Apple pie cake and sticky toffee cupcakes

Last week was my brother's birthday (my eldest brother was the week before) so I got to make another celebration cake! After showing him various recipes he decided on Edd Kimber's apple pie cake.

The sponge layers were light and packed with cinnamon flavour, but not in any ways overpowering. Sandwiched between the layers were cinnamon cream cheese icing (seriously tasty), caramelised apples and a drizzle of sticky syrup made from the apple juices. I think this was my tallest cake yet. It was huge! Huge and delicious.

Mmmmmm, look at that drizzly syrup!

As I want to support Edd Kimber with his first book I won't type out the recipe, but I can highly recommend it. I'd quite like to try all of his layer cakes as they look so impressive.

I also baked some sticky toffee cupcakes last week. These were iced in a mad rush so apologies for the lack of pretty decoration. I've made them before, for bonfire night last year, but they were so good I didn't get a chance to photograph them! They were just as tasty as before: a sticky date sponge with a dulche de leche butter icing (yes, it really does taste as good as it sounds!)

They may even be my favourite cupcake flavour to date (ooh I love a pun), or at least tie with nutella cupcakes, although I think I'm sliding into dodgy territory here, a bit like when Kate raised the difficult question, "if you could only have one type of cake for the rest of your life which would you choose?" It's so hard to pick an absolute favourite!

On a separate topic, I acquired some duck eggs this week. Can anybody recommend any recipes they'd be extra tasty in? I've never baked with them before so I'm quite excited.

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

Recipe from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days, p.185

For the sponge:

180g (6 1/2oz) pitted and chopped dates

180ml (6 1/2fl oz) boiling water

80g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened

150g (5 1/2oz) soft light brown sugar

2 large eggs

180g (6 1/2oz) plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence (use extract, it's better!)

For the frosting

160g (5 1/2oz) unsalted butter, softened

500g (1lb 2oz) icing sugar

50ml (1 3/4fl oz) whole milk

100g (3 1/2oz) tinned caramel/dulce de leche

12-16 dates, pitted and chopped, or small pieces of soft toffee to decorate

Place the chopped dates in a bowl, pour over the boiling water and leave to soak for approx. 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5, and line a muffin tin with cases. Using a hand held electric whisk or a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy. Break the eggs in one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing well on a medium speed after adding each egg. Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add these dry ingredients in 3 batches to the egg and butter mix, then adjust the speed to medium-high and continue mixing until the batter is smooth and even. Scrape around the sides and bottom of the bowl to pick up any ingredients that might not be mixed in, then beat again briefly to ensure everything is well encorporated. Next add the vanilla essence to the date mixture and mix this into the cake batter by hand, making sure the dates are evenly dispersed throughout the batter.

Fill each paper case up to two thirds full with the batter. Any remaining batter can be used to fill extra cases in a second muffin tin. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until risen and springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin and placing onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Using the electric whisk or freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the butter and icing sugar on a low speed until sandy in texture and no large lumps of butter remain. Still mixing on a low speed gradually add the milk and mix in well, then increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy. Finally add the tinned caramel, beating it in thoroughly to ensure the frosting is evenly mixed. Spoon generous amounts of the frosting onto each cupcakes, then gently smooth over with a palette knife making a swirl on top if you wish. Scatter over the chopped dates or toffee pieces if using. (I strongly advise halving the frosting quantity. I iced generously and still had loads left over!)

Mum's birthday cake

When I received Edd Kimber's new book for Christmas I immediately knew that the first thing I would bake from it would be one of the layer cakes as they all look fantastic. Since Mum requested raspberries and white chocolate as her birthday flavour combination I attempted the Raspberry Ripple cake.

Boy did this cake involve a lot of work. By nature I am not a complicated baker, I like fairly simple recipes and tend to shy away from scary things such as macarons or even meringues, so this was quite a challenge for me.

Mum and her candle-blowing grandsons.

Although everything appeared to have turned out the way it should have, I just wasn't very sure about the overall cake. Similar to Hummingbird Bakery cupcake mixtures, the sponges came out of the oven beautifully risen and fluffy looking, and then after 5 minutes sank flat. Although the sponges had a nice flavour they were quite rich and dense (I suppose there were 6 eggs!) so it didn't take much eating to become full!

The only big problem I encountered was the icing. I was surprised everything went according to plan, it didn't even curdle with me, BUT I realised that I had added salted instead of unsalted butter and the resulting flavour was like licking oily, salty, chocolate meringue (there's a lot of butter in the icing). I rescued it by adding raspberry jam and some icing sugar to sweeten it up and piled fresh raspberries on top which added a clean flavour to cut through the icing.

Although I am pleased I actually managed to create this cake, I still feel slightly miffed that it took loads of time, effort (and butter and eggs!) to make when I probably would have been just as happy with a quick victoria sponge and fresh fruit. I wasn't entirely sold on the italian meringue icing either as the butter gave it such an oily texture, although perhaps it would have worked out better if I had used the specified unsalted butter. It's something I'd quite like to try again. I also think this type of recipe would be a lot easier if I owned a stand mixer as my poor arms and hand held mixer found it hard to multi task with the cooked icing.

Despite all my gripes, it did look super impressive and everybody thought the cake and icing tasted much better the next day. And they couldn't have been lying as there was no cake left for me after work! You'd think a three layer cake would last longer wouldn't you!