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    • Chocolate Guinness Cake

      This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, from Feast. I was a bit hesitant about it – I don’t like beer, and I think Guinness is quite revolting. And beer and chocolate just sounds wrong. But the boyfriend often has Guinness in the fridge, so I stole one to try this cake. (It was the last one too, much to his irritation.) Nigella says that the cake’s “magnificent in its damp blackness” with a “resonant, ferrous tang”. After looking up “ferrous” (which means ‘of or pertaining to iron’, if you’re similarly ignorant), I have to agree. I’m going to relate Nigella’s cooking temperatures and times here and not what I did, because not only did I ended up cooking the cake in two tins, not having one large enough for the recipe. The icing imitates the foam on a pint of Guinness very successfully – I was very pleased with its looks, and even more so with the taste. A nicely adult chocolate cake.

      250ml Guinness
      250g butter (1 cup)
      75g cocoa (a rounded 1/2 cup)
      400g caster sugar (2 cups)
      140ml sour cream (      I used plain yoghurt)
      2 eggs
      1 tablespoon vanilla extract
      275g plain flour (2 1/4 cups)
      2 1/2 teaspoons bicarb soda

      for the icing:
      300g cream cheese (I used 250g which was plenty)
      150g icing sugar (1 cup)
      125ml cream

      Preheat the oven to 180C, and grease and line (yes! lining is essential) a 23 centimetre springform tin.

      Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan, and add the sliced butter. Heat until the butter is melted, and remove the saucepan from the heat. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla, then pour into the saucepan. Finally, beat in the flour and bicarb.

      Pour the batter into the greased and lined tin, and bake for 45 mins to an hour. Leave to get completely cool in the tin, as it’s quite a damp cake.

      For the icing, beat the icing sugar and cream cheese together. Add the cream, and beat again until it’s a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake until it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

    • Zucchini and Carrot Slice

      I love quiche, but can rarely be bothered to make pastry to accompany it, so an egg slice is a nice easy compromise. This is the first recipe in here that I’ve invented myself, judging amounts roughly from the times I’ve made similar dishes from recipes. It worked out perfectly – extremely simple, incredibly fast to make (the perfect weeknight dinner) not overly oily, light, fluffy, and a lovely mixture of vegetables. I’m still taking it to work for lunch.

      2 cups grated zucchini
      1 cup grated carrot
      1 onion, diced
      kernels from one raw cob of corn
      1 cup grated cheese
      5 eggs
      1/2 cup oil
      1 cup self-raising flour
      pepper

      Pre heat the oven to 180C.

      Mix all the ingredients firmly in a large bowl. Lightly grease, if necessary, a rectangular tin, and pour the eggy mixture in.

      Bake for about 35 minutes.

    • Coffee, Date and Chocolate Muffins (SHF #11)

      My first attempt at Sugar High Friday. This month’s theme was coffee, and as I don’t use a lot of coffee in baking, I had to do a bit of searching to find this recipe. It’s a Diana Linfoot recipe, as usual with muffins, and is from More Muffin Magic. She writes, “These muffins have a strong, robust flavour,” and so they do – a mixture of chocolate, orange, dates and coffee, which sounds like too much, but is instead just right. Coffee is not the dominant flavour, but as I’m not an enormous fan of coffee, that suits me perfectly. It’s a deliciously smoky backdrop to the more prominant orange and chocolate flavours. Despite the long list of ingredients, this muffins are an easy two bowl mixture. A perfect muffin for afternoon tea.

      2 cups dates, finely chopped
      1 cup orange juice
      rind of 1 orange
      1 tablespoon instant coffee
      1/2 cup hot water
      1/2 chopped chocolate
      2 mashed bananas
      2 eggs
      1/2 cup sugar
      1/4 cup oil
      1 tsp vanilla essence
      1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
      1 1/2 cups plain self-raising flour

      Makes 12 large muffins

      Preheat the oven to 190C, and grease the muffin pan.

      Place the chopped dates in the orange juice, and either soak for a while, or microwave for a few minutes to warm and soften them.

      Combine the coffee and the water, and add to the dates.

      In another bowl, blend together the mashed bananas, eggs, sugar, oil, chocolate and vanilla. Pour in the date mixture, and combine well.

      Gently fold in the flour, until the mixture is just combined, and spoon into a muffin tray. Bake for 25 minutes.

      Variations I’d like to try – increasing the coffee, substituting sultanas for the chocolate, and brown sugar instead of white.

    • Angela's Stolen Pork Spare Ribs

      This is another recipe from Angela (stolen from her ex-husband) which she said I had to try as it produced the most amazingly tender ribs. I don’t actually like pork much – I like ham and bacon, but don’t enjoy pork roast or chops at all. But I remember enjoying spare ribs when I was younger, so I thought I’d give it a try. The butcher had a special on when I made this, so I actually bought 2 kilos of spare ribs, which would have comfortably served 6 people. Angela was right – they’re gorgeously tender, and I enjoyed the sweet tanginess of the sauce. I’d had enough of pork by the end of the night, but they were delicious regardless.

      2 kilos of pork spare ribs
      1 cup tomato sauce (ketchup)
      a few dashes tobasco sauce
      2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
      3 teaspoons mustard powder (      I used wholegrain mustard)
      1/4 cup honey

      Put the ribs in a large pot, cover them with water, and boil them gently for 1 1/2 hours. Your kitchen, and in fact your entire house, will begin to smell like pork.

      Drain the ribs well, allow to cool, and trim off any excess fat.

      Preheat the oven to 190C. In a large bowl, mix together the tomato sauce, tobasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and honey. Very lightly grease a large baking tray.

      Dip each rib in the sauce, and coat well. When all the ribs are packed onto the baking tray, drizzle any excess sauce over the ribs.

      Bake for 20 minutes, and serve immediately. There you have it – gorgeously crispy and tender ribs.

    • Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

      This is a Nigella Lawson recipe from How To Be a Domestic Goddess, and I’ve been a little hesitant about trying it, because it looks so moist and sticky, and as Nigella and I have vastly different ovens, I worried about being able to tell if it was cooked. However, a craving for chocolate cake forced me to give it a try, and experimenting with oven temperatures turned out quite well. I think it was a little overcooked, as you can see from the paler brown near the crust, and I was lazy in adding the flour, which resulted in lumps. However, the result was still beautiful – a plain, loaf cake, as Nigella describes it, but beautifully moist, and considering the amount of sugar in it, not too sweet. It’s just beautifully rich and chocolatey, and perfect with icecream or cream, as a dessert (but also in thick slices for afternoon tea).

      225g soft unsalted butter (1 cup and 3 tsp)
      375g dark muscovado sugar (2 cups)       (I used brown)
      2 large eggs, beaten
      1 tsp vanilla extract       (I used essence)
      100g best dark chocolate, melted
      200g plain flour (1 3/4 cups)
      1 tsp bicarb soda
      250ml boiling water (1 cup)

      Nigella suggests preheating the oven to 190C, baking the finished batter for 30 minutes, turning the oven down to 170C, and baking for another 15 minutes. I have a slow oven, so I preheated to 210C, baked for 40 minutes, turned down to 190C, and baked for 20 minutes. I think my temperatures were good, but I’d probably cut 5-10 minutes off the time.

      Grease and completely line a loaf tin.

      Cream the butter and sugar together. I stuffed up here in attempted to slightly soften my butter, and instead completely melted it. I think this made a bit of a difference to my batter, which may also effect the cooking time. Add the eggs and vanilla to the creamed butter and sugar, and beat well.

      Fold in the slightly cooled chocolate, taking care to blend well but not overbeat. Add the bicarb to the flour, and add, alternately spoon by spoon with the boiling water, until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter. Don’t be alarmed if the batter is very liquid, and you think it’ll never cook. It will. And really, take time in adding the flour – lumps are annoying.

      Pour the batter into your lined loaf tin.

      Bake according to Nigella’s instructions (30 minutes at 190C, 15 minutes at 170C), or mine (35 minutes at 210C, 15-20 minutes at 190C). The cake will still be a bit squidgy inside, so there should be a little mixture on a testing skewer.

      Leave the cake for a couple of hours to cool completely inside the tin. It’s intended to sink in the middle, although mine didn’t, due to said overcooking. It’s still delicious with the overcooking, I just don’t think it’s quite what Nigella intended. Turn out, slice, and eat.

    • Chocolate Fudge Cake

      This chocolate cake recipe is my basic, birthday cake recipe that I generally use. It’s simple and easy, and despite using cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate, it really is delicious fudgy. I made a chocolate ganache for the first time to go with it, and while it made the cake very darkly chocolatey, I think I almost prefer the sweetness of chocolate icing to go with the fudginess of the cake.

      1/2 cup butter
      1 cup white sugar
      2 eggs
      1 tsp vanilla essence
      2/3 cup cocoa
      1/2 cup hot water
      1 cup buttermilk (or milk soured with 2 tsp vinegar)
      1 3/4 cups plain flour
      1 tsp baking powder
      1 tsp bicarb soda
      berry jam

      for chocolate ganache:
      100g dark chocolate
      1 cup cream

      Preheat the oven to 180C.

      Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.

      Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs and vanilla essence.

      Blend the cocoa with the hot water, then stir into the butter mixture.

      Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarb, if you like sifting. I usually just add the baking powder to the top of the cup of flour. Add the flour to the chocolate mixture alternately with the buttermilk, stirring briskly after each addition.

      Pour the cake mixture evenly between the two cake tins, and bake for 30 minutes.

      While the cakes are cooling, melt the chocolate and cream together, and let cool. I tried to beat mine a little to thicken the cream, but I don’t think it made any difference.

      When the ganache is fairly cool, place one cake on a serving plate. Spread it thickly with jam – I used a delicious mulberry jam, but raspberry would be good as well. Pour a little ganache on top of the jam, and spread it over the cake. Place the other cake on top of the first, and settle it carefully – it may slide a little over the ganache. Pour the remaining ganache over the top of the cake, until it covers the top and sides (and is pooling a little on the plate), and put the cake immediately into the fridge.

      If you serve it about an hour later, the ganache will be set, and the cake still slightly warm. Gorgeous.

    • Banana and Pecan Bread

      This is adapted from a Doris Brett recipe. Everyone who bakes has their perfect banana bread recipe, but I’m not quite sure that this is mine. It’s delicious, moist and uses plenty of bananas (which is an important element in making banana bread – usually it’s done to use up overripe bananas that have been sitting in the fruit bowl for days). The subtle lemon flavour goes with the bananas nicely. This loaf turned out a little heavy, but I think that’s my fault – I used baking powder, rather than baking soda, and didn’t increase the amount used accordingly. I shall just think of it as an extra-moist banana bread, rather than an overly heavy one.

      1 cup white sugar
      1/4 cup brown sugar
      1/2 cup butter
      2 eggs, beaten
      2 cups mashed banana
      1/4 cup natural yoghurt
      1 teaspoon baking soda
      2 teaspoons mixed spice
      2 teaspoons lemon rind
      1 teaspoon vanilla essence
      2 cups white flour
      1 cup finely chopped pecans
      cinnamon sugar

      Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, banana, yoghurt, baking soda, mixed spice and vanilla essence, and stir well. Lightly stir in the flour and pecans, until reasonably well combined. Too much stirring here, however, makes the bread go a little rubbery.

      Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for an hour, and serve while warm.

    • Mars Bar Biscuits

      I had a craving for a sweet chocolate biscuit one night, and came up with these. The pieces of Mars Bar make chewy chocolate caramel chunks within the dough. I cooked mine for too long, and they’re more crunchy than I’d like, although the chewiness of the Mars Bars do contrast well with a crunchier biscuit.

      1/2 cup butter
      1 cup brown sugar
      1 egg, beaten
      1 tsp vanilla essence
      1 3/4 cup self-raising flour
      4 Mars Bars, chopped into small chunks

      Preheat the oven to 180C. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Stir in the pieces of Mars Bar – they’ll stick together, but a vigorous beating should separate them. Beat in the flour.

      Blob the mixture onto greased baking trays with a dessert spoon, and bake for 8-12 minutes. Cool a little to firm.

    • Cream and Bacon Gnocchi

      This recipe is from the lovely and delightful Angela. I was a little unsure about it, especially when I plopped the gluggy from-a-packet gnocchi into the sauce, but I suppose a certain glugginess is in the nature of gnocchi, and it went well with the creaminess of the sauce. It’s a very simple and tasty recipe – definitely in the comfort food category.

      olive oil
      2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
      1 onion, diced
      6 rashers bacon, diced
      3 tablespoons sundried tomato pesto
      200ml light cream
      1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
      500g gnocchi

      Heat some oil in a large frying pan, and fry the garlic, onion and bacon until golden. Add the pesto, cream and parmesan cheese, and simmer for a few minutes, until it reduces a little.

      Cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water, following the instructions on the packet, until just tender. Drain, and pour the gnocchi into the frying pan with the sance, and stir until coated. Serve immediately.

    • Pear and Honey Muffins

      These are very sweet and sticky muffins, and are quite dense and moist as well. The fresh and almost tart taste of the pear goes beautifully with the warmth of the honey and ginger. They’re adapated from a Diana Linfoot recipe in More Muffin Magic. There’s more than enough mixture for 12 normal muffins – I made 12, and then dropped the leftover mixture into a mini-muffin tray to make the little pile in the picture above. Next time I take a photo, I’m going to wipe the countertop beforehand.

      1/2 cup soft butter
      1/2 cup sugar
      1/2 cup honey
      2 eggs
      1 cup milk
      4 pears, peeled and diced
      3 cups plain flour
      3 teaspoons baking powder
      4 teaspoons mixed spice
      4 teaspoons ground ginger

      Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the muffin pan if necessary.

      Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, then thoroughly mix in the honey. Beat in the eggs, add the milk, and mix well. Stir in the pears.

      Pour the flour, baking powder and spices on top of the bowl of pear mixture. Gently stir them in, delicately, until the mixture is just combined. Muffins do not like to be beaten.

      Spoon the mixture into the muffin trays. Mini muffins took 15 minutes in my oven, and the larger muffins took 30 minutes. In a fan-forced or gas oven, take at least 5 minutes off these times.