Applesauce cake with cinnamon cream cheese icing

This year we had another lovely autumn weekend away in a big Cornish farmhouse with a bunch of old friends from art college.  I made this cake using up a bowl of homemade applesauce from last weekend’s roast pork Sunday lunch.  It was great as a dessert after a big meal of Lu’s beef brisket chilli, but was still a lovely and moist cake for eating the next day, sitting around in pyjamams in front of a big fire with good company and lots of pots of tea!

Apricot, pistachio and maple energy bars

A vegan, gluten free, no-bake recipe I invented for my stall at the Allroots Festival.  These are really quick and easy to make, and would be great for breakfast or a mid-morning snack to take to work.

Deconstructed blackberry and apple crumble

I’m a huge fan of crumble, but have recently discovered a way of making it so quickly, and in small quantities, so I can have an instant crumble for one late at night when I fancy a sneaky sugar kick!  I’ve called it ‘deconstructed’ crumble, which makes it sound very chef-y and pretentious, but really it’s just some delicious oaty, almondy crumbs that can be sprinkled on any fruit you’ve got to hand, which is very quickly stewed (well, warmed through) while the crumble bakes.  Our garden is groaning with blackberries at the moment, so I’ve been eating this quite often with them, but you could use other berries, apples, pears, peaches or whatever combination you fancy.

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!

Fruit cake (7 inch square)

I’ve been asked by my friend Debbie in work to make a three-tiered wedding cake for her friend Lorna’s wedding in October.  We’re about to go on holiday for a fortnight, so I decided to get a head start and make the fruit cake for the top tier before we leave.  I’m then going to give it to Debbie to cake sit for me, and feed it brandy every few days while we’re away!

Apple, pistachio and persimmon cake

A delicious, moreish, warm and cosy pudding of a cake this - made to use some apples from our friends Emma and Geraint's garden that I brought home after a lovely supper with them yesterday. 

Beetroot, carrot and apple red velvet muffins

We're in the middle of a heatwave at the moment, and loving getting to eat outdoors. For supper this evening, Lu barbecued a couple of small seabass for each of us, and I made a coleslaw with grated carrot, apple and beetroot. Just a couple of each makes a surprising amount when grated, far more than we needed for just the two of us. My solution, of course - is there ever a better solution, to any dilemma? - was cake.

I decided to make some muffins as I never get tired of how amazingly simple and quick they are to make - no electric mixers required, and hardly even any stirring! I added some red food dye to enhance the amazing beetroot colour, and a spoonful or two of cocoa, to make a cross between red velvet cake and carrot cake muffins - with extra punch from ground almonds and almond essence, and a hint of allspice.

Gooseberry, apple and lavender crumble

It's gooseberry season, one of my favourite fruits which only seem to appear in grocers for but a few weeks a year. As soon as I laid eyes on some, I couldn't resist filling a bag full of them and bringing them home to make into a lovely stewed crumble filling. Usually I would add a splash of elderflower cordial to this, but I don't have any in the house today so instead decided to add a little lavender to the crumble topping, to give it a different flavour but still one reminiscent of flowering hedgerows on warm sunny walks in the countryside.

Cranberry apple crumble

I went to stay with my mum for a few days this week, and we had a lovely time making Christmas cards on her new printing press. When I arrived I popped into her local grocer to buy some flowers, and couldn't resist a punnet of shiny, glowing red cranberries. I turned them into a crumble with apples, cinnamon and an oat and almond topping. This turned out to be wonderful for breakfast!

Danish apple cake

I'm not sleeping well at the moment and this morning woke up at 3am, completely unable to get back to sleep. My recipe for insomnia? Baking of course! So I found myself in the wee small hours peeling apples to make a version of a Danish apple cake. Traditionally this would be made with ground almonds, but I didn't have any and couldn't pop to the shop at that time of night (or morning) so used ground walnuts instead. Either works well I think. Again I used some gorgeous jewel-like crimson raisins (I recently used them in my spiced rum, raisin and dark chocolate cookies) but normal raisins or sultanas would work just as well. I'm not sure it's traditional to soak them first either, but I always like raisins so much better when they've been soaked in something so they plump up and become lovely and juicy. My only tip with this would be to make sure you really test it for done-ness before taking it out of the oven - it's easy to underbake it because of the thick layers of fruit on top of the cake batter. Delicious for breakfast any time of the day or night!

OBAMA rocks! cakes

What an amazing US election result last night! To celebrate Obama's second term in office, I decided to make something with ingredients that spelled out OBAMA (a habit I've got into what with my ABC cake (Apple, Blueberry and Cinnamon), BMW bread (Banana, Mango and Walnut), and more recent BANG cake (Banana, Amaretto, Nut and Ginger)...). These started life as cookies but I soon realised that they tasted just like the rock cakes my mum used to make with us on Sunday afternoons as kids. So rather than flattening small scoops of the dough into cookie shapes, I instead dolloped big scoops onto the baking tray and left them to come out as rock cakes. I made one dough but split it into two batches before adding the different OBAMA fruit and nuts. The first batch contained Oats, Blueberries, Apple, Macadamia and Almonds. The second batch contained Oats, Banana, Apricot, Mango and Almonds. The result: OBAMA rocks! [cakes]

Spiced toffee apple cake

Continuing my recent bonfire night baking theme, this is an adapted version of a BBC Good Food recipe for spiced toffee apple cake. The cake is made from a base of date purée, then before baking is topped with rows of sliced red apples. Once it comes out of the oven, you sprinkle it with icing sugar and then drizzle a toffee sauce over the top.  Serve cut into squares like brownies!

Blackberry, apple and almond crumble muffins

Some quick muffins - these don't need an electric mixer, they are so quick to mix by hand. A nice way to use some lovely blackberries that are in season at the moment, and a left-over bramley apple from the spiced apple, rum and pecan pie I made the other day!

Spiced apple, rum and pecan pie

It's been a few weeks since I last posted anything here, partly because we've been away on a lovely Greek island holiday, to Symi. I have also had a couple of baking disasters since being back - a cake inspired by the holiday made with Greek yoghurt, olive oil and figs turned out just too gooey inside, and another made using a tin of mango purée tasted great but had a really rubbery texture. I was beginning to worry I'd lost my baking mojo - but then I made a fantastic chocolate sponge cake when I had an almighty hangover - I was just too hungover to remember to photograph or blog it! So here we are - I'm back with this deep dish apple pie, gently spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, full of chopped pecans and a dark rum and brown sugar filling. Baking mojo is well and truly back!

Pecan, apple and cinnamon bread

Lots of American cookbooks I own talk about 'breakfast' muffins, bars and quick-breads.  I love the idea of cake being an acceptable, normal option for breakfast - rather than a guilty pleasure I sneakily enjoy when no-one's looking!  The thread running through most of these 'breakfast' recipes is the addition of porridge oats, apples, nuts - the sorts of things a healthy person might turn into muesli, but that a cake addict like me would far prefer to turn into cake!  So inspired by this idea, this morning I woke up wanting a baking fix (yesterday's cherry scones really did vanish like the joke suggests) and decided to alter my apple, carrot, ginger and walnut bread to create this recipe.  What better way to start your day?

ABC (apple blueberry cinnamon) cake

I made this cake up this evening as a quick recipe for pudding - after a long day I needed something sweet, quick and simple! This is as easy as ABC... 

Apple, carrot, ginger and walnut bread (with optional cranberries and crumble topping!)

It's a work colleague, Tim's, last day tomorrow and the office has made him a hamper as a leaving present as he's a bit of a foodie. I was asked to make a cake for the hamper that would be a bit 'unusual' so came up with this - a version of carrot cake but with fresh ginger, grated apple and walnut. Unfortunately I have to give it wrapped up whole, so won't get a chance to taste it - but it looks and smells so good I'll definitely be making this again!
                                                                                                                                                                  

Ahem... I am officially a greedy guts.  I was so disappointed not to have tried tasting this, that the next day I came home from work and made another one! Never able to resist 'tweaking' a recipe, this time I added a crumble topping... and some cranberries. (Told you I can't resist). I've amended the recipe with these 'optional' extras (but I recommend them - it was amazing cake!!)

Apple and elderflower crumble pies

Our fridge was empty this morning, which always makes both me and Lu feel sad!  Languishing on an otherwise empty shelf was a packet of ready-made pastry.  This was a way to make it, and a slightly tired looking bag of granny smith apples, go a long way, and cheer us all up on a wintry day when everyone in our house is feeling under the weather!  The pastry was enough to make 12 large muffin sized pies and 12 mini ones.  A bit of spice, some elderflower cordial and the juice and zest of a clementine helped make them a bit more festive, what with Christmas only days away now.  A mouthful of a mini apple pie like this can't fail to make you smile!

Apple and almond (eggless) biscotti

I’ve never made biscotti before but decided to try making an eggless version of a traditional almond biscotti recipe for dinner with my vegan friend Ellie.  It was another excuse to use up Lu’s homemade apple sauce (made with lovely Welsh cider).  Delicious with coffee after dinner!

Apple, cranberry and walnut flapjacks

Lu recently made apple sauce for a roast pork Sunday lunch (about 6 cooking apples peeled cored and sliced, about 500ml cider and a little sugar and salt to taste).  There was loads left over so I came up with this flapjack recipe to use up some of the rest.