As birthdays go, I think the Mad Professor has probably had better ones (at least the start, anyway).  We all overslept and there was loads of shouting, jostling for bathroom space, yelling at the cat and stuffing down of toast (I did manage to write ’17′ in jam on his, at least…), with no time for pressie opening or even a quick round of the happy birthday song (we  like the Disney version, complete with clapping.  Only if nobody else can hear).  We rushed out of the door to school still wrestling blazers, tucking in shirts and eating toast.

One the upside, he only had one class today and I was supposed to pick him up at 11am, but then my lovely ex-sister in law, who I don’t get to see very much any more, popped round with a card, and we got chatting and…

I forgot him.

On his birthday.

In torrential rain.

When I finally got to the school, the birthday boy looked like a drowned rat and appeared to have lost his happy birthday sparkle.  He was darned miserable.  He sat next to me and heaved an unhappy sigh, wiping the mist off his glasses as the rain water dripped off his nose.

Still, to cheer him up, I reminded him that it was Birthday Cake Privilege time.  As you’ll know, at English Towers, the birthday person gets to choose their own birthday cake. And I have to make it, no matter what they choose (I draw the line at novelty cakes though – they can only choose flavours.  I’m not making bloody rabbits and scenes from Star Wars).

The Prof chose a four tier jammy creamy vanilla flavoured cake.  Raspberry jam, PROPER cream, and lots of it.  Then he took his soggy self upstairs to change and console himself with a couple of games of shooting people until their heads explode. As you do.

Anyhoo, I set to work making a basic vanilla sponge.  It’s easy peasy. Heavy on the vanilla as you really want the flavour to shine through:

The Mad Professor’s Four Tier Jammy Creamy Vanilla Birthday Cake

175g butter (room temp is best)

175g golden caster sugar

3 large free range eggs

2 tsp good quality vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

175 self raising flour

For the filling/topping:

Large tub of double cream (not whipping cream)

Jar of nice raspberry jam

• So in the mixer, whizz up the butter until nice and soft, then add in the caster sugar and whisk until really soft, pale and fluffy.
• Break the eggs into a bowl, give them a quick mix with a fork, then dribble them into the mixture. Have your flour weighed out so if it starts to curdle, you can add a spoonful to bring it back together.
• Add in the vanilla and then gently stir in the flour.
• Blob half of the mixture into each buttered, lined medium cake tin (you can weigh them to get them exact if you can be arsed)
• Bake at 180/gas 4 for about 20 minutes. You want them just golden so they spring up in the middle when gently pressed.
• Tip them out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.  Once cooled, carefully cut each cake in half to create two layers.

Whip the double cream (I say double rather than whipping cream because it has a bit more body – useful when you’re layering – whipping cream tends to flump out of the sides and the whole thing can collapse if you’re not careful), then start to assemble:

Place your first layer on your serving plate or stand, spread generously with raspberry jam, then dollop on a couple of spoonfuls of cream.  Don’t push down as you add the next layer or you’ll get unwanted splurging (and nobody wants that).  Continue to add each layer, adding jam and cream until you add the top layer and dollop on the remaining cream.  I decorated with little white chocolate thingies, but was told that this was ‘too girly’ and to remove them immediately.

And finally…

The smile was back.

Happy birthday Sam xxx

It’s been an odd weekend.  First of all we watched ourselves on the telly (it’s a very weird experience, I can tell you).  We took part in a Channel 5 programme being made about Disneyland Paris’ 20th birthday celebrations when were out there a couple of weeks ago – it aired yesterday.  I actually managed to take a picture of the Death Wish Dude being interviewed – here he is in all his widescreen glory!  Anyhoo, after all that excitement, it was straight on to the birthday cake challenge.  As you might already know, it is the tradition at English Towers for the birthday boy to pick his very own choice of birthday cake.  Usually they choose something hideously difficult to make (just to annoy me), but this time, the Birthday Death Wish Dude wanted nothing more than a big fat chocolate cake.

Easy peasy.  The only difference is that I had a little experiment and tried making the ganache with coconut milk instead of double cream. It came out deliciously light and whipped beautifully.  Highly recommended.

To make the Death Wish Dude’s Ultimate Coconut Ganache Chocolate Layer Cake, you’ll need:

175g butter (I use salted)

175g golden caster sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

20g good quality cocoa powder

100g good quality dark chocolate

For the ganache:

400g tin coconut milk (I used the full fat stuff)

500g (yes, yes, I know… ) good quality dark chocolate

1 packet Maltesers

So firstly, melt the chocolate (you can do it all at the same time or in the two batches.  It’s quite easy to pour the melted chocolate into the mixer bowl when it’s sat on the scale) in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  Don’t let the water touch the bowl (yeah you know the drill).

Beat the butter in the food processor until light, then add the sugar and whizz again until pale and fluffy.  Add in the eggs (I beat them, then add them a dribble at a time – helps with the odd bits of dropped shell too), then stir in the sifted flour and cocoa.  Finally, stir in the 100g melted chocolate.

Bake in two medium lined tins for about 20 minutes until just springy in the centre.  Allow to cool.

For the ganache:

Warm the coconut milk in a saucepan – don’t allow it to boil, it only needs to be warm enough to melt the chocolate.  Then just turn off the heat, plop all the chocolate in and stir occasionally until it’s all melted.

Transfer to a bowl and chill down completely in the fridge.

To assemble:

Carefully slice each cake into two.  Pick a nice flat one as your top layer and remember which one it is!

Take the ganache out of the fridge and whip until light and fluffy (or you can just spread it).

Layer the cake slices with a thick spreading of ganache then finish with a nice layer of ganache all over the cake.  If the thought of 500g of chocolate gives you a heart attack, you can halve the quantities and just layer the two cakes together.

Finish with Maltesers (beer can candles optional).

And here he is with his birthday cake of choice.  Happy birthday, Charlie! xx

l love cream.  But with double cream containing 48% fat, it’s not exactly your healthy option.  Fine for the occasional treat, but not for every day.  So how can we still make all the lovely creamy recipes and sauces that we love whilst reducing some of the calories and producing a lighter, fresher end result?

Well, last time I was there, the Yeo Valley chaps set me a bit of a challenge: have a go at substituting yogurt in some of my favourite creamy recipes.   And you know me, I’m always up for a challenge in the kitchen.

In baking, dressings and marinades you can add yogurt straight from the fridge.  If you’re cooking with the lower fat yogurt varieties, you do run the risk, as with single cream, that they will ‘split’ (ie curdle) if you place them straight into a very hot environment.  You can counter this by using the ‘standard’ versions rather than the low fat (still much lower fat then cream) and bringing the yogurt up to room temperature before you cook with it.

I used Yeo Valley’s Greek Style Natural Yogurt which has 9.5% fat (plus a nice long sell-by date) so it’s still got a nice creamy finish and isn’t too sharp-tasting.  I’ve taken to keeping a couple of pots in the fridge as I use them at breakfast time, with fruit and muesli, as well as for cooking.

I had a go at cooking some of my favourite creamy recipes, substituting yoghurt instead. Here’s how I got on:

Spaghetti carbonara (or yoghetti carbonara – see what I did there?)

Snip a pack of smoked streaky bacon (outdoor reared, please) or pancetta into strips and fry in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until nice and crisp.  Set pan aside on a low heat (you can do this while the spaghetti cooks).

Cook 300g spaghetti in plenty of boiling, salted water.

Meanwhile, mix a large tablespoon of Greek yoghurt with two eggs and a splash of milk, then stir in a big handful of grated Parmigiano or Pecorino.

When the spaghetti’s cooked, drain and dump it into the bacon. Pour over the yogurt mixture and toss to combine.

The verdict:

To be honest, once we’d added Parmesan, we could hardly taste the difference.  Slightly sharper in flavour but still yummy.  Fussy Death Wish Dude didn’t even notice and hoovered it down, and the Prof said that he’d ‘noticed something a bit different’ when I told him afterwards. Success.

We also tried:

Ice Cream: AMAZING success here. We actually liked the flavour of the ice cream better with the yogurt.  Especially good with fruity and citrussy flavours and the bonus is here that you don’t need an ice cream machine.  Try folding lemon curd through Greek yogurt and adding a grating of fresh ginger for extra zing, or just fold through your favourite fruit compote (Yeo Valley do some lovely flavours) before freezing.  Take the ‘ice cream’ out of the freezer to soften up a little before serving.

As a dressing: I mixed the yogurt half and half with mayonnaise, added a squeeze of lemon and a handful of herbs and served it with smoked haddock fishcakes. Delicious.

However, my biggest success by a mile was with my usual buttermilk scone recipe:

Greek Yogurt Scones

Scone recipes often call for buttermilk.  Yogurt makes a great substitute as it’s still slightly acidic but adds a lightness to the finished scones. Here’s my adapted recipe:

500g plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp cream of tartar

125g cold butter

1 tbsp caster sugar

150g Greek yogurt

150ml milk

1 free range egg

First, get the oven nice and hot – you want it at 200 degrees/gas 7.

Next, weigh out all your dry ingredients.  Sifting them together will give you a lighter finish.  Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a knife, then rub it in, squeezing the butter pieces into the flour gently with your fingers until only small ‘flakes’ remain.  You don’t have to make it completely uniform.  Stir in the flour.

Now mix together the liquid ingredients.  Add them into the dry until it comes together into a soft dough.  You probably won’t need all the liquid.  Reserve it for glazing the scones at the end.

Roll the dough out quite thickly (say about 2-3cm) and cut out 12 rounds with a cutter.  Pop them onto a baking tray (sprinkle on a little flour first so they don’t stick) and brush them with the leftover liquid.  Sprinkle over a bit of extra sugar for colour and crunch.

These scones take literally about ten minutes to cook.  Keep an eye on them.  Serve warm with jam and more Greek yogurt.

The verdict: Fabulous.  Light and fluffy in the centre and they rose magnificently too.  I’ll be using yogurt from now on!

Still in pursuit of the perfect chocolate brownie, then, I made these while my children were out making giant… erm.. appendages out of snow.  I would show you a video but they’re all disgusting and their grandparents might see.  I don’t know where they get it from.

These brownies are utterly lush and slightly more ‘grown up’ than the version I usually make (George’s chocolate brownies) but the recipe is mostly the same.  I think they benefit from being served warm as the ‘oranginess’ comes out more.

You will need:

200g dark chocolate (as dark as you dare – see below)

170g salted butter (MUST be salted – or add a pinch if using unsalted)

3 tablespoons marmalade (I used rindless for a smooth result)

3 eggs

200g soft brown sugar (caster is fine if you don’t have any)

110g plain flour

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 degrees.

Melt the butter, chocolate and marmalade in a bain-marie (you know the drill… bowl over a saucepan of just-simmering water – don’t let the bottom of the bowl come into contact with water).  Don’t use the microwave – I’ve no idea why but melting chocolate in the microwave REALLY offends me.  Turn the water off when it’s just bubbling and stir the mixture gently until it’s combined.  Take it off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy, then pour in the cooled chocolate/butter mixture, stir well, then add in the flour.  Stir briefly until the flour disappears.

Pour into a well-lined baking tin (I use a lasagne tin, but a square cake tin will do).  Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is cracked and shiny.  The centre should still be slightly soft.  Serve warm or allow to cool and place in an airtight container

For the orangettes, choose a really dark chocolate – try Green & Black’s or Montezuma’s do a brilliant, rich Ecuador 70% dark chocolate that I’m just slightly addicted to.  Melt two or three squares in a tiny jug and just dip small pieces of Orangette into them.  If you have any trouble buying the orangettes (basically, candied orange peel – I got mine in my Good Fork hamper), you can make your own, or try Amazon (believe it or not).

These would be beautiful served at the end of a dinner party with the dark chocolate orangettes, little cups of very strong espresso coffee and maybe some freezing cold shot glasses of Cointreau too.

(Best get rid of the snow willies on the front lawn first, though).

So the weekend was somewhat traumatic.  I won’t fill you in on all the events, but needless to say being trapped in a packed train carriage all the way from Shepherds Bush while the three teenagers I was escorting serenaded their fellow commuters with loud renditions of My Horse is Amazing (seriously – don’t bother watching it, it’s that bad) and then being politely told that we were, in fact, accidentally in the first class carriage, shall remain with me for a long time and was one of the lesser traumatising events of the weekend.  Read out of that what you will.

Anyhoo.  In other news, I’m still on the lookout for a lovely breakfasty-type recipe that’s also quite healthy (I know, I know… giving up alcohol and vowing to eat healthily for the whole of January was a BIG HUGE MISTAKE – I have learned both that I could never be teetotal, and that I can’t live without cake) still, it’s nearly over now).  Yesterday I came across possibly one of the prettiest blogs I’ve ever seen: Eat Yourself Skinny.  It turns out that not only is the blog pretty, but the writer, Kelly, is ridiculously pretty as well.

So I thought, well.  If I eat what she eats, surely I’ll wake up looking exactly like her.

Right?

Oh.

Anyhoo, on to the trial and error.  I noticed that lovely Kelly’s blueberry and lemon bread was adapted from  Joy of Baking, so I went back to the original recipe to have a look.  Here’s my version.  I had to change it all from cups, and I decided to use rapeseed oil instead of butter (similar calories, just much better for you).  The result was yummy, although the inside of the cake was a bit too stodgy, presumably because beating the butter and sugar together introduces air into the mixture.  So I say stick with butter (the calories are the same).  I will say, though, that cutting it into the recommended 12 portions proved to be too much of a challenge.  Still, if you do manage it, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s just 159 calories a slice (might be better to cut it into 6 slices, then cut each in half). I also used a sugar substitute to keep the calories down (I know, I know, but honestly you can’t taste the difference).  Lastly, I used a whole punnet of blueberries which is a bit too much.  Stick to 150g.

You will need:

80g butter

6 tbsp granulated sugar substitute (try the new Truvia one – I haven’t been able to get hold of it yet)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

225g self raising flour

125ml milk

So preheat the oven to 180/gas 4 and spray a loaf tin with cake release (or butter it very lightly).

Beat the butter in a mixer (or by hand if you’re feeling butch), then add the sugar and beat until the mixture’s really light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, beating between each addition, and then the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

Stir in the flour and then the milk.  Finally, stir in the blueberries

Pop the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about 50 minutes.  Pop a knife tip into the centre to check that it’s done, otherwise leave for a bit longer.

Allow it to cool before slicing into your minute portions.  It really is surprisingly lush though – and the blueberries make it quite jammy and sticky too.  Top tip: freeze your slices (with a piece of greaseproof paper between each one). Then they’re easy to pop into the toaster for a quick and healthy breakfast.

Moving swiftly on from healthy eating, then, we must remember there are those of us at English Towers (the gangly, floppy haired ones and the skatery types) that still want a little something after school or dinner and demand treats, preferably piled up in an ungainly, chocolatey tower when doing A level revision.

This, and I don’t say this lightly, is my best chocolate brownie recipe ever.  I make it such a lot that I know it off by heart.  Oh yes, it’s been tweaked and added to (pistachios, chopped up Cadbury Fudge bars, rum-soaked raisins), but the plain old dark chocolate version is the one we love.  I also have to make this whenever the Death Wish Dude’s lovely mate, George, comes to visit as he’s a bit of a fan.  You’ll need:

200g dark chocolate (I swear by Bournville – already in a handy 200g size, dark but not too bitter)

170g salted butter (MUST be salted – or add a pinch if using unsalted)

3 eggs

200g soft brown sugar (caster is fine if you don’t have any)

110g plain flour

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 degrees.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain-marie (you know the drill… bowl over a saucepan of just-simmering water – don’t let the bottom of the bowl come into contact with water).  Turn the water off when it’s just bubbling and stir the mixture gently until it’s combined.  Take it off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy, then pour in the cooled chocolate/butter mixture, stir well, then add in the flour and any extras you’re adding (nuts… raisins… smarties… whatever).  Stir briefly until the flour disappears.

Pour into a well-lined baking tin (I use a lasagne tin, but a square cake tin will do).  Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is cracked and shiny.  The centre should still be slightly soft.  Serve warm with ice cream (or if you’re serving as a dessert, whisk some cream with a bit of icing sugar and a slug of booze) or allow to cool and place in an airtight container

One word of warning: cut them small.  They won’t last long.

Okay so not exactly science… just baking jiggery pokery really.

First, can I say that I’m not a fan of processed low-fat ANYTHING.  If I’m going to spread butter on my bread it’s going to be butter (Yeo Valley out of preference), and nothing remotely low-fatty or weirdly whipped with water.

Still, it’s the New Year and while I love my cakey buns, I’m determined to shed a few Christmas pounds, and when you’re healthy eating, sometimes the worst thing to get over is a craving for something sweet.  A banana or handful of raisins will often do the trick, but let’s face it, you can’t beat cake.  The worst thing about cake is, well, everything really – fat, sugar and refined white flour are possibly the things that most of us are trying to avoid.

Enter stage left, the well-loved but often under-appreciated Mr Muffin.  He’s smaller, more portable and, in lower-fat baking terms, easier to keep moist.  Bless him.

So what’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake (or fairy cake)?  Well, I’d say a muffin is more breakfasty and bready, and a cupcake is more, well, cakey.  Also I find that muffin recipes tend to contain oil, while cupcakes are more buttery, and more often than not are iced too.  But hey, a cake is a cake is a cake, right?  HOWEVER.  There are substitutes you can make in baking, and it IS possible to make a healthier version.  So let’s attack these babies one at a time, shall we?

FAT

Fat plays an important part in a cake recipe.  Butter, for a start, adds flavour, but more than that (and without getting too technical) it’s essential for lightness, as it plays a part in holding the air bubbles you’ve produced (by whisking the eggs and adding stuff like baking powder) and keeps the cake soft by ‘wrapping’ itself around the protein in the flour.

So. You can’t get rid of it completely, therefore use it wisely and make sure the fat you do use is good for you.  Rapeseed oil is excellent (I’ve talked about it before here).  You can, however, cut it down and replace some of it with other moist ingredients like fruit (apple purée or mashed banana, prunes, squished peaches…) or low-fat dairy like yoghurt and creme fraiche.  Yes, you’ll reduce the lightness a little bit, but you can get away with it.

SUGAR

Sugar obviously adds flavour (and again, without getting too technical, it inhibits gluten development, which, when allowed to run rampant can make cakes and biscuits a bit hard) and it also helps with browning.  If you’re using fruit as a substitute fat, this can help with sweetness too, and it can help with browning as cutting down sugar can sometimes make cakes look a bit insipid.  Honey can help here as it’s much better for us and has natural sweetness.

REFINED FLOUR

If you’re reducing fat and sugar, you’re going to give yourself the problem of toughness (remember the protein ‘wrapping’ and gluten development I mentioned above?  This is why an awful lot of low-fat foods have TONS of sugar in – it’s not just flavour, it’s about a tender end result as well).  So what else can we do?  Well, we can reduce the gluten in the first place, by replacing some of it with things like oats, which are much lower in gluten-producing proteins.  You can also experiment with low-gluten flours like rye flour.  Wholemeal flour is obviously a healthier option too and should contain less gluten (although I’m being cautious here, as this isn’t always the case).

Other tips for low-fat baking:

So now I’ve bored you to death with all this talk of gluten and ‘wrapping’, here are a couple of other things to consider:

Experiment.  You might love a recipe made with peach purée but hate mashed banana.  You might find that a recipe is too tough, but taking away a little flour and adding another handful of oats can make a terrific difference.  Have a play.  The only thing you’ll lose is the odd cake or batch of muffins (which will probably still be nice enough to eat anyway).

Try just cutting the fat down on a normal recipe.  You can often eliminate a third or even half the amount of butter without doing that much damage to the finished cake (trust me).

Lessen cooking times to retain moisture – with lower fat baking, you might find your cakes need less time in the oven.  This is often why muffins are better than cakes – they require much less oven time.

Remember the GMR.  The Golden Muffin Rule is most applicable when healthy baking – stir ONLY as much as necessary.  Working the mixture will develop the gluten and toughen up your end result.

If you find your recipe is a bit dense, try beating the egg whites and folding them into the mixture.

And finally, DON’T ever bother cooking with low-fat butter or margarine type thingies.  They are the spawn of the devil and should be avoided at all costs. Bleurgh.

So here’s my recipe for healthier muffins.  They’re not sweet, delicate little cupcakes, but for a healthy breakfast, they’re pretty unbeatable.  Try stirring through a handful of blueberries or some raisins too:

Banana, oat and honey healthy muffins

So…preheat your oven to gas 4/180.  Pop paper cases into a 12 hole muffin tin.

First combine your wet ingredients:

1 large egg

120g low fat yoghurt

120g milk

2 tablespoons rapeseed oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large or 2 small bananas, mashed

1 or 2 tbsp honey

Then get all the dry ingredients ready in another bowl:

50g porridge oats

100g golden caster sugar

60g wholemeal flour

150g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

Now, bung the wet into the dry and quickly combine with a fork (remember the GMR – don’t worry if there’s the odd bit of flour left).  Pop a tablespoon of mixture into each muffin case and get them into the oven quickly.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes (remember, the moister the better).  They won’t keep more than a day or two (in an airtight tin), but they’re a great healthy breakfast or sweet treat to keep you on the straight and narrow, or to shut the kids up when they’re after cakeage and you don’t want them rolling around like fat little barrels.  Oops, a bit non-PC there. Sorry.

A word of warning here, though, if you eat all 12 with three cups of tea, then possibly the ‘healthy’ tag doesn’t apply.

Just saying.

So you’re going to love this. No, really, it’s a winner.

How about…

Home made jaffa cakes? Wait… wait…

In the shape of Christmas trees!

I know, right?

If, like me, you’re now wild with excitement (or even if you’re not) do have a go at making these little beauties. They taste absolutely fab and can be made in normal paper fairy cake wrappers if you’re not imbued with quite as much Christmas spirit as me.

On to the ressup, then. You will need:

115g butter

115g golden caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g self raising flour

To decorate:

Rindless marmalade

100g dark chocolate

So make the sponge in the normal way: beat the butter and sugar until really light and creamy, then beat in the eggs a dribble at a time and then the vanilla. Finally, stir in the sifted flour.

If you’re using one of these silicone moulds (I got mine in John Lewis), give it a spray with some cake release (mine’s Dr Oetker and is incredibly good) to stop the little suckers sticking. Plop a scant dessertspoon of cake mixture in each ‘tree’, and bake at 180/gas4 for 10 – 15 minutes until just golden.

Allow the cakes to cool and then turn them out. If they’re a little rounded on the top, you might need to just cut off the very top (which will actually be the bottom, if you see what I mean) so they sit right.

Now, take a spoonful of the marmalade and pop it onto a board. You should then be able to cut little slivers off this blob to pop on top of each tree. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie (bowl over just –simmering water, but you knew that, right?) and spoon over each blob of jelly.

And there you have it. Chocolatey, orangey AND Christmassy. I’m LOVING that.

I’ve entered these into Choclette’s ‘We Should Cocoa’ chocolate challenge, the theme of which this month, unsurprisingly is… orange!

Okay so last time we saw your Christmas cake it was stashed somewhere wrapped in parchment or foil and being occasionally sloshed with a bit of booze.  Now it’s time for the final push… the decoration!

Making your own marzipan (or almond paste) is really easy. There are recipes everywhere so I won’t bore you with that bit.  You can also pick up a block of marzipan at your local supermarket.  Easy.

Firstly, then… you need something sticky to adhere the marzipan to your cake.  Traditionally, apricot jam is used, but frankly I find it a pain as it’s often lumpy and my Christmas spirit doesn’t run to pushing jam through a sieve.  I use rindless marmalade, which is kind of like jelly so it’s much easier.  Plus the flavour echoes the orange in the cake.  So just put two or three spoonfuls of whatever sticky stuff you’re using and pop them into a saucepan.  Again, tradition says that you should ‘boil’ your jam, but really you just need to melt it.  As far as I can work out there’s no actual benefit from boiling it, plus it spits everywhere, makes a mess and HURTS (I’m speaking from experience here) if it splashes you.

So splodge your warm jam or jelly liberally all over your cake:

… then just roll out your marzipan (it’s helpful if you squish it into a rough circular shape before you start – use a dusting of icing sugar instead of flour) until it’s big enough to flop over the cake.  Then, take a breath… roll the marzipan up on to the rolling pin, and gently unroll it over the cake, smoothing it down over the sides:

Now just cut round it, tucking it in a bit underneath the cake and you’re done.  It will need to dry out now, so put it back in the tin for at least a few days (you’ve still got time!).

When it’s dry, it’s time for the fondant icing.  You can buy this in packs, and I think ready rolled as well.  I was really tempted by a hot pink colour in my local cake decorating shop, but resisted the urge and went for traditional white!

So now just repeat the process of shaping and rolling out your block of icing.  Give the marzipan a wash over with some boiling water to give the icing a ‘key’ to stick to, then just roll the icing onto the rolling pin and unroll over the cake, smoothing it down as before.  My cake wasn’t perfectly flat on top, but hey, I’m a home cook and I can’t stand the thought of cutting the cake to make it straight.  Feel free if you want to though.

Now for the fun bit! Go wild with your decoration.  I cut out stars from leftover icing (sticking them on with a dab of boiling water) and got these gorgeous glittery little chaps from Dr Oetker who really have excelled themselves recently with their Christmas bits and bobs, but if you want to stick with just the stars, or even just leave it plain, that’s fine too – hey, it’s your cake!

Pop your beauty back into the tin until you leave it.  If you want to leave out the marzipan layer, it’s best to do the fondant as soon as possible before you intend to eat it, as the cake tends to stain the icing without a marzipan layer.

And that’s it.  Give yourself a pat on the back and possibly a gin.  You deserve it.

So this weekend is the big X Factor final.  As you know I work with Yeo Valley and I’ve really enjoyed their ads this year – their ‘boy band’, The Churned, has frankly been better than a lot of the actual acts!

If you missed it (or just love The Churned), the advert will be playing during the X Factor ad break this Saturday.  And on Sunday, the winner of the Yeo Valley singalong competition is going to be announced (it better be me or there’ll be trouble) during the ad break too.

Anyhoo, aside from creating boy bands for the X Factor, Yeo Valley are actually quite good at making yogurt as well (who knew?).  Their most recent creation, the rather lovely and very seasonal Spiced Apple, is utterly gorgeous.  I used it to very good effect in this simple yoghurt cake.  You don’t have to use a posh bundt tin like this, but I think you’ll agree it does look rather nice and Christmassy.  It would also be rather lush with one of their other flavours – they’ve got a new pear and butterscotch one too.  Mmmmmmm.

To make the cake, you’ll need:

3 eggs

125ml rapeseed oil

450g self raising flour

300g golden caster sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

250g Yeo Valley Spiced Apple yogurt

For the yogurt frosting:

4 tbsp Yeo Valley Spiced Apple yogurt

100g white chocolate

So to make the cake, just give the eggs a quick whisk.  Add in the rapeseed oil and whisk again until combined.  Then add in all the dry ingredients and finally stir in the yogurt.

If you’re using a bundt tin, make sure you give it a good spritz of cake release spray (Dr Oetker is very good) to make sure you can get it out afterwards.  If you’re using a normal cake tin, just give the tin a quick rub with some oil.

Bake for around half an hour at gas 4/180 degrees.

To make the frosting, just melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water, then just take it off the heat and mix in the yogurt.  Pour all over the cake and stuff into face.