punge: April 2013

Vic and Ange are back in the UK! We stayed with these two fabulous women on our American adventure in 2011 and are ecstatic to have them back, naturally there was a massive family gathering, naturally I made a cake, and naturally it had to be somewhat alcoholic.

On asking Vic what her favourite cocktail was I got a response of "Vodka Martini, up with a twist, stirred not shaken". In cake form that means lemon drizzle with flavourless alcohol so I pushed her further, and got an answer of "Old fashioned" - bourbon with orange bitters. Now that's more cakeable.

Of course, we had to make ourselves several old-fashioneds in order to best figure out how to put this into a cake. There's something very butch about this cocktail, I felt positively powerful in the groin region while enjoying it, and I felt the cake needed to maintain as much "rraaargh" as possible to avoid being a disappointing shadow of the cocktail it was meant to emulate. That made the choice between a full on drizzle-style sponge and a light, airy genoise a relatively easy one, and also pushed me towards a more savory whipped cream rather than oh-so-sweet buttercream filling.

The cake is essentially a rich orange drizzle cake sponge using full on old-fashioned cocktail and orange juice drizzle and sugar dusting to give a sugar crystal crunch, and layered with orange and whiskey marmalade and whipped cream (laced with more cocktail!) before being adorned with jewels of fragmented meringue - rainbow coloured in honour of our guests. You can leave out the meringue but I love the fizz of it!. This really is an "ermahgerd" of a cake.

Meringues lovingly OCD'd by Nick
© Nick Loven

Lydia's totally gay old-fashioned cocktail cake
Ingredients
Cake Batter
225g (8oz, 1 cup) butter or margarine
200g (¾ cup) brown sugar - I used half soft light brown sugar, half light brown muscovado sugar
280g (scant 2 cups) plain flour

6 eggs - 3 separated and 3 whole. If you're not making the meringue topping, use 4 whole eggs instead.
2 oranges - zest and juice required
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

"Old-fashioned" drizzle
4 dashes angostura bitters (don't worry it you don't have bitters, just leave it out)
100ml (4 oz, just under 7tbsp) bourbon whiskey (I used Jim Beam)
6 tbsp granulated sugar

Meringues
3 egg whites
180g (1 cup confectioner's) icing sugar, sifted
Food colouring, if using (I used gel food colouring, worrying that liquid colouring will damage the meringue structure).

Filling
600ml (2½ cups) double (heavy) cream
4tbsp icing sugar
1tsp vanilla paste / seeds of one vanilla pod (optional)
50ml (2 oz, generous 3 tbsp) bourbon
6-8 tbsp marmalade with peel, I handily have homemade orange and whiskey marmalade that I'm a little bit addicted to.

orange peel to decorate

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C (roughly 310°F, Gas mark 2-3) and grease and flour two 7 or 8 inch cake tins.
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the egg yolks, 1 tbsp of the flour, and the 3 whole eggs one by one, while mixing.

Fold in the dry ingredients together with the zest and then finally mix in 2 tbsp of the orange juice.
Separate into the two tins, smooth over (your batter should be quite thick) and bake for about 40-45 minutes.

Just before the cakes are ready, prepare the drizzle by mixing the bitters, whiskey, sugar and 4 tbsp of the squeezed orange juice in a saucepan and heat until it boils. Boil rapidly for about two minutes to reduce to a syrup.

When your cakes come out of the oven, immediately prick them all over (I use a knitting needle) and spoon half the boiled cocktail mix over each of the cakes.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tin, turn the oven down to 140°C (275°F Gas Mark 1) and leave the oven door open for awhile to help it cool for the meringues.

To make the meringues, line a baking tray with baking paper. Whisk the whites and sugar in a very clean bowl (any fat traces will prevent the egg whites from whisking up properly) until you get soft, shiny peaks. If colouring your meringues, separate the meringues into as many bowls as you're using colours. Mix in your colours and spoon onto the baking sheet, and once your oven has cooled to 140°C, bake for about 40 minutes then turn off the oven and leave the meringues in there to cool.

If using meringues, leave assembly until just before serving otherwise they'll go soggy.

Whisk the double cream until you have soft peaks, then fold in the sugar, vanilla seeds / paste (if using), and whiskey. Crush your meringues lightly.

Cut your cake layers in half lengthways, and reassemble as a 4-layer cake with marmalade and cream between the layers. Cover the whole thing with the cream and the rest of the meringue.

Finally decorate with the orange peel and prepare yourself for the wide-eyed, cocktail-loving joy.

Jack is off to Oz for 6 months!

Jack is one of my colleagues.

Jack likes carrot cake.

See Jack eat carrot cake.

I wasn't a fan of carrot cake as a kid, and it wasn't until I started baking it myself that I realised it was because I'm not a huge fan of walnuts, a typical staple ingredient of this classic cake. The reason I don't seek out walnuts is that they seem to have an incredibly short shelf-life, turning rancid-tasting (to me) in a very short space of time. Even when fresh I don't particularly like them, I find them quite bitter. And even in a fresh pack, there's bound to be one or two that have crossed over to the rancid category. So I tend to steer clear of them. I'm a much bigger fan of pecans, and one day, when their price climbs down from the mountain it's currently perched on, I'll start experimenting with all things pecan-y, but for now, no nuts it is. Which can be handy if you / someone your baking for happens to be allergic to nuts.

I like to substitute nuts for raisins (and use wholemeal flour for a nuttier taste and texture), as the extra moistness can't be a bad thing. And I have a lot of raisin-love to spread. Not like that. I also love cinnamon, and you can't go wrong with a bit of lime zest in my opinion, even if the classic pairing for carrot cake is orange zest. This recipe is adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (recipe here via ocado website, legally reproduced, I hope), should you want to have a look.

So here it is, a SUPER EASY (enjoy it while it lasts!), MEGA-CINNAMON CARROT & LIME TRAYBAKE.

Incidentally, I used this cake as part of a wedding cake before, it formed the largest tier and went down a treat. If you're making this in advance or need it to last longer e.g. for a wedding, I'd pair it with the white chocolate buttercream instead (on the "frost me" page), so you don't have to worry about the shelf-life of the cream-cheese frosting.

Lydia's Hummingbird Bakery-based Carrot & Lime Traybake (easy! serves 8-16)
Ingredients
Cake batter
200g (somewhere between 1 and 1¼ cups) soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
200ml (just over ¾ cup) sunflower/vegetable oil
200g (1⅓ cups) wholemeal plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
⅔ tsp bicarbonate of soda
⅔ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
200g (7 oz, about 3 small to medium) grated carrots
60g (2.1 oz, just under ½ cup) seedless raisins
¼ tsp vanilla extract
if you want a more traditional style carrot cake, substitute sultanas for walnuts, lime zest for orange zest (or omit the zest completely), use white flour instead of wholemeal and halve the amount of cinnamon used.

Frosting
110g (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened
400g (2¼ cup confectioner's) icing sugar
110g (4oz) cream cheese
½ tsp cinnamon
zest and 1 tsp juice of 1 lime

Method
Set oven to 170°C (325°F, gas mark 3), grease and line a square / rectangular tin (I used 23cm x 23cm).

Mix the sugar, eggs and oil (using a spoon) until well combined and uniform in appearance, and lumpless. It'll have a glorious stretchy dropping consistency a la the photo here.

Slowly add the dry ingredients while stirring - stir until combined.

Finally add the carrots, raisins and vanilla extract, fold in and deposit the mixture to your tin.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until springy to the touch, and you can hear it fizzing.

Cool for about 5 minutes in the tin before turning out upside down onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

To make the frosting, beat the butter and the sugar until lightly combined (no more loose powder flying everywhere) then add the cheese and beat slowly.
Once the cheese has been incorporated, set the speed on high and beat until light and fluffy (but don't overdo it as it'll begin to go runny again), an finally add the juice, zest and cinnamon and beat in until just combined.

Once the cake is completely cooled, spread the frosting on top and sprinkle a little cinnamon for effect. Cut into 16 squares or 8 rectangles or a mix of both, as required.

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

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totally gay old-fashioned

easy carrot 'n' lime traybake