59. Pandan Chiffon Cake – South East Asia & Gluten Free

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, Cookery, Food, Green Tea, pandan, recipe, The Great British Bake Off, traditional food, Travelling and tagged with #foodie, aroundtheworldin80bakes, baking, cake, chiffon, clandestine cake club, exotic cakes, gluten free, glutinous rice flour, Great British Bake Off, Indonesia, international, malaysia, malaysian, pandan, Pandan Cake, pandan chiffon cake, pandan essence, recipe, singapore, South east asia, technical challenge, traditional food 09/02/2014

Huge and Fluffy Pandan Cake

Searching for a suitably exotic and challenging recipe I remembered a wonderful recipe I was given by a fellow cake clubber. Her family recipe for Pandan Cake. Not to be confused with Panda cake. Although a Panda Pandan Cake would be immense.

The Great Reveal! (Probably not the best photo that I could have got of the delicate Pandan Chiffon Cake but it shows how brightly coloured it is on the inside!)

Pandan is a traditional flavouring used in South East Asia. (You might find Pandan Cake in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.) It comes from the leaves of the Pandan plant. It is also used to help flavour dishes such as jasmine sticky rice. If you can get a hold of some Pandan leaves you can make your own extract by boiling the leaves in a small amount of water. Pandan cake is usually green because of the chlorophyll from the leaves but as the leaves aren’t readily available everywhere most Pandan essences contain some bright food colouring to help recreate the glorious green sponge at home.

Gloriously Green Pandan Essence and Pandan infused Glutinous Rice flour

In search for Pandan paste I found Pandan essence and Pandanus Glutinous Rice flour which contained the elusive Pandan extract. As rice flour behaves in a slightly different way to normal plain flour I had to modify my recipe to accommodate the changes. You don’t have to use the green flour if you can’t find it. You can use self raising or plain. But if you prefer gluten free go for rice flour. Glutinous rice flour (despite it’s name) is gluten free. The glutinous bit means the rice belongs to the sticky rice family.

The Pandan Chiffon Cake in amongst the stunning array of Clandestine Cakes

Now upon extra research I realised that this is a chiffon cake. Those Great British Bake off fans will remember this as one of the technical challenges that was a bit tricky to bake! And considering my oven’s unpredictability this may not be the best choice to bake for our first Clandestine Cake Club gathering of 2014. But I do like a challenge!

Whisk 8 eggs yolks with the sugar

This has a lot of eggs in it so you will need 2 big bowls but doesn’t take as long to make as you might think. (Only if you stop to take photos along the way does this take a long time! ). Whisk 8 egg yolks with 100g of sugar until light and fluffy

Whisk in the coconut milk and oil

Whisk in the coconut milk along with the pandan essence/paste/extract. If you’re worried it’s not going to be green enough add a dot of green food colouring gel. It will soon become a frothy fluid batter with a green tinge to it.

Adding the fluorescent Pandan Essence

Sift in the flour ( whatever type you prefer) along with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. If using self raising flour you will not need as much raising agent. Whisk a third of the flour into the batter followed by a third of the oil. Repeat until it’s all combined.

Whisking in the glutinous rice flour – How bright is the batter!

Whisk the egg whites until frothy. Then gradually add 100g of sugar and continue to whisk on high until stiff peaks form.

Whisk the egg whites (adding the sugar gradually) until stiff peaks are formed

Fold a dollop of egg whites into the green batter to loosen the mix and then carefully fold the egg whites in to preserve the air in the mix and help the cake rise evenly.

Carefully fold in the egg whites – Love how green the batter is!

As uncomfortable as this seems (it screams against all baking experience) pour the mix into a NON GREASED tube pan (looks like a flat topped Bundt tin). Apparently chiffon cakes need to cool upside down and grip the sides of the tin so they slowly slide out of the tin as they cool. If removed straight away the cake will concertina up and end up as a dense pancake. Greasing the tin would make the cake slip out too quickly so try not to grease it

Chiffon batter ready to bake in it’s un greased tube pan

Now with all that wonderful air in the cake the sponge springs up magnificently in the oven almost escaping the tin. With the hole in the middle the cake will cook quicker and more evenly which can only be a bonus in my oven.

The enormous Pandan Chiffon Cake!

You will need to keep an eye on the cake to make sure it doesn’t burn. Bake it for 50 mins at 160 degrees c ( fan) but if it is cooked through sooner take it out (or leave it longer if it needs it.) I made the mistake of sticking cocktail sticks into the cake too often to check that it was cooked. This meant I deflated the cake slighty. Also pausing to mess around taking photos of the cake meant that I didn’t invert the cake tin quick enough and to my horror saw the cake sag down inside the tin. You can see on the cooled cake that it has a little ridge around the bottom of the cake (a bit like a muffin top over spilling someone’s jeans). Note to self: check it’s cooked and tip the tin upside down immediately when taking it out of the oven!

Despite it's saggy ridge the Pandan Chiffon Cake was amazing!

Despite it’s slightly saggy ridge the Pandan Chiffon Cake was amazing!

Once the cake cooled completely I found that it didn’t slide out of the tin as easily as I had hoped, as the cake was clinging on a little too tightly to the tin. I coaxed it gently out of the tin using a sharp knife and running it around the edge of the tin, allowing gravity to do the rest of the job. This meant that the cake didn’t have a shiny finish to it, but I think this is how it’s supposed to look.

The Magnificent Pandan Chiffon Cake

What a magnificent cake the Pandan Chiffon Cake is! It is extremely light and soft to the touch, more like a tasty pillow than a cake. I’ve never eaten a cake that actually melted in my mouth before until now. It’s moist and airy and keeps for at least 3 days after baking it. (That’s as long as I managed to save my final piece until.) It’s worth slicing the cake with the sharpest knife that you have to preserve it’s shape as much as possible as it is very delicate. (I may have been a tad heavy handed when slicing it up as I squished it slightly.)

A slightly squashed slice of Pandan Chiffon Cake

Pandan is an unusual flavour. It perfumes the air whilst managing to taste both sweet and savoury at the same time. It’s similar to Green Tea (Matcha) cakes but like nothing else that I’ve ever tasted before. I will surely be baking this again. It really doesn’t take as long as you might think, perhaps 30 minutes to prepare and as it doesn’t need any dressing up, you don’t need to spend time decorating the cake. Icing would be overkill. It’s a deceptive cake. It looks rather plain and boring from the outside, but that first slice releases the pandan perfume and the glorious green chiffon . It’s a much more complex and interesting cake than you might initially think. If you’re going to attempt an exotic cake I can’t recommend the Pandan Chiffon Cake enough!

An empty plate speaks for itself! – The Pandan Chiffon Cake disappeared very quickly

Things I used to make my Pandan Chiffon Cake

Batter

8 egg yolks
100g sugar
140ml coconut milk
1/4 cup olive oil
170g pandan flavoured glutinous rice flour (you can use plain rice flour if you prefer)
3 tsp pandan essence (1tsp paste)
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
(Green food colouring if you wish)

Egg whites

8 egg whites
100g sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Method

Whisk the eggs yolks with the sugar until light and fluffy
Whisk in the coconut milk, pandan essence (and a splash of green food colouring if you would like it extra bright)
Sift the bicarbonate of soda and baking powder and flour together
Whisk in a third of the flour mixture followed by a third of the oil until it’s all incorporated
In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until frothy, then gradually add the sugar and cream of tartar
Beat until the eggs whites are they reach stiff peaks
Fold the egg whites into the batter gently
Pour into a non greased tube pan
Bake at 160 degrees c fan for 50 minutes
When fully cooked invert the tin immediately over a cooling rack and allow the cake to slide gently out of the tin as it cools
Slice with a very sharp knife and store in an airtight container

46. Say hello to my Brazilian Roll ~ Rocambole Cake

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in @laurenprince, Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake, cake decoration, Christmas, Food, Mary Berry and tagged with around the world in 80 bakes, baking, Brazil, brazilian friend, Brazilian Roll, cake, caramel, chocolate log, chocolate roulade, christmas, clandestine cake club, delicate sponge, dessert, doce de leite, dolce de leche, dulche leiche, egg whites, Food, home baking, international baking, lauren hoy, lauren prince, light sponge cake, Mary Berry, newcastle, Rocambole, rocambole recipe, sponge cake, Sugar, Swiss roll, toffee, vanilla 14/02/2013

Brazil is yet another country on my still to visit list. However I do have a lovely Brazilian friend who was an exchange student at my sixth form. We became firm friends over A Level Media Studies and parties. Thinking of you Gabriella when baking my Brazilian Roll or as you may call it in Brazil a Rocambole.

This bake reminds me of Mary Berry’s Chocolate Roulade (one of my very first around the world in 80 bakes more technical challenges). Both are very similar to the wonderful Swiss Roll however the distinguishing factor of the Rocambole and the Roulade is that they use whisked egg whites to fluff up the sponge. This means it’s a fragile cake but very light. Where as the Swiss Roll is more like a sponge cake, less delicate and probably (in my opinion) a bit easier to bake and to handle.

Traditionally the filling in a Rocambole is a Doce de Leite. This is a Brazilian favourite. It’s a creamy milky toffee sauce made from slowly reduced condensed milk. (It’s quite similar to the Italian toffee sauce dolce de leche). It’s reduced down over a low heat until caramelised to produce a thick fudgey gooey paste. As the filing takes quite some time to prepare it’s best to start with this! You need to be really careful with this as if the pan is left to boil dry the can could explode and really hurt yourself (and your kitchen).

Simmer an unopened can of condensed in a pan of water for at least 2 and a half hours

Take one unopened can of condensed milk (Most cans in the UK randomly contain a very precise amount of condensed milk of 395ml. Who knows why? But the process is the same regardless of the size of your tin). Place your unopened can of condensed milk in a pan of boiling water and simmer it for 2 and a half hours. Keep an eye on the pan and keep topping up the water so the water level remains.always around 2 thirds of the way up the can. Allow the can to cool for about 30 minutes before opening it.

Evaporated milk isn’t the same and unfortunately won’t work as a substitute, as evaporated milk doesn’t have as much sugar in it. Never to be defeated I have managed to make doce de leite with evaporated milk. If you’re up for an experiment and evaporated milk is all you’ve got, you could get away with adding sugar to evaporated milk and dissolving it slowly over a low heat to create your own toffee sauce. (I have free styled this recipe before and it gave a rather more liquid toffee sauce so it can be done! Just add enough sugar until you reach your desired level of toffee colour and taste.)

The grand reveal! My doce de leite looks suspiciously like condensed milk. No hint of toffee here. Back in the pan you go

Unfortunately I failed to let the water bubble (being a little too cautious – very unlike me!) so when I opened my can it still looked like condensed milk, just a bit thicker. However undeterred I threw it all into the pan and heated it on the stove to make my doce de leite directly in the pan. It does require a bit more attention and elbow grease however…

The slightly reduce condensed milk straight from the can, the bottom revealed some thicker doce de leit

The slightly reduce condensed milk straight from the can, the bottom of the can revealed the beginnings of some thicker doce de leit. It’s a bit lumpy so needs a good whisk

I’m a little impatient and wanted it to thicken up quickly so kept increasing the heat and whisking by hand until it bubbled, then removed the pan from the heat to allow the residual heat to continue to cook the condensed milk. You need strong arms to keep whisking continuously as the milk thickens! (My arms weren’t feeling the strongest after a full day of Yoga handstands the day before but I still managed)

Whisking the condensed milk over a low heat to make doce de leite

My impatience led my doce de leite to become extremely thick and it pulled the head off my hand whisk! However a little cold milk reduced the heat of the sugar to calm the doce de leite down. It allowed me to get the sauce back to a slightly more spreadable state. To stop the cooking process I placed the hot pan into a sink of cold water. In my ‘wisdom’ I then dipped my finger into the doce de leite to test if it was cool enough to spread! It was most definitely NOT cool enough and welded to my finger. I managed to pull the molten lava doce de leite off my finger and ran it under the cold tap. Did you know a piece of frozen melon makes a wonderful cold compress to take the heat out of a burn? Clutching my melon I managed awkwardly to continue to whisk the sauce still undefeated by my blistering finger. I ended up clutching on to more frozen fruit whilst spreading the doce de leit and rolling up the cake.

After a good 5 minutes of whisking and heating it turns a golden brown colour and becomes quite thick! Add a bit of milk to loosen the mixture if it needs it.

The cake itself takes hardly any time at all to prepare. The whisking is the most time consuming part of the Rocambole. Like a Roulade you have to whisk the ALL of the egg whites (there’s 5 eggs in this cake! That’s a lot of egg!) on a high speed setting. (If you have an electric whisk, if not prepare your arms for a bit of a work out!) until stiff and shiny. This takes about 5 to 7 minutes. The egg whites will double in size. I love this bit!

Whisking the egg whites to make Rocambole

One slight difference between the Rocambole to a Roulade is that the egg yolks are then also whisked into the egg whites. (With a Roulade you whisk the yolks with the sugar and chocolate then fold it into the egg whites.) The Rocambole is a bit quicker banging it all together and whisking to your hearts content. You don’t want to knock any of the air out of the egg whites, so it’s best to beat the yolks lightly first so they are runny. You can then pour the egg yolks in as you whisk.

Adding egg yolks to whisked egg whites - rocambole

Whisking in the egg yolks to the egg whites – lovely creamy yellow colour and very fluffy!

Then to whisk in the sugar. The traditional Brazilian Rocambole recipe doesn’t include any flavourings or spices, it is a plain egg sponge. (A bit like my Chinese Egg Yolk Sponge favourite!) Ever the experimenter I wanted to add a bit of flavour to this bake so I used vanilla sugar. I made this really simply by shoving a leftover vanilla pod, which I had scraped the seeds from for another bake, into a bag of sugar. I then left it to infuse it’s vanillary goodness for a couple of weeks. It smells lovely and gently flavours the sugar with a hint of vanilla. It’s a good way to get your moneys worth out of those more expensive ingredients as I hate to throw the pods away. I often pop a vanilla pod into any spirit that I have in my cupboard too. Vanilla Brandy or Vanilla Rum anyone?

Then to whisk in 5 tablespoons of water into the eggs and sugar

The eggs should be seriously expanding and threatening to overflow the bowl by this point as they inflate rapidly. You need to continue to whisk the fluffy and shiny eggs whilst pouring in 5 tablespoons of water. This takes around 5 minutes of whisking.

Fold in the tiny amount of flour and baking powder

In order to maximise the air in the cake and to avoid knocking the air out of the wonderfully fluffy eggs, sift in all 5 tablespoons of plain flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Then using your best metal spoon fold in the dry ingredients gently. This is probably the smallest amount of flour that I’ve ever folded into a cake. It felt a bit odd as the flour just disappeared to the bottom of the bowl, but trust in the recipe, it definitely works!

Carefully pour the mixture into a rectangular baking tin

Line and grease a rectangular baking tin. I used a tin 37cm long by 22cm wide and 5cm high. Use a deep tin as it will rise in the oven. This mixture is really delicate so to avoid knocking the air out of it, hold your bowl of mixture as close to your tin as possible and pour. It’s a very liquid mixture so try to pour it into all of the corners so you don’t have to move it around too much in the tin. Gently level the mixture with a spatula to avoid an uneven bake.

A fully cooked and curled Rocambole

After baking it in a preheated oven (350 F/170 degrees Celsius) for 15-20 minutes, it will become golden brown and feel slightly firm and springy to the touch. I always check that a cake is cooked by using a cocktail stick, if it comes out clean from the sponge you know it’s done. Unfortunately I was trying my Mary Berry recommended foil backed parchment paper and it doesn’t always do what it’s told. In the heat of the oven it curled up and into the cake! Maybe a wider variety of paper is needed for this tin so that it reached the edges of the tin and can be scrumpled down over the lip of the tin to hold it in place?

Carefully lift your cake from the tin and prise any baking paper out of the sponge (if needed)

Allow the cake to cool in the tin slightly so it holds it’s shape. Then carefully lift the cake out of the tin, by the baking paper. But don’t remove the baking paper.

Spread the Doce de Leite carefully onto the sponge – try not to take the cake with you

Using a spatula and a palette knife , I tried to spread a thin layer of doce de leite across the cake. This is easier said than done whilst holding a piece of frozen fruit on your burnt finger. The Doce de leite is very gooey and if it’s as thick as mine, it could pull holes in your cake (note the holes in my sponge above…) But who is going to check the inside of your cake? When it’s rolled up no one will notice and it’s going to taste gorgeous anyway so throw it on as best as you can.

Carefully does it … Roll Roll Roll your Rocambole (excuse my slippers)

There is a bit of a knack to rolling up a Rocambole. I decided to neaten up my slightly rough edges, trimming the longest edge as straight as possible with my very best sharp knife. It’s not the easiest cake to trim as the sponge is very moist and delicate (so it sticks to the knife!). I only trimmed one edge in case I destroyed the other side. This cake was to accompany me to the Clandestine Cake Club and I didn’t have time to make another one (or anyone condensed milk!). Trimming the cake does have it’s benefits however, I could make sure it tasted good before serving it up to my friends!

Ta da! One rolled up Rocambole! (And one pan of soapy boiling water on the stove to dissolve all of the doce de leite)

Before I even attempted rolling the cake I made sure I had loosened all of the edges from the baking paper gently with my fingers to avoid tearing the sponge. It’s best to keep the sponge on the paper so you can use the paper to coax the cake over. I started the roll off by pressing a knife into the sponge about half an inch in from the shortest edge. I then folded this lip of sponge over to start the roll and give a really tight spiral. Then to let gravity do it’s job! Lifting the paper over, letting the cake fall into place whilst coaxing it into a roll with your hands. Once you start it’s easy to get carried away! Hence my lack of photos of this process the Rocambole was all rolled up before Chris could get into the kitchen to take a photo for me!

Gently ease any slightly stuck bits of cake off the paper using your finger tip…

All of the pictures I could find of a Rocambole seemed to show a cake with a very long spiral with a very thin sponge so I chose to roll mine from the short edge to the short edge, to maximise my spiral. If you wanted to get more slices out of your Rocambole you could roll from long edge to long edge and get a much longer cake.

Just rolled Rocambole – trimmed edge to the front!

Once you’ve rolled up your Rocambole all it needs is a liberal dusting with icing sugar and you’re good to go! I recommend eating it quick as the doce de leite has a tendency to ooze out of the sides when left for a night. But if you like this effect then see if you can hang fire for a bit for an extra level of goo. I can confirm that this a tasty cake. It’s definitely a winner if, like me, you have a sweet tooth as most of the flavour is derived from the sugar in the cake and the milky caramel doce de leite! It’s an extremely tender sponge that almost melts in your mouth. I’ve heard very good things from my Brazilian friend, who’s Grandma makes Rocambole. She covers the entire Rocambole in chocolate buttercream and adds some texture with a fork to create a chocolate log Rocambole! Now there’s a good idea for another Christmas bake to add to my list!

Glorious Cake Collection at the Clandestine Cake Club Newcastle at Pink Lane Coffee

I took my little Rocambole along with me to the Clandestine Cake Club at the lovely Pink Lane Coffee shop in Newcastle where we were baking around a ‘New’ theme. This could mean a new recipe, new baking tin, new ingredients. This was perfect for me as pretty much every recipe I bake is new to me and a bit of an experiment. There were some amazing cakes that night, my favourite being a chocolate and peanut butter layer cake (7 layers in total!). Check out Lisa’s blog for more gorgeous pictures of the beautiful cakes from all of the bakers who braved the January snow. When there’s cake nothing will get in my way. It was immense. I must admit I took an extra sneaky piece home for later too. I was so happy that all of my Rocambole got eaten.

So if that has whetted your appetite for a spot of Rocambole here’s what I used to make mine.

Ingredients

Doce de Leite Filling

1 unopened can of condensed milk (395 ml)

Alternative fillings…

If you don;t fancy simmering a can of condensed milk down in a pan I’m sure you could put a jar of nutella or jam or guava marmalade (another traditional Brazilian Rocambole filling) to good use here too.

Cake

5 eggs
5 tablespoons of vanilla infused sugar (or just normal sugar will do)
5 tablespoons of water
5 tablespoons of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

36. Wiltshire Lardy Cake – Let Them Eat Lard! – 18th Century Clandestine Cake Club – EAT Festival

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, cake decoration, Cookery, England, Food, Fruit Cake, GBBO, Marguerite Patten, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with 18th century cakes, aldermans house, Animal fat, around the world in 80 bakes, around the world in eighty bakes, baking, basic yeast dough, chinese bakery, clandestine cake club, dried fruit, dried instant yeast, EAT festival, fresh yeast vs instant yeast, fruit cake, gill measurement, indian spices, Lard, Marguerite Patten's recipe, newcastle, spice trade, super hans the cat, Wiltshire Lardy Cake 20/07/2012

Wiltshire Lardy Cake at the Clandestine Cake Club

Lard in a cake? Sounds vile doesn’t it? I’ve always been perplexed by this notion of animal fat in food. Long gone are the days when we made Yorkshire Pudding with blisteringly hot fat and yet we still use butter and such like in all our cakes which I guess is a tad more appealing than pork blubber.

Wiltshire Lardy Cake

I purchased a pack of lard to bake some Chinese cakes but never found the right occasion to bake the Lardy beauties. I was greatly amused in my favourite Chinese Bakery to see little signs in front of some of the buns proclaiming “I contain lard”. Like they were sharing a guilty secret with us. This was another case of serendipity, me having the perfect random ingredients required to bake something unusual for a very special EAT Festival Clandestine Cake Club.

Clandestine Cake Club – 18th Century Cakes – note the oranges and cauliflour!

The theme was 18th century cakes. (It’s harder than you would think to find a genuine 18th century recipe online.) A bit of research/googling later I realised in the 18th cake was spicy (the spice trade was blooming) and mainly contained readily available ingredients such as Lard and yeast!

I reverted back to good old Marguerite Patten and found Wiltshire Lardy cake. A very traditional English recipe. (I realise I’ve baked A LOT already from England but I promise to be more exotic again soon.)

Marguerite instructed me on making a basic yeast dough. I could tell how authentic (and genuinely old this recipe is as it uses the measurement ‘gill’ I have never heard of this before and it took a bit of deciphering!)

Now attempting to follow a recipe and instructions located in 3 different sections of a book is sure fire way to get me to make mistakes. I did not fail. Was it the late night baking efforts or my recipe coordination skills that are lacking?! Probably a bit of both!

The Food Processor did a wonderful job of distributing the yeast and rubbing the butter into the flour. Saved me a job!

The recipe instructed me to make a yeast paste. I ignored this as I know dried instant yeast doesn’t need to be mixed with liquid first. If I was using fresh yeast (which is a bit more difficult to find these days and more tricky to encourage) I would have followed the recipe to the letter, using blood temperature water and whatnot. With the instant yeast all you need to do is chuck it in with the flour and give it a stir to distribute it throughout. Simple.

Proving Time

After creating the basic yeast dough and leaving it to prove I fully embraced the lard. The technique required is very pastry like and it requires a little planning and preparation.

I set out my;

– glass work surface protector on top of a damp tea towel to hold it in place
– rolling pin
– flour for dusting
– lard
– spices, sugar and dried fruit

Proven Dough

Pastry is not my strong point I’m unashamed to admit. I’ve only tried to make flaky pastry once and I shed a few tears over the sheer effort and complicated origami folding required. It was distinctly lacking in flakes too after all the hard work!!

To start with the dough needs to be knocked back and kneaded gently to distribute the yeast and warmth again. Then on a floured board it needs a good flattening with the rolling pin. Roll it into a rectangle.

Rectangular Rolling and dotting of LARD

Then to dot dollops of lard all over, (but leaving the final third empty)! I was in the throes on smearing the distinctly stinky lard in dots onto my flattened dough and crazily folding it into envelope shapes when Super Hans (the cat) joined me wailing for a bit of lard.

One Fold

Two Folds

Seal the edges with the rolling pin

Roll it out and repeat!

Turn clockwise and roll into rectangle

The animal fat smell most surely lured Super Hans into the kitchen. Is this a good sign?! I guess if it’s good enough for the cat to eat it’s good enough for me. Lard most certainly passes the Super Hans taste test. However a wailing cat is not conducive to pleasant baking experience…

Super Hans the noisy Cat. He enjoys a nice bit of lard.

I merrily proceeded to fold the dough up as required and smeared all the lard into it, then returned to the Lardy Cake recipe to discover I was supposed to have folded the fruit and spices into the dough along with the lard! Damn. Back to the rolling pin and floured board for me to fold in the remaining ingredients. My Lardy dough had a very through folding and rolling! It is a bit more difficult to roll dough when it has dried fruit sandwiched in it, but don’t despair if a few raisins pop through. I think it gives it character.

Folding (again) this time WITH the sugar, fruit and spices!

Folded and ready to be rolled with fruit, sugar and spices

Rolled out and ready to be folded again

Second half of the fruit and sugar and yet more folding!

Another fold (don’t worry the fruit is going to peek out in places!)

This Lardy cake definitely has ‘character!’

I was very lucky that my friends Jill and Jonny brought me back some amazing spices from their Indian Honeymoon including some cinnamon bark, which I whizzed up in my spice mill on my food processor. It smells AMAZING, much fresher then my normal ground cinnamon. I added rather a lot of my Indian spices to the sugar mix.

Hand Shaped chunky lardy cake

Once I had folded everything into the dough, it needed to be shaped and coaxed by hand into a chunky square. I plonked the square dough into a round, greased and floured cake tin. Then to squash the dough into a round, ensuring there are no gaps along the edges or on the base of the dough to avoid any holes in the cake. It needed a bit more time to prove and then into the oven!

Squashed-into-a-cake-tin Lardy Cake

While it was baking away I prepared my glaze to pour over the cake as soon as it came out of the oven.

Just Baked – Wiltshire Lardy Cake

I was very nervous taking this cake along to the Clandestine Cake Club as it wasn’t as pretty as the other 18c cakes, which included a Wedgewood Iced Pepper Cake (beautiful!!), a basket of oranges! (marzipan encased chocolate and ganache cakes! So very realistic!) and I brought along LARD!? I made sure I sampled my cake first in case it was horrid and I needed to remove it from the table. But I was very pleasantly surprised.

Post Glaze – Just Chilling – Wiltshire Lardy Cake

It actually tastes rather nice. It’s a distinctly brown cake. The sugar glaze adds a nice crunchy texture and the lard (dare I say it) gives the cake a slightly savoury feel, a little bit like the Herman the German Cake. I couldn’t see any layers despite all the meticulous folding but perhaps I messed that up with my accidental double folding and rolling. I’m not entirely sure it’s supposed to result in layers either! Marguerite doesn’t really go into that much detail.

A sideways glance of Wiltshire Lardy Cake – No layers in sight but plenty of fruit and spice

But as you may realise by now I am a sucker for a fruit cake and this ticks all my boxes, fruity, spicy, sugary. It’s always the way isn’t it? The things that are the least healthy, taste the best!

A fine selection of 18th Century Cakes

The Clandestine Cake Club was held in the Alderman’s House, which is absolutely beautiful. I’ve walked past so many times and it is only open on special occasions. It was perfect for our 18^th century cake feast. As it was part of the EAT Festival we had additional guests to entertain with our cakes. It was a fabulous atmosphere with lots of tea flowing, cake demonstrations and sugar craft too. I’m looking forward to our next meeting in August.

Alderman’s House – Clandestine Cake Club

More Clandestine 18th Century Cakes

Rose cupcake decorating – look what I learnt!

Wiltshire Lardy Cake

Ingredients

Plain Yeast Dough

12oz Plain flour
Pinch of salt
1oz margarine
1-2oz sugar
1/2oz fresh yeast or 14grams instant dried yeast
Approx 1and ½ ‘gills’ tepid water, milk & water or milk (7.5 imperial fluid ounces or 213ml)

If using fresh yeast…

Cream the (fresh yeast) yeast with a tsp of sugar
Add tepid liquid and a sprinkling of flour
Put into a warm place until sponge ‘breaks’ through

If using dried yeast ignore these 3 steps above and add instant dried yeast directly to the flour at this point

Sieve flour and salt into a warm bowl
Rub in margarine and add sugar
When ready work in the yeast liquid and knead thoroughly
Put into a warm place to prove for about 1 hr until it doubles in size
Knock back and knead again until smooth

Lardy Cake

4 oz Lard
4oz Sugar
4oz dried fruit
Little spice (mixed spices, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom,)

Roll our the plain yeast dough into an oblong shape
If it’s a bit sticky flour the board well
Divide the lard and sugar into 2 equal portions, cutting the lard into tiny pieces
Dot half the lard onto the all over the dough and half the sugar and fruit, with a light dusting of spice on to the dough
Fold in the same way as for flaky pastry
Fold the dough over one third at a time, closing it like an envelope.
Seal the edges by pressing it with the rolling pin
‘Rib’ the dough with the rolling pin. (Press the rolling pin into the dough lengthways to create ridges equally spaced across the dough)
Turn the dough clockwise and roll out flat to a oblong shape
Add flour as required to prevent the dough sticking to the board
Re-roll the dough and repeat with the remaining lard, sugar, fruit and spice
Fold again and roll into a neat square or oblong shape
To fit into a 7 or 9 inch tin
If using a round tin mould the dough with hands to the required space
Put the mixture into a warmed, greased and floured cake tin, making sure it comes no more than two thirds of the way up the tin.
Prove for 20 mins in a warm place
Bake in the centre of a hot oven (425-450F or Gas Mark 6-7) for 15 mins
Lower heat to 375F/Gas Mark 4 for 20-25 mins
Either dust the cake with caster sugar when cold or brush with glaze when hot (1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon water)
Enjoy with a big cup of tea and revel in the lardy glow

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 @loopygirl, aroundtheworldin80bakes, clandestine cake club, coconut, eldon gardens, english country garden, Food, infusing lavender, Lamingtons, lavender, lavender sugar, lisa vincent, Luxury Madeira cake, madeira cake, Marguerite patten, Marguerite Patten's recipe, Mary Berry, newcastle, sponge cake, victoria sponge 12/06/2012

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

28. Jamaican Black (Rum) Cake – The most alcoholic cake I’ve ever baked

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, cake decoration, Christmas, Cookery, Food, Fruit Cake, GBBO, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with alcoholic cake, angostora bitters, boozy fruit cake, brandy, browning sugar, bundt jamaican black cake, cakes with beverages, clandestine cake club, double lined tins, food processor, freezing jamaican black cake, Jamaican Black Cake, Macerating fruit, rum, storing cake, traditional jamaican black cake, Trinidad Black Cake, what size tin to use to bake jamaican black cake 28/03/2012

Jamaican Black Cake

Officially the most alcoholic cake that I have EVER baked. Jamaican Black cake is most definitely not for the faint of heart or soberest of people. Containing 2 bottles of dark rum and a half bottle of Brandy, the fumes emanating from the cake are enough to make you slightly squiffy, never mind devouring a full slice!

Dark Rum (not just any dark rum but Marks and Spencers Dark Rum)

I happened upon the idea of a Jamaican Black cake when looking for Christmas cake recipes and I spotted it for sale at the continental Christmas markets. I required a wonderful cake recipe to bake for my first ever venture into the world of Clandestine Cake Club where the theme was cakes with beverages and also something luxurious for my mam’s mothers day present too. This is how I ended up scouring shops for a ridiculous amount of prunes, raisins, booze and Angostura Bitters. Did you know that they are difficult to find despite their 47% volume and are rumoured to be poisonous in large quantities… Good job this only needed 2 tablespoons of the pink stuff!

rum soaked fruit

I soaked the mammoth amount of dried fruit in an entire bottle (1 litre) of rum for about 2 weeks. I had to split the fruit into 2 jars as I simply did not have a vessel large enough to contain the copious amounts of booze and fruit.

I probably should have read the recipe more carefully as I would then have discovered that this recipe is enough to yield 3 or 4 cakes. I had produced a Jamaican Black Cake factory!! [I’ve revisited this recipe and reduced it down to Just the one Jamaican Black Cake here if you want to bake fewer cakes.]

The recipe also did not specify the volume of the bottles of booze so I shall let you know what worked for me (and as per usual I did end up substituting something for things that I like better. I hope that doesn’t detract from its Jamicanness? (or Trinidad – ianness origin also).

Rum soaked fruit… how much can I cram in to the food processor?

I figured that soaking fruit in this sheer amount of rum as well as being highly decadent is enough to ensure a good result (or get you very drunk so you no longer care what the cake actually tastes like). The idea behind such a long soak is to help macerate the fruit and also creates a much denser and moist texture than traditional fruit cake/Christmas Cake. I also think that it might make a wonderful Christmas pudding.

Maybe a bit more…

Following the long rum soak the fruit required mushing up. My weapon of choice was my food processor. Rather dangerously I crammed the entire fruit and rum mix into the bowl and forced the lid on. It took rather a lot of whizzing to get the mix to condense down into a fruit paste but it’s a determined little processor and did a wonderful job. Adding the Angostura bitters left a pink hue to the mixer bowl for future Jamaican Black Cake memories.

Eeek! Full to capacity but valiantly managed to macerate the fruit fully

With the food processor chugging away I had a chance to get on with ‘browning the sugar’. This is a new technique for me and undoubtedly adds to the depth of the final cake colour. Light brown sugar is heated in the pan until it melts to create a caramel. Adding a little water (in total half a cup) at a time. I struggled to get the sugar to melt and in frustration tipped all the water in, which wasn’t a good idea as it crystalised into chunks and required a much more vigorous heat and stir to get a smoother caramel. And even then it was still on the crunchy textured side for my liking. But I figured the heat of the oven would help to incorporate the crystals into the cake, I’m pretty sure I was right too! No sign of crunchy sugar lumps in the final cake.

Bubbling and browning the sugar to a caramel

Perhaps I was multi tasking to the extreme as I then attempted to beat the butter, sugar and eggs together whilst macerating the fruit and drowning/browning the sugar. But hey I have 2 hands, why not use them?!

Creaming the butter and sugar

After a short while I realised I don’t own a bowl big enough to house all of the cake ingredients in. I now had 3 separate and extremely full bowls which were already overflowing!! Once I stirred the browned liquid sugar into the beaten eggs and sugar I then only had 2 massive bowls of stuff to combine…

Mixing the browned sugar into the mix

Tonnes of butter, sugar, eggs and browned butter!

A spot of logical thinking brought me to the conclusion that this was possible, I just needed to divide the mix in order to conquer it.

Emmmmm how do I combine all of this???

I poured roughly half the beaten eggs, butter and sugar into one large mixing bowl. I then decanted half of the mushed up fruit and rum on top of the batter. This meant I had some space to fold the mixture together with my metal spoon. Although some ingredients fell over board I feel I salvaged the majority of it.

Hope it doesn’t overflow…

I repeated the process in a separate bowl with the other half of the mixture. Although I’m sure my guess work is highly accurate I couldn’t help but notice one bowl of batter looked a bit blacker than the other which worried me that I had put more fruit in inequality bowl than the other but there was nothing to gain by fretting about it and these monster cakes needed a.good 3 hours in the oven so I had to plough on.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze!!

Fully combined all of the ingredients!!

I had already greased and double lined 2 round springform cake tins with an extra high collar fixed on the outside with string to prevent the cake top from burning. I used a.22cm tin and a 20cm tin and found I still had cake to spare so quickly greased my favourite bundt tin (with a very generous layer of butter as I couldn’t line the moulded tin with paper and wanted to make sure I could get the cake back out again!!) Due to its shape I also couldn’t tie a protective collar of greaseproof paper round the bundt tin so opted for a lid of tin foil over the top. This scrunched up edges to create a seal over the top of the tin and stayed put throughout the baking process.

Doubled lined and dressed in collars – cakes ready for the oven

I smoothed the tops of the cakes as flat as I could as I wasn’t expecting them to rise very much.

I did check on the cakes regularly and turned them slightly so as to avoid burning the edges. But I resisted opening the oven for at least 2 hours to keep the heat in and the cakes rising. No one wants a sunken and heavy cake…

Trio of Jamaican Black Cakes hot out the oven

After 3 hours they were definitely done and the skewer came out clean.

The final touch was to pour half a bottle of rum over the 3 cakes whilst they were still in their tins and warm.

More rum glistening on top

What a wonderful cake! It was definitely worth the extra preparation time and although it’s not traditional to ice a Jamaican Black Cake, my Mam loves marzipan and royal icing so I created a Cath Kidston -esque star design especially for her using the largest of my trio of cakes. This wasn’t the easiest cake to ice as the cake was still rather moist (and full of rum) so I struggled to get the icing to stick. Some say that it is too sweet with the layers of icing, but I actually really quite liked it. It is very similar to a Christmas Cake however it smells so much more of booze and brings a lovely rose to the cheeks.

Cath Kidston Jamaican Black Cake

The second cake which I baked in the bundt tin required some coaxing to remove it from the tin. (I implemented a cocktail stick to loosen the cake around the sides, then I let gravity do the rest of the work, turning the tin upside down on a plate.) I took this to my first ever Clandestine Cake Club and shared the cake with lots of other cake lovers. I will tell you more about this another time 🙂

Jamaican Black Bundt Cake – note the slight cocktail stick indentations… oops but rum hides all sorts of sins

The more traditional shaped Jamaican Black Cake

The Towering Trio of Jamaican Black Cakes

Things that I used to make Jamaican Black Cake…

An insane amount of dried fruit and alcohol! Although I didn’t stick completely to the combinations below I think you can play around with which dried fruits you use depending on what is available provided it all adds up to the same total amount of dried fruit. I also worked from 2 different recipes to make sure I had a good all rounder recipe and that I made it as authentically as possible.

[Since creating this recipe I have revisited it and reduced it so you can also now follow a recipe for Just the One Jamaican Black Cake if you prefer!]

Fruit Puree Base:

Soak the fruit in rum for up to 2 weeks (or at least 3 days) prior to macerating

500g prunes
500g dark raisins
750g currants
500g dried cherries
250g mixed candied citrus peel
(Total of 5 and 1/4 pounds of dried fruit or 2.4 kilograms)
1 bottle cherry brandy (I had to make do with plain old Brandy and used a 500ml bottle)
1 bottle rum and/or Bailey’s (I used a 1 litre bottle of dark rum. I didn’t include Baileys) -Other recipes also suggest using Manischewitz Concord grape wine which doesn’t seem to exist in England so I just opted for adding a bit more rum
2 tbsp Angostura bitters

Browning:

Heat the sugar in a heavy based pan until it melts and then add a little bit of the water at a time until it becomes a dark caramel. Careful not to burn it, but it will come very close to being burnt to achieve ‘browned’ perfection.

500g brown sugar
1/2 cup boiling hot water

Cake:

Beat the sugar and eggs together and then beat the eggs in one by one. (You will need a big bowl as it gets a bit messy with 8 eggs!) Add all the flavours to the egg mix.

Sift the dry ingredients together and then fold it into the beaten eggs, sugar and butter.

Then mix in the fruit puree and browned sugar liquid.

Pour into 3 greased and double lined cake tins.

Bake at 120 degrees celsius (250F) for 3 hours

500g unsalted butter
500g sugar
8 eggs
1 tsp lemon essence (I didn’t have this so used lime juice instead…)
I used the zest of 2 whole limes (but then realised the recipe said 2 tsp lime rind)
2 tsp almond essence
2 tsp vanilla
500g plain flour (I used plain white flour but you could make this cake gluten free by using your favourite gluten free plain flour or a combination of gluten free flours such as 250g cassava flour + 250g rice flour)
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

The Final Touch:

Pour a generous amount of rum/brandy onto the top of your cake. It should absorb rather a lot of rum at this point. The cake will get darker with the more rum that you force feed it. It may take a day for the cake to absorb the rum but it will get there.

Wait until the cake has cooled completely before removing it from the tin and pop the cakes in an airtight container. I even left one cake in the tin for a week with tin foil over the top while it absorbed the rum (and I had ran out of containers big enough to keep it in!

MORE RUM 1 500ml bottle of dark rum for pouring on the hot cakes

Keeping Your Jamaican Black Cake:

The cake should keep for (at least) a month in an air tight container. Or perhaps even longer if you can resist eating it as it’s almost pickled with that amount of alcohol in it! Tin foil is also a good idea help seal in the rum and prevent the cake from drying out.

I froze my final cake and I think it will keep for at least a month in the freezer before I decide what to do with it.

This recipe was created using inspiration from Auntie Olga’s Trinidad Black Cake and the Naparima Girls’ High School Cookbook.

Thank you for reading!

The Clandestine Cake Club Adventure

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Cookery, Food, Fruit Cake, The Great British Bake Off and tagged with baking, blackfriars restaurant, cakepoppins, cakes with beverages, CCC, clandestine cake club, disarano, Food, Jamaican Black Cake, lemonade cake, Liebester Blog Award, Mary Berry, nellyscupcakes 23/03/2012

March was a fantastic baking month with my first ever trip to a Clandestine Cake Club and meeting Mary Berry (will tell you more about this asap). It just doesn’t get any better than this.

Meeting Mary Berry!!!! (The full story will follow asap)

I’ve been trying to get a spot at the Clandestine Cake Club (or CCC) for the last couple of months. I secured my place at the secret club and the theme was cakes with beverages. The idea of CCC is that bakers bake a cake around a theme and bring said cake along with a cake eating friend to the secret venue. Then much cake (as many wonderful slices as you can humanly consume) along with copious amounts of tea are devoured and fabulous cakey bakey people meet and discuss cake!

I loved this night. I sampled some AmAzing cakes and met some wonderful people, some of whom I’ve been chatting to on Twitter for a while so it was wonderful to meet in real life!

Clandestine Cake Clubbers in action

There may be a Clandestine Cake Club near you, it’s now an international phenomena with clubs in Australia too. Or you could even start your own club. There’s more information on their website….

For my beverage orientated cake I took along my Jamaican Black cake with it’s 2 bottles of rum and a bottle of brandy oozing from it. I was a little nervous as I knew there was going to be some wonderous cakes and people there. And I wasn’t wrong.

My First ever Clandestine Cake Club Offering - Jamaican Black Cake with tonnes of rum

I sampled a mouth watering 6 layer limencello and orange cake, a pink lemonade cake, a coconut milk cake, a cherry disarano on the rocks cake, a gin and tonic cake! A Shirley Temple cake, an Earl Grey cake and I’m sure I tried a couple more but my memory is fading into a drunken cake haze… We even got to take home pieces of our favourite cakes for later. (So pleased I had brought extra tupperware!)

I was thrilled that my entire Jamaican Black cake got eaten up!! I was worried that it would not be very popular. (As much as I love rum and fruit I’m well aware it’s not everyone’s cup of tea) But phew! It seems that it was enjoyed by my fellow CCC ers.

Unfortunately I failed in my over eagerness to get ANY real photos of the splendiferous cake creations that adorned the table. I remembered at the end to take one of the spectacular banqueting hall at Blackfriars restaurant with it’s stag antler chandeliers and oak dining tables.

The beautiful Blackfriars Restaurant our Clandestine Cake Club Venue for the evening

However my lovely CCC friends and fellow bloggers took some wonderful photos which they’ve put up on their blogs if you fancy a look. I really recommend having a look at these ladies baking blogs too and just in case you’re on twitter you can follow them too… check out

Nelly’s Cupcakes (@nellyscupcakes),
Cake Poppins (@cakepoppins),
Baking Beautiful (@gunshotglitter_)
Just a Girl and her Kitchen Aid (@RachaelMowat),
@skankyfish and @shazb007

And also while I’m mentioning some of my favourite blogs, I was very lucky and honoured to be nominated for a Liebster Blog Award (see here for a little more information on the Liebster Blog Awards) from 2 fabulous baking bloggers!! These ladies are brilliant bloggers, very skilled and I always look forward to their next posts popping up in my inbox 🙂 IF you’re loking for baking inspiration don’t hesititate to have a read of these blogs…

Lil Ms Squirrels 366 Day Recipe Challenge (@lilmssquirrel)

Laura Loves Cake (@lauralovesbakes)

Thanks so much for reading!!!