8th Birthday: Strawberry-Chocolate 'The Battle Cats' Tiered Cake

For s's 8th birthday, he requested this as his birthday cake. It is from a computer game called 'The Battle Cats'. He also dressed up as a Battle Cat for Halloween, and we made AI-generated trampolining Battle Cats for his birthday invitations (his birthday party was at a trampoline park, with all the boys from his class)...

I've never made a tiered cake before, so this is definitely a challenge! But at least it looks like an actual cake. And I'm hoping if I get the cat and dog figures right, it'll be a hit...  

I decided to make three tiers - odd numbers are always good, and this seemed like the minimum to make it look legit. Five seemed like a bit much for a first attempt... and would also have been way too much cake! It definitely has to involve two different types of cake (looks like strawberry and chocolate); and two different colours of icing (pink in the chocolate cake and white everywhere else). It looks like there is cream on top of each tier, but (1) I hate cream and (2) it wouldn't keep or travel at all - so I wondered about trying a cream cheese based icing instead, and putting some pink in some of it for the pink icing. The cat and dog shapes and the orange base cake will involve fondant (white, black and orange). And then there are the extras: a gold number 8, a red and gold bow, a gold bell, white candles, strawberries, and white mini meringues.

I only had one round springform cake tin (c. 21 cm in diameter), and I didn't really want to buy more. I also wanted this to be the bottom/biggest tier, as I didn't want to end up with tons of cake. I used foil and string to make a mini (8.5 cm diameter) cake tin from two crumpet rings stacked one on top of the other - for the top tier. And decided the middle tier should be c. 15 cm diameter to look right, and that I would bake it in my 21 cm diameter tin and then cut down to size. The bottom and top tiers are strawberry cake, and the middle tier is chocolate cake.

For the strawberry cake, I remembered that the mango cake I made for s's birthday last year was based on a strawberry cake recipe, and it worked quite well - so I used that one.

For the chocolate cake, my friend H who makes excellent cakes suggested this Ottolenghi cake. Initially I thought it sounded delicious for adults but perhaps a bad idea for kids as it is quite dark and had lots of coffee in it... but then had a double brainwave: (i) I could use decaf! and (2) the kids will already have plenty with the rest of the cake, perhaps I should just make what I like the sound of! Also, it looked like a good colour and texture.

For the icing, I started out with this cream cheese frosting recipe. 

 I made three online orders of specialist items in advance:

1) From a raw food shop: freeze-dried strawberry powder (for the strawberry cake and icing), freeze-dried strawberry slices (for the sliced strawberry decorations - winter strawberries are awful and fresh ones wouldn't have kept). 

2) From a Christmas shop: wide red and gold ribbon with wire in it (to make the bow), a little gold-coloured bell (I also bought some Christmas crackers for Christmastime!). 

3) From a baking shop: orange fondant (which turned out to be hard and no use), pack of 10 white birthday candles with white holders (used 8), a gold glittery number 8 candle, some cake dowels (to assuage my fear of tiers - I think robust plastic straws e.g. bubble tea straws or reusable plastic ones would also have been OK), some cake boards (needed 2, cut to size - for the top and middle tiers).

Then I also did a big Føtex (our nearest big grocery store) shop that included: black fondant, white fondant, orange food colouring, unsalted butter, mini meringues, and the rest of the cake ingredients.

Also in advance of starting to bake, I improvised a base board - I used a round wooden board that was just the right size (approx. 24 cm diameter), and then used four blobs of sticky tack and four Lego pieces to make little cylindrical feet about a centimetre high. This felt like an optional extra at the time, but actually was probably essential as the board was strong enough to carry the cake (which was quite heavy when done); and the feet allowed me to pick it up easily. It also made it look more like the pic! I

I made the cake over 1 1/2 days (nb it also took most of a day before that to work out everything I needed from Føtex and do the grocery shopping). On Day 1, I made the strawberry cakes and baked them in the morning; then took a lunch break, then made the chocolate cake and the icings in the afternoon. On Day 2, I assembled the cake and made the decorations (the cat and dog characters, and the bow).

For the strawberry cake (bottom and top layers):

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature before you begin.

10 oz / 283.5 g plain flour 

1 oz freeze dried strawberry powder  

1 ½ tsp baking powder 

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 

8 oz unsalted butter, room temp

½ tsp salt 

10 oz granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract 

zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp strawberry extract (did not have - used 1 tsp strawberry-lime juice instead)

6 egg whites, room temp (I bought the pre-separated egg whites for the first time for this, and was glad)

8 oz milk, room temp (used oat milk)

2 oz vegetable oil 

1 drop pink food colouring 

1 drop red food colouring

For the chocolate cake (middle layer):

8.8 oz / 250 g unsalted butter, room temp, cut into 1 cm cubes, plus extra for greasing

7 oz / 200 g dark (70%) chocolate, chopped into 2 cm pieces

1 tsp instant coffee (I used decaf), dissolved in 350 ml boiling water

8.8 oz / 250 g granulated sugar

2 large eggs, room temp, lightly beaten

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

8.5 oz / 240 g self-raising flour (used plain flour, including 3 generous tsp baking powder)

1 oz / 30 g cocoa powder

pinch of salt 

For the icing:

8 oz / 227 g 1 cup cream cheese, room temp

4 oz / 114 g / 1/2 cup salted butter, room temp

1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract

12.7 oz / 360 g / 3 cups icing sugar, sifted*

freeze dried strawberry powder

 

*I ended up using more. 

 

For the decoration and assembly:

1 pack black fondant icing

1 pack white fondant icing

1 pack orange fondant icing (nb the orange fondant icing I bought was bad so I coloured some white fondant with orange gel food colouring instead)

freeze-dried strawberry slices

white mini meringues

8 white birthday candles with white holders 

1 number '8' gold glittery birthday candle

Wide red and gold wired ribbon for the bow

Little gold-coloured bell

1 robust base board (the assembled cake was quite heavy) - used a round wooden chopping board with improvised feet - see explanation above.

2 cardboard cake boards (for the middle and top layers) - I drew circles on rectangular boards using the trimmed cake sizes and a compass, then cut down to size - slightly small is good, then they are easier to hide - I also cut a c. 1 cm diameter circular (ish) hole in the middle of each one so I could poke a dowel down the middle for max stability when assembled.

9 cake dowels (these are basically thick plastic straws - bubble tea straws seem to be recommended) - 4 for the bottom layer, 4 for the middle layer, and one longer, more robust one to go all the way down the middle.

To make the strawberry cake: Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. Prepare your cake tins by greasing and lining with baking paper. I used one 21 cm round springform tin (bottom layer), and one improvised 8.5 cm tin (top layer). Place an oven rack in the middle position and heat the oven to 350ºF/176ºC. Put the butter in a large bowl and beat until smooth and shiny. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar, and beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white. Add the egg whites approx. two at a time, beating in between. Whisk the flour, strawberry powder, baking powder, bicarb, salt, and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Combine the milk, oil, vanilla extract, strawberry extract (or juice) and food colouring in a separate medium bowl. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to butter mixture, followed immediately by about a third of the milk mixture, then mix until almost incorporated. Repeat two more times. When the batter appears blended, stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Divide the batter between the prepared tins so that it comes up to the same height in both. Smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. Bake cakes until they feel firm in the centre and a skewer comes out clean or with just a few crumbs on it - about 35-40 min for the big cake (or a little bit longer), and about 22 min for the small cake (or a little longer). Transfer tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 min. Invert cakes onto the rack and pop cakes out of tins. Cool completely before assembling and icing. When completely cool, keep covered in a chiller until ready to assemble.  

To make the chocolate cake:

Heat oven to 170°C/150°C fan-forced. Grease the same 21 cm round springform pan as used for the strawberry cake with butter, and line with baking paper.

Place the butter, chocolate and hot coffee in a large heatproof bowl and mix well until everything is melted, combined and smooth. Whisk in sugar by hand until dissolved. Add eggs and vanilla extract and whisk again until thoroughly combined and smooth. Sift flour, cocoa powder and a pinch of salt together into a medium bowl, then whisk into the melted chocolate mixture until smooth. Batter will be liquid, but don’t think you’ve missed something; this is how it should be.

Pour batter into the prepared tin, tapping the base of the tin to remove air bubbles, and bake for 50-60 min, until cake is cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean or with just a few dry crumbs attached. The top will form a crust and crack a little, but don’t worry, this is expected. Leave the cake to cool on a wire rack for 20 min before removing from tin, then set aside on wire rack until completely cool. 

When completely cool, keep covered in a chiller until ready to assemble. 

To make the icing:

Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together until creamy and well blended, with no lumps. 

Add the vanilla. Then add one cup of icing sugar at a time, beating gently at first, until each addition is completely incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to incorporate it all. Then beat hard to combine. 

At this point I realised that it was way less firm than normal buttercream, looked up a normal buttercream recipe and realised what it needed was a lot more icing sugar...

Split the mixture - most of it should stay white (for sandwiching the strawberry cake and making the white cream-looking stuff, but a bit should be pink for sandwiching the chocolate cake. To the white mix, I added about one more cup of icing sugar to make a sufficiently firm texture. To the pink mix, I added some freeze dried strawberry powder, a few drops pink food colouring, and some icing sugar, until it reached a similar texture to the white icing.

Store in the fridge until ready to assemble. 

To assemble and decorate:  

Trim all three cakes so that they are flat on top and about the same height. Trim around the edge of the top one so you can see the contents. Trim the middle (chocolate) one until it is a circle approx. 15 cm diameter. Cut the bottom cake horizontally through the middle and sandwich with white icing. Cut the chocolate cake horizontally through the middle and sandwich with pink icing. Cut the top cake horizontally through the middle twice, and sandwich with white icing.

Smear some icing on the base board and then stick the big cake on it. Put some icing around the edges to help stick on the fondant around the outside. Roll out the orange fondant to about 2 mm thick, and wrap it as neatly and smoothly around the base cake as you can, trimming as needed.. I need to work on smooth fondant application!

Push 4 cake dowels into the cake within the area where the next layer will sit, then trim them so their height is just below the top of the cake. Cover the top of the bottom tier with a generous layer of white icing, so it looks a bit like the cream in the pic.

Put some icing on the medium sized cake board, then stick down the middle (chocolate) cake. Place it carefully in the centre of the bottom tier. Push 4 cake dowels into the cake within the area where the next tier will sit, then trim them so their height is just below the top of the cake. Cover the top of the middle tier with a generous layer of white icing, so it looks a bit like the cream in the pic.

Put the top cake on its cake board, sticking it down with icing as for the other two. Place it carefully in the centre of the middle tier. Push a long cake dowel down the middle of all the tiers until it hits the bottom board, then trim. Cover the top of the top tier with a generous layer of white icing, so it looks a bit like the cream in the pic.

Now make the cat and dog figures. I waited until now so I could see how big they needed to be to fit properly on the assembled cake. Roll out white fondant on a clean surface until c. 2 mm thick, then cut out the shapes with a sharp knife. Make their features with black fondant and press into place. Apply the shapes to the cake in the right places, using icing as glue. 

Make the bow with the wired ribbon and tie it around the stalk of the '8' candle along with the bell, to look like the picture.

Stick the bow+8 assembly in place on top, then put white mini meringues, freeze dried strawberry slices, and white candles in place around the cake to resemble the picture.

For transport, I found a transparent plastic storage box with a flat, separate lid. I put the cake on the lid, taped on a cushion out of bubble wrap to keep it in place, then covered with the box and taped that in place with gaffa tape. It worked - the cake survived the journey to the trampoline park in good shape!

Notes: If making the strawberry cake again, put more food colouring in - the batter was nice and pink, but after baking the cake wasn’t pink enough. I need to work out how to apply fondant so it comes out nice and smooth (I think a crumb coat and a flat-edged tool?). The chocolate cake was yum and I kind of want to try the whole Ottolenghi recipe with ganache and all. Probably the most delicious part of the whole cake was the improvised strawberry icing! The kids did not like the chocolate cake but the strawberry cake went down quite well (despite the cake looking a mess once sliced). I am not sure whether all the boards and dowels were necessary, but the cake did survive two rounds of birthday singing and transport beautifully, and it would have been a mega bummer if it didn’t after all that work…

Baked donuts with raspberry icing

This morning, little s suddenly started talking about donuts. I have no idea why - I am pretty sure he has never eaten and probably never even seen a donut.

I'm not a donut fan, but we ended up agreeing that we would make some. I looked for a recipe while he napped. No way was I going to deep fry anything (it's so stinky), so I looked for a baked donut. Went with this one, but halved it. And did a raspberry-cream cheese glaze with desiccated coconut sprinkles.

Improvised a donut tin by molding little squares of foil around my finger and then pressing them into a muffin tin so the finger stuck up in the middle.

(makes 12 small ones)

For the donuts:

26 g butter

25 g veg oil

48 g sugar

35 g brown sugar

1 egg

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla powder

159 g flour

113 g milk 

 

For the decoration:

c. 6 frozen raspberries, microwaved for 20 sec to defrost and smushed with a fork

c. 4 tbsp icing sugar with vanilla

c 2 tbsp cream cheese

2-3 tbsp desiccated coconut

 

Heat oven to 220C (425F). Grease the 'donut tin' lightly with oil. In a medium bowl, beat together butter, oil, sugars until smooth. Add egg, beat to combine. Stir in baking powder, bicarb, nutmeg, salt and vanilla. Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk (start and end with flour). Batter will be thick - wooden spoon should leave a furrow. Spoon batter into the tin, leaving about 1/4 inch of the finger sticking up. Bake for 10 min. Take out of the oven and wait c. 5 min before turning out, peeling / pulling off/out the foil.

While the donuts bake, prepare the icing. Make sure there are no lumps in the icing sugar, then put it in a small bowl and beat in the raspberries. Beat in the cream cheese. Check the consistency and colour is as you want it. This only made a little - enough to ice about the top third of each donut.

After removing the foil, check the holes are still intact. I iced the bottoms of the 'donuts' because they looked neater. Ice the donuts while still warm, right after turning them out. I spread it out with a teaspoon. When the icing is on, sprinkle with desiccated coconut (toasted if you wish). Let cool or eat while still warm.

These are very cute. They didn't look great when I took them out the oven as the batter rose too much and engulfed the fingers (ideally make them stick up higher than the tin!), but I cut the holes back into the side they were missing, and the donuts survived the operation pretty good, and then the icing and sprinkles and holes made them look quite legit (if tiny). 

 

They aren't all that much like donuts, although they looked the part - not yeasted or deep fried. But that's fine with me; and they taste pretty good - the spices and brown sugar make for a tasty batter, and the raspberry goes pretty well with that. Wonder how well they will keep (we ate about half for dessert but the rest are kept til tomorrow).

Hummingbird 40th birthday balloon cake

Oh my oh my S is 40 today! As his birthday present he got to pick me up from an overnight stay in hospital... But he also gets a cake! I was thinking of doing a good old coffee and walnut cake, but that seemed a bit unoriginal, plus we'd run out of garden walnuts and I couldn't find any in Lidl and it just felt like the world was telling me I should try something different... So anyway, I wanted to use pecans instead, and was dreaming about good combinations with pecan - cinnamon seemed like a good fit... something creamy... maybe caramelly... Then I stumbled across a Hummingbird cake, and wondered why I'd never tried it - with pineapple, pecans, cinnamon, banana, sounds like just our kind of thing (S has a long running pineapple juice addiction). It's apparently a Southern (USA) thing, but I felt like a Europeanized recipe might work best for us... In the end I decided to follow the Hummingbird Bakery recipe (the name match seemed too good, plus they gave weights for the fruit so I hoped it'd be foolproof) - although it had a bit less pineapple than other recipes I looked at, maybe more pineapple would be nice... And I freestyled some mascarpone icing, with Jamie Oliver inspired lime zest in it... And some appropriate decoration: it's supposed to look like 4 and 0 balloons: since there's also a balloon card and a baby who loves balloons around, a theme emerged... I made the cake and icing a couple of days ago and stored the cake wrapped in clingfilm and the icing in a tub in the fridge ready to assemble today.

For the cake:
270 g peeled bananas, mashed (approx 3 large bananas)
300 g caster sugar (used golden sugar, blended up a little to make it more caster-y)
3 eggs
300 ml sunflower oil
1 tsp cinnamon
250 g flour
50 g desiccated coconut
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla powder
100 g tinned pineapple, chopped into small pieces
100 g pecans, chopped

For the icing:
c 3 tbsp golden sugar blended to a powder
c 50 g butter, at room temperature
1 tub (250 g) mascarpone
zest of 1 lime
1 tsp cinnamon

Decorations:
Remaining pineapple rings
Toasted chopped pecans

Heat the oven to 170C. Line the base(s) of round cake tin(s) with baking paper (I only have one, springform tin so used that - ideally this would be 2-3 layers though). Mash the banana in a medium bowl with a fork, then mix in the sugar, eggs, oil, and cinnamon. In a separate, large bowl, mix the flour, coconut, bicarb, salt and vanilla with a fork. Add the wet mixture to the dry, and mix until combined, adding the chopped pineapple and pecans towards the end. Scrape into the prepared baking tin(s), spread evenly, and bake until a skewer comes out clean - for one big cake this took about an hour and 15 min; for 3 layers this ought to take 20-25 min. Let cool slightly in the tin(s) before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

While the cake is baking / cooling, make the icing and decorations. For the icing, cream sugar and butter together, then add the mascarpone, lime zest and cinnamon. Beat together until smooth and creamy. Store in the fridge until needed.

When ready to assemble, slice the massive cake in half horizontally, then layer with half the icing in the middle, along with some chopped pineapple and toasted chopped pecans. Then spread the rest of the icing smoothly on top and decorate with 4-0 pineapple rings and some chopped pecans.


It was good, although I think I'd have liked it more with less oil, less banana and more pineapple - perhaps future experiments required... maybe this one?

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.

Baking with Honey I: Honey-Lavender Cake

We harvested honey a couple of weeks ago - T and me, plus S and T's friend. It was a lot of fun, if somewhat improvised... My estimate was that we got 18 kilos of honey - so I guess I ended up with about 8 kilos. I still have some from last year, so realized I'd better start experimenting more with baking and other projects using honey. Last weekend, I tried two quite different honey cake recipes. This is the first (Ottolenghi - full recipe here). It is very similar to a cake I made with L, back at Mill Hill Road in Norwich, when we had a teaparty - it was a different recipe (I still have it in my recipe folder but we were never quite sure about the quantities) - we were very proud of it then, but I never made it since. I always thought about it, so it sprang to mind instantly when I was thinking about honey recipes. I used lavender from the garden as well. I took it for C's birthday party/dinner, and it ended up being her birthday cake, with candles and all!

For the cake:
225 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115 g sugar
115 g honey
3 eggs
245 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chopped dried lavender, plus more for garnish (used fresh)
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
110 ml sour cream (used yoghurt instead)

For the glaze:
4 tsp lemon juice (one lemon is enough)
2 tsp honey
100 g icing sugar

Heat the oven to 325F / 163C. Grease a 9-inch cake tin, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter and flour the base paper. Cream the butter, sugar, and honey together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly together and slowly incorporate into the butter mixture. Mix the dry ingredients together (all remaining ingredients but the sour cream / yoghurt) and stir well. Fold 1/3 of the flour mixture gently into the butter base, then about 1/3 of the yoghurt. Repeat twice more until all ingredients are just incorporated. Turn the batter into your prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for about 50 min, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note that honey browns very quickly in the oven, so if you notice this happening, you can tent your cake with foil for the duration. When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for about ten min, then place on a rack to cool.

When cool, transfer to a plate and make the icing: whisk the lemon juice and honey together, then whisk in the icing sugar (ideally pre-sifted to remove lumps). Drizzle/spread over your cake, allowing the icing to trickle down the sides. Sprinkle with additional lavender flowers. Allow icing to set, and serve.

I thought the lavender might be a bit subtle, but it was a nice, moist cake. It went down pretty well (I think). The icing got good feedback too - it was thick and spreadable and maintained a good layer - it's perhaps a good idea to use for other cakes too!

S's birthday: chocolate hazelnut (nutella) cake

With all the moving and then the moving again, S's birthday kind of crept up on me this year. I remembered about making a cake middle of this last week and cast around for inspiration... He likes nuts... Decided on chocolate hazelnut, partly inspired by seeing this recipe - she has the same squirrel biscuit cutter as we do! Partly, I just realised, by a nutella-filled croissant I ate (and loved, when usually I can take or leave croissants) at brunch the other day.

I followed that same recipe for the cake part - we had milk and eggs left over from making pancakes so it seemed like an excellent use of them (especially wanted to use up the milk, we never get through milk, even when it is in European size cartons).

Then I spotted nutella in the supermarket (another thing I've always had a soft spot for but couldn't have when being vegan^, and decided to go rogue and nutella-based for the icing. Goodness knows I've had sooo many icing disasters, but still always seem to think I can just chuck stuff in a bowl and make it up as I go along...
DR
Our current apartment has all these mod cons, like microwave and food processor - so I could grind nuts in processor, melt choc in microwave etc. Got to admit it felt quite labour saving!

(makes a rather massive 2 layer, ~8 in round cake)

For the cake:
3/4 cup hazelnuts
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
good pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup veg oil
1 heaping tsp coffee granules dissolves in 3/4 cup boiling water

For the icing / decoration:
1/4 cup hazelnuts, plus 3
~25 g butter, softened
~1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 jar nutella
75 g 70% chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp coffee granules
~2 tbsp plain yoghurt

Heat the oven to 175C / 350F. Grease and line a high-sided 8 in cake tin with removable base*. Grind 3/4 cup hazelnuts in a food processor until quite fine, then transfer into a large mixing bowl. Put the 1/4 cup hazelnuts for the decoration on a baking sheet and toast for about 10 min in the oven as it warms up, then set aside to cool. Add sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt to the ground hazelnuts and whisk together. In a separate, medium-sized bowl, beat together the eggs, milk and oil. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Add the hot coffee and mix again. It is a pretty runny cake mixture. Pour into the prepared tin and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 60 min (start checking at 45 min)*. It is done when a skewer comes out clean. Take out of the oven and let sit for 10-15 min before turning out onto a cooling rack and leaving until completely cool.

While the cake is baking prepare the icing and decoration. Beat the butter and icing sugar together until smooth, then add the nutella. Add the melted chocolate and coffee, beat some more, add the yoghurt and beat until well combined. At room temperature it is quite soft but it goes hard in the fridge, so you can try and optimise the consistency for when you assemble the cake. Keep it in the fridge while the cake cools. Rub most of the skins off the toasted hazelnuts, then transfer them to the food processor and process just a little, until roughly chopped. Transfer to a bowl and keep until ready to assemble.

To assemble the cake, first trim and even out the top (mine was pretty craggy and high)*. Then cut through the middle parallel to the base to make two layers. Put the bottom layer on a plate, then spread half of the icing onto it (if the icing is too solid you can heat it a little in the microwave but be careful not to overheat). Put the other half of the cake on top and spread the rest of the icing over that. This is enough icing for the middle and top but not to go down the sides - I don't like too much icing and quite like to see the layers. Place the squirrel cutter gently in the middle of the cake and carefully sprinkle the chopped toasted hazelnuts all around it, so that the top of the cake is covered in chopped nuts except for the silhouette of the squirrel. Pack the nuts down around the edges of the cutter then carefully remove the cutter. You should be left with a neat squirrel silhouette. I put an appropriately sized and shaped piece of nut to be his eye, and then arranged three whole hazelnuts as if he might be holding / chasing them.

^Actually, I just noticed the Fotex brand nutella (which tastes just like the real thing to me) is actually vegan. Go Denmark! So it would be dead easy to make this icing vegan. In fact, I think it would be just fine to use straight nutella as the icing...
*Original recipe called for two tins, but I had one so that's what I used. Using two would be preferable as it would significantly reduce baking time (to more like 30 min) and give more even rising.


Actually, the icing worked really well. I wanted the yoghurt and coffee to lighten the nutella and add some sour / bitter. And the chocolate to deepen and richen, and also add some bitterness and thickness. Think it worked. And mmm nutella. It was kind of a conscious decision to cover the top with nuts as I always think chocolate icing can look a bit like poo. But also I just ended up with quite a lot of chopped nuts and felt the need to use them all. I'd kind of intended to just use them to fill in the squirrel shape originally. Or without a squirrel cutter could have made a paper template or just covered the whole top with chopped nuts. S said it's like Ferrero Rocher. This is true, although it hadn't occurred to me until he said it. Perhaps unwrapped Ferrero Rochers would make good decorations if you didn't want to go the squirrel route.

Note: I wanted to make a proper cakey cake this time, but for a flourless style nutella cake this Nigella one looks delicious.

Lavender cupcakes

In honour of our Grandma, Iz and I decided to make lavender cupcakes. She always loved flowers, and baking (especially for us). And we had access to plenty of lavender in the garden she and my uncle / her son S had nurtured together. So it seemed very fitting.

We made them in the kitchen at S's, which meant a few little screw ups due to unfamiliar equipment. But nothing that wasn't fixed by the time they were iced and decorated.

The recipe was from I's Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It contains eggs and dairy (no one else eating them has vegan tendencies), but the key is the infusion of milk with lavender both for the cake and the icing, which could easily be done with non dairy milk and a vegan cupcake recipe.

(makes 9-12, depending how deep you fill the cups)

For the cake part:
120 ml milk
3 tbsp dried lavender flowers (we used fresh)
120 g plain flour
140 g sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
40 g butter, at room temperature
1 egg

For the icing:
25 ml milk
1 tbsp dried lavender flowers (we used fresh)
250 g icing sugar, sifted
80 g butter, at room temperature
A couple of drops of purple food colouring (optional)

For decoration:
~5 fresh, pretty lavender inflorescences

The day before, or at least several hours in advance, put the milk and lavender flowers in a jug, cover and refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight if possible. Do the same with the milk and lavender flowers for the icing, in a separate jug. We used fresh flowers and I crushed them a bit as I put them in the milk as we could only leave it to infuse for a few hours, and the flavour came out well.

When ready to bake the cakes, heat the oven to 170C/325F. Line a 12 cup tin with paper cases. Beat the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter together until they are well combined and a sandy consistency. Strain the lavender-infused milk (for the cake) and slowly pour into the flour mixture, beating well until all the ingredients are well mixed. Add the egg and beat well.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full (ours were not this full, even though we only did 9 not 12, but they did rise right to the tops of the cases - perhaps the recipe used smaller cups?) and bake for 20-25 min, or until the sponge bounces back when touched /a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, beat together the icing sugar, butter (and food colouring if using: we did not) until smooth and well mixed. Strain the lavender-infused milk and slowly pour into the butter mixture. Once it is mixed in, continue to beat until the icing is light and fluffy (at least five minutes), ideally with a food mixer or electric whisk.
When the cupcakes are cool, smooth the lavender frosting on top. Pick off the flowers from the lavender heads and sprinkle them over the tops of the cakes (think mine ended up with 8-10 flowers scattered over the top of each one).


They looked very pretty with the flowers on top and white icing. Both icing and cake were quite light and fluffy, and there was just the right amount of lavender flavour. It is reminiscent of lemon in its fragrant sharpness: I think it's lovely, although it is not necessarily for everyone.

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.

Chocolate-vanilla 'zebrafish' buns

My lab will celebrate its 5th birthday tomorrow. Apparently when S (my boss) started he thought it might all be a joke because his start date was April 1st. A and I decided, last minute on Friday, to have a little birthday celebration tomorrow. I made marbled (ie stripey, like a zebrafish?) chocolate buns, with chocolate ganache and iced decorations.

I found almost exactly the buns I wanted to make in 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' - my stepsister gave me the book for my birthday and so far it seems like the ultimate vegan baking bible - their gluten-free buns were a huge hit, and I identified some yummy vegan cupcakes (almond+apricot) at L's rollerskating birthday party as being from it too!

(makes 12)

For the cakes:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp almond essence
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
4 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp boiling water

For the chocolate icing:
1/4 cup fake milk (almond)
4 oz plain chocolate (<70%), chopped
2 tbsp maple syrup

For the decoration:
icing sugar
fake milk

Heat oven to 350F and put liners in a muffin tin. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl with a fork. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and oil together, then add the vanilla, almond and cornstarch and beat some more. Measure the fake milk into a cup measure and add the cider vinegar, giving it a minute or two to curdle. Alternately add some of the flour mixture and some of the milk mixture to the oil mixture, stirring as you go. In a separate bowl, beat together the cocoa and boiling water, then add a cupful of the cake mixture to the cocoa mix, and stir until well combined.

Put a teaspoon of vanilla mixture and then a teaspoon of chocolate mixture into each paper liner, continuing to alternate between the two batters until the liners are full. Then use a skewer (or thin metal knitting needle) to swirl the batters together. Put in the oven and bake for approx 25 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

To make the chocolate icing, heat the fake milk to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the chopped chocolate and the maple syrup and beat with a wooden spoon until the chocolate is all melted and it makes a thick sauce. Let it cool at room temperature, to room temperature.

Ice the buns with the chocolate icing when they are both at room temperature. Then mix some icing sugar with fake milk until it is a thick, pipe-able consistency. Spoon carefully into the corner of a plastic bag, then snip off a little bit of the tip of the corner and pipe whatever decorations on top you like (I did binary and real style zebrafish, and some #5s).

Hedgehog cake (orange, carrot and pistachio cake with mocha-sunflower icing)

This is S's birthday cake. He mentioned carrot cake at some point, also mentioned cake in the shape of a hedgehog at some point, he likes nuts and coffee, and I'm still trying to find the perfect carrot-coffee-nut combination after he requested it a few years ago.

Cake recipe adapted from this one (my quantities are weird because I scaled it down to make two layers instead of three).

For the cake:
50g tahini
83ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
zest of 2 oranges, and 67ml juice (juice of approx 1 orange)
150g soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water
133g carrot, grated finely
67g chopped pistachios
117g plain flour
1 2/3 tsp baking powder
1 1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp grated nutmeg

For the icing:
(this made too much - half or two thirds this quantity would have been sufficient)
16 oz firm silken tofu, drained
1 tbsp veg oil
1 tbsp very strong coffee
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup smooth sunflower seed butter

To finish:
~1 cup slivered toasted almonds
3 raisins (1 big one for the nose and two smaller, equal-sized ones for the eyes)

Heat the oven to 360F / 180C. Grease two 8 inch round cake tins and line the bases. In a large bowl, whisk together tahini, pomegranate molasses, orange zest and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in linseed mixture, then stir in the grated carrot, pistachios and orange juice. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and spices with a fork. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and fold together until just combined. Divide the mixture between the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in tins.

While the cake is baking, make the icing. Crumble the drained tofu into a blender jug, add the oil and coffee and blend until smooth. Add the icing sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add the sunflower seed butter and blend until consistent. Transfer the icing into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for an hour, until thickened.

When the cakes are cool and the icing chilled, you can assemble the cake. For a normal cake, just layer it up and stop here.

I wanted to make a curved, bilaterally symmetrical hedgehog shape. I made 4 layers (plus a little bit more on top, using almost all of the two circular cakes. I took one of the circular base papers (cleaned of cake bits) and cut out a template for the bottom layer (approx egg shaped; long side length equal to diameter of circle), then cut this shape out of one of the cakes with a sharp knife (save the offcuts for the upper layers), cutting at an angle of ~45 degrees. I then trimmed about 1 cm around all the edges of the template and cut this shape out of the other cake (working at the edge). Stack them so you can see how it is looking. Trim another centimetre off the template and cut the shape out of a combination of offcuts. Repeat. Use remaining offcuts to create a rounded top. Hopefully the stacked shape will look OK, if not you can do some rearrangement / trimming.

Next, put the bottom layer on a plate. Cover it with icing then add the next layer, Repeat until all the layers are done, also using the icing to stick the pieces together where the layers comprise more than one piece. Once the pieces are all layered up, cover the outside with icing. Make sure to fill in all the cracks and to go right down to the plate; you can use the icing to correct minor irregularities in shape. Smooth it out when done. Starting about 1/4 of the way back from the pointed end, stick slivered almonds into the icing to make spines. Cover the entire back part of the cake with these. On the part without almonds, make striations with a fork to look a bit like fur. Finally, choose your raisins, squish them into shape, and press into position on the cake.


This looks really fun - the almonds and raisins are quite effective, as good as I might have hoped. The cake is delicious - bit of a faff with all the chopping and grating and zesting and juicing and so forth, but tasty enough to warrant it on a special occasion. They didn't rise much but they did hold together very well as I cut and layered them. Carrot cake should be dense anyway, so I don't think the lack of eggs mattered much.

The icing is very soft but does stay in position. I wondered if the seed (or nut) butter was a necessary addition or if it would have been just as good without. Same with the cocoa - I added it mainly for colour but it might have been brown enough without. It definitely doesn't taste of tofu at all. Does taste of sunflower butter though, and with that plus the cocoa once again I have managed to drown out the coffee flavour. Tastes fine in combination with the cake though: the flavours work together well. (note: I may have been eating the leftover icing out of the tub with a spoon like pudding, this was kind of good - it's fairly light)

Valentines Biscuits III: Cardamom and rose hearts

I made these once before, before I started this. They are, to my mind, the quintessential kitschy Valentines baked goods: cute, tiny, tasty, flowery, and very, very pink (it takes very little beetroot juice to make a really pink icing: you don't taste the beetroot at all but oh my word you can see it). I think cardamom and rose go great together, and a box of tiny biscuits makes a great friend-Valentine.

Biscuits:
4 oz plain flour
small pinch salt
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
2 1/2 oz margarine
1 oz sugar
1/4 tbsp rose water
1/4 tbsp water

Icing:
1 tsp finely grated raw beetroot
1/2 tsp water
1/2 tsp rose water
4 tbsp icing sugar

Finishing:
petals from 1 dried rosebud
seeds from 2 green cardamom pods

Heat oven to 350F / 180C. Mix flour, salt and cardamom in a bowl with a fork. Rub in butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar, then add rose water and water and knead to a smooth dough.

Roll out thinly on a floured surface, cut into hearts (I happen to have three different sizes of heart cutters nowadays, but previously I have freehanded heart shapes with a knife) and place on greased baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 min and cool on a wire rack.

For the icing, mix the beetroot and water, leave for a minute or two, then squeeze all the liquid out of the beetroot and transfer to a fresh bowl. Add rose water and icing sugar to the beetroot water, check it is a good spreading consistency, then use to ice the cooled biscuits. Finally, grind the rose petals and cardamom seeds together and sprinkle a little on top of each biscuit.


Notes: this basic recipe (based on one from the WI Book of Biscuits - same source as this recipe) is the best I've tried so far for cutting shapes, and it has plenty of scope for varying the spices, shapes and flavourings. It rolls thin so you get a lot of biscuits out of this amount - I must have got about 30 tiny hearts and about 10 bigger ones out of this quantity.

Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars)

There is a wonderful array of German Christmas biscuits out there: we've been eating our way through lebkuchen and chocolate covered lebkuchen herzen from Lidl and from Trader Joe's already. Then there's Pfeffernusse, Vanillekipferle... so many beautiful things. They really know that they are doing when it comes to Christmas, those Germans. S's favourite are Zimtsterne, so I wanted to make some. I've never made these before, but I've been feeling like doing some Christmas baking, especially since visiting the Christmas market in Edinburgh.

I got this recipe from my colleague Nik, who is German and a consummate baking pro. It appears deceptively simple: just almonds, cinnamon, egg whites and sugar - they're delicious and it's quite fiddly to make and ice all the little stars.

3 egg whites
250 g icing sugar
400 g ground almonds (plus more flour or ground almonds for dusting)
2 tsp cinnamon

Beat the egg whites to shiny peaks, then fold in the icing sugar a tablespoon or so at a time. Set aside ~80g to use as icing.

Mix the cinnamon and almonds, then fold into the remaining sugar mixture.

Dust your surface with flour or ground almonds, then roll out the mass until ~1 cm thick. Cut out star shapes and transfer them to baking trays.

Thinly (1-2 mm) spread the icing set aside earlier onto the biscuits. You should not be able to see through the icing.

Allow cookies to dry over night uncovered at room temperature.

Bake at 325F / 160C for 8 minutes on medium rack. Allow to cool. They should keep for several weeks in a container.

I thought these were lovely.  I was too chicken to take some in to Nik for testing, but S liked them. I took advantage of their long keeping time and sent some to each of my stepsisters back in the UK.


Now I am trying to think of something to do with the three egg yolks - custard is one option; egg yolk ravioli is another, more exciting option...

Nerf-day cake for Jamie (age 12)

I just got back from two weeks in Scotland. My cousin Jamie turned 12 while I was there (he's a millenium baby so it's easy to keep track of his age). For his birthday he and his dad (my uncle) had planned a party involving five or six of J's mates and a Nerf gun battle. Nerf guns are colourful plastic guns of all descriptions that fire three inch long orange foam pellets. They are very popular with little boys - Jamie has been into them for years. As he told it, this was his last big Nerf gun blow-out - he felt like he was getting too old for them.

I had plans to go out to East Lothian and hang out with all my sisters and their babies on the day of the party, but got thinking about what to get Jamie for his birthday and then thought of making a cake. I'm not often there on his birthday and I had plenty of time since I was on holiday (I love baking when I have time for it): it seemed like it could be fun for me and save his parents some bother. I don't know much about what 12 year old boys like, but started with the Nerf theme and the idea of a making a target popped up. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be coming together into a great idea, so I went with it.

I used my Grandma's kitchen and she helped me with the recipes, so these are not vegan since I a) wasn't making it for anyone veg, and b) didn't want to freak Grandma out with a weird recipe - the cake plan was already pretty far out for her...

Preparatory sketches

For the cake (Grandma's basic Victoria sponge recipe, plus red):
2 eggs
4 oz self raising flour
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz margarine / soft butter
1 tsp baking powder
2-3 tsp red food colouring

For the buttercream filling (Grandma's recipe):
1 tbsp water
1/2 oz caster sugar
1/2 oz butter
4 oz icing sugar

For decorating / finishing:
~10 glace cherries, chopped
~4 tbsp plum jam, warmed and strained
1 packet white ready to roll fondant icing
1-2 tsp red food colouring
1 Nerf gun pellet
red food writing pen

First, make the cake. Heat the oven to 170C. Grease two 8 in sandwich cake tins and line the bases with paper. Sieve the flour and baking powder together into a bowl, then add all the other ingredients and beat until well combined - either by hand or in a food processor (I don't have a food processor at home but for this I got to use Grandma's - it's a Kenwood dating from the 50s and it is amazing. One day perhaps I'll have one of my own, it feels like a 50s housewifely dream using it). Divide the mixture (which should be intensely red) evenly between the two prepared tins and bake for 20 min / until they are starting to come away from the sides of the tins. Let sit for 10 min or so then turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.

While the cakes are cooking, make the buttercream filling. Put the butter, water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the butter melted. Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the liquid mix to the icing sugar and beat together til smooth. Allow to come to room temperature, when it should be a good spreading consistency.

When the cakes are cool, trim any rough bits from the edges and peel off the base papers. Spread half the buttercream on one side of one of the cakes, and the other half on one side of the other cake.  Set one icing-up on a plate and sprinkle the chopped glace cherries over it. Put the other cake icing-down neatly on top.

Take a lump of rolling icing about the size of a clementine and put it aside in a small bowl. Roll out the remaining rolling icing (about 5/6 of the packet) on a piece of clingfilm until big enough to cover the top and sides of the cake in one sheet (take care to avoid red cake crumbs or food colouring when doing this). Brush the top and sides of the cake with the warmed, sieved plum jam. Carefully lift the sheet of icing and place it, centred, on top of the cake. Gently smooth it down over the sides of the cake and neatly trim any excess.

Take the set aside icing and fold in red food colouring until it is bright red (about 1 tsp) - I used a spoon to knead and fold until the colour was evenly distributed to try and avoid staining my hands. Roll or squish out a circle approx. 2 in diameter and press this in place in the middle of the cake (might have been a good idea to stick it on with the sieved jam). Roll out a sausage and flatten it to make a ring about 1 cm across that will fit around the perimeter of the cake. Place this on in the same way as the central circle. Make a second ring that fits in the middle, equidistant between the outer ring and the inner circle, and place this as well. The cake should now look very much like a target.

Press the end of the Nerf pellet into the icing in a few positions to make small circular indentations. Use these as guides to carefully cut circles out of the white icing, exposing the red cake underneath. Cut a hole in the icing in the centre of the central circle (bullseye!) just big enough to fit the Nerf pellet and then push the (clean) Nerf pellet into the hole, business end first, so it is sticking out of the cake at a jaunty angle.

Use the writing pen (I saw this in a cake shop down the road for Grandma's and was curious to try it - it looks just like a felt tip pen but writes with food colouring) to write a message along one of the white strips in the target... the Nerf-day pun occurred to me and I couldn't let it go, especially since the party wasn't on Jamie's actual birthday (a couple of days later on a weekday), so the cake really was for his 'Nerf-day'.

Finally, we used balls of the left-over rolling icing to stick the candles in and pressed them in place on the plate around the edges of the cake.


I was pretty pleased with this. It was a fun project, and fun to combine Grandma's recipes with my ideas and things I thought 12 year old boys would be into. The rolling icing was really fun and easy to work with (and appears to be vegan). It gives a  resilient finish - butter icing is so sensitive to accidental touching or changes in temperature, this stuff is robust. I was worried all the way through that the red would come out pink, which is one reason why I used so much food colouring. I'm glad I did, as it was quite high-impact, but using another colour would also work, and perhaps you could then use less. I really liked Grandma's buttercream recipe: a clever way to make a lighter buttercream / avoid having to use loads of butter.

As soon as J saw it he took photos and told me he was posting it on Instagram, which I figured was probably as good a thumbs-up as I could hope for (although he then proceeded to explain to me what Instagram is, I guess he sees me as hopelessly old and uncool even if he did think the cake was cool). Since I missed the party I didn't see the reaction, but Simon (J's dad / my uncle) said the red cake inside was a great surprise and it was all gone by the time I got back so I'll have to assume it looked and tasted good when cut!

Little chocolate-berry birthday cakes (gluten-free and vegan)

Little chocolate cake with blackberry jam centre and chocolate icing

It was Alvin's birthday on Monday.  Coincidentally, I had asked him when it was about a week before the day.  We had an abortive attempt to organize something for his actual birthday (turned out he already had plans), but ended up putting plans on hold til the next workday... which was today.  All pretty vague, but I decided to make some gluten-free cakes (he eats GF).

Chocolate cake:

Dry:
1/2 cup GF oat flour
1/3 cup rice flour
1/3 cup glutinous rice flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp ground chia seed
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Wet:
1/2 cup fake milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F.  Mix dry ingredients well together with a fork.  Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add wet to dry and mix til combined.  Prepare a muffin tin and put the mixture into muffin cups (this makes 12).  Put in oven and bake 25-30min / til a skewer comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before icing.


Chocolate icing:
(recipe from here)

(makes 2 cups - a half quantity is plenty for icing 12 little cakes).

1 pack (12.3oz box eg Mori-Nu) firm silken tofu
1 tbsp canola oil
1/3 tsp salt
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz chocolate, melted
1-3 tbsp fake milk, for thinning, if required

Put tofu, oil and salt in blender and puree til smooth.  Add sugar, cocoa and vanilla and blend til smooth.  Add melted chocolate and blend til smooth.  Refrigerate until needed (1 hour to a day).  If it is too thick to spread easily add some fake milk until you get a good consistency.



Decoration:
~1/4 cup blackberry jam
6 glace cherries

Once the cakes are cooled and the icing chilled, assemble as follows:  cut a small piece out of the middle of each cake and put in ~ 1tsp blackberry jam.  Replace the cut-out piece as a lid.  Take 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp of frosting and spread out on top, trying to keep it neat and cover the whole surface.  Cut glace cherries in half and put half a cherry on top in the middle of each cake.


When I took the cakes out of the oven I thought it was a bit of a disaster - they really sank, and seemed to be undercooked although they'd been in for about 45min.  The batter was too wet I think (this is what happens when I make it up as I go along) - I've edited the quantities above a little to try and address this, although I might also consider taking out the applesauce and using 3/4 cup fake milk to make a simpler recipe.  But the recipe is definitely a work in progress.  I made the oat flour in my spice grinder, and that worked well.  The icing was good - you can't go wrong with melted chocolate - could simplify it a bit I think: maybe just chocolate, tofu, vanilla and sugar would be worth trying.

Despite the initial mini-cake-disaster, once the cakes were filled and iced they looked pretty good (somewhat less so by the time I'd biked across town with them, but they more-or-less survived).  And they went down very well!  I took candles, and we had cake and candles and a spontaneous singing of 'Happy Birthday' at the garden.  I made some black bean brownies as back-up, and all of both kinds of cake disappeared, which is usually a good sign.  Non-vegan / GF people didn't guess the cakes were lacking (the tofu in the icing was a particular success), and at least one GF girl was happily surprised that she could eat cake!  There was a good turn-out today - even Seb came along - and it was a good day.

Chocolate Biscuit (Fridge) Cake and Prune Brownies (both vegan)

L: Prune brownie.  R: Chocolate biscuit cake

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

I had been thinking about making some chocolate biscuit cake since the Royal Wedding.  Two reasons:  1) the media said it was Prince William's choice for his wedding cake, apparently since it was a childhood favourite - this reminded me it was a childhood favourite of ours too.  2) I had a load of digestive biscuits (from Nick) left after our teaparty and it seemed like the best thing to do with them.

1 oz (30g) margarine
1 rounded dssp honey / golden syrup
2 floz (60 ml) fake milk
3 1/2 oz (100g) plain chocolate
4 oz (100g) digestive biscuits, broken up (put into plastic bag and bash, leaving some chunks)
couple of handfuls dried fruit / toasted, chopped nuts (used raisins, cranberries and flaked almonds)

1. Melt the margarine, honey, milk and chocolate in a bowl over water.
2. Add the biscuits, fruit and nuts, and mix well.
3. Spread into a small greased container to desired thickness and place in the fridge to set for three hours or longer.

This wasn't quite the recipe I used as a teenager - decided to make it a bit more decadent by using real chocolate instead of cocoa powder (partly as used up the cocoa powder in the brownies).  For some reason decided to add fake milk, which I think was a mistake - at first I was afraid it wouldn't set at all, then it did but was perhaps still a little bit melty.  Another time I prob wouldn't add it.  I used to make it with a layer of chocolate spread over the top - this would make it look prettier, perhaps worth a try another time.


Prune Brownies

I liked the sound of prune puree in brownies, so decided to try this recipe.

For the Brownies
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup plain flour
2 tablespoons arrowroot (subbed cornflour, which was fine.  suspect could also just sub regular flour)
1 cup cocoa powder
½ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
3 tablespoons canola oil (or another neutral oil?  or olive? or coconut?  plus more for oiling pan)
1 cup maple syrup
⅓ cup prune puree (recipe below) or use baby food prunes or apple and plums
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
½ cup walnuts (used mixture with pecans), toasted, cooled and coarsely chopped
(optional) ⅓ cup vegan chocolate chips and/or 1/3 cup chopped dried fruit (used handful cranberries)

For Prune Puree: (Makes 2/3 -1 cup)
6 ounces dried, pitted prunes
7 ounces boiling water, more if needed

Soak the prunes in water until very soft. Pour prunes and soaking liquid into a blender and blend until perfectly smooth. Use immediately or refrigerate up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350˚ F. Oil a 9 x 9-inch pan with oil.
Place a wire mesh strainer over a medium bowl. Add pastry flour, white flour, arrowroot, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt to the strainer and sift into the bowl. Stir with a wire whisk to distribute the ingredients.
In a separate bowl, whisk oil, maple syrup, prune puree, water and vanilla until very well blended. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Stir the walnuts and chocolate chips, if using into the batter. (The batter will be thick.)
Spread the batter into the prepared pan evenly. Bake for17 to 18 minutes (+5), until the top looks dry and set, and the sides of the brownies have pulled away from the sides slightly. A tester inserted into the center will be coated with very moist cake, but the cake will not feel gummy. The brownies will firm as they cool.
Place the pan on a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate or freeze before cutting--cold brownies slice neatly. Store in the freezer, well wrapped up to a month. Apparently you can eat the brownies straight from the freezer.

Chocolate (Vegan) Ganache
8 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped (between 62 to 72% cocoa)
¾ cup soymilk or almond milk ( or soy or coconut milk creamer)
Put the finely chopped chocolate into a medium-size heatproof bowl.
Pour the soymilk into a in a small saucepan and heat to just under a boil over medium heat a boil. Pour over the chocolate. Swirl the bowl to submerge the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to begin to melt about 1 minute, then stir gently with a wire whisk until smooth.
The ganache will be thick enough to spread on the brownie in 10 to 20 minutes at room temperature. Spread the ganache over chilled brownie for the shiniest glaze.

I didn't try the ganache.  Sounded like a bit much on top of the brownies (and would make them harder to transport).  Might be good icing for something else though.  The brownies were good - sticky and gooey and squidgy and a nice mix of dried fruit / chocolate flavour.

I ate them with this instead of ganache:


Prune tofu cream

1/3 cup prune puree
2/3 cup silken tofu
2-3 tbsp almond milk
1/2 tbsp maple syrup

Put all in a blender and whizz til smooth.  Add milk to reach desired, creamy texture.

Comes out pruney in taste and creamy in texture.

Banana Coconut Macadamia Cake for Nik's Birthday (and back-up green cakes)

In the lab, everyone is responsible for the next person's birthday after theirs.  My birthday was a month ago, and Nik's was today (the next one).  Nik bakes amazingly beautiful cakes so I was a little concerned about how mine would turn out, especially since I haven't done that much vegan baking yet.  This was a largely successful experiment...

Banana coconut macadamia cake
(based on the how it all vegan banana bread recipe posted here)

4 mashed ripe bananas (3)
1½ tbsp lime juice (1, lemon juice)
3/4 cup canola oil (1/2)
3/4 cup sugar (1/2)
2 1/4 cups plain flour (1.5)
3/4 cup desiccated coconut (1/2, wheat germ)
3/4 tsp salt (1/2)
3/4 tsp baking powder (1/2)
3/4 tsp baking soda (1/2)
splash of coconut milk (fake milk type) (none)

Grease and line two 9 in cake tins. Heat oven to 375F. Mash bananas then mix with wet ingredients. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix wet into dry, then add to tins. Bake for ~30 minutes.


Made 1.5 times more than a standard quantity as I wanted a deep cake. On reflection, this was perhaps a mistake, but it did look quite impressive once dressed up. The recipe was lovely and simple, and tasted really banana-y, but it was quite crumbly. Perhaps my changes to the recipe were to blame?


Coconut frosting
(from chef chloe here)
(enough for 12 cupcakes?)  

½ cup refined coconut oil
2 teaspoons flavouring (lime juice in this case, vanilla would be an alternative)
4 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup non-dairy milk (coconut)
food coloring
Beat coconut oil and flavouring then powdered sugar one cup at a time. Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until desired frosting consistency.

I could only get unrefined coconut oil, don't know how different they are.  It was quite solid and I had to warm it a little to be able to beat it.  Mashing it with a fork seemed to be a good way to go.  It was pretty tough to get all the sugar in and I found it better to add coconut milk alternately with the sugar to get good consistency.  It came out really good in the end.  This is pretty much the only fat I've ever been tempted to eat out of the jar!  And this may well have been the best frosting I have ever made!

I spread some frosting on either side of the middle of the sandwich and then put chopped macadamia nuts in between and sandwiched it.  Then I spread the rest of the frosting on top and covered the top with chopped macadamia nuts.

The amount of frosting I had was enough for the middle and top of the cake and the holes in the fairy buns...


Green (tea) fairy cakes

Took chef chloe's recipe as a basic cupcake.

1 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup veg oil
1 cup fake milk (used coconut)
2 tbsp green tea
1 tbsp lime juice

Preheat oven to 350F. Lined a 12-cup cupcake pan with brown paper cups. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in large bowl. Combine oil, milk, tea, and lime juice in separate bowl. Add wet to dry and mix thoroughly.  Add a little green food colouring to make more green.  Distribute evenly in pan and bake for 10-15 minutes or until toothpick come out slightly crumby/clean. Let cool and decorate.


I made nine into fairy buns with some of the coconut frosting described above, with a little green tea and a little green colouring added - cut an inverted cone out of the top, removed and put about a teaspoon of frosting into the hole, then cut the cut-out piece in half and replaced on top to look like little wings. The curved cut edges go towards the middle.

The other three I mixed up a little water icing with icing sugar, green food colouring and water, then iced the tops and added some shredded coconut to look pretty.

They looked good and tasted pretty good too but didn't really taste like green tea. I could try using green tea instead of milk, and/or using matcha powder, which would probably give a stronger flavour and colour (although Sarah says you have to be careful not to use too much and make it taste bitter).