My love for Collies, Cakes, Cooking, Eating Out & Days Out.
When it comes to making and eating scones my husband is the expert. He was
gifted the National Trust Book of Scones a while ago so for National Cream Tea Day we got baking together. We chose the Chocolate Orange Scone Recipe from Goddard’s House and Garden for a delicious treat. We made a couple of adjustments to the recipe but they were delicious.
I recently visited Amy’s Place in Torrin on the Isle of Skye. A lovely little tea room with amazing views of Bla Bheinn. Whilst I was there I purchased a jar of Butterscotch Sauce from The Wee Dairy from the Isle of Gigha. So this week I decided to create a cake to compliment the sauce. Here is my recipe for White Chocolate and Butterscotch Cake.
Simple Citrus Muffins are a quick and easy sweet treat to make. No fancy ingredients or tricky techniques are needed. This recipe makes 12 tangy muffins which can be frozen before being iced if you need to.
Well, you can take the girl out of Yorkshire but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the girl! One thing I do miss from my home county of Yorkshire is a Traditional Yorkshire Curd Tart, not something readily found outside the county boundaries. My husband used to buy fresh or frozen curds from the local farm shop and occasionally bake one but there are no such curds on the Isle of Skye. So I had to give it my best shot and make my own curds. So my recipe for Yorkshire Curd goes back to basics and demonstrates how to make curds, pastry and what to do with the left over buttermilk.
The English Cherry season tends to end around mid-September but my local supermarket here on Skye had some in stock this week. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I grabbed myself a punnet and embarked on a cake recipe. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of rehashing a Black Forest style cake so I opted for something a little different. Fresh Cherry and Marzipan Cake, the marzipan gives the almond flavour a real boost!
A few months ago I found a recipe for a Maple Syrup Cake which turned out to be a disaster. The quantities, nor the method seemed correct but I ploughed ahead and baked a dreadful dry and sunken cake. So after a bit of experimentation I now have a recipe I have created for a delicious Maple Syrup, Orange & Pecan Cake with an orange buttercream filling. Even better, you can always swap the Pecans for Walnuts and it will be just as tasty!
My recipes for Chocolate Bundt Cakes have proven to be very popular. However there has been many calls for a smaller version to be made in sandwich tins. I’ve re-written and tested the recipe so it fits into 2 x 20cm/8inch round cake tins. This version is a Chocolate Orange Cake but you could swap the orange for 120g of fresh raspberries and make a Chocolate Raspberry Cake.
To boost the flavour of the Chocolate Orange Cake I used a 100g bar of 
Fairtrade Dark Orange Chocolate from the Co-op topped up to 50g with Callebaut 54% Dark Chocolate Callets. This combination gives a rich chocolate flavour without being too bitter. I also used Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil but this can be substituted for any rapeseed, sunflower or vegetable oil.
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.
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.
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
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 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!
