Reactions to home baked cakes

Lyndsay_21

yes i must be the only baking dunce, even muffins go wrong. yes i am 22 in fact i'm 23 in 22 days woohoo. I have given up even trying to make HM cakes and if i want to make cakes with DD i (hides in shame) buy a cake mix, i am equally dreadful at mashed potato

SnowyOwl_2

Loadsabob wrote:

Is it beetroot?...

Queenie...is it something like brown sauce or tomato ketchup? Or onions. This is doing my head in trying to guess!! You're not putting tuna or salmon or something else fishy in are you??

Has anybody got a recipe for Walnut (or Walnut & Coffee Cake) as Sarah1 mentioned? I've suddenly got a mad craving....

I think I am going to have a mad baking morning soon and fill my freezer with lots of goodies - my canteen at work sells muffins for 70p a go, they are nice but not that nice and there is only a choice of two flavours! With a bit of occasional effort I will save quite a few pennies.

Queenie

Walnut Cake

4oz butter or marg
4oz sugar
3 eggs
6oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3oz walnuts of other nuts
vanilla flavouring
water icing

Line a cake tin with paper. Cream fat and sugar until they are soft. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Siever the flour, baking powder and salt together and FOLD LIGHTLY into the mixture.
Chop walnuts and add these with a few drops of vanilla.
Mix well, turn into cake tin (tin size 7in x 3in deep)
Bake in a moderate over (Gas 4, 375F, ??C) for approx 30 - 40 mins

When cold, cover with a layer of vanilla flavoured water icing and decorate with halves of walnuts.

This recipe comes from an old recipe book circa: 1930's and is the one I was brought up on. :drool:


Snowy ... nope, none of those .. but I can tell you, you are getting "warmer" with your first selection of guesses :shhh:

SnowyOwl_2

Thank you for the Walnut cake recipe Queenie, will give that a bash over the next day or two.

So is the magic ingredient Worcester Sauce? Or is it Lea & Perrins?? I bet it's Worcester Sauce as it's made out of plums...am I right, am I?? Am I???? Do I get a prize?????

squeaky

Lyndsay_21 wrote:

yes i must be the only baking dunce, even muffins go wrong. yes i am 22 in fact i'm 23 in 22 days woohoo. I have given up even trying to make HM cakes and if i want to make cakes with DD i (hides in shame) buy a cake mix, i am equally dreadful at mashed potato

What you need is a trusty Be-Ro Recipe book. Everything in there is pretty much bullet proof

You can order it from their website or by post.

I'll find the thread that tells you of both... it's Here

Queenie

SnowyOwl wrote:

Thank you for the Walnut cake recipe Queenie, will give that a bash over the next day or two.

So is the magic ingredient Worcester Sauce? Or is it Lea & Perrins?? I bet it's Worcester Sauce as it's made out of plums...am I right, am I?? Am I???? Do I get a prize?????

Nope .. but it is a "savoury" ingredient LOL

Prize? :think:


:idea:

Ok, whosoever guesses the secret ingredient ... I will PM them the complete recipe :shhh:

spendaholic

squeaky wrote:

What you need is a trusty Be-Ro Recipe book. Everything in there is pretty much bullet proof

Yup - I used to be a real baking dunce too, apart from the stuff my mom showed me. But the Be-Ro book is ace.

I'm completely rubbish at Victoria or sponge sandwiches in a gas oven. They aren't just flat, they slope down to the burnt side and are all gloopy on the raw side. But small cakes I can get to rise.

Try some baking powder, Lindsay_21-who's-really-22-but-almost-23! I even use it with self raising flour.

moggins

spendaholic wrote:

I'm completely rubbish at Victoria or sponge sandwiches in a gas oven. They aren't just flat, they slope down to the burnt side and are all gloopy on the raw side. But small cakes I can get to rise.
.

It sounds like your oven isn't level as this was the problem I had with mine, have you tried measuring it with a spirit level?

spendaholic

We have an electric oven now, but it happened in every single gas oven I ever used. Even at college. How can one person be so unlucky?!

schoolfundraiser

I inherited mine from my mum and I'm 50 this year so learned the economical recipes which are generally more foolproof than the Victoria sandwich egg beating ones. I have adapted a few of them by experimentation.

My daughter's personal favourite is economy choc chip cakes - 1 egg to 4oz marg, 4 oz sugar and 8 oz flour plus 0.5 teaspoon or so of baking powder mixed all in one (carefully) with a hand mixer and with milk added to get it to cake mix consistency. Then add a good handful of choc chips until it looks right. Then put into cake cases in a bun tin (essential unless you want to be scraping melted choc off your bun hollows!) gas mark 5 for about 15 mins. Adding choc chips to choc cake mix is not as good by the way. You need the contrast between plain cake and choc chips. Very good for school lunchboxes as not so much fat and sugar as fairy cakes (apart from the choc chips of course)

Also good are the same bun mix with lemon curd added to give a lemon flavour or marmalade to give a bit of "bite" but when adding these reduce the quantity of sugar by the amount of flavouring you added - so if you add 1 tablespoon of lemon curd reduce the sugar by one tablespoon.

Happy testing