Spiced ginger loaf cake with maple glaze

You will need:

For the loaf

Loaf tin (and liner) 

150g soft brown sugar

150g butter (or good margarine) 

3 large free range eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

150g self-raising flour 

4 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

Half a  teaspoon ground allspice

For the glaze

As much icing sugar as you dare

4 tablespoons maple syrup

Enough water to turn it into a runny mess

Method:

Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (180 degrees)

Cream the butter and sugar

Beat in the eggs and vanilla

Sift in the flour and spices, and mix well

Spoon into tin (greased and lined with baking parchment, if not using a liner)

Bake for 40-45 minutes - it's ready when a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean

Leave in the tin, on a cooling rack

While still warm, poke a skewer a good few times all over the cake

Make up the glaze by mixing everything together

Spoon over the cooling cake and leave to set

Try to leave until it is cool, then demolish!

Banana bread

Ingredients:

150g demerara sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large free range eggs

2 bananas, mashed

275g self-raising flour

shake of ground ginger

shake of ground cinnamon

150g unsalted butter, melted

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3 / 170 degrees C
• Whisk the eggs and sugar until combined, the leave for five minutes - it will go a bit frothy
• Whisk for a few more minutes, then add the mashed banana and vanilla and whisk until combined
• Add the flour and spices, and stir to combine
• Add the melted butter and stir until smooth (there will be a few lumps from the bananas)
• Pour into a large cake tin (I always use silicone) and bake for 50 minutes
• Turn halfway round through cooking
• Test with a skewer and if it comes out clean, it's ready
• If not, leave for another five minutes
• Turn out on to a cooling rack and leave to cool nearly completely (it's easier to slice when cool!)

Swedish sunshine cake

Ingredients

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

150g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

150g self-raising flour

1 tsp vanilla paste

50g ground almonds

handful flaked almonds

Method

Preheat oven to 200 C / Gas 6. 

Grease a 23 cm silicone cake tin and sprinkle with ground almonds.

Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla.

Stir in the melted, cooled butter.

Add flour; mix until smooth (it will look lumpy to begin with, keep mixing until it's smooth)

Spread the batter into the prepared tin. 

Sprinkle flaked almonds on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. 

Allow cake to cool slightly before removing from the tin. 

Cool completely on a wire rack. 

This cake keeps very well for up to a week in an airtight container or plastic bag.

Chocolate and honey cake with crème de marrons filling (eggless cake)

Ingredients

For the sponge:

90g margarine or unsalted butter

80g unrefined golden caster sugar

3 tblsp runny honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

200ml milk (not skimmed)

185g self-raising flour

20g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

For the filling:

2 heaped tblsp crème de marrons

2 tblsp runny honey

2 tblsp sifted icing sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 / 190 celcius

Grease and flour two 23 cm cake tins (I always use butter and ground almonds, and silicone cake tins)

Cream the butter and sugar

Add the vanilla and honey and mix together

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder

Add a third of the dry ingredients, and a third of the milk, and mix thoroughly

Continue until it is all mixed together

Divide between the two tins and smooth flat

Bake for 25-30 minutes, testing with a skewer at 25 minutes

Cool in the tins for 5 minutes

Then transfer to a cooling rack until completely cool

Mix the filling ingredients together until combined

Turn one of the cakes upside down

Spread with the filling

Put the other cake on top

You're done! Congratulate yourself then shove that cake in your mouth!

Low fat banana bread

A really, really easy, and low fat banana bread. It can easily be made gluten free too.

You will need:
4 ripe bananas, mashed
225g self raising flour (can be substituted for gluten free flour)
100g low fat margarine
100-150g of unrefined caster sugar (the less sugar you use, the less calories the final loaf will be!)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla paste/extract
handful of dried fruit (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to gas mark 4 (180°C/350°F), grease and line a 2lbs loaf tin.
2. Put everything in a large bowl, and mix with an electric mixer for a few minutes. Leave for 2 minutes for the raising agent to start working, then fold int he dried fruit (if using).
3. Pour into loaf tin and bake for 1 and half hours until the top is golden.
4. Leave to cool on a cooling rack. Scoff!

Is also nice with a shake of ground cinnamon in the mix.

Pineapple upside down cake

You will need:
100g self raising flour
100g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
1 tin pineapple rings in juice
2 or 3 tsp dark brown sugar
2 large free range eggs
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cochineal
8” cake tin

Method:
1. Cream the butter and sugar
2. Beat the eggs lightly, then stir into the creamed butter and sugar
3. Add the cochineal and stir until mixture turns deep pink
4. Sift the flour into the mixture and stir until combined
5. Open the pineapple rings and set four aside along with about 4 tsps of juice (eat the rest and drink the juice, it’s nice with vodka straight from the freezer!)
6. Put the juice in the cake tin, and sprinkle on the brown sugar, then arrange the rings prettily
7. Cover the pineapple rings with the mixture and smooth over, put in a moderate oven (200 degrees - gas mark 5) for about 30-40 minutes
8. Take the cake from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack
9. Serve warm with cold cream or *custard, will keep in an airtight container for a day or two

*Please follow the custard rules. They are as follows:
Cold dessert = hot custard
Hot dessert = cold custard
Anything else is just wrong

Bakery

The lights came on at five a.m. no matter how bad your head was, or how tired you were. The first job was to warm the ovens, the sound of the fans inside might have been soothing at any other time, but when it’s gone five and you’ve not had much sleep they’re more like jet engines. Next I had to go to the chiller, drag the heavy, screeching door aside and pull two metal trays taller than me all the way to the ovens; check the LCD displays that the temperature is correct. The cakes and doughnuts only take about 10 minutes to cook, and when the huge oven doors open next the sweet smell explodes outwards.
The cakes have to cool while I tray up the frozen baguettes, scraping my fingers on the hard loaves. You have to be careful not to drop one, a frozen baguette shatters like nothing else can. Once they’re jammed into the bread ovens I have twenty minutes to ice the cakes and sugar the doughnuts, my least favourite job. I hate being covered in jam and cinnamon glaze, and I will spend the rest of the day cleaning sugar from under my fingernails.