A Rather Red Loaf Cake - Random Recipes

For random recipe this month Dom is celebrating his second blog anniversary - Happy Blogiversary Dom! And so he has asked us to bake a cake to help him celebrate.

One of my more recent purchases (thanks to Sainsbury's having the 'My Kitchen Table' series of books (of which I have a few now...) for only £3.99 each) was Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes. Having watched a number of bakers participating in Amy's Weekly Bake Off I was suitably inspired to purchase the book when I saw it, having seen the success that other people have had with various of the recipes. 

And I've not been disappointed! The book is full of basic (but solid, reliable) recipes - the ones every baker should have in their repertoire - Victoria Sponge, Cupcakes, Coffee and Walnut Cake, Banana loaves and many, many more. It's my kind of baking - simply, straightforward and down to earth. The decoration isn't usually piled high and OTT, but is suited to the cakes in the book and many of them lend themselves to sharing with work colleagues, which is usually where most of my cakes end up! There are also lots of twists on classic cakes too - I would recommend this handy little book!

So it makes sense that the random reaching of my hand found this book - it has been close by for a while now. And the page that was opened was for Iced Apricot Fruit Loaf, on page 90-91. As is sometimes the nature of random choices I didn't want to use the fruit specified and so adapted the recipe slightly. It is still Mary's recipe so I won't be reproducing it here, but will note for my reference that the 75g of cherries specified became 60g and the 100g of chopped ready to eat dried apricots and 150g sultanas morphed magically into 100g dried cranberries and 100g raisins and the specified self raising flour was replaced with 175g plain flour and 1 3/4tsp baking powder.

I am always dubious when I see recipes stating that a 2lb loaf cake will be cooked in 40 minutes or so, and was relieved that Mary's instructions are to bake for 1hr 10 minutes, by which time the cake was cooked. You might want to check at an hour though. 

I was really pleased with the way this cake turned out. It was juicy and moist (I had been worried by the picture that accompanies the recipe as it looks a little dry to me) and perhaps most surprisingly tasted quite strongly of glace cherries. Given that only 60g had gone into the whole cake, and I'm sure there wasn't a bit in each mouthful, the taste was quite prominent. I hasten to add that this wasn't a problem at all - I like glace cherries! So with all of my red fruit substitutions this isn't quite Mary's recipe, but it turned out well. I'm not quite sure that it's a birthday cake, but I hope you enjoy this submission anyway Dom!

I'm sure there will be more cakes from this book appearing in my life (and probably this blog...) quite soon.

Chocolate Ricotta Scones - We Should Cocoa

Chocolate and Cheese - mmm, yes please?! This months We Should Cocoa challenge, set by Choclette of Choc Log Blog is to make something both chocolate-y and cheesey. And not cheesey as in just-a-bit-naff kind of cheesey. My first thought was chocolate cheesecake - yum! but I decided I was in a contrary mood and didn't want to go for something obvious.

My next thought was my rather lovely book Adventures with Chocolate by Paul A. Young. I really, really must start making things out of this book, because there are so many interesting recipes in there - really different too. Quite a few would have worked for this month's challenge too - Savoury sandwich ganache, Goat's cheese and lemon ganache, Sweet chocolate pesto or Dark chocolate and chilli gnocchi, with mascarpone and pecorino. I wish I were more adventurous!!!

However, I am delighted to present you with these rather gorgeous scones instead. They are based on my favourite recipe (original can be found here) and I have made them over and over again in a number of forms. This one obviously contains chocolate! My chocolate of choice here is something rather bitter - an 85% (I usually use Lindt) because it contrasts so well with the sweet sugar topping of the scone and the moist interior. I love biting down on a little piece of chocolate heaven.

An added bonus is that these are pretty easy and fairly quick to make, which is perfect when you're running out of time....

Chocolate Ricotta Scones
Ingredients
175g ricotta
100g caster sugar
200g self raising flour
50g butter
1-2tbsp milk
40g 85% cocoa solid chocolate, chopped
demerara sugar to sprinkle
I sometimes add a little vanilla extract too if I remember, which is always good.

I use the method detailed here so won't reproduce it again. However, when it comes to shaping the scones, I make a long rectangle, and mark into 10 scones because this suits my purposes better.

Perhaps not the most ground breaking introduction to the cheese and chocolate combo, but because these scones are just so delicious I keep on coming back to them again and again - soft, moist, crunchy with sugar and those little nuggets of bitter chocolate hiding from you in the midst of it all. Bliss is a chocolate ricotta scone!

Soft Wholemeal Loaf

I suppose you could say this loaf has been a long time in the making. Not, I hasten to add, because it takes an excessively long time to make (although this is no bad thing with bread) but because it is another step on my bread making journey.

There wasn't really very much bread on the blog prior to the autumn of 2009, and the few bread recipes I did post weren't all that great. These Spelt and Rosemary Rolls looked fine, but my memory of them is that they were rather denser than I wanted, and the crust rather chewy. I didn't make all that much bread. Around that time I think I started to make more successful bread by following Dan Lepard's recipes and reading the comments people were making on his forums. I can't say everything was always delicious or always 100% successful, but the loaves started to be good enough that I didn't really want to buy bread any more. Occasionally I ran out of mine, or spotted something in the shops I fancied, and then I bought it.

My bread making has come a long way since then and I rarely buy bread now - I am lucky enough to have time to make my own. I've picked up all sorts of tips and tricks that allow me to create the bread I want - soft, substantial, white, grainy, sourdough (well, that's very much a work in progress) I can now often (but not always) get the outcome I want. And I often know why something hasn't worked too, or can think how to tweak it. It always seems to me that it takes an age to acquire a skill, and when I look at other people's blogs with their fantastic photography and wonderful loaves I wonder why it seems to take so long for me to improve. I guess partly I'm hampered by lack of practice - I balance the bread I bake with the bread I eat and don't have hoards of people munching through my loaves to afford me more practicing space (I'm sure many of you would be grateful to have your bread last a few days without needing to rebake!).

So anyway, this loaf is a combination of many things, and it didn't turn out perfectly (it was a little soft and didn't rise up as much as I would have liked, more outwards). But when I look back on where I've come from with bread, this is a million miles from how I started.

Wholemeal, Oat and Mixed Flour Loaf

Ingredients

40g rolled oats

200g very strong white flour

150g wholegrain flours (I used about 130g wholemeal spelt, with about 10g wholemeal rye and 10g wholemeal, just because I wanted to use up odds and ends)

1 tsp salt

1 generous tsp fast action yeast

Method

- Pour 300ml boiling water over the porridge oats in a large bowl. Cover with clingfilm and leave to cool until comfortable to the touch.

- Add the flours, salt and yeast and mix to a soft dough.

- Leave for around 10 minutes and then gently and briefly knead the dough.

- You can repeat this kneading if you want, a couple more times at short intervals (10-20 minutes) but I don't think I did this time.

- Leave the dough until it has risen appreciably. Knead briefly and then form into your desired shape. I chose a baton/torpedo type shape.

- Leave to proove again until risen, but not doubled. (I think this is where I went wrong - the oven was occupied and the dough had to be left out too long. I was itching to get it into the oven, but there was a partially baked cake in there. Such is life)

- During this time, preheat the oven (if not already being occupied by a cake) to Gas 7/220C.

- Steam the oven, slash the loaf and bake at 220C for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 200C/Gas 6 and bake for a further 30 minutes then turn upside down and bake for 10 minutes more.

- Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing and enjoying.

This is one of the softest wholemeal breads I have made. The oats aren't a noticeable flavour at all (in fact I forgot they were there until I found a little piece of oat husk in my sandwich one day!) but provide moisture to the loaf (and some added fibre). Soft and delicious yet substantial too. Great for lunchtime sandwiches.

A lot still to learn, with baker's yeast and without, but if all my bread along the way can be this tasty I am happy to plod along at my own pace.

Honey spice 'Hun-ger' cake

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (from now referred to as HFW) is well known in the UK. He has a River Cottage 'empire' and a regular column in the Guardian. He has campaigned on a number of important issues (Chicken Out!, Hugh's Fish Fight among other) and has a number of books too. But this cake isn't really all that much to do with HFW. There is a series of River Cottage 'Handbooks' published by Bloomsbury, of which I have a couple. The one that this recipe came from is 'Cakes' by Pam Corbin. Pam appears to be a very talented lady; the other book I have by her is the 'Preserves' book of the same series - her nickname is 'Pam the jam'. You can find out a little more about Pam here and here.

The cake came about because I was browsing simultaneously through my (very disorganised, overflowing) cupboards and the aforementioned Cakes book. The unopened jar of honey and the recipe for a spiced honey cake coincided and this cake was baked. You may think this is a slight simplification of the process, and indeed it is, but this cake really isn't all that difficult to put together. Pam notes that it is a family filler type of cake from the 1950s remembered by her friend as a 'beach and picnic' type of cake. I love the Enid Blyton scene that this creates in my mind - jolly outings where the family pile into the car, Father driving, Mother supervising and children excitedley chattering in the back seats. No seatbelts of course. It's the kind of cake you can imagine being handed out after exploring the woods, swimming in a river and having fish paste sandwiches. Easy to make and easy to eat.

This is a lovely old-fashioned cake, the honey combining with ginger and helped along by a little cinnamon and a pinch of cloves. The yogurt in the cake makes it light and moist (I used full fat Greek yogurt as this is what I had in the fridge, but I think in future I'd just use a normal or low fat standard plain yogurt). Pam notes that the cake keeps well in an airtight container for a couple of weeks, which makes it handy to have around for if you are expecting visitors but don't know how long they'll stay or how much cake they'll eat, or for if you need to provide cake on a Thursday but need to bake on Sunday.

Light, fairly moist and with a more complex spicy flavour than just ginger, I have to admit that I couldn't really taste the honey in the cake, but it was delicious all the same.

I have also submitted this cake to Jac's Bookmarked Recipes event. It was bookmarked from Pam Corbin's  'Cake'.

Dark Chocolate Cake with Plums

Ah Chocolate Cake, I am forever seeking a new variation on the most desirable of cakes. This one came about because I wanted to try a recipe with a higher proportion of flour than normal, in the hopes that it would support the weight of a fruity topping. As you can see I am able to confirm that it did :-)

Dark Chocolate Cake with Plums
Ingredients
120g butter, softened
120g caster sugar
160g self raising flour
20g cocoa powder
2 eggs
40g 85% cocoa chocolate, chopped into little chunks
2 large plums

Method
- Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Grease and base line a deep 7"/18cm tin. I used my new PushPan from Lakeland.
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the flour, cocoa powder and eggs and beat until well combined.
- Fold in the chocolate chunks.
- Spoon into the tin (it will be quite stiff) and level. Slice the plums finely and arrange neatly on the top of the cake.
- Bake the cake for around 35-40 minutes (but here my notebook fails me, these timings are from memory - the cake may need a little longer).
- Allow to cool a little before removing from the tin.
- Enjoy!

In all, a pretty delicious cake. It would be lovely served warm for dessert with some warm plum compote and a scoop of creme fraiche, but it was pretty good just eaten as it was for afternoon tea. As you'd expect the cake didn't taste of plums but they made for a good textural contrast to the top of the cake, and looked attractive too. The cake itself was soft and inviting, and the chocolate chips were well dispersed through the cake mixture. Biting down on a little piece of 85% cocoa chocolate in a cake is my idea of pleasure, so it was an excellent addition to the cake. Mmmm, chocolate cake!