Tag Archives: cake

Citrus polenta cake

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PEEK-A-BOO

Where are you?

No, I’m not talking to C, I’m talking to you Sunshine.

Seriously, it’s weeks like these that I wonder why we moved away from the South of France. The weather here is pathetic!

In order to fix this, in the only way I know how, let’s bake some sunshine into our lives.

Citrus Polenta Cake
serves 10

50g polenta
200g ground almonds
50g plain flour (I used wholemeal)
1 teaspoon baking powder
125ml olive oil
100g butter, melted and cooled
3 eggs
150g caster sugar
juice and grated zest of a lemon
juice and grated zest of an orange

Mix the polenta, ground almonds, flour and baking powder together in a large bowl.

Whisk the eggs and caster sugar until pale (with machine or by hand), then slowly whisk in the oil and then the butter.

Whisk in the almond and polenta mixture, then add the lemon and orange juices followed by the zests.

Transfer the mixture to a lined baking tin (I used 20cm/8″) and bake in a preheated oven 160 / gas mark 3 for approximately 45 mins.

The cake should be slightly underdone in the middle. Leave to cool in the tray for 10 mins before removing (and eating!). It’s difficult to wait, but worth it.

Enjoy!

Bake

xoxo

Our everyday life: week 10

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After days of rain (most unusual here) the room we had stored our packing flooded…great start to the week ;)

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C’s first taste of lavashak

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C loves to hide toys under things and then ask you to fetch them. Of course Mama humours him!

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Hazelnuts, pre-roasting.

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Post-roast and lazily peeled. There were so many!

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C in love with his reflection…

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…and also in love with the dog!

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It was Mother’s Day in the UK on Sunday, but it’s in May in France, so technically I miss both. However, I did get a sweet little card (with some help from Papa!).

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Hazelnuts used in this birthday cake, as well as two jars of nutella (notella?)

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I think he enjoyed his birthday cake :)

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Bake

xoxo

Banana, date and yoghurt loaf

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My nutrition course  has inspired me to reduce the amount of sugar we consume. I also want to be able to offer baby (let’s call him C from now, he’s almost a toddler!) something that I bake without worrying about what’s in it.

As I type this, I’m eating Smitten Kitchen’s cocoa brownies, they are amazing but there’s certainly sugar in there!

We typically have a banana or two left over by the end of the week so I happily used them as the base for the cake. I also had date pate in the cupboard after buying several packs when they were on offer (€0.99 per kg!) which I wanted to use as the sweetener.

With little butter left but a few tubs of yoghurt in the fridge, the rest of the cake was more or less created.

I topped the cake with some granola just for some texture, but it would be perfectly fine without.

This is a super moist cake, but both of my boys loved it so that makes a happy Bake :)

Banana, date and yoghurt loaf

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas, mashed
300g yoghurt (I used greek)
60g dates (I used date pate mixed with a teaspoon of hot water)
2 eggs
1.5 cups wholemeal flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 190degC

In a large bowl combine the flour with baking powder and cinnamon

Using a separate bowl mix the bananas with dates and blend well

Add the eggs one at a time to the bananas, beating in thoroughly

Stir the yoghurt through the banana mix until just combined

Slowly add the dry ingredients from the first bowl and stir in thoroughly.

Pour into a lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour (until knife inserted comes out clean).

Enjoy!

Bake

xoxo

One year

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Dome ring love :)

Today is a special day.

One year ago we were married and spent the best weekend with our closest family here. If you ever get the chance, GO THERE!

Wedding cake

I can’t believe how much has changed since then, but I do know I am the luckiest wife and mummy ever!

I wish we had been blogging this time last year. It was such an amazing and different wedding and I’m sure there are elements that I have forgotten already.

I do remember campfires, wellington boots, sunshine (even in October), cake galore, a lovely chef, chickens, children, simple pleasures…

We are off to have a special lunch (baby included) and spend the day together as a little family.

Chocolate, spiced apple and carrot layered wedding cake.

Sending you all much love

Bake
xoxo

 

Chocolate Guinness cake

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In a little under a month we will celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone, but then again it has been a busy one (wedding, baby, moving house, moving country!).

You may or may not be surprised to hear that I baked our wedding cake. I’m sure I’ll tell you about it another time, but since then this chocolate Guinness cake has been our go-to cake of choice.

Cat approved ! I promise she didn’t lick it…

Last weekend we went to a birthday party and took this cake with us. Not necessarily the most appropriate cake for a one year old girl, but it was certainly enjoyed by the adults.

There is a crazy (to me) amount of sugar in this cake, but it’s probably necessary to balance out the bitter Guinness, so I haven’t played around with the proportion of sugar from original recipe.

You should find this to be an extremely moist cake, in a good way, with a deep chocolate flavour. As cream cheese isn’t as readily available here as in the UK, I tend to leave it plain or simply add an icing sugar glaze. I’m sure the cream cheese frosting would make it feel even more decadent.

 

Chocolate Guinness cake
- serves 6-8 people
adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery’s Cake Days (their recipe makes a far larger cake)

Ingredients

125ml Guinness (1/2 a bottle. Drink the rest whilst you make the cake ;) )
125g unsalter butter
40g cocoa powder
200g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
70ml crème fraîche (or sour cream, or buttermilk)
140g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp baking powder

Frosting (optional)
25g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
60g cream cheese

I have used both a square brownie tin and a 20cm spring-form cake tin.
It was difficult to take the cake out of the brownie tin…

Method

Preheat oven to 175degC

Pour Guinness into saucepan and add the butter. Melt over a moderate heat, but don’t bring to the boil.

Once melted, remove from the heat and add the cocoa powder and the sugar. Stir until smooth.

Beat the eggs with the vanilla extract and crème fraîche in a separate bowl/jug. Add to the chocolatey saucepan.

Sift the flour, bicarb and baking podwer into a large bowl.

Whisk (or stir) the liquid ingredients into the flour bowl. Try to remove lumps!

 

Once combined, pour into your greased/lined baking tin.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes – you don’t want to overcook it or it will be very crumbly.

If you are making the icing, combine the butter and icing sugar until smooth. Add the cream cheese and mix until light and fluffy.

Ice the cake once it has cooled completely.

Enjoy!

Bake
xoxo

A bad cake day

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oh what a mess!

This post is for my benefit more than yours, sorry.

Last week we bought a crate of nectarines on sale as they are coming to the end of their season. I planned several different ways to use them up, but more on that another day.

One of my plans was to make a few cakes to freeze for those rainy days when we want something comforting but summery.

I found a simple enough recipe online (I won’t bother sharing now…) and more or less followed the recipe.

This was my first mistake. I really should have followed it all.

The recipe told me to bake the cakes for 15 minutes and then add the sliced nectarines and continue baking. I was in a rush so didn’t bother. Suprise, suprise, they sank to the bottom and stuck there.

You can’t find baking powder or self-raising flour here, so I decided to mix my own. I sort of followed the guidelines but I wasn’t as specific as I really should have been. Mistake number two!

Lastly, whilst I could have made the cakes in two batches, as I had made double the amount of mix, I tried to squeeze it all into 4 small tins. Mistake number three!

So, as you can imagine, the fruit sank so the cakes weren’t pretty; the mix turned into some insane bubbly science experiment and almost all of the tins overflowed (all over the oven too).

I was so angry at myself. I was rushing as baby was asleep but was due to wake up, but that’s not his fault.

I was upset at the thought of wasting so much mix and those lovely nectarines. I was upset at having wasted my precious free time, I mean I could should have been cleaning or washing something.

Also, I was just plain embarrassed. Cakes are my thing! I should have been more precise.

Anyway. Shake ate what was stuck to the tins and anything else he could get his hands on. Of course he said it was delicious (and that I was being a drama queen :) ). The cakes were trimmed where necessary, fruit rescued and placed back on top and they are now safely in the freezer.

It doesn’t matter that they look dreadful, they will still taste fine and maybe by winter I will laugh about it too ;)

Bake

xoxo

Raw super-infused chocolate layer birthday cake

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For Shake’s birthday he asked me to make a special cake that we had seen on the wonderful and inspiring Green Kitchen Stories.

This was a cake with a difference for us; completely raw and with no added sugar!

The recipe was very simple to follow, but given the four different layers there were several steps involved. Due to the lack of time I had to find the required ingredients (we love you baby bakenshake!) I had to make a few amendments:

  • I couldn’t find coconut butter but used coconut oil and melted it as per the recipe in a small bowl of warm water.
  • Instead of nettle powder, I used the tea leaves from a nettle teabag we had in the cupboard, this meant that the colour wasn’t bright green but was still delicious.
  • I added a few tablespoons of a matcha tea we have to try to create the green effect, but it wasn’t very successful! No harm to the flavour but wasn’t so green.
  • I used a small glug of a Naked green machine juice we like which includes spinach (plus some other good things)
  • I omitted the peppermint essence and am not sure if I would include it next time if I find any, this layer was delicious as it was.

I really cannot recommend this cake this cake enough. It has been enjoyed by all of our family this weekend, old and young, despite what may be unusual ingredients for some. The combination of flavours works so well and it is both a pretty and interesting cake to look at.

Do let me know if you make it and any amendments you make to the recipe.

I’m definitely going to make the fudge layer again and divide it into small pieces for when I’m in need of a treat :)

Bake
xoxo