RECIPE | COCONUT, ALMOND AND JAM SPONGE

Upon hearing the news of having four very hungry boys coming to stay with me last week, I knew that they would be expecting cake. As my sole cake tasters throughout university, I knew I would need to wow them with something new, so I had a dig through the cupboards to see what I could conjure up.

I decided to go on a mix of my coconut and raspberry loaf cake with my fruity bakewell sponge. The result turned out to be a delightfully moist and fluffy coconut, almond and jam sponge!

COCONUT, ALMOND AND JAM SPONGE

Ingredients:

225g Butter (or Soft Margarine)

225g Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

200g Self-Raising Flour

50g Dessicated Coconut

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

2-4tbsps Milk (Only if needed to loosen the dough)

6-8tsbs of Jam (Whichever you fancy)

3-4tbsps of Flaked Almonds

Instructions:

1.  Heat your oven to 180ºC and line a loose-bottomed cake tin with baking paper.

2.  Cream together the butter and the sugar until creamy and fluffy and light in colour - I recommend doing this with an electric hand whisk.

3.  Add the vanilla essence and eggs and whisk or beat until combined,

4.  Add the desiccated coconut, self raising flour and baking powder to the wet mixture and beat until combined. If you're mixture feels to heavy then add 2-4 tbps of milk to the mixture to loosen the batter.

5. Place half your batter in the lined cake tin and then dot your jam all around this layer. Follow by covering this with the left of the cake batter and then sprinkle with flaked almonds

6. Place on the middle shelf of your pre-heated oven for 45-55 minutes (use a skewer or something similar to test). Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the tin and then dust with icing sugar to serve.

RECIPE | LEMON AND POPPY SEED POLENTA CAKE

LEMON AND POPPY SEED POLENTA CAKE

A few weeks back I had the exciting ordeal of making a cake one of my much-loved lemon and poppy seed polenta cake's to be sent down to Duke Studios in Leeds for a fancy photo shoot to be featured in the August edition of the brand new and fabulous online culinary journal Food&_.

....the actual feature is listed HERE and below you can see the recipe for a delightfully moist gluten free lemon drizzle cake!

Cake:

200g Unsalted Butter

200g Ground Almonds

100g Polenta

2tsp Baking Powder (Gluten-free if this is for wheat or gluten intolerant people)

50g Poppy Seeds

2 Eggs

1tsp Vanilla Essence

3tbsp Plain Yoghurt

2tbsp Lemon Juice

2-3tbsp Milk

Zest of 3 Lemons

Crunchy Lemon Glaze:

Juice of 3 Lemons

130g Icing Sugar

50g Granulated Sugar

Lemon Icing:

1 tbsp Lemon Juice

115g Icing Sugar

Poppy Seeds and Lemon Zest to Sprinkle on top of the Icing

Method:

1.  Line and grease a 9" springform cake tin with baking parchment and butter and then pre-heat your oven to 180°C.

2.  Cream the butter and sugar together with a hand mixer or standing mixer until light and fluffy and pale in colour.

3.  Add the eggs and the vanilla essence to the butter and sugar.

4.  Weight out the ground almonds, polenta, baking powder and poppy seeds and fold into the wet mixture.

5.  At this point fold in the lemon zest, lemon juice and yoghurt. Mix it until it is all evenly combined. If the mixture feels quite stiff then add between 1-3tbsp of milk to loosen it.

6.  Place the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes until firm in the middle.

7.  Whilst the cake is still in the oven, prepare the crunchy lemon glaze mixture. Once the cake is removed from the oven, whilst still hot, prick the cke several times with a skewer and top with the crunchy lemon glaze using a pastry brush or pallet knife.

8. Leave to cool and refrigerate over night. Before serving top with the lemon icing and top with poppy seeds and lemon zest.

Photography and Styling: Jonathan Finch and Katy Lanceley

RECIPE | STICKY LEMON CAKE

I do love a lemon drizzle, but after watching Raymond Blanc make his lemon cake on the current BBC Kitchen Secrets program I was sold for a sticky glaze!

Raymond Blanc uses double cream in his lemon cake, but we didn't have any in so I used my usual lemon drizzle recipe and instead of doing the usual lemon drizzle topping at the end, I went down Raymond Blanc's route and covered the cake in a sticky glaze with apricot jam and a lemon icing.

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

225g Butter or Margarine

225g Caster Sugar

225 Self-Raising Flour

3 Eggs

1tsp Vanilla Essence

Grated Zest and Juice of 2 Lemons

2-5tbsp Milk

For the Sticky Glaze:

3tbsp Apricot Jam

100g Icing Sugar

3tbsp Lemon Juice

Instructions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 180 and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin (or two 1lb loaf tins) with baking paper.

2.  In a bowl, cream the butter (make sure the butter is at room temperature) and the sugar together with a whisk until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla essence and mix until combined.

3.  Add the lemon zest and juice to the mixture and the fold in the flour.

4.  Add 2-5tbsp of milk until the mixture becomes "loose" then transfer into the loaf tin.

5.  Bake in the centre of the oven for 50-60 minutes.

6.  When cooked, remove the cake from the tin and place on a wire cooling rack for 5 minutes.

7.  Heat the apricot jam in a saucepan on a low heat or in the microwave. Take a pastry brush and slather the cake (all visible surfaces) with a generous layer of jam.

8.  Whilst the jam sets, to make the lemon glaze, mix the icing sugar with the lemon and then drizzle over the cake and leave for 20 minutes to set before serving.

I'm a little bit obsessed with these 1lb loaf tins at the moment!

They make two small loaves which stay moist and fresh so you can easily stick one in the freezer or give one away to a very lucky friend...