Here’s a cake that’s made with potato – and it’s easy and delicious! It’s heritage is German, and it’s called a coffee cake as it’s traditionally served with morning or afternoon coffee.
This recipe is blast from the past – I found it in my original hand written cookery journal. “Tracy” a friend from those days, and a fine cook, had passed on the recipe.
I made it again this week, when asked to provide some potato recipes for the program for the play The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race.
It seemed a good enough reason to revive an unusual and favourite recipe from the past!
INGREDIENTS
2 medium potatoes ¾ cup sugar 1 cup sultanas ¼ cup chopped mixed peel 1 ½ cups full fat milk 1 tablespoon lemon juice 3 cups self raising flour
TOPPING
1/2 cup sugar ½ cup self raising flour, sifted 4 tablespoons butter 2 teaspoons cinnamon
METHOD Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C or 160 degrees C fan. Grease a 22cm springform pan and line the base with baking paper.
Peel the potatoes and put into a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain and mash well without any butter or milk.
Add the sugar and beat well. Add the sultanas, mixed peel, milk and lemon juice and mix well. Fold in the sifted flour and spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.
To make the topping, rub the butter into the combined dry ingredients,
Crumble the topping over the cake, Bake for 45 – 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. The cake can be quite moist so may need that extra time. Keep checking after 45 minutes.
When cooked, remove from the oven and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Remove the sides of the springform pan. Carefully remove from the base of the springform pan, peeling off the baking paper.
Here’s a recipe from the past that I really like. Passionfruit are plentiful at the moment, so it’s a great seasonal summer cake.
Claudia Roden is famous for her Middle Eastern orange cake, and it’s a staple in my cake baking repertoire.
This cake incorporates the Claudia Roden idea of cooking the whole fruit, this time with a lemon instead of an orange. It’s a yoghurt cake, too, and has oil instead of butter. All of which make for a very moist cake! Lemon drizzle syrup and a passionfruit icing give a tangy sweetness.
Ingredients
1 lemon 1 cup caster sugar 3 free-range eggs 1 cup vegetable oil 1 cup Greek yoghurt 2 cups self raising flour
Method
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C, 170 degrees C fan. Grease a 24 cm spring form tin and line the base with baking paper.
Place the lemon in a saucepan with water and boil gently till soft- about 1 hour. When cooked, leave to cool, cut in half and remove the pips. Then blitz in a food processor until pureed.
Place the caster sugar in the food processor, and process until well combined. Add the eggs and oil, mix well. Stir in the yoghurt, followed by the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tin. It will be quite loose. Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly in the tin, and then turn out onto a wire rack.
Lemon Syrup
Combine 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup caster sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear.
Pierce the cake all over with a skewer. While the cake is still warm, drizzle the lemon sugar syrup over the cake and allow it to soak in.
Passionfruit Icing
Place 1 cup icing sugar in a bowl with 2 passionfruit. Mix carefully to make a smooth, flowing icing. Ice the cake, allowing the icing to flow over the sides of the cake.
2 tablespoons shop bought caramel –Nestlé Top ‘n Fill Caramel is a good option
3 free-range eggs
175g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Caramel Buttercream Icing
100g butter
300g icing sugar
2 tablespoons shop bought caramel
1/4 teaspoon salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, 160 degrees C fan. Grease a 20cm cake tin, and line the base with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together, add the caramel and mix until well combined.
Add the eggs, one at a time, accompanying each one with a tablespoon of the flour. Add the rest of the flour, baking powder and salt and mix until just combined.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Once the cake is cool, turn out onto a cake rack.
To make the icing, cream the butter, icing sugar, caramel and salt together until you have a soft icing consistency. You may need a little extra icing sugar if the icing isn’t firm enough. And add an extra pinch of salt to taste.
Ice liberally with the caramel buttercream icing. I decorated with some fresh figs as they’re in season.
I love Victoria sponge and it definitely makes afternoon tea a fabulous affair! Morning tea too! This is the recipe that I’ve tried and tested a number of times. It’s a combination of tips and tricks from a few recipes and bakers.
The secret to this recipe is making a sabayon with the eggs and sugar, as you would with a Genoise sponge, before adding the other ingredients. This isn’t a Genoise, but the technique works well. I got this amazing tip from a talented baker at Orange Grove Markets, here in Sydney, who generously shared her advice.
The other secret is cooking the cake at 160 degrees C fan, a relatively low temperature.
Here’s the recipe. These quantities will make 3x20cm layers or 2x23cm layers. I’ve included the quantities for a smaller cake at the end of the recipe.
Fill with the traditional strawberry or raspberry jam and whipped cream or change it up with something different!
Ingredients
Sponge cakes
4 free-range eggs at room temperature
200g caster sugar
200g butter
11/2 tablespoons tepid milk
200g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Filling
200g strawberry jam (homemade is good)
300g fresh strawberries
250ml whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons icing sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C fan. Grease the baking tins, whether you are using 3 tins or 2. Line the bottom of the tins with baking paper.
In an electric mixer using the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and sugar for 5-8 minutes until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is tripled in volume.
Meanwhile carefully melt the butter in the microwave.
With the motor running, pour the melted butter into the mixture. Add the tepid milk. Turn the mixer off and fold the flour and baking powder into the mixture using a metal spoon, being careful not to lose too much volume.
Pour the batter into the prepared tins, smoothing the tops if necessary.
Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake cones out clean.
Remove from the oven and cook in the tins before turning out onto a wire rack. Be careful with step – these sponges can be quite fragile!
While the cakes are cooling, whip the cream and the vanilla to soft peaks.
Once the cakes are quite cold, you can assemble them with the filling. Place one cake on serving plate. Spread half the strawberry jam over the layer. Spread half whipped cream on top of the jam. Top with 1/3 halved strawberries (quartered if they’re big).
Place another layer on top and repeat fillings.
(If you’re only making 2 layers, then adjust the quantities of jam, cream and berries.)
Place the top layer on the cake. Dust with icing sugar and place some whole strawberries on top of the cake.
This cake is best cut and eaten a couple of hours after being made. That way the flavours have developed and soaked into the sponge. And while it’s best to eat the cake on the day, it’s still pretty delicious the next day, that is if there’s any left!
Small Cake Ingredients
Cake
2 free-range eggs at room temperature
125g caster sugar
125g butter
1 tablespoon tepid milk
125g self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Filling
100g strawberry jam (homemade is good)
150g strawberries
125mls whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons icing sugar
This cake can be baked in 2x20cm tins for 20 minutes.
Blueberries, white chocolate, crumble, what’s not to like? These muffins are a winner, as they’re easy to make and even easier to bake.
They can be whipped up quickly for breakfast or a snack. But remember, as I’m sure you know, muffins should not be overmixed, so mixing by hand is the way to go.
Ingredients
Muffin mix
350g self raising flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
50 g castor sugar
50 g brown sugar
100 g white chocolate, chopped
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
200mls buttermilk
125 g butter
250g blueberries
Crumble topping
50g rolled oats
20g ground almonds
40g brown sugar
60g flour
35g roughly chopped almonds
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
65g melted butter
Method
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C fan forced. Grease a 6 cup Texas muffin pan or a 12 cup ordinary size muffin pan. Depending on how big you make your muffins you may end up with excess mixture so be prepared to bake an extra muffin or two of either size.
Combine the flour and spices into a large bowl. Stir in the sugars and white chocolate. Combine the eggs, buttermilk and melted butter, and stir into the dry ingredients until just combined. Be careful not too overmix or muffins will be tough.
Fold in the blueberries.
To make the crumble, put all the ingredients together in a small bowl and stir until combined.
Spoon the muffin mix into the muffin pan, and add a generous spoonful of crumble on top of each one.
Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes for larger muffins and 15-20 minutes for regular muffins, or in the case of each size, until a skewer inserted in the muffin comes out clean.
Everyone loves lemons, and this cake has lemon at every level! It’s tangy, sweet and moreish.
This is another buttermilk cake. I find using buttermilk gives cakes and pastries a depth of flavour and better keeping qualities. I’m a big fan.
This is a pretty large cake, for making in a large bundt tin, or large round cake tin or fancy rose Nordic Ware mold as I did. If you wanted to downsize for a 20 or 21 or 22cm cake tin, just halve the ingredients. ( For the eggs, use 3).
It’s a great cake so try making it in bundt tin at least, to make it special. Oh, for the photos I added a few “little roses” to the big one. These are also Nordic Ware molds. The recipe for these little cakes is here.
Ingredients
Cake
250g butter
300g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 2 lemons, juice of 1
5 large free-range eggs
300g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
300mls buttermilk
Lemon drizzle
Juice of 1 lemon
50g water
75g caster sugar
Icing
Juice of 1/2 lemon
200g icing sugar or enough icing sugar to make a dripping icing
Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Lightly grease the mold or cake tin with butter. Sprinkle with flour to evenly coat. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Cream the butter and sugar well in an electric mixer, on medium speed. Add in the vanilla extract and the lemon zest and juice and mix on medium until combined.
Add the eggs, flour, baking powder, salt and buttermilk and mix on low speed until the mixture is smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared mold/tin. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. If the cake is browning too quickly, cover the top with foil for the remainder of the bake.
While the cake is baking, make the drizzle by combining the lemon juice, water and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes until slightly thickened. Set aside until ready to use.
Remove the cake from the oven. Pierce the top with a skewer and drizzle half the lemon drizzle over the top. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Release from the mold or tin onto a wire rack. Turn right side up onto a serving plate. Paint the cake with the remainder of the lemon drizzle with a pastry brush.
To make the icing, mix the lemon juice with the icing sugar to make a drippable icing.
When the cake is completely cold, drip the lemon icing over the cake – no need to be too precise!
It’s a moist cake so it’s great on its own, but serving with a dollop of cream wouldn’t be amiss either!
While this cake may seem a bit complicated – making caramel, toasting nuts, it’s actually quite straightforward!
What makes the cake do-able is because it’s all made in a food processor! Which doesn’t mean you couldn’t make it in an electric mixer. You would just need to finely chop the nuts first, by hand or in a processor.
It’s an upsidedown cake, the caramel apples on the base become the top. The cake is nutty, with a distinct caramel flavour and a hint of spice. It’s incredibly moist and keeps well too.
Ingredients
2 apples
Caramel
100g caster sugar
40g butter
Cake
100g mixed nuts
125g butter
75g raw sugar
75g brown sugar
3 large free-range eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
125mls buttermilk
150g self raising flour
1/2teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Grease a 20cm or 22cm springform tin, depending on what size you want your cake. Mine was baked in a 20cm tin. Line the base with baking paper.
Peel and core one apple and half of the other one. Cut into thin slices.
To make the caramel, melt the sugar slowly in a heavy based saucepan. Once the caramel has melted and turned a toffee or tea colour, take off the heat and very carefully add the butter in pieces. Stir the caramel but be careful as it will splutter a bit. Once the butter is added beat the mix mixture well for a minute.
Pour the caramel over the baking paper lined base of the tin. Place the apple slices over the caramel in an overlapping circle.
For the cake, toast the mixed nuts in a frying pan for a couple of minutes over a medium heat. Cool for a few minutes, then place in a food processor and blitz until roughly chopped.
Add the butter and sugars to the food processor and mix until amalgamated. Add the remaining half apple cut into pieces, and all the other ingredients to the bowl. Process for a couple of minutes until everything is amalgamated. You made need to scrape the bowl down part way through the process.
Spoon the mixture on top of the apples and caramel.
Bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Carefully turn out the cake. Remember this is an upsidedown cake so the bottom is the top! If the apple come out a bit higgledy piggledy, just rearrange as necessary. Don’t worry it’s meant to be a rustic cake!
Angel food cake, the food of the gods or at least, the angels! A couple of years ago I had never made this beautiful cake, so I decided I needed to give it ago. I’ve made it a few times since, as a special occasion cake.
I’m re-visiting a previous post, just to show you that it’s quite possible to make this cake without too much experience, provided you follow a few simple guidelines, which I’ve listed below.
The result is of course, sublime!
Angel food cake is notable because it contains no fat and no egg yolks. In fact, it’s basically egg whites, sugar and flour, with cream of tartar. It also needs to be cooked in a special angel food cake tin.
I did a heap of research online to find out how to bake this cake. There are several things you need to do for cake success:
*Acquire an angel food cake tin for a start, and learn how to use the tin.
The tin should be 25cm/10in in diameter.
*Don’t grease the tin!
*Cool the cake upside down, the tin being supported on its own legs.
*Treat your egg whites in the mixture with care. Whisk the egg whites until aerated and foamy but not dry. After adding the sugar, whisk into soft but not stiff peaks. The egg white mixture will continue to expand in the oven. Stiff peaks may deflate in the oven.
My recipe is developed from very helpful instructions from the Queen of Cakes, Mary Berry, link here and Sally’s Baking Addiction, link here. Both food writers explain the science of the angel food cake clearly with understandable instructions.
Angel food cake is best served with cream and fruit or a sauce. It would be tricky to ice the cake as it’s so delicate, so it’s usually served plain.
I served this particular cake with lots of strawberries and raspberries, and berry whipped cream – whipped cream mixed with some berry jam and then piped onto the cake in swirls.
An angelic dusting of icing sugar makes this a truly heavenly cake to eat!
Ingredients
Cake
125g plain flour
300g caster sugar
10 large free-range egg whites
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
To serve
250mls whipping cream
1-2 tablespoons of any berry jam – strawberry, raspberry or blueberry, or a mixture
250g strawberries
250g raspberries
Icing sugar, to dust
Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C fan forced, 180 degrees C non fan forced. Make sure you have an oven shelf positioned in the lower third of the oven.
Sift the flour and salt and add to a food processor. Pulse them with 100g of the caster sugar. This will aerate the dry ingredients to help create a light cake texture.
Whisk the 10 egg whites in an electric stand mixer on a high speed for one minute until frothy. Add the lemon juice, cream of tartar and salt and continue whisking for 2-3 minutes, or until foamy peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl. Increase the speed, and add the remaining 200g of caster sugar, one tablespoon at a time to form firm, but not stiff peaks. You will end up with a big volume of meringue mixture.
Sprinkle over one third of the flour/sugar mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. Repeat with the next third of the mixture and then the last third. Be very careful to fold the flour/sugar mixture gently to keep as much air in the angel food mixture as possible.
Carefully spoon the mixture into an angel food cake tin. Do not grease the tin! There is a lot of mixture to get into the tin. Once in the tin, gently run a knife through the centre of the mixture to remove any pockets of air.
Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. The cake should be pale brown and should have risen slightly. If the egg whites have been over beaten, or the mixture stirred too aggressively, the baked cake can sink.
Take out of the oven and turn the tin upside down onto the tin’s cooling legs on the bench top. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for at least an hour, two is ideal.
Once the cake is cool, run a knife around the outer edge of the cake tin, and also the inner edge around the centre insert, to remove it from the tin.
Turn the tin over and invert onto a plate. Remove the centre insert, and very carefully run a palette knife between the cake and the base of the tin to separate the cake from the base. Being very careful, turn the cake right side up and place on a wire rack to cool.
Once cool, very delicately turn the cake right side up and place on a serving plate.
To serve:
Whip the cream until fairly stiff, but don’t overwhip or you’ll end up with butter! Put into a piping bag, and swirl your berry jam of choice into the cream. Pipe swirls or rosettes, if you’re being fancy, around the diameter of the cake.
Pile lots of strawberries and raspberries into the centre of the angel food cake.
Dust liberally with icing sugar over the whole cake.
I love making little cakes, and I like to make cakes in different sizes and shapes.
I’m a great collector of molds for cakes, and my collection is always growing… I picked up these little rose molds made by Nordicware some time ago. They are perfect for little cakes for afternoon tea or even for a dessert.
While they are very pretty the molds do need careful management in order that the cakes don’t stick. I use this method – I butter the molds well, sprinkle them with flour, and freeze them for 15 minutes or so. This seems to do the trick.
However you could make these cakes in any fancy molds or in a muffin pan.
Something else that I do with these cakes, is to use buttermilk. I find this gives the cakes a really lovely flavour and I think perhaps helps them to keep well.
And lime and rosewater is a beautiful combination!
Ingredients
Little Rose Cakes
125g butter
125g caster sugar
Zest of 1/2 lime
2 large free-range eggs
200g plan flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
125mls buttermilk
Icing
100g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon rosewater
Juice of 1/4 lime
A drop of pink food colouring
Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. You can make this little cakes in any fancy molds you have on hand. I made these in Nordicware rose molds, but you could use any standard 12 cup muffin pan.
Butter and flour your molds – if you’re using any kind of fancy molds, you will need to butter and flour them very well as I mentioned in the introduction.
Cream the butter and sugar in electric mixer with the lime zest. Add the eggs and beat until well mixed. Add the plain flour and baking powder plus the buttermilk, and gently mix until just incorporated.
Place the tin in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the cakes are cooked and golden on top.
Cool the cakes in their molds or muffin pan for 5 minutes, then carefully remove from the molds or muffin pan and finish cooling on a wire rack.
In a bowl, mix together the icing sugar, rosewater, lime juice and pink food colouring and beat well. If the icing is too soft, or runny, then add more icing sugar to get the desired consistency.
However you don’t want the icing too thick, as this is more of a glaze than an icing. You want the beautiful rose shapes of the molds to be visible!
Drizzle over the little rose cakes, serve as is for afternoon tea, or with a dollop of cream as a dessert.
If you follow this blog at all, you may realise I’m pretty keen on rosewater as an ingredient. I love its floral, heady flavour, with mysterious overtones of the exotic Middle East.
A great pairing with rosewater is raspberries. This recipe is something quite simple that anyone can make.
I got the idea for the recipe by adapting a great recipe from the “Queen of Baking” Mary Berry. Mary has a recipe for a Victoria Sponge that is ultra simple. Mary uses baking spread, not butter in her sponge. As a butter aficionado, I would have said “Oh no!” But I trust Mary, and I made the cake with baking spread. And it works! As Mary says it makes a really light sponge.
So I have been adapting and tweaking the recipe for different cakes in different sizes. This version uses three quarters of the original quantity.
But if you don’t like baking spread, by all means use butter. Just make sure it’s soft, or it won’t cream properly.
Ingredients
170g baking spread (I use Nuttelex, an Australian brand)
170g caster sugar
3 free-range eggs
170g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon rosewater
125g frozen raspberries
2 teaspoons plain flour, for the raspberries
Icing
Juice of half a lemon, or enough to make a soft icing
150g icing sugar
A few drops of pink food colouring, enough to make a rose pink icing
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C fan forced. Butter a 22cm spring form tin and line the base with baking paper.
Cream the baking spread and caster sugar in an electric mixer. Add the eggs and 1 tablespoon of the flour, and mix well. (This is to stop the egg, sugar and butter curdling).
Add the rest of the flour and baking powder, and mix until incorporated. Don’t overmix, or the cake will be tough.
Stir in the rosewater. Sprinkle the raspberries with the flour and gently fold through.
Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and smooth the top.
Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before carefully turning out onto a cake rack.
For the icing, add the lemon juice to the icing sugar in a small bowl and mix well. You may need less or more lemon juice. You want a soft icing that will stay on the cake and not drip off. Add the food colouring carefully, you don’t want a lurid cake!
Serve in its own, or decorate with whatever you have to hand, in my case some dried rosebuds and rose pink glitter powder. Probably fresh raspberries would be just as nice!
The Quirk and the Cool 