white chocolate

Raspberry and white chocolate bakewell cake

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

An imagination is a blessing and a curse. I picture the witches and good fairies hovering around Bert’s cradle, circling, deep in thought, until they suddenly, simultaneously, all whipped the same spell at his little, shell-pink cheeks.

He can paint a watercolour dragonfly that looks alive, full of dragonfly-ish flitting plans and day dreams. He can come up with a thought so sweetly romantic it stops me in my tracks (I know I’m going to marry Libby because when I see her face I feel happy). Together we write story books based on brilliant titles he’s come up with – Banana Moon, about a wolf cub who’s missing his mother and, as yet unwritten, Once Upon a Mushroom.

He just called me into his room because he’d had a nightmare – there’s a lot of those at the moment. ‘You don’t seem very upset for someone who’s had a nightmare,’ I said as he scrambled around his top bunk looking for soft toys to bring into my bed with him. ‘It was more sad than scary,’ he explained as he grabbed Foxy, Orangutan and Jags. ‘Someone put their finger on a brick and someone else smashed another brick on top till the brick turned from grey to faded red, and I saw a close up.’

So I sat with him, in my bed, for a bit. After a few minutes he reached over and gently touched first Foxy, then Orangutan then Jags on the head, then pulled Jags to him. ‘I’m ready for you to go,’ he said to me. ‘I’ve forgotten my dream now.’

I’m not making him much food of interest that’s not sweet comfort food at the moment, but maybe that’s okay.

Makes a 20cm cake

140g ground almonds

140g soft butter

140g golden caster sugar

140g self-raising flour

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 punnet raspberries

100g white chocolate

Pre heat the oven to 180 (160 fan) and cream the sugar and butter, then fold in the eggs, ground almonds, flour and vanilla extract. Line a 20cm cake tin and spread half the batter over the bottom. Tip the raspberries over that, followed by hunks of the white chocolate. Spread over the remaining batter and bake for about 45-50 minutes. Serve warm with cream or cold in slices.

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Banana, white chocolate and cinnamon loaf

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

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At the moment my life is veering between a version of The Summer Book, where a small child and her grandmother spend long days on an island the size of a couple of fields, exploring a tiny world in an unhurried way and cherishing their time together and Room, where a small child and his mother are trapped in a single room, making entertainment out of nothing and the TV and jumping up and down every day on a small table, shouting at a sky light, desperate to escape their prison.

I can’t help but think of the children whose hopes of adoption have hit a wall, the children for whom home is not a safe and cosy place, the children whose parents don’t have fast wifi and a printer and money for endless printouts and children whose parents are frightened of going to work but have to.

We are lucky.

I was begged to remake this so I reckon it’s worthy of a blog post.

Lasts about half an hour, warm from the oven

140g soft butter

140g golden caster sugar

2 very ripe bananas (starting to blacken)

2 eggs

140g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

100g white chocolate chunks

Pre-heat the oven to 180 and line a 2lb loaf tin.

Beat the sugar and butter together for a good five minutes, till pale and fluffy. Add the bananas and beat till smooth. Mix together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a uniform, pale brown mess then, with about a spoonful of the flour per egg to stop it curdling, beat in the eggs. Finally, stir the rest of the flour mixture into the wet batter until only just combined. Stir through the white chocolate and pour the mixture into your tin. Bake for around 40 minutes, till golden and the top is firm (so a finger doesn’t leave an indentation).

Good when it’s almost too warm to hold in a mud-streaked small hand, or with vanilla icecream. Or stealthily taken to the study to eat at your computer.

Raspberry, white chocolate, almond and coconut loaf

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

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And just like that he was six, had lost three teeth, could spell and didn’t want morning cuddles. Suddenly things are classed as ’embarrassing’ (not me – yet) and ‘boring’, he’s peppering his sentences with ‘like’ and he wants to train to be a ninja.

But squidged in between this is a boy who writes me love letters, nods earnestly with wide eyes about pretty much any surprising fact and fully believes the world is fair, loving, orderly and safe. I’ll keep his bit of it that way as long as I can.

Makes 1 small loaf cake

2 eggs

160g soft butter

160g granulated sugar

160g ground almonds

160g self-raising flour

3 tablespoons coconut milk

1 tablespoon dried raspberries

75g white chooolate chunks

150g fresh raspberries

Preheat the oven to 180/ 170 fan.

Beat together the eggs, butter, sugar and ground almonds till soft and pale then stir in the flour, coconut milk, dried raspberries and chocolate.

Line a 1lb loaf tin with a paper liner and spread in half of the cake batter (it’s a little thicker than some cake batters). Scatter the fresh raspberries over and then cover with the rest of the batter. Bake for 40-50 minutes.

Light and dark birthday cake

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

birthday cake

When Bert’s ill or very upset, the only thing that will comfort him is his dummy (not normally allowed outside of naptimes and bedtime), John the rabbit, cuddles … and to wear a sou’wester hat. There’s a logic to the toddler mind that’s inaccessible to the rest of us.

Let’s hope he feels better in time for Daddy’s birthday cake tomorrow.

Makes a 20cm sandwich cake

300g self raising flour

300g golden caster sugar

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

Half a teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

225g softened butter

3 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

225ml sour cream

100g good quality white chocolate, bashed to splinters with a rolling pin

For the icing:

75g unsalted butter

175g good quality dark chocolate

300g icing sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

125ml sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat all the ingredients for the cake together, folding in the chocolate at the last minute. If you’re a better woman than I am, do it the proper way, beating together the butter and sugar, gradually adding the eggs and then the flour. I bung it all in a food mixer.

Divide between two greased and lined 20cm tins and bake at 180 (or the grid shelf on the bottom of the Aga roasting oven with the cool shelf two rows above) for 35-40 minutes. I’d check after 30, especially if you’re cooking in an Aga, which makes its own rules.

For the icing, melt together the butter and chocolate, add the vanilla, cream and syrup and then sieve in the sugar and beat to combine. Ice the cake when it’s cold and the icing has cooled a bit or you’ll get that cow pat look. If you place rectangles of baking parchment under the edges of the cake when you ice it then whip them away when you’ve finished, you’ll avoid a chocolate streaked plate.

Bert decorated it with chocolates (because what this recipe really needs is more chocolate) – he has a ‘more is more’ approach.