The Farmer's Daughter's Cake

September with  The CakeSlice Bakers is always a meh... kind of month. The new book is just around the corner and having baked some really great recipes from our current book already, it's hard to pick out entertaining and challenging bakes. This month there seemed to be a lot of choices using egg whites. Now, regulars round these parts will know I hate waste and just the thoughts of having more egg yolks to use up sent me in the farmer's daughter direction.

It is hands down, the best cake I have baked from Maida Heatters Cakes. It is so simple, so plain, so utterly delicious that my pictures really don't do it justice. The crumb is so light and tender and has this creamy, not buttery, texture. In fact there's no butter in the cake at all. The crusting frosting firms up on the outside, but one bite in and it melts in your mouth. Truly scrumptious. 

I don't say this lightly, this cake has beaten all the intricate concoctions, they fancy-schmancy flavours, arduous directions and exhaustive ingredients list of CakeSlice bakes gone by.

A store cupboard staple, this cake will be a firm favourite here for a long time to come. I had to change the frosting recipe to my own, as I wasn't making anything that didn't use a whole egg. My frosting, still on old fashioned favourite, mirrors the books icing. And I'll throw in makes it better, for modesty's sake! haha!

But I have agree with Maida on one thing, a cake so easy to put together, it's hard to believe any one would buy cake from a store at all!

The Farmer's Daughter's Cake

adapted from Maida Heatter's Cake pg. 47

280g self raising flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large free range, room temperature eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g granulated sugar
240ml double cream

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or gas mark 4. Line the bottom of an 8 inch square baking pan with parchment and spray the sides with a quick release spray, or grease with some butter.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl beat the eggs, vanilla and sugar until light and paler in colour, Add the cream and mix until just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, until just smooth.

Pour the mix into the prepared pan and bake on the middle shelf for 30-35 minutes. It'll be done when the top is golden, the sides are coming away slightly from the edge of the pan and a skewer/toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

If the cake rises in the middle during baking, as soon as you take it out and using a clean tea towel GENTLY press the top of the cake back down flat with the palm of your hand. Softly does this though, don't be rough.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes, before turning out onto a wire tray and allowing to cool completely before frosting.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Frosting

100g butter
80ml of milk
35g coco powder
350g icing sugar

Melt the butter in a pot over a medium heat. Whisk in the coco and the milk and bring the whole thing to a gentle boil. Remove from the heat and bit by bit, blend in the icing sugar until you have the consistency you want.

If it gets too thick, and a drop of milk at a time to loosen it out!

Smear this too good to be true stuff all over the top of your cake and allow to set for a few minutes. Serve as soon as you are ready to share.

And there you go. A super simple, super tasty, please don't buy cake ever again store cupboard staple! Would I steer you in the wrong direction? NO WAY!

An InLinkz Link-up

Oreo Churros

"But are there any oreos left after you made the poo's Momma?" Poo references a plenty folks, because there was no escaping it. It is what it is. The first line pretty much sums up my entire Batter Week experience.

Spanish Churros was the Great British Bake Off showstopper challenge for week 4 and thinking I could pull it off with a little razzmatazz thrown in, is how I approached it.

Now I don't know if it was the raz or the matazz but something went wrong along the way. Like really wrong. The batter looked like poo, but tasted like oreos, which conflicted all of us. The oil I think, was too hot when I tried to fry them, so kept burning them. Then I tried to bake them and they held their shape and genuinely baked up nicely but they tasted like nothing, even with the oreo cream dip. Nothing. Nada.

No bueno.

Maybe we had convinced ourselves they'd be poo, because that's all we could think during and after the bake. I don't know. My Spanish delicacy frying skills are clearly left to be desired.

Maybe you will have better luck.

The fried version... 

Piped lines for baking...

Oreo Churros

60g butter

350ml water

150g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

2 packets of Oreos

oil for frying

sugar and salt for coating

Separate the Oreos into two bowls by spliting each Oreo in half, scraping the creamy centre into one bowl and the pop chocolate biscuits into the other.

Put the biscuits in a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb.

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add the butter until melted. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and half the Oreo crumbs and beat quickly until all is combined. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until fully incorporated, then set aside to cool slightly.

Bring a large saucepan of oil to the boil. Or preheat the oven to at 180C/350F or gas Mark 4.

On a baking tray or in a shallow dish, mix together the rest of your biscuit crumbs with 1 tablespoon caster sugar & 1 teaspoon salt.

Transfer your dough to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, pipe strips of the dough into the oil and fry until they are crisp and float to the top, remove with a strainer spoon and toss in the crumb/sugar mix. Alternatively pipe lines on to a baking tray and pop into the oven for 20 minutes. When out, allow to cool slightly, dip in some melted butter and then into the Oreo crumb mix.

Microwave your leftover Oreo filling for about 30 seconds until melted and dip in your coated churros.

The baked version...

I sincerely hope the other bakers joining in the Great Bloggers Bake Off, faired out better in their choices than I did! Be sure to check out what went down over at Jenny's blog MummyMishaps!

Have a great week folks!

Pecan, Chocolate and Orange Bread

Bread week is my nemesis.

I am no good at making bread.. actual yeasted bread that needs to prove and rise and do scientific things with reactions and what not. Bread week was the worst week for me in the tent, not helped by having had that major panic attack and all that, but the bread I have posted here, is a version of what I made in the tent. I haven't attempted or even looked at this recipe in over two years and still got the heebee-jeebies when I started it.

Stupid Bread Week.. grumble.. grumble..

Seeing as Bread Week's signature was chocolate themed, I changed the filling of my original bake (a cinnamon breakfast bread) to keep it more inline with Mary and Paul's requirements. This pecan, chocolate, and orange loaf turned out really lovely. I would have liked a little more of a rise on the proof but then it is super soft and super tasty so I won't complain too much!

By the time I was finished.. I was glad I had made it again. And I feel it's better than my attempt in the tent.. even though our Irish Paul gave the original the thumbs up. I am also glad bread week is over. No more nightmares! Haha!

Bring on the pastry.. I am super excited for next week already!

Bread Dough

400g strong bread flour

7g easy-blend yeast

30g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

25g melted butter

100ml milk

175-200ml of warm water

Zest of one large orange

Make the dough by putting the flour into a mixing bowl. Add in the yeast, sugar and salt and dry whisk the whole thing.

Pour in the melted butter and zest then add the milk and enough of the water to mix into a soft, slightly sticky dough.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead well for 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. 

Return to dough to your bowl, cover with some cling-film and leave it in a warm place to rise. This should take about one hour. If you are having trouble here… turn your oven on to really low (I go for about 30C) and pop the bowl in at the very bottom for the same amount of time.

Chocolate Paste and Pecan Filling

50g pecans blitzed to tiny pieces

60g dark chocolate

60g butter

25g icing sugar

15g coco powder

Make the Chocolate Paste by adding the chocolate and butter into a microwaveable bowl. Melt until combined and then stir in the sugar and coco powder until fully incorporated. Set to one side until you need it.

Prepare and two pound loaf pan with some parchment and leave to one side. 

When the dough has risen, punch the dough back a little and roll it out onto a floured surface. Cut off strips to make it rectangular.

Coat all pieces of the dough with the chocolate paste and sprinkle with the pecan bits. Roll each stripped piece into a rosette roll and leave to one side. Roll the large rectangular piece, starting on the short side, towards you.

Turn the dough vertical. Take a sharp knife, and starting about 2cm from the top, cut the dough in half. Spread the two dough sections apart and insert a rolled dough rose. Twist the dough sections in alternate directions, intersecting with the dough rose until you reach the end.  Tuck the join in under itself at the bottom.

As carefully as possible, pop the dough into a prepared 2 pound loaf pan and cover loosely with a tea towel.

Leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C/170Cfan/375F or Gas Mark 5. 

Orange Syrup Glaze

60g Caster Sugar

80ml orange juice (the juice of one large orange)

Make the orange syrup glaze by adding the juice and caster sugar to a pot and bring it to a gentle simmer on the hob. Leave to one side to cool.

Bake the bread for 30 to 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. The bread should sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Brush with the orange syrup while it is still hot and leave the whole thing in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing and eating. 

Look good right? It is very fluffy and soft and the chocolate, orange zest combo marry perfectly. The pecans add a lovely nutty crunch to each bite. Perfect to balance out the soft, doughy texture of the bread itself.

Be sure to fire yourself over to our lovely host Jenny from MummyMishaps, to see what the other GBBObloggers made. There was loads to choose from this week. You will be spoiled for choice!

For those of you asking after my shortlisted nomination, I didn't make the final cut! But that's ok, it was a huge honour to be shortlisted in the first place!! If you would like to see who did make it to the final list, you can hop over here and a take a little looksie. Best of luck to all the finalists... Well deserved!