RASPBERRY AND PINK FIZZ DRIZZLE BUNDT CAKE

For our most recent meeting of Loire Valley CCC the theme was chosen by our host and was “What’s your tipple?”.  For this Nick had an urge to bake a champagne cake.  Then he remembered that as we were in the Loire Valley the best thing to use would be the local fizz.  Not far from where we live there are vineyards and wine growers that make the most delicious sparkling wines.  Very drinkable and a fraction of the price of real champagne.

Personally, I love champagne and believe you can tell the difference.  If anyone would like to challenge me to a blind tasting of a couple of champagnes and a couple of good sparkling wines, I would be happy to oblige.  As long as you buy!  Equally I love the Loire Valley sparkling wines and there are plenty of them around here to choose from.  If we have been drinking the local fizz for a week or two and then treat ourselves to opening a bottle of champagne, I always find myself saying, ah yes, champagne, it is different.

It’s also an excellent painkiller.  If you have back trouble a couple of glasses will make the pain and muscle spasm so much better – I know, I have researched it fully!

Nick adapted a recipe that he found on the internet to make his cake.  The only problem was that it stuck to the tin, in spite of a generous coating of cake release spray.  We think it was the raspberries that glued the cake to the tin where they were on the surface.  He carefully removed the pieces of cake that were left in the tin and placed them in the gaps in the cake.  With a strategic drizzling of pink fizz icing nobody could tell!

It tasted lovely.  The flavour of the raspberries was strong and you could definitely taste the fizz in the icing.

This month’s Love Cake Challenge from Jibber Jabber is “I’ll drink to that”.  You can see the details here.

This month’s Teatime Treats Challenge from Lavender and Lovage is “Regional and Local recipes and ingredients”.  You can see the details here.

Ingredients

For the cake

225g butter, softened, or Lurpak Spreadable

300g golden caster sugar

6 eggs

350g self raising flour

6 tblsp pink fizz

150g fresh raspberries (or frozen, thawed)

1 vanilla pod, seeds

For the drizzle

6 tblsp pink fizz

6 tblsp granulated sugar

For the icing

6 tblsp pink fizz

1 tblsp icing sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Grease a large Bundt tin with cake release spray or melted butter.

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a little flour if the mixture begins to curdle.  Add the pink fizz.

Fold in the flour, followed by the vanilla seeds and raspberries.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin and bake for 45-60 minutes until the cake looks browned, begins to pull away from the tin and passes the skewer test.

While the cake is cooking, prepare the drizzle by gentling heating the pink fizz and sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved.

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack.  Prick holes in the top of the cake using a skewer and pour the drizzle gently over the cake.  Leave to cool.

Mix the icing sugar with enough pink fizz to make a runny icing and drizzle over the cooled cake.  Add sprinkles and/or glitter if you like.

Cuts into 16-20 slices.

SPICED PARSNIP AND MINCEMEAT CAKE

This is a cake I have had in mind to bake since just after Christmas, when I was looking at some unused parsnips and a part jar of mincemeat and wondering what I could do with them.



In the end, the parsnips got used in the usual way but I was determined not to waste the mincemeat so it came across the channel with us to France last month.  I knew that sooner or later my will power would fade (New Year resolutions never last long in our house) and I would bake a cake.



I have made cakes using parsnips before and they were lovely.  The idea of adding mincemeat was just a whim, a way to use up the few spoonfuls of mincemeat that were not much use for anything else except to perk up a cake.  And this was no ordinary mincemeat, it was enhanced with chopped apples, orange zest and brandy for my mince pies and way too good to throw out or leave to go past its best at the back of the fridge.



I was also keen to have a try with my new cake mould, one with a perfect design for Valentine's Day which is only a few days away.  This is a silicone mould that I got some years ago but never used.  It was then packed and stored along with so many of our possessions for the move to France.  With the major building work over I am now unpacking all the bags and boxes and restoring our stuff to their rightful place in the house – something that is an absolute joy as long forgotten bits and pieces appear from the depths of a cardboard box, like this cake mould.  This particular box was labelled “last box downstairs” so I had very little idea of what was in it.



For my cake I adapted a recipe on the Sainsbury’s website which you can see here, simply switching the mincemeat for the apples.  I also used a handful of pecans left over from one of those Christmas food gifts and also added a splash of milk to make the mixture slightly less stiff.

The cake was delicious.  A really nice blend of spices, perfect for the time of year – we’re all focussed on spring being just around the corner but the reality is that it’s cold, wet and windy outside and the warmth of spices still go down a treat.  It had a nice crust, a lovely even crumb and went really well with a cup of tea in front of the fire while it was blowing a hoolie outside.

I’m linking this post to this month’s Love Cake theme from Jibber Jabber UK which is “the month of cake” – apparently February was known as Solmonath to the ancient Anglo Saxons, which means the month of cake according to the Venerable Bede.  You can read all about it here.

Also to this month’s Simply Eggcellent theme proposed by Dom of Bellau Kitchen is “anything goes”.  You can read about it here.

Ingredients

300g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp salt

200g light muscovado sugar

4 eggs

200 ml sunflower oil

1 large parsnip, weighing about 200g, peeled and grated

4 dessert spoons mincemeat

60g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

1 tblsp milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160° fan / gas mk 4.  Liberally butter a large Bundt cake tin or mould. (You could use a 2lb loaf tin as in the original recipe.)

Sift the flour, salt and spices into a large bowl.  Stir in the sugar.

Beat the eggs and oil together and add to the flour mixture.  Mix well together then mix in the grated parsnip and mincemeat.  Add the milk plus a little more if needed to make the mixture less stiff.

Drop spoonfuls into the prepared tin or mould and bake for 25 minutes.  Then reduce the oven temperature by 10° or 1 mk and bake for a further 20 – 25 minutes until done. 

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out to cool on a rack completely.  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 10 – 12 slices.