Rhubarb and custard kisses

Years ago (here, actually) I made delicious custard biscuits which incorporated custard powder into the dough. The other week in one of my baking related ponderings I wondered if I could substitute the cornflour for custard powder in my Granny's recipe for kisses. . . So I tried it.

The custard powder gave the kisses (a shortbread sandwich biscuit) a lovely, golden yellow colour which the camera on my phone mostly decided to capture as a radioactive glow. The powder also gave the biscuits a sweet, vanilla-y, custard flavour.

For the filling I used a vanilla butter icing and some of last year's never-ending supply of rhubarb based jam. (I made more rhubarb jam than you can shake a stalk stick at.)

Basically I'm trying to find ways to use up the multiple jars of rhubarb jam I made last year. Despite giving away a large amount as Christmas presents (or just to any accepting friend or family member) I still have at least 10 jars left. 

Admittedly very little jam was used in this bake but the idea of rhubarb and custard kisses appealed to me and I'm happy my baking pondering was successful.

Granny's kisses with a rhubarb and custard twist

6oz margarine

2 1/2 oz Icing sugar

2oz Custard powder

6oz Self-raising flour

2oz Butter, softened 

4oz Icing sugar

A few drops of vanilla extract 

A few drops of boiling water

(Optional) A drop of pink food colouring 

A jar of rhubarb jam

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200C/ 180C Fan. Line two large baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Cream together the softened butter and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add the custard powder and self raising flour and mix together until it forms a dough.

Form the dough into 24 small balls and set onto the baking sheets, spacing them apart. Slightly flatten them with a fork. Bake in the oven for approx. 12 minutes or until the edges start looking slightly golden. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.

For the icing mix together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract until fluffy. If it needs softening slightly add a few drops of boiling water. Admittedly I rarely weigh out my butter or icing sugar for making icing so my written quantities here are a rough guess.

Once the biscuits are cool, sandwich them together with a dollop of butter icing and a smaller dollop of jam. A little jam goes a long way. You should end up with 12 kisses.

Orange, rhubarb and almond cake

This cake is the lovechild of two BBC Good Food recipes: Berry Bakewell cake and Stewed Rhubarb. 

I've made the Bakewell (almond) cake countless times over the years with various berries and substituting the vanilla extract for almond extract or ground spices. It's satisfyingly simple and adaptable - my favourite kind of cake.

The stewed rhubarb and orange is a recipe I only discovered last year. I absolutely loved the flavour combination so was keen to make it again this year when my rhubarb was ready to harvest.

When I was making a batch of stewed orange and rhubarb last weekend I had a brainwave to combine the two recipes. I had previously made the cake with stewed rhubarb (no extra flavours) with great success (see here) so it wasn't much of a change to include orange.

For the cake batter I added the zest of an orange and instead of adding berries I put a few dessertspoonfuls of the (cooled) stewed rhubarb in the middle of the cake. I smoothed it out as a jammy layer before topping with the remaining cake batter and flaked almonds.

It's not a flashy looking cake but it is very tasty and with most almond bakes the flavour improves the following day. The orange lifts the cake, adding a subtle, sweet zing to both the sponge and the squidgy rhubarb vein running through the centre. 

I'm delighted that I have created another successful variation of this almond cake. It's the recipe which keeps on giving!

Yet another rugby cake

Youngest nephew also requested a rugby themed birthday cake this year. My nerves still felt frazzled after the gravity defying rugby ball cake I created for his brother in March so I went down an easier route: a rectangular Victoria sponge cake with a fondant man on top. Simple yet still effective.

Why is it when you go into town for fondant icing in a particular colour you cannot find any for love nor money? In the end I painted white fondant green (with edible food colouring) for the pitch however I think this actually played in my favour. It looks more like a wet, muddy pitch than if it was just a flat, green block of fondant. 

The crushed bourbon biscuits for the mud were the finishing touch. Up until that point I was concerned my fondant man looked like he had been run over by a bus rather than a player diving to score a try. Adding the goals (made from thick card) helped bring the cake to life too.

Once again, it was important the rugby ball was a Scottish ball. I'm glad I still had some writing icing pens in the baking cupboard for that fiddly job!

Birthday boy was delighted with his cake. I was amused that he gave the cake slice with the player's "butt" to his friend to eat. Charming!

rhubarb gingerbread pudding

"And so it begins...", said King Théoden (R.I.P. Bernard Hill.)

Also myself upon looking at my garden. Rhubarb season has begun and the "rhubarb empire" is growing larger with each passing day...

...resembling an exotic jungle for cats.

The Man gave me a Rhubarb cooking/baking book for Christmas so I've been eagerly awaiting rhubarb season to arrive to try out recipes. It's a quirky, little book called Rhubarbaria and it's full of sweet and savoury dishes the author has gathered from people all around the world along with a bit of rhubarb history and anecdotes. It's not a glossy, instagrammable book as it has no pictures but I think it's a gem. I'm especially looking forward to trying the jam recipes.

The rhubarb gingerbread pudding immediately appealed to me and became my first rhubarb experiment of 2024. Despite knowing rhubarb and ginger pair well together I hadn't ever considered rhubarb with a gingerbread cake. I also loved that the recipe originally came from a lady called Mavis from New Zealand. How could I be steared wrong by a Mavis?

Well, Mavis. Your pudding, especially after 2 days, is delicious. However, your timings are shocking. What was meant to be a 35-40 minute bake was actually at least 60 minutes. That's a fair old difference, Mavis.

But as I said, 2 days later served warm with custard it was exceptionally tasty. As with all gingerbread cakes the flavour and texture benefitted from maturing. This goes against the nature of hot puddings for me, which are always served fresh from the oven, but I guess this makes this pudding an excellent one to make in advance for an occasion.

What I liked most is that the rhubarb is left as its natural, tart self; no extra sugar before adding the cake mix. The cake is the sweet element, although that didn't feel overly sweet either. However I would say if you're using a particularly tart or green rhubarb you may want to add additional sugar. My rhubarb is naturally on the sweet side as it's very pink so it was perfect for me.

I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Mavis.

Rhubarb gingerbread cake 

Mildly adapted from "Rhubarbaria" by Mary Prior

450g/ 1lb rhubarb

25g/ 1oz muscovado sugar 

25g/ 1oz soft dark brown sugar

100g/ 4oz Stork margarine (or softened butter)

50g/ 2oz golden syrup

1 large egg 

150g/ 6oz plain flour

Pinch of salt

1tsp ground ginger 

1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda 

2 tbsp hot milk

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/375F and grease a baking dish with butter. My dish measured 16cm wide x 24cm long x 6cm deep and I found it was a suitable size.

Wash and dry your rhubarb stalks then chop up into 1" chunks. Arrange in the bottom of the baking dish. Add a sprinkling of extra sugar if you want a sweeter flavour.

Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy (about 5 minutes) then mix in the syrup. Add the egg and mix again until combined. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt and spices then add to the egg mixture and mix until combined. Finally, in a cup or small bowl dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the hot milk then add this to the cake mixture and mix again.

Spread the cake mixture over the rhubarb in the dish. It's quite a thin spread so don't be alarmed if it doesn't cover well.

Bake in the oven for approx. 1 hour. I put a layer of greaseproof paper over the top of the dish after 40 minutes to stop the top from burning but allow the middle to continue baking.

Serve warm with cream, ice cream or custard. Alternatively leave it to cool fully, store in the fridge (with a cover on top) for at least a day then reheat and serve. This will enhance the gingerbread flavour.

hummingbird cake with orange cream cheese icing

I remember "semi-naked" cakes being all the rage online about 10 years ago and the term felt too "hipster" for my liking. I'm a contrary sod so needless to say I did not jump on the bandwagon. Until last month, purely because I didn't make enough icing and couldn't be arsed to make more. I wonder if this is how the style started?

I've posted this hummingbird cake before (originally here) numerous times as it's a firm favourite for family birthdays but for a change I tried an orange and honey cream cheese icing. It was absolutely delicious; the orange complemented the spiced banana and pineapple flavours really nicely. I definitely want to use it again so have written it down below for reference.

Orange and honey cream cheese icing:

2oz softened butter

4oz icing sugar

6oz full fat cream cheese

Grated zest of an orange

1tsp runny honey 

Beat together the butter and icing sugar for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the cream cheese, orange zest and honey and mix until fully combined.

Enough for a standard sandwich cake but recommend doubling the quantities for filling and fully covering a triple layer cake.

lemon and blueberry layer cake

Man turned 40 a few weeks ago so a grand cake was required. Like myself he is a lemon cake fan and after running ideas past him we decided on a lemon and blueberry cake sandwiched with with lemon curd and a cream cheese icing. Also a trifle, because all celebratory occasions in life require trifle.

 

The cake is a slight variation on this one I made many years ago, back when I used to put effort into my photography, ha! I think it used to be the most popular post on this blog (also back when I used to check stats.) It's a cute, little cake and I'm surprised it has taken me so long to bake something similar again.

The main change I made is the size as I scaled it up to an 8" layer cake. I think I used a 5 or 6 egg Victoria sponge mix with the zest of two lemons. In hindsight I wish I had added more blueberries to the batter (or not made such a huge cake batter?) but I was concerned about them adding too much moisture to the cake. Looking back at my original recipe I think I had a better ratio.

For my lemon curd filling I used my reliable Delia Smith recipe (documented here), although for whatever reason it didn't seem as punchy as usual which was a bit disappointing.

For the icing I used my personal perfected ratio for cream cheese icing: 2oz butter, 4oz icing sugar, 6oz full fat cream cheese (doubled to cover this size of layer cake.) Beat the icing sugar and butter together for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy before adding the cream cheese, then mix until fully incorporated.

I probably added lemon zest as well, but I can't remember. It is a tasty icing with or without adding extra flavours to it.

We also hosted a sausage roll bake off for Man's birthday with our families. It was quite a spread with at least 8 different types of flavours/fillings. I've never seen so many sausage rolls on a (horrible yet practical) breakfast bar.

Although we didn't declare a winner I was pleased to see my sausage rolls were popular. Mine were filled with chorizo, sun dried tomatoes and pork sausage meat. If you haven't tried this combination I can recommend it!

rugby ball birthday cake

I'm back with the next installment of "weird things I end up making as cakes for my nephews' birthdays." Last year for middle nephew it was rolling individual grains of rice from fondant for a curry themed cake and this year it was defying the laws of gravity with a rugby ball cake standing on its end. As you do.

After my usual Google images research I made the lower half of the "ball" as a marshmallow rice Krispies no bake for a solid lower structure. I'm still new to this common baking technique so didn't have full faith it would support the cake, but it did the job brilliantly.

For the cake I used a standard Victoria sponge mix baked in 6" round cake pans. Once sandwiched together with butter icing and jam (rhubarb jam, obviously courtesy of my rhubarb empire) I carved it into a dome. I even made a bonus mini "14" cake with the spare sponges I ended up not needing for the main cake. 

For the rice krispie lower half I pressed the mixture into a cereal bowl for a mould as the diameter more or less matched the cake tins. I also pressed some of the mix into one of the tins for a layer of extra height as I wasn't convinced the bowl was deep enough. This is the bake mid construction:

I have no idea why this photo uploaded sideways, sorry!

The flat bottom of the bowl created a solid base for the structure and I figured as I was intending to present the ball cake sitting on a kicking tee (also made from the rice Krispies mixture) it would look like it was sitting in the tee rather than a ball with a chopped off bottom.

I have to admit that despite my best efforts the kicking tee was not completely level and immediately after I finished taking my photos the cake toppled off the "tee", rolled off the worktop and onto the floor! It was one of those dramatic, slow motion, "noooooo" moments as I couldn't get to it in time to catch it. . . 

Somewhat miraculously the cake landed with a thud, unharmed?! How it stayed in one piece is beyond me, it barely even marked the fondant. I am both stunned and grateful that it didn't splat onto the floor in pieces minutes before leaving the house for the birthday party.

The fondant isn't my finest work as it tore as soon as I draped it over the cake but I patched it up the best I could and moved on with my life. In hindsight I probably should have applied the fondant in sections (like a rugby ball skin, I guess!) as the joins would have been covered by the coloured bands but I'm happy with the overall look I achieved.

The birthday boy was suitably impressed, mostly that it was a Scottish ball (which was an important detail) and the cake tasted good. It's definitely one of the most interesting cake cross section photos I've taken.

In the interest of not excluding eldest nephew's cake from earlier in the year, I made a UFC belt birthday cake. He was thoroughly delighted with it too. 

It amuses me that even at 14 and 16 they still want to continue the tradition of silly birthday cakes from their daft aunty. They're not too cool for me yet!