This has to be the fruitiest fruit loaf ever-and it’s so simple to make!
I found this recipe on a UK site and was intrigued. It started out by making apple pulp, by cooking apples in a small volume of water until soft-basically making apple sauce. So, I thought, would it work if I just bought a jar of unsweetened applesauce from the supermarket? It was worth a go.
Oddly, although its a UK recipe and everything is in metric measures, the amount of apple pulp specified was 1/2 pint?! This would be an imperial pint, which is larger than a US pint, so I estimated that this would be approximately 280 ml, or roughly half of the jar that I had. To be honest, I think there’s a little wiggle room on the applesauce amounts, so I’ve been working on about half the jar (620 ml size) since, and it seems to work every time.
This has a serious amount of dried fruit in it, too, so it probably isn’t the most economical of cakes. It’s up to you what fruits to use. I’ve been using a mixture of the (rather expensive) dried cranberry/cherry/blueberry mixture that I discussed before (see Mixed Berry Tea Loaf), some additional dried cranberries and some sultana raisins, and it has worked very nicely. Mark really likes this one and is treating it like it is his ‘five-a-day’ in one slice-not sure that’s really accurate but it must be healthier than chocolate, isn’t it?
No need for mixing bowls, electric mixers, etc., just a largish saucepan, a wooden spoon or balloon whisk and a good 2 lb/900 g loaf pan. I finally replaced my old loaf pan, scratched and battered as it was, with a couple of brand-new non-stick pans (Amazon Basics) and couldn’t be happier with the results.
So far I haven’t had an issue with getting the cakes out of this tin, as long as I grease it well (I usually use some soft margarine for this).
Note, it’s a UK recipe so it uses self-raising flour and metric measurements. I have converted to oz measurements but the metric is more accurate. I have not tried to do cups!
340 g/12 oz self-raising flour
170 g/6 oz caster sugar* (plus a little for the top of the cake)
170 g/6 oz butter or margarine**
340 g/12 oz mixed dried fruit ***
2-3 tbsp milk
280 ml (around ½ UK pint)/9 fl oz unsweetened applesauce (or homemade apple pulp)
* Caster sugar is known here as fine or superfine sugar. As it will be dissolved, North American granulated will probably also work.
** I used unsalted butter
*** fruit of your preference. In my last bake I used a mixture of 140 g of the dried fruit mixture (cherries/blueberries/cranberries), an additional 100g of cranberries and 100 g of sultana raisins.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/325˚F convection/180˚C/ 160˚C fan/Gas 4. I used 325˚F convection.
Grease (and line, if preferred) a 2 lb/900 g loaf tin and set aside.
Weigh out all of the ingredients-it will save time later.
Place the butter and sugar into a medium-large saucepan. Place on a medium heat and stir, until the butter and sugar have melted together but do not boil.
Remove from the heat.
Add ⅓ of the flour. Use a balloon whisk or a wooden spoon to combine.
Add half of the applesauce and whisk in.
Repeat with the flour and the applesauce until all is added. Finish with flour. It will look like a thick, gloopy batter. Add the milk to make a thick dropping consistency.
Fold in the fruit until well-combined. Transfer to the prepared tin and smooth off the top. If liked, sprinkle a little caster sugar over the top of the cake to give it a lightly crispy top when baked.
Bake, 45 minutes or so. The cake is done when a skewer comes out clean. Note that the original recipe gave a baking time of 1 h 30 minutes (!), but that is far too long. I look at mine from around the 40-45 minute mark and that works well.
Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Slide a plastic spatula around the edges of the cake to loosen, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
The cake keeps very well at room temperature in an air-tight container. It’s highly recommended for a very fruity cake with very little fuss. It might work nicely with a little mixed spice, cinnamon or pumpkin spice mix added, too, but we like the simple fruitiness of the original iteration, and no need to pulp your own apples, either!
I really like cherry cakes, made with glace cherries. I came across a recipe for Cherry Madeira cake that sounded nice and simple. A madeira cake doesn’t have anything to do with the islands of the same name. It’s actually named that because it was considered the perfect accompaniment for a glass of madeira wine, a fortified wine from the Madeira Islands particularly popular in the 18-19th Centuries, and it really hails from Britain. It is traditionally flavoured with lemon, but the addition of cherries is a popular alternative. It’s a very buttery sponge and a little goes quite a long way.
Well, I said it seemed like a simple recipe but I ended up making it three times before it seemed to work properly. The first two times, the centre of the cake ended up sinking dramatically, ending up with odd, u-shaped slices. It still tasted really good! I thought, after the first occasion, that my self-raising flour might have been getting a bit elderly (especially since I had a baking hiatus when my oven was out of action) but the second cake, with new flour, ended up even more dramatically sunken. In the end I decided that it might be a combination of over-beating the mixture and the baking pan I was using. On the third occasion I gently mixed in the flour, not beating as I had in the previous iterations, and I used my brand-new metal loaf tin-success!
A note on the cherries. My local store only has a mix of red and green cherries, oddly festive-looking, and I used these in the first instance. Later I did source red-only cherries from the Bulk Barn and these have been used in the last version (maybe the more traditional look). It’s always difficult to keep cherries from sinking to the base in cakes, so rinsing off the syrup, patting the fruit dry and then dusting with flour seems to help, as does leaving a few fruits to be pushed into the top of the batter once it is in the tin.
220 g/7.7 oz self-raising flour (plus 1 tbsp to dust the cherries)
175 g/6 oz granulated or caster sugar* (plus a small amount to dust the top of the cake)
175g/6 oz butter, softened
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
150g/5.2 oz glacé cherries
* I used granulated sugar on the first attempt, and caster sugar thereafter. I would stick to caster (fine) sugar, if you have it.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/325˚F convection/180˚C/ 160˚C fan/Gas 4. On my last attempt, I used 325˚F convection.
Grease a 2 lb/900 g loaf tin. Line it also, if preferred.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Place the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and whisk to combine.
Rinse the cherries under cold running water, pat dry then dust with the extra flour. Set aside
Add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter/sugar mixture, beating between each addition. Add 1 tbsp of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle. Beat in the vanilla extract.
Gently mix in the remainder of the flour/baking powder mixture. Do not beat this or the cake will sink.
Fold in about ¾ of the cherries. Transfer the batter to the greased loaf pan and level off the top. Press the remaining cherries into the top of the batter and sprinkle over a little caster sugar.
Bake, 45-60 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Slide a plastic spatula around the edges of the cake then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
It is a substantial cake, very rich and with lovely bites of sweet cherry. I’m pleased that I seem to have ironed out the issues. One thing this time was that the cake didn’t take as long to bake. the recipe said 1 hour, but mine was done in 50 minutes, and could perhaps have come out a couple of minutes earlier. It’s definitely worth keeping an eye on it from about 45 minutes onwards. Now all I need is a glass of madeira wine, although I’ll make do with a nice cup of tea.
I recently had the chance for a delve in Bulk Barn. It’s in Yarmouth so I don’t get there that often, but it’s the only place I can now reliably get self-raising flour (or ‘self-rising’, as it seems to be known as here) and I was all out. I used to be able to buy ‘Brodies Cake and Pastry Flour’, which was self-raising, at one of our local supermarkets but it disappeared at the start of the pandemic and didn’t seem to return-to be honest I was probably the only one buying it. Anyway, I loaded up with the SR flour, some fine sugar, which is a good dupe for caster sugar, and other bits and bobs. I was collecting some sultana raisins (sultanas) and dried cranberries in bags when I came across a dried mixed berry mix that looked useful. It seemed to be a mix of dried cranberries, blueberries and cherries, and was a bit pricy, but I thought I’d give it a go. I just needed a suitable recipe.
I found a tea loaf recipe, i.e., one made with actual tea. It sounded easy and had not too many ingredients, so I thought I’d give it a go. The actual recipe was to make 2 x 1 lb loaves, but that was too much for just the two of us, so I halved the amounts. It’s a UK recipe so no cups, just grams.
112g butter or margarine*
170 g caster sugar**
225g mixed dried fruit***
125 ml/½ cup strong tea
225 g self-raising flour
1 egg****
*I used soft margarine but butter would be better, I think
** North American granulated sugar would be fine
*** Recipe says ‘your preference’. I used a 50-50 mixture of sultana raisins and a premade mix of dried cranberries, blueberries, cherries etc. that I found at Bulk Barn
****recipe says a medium egg, but I used the smallest large egg that I had. If you want to be accurate, use 50g of beaten egg.
Preheat the oven to 275˚F/140˚C/Gas 1. Grease a suitable loaf tin -1 lb or so. Line if you wish. I chose to use a very old metal loaf tin in place of the Pyrex one I usually use (it was a bit too big) and it turned out to be not that non-stick. My new, non-stick, loaf pans are in the post!
Place the butter/margarine, sugar, tea and fruit into a large saucepan. Heat gently, stirring, until the butter/margarine and sugar have dissolved. Remove from the heat.
Place the flour into a bowl and mix in the egg.
Add the sugar/butter/fruit mix to the flour, in batches, mixing well between each addition.
Transfer the batter to the loaf tin, smooth the top and bake, 60 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in the tin, 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
My cake stuck a bit to the base of the tin. Hopefully my new loaf pans will cure that.
When cool, slice and serve buttered. It’s not overly sweet but it is lovely and fruity, that mixed berry mix gives it a lovely kick. It was also really nice served in the Northern English way with a slice of good tasty cheddar cheese-don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it!
It’s a recipe that will stay in my rotation, it really was very easy to put together. I think I’ll stock up again on the mixed berries, next time I’m in the Bulk Barn, too.
It’s been a while, mainly because my oven broke down. I was whipping up a traybake cake and had put the oven on to warm up whilst I was mixing. When I looked at it, 30 minutes later, it hadn’t managed to reach 100˚F yet-what a disaster! Nothing I did was making it work.
At least I rescued most of my batter by baking it in batches in my air fryer, but that isn’t something that I wanted to do regularly. So, no oven (the cooktop still worked) meant no baking, and the problem of finding a repairer for this sort of thing in the back of beyond. It took a while but we found someone, who identified the problem (the controller), ordered a new part and had it repaired in just a couple of days. We were told that, at its age (a whole 8 years old!) we were lucky that it had lasted so long! Am I alone in thinking that an appliance that cost over $1000 should last a little longer than 8 years? Anyway, two thumbs up for our repairer guy, who did a great job, and ‘yah, boo sucks’ to Frigidaire, who apparently make crap with a short shelf-life and sell it for big bucks. Not that any of the other big manufacturers are any better, apparently, according to our repairer, who sees the same thing with all of them. Oh well, rant over, at least I’m back in bake mode, for as long as it lasts this time.
I’d found a bag of blueberries in the freezer. I’d obviously bought them for something (can’t remember what) but the fruit was fine and still in date. I thought I’d celebrate having a working oven by baking a Blueberry-Lemon Loaf.
½ cup/ 120 ml milk*
1 tbsp lemon zest **
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups/260 g all-purpose flour (plus 1 tsp for flouring fruit)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
1 cup/140 g fresh or frozen blueberries (do not defrost if frozen)
1 stick/½ cup/115g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1¼ cups/250g granulated sugar
*I used 2% milk ** not essential, provides a stronger lemon flavour but can be made without.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4
Grease a suitable loaf tin -5 x 9 inch preferable. I used my pyrex glass loaf pan.
Add the lemon juice and zest (if using) to the milk and stir, then set aside for at least 10 minutes. The milk will curdle, this is fine.
Place the flour (2 cups), soda and salt into a bowl and whisk to mix well. Set aside.
Toss the blueberries in 1 tsp flour and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each addition. If the mixture looks like it is curdling, add 1 tbsp of the flour mixture.
Beat in ⅓ of the flour mixture, then add half of the milk/lemon mix. Repeat with flour, then the rest of the liquid, finishing with flour. Mix well after each addition.
Add the floured blueberries and fold in. Transfer to the prepared loaf dish and smooth the top.
Bake for 50 -60 minutes, or so, in the centre of the preheated oven. Loaf is finished when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before removing and completing cooling on a rack.
Make a simple glace icing, with icing sugar and lemon juice, to drizzle over the cake when cool.
A nice light cake with a lemony crumb and a fruity finish. I was very pleased to have got back into the baking groove with this one.
Do you ever get the fancy for something a bit different for dessert? I did, yesterday. It would have to be something that I could make using things that we had in the house, though-I couldn’t actually go and buy something, that would be cheating too much. We are trying not to eat too many desserts.
I thought about a crumble, but that was a bit ‘samey’, but then I came across a variation on bread-and-butter pudding. I don’t make them very often, even though Mark likes them very much, so it would be quite novel. The variation was that it included banana, and a bit of a caramel-y custard due to the inclusion of brown sugar. It sounded nice!
I had most of the ingredients. I was a bit short on white bread, but I did have sliced light rye bread and I thought that would probably do the job. I also wondered about variations. Bananas go really nicely with caramel (like in my Banoffee Pavlova (see Got Egg Whites?-Banoffee Pavlova), so I thought I might boost the caramel by adding some Dulce de Leche. I had bought a tin of this when I suddenly found it in my local supermarket-I had looked for this previously when making my caramel cake (see Quick but Impressive-Caramel Cake) but had failed to find it, so I was sure to pick one up when I did. So clearly I had to use it! I also thought I’d add a handful of raisins, which are more traditional additions to bread-and-butter pudding. I’ve also seen a version that uses halved and buttered hot cross buns as the basis-that sounds yum!
I’m giving the recipe for the original form, and for my alternative form; the photos are all of the alternative pudding but I don’t think it would vary greatly in looks. It’s an old-fashioned hot pud, warming and comforting. Considering that it had just snowed here (we thought we’d done with that!) perhaps I should have made it for tonight…
Original recipe, for 4
4 thick slices white bread
50 g butter, softened
85 g soft brown sugar, plus 1 tbsp to sprinkle
2 eggs
1 large banana, peeled and sliced
Large pinch cinnamon
450 ml milk
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
Alternative recipe, for two
2-3 slices light rye bread
Sufficient spreadable butter to thickly butter the bread
30 g soft brown sugar, plus 1 tbsp to sprinkle
1 egg
1 smallish banana, peeled and sliced
Pinch ground nutmeg
225 ml 2% milk
½ tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
Handful sultana raisins
Drizzle of Dulce de Leche or caramel sauce
Grease a baking dish of appropriate size.
Butter the bread, cut into pieces and lay half, butter side up, on the bottom of the baking dish.
Cover with the banana slices. Add the raisins, if using, drizzle with Dulce de Leche, if using. Top with the remaining bread, butter side up.
Bottom layer of bread, topped with fruit and caramel
In a bowl, combine the sugar (except the tbsp), milk, egg(s) and cinnamon/nutmeg. Whisk to combine.
Put the cornflour/cornstarch into a separate small bowl. Add a small amount of the milk mixture and stir well until it is smooth, then add this back into the bulk milk mixture. Whisk to combine, then pour over the bread, pushing the pieces down into the liquid. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes, or until the oven heats to temperature.
Making the milk/egg mixtureSoaking the bread slices in the egg mixture
Preheat the oven. 350˚F/ 325 ˚F convection/180˚C/160 ˚C fan/Gas 4
When ready, sprinkle the top of the dish with the remaining tbsp. of sugar.
Ready to bake
Bake, 30-40 minutes, until the egg mix has set and the top is golden-brown. Allow to stand for 5 minutes when out of the oven, before serving. Serve with ice cream, cream, custard, etc., as preferred.
Out of the oven, resting
It was a tasty pudding with a light caramel taste-it could possibly have used more Dulce de Leche even. I served it with a little cold cream and it hit the ‘something different’ spot-can’t ask for more!
I think that I mentioned that I was trying to improve my icing techniques and, believe me, they can take some improving. I’ve always liked the look of those ‘drip’ cakes, with the perfect ring of drips running down the length of the cake, and this seemed like a good chance to have a go. Also I’d decided that it wasn’t going to be a chocolate cake for this birthday, and I’d collected a recipe some time ago that used evaporated milk in the sponge-weird but interesting. In the end, as is my wont, I used a variety of things from different places to make my own individual slant on a cake. Also Youtube videos on cake icing helped a lot, too!
The recipe called for 2 x 9″ cake tins-I only have one, a springform tin. I didn’t want to wait to bake the second layer, nor to have to buy a second tin, but I do have three identical 8″ loose-bottomed tins. A 9″ tin is actually 25% larger than an 8″ tin (it surprised me to know that!) so I reckoned that three 8″ tins would make three slightly thinner layers to the two 9″ cakes. As the 9″ cakes were supposed to be torted (apparently the posh way of saying ‘cut in half, horizontally’!’), I thought that I could end up with a 3-layer cake instead of the 4-layer cake in the recipe. It was a plan.
Cake
1 cup/250 g/8 oz/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp (plus extra to grease the pan)
3¾ cup/312 g/11 oz self-raising flour
3 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
Zest of 1 large lemon
2 cups/500 g/16 oz granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1¼ cups/310 ml/10 fl oz evaporated milk
Heat the oven to 325˚F/160˚C/Gas 3
Grease and line 2 x 9” or 3 x 8” cake tins. Set aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Use a balloon whisk to ensure well-mixed. Set aside.
Zest the lemon, set aside.
Place the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
Beating butter and sugarButter and sugar beatenAfter adding the eggs and lemon zest
Reduce the mixer speed to medium and then add eggs, one at a time, beating to ensure each is fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla extract. Fold in the lemon zest.
adding flour and evaporated milkFinished batterReady to bake
Fold in the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the evaporated milk.
Transfer to the prepared tins. Bake until a skewer comes out clean 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool, in the tin on a rack, for 10 minutes, then invert onto the rack to cool completely.
I was making the cakes well in advance of the birthday itself, actually 5 days beforehand, so as to not be rushed. My research on-line suggested that freezing the cakes would be beneficial to the outcome of the frosting procedure, not to mention meaning that I wouldn’t need to crack on and ice them, so I decided to try it out. The secret, it seems, is to wrap the cakes and freeze them whilst they are still warm from the oven, i.e. just as they are tipped out of the tins. A good layer of plastic wrap was applied to each cake and they were placed, individually, on the shelves of the freezer. It’s important not to stack the cakes until they are frozen, though.
The cakes would be filled with a raspberry compote and with lemon buttercream, which would also be used to ice the outside. I made these up on the day before I intended to do the icing.
Raspberry Compote
1 pkt/300 g/10.6 oz frozen
⅓-½ cup/85-125 g/2.6-4 oz granulated sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch (cornflour)
A small amount of cold water
Place the frozen berries and sugar into a small saucepan and slowly simmer over low heat until soft. Mix the cornstarch with a little water until smooth. If you do not mind seeds in your compote, then add the cornstarch/water mix to the berry mixture and stir well until thickened.
Berries and sugarI’m not fond of seeds in mySeeds removed from compote
I’m not fond of seeds in my cakes, so I decided to sieve the softened fruit through a sieve, pushing the puree through with a wooden spoon and thus catching most of the seeds. I rinsed out the pan, to ensure that any residual seeds were removed, before returning the compote to simmer, then added the cornstarch to thicken it, as above. The finished compote was stored in the fridge until needed.
Lemon American Buttercream
Apparently, what I’ve always just thought of as buttercream, made with butter and icing sugar, is also known as American buttercream. It seems a bit bigheaded of the Americans to lay claim to something that everyone else uses as well. I can’t see anything particularly American about it!
340 g/12 oz/ roughly 2½ sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
567 g/20 oz icing (powdered/confectioner’s) sugar
142 g/5 oz whipping (heavy, double) cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon extract (optional)
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
Few drops yellow food colouring (optional)
Beat the butter until smooth and light.Add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, whilst mixing on low speed. Add the salt, vanilla, lemon extract (if using), lemon juice and cream. Beat on high speed, 2-3 minutes, until smooth and fluffy. If liked, add a few drops of yellow food colouring.
Beating butter and sugarFinished lemon buttercream
Beat on low for an additional 15 minutes to remove air bubbles.
I made my buttercream on the day before I was going to use it, so stored it, covered, in the fridge. Before using it I brought it to room temperature and beat it, for 2-3 minutes, with my hand electric mixer. I found it to be still a little stiff, so zapped it in the microwave for 10 seconds, which loosened it perfectly for beating and spreading, without melting it.
American buttercream is stable at room temperature for a few hours. It can be stored refrigerated, covered, for a week of so, or will freeze in an airtight container for several months.
Assembling the Cake
If frozen, remove the cakes from the freezer, keep them in the plastic film and allow to defrost on wire racks until room temperature, about 3 hours. remove the film.
If using 9” cakes, torte each cake (i.e. cut horizontally through the centre) to end up with four layers. If using 8” cakes, this will not be necessary. If preferred/needed, trim the cakes to remove domes or the caramelized outer layer (I didn’t).
If liked, spray the top and bottom surface of the bottom layer with sugar syrup (a 1:1 solution of sugar in water) to ensure moistness. Glue the cake layer to a cake board or place using a blob of buttercream.
Place a thin layer of buttercream on the cake layer. Using an icing bag fitted with a large nozzle, pipe a ‘dam’ of buttercream around the edge of the layer, Fill the dam with raspberry puree. Spray the next layer with sugar syrup, if using, then place this on the lower level, ensuring that the cake is centred correctly. Continue to fill and add layers, finishing with the top layer. A 9” cake will have 4 thinner layers, the 8” cake will have 3 thicker layers.
Base layer glued to cake boardFrosting layer and ‘dam’Raspberry compote addedLayer 2 addedfrosting and filling addedAll three layers in place
Using an offset spatula, add a thin layer of buttercream to the sides and top of the cake, to seal the layers and act as a crumb coat. Place the cake in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to settle the cake and set the crumb coat.
Sealing layers and crumb coatTop coated
When set, remove the cold cake from the refrigerator and ice the sides and top of the cake with buttercream icing, smoothing as much as possible. Replace the cake in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes for the icing to set, before adding the drip coat.
I probably could have done with just a bit more icing for this cake, and if doing a 9″ cake I’d recommend 1.5 times the amount, as a minimum, even double quantities if you like a thick frosting. In this case I wasn’t too worried about the ‘bare’ edges to the top as I was planning a ganache drip that would cover this.
Chocolate Ganache Drip
Ideally, white chocolate ganache should be at a ratio of at least 3:1 chocolate to cream.
100g bar good quality white chocolate (I used Lindt)
About 35 ml whipping cream (heavy cream, double cream) at least 30% fat content
Food colouring (if liked)
Break the chocolate into very small pieces and place in a heatproof bowl.
Heat the cream to simmer but do not boil. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and allow to sit a minute or so, then stir. If needed, microwave the chocolate cream mix in 10 second bursts until a smooth thick liquid is obtained. Add colouring, if wanted. Allow to cool to almost room temperature.
Take the cake from the fridge. The icing needs to be cold for the drip to work.
Ideally, use a disposable icing bag or a ziplock bag. Fill the bag with the ganache and then clip a tiny hole in the point (you can use a small icing nozzle if preferred). Add ganache around the top edge of the cake, allowing drips to form and run down at random intervals. When the edge if complete, use the remainder to pipe over the top surface of the cake. If needed, use an icing spatula to completely smooth out the ganache top. Decorate as liked if using sprinkles or similar, or allow to set in the refrigerator if using piped decorations, etc. The ganache does not harden completely so items can be embedded after the setting period.
I was pretty pleased with my first effort. I’d chosen to colour my white chocolate ganache with a little red food colouring, to suggest the raspberry filling and to contrast with the yellow buttercream. I think my ganache could have been just a tad more liquid to drip more elegantly but, not surprisingly, I probably chose the harder of the ganaches to get right: ones made with dark chocolate are apparently easier to work with. If available, a little additional cocoa butter can help the fluidity of white chocolate ganache. So far as final decorations were concerned, I decided to just add a sprinkling of some bright red sugar crystals to the ganache whilst it was still quite liquid. If I’d had remaining buttercream, I’d have piped a border around the base of the cake and maybe some other piped decorations, too.
It’s a very filling cake but a pretty tasty one too. It’s best removed from the fridge for a couple of hours before serving, to allow the buttercream to come to room temperature.
I was looking for more fruitcake recipes, ones not including banana for preference. Not that I dislike banana breads, far from it, but a change is as good as a rest. Anyhow, when I came across a recipe for ‘easy’ fruitcake, that made me look twice. It was made with oil, rather than butter, which was a good thing as I don’t currently have much in the fridge. It was also made as a layer cake rather than a loaf, so the cooking time was considerably reduced on the 1 hr-long bakings of recent experience. It wanted a layer of apricot jam in the centre, which I didn’t have, but I knew that I had several jams or other preserves that I though would do the job instead. It sounded like a plan.
Now this was an on-line recipe and I generally take a look at the comments, jus to see if there are any hints, etc., that would be useful. The comments were about 50-50 split between ‘lovely cake, very flavoursome’ and ‘yuck-tasted of oil’; that was worrying, but it seemed that everyone commenting ‘yuck’ had used olive oil. I’d never use olive oil in a cake mixture (unless very specifically stated in the recipe), it has far too heavy a taste (although I do use it for savoury cooking ), and this recipe stated ‘flavourless oil’, so I reckoned that the ‘yuck’ crowd got what they deserved. I’d give it a go using my other standard cooking oil, Becel, a mixture of sunflower and canola that generally works well in baking applications.
It’s a UK recipe, so I used the metric measurements. I have tried to convert to imperial, but not to cups.
*I used Becel, a mixture of sunflower and canola oils
**Recipe specifies light brown muscovado sugar
***Recipe states allspice
**** Recipe states juice of ½ orange and ½ lemon
*****I used a mixture of sultana raisins, dried sweetened cranberries, finely chopped dried dates and halved glace cherries.
Preheat the oven to 325˚F/310 ˚F convection/160˚C/140 ˚C fan/Gas 3
Grease and line the bases of two 8”/20 cm springform or loose-bottom cake tins. Set aside.
I prepared all of the ingredients in separate bowls, ready for the mixing. When it came to allspice, I could not put my hand on it. I’m pretty sure I have some, somewhere, but instead I chose to use mixed spice. Its not the same as allspice though. Pumpkin spice might also make an alternative.
My orange and lemon were getting a little elderly, so it was good to use them up for this recipe, but I think that they didn’t give as much juice as fresher fruit. Although the recipe stated juice from only half of each fruit, I juiced both halves of both and decided to add what I thought was needed to make a soft batter. In the end, I used it all.
Place the oil and sugar into a bowl and mix well.
Oil and sugar mixture
Add the eggs and stir to combine.
Mixed flour, baking powder and spices
Place the flour, baking powder and spices into a separate bowl and whisk with a balloon whisk to make sure they are well-combined. Introduce the flour mixture to the oil/sugar/eggs mixture. Add the fruit juices and mix thoroughly, with a wooden spoon, until a soft batter is formed.
Adding flourSoft batterFold in the fruit
Fold in the fruit mixture. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared tins.
Ready to bake
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until risen and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave in the tins, lying on a wire rack, to cool completely. Remove from the tins for filling.
Out of the oven to cool
The original recipe suggests filling with apricot jam, followed by dusting the top with icing sugar. I thought that the cakes looked a little dry (although the proof of that pudding will be in the eating!) so I thought I’d sub in some buttercream. Not just any old buttercream, but a recipe for ‘custard buttercream’ that I’d recently found and which intrigued me. Anyway, fruitcake and custard, what’s not to like! I always have a tin of custard powder in the cupboard-you never know when the custard urge will hit, and I did have sufficient butter for this.
Custard Buttercream
Makes sufficient to fill a 7-8” sandwich cake
75 g /2½ oz unsalted butter, softened.
150 g/ 5½ oz icing sugar (confectioner’s or powdered sugar)
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp milk or cream*
*I used 18% (single) cream (coffee cream)
Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and set it beating.
Add the sugar, custard powder, vanilla and cream to the mixer and beat until smooth, light and fluffy.
This was a very quick buttercream and came together very well. it didn’t make huge amounts, more a UK sandwich fill than a North American one, so I’d suggest 1½ or 2 times the amount if you like a really thick filling. It did have a ‘custardy’ taste. I used the buttercream to sandwich together the two thin fruitcakes and finished the whole thing off with a dredge of icing sugar. It doesn’t look bad!
It’s quite a spicy cake and a little on the dry side, just now, but I expect it will be quite a lot moister tomorrow, in keeping with most oil-based sponges. The custard buttercream worked well with the spicy cake. Goes down nice with a cup of tea. Oh, and it didn’t taste of oil, either!
This one is a bit of a blast from the past! When I was a girl, really before I was maybe 10 or 11 (yes, I do have a good memory!), I remember that Mum used to occasionally make biscuits or what she called ‘tablet’. As those in the know might guess, Mum was Scottish, and Scottish Tablet is like a hard fudge, very, very sweet. Her biscuits were like a shortbread, sandwiched together with jam and topped with glace icing. So, when I came across a recipe for what they called ‘Empire Biscuits’, these looked just like my Mum’s so I thought I’d have a go, for nostalgia if nothing else!
I don’t often have a go at biscuits-somehow, I don’t seem to have the knack and my shortbreads never seem to come out very good. It would remain to be seen if this recipe would work!
Biscuits
250 g/ 9oz butter, at room temperature*
100 g/ 3½ oz granulated sugar**
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla extract
450 g / 1 lb all-purpose (plain) flour, plus extra to dust surfaces
*I used unsalted butter.
**use caster sugar if in UK
Glace Icing and Filling
250 g/9 oz icing sugar (powdered/confectioners)
3 tbsp milk, cream or water
Raspberry jam
Glace cherries, halved, or other decoration
Line a suitable number of baking trays/cookie trays with baking parchment, set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth and light.
Butter and sugarCreaming
Add the egg and vanilla and mix in.
Added egg and vanilla
Add the flour, in batches. Mixing between each addition.
DoughCutting outTransferring the biscuits
Turn dough out onto a lightly-floured board. It was quite a dry mix but it came together usingthe hands and the rolling pin.
Use a floured rolling pin to roll out to about 1 cm/¼ inch thickness. Cut out suitably-sized biscuits using a cookie cutter or the edge of a glass or cup. I don’t have any cookie cutters so I used the lip of a glass, about 3¼ inch diameter. Transfer to the prepared cookie sheets. Reform and re-roll the dough to cut out more biscuits, making sure that there are even numbers. Place on the cookie sheets with about ½ inch between each biscuit to allow for spreading during baking.
Biscuits on the cookie sheet, ready to transfer to the fridge
Transfer the cookie trays to the refrigerator to chill for about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/ 325 ˚F convection/180˚C/160˚C fan/Gas 4
Place the cookie trays in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, until baked through but not browned. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cooling cookies
Mix the icing sugar and the milk/cream/water to make a smooth icing.
When completely cool, spread half of the biscuits with raspberry jam. Top these with the unspread biscuits.
Adding the fillingBiscuit sandwiches made
Top the double biscuits with glace icing and half a glace cherry, or other suitable decoration.
Double biscuits
I ended up with 11 biscuits but you could have more or less, depending on the size of the circles cut out.
So, they are not bad. They are not exactly what I remember from my childhood, but it was nice to reminisce a little. They are pretty filling, too, but go pretty well with a nice cup of tea.
Birthday time again, so I was looking around for a new cake recipe. I don’t know why I bother, really, as the birthday boy would be quite happy with the ultimate chocolate cake, every time (see The Ultimate-Chocolate Cake). Still, I like to try something new and I thought that a lighter cake would be a good idea since it would be served up after a substantial birthday dinner! I came across this recipe on line, which seemed to be a form of angel food cake (a very light sponge) but with added white chocolate. I’ve never made an angel food cake before so it was the excuse to indulge in buying a new piece of kit-an Angel Food Cake pan!
The central pillar is to ensure that the centre of the cake cooks through, too.
Angel food cake is supposed to be made in an ungreased pan, since the cake, sort of, crawls up the side of the pan during baking. It is cooled in the pan, balanced upside down, perched on supports-the central tube is actually higher than the rim of the pan, to facilitate this cooling. My recipe said to grease and flour the pan before using, which maybe should have set off alarm bells. What should I do-follow the perceived wisdom for angel food, or follow the recipe? In the end I followed the recipe, considering that the addition of the chocolate might have affected the process.
Pan greased with butter, then dusted with flour and excess tapped outIngredients for cakeIngredients for frosting
Cake
1 cup/250 g/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temp (plus extra to grease the pan)
3½ cups/440 g all-purpose (plain) flour, plus extra for the tin
2½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
½ tsp salt
125 g/4 oz white chocolate, chopped
½ cup just-boiled water
1½ cups/375 g granulated sugar
6 large egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1½ cups/375 ml buttermilk, at room temperature*
*due to absence of buttermilk, this was prepared by adding whole milk to lemon juice (1 tbsp lemon to 1 cup milk) and leaving to stand.
Heat the oven to 300˚F/150˚C/Gas 1-2
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Use a balloon whisk to ensure it is well-mixed. Set aside.
Whisking together the dry ingredientsMelting white chocolate into hot water
Place the chocolate into a small bowl. Add the just-boiled water and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside.
Place the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. I used my temperamental stand mixer for this, as it was easier when I wanted to add ingredients, and it is quite a long process of mixing. I just had to be careful to keep scraping down the sides of my bowl to ensure good mixing.
Beating sugar and butter
Reduce the mixer speed to medium and then add egg whites, one at a time, beating to ensure each is fully incorporated. Beat in the vanilla extract.
Adding each egg white separatelyAdding flour and buttermilk
Reduce the mixer speed once more. Add the flour, in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk. Mix until just incorporated. Mix in the white chocolate/water mixture.
Flour, buttermilk and white chocolate mix addedReady to bake
Transfer to the prepared tin. Bake until a skewer comes out clean (75-80 minutes). Remove from oven and leave to cool, in the tin on a rack, for 10 minutes, then invert onto the rack to cool completely.
Out of the ovenOut of the tinWhoops!
The recipe stated that the cake would take 75-80 minutes, but mine was still sticky at that point. I reckon it was 90 minutes-plus before my wooden skewer tester came out clean. The greasing of the pan seems to have been necessary, I lost a patch of cake from the top when I released it from the tin. Oh well, one slice will have extra-deep frosting!
I have to admit that at this stage I was not at all sure about this cake and was hunting out my recipe for Blackout Cake as a backup (see Bit of a Mash-Up-Blackout Fudge Cake). The sponge in this cake is very easy to make and is a lovely dark moist chocolate cake which would work with all sorts of frosting. In the end I decided to stick with the cake I’d made and cross fingers…
Cream cheese frosting
100 g/3.5 g white chocolate, chopped
½ cup/125 g/1 stick unsalted butter, softened.
8 oz/250 g/1 block cream cheese, softened
1 cup/155 g icing (powdered/confectioners) sugar
½ cup/125 ml whipping (heavy/double) cream
Melt the chocolate, in a bain-marie or in the microwave. the recipe suggests the microwave, but I’ve always thought that white chocolate is particularly easy to overheat, so I went with the bain-marie. Set aside.
Melted white chocolate
Incidentally, I think that the quality of the chocolate for this cake does matter a lot. Normally I buy Lindt white chocolate, but this can be difficult to find occasionally, and so it proved this time. I managed to get one bar, but needed more, and ended up with a budget ‘store’s own’ alternative. This did not melt well at all. I’m glad that I saved the Lindt bar for the frosting and used the other for the cake.
Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the icing sugar and mix to combine, then add the melted chocolate and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until ready to assemble the cake.
Cream cheese and butterBeating cheese and butterAdded icing sugarCream cheese, butter, icing sugar and white chocolate, ready to refrigerate
When ready, beat the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Stir a spoonful into the cream cheese mixture, then fold in the remaining cream.
To assemble
Cut the cake in half, through the equator. Place the base on a cake board or serving plate.
Half cakeHalf cakeCake turntable
I recently also acquired a cake turntable, along with some icing equipment, offset spatulas and that sort of thing. I always say that I’m no great shakes at icing, so maybe I could improve. Anyway, the cake didn’t look bad when cut in half, although it maybe had a slightly ‘bready’ texture. I glued the bottom down onto a cake board and placed this on the turntable, ready for the next stage.
Seedless raspberry jamJam layer
Add ½ cup/125 ml seedless raspberry jam to the base and spread evenly.
Add ¾ cup of the cream cheese frosting over the jam layer. Place the top half of the cake on top.
I decided to try a ‘crumb coat’ for the frosting. This is a thin layer of frosting that covers the outside the cake and is then left to ‘set’ in the fridge. The idea is that any crumbs from the cake surface are trapped in this layer and then the top coat will be pristine and crumb-free. Well, I gave it a go:
Crumb coat
I popped the cake (on the turntable!) into the fridge for 15 minutes, but it didn’t seem to set over much. Maybe this is not the best frosting to achieve the smooth surface? Anyhow, I also realised (later) that I’d neglected to do another stage, which was to wrap each layer in plastic film and place them into the freezer for 15 minutes, to help stabilize the layers.
So I ended up with some sort of frosting-definitely not perfect, though- and I had a bit of a go with piping, too. I think my career making wedding cakes had better go on the back burner.
As for the cake? Well, I think it was a bit bready in texture, and it really wasn’t the airy cake I was expecting. I don’t know if that was a function of the cheaper chocolate, or the fact that it took quite a lot longer to bake than expected. It really needs to come out of the fridge for a couple of hours in advance of serving, too, but the cream cheese in the frosting means that it has to be stored refrigerated. On the plus side, its a big cake and will provide 16 servings with no problems. I don’t think I’d make it again, though, but you live and learn.
So Mark is putting up with the fruit loaves but he did ask if I could find one with chocolate in it. No sooner said than done! Chocolate and bananas are good bedfellows, anyway, so it should be good. I found a recipe, on line-another of those UK recipes in grams only (I really recommend an electric scale, they are quite cheap really), using self-raising flour and golden caster sugar. I’ve never seen golden caster sugar here, but I had some brilliant yellow sugar in the pantry and I thought that might work ok. We would see.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
140 g self-raising flour
140 g brilliant yellow sugar*
140 g softened unsalted butter
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 g chocolate chips**
*recipe states golden caster sugar
**I used milk chocolate chips
My butter was a bit hard, so I used an old trick to soften it. I filled a glass jug with boiling water, tipped it out again and then popped in my wrapped butter. It worked perfectly.
Softening butter
Preheat the oven to 350˚F/ 325 ˚F convection/180˚C/160 ˚C fan/Gas 4
Grease a suitable loaf tin -900g/2lb. Line with parchment, if preferred.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This was probably a bit harder to do as the sugar, although fine, wasn’t the superfine state of caster sugar. It did go well in the end, though.
Mix the vanilla with the eggs. Add the eggs to the butter mixture, in portions, beating after each addition.
Softened butter and sugarCreaming butter and sugarBeating in the eggs
Fold in the flour, baking powder, salt and bananas. Fold in most of the chocolate chips, reserving a handful. I found a silicone spatula to be the perfect tool for this.
Folding in the flour mixtureBananas added. Folding in the chocolate chips
Transfer to the prepared loaf tin. Smooth the top and sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.
Ready to bake
Bake, 50 minutes, or until well-risen and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Keep an eye on it as mine baked quite fast and was ready about 45 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
Fresh out of the ovenOut to cool
A tasty bread, with pieces of banana and the chocolate chips still discrete in the texture. Mark likes his buttered. It would also work well with semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips, for a more chocolatey hit. The brilliant yellow sugar seemed to have been a good alternative for golden caster sugar, providing a very slight molasses taste. Ordinary sugar would probably work, too, although the colour of the bread would be paler.
The Pudding Queen 