Dutch Apple Cake

When I got home from work today it was so cold in the house (we’re still resisting turning the heating on) I thought the best thing to do was put the oven on and bake something! As there are lots of apples lying on the ground in the garden I decided to make a Dutch Apple Cake from ‘Bake’ by Rachel Allen. It was very easy to follow and also had an alternate fruity suggestion of raspberries and pears.

We’ve just had a slice each straight from the oven with a pile of strawberries and whipped fresh cream flavoured with vanilla. Very delicious indeed. I don’t think it’s going to last very long – good job there are plenty more apples outside

Apple & Custard Tea Cakes

Last week had a bit of an apple theme…

Delicious home made apple and custard tea cakes – the custard was hidden away as a surprise layer in the middle. The apples were from our garden – they were sliced and arranged on top of each cake. When they came out of the oven I brushed them with melted butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon & sugar. I think the recipe was from my giant Australian Womens Weekly cookbook. I’ll definitely be making more of these!

I also made a couple of crochet apples. The recipe was from a book I borrowed out of our local library. It’s called Gourmet Crochet – a yummy yarn cookbook and has all kinds of fruit, veg, sushi and cakes.

FRESH STRAWBERRY & CREAM MUFFINS

We had a mini baking session at The Sock Garden house this weekend. Me & young Sock chose the Fresh Strawberry & Cream Muffin recipe from my trusty ’1 mix, 50 muffins’ book (which I bought from The Works for under a fiver). They tasted creamily delicious.

We were very indulgent and served them with whipped double cream laced with a spoonful of icing sugar and a splash of madagascan vanilla extract plus an extra juicy strawberry on the side. We also had a cup of Twinings Strawberry, Raspberry & Loganberry fruit tea.

If you fancy making a batch, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/400F/GM6 & line a 12 cup muffin tin with 12 paper cases

150g fresh strawberries chopped

280g plain white flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

115g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

250ml single cream

6tbsp sunflower oil OR 85g cooled melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Sift flour, baking power & salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar & strawberries.
2. Lightly beat eggs in separate bowl, add cream & vanilla.
3. Stir the liquid ingredients gently into the dry ingredients – don’t overmix.
4. Spoon into paper cases.
5. Bake for 20-30 mins until risen and golden.

That’s it! Try and wait 5 minutes before tucking in. Enjoy

On the other side of the kitchen Mr. Sock was weighing out ingredients to make a batch of Red Pepper & Sun Dried Tomato Bread. It’s so good – we ate most of the first loaf yesterday with boiled eggs.

He can definitely make that one again!

Cinnamon Chai, Peanut Butter, Jam & Nutella Muffins & ‘Oh Comely’

I was in the mood to make some muffins today and wanted to try and concoct a recipe that would use up some of my ‘near the end’ jars of spreads.

They turned out to be very tasty and included Crunchy Peanut Butter, Cherry Conserve and Nutella plus some extra chocolate.

I managed to take advantage of a short sunny spell this afternoon for a cup of cinnamon chai with a muffin and a read of the latest issue of ‘Oh Comely’ magazine that arrived yesterday. A little bit of Sunday bliss

RECIPE

(preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 & line 12 hole tin with muffin cases)

Ingredients

1. 280 g plain flour
2. 1 tbsp baking powder
3. pinch of salt
4. 115 g soft brown sugar
5. 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
6. 2 medium eggs (room temp)
7. 200 ml buttermilk (or yoghurt)
8. 6 tbsp sunflower oil (or 85g melted & cooled butter)
9. 150 g of favourite spreads – e.g. peanut butter; jam; nutella etc
10. 100 g chopped up chocolate (I used white chocolate)

Method

• Sieve ingredients 1-5 into a large bowl
• Lightly beat the eggs and combine with ingredients 7-9
• Gently stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients to combine – don’t over-mix
• Stir in the chocolate chunks
• Divide mixture between muffin cases
• Bake for 20 minutes

Eat and enjoy

Sticky Saucy Orange Cake

Today was one of those rare days I felt like baking a cake, mostly fuelled by a disappointing purchase of a bag of not very juicy oranges from Tesco. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away so I hunted about for a recipe to use them up. Well worth the effort…

Ingredients for cake

3/4 cup of butter

1.5 cups caster sugar

1.5 tbsp grated orange rind (I calculated this as the rind of 1 orange)

4 eggs

1/2 cup plain yoghurt

3 tbsp orange juice

2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a cake tin.
2. Cream butter & sugar til fluffy, mix in orange rind.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well.
4. Mix yoghurt & orange juice – add to mixture and blend well.
5. Sieve flour & bicarb into mixture and stir to combine until smooth.
6. Pour into cake tin.
7. Bake for about 40 mins. Stand in cake tin for 5 mins then turn out onto wire rack to cool slightly.

Ingredients for sauce

1 cup fresh orange juice

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp grated orange or lemon rind (or a mix)

1/2 cup of sugar

…I added a big spoonful of delicious chilli orange marmalade made by my talented friend Mrs. Chutney

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a pan. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 mins. Then pour over the cake while still hot.

We tucked into a slice while it was still hot and added a dollop of honey and ginger ice cream. Gorgeous

SPICY CHORIZO MUFFINS

All this cold weather calls for a bit of comfort food baking. I love making muffins as they’re so quick and easy.  So yesterday I mixed up a batch of savoury muffins – Spicy Chorizo & Red Pepper.

We sampled the first ones about 5 minutes after they came out of the oven – very satisfyingly delicious they were too!

The recipe is from ’1 mix, 50 muffins’ and goes like this:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F/Gas 6 & put 12 muffin cases into a muffin tray.

Sift the following dry ingredients together:

280g plain flour – 1tbsp baking powder – 1/4 tsp salt – 1 tsp paprika

Finely chop & add to the above:

1 small red pepper  – 100g chorizo (without skin)

Lightly beat together:

2 eggs – 250ml buttermilk – 6 tbsp sunflower oil – 1 crushed garlic clove

Stir gently into the dry ingredients until combined – do not over-mix.

Spoon into cases, bake for about 20mins until well risen & golden.

Let cool for 5 mins then sprinkle with paprika and tuck in

Homemade Apple Pie

Look what we’ve got! Mr Sockgarden’s 14 year old daughter fancied baking a pie and this is the delicious result. Homemade pastry, apples from the garden, plus a few spoonfuls of my friends homemade berry jam.

There was enough leftover pastry to make a mini banana pie with brandy caramel topping but there wasn’t time to take a pic! And actually there are only 2 slices of pie left to eat later this evening with vanilla icecream. Yummy!

Rocky Road Muffins

I had a bit of a chocolate craving yesterday so I went off and bought some ingredients to make Rocky Road muffins. This is a combination of 2 recipes – I really like how muffins turn out when they use buttermilk – they seem to rise well but also have that dense moist texture. Just use whatever your favourite chocolate is. The marshmallow just disappeared and made little sticky puddles inside… YUMMY!

Ingredients

300g SR flour

75g cocoa

90g butter, chopped

220g caster sugar

30g dessicated coconut

100g chocolate (I used fruit & nut)

50g mini marshmallows – cut in half

1 egg beaten lightly

310ml buttermilk (the cartons I get measure 284ml so I make up the difference with milk or yoghurt)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200/GM6 & line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases
2. Put flour & cocoa in a bowl – rub in the butter
3. Stir in sugar, coconut, chocolate and marshmallows
4. Add buttermilk & egg
5. Stir everything together but don’t overmix
6. Divide between cases

Cook for about 20mins – take out & let them stand in the muffin tray for 5mins before putting on a wire race to cool… or eat warm!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I did a little bit of baking this weekend after seeing a recipe & pics for Red Velvet Cupcakes over at Giddystuff’s blog. She said the buttermilk mixture looked like red poster paint… she wasn’t wrong!

I think I did something wrong with the cream cheese icing – it should have been thicker – but never mind – it still tastes good! It made 12… there are 2 left.  Thanks for the recipe Giddystuff

Homemade Asparagus & Pea Soup

I felt really cross yesterday to discover a pack of ‘bendy’ asparagus in the fridge! I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it away so I thought I’d try making up a soup recipe. Glad I did! We had it for lunch today – it was really tasty, I’ll definitely be doing it again.

Here’s the recipe if you fancy trying it. I’m a bit hazy on the quantities as I made it up as I went along but you should end up with about 1.5 pints:

INGREDIENTS

1 bunch of asparagus, broken into pieces (discard the ends)

couple of handfuls of frozen peas

knob of butter

2 onions chopped

2 sticks celery chopped

fresh thyme sprigs

vegetable stock cube

salt & black pepper

1. Bring a pan of water to the boil – add asparagus & cook for 10 mins.  Leave to cool, drain & keep the asparagus cooking liquid
   
2. Melt the butter and add onions, celery & thyme. Cook until soft.
3. Add the asparagus and cook for another couple of minutes.
4. Add the stock cube to the asparagus cooking liquid and top up to a pint or so with boiling water. Add this to the vegetables. Add peas & seasoning. Bring to the boil & cook for about 10-15 mins.
5. Take it off the heat to cool down for a bit then whizz with a blender until smooth & quite thick.
6. Serve and stir in a spoonful of natural yoghurt or a swirl of cream.

Eat up & enjoy