Stawberry Traybake

I’m home for about a week before we fly off to Ireland for a massive family reunion over Easter, which means lots of excuses for baking. It was my brother’s birthday this weekend, and my family’s always in the mind that you should take cake to share at school/work/whatever when it’s someone’s birthday. He’s now twenty-five. TWENTY-FIVE. I told him he was a quarter of a way to a century and he wasn’t very impressed. I know twenty-five isn’t old but he was sixteen last time I noticed so he can’t possibly be that old…even weirder was that it bleeding snowed. I have never ever known it to snow on his birthday. Sort it out weather, or I’m going to get SADS soon.

Back to the point- we found a recipe for English summer cupcakes that we wanted to try, but because there was lots of people to feed cake to we made it into a traybake instead. I reckon it would be really good in the summer with a glass of Pimms.

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

350g caster sugar

4 eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

350g self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

3 tbsps milk

200g strawberries, cut into small pieces

For Icing:

250g unsalted butter

500g cream cheese

2tsps strawberry jam

550g icing sugar

200g strawberries, cut into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a traybake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until creamy.

Beat the eggs and vanilla extract together in a separate bowl, then add a little at a time to the creamy butter, mixing in between.

Add the flour, salt and milk. Gently fold everything together to form a smooth batter.

Chop your strawberries up into small pieces and fold them into the batter.

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and springy on top. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing beat the butter, cream cheese and jam together. Sift the icing sugar in a little at a time. When the cake has completely cooled spread the icing evenly all over the cake, then finish with the chopped strawberries.

Definitely needed with a hot cup of tea in this ridiculous weather.

St Patrick’s Day Guinness Chocolate Cake

I’ve always wanted to try a Guinness cake and I figured as a nod to my Irish heritage, St Paddy’s Day this Sunday was as good an excuse as any. This is Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe, except slightly different because I didn’t have any bicarbonate of soda so I switched to self-raising flour with baking powder instead. Also in her recipe the icing calls for cream cheese and double cream- I omitted the double cream, thinking it was just a tad too indulgent. It’s a bit weird as just a cream cheese frosting however, and I was thinking if I try this cake again what I’ll make instead is a whipped egg white American-style frosting to get the true ‘frothy pint’ look.

Ingredients

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

142ml sour cream

2 eggs

1tbsp vanilla extract

275g self-raising flour

2.5tsps of baking powder

For Icing

150g cream cheese

Lots of icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Butter and line a 23cm inch round tin. (I only have a 20cm one which is why my cake is quite deep).

Gently heat the Guinness in a large saucepan, plopping several slices of the butter at a time into it until all of the butter has completely melted.

Add the sugar and cocoa directly to the saucepan (I measured them out first into a large mixing bowl), and whisk into the buttery Guinness using an electric hand-held whisk.

In a separate bowl lightly whisk the eggs, soured cream and vanilla extract together. 142ml is such a random amount as they tend to be sold in 150ml pots so I just plopped the whole lot in. I’m sure 8ml will not make an offensive difference to the cake.

Add the egg mixture to the saucepan and whisk everything together.

The final stage is to whisk in the flour and baking powder. My saucepan wasn’t big enough so I transferred the chocolaty mixture into a large mixing bowl and then whisked in the flour until smooth. The key tip here is to invest in a large saucepan.

Pour the mixture into your prepared tin, smoothing the surface with a spatula. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until a skewer when inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool inside the tin, on a wire rack.

When the cake has completely cooled, removed it from the tin and place on a cake stand.

Gently beat the cream cheese, then sift the icing sugar and beat until smooth and thick. Smooth it all over the top of the cake, using the spatula to create gentle peaks like the top of a frothy pint of Guinness.

I would say enjoy with a pint of Guinness, except it really isn’t the same unless you’re in Ireland. (Seriously, it tastes different).

Apple and Ginger Muffins with a Crunchy Crumble Top

I’ve basically been crying a little bit inside at the lack of time/money I’ve had to bake. Being a destitute third year slaving away on a dissertation without any cake is just dire let me tell you. The good news is it’s all coming to an end soon (cry) and I will be forced to face the adult world, which means I will basically denial bake quite a bit.

It is Mother’s Day today, but being the shit child that I am I can’t afford to go home so sorry mum. The likelihood is she won’t be able to get rid of me this time next year anyway. I’m apparently such a crap child that I’ve never even done a Mother’s Day blog post either which is a bit shocking. If you are at all interested in what I might have baked you can check out my Mother’s Day article for my uni newspaper The Galleon here featuring a recipe for Cappuccino Cake.

Back to the muffins. You will see from the photos that mine are more like cupcakes. That’s only because I don’t have muffin tins, so yours will be much bigger I promise. They are a sort of crossover muffin/pudding situation which is why I’ve made them for pudding tonight. Because there’s so bloody many of them we can spend the rest of the week munching on them, whilst crying into our keyboards.

Ingredients

400g self-raising flour

250g Demerara sugar

150g butter

2tsps baking powder

1tsp ground ginger

3 apples, peeled and chopped

Pinch salt

200ml milk

2 eggs, beaten

Bit of extra flour, butter and sugar for topping

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. This recipe will make 18 muffins of 24 cupcakes (plus a loaf cake), so prepare your tins accordingly.

Melt a tbsp of butter and a tbsp of sugar into a small saucepan. Add the apples and gently cook for 2-3 minutes until they are golden brown and soft. Leave to one side to cool.

In a large mixing bowl, measure out the flour, baking powder, ginger, sugar and salt and mix everything together.

Add the butter and rub the mixture into crumbs using your fingers.

Add the milk and eggs, and combine to form a batter.

Finally tip in the apples and stir to combine, but don’t over mix.

Plop large spoonfuls of the mixture into your paper cases.

In a separate small bowl mix a big spoonful of sugar and flour with a dollop of butter. Rub it together using your fingers to create the crumble topping. Generously sprinkle this over the top of your muffins.

Bake them in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cupcakes will veer on the side of 20, whereas muffins could be as much as 30 depending on how deep they are. Cool on a wire rack.

I personally think these are delicious whilst still a little warm. Serve with hot custard or some cold cream if you want to jazz them up a little as a desert.