"Cake" 10: the appropriation of cheese muffins

So my flatmate offered his cheese muffins as an antidote to cake. I was muchly pleased. The recipe is from "Jenn's Baking Chamber" (um...), but they were pretty nice. He altered the recipe a bit, since it was deemed "too strange".

Cheese Muffins

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar (changed to 1/6 cup)
2 tsp baking powder (oh dear, he asked me before if I thought it was unreasonable that there were multiple "tablespoons" of baking powder in this mix, but I guess he misread the amount.... at any rate, the one I ate tasted fine)
1/2 tsp baking powder (omitted entirely)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk (changed to 1 cup)
2 Tb sour cream (omitted)
1/3 cup melted and cooled butter (changed to oil instead of butter)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups grated cheese,  plus 1/4 cup for "garnish"

Preheat oven to 350 F (176.6666 C), and grease a 12-muffin tin. Combine all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine all the other ingredients apart from the cheese. Mix the wet into the dry, don't over mix. Add cheese, and gently fold in.

Bake 15-20 mins, or until lightly golden. Sprinkle extra cheese on top of hot muffins as soon as you take them out of the oven.

They were pretty tasty, slightly sweet though (I suspect the amount of sugar has been altered in light of this). Not bad for cheese muffins.... I actually used to loathe savoury muffins, so these ones are pretty good considering.

Cake 9, banana with chocolate icing and sprinkles

I made this cake at midnight-ish, and somewhat drunk. It was okay. I didn't ice it until the next day (well into the afternoon, I wasn't functioning until after midday), and ice it I did. Thick chocolate icing, and just enough hundred and thousands to remind me of being a kid. Nyaw. The recipe is Jo Seagar's, and it's okay. I just remembered I got an awesome cake cookbook for my birthday, I should really find that...

Moist Banana Cake

125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 bananas, mashed
2 tsp baking soda
2 Tb hot milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream butter and sugar, and add eggs one at a time. Stir in mashed banana. Stir soda into hot milk, then add this to the mixture. Fold in flour and baking powder.
Bake 45-50 mins.



Cake 8, a disappointing coffee cake

I was sickly for a few days, and decided it would be unwise to make cakes in my condition. I did manage to make two in between then and now (I can't remember the dates, so it'll have to stay vague and mysterious). I'm going to post them in two separate blogs, because I did make them on different days.

I made this coffee cake late at night (maybe around midnight), then iced it the next day. Sam very charitably said it looked like a baby had puked on it, and I guess that's what you get when icing is too runny. The cake didn't taste enough like coffee, but I couldn't find what "Edmond's Food For Flatters" describes as "coffee and chickory essence" in the supermarket, so had to settle for strong filter coffee and very little milk. The icing was a bit stronger, but still looked pukey. To compensate, I iced on "25th Nov", and at least now I know what date I made that cake on.

Oh yeah, and orcon denied us internet for a few days, which is why I'm posting all these now.

Coffee Cake

250g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups caster sugar (I never have caster sugar)
3 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbs coffee and chickory essence
3/4 cup milk (I basically used 3/4 cup of strong milky coffee)

Preheat oven to 180 C and line a regular cake tin. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time. Sift together flour and baking powder. Combine essence and milk. Fold dry ingredients and milk alternately into butter mixture.
Bake 50-55 mins.
Coffee Icing

My usual method: put a pile of icing sugar in a bowl and add liquid (in this case coffee) until desired viscosity is reached.

Maybe "food for flatters" is just a sneaky way of saying "average food", because frankly, anything is better than beef noodles and baked beans.

I'm going to say this is Cake 7

Cake 7 is an upside down cake, with pineapple rings on the top/bottom. I used a recipe from Parkvale Kindergarten Cookbook, a treasure trove of delights. I can't wait to try "Whiskey Mac" cake (kindy-appropriate?), Weetbix cake (which sounds simply awful), and there are some great drinks recipes at the back, for homemade "Kahlua" and "Baileys". I'll post the recipes for these at the end, they sound delish. Mm mm mm. Oh yeah, and "Gherkin Spread" unsurprisingly fell into the "?!" category of the cookbook. Anyhow, I used the "Wonder Cake" recipe, with a few alterations.

Wonder Cake

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
2 Tb butter, melted
2 eggs
(1/2 cup) milk (they've omitted the amount of milk required, but I think about 1/2 a cup should be right)
1 tin pineapple slices

Preheat the oven to "fairly hot" (I did mine at 190 C, but 180 would probably be okay).
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in salt and sugar.
In a separate bowl, combine the butter, eggs and milk, and mix well.
Pour into dry ingredients and mix thoroughly (the recipe recommends mixing for 5 mins, but I really couldn't be bothered).
Line a cake tin with baking paper, and lay the pinapple slices in the base.
Pour over the cake mix, and bake for about 30-45 mins.

This is a pretty easy mix, and it turned out super ace. I think it's best when hot. The cake itself isn't too sweet, so the pineapple works pefectly as a super sweet topping.



"Kahlua" (Glenys Robertson)

3 cups sugar

2 cups water

6 Tb Gregg's instant coffee

1 cup cold water

2 tsp vanilla

Put sugar and 2 cups water into a saucepan and dissolve, simmer for 10 mins. Mix the coffee with the cold water and vanilla, then add to the saucepan. Let it cool and add half a bottle of vodka. [I like how this is omitted from the ingredients list] Stir well. You need to leave it for 3 weeks.

"Baileys" (Katrina Paton)

1 tin condensed milk

300ml fresh cream

2 eggs

1 Tb chocolate topping (I think she means ice cream topping)

1 tsp glycerine

1 cup scotch whiskey

coconut essence to taste

Blend all together, bottle and chill in fridge. Shake well before use.

I think what concerns me the most is that two different boozy mothers of toddlers sent these in. 

Weekend in Wellington, and only one "cake" made

Me and my lad went down to Wellington for Zinefest, which was pretty ace, but not so great for my cake baking... I did, however, manage to make cupcakes (from a bought cake mix....).

Green's Golden Butter Cake Mix

Add 2 eggs, 100ml milk and 3 Tb butter. Blend and bake as per instructions.
Since I couldn't find a cake tin, I made muffins. They weren't too bad, Green's do a pretty good (and cheap-er) cake mix.
I also rolled the iced cupcakes in grated peppermint chocolate. Yumness all round.

Day 5, Cakes 4 and 5

I'm a bit sick of sugar, so today I've decided to make a savoury cake/loaf. And since I didn't get a chance to make one yesterday, today I'm gonna split it between two tins :)
I found this recipe just by googling "savoury cake", and it seems good so far (it's in the oven at the moment). It's from the blog "My Daddy Cooks"...

Savoury Loaf

Preheat oven to 180 C, and line a large loaf tin (or two small ones...) Combine all the following ingredients:
250g flour
1 heaped tsp yeast
4 eggs
100ml olive oil
100ml milk
100g pitted olives, chopped in half
250g bacon (I used mushrooms instead)
200g grated cheese (no cheese in the fridge, so I used about half a can of creamed corn for flavour)
Bake 1 hr

--------------------------
I've just taken it out of the oven, and spread some butter on a few slices.......... it's pretty delish. The cheese would have made it so much better, though. Since I did mine in two smaller tins, I found 45mins to be about right. Mmmm juicy olives and sweet corn...

Cakes 2 and 3-ish, Day 3

Since I didn't really make a cake on the day before my birthday, I decided I would make two today. Which I kind of did.... I split a sponge cake batter into 2 cake tins :) However, it was a bit of a disaster cake. I've never made a good sponge, and despite borrowing a beatermix for the occasion, it was still a big mess.
First mistake: overcooking the sponge. It seemed so soft in the oven.... but I think it was meant to be...
Second mistake: lazy/bad icing. The pictures say it all.

It didn't even taste that great - it was all dry and chewy. Anyhow, I'll put the recipe up. It's from Jo Seagar's "All Things Nice" cookbook (which is basically a massive ad for Chelsea Sugar).

Sponge Cake

4 large eggs, separated (room temp)
3/4 cup sugar (Chelsea, of course)
3/4 cup cornflour (I had to do half regular flour and half custard powder, since I didn't have any cornflour)
2 Tb custard powder
3 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease two 23cm cake tins, line with baking paper.
Beat egg whites until stiff, then slowly add the sugar and beat until stiff and glossy.
Add the yolks one at a time, and mix each in well.
In a separate bowl, sift together the cornflour, custard powder and baking powder.
Gently fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, using a metal spoon (not sure why).
Pour half mixture into each tin and bake for 15-20 mins without opening the oven door.
When cooked, the cakes should  shrink slightly from the sides of the tins, and spring back when touched gently.
Cool for 10 mins in the tin, then turn onto a wire rack covered with a teatowel, so the rack doesn't leave an imprint on the cakes.

Jo suggests serving with whipped cream and strawberries, but I ended up icing mine. I wanted a typewriter cake. It was meant to be red.... but turned out pink. So I wrote "HAPPY METHDAY BROSE" on the pebbles/buttons, and tried to draw a meth pipe... which ended up looking too phallic, so Lauren fixed it by turning it into a massive purply smudge. Here are the pics... it looks... cute? In a kind of messy and amateurish way...

Maybe I'll have more success with my next cake...

Cake: A Retrospective

Since I was too busy sitting through an awful exam (bright side is that I will never have to read Pamela now), I didn't manage to make a cake. Bit of a fail for the 2nd day of my challenge, BUT I did learn how to make dumplings! Apparently I learnt fast :) The little couches for the little men to sit on weren't that neat, but they tasted pretty fab.
Anyhow, I thought I'd put up a picture of a cake that me and my friend made for another friend - it's the face of one of our lecturers. She was an awful lecturer, much better once rendered in cake form. Although to be honest, almost anything is better in cake form.

I think the snifters for eyes suit her. Incidentally, the cake I used was the vegan chocolate one. It's really nice when it's iced.

I'll be posting proper cakes (and more than one, to make up for yesterday) later on today, once I'm out of bed. It is my 21st birthday though, so I feel I can justify laziness :)

Cake 1, Day 1

I'll be stoked past my teeth if I can keep this cake-making habit up for a few months.

Since I'm meant to be studying for my final exam, I thought it best to start off with a cake that doesn't take too long. I've still managed to drag it out into a few hours worth of procrastination... This is my standard cake recipe, it's just so easy to make, and easy to adjust if you're missing an ingredient. It can overcome all kinds of things (sugar added at the last minute, grilling instead of baking, part rice flour instead of regular). This time I actually used half wholemeal flour, just to give the cake a heavier texture. Anyhow, here's the first recipe:

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Grease/line a large cake tin (it's quite a big mix) and preheat the oven to 190 C
Mix together the following ingredients in a large bowl:
3 cups flour (today I went half white, half wholemeal)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking soda (I recommend sifting this, otherwise you end up with little lumps of it all through the cake)
1 tsp salt

Next, mix the following wet ingredients in a separate bowl:
2 cups hot coffee (a great opportunity to use up those sachets of instant decaf)
2 tsp white vinegar
2/3 cup vegetable oil (use something which doesn't taste too strong, like canola or sunflower)
2 tsp vanilla

Pour the wet into the dry, and combine. Don't overmix. Pour into the tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes. I found it took a lot longer using the gas oven I have at the moment, but at any rate the cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

I thought mine turned out okay today, it's not too sweet, and the wholemeal makes it "dense and moist", according to my tasters.