Apple and Blackberry Tray Bake

There’s so many scrummy blackberries around at the moment and they’re delicious when combined with apples, cinnamon and nutmeg. This tray bake combines all of these things and it’s perfect for a chilly Sunday morning with a hot mug of coffee.

The mixture is quite dense but rises in the oven to make a yummy, light, fruity cake whilst the Demerara sugar on top gives it a lovely little crunch.

Makes 12 squares:

450g Bramley apples

150g blackberries

Juice of ½ lemon

225g butter, softened

280g golden caster sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

350g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 grated whole nutmeg

Demerara sugar, to sprinkle

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 27cm x 20cm rectangular tin with baking paper.
2. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples and squeeze the lemon juice over.
3. Put the butter, caster sugar, eggs, vanilla bean paste, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and the grated nutmeg into a large bowl and beat until smooth.
4. Spread half the mixture into the pre-lined tin. Arrange half the apples and blackberries over the batter, then repeat the layers so that the fruit is proudly displayed on top.
5. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and bake for 45 minutes until golden and baked through.
6. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, turn out of the tin and remove the paper.

Lemon and blueberry cupcakes

I refuse to accept that Autumn is on its way after the lovely summer we’ve had in London. And these little cupcakes are making the colder days just that little bit more bearable…

By plonking blueberries into the bottom of the batter, you get a lovely blueberry jam that forms with the zesty lemon cake. It is de-lish.

The best thing about these little pretties though is the cheesecake frosting. A mix of cream cheese, butter, sour cream and icing sugar, words cannot describe how good it is! A little naughty, but hey, blueberries are one of your five a day, right?

Makes 12 cupcakes:

125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
100g self raising flour (sifted)
2 tbsp of milk
2 lemons

For the frosting:

200g cream cheese
25g butter
1 tbsp sour cream
200g icing sugar

1. Heat the oven to 180°C and set out 12 cupcake cases in a muffin tray. Drop 3 blueberries into each of the cases.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy. Add the eggs, flour, milk, the zest of the two lemons and little squeeze of juice. Fold the batter until smooth.
3. Spoon 1 tbsp of mixture into each case, over the blueberries, and bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes.
4. Once cool, beat the cream cheese, butter and sour cream in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the icing sugar until smooth.
5. Dunk a spoonful of icing onto each cupcake and top with blueberries.

Chocolate owl cake

So, this week was my lovely boyfriend, Will’s birthday. Of course, any excuse to try out a new idea for a cake excites me very much and this is my favouritist yet! His dad gave him a toy owl when …

Raspberry and lemon polenta cake

The prettiest cake of them all – raspberry and lemon polenta cake with a lemon curd topping. This is such an easy little cake to make and it’s very delicious too. Here’s the recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3807/raspberry-and-lemon-polenta-cake Instead of making the cream …