I wasn’t going to tell you about this cake (as you can presumably tell from the shoddy iphone photo) but it’s so good I can’t help myself. Basically, I’m on a mission to make the ‘ultimate’ carrot cake because I think it’s just the best cake ever. The crumb stays so moist with a particular kind of sweetness from the carrot shreds, which along with the walnuts also give it an amazing texture. The final whammy is of course, CREAM CHEESE ICING, which should be a clincher in anyone’s book because it is the most delicious icing known to woman. Butter, cream cheese, sugar. Hubba.

So anyway, I’m trying out different recipes to get a feel for things. This is the Hummingbird Bakery version.

To their standard recipe I added the zest of half an orange, plus I used half walnuts and half pecans to mix things up a bit. I didn’t use vanilla extract in the cake because I er, forgot and I reduced the sugar in the icing by 100g because I er, ran out. That’s minimal, mostly unintentional tinkering so this is still basically the Hummingbird recipe and it’s excellent. It’s not quite my ultimate, but it’s definitely food for thought.

This behemoth proved far too much for two people, so I lugged it into work and gave it to my colleagues. It barely lasted a day.

Hummingbird Bakery Carrot Cake 

300g soft light brown sugar
3 eggs
300ml sunflower oil
300g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp vanilla extract (I forgot this)
300g carrots, grated
Zest of half an orange
50g shelled walnuts, chopped, plus extra, to decorate
50g pecans, chopped, plus extra to decorate

For the icing

600g icing sugar (I only used 500g and it was fine)
100g butter, at room temperature
250g cream cheese, cold

Preheat the oven to 170C. Prepare 3 x 20cm cake tins with loose bottoms by greasing then lining the bottoms with greaseproof paper.

Put the sugar, eggs and oil in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed (don’t worry if it looks slightly split). Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt, orange zest and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well mixed.

Stir in the grated carrots and walnuts by hand. Pour into the prepared cake tins and smooth over. Bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes (mine took 40 minutes, which seems to be the feedback from other cooks, too), or until golden brown and the sponge bounces back when touched. Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, beat the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment again until well mixed. Add the cream cheese, then beat again until well mixed. Turn the speed to high and continue to beat until light and fluffy but stop when you reach this point; if you over beat it the mixture will turn runny.

When the cakes are cold, spread about one-quarter of the cream cheese icing over it with a palette knife (I used less). Place a second cake on top and spread another quarter of the icing over it (again, I used less). Top with the last cake and spread the remaining icing over the top and sides. Decorate with walnuts around the edges and chopped pecans on top. Hummingbird suggest adding an extra dusting of cinnamon but I’m really not into that at all – the cake is now delicious.

It’s not very often my thoughts turn to cake but when they do, those thoughts generally include spices and booze. And fruit. My boss collected a big bag of cooking apples from her garden which I raided for the best specimens, leaving all the bruised and maggoty ones for my colleagues. They could moan about that, but then I gave them cake so I think I got away with it. See what I did there?

This is a very squidgy cake. The apple chunks are tart but this is a very good thing because the cake is quite sweet. I spiced it with allspice and rather a conservative amount of cinnamon which could easily be increased if you are more into it than I (e.g. you are American). I finished it with a glaze of rum and butter which seeps into the cake while still warm, hence all the little holes in the surface. It’s a very moist, boozy, sharp/sweet cake which would be very happy sitting underneath a blob of creme fraiche, alongside a cup of tea. I’m rather annoyed that it looks a little dry in the picture below, on account of its being so damn squidgy, but I weighed this up against your potential frustration at not being able to see the inside of the cut cake, so here it is…

Spiced rum and apple cake recipe (based on this recipe)

(fills 1 x 20cm springform cake tin)

125g butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
225 plain flour
225g dark muscovado sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
500g cooking apples, peeled, cored and diced

For the glaze (I only used half of this in the end)

3 tablespoons rum (the better the rum, the better the cake, obviously)
50g butter
50g sugar

Heat oven to 160/fan140/Gas 3

Butter a 20cm springform cake tin and line the bottom with baking paper.

Cream the butter and muscovado together in a food mixer (or by hand if you don’t have one), then mix in the egg. Sift over the flour, plus the spices and baking powder. Fold the mixture together, then add the apple. Mix it in. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 40 mins-1 hour, or until golden and risen.

To make the glaze, melt butter, sugar and rum together in a small pan. When it starts to boil and thicken slightly, it’s ready. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

When the cake is cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 mins in the tin. Poke holes all ove the top of the cake with a skewer, then brush on the glaze, letting each bit soak in before adding the next. I only used about half this glaze.

I was going to call these ‘Spiced Snail Buns’ but when I tweeted about it I had a load of replies from people who were, quite rightly, confused about the link between snails and buns. It’s the shape, people, the shape!

Anyway. I don’t cook a huge amount of sweet things (ice cream excepted) and puds are not my area of expertise by a long stretch. When I do venture into the World of  Wallace however, I like a savoury note, be it salt in caramel or in this case, spices in cake. I started out with a basic bun and showed it a bit of Peckham love by adding allspice, ground ginger and citrus zests in with the cinnamon, thinking along the lines of a Jamaica ginger cake.

I left them in the oven a few minutes too long but I’d just been dealing with a gas leak (my oven is electric for those detectives amongst you) so you’ll forgive me for feeling a little distracted. I had to use a fan heater to melt the butter for the buns for goodness’ sake. Now that’s dedication.

And come on, they do look like snails, right?

Spiced sticky buns

I started off with a Chelsea Bun recipe from the BBC website then added my own spices and citrus zests. I’ve tried them with the glaze and also with a very thin icing made of just icing sugar and water. I prefer the glaze.

500g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon salt
1 x 7g sachet fact-action dried yeast
300ml milk
40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
Vegetable oil, for greasing

For the filling

25g unsalted butter, melted
75g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
100g currants

For the glaze

2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp caster sugar

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, then make a well in the middle and add the yeast from the sachet. Warm the milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter is melted and the mixture is tepid.

Add the milk and butter mix to the flour and stir until it comes together in a soft dough. Tip the dough out onto a generously floured work surface. Knead for five minutes, adding more flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer feels sticky. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave until doubled in size. Knock the dough back then roll out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 20 x 40 cams in size.

Brush with the melted butter, then sprinkle over the currants. Mix the ground spices with the sugar and sprinkle all over. Starting from the longest edge, roll the dough into a long cylinder. Cut 10-15 slices from it and place them on a greased baking tray, leaving a gap between each one. Let rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. For the glaze, heat the milk and sugar gently in a saucepan. Let simmer for a few minutes then remove from the heat.

Place the buns on a wire rack to cool. Brush over the glaze and let cool completely. Serve with a good spreading of butter, if you dare.

I had bacon with them, naturally. And a poached egg. Oh and mushrooms. There’s no point messing about when it comes to brunch.

Somehow, I did not know about potato cakes. I think I’m in love. Their fluffy texture, almost like that of a thick pancake, sends them rocketing up the comfort food scale only pausing briefly to turn back and stick two fingers up to toast. They are perfect slabs of doughy carb, ready and willing to soak up the runny yolk from a just-poached egg. Top and bottom are burnished golden and crisp, like a bubble and squeak.

This recipe is from king of dough Dan Lepard; he adds parsley which brings a nice savoury note. I push it a little further with some finely chopped spring onion. We ate the first wedges as above. The rest I ate very shortly afterwards (about 30 seconds), straight from the pan with my hands.

They’re dead easy to make, too. You have to cook a couple of spuds but then it’s just mix your wet ingredients, mix your dry ingredients, combine them, slop into the pan and cook. I reckon it’s even do-able with a hangover.

Potato cakes with parsley and spring onion (adapted only slightly from The Handmade Loaf by Dan Lepard)

125g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 medium egg
100ml milk, at 20C (I just heated mine briefly in a pan until it was warm and it was fine)
60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g potatoes, cooked and mashed
4 spring onions finely, chopped (white and green parts)
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

Mix the flour, soda and salt in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix it into the flour with your fingers until the lumps are gone.

In a separate bowl, mix the mashed potato with the egg then beat in the milk, parsley and spring onion. Combine the egg and potato mix with the flour and butter mix and combine well into a sticky dough. Heat a large frying pan or skillet (I used the latter) then melt 1 tablespoon of dripping or vegetable oil in the pan. Make sure it coats the whole base of the pan. Scrape the dough into the pan and then do your best to spread it out a bit into a circle.

Leave to cook for 4-5 minutes, ideally with a lid on. When the base is crisp and lightly golden, loosen the edges with a spatula. Take a very well-oiled plate (that’s important, don’t be shy with the oil) and flip the cake out of the pan and on to it. You can then slide the cake back into the pan to cook the other side. This is why you need to oil the plate well – if you don’t the uncooked doughy side will stick to it. Cook for a further 4-5 minutes then either turn it out or cut wedges from the pan. I recommend bacon, mushrooms and a poached egg as accompaniments. I’m not going to get into a debate about sauce.

I was on the verge of writing about a great new jerk place I’ve discovered in Peckham but when it came down to business, I just couldn’t do it to you. She’s writing about jerk, again?! May as well re-name the blog Jerk Stories and be done with it.

So I’ve spared you. For now.

What do you want? What does anyone want instead of some juicy jerk and a hummin’ curry goat I asked myself. Probably a pretty little cake or something.

Here you go then; here’s your cake. The only real woman-power involved is dealing with your coconut. It’s easiest to break them open with a hammer but I don’t have one so I just smashed it against the wall a couple of times. Once you’ve cracked it, the best way to remove the insides is to use one of those nifty winding corkscrew de-flesher wotsits but you probably don’t have one (me neither), so carefully slip some kind of implement (I used a combination of butter knife, skewer and thin-lipped spoon) between husk and flesh; large pieces will ping out across your kitchen. You can then retrieve them and go about the business of grating. It’s a faff. I recommend investing in the proper equipment. Whatever happens though, don’t use desiccated coconut; it’s gross.

This recipe was sent to me by a friend. It’s light, so you can eat a gargantuan slice without feeling sick, which is brilliant or dangerous, depending on your attitude towards healthy eating. I ate too much, then packed the rest off to work with Chris. We take it in turns to feed the fruits of my labour to our colleagues, thus garnering favour in both camps. This earns me extra cups of tea throughout my working day and means I can gatecrash Chris’ work events every now and then, (“just happened to be passing…”) where the beer is always free flowing and the people are nice. Nothing keeps things sweet like a slice of cake. Except perhaps a leg of jerk chicken.

A fresh coconut cake
(This is my friend’s recipe. She has asked me to say that she is not entirely happy with the icing, so there you go, I’ve said it).

This fills 2 x 20cm loose-bottomed cake tins

For the cake
175g self-raising flour
75g fresh coconut, grated
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 large eggs
175g butter, softened
175g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the icing
100g softened butter
100g icing sugar
200g softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g coconut, grated, plus extra to garnish

Preheat the oven to 170C
Grease and line the two tins with greaseproof paper

Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixing bowl of an electric mixer. Add the eggs, butter, vanilla and sugar and beat for a couple of minutes on low speed until well combined. You can do this without an electric mixer, using a wooden spoon. Add the coconut, stir it in and divide the mixture evenly between the two tins. Cook in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or so, until evenly golden and a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tins and then turn out onto a wire cooling rack. I find the easiest way is to position your cake tins on top of a can or jar then let the sides drop down leaving the cake and base of the tin resting on top.

When ready to make the icing, beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla and mix well then add the coconut and mix again. When the cake is cool, spread one third of the icing between the two layers and sandwich them together. Spread the remaining two thirds over the top and around the sides and then garnish with extra grated coconut as desired.

We did it! Yesterday afternoon the people of Rye Apartments came together along with a bunch of my mates for a good old nosh up in the car park. Today I feel totally exhausted but so happy that we managed to pull it off. I’ll be honest, there were moments during our 13 hour cook-off the day before when I was apprehensive. What if there isn’t enough food? What if people don’t turn up? We started at 9am and before we knew it, we were slumped on cardboard boxes in the middle of my flat, dishevelled and slightly sweaty, trying to keep our eyes open to finish rolling vine leaves; it was 11pm. A long hard day and a huge amount of work.

It was important to do justice though, to the stellar ingredients that people donated and I must say a heartfelt thank you to all of them.

On the food front, Riverford Organics donated fruit, vegetables and herbs; Barber’s donated some of their delicious cheddar (which went into a cheese and onion tart, biscuits, scones and pretty much anything else) and Maryland Farmhouse butter. Rachel’s Organic sent milk, yoghurt (a whole lot of yoghurt), crème fraiche and cream, and Pong Cheese a selection of their cheeses including a Camembert, a goat’s cheese, a cheddar and a Bath Soft Cheese. They went into quiches and tarts.

Green and Blacks sent their organic chocolate for our super squidgy brownies and marbled chocolate meringues, and for the cake making, we had flour kindly donated by Kate Thal at Green and Blue Wines and unrefined sugar from Billington’s. The eggs were really special; old breed Burford Browns, Old Cotswold Legbar and duck eggs from Clarence Court. The colour of the yolks was intensely amber. Sally Butcher from Persepolis stepped in on the nuts and honey side of things – we had coffee and walnut cake, sunflower seeded biscuits and cherry and ground almond cake, plus some stuffed vine leaves with raisins. In our cakes and on our scones we spread clotted cream from Rodda’s and Fraser Doherty’s fruity Super Jam and I must mention that they were speedily and expertly mixed by my new pride and joy, which Kitchenaid sent to ease the burden on my puny arm muscles. She is the newest sparkliest shade of grape; I’ve named her Gilberta.

The ever brilliant Paganum kindly donated 3 amazing topsides of Malhamdale Belted Galloway beef, which we used in roast beef and horseradish sandwiches, plus a Thai-style salad dressed with chilli, fish sauce, coriander and the like. Yianni of Meatwagon fame sorted me out with chicken drumsticks from his butcher and of course I had to jerk some, although I managed to rein myself in slightly and Tikka the rest for variety.

On the drinks side of things, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of people who wanted to get involved. We had loose leaf tea from Lahloo, plus a lot of booze for those feeling fruity. Russian Standard Vodka donated 3 bottles for vodka iced teas; The Ship, a brilliant pub in Wandsworth run by a great bunch of people sent over Pimm’s plus all the trimmings – very summery. On the beer and fizzy front we had Moritz and Rothaus beer from The Beer Merchants, there was sweet, fruity cider from Sweden (Rekorderlig) plus Young’s London Gold, Adnams bitter, Red Stripe lager and Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer which everyone loved. It’s available in quite a few pubs around London now – I urge you to give it a try.

For those who avoid the bubbles, there was vino from my new local, The Victoria Inn, the owner of which helped out in more ways than one throughout the whole event, even ferrying over another Kitchenaid in his car. His motto is “the pub is hub”. Bloody nice bloke. Casillero del Diablo provided more wine and there was stonking chilled sherry from Tio Pepe. I think we can agree that there was something for everyone!

To round off the feast, some Bompas and Parr iris jellies with ambergris (that’s whale vomit to you and me) and candied orange from their Complete History of Food event. We wibbled them around and giggled. Hic! They were seriously boozy with Courvoisier. I love everything Bompas and Parr do and you should too.

And last, but by no means least, I’d like to say a really huge thank you to my mate Lizzie. She worked like a dog during that 13 hour cook off and basically kept me going throughout. I could not have done it without her so thank you Mabs, for being a damn good friend. We make a brilliant team.

So that’s it! We used 40 eggs, 3kg flour, 4kg sugar, an absolute shedload of cheese and a whole bottle of washing up liquid (not in the cakes you understand). My friend Rachel made that amazing bunting from my dodgy old clothes which is, quite frankly, nothing short of a miracle. The only slight disappointment was that more of the neighbours didn’t turn up but hey, what can I do; we put on an amazing spread and all they had to do is walk outside – if that doesn’t encourage them then nothing will. The ones that did turn up were absolutely lovely though and I invited a load of my mates anyway so the whole thing went off Peckham stylee. Today is a bit of a come down but I’ll get over it; I’ve already started thinking about a new project to sink my teeth into.

Of course the whole idea was to raise money for Maggie’s and that we did. The donations are still trickling in and we’ve already reached the £200 mark so I think that makes the event a success. Thanks so much to everyone who donated money. You did good. I’ll leave you with a little vid of the cook-off and the lunch itself. Cheers!

Here’s a way to sneak up on your next pasta binge from a different angle. Cooking the pasta for a second time in the oven gives you a bit of textural contrast from the lovely crisp edge bits, the soft inside stuffed with your weapons of choice. I’ve heard this recipe touted as a ‘good use for leftover pasta’ but really, who ever has 500g of leftover pasta? Perhaps an army chef.

What it is good for though, is using up the odds and sods in the fridge. I slung in some softened onions and garlic, black olives, jarred artichoke hearts, grilled bacon, most of a tub of ricotta and the juice and zest of two lemons. A waif end of cheese and stray stalk of parsley went on top. The secret to a good spaghetti cake is to keep it well oiled; they have a tendency to come out dry otherwise. As an alternative, try using a double cream and egg yolk mix stirred through the pasta  – the end result will be denser and richer.

So there we have it, a way to make pasta even more unhealthy than it was before; where there’s a will there’s a way.

Sicilian Spaghetti Cake

500g spaghetti
1 large onion, finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
150g jarred artichoke hearts in oil (reserve the oil), chopped roughly
150g black olives, pitted and chopped roughly
250g ricotta cheese
A generous handful of parsley
The juice and zest of two lemons
6 rashers of bacon
Olive oil and plenty of it
A splash of white wine if you have it

Preheat your oven to 180C

Begin by cooking your spaghetti until almost al dente. While this is happening, grill the bacon until crisp then chop roughly and set aside.

Soften the onion and garlic gently in a little olive oil (then add the splash of wine if you have it allowing a minute or two to cook out), then add the artichoke hearts, olives and bacon to warm everything through. When your pasta is ready, stir through the oil from the jar of artichokes plus your artichoke mixture, the lemon juice and zest and a really generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Stir through the ricotta and most of the parsley. The mix will probably need another generous slug of oil at this point. Don’t be shy – that’s a lot of spaghetti.

Brush an oven proof skillet or similarly shaped pan with a little more oil or butter and pour in your spaghetti, flattening it down to a cake shape. Bake for about 30 minutes, until golden and crispy at the edges. Garnish with more parsley. Slice and serve warm, with salad for a bit of psychological self trickery.