Mary Berry's Tunis Cake

I hope everyone’s had a lovely Christmas break. This is the first year that I’ve been working right up until the 25^th so I’ve been loving spending time with my family and eating my own body weight in food. This recipe is off the Christmas Bake-Off special, and was specially requested by my auntie for when she came to visit. I have to admit that I thought it was going to be quite plain, and a tad heavy because of the ground almonds, but it’s actually delicious and perfectly light. Needless to say it’s an excellent pudding choice following a mammoth roast dinner.

Oh and another plus point: it’s ridiculously easy to make.

Ingredients

225g butter

225g caster sugar

225 self-raising flour

70g ground almonds

4 large eggs

Zest of 1 lemon

300ml double cream

400g plain chocolate (40-50%)

Decorations

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C (160⁰C fan) and line a 20cm round tin, making sure the edges come way above the top of the tin. This is because you pour the ganache straight onto the top of the cake whilst it’s still in the tin.

Add the butter, caster sugar, flour, ground almonds, eggs and lemon zest to a large mixing bowl and whisk until combined.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, it should be at a dropping consistency, and use a spatula to level it out. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until cooked all the way through and springy to the touch. I turned it around at 45 minutes and put some brown paper on top to prevent it from burning. Cool the cake in the tin.

When the cake has completely cooled make the ganache. Gently heat the double cream in a saucepan until steaming, but not boiling.

Take the cream off of the heat and add the chocolate, broken into pieces, to the cream. Use a spatula to stir the chocolate until it’s completely melted into the cream, and reaches a dark, shiny consistency. Don’t be tempted to put the saucepan back on the heat to melt the chocolate, because as The Mary Berry says herself: chocolate melts in a child pocket.

When the ganache has cooled slightly but isn’t setting, pour evenly over the top of the cake which should still be in the tin, and leave to set.

Now Mary decorated her Tunis cake with marzipan leaves, but I have to admit that I am a Christmas Heathen, and hate marzipan, possibly slightly more than I hate Marmite. Because of this I was a little lazy and used ready-made decorations, but I think these holly leaf buttons are really sweet.

Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Christmas to me is all about coming home to a warm house with the smell of freshly baked goodies. To say that my mum and I go a little mental baking-wise over the festive season is an understatement. Sadly, this is the first Christmas that I’ve been too busy to bake everything that I want! Cookies are one of the easiest things to make though, so if you’re stretched for time like me, bung these in the oven and bask in the Christmassy smell.

This is a Nigella recipe from her book Nigella Christmas. I know she’s been getting a lot of bad press at the moment but I really don’t give a damn, she’s still a domestic goddess to me. I did omit the pecans however, because no one really likes nuts in their cookies, do they?!

Ingredients

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

75g rolled oats

125g soft butter

75g dark brown sugar

100g caster sugar

1 egg

1tsp vanilla extract

75g dried cranberries

50g pecans, roughly chopped (optional…)

150g white chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C and line 2 or 3 baking sheets with parchment.

Measure the flour, baking powder, salt and rolled oats into a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.

Fold in the flour mixture.

Stir in the cranberries and white chocolate. The original recipe says to use chocolate chips but personally I prefer roughly chopped chunks in my cookies.

Spoon walnuts sized balls onto the prepared baking trays, leaving plenty of room for spreading, and lightly squish the tops with a fork.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Leave them to harden on the trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Serve on a ridiculous Christmas plate which you only get to use once a year.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

I’ve not had that much time to bake recently, busy working and being an adult and all that lark, but it’s Christmas soon so I will be baking some festive things if it kills me! I made this cake for another Clandestine Cake Club meeting last weekend. The theme was ‘winter spice’ but being awkward I hate all things like fruit cake so I thought I’d make something chocolatey. I tried it first as a traybake, and then as a round cake and it works well as either. This cake is really tasty and feels quite Christmassy too.

Ingredients

180g butter

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

150g brown sugar

150g black treacle

150g golden syrup

1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

250ml milk

2 eggs

280g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

150g milk chocolate, chopped

To Decorate

80g butter

4 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tsp fresh ginger juice or syrup

25ml lemon juice

180g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180⁰ and line your tin of choice. Just keep in mind if it’s a deeper tin then the cake will take longer to cook.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Add the spices, sugar, treacle and golden syrup and heat until the sugar dissolves.

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a tbsp of the milk.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk in the butter mixture.

Add the bicarbonate of soda and the rest of the milk.

Sift in the cocoa powder and flour and gently fold in.

Stir through the roughly chopped chocolate.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 45mins-an hour or until the cake is springy to the touch and completely cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, gently heat the butter in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

Add the cocoa powder, ginger and lemon juice.

Sift in the icing sugar and whisk until dissolved and the icing is thick.

Ice the cake and leave it a good ten minutes to set. For my round cake I made the icing without adding the ginger and lemon, and instead added that to a simple white icing to decorate. It’s delicious either way!