Trwyn Tal retreat

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Recharge, refocus, relax in the Welsh mountains

Banoffee Cakes

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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.

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Ohhhhhh …..

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 🙂

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Orange Cake

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A little simplification, a little extra orangeness, and this cake has debuted well!

Orange Cake

Orange Cake (Serves 6) (Just)

50g margarine
50g caster (fine) sugar
1 small orange
60g self raising flower
1 egg

Icing:
30g butter or margarine
40g raw pale brown sugar
1 small orange

Grease and line the base of a 7″ sandwich tin. Turn your oven to 180C.

The key to this cake, like any sponge, is turning your fat, sugar and eggs in to light fluffiness before you add the flour… so, electric whisk at the ready:

Cream the margarine and sugar together until really light and fluffy. Add the egg and whisk again until light and fluffy.

Beat in the grated rind of the orange. I use a zester tool to get the rind off – feels a bit easier to control than a cheese grater thing.

Juice HALF of the orange and beat that in. (You’ll use the rest in the icing.)

Finally add the flour and either beat briefly or give it another quick whizz with the electric handwhisk.

Pour the mixture into your sandwich tin, roughly level the surface and put it straight in to the oven at 180C. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden on top and springy to touch.

Take it out to cool.

Icing

To make the icing, cream together the butter or marg, sugar, grated rind of the orange, and most of the juice of the spare half orange – just reserve a generous tablespoon to drizzle directly on to the cake.

Once cool, drizzle about a tablespoon of orange juice over the cake then cover with icing.

If your icing comes out a bit flowy (which is easy to happen when adding orange juice), just add some icing sugar or brown sugar till you’ve got a thickness that looks like it might stay on the cake. Alternatively, go with oozy icing, call it Orange Drizzle Cake and provide spoon and fork for eating :o)

A cake to enjoy like wine – scent and taste! You’ll also be left with a naked orange, ideal for an extra shot of truly fresh orange juice.

Welsh Mountain Retreats in the beautiful Black Mountains

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Victoria Sponge

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On one of the many stunningly sunny February days in Brecon Beacons, I was out walking with a friend and we returned to a cakeless house.Tea and cake was a necessity, naturally, so I rustled up this Victoria Sponge. From empty plates to lovely sponge cake took 30 minutes… result. So this recipe is dedicated to all who want to have their cake, and be eating it in a very short space of time 🙂

Victoria Sponge

Sponge Cake (Feeds 8)

150g Butter (soft)
150g Caster sugar
150g Plain white flour
2 eggs
½ teaspoon Vanilla essence
1 tsp Baking powder

Jam
Icing Sugar

If you want to make a Wheat & Dairy free version of this cake, simply substitute a dairy-free spread for the butter (e.g. Pure) and gluten-free flour – it still tastes delicious!

Smile at your oven-ready Aga, or turn your oven on to 180C.

As usual, the trick to making this simple cake splendid, is in the quality of your ingredients. Use the best quality vanilla essence, free range eggs and the jam you can find.

Grease and line two 8 inch sandwich tins. That’s 20cm in metric… weird that sandwich tins are still determinedly named after imperial measurements.

Grab your electric hand whisk & beat the butter & sugar together in a bowl until creamy. Whisk in the eggs.

Add the flour & baking powder, mix in and give it a very quick whisk too. Working quickly now – or your cake will lose its risingness – split the mixture between the two tins, roughly level it out and pop it in to the pre-heated oven at 180C (or Aga roasting oven with cooling shelf, and use the cake trivet if you have one.)

Check after 15 minutes – your cake should be springy on top. If it’s not quite done give it another 5 minutes, and cover with tin foil or a large baking dish that won’t hinder rising if it’s getting too brown.

Remove from oven and leave to cool for a few minutes. Ease around the sides of the tins with a knife, and turn out onto a cooling rack.
Wait a bit longer until your cakes are cool to the touch – hard if hungry but it’s worth it or you’ll get a jam slick – spread one half liberally with the jam of your choice and pop the other half on top.

Grab a sieve or tea strainer and sprinkle about a teaspoon of icing sugar over the top (using a sieve or tea strainer) and there you go, afternoon tea is ready 🙂

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Nana’s Bread Pudding

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My Nana used to make this lovely bread pudding, baking in her big old kitchen. This sweet and spicey breadpud is something I associate a lot with her – along with the excitement of throwing leftover bacon rind to the chickens, picking “baby matoes” (little tomatoes) and night time hot chocolate. So, faithfully recreated, here’s Nana’s bread pudding and all its memories… Continue Reading