Lumberjack Cake: sounds like some tough macho recipe for mustachioed axe-wielding men wearing flannel. I’m sure they’d appreciate the cake regardless, but it’s actually an old-fashioned squidgy apple and date cake with a caramelised coconut topping.

When done the cake part is a sodden sticky marriage of Granny Smith apple pieces and dates. It’s almost like a pudding, so don’t be expecting your typical fluffy cake crumb here. The word ‘moist’ comes to mind, although I wish it didn’t because not only is it an overused adjective, it just a wrong-sounding word. Who’s with me? In rebellion, I declare this cake to be amazingly irriguous (hat tip to my friend, Thesaurus).

The original recipe direct from Old Fashioned Favourites says to include the water that the apple and date has been soaking in. If you prefer a more cake-like result, don’t add it.

My favourite part is the caramelised topping of brown sugar, butter and coconut. When baked it turns into a sweet chewy layer of awesome, helping to break up the squishy texture of the cake part. It’s a pretty sweet cake, so have a cup of tea on stand-by.

And, super excitement, I’m starting to roll out VIDEO tutorials for the recipes on this site. The first one up is the Red Velvet Cupcake recipe, which has been added to the original post.

And below is the tutorial for the Lumberjack Cake. Hope these turn out to be more helpful. It can be hard to communicate a specific method with words alone. If you have any suggestions on making them better let me know.

LUMBERJACK CAKE RECIPE

You Will Need:

2 Green Apples, peeled, finely chopped (400g)
200 g Dates, chopped
1 teaspoon Bicarb Soda, (6g)
1 cup Boiling Water, 250g/250ml
125 g Unsalted Butter, Softened to room temp
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 cup Caster Sugar, 210g
1 Large Egg
1 1/2 cups Plain Flour, 180g

Topping:

60 g Butter
1/2 cup Milk, 105g
1/2 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed, 110g
2/3 cup Shredded Coconut, 60g

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius (160 fan-forced, 375F). Grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin.

Mix the chopped apples and dates, bicarb soda and boiling water in a bowl. Stir to coat them, cover with clingfilm, and leave to stand until just warm.

In a large bowl beat the softened butter, vanilla and sugar until thick and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat in the egg until combined.

Gently stir in the flour and apple mixture including the water. Pour into cake tin, smooth the top and bake for 45-50 minutes.

While the cake is cooking, prepare the topping. Combine the butter, milk, brown sugar and shredded coconut in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until the butter has completely melted and the sugar has dissolved.

When the cake comes out of the oven after 40-50 minutes, pour this topping evenly over the cake, then continue baking for another 30 minutes. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool upright in the tin.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature, for two days.

Recipe from Australian Women’s Weekly: Old Fashioned Favourites

Lumberjack Cake is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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Oh my gosh you guys, Bananas are so cheap now!!! I’ve been counting the days until I didn’t need a personal loan to afford a bunch of these golden beauties. My morning porridge has been looking forlorn without its tropical friend added to the breakfast party mix. And banana lollies just don’t cut it these days.

On a serious note, I’m glad that our northern friends in Queensland are getting back to some semblance of normal after the terrible flooding of 2011 wiped out much of their banana crops (tropical Queensland being the banana-crop heaven of Australia).

I might be addicted to banana bread simply because I’ve gone without bananas for so long. But also, it’s pretty darn good. This is another recipe I’ve borrowed from my Mum’s archives. When she found a completely awesome recipe, she jotted it down in her gold-covered notebook, and if it was extra-special it got a sparkly sticker of a star next to it. This recipe is blue-star worthy, people! And yes, Mum is a teacher, how did you guess?

The secret to incredibly flavoursome and fragrant banana bread is to first let the bananas ripen to a blackened state over several days, then freeze them overnight. When you’re ready to bake, let them come to room temperature on their own. Add the extremely mushy banana innards to the ingredients, plus wring-out the banana juice hiding in the soggy skins as well. That part is extra-fun.

Bonus, this recipe is another one-bowl wonder. Less dishes, yay!

Lordy, when I baked this banana bread the scent wafted all over our apartment complex. Seriously, when I came back from shopping I could smell warm banana 5 metres away from the front door. So, you might want a second loaf on the go incase neighbours happen to “randomly” drop by…

BANANA BREAD RECIPE

2 Bananas, mashed
120 g Unsalted Butter
2 tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Bicarb Soda
1 cup Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a medium loaf tin with non-stick spray.

Place butter and mashed bananas into a saucepan and melt on low heat. Stir in the caster sugar, bicarb soda and milk until the sugar appears to have dissolved. Let the mixture cool to room temperature before stirring in the beaten eggs and flour.

Pour mixture into loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Serve warm or cool with butter.

Banana cake slices can be frozen and defrosted

Banana Bread is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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This week marks two years of The Cake Mistress. Thanks for reading, sharing your comments and emails, and just being generally awesome. Since switching to a charity aim mid last year, where 100% of this site’s income goes to a food-related charity, over $500 has been donated. So thank you also for helping reach that mark!

To celebrate I was going to bake the mother-of-all cakes with crazy layers and such, then I thought going back to my cake-y origins instead would be more fun. Having just flown back from spending time with my family over Christmas, I wanted a nostalgic taste from the past. So I baked the cake Mum used to make for us kids all the time. It was a brilliant after-school treat, even providing much bargaining power at recess.

Best of all, I realised this is the EASIEST cake to literally throw together. Everything goes in one bowl, then you walk away and make a cup of tea while the electric beaters whip the magic in to the cake for you. Finish with a simple chocolate icing and some sprinkles to make it fancy. Sidebar: a dropped pack of sprinkles travels a looooooong way. *cry*

Being at home made me think of all the growing-up and changes with time, so I made a list of the moments I’ve thought “oh hell, I’m getting old”. If you are a fellow 80s/90s lady, you might notice some of these happening too:

Signs You’re an 80s Baby Growing Up (aka Getting Old).

• You hear a “new” song on the radio and you’re outraged at how they’ve poorly sampled, and thus ruined, your favourite song as a teen. Kids, the Black Eyed Peas did NOT write Time of Your Life.

• That moment when YOU realise songs you loved were not originals either: Eminem’s Sing For The Moment? Aerosmith’s Dream On. Ice Ice Baby? David Bowie’s Under Pressure. Mind. Blown.

• You support Leggings Are Not Pants.

• You’ve said “the music was better in my day” at least once. It was better too, alright? The Macarena was just an aberration.

• You’ve also said “the cartoons were better in my day”. She-Ra would open a can of whoop-ass on Dora.

Princess Power!

• Actually, you’re saying “back in my day” with increasing regularity, and you’re not even being ironic or mocking the “olds”. Guess what, you are the “old”.

“Back in my day we didn’t have torrents: we had to pirate our music by waiting next to the radio with a blank cassette for our favourite songs, then press record and get really annoyed when the host would talk over the end of the song. “

• The tween working in retail addresses the customer behind you as Ma’am, then you realise there’s no one behind you. You’re the Ma’am. Aww, seriously?

• Twitter? Pfft. Back in my day, we had mIRC. And ICQ. On dial-up. And we’d mimic the sounds of the modem back at it while connecting to pass the time. We didn’t have Google –  we’d ask a butler called Jeeves, or use Alta Vista. And we made nice sites in GeoCities, like this one.  - (caution: may incite eye-gouging). You could never have too many GIFs.

• You’ve lived long enough to see trends you thought were cool making a resurgence. And you now recognise their uncoolness. Hello double denim! Some mistakes shouldn’t be made twice.

Die ... of embarrassment maybe ....

EASY CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 cup Caster Sugar
1/2 cup (85g) Unsalted Butter, softened
3/4 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Instant Coffee
2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups Self Raising Flour, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons Cocoa Powder, sifted
1/4 teaspoon Bicarb Soda
1 teaspoon Vanilla
Basic Chocolate Icing
Icing sugar mixture
1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder
2 teaspoons Margarine
Water
100s & 1000s to decorate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper.

Add caster sugar, coffee, flour, cocoa powder and bicarb soda into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the softened butter, milk, eggs and vanilla, and beat together in electric mixer for three minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Pour batter in greased cake tin and bake for 45-60 minutes. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, and the dome springs back when lightly pressed.

Allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.

When cool frost with chocolate icing sugar and 100s & 1000s. To make the icing I just pour around 1 cup  or so of icing sugar into a bowl with the cocoa powder and butter, then trickle in enough water to form a spreadable consistency.

Mum’s Easy Chocolate Cake is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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So it’s getting to the business end of the Festive Season, and you’ve been to so many Christmas parties already. The food, so much food! Although Christmas Cake is a splendid thing indeed, fatigue can set in. Well, we’ve stumbled across a recipe for darling little Christmas Cake bites. In one mouthful you get all the festive flavours, without OD-ing on cake yet again.

This recipe for mini Christmas cake bites is kid-friendly in that there’s no alcohol added. So if you need a quick dish to whip up for the Playgroup Christmas Party, this has your bases covered. For the booze-loving adults amongst us however, this can be easily remedied by substituting the apple juice for the liqueur of your choice.

MINI CHRISTMAS CAKE BITES

You Will Need:

1/3 cup Apple Juice
375 g Mixed Fruit
1/4 cup Dried Apricots, diced
100 g Unsalted Butter, softened
1/3 cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Large Egg
100 g Slivered Almonds, chopped
1/2 cup Self Raising Flour
1/2 teaspoon Mixed/All Spice
1/4 cup White Chocolate Bits
150 g White Chocolate Melts
100g Red Glace Cherries
Red and Green mini patty pans
12-hole Mini muffin tin

Directions:

Heat apple juice in microwave for 1 minute. Pour hot juice over the mixed fruit and apricots and let them absorb it for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Strain the juice out of the fruit mixture when ready.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with patty pans. Beat the butter, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy (the volume might be too small for your electric mixer). Beat in the egg until well combined. Stir in the fruit mixture, chopped almonds, flour, spice and white chocolate bits until evenly distributed. Drop teaspoons of the batter into mini muffin pans until filled to the top, pack the batter firmly in to each one. (These don’t rise, so don’t worry about overflow). Bake for 25 -30 minutes, until golden brown and the top is firm to touch.

Allow cakes to cool slightly in the pan, then remove onto a wire rack. Melt the white chocolate melts in the microwave. Drizzle the tops of the cakes with melted chocolate. Place half of a glace cherry on the top.

Makes 24-36, depending on volume of mini muffin tray.

Mini Christmas Cake Bites is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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Heard of the Magic Pudding? His name is Albert and he’s a bottomless pit of pudding, constantly replenishing himself as people have a taste. He’s so delicious he’s got three friends keeping him safe from Pudding Thieves: a koala, a sailor and a penguin. I loved reading the 1918 story and flicking through the illustrations of The Magic Pudding by Australian Norman Lindsay as a kid. Who wouldn’t want a never -ending pudding all for themselves? Although this one was a little cranky – I suppose I would be too if people only wanted me for my delicious insides:

"Albert, the Magic Pudding" 1959. Norman Lindsay, Watercolour.

Pudding traditions, like hiding trinkets in the pudding, seem to have faded away. And good riddance I say, because frankly, the thought of my mouthful of pudding being spoiled by biting into a thimble – signifying another year of “spinsterhood” – depressing. I’m just here to get my sugar-on, pudding mystics, let me be.

This boiled Christmas Pudding recipe is the one my Mum makes. It’s adapted from the Best Ever Recipes collection published by the Australian Women’s Weekly. Do you know how some things just taste of Christmas? This is a festive party in your mouth. Loads of mixed fruits, spices and that Christmas lubricant, alcohol. Best served with a topping of cool brandy custard or vanilla bean ice-cream.

serves 8 – 12

Mum’s Christmas Pudding

You Will Need:

1 kg Mixed Fruit
250 g Dates
250 g Raisins
2 cups Water
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
250 g Unsalted Butter
2 teaspoons Bicarb Soda
3 large Eggs
1 cup Plain Flour
1 cup Self Raising Flour
2 teaspoons Mixed Spice
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 cup Scotch Whiskey
1 cup FRESH breadcrumbs

Directions:

Place all fruit, water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan. Stir on low heat until the butter melts. Simmer for around 8 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in the bicarb soda. Stand until cold. When cold, stir in the eggs and whisky. Add the breadcrumbs, then the flour and spices. Fill into a well-greased 4L pudding tin. Boil for 6 hours. Refresh water every 20 minutes. Once cool, wrap in clingfilm and foil. Store in the fridge until ready to serve. On day of serving, reboil for another 2 hours.

Mum’s Christmas Pudding is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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One day you’re innocently going about your business – next thing you know, you’re standing in a supermarket subconsciously humming The Little Drummer Boy in November, wondering how it came to this. Christmas creeps up slowly at first, with a few benign bits of green and red dotting the aisles. Then, seemingly overnight, they undergo some kind of festive mitoses, invading every physical space and corner of your mind. Where did these festive customs come from? Here’s some research: I read it on the internet, so it must be true…

FUN CHRISTMAS FACTS ACCORDING TO THE INTERNET

FACT 1: The first Christmas Cards were printed in 1843, as a “time-saving device”…

… then Facebook came to save us all. Back In My Day, people used to save last year’s Christmas Cards and their envelopes, make a list of recipients, handwrite all the greetings and addresses, lick hundreds of disgusting flavoured envelope sealers, line up for stamps for eternity, post the batch, then try to string all the received cards up around the living room. There were even special mini-pegs manufactured for this purpose. Yes, this was a thing. And just when you thought you were done, there was a fresh wave of Christmas Cards in the letterbox that need reciprocating. Now thanks to Facebook and the Send All function, it’s so easy to send festive platitudes to people you never see with the effort of a mouse click. Booyah.

As an aside, when writing cards as a kid did anyone else sort them from prettiest to ugliest? So the awesome ones went to your besties and the crap one to that mean girl who put glue and glitter on the seat of your chair so you had glitter-butt?

Sweet Dreams, MacKenzie

FACT 2: The Cracker or Bonbon was invented in the 1840s by a pastry chef…

…then the humble Bonbon got tricked-out with novelty toys, bad jokes and silver fulminate, because nothing says Christmas like explosives. The largest functioning Christmas Cracker was a whopping 45.72 metres long, and made right here in Australia. Imagine how many terrible puns were contained inside? What do you call a reindeer with no eyes? No idea. What do you call a reindeer with no eyes and no legs? Still no idea. *groan*. Here are some highly sought-after prizes from our Christmas Crackers in 2006:

Fact 3: There are at least 36 different Christmas Trees listed on Wikipedia

But my $15 Kmart plastic tree isn’t there. Nor is the origami-inspired tree folded from a magazine that we made as Girl Guides. Or gingerbread trees. If I had the choice between a delicious edible tree or one that I was constantly sweeping up pine needles, I know what I’d choose.

This earns the 'You Have Way Too Much Spare Time' badge at Girl Guides.

If you’re into giving gifts a bit fancier than cellophane fish, handmade gifts are a nice touch. Bonus points if you can eat them. Last year I packaged my homemade Fruit Mince Pies, which were well-received among co-workers. Completely delicious, they were however quite fiddly to assemble, and not kid-friendly. These Gingerbread Christmas Trees on the other hand hold much promise in the fun-department: rolling, cutting shapes, dunking in icing, sprinkling silver balls everywhere. Lots of opportunities for little fingers to get messy.

This gingerbread recipe is different from the one I used to construct a Gingerbread House, in that it’s softer and more flavoursome. Adapted from the wizards of the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook, Perfect for cutting different shapes, including Ninjabread Men, for a totally kickass Christmas.

GINGERBREAD CHRISTMAS TREES

Makes 24 Gingerbread People or Trees

You Will Need:

615g Plain Flour
Pinch Salt
1/2 teaspoon Bicarb Soda
7.5g Ground Ginger
5g Ground Cinnamon
5g Ground Nutmeg
200g Unsalted Butter, room temperature
200g Brown Sugar
160g Honey or Golden Syrup (microwave slightly to soften honey)
1/2 Egg
2 Egg Yolks
Royal Icing
315g Icing Sugar
2 Egg Whites

Green liquid food colouring
Decorations: multicoloured cachous

 Directions:

Beat softened butter, sugar and honey/golden syrup in a large bowl until thick, pale and creamy. Mix the eggs together in a small bowl, then slowly beat them into to mixture until all combined. Add in the salt, bicarb, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in the flour in three batches until evenly mixed through the dough. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Shape the dough into two flat discs, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes (can keep in the fridge for up to 3 days).

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Remove dough from fridge. Knead to soften slightly if still firm. Roll lumps of dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 3mm thick. Cut out the shapes using a cookie cutter and space 1cm apart on the baking tray. Reroll the leftover dough.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden in colour. It might be tricky to tell, given the colour of the dough. Check underneath the cookie for a rich golden brown colour. Leave to cool on the tray.

To make the royal icing, mix the icing sugar and egg whites together until smooth. Add food colouring to get the desired green colour. Pour into a shallow bowl. To decorate the cookies, dip them into the surface of the icing sugar, wiggle the cookie, lift up and shake off the excess. Use a spatula to smooth off any excess. While still wet, sprinkle cachous on the top. The icing will harden as it dries.

Can be store in an airtight container for 2 weeks.

Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook available from the Book Depository, or Bourke Street Bakery at Fishpond AU. 100% of sales commission donated to food-related Charity.

Gingerbread Christmas Trees is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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One copy of  the highly anticipated cookbook “Zumbo”, by pastry chef Adriano Zumbo is up for grabs, lovely people. Some of you might know him from appearances on Masterchef Australia. I wanted a copy for myself and I thought one of you might like a copy too, so I’m giving one away as a thank you for reading. Inside its glossy, sexily photographed pages are:

• Recipes for 26 different macaron flavours, plus the base recipe.

• How to make that croquembouche

• And that V8 cake

• 11 chocolate bar recipes, including salted vanilla caramels, and chocolate peanut bars
• Pastries such as brioche, croissants, doughnuts and danishes
• Tonnes of totally amazing other gateau de voyage, desserts and cakes.

Free copy of ZUMBO cookbook is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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So those that follow me on Twitter know the origins of this cake. Sometimes the urge to bake is less about fulfilling a specific craving and more about letting it all out. For those times when you need a balls-to-the-wall effort to expunge whatever lousy pent-up issue you’ve got and it’s more appropriate to smash out a cake than smash other things. You know, whipping the heck out of cream, chopping chocolate to smithereens, the BAM! BAM! BAM-ing! with a rolling pin. Yeah boi.

I needed a heavenly cake to make all the bad go away.
With layers of fudge chocolate cake.
And cream.
And more chocolate! MOAR!
Add a topping of chocolate ganache? Why yes, thanks, pour that glossy stuff right on.
And chocolate shavings. Milk or white? How about both. Why not, let’s go crazy.
And finish it with strawberries. Dusted with icing sugar. Cos we’re fancy like that.

So here’s a recipe for a layered Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake, sandwiched together with strawberry jam and sweetened cream with fresh strawberries, and topped with many manifestations of chocolate. There’s about 400g of chocolate involved and the chance to lace the cake layers with alcohol if you play your cards right.

If you’d like to extend your warrior skills beyond the kitchen, why not try your hand at foraging for your own ingredients. Earlier that day I travelled to the Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm in the Mornington Peninsula to pick my own strawberries. Here are the Cake Mistress tips for being a strawberry-picking ninja.

#1 Avoid this rookie mistake

Humans are inherently lazy. See how everyone’s stopped at the first patch from the entrance? Rookie mistake. Instead, Ninjas nonchalantly sneak away to the furthermost point, where the bushes haven’t stripped faster than Paris for publicity. Don’t move too quick, else the others will notice your plan and start following.

#2 Dress like a ninja

Strawberry plants lie what feels like one centimetre from the floor. Don’t let the pictures of young carefree ladies in sundresses and sandals effortlessly swinging baskets from their arms fool you. Ditch the Manolos. Strawberry picking ninjas wear sneakers and maybe a back brace if they’re hardcore. Bonus points for dressing like an actual ninja. You’ll scare people away with your crazy, which means more strawberries for you. WIN.

#3 Befriend a little person

Find a little person to do all your bending work. Bring your own child or borrow someone else’s to do the work play treasure hunt. 3-4 feet tall is best. Your talents are best used as aerial lookout for hints of red berry nested in the leaves. Make sure they’re old enough to know red from green, otherwise their nimble fingers will pick everything before you can blink.

#4 Befriend a Tetris Geek, too

Good at tetris? You’ll be a natural at packing your strawberry box to it’s maximal potential. Artfully rotate those berries until they all fit.

#5 You can do it, put your back into it

Although it would be awesome if strawberries just flopped out from the plant announcing “oh hai! I’m ripe and lush and ready for you”, they don’t. Many a ripe berry is your reward for checking under the leaves too. It’s amazing how many don’t do this.

Picking your own berries is only $8 for 500g, which is quite fantastic for fresh strawberries right off the vine. Half of mine were eaten raw. Okay, maybe some were dipped in a little chocolate. And the other half went into this extremely delicious cake that made all the bad go away with every bite. It might look like a long list of ingredients and components, but it’s not complex at all.

Taste the happy

Devil’s Food Cake with Strawberry Cream

CAKE:
280g SR flour
85g Cocoa Powder
345g Caster Sugar
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
150g unsalted butter, softened
250ml water

CHOC CURLS/FLAKES:
100g milk chocolate, chopped
100g white chocolate, chopped

GANACHE:
225g dark chocolate, finely chopped (70%)
70g unsalted butter, cubed

STRAWBERRY CREAM:
250ml whipping cream
2 tablespoons icing sugar
300g Strawberries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

STRAWBERRY FILLING:
4 tablespoons strawberry jam
2 tablespoons liqueur (I used cherry brandy, can use orange liqueur etc)

Serves 8-10

The cake part is easy, with everything mixed in one bowl! Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 24cm springform cake tin and line base with baking paper. Sift flour and cocoa into large electric mixer bowl. Add the sugar, eggs, softened butter and water. Beat on low speed until all combined, then increase to high and beat for 4 minutes. Pour into tin and smooth the top. Bake for around 55 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre. Leave to cool in tin for 20 minutes, then turn onto wire rack to cool.

While the cake is baking, make some chocolate curls. Place milk and white chocolate in separate heatproof bowls. Heat very gently over boiling water until melted (don’t let the chocolate get above 32 degrees if you can help it). Thinly spread the chocolate into thin layers onto a flat surface and let it set. Using a non-serrated knife or long metal spatula, push the knife at a 45 degree angle through chocolate away from you. If you’ve managed to temper your chocolate you’ll get nice curls, otherwise you’ll get pretty flakes instead. Refrigerate until needed.

Set aside 4 strawberries for decoration. Remove the green leaves and stalks and dice the strawberries. Beat cream and icing sugar until thick. Stir through the strawberry pieces and vanilla and refrigerate until needed.

Before assembling the cake, make ganache by melting chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over boiling water. Stir occasionally to ensure chocolate is fully melted. Set aside to cool to room temperature first, otherwise you’re chocolate curls will melt if you add them straight away.

When cake is completely cool trim the dome off the top. Carefully cut the cake into two layers horizontally. Place the bottom layer onto your serving plate. If you want a bonus alcoholic punch to the cake, brush some extra liqueur over the bottom layer. Otherwise mix the strawberry jam & liqueur in a bowl, and spread over the bottom layer. Spread all the strawberry cream over the top. Place second cake layer over the cream.
Pour chocolate ganache over the top and swirl it around the edges. Dot strawberries around the edges and sprinkle the chocolate curls/flakes around. Finish with a dusting of icing sugar.

Keep refrigerated when not in use.

Recipe adapted from The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum, available at The Book Depository

Devil’s Food Cake with Strawberry Cream is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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This, my dears, is a love-at-first bite cake. I’ve been courting this exact Orange Almond Cake for over a year. We had a fleeting affair when a mutual friend introduced us, then the cake and I lost touch. The search was on. I missed it. Missed it’s super-orange flavour, mouth melty-ness and general squidginess. And the scent! That heady aroma of sweet orange and earthy almonds. I’ve had brief flings with other flourless orange cakes since, recommended by well-meaning friends and family, but they just didn’t stack up.

All I knew of this famed Orange Almond Cake recipe, was that it came from the Women’s Weekly. Which number in the thousands! And then, a chance encounter. Was it the same fabled one I remember?

With champion-level patience I waited for the cake to cook, then cool. The first cut: it slides through the cake like slicing a cloud, making an enticing squidge sound. As the first slice is removed, a warm rush of orange-scent is released. The spoon effortlessly falls through the slice; the first mouthful dissolves away on the tongue. Oh my God, this is IT. This is “The One”. One Orange Almond Cake to rule them all….

ORANGE ALMOND CAKE RECIPE

TIPS:

• Use quality oranges. If they’re bitter, the cake will be bitter.
• NO shortcuts on the boiling oranges step! Boiling reduces the bitterness of the orange pith and softens the rind. Failing to do so will result in a bitter chunky cake, which is nasty ‘yo.
• Navel oranges don’t have pips, but other varieties do. Once boiled cut them open, check for pips and remove them!
• Watch the baking time carefully. Other bakers have reported variable baking times, ranging from 45-60 minutes. Keep a close eye from 35 minutes onwards and check with a skewer to see if it comes out clean.
• Use a springform pan, and let the cake cool in the upright position. Do not attempt to turn the cake out , because it’s a squidgy one and it will fall apart. A broken cake is a sad cake.
• Tins: I used a 22cm round springform tin, filled to around 2/3 – 3/4 full. If you’re making a smaller cake, stick to the 2/3 full rule and turn the leftover batter into cupcakes or something equally marvellous.

You Will Need:

480g Oranges (two navel oranges approximately)
220g Caster Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
6 large eggs
250g Almond Meal

Place whole unpeeled oranges in saucepan. Cover with water. Boil with the lid on for 30 minutes. Drain the liquid, fill with fresh water and boil for 1 hour. Trim the green ends, cut the oranges into quarters and check for pips. Place oranges into a food processor and pulverise them to a pulp. Leave to cool to room temperature.

Line a 22cm round springform cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides with non-stick spray. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius, or 160c if fan forced.

Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer on high speed until fluffy and pale, which should take 3-5 minutes (stop before ribbons form). Beat in the baking powder. Fold in the almond meal and orange pulp.

Pour into tin and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a skewer into the centre comes out clean. For me, at 30 minutes the top was getting nice and brown, so I covered it with aluminium foil to minimise burning. At 45 minutes, mine was shrinking away from the sides of the tin and passed the skewer test.

Allow cake to cool upright in the pan. Do not attempt to turn out. When cool, dust the top with icing sugar if desired.

Serves 10

Recipe found on SBS Food, which is identical to the Stephanie Alexander version in The Cooks’ Companion, which is extremely similar to the Australian Women’s Weekly version. All equally awesome.

Best Ever Orange Almond Cake is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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“Why seek revenge? Karma is going to get the bastards anyway”

- Ajahn Brahm

The saying goes “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Wise? Yes. But the yellow-peel road from sour lumps to sweet lemonade isn’t easy: squirts of lemon juice launch like finely-honed missiles with your eyeball as their target. It also has a special way of seeking little paper-cuts to give you a good stinging. Heaven forbid there’s a bandaid over a cut, sealing the juice right into the wound and making you do the Yelpie-Stingy dance while trying to rip the fabric from your finger.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s not easy to make good of a bad situation. I’m the champion of hosting a Perpetual Pity Party for one with a resplendent sour lemon theme. I’ve been deeply hurt in a way many of us experience, adding a tonne of sour lemons to the proverbial backpack I carry everywhere. For a year or two, I’ve carried it. Carried the bitterness, the heaviness, the resultant draining of emotion. It’s exhausting and it sucks the life out of you. Then I had my lightbulb moment:

“It’s only heavy if you hold it, but if you let it go, it’s got no weight at all.”

-Ajahn Brahm

Think about it slowly once more. Things are only heavy if we carry them, but if we choose to let go, we’re free. Mind. Blown.

So I’m choosing to shed the cubic mega-tonne of lemons I’ve let consume me. It’s slow going, as old habits die hard. But whenever I find myself going back to that place, those memories, those feelings, I say STOP IT, Emma. LET. IT. GO. And I can feel the load lightening a little more with each release.

To commemorate turning gross lemons into better things, I baked a Lemon & Poppyseed Cake. It’s a lovely little cake, based on a pound cake recipe by the venerable Rose Levy Beranbaum (author of The Cake Bible). She also happens to request making lots of little stabby holes with a skewer into the top of the cake, to brush through the accompanying lemon syrup. Good times ahead, people. Release away.

Hey, lemons. Yeah you. You aren’t so tough once we juice the crap out of you and mix in a little sugar. Punks.

LEMON & POPPYSEED CAKE RECIPE

You will need:
45g milk, room temp
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g plain flour
50g cornflour
150g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6g Lemon zest
28g poppy seeds
185 g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature  

Syrup
75g caster sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a medium loaf tin.

In a small jug combine the milk, eggs and vanilla. In an electric mixer bowl combine the plain flour, cornflour, caster sugar, baking powder, salt, lemon zest and poppy seeds. Beat in the very soft butter and half of the egg mixture until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase the speed to medium and beat for one minute to aerate the batter. Scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Gradually add the remaining egg mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition.

Scrape the batter into the greased loaf tin and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake in the oven for 55 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the lemon syrup. Place the caster sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove the cake from the oven.

While the cake is still warm, poke many holes deep into the cake with a skewer, then brush the lemon syrup over the top sides and base of the cake. Wrap the cake in gladwrap to seal in the syrup, then store in an airtight container for 24 hours. This allows the syrup to seep through the cake.

Recipe adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum Copy available from The Book Depository  

Lemon & Poppyseed Cake with Lemon Syrup is a post from: The Cake Mistress

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