Next weekend, we have our inaugural Clandestine Cake Club meeting and the theme is "Cakes with Benefits" so the mission, should we choose to accept it, is to bake a cake that's in some way good for you. Now, I have been able to justify most things cake-wise because if you look close enough (and yes, I accept that sometimes you have to really squint), there's always a health benefit in there somewhere. So fruit seemed like a good place to start. My plan was to bake by the seat of my pants for our meeting, but why take a chance when you have willing tasters on hand? It's all very well using 'healthy' ingredients but it's not much use if it doesn't taste ok.
So the cake: thought I'd give the blueberry soured cream cake a whirl from the Good Food site. It has lots of good reviews, one of which mentioned adding raspberries for contrast which, I have to agree, does make it look tasty. In terms of the baking, it was a doddle. Everything happened like the recipe said it would. Ultimately, I may not go with this one for the CCC meeting - I have a hankering for rhubarb having read Baking Explorer's recent post. I'll see how the results go and what sort of mood I'm in next week.
As for the health benefits of blueberries, well they do make fascinating reading. Free radicals this, antioxidants that. They can reduce brain damage in rats, which is something I insist on, fruit-wise. They can also, so the interweb tells me, improve memory and learning in older adults. I must order a shed-load. If I remember.
Having had a wagon-based wobble on the pig, cake and gin night last week (I totally blame - and thank - @recipejunkie and @talkingtable for this minor lapse), it's interesting to note that juniper berries are also technically a bit fruity....
Before I take my leave to deliver the cake, a plea for help. The niece turns 18 in a week or two. For someone who looked vaguely simian at birth (a good thing), developing into a gonk, complete with acrylic hair, by the age of 3 (a bad thing), it's gob smacking that she's now a complete beauty with a real talent for photography, a great sense of humour and an appetite for chocolate cake that is scary to behold. I have promised her a birthday cake and just wondered if anyone had a fail-safe, knock-out recipe suitable for someone with a chronic chocolate habit? Any recommendations gratefully received.
14 comments:
If you do go for rhubarb I recommend putting more rhubarb in it than I did, don't think I used enough!
Kat, thanks so much for the excellent advice. You can never have too much rhubarb! Love your new logo btw :)
Personally, I'm not into rhubarb: I can see no point in a vegetable one has to drown in it's own weight of sugar to make it palatable.
As for the cake, I've never tried it but how about 'Death by Chocolate'?
Oh this looks fab Barnes, very pretty indeed. I am ashamed to say though that when you said 'cakes with benefits' I thought of adding booze, not fruit. I think I have a problem, there I've said it out loud. It's no wonder we pushed you off the wagon!
Love the idea of cooking with sour cream too by the way.
OK, this is my choc cake de jour, never fails me:
http://www.viewfromthetable.co.uk/2012/08/the-once-year-cake_2481.html
Happy birthday to your neice.
Rhubarb - oh yes Nigella has a cracking one somewhere (rifle rifle) ah yes - in Domestic Goddess. Fruit in cake ALWAYS makes it healthy, as does the fruit in gin, and possibly even the potatoes in vodka, the grapes in wine - all health food - similarly anything that you put fruit in (as long as you then eat it) - Pimms, mojito (all that mint...). As for chocolate cake - at the risk of shameless self-publicity - the dog catcher cake on my blog is my failsafe chocolate at the moment and you can ice it as you like xx
Hi Mike, I do take your point about the amount of sugar needed but I think that's the appeal of rhubarb (same, gooseberries) for me - bit of sweetness, bit of tartness. Also anything that goes with custard gets my vote!!
Death by Chocolate is a great suggestion, thanks. I've never worried so much about a cake before!
Table and RJ - I knew there was a good reason why I like you both so much. Group hug Table for the shocking admission ;) but take heart from RJ's wise words. If I ever decide to go dry for a month again, you two are the ones I will turn to for advice!!
Thanks so much for your cake recommendations. They both look bloody lovely. Think I am going to send the details of these and Death by Chocolate and let the niece decide which one. Tricky choice but I reckon she's up to the task.
Thanks again both of you xx
p.s. if you ever feel like you want a dog, I'll send you Fred for a few days. He is very handsome and very good in the house, has no nits and has never shoved a button up his nose. Just don't let him near a duck.
Send him over! Table suggested I have some sort of supervision and I suspect Fred is the perfect carer. I'm right near the Barnes Wetlands Centre. I predict duck-based mayhem...
He would ADORE Barnes Wetlands Centre, but I don't think they would adore him, somehow...
I'm willing to take the risk :)
From memory (but it was a long time ago) my parents' gooseberries were sweet enough to eat straight from the bush.
The gooseberries we had were always straight from the tin! But it was the seventies. On the plus side, Curlywurly's were MASSIVE!
Back when we were younger everything was bigger. I remember Wagonwheels being so big you probably could use them on a wagon.
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