Archive for January, 2011

Chocolate and apple cake

This week’s cake is chocolate and apple cake. Very nice and egg free. Thanks to Emily and Donna for the recipe.

Recipe

Cake:

  • 4oz butter (softened)
  • 8oz caster sugar
  • 1lb stewed apples (so about 1 1/2lb uncooked before  peeling and coring)
  • 8oz self raising flour
  • 1/2 oz cocoa (I think I doubled both cocoa quantities!)
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • Some cinnamon and nutmeg (I just guessed)

The original recipe also suggested raisins, but the person I got this from said that it is better without but it is personal opinion

Icing:

  • 5oz butter
  • 4 tbs cocoa (again I used 8!!)
  • 5oz icing sugar sifted (I used fondant icing to make it smoother)
  • 3 tbs milk

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 170C.
  2. Grease a tin (doesn’t really matter what size or shape, but you may want to double quantities if it is a big tin).
  3. Peel and core apples and put in the microwave until stewed (about 6 mins in mine).
  4. Cream butter and sugar.
  5. Add flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg to butter and sugar (don’t think you need to mix this particularly but it can go in the same bowl).
  6. When apples are stewed and have cooled slightly, add bicarbonate of soda to them and stir whilst it grows, then add to the other ingredients and stir until smooth.
  7. Bake for about 30-40 mins (I would check it isn’t getting burnt at 30 mins).
  8. Slowly melt butter in a pan.
  9. Add cocoa to butter, turn up heat a bit and cook for about a minute.
  10. Add icing sugar and stir so there aren’t any lumps.
  11. Very soon the texture will go yucky and you will think that it has gone wrong. Don’t worry – this is where you add the milk.
  12. Stir until it is smooth and remove from heat to cool.
  13. Don’t ice the cake until it has cooled as the icing is quite runny and it won’t stay on the cake!
  14. Om nom nom nom

Bank holiday bonus cake

I forgot I had today off, so I had time to bake another cake. Carrot cake:

New year’s resolutions

This year’s resolutions are: go to the gym and bake more.

I will start with the baking. This week it is a plum & almond crumble slice: