Cinnamon Coconut Cake

If you're new here, you'll quickly notice that I love sheet cakes. I love a three tier cake too, but there haven't been many occasions in the last 12+ months for those unfortunately. This type of cake is quicker to make and you can cut it up before serving for easier access for sharing.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can either make 1 sheet cake or a three tier cake. Or cupcakes! The below recipe, I managed to get a full sheet cake and 5 cupcakes.

This cake is sweet and nutty, but the cinammon brings a lovely warmth. This is a cracking cake. I want it for my birthday! Obviously some desiccated coconut would be perfect on top but I completely ran out, so I went with my new favourite, bright bold sprinkles.

White Chocolate Coconut Cake

It's funny where inspiration is found these days. I was reading an article about how Tom Cruise bought a lot of his friends a specific cake for Christmas. It was a white chocolate coconut bundt cake and that just sounded delightful to me. 

Full disclosure, I first tried this cake as a bundt cake and it failed miserably. In fact, I can't recall a time when I've ever successfully extricated a bundt cake from a bundt pan. I've tried the tricks. I think my pans are just really old without modern non-stick technology.

I added a little bit of cinnamon to this cake which I think just elevated the basic sponge and really goes with the chocolate-coconut topping. It's a delicious cake-y version of those coconut Ferrero Rochers and it hits the spot.

This makes one sheet cake. If you want to make a three tier cake, increase the recipe by 1/3 (so 225g butter, 180g sugar, 3 eggs etc etc).

Nutella Tiramisu

 

It's a little dribbly but it's goooooood.

I didn’t think I liked tiramisu until I was tempted to try some in a little deli in Venice where tiramisu was their specialty. That’ll do it!

It was delicious. I haven’t eaten it since because I figured it would be a let down - how could mine stack up to the professionals?

Well, apparently tiramisu is easy to get right, because I NAILED it on the first go. It’s a really simple recipe that doesn’t use a ton of ingredients (but they are a little niche, it’s not all store-cupboard stuff) and the best part is that it is encouraged to make a day in advance! It’s even better after it is allowed to rest and mingle overnight. Perfect for having company over (a concept I’ve nearly forgotten) or for prepping on a Friday night and enjoying all weekend.

You need a nice deep dish for this, mine was about 20x10cm and I got three layers. I think having two layers is more traditional, so a bigger dish will be needed for that.

Chokladbiskvier

These are the weirdest little biscuits - apparently a Swedish staple! They feel very festive to me, little bite-size almondy chocolate treats!

So they have three main parts - a meringue base, a buttercream filling and a chocolate glaze topping. Making all three parts is a little time consuming but none of the techniques are particularly difficult and they are the loveliest little moresels when they're done.

According to my Swedish insider, you find these all over Sweden in little cafes. Bite size, crunchy and smooth and deliciously sweet!

Marbled Oreo Fudge

I think it's close enough to the festive season that I can get fudge recipes going. For me, fudge feels very Christmassy.

However, you never need to go without fudge again (at any time of year!), because making this recipe is super simple and makes a fudgy, creamy, sweet slab of deliciousness.

There are two ways to melt the mixture together, and I did both in this recipe. You can melt everything together gently in a saucepan over a low heat. Or you can do the same thing with a bowl and microwave, microwaving in 30 second increments until everything is smooth and melted together. Both are easy, I did the darker chocolate one in a saucepan because there was more of it, and the white chocolate one in a bowl. This also meant that I was able to do both at once which reduced the time between making it and getting it in my mouth.

Cinammon Cake With Peanut Butter Buttercream

I haven't updated in a while - blogger changed their interface and writing new posts with pictures has become a real drag. I will do better!

Starting with this cake of dreams. I don't know about everyone else, but sometimes I just get a massive craving for cake. It's not that often, and when it happens, I usually default to my all-time favourite - mocha walnut cake (it seriously is my favourite, first posted all the way back in 2013 and rarely do I make a better cake).

But I saw an instagram post for peanut butter buttercream and I just had to try it. I really didn't want the hassle of a three tier, frosted, epic cake situation so I made a really simple sheet cake and bunged a load of frosting on top.

And it was INSANELY delicious.

I make a really nice peanut butter cookie that is rolled in cinnamon sugar - so I thought a light yellow sponge with a hint of cinnamon running through it would be a really nice but unusual pairing. It worked beautifully - but I think the chocolate sponge from my Oreo cake would also be amazing.

makes enough for a rectangular sheet cake (my tin is approx 25x17cm) and I got 4 spare cupcakes

Ingredients for the cake

• 325g plain flour
• 25g cornflour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 230g butter, softened
• 150g granulated sugar
• 150g packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 240ml buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice)
• 80ml sour cream
• 3 large eggs

Ingredients for the buttercream

• 230g butter, room temp
• 80g peanut butter, room temp
• 440g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 3 tbsp milk or double cream
• pinch salt
• Sprinkles, to finish

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.

Begin with the cake - mix the flour, cornflour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

In a smaller bowl, mix the milk, sour cream and eggs.

In another, larger bowl, beat together the butter, sugars and vanilla until lighter and slightly fluffy.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix well, and then add 1/3 of the liquid mixture and mix well. Continue to alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition.

Bake for 35 minutes until golden and cooked through (I always check mine with a knife).

While the cake is cooking or cooling, make the buttercream.

Whip the butter for a few minutes, then add the icing sugar, cocoa powder, milk and beat again. Finally, add in the peanut butter and salt and beat until combined. You can always add a little more icing sugar if its too runny, or more milk if its too stiff.

When the cake is cooled, pipe or spoon your icing on top, however you do it, and throw on some sprinkles if you're into that.

Slice and eat! Delicious!

Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Am on a cookie binge these days. These are SO GOOD. I love the rich flavour of sesame in basically anything - so why not cookies!

And the addition of tahini makes a regular chocolate chip cookie into a buttery, savoury, beautifully rich cookie.

And these cookies are really easy to make. I love cookie recipes where you chill the dough overnight, because when you're ready to bake them the next day, it's about 30 minutes from rolling the cookies to eating the (warm) cookies. DREAMY!

Chewy Ginger Nuts

I bought a tin of dark treacle ages ago when I had a craving for Jamaican ginger cake and then it just sat sadly at the back of my cupboard, unused.

But then I was spending a Sunday trawling through my recipe books for inspiration and I found a killer recipe for chewy ginger biscuits. I made a few subs to get my treacle in there and they came out PERFECTLY. Really soft but with crisp edges. Sweet but dark. Ridiculously flavourful. Hella delicious.

I love a crackle-top cookie!

Bake and enjoy! They are perfect for a little snack, but I am also picturing a dessert featuring them slightly warmed, with vanilla ice-cream on top and then drizzled with chopped nuts/honey and thinking that would be INCREDIBLE.

Chocolate Oreo Cake

So, it was my BIRTHDAY recently. And my lovely boyfriend sourced some cake for me. Now that’s a hard task, because I have high standards for cake. But he found some absolute gems from a local cake shop - one of which was a chocolate oreo cake.

I ate it. It was life-changing. I immediately planned to make my own.

I was really keen to make a square cake, because I could easily chop it up into portions for work, and we want to reduce the number of people touching the baked goods (ie cutting a round cake has a little more contact that picking up a cut slice).

I think that coffee adds the perfect complement to the heavy chocolate flavour here, without making the final cake taste like coffee at all. Also, no matter how fine you process the biscuits, they’ll still probably be too big for a traditional shaped piping nozzle, so I just used one of my faves – the big round one that makes lovely Hershey’s Kiss-shaped dollops of icing.

The Best Caramel Squares AKA Millionaire's Shortbread

I want to mark this one permanently as **use this one. I know that I have posted a few previous iterations of this kind of traybake, but this is the one that I will be using from now on.

Why, you say?

• The base – crisp buttery perfection
• The caramel – smooth and creamy
• The chocolate – milky sweetness

It tastes like the ones from the good bakeries at home. I’m going to make this forever. 

Everything Cookies

Okay, I added a bit of everything for these bad boys. And they’re PERFECT.

Take a cookie. Add peanut butter. Sprinkle over some coconut. M&Ms? Sure, they can join the party. Chocolate chips go without saying.

YES. GET IN MY MOUTH.

Cocoa Coconut Cake

Hello, hot weather! For me coconut is such a summer flavour, and I'm always looking for ways to incorporate it into cooking. This is a perfect, chocolately, fudgy cake with a deep nutty twist. Its dense and the flavours just smack you in the face - my kind of cake!

My mum made this and it was such a hit I had to try it out for myself! It's a very simple recipe, but the cake you get at the end of it is killer.

It’s like a mix between a brownie and a cake, and it also makes delicious cupcakes. For the cupcakes, I baked for 15-20 minutes instead of the full cooking time and decorated as normal.

Ingredients for the cake

• 90g desiccated coconut
• 325ml reduced-fat coconut milk
• 275g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 45g cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt
• 200g soft unsalted butter
• 225g light muscovado (or light brown) sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs

For the buttercream

• 75g coconut milk (take some of the hard part from the tin above)
• 50g unsalted butter
• 300g icing sugar (you might need more)
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp milk, if necessary
• Chocolate sprinkles/dessicated coconut, to finish.

Thick Peanut Butter Cookies

Giant cookie and its tiny babies

HOLY CRAP.
So, I had totally given up on being able to make the kind of cookies that are tall, thick, stacked, basically CHUNKY. My go-to cookies are amazing and chewy, but they're decidedly flat.

And I was experimenting with cookie size (basically, I wanted to make a giant one) and came across this recipe and OMFG it's amazing.

Chunky - check.
Crisp outside - check.
Smooth inside - check
Delicious - CHECK CHECK CHECK.

I had a little dance after I ate my first one. That's how delicious these are.

Feel free to experiment with the size. Just under half of this recipe made a HUGE 15cm diameter cookie, and with the other just-over-half I got 8 decent cookies.

STACKED full of deliciousness

Big Chewy Choc Chip Cookies

Lock-down is allowing me to live my baking fantasies on the days I'm not in work. I obsessively searched for the perfect cookie recipe a while ago, and I have that down. 

But I'm always looking for slight variations on the theme, and these large, soft, choc chip cookies are perfection. Using melted butter really contributes to the chewy texture. You need a little prep for this, as in you need to remember to prep the dough the day before you want to bake the cookies. It's worth it.

You won't be sorry you made these. They stay good for about a week but they won't last that long.

Makes about 18 large cookies