A Boozy Fruit Bundt

When Victorian week came on The Great British Bake Off, I had wanted so badly to make the Charlotte Russe. But being back at college, starting my Masters has left very little time for fiddly bits baking. Which saddens me in many respects as you all know I love to doss about baking up a storm.

But it did mean that I got to research some very delicious recipes that Mrs Patmore herself would have been proud of. Fruit Cake and jelly molds were de rigeur at tea parties and celebrations in the Victorian era and while I still pine a little for the time I didn't have to bake the Charlotte Russe I am very happy with this attempt.

It is a boozy baked bundt, with all the trimmings. It has that old world taste. The kind of taste that would develop and become even better, if fed, over time. It's essentially a lighter version of a Christmas cake, more of an afternoon tea kind of cake, or something had after supper in the evenings. I'm not sure it's up to the Lady of the House's standard but it would certainly have done us folk in the kitchen no harm! It's soft and moist and packed with deliciously plumped up fruit.

It feels wholesome.

The Boozy Fruit 

The night before you decide to make your cake add the following ingredients into a bowl (preferably with a lid) and just leave it out at room temperature.

350g raisins
150g sultanas
50g mixed peel
200ml of whiskey
juice and zest of one large orange 

Mix the whole lot up into a bowl and pop the lid on. If your bowl doesn't have a lid, cover over the container with some clingfilm and leave it out on the counter to settle and plump over night. A good 12-16 hours is perfectly fine. 

The Cake

Being very honest here, this recipe did not yield as much as I would have liked it to have for my size bundt. I should have doubled the recipe. But it'll make up perfect in an 8 inch round or under.

150g soft salted butter
100g light brown sugar

50g caster sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
2 tbsp golden syrup
160g cream/plain flour
85g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 150C, 300F or gas mark 2 and fix the bottom shelf on the oven. 

Cream your butter and sugar until soft and and sandy.
Add the eggs and golden syrup and mix until fully incorporated.
Dry whisk or sieve, all the dry ingredients together.
Scrape down the sides of your bowl.
Add half the fruit mix, you prepared earlier to the batter and fold in with a spatula. Add the other half and mix until fully mixed together. 
The mix should look like the picture above ... scrape it out into the prepared tin. I greased my bundt pan and dusted it in a little flour.

Bake in your oven for up to an hour. Check it from 50 minutes on. Time will also depend on whether or not you use an 8 inch or a bundt pan. If you double the recipe you will need to leave it in for longer. 

A skewer when inserted in the middle should come out clear or clearish. It's a moist cake, you might get some crumbs!)

This week Jenny and the Great Bloggers Bake Off is hosted by the An Organised Mess' Debbie! Do be sure to pop on over to her page to see what the other bakers linked up.

A feast fit for a Victorian to be sure!

Almond, Apple Spiced Loaf

It seems to have taken forever to get here. The actual writing the words down part to this post... 

It felt forced and unconnected and I just didn't want to fill it with some anecdotal drivel that you would all roll your eyes at. You ever get days like that? Where you feel like there's something niggling and if you just stay quiet and listen, all will right itself and you can find your voice again?

In those times I like to bake. Methodically bake, where I know the recipe inside out and just get on with it. It helps reassure me I am not losing it, but rather taking my time through it. It's also the time I bake comfort. Old school style recipes, nurturing and warming and filled with nostalgia. 

Now to be honest, this cake isn't a sweet old bake from my childhood, nor is it some happy moment I shared with who, what and why. It's a... what I had in leftovers mixed with what I knew how to bake, served with a side of feeling the autumn chill. I'd like to pretend that it had some semblance to some cherished memory but alas.. I can not. 

Hence the disconnect. 

What it did serve as, was a way to relax, slow down and gather myself. It was enjoyed over many cups of tea, shared with friends that brought that fuzzy feeling round again. It started making it's own memories. It's magic.

Apple Sauce

(makes about one jam jar's worth of sauce)

4 apples, peeled cored and chopped up.
25ml water
pinch nutmeg
brown sugar to taste

Add all the ingredients above in a pot and over a medium heat, allow to break down. Mix coarsely with a spoon, or mash with a potato masher. If you feel it needs more water, add in two tablespoons at a time. Add the sugar to taste, adding in more if you like it sweeter.
Decant into a prepared, clean jar and allow to cool before storing in the fridge.

Almond and Apple Spiced Loaf

125g light brown sugar
80g caster sugar
2 eggs
250g self raising flour
125g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
125ml vegetable oil
60 ml buttermilk
150g apple sauce
handful of rolled oats for the top

Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F or Gas mark 4.
Line a loaf tin with parchment.
Dry mix the flour, almonds and spices in a bowl.
Add the sugar and eggs to a bowl and mix together.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.
Ad the oil and buttermilk and mix again.
Fold through the apple sauce.
Scoop out into your prepared tin and sprinkle the rolled oats on top.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the top has cracked and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clear.

Allow to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes, before removing.

Try some toasted with real butter smeared on top. This is a great loaf for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, mid afternoon snack, pre-dinner snack, after dinner snack, sitting down having a cup of tea when the kids have gone to bed and you're catching up on the soaps treat. It's basically an all rounder. eat it when you'd like to. And sure look, it's got apples in it, so technically it's super healthy*!

*not actual nutritional advice. Just to be clear on that.

Apple and Blackberry Frangipane

Summer is definitely over. Last I checked I was dusting summer berries with icing sugar, drinking ice cool lemonades on the porch and doing all manners of warm weather things... Aaaahhhh...

No wait, wait..

That was my imaginary summer. Because unlike the rest of the world it seems, Ireland has one long season that flitters between cold and rain, warm and rain... Oh! And breezy/windy/gale-y. In Ireland we have become very adept at mimicking summer behaviours, in our temperamental temperate climate. (stupid climate.. grumble grumble!!) But now that the months have changed to Autumn, the weather has become seasonally appropriate. The cool air feels right for this time of year, the days are shorter and the Autumn fruits are plentiful. 

This week on The Great British Bake Off, the bakers had to tackle pastry. Frangipane is one of those wonderfully versatile bakes, easy to whip together and customize to your liking. Here- I decided to get fruity, using my two favourites from this weeks garden harvest, Apples and Blackberries.

I had notions of cosy evenings by a roaring log fire, curled up with a good book, strong cup of tea and a warm slice of frangipane. Still in my head of course... But perfectly reasonable and perfectly seasonal.

All Butter Short Crust

240g plain flour
50g icing sugar
150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)
1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or Gas Mark 4.
Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.
Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.
Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.
Grease up a 8 inch round loose bottom pie tin with butter.
after 30 minutes in the fridge, take it out and roll it out thin, to fit your tin. 

Blind bake your pastry case bottom, using pastry beads for about 15 minutes. remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Make the filling, while you are blind baking your pastry.

Almond Cream Filling

150g softened butter
150g caster sugar
150g ground almonds
50g self raising flour
3 large eggs
125g blackberries

Cream together the butter and the sugar.
Dry mix the almonds and the self raising flour and add to the mix.
Add the eggs and mix thoroughly until all of the ingredients have been combined.
Fold in the blackberries.
Set the bowl to one side.

Once the pastry has cooled, tip the filling into the pastry case and smooth out the top.

Apple Topping

350-400g apples of your choice (about 4 medium apples)
90ml (about 6 tablespoons) honey

Peel and core the apples and then as evenly as possible, slice them thinly so that you can arrange them neatly in on top of your Almond Cream Filling. Drizzle over the honey.

I went with the obvious choice, rose pattern below. It works out nice and bakes well. Feel free to choose whatever pattern you like. Or just dump the apples on. There are no hard and fast rules 'round here!

Bake the frangipane at 180C, 350F or Gas Mark 4 for 40-50 minutes until the top is browning.
It will look like it's almost about to burn when it's done.
The center will be soft and moist and the apples will be juicy.

Be sure to swing by the other GBBO Bloggers bakes when you pop over to the lovely Stacey's Blog, who happens to be our host for this week. She, along with Jenny and all the other bloggers have been baking their socks off!

My Dolly's Birthday Cake

Every day she amazes me. Every day is new and an adventure.

I look and I wonder the way her mind works...

How caring, thoughtful and easy going she is. How artistic, creative and imaginative she is. How she never stops asking questions, is constantly wondering and knows how to day dream with the best of us. How she can switch from being Momma's favourite girl to the teenager I would sell to the lowest bidder in a matter of seconds. How even though she's changing, growing up and becoming this amazing young adult.. she's still nothing but that little bundle of new baby I held in my arms 14 years ago.

She's still that tiny little Doll I get to call my very own. And every year since the dawn of her verbalisation of the words chocolate and cake... it's been the same request.

Chocolate cake with all the fudge trimmings.

Every year the cakes get more elaborate. Every year this girl pushes my skills.. Every year without fail.

Below is this years offerings... (note; there are no "inside this cake" pictures.. teenage girls are hungry ones!!)

Chocolate Cake

100g of good plain chocolate (TIP: Try at least 70% coco if you can handle that depth) 

225g of caster sugar

100g coco powder

300g self raising flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

50ml hot and strong coffee

125ml of vegetable oil

125ml of buttermilk

1 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Line two 8 inch cake pans with parchment. (I used my Wilton 6 inch pans for this cake- same recipe was used)

Melt the chocolate into the coffee and when melted add the vanilla.

Cream the sugar and the eggs until light and fluffy.

Dry mix all your dry ingredients together and slowly add them to the sugar/egg combination.

Add the buttermilk and mix.

Add the oil and mix.

Finally fold in the coffee/chocolate combination.

Pour between your prepared pans and bake for 35-30 minutes until the top has a spring in it and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clear.

Allow to cool in the pans for about ten minutes, then remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. 

I decorated the cake top with some "Tiffany Blue" Macarons, adapted from this recipe and filled it with my chocolate ganache recipe and my basic buttercream, coloured Tiffany blue also. 

Almond Cake with a Fig Jam and Mascarpone Topping (Gluten Free)

Husband said do not post that picture with the words.. It's lame. But then who is he to judge, he's lame. I am lame. We are all lame in our own way and I am posting the picture. Because it makes me laugh. 

I make the funniest of jokes.. not that they are that funny in real life mind you. But in my head, in my head I am freaking hilarious! 

You know what's not hilarious? Having a food allergy. Am I am not talking to you folk who choose to avoid certain ingredients in your diet.. I am talking about those people who straight up can not eat dairy, gluten, nuts, shell fish.. the list is exhaustive.

Not being allergic or sensitive to anything, ingredients wise, is something I take for absolute granted. It's not that I don't know there are millions of people out there with crazy, specific food allergies but it's something that doesn't immediately impact me or my family and I never give much thought to it.

Until I have to bake "free from". I know a few recipes that work, I have tried a lot that don't and because I don't understand all the mechanics of free from.. I get stumped. Lucky for me, I have a wealth of knowledge in my friends online and can pop by any one of their amazing blogs and try figure out my way around this unknown world.

(Gluten Free) Almond Cake

150g soft butter (TIP: make it free from dairy by using 150ml vegetable oil)
150g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
180g gound almonds
125g gluten free flour (I used Dove's Farm)
60ml buttermilk (TIP:make it free from diary by using almond milk)
1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or gas mark 4.
Line a 6/7 inch baking tin with parchment and leave to one side.
Beat the butter (or oil) with the usggar until light and fluffy and add the eggs one at a time.
Fold in the ground almonds, flour and baking powder.
Mix in the buttermilk (or almond milk) gently until fully incorporated.
Scrape out into your lined tin and bake for 35-45 minutes. The top will go golden but the middle might be still wet, use a skewer to test for wetness in the middle.
Allow to cool in the pan before removing it.

Make the jam while the cake is cooking.

Figgy Jam

8 figs halved
1 medium sized lemons worth of lemon juice
125g brown sugar
2 tbsp of butter
2-4 tablespoons of water
Pinch of salt

In a pan- over a medium heat, melt the butter.
Add the sugar and allow it to dissolve.
Toss the halved figs in the lemon juice and water and add the mix the the pan.
Continue to cook over a medium heat until have a chunky jam consistency. Stir occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick or burn.
Add the pinch of salt, remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Putting it all together...

While the cake and jam are cooling, whip one 225g tub of mascarpone cheese and  225ml of single cream together until it reaches soft peaks.

When the jam has cooled remove any large fig pieces, to use in decoration, and fold the jam through the mascarpone/cream mix. Spoon on top of the cooled cake and place the saved figs in the centre.

Slice and serve with utter delight!

This week the GBBO Bloggers baked "free from". There are some amazing things for you all to try over on Kirsty's blog. You 'll find our link up there as she is hosting this week.

Do make sure you stop and by and challenge yourself something!!