#60: Raspberry Butter Cake

Well, it's been a long time between drinks here at the Bake Project, and that's due to the arrival of Little Mr Cute #3! What fun!

In the light of that, baking may be on the back burner for a little while, but it'll still be bubbling away there until the little guy can sit up at the bench and get his hands in it all with the other two.

As you can see, the picture looks nothing like a Raspberry Butter Cake. It looks like a Chocolate-Cherry Butter Cake. That's because it basically is a Chocolate Cherry Butter Cake.
But before you point and call out "Cheaty-Cheat Cheat Cheat", please be aware of the note next to the recipe:

"Use either fresh of frozen raspberries in this cake - or you can use strawberries, blueberries, boysenberries or any type of berry you like."

Archie was asking if we could make a birthday cake for an uncle last-minute (how could I refuse?) and we had a big punnet of cherries sitting in the fridge, and while a little voice inside me suggested that cherries are not strictly a berry, I ignored that voice and used the cherries instead of raspberries.

And a birthday cake's gotta have icing, so with the cherries and all, the thing really had to be chocolate, so I substituted a couple of tablespoons of flour for cocoa. Otherwise the recipe is the same.

I normally find butter cakes a bit dull and dry, but the cherries added moistness to this one.

WIN

Raspberry Butter Cake, p. 82

125g butter, softened

3/4 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/2 cup milk

3/4 cup raspberries (or any other berries)

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease deep 20cm round cake pan; line base with baking paper.

2. Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; stir in sifted flour and milk, in two batches. Fold 1/4 cup raspberries into mixture.

3. Spread three-quarters of cake mixture into pan; sprinkle with remaining raspberries. Spread remaining cake mixture over raspberries.

4. Bake cake about 1 hour. Stand cake in pan 5 mins; turn, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.

#59: Basic Scones

We surprised my mum Janice for her birthday a little while ago with afternoon tea and scones.

EPIC WIN!

Mum loved the scones, my sister-in-law later asked for the recipe and the family declared that my late scone-baking-champion-grandmother must have passed on the scone-baking gene to me.

What I didn't mention while I basked in glory was that there is no scone-baking gene. I just read the introduction to the chapter on scones in Bake before I made them.

I've previously mentioned Bake's precursory comments about home scone-bakers falling into two categories - "those who can and those who can't make scones"- and while it makes me feel all smug and all, what I think what they mean is there are those who find out how to make them and those who don't.

Kind of like how there are some people who find out what other people think, just in case they might learn something, and those who don't because they know everything already.
Listening to people isn't going to make you more intelligent but it might just make you more informed, resourceful, capable, efficient, discerning, prepared... which are probably more useful in real life anyway. And at the very least you'll learn something about the human race, and that, my friends, is always useful information.

Now, I was saying...scones, the human race... yes, so here are the major points from Bake's info about scone-making that were helpful to me:

• The first trick is adding the right amount of liquid to the dough. The amount you need can "depend on the type of flour, its age and even the humidity on the day you're baking." To make a judgement call on how much liquid to add, you need to have an idea of what the dough should look and feel like; it should be soft and slightly sticky and should just hold its shape when turned out of the bowl.
• Cut wet ingredients into dry using a knife - don't stir with a spoon - and add most of the designated amount of liquid first, then little by little only until the dough just comes together.
• The second trick is to handle the dough as little as possible; don't go full-on kneading it, or the scones will be dense and flat. Work lightly and quickly to pull the dough into a ball on the bench and gently flatten it to about a 2cm thick round. Handle offcuts really quickly and lightly and make the dough round thicker for second-time cutting. They don't rise as much because they've been handled more.
• Preheat the oven properly; it must be hot.
• Don't use self-raising flour that's been sitting in your pantry since 1998. The active ingredients will have gone dud.
• For soft scones with a crusty top and bottom, place scones just touching each other in the pan. They also support each other instead of toppling over everywhere.
• For a smoother scone-top, cut them out then put them in the pan top-down.

And now, after all this scone-bashing, it can only be appropriate for me to have a scone Fail next, eh?

Basic Scones 

(Makes 20)

4 cups SR flour

2 Tbsp icing sugar

60g butter

1 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cup water, approximately

1. Preheat oven to 220C/200C fan forced. Grease 20cm x 30cm lamington pan (any pan with shallow sides will do).

2. Sift flour and sugar into large bowl; rub in butter with fingertips.

3. Make a well in centre of flour mixture, add milk and almost all the water. Use a knife to "cut" the milk and water through the flour mixture, mixing to a soft, sticky dough. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. 

4. Press dough out to 2cm thickness. Dip 4.5cm round cutter in flour (I used my smallest, a 6cm cutter and they were fine. I think I let them bake an extra couple of minutes though) and cut as many rounds as you can from dough. Place scones, side by side, just touching in pan. Gently knead scraps of dough together; repeat pressing and cutting of dough, place in same pan. Brush tops with a little extra milk.

5. Bake scones about 15 mins or until browned and scones sound hollow when tapped firmly on the top with fingers. 

#58: Lazy Ladybird

Last month my little guy number two had birthday number one, and this time, I was determined to make the cake work:

EPIC WIN!

In the year and three-quarters I've been at this project, I've learned a lot and gained baking confidence, so I felt much more prepared this time around.

Despite this, I was shocked that I successfully produced this cake AND improvised with confidence when things started looking pear-shaped. Two years ago I would have panicked, started chucking things in left and right (and chucked a few spoons into the sink with unnecessary force) before binning the remains and going to the Cheesecake Shop... but not this time!

The pear-shaped part was that I couldn't find a pudding steamer to bake the body in, so instead used a deep ring pan and stuffed the hole in the cake with a muffin.
Then I had to carve the whole thing into a neat dome, which sounded easy enough, but it quickly turned into a crumbling, lop-sided molehill.
However, I refrained from throwing spoons around and persisted to harry that molehill, covered it with fondant to give it a nice, smooth shape, then buttercreamed it. Rescued.

And the little man was very appreciative, although I'm sure he would have been just as appreciative of an unharried, lopsided molehill with three eyes and no head, so long as it was covered with icing and chocolate freckles.

Birthday Boy!

Lazy Ladybird 
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/cookingtips/784279/lazy-ladybird-cake