Baking bonanza

It was great to see the lovely messages on yesterday’s post about the riots.

It was also brilliant to see again in the paper today just how many people have been turning out – hundreds and thousands of them – to help. As one paper had in a headline today “200 people did this – but 500 of us are here to clear it up”.

Brilliant stuff, especially as one bloke, asked what he would do if the cleaned streets were ransacked again, said: “We’ll come back and clear it up again.” Woot for the vast, vast majority of the people of this country!

But, to return to my more normal subjects… I’ve been meaning to write this post for days!

I don’t think I’ve ever done as much baking in as little time as I did at the weekend, and here it all is…

First up was this:

It was my colleague’s birthday and as he, like me, loves a good carrot cake, it had to be one of those. I used this recipe, from Pig in the Kitchen, a great blog also featured on Channel 4 Food’s list of best GF and allergy-friendly blogs.

I made 1 and 1/2 quantities, baked it in two sandwich tins, filled it with cream cheese icing, from 100g Philadelphia, 150g caster sugar and some lemon zest, and iced it with a paste made from icing sugar and lemon juice. We didn’t get it out till gone 4pm on Monday but there was none left by yesterday lunchtime, which is always a good sign. Check out Mel/Pig’s blog because there are so many other delicious-looking recipes on there as well as this one.

Next up was this:

I took the advice of commenters and went for a chocolate cake for the café. I was really nervous it would be rubbish but the owner (who can eat “normal” cakes) ate a slice, loved it – and asked if I’d make a carrot one for tomorrow! I’m really chuffed and hopefully they’ll sell well and I’ll be able to make more.

I made some cookies too, as the café sells giant GF shop-bought ones for £2 a pop and I knew I could make some for cheaper. I used my coconut oil cookies recipe but used rapeseed instead and although they tasted good, the texture wasn’t right – the rapeseed oil obviously makes them more biscuit-y, as oppose to cookie-y. So I didn’t take them in – and I didn’t take a picture - but rest assured, they weren’t wasted… 

I also made a chocolate and beetroot loaf cake, adapted from a number of recipes.

Again, I didn’t get a picture because I thought it was the colleague’s birthday on Tuesday but it’s actually Friday so I put it in the freezer. I might make another one in round tins if I have time because it didn’t rise much – perils of GF baking.

And finally, the other carrot cake, made last night:

I used the same recipe but used three eggs instead of the flax, a bit less oil and a bit more flour and filled it with slightly-adapted versions of the icing. Fingers crossed he likes this one too!

I think I’m just about baked out and I haven’t got any interesting normal food pictures so this post isn’t technically about what I’ve been eating. Except of course, the cake’s worth of raw batter and icing that got consumed while I was making all of the above… a conscientious cook’s gotta make sure she’s making good stuff – such dedication, I feel :-)

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