Lucozade Loaf Cake

Another month, another Clandestine Cake Club (see the official blog here). This time Rodina came with me as a guest and there was no room for car troubles. The venue was a lovely little café kind of in the middle of nowhere next to the Lune Estuary called Café d’Lune. The cycle routes around this area (and as it turned out the simultaneous cycling event that was taking place that evening) meant that the theme was “On Your Bike”. I decided that in order to keep up your energy on your bike ride you would need an energy drink – Lucozade.

Method

I adapted this recipe for chocolate cola cake by removing the coke and cocoa powder and adding extra flour and Lucozade.

First the butter and Lucozade was melted together in a pan, then added to the other ingredients (flour, sugar, eggs, milk, baking powder) and mixed well. The mixture was very runny and poured really easily into my greased loaf tin. This was then baked in the oven for about 35 mins.

I used this recipe for the frosting. Basically Lucozade was added to normal butter icing. The finishing touch was some orange sprinkles.

As usual the cake was too big for any of my tins so it was carefully packaged on the plate and Rodina carefully looked after it on the journey to Cake Club.

Results

I think the cake was slightly undercooked. It was very moist (like a fudge cake) but perhaps a little too moist. This was possibly also due to me wrapping it up when it was still warm. I know my oven can cook things unevenly so I also turned the cake around half way through baking. There was some sinking in the middle so next time I will leave it longer until turning.

The flavour was very subtle but I think anything more would have been too much. The icing was really tasty! Overall I liked the idea of the cake and it seemed to go down well. I hope to try the chocolate one soon.

Score: 5.5/10

Soundtrack: Rodina telling me all about and playing Eurovision tunes

Toblerone Chocolate Brownies

Looking at my list of basics I decided it was time to have another go at my baking nemesis – chocolate brownies. I have never been able to make Brownies from scratch that are the right consistency. They are either too cakey or far too gooey. This blog is a mash up of my two attempts this week – one followed where I a basic recipe and the second where I used Toblerone instead of normal chocolate.

Method

First I melted butter, dark chocolate and milk chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Dark and light brown sugar was mixed into this melted mixture. After it had cooled a little I added 3 whisked eggs and then plain flour. After pouring into the tin I scattered chocolate chips or chopped up Toblerone on top. The Brownie was in the oven for about 25 mins.

Results

I still don’t have this recipe down. I think the recipe is good and it’s the cooking time that is my downfall. The second set was a little softer than the first (these were quite dry) but I still think that they needed less time in the oven. I am not very good at remembering the time that I put things in the oven – I have bought a timer from e-bay in an attempt to improve this! I will be baking these Brownies until I get them just right.

I made these Brownies as part of a fathers’ day present and my Dad said they were nice so that’s the main thing :)

Score: 4.5/10

Soundtrack: Various Jessie J

Salt and Pepper Breadsticks

During my epic baking day the other month I also tried baking bread. This was the first time I had made bread in a very long time, and I was apprehensive because bread is so different to the cakes that I usually try out. Lorraine Pascal came to the rescue with a straightforward recipe for white breadsticks with salt and pepper topping.

Method 
Just the basic bread recipe: flour, warm water, salt, and yeast.  Mix and kneed this together. Then leave to rise. Shape the dough into your shapes. Rolling out the soft dough into long and thin sticks proved quite difficult, especially with sticky hands. I didn’t want to flour them too much as I knew that would dry out the dough. Some of the sticks were cut into three strips so they could be plaited. Then they were left to rise again. Finally I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled over ground black pepper or sea salt before they went in the oven.

Results 
The breadsticks were meant to be quite chunky but mine were perhaps a little on large side. They weren’t that neat either (except for Lewis’ amazing efforts) but I think the rustic look was the one to go for here. Also, I did get fed up at the end and made some simple rolls too.

The bread baked really well and the sticks were nice and light and soft, with a slightly chewy crust; perfect for dipping into salsa and hummus. The flavouring wasn’t too overpowering but added something extra to the plain bread. Overall I was very pleased with the results and I think I will try some more adventurous bread recipes soon.

Score: 9/10

Soundtrack: It’s so long ago I can’t remember! Possibly Parks and Recreation on the TV. (A very good program that I recommend watching. Check it out here.)

Reverse Tie Dye Bags

Here's something crafty to justify the "bauble" section of my blog. This craft is super easy and effective, a little bit different and super fun to do. I first tried this out when I ran a weekend in the Piggery at Guys Farm for Senior Section to get my Senior Section Permit (all part of the QGA). I thought it was so good that the girls I am going to Berlin with this July (also ticking off a QGA section) set up a production line to make 100! We're selling these to raise funds for the Berlin trip. Buy one (or more) on ebay here.

Recipe

Coloured fabric items - bright colours work best

Elastic bands, string, pegs etc etc

Household bleach

Buckets

Rubber gloves and apron

LOTS of water

Method

Tie you fabric up in any way that you fancy. The different patterns come from different ways of tying the fabric and what you use to fasten it. You can make circles, fold the fabric to make stripes, scrunch it up for a random pattern, the options are endless. Just remember that the areas that are exposed will turn lighter and those that are tied up will stay dark. It's best not to be too fussed about exactly what you want it to turn out like because there is still quite a lot of randomness involved. However if you are feeling clever there are all sorts of complicated patterns in the books I got out of the library to try.

After it's all tied up soak your fabric in the bleach. This is a bit trial and error. The stronger the bleach (and the less you dilute it) means the shorter time it will take. Keep the stuff in until you can see it has changed and you are happy with the resulting colour. Remember if you leave it in too long the bleach will eat away at the fabric and reduce its strength. Also remember to wear you rubber gloves and apron for this part. I found it worked best when I occasionally "stirred" and moved the things around in the bleach and gave them a bit of a squeeze to make sure the bleach soaked in all the way.

When you like the colour left take your fabric out of the bleach and rinse, rinse, rinse. We rinsed thoroughly once while it was still tied up and then again when we untied. Finally, they went through a cold wash in the washing machine to get all of the last of bleach out.

Results

I was so pleased with the bags we produced both times. The bright colours (turquoise and pink) worked best and went nice pastel shades in the bleach. The darker bags (purple and navy) just went a kind of brown.

I noticed that the different colours also bleached at different rates. The pink went very quickly while the turquoise took a lot more time.

Although this method uses nasty bleach I think it is a lot easier than normal tie dye. You don't have to mess around with dyes and we used the super cheap basics bleach that was only 29p for for 2l. Also you can lots of different colours all at the same time because the colour comes from the fabric not the dye.

Be warned - tie dying leads to crinkly fabric and I spent a VERY long time ironing all 100 of our bags!

I hope the rest of world thinks they're great and we raise lots of money for our trip to Berlin (hint, hint).