Mom's Apple Cake

I made this cake a little while ago as a thank you for my neighbours for feeding my cat while I was away on holiday. The recipe is from Outsider Tart's Baked In America (and "mom's apple cake" is the name they gave it - it's not from my mum!) but I adapted it a little and have written the recipe out in my own words according to the method I used.

You need:
For the apple layer:

6 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
6 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
grated zest of one orange
For the cake:
450g plain flour
450g granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
240ml vegetable oil
4 eggs
60ml orange juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190C. Grease and/or line a 10 inch round cake tin depending on preference.
Slice the apples

Mix the apples, sugar, cinnamon and orange zest in a bowl and leave to rest.

In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients for the cake. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, eggs, orange juice and vanilla. Slowly mix into the dry ingredients and stir well.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the tin and arrange the sliced apples over the top.

Then spoon the rest of the cake mixture over the top and bake for 60-90 minutes. After about 45 minutes cover the tin with foil to stop the top from burning, and test regularly after 60 minutes to determine when the cake is cooked.

I didn't try any of this cake as I gave it to my neighbours but it looked like a sort of fruit cake texture-the kind of cake that tastes better a day or two later. I might have to make it again so I can try it myself!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has randomly chosen this month is A.

I am also sending it to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen and Kate from Turquoise Lemons as the ingredient they are encouraging us to use up this month is fruit. This cake is a great way to use up apples that are getting past their best or that have been bruised as you can cut those parts out when you slice the apple.

Elvis cupcakes - banana, peanut butter and bacon

When this month's Alphabakes letter was announced as E, I knew I wanted to do something a bit more imaginative as I've been busy lately and my entries have been pretty standard, like double chocolate muffins for D. I was flicking through my recipe books and I found it... the perfect E.... Elvis cupcakes! Apparently the King of Rock and Roll's favourite sandwich filling was banana, peanut butter and bacon - which sounds pretty disgusting to me - but those flavours would work much better in a cupcake!

I got the idea from my Outsider Tart book Baked In America, though they don't actually give a recipe -they have a recipe for banana nut whoopie pies and mention that they serve them as an Elvis version without the nuts and a peanut butter frosting and crispy bacon on top. I decided that caramelized bacon sounded better and that I wanted to make cupcakes instead of whoopie pies, so I adapted the recipe a bit. The recipe for the caramelized bacon is taken from a new recipe book I was sent to review called Breakfast for Dinner.

For about 9 or 10 cupcakes, you need:
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
pinch of salt
65g softened butter
60g caster sugar
1 egg
generous splash of milk
1 tsp vanilla flavouring
1 banana

For the frosting:
quantities are approximate:
100g soft cheese
75g peanut butter
enough icing sugar to mix to a stiff paste

For the topping:
2 rashers bacon
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, bicarb of soda, salt, sugar) and cream with the butter

Mix in the egg

It's probably best to mash the banana and add it, but mine was too firm so I sliced it very finely then mixed again with my hand mixer, which broke the pieces up.

Add a generous splash of milk to make the mixture a bit wetter

Spoon into cake cases. I used gold cases as I thought that was appropriate for the King!

Bake for about 15-20 minutes

To make the frosting, beat the soft cheese and icing sugar

Add the peanut butter and beat in

This tastes delicious!

Pipe onto the top of your cupcakes

Now for the unusual part.... Breakfast for Dinner is a great book full of ideas for breakfast that are far more interesting than just cereal or toast. In fact, some of them are whole meals in themselves that you could have for dinner, or brunch. I'll be reviewing the book in more detail later (and cooking something from it), but for the moment I'll tell you about their caramelized bacon recipe. It's part of their recipe for maple syrup cupcakes and is very easy to make.

Mix the brown sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl

Dip in a rasher of bacon so it is coated on both sides, then put on a grill pan - you oven cook these rather than grill but they need to be on a rack where the fat can drip through.

Lovely and crisp and caramelized!

Finally, I crumbled the bacon and sprinkled it over the cupcakes. Don't these look fit for a King?

I also made some without the bacon and added Dr. Oetker gold balls which I think go very nicely with the colour of the peanut butter frosting and give an elegant touch.

Thanks to PG UK for the review copy of Breakfast for Dinner.

I am sending these to Alphabakes, hosted by Ros from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker (it's my turn to host again next month).

I am also sending this to the How To Cook Good Food's One Ingredient Challenge, as this month's ingredient is banana. This month the challenge is hosted by Franglais Kitchen.

Walnut espresso layer cake

This is a slightly adapted Walnut Espresso Layer cake from Outsider Tart's Baked in America that I made for my boyfriend's mum's birthday. I asked her what flavour cake she would like and she said coffee; since she gave me the Outsider Tart book for my birthday a few weeks before, I thought it would be nice to make something from that.

Outsider Tart's Walnut Espresso Layers Cake
Ingredients
walnuts - 9oz/ 250g/ 1.5 cups
all-purpose or plain flour - 20oz/ 550g/ 3.75 cups
baking powder - 1.5 tsp
bicarbonate of soda- 1.5 tsp
kosher salt - 0.75 tsp
instant espresso powder - 3 tbsp
buttermilk, at room temperature - 8 fl oz/ 240ml / 1 cup
brewed triple strength espresso - 6 fl oz / 175 ml/ 0.75 cup
vanilla extract - 1 tbsp
unsalted butter, softened - 12oz/ 340g / 1.5 cups
granulated sugar - 12oz/ 340g / 1.5 cups
light brown sugar - 6oz / 175g/ 0.75 cup, packed
large eggs - 6

Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F/ gas mark 4. Butter three 9in/ 7.5cm round cake pans, line the bottoms with baking parchment, dust with flour and tap out any excess.

In a food processor, pulse the walnuts until finely ground. It's better to pulse versus running the motor to avoid making a paste.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, espresso powder and the ground walnuts.

In a large measuring jug combine the buttermilk, brewed espresso and vanilla. Set both aside.
In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and both sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5-6 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Scrape the bowl as you go.

On low speed, alternately add the flour/nut and buttermilk mixtures in 3-4 additions until just combined. The batter may have a slightly curdled appearance, which is just fine. Divide the mixture evenly among the prepared pans.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. It's best to rotate the pans front to back, top to bottom, about three quarters of the way through. Cool the layers in their pans for about ten minutes before turning them out on wire racks to cool completely.

This is in fact where the recipe ends, as the book has a separate chapter on frostings. I couldn't find a coffee flavour frosting so I decided to make a normal buttercream and flavour it with coffee - though it didn't have a strong a flavour as I would have liked, as that was the point when I ran out of coffee!

I have to admit that I don't actually drink coffee, and so only keep instant in the house, and didn't particularly want to buy espresso powder just for this cake, so I - whispers - used instant coffee where the recipe specified espresso. I'm sorry, Outsider Tart! Hope you forgive me... the cake tasted pretty good anyway!

I also decided I didn't need a massive cake as it was only going to serve a few people, so I made 2/3 of the recipe quantity and only made two layers instead of three - it still turned out to be a fairly deep cake.
I assembled the layers like this

I filled a piping bag with the buttercream

And piped a swirly pattern on the top. But this somehow just wasn't enough for a birthday cake and I tried to think of a way to decorate it...

... and hit on the idea of maltesers! I arranged them in two circles and also inserted some florists' wire into a few maltesers and stood them in the top of the cake, which was an idea I saw on the internet somewhere. I really like the way it turned out!

Walnut and Espresso Layer Cake recipe from Baked in America by David Muniz and David Lesniak, published by Ebury Press. Used by permission of the authors, The Random House Group Limited and Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

(Photographs are my own)
The book can be purchased on Amazon, Random House or Outsider Tart.

As the letter for this month's Alphabakes challenge is W, I am entering my walnut and espresso layer cake. I am also sending it to Cupcake Crazy Gem's United Bakes of America blogging challenge, as Outsider Tart is an American bakery in London and the recipe book, Baked in America, is full of goodies from there.

Toffee walnut blondies

I wanted to make something for my dad for Father's Day but it had to be suitable for carrying on a train, and also I knew my sister was planning to make a cake (which was delicious, by the way!). I was flicking through a recipe book I got for my birthday in April, Baked in America - there's something about this book that really appeals to me. I came across a recipe for Toffee Walnut Blondies and as I love brownies but haven't made blondies before, I wanted to give these a go.

You start by creaming butter, sugar, instant coffee granules and vanilla flavouring, then add some eggs. 

Melt some white chocolate and add to the mixture

Weighing out flour

The mixture coming together... finally fold in some chopped walnuts and some more chopped white chocolate.

Pour into a pan and bake in the oven for 20-30 mins

I think I left it in slightly too long!

Trim off any slightly burnt edges (ahem) and cut into squares

If you want the full recipe, it's on page 34 of Baked in America by Outsider Tart :-) I promise next time I bake from this book, I'll give you the full recipe (with the publisher's permission of course).

This recipe contains both chocolate and coffee, which is the theme for this month's We Should Cocoa challenge, guest hosted this month by The Kitchenmaid. The challenge is the brainchild of Choclette and Chele.



Recipe book review: Baked in America

I have so many recipe books that I've decided to start reviewing them on this blog! It will be a mixture of new and older books, some by well known bakers and chefs and some less known. The reviews will all take the same format and I'll aim to give an overview of the book. They are all books that I already possess, and either bought or was given as a birthday/Christmas gift - unless any nice publishers out there want to send me some new books to review!

First up is one of my newest books that I was given as a birthday present - and best of all, it's signed by the authors! They are customers/ friends of my boyfriend's mum, so she got me their book for my birthday and asked them to write a message for me inside.

Book title  Baked In America
Author Outsider Tart - David Lesniak & David Muniz
Publisher Ebury Press
Price/RRP £16.99 (hardback), though it was received as a gift.

Where did I get it? A birthday present from my boyfriend's mum.

The blurb on the back "When it comes to baking, Americans clearly know a thing or two. Be it gooey chocolate brownies, muffins bursting with berries or whoopie pies oozing sweet buttercream, many teamtime (or whenver time) favourites hail from across the pond.
Davids Muniz and Lesniak own the delicious American bakery Outsider Tart in London. Devoted to all things butter and sugar, they are single-handedly leading a revolution: the revival of humble home-baked treats."

Overview of book A broad selection of decadent recipes arranged in chapters like brownies and bars, cookies, whoopie pies, layer cakes - it's quite rare that I find every section as tempting as the next! Interestingly, frostings and finishes have their own chapter at the end - the two Davids believe you should be able to mix and match and not have to stick to a particular frosting recipe with a particular cake. Which sounds great in principle, but when I did make a cake from this, I struggled to pick a frosting recipe that I thought went with it! The first chapter is the story of how the two Davids got to where they are today and also some general baking and equipment tips, which is really interesting and well written. The book has a nice American slant and each recipe begins with an explanation or anecdote, which allows the character of the two authors and their bakery to really come through.

First recipe in the book (I thought this might give a nice snapshot of the kinds of recipes included)
Snickers brownies. Hell yeah - what a way to start!

Last recipe in the book King Charles Pudding Receipt. This takes a little explaining - basically it's a sort of Huguenot Torte, related to the Huguenots of King Charles, and receipt is of course recipe. It seems to be a kind of apple and walnut cake that sounds really intriguing.

Random recipe from the middle of the book (in case first and last are not particularly representative) NYC crumb cake -  a vanilla and cinnamon flavour cake that is a New York speciality.

Quality/number of photographs Not every recipe has a photo but the ones that are in there are good - and have a sort of rustic feel, e.g. a lot of the cakes are sitting on wooden worktops or chopping boards rather than being carefully arranged on plates. Which is more like how it would look when you bake the recipes at home, which I like.

Number of pages 223 - definitely feel like you get your money's worth!

Have I baked anything from this book? Yes - the walnut espresso layer cake on p. 173. I haven't blogged about it yet though! I am not the biggest fan of coffee cake (I made this for someone's birthday) but it was a lovely light cake. I did have trouble picking a suitable frosting from the chapter at the end so just went with a standard buttercream frosting with some coffee added. I've only had this book just over a month, and will definitely be using it again.

Overall impression in three words Chatty, indulgent, American!