Coffee Cake with a Baileys Frosting

This weekend, me and the OH made a long awaited return to the Clandestine Cake Club, this time held in a secret location in Harrogate.
For this secret meeting I decided to combine the flavours of one of my favourite after dinner drinks, Baileys Irish Coffee, into cake form.

This recipe is very simple but if you are on a diet then feel free to leave because this sticks two fingers up to any diet in favour of rich indulgent cakey goodness.

I used a tsp of instant coffee with two tbsp of water, which was nowhere near enough to give a good coffee flavour so I recommend you use coffee essense/extract in the same quanitity.

Coffee Cake with Baileys Frosting
Ingredients

Cake tins: 21cm loose bottomed, lined and greased.

250g Butter
250g Caster Sugar
4 Large Eggs
250g Self Raising Flour
2 tbsp Coffee Extract/Essence

Frosting
200g Butter, Softened
400g Full Fat Cream Cheese
200g Icing Sugar
2 tbsp Baileys Liquor

Method
Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined
Sift in the flour and beat in.
Beat in the coffee extract.
Divide between the tins and level out
bake in a preheated oven 180C/160C(fan) for 25 minutes until a skewer is removed clean.
Turn out and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Frosting
Beat the butter sugar an half the cheese together until smooth.
Beat in the remainder of the cheese.
Mix in the baileys

Sandwich the cakes together with the frosting and then completely cover all over with the remainder.
Grate over some good dark chocolate.

Enjoy


These are some of the other delightful cakes that arrived on the day. Yum

Black Banana Cake

It's been awhile since I did any decent cooking or baking, what with the madness that has been the last few weeks. So to get back into it I thought I would do something fairly easy but very tasty. While wondering what to cook, I had a wander round my kitchen and found some rather ripe and squishy bananas which reminded me about Nigel Slater's black banana cake....



I have altered the recipe slightly, adjusting to what I had in my cupboard. The original recipe is here

Black Banana Cake
Ingredients
175g unsalted butter
140g golden caster sugar/35g muscavado sugar
75g ground almonds
2 eggs
175g self raising flour
2 very ripe bananas
drop of vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate/50g white chocolate (cut up into tiny chunks)
sprinkle of brown sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 170C
Line the base and sides of a loaf tin (20cm/12cm)
Beat the sugars and butter together until light and fluffy
Slowly beat in the eggs to the butter mixture
Beat in the flour and almonds
Chop up the bananas into small pieces and mix gently into the mix along with the chocolate and vanilla extract. Do not over mix.

Spoon the batter into the loaf tin, dust with brown sugar and bake for 1 hour - 1 hour and 10 mins

Cover the cake with foil if the top starts to darken to quickly.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack

Serve and enjoy.

Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting.

For this months Clandestine Cake Club meeting the theme was Flirtatiously Fruity and Succulent Savoury. For an excellent review go here and look at what else turned up.

I decided to go for the flirtatiously fruity and decided to make a recipe I found on BBC Good Food and adapted slightly.




Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting
Ingredients
175g soft butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 Large Eggs
225g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
142ml carton of sour cream
350g of mixed berries. I used; blueberries, raspberries and blackberries

Frosting
200g Philadelphia cream cheese
100g icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180C (fan =160C)
Line a deep loose based cake tin.
Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla and beat together until well mixed.

Beat in 4tbsp of the soured cream.

Stir in the fruit gently, leave about 50g to decorate.

Tip into the tin and bake for 50 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes then tip out onto a wire rack to finish cooling

Frosting
Beat the soft cheese, icing sugar and the remaining sour cream together until smooth and creamy.
Spread out on top and decorate with the remaining fruit.

Enjoy.

I took a picture of my plate after my first assault of the rather long table filled with cake at this months event:

Not bad for a first course. Yum

Simple Chocolate Cake

Anybody can bake, its easy, simply follow the basic rules to whatever you are making and you really can't go wrong.

A request came in today from the Head of Department for a few cakes for the last lesson with the year 11's, before they leave, preferably a chocolate one and who am I to turn down an opportuinty to bake when I should be working....




This recipe is a standard recipe for a no frills speedy chocolate sponge cake. Dom at Belleau Kitchen did a post similar to this recently here.

So anyway the rules, unfortunatly baking is not someting you can randomly throw ingredients in until it tastes nice but they are fairly simple so if you follow them you will be fine.

• Each ingredient weighs the same. If you use 100g of flour then use 100g of the other ingredients
• 1 egg = average weight is 50g
• Dont overbeat, when its smooth and all combined then stop.
• Line your tin, however annoying it might be to do its more annoying when its stuck to the tin when you try and take it out.
• Do not open your oven part way through the allotted cooking time, just don't not under any circumstances, your cake will sink in the centre and look a bit rubbish, wait until at least two thirds of the time has passed.

Simple chocolate sponge
Ingredients
190g Self Raising flour
10g Cocoa powder
200g Butter
200g Caster Sugar
4 Eggs

Method
Weigh out and combine all ingredients in a bowl, beat with an electric whisk until smooth.
Divide equally between two lined 8 inch cake tins.
Level out the mixture in the tin with the back of a spoon.
Place in a pre heated oven at 190C for 20-25 minutes.
Remove from oven and tin and cool on a wire rack.
Decorate however you like

It really is as easy as that.

I decorated the above cake by beating 80g of butter with 155g of icing sugar and 5g of cocoa powder until combined and then sandwiched the two cakes together before sprinkling on icing sugar.

So go on then what are you waiting for.

Carrot and Ginger Cake

Ancient legend states that the humble carrot should always be a savoury vegetable, nowadays we say nay and shove it in cakes. So being a bit bored last night, I decided to have a go at my first ever carrot cake:








Carrot and Ginger Cake
Ingredients

175g Dark Brown Soft sugar
175ml Sunflower oil
3 large Eggs, lightly beaten
180g (ish) Grated Carrots
100g Sultanas
zest of a large Orange
175g Self raising flour
1tsp of Bicarbonate of soda
1tsp Cinnamon
1tsp Ground ginger
thumb sized amount of fresh Ginger, grated
1/2 tsp Nutmeg.

100g Icing sugar
1/2 tsp Mixed spice
1-2tbsp Water

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan)
Line your tin, I used a springform 23cm circle cake tin but you could use a loaf tin, a square tin etc.. cooking time will vary though.
Add the sugar to a mixing bowl, add the oil followed by the eggs. Mix together with a wooden spoon

Stir in the grated carrots, fresh ginger, sultanas and orange zest.

Sift in the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.

Fold all the ingredients together until well combined - should be very runny.

Pour mixture into your cake tin and bake for 40 -45 minutes.

Insert a skewer to check if it is cooked, if it comes out clean it is done.
Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then remove and cool on a wire rack.

Mix icing sugar and mixed spice in a dish with 1-2 tbsp of water.
Drizzle over cake as desired.

Serve and enjoy.

Rhubarb and Custard Cake

This months brief for Clandestine Cake Club was Victorian and was held at Harvey Nichols, Leeds.











Now this theme wasn't springing me any inspiration and any idea I did have other people seemed to be doing it, so after a tweet from our host and founder telling me to forget the brief a few ideas for a cake involving rhubarb came to mind especially since the forced rhubarb season is coming to a close and I hadnt done anything with it.

Yorkshire is quite well known for its Rhubarb Triangle consisting of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield.  Forced rhubarb, if you don't know, is grown in pitch black hot warehouses at an accelerated rate, the absence of light makes the rhubarb feed off energy from its roots and the heat speeds up its growth. This version is a lot sweeter, pinker in colour and less fibrous than its slower grown cousin.

So anyway I had a couple of ideas but the lack of time to experiment lead me to BBC Food in search of a recipe.

Rhubarb and Custard Cake
400g Rhubarb (forced or normal)
50g Caster Sugar

25og Soft butter
150g pot of Ambrosia Custard
250g SR Flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
4 large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla extract
250g Golden Caster sugar

Wash the rhubarb and shake off the excess water
Chop into finger size pieces.
Place on a baking tray and pour over the 50g of caster sugar.
Shake about until well covered and the rhubarb is on one level.
Cover with foil and bake for 15 mins at 180C.
Remove foil and bake for a further five minutes.

Drain off the juices and remove the rhubarb from the tray to cool.
Remove 3 tbsp of the custard from the pot and reserve.
Combine the rest of the custard, butter, flour, golden caster sugar, vanilla extract, eggs and baking powder in a bowl with an electric whisk until smooth and creamy.

Spoon a third of the mixture into a loose bottomed/springform 23cm lined cake tin.
Place a layer of rhubarb over the top.
Top with another third of the mixture, spread out as best as you can.
Place another layer of rhubarb.
Spoon on the remainder of the mixture, don't worry about spreading too neatly.
Top the cake with the remaining rhubarb and dot the remaining custard over the top of it.

Bake in a Preheated oven for 40 minutes
Watch carefully, when the cake top goes golden brown after this time, remove and cover with foil or it will burn like mine nearly did. Cook for a further 20 or so minutes.
Check it is cooked by inserting a skewer, if it comes out clean its done.
Leave to cool in the tin.
Remove, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

Enjoy.

Lemon Cake

For this months Clandestine Cake Club meeting I didn't have much time to experiment and play about and create a new cake but I also didn't want to turn up without one, so having bought Raymond Blanc's new book I decided to make his tasty looking lemon cake...







Lemon Cake
Ingredients
5 Eggs
300g Caster Sugar
140ml Double Cream
Zest of 3 lemons
Pinch of salt
25ml dark rum
80g butter, melted
240g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the glaze
50g apricot jam
Zest of 1 lemon
3 Tbsp lemon juice
150g icing sugar

Method
Line and grease a loaf tin and preheat oven to 180C
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, cream, lemon zest, rum, salt and melted butter.

Sift in the flour and baking powder then whisk into the egg mixture until smooth.

Spoon or pour the mixture into the loaf tin and gently level the surface.

Bake for 50 mins -1 hour, test to see if it is cooked by inserting a skewer or a knife into the centre, if its clean when removed its done.
Remove from tin immediately and cool for 10 mins on a wire rack.

Warm the jam slightly and brush all over the cake, leave for 5 minutes
Mix lemon zest, icing sugar and juice into a pan and gently heat to 35C until smooth.

Brush evenly over the cake and leave for a couple of minutes to set.
Place the cake on a baking tray and place back in the oven, switch the oven off, and leave the cake for 3-5 minutes, this makes the glaze translucent.
Allow to cool and serve.

Enjoy.

Sunshine Bakery, Leeds

Chapel Allerton, just outside of Leeds, seems like quite a nice place to live. They have an excellent Mexican restaurant, an Indian home delivery service that delivers authentic Indian food and they have the Sunshine Bakery...







On what turned out to be a tour of everywhere we like (foodwise) in Leeds. Sunshine Bakery was our first stop. The last time we went it only had one table, this time it had managed to squish a few more in to accommodate its evening supper club.
It is decorated in a quaint tearoom style with food and drink served on mismatched china, basically this place defines cosy and intimate. Our initial intention was to get some of the bakery's epic cupcakes but seeing that they now had a delicious sounding lunch menu we decided to stay and make a meal of it.

We opted for the Sunshine Beefburger (me) and the Pork belly and sausage meat sandwich (Other Half), both came on the bakery's homemade tomato and pesto bread with salad. The burger, which came with bacon and cheese, was very juicy, slightly pink in the middle and very flavoursome.

For dessert we (naturally) got cupcakes. Sunshine Bakery cupcakes are quite special, lighter than air sponge with masses of various toppings ranging from peanut butter, double chocolate, strawberry and mango, Eton mess plus Britians Best Cupcake 2010 - Mango and Banana.
Cupcakes usually are sickly sweet things usually sacrificing flavour for extravagant decoration, these cupcakes avoid this. They are full of flavour but still remain quite light allowing for more than one to be eaten at a time without that sickly feeling afterwards.

The final bill for two sandwiches, two cupcakes, tea, coffee, a pot of chai tea plus two of the tomato/pesto teacakes (it's a teacake not a barm or a bap or a bread cake, deal with it and move on) another cupcake and a large brownie to takeaway came to £24. An absolute bargain.

If you live in Leeds or the surrounding areas, go for a visit if you haven't already.

Vanilla Rose Cake

Here we have a guest recipe from  the person regular readers would know as the Other Half. This was her cake for this months Clandestine Cake meeting.














Vanilla Sponge Cake

Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, at room temp.
225g caster sugar.
210g self raising flour, sifted.
25g cornflour.
1 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract.
3 tbsps semi-skimmed milk, at room temp.

Method 
 Preheat the oven to 160 degrees, line a cake tin with greaseproof paper.
 Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until the mixture is pale and smooth, this should take 3 - 5 minutes.
 Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
 Add the eggs to the creamed mixture, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition, alternating with the dry ingredients, and finally add the vanilla extract and the milk.
 Beat well after each addition but do not over beat.
 Bake in the oven for 45 minutes until raised and golden brown.
 Insert a skewer in the centre, it will come out clean if cooked.
 Once they are cool decorate with buttercream icing.

Buttercream icing

Ingredients 
 115g unsalted butter, at room temp.
 4 tbsp semi skimmed milk, at room temp.
 1 tsp vanilla extract.
 500g icing sugar, sifted.
 Pink food colouring.

Method
In large mixing bowl beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth using an electric hand mixer.
Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.
To colour, simply beat in a tiny drop of pink food colouring.

Rose petals

Ingredient
1egg White
Enough roses petals as required

Method
Take the egg whites and whisk lightly to break them up.
Pull apart petals from a pesticide-free (organic) rose. Choose petals free of blemishes or bend marks.
With a small, fine brush, take a little bit of the egg white mixture and evenly apply over the entire surface of the petal, starting from the centre out.
Sprinkle sugar evenly over the petal and place on drying racks until completely dried. They will be hard. If the petals are small and if the drying racks are spaced too far apart, place on paper towels to dry.
When finished, transfer to an airtight container until used. Properly stored, they should keep for a couple of weeks.

Chocolate, Honeycomb and Truffle Cake

It took me awhile to think up an idea for this months Clandestine Cake Club, then I got an idea and then another one and another one after that, therefore I decided to combine them. So I give you Chocolate, Honeycomb and Truffle cake......













Chocolate, Honeycomb and Truffle cake
The sponge
Ingredients
16oz self raising flour
16oz Butter
16oz Caster Sugar
8 Eggs
3tbsp cocoa Powder

Method
First, weigh out the flour and then remove 3tbsps. replace with 3 tbsp of cocoa powder.
Stick everything else in the bowl and whisk until all combined.
Divide between two lined cake tins and bake in a preheated oven (190C) for about 45 minutes, check its done by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake, if its clean on removal its done.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Honeycomb
Ingredients
80g Butter
160g Caster Sugar
80g Golden Syrup
2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Melt all ingredients gently in a pan and then slowly boil.
Boil gently until mixture turns a golden honeycomb colour, if it starts to colour quicker on one side then give the mixture a swirl, don't stir.
Once a golden colour as been achieved (about 5 minutes of boiling), tip in the Bicarbonate of Soda and stir in gently, it should expand in the pan.
Tip into a greased tray and leave to cool and chill for a few hours until solid.

Whisky and Spiced Rum Truffles
Blog Post coming soon

Chocolate topping
300g Dark Chocolate
300g Double Cream

Over a pan of simmering water, Melt the chocolate in a bowl
Once melted remove from the heat and pour in the cream, stir until combined and smooth and glossy.

Assembly
Make sure the cake is level when they are sat on top of each other, if not then slice of the offending area until they are both level.

Grind the honeycomb, use any method you like such as
food processor or beating it with a rolling pin.

Take 3-4 tbsp of the chocolate topping and mix in some ground honeycomb, use this for the middle filling.

Sandwich together and drown the cake with the remainder of the chocolate topping. smooth it round so it is completely covered.

Sprinkle the ground honeycomb across the top and place the truffles in a nice pattern on top.


Enjoy

(more pictures of the processes will be coming soon)