I’m still working on mini cake recipes, little cakes which are full of flavour and fruit, not too big, not too small. Ottolenghi has lots of recipes in his fabulous book Sweet, for little cakes he calls tea cakes, perfect served with a cup of tea! These have inspired me to keep on developing my mini cake recipes.
One of the issues I have experienced with my little cakes is the problem of cakes sticking and coming out in pieces. I have lots of fancy molds, and I am slowly working out which molds are the best for turning out perfect cakes and also, the best way to prepare the molds beforehand.
So, I have come to the conclusion that mini bundt molds are tricky to turn out, so I am avoiding them for the moment. I also picked up some advice somewhere, I think from Ottolenghi, or maybe from Nigella, that buttering the molds and flouring them, freezing for half an hour then buttering again, gives you a pretty good chance of the cakes coming out whole.
Here are two recipes, both based on the same basic cake mixture, one for blueberry, lemon and almond cakes, and one for raspberry and almond cakes.
Blueberry, Lemon and Almond Cakes
Ingredients
65g self-raising flour
60 ground almonds
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 large free-range eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tblsp milk
125g fresh blueberries
Lemon Icing
2 tbsp lemon juice
Enough sifted icing sugar to make a thick but spreadable icing
3 blueberries for little cake for decorating
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter, flour, freeze and butter again your chosen molds. I used popover molds, but muffin molds would be fine. You will get 6 cakes from the popover molds, probably 8 from the muffin molds.
Put all the ingredients except the milk and the blueberries in a food processor and blitz till smooth. Add the milk while pulsing the food processor to get a mixture that is not to stiff and of dropping consistency.
Carefully fold the blueberries into the mixture with a spoon.
Spoon the mixture into the molds, making sure you don’t fill more than 3/4 of the mold.
Place the molds in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes are cooked and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Once the cakes have cooled for about 15 minutes, carefully up end the molds and ease the cakes out of the molds. Cool on a wire rack.
For the icing, mix the lemon juice with enough icing sugar to make an icing that will drip over the cakes. Ice the little cakes, adding 3 blueberries on the top of each cake for decoration.
Raspberry and Almond Cakes
Ingredients
65g self-raising flour
60 ground almonds
125g caster sugar
125g butter
2 large free-range eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tblsp milk
3 raspberries for each cake mold
Lemon Icing
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 or 3 pureed raspberries
Enough sifted icing sugar to make a thick but spreadable icing
1 raspberry for little cake for decorating
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter, flour, freeze and butter again your chosen molds as for blueberry cakes.
Put all the ingredients except the milk and the raspberries in a food processor and blitz till smooth. Add the milk while pulsing the food processor to get a mixture that is not to stiff and of dropping consistency.
Spoon the mixture into the molds, making sure you don’t fill more than 3/4 of the mold. Carefully pop 3 raspberries into each cake mold.
Place the molds in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes are cooked and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Once the cakes have cooled for about 15 minutes, carefully up end the molds and ease the cakes out of the molds. Cool on a wire rack.
For the icing, mix the lemon juice and pureed raspberries with enough icing sugar to make an icing that will drip over the cakes. Ice the little cakes, adding 1 raspberry on the top of each cake for decoration.
The Quirk and the Cool 