This was my attempt to make a large version of my Halloween brownie cupcakes. It’s a bit more effort than a straightforward cake, but still quite easy to bake and assemble.
Ingredients (serves about 10 – 12)
I’m planning to publish my debut novel in April 2020. You can find out more about that at Art and Soul.
As part of the prep for publication, I’ve recently re-read the whole manuscript and was dismayed to find mentions of cakes I haven’t made yet! I wanted to correct this serious oversight as quickly as I could. You can find all the recipes for the other cakes mentioned in the novel in Sweet’s Cakes.
One of those cakes was a cappuccino swirl cake. When I wrote that, I just made it up. However, I’m pleased to say the recipe I came up with to make it real turned out fantastically well.
I got the original recipe for the cappuccino / coffee element of the sponge from the BBC Good Food site.
I am not the greatest fan of coffee or coffee cake, but this one is absolutely delicious. Probably because the sweeter elements take the edge off the bitterness of the coffee.
Ingredients (serves 10 – 12 or more or less, depending on how big you cut your slices!)
I’ve wanted to make a rainbow layer sponge cake for ages. My birthday gave me a reason to make the effort, and it was a trial run for the one I want to make my son later in the year. I was really pleased with how it turned out.
The recipe is just basic sponge cake mix. The difficulty is in all the dividing out, colouring, etc. This certainly isn’t low on the washing up: you’ll probably use most of your bowls. But I think the finished product is worth the effort.
Ingredients (serves 10 – 12 or more or less, depending on how big you cut your slices!)
I recently made peanut butter fudge. One of the ingredients for that recipe was a small amount of single cream, which left me with the rest of the tub to use up. Some searching for cake recipes which need single cream as a key ingredient turned up this simple cream cake recipe In Jennie’s Kitchen.
It must have been fate as I happened to have a small bundt tin I hadn’t had a chance to use yet. That said, I’m sure you could use a tin of any shape with this recipe.
This is also a great recipe if you don’t have an electric mixer as it’s easy to combine the ingredients by hand.
The texture of the cake is lovely and it is particularly delicious if you can eat it just after baking.
Ingredients (makes 1 small bundt cake)
This recipe is from a recent edition of The Times Magazine. It’s been a while since I made fudge and had peanut butter to use up from another bake, so decided to give it a go.
If you love peanut butter, this is an easy recipe for a sweet treat which stores well, making it straightforward to share and/or space out the calories!
Ingredients (makes 20 to 48 pieces depending on how small you cut the fudge slab)
I saw these cute snowmen biscuits on Hand Luggage Only. They’re really easy to make, so a great option if you’re short on time or if you’re baking festive treats with children.
I used my Christmas vanilla biscuit recipe which only uses 5 ingredients. Click on the link for the ingredients and instructions.
I used a large flower shaped cutter, but you could also use a large mug or glass to cut out round biscuits.
I’ve been a little busy with kids’ birthdays recently!
This sixth birthday cake is surprisingly easy to assemble and looks great. I came up with the idea by doing a quick Google image search – loads of people have made a version of this cake for various age numbers.
While scouring the internet for Halloween baking inspiration, I came across the idea for these brownie and sponge cupcakes at two sisters. They manage to get a much stronger orange colour in their sponge – they must have better food colouring! I used my own recipes for the brownies and sponge and included a green variation.
Ingredients (these amounts will make 12 Halloween brownie cupcakes)
If you have any frozen or chilled puff pastry you need to use up, or just want to make something fast using shop-bought puff pastry, these mini Nutella croissants are an incredibly easy option.
Apologies to any French readers as I’m pretty sure these don’t strictly qualify as “croissants”.
My chocolate spread wasn’t Nutella – it was a white and milk chocolate mixture. Any chocolate or chocolate hazelnut spread will work fine.
I’ve been meaning to make one of these for AGES. I have fond memories of Mum making these microwave puddings for us, burning my mouth on the jam because I could never wait for the pudding to cool down before trying it! I wouldn’t be surprised if this sponge pudding brought back (hopefully pleasant) memories of school dinners for some.
This microwave sponge pudding is quick and easy to make. You can use jam or golden syrup as your topping. I got this recipe at allrecipes.
Wait! There’s more. Click for the recipe and more lovely pics!
