Cherry Bakewell Cake

Today we are celebrating Father's Day in the UK and what better way to express our love than bake hubby his favourite cake! It's a small token to show how much we love and appreciate how lucky we are to have such a wonderful, caring and hard working father/hubby. We celebrated Father's Day yesterday when our son Jake and his family came over. We had a lovely day and of course spending time with our precious little grandson Ollie is always special.

Bakewell has always been one of hubby's favourites, infact when I first met him his diet consisted of Mr Kipling Bakewell tarts along with packets of jaffa cakes. His diet was terrible but then again he was a teenager living on his own and no one to feed him regular good meals! My hubby is my number one fan and enjoys all my bakes but this cake wins hands down for him.

Looking beyond the way the sponges came out slightly lopsided this cake turned out tasting absolutely perfect. This classic combination has this cake bursting with almond flavour, sandwiched together with the luxurious dark morello cherry conserve and topped with a blanket of silky white icing adorned with toasted flaked almonds and glace cherry halves.

Cherry Bakewell Cake

Serves 8

Ingredients

For The Cake

200g (8oz butter), well softened, + extra for greasing
200g (8oz) caster sugar
100g (4 oz) ground almonds
100g (4 oz) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon almond extract or essence

4 large eggs
Pinch of salt

For The Filling & Top
½ a 340g (approx 12 oz) jar of morello cherry conserve/jam
175g (6 oz) icing sugar
5-6 teaspoons water or lemon juice
1 tablespoon flaked almonds, lightly toasted

2 x 20cm (8 in) round sandwich tins, greased with butter and base lined with baking paper.

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

Using electric beaters, beat together all the cake ingredients until smooth. Divide the batter equally between tins and level the tops with a spatula. Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown and springy to the touch or a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. *Do not open the oven door until 25 minutes of baking to check the cake*.

Place the tins onto a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before turning out to fully cool. Make sure the top of one of the cakes is facing up as you’ll want a smooth surface for the icing later on.

When cool, put one sponge on a serving plate, then spread with conserve/jam. Sandwich the second sponge on top.

Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl. Add the water or lemon juice, then stir until smooth and thick. Spread evenly over the top and let it dribble over the sides. Scatter with toasted flaked almonds on the icing and leave to set for a few minutes before cutting.

*Notes*

This is an easy all in one method for making a sponge cake -please make sure your butter is fully softened before you start.

If you find morello cherry conserve/jam difficult to source, substitute with raspberry conserve/jam, it will be just as delicious!

To toast flaked almonds ~ place a single layer in a dry frying pan for toasting. With the frying pan over medium-high heat, stir or shake the nuts continually for 3 to 5 minutes or until they start to turn golden. Remove them from the cooking pan as soon as they're done.

A few glacé cherries placed on top of the icing additionally with the flaked toasted almonds would also be a lovely.

Hubby with Ollie ♥

Flapjacks

I hope everyone had a great weekend and made the most of the weather. We had a lovely time on Sunday when our son came over and of course we love spending time with our grandson Ollie, whose now nearly 6 months. He is such a happy baby, always smiling and making cute baby gurgles and giggles. His mum and I took him into town and I did my nannie duties and spoiled him with some gorgeous summer clothes! Below are some pics I took of him yesterday, isn't he so cuddly? OK I had better stop cos I could go on about him all day! Today I made these flapjacks from one of my new cookbooks that I had not used until now, Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale. I haven't baked flapjacks for such a long time and the addition of lemon zest and ginger gave these a different angle. They turned out to be just as I'd hoped, typically chewy but with a refreshing burst of flavour! Next on my list to bake from this cookbook will be the Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies, how amazing do they sound??

Flapjacks

Makes 12
Ingredients
175g butter
175g golden syrup
175g muscovado sugar
350g porridge oats
finely grated zest of ½ lemon
pinch of ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 150oC/fan oven 130oC/Gas mark 2. Line a 20cm/8in square baking tin with baking paper.

Melt the butter in a medium pan over a low heat. Dip a brush in the butter and brush the baking tin with a little bit of it. Add the golden syrup and sugar to the butter and heat gently. Once the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted remove the pan from the heat and stir in the porridge oats, lemon zest and ginger.

Pack the mixture into the baking tin and squash down. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.

Once cooked, remove from the oven, leave to cool for 15 minutes, then turn out on to a chopping board and cut into squares.

Love Buns

Hi all, I am back from a bit of an extended break from the blogging world. I will not go into the why’s etc but I've just been busy with life and enjoying my beautiful grandson.

Its Valentines and what a perfect excuse for a bit of baking and blogging! I’ve been thoroughly spoiled by my hubby with roses, chocolates and some David Smallcombe sterling silver cuff bracelets I have been lusting after. He worked from home today so he wouldn’t be late home from the office to enjoy a lovely dinner together. My intention was to bake his favourite Custard Cream Heart cookies but everywhere was sold out of vegetable shortening. So I decided to bake these Love Buns to mark the occasion. I’ve baked these in the past and they have a very light and fluffy sponge. I never make the white frosting the recipe specifies. Personally I can’t stand it and I prefer to use buttercream, which tastes and looks so much more appealing. Of course I had to dye my buttercream pink and add some Valentine sprinkles. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Valentine’s Day and being spoiled rotten.


Love Buns

Ingredients
For the buns
125g soft butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp real vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp milk

Buttercream Icing
150g (5oz) butter, softened
300g (11 oz) icing (confectioners) sugar, sifted
1 tbsp milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
Edible pink food colouring
Sprinkles for decoration of choice

Take everything out of the fridge to bring to room temperature - this makes a huge difference to the lightness of the love buns later - preheat the oven to 200oC/fan oven 180oC/gas mark 6.

Put all the ingredients for the buns, except for the milk, into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel, to make a smooth dropping consistency.

Divide the mixture into a 12-bun muffin tin lined with muffin papers or heart patterned cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. They should have risen and be golden on top: you want a little peak if possible.

Let them cool a little in their tin on a rack, and then take them carefully out of the tin to cool in their papers, still on the wire rack.

To make the buttercream, beat the butter until soft. Add the icing sugar and stir until it’s just mixed in, then add the milk and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Add few drops of food colouring and beat.

Spread the icing on thickly with a palette knife on top of each cupcake or put the icing into a piping back and make a large swirl on top of each cupcake. Decorate each cupcake with your chosen sprinkles.

Ollie my grandson is now 3 months and a bundle of love and joy in my life!