Baking Frenzy

Not been up to much of late - spending far too much time facebooking, blog hopping and chatting on mother and baby forums!  Oh dear!  I do feel I ought to be using my time more constructively!

Anyway, on my blog hopping travels I was inspired to do some baking - maybe blog hopping all day isn't so bad after all! ;0)  Hearty Bakes is a new blogger that I have come across and I have attempted to recreate some of her blogged successes to share with my work colleagues.  The first cake I made was Lemony Butter Cake.  I followed the recipe more or less to the T.  Only difference was I used the grated zest of a whole lemon and used the squeezed juice from half of it.  The yoghurt I used was a low-fat organic Mango and Passion fruit one, but I guess it's personal preference.  I interpreted 5tbs of ground almonds as being 125g of ground almonds. 

The result was a beautiful loaf cake, well risen with a slightly cracked crust but on cooling, the dome does go down slightly.  The cake was wonderfully lemony and had a slight sharpness from the yoghurt and lemon juice which I thought made it quite refreshing.  The ground almonds and yoghurt make the cake slightly dense yet moist.  I saved half this cake for my hubbs and the rest I took in to visit my work colleagues with (I have finished work due to starting maternity leave).

The other creation I baked was Fruit Pastry Cake.  I think this cake has been doing the rounds on people's blogs for a couple of years now.  My version closely follows this recipe from Baking Mum.  I didn't use as much fruit as Baking Mum but used around 70g each of the following which I had at home, ripe peach, cherries (sliced in half and pip removed) and raspberries.  I decided to make this in a square tin for ease of portioning later.  It looks beautiful before and after cooking and so easy to make!  I didn't bother with the citrus zest in this cake and just added vanilla essence.  I would definitely increase the quantity of fruit though but would struggle to find room on the cake surface to put them?!  Maybe cut the fruit into bigger pieces?

Despite my criticisms of my own baking, the cakes were well received at work!  It was nice to pop in and say "Hello!"  I have even had a colleague mention that their favourite cake was the light and airy cake with fruit and cream that I made.  Thinking back on it they mean this one.  I made this orange flavoured chiffon for my manager's birthday and it is a time-consuming one to make too!  Hmm....that's a special occasion cake - too fancy to knock up for saying "Hello!".