Hidden Name Birthday Cake

Last week it was my boyfriend Liam's 21st birthday and I had an exciting birthday cake idea up my sleeve! After a few weeks of planning and internet shopping I made his cake and was so proud of it! I've never made anything quite so challenging and everyone was really impressed with it, especially the birthday boy - so it was worth every bit of stress! I really hope you like this recipe, although it's a bit tricky and fussy, everyone is so amazed so it's definitely worth it for a special occasion! I also apologise in advance for the length of the instructions...!

Ingredients  

For the vanilla letters
225g softened butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder

a splash of milk 

1tbsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate sponge
450g softened butter 
450g caster sugar
8 eggs
280g self-raising flour
200g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
a splash of milk

For the chocolate ganache
300ml double cream
300g dark chocolate
3tsp caster sugar


Method

Vanilla letters

1. The day before you want your cake to be ready, make the vanilla letters. Start by preheating your oven to 180ºC and lining two loaf tins with butter and flour. 
2. In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add an egg and a tablespoon of flour and combine. Repeat this until all of the eggs and all of the flour has been mixed together. 
3. Sift in your baking powder and add your splash of milk and vanilla extract and combine everything. 
4. Spoon the cake mixture into your prepared loaf tins and bake for 30 minutes - an inserted skewer or fork should come out clean. 
5. Let the vanilla sponge cool completely and then turn them out of the tins. Cut the loaves in half lengthways and cut out your letters - you can use cookie cutters like me, or cut them out by hand. This will only really work with a 3 or 4 letter name. You will need 4 of each letter, so for example I had 4 L's, 4 I's, 4 A's and 4 M's cut out of my vanilla cake.
6. Once you have cut out your letters, wrap them in cling film and pop them in the freezer. You can carry on with the cake the next day, or if you wanted to continue the same day, make sure your letters have completely frozen. This prevents them from over-baking when they are in the middle of the chocolate sponge.
   
   

Chocolate cake

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line two loaf tins (or a square cake tin - I kinda wish that I used a square cake tin, it would make the finished cake look a bit better) with butter and cocoa powder. 
2. Cream together your butter and sugar and add the eggs and flour and cocoa powder bit by bit. 
3. Sift in the baking powder and add the splash of milk and mix together until the mixture has combined. 
4. Smooth out a bit of the chocolate cake mixture into the bottom of the loaf/cake tins, take your vanilla letters out of the freezer (and out of the cling film!) and place them inside the tins. Stack them upwards as they'll hold their shape better if they're lying flat. 
5. Once the letters have been placed in the tins, add the rest of the chocolate cake batter - it may take some time filling in around the letters, but you want to make sure that there are no gaps. 
6. Cover the letters at the top, smooth the mixture over and pop into the oven for about 50 minutes. For the last 10-20 minutes of the bake you may want to cover the tins with tin foil as you don't want the cake to burn, and it's quite hard to tell if a chocolate cake is burning or not!
7. After the cakes have been in the oven for 50 minutes, insert a fork or skewer into the cake. If it comes out clean or very nearly clean, remove it from the oven and leave to cool in the tins. Once they are cool you can move on to the chocolate ganache!
   
   

Chocolate ganache

1. Start by breaking up your chocolate and placing it into a large heatproof mixing bowl. 
2. In a saucepan, heat your cream and sugar together and when it reaches the boil, pour it over your broken up chocolate. 
3. Keep stirring the chocolate and cream until all of the chocolate has melted and the ganache is shiny and smooth. 
4. Leave your ganache for about half an hour to set. 
5. Once the ganache has set, cut your two cakes in half lengthways (or just the one cake if you have used a large square cake tin). Make sure that your letters will match up when you assemble the cakes, and once you're happy with the order in which your cakes will go, put a bit of ganache on each cake and stack them up. Be sure to make a note of the 'front' of the cake - you don't want to cut into the cake and the name to be backwards!
6. Leave the cake to set for a little while and then you can ganache it all over! 
7. I also piped on some white chocolate ganache at the bottom of the cake - I brought 100ml double cream to the boil with 1 tsp sugar and poured it over 100g white chocolate and left to set in the fridge before piping. You can decorate this cake however you like! I also piped '21' onto the top of the cake but didn't take a good enough photo of it...oops! 
8. Add candles and it's good to go!

I really hope that this recipe helps anyone who is thinking of giving a hidden name cake a go! Although a lot of planning (and ingredients) goes into this cake, everyone who sees it is so impressed and happy with it that the planning and stress 100% pays off! What's even better is that it tastes great too! I was really worried that people would think that it looked good but the flavour wouldn't match up, but that wasn't the case :)

Also, you can definitely switch up the flavours of this cake - you could do chocolate letters with vanilla sponge or a vanilla sponge with coloured letters and flavoured icing.

Chocolate Pannacotta

Ooops! This post is two days later than I had planned, so for this week the third 'Sunday challenge' is the 'Wednesday challenge'! Last week was just so busy that I didn't have a chance to make the chocolate pannacotta from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. I started a work experience placement at a museum, had a few driving lessons and made my boyfriend's birthday cake (look out for a post on that this week!) and before I knew it, Sunday evening had come around and I was sans-pannacotta! I hope you lovely lot don't mind and enjoy this recipe nonetheless :)

Ingredients 

6g leaf gelatine (approx. 4 sheets)

250ml milk

500ml single cream

60g caster sugar

80g dark chocolate

20g cocoa powder

Method

1. Start by soaking your leaf gelatine in a bowl of cold water. Leave it in there while you crack on with the next stage. 
2. Pour your milk and cream into a large saucepan. Add the sugar and cocoa powder. Break your chocolate into pieces and add it in. 
3. Place your saucepan onto a low heat and stir until the chocolate has melted and the whole mixture is completely smooth. Remove the saucepan from the heat before it boils. 
4. Once the pan is off the heat, squeeze any excess water out of the gelatine and add it to the chocolatey milky mixture. Gently whisk the gelatine in to ensure that it dissolves into the mix properly. 
5. Leave the pannacotta mixture to cool, giving the mixture a whisk every now and again. 
6. Once the mixture has cooled, transfer it into a jug so that it is easier to pour. Divide the mixture between six pannacotta moulds (I just used normal ramekins), cover with cling film and leave in the fridge until it has set. Mine were in the fridge for about 11 hours and they set just fine!
7. To remove each pannacotta from their moulds simply loosen the edge with a knife and dip the moulds into a bowl of water for a couple of seconds. Don't dip them for too long as you don't want the pannacottas to melt, but they may require a couple of dunks - mine were quite feisty! Tip them onto little serving plates and enjoy!

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have made countless batches of chocolate chip cookies over the years and although they have been good, I have never found the perfect recipe to create a soft, chewy cookie...until now! I used Annie Bell's Baking Bible (again...!) but they are so so good! My cookies are quite small and I reckon that if I flattened them out a bit more they have been even softer - I'll have to experiment with them and let you guys know! 

Ingredients (makes 20 cookies)
110g lightly salted butter
125g light muscovado sugar
1 medium free range egg (although I only had large)
1tsp vanilla extract
175g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
150g dark chocolate chips


Method

1. By spoon or in a mixer, cream together the butter and muscovado sugar. 
2. Once the butter and sugar have come together, add the egg and vanilla extract and mix together.
3. Sift in the flour and the baking powder and mix again until it has all been incorporated. 
4. Add the chocolate chips (leaving a handful to one side) and mix into your dough with a wooden spoon. Cover the mixing bowl with cling film and place into a fridge for at least a few hours to chill. 
5. Once your cookie dough has been chilling in the fridge, preheat your oven to 170ºC fan.
6. Lightly grease a couple of baking trays (you may need to bake the cookies in batches). Roll the cookie dough into balls the size of a walnut and flatten them with the palm of your hand. In hindsight I would have flattened them quite a lot to make them super soft. Whatever size you decide on, arrange the cookies on the baking trays about 5cm apart. 
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until they are golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and using a palette knife, transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. 
8. Grab a cup of tea, coffee or a glass of milk and dunk away! They are so yummy warm or cold!

Tiramisu Torte

I'm really enjoying challenging myself with my Sunday bakes and this weekend saw me attempting Annie Bell's Tiramisu Torte and it turned out way better than I expected! I absolutely love tiramisu, whenever I can manage dessert at a restaurant I'll always choose it if it's on the menu, so when I spotted the recipe for a tiramisu torte in the Baking Bible, I decided it would be one of my challenges. My family have just had it for pudding after our Sunday roast and everyone enjoyed it (including my coffee-hating little brother!), so I'm really pleased and very excited to share it with you! 

Ingredients 

For the cake base

50g self-raising flour

50g light muscovado sugar 

50ml vegetable or groundnut oil

1 medium free range egg, separated

1-2tbsp cooled black coffee

1tbsp milk

For the filling

300g dark chocolate (approx. 50% cocoa solids)

4 medium free range eggs

30g golden caster sugar

250g tub of mascarpone 

2tbsp strong black coffee (or kahlúa)

Method

Coffee cake

1. Preheat your oven to 170ºC and butter a 20cm cake tin (with a removable base).
2. Sift the flour and the sugar together into a mixing bowl and add the oil (I actually used sunflower oil, which was fine), egg yolk, coffee and milk. Mix everything together until nice and smooth. 
3. Whisk up your egg white until it is stiff and gently fold it into the cake batter in two goes. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth it out ensuring it covers the base of the tin evenly. 
4. Bake for 12 minutes: until it is golden on top and coming away from the sides of the tin. Leave it to cool in the tin and make your tiramisu filling. 

Tiramisu filling

1. Break up your dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of simmering water. Stir the chocolate as it gently melts and then put to one side to cool. 
2. Separate your eggs and whisk up the egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk up the egg yolks with the golden caster sugar until the yolks have gone pale and the consistency is slightly mousse-like. 
3. Add your mascarpone to the melted chocolate and mix together. Like me, you may have to try very hard to not eat your bowl of mascarpone chocolate... 
4. Add the chocolate mixture to your egg yolks and gently mix. Finally fold in the egg whites in two goes, followed by your coffee/kahlúa - I used coffee in mine, but if you wanted the alcohol flavour of a tiramisu then I would definitely go for the kahlúa! 
5. Smooth the chocolate cream over the cooled cake (still in the tin) and decorate it if you like - I quite like the simplistic look, but Annie Bell decorates her torte with crushed edible silver decorations which looks rather pretty.
6. Chill your torte in the fridge for several hours and when its ready to be served, run a knife around the edge of the torte, remove it from the tin, slice and enjoy!

I have added this recipe to #CookBlogShare with SuperGolden Bakes

Mocha Cupcakes

The past year or so has seen me develop a love for coffee. It will never replace tea as my favourite drink, but with university exams and countless assignments, coffee definitely helped me pass the year! So, what better to have a coffee flavoured cake accompany a cup of tea? I love a slice of coffee cake, but I think a mocha cupcake is just as good, if not better!

Ingredients 

For the cupcakes (makes 12 cupcakes)

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

120g self-raising flour

4tsp instant coffee granules

4tsp cocoa powder

2tbsp boiling water

2tbsp hot milk

For the buttercream

150g softened butter

380g icing sugar, sifted

2tsp milk 

4tsp instant coffee granules

2tbsp boiling water

dark chocolate shavings (optional)

Method

Mocha cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases.
2. In two separate mugs, mix the coffee and water together and the milk and cocoa powder together and leave to one side.
3. Cream together the butter and the sugar then add your eggs and mix together. 
4. Sift in the flour and mix well.
5. Finally, pour in the hot chocolate mix and the coffee and stir together until it is all combined.
6. Spoon the cake mixture into your cake cases and place into your preheated oven for 15 minutes. 

Coffee buttercream

As I'm back home from university I am lucky enough to be able to use my Mum's KitchenAid, but if you don't have a mixer, a mixing bowl and wooden spoon will work just fine :)

1. In a mug, make up the coffee with the granules and water, but make sure you leave it cool completely before adding it to your buttercream as if it is warm it will melt the butter.
2. Put the butter into the mixing bowl and beat until it has gone a bit paler and is nice and smooth. Add half of the icing sugar and mix, increasing the speed as you go along. 
3. Once it has come together, add the rest of the icing sugar and add the milk and continue mixing. 
4. Add in the cooled coffee and give it one final mix until it has turned a lovely caramel colour.
5. Spoon the buttercream onto your cooled cupcakes, sprinkle over the chocolate shavings and enjoy!
   Best served with a cup of tea or coffee!

Pistachio Macarons

For my first Sunday recipe book challenge I have made the pistachio macarons from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Macarons are notoriously difficult so I began baking these very apprehensively. But apart from some technical issues with my piping bag, these lovely little macarons were actually pretty easy to make. I think having an electric whisk for the egg whites and a blender for the pistachios made the whole process a lot easier!

Ingredients 

For the macarons (makes 20)

75g shelled pistachios

125g icing sugar

2 large egg whites

15g caster sugar 

For the pistachio buttercream

55g shelled pistachios

250g icing sugar

125g unsalted butter, softened

Method

Pistachio macarons

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC. 
2. Put your shelled pistachios and icing sugar into a food processor and blend until the mixture is as fine as dust. Pour this into a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk your egg whites in a separate mixing bowl until fairly stiff and then sprinkle in the caster sugar. 
4. Fold the whites into the blitzed pistachios and icing sugar (I actually sieved the mixture after it had been blended to ensure that it was really fine) and combine gently. 
5. Put the macaron mixture into a piping bag with a plain 1cm nozzle. Pipe a small amount of the mixture onto the corners of two baking trays and place greaseproof paper onto the tray. Pipe small rounds onto the baking trays (you should be able to do about 40, to make 20 macarons). Leave them for 10 minutes so they can form a skin. 
6. Put your macarons into your preheated oven for 10 minutes - they should be set, but not dried out. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Once they have cooled you can make the pistachio filling.

Pistachio buttercream

1. Like before, blend the pistachios and icing sugar together in the food processor until they are fine. 
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and then add the pistachios and icing sugar and continue creaming together. I added a splash of milk as the buttercream seemed very stiff, but you can see how you get on. 
3. To finish your pistachio macarons you can either pipe or spread the buttercream onto one macaron and pop another on top and sandwich them together. 

I really hope that you have enjoyed this 'challenge' recipe. I would normally steer clear of something like macarons purely because I have heard how difficult they are. I'm glad that I tried making them, and although they aren't as beautiful as the macarons in Ladurée, I've definitely boosted my baking confidence by trying out something new. I hope that this spurs on anybody who has been put off by the humble macaron's difficult reputation :) I also think I'm going to make some more of these cute little treats in different flavours so keep your eyes peeled for those!

P.S: Nigella calls these 'macaroons', but I believe these to be called 'macarons' - I'm not totally sure but I think macaroons are the coconut cookie type cake. Let me know and please correct me if I'm wrong! 

My Favourite Cookbooks!

As this is my 10th blog post I thought I would do something a little bit different: a review of my favourite baking books! I'm back home from university for the summer holidays so I have gone through my Mum's bookshelf and chosen the books that I always keep coming back to whenever I'm home and want to bake. I thought it might be quite nice to choose my favourite recipes from each book, as well as a 'challenge' recipe for me to attempt in future blog posts! I hope you like this different style of post :)

1. The Great British Bake Off: How to Bake

I am so happy that The Great British Bake Off  has finally returned! Until I get my yearly fix, the How to Bake book has had to suffice. This book, with recipes by Linda Collister and forewords by Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, is fantastic for new and old bakers alike as there are classic bakes, old favourites as well as the infamous 'technical challenges'. It's a great book if you're a follower of the show as they include the 'Best of the Bake Off' recipes - so you can recreate some of your favourite bakes from the show at home!

Favourite recipe: Cherry Bakewell cupcakes

Challenge recipe: Mushroom and gorgonzola twists

2. Tessa Kiros: Apples for Jam
This book wins every award for photography, typography...recipe-ography. No? Haha. 
It is so beautiful that I'm always too scared to attempt anything in fear that my bake would never live up to expectation! Other than how gorgeous it looks, the thing I really love about Apples for Jam is that each section is colour coded: red, orange, yellow, pink, even gold! It's so cool. It is also a cookery book rather than a baking book, and whenever I pull it out to bake from it, I just end up getting hungry from all of the dinner recipes. 

Favourite recipe: Chocolate & vanilla marble cake

Challenge recipe: Chocolate pannacotta

3. Nigella Lawson: How to be a Domestic Goddess
It is definitely no surprise that this book made its way into my favourites! I absolutely adore Nigella, I love the decadence of her recipes, I respect her large portions and her frank way of writing is just so great. This cookbook is clearly a favourite with both me and my Mum - the pages are splattered with chocolate and cake mix...nice! I really would recommend this book, I feel you really can't go wrong with Nigella, and who doesn't want to be a domestic goddess?!

Favourite recipe: Brownies

Challenge recipe: Pistachio macarons

 4. Annie Bell: Baking Bible
Annie Bell has been named a 'bright light among Britain's food writers' and by going through her Baking Bible it is clear to see why. Her book contains more recipes than I can count, with beautiful photographs and lovely paragraphs about each recipe. It is split into twelve chapters as well as an introduction and a section about the basics of baking. Meringues and cheesecakes have their own chapters which I think is great! 

Favourite recipe: Raspberry & almond traybake

Challenge recipe: Tiramisu torte

So, there we have it - a round-up of my favourite baking and recipe books! I am excited for my challenge recipes, keep your eyes peeled for those. I will be tweeting when I am making them, so make sure you're following @theyellowbook_ over on Twitter! I'm thinking a Sunday night post for each challenge which will take us through August, along with some mid-week recipes! 

Lemon Drizzle Loaf Cake

This recipe was requested by my little brother who is not a massive cake fan (more cake for me!), but really loves when I make a lemon drizzle cake. Another Nigella classic, I haven't changed anything in this recipe because, well, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'! This cake is so lovely and lemon-y and moist yet crumbly, it really is the perfect summer tea-time treat!

Ingredients

For the cake 

125g unsalted butter, softened

175g caster sugar

2 large free range eggs

zest of 1 lemon 

175g self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

4tbsp milk

For the 'drizzle' 

100g icing sugar

juice of 2 lemons (you can use more or less depending on how lemony you want your syrup to be)

Method

Lemon cake

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and grease and line a loaf tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs and the lemon zest and mix together.
3. Sift in the flour and the salt and fold it in gently. Add the milk and mix until all of the ingredients have incorporated and you have a lovely, silky cake batter which smells like lemons!
4. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and place into your preheated oven for 45 minutes. This seems like quite a while, but I would recommend definitely leaving the cake in there for the full time otherwise it will be undercooked and a bit wet in the middle. 
5. In the last 10 minutes or so of the cake being in the oven, you can make your lemon syrup for the drizzle on top. 

Lemon drizzle/syrup

1. Sift your icing sugar into a small saucepan and add the lemon juice.
2. Place on a low to medium heat and stir together until all of the sugar has dissolved and you're left with a syrup. 
3. When the cake is ready to come out of the oven - insert a fork to test that it comes out clean - pierce the cake all over with a fork or skewer. 
4. When you have pierced the cake pour all of that lovely syrup over the cake ensuring that it is completely covered and it is being absorbed. 
5. Leave the cake to cool completely in its tin otherwise it will break from the wetness of the syrup.
6. Once the cake has cooled, remove from the tin, slice, serve and enjoy!

The holes on the top of the cake are not the most attractive decoration to a cake, but it tastes so light and summery that it definitely doesn't matter! Hope you like this recipe as much as my little brother and I did! 

N.B. This isn't technically a 'drizzle' cake as there is no drizzle, it's a syrup, but that's what I've always called it :) 

Carrot Cake with Lime Mascarpone Icing

I'm going to be honest and admit that I'm not really a fan of carrot cake. I've never liked cinnamon, ginger or any spices, so, naturally I would never order carrot cake in a coffee shop, nor would I make one when I could make a chocolate, coffee or vanilla cake! The other day I was thinking about the next bake for the next post and my boyfriend asked if it could be carrot cake, so I hesitantly made one and actually loved it! I think it was the walnuts and the lime flavoured icing that made it better than any carrot cake I had eaten before. Hopefully this recipe will sway any non-believers!

Ingredients

For the cake
210g plain flour
1tsp ground cinnamon 
1tsp mixed spice
a pinch of salt
210g light muscovado sugar
70g chopped walnuts
200g carrots, grated
50g desiccated coconut
3 eggs 
145ml olive oil 

For the lime icing

300g icing sugar
75g softened butter
75g mascarpone cheese
zest and juice of a lime
a handful of chopped walnuts (optional)
lime zest (optional)

Method

Carrot cake

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and grease and flour two sandwich tins. Sift your flour into a large mixing bowl and add the ground cinnamon, mixed spice and salt. When those ingredients have all combined, add the muscovado sugar and mix until there are no lumps remaining.
2. Now add in your chopped walnuts, grated carrot and desiccated coconut and mix together. Finally add the eggs and olive oil and combine all the ingredients to a nice cake batter. 
3. Pour the batter into your prepared sandwich tins making sure there is an equal amount in both tins. Bake for 25 minutes, and check that a fork inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool and make the icing. 

Lime mascarpone icing

1. In a mixing bowl beat together the butter and the mascarpone until smooth and sift in the icing sugar. Once the icing sugar is all mixed together, add the lime zest and lime juice and stir until combined. 
2. Once the cakes have completely cooled, remove from the tins and assemble your cake. Put half of the icing onto the cake which will be the bottom of the carrot cake and spread out - be careful as the icing is quite wet so may drip down the sides, so maybe don't spread the icing too far, or, add more icing sugar to the mix. 
3. Once your have iced the first cake, place the second cake on top and use the rest of the icing on top smoothing it out over the surface. 
4. From a height sprinkle over the chopped walnuts and lime zest - I used a cheese grater for this bit of lime zest so the pieces were bigger. You may want to chill the cake for a bit if the icing is particularly wet. Cut a slice and enjoy!