Lemon and thyme cakes

I love the fresh and zinginess of lemon cake, and thyme is a great herb that works really well with the lemon, adding a fragrant edge and interest to the sponge as you bite your way through it. The sponge in this cake has a little more to it by adding ground almond the sponge has more depth, moistness and a bit firmer than your normal poofy fairy cake. Also the use of golden sugar lends itself nicely to the colouring of the sponge and fitting perfectly with the lemon theme.

200g butter

200g golden caster sugar

100g plain flour

100g ground almonds

1tsp baking powder

4 eggs

1 zested lemon

3 tsp thyme leaves

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Cream the sugar and butter together.

Add the whisked egg a little at a time with a spoonful of flour

Stir in the rest of the flour, baking powder add the almonds, zest and thyme

cook at 160 for 15 to 20 mins until you get a clean pull from the skewer test.

The topping is a cream cheese frosting laced with lemon curd... rude not to really.

125g cream cheese

300g icing sugar

50g butter 

be careful not to over whisk as this can easy collapse and go runny, in one side of a piping bag place lemon curd and the other the icing and pipe away on top of the cakes.

Pineapple upside down cake

I do love a slice of pineapple cake and this one has a twist of chilli and lime syrup poured over the top which soaks into the cake giving it another depth in flavour.

Here is Ella my budding little baker learning from the expert Sophie.

INGREDIENTS

200g canned pineapple rings

110g caster sugar

110g butter

2 eggs

110g self raising flour 

1tsp baking powder 

1 fresh red chilli 

4 tbsp pineapple juice

4 tbsp of honey

zest and juice of a lime 

pre heat the oven to 180c

• Grease your tin or if like me use a fab tin that doesn't need greasing  
• Place 4 pineapple rings in the base of your tin
• Cream the butter and sugar, fold in the flour and whisked eggs and baking powder 
• cut up the rest of the pineapple and add to the cake mix
• Spoon the cake mix over the pineapple rings and cook for 25 mins or until if you put a knife in and it comes out clear.

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Making the syrup is easy add the pineapple juice, honey, chili and lime to a pan and simmer for 5 mins once the cake is out of the oven and tin and on the serving plate pour over the syrup.

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Easter Simnel Cake

I made a Easter cake from a female celebrity chef which turned out more like alcoholic bread pudding than Easter cake, and last years Simnel cake from a BBC food site was so dry it was almost hard to swallow. So i vowed that i need to crack the fruit cake recipe ignoring celebrity chefs and spending time comparing recipes, and come up with my own at Christmas i made a really great fruit cake rich and moist so i think i am heading in the right direction/  

Now Easter is almost here and i wanted to have another crack at the Simnel cake to try and redeem myself so looked over my Christmas recipe and tweeked it alot to fit a light Easter fruit cake, i put a lot of thought into the cake and even up'd the amount of marzipan in the centre as Ali is a marzipan monster and he said i was stingy last year.  I even added my very last jar of Boozy fruit from Christmas which is now very well matured.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 After the long wait of 2 hours 30 mins in the oven and waiting for it to cool long enough for it to come out of the pan, i was so nervous i had bombed again as the thick wedge of marzipan i had put in made the cake seem as if it was still raw even though the cake appeared perfect and i almost destined it for the bin... Lucky Ali was with me as the sense of reason to my hysteria of failings (note to self be more confident) and i wrapped it up and left it till morning to pass judgement hence the tasting slice taken out of the cake.  By morning everything had cooled down and the marzipan set and the cake was a thumbs up from all of us. So i got cracking to decorate it and when i asked Ali what he thought he made me laugh and said it looks like something from an Alien movie with all the eggs.  

Well if your looking for a recipe to try, here is my very own.  Although i might have done a duff job at selling it to you to try with all my previous failings but this is i can assure a scrummy cake.

Ingredients

cook at 150 for 2 hours then 30 min oven off

225g plane flour

200g golden caster sugar

200g butter

4 eggs beaten

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp mixed spice

100g dark 70% chocolate broken into small pieces

1 pot full of boozy fruit

2 packs of natural marzipan

eggs to decorate

Method 

Cream the sugar and butter together

add 1tbsp of flour and a bit of egg and then a bit more flour and then egg untill both are all gone

add all the salt and spices, chocolate and fruit mix in by hand.

grease and paper line your pan and then add a layer of cake mix as my little chef is demonstrating (Sophie aged 3)

Open a pack of marzipan and roll out to a circle that will fit your pan, i used a whole pack this year and it gave a lovely wedge in the cake last year i used 1/2 a pack and everyone moaned that it wasn't enough be warned this might make you think the cake isn't cooked when you do the prick test so look closely at the skewer to see if its cake mix or marzipan. Cover the top of the cake mix with grease proof paper and and put in the oven at 150 for 2 hours, after this i turned to oven off and left the cake in there for 30 - 45 mins i skewer tested and the popped it out of the pan and wrapped in cling film to retain the moisture and left overnight to cool completely.  I then used a second pack of marzipan to cover the cake using apricot jam to stick it on and decorated with eggs.  

Here is a picture of Sophie age 2 scoffing down a bit of Simnel cake gosh time has flew by SOB!