Raspberry and Vanilla Bundt Cake with Rose Syrup

After finally finishing watching Nigella Lawson’s new series, ‘Simply Nigella’, I was itching to make a bundt cake. Not just any bundt cake though, one that uses the really cool tin that Nigella uses for her trio of bundt cakes in her Christmas episode of ‘Simply Nigella’. I had seen this bundt tin around (sold exclusively at Williams Sonoma I think), and at $50 I initially thought maybe it was a little pricey to buy just because it looked cool. In the back of my mind however, I knew it was only a matter of time until I caved and purchased it. I just can’t help it when it comes to two things: Cake tins and cookbooks. I now have rather a few of both! 

Then, I saw Williams Sonoma had a sale on their baking ware. Well, that was it. I caved and bought one of the bundt tins, plus a couple of mini bundt tin pans. Funnily enough, I had this conversation with one of my friends who also likes to bake, and she had also just caved and bought the bundt tin as well! This all culminated around the time Nigella was in Australia on her book tour, and both of us had gone to hear her speak at the Dymocks Literary Lunch (back in January this year). 

I feel may we have been swept up in ‘Nigella fever’ so to speak, and thus Williams Sonoma did well out of both of us! I do doubt that either of us regret our inability to maintain our will power and not buy the cake tin, our cakes just look so pretty once they are baked in it!

For this particular bundt cake, I chose to adapt a recipe from Nigella’s book ‘Nigella Christmas’. The cake is flavoured only with vanilla and baked in a tin that, once dusted with icing sugar, looks like a cluster of snow capped mountains. I have added raspberries to my bundt, and made a rose syrup to drizzle over. I know you are probably thinking, ‘again with the rose?!’, but when you have been searching for edible flowers for as long as I have, once you find them, you buy them at every opportunity and adjust your baking plans accordingly! The cake would however, still be wonderful without the syrup if you didn’t feel like making it. 

Raspberry & Vanilla Bundt Cake with Rose Syrup

Ingredients for the Bundt Cake: 

225g unsalted butter, softened

300g caster sugar

6 eggs

350g plain flour 

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

250ml plain fat-free yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt)

3 tsp vanilla bean paste

200g raspberries (or loganberries), roughly chopped

icing sugar, for dusting

canola oil spray, for greasing

Ingredients for the Rose Syrup:

30g fresh rose petals 

210g caster sugar 

715ml water 

Method: 

Start by making the rose syrup. Ensure the rose petals have been gently rinsed and dried. Combine the water and caster sugar in a medium pan over medium-high heat. Bring to the boil then allow to simmer for a few minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool until it is just warm. 

Whilst the syrup is cooling, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease a 2.5l capacity bundt tin with the canola oil spray, ensuring you get into the creases and corners. Place a large baking tray into the oven while it is preheating.

Once the syrup has cooled until it is just warm, add the rose petals. Try to submerge them as much as possible into the syrup. Leave to infuse. 

In a large bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until they become light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time along with a tablespoon of flour, mixing well between each addition. 

Once the eggs are well combined, add in the remaining flour, the bicarb soda, vanilla and yoghurt. Fold in all the ingredients until just combined. Add the raspberries and gently fold into the batter.

Evenly pour the batter into the prepared bundt tin, smoothing the top and gently tapping the tin onto a bench to ensure the batter has reached all the crevices of the tin. Place the bundt tin in the oven, sitting on top of the pre-heated baking tray. Bake for at least 45 minutes. Check the centre of the cake with a skewer to ensure the cake is baked through, leaving it in the oven for another 10-15 minutes if it is yet to cook through properly. Once the skewer comes out clean, the cake is ready. 

Remove the cake from the oven, and allow to sit on a wire rack for about 15 minutes. Then carefully invert the cake onto a cooling rack to remove from the tin.

Allow the cake to cool completely before serving. Dust with icing sugar, and serve each slice with a drizzle of the Rose Syrup (and maybe some cream or ice cream!). 

A note on the Rose Syrup: With the petals left in the rose syrup, it will only last a couple of days maximum. However, if you strain the syrup and remove the petals it will last at least a week in the fridge. To enhance the rose flavour once the petals have been removed, add a teaspoon of rosewater and mix.

References: ‘Nigella Christmas’ by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, 2008), p.198; or via Nigella’s website; Local is Lovely by Sophie Hansen. 

For more recipes showcasing the best of rose, check out my ebook Baking with Rose by clicking on the link below!

Simple Summer Celebration Cake & Two Years of Blogging

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a lovely start to the new year. This is my first blog post for 2016, and I am quite excited about 2016 on the blog front. I have lots of new recipes to try and lots of ideas for my own, and I can’t wait to share them with you. The first of which, is this cake. This cake is my idea of using the best summer berries and edible flowers, and creating something very simple yet still spectacular. 

And for this post, I am using this simple yet spectacular cake to celebrate two years since I started this blog. It’s quite surreal to think about how that amount of time has gone by already. I love looking back at the recipes I have done in the past, and seeing how even now, some of them are still the most popular recipes on the blog. I am very much looking forward to working on this blog into the future, and I hope you will all continue to check back here every now and then and see where my kulinary adventures have led. 

The base recipe for this cake, has appeared in various forms on the blog a few times in the past two years. This is probably my favourite to date, although the passionfruit version would have to be a super close second. The idea for this particular cake came from my undying and rather obsessive need to use edible flowers. And once I (finally, oh finally!) found some, in the amazing fruit market near my work nonetheless, this cake was born. As a side note to explain how obsessive I have become on this, ever since I found that this fruit market sells edible flowers, I check back almost every lunch time to see if they have any and whether my obsessive need to use them will be fulfilled yet another time - I may require some kind of intervention at some point, just FYI, I’ll let you know when the situation becomes dire.

Obsessiveness aside, I think this cake would be fantastic for lots of occasions, but kitchen teas, afternoon teas and birthdays spring to mind first. Use whatever edible flowers you can find, otherwise a nice combination of berries will still look lovely. A regular loaf tin will work too, I found this long skinny one at Donna Hay’s pop up shop at Fox Studios in Sydney. 

Simple Summer Celebration Cake

Ingredients: 

125g margarine, or unsalted butter (softened)

165g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla bean paste/vanilla extract

2 eggs 

250g self-raising flour

105ml milk (preferably skimmed)

100g raspberries

For the Icing: 

1 1/2 cups icing sugar 

1-2 tbsp rosewater

berries (raspberries, blackberries) and edible flowers (rose petals, violets, cornflowers), to decorate 

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a loaf tin with baking paper. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the margarine, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add half the flour and half the milk and mix. Add the remaining flour and milk and mix on medium speed until well combined. Gently fold in the raspberries. 

Transfer the mixture into the loaf tin, smoothing the top. Bake for 50 minutes, or until the cake springs back when touched lightly and a skewer comes out clean. 

Cool in the tin for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack, leaving the baking paper underneath the cake (this will prevent the cake from sticking to the rack, and catch any runaway icing later). 

Once the loaf has cooled completely, sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add one tablespoon of rosewater, and stir. Continue to add rosewater (or water for a more subtle flavour) and stir well, until the icing is a nice smooth consistency. Drizzle the icing over the cake, allowing it to fall down the sides. Decorate with the berries and edible flowers immediately. Allow the icing to set a little before serving. If there are any leftovers store in the fridge, as the decoration will not store well at room temperature. 

Original cake recipe adapted from The Australian Women’s Weekly Cakes & Slices Cookbook, p.89.

Festive Gingerbread Cake

This cake is guaranteed to bring lots of Christmas cheer to your Christmas Day feast, with minimal effort. If you are going all out with your main course for lunch or dinner on the big day, an easy and festive cake like this one could be just what you need to make the Christmas preparation a little easier. 

I have been using this recipe for a few years now, after a good friend of mine showed me the original recipe about three years ago. The original recipe is for gingerbread cupcakes with a maple cream cheese icing. I go back to it again and again, as it is easy and just a little different from other cupcakes I tend to make. And at this time of year, it makes a great festive addition to any occasion.  

This year I decided to adapt the recipe a little, and make it into a larger cake. I love how the cake has turned out, as with the addition of red currants, it looks a little like a Christmas pudding and very festive! I know red currants can be hard to find (I was just lucky to come across them), so you could substitute them for smaller cherries or cranberries. I also used maple extract in the icing (which I found a few months ago at Salt Meat Cheese), but maple syrup (the pure kind) would work too, you might just have to up the amount of icing sugar you use. 

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday season! Let me know what you bake, I’d love to see photos of what you create to celebrate the holidays! 

And if you are still looking for some Christmas baking inspiration, here are some links to a few older posts, including my Epic Pavlova from last year, that might help you decide what to bake this holiday season!

Epic Christmas Pavlova

Gingerbread Biscuits

White Cherry Frangipane Tart

Festive Gingerbread Cake

Ingredients: 

250g softened unsalted butter

200g brown sugar 

2 eggs

310g molasses 

230ml water

410g plain flour 

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground all spice 

canola oil spray, for greasing

Ingredients for Icing: 

160g (approx.) icing sugar

1-2 tsp maple extract

red currants, to decorate 

Method: 

Grease a large bundt tin (around 2 litre capacity, approx. 24-26cm diameter) with the canola oil spray and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Then beat in the water and molasses. 

Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and the spices and add to the mixture. Beat on a low speed until the flour begins to combine, then beat on a medium speed for 2 minutes or until mixed well. 

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, then turn the oven down to 160 degrees Celsius for a further 20-25 minutes (this should prevent the cake forming a ‘peak’ on what will be the base of the cake), or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cakes comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, before turning onto a cooling rack. 

For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, then add the maple essence one teaspoon at a time, stirring well. The icing should have a nice smooth consistency. If the mixture needs more liquid add a little water and mix well. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cake, allowing it to fall over the sides. Decorate with red currants. 

Reference: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/gingerbread-cupcakes

Lime, Coconut & Macadamia Cake (Dairy Free)

This is the original recipe I used when I made my Blood Orange cake from my previous post. It is a nice and light cake, that could easily be made gluten free. The flavours are Summery, and definitely suit the very warm weather we have been experiencing here lately. 

I originally made this cake back in August, and while the zingy flavour of the lime was really nice, it didn’t really go well with the Winter weather! I shared some of the cake with a friend and she commented that the cake was definitely a Summer one! And I agree. Which is why I have waited a little to share the recipe with you. It would be lovely at the end of a weekend meal, or taken to BBQ or picnic in the warmer months. 

The recipe comes from one of Bill Granger’s many great cookbooks. Every one of his books have great recipes, and most are fairly easy, yet packed with flavour. I am always disappointed when I try a recipe that looks easy, and doesn’t take much time, but has compromised on flavour to do so. Bill’s recipes never disappoint, and this salmon recipe in particular, has become a tasty and quick weeknight staple in our house. 

But back to the cake… I added a few slices of lime on top of the cake, as I didn’t like the way the cake looked just with the icing. The top of the cake wasn’t even, and so the icing showed all its flaws. I coated a few very finely sliced pieces of lime in white sugar, and cooked them on a low temperature in the oven for 40-50mins. They caramelised a little, and covered the top of the cake nicely. I did ensure I had allowed the excess liquid from the slices to drain however, or they will make the cake soggy. You could use lime or kaffir lime leaves, or coconut to decorate the cake if you wanted however. 

Lime, Coconut & Macadamia Cake

Ingredients: 

200g macadamia nuts 

40g self-raising flour

6 eggs, separated 

165g caster sugar

finely grated zest of one lime 

45g desiccated coconut 

Ingredients for Icing: 

125g icing (confectioners) sugar

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp finely grated lime zest

Method: 

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line the base of a 23cm spring form cake tin. 

In a food processor, blitz the macadamia nuts and flour until the nuts are ground (about the consistency of almond meal).

Beat the egg yolks and sugars in a bowl for about 3 minutes, or until they are pale and fluffy. Fold in the zest, coconut and macadamia mixture. 

In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold the egg whites into the egg yolk and macadamia mixture, a third at a time. 

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until lightly golden and cooked through. 

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool (the cake can be iced when still a little warm, if you want the icing to drizzle down the sides of the cake).

To make to icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lime zest. Gradually add the lime juice, until you have a smooth icing. Spread over the cooled cake. 

Reference: ‘Bill’s Open Kitchen’ by Bill Granger (Murdoch Book Pty Ltd, 2003), p.91.

How to Make a Blood Orange Cake (Dairy Free)

Believe it or not, until recently I had never tried blood oranges before. I now know what I have been missing, and will be eagerly anticipating buying them when they are next in season. 

The first lot I bought were from the Pyrmont Growers Markets. The flesh was a deep purple and they were clearly at their prime. I have since bought more and each time I buy them their colour is lighter and lighter, more a pink-ish hue than the deep purple of the first ones. Their flavour is still great, and I have frozen a fair bit of the juice. I saw a recipe for a blood orange, peach and mango granita in Katie Quinn Davies first book, and will be making it as soon as Australian peaches are in season! 

The idea for this cake came to me after the first thing I baked with the first lot of blood oranges I bought didn’t work out so well. I found the recipe online and it combined the flavours of blood orange and coconut, and they just went together so well. Unfortunately the addition of blood orange juice in the recipe, just made the cakes very wet, soggy and unstable and they just fell apart. 

I then thought about trying another cake with these same flavours, and remembered a lime and coconut cake I made a little while ago (recipe here) that I thought I could adapt to suit the blood oranges. Luckily, this time it worked! While only using the zest in the cake reduces the punchy blood orange flavour a little, the blood orange icing mostly makes up for that (and the cake doesn’t fall apart!). 

I used some coconut blossom sugar in the recipe, just to try it and add to the coconut flavour of the cake, but it can be substituted for caster sugar. Also, if blood oranges aren’t available regular oranges could be used. 

This cake could also easily be made gluten free - try substituting the self raising flour for gluten free flour and baking powder. The quantity of flour in the cake is quite small, so as long as you don’t knock the air out of the egg whites when folding them into the batter, you should still get the same result.

I used a lot of spring blooms when I styled the photos for this cake, and I really like the look they gave. The weekend I made this cake, I went looking around the garden for some flowers to use, and when I saw the weeping cherries we have, I just had to use them. They had burst into bloom since I had last noticed them and were buzzing with lots of bees.

Blood Orange Cake (Dairy Free)

Ingredients: 

200g almond meal

135g caster sugar

30g coconut blossom sugar

40g self raising flour 

6 large eggs, separated 

45g desiccated coconut 

zest of one small/medium blood orange 

Ingredients for the Icing: 

2 cups icing sugar 

juice from 1/2 to one blood orange 

50g coconut chips 

Method: 

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line the base of a 23cm spring form cake tin. 

Beat the egg yolks and sugars in a bowl for about 3 minutes, or until they are pale and fluffy. Fold in the zest, coconut, flour and almond meal. 

In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold the egg whites into the almond mixture, a third at a time. 

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until lightly golden and cooked through. 

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

While the cake is cooling, toast the coconut chips in the oven for 2-3 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they will toast very quickly. 

To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Juice the blood orange, and pass the juice through a sieve to remove the pulp. Gradually add the juice (not necessarily all of it), until you have a smooth icing. Spread over the cooled cake and use the toasted coconut to decorate. 

Reference: ‘Bills Open Kitchen’ by Bill Granger (Murdoch Books, 2003), p.91.

Raspberry, Almond & Vanilla Layer Cake (Gluten Free)

There is a bit of a story behind this cake. I have been wanting to make something like this for a while, pretty much since I first tried the ‘Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake’ from Flour & Stone. While the ingredients are simple, the end result is definitely the best cake you can buy in Sydney. My version, while highly inspired by the cake at Flour & Stone, ends up being a bit different, but equally as delicious. 

It also ends up being gluten free as I opted to use a almond based cake for this recipe. I didn’t choose the almond cake deliberately for its gluten free qualities, I just wanted something that in some way resembled the cake at Flour & Stone, which is denser than a traditional sponge cake, yet still very light and fluffy.

Goodies from Flour & Stone, including the 'Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake'.

The 'Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake'.

My cake, inspired by the 'Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake' from Flour & Stone.

The cake recipe has been adapted from ‘Gran’s almond cake’ in Sophie Hansen’s book ‘Local is Lovely’. This book never ceases to provide culinary inspiration and great recipes.

The filling for this cake, while still being influenced by the ‘Old Fashioned Vanilla Cake’ which has a mascarpone element to its filling, is also inspired by my desire to use some of Pepe Saya’s great products. I visited the Pyrmont Grower’s Market earlier this month and came home with Pepe Saya’s mascarpone and buttermilk. I bought the mascarpone knowing I wanted to try make this cake, and I felt that such good quality products could only be used in something as special as a cake. The buttermilk was used to make a double batch of these muffins, which we are still eating as they freeze so well, and a double batch of these pancakes. The pancakes worked so well with the Pepe Saya buttermilk, I’m not sure I want to make them again unless I have it! 

The recipe for the filling ended up being an amalgamation of this recipe from Delia Online and this recipe from Fool Proof Living. The second recipe has some good tips about whipping mascarpone, as apparently if the mascarpone and cream you are whipping are different temperatures the mascarpone will split. Most places I looked advised using both products at room temperature, however I used both chilled from the fridge and it worked well. 

As a little side note, I did add some toasted coconut chips to the layers of the cake, mostly because I had some leftover from breakfast that morning. I didn't add it to the recipe as I didn't think it significantly added anything to the cake as a whole, however they are visible in some of the photos of the cake.

Raspberry, Almond & Vanilla Layer Cake (Gluten Free)

Ingredients: 

290g almond meal 

315g golden caster sugar

6 eggs, separated

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 tsp baking powder

Ingredients for the Mascarpone & Raspberry Cream 

200g mascarpone 

150ml thickened cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

35g icing (confectioners) sugar, plus extra for dusting

250g fresh raspberries

Method: 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius, and grease and line the base of two 18 cm round loose bottomed cake tins (spring form cake tins will work well too). 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar until they are pale and creamy. Add the vanilla bean paste and beat to combine. 

Sift in the almond meal and baking powder, and gently mix to combine. 

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. 

Using a large metal spoon, gently fold the egg whites into the almond meal mixture, a quarter at a time. 

Divide the mixture evenly between the two prepared cake tins. Turn the oven temperature down to 180 degrees Celsius. Bake the cakes for 30 minutes, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean. 

Once cooked, cool the cakes in their tins for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely (leaving the baking paper lining on the cakes as they may stick to the racks). 

Once the cakes have cooled completely, make the mascarpone and raspberry cream. 

Place the mascarpone in a medium bowl and whip until it has thickened and soft peaks form. Gradually add the cream, extract and sifted icing sugar a third at a time, and continue to whip until all ingredients have combined and the cream has thickened and stiff peaks form.

Leave a quarter of the raspberries aside for decoration, and squash the remainder with a fork. Gently fold the squashed raspberries into the mascarpone cream. 

Remove the baking paper from the cakes and cut each of the cakes in half (horizontally). Place the base of one cake on a serving plate or cake stand and cover with a third of the mascarpone cream. Top with the top half of the cake, then another third of the cream, then top with the base of the second cake, the remaining cream and finish with the remaining cake half. 

Decorate with the remaining raspberries and dust with icing sugar. 

This cake is best served on the day it is assembled, but will keep in the fridge for a few days. 

Reference: ‘Local is Lovely’ by Sophie Hansen (Hachette Australia, 2014), p.233.