Dalek Cake

I’m not the biggest fan of moulds for cakes that are a weird shape as the cake never comes out evenly baked but this one called out to be made. It was an important birthday for someone at work and he is a Dr. Who fan. I accepted early on that this cake would be style over substance but who can resist something that requires painting in metallic edible paint!!! 

I decided to make a mainly red Dalek as it meant I could use red food colouring in the mix and have a good base of colour for the majority of the cake. I highly recommend this site (Cakes, Cookies and Crafts) for the paint. I used metallic red and gold paint with the silver being done with metallic powder. I also had gold metallic powder, because I bought everything (!) having not done this before, which worked very well but was messier than the paint so you had to be more careful. The powder has the bonus of being dry immediately but I’m not sure getting powder over everything was worth that.  

There weren’t instructions with it but on the Lakeland site, where I bought the mould, they recommended an eight egg cake mix. I did that but it wasn’t enough and I think that if you’re trying to fill every nook and cranny ram it with more cake mix than you need. It meant I missed out on some detail so below is the recipe I recommend using 10 eggs! (They also suggested putting a thin layer of frosting on the cake and covering with royal icing before painting. Seriously! What kind of sadists are they? Can you imagine everything that could go wrong?! If you’re brave do it that way but I’m happy with the painting on cake method). 

Ingredients

Lurpak Cooking Mist (seriously this is necessary and amazing)

500g butter, softened

500g sugar

10 large eggs

500g self-raising flour

40g red food colouring (bake safe)

1 x pot of metallic red edible food paint

1 x pot of metallic gold edible food paint

1 x tube of metallic silver edible food powder

1 x pack of Matchsticks (you only need 1 ½ but you can scoff the rest) 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Grease your mould well. This is key to using any mould as you need to get the sucker out afterwards. This cooking mist allows you to just spray every part. Make sure you don’t have too many puddles but the cake batter will mix with it and it should be fine.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar. Add 2 eggs, then 100g of flour mixing well. Repeat with the rest of the eggs and the flour. Then add the food colouring and mix really well.

4.    Put the mould on a baking tray to keep it steady and allow you to move it around. Pour the batter into the mould. It should fill it almost to the top. Then pick the tray up a few cm above the work surface and drop. The aim of this is to get the batter into every part of the mould so do it two or three times.

5.    Put the mould, on the baking tray, into the oven. Cook for about an hour and a half – the batter may spill over the top but it will only go on the tray. If the top is burnt it shouldn’t matter as you’ll be cutting it off once it’s out of the oven because it’s probably outside the top of the mould. You can check with a skewer if it’s cooked but it could need longer. Err on the side of caution and over cook if in doubt.

6.    Once cooked leave the cool in the mould. This is important as you’ll have more chance of getting it out in one piece (saying that I always get impatient and do it when it’s warm!)

7.    Before you turn out cut any cake that is over the top of the mould off so you have a smooth back to the cake.

8.    Turn out and paint! I started with red, and then did the gold detail, ending with the silver. Make sure each layer/colour if dry before putting more on top. I did two layers of each and that seemed to do the trick. Finish by shoving half lengths of Matchsticks in the three points where Dalek’s have sticky out things (or you can fashion them out of black icing but after all that painting who has time for that?) 

N.B. This cake is going to be a bit dry, as you’ve probably overcooked, so maybe have cream or frosting on the side for people to add.

 

Ok so the painting part was lots of fun

Rainbow Cake or Why Lorna Rocks

So a couple of weekends ago I walked 100km in just under 28 hours. The main reason for this is that my friend Lorna asked me to. I’ve explained before that she rallied a team together to collect money for Cancer Research after one of her friends at work was diagnosed with cancer. We have raised over £6,300 which is amazing and is testament to how kind hearted and supportive people can be of crazy physical challenges. It’s also testament to the fact that everyone needs Lorna as a friend. Or at least someone like her as she’s already a very busy lady and might break if she had to be friends with the world (she is already a friend of all animals which is fairly epic in itself). Who else would think of doing such a random thing and actually convince six more people to do it with her? Because of her Cancer Research has an extra 6k to get on with doing what they do best - pretty cool.

So this week I went a bit random. It’s not exactly a true rainbow cake, as I’m missing three colour layers (I need a bigger cake box to transport something taller), but this will give you a good enough guide. There is something satisfying about constructing a truly fun cake with no real purpose other to look pretty and get people hyper on the E numbers (someone in my office had to have a walk to get rid of the excess energy after her slice!)  

The sponge is really easy and robust as you don’t want to have to faff with lots of ingredients and breakages when doing multiple layers. Don’t worry though – it’s a nice sponge and tastes well. It also keeps so you can make the sponges a couple of days in advance. Maybe I should start getting sponsored for the tallest cake I can make?! 

Ingredients

Cake

Each layer uses the following (you can mix in big batches and divide into bowls to add the food colouring. Each layer will need 415g of batter).

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g self-raising flour

10ml or 10g of bake safe food colouring 

Icing

You can obviously just buy Betty Crocker ready mixed frosting or:

200g softened butter

900g icing sugar

400g full fat cream cheese

Decorations 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°/GM4.

2.    Grease and line two sandwich tins. I did two sponges at a time as I only have two tins and my oven only fits two at a time!

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs one at a time and then mix in the flour. See – easy!

4.    If dividing the mixture do it now into about 415g a layer then add the food colouring and mix.

5.    Put into a tin and bake for 25 minutes. If you are cooking two at a time and have a gas oven then you’ll need to swap the shelf they are on half way through.

6.    Cool and turn out until ready to construct.

7.    If making frosting then then ideally use a food processor as icing sugar is messy! The quantities pack it to the max but you can of course use a hand held whisk or free standing . So put the butter in with the sugar and mix until combined through. Add the cream cheese and you're done.

8.    Then even out the top of the layers (you can always leave the top one domed if you like). Use the height of the sides as a guide and use a bread knife to saw through.

9.    Sandwich the layers with a thin layer of frosting and then finish off by covering the whole thing in it! I used hundreds and thousands on the top but you can use whatever you like. 

N.B. You can get some crumbs in the frosting when you do the whole cake. I’d advise to do a thin layer around the whole cake not worrying about crumbs running the lovely frosting. Pop into the fridge for 30 minutes and then finish off with a thicker layer that should stay lovely and clear of crumbs.

 

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

People can be so unaware of their surrounding and the effect they have on others. I always think of 'Sliding Doors' when something happens which could start off a chain of events. The bus driver who refuses to open the middle doors of a bus for a dad with a pram, the pedestrian whose random change of direction causes a bike to swerve, a delivery driver seeing no issue with changing a delivery time by a couple of hours.  

What could happen? I'm a pessimist so I see a missed appointment, an accident waiting to happen and a crisis at work that gets worse because you're not around. In reality this is how we live our lives - randomly bumping, or not, into each other and getting nudged ever so slightly, or not, into different directions. I was thinking about this as at work one of the creative team mentioned 'the nudge effect' in respect to a brief we are working on. I'm lucky enough to work with some ridiculously talented creative people who spend all day thinking about things and coming up with cool ideas. How the hell I got into this job still baffles me and when I think of some of the amazing experiences I've had during my working life I can't help but be very happy that I got nudged along (special thanks here has to go to Lorna for seeing that job at Emap many moons ago and getting me out of media sales - before anyone takes offence it wasn't for me, I personally didn't enjoy it and wasn't that amazing at it).

So we come to baking. My slight obsession with finding a good red food colouring that stays red when baked, remembering that I have a tall cake box at home I got from work and the front cover of 'Jamie's' magazine all nudged me to bake a three (I know!) tiered red velvet cake. The quantities look scary but they should - it's three tiers of substantial cake covered in cream cheese frosting!!!! Let's see how creative the team gets when hopped up on aggressive red food colouring sourced from the US ... 

Ingredients

Cakes

250g softened butter

600g caster sugar

4 large eggs

40g cocoa powder

80ml or 80g of bake safe red food colouring (Dr. Oetker red gel works)

2 tsp vanilla extract

600g plain flour

2 tsp salt

2 x 284ml pots of buttermilk (Waitrose is the only place I can find it or 2 parts natural yogurt to 1 part whole milk)

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

2 tsp bicarb of soda 

Frosting

200g softened butter

900g icing sugar

400g full fat cream cheese 

1.    Preheat the oven to GM4.

2.    If you have three 20cm sandwich tins then grease and line the bottoms. I only have two so you'll need to use one twice.

3.    Cream butter and sugar in a big bowl. It won't properly cream together but just make sure it's all mixed up. Add the eggs one by one, scraping down the sides.

4.    Put the food colouring, cocoa powder (I don't bother to sift) and vanilla in a bowl and mix together. Add to the batter and combine.

5.    Then add the salt and about 1/3 of the flour. Mix. Then add one of the pots of buttermilk, mix, then 1/3 flour, mix, then second buttermilk pot, mix, then the last of the flour.

6.    Mix the vinegar and bicarb in a bowl and add to the batter. Mix well.

7.    The batter allows you about 800g per layer so weigh it out in a bowl and put in the sandwich tins. Obviously if you just have two then keep some back.

8.    Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. If you have a gas oven you'll want to switch the tins around on the shelves half way through if doing two together. Test with a knife or skewer and if it comes out clean leave them to cool.

9.    The frosting is easy but icing sugar is so messy. If I had an outside  I'd do it there but I don't so I use a good processor. The quantities pack it to the max and you can of course use a hand held whisk or freestanding. So put the butter in with the sugar and mix until combined through. Add the cream cheese and you're done.

10.  Once the cakes are cool layer them together with frosting - there is enough for a fairly generous layer between each. Remember to do this on your serving plate, stand etc as you won't be able to move it once finished! Choose your most evenly rounded top for the top one and smooth out any random bumps or wonkiness by using a sharp bread knife to gently cut then away. When it comes to frosting a palette knife is your friend. Build the coverage of the sides up slowly by doing a little at a time until you can't see any cake. Crumble up some of the cut off cake and sprinkle on the top. Voila!  

N.B. When frosting, to get a nice finish on the bottom, gently put strips of baking paper slightly under the bottom layer and once you are finished slowly remove them. It will give you a clean finish.

 

Blueberry and Ricotta Cake

Ode to an Air Conditioning Unit 

Tucked away

Out of the way

Hidden

The machine waits for use

 

Autumns cool

Winters cold rule

Spring

Summer but no heat wave 

 

Heat begins

Summer then wins

Hot

Time to get the machine 

 

Movement; light

Moved in plain sight

On

Working and whirring away 

 

Heat banished

Sauna vanished

Sleep

The machine performs well 

Ingredients

220g plain flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

135g butter, softened

250g caster sugar

300g ricotta

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g blueberries 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4 and line a loaf tin. I have those pre-made up ones from Lakeland and they are such a time saver.

2.    Mix the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt together. Leave to one side as you don’t need it for a while.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then mix the ricotta in. (In this weather softening butter is so quick as you just leave it out for 30 minutes. This means you spend less time make the cake as it gets fluffy really quickly).

4.    Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well, then add the vanilla. Scrap down the sides as you go so everything gets mixed in.

5.    Add the dry ingredients about a third at a time, mixing until just combined, and then fold in the blueberries.

6.    Put in the lined tin and bake for 1 hr to 1 hr 10 mins, turning the oven down to 170°C/GM3 after 30 mins. Check it’s cooked with a skewer and if it’s clean take out and cool.  

N.B. This does make a generous amount of batter and it doesn’t rise that much. I used my 9” x 5” loaf tin and it basically goes almost to the top. If you have a smaller tin then you could always put some of the batter into cupcake cases and put in for the first 30 minutes or so.

Daisy Cake Pops

The Thew is currently running across the Sahara so I'm at a bit of a loose end. I do like having my own space but when I'm doing nothing I have realised that I like to have someone to do nothing with. As Carrie Fisher says about couples in 'When Harry met Sally' - "You had a date on national holidays." I suppose I miss having The Thew around to just hang out with and randomly bug. Maybe that's how you know you've found the person you want to marry. You've found the person you just want to hang out with above and beyond anyone else.
 
Currently The Thew is making me think he misheard the marriage vows and thought it was 'in fitness and in health'. My respect for couples who had to be apart before modern communication has jumped up measurable (alongside my respect for couples who have to be apart these days). The Thew is in the middle of the desert with no phone but I can track his progress online via the chip in his shoe and watch him finish a stage of the race via a webcam. He can get messages of support printed out and given to him so he knows people are cheering him on. Just amazing.  How couples coped when they were separated for months without any form of communication is beyond me. Anyway I’m just a little bored (and obviously very proud and excited about The Thew doing well on his run) so baking was a good distraction this week.
 
I'm stretching the word 'baking' with this one as there is no baking involved. However there is some cake and chocolate melting so it’s part of the way there. Lots of cake pop tins have started to appear everywhere but they seem like a pain to use. Therefore this one just mushes together some stuff to create the same sort of thing. Cake pops give you the perfect opportunity to raid the home baking section of the supermarket for all those wonderful glittery and sprinkly bits that make baking fun so bonus! I'd say this is the perfect recipe to do with kids as its easy, a bit messy and involves lots of colourful decorations. I was a little concerned about how you keep them upright but solved it by getting a flower oasis and sticking them in that. I think most florists do them and mine only cost a £1. Yay!
 
Ingredients

Pops
200g pre made Maderia cake
150g dark chocolate
100g white chocolate drops

Decoration

150g white chocolate
24 lollipop sticks

Sprinkles
24 edible daisies (I used Dr. Oetker ones as they were cheap and I decided to forget the episode with the red food colouring that ruined by Red Velvet Cupcakes)
 

1.    Melt the dark chocolate by your preferred method. I don't have a microwave so I have to use the old bowl over boiling water way.

2.    Whizz up the cake into crumbs in a food processor and add to the melted dark chocolate. Let it cool a bit and then mix in the white chocolate drops.

3.    Make 24 round ‘pop tops’ out of mixture, putting them on a plate and chilling them in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.

4.    Melt the white chocolate and dip in the top of each of the lollipop sticks before pushing into each of the pops. Then let this set as it ensures that the two stay attached during the next stage.

5.    Dip each pop into the white chocolate until thickly covered. Then spin the pop around upside down to get the excess chocolate off. Repeat again before dipping one side into sprinkles (an egg cup works best for keeping the sprinkles), standing upright by your preferred method and sticking a daisy on. Then let everything set.

If you can’t get a flower oasis then a glass with sugar in can work or maybe get a paper bowl, turn upside down and punch holes in the top.

Perfect Madeleines

I’m fairly clumsy in a sort of 'lack of care about my own personal safety' kind of way. I can be careful when it’s important but I do tend to race around and bash into things if I’m in a rush (and sometimes when I’m not). I talk with my hands so my husband tends to move wine glasses out of my way if I’m in the middle of a story, as I have been known to spill an entire glass of red wine down myself (that episode saw me washing my cream dress in the loo of a restaurant and wearing it damp to finish off my meal). I think that I’ve been feeling more clumsy than usual as my recent reading habits have tending towards classic novels. They tend to contain delicate women who have the time to take seven weeks to get over a cold or who need people to read poetry to them as the book would be too heavy for them to hold. I think I’d be more likely to be some wench who gets in the way of their carriage and whose demeanour causes the delicate ladies to take to their room for a week.

Now many of the cakes on here so far are fairly robust and can take a bit of bashing about, or at least can’t be botched up that badly, but sometimes I do like to make something that requires a more delicate touch and makes me feel like a proper baker. Now macaroons are my go to in these times and while the end product is amazingly beautiful, I’m found covered in sticky meringue and generally have to be prised off furniture. Not something that helps my overall feeling of serene ladylikeness. So I’ve decided to get my Madeleine tin out as I’ve only used it once and I need to perfect the recipe.

The egg acts as a raising agent so please don’t be tempted to add baking powder to the recipe. Also you need a small amount of batter per Madeleine tray as if you put too much in you get a massive bump in the middle of the cake. You’d rather have too little than too much, trust me, as once you turn them over they look great as long as they sit flat. I’ve added some extras to flavour the sponge but they don’t need it. It’s more to mix up the look of them. Don’t be put off by the length of the method. It’s not because it’s hard but because I waffle on about how important each stage is and why.

This makes 24 so 2 x 12 Madeleine tray.
 

Ingredients

120g unsalted butter (this is one of the rare recipes where I respect the need for unsalted butter)

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g plain flour

Optional – orange zest, lemon zest, chocolate chips

1.     Melt the butter in a saucepan and once melted measure 100ml into a jug and pop into the fridge to cool while you get on with the rest. Reserve the rest as you’ll need it in a sec.

2.    Put the sugar and eggs into a smallish bowl and whisk the hell out of it. You want it to go very pale and fluffy (see below). When you think you have finished do it some more. As the egg is the raising agent you want as much air in their as possible.

3.    Sieve (and once again I never sieve flour into bowls unless I believe it actually needs it) the flour on top of the batter. Then fold it into the batter with a metal spoon. Folding is very important to keep the wondrous air in and while you do this the batter will become more dense.

4.    Once the flour is in get the butter out of the fridge and pour it into the batter in thirds, folding in each time. Don't just whack in all of the butter at once as it will take forever to fold in. Now you can add some extra flavours at this stage so fold in zest or rose water but I tend to put the flavours into the tin so they decorate the top of the Madeleine once turned out.

5.    Now put the bowl of batter in the fridge for about 30 minutes. This part is important as it helps the batter solidify and I think generally makes you feel like you have some technique. Then preheat the oven to 190°/GM6.

6.    When the batter is rested brush the Madeleine tin with the remaining melted butter. You don’t need much but this is what ensures that the edges get crisp and colour.

7.    If you want add zest or chocolate chips to each tray. Not too much but a scattering. Then spoon a heaped teaspoon of batter into each tray. You'll need two spoons – one to scoop and one to get the batter off. Don’t be tempted to spread the batter out as this will squish the air out. Just leave it and it will spread out while cooking.

8.    Place the tray in the oven, set the timer for 8 minutes and you’re there. Let them cool in the tray for a few minutes before taking them out. Then they just slide out gently and look amazing. You can dust with icing sugar but for me that's taking being delicate that little bit too far.

 

These taste great warm so if you have people coming over just leave the batter, covered, in the fridge until ready to bake.