Orange and Cranberry Cake

with apricots and macadamia nuts

This loaf cake is based on the proportions of a madeira cake, rather than a sponge - equal quantities of butter, sugar and eggs, but a larger amount of flour. This makes the cake softer and richer than the more basic fruit loaf recipe I sometimes use, and the extra flour helps prevent any added fruits and nuts from sinking. I usually make these little loaves as an all-in-one mixture, to save time. For this cake, I was using up oddments from the storecupboard, including the remnanats of a pack of mixed macadamia nuts and dried cranberries, plus some extra cranberries from another pack, so I'm not sure of the exact weight of each individual ingredient, although there were more cranberries than anything else - as long as the total weight is around 150g the cake will be OK

Ingredients
100g softened butter
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
150g SR flour
zest of an orange, finely grated
milk to mix, if needed
150g of a mixture of dried cranberries, dried apricots and macadamia nuts

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a small (450g/1lb) loaf tin.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour and orange zest into a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the batter is well blended and smooth. Add a little milk if necessary to give a dropping consistency.
Fold in the dried fruit and nuts with a spoon, then transfer the mixture to the prepared tin.
Bake for about 50 minutes, or until a test probe comes out clean.

As I said a few posts back, cranberries and apricots is one of my favourite combinations of dried fruits. Here, the orange zest adds a freshness to the cake and the macadamia nuts give a contrasting texture.

Gingerbread with Macadamia Nuts and Cranberries

This is a traditional gingerbread recipe - one of those cakes where the top gets sticky over time! I added some chopped macadamia nuts and dried cranberries to use up supplies approaching the 'best-before' date. I'm happy to use dried fruit past it's best, but nuts can go stale quite quickly. I've been using this recipe for over 40 years know, but haven't found anything better. The amount of black treacle can be reduced to make a lighter cake, without the characteristic bitterness, as long as it is replaced by the same weight of golden syrup. The total weight of the two syrups must be 230g

Ingredients
110g butter
60g light muscovado sugar
170g black treacle
60g golden syrup
150mls milk
2 eggs
220g plain flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
50g macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
50g dried cranberries

Method
Preheat oven to 150C and line a deep 20cm(8") square cake tin with baking parchment.
In a large saucepan, heat the butter, sugar, and syrups until the fat has melted. Remove from the heat, add the milk and cool until lukewarm.
Beat the eggs and blend into the melted mixture.
Sift the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and add the liquid. Stir briskly to combine, but do not beat. Lastly stir in the fruit and nuts.
Transfer the batter to the baking tin and bake for about 60 minutes, until a test probe comes out clean.
Cool in the tin and preferably leave for a day before cutting.

I don't think the addition of fruit and nuts contributed much to the flavour, as the spiciness of  the gingerbread and the bitterness of treacle is so strong, but the nuts added a nice crunch to the texture.

Chocolate Macadamia Slice

This is definitely a 'slice', not a traybake, not just squares, because it's my entry to the new cooking challenge at Caroline Makes - Formula 1 Foods. Caroline's partner is an avid Formula 1 fan and the new Grand Prix season starts this weekend. Caroline says she often bakes while the GP coverage is on TV, but admits that the fixtures dominate their weekend social life. Readers - we used to be like that! However, my husband's interest is waning a little, as the rules have changed (to the detriment of the sport, in his opinion) over the years and only the richest teams are competitive now. The fact that the races aren't all shown live on terrestrial TV doesn't help either, but at least we don't have to plan our activities around race times any more! He doesn't mind missing a race, or watching the highlights only.

Anyway - back to Caroline's challenge! She wants us to prepare something inspired by the country where each race is taking place, and the first race is in Australia. That brings us back to my stipulation that my bake is a 'slice', that mainstay of Australian baking, and not a fudgy brownie (as one of the recipes I used calls it!). To reinforce the Australian experience, I added macadamia nuts to the top fudgy layer, and just a hint of coconut into the bottom biscuit layer. Macadamia nuts are one of the few food products that is only produced in Australia, so what could be better to use?

I even chose the recipe for the base layer from one of my Australian Women's Weekly Cookbooks - Cakes and Slices. It was really simple to make - 125g melted unsalted butter was mixed into 155g SR flour, 2 teaspoons cocoa, 60g caster sugar and 20g desiccated coconut. Once everything was well mixed, the dough was pressed evenly into a lined 20cm (8") square tin and baked at 190C for 15 minutes.

The topping came from this recipe for Fudgy Mocha Brownies, which I've used once before. I left out the coffee and used 100g of roughly chopped macadamia nuts instead of the hazelnuts. I accidently left out the baking powder too, but this was an improvement, I think, as the first time I used this recipe I said the top layer was more cakey than fudgy, but this time it was denser and more fudge-like!

I cut the slice into 16 squares, which gave decent sized portions (2" (5.0cm) square). Getting 36 squares out of the slice, as the recipe suggested would have meant tiny portions - nice for some occasions, but not for everyday eating!

These squares (what do Australians call the pieces from a slice?) were delicious! A dense, rich, intensely chocolate, fudgy topping on a crisp buttery cocnut shortbread base, which had just a hint of chocolate in it. The base was a little crumbly, but made a good textural contrast to the topping. The macadamia nuts added crunch but not a lot of flavour - the small amount of coconut in the base had a stronger flavour!

I hope Caroline gets a good response to her challenge; it's relatively easy to get inspiration from Australia for all sorts of cooking, but I think some of the venues will prove more difficult, especially for people like me, who only want to bake.

Honey Breakfast Fruit Cake

 - from a recipe by Harry Eastwood.

This cake was made specifically for the AlphaBakes challenge, where this month's randomly chosen letter is H.

My baking books were surprisingly short of recipes containing ingredients beginning with H - hazelnuts featured heavily, but I've used them a lot lately, and wanted to avoid them if possible. Honey was the only other frequently used ingredient, so I set myself the task of finding a recipe for a fruit cake sweetened only by honey.  So many recipes are called 'honey (something or other)', only to feature a tablespoon or two of honey, supposedly added for flavour, in addition to the usual high amount of sugar found in most cakes and biscuits.

I'm not going down the route of claiming that a cake sweetened with honey is any healthier than a cake sweetened by standard sugar (they are both types of carbohydrates not really needed for nutrition), but I do think that if you are using honey for it's flavour, you need a fair amount of it in a cake!

However, Harry Eastwood's baking recipes (ooooh! an extra H there!) are special for being a little bit healthier than most. She uses added vegetables a lot, and tries to cut down on the amount of sugar and fat in her recipes. This cake, called a Honey Breakfast Fruit Cake, uses finely grated butternut squash to replace much of the fat  - the only fat comes from nuts and eggs - and the squash also has a natural sweetness which means less needs to be added in the form of honey. The cake batter is made from half flour and half ground almonds and is packed with dried fruit and chopped nuts. In fact, for the size of cake made, it's really fruit and nuts held together with a little cake batter!

I followed the basic recipe, but as I'm trying to finish some of the half-used packets of dried fruits and nuts in the storecupboard, I altered what I used from what was suggested in the recipe. Instead of raisins and cranberries, I used sultanas, cranberries and sour cherries, and instead of chopped almonds I used a mixture of almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts and peanuts. I also sprinkled some flaked almonds on top of the cake before baking.

This was a really delicious cake; the almond flavour was predominant, as you'd expect with the use of almond extract, but the lemon zest and the honey both made a noticeable contribution. Obviously, the cake will vary in flavour depending on what type of honey is used - I used a Fairtrade Guatemalan honey which wasn't produced from any specific flowers, and was just a generic 'honey' flavour.

The big surprise was that the absence of fat wasn't noticed, nor was the addition of  quite a large amount of grated butternut squash. The recipe stated to grate the squash finely, so I used a finer grater than I would have used if grating carrots for a carrot cake, and this made the vegetable vanish into the cake batter, only adding moisture to the texture.

I'm not sure this would convince me that it's good to eat cake for breakfast, but it is certainly a cake that's good to eat, and will go on my list of things worth repeating.

AlphaBakes (rules here) is a blogging challenge hosted on alternate months by Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline from Caroline Makes. This month's randomly chosen letter H was picked by Ros, who will post a roundup of entries at the end of the month.

Chocolate Supreme Cookie Bars

This recipe comes from an Australian chef called Aaron Maree. No - I wouldn't have heard of him either, if I hadn't picked up one of his books, called "Biscuits, Pastries and Cookies of the World", from one of the local charity shops

The ingredients make these cookies seem typically Australian, although if there is anything similar online, it's going by another name. Basically it's a shortbread-type base which is baked, and then covered with a mixture of chocolate chips, desiccated coconut, macadamia nuts and condensed milk. This is then baked again until the milk is lightly caramelised  - when cooled this then sets and holds everything together.

For a 20x 30cm pan, the base was made from 135g flour, 75g butter, 55g icing sugar and an egg yolk, made into a shortbread-type dough. This just about covers the base, with a lot of hard work spreading it to the edges with fingers!  I think half as much dough again would have been an improvement - easier to work with and giving a more substantial base. The dough is then baked at 160C for 15 minutes until set and beginning to colour.

The topping is a whole 400g can of condensed milk, 60g desiccated coconut, 60g chopped macadamia nuts and 200g chopped plain chocolate, or chocolate chips if you would prefer a more uniform looking topping. Half the milk is poured fairly evenly over the cooked shortbread base, then the nuts, coconut and chocolate are scattered over. The rest of the milk is then poured over. After baking for 45 minutes at 145C, the cookie sheet must be left to cool for at least 2 hours before cutting into 24 bars - I had to put it in the fridge for 10 minutes as the whole thing was still quite sticky after 2 hours.

As you can imagine, the topping was very rich and sweet, which is another reason I think a thicker cookie base would be an improvement, as it would give a better balance of sweet topping and plainer base. It was also one occasion when I wouldn't recommend cutting into larger bars - I had a houseful of guests for tea and no-one ate more than one, although everyone thought they were delicious!

I'm entering these into this month's We Should Cocoa challenge. As you probably know, WSC is a challenge originally started by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog and Chele at Chocolate Teapot. This month the challenge is hosted by BakeNQuilt, and the theme is cookies.

'Short and Sweet', and Spicy - Ginger Macadamia Biscuits

I'm probably one of the last of the baking bloggers to mention Dan Lepard's new book - Short and Sweet - but that doesn't mean I'm not impressed by it. As well as bringing many recipes from his Guardian Weekend column together in one place, Dan prefaces each section of the book with tips on equipment and techniques and information on why ingredients are used and how they interact with each other. While this makes it an excellent book for beginners, there are also things for experienced bakers to learn too. As always, many of Dan's recipes stand out as innovative in terms of using unusual ingredients and flavour combinations as well as for some of the techniques used - the cook has to have a certain amount of trust and just leap in, but as long as the recipes are followed carefully, success is almost guaranteed. I'm sure this book is set to become a baking 'bible' for many bakers.

My one disappointment is the lack of a photograph for every recipe, but I can see that this would have made the book huge, and unwieldy in the kitchen. As it is, the book is specially designed to stay open at the chosen page, making it easier to use when hands are floury or sticky.

For my first recipe from the book, I chose a recipe I haven't made before, and one which fitted into the 'spicy' theme I have for my October baking - Ginger Macadamia Biscuits. The recipe previously published in the Guardian is slightly different in that it uses a large egg, whereas the recipe in the book uses a medium sized egg, but that was the only change. The book also suggests that the recipe will make about 35 biscuits, but I only got 29 walnut-sized balls out of the dough. The only other change I made was to use unsalted macadamia nuts.

These biscuits were very subtly flavoured - the ginger, macadamia and coconut complimented each other without any one of the flavours standing out. Macadamias have a very strange texture because they aren't crisp or crunchy - more chewy and waxy - but they fitted well into these chewy biscuits.

Macadamia and White Chocolate Brownies

Easter is a busy time for the conscientious cook; even if there are no visitors, the family will probably be eating more at home because of extra time off work. It didn't take long for the previous chocolate cake and the Easter Marzipan biscuits to disappear. I'm still cooking mainly low saturated fat recipes, as CT still hasn't found out his current cholesterol levels, so spent a while going through my books, and searching online, looking for something suitable. My small repertoire seems to have already encompassed versions of most of the recipes available. I eventually found this recipe for brownies in 'The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Chocolate', which differs from other recipes I've used, as it uses vegetable oil, chocolate and cocoa. The original recipe added plain chocolate and walnuts, but I decided to enhance the visual appeal, and the luxury, by using macadamia nuts and white chocolate, as well as some plain chocolate. It's no coincidence that Julian Graves had a half price sale on all it's products last week!

Ingredients
150g plain chocolate, melted
120ml sunflower oil
215g light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
65g SR flour
60g cocoa
75g macadamia nuts, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped
50g 60% plain chocolate, chopped

Method
Preheat oven to 180C and line an 8" (20cm) square tin with parchment.
In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Stir in the melted chocolate and then beat until the mixture is smooth and amalgamated.
Sift the flour and cocoa into the bowl and fold in. The mixture became quite thick at this stage.
Fold in the nuts and chopped chocolate. Transfer the batter to the baking tin and spread evenly.
Bake for about 30 minutes until a probe comes out with a few damp crumbs sticking to it. Cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

This was a dense and moist brownie with a good flavour, and a crisp flaky top. The only criticism is that the brownies became a little crumbly when they were completely cold. This recipe comes second so far, of those I've tried, behind those made with mayonnaise.

Choc Full o' Chocolate Blondies

We've been to Paris for a spring break, so have been eating fine French Patisserie for a few days, but before we left, I made sure The Chief Tester had something to eat while we were away. I thank Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for her butterscotch bar recipe, and apologise unreservedly for doubting her and adding another egg to the batter - it's supposed to be quite solid! I used 100g macadamia nuts, roughly chopped, 100g dark chocolate chips (39% cocoa), 75g of 85% chocolate and 85g of 74% chocolate instead of just (just!!) the 360g chocolate in Celia's recipe, as we have no problem with nut consumption. I cut the 8" square cake into 16 pieces, as the CT has a large appetite!



I think I cut the bars before they were completely cold, as the photo shows blurs of chocolate rather than solid pieces, but that didn't affect the taste! I didn't get to try these until I got back from my short holiday, and had one from the part of the batch which had been frozen, but they were still in good condition and very chocolatey. So chocolatey in fact, that it was hard to believe there was any plain cake mixture there!

Rocky Road Brownies

I feel this is something everyone needs to try at least once in their life, and this in my 'once'!

I won't be making it again unless someone else requests it. There's nothing wrong with the recipe, which I took from Joy of Baking; in fact the brownie base was excellent - dark, rich, fudgey and a little bitter because of the chocolate I chose to use (I used chocolate with 85% cocoa solids as I didn't have any unsweetened). I just didn't like how sweet it got with marshmallows on top - the sweetness overwhelmed everything, even the bitterness of the base, and the only thing which came through was the flavour of too sweet chocolate and the crunch of the nuts.

So it's a personal thing - I'd certainly recommend the recipe to anyone who wanted to try them, but the final result wasn't to my taste.

The only change I made was to increase the weight of chocolate chips to 120g, but I used half chocolate and half fudge chips. The nuts I used were a mix of large pieces of macadamias and finely chopped hazelnuts.

My one mistake was to leave the topped brownie in the oven a minute or two too long - my rocky road looks like melted tarmac!

Butterscotch Blondies - take 2

This was a much better result than my first attempt a few weeks ago, but it still isn't quite what I'm looking for. I based the recipe on this recipe for White Chocolate Blondies, using more butter and some soft toffees instead of the melted white chocolate. The recipe was very tasty, but too light and cakey to match my expectations of a blondie. I'd like something more like a dense brownie in texture. Fortunately, since baking these, I've found several good looking blondie recipes on Stephanie's Ice Cream Before Dinner, so I think I'll try out some of those next.

In the meantime, if you want a tasty butterscotch flavoured cake, here is the recipe:

Ingredients
115g unsalted butter
115g soft toffees or vanilla fudge (I used Werther's Original Chewy Toffees)
100g light muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 large eggs
130g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
80g white chocolate, chopped roughly
80g macadamia nuts, toasted and chopped roughly

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 160C, line an 8" square baking tin with baking parchment. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together.

In a large saucepan, gently heat the butter, toffees, brown sugar and water until the toffees have completely melted. Stir well, to give a smooth amalgamated mixture. Allow the mixture to cool until it is barely more than hand-hot (otherwise you will scramble the eggs).

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the flour mix, followed by the nuts and white chocolate.

Pour into the prepared baking tin and bake for about 30 minutes, or until done when tested.

Cool in the tin, and cut into 12-16 pieces when completely cold.

White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Blondies

Surprisingly, there only seem to be two recipes for these in general use. One based on an Emeril Lagasse recipe, and the one I used, found here, which I chose over the Emeril recipe because it melts a large proportion of the white chocolate into the cake batter. Some variations of this second recipe use more butter. I baked in an 8" square tin, and got a tray of blondies of a reasonable depth, which could be cut into 16 pieces.

The texture was much better than those of the Butterscotch Blondies which I made earlier in the week, but my Chief Tester thought they were lacking in any defined flavour, other than vanilla, and I think I agree with him. Even the macadamia nuts, although they added a good crunch to the texture, lost their flavour in the overwhelming vanilla blandness.

He much preferred the flavour of the Butterscotch Blondies, so I am now on a quest for something with the texture of these but the flavour of a blondie made with brown sugar. I may have to do some experimenting with amalgamated recipes, unless anyone has any suggestions.

Butterscotch Blondies

After a lot of research into the subject of blondies, which I've been meaning to try for a long time, I selected this recipe for Butterscotch Blondies from Cookie Madness, which in turn was a Richard Sax recipe published on Joy of Baking. I added 50g fudge chips and 65g chopped toasted and salted Macadamia nuts, instead of the additions suggested in the recipe.

I haven't been as disappointed with a recipe for a long time. It's the closest I've been to throwing something away for a long time, too.

I don't know whether something went wrong with the recipe, or if I just don't like blondies. The first disappointment was the depth of the blondies when cooked. It's difficult to see from the photo, but the bars were only around 1cm (less than half an inch) deep - more like a biscuit than a brownie.

From the more risen edges, visible on the photo, it looks as if the blondies rose more initially but then collapsed. The texture was like a fallen meringue - chewy and sugary in a very unpleasant way.

The only redeeming feature, and what stopped me from binning them, was the macadamia nuts. I'd love to use them more in baking but they are soooo expensive! My son hasn't tasted them yet - if he doesn't like them, they may still end up feeding the birds!