Cake 33, Nasty Cupcake Things

So my sister did some baking today, and I encouraged her to use up some of the 1kg bag of imitation m&ms I have. She made a chocolate cake mix, then stirred them in. They looked fine when they came out of the oven...

But it wasn't til we pulled the case off one that we realised how horrible they really are. I don't know what recipe she used, but I don't think this should be replicated.

(I had to make the picture giant, it's just so grotesque)

She also made some biscuits. I iced the green ones.

Cake 30, Not Cake, but Cookies

So it's been a while. I have made things, but I have also made the mistake of deleting everything on my camera not once, but twice.
Last night I made up two jokes because I couldn't sleep. They've probably been coined already (because they're a lot more normal than the vegetable jokes I went through a phase of making... that's another story), but I did come about them in my own way. 
What do you call an honest sausage? Frank
What do you call an honest sausage who likes to hit on the ladies? Frank flirter


Really quality way to spend my time. 


Anyway, I've made these biscuits a few times and only just found some photos (off the family Kodak - which is why they weren't deleted). 


Walnut and Chocolate Cookies (really very good)


100g butter
175g demerera (or soft brown) sugar
1 egg
a few drops of vanilla essence
175g sifted plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

100g coarsely chopped chocolate (I used some fancy 72% cocoa stuff as well as some milk chocolate, it was amazing)
25g chopped walnuts (or pecans, or both)


Preheat oven to about 190 C, and line a tray with baking paper.
Cream butter and demerera sugar, then beat in egg and vanilla essence. 
Add flour and baking powder. After this, stir in chocolate and walnuts (or pecans etc). 
Place heaped teaspoons onto baking paper and tray, bake for about 10-15 minutes, but keep an eye on them, I almost burn them everytime I make them. 

Cake 29, Saucy Pud, Very Mixed Very Cheap Getting Closer

Alison Holst's, once more. Maybe she's my hero?

Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Lightly butter an ovenware dish, about 20cm across. Sift 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour (69 cents) and 2 Tb cocoa (36 cents) into the dish. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup sugar (19 cents), then add 1/2 cup milk (22.5 cents) and mix together (it's quite tough to mix, I've always wondered if it's meant to be more milk, but this is from a recipe book that's all about the budgeting...).
Spread fairly evenly over the base of the dish.
Mix together 1 Tb cocoa (18 cents) and 1/2 cup sugar (19 cents) in another bowl, then sprinkle evenly over the mixture in the dish. Pour 1 1/2 cups boiling water (don't know how much it costs to boil a jug...) gently over the surface, over the back of a spoon.

Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the centre feels firm. Apparently this was 22cents per serve (serves 4) back in 1993.
After some careful maths, I've worked out how much it costs per serve (based on 4 servings per pud): 46 cents. That's very cheap. It seems Alison knows her stuff.
My prices are based on Homebrand products from the Foodtown website, so no special prices included.

Cake 16, Chocolate Muffcakes

So Lauren made chocolate muffcakes (being a portmanteau word, rather than small cakes that look rude), and they were pretty delish. I'm going to pinch her baking for my blog :) She used a recipe my mum gave me, which is probably from Alison Holst. I think mum owns Alison's entire ouvre of cooking books.

12 Big Fat Chocolate Muffins
(something tells me mum calls them this, it's not a very Alison Holst title...)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Mix together:
100g melted butter
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
Add:
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour (Lauren used half wholemeal)
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Spoon into lined/greased tin, and bake for 10-15 minutes.
Lauren was going to ice these, but decided they'd be disgusting with icing on them, and it's true. They would be.

The muffcakes were strangely porous....

Cake 11, Vegan Orange and Chocolate (explicit content)

So I finally found that cake cookbook, and I'm making the only vegan one in it. It's quite similar to the other vegan one I made, but I'm following one of their variations (there are enough of these for the book to be called "500 Cakes"). 

Chocolate Fudge Cake (vegan) Orange variation

100g flour (about 3/5 cup)

3/4 tsp baking soda

4 Tb cocoa powder

130g sugar (just under 2/3 C)

160 ml water (about 2/3 cup, replace with orange juice)

4 Tb vegetable oil 

1 Tb white wine vinegar

(grated rind of one orange)

Preheat oven to 180 C, and line a 20cm tin. 

Sift flour, baking soda and cocoa into a bowl, then stir in the sugar. Pour in the oil, vinegar, juice and rind, and stir. Pour into the tin and bake for about 25mins. 

This could be interesting with a bit of Cointreau in the cake or icing. 

This is a pretty awesome vegan cake, it's very soft and fudgy. Mmmmmm.

And... this was our cheerleader......

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.



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.

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.