When one cake just isn’t enough!

The problem with making a cake and taking it to my parents house, is that my siblings eat everything within one afternoon. And I’m not talking about cupcakes – they wouldn’t even touch the sides! My dad complains that I should make at least two cakes whenever I come round for a Sunday roast- one for the day for everyone to demolish and and additional one for the fridge, for the week.

In this instance, it had been a while since I’d baked, there were bananas to be used up, a whole requests of cakes in my family back log and I figured I’d use a cream cheese frosting for everything in one go

Banana Cake with a chocolate cream cheese frosting

A banana loaf is always a good way to use up the bananas that are just starting to turn. My favourite thing is when the loaf comes out the oven, sliced, still a little bit warm and smothered in a chocolate spread. It’s so sticky and good.

Taking this inspiration, I re-worked into a cake form with a chocolate frosting.

I’m not a big fan of butter icing and prefer to work with a cream cheese. I knew  in this instance that it would also be suitable for my carrot and coffee cake.

The result was a nice, moist loaf with a hint of chocolate a raspberries to decorate. Out of the four cakes made, this was one of the quickest to be eaten!

Carrot and Cranberry cake with walnuts and  cream cheese frosting

As you know, I love to work with ginger and cinnamon -yummy gingerbread houses! I love how moist a carrot cake gets, mixed with the crunchy texture of the walnuts and the squidgy sultanas.

When making a personal carrot cake, two weeks previous to this bake-athon, I had a severe shortage of sultanas. I honestly thought it was going to be the end of the world….. and my carrot cake. I then stumbled across some dried cranberries in my cupboard. I soaked them in lemon, cranberry juice and sugar for a couple of minutes on a low heat and figured this would be a bit of an experiment. Oh my goodness, I have never looked back. The lemons made the cranberries sharp and sweet and they were fabulous, sticking out of the carrot cake in a good way and giving it a bit of a zing with every mouthful.

The other good thing about cranberries, is they look really pretty on top for decoration!

Coffee, walnut and chocolate liqueur cream cheese frosting

No offence to you coffee cake lovers out there….. but coffee cake is SO boring!

I really wasn’t looking forward to making a coffee cake – and when I’m not feeling it, not a lot of love goes into it. BUT,  it was a special request and I had already put it off for a good few weeks so…..I decided to spice it up a bit- with alcohol!

I got given some chocolate liqueur at Christmas – it’s usually used within a hot chocolate on a cold day! When I drink coffee, I like it with syrup or as a mocha. I figured an alcoholic mocha cake sounded amazing. And the best thing about using alcohol within a cake, as I know from making cocktail cupcakes, is that it matures over time.

Knowing that this would probably be ‘The Fridge Cake’, the idea of my dad eating a new piece over the week and it tasting stronger every time he took a piece tickled my humour senses! Again, I added the walnuts for decoration and because I had the ingredients available from my carrot cake (Had to try and keep it traditional somehow!) with added chocolate flakes like a cocoa dusting on my favourite type of coffee!

and just because it’s everyone’s favourite;

White chocolate and raspberry cake

(with a few added dried cranberries for decoration)

This cake, has become a staple part of my summer diet…. although not the diet where you lose weight!

Always a winner, the sour raspberries giving a plain sponge a fruity moist texture and covered in the sweet white chocolate. This was the second cake to be eaten the fastest and is always a request from my sister who loves white chocolate all year around!