Fluffy coconut cupcakes

I’ve been waiting to make these for some weeks and have finally got around to it! They had me at the title – fluffy coconut cupcakes – what’s not to love?

We all have flavours that grab our attention if they appear in the description of a cake or dessert and coconut is certainly one of mine. Others would be vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, apple, pear, custard...ok, so there are quite a few!


The cupcake recipe is different to others I’ve made as it has less egg but uses buttermilk. This gave a light, crumbly texture and it suited the coconut very well. Because of the low butter and egg content the cupcakes are pale, so I recommend using the skewer test for ‘done-ness’.

I love the colour of these; they are so clean and wholesome looking. Yes, I know...I need to get out more. But at least some of you must see what I mean? Anyone?


The buttercream, the observant among you will have noticed, is not smooth. This is because it contains desiccated coconut. It struck me as a halfway house between buttercream and coconut ice, the unashamedly sugary sweet.


Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:

125g self raising flour
25g desiccated coconut
115g caster sugar
125ml buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon coconut extract
65g unsalted butter, melted

For the coconut icing:

280g icing sugar
70g desiccated coconut
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1-3 tablespoons hot water


How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.
- Combine the flour, coconut and sugar in a bowl and make a well in the centre.
- Into the well pour the buttermilk, egg, coconut extract and melted butter and mix until all the ingredients are combined.
- Spoon the mixture evenly into the paper cases.
- Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean. Mine took 18 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
- You can make the cupcakes a day in advance if you store them in an airtight tin. Make the icing on the day though.
- Now make the icing: place all the ingredients, except the hot water, in a bowl and mix together.
- Add just enough hot water to make a spreadable consistency.
- Spread the icing over each cupcake and decorate according to taste – I used wafer roses.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Brian Turner’s ginger cake

Brian Turner is one of the most well-known chefs in the UK, and has provided this recipe to Shelter’s cake time fund raising appeal. The idea behind the appeal is that you host a tea party and raise money for Shelter, the homeless charity. I like Brian Turner because he cooks what I call ‘proper food’ and never uses dirty words like “low fat” or “low calorie”.


I wasn’t going to make this cake as it uses buttercream and as I was also making cupcakes with buttercream it seemed like possible overkill. When I mentioned this to the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) there was a pause, until she said with a somewhat incredulous tone to her voice, “but you can’t have enough buttercream”. Which of course is true...so I made the ginger cake!


Ginger cake really benefits from being made in advance; it matures and gets stickier and richer. This cake was lovely as it had the depth of flavour you want from a ginger cake but didn’t have a stodgy texture. The plain cake was beautiful on its own; I sometimes find that ginger cakes sink a little as they cool – this one didn’t:


I haven’t made a typo with the quantities of icing sugar and butter for the buttercream. Unusually, this recipe uses more butter than sugar which is in stark contrast to most other buttercream recipes. The buttercream was – unsurprisingly – buttery and it worked really well the intense flavour of the ginger.

Here’s the cake ready for serving; bonus marks go to those of you who spot my Kevin Spacey mug peeking around the tea cosy:


Ingredients:
For the cake:
230g unsalted butter
285g light muscovado sugar
3 tablespoons golden syrup
350ml boiling water
450g self raising flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger (or more if you dare!)
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
Splash of milk

For the buttercream:
170g icing sugar
230g unsalted butter
100g drained stem ginger, chopped finely

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/325°F/Gas mark 3.
- Line 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.
- In a saucepan melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup together with the boiling water.
- Sieve the flour into the melted ingredients along with the ground ginger and stir until combined.
- Blend the bicarbonate of soda with a dash of milk and then add to the saucepan. Beat well to ensure the bicarbonate of soda is evenly distributed.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Mine took 48 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.
- The cake can be made a day or two in advance and stored in an airtight container.
- To make the buttercream place the icing sugar and butter into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Stir in most of the chopped ginger, retain the rest for decorating the cake.
- Cut the cake in half horizontally and spread a generous half of the buttercream over the bottom layer.
- Replace the top half of the cake and spread the remaining buttercream on top.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Vanilla and chocolate sponge

Today is Mothering Sunday and what better way to celebrate than with cake?


As I’ve mentioned before, the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) is rather partial to both Genoese sponge and Swiss meringue buttercream so I used these components to create a cake for her special day. The fact that I also like both these components is completely irrelevant......


The cake is far simpler and quicker to make than it perhaps looks. You need only make one batch of batter and then divide it in two. By adding cocoa powder to one half you get an impressive layer cake. It is rather tall:


Before you all start accusing me of breaching my own commandments, I should point out that the flowers are made out of wafer and 100% edible.


Happy Mothering Sunday CCM!


Ingredients:
For the cake:

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature

225g caster sugar

4 eggs
225g self raising flour

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1-2 tablespoons milk

For the Swiss meringue buttercream:

4 egg whites

250g caster sugar

250g unsalted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/325°F/Gas mark 3.
- Line two 20cm loose bottomed sandwich tins with baking paper.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Do not skimp on this stage as it’s the key to a lovely sponge.
- Gradually add the eggs and flour until fully combined and you have a smooth, thick batter.
- Add the vanilla and stir well.
- Divide the batter in two; I did this by counting spoonfuls but you can weigh the batter if you wish to be more exact.
- Place one half into one of the prepared tins.
- Beat the cocoa powder into the other half of batter. If this dries the batter, add the milk as necessary.
- Spoon the cocoa batter into the remaining tin.
- Bake for approx 25-30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Mine took 30 minutes.
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tins before removing from the tins and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
- The sponges can be made the day before and stored in airtight containers.
- Now make the swiss meringue buttercream. Place the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir pretty much constantly to prevent the egg from cooking.
- After 5-10 minutes, when the sugar has dissolved (when you cannot see any crystals on the back of the spoon), remove the bowl from the pan of simmering water and whisk until the meringue has puffed up and the mix is cool.
- Add the butter and vanilla extract to the meringue and whisk until the butter has been completely incorporated into the meringue. At first it will look a disaster – it will collapse and look curdled but don’t worry! Stop when the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy.
- Cut each sponge through horizontally and place one piece on the serving plate.
- Spread a layer of buttercream on top and then put a piece of sponge of the other colour on top. Repeat this until you have all four layers of sponge sandwiched together.
- Use the remaining buttercream to cover the top and sides.
- Decorate as required.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Steamed rhubarb pudding

There are few textures lighter than a steamed sponge pudding and I am rather partial to it. As Spring seems to be finally upon us the opportunities for steamed puds are dwindling therefore I had to sneak this one in before it was too late!

This photo shows the light, open texture of a steamed sponge:


What I liked about this recipe was that it uses the rhubarb in two ways: some is steamed with the sponge and the rest is lightly stewed to serve with the pud. It created a rather colourful dish.


The pinkness of forced rhubarb always pleases me – it’s such a strong and happy colour.


I tried to keep the lightly stewed rhubarb a little tarter than I normally would in order that it contrasted with the sweet sponge and custard. It was a really nice combination as the acidity cut through the sweetness.


Ingredients:

For the rhubarb:
500g forced rhubarb
Caster sugar, according to taste

For the pudding:
3 tablespoons golden syrup
100g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
100g self raising flour
50ml milk

How to make:

- Start by stewing the rhubarb: cut the rhubarb into small chunks and place in a large pan over a low-medium heat.
- Add about 4 tablespoons of sugar and stir. It will take a few minutes for the rhubarb to start collapsing.
- When the rhubarb is soft, but not totally collapsed remove about 5-6 tablespoons of chunks and put to one side.
- Taste the remaining rhubarb and add sugar according to your taste.
- After approximately 10 minutes the rhubarb will be soft and partially collapsed. Remove from the heat and put to one side. I like it with a few chunks left in it.
- Now prepare the pudding: grease a 1.5 litre pudding basin with butter.
- Place the chunks you removed from the stewed rhubarb into the bottom of the basin and cover with the golden syrup.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs, vanilla and self raising flour.
- Beat in the milk.
- Spoon the batter into the basin carefully, so as not to dislodge the rhubarb. The basin will not be full as the pudding needs room to rise.
- In your steamer, ensure that you have enough boiling water to come halfway up the basin. I used a steamer basket, so my sponge didn’t sit in the water. Both ways work just as well.
- Cover the top of the basin with a centrally pleated piece of baking paper, and another of foil.
- Secure with string and steam for approximately 1 ½ hours. A little more won’t cause any harm.
- Remove the foil and paper and run a knife around the edge of the pudding before turning out.
- Turn the pudding out onto a lipped plate, in order to ensure that you don’t lose any of the juices.
- In a saucepan gently warm the stewed rhubarb.
- Serve the pudding straight away with hot custard and the stewed rhubarb.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Chocolate tart

A writer called Shakespeare (you may have heard of him, he enjoyed some success) once wrote, “What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet” and while I understand that, I can’t help feeling that calling this ‘chocolate tart’ undersells it somewhat. This is the smoothest, richest, scrummiest chocolate tart ever!


The filling is like a melt in the mouth, velvety smooth chocolate truffle. You can make the chocolate as bitter or mild as you like; I used two-thirds milk chocolate (Green and Blacks 34% cocoa) and one-third dark (Green and Blacks 70% cocoa) to strike a good balance.


The recipe is adapted from a wonderful book I recently came across called “Chocolate” by Sverre Saetre. I haven’t even looked through all the recipes yet but this one leapt out and demanded to be made; I can be very obedient when it suits me!


As I had some whipping cream left over I piped it around the edge of the tart. This not only gave a nice colour contrast, but also was a good accompaniment to the rich tart.


The tart is not difficult but does take a bit of time to make; however, the results are reason enough to tackle it. We all agreed that this tasted like professional patisserie, the sort of thing you see in the window of fancy cake shops.

Ingredients:
For the pastry:
200g unsalted butter, cold
100g icing sugar
300g plain flour
1 egg

For the filling:
150g chocolate (I used 100g milk, 50g dark)
3 gelatine leaves
315ml whipping cream
1 vanilla pod

Optional decoration: Whipped cream, raspberries, chocolate vermicelli


How to make:

- Start by making the pastry: place the butter, icing sugar and flour into a food processor and blitz until you have fine bread crumbs.
- Add the egg and blitz until the dough just starts to come together.
- Tip the dough out onto a sheet of clingfilm and bring together into a ball, handling as little as possible. The pastry is incredibly soft – more like a thick paste, than a dough.
- Flatten the pastry into a disk and wrap in clingfilm. Refrigerate for at least an hour, the longer the better.
- Butter a 22cm loose bottomed flan tin.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Roll the chilled pastry out so that it is about 2 inches bigger than the flan tin all the way around. As the pastry is so short and buttery, I rolled it out between two sheets of clingfilm; this prevents having to use any flour and changing the consistency of the pastry.
- Line the flan tin with the pasty and leave any overhanging pastry.
- Chill the pastry for a further 30 minutes. This will stop the pastry shrinking in the oven.
- Line the pastry case with a sheet of baking paper and fill with baking beans, or lentils, dried pulses etc
- Bake for 8 minutes, then remove the baking paper and beans and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the pastry is golden. Leave to cool.
- Chop up the chocolate into small, even pieces and melt in a large bowl (it has to be big enough to take the cream too) above a saucepan of simmering water. The heat should be low as you don’t want to overheat the chocolate and have it seize on you. Also make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.
- In a bowl of cold water, soak the gelatine leaves so that they are soft.
- Slice the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds.
- In a saucepan bring the cream, vanilla pod and seeds to the boil. Remove from the heat.
- Remove the vanilla pod.
- Squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaves and, one at a time, stir into the hot cream and ensure that they dissolve.
- Steadily pour the cream into the chocolate and stir with either a wooden spoon or spatula. This will ensure that you don’t create air bubbles that might spoil the finished look of the tart.
- Stir slowly and steadily for a few minutes. At first you’ll worry that the cream and chocolate won’t mix but eventually you will have a glossy and thick chocolate sauce.
- Pour into the cooled pastry case and refrigerate until set (approx 4 hours).
- Decorate as required – I used piped cream, raspberries and chocolate vermicelli.
- Remove from the refrigerator 15 minutes before required in order that the lovely chocolate flavour will be at its peak.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Hazelnut cream sponge cake

I am always fascinated by recipes with methods that are new to me. This cake starts off as a meringue before you beat the egg yolks and other ingredients into it. The result is a light as air sandwich cake. You can see from the batter how airy and fluffy it is:


It was definitely time to revisit nutella, which I have previously used in cupcakes and swirl biscuits. This elegant sponge seemed the perfect addition to my growing collection of nutella recipes. If you happen to read the link I’ve provided to the Wikipedia page you will notice the sage advice that “Nutella is generally not recommended for people with an allergy to nuts” – who’d have thought?


This cake is light and creamy all the way. The sponge is super soft and the melt in the mouth whipped, almost moussey, topping is a perfect match for it.



Ingredients:
For the cake:
4 large eggs, separated
115g caster sugar
60g self raising flour
75g ground hazelnuts (I couldn’t find these to buy so bought chopped hazelnuts and blitzed them in the food processor)
20g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons boiling water

For the topping/filling:
170g nutella
130g unsalted butter, at room temperature
60g icing sugar
3 teaspoons boiling water

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line one 20cm loose bottomed square tins with baking paper.
- Whisk the egg whites until at the soft peak stage.
- Gradually whisk in the sugar until you have a thick, glossy meringue.
- Whisk in the egg yolks one at a time.
- Sift the flour over the mixture and fold in.
- Fold in the ground hazelnuts.
- Melt the butter in the two tablespoons of boiling water, then fold into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Mine took exactly 25 minutes.
- Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so, before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Now make the filling: beat the nutella and butter together until soft and creamy.
- Beat in the icing sugar and then gradually beat in the boiling water.
- Cut the sponge cake in half horizontally. I have to confess that my sponge was so soft and sticky that I didn’t dare do this and merely piped the icing on top of the whole sponge.
- If you have cut the sponge through, spread the filling over the bottom half and then replace the top layer of sponge.
- Refrigerate until the filling is firm.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Cherry bakewell cake

When I saw this recipe on Rosie’s lovely site Baking Cakes Galore I knew I had to make it as soon as possible!


The cake takes all the flavour elements of a bakewell tart and puts it into the format of a sandwich cake. For the purists, my cherry bakewell tart recipe can be found here.

Even with a heavy head cold, I could smell the delicious almonds while the cake was baking. Almond is such a rich smell and is also a terrific ingredient for keeping cakes moist. Here are the sponges cooling, if you wonder why there are four it’s because I made two cakes:


To keep this a cherry bakewell I used morello cherry jam; there were several types available in my supermarket but, if you prefer, raspberry jam would also be nice. Sandwiched but un-iced:


I’d forgotten to buy toasted flaked almonds for this cake but had some flaked almonds in my store cupboard. I toasted them in a dry frying pan and have to say that I will never buy ready-toasted again; the flavour was so much better.


We all agreed that this is a stunning cake; the sort of cake that you didn’t think existed anymore in an age of sprinkles and buttercream. Proper comfort food!

This is probably overkill now, but the photo was too lovely to omit!


Ingredients:
For the cake:
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
100g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 large eggs

For the filling and icing:
Approximately ½ a 340g jar of morello cherry conserve, the best quality you can find
175g icing sugar
5-6 teaspoons water or lemon juice
2 tablespoons flaked almonds, lightly toasted
Glace cherries

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line two 20cm loose bottomed sandwich tins with baking paper.
- To makes the cakes, you can simply beat all the ingredients in a bowl until smooth and well combined.
- Having said that, I still prefer to cream the butter and sugar first, and then add the remaining ingredients.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared tins and level the tops.
- Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Leave to cool in tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and leaving to cool completely.
- When cool, place one sponge on a plate and spread the jam over.
- Place the second sponge on top. If you want a flat surface, invert the second sponge i.e. so the curved top is sitting in the jam. My sponges came out fairly level so it didn’t really matter for me.
- To toast the flaked almonds simply dry fry them for approximately 4 minutes until they take on some colour but are not burnt.
- Now make the icing: place the icing sugar in a bowl and gradually beat in the water until you have a glossy, thick but spreadable icing. Take care that it isn’t too thin as it will run off the cake.
- Spread over the top sponge and let drizzle down the sides a little.
- While the icing is still wet decorate with glace cherries and toasted almonds.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Lemon cupcakes

The CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) is a canny old bird. She just happened to buy two lemons for pancake day in case she made pancakes. Of course, she didn’t make pancakes and was lamenting the redundancy of the lemons. Subtext: make me a cake with lemon in it.

Luckily, I have been musing about lemon cupcakes for a while. Regular readers will know that I don’t like lemon but I can see that it’s perfect for cupcakes – I see cupcakes as the equivalent of a shot in the drink world; a cupcake is a little bit of good stuff. Lemon packs quite a flavour so fits into that concept.


I adapted my normal cupcake recipe and decided to include half the lemon juice in the cupcake and half brushed over the top. This keeps the lemon ‘punchy’ and the cupcake extremely moist.

You’ll notice from the ingredients that I didn’t use lemon juice in the buttercream. I may be completely wrong but I felt that it didn’t suit the light whipped texture and was scared the lemon juice might curdle the mix.


Lemon is a clean and crisp flavour so I wanted the look of these cupcakes to match that i.e. no sprinkles and a round piping nozzle.


Ingredients:

For the cupcake:
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g self raising flour
Juice and rind of one lemon
Dash of milk, if necessary

For the Swiss meringue buttercream:
4 egg whites
250g caster sugar
250g unsalted butter
2 teaspoons lemon extract

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/Gas mark 5.
- Line a muffin pan with 12 paper cases.
- Start by making the cupcakes. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, flour, lemon rind and half the lemon juice.
- If necessary (this will depend on the juiciness of your lemon), add a dash of milk and beat until well combined and smooth. You’re aiming for a nice light, almost dropping consistency batter.
- Spoon the mixture evenly into the 12 paper cases.
- Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 17 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and, straight away, brush the remaining lemon juice over the hot cupcakes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Now make the swiss meringue buttercream. Place the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir pretty much constantly to prevent the egg from cooking.
- After 5-10 minutes, when the sugar has dissolved, remove the bowl from the pan of simmering water and whisk until the meringue has puffed up and the mix is cool.
- Add the butter and lemon extract to the meringue and whisk until the butter has been completely incorporated into the meringue. At first it will look a disaster – it will collapse and look curdled but don’t worry! Stop when the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy.
- Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag and swirl onto each cupcake.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Rustic apple roll

I should begin with a confession. This recipe is actually for something called “apple horseshoe” and, on rolling, you are meant to shape the roll into a horseshoe. If I had tried that I would have ended up holding two separate pieces and swearing like a sailor (I always think they get a raw deal – they can’t all be potty mouthed can they?), so I bottled it and left it as a long roll.

On reflection I think I should have done two things differently in order to make a horseshoe:
1. Chilled the pastry and filling before rolling. My pastry, by the time I came to roll it up was quite soft and at room temperature.
2. Use less apple. I am a total piggy where apples feature in recipes and if the recipe says “2-3 apples” it’s as if the “2-” bit isn’t there. Two apples would have meant less filling and an easier roll. It also would’ve stopped the apple bursting free during cooking.

So, after picking over what I did wrong, I must add that this still tasted delicious - very delicious! Admittedly it’s not going to win any beauty contest but I don’t particularly want to look at dessert, I want to eat it!

Here’s the pastry – I never was much good at rolling out a rectangle:


Add the apples (bonus points if you can already see that it's not going to roll very easily!):


Add the sultana topping:


Roll. This was never going to be a horsehoe!


Adding “rustic” to the title of anything excuses all ugliness in the finished product– it becomes “charming” rather than “messy”. In fact, I might start calling myself rustic; I wonder if it works for people?

The filling is very clever as it turns into a rich caramel sauce on cooking giving a lovely depth of flavour that compliments the apple beautifully. As my apples burst free from the pastry you can see the gorgeous dark caramel sauce seeping out at the top of the photo:


I made the roll with shortcrust pastry but the recipe gives the option of also using puff pastry. I mixed up my apples using two Gala and one Granny Smith. Putting in a tarter apple counteracts the sweetness and adds a little acidity.

Serve it warm or at room temperature with whatever takes your fancy. I kept it simple with some lightly whipped cream but ice cream, custard, clotted cream or even just some pouring cream would be lovely.


Ingredients:
For the pastry:
230g plain flour
160g unsalted butter
4 tablespoons icing sugar
2 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:
2-3 eating apples (I used 3 in total – 2 Galas and 1 Granny Smith- and would probably use only 2 next time)
50g unsalted butter
25g breadcrumbs
100g dark brown sugar
50g sultanas or raisins
1 egg, beaten
Handful of flaked almonds


How to make:

- Start by making the pastry: place all the ingredients except for the egg yolks into the food processor and blitz until you have breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg yolks and blitz again until the pastry just starts to form.
- Turn out onto a sheet of clingfilm and bring together into a ball of pastry.
- Flatten slightly, wrap in the clingfilm and chill.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.
- Line a flat baking sheet with baking paper.
- Roll the pastry out between two sheets of baking paper; this minimises the amount of flour you need to roll out. Roll out to about a thickness of just under 0.5cm and try to keep it rectangular (don’t be too obsessed about this).
- In the food processor blitz some bread (crust removed). I found that just over 1 slice of small bread made the right amount but obviously weigh it.
- Brown the breadcrumbs by tipping into a bowl and putting in the oven for 2 minutes. Then remove, stir and put in for another 2 minutes. Your aiming for the bread to dry out but not go like toast crumbs.
- Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. Scatter over the rolled out pastry leaving a gap at the end you will finish at so you will get a nice clean join.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan and then stir in the breadcrumbs, brown sugar and sultanas.
- Remove from the heat and spoon over the apples.
- Roll the pastry up like a swiss roll (I rolled from the short end).
- If possible, shape into a horseshoe, but don’t risk it if your pastry is looking fragile.
- Transfer to the baking sheet and then brush with beaten egg.
- Scatter over the almonds.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is a golden brown colour. Mine took 35 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a baking sheet.
- Serve in thick slices with the accompaniment of your choice i.e. cream, ice cream or custard.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Red velvet cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

This may shock you but I’d never had a proper red velvet cake before; I think I was always turned off by the cream cheese frosting because, while I love cream cheese in a cheesecake I’ve never been a fan of it in frosting.

Red cupcakes! I have no idea of the significance on dying them red...other than it couldn’t be called red velvet cake!


This recipe featured on a national newspaper’s website and was billed as the Magnolia Bakery’s recipe. I can’t vouch for that but it was certainly a nice cake and didn’t use cream cheese in the frosting. Their recipe did include a buttercream but it was so sweet that even I couldn’t stomach it, so I picked a buttercream recipe from my stash of cookbooks.

Yes, this is edible glitter:


The cupcake turned out far denser than other cupcakes I have made and ultra moist. It had a rich taste which is probably due to it using far more ingredients than a normal cupcake.


The recipe set out below makes 24 cupcakes but I halved it, even down to using only 1.5 eggs, and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes (makes 24):
165g unsalted butter, at room temperature
500g caster sugar
3 eggs
6 tablespoons red food colouring
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
330ml buttermilk
500g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons cider vinegar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder

For the buttercream (if you like lashings of buttercream you may want to double the quantities):
175g unsalted butter, at room temperature
350g icing sugar
3 tablespoons boiling water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.
- Beat together the butter and sugar until well combined and pale.
- Beat the eggs in one by one.
- Beat in the red colouring, cocoa powder and vanilla.
- Beat in a third of the buttermilk, followed by a third of the flour and repeat until both are completely added to the mix.
- In a small bowl, stir together the cider vinegar and baking powder then stir into the batter.
- Spoon into the paper cases and bake for approx 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 25 minutes.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Now make the buttercream: beat the butter until it is soft.
- Beat in the icing sugar.
- Beat in the boiling water and vanilla and beat until the buttercream is smooth and pale.
- Spread over the top of the cupcakes.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.