chocolate-orange

c h o c o l a t e - o r a n g e . . .
My flatmate loves orange flavour in baking so I’d made these for him mostly (but also for me because they taste pretty good).
I make these quite a lot....in about 40 minutes start to finish (sometimes including washing-up time). The smell when you're baking them is impressive and they're great if you had told someone you'd bake for them and then totally forgot until just over an hour before you need to leave...not that I've ever left anything that last minute!!

The recipe is really simple and if you want to add a little extra something to the muffins, put half the mixture into the muffin cases, add a little bit of chocolate spread and then cover with the rest of the mix.

I find that the trick to making these muffins is to only just combine the ingredients...and add a spoonful of natural yogurt at the end if the mixture is getting too sticky!

So for the recipe...

Chocolate Orange Muffins

150g butter (melted); 175 ml milk; 1 egg; orange rind (grated); 1 tsp orange extract; 375g self-raising flour; 2 tsp baking powder; 100g chocolate chips; 50g caster sugar; 50g brown sugar.
Mix together butter, milk, egg, orange rind and orange extract. Sift flour & baking powder into a bowl & stir in chocolate chips and sugars. Add the milk mixture to the dry mixture and stir briefly until only just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the paper muffin cases and pile it up a bit more in the centre.
Bake in a pre-heated oven (190C/Gas Mark 5) for 15 – 20 mins.

I also make batches of lots more mini-muffins by using smaller cases and this will only take 12 - 15 minutes in the oven. They're better for taking to work (to share obviously) as people are much more likely to take a "wee bit" of a treat rather than having "a huge muffin" (although I don't think muffins are that huge)!!

the-tower

t h e - t o w e r . . .
One of the guys at my work was leaving and had asked me to make a big cake for lots of people to share. I think I perhaps took it a bit too far but the reaction from my colleagues was what I’d aimed at. 

Vegan and not-so-vegan tower cake

It’s made from a basic sponge cake on the bottom iced with chocolate buttercream icing, chocolate drops and marzipan stars. Then vegan chocolate cake (recipe below) with soya buttercream icing and raspberries. Finally, baby vegan cupcakes with the chocolate buttercream icing on top.

Transporting the cakey tower into work was quite tricky and I got arm cramp on the way in but it was far easier carrying an empty tray back home!

marieke-cake

m a r i e k e - c a k e . . .
When I was much, much younger my family would have Dutch girls come and stay with us for a few months and they would work in the hospital in an admin job to improve their business English.

Marieke was the third Dutch girl who came to stay with us and her first gift to us was a round cake. I think it is usually called kruidkoek (in Holland) but we refer to it as Marieke Cake. I’m not entirely sure how a Marieke Cake was transported so safely all the way from Holland but it didn't lose any of the flavour in transit!

I was old enough to appreciate a ‘big sister type’ when Marieke came to stay with us. She loved Leonardo Di Caprio almost as much as I did. We sat in the front row of the cinema when Romeo and Juliet came out, swooned in unison, and when she went back to Holland she sent me a beautiful postcard of his face – which I instantly stuck to my mirror! She inspired a lot of my idiosyncrasies (I was clearly eager to be quirky from a young age), gave me some amazing advice and was just so cool.

Marieke Cake is my favourite cake to make. It’s low-ish fat (in cake terms), smells absolutely delicious before, during and after baking and is quite difficult to mess up! It’s now become something of a tradition whenever I go home I have to make a Marieke Cake for my best friend, Maryam, and her family (her dad eats most of it though!).

Marieke Cake - someone stole a cranberry!

So for the recipe:
250g self-raising flour; 250g brown sugar; 2 tsp mixed spice (mostly cinnamon & nutmeg); salt; 250ml milk; handful of raisins.
Mix everything together. Pour into a round tin and bake for about 30 - 35 minutes at Gas Mark 4 (or until a skewer comes out clean). Simples!


This cake has quite a 'bouncy' texture to it once it’s cooked and I think part of the joy of it is the hole in the middle - but this is optional of course!!
I made this at Christmas time for the office and even people who don't like dried fruit loved the cake!!

for-starters

f o r - s t a r t e r s . . .
I first made these cakes for a friend's birthday. Her flatmate is vegan and I thought it would be nice if she could eat cake...everybody should get to eat cake on birthdays!

The recipe came from a combination of a vegan recipe book I'd seen in the library and a youtube clip!

Vegan chocolate cupcakes with some soya milk and some vegan chocolate icing

Vegan chocolate cupcakes

240 ml soya milk; 1 tbsp vinegar; 150g granulated sugar; 80ml vegetable oil; 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract; ½ tsp orange extract; 140g flour; 45g cocoa; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda.

Whisk soya milk & vinegar in bowl and allow it to curdle a little.  Add sugar, oil and extract to soya milk and whisk until it's all foamy on top. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa & bicarb. Add the dry mix into the liquid mix in two batches & beat until there are no large lumps.
Pour mix into cake cases & bake for 18 mins at 180C/Gas Mark 4.

It's really easy to make these cakes and they taste delicious. I think it tastes a bit different to a regular chocolate cake and it's definitely lighter...maybe not very 'structurally sound' if you're making a bigger cake and trying to cut it though.
You can safely lick the mixing spoon clean but there is sometimes a slight taste of vinegar (this definitely disappears during cooking)!

kitsch-beginnings

k i t s c h - b e g i n n i n g s
I'm not restricting this to cakes....or just baking...but that's what takes up most of my time.

And I'm not sure where to start, or whether anyone would continue to read this if it was an autobiographical post about when I started baking (to be honest, I'm not even sure if I know when I started)!

I've been taking photos of my cakes for a long time but more so I could create a colourful recipe photo album and have something to show for all my time in the kitchen! I hope this will be a colourful recipe photo album of a virtual kind!

So, taking inspiration from many people (my mum most definitely included) I've decided to let other people see my creativity. And ok, so you can't taste it but you can try making it yourself and see how it goes.

I'm not a baker or a cook so can't claim any authority on what I do but I do love seeing people's faces when something that I made really seems to make them pleased!

My secret tip - keep my sister out of the kitchen - my baking blunders have come from spending too long chatting to her!
My flavour of the moment - pistachio (and vanilla)

- h o m n o m ! !