ENGLISH MUM

How to make a cake: a step by step guide

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.

English Mum’s Big Bakeoff – win a Bush frost free fridge freezer from Argos!

I’ve seen some pretty fabulous cakes recently…. there’s Amy‘s fabulous Xbox cake, made for her husband’s birthday:

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

Lime meringue pie: In which the DWC makes me a birthday surprise

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

The fresh bread bakeoff: the entries

So thank you to all the intrepid bakers who entered the Fresh Break Bakeoff.  There are some really great entries here – from complete novices to some very accomplished bakers!  Have a look at all the great entries and I’ll be letting you know the winner of all the Marriage’s goodies very soon!

English Mum’s Fresh Bread Bakeoff

So recently I showed you my simple recipe for  easy step by step bread.  I had a lot of comments from people saying they’d quite like to have a go – so now’s your chance!  The newest, shiniest bakeoff is here – and it’s all about fresh bread!  What do you fancy baking?  A nice crusty loaf?  Some shiny conker-brown bagels?  Sticky buns?

The Rules

As usual, we laugh in the face of rules.  As long as you actually bake something bready, take a picture and send it to me (with a link if you have a website), you’re in.

Photos need to be emailed to me at: english [dot] towers [at] gmail [dot] com, with a brief note saying what your bakey masterpiece is and how you’d like to be credited.

Entries must be received by midnight on Feb 14th, St Valentine’s Day.

Cheating

As usual, a bit of healthy rule-breaking is to be embraced and any creative wavering from the theme will be acceptable.  As long as there’s a suitably waffly and entertaining reason why, I’ll let you off.

The Techy Stuff

If you’re a blogger, please link back to this post, and if you’re a tweeter, please use the hashtag #freshbreadbakeoff. If you’re neither, then just ignore this bit completely.

The Prize

The lovely chaps at Marriage’s Millers (www.flour.co.uk) have very kindly offered to provide a prize of a range of their fabulous quality flours, plus some scrapers, so you can bake bread like a pro!  The entries will be displayed in one enormous blog post (this bit causes a total hysterical meltdown in my non-technical brain, but don’t worry, I’ll get over it).

The Judge

The fabulous Hannah Marriage knows absolutely everything there is to know about flour, bread and baking and has foolishly agreed to be the judge.  All bribes and dodgy approaches to be made directly 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 bread!

Easy, step by step bread. And how to knead.

There is nothing, I think, quite as delicious as the smell of bread baking.  I know there are times in the kitchen when you want to rush in, whip up something quick, and rush out again, but there are other times when a quiet potter is just fabulous.  For those times, breadmaking is ideal.  I love kneading bread – there’s something quite hypnotic and soothing about it – and producing a home-made loaf is possibly one of the most satisfying things you can do.

As you know, I’m a bit of a rapeseed oil nut, and it’s perfect for this recipe, being both very healthy and pleasantly nutty in flavour, but you can use olive oil or melted butter. Just make sure it weighs 50g.

450g strong white bread flour

2tsp salt (remember a tsp is flat though, don’t overdo it)

1 sachet (7g) yeast

50g rapeseed oil

300ml warm water

So first, sift the flour and salt, then stir in the yeast.  Measure out the oil, pour that in, then use the same jug to measure the warm water (it’ll pick up some of the oil that was left in the jug) and pour that in.

Stir it around with a wooden spoon, then when it’s roughly together, flump it out onto your work surface.

The science bit:

Think of gluten as the spongy network that holds all the bubbles (of carbon dioxide, but hey, that’s me being picky) produced by the yeast in place.  This is the most important bit of bread making. You want the gluten to form nice strong chains – under-kneaded bread will be tough, so don’t skimp.

Kneading technique:

Everyone’s got their own techniques, but all you’re aiming to do is stretch and develop the gluten and aerate the dough (as well as making sure that all your ingredients are thoroughly mixed).  Most forms of squishing, folding and stretching will do the trick.

First things first: don’t worry if your dough is sticky – you want your dough to be sticky.  Your fingers will get covered in dough – don’t worry!  The stickier your dough,the softer and more plumptious your bread.

Start off roughly squeezing it together and then start pushing it away from you with the heel of one hand (you have to use your imagination a bit here, because obviously my other hand was holding the camera).  Really smoosh the dough across the work surface:

… then bring it in, folding it over, and squish it together:

…then push it away from you again.  Carry on doing that until your dough is soft, stretchy and plump – about ten minutes should do it – and bounces back when you stick your finger into it (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but yes, it should be the texture of a nice soft bum cheek).

Rising:

Flour the bowl and pop your ball of dough into it.  Loosely cover with clingfilm and pop into your airing cupboard alongside the pillows and enormously fat, bad tempered cat (hence the clingfilm).  Leave it for a good hour or until it’s doubled in size.

Knocking back:

Fetch your dough, avoiding your unpleasant feline, pull it away from the edges and give it a couple of thumps with your fist to knock it back.

Additions:

This is the time to add stuff in if you’re being fancy: olives, sundried tomatoes, seeds… whatever you like.  As a rough estimate, I’d keep the ingredients to under 150g.

Shaping:

Plop it once more onto a floured surface. This time, you’re thinking finished product, so give it a quick squish and start forming it into whatever shape you like.  Being blessed with the decorative talent of an amoeba, I usually go for something plain – a rough, ball shape with a slit down the middle, but hey, if you want to plait, don’t let me stop you.

Second rise:

Flour a baking tray and place the dough on it, loosely covering it again and then it’s back to the airing cupboard or sunny windowsill for its final rise.  It probably won’t take another hour, but just wait until it’s nice and puffed up.

Baking:

Preheat the oven to 200/gas 6 and bake for about 20 – 30 minutes.  Obviously a ball shape is going to take longer to cook than a flatter shape.  When it’s done it will be browned, and will sound hollow when you tap its bottom (ooer).

This is quite a soft, farmhouse loaf, but it’s got a lovely texture.  Obviously it won’t keep as well as plastic bread, so it’s best to scoff it warm from the oven.

PS: If you’re a first-time bread maker, make sure you take a picture of your efforts – great competition coming up very soon!

You might also like:

Browse bread recipes

The Great Big Autumn Bakeoff: entries

Well, you didn’t let me down.  You picked berries, you rolled pastry, you bubbled, you baked, you stirred, you probably perspired a little too…

And here they are.  All your gorgeous entries:

And now it’s over to the lovely Amy Lane to find out our winners!

Christmas Countdown: An easy two step ‘personalised’ Christmas cake

One of the things that fascinates me about cooking is the alchemy: why you need x when you bake with y, or how one ingredient affects the others in a dish.  This nosiness (teamed with an endless desire to be baking), often leads to disaster, but hey, if you don’t make mistakes you never learn.

I dislike the snobbery surrounding food, and, like Nigel Slater, believe a recipe is a guideline, not a set of rules to be blindly followed.  Take Christmas cake.  I’m sure a lot of people look at a Christmas cake recipe, with its lists of dried fruit in various quantities, and feel  thoroughly intimidated, but hey, it’s just fruit cake, so I’m going to let you have the basic proportions and let you customise your own cake.  Don’t like raisins?  No problem.  Hate peel (disgusting, devil’s toenails that it is), leave it out.

If you’re a Christmas cake ‘virgin’, then this is the recipe for you.  If you sort all your ingredients before you start, there are basically two steps.  Easy peasy.  As long as you have the basic quantities right, your cake will come out perfectly and more to the point, exactly as you like it.  My ultimate aim is to make a Christmas cake with stuff I’ve got lying around and not have to rush to the supermarket with a list as long as my arm for stuff I’m never going to use again.  I’ve wittered on a bit here so if you want, just skip to the cake recipe.

Dried Fruit

One rule here: choose what you like.  As I mentioned above, I hate peel with a vengeance so I leave it out.  Other people use glacé fruits, snipped into little pieces.  I used a 300g luxury pack of mixed raisins, apricots and cranberries which I saw in a nice foodie place and bought, then topped it up with random half packs of leftover cranberries, prunes (chopped into pieces), dried apricots and sultanas.  Pick what suits you, bin the rest.

Butter vs Oil

Generally if you need lightness in a cake, butter helps as you can beat in air and it holds it well, but I’m finding I’m using more and more oil, (you can whisk it with the eggs and get a similar airy effect), especially Rapeseed, which adds a subtle nutty flavour and, being rich in vitamin E, high in Omega 3 and half the saturated fat of olive oil is obviously a healthy option.  In this recipe you want the moistness, etc, but not the air, so use oil if you like.  I made this cake with Borderfields‘ gorgeously yellow rapeseed oil, which is my absolute favourite and it turned out perfectly.  There’s obviously a bit of water content in butter, so if you’re substituting oil use slightly less.  Having said that, don’t kill yourself (you know me, I don’t do adding up): 100g of butter will be about 90 – 100ml oil.

Sugar

Again, use what you’ve got – the darker the sugar, the more treacly the taste.  I used Muscovado.  You’re melting it, so it doesn’t matter how big the granulation is.

Honey

The honey here gives moistness and sweetness, but you could substitute golden syrup if you don’t like (or are allergic to) honey.  I used Rowse Supahoney with lemon, because I absolutely love its taste (I’m a bit into Manuka honey) and use it all the time so I had a pot open.  You could also use black treacle which gives a lovely dark toffee taste.

The Booze

No rules here.  Last year I used Morgan’s Spiced Rum which has a gorgeous vanilla flavour but not much sweetness.  I’ve mentioned a bit more in the recipe below about sweetness.  I used cherry brandy, which not only has that lovely sweet cherry taste, but gives an almondy hit too.  Use whatever you like/whatever you have.  Again, taste your mixture and adjust sweetness accordingly.  If you don’t want to use alcohol, just double up on the fruit juice.

Fruit Juice

I used cranberry juice, because I thought it would go nicely with the dried cranberries, but you can use freshly squeezed orange juice (bung in the zest too for an extra zing), or juice out of a carton.  It honestly doesn’t matter.

Spice

I make a lot of curries so my spice turnover is quite high.  All I would say is, if the jar of ‘Mixed Spice’ in your cupboard was purchased in the 1940s it’s not going to add much to your cake.  I used 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger and a good grating of nutmeg, but use what you have: mixed spice/ginger/cinnamon/ground nutmeg (not too much, it can be overpowering).  Just make sure it’s fresh.

Right, ingredients sorted? Then we’re off:

The Personalised Christmas Cake

800g dried fruit

175ml good quality rapeseed oil or 200g butter

200g dark brown sugar

4 tbsp honey

120ml alcohol

120ml fruit juice (or two oranges, juiced)

About 2tsp spice

3 eggs

200g self raising flour (or 300g flour and omit ground almonds).

100g ground almonds

Firstly: sort everything out: preheat the oven to gas 2/150 C and double line the bottom of your cake tin/tins with parchment paper (tiger stripe pattern optional).  Weigh all your stuff, crack the eggs into a bowl and mix them… just get yourself completely ready.

STEP ONE:  Pop the dried fruit into a large saucepan along with the butter, sugar, honey, booze, fruit juice and spices.  Stir gently over a low heat until the butter is melted and the sugar is completely dissolved.  You can bring it up to a gentle bubble, but don’t let it boil vigorously as your alcohol will disappear.

Now leave it to cool.  If you add the eggs straight in, they’ll be scrambled.  Oh, and at this stage, have a taste!  If it doesn’t taste sweet enough, add something else sweet (this is often the case if you’ve used brandy or whisky which doesn’t have much natural sweetness, as opposed to, say, a liqueur – Nigella suggests a tablespoon of marmalade, which I think is a great idea).  If it’s overpoweringly, cloyingly sweet, then a squeeze of lemon, maybe?  It’s your cake – do it how you like it.

STEP TWO: When cooled, stir in the eggs, flour and ground almonds.  Pile into your one large springform tin, or two smaller ones and bake for about an hour and a half for the two small ones, or up to two hours for the large.  Test by pushing a skewer into the centre of the cake.  It should come out clean (excuse the rubbish ‘in-oven’ shot here).

And that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve made a Christmas cake (or two).

When cool, wrap up the cake in parchment paper and then foil, and stash somewhere until you need it, occasionally unwrapping your gorgeous present to stab it with a cocktail stick and slosh with a couple of tablespoons of your chosen booze.  Or just eat straight away.

You can do all that fancy pants marzipan and icing stuff, but for god’s sake don’t look to me for inspiration.  I have the artistic ability of a small pickled onion.

Make sure you write your recipe down.  You just created a family heirloom!

Step by step quick and easy soft bread rolls

I have absolutely no idea why we calls these ‘milk rolls’.  Well, apart from the fact that they obviously contain milk, but then so do an awful lot of other bread recipes.

Anyhoo, whatever their name they’re a firm favourite here.  Their soft texture makes them ideal for breakfast, toasted with a little of our favourite Whole Earth peanut butter and a dollop of bramble jelly.  The boys also like them in their lunchboxes, stuffed with crunchy lettuce, poached chicken and zesty lemon mayo (they ignore the bits of knuckle along with the lemon zest – it’s okay, I’m gradually blunting the grater with my digits).

Anyhoo, enough of my bloody stumps and onto the bread.  You’ll need:

450g strong white bread flour

2 tsp salt

1 x 7g sachet dried yeast

150ml milk

150ml water

50g butter

So first, sieve the flour into a large bowl (or your food mixer bowl), then stir in the salt and dried yeast.

In a small saucepan, warm the milk, water and butter over a low heat until the butter has just melted, then turn off the heat.  The liquid should be at blood temperature when it’s added to the dry ingredients (which means you can stick your finger in without it feeling too warm).  You can do this in the microwave, but remove it as soon as the butter starts to melt and stir gently until it’s all combined, otherwise you’ll be waiting for ages for it to be cool enough.

Making the dough:

Pour most of the milky mixture into the dry ingredients and stir it around with a knife until you get a light dough.  Leave it as sticky as you can bear as you want your dough to be lovely and soft.  You can always add a bit of flour if you really want to, but seriously, the stickier you can manage, the better.

If you have a tiny bit of liquid left over, that’s fine – you can brush it over the rolls before they go in the oven.

Now start kneading.  If you’re using a food mixer, just bung it in for about five minutes and forget about it (great if you’re busy and need to crack on), but by hand is lovely and satisfying too – if I’ve got extra time I often do.

To hand knead:

With the heel of one hand, press and splurge the dough away from you, (imagine you’re smearing it across the work surface) then bring it back, squish it into a ball again, turn it over and then splurge it again.  As it’s quite a wet dough this is a bit messy, but that all adds to the fun.  Again, if you’re getting really messy, you can always add a bit of extra flour.  As you knead it, it will become more elastic and springy and less squelchy.

Double Proving and shaping:

So when you’ve kneaded for about 7-10 minutes and your dough is springy and pillowy-soft (I know I’ve said this before, but a lovely dough ready for proving looks like a nice, round bottom-cheek), cover it with clingfilm and leave it in the airing cupboard or somewhere else warm until it’s doubled in size.

Then, just knock it back with your fist (imagine punching someone you can’t stand – always does the trick for me) and form it into 8 balls.  Either place them on a baking tray or arrange them inside a springform cake tin like I did, then cover and rise again until they’re puffed up.

You can also just fashion the dough into an oval shaped loaf: cut it down the centre and bake it ‘free-form’, you get a nice crust by doing it this way.

Now bake for about 15-20 minutes (for rolls – a whole loaf will take a bit longer) at 180/gas 4 until you hear a hollow knock when you tap the loaf/rolls on the bottom.  You can glaze them if you like with a little leftover milky mixture, or just some plain milk.  I like to dust them with flour.

You can do tons with this dough: squish it flat into a small baking tray, get your fingers in there and squish it, then drizzle with olive oil and maybe dot some olives and rosemary about and you’ve got a bit of a knock-off foccacia.  Add seeds, use wholemeal flour… just experiment (and if you do, send me pics!).

If you want to make sticky buns, my sweet dough recipe is here.

Off to the kitchen with you!

Summery strawberry and white chocolate cupcakes

As I sit here, simmering in my sun-baked conservatory and squinting at the dusty screen, I’m really beginning to believe that summer’s in full swing. Here and there at farmers’ markets and farm shops, the glossy punnets of British strawberries are stacked up high, making it the perfect time to treat your loved ones to some pretty strawberry cupcakes.

I like this recipe as it perfectly demonstrates how easy it is to fling together your own recipes. Don’t listen to those people who say that baking is a science and everything needs to be exact. Fancy adding something to a recipe? Whop it in. If it turns out wrong, well, as my good friend Coastal Aussie said after her recent Kiwi Meringue Pie disaster, ‘it wouldn’t be fun if I didn’t experiment’.

Here, then, is the result of my own experimentation: a strawberry sponge as light and fluffy as a cloud, topped with a swirl of creamy white chocolate ganache. Pandering both to my sweet tooth and my eye for the pink and pretty.

For the cupcakes:

170g butter

170g caster sugar

6 or 7 fresh strawberries, washed and hulled (about 100g)

Squeeze of lemon

3 free range eggs

170g self raising flour

For the ganache:

200g white chocolate

Small tub double cream

First then, beat the butter and sugar together until it’s really pale and fluffy. Next you need to purée the strawberries with a squeeze of lemon. If you’re using a large blender (my stick blender with the handy little cup attachment blew up quite recently), it’s easier to blend the strawberries together with the three eggs as the volume is larger and you’ll get a smoother finish, but if you don’t mind the odd lump, you can just as easily mash them with a fork.

Add the strawberry/egg mixture to the butter and sugar fluff little by little, beating all the time. Don’t worry if it curdles – you can usually get it back by adding a tablespoon of the flour and beating it again. Keep adding until all the strawberry mixture is combined into the batter. Now just gently fold in the flour. The result is so deliciously light and fluffy, and smells so scrumptious, that you might have to give yourself a stern talking to in order to avoid eating it all right now. However, if you’re one of those strange people who are repulsed by raw cake mixture you should be fine. Weirdo.

And now, by some mystical baking magic, (and if you haven’t eaten it all) it will transpire that there is exactly enough mixture to fill 12 cupcake papers with exactly a tablespoon of mixture. Pop them in your preheated oven (oh I forgot that bit – gas 4/180 degrees. Sorry) and bake for a scant 20 minutes until the tops just spring up when pushed. Better to be slightly underdone than over, though, you want these sponges light and airy.

While the cupcakes are baking, make your white chocolate ganache. Melt a 200g bar of white chocolate in a bowl over some barely simmering water (turn the heat off when it’s bubbling).  When it’s melted, allow to cool a little then whisk in a few tablespoons of double cream (every time I do this I curse the fact that I never remember to measure it).  It will thicken up, then loosen again.  You just want it the consistency of softened butter, I guess.  Whisk it up to incorporate loads of air, then either pipe into thick swirls, or just speak generously over the cupcakes

and top with a strawberry.

Pink perfection in a paper case. Try saying that after you’ve been at the cooking sherry.