Birthday cake
February 9, 2012
on Twitter I see that one British cookery writer has been told by his publisher not to publish recipes online. I guess they feel that people would see no reason to buy the book itself. Of course it would be daft to post great quantities of any book, for free, but I think that giving readers a taste of what lies between the pages is a rather good thing: like a film trailer at the cinema. The wider issue I suppose is the threat that the internet, e-readers and so on, pose to the sales of books in their traditional form. I think there’s room for all kinds of reading media, but I could not be without my collection of sometimes dog eared and kitchen worn cook books. Together with the familiarity of its and looks and touch (flicking through pages is part of the experience) a beautifully written and put together book, gives me the same sense of pleasure as wearing a favourite frock.
So, here’s a another glimpse of deliciousness from my new book, a sponge recipe for birthday cake. (It’s in the Summer section, filled with jam and cream and decorated with rose petals.) This one is a chocolate covered version, my daughter’s 18th Birthday request, and I happen to have a couple of roses left over from a shoot so can do the rose petal idea, too.
sponge
250g butter
250g caster sugar
5 large eggs beaten
250 g self raising flour
ch0colate butter cream
150g butter cut into chunks
200g icing sugar, sifted
200g good plain chocolate broken into pieces
Whilst I measure out, beat and stir, Gulliver’s travels is on radio 4, and I imagine that my cake would amount to the proportions of a small house it if were in Lilliput.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy; beat in the eggs fold in the flour with a metal spoon. Pour the mixture into 2 well greased 18cm tins ) and place in the middle of a preheated oven, 180C, for about 40 minutes. Test with a skewer , if it comes out clean, it is done
Turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool. For the chocolate butter cream gently melt the butter and chocolate in a pan and stir in the icing sugar. Beat until smooth, and add a few drops of water if very stiff . Sandwich the sponges together with a layer of chocolate buttercream and use a palette knife to smooth it over the outside. Decorate with rose petals.- they’re edible, of course.
Comments (5) Tags: home cooking, Simple
What a gorgeous cake, so much more appealing than a shop bought, mass produced one. I’ve made the sponge version from your book and it was delicious but may have to try this chocolate version this weekend . Many happy returns to your daughter.
Comment by Gail | February 10, 2012 @ 8:30 amWow, that is one stylish cake.
Comment by Andrea Farmer | February 10, 2012 @ 9:33 amGlorious looking cake. Great taste, too, I’ll wager. And I’m with you on the relative virtues of online and printed recipes. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find and print-out a recipe discovered on one of the scandalous number of blogs/sites I visit. But I’d be lost without my cookbooks. They were among the first things (after toothbrush and such) that I replaced after Hurricane Katrina. Thanks for sharing another one of yours. Have I told you lately that you rock? You do.
Comment by Jean Prescott | February 13, 2012 @ 10:52 pmI can’t wait to try this recipe. I have a special occasion in a couple of weeks, and will definitely be trying this!
Comment by Chiara Pannozzo | February 14, 2012 @ 9:20 pmFabulous cake, my daughter is 18 on Monday and has requested a chocolate cake – this fits the bill perfectly and looks glamorous enough for an 18 year old.
As a blogger I am guilty of putting recipes on my blog of things that I have made and stupidly thought that as long as I gave the book’s and author’s names it was okay! I obviously wasn’t trying to pass recipes off as my own either. I found out recently that that’s not the case. I wouldn’t be without my cookery books and there are several books that I have bought only because I read about them on blogs, so I suppose it works both ways – your books jump out at me because of their beauty, but other books have no photographs to tempt the reader and as I said, some books would not have appealed to me if I hadn’t read about them on a blog.
I love your blog – it too is beautiful like your books.
Comment by Jennifer | February 24, 2012 @ 11:45 am