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 | THE CHILLI JAM MAN 'BHUT JOLOKIA' INFUSED SODA BREAD

Last month I received an email from MILLIES in Leeds last month asking me if I would be interested in a new project. Millies are a fab shop in the city centre which describes itself as a "fine food and local produce store". They sell locally sourced Yorkshire products and offer a wide range of interesting and delectable food stuffs (...just try their yogurt covered honeycomb  pieces and you'll see what I mean!).

Anyway - this project was to review or create recipes with some products that they were promoting or selling. First up a pot of sweet heat from the one and only THE CHILLI JAM MAN.

The Chilli Jam Man is a great little Yorkshire-based business, which has "spent years developing chilli jam recipes to tantalise and sate the tate buds". I chose to try out the extra hot (9.1% heat rating!) Bhut Jolokia Chilli Jam, which also happens to be one of the three vegetarian jams available within this range.

Upon the first little finger dip I was extremely surprised to finally find a "chilli" product that actually even I found very hot! It even gave me friend hiccups but this could have just been due to over excitement. Ha.

I instantly knew it would pair perfectly with a nice loaf of bread and an array of cheese, meats and pickles. So maverick me over here decided to put the Chilli Jam into one of my favourite bread recipes... the soda bread!

So here we have it...

THE CHILLI JAM MAN 'BHUT JOLOKIA' INFUSED SODA BREAD

Ingredients:

200g Plain Flour

200g Wholemeal Flour

1 1/2 tsp of Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp of Salt

2-3 tbsps of Mixed Seeds (Optional)

280-300g of Buttermilk

As much of a jar of your favourite Chilli Jam that you can handle!

* Click HERE for the whole range of Jam's available from The Chilli Jam Man.

Instructions:

1.  Heat your oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2.  Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the salt. At this point you can chuck in a few tablespoons of some mixed seeds, chopped nuts or any other dry ingredients of your preference.

3.  In a separate jug, mix the buttermilk with the Chilli Jam (I used about 2/3s of a pot) and then add this mixture to the dry ingredients to form a dough and knead gently, forming the dough into a ball.

3.  Place the ball of dough onto the baking paper and then with a sharp knife, cut a cross in the top of the dough about an inch deep. Sprinkle with flour and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

 

The outcome is a lovely doughy bread, quite hefty in consistency but one that can act as a suitable foundation for piling up with your favourite toppings. It packs just enough punch to give you that Chilli kick of the fiery Bhut Jolokia chilli and if it's not to your tasting you can add more or less of the pot of jam - but be warned, it's VERY hot!!

...and last but not least a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Millies and The Chilli Jam Man!