Ending a hoodoo ... Sort of

Like Greg Norman and the majors, I have a long and fraught history with apple cakes. In fact, you could say they're my bogy cake.
The only apple cake I have had even the slightest hint of success with is Clotilde's grandmother's pear cake, a beautifully simple yet impressive cake that, as she promises, tastes even better the next day. I think one of the reasons that cake succeeds where so many others have failed (apart from being idiot-proof) is that it's so carefree - the recipe specifies that if bits of apple stick to the pan, just scrape them out and plop them back on the cake! How can you go wrong?
Sadly, it hasn't been the case with all the others I've tried. The first apple tea cake I ever attempted passed the skewer test with flying colours, looked delicious as I unmoulded it - then the whole middle section, which had stayed liquid despite an hour in the oven and the skewer test, gushed through the rack and on to the bench. It took me a while to get over that one.
Then I made an apple spice tea cake for my workmate Stacy's birthday from a cookbook that's never failed me before. Mindful of the liquid centre debacle, I left it in the oven for a full 15 minutes longer than the recipe said, skewer-tested it three times - and then dropped it as I tried to unmould it.
But, like Norman struggling back for one last British Open, I was determined not to let the cake beat me. And I had a recipe I'd torn out of one of those free supermarket magazines to attempt.
This cake required a hell of a lot of mucking about - I counted four bowls and two dishes on the bench at one point, plus the usual measuring cups and sifter - but it tasted great as I licked the bowl, so I slid it into the oven with a light heart. Until I noticed the thin batter was dripping out of the bottom of the springform tin as it cooked. Luckily it was a slow drip, so not too much batter was lost before the cake cooked enough to seal the leaks.
In the end it came out of the tin fully cooked and in one piece, and it was light and delicate - enough of a win that I took it to share at work a few days later.
The original recipe called for the apples to be tossed in 2tbsp Grand Marnier, which I replaced with orange juice as I don't like the taste of alcohol in cakes. But I found the orange taste overwhelming, so I've left that step out of the recipe below.
So I'm not declaring the hoodoo over just yet. But at least this time I've made the cut.



Apple and custard tea cake
550g Granny Smith apples

1 1/4 cups plain flour, plus 2tbsp extra

1 cup caster sugar, plus 1tbsp extra

2tsp baking powder

1/2tsp salt

3/4tsp cinnamon, divided

1 cup canola oil

1 cup milk

2 large eggs 

2 tsp orange zest 

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large egg yolks

Sifted icing sugar, to serve

Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a 23cm pan.

Peel, core and quarter the apples and chop into chunks. Set aside.

Whisk together the 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup caster sugar, baking powder, salt and 1/4tsp of the cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, whole eggs, orange zest and vanilla.

Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until smooth, being careful not to over-mix.

Transfer one cup of batter into a small bowl and mix the last 2tbsp of flour in. Whisk egg yolks into the batter in the large bowl and stir in apples.

Transfer the apple batter into the cake tin and press the apples down to submerge them. Pour the reserved batter evenly over the apple batter.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining caster sugar and cinnamon together than sprinkle evenly over the batter.

Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pan and carefully unmould the cake.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with double cream. 

Treading gingerly

Well, what a week it's been. Last weekend I was all geared up to make ice cream, but I had so much running around to do that taking a whole day to churn (I can't justify the cupboard space an ice cream maker would occupy) became impossible.
Then the past few days were such a shemozzle that ice cream just wasn't going to cut it - I needed cake. Preferably some sort of filling, warming cakey cake.
The cake I chose, gingerbread loaf, is one that I've paused on many times while flipping through the recipe folder, but somehow other cakes have always called to me more loudly. It's very quick and easy to make and I loved it, although it's not a cake that will be to everyone's taste; it has quite a dense, almost dry texture that still manages to stay fluffy inside a deliciously crunchy crust. I increased the ginger a little and, if you like ginger, another teaspoon wouldn't be overwhelming.
The original recipe suggests dusting it with icing sugar, but I've been dreaming about lemon icing for the past few days and, frankly, I think it would be a little too dry without some sort of icing or glaze. It has a lovely caramel flavour, so it'd also be nice with a syrup poured over it when it's straight out of the oven to enhance that sticky gingerbread quality.

Gingerbread loaf with lemon icing (adapted from a Donna Hay recipe)

1/4 cup golden syrup
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
65g butter, chopped
1 egg

1 1/2 cup sifted icing sugar
3 tsp boiling water
3 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 160C. Place honey, golden syrup, sugar and milk in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until all combined and the sugar is dissolved.
Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger and butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (I used a KitchenAid, but you could use a food processor or rub in the butter with your fingertips like a crumble). Add the syrup mixture and beat until smooth, then add the egg and mix until well combined.
Pour into a lined loaf tin and bake for an hour, or until it passes the skewer test.
Turn out on to a rack and allow to cool before icing.
For the icing, put the icing sugar in a bowl and stir in the water and lemon juice, a teaspoon at a time until it reaches the consistency you want. This icing sets hard quickly so pour or spoon it over the cake as soon as you're happy with it.

The ultimate chocolate cake

WHO would have thought that the ultimate chocolate cake would be lurking right under my nose all these years?

It’s been quite a few years now since I, while poking through a newsagent’s to escape a sudden shower, spotted a Women’s Weekly Chocolate Cakes cookbook, half-hidden behind dodgy wedding magazines and a couple of stray birthday cards thoughtfully posted on the wrong shelf by a bored toddler. I bought it, of course – hello, a book devoted entirely to chocolate cakes? Come on – but for some reason, every time I thought to bake something from it, I got distracted, didn’t have the right ingredients … the list went on.

Then, a month or so ago, on a night when I was home alone and feeling peckish, I picked it up, glanced at the recipe for the family chocolate cake and thought, what the hell? It wasn’t the sort of recipe I usually make – no creaming of butter and sugar, my favourite part of the baking process – but I pulled out a saucepan, stirred the melting butter and baking powder mixture assiduously to ensure it didn’t boil over, and held my breath as I slid the quite-liquid batter into the oven.

But when I’d iced it, sliced it and taken my first bite – my god. I inhaled the (rather, um, large) slice I’d cut and it was all I could do to stop myself from eating the rest of the slab. It was soft, moist, still warm, thanks very much, with a slightly caramelised crunch on the top that melted into the fudgy icing. It was so good I pulled out the laptop and emailed pictures to my boyfriend at work: “OH MY GOD YOU SHOULD SEE THE CAKE I JUST BAKED”. It was just as good the next day, too: still soft and moist, with a deliciously fudgy interior to make up for the lack of straight-from-the-oven warmth.

It was so good, in fact, that I made it again not a fortnight later. This time with the help of my four-year-old niece, who I hoisted up on to my hip so she could stir the buttery icing mixture before she sat on the bench and sifted the icing sugar over the bench, over us, into her mouth - and even into the bowl.

Family chocolate cake

Adapted from the Women's Weekly Chocolate Cakes cookbook

1 cup water

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

125g butter, chopped

20g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Chocolate fudge icing

90g butter

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup caster sugar (I used slightly less)

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a 22cm round cake tin

Place water, butter, sugar, sifted cocoa powder and bicarb soda in a medium-large saucepan and stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Watch it, it will bubble up.

Transfer to bowl of mixer (or medium bowl) and allow to cool.

Add sifted flour and egg and beat until batter is smooth and a paler colour.

Pour into tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Top may brown rapidly - it can be covered with a piece of foil but I really like the crunchy top

Let the cooked cake cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

For icing, place water, sugar and butter in a saucepan and stir until sugar dissolves.

Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a small bowl and gradually beat in the butter mixture. It will be very liquid.

Refrigerate, covered, for about 30 minutes or until thickened to your satisfaction.

Beat with wooden spoon until spreadable and pour over cooled cake.

A taste of support

ON MY trip to France earlier this year, I headed to Monte Carlo for this year’s Grand Depart of the Tour de France.

The steep, cobblestoned streets were full of excited cycling fans milling about, checking out the sights, ogling the giant superyachts in the harbour, staking out their positions for the start of the time trial that would begin the three-week race.

And each and every one, all 40,000 of them, was wearing a yellow LiveStrong wristband. Every person there knew the story of the cycling star who had won seven Tours de France, the toughest sporting event in the world, and - a harder battle yet - had fought, and beaten, 14 cancerous tumours.

Each and every one knew Lance Armstrong’s story and had come to see his return to the race that has almost become synonymous with his name. When he flew past us on his way up the first hill of the time trial that summer's day in Monte Carlo, the cheer that went up was defeaning.

The thing about Lance Armstrong's story that I think reaches most people, cycling fans or not, is this: I bet every person in Monte Carlo to watch his return to the great race would know someone with cancer. Everyone bought a yellow wristband and wore it proudly to show that they might not be able to come up with the cure for cancer, but they were going to support the fight any way they can.

That, too, is why I'm writing this as part of Barbara from Winos and Foodies' annual LiveStrong With A Taste Of Yellow Day, along with dozens of other bloggers from around the world. We might not be able to cure cancer by cooking, but we can show our support and love with a lemon cake or two. And with support like that, this battle against cancer is a fight we must win.

While I’m on the subject, can I urge every woman out there who hasn’t done so yet to talk to their doctor about having the cervical cancer vaccine. I know there's been a lot of talk about possible side-effects, but I have had the entire course, experienced nothing worse than the usual pain from an injection, and am so happy to be doing one extra thing to help stop cancer's spread. And since experts now think it helps older women, and maybe even men, as well as the younger women at whom the vaccine has previously been targeted, clearly the benefits far outweigh the risks. Please, go get it today; put a note on your phone calendar and go back for the full course of three shots. It's seriously well worth it.

Lemon butter cake

This is one of my favourite cakes because it's bloody easy and bloody versatile. I made it today as a simple lemon butter cake with lemon icing, but it also works really well as a syrup cake and it works with any type of citrus.

125g butter

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup self-raising flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

the rind of a large lemon

Preheat oven to moderate and grease and line a loaf tin.

Cream butter well, add sugar and beat until combined and mixture is almost white.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift flour and salt and add alternately with the milk.

Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until cake springs back and a skewer comes out clean.

for lemon butter icing

80g butter

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbs lemon juice or to taste

Cream butter well. Sift icing sugar and beat into butter. Add lemon juice and beat until the icing has reached your preferred taste.

for lemon syrup

Juice of that large lemon you zested earlier

1/4 cup caster sugar

Mix juice and sugar together and stir until sugar dissolves. When cake is cooked and still warm from the oven, pour lemon juice mix over the top. Leave to cool in tin.

You have to cook this recipe

I HAD to drop everything and flick straight to Outlook when I got an email from my friend Edie with that subject line. You have to cook this recipe that I saw in a CWA cookbook - how could I resist?

Edie lives in Tasmania, two hours' flight from me in Sydney, but she knows me well, and sure enough my eyes lit up as I read this recipe for Malteser cake.

The original recipe called for vanilla Fruche, but I couldn't find it at the shop so I settled for a mixture of normal vanilla yoghurt and sour cream, which I had in the fridge and which had the added benefit of giving the cake a soft, light crumb. The Maltesers melt through for fantastic little pockets of moist, gooey goodness and the white chocolate on top just finishes it off nicely. It was very hard to stop at one piece!

The only problem is that Edie can't come over for a piece - emails and virtual cake and coffee just isn't the same.

Malteser Cake

Adapted from the CWA Cookbook
1 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
4 tbs cocoa
150g sour cream
150g vanilla yoghurt
2 eggs
2 tbs vegetable oil
165g Maltesers

Preheat oven to 175C and grease an 18cm square tin.
Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl and add sugar.
In a separate bowl, mix together sour cream, yoghurt, eggs and oil.
Add wet ingredients to dry and stir to combine. Fold through Maltesers.
Pour mix into prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.
To decorate, melt white chocolate by microwaving it for a minute on 50% power. Stir and repeat until fully melted.
Pour into a plastic sandwich bag, snip the corner off and drizzle melted chocolate over cake before cutting into pieces.

A time of change, and cake

IT FEELS like I haven't had time to scratch myself the past couple of weeks.

You know how you go through times where it seems every second of every day has a task allocated to it, with at least three others piled up behind waiting for your attention? Yeah, it's been a bit like that for the past month or so. And it seems to have been the same for everyone I know - are the planets all lining up or something? Everyone seems to be going through massive change.

It's even gotten to the point where, when I do manage to get into the kitchen, I'm too harried or too tired to experiment with new and fun baking experiments, falling back instead on old favourites or stuff that I know I can make quickly.

Luckily, though, my mate Alice forwarded me a recipe that's been doing the rounds of the email lately - the five-minute chocolate mug cake, which is seriously perfect for sudden, late-night cake cravings. If someone were to be prey to sudden cake cravings, that is. I wouldn't know about that sort of thing.

Ahem. Anyway, I tried the five-minute cake on the spur of the moment, just before I had to start getting ready for work, so I can confirm it lives up to its name. It's not the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten - it's a bit like a big muffin, really - but hey, what do you want for five minutes' work? And don't discount the fun of watching it go around in the microwave (below).

Five-minute chocolate mug cake

Serves one happy woman, or two people if she is feeling generous

4 tbs flour

4 tbs sugar

2 tbs cocoa

1 egg

3 tbs milk

3 tbs oil

3 tbs chocolate chips (optional, although I thought they made this cake)

a bit of vanilla

a large mug (and I mean large - see how much it rose!)

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well.

Pour in milk and oil and mix until combined.

Add chocolate chips and vanilla, stir to combine, and microwave for 3 mins on high (at 1000 watts; cook for longer if the microwave is less powerful).

Eat as soon as it won't burn your mouth.

Room for one more on the bandwagon?

SO I'VE been pondering starting a blog for a while now.

I'm not the kind of cook who whips up astonishingly good meals out of her head; I can't admit to making sweets so beautiful they make you sigh with longing. I can't take a beautiful picture and, God help me, I didn't even watch MasterChef Australia! What business do I have gibbering about baking goodness among such talent?

But baking makes me happy, it's as simple as that. Trying new things, playing with dough and icing, revisiting old favourites, is a joy that's guaranteed to leave me feeling at peace with the world (well, when things go well). It never fails to amaze me that you can take butter, sugar and flour and finish with something that's completely different each time, something that's greater than the sum of its parts. And so I'm jumping on this bandwagon despite my baking faults, despite the fact the rest of the known world started a blog about 10 years ago, because it seems like the food blogging community is wide, kind and (hopefully) very forgiving.

Anyway, enough philosophy; bring on the cake!

Among my many life quests is to find myself a go-to chocolate cake recipe, learn it off by heart and always have the ingredients for it in the pantry. Oh sure, I have specific favourites - the chocolate fondant, the flourless chocolate cake, the chocolate fondant, the citrus cake, the chocolate fondant - and there's always a go-to recipe of the moment; if you rang me right now and said "I'll be at yours in an hour", there would be a chocolate cake waiting for you (or at least in the oven) when you rang the bell. But is it the best cake ever? Is it MY cake, the cake I can go to my grave being known for? Not quite yet.

Of course, looking for MY cake means I have to make, and taste-test, a lot of cakes that could be contenders. Somehow I manage to cope with this crushing burden.

I made this cake for my brother's birthday (which is around Easter, hence the egg decoration ... I did say I'd been pondering starting a blog for a while) and judging by the speed with which it disappeared, it's a fairly solid contender for MY cake. But the search continues.

Basic chocolate cake (adapted from Donna Hay)

Makes 1 20cm round cake, 12 big cupcakes or 24 mini-cupcakes.

125g butter

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
2 tbs cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate, melted

Icing

80g butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tbs cocoa

Preheat the oven to 160C and grease and line the tin of your choice. Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Sift the flour and cocoa in and beat until combined. Fold through the milk and melted chocolate and pour into the tin. Bake until cake springs back in the middle and is cooked when you test it with a skewer.


To make the icing, beat the butter until light and creamy. Sift in the icing sugar and cocoa and beat until combined. If you make the cake as cupcakes, or want to layer the icing in the cake, make double the amount.