Pumpkin and spice cake

A few weeks ago the people at Silver Spoon sent me some of their decorations to make something for Halloween. I had no idea what to make but eventually decided I'd make a pumpkin cake, after all when most people think of Halloween they think of pumpkins...
Halloween is almost upon us and while I don't really celebrate it myself I do take full advantage of the piles of the bright orange Halloween pumpkins that are being sold everywhere right now.

Pumpkin can be a delicious vegetable simply roasted with butter and a few herbs or stirred into a rich and creamy risotto. Unfortunately the pumpkins sold for carving are normally grown for size rather than flavour and can be a bit bland and watery, but don't be put off, they still have there uses such as in this pumpkin cake.The recipe I used is adapted from a bundt cake recipe I found at Pinch My Salt. I've converted it to a sandwich cake and used yoghurt rather than sour cream for the batter, I don't know how but yoghurt seems to give cakes softer, lighter texture, I use yoghurt in scones too for the same reason. I've also added walnuts to the cake because they just taste so good in this kind of cake.Pumpkin and spices belong together so I've used cream cheese cinnamon icing for this cake topped with candied orange peel and some fruit jellies kindly sent to me by Silver Spoon. The finished cake is very similar in texture to carrot cake but it has a distinctive pumpkin flavour, think of pumpkin pie in cake form and you'll have some idea of what it's like.

So when Halloween is over and your jack o' lanterns are finished with maybe you could give them a second life as a delicious pumpkin cake.

Spelt, walnut and plum cake

We have a farmers market once a month here in Leicester, it has a small but growing range of stalls some good, some not so good and some fantastic. My favourite stall undoubtedly is Woodhouse Farm, they raise all their own animals and produce the most amazing meat, the pork is possibly the most flavourful and succulent I have ever tried and the bacon is to die for.

The last market was two weeks ago, all the usual stalls were there, the pie stall, the organic farm, the chili stall and a new stall that I had never seen or heard of before. Elizabeth's Bakery had a small stand on the end of a row, like all the best bakeries they had a range of cakes that was so beautiful and looked so mouth wateringly delicious I couldn't pull myself away. What I really liked about Elizabeth's was the baker himself (I don't know where Elizabeth was), he was just so enthusiastic about everything he sold, for every cake he would tell me exactly what was in it, how he made and why it was absolutely the best cake ever and I just had to buy some!

There were fruit tarts, meringues, sachertorte, and individual blueberry cheesecakes all of which looked beautiful. I however took home a square of spelt, plum and walnut cake, I'd never seen a cake made with spelt flour before and was really interested to see how it came out, plus I love walnuts and plums so in the end the choice was a no brainer.

I don't know whether it was the spelt flour or the skill of the baker but the cake was unbelievable, it had a soft and tender texture, it was extremely moist and the plums and walnuts added lots of flavour. The cake was so good I had to have a go at making it myself. Unfortunately bakers aren't so enthusiastic about giving away their recipes so I scoured the Internet for ideas and inspiration. As is so often the case the prolific and ever brilliant Nigel Slater came up trumps, he has created a recipe for a spelt cake that used damsons and spelt flour, although his final cake wasn't quite the same as the cake from the market it gave me some idea of where to start.

Ready for the oven

My cake is a combination of Nigel Slater's recipe, the cake from the market and my own ideas. It turned out so much better than I ever thought it would, I'd almost go as far as say it was the perfect cake. I used Victoria plums for my cake, they're coming to the end of the season now but there are still a few around and are well worth buying if you find some otherwise any good plums will be fine. I finished the cake with an apricot glaze and dark chocolate, I wasn't sure about adding the chocolate thinking it might be one ingredient too far but it actually works really well, the bitterness of the chocolate sets off the sweet cake perfectly.

The finished cake

Spelt, walnut and plum cake (makes 9-12 squares)

Ingredients:

• 150g Butter
• 150g Light soft brown sugar
• 3 Medium eggs
  
• 120g White spelt flour (I used Doves Farm organic flour, available from Sainsbury's and Waitrose in the UK, you can substitute with plain flour if you can't find any spelt although it won't be quite the same)
  
• 75g Ground almonds
• 2tsp Baking powder
• 9-10 Plums halved and stoned
• 70g Walnut pieces
• Apricot baking glaze or smooth apricot jam
• 30g Dark chocolate (I used Green and Blacks cooks chocolate)

Method:

Grease and line a 22cm square cake tin with a removable base and preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C.

In a mixing bowl or in an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then one at a time beat in the eggs until everything is smooth and well combined.

Next sift in the flour and baking powder and add the ground almonds and half of the walnuts, fold everything together gently. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and smooth down the surface with a spatula. Lay the plum halves on top, place them close together as they will shrink during cooking and you want to be sure there is plum in every slice, scatter the remaining walnut halves over.

Bake for 45-60 minutes, it's done when it feels firm to the touch. Leave the cake to cool on a rack before removing from the tin. Spread the apricot glaze over the top of the cake, be quite generous with it. Melt the chocolate in a bowl placed over some warm water then drizzle over the top. Once the chocolate has set the cake is ready.

Chocolate Guinness cake for St. Patricks day

St Patrick's day isn't really a big celebration here but I couldn't let it pass by without a mention, especially as I had found the perfect recipe for it.

Anyone who knows me could tell you that I love chocolate and I love Guinness so the idea of combining the two together in a cake had instant appeal, the fact that I had all the ingredients and it's st Patrick's day left me with little choice but to try this recipe out.The cake itself has a whole cup of Guinness in it as well as cocoa, flour, butter and an alarming amount of sugar. I hope you can see from the photo just how moist soft and rich it is, you really can taste the Guinness too which I was particularly pleased about. The topping is a simple cream cheese affair of the kind you'd put on a carrot cake, I've flavoured mine with Irish whiskey but you could also use Baileys to good effect.I've made a lot of chocolate cakes in the past and I can safely say this is one of the best, it's deep flavoured, rich and not at all dry. Perfect!

There are recipes for this cake all over the Internet, I found this one over at Moveable Feasts who got it from the New York Times. It looks like originally it came from Nigella. I should have guessed...

Recipe

For the cake:
Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
3/8 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the topping:
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
A splash of Irish whiskey to flavour

1. For the cake: heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

3. For the topping: Using a food processor or by hand, mix confectioners' sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add the whiskey and mix until smooth and spreadable.

4. Remove cake from pan and place on a platter or cake stand. Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

Winemaker's grape cake

A few years ago I planted a grape vine against the wall in my garden. At the time I didn't really expect it to do that well, England isn't isn't known for it's grapes after all!

I couldn't have been more wrong, it seems that in cold damp England grape vines can thrive, mine has gone wild climbing up the wall, over the windows and along the washing line! What's made me really happy is that it's also produced a bumper crop of beautiful purple grapes.Although the grapes were deliciously sweet enough to eat out of hand I'd seen a few recipes for grape cakes that sounded really interesting. We don't really cook with grapes in England so this idea was totally new to me.

The recipe I settled on was from Epicurious.com called winemakers grape cake, what really drew me to this recipe was the use of olive oil rather than butter which not only gives the cake a wonderful texture but a delicious flavour too.The lived up to all expectations being both perfectly soft and moist but full of flavour too, the little grapes were like bombs of flavour that exploded when you bit into them. A fantastic cake!

You can find the recipe HERE.

Victoria cream sponge

The company that I work for is celebrating it's anniversary this year, to mark the occasion a buffet was laid on and there was a huge cake to share. Just in case we hadn't had enough cake already they also sent us home with a 'cake making kit', in it were all the ingredients (except the eggs) for making a Victoria sponge, flour, butter, sugar and jam.

It's hard to improve on a classic like a Victoria sponge but by adding whipped cream I found a way. Of course cream is entirely optional but it is highly recommended, your cake won't keep as long but in my house at least, that's not a problem...I use the traditional method for making sponge cakes, first I weigh all of the eggs in their shells, I then use an equal weight of butter, sugar and self raising flour. For example if I use three eggs that weigh 50g each then I'll use 150g of butter, sugar and flour.

Maths lesson over it's time for the recipe...

Victoria sponge recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 Large eggs
• Butter
• Sugar (I used golden caster sugar)
  
• Self raising flour
• Vanilla extract (homemade if you have it)
• Jam and whipped cream for the filling
  

Method:

• Preheat your oven to gas 4/180c/350f and grease two 7 inch sponge tins.
• First weigh all three eggs together in their shells, make a note of how much they weigh.
• Whatever the eggs weigh add the same weight in butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl and beat well together until light and fluffy, this will take a few minutes.
• Next beat in the eggs followed by an equal weight again of self raising flour, add a few drops of vanilla and mix well together.
• Divide the mixture equally between the two sponge tins and bake for around 25 minutes. Check they're cooked by inserting a skewer into the cake, if it comes out clean they're done.
• Cool the cakes on a rack, once they have cooled fill with jam and whipped cream and enjoy!

The BloggerAid cookbook

If you've not heard of BloggerAid you should head over to their page and take a look. They are a group of food bloggers who are committed to fighting world famine. How? By raising awareness, holding fund-raisers, drawing media attention and now in their biggest and most ambitious project yet, by writing a cookbook.The project was unveiled by Ivy of Kopiaste.. to Greek Hospitality , Giz of Equal Opportunity Kitchen and Val of More Than Burnt Toast and in their words "We have announced our largest fundraiser to date ever!!!! ..., we will be publishing a cookbook with 100% of the profit from sales being directed to our chosen agency. The funds we raise will be directed to specific programs of The World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations frontline agency. The needs are great and choosing a specific effort is currently being negotiated."

And YOU can contribute! but you'll have to be quick, the deadline is the 12th of February, that's tomorrow!

"The cookbook is targeted for sale on Amazon by November/December 2009. There is a great deal of work involved in delivering this project and we will rely on you to help in any way you can. We will keep you informed every step of the way on Bloggeraid !!!!"

I thought it was a great Idea and definitely want to be a part of it, if you do too click here!
My submission to the cookbook is a pear and ginger upside down cake, it's a twist on one of my favourite childhood cakes, pineapple upside cake. I was inspired to make this as the weather here is very cold at the moment. In fact it's the coldest winter we've had in 20 years so I was aiming for a really warming, spicy cake. I scored a hit with this recipe, sticky, spicy and moist, perfect! I chose to submit this recipe because it's quite simple, the ingredients are widely available and I think everyone will love this cake.

I can't share the recipe here as they are exclusively for the cookbook, so if you want the recipe you'll have to buy the book!

Nigel Slater's Ginger Cake

I don't think there is any cake as suited to winter as ginger cake, a slice of this dark, sticky, spicy cake is just what I want when it's cold and dark outside. Ginger cake is quite an old fashioned cake, the kind your Grandma might make. It doesn't look much, in fact it looks positively dull but looks can be deceiving, just wait until you taste it!This version by Nigel Slater contains both ground and stem ginger so it has a real spicy kick to it, the Golden Syrup is what makes this cake so sticky and delicious. What I really like about it is that it only gets better over time, it's hard to resist taking a slice right away but if you can I would recommend that you leave it at least one day in an airtight tin before cutting in to it.I would like to try this recipe again substituting the golden syrup for treacle/molasses to make an even darker cake, lemon zest would make a great addition too.

Recipe (Original here)

250g self-raising flour
2 level tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
200g golden syrup
2 tbsp syrup from the ginger jar
125g butter
3 lumps of stem ginger in syrup (about 55g)
2 heaped tbsp sultanas
125g dark muscavado sugar
2 large eggs
240ml milk

You will need a square cake tin measuring approximately 20-22cm, lined on the bottom with baking or greaseproof paper.

Set the oven at 180°C/gas mark 3. Sieve the flour with the ginger, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and the salt. Put the golden and ginger syrups and the butter into a small saucepan, and warm over a low heat. Dice the ginger finely then add it to the pan with the sultanas and sugar. Let the mixture bubble gently for a minute, giving it the occasional stir to stop the fruit sticking to the bottom.

Break the eggs into a bowl, pour in the milk and beat gently to break up the egg and mix it into the milk. Remove the butter and sugar mixture from the heat and pour into the flour, stirring smoothly and firmly with a large metal spoon. Mix in the milk and eggs. The mixture should be sloppy, with no trace of flour.

Scoop the mixture into the non-stick or lined cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean. Unless you are serving it warm, leave the cake in its tin to cool, then tip out on to a sheet of greaseproof paper. Wrap it up again in foil and leave to mature for a day or two before eating.

Creamy Mango Cheesecake

I know I haven't been blogging that much recently, Christmas and new year has been busy with not much time to cook or do anything with my blog really, so if you left comments and I haven't replied I wasn't ignoring you I promise! things are getting back to normal now though and today I had time to do some baking.

I've mentioned before that I get a box of organic fruit and vegetables delivered every two weeks, during the winter when fresh fruit is a bit scarce they often send imported tropical fruit. This week we had two beautiful fresh mangos which I thought would make a great cheesecake. And they did!I chose to make a baked cheesecake rather than no-bake version, mainly because I wanted to cook the fruit within the cake, I served it with a simple sauce made by blending sugar and mango together. The result was a dense rich cheesecake that was perfectly contrasted by the fresh mango and tasted great!

For whatever reason it cracked as it cooled, I think I probably cooled it too fast, next time I'll turn off the oven and leave it there to cool gradually.
Recipe Ingredients

• 175g/6oz digestive biscuits(If you can't get digestives another plain sweet biscuit would work, try shortbread)
  
• 50g/2oz butter , melted
• 600g/21oz cream cheese (e.g. Philadelphia)
  
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 175g/6oz white sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 150ml/1/4 pint Sour cream
• 1 Mango peeled, stoned and diced

Method

• Preheat your oven to 350f/180c/gas4.
• Place the biscuits in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin into fine crumbs, mix with the melted butter and press the mixture into the base of a 20cm springform tin. Bake the base for 5 minutes.
• Beat all the remaining ingredients except the mango together with a whisk until smooth.
• Add the diced mango to the cheese mixture and pour over the biscuit base, bake for 40-50 minutes. It should be just slightly wobbly in the centre when it's cooked.
• Leave to cool completely in the tin then serve.
  

Stollen

I have a policy of not preparing anything for Christmas until the start of December. I'm not being miserable, I absolutely love Christmas, it's just that if I started any earlier I'd have got bored of it by Christmas day!

Once December comes around I really get into it! It just wouldn't be Christmas without mulled wine, mince pies or Christmas cake, so much to make, so little time! As it stands I have already made a tray of mince pies, a Christmas pudding and this Stollen.Stollen is a German yeasted Christmas cake, loaded with fruits, nuts and spices it has a marzipan centre and is one of my favourite Christmas treats.

It is especially good toasted although I should warn you, use an electric toaster at your peril, I'm still cleaning bits of charred marzipan out of mine...

What do you make for Christmas?

The recipe I used is by Simon Rimmer, it turned out really well although next time I will add more fruit.
Original recipe by Simon Rimmer here.

Ingredients
100ml/3½fl oz warm milk
2 tsp dried yeast
pinch salt
1 tsp caster sugar
225g/8oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp ground mixed spice
200g/7oz mixed dried fruit (including glacé cherries)
25g/1oz flaked almonds
50g/2oz unsalted butter
1 free-range egg, beaten
250g/9oz marzipan
To finish
25g/1oz butter, melted
50g/2oz icing sugar

Method
1. Place the milk and yeast into a bowl and mix well. Leave to sit for 5-6 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, sift the salt, sugar, flour and mixed spice into a large bowl.
3. Add the dried fruit, almonds and butter and mix well.
4. Add the yeast and milk mixture and mix well.
5. Add the egg and stir well to make a dough.
6. Knead the dough for 5-6 minutes, then cover and leave to prove for 20 minutes.
7. Uncover the dough and turn out onto a clean, floured work surface. Using your hands knock the dough back to reduce the volume, then knead the dough for 3-4 minutes.
8. Push and roll the dough out by hand into a flat oval shape about 23cm x 18cm/9in x 7in.
9. Roll the marzipan into a piece about 18cm x 5cm/7in x 2in. Place the marzipan into the centre of the dough, then fold over the sides of the dough to seal in the marzipan.
10. Place the stollen seal-side down onto a greased baking tray. Cover and place somewhere warm to prove for one hour.
11. Preheat the oven to 180C/365F/Gas 4.
12. Place the stollen on the baking tray into the oven to bake for 40 minutes, or until golden-brown and cooked through.
13. To finish, remove the stollen from the oven, brush with the melted butter and dust with icing sugar immediately.
14. Allow the stollen to cool, then serve in slices

Brown sugar mincemeat cake

Yesterday was very very wet, according to the local paper we have already had more rainfall than we're supposed to get for the whole month! Definitely not a day for doing anything outside. Instead I got creative in the kitchen and came up with this mincemeat cake.
Despite it's name mincemeat contains no meat (although it used to) but is a delicious combination of dried fruits, spices, sugar, suet, apples and brandy. It's most common use is the traditional Christmas mince pie, but it also makes delicious crumbles and cakes.As we're approaching Christmas a mincemeat cake seemed appropriate, I also had all the ingredients on hand which meant no getting wet going to the shops! I used dark muscovado sugar for this recipe as the flavour is fantastic but any brown sugar will work.Ingredients:

3oz/75g Butter
3oz/75g Muscovado or other brown sugar
2 Eggs
4oz/100g Self raising flour
4oz/100g Mincemeat
4oz/100g Sultanas, raisins or other dried fruit
Sugar crystals to sprinkle on top (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180c/350f and grease an 8 inch circular cake tin.

In a large bowl cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.

Next beat in the eggs.

Fold in the flour until well mixed.
Add the mincemeat and dried fruit to the mixture and gently mix.

Pour the mixture into the greased tin, sprinkle with sugar crystals (if using) and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a skewer comes out clean.

Fruit-packed Rock Cakes / Rock buns

I haven't made rock cakes since primary school. I think everyone made these at some point in their school cookery lessons, probably because they are so quick and easy to make.

Rock cakes are very similar to scones, they have a crisp crust and light crumbly texture and are an excellent recipe to have in your repertoire. Great for teaching children to cook or for when you want to make cakes and don't have the time (or can't be bothered) for anything elaborate.
I like loads of fruit in mine so I put some extra in, I also sprinkled sugar crystals over the top before baking for some extra crunch.

Recipe

• 225 g (8 oz) Self Raising Flour
• pinch of salt
• 100 g (4 oz) margarine
• 75 g (3 oz) mixed dried fruit
• 25 g (1 oz) mixed peel
• 50 g (2 oz) caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• milk to mix

Method

• Heat oven to 200ºC, 400ºF, Gas Mark 6. Grease two baking trays.
• Mix the flour and salt, rub in the margarine.
• Stir in the dried fruit, mixed peel and sugar.
• Mix to a stiff dough with egg and milk.
• Place in rough heaps on the baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.

What lies beneath?

This cake may look normal, if not spectacular. Things however are not as they seem, beneath the thick layer of cream cheese icing hides a secret. You see when I took the cake out of the oven it looked great, so I set it aside and left it to cool. I returned a few minutes later to check on my cake and aargh! there was a huge crater in the middle, my cake had collapsed! I don't know how it happened but the middle was still raw even though I checked it earlier.
After a bit of a panic I sliced it in half, cut out the raw cake, pieced it back together and slathered it in icing!
In the end it looked OK and still tasted good and I am very, very thankful for icing!

Berry Birthday Cake

This is the cake I made for my Mum's birthday last week.

The sponge is flavoured with lemon zest and is filled and decorated with fresh raspberries. To make it a bit more special I used blended Italian Mascarpone cheese with the cream, Mascarpone is amazingly delicious, very rich and very creamy it's excellent for desserts and also make a good pasta sauce. If you've never tried Mascarpone then you should look out for it, you won't regret it!
This was a good cake, I think I slightly over-baked it but once it was filled it wasn't that noticeable, the lemon zest certainly added more flavour and worked well with the raspberries.

To make a basic sponge my method is to weigh the eggs in their shells (more eggs for a bigger cake, less for a small cake) then use the same weight of:-
-Sugar
-Butter
-Self-raising flour
Cream the sugar and butter together, add the eggs then the flour and bake at around 180, for roughly 30-45 minutes.
Obviously you can be creative, want a coffee cake? add coffee to the mix or cocoa for a chocolate cake etc...

Simple Carrot cake

I made this carrot cake a little while ago when I really wanted a peice of cake but couldn't be bothered to make anything complicated. Recipes don't come much easier than this, just throw it all together and bake. The cream cheese icing is optional but I love it! Carrot cake just has to have cream cheese in my opinion.
This cake is really moist and full of flavour and is my goto emergency I need cake NOW recipe!


Recipe:
Carrot Loaf
1 large egg.
1 ½ cups of flour.
1 cup of shredded carrots.
½ cup of white sugar, granulated.
½ cup of brown sugar, packed.
½ cup of vegetable oil.
½ cup of chopped nuts.
½ cup of raisins.
1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
½ teaspoon of baking soda.
¼ teaspoon of salt.
¼ teaspoon of baking powder.

Method

Stir together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, mix together the white and brown sugar, shredded carrots, vegetable oil and egg.
Combine the two mixtures, then add the chopped nuts and raisins.
Spoon the mixture into a greased and floured loaf pan (about 8x4x2 inches).
Bake at 350F for about 60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
Store in an airtight container overnight.
Serve as desired.

Chocolate beetroot cake, a strange combination?

For anyone who has seen The Vicar of Dibley this recipe might remind you of Mrs Cropley, the character famous for her "interesting" recipes, Lard and fish paste pancake anyone?
Well when I first heard of putting beetroot in a chocolate cake I must admit Mrs Cropley came to mind!
That was a long time ago and ever since I first heard of chocolate beetroot cake, strange though it sounds I've been intrigued. There are quite a few recipes around so obviously there are a few people out there who think it's a good idea, rather than just one mad cook!
Anyway I finally got my chance to try it this week when we received three beetroot in our veg box.
The result was surprisingly good, it was very moist and certainly not disgusting, we ate the whole thing pretty quickly! Unlike in carrot cake however where there is no carroty taste at all, there was a definite hint of beetroot in the background, I think I might try this cake again substituting carrots for the beetroot as they have a milder flavour. Overall a good cake and worth trying.

Chocolate beetroot cake recipe

English Tea, Bakewell tarts and chocolate muffins

I have just read an article from the BBC that a new guide states that in England afternoon tea is "enacted daily" apparently at 4:00 we all stop, get out the tea pot, delicate sandwiches and fruit cake!
I'm sure anyone who is English will find this amusing, as obviously the author of this guide has never been to England, or at least not in the last century. As an Englishman I would like to make it clear that this is nonsense, I and no one I have ever met does this. However last Saturday for the first time ever we had tea...A traditional English tea refers to a meal rather than the drink, although a proper tea pot is essential. It traditionally involves delicate finger food such as cucumber, salmon or ham sandwiches, small cakes often feature as do larger cakes such as Victoria sponge or a fruit cake. Scones are also very popular and are usually served with jam and clotted cream. Although very unusual in homes now, afternoon tea is still a feature in grand hotels such as The Ritz.

For our tea I made a Bakewell tart and chocolate muffins.

Bakewell tarts were invented in the town of Bakewell in Derbyshire. They are a similar to the original Bakewell pudding which differs slightly by having no ground almonds, it is more like a custard tart flavoured with almond extract. Although not the same, the tart is derived from the pudding.Whenever we pass through Bakewell I always pick one up from one of the bakeries that sells them. There are three such bakeries each with a secret "original recipe". The shops claim that the pudding was invented by accident in the 1860's when a nobleman visited the White Horse Inn and asked for a strawberry tart, the cook poured the eggs that were supposed to be in the base over the jam and Bakewell pudding was born. This probably isn't true but they're delicious anyway!
Real Bakewell tarts are very different to what you may have tried before, there is no icing and no cherry on top, the real thing is much nicer and I do recommend you try them, you can even buy a pudding by post from two of the the original shops!

The chocolate muffins I made aren't quite so traditional, they are more American style, I should have made little fairy cakes but, I was searching for recipes and these looked delicious. The batter is a bit different to regular sponge mix as it contains a lot of milk ( 1 cup for 12 muffins) They were really tasty and the leftovers had actually improved the next day. The icing is a simple chocolate buttercream.For our tea we also had cucumber sandwiches, ham and salmon open rolls, a Victoria sponge and a selection of bits and pieces such as crisps and olives.

Unfortunately I don't have the recipes to hand, I will post them next week, but here's a similar recipe for Bakewell tart, I used puff pastry for my version which I think is closer to the original.

Rocky road - Cycling food

I had to get back to Uni for lectures on monday, and as it's me I cycle there! Not that theres any alternative without a car.
Anyway I decided to make something to fuel my trip and after a lot of my usual indecision settled on Rocky road cake.
Rocky road cake isn't really a cake at all but, is simply a mixture of chocolate, marshmallows, fruit and nuts.
The ingredients can vary according to taste but chocolate and marshmallows are both essential.
My version had raisins, chopped hazlenuts and walnuts which I toasted in a dry frying pan, (peanuts are more traditional but I had none) glace cherries and obviously chocolate and marshmallows.
As the chocolate is the base for this it is essential that you use a good quality chocolate, dark milk or even white could be used although white chocolate would be very sweet. I'm a dark chcolate person so I used Cote d'or.

Rocky Road
(I havn't given quantities, I just mixed in what looked right)

• Chocolate
• Nuts of your choice
• Marshmallows (the small ones or just cut sume up with scissors)
• Dried fruit such as raisins and sultanas
• Glace cherries

This is so easy to make simply melt your chocolate and mix everything together, put the mixture into a tin lined with baking parchment and leave to set. Easy!

Cupcakes for my first post

Well this is my first post and I thought I would show some pictures of "king cupcakes" that I made yesterday, the pictures are from my fancy new camera A FujiFilm A820 if you really care that I blew my money on this morning!! It was a bargain though.

These are peanut butter and banana cakes with peanut butter icing, I stuck a wanut on top because I didn't have any peanuts, Oh and I love walnuts! They taste delicious, you get a good mix of peanut and banana flavour, as well as being very moist.

These are really easy to make, I recommend them highly.

The recipe was found at the Culinary in the Desert blog Here http://desertculinary.blogspot.com/2005/05/king-cupcakes.html