Super Moist and Rich Chocolate Cake

There are very few things in this life as delicious as chocolate cake, especially when that chocolate cake is super dark, dense, moist, and rich. This weekend I researched a lot to find recipes for a lovely moist chocolate cake, and adapted my already existing one-step sponge recipe to something a little more decadent.

A lot of American style dense chocolate cakes are old fashioned hand-me-down recipes, and as such rely on the combination of baking soda and buttermilk to rise them. Baking powder is about four times more powerful than baking powder, but takes longer to act, which makes it a more suitable for wet cakes mixtures that need a long time in the oven. Cakes containing baking soda rise slowly but consistently, rarely having big domes.

Of course, baking soda alone doesn't leaven anything, it needs an acid to react off: enter sour dairy products! Traditionally, buttermilk is used as the other reactive ingredient, as it gives extra moistness and richness while providing acidity. I personally have always avoided using buttermilk recipes, as I don't want unused buttermilk hanging around in my fridge getting sourer and sourer, so I use yoghurt.

Yoghurt is also a sour dairy product which is much thicker than buttermilk, so I water it down. It means that I can use an ingredient which I already have in my fridge without worrying about having unused ingredients going wrong in my fridge.

Now. This is some seriously rich chocolate cake going on here: it used quarter of a pound (115 grammes) of good dark chocolate and a good dose of dairy. This is serious break-up or PMS medicine.I slather it in dark chocolate fudge icing, and I've included the recipe, You can use your favourite icing though, too.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Dairy
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS
For one standard loaf (1 lb; 455 grammes), or one 7 inch (18 centimetre) round cake,

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) brown sugar
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) dark chocolate, melted
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 medium eggs
• 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) natural or greek yoghurt
• 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the icing:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) milk chocolate, broken into pieces
• Alternatively, you can use all dark or all milk chocolate, or even white if you like
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature, cut into cubes
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) milk

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 170ºC (325ºF/Gas Mk. 3), and grease your chosen tin.
• In a jug or small mixing bowl, melt together the chocolate and oil. You can to this in the microwave on the 'Defrost' setting in one minute intervals, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, leave aside to cool.
• In a large mixing bowl, mix together the spelt flour, cornflour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, caster sugar, and brown sugar together, making sure to break up the sugar clumps. Use a spoonful of this mixture to dust your cake tin, returning the excess to the bowl.
• Beat the eggs into the chocolate and oil mixture, one at a time, and then add the yoghurt and the water. Beat until smooth and well combined.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix thoroughly until completely smooth.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and put in the centre of your preheated oven. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, and DO NOT open the oven before at least 45 minutes have elapsed.
• After 50 minutes of cooking, start testing. It is done when a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out mostly clean, maybe with one or two crumbs attached.
• Once cooked, remove from the oven and loosen the edges with a palette or table knife. Cool in the tin for 10 to 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing,

• Heat the sugar and milk in a saucepan over low heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved, bring to the boil and cook for about a minute or so.
• Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and chocolate, mixing thoroughly until completely melted.
• Allow to cool to a spreadable consistency, stirring once every so often to prevent crusting.
• Spread on top of the cake, or you could even split and fill the cake instead. Decorate the icing however you please.

This, like I said earlier, is serious stuff. Enjoy in moderation!

THIS TIME IN 2014: No blog due to family difficulties
THIS TIME IN 2013: Coconut Custard Creams (Wheat Free)

Low Effort Tray Bake Sponge (Wheat and Dairy Free)

The last few weeks have been unbelievably busy for me. Between work and members of family being ill (and courting a young boy thing) I've been up the walls, and my usual sponge cake recipe is quite bitty and requires a few delicate steps. So, I decided to give a one-step mix a go, and it turned out quite successfully!

The texture is a bit different: it's still light and fluffy, but the crumb is nice and firm, which makes cutting it very, very easy. I was running a youth group today, so I knocked up a nice jam sponge tray bake with chocolate glaze. Each year at Easter, I break all my chocolate eggs into a box and use them for baking with; my mother hates it.

I used the exact same measurements for my usual go-to sponge recipe, but I simply doubled the liquid and used only oil instead of a combination of oil and butter. Instead of cross referencing, though, I'll write it up for you. This is the basic recipe, which is dairy free, but if you combine it with a buttercream for chocolate icing it will obviously no longer be dairy free.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs
☑ Dairy

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

Dry

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) baking powder
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar

Wet

• 2 medium eggs
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate). Grease a loaf tin and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, sieve together the dry ingredients. Take a spoonful of the dry mixture and use it to dust the inside of the greased tin. Tip the excess back into the bowl.
• In a jug or smaller bowl, open the eggs and add in the oil, water, and vanilla essence. Beat with a fork until fully combined and pale.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry mixture, and pour in the wet mixture. Using a balloon whisk or the same fork, mix the wet and dry together until you have a nice smooth batter.
• Pour the batter into the tin, and bake in the centre rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. You will know it's done when it's springy to the touch, and a cocktail stick of knife poked into the middle comes out clean.
• Once cooked, take from the oven and cool in tin for about ten minutes to firm up a little, then take out of the tin to cool fully.

Like my regular sponge recipe, this can be shaken up to change the flavour. You could use coffee instead of water to make coffee cake, or almond essence instead of vanilla, you could add in some grated lemon zest and use lemon juice instead of the water, use brown sugar instead of white to make it toffee flavour, you could swap some of the cornflour for cocoa powder to make it chocolatey. It's really very versatile.

I split mine in half and filled it with raspberry jam, then topped it off with a simple chocolate glaze and sprinkles. My youth group enjoyed it anyway!

THIS TIME IN 2014: No blog
THIS TIME IN 2013: Buttercream Icing: the King of all Icings

Bakewell Tart Slices (Wheat Free)

Recently I've been feeling a little lacking in inspiration in the kitchen, as I've just been baking the same old things for months. So, I thought I'd try something completely new and different, and try my had at making some Bakewell tart, and here's the result!

Bakewell is a town in County Derbyshire (pronounced DAR-bi-shur, for those who take that first letter E literally), and this confection is said to have been made there as far back as the mid 1800s. Nowadays, it is best known as a little individual cake manufactured by Mr Kipling, which has fondant icing and a glacé cherry on top.

Although the original Bakewell tart recipe doesn't include the aforementioned icing and cherry, the combination of pastry crust, raspberry jam, and almond sponge (also known as frangipane) is absolutely delightful. It's one of my Dad's favourite things.

Usually the name Bakewell tart conjures up the image of individual tarts in foil cases, but it is traditionally baked as a large round tart. However, I decided to go tray bake on it and make Bakewell slices.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Dairy
☒ Eggs
☒ Nuts (Almonds)

INGREDIMENTS:
To make one 4x8 inch (10x20 centimetre) tart, which yields eight decent slices

For the base:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cornflour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter or margarine, at room temperature
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) icing sugar
• 4 tablespoons (60 millilitres) raspberry jam

For the filling:

• 1 ounce (30 grammes) ground almonds
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter or margaine
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• Several drops of almond essence
• 1 fluid ounce (30 millilitres; 2 tablespoons) milk, or water or milk alternative

For the topping:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 grammes) butter, or margarine
• Water, to mix
• 4 whole glacé cherries, halved

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate).
• In a small mixing bowl, beat together the butter and icing sugar until fluffy with an electric mixer or wooden spoon. Add in the two flours and mix into a soft but crumbly dough.
• Tip the dough into an ungreased loaf tin and press down into a smooth and even layer. To make it easier, moisten your fingertips to stop the dough sticking to your hands.
• Spread the raspberry jam over the base in an even layer, like you were putting jam on toast. You don't want it too thick. Set aside.
• In the same bowl, beat the butter and caster sugar until fluffy with the same beaters or wooden spoon. Beat in the egg until fully mixed, then then the almond essence. Different brands have different strengths, so go by taste if you don't have an issue with raw egg: it should have a good almondy taste that's not offensively strong.
• Put the almonds, spelt flour, salt, and baking powder in a sieve. Sieve in half the ingredients into the bowl, mix in, then add the milk, mix in, then add the last of the dry ingredients and beat to a smooth batter.
• Spoon the mixture carefully over the jam in blobs, and then smooth out without disturbing the jam too much. Even out the surface, and then put in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
• Once removed from the oven, cool fully in the tin on a wire rack.
• When your tart has completely cooled, make the icing. Melt the butter in a small bowl, and add in the icing sugar and mix until the icing sugar is moistened with the melted butter. Add water, a teaspoon at a time, until it is a thick but spreadable icing. Spread all over the top of the tart, and press 8 glacé cherry halves into the top of the tart, spaced evenly. 
• Allow to set for at least 3 hours. Cut unto eight even slices, trimming the sides if you like to make it neater.

The combination of crumbly, butter pastry, with the moist soft almondy sponge, and the tartness of the fruity jam, topped off with the campness of fondanty icing and glacé cherries, is absolutely wonderful; and quintessentially English. This turned out so well, and it went down very well with the family.

THIS TIME IN 2014: Spanner in the Works: White Spelt Flour No Longer Exists
THIS TIME IN 2013: Basic Sponge Cake (Wheat Free)

Strawberry Crumble Bars (Wheat Free)

Recently I've been kerbing my sweetie intake, and limiting myself to one 100 calorie helping of sweeties a day, whether that's from a few different things or in one sitting. I've been feeling wonderful since I started making myself eat at certain times of day, and eat an entire 400-500 calorie meal in one go. I feel so full, and full of energy!

But, I am still getting my baking fix through baking for other people and events: I was in charge of the Tuesday Treat this week in work, so I made these to bring in tomorrow: Strawberry Crumble Bars!

I wanted to knock up something simple that had limited post-baking-bowl-licking potential (I'm a terror for eating leftover chocolate cake mixture from bowls, and raw shortbread dough isn't as nomable because of the hit of raw flour), and I had half a jar of strawberry jam in the cupboard that needed rid of.

These are actually based off a recipe in one of my grandma's old cookery books, but the recipe in her book used blackcurrant jam. These are a very basic Scots shortbread mixture (1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, 3 parts flour) with jam and a few oats sprinkled on top; not really recipe worthy stuff to be honest. But I'll include the recipe anyway!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Eggs

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) rolled oats
• About 6 tablespoons (90 millilitres) strawberry jam, or jam of your choice
• Caster sugar for sprinkling

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or moderate). Lightly dust a wide loaf tin with flour.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together the icing sugar and butter until smooth and creamy. Work in the flour with a wooden spoon, or by hand if it's too stiff for the spoon. It will be very crumbly, but that's what you want.
• Divide the crumbly mixture in three (roughly 4 ounces (115 grammes) each), and press two thirds of the mixture into the tin. Stir the oats into the remaining third.
• Spread the jam on top of the shortbread base evenly. Sprinkle the oaty crumble over the top.
• Place the tin in the centre of the preheated oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crumble is a pale golden colour.
• Remove from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack. Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the top while still warm, and score into 12 pieces in the tin while still warm. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
• Once cold, remove carefully from tin, and then cut along the scored lines with a sharp knife.

These were a lovely sticky sweet treat; I had a nibble off one my brother was eating (he now shares an office space with me). You can use any jam you want, I just happened to have strawberry in the cupboard, but I can imagine these would be lovely with raspberry jam.

Chocolate Brownie Icing

Over the course of my bakery days, I had tried a lot of recipes for chocolate fudge icing, which can double function as glaze. As a child I had a book called "I Can Cook", which was a little paper back book with about 16 pages of easy recipes, one of which was a chocolate fudge icing. It was basically chocolate, butter, sugar and milk, but it required making a simple syrup with the milk and sugar, and it used an inordinate quantity of sugar and milk. It makes a lovely sticky sweet fudgy icing that sets beautifully thick for spreading, but I don't think it really works well as a brownie glaze.

I then watched a great video (in German) about how to make American style chocolate cake, and in it she included a recipe for "Schokocreme", which is basically chocolate fudge icing. It is super, super, too rich, as it uses equal quantities of chocolate and butter. Here in Ireland, the commonest form of butter is salted, meaning the finished icing was quite salty as well. I then put my thinking cap on to see if I could find a middle ground between too much sugar and too much butter.

So, I tried a few variations on a theme, until I settled on this quite effective recipe:

• 4 parts chocolate (dark, milk, or white)
• 2 parts icing sugar
• 2 parts butter (or margarine)
• 1 part milk (or coffee works too)

To make, simply melt the butter, sugar, and milk together in a microwave safe bowl on 1 minute bursts on "Defrost", or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water; once melted, beat in the sugar. What's that I hear you say? Is that it? Yes. Yes it is.

For a tray of brownies, which is roughly a 10 inch (25 centimetre) square in my case, 4 ounces of chocolate, 2 ounces each of butter and sugar, and 1 fluid ounce of coffee works really well for me to pour on top of the brownies while they're still hot, and then the whole batch cools down together. This means that the frosting fuses nicely to the cake surface, preventing the set icing from peeling off in layers, which can sometime happen when hot icing is poured onto cold cake.

This makes a nice mixture that's both pourable as a glaze when hot (which I use for topping brownies, as pictured), and spreadable as an icing when cold. Also, you can use it as a whipped filling if you beat it when it is fully cold.

While its wet, you can sprinkle things into it and they set into it perfectly. This icing works really well also as a piped icing for fairy cakes, due to its decadent nature.

It has a slightly soft, impressionable texture when set, and is great for decorating tray bakes. This seems to work equally well with dark, milk or white chocolate, whereas other recipes I've tried in the past really don't work with white chocolate, given its high fat content.

Minty Mint Brownies of Mintiness, with Marbled Glaze (Wheat Free)

Woo, 80 posts! Only 20 away from the big milestone...

First of all, I would like to announce that I have now in my possession a fancy new Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini which has a lovely crisp camera. Seeing as said phone can connect to the internet, it makes attaching photos to my blog posts so much easier than the way I had been doing it up until this point, which was using my point-and-click camera and uploading the photos from the SD card, which could be fiddly at times.

But back to the recipe.

I love mint. I absolutely love mint. I love mint so much I wish everything in the world could taste of mint. Mint, mint, mint!

And in saying that, I think mint chocolate is one of the World's best things (apart from orange chocolate), which means a mint chocolate brownie is probably infinitely better than than a regular brownie. So, I thought it would be appropriate to mark my return to baking after six weeks of a hiatus with something awesome: I baked a whole tray of mint brownies for a birthday party I had been invited to and they went down very well!

When I was decorating the surface with dark chocolate glaze and white chocolate glaze (half white, half green) I noticed that it had a very camouflage look about it, and thought that it would be cool for an airsofting party or anything army themed.

Also, I have come to appreciate the convenience of recyclable foil tins. This was a large tin so I increased the recipe by half to fit.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten
☒ Dairy (use ingredients in italics for a dairy-free version)
☒ Eggs
☒ Refined sugar products
☒ Cocoa products

INGREDIMENTS

For the brownies:

• 5 ounces  (115 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 ounces  (55 grammes) cornflour
• Pinch of salt
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) brown sugar
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, melted
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 3½ ounces (100 grammes) chocolate (at least 55% cocoa), melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) peppermint essence
• NO RAISING AGENT, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND GRACIOUS

For the glaze:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white chocolate
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) milk or dark chocolate
• 1½ fluid ounces (45 millilitres) sunflower oil
• Peppermint essence
• Green food colouring

HOW-TO

For the brownies:

• Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F, Gas Mark 3). Grease and thoroughly flour a 9x7 inch (23x18 centimetre) tin, or line with non-stick baking paper.
• Sieve together the cornflour, spelt flour and salt into a bowl and set aside for later.
• Put the eggs and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl (preferably glass) and set over a pan of simmering water and stir until sugar has melted. 
• Remove from the heat and beat the mixture with an electric hand mixer or balloon whisk until pale, thick and doubled in size. You could do with without the water bath, but it’s take too long to beat out the lumps in the brown sugar; the heat speeds this process up a little.
• Like with my sponge cake recipe, melt the butter and oil together and pour into the eggs and sugar mixture gradually, beating all the time.
• Add the vanilla essence and then, in a thin stream, beat in the cooled, melted chocolate.
• Using a rubber spatula or metal spoon, fold in the the flour mixture, bit by bit.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and firmly tap it a few times off the kitchen top to release any trapped bubbles.
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until spongy to touch and a cocktail stick stuck in the middle comes out with two or three sticky crumbs are clinging to it.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin.

For the glaze:

• Melt the white chocolate with 1 fluid ounce of the oil and a few drops of peppermint essence either in a bowl over hot water or in short bursts in the microwave.
• Melt the milk or dark chocolate with the remaining oil and another few drops of peppermint essence in the same way.
• Drizzle half the white chocolate over the top of the brownies, then colour the remaining white chocolate a pale minty green. Use the remaining chocolate glazes to decorate the brownies.
• Allow to set completely before cutting into squares.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: How to Use and Abuse Royal Icing

Variations on a Theme: Surfing Toffee Tray Cake (Wheat Free)

Earlier this year I was appointed as the youth worker in my church, which means now I'm in charge of designing, maintaining and running the youth group for the young people in my church and the surrounding churches in our circuit. I host a youth group every second Monday, where we have tea and biscuits and do team activities.

This week we had a surfing themed evening because the leader of our church's surfing mission was giving a talk. To fit in with the evening, I made some sea themed cakes.

I also took this opportunity to try out my new recipe for 'fail safe' boiled fondant icing, and it worked a charm. However, the weather was very overcast so the sugar boiling took a few goes to stop crystallising.

Before I started my surfing themed cakes I thought about how I'd decorate them, then I remembered that the Natural Confection Company does sea creature gummies, which would make very quick and convenient sea themed decorations for the cakes. The whole fairy cake versus tray bake conundrum was not a challenge for me: I infinitely prefer tray bakes to fairy cakes. I've never been a fairy cakes person, honestly.

I decided to play it safe and simple with the flavours because they were for teens and tweens who tend to be fickle and unadventurous. I settled on a toffee flavoured sponge with a simple vanilla icing; I thought the blue colour and the little sea creatures would be the main things, as children tend to get excited more about interesting visual things than interesting flavour combinations.

The texture of the cake was spot on, and it was deliciously moist and tender. I cooked the tray cake at a slightly lower oven temperature to get it to rise more evenly and bulge less in the centre; it worked quite well.

Overall, I think this little venture worked out brilliantly. I often overlook the advantages of using premade sweeties for decoration, and I think I'll keep an eye out for themed sweeties any more.  The children really enjoyed them, anyway, which is the most important thing.

HOW TO MAKE

• Make one 7x9 inch (17x24 centimeter) toffee sponge cake following this recipe, using 4 ounces (115 grammes) of soft brown sugar and ½ an ounce (15 grammes) golden syrup in place of all the caster sugar. Bake as instructed.
• Once the cake is cooled completely, use either blue butter cream icing or blue pouring fondant to cover the top of the cake. Streak to make it look like waves.
• Arrange 16 sea creature sweets on the top in a grid, and allow to set completely for about 2 hours at room temperature.
• Cut the cake into 16 pieces using a bread knife in a long sawing motion.
• Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

Minty Millionaire's Shortbread (Wheat Free)

This is post number 40, woo! If anyone has any ideas for post number 50, I'd be happy to know...

Here in Ireland, we have something that is mysteriously yet appropriately named 'Millionaire's Shortbread'. I understand that in other countries it is called caramel shortbread, but it's basically a shortbread base topped with a caramel layer then glazed with chocolate; a far cry from the usual shortbread, which is traditionally associated with poor Scottish folk who couldn't afford fancy ingredients.

It's quite a simple recipe, ingredients and cooking wise, but it's not so easy when it comes to cutting it up as all those three layers have different levels of cutting tolerance. I've found the best way around this is to take the shortbread out of the tin and turn it all upside down - chocolate side facing the cutting surface - on a piece of non-stick paper. This is also made a million times (pardon the pun) easier if the shortbread is pre-cut before layering with the soft caramel layer and chocolate glaze.

For this particular one also, keeping with the minty theme, I marbled the chocolate: milk chocolate and green tinted white chocolate. Remember, though, when colouring chocolate you must not use a water based colour: use an alcohol- or oil-based colour so the chocolate doesn't seize up and go all lumpy and disgusting. I use Sugarflair paste/gel food colours, and they work perfectly.

So, onto the making of said delight!

INGREDIMENTS

Makes 1 8 inch (20 centimeter) round biscuit

For the biscuit base

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white or wholemeal spelt flour
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes) cornflour or rice flour
• Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) cocoa powder
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar

For the caramel topping

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (55 millilitres) cream (or just use milk if you don't have any cream)
• 2 fluid ounces (55 millilitres) milk
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) butter
• ½ teaspoon (2½ millilitres)  vanilla essence
• ½ teaspoon (2½ millilitres)  peppermint essence
• A few drops green colour

For chocolate topping

• One 3½ ounce bar (100 grammes) milk chocolate
• Half a 3½ ounce bar (100 grammes) white chocolate
• 1¼ ounces in weight (35 grammes) sunflower oil
• Green paste/gel food colouring

HOW-TO

• Preheat your oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mk.2½, or very moderate) and line the bottom of an 8 inch (20 centimeter) round sandwich tin, preferably with a loose bottom.
• Sieve together the flours, cocoa and salt, if using, onto a piece of grease-proof paper. Set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, beat the living daylights out of the butter until soft and creamy. Use a wooden spoon: it needs more elbow grease, but you have much more control over how soft you make your butter.
• Pour in the caster sugar, and cream until light and fluffy. Then add the dry ingredients and mix until the flour is combined; you may need to use your hands as the dough gets very stiff.
• Press the dough evenly into the sandwich tin and prick all over with a fork or skewer, making sure the holes go right to the bottom of the tin. Score into 12 or 16 equal wedges, depending on how big you want them.
• Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until thoroughly cooked and dry. It seems like a ridiculous amount of time, but shortbread isn't so much baked as it is cured.
• On removing from the oven, cut the shortbread in the tin along the score lines to make it easier to cut later. Allow to cool in the tin for about 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and cool completely before breaking into wedges.

Now, to reassemble the shortbread

• Clean the sandwich tin and re-line, bottom and sides, with non-stick baking paper. If your tin doesn't have a loose bottom, make two thin strips of paper and run them along the bottom and up the sides of the tin, underneath the lining. This will give you handles to lift out your biscuit with once you've caramelled and chocolated it.
• Reassemble the shortbread in the tin, butting it all in and making sure the wedges are in the correct order.
• Prepare the caramel layer using this recipe (yes, it's technically a fudge layer) and the above ingredients. Once you have beaten the caramel mixture, pour in on top of the shortbread. Allow to cool to room temperature before setting for at least 3 hours in the fridge, preferably overnight.
• Once set, prepare the chocolate glaze. Put the chocolates in separate bowls, and add about 1 ounce (25 grammes) of the oil to the milk chocolate, then the rest to the white chocolate. Melt the chocolates either in the microwave or conventionally. Mix a little green into the white chocolate to get a delicate minty shade.
• Using a tablespoon, drizzle a spoonful of each chocolate alternately on top of the caramel layer, not worrying to much about how they land. When all the chocolate is used up, gently tilt the tin all around to level out the surface and get the topping over the whole biscuit. Allow to set completely in the fridge.

To cut, as I mentioned before, turn the whole lot out chocolate side down and cut along the pre-cut wedges. It's much easier this way! This will keep best at room temperature in an airtight tin, but you can keep it also in said airtight tin in the fridge.

Mint Toffee Slice

Mint and toffee go very, very well together. There’s so many different kinds of sweeties that combine the creaminess of toffee and the warmly tingly tones of mint: Murray mints, Toffos, Humbugs, Mint Special Toffee... the list goes on! And very few people don’t like mint toffee; I haven’t come across one yet, anyway.

But when it comes to mint and cake, the relationship is very precarious: mint on its own doesn’t work in a cake. Mint works well as the only flavour in sweeties because it’s just sugar and mint, but our associations with mint and our associations with cake don’t marry well. Whenever I’ve eaten mint flavoured cake, I’ve just thought ‘toothpaste cake’, and that is not an image that I want people eating my cakes to imagine.

To make mint work in a cake, it needs to be a secondary, or accent, flavour: it needs to the second half of a classic something-and-mint combination, so when the person is eating the cake they imagine that nice combination of something-and-mint, and remember how nice it is. For example, mint and chocolate, mint and toffee, mint and coffee, mint and strawberry are all combinations found in the dessert world that contain mint. This works very nicely as the mint is just in the icing, not in the cake. This means it’s a caramel cake, which people are used to, and mint toffee icing, which people are also used to.

This rule applies to any kind of unusual cake flavouring. I’ve made cakes with really unusual flavourings, but because the icing and the cake can be considered separately, it works. For example, who’d have thought chocolate and cinnamon cake with mint chocolate glaze would be so popular? I made it, and it was.

Enough of my rambling theories! You’re here for a recipe.

INGREDIMENTS

For the cake

• 4 ounces  (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounce  (55 grammes) cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) golden syrup
• 2½ (70 grammes) brown sugar
• 3 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes) butter, or margarine, melted
• 1½ ounces (40 grammes) sunflower oil
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• If you have it: a few drops of butter-vanilla flavouring

For the icing

• 7 ounces (230 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) golden syrup
• 2 fluid ounces (60 millilitres) milk
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, or margarine
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) peppermint essence
• Optional: different kinds of green sprinkles

HOW-TO

First, bake the cake:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (375°F, Gas Mark 5). Grease and flour a 9x7 inch (23x18 centimetre) tin, or line with non-stick baking paper.
• Follow the instructions for making sponge cake here, but when it comes to the sugar and egg mixture, beat the sugar, syrup and eggs with the bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Without the assistance of heat, any clumps in the brown sugar would take too long to break down, and also the syrup would just stay stuck to the bowl.
• Pour into the prepared tin and bake as instructed. Allow to cool to a touchable temperature in the tin then transfer to cool on a wire rack. The golden syrup makes it too fragile to handle while it’s warm. If you cooked it with non-stick paper, leave the paper stuck to the cake: this will be very useful when it comes to icing it later.

Next, the icing:

• Take the same tin as you baked the cake in. If you didn’t use non-stick paper, wash it and line it with non-stick paper. If you did, just put the cooled cake back in with the paper attached.
• Run the cold tap into your sink to fill the basin about 4 inches (10 centimetres) full of water. This is used to cool the pan later.
• Put all the ingredients, except for the peppermint essence, into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until all the ingredients have melted together.
• Bring to the boil, and then cook until soft-ball stage is reached. Remove from the heat and dip the bottom of the pan in the cold water in the sink. Allow the pan to sit and cool for about 5 or 10 minutes.
• Add the peppermint essence and then beat until opaque but still a pouring consistency. Pour over the cake and smooth out with a palette knife.

My homemade sprinkles got their first appearance with this delight! I thought they were very cute.

Pouring Fondant Done the Awkward Way

I promised a recipe for pouring fondant, and I have delivered! Pouring fondant is very similar to glacé icing (only less watery and insipid) in that it is runny when made, but sets into a soft, sugary layer of icingy loveliness when it's set; compare it to ganache in this respect. This is the kind of icing found in the tops of Bakewell tarts, or enveloped around French Fancies.

As the title would suggest, this isn't the World's easiest way of making pouring fondant, but I don't like doing things easily. I like finding the most arse-about-face way of making things just to bask in the glory of succeeding at a challenge... I exaggerate: the only complicated thing about this recipe is a sugar thermometer, and you don't even need one. The important thing to note in this recipe, though, is that there are two separate stages of preparation: it's not a case of mix it up and it's done, there's a little bit of kitchen science involved.

When the sugar cooks in the saucepan, it becomes a liquid syrup because the sugar molecules have been dissolved into the water and all the little grains and crystals of sugar have been disintegrated. This is why recipes that require boiling sugar ask not to stir the syrup while it's boiling and to wash the sides of the pans while cooking: if the syrup is disturbed, or any crystals of sugar reintroduced into the mixture, it will start a chain reaction in which all the crystals of sugar are linked together again, and it'll set into a rock because the heat produces the perfect crystal growing conditions.

However, when making sweets such as fondant and fudge, we actually want a certain, controlled level of crystallisation to make the sweets opaque and a tiny bit grainy. This grainy sensation gives the eater the illusion of creaminess and smoothness, instead of full on sticky-sweet sugariness. But in order to control the level of crystallisation, we have to allow the syrup to cool down; this means the reaction won't run away with itself given the slightest excuse.

Don't believe this scientific gobbledigook? Check it out here in the completely unreferenced source of all my sugar-cooking knowledge.

Now, to start:

INGREDIMENTS
This will cover one 8 inch (20 centimeter) round cake, 7x9 (17x24 centimeter) rectangle cake, or 12 fairy cakes

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar

• 2 fluid ounces (60 milliliters) water

• ¼ teaspoon white vinegar, or lemon juice

• Optional: 1 tablespoon glucose syrup, or light corn syrup

HOW TO

• Prepare your work area: ready a shallow bowl of water and ice-cubes for sugar testing, and lightly grease a medium sized glass bowl.

• In a medium-size heavy saucepan, pour the water and stir in the cream of tartar or vinegar. 

• Pour the sugar into the middle of the water, and add the syrup if using. This makes a ring of water between the edge of the pan and the pile of sugar, reducing the chances of crystallisation.

• Put onto a medium-low heat and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then allow to come to the boil.

• Once the sugar is boiling, stop stirring. Don't even touch it. If you see crystals clinging to the pan sides, use a pastry brush dipped in hot water to wash them off, but for the love of God don't scrape anything.

• Once boiling, attach your handy-dandy sugar thermometer to the side of the pan. Cook to soft ball stage, which is 113 - 115°C (235 - 240°F). Or you can do a cold water test: take the pan off the heat momentarily and take a teaspoon of syrup. Drop it into the bowl of water and ice-cubes. The syrup should be firm enough to be rolled into a ball, but the ball should be flattened easily and shouldn't be able to hold its shape of its own accord.

• Having reached the appropriate temperature, take the pan and pour the contents into the glass bowl, never scraping the sides under any circumstances. Set on the work surface and allow to cool to about 37°C (100°F), or until the pan is a touchable heat from below.

• Beat the fondant until opaque and thick but still pourable, as pictured. Pour onto your preferred cake, and spread around to smooth.

NOTES

• Beat in 1 ounce of any of strained jam at the end.

• Make the syrup comepletely with citrus juice, or any fruit juice for that matter.

• Use half water, half coconut milk.

• Add a teaspoon of any kind of flavouring essence, like vanilla, peppermint or rum.

• Add a tablespoon of golden syrup to the syrup, and beat in 1 ounce of softened butter at the end for toffee or caramel flavour.

This is my favourite icing for cake slices and traybakes, as it can be poured onto the pre-cut cake in one fell swoop, and the cake can be cut into pieces once iced. To cut this icing you'll need to cut it while still a little soft and with a hot knife, like I explained in my coffee and raspberry slice recipe.

This is the basic basey base of the fondant icing, and it can be coloured and flavoured very easily. There are a myriad of ways to flavour this versatile icing. For example:

Gingerbread of the Gingeriest Proportions (Wheat Free)

I will admit: the fluffy blue teddy isn't what one would associate with a die-hard metal fan, but the
gingerbread was made for a church event entitled 'Teddy Bear Parachute Jumping Contest'. Don't ask: Church of Ireland people have these vagueries.

And no: it isn't chocolate, this is traditional treacle gingerbread. Usually baked in loaf form as a tea bread, this sticky sweet treat is very heavy going and best enjoyed in small doses, due to its rich, dense texture and its almost palette-abusing amount of spices. Of course, the spiciness can be adjusted to taste, but this is a recipe I have altered over time to yield an intense taste experience. I like to eat this spread with real butter with a nice cuppa shcald, but you can enjoy this like a cake if you prefer; I actually made this in traybake form for the church event, not in loaf form.

I also like to have a sticky glaze on my gingerbread, which calls upon an unusual ingredient: Coca-Cola. Before you say anything, don't knock it! Coca-Cola is flavoured with a unique blend of spices and herbal extracts, and its zingy flavour works well with the spiciness of the gingerbread.

The list of ingredients may seem daunting, but it's like literally any tea bread: mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, mix the wet ingredients in a bowl, then mix the wet into the dry. Only, the wet ingredients are mixed in a saucepan in this one and the eggs are added last.

This recipe is adapted from Tate and Lyle Refineries' book Sweet Success, published in 1977.

INGREDIMENTS:
This makes one 8x4 inch (21x10 centimeter) loaf, or one 10 inch (25 centimeter) square cake

Dry ingredients:

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) spelt flour
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) cornflour
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon dried chili flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) golden syrup
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) treacle
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) soft brown sugar
• 4 ounces (140 grammes) butter
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) root ginger, grated finely
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) crystalised ginger, cut finely
• 6 fluid ounces (170 milliliters) warm water
• 2 medium eggs

For the glaze:

• 1 tablespoon golden syrup, or stem ginger syrup if you can find it
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces hot water
• 2 fluid ounces Coca-Cola

HOW-TO

• Preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F, Gas Mk.3, or very moderate).
• Prepare your tin of choice by greasing and flouring, or lining with baking paper. I use silicone-greased paper, but waxed paper works just as well; greaseproof paper needs to be greased.
• Put all the wet ingredients, except the eggs, into a saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until the sugar and butter have melted and it has formed an even mixture. Allow to cool enough for it not to scramble the eggs later.
• Sieve all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
• Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients from the saucepan. Mix together gently with a spatula, wooden spoon or balloon whisk.
• Add in the eggs and beat vigorously until well combined and smooth. 
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. It's done when it's springy to the touch and a cocktail stick or skewer stuck into the thickest part comes out clean or with one or two crumbs stuck to it. About 5 minutes before it's due out of the oven, start preparing the glaze if you want to use it.
• To make the glaze, put all the glaze ingredients into a small saucepan and heat slowly, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat.
• Skewer the cake while it's still hot and pour on the glaze even over the surface. Return to the oven for another 2 minutes to set the glaze slightly.
• If you have glazed the cake, allow to cool completely in the tin before taking out and serving; if you haven't glazed it, you can take out of the tin when it is cool enough to handle and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 

The texture of this bread is second to none, and it is sinfully moist. As nice as it is eaten while still warm from the oven, it's best to leave it overnight before cutting. This way, all the spices have time to breathe and release their flavours into the cake.

Coffee Sponge Slice with Raspberry Fondant Icing (Wheat Free)

'Coffee and raspberry?', I hear you (or imagine hearing you) say? Yes: raspberry and coffee go very well together.

If you think about it, coffee is very similar to chocolate in its flavour; if one were to draw a comparison, one could say that coffee is the more acrid and sharp version and chocolate is the warmer, richer version of the same taste. So, basically anything that goes well with chocolate tends to pair with coffee, too (with a few exceptions, of course).

Coffee and mint, coffee and vanilla, coffee and hazelnut, coffee and orange, coffee and caramel, and coffee with raspberry; these are all very pleasing combinations. Just imagine yourself going to a café to order a coffee and seeing what kind of syrups you can add to it.

As for the anatomy of this particular piece of patisserie, it's basically a coffee favoured sponge with a raspberry pouring fondant topping. The sponge is flavoured with both strong coffee and coffee grinds, which gives it a nice speckled appearance akin to a poppy-seed cake, and also means that it tastes quite strongly of coffee.The topping is a boiled sugar pouring fondant, flavoured with strained raspberry jam; it's best to use a jam with a high fruit percentage (sixty percent or more is preferable) to make sure it's nice and fruity.  I like very strong flavours, you might've already guessed.

And you will soon learn that I just have a thing for sliced cakes and tray bakes. That's what I get for being an Irish Protestant... it's just in my blood.

So, to make this deliciousness, you will need:

INGREDIMENTS
For one 6x9 inch (15x23 centimetre) cake:

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon ground coffee
• 3 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 4½ ounces (130 grammes) caster sugar
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) melted butter
• 1½ ounces (45 grammes) sunflower oil
• 4 tablespoons (60 milliliters) strong black coffee

For icing:

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 fluid ounces (60 milliliters) water
• ¼ teaspoon white vinegar, or lemon juice
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) strained raspberry jam
• Optional: about 4 tablespoons of raspberry- or coffee-flavoured syrup.

HOW-TO

• Prepare the cake using this recipe, and bake it into a 7x9 inch (17x23 centimeter) cake tin for 20-25 minutes, or until springy to touch and a cocktail stick stuck into the thickest part comes out with one or two crumbs stuck to it. Leave to cool.
• If you want to make the sponge a little moister, you can sprinkle the cake, while still a little warm, with raspberry- or coffee-flavoured syrup.
• Once the cake is completely cold, start preparing your pouring fondant using this technique. As you already know (or at least you ought to know / for I have often told you so) that pouring fondant must be used immediately after making, as it can't be stored in liquid form like beaten icings.
• Pour your prepared fondant onto the cake and, working very quickly, spread the icing around with a palette knife. You can make swirls on the top if you want but I tend to do streaks.

While the fondant is still sticky, you can sprinkle any kind of pretty shiny things, like hundreds and thousands or vermicelli, but I like leaving mine plain and simple. Allow to fondant to set for about 10 minutes before cutting.

A handy trick I've learnt when it comes to cutting cakes is making sure your knife is nice and hot. I do this by keeping a tall glass or vase full of hot water by my make while I'm cutting, dipping the knife in it before every cut, and using some kitchen paper to wipe off the crumbs between every cut. This means you'll get a perfect, clean cut every time, as if you did it by laser...