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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Chocolate Brownie.....the dark, rich and easy one....

I have recently embarked upon an indulgent mission to find the perfect chocolate brownie recipe. I started with the previously posted, double layer chocolate brownies. Yummy, but not quite perfect.

I have now decided to start from basic and build-up to perfection! Hence this easy recipe which produces great brownies, quickly! Importantly for me, they have good dose of nuts to add texture and produce the cracked top that all the best brownies should wear.

The flavour is greatly enhanced by the quality of your cocoa powder, so use the best you have. I prefer to use Green and Blacks cocoa powder, which you can get from most supermarkets. Incidentally, they have some lovely recipes on their website if you're a chocolate lover, including:

• White and Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake
• French Truffles
• Rich Chocolate Pots

I'm yet to try, but when I do, you'll know!


Easy Chocolate Brownies (makes about 20)

Ingredients

• 350g butter
• 140g cocoa powder
• 6 eggs
• 675g caster sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 3tsp vanilla essence
• 100g chopped walnuts

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180c/GM 4

Step 2: Line a deep baking tray (about 20cm x 30cm) with greaseproof paper

Step 3: Melt the butter and cocoa in a saucepan

Step 4: Whisk the eggs and then whisk in the sugar, flour and vanilla

Step 5: Add the cocoa mixture and nuts to the eggs. Fold through to combine.

Step 6: Pour into your tin and bake for 45 minutes or until springy to the touch (don't overcook or you'll loose the dense but soft centre)

Step 7: Cut into squares while warm (leave to cool for about 15 minutes first) and serve


Top Tips

• These last several days in the fridge if sealed in an airtight container

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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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Potentially calorie neutral cakes?!

I wrote a few weeks ago that I was still trying to find my food love. It’s funny the amount of time I spend thinking, eating, cooking and writing about food that there isn’t one thing that comes to the fore.

When I look at a lot of the things I’ve been blogging about, the common theme appears to be vegetable dishes (e.g. Moroccan Vegetable Stew, Pea Soup) and cakes (e.g. Umbongo Cake, Afternoon Tea). I think I may subconsciously be off-setting cake calories with vegetable consumption! Seriously though, these are the things that time and time again I will cook for myself and others.

I love the freshness of vegetables and the ability to take an ingredient, that people regard as a side dish or force themselves to include in meals, and make something really delicious out of it. There is such variety that the recipe opportunities are never ending. With so many vegetables that I’m yet to cook (Samphire, Kohlrabi, Plantain to name but a few), there is some always something new around the corner willing me to experiment.

…and then there are cakes! Beautiful, moist, exciting, show-offy cakes! It’s oven-alchemy the way that a simple batter mix of flour, sugar, butter and eggs can be transformed into a golden sponge, filling the house with the smell of domesticity and a sense of safety and warmth. Most of my stresses can be soothed with a cup of tea and a slice of my favourite lemon cake (as featured in the Spring Feasting entry).

This led me to thinking about vegetables in cakes… I’ve seen some lovely recipes for chocolate and beetroot cake, pumpkin pie and of course the inimitable carrot cake but I’ve not really dabbled with them. Time to rectify things and combine my loves into easy, edible delights.

I decided to take my fail safe muffin recipe and experiment with the contents of my cupboard and vegetable basket….with the results as follows:

• Beetroot and Orange
• Courgette and Lemon
• Carrot & Nutty Nutmeg

I’m very happy with the results, particularly the carrot mix, and could happily scoff my way through the whole lot! I have a theory (this is grounded in no scientific fact and quite illogical), that the vegetable content offsets the calorie content, thus making thus a calorie neutral cake...so scoff away!

All of these can be happily enhanced with a flavoured cream cheese topping (see below) for a more elegant finish or just served as is!

....topping made from cream cheese and icing sugar....

Muffin Mix (makes 18)

• 350g plain flour
• 200g granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 large eggs (beaten)
• 120ml milk
• 120ml plain yoghurt
• 115g butter (melted)

Beetroot and Orange Mix

• 100g grated beetroot
• 1 Orange (zested and juiced - only 1/2 juice will be needed)

Lemon and Courgette Mix

• 100g grated courgette
• 1 Lemon (zested and juiced)

 

Carrot and Nutty Nutmeg Mix

• 100g grated carrot
• 50g mixed nuts (roughly chopped)
• 1 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Step 1: Combine all muffin ingredients into a large bowl (do not over mix - it should be a little lumpy)

Step 2: Add the ingredients for your chosen flavoured muffin and stir through

Step 3: Pour mix into muffin cases (use paper cases or squares of baking parchment), fill 2/3 full and place into oven 190c/GM 5 for 20 minutes until golden and springy to the touch

Step 4: Remove and leave to cool before serving or icing

 

...Courgette and Lemon Muffins served warm with Greek Yoghurt...

 
Hope you enjoy this way of getting to your five a day!
Helen x

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Sexy Sides!

Some may say that writing an entry tenuously linking food and, ahem, sex is a blatant attempt to get more people to find my page in google....you may be right but go with me a little.....

I think the way people react to food is a very personal thing. Some people get giddy over chocolate, some weep for cheese and some hanker for a nice, juicy steak over all else. I think I'm still finding my true food love but there are certainly some things that fill my head, heart and tummy with happiness.

There are foods that make me smile (soft piles of marshmallows), some that provide comforting warmth (silky, smooth risottos) and some that make me want to feel the sun on my skin, reach for the wine glass and laugh uncontrollably with loved ones. It's this food that I think of as sexy food.

My requirements for sexy food are quite specific:

1. It must promise pleasure on the plate
2. It's flavours must surprise
3. It's textures must interest
4. It must be light in the mouth and light in the tummy
5. It must inspire thoughts of summer
6. It must take very little effort and not detract from all the fun that will ensue

A hard task! However, I'm not prescriptive on what course this applies to. It could as easily be an elderflower granita for dessert as a whole, roasted sea bream for main. So, here I share a few of the side dishes I consider to meet the bill:

• Roasted red pepper, goats cheese, walnut and honey
• Baked fennel, stuffed with orange and feta breadcrumbs

It was only after a little research that I realised there may be a little bit more in the appeal of these dishes than meets the eye! Both fennel and honey are natural aphrodisiacs, popularised by the Egyptians. Well.... if it was good enough for Cleopatra.....

Red Pepper, Goats Cheese Walnut and Honey Salad (serves 2)

2 long red peppers

2 handfuls of large walnuts

100g soft, crumbly goats cheese

2 tablespoons best honery

seasoning

salad leaves (to serve)

Step 1: Halve and deseed peppers

Step 2: Place peppers on a lightly oiled baking tray and bake in the oven (160c) for 10-15 minutes until softening

Step 3: Sprinkle goats cheese and walnuts over the peppers and roast for 10 minutes (careful the walnuts don't burn)

Step 4: Remove from the oven, season lightly and serve warm drizzled with honey

Baked fennel, stuffed with orange and feta breadcrumbs (serves 2)

 
2 fennel bulbs
olive oil
1 orange
50g feta
100g dried breadcrumbs
seasoning
orange slices (to serve - optional)
 
Step 1: Halve the bulbs and remove the core to create a sort of fennel bowl

 

 
Step 2: Drizzle over oil, season, cover with foil and roast for 15 mins (160c)
 
Step 3: Whislt roasting, zest and juice the orange. Mix zest, half the juice, feta, glug of oil and breadcrumbs together to make a fragrant, mouldable stuffing (if it's too dry, add more juice/oil). Season to taste.
 
Step 4: Remove the foil from the fennel and press the stuffing into the bulb cavity. Roast for 15 minutes until the stuffing is golden and crispy.
 
Step 5: Serve with slices of orange
 
I've reverting to type with my next post.... the waist-expanding delights of Pavlova Supernova!
Helen x

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