Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake and a 6 Word Memoir

I came across this delicious cake on Brenda’s blog, Tea and Wheaten Bread (a beautiful blog and worth visiting) and I knew there and then that this would be a cake my family would love and enjoy, especially my son who adores the chocolate/orange combination. The recipe is from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson, a book I have but for some reason never remember seeing the recipe, or maybe I did, there are so many wonderful recipes in the book. I have to say this was one of the easiest and quickest cakes to date, everything is just thrown together. This is a gorgeous light and moist cake, and the orange comes through delightfully against the chocolate.


Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake

Ingredients:
125g of unsalted butter
100g of dark chocolate
300g of good quality orange marmalade
150g of sugar
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
150g of self-rising flour

Melt the butter slowly in a heavy-bottom saucepan. When it's almost melted, add chocolate pieces, stir and take off the heat. Stir with a wooden spoon, until chocolate has melted. Add the marmalade, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir thoroughly (it's okay to leave small visible chunks of marmalade in the batter). Add sifted flour, stir and pour into a buttered and floured 20-22 cm loose bottomed cake tin or 2lb loaf tin. Bake at 180˚C/350.F/Gas 4 oven for 45-50 minutes, until the cake has set (test with a knife or wooden stick). Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack. Once cooled dust with a layer of icing sugar.

Six Word Memoir

My sweet friend Rosie from Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake has tagged me for a 6 word memoir. So here goes:

Sensitive
Loving
Caring
Glamorous
Girly
Perfectionist

I am going to be a rebel and tag 6 people (as it seems fitting with it being a 6 word memoir tag) and will be choosing the following:
Mrs B from Mrs B Baking
Gigi from Gigi's Cakes
Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments
Pixie from You say Tomato I say Tomato
Jules from Domestic Goddess in Training
Emiline from Sugar Plum

Rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five or six (choice is yours) more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Rich Butter Cake with Golden Buttercream

At the weekend I received Cakes Galore by Valerie Barrett and instantly it was love at first sight. This is a book every baker should have in their collection. Over the weekend I had a good browse and came across so many wonderful recipes that I wanted to bake there and then. So this morning I decided to bake the Rich Butter Cake and ice it with the golden buttercream icing from another recipe in the book, as I knew they would make a perfect combination. As my loaf cake was baking the entire house was filled with that buttery scent and my son came down from his room and said...mmmm that smells so good mum! The sponge in this cake is so fluffy and light, as you can see from the photo. And the buttercream really finishes this cake off well I think, I added a few drops of yellow colouring to give it that golden buttery look and sprinkled on some pastel coloured butterfly sprinkles.

Chocolate Apple Cake

I love this photo of my Madison, his such a poser and knows when to be cute to melt my heart! (Check out the head tilt and crossed paws, lol).

The weather here has been somewhat nicer with sunny intervals and warmer days, looks like spring has arrived and summer is a short distance away (can't wait for BBQ's, lunching and dining al fresco in my garden). So in celebration of spring I decided to bake up a cake and decorate it with pastel coloured flowers. This Chocolate and Apple Cake recipe was kindly passed on to me by a lady who owned her own bakery, and it was a favourite with the local school girls, so much so that on some days they had to bake over 5 of these cakes to keep up with the popular demands. I can totally see why this cake would have been such a hit, my son and his friends all love it and so does the hubby. The sponge is beautifully moist due to the grated apple and the buttercream icing is heavenly. A "must bake" for any true chocoholic!

Chocolate Apple Cake

Ingredients

250g (9oz) Plain Flour

25g (1oz ) Cocoa

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Bicarbonate of soda

100g ( 4oz ) Butter

250g ( 9oz ) Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

A few drops of Vanilla Extract

175 ml. (6fl oz) Milk

2 Cooking Apples or Eating Apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped or grated

Icing
450g (1lb ) Icing sugar, sifted

25g ( 1oz ) Cocoa

50g ( 2oz ) Butter, softened

90ml. ( 3fl oz ) Milk

Preheat oven to 180/350F/Gas 4. Grease a 20cm ( 8 in ) square cake tin.Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarb. Put the sugar and butter into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla extract. Whisk in the flour mixture and lastly add the chopped apples and milk. Spoon into tin and bake for 1 hour or till cooked..When cake is cold, make icing by beating all ingredients together, spread over cake and make a swirly pattern and pop on some chocolate drops.

Serves: 12

Sticky Marmalade Tealoaf

Of an evening I sometimes love nothing but sitting on the sofa with a glass of red wine and reading through my cookbooks and discovering recipes to make at a later date. Last night I came across this gem of a recipe which I had book marked ages ago and decided to make this today. I knew instantly from reading the list of ingredients and viewing the photo this would be divine and I was 100% right! This tealoaf is wonderfully moist and full of flavour, the marmalade and pecans really complement each other!

Sticky Marmalade Tealoaf

Ingredients

140g/5oz marmalade (about one third of a 454g jar)

175g/60z butter, softened

175g/6oz light muscovado sugar

3 eggs, beaten

225g/8oz self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mixed spice

100g packet pecan halves

Preheat the oven to 180oC/Gas 4/fan oven 160oC. Butter a 1kg/2lb loaf tin and line with greaseproof paper. Set aside 1 tablespoon of the marmalade in a small pan. In a bowl, blend the remaining marmalade, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and spices for 1-2 minutes until smooth and light. Stir in about three quarters of the pecans.

Tip into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Sprinkle with the reserved pecans. Bake for about 1-1 1/4 hours until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cover loosely with foil after 40 minutes. Once cooked, carefully remove from the tin, and cool slightly on a wire rack.

Gently heat the reserved marmalade, stirring until it's smooth, and spread the glaze over the top of the warm loaf. Serve in slices.

Pasta with Ham, Peas and Cream

This pasta dish is a monthly if not weekly staple in our home, my boys can't get enough of it. It is so easy and quick to make and in less than 20 minutes you have what I can only describe as pure comfort on a plate.

Pasta with Ham, Peas and Cream

This recipe serves 2

Ingredients
200g farfalle or other short pasta
100g frozen peas
150ml double cream
150g diced ham
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions in plenty of salted boiling water, and then after 5 minutes add the peas to the pasta water.When the pasta is cooked, drain with the peas. Put the dry pan back on the heat with the cream, ham and Parmesan and warm it through. Add the pasta and peas back to the pan, tossing everything together well.

Sunshine Bars

First of all I would like to say sorry for not having blogged much in the recent days after Easter but after all that Easter cooking and baking I was in much need of a break. I also celebrated my Wedding Anniversary on Monday and I was wined and dined all weekend, so no baking or cooking to blog. So after a small break I decided to make up a batch of these Sunshine Bars that are packed with so much goodness they will be great for pack lunches or snacking. The recipe can be found here: Sunshine Bars.

Easter Sunday

I hope all my blogger friends had a wonderful Easter weekend. Here are some pictures of the food I made on Easter Sunday when my in laws came for the day.

After viewing the Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Goats Cheese Tart on Jules blog, I knew this would be the perfect starter to my Easter Sunday menu. And I am thrilled to say it was, everyone loved it and my mother in law asked for the recipe! It was so easy to make, better than any shop-bought tart. I served some salad along-side the tart. Thanks Jules, for sharing this delicious recipe, I will definitely be making this again and again!

Every year we purchase our leg of lamb from a nice butchers called Wishbone. They are known for their rare breeds, their lambs are free range and where possible Salt Marsh Spring Lamb and sourced from only the best farmers in Wales. This year we bought a 3kg leg of lamb and hubby insists on preparing the leg and cooking it, that's his job every Easter. He rubs the lamb in a lemon, rosemary and garlic mix, and it is heavenly.

For dessert I made a Lemon Curd and Strawberry Trifle, a recipe I have made before and one I knew would finish the meal off wonderfully. This was another recipe my mother in law asked for. If anyone would like to re-create this yummy trifle, you can find the recipe here: Lemon Curd and Strawberry Trifle

I couldn't resist not making another Chocolate Guinness Cake, we just love this cake and I thought it would be wonderful decorated with mini chocolate eggs. My in laws really loved it and took a huge wedge of it home to have the following day!

Lemon Meringue Cake

It wouldn't be Easter in our household without me baking this Lemon Meringue Cake, the recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's Feast Cookbook and has a wonderful section on Easter recipes. I love the light lemony sponge, with the crisp squashy meringue topping and then sandwiched with lemon curd and whipped cream. If you love Lemon Meringue Pie than you will love this cake. I have a friend over for dinner tonight and I will be serving this cake as dessert, alongside my home-made lemon curd ice cream.

Chocca Mocca Caramel Easter Cake

Today’s second installment of Easter baking comprises of this chocolate caramel cake. The cake’s core ingredients are chocolate, coffee and Mars bars. It is a light chocolate cake that is studded with chewy caramel bits within. The icing is a Mars bar infused caramel delight. I have decorated the cake with a seasonal touch of sugar daffodils and chocolate mini eggs. If you’re interested in re-creating this wonderful Easter cake, the recipe can be found below.

Chocca Mocca Caramel Cake

Easter Biscuits

I am starting the Easter festivities with these Easter Biscuits, I’ve never made them up until today and I will definitely be making them again. The biscuits were so easy and quick to make, a lightly spiced, currant-studded, soft biscuit with a sugary crunch. These biscuits traditionally are served after church on Easter Sunday, and are presented in a bundle of three biscuits to represent the Holy Trinity. I will be serving mine with a pot of hot tea. The perfect mid-afternoon biscuit!

Easter Biscuits

Prep: 20 min Cook: 15 min

Makes 10-15

Ingredients

100g butter

80g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

1tsp mixed spice

100g currants

1 extra tbsp caster sugar

To make the biscuits, heat the oven to 170C/Gas 3.

With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk. Sift together the flour, baking powder and mixed spice.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing well with a knife. Mix in the currants, squishing the dough together and kneading briefly until smooth, allowing the warmth of your hands to soften it.

Roll out finely on a lightly floured bench (best done under a sheet of clingfilm) and cut into 6cm or 8cm rounds with a plain or fluted biscuit-cutter.

Place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, and sprinkle with caster sugar. Bake for 12 to 15 min until just cooked, but not browned.

Carefully transfer to a wire rack — the biscuits should still be a little soft but will become crisp as they cool.

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I took this picture yesterday of my handsome Madison, staring out into the garden from the kitchen window.

Today I've decided to make some cupcakes, seems like ages since I last baked any. I had some ripe bananas in the fruit bowl and I remembered this recipe whilst browsing on Nicole’s Baking Bites Blog (one of my favourite blogs). These cupcakes are really scrumptious; the banana and peanut butter flavours compliment each other wonderfully and the sponge has a light fluffy texture. I finished off the cupcake with a peanut butter frosting to play up the peanut butter even more (my boys adore peanut butter, so they won’t complain).

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes Recipe

Chocolate Guinness Cake~St Paddy's Day Pub Crawl 2008 Blog Event!

I am entering my Chocolate Guinness Cake into the St Paddy's Day Pub Crawl 2008 event and contest. Emiline from Sugar Plum (a wonderful blog with lots of yummy treats) is hosting this fun event and it will run till Monday 17th March, so you still have time to enter and join in on the fun! Here is the link with all the details: St Paddy's Day Pub Crawl 2008

I have made this cake for every St Patrick's Day for the past few years and it's been a big hit with my family. I love the dense, damp moistness of this cake, with the added topping of dreamy creamy cheese icing. The recipe is from the wonderful book Feast by Nigella Lawson. My sponge didn’t come out as dark as it has done in the past but that was due to a lack of cocoa powder but I’m confident that it won’t deter my boys from eating their way through this cake with sheer delight!

Happy St Patrick's Day

This is the perfect cake to serve on St Patrick's Day.

Another Award :o)

The lovely Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments has awarded me with "You make my day award". She is such a sweetie and I feel so special receiving this. If you haven't been over to her blog, please take the time and do so, she has a great blog! I'm going to be a rebel again and award this to everyone who takes time to visit my blog and leave such kind comments. You are all deserving of this award, as it makes my day when I come on to my blog and read all the comments and feedback all you lovely people post.

Please feel free to attach this award to your blog!

Thank you Ruth, you've made my day!