Cake day

 The Autumn weather makes me bake....

No one is complaining 

My latest cake of the moment is a simple pound cake, I have played around with a few recipes and this is what I have settled on.

Everyone is a little fussy in our house, some like plain and no fruit others like fruit but

only cherry.... you get the picture.

Fusspot central - all my own fault. 

Luckily this is a simple recipe and a smallish cake so making a few doesn't really bother me.

 They keep well in an airtight container and my school morning teas are sorted for the week.

left to right
Rhubarb with lime zest, Blueberry, Cherry - On top is plain

Pound cake

Ingredients for one cake

1.5 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

120g butter

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

1 cup caster sugar

2 large eggs

125ml milk

*Fruit of your choice

Pre heat oven to 160C fan forced

I like to get all my ingredients measured and in separate bowls ready to go, this helps if I am making 3/4 cakes at a time,

Beat the butter and lemon rind together in a mixer for a few minutes - you want the butter pale and creamy.

Add in the cup of sugar, beating for a few minutes.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time.

Then add the vanilla paste.

Add in the eggs one at a time and beat until the mix is pale and smooth. 

alternatively add the flour/baking powder and milk - mixing well.

Grease and line a loaf tin

pour the cake batter into the tin. 

*If you are adding fruit to the cake I pour in half of the batter and sprinkle the fruit in and then pour in the rest of the cake batter.

bake for 60 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 15 or so minutes before turning the cake out.

Let me know how you go

Xx Siobhan 

back on the tools

It feels like an age since I had my big guns camera out and taken some real photos........ I have been preoccupied with writing, family and a little teaching/ sewing.

I was at a wedding last weekend out in the country and my husband was the official photographer - he let me assist! 

The hall was beautiful and between the bride and event stylist it was filled with great photo opportunities.

The two pics below are actually from the day after the wedding when the hall was being cleaned up. Such pretty autumn light.

Take a look at Instagram for more pics.

We stayed in a beautiful house at Canowindra called Marlow House.
I will get around to posting more pictures of the house - It was beautiful!

The quilt in the picture below is from my book By The Block - which is due out any day now.

Yes I did bring some book quilts with me on my weekend away .....

I was lucky enough to score a huge basket of figs from a friends farm - thank you farmers Mel & Percy! 

I used all the very squishy ones straight away and made some burnt fig and vanilla jam, the medium very ripe ones I made a cake and the ones that had a few days in them I shared with my baking friend 

The fig jam was easy-ish

I had 2kgs figs with 1kg white sugar and one vanilla bean.

I cooked them on a high heat, stirring until it reached 104c and put it into sterilised jars. The 2kgs made around 5 jars.

The cake was a bit of an experiment that thankfully was yum and worked!

Fig, almond and maple Syrup cake

perfect for this coming Easter weekend

I used a 24cm/9.5 inch spring form tin

  

Ingredients

   2 cups skin on almonds 

4 eggs - separated

    1 cup caster sugar 

1 tsp Vanilla paste  

1/4 cup vegetable oil   

1 teaspoon baking powder   

1/4 cup maple syrup, and more to sprinkle on top   

2 1/2 cups mashed ripe soft fresh figs*

1/2 cup plain flour  

pinch teaspoon salt 

 5 - 8 figs sliced for the top

*trim the top off the fig and mash up with a fork in a bowl

Method

Line your spring form tin with baking paper on the bottom and sides and set aside till needed.

Roast the almonds in a hot oven until they begin to colour- usually around 5-10 minutes(be careful not to burn them)

Put the warm almonds in a food processor and pulse till its a course mix - not fine like almond meal, I like my almond mix to still have almond chunks in the cake and give it a nutty texture.

Turn your oven down to 180c fan forced

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale and creamy, add in the vanilla paste, oil, maple syrup and mashed figs - mix until just combined.

Using a clean bowl whisk the egg whites till stiff peaks form.

add all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and almonds) to the wet ingredients. Gently fold with a spatula.

Add a third of the stiff egg whites to the cake batter and fold through carefully - Then add the rest.

Spoon the cake batter into your prepared lined tin, tap the tin on the bench to let the cake batter settle. Arrange your sliced figs on top of the cake batter and bake for 90 minutes - check your cake after 40 minutes to double check its doing ok.All ovens can be a little different.

The cake will be very dark on the outside but not burnt when it is cooked, and a wooden skewer inserted into the middle should come out clean. Whilst the cake is still warm pour on some extra maple syrup. Let the cake cool completely in the tin before you remove it.

 Served with some double cream and 

a pot of tea = Heaven

Let me know if you bake it and how you go

Xx Siobhan Rogers

The Carrot Cake experiment........

I've been home working in the shed and on the computer - the usual I cant show you what I'm working on business...............

Not showing people what I'm up to is a bit tricky for me - I'm not great at keeping quiet.

Anyway I can show you what I baked today!

The cool autumn weather has gotten me very bake-y (I know thats not a word)

The other day I discovered much to my horror that my children didn't know what a carrot cake was!? I'm talking about teenagers..... not toddlers.

Today I was on a mission to show them what they had missed - moist yummy sweet carrot cake with cream cheese icing - My favourite as a kid. My Nana baked it all the time.

Its one of those nice and easy throw everything together and bake cakes. 

 Serves 12
530 Calories/ 2217KJ per serve (including icing)

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of bicarb of soda
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 & 1/2 cups raw sugar (any sugars fine)
4 eggs
200ml vegetable oil
400g crushed canned pineapple drained
3 cups grated carrot (I used 7 small carrots)
1/2 cup almond meal

23cm or 9 inch round springform cake tin greased and lined.

Oven set at 170C (not fan forced)
or 330F on an electric oven

Using two bowls
put all the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another bowl (inc carrot). Mixing the wet ingredients.
Place the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and with a wooden spoon stir to combine.

Pour the stiff mixture into your greased and lined cake tin, tap it on the bench a few times to get the mixture flat.

Bake for 50/ 60 minutes - test with a wooden skewer, its ready when the skewer comes out clean.


leave to cool in tin

Lime Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients 

250grams Cream Cheese

1 cup icing sugar mixture

1 Lime rind finely grated and juice

Beat the cream cheese until soft. Add the rind/ juice of the one lime and 1 cup of icing sugar mixture. Beat until smooth.

When the cake has cooled completely spread the icing on top of the cake.

The verdict

My husband and I loved it - It was beautiful moist and the cream cheese zesty icing.... Heaven 

BUT

The kids weren't convinced .....

Looks like I should have introduced it at an earlier age. 

Well I am off 

Let me know what you think of carrot cake?!

Xx Siobhan 

Polka Dot Cake

We have had another Birthday in our household!

My youngest turned seven yesterday.

Gosh time goes by so quickly......

Thanks to Pinterest I found a polka dot cake

The original recipe is here

I didn't follow all the instructions ..... for many reasons

first one was because I was running out of time and had to use the ingredients in my cupboard - the other was the recipe was written for US baking not Australian....

I had no idea what pudding mix was??

or flour baking spray etc

I think a trip out to Costco before baking would have helped me!!

Anyway my first attempt went ok,

could have been better but Ms 7 was happy enough. 

The cake pop balls took four attempts, I was ready to give up. 

The batter had to be very thick and the pan needed to be sprayed and flour coated for the cakes to come out of the pan - I made the presumption that it was a non stick pan and I could get away with just using baking spray.... and it stuck like no tomorrow.

MUST USE BAKING SPRAY & FLOUR

so after my fourth attempt I had some colourful cake pop cake balls  

My second mistake was making butter cakes as the main cake, I thought I needed a moist dense cake - I was worried about the polka dots drying out.

It did work BUT as a double layered cake it was too much cake - a lighter fluffy cake would have been better.

I iced the cake with a simple butter cream icing - I used four times the quantity in the recipe to cover the whole cake and the middle.

To keep it simple I used chocolate freckles to decorate the outside.

Not the best picture in the world, this is from my Instagram feed - as you can see the polka dots worked.... but more Polka Dots would have been good. 

I thought I packed them in pretty tight in the cake tin, I had around 15 polka dots in each layer. I think I was being a little too careful and should have crammed in a few more. 

So Voila - Ms 7's birthday cake 

I'd love to know if you have any tips or tricks? 

Xx Siobhan