Double Chocolate Cheesecake

 

You might remember a couple of weeks ago I blogged about Artisan Cheesecakes, a little shop dedicated to cheesecake in Bruntsfield. Well, it inspired me. With over 170 flavours, it was hard not to be inspired to be honest. So when my flatmates' birthday came around, I thought it was a perfect excuse to make my own, especially as he's allergic to eggs, so normal cakes don't really work for him. As it was a birthday, I wanted to do something really indulgent, so I doubled my usual cheesecake recipe, added melted milk and white chocolate to the cheesecake mix itself and piled five types of chocolate bar on top, as well as more melted white and dark chocolate. I'll be the first to admit, it was pretty obscene. But come on, birthday!

It's easy to make, no bake so perfect for summer and although it's best left in the fridge overnight you can get away with making it about three or four hours ahead of time. With the pile of chocolate on top it really is quite a show stopper, and makes an excellent centre piece for any table.

Double Chocolate Cheesecake

Base
400g digestive biscuits
135g Unsalted butter (melted)

Filling
400g Full fat Philadelphia (no scrimping and using half fat, it won't set)
200g Icing Sugar
370ml Double Cream
160g of White Chocolate
160g of Milk Chocolate

Decoration
Your choice of chocolate bars to pile and melt.

1. Smash your biscuits into fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and combine. Press down in the bottom of a loose bottom cake tin, then pop the tin into the fridge to cool while you make the filling.

3. Sieve the icing sugar into the cream cheese and combine.

4. Whisk the double cream until it's nice and thick.

5. Melt both of the types of chocolate (in different bowls).
6. Put half of the double cream in a different bowl, and one type of chocolate into each bowl. Mix until completely smooth.
7. Put half of the cream cheese and icing sugar mixture into each cream and chocolate bowl. Again, whisk until smooth. 
8. Evenly spread the milk chocolate mix over the biscuit base. Then spread the white chocolate mix over that. Leave to cool.
9. Immediately before serving pile up your chopped up chocolate bars and drizzle melted chocolate over the top.

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Brownies

Shhh... don't make too much noise, you might scare the blogpost away! So it's been a little while since I last blogged. And since I read any blogs. And basically since I've been anywhere near a computer except for work or writing my dissertation. Tonight though, the when I got the urge to bake, I decided to not only bake, but actually blog about it too!

If you've ever been on this blog before, you'll know how much I love brownies. You can find classic, orange, blood orange and beetroot... there's a lot of brownie love! You'll also know I've never really had to think much about food intolerances in the past - I don't think I've ever featured a free from recipe before (despite the fact that Ben is allergic to pretty much everything under the sun). But a lovely person in my office is gluten and lactose intolerant, which has made me think a little bit more about baking for special dietry requirements - I feel awful when I take a tin of goodies in and I know they can't tuck in too.

I found the recipe for these gluten and dairy free brownies here at Scientifically Sweet - it uses ground almonds, lots of egg white and icing sugar to get that dense chewy texture and cocoa powder for the rich flavour that makes everyone love brownies. Whilst it is in no way healthy (check out how much icing sugar there is!) it is fat free, and the ground almonds are an excellent source of protein. I highly recommmend you give them a go (as in really very highly - I don't normally post about recipes from other places, but I am making an exception). And don't be scared by the free from-ness of them. They really are pretty spectacularly close to traditional brownies.

Chunky Chocolate Chip Muffins

Well it has been quiet around here hasn't it? Turns out starting a new full time job is pretty time consuming! Luckily I think I'm starting to get into the swing of things. Certainly I've started to take baked goods in to share with everyone - it's great because I finally have a captive audience to take cake to whenever I fancy!

These muffins weren't the first thing I took in - we had an excess of bananas (hundreds and hundreds of the things) so I took some banana bread in, but I've already shared the recipe for that here (although I didn't treat the office to the fancy toppings, I'm not sure it would have travelled well!)

However, the muffins did go down very well, so now I'm going to share the recipe with you.

320g Plain Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
110g Butter (melted)
200g Caster Sugar
2 Free Range Eggs
250ml Milk
2tsp Vanilla
175g Chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 220oC.
2. Melt the butter and leave to cool.
3. Put all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix together.
4. Add the melted butter to the caster sugar, milk and vanilla and mix well.
5. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
6. Evenly spoon into 12 muffin cases.
7. Bake for 5 minutes at 220 and then reduce the heat in the oven to 180 for the remaining 15 minutes.

Coral Anniversary Cake

Last week my parents celebrated their 35th Wedding Anniversary. 35 years! Isn't that incredible?

The traditional gift for 35 years is coral. Now, not only do you not want to go around giving actual coral (I won't get my science hat on but read here for more) but it's also fairly difficult to incorporate a coral theme into cake. All I could think of was Finding Nemo, which would have been a bit lost on my parents I think, so instead I decided to go for coral coloured flowers, nice and simple (theoretically).

The whole thing turned into a bit of a farce. I made the cakes in Edinburgh and then took them all the way home to near Liverpool. I made the icing for the layers and crumb coat the evening I got home but then had to hide the icing and the cakes in my room because my parents got home from work too early I recommend you don't try sleeping with a tub of icing in the room. The temptation is so great.

I then spent the next morning manically layering and crumb coating, whipping up the main icing, icing with a "rustic" style because if I'm honest there was no time for anything else, and then painstakingly making tiny little fondant flowers for to decorate. All done hidden in the conservatory in case someone came home early. I finished by the skin of my teeth, and I was quite happy with it. I'd intended on a super smooth icing which would have suited the fondant flowers more - the rustic look would have been better with real flowers. But time got the better of me so no super smooth icing. Stupidly, I could have saved myself a lot of time by just going to buy buy some fresh flowers. Oh hindsight.

So lesson of the blogpost - be prepared!

I used the following recipes:

• Double the sponge recipe from this Raspberri Cupcakes cake
• The strawberry (although I used raspberry) cream cheese icing from Glorious Treats
• 375g Icing Sugar, 225g Butter, dash of milk for the layering/crumb coat butter cream

I've included a few behind the scenes snaps of assembling the cake. I was on snapchat the whole time annoying my friends with lots of pictures of layers. Have you ever had to make a special occasion cake for someone? Were you more organised than I was? (I hope for your sake you were!)

 

Lemon and Raspberry Easter Pudding

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some lemon macarons for my Mum, for Mother's Day. No big deal - I've pretty much got macarons down now, although I do still feel an overwhelming sense of pride every time I get perfect shells with properly formed feet. 

However, despite my relative confidence, macarons are tricky treats, and they don't always work. This time I'm not sure what went wrong - I think it was a combination of not getting the sugar hot enough and then, once I'd whipped the egg whites and hot sugar together until cool, I left it to sit for a while because my friend popped round for a cup of tea. I knew as I piped them that something wasn't right, the mix was far too runny. Nevertheless I persevered, just in case, and let them sit before putting them in the oven. Sadly they came out terribly cracked, and I was left with a pile of sad macaron shells and some lemon curd I'd made earlier to fill them with. 

 
I couldn't resist a little nibble of the cracked macarons, and they still tasted delicious, so I decided to try and make use of them anyway. I took them all the way home with met, along with the lemon curd and made some nice little puddings for after lunch Mother's Day. If you don't have any cracked macarons, you could just use some plain meringues, either bought from the shops or some you've made yourself, but I'd definitely recommend colouring homemade ones yellow, it's so bright and cheerful, and definitely seasonal. Macarons are also a little chewier than shop bought meringue, and have almonds in them, so the taste wouldn't be quite the same, although I think they'd still be delicious.

Lemon and Raspberry Easter Pudding

Makes 6 Individual Puddings

1 batch of macaron shells/ 1 batch of meringue, crushed (I use a recipe from this book for macarons, but there's plenty out there online if you don't have a favourite)
1 punnet of raspberries
300ml Double Cream, whipped 
Lemon Curd (recipe below)

Lemon Curd

3 Unwaxed Lemons (zest and juice!)
4 Egg Yolks
90g Caster Sugar
40g Butter

1. Put all of the ingredients in a blender and pulse until the zest has all but disappeared.
2. Then put heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the water and put the mix from the blender into the bowl.
2. Stir until everything has melted and then keep stirring until the yellow mixture coats the back of the spoon. It has to thickly coat the back of the spoon, so if you run your finger through it the line you make stays clear. This can take up to 15 minutes.
3. Sieve the curd into a bowl, or if you're keeping it for something else put it in a sterilised jar. Don't use it until it's completely cool.

Assembling the Puddings

1. Put a layer of macaron crumbs on the bottom of your ramekin.
2. Drizzle some lemon curd over the macaron crumbs.
3. Add some fresh raspberries. Pack them in nice and tight so you get a nice clear pink layer on the outside of your ramekin.
4. Fill the ramekin to the top with whipped cream.
5. Sprinkle some more macaron shell around the edge of the ramekin and swirl some lemon curd into the top of the cream.

Beetroot and Blood Orange Brownies

You might remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about visiting Bettys in Harrogate, and I spoke about a salad I shared with my parents. The salad had beetroot and blood orange in it and the combination of the two flavours was delicious, absolutely the highlight of the salad. Tangy and light alongside deep and earthy.

Like I said at the time it triggered a bit of a cake thought in my head. Beetroot cake is nothing new, but I've never tried it, so I thought it was high time I did, with some bonus blood orange just as we reached the end of the season.

I had a good Google and read so many chocolate beetroot cake/brownie recipes I thought my head was about to explode. I took something from almost all of them, and came up with my own version, as none of them had quite the combination I was looking for - melted chocolate and cocoa powder for ultimate chocolate-ness, meted butter not oil and fresh beetroot. The end result was am incredibly rich, dense, gooey brownie that was refreshingly different from my normal brownie recipe (which you can find here).

Beetroot and Blood Orange Brownies

85g Dark Chocolate
240g Butter
300g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
300g Cooked Beetroot
30g Cocoa Powder
150g Plain Flour
50g Ground Almonds
1tsp Baking Powder
1 Large Blood Orange

1. Cook your beetroots. I washed mine, boiled them until quite soft (time depends on size of beetroot) then washed them in cold water and rubbed off the skin before finally grating them.
2. Preheat the oven to 180oC and line your tin. Size doesn't really matter, the thicker the mixture is in the tin the longer it will take to bake!
3. Melt the chocolate together with the butter and then add the caster sugar.
5. Add the eggs one at a time followed by the grated beetroot.
6. Sift all of the dry ingredients together and then add to the wet mixture, folding in gently.
7. Chop the blood orange into rounds and cut the skin off.
8. Pour the mixture into the tin and place the blood orange on top.
9. Bake for around 45 minutes, or until a knife comes out nearly (very very nearly) clean).

Red Velvet Valentine's Cookies

Yeah Valentine's Day is over commercialised, slightly sickening and eye wateringly expensive if you really buy into it. But it's also an excellent excuse to bake some treats for you, your significant other, your friends - anyone really. Last year I shared some baking inspiration but this year I've got my very own recipe to share with you - Red Velvet Cookies!

 
The traditional red velvet cake is rich and dense, so to me that translates perfectly into a cookie. Of course, red velvet wouldn't be red velvet without tangy cream cheese frosting, and is there anything more decadent than an iced cookie? I think not. So the cookies are topped with beautiful layer of icing, and there's also some white chocolate chips hidden within the cookie. Because a cookie isn't a cookie without some chocolate chips.

Red Velvet Cookies

Cookies

290g Plain Flour

45g Icing Sugar

2tsp Corn Flour

170g Butter

200g Caster Sugar

1 Egg + 1 Egg White

1tsp Lemon Juice

Red Food Colouring

100g White Chocolate (chopped)

Cream Cheese Icing

60g Butter

115g Cream Cheese

320g Icing Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Beat the butter and the sugar together (on high if you're using a mixer) until light and fluffy

2. Whilst beating (on medium), add the egg, egg white, lemon juice and food colouring

3. Turn the mixer down to slow and add the flour and corn flour

4. Finally mix in the chopped white chocolate

5. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least two hours (this really matters!!)

6. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease and line a tray

7. Place your heart shaped cookie cutter on the tray and press a ball of cookie dough into the shape

8. When it's flattened, press it out and flip it over, so the flat side is on top

9.  Alternatively, you can just put little mounds of the cookie dough on the tray

10. Bake for 9 minutes, leave to cool on the tray for a minute and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely

11. For the icing, whip the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy

12. Add the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

13. Pipe the icing onto the cookies once they are completely cool

Cake Trails #3: Ginger and Rose Cake

Last week Eve and I visited Lovecrumbs, which markets itself as Edinburgh's only cake-only cake shop. You can read all about our visit here and if you look carefully in one of the pictures you can see on the menu the inspiration for this cake, "Rose and Ginger Cake, £3.20" (you can also see me standing awkwardly in the mirror). I think you can see their version in one of the snaps too, with pink icing and crystallised ginger on top.

Inspired by their menu, I decided to make use of the jar of edible rose petals that have been loitering in the kitchen cupboard for a while and whip up my own Ginger and Rose Cake. This bake coincided nicely with my Mum's birthday, and she was delighted to be presented with such a pretty cake.

Ginger and Rose Cake

Cake
225g Unsalted Butter
50g Soft Light Brown Sugar175g Caster Sugar4 Eggs285g Self-raising Flour3tbsp Stem Ginger Syrup3tsp Ground Ginger

Icing
300g Icing Sugar
90g Butter
3tbsp Rose Syrup
Edible Rose Petals (to decorate, optional)

1. Grease and line two 10" cake tins and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5
2. Mix the butter until light and fluffy (as an aside, this is hard without a mixer and a crushed right hand - so the mixer I used for this cake is more commonly known as Dad!)
3. Mix in the sugar and then add the eggs one at a time, alternating with the flour and the ginger.
4. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top and a knife comes out clean.
5. Leave it out to cool, and then mix all the icing ingredients together. Pipe half the icing on top of one of the cakes and then put the other cake on top, then top with the rest of the icing. When I'm piping in the middle, I like to do a circle around the outer edge of the cake and then fill the middle in. It makes it nice and neat to look at from the outside.
6. Position the rose petals however you fancy.

Cake Trails #2 Caramel Banana Bundt Cake

Week Two of our Cake Trail took us to Cuckoo's Bakery, who bake possibly the best cupcakes in Edinburgh. One of their cupcakes even won them an award! I encourage you to read all about our visit here on Eve's blog, but the short version is, these are really really good cupcakes. As in, I took a box home.

In there though, I chose a banana and caramel cupcake, and I gave it a strong 2/3 (cake, filling and icing making up the three). The cake was a delicious banana bread type cupcake, and you could really taste the banana coming through. The middle of the cupcake was filled with salted caramel, another absolute winner. But for me, the icing was a bit of a let down - it was really really sweet and it tasted like what banana *should* taste like, rather than what it actually tastes like - do you know what I mean?

So for this weeks inspired by bake, I stuck with the banana cake and and the caramel sauce, but I changed the icing to a tangy cream cheese icing. I also opted for one big bundt cake, rather than cupcakes. There are two reasons for this. 1) I did cupcakes last post, and 2) I got a bundt tin for Christmas off Ben's parents and hadn't played with it yet. Good, strong reasoning I think. 

This cake was an absolute hit with my friends, and I'm really pleased because although in my head the cream cheese icing was going to work with the banana bread and caramel, I wasn't 100% convinced it was going to come off in reality. 

Caramel Banana Bundt Cake

Cake

270g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs
200g Ripe Bananas, Mashed
280g Plain Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
140g Melted Unsalted Butter

Caramel Sauce

200g Sugar
90g Salted Butter
120ml of Double Cream

Cream Cheese Icing

225g FULL FAT (this matters) Cream Cheese

85g Unsalted Butter

300g Icing Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract (optional, but coming from a not big vanilla fan, it's nice in this)

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease your bundt tin
2. Beat the sugars and the eggs together until light and airy
3. Mix in the mashed bananas
4. Sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together, then gently fold in to the wet ingredients
5. Finally add the melted butter and pour into your prepared tin
7. Bake for around 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

8. Whilst the cake is baking, make your caramel.

9. Heat the sugar in a pan, stirring all the time until it forms clumps, then melts down into an amber liquid.
10. As soon as you have the liquid, add the butter - it'll splash everywhere, so watch out!
11. Once the butter melts, add the double cream, stirring alllll the time. Once again, watch out, because there will be lots of bubbling.
12. Let it bubble for about a minute, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.

13. Once the caramel and the cake are both completely cool, make the cream cheese icing by mixing the butter with the cream cheese and vanilla then gradually adding the icing sugar. 

14. Pipe the cream cheese icing onto the cake and then follow by piping the caramel.

Christmas Cranberry and Orange Cake

This cake is an absolute showstopper - perfect for the centre of your Christmas dinner table for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's a lighter option than the traditional Christmas pudding, but has all the familiar tastes of the season. Lighter options seem to be popular this year, I keep reading about them everywhere, so I thought I'd join the party. Secondly, this cake looks spectacular (if I do say so myself). And all you need to do to it is pop it on a cake stand and you're ready to go. It absolutely doesn't need setting on fire, and you still have plenty of time to whip it up before Christmas - it doesn't need time to develop. Really, it's an incredibly low maintenance cake. 

Have I convinced you to give it a go yet? 

It's very easy, and though it looks like there's a lot of steps it really doesn't take much time. It's worth bothering to heat the cranberries for the topping in sugar and water, it takes some of their tartness away, and makes them contrast just nicely with the rest of the cake. You could replace all of the cranberries with dried cranberries easily, but I think the fresh look much nicer.

Christmas Cranberry and Orange Cake

Cake

250g Unsalted Butter

250g Caster Sugar

3 Large Eggs
Zest of 2 Large Oranges
270g Self Raising Flour
120ml Fresh Orange Juice (those oranges you zested will come in handy here!)
100g Fresh Cranberries, cut in half

Icing
150g Icing Sugar
Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice

Frosted Cranberries
3tbsp Caster Sugar
Water
Fresh cranberries
100g Granulated Sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease your cake tin. I used an angel food cake tin, but a bundt cake tin or a loaf tin would work equally well.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until really light and fluffy
3. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by most of the orange zest (save a little bit for the top).
4. Fold in the flour, and then slowly add the orange juice.
5. Chop the cranberries in half and coat in flour. Fold carefully into the mixture.
6. Bake in the oven for around 45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. The time might vary a bit if you use a different type of tin. Particularly, I find loaf tins take a while, and after about half an hour I usually cover the tin with foil, so the top of the cake doesn't burn.
7. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely.
8. Whilst the cake is cooling, put fresh cranberries (however many you want on top of you cake) in a saucepan and just cover with water.
9. Add around 3tbsp caster sugar and heat. Once it's bubbling, remove from the heat and drain the cranberries. You mustn't let them pop when they're heating, so watch for cracks in the skin. If you see them, whip them off the heat then.
10. Coat the cranberries in the granulated sugar and leave to cool.
11. Sieve the icing sugar and add the orange juice - how much is up to you. I didn't use very much, because I wanted defined white stripes of icing, but if you want more of a glaze add more orange juice. The best approach is to add juice very slowly until you get the consistency you want. If you're using freshly squeezed you'll want to sieve it, so there's no juicy bits in the icing.
12. Put the icing in a piping bag, chop the tip of and decorate however you fancy.
13. Top the icing with the frosted cranberries.
14. Sprinkle over the remaining orange zest.

Christmas Stained Glass Window Biscuits

Now that it's FINALLY the 1st of December, it's definitely time to get the Christmas baking in full swing. I saw these beautiful stained glass window biscuits on Pinterest, and they really couldn't be easier to make. You can hang them in your window or on your tree, and add some homespun beauty to your decorations. Don't do what I did, which is realise you have nothing to hang them off and then spend an hour browsing trees online, when you really could have been doing other things!

Using Christmas shaped cookie cutters, you put a seasonal hole in the middle of your average biscuit. You then fill the hole with crushed up boiled sweets and bake. It only takes 8-10 minutes in the oven for the cookies to be cooked and the sweets to melt. Better yet, you can keep the inside cut outs and bake them too! They're perfect bite size biscuits, and you can keep them in a tin to serve with coffee over the festive period.

Christmas Stained Glass Window Biscuits
150g Butter
100g Light Brown Sugar
1 Egg
250g Plain Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
1tbsp Mixed Spice
1tsp Vanilla
Boiled Sweets

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and line your baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg.
3. Mix in the flour, baking powder, mixed spice and vanilla until a dough forms.
4. Dust a clean work surface with flour and then roll out the dough until it's about 1cm thick.
5. Cut out the full cookie shape, and then the smaller one. (I used pre made cutters I got for Christmas last year, but you could easily make your own, or cut out shapes freehand if you're artistically inclined!)
6. Separate boiled sweets by colour, put them in a sandwich bag and crush with a rolling pin (this is harder than you'd think, and also I managed to break the sandwich bag and get little shards of boiled sweets all over my kitchen. Don't do that guys. Maybe put some kitchen roll over the bag before you smash).
7. Fill the gaps in the middle of the biscuit with the boiled sweets and then bake for 8-10 minutes.
8. Baking the cut out centres will only take 5-7 minutes because they're so tiny.

Nutella Swirl Banana Bread Muffins

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I shared a picture of my fossilised bananas with you? I'd said that banana bread was about to happen, but I decided to mix things up a bit, and went for banana bread muffins instead, with a little swirl of Nutella in the top. The idea was that I could freeze them individually, away from immediate temptation, and then whip them out when I fancied one.

In the name of honesty I have to tell you that this did not happen - they were demolished pretty quickly (although I did take some to work to share, so it wasn't tooo bad). I have since managed to make and freeze some brownies though (so proud!)

I braved the muffin tray without wrappers, primarily because I didn't have any muffin cases, and I was so happy with how they turned out with just a little bit of butter in each hole. Don't they look cute naked?

The recipe is really easy, and because they're so much smaller than a normal loaf of banana bread they cook much quicker. If you have the self control, it is also really easy to pop them in the freezer - no slicing means no drying out, so the defrosted result is much tastier. It's a win win. The recipee comes from the Hummingbird Bakery.

Nutella Swirl Banana Bread Muffins

200g Light Brown Sugar
70g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
200g Ripe Bananas, Mashed
280g Plain Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
140g Melted Unsalted Butter

Nutella (how much is how much you fancy!)

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease a twelve hole muffin pan
2. Beat the sugars and the eggs together until light and airy
3. Mix  in the mashed bananas
4. Sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together, then gently fold in to the wet ingredients
5. Finally add the melted butter.
6. Split the mixture evenly between the muffin pan, and then swirl the Nutella in to the top of the mix
7. Bake for 25 minutes until risen, and a knife comes out clean in the middle

Sticky Toffee Apple Bonfire Cake

It wasn't my aim for this cake to match the leaves on the drive, but I think it's a beautiful comparison. When I was baking all I could think about was the taste of toffee apples and the smell in the air after Bonfire Night (I hope you're thinking about it now too).

It's deceptively simple, and because of the way the toffee is baked in the oven it won't break your teeth either. You just get that beautifully sweet, rich taste with chewier bits around the edges. You heat up some sugar and water then pour the glistening toffee over greaseproof paper in a round tin. It sets quickly - by the time you've made up the cake mix and sliced the apples it'll be cool enough to use.

You can arrange the apple slices however you like, I went for something traditional but I was thinking about it afterwards, and you could probably make some nice images and patterns. The cake mix is thick and honey coloured, and fills the cake tin right to the top.

While the cake is in the oven the toffee melts, turning the apples the colour of autumn leaves and caramelising the top of the cake. I can't stop looking at the shine of the toffee on the apple slice below!

Luckily, this can be whipped up in no time, so there's still time to get on the table for the 5th

Toffee
200g Caster Sugar
3 Tbsp Water
2 Large Apples

Cake
225g Salted Butter
150g Light Brown Sugar
75g Caster Sugar
1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
4 Eggs
225g Self Raising Flour
1/2 Tsp bicarbonate of soda
60ml Milk

1. Grease your baking tin and line with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 180C or Gas Mark 4
2. For the toffee, put the caster sugar and the water in a pan and heat on high, making sure NOT to stir at any point.
3. When the sugar has melted and is golden remove from the heat and pour into your prepared tin.
4. Slice your apples and arrange them on top of the toffee.
5. For the cake mix the butter and sugars until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.
6. Sift the flour and the bicarb in, and then fold the mixture together.
7. Add the milk.
8. Place the cake tin on a baking tray to catch any melted topping, then bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
9. Immediately flip out, watching out for any burning topping (I needed that advice and didn't get it. Sadface.) and leave to cool. Serve with extra thick cream for a little added indulgence.