plum & vanilla upside-down cake with vanilla mascarpone

Mike's mum Barbara recently gave me some Heilala Vanilla that came with a recipe handout. I've never made an upside down cake before, but this one look appealing and given that plums are in season and I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard, I decided to give it a go. I made two of these; the bigger one was shared when we had friends over for dinner and the slightly smaller version was for my friends Lewi & Kate who were in need a pick-me-up. It was simple to make, and the vanilla mascarpone was delicious on the side. The recipe suggests you can use any fresh fruit for this cake, so I must play around with other fruit too.

Plum & vanilla upside-down cake

20g butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

6-8 black or red plums

125g butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1/4 cup milk

Vanilla mascarpone

250g mascarpone

1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or vanilla extract)

2 teaspoons icing sugar

preheat oven to 180C. Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper. Melt the first measure of butter and the brown sugar in a small pan. Pour it into the base of the cake tin and spread evenly. Cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Arrange the plum halves, cut side down on the butter and brown sugar mixture. Put the extra butter, caster sugar and vanilla in a bowl and using an electric beater, beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold the flour into the creamed mixture alternatively with the milk. Spoon the cake mixture evenly over the plums. Bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Leave the cake in the tine for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the mascarpone, vanilla paste and icing sugar. Turn the cake out onto a platter and serve with the vanilla mascarpone.

chocolate cake for Daisy

It was Daisy's birthday party on the weekend.  I had briefly contemplated the construction of a Dorothy the Dinosaur cake, but decided against it in favour of the angst-free option combining three of her favourite foods - chocolate, strawberries and marshmallows (mamos). The cake was Nigella's Chocolate Guinness cake - over the past few months this cake has cemented itself as my new favourite. Nigella describes it as damp and delicious,which covers it perfectly.

I paired it with Alice Medrich's fast fudge frosting -  this was the first time I had tried this unusual  method of making icing and I loved it.  The cocoa-based frosting can double as a chocolate sauce if melted down,and it had a beautifully glossy,  gooey texture, just as chocolaty as ganache but without the richness. The frosting recipe below makes enough to generously sandwich and ice this cake.

We ate the cake with the fresh strawberries and mamos, a spoonful of berry compote and a dollop of cream. So delicious. Served this way the cake will feed around 20ish people.  Next year = no doubt Dorothy or her 2012 equivalent as requested by a more knowing Miss D will grace the brithday table.

Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter
75g cocoa
400g caster sugar
140ml sour cream  or yoghurt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
275g plain flour
2.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line a 23cm springform tin.


Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter's melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.  

Fast fudge frosting

120g unsalted butter

1.5 c sugar
1.5 c cocoa
1.5 c cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a saucepan,melt butter. Stir in the sugar and cocoa. Gradually stir in the cream. Heat over medium heat, stirring till everything is mixed well and is smooth and hot but not boiling. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and a pinch or two of salt, to taste.Set aside to cool. (I left it overnight, after which it was the perfect consistency to spread.)

Daisy made the most of her proximity to the abundance of marshmallows...

Happy Birthday Daisy x

Little chocolate, orange & hazelnut cakes

There's a lot to like about these little cakes. Most importantly they're chocolately and delicious. They're also very simple to make as all the ingredients are whizzed together in the food processor. And they're lovely to look at with their pretty sprinkle of candied orange zest.

This recipe also just happens to be gluten-free so it's perfect if entertaining gluten-free guests as everyone can enjoy these little cakes together. I love recipes that fit particular dietary requirements without having to be adapted.

The candied orange peel isn't essential but is simple to make and looks so pretty. It also adds a nice little crunch. The method for the candied zest makes more than you'll need for these cakes but keeps well in the pantry for a few months, ready for when the urge to make these delightful little cakes strikes again.

For eight little cakes...

1 thin-skinned navel orange

2 eggs

125g caster sugar

100g ground hazelnuts

25g cocoa

1/2 generous tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

Place the orange in a pot of water and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for one until (until tender). Drain and leave to cool. (I try and do this the night before.)

Once the orange is cool, slice into quarters, remove any large pips and the "navel" and place in the food processor bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and run until just combined. You want the mixture to be flecked with pureed orange.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease 8 cups of a muffin tray. Place a small circle of baking paper in the base of each muffin cup (it's worth taking the time to do this to avoid the inevitable heartache when it's time to remove the little cakes from the tin).

Fill each muffin cup, just to the top and place the tray in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes. A skewer should come out almost clean when inserted into the centre of a little cake.

Leave to cool completely in the tins then carefully remove and place, inverted, on a cooling rack.

If you'd like to make you cakes extra-special make candied orange zest while the cakes are baking. A citrus zester makes life easy but if you don't have a zester, peel the skin finely leaving the white pith on the orange and slice into very thin strips.

For candied orange zest...

Zest of one orange

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 caster sugar (extra)

Place the orange zest in a small sauce pan, cover with boiling water, bring back to the boil then drain. Place the zest back in the pan and repeat twice.

Return the zest to the pan and add the water and the first measure of sugar. Bring up to a gently simmer and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain the zest and discard the syrup. Place the second measure of syrup into a shallow bowl and tip in the zest. Shake to coat and then discard the excess sugar. Any unused candied zest will keep for a couple of months in the pantry in an airtight container.

Now make the ganache.

Chocolate ganache...

100g good quality dark chocolate, finely chopped (I love Whittakers Ghana dark 72%)

100ml cream

Heat the cream in a small saucepan until almost boiling. Remove from heat and add the finely chopped chocolate. Leave to sit for two to three minutes. Stir gently until the cream and chocolate are just combined. Don't overmix or your ganache may split, leaving you with an oily mess that can't be saved. Leave to cool for 20-30 minutes to thicken.

Once the ganache is cool, spoon over a generous amount of ganache - you want it to run down the side a little. Decorate with a few sprinkle of candied orange zest.

Serve with a spoonful of softly whipped cream.

Thursday baking - lemon yoghurt cake with orange blossom

This weeks Thursday baking is brought to us by Jessica:

This cake didn't initially leap out at me from the book. I don't think 'Lemon Yoghurt Cake with Orange Blossom' as a title really does it justice when it is packed full of such interesting flavours and textures. If I was coming up with a name for it, I'd call it something more evocative like 'Middle Eastern syrup cake', because of the distinctive use of pistachios, semolina and orange blossom water in the flavouring. I was eventually drawn to it because Susan Fleischl described it as a 'great dinner party cake', which appealed when I was looking for something to make for my Book Club- a slightly special desert cake which would still be nice the next day or so. The lemon flavour really isn't that pronounced, so I'm glad I included some orange zest in both the cake and syrup. I might even include some more if I was making it again. The cake has a pleasantly 'grainy' texture, which doesn't really sound that pleasant, but you'll have to believe me that it is. It's very moist and crumbly and refrigerates well.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake with Orange Blossom Susan Fleischl

Cake
250g butter, softened
250g caster sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
zest of 1 lemon (I also used the zest of an orange)
150ml yoghurt
250g semolina
2 tsp baking powder
200g shelled raw pistachios, ground in a food processor

Syrup
1 cup water
1 1/2 cup sugar
juice of 1 lemon
few drops of orange blossom water

To serve
mascarpone icing sugar (I stirred the icing sugar into the mascarpone rather than dusting the cake with it)

Preheat the oven to 165C. Grease a 22cm round cake tin and line it with baking paper. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, with the zest and yoghurt and slowly beat together. Sift the semolina with the baking powder and gently fold into the mixture with the pistachio nuts. Bake for 40-50 minutes (it took an hour for me for the cake to cook) Leave to cool in the tin.To make the syrup, boil the first three ingredients together for 1 minute. I also added some lemon and orange zest. Remove from the heat and stir in a few drops of orange blossom water to taste (be careful, it has a strong flavour and can end up tasting like soap if you use too much!).Remove the cake from the tin and place on a plate. Pour the hot syrup over the cool cake and leave it to soak in. Dust with icing sugar, if desired, and serve with mascarpone. This cake will keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container but is best eaten on the day it is made.

thursday baking - apple spice cake

This delicously spiced cake was baked by our Aunty Marg, who kindly delivered a chunk of it at morning tea yesterday, along with a copy of the recipe. What a perfect cake to bake in autumn; it will be the next thing I bake. It is quite a humble kind of cake, and would be nice served warm as a pudding with a dollop of cream, or as is with a cup of tea.

Apple Spice Cake


2 cooking apples
1 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c flour
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 c sticky raisins (soak in boiling water while you mix the other ingredients)
4 oz butter (113g)
1/2 c walnuts



Peel, core and dice apples, sprinkle with sugar. In a large bowl melt the butter and beat egg into it, then add the apples. Sift in the dy ingredients and stir well. Finally stir in the raisins and walnuts. Pour into a lined tin and bake at 180c for 50-60 minutes*. Leave to cool before removing from the tin. Dust with icing sugar to serve.




* I have since made this cake, I baked it in a 20cm square cake tin and found it cooked in just 35-40 minutes on fanbake.

Thursday baking - delicious family favourite banana cake

Today's Thursday Baking is written by Jessica, who is continuing to bake from A Treasury of New Zealand Baking.

This recipe is a very good version of the classic banana cake. In fact, my husband and I have declared this the best banana cake we've ever had, so this will be the new fall-back recipe for when I have bananas in the fruit bowl past their best for eating! I'm not sure what it is that makes it so moist and delicious- maybe the inclusion of yoghurt. We recently were given an easiyo maker and I love now always having yoghurt on hand in the fridge. Because it's so cheap to make, I don't feel bad using it in baking or in curries and save the bought more 'gourmet' style yoghurts for situations where I'll appreciate them. This cake is also very easy and quick to make (no surprise as it is by Jo Seagar) and doesn't require any creaming of butter and sugar.

I followed the recipe to the T, but I know from past experiences with banana cake it is also very nice with either chocolate or coffee icing too.

Delicious family favourite banana cake - Jo Seagar
Cake
1 cup sugar
100g butter, melted
3 eggs
3 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp baking soda
150ml natural or fruit yoghurt (apricot is nice)
2 cups standard flour
3 tsp baking powder

Icing
50g butter
juice and zest of a large lemon
2 cups icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 160C. Line and grease a 20-22cm springform tin. Beat the sugar , melted butter and eggs until thick and creamy. Add the mashed bananas and beat well. Heat the milk in a small bowl or a glass jug in the microwave until almost boiling (aprox 1 minute). Stir the baking soda into the milk then stir into the banana mixture. Add the yoghurt, flour and baking powder. Mix well and pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 45-50 mins, until the cake is cooked in the middle and just pulling away from the edges of the tin. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the lemon icing, place the butter, lemon juice and zest in a small microwave-proof jug or bowl. Microwave for 30-40 seconds until the butter is melted. Beat in the icing sugar and spread over the cooled cake. This cake won't keep for long, but can be stored in an airtight container for 2-3 days. You can also freeze the cake uniced.

Lolly cake cake

My friend Pete turned 30 the other day. He's off the alcohol at the moment, so although his birthday celebrations were at the pub, they consisted (for him at least) of raspberry & coke along with chips! Pete LOVES lolly cake, so I thought I'd make him a 30th lolly cake cake. Most recipes roll the lolly cake in coconut, but given my adversion to it, I choose to make this recipe, which didn't have coconut.

thursday baking - vanna's chocolate cake

Vanna's chocolate cake - Kate Fraser, Week 34

I made this chocolate cake for dessert and was expecting great things given how involved the method was but I have to say I was disappointed. It wasn't chocolately enough - the recipe calls for 150g of dark chocolate but no cocoa, and even though I added a couple of tablespoons but it still wasn't enough.


I made a couple of other changes to the recipe. I didn't add the 1 tablespoon of marmalade as specified, mainly because I didn't have any but also because I can't imagine how a tablespoon of marmalade would add anything other than annoying chunks of citrus peel. Yuk. I also iced the cake with chocolate ganache (150g chopped dark chocolate stirred into 150mls of hot cream) rather than the icing in the recipe. This was a good idea. The ganache and the raspberries were the best part of this cake.


Although the recipe says it's suitable for both good cooks and novice bakers I have to disagree. Unless you wanted to include every possible technique in one recipe - melting chocolate, creaming butter and sugar, whipping egg whites, folding etc... it also creates enough dishes to dishearten even the most experienced of kitchenhands. The recipe also claimed this cake was quite sticky and keeps well but I didn't agree with this either - I found the texture more "chalky" that moist. Perhaps I over cooked it? But I'm not willing to try again - there are better chocolate cake recipes out there.


So now that I've completely rubbished this recipe I'm not going to bother writing it up but will instead leave you with some pictures. This was one of those cakes that looked better than it tasted:

Spot

Happy Birthday Daisy x

old school baking

Some recent baking with a retro theme...classic ginger crunch from Chloe's blog, and an old favourite, St Mary's chocolate cake from our school days. The ginger crunch is a recipe for GC purists with the requisite thin biscuity base, rather than the substantial slabs more often seen in cafes these days. Delicious. Although I do also love the oaty version made famous by Takaha's Wholemeal Cafe.

The chocolate cake recipe was the one provided for the baking competition at our primary school flower shows, and is a perfect tin filler - whipped up in a flash with one bowl, and reliably good without being too rich or fancy. The incredible chocolate icing makes it a bit more special, this is truly the BEST way to top an (everyday sort of) chocolate cake. Although sometimes we used to cut the cake in half, sandwich it together with mock cream and dust the top with icing sugar. How's that for nostalgic...


I made a coffee cake too, with walnuts in it, something else we used to make a lot as kids. The recipe is over at pod and three peas, and the cake provides more retro deliciousness.



St Mary's Chocolate Cake


1 c milk
4 eggs
150 melted butter
2 tsp vanilla
4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp cocoa
2 c sugar
2 c flour


Combine wet ingredients in a bowl and beat well. Add dry ingredients and mix to combine. Bake at 180c for 1-1 1/2 hours.

morning tea

Last week it was my turn to bring morning tea to work. I decided to make something sweet and something savoury. So I settle on sausage rolls, and coca cola cake. I've been making both for years, with the recipes being given to me by Becs.

Sausage rolls are so quintessentially kiwi and ever popular. But once you've tried these chicken, bacon and prune ones, it's hard to ever go back to the frozen supermarket versions. The flavours go so well together and the moisture from the prunes means you don't even require sauce. The loose recipe is pretty simple;


Chicken bacon and prune sausage rolls
puff pastry
prunes
streaky bacon
chicken mince
relish / chutney
plenty of salt and pepper
1 egg
poppy seeds


Mix the chicken mince with a good few dollops of relish and season generously. Lines the chicken mixture, bacon and prunes along the pastry, then roll it up tightly and cut into bite sized pieces. Brush the tops with some beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes or until the look golden. Enjoy warm or cold.

The photo of this coca cola cake doesn't really do it justice, but don't judge it by the photo alone - give it a go and you'll realise that coca cola cake is one of the simplest chocolate cakes to make, and the outcome is deliciously moist chocolately cake. Although you would never know it contains a cup of coke, it makes a great talking point!

Coca Cola Cake
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cups cocoa
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup coca cola
1 cup of buttermilk (I use trim milk and it works)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift all dry ingredients into mixing bowl. Add wet ingredients and beat on medium to high speed till combined. Don’t be alarmed at the consistency - this is a very wet mixture. Bake in 9 x 13 Inch cake tin at 180C until prong comes out clean (around 40 mins).

Incredible chocolate icing

100g soft butter
1 cup icing sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoon milk
1-2 tablespoon hot coffee

Combine the above in food processor and blend. Add vanilla, milk and hot coffee. Ice the cake - and you may like to decorate with white chocolate (as I did with this cake - although there was some initial shock as it looked like the cake had been decorated with coconut....)

Little cakes from Ottolenghi

After a long day visiting the historical sites of London I was in the mood for some sightseeing of a different kind... a visit to Ottolenghi! We stopped off at the Kensington take-out store for some treats on our way home. It was late in the day but there was still plenty on offer - both sweet and savoury - and it all looked just like it does in my Ottolenghi cookbook! I spotted a few things we'd made from the cookbook -the yummy apple & carrot muffins, chocolate fondant cake, and lots more I'm yet to try. I wish I was able to take more photos but my request to take photos inside was declined - photos were allowed to be taken only through the window.

We chose four little cakes to share between four of us - a chocolate, mascapone & raspberry tart, a chocolate & hazelnut teacake, a raspberry & white chocolate cupcake and a lemon & marscapone tart - and divided each one into quarters so we could try a lovely wee morsel of each. My favourite was the lemon tart - a very tart little tart indeed. I would love to go back for another but the store is now closed for a short summer break... probably for the best given Paris is on the menu next week.

Other (food) highlights so far... a visit to Flat White for fantastic coffee... and several visits to the local supermarket! I just love checking out supermarkets in other countries.

Thursday baking - sultana cake

As we bake our way through A Treasury of NZ Baking...

This week's Thursday baking is brought to us by our guest blogger Jane:

I’ve been enjoying baking date loaves and taking them to work for morning tea with my Milo (I’m not yet a coffee drinker - Miriam is working on this). This week Miriam suggested I try something different from the Treasury book, and this Sultana Cake looked a suitable substitute. We often have sweet treats at work so I enjoy more filling cakes and loaves if I’m going to have a daily snack. I also appreciate the simplicity and quick preparation of a basic cake/loaf.

I felt a bit of guilt as I watched the sultanas absorbing the melted butter… however I took heart in the fact that I didn’t cover the cake in butter, as I normally do when I have date loaf! In saying that, I found the cake very sweet with all the sugar and sultanas in it. I think you could reduce the amount of sugar and still be satisfied. The cake was plentiful so we won’t go without morning tea for quite some time.

Sultana Cake – David Burton (week 21)

225g butter
450g sultanas (I used slightly less sultanas and put a few dates in)
3 eggs
145g raw sugar
145g white sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
½ tsp lemon essence (I used lemon juice)
1 tsp baking powder
170g wholemeal flour
170g standard flour

Preheat the oven to 160 deg C. Remove the paper wrapping from a block of butter and place, greased side up, in the bottom of an expandable baking tin. Expand or contract the tin to fit the size of the butter paper (we don’t have the recommended 20cm square tin so use a spring form round tin lined with baking paper).

In a saucepan, cover the sultanas with cold water and bring to the boil. Drain off the water. While the sultanas are still hot, cut the butter over them in little pieces and leave to melt.
Whisk the eggs and both sugars until creamy. Add the essences. Sift the baking powder with the standard flour, mix with the wholemeal flour, then combine these with the sultana batter. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

Bake for 1-1 ¼ hours, until the cake shrinks a little from the sides of the tin. Remove when still warm and leave to cool on a wire rack. This cake will keep in an airtight container for several weeks.

Thursday baking - ladysmith cake

Ladysmith cake has the flavours of Belgian biscuits - cinnamon, mixed spice and raspberry jam - in a cake. You can use any kind of jam but I used raspberry as it goes well with the spices and I had just the right amount (four tablespoons) to use up.

The mixture wasn't difficult to make but spreading it out in separate layers with jam in the middle was a bit fiddly. Especially because the end result - wobbly, wonky layers - is less than impressive given the time and care that I took!

Despite what the recipe said, this cake didn't keep well. It was soft and delicious straight from the oven, but by the following day it was going stale. I made the mistake of slicing the whole cake into squares before putting into a tin. The cake might stay fresher if you put the whole cake into a tin and slice as-you-go. But I have my doubts, I always find "pound" style cakes like this one with an equal ratio of butter, sugar, flour and eggs quite dry.

If making again I would make it even more Belgian biscuit-y and spice all the mixture instead of leaving half plain. In place of the walnuts I would ice it with pink icing and sprinkle it with pretty pink jelly crystals or coloured sugar. And I would eat it the day it was baked.

As we bake our way through A Treasury of New Zealand Baking...

Ladysmith cake (Alexa Johnson) - week 20

180g flour
1 tbsp (15g) cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
180g butter (at room temperature)
180g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs (at room temperature)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
4 tbsp raspberry jam
45g walnuts, chopped

Sift flour, cornflour and baking powder together.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time,, beating well after each addition. Carefully fold in dry ingredients and when mixed together, scoop half the mixture into another bowl and sift spices on top and fold through.

Spread the spiced mixture into a greased & lined 18cm square cake tin. Spread the jam over as evenly as you can and then top with the plain cake mixture.

Sprinkle the chopped walnuts over the top and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 50-60 minutes. Or until the cake springs back when pressed.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing and cooling completely on a wire rack.

Thursday baking - pear and ginger upside down cake

As we bake our way though A Treasury of NZ Baking...

Our sister Sarah is on holiday at the moment so she's helping us out with the Treasury baking this week, here's what she thought of the pear and ginger cake...

I'm a big fan of pears and ginger together and this cake caught my eye when flicking through the book. It looked like the perfect dessert for a cold winters night. Friends coming for dinner provided an opportunity to test it out.

Instead of the fresh pears suggested in the recipe, I used some that Becs had poached in red wine. Served with custard, the cake was delicious. It had a nice texture and the poached pears worked really well. I was worried that uncooked pears may have remained a little crunchy. I was, however, a little disappointed with the lack of ginger flavour. I had suspected this may be the case when I saw only 2 tsp of ground ginger in the recipe. If feeling like more of a ginger kick, next time I would probably use the tried and true Ruth Pretty gingerbread recipe as the base. Nevertheless, it was very simple to prepare and still very tasty.

Upside- down Pear Cake (Helen Jackson) - week 17

150g butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
11/2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
50g butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 pears peeled and sliced into eighths

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line 20cm springform tin with baking paper.
Cream first measures of butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, baking powder and ginger and stir into egg mixture.

Melt second measures of butter and brown sugar together and pour over baking paper. Cover with sliced pears. Spoon cake mix over the pears. Bake for 4o minutes. Leave to rest for 5 minutes before inverting on to a serving plate. Serve with whipped cream, custard or caramel sauce.

the MOST delicious cake

This Chocolate, Orange and Almond cake is one of my new found favourites. The recipe was emailed to me last year by my friend Anna, who had enjoyed it at a work morning tea courtesy of a colleague. I was impressed by her rave review, and baked the cake that very evening. I then forwarded the recipe to Libby who did the same, so within a few days the cake was enjoyed in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch! Since then it has been made many times and has found a place in all our baking repertoires.

It is a variation on the ever popular flourless Orange and Almond cake, that those adhering to a gluten free diet are probably sick of the sight of...however the addition of some dutch cocoa and a layer of dark chocolate ganache take this recipe to new heights. It is moist, light and nutty, rich but not too sweet, as it contains whole oranges. This is the sort of cake that makes the kitchen, and indeed the whole house smell utterly delicious while it bakes. It is incredibly easy to make, being blended up in the food processor; the only forethought required is the precooking of the oranges. Often I will boil two extra oranges, puree them and freeze to use the next time I make this cake.

Everyone who tries it seems to love it, and will probably ask you for the recipe. The recipe is from Nigella Lawson.

Chocolate, Orange & Almond Cake

2 oranges (thin skinned)
6 eggs
200g ground almonds
250g castor sugar
50g dutch cocoa
1 tsp (heaped) baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Put the whole oranges in a saucepan, cover with water and simmer for around 2 hours or until soft. Cut into quarters, and blend (skin, pulp, pith and all) to a fine pulp in the food processor. Add the eggs, followed by the remaining ingredients. (I like to roast whole almonds and blitz them in the food processor, I think the texture is much nicer and nuttier this way than using preground almonds.)

Pour cake batter into a 25cm cake tin that has the base lined with baking paper, and bake at 180c for around 45 minutes. Cool in the tin, then pour over chocolate ganache. This is quickly made by heating 150ml of cream in the microwave until nearly boiling, then adding 150g chopped dark chocolate, stir to combine until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. Leave ganache to cool a little, so it will thicken slightly and be easier to pour or spread over the cake.

Thursday baking - Gateau aux Noix

Our challenge to bake our way through A Treasury of NZ Baking...

I decided to make this cake for us to eat on Easter Sunday. I loved the simple, sophisticated look of it in the book, with the glossy chocolate icing and perfect walnut halves, and I really like the texture of cakes with ground nuts in them instead of flour. With fresh walnuts being in season and therefore plentiful and cheap at the moment, it seemed like a good time to make it.

My only quibble with the recipe was the ingredient list stating '2 slices of white bread' were required, from which you are instructed to make the breadcrumbs that go into it. Libby recently gave me a copy of 'The Pedant in the Kitchen', an amusing little book, the author of which would have a field day with this instruction. While I wouldn't usually consider myself a pedant in the kitchen, this lack of precision was a bit annoying. The kitchen scales were out to measure the other ingredients so why couldn't the breadcrumbs just have been listed by weight too?! Anyway, I used some baguette as we otherwise only had Vogels, and used 8 slices, figuring the small rounds would equate to '2 slices of bread'. In hindsight it was probably a few too many breadcrumbs, as although the cake was moist it was a little crumbly.

Pedantic comments aside, this cake was quite delicious. The flavour of the lemon zest came through quite strongly which was nice. The chocolate icing added richness, but overall the cake tasted rather elegant and understated, just as it looks.

Week Two: Gateau aux Noix (Peta Mathias)

Cake

2 slices of bread
150g butter, soft

100g sugar

4 eggs, separated

zest of 1 lemon

150g walnuts, ground

pinch salt

25g sugar (extra)

Icing

100g dark chocolate
30g butter

walnut halves

Preheat oven to 150c. Toast the bread in the oven till dry, then grind up in a food processor.

Grease a 23cm round cake tin, dust it with flour, and line the base with baking paper.

Cream the butter and first measure of sugar, then beat in the egg yolks one by one, beating in well.

Stir in the lemon zest, breadcrumbs and walnuts.

In another bowl whip the egg whites and salt until they form stiff peaks. Add the extra sugar and beat for another minute. Fold this into the cake mixture and pour into the tin.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and the sides of the cake pull away slightly from the tin edge. Cool in the tin.

To make the icing gently heat the chocolate and butter together and mix till smooth.

This cake will keep for 4 days.