As-Salaamu Alaykum,

Spring, Summer = Strawberries! I don't really get the urge to eat strawberries any other time....does strawberry cheesecake count?

Granted, these aren't British Strawberries they won't be appearing until next month, in sha Allah.

I definitely made use of the ones I had putting them in the cake, frosting and as decoration. BUT....
All that glitters is not gold. 
The frosting was too sweet for the cake but I did like how the strawberry purée made it naturally light pink.
After thinking about it,my dislike could stem from the fact that I took two separate recipes for the cake and buttercream and put them together, assuming they would work just because they both contained strawberry!
I should have taken note when the recipe for the cake said this is a classic Victoria sandwich (uses equal quantities of butter, sugar and flour) with the addition of strawberries and cream(I used whole milk instead). The cake would be sweet enough on it's own or with some whipped cream so i won't be including the recipe for the frosting below.

Next time I make this cake I still want to cover the cake and make it explode with strawberry flavour so whipped cream marbled with some strawberry purée through should work.

Strawberry Cake

recipe loosely adapted from good to know

Ingredients

Method

(Mobile)

As-Salaamu Alaykum,

Baking in recent months has taken a bit of a back seat but that doesn't mean I've lost my passion for it, no siree!

These chewy crusted, rich fudgy Brownies engrained in me that yes you can be pushed for time, with children pulling at your apron strings (metaphorically speaking) and still make a really tasty treat in less than an hour.

I used a naturally flavoured cherry cocoa powder I bought from sugarandcrumbs they stock a variety of flavoured cocoas and icing sugars all a bit pricey but a little goes a long way as they are strongly flavoured.

The kids and I lapped these brownies up and although yes the cherry flavour was pleasant it was the texture that made these brownies irresistible.

I'm not a black sour cherry fan, which begs the question I ask myself, why go out of your flavour comfort zone? Well I did get inspired when I saw the hairy bikers make a B.F.G. (Black Forest Gateau) a while ago on TV and thought yes I'm onto a winner so when I was umming and arrring (Yorkshire talk for pondering) over which flavour to choose from the array of flavoured cocoa and icing sugars over at sugar and crumbs, cherry came in at no.1 I have to say I can't wait to try their coffee and caramel flavoured icing sugars next, insha'Allah

For the original recipe click here but as I used wholemeal flour and I reduced the sugar a little due to the flavoured cocoa containing dextrose here is my recipe.

Fudgy Chocolate Cherry Brownies

Ingredients

Method

Swiss / Jelly Roll As-Salamu Alaikum,  If you didn't see this pic already (instagram) or you did, here it is again this time with the addition of a rather big, not so watered down, watermark?!  This was my first time baking a swiss / jelly roll alhamdulillah I got a soft, sugary sponge and by using apricot jam instead of a classic red berry gave it a slightly different look, yeh not so much but apricot Jam is a favourite amongst my little Algerian Brits.  The pic was took (phone camera) the the first slice, let me tell you the spiral shape got even better further along the roll but no time for snapping when you literally have to hide it before a toddler takes it into her own hands to get another piece. If you want to have a go at making your very own (way better than the shop bought) head on over to  This Baker Girl Blogs: Swiss Roll From The Pink Whisk Guide To Cake Making  I promise if you follow those steps in her recipe you can't go wrong, inshaAllah. P.s. I used self raising flour because I was out of plain and it still turned out well but next time I will make sure to have some plain flour in stock because there is enough air in the whipped eggs and sugar it doesn't need an additional raising agent.

As-Salamu Alaikum,


Angel food cake with lemon curd is a must bake from this years series of The Great British Bake Off
It was given to the Bakers by Paul and Mary as their first technical challenge. Needless to say really, this is not an easy recipe for a novice baker to attempt however with a little know how (different stages of whipping egg whites, how to make an angel food cake) and the right equipment (tube pan, egg separator, stand mixer or equivalent) it can make your experience a whole lot easier, trust me.

'Angel' food cake is an American light sponge cake. Made from whisking egg whites, cream of tartar and any flavourings together to soft peak stage and then slowly adding sugar to form a firm, not stiff meringue. The job is done after gently folding in plain/cake flour along with more sugar, easy?!

One great tip when separating eggs, is to do them 1 by 1 in another bowl first before adding each yolk free white to your main bowl, that way you will avoid that 1 broken yolk spoiling all your whites. At the very most you will loose 1 egg white maybe 2 if your like me and forget to put your egg white in the mixing bowl before separating another egg.

Baking in an ungreased tube pan is very important so that the cake can cling to the sides of the pan this helps it rise plus the tube in the centre helps cook the cake evenly.


Always, always, once your cake has baked turn the pan upside down as you do with a chiffon cake, this prevents the cake from falling in on itself and don't worry it is very unlikely your cake will fall out because you didn't butter your pan remember?

This is not my first time making an Angel food cake but the second. My first attempt was barely edible, not only did I not use a tube pan but I didn't fold in my flour thoroughly so don't do as I did and be patient when folding in your flour, don't worry you won't loose all the air you built up in your meringue if you are gentle just try to work fairly quick, lets say within 5 minutes.



Well they didn't really let this all American cake go out there without putting something British all over it, yes whipped cream but I was thinking more of Lemon Curd. Yes I did my research Fruit Curd originated in England back in the late 19th early 20th Century.

Egg yolks that are leftover from separating go into a pan with sugar, lemon juice and zest to make your very own, far better than shop bought lemon curd.
Sweet and Sour and Smooth (from the addition of Butter) you will produce more than enough curd to decorate the cake, so you can eat the rest as I did by the spoonful or use as a filling for cupcakes and I sometimes even spread it on toast!


Creamy, Light, Sweet and Citrus this cake you can Bake at home for everyday and that special occasion.

Passion fruit is called for to also top the cake, I couldn't get my hands on any but I feel raspberries would make a nice alternative.

For the full recipe click here
* I used a 9inch tube pan instead of the 10inch called for in the recipe
** I didn't use cream of tartar to stabilise my egg whites (makes them whip better) but if you want to I recommend the dr. oetker brand as it is made from unfermented grapes.

 As-Salam Alaikum / Greetings Dear Reader,

Victoria Sandwich Sponge Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake

225g softened/room temperature unsalted butter
4 large eggs, room temperature
225g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder

For the Filling

Method

Preheat the oven to 160C Fan/180C/ 350F. Weigh all ingredients. Sieve flour and baking powder together, set aside. Cream butter and sugar together for about 5mins until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, one by one beating well after each addition, sift in your flour/baking powder, mix until well combined, don't over mix! .

Spoon the cake batter into your tin and smooth out with palette knife or the back of a spoon, make a slight indentation in the centre, this will ensure the top doesn't dome too much.  Bake on middle shelf of oven for 35mins (I use an electric fan oven so you may need to adjust cooking time according to your type of oven) until a cocktail stick comes out clean or the centre springs back when pressed gently with a finger.

Remove from oven, place on cooling rack and leave to cool for 5 minutes, the cake should have started to shrink and come away from the sides so proceed to remove from your cake tin (I used silicone bake ware which makes this process a lot easier) place cake on cooling rack and leave to cool completely.

Slice cake in 2, put the flat bottom to the side, this will become the top of your cake. Spread Jam liberally over your other cake half. Whip double cream, I piped my cream on top of the jam layer using a regular circular tip and then smoothed it out using a palette knife but if your not worried about the jam and the cream mixing together or oozing out of the cake, spread the whip cream on top of the jam layer using a spoon / knife.

Place the remaining sponge cake layer on top and dust with caster sugar.

If you filled your Victoria sandwich sponge cake with whipped cream then it's essential to keep it chilled in the fridge until you are ready to take your first slice, I promise it won't be your last.

*Post updated from 13th May 2012

As-Salamu Alaikum / Welcome Reader,

No denying I enjoy eating my fair share of cake but what I like just as much is making/baking it.

I find making and baking a cake very therapeutic and satisfying for the soul, every baker whether home or professional I'm sure feels the same.

This cake came from having an urge to bake cake (it happens often) but only having 150grams unsalted butter left in the house, lemons and a bar of plain chocolate cake covering and so my chocolate covered lemon cake was born and shortly after devoured.

You can't beat a buttery, soft, zesty cake with a chocolate 'shell' for extra self-indulgence!

I'm no stranger to the combination of chocolate and lemon together, I recently made chocolate lemon cupcakes and was bowled over by how well they work together BUT feel free to swap the lemon for an orange and you can have a chocolate covered orange cake or if you like cupcakes try my most popular viewed chocolate orange cupcakes instead.

Onto the recipe

Chocolate Covered Lemon Cake

Ingredients

150 grams caster sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
3 eggs, medium or large
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
150 grams self-raising flour

To decorate

Sprinkles (optional)

Method

Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C/160C (Fan)/Gas Mark 4 and place your oven rack in the centre.

Line the bottom of a  loose based 20cm round cake pan, grease and flour the sides.

Place butter, sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl, cream together until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next. If you notice the mixture curdling you can add a tablespoon of your self-raising flour to stabilize the mix.

Add lemon juice then sieve in self-raising flour, fold in until your mixture is homogeneous.
Pour cake mixture into cake pan and level using a palette knife. Bake for 35-40minutes or until a cake tester comes out with clean or with a few dry crumbs clinging to it.

Remove cake from oven and place on cooling rack. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, run a knife around the edges then loosen the collar on your loose based pan and remove it, leave on base place on cooling rack to cool completely then remove base and baking paper.

Place cake on serving plate, you may wish to level it but I didn't. Melt your chocolate in a heat proof bowl inside microwave on 30seconds bursts until full melted. Pour chocolate over cake and leave it to cool slightly before decorating with sprinkles. Leave chocolate to cool and set before taking a slice, if you can resist!

Note
If I were to make this cake again, I would add some lemon zest to the top of the cake after pouring on the melted chocolate, just to give it that bit of extra zing! I did add lemon sugar crystals on half the cake (husband doesn't like sprinkles so I try to please everyone lol) but they didn't give so much lemon flavour as I hoped.

As-Salam Alaykum,

As with all firsts it didn't go according to plan and I've learnt another valuable baking lesson, more on that in a tick, first what is a chiffon cake?

Chiffon Cakes are also known as Mayonnaise Cakes as they contain oil, water and eggs unlike Angel Cake which are made using no fat and can be rather dry Chiffon retains  it's moisture which in my book means they are better.

They are made by first whisking oil, egg yolks and water together, sifting cake flour and sugar into the oil mix and beating for 1 minute at high speed.

To give the cake it's light airy texture the egg whites are whisked separately to stiff peaks with more sugar i.e. a meringue then slowly folded into the first, denser oil/flour mixture.

Valuable Lesson - Fold meringue into the oil/flour mixture in 4-6 stages not in 2!

I didn't fold my meringue into the oil/flour mixture well enough, thinking I would knock all the air out of the cake if I folded in the flour in many stages I tried to do it quicker in 2 but it didn't work when I poured the batter into my silicone cake pans there was still quite a lot of the denser oil/flour mixture at the bottom of the mixing bowl which I scraped out and put into the center of one of the pans and gave it a quick stir in hoping for the best!

As I made two cakes the one you see below ended up being more dense in 'spots' where the batter hadn't been mixed / folded in properly Alhamdulillah it was still edible just not worthy of being frosted so I sprinkled it with icing sugar and put it to one side for second best bites.


Chiffon Cakes usually are baked in tube/Bundt pans as this helps the cake rise evenly and as they tend to sink once removed from the oven they are baked in ungreased/floured sided  pans and inverted (onto such things as the bottom of a flower pot) upon removal from the oven and left to cool totally inside the pan.

I haven't got any tube pans (they are on my long shopping list) so I resorted to my round silicone pans and still inverted them, onto a cooling rack lined with baking paper however, as silicone is non stick they started to slide out and stick to the baking paper, ooops! So I do recommend you use metal cake pans for chiffon cakes. It wasn't such a disaster after all, as once the cakes had cooled completely and been unmoulded from the silicone pans I peeled off the baking paper without causing too much damage to the surface of the cakes and kept those sides face down :)

The need to make the buttercream icing green and blue for this cake apart from it being peppermint flavoured of course, was that my 4year old son asked me for a green monster cake.
He got a green and blue frosted chocolate cake without a monster in site (depending on how you view this cake that is lol) I intended the blue to be a rose in the center, but I used an unfamiliar open star tip (not the wilton 1M which is my favourite for piping roses) and ended up going for a swirly circle?!

Next time I make this cake, I will dare to slice the fluffy pillow in 2 and fill it with a lighter buttercream, say Italian meringue or even whipped cream would go well as the cake is so delicate it deserves a filling to match.

Here is my cake recipe, using self raising flour instead of the more traditional cake flour.
The cakes flavour and the texture (lots of air holes) reminded me of a mint aero chocolate bar!

Peppermint Chocolate Chiffon Cake(s)

Adapted from Chiffon Cake Recipe found in the book, The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg.

Recipe makes 2 x 23cm cakes but the recipe can easily be divided by 2 to make only 1 cake. I highly recommend you make just 1 cake if like me, it is your first time baking this type of  sponge cake. Folding in a 4 egg white meringue will be much easier than one made using 8.

Ingredients

2/3 Cup (160ml) Vegetable Oil (I used sunflower)
8 Egg Yolks
1 Cup (250ml) Water, room temperature
1 Tablespoon Peppermint Oil
336 Grams Self Raising Flour
85 Grams Cocoa Powder
400 Grams Caster Sugar, divided (see method)
8 Egg Whites

Method

Pre-Heat Oven to 375F/190C /170C (fan)

Beat Egg Yolks, Oil, Peppermint Oil together and stir in water.

Sift Flour, Cocoa & 130 Grams sugar into egg yolk mixture and mix in. Beat mixture at high speed for 1 minute (2 if doing by hand with a spoon - it's hard work!) and set aside.

In a separate grease free bowl whip your egg whites at high speed (I recommend using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or an electric hand whisk) until frothy then gradually add 270 Grams sugar and continue to whisk until stiff peak stage.

Fold Meringue into your cake batter in 4-6 stages, I used a tablespoon to do this but ideally you need a bigger metal spoon or a rubber spatula.

Divide final cake mixture equally between your 2 cake pans and bake in the center of your oven for 25-30minutes or until the center springs back slightly when pressed with a finger.

Remove from oven and invert pans onto a cooling rack and allow to cool.

Fill and decorate your cake with your favourite icing, whipped double cream, jam, layer of fruit etc..
 

Asalam Alaykum Sisters & Hello readers,

Here are a few photos of food i've cooked/baked in my home this week Masha'Allah

Doubara - Algerian Chickpea Soup

Loubia - Algerian White Bean Soup (with meat)



Tuna Cheese Toasted Sandwich - simple but delicious!

Overly Sweet Lemon & Orange Blossom Cake (i over did it with a layer of apricot jam & the honey cream cheese frosting) Pac Man??? lol

I still have a long way to go on my quest to being a good cook, I'm slowly getting there in sha Allah My favourite was the tuna cheese toasted sandwich believe it or not, it was simple yet oh so satisfying Alhamdulillah

Salam Alaikum & Hello Friends,

When your free do check out my guest post over at the lovely blog Karima's Crafts

What is carob you ask? well if my research serves me correctly it's the fruit / pod from the carob tree which is a species of flowering evergreen shrub or tree in the pea family.

The trees grow in places such as Spain, Italy and Morocco and the pods typically dried or roasted, and mildly sweet. In powdered, chip, or syrup form it is used as an ingredient in cakes and cookies, and is used as a substitute for chocolate.

Carob was eaten in Ancient Egypt. It was also a common sweetener and was used in the hieroglyph for "sweet" (nedjem). Dried carob fruit is traditionally eaten on the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat. Carob juice drinks are traditionally drunk during the Islamic month of Ramadan. Also it is believed to be an aphrodisiac.

All above info courtesy of wiki

I want to say this cake was the best thing I've ever eaten because mashaAllah the photos aren't half bad BUT i just didn't like the bitter earthy taste of carob at all, it didn't taste like chocolate then again maybe dark chocolate does taste like that, i don't honestly know but i won't be experimenting with carob again inshaAllah

Good news alhamduillah my kids seem to like this cake and are so easily taken it by it's chocolate appearance.

Anyone own a dog? well carob is a good substitute for chocolate because if you own a dog you know that they aren't supposed to consume chocolate and why? i don't have a clue but some random fact I've obtained over the years growing up always with a dog in the house alhamduillah that is not the case now.

If you do fancy giving this recipe a go after my terrible review, head on over to carob fudge cake it's an egg free cake which is always a plus if you don't have eggs in the kitchen or have allergies and the only changes i made were replacing the butter in the cake for margarine and for the icing i used 100g coconut butter and 20g vegetable shortening, i stayed with cows milk in the cake but i think you could change that for soy, rice, almond etc oh and i added some sugar crystals for decoration.

Sorry for all the negativity around here lately but with every negative experience you learn something new, what you do and don't like and how kids will surprise you and eat the fake chocolate cake to save the calories from your hips and save you from being wasteful alhamduillah

Potatoe VS Potato? I guess really i should have labelled my photos with 'Potato' as the recipe is from America after all, oh well.

I am not sure how authentically southern this recipe actually is, my friend who is from the south had never even heard of it before mashaAllah

After googling pics i discovered not only mine had huge cracks in the surface, this is more than likely due to the high sugar content, my oven running too hot or a combination of both factors.

Once you taste this quick bread you will definitely feel your in autumn, even if in fact you are in the hot desert.

http://mad.ly/6b8113

Please check if using pumpkin spice for nutmeg as it is haram, both in the small quantity aswell as the large quantity Masha Allah

This was my first attempt at a GIANT lemon cupcake. It didn't all go according to plan but i'm sure there will be a next time to perfect my cupcake creation, maybe EID inshaAllah.
So here is what went wrong:-

•  I undercooked the top of the giant cupcake even i tested it with a scewer and it came out clean! This was evident when i tried releasing it from the silicone mould, it didn't come out in one piece and was mushy in the center.
• The filling insert that fits on top of the base popped up at one side during the baking process, result - filling cavity wasn't directly in the center/ uneven border.

Next time i must remember to:-

•  Bake the top/lid of the cupcake for an extra 5 minutes and leave it to cool 80% in the mould before releasing.
• Make sure the filling insert is properly secured on top of  the base before baking.

I would prefer the filling insert to be deeper so that the cake to filling ratio would be more balanced however all in all this oversized, zesty, lemon cupcake filled with whipped cream and a layer of sliced strawberries was really tasty you know i would say that, as i'm a sucker for anything using my favourite coloured fruit.