American Chocolate and Kiwi cake

This my 3rd effort for this month's AlphaBakes challenge. Felt guilty about using a bought pastry case for the kiwi custard tart [tho' the idea of a pastry shell filled with proper custard and topped with strawberries, raspberries or kiwis is a good one imho], and thought I'd save the mousse cake for another post.

This cake is an adaptation of a recipe in cups found in an American magazine at the hairdresser's[she'd recently been to the US on holiday]. I asked to borrow it, as it had some great recipes in it!
The original icing in the recipe had been a mixture of melted chocolate and milk, but I wanted something a bit more luxurious so made a ganache.

Couldn't think of what to bake beginning with K for AlphaBakes, but remembered this recipe.
210g sr flour
4 eggs
125g icing sugar
1/4tsp baking powder
5-6 drops vanilla extract
110g butter (melted)
3tspn cocoa powder
1 tspn strong coffee
chocolate ganache to ice [see below]
2 ripe kiwi fruit

preheat oven 180C/gas4/fan160C
grease a 23cm springform cake tin

Separate the eggs and whisk the whites till frothy.
Sieve flour, baking powder and cocoa into a bowl and mix together.
In another bowl pour in melted butter and add the icing sugar and gently beat together using a hand mixer. Add the vanilla extract, the coffee, the egg yolks and lastly the flour mixture. Fold together carefully, and
lastly fold in the egg whites.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 25 mins. leave to cool on a wire rack.
Chocolate ganache- 150ml double cream, 150g dark chocolate, 1 tspn vanilla extract and 1 tspn butter
Warm cream, vanilla and butter with the chocolate in a heavy saucepan. Bring to boil - chocolateshold have melted. Take it off the heat and whisk till thick and smooth. leave to cool for abit, but not too long as you want it runny enough to ice the cake. Pour over the cake to cover it, sides and all.
Nigella has a trick where she uses 4 strips of greaseproof paper like a cross and puts the cake on them before she decorates it. When she's put the icing on, she pulls out the strips and the plate is clean! Haven't tried it!
Slice the kiwi fruit thinly and decorate the top of the cake.

Well, it wouldn't win any prizes for looks would it? The cake itself had a good flavour and texture; I'm sure adding a little coffee brings out the chocolate flavour. The texture was moist and quite crumbly. We ate it for dessert, as it was difficult to eat without a fork, and luckily the kiwi were ripe enough to be soft and delicious.

AlphaBakes is a monthly challenge hosted alternately by Caroline of Caroline Makes blog and Ros of The More than Occasional Baker blog. Letters are chosen at random and this month's letter, as I've already mentioned, is K. Caroline is hosting, and look on her blog for more info.

Peanut, Chocolate and Walnut cookies

These are based on one of my basic cookie recipes, which originally came from my daughter's school recipe book. She made some cookies as part of her Home Economics course, and it's been a very useful recipe.
I had a jar of peanut butter left over from somebody's visit, so thought it might go well with some chocolate, then added some walnuts for extra texture and yet more crunch. 
I like making biscuits and cookies [ am never sure what the difference is between the two?]. Anyway, the last time my grandsons were here, I'd bought them some of their favourite biscuits/cookies, and was horrified reading the ingredients on the packet. So many added this and that, so I decided that the next time they came, they would eat home made ones.  I'm on a mission to try out some recipes that they I think would like.

I made 15 cookies from this recipe.

125g soft butter
70g soft light brown sugar
70g caster sugar
1 large beaten egg
200g plain flour
1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
2 tbspn crunchy peanut butter
200g plain or milk chocolate - chop half of it up and melt and cool the other half to decorate the cookies
100g chopped walnuts

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5
Grease 2 baking trays.

Beat together the butter and sugars till creamy then add the egg.
Mix the bicarb into the flour and stir into the mixture.
Add the peanut butter, chopped chocolate and walnuts.
Fun bit - use your hands to mix it together into a soft and stickyish dough. Make sure that the chocolate and nuts are mixed evenly in the dough. If the dough's too sticky, add a little bit of flour.
Make 15 small balls out of the dough and put them on the trays with about 5 cm between them.
Bake for 10-12 mins till they're golden and just firm.
Leave them on the trays to cool for a bit then put them on a wire rack.
Drizzle the melted chocolate over them, or I put it in a piping bag with a 3mm nozzle [as I'm having great fun using my new icing set!]. My lines are definitely getting better!

There's a lot going on in this cookie. The flavours mingle well together, and you get some crunch of nuts and then a nice hit of chocolate. A good texture .
Not a very clear photo, but OH's not around to take one for me with his decent camera!
I hope the boys are going to like these - will report back with their comments!

 This month's baking challenge from Tea Time Treats is to make biscuits or cookies, so I'll use these cookies as my entry.  Tea Time Treats is hosted alternately by Karen of Lavender and Lovage blog and Kate of What Kate Baked blog. It's Karen's turn to host this month, and you'll find more details here .

Fried egg biscuits - a fun bake

On Sunday May 19th it's World Baking Day and there's some great baking recipes to try. Just found it by chance.
http://worldbakingday.com/#/en-gb/recipes

I've mentioned before, that from time to time I bake with one of my grandsons. For some reason he really loves apricots, and he wanted to bake something using them. In a very old 'Blue Peter' activity book, from when my children were young, we found a recipe for these biscuits. They're quirky and T. loved making them, as they had apricots on them.

We made 12 biscuits, and T went home with the recipe [and most of the biscuits!] to make them with his Mum.

150g plain flour
7g [about 21/2 tspns] vanilla sugar or 1 packet [or you could use caster sugar and some vanilla extract]
pinch salt
150g cornflour
150g butter - cold and cut into pieces
250g tin of apricots in syrup
75g icing sugar
1 tspn or so of lemon juice

Preheat oven 200C/gas6
Grease a baking tray.

Mix the 2 flours, vanilla sugar and salt together in a bowl and rub in the butter.
Knead together to make a nice smooth dough.
Leave this in the fridge for 1 hour.
Roll out the pastry and cut out circles with a cutter. Press the centre of the biscuit gently then add an apricot half [drained].
Put onto the baking tray and bake for 25 mins, then leave to cool.
Make up the icing by beating the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to make a thickish icing.
Spread the icing around the 'fried eggs'.

 Great fun to make, and the biscuits themselves aren't sweet, which contrasts with the icing and the sweet apricot.

Mocha toffee muffins - a tea time treat

We love muffins, and this month's challenge from 'Tea Time Treats' is to bake muffins, cupcakes or fairy cakes. I don't like cupcakes with their towers of sickly icing, but I love the texture and flavours of muffins. I wanted to try something a bit different from the usual , but I like my usual recipe, which always works for me, so adapted it. It's a genuine US recipe, coming from my neighbour when we lived there for 2 years in the 90's.
I like it because it's simple and uses oil not butter. I had a bag of soft toffees in the cupboard and thought they might go nicely with coffee.

225g plain flour
100g caster sugar
2 tspns baking powder
1 egg
250ml milk
120ml vegetable oil [I use rapeseed]
2 tbspn Camp coffee or 2 tbspns of a strong instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbspn hot water
100g soft toffees chopped into little pieces


Preheat oven 200C/400F/gas 6
Grease a 12 hole muffin tin, or use muffin cases to fit the tin.

Mix the flour, baking powder and sugar together.
Then in a separate bowl mix the egg, milk, oil and coffee essence together.
Add the egg mixture to the flour one and gently mix together. DON'T overmix - this is the secret of good muffins.
Fill the hole or case half full, add a few [ 5-6 ] pieces of toffee and add more mixture.
Bake for about 20 mins.
I made 10 muffins out of the mixture.

                        I had some bits of toffee left over and put them on the top of a few muffins.

You can see the melted toffee on the top. They had a great coffee flavour and the toffee had melted but not completely, so gave the muffins another texture. Home made muffins taste and look nothing like the ones you buy, but their flavour if far superior, imho, and they're so quick and easy to make.

This is my April offering to the Tea Time Treats monthly challenge. This is a baking challenge hosted alternately by Kate of What Kate Baked blog and Ros of Lavender and Lovage blog. Kate is hosting this month's challenge. Have a look here for more information.

Almond praline creams

Had some friends coming to stay over the weekend, so decided to make some small cakes to have with tea.
I bought a book in a charity shop a while ago, called 'The Encylopedia of Baking'; it has no author and I think it was originally published in Germany. It has some unusual cake and biscuit recipes, so I thought I'd make these almond praline creams, as I had half a bag of flaked almonds left over from the almond and honey cake.
The creams look a bit like whoopie pies, and  I think they're really more like a cross between a cake and a biscuit. It's a basic sponge cake recipe, and whatever they are, cake or biscuit, they taste good, and the ingredient list is short and you've probably got everything in your store cupboard.
The recipe makes about 30 biscuits.

4 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
pinch salt
200g plain flour
75g flaked almonds
200g Nutella or any hazelnut chocolate spread
40g dark chocolate

Preheat oven 200C/gas 6
Grease a baking sheet and dust it with flour.

Put yolks into a bowl and beat them with an electric mixer or beater for a minute on high speed. Then add the sugar and salt and carry on beating for another 2 mins till the mixture is white.
Gradually add the flour.
Put the mixture into a piping bag and pipe thickish rounds on the baking tray using a wide nozzle.
Decorate the tops with flaked almonds.
Bake for 10 mins then take them off the baking sheet.
Melt the nutella in a bowl over some hot water, stirring till it's nice and creamy and smooth.
Spread  over the smooth sides of half the biscuits and cover with the other halves.
Melt the chocolate and drizzle over the biscuits.

These little sponges are a good texture, soft and spongy! Good contrast with the hazelnut filling and the crunch of the almonds.

Think I'll make it my 2nd offering to the April Alpha Bakes challenge, to bake something beginning with A.

This is a monthly challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. Ros is hosting this month - have a look here.

Almond and honey cake

I wasn't very happy with the Polish Honey Cake I made, so I've been looking for another idea to use up my jar of local honey. This month's AlphaBakes challenge begins with A, so thought an almond cake would be great and if it also had honey in it - perfect.
I looked at a lot of recipes, and the one I finally used and adapted was from the Eating Well site, and you can find the recipe here. I thought the lemon zest would give it an extra zing, and the glaze was one I've used before.


300g ground almonds
4 large eggs, separated
120ml honey
2 tbsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

for the glaze - 2 tbspn honey, 2 tbspn sweet wine or sherry
flaked almonds to decorate


Preheat oven to 180C/gas 4
Grease and line a 23cm springform tin.

Beat 4 egg yolks in a bowl and add the honey, vanilla, lemon zest, baking powder and salt. Mix together.
Add the ground almonds, mixing till you have a nice thick batter.
Beat the egg whites till they've doubled in size using an electric mixer. Don't overbeat them into stiff peaks or the cake will sink in the middle when you take it out of the oven.
Fold the egg whites into the cake batter gently with a spatula.
Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for about 25 minutes till golden.
Leave it to cool in the tin .For the glaze, heat the honey in a pan with the wine or the sherry. Make holes in the top of the cake with a skewer and spoon the honey mixture over. Leave the cake in the tin for the honey mixture to soak in, then you can take it out onto a wire rack and decorate it with toasted flaked almonds, or icing sugar, or leave it plain. I served it with creme fraiche as a dessert. My grandson was here and 'helped' me put the almonds on top!

We loved this cake. It's full of flavour, and you can taste the various flavours. It's got a good texture and the glaze gives it an extra zing. We made the most of some sunshine and ate a slice outdoors with a cuppa.

AlphaBakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. Each month a letter is chosen at random and this month's letter is A. Ros is the host and you can find more details here.

Polish honey cake

We went to visit my son and his new Polish partner, and she gave me this recipe for a honey cake, or Piernik, her Mum's recipe. She says there are many different  recipes for this cake, as it's a popular cake in Poland, but this is their favourite. It has a lot of spices in it, but I left out the angelica as we don't like it.
In France, we lived near a town which grows lots of angelica and specialises in all things made of it - liqueur, bonbons, cake.... and we just don't like the taste. The cake certainly has a lot of ingredients, but is easy to make.

500g plain flour
2 tspns baking powder
1/2 tspn ginger
1/2 tspn cinnamon
1/2 tspn cloves
1/2 tspn allspice
grated rind of 1/2 orange
25g chopped hazelnuts or walnuts
25g seedless raisins
25g chopped dried figs
25g chopped angelica
300g honey [I used a local runny one]
90g caster sugar
90g butter
4 egg yolks
2 tspn instant coffee dissolved in a little hot water
4 egg whites
Chocolate for decorating [opt]

preheat the oven 175C/gas 4/350F

Grease and line a 22cm cake tin.

Put the flour, baking powder and spices in a bowl and stir in the orange rind, nuts, raisins, figs and angelica.
Put the honey, sugar and butter in a pan and melt them gently, then cool for a bit.
Add the melted mixture, egg yolks and coffee to the flour and mix together well.
Beat the egg whites till stiff then fold gently into the batter.
Spoon in the tin and bake for 1 to 11/4 hrs. My cake took just over the hour.

This is the basic cake, but you can decorate however you fancy - Iwi says her Mum sometimes cuts it in half and fills it with jam. I decided to decorate the top with chocolate.

I  found that for me, the cake had rather too many flavours - the different spices and honey, the nuts and the fruit - they were all a bit too much. The crumb was quite light, but despite adding the whisked egg whites, I thought the cake was rather stodgy. I'm glad I put the chocolate icing on top, as this made it more edible for me! OH greatly enjoyed the cake, as did a neighbour who came for a cuppa, so perhaps I should give it another chance.

Anyway, this month's challenge from We Should Cocoa is to use honey as the extra ingredient, so as I have iced the cake with chocolate, I'm going to use this post as my entry.The challenge was started by Choclette of Chocolate Log blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot blog . This month Choclette is hosting, so have a look here for more information about the challenge.
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