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.

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.

And lo, many moons ago (three years, to be precise) there was a foodie obsessed blogger who thought it would be really nice to get lots of pictures together from all the other foodie obsessed people out there and have a bit of a ‘look what I made!’ type get together.  And it’s grown to this – the wonderful Big Christmas Bakeoff.

Thanks so, so much if you entered this year.  Every single entry is amazing – some are technically brilliant, some are made with love by very small people… but all are fabulous in their own way.

The winners will be announced at the bottom of this post as soon as I can track down the chief judge, English Grandma.

The main winner will receive brand spanking new copies of both Jo Pratt’s books: In the mood for entertaining and In the mood for food, along with a load of other goodies like Leisure tea towels and oven gloves from Leisure Range Cookers, and FIVE lucky little bakers will win a Jingle the husky Story Buddy, complete with their very own storybook. Mahoosive thank you to both Leisure and   www.hallmark.co.uk for being so generous with the prizes.

So feast your eyes, then, and I’ll be back soon to tell you all about the winners!

AND IT’S OVER TO ENGLISH GRANDMA WITH THE RESULTS!….

The winner is Chelsea Mamma’s Baileys Cheesecake

Christmas biscuits by Cari’s 3 year old [so love that angel - with wings!]

Chocolate yule log from Marie & twins [yummmmm]

Carol & BG’s Christmas biscuits [so pretty]

Cass’ daughter’s gingerbread house [clever]

Nessa and family’s chocolate marshmallow brown sugar fudge [need you ask?]

Well done everyone!  Get in touch and we’ll get your prizes to you asap  And thanks to my fab sponsors and my wonderful Mum too!

I’m not completely sure where I first saw this recipe.  Rest assured it wasn’t my idea – I’m thinking maybe Martha Stewart or somewhere like that?

Anyhoo, if you’re entertaining on bonfire night, these little beauties are a great talking point.  If you don’t fancy chicken, just fill them with your usual minced beef recipe, or even just squeeze sausagemeat out of the casing to fill them.

The teenagers, you’ll  be delighted to know, took me to task over my original ‘scary’ description in the title, and said that it should be ‘grumpy’ or maybe ‘ugly’, so ugly it is, but if you want to make smiley ones go for it – they’re your pies, after all.

You will need:

3 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks

1 onion, finely chopped

Ham, cut into small chunks

1 tbsp flour

Chicken stock (about 200ml)

Seasoning

Making the filling:

So sauté the onions in a couple of tablespoons of rapeseed oil.  Add in the chicken and fry until it’s lightly browned.  Bung in the ham, then add in a tablespoon of flour, salt and pepper, and about 200ml chicken stock.  Stir well and cook gently for a while, just until the ‘rawness’ of the flour disappears and the sauce looks creamy.  Add in some thyme here if you like. It’s my favourite flavour with chicken.

The pastry:

If you want to make your own pastry, rub 200g of cold butter into 400g of plain flour, then add in 3 or 4 tablespoons of cold water until it just comes together.  If you’d rather buy it, that’s fine too.

Preheat your oven to gas 4/180 degrees.  Roll out your pastry and line a 6 hole yorkshire pudding tin (or individual little pie dishes) with pastry.

Baking blind:

You don’t have to blind bake these, but the bottoms will be crisper and they’ll hold together better.  Up to you.  Scrunch up some squares of greaseproof paper, then smooth out and pop on top of each pastry base – pour in baking beans (I use some old dried haricot beans that I keep especially for blind baking) and bake for about ten minutes.  Then remove the beans and give them another 5 minutes.

Making the pies:

Now roll out the rest of the pastry and cut out your scary faces (I cut round a saucer, then used a piping nozzle for the holes).  Fill generously with the chicken mixture then top with the pies.  A quick pass through the eggy wash department and your ugly faces are ready for the oven.

Bake for about 15/20 minutes until golden.  Pair with mini baked potatoes and maybe some roasted butternut squash soup and you’re good to go.  Have a great bonfire night.  Oh and be careful out there!

So who’s baking what for Halloween (or Hallowe’en) then?  My novelty baking skills are somewhat lacking (as evidenced by the debacle that was the spider cake a while back).  I’ve had a look around and here are some of my faves so far:

Asda’s spooky recipes (especially the skeleton gingerbread men)

Sprinkle Bakes’ frankly fabulous ‘batty’ Battenburg cake

Lovely Jam and Cream’s Hallowe’en cupcakes

Lavender and Lovage’s Halloween owls

Annabel Karmel’s ghostly cakes

New Mummy’s Tips’ spider cupcakes

National Baking Week’s spooky cookies

Maison Cupcake’s fabulous chocolate orange bats

Cherished by Me’s spiderweb cakes

Nessa’s Family Kitchen’s selection of Hallowe’en recipes (love the severed fingers best)

Bat and Ghost cookies from The Party Times

Jules’ amazing beetle cupcakes, plus her new beetle forest gateau

Lovely Helen at Aardvark Cakes’ ghostly gifts

Leave a comment telling me which one you like best (or telling about any Halloween recipes I’ve missed – or just say hello if you like) and you’ll be entered into a draw to win all the Dr Oetker baking goodies!

Dr Oetker are also giving away tickets to Cake 2011 via their Facebook page - you can become a fan here.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR  YOUR ENTRIES!

I used the random number generator and the number produced was 14.  The 14th comment appears to be: Beth!  Congrats Beth – email on its way to you

My Disreputable Dad is back from his holidays.  Bronzed and beautiful.

Two weeks in the south of France. They ate in the same restaurant every night.

‘Every night?’, I ask, incredulous.

‘Well yes’, he says, ‘except one.  Their steak frites was incredible.  We tried another restaurant for one night, but it wasn’t as good, so we went back to the original one’.

He’s a creature of habit, my father.

On my visit, we walked around his beautiful garden.  The plum trees are groaning with hard, green fruit.  A bumper crop.

And the apples got so heavy that they actually broke the bough of the tree.

I left with treasure of the appley variety.

Perfect for rustling up a simple apple crumble:

.

Apple Crumble

500g apple (weigh after peeling and coring)

Sugar for sweetening the fruit

175g plain flour

110g cold butter, cubed

110g golden caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees/gas 5.  Then just tumble the apples into a baking dish and sprinkle on a little sugar (these apples weren’t too sour, but taste one to judge how much sugar you’ll need to add).  If your apples are a bit ‘floury’ (like Bramleys can be sometimes), you might need to add a splash of water or fruit juice.

In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour gently with the ends of your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.  Don’t make it too uniform – the odd lump of butter is nice.

Stir in the sugar.  If you like here you can add a handful of porridge oats, some nuts, orange zest, cinnamon… whatever you fancy.

Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for about 30 minutes until the fruit is tender and the top golden.

So thanks Dad.  I’ll be back when the plums ripen too.

So after promising my lovely cousin, Moon and his wife Miska that I’d make cupcake towers for Mattie’s Christening, I’ve been having Laura-like cupcake anxiety dreams for the last week – nightmares about everything from collapsing towers to rock-hard icing have plagued my sleep.  I was almost glad when Saturday arrived and I could stop worrying and get on with it.  Brace yourself, then, a few gazillion photos to follow…

When I’d asked Moon and Miska what they wanted, they said ‘really bright colours’, so I chose base buttercream colours in violet, tangerine, lime and ice blue, topped with flavoured fondant in chocolate, sherbert lemon, fizzy orange and strawberry (not too much pink, obviously).  I spent a nice relaxing couple of days cutting out loads of stars and circles and also made some stars on ‘springs’ made of florist’s wire to dangle over the edge of the towers.

I was a bit disappointed as the fondant dried considerably lighter in colour, but hey, I decorated some of the stars with very dodgy ‘M’s and pearlised white writing icing and sprinkles and was quite pleased with the end result:

I then spent a very sweaty couple of hours in the kitchen baking the vanilla cupcakes, then mixing up the buttercream in batches and blending it with the colouring paste.

After the buttercream icings were completely chilled, I whipped them up again and piped them directly onto the cooled cakes. I did some with traditional swirls, some with little star clusters and a few ‘turds’, as my lovely son nicknamed them.  It started to go slightly wrong at this stage because the kitchen was so hot that the buttercream was starting to melt, so after a quick panic call to my Dad, he arranged for me to get into the venue and we transported all the cakes into their fridge – just in the nick of time.

The next morning I went and decorated all the cakes in situ and I have to say I left for the church feeling really proud of myself.  The buttercream stayed really vibrant, and it didn’t seem to matter than the fondant was slightly lighter in colour:

The actual Christening was wonderful.  Little Matty behaved so well and the Vicar was really lovely:

Everyone was so nice about the cupcakes and I absolutely adored watching this little girl concentrating so hard on choosing which one she’d have:

Matty was an absolute trooper, giving constant smiles and cuddles to everyone…

He showed off his walking:

and even gave his Dad a quick round of applause after his speech:

The hubster popped in to say hi on his way back to work:

And I was so proud of my fellas and my beautiful niece Lu, who were a great laugh and absolutely lovely company:

A special thank you to Helen at Aardvark Cakes for emergency Twitter panic support and her invaluable help and advice.

Also big thank you to Renshaw for the lovely flavoured fondant (my favourite was the lemon sherbet!).  Check out their amazing website: http://www.mybakes.co.uk/

Recipes:

The cupcakes were just basic vanilla sponges made in batches of 6 eggs (weighed in their shells), then equal weights of butter, caster sugar and self-raising flour.  Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs a little at a time.  Add 2tsp vanilla extract and then stir in the self-raising flour. Spoon into 24 muffin cases (1tbsp mixture into each) then bake at 180/gas 4 for about 20 mins.  NB: if you add a tray of water into the bottom of the oven, the cupcakes stay nice and flat on top.

The buttercream was 500g butter and 1kg icing sugar (per 24).  Cream the butter then gently add in the icing sugar and a splosh of milk and beat until soft and fluffy.  Add in about 1/2 tsp of colouring paste (use less for pastel colours), beat again, then refrigerate. Before piping, whip until soft.

My fellas aren’t bad at cooking.  I’m pretty sure that if they were let loose into the big wide world right this instant, they’d be able to cook themselves decent food, know how to shop for ingredients, and appreciate (if not exactly adhere to) the rules of nutrition.  Not bad for 13 and 16, I reckon.  Like most fellas, though (*cough*), they’re not particularly keen on baking.  Well, they want to do all the complicated posh things (your honour, I would draw your attention to exhibit A: the birthday meringue) but a basic sponge cake doesn’t hold a great deal of interest. I don’t think it’s because they can’t – it’s just that they don’t.  Still, if I had a quid for every time somebody said to me ‘I can’t make cakes’ or ‘I wish I could bake – it always goes wrong’, I’d be… well, not exactly rich, but I’d have a big pile of pound coins.

So here we are, then:  a step by step, foolproof guide to the perfect light, spongey sponge cake, complete with tips, dos, don’ts and ABSOLUTELY DON’Ts thrown in for good measure. I’m not saying this is the ONLY way, but it’s a great way to start. And once you’ve got your baking confidence, there’ll be no stopping you.

Ingredients

It goes without saying that the best ingredients will make the best cake. Baking is a feel-good endeavour. A sponge cake made with lovely ingredients, and lots of love, will be the best cake in the world.  I know I’ve said it before, but don’t bake when you’re tired, fed up or in a hurry.  It’ll go wrong – well, mine always does anyway.

Eggs

Fresh, free-range eggs with those startling golden yellow yolks will make better cakes than those awful, sad, battery-hen ones.

Butter

Likewise, gorgeous fresh farmhouse butter will make a cake taste much better than horrid, greasy margarine. Okay, it might be higher in fat, but hey we’re making a cake. If you don’t want fat, don’t eat cake! Moderation in all things, I reckon.

Flour

You don’t have to have self-raising flour. In fact, self-raising soon loses its raising power if it gets old. It’s easy to make your own self-raising with plain flour. Just add a level teaspoon of baking powder per 100g of plain flour.

Sugar

Plain old supermarket caster sugar is fine.  Don’t use granulated if you can help it as the grains are a bit too big and you can end up with a gritty texture (you could always give it a whizz in a grinder or blender to break down the grains).  Golden caster sugar is less refined than the white stuff – it’s lovely (if a bit more expensive) and gives a subtle hint of toffee too.

Temperatures

Room temperature eggs will whip better and incorporate more air into your mix, as will softened (not melted) butter. Take everything out of the fridge a good hour before you intend to start baking. If you need to bring your butter up to room temperature quickly, cut it into squares and plop it into some tepid (not warm) water. It’ll soon soften up.

Measuring

The easiest way to make a plain sponge cake is to just weigh your eggs in the shells (this sort of cake is also called a pound cake as it used to contain a pound of each ingredient – how anyone ever ate a cake that big, I’ll never know).  Whatever the eggs weigh will be the measurement you use for the butter, flour and sugar too. If you want to make it a chocolate cake, take out 1 tablespoon of the flour and replace it with cocoa powder (not hot chocolate powder – that’s different).  Giving it all a quick sieve will remove any lumps and incorporate more air.

Mixing

Here we go with the basic method, then…

First weigh out all your ingredients. It’s easiest to crack the eggs into a separate bowl after you’ve weighed them. You never know when you’re going to get a bit of shell dropping into your cake mix.

So say your eggs weigh.. 180g. Weigh out the same amount of butter, flour and caster sugar.

First, cream the butter and sugar together. You want it really light and fluffy, which is a sign that there is lots of air incorporated, so keep going until it’s considerably lighter in colour. You can do this in a food mixer, or just with a wooden spoon.

Now start to add in your eggs… dribble them in a bit at a time giving the mixture a good beat in between each dribble. Don’t worry too much if it starts to look a bit curdly. You can always add a spoonful of flour to bring it back to a creamy consistency.  If you’re adding liquid (ie vanilla essence or lemon juice), now is the time.

Once all the eggs are mixed in, just fold in the sifted flour (and cocoa if you’re using it). Remember just to give it the minimum amount of folding. You’re not making bread so you don’t want to work the gluten too much and lose the lightness.

Next, spoon the mixture into a prepared cake tin.

Cake tins

Any old medium sized cake tin will do.  I find that this amount of mixture is perfect for two 22cm tins, or one 26cm tin (remember it’s the depth of the cake mix not the size of the tin that governs how long it will take to cook).  Cake tins are measured by their diameter (the straight measurement from one side to the other, measured through the middle).  I have Bake-o-glide cut ready to fit my favourite tins, but baking parchment is fine too. For a circle, just take a square of parchment bigger than your tin, fold it in half, then keep folding the outsides in (keeping one point which will be the middle of your circle) again until you’ve got a triangle. Hold the triangle point roughly where the middle of the tin is, then nick the end off at the outside edge of the tin. When you unfold it you’ll have a rough circle.  You can also just brush the surface with butter, then add a tbsp of flour and shake it all around the tin, tapping out the excess.  Smooth over the surface but don’t worry too much.

Baking

I use the middle of my oven and as it cooks slightly unevenly, I turn the cake around half way through cooking. A cake this large will take anything from 30 – 45 minutes at 180/gas 4 – depending on how wide/deep your tin is.

If you think your cake looks done, gently touch the top of the cake – if there’s any wobble, or it feels really soft and leaves a dent – leave it a bit longer. You can check by popping a knife into the middle – if it comes out clean, it’s done.

Leave your cake to cool on a rack, then you can ice, decorate or fill as you fancy.

Ganache

If you want to make ganache to fill or cover your cake, just melt half a large bar of chocolate (about 100g) in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (just a couple of inches of water – you don’t want it to touch the bowl). When it’s melted, just whisk in enough double cream to get a nice spreading consistency. If you chill it down now, you can whip it go make it more airy too. Up to you.

Buttercream

Buttercream’s really easy to remember as it’s just double icing sugar to butter. Add a splosh of milk, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and whisk until light and fluffy. It makes great piped swirly things on cupcakes too.

So what’s next?

Once you’ve got to grips with making cakes you can start tweaking the recipe a little – maybe adding vanilla…dried fruit… lemon zest… chocolate chips or some chopped nuts… You can make two smaller sponges (reduce the cooking time) and sandwich them together with jam or cream, or layer them up with some yummy ganache or buttercream… the sky’s the limit! For an easy pudding, try using brown sugar, for a more toffeeish flavour, and adding chopped dates.  Serve warm with a quick toffee sauce made by melting  100g each of butter and brown sugar, then adding about 100ml of cream and stirring and bubbling until you have a lovely sauce.

Off you go, then.

And my gorgeous Jen, BFF and maker of our wedding cake, made this fabulous handbag and shoe cake (the detail on the shoe is quite incredible):

And then I was chatting on twitter to the lovely Helen at Aardvark Cakes about how she made her amazing Gruffalo Cake:

… and she even went as far as publishing a tutorial so we can all have a go at making that amazing Gruffalo!

So all this gorgeous baking is making  me think that it’s time for another bakeoff.  Now obviously I’m not expecting Xbox cakes or Gruffalos, but just anything you’ve made yourself that you’re proud of.   Maybe it’s a batch of fairy cakes, or a lovely pie that you made for tea?  Maybe a great loaf of bread or a stonking batch of brownies?

The Rules

As usual, there are very few rules (still sad about the scrapping of the ‘send English Mum a piece of each one’ rule, to be honest):

1. You’ve actually got to bake something (although see below re: sneaky rule breaking)

2. Take a picture

3. Email it to me at english[dot]towers[at]gmail[dot]com or via the contact form at the top of the page, telling me what it is and who you are.  Entries must be received by midnight on the last day of May.

The Cheaty Bits

As usual, sneakiness is encouraged, and any entertaining reason why your entry  should still be considered will be looked upon favourably.  For example, if your trifle is beautiful, but obviously not exactly baked, let me know.  I’m a flexible type and I’ll probably allow it.  No lying though.  Okay, a bit of lying then, but not too much…

Techy Stuff

If you’re a blogger, please link back to this post, and if you’re a tweeter, please use the hashtag #Bigbakeoff - you can find Argos on Twitter here: @Argos_Online. If you’re neither, then just ignore this bit completely.

The Prize

The frankly fabulous chaps at Argos have agreed to give the winner an amazing Bush BAFF55161S Frost Free Fridge Freezer in Silver, worth £359.99 (don’t forget to check out the rest of Argos’ fridge freezers).

Entries will be displayed in one enormous blog post heralded by a complete mental breakdown (usually made public on Twitter – but hey, what’s a bakeoff without a little hysteria).

The Judge

The wondrous and gorgeous winner of the last bakeoff, Arlene from The Fuzzy Times has foolishly agreed to be the judge.  All bribes and approaches of a dubious nature are to be made directly to her and not via this blog.  The judge’s decision is final.

So that’s it, then.  You’ve got loads of time, plenty of inspiration, and some very ambiguous rules.  Let’s get baking!

The small print
This competition is UK only unless onward transport is arranged by the winner
Delivery will be within 28 days of Argos receiving the winner’s address, and the competition prize may vary at the discretion of Argos
The prize as described will be supplied direct from Argos, and there is no cash alternative

As you know, it’s one of our slightly less mental traditions at English Towers that the birthday person gets to choose whatever they like for their birthday cake.  Usually, da brevren compete with each other to find the most complicated (The Mad Professor), chocolate-filled (the Death Wish Child), or retro (English Dad) recipes they can possibly find.  And then, of course, when it’s my birthday, I just make whatever I fancy.

This year turned out to be a bit different.  ‘I’m going to make your birthday cake’, said the Death Wish Child, confidently.  ‘What would you like?’.

‘Well’, said I, ‘what I would really really like is lemon meringue pie.  No, lime meringue pie, but don’t worry, I’ll help’.

‘Nope’, said the small confident one, while imaginary fireworks and laser beams went off behind him.  ‘*I* shall make the pie’.  So sit back and enjoy, while my wonderful offspring takes you through his birthday pie:

First you need a pastry bottom (although I suspect that I might already have one):

For the pastry, you’ll need:

200g cold butter

400g plain flour

Pinch salt

1tbsp caster sugar

1 egg yolk

4 or 5 tbsp cold water

Firstly, preheat the oven to 180/gas 4.  It’s easiest to do this in the food processor (the pastry, not the preheating. That would be silly. And anyway, you’d never fit the oven in there), but you can do it by hand if you’re not as lazy as us.

Chop your cold butter into squares and add it to the flour, salt and sugar.  Process it until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Now plop in the egg yolk and pulse slowly, adding tablespoonfuls of water until it just comes together.

Flour the work surface (and your trousers, and your mother, and the floor) and squish the mixture together into a ball.  Roll it out to about 5-6mm thick, then roll it onto your rolling pin and unroll over your flan dish or baking tin  (about 24cm should do it).  When it all breaks apart, swear a bit and kind of patch it together. Nobody will notice.  Push it in to the edges and trim the top.

Now to bake it blind: scrunch up a bit of greaseproof paper, then smooth it over the pastry and pour in some baking beans – you can use ceramic or whatever. I’ve got some old dried beans – for about 15 minutes.

Then take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and put it back in to cook the bottom (ooer) for about another 5 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool.  Turn the oven down to gas 2/150 degrees.

Meanwhile, make the lime curd.  We use bottled lime juice in this house, but if you want to juice several limes, be my guest:

100g butter

6 tbsp lime juice (or for lemon curd, 2 lemons, zested then juiced)

150g caster sugar

2 eggs plus 1 extra yolk (keep the white for the meringue)

Take a saucepan and bung in the butter, juice, zest and caster sugar.  Melt it all together slowly until the sugar is all dissolved.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined.  Now, take your warm, limey, butter mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs.  Now bung that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens.  Make sure there’s someone behind you at this point shouting ‘WHISK! WHISK FASTER!’.

Turn off the heat and leave to cool.  Remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on.  When it’s about room temperature, pour it into the pastry case and pop into the fridge to cool.

Finally, for the meringue:

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar

Whisk the eggs in a very clean bowl until they form firm peaks, then keep whisking while you add the sugar, spoon by spoon, until it’s all incorporated and the meringue is thick and glossy.  Pile it all on top of the lemon curd and fluff it up a bit (or you can pipe it like my man here):

Bake in the very low oven (gas 2/150 degrees) for about 40 to 50 minutes, depending on how squelchy you like your meringue.   If it’s a Special Birthday Meringue Pie, you can decorate it and add candles.

Then sit down with some pink champagne and blow your candles out, wishing with all your heart that you get to spend every birthday just like this, with the people that you love.

Thanks, Charlie xxxx