Comfort food means cake!

The nights are starting to draw in, which means that, yes, Winter is on the way. And if you are anything like me at times like these I need comfort food. This can be in the form of a roast chicken dinner, a big mug of soup, hot chocolate or....cake. 

Yes, I love cake. 

Victoria sponge, lemon drizzle, chocolate fudge and apple. I love it all.

Yesterday my darling sister sent me some cupcakes from Butterfly Bakery – they were cookies and cream and they have half an Oreo cookie on the top with the rest crumbled inside, with crunchy and creamy frosting on top. Mmmmmmm...

Image from butterflybakery.co.uk

 

(This is the same company that we used for our wedding cakes – more on this in later posts!)

I would like to share with you a recipe for a cake that I have made on a few occasions, which is always eaten amid cries of “This is amazing! So tasty! Please can I have the recipe?!” It is for a Blueberry Soured Cream Cake.

Ingredients

·         175g/6oz butter, softened

·         175g/6oz golden caster sugar

·         3 large eggs

·         225g/8oz self-raising flour

·         1tsp baking powder

·         2tsp vanilla extract

·         142ml carton soured cream

·         3 x 125g punnets blueberries

FOR THE FROSTING

·         200g tub soft cheese (Philadelphia)

·         100g/4oz icing sugar

Method

      1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4/fan oven 160°C. Butter and line the base of a 23cm/9in round cake tin. Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla in a bowl. Beat for 2-3 minutes until pale and well mixed. Beat in 4 tablespoons soured cream, then stir in half the blueberries.

2. Tip the mixture into the tin and level. Bake for 50 minutes, or until it feels firm to the touch and springs back when lightly pressed. Cool for 10 minutes, then take out of the tin and peel off the paper. Leave to finish cooling.

3. Beat the soft cheese with the icing sugar and the remaining soured cream until smooth and creamy. Spread over the top of the cooled cake and scatter with the remaining blueberries. The cake will keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

Nicki dishing up

I made this for my sister’s birthday recently and it went down very well, as you can see in the photos! This cake is so moist – and is healthier than a lot of other cakes because there is no double cream, and I’m sure that the blueberries count towards your five a day!

Enjoy!

Traditional, different or...a compromise?

Will you want to try something a little different?

Nowadays you can get married almost anywhere: in a church or other house of worship, a hotel, on a beach, abroad, on a boat, underwater or even on a rollercoaster. So how do you decide which one is for you? First have a think about how you view your wedding – do you want it to have a fun-filled party atmosphere, or would you prefer the more traditional, serious feel?

There is a tendency to steer towards the side of traditional because ‘that’s just the way it’s done’, and it is all too easy to be swept along in the current as soon as you start to plan for the day. So, before you start planning, STOP for a moment:

         -  Have a talk with your fiancé about what you don’t want, as these ideas will usually be more established within each of your minds than what you do want. (Hopefully you will find that you each don’t want the same things!)

         - Think about other weddings you have been to before and pick out the elements that you liked

        -  Are you in a position that yours or your fiancé’s parents will have a say in your day? If so, what are they likely to expect?

     - Do you both like to try new things and branch out? You could consider a Handfasting or a Medieval ceremony

        - Are you both from different religious backgrounds? Will you need a fusion of 2 very different kinds of tradition? Or, instead, 2 completely different ceremonies in 2 different countries?

But, whatever your situation and preference, remember that there will always have to be a compromise somewhere along the line, whether it be on your part or your other half’s.

For example: When sitting in a sauna in a ski resort in France and first talking about my wedding with my brand new fiancé it went something like this:

Chris: “So, how do you see our wedding being?”

Me: (After a giggle of excitement) “Well....we could go abroad somewhere and get married on a beach at sunset, just us and a few close friends. How about you?”

Chris: “I want a really big party near home.”

Me: “Oh.”

What we ended up doing was unsurpassable for us so I am glad that I compromised on that one!

I thought that I would like a beach wedding, somewhere exotic

Your ideas will evolve and morph into your eventual plan, and it may end up being something completely different to what you had dreamed. Have fun with it and think it through before you do anything else such as seeing venues or looking at dresses.

Above all, remember, that it is yours and your partner’s day. 

So, what are you planning and what have you always dreamed?