Tags archives: baking

 

Coffee Walnut Cake

For my birthday I got not one, but TWO baking books in what may be an attempt to:

1. Make me cook more.
2. Make me weigh as much as a whale.
Cliff’s grandmother got me The Great British Book of Baking, which got mixed reactions from my family. “A cookbook written by an English person? With English food? Ew, you mean like fish and chips?” Needless to say, I love it. The British may have bland boiled vegetables and consider beans on toast a meal, but they are great when it comes to baking (and sandwiches, tea, bacon, cheddar and humour).
The book is a treat for the eyes. It has really nice photos not only of food, but also of Britain. And the array of recipes is incredible, containing both sweet and savoury ones. I really love it and can’t wait to test more recipes from it.
Coffee and walnut cake
This coffee and walnut cake was the second thing I cooked. And let me tell you, it was GOOD. It lasted a whole 24 hours in my house, I think that says it all. The cake is slightly crispy on the outside and rich and moist in the inside. I’m not the biggest fan of the filling though. Well, I’m not a fan of icing in general unless it is made by the Hummingbird Bakery. As you can see in the photo, I cut the cake in half and spread the filling both in the middle and on top. It was too much. If you make this cake I would recommend halving the filling ingredients and limiting it either to the middle bit or the top.

 

Baking time is a good time

 

Last week I spent a morning baking thanks to Angela, who was kind enough to share some Hummingbird Bakery recipes with me. Here’s the recipe for carrot cake. I made it in cupcake form and they were amazing! Enjoy :)

* 2 cups plain flour
* 2 cups sugar
* 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 cup light olive oil
* 3 eggs, lightly beaten
* 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
* 3 grated carrots
* 1 cup chopped walnuts
* 1 cup desiccated coconut
* 3/4 cup canned crushed pineapple

CREAM CHEESE ICING

* 125 g cream cheese
* 45 g butter
* icing sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Sift the flour into a large bowl with the sugar, bicarb soda and cinnamon.
3. Make a well in the centre and add the oil, eggs and vanilla, beating well.
4. Fold in carrots, walnuts, coconut and pineapple.
5. Pour into a greased 23cm springform pan.
6. Bake for about 70 minutes.
7. Cool cake completely before adding the icing.
8. ICING: Have the cream cheese at room temperature and mix it with the butter.
9. Beat in enough sifted icing sugar to sweeten to taste and stir in the vanilla and lemon juice (you can add more or less depending on taste and icing consistency).

Recipe taken from this website.

 

Heart shaped baking

Last Christmas I got a PINK heart shaped muffin tray and a heart shaped baking tray. I obviously had to use them as soon as I came back to England. The first thing we did with it was bake PINK cakes. We just used a basic muffin recipe, added some apples that didn’t have long to live and the wrong type of sugar. It turned out pretty nice, but the most exciting thing is that it was PINK!

Last weekend we went for something savory and made quiche. We used this BBC good food quiche lorraine recipe and modified it slightly by adding onion. It was really nice, but easily the most disgusting thing I’ve ever cooked. I felt pretty unhealthy eating it, but that didn’t prevent me from having the leftovers for breakfast the next day.
We were too lazy to let it chill or bake it blind and it shrunk and cracked while baking, but it was still really good!

 

apple love

 

>THIS IS ART

 

>Halloween!