Monday 4 June 2012

Cake Cake Cake

I love cake. That is a known fact. I love chocolate too. And chocolate cake. And especially chocolate brownies. But sometimes you need to think a little healthier, especially when you eat make as much cake as me. So I've been testing some slightly healthier recipes. Admittedly they are still cake, and not altogether meant for every meal but they do contain a little less sugar and fat. I think. They taste pretty good regardless. Another slice?

The first recipe I tried was Dan Lepard's Alchemist's Chocolate Cake from his book Short and Sweet which is simply amazing. You need tinned pears in juice. I had tinned pears in syrup, but it still worked well. I sliced this cake in half and sandwiched it with a dark chocolate and creme fraiche filling. Basically I melted 100g dark chocolate and stirred in 100g creme fraiche. OK, that and the syrup from the pears, made it not so healthy but it was delicious in my humble opinion.


Next up was the need to deal with some very manky over-ripe bananas. Out came my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for their Banana Loaf. Except that I added cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips. Because I felt like it really. I also had some buttercream frosting left over from making a cake with amazing son number 2 (more on that in a bit), so I mixed more cocoa powder into this and iced the top of the loaf. I am clearly incapable of keeping my recipes as healthy as they are intended to be. No complaints from the gorgeous husband or the amazing sons though.


And finally, a not so healthy variety of cake. Amazing son number 2 had to make a cake for a Jubilee Cake Competition at his school. We were a little ambitious but having seen this recipe how could we not give it a go? Yes it was fiddly and time consuming. Yes there is quite a bit of blue food colouring/buttercream/icing thrown in. But it was fun to make, and even tasted pretty nice. Although I did find the colour a little off-putting to eat. Maybe blue cake is the way to stop me eating so much of it?


Incidentally, amazing son number 2 won the competition for his year group. Award-winning cake seemed to taste even better when he brought it home. Blue or not.