When
I did my first food blog, the second most asked question I used to get was
where did I get the time to do it? I always said that I was going to make
dinner anyway so it’s not that I was adding on anything much to my day. That
said, putting the posts up on the blog religiously every day was a task. I
think I used to play it down as to how much time it took but, looking back now,
even I don’t know where I used to get the time to post every single day from
April to December. In fact, there were a number of occasions where I ended up
falling asleep as I waited for Baby Daughter to nod off only to wake up at 3 or
4am and I would actually get up and type up the post. Now I realise that there
was a method in my madness. I think I knew that if I missed one day of posting,
it would start to snowball which is exactly what happened when I went through
the two weeks of the broadband nightmare back in February. That on top of a
particularly busy 8 weeks where I couldn’t even get time to watch my beloved
programmes (Grey’s Anatomy and Revenge) but, alas, it took a very loyal
follower of this blog to draw me back so here I am (so thank you Caroline!).
Well,
as it’s been a while, I thought I should write up one of the spectacular
recipes which was the Castle cake. As
a very loyal listener of the Ray D’Arcy Show, it’s not every day that I get to
listen to it. Actually during term time, the only time I get to listen to it
live is for half an hour on a Friday as I drive from B to C; the rest of the
time is on their player. Anyway, at the same stage every Friday, I could almost
tell you at what point of the road I’ll be when I hear the theme tune for Fix
It Friday. Love that theme tune! As it plays I am happily driving along bopping
my head side to side. Surely other drivers I meet must think I’m a loon but
other fans of Fix It Friday will understand. So, on this particular day, a
listener emailed in to say that she had borrowed her friend’s hand mixer to
bake a cake (or something similar). Of course, the hand mixer was of great
sentimental value but, unfortunately, the listener actually managed to break
the mixer. Of course, it was an old mixer as I think the friend inherited it
from her mother so it was going to be difficult to replace. However, I remember
thinking “How does anyone actually manage
to break a hand mixer?! Seriously.” Well you know that saying about you
shouldn’t judge others until you’ve walked in their path? I’m pretty sure that
saying is about far greater problems than broken mixers but I’ve learned that I
am just an incompetent with the hand mixer because, in making this Castle Cake
recipe, I managed to…yes…break my hand mixer!!! That’ll teach me…
Dear
Son’s birthday was in April and although I wasn’t brave enough to leave baking
his real cake to my own baking skills
(!), I thought I’d try making it as a treat the month before and he could help.
Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking but he had fun! Six whole hours of
it to be honest – well, in between naps and food and play and occasionally
getting fed-up with it and then suddenly getting another burst of excitement to
spur him on – him, that is – just in
case you’re thinking I’m on about me (!).
I
know I joke regularly that I could have a share in Kerrygold as I love butter
that much but now I am convinced that I should
have a share in Kerrygold – I think I went through 4 lbs of the stuff! I started
off by making the sponge cakes and, one of the good things about the recipe, is
that it gives you two recipes – one if you’re making it in two batches
depending on the number of square baking tins you have and another recipe if
you’re making it in four batches. Essentially, you make four square cakes using
a typical sponge cake mixture. However, another good thing about the recipe is
that you can vary it to make chocolate and strawberry versions.
For
the butter icing, it was a combination of milk chocolate, butter, icing sugar
and cocoa powder. That’s the point where I broke my hand mixer as I hadn’t left
enough butter out to soften and not being very patient, I thought I’d try my
luck but with disastrous results. I ended up having to beat it by hand and actually
ended up with a blister – reminds me of a time when I used to scrub a swimming
pool floor by hand in a former life as nothing would show up the white tiles as
well as hand scrubbing them. Anyway, I started to cut and assemble the cakes as
per the instructions except my butter cream wasn’t soft enough. I know that
having every window open in the kitchen on a very cold day didn’t help but
otherwise the heat in the kitchen becomes unbearable. Therefore, going back to
my earlier point, make sure you have soft butter and a room that isn’t too cold
or hot.
The butter icing
The first layer
Getting there...
Up we go...
Finally...
Oh,
but for the fun part while the cakes were cooling (!). I had to drive all the
way to Derry to buy chocolate Matchsticks having gone to no less than seven
shops in Buncrana. Of course, if I didn’t need Matchsticks that day, I’d have
seen them in every single shop but, as luck would have it, none to be found
when I needed them. I also needed cones, Bourbon biscuits, chocolate fingers,
Curly Wurlys and chocolate sprinkles. Yes, my kitchen reached new depths of
being an unbelievable, fine mess by the time I got to work with them. Hours
late and ta-da…
The
verdict…
This
cake literally blew Dear Son away. He just thought I was the best mum ever
which was worth it to hear him say that alone but, ah sure, two hours later and
I was the worst because I wouldn’t give him any more treats! That’s kids for
you. Top marks from Dear Son nonetheless and Dear Husband said “Wow!” when he
saw it. In fact, the day that I made this cake, I posted a pic to Twitter and I
got a reply from a follower to say that her husband saw her looking at it and
said “I want one of them!” and he’s 32…lol!
I
definitely think that if you make cakes then you really should try this recipe.
It is time consuming but nothing is
overly complicated. The main advice I’d give is to ensure that your butter is
at an appropriate temperature to work with so you don’t end up breaking your
hand mixer like me. The other piece of advice is to ensure that your kitchen is
at appropriate temperature as if the room is too warm, the butter cream will
melt when you’re working with it and if the room is too cold then it will be
difficult to spread the butter cream. There is strawberry buttercream version
you can make of this recipe if you want to make it a bit more girly. A lot of
eating this cake so I had to start giving away large chunks of it as, according
to the recipe, it feeds 40. It was totally delish though. Yum yum yum yum yum…
