Buttercream – The Pudding Queen

Easy Fruitcake, with Custard Buttercream

February 7, 2023 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

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.

Easy Fruitcake

175 ml (approx. 5½ fl oz) flavourless oil (not olive oil)*

100 g/ 3.5 oz soft brown sugar**

2 eggs, beaten

225 g/ 7.9 oz plain (all-purpose) flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp mixed spice***

Juice of 1 orange****

Juice of 1 lemon****

200 g/7 oz mixed dried fruits*****

*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.

Add the eggs and stir to combine.

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.

Fold in the fruit mixture. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared tins.

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.

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!

Banana Coffee Cake

May 20, 2022 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

Bananas are going overripe quicker now that the year is heating up. I do keep them in another room, that tends cooler than the kitchen, but it’s inevitable so I might have to start keeping them in the fridge. As a result, I tend to buy only 3 or 4 at a time since I’m really the only one who eats them; Mark may have the odd one but there will be weeks between each one. Unfortunately, I forgot to mention this to him when he did the shopping last week, so he came back with a hand of about 9. With the best will in the world I can’t eat that many and today they were looking (and smelling) very, very ripe. I thought I’d be making banana bread again. Then I thought, I wonder if there’s something else I could make? I’d take a look on line.

I found a recipe for a coffee cake, in both senses of the word. That is, a cake to eat with a cup of coffee and one with coffee flavouring-in this case a coffee buttercream. It was an intriguing combination and, with a little substitution, I had everything I needed.

The cake recipe called for butter, but I was a bit short of it so I substituted soft margarine. It also wanted sour cream, which I don’t keep in. However, greek yoghurt is apparently a suitable alternative and this I do have since I routinely add it to my breakfasts (along with bananas). It was 0% fat yoghurt, but I thought it would work. Finally it wanted a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. My largest one, a pyrex dish, was 8.5 by 11 inch, but I thought it would be ok, although the cake might take a few minutes longer to bake.

The Recipe (for cake):

½ cup/125 g /4 oz soft margarine, or butter, softened*

1 cup/250 g/8 oz granulated sugar**

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp/5 ml vanilla extract/essence

2 cups/250 g/8 oz all-purpose (plain) flour

2 tsp/ 10 ml baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

½ tsp salt

1½ cups mashed banana (about 3 ripe bananas)

1 cup/ 250 ml/ 8 fl oz greek yogurt or sour cream***

* I used soft margarine

**caster sugar would work better if not in North America

***I used 0% greek yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4. Grease a suitable baking dish and set aside.

Measure out all of the ingredients, as follows. Note that I used the cup measures for this cake. When measuring flours in cups, it’s important not to scoop up the flour with the cup, since this will lead to a packed cup and be too much flour. Instead, fill the cup measure using a spoon and level off.

Measure the flour, baking soda and salt and sift into a bowl, set aside.

Measure 1 cup of yoghurt or sour cream and set aside.

Place the bananas into a bowl and mash well with a fork. Set aside.

Measure the margarine or butter, and sugar into a large bowl.

Cream the margarine/butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Start to add the flour mixture, yoghurt/cream and bananas in aliquots one after the other, beating well between each addition. The result with be a batter with a nice dropping consistency; there will be some small lumps of banana, that’s fine. Transfer to the greased dish and level the top.

Bake. The recipe, with the 9 x 13 inch tin, suggests 35-40 minutes. Mine took slightly longer, maybe 45 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the dish, on a wire rack.

I turned mine out onto the rack after about 30 minutes, to cool completely.

The recipe suggested a coffee-flavoured buttercream to frost the cake. It seemed an unusual combination but I was willing to give it a try.

The Buttercream:

⅓ cup/85 g/2.5 oz butter, softened

2½ cups/390 g/12.5 oz icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar)

1 tsp (5 ml) espresso powder, dissolved in 1 tbsp (15 ml) hot water, and cooled*

1 tbsp (15 ml) milk

* the recipe suggests 2 tsp instant coffee powder, dissolved in milk. if using instant coffee, not espresso, use a total of 2 tbsp milk in this mixture.

I realised that I’d forgotten to buy some more icing sugar, and I wasn’t going to have enough for this topping. What to do? Well, I thought I’d try to make some, using my blender. I added some granulated sugar and tried to grind to a fine powder. It did it, too, but not as fine as the commercial stuff, so my icing ended up being slightly gritty.

Add the butter (and I do recommend butter here, not margarine) to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until fluffy.

Make up the espresso with 1 tbsp of hot water, and leave to cool. Note that strong coffee lovers might want to increase the coffee to 2 tsp espresso powder.

When the butter is fluffy start to add the icing sugar. If it becomes too dry, add in the espresso solution. Add 1 tbsp milk (additional may be added if the mix remains too stiff). beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until light and fluffy.

When the cake is cool, layer the buttercream over to top. Slice and serve.

The cake has a light, spongy texture, actually quite ‘muffin-y’, I think. I expect that the mixture could easily be baked in muffin cases to make banana muffins (with a reduced baking time). Some people have baked it in a swiss roll tin, and then rolled it up with the coffee buttercream as a filling, which sound like fun. It has a light, banana flavour, not too strong, and a hint of spice might make a good addition. The coffee buttercream went with it very well, I thought rather surprisingly, although I think I would go a little stronger with the coffee flavouring on another occasion. All-in-all, it was a nice alternative to the problem of what to do with overripe bananas. I shall have to freeze some of it, though because its awfully big for two!

Cinnamon Honey Cake

May 14, 2022 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

I thought I’d move slightly out of my comfort zone today, taste-wise that is. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not all that keen on cinnamon. I guess I don’t mind a little, but that goes a long way in my book. One of the things I really noticed, when moving to North America, was the number of cinnamon-flavoured items, and that the cinnamon-flavouring was usually very strong-too strong for me. Therefore I have shied away for ‘cinnamon’ in a cake. Time, maybe, to remedy that.

I was leafing through one of my old recipe books that I brought with me from the UK a few days ago. Now, I might have bought this book in the UK but it is actually Australian. It’s been very useful over the years for the tables of conversions in the back-cups to weights, Fahrenheit to Celsius, names of ingredients, etc. What I haven’t done is bake many of the recipes. Well, I came across a simple-looking cake, called Cinnamon Honey Cake- a single layer cake, topped with lemon buttercream. Now that sounded not too bad, especially as it specified only 1 tsp of cinnamon in the mix.

The Recipe:

Cake

50 g/¼ cup soft brown sugar

4 tbsp/60 ml honey

1 egg

125 g/1 cup self-raising flour, sifted

60 g butter, softened

1 tsp cinnamon

80 ml/⅓ cup milk

Note that this makes one layer. For a two-layer cake, double the recipe or make it twice.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F /180˚C/Gas 4. Grease and line a 20 cm/8 in cake tin

Now the recipe suggests just putting all of the ingredients into a bowl and mixing it up, so I did.

I had helped the butter soften by trying a trick I’d found on line. I filled a jug with boiling water, left it for a minute or so then decanted the water and popped in my stick of butter, and it worked!

However, even with this trick it took forever for the butter to be incorporated into the batter. Maybe it would be better to cream the butter and sugar first.

The batter is quite sloppy. Transfer to the prepared tin, smooth the top and place in the oven for approximately 30 minutes.

I checked my cake after about 25 minutes and was glad I did because it looked done. A skewer inserted into the centre came out clean. It had risen, but not greatly so. The 8 in tin I used was a little larger than the 20 cm tin specified, so maybe that is why. This might work better as a single layer cake if baked in a 7 in tin.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin, on a wire rack, for 5-10 minutes, before turning out onto the rack to cool completely.

It looked a bit sorry, turned out, not really deep enough to be a single layer cake. What to do? Well, I’d make another one and turn this into a sandwich cake. This time I creamed together the butter and sugar first, before adding the other ingredients. It was quicker to prepare, but it made no difference to the colour, texture or the baking time of the layer, so it clearly could be mixed either way.

Lemon Frosting

50 g butter, softened

310 g/ 2 cups icing sugar (powdered or confectioner’s sugar)

20 ml/ 1 tbsp +1 tsp (or to taste) lemon juice

Splash of milk, as needed

I had prepared the lemon frosting, intending this to be the topping of the single layer cake. I used the remainder of the stick of butter (about 50 g) and placed this in the bowl of my stand mixer. I beat the butter until fluffy then started to add the sugar, alternating with some of the lemon juice, until it was all incorporated. I actually added a dribble more lemon juice, as the mix was very thick and slightly granular. Because of this I also added a splash of milk, and this loosened up the buttercream enough to make a nice spreading consistency. Luckily, it was not too soft as it would now be serving as a filling, not a frosting.

Once cool, sandwich together the two cakes with the lemon buttercream. A dusting of icing sugar finishes off the cake.

The cake has a nice light crumb and a pleasant ‘stickiness’, caused by the honey. It does have quite a pronounced cinnamon taste, and warmth-well at least to my tastebuds; real cinnamon-lovers might find it a bit bland. I suppose it could be livened up by adding more cinnamon. It might also work rather nicely as a ginger honey cake; in fact, I think that might be a better combination for me. Still, I’m not turning my nose up at this one, and it makes a nice change from the more regular flavourings.

Bit of a Mash-Up-Blackout Fudge Cake

January 27, 2022 Sandra Dennis1 Comment

It is the time for a very special birthday, requiring, of course, a cake, and for the birthday boy only chocolate cake hits the spot. As usual, I wanted to try something different so I was casting around for a few ideas.

In my kitchen I have a ‘sundries’ drawer (not to be confused with the ‘junk’ drawer). It’s where I keep instruction manuals for kitchen equipment and, often, recipes that I’ve printed off the internet. I’d obviously been looking for chocolate cakes previously as I found 3 different cake recipes in there, an ‘Ultimate Chocolate Cake’ (albeit a different on from the one I’ve already written about-see The Ultimate-Chocolate Cake-and not as ‘ultimate’ in my opinion!), a ‘Fudgy Dark Chocolate Cake’ and something called the ‘Brooklyn Blackout Cake’-this latter one in particular intrigued me.

I think I’d put this in the drawer because it called for two ingredients that I had problems finding-buttermilk and espresso powder. Now buttermilk I have sorted out, it’s relatively easy to make by adding lemon juice or distilled white vinegar to milk (1 tbsp to 250 ml milk) but espresso powder might be more of an issue in rural Nova Scotia. It’s become the thing to add espresso to chocolate-flavoured things, not to add coffee flavour as such but because it is supposed to intensify the chocolate flavour. Well, anything to intensify chocolate flavour is a good thing by me! Still, would I find espresso powder here in the back of beyond? I would try on line.

Yes, there was espresso powder on Amazon.ca. I wasn’t sure what sort of powder to get so looked at baking espresso. My jaw nearly hit the keyboard when I saw the prices-the cheapest was over $30 for a very small jar of powder, going up to $90-now, I really couldn’t justify that! I thought I’d have a cursory glance in the coffee aisle at our local supermarket, not expecting much, and actually found some. It’s Nescafe, so maybe not the best quality as compared to the $90 stuff, but was only $11 for a large jar (and I even found a smaller jar for only $8 in our other supermarket), so much more reasonable.

*Should last for lots of chocolate cakes!*

So, I had much of the necessary for the Blackout cake. The recipe is British, in fact I think it is from the BBC Good Food website, and so it calls for fancy things like muscovado sugar-that, I knew, I wouldn’t find here but apparently the best substitute is dark soft brown sugar, which I did have. The cake itself was sorted.

The Blackout cake recipe used a chocolate custard as filling and topping. This was interesting and I’d definitely like to try it out, but maybe not when we had guests coming for dinner and the cake had to work. Maybe the frosting from the Fudgy Dark Chocolate Cake would combine well? I’d give it a go.

As mentioned, this is a British recipe and the metric measures are the most accurate. I have made an attempt to translate to imperial measures but daren’t try for cups!

140 g/5 oz unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the cake pans *

100 ml/ 3.4 fl oz vegetable oil

140 g/ 5 oz buttermilk**

100 ml/ 3.4 fl oz coffee, made with 3 tsp instant espresso powder***

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

250 g/9 oz all-purpose (plain) flour

250 g/9 oz light muscovado or dark soft brown sugar****

50 g/1.8 oz cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

*I used soft margarine to grease the pans

**buttermilk made by adding 1 tbsp lemon juice to 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk and leaving to stand for 10 minutes, then weighed before use

***original recipe called for 1 tsp of powder in 100 ml water. Instructions on the jar said 1-2 tsp in 50 ml, so I followed that. This may depend on the brand of espresso used. I also made up the coffee in advance and allowed it to cool before adding it to the mixture.

****I used dark soft brown sugar.

There are quite a lot of ingredients and I found it useful to measure everything out before starting.

I also got my cake pans ready beforehand. The recipe calls for 2 x 8 inch/20 cm sandwich tins, greased and with the bottoms lined. I like to use linings on the sides, too. Because I do, I can use soft margarine to grease my tins.

Preheat oven to 350˚F/325˚F convection/180˚C/160˚C fan/Gas 4

Place the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and allow to melt gently, remove from heat as soon as it is melted.

Add the oil, buttermilk, coffee, eggs and vanilla, beat to combine. I found a balloon whisk worked well.

*Adding in the rest of the wet ingredients*

Set the wet mix to one side.

Place all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Note that I found that the dark soft brown sugar had a tendency to clump together, so I ended up sifting the partially-mixed powder through a sieve into a separate bowl to reduce the lumps. It didn’t work to sieve it in advance of whisking though, it worked best to mix, whisk, sieve then whisk again. This might not be as much of an issue if you use muscovado sugar.

*Sieved. A metal spoon will force the lumps through the sieve.*

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well using the balloon mix. It will look lumpy initially but will very soon mix to a smooth batter. This really was remarkably easy and quick to do.

Separate the batter equally between the two cake pans and smooth the tops.

Bake 20-30 minutes, until the cakes are risen and a tester comes out clean. Note that I baked my cakes at 325˚F convection and they took close to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, remove from the tins and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Now, this is a quite crumbly soft cake when warm, with a nice soft crumb, so don’t do what I did and try to put it on the rack ‘top up’!

*Whoops! Still, at least you can see the texture…*

Yes, that wasn’t going to glue together again! Luckily, I had enough of everything to start again and, an hour or so later, I had 3 cake sandwiches cooling on racks. It really is a quick and easy cake to make, once you have every ingredient collected together and weighed out.

Now for the fudge frosting. This was intended to layer the cakes and then cover the top and sides.

100 g/3.5 oz unsalted butter

200 ml/ 6.8 fl oz double cream, heavy cream or whipping cream*

3 tbsp clear honey

200 g dark chocolate (70%), broken into small pieces

2 tsp espresso powder

Icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar), to taste

*I used whipping cream

The original fudge frosting recipe was for 50g butter, 200 ml cream, 3 tbsp honey and 200 g dark chocolate. I thought I’d add the espresso powder to ‘boost ‘ the chocolate.

Heat the cream in a large saucepan until just boiling.

Remove from the heat and add the butter, chocolate and honey (and espresso if using). Allow to melt for 5 minutes.

Stir to combine but do not overmix. Allow to cool to just warm before using to ice the cakes.

Well, there were problems. Firstly, the fudge was not really sweet enough. maybe adding the coffee had made it more bitter than it should have been, but it certainly wasn’t a sweet icing. Secondly, it was still pretty runny. It wasn’t going to make a filling, let alone a frosting. It would end up as a puddle on the bottom of the cake. What to do?

Well, the recipe said not to overmix, but I thought that adding some additional butter, some icing sugar and beating it using the stand mixer might rescue it. I added an additional 50 g of butter and started the beaters going, I then started to spoon in icing sugar as it mixed, until I reached an acceptable sweetness and thickness (which is why it says ‘to taste’). I ended up with a nice fudgy icing. It still didn’t seem to me to be stiff enough to sandwich the cakes, but it would make a very acceptable icing. I’d need to do something else for the middle.

I remembered the swiss meringue buttercream that I’d made for last year’s birthday cake (see Celebration Time-Double Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake). That might work. By luck I’d also bought a bar of white chocolate, intending to use it to decorate the cake, but now it would come in handy to flavour the filling. This is why I called this a mash-up!

3 egg whites*

250 g/8 oz/1 cup caster sugar (superfine sugar)

175g/6 oz unsalted butter

100 g white chocolate, broken into small pieces

½ tsp vanilla extract

Pinch salt

*I used commercially-separated free-range egg whites from a carton

Normally, I’d use freshly-separated egg whites but, for speed, I used some of those egg whites in a carton. These are pasteurized so I suppose even less of a potential health issue than using fresh egg whites. The whites are heated so safety is assured.

Using the bowl from your stand mixer (wipe out with lemon juice to ensure it is fat-free), standing over a pan of simmering water, add the egg whites and sugar. Whisk and heat until the sugar is melted. The temperature of the mixture can get to 140˚F/70˚C.

Remove from heat, transfer to the mixer and set beating. Add butter, in small cubes, to the mixture, as it is beating. Add vanilla extract. Beat for 10 minutes, until smooth and fluffy.

This is a very nice vanilla buttercream and could be used as is. However, I was going to amp up the chocolate, because that is what I do. I melted the chocolate in a double-boiler and then poured the slightly cooled melted white chocolate into the buttercream as it was mixing, and left it to mix for another few minutes. The resulting buttercream was allowed to cool for 10 minutes and then used to sandwich the cake.

I decided that two cake layers was quite enough (I froze the third layer for use at another time). With white chocolate buttercream filling and dark chocolate fudge frosting (and a sprinkle of chocolate vermicelli) it make a very acceptable cake, in the end.

*The sponge is moist and flavourful, with a nice soft crumb*

I would definitely recommend the cake as a very good and easy-made sponge, worth keeping in the repertoire. I do think that the addition of the espresso boosted the flavour, although you certainly can’t taste coffee. Maybe I’ll have a go at that chocolate custard when I get the frozen layer out of the freezer.

*I admit that decoration isn’t my forte!*

I keep it in the fridge, but it cuts better if removed a little while before serving.

Just for Fun-Chocolate Cupcakes

June 18, 2021June 11, 2021 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

Sometimes I just get the urge to make something, something of a ‘cakey’ nature. I didn’t want to go over the top, because we end up eating what I make, and it’s not doing the waistline any good at all. I thought that a little batch of cupcakes might hit the spot, not too many that we’d be overwhelmed, but enough of a challenge to be worth making.

I call it a challenge because I don’t make them often and I’ve had some issues in the past with sunken tops and dried out middles. Could I improve? Also, the only thing I had in for flavouring would be cocoa, would it be moist enough?

So I found a recipe offering super-moist cupcakes, using oil in place of butter or margarine. I’ve had lots of luck with full-sized ‘sticky’ chocolate cake using this method, so that was encouraging. It made only 14 cupcakes, so not over-facing. Sounded like a plan.

The recipe (makes 14 or so cup cakes):

¾ cup/94 g all-purpose (plain) flour spooned and flattened

½ cup/41 g unsweetened cocoa powder*

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

¼ tsp salt

2 large eggs at room temperature

½ cup /100 g granulated sugar

½ cup /100 g packed light brown sugar

⅓ cup /80 ml vegetable, sunflower or canola oil**

2 tsp vanilla extract (essence)

½ cup/125 ml buttermilk *** at room temperature

* the recipe specifies not to use Dutch-process cocoa, a nice surprise as this seems to be the default cocoa in most North American recipes, although I have never seen it in our shops. I used Fry’s.
** I used sunflower oil
*** as usual, I don’t keep buttermilk in, but 1 tsp of lemon juice in a measuring jug, made up to half a cup with milk and left to stand after mixing did the trick. The recipe suggests whole milk but I used 2% (semi-skimmed) and it worked fine.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4. Note that this has a very short baking time so I chose not to use convection (fan). Line muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.

Place the flour, cocoa, salt. baking powder and soda into a large bowl-it can help to sift the cocoa powder into the bowl. Whisk together to mix well.

In a second bowl, place the eggs, both sugars, oil and vanilla extract. whisk until combined.

Pour half of the egg mixture into the flour mixture. Add half of the buttercream. Whisk for a few seconds. It will be very thick.

Add the remainder of the egg mixture and the rest of the buttermilk. Whisk until just combined, but do not overstir. The batter will be quite runny.

Pour or spoon the batter into the liners. Only fill to half-way to prevent spilling over the sides, or the centres sinking. I found a ladle useful for this part.

Transfer the muffin trays to the oven for 18-21 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins. Once the tins can be handled safely, remove the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing:

American cupcakes are usually presented with a mound of buttercream icing, piled as high as the depth of the cake. It looks nice but, I think, can be a little sickly. Certainly the cupcakes I remember from children’s parties back in my childhood never had so much icing. I remember the height of sophistication was the ‘butterfly cake’ or the ‘top hat’, where a small circle of cake was cut out of the top of the cupcake, the resulting hole filled with buttercream and the removed cake piece either plonked back on top of the icing (top hat) or cut into half and set like wings into the icing (butterfly). I actually considered doing this, but in the end opted for just putting it on top. I think I have mentioned that icing is not my strong point, and I don’t own any icing nozzles or a bag.

I chose therefore to make half the amount of icing suggested by the original recipe. It’s almost a diet cupcake!

½ cup/125 g/1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

¼ cup/20 g unsweetened cocoa powder*

1¾ cup/272 g icing sugar (powdered sugar, confectioner’s sugar)

1½ tbsp milk or cream (or as required)

Pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla extract (essence)

* this time it can be either standard or Dutch-process cocoa

This called for the stand mixer and the hand mixer, as previously, unless you really don’t mind standing there for 5 minutes or more, mixing buttercream.

Beat the butter until soft and fluffy. In the meantime combine the sugar, cocoa and salt in a bowl.

Add the cocoa mixture, vanilla and milk to the butter and mix on low speed. Note that, as usual, I had to swap to the hand mixer for this part as it is very stiff. Add a little more milk if necessary.

Using the stand mixer, continue to beat on medium speed for 5 minutes or more. Occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure that everything is combined. This makes a very light buttercream. Note that if you want to do the ‘big’ frosting, using an icing bag, double the above recipe.

Ice the cupcakes. I did this by placing a blob of buttercream on each one and then spreading it using a palette knife. Decorate as liked (vermicelli, choc chips, a cherry, whatever takes your fancy or you have in).

The cake is certainly nice and moist, the buttercream is chocolately and light, and the amount, I think, is enough without being overfacing. A nice, simple recipe with a good result-can’t beat that!

Celebration Time-All-in-one Lemon Cake

May 29, 2021 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

Mark and I have a number of special dates to celebrate. Of course there are the usual ones, like birthdays and our wedding anniversary, but we also like to celebrate the day we first arrived in Canada, back in 2003; the day we became Canadian citizens in 2010; and the day we arrived in Nova Scotia (after a 23-hour drive) and moved into our new house. Amazingly, that was 29 May 2015 so today marks 6 years in the province (how time does fly!).

I thought that it deserved a cake, but I hadn’t thought it through in advance, so it would be limited to whatever we had in the fridge/pantry. Luckily, I do keep in a fairly comprehensive array of baking materials, although no chocolate. We eat it, even the baking chocolate chips, so I’ve decided not to keep it in. I’ve also been limiting the baking, it’s not doing the waistline any good at all. So, a legitimate reason for a celebration (and a cake) is very welcome. Anyhow, a spring day deserves a light, fruity cake (even if it is pouring down with temperatures in single digits), so I decided on a lemon cake.

I have a nice lemon cake recipe that was passed to me by a good friend at my last employment, and it’s a good one, although more of a ‘pound cake’ type, with a heavy crumb. I fancied a lighter sponge, so decided to explore t’internet and see what came up. I found a UK recipe for an all-in-one sponge that looked the part. Baked in two tins, I decided it would be nice sandwiched together with lemon spread and lemon buttercream, and with a light lemon glace icing on top. What could be nicer?

Simple enough?

The Recipe:

225 g /1¼ cups +2 tbsp/8 oz self-raising flour*

2 tsp baking powder

4 medium eggs**

225 g/1 cup/8 oz butter or soft margarine***

225 g/1 cup + 2 tbsp/8 oz caster sugar ****

Zest of 2 lemons *****

2 tsp milk

It’s a British recipe so the metric amounts are the most accurate, but the lady who had provided the recipe was kind enough to also translate to cups and imperial measures. Note that tbsp = 15 ml and tsp = 5 ml, as is standard in the UK and North America.

* Self-raising (or self-rising) flour is mostly findable in North America but, if not available it can be ‘made’ by mixing plain/all-purpose flour with baking powder at a ratio of 2 tsp baking powder to 150g/6 oz/ 1 cup flour. Whisk or sieve the two together, to make sure that the baking powder is evenly distributed through the flour, before measuring out the amount needed for the recipe.
** Medium eggs are specified. I never have medium eggs, just large, and was concerned that 4 large eggs might be a bit ‘eggy’. The lady with the recipe had also considered this issue and had spent quite a bit of time weighing eggs to work out an equivalency (what a hero!). Her 4 medium eggs worked out to be 3.4 large eggs, or 200 g of egg (excluding shells. I decided it would be easier to weigh my eggs and I was surprised to find that 4 of my large eggs (free-range) actually weighed 200 g, although I have always thought that the ‘large’ free-range eggs are a tad smaller than the battery farm eggs (they taste much better, though!).
***I used soft margarine. If using butter, make sure that it is soft and at room temperature.
****Superfine sugar in North America, although NA standard granulated is finer than UK granulated and I find it can generally be used in place of caster sugar.
*****the only thing I was missing. I added 1 tbsp of lemon juice into the mix, instead.

Preheat the oven to 325˚C/300˚F convection/160˚C/140˚C fan/Gas 3. Grease and line 2 x 8 inch/20 cm sandwich tins. I always use a loose-bottom tin and line both walls and base with parchment paper.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add all other ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer on slow speed until combined, ensuring that there are no lumps of butter or margarine left in the batter.

Divide the mixture equally into the two prepared tins. Spread the mixture in each tin using a palette knife or the back of a spoon.

Bake approx. 30 minutes. The cakes are done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, in the tins, for 10 minutes before turning out and cooling completely on a wire rack.

Buttercream

I decided to use a variant on the buttercream recipe I’d used on my marmalade cake (see Orangy Bright-Marmalade Cake) as that was very nice and smooth. That recipe made enough to cover the entire cake, but I only wanted some to go between the sandwich, so I made 3/5ths of the original amount, i.e.

75 g unsalted butter (room temp)

120 g icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar/powdered sugar)

1 tbsp (or to taste) lemon juice

I actually think I could have used maybe a little more, so I’d choose 4/5ths (100g butter/160 g sugar) if I was to make it again.

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar a little at a time. Note that this is a very stiff mixture. Add in the lemon juice and beat to mix. Continue beating for 3-4 minutes (note that I used the hand mixer for the sugar incorporation and the stand mixer for the long beating).

I also made a light lemon glace icing for the top of my cake by mixing icing sugar with lemon juice to a fairly runny consistency.

To assemble:

Place one cake onto a plate. I chose to add a layer of lemon spread. Lemon curd would work very nicely but, in the absence of such a thing here, I used this:

Add the lemon buttercream and then the top layer of cake. Spread the top with the glace isng.

Very nice with a cup of tea but you need a fork to eat it.

Orangy Bright-Marmalade Cake

April 18, 2021April 13, 2021 Sandra Dennis1 Comment

I like marmalade, but I’m afraid that it’s pretty rare that I find a good one over here in Canada. Ideally it should be made with Seville oranges, thick with peel and pack a real citrus flavour. Unfortunately, Canadian versions are generally a bit weak and watery. The answer, I am assured, is to make my own but, with only me eating it (my husband doesn’t like the stuff), I’m rather afraid that I’d be eating the stuff for ever. In the meantime, I keep trying to find an acceptable version in our local supermarket. Just occasionally I happen upon a jar of Robertson’s, otherwise I have to make do with Bonne Maman, ok but not quite the thing. I came across a jar of the supermarket’s own brand-I really should know better but I thought I’d try it. Well, it didn’t hit the spot so I was stuck with a whole jar of inferior marmalade. What to do?

Well, I thought, I could use it in baking, so I dusted off some recipes for Marmalade cake and chose this particularly simple version:

The Recipe:

Cake
175 g/ 6 oz butter*
175 g/6 oz sugar **
1 large orange, grated zest and half the juice
3 large eggs
75 g/2½ oz marmalade
175 g/6 oz self-raising flour

Citrus buttercream
125 g/4 oz/ ½ cup/1 stick butter***
200 g/10½ oz/2 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar)
2 tbsp (or to taste) orange juice (or a mixture of orange and lemon juice)

Glace icing (alternative to buttercream)
100 g/3½ oz icing sugar
Juice of ½ orange

*Recipe calls for butter but I used soft margarine

**recipe calls for golden caster sugar. I used standard American granulated

*** I used unsalted butter

Again, this is a UK recipe, so the ‘cup’ measurements are missing, although I have made an effort to convert g to oz, for those who prefer them. The most accurate measurements are, however, the metric ones.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4. Grease and line a suitable tin. The recipe calls for a loaf tin of 25 x 11 cm (about 10 x 4½ inch) but I decided to use a round loose-bottom tin 18 cm (7 inch) in diameter.

Put the butter or margarine, and the sugar into a bowl and beat until fluffy and paler in colour.

Finely grate the zest of the orange. Squeeze out the juice and divide into two equal halves.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat lightly.

Add the eggs to the butter mixture, a little at a time, beating between additions. Beat in the marmalade and the orange zest.

Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, slowly but firmly, until there is no trace of flour remaining. Stir in half of the orange juice. Transfer to the cake tin, slightly smoothing the top. Place in the oven for about 40-45 minutes. Check for ‘doneness’ by inserting a skewer into the centre-it will come out clean when the cake is ready.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

Cooling cake-oh err, the dreaded sinking feeling…

I had intended to add a little light glace icing to the top of the cake, letting it drizzle down, but this alarming-looking dip changed my mind? The reason for the issue? Maybe the change in the size of the tin or the fact that I opened my oven door not long after I put the cake in there (because I’d forgotten a photo!) It’s really best not to open the door till at least 80% of the baking time has passed. Anyhow, a big dip just cries out for filling with buttercream, in my opinion. There’s a silver lining to every cloud.

I tried another buttercream method. I liked the swiss meringue type that I’d made for the Devil’s Food Cake but it is definitely fiddly. Instead I decided to try a slightly different standard buttercream. Mainly it is the extra beating that makes the difference. It sounded like a job for the stand mixer.

Cream the butter (at room temperature) until smooth and fluffy. I used the stand mixer for this bit.

Add the icing sugar gradually and beat in. I had to switch to my hand mixer for this bit since my stand mixer isn’t very good and wasn’t cutting the mustard. It is a very stiff mix. Beat in the orange juice/orange and lemon juice. Continue beating for a further 3-4 minutes, the mix becomes much smoother and lighter. I swapped back to the stand mixer for this part since I could leave it to do its work, just scaping down the sides of the bowl a couple of times.

Spread the buttercream over the cake and down the sides. This made a very smooth and flavourful buttercream, not quite the standard of the swiss meringue but very acceptable. I think I’ll use this one again.

As for the cake, it was a nice, moist sponge with a light orange flavour, very nice with a cup of tea or a coffee. The sunk bit was still nicely cooked so that worked, too. I’d certainly make it again.

Quick but Impressive-Caramel Cake

April 5, 2021March 18, 2021 Sandra Dennis1 Comment

Another birthday, another cake. This time it was my own birthday and so I wanted a tasty cake, but not something too complicated. Also I wanted to try something new, and something a bit different. When I came across a caramel cake recipe that was described as ‘easy’, I thought that would hit the spot.

It is a British recipe, so it uses things like “self-raising flour’, which we can get here but it seems a bit of a mystery to most. Also ‘golden caster sugar’ and ‘golden icing sugar’, which definitely wouldn’t be available. Lastly, the ingredients are in grams, not cups. I’ve tried to convert to imperial, for those who prefer it, but I dare not convert to cups, I’d be bound to get it wrong.

The recipe gave a option for a chocolate sponge, which I thought might be nice with the caramel, so I followed that, although I have no doubt that the original sponge would also be nice.

The Recipe:
Cake
225 g/8 oz softened salted butter (additional for greasing tins)
125 g/4 oz golden caster/superfine sugar *
100 g/3.5 oz light soft brown sugar
5 ml/ 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract
4 large eggs
225 g/8 oz self-raising flour
OPTIONAL 3 tbsp cocoa powder**
30 ml/2 tbsp milk

Frosting
200 g/7 oz softened salted butter
400 g/14 oz golden icing (powdered/confectioners) sugar***
70 g/2.5 oz caramel sauce, Dulce de Leche or caramel spread****, plus extra to serve
A drop of milk, cream, or boiling water, if needed

To decorate
Toffee, chocolate or caramel pieces and caramel sauce

* golden caster sugar would impart additional caramel flavour. I have never found caster or superfine sugar of any variety here. Normal American granulated would work. I decided to try golden yellow sugar, which is closer in texture to soft brown sugar. It worked ok but maybe the sponge was a little drier than ideal.
** if choosing to make a chocolate sponge, as I did, incorporate the cocoa powder with the flour.
*** golden icing sugar would again add additional caramel flavour. If not available (definitely wasn’t here) use standard icing sugar
**** of the three options, I only found caramel spread.

Preheat the oven to 350˚F/325˚F convection/180˚C/160˚C fan/gas 4. Grease and line 2 loose-bottom or springform 8* cake tins.

Beat together the butter and the two sugars, until lighter in colour and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time. Add a spoonful of the flour after each egg and beat in, before adding the next egg. Add the remaining flour, the cocoa powder (if using) and the milk. Spoon into the prepared tins.

Bake, 25-30 minutes, until the cakes spring back when pressed and a skewer/cake tester comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, put the butter and icing sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth. Add in the caramel. I found this got very stiff, so add a dribble of milk, cream or boiling water to loosen it, as needed. Set aside until the cakes are cool.

To assemble the cakes, place one layer on a plate, put about half of the buttercream on the top. At this stage I also dribbled on some of the remaining caramel spread. This had later seeped out onto the sides of the cake and into the upper sponge, making it pleasantly sticky. Place the top layer on the cake and then the remainder of the buttercream on top, roughly smoothed. No need to be too fastidious with this!

To decorate, I used some mini Skor pieces, chocolate-covered butter toffee, roughly crushed and pushed into the buttercream topping and then drizzled over warmed caramel spread, allowing it to dribble over the edges of the cake.

It certainly lived up to being easy to bake. I’d say that the sponge was maybe a little on the dry side, which might have been a function of using the golden yellow sugar or of adding in the cocoa powder, but it was pleasant, irrespective of that. The buttercream icing, after being left to stand in a cool place whilst awaiting the cooling of the cake, became very stiff and difficult to spread. A little more liquid, in the form of additional milk, cream or boiling water, might have helped with that. It certainly stood up to being spread, though, and tasted very nice. I think I’d consider this cake again, when looking for a simple but effective celebration cake, and it disappears fast enough, too!

Light and Bright-Lemon Coconut Layer Cake

March 18, 2021March 13, 2021 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

Last year’s birthday cake was a little different. No chocolate! Instead, lemon and coconut and a fat-free sponge. Not the easiest recipe, but it really worked out nicely.

The Recipe:
Cake
6 eggs
150 g/5 oz/ 1¼ plain flour, sifted with ¼ tsp salt
165 g/5½ oz/¾ cup caster sugar *
15 ml/ 1 tbsp grated orange rind
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon, or 3 tbsp ready-squeezed lemon juice **
65 g/2½ oz/1¼ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Lemon Custard
30 ml/2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
250 ml/8 fl oz/ 1 cup water
75 g/3 oz/6 tbsp butter ***
2 eggs
205 g/7¼ oz/1¼ cup caster sugar *
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon, or 3 tbsp ready-squeezed lemon juice **

Frosting
115 g/4 oz/½ cup unsalted butter
115 g/4 oz/1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar)
Grated rind of 1 lemon****
90-120 ml/6-8 tbsp lemon juice **
115 g/4 oz/ 2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

* I used standard granulated sugar, since the American form is finer than UK granulated.
** I used ready-squeezed lemon juice
*** I used unsalted butter
**** I left this out of the frosting for a smoother finish

Preheat the oven to 350˚F/180˚C/Gas 4. Grease and line 3 x 8″ (20 cm) cake tins (I used loose-bottomed tins) with baking parchment.

Place 6 eggs in a bowl over hot water, beat until frothy.
Beat in the first portion of sugar (165 g) until the mixture doubles in volume.

Remove the bowl from the heat, fold in the orange and lemon rind, the lemon juice and the coconut.

Sift over the flour mixture and fold in, well.
Divide between the three tins and bake, until the cakes start to pull away from the sides of the tins, about 25-30 minutes.
Remove from oven, leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out to cool completely on a wire rack. Note that the cakes do not rise raf but are quite airy in appearance.

To make the custard:

Blend the cornflour with a little of the water to form a smooth paste.
Whisk in the 2 eggs, until well-blended.

in a pan, place the lemon rind and juice, remaining water, sugar and butter, mix and bring to the boil. Whisk in the cornflour-egg mixture and return to the boil, whisking until thick. Remove from heat, transfer to a clean bowl and cover the surface with clear film to prevent a skin forming whilst it cools.

To make the frosting:

Cream the butter with the icing sugar. Stir in the lemon rind (if using), and enough lemon juice to make a spreadable consistency.

Assemble the cake:

Sandwich together the three cakes with the lemon custard, once cool.
Spread the top (and sides, if liked) with the lemon buttercream and sprinkle over the coconut to serve.

Coffee Cake-Coffee & Walnut (without the walnuts!)

December 13, 2020December 13, 2020 Sandra DennisLeave a comment

It’s been a while since I last posted. The real issue with baking is that we eat the results, with consequent effects on waistlines, so I put the baking on the back burner for a while. However, I was getting the itch to bake something, but what? It would need to be a comforting sort of cake, not fancy, the sort of thing that would be made to enjoy with coffee or tea. Over on this side of the pond, that would be called a ‘coffee cake’, something that caught me out several times when we first moved to Canada because they aren’t, generally, flavoured with coffee. Instead, they are meant to be eaten with coffee and can be any flavour, but are generally substantial sponges, or pound-type cakes. I’ve never found any that were actually coffee-flavoured!

In the UK, a coffee cake would be coffee-flavoured and the most commonly-found one is Coffee and Walnut. In fact it is a stalwart of the National Trust Tea Room or local fete cake stall; indeed a survey found that it is the third most-favoured cake at National Trust properties, that is some serious kudos!

One of the issues is that Mark isn’t very fond of nuts, so I tend to steer clear of overly nutty baking. I don’t tend to keep them in my baking supplies. However, the last time we were in the UK we visited a nature reserve in North Nottinghamshire, which had a tea room and was serving, of course, Coffee and Walnut Cake. However, as we were ordering a slice each, the girl behind the counter said ‘it’s Coffee and Walnut, but we forgot to put the walnuts in!’. Either way, it was very good and proved that Coffee and Walnut cake works very nicely when walnut-less. So, I thought I’d have a go.

I found a recipe, on line, but made a number of changes. I’ll give my version of course. As it’s an English recipe, the ingredients are in metric measures. I’ve tried to convert to imperial but I’m definitely not going to try for cups, I’m sure I’d get that wrong.

The Recipe:

225 g/ 7.9 oz butter or soft margarine, plus extra for greasing the tins
225 g/ 7.9 oz soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp/ 30 ml instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1 tbsp/15 ml boiling water, cooled
4 eggs, beaten together
225 g/ 7.9 oz plain (all-purpose) flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (if required)
Milk (optional)
100 g/3.5 oz walnut halves (if using)
For filling:
1 tbsp instant coffee granules and 1 tbsp cocoa powder, mixed with 1 tbsp boiling water, cooled
115 g/ 4 oz/ 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
250 g/ 8 oz caster sugar (granulated in North America)
Drop of milk or cream
For glaze:
100-150 g/3.5-5.3 oz icing sugar (powdered, or confectioner’s sugar)
2 tsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 2 tbsp boiling milk, and cooled slightly

Preheat the oven to 180 C/160 C fan/ 350 F/ 325 F convection/Gas 4.
Grease and line two 8 inch/20 cm round loose-bottomed sandwich tins.

For the cake:

Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water and leave to cool. Note that I found that I had to microwave mine for 30 seconds to ensure that the granules all dissolved.

If using, toast walnut halves in a dry pan until they smell toasted and nutty. Set one quarter of them aside and roughly chop the remainder.

Place butter or margarine (I used soft margarine) into a bowl with the soft brown sugar, cream until light and fluffy. I used my stand mixer, it doesn’t get that much use. As the mixer is still going, add the beaten eggs in small aliquots, beating between each addition. remember to scrape down the sides of the bowl regularly to make sure everything is incorporated.

Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, if using. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the flour mixture, then add in the coffee and the walnuts, if using. The final mixture should be a soft dropping consistency, so add a little milk if needed. I find that using soft margarine instead of butter usually means that the milk isn’t required.

Creaming the butter and sugar

Dropping consistency

Divide the mixture between two prepared sandwich tins, roughly level the tops, then bake for 25-30 minutes. The cakes are ready when the tops spring back when touched, or a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack.

The traditional filling and topping is coffee-flavoured buttercream, and I considered doing this, but it required 425 g of icing sugar and 165 g of butter- a bit heavy, I thought, and I didn’t have that much icing sugar available. Instead, I decided to make a smaller volume of buttercream, just for the centre of the cake, and I would use granulated sugar. This makes for a grittier buttercream but it’s still nice. Note that North American granulated sugar equates well to caster sugar elsewhere.

Mix together 1 tbsp instant coffee granules and 1 tbsp cocoa powder with 1 tbsp boiling water. Allow to cool.

Using an electric mixer (I used the stand mixer again) beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add in the coffee/cocoa mixture and mix well. Add a little milk or cream to make a smooth, spreading consistency.

When cool, sandwich the two cakes together with the mocha buttercream.

To glaze the top, make a coffee-flavoured glace icing by dissolving 2 tsp instant coffee granules in boiling milk and then mixing this into sifted icing sugar until a nice icing consistency is obtained. Pour over the cake, using a palette knife to smooth the top and allowing drips down the side. If required, place the cake in the fridge to set the icing. if using, set the remaining walnut halves on the top for decoration.

This was a darker cake than I expected, I think that the use of the brown sugar was unusual, mostly this is probably made with white sugar. However, it certainly produced a nice, moist, fluffy cake. If you want a sugar boost and a caffeine hit in one, you surely can’t beat this one!

Fluffy and Moist