Spiced Date & Sesame Crunchies

This was a recipe I had been looking forward to for ages, and it turns out I was wise to do so. These are something like date biscuit sandwiches - what's not to like? The recipe can be found on page 111 of Delia's Cakes, and really consists of two parts - the date bit in the middle (the sandwich filling) and the lovely biscuitty top and bottom (the bread of the sandwich).

The date mix is easy - particularly if you read the recipe properly before popping to the shops and realise the dates need to be finely chopped and so purchase chopped dates rather than whole ones (smug face). They go into a pan with some water, lemon juice and cinnamon and heat gently until it looks spreadable - this took about 5-10 minutes.

In the meantime, the biscuit-esque part can be put together. It's just a case of melting some butter and sugar then pouring onto some flour, semolina and sesame seeds. Then it gets a bit weird. Half of this mixture becomes the bottom of the 'crunchies' and as it's warm, it can be easily pressed into the bottom of the greased tin. The semolina does make it a bit of a strange texture, and it's very buttery so prepare for greasy fingers. Next the spreadable date mix gets spread on top, by which time the other half of the biscuit mixture has changed totally in consistency and is now crumbly! However, not a problem as it can be crumbled on top and then pressed down to cover the dates.

I would say it is quite important to get the right size tin for this - too small and the slices would be like bricks, but too big and you'd never get the mixture to cover over the date sandwich filling in the middle. Luckily I seemed to have just the right size tin and they worked out great. The recipe said it makes 18, but I went for more generous sized slices and got 15 instead. They sliced beautifully and came out really neat and as the name would suggest... crunchy.  They are perfect to take to work with a cup of tea, pack as part of a picnic or a car snack. The sweetness of the dates means they aren't as heavy on sugar as some other snacks, and surely they count as one of your five-a-day! The cinnamon in the date mix is delicious, and gives just a hint of the spiced joys of all the baking to come next month - Christmas is on its way!

Classic Sponge Cake

Time to tackle the very first recipe in Delia's Cakes - the 'Classic Sponge Cake'. Slightly strange that she doesn't call it a 'Victoria Sponge' but that's exactly what it is. Laura made this one, fresh from learning all sorts of fantastic tips at a class run at our (Chitty's Cakes) studio but by the wonderful Melanie from Devenish Girl - another local cake business here in Birmingham. Laura's past experiences of Victoria Sponge cakes had been compared to pancakes given their vertically challenged nature, but with the help of Melanie and Delia, this one was a success.

Delia's method seems to be the same for most of her sponge cakes - sift the flour into a bowl, then add all the other ingredients and combine with an electric whisk. It's exactly the opposite to what I would do, and what Melanie taught Laura and the rest of the class in this week's 'Perfect Victoria Sponge' class. The results from the class speak for themselves in this picture of a very happy Laura - the cake rose up massively and was as light as air, which was a direct result of lots of whisking and beating of the butter and sugar, then yet more beating as the eggs are added gradually and finally folding in the flour gently.

A few days later, when Laura made Delia's sponge cake, she was a bit disappointed with the rise in comparison to the one she made in Melanie's class, but we concluded it was more a result of the tin size rather than anything that hadn't gone right. At our team meeting tasting session, Julie was a bit disappointed at the lack of buttercream in the middle (although traditionally a Victoria sponge does just have jam) but I thought it was delicious. Really traditional and very tasty. In summer, it would work fantastically with some fresh cream in the middle as well as jam.

I hate to contradict Delia's instructions, but I have to say that personally, I think better results always come from the traditional creaming method (butter and sugar thoroughly beaten together first, gradually adding eggs then carefully folding in flour) so that is what we shall be sticking to here. Either way, it's a beautifully simply cake that never fails to hit the spot.

Oatmeal Parkin for dark nights

The clocks have gone back, the evenings are fast becoming long and dark, and it's a perfect time to enjoy some Traditional Oatmeal Parkin. Delia's recipe (on page 78) promises that this one keeps really well, and just goes on getting stickier. She's absolutely right - I've had this in the tin for a week and the last slice last night was by far the stickiest.

It's not a difficult recipe, although the long baking time (an hour and a half in the oven!) might put people off a bit, especially if baking is something you do when you get home from work to relax, as you might be wanting to head to bed before it's out of the oven! It's worth it though, if only for the small the permeates the house as it bakes.

Golden syrup, treacle, butter and dark brown sugar are what makes this wintery cake so deliciously sticky, but there is nothing complex about mixing all the ingredients together. It's a relief to read that it often sinks slightly in the middle, as mine certainly did (this can be quite disconcerting if you're not warned!). The result was a spicy, dense and just a bit sticky cake that suits this time of year perfectly - Halloween, bonfire night and the darker nights need a cake like this, so next time November comes around, give this a go!

Maple & (not so) Caramalised Pecan Cake

Team meetings here at Chitty's are where we get our heads together and come up with our latest flavour of the month cupcakes. November's is Maple & Pecan, so it seemed a good idea to see what wisdom Delia has to add to this classic flavour combination that is yet another recipe that is just perfect for the time of year.

Julie is a recent convert to pecan nuts, and now she's discovered her love for them they appear in lots of her bakes! The cake itself is a fairly traditional sponge with a tablespoon of maple syrup (Delia recommends the rather expensive, although worth it, Amber No. 2) and some chopped pecans. This gives the cake itself a nice little crunch. Delia recommends two 7 inch (18cm) sandwich tins, but as 6 inch were to hand at Julie's that's what she used, and it made it a nice deep cake - I have to say it may have looked a bit flat if made in a larger pair of tins.

The filling is a maple syrup flavoured mascarpone which makes the overall cake really light - our flavour of the month cupcakes have maple syrup flavoured buttercream which is also delicious, but there is something fresh about a mascarpone icing that compliments this cake nicely. Julie didn't go to the trouble of caramelising the pecans (I don't blame her!) but Delia makes it sound relatively easy - mixing pecans with yet more maple syrup and popping in the oven for 10 minutes. Pecans are pretty sweet as they are so caramelising them seemed like a bit of a maple syrup overkill - it certainly wasn't necessary.

The cake was absolutely delicious - I may be making this one myself at the end of the month for Thanksgiving (no, I'm not American, but I just love a turkey dinner with creamed corn and candied sweet potato!). Great cake for November, or anytime to be honest. Just a quick note that it really is worth investing in the Amber No. 2 maple syrup, as we have tried making our maple syrup buttercream since with a cheaper version and it ain't quite the same! Delia does know best on this one - it's worth the extra pennies!!

Halloween Gingerbread shapes

Everyone loves a gingerbread man, and as Delia tells us this recipe is 'ideal for children' it seemed like a good idea to tackle this recipe with my niece and nephew, Kate and Ben, aged 3 and 5. The recipe is on page 166 of Delia's Cakes and while she calls them gingerbread 'men', they can be made with any shaped cutter. Having carved pumpkins earlier that day, we kept with the Halloween theme and decided on some Halloween shapes for our biscuits.

The excitement of sleeping in a bed that wasn't her own was too much for Kate to resist, so while she napped in the afternoon, Ben and I got to work making the gingerbread biscuit mix. Only minor burns were suffered during the melting process (in spite of the repeated chorus of 'don't touch that Ben') and Ben seemed to enjoy helping me mix all the ingredients, although seemed to enjoy more letting me do the hard work while he looked on.

I was a bit worried about the patience required in waiting for the dough to cool enough to work with it - it makes essentially a sticky paste which then cools in the fridge for around half an hour to become a consistency that allows you to roll it out. An Avengers colouring book helped (me more than Ben!) with killing time while it cooled.

By the time the dough was ready to roll out, Kate had re-appeared and was keen to cut out shapes with Ben and I - we had pumpkin shapes, witches, a moon and more - all very seasonal. Rolling the dough out got a bit messy when done with small hands so I did most of the rolling and the children were happy to cut out their shapes and set them out on the baking trays. 10-15 minutes in the oven and they were ready (and smelled amazing). To be honest, if you have such interesting shapes, they don't need any icing, but I thought it would add an extra element of fun, so we made some simple icing with icing sugar, water and orange food colouring to spread on the pumpkin shaped biscuits - Ben and Kate were really good at this and even managed to keep the majority of sprinkles on the biscuits and not on the floor (miracle!). Kate suggested we use some raisins for eyes, and Ben insisted on some Star Wars messages to be written on top in icing, so the result was a truly unique selection of Halloween biscuits!

The great thing about this is that all you need is a themed cutter and this activity can be made suitable for any time of year or occasion - it's fun to decorate them, and easy to do. It's great fun to do with kids, and they absolutely love tucking in to them afterwards!

Autumnal Apple Cake

Our flavour of the month cupcakes here at Chitty's Cakes this month has been Toffee Apple Crumble (yum!) because nothing says 'October' better than freshly fallen apples baked up in some delicious cake or other, so it seemed a good idea to try Delia's Chunky Apple Cake. The recipe can be found on page 74 of Delia's Cakes.

Chopping the apples into chunks was probably the most taxing part of the whole process of making this cake - the rest of the cake mix was really straightforward and it went into the oven without any dramas (except for the battle to chop the apple fast enough so the rest didn't go brown while it waited!).

The finished cake requires no icing, decoration or post-bake attention - it's perfect just the way it is. It's one of the moistest cakes there is because of all the apple and the level of spice (mixed spice and cinnamon) and other flavours (orange zest) is perfect. I could have lived without the mixed peel, but it didn't ruin the cake at all. Totally delicious - try it before autumn turns into winter! 

(Sunken) Cherry Cake

Another team meeting, another Delia bake. Julie baked us all our Friday treat this week, Old-Fashioned Cherry Cake from page 72 of Delia's Cakes. The full page picture next to the recipe shows slices of the cake with the most perfectly dispersed cherry pieces (I wonder how many times it was baked to get it looking that perfect!) which may have led Julie into a false sense of security...!

This is a pretty simple bake, but with one major pitfall - sunken cherry syndrome! Even Delia admits that the cherries sometimes sink, but doesn't really address how to prevent it. The mixture contains two thirds of the cherries, with the final third of them dropped on top and poked down below the surface, but as Julie's cake shows - this ain't enough! The cake tasted great - a really traditional bake, perfect to have a slice with a cup of tea in the afternoon. However, if this were a bake-off technical, it simply wouldn't do, so here are our top tips for avoiding things like cherries (or other fruit, chocolate chips etc.) sinking in your cake:

1. Wash your cherries first - the sticky sugar syrup they are sitting in when you buy them will weigh them down
2. Dry your washed cherries thoroughly! Delia suggests patting them dry if they're covered in syrup, but in Julie's experience this simply won't cut it - wash and dry them to be sure!
2. Chop them very small - I know it's nice to have big chunky cherries in your cake, but they won't survive the pull of gravity if they're whole or even halved - at least quarter them!
3. Do as Delia says and put half or two thirds in the mixture, and sprinkle the rest evenly on top and poke down so they are just below the surface
4. If it's really important that things don't sink, add a little extra flour to your cake mix - if it's too runny, it won't hold your cherries (don't add too much though or your cake will be dry!)

Good luck defying gravity in the future with all your bakes, and if anything does sink just remember that it all tastes the same, so don't worry about what Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry might say about it!