Carrot, almond, sunflower and flaxseed crackers

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. I really really needed the Christmas break, hence the lack of Christmas themed recipes, though I do have a delicious mincemeat soufflé recipe to share... its too good not to post and I suppose I am not the only one with leftover mincemeat!

This cracker recipe is not a knee jerk reaction to the December excess, I do not believe in detox or deprivation especially in a dark, cold month such as January. This cracker is no rice cake, packed with nuts and seeds it is a delicious and filling snack/lunch to have with hummus, soup etc.

This recipe is adapted from the carrot and flaxseed recipe in the recipe book 'The are of eating well' by Hemsley and Hemsley

Carrot, almond, sunflower and flaxseed crackers

60g blanched almonds
40g sunflower seeds
60g finely grated carrot
80g flaxseeds (linseeds)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 200C/180F/GAS MARK 6. Process the almonds and sunflower seeds in a food processor until they resemble a coarse flour.

mix all the ingredients together with your hands to form a dough. Roll out the dough in-between two sheets of baking parchment until very thin ~3mm thick. score the dough into squares, I had some edge pieces which are randomly shaped as my final rolled dough was not a square! Removing the top sheet of baking parchment transfer the dough, still on the bottom piece of parchment onto a baking sheet.

Bake in the oven for 12 minutes. the edge ones will cook a little quicker so cut these off and transfer to a wire rack to cool and return the remaining dough to the oven for a couple more minutes. 

The cracker will be a little soft initially but will firm up as it cools.

Cherry and almond loaf (gluten free, dairy free)

This is a good loaf cake for using up any leftover glacé cherries you may have lurking after your Christmas cake/pudding/mincemeat baking. Of course it you have no leftover cherries go by some because this is an amazing cake!

You may notice that the weights are in ounces, except the ground almonds which are in grams, this is because I stole the recipe from my mum.

I took this cake into work to celebrate the fact I passed my viva... 4 years of work but I am now a Dr. Finally I can have a break from reading about science and get baking and blogging.

As always if you do not have an issue with butter or gluten feel free to substitute the DF and GF components with their regular counterparts.

Cherry and almond loaf

6oz dairy free spread (I use pure)
6oz golden caster sugar
3 eggs
tsp almond extract
6oz GF plain flour (I use dove farm)
1/2 tsp xantham gum
4tsp GF baking powder
100g glacé cherries, chopped into 1/2 or 1/4 depending on their size
75g ground almonds

First preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180C and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. Beat the DF spread and sugar until creamy then beat in the eggs one at a time,  followed by the almond extract. Beat in the flour, xantham gum and baking powder until it is just combined. Rinse the cherries and dry on kitchen paper, this prevents them from sinking to the bottom of your cake. Toss the cherries in the ground almonds, this also helps them stop sinking. then fold the cherries and almond into your cake mix until the cherries are evenly distributed.

Transfer the cake mix to your prepared tin and smooth with a spatula. Bake in the preheated oven for 40-50 minutes (mine took just over 40) until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

I took a little mix out of the big loaf tin to make a baby cake for the two of us to eat as a tester before I took the big one to work! Sorry for the dark photo, it was evening. I really need to work on my camera skills, if anyone has any tips do let me know!

Kugelhopf

So continuing along with the bake off you may have noticed I do not have a post for tarts and pies week. Well I did attempt to make a pie, I was terrified, a gluten and dairy free pastry was not an experiment I was looking forward to. The pastry I made was lovely and delicious, but it was meant to be puff pastry, something I never had problems with in the past,  and it turned out like shortcrust. I will reiterate it was lovely but I am not posting the recipe I used as it did not turn out as it should. I get to do pastry again soon though as next week is pastry week on the bake off! I show a picture of my pie to prove that I tried.

This week was the week of European cakes. The contestants had to make a European cake that was raised with yeast, a Swedish princess cake or a Hungarian dobes torte. I have never made a princess cake but I have eaten cakes consisting of sponge, jam, cream and creme pat and so I decided to go with the more interesting cake raised with yeast as I have never made/eaten one before.

I decided, like some of the contestants, to make a Kugelhopf. This is traditionally a cake raised with yeast, filled with fruit and cooked in a bundt tin. Like many of the contestants I changed my flavours, I went for cardamom, orange and almond. I also had the added challenge of making it gluten and dairy free.

I have also just remembered that this months letter for alpha bakes is K and so I will enter my Kugelhopf!

This is an experiment that worked and I am so so pleased with it, it smelt good baking, looked fantastic and also tasted great. It is very interesting, it is definitely a cross between bread and cake and those with palettes used to very sweet cakes will probably take a while to adjust. It is lovely as a plainer cake and dare I say it could even be eaten as breakfast (which I did). It does not keep so long so I have sliced it and individually wrapped slices and frozen them, I will refresh in the oven when I fancy a snack or breakfast.

Orange, cardamom and almond Kugelhopf 

380g GF flour (I used dove farm plain flour blend)
60g ground almonds
2 tsps xantham gum
Seeds of 15 cardamom pods, crushed in a pestle and mortar
120ml warm water
4 1/2 tsp active dried yeast (not instant yeast)
1/2 tsp sugar
120g DF spread (I used pure sunflower)
75g golden caster sugar
2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 tsp almond extract
Zest and juice of an orange
2 tbsp caster sugar
a little melted butter to grease
slivered almonds to decorate (optional


Place the warm water, yeast, and ¼ teaspoon sugar together in a small bowl. Stir until yeast is dissolved. Set aside for 10-15 minutes until the yeast is foamy

Place 220g of the gluten-free flour in a freestanding large bowl or the large bowl of a large stand mixer. Add the xanthan gum and cardamom and mix to combine

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter, sugar, and salt. Stir until sugar is dissolved, do not let it boil.

In a medium bowl whisk  the eggs together with the almond extract and orange zest. Carefully add the milk mixture in a slow, steady stream to the eggs and whisk well. Be sure to add the milk slowly so it doesn't curdle the eggs. 

Turn the mixer on low, or using a hand held electric whisk add the milk and egg mixture in a slow steady stream to the flour mix. Raise the speed to medium and mix until smooth. Lower the speed and add the remaining flour and ground almonds. The dough should be fairly sticky and smooth, but not too stiff. Turn off mixer and let dough stand for a few minutes.

Grease a bundt pan with melted butter. if desired stick slivered almonds onto the sides of the greased pan.

 Carefully transfer the dough to the pan and smooth it evenly. Brush the top with the melted butter to prevent it drying out. 

Cover with cellophane or place in a bag and let rise for 45-60 minutes in a warm place. The dough won't have doubled, but it will have risen quite a bit.

While the dough is rising preheat the oven to GAS MARK 6 . Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden and baked through.

Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

To make a glaze put the remaining sugar and orange juice in a pan and heat gently until the sugar had dissolved, turn up the heat and reduce until the mixture is syrupy. Brush this over the cooled cake then enjoy.

Raspberry frangipane traybake

Another gluten free and dairy free bake, this time a simple tray bake to satisfy a cake craving that did not want to wait around forever to be satisfied.

The cake is icing free but does not need any, the sponge is moist with almonds and the sharpness of raspberry is an amazing flavour pairing.

This is a good cake to have in the tin ready for partnering with a cup of tea and a book!

Raspberry frangipane traybake

200g DF spread (I use pure)

200g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Tsp almond extract

3 eggs

250g plain GF flour

1/2 tsp xantham gum

2 tsp GF baking powder

50g ground almonds

200g rasperries, halved

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN/GAS MARK 4 and grease and line a traybake tin.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy, add one egg at a time  along with a tablespoon of the flour, add in the almond extract and beat until combined. Add the remaining flour, xantham gum, baking powder and ground almonds and fold in. 

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and level the top. Line the raspberries, cut side down, on top of the frangipane, no need to press in. Bake in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes until golden and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Allow to cool in the tin for 30 minutes -1 hour then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cherry and almond tray bake

It's national baking day, so I had to bake, and looking at my books it was clear which one I had to choose a recipe from, after all Mary Berry is the queen of baking!

I decided on a traybake, simple, uncomplicated, quick and delicious. The traybake I decided on was cherry and almond, a classic flavour combination.

 Now I did make a few tweaks, normally I would not tweak Mary's recipes but I am on a budget at the moment (3 weddings to go to in 1 month is expensive!) so I used what I had in the cupboards and did not buy extras apart from the cherries. I think Mary would approve of my thrifty-ness. 

Cherry and almond traybake

225g glacé cherries, my pack was 200g, I used 200g.

225g soft butter

225g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Tsp almond extract

4 eggs

50g ground almonds

250g self raising flour

Tablespoon of milk

Flaked almonds for topping, I had none but chopped up a few whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN, and grease and line a traybake tin.

Chop the cherries into quarters, rinse well with cold water before draining and drying on kitchen paper (or clean tea towel), set aside.

Add all the other ingredients to a bowl except the almonds and mix for a minute until well combined, fold through the cherries.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and level the top. Scatter over the almonds. Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes until golden and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.

Yum, a classic flavour combination and a delicious cake, happy world baking day!

Almond custard filled cardamom buns, Shrove Tuesday Scandinavian style!

I have a confession. It is Shrove Tuesday and I do not like pancakes.

Ok so that is not strictly true. I like fluffy home made american style pancakes packed with fruit and served with maple syrup, its a favourite weekend breakfast and you will find a number of recipes on the blog.

What I do not like is the French style crepe, which is what most households will have on pancake day. Now this throws up a conundrum. There is not time to have yummy fluffy pancakes on a weekday, and having pancakes I associate with breakfast after my evening meal feels weird and also is essentially like having two meals at once. I considered american style pancakes two ways as my actual evening meal, one with bacon and one with sweet things but was not enamoured with the idea.

It was when flicking through one of my many cookbooks that the problem was solved. Signe Johansen, author of Scandilicious baking tells us that in Scandinavia cardamom buns filled with vanilla cream and marzipan are eaten on Shrove Tuesday. In the book she offers a variation of these buns, instead of cream they are filled with an almond custard.

The almond custard are the version I have decided to make as they are much easy to adapt to be lactose free. Shrove Tuesday goodies sorted!

Almond custard filled cardamom buns (adapted from Scandilicious baking)

makes 6

80ml lactose free semi skimmed milk
15g butter
125g plain flour or white spelt flour (I used spelt)
15g caster sugar
Seeds from 5 cardamom pods, crushed with a pestle and mortar
1/2 sachet of fast action yeast
pinch of salt

100ml lactose free semi skimmed milk
Egg yolk
10g caster sugar
5g cornflour
1/2 tsp vanilla
15g blanched almonds

First up make the bun dough. Gebtly heat the butter and milk until just below boiling point, but do not bring to the boil. Set aside to cool. 

Mix the flour, sugar crushed cardamom pods, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Once the milk has cooled to room temperature add to the dry ingredients and mix until all the ingredients come together and are 'doughy'. 

At this point I placed two thirds of the dough in a lightly oiled frezer bag in the fridge to ferment overnight. I did this so we could have freshly baked buns on Shrove Tuesday. The remaining dough was placed in a lightly oiled bowl, covered with clingfilm and left to rise until doubled in size. If you prefer you could place all the dough in the fridge ready for you the next day or leave all of it to rise at room temperature if you are making them for consumption on the same day. 

While the dough is proving make the custard. In a bowl whisk together the egg yolk, caster sugar, cornflour and vanilla. Gently heat the milk until just below boiling. Add the milk a little at a time to the egg yolk mix, whisking all the time. Pour the all the custard back into the pan and, stirring all the time, heat gently until very thick. Transfer the very thick custard to a clean bowl and cover the surface of the custard directly with clingfilm to prevent a skin forming.

Roughly chop the almonds and toast them in a frying pan until they are lightly golden and smell amazing. Crush them up a bit more, I did this in a pestle and mortar then stir through the custard.

When ready to make the buns divide the dough into 6 equal pieces (if the dough has been in the fridge allow to come to room temperature). Roll into balls and place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet. Cover, leave in a warm place,  and allow the buns to prove for 15-20 minutes until they do not spring back when pressed lightly . During this time preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. 

Just before baking glaze the top of each bun with a little beaten egg and splash a little water in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Bake for 10-15 minutes, turning the oven down 20 degrees if the buns start to colour too much. 

The cooked buns will be golden and sound hollow when you tap them. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack then simply slice and fill with cold custard.

I can confirm that the flavour of these are absolutely delicious, the custard in particular is divine. I will update this post tomorrow and let you know if the slow prove makes any huge difference to the flavour. I suspect it will make a huge difference to the texture, I think they will be lighter.  

UPDATE: The buns left in the fridge overnight were a little lighter in texture and tasted really good.

Almond topped treacle cake

Arggh I have just realised my scheduled posts have not been going up. So over the next few days there will be new ones all the time!

First up is this interesting cake, interesting in that I was not entirely convinced about it but everybody else loved it and it was demolished at an alarming rate. I concede that it must be a personal taste thing and the majority wins so up on the blog it goes!

Also interesting in that it does not contain treacle just molasses sugar which gives it a super treacle like flavour, if you cannot get hold of molasses sugar I would suggest using the darkest brown sugar that you can get your hands on.

Almond topped treacle cake

3 eggs
150g molasses sugar
tsp good vanilla extract or paste
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
75ml milk (I used almond milk)
75g butter, melted

125g butter
125 caster sugar
50ml milk
150g flaked almonds
sea salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN and lightly oil and line the base of a springform cake tin.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla until thick and foamy and much lighter in colour. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Mix the butter and milk in a jug. Fold in 1/3 of the flour to the egg and sugar mix followed by 1/3 of the liquid in the jug. Alternate between the flour and the liquid until it has all been folded in. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes until risen and golden.

About 10 minutes before the cake finishes cooking start the topping. Melt the butter, sugar and milk in a saucepan, then add in the almonds, cook for 5 minutes or so until the mixture thickens slightly. Add sea salt to taste, I like salted caramel so a good teaspoon went in. 

Remove the the cake from the oven and pour over the hot praline topping. Turn the oven up to 200C/180C FAN and return the cake to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes until the topping is golden and crispy. Make sure you keep a close eye on it, it will catch quickly. 

Stollen breakfast rolls

Merry Christmas everyone! I hop everyone's day was what they wished it would be. Are you still hungry? I suspect not. If you are like me though you will probably have a lots of leftover bits and open bags in your baking cupboard, yes? Well if so these stollen style breakfast buns could help use up the dried fruit and marzipan kicking about.

These are delicious warm from the oven and as the dough is light they are a not too heavy start to your day, plenty of room for that party buffet later!

I used the cinnamon roll recipe on my blog, here. I changed the filling by using mixed spice instead cinnnamon, plenty of mixed dried fruit and 60g of marzipan  broken into small pieces.

These really are best baked fresh so I kept the rolls in the fridge baking them over a couple of days as and when I needed them.

Frangipane topped mince pies

I am in love. With the homemade mince pie. Last year I mentioned how I thought I did not like mince pies. Turns out what I do not like are over sweet mushy soft soggy shop mince pies. What I LOVE are homemade ones with short crumbly buttery pastry with a spiced fruit centre.

I have already made a batch of normal mince pies this year and they reignited my relatively new found love. You can find the recipes for the mincemeat, and the pies themselves here.

Although I love them as they are I wondered if there was any other ways that I could jazz them up. I love frangipane and decided that a moist almond sponge topping on a mince pie would probably be no bad thing. And I was 100% right. These are amazing. As someone had work said, 'they may upset absolute traditionalists but dare I say these are better than all pastry'.

I am not claiming this to be an original idea, I am sure if we looked there would be lots of recipes out there. But I did use my own mincemeat recipe, my own pastry and my own frangipane recipe. So I can at least the claim credit for this exact version.

Frangipane topped mince pies

makes 10-12

90g butter
110g plain flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar
egg yolk
1-3 tablespoons ice cold water

mincemeat

70g butter
50g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
1 egg
teaspoon almond extract
70g ground almonds
25g plain flour
Pulse the butter and flour in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and egg yolk and pulse again. Add the water, a tablespoon at a time, and pulse until until the dough comes together, I have made this pastry a couple of times and always have needed 2 tablespoons of water, but it will depend on the butter you use and the size of the egg yolk.

Gather the dough and wrap in clingfilm, chill for 30 minutes.

While the pastry is chilling make the frangipane. Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and creamy. Beat in the egg and almond extract until combined. Gently fold in the almonds and flour until everything is evenly combined. 
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. Spray or butter cupcake tins and add a strip of greaseproof paper, this will make removing your mince pies a doddle.

Lightly flour a work surface and roll out your pastry to a few mm thick. Stamp out circles bigger than the bases in your cupcake tin.  Line the cases with the pastry, gently pushing it to the base and up the sides. Trimmings can be lightly re-rolled and to get the most from your pastry.

Fill each case with heaped teaspoons of mincemeat. then top with heaped teaspoons of frangipane. 

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the frangipane topping is golden.

Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

I say cool completely but they are nice warm. I do  mean warm not hot, The hot pies are unstable and likely to collapse, not to mention the molten fruit within may do serious damage!

I am a little bit sad that I took these in to work as they are all gone already. Another batch will definitely be made on Friday.

'Bake along with Bake Off' - Desserts- Petits fours

So this week its desserts. Trifle, Iles flottants and petits fours await the brave contestants. Now Mark does now like trifle, Iles flottants floats not our boats so by default petite fours it was! Ok so it was more work but at the end you get to eat lots of little cakes!

I was doing this in advance of the show so could only guess the exact nature of the challenge. I know they have to make 24 and assume they would have to make eight each of three type,s or four each of six. I went for 3. I do not know how long they have but have timed myself to compare.

I made almond and raspberry meringue kisses, pistachio salambos (from one of the bake off books) and double chocolate madelines.  The meringue post is below, I will post the other two items in the next couple of days.

They are all really really good, I am finding it hard to chose a favourite I keep changing my mind, Mark thinks the mini pistachio choux buns just edge into the lead.

Either way I am very very impressed with what I have achieved and Paul and Mary would be in trouble if they disagreed!

I am very excited about the bake off tonight, as always, but tonight will be better with a plate of these treats.

Almond and raspberry meringue kisses

makes 14-16 pairs

2 egg whites
pinch cream of tartar
1/2 tsp almond extract
100g caster sugar
pink food colouring (optional)

100ml double cream
2 tablespoons raspberry jam

First line a baking sheet with parchment paper, I actually used my silicon macaron sheet/guide but I suspect not everyone owns such a thing, and preheat the oven to 120C/100C FAN.

Put the egg whites in spotless grease free bowl, I use a metal one, along with the cream of tartar. Whisk until stiffish peaks are forming, add in half the sugar and almond extract and whisk until stiff glossy peaks are beginning to form before whisking in the rest of the sugar, you need nice stiff, shiny peaks but take care not to over beat.

I chose to paint a few stripes of food colouring on the inside of the piping bag but this is completely optional. Spoon the meringue mix into the piping bag fitted with a star tip.

Pipe teeny meringues into your prepared sheets. There are two ways to do it, either swirl it, the food colouring will give a spiral.

Or pipe straight down and you will get lines.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour to 90 minutes (I know, I know, its a broad range) until dry and crisp. Leave on the sheet until cool then gently peel away.

To fill whip the cream until soft peaks form then whisk in the raspberry jam. Pop the cream into a bag fitted with  star tip and pipe a good star shaped dollop onto half the meringues. Sandwich with another meringue and eat!

Rapberry frangipane

The sun appeared! Mind you the weather, here in Ediburgh at least, seems to be on the turn. So I am highly glad I had a picnic las weekend, as who know when he may appear again!

As well as beautiful salads, olives, fruit, homemade baguettes (see here) I of course wanted something sweet I decided I wanted that rich, melt in the mouth frangpiane with the tartness of raspberries. Berries seem to scream sunshine.

In this recipe I use shop bought shortcrust pastry. I enjoy making pastry but on this particular morning I was also making bread and assembling the rest of the picnic. Time was not on my side.

I bought pre rolled pastry. I find this pastry is always quite thickly rolled out, which is fine for pies but not my tart, I did not want lots of pastry just a wafer thin case to hold together the raspberries and frangipane. In the end I lined my tin with ~125g of thin rolled short crust.

I have also just realised that the letter for this months alpha bakes (this month hosted by Ros over at the more than occasional baker) is R. So I am going to enter my Raspberry frangipane as an unplanned entry!

Raspberry frangipane tart


Pack of pre rollled short crust pastry (I used ~125g)
50g raspberry jam
140g butter
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
140g ground almonds
50g plain flour
100g raspberries


Preheat the oven to 200C/180C FAN. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the pastry further, until very thin and line a 23cm tart tin. I used my long one from lakeland (36cm in length) which worked very well. Trim the excess pastry, prick the base with a fork, and chill for 30 minutes. Line with baking paper and fill with baking beans, or rice. Bake for 10 minutes then remove the baking beans and paper. Bake for a further 10-15 minutes until golden and biscuity.

To make the filling cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy then beat in the eggs. Finally fold in the ground almonds and flour.

Spread the base of the pastry case with the raspberry jam. Spoon the frangipane filling into the pastry case and level the top. Place the raspberries on top, in whatever pattern you desire.
Bake the tart for 30-35 minutes until cooked and golden. 


Leave to cool in the tin for ~20 minutes and when the tin is cool enough to handle remove the tart and allow to cool.

I cut these into picnic sized pieces. They are dangerously delicious and extremely moreish. They last well i a tin for at least 3 days. Sadly we ate them all so I am not sure if they last longer!

Chocolate truffle biscuits

These little beauties are the first thing that I have made from the Hummingbird bakery book, Home Sweet Home.

The book has a delicious looking array of treats. This particular weekend I really wanted to bake from it, my birthday was at the end of March and I could not believe I had not got round to anything from it, I have been so busy. Being immensely busy however meant I barely had the energy to turn the oven on, let alone do justice to some of the delightful looking bakes in this book. I settled on these biscuits as they looked easy, yummy and I had all the ingredients in. Well kind of. I substituted amaretto for almond extract and brandy!

These are one of those bakes that are better than expected. I like chocolate, I like biscuits, so I fully expected to like these. I did not realise they would be so good. They really do have that truffle-y flavour in biscuit form. They have an intense flavour and two of these beauties with a cup of tea really do satisfy chocolate cravings after a day at work. Yum.

Chocolate truffle biscuits

makes 14

80g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
85g golden caster sugar
25g butter
1 large egg
10ml amaretto, or a tsp of almond extract, or a combination of almond extract and brandy
icing sugar, for rolling

In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar. Rub in the butter until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. 

Mix the egg and amaretto (or substitute) together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix until all the ingredients come together into a uniform dough. This takes a couple of minutes but keep at it, I promise you will get there. 

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30-45 minutes.

Line a baking sheet or two with baking paper and preheat the oven to 180C/160C FAN. 

Split the dough into 14 equal pieces and roll into balls. Roll the balls in the icing sugar to coat them and place onto the baking tray, leaving at least an inch between them as they will flatten slightly as they bake.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Allow the biscuits to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

These biscuits keep well for a few days in an airtight tin. Not sure if it is just me but I think the flavour of the brandy is developing more and more each day.

Almond bakewell cookies

I enjoy reading the alpha bakes round up each month and often get inspiration from it. This month I high-tailed it straight over to Liv a little bakery after seeing her almond cookies.

They looked amazing. I made them a day later. I did not change the recipe apart from to add a handful of chopped glace cherries and omit the cinnamon. Oh and I made 24 instead of 12, as no matter how big the cookie I will ALWAYS go back for a second, and so at least if I make them a little smaller it is not so bad. The recipe can be found here.

These cookies are delightful. The texture is light with a slight chew in the centre and the flavour is just the right amount of almond. They are lovely with a cup of tea, be warned they will not last long, even if you do decide to make them smaller!

Toffee bakewell cupcakes

The book for this months Cupcake book club, hosted by Kelly over at American cupcake in London, was Hot cakes by Kim Newman-Wood.

I am not entirely sure what to think of the book, It started off well enough and I was enjoying it. By the end though, I am not sure that I entirely liked any of the characters which was rather odd!

The cupcake recipes however sounded delicious. There was one that I had to make otherwise I think Mark would have kicked me out of the house and changed the locks. So I made the toffee bakewell cupcakes but there is perhaps one more I will make before the deadline for this month is up.

These cupcakes intrigued me. I often make cupcakes, and once they are baked, remove a cone and add a filling. This recipe however added the caramel to the centre of the cake before baking. I.e. half fill the case with batter, add a teaspoon of caramel, add the remaining batter to cover the caramel then bake. I could not help wondering would it work?

Answer, yes it did. Saying that, although I put the caramel in the centre, it definitely sank during baking, so I would maybe add the caramel two thirds of the way up to combat this.

The cake is an almond flavoured sponge with a caramel filling. I swirled almond and caramel buttercream over the top.

Its a little hard to tell but the buttercreams are different colours. I finally drizzled caramel on the top. For the caramel, you can make it using condensed milk, or carnation handily sell tins of ready made caramel now.

Honey streusel coffee cake

Ruth over at Makey-Cakey has kindly organised another surprise ingredient swap, the theme this time was spring.

This swap I was paired with Dom over at Belleau kitchen, go have a nosey and be prepared to drool. He sent me some Lincolnshire honey from croft apiaries.

First off you are lucky there is a post at all, this honey is delicious. I had a taste with greek yoghurt and almonds and was perfectly content to continue eating it like that. I did resist but I liked the honey and almond combination and decided that my bake would combine the two.

I give you a simple honey streusal coffee cake. A few things to note; the top streusel immersed itself into the cake during baking. Also the honey adds a lovely colour to the cake, so much that my streusel in the middle does not really stand out as a defined layer. Perhaps it would stand out more with dark brown sugar in the steusel, who knows?

These presentation blips aside I would not change a thing. This cake is beautiful, a lovely soft texture with contrasting almond crunch, all surrounded by a fabulous taste of honey. It really is, as the name implies, the perfect thing to have with a cup of tea or coffee.

And an added bonus, I have a smidgen of honey left, which I can eat!

Honey streusal coffee cake

enough for a standard bundt tin

for the streusel

50g brown sugar
30g plain flour
tsp mixed spice
75g chopped almonds
30g butter
80g honey

for the cake

220g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
70g butter
170g honey
1 tsp vanilla paste
115g golden caster sugar
250ml sour cream
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN and grease a bundt tin. 

Put the dry ingredients for the streusel in a bowl and briefly mix. Melt the butter and honey for the steusel then stir into the dry ingredients. Set aside for now.

For the cake put the flour, baking powder, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and mix. Gently warm the butter and honey until the butter is just melted. Once melted stir in the vanilla, sugar, sour cream and finally the eggs.

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until thoroughly combined.

Take about 1/3 of the streusel mix and sprinkle it evenly over the base of the bundt tin. Spread about half the cake batter evenly over top. Now take the remaining streusel and sprinkle it evenly over the cake batter.

 Finally smooth the remaining cake batter over the top. 

Bake in the preheated oven for ~45 minutes until golden and cooked through.

Allow to cool in the tin for 1/2 an hour before turning the cake out onto a wire rack and allow the cake to come to room temperature. 

This moist cake will keep very well in an airtight tin, just how long it lasts though remains to be seen!