Red Velvet Cupcakes from The Hummingbird Cookbook, via Joythebaker

These have a good cocoa hit, but with a marvelous light moist texture from the buttermilk. Sweet, soft and subtle .. unlike the colour which can vary from crimson to terracotta. I like the contrast between earthy chocolate and so intense, so white icing.

i have rewritten the recipe with (my) english measurements, or follow the link to Joy's place for more details.

60g unsalted butter, soft
170g vanilla caster sugar
1 egg
2.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
red food colouring - at your own discretion
.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
135g plain four
.5 teaspoon salt

Beat together the butter and sugar, until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat rapidly to incorporate. I love how all my cake batters shout the strong bright yellow of my local lady hens.



In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa, vanilla and 3 tablespoons of water. Add a dollop of red colour paste and blend to make a rich mud.





Add the paste to the batter, mix well to distrubute the colour evenly.

Add half the buttermilk, beat at slow speed. The add half the flour and mix to combine. Repeat with the remaining buttermilk and flour, beating until smooth.

Add the baking soda and vinegar and beat for a couple of minutes.





Spoon into 12 cupcake cases, bake at 170ºC for 20-25 minutes until springy and pulled away from the edges of the paper. Allow to sit for 10 minutes, and remove to a cooling rack.



Ice at your leisure, eat quickly before someone else does.

45g soft butter
230g icing sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
150g cream cheese

Beat the butter until creamy, add icing sugar and beat, slowly at first, then at a high speed until well blended. Add the cinnamon and icing sugar and beat again, but only until just smooth.

These pictures are not the prettiest, but the result is superb. It is another make-in-a-pan (my favourite kind... i am fundamentally lazy about creaming butter with sugar) cake stuffed with sticky fruit and syrupy stem ginger, keeps well (at least a week) and needs no fancy filling or icing to look spectacular. Lighter than a traditional fruit cake but reeling with healthy fibre it makes an excellent alternative to a (boring but well-intentioned) sponge cake. For a birthday boy i covered this one in chocolate ganache, but a simple dusting of icing sugar would suffice.

Sticky Date Cake (from Fantastic Party Cakes by Mich Turner)

200g dates, stoned
200g unsalted butter
300g dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs
50g chopped stem ginger
grated zest of a lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g bramley apples, grated
200g self raising flour

Preheat oven to 160ºC. Lightly grease a Kugelhopf tin (ideally 20cm, although i only have a 22cm tin, which worked well)

Place the dates in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Melt the butter and sugar together in a saucepan and allow to cool slightly.



Beat the eggs, ginger, lemon zest and vanilla extract into the butter and sugar. Drain the dates and chop finely. Add to the saucepan and mix well.







Stir in the apple and flour, then spoon into the tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour 15 minutes until well risen. A skewer inserted will come out clean-ish.

Leave to cool in the tin.



For the chocolate ganache:

175g dark chocolate, broken into pieces, in a clean dry bowl.
125g fresh double cream

Heat the cream to the boil and pour over the chocolate pieces, stirring until the ganache is smooth and glossy. Pour slowly over the cake, using a flat knife to spread the thick tide of chocolate into every corner.

250g ready-to-eat dried apricots
25g blanched almonds
1 tablespoon runny honey
2 large oranges
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Use a small sharp knife to make a slit in each apricot, push an almond inside as a replacement stone. Put the apricots in to a small pan with the honey and a few thin strips of orange peel, and the juice of the two oranges. Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence (i found a bottle with vanilla seeds, which adds a delicate speckle to the gold).

Allow to simmer very gently for 30 minutes, by which time the apricots will be fat, soft and very juicy. Allow to cool. Perfect served cold from the fridge, with cream.

The days are getting cooler, and my cooking is changing, along with the colour of the trees outside my bedroom window, and the pattern of my days. Less time, but perhaps better times.

I like one pot meals, particularly when the ingredient list is gloriously short. I used 2 shanks for me and the 2 children, but generally allow a shank per adult. Original recipe from Lindsey Bareham's Just One Pot.

2 (or 4) lamb shanks
garlic cloves, unpeeled (2 per shank)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions
thyme
4 medium potatoes
3 carrots

Make a deep slash in the meaty part of a lamb shank with a thin-bladed knife, and stuff with a garlic clove. Repeat with remaining cloves. Heat the oil in a sturdy pan, and brown the shanks briskly on all surfaces.

Peel, halve and thinly slice the onions. Remove shanks from the pan to a plate and add onions to cook in the oil. Season with salt and pepper, stir briefly, cover and leave to colour for 5 minutes. Replace shanks and a good pinch of dried thyme (or fresh). Add 450ml of boiling water and bring to a boil.



Peel and halve the potatoes, tuck in around the shanks. Allow to simmer, over a low heat, covered, for about an hour, longer if necessary, if the shanks are big and meaty. A half hour into the cooking i added 3 large, peeled and sliced carrots.