I’ve succumbed to the baking fever that has taken over
Britain since the success of the Bake off series and I’ve decided it’s time to
try out some cake recipes. I’ve gone and acquired my very first loose bottomed springform tin and all the
store cupboard essentials for sweet treats like baking powder and vanilla
extract and so on.
I was given 'Hugh’s Three Good Things...on a plate' cookery book
for Christmas and the recipe for Almond Cake, Honey and Oranges, caught my eye.
It’s a flourless cake that’s almost gluten free unless you have gluten free
baking powder. As with all cake recipes, it seems a doddle as long as you have
a food processor handy to whiz everything together. I was dubious with the
consistency of the cake batter as it was so thick that it was hard to scrape
into the tin but the resulting cake was very light indeed.
Recipe for Almond cake [courtesy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest book - my Xmas pressie!]
Ingredients:
225g of unsalted butter
225g of caster sugar
225g of ground almonds
125g of polenta
3 eggs whole
Zest of a lemon
1 teaspoon baking powder
Runny honey
4 large oranges – grate the zest of one into a pan, remove all the skin and pith off and segment, collect any juices that come out into the pan for creating a honey sauce
Equipment:
1 pre-heated oven at 170 degrees C
1 food processor
1 round springform tin greased with butter and lined with
baking paper
Method:
1. Put the butter, sugar and lemon zest in the food processor and blend till fluffy
2. Stir in the ground almonds and then add one egg at a time and whizz
3. Add the baking powder to the polenta and the salt. Add this to the mix. It will be quite thick.
4. Scrape it all into the tin and bake for 45 min
5. Poke holes into the cake while hot and pour over some runny honey over the cake
[warm the honey slightly unless it’s already pretty runny]
6. Allow to cool
7. Mix some more honey [about 3 good dollops] and the juice of the oranges and heat up. Cool
then steep the orange segments in this sauce.
8. Serve a slice with the honeyed oranges [as suggested by the book] or I preferred to decorate
the cake with them and pour over a generous amount of the sauce to soak into the cake.
I was so happy with the result I got carried away and
continued to bake another cake [well the oven was still hot and I had more of the right ingredients and nowhere to go].
I had a couple of ripe bananas to hand and
decided to try a banana cake. This next recipe was found from the BBC good
food recipe on line and was nothing more than measure out, chuck into a food
processor then bake. Is it really that easy? Why have I been so afraid of
making cakes? Oh yeah – sorry I forgot - the unbelievable quantities of sugar
and butter that go into making these delights. Oh well. Maybe it’s time I let
myself go...
Ingredients:
170g of butter,
170g of self raising flour and [yes you've guessed it] 170g of caster sugar
2 ripe bananas
and 3 whole eggs
A drop or two of
vanilla extract
Chopped walnuts [optional]
Equipment:
1 round baking
tin greased with butter and dusted with flour
1 hot pre-heated oven at 170 [the magic number
today] degrees C
Method:
- Whizz everything together in a food processor [then mix in the chopped walnuts if using]
- Pour into the tin
- Bake for 55min
- Turn out and cool
- Decorate with caramelised bananas if you want
So - one cold, wet miserable afternoon, 2 delicious cakes and a new blog for March... not bad really. Now I just need to find some people who want to come round for afternoon tea and cake!
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