MORE CAKE - Lemon & Elderflower Swiss Roll

So I'm still revelling in having the time to bake, and also loving all the fruit, vegetables and flowers that come with Summer. This recipe is inspired by that - specifically, the tiny, fragile elderflowers whose fragrance hits you every time you walk past a bush at the moment. They're only in season for a short time each year, so make the most of them while you can!

Ingredients:
For the Sponge                                                       For the Filling and Decoration
- 3 medium eggs                                                     - 2tbsp lemon curd
- 75g caster sugar                                                   - 100ml double cream
- zest of 1 unwaxed lemon                                     - 1tbsp elderflower cordial
- 75g plain flour                                                       - 1tbsp icing sugar
                                                                               - ½tsp lemon juice

You'll also need a 20x30cm baking tin, greased and lined.

1. Start by pre-heating the oven to 220°C. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and thick (this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric whisk).
2. Tip in the lemon zest, and gently sieve in the flour, a little at a time, using a large metal spoon to fold them in.
3. Evenly pour the mixture into the tin, and bake for 9-10 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch.
4. Grab a sheet of greaseproof paper a little bigger than the cake tin and sprinkle with caster sugar. As soon as the sponge is out the oven, transfer it to the paper and peel off the lining paper from the tin. Make a small cut 2cm in from one of the short sides, then gently roll up the cake from the end with the cut. Allow to cool completely.
5. When the sponge is cool, unroll it and spread on the lemon curd. Whip the cream with the elderflower cordial and spoon it on top, then re-roll the cake as carefully as you can.

6. Mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice, then use a teaspoon to drizzle it over the cake. For an extra bit of pretty, you can grate over some extra lemon zest and use the icing to stick on fresh elderflowers.

Banana, Chocolate and Butterscotch Muffins for celebrating THE END OF OUR DEGREES

WE DID IT. I have no idea how, or what we'll get out of it (degree classifications don't come out for another month...), but in the meantime I'm catching up on sleep and all the things I've had to put off to write essays, like cooking and painting and walking and watching TV and BAKING! Fraser's calling it my rehabilitation, and I'm enjoying it immensely. So this weekend I made these...

Banana, chocolate and butterscotch muffins. They're based on a Nigella recipe - I first made them years ago with Andy, and they're sooooo good. You can vary the flavours however you like - I intend to try them with blueberries, or you could be super indulgent and go for a double chocolate chip variation.

Ingredients (makes 12):
- 3 ripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 125ml vegetable oil
- 250g plain flour
- ½tsp bicarb. of soda
- 1tsp baking powder
- 100g caster sugar
- 100g Green&Blacks butterscotch chocolate
- 50g butterscotch pieces

1. Start by preheating your oven to 200°C, and lining a muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Mash the bananas (I find the best things for this are a fork and a casserole dish lid), or tell a friend if they'll do it for you they can have the first muffin. Works like a charm.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the oil 'til they've come together. Add the flour, bicarb, baking powder and sugar and stir well.
4. Tip in the mashed banana, along with the butterscotch and chocolate (chopped), and stir through.
5. Dollop the mixture into the muffin cases. Don't worry if you make a bit of a mess - I seem to be incapable of doing it without getting cake mix all over the tray/my hands/the cat...

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I recommend you check them after 20, and if they're not done turn the tray around to make sure they get an even final blast. Once they're out, they'll need at least 10 minutes to cool before you demolish them - if you can wait that long...

Lemon Yoghurt Cupcakes. For days when the weather is horrendous.

Thursday's hail

The weather has been absolutely horrendous lately.

Since that St. Jude's Storm back at the end of October, it feels like there's been no let up with all the wind, the rain, the hail (pictured above) and the flooding. Here in Egham, the flooding has been pretty bad - I've never been more grateful for Egham Hill, but our thoughts are definitely with those affected.

On a much much lighter note, I made lemon yoghurt cake yesterday. I was definitely in need of a pick me up, and as last night's storm began to kick off, cake was made. 

This is a Mary Berry recipe, which I've made before as Bryony's birthday cake, and it's seriously good cake. The first time I made it my flatmate Victor chewed the cake tin liners like chewing gum because apparently he reaaallly liked the cake. This time I made cupcakes, because my favourite thing about this cake was the crunchy, sugary, slightly caramelised surface that forms as it bakes, and cupcakes have more surface area.

I used Dove's Farm gluten free self raising flour, because that stuff makes life worth living for anyone who can't eat gluten. It's wonderful. Also I'm a big fan of baking with yoghurt, mainly because of these EPIC Blueberry Muffins. They're awesome.

Here's what you need:

300g caster sugar

50g softened butter (I use salted, because it adds a very slight savoury undertone to the sweetness)

3 large eggs, separated

225g Greek yoghurt

Grated rind of one lemon

175g self raising flour

For the icing: 

100g sifted icing sugar
About 1½ tbsp of lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. I now have a gas oven (IT HAS FIRE AT THE BACK, what is that even about?!) so for me, that's gas mark four.

2. Beat the sugar, butter, and egg yolks together in a bowl. Add in the lemon and the yoghurt, and beat until smooth. 

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites together to a soft peak, then tip into the mixture. Fold it in carefully and slowly, aiming to keep as much air in the mix as possible.

4. Tip into a deep cake tin (with the base lined with greaseproof paper or baking parchment), or if you're baking cupcakes, distribute the mix evenly between cupcake cases. I ended up making about twenty cupcakes from this mix (two of which I dropped as soon as they came out of the oven. Whoops. I ate them anyway - this cake is really good). 

5. Place in the oven. The cake will take between an hour to an hour and a fifteen minutes. The cupcakes will take around twenty minutes. The cake is done when top goes an even biscuity brown colour, and if you poke a skewer in it should come out clean. 

6. For the icing, mix the sifted icing sugar and the lemon juice together, and when the cake(s) are cooled, pour over the top(s). I then topped my cupcakes with popping candy and some curls of lemon zest. Definitely ate these for breakfast today...

Bryony (dressed as Tilly from Tots TV) and I (dressed as Little Red Riding Hood) eat the cake in Bryony's kitchen. We're looking surprised at how good it tastes. It's SERIOUSLY good cake.

Blackberry and Elderflower Cakes

Hello lovely people! I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas. Mine has been very busy (isn't life always?) - I was in Paris with Fraser for four days, then finally got back to Cumbria to weather-madness and frantic Christmas preparations. There hasn't been time for a great deal of cooking, other than Christmas dinner, of course, though I do know that Zosia took her annual gingerbread house to a new level this year and made a gingerbread castle. As you do.

However, it's my birthday party this weekend and we're doing an afternoon tea type-thing, so to the kitchen! I'm planning on making little lemon drizzle cakes and more spiced Christmas biscuits, but I'm also hoping to re-create something I did this term. Enter please blackberry and elderflower cakes.

Ingredients (makes 12):
For the cakes
- 150g butter
- 150g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 3tbsp elderflower cordial
- 200g self raising flour
- ½tsp baking powder
- 1 tin of blackberries, drained (or 150g fresh)

For the buttercream
- 75g softened butter
- 275g icing sugar
- 2tbsp elderflower cordial
- 1 tin blackberries (or 75g fresh)
- 12 fresh blackberries
- few sprigs of lemon thyme
- elderflowers (if in season)

Method:
For the cakes
1. First, preheat your oven to 180°C and grab some muffin cases. If you have a muffin tin pop the cases in the holes, but if not don't worry, you can just use a normal baking tray.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. You want as much air in there as possible, so give it some proper elbow grease!
3. Add the eggs and elderflower cordial, then mix in so there are no streaks.
4. Carefully fold in the flour. You need to make sure it's all mixed in whilst at the same time not beating out any of the air you've worked in, so be gentle with it.
5. Add the blackberries. I think the tins are genius - they're so much cheaper (unless it's blackberry season and you can pick your own) and are great to have in the cupboard, but just use whatever you can find.

Most beautiful cake mix ever?

6. Divide the mixture between the 12 cake cases, then bake for 20-25 minutes (depending on your oven) until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool.

For the buttercream
1. Beat together the butter and icing sugar until thick, light and creamy. Pour in the elderflower cordial and stir through.
2. Add the tinned blackberries along with a splash of the liquid from the tin (just to give an extra hit of colour) and stir in. If your buttercream is a bit runny, you can just stir in more icing sugar.
3. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag with a nozzle of your choice. Don't have a piping bag? Use a plastic sandwich bag and cut off one of the corners!
4. Once your cakes are properly cooled, ice away! Start from the outside and swirl in towards the middle.
5. Adorn each cake with a fresh blackberry and a couple of thyme leaves. You can also sprinkle over some tiny elderflowers if they're in season (June) for an extra bit of pretty.

Pumpkin Cake for Halloween

This may look like a perfectly normal generic cake. 

(Especially compared to Bryony's Hobbit masterpiece, omg.)

But this cake tastes awesome, because it's actually got pumpkin in it - think carrot cake, except more seasonal, and a liiiittle bit spooky. Because Halloween.

The first time I made this cake it was October 2011, during our first year in halls. I made pumpkin cupcakes and Bryony and I decorated them with Halloween pictures.

 

Bryony's was the cat and mine was the castle.

But the recipe is quite substantial and I seem to remember making about a thousand of these goddamn (although admittedly quite small) cupcakes. So this time I've made a full on layer cake instead. Because why not?

Now I'm not entirely sure where I got the original recipe that this is based on from, because at the time I found it online and wrote it down on a scrap of paper to bake from and never wrote down where it came from... And now I can't find it.. But it's seriously awesome cake.

Pumpkin ready to roast

You also need to make pumpkin purée, and I used this method here. It's super easy and super effective. If you use a whole pumpkin, you'll definitely have some left over. I used mine to make pumpkin risotto, or you could make it into pumpkin soup or freeze it for future pumpkin cakes.

So. Here's what you need:

280g self raising flour

2 Cardamom pods, seeds only, ground into a fine-ish powder.

3/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3/4 tsp ground ginger

3/ tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp salt

110g butter, softened (or margarine)

200g caster sugar

5 tbsp soft brown sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

180ml milk

250g pumpkin purée

For cream cheese icing/filling:

100g cream cheese

25g softened butter

175g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

And here's what you do: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. (Or gas mark six. I have a gas oven now, it's very weird...)

2. Grease and line two cake tins. Alternatively, you could use this mix to make cupcakes, in which case you should line cupcake tins with cupcake cases.

3. Sift together the flour, nutmeg, ginger and allspice, then mix in the salt and the cardamom.

4. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter, the caster sugar and the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at at a time. Once combined, stir in the milk and the pumpkin purée. 

5. Stir this into the flour mixture, until just combined.

6. Distribute your cake mix between the two tins, or between your cupcake cases.

7. Place in the oven and bake. If you're doing two big cakes,bake for around 40 minutes, checking them after 20 to see if they need turning. If you're doing cupcakes, bake for 25 minutes, and check after 15.

8. Take out of the oven and cool thoroughly.

9. Once cooled, you can ice your cake(s). To make the icing, beat the cream cheese and the butter together. Beat in the icing sugar a little at a time, add the vanilla extract and beat it in thoroughly.

10. Pipe decorative swirls of icing onto your cupcakes, or if you're making a layer cake, spread the icing mix on top of one layer then sandwich the other one on top. Dust with icing sugar and voila, pumpkin caaaaake.

(Also, this is Alex and I dressed up for Halloween. Alex is dressed as a bat. Again. You can't see my wings but I was dressed as an evil fairy type thing :p)

We're Baking the Hobbits for James' House

Our good friend James had his 21st birthday last week, and to celebrate he had a hobbit party. I got to make the cake...

It was some of the most fun I've ever had baking. Plus it went down really well, and I got to wander through Englefield Green dressed as a hobbit, carrying a cake shaped like a hobbit hole. I'll miss being a student.

What a motley crew. Also I took my shoes off as soon as we got there, don't worry

The cake recipe belongs to Jamie and is a family favourite from what I gather - and I'm not surprised. YUM.

Ingredients (for the cake):
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1tsp salt
- 1tsp baking powder
- 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ¾ cup cocoa
- 2 cups caster sugar
- 1 cup sunflower oil
- 1 cup hot instant coffee (or hot chocolate)
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Line a 9x12" rectangular baking tin with greaseproof paper, and heat your oven to 170°C.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the oil, coffee (or hot chocolate) and milk and beat for two minutes.
4. Stir in the eggs and vanilla and whisk.
5. Pour the batter into the tin, and bake for 40-45 minutes.

If you're planning on making your cake into a hobbit hole I recommend baking it the day before, so it can cool properly and the flavours can mature a bit before you decorate it. If you're hobbit hole-ing it up:

You will need:
- 1kg fondant icing
- icing sugar
- gel food colouring: red, yellow, blue, black
- a rolling pin (or empty wine bottle)
- 1tbsp jam, any flavour
- a pastry brush
- gum tragacanth (optional)
- cocktail sticks
- a sharp knife
- shot of vodka

Method:
1. Begin by putting the jam into a small saucepan, and heating until it's runny. Put to one side.
2. Slice about 2.5" off the end of your cake. Take the piece you've just cut off and shorten it so it fits on top of the larger cake (using the jam as glue), then stick the second cut-off on top and carefully smooth the corners. Then, cut a small, shallow groove down the middle of the cake. It should look something like this:

3. Grab your fondant icing and the blue and yellow food colouring. Sprinkle some icing sugar on your worktop, then knead the fondant icing until it's soft and malleable. Cut off 1/3 and put it to one side, then add the food colouring to the remaining 2/3 and knead in until you have the desired colour.
4. Sprinkle some more icing sugar, then roll out the icing 'til it's about 3mm thick. Using the rolling pin for support, drape the icing over the cake and smooth it down. Carefully cut off any excess.
5. From here on it's mostly your call. I made some grey coloured fondant and cut it out to look like paving stones. To stick them on, lightly brush with the vodka (I don't really know why this is but my Mum's friend's daughter makes cakes professionally and it's what she uses, so I just go with it).

6. Mix some icing sugar with a splash of water and yellow and blue food colouring, then either grab a piping bag or just spoon it over the cake to resemble grass.
7. Create yourself some brown fondant, and cut out a round door and window. To give the wood effect, mix the colours in a small pot and then literally paint it on. Grab a cocktail stick and make the grooves, then dip the stick in the black colouring and paint where the grooves are. If you're feeling super nerdy you can also make yourself a little door handle and scratch in Gandalf's mark.

8. Make a few strips of pink fondant and roll them up into roses, and accompany with leaves (which Zosia kindly made for me). For the fence, cut a handful of cocktail sticks in half and stick them into the 'grass', then use a few splodges of the water icing to secure more cocktail sticks to lie across horizontally.
9. Aaaaand you're DONE. Now dress up like a hobbit and take it to your friend's house while you sing THIS all the way there.

Little Lemon Drizzle Cakes

It's largely been a slow summer for me. I've spent months looking for a job to no avail and, as I can't drive (and there's very little in terms of public transport in Cumbria), I'm stuck at home a lot. It's very depressing. The solution as I see it is to eat my way out of it, which means BAKING.

   I made these initially for Mum's work to sell (all proceeds to Macmillan Nurses) as part of the Eden Food and Farming Festival a few weeks ago, and they went down a storm. Sadly this meant we at home were limited to half a cake each (not even joking, Shannon was NOT impressed). So I made more.

Ingredients (makes 20):

For the cake

- 200g unsalted butter

- 250g caster sugar

- 3 medium eggs

- zest of 2 unwaxed lemons

- 250g self-raising flour

- ½tsp baking powder

- juice of 1 lemon, made up to 100ml with milk

 For the drizzle topping

- 100g caster sugar

- juice 2 lemons

- zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and grab yourself 20 muffin cases. It obviously works best if you can put them in a muffin tin for support, but they do fine free-standing on a normal baking tray so don't worry.

2. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, then beat it some more. My Grandma used to say this was the most important part of making a cake, so pass the bowl around the house until everyone's arms are tired. This will also make you feel less guilty about eating the cake afterwards because it's basically a work-out, right?

3. Add the eggs and lemon zest and mix together, then sift in the flour and baking powder. Fold it all together slowly (mostly so you don't get flour everywhere), and when that's incorporated add the lemon juice and milk mixture and stir again.

4. Fill the muffin cases with the mixture so they're about two thirds full. Make it all as level as possible, then bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on your oven. 

5. While the cakes are in the oven, make the drizzle topping: you literally just mix everything together in a bowl so it makes a runny sort of glaze.

6. As soon as the cakes are out of the oven poke a load of holes in them with a cocktail stick, then add a generous teaspoon of drizzle to each one (you may have to do it half a tsp at a time to give them time to absorb it a bit), and voilà. Let cool, sprinkle with a bit more sugar for prettiness and enjoy your lemony flavoured clouds. They definitely banish the black ones.

Courgette Cake and a Lowry Jigsaw

It was Fraser's birthday last weekend. Sadly, there has yet to be an opportunity to make birthday pie, but we had a very nice time with a bit of walking, Fraser's mum's courgette cake and a 500 piece L.S. Lowry jigsaw (which it can only be assumed was created by a sadist).

So technically this post is cheating a little bit because I didn't make the cake, BUT I will definitely be doing so soon, as our courgette plants are producing courgettes like there's no tomorrow and we have 6 as big as your forearm sitting on our kitchen windowsill. Not even joking.

Also: courgette. In a cake. I know it sounds weird, but I promise you it isn't. It's wonderfully moist and sweet and a little bit spiced, and you should make it.

Ingredients (makes 2 loaf tins worth):
- 2 cups plain flour
- 2 cups sugar
- ½tbsp cinnamon
- 2tsp baking powder
- 1 cup sunflower oil
- 2tsp vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups finely grated courgette
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup chopped nuts

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease two loaf tins (if you can find a way to use half an egg, then by all means half the whole recipe and just use the one tin!).
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, cinnamon and baking powder in a large bowl. Then pour in the oil, vanilla and eggs and mix well.
3. Add the courgette, raisins and nuts and stir together.
4. Divide the mix between the two tins then bake for an hour, until a knife in the middle comes out clean.

Fraser reckons the jigsaw took us about 10 hours in total, and I'm not sure we could've done it (at least without it taking even longer) without cake for fuel. I'm planning on having some handy for essays once term starts again, 'coz if it can get me through that jigsaw, it can get me through anything!

Chocolate and Banana Cake

This is without a doubt a childhood favourite. Many a year has it been my birthday cake, and it's particularly good for taking on picnics, or generally putting in a bag and taking anywhere due to the lack of icing/squidgy bits. Twice now Mum's made one and sent it down to London for me - that's how good it is!

Ingredients:

- 2 large, ripe bananas

- 1½ tsp vanilla extract

- 6oz/175g margarine

- 8oz/225g granulated sugar

- 10oz/275g self raising flour

- 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

- 3 large eggs

- 4oz/125g plain chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C, and grease your cake tin.

2. In a small bowl, peel and mash the bananas until smooth and mix in the vanilla extract.

3. Heat the margarine and sugar in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

4. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Beat in the eggs and mashed banana.

5. Chop up the chocolate, then quickly (so it doesn't melt too much) stir it in to the mixture before spooning the lot into your cake tin.

6. Bake for 1 hour, until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Voila. This cake is great warm or cold: if you eat it when it's not long out of the oven the chocolate will be gloriously melty, and if you wait 'til it's cooled you'll be greeted with fantastic chocolate chunks (often at the bottom, as they tend to sink). Either way it's awesome.

Afternoon Tea and Cupcakes

This refers back to December when we had afternoon tea of baked goats cheese with a festive salad to accompany, and lots of tea and cake. These are the cakes.

 

They're lemon and blueberry cupcakes, and are basically massive cheer-up cakes because they make you happy when you eat them. All of us had been struggling with work overload, so there was a need for something to make life that bit sweeter. It worked.

Ingredients:

- 6oz caster sugar

- 6oz butter

- 3 eggs

- 8oz gluten-free, self-raising flour

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 6oz blueberries

- zest 2 lemons

- juice one lemon

For the syrup:

- juice ½ lemon

- 2 tsp sugar

To decorate:

- more blueberries

- zest 1 lemon

- juice ½ lemon

- small mint leaves

- icing sugar

1. Beat together the butter and sugar until soft and creamy. My mum always says do it until you think it's ready, then do it some more, and this attitude is yet to fail me.

2. Add the eggs and incorporate into the mixture. Then sieve in the flour and baking powder, and fold it in carefully - using a metal spoon if possible.

3. Add the blueberries and lemon juice and zest, and stir carefully so everything gets properly mixed up. Stir this as little as possible, as you don't want to knock out the air you've worked into the cake.

4. Bake at 180°C in a preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, until they're golden and a cocktail stick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

5. While they're still warm, grab a small pan and mix together the ingredients for the syrup over a low heat. Using a cocktail stick, poke holes into the cakes and then drizzle the syrup over the top. Now let it all cool down and go drink a cup of tea.

6. Once it's all cooled, mix up some icing sugar with the lemon juice in a bowl. Dip the blueberries in, then use the icing to stick them onto the cakes. Stick a mint leaf in between them (looks awesome and gives a really refreshing taste), then grate over some lemon zest and finally dust over a sprinkle of icing sugar. Voila. Who needs to go somewhere fancy to eat fancy food?

Honey and Raspberry Cake: Guest Post by Lucy Allman

Hello there! I’m Lucy Allman, a uni friend of Bryony’s and an avid reader of this blog. This year I am doing an assistantship abroad in Pompei, which not only offers up many new and exciting ingredients to work with, but also means I have to manage without things like vanilla pods and actual cream that comes from cows. As it is, I’ve taken to inventing more recipes rather than hunting them down online and then finding that I’m missing a crucial ingredient that isn’t available here. 

I am really excited to be doing a guest post here, and hope that you find my honey and raspberry cake to be a recipe worth trying out! It’s a variation on a classic Devonshire honey cake, and while you will need to set a few hours aside in order to make it, the end result is fruity, moist and very, very moreish…

Honey and Raspberry Cake

You will need:

- 250g clear honey, plus about 2tbsp extra to make the glaze

- 225g unsalted butter, cut into cubes (luckily for me, all Italian butter is unsalted, but most English supermarkets have it too)

- 100g brown sugar (any kind is fine; I used Demerara, but muscovado works just as well)

- 3 large eggs, beaten

- 300g self-raising flour

- 125g raspberries

- 85g caster sugar

Preheat your oven to 140°C for fan, 160°C for conventional, or gas mark 3. Grease and line a 20cm/8 inch cake tin.

Please ignore my dirty stove!

Place the honey, butter and sugar in a pan and melt them together over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Once it turns into a delicious syrupy liquid, add about 10-12 raspberries and mix them in until they start to break down (it helps if you squish them against the sides of the pan with a spoon). Bring the mixture to the boil for one minute, and it will froth up like marshmallow fluff and then turn a gorgeous deep pink colour (this is my favourite part).

It is very important that you now let the mixture cool for about 15-20 minutes, so the eggs don't cook when you mix them in (top tip: with the weather as cols as it is - yes, even in Italy! - you can go outside with your pan or place it next to an open window to speed up the process.

While the mixture is cooling, sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Then, feel free to do a dance or eat a sandwich while you're waiting.

Once the mixture is completely cool (or, you know, cool enough that you won't end up with raspberry-flavoured scrambled eggs), add the eggs and beat them in gently. Tip the mixture into the bowl with the flour and stir it all together. You batter will be quite runny; don't worry, that's normal.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50 mins-1 hour (top tip: utilise the cooking time to get the washing-up done, and then you won't have to worry about it later) until the cake is well-risen and golden brown. If you're worried that the top is becoming too brown, cover the cake with some tinfoil.

Check to see if it's cooked through with a skewer - poke it in the middle of the cake, and if it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Alternatively, you can poke it with your fingertip and see if it springs back completely, in which case you're good to go. For best results and to be absolutely sure, I like to do both.

Once the cake is cooked, leave it to cool for a little while and make the glaze. Warm the remaining raspberries in a pan with 2tbsp of honey, a little bit of water and the caster sugar. Bring it to the boil, then strain it through a sieve.

Turn the cake out onto a plate and prick it all over with a skewer or a fork, then drizzle the raspberry syrup over the top.

I like that my camera managed to capture the steam - I feel it adds a certain something.

This cake can be served while still warm, with a generous dollop of custard, or you can just cut a big slice and enjoy the sticky goodness.

 

Yet another completely frivolous cake post

And here's the original pin...

 

 I completely blame Pinterest for this one. 

Even though mine looks a little gnarlier than the inspiration...

But there I was, pinning away as you do when I saw that picture. I showed the madre and she decided that maaaaybe that was a cake that should happen to our lives. 

So I decided that it would. 

Also when you give your little brother a fiver and ask him to go buy you malteasers and you expect him to come back with two, maybe three bags, you should revise your expectations. That resourceful child came back with five bags. I ended up using about four but STILL. Too many malteasers can be overwhelming okay. 

So to do this one, first off you gotta have a cake. Of course, I recommend chocolate cake. Specifically, Lorraine Pascale's "I Can't Believe You Made That Cake."

What you need:

Vegetable oil (to grease the tins)
200g of softened butter

200g of caster sugar

4 free range eggs

140g plain flour

60 grams of cocoa powder (I've used hot chocolate powder before for a sweeter cake)

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and brush your cake tin with vegetable oil.

2. Cream together the butter and the sugar until they start to go pale.

3. Add two of the eggs and half of the flour. Mix well.

4. Add the other two eggs, the rest of the flour, the cocoa powder, the salt and the baking powder. Beat until the mixture is smooth. 

5. Spoon into the prepared tin, spread it out evenly then bake in the oven for 30=40 minutes, or until you can poke a fork into the middle and it comes out clean.

6. Leave to cool. (Always a really important instruction. Because if you don't, your cake will crack up and the icing will melt. Be patient...)

Now you gotta work on the malteasers bit. In the end I used about four big bags of Malteasers but at the end of the day it depends on the size of your cake. I'm gonna say its better to have too many than not enough, because then you can eat em.

(Also nope. Malteasers are sadly not gluten free. But I used them anyway. Because sometimes cake is worth breaking your usual rules for. I used gluten free flour and I only ate two slices. So s'all good)

ANYWAY. Buttercream:

190 g of softened butter

60 g of cream cheese (think Philadelphia.)

250 g of icing sugar

5 teaspoons of cocoa powder (add more if you taste it and think it needs more chocolate...)

 Cream together all the ingredients into buttercream. It is inevitable at this point that you will get icing sugar absolutely everywhere. That's just the way it is my friend.

Now take your cakes out of their tins and place on a plate. Spread the bottom one with a layer of buttercream. Place the second one top and spread with buttercream. It's important to create an even surface so your malteasers have something sensible to stick to so make sure you fill in the gap between the two halves of the cake properly.

Once all of the buttercream is on the cake, spread it out evenly across the whole cake, aiming to create a smooth, slightly domed surface on top.

Now it's malteaser tiiiime. Your aim is to create a line across the cake, from the bottom, across the surface and down the other side to the plate again. Place more lines on either side of this one until the cake is completely covered.

Push the malteasers into the buttercream ever-so-slightly, then place the cake into the fridge so it all sets solid and you're good to go.

Also I had this for breakfast Monday morning. Before having a very fun and dramatic asthma attack in hospital. Also now I'm on steroids. CHEST INFECTION FTW.

(This explains my lack of posting. Also the lack of savoury cooking because I'm too ill for that. Just cake.)