The Cakes

I love baking. So it was no hardship for me that recently the boys had two a piece. Two parties each requires two cakes each. Why of course! (I am not forgetting the year that Isaac turned three and had about four birthdays throughtout the year, randomly, that my mum and I indulged him happily in (she likes baking too wouldn't ya know). This year they both knew exactly which of my cakes they wanted. For chocolate loving Felix it was of course Chocolate Cake (not just any chocolate cake, but I'll get back to that) and for Isaac it was is annual favourite: Honey cake.

Both cakes are rich, deluxe, special treat sort of cakes. Both have in common a super moist, morish crumb. The chocolate cake borders on fudge quite honestly. When I first discovered this chocolate cake I made it far far too often, any time anything remotely celebratory happened I rushed to the kitchen and began melting the Green & Blacks... hey he took his first step! First crawling upstairs! First time we noticed the blossom on the hawthorn tree, first time we rode in the new car..... er, yeah, you could say I rather like this cake. It's moistness comes from the lack of flour and ground almonds used instead, so a good alternative cake for those avoiding gluten. In the last few years I have found other cakes to delight in and this one has been saved for the birthdays and True special occasions. The recipe is from The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris, if you have ever read her novel Chocolate, you'll see why I had to buy her cookbook, if only for the chocolate section. And truly I have only skimmed the rest of the book, it's the chocolate recipes that have the crinkled and smudged pages.

Gateau Lawrence

180g dark - 70% cocoa chocolate, melted
175g butter, softened
125g sugar (I have sub'd maple syrup here instead on occasion, you'll need to use a half to 3/4 of a regular supermarket size bottle and add another 15 miuntes or so to the cooking time - the resulting cake is even moister and fudgier than the original)
200g of ground almonds
4 seperated eggs

~ Cream the butter and sugar, add the melted chocolate, using and electric whisk. Add the ground almonds and the egg yolks. Finally beat the whites of the eggs until stiff and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into a paper lined tin (a large circular one is best so the cake is kinda thin) and bake 150 deg. centigrade/gas 2 for about 35-40 mins. The edges should be crisping up but the centre should still have the hint of a wobble.

Serve with sweetened whipped cream and even frost the top with more melted chocolate. Why not! It hardly matters you've gone the whole hog in the chocolate department with this cake anyway...... :)

Honey Cake

350g softened butter
265g caster sugar
4 eggs
150g ground almonds
150g wholegrain spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
runny honey and flaked almonds

~ Cream, butter and sugar until really light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and really beat after each egg until ultra light and fluffy. Fold in almonds and flour and baking powder. Line the bottom of yur cake tin with paper and grease the whole tin and paper with butter. Pour in cake mixture, scatter with flaked almonds and bake at 160C/355F/Gas3 for about 45 mins. As soon as cake is out drizzle with the runny honey and spread over the cake until is disolves in - maybe use 3-4 tablespoons worth. Yum.

With this cake I made a Coconut Cream frosting (although it didn't need it at all, it's perfect as it is), just because it was requested.

Coconut Cream Frosting
Open a tin of coconut milk and using a spoon skim off the thick solid-ish cream that is in there. Maybe this might fill 1/2 to 3/4 of the tin if your'e in luck. Using an electric whisk beat this with a good squeeze of Agave nectar. Just keep tasting and adding until it tastes right.

The day after Isaac's birthday we made an orange cake (yeah I know you'd think we'd be fed up of cake by then but apperently not) and this was just perfect with it.