Spiced Apple Cake

I only discovered apple cake in recent years and I love it. What I like most is the contrast between the texture of the apple and the light sponge. The first time I tried apple cake it was at my friend Becca's house. I asked her for the recipe but she just shrugged and said she just made it up as she went along.

Now I am not one of these people who can just make up recipes as I go along, I like to follow the instructions to the letter to ensure I get the best results and I have been wanting to find the perfect apple cake recipe for a long time now and I pleased to say I have found it.

This Spiced Apple Cake is one of the World Baking Day recipes available at www.worldbakingday.com. It's ranked at Level 64 which means it is relatively challenging for someone who doesn't bake much. I am working my way up the levels and hope to bake  something from Level 90+ and above by the time we get to Sunday 19th May.

If you like the flavour combination of cinnamon and apple you will enjoy this cake, and if you are brave enough to experiment a bit with the recipe I'd recommend adding some sultanas.

Not only do you get a delicious cake but your home will be filled with the most amazing smell. They say if you are trying to sell your house you should bake bread to make the house smell appealing. Forget bread and make this cake!

For the full recipe visit the World Baking Day website. This recipe is from Cheryl who blogs at http://madhousefamilyreviews.blogspot.co.uk/.

Baking Braver Biscuits

One of my new years resolutions was to get better at baking biscuits, another one was to blog more often. I haven't done too well at the latter but I haven't done too badly on the biscuits.

I've become a lot more confident baking biscuits and cookies than I used to be. I've also had a lot of help from the food processor I got for Christmas which can whiz up a great cookie batter in about 5 minutes.

I've also been lucky enough to work on the marketing campaign for World Baking Day this year which falls on Sunday 19th May. On www.worldbakingday.com there are 100 different recipes from around the world, each recipe has been donated by someone who loves to bake including bloggers, chefs and patisserie owners. The recipes have been ranked in terms of difficulty from super simple at number 1 to the treacherous and tricky number 100. 

On World Baking Day everyone needs to Bake Brave by challenging themselves to bake something which pushes their baking skills to the next level.

In advance of the day I have been trying out quite a few of the recipes. When it comes to cakes I feel confident choosing some of the more tricky recipes but for the biscuits I am slowly building my confidence.

The first biscuits I tried were cinnamon and chocolate biscuits. These are ranked at Level 13 so relatively easy (in theory).

I was really pleased with how mine turned out. I made them pretty big so I only managed to make 5 but that was fine for me. They were really tasty and I learnt some new decorating techniques.

You can find the full recipe here.

After the success of these biscuits I was ready to push it up a level and attempt Level 32 - Iced Vanilla Bunny Biscuits

The biscuits themselves were really easy to make and the dough was really easy to work with. I think the complexity in this recipe comes from the decoration. Instead of bunnies I made butterflies and instead of plain fondant / sugar paste I used some chocolate ready to roll icing.

The decoration was easier than I had expected and they look quite impressive. The ready to roll icing was easy to work with, you just cut out the shapes using the same cookie cutter you used for the biscuits and then put a bit of the water on the back to make it stick to the biscuit.

I then decorated mine with mini choco beans.

I'm going to continue to challenge myself with new biscuit recipes but for now, here's some more of the biscuits I've baked so far this year.

Vanilla cookies

Homemade Jammie Dodgers

Afghan Biscuits

(see my blog about these here) 

Primrose Bakery and Afghan Biscuits

My Easter weekend was due to be an adventure in Amsterdam with my best friend. Unfortunately after a disaster at the airport, the car parking company messed up and overbooked and we ended up missing our flight.

Determined to be tourists for the weekend we headed into London on Easter Sunday and top of our list of places to visit was Primrose Hill and the famous Primrose Bakery.

We were spoilt for choice with all of the Easter bakes on offer but in the end I went for something I'd never even heard of before, an Afghan biscuit.

It's a delicious cross between a biscuit and a chocolate cornflake cake. It was so delicious that a week later I was still craving more so I had to find a recipe.

Believe it or not I actually found this recipe on Wikipedia.

Ingredients

• 200g margarine
• 75g sugar
• 175g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 50g cornflakes 
• Hazelnuts (traditionally you should use walnuts but I prefer hazelnuts)

[edit]Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F)
• Cream together the margarine and sugar
• Add flour and cocoa
• Add cornflakes last so as not to break them up too much.
• Put spoonfuls on a greased oven tray and bake for about 15 minutes
• Leave them to cool.
• Ice with chocolate icing and top with the nuts.

There wasn't a chocolate icing recipe on Wikipedia so I created one to my taste:

• 60g margarine / butter
• 70g icing sugar
• 45g dark chocolate
• 45g milk chocolate
• 1 tablespoon Monin hazelnut syrup for coffee

These are so quick and easy to make and taste delicious. This recipe makes 12 generously sized biscuits. To stop myself from eating them all I took them into the office at the beginning of the week and they were really popular, the cornflakes give them a really different texture. Everyone was also really intrigued by the name and origin of these biscuits, they are traditional New Zealand biscuits but Wikipedia doesn't even know why they are called Afghan biscuits.

Blueberry Cake

The theme for the January Clandestine Cake Club in Wandsworth was 'cakes with resolution'. After having a think about my resolutions I decided to make my cake "healthy" with fruit and what's better than blueberries?

Blueberries are considered "superfoods" due to their high level of antioxidants which boost brain power.

This cake looks really impressive but it's really easy to make and totally delicious to eat. Due to the fresh fruit and cream it won't keep for long as some other cakes but luckily I didn't have any leftovers.

What you'll need:

• 385g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 225g butter or margarine
• 400g caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 230g soured cream
• 320g blueberries tossed in a tablespoon of flour
• Approx 300ml double or whipping cream
• Some blueberries for decoration

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, grease two round cake tins
2. Measure your flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix together in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl measure out your margarine/butter and sugar. Beat them together until light and fluffy (should take around 5 minutes using an electric whisk).
4. Add the eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition.
5. Beat in the vanilla extract.
6. Add a quarter of the flour mixture and mix well, add a third of the sour cream and mix well. Continue like this until fully combined.
7. Before you add the blueberries, make sure they are completely dry and then toss them with a tablespoon of flour.
8. Fold in the blueberries and then divide the batter between the two baking tins. Put in the oven for an hour or until golden brown. Insert a cocktail stick into the centre to make sure it’s cooked through – if the stick comes out clean it’s done, if not give it another 5 minutes and try again.
9. Leave the sponges to cool on a wire rack.
10. Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Once the sponges have cooled, put one on a plate and then pipe two thirds of the cream onto the first sponge. Put the second sponge on top and pipe the rest of the cream on top. Decorate using blueberries.

Mary Berry's Victoria Sponge

Like the rest of the country I am completely hooked on the Great British Bake Off. I have become a huge fan of Mary Berry, she is my baking heroine.

Can you believe she has published over 60 cookery books? I decided I needed to get my hands on one. I know she has a new one out but I was more interested in some of her older ones and was really pleased to come across Fast Cakes, originally published in 1981.

Mary Berry wrote Fast Cakes for baking beginners who want to learn to bake delicious teatime treats, quickly and simply. I think its really important to get the basics right and I can't think of anyone better than Mary to teach me.

To start with I made Mary's Fast Victoria Sandwich. Not only is this super speedy to make but there's no fancy ingredients, so I was able to make it with the basics I already had in the cupboard.

It takes just 5 minutes to make and 25 mins to bake.

Ingredients:

100g Stork margarine

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g self-raising flour (sieved)

Tsp baking powder

Filling:

Strawberry jam

Icing sugar for sprinkling

1. Grease and line two round cake tins and heat the oven to 180°.
2. Add all the ingredients to the bowl and mix using an electric whist until combined (takes about 2 mins).
3. Divide between the two tins and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
4. Leave to cool on wire racks
5. When completely cool sandwich together with strawberry jam and sprinkle with icing sugar.

This was so simple and absolutely scrummy!

Diet Coke Chocolate Cake

I've been wanting to make a cake with cola for ages. I found a recipe from the coca cola website and it made the most delicious, moist cake!

You can view the full recipe on the Coca Cola website.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe using 150g Stork Baking Liquid rather than butter, this was much easier as I then didn't have to go to the trouble of melting the butter. I also cut the cake in half and filled it with butter icing, making it extra indulgent.

This cake is delicious, really moist and it keeps really well.

Olympic Team GB Cake

I love a themed cake and I could resist making a special Team GB cake to celebrate our success in the Olympics and the general great atmosphere at the moment.

For the cake:

225g margarine

225g sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
30g cocoa powder
2 tbsp milk
100g dark chocolate

Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and milk and mix until combined. Finally melt the chocolate in the microwave add to the mixture and stir until combined.

Pour the mixture into a square cake pan (greased and lined) and put into a pre-heated oven. Cook on Gas Mark 4 / 180°C for 22-25 minutes.

When you think it might be ready take it out of the oven and insert a cocktail stick into the centre to check whether is it cooked through or not. If the cocktail stick comes out clean it is cooked, if not put it back in the oven for a few more minutes.

When the cake is cooked through, leave it on the side to cool for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing:

200g white chocolate

250g Elmlea double / double cream

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave on a low heat and stirring regularly to avoid burning. Lightly whisk the cream for a minute, add the melted chocolate and whist for another minute.

Smother the icing across the cake and decorate with sweets - I used red and blue smarties and white chocolate buttons.