Recipe: Chocolate and Cherry Bundt with Kirsch

The Great British Bake Off has been a real game changer for amateur bakers like me. It’s given me the confidence to try new bakes and introduced the nation to previously unheard of treats from all over the world. Before GBBO I’d never seen or heard of a bundt before, but it soon became a cake I needed to bake. This week I made a Chocolate and Cherry Bundt with Kirsch and I became this week’s star baker (in my house only).

I’ve wanted a bundt tin for a long time. Every so often I’d have a look around for one but they were always a bit beyond my budget and I couldn’t justify spending that much on a cake tin. A few weeks before Christmas I spotted a Crofton bundt tin in Aldi for around £11 and I couldn’t resist. I’ve been itching to use my bundt tin ever since.

For my Chocolate and Cherry Bundt with Kirsch I used a 250g jar of Opies Black Cherries in Kirsch. I drained the cherries and set aside the kirsch for drizzling over the cake. It was really very good and the boys managed to demolish it in double quick time – always the sign of a successful bake.

Chocolate and Cherry Bundt with Kirsch

Ingredients (serves 16)
150g butter
150g sugar
4 eggs
200g self raising flour
100g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 jar of Opies Black Cherries in Kirsch
1/2 tub of Dr Oetker Easy Milk Chocolate Icing

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190°. Liberally butter your bundt tin and using 25g of your cocoa powder, dust the inside of your tin so that the powder is stuck to the butter.

Beat your butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the flour, 75g of cocoa powder and baking soda and give them a quick stir, add the eggs and thoroughly combine. If your mixture seems a bit stiff or dry, add a splash of milk.

Drain your black cherries, reserving the kirsch for later. Stir your cherries into the cake batter and pour the lot into your bundt tin. Smooth the top of the batter.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 190°. After 30 minutes, check it’s cooked through with a skewer and remove from the oven. Leave to cool in the tin for at least 15 minutes.

Once cool, turn out onto a suitable plate or cake stand and decorate. I used half a tub of Dr Oetker Easy Milk Chocolate Icing which you just microwave and then drizzle over with a spoon. I also whipped some cream to serve with it and spooned over some of the kirsch I’d set aside from the jar. Delicious.

Recipe: Chocolate and Cherry Bundt with Kirsch

It was a really lovely pudding and the kirsch made the cake extra moist and a little bit naughtier. I’m looking forward to getting another bundt in the oven.

Recipe: Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge Pudding

I love figs, they still seem like a decadent kind of fruit, a rare globe of loveliness, rich, versatile and hard to come by. I like to have a tin of figs in syrup in my cupboard to bake a form of Birnenpfannkuchen with, but fresh figs are a rare and wonderful treat. I was shopping in Aldi this week when I noticed they had 4 figs for 59p in their super 6 offer, and at that price it’s rude not to, so I slipped a couple of boxes into my basket and started plotting a pudding.

Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge

I couldn’t find a recipe for what I wanted to make, so I experimented a bit instead. What I wanted was a honey baked fig in some light sponge spiced with cinnamon, and ideally some sultanas soaked in tea, but we didn’t have any, we’ll add those next time. That’s how I came up with this recipe for Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge.

Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge

Fig, honey and cinnamon sponge puddings

Serves 6
A lovely, quick little pudding, gently spiced with cinnamon and making the most of fresh seasonal figs.

Ingredients
3 fresh figs
6 teaspoons of runny honey
4 oz butter or margarine
4oz of caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4oz self raising flour

Instructions
Pre-heat your oven to 190. Grease six ramekins. Halve the figs and place one half in a ramekin and drizzle round a teaspoon of honey.

Beat the butter or margarine and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the baking powder, cinnamon and eggs and mix together. Once combined gently stir in the flour and equally divide between the six ramekins.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 for 20 minutes, or until the sponge is cooked through.
Once cooked, run a knife around the edge of the ramekin and tip out.

Notes
Serve with custard, ice cream or cream. Best eaten when warm.

It’s a really, really simple little pudding to make and takes less than half an hour. If I can get my hands on more figs these Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge puddings will be a regular treat for us until the fresh fig season is over.

Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge

I love the way the honey and fig juices soak into the sponge and make it sticky and unctuous, without making it too sweet. Next time I make these Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge puddings I would throw in some soaked dried sultanas, but it works really well without them. This is a glorious pud and I had to fend off request for seconds (because I wanted them). Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Recipe: Fig, Honey & Cinnamon Sponge Pudding

Frugal Finds: Ravishing Roasted Tomatoes

Like most people these days we live on a budget. We try to eat like kings on a
paupers pay packet, so when I spotted some really good looking vine tomatoes on the Aldi Super Six offer I couldn’t resist. All at the pocket-friendly price of 69p, I greedily bought 6 packets.

My plan was to roast them to go with a meal of quiche and salad. Now that is a lot of roasted tomatoes for one meal for three people, but being the frugalista I am, I had grand plans for the leftovers.

This is a great way to take care of a glut of tomatoes if you grow your own, or to take advantage if you stumble across a bargain in the green grocers or Aldi.

Frugal Finds: Ravishing Roasted Tomatoes

Roasted Tomatoes
Halve and remove the core from your tomatoes, lay them cut side up in a roasting tin, season with salt and pepper, I sprinkled over fresh thyme and oregano, but dried herbs would be fine. Nestle in some cloves of garlic, still in their skins, drizzle over some olive oil and roast in a hot oven for about 40 minutes or until they’ve semi-collapsed and oozing with their juices.

At this point they’re done. I love them on hot buttered toast fresh from the oven but I had other plans for my hot tray of loveliness.

As I’d roasted so many – two trays worth, I tipped the tomatoes and their juices, skin and all in the food processor, I squeezed the garlic from it’s skin and blitzed the lot. After checking the seasoning I decanted the roasted tomato sauce into storage containers. I’ve now got a litre of gorgeous roasted tomato sauce sat in the fridge waiting for another day.

So for my minimal effort I’ve got the following meals from my roasted tomatoes:

Sneaky, cheeky lunch of roast tomatoes on toast
Side dish to go with our evening meal of quiche and salad
Spaghetti and meatballs in roasted tomato sauce
Homemade pizza using the sauce as a tomato base
Tomato and mozzarella risotto
Plus a batch of sauce for the freezer for a rainy day

That’s not bad for £4.14 worth of tomatoes, a few herbs, some garlic and not a lot of effort. It really is worth trying, in our house tomatoes form the basis of a lot of meals and the deep, more intense flavour of the roasted tomatoes is something else.

What would you use the sauce for?