Cherry, fudge oat traybake

Cherry, fudge oat traybake aka ‘help – my planned cake/blog post has turned out dismally and is now sitting in the compostables bin where even the foxes will snub it’.  Yes, this cake is the phoenix rising out of the ashes of a doomed ancestor.  I had planned on a peanut butter based cake but something was amiss and it came out both Frisbee-like and savoury, neither of which were ideal outcomes. 

This recipe is my own invention and it developed along the way.  The cherry and fudge components came from being fed up with seeing the ingredients on my baking shelf, and the oats then got involved because I love oats and thought the cake might benefit from some texture.

I mused whether to make it as a 20cm round cake – and it would’ve worked – but I decided on a traybake as that would give shallower slices and stop the oats becoming claggy.  I have mixed advice: wait until it gets completely cool before cutting as it’s very soft and tears otherwise…..on the other hand; if you eat it warm, before the fudge has set, you get divine little sticky pockets of fudgy goo that make a raggedy slice worth it!

As is often the way, things made on the fly are usually the tastiest!  This is no exception – the flavours and textures work so well together and it’s a perfect tasty accompaniment to a cup of tea.  Which I definitely needed after my earlier frustrations…I take it very personally when a recipe fails…i.e. rude words are spoken.

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g light brown soft sugar
3 eggs
225g self raising flour
100g rolled oats
150g fudge chunks
260g tin of black cherries, chopped into pieces – this was the drained weight, the tin was 425g)
3 tablespoons milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.

Grease a 20cm x 30cm traybake tin.

Beat together the butter and sugar until well combined – it won’t go light and whippy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Fold in the flour and oats.

Fold in the fudge and cherries.

Stir in the milk.

Spoon into the traybake tin and level the surface.

Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Double chocolate, fudge and oat biscuits

Back in January I made white chocolate, cranberry and oatmeal biscuits and very nice they were too - sort of cakey but still biscuity! Therefore, when I was looking for another quick biscuit recipe I adapted this one...no point reinventing the wheel.

I replaced the white chocolate with milk chocolate, and the cranberries for fudge chunks. Switching some of the flour for cocoa powder gave a dominant chocolate flavour to the biscuit. The oats added crunch and texture but weren’t as noticeable as in the original version.

They keep like a dream for days on end (and I’m not even lying – I have been restrained in my consumption!) and the texture doesn’t change at all. I loved the way the fudge oozed a little round the edges and crisped up where it hit the baking sheet into almost a crunchy toffee.

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150g light brown sugar
2 eggs
100g milk chocolate chips
85g fudge chunks
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
120g porridge oats
170g plain flour
30g cocoa powder

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/375°F/gas mark 5.

Line three baking sheets with baking paper.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and airy – as it’s brown sugar the mix will not whip as light as if caster sugar, but it will turn noticeably paler.

Beat in the eggs gradually.

Stir in the chocolate chips and fudge pieces.

Stir in the bicarb, oats, flour and cocoa powder.

Place rounded teaspoons of mix on the baking sheet leaving approximately 2-3cm between biscuits as they spread as they bake.

Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until the biscuits are golden. I checked them after 10 minutes and turned the tray for the remaining baking time.

Leave to cool on the baking sheets as they are very soft when warm.

When completely cool, store in an airtight container.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.

Whipped cream cake with caramel fudge icing

Classified as a ‘dessert cake’ this is one of those beautiful concoctions that will look right whether you serve it for dessert or as something special with afternoon tea. This is the photo that defines ‘happiness’:

What interested me with this recipe is that the sponge contains no butter, but uses whipped cream instead. This gives a lovely fine but firm texture and a lightness to the sponge. I have a weakness for cakes made with brown sugar too so this one couldn’t really disappoint!

When I took the cake from the oven it had risen so much that I prepared myself for it sinking. It didn’t. This is a tall cake when layered up with all the cream and fudgy goodness!

Even before the cake is cut and filled it’s big:


Here you can see the texture really clearly – this was taken when I cut the cake into layers:


The icing is rather magical – it’s not a buttercream or a white icing, the best way I can describe it is as a soft caramel fudge. Actually that’s a lie, the best way I can describe it is as follows: heavenly!

The icing starts as caramel on the hob:


It then becomes thick and sweet and succulent. It’s so thick and gooey that it can’t run down the side of the cake!


You get a lot of servings from this one!


The now-standard spoon shot:


Compare and contrast with the CCB’s (Caked Crusader’s Brother) spoonful – notice how he was more careful to compose a spoonful showing all the component parts, unlike me who was just trying to shovel it in as quickly as possible!


Ingredients:
For the cake:
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used a bit more)
275g brown sugar
300ml double cream
300g self raising flour

For the filling:
300ml double cream

For the caramel fudge icing:
60g unsalted butter
110g brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk or cream, more may be required
80g icing sugar

How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin (nice deep tin).
- First, make the cake. Beat the eggs and vanilla until the mix is thick and creamy. It should look airy with little bubbles in it.
- Gradually beat in the sugar. This is best done by adding some sugar, beating, adding more sugar, beating etc, rather than adding the sugar in one go.
- Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Fold one spoonful of this into the egg mix.
- Fold the flour into the egg mix, then fold in the remaining cream.
- Spoon mixture into the cake tin and bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 1 hour.
- Remove from oven and leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes. Then, turn out and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. I expected the cake to sink but it didn’t! It is a big cake!
- To make the filling, beat the cream until firm peaks form.
- To make the caramel icing, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the brown sugar and milk/cream. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat at once. Simmer for 2 minutes then remove from the hob. Allow to cool slightly before sifting in the icing sugar. Sifting the icing sugar is vital – if you don’t the icing sugar will form lumps in the icing which no beating will remove (as I learnt to my cost and had to remake it!)
- If the icing becomes too thick simply beat in an additional tablespoon of milk.
- Cut the cake into two layers and spread the bottom layer with the whipped cream. Put the top layer of cake onto the cream and spread the top with the caramel icing. If you want to make the top completely smooth flip the cake layer so that the rounded top sits in the cream, giving you the lovely flat cut side to spread the icing over.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.