There’s clearly something about March. It’s the time when I feel the need to churn out huge batches of sweet treats, making the most of the side oven on my Rangemaster Elan 90 in the process. Last year I shared my fail-safe freeze-ahead cookie recipe and this year I’m bringing you the easiest cake recipe recipe I know. It’s an all in one recipe for minimal faff, it’s customisable and it can be baked in roasting tins or shallow trays to make as many as you like. Perfect for cake sales or just for making enough for now and enough to freeze for, you know, emergencies.
I added 15g cocoa to half the batch along with some glace cherries. For the other half I sliced some pear, dusted them with cinnamon and chopped some dates and pressed them into the mixture at the end. I also used salted caramel flavoured icing sugar from Sugar and Crumbs for the icing.
Ingredients:
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g butter, left out to soften
- 4 eggs (ideally large but it’ll work anyway)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 225g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla essence or even better, vanilla bean paste
Optional extras:
- Cocoa powder
- Chopped chocolate
- Chopped dates / glace cherries or other dried fruit
- Nuts
- Orange / lemon zest
- Cinnamon
- Slices of apple or pear
Icing:
- Cocoa
- Golden syrup
- Icing sugar or Flavoured icing sugar
Method:
- Grease and line your baking trays with parchment
- Preheat oven to 180c if you’re using the side oven or 160c if you’re using the fan one
- Put the sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder, flour and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until combined
- If you’re splitting the mixture to make a chocolate one you can just add 12g cocoa powder to half the mix and beat to combine but if you’re making the whole thing chocolate, take 25g of flour out and replace with cocoa
- If it looks a bit stiff you can add some milk (eg. if you’re using medium eggs)
- Fold through any other additions
- Transfer the mixture into the baking trays and bake for 40-50 mins depending on the depth of the tray
- Check by inserting a knife or skewer and seeing if it comes out clean
- Leave to cool
- Make up icing but putting icing sugar into a mug and adding a squeeze of golden syrup and a little hot water, stir vigorously and add more icing sugar or more water as required for the consistency you want
