It's been rather a long time since I've posted and for that I am very sorry. You see, I haven't been spending much time in the kitchen of late. Quite apart from the fact that our Christmas tends to spent at other people's houses, I took a bit of a tumble down the stairs in December and I'm still suffering. The result of which is that Ed is doing more of the culinary tasks, 5:2 has been temporarily abandoned because I can't take painkillers on an empty stomach and the blogging has gone by the wayside.
I do however have a few recipes to share that I made a while back that are certainly worth sharing so the next few posts will be from those archives instead. Since it's been so long, I reckon you ought to get two recipes for the price of one this week and the theme is baking, because theres not much that cheers me up more than a slice of cake and a cup of tea : )
The first recipe is for these little squares of super moist and ridiculously moreish cakey goodness. The “Pumpkin Pie Spicing” is ideal for this time of year, warm and inviting and the orange zest freshened up what could have been a rather rich icing!
For the Cake:
1. Cream together 200g unsalted butter and 200g light brown sugar until it's light and fluffy.
2. Beat in 300g pumpkin or butternut squash purée (sweeten this with honey if necessary, it will depend entirely on the pumpkin or squash that you use)
3. Alternately beat in 2 medium eggs and a mix of dry ingredients which includes 300g self raising flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp all spice. By this I mean, beat in an egg then follow with half the dry ingredients, then repeat.
4. Fold in 150g roughly chopped pecans.
5. Transfer to a greased and lined 20cm square tin and pop into an oven that's been preheated to gas mark 4.
6. After about 40 minutes the cake should have risen nicely and taken on a lovely golden colour. Insert a skewer and if it comes out clean it's done. That said, it depends on the moisture in your purée so it may well need a few more minutes. If that's the case but you don't want it to brown any more then a sheet of tin foil over the top will solve that problem while you leave it in the oven.
7. Leave it to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.
For the Frosting
1. It couldn't be simpler, just beat together about 250g sieved icing sugar, a tub of marscapone cheese, a dash of milk and the zest of an orange. Feel free to vary the amount of sugar according to how stiff your looking to get the frosting, it will also vary between brands of marscapone.
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