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Category Archive: Cake Recipes
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Cake of the Week: Swiss Roll – A revelation!
How have I gone 39 years without making a swiss roll? Even more to the point, how didn’t I know that they were so easy and so satisfying to make? Last Sunday we were having a family getogether as we do every year around the time of our Dad’s anniversary and Mum’s birthday. As usual, I had been mad busy during the run up to the day. I had every intention of producing a masterpiece but thought it would end up being a Mr Kipling/Costco special. On Sunday morning though, 4 of us did the Swimathon raising money for Marie Curie. Amazing how a swim can leave you feeling energised and utterly needing cake! I came home and thought Swiss Roll like you do. A quick nosy round at old cookbooks and I came up with a recipe of my own. I was wanting to go for HUGE while we were expecting 13 of us. Print Swiss Roll – A revelation! Rating: 51 Prep Time: 14 minutesCook Time: 11 minutesTotal Time: 25 minutes Yield: At least 8-10 generous pieces Ingredients3 large eggs 125g caster sugar Splash of vanilla extract 125g plain flour Plenty of strawberry jam Punnet of strawberries Tub more »
Top 120 Recipes for 2013
Our house has a LOT of cookbooks, no even more than a lot, nearly hundreds! We use them a lot but I’m finding increasingly that we are turning to the iPad for quick how-tos. At any one time though, I have a huge list of recipes I’d like to make out of the books – well, this will be the year that the list gets some attention. I’ve tried to reduce it too ‘just’ a 100 but there’s just so much I want to get through. Since giving up the cake business last summer, we have really worked hard to eat well and cook from scratch – I have to be honest that we were a jar family eating a lot of convenience food when we were constantly surrounded by food. We concentrated on the basics first conquering risottos, yorkshire puddings, homemade pizza dough, palovas, lasagne sauces, shepherds pies and basic pasta dishes during the last year so we are ready to move onto to some more challenging dishes. I’m not promising to get through the whole list in a year (nearly 2.5 new dishes a week might be a step too far for the kids and the budget) but more »
Tagged top recipes of 2013
Jammy Muffins with Streusel
Its been a while since I got any real satisfaction from trying out a new recipe – I’ve done some baking but the recipes have either been too complicated or I haven’t been that happy with the results. Not one to give up though, I tried a new combination yesterday and it worked!! I introduce my Jammy Muffins with Streusel – Why has no-one told me how delicious streusel is earlier? (that grammar is pants, I know but I’m too tired to care) Ingredients: For the streusel: 4oz (90g) cold butter 2oz (60g) demerara sugar 1.5oz (45g) plain flour For the muffins: 10oz (315g) plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 1.5 tsp bicarb of soda pinch salt 4oz (125g) cold butter 4oz (125g) caster sugar 2 eggs 1 tbsp vanilla extract (or seeds from a pod) 8oz (250g) milk or cream (I used full fat) 12 tsp jam of your choice (I used raspberry) Recipe makes 12 good sized muffins Make the streusel first: Mix together the butter, flour and sugar – cut through with a knife until in small lumps and stick in the freezer until the muffins are ready to go in the oven. For the muffins: Mix more »
Tangy St Clements Drizzle Cupcakes
My mum has recently discovered Lemon Drizzle cake so whenever we go round there’s always one there. Not to be beaten, I wanted to discover a drizzle cake of my own and so was born my version of a Lemon/Orange/St Clements cake. The cake is perfectly lovely and extremely tangy without icing but being me, I wanted to tart it up a bit. I used ready to mix fondant icing which I’ve wanted to try for a while and it was just perfect. I would think the ready to roll fondant icing might just be a bit too heavy for this cake and take away too much of the tang. The recipe below makes 12 cupcakes (I used a square cupcake tin) and an 8″ square cake. 8oz butter 8oz caster sugar 10oz self-raising flour 3 eggs 2 egg whites 2fl oz milk juice of 1 lemon and 1 satsuma/tangerine finely grated rind of 2 lemons and 2 tangerines St Clements Drizzle Mixture (Optional but really good) 8oz Caster Sugar Juice of 2 lemons and 1 satsuma/tangerine/small orange How to: 1. Preheat the oven to 170C 2. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale 3. Gradually add eggs one more »
Clandestine Cake Club: Warrington
These cake clubs are popping up all over the place which is brilliant. After finding that I enjoyed the Manchester Clandestine Cake Club so much in July, I decided to attend the Warrington club hosted by Helen of @VioletsVintageTeas. 13 of us met up at Heaths26 a lovely cafe/coffee shop in Stockton Heath and generally ate cake and nattered about cake. There were 10 cakes on offer tonight all made with the theme FRUIT and VEG in mind. My offering (see above was a Pineapple and Coconut Cake) but there were some really exotic offerings. I had made a decision beforehand to try out of the ordinary combinations so soon found myself eating a Beetroot & Chocolate Cake (Verdict: Really nice chocolate cake with something a bit different that you can’t quite put your finger on) and a Courgette, Cinnamon and Walnut (Just like a carrot cake – think this is my favourite of the night!) Its amazing that no matter how hungry you are before you get to these things, you get full up really quickly and I soon became overfaced. Nooo, I hear you cry, What about the other 7 cakes? Never fear, you get to bring them more »
Clandestine Cake Club – Manchester
I’ve been doing it again – going meeting strangers from the internet. Don’t ever tell my children! This time, I was mega brave and joined in the first meeting of the Clandestine Cake Club in Manchester. Organised by Gwyneth of Vintage T’s, we all met at 6PM at The Cake Gallery in Bowden armed with our cakes. That makes it sound so simple – in actual fact my day had been horrendous up until that point. Trying to bake a cake, deal with a teething, roasting hot baby and sort the washing after a weekend away does not make for a calm cake-maker. We were given a theme of USA with it being American Independence Day so I decided to make Oreo cake with Vanilla Frosting. The other cakes on offer were New York Cheescake, Lemon and Blueberry Bundt, A Stars and Stripes cakes which was cleverly coloured red, white and blue too, Angel Cake and Mississippi Mud Pie. Multicolour cake by Tea and Thee We were encouraged to photograph the cakes (phew, I once again had forgotten to take a pic beforehand of mine) and then it was time to dig in. Amazing how quickly you get full up more »
Chocolate Caramel Chip Whoopie Pies
I’ve wanted to make Whoopie Pies for ages and when I had a bag of Caramel Chocolate Chips hanging about I knew exactly what to do with them. Whoopie Pies are a flattish cake that are sandwiched together with a creamy middle. The most traditional centre is the Marshmallow Cream which is what I used. I didn’t expect them to be so moorish and was amazed how quickly they disappeared. The recipe made at least 48 mini pies which sandwiched together made 24 proper whoopie pies (yes, I can bake and do maths!) I will admit that they were a bit of a faff but I will make them again. The cream made them that bit more special although no-one complained when they ate the remaining pies sans cream. Vanilla Whoopies with Chocolate Caramel Chips 2oz butter 2oz trex (shortening) I know it sounds grim but it does make them work 2 large eggs 8oz caster sugar 4tbsp milk 10oz plain flour 1.5 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp vanilla extract Between 7-10 oz Caramel chocolate chips depending on how much chocolate you like in your whoopies 1 tsp white wine vinegar (or red if you’ve got more »
Guiness Gingerbread – Sweet Melissa Sundays –
Yes, another baking group but how could I resist? I already have the book The Sweet Melissa Baking Book which is full of gorgeous recipes. This weeks selection which we will all post on Sunday (The clue is in the name of the group!) is Guiness Gingerbread. This was chosen by Katie of Katiescakes – read her blog for the recipe! A fellow Uk baker whose cakes are amazing and likes pink gin! This was gorgeous! At first I thought – yep, its a nice cake with possibly a little too much treacle (I used instead of molasses) – We were all told that it is better left til the next day and Melissa wasn’t wrong – 3 days later it is amazing! There’s not much left tho! Easy and quick to make – Make it now! Next week Sour Cherry Pie with Pistachio crumble chosen by Michelle of Flourchild
Tagged Guiness Gingerbread, Recipe
Birthday Brownies – TWD
Happy Birthday Violet – My lovely youngest little chicken is 2 years old today and what a proud Mum I am! I have no idea where the last 2 years have gone but we have had lots of fun (and the odd tantrum along the way – not all from Violet!) To be quite honest Violet didn’t seem that impressed by these brownies but as far as brownies go these were good. As I have said in previous posts, I am just not that much of a chocolate cake fan but if I was these would be heavenly. These were really easy to make (although my raisins didn’t set alight – The neighbours had a good laugh though watching us try on the BBQ), not too many ingredients and were eaten in super quick time. The Scores: Easy to make? – 8 out of 10 Ingredients – 9 out of 10 – I already had the rum in stock from previous TWD recipes Taste – 8 out of 10 Would I make again – Possibly if someone requested brownies – I do like nuts in mine though! Photo – Once again I would love to say it is my own more »
Sticky Ginger Delights
Aardvark Cakes have today entered a new era…a more modern one! Thanks to my wonderful friend, Cara of Freckles Photography, I now have a new title banner. I have mentioned Cara on earlier posts as her fabulous pictures perk up many of my creations. The recipe for Sticky Ginger Delights is another example – These cupcakes were really simple to make, very quick and super tasty but I think it is the photo that sells them!? Thanks again to a brill friend! Hx
Tagged Cupcakes, Recipe, Sticky Ginger Buns
