Italian Blackberry Cake

After making one giant chocolate cake for my birthday, I didn't have the time to make another for my birthday soiree. We spent the majority of Saturday laying flooring in the kitchen which involved squeezing around appliances in the middle of our galley kitchen with hot pans, cleaning and making a copious amount of Italian food for some lovely friends.

I needed a cake recipe that was reliable, tasty and didn't require fancy piped icing or a multilayered monstrosity that had a questionable internal structure...

This recipe always comes up trumps for me. I made it with more seasonal blackberries and dusted it with icing sugar. (I normally make it with raspberries and glaze with glacé icing). It can be baked as cupcakes, round tins, square tins, what ever you have to hand. I baked mine this time in a shallow bunt tin

Ingredients
100gr soft butter
200gr golden caster sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
250ml sour cream
250gr self raising flour
150gr blackberries (fresh or frozen)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180o/c and grease a shallow bundt tin.
1, Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
2, Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract until well combined.
3, Beat in the sour cream until smooth.
4, Fold in the self raising flour and cocoa powder gently until just combined and then fold in the blackberries.
5, Pour into your cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown, springy to the touch and an inserted knife comes out clean.
6, Dust heavily with icing sugar when cool.

Happy Birthday We Should Cocoa!

Happy birthday We Should Cocoa! The brainchild of Chele and Choclette has turned one!

Luckily for me, We Should Cocoa's birthday has also coincided with mine.  I hit the big 2-5 on Monday.  I went up an age bracket on questionnaires.  This makes me feel old.

So to stuff my sorrows, I made one of my favourite cakes.  It's called the Jackie Oh! Cake from Sugar Baby by Gesine Bullock-Prado.  It's beautifully moist and chocolaty and has become a firm favourite for big cakes.  

Unfortunately, I didnt get a photo of the cake this time I made it.  So here, sneakily, is a picture of the cake I made a couple of months ago using the same recipe.  I baked mine in four 7inch pans, sandwiched together with buttercream.  I smoothed a thin crumb coating of icing around the edge and rolled it in one packet of blitzed Oreos.  Then I piped rosettes around the edge of the cake and carefully sprinkled the leftover blitzed Oreos into the centre.  

Apologies for dodgy photo. (iPhone + late night icing = fail) 

Six Plait Bread

The humble loaf.  Often I squeeze some dough into a loaf pan, stick it in the oven and forget about it for 30 minutes or so.  Not today though.  I’m giving my usual failsafe recipes a holiday and trying something new.  Plus I have a few more days off before I start my new job so want to get some quality baking in.

I wanted a bread with a slightly sweeter, buttery taste and from plenty of research (hello, Google), the general consensus was the addition of butter, obviously, and egg to give it a richer flavour.  With the addition of egg, it reminded me of challah, so I decided to braid it like one.   

Ingredients

500g strong bread flour

50gr unsalted butter, chopped into little chunks

1 x 7gr sachet of easy blend (fast action yeast)

2tbsp caster sugar

1tsp salt

1 egg (medium/large)

Around 250ml tepid water

Method

1, Sift the flour into a large bowl and add in the butter, yeast, sugar and salt. Rub the butter between your finger tips until it is fully incorporated and there are no visible large lumps.

2, Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add in the egg with 200ml of the tepid water.  Start to bring this together with a fork, adding more water if necessary, until you are left with a lump of dough that isn’t sticky to the touch. 

3, Turn the dough out onto a work surface that has been lightly dredged in flour and knead for between 5-10minutes until the dough is soft and elastic.  Pop in an oiled bowl and cover with oiled clingfilm.  Leave this somewhere warm for an hour or until it has doubled in size.

4, Knock back the dough with your fist and give it another quick knead so that it is smooth  Divide the dough into six equal pieces and stretch and roll into sausages about 3cm thick.  I couldn’t video myself doing the plaiting but I followed this video.  It’s really easy when you get into the swing of it.

5, When you have finished tucking in the ends of the completed dough plait, brush it lightly with melted butter or olive oil, put on a lined baking sheet and very loosely cover with oiled clingfilm to prevent sticking.  Return to the warm place for about 20-30minutes

6, Preheat your oven to 220o/c and bake the bread for around 20 minutes.  I covered my loosely with foil after about 10 minutes to prevent it darkening too much.

7, Remove from the oven when the loaf is cooked.  To test this, tap the bottom of the loaf, if it sounds hollow then you’re on to a winner. 

8, Leave to cool, slightly, before tearing apart.  

Chocolate Courgette Brownies

What do you do when you have armfuls of these?

Or you’ve picked one that is the size of your torso?

And you still have thousands growing in the garden?

Announce a culinary war upon them.  Add this recipe for moist and not overly sweet brownies to your arsenal. 

Original recipe from here.

Ingredients

120ml vegetable oil

200gr golden caster sugar

100g dark brown sugar

2tsp vanilla extract

250gr plain flour

50gr cocoa powder

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1tsp salt

250gr courgette, coarsely grated

75gr chopped good dark chocolate

Method

1, Preheat your oven to 180o/c and line a 9 inch square cake tin/baking dish with baking paper.

2, Blend the vegetable oil together with the sugars and the vanilla extract until smooth.

3, Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  The ‘batter’ will be very dry.  Keep your cool.

4, Stir in the courgette and chocolate chunks and stir really well until all the courgette is well covered.  Bear in mind the courgette will release a lot of water when it’s cooking so it looks really dry now but it will leave you will a really nice moist brownie.  Eggs aren’t missing off the ingredient list.  Trust me. 

5, Spoon and spread the brownie mixture evenly in the lined tin and bake for 25 minutes. 

6, Leave to cool in the tin, slice and serve.  

Eton Mess Stack Tutorial

It was Jim’s birthday last Monday and, like every other year we have been together, I made him a cake to take to his office to share with his work colleagues.  He has had huge boxes of cupcakes and Tardis to name a couple but this year, time is in short supply.  I haven’t been able to take off a day (or two) to make a big fancy cake at my leisure.  So this year, simple wins. 

The original recipe is from here but I baked mine in three seven inch sandwich tins to create a stack.  And this is how I did it.

Preheat your oven to 160o/c and line and grease three seven inch sandwich tins.  And I mean line and grease by the way.  I didn’t.  Mistake…

Melt 175gr unsalted butter in a small saucepan.

When it’s melted, remove from the heat and add 1tsp of vanilla extract.

 And 5 tablespoons of double cream (about 60ml)

In a large bowl, add 225gr plain flour, 100gr almonds, 1tsp of baking powder and a large pinch of ground sea salt.

Using a whisk, combine to keep it light and airy.

 Set this aside for the moment.

Add 5 eggs and 200gr golden caster sugar…

…into the bowl of your stand mixer.  (Rosie-Rose has a new bow.  Isn’t she a doll!)

And using a whisk attachment, beat for 5 minutes or until the eggs and sugar are thick and creamy. 

While that is beating, pull out your 400gr of strawberries and chop half of them into chunks…

 

…and the other half into slices.

By now, the eggs and sugar should be thick and creamy. 

Beat in the butter-vanilla-essence-cream combo.

And fold in the flour in batches. 

Fold the chopped strawberries in.

Pour equally into your three (lined and greased) sandwich tins. 

Top with the sliced strawberries and 50gr of meringue.  I made my own meringue but shop bought is fab for this. 

Bake for 30 minutes or until they are golden brown, an inserted knife comes out clean and they are starting to pull away from the edges. 

Turn out the cakes and leave to cool right through. 

Take pictures of one of your cats whilst you’re waiting. (Optional)

When the cakes are cool, whip up a batch of butter cream icing by beating together 115gr soft unsalted butter with 265gr icing sugar and a little splash of vanilla extract. 

Put the most damaged cake at the bottom, I should have greased and lined… And turn it round so that it is at the back of the cake.  Out of sight…

Slap on some butter cream and some strawberry jam.

Add another cake and top that with more butter cream and strawberry jam.

Put the prettiest cake on the top.

Add any leftover strawberries/butter cream/meringue on top.  If you fancy, or simply dust with icing sugar. 

I made meringue letters for the birthday boy too. 

It was gorgeous!  Hooray!