Coffee And Hazelnut Streusel Bundt Cake

I know it's not like me to make a cake without mounds of butter icing or covered in fondant, but this is a different kind of cake for a special occasion. A year ago tomorrow my mum had a heart attack (don't worry she's fine!) and from that day she quit smoking in a bid to get in super healthy condition, and she's stuck to it which is amazing. So rather than dwell on the poorly heart issue we decided it would be nice to celebrate her achievement on not smoking for a year, which when you go from 30 a day since she was a hippy Beatles loving teeneager is brilliant.

We're actually going out tomorrow for a meal to celebrate it properly, but I thought as she's had to cut out so many luxuries I would try to make her a heart-friendly cake to take to her work to share. While this cake may not be 'totally healthy' as such, it's low cholesterol and I've followed some rules we got from the hospital like using butter instead of hard margerine as there's not as much rubbish in it etc. There's also reduced fat sour cream used rather than it being full butter which helps, and also only some runny icing rather than the usual lashings of buttercream or rich icing and chocolate. While of course it's ok to have proper cake now and then, I thought it'd be nice to have a slightly better cake health wise to actually be able to have a proper slice of and enjoy. Also she is an absolute coffee addict so this was an obvious choice and the toasted hazelnuts always go brilliantly with coffee anyway so all in all I think it was a really good choice of cake for this occasion.

I also got to use my bundt tin for the first time, I got it from Tesco for about £8 I think and this recipe was for a 10 cup recipe, I wasn't sure what that meant but it was perfect for this tin, and it's quite large so it worked out well. It was quite scary trying to get the cake out of the tin without ruining the nice pattern and thank fudge it came out without a problem and beautifully smooth. And even if you do loose a bit of the cake when trying to get it out...runny icing is a great glue and can hide all manner of sins! I've adapted this slightly from a recipe I found on Eating Well.

I should also add that while I am definitely not a coffee fan I did have some, and the texture in insanely light and fluffy, in that sense I think this could be one of the best cakes I've baked!

Right let's get started.

Ingredients

Streusel Filling

• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 3 tablespoons soft dark brown sugar, I like to use Tate & Lyle
• 3 tablespoons chopped toasted hazelnuts (they just have a nicer flavour)
• 2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Cake Ingredients

• 360g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 300lm reduced-fat sour cream or low-fat plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 90g butter unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup canola oil - we don't really have that here so they say you can use vegetable oil
• 400g sugar sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg whites

Glaze Ingredients

• 60g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder mixed with 2 tablespoons hot water or 2 tablespoons brewed coffee
• 1 tablespoon chopped toasted hazelnuts for garnish

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C / 350°F. Coat a 10-cup Bundt pan or tube pan with low fat cooking spray.
2. To prepare streusel: Combine 3 tablespoons plain flour, brown sugar and hazelnuts, 2 tablespoons espresso powder and melted butter in a small bowl.
3. To prepare cake: Whisk plain flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Stir together sour cream (or yogurt) and vanilla in a small bowl.
4. Beat butter, oil and granulated sugar in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until well combined. Add eggs and egg whites, beating after each addition until just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream (or yogurt) mixture, starting and ending with the dry ingredients and beating on low speed just until incorporated after each addition, scraping down the sides as necessary.
5. Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle evenly with the streusel mixture. Top with the remaining batter and smooth the top. Mine sunk quite far down so I'd suggest maybe putting it in a bit higher up with less batter having to go on the streusel mix.
6. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. To prepare glaze: Place icing sugar in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon espresso mixture (or coffee) and stir until smooth. Add up to 1 tablespoon more of the liquid to thin the glaze to desired consistency. I found mine was still quite grainy so I sieved mine like a crazy person but you could always add more water to try to dissolve it before mixing it with the icing sugar. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. Garnish with chopped hazelnuts, if desired. I did then add some more white runny icing for a bit of contrast.
8. Eat, Nom!

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Cake Pops! Heaven On A Stick!

I first heard about cake pops about a year ago, thought they sounded interesting but never got round to researching them more. But now it seems they are everywhere, and some are seriously cute so I'm quite jealous. So of course I decided to give them a go, I didn't use anyone's recipe as they were all American that I could see, a tub of frosting etc....but I need actual measurements I'm really picky with that. So I kind of just made it up and luckily - it worked out!

First I crumbled one Victoria Sponge - medium sized (4 egg recipe) into a bowl so it looks like bashed up biscuits. They say chocolate cake holds together better but I thought I would keep it easy and stick to the classic one. There will be a few bigger lumps, but this just gives it a bit more texture, and don't trim away the golden egde, these were originally made from cake scraps so keep some of the history in there!

You then mix buttercream into the cake crumbs. I mixed together 35g butter and 75g icing sugar, I then coloured it with Pink Sugarflair Colouring Paste to look bright against the coating. Mix all of these together and well combined. Now start adding the buttercream to the cake crumbs, don't add it all at once as you may not need all of it, and once you add the buttercream and mix it...you can't take it back, so just do it bit by bit. You want it to still be fairly crumbly, but that it can be formed into a ball and hold together.

I rolled them into balls (ping pong ball size) and stick them in to freezer for 30 minutes, some say not to as the covering will crack, mine didn't though so go for it. Using white lollipop sticks (eBay £3.20 for 50 ish) you gently twist them in about halfway, then I melted some white cake covering chocolate as it cools quick, dip them in, only once! and give them a brisk twizzle to get off the excess and swirl the pop slowly for 10 seconds or so until more set, I then placed them in a mug in the fridge to set properly.

It really wasn't that difficult, thankfully, I used a little too much buttercream in mine so they were bit rich but still gorgeous! If you want to add sprinkles etc then do that fairly soon after dipping (but not straight away!) or you can add icing or melted chocolate drizzles when cool. You can also accessorize with little bows or alternatively place them upside down in petite four cupcake cases for a posh look!

And eat!!! Nom! Pin It Now!

Old School Post Of The Month - Lemon Drizzle Cake!

OK so I thought I would set up a regular post as I see a lot of bloggers are doing, I really want to try more old school recipes so I thought this would be a great way to inject some retro tastes into my blog.

I have done this particular lemon drizzle recipe a million times, I love it - it made me fall in love with lemons. I wasn't sure how a cake without icing would work as I'd never had a plain loaf cake as such. However this was in one word - incredible. I also love making it in the summer as it just instantly makes you feel happy that you don't even think about calories as you tuck into another slice! Don't be fooled by it's simple look, people will probably wonder what the fudge you are serving them, but when they try it...game over - no other lemon drizzle will do.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 240g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 180g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 70g butter, salted
• 100ml double cream
• grated zest of two lemons - please, never use artificial flavourings, use real lemons people!

Drizzle

• 100ml water
• 80g caster sugar
• juice of one lemon

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Grab a mixing bowl and slowly whisk your eggs, now slowly add the sugar, flour, salt and baking powder. Grate the zest and add to mixture,  melt the butter and add that too along with the cream and whisk. Grease and line a loaf tin, pour in mixture and bake for 45 minutes... I find mine needs about 15 minutes more! But every oven is different.

About 12 minutes before it's done make the drizzle. Boil the sugar and water together at 140 degrees (measure with a sugar thermometer), add the lemon juice and let boil for 10 minutes. When you take the cake out of the oven immediately lacquer on the drizzle, use all of it too, it will sink in.

Once it's cool -if you can wait....eat! Nom! Pin It Now!