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!

Blimey! That's a Limey Cake...

After all the bakes we did for our Macmillan Coffee Morning, it's quite impressive that less than a week later Julie was back to it for another Delia blog bake. Team meeting Friday was round again and this time it was the Fresh Lime & Coconut Cake that was our treat. It's on page 38 of Delia's Cakes and it's a recipe she pinched directly from her Summer Collection. Although not strictly summer, we were experiencing an unseasonably warm start to October, so it went well with the sunshine.

The recipe called for the 'essential ingredient' of coconut milk power, which even Delia herself admitted was hard to get hold of (and that means it's near impossible!) so Julie made do with some creamed coconut that she keeps in the cupboard for making curries.

When we looked at the recipe the day before, it sounded a bit heavy on the limes. I love lime, but altogether the recipe called for four of them! The desiccated coconut in the cake is first soaked in lime juice, and then added (after an hour of soaking) to the cake mix (which includes plenty of lime zest) so it's no wonder the cake was incredibly limey!

Julie arrived at work on Friday morning looking unconvinced about the success of the cake, but when, part way through the morning all three of us collectively decided we couldn't wait until the afternoon's meeting to have a taste, we all tried a slice. I really liked it, but would have to describe it as a lime cake with a little bit of coconut - I don't think the balance was quite right. Now, perhaps had we followed Delia's instructions in obtaining some dried coconut milk powder (I've checked online and it seems Ocado stock it, but otherwise it's not the easiest thing to source), the balance of lime and coconut would have been a bit more fair. Perhaps one of the reasons I like it is that it reminds me of a gin & tonic (which can only be drink with plenty of fresh lime!) but like it I did. It you want your coconut flavour to stand up against all those limes, I'd suggest finding some of Delia's magic dried coconut milk powder and giving that a try. Or perhaps just lose a lime next time!