Pear, Almond and Chocolate Loaf

I’ve been meaning to make this cake for so long. But each time I was ready to make it something got in the way. I didn’t have the ingredients, or something prettier or more useful came along instead. Finally, this weekend, with some pears ripening rapidly and a rainy Sunday crying out for cake this loaf finally graced my kitchen. And it was worth the wait!I wish now I hadn’t waited so long to get round to this cake because it is so good! It’s the perfect Sunday afternoon cake – not too big that you’re eating it all week, but not too small that it’s over as soon as it has begun. It has a smattering of melting chocolate to feel like a treat but the generous amount of pear and lack of icing mean it isn’t too rich and you don’t feel too guilty about having a second slice. Also, I made it as a simple afternoon loaf but if you made it in a round tin and served it with crème fraiche it would make a great dessert. It’s such an all rounder! I adapted this a lot from the original recipe, the main difference being that I swapped half the flour for ground almonds and added a dash of almond essence because my love for almonds means I’ll find a way to get them in anything I bake somehow. I also doubled the amount of pear, slicing and arranging one on top as well as just dicing it into the cake to make it extra juicy, and finally I used golden caster sugar instead of ordinary caster sugar for a more caramel rich taste. Overall I was very happy with the result – the cake is diminishing rapidly and I know it won’t be too long before it’s made again. Lesson learnt: it’s not always the fanciest, jazziest bakes that are the nicest. Enjoy!

Pear, Almond and Chocolate Loaf (adapted from Poires au Chocolat here)

Ingredients: 2 small ripe pears
125g unsalted butter
75g golden caster sugar
50g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1tsp almond extract
80g ground almonds
55g plain flour
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
60g dark chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Line a 20cm loaf tin with a strip of greaseproof paper and butter the sides. 
2. Peel and core both pears. Finely dice one. Quarter and slice the second pear.
3. Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs with 1tbsp of the flour to stop it curdling.
4. Mix together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt. Stir in the diced pear and chocolate to coat in the flour and prevent them sinking in the cake.
5. Add this to the wet mixture and fold until combined. Spoon into the loaf tin and level out. Arrange the sliced pear on top of the cake and bake for 40 minutes – check after 30mins and cover with foil if necessary to stop the top browning too much. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate Orange Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Baking, and food in general, can often be a comfort. That might seem strange at this time of year – fair enough to talk about comfort food in rainy November, but surely now that we’re in May (where has time gone?!) it’s time to be moving on to light, summery, bikini-ready food, right? Well, not necessarily. For starters, London summers take a long while to get going so the weather is only sporadically beginning to warm up here.  Secondly, just because it is summer doesn’t mean life stresses (I’m looking at you, exams!) don’t occur. And thirdly, when is cake ever a bad thing? That was my thinking recently when I had a stash of oranges that needed using up and I was looking for a new way to use them. With a title as good as this – Chocolate (tick) Cream Cheese (tick) Orange (tick) Cake (big tick) – this cake that I’ve had bookmarked forever finally got its day! Pound cake is an American classic but I’d never made it before and I think this was also my first time using cream cheese in a cake. I liked that the recipe made a properly generously sized cake – one that keeps well for a few days and is very much a cut-and-come-again cake. Despite sounding quite rich and indulgent, it really didn’t taste that way (particularly as I used slightly less chocolate than suggested) so it was perfect as a 4pm pick me up. I also liked the firm texture of a pound cake and am looking forward to trying out more – I think they would be the perfect sturdy cake to bake before a weekend away and take away with you. As I mentioned, it was my first time baking with cream cheese and I had mixed feelings about the results in that respect. Whilst you could taste it in the cake batter, the flavour really cooked out in the oven and I guess the cream cheese is really there to provide texture. I was a bit disappointed by this as I love the flavour, but I guess if you wanted you could add indulgence to this cake with a cream cheese icing! You can find the original Joy the Baker recipe here – enjoy!

Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake

Normally, the cake should be the star of the show – not the icing. A cupcake piled overwhelmingly high with decadent swirl upon swirl of icing can err on the wrong side of rich. However, I think in the case of this cake it is ok that the icing almost outshines the dark cake beneath. In fact, I think it is the best icing I have ever made, it was that good. It is very sweet, rich and full of butterscotch flavour. I’ve made a similar variation before – a penuche icing to top apple cupcakes – but this version managed to be even better and more caramelly than that. Plus, the cake it topped was pretty good too! I like making cake or cookie versions of traditional dessert recipes and working out how the flavours can be carried across different baking mediums. It means that instead of having a bake best served immediately, after a meal, the cake can last several days and be enjoyed at any time. Win. This Delia recipe uses all the classic sticky toffee pudding elements and also adds pecans. Personally I’m not a fan of nuts (other than almonds) in cakes but they seemed to go down well with the family, adding a contrast in texture to the dense squishyness of the cake and icing.You can find the recipe here and I didn’t make any changes other than decreasing the amount of pecans. The icing only uses 4tbsp of evaporated milk, meaning that the majority of the tin is left behind – it’s taking a lot of resistance and willpower not to make another batch!

Mini Marble Cakes

Once I realise what I want to bake, I tend to become quite stubbornly specific about that idea. I have to hunt through the indexes of cookbooks, trying to see if they have the recipe I have in mind. Unsurprisingly, today I didn’t find a specific recipe for mini marble loaf cakes that I wanted. Guess I'll just have to write my own book one day! The inspiration came from a link I’d bookmarked, but on closer inspection that used 3 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks and I didn’t want the faff of using up the egg whites. Many of the marble cakes I saw seemed quite dry or difficult to downsize to my little batch. In the end, I heavily adapted a Mary Berry recipe (how can you go wrong?) and ended up with exactly what I’d wanted.I’ve wanted to make a marble cake for a long time and it seemed the perfect way to use up odds and ends of chocolate. Using mini loaf pans made the marbling process a little bit more fiddly, but it was worth it in the end. The chocolate cake part is made using cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips, which means it isn’t too sweet against the light vanilla cake. The cakes are probably a little bit bigger than a cupcake (although some shop-bought cupcakes can be huge!) but seeing as they don’t have any icing they are not too rich and are the perfect teatime treat! I’d definitely like to experiment further with marble cakes when I have more ingredients in the house – a chocolate orange version, a coffee version, a version with dried fruit…so many ideas!

Mini Marble Cakes, adapted from a Marble Traybake recipe from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book

Ingredients: 110g butter
110g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp cocoa powder
1tbsp hot water
50g dark chocolate, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Line 6 mini loaf tins with a strip of greaseproof paper.

2. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs and milk in a food processor and beat until everything is well blended together.

3. Measure out half the cake mixture into another bowl. Add the vanilla essence and white chocolate chunks to the remaining mix in the food processor and stir to incorporate.

4. Mix the cocoa powder and hot water to a paste in a small bowl, then add to the other half of cake mixture along with the dark chocolate chunks.

5. Place a small teaspoonful of vanilla mixture into the bottom of each loaf tin, with a spoonful of chocolate mixture next to it. Layer up the two mixes in the tins, with alternating mixes on top of each other. Briefly marble with a thin cake skewer.

6. Bake for around 15-20minutes, until risen and set in the centre. Leave to cool before running round the edges of each tin with a knife and turning out.

Orange and Passion fruit Cake

Today I planned my summer holiday. It made me dream of a beach – scorching sand that gets everywhere, paddling and swimming in the sea. I imagined exploring a new city with my friends – shopping, eating, seeing, sampling. It reminded me of sunny days – when its warm and you wear flip flops instead of boots, T-shirts without coats. This tropical cake properly transported me and made me feel like I was already there. Only three months to wait!This loaf cake is from Edd Kimber’s (Great British Bake Off series 1 winner) new book, The Boy Who Bakes. The sponge is like a pound cake, dense and full of orange citrus flavour. The cake is also soaked with an orange sugar syrup which helps keep it really moist and heightens the flavours. My favourite part of the cake, however, was the passion fruit icing. Ahhh. I’ve spoken before about my love of passion fruit and this icing was just pure passion fruit flavour – bright and tropical and summery and zingy and aromatic: I could go on! For me, it completely made the cake and took it to a whole new level.If you are sick of the grey weather, and are loving the start of March and the gradual arrival of spring then this is the cake for you. Just don’t be like me and be impatient, causing you to put the icing on whilst the cake is still faintly warm – melting the icing a tad and causing a cake-stand covered in icing instead of the actual cake… Cut yourself a generous slice, close your eyes and dream of the Caribbean!

Mini Orange Drizzle Cakes

Its currently that time of year when the weather can’t really make its mind up – should it let the sun shine or should it be gloomy and grey? Should it be getting dark at 4pm or 5pm? It’s also the time of year that inspires the spring clean. In my house the bedrooms are being reorganised, paperwork from all corners of the house is being filed, clothes are being sorted, drawers are being emptied and their contents examined. The last drawer to have the spring clean treatment was the kitchen drawer containing baking bits and bobs. Piping bags, cookie cutters, baking parchment, the heavy rolling pin – everything covered the table. Including a set of tiny loaf tins hidden at the back, bought excitedly but never used. Today that changed! Today was one of those gloomy, rainy days but I ignored it, put on an orange jumper and started baking zingy, fresh orange drizzle cakes. I whipped these up in about half an hour but their scent lingered happily in the kitchen: making it smell fresh, delicious and drawing me constantly back to the baking. Also, because they’re mini they only take 10-15minutes to cook so there’s not too long to wait before you can be enjoying these! The cake edges are crisp and golden, giving way to the soft and moist centre. The crème fraiche in the recipe ensures these stay soft whilst giving them a bit of extra tang which complements the tang of the orange. The orange glace icing on the top adds an extra burst of sweet and rounds everything off simply. I liked these because it’s more interesting than one large cake but makes a refreshing change to cupcakes. I hope you give these a try and that they brighten up a gloomy day in another kitchen. Enjoy :) Mini Orange Drizzle Cakes (makes 8) Ingredients: 100g caster sugar
115g softened butter
2 large eggs
115g self raising flour
2tbsp crème fraiche
2 large oranges – the zest and juice
100g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 and line the cake tins.
2. Beat the butter and caster sugar until light, creamy and well combined. Add the eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Add the juice of one orange, and zest of both.
3. Add the flour and crème fraiche and fold the mixture gently until fully combined. Divide the mixture between the cake cases – filling them about 3/4 full.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the cakes spring back and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool in their tins.
5. Mix the icing sugar and remaining orange juice until smooth and fairly thin so that it is easy to drizzle. If there is any orange juice left over, use the cake skewer to poke small holes in the cakes and pour over the juice.
6. Once the cakes are fully cooled, remove from the tins and paper and drizzle over the icing. Enjoy!