What Katie Ate by Katie Quinn Davies is the featured book on the Cookbook Guru this month. I made Katie’s Rosemary and Blood Orange Cake. It turned out pretty well, despite some massive hesitations on my part.
If you are not familiar with Katie Quinn Davies, Ladyredspecs of Please Pass The Recipe wrote a great post on her background and work here.
One of the issues she mentions with the recipe she tried, a carrot cake that was definitely on my list to make, is a certain vagueness Katie has around specific quantities of some ingredients. This made me chuckle because only a few days before I’d had a very intense (and hilarious) discussion on just that point and it involved rosemary, one of the key ingredients in this cake.
I mentioned I was thinking of making this cake to the work girls. One of them visibly paled. “Go easy on the rosemary” she said. She then told us this awful story of how she had made a rosemary panna cotta for a dinner party and it turned out terribly.
“People were gagging, ” she told us. “The rosemary was soooo strong”.
We asked how much she put in. “Four sprigs” she said. There was then one of those talks which only happens when you really don’t want to go back to work. How big is a sprig? She thought it was the size of the stick you get in the pack from the supermarket. I think it is something about the size of your little finger. One of the girls thought it was about the size of the tip of your little finger. The internet was not really helpful. So we never really got an answer. She used four sprigs of rosemary in her gag inducing dish.
I got home and checked Katie’s recipe. It called for three sprigs.
So what to do? It was less than the panna cotta’s four sprigs and my idea of a sprig was smaller than my friend’s. But all of a sudden three sprigs seemed like a lot. Rosemary is a strong flavour. I really didn’t want people gagging over my cake.
Aarrggghhhhhh!!!!!
In the end I gave in to fear and used two sprigs. And, as one of my friends commented “You can’t even taste the rosemary”. You could taste it could but it was faint. I should have trusted Katie, I think three sprigs would have been about right. And a more exact measure of rosemary would have been ideal!
The Rosemary and Blood Orange cake looked lovely. However, my version was quite bland. This was more than likely my fault for being a coward with the rosemary; it certainly would have been a bit more interesting if that flavour had been stronger.
It was a shame because the orange flavour was pleasant and the structure of the cake was great – the crumb was good, it was moist on the inside and golden on the outside. It just needed a little something…possibly another sprig of rosemary for it to level up from being a decent, if ordinary cake to something spectacular.
The cake keeps really well but the rosemary kind of works against it – after a few days it is hard to tell if those little green flecks are rosemary or teeny specks of mould.
I would like to say I would try this cake again but currently my spreadsheet of cakes to make contains 500+ recipes. So, let’s say I bake a cake every week, which I don’t and this goes to the back of the queue, that would mean baking it again in about ten years.
Actually, that seems about right. Let’s catch up in 2025 for an update on this!
Katie’s recipe, and her stunning photo of this cake can be found here.
They say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you
Hey there
So yes, it was my birthday…and I made us all a cake. And, oh boy, what a cake. Just in case you thought that after that weird stroking meat hand we were done with Margaret Fulton? No way. No how. Nyet.
Birthday Cake
Because I saved the best for last. Because back in the 60’s Margaret Fulton made a very special cake. Which I totally copied for my birthday. And it was awesome.
What made it so good?
The burnt sugar cake? Incidentally a first for me (and utterly delicious)…
Beatles Cake 2
The caramel icing?
That it came with four….huh…maybe fab four friends to help get the party started?
Beatles Cake4
Yes, I made The Beatles Cake!!!! Which of course, you already knew if you read the heading so my attempt at suspense was all for nought.
Here is Margaret Fulton’s original version, made back in the day.
And here is mine:
beatles cake5
I think I did a pretty good job of this. I was very pleased with my Beatle cookies. Dare I say they may possibly even look slightly more like their counterparts than Margaret’s original? And I know they’re not going to win any form of identikit prize and it may not be the face of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich but it’s almost recognizably The Beatles. If you squint. And look from far away…
Beatles Cake – John
I found the recipe here, although the burnt sugar cake is also included in the Margaret Fulton cookbook.
I changed it only slightly, I used the same icing pen for the eyes as I used to pipe the yeah, yeah, yeah biscuits and I rolled my liquorice flat (9-10 seconds in the microwave and it became soft enough to roll out). Then I cut the hair shapes out with a pair of scissors.
Beatles Cake – Paul
Also, the template in the link did not work so I had to make my own face templates. I looked at a few things and I decided my best option was actually to use some of the images I found looking under Beatles cartoons. I printed them, cut them out, then cut around them to get the face shapes.
I felt very sorry for Ringo. The original recipe called for a peanut for each of the other Beatles’ noses and THREE cashews for Ringo’s! Too cruel Margaret, too cruel. I used a whole peanut for Ringo and a half peanut for the others.
Beatles Cake – Ringo
To be honest with you I did not think I could pull this one off. There were so many points of worry – the shape of the cookies, decorating them, the right amount of burnt for the burnt sugar cake, the caramel icing. This whole thing was FRAUGHT with a lack of confidence in myself more than any real complexity in the cooking. I mean it wasn’t the easiest thing I have ever made but it also was not as hard as I made it out be in my head.
Beatles Cake – George
The secret was like most things to give myself plenty of time and to break the recipe into little pieces. I baked the cookies on Friday night, baked the cake on Saturday and did the icing and all the cookie decorations on Sunday. For me this was about right. I think trying to do more would have lead to madness.
Did I mention this was delicious? And in the end….haha…worth all the bother. Margaret Fulton sure knew how to make a cake! It was also HUGE.
But only fitting this time round to finish some words from my favourite Beatle, George Harrison:
All the world’s a birthday cake,
So take a piece….but not too much
My friend Sara recently sat, and passed with flying colours, her Australian citizenship test. By way of celebration, she asked me to bake her a cheesecake. Sara has asked me many times to make her a cheesecake and, to date this has not happened. This time was no exception
“In honour of your new Australianness I will make you a Skippy* Cake” I said.
There was a long pause. Then.
“What’s a Skippy cake?”
That night I emailed her this picture of a Skippy Cake which is from “The Party Cookbook” from 1971, edited by Ann Marshall and Elizabeth Sewell.
The next morning she sent me this:
Well, never let it be said that I’m the type of gal who goes around promising to make people Skippy Cakes and not delivering, so, here it is Sara, your very own Skippy Cake!
Skippy Cake 2
Actually, rewind and delete that. I am exactly the kind of gal who promises a Skippy Cake and does not deliver because sadly, Sara works in our Canberra Office and I am in Melbourne. Technically, yes that 1400 kilometre round trip is do-able in a weekend. But so is an ultra-marathon. And I’m not doing one of them either!
The Skippy Cake and the Mushroom Cake I made a few weeks ago got me thinking back to the awesome cakes my mum used to make me.
There was this when I was….hmmm….how old? Four? Six? If only it was completely obvious what year I was celebrating….
Five Cake
And she crocheted that purple dress for me too!
A few years later and I got my very own Dolly Varden! The utter joy of this was hard to describe. And her skirt is the exact same colour as my 5 year old birthday dress!
Dolly Varden
It’s just a shame you can’t see the detail in the dress. It was gorgeous! And every rose, every detail hand made! There was one to top that too. One year she made me a.market barrow full of fruit and vegetables and flowers. So imagine this:
But in cake and LOADED with vegies, fruit and flowers. Hundreds of teeny hand made fondant apples and roses and oranges and eggplant, bananas and tulips, pumpkins and tomatoes…it was loaded! And how did we repay her hours and hours of painstaking work? By not taking a single damn photo.
How much do we suck? We are the worst family in the world. Seriously.
So, filled with nostalgia, it was it was hardly surprising that my eye was drawn to this in my local supermarket on the weekend:
The cover calls it Australia’s most famous children’s cake book. Others go as far as to call it the “best book ever written in this country”.
And you know, there’s not that many children’s cake books that have a comedy routine and a song dedicated to them.
So fancy a peek at some of my faves?
For the budding artist there is a paint palette:
Got a mini-maestro in the house ? How about a piano cake? Can you believe it? A freaking piano! Can you see why this is Australia’s most famous children’s cake book?the best book ever written in this country? the best book ever written?
And the one I always wanted and never got. The Pool Party cake. If I didn’t already have an AMAZING cake figured out for my own birthday this year, I would be making this one. Next year for sure!
Pool Party Cake
I mean they’re no Skippy cakes but they are all kinds of awesome.
Not all is wonderful though. There is a very cryptic message in the forward where editor Pamela Clarke advises that “four of your little friends are missing”. I really want to know what those four missing cakes are. Obviously something nowadays seen to be massively politically incorrect – my money is on at least one Golliwog. It’s certainly not gender based stereotypes because the book is full of them. The section on boys cakes has 3 cars, a rocket and a helicopter. The girl’s cakes have a sewing machine, a stove and a dressing table. It would really piss me off except that stove cake is just adorable!
Stove Cake
Then, there is some stuff that borders on the downright creepy. Take this thing, called a Mary Jane, which looks like it should be the leading role in a horror film:
Mary Jane Cake
And surely you’d only make the Happy Clown if you wanted to psychologically scar your kids for life.
Happy Clown
But then clowns totally creep me out anyway. This is how much. You know that actor Brian Dennehy? I watched him in a movie where he played John Wayne Gacy aka The Clown Killer. This sounds like he killed clowns but he actually dressed up as a clown and killed young boys. Lots of young boys. And then buried them in the walls of his house. Since seeing that, I’ve never been able to watch anything with Brian Dennehy in it again. Because in my mind, he is a creepy clown serial killer. Which I’m sure he isn’t. I’m sure he’s a lovely man. But that movie scarred me. Don’t take my word for it. Watch this. And tell me it doesn’t give you the screaming heebie-jeebies. Mute your sound though, I don’t know what that noise is but it’s awful. The entire movie can also be found on You Tube if you want the full extent of the horror.
What? How did we get onto serial killing clowns? We’re meant to be talking about cake dammit. Children’s cakes in general. Skippy Cake in particular. Here is the recipe which I followed pretty much exactly. It’s a really nice butter cake even if you don’t want to go the full Skippy. Do try the toasted coconut over the icing though, that was delicious.
You don’t have to use all that food colouring. You could puree some raspberries for the pink cake. I didn’t even bother with the yellow colouring in the icing because kangaroos are brown or grey not yellow. I added some cocoa powder to the icing mix to make it brown but the coconut pretty much covered it all up anyway. And remember when I destroyed that curry with the bright green pandan essence? No you don’t because that’s a kitchen nightmare I’m saving for a special occasion. Well that’s what I used to make the grass.
The hardest part was making the kangaroo template:
Skippy Cake Template
The actual cake was lovely!
Skippy Cake 4
Skippy Cake1
For those of you who might not know, the cake was named after a very famous Australian kids tv show called Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Skippy was a problem solving kangaroo. It was set in a national park and if hikers got lost, Skippy would find them or if someone fell into a hole in the ground Skippy would summon rescuers to help them. Iconic childhood viewing!
Also, you may be wondering what happened to The Skippy Cake seeing as Sara did not get it? Well it just so happens that it was my bosses birthday that same week and he just happens to support a football team called The Kangaroos.
I took the Boomerang part with Sara’s name off and we ate that at home and then I took The Skippy Cake into work and we had a birthday morning tea. I went back into the kitchen an hour or so later to wrap up the last few pieces for some of my friends who were not in that day and it had all been eaten so I think everyone liked it. My boss even took photos and showed his kids that night!
And I already have an order to make a cake for someone else’s birthday.
He wants a cheesecake….
Just as we finish a good meal with something sweet, so shall we round out the month of madness with one of the kookiest recipes I’ve seen lately. And here it is:
Nutty Nutella Cake
Looking at that photo, I know what you are thinking. And you know what?
So these are not the best looking cakes in the world. There is a definite dip in middle of all of them. The texture is kind of rough….then again….that rough texture is also kind of crispy and there is a delicious fudgy layer in the middle. And who doesn’t love a fudgy layer?
Nutty Nutella Cake2
But remember the Twinkie Defence? I’m about to launch the Picnic Defence. The Picnic is one of the best chocolate bars ever. Chocolate, caramel, wafer, peanuts. So good. The only problem? It looks like a big old turd.
But so good to eat.
And the Nutty Nutella Cake is the Picnic bar‘s next door neighbour in “Dammit we taste so much better than we look” Street.
You know what else makes this cake so special? I’ll tell you in a moment but first, let’s take a walk down Pronunciation Avenue and talk about Nutella. In Australia ( and I believe England), we call this super delicious chocolate hazelnut spread Nut-ella. Because it’s made of nuts. And….ella. Ella being an Italian euphemism for a shit ton of sugar.
However, definitely on The Splendid Table Podcast and I’m sure a few others I listen to, I have heard Americans call this stuff Noo-tella.
WTF? I can get over that whole tomato / tomayto thing. But Noo-tella is a step too far.
It’s NUT-ella. End of.
Nutella Cake3
I first found this recipe on the Masterchef site. However, it has since been taken down. Only a picture remains. And yep, phew…Matt Preston’s cake is as ugly as mine…
But I was able to find a copy in Matt Preston’s latest book and in the same spirit of adventure in which I made muffins from ice cream and flour a few years back I decided to give it a whirl. And you know what else….there’s obviously some weird psychic connection between Matty P, and me because in the same book, he has a recipe for “bread” made from you guessed it, ice cream and flour!
So, you wanna know what’s in these ugly but delicious sweet treats?
Nutella Cake Ingredients
Nutella…or if you’re cheap like me, supermarket brand hazelnut spread.
Eggs
Vanillla
That’s all folks. C’est tout. Three ingredients. To get this….
Nutella Cake 4
And you know what? That little dip….don’tcha just want to fill it up with all sorts of deliciousness?
I went for a contrast – still warm cake with some of my ancho berry sorbet and a couple of leaves of chocolate mint – direct from the garden!!!
Nutella Cake and Ancho Sorbet 1
But you could have any flavour of ice cream, or some salted caramel sauce..or even some normal frosting…
Or what if you added a big dollop of nutella into the dip and then made a meringue over it? OMG. I am so making that….stay right here. I”ll be back…..
Just got to fill these cakes….
Filled Nutella Cakes
Then whip up a meringue….
Meringue top
And bung ’em in the oven for a bit….
And then…..
Meringue Topped Nutella Cake
I am giggling like a little girl and dancing round my kitchen. My, face, my hands, my camera are all smeared with chocolate and meringue and am feeling both a little nauseous and like I have died and gone to heaven….
We only had three of the cakes left and I have just eaten two of them….they were that good!!!!
Scuse the fingers….but you’re lucky there are any photo’s I was so busy shoving these into my gob taste-testing to ensure the highest possible quality standards.
Nutella Meringue Cake2
And look at that…the light as air toasty on top meringue, the oozy melty nutella and the cakey base….
What a way to end the month!!!!
I am racing to get this out because I am heading up to the sunshiney Gold Coast very early tomorrow morning for a couple of days – sadly mostly work and not much play – but by the time I can post again it will be February….which is as scary as hell. Where did January go????
Have a great week where ever you are and what ever you get up to.
240g Nutella or chocolate hazelnut spread of your choice
1 tsp vanilla
For the topping
Additional Nutella – 1 tsp per cake
3 eggs
1 1/2cup of sugar
Instructions
For the cake
Preheat the oven to 175C.
Lightly grease your cupcake liners and place in a tray.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs on top speed until they have tripled in size (approx 6 minutes but this will depend on the power of your mixer).
Place the Nutella in a metal bowl with the vanilla extract and stir over a pan of boiling water until the Nutella softens. (You can also do this in a microwave – use a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1 minute, stirring every 15 seconds).
Turn the mixer down to low and drop spoonfuls of Nutella into the egg mixture. Repeat until all the nutella has been added and the Nutella is completely mixed in.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl with a spatula to ensure there is no Nutella sticking to them and stir a few times by hand.
Pour the Nutella mixture into the prepared cases, filling them about 3/4 full.
Bake for approx 15-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into a cake comes out clean.
The cakes will look lovely and round when they come out of the oven but they will collapse as they cool.
Once cool, add a spoonful of Nutella into each dip.
For the Meringue
Separate the eggs and place the whites in a clean, dry bowl.
Beat until the mixture forms stiff peaks.
Gradually add the sugar and beat until the mixture is thick and glossy.
Spoon or pipe this mixture onto the cakes.
Place under preheated grill for 1-2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Alternatively, use a culinary blow torch to lightly grill the meringue
Notes
This cake is also great topped with a scoop of your favourite icecream, would be awesome with a salted caramel, berries and cream etc.
I used a coconut oil spray to grease the cupcake liners which added the slightest hint of coconut to my cakes.
The meringue quantities above will cover an entire batch of cupcakes.
As in guess which bozo forgot to celebrate her own blog’s 2nd birthday on May 25th?
So, today we’re having a Belated (don’t worry, I promise I won’t capitalise every word that starts with a B) Birthday, (no really, I won’t) celebrating my second annivesary with food using the second letter of the alphabet. See what I did? Second year, second letter?
You’d think I planned it.
Maybe you should keep thinking that….I”m all for anything that makes me look better!!!
So anyway, it’s my birthday so let’s get this party started. And I’ve said it before, and no doubt I will say it again, (purely because I’ve got a bottle of the stuff that isn’t going to drink itself) a retro party isn’t a retro party without Parfait Amour. And any party is better with a blonde bombshell!
Nope not like this, the blonde bombshell I am referring too is a cocktail made with the aforementioned Parfait Amour. I’m not sure why it’s called a Blonde Bombshell as it comes out a gorgeous dusky pinky purple.
First Course – The Birthday Blonde Bombshell
It’s my party…cocktails count as a course….in my perfect world, we would skip main meals altogether. We would move from cocktails to fingerfood to dessert.
Wow!!! I think I may have found my Parfait Amour drink of choice. This was lovely!!! Sweet and florally and almost kind of musky…it reminded me a little bit of Turkish Delight…maybe it was the roses in the Parfait Amour. Very girly, very pretty. Easy to drink….hmmm….maybe getting rid of that bottle won’t be as hard as I previously thought!
Second Course – Bay Wrapped Bacon and Prunes
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon3
This is basically a take on a Devils on Horseback. But wrapped in a bayleaf. And I added a little smear of my Strawberry Habanero Sauce to the bacon before wrapping it around the prunes.
Note for the unwary – grilling bay leaves makes your entire kitchen smell like you’ve been smoking marijuana. For about a week. Which is fine until you have a plumber come to fix your leaking tap and they ask you if you can score them some bud.
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon
I barely even know what that means.
Despite that, you really can’t go wrong with these…salty, sweet, spicy, crispy…The bay leaves added a slight resiny flavour that was quite pleasant but prevented the bacon from getting really crispy which was slightly disappointing.
I served it them with some more of the strawberry habenero sauce. And the saltiness was a great foil to the sweetness of the Blonde Bombshell.
Bay Wrapped Prunes in Bacon2
Delicious!
But now to the piece de resistance. The dessert.
So….what’s better than a triple chocolate baby bundt?
A QUADRUPLE chocolate baby bundt.
And what’s better than a quadruple chocolate Baby Bundt?
A Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt!
Third Course – Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt
So, if you’re following me on Instagram you would have already seen me post my first experiment with the Spice Peddler’s Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix. That was a Chili Chocolate Cupcake with a Chilli Toffee Shard topped with Vanilla Icecream and my Strawberry Habenero Sauce. OMG, I thought this was the best thing ever…so, so good. The cake was fudgy and spicy and delicious, the vanilla icecream and chilli sauce worked together perfectly and the chilli toffee was a cute and quirky touch. Basically, this was me on a plate!!!!
Chocolate Chilli Cupcake with A Chilli Toffee Shard
Gahhh….so how do you top that?
Well, I found a recipe for a cake called a Tyroler in a Delicious Magazine and I had a little play with it. And came up with the Quadruple Chocolate Chilli Baby Bundt. I used the Spice Peddler Mexican Chilli Chocolate Cake Mix as my base and it was super delicious!
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt 5
This was really good. Then again, how could it not be?
It had quadruple chocolate.
And a touch of chilli.
And walnuts.
And rum soaked sultanas.
And did I mention quadruple chocolate?
Quadruple Chocolate Baby Bundt3
So, it may have been belated but worth the wait because these were all awesome!!!!
I’ll try to be on time next year and if not, I can always repost this and rename it Birthday 3 – Cocktails, Canapés and Cake.
If you are not familiar with Katie Quinn Davies, Ladyredspecs of Please Pass The Recipe wrote a great post on her background and work here.
I mentioned I was thinking of making this cake to the work girls. One of them visibly paled. “Go easy on the rosemary” she said. She then told us this awful story of how she had made a rosemary panna cotta for a dinner party and it turned out terribly.
I got home and checked Katie’s recipe. It called for three sprigs.
I would like to say I would try this cake again but currently my spreadsheet of cakes to make contains 500+ recipes. So, let’s say I bake a cake every week, which I don’t and this goes to the back of the queue, that would mean baking it again in about ten years.
