Caramelised Apricot Upside Down Cake

After successfully baking a cake for our anniversary and hearing 'yummm yumm's from my DH i baked another cake for my DS 4th month birthday . After watching Lorraine Pascale's show i have become a huge fan of her simple ways of cooking , so i borrowed her 'Home Cooking Made Easy' from my friend . It had my favourite pineapple upside down cake and gave it ago. Have to say in my 3 years of baking thats the best sponge i have ever made and i started to use the recipe evern for my basic sponge. As i didnt have pineapple and cherries in hand i tried with apricots.


Ingredients :

For Caremalised Apricot Base:

50 gms - butter plus extra for greasing
50 gms - soft  brown suagr
1 can of apricots

For Sponge :

125gms - butter at room temperature
125gns - Plain flour
125gms - soft brown sugar
2 - large eggs
few drops of vanilla essence
1 1/2 tsp - baking powder
1 tbsp - Milk (if batter is too thick, i added it anyway)

Preparation :

For Base:
Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F

Melt the butter in frying pan over high heat and immediately add sugar. Stir continuously untill dissolved and syrupy.

Now add apricots carefully around the pan (you can add any nuts to centre of the apricot ) and cook for 3-4 min untill bottom has good caremalised colour.

Keep spooning the butter and sugar mixture on the top of the apricots as well for even coating.

At this point i moved all the contents from the pan to cake tin (as i didnt have a pan which can be used on both hob and oven as called in recipe) carefully making sure apricots are not smudged. Try to do it immediately after you switch off the pan .

For Sponge :

Mix butter, sugar untill light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time beating hard between each addition. Add vanilla essence and beat for few seconds.

Add flour mixed with baking powder in small quantites and mix untill well done.

Now carefully from low height spoon the cake mixture into the tin evenly and dont drag along the syrup that rises up .

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or untill inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Let the cake cool for few minutes and then invert the plate on the top of cake tin and flip it gently .

We just had the cake as it is but the recipe suggets serving with dollop of mascarpone sweetened with icing sugar or honey .

Chocolate cake with a splash of coffee and chocolate icing

I baked my first cake in 2009 when i had lot of time during weekends and from then baking was my favourite past time . Now even though i dont have lesiure time as all my time is dedicated to my 6 month old DS i try to squeeze time so that i can bake and to feel iam atleast tring to master one art :)

With lots of No- No's from my husband saying you are stressing yourself, i started looking for recipes and after much thought i decided chocolate cake is safe bet. So found a Choclate cake recipe from a book which i got from my friend , added some coffee to the cake batter and finshed the cake with chocolate butter icing and glaced cherries.

Ingredients :

For the Cake :
100gms - Salted butter
100gms - Caster Sugar
75gms - Self Raising Flour
25gms - Cocoa powder
1 tsp - dissolved instant coffee
2 - Medium Eggs

For Choclate butter Icing:
50gms - Butter
100gms - Icing Sugar
25 gms - Melted Chocolate

Preparation :

For Cake :

Heat oven to 180 C / 350 F .

Grease an 7 inch (18 cm) cake tin.

Mix Flour and cocoa powder together.

Mix butter and sugar untill light and fluffy(I used food processor)

Beat in eggs one at a time adding little flour with each.

Gently fold in the remaining flour and add dissolved instant coffee..

Pour the cake batter in greased tin ( i covered cake tin with kitchen foil and greased it.) and bake untill 40 -45 minutes.

For Choclate butter Icing:

Cream the icing sugar and butter by gradually adding them.

Add the melted chocolate to it and mix.
 

Note :
1.Ice the cake once the cake is cool, Never attempt to ice a cake straight from oven.