Mini Courgette Cakes

Carrot cake is a common coffee shop favourite up and down the U.K. Everyone seems to have accepted that carrots can be enjoyed in cake form. And yet when I mention courgette cake I often get some funny looks. But why should it be any different? It's just another root vegetable after all. 

My family have been enjoying courgette cake for a few years now so this is a tried and tested, fool proof recipe! However in the past I have always made it in a bunt tin and this weekend I decided to use a new mini sandwich tin with individual loose bottoms. 

Ingredients 

150ml vegetable oil

250g self raising flour

50g  pistachios, roughly chopped plus extra for decoration

3 eggs

175g caster sugar

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

225g courgette, grated

125g icing sugar 

Method 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease the tin well (very important) and lightly dust with flour - tap out the excess. 

2. Chop the pistachios or pulse in a food processor and grate the courgettes. 

3. Whisk oil, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. Sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda and stir well to combine. Finally, add the grated courgette and pistachios. 

4. Spoon the mixture into the individual tin moulds and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. 

I filled the moulds to the very top so when they were baked it created cakes with domed tops, similar to muffins. If I was to make mini Victoria sponges, or cakes which traditionally have a flatter top, then I would only half fill the moulds. 

5. Once cooled remove the cakes from the tin. Then drizzle icing over each cake and sprinkle with chopped pistachios while the icing is still wet. 

I have been thinking about what other root vegetables could be incorporated into baking. Obviously ginger cake is another common flavour and beetroot goes really well in chocolate brownies. I wonder what sweet potato or parsnip would taste like in a cake? Maybe that's one for a future experimental bake!

On another note, The Great British Bake off has started again - my TV highlight of the year! Crazy to think I almost applied to be on this season. After the first episode I've decided that Richard is my favourite, I think he is going to do very well! I'm hoping I'll get some inspiration from the Bake Off for some future bakes so stay tuned!

Hannah xx

Grandmas Bread: American baking

I'm back! I didn't have a lot of time to bake in July as I was on holiday in America for two weeks. However being on holiday didn't stop me from baking! 

My Grandma who lives in America makes the best bread I have ever tasted. The recipe was passed down from her Grandma and is incomparable to any other bread, it's just mouth wateringly delicious and I was desperate to be able to recreate it for myself! 

For Christmas she put together a hamper of all the ingredients I needed to make her special bread, known as Grandmas Bread. Bread is renowned for being very difficult to master and my first attempt didn't go very well; I ended up with two bricks - rock solid. My error was that I had killed the yeast by using water that was too hot so it didn't rise during proving. So she kindly offered to give me a master class in Grandmas bread baking while I was visiting. 

She made it look so simple. So I decided to try it again on my own, while the master class was still fresh in my mind. I'm pleased to say that this time was significantly better and the bread was actually edible, which is always a good sign when baking! I didn't kill the yeast so the dough more than doubled in size. 

It still isn't perfect because it didn't rise over the top of the bread pans as it should. I think this might be because I didn't wait for the yeast to activate for quite long enough. Also the room temperature and humidity has a big impact on bread. My Grandmas kitchen has air conditioning but obviously in England that is rarely needed. Although at the moment the weather has been unexpectedly warm and so I was baking with the door open, who knows what impact that will have had! 

This is what the perfect loaf of Grandmas bread should look like...

And this was my attempt...














Mine doesn't have the same curl over the top - No muffin top. But bread will not defeat me!

 Hopefully third time lucky! Until then I will enjoy it with some peach jam. 

Xx