Cakes Archives - Trwyn Tal retreat

Welsh Cheese Scones

September 24, 2013 By Sarah Maliphant

What makes these Welsh Cheese Scones? Well, they taste pretty good after a walk in the Welsh mountains, and they also taste particularly gorgeous when made with the fabulous and deeply cheesey Snowdonia Cheddar – widely available in Deli stores, grocers, butchers and some supermarkets. The Parmesan which adds extra cheesey notes is of course not so very Welsh, but hey… a little poetic license.

Cheese Scones (makes 8 scones)

250g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
100g grated strong cheddar like Snowdonia Cheddar (aka “Black Bomber”)
75g grated Parmesan
200ml whole milk
A little beaten egg to glaze

Pre-heat the oven to 220C – or check that your Aga is still there. Sprinkle a little flour on a baking tray or line with baking paper. I like the reusable non-stick liners, which you can wash and use again – brilliant.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cheddar and half the parmesan into a large bowl.

Add the milk and mix with spoon or hands – it will be sticky. That is right. Panic not.

Tip the sticky dough no to a lightly floured surface and knead gently for a few minutes until it feels soft and has quit sticking to everything.

Flatten or lightly roll the dough to quite a thick layer – about 1 inch thick.

Grab a cutter (or a drinking glass), dip in some flour to stop it getting attached to your dough, and start cutting out your scones. You’re after 8 scones: I get about 5 from the first cutting then re-shape the dough and get another two. The last one is squidged together by hand from whatever dough you have left.

Put the rounds on a lightly floured baking tray, or on a sheet of baking paper. Brush the tops with egg, sprinkle over the rest of the parmesan and a bit of cheddar.

Bake for about 15 minutes until the scones have risen, gone golden & are filling your kitchen with warm cheesey scone aroma.

Most DEFINITELY best served warm, with a bit of butter.

Melting butter on cheese scones — Warm from the oven

Lemon Drizzle Cake

June 9, 2013 By Sarah Maliphant

This recipe is based on one from “Supper with Rosie,” my current favourite cookbook. In turn, her recipe was inspired by Cranks, which was my first ever favourite cookbook in the 1980s. So, strong Drizzle Cake Foundations, and Rosie’s addition of lemon icing as well as drizzling is definitely A Good Thing!

I’m more likely to have lemons in stock than limes, so in this version I’ve dropped the lime. If you have a lime, it subs for one of the lemons in the cake / drizzle ingredients.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (Serves 10-12)

For the cake
125g butter at room temperature
2 small lemons
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
200g self raising flour
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
4 teaspoons natural yoghurt (or cream)

For the drizzle
Juice of lemons zested for the cake
3 teaspoons caster (fine) sugar

For the icing
180g icing sugar
1 lemon
Sprinkling of poppy seeds

First, check you have the right size loaf tin! The quantities here need a 30cm loaf tin, a 2lb tin – it’s a big ‘un!

Grease and line your tin, get the oven up to 180C.

Cake
Using an electric hand whisk, whisk up the butter until light and fluffy. Add the caster sugar and whisk again. Add the 3 eggs and whisk again until light and fluffy. That’s your whisking bit done.

Grate in the zest of 2 lemons, and put the naked lemons aside to juice later. Add the poppy seeds and yoghurt (or cream if you don’t happen to have yoghurt in stock) and mix in lightly. Add the self raising flour. Fold in lightly with a spatula.

Transfer the mixture immediately to your loaf tin, and bake in the oven at 180C for 45 minutes (Aga roasting oven with cold shelf for 35 minutes, then check and finish in simmering oven if need be).

Once the cake is cooked, (e.g. a skewer stuck into the cake comes out clean etc. etc.), leave it in its tin on a cooling rack whilst you rustle up the first drizzle:

Lemon Drizzle
Juice the two zested lemons, and put juice plus three teaspoons of caster sugar into a saucepan. Warm over a low heat until the sugar is melted, then pour over your warm cake. If you have an URGENT need for Lemon Drizzle Cake, probably best to stab the cake a fair bit with skewer first so that the drizzle can get into the cake quickly. If you have planned in advance, feel smug – and just pour the drizzle over the cake to seep in gradually.

This is one of those cakes that does actually taste better the next day … but let’s face it, waiting till the next day is not always going to happen, is it??!

Leave the drizzled cake to cool, and when cool turn it out on to your serving plate.

Lemon Icing
To make the icing, add the zest and most of the juice of one lemon to your icing sugar. Mix well to get read of any lumpy bits, and get the consistency right: Ideally, runny enough to ooze over your cake, but not so runny that it floods off the cake on to your plate – add a little more lemon juice if need be. Once satisfied, pour the lemon icing rustically over your cake, sprinkle with poppy seeds, and if you still can resist, leave it for an hour or so for the icing to set a bit.

For walks, I make this cake the night before so the syrup has overnight to soak the cake. I add the icing first thing in the morning, and it’s safe enough to slice and pack into a container by the time we’re off walking.

Mountain Retreats
Time for your self
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Banoffee Cakes

May 16, 2013 By Sarah Maliphant

Take one new recipe book purchased in a lovely Hay-on-Wye bookshop by the lovely Melanie. Add one brief browse through to choose what cake to bake for our final evening of a wonderful week’s retreat at the farm. No dulce de leche toffee stuff in the larder? Easy, the sauce from our sticky toffee pudding recipe will do perfectly. What’s more, as well as putting toffee into the cakes, we’ll pour toffee all over them too. And so, the banoffee cakes were born. And eaten.

Banoffee Cakes (Makes 12)

225g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5tsp bicarbonate soda
150g caster (fine) sugar
2 ripe bananas
2 medium eggs
4 tbl yoghurt
½ tsp vanilla essence
80g butter

Toffee Sauce
110g Brown Sugar
60g Butter
70ml Cream

First make the toffee sauce: Gently melt the butter & brown sugar in a non-stick pan, and stir until the sugar has all melted. The butter is unlikely to get absorbed, don’t worry about that. Just get the sugar melted, then take it off the heat, beat in the double cream. It’ll all look & smell irresistible. However, resist and put to one side.

Now for the cake:

Pop cases into a 12-cake muffin tray.

Mash the bananas to a pulp. Beat the eggs.

In a big bowl, mix together all the dry stuff – the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and caster sugar.

Melt the butter on a very gentle heat – you want liquid yellow butter, not burny brown butter.

When you’ve got everything ready, add the bananas, eggs, yoghurt, vanilla and melted butter to the flour etc. and beat briefly until all combined.

Spoon the mixture into your 12 cake cases.

Add a teaspoon of the toffee sauce on top of each cake. It doesn’t need to look pretty, its job is to seep through your cakes as they cook.

Bake in the oven at 190C (Aga roasting oven with cold shelf) for 15 minutes, then check them and turn the tray around if one side is going browner than the other. They should be done after 15-25 minutes depending on your oven.

Turn the cakes out on to a baking rack to cool (or get nearly cool if someone is already pleading for afternoon tea.)

Put them on a plate, drizzle with the toffee sauce – which will probably overflow with happy toffeeness… and eat.

Sweet 🙂

Mountain Retreats
Time for your self
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Black Mountains Banana Cake

November 3, 2012 By Sarah Maliphant

Over the years, I’ve carried all sorts of cake out on the hills with me. An entire Victoria Sponge did surprisingly well on our Third Anniversary walk this summer. But the cakes that survive the experience best have a bit of solid oomph to them, robust enough to hold their nerve in a rucsac and full of rich mountain calories. One such cake is Banana cake. Bananas are great for walking calories, and our friend Jason is expert in the baking of banana cakes… Aha!Continue Reading