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Life is starting to feel a little normal as the aftershocks become less frequent and the clean up progresses around the city. Last weeks cake has been received very well by many. In fact, it has been requested by my No 1 cake taster as her cake of choice for her birthday this coming week.

September is a busy birthday month but not this weekend, so I was at a loss as to what to make. I asked my friend Kerry to choose a number between 10 and 232 (the number of recipe pages in the Treasury of Baking book) She chose 178 so here we are making a Plum and Cardamom Shortcake.

I have never made a shortcake before so it was fun to do. I never had plums and chose to use cherries instead. Cardamom scents the pastry and the flavour combines wonderfully with the cherries, served in small slices with a cup of tea!

It will go down a treat I am sure, this evening after roast chicken and roast vegetables.

Calming influence....cake!

Well what a week it has been for us Cantabrians. Literally quite shocking, and I am very relieved the week is behind us. We are still experiencing the odd aftershock and I really hope and pray the worst is over. So as Canterbury repairs itself, mentally and physically, I am moving on with positive thoughts, to this weeks cake.

Enter, one of my favourite recipe books, A Treasury of New Zealand Baking, page 132, Lemon Lime and Poppyseed Syrup Cake. Did you know that this book is a fundraising project for The NZ Breast Cancer Foundation? The recipe is by Catherine Bell, co-publisher and editorial director of DISH magazine. She is a Julia Child Honorarium recipient and Catherine chairs the Garden to Table Trust, which helps children grow, prepare and share food.

A lovely simple recipe which has a little yoghurt or buttermilk in it to ensure a light, fluffy texture.

When the cake is still hot, you dribble the lemon and lime syrup over the top....mmmm very delicious. Catherine recommends this be served warm with a little plain unsweetened yoghurt on the side.

This cake serves 8....so be in quick.

Chocolate Rubble Cake

We were all thrown from our beds early Saturday morning as the earth moved ferociously. Some hung on to the bed for support, some dived under door ways and others under tables.

Our swimming pool emptied 7,000 litres, some pools collapsed, chimneys fell, roads cracked, silt covered many gardens. Buildings in town hit the deck, churches crumpled, supermarket floors were littered with wine, vinegar, pickles, flour, and the like. Storage warehouses have collapsed racking systems leaving a huge clean up ahead when the major aftershocks subside.

We all wandered around shell shocked ourselves the next day taking in the enormity of it all. So we stoked up the bbq for breakfast, took water to those who have none, checked the neighbours and friends were all good and braced ourselves for the aftershocks.

Thank God no one was fatally injured during this ordeal. Top marks go to our Mayor Bob and the Crisis team for the way this has been handled and to the media for keeping everyone alerted and aware.

So what does one do when faced with this horrific, spooky, natural disaster?

One makes a cake!

I found a bowl, threw in flour, butter, cocoa, baking soda, yoghurt, coffee, eggs and gave it a good stir and shake. Cooked it for an hour in the oven and voila! Chocolate Rubble cake.

We had an earthquake post-mortem while watching the extensive television coverage with a wine in hand and Rubble cake for dessert.

Going Dutch

Well this week John and I entertained 6 lovely friends with a taste of Dutch the way 'Oma used to make it.'

We decorated the house with little trinkets from the native land; a windmill here, set of clogs there, and vases of tulips, everywhere.

The food was fun to plan and prepare. Chicken noodle soup to start, with Omas secret ingredient making it authentically dutch. Beef croquettes, rookworst sausage, stumpot ( a silverbeet potato concoction), eel, (yes, eel!) gerkins, silver onions, mustard and apple sauce to accompany.

Then came the dessert.

I had to fight for supremacy in this department as John bought out all his sweet treats that he was brought up on; biscotti covered in muisjes and vlok, tai tai, spek (scrummy soft sugary marshmellow), and paperkoek, all very attractively displayed on a platter. But what about the real dessert, I exclaimed!

I decided to google dutch cakes during the week and came across a Charlotte finger cake. Kahlua coffee mousse with cream and lady fingers. I made it on Friday and it didn't come out looking very attractive at all so I was convinced I had lost my touch with these cakes after last weeks effort too!

So I headed off to the Riccarton Market on Saturday morning and went straight to the lovely dutch lady who sells all manner of dutch desserts/cakes and bought an emergency cake....apple tart.

Anyway, back to the dutch evening and the table full of guests ready to sample the Mother Maderia cake of the week. I must admit, the mousse blended in very well with all of Johns sweet delights, and the apple tart made an appearance too. Every sat with very full bellies, satiated.

The night came to a close around 2 am after demolishing a bottle of very delicious Advocaat, served with bacardi, cream and lemonade!

Tot ziens!

P.S Last weeks cake was actually made correctly the first time.....the pan it was cooked in was too big therefore the cake looked like a flop! ha ha

If at first you don't succeed......

try, then try again!

This week is the Cancer society's appeal week with Daffodil day next Friday.

The Cancer society has been selling tea towels with a daffodil cake recipe from Alison Holst on it.

So I thought that would be the cake for this week.

I made it first on Sunday morning and things didn't feel as though they were going right. Sure enough it came out of the oven looking flat and it stuck to the pan!

Then I made it again in the afternoon and things didn't feel any better and sure enough it came out flat again (ha ha) . At least it never stuck to the pan.

I have seen a photo of how this cake should look on the notice board at the Cancer society rooms in Christchurch. I'll ring them tomorrow and chat with the very capable lady that made it. I believe she is from Timaru.

So watch this space for what is was that I did wrong!

Dinner Party Dessert

We had friends coming for dinner this weekend and so the cake of the week was to be dessert. So I was looking for something with texture, not too heavy and one that could be made the day before so that I wasn't stuck in the kitchen for the entire day slaving over a hot stove.

Out came the Harbour Kitchen Celebrating Lyttelton cook book, on page 87, Italian Ricotta Cake. I was a little bothered by the fact that the entire cake was made in a food processor. (I don't like using food processors and would much prefer using the trusty beater.) But anyway, I decided on this cake and sure enough in the recipe it said to make it the day before so that it can set.

The base of the cake is flour, ground almonds, brown sugar etc and then the centre is made up of Ricotta cheese, cream cheese, slivered almonds and large chunks of chocolate with a good dollop of coruba rum. (hence the name Italian cake, rum gives the taste of a tiramisu)

It went down reasonably well at dinner. In fact, it was hilarious as one mere male asked for an axe to chop into the outside...it was that hard! So to quote the same mere male....'hard case outsides with god-like innards'. I noticed that he was the one and only who managed to eat the crust in the end.

I served this with a dollop of cream on the side (as I seem to serve all my cakes lately!)

I recommend you make this cake if you have the Lyttelton cook book. Maybe be a little more light handed on the pulse button of your food processor when it comes to mixing the crumb base, that will result in the base being softer I think.

Just a little note on last weeks blog about the pumpkin pie. I emailed Kathy in Minnesota and asked her about some of the ingredients and their equivilant here in NZ. Pumpkin comes in a can in the states so we could cook the pumpkin by baking it dry, then mash it keeping it as dry as possible. Nutmeats are a mixture of nuts like walnuts, pecans etc. A stick of butter is 113.4 grams!

So there you go for another week. I am taking suggestions for next weeks creation, would love to hear from you.

American Inspiration

I got a lovely surprise this week when I received a parcel in the mail from my very lovely friend Kathy who lives in Minnesota USA.

It was a recipe book titled 'Best of the Best from Minnesota Cookbook'. There is a recipe for everything from Witches Brew (drink), Double Decker Knox Blox (dessert), Turkey soup to Corn Spoonbread! But since this blog is all about cakes, I went straight to the cake chapter.

What else is more American than Pumpkin Pie, but I freaked out when I saw the ingredients. I will need to check with Kathy if a can of Pumpkin is the same as mashed cooked pumpkin, and yellow cake mix is a betty crocker variety and that nutmeats is similar to walnuts!!

With the rugby on again this weekend, I thought the Prairie Beer Cake would be a good choice. It was made in a Bundt pan so was always going to look attractive when it gets turned out. I used Carona since that was the only beer in the house at the time. It could have done with a more gutsy beer....next time. It has dates and walnuts in it and was very tasty at half time of the rugby, with a dollop of whipped cream on the side.

There is plenty left for those passing this week.

(Richard and Leaanne had birthdays this weekend so I made them each a chocolate slice. Richard had raspberries and a lot of dark chocolate in his, while Leaanne had milk, dark and white chocolate in hers! )

Emma has done quite a bit of research this weekend and has found a website with extremely complicated cake recipes....she thinks I need to up my game and make some more challenging and exotic cakes. Ha ha...watch this space.