Cheap Cake Recipes?

Eenymeeny

Just to say that I made the original recipe today and as everyone said, it's lovely! (and evenly risen! for some reason my loaf type cakes often rise along the middle, leaving a big crack but still taste nice, which is the important bit!) Thanks Grimswifie, will be trying more of these recipes

morganlefay

We buy a packet of Fox's ginger crinkles a week and sometimes a small cake or a packet of choc digestives. Think we now can't afford to do this. I can make Twink's fab biscuits instead but does anyone have a recipe for the cheapest possible cake I can make ? (but one that actually tastes nice) I have a stash of dried fruit of all sorts. And if someone has done the sums, is it actually cheaper to make than buy both cakes and Twink's brilliant biscuits (one problem being, of course, that because they are so nice we eat more of them, which defeats the object.)

LondonDreamer

Twinks cost about 75p to make one batch, although this is assuming you use all value/basic ingredients. If you were to use something more expensive (e.g. butter instead of margarine) it will end up costing more. And whether this is more or less than you pay for biscuits depends on how long they last you compared to the packet ones and what price you pay for those.

I sometimes make the tea loaf recipe that's on here somewhere (I'll try and dig up a link) and it's cheap because there's no butter or eggs. Makes a nice and filling snack. Might have to make some when the current snacks run out, yum.

ETA: Found the recipe. I use mixed dried fruit instead of currants. Super simple!

krlyr

I've started making up cookie dough, I roll it into a sausage and cut discs out, open-freeze it on a tray then chuck into a sandwich bag. 10 minutes in the oven (we have a combination microwave, so don't have to start up a giant oven for 1 cookie) and voila, fresh, warm cookie. You could freeze baked cookies to save electricity and just ping them in the microwave too I guess. Worked it out to be about 20p a cookie (greedy portion size), that was really chocolately ones with half-decent cocoa in, and full of choc chips, and nothing bought on offer (and no basics ranges - half own-brand, half branded)- now I have room to freeze butter, I tend to stock up and buy them on the 2 for £2 offers (you could use margarine instead to save some pennies).
I also started freezing the excess slices of HM cake when we have a family get together that I've baked for, they'd normally end up left at the host's house until stale and binned so I've started taking it home - now we have a stash ready to reheat and serve with a blob of icecream/custard whenever we fancy. So consider if it's cheaper to make a giant cake and freeze individual slices - one bonus is that it takes a little bit of time to get it from frozen to warm so if you're strict and only take out a slice each, you're less likely to say "Oh go on, one more slice" when it involves repeating all the preparation from frozen.

morganlefay

Thanks LondonDreamer, I used to do everything with butter, but plan to use marge now. Thank you for cost of Twinks, would love recipe for tea loaf if you can find it. I did do a recipe from here with weetabix (or All Bran - I forget which) but OH wouldn't eat it, and he's the sweet tooth round here

pollys

Foxes ginger crinkles are buy one, get one free in Tesco. Just had a couple with a cup of tea.:)

Pollys

kittycat204

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=252354

kittycat204

did this recipe as 12 muffins this morning, very nice.


carrot and banana cake

Ingredients
Serves:!16
• 5 tablespoons!olive oil
• 125g!sugar
• 2!eggs
• 250g!plain flour
• 1 teaspoon!bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon!salt
• 1 teaspoon!ground cinnamon
• 150g!mashed ripe bananas
• 120g!grated carrots
• 50g!chopped walnuts (optional)

Preparation method
Prep:!10 mins |!Cook:!55 mins!|!Extra time:!10 mins, cooling

Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Grease a 900g loaf tin.

In a bowl, combine oil and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Combine flour, bicarb, salt and cinnamon; gradually add to the oil and egg mixture alternately with bananas. Stir in carrots and nuts, if using.

Tip into the prepared tin and bake for 55-65 minutes or until a skewer inserted near the centre comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from tin to a wire rack to cool completely.

Substitution
Feel free to use rapeseed, sunflower or vegetable oil instead of olive oil in this recipe.

Pasted from <http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/23560/carrot-banana-cake.aspx&gt;

BitterAndTwisted

Cakes and biscuits are some of the things that make life living. I'd rather cut down on some other luxury than not have them at all.

I've never done the maths but think that once you've got the oven on for the Twinks Hobnobs baking a cake, even a simple madeira wouldn't be that expensive, especially if you use half marge/half cheap butter. The mixture, like in the recipe I use, calls for three eggs, so that's getting more dear by the minute.

For those looking for keen deals on shop-bought bikkies should pop into L!dl. Their Rich Tea and Digestives are still about 30 pence a packet or less. Even better is one of my local pound-shops which sells Turkish-made plain biscuits at four packs for the price you would expect.

whiteguineapig

we have just had asda smart price digestive, i think they were under 20p and i quite like them
i also tried the tesco value cake mix that you just add an egg to and i thought that was ok for the price, i put it in the oven when i already had made dinner so it was still hot, the oh said it hadn't much taste but i think you could add something