Cake in a Train Arch: Comptoir Gourmand

What's summer for if not wandering through London streets and searching for coffee and cake? 

A few days a go my dear friend, who among other things, shares my love of good cake introduced me to Comptoir Gourmand, a small bakery in the train arches of Druid Street, SE1 2HQ. 

Tucked away in the heart of Bermondsey away from the river by Tower Bridge, the winding streets make this difficult to find but once you know where it is you won't forget. 

It shares the street with very little other than Lassco, an architectural antiques company, and a few bars that in the middle of the day had very little to show for themselves. This secluded street makes the cafe quiet and intimate and off the main path of the 'yummy mummy' crowd. 

The bakery itself is industrial in size as I assume the cafe is just a side business to the mass producing of fine cakes and tarts.

We decided to split to tarts as the choice is overwhelming and why try one when you can try two? We had the salted caramel cchocolate and the raspberry lemon tarts.

Despite the underwhelming presentation on paper plates with plastic cutlery the tarts themselves were divine. Although we both agreed the fruit tart was better with the sharp lemon custard complementing the sweet raspberries perfectly, the chocolate caramel with its oozing salted caramel sauce under a thick layer of dark chocolate was excellent also.

If you are searching for a new place to find excellent cake which is off the beaten track, Comptoir Gourmand in Bermondsey should be one for you to test out soon. 

Comptoir Gourmand, 98 Druid St, London, SE1 2HQ, is open from 9:30am - 4:30pm. http://comptoirgourmand.co.uk/

Sticky Toffee Pudding

A slightly wintery one but lets not pretend that British summer time is not slightly autumnal at the best of times. A classic sticky toffee pudding is one of the ultimate comfort foods and even in the summer if served with ice cream is perfect. 

Ingredients:

Sponge

4 tea bags

450g fresh dates

1 tsp cinnamon

1 whole nutmeg (grated)

170g butter

340g self raising flour

170g caster sugar

170g muscovado sugar

4 eggs

Caramel Sauce

250g butter

125g muscovado sugar

125g caster sugar

50ml rum

300ml double cream

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cover the tea bags with 300ml of boiling water and leave to steep for 3.5 minutes. Then destone the dates and then put in a processor with the cinnamon and half a nutmeg. Pour the tea over the dates and leave to soak for 10 minutes. Blitz to a puree. 

Butter a 26cm bundt tin. Cream the butter and sugar together and beat in the eggs one-by-one then stir in the flour and fold in the pureed dates. Pour the pudding mixture into the tin and bake for 45 to 50 minutes. 

For the sauce, cube the butter and melt in a small pan on a medium heat. Add both the sugars, then, once nicely mixed, carefully add the rum and double cream.Bring to the boil the simmer until a deep golden colour. 

Once out of the oven flip onto a plate and brush all over with enough sauce to form a delicate, crispy surface but also keep your sponge bouncy. Serve with a jug of sauce and cream or ice cream. 

New York Cheesecake

*WARNING: This will ruin your post-Christmas healthy eating attempt*

I have made a cheesecake in the past, a Passionfruit cheesecake which was refrigerated rather than baked. You can find the recipe here: http://girlbaking.blogspot.com/2013/07/passion-fruit-cheesecake.html

While the ingredients will make your heart stop, the end result is delicious. 

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

85g plain flour

40g ground almonds

50g caster sugar

85g unsalted butter

For the filling:

850g full-fat cream cheese

270g caster sugar 

2 medium eggs, 1 egg yolk

420ml whipping cream

50g plain flour 

1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract

Grated nutmeg

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius fan. Grease a 23 cm tin.

Mix the ingredients for the pastry together in a bowl and press the mixture onto the bottom of the tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly golden, the set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius fan. 

Combine the cream cheese and sugar. Add the eggs, yolk and cream and lightly mix. Fold in the flour with the vanilla extract and nutmeg. 

Bake in the oven for around 1 hour. The cheesecake should have slightly risen at the edge and should wobble slightly when moved. Leave the cheesecake to cool and   then remove from tin.

Cover with tin foil and leave the chill overnight. 

I served it with berries and some chocolate Flake, sprinkled on the top. 

Happy Baking! Gx

Decorating the Christmas cake

Once your cake is done, it is time to decorate it. And as it is Christmas Eve now is the time! 

Cover in apricot jam and then roll out on a surface covered in icing sugar around 500g marzipan.

Then drape over cake and smooth

Then roll out a layer of fondant icing (around 750g) again on a surface covered in icing sugar. The drape over the cake and smooth.

Once you have done this, decorate as you wish. I went for something quite minimalist and piped a simple decoration with a white water icing, but obviously you can go much bigger! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

 

Halloween Monster 18th!!

Earlier this week it was my friend Mimi's 18th birthday and I was asked to make the cake for her party which was on Halloween.

After much dithering and planning and deciding, we chose a monster cake and this is how we did it... 

All you need is one Victoria sponge and one load of buttercream in a colour of your choice. You then need a Wilton tip #233 pipons nozzle or a grass nozzle and some piping bags. 

Once you have made your buttercream, sandwich your sponges togother and cover the whole lot in a thin layer of icing. 

Then begin piping. You can either do short sharp bursts against the cake or if you just squeeze and go in random motions from  above to create a crazy hair like creation. You can do this anyway you want and depending on how stiff your buttercream is you might find different techniques to work better. 

For the eyes of your monster you can either just do roll out icing which we used for the mouths and the eyes of the smaller monster or you can do what we did and use cake pops... 

Make one batch of cake pops and cover in roll out icing. We found the best way to do this was to wrap the cake in roll out icing, then smooth with a damp finger. Then roll in icing sugar and the palms of your hands so it becomes a smooth ball. 

Then using black writing icing, draw on the pupils. 

Using cake pop sticks attach the eyes to your cake and add any other features using fondant icing. 

Then you are done! 

 

Happy Baking!
Gx

Lemon Chiffon Cake

This is a super light and fruity sponge which will make you weak at the knees due to its glory. Wow, I have really bigged this up....It might not be that amazing but it is good.

The reason it is so light is that it has no butter in it so it is also a little bit better for you but it is still cake so lets not lie to ourselves.

I then iced it with buttercream in the middle and plain old normal icing for the top. Just as a note know, going sparingly on the icing because the buttercream can really weigh it down.

Ingredients:
Cake:
150g caster sugar
80g plain flour
1/2 a teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
Zest and juice of 3 lemons
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Buttercream:
60g butter
120g icing sugar
1 tespoon lemon juice

Icing:
70g icing sugar
As much water as needed

Method:
Preheat the oven to 150 degree celsius fan

Setting aside a tablespoon of the sugar, mix the rest with the flour and baking powder in a bowl. In a second bowl whisk the egg yolks with the oil, lemon juice and zest and vanilla. In a third bowl, whisk the egg whites and the cream of tartar with an electric whisk until stiff peaks. Then add the tablespoon of sugar and whisk for 20 seconds. Add the egg yolk mixture in to the dry ingredients and mix, then fold the egg whites in two batches.

Transfer the mixture into two 20cm shallow sponge tins which have been greased with sunflower oil. and give them a couple of swift taps on your surface so that any air bubbles rise to the surface. 

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden and firm when pressed. Invert the cakes to let the cool for about an hour before turning them the right way up. This method should prevent them sinking when the correct way up. 

While the cake cools prepare the buttercream. Whisk the butter until smoother and slightly paler in colour, then whisk in the sugar and lemon juice. 

Use the butter cream to stick the two cakes together, there may be some icing left over. 

Then pour a mixture of water and icing sugar over the top of the cake so that it drips down the sides, this should be a very thin layer.

You may want to add some form of decoration on the top so that it is looks a little more interesting.

Then, enjoy!

Raspberry Macarons

Procrastination has reached a record high. And then there was a patch of summer in Britain, surprising I know. But there it is. So we bought raspberries, and made BRIGHT PINK macarons. This recipe is inspired by the lemon macaron recipe in John Whaite's book but obviously I have changed it so that is raspberry flavor.

And there is not much more to say as an intro so here is the recipe, so you lot can make them too...

For the macarons:
130g ground almonds
170g icing sugar
3 egg whites
75g caster sugar
Red paste food colouring (I used to use liquid but have been converted to the solider stuff)

For the filling:
80g butter
230g icing sugar
120g fresh raspberries

Method
Using a large coin as a guide (10p pieces are best) draw, evenly spaced circles on to a piece of baking paper.

Mix the almonds and icing sugar together into a large bowl, in order to get rid of large lumps sieve the mixture.

Whisk the egg whites they form peaks, in the middle of soft and stiff.

Continue to whisk as you add the caster sugar at a tablespoon at a time. Once you have added half of the caster sugar add as much food colouring as you wish, then continue to add in the sugar. With all the sugar added, beat for an extra 30 seconds to make sure it is mixed properly.

Pour the meringue mix on top of the dry ingredients. Using a spatula fold the almond mix on top of the egg whites, incorporating the the ingredients from the edges and bottom of the bowl. The batter should be in the words of John Whaite, "magma-like".

Fill a piping bag with the mixture. I find the best way to do this is to stand the piping bag in a tall glass and fold the top of the bag over the rim as this keeps the bag open. Twist the end of the bag and pipe blobs of batter on to the prepared sheet so that they fill the circles.

Once they are all piped, pick up the baking trays and hit them gently against the counter so that all air bubbles rise to the surface. Then using a dampened finger, flatten any peaks in the macarons. Leave for an 1 hour to form a shell.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Make the buttercream. Mix the butter quickly to soften and then add the icing sugar so that it is creamy. Then add your raspberries, split in half or crushed, mix again. As well as giving a great taste they also make the buttercream a naturally incredible colour.

Bake the macarons for 12 mins, opening the oven door quickly at four minute intervals.

Allow to cool and then remove from the paper.

Fill them with the buttercream, you can pipe it is quicker if you just spread it.

Mother's Day Lemon Meringue Pie

Happy Mother's Day (in most parts of the world)! And spring has finally arrived in London, so decided that a suitable pudding would be fruity as chocolate is probably too heavy?!? 

Lemon Meringue Pie is a shortcrust pastry base, a layer of lemon curd and then a thick layer of meringue on top of that. It has a lot of stages but if you ignore the vast quantity of bowls you need it is relatively easy. You can buy these but they are often very very very sweet so if you make it yourself you tend to get more of a balance between sour lemon and sweet meringue.

Ingredients

For pastry: 

150g plain flour

50g caster sugar

90g butter

1 egg yolk

a little whole milk

For curd:

25g cornflour

200ml water

zest and juice of 3 lemons

100g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

40g butter

For meringue:

4 egg whites

200g caster sugar

Enough ingredients or...?

Method

1. Make the pastry: mix the flour, sugar and butter in a bowl so that it forms a crumb like consistency. Add the egg yolk and just enough milk to make the crumbs stick together in lumps. Then bring the pastry together, refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. 

3. Roll out the pastry and bake blind in a greased 23cm tin. Baking blind is when you cover the pastry in foil and then put baking beans (or raw pasta or rice) on to the top. This keeps the pastry in shape.

4. Cook for 15 mins. Remove the beans and then cook for 10 mins until the pastry is golden brown. Then leave to cool.

5. Meanwhile make the curd. Mix the cornflour with a third of the water in a bowl.

6. Bring the remaining water to the boil, then add lemon zest and sugar. Once dissolved, pour in cornflour solution and mix until smooth. 

7. Remove from the heat and then stir in butter, then lemon juice and finally egg yolks. If there are lumps it may be useful to strain it in a sieve but it doesn't really matter. 

8. Pour the lemon curd onto the cooled pastry and leave to chill until the curd firms up. This will stop the meringue layer from mixing with the curd. 

9. If you have turned the oven off, preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. 

10. Whisk the four egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Then, at a tablespoon at a time, add the sugar, whisking after each addition until smooth and glossy. 

11. Spoon the meringue onto the lemon curd layer (if you want to be neat you can pipe the meringue but I don't think it is necessary) and bake for around 20 mins or until the meringue is golden and crispy on the top. 

12. Leave to cool and then eat. 

Florentines

Last weekend I stayed at my friend Susy's house and we decided to make florentines... we made up the recipe a little. It is one of those things which is basically made up of any kind of dried fruit and in our case cereal that you can find, so that you have a cakey mixture.

So here it is. Enjoy!

Just a quick note that these quantities make  about 4 trays worth of florentines so if that sounds like a lot, I would half the ingredient quantities.

Ingrediants
60g butter
150g golden caster sugar
4 tsp flour
150ml crème fraîche
100g flaked almonds, toasted
2 tbsp candied peel
50g dried berries
2 tbsp crunchie nut cornflakes or cereal of your choosing
4 tbsp raisins
50g glace cherries
300g of chocolate of your choice

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Heat the butter, sugar and flour in a pan over a medium heat, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.
3. Gradually add the crème fraîche until well combined.
4. Add the dried fruit, nuts and cereal and mix well.
5. Grease a baking tray and place a couple of teaspoons of the florentine mixture on to it for each one. Space them out as they tend to spread!
6. Bake for around 15 mins and then leave to cool
7. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. 
8. Dip the florentines in the chocolate. And then leave to cool so that the chocolate sets. 

These are amazing by the way, they are like flapjacks but better and then dipped in chocolate. What's not to love?!

Marshmallow Krispie Cakes

A quick, easy and delicious after school snack - not that healthy but you can't have everything!

You can buy these for 55p from most corner shops in the UK under the name "Squares" and are made by Kellogg's. And although relatively cheap in comparison to chocolate bars, you can make them for a lot cheaper

Ingredients:

40g butter

200g marshmallows

120g rice krispies or other rice cereal (these can be replaced by nuts, fruit etc)

Melt the butter and marshmallows over a low heat until an incorporated gooey liquid.

Take off the heat and stir in the cereal until completely coated in melted marshmallow.

Grease a baking tray (20x20) and then scoop the mixture in to it. Pat the mixture down so it is as flat as possible.

Leave to set in a cool place for as long as needed- mine only took 30 mins.

Then they are ready to eat. See, super quick and easy!

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

It is so difficult to choose if you want chocolate cake or vanilla sponge, I find anyway... 

If this is the same for you, this cake is the answer to all of your problems! The cake is chocolate and vanilla mixed together so you get both in one slice. It is perfect and really really easy. I also bake mine in a bundt tin which I think makes it look a bit nicer too.

Ingredients:

300g butter

300g caster sugar

6 eggs

150ml milk

280g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

60g chocolate chips

25g cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the eggs bit by bit, followed by the milk. At this stage the mixture may look curdled but it will recover!

Divide the mixture between two bowls. Mix the flour and baking powder together. 

Fold 155g of the flour to one bowl along with the vanilla extract and chocolate chips.

To the other bowl add fold in the remaining 125g of flour and the 25g of cocoa powder. 

Spoon the chocolate mixture in to the base of your greased bundt tin (obviously you can use a different one but I prefer a bundt for looks). Then make a slight trough and pour the vanilla mixture on to the top. 

Bake for about 45 mins or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in to the top of the cake. 

Madeleine Madness

As I mentioned in my last post, I have recently acquired a Madeleine tin and since then I have gone a little over board in baking them.

THEY ARE JUST SO EASY! and delicious!

So here are a couple of recipes which I think are fab...

Lemony Madeleines -  this is inspired by Michael Roux Jr's recipe

2 eggs
100g caster sugar
100g plain flour
1 lemon, juice and zest
3/4 tsp baking powder
100g butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 5

Using a pastry brush, cover the molds in melted butter so they cakes come out of the tin all nicely.

Whisk together the eggs and sugar until frothy like shaving cream and then whisk in the remaining ingredients. 

You can leave this to stand for 20 minutes if you wish, but I have found that it is not really necessary. 

Pour the mixture in to the molds so that they are 3/4 full, this gives them space to rise.

Bake for around 10 minutes, or until spongy and a cake tester comes out clean.

Eat quickly!

Honey and Almond Madeleines

2 eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

65g caster sugar

25g runny honey

100g plain flour

50g ground almonds

100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 tablespoons of flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 5

Using a pastry brush, cover the molds in melted butter so they cakes come out of the tin all nicely.

Whisk together the eggs, honey, vanilla extract  and sugar until mousse-like.

Fold in flour and ground almonds.

Drizzle melted butter over the mixture and mix until there are no more buttery streaks.

Pour the mixture in to the molds so that they are 3/4 full, this gives them space to rise. Scatter flaked almonds over the top.

Bake for around 10 minutes, or until spongy and a cake tester comes out clean.

These can be kept for up to 4 days in an air-tight container. 

I personally prefer the first recipe as I love lemon and I think it makes a really nice fresh sponge. But try both!

Recent Baking Purchases and Gifts

As you should all know, it was Christmas a few weeks ago... if you didn't know that.... Well you do know and I don't know how you managed to avoid it.

Anyway I received a selection of baking delights and treats in my stocking and the like. I then went to stay with my close friend Eve in Woodbridge which is a lovely village in Suffolk. Made all the more lovelier by one of the best baking shops I have ever been in to. This shop has EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. We tested it.
I have been searching John Lewis, a department store, for months trying to find a madeline tin with no luck and this baking shop had one. For under a tenner and everything! Needless to say that was not my only purchase in that shop

So this blog post is basically, a what I have recently acquired and by extension what sort of recipes you can look forward to over the course of the year....

First Christmas...

1. Icing Modelling tool set- so I am going to try and develop my icing and general decorating skills as I think that we are all aware that they are not the best.

2. Cake Tester- just a cute little present as I always lose the skewer that we have. 

3. Star Shaped Cake Tin- I am thinking that this will be really cute for making upside down cake as the fruit on top will all be patterned and pretty.

4. Camera Lens Timer- just lovely cute gifty present

5. Food Colouring Paste - obviously I have liquid food colouring but many recipes work better with solid food colouring so I think it might be time for another try at red velvet cake...

6. Edible Glitter - just a nice decorating thing for cupcakes and the like

7. Tartlet tins - mmmm tarts 

I also got a spatula but I didn't think that was that interesting....

I also got this great great great apron which was personalised and everything! just having photo issues at the moment... will show it in the next post!

I got a few cookery books as well....

The Cupcake - Marks and Spencer

The Great British Bake Off: How to turn everyday bakes into showstoppers - Linda Collister

On to the great baking shop....

A mini bundt tin - Yes a singular mini bundt tin I know this is not that practical but it was SO cute that I just couldn't resist and I am very excited about using this and making lots and lots and lots of little tiny bundts...

Nylon Icing Bags- what it says on the tin

3 mini nozzles- for decorative piping on biscuits and stuff... I will just have to start practicing with them haha

So that was it...  was slightly different to usual but I thought I would just try something new...

Let me now what you think in the comments.

The Gingerbread House Fail

HAPPY BELATED CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

OK now that's out of the way... 

As Christmas is basically finished, I have reached the point in which proper work is supposed to be done to prepare exams coming up but I am just not feeling it, so I am trying to cling on to any thread of Christmas that I can. If I am still doing festive things it is still Christmas and I don't have to work... shh... It is the truth.

So I decided to build a gingerbread house with my brother... 

I used Mary Berry's Recipe as I have never done this before and the quantities are TOO big to make one of my own... 

And we began and it seemed to be going fine, after a slight hiccup about measurements, the dough was coming together. But then when we tried to roll out the dough it wouldn't stick together. 

We tried everything, and I mean everything, we added milk, water, butter, but nothing worked... HOW DO YOU FIX THIS?! Seriously I want to know, so any ideas leave in the comments below! 

Instead of throwing about a kilo of mixture away, we salvaged it and made millions of ginger biscuits. We even put crushed boiled sweets in holes in the middle of them, to make them like stained glass, oooooooh. Well fancy, I know.

I don't have a picture of them because they are just not pretty but they look like iced biscuits and they taste lovely. Claps for Mary!

Anyway, I should get back to eating the mountain of biscuits as I don't want to spend the whole of 2014 living off them.

Rocky Road Bites

A simple delicious thing which you can make from pretty much anything in your cupboards.

220g Chocolate: 120g Milk and 100g dark but this can be edited.
75g Marshmallows
75g Chopped Mixed Nuts

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Once completely melted, stir in the other ingredients - they don't have to be the ones I have mentioned. You could use digestives, sultanas, popcorn if you really want etc. They should be covered in chocolate. 

You can pour the mixture in to a greased tray and cut in to squares but I have been inspired by Nigella and I prefer them in small dollops. They are easy bite size chunks without slicing.

Leave to cool, if you put them in a fridge the shine of the chocolate will fade, but obviously it is often the only solution.

Christmas Countdown: Day 1: Gingerbread

HAPPY ADVENT!

In the run up to Christmas, I am going to post every single day.

So to start it all off... Gingerbread...

Usually when one thinks of gingerbread, one thinks of a gingerbread man and family altogether happily in their little gingerbread house. Or if you are of my generation (but mainly if you are younger), Gingi from Shrek...

(property of es.shrek.wikia.com)

Anyway this is not gingerbread like the above, this is proper gingerbread, as in bread-like consistency gingerbread, the hard core stuff.

The main difficulties with making gingerbread is that it contains black treacle, which is a pain to get hold of and rarely have in your cupboards so you have to go and buy it specially. However as luck would have it, there was a tin of it already in my kitchen cupboard....weird...

Gingerbread is made by heating butter (150g) with muscovado sugar (110g), ginger from a jar, sliced, (2tsp), cinnamon (1tsp) and a hell of a lot of golden syrup (200g) and black treacle (200g) together over a low heat so that they melt.

You could also add a bit syrup from the ginger jar to make it more sticky and gingery.

*QUICK TIP: Pour a bit of oil over the spoon which you are going to use to measure out the treacle as then it doesn't stick, it just slides off!*

Put 1tsp of bicarb in 2tbsp of hot water until it has dissolved and is cool. Then mix with 2 eggs and 230ml of milk. Add this to the mixture which has just cooled. 

Beat the liquid ingredients in to 300g of plain flour, sifted. Mix this thoroughly until there are no pockets of flour as I have found in the past that the flour tends to clump together, which isn't so nice when eating... 

Pour in to a greased rectangular tin of about 30x20x15. And bake for 45 mins.

Then I find that if you pour a lemon glace icing over the top using water, lemon juice and icing sugar. Left to set, the lemon cuts through the musky ginger flavor making a nice contrast, and decreasing the heaviness.

Perfect to get you in to the festive spirit. 

Cranberry and Citrus Christmas Cake Recipe

Yes, I went there. I said the "C" word and I am not taking it back!

Now is the time to make your Christmas cake if you haven't done it already, and for those of you who haven't, this one is for you.

This is a recipe of my own design and it is meant to fit in a 23cm round tin, obviously you can edit the measurements depending on your preferences.

To me, oranges and citrus fruits are very festive in flavour while the colour of cranberries, red if you didn't know, is as well. Thus they seemed to be the perfect combination.

Ingredients:

500g Raisins
400g Sultanas
125g Cranberries
110g Glace Cherries
120g Mixed Peel
120ml Brandy (you can use sherry if you prefer)
225g Butter
195g Brown Sugar
Zest of 2 oranges
4 eggs
2 tbsps Orange Marmalade
295g Plain Flour
55g Ground Almonds
1 tsp Almond Essence
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Mixed Spice
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Method:

1. Put all your dried fruit into a bowl, pour the brandy over the top, cover and leave to soak overnight.

2. Preheat your oven to 150 degrees / gas mark

3. And line your tin. Now this is more complicated than it sounds... Wrap brown paper around the outside of the tin so it stands above the top of the tin by 10cm, secure with string wrapped around it. Then line the tin as normal with butter and baking paper.

4.Cream the butter and sugar together.

5.Beat in the orange zest

6. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one, and then the marmalade.

7. the dry ingredients together and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the dried fruit until all is combined.

8. Add the almond essence and mix thoroughly.

9. Put the cake mix into the cake tin and bake for about 3/3.5 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. If your oven is quite savage, like mine, I would advise making a hat for your cake out of tin foil to prevent the top from burning.

10. When the cake is finished wrap in foil and put into a tin immediately to cool so that the steam is trapped and keeps the cake moist on the top.

11. Then re-wrap in tinfoil, (don't cover the top this time) and return to the tin.

12. You will need to "feed" your cake with brandy every week in order to preserve the cake and add extra flavour.

I hope that was helpful and you are now all going to go and bake your own Christmas cakes rather than buying one. I will do a post on icing it just before Christmas day. 

And with that, good luck! 

John Whaite Bakes

Tomorrow is the Great British Bake Off quarter final, it is getting serious now! *cue screams*

So in celebration of the fact it is nearly the GBBO quarter final and the woes that I can never enter, I did a selection of bakes from last years winner's book, John Whaite Bakes. 

Also apologies in advance about the picture quality, it is appalling and I don't really know why, except camera troubles. 

I started off by baking his "Simple Strawberry Tart" - as, let's face it summer is coming to a close...or is over altogether. 

The tart is a shortcrust pastry base filled with creme patisserie and then covered in strawberries. It was a sweet and delicious tart which I know that when summer returns, if summer returns, I will definitely be baking this again. It also meant I had to make creme pat for the first time, exciting!

I then attempted to create a plaited loaf. Which soon became two plaits of three strands which is slightly less impressive. For some reason, the dough was a complete and utter failure. And although it tasted ok, the strands didn't become one in the oven and the texture was a bit off. I don't like making bread!

In a quest to find a simple thing to bake I turned to his Caramel Shard Cookies which involves making a simple cookie dough and a slab of caramel, which is smashed. They are then combined, to make a rather dangerous cookie dough mixture. 

The odd thing about this recipe is that they are baked as balls, they are not shaped before they go in to the oven, but suprisingly enough they baked perfectly. 

They were fab and I was eating them for a whole week, the vision of health that I am. 

 Doesn't it look beautiful!

 John Whaite, if you are reading this, your book is gold, I love it. Everyone should buy a copy just for the recipes I have mentioned above, if nothing else.

I cannot wait for Bake Off, as sadly enough, along with Downton Abbey, it is the highlight of my television week.

And with that all that remains to be said is, on your marks, get set, bake!