Lemon Chiffon Blueberry Squares

Yields 1 8 " square pan = 12 squares

2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp VE Lemon Chiffon Fruit Dip Mix
2 Tbsp softened butter
1 c all purpose flour
3 Tbps milk
3 eggs
1/4 c + 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp VE Lemon Chiffon Fruit Dip Mix
1/3 C flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 C fresh or frozen blueberries

1) preheat oven to 350 F
2) prep crust by beating 2 Tbsp sugar and2 Tbsp lemon chiffon with butter until light and creamy. Continue to beat, gradually adding flour and milk until mixture resembles fine crumbles. - I did this in my stand mixer
3) press crust mixture into bottom of an ungreased baking pan or pyrex dish. Bake 15 minutes and cool on wire rack.
4) beat eggs with 1/4c + 2Tbsp sugar and 2 Tbsp lemon chiffon until foamy. Quickly mix in flour and baking powder. pour over cooled crust.
5) evenly sprinkle blueberries over top, allowing some to sink into batter
6) bake in a preheated oven for 35 minutes or until set. cool and cut into squares

Was good, but I've had better lemon bars

Delicious Cake Futures

NPR: Sweet Memories Of A Snack Food Financial Scheme

I've been meaning to post this little parable about cake and the world economy. This sounds a little too good to be true, but, hey, it's a good story. Jody, you should look into this. I would totally buy cake futures!

Blueberry Soured Cream Cake

Blueberries bake very well into cakes, as their purple skins keep in their juicy centres!

175g butter, softened
175g sugar
3 large eggs
225g self-raising flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. vanilla essence, 1 t. almond essence
4 T. soured cream (preferably 14% m.f.)
1 c. blueberries, fresh or frozen.

preheat the oven to 300F. Butter the base of, depending on what you would like, two standard cake tins for a 2 layer with shallower cakes, or 1 standard cake tin for a full, one layer cake.

Put the butter, sugar, ggs, flour, baking powder and essences in a bowl. Beat for a few minutes untill pale and well mixed. Beat in the soured cream and blueberries.
Tip the mixture into tin(s) and level. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes until firm to the touch and a fork inserted in the centre comes out clean.

For the frosting
1 packet of cream cheese
1 lemon, zested and juiced
icing sugar, to taste.

soften the packet of cream cheese and place in bowl. Beat with lemon zest and juice until smooth and add icing sugar to taste until desired sweetness is reached. Frost.

Luscious Lemon Loaf

Joe noted last night that I was waxing rhapsodic about summer foods (I think it was the wish for a big bowl of potato salad that clinched the deal).

Lemon sort of goes hand in hand with summer for me and I was wanting to give this a try so...

1/2 c softened butter
3/4 c white sugar
2 T VE Lemon Chiffon Fruit Dip Mix
2 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 c milk

Preheat to 349F (or round up if you insist). Prepare your loaf pan with your removal facilitator of choice and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar till fluffy and then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk and then spoon into the pan and bake for 50-55 minutes or until golden. Cool before icing with Lemon Chiffon Icing (1/2 c of "spreadable light cream cheese" with 1 T of VE Lemon Chiffon).

Okay, warning: this is not a recipe for a wee loaf pan, this is a big loaf. The yield said 5 oz which sounds positively scant (oh, barely over a half cup!) but when it's given in metric, the truth is revealed... 1.5 L. Think about that for a second, think about how big a 2L milk carton is! If I seem especially fervent about it this time, it's because I'm cleaning burnt cake batter off of the bottom of my oven this afternoon. In my defense, this gets a lot of loft for something that, in batter form, closely resembles a pound cake. It made for the edges of the pan like a champ and was spilling over in no time.

The other thing to note is that the icing is probably only meant to cover the top of the loaf. I really like the looks of loaves that have been turned over on the plate though, I think they look like big chocolates so I tried. One half cup is a ridiculous amount of icing to try to spread over a cake and I really shouldn't have tried (I'm a professional, I should know better) but... anyway. The icing is scary it's so good (especially after I whipped it) and you really wouldn't want much more than that on the cake.

I left the Lemon Chiffon Blueberry Squares recipe for Erin to try. Over to you!

Gateau D'Adieu - Goodbye Cake

This was requested of me, so I must oblidge. The name Gateau D'Adieu literally translates to "Goodbye Cake", although mentally I am reading it like "Goodbye, Cake", as it disapears into my tummy.

I found this recipe in the forever reveared and mysterious all-that-is-good "101 Cakes And Bakes" and prepared it at my sending-off party before I left for Sweden. Lest I digress, it was a smashing sucess and I would much enjoy making it (and eating it) again. The lime and fresh blueberries add a certain...je ne sais quoi.

Gateau D'Adieu

225g self-raising flour
1 t. baking powder
200g caster sugar
200g. butter, softened
4 large eggs
2 t. vanilla extract
1 T. milk

Icing
400g. cream cheese
grated zest of 2 limes + juice of 1
100g icing sugar
blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350.

Put the flour, b. powder, sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla into a large bowl and combine all ingredients. Stir until no lumps are present and incorporate the milk.

Spoon the mix into your choice of baking tins (it looks specacular as a 3-tiered cake) and bake for 50 - 60 minutes.

to make the icing, beat the cheese with the lime zest, juice, and the icing sugar. Spread onto each layer and the rest on the top. arrange the blueberries in tight circles on the top of the cake.

GD'A will keep for about a 8 days in the fridge, 5 on the counter and indefinatly in your freezer.

** Editorial Note: To see a picture of this gorgeous cake click here**

Kidding On The Square

Oh, this lonely picture. It would be vastly improved by the addition of... oh, I don't know... something. Maybe a description of the event it was obviously lovingly prepared for, I'll bet it was a celebration of some kind, maybe some big upcoming event like a shower or a... a bon voyage party or something. It would be kind of cool to know what it was made of. I'd love to try to replicate it sometime because it just looks so delicious but I'd have to figure out what sort of food went into it, and how much of each food. I'm sure there was some sort of order to the way things had to be done. Maybe we could figure it out.

Ahem.

**Editorial Note: The actual recipe can be found here**

Red Velvet Cake

I found a low fat version of this somewhere else but I didn't think that this one was particularly high fat for a cake so... I used this one because it was a little weird.

2 1/2 c flour
2 T cocoa powder
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 c softened butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t Wilton No-Taste Red Icing Colour
1 t vanilla
1 c buttermilk
2 T water
1 1/2 t white vinegar
1 t baking soda

Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs (I added an extra egg to a double batch), vanilla, and colour till evenly coloured. Sift dry together and add alternately with the buttermilk to the butter (Hint: end with the dry, you get a better crumb). Add the water to the mix.

Mix vinegar and baking soda in a small bowl and gently stir into the batter. Spoon into prepped pans (will fill about 20 cupcakes or a 10" round) and cook at 350F until passes the toothpick test. 20-22 minutes for cupcakes, 35-40 for cake. Cool in pan for 5-10 and then turn out and cool completely.

Joe's Grandma's White Cake

Apparently this is Joe's favourite birthday cake when there's raspberry jam between the layers. I thought about doing that but I had these fresh raspberries in the fridge and it just seemed like a good idea to put them between the layers with vanilla whipped cream. I loved this cake because it's a little denser than your average box cake, just a little more body. Joe tells me that it's not usually like that though that that his mom puts in extra egg whites to make it fluffier.

Sift into mixing bowl: 2 1/4 c sifted cake flour (yes, that's right, you're going to double sift it)
3 1/4 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 1/2 c sugar

Add: 1/2 c Crisco
2/3 c milk
Beat for 2 minutes until batter is well blended

Add: 1/3 c milk
1/2 c egg whites (unbeaten)

Add 2 t vanilla
1/2 t almond
Beat for 2 minutes

Pour into two 8" or 9" pans that have been greased and floured on the bottom only.

25-35 minutes @ 350F

Triple Ginger Pound Cake

You know, Farrah Fawcett was really pretty when she was younger. This is my favourite pound cake recipe, Christmas present quality. The little ship on Liam's cake just wasn't holding up the way that I wanted it to so I re-baked it in pound cake. I don't know if triple ginger pound cake will work for Liam but I'm hoping that someone likes it.

2 3/4 c sugar
1 1/4 c butter
1 T grated ginger root
1 t vanilla
5 eggs
3 c flour
2 t ground ginger
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 c milk or evaporated milk (I've only ever used plain milk)
1/2 c finely chopped crystallized ginger

Beat sugar, butter, ginger root, vanilla and eggs on low for 30 seconds till mixed then 5 minutes on high speed.

Sift the flour, ginger, baking powder and salt together. Alternating with the milk, add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. (Personal tip: finish with the flour, ie: 1/3 flour, 1/2 milk, repeat, last 1/3 flour). Fold in the crystallized ginger and pour into greased and floured pans (This makes 3 medium sized loaves).

Bake at 350F for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes till it passes the clean pick test. Cool in the pan for about 20 minutes.

BTW, I'm watching Cannonball Run. Farrah Fawcett is in it.

Penguin Cake

Well, you start with a penguin...

Actually, you start with a whole whack of cake. I admit freely that I used a couple of box cakes for this one: one No-name lemon cake that actually worked out the best of the "fake" cake, two SuperMoist, one or two "Pudding-in-the-mix" cakes and some other really damp sounding cakes and I have to tell you that they absolutely suck for stacking and carving. They're just too wet so I actually started cutting back on the oil and water that went into them and that helped a bit. The best things though were the cakes from the Recipe Box that I tried out. These were cakes that Joe's grandmother (the cake decorator) and mother made and, wow, do they work for this sort of thing. I think Erin has said something along the same lines, that the old recipe, from-scratch cakes have it all over the box ones, they're denser and have a much richer flavour (I've found). Having said that, here is the first one:

"My Inspiration Cake" (the February 1954 Women's Home Companion champion)

Bake 350F 35-40 min in 2 9" layer pans

Place 1 cup finely chopped walnuts over the bottom of the well greased and floured pan (I used whole pecans because I wasn't in a walnut mood)

Grate 2 oz sweet or semi-sweet chocolate and reserve (Do not use chocolate chips like a certain lazy person that I know)

Sift together: 2 1/2 cups cake flour
4 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 1/2 c sugar

Add: 2/3 cups Crisco (but you can use vegetable oil, discovered by aforementioned lazy person who was worried that she wouldn't have enough shortening for the icing)
1 1/4 milk
1 t vanilla

Beat at low speed for 1 1/2 minutes then at medium speed add 2/3 cups unbeaten egg whites and beat for another 1 1/2 minutes (or until you finish prepping the pans and sprinkling the nuts, whichever comes first).

Spoon batter carefully over nuts until you've used half of it. Sprinkle the grated chocolate and then spoon the rest of the batter over that. Bake as directed and then let it cool in the pans for 10-15 before turning out to cool completely. (Note to remember: if you use whole pecans and chocolate chips and aren't exactly "spooning carefully", you will end up with a cake where the nuts are at the top and the chocolate is at the bottom instead of what I think they intended.)

Will definitely make this one again, there were a really good tooth to it and I liked both the chocolate and nut blend with the vanilla (which, again, I'm a little generous with).

Gold Cake... aka Use-Up-the-Egg-Yolks Cake

Also from the Recipe Box:

2 c cake flour
3 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 c butter (I use Crisco) (the aside was Joe's Mom's, I personally used butter)
1 c sugar
1/2 c egg yolks
3/4 c milk
1 t vanilla (or a half-cup like I seem to use, kidding, I kid)

Cream sugar and butter. Add the milk and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks and beat again. Sift the dry in and mix. (There is no actual mention of when to add the dry ingredients but I went with the end.)

Bake at 350F for 40 or until it passes the "finger test".

If you try this one, please don't panic at the yucky mess that is sitting in the bowl before you add the dry ingredients, I was actually sniffing it because it looked like curdled... well, it didn't look edible. After adding the dry, though, and letting Sparky beat at it for a couple of minutes, it was a lovely smooth batter and cooked up to be a nice tasting gold cake. I think it would be really good with a nice chocolate icing.

High-Test Buttercream

6 cups icing sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla
1 c boiling water
2 3/4 c high-ratio shortening
6 oz butter

Put the sugar, salt and vanilla into your mixing bowl and pour in the boiling water. Use the whisk attachment until it's smooth and cooled down. Add the butter and shortening in little chunks and whip at a lower speed until it's smooth (I don't think I've ever got it completely smooth at the lower speed so I just let it rip as soon as I get it all in there). Increase the speed to medium-high and let it run for like 10-20 minutes. It will come close to doubling in size so please don't be tempted to double the recipe. It tastes so light and fluffy and I could eat it by the spoonful (if you think about how much icing I've eaten over my cake decorating "lifetime", you'll be able to tell how good this is. I would actually volunteer to eat it).

You can use regular shortening but the high-ratio shortening takes colour really well and is a little more stable, I've found. You smear the cake with the stuff, put it in the fridge for a bit and then smooth it with a metal spatula that's been dipped in hot water and it is smoother than Barbados Slim.

Rhubarb and Orange Cake

So here is your third installment of cakes from the 101 Cakes and Bakes - I made a few mistakes (noted in brackets) and didn't get a chance to photograph the cake. However, it was tasty enough to try again sometime - so I will post any further tries with pics!

I have to say that I am facinated with using oranges - particularly the zest. The flavour is quite intense, and new somehow - at least in cakes - at least for me.

We ate this cake pretty much straight out of the oven, with no icing sugar dust. We also ate it more like a hot pudding, some table cream on this would be exceptional!

350 g prepared rhubarb, cut into 1 1/2 inch lenghts (mine were shorter and frozen)
200 g of golden caster sugar (I used darker sugar here)
finely grated zest and juice of 1/2 small orange
140 g butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp baking powder
85 g self-raising flour
100 g ground almonds

for the topping:
25 g butter, melted
25 g light muscovado sugar
finely grated zest of 1/2 small orange
50 g slivered almonds
icing sugar for dusting

1) Mix the rhubarb with 50 g of the caster sugar and the orange zest. Set aside for 1 hour, stirring once or twice. ( I accidentally added all the sugar, and used dark brown instead of the golden sugar - when the time came, I had to really strain the rhubarb mixture, and of course there is a flavour difference)

2) preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and line a 9 inch pan. ( I buttered and floured the pan - I only have an 8 inch pan, so it was kinda too much for the pan)

3) Cream the butter and remaining caster sugar (150 g) Add the eggs, baking powder, flour and ground almonds. Beat gently, but do not overmix. Stir in the orange juice. Spoon into the cake pan and level. ( I always use my stand mixer, I don't think it is that gentle, but the cake was good anyway!)

4) Drain the rhubarb and spoon over the mixture. ( I used some of the juice and drizzled it over the fruit and cake - think crispy bits of a crumble - mmmmmmmmm)

5) Bake for 25 minutes. In the meantime, make the topping by combining the sugar, zest and almonds. (I forgot to melt the butter before I added the almonds and zest, so I just mushed it up with my fingers and spread it on the top of the cake, also, I think I used shaved almonds instead of slivers, might used slivered next time to see if there is a difference)

6) Reduce the oven to 325 and sprinkle the topping over the cake and return it to the oven for another 15 - 20 minutes - or until firm.

7) Cool in the tin, transfer to a rack and dust

Raspberry and Almond Madeira Cake

My cake did NOT look like the one in the book. In fact, going into the oven, it looked somewhat garrish. But ended up tasting quite nice! Not an ordinary flavour, as Colin remarked, "It's quite ambitious!"

Ambitious, but tasty! Here it is: again, from the Cakes and Bakes Book from the BBC;

175 g butter, softened
175 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs lightly beaten
50 g flaked almonds
grated zest of 1 orange
100g plain flour
100g self-raising flour
2 Tbsp milk
200 g raspberries fresh or frozen (I used frozen and a bit more than called for)
icing sugar to dust

1) pre heat oven to 325 butter/spray oil pan and flour it
2) cream butter and sugar, then add vanilla and gradually add eggs (I did all this in the stand mixer)
3) set aside a few almonds and crush the rest (in a baggy with a rolling pin) then stir them in with the orange zest.
4) Fold in the flours and milk, then fold in all but 8 of the raspberries (I did not do this)
5) Put in the tin and sprinkle remaining almonds and raspberries on top

bake for 1 hr and 15 mins. cool in the pan for 5 mins and then on a rack. dust with icing sugar!

Yummy! ;-)

Whole Orange Cake

That's right, you heard it, the WHOLE orange. It's VERY GOOD and easy too. This is another cake from the Good Food Mag and BBC Books book that Katie got "101 Cakes & Bakes". Both cakes I have made from this book have been super! It's a by weight recipe, so get out your scales boys and girls.

The thing I really like about these cakes is that they are not really sweet.

1 small orange
140 g sugar
3 eggs
85 g self-raising flour
100g ground almonds (bought some at Bulk Barn and the self-raising cake flour too)
50g butter, melted

FOR THE ICING

85g icing sugar
the juice of 1 small sweet orange - I just used OJ from a bottle - unsweetened
creme fraiche to serve (0ptional)

1) Put the orange in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 1 hour. remove the orange and cool (I left it overnight)
2) preheat oven to 350 F butter and line an 8 inch deep cake pan ( I buttered and floured it insead of lining - it worked out fine.)
3) take cooled orange and roughly chop it - discard pips - whiz in the food processor until smooth.
4) wisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy and melt the butter (in the microwave)
5) sift flour and ground almonds on to the egg mixture. Using a large metal spoon, fold gently and then add orage puree and melted butter. Fold in gently until just mixed. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes until the cake is brown and springs back. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then ice and serve with creme fraiche. - I served the cake iced with tea- it was amazing!!

ICING

mix the icing sugar and just enough OJ to make a drizzley icing. I tried to do a chantilly lace pattern , that is what the pic in the book did.

Make this for tea some day soon - you won't be disapointed!