Banana, Sultana and Choc Chip Muffins #FODMAP

Yesterday I was very lucky to spend it attending a full day workshop on Quality Improvement for healthcare, which working for the NHS as part of a project to improve patient safety it was super beneficial and very interesting. I am really lucky to work with a great bunch - and a great Trust which is committed to improving quality to benefit both us staff and patients. I knew the provided sandwich lunch would be a no go on FODMAP but I had planned ahead and took some leftover baked millet & veggies. However, the hardest part was in the afternoon when trays of amazing looking and smelling cakes appeared - there was glossy topped caramellos, fancy cupcakes and lots of other treats and not a single one was suitable! All I could think about was cake!!

So last night after dinner and still craving cake, I decided to try again with some FODMAP suitable baking, last weeks banana bread was not a huge hit but I decided to persevere with a the banana theme, mainly though as I had two very, very ripe ones to use up! After a rummage through my cookery books I dusted off a copy of 'the egg book'. Its not a book I've admittedly used very much but it does have a few good recipes inside... I chose the banana muffins recipe but tweaked it to be FODMAP friendly, also I increased the liquid to allow for the gluten free flour - which seems much thirstier, and changed the honey to maple syrup. I also had no ground almonds so subbed for ground rice too! Oh and I added some suitable dark chocolate chips and sultanas and left out the nutmeg!

The mixture looked quite sloppy and I easily filled 12 cases rather than the 10 stated! I didn't hold out much hope but was pleasantly surprised and it satisfied my cake longing! The resulting muffin was light and taste rather good even if they did stick super well to their paper cases! Oh and as ever I had great fun making a mess!

Make 12 muffins

225g gluten free plain flour (I used Dove's Farm)

3 tsp baking powder

25g ground rice

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

50g light soft brown sugar

2 large mashed bananas

2 large eggs

2 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

150ml soya milk, unsweetened

3 tbsp maple syrup

50g sultanas

50g dark chocolate chips (check labels for suitability)

Pre-heat oven to 190o

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ground rice together.

Separately mix together the eggs, banana, oil, milk and maple syrup. fold into the dry mixture gently and stir through the chocolate chips and sultanas, spoon into prepared muffin cases.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden and a skewer comes away cleanly

Banana Caramel Loaf Cake

A few weeks back, on holiday and staying with lovely family I'd had a rather lovely day out at River Cottage and despite being slightly tired from the driving, I spotted some ripe bananas in the fruit bowl and decided to do some experimental baking! To be honest most of my baking falls in the experimental category and with this I didn't look at any recipes, just used some loose baking knowledge and hoped for the best!! 

After a rummage through the cupboards (always a fun mystery and delight to use other people's kitchens and dishwashers!) I ended up making a rather delicious cake, which I am glad I vaguely scribbled down as the one slice that made it back to my home disappeared in about 30 seconds! Its sweet, lovely cinnamon smell whilst baking will make a tummy rumble and the cake fills that rumble very well! It was also very tasty cold sliced up!

Now I debated naming this cake recipe with the word Caramel in, because it doesn't... but I when you make up the cake batter its rather caramel like and if Dan Lepard can call his amazing muffins 'Chocolate custard muffins' without being chocolate custard then I decided I can too be loose with the terminology....!

See its caramel right?!

Makes 1 x 2lb loaf tin (I guess, its not my tin!)

Ingredients

100g salted butter
15g golden syrup
120g light soft brown sugar
1 large banana, sliced at a diagonal
2 large free range eggs
120g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp demerara sugar

Greasing spray or tin liner to prepare tin


Method:

Pre-heat oven to 160 fan/ 180 regular oven

In a saucepan, melt the butter, golden syrup and brown sugar until the sugar has melted and its slightly syrupy - about 6-7 minutes, put to one side

Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder together. Beat in the eggs then fold into the caramel mixture.

Pour half the mixture into the tin, place half the banana slices into a layer, pour over the remaining cake batter, then add the remaining banana slices as a layer, sprinkle over the demerara sugar and bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes away clean.

Eat with lashings of custard.

Linky to Sneaky Veg

Peanut Butter Oreo Crumble Cake

Biscuits, biscuits everywhere is pretty much the theme tune to the last few days! There has been bashing, blitzing, slicing and dicing testing out break-ability and of course a little tasting here and there too! If you are wondering why then it was a because I was a sent a few packets of some Special Edition Oreo's to play with. I do like a challenge and had good fun experimenting with them! Something I don't often get the chance to do as we flat-share and they were thankfully away for a few days whilst I destroyed the kitchen with crumbs and using nearly every bowl we own in the process!

**I have received product from Oreo for this post. It is an entry to the Foodies100 Wonderfilled recipe challenge sponsored by Oreo, which marks the launch of two exciting new flavours: Peanut Butter and Golden. The delicious new flavours are available in all major supermarkets at an RRP of £1.08. To find out more, visit www.facebook.com/oreo**

After a lot of scribbling and buying random kids sweets that never got used (I am sure won't hang around long once I declare to my boyfriend they can be eaten, shh!) I ended combining parts of other recipes I had been making for years, along with pure experimental madness! It paid off as this cake went down very well at work! Its my final week in my current job, and as a result I was requested to make lots of cake - they had chai tea fruit cake yesterday and today received this Oreo cake - the finale on Friday my renowned Sticky Toffee and Orange pudding! Next week is salad week!!

This cake has a soft, custard laced base sponge, topped with a banana and peanut puree, then crumbled up peanut butter Oreo's and oats, then a shiny chocolate glaze, oh and the requisite sprinkles of choice! I am tempted next time to add more banana to make a thicker layer but stick to two if you are are less persuaded by the idea! I roast my own peanuts (shelled from monkey nuts) as they taste better for baking and have no nasties, then grind them fresh to order - un-ground they will keep a fair few months in a cool air tight container. 

You will need a 8 " square pan, lined with parchment paper

Ingredients:

120g soft butter

130g golden caster sugar

2 medium eggs

50g wholemeal self raising flour

25g porridge oats

10 Peanut Butter Oreo's

100g plain flour

5 tsp custard powder

2 bananas, mashed

1 heaped tsp cornflour

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

20g roasted peanuts

pinch of sea salt

Glaze ingredients:

50g golden caster sugar

3 tbsp milk

20g cocoa

Pre-heat oven to 180o.

Sift together the flours, salt and custard powder. In a separate bowl cream together the butter, sugar and egg, fold in the dry mix. Spread over the base of the prepared lined pan.

Mix the cornflour with 2 tbsp water, add to a small saucepan and heat - stirring constantly, once bubbling add the vanilla, then stir in the bananas and cook for two minutes. Remove to one side.

Crush the Oreo's to small chunks, about 5cm at the biggest - I found the end of my wooden rolling pin most effective! Combine with the oats and put to one side.

Add the slightly cooled banana mix to the prepared sponge layer and smooth over. Top with the Oreo crumbs and press lightly down, bake in the middle of the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the sponge has cooked through.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the sugar and cocoa whisking until smooth and the sugar has melted, then whisk in the milk to form a smooth, thick sauce and simmer on a moderate heat for 2-3 minutes or until lovely and glossy.

Spoon the sauce over the cake, then decorate with sprinkles of choice and allow to cool fully in the tin.

There has been a few of us Foodies 100 bloggers taking part and some other Oreo related treats for you -

Peanut Butter and Golden Oreo Pudding from Fab Food 4 All

Peanut Butter Oreo Moon Rocks from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families

Oreo Nutella Ice Cream Cake from Kerry Cooks

White Chocolate Oreo Blondie Brownie from Ellie Bee Bakes

Slow Cooker White Chocolate Oreo Brownies from Baking Queen 74

Hidden Oreo Cupcakes from Sophie Loves Food

Peanut Butter Oreo Milkshake from Foodie Quine

Brandy & Marshmallow Brownies

We love brownies here, and this makes the 5th brownie recipe I have blogged, though there has been lots of experimental's in between! This one took inspiration from my Banana and Rum Brownies, though I had run of out rum this time and had to borrow my boyfriends rather lovely imported Brandy and due to lack of brown bananas's I upped the butter quantity a bit. Fortunately the experimentation worked and it resulted in a heavenly batch of brownies that didn't make it past the day! They were made for my friend M's birthday and were very well received at the party!

You will need a lined 8"square cake pan.

Ingredients:


100g butter
150g golden caster sugar
50g light brown muscavado sugar
115g plain chocolate, broken up
2 eggs
2 tbsp good brandy
1tbsp golden syrup
100g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate chunks
1/2 tsp baking powder

2 heaped tbsp mini marshmallows
1 large very ripe banana  mashed up


Pre-heat oven to 180o

1) Melt in a saucepan the butter, syrup and sugars. Stir in the cocoa and baking powder and remove from the heat.

2) Meanwhile mix the flour, egg, brandy and banana together. Fold into the melted chocolate mixture. Scatter over the chocolate chunks and stir lightly so they start to melt into the mixture.

3) Spoon into the lined pan, sprinkle over the mini marshmallows and press into the cake batter lightly and bake for 35-40 minutes - my oven is quite slow but modern ovens are faster! A skewer should come out fairly clean, not as clean as cake mix but enough to show its just cooked! It should be cracking slightly on top.

4) Leave to cool in the pan for ten minutes then transfer on the liner to a cooling rack. Place in an airtight container when cool.

The brownies were moist, chocolaty and are a definite keeper! Plus you can pretend they are healthy-ish with the banana addition! You can't really taste it but it just adds to the texture in a good way!

Lovely Layered Lemon Cake

Its been a few weeks of no baking, so it was time to come back with a bang! This was a fusion of a Delia lemon cake, but super charged with lashings of lemony cream! It vanished embarrassingly fast between 4 adults! I took mere scraps for my cake fiend friend at work! I have been also told I am most welcome to make again anytime soon...though as it is I've had to borrow a larger sized dress to attend a work summerball shortly, maybe I shouldn't make it quite so soon perhaps!

I followed a lemon cake I found online from Delia initially - though I misread slightly and added all the lemon's juice to the sponge - a happy accident really as I would do exactly the same second time around!  Also I cheated and bought a jar of lemon curd, no less than a classy jar of value lemon curd - it worked perfectly! Weirdly Delia's recipe on her site and the BBC one vary - after much puzzling it seems I used the bbc one! I have written it out to save confusion!

Serves 8:

Ingredients

175g self raising flour
175g soft butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 lemon, juiced and zested


Line two sandwich pans and grease the sides. (I love cake release!) Pre-heat oven to 180o

Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar into a mixing bowl of a mixer (or use electric hand whisk), add the butter, lemon juice and zest, then the eggs, then beat until creamy, and light.

Spoon even amounts into prepared trays and bake for 30-35 minutes or until lightly golden and cooked through. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin then transfer to a cooling rack until cold.

Slice both cakes horizontally (don't worry, icing holds a multitude of sins!)

Spread three of the layers with a generous lashing of lemon curd.

Filling:

300ml whipping cream

1/3 jar lemon curd

Whip the cream till starting to thicken, then beat in 3 heaped tbsp lemon curd until thickened and stands in fairly firm peaks. 

Spread over a third of the prepared lemon cream mixture for the three prepared layers, topping with the final sponge. 

Lastly make up the glace with:

4 heaped tbsp sifted icing sugar

one lemon, juiced and zested
Sprinkles optional of choice - I used these super cute mini lemon meringues!

Sift the icing sugar into  a bowl, stir in enough lemon juice to form a smooth consistency. Spoon over the top of the sponge, scatter over the zest and decorate as desired.

Allow to set before slicing.

Trust me - you want to bake this cake - you will win friends! Though this is bad as it also means you don't get to eat as much of it...! Its so light, and lemony, and oh oh oh, and can I really fit one more slice in?

Sweet Potato Brownies

Yes, I did cross the naughty but nice brownie border and introduced them to vegetables. Surprisingly they made great buddies, resulting in that slightly gooey, soft yet dense brownie feeling but with a surprisingly stingy amount of chocolate! Therefore I can pretend they are very slightly healthier than your regular brownies... oh and for the record, no they do not taste like vegetable matter! I also used some extra virgin coconut oil, which really also you can pretend is a full blown health food in its own right... (I will leave you to draw your own conclusions, I have never pretended to be a nutrition expert!)

On the night I baked these brownies I hadn't actually intended to bake but halfway through grating what seemed like a never ending sized monster sweet potato to make our veggie burgers, I thought hmmm...lets bake something... there are after all only so many sweet potato burgers one can eat for dinner! I had baked once before with sweet potato, with not so great results but this time was a winner! Now I won't lie you must enjoy the flavour of coconut as due to the coconut oil it does give off the aroma - but if you enjoy that, then you will love these brownies!!

Next time I think I will try steaming and then mashing the sweet potato, as to be honest grating is my least favourite kitchen chore! Let me know if you try it the mashed way!

Makes one square pan:

Ingredients:

220g sweet potato, grated
2 large eggs
130g coconut oil
150g self-raising wholemeal flour
100g light brown sugar
30g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate
25g white chocolate chunks
100g golden caster sugar
1 tbsp coconut nectar
1/2 tsp sea salt


Method:

1) Place the grated sweet potato in a bowl, cover with cling film and steam in the microwave for  minutes.

2) In a saucepan melt the coconut oil and sugars, and simmer on a medium heat for 5 minutes, then add the coconut nectar - it should sizzle a little add the dark chocolate and put to one side, stirring until melted. Pre-heat oven to 180o. 

3) In a bowl sift the flour, salt and cocoa together. Lightly beat the vanilla with eggs, and mix gently into the flour mix. Fold in the sweet potato, then the prepared chocolate sugar mix until just combined.

4) Line the pan with parchment paper, pour in the brownie batter and scatter over the white chocolate chunks.

5) Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes or so, or until cooked but still slightly springy to touch and a skewer comes out relatively clean.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before lifting onto a wire rack.

Cuts into 8 or so pieces depending on appetite!

My boyfriend gave them 10/10 and that was before he knew there was sweet potato in them!

As my brownies used a sneaky vegetable in the form of sweet potato I have sent them over to this months Fuss Free Flavours and Utterly Scrummy's Extra Veg linky, held at Veggie Desserts this month:

If you fancy some extra veg check out these fabulous recipes from some great bloggers:

Butternut Squash & Spelt Cake from Fab Food 4 All
Carrot Cake Muffins and Apple & Custard Lasagne from Foodie Quine
Sweet Potato and Ginger Cookies from Rough Measures
Courgette Muffins from Recipes from a Pantry

Vegan Baking Adventures with Marmalade and Sweet Potatoes...

Recently I was set a little challenge.. well a last minute game changing challenge even to make some cakes for my friends Animal charity stall – and the twist in that they needed to be Vegan! Now dairy free is easy, I make plenty with with oil or butter substitutes without breaking a sweat but eggless? The glue that binds the ingredients lovingly and makes them rise? That’s a whole new story to be written! I have once made some vegan muffins but I repeat the once part, they just didn’t do it for me. By some miracle, a little googling, an hour slowly losing the will to live in the shop trying to find the egg replacer stuff with no help from customer services - apparently it was in stock but the aisle was upstairs but upstairs is clothing etc so in other words no idea whatsoever, and eventually finding it myself in the racking above the special diets section, on tippytoes trying to grab the box I somehow pulled it off – it was not easy but I am quite proud that both cakes were most edible and didn’t lack in any areas flavour wise at all!

The first cake was made fairly on track with the base recipe for a sweet potato spice cake, though we made an alternative topping using some scary dairy less cream cheese (note do not sniff it!), icing sugar, marmalade and a little vanilla, oh and something new to me in being vegetable shortening, and a little vegan margarine. I have a unique selection of ingredients right now to use! The icing was a little runnier than I would of liked slicing it up but it did stay on mostly so that’s the main part! Overall the spicing of the cake was so tasty – fragrant clove, cinnamon and ginger worked in a glorious harmony together. Even the weird smelling frosting was rather tasty, resembling the slightly sour creamy like topping you get on carrot cake. The sprinkling of crystallized ginger and crunchy toasted hazlenuts finished it off perfectly.

The plan:

The Finished cake:

Second up was a really gorgeously moist chocolate orange and marmalade cake, topped with a gooey chocolate frosting I made with a little of the marmalade, some icing sugar, a squeeze of orange juice, the zest and a dash of cocoa powder. The marmalade was sent to me by Robertson's in a special edition Paddington Bear jar - I love marmalade and the jar vanished fast!

The sponge itself was adapted from a Nigella storecupboard chocolate cake recipe, which I jazzed up with my favourite Polish dark cocoa powder, half a fresh orange juiced and a scary new item to me known as egg replacer, mentioned at the top of this post! Somehow the magic worked and produced a gooey, almost brownie like chocolate orange heaven! I honestly feel like converting to camp no egg now it was so good! I will make it again, measuring this time what I did and post the recipe in full for you to enjoy!

So any tips out there for first time Vegan bakers? Its definitely something I will explore further and hopefully share my journey with you!

Banana Bread Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Every week despite our small household of two we go through a lot of eggs - from simple omelettes for supper to baking all sorts of lovely cakes or just a simple egg wash on something naughty but nice like a homemade sausage roll, and buying free range is the bare minimum of quality for us. Also with thanks to the Lion Quality Mark on the eggs we buy, it guarantees that they have been laid by hens within the UK, and are produced to the highest standards of food safety. Eggs are full of nutrition too so you can pretend that cake is healthy too! The egg white nutrition part in particular is protein rich, carb free and low in fat. Okay so yeah the rest of the cake is a maybe a bit more carby but its winter afterall and we need more insulation!

This gorgeous Banana Bread Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze makes no exception and naturally contained free range eggs, all date stamped with the Lion quality mark on them. It also means the eggs were stamped with a date, so I can tell how fresh they are, plus the laying hen has been vaccinated against salmonella. Something I really don't want to give to my loved ones along with a nice piece of cake! I was an 80's baby and only vaguely remember the news back then but what I do remember was Salmonella being all over the news, how fortunate we are now!

Moving on to the cake  the lovely Betty Ann from the Asian in America website gave me permission to post this recipe, after I had spotted it in her archives, that she had borrowed from a book – a fabulous sounding one called "Breakfast for Dinner" by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth. I really love how recipes that work get passed between people – as you know they are loved and by baking them for new people to love, you therefore spread the love around! Cake also equals happiness so not only are you spreading love you create happiness! Something this world is in short supply at times with so much sadness amongst us, we have to also remember there are good people too and that love will always win.

Also as its from an American website its in cups so apologies as I know for some this can be off-putting but I have translated the butter for you as I already own measuring cups and used them for the dry ingredients and converted the temperature. (I adore my Russian Doll ones and can highly recommend them!) I made a different icing compared to the original version, mainly as I forgot to buy cream during a bit of a daft moment in the the supermarket and I didn’t think the crème fraiche I had instead bought would be quite the same in the icing…also I used sultanas as the raisins have gone missing! I swear there was a bag in the pantry…think I need to have a good tidy up in there!

Anyway I digress – this cake was delicious! I adore the regular banana bread I have made a zillion times from the Avoca cookbook but after falling in love with my bundt tin all over again thanks to cake release spray from Dr Oetker, when this popped onto my laptop screen I knew it had to be my next bake! Miraculously for once my oven didn't ruin it too! (lots of issues!) Its bananary without being in ya face nananana and the little drizzle of chocolate icing completes it! I also got to sneak over some Christmas tree sprinkles too despite it only being October! It is of course also a fabulous way to use up neglected bananas!

*You will need a large bundt tin - mine has a 24cm base and is quite deep*

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

1 cup caster sugar

¾ cup Butter (171g)

2 large eggs

3 large bananas, mashed

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup milk

½ cup sultanas (or raisins)

Glaze:

4 heaped tbsp icing sugar

1 heaped tbsp dark cocoa powder (I always use a dark one from the local Polish shop)

Sprinkles of choice

Pre-heat oven to about 180o

Sift together the flour, salt, bicarb and baking powder.

In a mixer, unless you are feeling particularly strong cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, until well mixed. Mash the banana and add along with vanilla, mix again to just combine.

Add a third of the dry mix along with a third of the milk, and repeat until all mixed well. Stir through the sultanas and pour into the prepared bundt pan, smooth over.

Bake in the centre of the oven for about 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer comes away clean and its lightly golden on top. Your kitchen will smell rather lovely at this moment and you might want to dive in. But resist the urge, let it cool a little - say 10-15 minutes before releasing the sides of the pan/ turning onto a wire rack (will depend on your pan!). Allow to cool as long as you can endure before making the icing.

Sift together the icing sugar and cocoa, add a teaspoon of water a time until you have a desirable consistency and spoon over the cake. Add a nice scattering of sprinkles over the top of your choosing.

Ours lasted 24 hours. Probably would keep for a few days.

With heartfelt thanks to Betty Ann for sharing this wonderful bake, and in turn the original recipe keepers Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth for creating such a lovely treat!

Disclaimer: I was not paid to mention British Lion Eggs but its something I do really believe in and I received an electric egg boiler as a gift which I am slowly mastering!

Nectarine and Almond Yoghurt Cake slices

My dad turned up the other week with a silicon cake pan, my heart sunk a little admittedly as I already have way too many pans vs available space, plus it was silicon, which is not my most favourite bakeware item… however maybe, just maybe I am being swayed by the lure of silicon as I have to admit the cake slices came out perfectly from the pan, and it cleaned so easily for once! Something which had deterred me from others that would not clean for all the tea in China... Though I did admittedly give the pan a quick spray of Dr Oetker's cake release spray just to be safe!

Anyway, Sunday night came around and I was getting a little fidgety in the kitchen, impatiently waiting for something else in the oven to eventually decide to bake (it does help if you properly convert the cooking temperature from overseas recipes!) and my mind started wandering.. bad timing as I actually had a job interview the next morning and instead of reading up and rehearsing things to say other than 'hire me' in a squeaky voice, I was erm sorting through the baking cupboard and peeling manky leathery skinned nectarines – I think procrastibaking is the best term here!! I must of got some rehearsing done as I actually did get hired! Somewhat of a relief after having to change career due to my wonky knees and a few months of worry!

Now referring back to the manky leathery skinned nectarines, I really hate wastage but all four of them had ripened at the same time and I just didn’t manage to eat them when they were just right, you know that special time between 02.30 and 02.31 on alternate Tuesdays! I half heartedly peeled them and whilst they were a little mushy they were not fortunately mouldy and I decided to bake something with them instead… the cake pan happened to also still be in the kitchen and I thought well sod it, lets have a go…what's the worst that can happen...

And I am glad I did, as in the process of rooting through the cupboards I discovered a forgotten bottle of some rather lovely bitter almond essence and they worked a dream together! It has a lovely, almondy amaretto like taste and a little goes a long way! 

Ingredients:

125g caster sugar

80g soft butter/ margarine

140g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp flaked almonds

2 eggs weighing 120g

50g greek yoghurt

½ tsp Bitter almond essence

2 ripe nectarianes, skinned, de-stoned and chopped into small  pieces

Cream butter and sugar in a mixer. Beat in eggs and essence, then the yoghurt, flour and baking powder. Stir through the nectarine chunks.

Spoon into your prepared mold or cake tin, sprinkle the almonds over and bake for 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned and a skewer comes away clean.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes in the tin/ mold and gently transfer the slices onto a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container when fully cooled down.

The resulting slices were light and airy, the gorgeous aroma of almonds hits your nose as soon as you open the tin and they roughly lasted about 24 hours! I am sure you could substitute the nectarines for any other stone fruit successfully too.

As my cake slices used up the last two, slightly leathery but not quite mouldy nectarines up and the last few spoonfuls of some yoghurt, its my second entry into Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary's 'No Waste Food challenge' which is being hosted by the lovely Vohn's Vittles for October! You can see my other entry - a fruit gratin here.

Speculaas Glazed Bundt Cake

Its amazing how a bit of random internet browsing, whilst making something else has led to me making repeatedly the Soured Cream Bundt cake that I blogged back in July from BBC Good Food. It really has become one of my favourite bakes, in fact it must be at least the sixth one now, including baking one on holiday at my Auntie's house in her very pretty tin (note to self: smuggle in suitcase next visit!): 

Anyway as much as we all love the original version, I am rather fond of a new spice in my larder in the form of Speculaas as proclaimed back in August and wondered if the two should meet... I am one for indecision at the best of times but it turned out to be a most wonderful meeting and they are now best of friends. Just call me Mrs Matchmaker!

To facilitate their meet, I decided to add a little of the Speculaas mix to both the cake batter and the glaze, which worked a treat. It came out a glorious colour - this is before the glaze has fully set, then it becomes a bit more crystallized and even more delicious! Patience is a virtue!

Also though I do love the original glaze, it makes lots, so with this version I scaled it back slightly and it was just perfect. Sweet, fragrant crackle encasing a heavenly soft, sweet scented sponge. Really it doesn’t get much better than this.

Ingredients:

125g softened butter

180g caster sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

180g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g sour cream

½ tsp Speculaas spice mix

Pinch salt

Glaze:

80g caster sugar

40g butter

3tbsp water

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp speculaas spice mix

Optional – sprinkles of choice to decorate

Method:

Cream together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy. Your mixer will do the hard work for you if not its time to flex those biceps!

Add a little of the egg at a time until its all combined along with the vanilla.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, speculaas and mix half of it into the cake batter, along with half the sour cream until combined. Add the remaining flour mix and sour cream and beat well until all nicely combined. 

Spoon into your prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden, risen and a skewer comes away cleanly. Cool for at least 5 minutes before carefully upturning onto a cooling rack and allowing to cool fully before glazing.

Place the glaze ingredients into a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 3-4 minutes until it is starting to reduce and thicken. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before painting or spooning over the cake. Allow the first layer to set slightly before repeating with the remaining mixture. I quite enjoy this stage, its a proper test of my patience - be calm, take your time and enjoy the gentleness.

Allow your glazed cake to set for a good few hours - overnight is best if you can resist its lure that long.

Coconut Brownies (Dairy free and relatively healthy too!)

Going back a little while and slightly off tangent but do bear with me here - I decided to look into having my eyesight corrected, and after the initial assessment I couldn't drive for a while due to my eyes having had dye put in them, nor see very far for a short while and so I had to keep local and stumbled across a health food shop, where a lady was promoting a particular brand of coconut oil – it was the first I heard of it – and we ended up having quite a chat about its benefits both nutritionally and cosmetically and.. as it was quite expensive and I was about to part with a rather large sum of money for the surgery I didn't purchase any at the time but it was lodged in my mind ever since.. though if I recall correctly I did leave with a packet of coconut flakes which were a little more purse friendly and provided the topping for these brownies! And in case you are wondering, yes I did have my eyes 'done' and I am very happy with the results!

Coconut Brownies

Moving on, a few weeks ago I received a box of lovely coconut based goodies from Cocafina.  they have a delicious range of all things healthy and coconut based, and following this post I have a little giveaway of some coconuty treats for you so don't forget to come back soon! 

From my box of Cocafina goodies, I used their coconut nectar and coconut oil to make these bad boy brownies. Or should they be greedy girl goodies as they are technically good for you? These happen to be dairy free too so are good for certain dietary restrictions. There is also fruit in them too so you can almost pretend they are good for you, in the form of mashed ripe banana to replace some of the usual butter, in fact there is no butter at all in these – I used just 60g of coconut oil instead for the whole batch! As a result they are certainly lower in fat than regular brownies, always a win! 

To replace the sugar I used their Coconut nectar, which is extracted from the sap of coconut flower buds, its lower GI than compared to regular brown sugar – 35 compared to brown sugar at 64, so far less spiking to your blood sugars. Have I sold them to you yet?

Not really knowing how the coconut nectar was going to affect the mixture, both sweetness and texture wise as I normally melt the sugar, which is more dense – and coconut nectar is the already consistency of maple syrup, nor the coconut oil in lieu of butter, I decided to base these on my banana and rum brownies and hope for the best mostly! My oven is on the blink, and everything baked now gets cooked at what the oven dial says is 210o which in reality is about 170o or thereabouts!

For my first proper experiment they came out pretty darn good. A little fudginess to the texture, crunchy coconut flakes on top with a delicate coconut note mingled with the slightly bitter chocolate. They were popular at work and everyone was intrigued as to what both coconut oil and nectar were, I should of left a card with them I repeated myself so much! They are best left a few hours before diving in to allow the coconut on top to soften and the flavour's to mingle together.

Coconut Brownies

Ingredients:

60g coconut oil

200mg coconut nectar

100g dark chocolate

2 large eggs

100g plain flour

20g cocoa powder 

1 tsp baking powder

2 medium, ripe mashed bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat oven to 175/ 180o depending on your oven. Prepare a lined 8” square baking tin.

In a saucepan, weigh out the coconut oil, coconut nectar and heat until melted, stir in the chocolate and leave for a couple of minutes to cool slightly.

Mix together the flour, banana, vanilla, egg, baking powder and cocoa powder. Stir through the melted chocolate mixture until just combined and pour into a lined 8” square baking tin.

Bake for about 35 minutes or until it bounces to touch and the kitchen smells like you are in chocolate heaven – it’s a fine line between well cooked and raw so best to check with a toothpick – if minimal crumb comes out its ready. Cool for 15 minutes or so in the tin before placing on a rack to cool fully.

I have sent my bake over to Casa Costello's Bake of the Week post:

Many thanks to Cocafina for my delicious samples! 

All images and content are the property of Anne's Kitchen and must not be used without prior consent.

Soured Cream Bundt cake with Butter Glaze

Oh oh oh sweet dreams are made of these.. and who am I to disagree!! Not meeeee! I didn't find anyone either who disagreed! This is not my own original bake - apart from adding the sugar confetti its entirely borrowed from a BBC Good Food recipe. 

This cake was one of those that you make purely out of using up things, in this case a tub of sour cream but are not really sure if you would like it – I must admit the whole soured cream cake thing didn’t exactly get me salivating but I am a changed woman – this cake is so gorgeously vanilla laced with a sweet glaze heaven and it was that good despite making it on Wednesday I just had to make another one on the Saturday to satisfy our cravings! Its like floating on a sweet scented vanilla cloud and one you will want to repeat.

My neighbour and friend C was a gem and I must give her thanks here – my oven, is well temperamental, and she let me use hers even though it was 9.40pm on a weeknight! I did chance it and made the second one in my oven – with the assistance of the oven thermometer – our oven only seems to reach a magical figure of 170o at the most – even if it says you have put in on 210o and my housing landlord think the oven works the engineer said ‘because the elements come on’ and not even bribery with cake will budge them. Sad days. Anyhow it did fortunately work so it’s a well tested cake – both for fast fan assisted and slow ancient think about it later ovens!

The recipe calls for a 6 cup bundt pan. I have no idea what size my bundt tin is, just remember than it came from Ikea years ago and converts between a bundt and large cake tin, I think it’s a little bigger than theirs but it still fortunately worked!

I must admit that in the past I have been a little put off using the bundt tin, purely as trying to remove the cooked product has resulted in breakages and tears however I have a trick up my flour coated sleeves – Dr Oetker’s Cake Release spray I was sent to try. Okay I did break the first batch very slightly as it came out with so much ease it took me by surprise but the 2^nd batch I was more cautious and it worked a treat!

Ingredients:

125g softened butter

180g caster sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

180g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g sour cream

Pinch salt

Glaze:

100g caster sugar

50g butter

4tbsp water

¼ tsp vanilla extract

Optional – sprinkles of choice. I adore these sugar confetti and used in both of my bakes!

Method:

Cream together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy. Your mixer will do the hard work for you.

Add a little of the egg at a time until its all combined along with the vanilla.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and mix half of it into the cake batter, along with half the sour cream until combined. Add the remaining flour mix and sour cream and beat well until all nicely combined. 

Spoon into your prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden, risen and a skewer comes away cleanly. Cool for at least 5 minutes before carefully upturning onto a cooling rack and allowing to cool fully before glazing.

Place the glaze ingredients into a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for about 3-4 minutes until it is starting to reduce and thicken. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before paining or spooning over the cake. Allow the first layer to set slightly before repeating with the remaining mixture.

Allow your glazed cake to set for a good few hours - overnight is best if you can resist its lure that long.

 Many thanks to Lucy at Citizen & Dr Oetker for the Cake Release sample!

Boozy Gooseberry and Currant Pudding Cake

Its been a while since I did a baking post so its high time I made something sweet and baked for you! This cake has since been made again since the original creation - just to double check of course that it was still delicious - fortunately it was! Its a really comforting, homely pudding and served with lashings of custard to complete it! B declared it 10/10 which now leaves my next bake quite scary to compete!

When I think of gooseberries I think of my brother. Growing up there was an assortment of fruit bushes in the garden including a gooseberry bush, and he delighted as a child in throwing the prickly little fruits at my bare legs!! Anyway fortunately the gooseberry in this cake involves a jar of gooseberry jam so its very safe to prepare! My dad bought the jam from a farm shop a while back and I found it hiding in the fridge, not very sure what to do with it as it was a little bit sharp on its own... A week or so beforehand I had made a similar and delicious cake without the jam part which was very tasty and then my brain started scheming and in went the jam.....

The currants were leftover from making hot cross buns - is it me or are they really small? I was honestly surprised upon opening the bag up! I'd never bought them before admittedly and it was faintly amusing to me for a while! Lastly the other key ingredient is sweet wine - I really dislike sweet wine but a friend was throwing it out as she didn't like it either and as I hate waste and thought it could be re-born at a later date....waste not want not.. 

As I was serving this cake in the baking dish, I opted to use my well loved pie dish - and it worked a treat! Its an ancient but still lovely Le Creuset one I got free when taking out a magazine subscription a long, long time ago and washes up a treat! They don't make this model anymore but guessing its still the 24cm size.

Ingredients:

60g dried currants

4tbsp sweet wine

2 large eggs - apx 140g

140g caster sugar

140g soft margarine/ butter

100g gooseberry jam

160g self rasising flour

1 tsp baking powder (I used Dr Oetker's sachets - so easy to use!)

1 tbsp demerara sugar

Start by placing the currants and wine in a small bowl to soak - at least 15 minutes. Pre-heat oven to 180o.

Grease the pie dish with a little butter using a bit of kitchen paper

*I use a mixer for baking as my arms protest otherwise - if by hand do the same order*

Cream together the butter and sugar until fully combined and soft. Add the eggs and beat for a few seconds, with the mixer on low gently tip in the flour and baking powder, followed by the jam and soaked currants with any remaining wine until its all combined but don't over beat it! Sprinkle over the demerara sugar - this gives a nice little crunch when baked!

Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish and bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes away clean and its all lovely and golden on top.

Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving with lots of lovely custard!

As my cake used up neglected jam, leftover currants and unwanted wine I've entered this in Elizabeth's No Waste Food Challenge, held this month by Jibber Jabber. I am hosting in July and this is a great way of making sure you don't throw anything away!

Chocolate and Mincemeat Pudding Cake

Dear Readers. I have a secret. Well not anymore really ..maybe I shouldn’t post this at all as next year I might miss out.. hmm.. well I am sure there is enough to go round…. I digress… so you know everyone buys mincemeat for Christmas? ....

...Well after all the tinsel is packed away, the stray confetti occasionally showing its shiny face and you kinda know deep down that you should be looking at healthy recipes but secretly still eating the last of the endless tin of chocolates, there is normally a lot of mincemeat leftover… and if you are eagle eyed like me then you might just pick up a bargain – I managed to get 4 jars of mincemeat for a paltry 10p a jar! 

I love the stuff and could eat it all year round happily but mince pies in January feels a little bit wrong, however there is so much more you can do with it! And this gorgeous cake is no exception. B gave it 8/10 and had a wedge and seconds of it, I agree and if I had to change anything I might add a cheeky jot of rum or something like amaretto to finish it off! Saying that we both just thought a little stem ginger wouldn’t go amiss – I can see the next version being concocted soon! Custard is an excellent accompaniment!

Bananas may be a bit of a surprise ingredient but I bake with them a lot and it helps add moisture and keep the cake that way for a few days – we are having family over later in the week and wanted to get ahead! (despite B’s best efforts to demolish it!) Also the bananas were about to march their own way out of the fruit bowl so was high time they got disposed of well!

Ingredients

I tsp vanilla extract

150g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

120g golden caster sugar

2 medium eggs (approx 120g)

120g soft margarine/ butter

2 tbsp flaked almonds

2 heaped tbsp + 100g mincemeat

2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

2 small very ripe bananas, mashed

Beat the sugar and butter until fluffy, beat in the eggs, banana and vanilla, stir through the 2 tbsp of mincemeat. Fold in the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix until fully combined and you have a light batter

Place the 100g of mincemeat in a microwaveable bowl and warm to melt the goo. Scatter the almonds over the bottom of a lined sandwich pan, and sprinkle over the melted mincemeat evenly. 

Top with the batter and bake for 45-50 minutes at 180o or until cooked through and a skewer comes away clean. 

Allow to cool for 15 minutes in the tine, then carefully turn onto your serving plate:

And after a gentle press all over, peel away very carefully the liner – use a fork to push back any rogue almonds!

And voila! The picture doesn't really do it justice but it was beautifully glossy on top!

Enjoy!