Floral Cake

Quite some time ago I ripped a recipe out of a Delicious magazine for a lavender poppyseed cake with an orange blossom honey syrup. It sounded amazing and very floral! In fact I couldn’t really imagine what it would taste like. But, it captured my imagination as I love syrup cakes, love poppyseeds and have a slight obsession with buying unusual ingredients and then not really using them (such as culinary lavender!!). I decided to make this cake for book club at my house last week, as now that I am a full time working, business owning mother as opposed to simply a full time working business owner, making a cake on a week night is a real achievement, let alone icing or decorating it! At least with a syrup cake there is no real need to ice it!
The cake was very easy to make – a simple cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and dry ingredients cake. The lavender was meant to be rubbed into the sugar and then sifted out. Because I was using culinary lavender – ie already dried and ready to cook, I simply rubbed the lavender into the sugar and left it at that. The lavender flavour only ended up being a hint of lavender. I’m not sure if that was because the other flavours over powered the lavender or because it is a while since I bought the lavender and it may have lost its strength.

Once the cake was cooked and came out of the oven warmed orange blossom flavoured honey is poured over the cake. I didn’t have any orange blossom flavoured honey, so I added orange blossom water to taste to my honey and then poured it over the cake. The honey I used was a mild tawhiri honey. I am not a huge fan of honey so I prefer the more mild honeys. The cake had yummy flavours – it was probably a little dry around the edges and could have done with a bit more honey to make it more moist. I served it with whipped cream. An unusual cake, but one that I would make again.

Lavender and orange blossom honey cake (adapted from Delicious magazine)

1 tbsp culinary lavender seeds
125g sugar
250g butter
4 eggs
250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp poppy seeds
1/3 c honey
1-2 tbsp orange blossom water to taste

• Cream butter, sugar and lavender
• Beat in eggs, one at a time then fold in flour, baking powder and poppyseeds
• Pour into lined 24cm springform tin and bake at 160c for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
• Cool cake, then warm together the honey and orange blossom water and pour over the cake

Cheat's Birthday Cake

I was in Christchurch in the weekend for my niece’s 6th birthday. Piper wanted me to make her birthday cake, but it was a pretty full on day the actual day of her birthday, as my dad and brother in law were cycling in an event, so I didn’t get the time to actually bake a cake. Instead I bought a sponge from the supermarket and some whipped cream. I tinted the cream pink, whipped it, sandwiched the sponge together and the slathered more cream over the sides. I then decorated it with icing flowers – I made the big pink flowers, but bought the little roses at the supermarket (you can get so many more decorating bits and pieces at the supermarket now days). The effect is great I think, for a $4 cake a bottle of cream!

My niece loves baking and so our present to her was a kids baking book, an assortment of cupcake cases, little icing flowers I had made, sprinkles and edible gel pens. She loved the present and I cant wait to see what she creates with her new cupcake decorating equipment.

Birthday Cake

When my in-laws were up a few weeks ago, it was my mother in law’s birthday. Rather than go out for dinner, I made a special dinner at home. I asked her what she would like for dinner and after her saying what ever you want to make a number of times, she confessed that her favourite is lamb. So, for the first time I cooked rack of lamb.

I used a Julie le Clerc recipe as a guide, coating the lamb rack in a crust made with breadcrumbs, sundried tomatoes and chopped olives. I think for my first go at lamb rack, I actually cooked it fairly well – cooked, but still lovely and pink in the middle. I served it with a salad of baby spinach, avocado and asparagus and cous cous.

I made a birthday cake for pudding. I used a recipe for a sponge cake from Ladies, A Plate. The forward to the recipe said that the cake didn’t rise high like a sponge cake usually would. And that was the truth. Even though the cake tasted lovely, I was a little disappointed with how flat it was. I did manage to cut in half and cream it (the cream is the best part of a sponge cake as far as I am concerned) and I did ice the top of the cake which is something I wouldn’t normally do but it was suggested the recipe. I then decorated the top of the cake with some icing flowers I made a while ago.

I wont make this cake again – it’s probably the first recipe from Ladies, A Plate that I haven’t really enjoyed, but if you want a very easy (albeit not terribly high!) sponge cake, then give it a go.

Birthday Sponge Cake (from Ladies, A Plate by Alexa Johnson)

2 eggs
1 egg yolk
70g icing sugar
55g flour

• Beat eggs, yolk and icing sugar until thick, pale and creamy
• Sift over flour and fold in
• Pour into a 20cm round tin which has had its base lined
• Bake at 190c for 25-30 minutes or until the cake has begun to shrink from the sides and bounces back when you touch the middle
• Cool on wire rack, then split and fill with whipped cream

Carrot Cake

My third sister (there are four of us) turns 30 next weekend and she and my youngest sister were up in the weekend, so I made her an early birthday cake. Mum and Dad were up as well so we had a wonderful weekend, but did miss sister #2. My sister’s favourite cake is carrot cake, but a plain carrot cake with no sultanas, pineapple etc in it. I have to say I am with her on that one, although I don’t mind walnuts in carrot cake.

I made the recipe from one of Annabel Langbein’s book. It makes a large, 23cm cake, but I actually made a higher cake in a 20cm cake tin. The cake is very easy to make – the recipe says to whiz it up in the food processor, but as I had my cake mixer out making other things, I just made it in that. The cake was beautiful and moist as well and is definitely my “go to” carrot cake recipe. I covered it with cream cheese icing and simply decorated it with little icing flowers I made a while ago. This recipe would make great cupcakes as well.



Carrot Cake (Annabel Langbein)

1 c neutral oil (I used rice bran oil)
2 c raw sugar
4 eggs
1 c wholemeal flour
1 c plain flour
3 c grated carrot
1 tsp each mixed spice and ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tbsp orange juice (I used milk)

• Beat together oil, sugar and eggs
• Beat in flour, then carrot and spices and lastly baking soda
• Pour into lined 23 or 20cm round cake tin
• Bake at 160c for 50-60 minutes or until cooked through
• When cold ice with cream cheese icing.

Raspberry and Almond Cakes

A couple of Saturday nights ago, my husband and I had one of those rare Saturday nights where we had nothing on. I made him mussels for dinner (one of his favourite things, except this time I did them in a tamarind coconut cream broth and he wasn’t overly fussed on the tamarind flavour) and salmon for me (I don’t like mussels). Even though we don’t usually have dessert when it is just the two of us, I thought it would be nice to make something and I so I made us a little raspberry and almond cupcake each.

The recipe is in Donna Hay’s latest book and is actually for a full cake. I scaled the recipe back to 1/3 of the original and made two little cakes. The cake recipe is really a friand recipe – made with egg whites, ground nuts, melted butter and icing sugar. I like the idea of making little cakes from this recipe as the finished product is light and delicate and kind of suits little cakes, rather than one big one. I have given the recipe below for 6 little cakes, but the recipe does easily scale down.

Raspberry and Almond Cakes (adapted from Donna Hay)

1/3 c flour
2/3 c ground almonds
1 c icing sugar
90g butter, melted and cooled
3 egg whites, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 c raspberries (I used frozen)

• Combine all ingredients other than the raspberries. Mix well, but do not beat
• Stir in raspberries and spoon into little cake moulds or cases
• Bake at 160c for 35-40 minutes or until the thin blade of a knife comes out clean
• Serve warm or at room temperature with extra raspberries and whipped cream

Delicious low fat cake

Dish magazine is my favourite cooking magazine. I love the recipes, style and presentation. The magazine has been grown out of the old Epicurean cook school which I used to attend every Saturday morning and lots of night classes as well. The Saturday classes were taught by Claire Aldous, who is the food editor of Dish. One of the reasons why I love the magazine so much is probably because I love Claire’s style of cooking and that has influenced the way that I cook.

We had friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and I cooked the whole menu from the latest issue of Dish. Our friends bought the nibbles, and for the main we had salmon baked with labne and lime, a barley and broad bean salad and a salad of oranges and carrots tossed through baby spinach. There was quite a Moroccan feel to the dinner – salmon is one of my favourite foods and with the yoghurt topping it was lovely and moist as well as tasty. The barley salad was meant to be a faro salad, but they didn’t have faro at the supermarket and barley is a very economical alternative.

Pudding was a lime and yoghurt cake which I served with poached quince and whipped cream. The photo really does belie how delicious this dessert was. The cake had very little flour and was mostly sour cream and yoghurt with eggs and the zest and juice of a lime. While the cake looked like a normal cake, it actually tasted like cheesecake – it had a very creamy texture, but probably only about 1/3 of the fat of a cheesecake. I would definitely make this cake again, as it was easy, utterly delicious and was enjoyed by everyone. We had 6 people for dinner and there were a few slices left over, so it could easily feed 8.

Lime and Yoghurt Cake (from Dish magazine)

5 eggs, separated
1/3 c sugar
3 tbsp honey
2/3 c flour
250g sour cream
250g thick plain yoghurt (I used Cyclops)
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp olive oil

• Whisk egg yolks, sugar and honey until thick and creamy
• Mix in flour, sour cream, yoghurt, zest and juice of lime and olive oil on low speed
• In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until firm peaks form (but not too firm)
• Fold egg whites into the other mixture (fold a little in first to loosen and then the rest)
• Spoon into a lined 20cm round cake tin and bake at 160c for 50 minutes or until set

Wedding Cake

Last weekend my friend, Teresa got married. She had asked me a few months before if I would make her wedding cake. Even though I said yes, I was a bit nervous as while I enjoy cake decorating, I am a complete amateur! The theme for the wedding was orange and pink and Teresa and Graeme wanted hearts on wires coming out of the cake. They also wanted a chocolate wedding cake.

I made the cake in a number of stages. The wedding was on Sunday afternoon, so on Wednesday last week I baked the bottom layer of the cake. The tin was a 26cm square tin and I doubled my cake recipe that I use for my 20cm square tin. The mixture makes a very deep cake and even without doubling it, my kenwood bowl is full, so I creamed the butter and sugar in my kenwood and then transferred the creamed mixture to a large bowl and mixed the recipe by hand. It was a huge task and actually the hardest part of making the cake.



On Thursday night I baked the top layer of the cake and then on Friday night I ganached both cakes. I need to practice getting my ganache a lot smoother though, as that is why the cake looks a little lumpy. Saturday afternoon I put the white fondant on the cakes and then on Sunday morning I assembled the cakes and put on the heart and dot shaped decorations. I put the hearts on wires (which I had made a week before) in the cake once we got it safely to the reception area.

The cake itself was delicious. I was kind of pleased with the overall look of the cake, but I was a little disappointed with the hearts on wires – in hindsight I should have cut the wires shorter. Never mind. I did have a lot of fun making the cake and it has inspired me to so more cake decorating, but I don’t think I will be in a hurry to be making another wedding cake!

The photos are fuzzy as I took them in a rush at the reception hoping no-one would see me taking a photo of the cake.

Friends for Lunch... finally!

We had friends for lunch on Sunday – yes, the entertaining is starting to happen again! I just wanted to do something simple and ended up making pumpkin and cashew nut soup with home made soda bread. I also made the raspberry crumble cake above for afters.

I love pumpkin soup and I loved the look of this pumpkin soup which was in the “at your request” section of Cuisine magazine some time ago. The soup was a spicy one, (but not too spicy) with a base of onions, garlic, fennel seeds, cumin seeds and coriander seeds. You then added pumpkin, sweet chilli sauce, water and coconut cream, simmering until the pumpkin was tender. The mixture was then pureed with toasted cashew nuts. Well, that is my simplified version anyway. The original had a much more complicated spice mix, but I found that what I did worked well.



I love home made brown bread and for quite a while I always used to have a loaf of brown bread, which I made from a recipe from a lady whose B & B we stayed in in Tipperary in Ireland, in the freezer. It is delicious with tomato relish and cheese. But I don’t seem to eat as much these days. On the first episode that I watched of Rachel Allen, Bake, which inspired me to buy her book, her cooking school students made soda bread. So I decided to use her recipe to make some brown bread to go with the soup. Soda bread is ridiculously easy to make and this recipe made a fabulous loaf. I used linseed instead of sesame seeds and they gave a wonderful nutty texture. You can find the recipe here.

And last, but definitely not least is the raspberry crumble cake. Another recipe fm Rachel Allen, Bake, this is the third thing I have made from this book and all have been successes. Her recipe is actually for a cherry crumble cake, but I think it is sacrilege to cook fresh cherries (despite the fact that they are out of season here) and it is really hard to find frozen ones – actually I have never been able to. So, I used frozen raspberries instead. This cake is so simple – an easy melt and mix one egg recipe, that results in a lovely not too light and not too heavy sponge, studded with raspberries and then topped with a light crumb. I served this slightly warm with thickened cream and loved it. This is a great make it fast, stand by cake which I thoroughly recommend.

Raspberry Crumble Cake (adapted from Rachel Allen, Bake)

150g self raising flour
½ tsp cinnamon
50g sugar
1 egg
30ml milk
100g butter, melted
1 c frozen raspberries

• Combine flour, cinnamon and sugar.
• Whisk together egg, milk and butter and stir into dry ingredients
• Spoon batter into a lined 20cm round tin and scatter the raspberries over the top
• Make a crumble mixture by rubbing 25g butter into 25g flour, ¼ tsp cinnamon and 25g sugar
• Sprinkle crumble over the top and bake at 180c for 30-35 minutes

And more cakes.....

This has been another week of cakes. A friend asked me to make a cake for her daughter’s 21st this week. Actually, I ended up making two cakes – one for the actual birthday for the family to have and one for the party later this week.



Rachel’s favourite flowers are frangipani and her Mum asked if I could incorporate that into the cakes. She also likes pink. I hadn’t made frangipanis before, but I worked out how to do it and I was quite pleased with the results. The only bummer is that the humidity has been terrible and so my fondant did sweat a little. I was pretty pleased with the cakes though and I hope Rachel liked them.




The cakes were my usual confetti cakes chocolate cake recipe. This time though one of the cakes sunk a little in the middle. I wondered if it was the humidity or maybe that I just didn’t cook it for long enough. I actually e-mailed confetti cakes in New York to see what they thought, and the responded almost immediately!!!! I was so excited, as they are very famous cake makers and in New York for goodness sake, so I didn’t really expect a reply. If you haven’t already, check out their website and also their books (I have both – they are awesome!!!).

Last night for dinner we had chicken breasts. I stuffed under the skin with a mix of cottage cheese, garlic, salt and pepper and basil and then roasted them for about 18 minutes at 180. To go with it, we had roast kumara and patty pan courgettes which I sliced and pan fried with garlic, pine nuts and a squirt of lemon juice at the end. Very tasty and easy!

Birthday Cake #2

Last week I blogged about the first of my cakes I made myself for my birthday. This is the second which I brought in as part of my work birthday morning tea shout. I was inspired by a photo in one of my Peggy Porschen books to create this cake. Once again it was a yummy chocolate cake covered in green fondant (which I coloured a little too brightly, but it was ok) and little daisies which I made. I think the effect is simple but still quite lovely.




The rest of my morning tea shout had a bit of a “Southland” flavour (I am originally a Southlander). Morning tea shouts are funny things, because that time in the morning most people really just want something savoury like a sausage roll! But, not being big on sausage roll, I made cheese rolls, which are a real Southland iconic food. Cheese rolls are slices of bread spread thick with a mixture of grated cheese, evaporated milk and a packet of onion soup mix, melted together and thickened, rolled up (like a piece of sushi) and toasted. They are delicious. We used to have them all the time as kids and I often make them now and freeze them in zip lock bags (they fit 5 to a medium sized bag) for lunches over the winter.

The other things I made for the birthday shout were pikelets (more about those next week) with whipped cream and raspberry jam and a platter with blue cheese, crackers, grapes and my own home made quince paste. The cake was the real highlight though. Very yummy, especially with a big dollop of whipped cream!

Birthdays and Injuries

Last week was a big one for me. I don’t mention it much in my blog, but I am a runner and avid gym goer (the gym thing has only been the last couple of years – the running has been over 17 years). I exercise pretty much most days and run 40-50km per week (it used to be more before the gym). But, last week, I suffered a stress fracture in my left shin which means 6-8 weeks of no running or even walking and also restricted gym use. It has been awful – but I am trying to look on the bright side – whatever that may be!





The other thing last week was my birthday – incidentally I got a sewing machine (a Bernina!) from my husband – I have never sewed before so I am very excited about that! (I did ask for it in case you are wondering). But with birthdays comes the baking of the cake and I have made myself two birthday cakes this year – I thought it was the perfect excuse to hone some of my cake decorating skills. I will blog about the other cake next week, but this is the cake that I shared with friends after a dinner at our favourite local restaurant. It was a case of more is more with the decorating (I usually try for the less is more approach). I had so much fun decorating this and I was so delighted with the end result. It was a rich chocolate cake and was delicious as well as looking pretty. My birthday was fun as well and a great start to being 35!

Baking for the Builders

This week’s baking for the builders consisted of chocolate chip cookies and pear and ginger cake. After making Dorie’s French pear tart I had the good part of half a can of pears left. So I decided to make a cake with them. While looking through the latest Donna Hay magazine I found a recipe for a lemon peach cake. I used the basis of that recipe to make my pear cake.

Instead of adding lemon zest to the cake batter, I added two teaspoons of ground ginger, as I think ginger and pears go really well together. This gave just a subtle hint of ginger – you could add crystallised or preserved ginger to get more flavour. I made the cake in a 23cm square tin which made it easy to cut into pieces for the builders. You could use any fruit and spice combination. The cake also has yoghurt in it – I like cakes with yoghurt as it gives them a lovely light but mosit texture.



On my quest for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie I stumbled across this recipe on Clara’s blog. I actually think that this is the best recipe I have tried yet. I think that the key to giving the cookies the right texture is melting the butter. I made these cookies with chocolate chips, but they would be even better with real chocolate chunks. The builders ate both the cake and the cookies the first day back!



Pear and Ginger Cake (adapted from Donna Hay magazine)

175g butter
¾ c sugar
3 eggs
1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
¼ c natural yoghurt
drained canned pears

· Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs, one at a time
· Add the flour, baking powder, ginger and yoghurt and mix until just combined
Spoon into a lined 23cm square tin and top with slices of pear. Bake at 180c for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Last Night Wilton Course 3

Tuesday night was my last night of Wilton course 3. We had to do a tiered cake. I based mine on the one on the cover of one of my Peggy Porchen books. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and I think with more practice I will get my roses looking a bit better. The cake is red velvet cake and I used the recipe from the Confetti Cakes recipe book.





I have really enjoyed the three wilton courses I have done this year. There is one more course and I am already booked in to do that next year. I know I am never going to be a great cake decorator, but I feel confident now to have a go, knowing that I can do it “good enough”!

I haven’t been doing any cooking this week, so can’t even tell you what dinner was last night as I have been out at functions every single night (other than Tuesday which was cake decorating). Next week is only two functions to attend, so there will be a bit more blog substance!

So, once again, a post with more photos than words!

Wilton Course three

On Tuesday night it was my second night of the Wilton Course 3, which is cake decorating with fondant. I was very excited all day about decorating my cake. I copied a picture in one of my Peggy Porschen books and I must say, I am so pleased with the way it turned out!!!! The cake itself is a chocolate cake – a really delicious chocolate cake I might add!! I used the recipe in the confetti cakes book which I borrowed from the library. Actually I love this book so much, I have just ordered a copy for me.





Not much writing today – just lots of photos.

Grapefruit Cakes

My friend gave me a bag of grapefruit and tangelos from her tree and the same weekend the latest Taste magazine arrived with a recipe in if for grapefruit cake. I thought it sounded interesting as I wasn’t sure how the bitterness of grapefruit would translate into a cake. I made the recipe in the weekend. Instead of making one large cake, I halved the recipe and made 7 little cakes in brioche moulds.

These cakes turned out really yummy. They were very moist and the grapefruit added an interesting note – like you know that they are citrusy but you’re not quite sure which citrus fruit. There is grapefruit zest and juice in the cake mixture and the icing is simply icing sugar made into a pourable icing with grapefruit juice. You could substitue any other type of citrus for the grapefruit. The cakes lasted well – the last one got eaten yesterday, so that is four days in the tin which isn’t bad for a cake. I imagine that they would freeze really well too. Making smaller cakes gives a bit more flexibility than making a large cake.

Earlier in the week I made a yummy dinner which I thought I would share. We like to eat fresh fish, but like everything else it is getting more and more expensive. When I was at the supermarket the other day they had hoki on special for $12 a kilo. Now hoki is not my preferred fish, but I bought some and it was delicious! I cooked it simply by coarsely grinding equal amounts of cumin and coriander seeds which I mixed with some sea salt and cracked pepper and sprinkled on the fish. I flash roasted the fish at 220c for 10 minutes and it was perfect. We had the fish with baked kumara (cut into wedges and baked with a drizzle of oil) and a baby spinach salad and dressing of lime juice, sweet chilli sauce, sesame oil and fish sauce. It was yummy with nice clean flavours!



Grapefruit Cake (from Taste magazine – I halved the recipe to get 7 small cakes)

250g butter
1 1/3 c castor sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest of 2 grapefruit
½ c grapefruit juice
2 c flour
3 tsp baking powder

· Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time.
· Fold in zest and juice, then fold in flour and baking powder
· Spoon into a greased 20cm fluted tin and bake at 180c for 1 hour or until the point of a small sharp knife comes out clean
Once cold ice with a simple icing using enough grapefruit juice to thin down 2c icing sugar to a pourable consistency.