Lemon Blueberry Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Drizzle

Isn't it pretty? A cake perfect for afternoon tea! This is a light and tangy cake, the blueberries add some sweetness.

Ingredients

125g butter, softened in room temperature

1 cup castor sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

2 cups self raising flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder

zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup buttermilk

1 cup frozen blueberries

For the Cream Cheese drizzle

200g of cream cheese, softened in room temperature

3 tbsp butter, softened in room temperature

1 cup icing sugar mix

1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1.      Preheat oven to 170C.

2.      Cream butter and castor sugar until light and fluffy.

3.      Add vanilla extract, lemon zest, lemon juice and eggs and beat until combined.

4.      Add flour, baking powder and stir gently, adding buttermilk in stages, until all combined.

5.      Carefully stir in the blueberries, do not overmix.

6.      Spread into a prepared 8 inch round cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

7.      Cool on wire rack.

8.      For the icing, beat the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar adding lemon juice to the right consistency.

9.      Spread the icing on when cake is completely cooled.

Crunchy Top Banana Bread

This recipe is fairly low in sugar and fat content, without compromising on the taste. The moistness and sweetness being provided by the bananas. The crunchy walnuts on top adds a nice texture.

Ingredients

4 ripe large bananas, mashed

½ cup brown sugar

2 cups plain flour sifted

1 tsp bicarb soda

½ cup oats

¾ cup walnuts, roughly chopped

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup vegetable oil

Method

1.     Line a loaf pan with greaseproof paper. Preheat fan forced oven to 160C.

2.     Mix mashed bananas, beaten eggs, oil and vanilla extract in a large bowl.

3.     Add the flour, bicarb soda, oats and sugar.

4.     Mix well, and add ½ of the walnuts at the end of the mixing process.

5.     Pour into loaf pan, sprinkle the rest of the walnuts on the top.

6.     Bake for 45-50 mins in 160C oven.

Xmas Spice cake

Merry Christmas to you all dear readers!

This blog has been neglected of late due to general bedlam after the birth of the little princess, in fact, I think she’s The Queen. She certainly has us twisted around her little finger.

In the spirit of Christmas I chose this easy spice cake recipe since I don’t have the luxury of spending hours in the kitchen these days. It is supposed to taste better after three weeks but I wouldn’t know as we have been eating the smaller one. I lace it with rum every few days ;-) DH took the big one to his work Xmas morning tea today, so we’ll hear what the verdict is after three weeks of storage and extra rum.

The recipe is taken from food.com

http://www.food.com/recipe/mums-special-spice-cake-106510

Apple Spice and Nut Cake

It’s spring! Enough of the cold weather. There are apples a plenty here, and somebody had doubled up on purchasing apples during last week’s grocery shopping. I used pink lady apples, but you can granny smiths or anything you have lying around. I didn’t bother peeling the skin. Fibre is good for the digestive tract anyway ;-)

Ingredients

¾ cup chopped pecans

3 cups plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 ½ cups brown sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

¼ cup yoghurt or buttermilk

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup castor sugar

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

4 large apples, cut into 2cm chunks

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 180C.

2.          Grease a bundt tin or 20cm cake tin.

3.          Toss apples with half of the ground cinnamon, castor sugar, salt and 2 tbsp of flour. Set aside.

4.          Sift flour, baking powder, and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Add in brown sugar, pecans, eggs, oil, melted butter, vanilla essence, the yoghurt and lemon juice.

5.          Spread 1/3 of the mixture into the bundt tin, sprinkle half of the apples over, then add another 1/3 of the batter, sprinkle the rest of the apples, and top with the rest of the batter.

6.          Bake in the oven for 45-50mins, until a test skewer comes out clean.

Treacle Banana Cake

Banana cake is comfort food for me. I just love the aroma of it baking in the oven perfuming the house. I tweaked a recipe to include the treacle, and it’s come up really nice. It has a caramelised characteristic to it compared to the common garden variety.

Ingredients: (makes one 20cm round cake or 12 large muffins)

125g unsalted butter, softened

¾ brown sugar

1 large tbsp treacle

A pinch of salt

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 tsp bicarb soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large bananas, mashed

1/3 cup buttermilk

Method:

1.          Preheat oven to 160C.

2.          Cream butter and sugar, add salt, vanilla, bananas and eggs. Mix well.

3.          Sift in the flour and bicarb soda.

4.          Gently fold it in pouring the buttermilk in two lots.

5.          Mix evenly.

6.          Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes for a cake, and 15 minutes for muffins.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes

I’m in the process of baking and freezing some snacks and meals for the imminent post baby era. These cupcakes are just so divine and rich and I think will freeze well as they are very moist. The original recipe was for a cake from Australian Women Weekly, but I tweaked it a little.

Ingredients (makes 15 large cupcakes)

200g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

125g unsalted butter

1 cup castor sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup plain flour

1 cup self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 170C.

2.          Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl on top of a water bath, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.

3.          Gently stir till all the chocolate is melted. Add the sugar, then let it cool.

4.          Mix the eggs with buttermilk and add into the chocolate mixture alternating with the sifted flour  cocoa and baking powder.

5.          Spoon into muffin pans and bake for 18 minutes in 170C fan forced oven. If you bake it in a cake tin, you might need a longer baking time.

Banana Walnut Bread

What to do with 3 large over-ripe bananas? The DH voted for banana bread. This is a modified recipe from Exclusively Food.

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

1 cup wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

¾ cup brown sugar

1 cup toasted chopped walnuts

1 ½ cups mashed over-ripe bananas

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup plain yoghurt

85g melted butter

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 160C.

2.          Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3.          Lightly beat the eggs, stir in all the other wet ingredients.

4.          Mix the dry and wet ingredients together.

5.          Bake in a loaf pan for 1 hour at 160C.

Orange Chiffon Cake

This type of cake is more popular in Asia than the heavier buttered version we commonly have here. It is light and airy due to the beaten egg whites. To the unaccustomed, it can be a bit dry, and they’re often served unadorned. I like to have it with a nice cuppa.

Ingredients (for 8” angel cake pan)

5 egg yolks

20g castor sugar

60g vegetable oil

60g orange juice

grated zest of 1 orange

100g self raising flour

5 egg whites

75g castor sugar

1 tsp cream of tartar

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 170C.

2.          Cream egg yolks, 20g sugar and oil until pale and thick.

3.          Add the orange juice and zest and beat well.

4.          Sift in the flour and mix well.

5.          In a clean dry bowl, whisk egg whites with the remaining sugar and cream of tartar until stiff peak.

6.          Add 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture to lighten it.

7.          Then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites in batches.

8.          Pour into cake pan. (Do not grease sides of pan)

9.          Lightly tap the filled pan once or twice on the bench to get rid of big air bubbles.

10.      Bake for 35minutes in 170C oven.

11.      Tilt the pan upside down on a baking rack to cool.

12.      When cool use a knife to loosen the sides, tap the base to drop the cake out.

Japanese Cotton Soft Cake

If you like the Japanese cheesecake, you will like this non cheese version. This is a really fluffy light cake, not heavy in calories too I might add. This recipe is for a small cake, I used a loaf pan and it’s still too big, hence the cake ended up a bit flat. Next time I might try it in a muffin pan for small individual cakes. I used a water bath so the cake doesn’t dry out.  This recipe is again from Jane's Corner.

Ingredients

30g butter

40g self raising flour

40g milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs separated

40g castor sugar

Method

1.          Preheat oven to 170C.

2.          Melt butter, then stir in the flour immediately to make a smooth paste.

3.          Lightly beat the egg yolks with milk and vanilla essence, then pour into the butter/flour paste and mix thoroughly.

4.          Beat egg whites with sugar until stiff peak.

5.          Add 1/3 of it into the egg yolk mixture to lighten the batter.

6.          Then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites in batches.

7.          Pour into greased and lined cake pan. Tap once to get rid of big air bubbles.

8.          Sit the cake pan in a water bath and bake 8 minutes on 170C, then remove water bath and continue baking another 20 minutes.

Black Forrest Swiss Roll

This is my first ever successful attempt at Swiss roll. All my previous attempts ended up in disaster, they either were too dry and broke into three when I rolled it, or too gluggy and heavy. I’m so glad I found this perfect formula now. The recipe is from my old high school friend Jane’s Corner. (PS: she is such a whiz in the kitchen isn’t she?) the black forrest idea was due to the fact that I have half a bottle of sour Morello cherries sitting in the fridge.

Ingredients

For the sponge:

85g of egg yolk (about 5)

25g castor sugar

45g milk

45g vegetable oil

65g self raising flour

20g cocoa powder

170g of egg whites (from 5 large eggs)

80g castor sugar

Filling

200g thickened cream

20g icing sugar

2 tbsp of Kirsch

½ cup of drained sour Morello cherries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190C.

2. Grease a Swiss roll pan and line it with non stick baking paper.

3. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites and sugar on high speed till stiff peak. Set aside.

4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolk and sugar till thick and creamy. Add in milk and oil, then sift in the flour and cocoa powder. Mix until even.

5. Add in 1/3 of the stiff egg white mix into the egg yolk mixture to lighten it.

6. Then slowly and gently fold in the rest of the beaten egg white in batches.

7. Pour into the baking pan. Tap pan to expel big air bubbles.

8. Turn the oven down to 160C.

9. Bake for 12 minutes.

10. Let it cool just slightly in pan, then turn it over onto a large rectangle of non stick baking paper on top of a cake rack to cool until it’s safe to handle.

11. Peel off the lining paper. While still hot, gently and loosely roll the sponge with the aid of the rectangle of baking paper.

12. Let it cool in the rolled up position.

13. In the meantime, beat the cream with Kirsch and icing sugar till stiff.

14. When cool, unroll the sponge, spread with the beaten cream.

15. Sprinkle on the cherries, and roll it up again.

16. Wrap it in the baking paper and leave in the fridge for an hour before cutting.