No Fruit Christmas Cake

 



Ingredients

 

225g Salted Butter

4 Large Eggs

200g Light Muscovado Sugar

1 tbsp Treacle

330g Plain Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

100ml Milk

Zest of 1 Orange

Pre-heat the oven to 175oC and grease your tin, I like a ring tin for this cake.

 

Melt the butter and set aside to cool. Whisk the eggs, sugar and treacle together in a big bowl. In a separate bowl sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg together.

 

Stir the flour mix and the milk alternatively into the sugar and eggs, a little at a time folding gently to keep the air in. Once combined add the orange zest mix it together and add the butter gently. Pour into your tin and bake for 45-55 minutes (depending on your oven) until the cake is springy to touch and you can insert and skewer and pull it out clean.

 

Let the cake cool and then you can decorate with a dusting of icing sugar or a mix of orange juice and icing sugar which can be drizzled over the cake. Alternatively since this cake doesn't have any booze in it like a traditional Christmas cake you could use Cointreau and icing sugar and drizzle that instead.

 

Halloween Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Follow this recipe for chocolate orange cakes adding black food colouring to the cupcake mix to make it really dark then bake in a halloween themed cupcake case such as this one from cakes cookies and crafts shop

 

 

Instead of topping with chocolate use orange sprinkles and a cake topper of your choice I like these ones that I found on cakes cookies and crafts shop I think they give the cakes  a spooky feel to them.

 

 

 

If you have a look around online you can find lots of cupcake cases and toppers at reasonable prices. Also experiment with food colouring try adding green food colouring to cake mixes or lots of blood red colourings.

 

Carrot Cake

 

Ingredients

175g Light Muscovado Sugar

125ml Sunflower Oil

3 Eggs

140g Grated Carrot (approx 3 large carrots)

100g Raisins

Grated Zest of 1 Orange

175g Self Raising Flour

1tsp Bicarb of Soda

1/2tsp Grated Nutmeg

1tsp Ground Cinnamon

Icing

175g Icing Sugar

Juice of half an orange

Pre heat oven to 180oC and grease a loaf tin. Tip the sugar into a bowl and add the oil and the eggs lightly beat together. Stir in the grated carrot, orange zest and raisins. Sift in the flour, bicarb of soda, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer can be inserted and come out clean,(remember it is a moist cake the skewer might look damp but shouldn't be covered in cake mix). Let the cake cool.

Mix the icing sugar together with the orange juice and pour over the cooled cake, then enjoy. 

Homemade Cake Pops For Grown Ups!

Makes about 20

Ingredients

4oz Caster Sugar

4oz Butter or Margarine

3oz Self Raising Flour

1oz Cocoa Powder

2 Eggs

100g Dark Chocolate

100ml Condensed Milk

4tbsp Cointreau

To Decorate

2 Chocolate Oranges

or 200g White Chocolate with colouring and 2tsp orange essence.

This recipe is exactly the same as my other cake pop recipe but with a few changes.

Turn oven to 180oC. Firstly bake your cake, cream sugar and butter together until light and fluffy then add one egg at a time. Use an electric whisk it will give you a lovely light airy sponge. Add flour and cocoa and whisk until combined. Put in a baking tray and bake for 25-35 mins depending on your oven and the size of the tin.

Once the cake is baked and cooled put in a food processor to crumb. Melt your dark chocolate and condensed milk together in a bowl over a pan of hot water then add the cointreau. Pour in your cake crumbs and mix together put heaped spoonfuls on to a plate then let these chill in a fridge for 1-2 hours.

Once the mixture has cooled roll the spooned out mixture into balls. Melt your decorating chocolate, decorate and add whatever sprinkles you want. Let them set and you are done!

This ones for all the grown ups to enjoy. :-)

Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies

Cookies and cream on the left. Chocolate orange on the right.

The cookies and cream brownies come from a Lorraine Pascale recipe, the chocolate orange is a variation I like.


Ingredients

165g butter, plus extra for greasing

200g dark chocolate, broken up

3 free-range eggs

2 free-range egg yolks

1 vanilla pod, Scrape out the seeds (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)

165g soft light brown sugar

2 tbsp plain flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

pinch of salt

155g Oreos, broken up (or chocolate orange)

(tsp orange essence for chocolate orange fudge brownies)

icing sugar, for dusting

Pre-heat your oven to 180oC. Melt the butter in a saucepan then remove from heat and add chocolate. (the heat from the butter will melt it). In another bowl whisk the eggs and egg yolks until fluffy. Add the sugar gradually in instalments so that you keep the air in your mixture. Pour the chocolate around the edge of the bowl so that you keep as much air in as possible. Add the flour, cocoa, salt and 2/3 of the biscuits. Mix it all together and then pour it into a baking tray. Scatter the remaining biscuits on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes again depending on your oven. The middle will be slightly gooey once cooked. Allow to cool and then sprinkle some icing sugar on top.

An alternative is to replace the oreos with chocolate orange and add a tsp of orange essence to make a chocolate orange fudge brownie.

Enjoy. 

There not Terry's there my chocolate orange cupcakes

Makes 12

Ingredients for the sponge

4oz Caster Sugar

4oz Butter or Margarine

3.5oz Self Raising Flour

0.5 oz Cocoa Powder

2 eggs

Ingredients for the icing

2oz Butter

6oz Icing sugar

Orange food colouring

Orange flavouring

Chocolate orange to decorate

Firstly turn your oven onto 180oC, Whilst your oven is heating cream the butter and sugar together. I prefer to use an electric whisk I find it speeds up the process and makes a lighter mixture. Once the sugar and butter are creamed together beat in the eggs one at a time. The flour and cocoa powder can now be sieved and mixed in. The mixture will now be ready to spoon into individual cases. These will take 18-22 minutes depending on your oven so keep an eye on them and when they are spongy to touch they will be ready or insert a metal skewer into the centre it should come out clean.

Once your cakes are cooked and cooled you can begin the icing. Whisk the butter and icing sugar together. Then add orange colouring usually a drop will do but you can make the colour however strong you want the same goes for the orange essence add as much or as little as you want. Pipe the icing onto the cool cakes and then top with a slice of chocolate orange....

 et voila! delicious chocolate orange cupcakes.