No Eggs!

I was so proud of myself for making this cake, I was worried it wouldn’t be red enough and it was the first time I’ve piped a whole cake (I usually stick to cupcakes!). This would make a lovely birthday cake or just a cake to cheer someone up.

Cooking time: approx 20-25 minutes

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Serves 8

The Ingredients:

For the cake

• 10oz Self raising flour
• 2 tbsp Cocoa powder
• 6oz Caster sugar
• ¼ tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• ¼ pint Milk
• ¼ pint Buttermilk
• ¼ pint Corn oil
• 3 tbsp Golden syrup
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence
• 3 tsp Red food colouring

For the Cream cheese frosting

• 9 oz butter, softened
• 3 1/2 oz icing sugar
• 14 oz cream cheese

The Method:

1. Pre heat your oven to 180C Gas mark 4
2. Line the base of 2 X 8 inch cake tin with baking paper
3. Sift the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt in to a bowl and make a well in the centre
4. Mix the bicarbonate of soda with a tbsp of the milk and pour in to the well
5. Add the rest of the milk along with the buttermilk, oil, golden syrup, vanilla essence and red food colouring and beat together to make a batter
6. Add the mixture to the cake tins and cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes (until they bounce back when touched or when a skewer is inserted it comes out clean)
7. When cooked, remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool whilst you make the cream cheese frosting
8. To make the cream cheese frosting beat the butter  and icing sugar together until it’s smooth and then beat in the cream cheese until everything is mixed together with no lumps
9. When the cakes are completely cool spread a layer of butter cream on top of the base layer and sandwich the cakes together, next with a palette knife add a crumb coating to the outside of the cake (this will give you a smother surface to pipe over).
10. Put the remaining cream cheese mix in to a piping bag and pipe away! I piped roses on my cake which are so simple to do, this tutorial is really useful if you need any help http://iambaker.net/rose-cake-tutorial/
11. And voilà, a beautiful red velvet cake that’s egg free too!!! Make sure you store this little beauty in the fridge…that’s if it lasts long enough to be stored!

I would love to claim this master piece as my own, but unfortunately I can’t…this is the work of Fiona @fionaheredia who made it for her 4 year old son’s birthday using my egg free Victoria sponge recipe, she said that it carved well and she made it by baking a brownie tin shaped cake and 2 standard circle cakes. She covered it with ready to roll icing and stuck it together with apricot jam…can everyone please give her a round of applause…well done Fiona I think it looks fab!!!

If you have made an egg free cake in to a character cake then get in touch and I’ll try and a picture of it too!

Hello my lovelies, firstly let me apologise, I’ve been having issues with my blog and haven’t been able to add anything, comment on posts and I haven’t received a lot of comments either, so if you can’t see your comments on here, please could you re-send?!

Secondly, I have a back log of summer recipes to add, hopefully within the next few days you should see my Egg free Cream slices (Mille Feuille), my lemon and blueberry tray bake, an Egg free Rainbow cake (first attempt so  I may give this another test before I put it on here) and of course the delicious red velvet cake which i am refusing to test again as I ate the whole lot last time (no joke!!). There has also been some great Free from articles which I’d like to share with you all…I think I’m being a little ambitious getting them on here in the next few days though…maybe next week ;o)

Happy baking! x

Mille feuille is a French pastry which a lot of people in the UK call a cream slice or custard slice (for those with custard instead of cream), I’ve always looked in patisserie’s and wished I could buy one, but you can guarantee they either use egg in the cream or glaze them with egg or just generally have eggs laying around the bakery! I need to master the neat edges, but for a first try they turned out pretty well!

Cooking time: approx 25 minutes

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Makes 10-12 depending on the size you cut the pastry

The Ingredients:

• 350g puff pastry – rolled to approx 2-3mm thick (if you can buy the ready rolled puff pastry it is so much easier)
• 300ml double cream
• Seeds from 1 vanilla pod
• 1tbsp Sugar
• Approx. 12 tsp Jam (smooth jam works best)
• Icing sugar to serve

The Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6
2. Place the whole rolled sheet of pastry between 2 pieces of baking paper and place on a baking tray. You need to stop the puff pastry from rising, so place another baking tray on top and something heavy on top of that (I placed a casserole dish on top), so that the pastry is sat between 2 pieces of grease proof paper, 2 baking trays and is topped with a casserole dish. (I can add a photo of what I mean if that is confusing?)
3. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes (I check it after 20 minutes, sometimes it may need turning if one side if looking brown.
4. Remove from the oven and take the casserole dish and top baking tray off and allow to cool, the pastry should look a nice golden colour.
5. Meanwhile whip the sugar, cream and vanilla to stiff peaks
6. Cut the pastry in to equal rectangles, you need 3 rectangles to make each slice. I used a ruler to see how many 3 x rectangles I could get out of the pastry once it was cooked – my mini cream slices measured 7cm x 3cm
7. Add a layer of jam to 2 out of the 3 rectangles and then add the cream on top of the jam. You can either pipe your cream on to the jam or you can use a pallet knife to smooth the edges once assembled.
8. Assemble the slice by placing one jam & cream topped pastry rectangle on top of the other jam & cream topped rectangle and then place the top pastry rectangle on top. Smooth the cream with a pallet knife if needed.
9. Sieve some icing sugar on top to serve