baking: Exit Pursued By A Bear Cake

In April, to celebrate William Shakespeare's birthday, the V&A ran a competition called Cakespeare for people to make cakes inspired by the Bard. There were some amazing designs; this is my effort. Obviously it didn't win. The cake, like everything I make, is an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy sponge.

The Cake
275g caster sugar
300g butter
6 large eggs
300g flour
25g cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp baking powder 3 tsp milk

Cream half the butter and half the sugar, then beat in three of the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and give the mixture an extra blitz until smooth. Finally sift in 150g of flour and one tablespoon of baking powder together and gently fold in with a spatula. Set aside. This will form the white part of the marble cake.

Next cream the remaining butter and the sugar, then beat in the last of the eggs one at a time and again blitz the mixture until smooth. Finally sift in the flour and cocoa powder together and gently fold in with a spatula. This will form the chocolate part of the marble cake.

To marble the cake, put one large tablespoon of white mixture into a greased and lined baking tray and then dollop one large tablespoon of the chocolate mixture on top of that and repeated over until all the mixture was in the bowl. Don't be tempted to mix it all together or spread it out, the weight of the mixture will do all the work itself.

The Icing
200g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cocoa powder

Cream the butter and vanilla until thick but spreadable. Separate a quarter of the mixture and add the cocoa powder for the cake filling. Pipe the rest of the vanilla icing over the cake.

The Chocolate Shards
1 small bar of plain chocolate

Melt the chocolate, pour over a sheet of baking paper and cover with a second sheet. Using a rolling pin gently roll the melted chocolate between the two pieces of baking paper until thin. Put in a fridge to harden. Once hardened the chocolate should be brittle and easy to snap into shard shapes.

The Details
I used a few tubes of chocolate icing to draw the floor board pattern on the cake and floral pattern on the chocolate shard. The Bear is made from black royal icing sculpted into a rough bear shape.

baking: Odlums White Soda Bread

OK, so, I'm cheating massively here.  I was in the supermarket yesterday buying spaghetti which for some reason is right beside the Irish aisle and I saw a packet of Odlums soda bread mix.  A short background: there used to be an Odlums mill in the little town my family are from and my grandmother worked as a nurse to the Odlum family's children, so I have a slight interest in them. Added to my new interest in making soda bread, it's almost like I was fated to see this.  Or at least that's my justification for making a 'just add milk' soda bread.  All in all, it was yummy, but still not as yummy as my Nanny Patty's soda bread.

been baking: Brown Soda Bread

This is my first foray into the world of bread making.  I thought soda bread would be a good start; it's quick (no proving) and uses minimal ingredients.  Plus, I love it.  My Nanny Patty made the best soda bread and my version fell nowhere near hers; I'm not entirely sure why but at guess I'd say I should have used more salt.  I've also seen some recipes online that use porridge oats so perhaps I'll try that next time to give it a chewier, crumblier texture.  But for this one I used my mum's old Irish school book recipe.

The Bread
250g plain flour
250g wholemeal flour
300ml buttermilk
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt

Sieve the plain flour, wholemeal flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and mix together. Create a well in the centre of the mix and add the buttermilk, mix with a wooden spoon until you have a soft dough.

Lightly flour a surface and kneed the dough until the bottom looks smooth, then roll the dough into a ball shape and flatten slightly.  Score a cross through the top and bake for 40 minutes or so until the bread is completely brown and sounds hollow when your tap the bottom.

I think it's best eaten warm with nothing but proper melted butter.  Nom.

been baking: Cupcakes

My sister Stacey makes just about the best cupcakes ever.  She has spent far too much time perfecting the method and by now she's a seasoned pro.  Apparently it's all in the weighing.

The Cake
150g caster sugar 
150g butter
150g eggs (yes, she weighs them)
150g self-raising flour 
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp milk

Cream the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the vanilla and give the mixture an extra blitz until smooth.  Finally sift in the flour and gently fold in with a spatula.  Now weigh out 50g into each cupcake case and put into a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes.  

The Icing
200g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
optional food colouring

Cream the butter and vanilla until thick but spreadable and pipe over the cooled cakes.  

been baking: Plain Scones

There are hundreds of different flavoured scones to experiment with; chocolate orange, cheese, apple and my usual fail-safe buttermilk, but sometimes like yesterday, when the rain poured down non-stop and the sky never quite lightened, only a big butter scone smothered in clotted cream and strawberry jam will do.

The Scone
225g self-raising flour
1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
50g softened salty butter
120ml milk
pinch of salt

Sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the sugar and salt before adding the butter. With your hands rub the mixture together until it looks like breadcrumbs. Using a butter knife gradually mix in the milk to make a dough, you might not need to use all of the milk but if the mixture is looking dry don't worry about adding extra milk. It's worth using a knife to mix the dough to give the scone a crumbly texture when it's baked.

Lightly dust a rolling pin and baking surface with flour and roll out a wedge of dough to roughly 2cm thick. Cut out the scone shapes, you should get about six scones out of the dough. Brush a little milk over the top of the scones and bake for 10-15 minutes. Scones harden quickly when cooled so it's best to eat them while they are warm.

been baking: Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes

My mum had a craving for cherry muffins at the weekend but I didn't have any ingredients at home other than leftovers from the rainbow cake and a bit of almond so a compromise had to be made and that compromise was Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes.  They are made in much the same way as cupcakes but with a bit of almond added to the mix.

The Cake

100g caster sugar 
100g butter
2 eggs
100g self-raising flour

80g crushed almond   

2 tsp almond extract
20 dried cherries

Cream the butter and sugar and add the almond extract.  Gradually beat in the eggs and then gently fold in the flour and the crushed almonds.  Spoon the mixture into large muffin cases until two thirds full. Cut the cherries into quarters and sprinkle about eight quarters on to the top of the mixture.  Cook on a medium heat for 25-30 minutes.  The cupcakes should go a nice golden brown colour, slightly darker than a plain cupcake.

The Icing  

50g icing sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

handful of flaked almonds

Wait for the cakes to cool.  Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice until thickened but still liquid enough to pour over the cakes.  Finally sprinkle on the almonds.  

   

been baking: Layered Rainbow Cake

Rainbow coloured layer cakes always look impressive but are actually relatively easy in terms of baking, the base recipe is just a simple Victoria Sponge.  That's not to say that we haven't had any disasters with it; the first time we tried it was more cement coloured than rainbow and the icing curdled from over-mixing.  You live and learn.  This time, instead of standard food colouring we used gel colouring, which was far more vibrant and instead of the usual six small layers we made four larger layers; it is far more manageable making only four cakes.  I also find it a too rich with icing in-between each layer so we swapped the icing with jam.

The Cake
400g caster sugar 
400g butter
400g eggs (or roughly 6 large eggs)
400g self-raising flour
4 tsp baking powder  
4 tsp vanilla extract
400g raspberry jam
4 gel food colouring

Cream the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the vanilla and give the mixture a last blitz until smooth.  Finally fold in the baking powder and flour with a spatula.  Split the mixture into four equal parts and add a different colour to each bowl.  Cook each of the four cakes for about 25 minutes.  Once cooled, spread jam over the top of three of the layers and build up the cake, the fourth layer should go on the top.  

The Icing
200g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter
250g cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream the butter and vanilla, then add the cream cheese and icing sugar a bit at a time until thick but spreadable.  Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of icing and then put in the fridge for 20 minutes, this should harden the icing slightly and allow you to slather on the rest of the icing without the jam or any crumbs seeping through.