Fig Hazelnut & Chocolate Cake
Cakes & Pastry
Blackberry Muffins with Lemon & Ginger Crunch Topping
Blackberry Muffins – heard of them? No? We all seem to go mad for muffins made with blueberry but not the humble blackberry. Why is that? They are simply delicious!
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Granny’s Shortbread
Granny’s Shortbread. People seem to fall into two camps about shortbread. My Granny liked hers on the thicker side, buttery and very crumbly. My Dad liked his thinner and crisper, more like a biscuit.
This is the recipe for Granny’s Shortbread. It’s very easy to make, even by hand. You’ll need a 20cm square cake tin for the amount given here. Double the quantities and it will fit a Swiss roll tin. Completely up to you. I try to restrict myself from devouring it by making this smaller quantity. I must add, just to be completely fair, that this shortbread does keep well in an airtight tin and it makes a great present.
Three Lemon Sorbet
This lemon sorbet uses three types of lemon flavours – lemongrass, lemon verbena and lemon zest. Using all three makes for an absolutely stunning sorbet. I can’t begin to tell you how much of a stunner and how well balanced this recipe is. Quite frankly, it’s more refreshing than a swim on a hot summer’s day! If you don’t have any of the lemon ingredients you can just ramp up the quantities of the other two, but honestly, do try this as it’s written if you can.
Lemon Verbena Shortbread Biscuits
Soft and crumbly, these little lemon verbena shortbread biscuits work well with ice creams, fruit or indeed alongside tea or coffee. They make the most of the herbs you have growing in your garden – in this case lemon verbena although you can vary the herb – try rosemary, lemon zest or thyme instead. Or use lavender flowers.
They are super easy to make. I love the convenience of rolling the shortbread dough into “logs” and slicing off rounds to bake as you need to. The lemon verbena shortbread biscuit dough can be kept in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for 3 months. It means that a freshly baked lemon verbena shortbread is always on hand. How good is that?
Lavender Sugar
This lavender sugar recipe is so an easy yo make that as a ‘recipe’ that it doesn’t really need writing down. But lots of people wouldn’t make it because they can’t think of what they’d do with it! So here are a few ideas
- Use it to sweeten homemade lemonade. Here’s the link for my recipe for Quick Homemade Lemonade to make lavender lemonade (yes it’s a ‘thing, and it’s delicious)
- Sprinkle over fresh fruit such as strawberries, oranges, blueberries etc
- Add to whipped cream
- Use in cakes or shortbread
- Add a to hot or iced tea
- Line the rim of a glass to flavour a cocktail
- Sprinkle on top of biscuits or scones
Lavender sugar also makes a wonderful small gift if you decant it into small, pretty jars and attach a pretty label. Great for kids to make as a gift for their teacher or grandparents.
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Chocolate Marmite Brownies
I know, I know – you are thinking that I am weird putting marmite (or Vegemite) into a chocolate brownie! But people thought a salted caramel was strange not so long ago so you can kind of get where I am coming from.
What the marmite actually does here is to season and round out the chocolate and make it more chocolatey. You could use a tsp of salt instead if you are a confirmed marmite hater but as you won’t pick out marmite as an ingredient, as it’s role here is to blend and add to the whole, in my opinion you’d be missing out.
This is a very simple, easy recipe which makes it easy to get a lovely gooey, squidgy brownie. I’ve added roasted hazelnuts but you don’t have to (use any other nut, or leave nuts out entirely), and if you are gluten free it works with gluten free flour or ground almonds.
So go on, surprise yourself and make a batch. Have fun letting people guess the mystery ingredient! Most can’t stop stuffing these for long enough to answer – they are that good!
Raspberry and Almond Cake
This is one of those cakes that you don’t want to be without. It’s delicious, can be put together quickly using whatever soft fruit you have to hand, is easily made gluten free, works well as a Traybake should you prefer and is as happy as a pudding as it is with a cuppa. Quite frankly it’s a complete and utter Winner.
Almond Cake with Orange Curd
- This is an absolutely delicious cake. We are almond mad in this house so it never lasts long. I admit that it doesn’t look as visually stunning as some but believe me this cake is well worth the making. It can be served plain with a cup of tea or as a pudding with orange curd (see recipe link Blood Orange Curd and Icecream or use shop bought) and whipped cream or mascarpone. You can also add toasted flaked almonds to add more texture as I have. If you need this to be gluten free then gluten free flour works very well instead of the plain flour listed. Continue reading
Almond and Orange Polenta Cake
I thought it might be fun to try putting this recipe for the easiest cake I know into a visual format. I’d be interested to know what you think about it. Is it easier to use or do you just find it annoying?
This cake comes from an online course I did a few weeks ago with Ursula Ferrigno. I’ve changed it a bit by cutting down the sugar and upping the citrus but it’s a winner of a recipe and YES! The cake does go into a cold oven. If you are using an Aga then please put it in under a cool shelf and reduce the cooking time to about 20 mins. This cake is gluten and dairy free