Spiced Apple Cake #Blogtoberfest day 14

I was given a huge bag of windfall apples by my lovely neighbour the other week and  I thought I would search out a recipe for Apple Cake. It took me two attempts go get it right but second time around the cake was delicious! The original recipe on allrecipes.co.uk called for 30 to 40 mins cooking time and I had mine on for 55mns... I had to go out though and couldn't leave the oven on so turned it off and hoped for the best....when I got home the cake was still runny in the middle....utter disaster!

 I used -

•  500g of apples peeled and diced
• 200 ml of veggie oil
• 100g castor sugar
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 275g of plain flour
• 1tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 1tso cinnamon
• 1tsp ginger
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2tsp salt
• 2 eggs

For the second try I slashed the amount of sugar down from 400g to 200g as the bit of cake that was "done" on top of the first one was far too sweet. I also knocked 50ml off of the amount of oil to make the batter thicker in the hope that I could cook it through fully this time.

First I whisked the oil and eggs together then beat in the sugar, vanilla essence and salt. I combined the rest of the dry ingredients and sieved hem through and then beat the dry mix into the wet a little at time. Last I stirred in the raw diced apples and tipped the thick lumpy batter into a greased and floured tin. It took 1hr 10 mins to cook thorough the second time around but it was worth persevering. The apples were ever so soft and moist and the cake light and crumbly, worth the cooking time it seemed to take I think. Next time we are given windfall apples I like to try a butter based mixture to see how that goes..maybe this one...

Happy baking, Jolene xx

Homemade Banana Muffins

I've been baking today, 'nana muffins, and they are pretty tasty so I have decided to do a quick post and run blog post because you'd be surprised how many times I have had come back here for an ingredients list for something I've made before (my usual method of making cooking notes is on random scraps of paper or backs of envelopes which, as you all know, house pixies like to use to line their nests).

Nana Muffins

• 4 overripe bananas, mashed
• 200g of plain flour
• 1 tsp of bicarb
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 150g of caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 75g of butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Combine sugar and butter, add wet ingredients, mix, add dry ingredients, mix, stir in bananas, pop the mixture in paper cake cases, cook on gas mark 4 for 25 mins....


I'm fairly sure the original recipe came from http://allrecipes.co.uk somewhere...but don't quote me!


Have a lovely weekend, Jolene xx

Little Carrot Cakes and Courgette Loaf Cake

I've a glut of Courgettes at the moment, amazing considering that I only planted two courgette plants on the lottie this year. This morning I went looking about on the net for a fun recipes to get my kidlets cooking and also eating up their greens and found a lot of good recipes on www.allrecipes.co.uk.

As usual I realised that I didn't have all of the right ingredients to follow any of the recipes exactly and so I jiggled the quantities a little and as both the carrot cake and courgette loaf cake turned out pretty well I thought I'd pop them up on my blog (because I am a sucker for loosing those important little bits of paper with the ingredients list on them and we'll likely want to make these again!). First up, Ethan and I made a dozen little Carrot Cakes, they didn't even get properly cooled down from the oven before the kids tucked in!

Carrot Cakes

Dry Ingredients

• 150g Self Raising Flour
• 1 tsp baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg

Wet Ingredients

• 125g Unsalted Butter
• 125g Soft Brown Sugar
• 1 Medium Carrot (grated)
• 2 eggs

We mixed the flour and dry stuff together in one bowl and sieved it a couple of times. Next we put the butter, sugar, carrots and eggs together in another bowl and gave it all a good mix then added the flour and whisked it up with the electric mixer, plopped the batter in to cake cases and baked on 4 for about 20 mins. Whilst the carrot cakes were baking Ruby and I got started on the courgette loaf cake.

Courgette Loaf Cake

Wet ingredients

•  200g Courgette (grated)
• 150g Granulated Sugar (we didn't have any Castor Sugar)
• 1 egg
• 125ml Vegetable Oil

Dry ingredients

• 125g Plain Flour
• 75g Plain wholemeal flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Bicarb
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1tsp Mixed Spices
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
• 1tblsp Lemon Juice

As before we combined the dry ingredients, sieved and set them aside, then bunged all of the wet ingredients together in another bowl and whisked with and electric mixer before adding the dry mix and whisking again. This batter mix was much more liquid than the carrot cake batter, we popped it in a buttered/floured loaf time and cooked it out slowly on gas mark 3 for 1hr 20 mins. The recommended cooking time was just 45 mins but the cake was nowhere near ready at that point. Next time I think I will reduce the oil content a bit and cook the cake on 4 to see if that works better.

Cougette Loaf Cake with a sprinkling of icing sugar on top!

The tiddlers did try a little bit of the loaf cake which was all moist and crumbly and lovely but much preferred the carrot cakes, next time I think I'll take the skins off of the Courgettes before grating as they will be completely invisible!

Have a lovely weekend, Jolene xx

Rhubarb Cake

One of the things that is growing well on the Lottie is Rhubarb so my friend Sue came over armed with a ton of baking bits and bobs to show me how to make Rhubarb Cake today.

My littlest was very keen to get involved and so with a bit of help weighing and such he got stuck in with the making and had a lovely fun using an electric whisk for the first time.

You will need

• 3 sticks of Rhubarb
• 6 tbl spoons water
• 4 tbl spoons sugar
• a few drops of vanilla essence 

• 5 oz of butter 
• 5 oz sugar
• 4 eggs
• 9 oz flour

Tiddler and I chopped up the Rhubarb in to  inch (ish) chunks and I then popped it in a pan with the water and sugar over a low heat to soften and sweeten it. You can put Vanilla essence in the pan too if you want but we forgot. Next we weighed out the butter and sugar and mixed it together in a big bowl. Then came 4 eggs cracked straight into the bowl while I weighed out the flour.

Sue whisked the eggs and butter/sugar together with a little flour and then added the rest of the flour and then little'un splattered the walls with lovely cake mix, top speed whisking and having a wonderful time pressing buttons and making a sticky mess until everything looked pretty well mixed.

By this time the Rhubarb had softened up well so I took it off the heat and let it cool a bit before Sue helped Ethan stir it in gently and tip the mixture in to a buttered and floured loaf tin. This went in the oven on gas mark 5 for 5 mins and then 4 for a further 35(ish).

When the cake was done Sue turned it out on to an upturned egg box covered with kitchen roll to let it cool as I don't have a cooling rack and me and the kids waited impatiently for it to cool. It was delish and tiddler and I both had seconds :-D

Happy Baking, Jolene xx

Rhubarb Crumble

We picked our first Rhubarb from the plot today and the kids and I made a crumble. It's the first time the nippers have taken food from the ground and brought it home for the table and also the first time they have tried Rhubarb.

We used

• 7 sticks of Rhubarb
• 4 tbsp of Water
• 4 tbsp of Castor Sugar
• 1 tsp of powdered Ginger
• 4oz butter
• 4oz brown sugar
• 7oz plain flour

First I washed the Rhubarb and help the kids chop it up into chunks about 2 inches long. They popped the chunks in to a baking tray and spooned over the castor sugar and water. We don't have a tablespoon so we measured out everything roughly with dessert spoons (2 table spoons = 3 dessert spoons) and popped the baking tray in the oven for about 15 mins on gasmark 4.

While the Rhubarb was softening up I measured out the crumble topping ingredients and let the kids get stuck in mixing them all together with their hands.

I took the rhubarb out of the oven and added ginger and mixed well and transferred it to a cool oven proof dish and helped the kids spoon on the topping and them popped it in to the oven for about 1/2 an hour.

What you really can't tell from the photo is how good it smells and  how bubbly and jammy the Rhubarb is oozing out from around the edge of the crumble. We ate this plain, I've yet to be able to convince my two to try custard and I hadn't any cream to hand but it was plenty juicy enough. I think that even though I reduced the amount of castor sugar down from the original recipe, it was a little too sweet still  but I really liked the ginger.

Have a lovely day, Jolene x

Recipe based on this one from the BBC website

Bare Cupboard Cake....

I'd planned to make fairy cakes with my daughter Ruby the other day but when I went to the fridge there were no eggs! To try to save my little from disappointment I googled and found a wartime vegan cake recipe. It's like no other cake mix I've ever tried to make before and the mixture, not being of the cupcake or fairy cake persuasion, ended up in a small roasting pan for baking.

Bare Cupboard Cake

To my shock and delight it not only turned out well it was also completely delicious! Something very much like a light version of Bread Pudding and we'll definitely be making this one again sometime.

 

Jolene xx