Malteser cake

Phew, its been a busy week, I have not had time to bake, let alone blog about it. I made up for it yesterday by making a 'big' cake. This was the only stipulation when I had asked Mark what he wanted.

I cannot claim credit for this recipe, I read about this cake on butter hearts sugar, and the recipe comes from here.

I did make a couple of tweaks. I added 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee and 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla to the warm wet ingredients. I think coffee and vanilla help bring out the chocolate-yness of chocolate.

I also baked it in my hemisphere cake tin from lakeland, so it came out half a malteser shape.

I also did not bother with chocolate ganache just the AMAZING malted buttercream. I simply cut the cake in half, filled with buttercream, reassembled then smothered the whole thing in more buttercream.

 I then applied maltesers. The cakes I looked at by the other bakers used all normal maltesers. I could not resist picking up white ones as well. I have to say that their cakes look neater and very effective but the taste of the white chocolate maltesers is so good that I do not really care!

The cake is a good flavour and quite moist, like a cakey brownie. Not entirely sure if this is the recipe or due to the cake tin I used. As I have mentioned the buttercream is divine and I need to make cupcakes with it on very soon!

Rapberry frangipane

The sun appeared! Mind you the weather, here in Ediburgh at least, seems to be on the turn. So I am highly glad I had a picnic las weekend, as who know when he may appear again!

As well as beautiful salads, olives, fruit, homemade baguettes (see here) I of course wanted something sweet I decided I wanted that rich, melt in the mouth frangpiane with the tartness of raspberries. Berries seem to scream sunshine.

In this recipe I use shop bought shortcrust pastry. I enjoy making pastry but on this particular morning I was also making bread and assembling the rest of the picnic. Time was not on my side.

I bought pre rolled pastry. I find this pastry is always quite thickly rolled out, which is fine for pies but not my tart, I did not want lots of pastry just a wafer thin case to hold together the raspberries and frangipane. In the end I lined my tin with ~125g of thin rolled short crust.

I have also just realised that the letter for this months alpha bakes (this month hosted by Ros over at the more than occasional baker) is R. So I am going to enter my Raspberry frangipane as an unplanned entry!

Raspberry frangipane tart


Pack of pre rollled short crust pastry (I used ~125g)
50g raspberry jam
140g butter
100g caster sugar2 eggs140g ground almonds50g plain flour
100g raspberries


Preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the pastry further, until very thin and line a 23cm tart tin. I used my long one from lakeland (36cm in length) which worked very well. Trim the excess pastry, prick the base with a fork, and chill for 30 minutes. Line with baking paper and fill with baking beans, or rice. Bake for 10 minutes then remove the baking beans and paper. Bake for a further 10-15 minutes until golden and biscuity.

To make the filling cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy then beat in the eggs. Finally fold in the ground almonds and flour.

Spread the base of the pastry case with the raspberry jam. Spoon the frangipane filling into the pastry case and level the top. Place the raspberries on top, in whatever pattern you desire.
Bake the tart for 30-35 minutes until cooked and golden. 


Leave to cool in the tin for ~20 minutes and when the tin is cool enough to handle remove the tart and allow to cool.

I cut these into picnic sized pieces. They are dangerously delicious and extremely moreish. They last well i a tin for at least 3 days. Sadly we ate them all so I am not sure if they last longer!

Best ever spaghetti bolognese

I know this is a baking blog but please bear with me. The book for this months cupcake book club was 'Leftovers' by Stella Newman .

I loved this book and enjoyed the characters and story very much. It features Susie ,a thirty something, unhappy in her job and obsessed with food, in particular pasta. Although sweet things are mentioned, including a heart attack inducing 'death by brownie cheesecake I thought I would stay true to Susie's first love and make a pasta dish that is mentioned.

The best ever bolognese piqued my interest as although I do like bolognese I would probably always chose  something over it. So the promise of it being the best I had ever had was a challenge I had to take.

Best ever Bolognese, serves 3

1 onion
1 large carrot
1 celery stick
2 cloves of garlic
250g beef mince
125g pork mince
400-500g passata 
1/2 bottle red wine
2 decent sprigs of rosemary
seasoning, to taste

parmesan and cooked spaghetti to serve

Finely chop the onion, carrot and celery. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a pan (I used a big, deep frying pan) then turn the heat down to its lowest setting, add the chopped veg to the pan and very gently cook for 10 minutes.

Turn up the heat and add  both minces, fry until browned. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute. Turn the heat down super low, as low as it will go, almost off. Add the passata, 1/2 the red wine and the rosemary and allow to slowly slowly cook. You will need to keep an eye on it., Every 40 minutes or so, give it a stir and  top up with some of the remaining wine. Once you have used all the remaining wine up add splashes of water.

Cook for as long as you have 4-6 hours. Serve up with cooked spaghetti and parmesan cheese.

I was pushed for time a bit so cooked mine for 4 hours. And the verdict? It was really really good. The depth of flavour was absolutely fantastic. The only downside is that I will not want to eat regular bolognese again! So all in all a success!

Berry and lime drizzle cake

When asked if he had any burning baking requests last week Mark said 'cake', then he clarified, a 'cake with fruit'. To be clear he did not want a fruit cake, no no, just a fruity sort of cake, i.e orange, lemon, apple, strawberry, that sort of thing.

Clearly the raspberry victoria sponge cake that had just been polished off did not satisfy the cake and fruit craving.

I didn't want anything too complicated and so decide a tray bake would be best, I was not really in a lemon drizzle mood but found a berry lime tray bake on the bbc good food website.

The recipe is here. I made a couple of tweaks. Firstly I substituted half of the butter of an equal amount of apple sauce. Secondly I reduced the sugar in the glaze to 40g and reduced the glaze to more of a syrup. Not only does this make for a slightly healthier cake it also intensifies the lime.

This is a tasty cake, I love the zing the lime syrup gives. It has a soft, moist texture and keeps well for up to 5 days in an airtight tin.

Olive breadsticks

Olives are the most recent transfer from my disliked food list to my liked food list. It has to be said that leaves the hated food list pretty barren. It pretty much reads tripe and wasabi.

To celebrate this move I baked with them. In a very tasty moreish olive breadstick. These would work well alongside salad, as part of a mezze platter or as a snack/appetiser with drinks.

They take a few hours to make but do not require much effort on your part. This recipe is ever so slightly adapted from Mr Paul Hollywood

Olive breadsticks

makes 8

250g white bread flour
5g instant yeast
5g salt
200ml lukewarm water
2 tsps olive oil, plus extra for greasing
125g olives, de-stoned weight

Grease a square 2L container ready for the dough. You could use a tupperware or square cake tin. 

Put the flour in a bowl and add the yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other. Add ~2/3 of the water and, using a dough hook, start to mix together. When the mixture is starting to come together as a dough add the remaining water to the bowl. Continue mixing with the dough hook for 5-8 minutes until the dough is soft and stretches easily. Add the olive oil and continue to mix for a couple more minutes. Finally add in the olive and mix until evenly dispersed.

Transfer the dough to the oiled container and leave to rise until doubled in size, ~1 1/2 hours.

Line to baking sheets with baking parchment and liberally flour a work surface ad tip the risen doughy out onto it, it will be a loose flowing dough. Gently stretch/pat into an even rectangle.

Cut the dough into 8 even strips. Gently stretch till 20-25cm long and carefully transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Leave to rise for a further 1-1 1/2 hours.  

Preheat the oven to 220C/200C FAN. Bake the breadsticks for 10-15 minutes until golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack. 

These are best eaten the day they are made, they become chewy the next day, though they can be refreshed in the oven for 5 minutes.