Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake

Another winner from Sweet and Simple Bakes! Doesn't just the name of it make you drool? If any of you are amateur bakers, and would like to try out some no-fail recipes, you simply have to come on over and join Maria and Rosie and all the rest of us at Sweet and Simple Bakes. Every single one of their bakes so far (over a year's worth of bakes) have been completely amazing!

In this bake, you first make a simple loaf cake with some orange zest for flavoring. Then you make tiny holes and drizzle orange syrup onto the cake and let it drip down into the cake...mmm!!! Then, if that's not enough to send you racing over to the kitchen, you add a topping of melted chocolate and sprinkles - yes, you simply have to add sprinkles, so that's not optional, though the recipe says it is. So I'm telling you, make this the next time you have company, and you're guaranteed to awe.

(Sorry about the bad photos, but I took these with my phone's camera because my regular one suddenly stopped working as we cut into it!)


Chocolate Orange Drizzle Loaf Cake
(recipe from Sweet and Simple Bakes)

For The cake
175g (6 oz) softened butter
175g (6 oz) caster (super fine) sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
175g (6 oz) self-raising flour, sifted
2 tbsp milk

For The Orange Syrup
Juice of 1 orange
100g (4 oz) granulated sugar

For The Topping
50g (2 oz) dark chocolate or milk chocolate – your choice
Sprinkles of choice (optional)

You will need a 900g (2 lb) loaf tin – greased with a little butter and lined with greaseproof paper or non-stick baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

In a mixing bowl, add the butter and sugar and beat together until light and fluffy in appearance. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well until fully incorporated. Add the orange zest, flour and milk and fold in gently with a spatula or large metal spoon. Turn into the prepared tin (I used a loaf pan that was a little big, so it came out pretty flat looking), smooth the top of the mixture and bake in the oven on middle shelf 35 -45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin. When cool make little holes in the cake with a skewer, (this is important for pouring the syrup onto the cake to ensure the syrup soaks in fully.)

For The Orange Syrup

Put the orange juice and granulated sugar into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil for a couple of minutes. Pour over the top of the cake. When all the juice has soaked in, carefully remove the cake from the tin.


For The Topping

Melt the chocolate by placing a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Once the chocolate has melted, pour over the top of the cake. Either smooth the top over with a spatula or make a little pattern with the prongs of a fork. Add sprinkles if desired, leave chocolate to set before cutting into the cake.

Bakewell Cake

So this month's Sweet and Simple Bakes' recipe was a Cherry Bakewell Cake. Maria and Rosie really do their homework and give us the most tried and tested easy bake recipes. And every single time, the recipe is a winner.

This time, though, it just didn't work for me and I have no idea why! Maybe one of you could tell me where I went wrong. I'm still posting it here because everyone loved the flavor of the cake - it just didn't look all that hot. See the S+SB website to see how this cake is supposed to look!

And another thing - I'm not a huge cherry person, actually I dislike cherries. So I went with the raspberry option that Rosie had given us. So I'm just going to call it a Bakewell Cake!


Bakewell Cake
(recipe from Sweet and Simple Bakes)

For the Cake:
8 oz Butter, well softened, + extra for greasing
8 oz Caster Sugar
4 oz ground Almonds
4 oz self-raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp almond extract or essence
4 large eggs
Pinch of salt

For The Filling & Top:
12 oz Cherry Jam/ Conserve (I used Raspberry Jam)
6 oz Icing Sugar
5-6 tsp Water or Lemon Juice (I used Lemon Juice)
1 tbsp flaked Almonds, lightly toasted

Mix all the ingredients for the cake together. Pour it into two 8 inch round sandwich tins.

Bake at 180 deg C for 30 minutes. It's done when a skewer comes out clean. Spread the jam on top of one of the cakes and sandwich them together.

Stir together the lemon juice and icing sugar until thick and creamy and pour over the cake. Top with the toasted almonds.


So everyone loved the cake, but I'll tell you what went wrong for me. The height of the cake was half what it was supposed to be. But the quantity of batter was so little that I realized that the two cakes would be really small.

And the icing just didn't become white and translucent - it kinda just blended into the cake. You could taste the icing but couldn't see it.


Thanks, Rosie and Maria!

Microwave Chocolate Cake

Sometimes you need cake. chocolate cake. And you need it now. For those times, this cake is just perfect! It's not the best cake, and it definitely isn't something you want to serve for company. But, hey, its great for that chocolate fix.

I first saw this cake on the blog, Dizzy Dee, and I knew I was going to make it right away. I took the laptop and went straight to the kitchen! Here it goes - be warned that its not the best cake texture-wise, but something that you might end up making more often than you should.


Microwave Chocolate Cake
(recipe from Dizzy Dee)

4 tbsp All-Purpose Flour
4 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa
1 Egg
3 tbsp Milk
3 tbsp Oil
1 Mug

Mix flour, sugar and cocoa in a mug. Spoon in 1 egg. Add the milk and oil and mix well.

Microwave on high for 3 minutes. It'll begin to rise and then settle down in the mug. Remove the cake from the mug onto a plate and enjoy!

We're into the 2nd week of the marathon and everyone's doing a fantastic job:
DK, Siri, Srivalli, Ranji, PJ, Curry Leaf, Medha, Priya, Bhawna, Raaji, Ruchii, Kamala, Roopa, Divya Kudua, Rekha, Divya, Lakshmi, Raaga, Lakshmi, Sripriya, Viji, Kamalika and Pavani.

Vanilla Apple Cake

Mmmm... There's nothing much to say when you're eating this cake - its just sooo sooo good that you're not really concerned about what to say about it! Another winner this month from Maria and Rosie of Sweet and Simple Bakes.


Vanilla Apple Cake
(recipe from S+SB)

9 oz (about 2 sticks) unsalted Butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
1 1/3 cups Caster Sugar
4 Eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour + 1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 small Apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
2 tbsp Demerara sugar
¼ tsp Cinnamon Powder

Heat the oven to 180C. Butter a cake tin and/or line with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla and beat together. Slowly add in the flour (be as gentle and quick as possible as the flour tends to weigh down the beautiful lightness of the creamed butter and sugar).

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin. Top with the apple wedges - sinking them in a little as you place them. Here's where you'll think oh-my-goodness there are too many apple wedges and not enough space, but they'll shrink and you'll be glad you added all the apples!

Sprinkle with the Demerara sugar and the cinnamon. Bake for about an hour or until the top is slightly browned and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.


Serve warm with vanilla ice cream (the vanilla ice cream is not optional!).

Victoria Sponge Cake

I've read about the Victoria sponge in lots of books, but never got a chance to eat it. I was glad that Sweet and Simple Bakes chose the sponge as its challenge for us novice bakers this month. I loved it and so did the family. It was soft, moist and delicious.

Victoria Sponge Cake (recipe from Sweet and Simple Bakes)

For the Sponge:
6 oz Butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups Caster Sugar
3 Eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour + 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 t Salt

For the Buttercream:
3 oz Butter
6 oz Icing Sugar
2 drops Vanilla Essence

Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
Cream together 6 oz butter at room temperature and 1 1/4 cups caster sugar. The texture should be smooth and creamy.
Add the beaten eggs a little bit at a time and mix very well after each addition.
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into another bowl.
Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture, folding it in carefully, to keep the mixture light and fluffy.

Pour into a large round cake tin or two smaller cake tins. Bake for 25-30 minutes until cake is golden.

If you made one large cake, cut it into half. I found the easiest way to do this is with a piece of string slid through the cake - knives just don't work since the cake will begin to crumble. Either way, let the cake completely cool before cutting.

Combine all the ingredients together and blend very well to make the buttercream. Spread one side of the cake with jam and the other with buttercream.



I spread half the cake with homemade plantain jam and the other half with blackberry preserve, and topped the jams with buttercream. Sandwich the two halves together. Mmm. Delicious.


Thanks, Rosie and Maria for another winner recipe!

Zebras and Leopards

I've been wanting to try making a Zebra Cake for the longest time. And then I tried it. And then I tried it again. And then again. And again. FOUR times!! Each time, something went wrong - when I fixed that, something else went wrong. And I now know the entire recipe in my head!

Here's my final attempt - and I thought it was pretty good. It's still not perfect - but the reason baffles me.

Zebra Cake
(I followed this recipe exactly)

Here you have the ingredients: Sugar, All-purpose Flour, Milk, Cocoa, Baking Powder, Oil and Eggs.


First beat the sugar and eggs together. Add the milk and oil and continue to blend well. Meanwhile, sift the flour and baking powder. Start adding the flour to the wet ingredients, little by little, until well combined. Do not over beat, and don't let those bubbles form as far as possible. Of course, since I was using a hand whip, the bubbles did form! Divide the dough into halves and add cocoa to one half.


Now comes the important part. In a buttered baking dish (I think you should use a round pan, though I tried both a round and a rectangular and didn't see much difference). First scoop about 3 tbsp or 1 ladle that holds about 3 tbsp of batter in the middle of the pan. Then pour the dark batter in the middle of the original batter. Here you go:

It will look like this when you're done:


Now bake for 40 mts at 180 deg C. And try not to peek, please!


When you cut it, you can see the beautiful stripes! Its really a gorgeous cake. Do you see the holes in mine? That's what happens if you have bubbles! It's still light and moist and delicious, though.



Leopard Cupcakes

Okay, now that we're done with the Zebra, let's move onto the Leopard, shall we? It's just that I had some batter left over from the above process. So I poured two ladlefuls into a muffin tin and baked it (one ladle of the regular batter and one of the cocoa). We got ourselves some spots.


Aren't the felines lovely? :)

My daughter was delighted with her "zoo" dessert! And now that we have stripey zebras and spotted leopards, she requests a giraffe next!

Yogurt Cake with Berries

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a very long time. When I was doing a bit of "spring cleaning" yesterday, I found this and almost sprinted to the kitchen, wondering why I hadn't bothered to make it all this while. Its one recipe where you will almost definitely have all the ingredients on hand and it promised to be delicious.


Yogurt Cake with Berries
(original recipe from here)

2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
a handful of mixed berries

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C.

Combine yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil in a bowl until completely mixed.

Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda together.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually until well combined. Sprinkle the berries on top - they will gradually sink into the cake as it bakes.

Pour into a round tin and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Absolutely perfect, soft and delicious.

This is also off to dear Siri for her Yogurt event - can't wait for the round-up!