Tag Archives: coconut

5 Tiers of Fruit Wedding Cake – My biggest booziest cake ever

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, cake decoration, Christmas, Food, Fruit Cake, Lauren Prince, sugar craft, Vintage, wedding and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Five Tiers of Fruit Cake on our wedding day

Five Tiers of Fruit Cake on our wedding day

After Chris and I got engaged my first thoughts turned not to the arranging the wedding, or buying my dress, but to the wedding cake. I got my priorities right. My theory is sort out the cake first and everything else will fall in to place.  I actually bought the first wedding dress I tried on and my nephew who wasn’t quite 1 years old helped me choose it but that’s a completely different story. Let’s concentrate on the cake. We knew we wanted to get married as soon as possible, so the vast majority of the 6 months of our planning and preparation time I spent creating our wedding cake.

Fruit cake is very popular in my family as you can tell by my previous Caribbean Christmas Cakes and Jamaican Black Cake so I knew I needed to make something extra special, something a bit more challenging and flavour packed to feed about 120 of our family and friends. A few sleepless nights later of conjuring up flavour combinations in my head I had it planned. 5 tiers of fruit cake, each with it’s own booze and fruit combination.

12 inches worth of dried fruit soaking in their temporary storage box home

12 inches worth of dried fruit soaking in their temporary storage box home

I quickly realised that I needed much BIGGER kitchen equipment than I owned to create the largest 12″ tier. No bowl was big enough to house the enormous quantity of dried fruit to soak it in the flavoursome booze. A quick hunt round the house and I discovered a hard plastic storage box which I disinfected and decanted all the ingredients into. I like to soak my fruit for as long as possible, in a bit more booze than is recommended so then I don’t really need to feed the cooked cake on a regular basis. It matures nicely wrapped up in greaseproof paper and stays moist. I pour enough booze onto the fruit to give it a pungent glistening alcoholic coat, but not so much that it’s swimming in a pool of booze. If you stir it regularly you can make sure the fruit is absorbing the booze. There should be no liquid left after 2 weeks.

Soaking 3 tiers of boozy fruit - wedding cake fruit

Soaking 3 tiers of boozy fruit

Weighing out the fruit and measuring in the booze can be quite complicated as I found out, especially if you don’t mark on your pot which size cake the fruit is eventually intended for.  Note to self: You really won’t remember which fruit is which after 2 weeks of soaking in booze so don’t even pretend that you will. Your memory is good but it’s really not that good. Squashing an 8″ cake’s worth of fruit into a 6″ cake will not work and you won’t realise that this is the problem, even when you can’t fit it all into the cake tin and have to make extra cupcakes with the rest of the mixture. The cake will be extra moist and you will think it’s not cooked so you have to bake it for an extra 3 hours to convince yourself it’s definitely cooked. To compensate for the extra oven time you will then pour way too much booze on the hot cake when it comes out of the oven and drown it. You will never be happy with this cake so you will then have to start again. From scratch. (You will also have to make another 8″ cake as you decided to bake the two cakes simultaneously and made a right pigs ear of the whole thing. That was a really good Saturday well spent.)

one incinerated wedding cake - let's eat the middle with a spoon

One incinerated wedding cake – let’s eat the middle with a spoon

For my 5 tier wedding cake I ended up baking 8 actual cakes! Mainly due to my own stupidity and also because the oven broke. The 2 cakes which required an extra 3 hours of baking (when added onto their original 4 hours of baking is a lot of time in an oven!) made me realise that the oven wasn’t playing nicely. I invested in an oven thermometer to check the temperature throughout the wedding cake baking process and followed this precisely. Only to then incinerate one cake completely. It was a charcoal cake. Although once I chipped away the outer charcoal casing the centre of the cake was really rather nice. I was determined not to let the amaretto soaked cherries to go to waste. So I chopped up the inside of the cake and served it with ice cream. It was delicious!

The quick ice day late spare cake

The quick ice day late spare cake

The other ‘ruined’ cakes did not go to waste either. I decided to donate one of my reject cakes to the church bake sale and quickly iced it. However upon arrival we discovered we were a day late for the bake sale… Ah the brain fog of wedding preparations! So I shared it with friends instead when they came round for festive drinks. I must admit the extra booze and fruit in the cake made it tricky to cut but it was so tasty!! The final uniced extra boozy tier is still maturing nicely in the cupboard. I’m going to save that one for a special occasion. I’m sure it’s good to keep for at least a year or two.

I despaired slightly as I still had 3 cakes left to bake with a broken oven. Then I did a bit of googling and decided instead to dismantle the oven, clean it and put it back together.  Thankfully this seemed to do the trick! I also watched the other cakes like a hawk and turned them every hour to avoid any charring from the hot spots in the oven. The result? The final 3 tiers were the best cakes I’ve ever baked in my life. I’m sure that extra care and attention was the secret to their success. They were so level they didn’t need to be propped up when icing them to get an even top.

Creaming the butter and the eggs - wedding fruit cake

Creaming the butter, sugar and orange and lemon zests

The method for each sized cake is exactly the same and after baking 8 of them I was starting to know it off by heart. I think this Christmas I may make chocolate cakes! After soaking the fruit in booze for at least 24 hours (if not 2 weeks) you cream the butter, sugar and fruit zests together until light and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs to the butter and sugar

Whisk in the eggs to the butter and sugar

Then to add the eggs, whisking them into the butter and sugar mix one at a time. I had to use the biggest bowl I own for this job as the eggs inflate like mad when whisked. The mixture can start to curdle or separate at this point, but it’s not the end of the world. You can whisk in a little flour to stop it separating but it’s still going to taste pretty amazing.

The whisked eggs are dangerously close to overflowing the bowl

The whisked eggs are dangerously close to overflowing the bowl

Then to prepare the dry ingredients. A separate bowl was definitely required to sift the mountain of flour and spices together. I love a spicy cake, so I’m always quite liberal with the cinnamon and nutmeg.

Mountains of flour and spices

Mountains of flour and spices

For the 12″ cake I didn’t have a bowl big enough to fit everything in so had to resort to stirring it all together in the plastic storage box! Who knew it was so difficult to stir things in a square box… I ended up with cake mix right up to my elbows and consequently my face and hair. But I did it!

Time to stir it all together! Wooden spoon at the ready

Time to stir it all together! Wooden spoon at the ready

You have to fold the wet and dry ingredients in a third at a time until it’s all incorporated. Then finally fold in the ground almonds, chopped nuts and treacle.

Almost fully combined just the treacle and almonds left to fold in

Almost fully combined just the treacle and almonds left to fold in

I hired the largest cake tins from my local cake shop. At 50p a day it was much cheaper than buying massive cake tins and I don’t have to worry about storing them in our already full to capacity flat. It’s really important to double line and grease the cake tins to help prevent the cake from burning as it needs to bake for a really long time at a low (ish) temperature (150 degrees Celsius).

I always tie an extra collar of greaseproof paper around the outside of the tin and use that to prop up a greaseproof paper lid to protect the top of the cake from burning too. As it doesn’t have any raising agent in it the fruit cake won’t really rise any higher than it sits in the tin uncooked. I wanted to try to get the most even finish that I could so I carefully layered the mixture into the tin, spreading and flattening it down with a spatula. No air pockets for me thanks and the smoothest top I’ve ever achieved.

An even spread - all of the 12" cake mixture in it's very large tin

An even spread – all of the 12″ cake mixture in it’s very large tin

The largest cake obviously takes the longest time to bake. In hindsight starting a massive cake at 6pm is probably not the best plan. It takes at least an hour to combine all of the ingredients together and prepare the tins. Then it needs 6 hours in the oven. This meant I was babysitting the cake until 3am. I accidentally fell asleep and awoke with a fright with the oven timer going off, in my own personal inferno with the oven and the heating on, whilst wearing fleecy pyjamas, a dressing gown and a furry blanket with the cat sat on top of me. I forgot to turn this cake whilst it was baking, due to me being asleep and all , so the cake had a nice diagonal shadow across it, but once it had an extra feeding of booze and it was iced no one noticed. And with a cake this big, using so many ingredients there was no way I was going to start again!

The biggest 12" fruit cake with a slight shadow... shhh no one will notice

The biggest 12″ fruit cake with a slight shadow… shhh no one will notice

The cake fruit and booze combinations I created were…

  • 4″ Cake – Amaretto Tier – Almond, Amaretto and cherry
  • 6″ Cake – Vanilla Tier – Vanilla Brandy, dates, peel and sultanas
  • 8″ Cake – Tropical Tier – Malibu, dried pineapple, coconut, papaya and mango
  • 10″ Cake – Traditional Tier – Brandy and mixed fruit
  • 12″ Cake – Orange Tier – Orange Brandy sultanas, cherries, peel
Putting things into slightly frazzled perspective. This cake was bigger than my head.

Putting things into slightly frazzled perspective. This cake was bigger than my head.

Each cake had a different baking time too although all were baked at 150 degrees

  • 4″ Cake – 2 and a half hours
  • 6″ Cake – 3 hours
  • 8″ Cake – 4 hours
  • 10″ Cake – 4 and 3 quarter hours
  • 12″ Cake – 6 hours
The 6 inch wedding cake. Quite the smooth level finish even if I do say so myself

The 6 inch wedding cake. Quite the smooth level finish even if I do say so myself

What I used to bake my wedding cake – Ingredients

4″ Cake – Almond, Amaretto and Cherries

  • 150g dried cherries
  • 100g sultanas
  • 40g candied peel
  • soaked in (at least) 2 tablespoons of amaretto
  • 100g butter
  • 100g brown sugar
  • zest of 1/4 of lemon
  • zest of 1/4 of orange
  • juice of 1/4 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
  • 2 eggs
  • 100g plain flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 10g ground almonds
  • 10g flaked almonds
  • 1/2 tablespoon treacle

6″ Cake – Vanilla Brandy, dates, peel and sultanas

  • 70g glace cherries
  • 375g sultanas
  • 200g dried chopped dates
  • 45g candied mixed peel
  • soaked in (at least) 4 tablespoons of vanilla infused brandy (pop a vanilla pod in your bottle of brandy and leave a vanilla pod in with the fruit whilst soaking in brandy)
  • 175g butter
  • 175g brown sugar
  • zest of 3/4 of lemon
  • zest of 3/4 of orange
  • juice of 1/2 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
  • 3 eggs
  • 175g plain flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 20g ground almonds
  • 20g flaked almonds
  • 1 tablespoon treacle

8″ Cake – Tropical Tier – Malibu, dried pineapple, coconut, papaya and mango

  • 125g glace cherries
  • 650g sultanas
  • 320g dried tropical fruits (pineapple, papaya and mango)
  • 100g candied mixed peel
  • soaked in (at least) 5 tablespoons of malibu (coconut flavour white rum)
  • 350g butter
  • 350g brown sugar
  • zest of 1 and half of lemons
  • zest of 1 and a half  oranges
  • juice of 3/4 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
  • 6 eggs
  • 350g plain flour
  • 2 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 35g ground almonds
  • 35g desicated coconut
  • 1 and 1/2 tablespoons treacle

10″ Cake – Traditional Tier – Brandy and Mixed fruit

  • 180g glace cherries
  • 800g sultanas
  • 210g dried apricots
  • 250g dried chopped dates
  • 250g dried cherries
  • 110g candied mixed peel
  • soaked in (at least) 8 tablespoons of brandy
  • 450g butter
  • 450g brown sugar
  • zest of 2 of lemons
  • zest of 2 of oranges
  • juice of 1 orange (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
  • 8 and half eggs
  • 450g plain flour
  • 3 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
  • 2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 55g ground almonds
  • 55g flaked almonds
  • 2 tablespoons treacle

12″ Cake – Orange Brandy sultanas, cherries, peel

  • 250g glace cherries
  • 1460g sultanas
  • 400g dried apricots
  • 350g dried chopped dates
  • 250g dried cherries
  • 200g candied mixed peel
  • soaked in (at least) 10 tablespoons of orange brandy liqueur
  • 660g butter
  • 660g brown sugar
  • zest of 3 of lemons
  • zest of 3 of oranges
  • juice of 1 and 1/2 oranges (add to the soaked fruit just before you combine the rest of the ingredients)
  • 12 eggs
  • 660g plain flour
  • 4 tsp cinnamon (or more…)
  • 2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 75g ground almonds
  • 75g flaked almonds
  • 3 tablespoons treacle
5 teetering tiers of fruit cake. Stacked and ready to mature

5 teetering tiers of fruit cake. Stacked and ready to mature

Once all 8 cakes were baked I had a job trying to find places to store them. A bit of strategic thinking and double wrapping in greaseproof paper and tin foil later 8 cakes were ready to mature for a month before being iced. I’ll tell you all about that adventure later on along with our house flooding 2 weeks before the wedding and making over 100 sugar flowers…

My bakers impression of the final 5 tier wedding cake

My bakers impression of the final 5 tier wedding cake

Love from the new Mrs Lauren Hoy x

Me

Me – more bridey than cakey

This is part 1 of the 4 stages of wedding cake baking! You can read more about my epic wedding cake adventures here…

Part 1 – My 5 tiers of fruit wedding cake - My biggest booziest cake yet 

Part 2 – How many sugar flowers does it take to make a wedding cake?

Part 3 – Where to start icing a 5 tier wedding cake?

Part 4 -The Final Frontier – Decorating & assembling my 5 Tier wedding cake

Lauren’s Layered Lamington Cake

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Australia, Baking, cake decoration, Cookery, Food, wedding and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,
Lauren's Layered Lamington Cake

Lauren’s Layered Lamington Cake

You may realise by now that I LOVE Lamingtons. They are definitely one of my Australian highlights, alongside the cake shops in St Kilda and the koalas hanging out in eucalyptus trees. It’s been a while since I baked any of these sweet treats and I must apologise it’s been quite some time since I wrote. It’s been a bit hectic what with getting married having a last minute trip to Berlin and oh yes fitting in the proper job too… I promise I will get back to some international baking VERY soon (and also share with you the photos of my wedding cake too!). In the meantime I wanted to share with you an experimental Layered Lamington Cake that I made up the other day.

I had promised Chris a tiered Lamington Cake for the wedding. Something that I had imagined in my mind but frankly in amongst baking and icing 5 layers of fruit cake, making 150 sugar flowers, our house flooding 2 weeks before the wedding and baking brownies and Lavender meringues I never had the opportunity to bring to life. Until now. So here it is! A slightly smaller scale Layered Lamington Wedding Cake for Chris. Next time I will bake 2 more smaller cakes and stack them one on top of the other… for a tower of layered Lamington!

Lauren's Layered Lamington Cake

Lauren’s Layered Lamington Cake – 3 layers of coconut madeira, double chocolate coated and jam sandwiched

I wanted to make a more grown up version of the Lamington. More luxurious, decadent and slightly prettier than the Lamington bricks that I’ve made previously. To produce this I incorporated the coconut into the sponge, which meant I could keep the top of the cake coconut free to showcase the shiny chocolate ganache, whilst preserving the coconut and chocolate Lamington tradition. I double coated the cake in chocolate soup sauce first before a double chocolate ganache layer to increase the luxuriousness of the Lamington. And then to add an extra level of height and flavour why not add a third layer of sponge, one more than your traditional Lamington sandwich. It’s an extremely indulgent cake. One to be enjoyed on a special occasion perhaps. It takes a bit of organising and assembling, but I can assure you it’s worth the effort! Chris definitely enjoyed it and so did my friends. If you fancy having a go I’ve included the instructions below.

As the cake is entirely encased in chocolate and contains a double layer of jam it’s  a light and moist sponge. I’m hungry just reminiscing about it now! Hope you enjoy it as much as me.

Lauren’s Layered Lamington Recipe

Coconut Madeira Sponge Cake

  • Caster Sugar 250g
  • Butter 300g
  • Self Raising Flour 400g
  • Desiccated Coconut 50g
  • Pinch of salt
  • Milk 6 tablespoons
  • 2 x 8 inch round cake tins
  • Bake at 170 degrees Celsius (fan)  for 25-30 minutes
  1. Cream together sugar and butter
  2. Sift in flour and baking powder and gently fold it into the creamed butter and sugar
  3. Fold in desiccated coconut
  4. Fold in milk
  5. Gently pour mixture into 2  greased and lined 8 inch round cake tins
  6. Carefully level the mixture
  7. Bake in the middle of the oven until the cakes shrinks back from the sides of the tin, is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean from the sponge
  8. Let the cakes cool in the tin for 10 minutes to hold their shape
  9. Remove from tin and place on cooling rack
  10. When fully cooled carefully split one cake in 2 down the centre with a sharp knife
  11. Carefully level the other sponge removing the top (you can then sample the top bit of the sponge!)

Filling Strawberry Jam  (you could buy a jar or make it yourself)

  • 1kg strawberries
  • 1kg granulated sugar
  • ½ lemon, juice only
  • small knob of butter
  1. Heat equal amounts of fruit and sugar in a large pan
  2. Stir until all of the sugar has dissolved
  3. Stir in lemon juice and butter
  4. Stop stirring and boil rapidly (about 10minutes)
  5. Keep boiling the jam and checking the consistency of the jam every 10  minutes and take it off the heat once it coats the back of a spoon (this could take up to an half an hour but hopefully less!)
  6. Allow the jam to cool and set slightly in the pan

Icing

  • Butter 25g
  • Sifted icing sugar 450g
  • Sifted cocoa powder 50g
  • Milk 120ml
  • Vanilla Extract 2 tsp
  1. Sift all of the ingredients into a large bowl
  2. Put the bowl over a pan of boiling water
  3. Melt the butter over a low heat
  4. Stir together to make a thick chocolate soup
  5. Remove from heat
  6. (but if it gets too hot pop it back on the heat to warm through)

Chocolate Ganache

  • Plain chocolate 140g
  • Double cream 200ml
  • Milk chocolate 25g
  1.  Heat the double cream over a low heat in a pan
  2. Break up the chocolate into small pieces
  3. Allow the cream to become piping hot then take it off the heat
  4. Throw in the chocolate and stir until it’s really smooth and shiny

Layered Lamington Assembly

  1. Have a pre-prepared cake stand/plate to arrange it all onto
  2. Turn the bottom of the sponge face upwards (from the one sponge that you’ve split in 2) spoon a generous amount of chocolate icing soup onto the sponge and spread it evenly over the sponge base and sides. (Lamingtons are supposed to be encased in chocolate and this will help to fix it to your stand too…)
  3. Give it a few minutes to ‘set slightly’ then flip over the sponge so the chocolate is face down on your cake plate.
  4. Spoon half the jar of strawberry  jam onto the sponge and spread evenly.
  5. Place the other half of the sponge cake on top of the jam and press gently.
  6. Spoon the rest of the jam on top of the sponge and sandwich the final layer of sponge on top. (smoothest side up)
  7. Rest the cake in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to set the jam and hold sponge in place
  8. Pour the chocolate soup all over the cake and smooth with a palette knife. Removing excess icing to give a smooth ‘crumb coating’ and hold the cakes in place
  9. Return to the fridge to allow it to set for 5 minutes
  10. Pour the hot chocolate ganache all over the cake and sides. Ensure you have a smooth and shiny coat by tilting the cake to run the ganache down the sides, use a palette knife if necessary to sharpen the edges of the cake.
  11.  Use a hairdryer if needed to melt the ganache slightly to create a smooth finish
  12. Repeat ganache layer again to double coat the cake.
  13. Whilst the chocolate is still wet carefully sprinkle the sides of the cake with desiccated coconut, use a cupped hand to press the coconut into the ganache, leaving the top of the cake free so the ganache shines through
  14.  Allow the ganache to set at room temperature to maintain the high gloss finish and serve in huge chunks with a bucket of tea.

In an English Country Garden! Clandestine Cake Club – Lavender and Coconut Madeira Cake

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Food, Marguerite Patten, Mary Berry, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Following on from my disastrous Lavender and Coconut Bibingka Cake attempt I had  one evening left before the Clandestine Cake Club to create a new and English Country Garden themed cake… I toyed with the idea of a rose flavoured bundt and earl grey tea and then fell upon the idea of a Lavender and Coconut Madeira Cake instead! Normally a citrusy based sponge cake I reckoned I could substitute some ingredients and make my own recipe… Dangerous and experimental with a very short time limit? Sounds good to me!

Emergency Lavender and Coconut Madeira Cake

Unfortunately I can’t count this towards my aroundtheworldin80bakes challenge as I have already baked SO much from England. Despite it’s continental name, Madeira Cake is actually from England. It’s a typical afternoon tea type of sponge cake and one of my favourites! The sponge in the Lamingtons that I made earlier is very similar to a madeira sponge. I love it’s moistness and I think (shock horror) I prefer it to a Victoria Sponge which (when I make it) can be a bit on the dry side.

Funnily enough Madeira cake and Madelines seemed to be very popular when I was in China. I ate rather a lot with my green tea!

Lavender and Coconut Madeira Cake (I can’t spell Madeira in this picture and this was my fourth attempt!)

I used a basic Marguerite Patten recipe and adapted it, replacing the lemon and orange zests with lavender sugar. I used the leftover lavender infused sugar (as mentioned in my last post) to add the lavender to the madeira recipe. I also substituted the milk for coconut milk and steeped some dried lavender in the milk for good measure while I whisked the butter and sugar together.

Beating the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy

I think the key to a maderia cake is to keep beating the butter and sugar until it becomes a lighter yellow colour and then add in one egg at a time. Whisk it all together until you think it’s ready and then beat it a bit more!

Whisking the eggs and coconut milk

Whisking the eggs and milk into the beaten butter and sugar

Fold in the sifted flour

All baked in my lovely new leak proof and non stick tin (no lining required!)

Unfortunately I got a bit carried away with the generous sprinkling of lavender sugar on the top of the cake and it dried out in the oven and cracked. I hadn’t intended on icing it at all, but the top layer crumbled away so on with the buttercream! (and no one will know the difference!)

Naked Madeira – pre cracked top

I usually enjoy my madeira cake plain with a cup of tea, especially as the edges a little more crunchy and sugary. However emergency butter cream was required and I whisked it up with another experimental addition. Coconut powder, icing sugar, blue food colouring, a little red food colouring and vanilla essence! This made the fluffiest icing that I have ever made! It was a bit touch and go for a while as my colourings ended up at grey rather than purple, so I kept adding blue until I got to lavender blue colour instead.

Lavender blue (and a sprinkle of glitter, coconut and lavender petals)

I didn’t have time for fancy piping so I plopped the icing on the cake with my palette knife and smoothed it round. Rustic looking, with a sprinkle of coconut and lavender, as Mary Berry suggests, to use a little of what’s inside the cake, on top of the cake to decorate it. I also couldn’t resist a sprinkle of glitter too…

The Cakes arriving at Cladestine Cake Club

All I had to do, was store it in the fridge over night. Then run home to collect it after work. The Clandestine Cake Club was held in the Garden Kitchen in Eldon Gardens this month. It was a fantastic venue, so light and airy!

So many gorgeous cakes to try!

The cakes were fantastic! I managed to sample, (almost) all of the cakes this time round. There were 20 bakers at this club with a guest each. I think I tried about 15 cakes! As most of them had fruit (and vegetables) in them they were quite light. I really enjoyed the English Country Garden theme.

Orange Blossom and Pistachio

I loved meeting lots of new faces at the CCC too and catching up with fellow bakers and bloggers Nelly  and Lisa (who organised the Newcastle CCC, it’s definitely worth checking out her blog!). Thankfully my cake seemed to be well received and there wasn’t a piece left at the end of the night! No one seemed to notice the cracked top that the buttercream was hiding too. I even took along my Bibingka Cake, just in case anyone wanted to try it, but there were far too many other lovely cakes to choose from, so I’m not surprised I ended up taking it home with me again!

Real Strawberries were hidden inside the giant carved cake strawberry! Delicious!

I’m looking forward to the next CCC event in July, where I will be baking something from the 18th Century for the EAT Festival! (I have no idea what I will be baking yet as google hasn’t offered many suitable recipes at the moment… all ideas are very welcome!)

 

Things I used to make Lavender and Coconut Madeira Cake…

Madeira Sponge

  • 6 0z of margarine (stork)
  • 7 oz caster sugar (infused with lavender petals)
  • 3 eggs
  • 8 oz plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • about 1 tablespoon of dried lavender petals (for the sugar infusion)
  • 2 tablespoons of light coconut milk (you can use normal milk if you prefer)
  • about 1 tsp of dried lavender petals to infuse in the coconut milk

Coconut Buttercream

  • approximately 250g stork margarine
  • as much icing sugar as required to achieve smooth pale fluffy and thick consistency (approximately 200g)
  • a splash of vanilla extract
  • a generous 1-2 tbp powdered coconut milk
  • a sprinkle of dried lavender petals and desiccated coconut (and glitter)
  • blue food colouring (add as much as desired)

* This recipe was lovingly adapted from Marguerite Patten’s Luxury Madeira Cake Recipe, Everyday Food Cookbook

33. Fill your boots – Filipino Lavender and Coconut Bibinkga Cake

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Food, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just to make life that little bit more difficult for my trip this month to the Clandestine Cake Club I insisted upon incorporating some international aroundtheworldin80bakes baking into the English Garden themed bake . Up for yet another challenge I searched for and discovered an unusual recipe for a cake I’ve never even heard of before! Bibinkga cake (also known as mochiko cake) from the Philippines. (Another country on my still to be visited list too).

Lavender & Coconut Bibingka

So I was aiming to create an experimental English country garden cake with an aroundtheworldin80bakes twist… Hence lavender and coconut Bibinkga cake. I won’t be shocked if you don’t know what a Bibingka cake is, in fact I am very impressed if you are familiar with this cake. I was very intrigued by the idea of baking a rice flour cake with condensed milk and sugar. The twist of lavender offered a nod to the traditional English country garden theme.

I was a bit nervous creating something so different for CCC as everyone brings such beautiful and wonderous cakes along. But I am the one who conjured up my own challenge and therefore I must stick to it. When there is a baking requirement I see an international baking opportunity! (Despite most of my friends and family’s preference for chocolate cake… )

Even with my aroundtheworldin80bakes dedication/obsession I still felt some trepidation and so baked the Bibinkga 2 days in advance… just in case of epic disasters. I must be psychic. I’m so pleased that I realised my own limitations and didn’t pin all of my hopes on this bake!

What goes into to Lavender and Coconut Bibingka Cake?

It was a fairly quick bake with a bit of whisking. Last year I made lavender shortbread (which I loved and gave to friends and family for Christmas). I learnt a really great way of introducing lavender to baking by infusing dried culinary lavender for a week or two in an airtight container filled with sugar. Just popping the lid of the sugar jar is a little breath of heaven when you’re making lavender sugar. This time round I still had some lavender stored up so infused the sugar for a week or so before baking this. It really does make all the difference as lavender can be a little too delicate to flavour a full cake.

Lavender Sugar – pre blitzing in all it’s infused glory

To ensure the sugar was REALLY lavendery and evenly distributed throughout, I threw couple of tablespoons of dried flowers into the sugar and after their infusion used my stick blender to blitz it all up together.

Frothing up nicely

This was really quite a quick bake and so the most effort required was for the whisking. I used my handheld electric whisk to whisk together the coconut milk, evaporated milk and melted butter. I whisked this up until it was a lovely creamy yellow colour and frothy, (and of course all up the walls in the kitchen) probably for around 5 minutes.

Then I whisked in the eggs, and whisked to incorporate as much air as possible.

Even Frothier

Still using my hand held whisk I added the lavender sugar  and vanilla extract, and whisked it until it was a smooth runny batter. Then to  gradually beat/whisk the rice flour into the batter. I added 1/2 cup at a time to attempt to avoid dreaded lumps and bumps.

After all that whisking, all that’s left to do is to pour the very fluid batter into a pre prepared grased and lined baking  tin. I used a rectangluar roasting pan about 13cm by 9cm

Oven Ready Bibingka

With a generous sprinkle of dessicated coconut and a bit extra lavender for good luck the Bibingka cake was ready for a good baking  for 45 mins at 190 degrees C (or 375 degrees F)

The recipe warned that the cake would look like it had risen and it wasn’t wrong.  20 minutes into the baking time there was no waft of cake floating from the oven nor any lavender perfume warming the air. Concerned, I checked the oven to discover I had created a balloon cake. One end dangerous puffed up with air and close to being frazzled whilst the other end lay calm and flat baking quietly.

Burnt Bibingka Balloon

When faced with a disproportionate cake inflation do you a) leave it alone, it may sort itself out? or b) open the oven and pop it with the closest thing to hand (usually a chopstick in my house). Being uncharacteristically sensible I did a) and now I really regret not popping the balloon with a chopstick.

Perhaps I whisked the batter into a frenzy and added too much air? I may have been a bit lazy just using the electric whisk for the entire cake creation process? Perhaps I should have folded in the flour rather than whisking it? The recipe did say that it would deflate after rising so I waited. And waited. And after 45minutes in the oven and a cooling off period. It STILL hasn’t deflated.

The final product

I clearly do not have the Bibingka skills! Once it had cooled I sliced it up into squares and had a little taste. God knows what I did wrong to this poor cake but it was utterly devoid of taste or fragrance. The complete opposite of my lavender shortbread which perfumed the entire house. It was rather dense, chewy and a bit on the greasy side for my liking. Perhaps I used the wrong type of rice flour? Perhaps it was the light coconut milk that I picked up by accident? Or perhaps my lavender had lost it’s oomph?!

Hollow on the inside, flat on the outside

Either way I couldn’t possibly take it to the Clandestine Cake Club in it’s lumpy, hollow and burnt state. Sometimes things go wrong in my kitchen, I’m not ashamed to admit it… it was fun experimenting all the same. It just meant I had some emergency baking to do and a new recipe to conjure up, quickly! Bring on the next challenge!

Things that I used to create Lavender and Coconut Bibingka Cake

  • 2 cups rice flour
  • 3/4 cup coconut milk (about half a can)
  • 3/4 cup evaporated milk (about half a can)
  • 1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon dried lavender
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
  • My Russian Doll measuring cups (every chance I get to use an American recipe!)
  • baking tin 13cm x 9cm
  • 190 degrees C oven for 45minutes

I found this recipe over at Kensington Kitchen’s Wonderful Blog . Thank you for sharing and thank you very much for reading.

27. Paul Hollywood’s Peshwari Naan Bread – India

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, BBC Good Food, Bread, Paul Hollywood, The Great British Bake Off, Travelling and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Paul Hollywood’s Naan Bread

Rolling on to India and bake number 26! (All this baking is taking its toll! I’m now increading my exercise to 15 miles of walking a week, Ashtanga yoga and the occasional spin class/torture session.) But I love food and I love naan bread, particularly Peshwari Naan but then again who doesn’t love a good Naan? And not just any Naan bread but Paul Hollywood’s, the King of bread bakers, Naan bread?

Looking for the perfect accompaniment to my home made dahl and pilau rice I stumbled across the Paul Hollywood recipe I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Any excuse to whip out my trusty food processor too! I combined the flour, yeast, salt and oil and mixed it all up using the dough hook attachment, adding water until it became a good sticky dough.

The food processor alone was not enough to knead the dough properly and the food processor was about to leap off the worksurface with the sheer effort of spinning the dough. I had to admit defeat and resort to my own hands.

Shiny Happy People – Kneady Stuff

I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes on an oiled surface, to stop it sticking, which is so much easier than a floured surface. Until it was smooth and shiny and bounced back when pressed lightly. It’s times like these that I wish I was 2 inches taller so I didn’t have to knead the dough whilst teetering about on my tip toes to get the right force required!

Time to Prove

Whilst the dough proved under it’s oiled cling film covering I set to work on arranging my naan flavours. Paul Hollywood’s recipe called for caraway seeds and coriander. Unable to follow any recipe without substituting something or ad libbing somewhere, I decided to attempt a Peshwari Naan, guessing that I could throw some crushed garlic, spices (coriander, cumin and cardamom seeds), raisins and coconut into the mix and it would produce Peshwari Naan. Upon opening the cupboard I found dried fruit store severely depleted! My normal store cupboard staple, raisins, were nowhere to be found! (I forgot earlier in the week I bought an extra double amount to feed an entire litre of rum to for a very special future bake! All of my dried fruit is currently sitting patiently soaking up lashings of rum. All will be revealed soon!)

Naan Flavourings: Coconut, Garlic, Coriander, Cardamom Seeds and Cumin

Slightly disappointed I ploughed on with a combination of coconut, half a bulb of crushed garlic, dried coriander and cumin instead. Noting I must buy more dried fruit as soon as possible.

Risen to perfection

After about an hour of rising, (near the hot hob on the stove while I was cooking a chicken and vegetable dahl to encourage the dough to prove) the dough had doubled in size and was ready to be flavoured! I added the flavours a third at a time and kneaded them thoroughly through the dough.

Flavoured and divided

Once all the coconutty goodness was distributed evenly throughout the dough I rolled it into a fat sausage to chop it into quarters. Each quarter of dough should then be cut in half and flattened. Paul Hollywood is obviously a bit more of a perfectionist than me as he insists that a rolling pin is required to flatten the dough portions out. I can’t believe that people in India whip out a rolling pin at this point and so I decided to do all this flattening with my bare hands. Which did mean that my first attempt was more like a paperback novel than a fluffy, naan bread.

Stacks of semi flattened naan bread dough – must be flatter than this before hitting the pan!

I re-read the recipe and realised that the dough should be stretched into circles about 25cm in diameter, probably twice as big as my inital attempt! This explains the chunky naan brick that I produced.

Chunky Naan

Once flattened the dough has to be rested again for 5 minutes before plopping them (individually) into a hot pan with a splash of oil. I quite enjoyed the sizzle of the naan in the oil as the naan immediately puffed up and bubbled away happily in the pan. Then a quick flip over to sizzle it on the other side too. I was worried the coconut would all fall off as I got a bit bored whilst frying up the naans and decided to press some more coconut and coriander into the awaiting naan breads. I’m not sure if Paul Hollywood would approve of my inconsistent making-it-up-as-I-go-along approach but hey they were looking golden and lovely in the pan, so why worry about presentation and consistency now?!

Naan -ish and Golden (look at those bubbly edges!)

Once the naan is golden brown on both sides, it’s ready to hop out of the pan on onto a plate. I continued pan frying all 8 of the naans, piling them high on a plate ready to be devoured with daahl.

Stacks of Naan

Tea time! It smelt amazing, although a tad smokey in my kitchen as I definitely had the heat up too high on the pan. The windows had to be opened to get rid of the haze in order to see at one point. But other than my carelessness when it comes to fire safety, this recipe was a resounding success. I did slightly chargrill (burnt) one naan and created a naan brick, but I still had 6 more naans to get the technique right with. When I eventually got it right, I really got it right!

Chargrilled Naan

The bread was fluffy and light around the edges with thinner crispier bits towards the middle, where I had possibly been a bit over enthusiastic with my thinning process. I quite liked the texture and it was a good call to add an extra layer of coconut before frying the bread as it toasted on the top. Lovely! I’ve frozen the rest of the batch after we had eaten our share, to be defrosted in naan bread emergencies, of which I’m sure I will have many.

Tea Time! (The naan was so massive I couldn’t fit it all on the plate or in the photo…)

The recipe, just in case you would like to try it is…

    • 500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
    • 10g/¼oz salt
    • 15g/½oz fresh yeast
    • 30ml/1fl oz olive oil
    • water, to mix
    • 1 tsp cumin seeds (I substituted this for – the crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods)
    • 1 tsp caraway seeds (I used a generous 1 tsp of dried coriander and 1 tsp cumin)
    • I then added further to Paul’s recipe with 1/2 a cereal bowl of coconut (sorry its a very rough guestimate, my usual measurement unit)

You can also find the full Paul Hollywood Naan Bread recipe on the BBC Food website.

Paul Hollywood’s Naan Bread Recipe

The Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection Continued…

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, BBC Good Food, cake decoration, Christmas, Cookery, Delia Smith, Fruit Cake, sugar craft, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Caribbean Christmas Cake Collection

This post has been a long time in the making. About a month ago I began the Caribbean Christmas Cakes after an extreme test of my patience in greasing and lining 14 assorted mini cake tins and baking the little blighters for a couple of hours. I don’t mind this of course as I know the fruits of my labours are worth the effort and the wonderous rum, raisin, cinnamon and coconut smell that permeated the entire house let me know just how wonderful it will be.

The baked cakes

I’ve tended to my little cakes every week, topping them up with a bit more rum, until they could take no more. They still required a little house of marzipan and another week to dry out all in their specially purchased enormous Tupperware box.

Roll out a lot of marzipan... this has got to fit round 14 cakes

I decided one Saturday night, before heading out for a party to attempt to coat them all in a quick blanket of marzipan. I managed to finish 9 of them before I decided enough was enough and I would very much like to go to have a dance instead.

Firstly they needed to be glazed with apricot jam to make the marzipan stick…

Warming Apricot Jam

Then as all the cakes are very different shapes and sizes, they each needed to be fitted individually for their marzipan house. In an attempt to minimise rolling out marzipan, as it is frankly infuriating with its tendency to stick to the work surface just as you get it to the right thickness and it’s perfectly smooth so you have to start again, I squeezed as many on to one sheet as possible and trimmed it so there was very little excess to remove on the cake itself.

cutting each cake its own marzipan house

Once it was face down on the marzipan I had to simply lift the marzipan up and force it to stick to the sides of the cake, achieving a (relatively) smooth finish. I’m not too bothered about getting it perfect at this stage as the fondant should cover any major flaws…

Off with its head! (far too wonky)

Occasionally I got too frustrated with the cake being all oddly shaped and cut a lump off it. This didn’t really help matters as the cake was no straighter after being hacked into. I just made a big mess and dropped cake everywhere… but it did mean that I had a midnight snack when I got back in later on. :)

Then for the fondant

After a week the marzipan was settled enough to add the final icing layer. I was greeted by a fantastic whiff of almond and rum when I came back to the little cakes. The white fondant icing needed to be kneaded until it was pliable and then rolled out in the same way as the marzipan, however a bit more carefully and precisely (if I can ever be precise?!) as this is the layer that everyone sees. Cue more irritated rolling pin action.

I didn’t have any vodka to brush onto the marzipan so I used the rum in the cupboard. I’m sure that will do the same job and perhaps enhance the rumness of the cake while it’s at it?

Trim its skirt

The cakes needed a little trim to tidy the edges and I ended up rolling the cakes themselves around like a rolling pin (as they’re so small) on the worksurface to smooth them out and flatten the icing down. It’s impossible, even with my childrens sized rolling pin to roll the icing smooth on the cakes. Then they needed a quick polish with the palm of my hand to bring the icing to life.

I love the film Elf. It always makes me think of candy canes so as an homage to Elf I wanted to make Candy stripe cakes. I was very kindly donated a block of red fondant which is amazing!! (Thanks Lucy!) I rolled it out and using many handy palette knife/ruler cut strips of red icing.

Lines and lines and lines and lines

Then I glued them on to the cakes using a dab of water.

Chunky Candy Stripes

Not bad for my first attempt even if I do say so myself (and as I was completely making it up as I went along). Not content with just one design, I had ordered some daisy flower cutters from Ebay and thought I could perhaps christen them and pass them off as Poinsettia?

The daisy/poinsettia flower cutters

Poinsettia Flowers

I added some silver edible ball things (can’t remember their real name) by mixing a tiny bit of icing sugar with water to make a paste then squishing them into the cakes. There’s still 5 more cakes that require some attention and I have some holly leaf cutters and green food colouring to play with :)

All shapes and sizes welcome in this collection of cakes

4 hours of icing later... 9 down, 5 more to go.

I’m also entering this in Vanessa Kimbells’ fantastic Let’s Make Christmas Competition as I will be packing up these mini cakes in cellophane with lashings of ribbon and giving them to my friends and family very soon! Have a look at her blog and competition below…
 
http://writingacookerybook.blogspot.com/2011/10/lets-make-christmas.html

13. Lovely Lamingtons – Australia – Lord Lamington’s Finest

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Australia, Baking, BBC Good Food, Everday Cooking, GBBO, Lamingtons, Marguerite Patten, Marguerite Patton, The Great British Bake Off, Travelling and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As a surprise birthday treat, I decided to bake Chris his favourite Australian treat, Lamingtons. We ate Lamingtons the size of house bricks when visiting Australia. One particular Lamington stands out from our visit this year when we drove the Great Ocean Road and stayed in the seaside towns of Lorne and Apollo Bay to take in the sights (and the cakes and pies too).

Look at this little fella! Spotted on the Great Ocean Road

Somewhere over the rainbow…

I spotted a Lamington recipe in Marguerite Patton’s Everyday Cookbook and planned it all well in advance, purchasing an industrial sized bag of desiccated coconut, only for Chris to then ask for Lamingtons (and a Chocolate Roulade) for his birthday! My plan was discovered, but then again I’m not very good at keeping surprises secret and our tiny Tyneside flat doesn’t leave much to the imagination anyway…

Lamingtons. The classic Australian ones

I googled Lamingtons as they caused a bit of debate in the office. Many of us remember eating these chocolate, coconut, jam, sponge cubes as children, although others remember a pink version. They are also known by different names, such as Madelines, or pink Lamingtons. Some Australian Counsellor put me right. Apparently an Australian Lord loved cake. His maid  accidently dropped his cake into chocolate. Despite being a Lord he didn’t want to waste his cake (Don’t blame him!). So he told her to roll it in coconut so he wouldn’t get messy fingers. Et voila! Lamingtons were born and Australians are very proud of their 100 year recipe. (Check out the Australian Lamington official blog for evidence of the City Counsellor of Queensland shovelling Lamingtons into his mouth and the record breaking Lamington).

Celebrating 100 years of the Australian Lamington

Counsellor Paul Tullly enjoying Lamingtons – Courtesy of australianlamingtons.blogspot.com

I was a bit worried about how technical this recipe was and I didn’t actually own a square tin. I made a quick trip to visit my mam to borrow her tin. I’ve never baked one cake and sliced it in half before. It seems a bit dangerous. Is it difficult? What if I slip with the knife and ruin the entire cake?!

Sponge time

The sponge itself was pretty simple to make. A basic vanilla batter, which smelled gorgeous and tasted rather like a dense madeira cake.

Smells so good

I had to leave it to cool overnight and the next day chopped off the slightly domed top to create a flat surface instead. This was nerve wracking too as the last time I attempted this I cut my hand. I managed and kept all my fingers intact. This meant that I got a sneak preview and ate the lid before work. Hurrah! It was delicious!

Off with it’s dome

I set about creating the chocolate soup, from cocoa powder and icing sugar. I carefully sliced the cake through the middle widthways and had two perfect halves!!

Chocolate Soup?

The recipe was supposed to make 16 portions… I was a bit worried that this dinky square cake just wasn’t enough for the Australian cakes that we were accustomed too. So I baked another one. This time in a big roasting tin to make one flat cake, remembering this time to leave a bit of a dint in the top (pushing more mixture to the edges) so I didn’t get a dome finish.

The second sponge… (please ignore the cat food in the background)

Our guests were arriving for fish and chips and Lamingtons so I didn’t have much time for mistakes. I threw almost a full jar of strawberry jam onto the sponges and rubbed it in with the back of a spoon. (Excessive? Me?)

JAM

Then plonked one half on top of the other and decided that 4 big cakes were better than 16 little ones. I used the sharpest knife I could find and cut the sponge into quarters. Although they still didn’t look that ‘Australian sized’ to me.

That’s more like it

The recipe suggests you use a skewer to pierce the cake and dip gentily into the chocolate soup before lovingly rolling it in desiccated coconut. Who has time for these things? I picked the cakes up with my bare hands and within 2 seconds was up to my eyes in chocolate and coconut. Everything stuck to me! My messy yet effective method.

Step one. Dunk yourself in chocolate

Step two. Roll around in coconut (Do not try to a. answer the phone b. push your hair out of your face c.  say hello to the cat until hands can be throughly washed.)

The cakes needed about an hour to ‘set’. I definitely used more coconut than suggested as the chocolate from my fingers kept leaking onto the pristine white finish and ruining the effect slightly.

The Setting Process

When piled onto my new vintage cake plate, topped with candles, lit and then carried through the beaded curtain from the kitchen to the living room. (No fires were caused in the making of these cakes, don’t worry), They suddenly transformed into magnificent brick like beasts. I had made giant cakes. One cake was more than enough for two people and I still had an entire sponge cake left to assemble!

Happy Birthday Chris!

Happy Birthday Chris! I loved these cakes and was so impressed with how they turned out. The sponge doesn’t need to be the perfect shape, the coconut makes up for any inconsistencies and they are so very moreish.

My Half

I attempted some pink Lamingtons (or English Madelines as Nigel Slater informs me in his ‘Eating for England’ book) especially for Caroline at work as they were her favourite, using powdered jelly. Bizarre stuff but apparently they tasted excatly like the ones she had when she was little. Success!

Pink Jelly Soup

One flat sponge cake goes a long way…

Things that I used to make Lovely Lamingtons…

Sponge cake

  • 5 oz butter
  • 7 oz caster sugar
  • splash of vanilla extract
  • 3 eggs
  • 10 oz self raising flour
  • 4 tablespoons of milk

Filling

  • strawberry/raspberry jam

Coating

  • 7 oz icing sugar
  • 1 oz cocoa powder
  • 3 tablespoons of boiling water

Decoration

  • 6 oz desiccated coconut (or as much as you need to coat the lamingtons liberally!)

Method

  1. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla essence together
  2. add the eggs gradually
  3. fold in the sieved flour alternatively with the milk
  4. spread the mixture into a baking tin (8 inch square)
  5. bake for 50-60 mins at 350 degrees F/gas mark 4
  6. cool the sponge and store in an airtight container over night
  7. carefully slice the sponge through the centre to create 2 square sponges
  8. spread with jam
  9. sandwich the two sponges together
  10. mix the icing sugar and cocoa powder together in a shallow bowl adding the boiling water gradually to create your chocolate soup. Add more sugar/water as required.
  11. chop the sponge into equal sized squares (4 if you want big pieces or 16 smaller ones)
  12. dip each piece into the chocolate soup and then into a shallow bowl of desiccated coconut
  13. leave on a cooling rack to harden
  14. eat with a big cup of tea!

* Recipe lovingly adapated from Marguerite Patten’s Everyday Cookbook

 

12. Carribean Christmas Cake – Jamaicing me crazy and setting the kitchen on fire

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, BBC Good Food, Cookery, Delia Smith, GBBO, The Great British Bake Off, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My battered Delia Recipe

I LOVE Christmas and Christmas Cake! A few years ago I decided, the week before Christmas, to make my first ever independent Christmas Cake. I now know that this is breaking all of the Christmas Cake rules. It needs time to mature, to be fed Brandy and then the icing needs to be spaced out, one layer at a time over a week, so the marzipan has time to dry out and to achieve a much smoother finish. But in true Lauren style, I dove straight in and was sitting up til 1am waiting for the cake to bake. Then a spot of slap dash icing (which I had never EVER done before) til ridiculous o’clock on Christmas Eve.

My first ever Christmas Cake and decoration attempt. I went a bit overboard with the fondant icing! The marzipan snowman lost his head on the way too!

I didn’t want to make the same mistake(s) again this time. My Mam has a fantastic recipe, but I ended up adapting a Delia Recipe as it was a very spur of the moment decision when I first baked it and I have used it ever since. Even the same print out to be exact!

As per usual I didn’t have the correct ingredients in the cupboard so I had to substitute a the vast majority of Delia’s recipe. Ending up with dried mango, dates and raisins instead of cherries, candied peel and currants. Although I did splash out on a big bottle of brandy.

As the rules of Around the World in Eighty Bakes states, I have to bake something that I haven’t baked before. I pondered over this for a while and decided to modify my Christmas Cake and put a Caribbean twist on it. Also I wanted to make mini Christmas Cakes so I can give them as presents this year too,  inspired by a wonderful little short story by Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory.

Rum Soaked Fruit

In order to put a different slant on the classic Christmas Cake I replaced the Brandy with Rum. There’s always some in my cupboard and having tried to drink the leftover Brandy following reading  Gone with The Wind (Scarlett was a Brandy advocate) I realised I’m not a huge fan, perhaps Tesco Value Brandy is not the best to start with….

After soaking all the dried fruit in rum for a day. Opting for cranberries (very Christmassy), raisins and apricots, it was time to start mixing everything together. The butter was a bit hard so I decided to soften it slightly in the microwave, after ensuring the butter packet was paper only I popped the whole block in the microwave for 30 seconds.

The microwave went up in a loud bang and a massive white flash. I created fireworks in the kitchen! A little girly squeal from me and I ripped open the microwave door, to discover actual flames coming from the cleverly disguised tin foil sandwiched inbetween the paper of the packet.

I’ve never set the kitchen on fire before, so I got a bit of a shock.  But I managed to think quick and decided to blow the flames out, whilst balanced precariously on my tip toes. The microwave is on top of the fridge and I’m only 5 foot 2 (ish) so it’s a bit of a stretch at the best of times… Thankfully it worked and I rescued the butter and the kitchen.

The Offending Article

I persevered following the slight disaster and finished mixing the ingredients, with the addition of coconut too. Let’s hope this tastes nice!

Lovely Mixing. (Make a wish)

Then to grease and line 14 small tins of various sizes! This was a bit of test of my patience. I made the next mistake of popping another pack of butter directly on the oven shelf, ‘just for a minute’ to soften. I forgot about it and returned about 20 minutes later to an empty pack of butter and an oven swimming in grease. Eugh!

Oh dear

I got a bit bored of making lids for my mini cakes and decided to wrap the entire tray in baking paper to protect it from the heat. As the cakes are much smaller than the norm I reduced the cooking time slightly
too, so no 1am cake vigils for me!

Mini Cakes. Individually greased and lined.

Patience wearing thin... I'll wrap the entire tray!

They look lovely and smell beautiful too. These cakes are most definitely a labour of love. Now to feed them rum on a regular basis. I’ll store them for a few weeks then attempt some sort of creative decoration. I predict some sort of gold lustre making an appearance. I will keep you posted on my progress!

Phew! 14 mini Christmas Cakes baked

Close up