Caramelised pear and almond pudding cake

This is one of those cakes (well, more pudding than cake) that doesn't look all that special but tastes divine. I think there's something pretty good about a pud like that - the surprise that your somewhat low expectations have been confounded as you take your first mouthful makes the delight at its surprise deliciousness all the better! This was dreamt up when I found a mountain of these baby pears in the grocers. Like golden sugar plums, they looked too pretty to eat and sat adorning a fruitbowl for several days while I waited for them to hit their perfect ripeness. Finally as they began to brown they took on a rustic look of windfall apples, and I knew it was time to turn them into a pudding. I made a cake batter with cinnamon, ground almonds and cream cheese, then caramelised the pears in apple and elderflower juice to top the cake. Before it finished baking, I topped the cake with slivered almonds, caramelised with the pear juices and a splash of cream, which gave the cake a crunchy topping and a ripple of warm silky caramel running through the middle. 

Flatbreads with smoked paprika and black mustard seeds

Tonight Lu made delicious lamb kebabs, barbecued and eaten in the garden. I decided to find a recipe for flatbread to go with it that didn’t require leavening with yeast, so that I could make it quickly without needing to wait for it to prove. The result was great to dip into tzatziki and would make lovely tortilla chips, cut into triangles and baked. I added black mustard seeds but it would work well with other spices, such as coriander or fennel seeds.

Spiced pumpkin cake with salted caramel cream cheese frosting and coconut cream dark chocolate ganache

I've been wanting to try this cake for ages now and have even had a tin of pumpkin purée and a tin of caramel sitting in the pantry waiting for their chance to be whipped up into a cake layered with chocolate ganache.  But for a cake like this with lots of ingredients and layers and two different icings, I need a special occasion as a good excuse to make it. When we were invited to a barbecue for a friend's birthday today I knew this was the perfect opportunity to have a go at it. 

The cake itself was utterly delicious - delicately spiced and moist like a really good carrot cake, which of course always goes perfectly with cream cheese frosting, but this time, cranked up a gear by adding caramel and sea salt to the frosting. I also made use of my recent discovery of dividing a chilled can of coconut milk, using the liquid as a milk substitute in the cake batter for added flavour, then melting the solidified cream with dark chocolate to make the most amazing ganache you've ever tasted. To maximise the amount of ganache and frosting, I sliced each cake in two, so that when the cake was cut, it revealed stripes of four layers of orange pumpkin, caramel cream and rich dark chocolate. 

However, I hadn't quite thought how suitable a cake with so much frosting would be to make - and transport - in the middle of a heatwave! Determined not to be deterred (honestly, I've been dreaming about this cake!) I devised an ingenious travel solution - a big, clear plastic box with a layer of bags of ice which I wedged around the trunk of the cake stand, acting as both a cool box and a way of keeping it wobble-free. It worked - and will from now on be my default way of transporting cakes!

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.

Chocolate malted milk Malteser cake

I made this cake for dinner with friends this week.  The cake is made with cocoa and Horlicks (malted milk powder), based on a Nigella Lawson recipe, but then I filled and iced it with a whipped ganache made from Horlicks-infused double cream and solid milk chocolate. The whole thing tastes like a giant, cakey version of Maltesers, one of my favourite guilty pleasures!

Lemon and rosemary cupcakes

I've started growing a kitchen windowbox herb garden and today decided to test out adding some of my fresh herbs to cakes - starting with some lovely, fragrant rosemary. I can't describe how delicious these turned out to be - just that after the first one, I had to eat a second immediately (and am struggling not to go and polish off the rest instead of writing this!)

Apricot, almond and amaretto cake

This was the other cake I made today for Paddy's 80th birthday party at Butetown History and Arts Centre, where I'm a board member. On the way there, I thought this might have ended in disaster when the apricots looked as if they were going to slide off the top in an avalanche of whipped Amaretto cream, but luckily some emergency cake repairs in the kitchen on arrival sorted it out and it was demolished by guests very quickly - the fact that it was still a little warm (the source of the melting panic in transit!) in fact made this delicious, a warm, boozy, almondy pudding, delicately spiced with nutmeg and full of baked and fresh apricots, with a fresh, Greek yoghurt cream which lifted it perfectly. For me, this was the winner of the two! 

Chocolate ginger cake with pomegranate and raspberries

Today I was invited to make the cakes for an 80th birthday party for one of my fellow board members at Butetown History and Arts Centre, held at the gallery. It was a fantastic turnout of  so many of Paddy and Gaynor's family and friends, politicians, academics, artists, and a privilege to contribute some cakes to a day full of amazing stories and reminiscences. This cake was an enormous chocolate and ginger cake, layered with whipped dark chocolate cream and fresh raspberries and topped with shiny chocolate ganache, pomegranate berries and edible gold dragees. It was nerve racking to transport but arrived in one piece, and went down a storm. Happy birthday, Paddy, who looked as dapper today as the Great Gatsby!

Rosemary, honey and sea salt bread

I was at home today as our new kitchen flooring was being delivered and the decorators have finally come to finish painting the house after our house flooded on Good Friday. I fancied baking as it has become a staple part of my days off, but the fridge still had a few of last night's delicious chilli hot chocolate muffins so I couldn't justify making something else sweet! Instead I decided to make a loaf of bread to have with our supper this evening. This only makes a small loaf as I'd only got 300g left in the bag of bread flour in the pantry, and decided to go with that since often fresh bread doesn't keep long enough for the two of us to finish a whole large loaf. This was the perfect size for two, and delicious too! Instead of using sugar I used a little honey, and added some gorgeous fresh rosemary that's growing wildly in the herb garden I've started growing on our kitchen window ledge, a lovely sunny spot. The resulting bread was eaten warm with dinner in the garden this evening. I so wish we had more warm sunny days like this in the summer, they feel like such treasures!