Third Birthday Cake

Little S turned three on Tuesday. He is crazy about cars / vehicles at the moment, so this year he clearly had to have a car for his birthday cake. I thought about a fire engine, but it seemed like you'd have to have the colour, shape, writing etc bang on for it to look recognizable, and I wanted to allow myself a bit more leeway.

So I went for a dumper truck. Still a favourite, still easily recognizable, still a truck - but could be any colour I want, no writing needed, and somehow felt like it would still look ok even if the shape went a bit wrong.

The cake was this one, baked in a loaf tin. I cut it into three pieces: about a third from one end to make the front part (standing on the cut side), all the rest except a couple of inches to make the back part, and then the last piece to cut into six wheel shapes. Then I shaped the front, cut out the hopper, shaped the wheel beds and evened out the wheels.

The icing was this one. Instead of cinnamon, I added a few different powders to colour it: the icing on the back part of the truck is with freeze-dried raspberry powder, the icing on the front part is with acai powder, and the icing on the wheels is with cocoa. I considered a few other powder (spirulina or matcha for green; turmeric for yellow), but then realized it took quite a lot of powder for a get much colour and I more wanted it to taste nice...

The decorations are: mango-coconut balls for the load and lights, dried kiwi slices for the wheels, and raspberry-apple fruit 'spaghetti' for the writing, window shapes and stripes on the back part. It would have been best presented straight after decorating, but it looked ok the next morning.

It tasted good but yet again I made a sage birthday cake that failed to rise properly (it rose beautifully, and then dropped a lot). This time I had even decided to follow a proper cake recipe to the word to prevent this... Oh well, the icing works!

And, most importantly, S liked it and recognized it as a dumper truck. He got a yellow dumper truck from the 1950s from my dad so it all fit together perfectly.

Mushroom pate

I had thought of making this mushroom pate for ages - it sounded simple and tasty. Then ended up with lots of nice fresh mushrooms, and it turns out that the baby loooovvvves mushrooms. Mushrooms are top of my list of foods I didn't expect him to like but he loves... He also likes cream cheese, so I figured it was time...

30 g butter
250 g mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
250 g cream cheese (used 125 g)
salt+pepper

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute until the mushrooms' moisture has been released and reabsorbed and they are nicely browned. Leave to cool.

Scrape the mushroom mix into a blender and blend up. Add the cream cheese and mix. Season to taste then let cool completely. Ideally refrigerate for at least an hour.


And yes, the small one is well into it.

Blue+white pizza with apple, walnuts and rosemary

When the fridge gets emptier, my cooking often gets better and more creative... The other day saw the highly serendipitous meeting of the last  tub of cream cheese I didn’t use for sage’s birthday cake with rosemary and apple from our veg bag and a handful of the last of our 2018 walnut harvest... and some gorgonzola for good measure... It was rather a successful experiment!

(makes 2 pizzas)

1 quantity pizza dough (must be made in advance)
1 tub cream cheese
c 1/2 cup diced gorgonzola
1 large apple (Belle de Boskoop), cored and thinly sliced
handful of walnuts
c 1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

Roll out half the dough, using some flour, and transfer to a baking sheet. Repeat with the other half. Prepare a white sauce by mashing the gorgonzola together with the cream cheese, and then spread it evenly over the two bases. Arrange the apple slices across the pizza bases, then sprinkle with walnut pieces and chopped rosemary. Bake for 20-25 min until done, take out of the oven and let cool for a few minutes before eating.


We made this twice, and the second time I did a little variation, using thinly sliced superfresh chestnut mushrooms instead of apple, and that was really good too. And then we started speculating about all sorts of other fruits and veggies that would be good in this combo instead of apple - figs? thin potato slices? etc...

Sage's First Birthday Cake (cinnamon-cream cheese icing)

We had a party for Sage's first birthday! I made a huge banana cake as a sheet cake. I wanted to make it without refined sugar, not really sure why it just felt like the right thing to do. I used this recipe (without nuts or chocolate, and using maple syrup instead of honey) as (1) I'd tried it before and (2) I remembered it being delicious. Something went wrong though - either I didn't use enough raising agent or it was just not the kind of thing that scales well... because it was pretty solid. Tasted OK though, and the small one seemed to like it! I made a cream cheese and cinnamon icing, which is usually where I go wrong - improvising the icing - but this time that part was the successful part...

Basic icing:
3/4 pack of butter, softened
3 tubs cream cheese, at room temp
c 3 tbsp maple sugar (ground up maple candy)
2 tsp ground cinnamon

For cake decoration: 
pumpkin seed butter
fresh raspberries and blueberries

Cream butter, then beat together with the cream cheese, maple sugar and cinnamon. Chill until needed.

To decorate, I mixed about 3/4 cup of the icing with some pumpkin seed butter to make it green (didn't come out as bright as I'd have liked but never mind). Then iced the cake with the non green icing, piped the words and stars with the green stuff, and added raspberries and blueberries.

Cajun spiced potato wedges with dilly cream cheese dip

These were an afterthought - I had the oven on to make roasted brussels sprouts with birch syrup, and thought I may as well root through the fridge and see what else I could bung in the oven while I was at it. I found potatoes.

For the potato wedges:
3-4 medium-large potatoes
pinch of salt
~1 tbsp cajun spice mix (mostly paprika I think)
1-2 tbsp olive oil

For the dip:
~5 tbsp vegan cream cheese
juice of one small lime
~1 tbsp chopped fresh dill (or chives)
pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 400F. Wash (don't peel) the potatoes, trim off any dodgy bits, and cut into regularly-sized wedges. Toss the wedges with the salt, cajun spice and olive oil, then lay out on a baking tray, if possible with a skin side down. Put in the oven and bake for ~20 min, then take out and turn, checking they are golden underneath, and put back in for another 15-20 min. Let cool for a few minutes before eating.

While the potatoes are cooking, make the dip. Beat together the cream cheese, lime juice, dill and salt in a small bowl.


Really simple and good - these disappeared like lightning when S found them. The dip really made them (nb it is just as good although different with chives instead of dill... and TJs vegan cream cheese is so very surprisingly good).

Coffee and walnut cake (S's birthday)

I had been saving these coffee granules ready for a cake for S for ages. It's his birthday tomorrow, coffee and nuts for his cake is perfect (I hope) - I wanted to make a classic coffee and walnut cake and make it as good as I could. For the cake part I used approximately this recipe (ramping up the coffee but no other real changes), then I added syrup.

I thought I'd try a cream cheese icing, inspired by Delia's coffee and walnut cake and by the icing Seb made for my birthday cake (at which time I discovered that Trader Joe's carries vegan cream cheese and it really isn't that bad - doesn't even have palm oil in it).

For the cake:
1 cup fake milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
1¼ cups plain flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
⅓ cup veg oil
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp coffee granules dissolved in 2 tsp hot water
¼ tsp vanilla essence
¼ cup walnut pieces

For the syrup:
1 tsp coffee granules
2/3 oz demerara sugar
28 ml boiling water

For the icing:
2 packages (~500g total) vegan cream cheese
2 heaped tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp powdered coffee granules
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp cider vinegar

To decorate:
More walnut pieces plus 10 walnut halves, toasted

Heat oven to 350F. Line the bases of two cake tins. Mix the fake milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle.

In a medium bowl, beat together the fake milk mixture, oil, sugar, coffee and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, bicarb, and salt with a fork. Add wet to dry and mix until no large lumps remain, adding the walnut pieces in the final few strokes. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake for ~30 min.

While the cakes bake you can make the syrup - put the sugar and coffee in a small bowl or mug, pour the boiling water over and mix until the sugar and coffee are dissolved. When the cakes come out of the oven, while they are still hot, prick all over with a skewer and then spoon the syrup evenly over the surface. Leave to cool.

While the cakes cool you can make the icing. Put the cream cheese, powdered coffee granules (I crushed them in small pestle and mortar) and sugar in a bowl and beat together. Taste and add maple syrup, cider vinegar and/or some fake milk if you feel like it needs more sweetness or acidity, and until a good spreading texture is obtained. Refrigerate until needed (if you're not planning to assemble as soon as the cakes are cool).

Bring the icing to room temperature before assembling the cake. Take the cooled cakes out of the tins and strip off the backing papers. Place one on a plate, spread with ~ half the icing and sprinkle with some toasted walnut pieces. Then put the other cake on top, spread the rest of the icing over it, and arrange the walnut halves on top. I used the finer walnut crumbs to make the letter S on top too. Keep refrigerated if not eating right away.


At first I thought the cake layers were a bit thin, but by the time I'd piled them up with the icing and toasted nuts it ended up as a good total cake thickness, so perhaps not (although, final word, would probably increase cake recipe by half as much again if making again). The icing I thought was very successful - nice soft brown colour, good creamy consistency that sat up well by itself, not too sweet. So I was happy using more than usual to layer up the cake as it didn't overpower with sweetness or drip off the edges. Instead, it provided a definite coffee hit to mix in with the toasty walnut flavour. All in all, a pretty successful birthday cake - definitely suitable for breakfast (when we always end up eating birthday cake) as it is loaded with coffee and not very sweet! One thing: I think both the syrup and the addition of walnuts to the cake batter are perhaps not really necessary and the cake would probably be just as good without.

Christmas: Lion's Mane 'crab' cakes

A gave me a bag full of Lion's Mane for my birthday. A very thoughtful (and tasty) present. I managed to take it home with me from the party (after rescuing from a drunken food-marauder), and then decided it was appropriately fancy to become part of our Christmas meal.

When I cooked it previously I wasn't too enamoured of the texture of it just sauteed. Also, this bagful was quite wet. So roasting seemed to be a smart place to start. Then I remembered seeing that Mycoterra Farm (who grew them) often use them to make 'crab' cakes. So I looked up a recipe and thought this one (and this one) sounded like exactly the right kind of thing.

(makes six little cakes)

To roast:
200-400g (approx 1/2 lb) Lion's Mane
~2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
salt+pepper

Rest of the cake ingredients:
2 tbsp vegan mayonnaise (used vegan cream cheese as we had some leftover from the birthday cake S made me)
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 egg*
~ 1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp paprika
~ 2 tsp lemon juice
salt and pepper

coconut oil for frying

For the sauce:
3 tbsp vegan cream cheese (or vegan mayonnaise - reduce the lemon juice a bit if using)
1 tsp olive oil
1-2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp white pepper
~1 tbsp cider vinegar
pea-sized blob of wasabi
few drops hot sauce
~1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 350F. Tear the Lion's Mane into little pieces and put in a roasting dish. Add the whole garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and pepper and roast for 30-40 min, until the garlic is cooked, much of the liquid has evaporated, and the mushroom is brown. Remove from the oven.

While the mushroom is in the oven you can make the sauce - mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl with a fork. Taste for salt, pepper and acid and check consistency.

Mix the Lion's Mane (and roasted garlic - be sure to chop and/or mash up so it can spread through the mixture) together with the remaining cake ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Shape into little round burger shapes.  Heat coconut oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the cakes until browned on both sides. Eat while hot.


These were quite successful. S really liked them (especially the sauce), and while the total prep might be a bit much for an average day, the roasting method seemed to be a good way of cooking the Lion's Mane - better than sauteeing.

*think linseed-water mixture would be a fine vegan substitute