Bahamian-style rum cake

I have been extremely lucky to travel (for work) numerous times to the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas. You learn very quickly that the most appreciated gift you can bring back is a rum cake. These soft, rum-soaked cakes with a smattering of nuts are divine; to taste one is to forge a lifelong love affair. So you can imagine how pleased I was to come across this recipe which pretty closely matches the wonder of the cakes I used to bring back.

A good rum cake should give you the sweet flavour of rum but not burn your throat with raw alcohol. It should be juicy and sticky but not to the extent of, say, a rum baba. It should also be impossible to eat only one slice!

The secret to the cake is to pour over a glorious rum syrup when the cake is piping hot from the oven. It seeps into the cake and pools at the bottom of the tin (which is the top of the cake when turned out) and you get a sweet juiciness similar to the effect of a golden syrup steamed pudding.

Rum cakes are always made in Bundt-style tins. This pleases me as I have quite a few Bundt tins that I’ve never used. I picked this stunner of a tin and was delighted at how cleanly the cake turned out, showing all the crisp lines of the design. The capacity of the tin was 8 cups and I wouldn’t have wanted to use anything smaller.

The only change I made to the recipe was regarding nuts. A proper rum cake should be made with pecans or walnuts. I used hazelnuts as the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) doesn’t like with pecans or walnuts. It was just as delicious.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
110g unsalted butter, melted
250ml milk
65ml rum (needs to be golden or dark rum)
2 eggs
315g plain flour
270g golden caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder (that’s not a typo – it’s a tablespoon)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g chopped mixed nuts (I used only hazelnuts but pecans, walnuts, or macadamias would work)

For the rum syrup:
125g unsalted butter
200g golden caster sugar
65ml water
125ml rum (golden or dark)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

- Grease a Bundt tin of 8 cup capacity. I used a cake release product although butter would also be good.

- Beat together the butter, milk, rum and eggs.

- Add the flour, sugar and baking powder and beat until well combined.

- Beat in the vanilla extract and chopped nuts.

- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Mine took 45 minutes.

- Leave to cool on a wire rack.

- Straightaway, make the syrup: place the butter, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

- Stir in the rum.

- Pour over the hot cake, you may have to do this in stages giving the cake time to absorb the hot syrup.

- Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin before turning out onto a serving plate. The cake needs no accompaniment and should be eaten unadorned.

- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.

Iron Cupcake: London - Challenge IV

Are your cupcakes up to the challenge? Are you worthy of the Iron Cupcake Winner’s rosette and the acclaim that comes with it? There’s only one way to find out…..

Please note: Due to feedback received from attendees there are some changes this time….take heed!!! For your convenience I have put these in red

ICL Challenge IV: Cupcakes of the World

What is a cupcake of the world? Think of a dish, flavour, ingredient, sweet, fruit, nut, seed, drink, anything at all that you associate with a particular country and turn it into a cupcake. For example…if I said “maple syrup” no doubt you’d think of Canada. You’re clever people…I’m sure you get the idea! As long as you can demonstrate your thought process - anything goes!

Hearty apologies to all of those present when I announced the September challenge would be “booze”. As it’s still school holiday time there are a couple of minors who wish to attend and obviously they couldn’t if the theme was alcohol. Just like Whitney Houston, I believe that children are our future and today’s children are tomorrow’s cupcake bakers thus should be encouraged. Sorry if that puts anyone out but we’ll take alcohol for our October challenge.

Requirements: Make a minimum of 12 cupcakes – if you wish to make more please do…the more you make, the more people can taste your delicious creation (and vote for you!)

Please feel free to enter as many types of cupcake as you wish, I only ask that you have at least 12 of each.

On the night everyone will have a say in declaring the winner, who walks away with the ICL Winner’s rosette plus a cupcake themed goody bag (presented in the much-coveted ICL bag!).

Event details:

Tuesday 1st September 2009 (the Tuesday date is a one off due to the bank holiday)

6.00pm – 8.30pm

Barrowboy & Banker pub, 6-8 Borough High Street, SE1 9QQ

Entry fee: £5 – even if you don’t wish to enter the competition why not come along to taste the cupcakes? (Entry fee includes tea or coffee)

Now the new bit….

It’s been pointed out to me that as people come along at different times not everyone is getting a chance to sample all the cupcakes. This might skew the voting in that the people who come along a bit later can only taste what’s there.

I’ve had requests to set a timetable of events so that everyone gets a chance to taste everything. Thus – trying to keep it simple - I propose the following:

6.00-6.45pm – Entries are labelled and plated up

6.45 onwards – Eating and voting commences

Please note that you are most welcome to arrive any time after 6.00pm and avail yourself of the tea and coffee.

For further information visit:

Honey and spice cake

The CCBF (Caked Crusader’s Boyfriend) and I recently had a lovely day out at Hever Castle. Whilst browsing in the gift shop (I have never grown out of my passion for gift shops – often the best bit of the trip!) I came across this jar of locally made honey. I think the bees must be very happy working in the beautiful Kent countryside and you can taste their contentment in the honey – it had a delicate flavour and was the colour of amber (insert joke here about amber nectar. For those not au fait with the adverts, it was always how Foster’s lager was described).

The honey comes from Beult House Bees:

Often, honey is used in cake as a background flavour but, for such special honey, I wanted it to take the main role – hence this honey and spice cake. Now in terms of look I accept that it’s rather a plain Jane but it really packs in the flavour.

I teamed it with a white icing which also uses honey. I’ve only ever made white icing with water and a dash of vanilla before, but this one uses mostly honey and a dash of water to get it to the right consistency. The flavour was beautiful – very subtle but noticeable.

The cake has a light, crumbly texture and I really enjoyed the addition of giant raisins. They were called “jumbo golden raisins” and I bought them in Brindisa, an enticing Spanish food shop in Borough Market. The raisins were at least three times the size of an ordinary raisin and burst with juice when bitten into. In this photo you will spot a raisin in front of the slice of cake – yes, that’s ONE raisin!!!

Ingredients:

For the cake:
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
75g golden caster sugar
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
75g clear honey, at room temperature so it’s nice and runny
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3 tablespoons cold water
75g sultanas, raisins or mixed peel

For the icing:
175g icing sugar
3 tablespoons clear honey, at room temperature so it’s nice and runny
Hot water

To decorate: crystallised ginger batons

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 170°C/fan oven 150°C/325°F/Gas mark 3.

- Line the bottom of a 20cm round springform tin with baking paper.

- Combine the flour, spice and sugar into a bowl and stir so well combined.

- Rub the butter, in small pieces, into the dry ingredients until you have breadcrumbs. I found that, if adding the butter a little at a time, you can do this using a handheld or stand mixer.

- Mix in the egg followed by the honey.

- In a small bowl combine the bicarbonate of soda with the water and stir until dissolved.

- Pour into the cake batter and mix in thoroughly.

- Stir in the sultanas/raisins or mixed peel.

- Spoon into the prepared tin, level the surface, and bake for approximately 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Mine took exactly 50 minutes. The cake will have risen but not dramatically so.

- Leave to cool on a wire rack.

- When completely cool you can make the icing: sift the icing sugar into a large bowl then beat in the honey.

- Add enough hot water to get a shiny white glossy icing – not too runny but runny enough to spread and cover the cake with. Add the hot water sparingly as it’s easy to add too much.

- Place a sheet of clingfilm on your work top and place a wire rack over it. Put the cake on the rack and pour the icing over the cake. Let it run down the sides and cover as much of the cake as possible. The clingfilm will catch any drips and saves you having to sponge down the work top afterwards – simply throw it away.

- Decorate as you wish – I used crystallised ginger batons.

- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.

Upside-down berry cake

As much as I don’t like using frozen fruit, I did for this cake as my local supermarket simply didn’t have the selection of berries I wanted to use (raspberries, blackberries, redcurrants, blueberries and blackcurrants). This sort of cake relies on a nice mix of tart and sweet berries to create interest!

The upside down nature of the cake means that the fruit ends up looking like an intricate mosaic:

The recipe said to use 2 tablespoons of golden syrup, I think next time I’d use more as it didn’t create the ‘ooze’ into the cake I was hoping for. It’s a particular weakness of mine in either cake or steamed puddings when golden syrup oozes into the sponge making it golden, sweet and juicy.

For the first time ever, you will notice that I say the vanilla is optional in the recipe. This is as a result of a rather sticky moment when the CCBF (Caked Crusader’s Boyfriend) declared that he preferred his sponge au natural i.e. vanilla free. All relationships are tested from time to time and this was the first major test of ours. I blanched then felt panicky and clammy...but I think I’m over it now. Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths...think happy thoughts......la la la, dancing through a field of vanilla......

Clotted cream is a perfect accompaniment for a cake like this and compliments the tart berries beautifully.

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g golden caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (optional)
4 eggs
225g self raising flour
25g ground almonds
200g mixed berries (either fresh or frozen)
2 -4 tablespoons golden syrup

To serve: ice cream or clotted cream

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

- Line the bottom of a 20cm round springform tin 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 beat in the eggs, adding a little of the flour if it starts to curdle.

- Beat in the vanilla extract.

- Fold in the flour and ground almonds.

- If the batter is too stiff i.e. not dropping consistency, add a dash of milk – I didn’t need to.

- Arrange the berries in the base of the tin.

- Spoon over the golden syrup.

- Spoon the cake batter over the berries – be careful so as not to disturb them.

- Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Mine took a little longer at 1 hour 15 minutes.

- Cool in the tin, until the tin is cold enough for you to handle.

- Tip the cake out onto a plate so the bottom (i.e. the berries) are now the top.

- Serve as desired – I served with a choice of ice cream or clotted cream.

- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.

- Eat.