Butter Cake

I have needed a standard birthday cake recipe for yonks. K's birthday party was this week, so I decided to just go for a classic butter cake recipe*. I can't take any credit for the decoration since my MIL offered to do it, but I figured the cake recipe was definitely worth writing down here for future reference.

I actually made this cake twice this morning, because I'm currently so scatteredbrained from Moving Hell that with my first attempt, I not only forgot to pre-heat the oven, I also forgot that I only have plain flour in the house, and didn't add baking powder to my mixture. The resulting cakebrick was still tasty, if dense, but the version which actually contained raising agents had a lovely fluffy crumb.

Ingredients
125g softened butter
2/3 cup caster sugar
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups self-raising flour (or 2c plain flour + 4tsp baking powder)
2/3 cup milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C (unless you are a dingbat like me) and grease and flour a cake tin. Let the birthday girl beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Hold the beaters steady as she adds the eggs and vanilla essence, and then let her beat them until well combined. Add the flour a half-cup at a time, alternating with the milk, then share the beaters out between your children to lick. The mixture should be light and fluffy. Splat it into the prepared tin with a spatula and scrape down the sides of the bowl, but not too carefully, because your children will probably be finished with the beaters by the time you have the cake mix smoothed down and the tin in the oven, and they will be wrath with you if you haven't left them enough mixture in the bowl to share. Cook it until it is done, and if the top cracks like mine did, don't worry about it, your MIL can always just add extra icing. Or you can, if you don't have a MIL to subcontract your cake decoration out to.

Serve with the traditional accompaniments of out-of-tune renditions of Happy Birthday in three different keys, and an embarrassed birthday girl who wishes everybody would stop singing so she can eat.




[* Acute readers may have gathered from this that I'm no longer dairy-free. I've given up on any attempts to get cute and creative with my diet, or my blogging for that matter, because our upcoming interstate move is monopolising most of my brain power].

Moist Lemon Cake

I gave this recipe a try today, except I substituted the juice of two lemons for most of the milk, since we have all these lemons we need to use up!

INGREDIENTS

125g butter, softened
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour
½ cup (75g) plain flour
½ cup (125ml) milk

Topping
½ cup (125ml) lemon juice
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar

NOTE: This recipe can be made two days ahead.

METHOD

Preheat the oven to moderate (180°/160°C fan-forced). Grease a deep 20cm round cake pan, then line the base with baking paper.

Beat the butter, rind and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until combined between additions.

Stir in the sifted flours in two batches with the milk.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and bake in a moderate oven for about 45 minutes or until the cake is cooked when tested.

For the topping, combine the lemon juice and sugar in a jug; stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour the topping over the hot cake; allow cake to stand for 15 minutes before turning the cake onto a wire rack to cool.

Suitable to freeze.

Carrot Tofu Cake

I bought a couple of packs of silken tofu marked down to 50c each today, so needed to think of something to do with them. I also wanted to make a cake for a coffee morning tomorrow. So I googled "tofu cake" and came up with this recipe. I changed the recipe slightly (and also accidentally made it non-vegan, because I didn't realise it *was* vegan, so I substituted milk and oil for the applesauce since I didn't have any. But anyway...).

~4 carrots, grated
300g packet silken tofu, drained
1/3c oil
1/3c milk
2c plain flour
1 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
2 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
~1/2c chopped walnuts

Grate carrots and combine with walnuts in a large bowl. Place all other ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Combine, and cook at 180C until done.

It's still in the oven so I can't tell you how it turned out yet :)

Chocolate cake in five minutes

I am so going to try this recipe the next time I have a craving for chocolate!

Apple Teacake

We just tried out this recipe.