Kumara Cake

 

Sift together

• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 cup flour
• 1.5 cups muscavado sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teasp salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Beat together

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup cooking oil 

Then fold in:

• 3 cups grated orange kumera

and the dry mix above.

Pour into a 20cm cake tin and bake for 1-1.5 hours at 180 degrees until a skewer comes out clean.

Ice when cool with chocolate icing - yummy with a block of chilli chocolate broken ontop as decoration.

 

Mum's Sultana Cake

Intro

The first pages in my recipe notebook are all written in my 11 year old handwriting and are all my Mum's. She is an amazing cook and gets enormous pleasure nowadays from preparing beautiful evening meals to share with her new husband, my step father Graham, and also glorious dinner parties for friends and family.

This is all a far cry from the family cooking that Mum used to do at the time I was copying out her recipes. I left home when I was 19, and as the eldest of 4 kids, Mum still had many years of family cooking ahead of her and making good, nutritious meals on limited income. I remember Mum going through her recipe book choosing recipes we were able to bake on the basis of how economic they were: how much butter, how many eggs. We were beginner cooks and I guess to there was a better than even chance that it would be a disaster! She identified, quite rightly, that the more ingredients a recipe has the higher the cost.

I have kept Mum's recipes back until now because they are really special and I didn't want to share them until it felt right.

This light sultana cake is a staple that mum regularly made. I remember it being yellow and lightly studded with moist sultanas and whenever we went on picnics - which we did often - we always took a square tin containing a sultana cake. Our favourite place for picnics was Mount Victoria in Wellington, we spent hours in the pine forest having raucous pinecone fights, but Red Rocks was memorable too with towering rock cliffs to scramble up.

Recipe

• 1 pound sultanas (450g)
• 1/2 pound butter(225g)
• water
• 3 eggs
• 1.25 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon essence
• 12 ounces flour (3 cups)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Place sultanas in a saucepan, cover with water then boil for 5 minutes. Strain then add the roughly chopped butter. Set aside to cool.

Beat together eggs and sugar until thick and pale then stir into the cooled sultanas and butter. Add essence, flour and baking powder.

Bake in a greased, floured and paper lined square tin for about an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean, at 350 degrees. Watch the top so it doesn't burn the sultanas (might want to put a square of paper on top after 40 mins).

*Can add spice if desired.

Banana Cake

Intro

As a child bride I never made banana cakes after the first one because it was greeted with "Its not as good as Mums". The marriage didn't last (there is a lesson in there lads). So each time I bake I still aim for the Ultimate Cake and take my time and sieve and measure and beat and cream and test carefully. 

I struggled with Chocolate Cake for years but have got it sorted now. I have never managed the perfect Madeira Cake, still strive to get that one hammered, but I make a jolly good Coconut Cake and Banana Cake. 

Duck eggs changed everything. One year Bloke #2 and I went to a poultry show and lord knows how, but we left with 2 black Cayugas, 2 white Pekins, 2 guinea fowls and 3 fluffy rabbits. (Not my idea). Luckily we had a third of an acre, an unused paddling pool and a spare shed.... Anyway one day one of the Pekins came proudly out from under the shed with 8 wee babies waddling behind her - the same day that Bloke #2 brought home 8 more baby ducklings a friend of his had hatched under his chickens. That was a nice surprise ... So 4 became 20, our backyard became trashed and we had eggs coming out our flippin' ears! 

Duck eggs are just gorgeous for baking. They have huge yellow yolks, are bigger than hen eggs and result in light, fluffy yellow cakes. I use the same number of duck eggs as hen eggs - and the recipes work just fine. I don't have Bloke #2 or the ducks anymore, thankfully, but I can buy duck eggs from the local market garden whenever I want them. 

Recipe

• 125g butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 very ripe bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• half cup chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup self raising flour
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs 1 at a time beating well after each. Add a teaspoon of flour if needed to stop the mixture splitting. Add the lightly mashed bananas and vanilla. Stir in walnuts, then the sifted flours and soda in 2 batches. Mix well. Pour into a greased and floured ring tin and bake in a moderate oven for 40 minutes or until cooked when tested. (no icky stuff on a knife poked in).

Coconut Cake

Intro

A good, basic coconut cake that is weighty and moist.

Recipe

• 5 ozs butter 
• 5 ozs sugar
• 2 eggs
• 6 ozs self raising flour
• 2 ozs coconut
• a few tblsps milk

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in the eggs 1 at a time, add sifted flour and coconut and add just enough milk until mixture drops from a spoon.

Bake in a greased 8 inch round tin for an hour or so at 350 degree F.

Optional: finely grated rind of a lemon.

Cardamom Almond Cake

Intro

I can't believe I havn't shared this recipe already! It is hands down my favourite cake. Kids hate iced cakes so I usually don't ice this one either. It is a bit special and can taken out in public if you just lightly dust it with icing sugar. It improves over a few days too ... oh and I usually double the recipe and make it in a meat dish ... unless it is going to sit on a cake plate and look pretty.

Recipe

• 185g butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1/4 cup ground almonds
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup golden syrup

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, beat in the eggs one at a time (adding a tablespoon of flour with the second one). Melt together the milk and golden syrup in a saucepan and add to the butter mixture along with half the sifted flour, the spice and almonds. Stir to combine then add remaining flour.

Bake for about an hour or until done in a greased 20cm tin in a moderate oven.

For a special occasion ice it with Caramel Icing.

Chocolate Cake

Intro 

So this one has to be first up because having just baked one, William has eaten about 1/2 of it and its barely cool enough to hold in bare hands! We don't usually ice it because the kids aren't big on sweet stuff but the original recipe had icing so I've included it. 

I found this recipe back in 1985 when I was living in Tin Can Bay, Queensland. We were working 12 hour days, 7 days a week and cashing our pay cheques and doing grocery shopping was a nightmare. We were living in a fully furnished holiday flat with only the bare essentials of kitchen equipment and a daggy wee bench-top stove. This recipe fit the bill because I could whip up something yummy from the pantry really quickly with a wooden spoon and cooked in a meat dish. 

Recipe

Preparation

• Turn oven to fan bake 180 degrees.
• Prepare either 2 small cake tins or 1 big one (a roasting dish is fine) by greasing with butter or lining with baking paper (my favourite).

Method

Sieve together:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 and half cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Beat lightly together with a fork: 

• 2 eggs
• half  a cup milk

Boil together:

• 4oz (125g) butter
• 1 cup of water
• 3 and half tablespoons cocoa

Once the butter and water mix comes to the boil pour it into the flour mixture and stir it together, tip in the egg mixture when its about half mixed. Tip the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. 

Icing

Melt together:

• 2 oz butter (65g)
• 1/3 cup water (should be milk but I use water)

Add:

• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 500g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Beat until smooth adding more liquid or icing sugar as required. Ice cake while slightly warm.