Cake Lovers : Activity

Chocolate Tort, from Kew magazine

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:00:04 GMT

(Not to be mistaken with Q magazine)

Blackberry and Chocolate Torte A rich chocolate cake made even more moist with a generous helping of blackberries. Always choose a good quality dark chocolate with a high (60-70%) cocoa solids content. This torte is delicious with a cup of coffee or turned into a dessert with the addition of some blackberry cream. Serve at room temperature, ( also delicious warm!) INGREDIENTS125g unsalted butter, softened125g light muscovado sugar3 eggs125g toasted hazelnuts, ground50g fresh breadcrumbs125g dark chocolate, melted250g blackberries Blackberry cream (optional) or just use fresh cream500g Crème Fraiche (200g used and adequate)2 tablespoons clear honey, or more to taste100g blackberries, crushed METHOD

Butter and line the base of a 23cm spring release tin (or loose bottomed tin) with baking parchment. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5.
Using a hand-held electric whisk, (cream with a fork successful too) cream the butter & sugar until pale and fluffy – the mixture should fall easily from the whisk – then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Do not worry if the mixture curdles slightly with the third egg.
Fold in the ground hazelnuts and breadcrumbs, followed by the chocolate and finally the blackberries.
Transfer to the prepared tin and level the surface. Cook for 30-35 minutes (took nearly an hour) until just firm to the touch. Allow the torte to cool in the tin.
For the cream simply fold the ingredients together, cover and chill until required. Any leftovers will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Note the use of breadcrumbs instead of flour. We recently tried this again, for my father's birthday dinner, with blueberries and rasberries in addition to the blackberries. It is delicious - not too sweet, and a perfect vessel for the consumption of both chocolate and cream. Add enough fruit and it might even count towards your 5 a day

Pancakes

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:39:41 GMT

It is the time of year for eating pancakes. Pancakes are made from a batter of flours, egg and milk, the exact quantities depend on where you come from. There are also great variants as to what you eat with pancakes. When I was a child we always has lemon juice and golden syrup. Then there is the competition as to how many pancakes you can eat.

A mini oven for your computer?

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:07:32 GMT

So far, the Object Oriented Cake example is reasonably well received by my Part 2 students.

This morning someone pointed me to the ThinkGeek web site.

Do you think we should get the lab fitted with them?

Christmas cake

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:02:11 GMT

We iced the second Christmas cake in the gap between Christmas and New Year.

We ate about half of it on New Year's Eve – there were a lot of people for supper.

The rest of it is now gone.

The final pictures are now on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssswills/sets/72157594372254158)

Carrot Cake

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 19:10:31 GMT

Mmm Christmas, so much food. I made meringue last week too, it was really nice.

However, today I baked two rather large carrot cakes - 12 ounces of flour was the started ingredient, it went downhill from there! The recipe said 16 ounces (!!) of icing sugar for the icing, but I decided to half that and there was still plenty... I iced one, Rob did the other.

Apologies for the pictures being a bit naff, the only camera I have up here in Edinbugh is the one on my phone.

The cake which Rob decorated:

Mine:

Both:

Rob's cake is more photogenic than mine: :(

Cake now sampled

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:58:13 GMT

We have finished decorating the cake, cut it and eaten some of it.

It is a very moist cake (must be all that brandy).

A few more pictures are now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssswills/sets/72157594372254158/

Merry Christmas.

Cake now with Royal icing

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:24:03 GMT

We have applied Royal icing to one cake.

See http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssswills/sets/72157594372254158/

Christmas cakes - now with marzipan

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:22:56 GMT

I've now applied marzipan to the Christmas cakes. Some people say they don't like marzipan but I do! Although maybe it is possible to have too much of it. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssswills/sets/72157594372254158/

Mince Pies

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:55:43 GMT

I made some mince pies... Unfortunately there are none left.

Mince Pies

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:05:26 GMT

There is a tradition that says for each mince pie eaten over the festive period one will get a happy month in the following year.

I was bought up to believe that they had to come from different sources, that you couldn't ensure a happy year by baking a batch and eating them all in one go.

We usually only remember this tale very close to Christmas and don't have the opportunity to stock up on too many Happy Months; this year we are determined to start earlier.

So if you have some ideas for mince pie related events add your comments here.

Mince Pies

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:52:55 GMT

Mince Pies

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:12:19 GMT

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:11:17 GMT