Lemon, Coconut and Raspberry Loaf.

I've recently been planting lots of lovely flowers in my garden and it's starting to look so pretty but one thing I've kind of abandoned this year is my vegetable patch. This was due to the fact that in late spring/ early summer we had such bad weather that i didn't bother planting any seedlings for fear they wouldn't survive.

Usually I'd cut the raspberry bush right back and plant a few vegetables but because this year I haven't got anything else except herbs growing I let the raspberry bush just take over. Now after a few weeks of sun I find myself with loads of raspberry's, more than I know what to do with. When that happens I quickly start scanning my cookbooks for all recipes involving raspberry's.

Any way all this reminded me of a cake I baked a while back. The cake itself started as a coconut lemon loaf however I found myself with raspberry's and thought that the flavour would suit perfectly as an addition. I really like raspberry and chocolate together but the pairing of raspberry and lemon I find so refreshing and perfect and the coconut just gives it an extra bit of flavour. 

Here it is : 

I had a slight issue with my raspberry's sinking to the bottom of the cake, however this really didn't take away from the flavour and tossing them in some flour before adding may prevent this. 

and here's how it's made: 

Lemon , Coconut and Raspberry loaf : 

for the cake: 

120g Butter 

200g Caster Sugar

2 tbsps Fresh Lemon Juice 

2 Eggs 

200g Self raising Flour.

Pinch of Salt 

120ml Semi skimmed milk

4 tbsps Desiccated Coconut 

1- 2 tsps grated Lemon Peel

a couple of handfuls of fresh Raspberry's  

For the lemon icing: 

3 Tbsps Icing Sugar 

2 - 3 Tbsps Lemon Juice 

Extra Desiccated Coconut for sprinkling. 

Pre heat the oven to 180 Deg C. Grease and line the bottom of a loaf tin.  

Cream the butter and sugar together until combined, beat in the lemon juice. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sieve the flour and salt and add this to the butter mixture alternately with the milk. stir in the desiccated coconut and lemon peel.

Toss the raspberry's in a little flour and gently stir these into the mixture. 

Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool slightly in the tin for around 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

For the topping, stir the lemon juice into the icing sugar to make a runny (but not too runny ) icing to brush 

over the cake. Sprinkle more coconut over the top, then let the icing harden before slicing to serve. 

And that's it! 

I'm off to find more ingredients with raspberry's before they take over my kitchen.

Cupcake Kris xxx

Fathers day, Baby shower cupcakes, giant cupcake wedding and a very rude hen night cake.

As ever I have been busy baking away for orders, there have been lots of events recently and even though in between I have had time to bake a few things for myself (almond and white chocolate biscotti and tea cake to name a couple) I haven't had the time to upload any of the recipes, but I promise I will blog one of those recipes this week .

In the mean time I thought I'd show you some orders I've had recently.

First I had an order for a wedding at the beginning of June that was for 100 Cupcakes and one giant cupcake. This would be the first giant cupcake I made so I had a practice a few weeks before to get the quantities and timings right but I was very pleased with the end result, here it is.

I was made up with the mould once I'd ironed out a few kinks and quantity stresses. I usually do not like working with silicone moulds, however I think me and silicone have put our differences aside now I can finally confidently produce a cake that comes out cleanly and cooks evenly (after google helped.) Any way the mould was a bargain, reduced to just £1 at a local discount store.

I covered the bottom of the cake in roll out fondant and then iced the top with rose swirls, then filling in any gaps.

Then there was fathers day, my orders for this were much more straight forward:

I had to borrow this photo, as I forgot to take one of the cakes set up.

I also had an order for some baby shower cupcakes in both pink and blue:

For these I made little sugar paste feet, bibs, bottles and Baby signs. I really like the feet and they're super easy to make too.

And lastly I had a very interesting order for a hen night, I actually watched a tutorial of how to shape this cake in the break room in work and got some interesting looks from nosey people trying to see what I was watching. Any way, any children look away now:

I'm not sure I'd be thrilled on receiving such a cake however the  hen party were glad and it was exactly what they wanted. The "hair" is piped with a multi holed nozzle for that real look. It was definitely one of the most interesting orders I've had and everyone I told about it actually couldn't wait to see the finished errr......piece

Any way on that note I think I'll leave it at that and update with new recipes later in the week

until then, bye for now

Cupcake Kris
xxx