Maple and honey beer bread

This is a brilliant and super-quick bread, which uses beer instead of yeast - no kneading or proving required, just mix it all together and pop it in the oven in a loaf tin. I used a honey beer, and added a spoonful each of maple syrup and honey. It has a fantastic crunchy crust and is deliciously soft in the middle. It has a very slight after-taste of the honey and hops of the beer, and is quite sweet so could be eaten with honey or jam, but we had it with a beef and beer casserole and it went perfectly.

Cranberry, apple and maple pudding cake

Since it's Thanksgiving today, I thought I'd use up the last of the cranberries I had left over from my cranberry and clementine loaf cake-baking at the weekend and make something American-inspired. What better pairing than maple syrup, apple, cinnamon? This was inspired by a recipe which also contained cornmeal, another very American ingredient, and although I had some in the pantry from when I made cornbread, I have to confess none of us were that keen on its slightly grainy texture - so I decided to go for ground almonds instead! The result was a lovely warming dessert, somewhere between a pudding and a cake.

And as it's a time of giving thanks, I just wanted to say a great big THANK YOU! to all of you who've visited and enjoyed reading my blog. Today I hit the 20,000 visitor mark - something I'd never have dreamt would happen when I first started this to record my recipes. It's lovely getting feedback from those of you who have tried baking or just enjoyed looking at the cakes I've invented. Come back again soon!

Sloe gin, hazelnut and fig cake

Sloe gin seems to capture the flavours of autumn and the onset of Christmas festivities. It seemed like a perfect ingredient to incorporate into a cake for a Christmas craft and bake sale we went to today at a beautiful house in the Welsh countryside to raise money for a cancer hospital that our friend and old teacher Mags raises money for.  I decided to use it in a version of the hazelnut and fig layer cake that I made recently, adding a glug of sloe gin to the cake batter and drizzling the hot cakes out of the oven with it before layering it with hazelnut buttercream and topping each layer with fresh figs. Delicious!

Cranberry and clementine loaf cake

This is the second of the cakes I've made today for a charity fundraising cake sale tomorrow, along with an elderflower, lemon and poppyseed loaf cake and a sloe gin, hazelnut and fig layer cake. I'm really pleased with how this looks, drizzled with a glossy red cranberry glaze that reminds me of toffee-apples, and decorated with white chocolate stars. It'd be a lovely alternative to Christmas cake I think.

Elderflower, lemon and poppyseed cake

Today I've been making cakes to sell at a charity fundraising bake sale organised by Mags, who was a teacher at our school and became something of a surrogate mum to Lu when she was a teenager. She was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and has been doing incredible fundraising ever since. The first of my contributions is this elderflower, lemon and poppyseed loaf cake with an elderflower icing.

Raspberry ripple, elderflower and almond cake

This is a birthday cake for our friend Shahien, whose son Sabir commissioned me to make a cake with raspberries and strawberries for her. I made a Victoria sponge but included crushed raspberries rippled into the cake batter, which also contained elderflower cordial and substituted some of the flour for ground almonds. I then made an elderflower whipped cream and added elderflower to raspberry jam for the filling, layered with fresh raspberries and strawberries. Happy birthday Shane!

Coffee-glazed Chantilly choux buns

I've never made choux pastry before and have always been a bit scared of it. But Lu loves coffee choux buns and I've been promising for ages to try making them for her. I finally took the plunge today, fully expecting the whole thing to go horribly wrong... but it turns out there is nothing to fear!  It's actually incredibly quick and easy, uses a tiny amount of store-cupboard ingredients, and according to Delia (who I trust on all baking matters), it is best NOT to use a piping bag but spoon the dough onto a baking sheet for a crisper choux.  She also recommends using strong white bread flour rather than plain flour (as it has a higher gluten content and makes them even crisper), something I'll try next time. Because I'm definitely making these again! Delicious, light, airy, crispy, creamy, sweet delights. I want to try them with caramel on top, or an Earl Grey pastry cream, or fresh raspberries folded into whipped cream. I've fallen in love with Choux!

Pistachio, chocolate and raspberry layer cake

I was commissioned by a work colleague to make a smaller version of my recent chocolate and pistachio wedding cake, for her daughter's 30th birthday.  The method is just the same, but I thought I'd post it with the scaled down ingredients as this is a much more manageably-sized cake that I'm sure I'll make far more regularly!

Chocolate pistachio caramel cream muffins

We're still ill. And thoroughly fed up of feeling hot and cold, achey and shivery. I decided we needed a chocolate fix. No chocolate in the house, and it's too cold and dark to venture out for some.  But in the pantry, I did have cocoa, and caramel, and pistachios. So I decided, muffins - about the quickest of all baking, no need for an electric whisking, just the bare minimum of a quick stir of wet ingredients into dry, and 15 minutes later, warm, chocolatey, nutty, caramel goodness.  We were also almost out of milk, so I substituted with double cream, for extra cheering up!

Fig and clementine gingerbread

Lu and I have spent all week feeling very sorry for ourselves with a horrible virus. This is medicinal baking - unbelievably easy to make (it's all just blitzed in a food processor) so minimal effort for an achey body, and proper comfort food to eat - best served warm with a generous dollop of custard!  It's an adaptation of my sticky ginger loaf cake, but I used dried figs as we didn't have any dates in the pantry, and added clementine zest and juice and made a clementine icing to drizzle over the top. (It also happens to be vegan - no eggs or butter, all the stickiness comes from the figs, clementine juice and lovely liquoricy black treacle.) A big warm hug of a cake!