Mar 28

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

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I don’t often take too much notice of the sort of “chain” type emails that constantly arrive at work, but this one involved food and a recipe I though I really must try!  I wonder how many of these little cakes have been made as the email makes its way around the country!  I posted the result on facebook and have had requests for the recipe - so here goes….

4tbsp self-raising flour

4tbsp sugar

2tbsp cocoa

1 egg

3tbsp milk

3tbsp oil

Vanilla essence

4tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large coffee mug, then add the liquid ingredients and mix well.  Add the chocolate chips, mix again and put into the microwave (mine is 850W) for 3 minutes.  It will probably raise up out of the mug but hopefully not overflow!  Done - easy!  Leave to cool and tip out, or eat from mug!

I think it would probably be very good as a pudding eaten with chocolate sauce!

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Dec 08

Project 52 - Week 13

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What sums up week 13 best?  Just has to be “The” cakes!!

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Nov 25

12″ Square Carrot Cake

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An adaption of a recipe I found on the internet - I wanted a nut free cake, plus the original recipe had orange juice/rind (2 oranges) or  1tbsp marmalade but I knew of one person with a citrus allergy so I missed that out too.

400g margarine

700g sugar (I used golden caster suger)

4 large eggs

1kg carrots, grated (the finer you grate them the tidier it is to cut later)

150g dried fruit (and/or nuts)

2tsp vanilla extract

500g plain flour

4tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tsp mixed spice, although a mixture of cinnamon and nutmeg works very well too.

2tsp salt.

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas mark 4

Grease and line the bottom of a 11″ or 12 square cake tin - mine was adjustable with removable sides which made releasing the cake very easy.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then beat in eggs one at a time - if the mixture looks quite liquid after 3 eggs, don’t use the last one.  Fold in the grated carrot and fruit/nuts and add the vanilla essence.  Fold in sifted flour, bicarb, spice and salt - mix well and pour into prepared tin.

Cook for about an hour, the sides of the cake should come away from the tin and a skwer inserted into the centre should come out clean - it may need a little longer at a slightly lower temperature, mine tended to take about 1hr 20 at about 170C, otherwise the top burnt over that time - although I have a fan oven.

Thats about it - its good on its own cut into squares, or can be butter iced, fondant iced etc.  its almost flat enough to stack one on top of another and fondant ice without any trimming.

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Nov 25

WASH - and pre-WASH

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Its been a whie now since WASH was all packed away and finished for another year, but quite a busy time for me, so now I get a chance to look back at the event, and all the work that went into it.

The party weekend itself was, as always and particularly so this year, absolutely fab - such a great atmosphere, and added to this year by the return of some lively ex-members.  Being on the committee and having logistical problems to worry about (think birthday cake, moving, hiding, cutting and distributing - more about the cake later) meant I didn’t actually start to relax until after Saturday nights’ activities were over and I was able to kick off my shoes (literally!) at Lara’s shed party. 

And was I glad to do that!  Remember the platform boots from Camden?  Well I discovered after a french dancing session that I was perfectly ok to dance in the lower ones, but then realised that everything in moderation should be the key to these things - I spent all evening standing, dancing, walking, in them - and hobbled back to Lara’s shed for the party where one of the first things I did was find a spot on the floor to sit and remove them!  Surprisingly standing in them was the worst.

Not to be put off by sore feet (and blisters) I actually did wear the highest of the platforms to the casino afternoon (no dancing there!).  Will I never learn?

There was no one highlight of the weekend for me, although the casino was very good, and I am going to another one this Friday in King’s Lynn run by the same guy.  I would probably say one of the best bits was seeing the three King’s Lynn ex-members enjoying themselves so much, it was just like the old days and made everything worthwhile.

Ok - back to the cake then!  Some bright spark earlier in the year thought that a birthday party wouldn’t be complete without a birthday cake to cut and distribute to all the party-goers (that would be me then - doh!)  So, next problem - how to make a cake big enough to feed over 200 people…….Online research led to a choice between vanilla sponge or carrot cake so obviously I had to bake a test cake of each to find out.  Some of the sponge cake is still in the freezer, the carrot cake was taken to both mine and stephen’s work and went very quickly.   The carrot cake came out flatter and so would be easier to ice - unfortunately it wasn’t high enough so I would have to stack two high with a filling - meaning I would need to cook six 12″ square cakes.  It would then also only feed about 170ish people so I would make one sponge cake too which would hopefully feed another 70 or so.

Needless to say, I now know the recipe for a 12″ square carrot cake off by heart (I will post on here later!).  I used 6 kilos of carrots, and to ice and decorate both cakes about 6 kilos of fondant ice, and nearly 2 kilos of icing sugar for buttercream and piping icing!  I couldn’t have done the cake deorating without the help of Stephen for rolling out such large pieces of icing, and didn’t finish decorating both cakes until about 4.20am on Friday morning, needing to be up to pack for the weekend around 8am! 

Start the weekend as you mean to go on is what I say…..although did have an early night on Friday, about 3am when the party didn’t finish until aroud 6am!

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