I found this tub of leftover Christmas cake on the side this morning. In the back of my mind I knew it was there but we still have a lump of the main one left so I’ve been ignoring it. I don’t make a cake usually as it always gets fed to the birds around now.
Well this year will be different. Bring on Pinterest. Unfortunately that was no help. I found a brownie Xmas cake recipe after much searching but it was tooth decayingly sweet. I know I’ll make my own……
Using the standard brownie recipe idea I melted 175g each of butter and chocolate. Beat 3 eggs together with 150g of sugar and stirred in the cooled chocolate mix.
To this I added 75g plain flour, 40g cocoa powder and 200g of crumbled Christmas cake. (The small cakes weighed 100g each it seemed, it wasn’t science!)
Gave it all a good mix and poured into a 20cm square cake tin. I baked at 160° for about 30 minutes. I can’t be more precise than that as I didn’t remember to set the timer. Moved straight on to the next thing and forgot them for a while.
I always like to make a number of things together, at the same time and in a total panic, when I bake. I tell myself it is to use the oven more efficiently but really I just love the buzz of being under pressure.
Hubby favourite cake is apricot and white chocolate flapjack. He perhaps wouldn’t choose the white chocolate part but anything and everything is improved by adding chocolate.
Flapjack is easy.
Mix together 5oz of oats, 2oz SR flour, 4oz sugar and as many chopped apricots and chocolate chips as you think looks good.
Stir in 1tbsp golden syrup melted with 4oz butter.
Plop it into the tin and pat down.
Well while stirring it together I had a eureka moment… Christmas cake.
So I made the same recipe again but crumbled in a Xmas cake instead of apricots and chocolate.
And then I added another because it looked a bit lacking and I had so many I can!!!
At that point I remembered the brownies and took them out. I turned up the oven to 180° and put in the flapjacks for 15 minutes.
Now i might work in a whirlwind of utensils, bowls and bother but I always wash up while the last thing is baking. My kitchen isn’t very big and I need all the space I can get for cooling the end result
I could and would put everything in the dishwasher. I have a belief that if something isn’t dishwasher safe it’s not the thing for me. However this bowl is the exception that breaks my rule.
Used by my mum and her mum before her. It holds history in its very existence. It makes me think of Sunday afternoons and making rock cakes, standing on a chair until I could reach the work surface unaided. Of my grandad showing me how to lift the flour and let it fall to rub in. Of my mum patiently washing and picking through the dried fruit before we used it. We made other things but rock cakes were my cakes and how very proud of them I always felt, as they sat on the plate at teatime.
If there’s any left this will be tonight’s tea time treat.
acquest13 