My love for Collies, Cakes, Cooking, Eating Out & Days Out.
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.
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.
I haven’t baked for a couple of weeks as we are busy refitting the kitchen.
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!
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
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.
There you have it Lemon and Poppyseed Layer Cake.
After an impulsive blueberry purchase in the supermarket this week I thought
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
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”
As I made a Spiced Chocolate Cake last week it triggered the call for a Spiced Apple Cake, it is that time of year after all – Halloween and Bonfire Night! After a bit of encouraging on Twitter to create an Apple Cake here is my answer… Toffee Apple Cake.
This is a cake that looks impressive and seems as if it should be tricky to make. But fear not, this Toffee Apple Cake is easy to bake and uses the simplest of
ingredients. I’ve added an extra twist by covering it in Maple Syrup Buttercream and topping it with home-made Caramel Sauce. The best thing is you don’t need fresh apples, this Toffee Apple Cake keeps things simple by using shop bought apple sauce. It couldn’t be easier so lets get cracking… Continue reading “Toffee Apple Cake”
This week I dug out my 40th Edition Be-Ro book and did the Cookbook Challenge. It is a well thumbed recipe book so was hard to find something I
haven’t baked before but hiding away on page 53 is Chocolate Spice Cake.
This cake is suits Autumn perfectly, especially this week being Halloween and Bonfire Night. The Chocolate Spice Cake is lightly spiced with cloves, cinnamon and mixed spice so is a lovely alternative to parkin and gingerbread. Continue reading “Chocolate Spice Cake”
Chocolate and Orange are perfect flavours when baking cakes and never more so than in this recipe for Chocolate Chip Orange Cake. Chunks of good quality chocolate lace the moist orange sponge. This Chocolate Chip Orange Cake is reminiscent of when you bake with marmalade only this time you use a whole raw orange!
Read on for my recipe…