Orange almond loaf

Sunday afternoons have turned into baking afternoons at the Jacob house.  Its quite becoming a little tradition - baking with Little Miss J!  Today we tried an Orange Almond Loaf...yum yum....even if I say so myself! Very moist and very moreish.

I really do need to get better at photography!!!

Ingredients

190 g plain flour

190 g caster sugar

60 g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3 eggs

190 g unsalted butter

Rind of two oranges, grated

2 tbsp orange juice (can be reduced as per taste - I like my cakes really orangey!!)

25 g plain yoghurt

Flaked almonds to sprinkle on top

Method

1.  Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees celsius and grease and line a loaf tin. 

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and ground almonds.

3. Cream butter, caster sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly.  

4. Fold in the flour mixture until it is fully incorporated.  Stir in the yoghurt and orange juice. 

5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and sprinkle the top with flaked almonds. 

6. Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 60 minutes.  You can check on the cake in about 40 minutes and if you feel the top is getting too brown then cover it with foil.  Check to see if it is done by inserting a skewer into the center.  If it comes out clean, the cake is ready. 

7. Let it cool in the tin and then cool completely before you slice it.  Perfect with a hot cup of tea!

Pancakes with strawberries

Brunch at the Jacob house today was pancakes with strawberries by popular demand!

A picture is worth a thousand words so I won't say any more :)

Pancakes


270 g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp caster sugar
260 ml milk
4 tbsp olive oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
Rind of one orange, grated (optional)

To serve
Maple syrup

1/2 punnet strawberries,cut up and sprinkled with a little caster sugar (this helps them macerate and really brings out their taste)

Method

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar in a bowl. 

2. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients together,  milk, egg, vanilla essence and olive oil.  Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and mix together with a whisk to get rid of any lumps.

3. Heat a pan.  Pour a ladleful of batter.  Once bubbles start appearing on the top, flip the pancake and let it cook - these are best done on a low flame as they burn easily.  

4. You can keep them in a warm oven to maintain temperature until you're ready to eat. 

5. Stack up on a place, dish out some strawberries on top and pour a generous serving of maple syrup (hey I didn't say it was a healthy recipe!!!!).    

ENJOY!

Honey and Walnut Loaf

This is a new recipe Lil Miss J and I tried out when we had some friends over for tea yesterday.  The cake is lovely and moist, not too sweet - just right with a cup of tea :)

Publish Post

Ingredients
190 g unsalted butter at room temperature
190 g plain flour
190 g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

25 g plain yoghurt

1 tbsp honey

60 g walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped

For syrup

1 tbsp honey

50 ml water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees celsius.  Line a loaf tin. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

2. Cream together butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. 

3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until well incorporated.

4. Fold in the flour mixture lightly.  Add yoghurt, vanilla essence, honey and mix lightly.  Lastly add the chopped walnuts.  (To toast the walnuts, just warm a pan and toss them around.  Be careful as they burn easily).

5. Pour into prepared tin and bake in a hot oven for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.   

6. While the cake is cooking, prepare the syrup by placing 1 tbsp honey and 50 ml water in a pan.  Bring it to a boil till it is reduced by half. 

7.  Once cake is cooked, remove from oven and while it is still in the tin, pour the syrup over.  Let the cake cool in tin for a few minutes, then turn out to a rack to cool.  When thoroughly cooled, slice and serve. 

An afternoon of baking - carrot cake

Just sharing a picture of a carrot cake I made recently - okay so its not the neatest icing in the world, but little miss J and I had fun making it and it sure did taste yummy! You can view the complete recipe here.

Chocolate fudge cake

Last week, we threw my friend a baby shower and more often than not, whenever we meet up with our friends, I'm the one to provide the dessert! Since she loves chocolate, I found a recipe for a Chocolate Fudge Cake.

The original recipe calls for chocolate buttercream, but since this was a very light cake, I opted to use a ganache made with 175 ml double cream, 200g dark chocolate and 25 g butter. Heat the cream and butter together until the butter is fully melted and mixture just starts to bubble.  Take the pan off the heat and add in the broken pieces of dark chocolate and stir.  The heat from the cream will melt the chocolate and you get a lovely silky smooth ganache.

Now I'm not very good with frosting - but I am trying and although it is not a neat finish, I was pretty happy with how this one turned out! :)

Cake for a baby shower - except its made with nappies!

I saw a nappy cake a few months ago at an arts and crafts fair and thought it looked great.  I did think the £30.00 odd price tag was a bit of a rip off though! I had a friend's baby shower coming up - so thought I'd give it a go.  I found a tutorial on youtube (what would we do without it???).

Turned out its dead easy to do and costs nowhere near that much - it does take a bit of time and patience though but the end results are well worth it! 

I wonder if I should start taking orders! (*pulls a cheeky face*)

Birthday special

I have been absolutely rubbish at blogging recently.  I have had so much going on and I was so hoping to have gotten back in to crafting in time for Christmas - but there is still time yet! Hopefully :)

Little Miss J celebrated her birthday last week and when I asked her what she wanted, all she said was "I just want a cherry cake Mummy!".  So how could I not make one?

I had never made a cherry cake before but managed to get a recipe for one.  The original recipe used lemon peel and almond essence, but I am not a big fan of almond essence so I left it out and made a few further tweaks to the recipe!  

125 g glace cherries (washed and dried)
225 g plain flour
50 g semolina
2 1/2 level tsp baking powder
150 g butter at room temperature
125 g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
5 tbsp cold milk
Salt - a pinch

1. Toss the washed and dried cherries in 2 tbsp of flour and set aside. 
2. Sift together the flour, semolina, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
3. Rub in the butter.  Add sugar and cherries.
4. Beat together the eggs, vanilla essence and milk.  Stir into the dry ingredients.
5. Line two 7" sandwich tins and bake at 175 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes or until the sponge is firm to touch. 

You can make this in one big cake tin or a loaf tin and have it just as it is.  Since it was a birthday cake, I made some buttercream icing and spread it on one cake and topped it with morello cherries.  Then put the other cake on top to create a sandwich cake and then I iced the top. 

I was pretty happy with the result, especially since I don't usually frost cakes! And Little Miss J loved it too!