We are having people over to dinner tonight. I have a lovely Roast Beef roasting in the oven now and it will be accompanied with all the tasty trimmings that you usually have with Roast Beef . . . things like Yorkshire Puds, and roasted potatoes . . . sprouts and carrots . . . gravy and horseradish sauce. I can hardly wait! For dessert I have made a lemon tart. Sweet and lemony and, well . . . tart!! My Todd doesn't like lemon though. (I know what is he like!!!) And then I thought to myself, perhaps he's not alone . . . and so I whipped up this tasty little ginger cake for any of those that are not digging my lemon inspiration, as insane as that may sound!!! Only one problem . . . this cake is SOOO good that I'll now be tempted on two fronts instead of one . . . My cake pan was not quite large enough so I put the extra batter into my yorkshire batter tins and baked the extra as little flat cupcakes. mmmm . . . these are some delicious. Nice and moist and gingery . . . and that buttery caramel icing . . . to die for. But don't take my word for it. Make it and see for yourself! *Ginger Cake with Caramel Icing* Serves 10 Printable Recipe A deliciously divine cake filled with the spicy flavours of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg and covered in a luciously buttery caramel icing. We didn't have any today, but vanilla ice cream is a given with this! 165g (3/4 cup) firmly packed soft light brown sugar 110g (3/4 cup) plain flour 75g (1/2 cup) self raising flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 2 tsp ground powdered ginger 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg 125g (3/4 cup) butter, softened 2 large eggs 160ml (2/3 cup) buttermilk For the caramel Icing: 60g butter (a generous 1/4 cup) 110g (1/2 cup) firmly packed soft light brown sugar 2 TBS milk 120g (3/4 cup) sifted icing sugar Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Butter and lightly flour a deep 10 inch ring pan. Set aside. Place all the cake ingredients in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes until the mixture is smooth and pale. Spoon into the prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, until well risen and the top springs back when lightly touched, or a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before dumping out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Stir the butter, brown sugar and milk together in a small saucepan over heat until the sugar is totally dissolved. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the icing sugar until smooth. Pour over the cooled cake. Enjoy!!! PS - I'll post the Lemon Tart tomorrow!

Remember the Christmas Cake that I baked a few weeks back? (See recipe HERE.) No recipe here today, just my decorated and finished Christmas Cake. Whew! I thought I was never ever going to get around to doing it.



Oh, I had big plans . . . fancy cutouts, cutsie little shaped people, a manger, some angels and maybe some sheep. Todd wanted me to just leave it plain . . .



I'm not a plain kind of gal . . . in the end, however, I settled for simple. Mostly because I ran out of that thing none of us has in abundance at this time of year . . . time.



First, I filled in any holes left on the top of the cake from bits of fruit etc. with some spare golden marzipan. I then brushed the cake all over with some heated apricot jam, which I had strained through a strainer. Once it felt tacky, I applied a layer of golden marzipan all over, which I had rolled out flat to fit. A round circle for the top, and a length of marzipan the height of the cake and as long again as it's circumferance to place around the sides..



Ideally this should have sat for several days to dry, but I ran out of time . . . being the procrastinator that I am and all that.

I then coated it with a fluffy fondant icing and sprinkled the top with some blue and white snowflake candy decorations I had and some of these beautifully large silver dragees that I got at Marks and Spencers.





I finished it off with a dusting of edible glitter and a pretty blue bow.



I think it will do . . . how about you?

Next year I'm going to start it a lot earlier. That's a promise. But don't hold me to it, ok?

Have I made you sick of blueberries yet? I sure hope not! They've had a good special on them in my local grocery store this week and so I just had to buy myself a couple of punnets to enjoy!

One for now . . . and one for the freezer to enjoy a bit later on in the year.



I figured that during this busy holiday season, a tasty recipe for a delicious breakfast cake would not go amiss.



Afterall . . . most of us will be hosting guests over the next few weeks, both overnight and otherwise . . . tis Christmas . . . or Hanukka, or Kwanza, or whatever . . . a great time of celebration for many . . .



and it never hurts to have something tasty up your sleeve to delight them with!



*Soured Cream Blueberry Breakfast Cake*
Serves 12
Printable Recipe

This makes a lovely breakfast treat, bringing the tasty anti-oxidant properties of blueberries to your morning. Nestled atop a tasty sour cream sponge, blueberries happily co-exist along with chopped toasted pecan meats, castor sugar and spice. A crowning icing sugar drizzle makes it complete.

For the cake:
4 ounces butter, softened
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
8 ounces soured cream
1 tsp vanilla paste
the grated zest of one lemon
210g of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
To top:
225g fresh or frozen blueberries
4 ounces chopped toasted pecans
2 ounces caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
To finish:
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
4 tsp milk



Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Lightly grease and flour a 9 inch spring form pan. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Beat in the sour cream, vanilla paste and lemon zest. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir this into the creamed mixture, beating until smooth. Spread into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the blueberries on top along with the chopped pecans. Whisk together the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle this over top of all. Place in the heated oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a well risen and a wooden pick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Whisk together the icing sugar and milk until smooth. Drizzle this mixture over top of the warm cake and serve warm..

If you were to look through my cottage home, you would see fairies tucked in here and there all over the house. I am a great collector of fairies, and a believer in their magic as well . . .

The sight of them brings joy and light, especially when you find them tucked away in hidden unexpected corners . . . little surprises just for your eyes.



I have long wanted to paint little wooden doors to tuck into the bases of trees and rocks here and there in my garden . . . only lacking the time to do so . . . but the wish is there in my mind. One day I'll make the wish a reality.



In the meantime I treat us to these fudgy little Christmas Fairy cakes. Not sure why they call these fairy cakes over here . . . but it is a name that trips off the tongue like silver . . .



Not large enough to be called a muffin or a cupcake . . . these are delightful little fudgy bites . . .



with just a hint of ginger that will leave you wondering . . .

was that the whispery kiss of a fairy on your lips?



*Toffee Ginger Fairy Cakes*
Makes 12
Printable Recipe

Delicious little fairy cakes, topped with a creamy fudgy icing and little bits of fudge toffee. Scrumptious!

For the cakes:
100g softened butter
100g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla paste
25g golden syrup
100g self raising flour. sifted
2 medium eggs, at room temperature and well beaten

For the fudgy icing:
25g butter
50g soft light brown sugar
2 TBS cream
100g icing sugar, sifted

To decorate:
pieces of fudge toffee
(cut into small cubes with a sharp knife)

Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F. Place paper fairy cases into a 12 cup bun tin. Set aside.

Beat the butter and the brown sugar together with a wooden spoon until pale and creamy. Beat in the ginger and vanilla paste, until well amalgamated. Beat in the golden syrup/

Gradually add the sifted flour and the egg, beating well after each addition, until all have been added and the mixture is thick and creamy. Spoon into the fairy cases, dividing the batter equally amongst them. Bake for 15 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown. Remove from the pan to a wire rack to cool completely before proceeding.

Make the icing just before you are ready to ice the cakes. Melt the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and then add the cream. Simmer on low for about 5 minutes. Beat in the icing sugar until smooth. If the mixture becomes too stiff, beat in a tablespoon of boiling water and beat again. Spread the icing over the cooled cakes and decorate with bits of the fudge toffee.

There is no doubt in my mind that blueberries and lemons go together like . . . well, peas and carrots!!

I grew up in rural Nova Scotia, a very small province in Canada with a distinctly maritime climate . . . and ditches and fields just chock full of wild blueberries in late summer and early autumn. Wild blueberries were always something I had taken very much for granted when I was a child, and even as an adult . . .



Flicker
until I couldn't get them anymore. That is when we seem to miss things the most . . . when they are seemingly out of our reach.

It is my dream to visit home again one summer . . . when the corn is ripe for the picking and eating . . . and when the wild blueberries once again are deep purple and growing profusely in the brush along the bye ways and highways of my beautiful home province.



We do have cultivated berries here, and they are quite tasty . . . but nothing ever comes quite up to that beautiful taste of the wild berry, all that fruity flavour concentrated into a small juicy berry no larger than the tip of my baby finger . . . ahh . . . bliss.



We do get wild blueberry preserves over here though, and they are quite tasty in a pinch! I love them on my toast in the morning and spread onto fluffy buttermilk pancakes . . . all warm and stodgy good, with melted butter gilding and soaking into their lace like crisp edges.



Sometimes for a treat on a Sunday afternoon, I make us a lovely jelly roll, or Swiss roll as it is called over here in the UK . . . and I spread it through the middle with sweet and tasty wild blueberry preserves . . .



I like to eat it with my fingers, and while I eat . . . I dream of August days when the air is dry and hot . . . and filled with the sounds of humming insects . . .



of ice cream buckets filled to over flowing with wild blueberries . . . the smell of wild brush in the heat of the sun . . . fingers and teeth stained blue from our exertions . . . aching backs after hours spent hunched over in this glorious labour of love . . . and . . . well . . .

of home . . .



*Lemon Scented Blueberry Swiss Roll*
Makes one 12 inch roll
Printable Recipe

This swiss roll has to be one of the easiest and quickest cakes in the world! You can have the cake mixed together, baked and cooling on the countertop in less than 15 minutes!

For the cake:
3 large free range eggs
5 ounces caster sugar
2 TBS milk
the finely grated zest of one un-waxed lemon
5 ounces plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
a handful of slivered almonds
caster sugar for rolling
1/2 pint of blueberry preserves



Pre-heat the oven to 230*C/450*F. Line a swiss roll pan (8 by 12 inches) with greaseproof paper and set aside.

Break the eggs into a bowl and add the sugar. Beat together with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy. Add the milk and the lemon zest. Whisk together the flour and baking powder. Fold this into the egg mixture, making sure all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the slivered almonds on top.

Bake for about 5 minutes in the centre of the oven. Cake is done when lightly browned and when it springs back when lightly touched.

Have a sheet of grease proof paper ready on which you have sprinkled more caster sugar. Remove the cake from the oven and turn out immediately onto the sugar coated paper. Carefully peel off the greaseproof from the baked cake. Roll up the cake in the caster sugar covered paper, from one long side towards the other, tucking in the first long side tightly. Set aside and allow to cool completely before proceeding.

Once the cake is cooled, unroll and spread with the blueberry preserves. Reroll. Cut into 1/2 inch thick slices to serve.

hmmm . . . the thought just occurs to me that this would be lovely in a lemon trifle . . . stay tuned!!

I think ginger has to be one of my favourite spices. There is nothing I like more than digging into a warm slab of tasty gingerbread . . . a sweet gingerbread cookie. My Gran made the best Molasses Cookies on the planet, filled with . . . you guessed it . . . ginger! Wow, were those ever good with an ice cold glass of milk.




My mom still makes them whenever we go home to visit and it's a real treat. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I bake them myself . . . the taste of mine never quite lives up to the memory of the taste of my Gran's or my Mom's! Funny how that goes!



When my children were growing up I used to create a huge gingerbread cookie fantasy for them every year. Sometimes it would be a house, with clear coloured candy glass windows, and a roof tiled with delicious sweets. One year I did a church, complete with stained glass candy windows. Another year it was a gingerbread Christmas Tree, with silver dragee garlands, gummy bear ornaments and other fancies all over it. In recent years I made a Ginger Cookie Wreath centre piece for my Christmas Table, which you can find HERE on my Oak Cottage Blog. It was so much fun, and looked so nice sitting on the middle of my Christmas Table.



I am sure you have the idea now . . . I just love gingerbread, in any way, shape or form.




Like these tasty cupcakes. Now these dear friends . . . are totally moreish. I think it's the lemon glaze . . . that is, well . . . the icing on the cake! (Of course the preserved ginger in syrup on the top doesn't hurt either!!)



*Gingerbread Cupcakes with Lemon Icing*
Makes 12
Printable Recipe

Ohhh . . . soft, sticky and moist and chock full of lovely ginger flavour, these cupcakes are real husband *pleasers* . . . and, come to think of it, wife *pleasers* too!


60g butter (generous 4 TBS)
50g soft light brown sugar (4 TBS)
2 TBS golden syrup
2 TBS dark treacle
(If you can't get the golden and dark treacles,
do use 4 TBS mild molasses instead)
1 tsp ground ginger
80 ml whole milk (5 1/2 TBS)
1 large free range egg, beaten
2 pieces of preserved stem ginger in syrup,
drained well and chopped finely
140g self raising flour (1 cup)

For the Topping:
the juice of one lemon
(bring the lemon to room temperature and roll it on the counter
a few times under the palm of your hand before squeezing)
200g icing sugar, sifted (generous 1 1/2 cups)
1 piece of stem ginger in syrup, drained and chopped
1 TBS chopped candied ginger


Pre-heat the oven to 170*C/325*F. Line a muffin tin with paper cakes and then set aside.

Place the treacles (or molasses) butter, sugar and ground ginger into a largish saucepan. Place over medium low heat and heat gently until the butter has melted and all have blended well together. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a bit.

Beat together the milk and the egg. Stir this into the warm mixture along with the stem ginger. Sift the flour over top and fold it in until well combined. Spoon into the muffin cases, dividing it equally amongst them all.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until they spring back when lightly touched, or when a skewer inserted into the centre of one comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl, removing all the pips. Gradually stir in the sifted icing sugar, stirring until smooth and thick, yet still spoonable. Spoon this icing over the cakes. Combine the chopped stem ginger and candied ginger and then sprinkle a bit over the top of each one. Let set before serving.

As you can plainly see . . . these went down a real treat!

Having only discovered apricots late in life, I confess . . . I am carrying on a love affair with them. Happily it's a love affair that I share with my husband . . . for he loves them too.

Call it a Culinary Menage a Trois . . .



I discovered this tasty little cake the other day in one of my newer cookbooks, Feed Me Now, by Bill Granger. I just love Bill's books and recipes. They're really down to earth and delicious. Not an ounce of pretention in the lot.

Imagine brown sugar and vanilla glazed apricots, sprinkled with some chopped pistachio nuts and topped with a cinnamony sour cream cake batter . . . and then baked until golden . . .



Turn it out onto a plate and let the syrupy sweet juices flow . . . top it with some creme fraiche and gobble it up while it's still warm.



No . . . it is not pretty. It will not be winning any beauty contests for sure . . .
But whilst it is lacking in attractiveness . . . it more than makes up for that lack in taste.

He called it a tart . . . it looks and tastes like cake to me. I added the pistachios . . . well . . . coz I happen to like nuts as much as I like apricots and, I had some that needed using up.



if you like apricots, you're going to really love this one.

We did . . . in the Rayner household, it got two sets of two thumbs up!!




*Upside Down Apricot and Pistachio Cake*
Serves 4 to 6
Printable Recipe

Deliciously glazed apricots mixed with the crunch of pistachios and topped with a wonderfully spicey and rich sour cream cake. Make sure you turn this out of the pan as soon as you remove it from the oven so that it doesn't stick. You'll want to serve this with lashings of creme fraiche or whipped cream.

100g of butter, divided
12 apricots, halved and pitted
25g raw pistachio nuts, coarsley chopped
90g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
125g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
115g caster sugar
130ml of sour cream



Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F. Place a 24cm diameter round baking tin on top of a low flame and add 25g of the butter. Melt and then stir in the sugar and vanilla. Cook and stir until the sugar melts. Turn off the burner. Place the apricots, cut side down on top of this mixture. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios.

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar into a bowl. Rub in the remaining 75g of butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sour cream. Dollop this mixture over the apricots and spread it out with dampened fingers to cover.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and immediately invert onto a large plate. Cut into slices and serve warm with some creme fraiche spooned on top or whipped cream.