Monday 12 December 2011

Saffron Peach Cake

I appear to have found the baking bug, I blame Dan Lepard, every time I flick through his book I find something else to have a go at making. This one from the cake section leapt out at me last night and scanning through the ingredients I had nearly everything already in my cupboard...apart from saffron....jeez you need a bank loan to buy any of this stuff, £3.50 for half a gram! but no matter it's not as if buying it is a regular occurrence.

I am submitting this for Karen and Kate's Tea Time Treats challenge (Christmas theme, chosen by Kate) because it's a little different than the usual cakes at this time of year plus it's got icing sugar sprinkled on it so it looks like snow.....*clutches straw*


Recipe available here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/21/baking-peach-cake

Verdict
Soft, nutty, sweet, juicy.....oh just make it already it's blooming lovely.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Espresso and Brazil Nut Cake

Like nearly every food blogger, amateur baker, cake lover and general worshipper of sweet stuff, recently I received  a copy of Dan Lepard's Short & Sweet. I currently have yet to find a bad review of this book and after finally getting round to making something from it, I cant imagine I will be the first. I've had this book a couple of weeks now and being chopping and changing with what I was going to bake first. After narrowing it down to the cake section, this one jumped out at me.

There is lot of debate about whether to put recipes from books on blogs nowadays and with this book being fairly recently published I decided not to publish the recipe for this cake. However after a quick Google search I found the recipe here on the Guardian Website but I highly recommend you buy this book.

Verdict
Great choice I think for the first recipe, easy to make and with lovely flavours and texture. The coffee in the cake is subtle apart from the odd strong wave from the icing and the brazil nuts provide a superb texture to the cake crumb. My cake tins are a little bigger than the recommended, therefore mine is a little thinner than it should be, still tastes good though.