Quick Apple Cake

When I made the Quick Apple Flan I said I would be interested to see how it turned out with self-raising flour instead of plain.

Thisevening I made the self-raising version, and it really worked out quite well. This time it was definitely a cake instead of a flan - much more fluffy and light, and less sticky. Quite a different dessert, which is why I decided to rename it and give it its own post.

Really good with custard. Original recipe here but replace the plain flour with self-raising.

This time I used two largish granny smith apples, and chopped them up a bit smaller to make slicing the cake easier.

Quick Apple Flan

I saw this recipe in the Frills in the Hills blog, using pears. I tried it and it was pretty good, but I thought the tang of apple would be better. So thisevening I made the apple version for dessert.

Helping me with the measuring were these pretty baboushka doll cup measures, sent to me by the lovely people at The Claytons Blog. Each one opens and has a different volume marked inside, and they all fit together neatly.

The original recipe calls for 1 kg of fruit, but I used four pink lady apples which weighed just under 500 g. Peel, core and slice.

In a large bowl, mix together eggs, milk and sugar.

Add flour and spice and beat until you have a thick batter.

(If the batter is very thick, add a little more milk.)

Add fruit and stir in well.

Pour into a greased baking tin which has baking paper in the base. Cook for 40 - 45 mins at 190 C until golden. Cool in tin for 20 mins and then remove to a cooling rack.


Serve warm with custard or ice cream, or eat cool as a slice.

This is a quick, cheap and easy dessert, which is a good alternative to apple pie or crumble, and everyone here really enjoyed it.

If I have one criticism, it is that the batter becomes a little 'leathery' and I wonder what would happen if self-raising flour were used instead. (Hopefully nothing too disastrous, as I'll be trying it next time!)

(for the self-raising flour version look here)

Ingredients:
500 g apples, peeled, cored, sliced
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp mixed spice and a shake of ground cinnamon

Big Jelly

This isn't a recipe, but it's something I make for family get-togethers.

I use a 3 litre Pyrex bowl, and buy six packets of jelly. I've found that lime and raspberry are the favourite flavours, so I always use two each of those, and add one or two other brightly-coloured flavours (here I used lemon/lime and orange).

I start the jelly at least one day before it's needed, by making up a double amount of one flavour (a total of 1 litre) and leave to set in the fridge. I prop a folded-up teatowel under one side to tilt it as this makes it look a little more interesting from the outside (mainly for me - I'm sure no-one else really notices!) - but for the last layer I allow it to sit flat so the top is even.


Every few hours, after each layer has set, I add the next layer until all the jelly is used.

A half-demolished Easter Sunday Big Jelly.

Caramel Crown Cake

This weekend I took up the Claytons Bloggers' challenge to 'Pimp that Biscuit' - and I decided to make a big Caramel Crown.

The Caramel Crown is one of my favourite bought biscuits. It has a crunchy base topped with a layer of caramel, and the whole thing is coated in milk chocolate. Mmmmm......

After much close inspection of the Caramel Crown - slicing, dissecting, tasting etc - it was decided that the base was a quite plain and not particularly sweet biscuit - so I decided to use packaged biscuits and crush them up.

I chose a reasonably plain type of biscuit - kind of like an oaty digestive - and crushed two packs of them finely. Then I melted 200 g butter and stirred it in.

I lined a 22 cm springform pan with baking paper, and then formed the cake base by pressing in the crumb and butter mixture, and moulding it into a shallow bowl shape.

The original biscuit has tiny bumps around the biscuit edge, but after a few unsuccessful attempts at copying this effect, I decided that particular feature wasn't very important (except that it's probably the reason the word 'crown' is in the biscuit's name. Never mind).

I cooked it for 15 minutes on 180 C and let it cool completely before removing it from the tin and putting it on the serving plate.

The Caramel Crown has a layer of caramel (as you would expect) and as I have very little experience at making that type of thing, I decided to cheat and use caramel topping from a tin.

To be more authentic, it would need a smooth, home-made caramel, like the caramel you find in Twix and Mars bars.

Annoyingly, for some reason I stopped taking step-by-step photos at this point, but after I filled the biscuit case with the caramel, I then melted a 200 g bar of cooking chocolate, let it cool for a while, and poured it over the caramel part of the cake. Then I melted another bar of chocolate, and when that had cooled and thickened a bit, I used it to pour and spread over the edges and sides.

Quite a lot of chocolate pooled around the biscuit base, but that was fine because I had put strips of baking paper under the sides that I could remove afterwards.

I put the cake in the fridge to set the chocolate, and when it was starting to firm up, I drew a few lines in the top in an attempt to copy the ridges on the top of the original Caramel Crowns.

Then when the chocolate was completely set, I trimmed around the pooled chocolate at the base with a sharp knife, in order to remove the baking paper strips.

I had timed my Caramel Crown Cake-making so that it could be my Number One Son's (15th) birthday cake but didn't want to stick candles in my creation. So I stuck them in two obliging Caramel Crowns instead.

After the singing and blowing out of the candles, the cake was whipped back into the kitchen and cut with a sharp knife to reveal the interior, which looked pretty much like the original. It tasted similar but not identical, was very sweet and very popular.

Ingredients:
400 g plain oatmeal biscuits
200 g unsalted butter
1 tin of top and fill caramel
400 g (approx) milk cooking chocolate (good quality)

Berry Sorbet

This was going to be Nectarine Sorbet, as I had some overripe nectarines that needed using - but when I went to cut them up I realized I'd waited too long and they had lost most of their taste. In the freezer I had some frozen mixed berries, so I used them instead.

Put 225 g sugar in a saucepan and add 150 ml water. Heat gently until sugar has dissolved.

When sugar has dissolved, increase heat and boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and allow to cool. (I forgot to boil the sugar and it worked out fine - although it took ages to freeze, so maybe this was why.)

Puree or blend about 450 g fruit and then seive to remove any seeds. Stir fruit into the cooled sugar.

I heated frozen mixed berries in a pan, mashed them up and then pushed them through a seive.

Make in an ice cream maker. I stood my sugar/fruit mixture in the freezer for a couple of hours to make sure it was totally cold, and then churned it in the ice cream maker. It wouldn't freeze convincingly, but after a night in the freezer it was perfect - not too soft, not too hard.

Delicious! A beautiful colour and intensely flavoured.

Ingredients:
225 g granulated sugar
150 ml water
450 g fruit

Mango Smoothie Ice Cream

I read about this very quick and easy way of making ice cream on the Claytons Blog, where Coby made a banana version. It uses sweetened condensed milk and doesn't need to be churned in an ice cream maker.

I made mine with mango instead, as it's pretty warm here at the moment, and mango is such a summery flavour. Coby said her children called theirs 'banana smoothie ice cream' which is a good name, so mine is 'mango smoothie ice cream'.

Put the condensed milk and cream in a large bowl, then mash up the mango with a fork and add that too.

Whisk it up really well with electric beaters. (This was very splattery, probably because of all the little lumps of mango.)

Pour into a container and freeze for several hours. Take it out of the freezer 15-20 minutes before serving, because it will probably be spoon-bendingly hard at first.

It's a pretty sweet ice cream - not really surprising when you think that condensed milk is one of the sweetest substances known to man.

Today, for some reason I decided it needed biscuits and melted dark chocolate, but they weren't necessary at all - it definitely doesn't need accompaniment.

Ingredients:
Flesh of 1 mango
400 g can of condensed milk (I used skim)
Enough cream to fill the empty condensed milk can (about 300 ml according to Coby)

Chocolate Raspberry Slice

I felt like eating something chocolatey today, and I wanted to make something new, so I tried this recipe, which is from the AWW. I halved all the ingredients because the original recipe was for selling at a fete or cake stall, and I wanted this just to be a little treat.

I really like chocolate recipes that use cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate. I find them less rich, cheaper to make, and you don't have to melt cocoa to use it. The biggest reason I prefer it though, is this: cocoa powder can sit in the cupboard for weeks and months for the moment when you need to make a chocolate cake, slice etc, and I don't think anyone's ever tempted to eat it - which can't be said for chocolate bars.

To make this slice, sift flour and cocoa into a bowl, stir in sugar and coconut, then mix in egg and melted butter until it's all well combined.

Press half the mixture in a lined 20 x 20 cm baking tray, using the back of a spoon and your hands. Cover with a layer of raspberry jam.

Cover this with the remaining mixture and spread over evenly. I could see this wasn't going to be very easy, so I crumbled the mixture evenly over the top and then gently pressed it all down with my fingers.

Cook at 170 C for about 40 minutes until firm.

While slice is still hot, make the icing by sifting icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl, then stirring in melted butter and a tbsp of hot water until you have a spreadable consistency. Add a few more drops of water if necessary.

Spread over the slice. I found there was only just enough to cover the whole thing, so doubling the icing recipe would make it easier to get a smoother topping. But I thought the finished slice had a good amount of icing, and it didn't seem skimpy.

Leave to cool in the pan, then cut into squares.

I had trouble taking a photo of these slices, as little hands wanted to reach in and take one. They were very popular with everyone (I especially like the crunchier corner slices) and they taste a little like Cherry Ripe bars in that they're a combination of chocolate, coconut and 'fruit'.

I know I'm going to be asked to make these again.

Ingredients:
150 g plain flour
25 g cocoa powder
180 g caster sugar
60 g desiccated coconut
1 egg
100 g butter, melted
85 g raspberry jam (I used about 4 heaped tsp)
Choc Icing:
80 g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
5 g butter, melted
1 tbsp boiling water, approx

(the above ingredients are for a 20 x 20 cm pan)

Strawberry and Cream Cake

My choice of birthday cake this time, and as it's summer, I thought it would be nice to have some summer fruit.

I'd never made this cake before - it's from Tessa Kiros' book 'Falling Cloudberries' where it's called 'Sipi's Strawberry Cake' - and as strawberries are delicious at the moment, I thought it might be a good time of year to make it.

In one bowl put the flour, sugar and 1 tsp of baking powder. Mix in the melted butter, milk and then add the egg yolks and beat in well.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, adding the remaining 2 tsp of baking powder as they start to become frothy.

Fold the egg whites into the cake mixture.

Pour the mixture into a 22 cm springform pan, greased and floured.

I lined the base with baking paper, too.

Cook at 180 C for about 1 hour until top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Let it cool in pan for a while and then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

When cool, cut in half horizontally with a long bread knife. Put base of cake on a serving plate.

This is where you can start filling and decorating the cake. The recipe said to wash and hull the strawberries, leaving a few with leaves if you like for the top.

Dice half the strawberries and put in a bowl with a tsp of lemon juice and a tbsp of the icing sugar. The other half you can use to decorate the top of the cake.

Whip up the cream into soft peaks with the rest of the icing sugar. Mix the chopped strawberries into a third of the cream and spread over the bottom of the cake (I put a layer of cream then the strawberries), then add the top of the cake and spread over the rest of the cream. Decorate with the remaining strawberries. And blueberries as they are very pretty and delicious!

Add candles, have everyone sing 'Happy Birthday' loudly, and then don't get to blow any candles out yourself because your children are so keen on helping. It's what it's all about.


This was a really lovely cake - a lot of that had to do with the fruit being so perfect, but the sponge was substantial and tasty - not a flimsy Victoria Sponge-type thing.

I only added 300 ml of cream to my cake and I thought it was plenty - Tessa Kiros uses 750 ml.

Ingredients:
sponge:
220 g plain flour
180 g sugar
3 tsp baking powder
180 g butter, melted
185 g milk, warm
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract

to decorate:
800 g strawberries (I used about 600 g)
1 tsp lemon juice
4 tbsp icing sugar
750 ml thick/double cream (I used a 300 ml tub)

Best eaten immediately but leftovers will keep well in refrigerator overnight.

One Bowl Chocolate Pudding

I've read about the mug chocolate cake before, and the other day I saw it on The Saucy Onion blog and decided to try it. Mine worked well, even though it overflowed.

Later that day I made another one, this time in a breakfast bowl using double the recipe, and it also worked well, and there was enough for all of us to have a little serve with cream.

Stir dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add eggs, oil, vanilla and milk...

...and blend together to make a batter.

Put in the microwave on high - mine took just under 3 minutes, but this will vary between ovens. (I checked mine after 2 mins and decided it could do with a little bit longer.)

A little unusual-looking, but it looks like the real thing when you scoop some out...

Not bad when you consider it took a bowl, a spoon, a few ingredients and 2 and a bit minutes in the microwave!

And really it's more of a pudding than a cake - you scoop some out and put it in a bowl rather than slicing it up.

Below are the ingredients for a small bowl; halve the amounts for a mug cake.

Ingredients:

8 tbsp plain flour

8 tbsp granulated sugar

4 tbsp cocoa

2 eggs

6 tbsp full-cream milk

4 tbsp olive oil

splash of vanilla essence