Ginger cake

A surprisingly light (texture) cake while being classically dark in colour and taste.

BBC Good Food recipe

Oven 160°C fan, 18-20cm round tin, lined.

In a large bol, sift 225g self raising flour, plus 1tsp each of baking soda, mixed spice, ginger and cinnamon.

Rub in 115g butter to the flour mix until the breadcrumb stage.

Finely chop or grate 2-4 balls of stem ginger (40-80g) and mix in to the flour mixture.

Lightly beat 1 egg in a cup and set aside.

In a saucepan, heat 115g each of dark muscovado sugar, treacle and golden syrup, and 250ml whole milk. Just shy of boiling, pour into the flour mix, stirring well. Beat in the egg and continue beating until smooth.

Pour into the tin and bake 50-60 minutes. My 20cm pan was done after 50 mins, but the oven was on 175 for 5 mins at the start by mistake. Clean skewer was the sign.

Cool in the tin. Drizzle with icing made with lemon juice, icing sugar and lemon zest to the consistency of your choice (I dd not use 150g icing sugar as the recipe suggested!). I also brushed on some of the ginger syrup from the jar, while the cake was hot.

Best eaten within a day or so for the lightest texture, but would keep OK.

Recent recipe roundup

Apple and pork meatballs (Tesco) 

Decent, the sage and nutmeg give the pork a lift, but it maybe needs breadcrumbs to soften - the all-meat meatballs were a little bouncy. The suggested 16 come out a bit big but any smaller and the apple would make them fall apart I think.

Chicken tagine (Good Food)

Good in principle (the toasted spice blend smelled great) but came out very badly. The amount of liquid in the recipe must be a typo - 750ml made a watery mess. The onion, tomato and preserved lemon turned to mush, the spices were drowned, and there was no browning of the chicken. It was such a disaster I completely forgot to add the feta and pomegranate seeds when serving! Several comments mentioned the liquid issue but as the rating overall was over 4 stars I didn't check the comments before cooking. Should have trusted my instinct as it felt like a lot when adding it.

Rhubarb and rosemary scones (National Trust)

Absolutely delicious. Not a flavour combo I would have thought of but really works. If you are not feeding a whole tearoom I would halve the recipe, though. Would make again, if only to see what they are like when not kneaded to death because I forgot the sugar at the rubbing-in stage and had to add it to the dough. D'oh.

Brown butter cookies with rhubarb and white chocolate (The Boy Who Bakes / Bon Appetit)

Guess who got given rhubarb? Not the most obvious cookie mix-in but I needed something more handheld than a scone to take to a gathering. And brown butter is always a winner. I decided to adapt this recipe, using white chocolate and stem ginger (in syrup) as the mix-ins and a cluster of ginger-syrup-roasted rhubarb dolloped on the centre before baking. The flavour combination was fantastic (could have taken more ginger if anything) but I should have cooled the butter more before starting the mixing, or refrigerated before baking. The dough was incredibly soft going into the oven and so the cookies coalesced into a (tasty) blob while baking and had to be rescued with a palette knife.

(Side note, the original recipe calls for "chocolate wafers" which I was confused about as an ingredient, but on watching the recipe video it turns out they look like chocolate buttons, but made of posh chocolate for baking purposes. At least one commenter used actual wafers but said the cookies came out well!)

Chocolate brownies

Unbelievably I'd never made brownies before. Followed this recipe to the letter and it worked really well. No notes!

Brown butter oat cookies

From this House and Garden recipe - followed as directed (adding apricots and stem ginger) they didn't spread at all, and a kitchen timer error saw them overcooked which didn't help the result. Taste ok though, so I'd like to give them one more chance.

• Bring 110g butter to foam/caramelised stage; set aside and stir in 90g sugar and 2 tbsp honey or syrup. Cool a little.
• In a bowl mix 150g rolled oats, 90g plain flour, tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder.
• Chop a handful of dried apricots and a knob of preserved stem ginger (or other additions to taste).
• Beat 1 egg.
• Add sugar/butter mix to dry mix, then eggs and additions, mix well.
• Place 12 balls of mixture well apart on 1-2 trays to accommodate spreading (allegedly).
• Bake 180°C for 15 minutes or until you realise the timer hasn't beeped. Drop the unattractive brown lumps on to a cooling rack, sulking while you do.

What to try? Not spreading suggests mix was too dry but it seemed soft when placing on the tray. Sure I added the right amount of flour. The oats were from the end of a box so maybe too powdery? Did dried apricots take moisture from the mixture?

Banana bread

Good, reliable recipe by Jack Monroe:

Mash 3 ripe bananas with 50g brown sugar and 75ml oil.

Sift together 220g flour (any combo - half and half wholemeal and white is good) plus 1tsp baking powder, pinch salt, tsp mixed spice. Mix wet and dry mixtures.

Optionally add choc chips or sultanas.

Bake in lined loaf tin for ~50 mins @ 160°C fan.

Carrot cake / muffins

Vegan carrot cake from the Plant Based School

Makes 12 large muffins, baked for 25 mins (turn tray) +12 mins (150°C).

Reduced sugar to 150g.

300g carrots was 2.5 med-large allowing for peeling and ends.

Coffee shortbread

 It's teacher gift time again!

Slice and Bake Coffee Shortbreads from The English Kitchen. Cream 175g butter and 90g caster with strong coffee (2tsp instant + 1.5tsp boiling water). I then added 170g plain flour and 80g cornflour (as opposed to all plain in the original), and a pinch of salt. Make into a log shape, roll in demerara sugar, chill, slice and bake.

As it's quite hot at the moment the butter was very soft, but we firmed the rolled log in the freezer before slicing and they seem to have come out well (23 mins at 160°C fan). Some stuck together at the edges, not because of a lot of spreading but because they evidently shunted together on the silicon mat when I slid the tray into the oven. Oops. 

Once cool they have a melt-in-the-mouth texture and nice coffee taste, not overpowering. Another time I might put in a small amount of fine-ground coffee, as well as the from-instant "essence", but for a quick bake these are great!

Podium Pie (pear and pecan)

Another one from Hannah Grant @dailystews, podium pie is based on sweet potato like the race cakes, but this time it's added raw. Blitzed up with oats, pecans, eggs, dates and peanut butter, with diced pears folded in and a few sliced for the top. The spicy golden milk protein powder from Purition is a fab addition. The original recipe used coconut oil but with peanut butter as a suggested replacement, and happily I just had a delivery of Yumello salted date crunchy PB. Overall a great snack, not too sweet.

Would work well with figs and walnuts too, I think.

The whole mix made the 20cm cake shown (=8 wedges) plus a couple of well-filled muffin cases, call it 10 servings at 167 cals, 5.6g protein, 18.8g carbs, 8.1g fat.

Sweet potato race cakes

I found this recipe via Hannah Grant, @dailystews on Instagram - I love her training-friendly recipes! Made as described, the cakes were tasty but very soft and not really portable, and a bit too oily for my preference. I also froze them as the soft texture suggested they'd begin to go furry quite quickly at room temperature.

My variation was to omit the fat (to be honest I meant to add a small amount but forgot!), and have both oats and protein powder. I had some trial 40g sachets of Purition and chose to add one turmeric and one almond. I added a good spoonful of ground ginger, and with no suitable fresh fruit to hand I used jumbo raisins, pushing 4-5 into each cake and smoothing over the top. They turned out delicious and much more robust than the first batch. Slightly lower in calories and higher in protein, of course.

I like them as a quick snack, or for breakfast with Greek yogurt and fruit.

Per cake (made 12): 167 cals, 7g protein, 22g carbs, 6g fat.

Update: added a tbsp of cocoa powder, orange zest instead of lime, and a scattering of dark chocolate chips. Warmed before serving, OMG.

Nectarine tea loaf

Recipe from a Waitrose card, made dairy free.

https://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/n/nectarine-apricotandearlgreytealoaf.html

Make tea with 130ml water (original recipe: milk) and 3 earl grey tea bags. It should be strong but not over-mashed and bitter. Use this to soak 100g dried apricots, chopped small.

Cut the "cheeks" from 2 nectarines, and slice thinly for the top of the cake. Dice the remaining flesh the same size as the apricots.

Cream 90g dairy-free spread (original: butter) with 110g caster sugar, the zest of a lemon and grated nutmeg to taste. Mix in 2 large eggs and 225g self-raising flour, then add the fruit and tea. The mix will be quite soft and loose.

Pour into a lined 2lb loaf tin, and arrange the nectarine slices in fans on the top. Bake 1h at 170°C (fan) or until it passes the skewer test. Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then on a rack. Optionally, brush the top with melted apricot jam.

A delicious, light cake that was easy to make. Not sure it really qualifies as a tea bread but I will definitely be doing this one again nonetheless.

After-school cheesy muffins

Desperately searching for tempting after school snacks that aren't sugary... these were previously poo-poohed by the small recipient but this time they have gone down a storm and she's suggesting other things to put in "next time"...

Original recipe from Taming Twins

Oven to 200°C/180° fan
12-hole muffin tin, greased 

Dry ingredients (mix together in large bowl)

• 250g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 small can sweetcorn, drained (160g)
• 200g grated cheese (I used 150g which was plenty)
• Adding to the recipe, I also chopped and chucked in some pepperoni left over from pizza making, and small chose to add in smoked paprika too. 

Wet ingredients (mix together in a jug)

• 250ml milk (any)
• 100ml oil (maybe a bit much?)
• 2 medium eggs, beaten

Combine wet into dry until just mixed, then portion out into the muffin tin. Ours was nearly full but this recipe doesn't rise loads so it was all fine. After cooling for a few minutes in the tin, a quick knife around each one saw it pop out beautifully. They do feel a bit greasy to touch, though, so next time I would maybe reduce the oil a bit.

Most importantly, they got the "mmmm - delish!" seal of approval :)

Nut butter cookies

Looking for an easy vegan cookie recipe I found this one from the Veg Space. I used almond butter and almonds, instead of peanut butter and peanuts, although I had to factor down the amounts as 185g of nut butter is bigger than the entire jar I had! Interestingly, 0.6 of the recipe made 16 perfectly decent cookies, so they came in at 135 calories each not 272 as per the original (12 made from the full recipe).

They were... OK. They tasted fine but spread a LOT more than the ones on the blog, and cooled to a very crunchy texture (harder than ginger nuts) - would benefit from a dunk when eating. They were also quite greasy to handle. Not sure I would make them again when there are so many peanut butter cookie recipes around.

To be fair, it may just be that the almond butter is a thinner consistency (and more oily) than peanut butter. But there is a lot of sugar (more than flour, by weight), which is probably responsible for the hard and crunchy texture, so I'd like to find a less-sweet one that bakes up much softer.

Oaty breakfast bakes

Original recipe from Get your kids to eat anything, by Emily Leary. This book did not live up to its title promise for us (!), but this is a quick, easy and tasty recipe which I've made several times. It's a great alternative to banana bread for using up overripe bananas, and a handy healthy snack that travels well.

Ingredients:

450g yogurt of your choice (Greek or regular, any fat content seems to work)
3 medium eggs
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (can also do 3 bananas and 2 eggs)
400g porridge oats
30-80g maple syrup, to taste

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

...plus fruit/nuts/seeds of your choice. I've used milled chia seeds, chopped hazelnuts, cranberries, sultanas, pumpkin seeds. You can also add any spices or other flavours you like.

Mix the yogurt, eggs and banana. Add the dry ingredients and any add-ins and mix well. The original recipe suggested topping with fresh fruit such as blueberries or blackberries, but I haven't tried that yet.

Bake covered with foil at 180°C fan for 30 mins (recipe suggests a 30x25cm tin). I tend to line a big shallow tin/tray with silicon baking sheets, and spread the mix on those, about 1.5cm depth. 

It makes a soft but solid bar, easy to cut once cool, freezes well. Because it's moist it can go mouldy in a couple of days so freezing is recommended!

Made based on the above with low-fat natural yogurt, 3 small bananas, 2 medium eggs, 100g jumbo raisins, 80g mixed seeds and 20g cacao nibs, and cut into 20: per piece 165 cals, 7g protein, 24g carbs, 4g fat.

Black bean brownies

Original recipe from ifoodreal via 200 is plenty sweet. These are low in sugar and high in fibre.

1 400g can black beans, rinsed
2 large eggs
140g no-sugar apple sauce
48g cacao powder
60g dates
80g dark chocolate, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp bicarb
(optional) 40g protein powder
(optional) milk of your choice to loosen

I used 2 x Ella's Kitchen pear baby food (70g each) for the 'no-sugar apple sauce' (as I couldn't find any other option, and no time to make my own), and I chopped 70% dark chocolate rather than using chips. I added 40g of plain protein powder that I had been given as a sample, and some oat milk to loosen the batter (due to the powder and only having medium eggs). My food processor did't get the mixture super smooth but it's not a problem.

Baked at 175C for 30 mins in a 20cm x 20cm tin, cut into 16. It did stick to the paper a bit so there were plenty of crumbs - would use non-stick baking paper in future. Per piece: 130 calories, 9.3g protein, 2.7g fibre.

It's quite a dark, intense chocolate flavour and the inclusion of chocolate pieces in the batter is definitely needed, but it suits me perfectly as I don't like things too sweet. Using your own apple sauce rather than the quite thin baby food might be better, but it's still a good fudgy texture.

(yes, I ate one before the photo...)

Squashage rolls

I take zero credit for this recipe - it's thanks to my friend Flo, who's a whizz at finding ways to use up squash :)  I baked them for a cake sale and they got rave reviews, so this is to help out those who wanted the recipe.


1 large butternut squash (1.5kg), halved and de-seeded
1 onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, to taste, finely chopped or crushed
small handful fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
125g mascarpone
1 medium egg plus another to brush on pastry
salt and pepper
500g pack puff pastry
oil for roasting and frying the onion

Oil the cut surfaces of the squash and roast at 150°C until tender. Allow to cool while you sweat off the onion and add the garlic, sage and seasoning.

Peel the cooled squash (I find it easier this way), mash half to two-thirds of it, and chop the rest.

Mix , taste and season as needed. If your squash was quite wet you might not need all the egg - a softer mix is harder to work with. You could add breadcrumbs if it's too sloppy.

Roll out the pastry to the desired size (I did it in four lots to keep things manageable) - you need to make a longish sausage that you can then cut into individual rolls. If the mixture is too soft then it's this bit will be difficult. As you can see from the pic, my rolls were full and quite narrow, and I think wider would have been better. You could also try cutting the pastry and then adding the filling.

Use beaten egg to seal the pastry and glaze the top, then bake at 200-220°C for 20-25 mins until golden brown.

Any leftover mix  can be cooked in dollops on a non-stick baking mat and used a bit like felafel, e.g. with salad, in a pitta, etc. If it's quite soft it makes an awesome toastie filling!

Parsnip cake

A Moosewood recipe, originally entitled Anna's Country Spice Cake. I have metricated the (American) recipe and added my own topping - orange-cinnamon icing with caramelised walnuts. You could sub carrots for the parsnips.

It's possible to make this vegan by subbing the eggs with aquafaba.

Mix together 120ml (=100g) vegetable oil, 165g brown sugar, 2 eggs [6 tbsp aquafaba] and the zest of a large orange. When well combined, stir in 300g grated parsnip (equated to one large one, minus the toughest bit of core) and 120g chopped/crushed tinned pineapple (half a tin of chunks, drained then chopped roughly).

Sift together 225g self raising flour, extra 1tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, and then cinnamon, ginger and cloves to taste (suggest 1.5tsp cinnamon, 1tsp ginger, 0.5tsp cloves). Stir into wet mix, then fold in dried fruit and nuts to your preference (cranberries work really well, also sultanas, and walnuts).

Bake in a 20cm square tin (greased & lined) for approx 1 hour at 160°C (fan) or until risen and springy.

To decorate: make up icing sugar to the desired consistency with orange juice, and add orange zest and cinnamon. This could be just a drizzle or enough for a full-on topping, as you like. Optionally, sprinkle with chopped walnuts, and for an extra touch use caramelised ones (55g sugar, 15g butter, melt and coat (chopped) nuts, then separate on a silicone mat before they solidify, or deliberately allow to set together then bash/chop into pieces of brittle).

I made this again for a bake sale and topped it with a pack of Violife 'cream cheese' blended with icing sugar and orange zest to taste. I caramelised some pecans using sunflower spread and caster sugar - they're a bit grainy but it works!

Cowboy cookies (oat & choc chip)

A recipe from the Moosewood book of desserts, that shamefully I don't dip into that often because I bought it in the US and it's based on cups, which are inherently annoying and inaccurate for dry goods. There's also all of the subtle differences in types of flour and sugar, which can be significant for baking. This is one of the recipes that I have converted to weight - soft, slightly cakey cookies that take additions well, and have a vague air of healthiness with the oats. Depending what you add, they can be quite trail mix-ish.

Cowboy Cookies (the reason for the name is lost in the mists of time...)

Makes about 50 good-size cookies, so I often halve the quantities.

225g soft butter
100g caster sugar
85g brown sugar
2 large eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
280g plain flour
0.5tsp salt
0.5tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
280g porridge oats
360g (!) chocolate chips, chunks or other additions such as raisins, nuts or seeds.
Milk if needed

Cream butter and sugar, then add in eggs and vanilla and beat well. Combine flour, salt and raising agents, and mix in with butter/sugar/egg, then stir in oats. Makes a very stiff mixture so add milk to loosen if needed before folding in the chocolate or other ingredients.

Drop rough blobs of mixture onto a silicon mat or greased tray, with space to spread. Bake for 12 mins (160°C fan) until golden at the edges.

Cheese & mustard scones

Adapted from a Be-Ro recipe as I was trying to use up some buttermilk (bought for the cornmeal dumplings that go with Feijoada).

Rub 25g butter into 175g seasoned self-raising flour, and stir in 75g grated cheese (I used Emmental).
Mix a good tablespoon of wholegrain mustard into a "large egg" worth of buttermilk (I estimated this by eye, but conveniently it was more or less how much buttermilk I had left...), adding a little milk if needed to bring the mix together to a soft dough.

Roll into a thick round and cut into 8 wedges. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with parmesan or another cheese. Bake for 10-15 mins at 180°C until they are browning at the edges. Try not to scoff them all while they are warm and springy...

A tale of two cakes

I made my first ever Christmas cake in 2016 - it turned out really well but for some reason I never blogged it. I therefore made a different recipe in 2017, but only realised when a Facebook photo popped up with a caption specifying a recipe from Mary Berry. This year I did James Martin's, and next year I'll return to the fold of St Mary. These photos are from 2016.

 

The biggest difference is that this year's cake was undercooked, despite passing the skewer test and being cooked for a bit longer than specified. It's still tasty, but definitely squidgy in the middle, and despite covering for the last part of cooking I would say the top is a bit burnt. The recipe is also wetter overall: it has less fruit (over 25% less) and less flour, but the same amount of egg and alcohol plus the juice of a lemon and an orange.

Other errors were mine. I fed with brandy, which is just not as tasty (to me) as sherry or rum, and I made the icing wrong, omitting one egg white, so the icing is very crumbly. (However, a useful note - the egg whites make this a good partner to the Christmas shortbread recipe which needs yolks.)

I don't roll out marzipan for the whole cake at once, but match up a circle (drawn around the outside of the cake tin) and a couple of strips wrapped around the sides. The icing recipe given by Mary (3 whites, 675g icing sugar) is quite a lot for a 20cm cake, and personally I prefer a thinner layer of icing. However it keeps well and is good for piping on biscuits. I piped filligree stars on the top of the cake after lightly pressing a biscuit cutter into the icing to give a template.

Next year I also need to make multiple smaller cakes, as a 20cm one is too much for us really. I see that various blogs and recipe sites suggest using small baked bean tins, which is genius. Must remember that it would use more marzipan and icing, to do them all over, or much less, to just do the top.

Taking (or giving) the biscuit

Biscuits are easy to make but also easy to jazz up into nice gifts. My favourites come from Holly Bell, on Recipes From A Normal Mum:

St Clement's Shortbread Stars - Super easy, and look very classy if you can manage to keep small hands away from the decorating. Of course, the splodges-and-sprinkles look is also great, especially for teacher and grandparent gifts...

Cut Out Vanilla Biscuits - the best for fiddly cutters.

Lemon Animal Biscuits - For playdough-style moulding rather than cutters.

I've previously done Nigella's Christmas Spice Cookies and they are good too.