Raspberry and cream sponge cake

Nothing groundbreaking here, just a standard victoria sponge with fruit and a whipped cream filling. However there is something extra lovely about filling and decorating a cake with homegrown raspberries and homemade jam (rhubarb and raspberry in this case.) 

It's hard to beat raspberries (or strawberries) and cream for a summery cake. It's light and fresh, perfect for a summer birthday.

Our "fruiting garden" is developing very nicely. I picked roughly 1kg of blackcurrants last night, our biggest haul to date. Next up will be the loganberries and second crop of raspberries. I know I should freeze some of them but they will most likely end up in jam as my obsession with making jam is still going strong. All the fruit means all the jam!

Rhubarb and raspberry tarts

As my pineapple tarts were such a raging success with my in-laws last month I couldn't resist making them again with some tweaks. I love a versatile recipe and this bake offers so many flavour possibilities by swapping out the jam filling.

For this version I used some of my homemade raspberry and rhubarb jam and coloured the icing on top pink. I also reduced the icing sugar in the whipped cream to 1tbsp (instead of 3 tbsp) and felt it balanced the sweetness of the jam better. I also had more time to assemble these tarts so they're a lot neater than my first batch.

The shortbread type pastry was better to work with this time, generally less crumbly although I didn't mix it very evenly for fear of over handling it. I'll perfect it eventually. It's worth the effort as it's so deliciously buttery.

We enjoyed the tarts as part of a mother's day high tea at my in-laws' house. I thought the tarts looked so cute on my favourite Royal Winton Grimwades 3 tier cake stand. Pastel perfection! It was lovely to have an excuse to use it. Long time readers (if they're still around?) may remember it from old posts, back when I used to take time to create pretty photos for the blog. Those were the good old days.

Don't be surprised if you see yet another version of these tarts on the blog. There's a strong possibility I'll try a lemon curd version for the Man's birthday next month.

mixed berry and lemon drizzle cake

A fresh, fruity and zingy cake. Perfect for a sunny, socially distanced summer picnic in my mum and dad's garden a few weeks ago.

It's based on this recipe, another classic from BBC Good Food's website which I've baked before. I actually made the original version (with lime) the previous week and thoroughly enjoyed it but then fancied trying it again with lemon instead.

The recipe states to use an 8" square tin but like the previous times I've made it I used a 9" round tin (it holds the equivalent volume) as I find round cakes easier and more pleasing to slice.

Usually I buy fresh berries for baking but this time I used a bag of frozen mixed berries (a mixture of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and red currants, maybe even blackcurrants?!) as that's what I had to hand. This worked really nicely and was also a lot cheaper. I'll definitely do this again.

And for the first time ever the berries didn't all sink to the bottom. I don't know if this had something to do with using frozen over fresh or the consistency of the batter. Regardless, I did a little happy dance when the cake came out the oven.

As far as I'm concerned this is a complete winner of a cake. It's a decent size too for feeding a family, although no judgement from me if you plan to eat it all yourself. 

bakewell slices

I've been wanting to bake Bakewell slices for absolutely ages, at least a year, so I'm really pleased to have finally made them. That's one less bookmark in my baking books! I'm determined to work through more of them this year.

I made these slices for Mother's Day back in March as my Mum loves almond bakes. (Is it just me or does March already feel like an eternity ago?!) They went down an absolute treat and didn't hang around the cake tin for long.

I baked the shortbread base the night before and left it to cool overnight and made the frangipane topping the following morning. I often avoid recipes if they have too many stages or look too involved so this tactic worked nicely for me. Saying that, these slices really weren't difficult or particularly time consuming to make. The shortbread base is far less hassle (and mess) to put together than making pastry.

My only change to the recipe was adding almond extract to the frangipane mixture as I really wanted a strong almond flavour. I recommend it if you're also an almond fan. As I baked this a while ago I can't remember how much I added, likely no more than 1/2tsp as almond extract is pretty strong. A little goes a long way.

Mmmmmmm, frangipane, jam and shortbread. Not much else to say, really!


Bakewell slices
Recipe (slightly altered) from "Vintage Cakes" by Jane Brocket, published 2012

shortbread base:
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
50g caster sugar
125g softened butter
1 large egg

Filling:
4 -6 spoonfuls (or more, I won't judge) of your preferred jam. I used raspberry

Frangipane topping:
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g ground almonds
75g self-raising flour
1/4 - 1/2 tsp almond essence
handful of flaked almonds

Line a 20 x 30cm tin with greaseproof paper and set aside. Put the flour, ground almonds and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small cube pieces and rub into the flour mixture with your fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Lightly beat the egg in a small bowl then add to the breadcrumb mixture. Using either a blunt knife or your hands mix it all together until it becomes a soft, sticky dough.

Press the dough into the lined tin, taking care to make sure it's evenly distributed and pushed into the corners and edges. Prick the dough all over with a fork (around 20 times) then cover with clingfilm and let it chill for an hour. Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C Fan/ Gas 4 before you take the tin out of the fridge.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until the base is dry and just starting to change colour. Be careful not to over bake it. Once baked, leave to cool on a wire rack while you prepare the topping. Leave the oven on if you're continuing with the topping.

For the frangpine, whisk together the butter and sugar in a large bowl (with a mixer) until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the ground almonds, flour and almond essence and fold everything together until everything is fully combined.

Once the shortbread base is cool (roughly 15 minutes after it's out the oven) spread a layer of jam on top. Carefully spread the frangipane on top of the jam, making sure the two don't mix together. Don't worry about it looking too neat though or being uneven around the edges. Scatter the flaked almonds on top then bake it for 22-25 minutes until risen and golden brown in colour. If a sharp knife/skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean then it's done. Leave to cool before removing from the tin. Once cool, cut into slices with a sharp knife. I cut mine into 16 although you can make them as big or small as you like.

bakewell biscuits

I can't believe how little I've baked this summer. This week I felt I was starting to suffer from some sort of baking deprivation so I rectified the situation with these bakewell biscuits. If I had left it any longer my eyelids might have started twitching.

This was an incredibly satisfying bake. Whoever thought to create a bakewell tart/biscuit hybrid should give themselves a pat on the back. These are very tasty biscuits and the recipe yields a surprisingly large batch which is great for greedy people like me who rarely ever just eat one biscuit with their cup of tea. I think I ended up 26 biscuits in total (the batch, not the amount I drank with my tea.)

The recipe (which I slightly adapted) is from a Co-op magazine although I discovered it on one of my favourite baking blogs, The Caked Crusader. I'll be the first to point out that my batch turned out different looking to CC's. My biscuits spread quite a lot in the oven, I'm assuming due to my butter being very soft and my warm hands when I handled the mixture, so they lost their thumbprint indentations. They're still visually attractive and taste delicious, but I don't think they can be considered thumbprint biscuits anymore. 

The main changes I made to the recipe were swapping out the vanilla for almond extract and omitting the lemon zest and juice. I wanted the biscuits to be purely about almond and raspberry - no other flavour distractions.

The biscuits have crispy edges, slightly chewy, jammy centres and are packed with almondy goodness. It's like having a bakewell tart without needing to faff about making pastry. Basically, these biscuits make me feel very happy. My vintage embroidered tablecloth also makes me happy, even though it's a sh*t to iron.

Here's hoping it will be less than a month until my next bake.

Bakewell biscuits

175g softened butter (I used a combination of unsalted with slightly salted butter as that's what I had to hand)
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
150g ground almonds
150g self raising flour
approx. 1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
handful of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line some baking sheets with baking parchment - at least 4 baking sheets or 2 reused/rotated.

Beat together the butter, sugar and almond extract for a few minutes until pale. Add the egg and beat well. Add the ground almonds and self raising flour and stir until everything is fully combined.

Take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture and roll into a ball in the palm of your hands. Place the balls onto the baking sheets, spacing them well apart as they will spread. I had 8 per baking sheet. Push your thumb into the centre of each ball to create a well and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of jam into the centre. Sprinkle some flaked almonds on top.

Bake in the oven until golden and well spread. Although the original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, both the Caked Crusader and I found ours took longer at 16-18 minutes. Leave to cool and firm up on the trays before transferring to a wire rack/tin/your mouth.

mini raspberry bakewell cake

Last week I had cause for celebration -  an issue which has been causing me immense stress and anxiety throughout the whole of this year has finally been resolved. I feel like a massive weight has finally been lifted off me. Hopefully I'll start sleeping better and stop feeling like such an emotional wreck.

Anyway, that was a bit deep and vague. Let's talk about cake. Basically the first thing I wanted to do to celebrate was bake a cake. A little raspberry and almond cake.... all for me!

The recipe is from BBC Good Food and I halved the quantities to fit the mixture in a 6 inch cake tin.  I also added a few dollops of raspberry jam in the middle of the cake as I only had a handful of raspberries and I subbed the vanilla extract for almond essence for an extra almond kick as it's something I mentioned doing the last two times I used this recipe - first time here and a blackberry version here.

The cake was every bit as good as I remembered, possibly better since I oomphed up the almond flavour. I had a piece fresh from the oven and it was just the most comforting thing ever - warm almond sponge, squidgy raspberries and crunchy flaked almonds. Perfect.

Last night I warmed up a slice, made a big mug of tea and sat down to do some knitting whilst watching Ghosts of Mars on tv. A pretty fantastic Sunday evening, I'm sure you'll agree!

Mini raspberry bakewell cake

75g ground almonds

75g margarine/softened butter

75g golden caster sugar

75g self raising flour

1 large egg

1/4 tsp almond essence 

100g (ish) of raspberries. I only had about 50g so added a couple of teaspoonfuls of jam for flavour

handful of flaked almonds

icing sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4 and grease and line a 6 inch cake tin. Put the ground almonds, butter, sugar, self raising flour, egg and almond essence in a large bowl and mix everything together for about a minute until well blended. 

Spread half of the mixture into the base of the cake tin and scatter half your raspberries on top. If you're short of raspberries like me, just put a few small dollops of raspberry jam on top to make up the difference. Spread the rest of the cake mixture on top. Arrange the remaining raspberries on top and scatter with a handful of flaked almonds. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 40-45 minutes until risen, light golden and firm to touch. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Leave to cool for 5 minutes or so before taking it out of the tin. Cool on a wire rack or serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

raspberry trifle cupcakes

I'm just going to put this out there... these are the best cupcakes I've ever made, quite possibly the best cupcakes I've ever eaten. They are THAT. DAMN. TASTY.

I've had this recipe bookmarked in the Hummingbird Bakery's "Cake Days" book for 4 years. I knew I wanted to make it at some point, but due to my aversion to recipes which don't use the whole egg I've always grumbled at the 5 egg yolks listed in the custard topping ingredients and flicked the page. When was I ever going to have 5 egg yolks lying around?

Well guess who had exactly 5 egg yolks spare after making a meringue roulade last week? The stars had finally aligned!

These cupcakes were definitely worth the 4 year wait. Hell, I would make another meringue roulade just to have an excuse to make these cupcakes again. I need to stop being such an ass about not using whole eggs.

The creamy, custard topping is to die for. It pairs beautifully with the soft, fluffy, vanilla sponge and jammy, raspberry filling.

My only change to the recipe was baking the raspberries inside the cupcake as I love the squidginess of a baked raspberry. It also means that the cupcakes keep better, not that these will hang around for long. They are pretty addictive.

I could quite happily shove endless quantities of these cupcakes in my mouth and not get fed up with them. I have no shame.

I am also delighted to report that there were no tiny bugs in these raspberries. Each raspberry was thoroughly inspected. This is the first time I've bought raspberries since *that* incident. Wow, that was almost two years ago. You'd almost think I held a grudge...

Raspberry trifle cupcakes 
Recipe from Hummingbird Bakery, "Cake Days", barely adapted.
The recipe looks long, but it really isn't that complicated. Don't feel put off!

sponge:
80g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened
280g (10oz) caster sugar
240g (8.5oz) plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
240ml (8.5fl oz) milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, large

filling:
punnet of fresh raspberries
jar of raspberry jam

custard topping:
500ml (18fl oz) milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used vanilla bean paste)
5 egg yolks
100g (3.5oz) caster sugar
30g (1oz) plain flour
30g (1oz) cornflour
200ml (7fl oz) double cream

Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5 and line two cupcake trays with paper cases. (The mixture gave me 18-20 cupcakes.) Mix together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl with a mixer set at a low speed. The mixture should look like fine breadcrumbs.

Whisk together the milk, vanilla and eggs in a jug with a fork. Pour 3/4 of this into the dry mixture while mixing on a slow speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything gets mixed in. Add the rest of the egg mixture and mix again on a higher speed until the batter is smooth.

Fill each cupcake cases with the batter until about two thirds full and press a raspberry into the centre of each cupcake. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until well risen, light golden and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the trays for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

While the cupcakes are in the oven you can make the custard topping. Combine the milk with the vanilla in a saucepan and bring to the boil. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks with the sugar, flour and cornflour to create a paste. Add 1 tbsp of the heated milk if necessary. Remove the saucepan from the hob once the milk has boiled and pour 4-5 tbsp of it into the paste. Give the paste a mix then pour it into the saucepan with the milk and return to the heat. Bring the milk back to the boil, continually whisking to avoid lumps, and boil for a further minute to fully cook the flour. Pour this custard mixture into a baking tray and cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming. Leave to cool for 30-40 minutes.

Once cool, tip the custard into a large bowl (feel free to sieve the custard like me if you discover that it's a bit lumpy!) and beat with a wooden bowl to break it up. In a separate bowl, whisk the double cream into soft peaks, then fold the cream into the custard mixture. Now your topping is ready!

Using a sharp knife, cut a circular disc/hollow in the centre of each cupcake (until you reach the top of the raspberries baked inside), place roughly 1/2 tsp of raspberry jam in the centre, then press the cut off sponge back on top. Pipe or spread the custard on top of each cupcake, topping with an extra raspberry and some sprinkles for full on party trifle effect.

Baker's note: The cupcakes will keep/store better without the custard icing, so only ice as many as you're planning to eat at the time and keep the remaining custard in the fridge in a bowl covered with clingfilm.

coconut cupcakes - half with raspberry jam, half with (questionable) pineapple curd

Last week I was posessed with the idea of making summery pineapple curd to put inside coconut cupcakes. However there was a major flaw in my tropical plan: I'm a lazy low faff baker.

All the pineapple curd recipes I came across online only used egg yolks and I cannot be arsed with recipes which only use half the egg. (Now you know why I rarely make meringues!) The number of times I've set aside the other half of the egg with the best of intentions to bake something with it, only to eventually throw it away as I inevitably forget about it is annoying. And wasteful.

So I set about inventing a pineapple curd recipe loosely based on a few whole egg curd recipes. The resulting curd tastes lovely and is a glorious sunshine yellow but is sadly more like a grainy, runny sauce than a curd. I decided against putting it inside the cupcakes but mixed a few teaspoonfuls into the icing and have eaten some drizzled on top of a cupcake. It definitely adds to the overall flavour of the cupcake, but I'm kicking myself for not following an actual pineapple curd recipe.

Without the curd I find the cupcake a bit "meh". Coconut is a funny flavour for me. I think it's a subtle, secondary element or an additional texture. It needs to be paired with a strong flavour such as pineapple, raspberry, lime or chocolate to bring it to life.

Following the disappointment of my pineapple not-quite-a curd I split my coconut cupcake batch to produce a raspberry and coconut combination too. For these I put raspberry jam in the centre and whipped a few teaspoonfuls into the butter icing. I've seen a few people mix jam into icing but have never tried it myself. It is so tasty, why haven't I done this before?! Move over malt chocolate icing, this is my new obsession.

The girly girl in me is filled with glee by eating something which looks so pink and fluffy. The bright jammy centre just adds to the girly excitement. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed raspberry and coconut as a pairing.

Unsurprisingly the raspberry batch are the winners for me. However had the curd worked I think these would have been pretty special too as pineapple and coconut is such a fresh and summery flavour combination. I'll just have to suck it up one day and make a pineapple curd using only egg yolks!

Coconut cupcakes - half with raspberry jam, half with pineapple curd

6oz/ 170g margarine/ butter

6oz/ 170g caster sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

5oz/ 140g self raising flour

1oz/ 30g desiccated coconut (plus extra to top the cupcakes at the end)

2 tablespoons of milk 

filling:

1 jar raspberry jam

1 jar pineapple curd - I won't write what I did as it didn't particularly work but you can find a few different pineapple curd recipes here, here or here.

  
butter icing (covers both batches):

150g softened butter

300g icing sugar

2-3 teaspoons of raspberry jam/pineapple curd (add to taste)

Preheat the oven to 180C/160 Fan/Gas 4 and line a couple of cupcake trays with cases. In a small bowl, soak the desiccated coconut in the milk. Whilst that's soaking, beat together the margarine and sugar in a large bowl for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour mixture with the last egg to stop the cake mixture from curdling. Tip in the milky coconut, vanilla extract and remaining flour and mix until everything is fully combined. 
 

Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases (I think I got 16 from the mixture) and bake in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes until the cupcakes are light golden in colour, well risen, and spring back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a couple of minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. 

For the icing, beat together the butter and icing sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Split the icing in half, adding a few teaspoons of raspberry jam to one batch and curd to the other. Mix both icings thoroughly.

Using a sharp knife, cut a circular disc from the top of each cupcake and pop a teaspoonful of jam or curd inside and replace the top. Spread or pipe the icing on top and liberally cover with (toasted) desiccated coconut.

browned butter berry banana bread

Well that was fun alliteration. Let's say it again. Browned butter berry banana bread!

There's 50g of white chocolate chips in there too but mentioning that in the title would have spoiled my fun.

This is actually the second time within a week I've baked this loaf and my last bake before these was also banana based. The warmer weather has sent me on a banana baking loop! Within a day or two of buying bananas they seem to turn brown. Not that I'm complaining, I like banana loaf.

For a slight change I decided to brown the butter for this loaf as I love the flavour of browned butter in blondies and figured it would work well in a banana loaf. Sadly I didn't detect much of a difference in flavour, probably because there was enough extra flavour with the berries, cinnamon and vanilla, but occasionally you'd get a little hint of the sweet, biscuity flavour from the browned butter.

I love how banana bread is so simple and easily adaptable. You can substitute and/or chuck in extras to your heart's content. Victoria sponges are fantastic for similar reasons. I nearly didn't bother posting this cake as I have posted a couple of variations of the same recipe already, but the vibrant berries bursting from the cake's surface were too enticing not to photograph. It's also good to remind people not to chuck out dodgy looking bananas. Look at what you can produce with them!

Browned butter berry banana bread

Recipe adapted from Hummingbird Bakery's banana loaf

250g brown sugar (I used half soft light brown sugar, half light muscovado brown sugar)

2 large eggs

2 large brown bananas, weighing roughly 250g

300g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

140g unsalted butter, melted and browned

50g (ish) white chocolate chips (optional! They were lurking in my baking cupboard)

150g mixed berries (I used frozen)

Preheat the oven to 170C/160 Fan/Gas 3 and line a 25 x 12cm loaf tin. Melt the butter in a saucepan and gently cook for about 5 minutes until the white solids turn golden and the butter starts to smell biscuity and sweet. Set aside to cool before adding to the cake mixture.

Whisk together the sugar and eggs for a minute or two until well incorporated and lighter in colour. Add the mashed bananas and vanilla bean paste and mix again. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon then add to the sugar mixture. Mix thoroughly. Pour in the (cooled) melted butter and mix until everything is fully combined. Lightly coat the berries in a small amount flour and stir half of them into the mixture along with the white chocolate drops. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, level the surface and scatter the remaining berries on top. 

Bake in the centre of the oven for roughly 1hr 15 minutes, checking on the cake after an hour. As the surface was quite brown I lay a piece of baking parchment on top to stop it burning for the last 15 minutes of baking. The loaf is cooked when firm to touch and a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire cooling rack.

berry bakewell cake

I'd like to start off by saying a huge thank you to everybody who left advice on my last post regarding my not so successful bundt. The general consensus is that I should invest in some cake release spray so that's what I'm going to try next. I shall not be defeated by that bundt tin!

Hello photogenic plugs and sockets.

Now onto a cake which was a total success, woohoo! My Mum is a huge fan of almondy, bakewell flavours so I decided to make this pimped up Victoria sponge for her birthday last week.

It's a very simple cake but the addition of ground almonds and berries make it that bit more special. Basically if you love victoria sponges and bakewell tarts then you'll love this cake.

The nephews are excellent fire extinguishers.

I used frozen berries in this cake but I imagine fresh would taste even better. I was a bit worried about adding too many in case they would all sink and make the sponges soggy but thankfully this wasn't the case. If anything I think I could get away with adding a few more next time.

We have red blinds in our kitchen so if you're wondering why all my photographs are rose tinted that's why. I haven't gone all instagram toaster filter on you.

Ahhh just looking at that photo makes me want to bake the cake again. Apparently the last slice tasted even better the following day.

Berry Bakewell Cake

I naturally bake in imperial measurements (I'm old school like that) but I've converted the weights into grams. I hope they're right!

8oz/ 225g caster sugar

8oz/ 225g margarine (I used Vitalite as I wanted to make the cake dairy free)

3 large duck eggs (hen eggs are fine, as long as the overall weight is roughly 8oz)

8oz/ 225g self-raising flour

1 oz/ 28g ground almonds

a few drops of almond essence (add to taste)

roughly 2-3 ounces/ about 75g mixture of berries (fresh or frozen) for scattering

a few tablespoons of strawberry jam

Icing sugar for dusting

Grease and line two 20cm round cake sandwich tins. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Beat together the sugar and margarine for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour if the mixture starts to curdle/split. Add a few drops of almond essence (to taste) along with the rest of the flour and ground almonds and mix until everything is fully combined. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins. In a separate bowl, give the berries a light coating of flour to stop them sinking in the mixture (you can cut some of the heavier berries such a blackberries in half to reduce weight.) Lightly press the berries into the surface of both cakes. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 25 minutes or until both sponges are golden, well risen and spring back to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack. Once cold, sandwich together with a generous amount of jam and serve with a dusting of icing sugar on top.

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.

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!

Raspberry and almond cake

After seeing this on Lucy's blog last month I knew it had to jump straight to the front of the to-bake queue. It's very much a fling-everything-in-the-bowl-and-mix recipe which suits me perfectly. I'm a gloriously lazy baker. The less faffing about and washing up to do the better!

For some reason I had problems photographing this cake. The lighting was terrible when I tried to take a photograph of the whole cake (I don't know why, but I just wasn't happy with any of the photographs) so I thought I'd wait until the next day even though the cake would be cut open. This is always a dangerous move to make, as there was only one slice left the following day!

I liked the sharp hits of raspberry running through the centre of this cake. It would also taste delicious served as a pudding with custard (mmmm, custard). If you're a Bakewell Tart fan then you'll love this cake.

The recipe comes from BBC Good Food if you fancy giving it a go. The only thing I would change is to substitute the vanilla extract for almond essence because I'd like an extra oomph (technical term) of almond next time, but it's up to yourself.