.
Grease an line 2 x 18cm cake tins.
Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and mix until smooth and creamy.
Divide the mix evenly between the two tins and cake for 20-25 minutes.
Remove from the oven when baked and left in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out onto cooling racks.
Whilst the cakes are cooling make the buttercream filling. Put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and mix together, slowly add a splash of milk until the butter cream is soft and creamy.
When the cakes are completely cooled cut each one in half with a sharp knife. A very sharp bread knife is good and cut lengthways through from edge to edge. You should now have four circular thin sponge cakes.
Pick one to be the bottom and place onto a plate. Cover the top of this one generously with lemon curd.
Next sandwich the next sponge slice on top of the lemon curd. Smother the top of this one with a generous helping of buttercream.
Nestle the next sponge slice on top of the buttercream and cover this slice generously with lemon curd as you did earlier.
Finally add the top layer and cover it with the rest of the buttercream.
For all you chocoholics out there, is there nothing better than a perfect
Chocolate Brownie
Chocolate Brownie? My Chocolate Brownie recipe is a hybrid of many recipes my husband went through when looking for a great Chocolate Brownie. After a few tweaks to a few recipes we hit the spot.
The standard recipe is for a great quality simple Chocolate Brownie but as it is Easter in a couple of weeks I have tweaked it again to make Easter Chocolate Brownies. Below is the original recipe and a few tweaks for other recipes…
I adore Bakewell Tart and go out of my way to hunt a good one down. My
Bakewell Tart
absolute favourite outside of Bakewell itself is from Malton Relish. When Sophie, my good friend and owner of Malton Relish comes to visit she brings some up to Skye especially for us!
But as I am now so far away from my favourite Bakewell Tart I thought I had just better make my own. And as I am also and avid lover of marzipan, I supercharged the frangipani with some extra marzipan! So below is my version of Bakewell Tart.
Whilst thumbing the pages of New York Cult Recipes by Marc Grossman I stumbled across a recipe for Chocolate Babka. This is a breakfast cake popular in Jewish New York bakeries and Deli’s. A hybrid between bread, brioche and cake with lots of added chocolate. What’s not to love!
Chocolate Babka
The ingredients are simple and easy to come by. You need a bit of time for the dough to rise twice but not many other tricky skills. So here is the recipe from the book and my experience of making and eating Chocolate Babka.
After an impulsive blueberry purchase in the supermarket this week I thought
Blueberry and Almond Cake
it best to bake a Blueberry and Almond Cake. There are so many recipes out there for Blueberry Muffins or Lemon & Blueberry Cake so I thought it would be good to have something a bit different. So here’s my recipe was a delicious Blueberry and Almond Cake with a cream cheese filling and frosting. Continue reading “Blueberry and Almond Cake”
Last week I bought some cream cheese to make a frosting for an Apple Cake I
Red Velvet Cake
made. The Apple Cake wasn’t the success I hoped so I didn’t ice it. So what to bake to use the cream cheese, well it could only be Red Velvet Cake!
Red Velvet Cake is one of those cakes that ticks all the boxes – chocolate, moist and covered in frosting – what more could you want. So here’s my recipe for Red Velvet Cake. Continue reading “Red Velvet Cake”
