Obscene Orange Slices!

Why are these cakes obscene, I hear you ask?? Well... they aren't really slices at all, they are more like great big paving slabs of orangey cakey goodness! The bigger the better, it's the only way to go with cakes! These cakes were another creation for a Sunday lunch with my fiancée's family! These cakes have a soft moist sponge with a delicate orange flavour and are perfect for afternoon tea's or summer desserts! The recipe is adapted from a lemon cake slice recipe from the May issue of BBC Good Food (yet again, I do love this magazine! I have a new issue now, you will be glad to know!). Such a simple recipe too, and I'm sure with a little ingenuity, you could adapt these cake slabs to suit other fruity flavours as well (I'm thinking maybe blueberry and white chocolate...oooh yum!). Here's how I made them...

Orange Slices

175g butter, softened

140g caster sugar

140g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

1/2tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

juice 3 oranges, zest of 2

200g granulated sugar

METHOD

1. Preheat oven 160°C. Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment.

2. Beat the butter, caster sugar, flour, almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and the orange zest and half the juice, with an electric whisk until smooth.

3. Scrape into tin and bake for 25mins, until an inserted skewer comes out clean.Then cool.

4. Turn out onto a wire rack, trim edges then slice into squares.

5. Dip cakes quickly in remaining orange juice and then cover in granulated sugar. Then leave to crisp up and then munch away to your heart's content.

This is a very simple but equally delicious recipe with a subtle flavour. I think it's perfect for quite sophisticated soirées such as afternoon tea(a bit of change for me eh?). Also when I was baking this I didn't have any ground almonds so I substituted the same amount of rice flour and it worked well (just a wee pointer, ya know!). Well enjoy baking this delight guys. I always ask myself at this stage, what delights will I bake next? Any ideas? Happy baking!

Rachael xx.

Chocca Chocca Cake!!

Hello friends!! This is a chocca chocca cake( double chocolate cake, yes I did decide it needed a more exciting name). I baked this cake as a celebratory cake for my housemate and friend Kirsty who passed an assessment yesterday to become a fully fledged mental health nurse, woo hoo, congrats mate!! This bad boy was waiting for her when she came home! A deliciously moist and scrumptious cake with double the chocolate punch! A white chocolate layer and a dark chocolate layer. The top has two of Kirsty's favourite foods, raspberries and magic stars, on a bed of shiny thick chocolate ganache. The exact recipe can be found in BBC Good Food- 500 triple tested recipes recipe book. Here it is...

White and Dark Chocolate Cake

75g softened butter

100g white chocolate (preferably with vanilla flecks)

100g dark chocolate

3 eggs

100ml milk

175g caster sugar

1tsp baking powder

200g self-raising flour

2 tbsp strong coffee

1tsp vanilla extract

for the Ganache

284ml double cream

200g dark chocolate pieces

50g white chocolate melted

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to fan 160°C. Butter and line two 20cm sandwich cake tins.

2. Break chocolates into two separate bowls. Melt over simmering water. Put everything else apart from coffee and vanilla, into a bowl and beat until creamy.

3. Divide cake mix into two separate bowls, add coffee and dark chocolate two one and vanilla and white chocolate to the other. Mix each bowl. Spoon into the cake tins and bake for 25mins, then cool.

4. for the ganache, bring the cream to a boil and then pour over the chocolate and leave for 5mins. Stir until smooth then leave to cool and thicken.

5. Sandwich the cakes together with the ganache as a filling. Ice with the ganache and drizzle with the melted white chocolate. Then decorate as you wish and scoff away!

What an easy tasty cake. Perfect for celebrations and parties, everyone loves chocolate after all and this cake has double the chocolate. I hope you give this cake a go, and enjoy it as much as we did!! Happy Baking!

Rachael xx.

Rad Raspberry Spice Cake!!

Hey guys! Get a pen, quick, this recipe is a keeper! This cake I made for my friend Debbie's 21st Birthday ( we also made pink lemonade, it was delicious too).I had a sous chef as well in my friend Patrick, although the less said about that the better ;P only joking he was quite helpful! It was such a fun night, we went out for Chinese food,we played games and it was topped off by this delicious cake! The recipe (as well as the pink lemonade recipe) can be found in the May issue of BBC Good Food! I only changed the recipe slightly by adding lemon zest to the icing, I thought raspberries and lemons are a wonderful summery combination. We also made our cake with two layers instead of six. Here goes with the recipe... are you ready?

RASPBERRY SPICE CAKE ( Serves 12)

Cake

250g softened butter

450g plain flour

140g golden caster sugar

140g light soft brown sugar

5 large eggs

4 tbsp honey

2tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp mixed spice

 1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp salt

4 tbsp buttermilk

Filling & Icing

200g raspberry jam

200g raspberries

250g butter softened

200g soft cheese

200g icing sugar

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to fan 140°C. Grease and line 3 20cm cake tins with baking parchment.

2. tip all cake ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth.

3. Divide cake mix between tins and bake for 25mins until done and then cool on wire rack.

4. Split cakes in half. Mash jam and raspberries together and spread over 5 cake halves, leaving one free. Sandwich the cake halves together with the plain cake on top. Leave overnight with a weight spread on top.

5. beat butter, cheese and icing sugar (&lemon if you want, it's good, I promise) then spread over the cake and decorate as you wish.

6. Invite your friends round, have a cup of tea and munch away :).

There you go, one delicious and quite different cake! I hope you give this a try and enjoy it as much as my friends and I did! Happy Baking!!

Rachael xx.

P.s. Is there any cake recipe you have tried recently and absolutely loved? I would love to know! Oh and if you have any questions about the recipe, let me know :).

Odd Oreo (Cake??)

Greetings bakers! A strange cake for you now! I'm not sure if cake is the correct word to use to describe this unusual dessert. I can't say that this was a great success. It was another dessert I made for a family gathering, it did disappear quickly, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it. A big disappointment indeed as it has all the ingredients for a truly wonderful dessert experience. Oreos, cream and chocolate, should be yum I thought. I have no recipe for this as I found it on a website I picked at random and have lost it, oops sorry! But I will explain the basics about it! 

The cake has a crushed oreo crust and has two layers inside, the bottom is a chocolate pudding type thing the second layer a vanilla pudding type thing, covered in cream and further crushed oreos. I think the problem was that I left it in the freezer too long, and it became a rock solid ice cream cake. You needed an axe to hack into it. Amusing as it was, I just don't think the flavour was worth the hacking. My fellow excavators( In an attempt to not offend me, no doubt) said they felt they could savour it more having worked hard for it. This isn't really something one hopes for in a dessert. All in all this dessert was a bit of a flop but an experience I can learn from and hopefully not repeat in the future. Lessons I learnt from this- Take cakes out of freezer in advance of serving to friends and family, if you want to save their teeth that is!

Thanks for reading, check in soon for a more successful recipe :)

Rachael xx.

Blooming Marvellous Blueberry and Raspberry Mini Cakes

Hey, hi, hello baking community! A fruity treat for you guys this time. These mini cakes are from the Meg Rivers Home Baking book. And they are delish, so fruity and comforting. Of course i changed the recipe slightly by adding hint of the very popular white chocolate, which added a new depth of yummyness to these cakes. With the blueberry and raspberry flavours there is also a hint of orange, a real taste explosion in your mouth. These cakes are about the size of muffins and need a panettone case or something similar to hold them. I didn't have any to hand and I'm a poor student so I just used the muffin cases I had. The cakes have such a moist texture. I made these for a Sunday lunch with my fiancée's family, they went down like a house on fire, definitely a crowd pleaser!

Blueberry and raspberry mini cakes (Makes 12 cakes)

320g salted butter, soft

320g caster sugar

grated zest of 2 large oranges

4 eggs

320g plain flour

80g ground almonds

200g raspberries

200g blueberries

(I also added white chocolate chips and vanilla extract,this works a treat).

METHOD

1.Preheat oven to 170°C.

2.Cream butter, sugar, orange zest and vanilla together until pale and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

4. Fold in flour, almonds and white chocolate chips.

5. Using 2 spoons, divide mixture into cases, filling to half full.

6. Arrange fruit on surface of cake, making 6 blueberry and 6 raspberry.

7. Bake for 45mins in the oven until done.

8. Remove, cool then devour (if you can wait that long).

I hope you enjoy baking these scrummy cakes. To end this post, I have question, does anyone out there know where to get pretty bun cases of all shapes and sizes that wouldn't break the bank?? Thanks for reading guys, happy baking.

Rachael xx.

Ridiculously Raspberry Brownies

Hey baking fans, it's brownie time again. As you can probably tell by now, I have a deep rooted love affair with brownies, these are probably the best I have ever tasted, it would be rude not to share them with you lovely people. This recipe was the cover recipe in May's Issue of BBC Good Food (I highly recommend this magazine, every month it is full of inspirational and drool-worthy recipes and ideas). They are very aptly named the 'Best Ever Chocolate Raspberry Brownies' and boy do they live up to this reputation. They are so moist and squidgy, everything a brownie should be, it does require a lot of self-restraint and will power not to eat the whole batch.One more couldn't hurt..could it?

BEST EVER CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY BROWNIES

200g dark chocolate, in chunks

100g milk chocolate, in chunks

250g salted butter

400g soft light brown sugar

4 large eggs

140g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

200g raspberries

( optional extras, a smidge of vanilla extract, I also added a dollop of raspberry jam to increase the raspberry hit)

METHOD

1.Preheat oven to fan 160°C

2. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

3. Put chocolate, butter and sugar in pan and melt gently. stirring occasionally. Then remove from heat.

4. Stir in eggs to pan one by one.

5. Sieve over the cocoa powder and flour and stir in.

6. stir in half the raspberries, then scrape mixture into the tray and scatter with remaining raspberries.

7. Bake in oven for roughly 30mins, adjust timing depending on how firm you like your brownies.

8. Cool before slicing, then eat away, stop if you can :). 

So there you go, one amazingly delicious brownie recipe that is fail safe. You are going to love them. Happy baking!

Rachel xx

P.s. I hope you are enjoying the recipes. Also if you have any recommendations of recipes or bakery books to try, I'm all ears and would love to hear from you!!

Mega Chocolate Muffins

hiya readers! Sorry again for the massive break from the blog, I have been quite busy and have had a brief trip to the lovely and sunny Portugal! But I am back again now with some yummy treats I have been busy slaving over in the kitchen ( not really slaving, more like having fun on sugary highs!). Let's kick things off with these chocolate boys....

These muffins are perfectly chocolately and not too dry. I sometimes find with shop bought muffins that they can be quite dry and not a pleasant experience to munch on. Not the story with these guys. The recipe is from a new recipe book I was gifted as an engagement present from my aunt and uncle! Thank you guys, what an amazing book, it's 'Meg Rivers Home Baking'. With amazing foodie photography and beautiful homely artisan bakes, this book is well worth a peak! These muffins were the first cake I tried from the book, I changed the recipe slightly, so here is the recipe with my adjustments should you wish to use them! Good luck!

Chocolate Muffins (serves 12)

260g Plain Flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

a pinch of salt

60g cocoa powder

180g caster sugar

150g dark chocolate chips

180ml corn oil

2 eggs

210ml milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD

1.Preheat oven to 190°C. 

2. Put flour,baking powder, salt, cocoa powder, sugar and chocolate chips in a big bowl. Separately whisk corn oil, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, the pour this mixture into the dry ingredients bowl. 

3. Beat together until combined and smooth.

4. Spoon mixture into muffin cases filling so they are 3/4 full. 

5. Bake for 25mins, then remove and cool! (Or scoff right away because they are irresistible).

(6. I also but a dollop of white chocolate and a magic star on top of mine, just to make them look a little prettier).

There are many changes you could make to this recipe to tailor it  more to your tastes. White chocolate chips would work well. You could experiment with different nuts in the mixture such as pecans or walnuts. This is a great basic recipe that could be made different each time by using a different icing each time or including coffee in the mix to make them mocha muffins. The possibilities are endless. Go on give them a wee try! Happy baking,

Rachael xx.

P.s. I have started to include the recipes for my baked treats, let me know if you like this better, also chat to me if you have any questions regarding the recipes, I will try to help as best I can. Or maybe you can give me some advice on what I could do with changing. Thanks for reading!!