Mini orange, cinnamon and sultana loaf cakes

After a successful batch of mini lemon loaf cakes, I decided to try out a more adventurous recipe with my Lakeland mini loaf tin. After a search on Pinterest, I found this recipe by Laythetable – this recipe was for 6 mini loaves, using mini loaf paper cases. To use the 12 hole mini loaf tin, I doubled the ingredient quantities.

The original recipe suggested soaking the sultanas in Amaretto, which would be delicious! However, I didn’t have any Amaretto – after a rummage in our alcohol cupboard (which mostly contains gin!), the best  thing I could find to use as an alternative was Pimms! I also think Cointreau would be a great substitute if you have some! If you want to avoid alcohol entirely, you could simply use orange juice. As I did not plan my bake in advance, I only managed to soak my sultanas for about 45 minutes – this was ok and they did plump up a little, but the longer that you can soak them, the better!

The method for making the cake is fairly standard – it’s really important to beat the butter and the sugar thoroughly – at least 5 minutes in a stand mixer. When adding the beaten eggs, it should be done little by little to avoid the mixture splitting, however, if it does split, just add a little of the flour – this should bind the mixture back together.

Greasing the mini loaf tin well is really important. I really recommend a decent spray with Dr Oetker cake release spray and then rub the grease around with your fingers to ensure that every spot is covered.

The original recipe suggested finishing the cakes with a glaze followed by a drizzle, but I decided to go for a piped drizzle topped with a  sprinkling of orange zest. I have provided the methods for both so that you can choose!  

These cakes were really good – very moist and full of flavour! EHH took them into work and they were very well received – even by one colleague who claimed not to like orange cake!

Mini orange, cinnamon and sultana loaf cakes

Ingredients

1. 75g sultanas
2. Amaretto / Cointreau / Pimms / orange juice
3. 2 oranges
4. 1 tsp cinnamon
5. 1 tsp baking powder
6. 4 large eggs
7. 170g self raising flour
8. 60g ground almonds
9. 230g unsalted butter
10. 230g granulated sugar
11. 100g icing sugar

Method

1. Place the sultanas in a small bowl or cup and cover with the alcohol / orange juice. Leave to soak for as long as possible – ideally overnight or longer.
2. Strain sultanas through a sieve and reserve the liquid.
3. Preheat the oven to 180C.
4. Lightly grease the mini loaf tin (ideally spray liberally with cake release spray) or place 12 mini loaf cases on a baking tray
5. Zest one and a half of the oranges (save the remaining zest and the juice of the oranges for use in the icing).
6. Sift the flour, ground almonds, cinnamon and baking powder together.
7. Using a hand/stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale, smooth and creamy.
8. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk with a fork to combine yolks and whites. 
9. Bit by bit, add the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar, beating thoroughly between each addition.
10. Add in the sultanas and orange peel.
11. Add half of the flour mix and mix gently, then repeat with the remaining flour mix.
12. Spoon the mixture into the tin / cases evenly.
13. Use a teaspoon to smooth the tops.
14. Place in the oven for around 18 - 25 minutes. Turn the tray after about 14 minutes if your oven bakes unevenly. Towards the end of the bake, you may wish to cover with brown paper to present the tops browning before the middle is cooked.
15. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing the cakes from the tin.
16. Place the cakes on a wire rack to finish cooling.

To glaze (while the cakes are still warm):

1. Juice one orange and mix this with a tablespoon of the soaking liqueur.
2. Place the icing sugar in a bowl and add the liquid a bit at a time until it resembles runny honey.
3. Use a skewer to make a few piercings in each cake, then spoon the glaze over each (around 2 tablespoons per cake).
4. Top each glazed cake with a sprinkle of orange zest.

To ice with a drizzle (once the cakes are cool):

1. Place the icing sugar in a bowl and add a spoonful of the soaking liqueur, followed by enough orange juice to create a smooth piping icing – it should be just a little runnier than toothpaste.
2. Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a small round nozzle and drizzle across the cakes.
3. Top each iced cake with a sprinkle of orange zest.

Mini lemon loaf cakes

I can’t believe it is nearly the end of February already! January whizzed by and I actually didn’t bake all month! February has been more productive but it has taken me until now to get around to writing things up! At the start of February, I decided it was about time to try out one of my Christmas presents – the Lakeland mini loaf baking tin. I’m a bit obsessed with little things generally and love my mini sandwich cake tin (but actually don’t use it nearly enough!), so this baking tin was near the top of my wish list this year! After a scour of Pinterest and the internet generally, I realised that there aren’t many recipes out there for mini loaf cakes. I was going to go with a general loaf cake recipe and adapt the baking times, but I found that Lakeland had a few recipes specifically for this tin, so decided to give the lemon loaf cake recipe a go!

The recipe is fairly easy to follow and quick to make. The only slightly frustrating thing is that it uses medium, rather than large, eggs. I only ever have large eggs and so had to lightly whisk three large eggs, weigh the mix and then spoon out the right amount (medium eggs are defined as those that weigh (still in their shells) between 53g and 63g and large are those that weigh between 63g and 73g; egg shells tend to weigh about 6-8g, so I aim for about 160g of whisked egg for this recipe).

If you don’t have ground almonds, you can replace with the same amount of flour, but be aware that the cakes will probably rise more. If you do this, I would suggest not using all of the mix in the cake tin.

When it comes to greasing the mini loaf tin, I find the easiest way by far is to spray it liberally with cake release spray and then just use your fingers to ensure that all sides are coated. This means that the cakes come out smoothly and perfectly!

The mini lemon loaf cakes are very cute! I topped mine with a piped zig-zag drizzle of the lemon icing but you could simply spoon the icing on, or water the icing down a little more and use it as a glaze rather than an icing. The cakes were moist and zesty and kept really well (in a cake tin) for about 5 days. They would be fab for an afternoon tea party, with lots of other mini cakes and treats! Definitely a recipe that I’ll be using again!

Mini lemon loaf cakes

Ingredients

1. 200g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra to grease
2. 175g golden caster sugar
3. 2 unwaxed lemons
4. 3 medium eggs, beaten
5. 200g plain flour
6. 2 level tsps baking powder
7. Pinch of salt
8. 50g ground almonds
9. 2 tbsp milk
10. 150g icing sugar, sifted

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
2. Lightly grease the loaf tin (ideally, spray with cake release spray).
3. Cream together the butter and caster sugar until pale, light and fluffy.
4. Grate the zest from the lemons, reserve 2 tsp zest to decorate, and add the rest to the mixture. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition.
5. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
6. Fold these dry ingredients into the cake mixture.
7. Fold in the ground almonds.
8. Add the milk and the juice from one lemon and mix until smooth.
9. Divide the mixture between the Mini Rectangular Loaf Tin and level with a teaspoon.
10. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and springy, turning the tin after about 18 minutes to ensure that the cakes bake evenly.  
11. Leave the cakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then ease out onto a wire rack and leave until completely cool.
12. Meanwhile, squeeze the juice from the remaining lemon.
13. Mix the lemon juice into the icing sugar a little at a time, until the icing is smooth and runny and will coat the back of a spoon (it will need to be thicker – about the consistency of toothpaste – if you want to pipe the icing).
14. Drizzle the icing sugar over the cakes and sprinkle with the reserved zest.

Orange & Cinnamon Shortbread

Last week was my turn on the rota for cake at work. We have a big team briefing every Friday known affectionately as the “Friday cake meeting” – there’s a rota with each week assigned to a member of the team! It’s taken very seriously! Unfortunately, I have set a rather strong precedent and so I had people telling me all week that they were excited about what I was going to produce on Friday – talk about pressure!

The trouble with the Friday cake meeting is that it is on a Friday! This means that you have to bake on a week night after work and as it had been a long week, I wasn’t up for making anything fancy! To complicate things further, we have one person who is gluten-intolerant and one person who is allergic to nuts and eggs! They always insist that they don’t want people to go to extra effort for them but I wanted to ensure that I catered for them both.

I decided to go with the gluten-free lemon polenta cake that I made earlier in the week (which was a bit of a disaster as I miscalculated and used too few eggs – having drowned the resulting cake in lots of lemon syrup, it was edible but nowhere near perfect – fail!) and two new recipes: toffee apple crumble cake and these orange and cinnamon shortbread biscuits.

I’d seen this Cookie’s cakes and Bakes recipe on Pinterest a little while ago and had pinned it onto my Christmas Baking board. It seemed a nice simple recipe that would work well as little baked Christmas presents, or as part as a Christmas hamper. It’s also conveniently egg-free and so this seemed like a great opportunity to try it out.

It’s a great simple and speedy recipe and would be great for making with kids. I used my favourite teapot cookie cutter and simply dusted the cooked biscuits with icing sugar, but you could drizzle with chocolate, or an orange blossom flavoured water icing. You could also vary the flavouring – adding lemon zest, or vanilla essence, or other spices. Or you could add chopped chocolate, or dried fruit, or anything else you fancy!  

The resulting biscuits are short and crispy. They will lose their crisp crunch after a day but they will last fine for at least a week. I actually prefer them once they are a day old and are a bit softer, but that’s probably a matter of taste!

Orange & Cinnamon Shortbread

Ingredients

1. 200g soft butter
2. 100g icing sugar
3. 100g cornflour
4. 250g Plain flour
5. Zest of one orange
6. 1 tsp cinnamon

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.
3. Beat the butter until very light and creamy.
4. Add the orange zest and beat.
5. Slowly add the icing sugar, cornflour, plain flour and cinnamon, stirring gently until combined.
6. Use your hands to bring the mixture together to make a dough. Try not to handle the dough too much – it will affect the texture of the shortbread.
7. Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking parchment until 10mm thick.
8. Use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes.
9. Re-roll any off-cuts and cut out more shapes.
10. Place on baking trays and bake for 12-15 minutes or until pale golden around the edges.
11. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray.
12. Tip onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate orange cookies

Having had the girls over for a girly evening (complete with chocolate and raspberry brownies, lemon polenta cake, gossip and Coyote Ugly!), they left at about 11.00 on Sunday morning and I realised that I was out for a late lunch for a friend’s birthday, so I should whip up something quick and tasty as a small gift.

I didn’t have the time or energy to make anything too extravagant, so when I found orange-flavoured dark chocolate in the cupboard, I decided that I could make some quick and delicious chocolate orange cookies. These cookies are usually made with 450g of dark chocolate, so it was easy to replace with the orange-flavoured dark chocolate. I only had 300g of this, so I added 100g milk chocolate and 50g of chopped up orange matchmakers!  You could probably also make with all orange-flavoured milk chocolate (but they may be a little too sweet), or all dark chocolate, but I think the mix worked particularly well. I also replaced the vanilla extract in the original recipe with the zest of an orange.

I’ve added a rest stage for the cookie mixture into my method below. I didn’t do this when I made these cookies and, as you can see from the picture, they spread out too much and so were a bit thin (but still delicious!). I didn’t fit all of the mixture onto my baking trays, so had to do a second batch (of 3) once the first were cooked. This batch stayed much thicker and so I have added the rest stage in!  

Overall, I’m not generally a big chocolate fan, but these are absolutely delicious! Rich, chewy, chocolatey, with a nice fresh orangey zing! They’d make fantastic Christmas presents. EHH loved these and so I’ll definitely be making these again.

Chocolate orange cookies

(makes 12-14 large cookies)

Ingredients

1. 50g butter
2. 350g orange flavoured dark chocolate, roughly chopped
3. 100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
4. 2 eggs
5. 170g soft light brown sugar
6.  Zest of one orange
7. 85g plain flour
8. ½ tsp baking powder

Recipe

1. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.
2. Put the butter, the milk chocolate and half of the orange-flavoured dark chocolate in a heat-proof bowl.
3. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir gently until the chocolate and butter are melted and combined.
4. Beat the eggs, sugar and orange zest in a bowl until frothy.
5. Pour in the chocolate mixture, beating on a slow speed until combined.
6. Sift the flour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
7. In three additions, stir the chocolate mixture into the flour.
8. Stir in the remaining chocolate.
9. Leave for 20-30 minutes to allow the mixture to firm up a bit.
10. Pre-heat the oven to 170C.
11. Dollop the cookie mixture onto the two prepared baking trays, allowing plenty of room between each, as the cookies will spread.
12. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, until the top of the cookies start to crack, the sides of the cookies are firm but the centre still fairly squidgy.
13. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes.
14. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

     

Lemon polenta cake (gluten-free)

Last weekend, EHH was off on a boys’ weekend and I had a couple of my friends over for a girly night. EHH was disappearing off during the day on Friday, so I whipped up a quick batch of chocolate and raspberry brownies on the Thursday night for him to take with him.

With EHH gone, I had Saturday to myself to potter in the kitchen and so I decided to have a go at a new recipe that I had spotted in BBC Good Food magazine – a gluten-free lemon polenta cake. I had a few brownies left for dessert for the girls but thought that this would be a good alternative. This week was also my week for Friday cakes at work, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to practise a gluten-free cake to take in with me later in the week.

I was a bit wary about tackling this recipe: it required a 25cm tin and I don’t have one, so I had to adapt it to fit in a 20cm tin. As the original recipe required 300g butter, 300g sugar, 300g ground almonds and 150g polenta, it seemed fairly easy to do two-thirds of the recipe and hope that it worked out ok for the tin! The recipe asked for 5 eggs, so I decided to go with 3 eggs and 1 yolk.  I decided to up the lemon zing and added the zest of 3 lemons rather than 2. As usual, I wrapped the cake tin in my magi-cake cake strips before baking and these really helped it to rise and bake evenly.

It’s actually a really easy cake to make and, fortunately, fitted perfectly in the 20cm deep tin. The cake is light and zingy, with rich almond sweetness and texture from the polenta. The texture isn’t that of a normal sponge, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a “gluten-free” poor relative cake. Once soaked in syrup and dusted in icing sugar, it looks elegant and delicious, and would be a great addition to a refined afternoon tea. Definitely a cake that I’ll be making again!   

Lemon polenta cake

Ingredients

1. 200g butter, at room temperature
2. 200g golden caster sugar
3. 200g ground almonds
4. Finely grated zest of 2-3 lemons
5. 3 large eggs and 1 egg yolk
6. Icing sugar (to dust)

For the lemon syrup

1. Juice of 1 lemon
2. 2 tbsp icing sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Grease and line a 20cm deep cake tin.
3. Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes).
4. Add the ground almonds, polenta and lemon zest.
5. Beat until combined.
6. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well until smooth (it will still be a fairly thick mixture).
7. Spoon the mixture into the tin and spread evenly.
8. Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden and springy.
9. Remove from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.
10. While it is cooling, place the lemon juice and icing sugar in a bowl and microwave for 45 seconds, until boiling and syrupy.
11. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack and prick with a skewer.
12. Spoon the syrup over the cake.
13. Leave cake to cool.
14. Dust with icing sugar before serving.