Cappuccino Cake

 Firstly apologies that it has been 2 weeks since I wrote my blog. I expect you were eagerly awaiting photos of my birthday cake!!
I have been very busy with preparations for Ben and Nathan's school summer fete, which is in less than 2 weeks time -gulp, and I have not had much time for baking.
Last time I typed up, this cake was in the oven. Well, here it is. I did get candles, but this was the pre birthday picture!
It was very straight forward to make. Basically it is a chocolate sponge mix with a coffee and cream topping and filling, hence the cappuccino name.
It was very pleasant, and we gave it a score of 8.0

I had a good birthday, and having asked for a 7 x 7" baking tin, Adam went above and beyond the call of duty and bought me a 12" multi size cake pan, which means I can bake all sorts of square and rectangular cakes - Fantastic - the only problem is that I have not had time to use it yet. May have to wait until after 22nd June!

Very Best Chocolate Fudge Cake

I made this cake this time last week, and put it in the freezer, ready to take away with us.
I have actually made it once before, having been given the recipe by my mum, so I knew it was a good one, and would go down well with our holiday hosts.
The sponge mix was straight forward, and so too was the icing. I think part of what makes it such a nice cake is that warmed apricot jam is spread over the sponges before icing. You don't really notice the flavour of the apricot, but it helps to make the cake moist.
Everyone really enjoyed it, and with 10 of us, it didn't last very long! We had it for dessert, served with creme fraiche - in an attempt to reduce the calories!!!
You would not have known that it had been frozen, apart from a slight loss of shine on the icing - I should say that the photo was taken pre freezing.

Pound Cake

 As I mentioned in my last post, we have just got back from a short holiday. Our friends very kindly had us to stay, which we really appreciate. It's no small ask to have 6 of us!
I felt that the least I could do was to take some cake up with us, so I made this pound cake, mainly with the adults in mind, and also a chocolate cake for the kids - although the adults all ate it too!
This cake was very tasty, although as you can see from the picture, the fruit sank to the bottom.
Having just looked up the "baking tips" section of the Baking Bible, Mary says that "if fruit sinks to the bottom of the cake, it means that either the mixture was too runny to support the fruit, the fruit was too wet, or the wrong fat was used". I am not actually sure which one of these was the cause of my sinking fruit. I can't really remember, having baked it a week ago. Besides, it still tasted very nice, and managed to score 8.5!
My favourite fruit cake is still the quick boiled one.

Chocolate American Muffins

As I type, my birthday cake is baking in the oven! We only got home from a  few days away, this afternoon, and with my birthday being tomorrow, I thought I had better make myself a cake - photos to follow!
These muffins were made over a week ago, in fact it was another beans on toast Tuesday, and I thought the kids could do with a treat!
I'm not sure if its because they are "american" muffins, but they taste quite different to muffins that I have made in the past. These were more like a bun, in fact, Ad said that he thought they tasted quite like a dense brioche. They were still well received, and we gave them 7.5 There are two other muffin recipes in the book, so it will be interesting to see if they are similar.

Iced Animal Biscuits

 I made these biscuits this morning, with the help of Nathan. They were simple to make, although, Mary's suggestion of 50 biscuits is probably rather optimistic  Also, I needed to add quite a bit more flour as the dough mixture was very sticky.
I took them along to the baby shower with me this afternoon, and they went down very well.
I have to say that I did enjoy decorating them, and was pleased to discover that the edible pen that is supposed to write on icing, also writes straight onto biscuit! Hopefully the white icing looks like a nappy and not Y-fronts!
They were fairly tasty, but not really delicious - hopefully what they lacked in flavour, they made up for in looks! We would give them 7.5

We are out all day tomorrow, so there will be no Sunday afternoon baking - let's hope we don't get withdrawal symptoms!

Basic all-in-one Sponge Traybake

I am not sure why anyone would make this traybake, when there are all sorts of delicious alternatives in the book. However, as I must make everything, (and really don't want to make anything twice unless I have to!), I set about making this yesterday, with a sneaky idea in mind. Today I went to a baby shower, and when I offered to bake something, I was asked to make the lemon traybake. So, having followed the recipe for the basic sponge mix, I cut  four pieces and took this photo - not a lemon in sight! I tasted a bit of the sponge, and it was fine, quite light but nothing special, probably about a 7.0.
I then proceeded to slice the rest of the cake in half, and spread it with lemon curd, to make up for the fact that there was no lemon rind in the cake. I then made the icing sugar and lemon juice topping and spread it over the top! No one would ever know, in fact I think the lemon curd was a nice addition.

Quick Boiled Fruit Cake

I made this on Thursday as we had visitors coming on Friday. It is boiled in the sense that you heat up condensed milk with butter and cherries. Oh, and I have just realised, looking at the book that you are also supposed to boil the fruit as well. As you may have guessed, I left it out, and added it after, along with the eggs and flour. Thankfully, you would never know. This cake is delicious - probably the best fruit cake so far, with perhaps the exception of Adam's birthday cake. We scored this 9.5
There is a small slice remaining today, so I guess the boys can fight it out amongst themselves!