6 oz Cake

When you bake a cake for the first time, obviously you may chose the easiest recipe to follow. The recipe has the basic items that you can find in your cupboard and fridge. Nothing fancy.
Here is my "6 oz Cake" whose main ingredients are fat, flour and sugar in equal measure of 6oz.    Some people call this type of cake "Pound Cake" which I remember I saw in a shop in Japan. But I had no idea what this really meant. Anyway, you can find lots of recipes of this easy to follow basic cake and I have one, too.   My recipe is based on Delia's "all-in-one sponge" which was in my first cookery book I bought in Britain.   My version follows the same principal of "equal amounts of fat, flour and sugar", but I changed other  ingredients over the time I have been baking this cake.
Now, for me, this is the formula which works perfectly. Very light but moist... and low-fat.
This cake is very versatile. You can add dried fruit, chocolate chips, cocoa powder.... etc. to change the flavour.... endless potential. :) 

Ingredients

• 6 oz Low-Fat Spread
• 6 oz Caster Sugar
• 6 oz SR flour (or Plain flour)
• 1 tsp Baking Powder (if you use the Plain flour, increase the BP to 2 tsp)
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Lemon or Orange zest
• 1 Tbsp  Milk
• 1 Tbsp  Lemon Juice

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven 160-180 °c      
2. Put all ingredients in the food processer and mix well. Or put all  ingredients in a bowl and mix with  electric hand mixer.
3. Bake it in the oven for 40-50 minutes
4. When the cake is baked, let it stand for 5 minutes, then turn it out on a plate.

       *Decorate with lemon juice + icing sugar mixture   

Chocolate and Walnut Swirl Bread & Butter Pudding

Chocolate and Walnut Swirl Bread was a hit. Really tasty, but I left some slices for this. Yes, great leftover desert, good old bread and butter pudding. I had some slices of Chocolate and Walnut Swirl Bread that I baked yesterday and I needed the eggy mixture.
I googled it and found an interesting article. "How to make perfect bread and butter pudding" hmmm. I suppose everybody has an opinion of how they like their bread and butter pudding.
However, it's always safe to go back to Delia if you're not sure.
Her eggy mixture contains 3 eggs, 275ml milk, 60ml double cream and 50g sugar for 8 slices of bread. I had small slices of Chocolate and Walnut Swirl Bread, so I made the mixture with 2 eggs, 220ml milk and 30g sugar. I didn't add double cream because I didn't have it in my fridge.

2-Egg Madeira cake

2 Egg Madeira Cake 

Is it just me who finds 2 eggs remaining in the fridge? I can find good cake recipes for 3 eggs, but not so many using 2 eggs. But, for some reason, there are often only two eggs in my fridge.  So, here is a recipe for my 2 egg version of the famous "Nigella Lawson's Mother-in-Law's Madeira cake". I love her recipe, but I need to adjust it for the last two eggs in my fridge. Although Nigella suggested using plain and self-raising flour, when I first tried her recipe I had run out of plain flour, but I used self-raising flour only. But it did the job well.  So here is my 2 egg Madeira Cake.

Ingredients

• 160g softened unsalted butter (low-fat spread works well, too) 
• 140g caster sugar
• Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp BP

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170 °C /gas mark 3. 
2. Cream the butter and sugar, and add the lemon zest.
3. Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of the flour for each.
4. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and, finally, the lemon juice.
5. Sprinkle with caster sugar (about 2 tablespoons should do it) as it goes into the oven, and bake for 40 minutes or until a cake-tester comes out clean.
6. Remove to a wire rack, and let cool in the tin before turning out.