Tuesday
Rich chocolate and strawberry cupcakes.
Thursday
Chocolate and banana cupcakes and an experimental creation - apple and elderflower (next stage is to make them look good as well as taste good!)
Friday
A French-style savoury cake with cheddar cheese, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil; and another creation of mine, my Masala Mango Cake - it's an exotic twist on Nigella's classic courgette cake recipe. I replace the courgette with 250g of coarsely grated mango (not too ripe or it will turn to mush - in fact it would be a great way to make use of any of those stubborn mangos that refuse to soften) and I add to the dry ingredients some of my Indian Masala Chai spice mix, which is a combination of ground ginger, cinnamon, cardamon and pepper. The drizzle is made from mango juice (Rubicon!), icing sugar, and a squeeze of lemon to sharpen it up.
It was a good week :)
Mango Cake Recipe (adapted from Nigella Lawson's 'Flora's Famous Courgette and Lime Cake')
ReplyDeleteFor the cake:
250g mango
2 large eggs
125ml vegetable oil
150g caster sugar
225g Self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp spice mix (or vary according to your taste)
2 x 21cm round cake/sandwich tins, greased and lined.
Preheat oven to 180/gas mark 4
Cake:
Peel and grate mango (one large one is usually more than enough) using course grater, then put in a sieve over the sink to allow excess water to drain out.
Beat eggs, oil, and sugar together in a bowl until creamy.
Sieve in flour, spices, bicarb & baking powder and continue to beat.
Stir in mango.
Pour mixture into 2 x 21cm sandwich tins and bake for about 30mins until slightly browned and firm to the touch. (I have a fan oven, so it doesn't take quite this long for me)
Remove from the oven when done and leave in tins for 5-10mins, then turn onto a rack until cool.
Filling:
The first time I did this I did a white chocolate ganache which worked well (heat cream and melt in white chocolate - leave to set a little and spread onto cake before sandwiching)
Then most recently I did a simple greek yoghurt icing, just sweetening some greek yoghurt with a little icing sugar - the tanginess was a good addition)
Topping:
I make a drizzle combining bought mango juice and icing sugar until it is gloopy enough to coat the back of a spoon thickly, and sharpen it if too sweet with some lemon juice.
Then as a final flourish, some dark and white chocolate curls (attack the end of a bar of each with a vegetable peeler)