#3 Cooking post: Plain Sponge cake with strawberries and Butter icing.

Sponge cake with strawberries, strawberry jam and butter icing.

To make a decent cake I follow one rule:

Add equal parts butter, sugar and flour. Then add eggs until it has a smooth consistancy but doesn't pour like soup.

For this particular cake I used:

Cake:

1. 8oz of self-raising flour.
2. 6oz of sugar ~(this cake has alot of icing and jam in the middle so i used less sugar than if it was un-iced)
3. 6oz of butter (I used less butter because it's spreadable butter which is softer and you don't need as much as if you used a block of butter...)
4. Three large free-range eggs.
   

• Mix everything in a bowl until smooth then pour into two greased tins.
• Bake for 15-20 mins (until it is brown and bouncy to touch!) at 180degrees.
• Take both from their tins (used a knife to ply them out if they stuck to the tin at all) and leave one to cool.

Filling:

• Take the other one and apply a thin layer of jam to the top.
• Then I added a layer of sliced strawberries before placing the top layer of cake above it.

Topping:

• Mix a small box (yes, the whole box...) of icing sugar with three heaped tablespoons of butter (i used spreadable butter)
• When all is mixed to form a thick batter, add water (about four tablespoons) until it is thin enough to spread with a knife.
• (you might want to put some aside before adding the water because it was too thin to pipe...)
• Take your cake and add big drops of icing over the top then spread with the back of a spoon.
• If the cake crumbles under the icing, add more icing.
• do the same with the sides by applying it with the back of the spoon.
• Slice strawberries and put them around the edges
• use a piping gun or bag to add a circle of decorative icing or drops of icing.
• Add more strawberries!

The whole thing took about an hour but it's worth it!

#2 Cooking post: Stuffed mushrooms with rocket salad.

Stuffed mushrooms with rocket and spinach salad with a lemon and balsalmic vinegar dressing and garlic new potatoes.
Cooking time: 20mins.
Preparing time: about 15mins?

Mushrooms:

• Prepare mushrooms (some people peel them, pick out the stalk etc.)
• Place raw,underside-up,on a tin-foil covered tray.
• mix in a bowl:

1. Adiquet cheese (for six mushrooms, about two big handfuls when grated)
2. (I used mature cheddar.)
3. Two teaspoons of parmasan cheese.
4. Three tablespoons of wholegrain mustard.

• Put half a teaspoon of butter in the middle of each mushroom underside.
• add a few spoons of the mixture to each mushroom and spread over the underside.
• Cover all mushrooms with a loose layer of tinfoil and bake at 180 degrees for 15mins.

After 15mins:

• Remove from oven and remove top tinfoil.
• Place under a grill for 5mins until cheese is brown.
• Optional! Wrap warm mushrooms in parma-ham sheets!

Salad:

1. A pre-mixed bag of rocket, water-cress and spinage.
2. An advacado
3. Cucumber, cubed.
4. Four chopped spring onions.
5. Chopped tomatoes.

• Add a squeese of lemon (about five tablespoons)
• Add a drizzle of balsalmic vinegar.
• Mix!

Potatoes:

• Wash, chop and boil!
• (until soft, I cook them in their skins also)
• Leave to cool a little then mix with three tablespoons of butter and three cloves of garlic, crushed.

Really easy and yummy! Could have done with perhaps double the serving haha...