Lemon Layer Cake

My blogging has been terrible recently. I've logged on just now and my last post was the 11th September....aaages ago! There has been good reason for it however...it was my Mum's birthday, Karls birthday (more on that later!), I've been off work, I've been ill and I've been away for a few nights too...so all in all I've been quite a busy girly!

Back to my Mum's birthday though...I had been thinking for awhile about what I could bake my Mum for her birthday and in the end, knowing how much she loves Lemon Cupcakes, I thought I would attempt a Lemon Layer Cake for her.

I used the recipe in the Primrose Bakery book for the cake and butter cream, however I decided it needed something more so I made a batch of Lemon Curd from the Rachel Allen book Bake and put that along with the butter cream in the cake. I have never made Lemon Curd before but the fresh home made version was so much better than any of the stuff I've bought from the supermarket before!

The last few recipes I have attempted from the Primrose Bakery, although weren't huge disasters, didn't quite go to plan, so I was really nervous about making this cake for my mum. I had visions of her cutting into it and it being as solid as a brick or not cooked! Luckily, the recipe worked...the cake rose perfectly and was really moist. The butter cream was sweet and lemony and the lemon curd gave that little extra lemony flavour to the cake. This is a recipe I will most definitely be making again.

Lemon Layer Cake

Makes two 20cm cakes which can be sandwiched together

225g golden caster sugar

225g self raising flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

25g cornflour

225g unsalted butter at room temperature

4 large eggs

Grated zest and juice of 2 large lemons (otherwise use 3 lemons)

Preheat the over to 170C. Grease and baseline the two tins.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until the mixture is pale and smooth.

Combine the dry ingredients in a seperate bowl.

Add the eggs to the creamed mixture one at a time mixing for a few minutes after each addition, alternating with the dry ingredients, and finally the grated lemon zest and lemon juice. Beat well after each addition but do not over beat.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until raised and golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Once cool, sandwich the layers together with lemon butter cream icing and lemon curd and ice the top with more lemon butter cream.

Lemon Butter Cream

110g unsalted butter

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Grated zest of 1-2 unwaxed lemons

500g icing sugar

In a large mixing bowl beat the butter, lemon juice, lemon zest and half the icing sugar until smooth. Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until smooth and creamy.

Lemon Curd

75g butter

150g caster sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 3 lemons

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

Place the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a saucepan and heat very gently until the butter is melted.

Put the eggs and egg yolk in a bowl and beat thoroughly.

Pour the beaten eggs into the melted butter mixture and stir carefully over a low heat until the mixture has thickened and will coat the back of a spoon.

If the heat is too high the mixture will scramble. If this happens quickly push it through a sive.

Remove the pan from the heat and pour into a bowl.

Pear and Raspberry Crumble

I've been meaning to blog about this recipe for a little while. I got it out of last months Sainsburys Magazine. I love this magazine..there's always at least one recipe I want to make in every copy I buy and its only £1.40..what a bargain!

I made this recipe a few weekends ago as a simple dessert on a sunday night. I love crumbles - so quick and easy to make and they always taste so so good...proper comfort food for me!

Pear and Raspberry Crumble Recipe

Serves 4

3 large slightly unripe pears - 700g cored and thickly sliced

300g fresh raspberries (or blackberries..whichever you prefer)

60g caster sugar

For the crumble

100g cold butter, diced

225g plain flour

50g caster sugar

Preheat the over to 180C, fan 160C, gas 4. To make the crumble topping, in a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, or pulse them together in a food processor, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.

Butter a 1.2 litre oven proof dish and arrange the pears in it. Sprinkle over the raspberries and then the sugar.

With a large spoon, scatter the crumble mixture evenly over the fruit. Bake in the centre of the oven for about an hour. The crumble should just be turning golden and there will be some raspberry juice bubbling up around the sides.

Sprinkle with a little extra sugar and serve with ice cream like me...or custard or cream...all equally yummy!

Mars Bar Cupcakes

Last minute this weekend I decided I would bake some cupcakes. I've been wanting to try making Mars Bar Cupcakes for ages. I don't particularly like Mars Bars but I thought in cupcake form I would like them much better...and I did....these cupcakes are seriously yum!

I didn't actually have a recipe for these cupcakes. They are made up of a basic chocolate cupcake recipe with a chunk of Mars Bar baked into the centre. I then topped them with chocolate butter cream, caramel sauce, another chunk of Mars Bar and chocolate curls.

I so wanted home made caramel/toffee sauce on the top of these cupcakes and I set about making it using the recipe from the Primrose Bakery Cupcake. Toffee sauce just wasn't to be this weekend though. I made the recipe 4 times in total and used nearly a whole packet of sugar and every time it turned out wrong! Either I accidently boiled it too long and it turned back to sugar, or it was too runny or it was all grainy like sand..eugh...I don't know what was going wrong but it was a total disappointment and Karl was sent out on a mission at half 4 on Sunday to Tesco to find a decent toffee sauce! He succeeded and the cakes got coated in Tesco Finest Toffee Sauce. A bit of a cheat but tastes very good anyway!

We Should Cocoa!

I have decided to enter the cupcakes mentioned in my last post (White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes) for the September 'We Should Cocoa'

Now, I really should have mentioned this in my last post....but after the whole disappointment of the cupcakes I really really wasn't wanting to enter them into anything and decided against the whole thing. However, after having a few days to think about it and hearing the positive feedback from Karl and Karl's family I have changed my mind..yet again.. and am going to enter them.

We Should Cocoa is the fab idea of Chele at Chocolate Teapot and Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog. The idea is to bake something with chocolate in it each month, incorporating the special ingredient that is suggested by the host. September's ingredient is raspberries and has been set by Chele.

Entries have to be received by the 25th of the month..so what are you waiting for?? Get baking!

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes

As promised I have finally used a recipe out of a book other than the Hummingbird Bakery book...hooray! This recipe is courtesy of the Primrose Bakery Book...another favourite of mine!

It was Karl's Mum's birthday this weekend and we were heading round for Sunday Roast. I couldn't resist taking some lovely cupcakes with me. After much deliberation I went for the White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes from the above book. Karl had no idea what sort of cupcakes his Mum would like so as a change to plain old vanilla and chocolate I thought I'd try white chocolate instead mixed with the summery flavour of raspberry...yum!

I decided to make these cakes on the morning that we were going round...probably not a good idea. My thoughts were that if I made them on the morning then they would be all lovely and fresh for Karl's Mum. Possibly not the best idea when I hadn't made the recipe before.

Up I got at half 7 on Sunday morning...yes yes I know...utter madness! But it was all in the name of yummy cupcakes! The actual cupcake recipe was easy to make and all went to plan. However, the icing/butter cream was a different story! By the time I had made the cupcakes and let them cool time was getting on a bit and I still had to make the icing, ice the cupcakes and get changed out of my baking clothes, into something half decent and do my hair and make up...argghh!

The icing/butter cream was made from vanilla butter cream with double cream and melted white chocolate mixed in. Now in the picture in the book it made it look like the icing was of quite a stiff consistency so I had it in my head I was going to pipe the icing onto the cakes as I normally do and they'd look all pretty. However after adding all the chocolate and cream to the butter cream there was no way this stuff was gonna pipe (I did try...but it kinda just went straight through the piping bag leaving a mess on my work top..argghh!) So at half 10 on saturday morning I start panicking...wondering what on earth to do. In the end I put the icing in the fridge to see if that would help...unfortunately in the short amount of time I had left it didn't. I ended up having to just spread the icing on the tops of the cake and put fresh raspberries on top.

I was very disappointed and when Karl came wandering sleepily through to the kitchen having just woken up he was met with an upset and stressed out girlfriend. On the positive side though he did get cupcakes for breakfast so I guess that made up for it! He kept telling me they were good and tasted lovely and his mum would love them etc etc but I had just got this picture in my head of what they would look like and well they didn't look a thing like it.

After much persuasion I did end up taking them round to Karl's Mum's. Earlier on in the week we had taken a trip to Sainsburys who have just improved their home baking range. I managed to buy some very cute cupcake boxes so I popped 4 of the cupcakes in one of these pretty boxes and took them round. She seemed impressed and I got a text from her today saying she had had one and she had loved it. Maybe they weren't so bad after all!

I think maybe the icing would have hardened up eventually in the fridge so it could have been piped onto the cake, as by the time we got back from Karl's mum's the icing was rock solid on the cakes we had kept for ourselves...on the downside the cakes had also suffered a bit from being kept in the fridge. They definitely need removing from the fridge 10-15 mins before eating.

All in all a bit disappointing for me...although everyone else seemed to like them. Maybe if I had had a little more time to perfect them I would have been happier...the actual cupcake sponge was lovely with raspberry jam mixed into the sponge mix and also popped into the cupcake after baking too, although for me I'd have to work on improving the icing. At least they look cute in the little box though...

P.S I am in a major rush to get to yoga so haven't got time to type the recipe out. I'm sure alot of you keen bakers have the Primrose Bakery book anyway. For those that don't..I can always send it you xx

Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes

I realised last week that I hadn't baked a batch of cupcakes in some time and I was missing it. It also turns out that Karl's work mates were also missing my sweet cupcake shaped treats... apparently requests had been put in.

I really tried so hard to use a recipe from a book other than the Hummingbird Bakery one..but as I started to flick through my recipes books I ended up deciding on this recipe to get me back into the swing of cupcake baking. I promise promise promise I will have a change next baking session and use a recipe from elsewhere!

These cupcakes were seriously scrummy...the mixture had cinnamon and ginger added to it which you could really taste and really made a change to plain old banana cupcakes. And anything with chocolate butter cream is a winner in my book!

Recipe:

120g plain flour

140g caster sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder (i think it may have meant 1 tea spoon...i added a teaspoon and a half!)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch of salt

80g unsalted butter

120ml whole milk

2 eggs

120g peeled banana

40g dark chocolate, made into shavings

Preheat the oven to 170C

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and butter in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk on a slow speed until you get a sandy consistancy and everything is combined.

Slowly pour the milk into the flour mixture, beating well until all ingredients are well mixed. Add the eggs and beat well.

Stir in the mashed banana until evenly dispersed

Spoon the mixture into paper cases until 2/3's full and bake in th preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until light golden and the sponge bounces back when touched. Leave to cool.

When the cupcakes are cook decorate with chocolate frosting and chocolate shavings.

Didsbury Farmers Market and Macaroons!

We were so impressed with the Farmers Market in Didsbury last month we decided we would go back again this month. The market is held every 2nd Saturday of the month in the grounds of Didsbury library. Its quite a small affair but is lovely to look round with a good selection of stalls...there were even some different ones this time too.

This Saturday I headed straight to the stall of The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon...I love their cakes very much and was very impressed with them last time...(see Oreo blog post!). This month we went for a banoffee cupcake, chocolate brownie, a nutty raspberry brownie...I cant quite remember what was in but it was lovely and buttery...yum, and a snickers rocky road. All very good and were eaten pretty much straight away...oops! I was even more excited to hear that they are due to open a shop in Didsbury in the very near future. Me and karl will definitely be taking a few trips there!

Another stall that impressed me this weekend was The English Rose Bakery stall which specialises in making gorgeous macaroons. The stall wasn’t there the last time we visited the market but their display of different brightly coloured macaroons in big glass jars really caught my eye as I walked past. I had to go back for another look! And when Karl offered to buy me a box as a treat..well how could I say no?? Although at first I did think these little macaroons were slightly pricey at £7 for 6 macaroons by the time I had polished the lot off later I was left wanting more...definitely worth every penny!

Flavours available included the signature English rose, caramel, vanilla, elderflower, lemon, chocolate, blackcurrant and cinnamon but after much deliberation I went for chocolate, lemon, vanilla, cinnamon, caramel and rose. The macaroons came in a lovely little cream box with the bakery’s logo printed on it....very cute. I managed to wait until I got home to have a peek inside the box...see the piccy below for the cuteness that greeted me when I opened the box.. dont they just look so tempting!

I decided to try the caramel one first. I had never had a macaroon before ... only those cheapo ones from supermarkets when I was little and well they dont count..they’re not even in the same league as this type of macaroon! The English Rose Bakery gives a description of what the macaroons should be like....

“The delicate, crisp outer shell of the macaroon protects a soft inner core of gooey almond meringue and to add to the pleasure two halves are sandwiched together with a sumptuous ganache, cream or jam”

Never had a description been so spot on...from the first bite of the caramel macaroon I was hooked..I had to have another. I went for the chocolate one...again...gorgeous! Over the course of about an hour and a half I worked my way through all 6 and not one flavour disappointed. I think my favourites were the caramel and the lemon. ..the lemon one tasted just like lemon curd..mmmm!

I just hope the stall is there next month..I need my macaroon fix. Until then..I may have to order a book from good ol' amazon to have a go at making these tasty little morsels for myself!