Hazelnut loaf cake

 Yet another loaf cake to add to my collection! This is basically a pound cake or Sandkuchen with the addition of ground hazelnuts.



250g unsalted butter at room temperature
250g caster sugar
4 large eggs
250g plain flour
2 tspns baking powder
100g ground hazelnuts


Preheat oven to 180°C/ gas 4
Grease a 900g loaf tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 5 with a hand-held.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
 Gradually add the sieved flour and baking powder, a third at a time, until each third is well incorporated. Finally add the ground hazelnuts and mix them in well.
 Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about 60 minutes until it is well risen and firm to the touch. If it starts to brown too much cover the top with foil. When it's cooked, cool on a wire rack.

You can ring the changes by adding two chopped apples instead for an apple cake, 150g chopped dried apricots for an apricot cake, or two grated carrots and cinnamon for a carrot cake ... the possibilities are endless! So a nice basic recipe to have in your keeper collection for any eventuality.

Spelt and honey cakes

I've started making bread again and trying different flours. I bought some spelt last week and made a lovely loaf with it. I had some left, so made some of these little cakes for my friend, who came to have a cuppa with me yesterday. The recipe was on my bag of flour.

175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
150g spelt flour
pinch of salt
1 tspn baking powder
25g cornflour
3 tbspn milk
10tbspn honey, warmed
25g hazelnuts or pistachios, chopped

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
Grease 10 - 12 small rectangular tins, a 12 hole 'financier' tin [I bought mine in France] or a 12 hole muffin tin.

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly, beating between each addition.
Fold in the spelt flour, the salt and the cornflour. Add the milk and mix till smooth.
Divide into the tins and bake for 20 mins, till golden and firm.
When cool, drizzle each cake with a tbspn of warm honey and sprinkle with the nuts.

You can make a loaf cake in a 900g tin instead of small cakes. The spelt give the cakes a slight nutty taste which goes well with the nuts in the topping. There are so many types of honey to choose from; I used a heather honey from my local farm shop. I'll certainly make this recipe again, but as a large cake. Another quick and easy cake to make.

Blueberry streusel cake

There seem to be a lot of blueberries on offer in the supermarkets, so decided to buy some to try out a recipe given to me by my friend. She says it's a cross between a blueberry muffin and an old fashioned cheesecake with a cream cheese filling. Sounds interesting. I think the original recipe must be American, as it's called a coffeecake.

Topping:
120g butter, softened
150g sugar
30g brown sugar
60g chopped nuts
11/2 tspn cinnamon
1/2tspn nutmeg

Cream cheese filling:
375g cream cheese
90g sugar
1 egg
grated rind of a lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tspn almond essence

Cake:
500g plain flour
4 tspn baking powder
1 tspn salt
120g butter, softened
300g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tspn almond essence
300ml milk
750g fresh blueberries

Preheat oven 375F/190C/gas 5

Generously butter a 32x22cm [13x9"] glass baking dish

Topping - rub all the ingredients together till large crumbs.
Filling- soften cheese and beat with the sugar using an electric mixer till creamy. Beat in the egg, lemon rind and juice and almond essence till smooth.
Cake - Put flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl put the butter and sugar and beat with an electric mixer till light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and then the almond essence.
Beat in rhe flour mixture gently, alternating with some milk, till it's well mixed; if it's too stiff, add a little more milk, then fold in the blueberries.
Spread about half of the mixture on the bottom of the dish, smoothing the top and making sure it's right in the corners. Spread the cheese filling over and sprinkle with about a quarter of the topping. Drop the remaining cake mixture on top by spoonfuls, but try not to mix up the layers! Sprinkle the rest of the topping evenly over the surface.
Bake till the topping is crisp and golden - about 50 mins to 1 hour.
When cool, cut into squares.

The recipe sounds complicated but it isn't. It's a bit of a faff making the topping, but I added the spices to the flour, then rubbed in the butter and sugar and finally the nuts.

I love the cheese filling and the streusel topping which give the cake different textures.

 The reason a glass dish is suggested for cooking is because the blueberries 'could react with metal'. Not sure I agree with this, as I've cooked blueberry cakes many times in a springform tin with no problems. Anyway, I used my glass shepherd's pie dish, which was about the right size.

It's not an every day cake, well not for us anyway, too many calories, but it's a nice cake to make to share with friends, or as a dessert maybe, with some creme fraiche.

Thumb biscuits

Apparently today is National Nutella day. I love any combination of chocolate and hazelnuts, so I decided to make a really easy biscuit that I've made many times for my children and grandchildren. Don't know where the original recipe came from - it's in my handwritten notebook. I've made them with jam and with lemon curd, as well as with Nutella.

It makes about 18 biscuits.

175g butter
175g caster sugar
1 egg
175g plain flour
125g plain flour
Nutella

Line a baking sheet with some parchment paper.
Preheat oven 180C/gas 4

Beat the butter and sugar together using a mixer till nice and fluffy.
Beat in the egg then add the flours, a bit at a time.
Leave the dough for about an hour to rest.
Take out tbspns of the mixture, roll into a ball then flatten on the baking sheet. Press your thumb in the top to make a hole. Fill the hole with Nutella.
Make sure you space the biscuits out on the baking sheet, because they spread.
Bake for about 12 mins.
Cool on a wire rack.

I can think of a few variations I must try - adding cocoa to make chocolate thumbs, or coffee essence, lemon juice etc. It's a good basic biscuit recipe.

Hazelnut tray bake

I love traybakes, so I've treated myself to a new tin - the Wilton 'Biscuit/Brownie' pan [28x18cm]. Now I'm fired up to try it out!
I bought some hazelnuts in Waitrose recently, so thought I'd make something using them.
This recipe is adapted from one that was in a magazine some time ago. I like the idea of a crumble base and then the cake mixture on top of it.

300g plain flour
175g butter cut into pieces
350g demerara sugar
200ml creme fraiche
2 eggs

3 tspns baking powder [level]

150g hazelnuts chopped in half

preheat oven 180C/gas4
Grease and line the tin with baking parchment.
Sift flour into a bowl and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar. Sprinkle 350g of this mixture into the tin and press it down.
Beat the eggs and creme fraiche together and stir in the rest of the crumble mixture and baking powder.
Pour this over the crumble mixture. Arrange the hazelnuts on top, pressing gently.
Bake in middle of the oven for about 45 mins. I found that the nuts were getting too brown, so I covered them with parchment.

Now comes the fiddly bit! You need to get the bottom crumble crisp, so put a piece of parchment over the cake and put a baking sheet on top. Invert the cake onto the sheet. Take off the lining paper and put the cake back in the oven for about 10-15 mins.

To put it on a wire rack you need to invert the rack over it to get the cake the right way up. It's worth the effort, honestly!

This is what the finished cake looks like. When Bob had a look at the camera, he deleted the good photos!