Snowflake Christmas cake

Today, I finished decorating this year's Christmas cake. It's made to my Mum's excellent fruitcake recipe, which has converted even the most reluctant fruitcake eater into a fan.

A really nice way to decorate cakes is with a simple design, with an emphasis on textures and a nice, clean finish. This method works really well on celebration cakes and wedding cakes, and I chose snowflakes for this year's Christmas effort.

The pearl effect on the snowflakes is the brilliant Mich Turner Pearl Lustre, a magical produce which is now unavailable. And this makes me sad. Please Silver Spoon, bring it back!!! It came in three colours and I only have pearl left, and it's a gorgeous thick but flowable paint which dries to a beautiful gentle lustre.

This technique works best with playing with different sizes of cutter, and is a really impressive but simple way to make a cake look lovely :)

JB x

Super simple sinful chocolate fudge :)

This is one of the best recipes I know. Chocolate fudgey goodness, infinitely easy, infinitely versatile, quick, impressive, delicious, calorific. All excellent qualities, I think you'll agree.

So I originally found the recipe in Nigella Express in the guise of chocolate and pistachio fudge, but I've tweaked a few things (how unlike me!) and now present to you.... one of the best recipes ever. I regularly make this for christmas pressies, 'thanks for having us for dinner' gifts, birthday gifts, or because there's an 'a' in the month. Or a 'j'...

I'm a bit sad about sharing this as now people will realise I'm not that clever or some sort of Willy Wonka genius (which I guarantee people will think after tasting this). My only advice is that it does get a tad on the squidgy side if it gets warm, and improves immeasurably if eaten straight from the freezer.

Makes quite a lot.

Ingredients:
380g chocolate - I prefer plain but have successfully made it with milk or white
1 tin (350-400g) condensed milk
a small knob of butter
approx 150g 'extras' - nuts, biscuit chunks, marshmallows, dried fruit, choc chunks etc etc etc...

Method:
Melt the chocolate, butter and condensed milk together gently over a low heat in a heavy bottom pan. Stir it all together and it will start to thicken - at this point fold in the extra bits, and plop it into a cling-film lined 20x30cm baking tin. Sprinkle more bits on top if you fancy. Edible glitter is always welcome and to be encouraged. When set, slice into chunks. Congratulate yourself on just how clever you are to melt some things together and create complete magic.

Below is my salted fudge chocolate fudge...

Nom, nom, and indeed nom.

JB x

Baking around the world... Cambodia

This week saw this...

Cambodian coconut pound cake, also known as Num Tirk Doung. It's a dense-ish Madeira type cake made with coconut milk and shredded fresh coconut, along with a lot of vanilla extract! Safe to say, Mr B was a big fan.

Recipe for 1 loaf tin cake (I used a 2lb tin but you could probably for it into one)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter

4 medium eggs, beaten

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup coconut milk

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbs (yes, I know!) vanilla extract

1/2 cup shredded coconut (I used fresh, I'm sure dessicated unsweetened would work too)

Method:

1. Grease or line the tin, preheat oven to 160 (fan).

2. Mix the melted butter, sugar and eggs together until smooth and goopy.

3. Add the coconut milk and vanilla.

4. Add in the flour and baking powder and mix briefly, then stir through the coconut. 

5. Pour into the tin and bake for approx 1 hour until a skewer comes out clean.

The cake came out like a lovely moist buttery coconutty delight. It also lasted well wrapped in cling film. Me being me, I decided it would also be excellent with some icing (what cake isn't?!)... I'd probably do something with a bit of a bite like a lime glacé icing or a cream cheese frosting. 

Loved this with a cup of tea! 

Next stop... The Philippines x

Chocolate cherry cheesecake cake

I made this beast of a pud this week. It's from the Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home book, and boy oh boy is it calorific :)

It's basically an adventure into a Bundt tin involving dense chocolate cake wrapped around a cheesecake core studded with sour dried cherries. Oh, and glazed with cherry jam. Obvs.

I won't repeat the recipe for copyright reasons but the idea of cake wrapped around cheesecake is a winner in my book... I'm thinking future incarnations would be chocolate cake and ginger cheesecake, coconut cake with lime cheesecake, chocolate and raspberry cake with raspberry vanilla cheesecake...

Tin...

Half of the cake mix in...

Piped with cheesecake mix...

Covered with more cake batter...

Finished and glazed :)

JB x

Around the world... Bolivia!

Oooh, this was a weird one but a good'un! Humintas is the recipe, I compiled the recipe below from a few I found online.

This is a savory baked version of a classic South American recipe. It's a corn based cheesy cake... Sounds weird, tasted lush with a salad of tomatoes, peppers, coriander, marinated onion and borlotti beans for a midweek dinner.

Recipe (serves 4 or 6 as a starter/ lunch)

1/2 cup plain flour

1/2 cup fine semolina

1 tsp baking powder

2 big tins (280g each) sweetcorn

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup flavourless oil

1/2 cup low fat yogurt

2 eggs

Splash milk

Good grating of mature cheddar

Pinch of chilli powder

Method

1. Line an 8" square baking tin and put the oven on to 180 degrees C.

2. Put the flour, semolina, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

3. Plop the eggs, yogurt, oil, one tin of sweet corn and milk into a jug and blitz with a stick blender for a few seconds until mainly blended.

4. Stir the yellow corn mix into the dry ingredients and the stir in the corn which you didn't blend in.

5. Bake for 20 mins, then sprinkle the cheese and chilli on top and bake for another 10 mins.

Yum :)

JB x