Pistachio Loaf Cake

Ready to eat! Yummy! 🙂

I have mentioned the pistachio loaf cake several times in my blog as this is a good favourite to bake and honestly thought that I have uploaded this recipe! However, i couldn’t find this in my blog entries as my friend, Rozzy has requested this so here it is for you!!!

This recipe is from the Hummingbird Bakery – ‘Cake Days’ book and it is such a simple cake to make and lovely and moist! 🙂

Ingredients for the sponge:

• 190g unsalted butter softened
• 190g plain flour
• 190g caster sugar
• 3 x eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Quarter tsp salt
• 25ml soured cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g shelled pistachios roughly chopped

For the glaze:

• 120g icing sugar
• 40g ground pistachios (use the food processor)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170c or GM3 and grease the loaf tin with butter and dust with flour
2. Using a hand-held electric whisk or freestanding electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time making sure all the ingredients are mixed together.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and add this to the mixture in two batches on a low speed. Then add the soured cream and vanilla extract and stir the chopped pistachios by hand.
4. Pour this batter into the loaf tin and bake for 50 to 60 mins or until the sponge feels firm to touch and your skewer inserted comes out clean.
5. Allow the loaf to cool and turn out onto a wire rack to cool down fully before adding the glaze.
6. For the glaze, mix the icing sugar in a bowl with 2 x tablespoon of water and mix together to form a running paste. If the glaze is too thick, add more water to thin it but a little at a time. Stir in the ground pistachios and keep a small amount aside to sprinkle on top. Pour this over the cooled loaf and sprinkle the remaining pistachios. Enjoy with a nice cup of tea! 🙂

Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baked and cooling

 

 

 

 

 

 

An afternoon of sweet treats!

My hubby booked me a cupcake and macaron tour of London as part of my mother’s day present back in March and I went with my sister in law, Sharon last Saturday. It was a really nice sunny day in Central London and nice to have some girly time! 🙂

For this tour, we visited 7 venues and were given treats to munch along the way:

Cupcake Bakery – Mini cupcakes for £1.50

1) Cupcake Bakehouse – This is owned by the former model, Lorraine Pascale who has her own TV show and books. I had a mini red velvet cupcake which was delicious, we were told by the tour guide that the icing is specifically made for a model’s consumption with fewer calories!!!

 

 

Laduree – Beautiful packaging

2) Ladurée – The best known macaron maker in the world! The tour guide said that macarons should be eaten at 5 degrees. I have been told previously that if you buy macarons, you should keep them in the fridge as it will last longer! I had a strawberry macaron which was delicious! 🙂

 

 

Cupcakes from Sweet Couture. I had the Oreo cupcake!

3) Sweet Couture  – A boutique bakery famous for it’s mouthwatering handmade cupcakes! Looks pretty but I found the cupcake quite dry!

 

 

 

 

Display from Sweet Couture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were given a red velvet cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery

4) Hummingbird Bakery – Made famous from ‘Sex in the City’ as they were having their teas and cupcakes. I have been there before and i have got their baking books aswell. The red velvet cupcake was yummy and moist! 🙂

 

 

 

Yauatcha’s wonderful display of desserts!

5) Yauatcha – Michelin starred and best known for it’s Dim Sum. I have taken my hubby there many years ago for his birthday dinner and the food was amazing although small portions, not like the portions you would get from China Town! The desserts looked so pretty, and just too beautiful to eat them!

Our tour guide, John is on the left

 

 

6) Patisserie Valerie – Madame Valerie opened her first patisserie in 1926. We often buy birthday cakes from here as they are so delicious! We were given macarons and chocolates!

 

 

 

Fortnum & Mason display of cakes

7) Fortnum & Mason’s – Last stop! I was told by John that they invented the Scotch eggs and was one of the first shops to display their products in the front windows! One of the cake that I saw, looks like a sachertorte, was priced at £60  (although it did have a few gold leaves decorated on top)!!! Crazy!!!

 

Fortnum & Masons wide selection of macarons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My treats to take home minus 1 macaron and 1 mini cupcake! 🙂

I had a wonderful afternoon and glad to share it with my sister in law as she is a big fan of macarons! The tour lasted 2 hours and it was well worth it! 🙂

If you are interested in booking this tour, you can find the details here

Belated birthday cake for my hubby!!!

It was my Hubby’s birthday in April, and for the first time in our relationship (13 and a half years), I didn’t get him a present!! Since having our dee dee (nick name for our baby son), it has been difficult to find time to shop! Normally I would buy him lots of little gifts or a weekend trip away! Last year I got this giant cupcake shell so he said to bake him one. Plus it was a good excuse to try it out! I must say it was a total disaster!!! When I tried to take the cake out, the sponge inside stuck to the shell so it came out in pieces! I thought I can fix it up like a jigsaw puzzle with the buttercream but it didn’t work!! It didn’t help that my buttercream mixture was a weird consistency! It was awful looking, the cake itself was nice but looked horrible!! I was too embarrassed to even take a picture, it just looked like a strange big blue phsycadelic mushroom!!!! Not one of my greatest bake so I promised Dan that I will bake him something else instead. Anything he wants!

Nice slice with a cup of tea!

He was looking at my Jamie Oliver magazine and found a section on lemons and cakes and then he spotted the amaretti cake with raspberries which looked quite simple to make!!! I had a better bake and it was delicious!!! It was sweet with the amaretti biscuits on top but tart with the raspberries inside the cake! 

all baked!