Cherry Blossom Cake

I was asked to make some unusual cakes for a local coffee shop and one idea I found was a cherry blossom cake. I wasn't happy with the original recipe so I adapted it until I came up with something I was happy with, and here is the result. 

Ingredients: 

285g Self Raising Flour

70g Plain Flour

285g Stork

285g Caster Sugar

5 Large Eggs

1 tsp Orange blossom water

Grated rind of 1 Orange

100g Cherries, stoned and chopped up

Preheat your oven to 180oC and line an 8" round cake tin. 

Cream together the stork and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add in the blossom water and orange rind. Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time. 

Add in the flour and mix together slowly until combined. Be careful not to over beat at this point and only use the slowest speed on the mixer. Stir in the chopped cherries. 

Pour into the cake tin and bake until the cake is springy to touch and a skewer comes out clean. Mine takes around 1hour30mins but check it before this point. 

Leave the cake to cool completely then decorate. 

I filled this cake with a vanilla buttericing and cherries stirred in: 

250g Softened Butter

500g Icing Sugar

100g Chopped cherries

Beat together the butter and icing sugar until soft and then stir in the cherries. 

Ready to go to the coffee shop

If you try this cake please let me know how you get on. I'm very interested in photos and stories. 

To order this cake direct from me for wholesale or one off purchases please just get in touch.

Choc-Cherry Muffins

I wanted to make some cakes for Gary to take back to work, his first day after having m&m, so I looked through my vast pile of waiting recipes and chose this one. Choc-Cherry Muffins, I took the recipe from the BBC Good Food magazine but it can also be found here. 

The recipe is very simple and it's basically just a normal cupcake recipe to start with. Cream the butter and the sugar, add in the eggs and finally the flour. The chocolate comes in the form of chopped up plain chocolate, this is stirred into the cake mixture. Once this is light and fluffy then it is placed in muffin cases, I made 16 from this recipe. 

Fluffy batter ready to go in cases.

The recipe states you should use tinned cherries, however, these aren't sold in our Tesco so I used frozen cherries that I'd defrosted throughout the day. The cherries are added to the muffin cases, once the mixture is in there, and pressed into the batter. I added around 3-4 cherries per muffin, this meant that there were plenty of cherries left over and I certainly didn't require the quantity stated in the recipe. 

The cakes were then placed in the oven and cooked for 25 minutes, for once the timing on the recipe was actually correct and the cakes were beautifully cooked after this time. I got them out and left them to cool on the rack. 

Cakes ready to eat..yum!! 

Verdict: I gave these muffins 9/10 and Gary gave them 8/10. They were really tasty with the chunks of chocolate and cherries. With each bite you got a different flavour and the combination was really good. Gary took them into work and his colleagues also agreed that these were very good. It's a shame I don't have more to eat :(. 

Bakewell Cheesecake

Whilst browsing afternoon tea recipes I came across this idea, a Bakewell cheesecake, and I couldn't resist. I do like Bakewell tarts, however, I usually find that they are a little dry and I struggle to eat them, however, I really enjoy the flavour combinations.  

I found this recipe on BBC Good Food website. I'm so glad I did, as you'll see from the verdict, this was an outstanding success. 

First step is to make the biscuit base, this is made by crushing almond biscuits and flaked almonds before adding melted butter and almond extract. I struggled finding the almond biscuits as they didn't have them in the usual supermarkets but fortunately my sister found them in M and S and was able to get us some. I'm glad she did as I think they probably really added something to the base. Definitely worth investing in some if you can. 

Once the base was all mixed together this was placed into a loose bottomed tin and baked for 10 minutes. I've never baked a biscuit base before so this was a novel idea. This was then left to cool whilst I made the filing. 

Biscuit base filling

I made the filing by mixing the cream cheese until it was soft, to this I added in the sugar until it was combined. Finally I added the flour, vanilla, eggs and soured cream until the whole mix was fully combined. 

Creamy Cheesecake Mixture

To make up the cheesecake I added spoonfuls of the cheesecake mixer onto the base with spoonfuls of cherry jam placed in the middle. I tried to add these so they were scatter throughout the cheesecake so there were lovely clumps of jam amongst the mixture. 

Spoonfuls of Jam Amongst the Cheesecake

The made cheesecake was then placed in the oven and baked for 10 mins at 200oC, the temperature was then turned down to 110oC and baked for a further 35 mins. The oven was then turned off and the cheesecake was left in the oven for a further hour to cool. The recipe states that you should leave the cheesecake where it is with the oven door open, however, we just didn't have time for this as well so we took the cheesecake out at this point. The cheesecake is then left to cool at room temperature before placing in the fridge overnight to set. 

Scattered with Almonds and Baked

The cheesecake needed to stay in the fridge until it was time to serve it, we did try and get it out sooner, but it started to melt so it went back into the fridge. I served the cheesecake as a whole piece and on a cake stand. 

Cheesecake placed on Cake Stand

Inside View of the Cheesecake

Verdict: This cheesecake was delicious, the combinations of flavours was really tasty and balanced. I liked that the cheesecake mixture balanced nicely with the strong flavour of the biscuits and the sweet fruitiness of the jam. I gave the cheesecake 10/10. Gary also gave it 10/10 as did my mum. So in total this recipe got 30/30. There is nothing that needs to be changed and the flavours are just perfect. This is certainly a recipe I'll be keeping and I'm looking forward to enjoying my final 2 pieces that are left of the current one. Would definitely recommend this recipe.