This is the recipe I use to make a basic white loaf, using my kitchenaid. You can knead it by hand – it’s the same ingredients, but just takes longer! This makes a cob loaf, so I don’t use a bread tin as the quantity is greater.
You will need/knead (ha ha):
500g white bread flour
10g fast action yeast
10g salt
30g soft unsalted butter
300ml tepid water
Place the flour, yeast, salt and butter in the kitchenaid bowl, making sure the yeast and salt are on opposite sides to each other. Using the dough hook, put onto speed 2 and slowly pour in the water. Let in knead for about 10 minutes.
Put the dough into a large oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave to double in size gor 1-2 hours.
When risen, put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold it in on itself thereby knocking out the air and forming a smooth ball. Put the ball of dough on a lined baking sheet and cover with a large plastic bag. Leave for an hour to prove. The dough should double in size again and spring back into shape when you poke it with a floury finger.
Heat your oven to 220ºC and pre-heat a roasting tray. Dust the dough with flour and slash it across the top with a sharp knife. Fill the baking tray with water to creat steam and thus a light crust. Bake the dough for about 20 minutes then check if ready. You can test if it is cooked by tapping its base and if it sounds hollow, then it’s done!
Cool on a wire rack then enjoy however you like – personally I like butter and a platter of cheeses…
Aaaah….Pimm’s! The epitome of the British summer, Wimbledon and…hang on a minute! That’s not Pimm’s, it’s RAIN!!
Anyway, the unusual flash of sunshine this morning inspired me to share this recipe with you. It is adapted from the Love Bakery cookbook and is a mixture of a cupcake and a cocktail – a cuptail! Inspired! I have tried these out on friends, family and the school secretaries and got a resounding ‘Hurrah’ and ‘Please can I have the recipe?’ So here it is….
4 strawberries plus extra for decoration
2 slices of orange with peel removed
2 slices cucumber
About 4 mint leaves (+ 10 for decoration)
How to make:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC(160 fan) and line a muffin tin with 10 muffin cases (use red ones if you have them). In a mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and Pimm’s for about 7 mins or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, and mix for a further 2 mins. Combine the flour and baking powder then add to the mix with the milk and blend for one more minute. Dollop an ice-cream scoopful of mixture into each case and bake for 17 minutes in the centre of the oven. I turn them once and put a small bowl of water at the bottom to keep them moist, but that’s up to you! Cool on a wire rack when cooked.
For the filling you need to pulse all the ingredients in a blender until chunky/mushy. Don’t go overboard else you’ll just have puree. Use an apple-corer to remove the centre of each cake then fill the hole with the mixture. Pop the sponge core back on top like a lid.
To make the icing, you need to cream together the butter, lemon and Pimm’s for 2 minutes until fluffy. Add the icing sugar and milk and mix together for another 2 mins. Pipe the icing in a swirl on top of the cakes and decorate with strawberries and a mint leaf.
Arrange them on a nice white/silver plate and whisk them off to impress your friends and make them love you forever.
A while ago I was given a Herman friendship cake. I had never heard of this phenomenon before (much to the surprise of my erstwhile friend) and she explained to me that Herman was a German ‘living’ cake that you nurture and then share/pass to/inflict upon some other friends whilst you bake up a bit of yours into a nice cake for tea.
I duly followed the instructions and rather enjoyed the smell of yeast that filled the kitchen and the bubbling ectoplasm they lay beneath the tea towel…(do try not to get it ON the tea towel cos it’s a bugger to get off). Come the end of my 10 days I looked at the mixture and could think of not one soul in the vicinity who I could pass the ‘honour’ on to. So I donated Herman to the bin. Forgetting to save the bit that I was supposed to bake.
Since then, Herman has come back to haunt me….people have actually exclaimed ‘You killed Herman?’. Erm…yes. If throwing some gloop in the bin constitutes the murder of some cake mix then, yes. I killed Herman.
To make up for this, and perhaps because I’m bored, I feel the need to resurrect Herman the German and at the very least bake him up and scoff him. It is his destiny to be eaten and passed on and not to line my wheelie bin. Fear not, I am not resurrecting him as such…more reincarnating him….from some ingredients in my cupboard.
It’s not a pretty sight…
Herman Cake Recipe
To make a Herman cake from scratch you will need to dissolve one packet of active dry yeast (or 2¼tsp) in half a pint of warm water for 10 mins then stir. In a large bowl carefully mix together with 140g plain flour and 225g caster sugar. Gently stir in 50ml of warm milk and cover the bowl with a clean tea towel. Leave in a cool place (but NOT the fridge else you’ll kill him) for 24hrs.
Then start from day 1 of the official Herman Instructions below (these are what you give to your friends with a portion of Herman and a wry smile). Then run before they ask questions.
Official Herman Cake Instructions
Hello, my name is Herman.
I am a sourdough cake. I’m supposed to sit on your worktop for 10 days without a lid on.
You CANNOT put me in the fridge or I will die. If I stop bubbling, I am dead.
Day1: Put me in a large mixing bowl and cover loosely with a tea towel.
Day 2: Stir well
Day 3: Stir well
Day 4: Herman is hungry. Add 1 cup each of plain flour, sugar and milk. Stir well.
Day 5: Stir well
Day 6: Stir well
Day 7: Stir well
Day 8: Stir well
Day 9: Add the same as day 4 and stir well. Divide into 4 equal portions and give away to friends with a copy of these instructions. Keep the fourth portion.
Day 10: Now you are ready to make the cake. Stir well and add the following:
225g sugar
225g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
160ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 cooking apples peeled, cored & cut into chunks
200g raisins
100g walnuts/almonds (optional)
2 heaped tsp cinnamon
2 heaped tsp baking powder
Mix everything together and put into a large greased baking tin.
Sprinkle with 50g brown sugar and 50ml melted butter. Bake for 45 minutes at 180°C.
Then cover in foil and bake for a further 25 minutes to make sure Herman is cooked in the middle.
Cut up when cold. The cake freezes well if you’re keen….
Serve as is or with ice cream!
UPDATE
I have successfully completed my Herman cycle and made the cake (minus the raisins). I had to cook it for longer than expected and have altered the recipe accordingly. It wasn’t very cakey – more of a pudding and had I any ice-cream to go with it (I love Haagen-Dazs vanilla) it would have been even better. As it was, it was nice tasting but not, perhaps, something I’d rush to do again….
It was fun doing it though and over on For Bella and Will there are some great alternate recipes!
This is a recipe from Lisa Faulkner’s book and it is divine. Because of the fruit and almond contingent, I reckon it is best described as ‘if you like bakewell tart, you’ll LOVE this.’ Ideally, it should be served warm. And with 400g of fruit in it, surely a contender for one of your 5-a-day? It’s not pretty, but it’s beauty lies within…..
Line/grease a 23cm, loose-bottomed tin. Cream together 175g of unsalted butter and 150g caster sugar. Then add 150g sifted self-raising flour, 100g ground almonds, 2 eggs, 1 tsp almond extract and mix together well.
Fold in 400g soft fruit (well, keep a bit aside to adorn the top). I use half/half raspberries and strawberries, but the lovely Lisa recommends you try what you like! When folded in, spoon into the tin and scatter the leftover fruit on the top. Bake at 160ºC for about an hour – it depends on your oven. Mine cooks fast, so the cake is done in 50mins, but the book recommends 1hr – 1hr15mins.
When baked, and be careful not to overcook, carefully turn the cake onto a wire rack to cool (hallelujah for Bake-O-Glide – this is when it comes into its own!).
When the cake is still warm, serve and enjoy. But watch out! It’s very moorish….*wipes tell-tale crumbs from mouth*
This is a very easy tray bake/birthday cake/bake sale type of cake. I made two this morning for my son’s birthday party tomorrow, but they are so easy you could easily rustle one up as a pud or a snack.
To make the cake, I preheated the oven to 160ºC and greased/lined a 20x20cm baking tin. Then I mixed together (I used kitchenaid with paddle) 110g self-raising flour, 110g caster sugar, 110g softened unsalted butter, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 large eggs and 1 tsp vanilla extract (don;t smash it on the kitchen floor like I did…). Whizz it all together and spoon into the pan. Try to level it out as best you can and get it into the corners properly. Bake for 16 minutes then turn out, top side down onto a wire rack to cool. This gives you a nice flat surface for your icing to go on.
To ice it I mixed 200g icing sugar with 55ml of boiling water then added a pinprick of gel colouring. I find it best to dollop it all into the middle of the cooled cake and gently spread it out with the back of a spoon to the edges. Whilst the icing is soft, scatter your favourite sprinkles/edible glitter and leave to ‘set’. I cut it into 9 squares, but you can go bigger or smaller according to your needs. To fancy it up, sometimes I put a square in a cake case to make it look more presentable but you can, of course, sneak a slice and eat it from your hand!
To adapt mine into birthday party cake I coloured my icing pale blue (although it looks white on the photos), sprinkled sugar strands and edible glitter over it and later added a ribbon to hide the sides and stuck in a few candy coloured candles. Easy to make, easy to cut up and easy to eat makes it a good option for those manic toddler parties….
My son had a last minute change of mind about his birthday cake. Since he was born he has always had a dinosaur cake, as his bequest. Again, this year it was his cake of choice. Excellent, thought I, done it before – easy peasy!
Then last week he announced he would like a Mario cake. He didn’t notice the look of mild panic on my face as I said ‘Mario! Yes, ummm, well I can certainly try.’ For the first time ever I have actually planned out what I am going to do. I am cheating on the icing and use ready rolled and I fear with my colouring skills Mario might look a little sunburnt, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So, this morning I baked a vanilla sponge, using my cupcake recipe but doubling the mixture. I had plenty of mixture left over and made 20 small fairy cakes, which I might just ice and send in tomorrow for his class rather than the lemon cakes I had planned. In my experience as a mother and a teacher, kids only eat the icing anyway and leave the beleaguered sponge cowering at the bottom of the discarded case. So I may cheat (sssh!) and grab a tub of Betty Crocker icing, give it a swirl and a jelly diamond and send those in instead. (postscript: I did!)
I am currently waiting for the whole lot to cool and will be back later with the next instalment….
LATER…
Well. I did it. Not well, but I did it! My hands are dyed Christmas Red and Mario looks a bit like he should really be called ‘Charlie’, he’s covered in so much white powder…BUT he is at least recognisable and if you don’t look too hard you can’t see all the dodgy icing.
Having made the two sponges, I cut around a template I made and then sandwiched them with buttercream filling and spread a thin layer over the top and sides of cake to secure the roll icing.
I had all sorts of ‘fun’ dying the icing pink, red and blue and rolled it out about 6 times only to rip it as I picked it up. Then I thought about putting a layer of clingfilm down to roll it on (with yet more icing sugar) and this did the trick.
I iced the face first and made the nose. Then I did the hat, the eyes and the emblem. Then I did the moustache and stuck the nose and blue eye bits on. The red ‘M’ was fiddly, but I got there in the end. For his hair I used chocolate buttercream icing with a grass nozzle to pipe it on.
I haven’t worked out how to de-powder him yet, but he looks OK…from a distance!
Cake-making is such a skill (not one that I have much of) from the baking to the icing and I am in awe of those who turn out perfectly presented cakes without a crack or speck of icing suger to be found! To give you an idea of ‘behind the scenes’ I have included a photo of the carnage left behind. And this is just the icing bit! I can’t face clearing it up yet….I need a cup of tea and a sit down.
My husband loves carrot cake, so what better thing to bake him for his birthday cake? As aforementioned, we are going to be cupcaked out by the end of next week, so I thought it would be better to make his cake a bit different from the endless sponge that is to come go for something he’ll enjoy. I hope. This is a new recipe for me and involves a triple layering. Not for the faint-hearted! Or for the poor in skill (that’ll be me then…).
The cake-making bit was fine apart from the endless grating of carrot which I managed without serrating any of my digits (but through luck more than anything else). I always use a kitchenaid to make cake, so unless instructed otherwise, assume all beating is done with the help of a mixer and not by hand.
I beat 3 eggs, 300g of soft light brown sugar and 300ml of sunflower oil until well-mixed then added 300g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarb of soda, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract and mixed well.
Then I added 300g of (laboriously) grated carrot and 100g of chopped walnuts. This bit I’d do by hand else you’ll end up with smush.
I divided the mixture into 3 x 20cm cake tins and baked for 20 mins at 170ºC.
To make the icing I sifted 600g of icing sugar and mixed it with 100g soft unsalted butter (using the paddle attachment). Then I added 250g of cream cheese and mixed on a medium speed for 5 mins.
Then…the tricky bit.
As you will see from the photos, icing is not my forte. Especially a triple layered cake. The only other attempt I made at one of these was exactly the same, a big splotty cakey version of The Leaning Tower of Pisa! Possibly I should level off my my cakes before I ice them, but that would mean a lot of nifty and straight knife work. Anyway, I ploughed onward iced each layer with 1/4 of the icing then used the last quarter for the sides. I ended up with a somewhat wonky, but nevertheless iced cake adorned with walnuts and shortly afterwards a plastic golfer and three birthday candles.
The result was a good. Not excellent, not poor but good. The icing was creamy and delicious but rather over powered the cake. Perhaps next time I will try two thicker layers rather than three thin ones. The cake was SO moist – fantastic! The taste was fine, but for me I would perhaps increase the cinnamon and ginger to one teaspoon for a bit more ‘kick’. As predicted, the kids hated the cake and only liked the icing. No change there! But Husband and I enjoyed it and he is taking the leftovers into work tomorrow for further devouring.
