Chocolate Yoghurt Cupcakes
17 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Cupcakes, Recipes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, cake, chocolate, cupcakes, recipe, yoghurt
I’ve not baked in a month. Maybe more. This perhaps explains my lethargy and general lack of joie-de-vivre at the moment (I’m allowed to use as much franglais as I like at the moment; you can start getting annoyed at me when I’m back to be pretentious in person). Though the latter is perhaps more connected to the ongoing bike and sécurité social sagas which shall be related in future blogs. Suffice to say I’m not getting on with my bike or French administration at the moment.
I decided a few days ago to buy some (1kg of, in fact) fromage frais which seems to be France’s answer to yoghurt (the trick is to add some jam or honey, or else some fresh fruit and sugar, and eat with some honey-roasted oats, preferably from Denmark). As this was the 2nd kilo of fromage frais I’d bought in as many weeks, I thought I’d branch out and try using it as a baking ingredient. It seems to have worked quite well, though of course results are always a bit weird with the cupcake baker, and the resultant mini cakes are reasonably moist and chocolatey, while also being quite light. I’d maybe add a tablespoon of cocoa to bulk up the chocolatey-ness if making again, however.
Gateau au Speculoos (Speculoos Cake)
07 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Cake, Recipes Tags: baking, birthday, cake, france, recipe, speculoos, sugar, sweet
If you have never lived in France or the Netherlands, you have probably never come across the spreadable gingerbread that is Speculoos. You may have come across Lotus biscuits perhaps, particularly if you frequent the Rainbow Room Hairdressers, and this spread, manufactured by the same people, is basically a liquid form of these. I wanted to make a cake for my friend’s birthday and thought I’d do something a bit different from the normal chocolate variety, so tweaked a recipe for peanut butter cake and came up with this. If you have the misfortune to live in a land without Speculoos but you do like peanut butter, feel free to re-substitute creamy peanut butter into the mix.
This cake is incredibly sweet. Quite a lot of batter is generated, so I made a bundt cake and 7 cupcakes with it. I’ll give you the recipe for half the icing I made as admittedly it may have smothered the cake a bit. Nonetheless, I reckon it will feed at least 12 people and probably more. If you’re not using a bundt cake tin, you may have to cover the tin with silver foil and leave it in for a bit longer if it’s browning too quickly but is still wobbly in the middle.
Black Magic Cake
28 Dec 2011 2 Comments
in Cake, Recipes Tags: baking, birthday, butterless, cake, chocolate, oil, recipe
Found this post lost in the depths of draft posts, thought I’d update to tide everyone over while they wait avidly for my next update on my obviously incredibly interesting life. It has been 9 months since I’ve made a cake if my memory serves me correctly, a shocking state of affairs if you ask me… This one is probably the last one I made, and I described it at the time as “delicious” (it’s not that difficult so to be with this amount of chocolate), so I might make it again next time I’ve a proper oven and equipment at my disposal. Also good if you’ve run out of butter.
Fudgy Chocolate Cake.2
12 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Cake, Desserts, Recipes Tags: baking, birthday, cake, chocolate, decorative, dessert, recipe, special
A definite contender for my favourite chocolate cake ever awards… Though I think the Dark Fudgy Chocolate cake just has the edge on this. The original recipe just called for double the filling and spread butter icing on top as well, but I had double cream going spare, so thought I’d do a ganache over the top; worked really well, if I say so myself!
Apple Cake
09 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Cake, Desserts, Recipes Tags: baking, cake, dessert, fruit, recipe
If life throws you apples… make apple cake! Fed up of apple crumble all the time and had a few eggs to spare, so thought I’d try this recipe, adding some cinnamon and mixed spice to give it a little extra oomph. Tastes best just out of the oven, though can be eaten cold and/or heated up in the microwave. Lovely with a bit of double cream.
Sticky Ginger Puddings
03 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Desserts, Recipes Tags: baking, cake, dessert, fruit, ginger, recipe
A twist on the old sticky toffee, this is very nice and gingery; maybe tone down the spices a little if you’re not a fan.
Chocolate and Treacle Cake
24 May 2011 Leave a Comment
in Cake, Recipes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, birthday, cake, chocolate, icing, recipe
Plain chocolate cake all the time can get a bit boring. And sometimes there’s treacle begging to be used, and you want to try something new. If this sounds familiar, here’s a yummy cake for you. As long as you like treacle, naturally.
Citrus Rainbow Cake
09 May 2011 2 Comments
in Cake, Desserts, Recipes Tags: baking, birthday, cake, fruit, recipe
That’s right… Cake! That’s not chocolate! Quite controversial, I’ll concede, but sometimes (rarely) it’s nice to have a bit of a change. The beauty of this adaptation of a basic sponge recipe is that you can chuck in as many flavours as you like – I had lime, lemon, orange, and then raspberry middle icing; none were very strong, as I just used juice rather than pulp or flavouring oil, but it gave it a nice light flavour. Plus, it’s fun to have a lovely white cake with all those colours hidden within.
On a side note, I may have just spent £10 on getting new icing pastes after hearing rave reviews of how strong they were and how little is needed for a vivid colour… they certainly were (I can’t really say “worth it”), but very, very good! And I suppose for 5 of them, that wasn’t too bad a price.
Dark Fudgy Chocolate Cake
12 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Cake, Desserts, Recipes Tags: baking, birthday, cake, chocolate, cream, recipe
If you want a rich, dark, slightly gooey fudgy chocolate cake, this is the one for you. Small point to note… maybe best to serve *after* Lent is over, as otherwise anyone who’s avoiding chocolate until Easter may find it impossible to resist. It’s quite an odd recipe in that it’s really, really liquid up to the point of putting it in the oven, but don’t worry – that’s meant to happen.
