cake

Bread pudding

3 Comments / bread, cake, pudding /

bread pudding

We often have leftover bread especially if I have been near a bakers for two consecutive days.  We never waste it though, it either gets fed to the chickens or I whizz it into breadcrumbs and put them in a food bag in the freezer. If I have a bit of time then leftover bread gets made into this or the bread and butter pudding I have posted before.  The girls both love bread pudding and so do I.  It can be eaten warm with cold cream as a pudding or eaten cold the next day with a cup of tea.

This recipe is based on Delia Smith’s recipe in her Complete Cookery Course. I like to add a mixture of glacé cherries, sour cherries and sultanas and some candied peel if I have it in the cupboard. You can use any mixture of dried fruits as long as they weigh a combined 175g (60z). You could use dried prunes or apricots.

225g (80z) white or brown bread with the crusts removed
275 ml (½ pint) milk
75g (3 oz) dark soft brown sugar
50g (2oz) melted butter
2 tsp mixed spice
1 egg, beaten
175g (60z) dried fruits
grated rind of ½ orange

Method

You will need a baking dish with a 2½ pint (1½ litre) capacity, well buttered.

Break the bread into small pieces and place in a bowl.  Pour the milk over the bread and leave to soak for 30 minutes.  Add the beaten egg, melted butter, mixed spice and sugar and stir well to thoroughly combine. It is best if you use a fork for this stirring to get rid of any big lumps of bread. Stir in the dried fruit and orange rind.  Spread the mixture into the buttered dish and bake in a preheated oven at 180°c (350°f, gas mark 4) for about 1 hour.  It may need slightly longer.  It’s ready when it is a lovely golden colour.


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Chocolate cake – gluten free

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choc cake

My sister is gluten intolerant so whenever she is coming to our house we try to bear this in mind.  She was expected at the party at the weekend and as there were other chocolate cakes available I thought it only fair to prepare one that she could eat.  The chocolate cake is one of Nigella’s recipes and is absolutely delicious.  I bought her Feast book (2006, Chatto & Windus) after my very good friend Annalin served us Nigella’s Espresso Martinis at a gathering at her house last Christmas. The martinis are unbelievably good.  However, I don’t think the martini recipe is in Feast after all, but there is a whole chapter called the Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame which has more than made up for that disappointment. The chocolate cake below is Nigella’s Chocolate Orange Cake, which is moist, orangey and gorgeous.  I topped it with some cupcake frosting that I had left over after making Peggy Porschen’s cupcakes from the October 2009 edition of the Sainsbury’s magazine. The combination of cake and frosting is very good and as a result of my sister forgetting about the party I had the terrible situation where I was left with cake to finish up…

For the chocolate cake:
2 oranges, weighing about 375g in total
200g ground almonds
250g golden caster sugar
50g good quality cocoa
1 heaped tsp baking powder (make sure this is gluten free!)
½tsp bicarbonate of soda
6 eggs
Method
You will need a 20 cm cake tin, buttered and lined.
If you can plan ahead then it is wise to start this the day before you want to make the cake as you need to place the oranges in a pan, cover with water and bring to a simmer and then simmer for two hours until soft.  You then need time for the oranges to cool.

Once the oranges are cool, cut in half and remove any pips.  Place the oranges in a food processor and pulse until roughly chopped. Don’t overdo as it is nice to find little chunks of orange in the cake and you are going to be using the blade with the rest of the ingredients. Add all of the remaining ingredients and pulse again until just combined.

Scrape this into the cake tin and level the surface. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°c (350°f, gas mark 4) for 45 mins – 1 hour until it’s springy to the touch and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Leave it to cool completely in the tin.  You could leave it undecorated and it will last for days, but I have to say with the chocolate frosting it is even more of a winner.

finished choc cake

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Chocolate frosting

1 Comment / cake, chocolate /

This chocolate butter frosting was used to decorate the chocolate cake I made in the post above and it is really delicious and very rich.  It is taken from the feature about cupcakes by Peggy Porschen in the October 2009 Sainsbury’s Magazine.

It is important that the cream cheese and butter are both at room temperature, so try to remember to take them out of the fridge a few hours before you want to make the frosting.

50g cream cheese
25g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
50g good quality dark chocolate ( at least 70% cocoa solids), chopped small or grated
50 ml single cream

Method

Beat the cream cheese and the butter together until well combined and then beat in the sieved icing sugar.

Heat the cream in a small saucepan to simmering point.  Place the chopped or grated chocolate into a bowl and pour the hot cream over the chocolate.  Stir gently until the chocolate has melted.  Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Add the chocolate mixture to the butter mixture and stir well to combine.  Leave it to cool until it’s a spreadable consistency and then using a palette knife spread over the top of your cake.

Serve the cake in big slices and enjoy every mouthful.

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Fruity Flapjacks

4 Comments / cake /

Fruity Flapjacks 2

Flapjacks are one of the first things I learned to cook.  We had a new microwave (back in the eighties when they cost the same as a small house!) and the recipe book that came with it had a recipe for flapjacks and my sister and I used to make them regularly.  If I remember right back then you had to finish them off in the oven, the microwave simply melted the butter, sugar and syrup. Ever since then I have tried various versions and I think this one is great, not too sweet but chewy all the same.   The addition of orange juice to soak the sultanas was inspired by Nicola’s Zesty Flapjacks in one of my favourite recipe books, The River Cottage Family Cookbook (you can tell it’s one of my favourites as I have only had it for three years and the spine is broken from over use).

250g oats
100g sugar
150g butter
2 tbsps golden syrup
Juice of 1 orange
50g sultanas or dried sour cherries
Method
Lightly grease a baking dish.  I use a rectangular dish that measures 22cm x 30cm.

Squeeze the orange juice into a small pan and add the sultanas/ cherries.  Heat gently over a low heat, as soon as it begins to simmer take off the heat and put to one side so that the sultanas/ cherries can soak up the orange juice.

In a large pan, melt the butter, sugar and syrup together over a gentle heat.  As soon as they are melted stir to combine and take off the heat.  Add the oats and the sultanas/cherries and orange juice and stir to combine well.

Tip the mixture into the baking dish and press down well with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the oven at 180° c (350°f, Gas Mark 4) for 20-25 mins until golden brown.  Mark into squares with a knife whilst the flapjack is still warm because if you don’t you won’t get your knife through later.

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