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.

Giant Doughnut Cake

I made this giant doughnut cake for a friend's birthday. You can buy a silicone doughnut cake mould from Amazon for about £5 and I used a simple Victoria Sponge recipe with a special strawberry icing on top.


Ingredients you will need:


4 eggs
Margarine
Caster sugar
Self-raising flour
Icing sugar
Unsalted butter
Strawberry jam


Grease the doughnut moulds well and sprinkle some flour on the inside. Preheat the oven to 170°C.


Weigh the eggs (still in their shells) and then measure out the same weight of the rest of the ingredients.


Beat the sugar and margarine together in a bowl for approx 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time adding a heaped teaspoon of the flour with each egg. Mix well after each addition. Once all of the eggs have been added and are well incorporated add the rest of the flour and mix until combined but do not over-mix.


Pour the mixture equally across the two moulds and put in the oven for 35-40 mins. When you remove the cake from the oven leave them in the moulds until they have completely cooled to ensure they come out in one piece.


When the cakes have completely cooled and you have removed them from their moulds spread strawberry jam across one side and vanilla buttercream across the other and carefully sandwich them together.


For the buttercream simply mix equal amounts of icing sugar and unsalted butter, you can adjust the ratio depending on your taste. Make plenty of buttercream as half will go inside the sponge and half on top.


Put three heaped teaspoons of strawberry into a jam into a bowl and using a hand mixer blend the jam until it is runny. Add the jam to the remaining buttercream and spread over the top of the doughnut. Finish off with some sprinkles.

Big Celebration Birthday Cake

I was recently invited to a surprise birthday party for my friend Adam who was turning 30. Several years ago Adam and I were flatmates and he was always a fan of my baking, often thinking I didn't notice when cakes disappeared or got smaller overnight, so it wasn't difficult deciding what to get him for his birthday.

As soon as I'd agreed to make the cake I panicked, how do I make a cake for 20 people? What kind of cake does a 30 year old man want anyway?

I decided the best thing to do was to make two cakes, initially I wanted to make the cakes in the size of a 3 and a 0 but this might mean less cake so instead opted for two big round cakes with the 3 and the 0 on top.

The chocolate cake recipe I used makes a delicious light and fluffy sandwich sponge.

Ingredients for two sponge cakes:

280g creme fraiche

260g margarine

460g soft light brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

8 eggs

360g plain flour

Pinch of salt

80g cocoa powder

20g baking powder

The method is simple, put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix until everything is combined. Pour the mixture into 8in round cake tins (if you don't have 4 tins cook them in batches) and cook in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 180°C.

For the icing:

160g Green and Blacks milk chocolate

260g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

500g icing sugar

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and put to the side to cool slightly. Mix the other ingredients in a bowl and whisk until light and fluffy, then add the chocolate until fully combined.

Once the cakes have cooled spread the icing over two of the cakes and then sandwich the remaining cakes on top and spread the rest of the icing on the top.

In the end I went for quite a simple design on the top (as much as I would have liked to have covered them in sprinkles I had to keep the birthday boy in mind), I bought a box of Cadbury Heroes and arranged them into a 30.

This cake really is delicious, each cake serves approximately 10 people with a generous slice and it was really popular with everyone at the party.