Chocolate Tea Cake

"What's that?" I hear you say, "a chocolate cake with tea in it?" 

Oh yes. This cake makes a fantastic tea-tastic afternoon tea treat. Here's how to make it:

Ingredients

4 eggs separated

4oz butter, room temperature

12oz sugar

1/2 pt brewed tea, cooled

17oz plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3oz breadcrumbs

3oz cocoa powder

8oz nuts - chopped hazelnuts or walnuts 

A 9ins bundt or ringed tin

Preheat oven to 360F or 180C

Cream the egg yolks, butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in the tea. (Tea!)

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, breadcrumbs, cocoa and nuts, then fold gently into the tea mixture.

Whip the egg whites into stiff peaks then fold into the tea batter. Pour into your tin, then bake for 60-70 mins until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool for 20 mins before turning out... and enjoy!

Ah, a chocolate cake with tea in it. Doesn't get any better than that.

Are you planning any baking this bank holiday weekend?

Rhubarb and Custard Cake

My garden continues to provide me with gifts in the shape of rhubarb, so on Saturday I decided to give making a rhubarb and custard cake a bash.

It's a recipe I'd dug up on the BBC website, which you can find here. 

Despite it taking around half an hour extra to bake than suggested, it's one of the tastiest cakes I've made in a long time! You can really taste the custard, which gives the cake a gooey consistency, and it works brilliantly with the sharpness of the rhubarb. The brown sugar made the crust dark and taste almost like treacle. 

I think I'm going to have to declare this cake a new annual tradition for rhubarb season!

Quick and Easy Coffee & Walnut Cake

A lovely afternoon tea treat today. This cake is so easy to make, and bakes in just 25 minutes.

I can't take the credit for it, though. I discovered it here on the blog Knitting on Trains, which has a very similar ethic to my own blog and is full of vintage, crafty and recipe goodness.

What I really, REALLY love about the recipe is the method. All you do is weigh your eggs (I used 3) and then weigh out the same amount in sugar, butter and flour. So you can't go wrong! Genius. I'm definitely going to be trying this way of measuring for other cake recipes.

What's your favourite loaf cake recipe? I think I'm going to be making a fair few more!