It's SWEEEET SUNDAY! Which means one thing - cake!
This week's sweet treat was requested by J, which is often the case considering he has the sweetest tooth I've ever known - he's not a cook or baker himself, but he knows which flavours he likes and what goes well together. These requests are rarely for a specific recipe, but something like 'can you use... these ingredients all together in a cake?' This week it was 'can you make a cake with cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla?' Erm, yes! Abso-bloody-lutely.
It's a dreamy combination and I've taken this 'brief' and decided to make a cake inspired by the humble cinnamon swirl (a fave of ours in the pastry department). A mixture of vanilla sponge and cinnamon & nutmeg sponge, swirled together in a lovely marble cake, topped with drizzled vanilla icing.
This recipe uses my cheat's sponge which is a perfect base to use with any new flavour combination. You can't go wrong with this sponge itself, so it's a great recipe to use while experimenting. All you need to do is weigh the eggs in their shells and use that weight to combine equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour. This gives you a light, airy and moist sponge that can be used for cupcakes, tray bakes, sandwich cakes... the list goes on! I've gone with a tray bake for this one because it was easier to mix the two sponge flavours and you end up with lovely chunky squares of deliciousness.
A quick note for this (and any other recipe) that uses vanilla - quality is important! There are so many ingredients where you can use a basics range and it really doesn't affect the overall dish. Vanilla is not one of these ingredients. It's bloody expensive, so I appreciate that many people can't or won't go for the most expensive option and that's fine, but it's important to select a vanilla extract not vanilla essence. You'll pay more, but the flavour is a natural intense vanilla that you can stretch further as it's stronger!
Ingredients
For the cake:
3 large eggs - weighed in their shells to give you weight Xg
Xg unsalted butter
Xg white caster sugar
Xg self-raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
For the icing:
100g icing sugar
6 tsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c. Line a 20x20cm tin with baking paper.
2. Weigh your eggs in their shells and remember this weight - now weigh out the same amount of butter, sugar and flour. So if your eggs weigh 200g, use 200g each of butter, sugar and flour.
2. Beat the butter until soft, then add the sugar and beat until fluffy and creamy.
3. Slowly add the eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated before adding the next. Add the vanilla and mix.
4. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold to combine.
5. Pour two thirds of the mixture into the baking tray. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg to the remaining third of the cake mixture and mix to combine. Now add this to the tray one spoonful at a time, blobbing evenly across the top. Then swirl this with a knife or small spoon to create a marble effect.
6. Bake on the middle shelf for 25 minutes - it should be golden brown, springy to touch and a knife inserted should come out clean. If it's not baked through, put back in for another 2-5 minutes before checking again. Once baked, turn onto a wire rack to cool.
7. While the cake is baking, prepare the icing. Add the water 1 tsp at a time to the icing sugar until it is nice and thick but still runny enough to drizzle over the cake. Once it's at the desired consistency (6 tsp should be fine, but use your judgement) mix through the vanilla extract.
8. Once the cake is completely cool (be patient!) drizzle over the icing and slice into squares.
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