Halloween Cake: Skull & Blood Raspberry Jam Cake

 

My apologies for the delay in posting my Halloween Cake! Here it is in the full scrumptious goryness.

Recipe
My own recipe
Serves 8-10



For the white chocolate skull, mice and hands etc:
approx 300g white chocolate, broken into pieces


1. Make the chocolate in advance. Gently melt 250g of the chocolate over a bain mairie, a heatproof bowl over a pan of just simmering water. Stir the chocolate, and when melted, add the extra 100g, taking it off the heat but continuing to stir until melted.

2. When all the white chocolate has melted smoothly, carefully spoon it into silicone moulds. Place the filled moulds on a plate in the fridge for half an hour, before unmoulding. Don't touch them too much when unmoulding as the heat of your hands may soften them. When unmoulded, place the figures back in the fridge on a plate until ready to use.

You can make the hands by just spreading melted chocolate onto a baking tray and refridgerate in the same way, without the use of moulds.



for the cake base:

200g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g golden caster sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
grated zest of half a lemon
3 tablespoons raspberry jam


3. Turn the oven to 170C (150C fan ovens), and grease and line a normal baking tin.

4. Cream the butter and sugar together for at least 3 minutes until smooth and fluffy.

5. Add the first egg to the creamed mixture, then sieve in a little of the flour and beat well. Once combined, add the 2nd egg one with tablespoon of flour, and beat again. Add the last egg, beating hard until the mixture is light and frothy.

6. Stir in the lemon zest and the vanilla extract.

7. Next sift in the rest of the flour, stirring in a bit at a time. Remember to add the baking powder! I forgot, resulting in a rather flat cake.

8. Stir in the lemon juice, combining into the batter.

9. Spoon half the batter into the prepared baking tin. Then dot the raspberry jam into the batter, using a skewer or teaspoon to swirl it around. Spoon the rest of the batter ontop, before smoothing it down evenly with a spatula.

10. Place in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes, checking it briefly after 35 minutes. Cover with foil if the top is browning too quickly in the final 10 minutes. You'll know it's done when the top bounces back under your finger and a skewer comes out clean.

11. Once baked, let the cake rest in the tin for 15 minutes, then remove to continue cooling on the rack.

for the raspberry compote topping:
400g raspberries, washed
300g caster sugar


12. When the cake is cool, put the raspberries in a pan with the caster sugar, and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn the heat down to simmer gently for approx 6 minutes until the raspberries are giving out their lovely pink juice. Squash them with a fork and then push them through a sieve with a bowl underneath to catch all the juices.

13. Spoon the raspberry compote over the cake, letting it drip down the sides.

Or of course, you could just spread more jam over the top of the cake.

14. To finish, place the white chocolate skull, mice and hands firmly onto the cake. Serve with creme fraiche or cream.

This cake was idly baked to Joy Division's album Still

Gluten Free Fruit Jam & Toasted Almond Cake

This sweet spring cake is so easy and cheap to bake, a handy recipe to use when there's nothing more than a bit of jam and a few almonds in the kitchen cupboard. Marrying a gorgeous taste combination of a fluffy soft almond interior with a crisp, sweet crunchy exterior, it has all the hallmarks of a classic british tea cake. Plus, if you bake it in a special decorative cake tin, as I did, then it looks as if you've gone to so much more effort than you really have, a big thumbs up for an idle baker. Feel free to add more jam than I did - we only had a spoonful left in the bottom of the jam jar.

Recipe
My own recipe
Serves 8-10


200g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g golden caster sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
200g gluten free self raising flour mix (Dove's Farm recommended)
1 teaspoon baking powder (Barkart recommended)
1 teaspoon almond extract
80g toasted flaked almonds
1 and a half tablespoons cherry or raspberry jam



1. Turn the oven to 170C (150C fan ovens), and grease a decorative non stick baking tin (mine came from Lakeland), or grease and line a normal baking tin.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together for at least 3 minutes until smooth and fluffy.

3. Add the first egg to the creamed mixture, then sieve in a little of the flour and beat well. Once combined, add the 2nd egg one with tablespoon of flour, and beat again. Add the last egg, beating hard until the mixture is light and frothy.

4.Next sift in the rest of the flour, and almond extract a bit at a time.

5. Throw in the toasted almond flakes. Stir gently until the flakes are just combined into the batter.

6. Spoon half the batter into the prepared baking tin. Then dot the cherry jam into the batter, using a skewer or teaspoon to swirl it around. Spoon the rest of the batter ontop, before smoothing it down evenly with a spatula.

7. Place in the oven to bake for about 45 minutes, checking it briefly after 35 minutes. Cover with foil if the top is browning too quickly in the final 10 minutes. You'll know it's done when the top bounces back under your finger and a skewer comes out clean.

8. Once baked, if you're using a decorative tin leave the cake to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Once cool, use a spatula or a fork to gently prise the cake away from the tin sides, before placing onto a plate.
If you're using a normal greased and lined baking tin then you can take the cake out of the tin after 20 minutes, to continue cooling on the rack.

9. Dust the top with caster sugar, plus any fresh or glace cherries if you like. Serve lukewarm or cold, with cream or vanilla icecream.

This cake was idly baked while listening to the REM album Out Of Time.

Home made Rose Petal Jam and a cup of Balmy Lemon Tea

Rose Petal Jam

from Richard Mabey's book Food for Free
Buy the book on Amazon

1. You will only need to prepare a small potful, as it is very sweet. Take two cups of wild rose petals (only supplement with those from garden roses if absolutely necessary as the thick, fleshy petals of the garden varieties are very difficult to reduce to jelly).

2. Sort through the petals, and remove any withered ones (cram them down into the cup when measuring).
Dissolve two cups of caster sugar in half a cup of water, mixed with one tablespoon each of lemon juice and orange juice.

3. Stir in the rose petals and put the pan over a very low heat. Stir continuously for 30 minutes, or until all the petals have 'melted'. Cool the mixture a little, pour into a small glass jar and seal.

Lemon Balm Tea

1. First find some wild lemon balm leaves nestling amongst the nettles in the garden. Boil a kettle. Pick 4 small lemon balm leaves and place them in a cup. Pour the boiling water in and let stew for a few minutes. That's it folks! Enjoy the fresh citrus taste of the tea.

My spies tell me that lemon balm lifts the spirits and can be also used to aid digestion and headaches. Scatter it in salads. I'll have to see if I can make a cake with our lemon balm one of these days.

Rose Petal Genoese Sponge Cake

This lovely plain genoese recipe has a rose flavouring, inspired by the gorgeous roses growing around our cottage door which have sprung to life and are giving off the most wonderful aroma. With this in mind, I made a delicious celebratory layered rose sponge cake. It's lighter and softer than your average sponge, and needs a lot of eggs and a good whisk to make up for the lack of any raising agent.

Recipe
Serves 8 - 10

To make 2 sponges:
8 eggs, room temperature
250g caster sugar
2 tsps rose water
250g plain flour or gluten free mix (M&S or Dove's Farm recommended for gf flours)
2 pinches of salt
120g butter, melted and warm

Filling:
Rose petal jam or Raspberry jam

1. Turn the oven to 180C (160C for those like myself using a fan oven). Start by greasing two 23cm x 7cm sandwich tins  (or 20cm x 8). Cut 2 circles of greaseproof paper, put them in the bottom of the tins, and grease with more butter. Flour the base and sides of the tins.

2. Whisk the eggs, sugar and rose water flavouring in a large bowl over a bain mairie, which is a pan of almost simmering water, until the mixture is foamy and thickened. Remove bowl from pan and continue beating the mixture until it has cooled.

3. Sift the flour with the salt. Then sift half on to the egg mixture. Fold it in with a metal spoon, lifting gently.

4. When combined, sift the rest of the flour on top and next add the melted butter, stirring gently until combined.

5. Pour the cake mixture evenly into the 2 prepared tins. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 35 - 40 minutes.The cakes are done when the tops are brown, and springy to touch.

6. Cool in the tins for 15 minutes, turn out onto a wire rack and let them cool.

7. Then cover the bottom of one of the cakes with rose petal jam before sandwiching the two together. Being an idle sort, I used shop bought local jam and recommend you do too. Rose petal jam is ideal for the rose theme, but if you can't find any then raspberry, cherry or strawberry will do the job just as well. I'll include a recipe for home made rose petal jam in my next post if you'd like to make your own.

For the icing:
200g icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsps rosewater
70g white chocolate
1 whole rose head and approx 18 rose petals, unsprayed and dry

7. Gradually add the rosewater to the icing sugar in a large bowl, stirring it becomes well combined and the icing is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

8. When the cake is cool, carefully pour the rosewater icing over the top of the cake; it will also run in a charmingly haphazard fashion down the sides.

9. Instead of making chocolate curls, I chose to simply grate the white chocolate over the cake instead, before adding fresh a rose and lots of petals from the garden.

This cake was idly baked to the sounds of BBC Radio 4: Gardener's Question Time, Last Word & Front Row.