Saturday Swiss

A chocolate raspberry number requested for a Saturday afternoon treat.

Melted dark chocolate swirled into a basic swiss roll mixture of beaten eggs & sugar, flour & vanilla essence.

Filling of raspberry jam, whipped cream & fresh raspberries

Yum yum

Kara and Anamik's Wedding Cake

Heart shaped Victoria Sponges filled with cream & raspberry jam.

For the lovely Kara Collins & Anamik Saha on their wedding day xxx

Yummy courgette cake + squishy banana cake

Tried out two new recipes recently - the first a standard banana cake from the Rose Bakery cookbook - the second a moist and delicious courgette cake courtesy of Nigel Slater

We'd been gathering a host of squishy over ripe bananas, and popping them in the freezer for a later use. Perhaps this was a mistake as they gave off rather a lot of liquid when defrosting, but I just baked for a bit longer than advised to get it to set.

1 tin of plain banana bread was nice enough, but the second had a whole bar of dark chocolate crumbled into it, absolutely delish.

Next weekend was a cake with grated courgette and apple - Nigel is right (isn't he always), it does have the consistency of ground almonds - this one is a real winner and will definitely make it again.

Here's the recipe if you want to give it a go.

200g butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
150g courgettes (about 2 small ones)
1 small apple
200g plain flour
a large pinch salt
½ tsp baking powder
pinch cinnamon
60g pecans
80g sultanas (half cup, packed)

Preheat oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Butter and line the base of a loaf tin measuring 20cm x 12cm x 9cm deep. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs and mix them in, one at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Coarsely grate the courgettes and the apple. Squeeze them with your hands to remove any excess moisture, then add to the mixture. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon, and gently fold into the mixture. Stir in the nuts and fruit. Transfer to the lined loaf tin and bake for about an hour, or until golden and firm to the touch. Allow to cool in the tin before turning out.

Cheesecake for Shinya

Last year I'd made a Japanese colleague a lemon drizzle cake with raspberry topping for his birthday. This year he put in a special request for a cheesecake. Now, I'm not a big fan of fridge cakes - preferring the oven to work some magic on the ingredients, so felt it needed a bit of magic to enliven it up.

A lime and ginger mix went down a treat - with ginger syrup mixed into the gingernut biscuit base, and stem ginger pieces thrown in with the lime juice and cheesecake mixture. Very rich - as you can see, the office struggled to finish it.

xx

Dad's 60th Birthday - Chocolate double choc

Dad's 60th Birthday - Chocolate double choc

The stencil goes on, ready for gold spray...

Dad's 60th Birthday - Chocolate double choc

Dark chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache centre, covered in white choc icing, curls, cigarillos, the works!