TWD: Perfect Party Cake

This is one aptly named recipe! I made Dorie's perfect party cake for a dinner party a few weeks back and it became the best one I've ever thrown! People who hadn't met before stayed chatting until nearly 2am- despite having been stuffed full of a huge smorgasboard of different recipes I had wanted to try!

It baked up pretty well- though I was at first worried about how small my layers were going to be with cutting in half- but this was no problem as in the end the fillings to cake ratio was divine!

If you haven't made this already get going! It is an incredibly forgiving cake! I discovered the best strawberry jam when making this (yes it really was worth spending £1more for it- Duchy organics if you're curious)
and the final dusting of coconut (unsweetened as its impossible to find sweetened in theUK) gives it a flawless finish that my icing would not have made-- *(why is it that I never have enough left from recipes to give a really good final coat?!)*

In any case this was a perfect party on the tongue slight lemon strawberry fluffy white cake with a nice texture of coconut to finish!
What are you waiting for?! check out the rest of the TWD blogroll and make this yourself!

ps this went pretty nicely with the peach honey ice cream!

Daring Bakers: Bakewell tart

Wow, I almost forgot this month's daring bakers challenge. The bakewell tart- having lived in the UK for 3+ years now I can say before making this I'd never had any interest in those icing sugar covered mc donald looking cherry pies from Kiplings.

This recipe thankfully produced nothing like that. First off I must give it lots of points for being very quick to put together! (I was reading though some of my fav. blogs and noticed lots of postings!)

The recipe was pretty foolproof and tasted great. The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Daring Bakers tarts!

TWD: Honey Peach Ice cream

Honey Peach Ice Cream

Please ignore that slab of cake and focus on the glorious peachy ice cream.

I recently got the ice cream attachment for my Kenwood Chef and man is it ever my favorite toy now! Making your own ice cream is pretty easy- just need to give things time to cool down and then chuck into the machine for a good freeze churn. I really liked this recipe. The honey taste was super strong - more so than the peach, perhaps due to icky British no properly ripe peaches or maybe due to the recipe putting half of the peaches in as frozen chunks. While this was good I probably wouldn't make it again, but if I did all the peaches would be pureed.

Be sure to check out the rest of the TWD blogroll!

TWD: Cinnamon Squares

TWD:Cinnamon Squares

I was so glad that this recipe was chosen this month. I've had a marker in this page ever since first buying the book and thought if it came round to it I would choose it myself. This was really simple to bake up and a delicious easy cake to go well with coffee. I highly recommend it!

Be sure to check out the rest of the TWD blogroll and see all these yummy cakes!