Cut-and-Come-Again Cake: Part 3 - Lemon and Blueberry

The final cake recipe in this series for now (though far from the final cake recipe to feature on feedahappylife!), is this Lemon and Blueberry delight.

This is the moistest recipe of all three of the cut-and-come-again cakes, with soft sponge and juicy blueberries oozing with flavour and bursting with goodness.

The good thing about this is that it uses frozen blueberries, so if you have them on stand-by in the freezer, it's a really quick way to get a impressive cake on the table in less than 45 minutes (or if they're out-of-season and you can't get hold of fresh).

The basic lemon sponge mix lends itself to a variety of additions and you can easily substitute blueberries for whatever other frozen berries may be your preference. I think blackberries would really suit this, served with the compot perhaps in the panacotta recipe featured earlier this month, and some double cream.

Lemon and Blueberry Cake

Ingredients:

• 115g soft butter/margarine
• 170g self-raising flour
• 170g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 6 tbsp milk
• 1tsp baking powder
• 200g frozen blueberries

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180c/GM 4

Step 2: Put all of the cake ingredients (excluding blueberries into a large mixing bowl and beat for 2-3 mins until smooth, glossy and easily falling from your spoon

Step 3: Stir through the blueberries and pour mixture into a lined cake tin (I've done this in loaf tins/round tins/cake tins and it works regardless!)

Step 4: Bake for 30-40 mins until top is browned and a skewer comes out clean

Step 5: Leave to cool in tin for 30 minutes before turning out and slicing.
 
Enjoy!
Helen x

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Chocolate Heaven Cake (piled high with summer berries)

Ooooh! What a delight this cake is!

Sometimes I'll make a cake and it does exactly what I expect. It's comforting or tasty or pretty etc... and serves it's purpose. Then occasionally, I'll play around with a recipe and something really special comes out of it. I can always tell when this happens because it gets consumed very quickly, without thought of greediness or calories or even fullness, because people seem to like it so much!!

This is one of those happy accidents.

A flourless chocolate cake, inspired by the delightful recipe of Sophie Dahl, who I believe was inspired in turn by the Chocolate Nemesis cake at The River Cake (yet to go there to eat but desperate to!!). I've made some feedahappylife alterations with a strawberry cream rather than creme fraiche, slightly less chocolate and the removal of the coffee from the ingredients.

Please, please, please make this at some point!! You wont be disappointed!

Chocolate Heaven Cake (piled high with summer berries)

Ingredients

• 200g best dark chocolate
• 250ml double cream
• 400g frozen berries (defrosted)
• 200g fresh strawberries
• 140g caster sugar
• 4 eggs (separated)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp strawberry conserve

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180c/ GM 4 and butter and line a cake tin (medium size - suggest 20cm - also suggest springform due to delicateness of cooked cake)

Step 2: Use a food processor to create a powder out of the chocolate and caster sugar. Add 120ml of boiling water and stir through. Then add the egg yolks and vanilla extract and stir to combine.

Step 3: Whisk the egg whites and then fold into the chocolate mixture.

Step 4: Pour into the cake tin and back for 50 minutes (test with a skewer). The top will be cracked.

Step 5: Allow the cake to cool for about 45 minutes and then fridge

Step 6: Before you need to serve, whip your cream until thick and stir through your strawberry conserve. Spoon the cream over the chocolate cake.

Step 7: Drain the frozen berries and mix with the fresh strawberries. Tumble over the cream and pile up in the centre

Step 8: Serve and slice your cake to hungry friends!

Enjoy!
Helen

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Cut-and-Come-Again Cake: Part 2 - Low Fat Banana Cake..

Continuing with the series of cakes, easily baked and ready for weekend visitors, comes this recipe for banana cake.

Not only is this moist and delicious, it's also a great way to use up your brown bananas (I don't like to eat bananas once those brown age spots start to appear) and it's low-fat! Really, there is no excuse not to attempt this!

In place of butter, this cake uses a small amount of low fat margarine and low fat natural yoghurt. This keeps the moistness you needs without any greasiness. You can easily divide the mixture and make muffins if you feel inclined.

For the experimental chefs, some raisins, chopped nuts and mixed spices could be added. Or perhaps a few teaspoons of cocoa powder and chocolate chips.....For me though a banana cake requires little to enhance it's existing yummyness, except perhaps a drizzle of cream and a mug of tea.

You'll just have to try it and see for yourself!

Low Fat Banana Cake

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 200g sugar
• 2 large bananas (mashed)
• 140g low-fat natural yoghurt
• 40g butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g self raising flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180c/ GM 4 and grease/line a small/medium cake tine (I used a 20cm tin)

Step 2: Beat the eggs, sugar, mashed banana, vanilla together until smooth

Step 3: Fold in the flour, cinnamon, yoghurt and bicarbonate

Step 4: Pour the mixture into your cake tine and bake for 50 minutes

Step 5: Leave to cool in pan for 30 minutes, before removing, slicing and serving to giant smiles!

Enjoy!
Helen x

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Cut-and-Come-Again Cake: Part 1 - Apple and Sultana Cake

Nigel Slater, food writer extraordinaire, writes about how his kitchen feels incomplete without a 'cut-and-come-again cake' ready and waiting for visitors. It's a concept I wholeheartedly agree with!

I would hate not to be able to offer freshly baked cake/bread/biscuits to people with a cup of tea/wine when they come a-calling.

My easiest option here is always my fail safe lemon sponge (I say mine - it's a recipe I got years ago. I still have the piece of paper it's written down on and every year it seems to gather more spots of dried on cake batter!). I've written about this cake before on feedahappylife and it's well worth a try.

For fear of friends boredom at rolling this out again and my own desire to experiment, I've been testing out new cake recipes on visitors to the new home of feedahappylife. My next few posts will focus on my own versions of these cut-and-come-again cakes.

This one is a boozy concoction of apple and cognac soaked sultanas (the final taste of alcohol is actually quite mild). The mix creates a firm but moist cake. Good for slicing into thick, welcoming wedges.

Apple and Cognac Soaked Sultana Cake

Ingredients

• 300g apples (grated)
• 1/2 lemon (juiced & zested)
• 100g butter
• 150g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 185g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 50g chopped walnuts
• 40g sultanas (boiled in 35ml cognac and left to cool)

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180c/GM 4 and butter/line a small cake tin (15 - 20cm)

Step 2: Mix the grated apples with the lemon juice and zest. Stir in the sultanas and cognac

Step 3: Cream butter and sugar until light and gradually beat in the egg and vanilla until combined and smooth.

Step 4: Add all dry ingredients and stir to combine

Step 5: Pour into tin and bake for 40 minutes, then turn temperature down to 150c/GM 2 for another 20 minutes

Step 6: Cool in the tin before slicing and serving with a drizzle of cream and a giant spoon!

Enjoy!
Helen x

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Double Layer Chocolate Brownies.....with Raspberry Sauce

I have discovered a great new cook book!

It's called 'Puddings' and is by Women's Weekly. I picked it up a few weeks ago and can't stop making things from it! So much is appealing. I wondered how many calories I would consume if I cooked my way through it a la 'Julie and Julia'. This was a scary concept, so I've just picked the best.

I'm on a mission to perfect the brownie and I'm happy to admit that I'm not there yet! I want something squidgy in the middle, dense and rich on the tongue and a gently cracked top.

This one is from the aforementioned cookbook and is made up of a layer of dark chocolate brownie, topped-off with a layer of white chocolate brownie.

It's exceedingly naughty but rather nice (note the amount of chocolate!!). It's still not perfect, but give me time.......

You should get 16 naughty squares from this amount of mixture. I think it's best served warm with raspberry sauce rolling down the sides.

Double Layer Chocolate Brownies and Raspberry Sauce

Ingredients

• 
  
  125g butter
• 
  
  200g brown sugar
• 
  
  1tsp vanilla extract
• 
  
  4 eggs
• 
  
  75g plain flour
• 
  
  75g self raising flour
• 
  
  100g chopped nuts
• 
  
  200g dark chocolate
• 
  
  200g white chocolate
• 
  
  200g raspberry jam
• 
  
  50ml water
• 
  
  2 tsps cornflour
• 
  
  1tbsp water

Step 1: Preheat oven to 150c and grease and line a medium sized square cake tin

Step 2: Cream butter, vanilla and sugar

Step 3: Beat eggs, one-by-one, into butter

Step 4: Add flour and nuts and stir

Step 5: Melt the chocolate in separate bowls (I microwaved for about 2 minutes each)

Step 6: Divide mixture between 2 bowls and add melted white chocolate to one and melted dark chocolate to the other. Stir to combine

Step 7: Spread dark chocolate mix into the base of the cake pan and then top with the white chocolate mix

Step 8: Place brownie in oven for 1 hour until golden (mine took about 1 hour 15 - use your judgement a little)

Step 9: Whilst brownie is cooking, make your sauce. Add the jam and 50mls water to a saucepan and gently boil. Mix the cornflour with the tbsp of water to max a paste and add to the hot jam. Simmer until sauce thickens and then pour into a small dish to cool slightly

Step 10: Remove brownie from the oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes before cutting into squares and serving with your raspberry sauce.

Enjoy!

Helen x

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Perfect Syrup Sponge (easy, easy, easy!!)

Recently I had a little operation. Not very serious, but the sort of thing that makes you feel a little sorry-for-yourself and allowably self-indulgent for about 2 days.

However, cooking stops for no cause and it is the perfect medicine to get through such times.

What better way to sooth the soul than with sweet, syrupy sponge?

I’ve always veered away from syrup sponge, believing steaming and pudding basins were required (equals too much effort and high chance of failure). However, I need fear no more because this is the perfect, easiest recipe for syrup sponge ever!

Should my friends ever be in need of comfort, I will come to the rescue (in approximately 35 mins) with this warm, bowl of joy at the ready.

This recipe will be stored in my memory bank for such occasions – definitely one worth trying even for the most under confident!

It's not the daintiest of cakes - but really I think that would spoil it's wholesomeness. That said, you could make this in individual pudding basins should you wish to serve more impressively. I intend to treble the recipe and make one big one in the winter, with 6 friends and a giant spoon to fight over!

A Perfectly Easy Syrup Sponge
 

 
Ingredients (serves 2 generously)

• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 50g butter
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 50g self-raising flour

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c/GM 4

Step 2: Pour syrup into serving dish (I used a oven proof bowl)

Step 3: Cream butter and sugar

Step 4: Mix egg and vanilla into butter mixture

Step 5: Add flour and mix to combine

Step 6: Gently pour over the syrup

Step 7: Bake for 30 minutes until golden

Step 8: Serve with cream/ice cream/custard at once!

Indulge soon!
Helen x

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Lemon and Earl Grey Madeleines - cakes for ladies!!!

I’ve been after a Madeleine pan for a while to add to my excessive collection of baking tins and recently came across a bargain in the sales, which led to this delightful experimentation.

Madeleines are a traditional French sponge, lighter than a typical British sponge, made using a special pan to create scallop-shaped cakes.

Their fluted, bite-sized appearance creates an elegant cake, for ladies if you will! Whilst there are undoubtedly times when only a wedge of Victoria sponge will doodle-do there are other times when drops of fragrant sponge are quite necessary for light-indulgence and guilt-free pleasure.

I think this description, from Marcel Proust (in the book 'In Search of Lost Time'), whilst a little grandiose, perfectly sums up their appeal…

"She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me..."

How wonderful that a cake could have that effect!
 
Their elegant appearance deserves light, elegant flavours and the words of Proust got me thinking about lemon and tea flavoured Madeleines. Earl Grey, with it's delicate bergamot overtones, was the perfect base and a little lemon and honey provide the flavours to lift this sponge to the very happiest levels.
 
If you've not got a Madeleine pan, you could make small fairy cakes, which will taste just as good.
 
Bon Appetit!
 
Lemon and Earl Grey Madeleines
 

 
Ingredients

• 3 tbsp butter
• 90g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 40g caster sugar
• 1 Earl Grey tea bag
• 1 lemon (zested)
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Step 1: Preheat oven to 150c/GM 3

Step 2: Melt butter until turning brown

Step 3: Rip open tea bag and grind contents to a fine powder. Add powder to sifted flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Step 4: Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingertips until the sugar feels moist

Step 5: Add the eggs to the sugar mix and beat

Step 6: Add honey and vanilla to egg mixture and beat

Step 7: Fold in flour and Earl Grey mixture

Step 8: Fold in melted butter

Step 9: Pour into tin

Step 10: Chill for 1 hr in fridge

Step 11: Bake for 10 -12 minutes in the oven until risen

Step 12: Leave to cool and serve

Indulge soon!
Helen x

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Granola Bars - bite-sized energy boosters!

By night I cook and by day I work in Innovation.....

A colleague and I recently ran a breakfast Ideation session. 16 people, gathered at 7.30 a.m. to create ideas for new products and services. Hard at any time of the day, but 7.30 is definitely harder for some than others!

I am an annoying morning-loving person. I can wake up at 5.00 a.m. and I’m happy to chatter away to anyone I happen to encounter at that time (...night owls worst nightmare!). Therefore, a 7.30 meeting for me is quite appealing, others though need a little help being happy at this time and that is where the recipe for these granola bars comes to the rescue.

These bars are packed full of goodness (and quite a few calories I should add!). Nuts, fruits and seeds will nourish from within and provide long-lasting, slow-releasing energy. Of course you could just eat a banana, but where is the fun in that?

These are ridiculously easy to make and this recipe should provide 12 generously sized bars. If you cook it for 15 minutes longer, leave to cool and pulse roughly in a food processor, you can also use this as granola in place of cereal.

For me, success was proven in the meeting with 16 happy, excited people exiting the bean-bag filled room (all the better for creating ideas with!). Clearly, breakfast meetings are not a pre-requisite and these make a great snacking standby at any time of the day!

Fruit, Nut and Cinnamon Granola Bars

Ingredients

• 100g butter
• 200g porridge oats
• 100g sunflower seeds
• 50g sesame seeds
• 50g nuts (chopped)
• 3 tbsp honey or maple syrup
• 100g light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 150g dried berries (e.g. cranberries, cherries)

Step 1: Heat oven to 150c/GM 3

Step 2: Butter baking tin (for this amount a deepish 18 x 25cm tin is best, but go with what you've got!)

Step 3: Mix the oats, seeds and nuts in a roasting tin, then put in the oven for 5-10 mins to toast.

Step 4: Melt butter with the honey and sugar in a pan.

Step 5: Combine toasted oats, cinnamon and dried fruit and mix until coated

Step 6: Pour into tin and press down. Bake for 30 mins.

Step 7: Cool in tin (very important - it wont stay together unless you let it cool), then cut into 12 bars.

The hardest part here is waiting for them to cool until you eat them! They'll last several days in a air-tight container. You can flex the recipe depending on what ingredients you prefer - I think apricot and hazelnut would be nice for next time....

Hope you enjoy,
Helen x

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Use your loaf (a selection of sweet & savoury loaf cakes!)

I've been having a little bit of a loaf cake obsession lately.

A good chunk of cake is such a welcoming sight for me. Loaf cakes are pretty fail safe too - rarely suffering from the sinking middle of a more sensitive sponge - and really flexible on the ingredient front. Simply take a base recipe, throw in your favourite ingredients and off you go! If your additions sink a little too much to the bottom of the cake, it merely adds to the forgivable, rustic charm. The additions I'm sharing with you here are:

• Savoury pesto, pine nut and goats cheese
• Chocolate, vanilla and pear
• Date and walnut

Clearly, loaf cakes are more appropriate to serve at a lunchtime or informal gathering (perfect picnic cake) and will never engender the "oohs" and "ahhs" of a more sophisticated, efforty creation. But, when you want the house to smell of baking heaven and a slice of comforting sweetness on a plate in 60 minutes, loaf cake is the way to go.

It's also a good back-up freezer cake too. Bake it, let it cool, slice and freeze and you'll always have standby cake for when you really don't have the time to be the model of domesticity!

I'm moving house soon and have frozen some lemon loaf cake, so the first thing my partner and I can eat, amidst boxes, mess and delirium is a wedge of soft sponge and a mug of warming tea....perfect!

Loaf Cake Base Recipe

• 2tsps baking powder
• 150g plain flour
• 100g soft butter
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 150g caster sugar

Savory Pesto, Pine Nut & Goats Cheese

For this recipe, reduce the sugar to 50g and add the follow ingredients:

• 2 tbsp pesto (green)
• 100g goats cheese (a smooth, crumbly one works best)
• 100g pine nuts
• seasoning

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Mix all base ingredients together

Step 2: Crumble in goats cheese and seasoning. Stir through pesto gently to create swirls

Step 3: Pour into a medium sized, greased loaf tin and pour over the pine nuts to cover the top

Step 4: Bake in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes (place a knife or skewer through the centre, if it comes out with mix sticking to it, leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat until knife/skewer comes out clean)

Step 5: Leave to cool for 30 minutes and then tip out, slice and serve!


Chocolate, Pear & Vanilla

For this recipe, add the following to the base ingredients:

• 200g canned pears, drained and chopped (I had a rather posh jar someone had bought for me, but canned pears are just as good!)
• 2 tbsp best cocoa powder
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 20g plain flour

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Add the extra flour, cocoa powder and vanilla essence to you base mix and stir until all are combined and a smooth batter forms

Step 3: Stir through your pears

Step 4: Pour into a greased, medium sized loaf tin and bake for 50-60 minutes (follow above instructions regarding how to check when it's properly cooked)

Step 5: Leave to cool for 30 minutes, slice and serve!

Date & Walnut

Add the following to your base recipe:

• 150g chopped walnuts
• 150g chopped dates

Step 1: Preheat oven to 160c

Step 2: Mix together base ingredients and stir through nuts and walnuts

Step 3: Pour into greased, medium sized loaf tin

Step 4: Bake in oven for 50-60 minutes (follow above instructions to check when fully cooked)

Step 5: Remove from oven, cool, slice and serve!

Hope you enjoy!
Helen x

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