Here I am again, only this time I’m writing about Chloe’s cake. We have been watching a show called the Great British Bake Off. Chloe would like to bake all of the bakes from season one. Every weekend we also watch a show called, The Great British Baking Masterclass, where the judges bake their favorites so that all the people at home can enjoy the wonderful bakes. A couple of weeks ago Chloe baked Paul’s Ciabatta. This Sunday she baked Mary Berry’s Cherry Cake.
Chloe planned ahead making sure she had all the necessary ingredients. Some things were unusual to find in our area so she looked up substitutions.
Self-raising flour can be made by adding 2 tsps of baking soda and 1/4 tsp of salt to each cup of regular flour. (We can get self-raising flour here, but I had plenty of organic flour and I don’t want to buy whole bag of flour for one cup.)
Castor sugar can be made by putting regular sugar into the blender and blending until fine. Castor sugar is fine like icing sugar but icing sugar also has cornstarch in it. We didn’t want to risk adding ingredients that the recipe didn’t call for so we made our own. It worked out really well and I am happy because I use unbleached cane sugar when I bake.
We found out that ground almonds, almond meal and almond flour are all about the same thing, just different terms. We used almond flour from Bob’s Mill.
We couldn’t get glacé cherries this time of year since they are considered seasonal here so we used maraschino cherries.
The recipe isn’t difficult and we found that most of the time went into making these substitutions.
It’s different using a recipe from another country as almost everything is measured using weight. So we got the postal scales out. It was cool because we had been watching Paul and Mary baking on the show and how they use the scale. Chloe was quickly a pro with it.
Soon the batter was mixed and ready for the oven.
How beautiful and golden it looked and how delicious it smelled.
After a cooling time it turned out easily onto the rack.
Lemon icing was easy to make.
Toasted almonds took a couple of tries.
As soon as the cake was cooled the decorations went on and the cake was served to the family after the Sunday dinner.
Delicious. There is something magical about the almonds, the cherries and the lemon. I highly recommend this cake to everyone who is allowed to eat cake. Even if you’re not the smells are well worth it.
P.S. It was slightly over-baked which was my doing since I’m the one who took it out of the oven. But no one even noticed because it tasted so good.
Hanna McCown
I have been making art everyday, although you may not have seen me much on instagram or facebook. I spent the summer mostly in bed and now I’m building up my strength and cleaning up the house. Lot’s of changes are going on around here that take time and energy. My focus has been more on the actual work I’m doing than on the sharing of it. I did not put in a garden but there were still some things for me to dehydrate and freeze. There are certain area’s of the place that need a lot of attention before winter. I have been taking long walks and have discovered some new places around here. I will share more later on that.
Don’t forget to check out my book if you haven’t already.
I am also selling some of my artwork at Spoonflower, Society6 and Redbubble, you can see more in my store.
Thank you for reading this. Leave a comment if you enjoyed it, I look forward to hearing from you.
