April recipe: Lemon cake

Lemon cake

The sharp, bright taste of lemon seems especially well suited to brisk spring days. This simple lemon cake is quick to make and always turns out well.  It is delicious served plain, or if you fancy something a bit more elaborate, it can be sliced in half and filled with lemon curd and/or lemon buttercream.

Here’s the recipe.

Lemon cake

8 oz (approx. 250 g) self-raising flour

3 oz (approx 75 g) light brown soft sugar

4 oz (approx 100 g) butter

1 egg

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoons) demerara sugar, optional

Grease a deep cake tin about 6 inches (approx 15 cm) in diameter.

Rub the butter into the flour and sugar until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Beat the egg, and add it to the mixture along with the lemon zest and lemon juice.

Mix well until smooth.

Put the mixture in the prepared cake tin and level the top. Sprinkle the top with 2 teaspoons of demerara sugar, if liked. This will give the cake a crunchy top.

Bake in a moderately hot oven at about 170-180 C for about 45 minutes to an hour until the cake is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.

If liked, you can cut the cake in half horizontally and sandwich the halves back together with lemon curd and/or lemon buttercream.  Or you can serve the cake plain, which is what I normally do.

The cake will keep about a week in an airtight tin, and freezes well (freeze it plain, without the buttercream/ lemon curd filling).

October recipe: Pear and chocolate layer cake

I’ve posted several autumn recipes for apple cakes, here, here, and here.

The other traditional fruit of a British autumn is the pear. Pears are at their best in late autumn, and the combination of pears and chocolate works particularly well.  If you have a glut of pears, this delicious cake is a good way to use them. Here’s the recipe.

Pear and chocolate layer cake

5 oz (approx 125 g) wholemeal flour

5 oz (approx 125 g) self-raising flour

6 oz (approx 150 g) butter

3 oz (approx 75 g) ground almonds

2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar or caster sugar

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) almond essence

1 lb (approx 450 g) pears (about 12 oz [approx 350 g] after peeling and coring)

1 oz (approx 25 g) cocoa

2 teaspoons (2 x 5ml spoon) baking powder

4 oz (approx 100 g) dark brown soft sugar

2 eggs

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) milk

Peel and core the pears. Cut into approx 1 cm cubes

Rub the butter into the wholemeal and self-raising flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Put approximately 2 oz of the mixture into a separate bowl. Stir in the ground almonds and light brown soft sugar.  Add the almond essence and the white from one of the eggs, and mix well.  Stir in the chopped pears.

Stir the cocoa, baking powder and dark brown sugar into the rest of the mixture.  Add the egg yolk, remaining egg, and milk.  Mix well.

Grease a shallow baking tin about 8” (approximately 20 cm) square.

Spread half the cocoa mixture in the bottom of the cake tin.

Spread the pear and almond mixture on top.

Spread the rest of the cocoa mixture on top (so you end up with a layer of pear and almond mixture sandwiched between two layers of the cocoa mixture).

Bake in a moderately hot oven at approx 180 C for about 1.25 to 1.5 hours, until the cake is firm and a skewer comes out clean.

Mark into squares. I usually expect to get about 16 squares.  Cool in the tin for about 30 minutes.

Remove the squares from the tin, cool on a wire rack.

This cake will keep for 4-5 days in an airtight tin, and can be frozen. 

March recipe: Cherry cake

This is a simple and delicious cake. It’s one of the many variations of pound cake, so called because it was traditionally made with one pound each of flour, sugar, butter and eggs. That sort of quantity is rather large for most households (unless you’re feeding a family gathering or a church fete), so this version uses a quarter-pound of each of the basic ingredients. It uses glace cherries, so can be made at any time of year. I think it suits the spring, when lengthening days and rising temperatures call for something slightly lighter than the dense fruit cakes that suit winter.

Here’s the recipe.

Cherry cake

4 oz (approx 100 g) butter
4 oz (approx 100 g) sugar. I use golden caster sugar or light brown soft sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour
2 oz (approx 50 g) glace cherries

Halve the glace cherries.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat the eggs and stir into the creamed mixture.

Stir in the flour.

Stir in the chopped cherries and mix thoroughly.

Spread in a greased shallow baking tin, about 7” (approx 18 cm) square, and level the top.

Bake in a moderate oven, about 170 C, for about 30 minutes. It’s done when the sponge springs back if pressed lightly with a finger, and has shrunk slightly away from the edges of the tin.

Cut into pieces, lift the pieces out of the tin and cool on a wire rack. I usually cut 12 pieces.

Keeps about a week in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

November recipe: Apple cake

I adapted this recipe from one for carrot cake, because I grow more cooking apples than carrots. I daresay it could also be made with eating apples, although you would probably need to reduce the amount of sugar. It’s a delicious cake, rich without being heavy. It’s also very easy to make, especially if someone will help you grate the apples.

Apple cake

For the cake
8 oz (approx 250 g) wholemeal flour
6 oz (approx 150 g) dark brown soft sugar
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) baking powder
0.5 teaspoon (0.5 x 5 ml spoon) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
5 fl. oz. (approx 140 ml) cooking oil
Approx 1 lb (approx 450 g) cooking apples, after peeling and coring

For the cream cheese icing
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) butter
3 oz (approx 80 g) icing sugar
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) cream cheese

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl.

Make a well in the centre, pour in the beaten eggs and the oil. Mix well.

Peel and core the apples. Grate the apples using a coarse grater. Add to the cake mixture and mix well. It should be the consistency of thick batter.

Grease and line a 6 inch (approx 15 cm) deep cake tin, or a loaf tin about 6 inches x 4 inches x 3 inches (approx 15 cm x 11 cm x 7 cm). Pour in the cake batter and level the top.

Bake in a moderately hot oven, approx 170 C, for about 1.25 – 1.5 hours until the cake is risen, set and golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing:
Sieve the icing sugar. (It is quicker to sieve the icing sugar first, rather than try to beat out the lumps later. Trust me on this).

Beat the butter into the sieved icing sugar until smooth.

Beat in the cream cheese.

Cut the cooled cake in half horizontally, and sandwich the two halves back together with the cream cheese icing. If you prefer, you can spread the icing on the top of the cake instead and decorate with walnut halves.

Serve cut in slices.

I expect to get 12-14 slices out of this (but that will depend how big a slice you like). It keeps for about a week in an airtight tin. The cake can be frozen without the icing.

October recipe: Apple cakes

You can make these cakes with eating apples or with cooking apples, according to taste and availability.



















Apple cakes (makes about 12)

2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar
1 egg
4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour
1 tsp (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground mixed spice or ground cinnamon (optional)
3-4 oz (approx 75-100 g) apples (weight after peeling and coring)

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the beaten egg.

Stir in the flour and spice (if using).

Peel and core the apples. Grate or chop finely. Stir the chopped/grated apples into the cake mixture.

Put spoonfuls of the mixture into greased bun tins. It doesn’t spread much during cooking, so you can fill the tins quite full. I usually get about 12 buns out of the mix.

Bake in a moderately hot oven about 180 C, until set and golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack.

Keeps for a week in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

January recipe: Date and Ginger Cake

Ginger is always warming, and this is a comforting cake for a cold winter day. It’s also easy to make and can conveniently share the oven with a slow-cooking winter casserole.















Date and Ginger Cake

2 oz (approx 50 g) stem ginger in syrup, or crystallised ginger
4 oz (approx 120 g) dried stoned dates
4 oz (approx 120 g) butter
4 Tablespoons (4 x 15 ml spoons) golden syrup*
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) demerara sugar (or other brown sugar, e.g. dark muscovado)
4 oz (approx 120 g) wholemeal flour
4 oz (approx 120 g) plain flour
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoons) baking powder
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoons) ground ginger
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) bicarbonate of soda
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) ground almonds (optional)
2 eggs, beaten
3 fl. oz (approx 85 ml) milk

Chop the stem ginger and dates into pieces about the size of a raisin (or whatever size pieces you like to find in your cake).

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a medium sized saucepan over a low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.

Stir in the wholemeal flour, plain flour, baking powder, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and ground almonds (if using; I have found that you can miss the ground almonds out if you don’t like almonds). Mix thoroughly to a smooth paste.

Beat the eggs into the mixture, followed by the milk, and stir thoroughly to a smooth batter. Remember to keep scraping the mixture off the back of the spoon as you beat the eggs and milk in.

Stir in the chopped stem ginger and dates.

Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin or deep cake tin (about 6”, or about 15 cm, diameter is about the right size).

Bake in a moderate oven about 170 C for about 1 hour, until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Turn out of the tin while warm and cool on a wire rack.

Keeps for about a week in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

If you don’t like dates, you can use sultanas or raisins instead, or a mixture.


*I think the approximate equivalent in North America is light corn syrup

November recipe: Fudge squares

There are lots of variations of this tea-time treat, under lots of different names. I have always known it as Fudge Squares, or sometimes Chocolate Caramel Shortbread, but I’ve seen something very similar called Millionaires’ Shortbread or even Billionaires’ Shortbread. Inflation being what it is, I suppose Trillionaires’ Shortbread is only a matter of time. Anyway, here is my recipe. If you want to make the caramel or chocolate layers thicker, just increase the quantity.



Fudge Squares

Biscuit base:
6oz (approx 150 g) plain flour
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar
3 oz (approx 75 g) butter
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) bicarbonate of soda (if you can’t measure a quarter of a teaspoon, you’re not alone. I treat this as “a smidgeon”)
1 egg, beaten

Fudge topping:
2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar. If you like a really rich treacly flavour, use half dark muscovado sugar
6 dessertspoons (approx 60 ml) milk

Chocolate topping:
2 oz (approx 50 g) plain chocolate.

Grease a shallow baking tin about 7” (approx 18 cm) square.

Rub the butter into the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Stir in the beaten egg and mix to a stiff dough.

Press the dough evenly into the base of the greased baking tin. This is easier if you lightly dust your hands with flour, as the dough tends to be sticky.

Bake at about 180 – 200 C for about 25-30 minutes until set and light golden brown. Cool in the tin.

Put the ingredients for the fudge topping in a small saucepan, and heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved.

Increase the heat and boil gently, STIRRING ALL THE TIME, for 6-7 minutes until the mixture thickens and starts to look like fudge.

Remove from the heat and pour evenly over the biscuit base. Spread the fudge using a table knife into a roughly even layer over the top of the biscuit base. Leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Pour evenly over the fudge topping, using a table knife to spread the chocolate if necessary. Leave to cool.

When the chocolate has set, loosen the edges of the biscuit base from the tin using a blunt knife. Put a flat board over the tin and invert it so the fudge square falls out of the tin and onto the board chocolate side down. Remove the tin. Cut into 12 pieces. You can cut it up in the baking tin if you like, but I find it easier to cut up if it is turned out chocolate side down.

Keeps in an airtight tin for a week or so.

December recipe: Mince pies

Mince pies appear in Britain at Christmas like some prolific passage migrant. For eleven months of the year mince pies might as well not exist. In December, suddenly these little (and not so little) confections of pastry filled with sweetened spiced dried fruit appear on every table at every occasion. Coffee after dinner. Friday cakes at the office. Tea with a friend. Pub Christmas specials. Carol concerts. Cafes and cake shops, bakeries and restaurants. Supermarkets, boxes piled high by the pallet load. Hot, cold, with cream, with brandy butter, on their own, served as a dessert or nibbled with coffee.

There are as many variants as there are cooks. Shortcrust pastry, buttercrust, puff pastry, sweet flan pastry? Cherries in the mincemeat? Almonds? Citrus peel? Suet? About the one (reasonable) certainty is that the mincemeat won’t contain any meat. Mince pies originally contained minced meat and dried fruit, a popular combination in medieval cookery, but the meat had largely disappeared by the end of the nineteenth century, with only the shredded suet remaining as a vestigial reminder of the original content.

For a month no other sweetmeat is so ubiquitous, and then in early January the world goes back to work, the reduced-to-clear stickers go up on the supermarket displays, and the mince pie vanishes as completely as Santa and Rudolf.

I make mince pies from about the middle of December onwards, by which time the mincemeat made with apples from the garden tree in November will have had a chance to mature. But the batch I make on Christmas Eve, listening to the Radio 4 broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge, is always special for me. It’s at that point that I feel all the frenetic preparations are over and the festival itself is beginning.

Here’s my recipe.

Mince pies

Pastry
6 oz (approx 150 g) self-raising flour
4.5 oz (approx 125 g) butter
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) icing sugar
1 egg yolk (use the white to make meringue)

Filling:
Mincemeat of your choice, home-made or bought

Grease tartlet or patty tins.
Rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar.
Beat in the egg yolk and press the mixture into a ball of dough.
(In theory, at this point you are supposed to chill the pastry overnight. I find it is less prone to break if I roll it out and make the mince pies straight away).
Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface. I like thin pastry so I roll mine to about 1-2 mm thick; you can leave yours thicker if you like.
Cut circles big enough to make pastry cases lining the base and sides of your tartlet tins.
Spoon mincemeat into the pastry cases. Don’t overfill them or the mincemeat will boil out and make an unpleasant mess on the baking tray. The filling should be no more than level with the rim.
Re-roll the rest of the pastry and cut smaller pastry circles to make lids.
Damp the top edge of each pastry case with water and cover with a pastry lid, pressing the edges well down.
Brush the tops of the mince pies with milk, and sprinkle each with a little granulated sugar.
Snip two small holes in the top of each mince pie.
Bake in a hot oven, around 220 C, for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
Let the mince pies cool for a minute or two in the tins to set the pastry, then lift them out with a palette knife or pie slice. Cool on a wire rack.
Store in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

I find this quantity of pastry usually makes 20-24 mince pies. My tartlet tins are about 6 cm diameter. If you like thicker pastry, or if you have larger tartlet tins, it will make fewer. Try it out and see. Any leftover pastry will keep, uncooked and wrapped in cling film or foil, for a few days in the fridge, or can be frozen.


Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, have a happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year!

November recipe: Coffee and walnut cake

There should be plenty of nuts in the shops at this time of year, and if you were lucky enough to pick fresh walnuts back in September they should be nicely dried out by now. Coffee and walnuts seem to be two flavours made for each other. Here’s a recipe for an attractive sponge cake that’s luxurious without being too heavy, before we all turn to hefty fruit cakes in the run-up to Christmas.




Coffee and walnut cake

Sponge cake
4 oz (approx 120 g) butter
4 oz (approx 120 g) light brown sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (approx 120 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) instant coffee, dissolved in 1-2 teaspoons of boiling water
2 oz (approx 50 g) walnuts, chopped

Filling and topping
3 oz (approx 80 g) icing sugar
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) butter, preferably unsalted
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) instant coffee, dissolved in 1-2 teaspoons of boiling water
Walnut halves to decorate

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Beat in the eggs
Stir in the flour, dissolved instant coffee and chopped walnuts, and mix well.
Divide between two greased and lined sandwich cake tins, about 7” (approx 20 cm) diameter. Spread the mixture evenly in each tin and level the surface.
Bake in a hot oven about 180 - 200 C for about 20 minutes until the sponge cakes are golden brown, springy when touched, and beginning to shrink away from the edges of the tins. If in doubt insert a thin skewer into the middle of the cake; if no cake mixture sticks to it when you pull the skewer out, the cake is done. (You don’t really need the skewer test for a sandwich cake because the cake is quite shallow, but it can be reassuring if you aren’t quite sure).
Turn the cakes out of the tins, remove the lining paper, and cool on a wire rack.

Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl. (Yes, I’m afraid you really do have to do this. If you don’t, the icing will be full of little hard lumps of congealed icing sugar that you’ll spend ages trying to beat out, and you still won’t get rid of them all. Sieving is quicker in the long run – trust me on that).
Cream the icing sugar and butter together until smooth.
Beat in the dissolved instant coffee and mix well.
Spread half the mixture on one of the sandwich cakes. Put the other sandwich cake on top. Spread the rest of the icing on top, and decorate with walnut halves if liked.

Serve cut into slices. The cake will keep a week or so in an airtight tin if it gets the chance. You can freeze the sponge cakes before they are iced. I’ve never tried freezing the icing.

March recipe: Apricot and almond cake

Dried apricots and ground almonds are available all the year round, thanks to international transport, so this cake can be made at any time of year. March is as good a time as any, and it seems to suit the brighter days of spring.

Apricot and almond cake

4 oz (approx 100 g) butter
4 oz (approx 100 g) sugar. I use golden caster sugar or light brown soft sugar
2 eggs
Juice of half a lemon
1.5 oz (approx 30 g) ground almonds
2 oz (approx 50 g) plain flour
2 oz (approx 50 g) dried apricots

Chop the dried apricots into pieces the size you would like to find in your cake. I aim for pieces about the size of a raisin.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat the eggs and stir into the creamed mixture.
Stir in the almonds and lemon juice.
Stir in the flour and apricots and mix thoroughly.
Spread in a greased shallow baking tin, about 7” (approx 18 cm) square, and level the top.
Bake in a moderate oven, about 170 C, for about 30 minutes. It’s done when the sponge springs back if pressed lightly with a finger, and has shrunk slightly away from the edges of the tin.
Cut into pieces, lift the pieces out of the tin and cool on a wire rack. I usually cut 12 pieces.
Keeps about a week in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

August recipe: Plum Cake

Plums have connotations of abundance and the good life. Little Jack Horner ‘pulled out a plum’, a particularly desirable appointment is ‘a plum job’, and plum puddings are traditional feast-day fare. Usually a plum pudding (as in Christmas pudding) or plum bread (as in Lakeland plum bread) is made with dried plums (prunes) or raisins. Here’s a recipe for a plum cake made with fresh plums. Any variety will do; I usually use Czar cooking plums or Victoria plums.

Plum Cake

4 oz (approx 120 g) wholemeal flour
4 oz (approx 120 g) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) baking powder
4 oz (approx 120 g) light brown soft sugar
4 oz (approx 120 g) butter or margarine
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) honey
2 eggs*
1 lb fresh ripe plums

* If making a double quantity, 3 eggs is sufficient.

Rub the butter into the flours, baking powder and sugar until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. (I am told one can do this with a food processor).
Beat the eggs, and mix in along with the honey.
Halve and stone the plums.
Reserve 8 half-plums and cut into neat slices.
Chop the remaining plums and mix into the cake mixture.
Put the cake mixture into a greased and lined loaf tin, or a deep cake tin of about 6” (approx 15 cm) diameter, or a shallow baking tin about 7” (approx 18 cm) square.
Level the top and arrange the reserved plum slices in an attractive pattern on top of the cake.
Bake for about 45 minutes (shallow tin) or about 1 – 1.25 hours (loaf tin or deep cake tin), until the cake is golden brown on top and a skewer comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack before removing from tin.
Keeps about 3 days in an airtight tin, or can be frozen. I usually make this cake in a shallow tin, cut it into 12 squares, keep half of them for immediate use, freeze the rest and then simply thaw out frozen squares as I need them.