Blueberry & Apricot Crumble Cake!

As everyone would know, Sunday June 20 is Father's Day. As my father-in-law is a great fan of apricots and (hopefully!) also a fan of my baking, I decided to bake something apricoty as a gift. I found this recipe online and with blueberries conveniently on sale, it looks like the perfect summer bake for this weekend.

Once again, this was a 3 layer bake. The first layer was a simple sponge cake, the second was a layer of vanilla yogurt, blueberries and apricots and the last layer was a lovely cinnamony crumble topping. It might sound a tad of a hassle but when you can use canned apricots rather than fresh apricots, it does reduce the work involved.

This cake has been well-received by the parents-in-law and the Husband also finished his piece so I would conclude it is quite tasty!

Comment from a taster: If anyone says this is not delicious then they need their taste buds checked. :)

Millionaire Shortbread!

Millionaire shortbread or caramel shortbread is believed to be of Scottish origin due to the use of shortbread. Because the team is having an offsite on Monday, I decided to bake this as it is easy to eat and an old favourite of the team. This is from a brilliant recipe I found online and I have been able to produce the same tasty results everytime.

The first layer is the shortbread, the filling is homemade caramel made out of condensed milk, golden syrup, brown sugar and butter and the topping is a layer of melted milk chocolate. I have used different types of brown sugar and milk as well as dark chocolate to the same tasty effect.

The Husband has already successfully sneaked a piece out of the tin when I was out this morning and claimed that he will only try to eat another 2 pieces tomorrow!

Banana, Sultana and Choc Chip Muffins!

For some reason, I really got into bananas this weekend. Besides the banana cake, I decided to bake something bananay and chocolatey as well. I am a massive fan of sultanas so I reduced the quantity of chocolate chips from 200g to 125g instead and added another 125g of sultanas instead.

These muffins smelled fabulous in the oven and were tasty too. I bought 10 muffins into the office and had a right giggle when my boss came in and found the empty tin. He immediately started asking everyone if they were really good which would explain why they disappeared so quickly! Luckily, I have put aside a couple so was able to offer him one which made him really happy. It was probably a good thing to keep your boss happy on Appraisal Day!

Banana Cake with Cream Topping!

First, a confession. This was meant to be a sticky toffee banana cake but as you can see, it looks nothing like a toffee cake. My mistake was not having the right kind of toffee that was required to be mixed with the double cream and hence my filling/topping came out a lot more watery and not so toffeey. I was toying with the idea of making a cream cheese filling instead but after cooling the non-toffee filling in the fridge, it seemed to harden enough to be spread without running all over the cake. As you can see, the filling definitely spread out of the cake but luckily, not so much as to soak the cake and make it soggy. There is also a layer of sliced banana on top of the cream filling that turned out to be a nice surprise for my tasters.

The cake got a good review overall as it is quite moist and the filling/topping sits easily on the cake as a cream spread. Hopefully it will all be finished by tomorrow!

Coca-Cola Cake!

I found this recipe online and thought it looked quite interesting using Coke as an ingredient. I know we have a couple of cans of Coke in the fridge and the Husband kindly produced another can from the highest cupboard in the kitchen. This is an interesting recipe consisting of a lot of sugar, almost a can of Coke, marshmallows, flour for the cake and icing sugar, more Coke and roasted and salted pecans for the topping.

I was slightly worried as the cake was bubbling away in the oven as it looked as though it was going to bubble-over and the marshmallows were floating merrily on the top. However, once out of the oven, the cake seemed to calm down and topped with the pecan icing glaze, smelled delicious.

However, the cake seemed to be really crumby and falling apart when I started slicing it up. I was surprised as I thought it should slice really well. Further investigation of the recipe revealed that the cake is meant to be really really moist and really soft and to be served from the baking pan, so it is hardly surprisingly that it does not slice well. I gave the first piece to the Husband and he pronounced 'it's ok'.

To make it easier to take the cake into the office, I have managed to put each mis-shaped piece into a muffin case so they will be more portable and removable rather than sticking to the tin.

Will post the outcome on taste in due course!

Little Upside Down Blueberry Cakes!

Since blueberries are currently on sale, I decided to look for a recipe that requires blueberries. If you can remember, I have a lovely blueberry and lemon loaf recipe but I would prefer to bake something new. To make them extra special, I decided to bake them in heart-shaped moulds. The recipe originally makes only 6 cakes but using smaller heart-shaped moulds means I ended up with 11 instead. They tend to puff up like cupcakes in the oven but after 5 mins cooling in the pan, they settled down to a flat cake surface. They might look like muffins but they actually taste more cake-like in texture and not as crumbly. The Husband was not impressed but I thought they were quite tasty! The blueberries were semi-coated in brown sugar before the batter was spooned in so they have a nice not-too-sweet topping taste.

Will be bringing a couple over to the parents-in-law for dinner tonight so will you know how they fare then!