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Archive | March, 2013

Easy lemon yogurt cake

Baking with lemon creates such a lovely fresh smell throughout your kitchen that you’ll wonder why you ever bake anything else. This super simple cake is just delish for morning tea, and is perfect with a liberal dusting of icing sugar. The recipe is from my stand-by AWW Quick Mix Cakes book, and all I did was reduce the amount of sugar from the suggested one cup.

Gather:

125g butter at room temp, diced

2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

2 eggs

¾ cup caster sugar

1 ½ cups self-raising flour

¾ cup plain yogurt

Let’s get to it:

Preheat oven to 170C and grease and line a 14cmx21cm loaf tin with baking paper.

Put all ingredients into bowl of electric mixer and beat until light and changed in colour.

Scrape into pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes before cooling completely on wire rack.

Serve as is, or make up a simple icing by mixing 2/3 cup sifted icing sugar with 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice and enough water to make a pouring consistency. Sprinkle over extra lemon zest.

Tags: baking, cake, easy, from scratch, lemon, loaf, recipe, yogurt

Comments 49 Comments
Categories Cakes, Fast & simple

Donna Hay hot cross buns for Easter

16 Mar

hot cross buns - The Hungry Mum

I make a batch of Donna Hay’s hot cross buns every Easter and when eaten fresh from the oven they are heaven on Earth. Like many baked goods they are best the day they are made. You can pop them under the griller after a day or two [if they last that long!].

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Tags: bake, baked, baking, Donna Hay, Easter, from scratch, home-made, recipe, sultana

Comments 37 Comments
Categories food, from scratch

Chocolate fudge birthday cake

3 Mar

It was my baby brother’s birthday recently and a cake was absolutely in order. By baby I meant he is nudging the upper end of his 30s but in my heart he’s still the funny little boy who used to fall asleep standing up while playing with Matchbox cars.

My mum hosted a family lunch and bought my bros an ice-cream cake – sort of as a joke, sort of because he actually requested one. Obviously a real, actual chocolate birthday would also be needed.

I found the ideal recipe in David Herbert’s Best Ever Baking Recipes and it was not only a snap to make, it turned out exactly like the photo in the book! Huzzah! It tasted rich and fudgy and decadent – a perfect birthday cake.

Gather:

100 g butter, diced, at room temperature

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

250g caster sugar

100g dark chocolate melted

280g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarb

2 tablespoons cocoa

250ML milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Let’s get to it:

Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 20cm springform tin and line the base with baking paper.

Combine butter, egg, sugar and meted chocolate in a large bowl. Sift in flour, bicarb and cocoa.

Combine milk and lemon juice in a small jug (it should curdle slightly) and pour into the bowl.

Beat with hand held beaters or spoon for 2minutes / until smooth.

Pour into tin and bake for 50 minutes/ until a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before turning out to wire rack to cool.

When cold dress with ganache [I cheated and tried a new product I’d seen in the chilled section – Philly chocolate frosting. It tasted good & is perfect for when you don’t have time to whip up ganache].