What overripe bananas were made for! Banoffee Cake

 

It is almost worth letting your bananas go black, just to make this cake. Personally, bananas have to be perfectly yellow if I am going to eat them. If there are black spots on them then they are too ripe and sweet to eat. Luckily, ripe bananas make great cakes and this is a lovely recipe which makes a cake that stays moist for several days if you keep it properly.

I have been looking forward to blogging for the European Day for Multilingual Blogging and trying out my French for a real purpose. There is a French version of this blog post here if you are interested. Since I studied French (and German) many years ago, the times to use my French have been seldom and it is only since I have started visiting France regularly again that I have realised just how much I really love France. To write in French once again is a pleasure, even if I do get some of the words wrong! It is odd, but for a long time I preferred the German language (and I was better at it), but now, I prefer French.

Anyway, from one interest to another. There are not enough cakes on this blog so here is another one. It is from ‘The Birthday Cake Book’ by Fiona Cairns and is a banana sponge topped with delicious toffee frosting. I tried to decorate the top with dried banana slices but I couldn’t find any, so I picked out some chewy toffees to decorate. Not recommended if you have loose fillings.

Banoffee Cake adapted from ‘The Birthday Cake Book’ by Fiona Cairns

 Ingredients:

120g unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the tins.

250g self raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

160g brown (light muscovado) sugar

3 extremely ripe, large bananas

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons whole milk

For the toffee buttercream: (Note: I halved the quantities to produce enough buttercream to sandwich then top the cake).

240g unsalted butter, softened

60g brown (light muscovado) sugar

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 tablespoon double cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

200g icing sugar, sifted

Banana chips, or toffee sweets for decoration.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180c/350F.

 

Butter two 20cm round cake tins. Ensure they are tins with deep sides, (3 or 4cm, maybe). If necessary, create a collar of a double thickness of baking parchment to come up above the sides.

 

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

 

Cream together the butter and the sugar in a mixer until soft and fluffy. Meanwhile, mash the bananas with a fork.

 

 

Add the eggs, vanilla and milk to the butter mixture with a spoonful of flour to prevent the mixture from splitting.

 

Fold in the remaining the flour mixture, then the bananas, and then pour the batter into the tins.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle of the cake emerges clean. .

 

 

 

Remove the cake from the oven and run a knife around the sides. Take the cakes out of the tins and allow to cool.

 

 

 

To make the buttercream, melt 80g of the butter, the brown sugar and the syrup over a low heat until it is a deep caramel colour. Take the mixture off the heat and add the cream and the vanilla extract. Keep stirring the mixture. Allow to cool.

 

In a mixer, beat the remaining butter until soft then and fluffy add the icing sugar and beat the mixture for at least five minutes, or until light and creamy.

 

Add the cooled toffee mixture and beat in well.

 

Use the buttercream to sandwich the cakes together. Then top the cake generously with the remaining buttercream.

Decorate with banana chips, or with toffees.

Mermaids for the birthday girl: Orange drizzle cake without the drizzle but with other fun stuff!!

 

 

Lola is seven. I really don't know how or when this happened. I think I must have blinked. Anyway, the fact of the matter is that the girl with the shock of rock and roll hair and a knowing look which belied the fact that though a babe in arms, she had definitely been here before is now a very old seven, and if you ask me she is a '7 going on 17' kinda girl, judging by her requests for nail polish, jewellery and lip glosses and some false nails off her auntie, who has since been declared the best auntie ever. I don't think I knew this stuff existed until I was at least in double figures but it's true what they say when it's declared that they grow up quick these days, because they do. And it is a shame.

 

Lola, aged seventeen hours

Lola, aged seven

 

However, I was slightly placated by the conversation I had with her several weeks ago about the birthday cake challenge she was going to set me this year. I was expecting her to tell me she wanted 'One Direction' on her cake but she told me that mermaids were where it was at. Thank goodness. a sense of childlike wonder was still evident, as it should be when you are seven.

 

Anyway, I recalled a picture I had seen somewhere of white chocolate shells and toasted coconut creating a beach scene and I decided that after my Angry Birds cake I would try to make something resembling a mermaid out of sugar paste. If you squint it sort of looks like one. I decided also to fore go the orange drizzle and icing that goes with the original cake recipe (from Fiona Cairns' 'Bake and Decorate') but split the cake and spread a thick layer of raspberry jam. Orange, raspberry, coconut, vanilla frosting. If you insist.

 

Orange drizzle cake, adapted from Fiona Cairns' 'Bake and Decorate'.

 

Serves 8 (though in reality I doubled the ingredients for I was making two cakes).

 

Ingredients.

 

For the cake:

 

250g unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the tin

250g golden caster sugar

Grated zest of 2 large oranges, plus 75ml orange juice

4 eggs, lightly beaten

250g self-raising flour, sifted

a pinch of salt

1/2 jar of seedless raspberry jam.

 

For the frosting:

 

(I'll be honest - I eyeball this; there is no definitive recipe I just mix softened butter with icing sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla and some milk until I get a consistency that is spreadable but then holds its shape. Then I added baby blue colouring to get to the shade I wanted. If it helps, I often use the Hummingbird Bakery recipe that you can find here. Scroll down for the recipe).

 

For the decoration:

 

Pink sugar paste

flesh coloured sugar paste

teddy bear brown sugar paste

Edible ink pens

50g dessicated coconut

white and yellow Wilton Candy Melts

a mould for creating the shells

Some cardboard

 

Method:

 

 

 

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/fan 160ºC/340ºF/gas mark 3 ½. Butter a 20cm diameter, 7.5cm deep, round tin, then line the base with baking parchment.

 

 

 

Cream the butter, sugar and zest until very pale, light and fluffy (it will take at least 5 mins in an electric mixer). Add the eggs gradually, beating between each addition, along with 1tbsp of the flour to prevent curdling. Fold in the remaining flour and, lastly, slowly mix in the orange juice.

 

 

 

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 - 45 mins until the cake springs back to the touch, or a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, leave for 1 min, then turn out to cool on a wire rack.

 

 

 

Once cool, split the cake carefully and spread the inside with raspberry jam before sandwiching the two layers together.

 

 

 

Melt the candy melts according to the pack instructions and when melted and pliable, spoon the molten chocolate into moulds. Place in the fridge to set.

 

Toast the coconut in a dry frying pan, stirring occasionally until the coconut begins to colour. Once it starts to brown it happens quickly so be vigilant. Allow to cool completely or else it will melt the frosting.

 

 

 

Make your frosting by beating the butter and then gradually adding the icing sugar and a little milk and a teaspoon of vanilla followed by a knife tip of colour paste. Mix until the frosting becomes fluffy but stiff enough to spread on the cake. This could take quite a few minutes.

 

 

 

Spread the frosting on the cake by starting on top and spreading the frosting on the top and then down and around the sides. Use a knife dipped in hot water to move and spread the frosting around the cake.

 

 

 

Once the cake is covered, tidy the frosting up by spreading the frosting upwards on the sides of the cake and then smooth the top as much as possible.

 

Roll out your sugar pastes and cut out a fish tail, a body, a face and hair. Put the parts together carefully on the cake. Using the edible pens, draw the features on the face.

 

 

 

I used a piece of cardboard with an 'undulating' pattern cut out to act as a template for sprinkling the coconut over the cake. take the template away once you have sprinkled the coconut over the cake.

 

Unmould the shells and place them onto the cake.

 

Unfortunate Warburtons Bread shot...

 

Serve to a seven year old who is going on seventeen...

Happy birthday Finn - Elderflower Cake with added Angry Birds!

 

Finn is now five years old. I am frankly amazed at where the time has gone (as is any parent from what I can gather) but every single day of my life since his arrival has been blessed with his smile, his charm, his energy. Like his sister Lola, his very presence in my world is special, wondrous, the things miracles are truly made of.

 

  A grainy baby Finn, newborn

 

So, when it came round to the subject of birthday cakes, I asked him what he would like dreading the word 'dinosaurs' as last years' birthday cake offering looked more like a pigeon than a T-Rex. He said 'Angry Birds' and I really got to wondering just what sort of mess I would make of them. Well, I did better than expected. They might be a bit rough and ready but you know, from a distance, if you squint, they look a little like those pesky little birds that I have catapulted at piggies whilst having an idle moment or two. yes, even mums like Angry Birds!

 

The sponge cake recipe is an elderflower cake recipe taken from Fiona Cairns' 'Birthday Cake Book' which is so, so pretty. I am not surprised that she was chosen to make William and Kate's wedding cake. I have often looked wistfully at her beautifully perfect cupcakes ensconced behind the glass in Waitrose. Each twirl, each curl, each delicate flower so splendid in its execution. I can only dream of being so adept. But it's not only her fantastic decoration that I am a fan of, it's her actual cakes which are innovative and interesting. I liked the idea of an elderflower cake and whilst I might not have achieved the total effect as I went my own way in terms of decorating the cake, it was still a nice cake to make and to eat.

 

The original recipe suggests a filling of elderflower flavoured cream with additional strawberries to bring out the summery elderfloweryness (yes, I invented a word!) but my only addition apart from angry birds was to spread a generous dollop or two of strawberry jam to sandwich the two cakes together. I think I may have missed out on the wow factor of elderflower and strawberry combined, but I needed to adapt the recipe and method to suit my purpose.

 

The recipe below is for the cake only. As far as making Angry Birds goes, it's quite hard to demonstrate but my plan of attack was to print out some pictures of the birds and then use sugar paste to create them. I cut the basic shapes out with a knife and then cut or modelled the remaining details and stuck them on after moistening the sugarpaste with a dab of water. I covered the cake with sugar paste and then stuck the birds on whilst everything was soft and pliable, only then allowing the paste to dry out.

 

Finn was impressed. His opinion was the one that mattered.

 

Elderflower cake, taken from Elderflower and Strawberry Cake in Fiona Cairns' 'The Birthday Cake Book'

 

Serves 24 (so I halved the recipe below to serve 12)

 

Ingredients:

 

450g (1lb) self-raising flour

 

450g (1lb) really soft unsalted butter, diced

 

2tsp baking powder

 

8 eggs, lightly beaten

 

Finely grated zest of 2 unwaxed lemons

 

450g (1lb) golden caster sugar

 

4tbsp elderflower cordial

 

 

The Angry Birds:

 

Red, yellow, black, green, blue, orange sugarpaste

A black edible marker pen

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/gas 4. Butter three 20cm (8in) round cake tins and line the bases with parchment. (I used 2 sandwich tins)

 

 

 

Cream the butter and eggs then add the sifted flour and baking powder, lemon zest and sugar and beat well, adding the cordial towards the end.

 

 

 

Pour into the cake tins and bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven, leave for a couple of minutes, run a knife around the rims and turn out onto a wire rack. Remove the papers and cool. Trim the cakes flat.

 

 

 

Sandwich with strawberry jam and place on a flat plate.

 

I put some 'grass' to try to disguise the imperfect way that I decorated the sides of the cake!

 

Roll out the sugarpaste, on a surface lightly flowered with icing sugar, to an even depth, then place over the cake. Smooth the edges as much as possible and trim.

 

 

 

Make your birds as described above. Once made place them onto the top of the cake.

 

 

 

Serve, preferably adorned with candles, to an excited five year old.