Carrot Cake with Coconut and Pineapple - Recipe

I'm always happy to buy a coffee and a piece of carrot cake from Pret - the one I usually head for is situated in Selfridges Food Hall. It's the perfect place for a spot of people watching.

I really prefer indie coffee shops, but in the week they've mostly been taken over by 'suits' and laptops - try going into them with shopping bags and you feel like Bridget Jones entering the board room wearing the wrong attire.

Pret make the lightest moist carrot cake and I'm always happy with their coffee too, to be fair I like everything from Pret.  I've had their cookery book 'Food on the Move' for years now and it's amazing that they have shared their recipes with us.

I made my carrot cake in a tin with individual squares and made nine cakes, they were a bit on the large side though, next time I'm going to try 10 or 11 cakes.  The cake tin came from Lakeland.

Slightly adapted recipe - the iced cakes will freeze and thaw successfully.

You will need:  21cm square baking tin greased and lined with baking paper or a 12 hole square tin greased and base lined.

For the cake:
2 eggs
200g soft brown sugar
150ml vegetable oil
200g grated carrot
50g chopped walnuts
75g diced tinned pineapple
50g dessicated coconut
200g plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt

For the icing: (I made half this quantity)
400g sifted icing sugar
100g full fat cream cheese at room temperature
50g soft unsalted butter
1tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 150ºC.
2. Take an electric whisk at full speed and whisk the eggs until doubled in volume. Add the sugar, whisk until light and fluffy.  Whisking add the oil slowly.  Whisk until the mixture leaves a trail.
3. Fold in the carrots, walnuts, pineapple pieces and coconut.
4. Sift the flour, cinnamon, bicarb and salt over the batter.  Fold in gently.
5. Place the cake batter into the baking tin.  Bake for 1 hour for the square tin or 40 minutes for the small square cakes.
6. Cool the cakes for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack.

Method for the icing:
1. Beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla extract together.
2. Beat in the sifted icing a third at a time (carefully otherwise the kitchen will be covered in icing sugar)
3. Spread the icing over the top of the cake.
4. Decorate.

In Search of the Perfect Scone Recipe

I like to put cream on my scone first and then a dollop of  jam, I'm not fussed about cream/jam or jam/cream but I do like to see the jam dripping down the cream.  Now that's my excuse because the strawberry jam I made last year didn't set very well and drips everywhere.

At home we always eat our scones with butter................

I'm always looking for the perfect scone recipe but I think you have to be light handed to make a scone regardless of the recipe.  I wouldn't say scone making comes naturally to me, I must be a bit heavy handed.  I've tried the 'only scone recipe you will ever need', the 'ultimate scone recipe', the 'best scone recipe ever', 'the perfect scone' - I've made all of them.

Where I used to work the scones were huge and I could always taste the raising agent, but I loved them. I asked the cook how she managed to get them to rise so much and she said 'bicarb'.

My favourite scones are the ones I have eaten at Allpress, Shoreditch, London - they are huge clouds of yumminess and topped with amazing jam and cream - oh how I long for this recipe.

My best scone recipe is by Delia Smith, they are easy to make and are successful every time. I can't find the recipe on her site but it's here on the BBC Food website.

Roll out to 2.5cm and place on a floured tray (it's easier to clean a floured tray)

Fresh from the oven

              These scones freeze well, defrost and refresh in a microwave oven for a fluffy scone.

I'm still looking for the scone recipe with that special something which will produce a huge fluffy scone and as soon as I find it my readers will be the first to know with a recipe to accompany.

In the meantime here's a few scone recipes I've made previously.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes - Recipe

Fairtrade bananas are used in this recipe

Fairtrade fortnight is from 24th February through to 9th March 2014.  I'm a week late with my Fairtrade posting but better late than never.

Chocolate makes everything taste better and these little beauties have chocolate chips in the cake too. Banana and chocolate is a wonderful pairing and you can't really go wrong.

Somehow in my kitchen there are always a couple of black bananas left in the fruit bowl, you've got to bake these delicious cupcakes, you know you want to........

Kitchen Kit: Food Processor

Makes: 10

You will need:  muffin tin lined with cupcake cases

80g softened salted butter
100g soft brown sugar
1 large egg
50ml room temperature milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
130g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 very ripe bananas mashed
40g dark chocolate chips

For the topping:

50g dark chocolate
15g salted butter
Cadbury chocolate flakes

1. Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
2. Place the softened butter and sugar in the food processor. Process to combine.  Scrape down and then add the egg, milk and vanilla extract.  Process quickly, scrape down again.
3. Add the flour and baking powder, process until combined.  Add the mashed banana and process. Using the pulse function quickly add the chocolate chips.
4. Fill the muffin cases. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
5. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the tins and cool on a baking tray.
6. Place a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, add the chocolate and butter stirring until melted.
7. Take a spoon and add blobs of the chocolate mixture on top of each cupcake, cool slightly and add a piece of flake.
8. Eat!

Sponsored Video: #freethejoy with Cadbury Dairy Milk

Watch James perform the ultimate lip-sync to Estelle's Free through the streets of London helped by the great British public and a little bit of Cadbury Dairy Milk.

So who has had enough of all the doom and gloom of late? With so much rain and stormy skies since Christmas, I’ve certainly had my fill of the colour grey and I’m now looking forward to happy spring days full of alfresco dining and maybe even a spot of sunshine ;0)

It seems like this melancholy has been the mood of the nation for a while and cheeky chappy James Corden, who presented the Brit Awards this week, has captured it well in a very funny new commercial.

James starts the day being pushed and shoved into by strangers going about their business on a typical London street, but with a little bit of Cadbury Dairy Milk inside him, his day just gets better and better as he lip-sync's Estelle's poppy number 'Free' through London town. It's an infectious pop tune with lot's of get up and go, and as James perks up, he literally frees the joy in others as well. One minute he is on a park bench clapping his hands in time with happy grandmas and later he is splashing in a puddle and hanging out with teenagers. There is definitely a slight nod to Gene Kelly’s ‘I’m Singing in the Rain’ – yet it’s a very British rendition!

This video certainly got me moving and shaking in the kitchen as I prepared my shopping list for a weekend of good food and indulgent treats. Do tell me what you’ll be doing as part of yours and I hope you 'free the joy' as well.

Disclaimer: This post has been sponsored by Cadbury, but all thoughts are our own.

Lemon Meringue Pie - Recipe

My miniature daffodils are about to come out in bloom, the sun has shone at least a couple of times this week and I am still hopeful the dead patch on the front lawn, where the skip sat for a few weeks, will suddenly spring into life and we'll see some grass poking through.

Lemon meringue pie is rarely on the dessert menu these days, which is no bad thing because typically it's a disappointment when it arrives and leaves me wanting to weep. Lemon meringue pie is a thing of beauty and for me it's got to be perfect.

I wish it didn't take so long to make. Occasionally I make and line the baking tin with pastry the day before and leave it in the fridge until the next day - a two day operation to make the pie but it makes life easier.

I'm not keen on lemon fillings which taste of lemon curd but this recipe by Delia Smith is the one I have used over the years and I would take some convincing that it can be improved upon.  I make more pastry than Delia recommends I find her amounts a bit on the skinny side and there is nothing more frustrating than finding there isn't enough pastry.

I mostly make Delia's recipe to the letter but after seeing Lorraine Pascale make her meringue using the reverse method I thought I'd experiment and give it a go.  The meringue doesn't look very promising when you start whisking but it sorts itself out in the end and I was impressed with the consistency and volume of meringue.  Occasionally my meringue weeps which is a pain but using this method the meringue doesn't weep and now I'm a convert.  For a crisp meringue I still used Delia's oven temperature and timings.

My New Steam Combination Oven and a Parsnip Soup Recipe

I like parsnip soup, hubby doesn't like parsnip soup.  It isn't a problem though because I freeze the surplus away either in soup bags or in muffin trays for a lunchtime standby.

It seemed a good idea at the time to try using my steam oven to make the soup - it turned out to be a waste of time.  The whole point of kitchen gadgets is to get the best from them and not to try using them if it is going to take you longer than it would without them.

I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon, grating parsnips and onions in the food processor and adding them to the oven tray.....

I added some of the stock, all of the spices and cooked the parsnips and onions........

The parsnip cooked but would that onion cook - no!  It took ages to get the onion to cook.  It wasn't the easiest of things to get onion, parsnip and chicken stock from a flat tray to a liquidiser to puree.

I'm not implying in any way that my steam oven is disappointing but it's more sensible to use gadgets for stuff they are good at.  In this case using a saucepan on the hob would have been the better option. Fortunately after all this I was rewarded with a glorious bowl of soup.

Here is the recipe and method using a hob.

40g butter
1 onion
700g parsnips
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1.2 litres chicken stock
freshly ground salt and pepper
150ml semi-skimmed milk
paprika

Serves:  6

1. Peel and chop the onion and parsnips.  Melt the butter in a large pan. Add the onion and sweat gently for 5 minutes taking care not to colour the onions.  Add the parsnips to the pan and fry for a few minutes.
2. Dry fry the cumin seeds gently in a pan until they release their aroma.  Grind in a pestle and mortar. Add the cumin and curry powder to the pan and cook for a few minutes.
3. Add the chicken stock and seasoning to the pan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a gentle simmer, cover and cook for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
4. Cool, transfer to a blender and puree until smooth.
5. Add the puree to the pan, add the milk and reheat gently.
6. Serve into bowls and sprinkle with paprika.

A few more things I experimented with using the steam function which should be useful if you are upgrading your kitchen and thinking about purchasing a steam combination oven.

Steamed puddings are a huge success.......

Lemon and Blueberry Steamed Pudding and
Christmas Pudding

Sliced potatoes and frozen peas cook really well

Prepared veg ready for steaming         

Steamed new potatoes and chantenay carrots

There is a useful steam reheat function which successfully reheated the vegetables shown in the right hand photograph.  However, I boiled the cabbage because it wouldn't steam successfully.

The reheat function will magically refresh bread......

My panettone looks like it has just been freshly baked - the reheat function is really useful

Purple sprouting broccoli doesn't steam successfully,
 however, tenderstem broccoli steams perfectly

Back soon with more highs and lows using a steam combination oven.....