Lorna's Carrot Cake Bars

For our "Not the Olympics" theme, i decided to go with; not 5 (4), not round (rectangular), raaaaandomly coloured (red, blue, yellow and green) cake bars. And because i haven't made a carrot cake in a while i chose that. I was also inspired by the fact that i spent a good 30 minutes aww-ing over some mini loaf tins in a shop and my boyfriend finally gave in and bought them; i had them for about 3 months still in the shrink wrap. Oops. Anyway, on with the show.

Ingredients:

150g plain flour/wholewheat flour mix

2 eggs, separated

175g caster sugar

85ml rapeseed oil (or vegetable oil)

125ml buttermilk

1tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

2tsp cinnamon

2 medium carrots, grated

Method:

Preheat the oven to 175C and grease 4 mini loaf tins.

Beat the egg whites until fluffy. Add 75g of the sugar and beat to stiff peaks. In a separate bowl beat the buttermilk, egg yolks, oil and remaining sugar together. Mix in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir in the carrot and then finally fold in the egg whites. Don't be scared of folding; the carrot will weight the batter down a fair bit so you'll lose some air. Try to be gentle but thorough until the mix is well combined.

Spoon into the individual tins and bake for 30 minutes until well risen and a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool in the tins then tip them out. I cut each loaf in half and put a layer of maple buttercream in the middle (each of a different colour).

Tom's Swedish Tea Ring

This recipe comes from the Tassajara bread book. All the measurements are in cups as it is an American book. An approximate cup is an almost full 1lb honey jar (not so useful if you're not addicted to honey like me). It's not terribly important as long as you use the same cup throughout.

First; the yeasted pastry.
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast (I used fast action baking yeast)
2 tablespoons honey
1 egg
1½ cups white flour

Dissolve the honey in the water and add the yeast to it. Place the flour in a bowl and add the egg and watery ingredients. Beat well. Leave to prove for 30-60 minutes.

3 tablespoons melted butter or oil
1 teaspoon salt
2-2½ cups sifted white flour

Fold in fat, salt and enough flour to form dough. It should be slightly sticky, but come away from the sides of the bowl easily. Knead well on a floured surface until smooth (about ten minutes). Place the dough back in the bowl, cover, and leave to prove for about an hour. Knock back and leave to rise again. During the final rise make the fruit filling:

1 cup chopped fruit, I used dried prunes and apricots.
½ teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup brown sugar
Small pinch salt

This bit can be adapted to your tastes (and what you've got available!), any fruit should work. Simmer with a small amount of water until thickened.

Roll out dough to approx 12" x 14" rectangle.

Spread the fruit mixture over the dough and roll up along the long edge. Curl round to form a ring. Snip into the outside of the roll at 1 inch intervals, most of the way through, then twist each section over so you can see the spiral of fruit, overlapping the sections to form a lovely pattern.

Brush with egg glaze and bake for 30-40 minutes at about 190°C.

Enjoy

Jen's Lemon Yoghurt Wimbledon Cake

Hi all, this is my Lemon Yoghurt Wimbledon Cake recipe: 

300g caster sugar

50g butter, softened (I used unsalted)

3 large eggs, separated

225g Greek-style yoghurt

Zest of 1 lemon

175g self-raising flour

100g sifted icing sugar

1½ tbsp lemon juice

Method:

1. Cream the softened butter, sugar and egg yolks

2. Pour in the yoghurt and add the lemon zest. Beat.

3. Sift the flour and fold.

4. Next whisk the egg whites and fold into the mixture.

5. Pour mixture in to base-lined loose-bottomed tin, 20cm in diameter.

6. 180 C for around 1 hour.

The only thing i did differently was to make lemon butter icing instead of runny icing. I also used a square tin instead of a round one, and it was slightly larger than required so the cake looked rather thin! It also, therefore needed less than the recommended cooking time.

Will be reviewing this recipe from 'Mary Berry's UCB' on the blog ASAP! 

Charlie's Glazed Ring Doughnuts

Charlie's glazed ring doughnuts

Ingredients:

2 (7g) sachets dried active baking yeast

60ml warm water

355ml lukewarm milk

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

75g butter

625g plain flour

1 litre vegetable oil for frying

For the glazing:

75g butter

200g icing sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

60ml hot water

Method:

So....my brave attempt at doughnuts (one of my most favourite things in the world) started with sprinkling the yeast over the warm water and (supposedly) letting it stand for 5 minutes, or until foamy. I just couldn't leave well alone and gave it a stir, this then panicked me as I worried that I had 'killed' the yeast....I may be a tad over dramatic!

In a large bowl I mixed the yeasty water with the milk, sugar, salt, eggs, butter and half the flour. At this point I started to panic more as it looked like a gloopy mess! I added more flour gradually, beating very patiently to get the dough to come away from the bowl. This took a while and I confess I completely deviated from the recipe and must have added about double the amount of flour required!!! It worked though! 

When the dough finally decided to stop sticking to the bowl I kneaded it and then put it in a greased bowl, covered with cling film and left it in my airing cupboard for about half an hour. The recipe said the dough was done when a finger mark left an indentation and it had doubled in size. 

I then turned the dough out onto a (very) floured surface and rolled until it was about 1cm thick. I made two different sizes so used a large cutter, and then made the hole with a smaller cutter (obviously!!). With the middle bits I then made a hole in those and they became my mini doughnuts. 

I covered these with a clean tea towel and left them to rise until they had doubled in size. 

While the oil was heating up, I made the glazing. I melted the butter and added the icing sugar and vanilla extract. When this was smooth I removed the saucepan from the heat and gradually added the hot water until it was thin but not watery. 

Getting the oil to the right temperature proved to be the most complicated part of the method (I don't have a thermometer which would have helped!) and I definitely needed small bits of dough to check whether it was ready. 

Quite a few of the little doughnuts got eaten by my 'helper' to test whether they were cooked through! 

Using a wide spatula I added the doughnuts to the oil and turned them over as they rose to the surface. I was very picky with the cooking and turned them constantly to make sure they weren't burning! 

When they were golden in colour my faithful assistant (when not eating the glazing!) covered the doughnuts in the glazing (don't worry folks he had a spoon in the pan and was licking that!!). 

They were left to cool on a wire rack. 

This recipe was relatively easy...after I had decided to go my own way with the amount of the flour and tentatively fry them! 

July - Not the Olympics

July - Not the Olympics

So....with no Stacey we brave bakers attempted to cope 'without Mum!' As the mean people at Olympic headquarters banned everyone from using anything to do with the Olympics in their baking, we took it upon ourselves to work around it and have our 'Not the Olympics' night! 

We had an absolutely vast amount of delicious sweet treats and as usual several of us (mainly me and Joy!!) had more than one round of the offerings!

Katrina made some really cute lembus bread rings which were yummy, Tom brought a 'Swedish Tea Ring' (although in his words he described it as fruit bread!), I came with glazed ring doughnuts, Lorna made individual carrot cakes with Olympic ring coloured icing, Jennie made a stunning Wimbledon themed lemon yoghurt cake with Smartie tennis ball decorations and strawberries, Sally tried to downplay her efforts by telling us she had scraped together 'any ingredients she had in her cupboard' and baked really delicious cupcakes with 3 different fillings: chocolate, banana and raspberry, Ruth dazzled us with wonderful Olympic medals (for her first visit to the club we were all really impressed!), Joy whipped up some baseball and golf themed cupcakes, which certainly surprised us when we realised they were chocolate flavoured, Catherine and Richard arrived with a plethora of treats: lime curd tart, orange and raspberry brownies and strawberry polenta cakes. 

We survived without you Stacey....but you were really missed. We all agreed that we were looking forward to our picnic next month and the return of leader to sort us out, organise us and do far better at technical things like blogs...sorry Stacey - I tried my best :(