Who Will You Bake For This World Baking Day?

It's World Baking Day on Sunday 18th May.

I've mentioned before that I am lucky enough to work on the campaign. It's great fun to work on, how could you not love working on promoting a day which is to celebrate a love of cakes and baking. This year the campaign is focussed on sharing the love with someone special through the power of a homemade cake.

Giving someone a homemade cake is a brilliant way to let them know how much you care. We often forget to tell the people who matter most why they make our lives a little bit easier, a lot more fun or infinitely more interesting! This World Baking Day everyone is encouraged to pledge to bake for someone special at www.worldbakingday.com.

There is a great website (even if I do say so myself). It's definitely not your average recipe website (in a good way) but you will find 12 recipes on there to inspire your baking. A few months ago I promised I would make all of the recipes and true to my word, I did. Unfortunately I didn't get photos of them all but I really did make them all, I promise.

Carrot Cake

Zebra Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mosaic Cake

Tropical Fruit Cake

Hidden Heart Inside Cake

(with a hidden egg)

Chocolate Layer Cake

Chocolate Brownies

Chocolate Guinness Cake

I would really struggle to choose a favourite, these are genuinely all great recipes. The chocolate chip cookie has become my new favourite cookie recipe, they're deliciously chewy. I loved the Mosaic cake which is a traditional cake from Turkey and very similar to the Italian cake called Chocolate Salame. But if I had to choose I would probably have to go for the Chocolate Guinness Cake - it's so dark and moist and yummmmmmy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe for chocolate chip cookies originally came for the US (the official home of cookies as far as I am concerned). I am in love with these cookies, they are super easy to make and deliciously chewy.

Ingredients

350g (2 ½ cups) plain / all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda / baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

230g (1 cup) margarine

130g (⅔ cup) caster / granulated sugar

130g (⅔ cup) dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup (170g/6oz) dark chocolate chips

1 cup (170g/6oz) white chocolate chips

Method

1.  Preheat oven to 190°C / 375°F / Gas Mark 5. Grease several baking sheets and/or line them with baking paper.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; set aside.
3. In a separate bowl beat the margarine with the sugars with an electric mixer or wooden spoon until light and fluffy for about 5 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla, scraping the sides occasionally. Gradually beat in flour mixture until blended. Stir in the dark and white chocolate chips.
4. Spoon the dough onto the baking sheets using a tablespoon or an ice cream scoop. Leave at least 2 inches between each cookie so that they have room to spread.
5. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. Let stand 2 minutes on wire rack; remove from sheets and cool completely.

These cookies are really versatile and you can swap the chocolate for candy or dried fruit and nuts. I've already swapped the chocolate chips for 300g Peanut M&Ms and was VERY happy with the results.

Spring Clearning and Coffee Walnut Loaf Cake

I've been doing a bit of a spring clean this weekend. I was clearing out my kitchen cupboards and was shocked at how many things had passed their use by dates and had to be thrown away. I hate throwing things away, so now i'm on a mission to make sure I use everything else. One of the things hiding at the back of my cupboard was some Camp coffee essence which I bought last year for a Cappuccino Cake and haven't used since.

I also bought myself the latest Sainsburys magazine over the weekend which came with a cute little recipe book and as luck would have it, there's a Coffee Walnut cake recipe which has coffee essence in the recipe.

The recipe was for a traybake but I decided to make it into a loaf cake instead and didn't add the icing in an attempt to be ever so slightly healthier (I know, who am I kidding?). The cake turned out really well, definitely one I'll make again.

Ingredients

225g Stork

225g light muscovado sugar

275g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 eggs

2 tbsp milk

2 tbsp Camp chicory and coffee essence

75g chopped walnuts

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C (fan) / Gas 4. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
2. Put all of the ingredients, minus the nuts, and beat together in a large bowl until well blended. Fold in the chopped walnuts. Pour into the tin.
3. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until you can insert a skewer into the centre and it comes out clean. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.
4. Slice and serve. 

Easter Baking

Easter is a great time for baking. I've not decided what I'm going to bake for the weekend yet but here's some of my favourite Easter themed bakes from the last few weeks:

Chocolate bundt cake / egg nest

I made this bundt using my favourite Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe. I think it looks a bit like a nest so filled it with my favourites Cadbury's creme eggs.

Hidden inside Easter egg cake

I baked a plain sponge, coloured it and cut out egg shaped using a cookie cutter, I then baked the cake shapes inside another plain sponge to create a hidden inside cake. 

Apple, cinnamon and sultana hot cross buns

These don't look that pretty but they tasted really really good, I loved the addition of apple and cinnamon. 

And from a couple of years ago, some Easter cupcakes.

Valentines Cupcakes

Happy Valentines Day!

I'm not usually one to make a big deal of Valentines Day, I'm in the camp that thinks it's all a bit too commercial. However I was unable to resist making some valentine themed cupcakes after seeing some of the other amazing treats people have been making and since I don't have anyone to buy me flowers this year it's up to me to treat myself.

These Nutella and Cinnamon Cupcakes are pretty indulgent but they are one of my favourite cupcake recipes so they're perfect for a valentines treat.

I had great fun making the decorations, using red fondant and heart shaped cookie cutters to create some romantic cakes.

I suppose I should really share some of these with my loved ones but I could quite happily eat them all myself.

Have you baked anything for your valentine (or yourself) this week?

Winter Wonderland Cake

For me, Christmas starts as soon as we hit December. Suddenly it becomes acceptable to wear Christmas jumpers, listen to Christmas songs, watch Christmas films and of course bake and eat all sorts of Christmas goodies.

I actually first tried this cake back in the Summer when Stork were testing their Christmas recipes (yes, they have to test them that far in advance). I'm not usually a fan of fruit cake but this is a modern take on the traditional Christmas cake and it's really delicious. It's not only got a great combination of flavours but a mixture of textures, juicy fruits mixed with the real crunch of the praline topping. I also love the video Edd Kimber has done to showcase the recipe and so was dying to try making it for myself.

The most recent get together of the Wandsworth Clandestine Cake Club was the perfect opportunity, the theme for December was of course 'Merry Christmas Wandsworth'.

There are four main elements to the cake; the fruit cake, buttercream icing, praline and gingerbread houses. It looks impressive and went down a treat at cake club, its pretty big so was hoping to have plenty to bring home but alas just one small slice was left by the end of the evening.

You can find the recipes for the cake and the gingerbread on the Stork website www.bakewithstork.com.

Sorted Food and Chocolate Magic Custard Cake

I first came across Sorted Food on YouTube about a year ago, if you haven’t heard of them or seen any of their brilliant videos you should check them out at SortedFood.com.

Sorted is made up of four childhood friends who are on a mission to get people cooking simple, tasty food. The guys are clearly good mates and have great banter and their videos are hilarious as well as being great tutorials.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to meet one half of Sorted (Ben and Jamie) at a Google event and I plucked up the courage to go and introduce myself. They were absolutely lovely and I got to ask Ben who is a trained chef lots of foodie questions. He told me about a new craze for Magic Custard Cake which they will be making in one of their future videos.

After a quick Google I found out a bit more about Magic Custard Cake. It’s one mix which separates out when baked creating a three layered ‘cake’. From what I read online it sounds pretty tricky to make and a temperamental - it won’t work if it’s not the right temperature and will crack easily – basically it’s a diva of a bake. But it sounded soooo good I decided to take the risk, even if it could end up a big squidgy mess on a plate.

I followed a recipe from whiteonricecouple.com and am really pleased with how it turned out.

Can you see the layers?

Perfect served with a sprinkling of icing sugar and some fresh berries.

I wanted to take a dessert to a dinner party so I made them in little ramekins making them much easier to transport, however don’t do what I did and remove them from the oven 5 minutes before you're due to leave the house and transport them warm – give them plenty of time to cool down and "set".

I filled 5 ramekins and then had enough batter left to fill a 15cm / 6inch losse bottomed round cake tin.

The cake came out of the tin much easier than expected and cuts really easily. It tastes as good as it looks and makes a great dinner party dessert. Success!