Oatmeal Cake with Coconut Frosting

Back in July I visited my dear friend Deb in Kentucky and was not at all surprised that she offered me a piece of cake with my afternoon cup of tea. It looked like one of my favourites (also a Deb recipe) - Lazy Daisy Cake, but it was somethink just a little bit different. Most Americans will probably have tried this cake before. From my investigations the recipe seems to have been around for about 50 years old and appears everywhere you google. I made the cake for some co-workers recently and it went down a treat. The cake is so moist and tender you'd never suspect there was something healthy like oatmeal in it.

Deb’s Oatmeal Cake

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 cup oats (regular or quick-cook, but NOT instant)
1 stick butter (4oz)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Method
Mix boiling water and oats in a bowl and let stand approx. 20 minutes
Meanwhile, cream butter and sugars
Add eggs and vanilla and beat well
Add oat mixture
Sift in dry ingredients and mix
Bake in a greased 9 x 13" pan at 350 F for 30 - 40 minutes (until
center tests done)
While still warm, spread topping (recipe below) on cake and return to oven to broil for around 5 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Topping
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter (or a little less) (6oz)
1/2 cup cream
2 cups coconut

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

When it comes to cake I'm not a huge fan of chocolate but I think I may have found my new go to recipe for the times someone says "make mine chocolate" ....

It's light and tender with a subtle chocolate flavour and yields a pretty decent sized cake. This recipe is so easy - just add all the ingredients to one big bowl and mix – no sifting, no creaming of the sugar and butter! And you can even use light yoghurt if you’re that way inclined…

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
115g butter, softened
1 ¾ cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup cocoa
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in ¾ cup hot water
¾ cup natural yoghurt – (or use your favourite flavour such as strawberry or use a low-fat yoghurt option)
2 tablespoons raspberry jam (I had none so used plum)

Method
Grease a rectangular cake dish (a 9" x 13" pan works well) and preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius/ 350 degrees fahrenheit
Add the following ingredients to a big bowl and mix (you can use your arm muscles or an electric mixer
Pour mixture into pre-greased dish and bake for 45 minutes or until cake tests done
Cool and turn out onto a cake rack
Once cool, ice with butter icing

Butter Icing
Cream 115g butter
Add the following and mix
¾ cup icing (powered) sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon water

Pink Ribbon Cupcakes

I wanted to make something for Pink Ribbon day but was was in a bit of a hurry and didn't really have time to come up with something fun and interesting. As you can see, my frosting efforts need A LOT of practice. Considering this was the first time I'd made cupcakes in a very long time and the first time I'd used a piping bag in a very long time I don't think they look too awful and anyway, people were so enchanted by the pink sugar glitter they didn't notice anything else.



Liz’s Carrot and Banana Cupcakes

Ingredients
150ml/ 1/4 pint mild flavoured oil (I used rice bran)
250g/8oz self raising wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
150g/5oz light muscovado sugar (I used brown sugar)
60g/2 oz walnuts, coarsely chopped
125g/4oz carrots, grated (I used 2 medium sized carrots)
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk

Method
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl
Mix well until thoroughly combined
Spoon into cupcake papers
Bake at 180C/350F for 20-30 minutes or until they test done
Note - this will depend on the size of your cupcakes. Mine were quite large as I only got 10 cakes from the mixture. They took about 30 minutes
Transfer to a wire rack to cool
Decorate as desired

Happy Birthday Queenie

The first Monday in June is a public holiday in New Zealand to celebrate the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. It's our last long weekend until Labour day at the end of October and pretty much marks the beginning of a dreary winter. What better way to celebrate than to have an afternoon tea served on fine china. Tiaras compulsory of course.

We had a lovely range of goodies including pikelets with cream & jam, little bread cases filled with a cheesey corn mixture and topped with tomato, chocolate cake and club sandwhiches. My contribution to the tea was something quick and easy because I was going out the night before and didn't have much time to bake. I made my reliable, tried and tested orange cake. It's one of those ones where you bung everything in the food processor - no creaming required and best of all it doesn't even need icing. I've blogged about it before and you can find the entry.
here

What's in a name?

My mother and I enjoy a good play on words and are also known for using malapropisms. It’s our greatest fear that one day we’ll say something and people won’t “get” the humour and think we are just stupid like a certain US ex-President. When I was growing up we always referred to Rhubarb as Rupert and a popular winter dessert in our household was Rupert Crumple. Today I present to you a very tasty Rupert cake recipe.

I had a large amount of cream left over from a dinner party and thought it would be a good idea to use it up in a cake that perhaps called for buttermilk in keeping with my well publicised theory that dairy is pretty much interchangeable. My mother-in-law had given me some rhubarb from her garden so I searched for rhubarb and buttermilk and came up with a recipe from Allrecipes.

I read a lot of the reviews which mentioned cutting down the sugar, upping the rhubarb, adding oats to the topping and adding extra spices so I decided to tweak the recipe and see how it turned out. I’m pleased to say that this is definitely a keeper. It’s a very moist and tender cake, probably on account of all that wonderful fat from the cream. Usually I don’t know how well cakes keep because more often than not I take my baking efforts to work and there are never any leftovers. Most recently I baked this cake for my father-in-law’s birthday and it was eaten over a long weekend. If anything the cake got moister.

Rhubarb and Ginger Cake
Makes a 9" x 13" cake

Ingredients
½ cup butter (4 oz)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup cream (or milk) soured with the juice of half a lemon or 1 tablespoon of white vinegar
4-5 cups sliced rhubarb
½ cup crystallised ginger washed (to get the sugar off), and sliced (optional)

Topping
¼ cup butter (2 oz)
1 cup brown sugar (very lightly packed)
½ cup rolled oats (regular, not quick cooking or steel cut)
1 tsp cinnamon

Method
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add egg, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon and beat well
Into a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt
Add dry ingredients alternately with cream to the butter and sugar mixture.
If desired toss the rhubarb in a little flour (I omitted this step with no ill effect)
Add the sliced rhubarb and ginger
Spoon into a lined and greased 13” x 9” cake pan
Combine butter, brown sugar, rolled oats and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake at 350 degrees F/180 degrees C for 40 minutes or until cake tests done.


This is the cake before going into the oven - just use your imagination for how delicious it looked after baking. I'm sure it would be delicious served warm from the oven with a dollop of cream on the side.

The Great Bake Sale of '08

Recently my office held a bake sale to raise funds for our social club. This was the second such event we've held this year and I think people knew what was expected and went the extra mile. For my contribution I offered a cake made to order. So far the winner hasn't decided what she wants but I have given her a list of my tried and true recipes. Take a look at some of the fantastic entries.


A Swedish Apple cake

Fortunately not a lamb flavoured cake

Pumpkin Spice cake for halloween

Decadent chocolate cake


Pot black


Gingerbread house


Moo cake


Boozey chocolate cake


Chocolate cake decorated with chocolate finger biscuits and chocolate covered almonds

I feel mean posting without a recipe so here's something created by one of my colleagues which was what I bought at the bake sale.

Monica's Honey Almond Bites

You need
Pastry
Mascarpone
Slivered almonds
Honey
Chocolate

Method
Make some short pastry
Cut pastry into small circles (you can use a drinking glass as a cutting guide)
Place the pastry circles into a small muffin tin and then blind bake in a fan oven (pre-heated to about 180°C) for approx 7-8 minutes
Dry roast the almond pieces (approximately 100g) in the oven for a few minutes
Mix about two tablespoons of Clover honey with mascarpone cheese (1 packet) and add the almond pieces
Place the honey and almond mixture into the pastry cases and cover with melted dark chocolate

They say things come in threes....

I have had three baking disasters recently but am pleased to say my run of bad luck is broken. I've learned a couple of lessons along the way so it's not all bad.

Lesson 1 - if a cake recipe has particularly moist ingredients such as a large quantity of banana; and the recipe calls for a long cooking time - trust the cooking time.

Lesson 2 - unless your cake is a tried and true recipe, test a piece before serving it to your unsuspecting morning tea guests. At the very least cut the cake open.

Lesson 3 - Baking Powder is a key ingredient and cannot be substituted with cornflour/ cornstarch.

So what really happened?

Well the first disaster was because I was being lazy and rather than using Dorie Greenspan's delicious banana cake recipe (which I first discovered on my friend Lisa's blog - La Mia Cucina) I opted for a melt and mix version. It had a cup of bananas in it and tested done in about half the cooking time. So far so good. I frosted it with chocolate icing and set it out for a morning tea which I did not attend. I asked for feedback since I'd told them it was a new recipe and the comment was "everyone loved the custard filling". Hmmmm

The second disaster was partly because I was baking at stupid o'clock in the morning and was probably not quite focussed. My baking powder and cornflour are in the same sized containers although they have different coloured lids and are clearly labelled. My first attempt at making Wondercake was a complete disaster and resulted in a squat, dense, baked product which I wouldn't give the courtesy of calling cake; and similarly (my third disaster) my batch of cheese, tomato and onion muffins were little stodgy balls of dough. I suppose that not only was there no leavening agent, the cornstarch would have played some weird chemical part in the mix.


Kathy's Wondercake
Makes a small cake about 8 x 8

Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 eggs
Milk
Flavourings as desired - cocoa, lemon, orange, coffee, spice, vanilla etc

Method
Put flour, sugar and baking powder into a bowl
Add dry spices if desired
Whisk the melted butter with the 2 eggs and make up to 1 cup with milk
Add to dry ingredients
Beat with a handheld beater for 5 minutes
Bake 180 degrees /350 for approx 40 mins or until cake tests done
Ice as desired

This makes a light and tender cake. The first time I (successfully) made this cake I chose to use a teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger and then iced it with a caramel icing and decorated it with chopped crystallised ginger as you can see below.



The second time I put orange zest in the cake mix and used fresh orange juice in the icing. I think this is my new "go-to" cake recipe and I'm planning a lemon/lime version next time round.

Interestingly, Wondercake bears a striking resemblance to my former go-to cake recipe Lazy Daisy Cake which I was introduced to by Deb. It is pretty much what they call a hot milk sponge and the proportions of ingredients are amazingly similar. The difference is the temperature of the milk and the fact that Wondercake is beaten for 5 minutes. I wonder... what would happen if I just beat it a little bit? I'll tell you later.

What's your go-to cake recipe?

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

....well not quite but almost.


One of my co-workers turned 40 recently and I asked him what kind of cake he would like me to bake for him. He said he wanted something with alcohol in it, on it or around it and I asked him what his tipple was. His response - “Pirates like rum”.

Although I’ve already made Dorie's rum drenched pound cake I googled for a new recipe and found one on a blog called Eatables. The recipe calls for a butter rum glaze which uses a LOT of butter and a LOT of rum.

The photo is terrible but you can see the very appropriately themed breath “mints” which I found at a very cool store in Wellington called Iko Iko – it’s one of those tacky gift shop kind of places selling the same marvellous miscellany like might find at Archie McPhee's. I'm very sad to report that I didn't find a yodelling pickle at Iko Iko!

Don't hate me if you have an earworm now.

Lest We Forget

Today I went to a potluck lunch at work to farewell a co-worker who is going on maternity leave. She's having a boy so the theme was of course BLUE but you'd be forgiven for thinking the theme was teal. We had bluberry loaf, blueberry muffins (my contribution), a vanilla cake with blue icing and blue lamingtons as well as some savoury items; although who'd think there would be such a thing as too much sugar?

Tomorrow is ANZAC day which is a day of commemoration for those who died in the service of their country. The poppy is an international symbol of rememberance and explains the decoration on the star of the lunch - an ooey gooey citrus cake. I'm pleased to be able to share the recipe with you.


Sonya's Lemon and Orange Crumble Cake

Ingredients
Cake:
1 ¾ cups self raising flour
3/4 cups caster sugar
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Finely grated rind of one lemon
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Filling:
¼ cup orange juice
¼ cup lemon juice
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour/cornstarch
90g/approx. 3 ounces unsalted butter, chopped
Sifted icing sugar/powdered sugar for dusting

Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C/320 degrees C
Line the base and sides of a 20cm/8 inch round springform tin with baking paper
Put the flour, sugar, butter, rind and eggs in a food processor and pulse to combine
Press 2/3 of the mixture into the prepared tin, reserving the remainder
For the filling:
Put the juices, sugar, cornflour, eggs and butter into a medium pan and stir over a low heat until the mixture comes to the boil
Reduce heat and cook for 2-3 minutes
Remove and stand for 10 minutes to cool
When the citrus filling is cool pour it over the mixture in the tin
Crumble the remaining cake dough on top
Bake for 30-35 minutes
Stand on a wire rack before removing from the tin
Dust with icing sugar

Daring Bakers' March Challenge - Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

When Lis reminded me that it was my turn to host and therefore choose the recipe for March's Daring Bakers Challenge I didn't have to think at all about what source the recipe would come from; the only question was what to choose. If course I am talking about Dorie Greenspan and her wonderful book Baking from my home to yours. My first choice would have been Dorie's Most Extra Ordinary French Lemon Cream Tart but we had recently had lemon meringue pie as a challenge. Instead I chose a recipe that had some room for personalisation; Dorie's Perfect Party Cake on page 250. Dorie's original has seedless raspberry preserves and lemon buttercream between the layers and the cake is finished off with more buttercream and coconut. For my version I stuck with the lemon flavourings and used lemon curd as the filling. Ideally it would have been a great use for all those leftover egg yolks but that was in the too hard basket for me this time around so I opted for store bought stuff which in this recipe actually worked really well.

A few Daring Bakers had some problems with the recipe on account of my poor proof-reading skills - it really does help when you have all the ingredients listed and the correct amounts of the aforementioned ingredients don't you?

Often with our Daring Baker's challenges the biggest part of the challenge is to follow the recipe EXACTLY as written; exceptions to this being unavailability of products or allergies. This month though I decided to let the Daring Bakers loose and allowed them freedom with shape, size, colour and filling/flavouring. The results I've seen so far have been very imaginative and some of the bakers really had fun with decorations and alternative ingredients. Two outstanding efforts were the baker who made a cake in the shape of a lamb and one very daring baker who thought bacon might be an exciting addition. Bacon? In cake? You be the judge. You can read about it on Leah's blog I Came to Eat. Check out the other Daring Bakers on the Daring Bakers'Blogroll.


So how did I get on making my cake?

Mis en place - who doesn't!


Getting ready - note my shiny new Kenwood mixer and my colour co-ordinated utensils. I'd like to say it's on purpose but apart from my measuring spoons the lime green (my favourite colour) accent on my Tupperware is a happy coincidence

Getting ready to bake


Ready for the oven


The baked cakes - do you like my lime green froggy mitt? It's silly but surprisingly useful


Making the Swiss meringue buttercream


Health and Safety lesson - do not bake without shoes. The boiling water on the bottom of my simmering meringue dripped on top of my foot as I was transferring the meringue to my Kenwood bowl and left me with a small but minor burn


The cooked meringue goes into the Kenwood bowl ready for the buttah.


The buttercream starts to come together. I really do love my new Kenwood mixer - I don't know how I got on without it


The first cake layer


Layering the lemon curd


A side view of the cake layers


Ta dah!


I suppose you want the recipe? Well you really should do yourself a big favour and go and buy Dorie's book. If you don't already own it, you NEED it.

OK so this is already a mile long but it seems that lots of Daring Bakers are linking back to my post for the recipe so I'd better put it on here. Hope you don't mind Dorie; did we tell you we love you??

PERFECT PARTY CAKE
From Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (pages 250-252)

Words from Dorie
Stick a bright-coloured Post-it to this page, so you’ll always know where to turn for a just-right cake for any celebration. The original recipe was given to me by my great dear friend Nick Malgieri, of baking fame, and since getting it, I’ve found endless opportunities to make it – you will too. The cake is snow white, with an elegant tight crumb and an easygoing nature: it always bakes up perfectly; it is delicate on the tongue but sturdy in the kitchen – no fussing when it comes to slicing the layers in half or cutting tall, beautiful wedges for serving; and, it tastes just as you’d want a party cake to taste – special. The base recipe is for a cake flavoured with lemon, layered with a little raspberry jam and filled and frosted with a classic (and so simple) pure white lemony hot-meringue buttercream but, because the elements are so fundamental, they lend themselves to variation (see Playing Around), making the cake not just perfect, but also versatile.

For the Cake
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in more lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

Playing Around
Since lemon is such a friendly flavour, feel free to make changes in the preserves: other red preserves – cherry or strawberry – look especially nice, but you can even use plum or blueberry jam.

Fresh Berry Party Cake
If you will be serving the cake the day it is made, cover each layer of buttercream with fresh berries – use whole raspberries, sliced or halved strawberries or whole blackberries, and match the preserves to the fruit. You can replace the coconut on top of the cake with a crown of berries, or use both coconut and berries. You can also replace the buttercream between the layers with fairly firmly whipped sweetened cream and then either frost the cake with buttercream (the contrast between the lighter whipped cream and the firmer buttercream is nice) or finish it with more whipped cream. If you use whipped cream, you’ll have to store the cake the in the refrigerator – let it sit for about 20 minutes at room temperature before serving.

Oranges Poranges

I'm channelling Witchiepoo today (and showing my age!). Let's all sing together...

Oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says?
there ain't no rhyme for oranges!

Back in September I posted about a whole orange cake that involved simmering an orange, cooling it, removing the pips, etc etc etc. Some of my readers commented that the cake sounded nice but the method seemed like a whole lot of faff and faddle. Well here's the solution - a very easy whole orange cake that you make in the food processor. Even better, it's an un-iced cake - my favourite kind to make being the lazy baker I am.

The recipe is from a great little New Zealand site called Foodlovers and the forum there is a wonderful place to visit if you are searching for an elusive recipe or wondering what to do with that glut of fruit or unusual ingredient. You can find the orange cake recipe here.


Being Christmas time I decided to be a little creative with the recipe and add some frozen cranberries (about a cup) to the mix. Frozen cranberries are relatively new to New Zealand groceries and I've not had a lot of experience with them. They were whole cranberries and I worried about them being too tart in the cake so I added them early and let the food processor cut them up a bit - probably a little bit too much but at least I'll know for next time. That's the nice thing about experimenting.

This cake is very moist and has a nice texture. It has just a hint of bitterness on account of the peel but it's pleasant and not overwhelming. This is one of those good for breakfast cakes but then again isn't any cake breakfast food???

Chocolate Cafe Cake

Why is it that chocolate products are so UNphotogenic? Or is it just my photographic skills? No - don't answer that one.

Much as I adore chocolate in its confectionary form (milk chocolate preferably) I'm not a big fan of chocolate cakes and would never order one at a cafe or restaurant because they are usually dry, spongey things lacking in flavour and texture. If I volunteer to bake for people I'm often asked for a chocolate cake and this is the recipe I use. It's dark and dense but not too rich and has a really good chocolate flavour. Best of all it is great with just a dusting of icing sugar and the method is pretty much melt and mix. If you are looking for a quick and easy chocolate cake this is it baby!

Anna's Chocolate Cafe Cake
Original source unknown but likely from a supermarket magazine

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups flour
¾ cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 ½ cups (375ml) warm milk
3 tbsps vinegar
150 grams (a little over 5oz) butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Line base of a deep 23 cm round tin with baking paper (I actually use a bundt tin because it looks prettier as an un-iced cake)
Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and sugar into a bowl
Combine milk and vinegar then stir in melted butter and vanilla essence
Pour into dry ingredients and mix thoroughly
Turn mixture into tin
Bake for 45-55 mins or until the cake tests done
Leave in tin for 15 mins then turn onto a rack to cool
Dust with icing sugar

Note
Do not have your milk too warm or else the vinegar will coagulate with the milk and you will end up with a big lump of casein. Ask me how I know!

Happy Birthday To Me

Good grief - I knew I was hopeless at remembering people's birthdays but it's a bit sad when I can't even manage a post about my own!

26 September is also the birthday of a co-worker and we had a shared morning tea. Pictured above is the delicious flourless citrus cake made for me by my boss. It was moist and dense and would be a lovely dessert cake because it's not too sweet. I imagine it would be even better served with a dollop of creamy Greek yoghurt or some marscapone.

Orange, Lemon and Almond Cake
Source unknown but based on a Sephardic recipe from Claudia Roden

Ingredients
1 orange
1 lemon
400g ground almonds
150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
Butter and flour for preparing tin
Handful of flaked almonds for decoration

Method
Simmer the orange and lemon in water til soft (the lemonw ill probably soften first) – allow about 45 minutes
Leave to cool
Open the fruit and remove the pips
Blend with just enough of the cooking liquid to make a pulp or push through a sieve
Beat the eggs in a bowl and stir in the fruit pulp and dry ingredients
Put into a greased and floured tin (one with a loose base is best) and sprinkle the top with the flaked almonds
Bake at 190 degrees celcius for about 40-50 minutes or until browned and springy to touch
Allow to cool a little and then remove from the tin and put on a serving plate
Dust with icing sugar if desired

Also on the morning tea table was a lovely lemon syllabub sponge cake which was a Ruth Pretty recipe from the Saturday newspaper, a hummingbird cake, chocolate brownies (recipe to follow in another post), some cute little cupcakes (coffee and lemon - but not together), and a lemon curd cake. I was too busy eating a little slice of everything to take photos.

I had a wonderful day which even included flowers and a card from my husband. My birthday gifts from friends included the usual suspects of chocolates, quilting fabric and wine. I also received Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan and Simple Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey and I've already earmarked several recipes to try. My reading pleasure will continue with Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Morven's World of Cake - The Answers

Now that Blogger is playing nice with me and I can edit my HTML again here are the answers to my quiz. Sorry to have kept you waiting.

The winners of my little brain teaser competition were Brilynn and Peabody and a little somethin' somethin' will probably be winging its way to Lis and Barbie2Be as well.

1. Who is attributed to the quote “Let them eat cake”?
The answer I was looking for was Marie Antoinette. I asked who is “attributed to the quote”. However, it is widely agreed that someone else said it. Check out an opinion on it here

2. What is the name of the main actor in the recent movie “Layer Cake”?
Daniel Craig

3. Who painted “Still Life with Cake”?
Most people said Raphaele Peale but the picture I showed was by Pablo Picasso. You can see the Raphaele Peale picture at The Met in New York or check out Pablo's work below.


4. What is the French word for cake?
Gateau

5. Who made the world’s biggest cookie?
This was a bit of a trick question for all you Googlers out there. A New Zealand company called Cookie Time made the world's biggest Cookie in April 1986.

Cookie Time was put firmly on the international map by baking the World ’s Biggest Cookie - a giant chocolate chip creation covering an area of 487.15m² (or 5,243.6 sq ft!)... now, more than ten years on, Cookie Time are still hold the official Guinness World Record. In 2003, American company Immaculate Baking Co. set about trying to break the record by baking a 100ft diameter cookie (Cookie Time’s was 81ft; 24.9 metres in diameter). At the time it looked like Americans might have done it - it certainly looked like one big pile of cookie dough! But as it turned out, they failed in their attempt to gain the official title. Cookie Time are still officially Guinness World Record holders for baking the World’s Biggest Cookie!

6. Who is the patron saint of pastry chefs?
St Honoré
I note that Taste magazine has a recipe for Gateau St Honoré in the latest issue. No disprespect but it is not as pretty as the creations by the Daring Bakers.

7. If you were eating a mooncake what would you be celebrating?
Mid Autumn Festival aka Moon Festival/ August Moon Festival/ Lantern Festival

8. What ingredients characterise a tres leches cake?
Evaporated milk, condensed milk, whole milk (or cream)

9. Black Forest cakes contain cherries; what else is associated with the Black Forest?
Cuckoo clocks, fairy tales or honey.
Most people misread this question and thought I was talking about what was in a Black Forest Cake which of course would include whipped cream and chocolate.

10. Thanks for the lovely suggestions of what kind of cake I might like - the lemon cheesecake with a swirl of olallieberry jam sounds delicious and the lemon buttermilk breakfast cake and the sour cream chocolate cake and Dorie's banana cake - wait, let me wipe the drool from my keyboard. However, if I had my pick of any cake it would be my mum’s fruit cake. I'm stunned that this kind of cake is frequently the butt of jokes in America. What's wrong with you people??? Mum makes an absolutely gigantic one at Christmas time and cuts it into quarters to give it away. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. My mother-in-law makes a pretty decent fruitcake too. Hers is quite different and contains only three basic ingredients – dried fruit, orange juice and flour plus some essences.

Mary's Fruit Cake

Ingredients
1 kg/2.2 pounds or 35 oz dried fruit
2 cups orange juice
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon lemon essence
1 teaspoon almond essence

Method

Soak the fruit in orange juice overnight.
The next day add self raising flour spice and essences as desired.
Preheat the oven to 160 C
Pour into a greased and lined cake pan and bake 1 1/2 hrs 160 deg. then 1 hour 140 degrees (not fan bake)
Enjoy!

Postscript: I have seen a similar recipe with slightly different proportions. it calls for 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 kg fruit mix and 2 cups OJ. The baking time for that cake (in a 24 cm/approx 10" round tin) is only 1 hour at 150 degrees C.

Pretty in Pink - Daring Bakers July Challenge

The July Daring Bakers Challenge was organised by Peabody of Culinary Concotions fame, who chose Strawberry Mirror Cake.

A colleague recently left her job to move back to her hometown and during the time we worked together she became a good friend to me. I wanted to make something special for her farewell morning tea and I thought that the mirror cake would be perfect for her since one of her favourite colours is pink.

It’s winter in New Zealand right now so the only strawberries in the stores are imported from the US. I couldn’t find frozen strawberries so as per the allowable ingredient deviations I opted to make a raspberry mirror cake. Wouldn’t you know it on the day I chose to make the cake I went to the supermarket for some fresh cream and saw Australian strawberries at a very reasonable $3.95 per punnet. I chose to stick with the raspberries because I needed to free up the space in my freezer.

I have come to the conclusion that the degree of difficulty of a Daring Bakers challenge should be measured by the number of bowls you dirty during the process. Mirror cake is certainly up there with the best of them. I dirtied 2 bowls for my Genoise sponge, 1 for the syrup, 3 for the Bavarian Cream and another for the mirror – total bowls used = 7 and let’s not count the saucepans.

Getting started....

What went wrong along the way and what would I do differently?

1. I didn’t have a pan suitable for making the sponge so I just used two round cake pans. I think it was a better way of doing it – no wastage.

2. I queried the baking temperature of the sponge because it was hellaciously hot (450 degrees F) and other recipes I’d read were 100 degrees lower. Of course I didn’t query this until I was about the start baking so went with my gut feeling (which turned out to be incorrect) and baked my sponges at the lower temperature. They still turned out OK. A little tip for contact lens wearers – do not be too hasty to peer into the oven or else your contact lenses will feel like they have melted to your eyeballs. I expected them to be all crinkly round the edges when I took them out but I guess they’re made of stronger stuff that I thought.

3. This was really my first attempt at working with gelatin and I had no idea what to expect. The instructions said “Sprinkle the gelatin over the strawberry puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy.” What spongy meant I didn’t really know. The raspberries I used were pureed straight from the freezer and I worried that my gelatin wasn’t going to do it’s first dissolving bit so I scooped off as much as I could without disturbing the puree. The top had gone a bit wrinkly but I wouldn’t have described it as spongy. I thought it would be a good idea if the raspberries were at least at room temperature so I stirred up the stray bits of gelatin and nuked the puree and tried again. Seemed to work OK.

4. When making my Bavarian cream I think I may have been dangerously close to curdling my mix. I blended it with the gelatin mixture but there was no sigh of it being remotely like the texture of softly whipped cream and I panicked and added some more gelatin (previously softened in water of course). When I layered all the components and put the cake in the fridge to set for the allocated 1-2 hours I was not at all surprised to find that my Bavarian layer was a little on the firm side – oops.

5. Unlike my lucky US counterparts I do not have a fridge with an icemaker and one tray of icecubes wasn’t going to go very far so I just used a bowl of cold tap water to cool my Bavarian cream

6. When it came to making the mirror I didn’t have anything to drain my berries through and sorta kinda maybe just a little bit pressed down on them to extract the juice which of course is what gives you a foamy appearance and why the recipe says not to do it! Fortunately, because I had used raspberries and the colour was very dark it wasn’t too noticeable.

7. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have spent $40 on a bottle of booze just to used a couple of tablespoons in this recipe. I don’t think you could taste it. I’m pleased that I hadn’t splashed out and got a slightly more expensive but delicious sounding “raspberricello”.

The verdict – a heck of a lot of faffing about with all the steps involved in creating this masterpiece but I would describe it as gorgeous, impressive, and delicious.

Special thanks to Lis for helping me out with my post this month. You're a doll!

Morven's World of Cake

I'm on the social club committee at work and one of our most popular events each year is a quiz night. We have the usual suspects of sports, entertainment, general knowledge and a company related round but because of my love affair with baking I decided, as quiz mistress, to have my own category. I even included a "guess the mystery ingredient" section where I offered samples of spice cake with tomato soup as the secret ingredient, a kumara cake which was a little like a carrot cake in taste, chocolate sauerkraut cake which was not quite so disgusting as it sounds - truly! Lastly I made a chocolate cola cake (I can't find the recipe but it was one that did not contain marshmallows).

I thought you might like to share the fun so if you would like to play along please send your answers to me at morvenATxtraDOTcoDOTnz with "Morven's World of Cake" as the subject. I'm offering a little foodie package which I will negotiate with the lucky winner.

You have two weeks from today (entries will close on 24 July 2007). Since I'm fairly confident the scores on this quiz will be high I'll draw a random name from all participants.

Who is attributed to the quote “Let them eat cake”?

What is the name of the main actor in the movie “Layer Cake”?

Who painted “Still Life with Cake”?


What is the French word for cake?

Who made the world’s biggest cookie and when?

Who is the patron saint of pastry chefs? (shame on any Daring Baker who does not get this question)

If you were eating a mooncake what would you be celebrating?

What ingredients characterise a "tres leches" cake?

Black Forest cakes contain cherries; what else is associated with the Black Forest? (I will accept one of three things and my decision is final)

And finally, to round things out to a nice even 10, if you offered to bake me a cake, what kind/flavour would I chose? This is merely thrown in so I can provide you with a delicious recipe when I post the answers but if I were judging on correct answers it might be the tiebreaker.

A Taste of Yellow

Finally updated with photos..........

Barbara of Winos and Foodies has organised this one off event in support of LiveSTRONG Day.

LiveSTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivorship issues on a national level and in local communities across the country. LiveSTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16.

The A Taste of Yellow has been approved by the Lance Armstrong Foundation as an official LiveSTRONG Day event. Barbara is organising the event to raise awareness of cancer. However if you wish to make a donation you can do so by visiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation donation page.

Barbara's challenge was to make something using a yellow ingredient and the first thing that sprung to my mind was of course cake! I had 6 egg yolks left from the latest Daring Bakers challenge which just cried out to be used for a "yellow cake". Unfortunately I wasn't really paying attention to the recipe which called for sifted flour as opposed to flour, siftted and yes it does make a difference. The first clue was when the batter was so thick my beater was struggling to mix it. Usually when I have a bit of a disaster I just tell everyone that my recipe was experimental and I've never had any complaints but this cake was a little on the dry side. I thought that if I slathered it in chocolate frosting people might not notice but even frosted with a delicious chocolate "gana-icing" (a combination of some leftover ganache and some icing sugar) the cake was not good. In doing my research on yellow cakes I discovered that the traditional frosting is chocolate and I can't quite work that out. The taste of the cake is plainish with a hint of vanilla. I would have used a lemon frosting.


Since I was getting ready to go on vacation time was marching on and I worried that I wouldn't have anything to contribute to this event but then I remembered something I'd saved as a draft. It's a potato and lentil curry and the lentils are the yellow kind so technically it still fits with the theme. The recipe is from Taste magazine and you can find it here. Basically it's a thick, soupy concoction of spices, lentils, tomatoes and potatoes. It's quite delicious and I'll be making it again especially now our weather is getting cooler.



I served it with poppadums and some raita which I made without a recipe. The instructions go a little like this.

Raita

Ingredients
Lebanese cucumber
Plain unsweetened yoghurt
Pinch of chilli
Salt
Cumin seeds

Method
Grate a quantity of Lebanese cucumber and squeeze it with your hands to expel as much liquid as possible
Mix in plain yoghurt to desired consistency
Season to taste

OK so I weakened; I really wanted to do something cakey for this event. I had some bananas in my fruit bowl which were going nicely spotty and soft. A banana is yellow is it not? I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe which I first heard of through Lisa. It is THE moistest banana cake you'll ever make. Due no doubt to the cup of sour cream in the mixture. Most of Dorie's recipes call for a 12 cup bundt pan and mine is a lot smaller. As luck would have it my mother recently gave me - ok - so I spied it in her cupboard and said "oh look a baby bundt pan" and of course mum offered it to me. It belonged to Nana and is one of those old fashioned light coloured aluminium ones. The combination of my regular bundt pan and the mini one were perfect for Dorie's recipe.


You can find the recipe on Lisa's blog at La Mia Cucina. I know I'm being lazy today but I guess that's what being 2 hours away from catching a plane does to you.