A few delights...

My weeks seem to be getting busier and busier...can you believe it's almost March already? Unbelievable to me. It's time to change the tone of my baking a little...not too Spring-like yet, but moving away from the very comforting, heavier cakes...slowly, slowly.
Yesterday, I made a tray of Cardamom Orange Cake with a cream cheese frosting...

Cardamom is a beautiful, warm and underused spice which goes perfectly with fresh orange. This smelt gorgeous.

Next, an Espresso Walnut Cake with Vanilla frosting...I replaced quite a proportion of the flour with ground walnuts to lighten and moisten the mixture and to make sure that there was a really good walnut flavour. Coffee is a natural partner...I used espresso, to make it slightly darker and more sophisticated than my usual Coffee & Walnut Cake. No filling in this one either...just the vanilla buttercream on top, with a sprinkle of espresso and broken walnuts to finish...
Today, as it's half-term here, I wanted a child pleaser for the Coffee Tree. I came up with this creation...

Caramel Peanut Shortbread. Another one that I had to make and deliver VERY quickly before I devoured it! Crisp, buttery polenta shortbread....caramel & peanut butter filling, topped with roasted salty peanuts and, finally, dark chocolate ganache....

oh I'm so glad that it's not still here!

Hoping your Thursday is as lovely as mine...and that you make time for a treat somewhere, somehow xo

.

The week starts here...

and on this grey, cold and rainy Monday morning, I delivered these Little Pear & Hazelnut Cakes to the warm and welcoming fug of the Coffee Tree!

They are layers of toasted hazelnut sponge with tiny dice of fresh pear stirred through the cake mixture....sandwiched with a vanilla cream cheese frosting and no-sugar pear conserve and finished with a little more frosting and a toasted whole hazelnut!

I adore hazelnuts....but, bizarrely, they're not everyone's cup of tea baking-wise. So I thought that 'pear-ing' (sorry!!) them with this gently flavoured fruit might help them in the popularity stakes today! I think they look beautiful...and the sponge offcuts tasted so good that I had to make sure that I gave them to the birds very quickly before I wolfed down the lot! So a good start.
This is something that doesn't happen very often, but as it's my 50th Baking Brownies for Mozart post...
Paul insisted on taking a picture of me with my creations. And I'm posting it to keep him happy!

I'd love you to come into my kitchen and share a large cup of hot tea with me...but this may be the nearest we get for a while!
Happy Monday...xoxo

A Plum Cake...

Sorry I haven't posted much this week but Paul took the camera with him to Cumbria...and if you take a look at my other blog you'll hopefully be glad that he did!

Anyway, he got back last night...happy to be home and just in time for me to photograph today's Coffee Tree delivery...

It's an upside down Golden Plum & Blueberry Cake.

There's caramel there too...it's a little like a cake version of a Tarte Tatin.

The juices from the plums & purple berries sink into the vanilla sponge and make it very moist & delicious. I've played around and made this with all sorts of fruits...it's especially good with peaches or apricots in summer...and you can also vary the flavour of the cake itself - so maybe a lemon sponge with fresh raspberries or an orange one with rhubarb...I think it would also be lovely served warm with cream as a dessert.
Whichever way I make it, it's a favourite at the coffee shop!

Enjoy your weekend....and eat well! We're off to London to revisit brand new restaurant Nopi in Soho. I was lucky enough to be invited to one of the opening nights on Monday evening...and I want Paul to try it too, so we'll be there for lunch tomorrow. I can't wait!! xo

Fancy a Valentine?

Well, I warned you that they wouldn't be subtle......!

In the UK, these little fondant covered sponges are called 'fancies' - I imagine this is the original name for them, and it's sweetly old-fashioned and fitting name for a Valentine cake I think.

Mine were vanilla sponge,cut into heart shapes and covered in vanilla buttercream before being dipped in pale pink fondant icing. I left it to set a little before attaching the fondant hearts...

I used glitter in 4 different shades of purple, mauve, silver and lavender....just for extra flamboyance!

There were plenty of 'oohs' & 'aahs' when they were unveiled at the Coffee Tree this morning... where they are now displayed on a cream, lace edged cake stand. I made a few extra as people often like to buy one for each of their children for a teatime treat.

I hope that you have something sweet today, however you choose to spend this Valentines...

Wth love from me....and thanks for reading! xoxo

Saturday treats....

I started my weekend delivery with these Black & White Cupcakes. Very heavily frosted cupcakes don't go down too well at the Coffee Tree - the customers tend to prefer more understated offerings! I thought that these fit the bill perfectly. Beautiful, vanilla sponge on the bottom and dark chocolate ganache poured glossily on top - finished with a gold sugar star..

Simple yet sophisticated? Hopefully they went down well anyway... next was one of my own creations. I call them Glazed Blueberry Bars -

sticky, oaty slices with a tart  fresh blueberry middle and lightly glazed on top (which also stops them from becoming dry.) I love to have plenty of filling so that it oozes slightly when you cut (or bite!) into them..

I always overdo everything slightly because, as regular readers will know, my baking motto (actually my LIFE motto) is 'Too much of a good thing is wonderful....!'

And lastly, with a small nod to Valentine's Day (more of which tomorrow) I baked a yummy Spice Cake with Peanut Buttercream frosting, from Rose Levy Berenbaum's 'Heavenly Cakes' book which I talked about last week...

I love anything with peanuts and it was a change to find something that used them but didn't also contain chocolate (I try and balance things with my Coffee Tree order, so that there's a fruity cake alongside something rich & chocolatey...or a very sweet thing and a savoury one) As you may be able to make out, I sprinkled the top of the cake with some tiny red sugar hearts...

but I warn you now....I won't be so subtle tomorrow!

have a wonderful Sunday xoxo

Almost the weekend..

This morning was dark, rainy...the sort of morning when I'm so happy that I do what I do! Getting to the kitchen, switching on lights, ovens....weighing, pouring, mixing...the brightness, warmth and gentleness of working early in the day. It'll be different in a few months when the sun will be up, the air will be soft & I'll be longing to be outside. But for now, I'm happy to be in my kitchen for as long as I need to be...

For the Coffee Tree today, I made these Double Cheese & Poppyseed Scones. Extra  mature cheddar.  Sharp, blue Gorgonzola piccante. And organic poppyseeds bought on my trip to Australia in the little dairy town of Maleny. Just delicious!

Next, I decorated the cake I made for them yesterday afternoon...Lemon Curd Layer Cake. Lemon is such a popular flavour that I'm always thinking of new ways to use it in my baking. This is a light sponge with lots of lemon zest in the batter...

and then I filled it with lemon buttercream and fresh lemon curd..topping it with more buttercream and lemon zest...

I think it looks so fresh and Spring-like (even though I know that Spring is, really, a little way off yet!)

And lastly, I made a batch of cookies. The recipe was sent to me by my dear friend Sue and I had to try it right away...

they are really chewy, coconutty, chocolate chippy....dee-licious! I won't print the recipe in case it's needed for her wonderful website. It didn't come with a title. So when I delivered the boxful to the coffee shop along with the other goodies this morning, the label simply said 'Susan's Cookies' !!

A special hug today to my friend Dawn, otherwise known as Country Girl as it's her 30th birthday! Much love to you sweetie - I remember being 30...30's are fun!!

xoxo

Sticky Toffee Birthday...

Yesterday was the birthday of a good friend of ours, Steve. As he was on his own on Sunday evening, we gave a tiny supper party for him...just four of us (our friend John came too!) I made mushroom, red wine & thyme pie, baked chicken w lemon, mashed potato, brussels sprouts and roasted parsnips...it all went down very well on that dark & blustery evening.

For dessert...I didn't want to bake a cake, as I knew that the remainder would probably go to waste. But Steve adores 'nursery' type puddings...so I had a brainwave and made a Sticky Toffee Pudding instead, with a birthday candle to make it festive! It had a beautiful, dark, caramelly sauce under the soft date sponge...

and, just for Paul who was brought up in Devon and loves it, we accompanied the pudding with...

wicked, delicious clotted cream...

of course, this was bought in the supermarket and not quite the same as the crusty yellow cream that you can buy when you go to Devon or Cornwall. But authentic and delightful enough to please the birthday boy (and his friends!) which is all that mattered.

This morning, I made yet another recipe from the Fat Witch cookbook. And, once more, I had to twiddle the quantities which has really put me off trying anything else from it, I'm sorry to say. But these turned out well, in the end...

Marbled Pumpkin Spice Brownie Bars. They were supposed to have a brownie bottom and a pumpkin top...but the base was so liquid that I ended up swirling the two mixtures together a bit...hence the 'marbling' in the title!

I managed to find some tins of real American pumpkin puree, which is the only thing to use when baking I think. These bars were nice and tall, quite squidgy... and they smelt lovely. So fingers crossed that they went down well at the Coffee Tree!

I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow...!

It's such a beautiful day today...not a cloud in the sky and the sun has warmth in it for the first time in months. I didn't want to come back from my walk with Alice this morning!

I hope you're having a lovely day too...xo

The weekend arrives...

and with it comes my last Coffee Tree delivery of the week...beginning with these Corn & Cheddar Muffins. I love savoury muffins, still warm and crusted with cheese...but I'm not sure how they'll go down with the customers. We British are a funny race. Muffins = Sweet. So, I caught them out...I called them Popovers! Now, for my American readers...I know that these aren't popovers at all. But as we don't have those here, I thought it a suitably flabbergasting word to describe these without using the 'M' word! I hope that it worked, because I was really pleased with the way they turned out...

I used both corn kernels and polenta/cornmeal...plus LOTS of extra matured, sharp cheddar. Yum.

Next were these Toffee Bars.Another recipe from my new Fat Witch Bakery cookbook. Again, I twiddled the recipe...this time doubling the topping ingredients as I didn't think that the brown sugar cream layer would be deep enough. I'm glad I did. I sprinkled with powdered sugar too for added contrast...
And lastly, I made a Coconut Cake with Passionfruit Glaze...

The cake is 1 and 1/2 times the recipe for Coconut Tea Cake from the wonderful Dorie Greenspan's book 'Baking -from my home to yours' which has given me so much inspiration that I should hate to be without it! It's a beautiful white and intensely coconutty cake which doesn't need filling (I think this would detract from it's subtle flavour) but I like to make a glaze from powdered sugar and fresh passionfruit pulp as I think it sets the tropical themes off nicely and gives a beautifully fragrant 'tang' too.

It does drip a little down the sides...but that's part of it's authentic homemade charm (as I like to tell myself!)

I'd love to share a slice with you now, over a cup of hot Earl Grey tea. You'd be so welcome in my cosy kitchen this blustery but fairly warm afternoon!

Enjoy your weekend xo

Another new book & Butterscotch Bars

Oh dear! I'm so sorry that this picture has turned on it's side...I'm not quite sure why! Anyway, it's the cover of the new book I bought last week...yet another one. It's a book of brownies and bars by Patricia Helding, the owner of NYC's Fat Witch Bakery . I have to say that there isn't much new in the book (to me, that is) Also I don't find the quality of the book to be too impressive - thin pages, slightly faded photographs.

Still, there's always something to learn from any new cookbook I find...like these Butterscotch Bars which I delivered to the Coffee Tree this morning...

They are sort of like Blondies...chewy & slightly crunchy very vanilla-y bars, with butterscotch and chocolate chips folded in at the last minute. The top, like a brownie, is shiny and crackly....while the inside is lovely and soft.
They looked and smelt very good - I'll see what the customers thought tomorrow. It's worth saying though that I made a shortbread base for the bars...and I'm very glad that I did. Without it (as in the original recipe) I fear they would have been far too soft to turn out or cut. Very difficult to handle - also quite thin!
Anyway, this may be a one off. I'll certainly reserve judgement until I've tried a few more recipes from the book.

Butterscotch Bars did their job this morning...tempting the Coffee Tree customers into buying a little extra something!
I hope that your Thursday has gone well so far...so much strange weather about. Thankfully t Australian cyclone is now over with, it seems, no fatalities. I hope that if you're snowed in somewhere, you're warm, cosy & well stocked!
xox

Dressed with pearls...

I'm always looking for new & beautiful decorations for cakes...I have a whole (large) drawer crammed with dragees, sprinkles and sparkles. These are my latest acquisition...gorgeous pearlised chocolate truffles!

I loved the look of them so much that I bought 3 boxes.

And they were the perfect way to adorn today's Coffee Tree cake delivery...

Mocha Truffle Cake. Soft dark chocolate & espresso cake with buttercream frosting.

My good friend Joann, who has a wonderful blog too incidentally....visit it here ...asked me recently whether it's usual in the UK to leave the sides of layer cakes unfrosted. It made me think (as good questions do!) I usually don't cover the sides of everyday cakes...maybe because it makes them look too...gateau-like I suppose! I worry that it may put people off buying a slice, as they may feel it's too much of a luxury purchase. I could be wrong, though. Maybe I should frost more sides!!

I started with this one! Thanks for broadening my horizons, Joann!! x

I hope you have a wonderful day...it's grey and gloomy here. But it's February!! Not too long to Spring now...

xox