Because sometimes you want a simple, quick, delicious cake and this recipe fits the bill. Not too large with umpteen layers to negotiate, not small and fiddly; just the right size.
With grated carrot, crushed pineapple and warm spices, this cake is moist, flavoursome and topped with the most moreish of all icings – cream cheese.

Grease and line an 8″ square tin. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/GM 4.

Into a medium bowl, place the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and pinch of salt. Stir it with a hand whisk to combine and de-lump. Add the brown sugar and stir again to combine.

In a small bowl, place the oil and eggs, then whisk together well.

Make a well in the flour mix and add the egg/oil mixture.

Stir to combine.

Add the crushed pineapple and grated carrot

Stir in with a spatula and pour into the lined tin.

Bake for 35-40 mins.
Once baked – check by using a wooden toothpick and ensuring it comes out clean – cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from the tin and cool completely.

Now the frosting.

Blend together the orange zest, cream cheese and unsalted butter,

then add the icing sugar and orange juice or vanilla.

Beat together with an electric whisk until creamy and just holding its shape.

Swirl over the top of the passion cake.

Devour. Passionately.

———–

Carrot and Pineapple Passion Cake
PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)

1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I made that a generous 1/2)
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of salt
2/3 cup soft light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup grated carrot (2 medium carrots)
432g tin crushed pineapple, drained

Icing
3oz unsalted butter, softened
3 1/2 oz cream cheese
grated zest 1 orange (optional)
1+ cup  icing sugar
1 tsp orange juice (or vanilla extract if you’re not using orange zest)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/GM4. Grease and line an 8″ square tin.

Combine flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl. Stir with a hand whisk to combine.
Add the sugar and stir again to distribute.
Make a well in the middle of the flour.

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil and eggs until well combined. Pour into the well and stir to combine.
Add the carrots and pineapple and stir in.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 mins. Check it is baked by inserting a wooden toothpick – it should come out clean.

Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from the tin to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing:
Beat the orange zest, butter and cream cheese together until smooth.
Add the icing sugar and juice or extract and beat well until smooth. Add more icing sugar if you like it sweeter and/or thicker.

Swirl on to the passion cake.

—

Ohhhhhhh my… these are good – even if I do say so myself. Mint chocolate brownies with a layer of after dinner mints nestling inside. The thought of these warm, with a scoop of ice cream is making me gasp. The thought of them cooled; fudgey and lip lick-inducing is making me swoon.

Yeah. they’re OK. In fact, they’re yummy. They’re minty and chocolatey and they’re brownies. All is well with the world.

You have to make them. I insist. So, so, so easy and quick, and what a reward.

Prep first. Preheat oven to GM4/350F/180C
Line an 8″ square baking tin with 1 piece of foil – bottom and sides covered. So that you can grab the foil and lift the whole thing out of the tin.

Put 4oz butter, 4oz dark mint chocolate (mint flavoured dark chocolate – no fondant middle yet), 2oz dark chocolate and ½ cup light brown sugar into a medium saucepan

Melt, stirring, over a low heat.
Once melted and smooth, transfer to a bowl.

Stir in ¾ cup caster sugar with a wooden spoon,

then stir in 3 eggs, one at a time until they are fully incorporated.

See how the consistency has changed?

Add ½cup plain flour and a pinch of salt and beat in until the mixture is glossy and smooth.

Pour most of it into the tin – leave a mean quarter behind.

Get out a box of after dinner mints (I used the supermarket’s own version of After Eights). Weigh out about 3oz (8 mints) and cut them in half

and evenly lay them over the batter.

Pour and scrape the remaining batter from the bowl over to just cover them. It isn’t an exact science, so no panic. Do resist the temptation to add too many though – they will sink anyway and the batter will be none the better for an excess of them.

Bake for anything between 35-45 mins. Check at 35 mins and check at very regular intervals thereafter. Over cooking a brownie is an offence.
It will be hard to gauge when they’re fully done because the layer of chocolate will cling to the toothpick.
At the 42 minute mark, I decided mine were done. If it looks like a brownie, smells like a brownie and doesn’t jiggle, then it’s a brownie. Check the edges, because if they get too dry you lose that awe-inspiring chewiness.

Don’t you just adore the shine on brownies? …even if it is due to a huge amount of sugar.

Leave in the tin to cool for 30 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.

This is after the 30 min cool in the tin and 30 mins cooling just in the foil, but on a wire rack. Still warm from the oven. Ohhhhhhhhhh.

Try really hard not to bury your head in the tin and eat your way to freedom. I know. Be strong, darling. Mint chocolate smells soooooo good.
Here they are the next morning (this morning, to be exact). Still squidgy, still divine.

Make them, I implore you.

———————-

Mint Chocolate Brownies

PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)
4oz unsalted butter, sliced
½ cup light brown sugar (lightly packed)
4oz dark mint chocolate (mint flavoured – not fondant filled)
2oz dark chocolate (50-70% cocoa solids)
¾ cup caster sugar
3 eggs
½ cup plain flour
pinch salt

3oz after dinner mints (the thin chocolates filled with mint fondant – like After Eights)

Preheat oven to GM4/350F/180C
Line an 8″ square baking tin with 1 piece of foil – bottom and sides covered.

Put the butter, mint and dark chocolate and light brown sugar into a medium saucepan and melt, stirring, over a low heat.
Once melted and smooth, transfer to a bowl.

Stir in the caster sugar with a wooden spoon, then stir in the eggs, one at a time until they are fully incorporated.
Add the flour and salt and beat in until the mixture is glossy and smooth.
Pour most of it into the tin – leave a mean quarter behind.

Cut the after dinner mints in half and evenly lay them over the batter. Pour and scrape the remaining batter from the bowl over them.

Bake for anything between 35-45 mins. Check at 35 mins and check at very regular intervals thereafter. Over cooking a brownie is an offence.
It will be hard to gauge when they’re fully done because the layer of chocolate will cling to the toothpick.
At the 42 minute mark, I decided mine were done. If it looks like a brownie, smells like a brownie and doesn’t jiggle, then it’s a brownie.

Leave in the tin to cool for 30 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
Try really hard not to bury your head in the tin and eat your way to freedom. I know. Be strong, darling.

This recipe from ‘GoodFood 101 teatimes treats’ has been nagging at me for a while. It felt like a cursed recipe, because every time I thought, yeah, I’ll make it, I couldn’t get any limes or they only had one left. Or worse, someone would say, ‘can’t you make … instead?’. Mostly, however, I had trouble with the limes.

If this was the 1980s, this would have been ideal for ‘Murder, she wrote’.  I would have contacted Aunt Jessica and I’m confident that when she began her investigation, there would be a sudden murder of a mutual friend of ours whom neither of us had ever mentioned.

And the solitary lime sat on the shelf would have been involved. At the end, we would be in the freeze-frame as we sipped mojitos with the cursed lime adorning our glasses as we grinned our blinding white teeth at each other for the beginning of the music. Oh how we laughed as we recovered from the grisly death of the mutual friend with startling speed.

Anyway, this is not the 1980s and I do not have an Aunt Jessica (and that’s a shame, because frankly, most of her ‘nieces’ were pretty well-heeled) but there you go. I acquired some limes. Game on.

As always, preheat your oven to GM4/180C/350F, butter and line a 2lb loaf tin.

Get this lot ready:

Into a large bowl, put 100g unsalted butter and 175g caster sugar with the zest of 2 cursed limes. Creeeeeeeeeeam until fluffy! (high five!)

Add 2 eggs, beat them in and add 175g self-raising flour and 1 tsp baking powder. As you blend that in, add 200ml of coconut milk (half the tin).

Pour into your prepared tin and bake for around 40 mins, until golden and firm. I ended up putting it back for another 5 minutes because I wasn’t convinced the middle was cooked as much as it could be and bearing in mind how much syrup goes on top, that could all get a bit grim.

Whilst the cake is cooking, make the sugar topping;  put 3 tblsp sugar and the zest of the third cursed lime into a bowl and squish them together – sort of rub the zest into the sugar with the back of a spoon.

From this:

to this:

Then prepare the ‘icing’. You need a pan for this. I have a new child – it’s a kitchenaid milk pan and I cannot tell you the joy that looking at this pan has brought me. In retrospect, I would have been far, far wiser to have used my large saucepan, but admire this little beauty first and then I’ll elaborate.

So into the pan goes the remaining half of the tin of coconut milk (that is 200ml of milk there) and 5.5oz sugar. Confidently simmer this mixture for 5 mins until it goes syrupy.

I did this, but after 5 mins, it wasn’t particularly syrupy but was colouring a little. I reasoned with myself that I have never reduced the ‘drizzle’ of a drizzle cake to a syrup before, so watery would be fine. Also, there was no way I was going to scorch my new pan. As I said, a larger pan would have increased the rate of evaporation, so a syrup – that is, being able to see the bottom of the pan when you stir it -  would have been easier to achieve. Lesson learned, but love for new milk pan intact.

Once the cake is cooked, leave it in the tin and begin to offer the icing to it. I always gently prick the cake with a toothpick/skewer-y thing all over. The law of gravity dictates that the sides of the cake get most lucky, but at least you’re confident that the centre will get some action.

Pour the icing over the hot cake. Slowly and patiently. You cannot do this whilst getting ready to walk out of the door. It will destroy the moment. If it takes to long to soak in, poke it again with your skewer-y thing. You shouldn’t have to have the patience of a Saint.

Now, remembering that I didn’t sufficiently reduce the syrup, I had a LOT of ‘icing’ so i didn’t use it all. I suspect that if I had reduced it more, it would have been just right..

…but it doesn’t exactly look unpleasant hmm?

Leave it on a wire rack, in the tin to cool completely. Once it has got to ‘finger cool’ on top, go ahead and sprinkle the lime zesty-sugar over it.

Then you must leave it alone to cool completely. Sorry.

Alex took a plate back to the kitchen and was there rather a long time. I caught him just before the index finger made contact with the zesty sugar. So let it cool somewhere away from other mammals.

Once cooled, slice and enjoy. Send Angela Lansbury a slice, but I doubt she’ll remember me. Probably because she doesn’t know me. Maybe she knows you?

Yum

Coconut and Lime Drizzle Cake

PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)

The cake:
100g unsalted butter, softened
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
200ml coconut cake (half a tin)
grated zest of 2 limes (you’ll need 3 in total)

The drizzle icing:
200ml coconut milk
150g caster sugar
juice of 3 limes

The sugar:
3 tblsp caster sugar
zest of 1 (the 3rd and final) lime

Preheat oven to GM4/180C/350F
Grease and line a 2lb/1kg loaf tin.

Cream the butter, sugar and zest until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat in well. Add the flour, baking powder and coconut milk, folding in gently but firmly.
Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for around 40 mins until golden and firm to the touch.

For icing, pour coconut milk and sugar into a saucepan and simmer/boil for 5 mins or so until the mixture is syrupy (you can see the bottom of the pan as you stir it). Don’t worry if, like me, you lose your bottle, just don’t use all the syrup.
Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice. Set aside.

For the sugar, put the 3 tblsp sugar and lime zest into a bowl and press together with the back of a spoon to get all the lime oil in the zest into the sugar. Set aside.

Remove cake from oven, lightly pierce with a fine skewer all over. Gently and slowly drizzle the icing over the top – let each addition soak in before adding more.
Leave cake in tin on a wire rack to cool, but once the top is cool to the touch, go ahead and sprinkle the lime sugar over the top. Put a little on, if it melts, stop and do it later.
Cool completely in the tin, then once cold, remove from tin and carefully remove the paper. Slice and serve.

recipe adapted from Good Food 101 teatime treats.

Sorry for the brief hiatus in recipe posting. We were away for the weekend and then I made some cookies to blog about, but they need more tweaking before they are revealed.

This is a real favourite of our family – the reliable, delicious ‘go-to’ recipe. It’s a tasty bar; filling, well-behaved and perfect for lunchboxes and big gaps between meals when you want more than a bite. I have never met anyone who didn’t love it.

This is the half quantity version, because I only had 1 egg. Guess what I’m going to the shops for tomorrow.

So, to the ingredients – I measured the weighed ingredients into cups for you US gals;  but I’ll list quantities at the end. Let’s just talk dates for a moment.

It’s obvious to me now, but wasn’t until I tried it, that the stickier the dates, the damper the bars. I used to use those ready chopped dates from the supermarket and the bars were very firm. I had some run of the mill dates in the larder once and chopped them up instead – the texture was much improved. Now, I don’t suggest getting expensive Medjool dates, but ones that you can comfortable bite, as opposed to having to fling to the mercy of your molars would be nice. These are the ones I used:

So let’s get down to business. Put all the dry ingredients, that is, self-raising flour, desiccated coconut, demerara sugar and dates, into a large bowl and mix them

In a saucepan, melt 4oz of butter with 1 tblsp of golden syrup (have a look at the link if you haven’t heard of this, but from what I understand, this is increasingly available in the States). I suppose you could substitute honey if you really can’t find it, but it would significantly alter the flavour. Have a look here,

Once melted, allow it to cool for 5 minutes, then beat in the egg. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well

Tip the mixture into a 8×8″ square tin that you have lined with foil.

Smooth/spread/press the mixture down evenly and bake in a pre-heated oven at GM3/325F/160C for about 30-35 mins, until risen and golden.

Mmmmmmmm. Never in all my life have I wished more that you could smell this, and I don’t say that lightly.

Allow to cool and then slice into bars, diamonds, squares – whatever moves you.

This recipe freezes really well, so you can always freeze them, then pack into lunchboxes as and when. They’re great for journeys too.

As I said, I normally do double the amount, so go ahead and do that, but put in a 13×9″ foil lined tin and bake for about 40-45 mins.

I really, really wish I’d had 2 eggs. I’m not going to tell anyone else I’ve made these. Shhhhhhhhh!

Date and Coconut Bars

PRINT THIS RECIPE (opens in a new window)

4oz (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 large tblsp golden syrup
1 large egg
5oz (1 cup) dates, chopped
5oz (3/4 cup) demerara sugar
6oz (1 cup) desiccated coconut
4oz (1 mean cup) self-raising flour

Melt the butter and golden syrup together in a small saucepan. Leave aside to cool for 5 minutes then beat in the egg.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add the egg, butter, syrup mixture and stir well.
Tip the mixture into an 8×8″ square tin, lined with foil. Spread/press mixture down evenly.

Bake at GM3/ 325F/160C for 30-35 mins.

Allow to cool before slicing into bars.

This recipe doubles to fill a 13×9″ tin, baking for 40-45 mins. Freezes very well; simply defrost and serve.

Mmmmmmmm.We have lunch with Mum and Dad on Sundays, and the afternoon is ‘try a new cake’ day.This cake was yesterday’s offering and is a delightful recipe from a dear little book called  ‘Good Food’s 101 Teatime Treats’.

I felt sure I would want to tweak it, but in fact it needed little altering – brilliant recipe.

Butter and line two 20cm/8″ sandwich tins and preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.

Put 6oz softened butter, 6oz caster sugar and the zest of 3 oranges into a large bowl.

Cream until fluffy (high five!)

Beat in 4 egg yolks, then sift in 4oz self-raising flour, 1tsp baking powder and 4oz ground almonds and gently fold in.

Fold in the juice of 1 orange.

Whisk the 4 egg whites until they are just holding their shape (the shape of a lady’s legs, in this case)

and gently fold this in too, in 3 lots.

Divide the batter between the two tins …

and bake for 30 mins, or until golden and, erm, cooked. Cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove from tins and cool completely on a wire rack.

The icing now. Melt 8oz white chocolate very gently in a bowl resting over a saucepan of hot water. Take the bowl off the saucepan and allow the chocolate  to cool.

With a handwhisk, whip a 200ml carton of creme fraiche until thickened. (It says on the side of the carton that it can’t be whipped, but apparently you can).

Add the cooled, melted chocolate and blend the two together.

Now. At this point, you need to put it in the fridge to firm up. The instructions don’t tell you to do this, but if you don’t, you go from this:

to this:

No panic. Stick the top layer on and ice the top and sides of the cake, poke a wooden skewer through to the bottom to make sure the top doesn’t slide off, then stick it in the fridge to firm it up. Smooth the whole thing around with some more icing once it’s looking less sloppy.

Then 4 yr old Alex asks if he can decorate it with sprinkles. So you say ‘yes’.

I was going to tastefully top it with white chocolate scrolls or something along these lines, but this was more fun to watch.

“Chefs don’t lick their fingers when they’re cooking”. He said this phrase a lot. He so very desperately wanted to lick his fingers, but I was hovering like a bird of prey, so he just talked himself down.

Anyway. It’s a moist, flavourful cake and the icing is reminiscient of cheesecake. Just delicious.

Yeah, you might want to go a bit more formal with your decoration…

but however you decorate it; do make it.

Here’s the recipe.

Orange and White Chocolate cake

PRINT THIS RECIPE (Opens in a new window)

6oz unsalted butter, softened
6oz caster sugar
zest of 3 oranges and juice of 1 orange
4 eggs, separated
4oz self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4oz ground almonds

Icing
8oz white chocolate
200ml carton creme fraiche

Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180C/350F
Grease and line two 20cm/8″ sandwich tins

Cream the butter, sugar and zest until fluffy.
Beat in the egg yolks.
Add the flour, baking powder and ground almonds and fold in.
Add the orange juice and gently fold in.
Whisk the egg whites until just holding their shape and gently fold in in 3 additions.
Divide the batter between the two tins and bake for 30 mins.
Cool in the tins for 5 mins then turn out and cool on a wire rack completely.

For the icing, put the chocolate in a bowl on top of a saucepan of barely simmering water. Be very careful it doesn’t overheat.
Take the bowl off the saucepan and set to one side to cool to room temperature.
Using a hand whisk, beat the creme fraiche until it thickens and holds its shape.
Blend the chocolate into it.
Put the icing in the fridge to firm up a little then use to sandwich the two cakes together and ice on top. Alternatively, ice between the cakes and all over.
Decorate as you wish – sprinkles, chocolate scrolls, more orange zest, whatever tickles your fancy.