Raspberry and blueberry lime drizzle cake

This is summer in cake form. It's the sort of cake I can imagine eating outside in the sunshine, probably whilst swatting flies away and running away from bumble bees, but that destroys the dreamy picnic image.

This is a zingy, juicy, refreshing cake. I loved the combination of fruity flavours: sharp bursts of raspberry, sweet hits of blueberry and tangy lime.

Surprising for some perhaps, but I've never baked with limes before! If you're not such a fan of lemon drizzle, you may actually prefer lime as it has the tang but without such a sharp, sour hit as lemon.

Only three berries managed to stay near the surface of this cake! The rest all sank to the bottom, despite coating them in flour before adding to the batter, but thankfully they didn't form a soggy mush.

This is definitely on the to-bake-again list, I love a good drizzle cake! The recipe can be found here on BBC Good Food. My changes to the recipe were:

I baked the cake in a 9" round cake tin instead of a 8" square.

I only added 1-2 tbsp of lime juice to the batter as I felt it already had a good dropping consistency.

I only had three limes so was a couple of tablespoons short of juice for the syrup but I was perfectly happy with my results so I don't think an extra is necessary.


On a separate note, is anyone else experiencing problems uploading photographs to Blogger? After reading advice on the troubleshooting section I disabled pop-ups on Blogger which allowed me to upload this post but it still put up a fight. ARGH! Technology.

Mary Berry carrot cake

Now Mary Berry, I don't like to disagree with you, after all you are baking royalty, but is this strictly a carrot cake when it contains banana?

I have to clarify that this is not a bad thing (unless you hate bananas). In fact, I thought it gave the cake a lovely smooth texture which contrasted nicely which the chopped walnuts. Not to mention the fact I love bananas in baking.

My aunty has a very similar cake recipe which we always refer to as passion cake. I always thought the addition of banana was what made it a "passion" as opposed to a "carrot" cake. After a bit of Googling I now see that the terms are fairly interchangable. Perhaps I won't complain to Mary Berry after all, especially when this cake is so juicy and tasty.

Yes, that is a rather large slice. And yes, I did eat it all. I admit it, I'm greedy.

Usually I put a lemon and honey cream cheese icing on carrot cake however Ms Berry called for a vanilla flavoured cream cheese icing. It was rather tasty indeed. I really could eat an unholy amount of cream cheese icing, with or without the cake.

If you'd like to try this recipe (you really should) you can find it here. The only difference I found with this online version is the icing. In Mary's Baking Bible she says to use 175g full fat soft cheese (I use Philly cheese), 50g softened butter, 100g sifted icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract. Decorate with as many walnut halves as you want.

Bakewell muffins

I may have slightly burnt the top of these muffins, but let's not discuss that, because they taste absolutely amazing! If you're into bakewell flavours, these are the muffins for you. I recommend eating them warm for full "oh-my-god-wow" impact.

I feel slightly bad however that my night-time, lazy photography doesn't do the muffins justice. You'll just have to trust me that they're tasty.

The recipe can be found here on the BBC Good Food website. The only thing I would note is that two teaspoons of almond extract is enough. Only add a third teaspoon if you want to be smacked in the face with marzipan flavour. As an almond lover, even I think that would be a tad extreme!

Chocolate and vanilla marble loaf

I'm getting so behind with posting.... again. This was actually baked a day or so after the macarons, which were also posted a week late. Must do better!

I spotted a few of these marble loaves around the blogosphere as part of the Weekly Bake Off a while ago and quickly bookmarked it. Disappointly my marbling didn't work particularly well. I alternated layers of the mixtures as I filled the tin, hoping it would create a jazzy zebra effect but it didn't work at all. Any tips?

The cake was also on the dry side but I think that was entirely my fault as it was left in the oven for too long (darn internet distractions!)

On the plus side the fudgy icing was amazing! My mum used to put similar icing on chocolate cakes when I was little. It's so good it could probably be eaten on its own. So be warned, you may want to make a double batch ;)

You should also double the amount of white chocolate for the zig zag decoration as you may find yourself eating large spoonfuls of it. It is white chocolate after all...

The recipe can be found here if you fancy having a go. I definitely want to have another shot at achieving the zebra marble effect.

On a completely different topic, how amazing has Team GB been at the Olympics this weekend? Even as a massive Roger Federer fan, I could not have been more delighted for Andy Murray today.