God I love cake. I love relaxing on the couch eating cake. I love eating cake in summer. I love eating cake while wearing comfy coral jeans. Show me a person who doesn’t like cake, and i’ll show you a really sad person. The saddest person in the world. But, I would like to think that even the most dedicated cake hater might declare an amnesty on this little baby. Its a moist pineapple and coconut cake. Moist and crumbly and sweet. What could be wrong with that?
So I am a little obsessed with limes. And when they get made into delicious things like…
lime syrup cakes
can you blame me? Now if you’re feeling like you’ve got a bit of deja vu, then you wouldn’t be too far off. I did post the CWA Lime Cake way back in 2010 when I began this blog. But with the second birthday of this little blog of mine swinging round, I thought i’d bring back my old favourite but with a little delicious tweak.
I saw this recipe on the beautiful Kiki’s blog after i’d scored a bag of limes ridiculously cheaply. Apart from making a Key Lime Pie and some watermelon, lychee and lime cocktails, Lime Syrup Cake was the perfect way to use these babies up. And the Women’s Weekly recipe that Kiki used intrigued me with its addition of ricotta. What I love about the CWA recipe is the beautiful light buttery texture of the cake as well as the lovely limey syrup left at the bottom. This recipe is much more dense but infinitely soft and oh-so-lime-syrupy!
I used Greek Style Yoghurt instead of ricotta because I couldn’t get my lazy ass to the shops to buy some. Oops.
But look at the cute tea cosy behind it!
If you’re currently suffering from the chilly turn in Sydney, I’m sure this hot, fresh out of the oven cake will warm you up
The super moistness and limeness of this cake comes from a little lime in the batter but mostly the lime syrup trickled over the top while it is still warm.
I recently discovered Weis Vanilla Bean Icecream. This has to be hands down the best vanilla ice-cream i’ve had so far. A few scoops of this baby cuts through the lime if you’re not such a fan of the sour.
mmmmmmmmmmmm
and an action shot, just so you can feel jealous. But better than feeling jealous, you can go get some limes and make this freakin cake! You won’t be disappointed!
So, my lovelies, do you love limes? And what do you like to eat to keep away these winter chills that are currently invading Sydney?
Lime Syrup Cake – Adapted from The Australian Women’s Weekly
Cake Ingredients
200g butter
1 tablespoon lime zest
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
250g greek yoghurt
1/2 cup (125ml) milk
1 1/2 cups (225g) self raising flour
Syrup Ingredients
1/3 cup (80ml) lime juice
1/4 cup (60ml) water
2/3 cup caster sugar
Method
Preheat oven to 180deg (160deg if fan forced). Grease a 20cm bundt pan well with extra melted butter.
1. Beat butter, rind and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy
2. Beat in egg yolks, yoghurt and milk
3. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in sifted flour.
4. Beat egg whites in a small bowl until soft peaks form
5. Fold into batter in two batches then pour into a greased 20cm bundt pan. Bake on 160 degrees for 40-50 mins. Check regularly as mine was truly cooked by then
6. Turn cake out onto a wire rack and cool for 5 mins before covering in syrup
Lime Syrup Method
1. During the last 10 mins of the cake baking, begin making your syrup
2. Stir the lime juice, water and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil.
3. Boil uncovered for 10 mins, keeping a careful eye on it! Don’t let it caramelise! In the mean time, stab your cake all over it’s surface with a skewer to help the syrup absorb
4. When the syrup has thickened a little, take the pan off the heat and pour gently over your cake.
So the bunny has been, the long weekend has ended and I still have easter eggs left on my kitchen table. I think there might be something wrong with me. I did get sick over easter, so perhaps the sickness entered my brain and altered my chocolate lobe? Are there any doctors out there that can recommend treatment? Particularly as I feel like I cannot scavenge for half price eggs this year as they might just end up going to waste. Although if YOU, my lovely reader, have been able to scrounge some super cheap eggs or have any left over and are wondering what to do with them, read on. I have some suggestions. Either way, here is the story of my easter and the terrible affliction that I seem to have been left with.
It started with a strange anomaly with the bourke st bakery flourless chocolate cake.
I only had one piece. Yes, you read that right. One.
No matter, no worries, all things must pass. Right?
Wrong.
Out of all these easter goodies from my beautiful students, I just didn’t feel like eating much.
Even my favourite Lindt bunnies seemed to have lost their jingly allure.
so I put these cute bunnies on top of some cupcakes to take to the S family for easter.
Didn’t actually eat any. Despite them being super cute.
I rallied a little with some delicious easter afternoon tea at the Observatory Hotel
Which was, as always, fantastic.
Brilliant service, lovely food, a vast array of tea and great ambiance, I cannot recommend them highly enough.
I also gave myself an easter mani with Bloom ‘Corfu’ and OPI ‘Teenage Dream’. I thought it made them reminiscent of the shimmery easter egg foil and might induce some chocolate appetite.
But I still had many eggs left over. So I decided that I had to get baking and sort myself out.
Which led me to these Easter Egg Brownie Bites. Perhaps one of the easiest recipes ever.
And it’s therapeutic! Sorry Mr Bunny, but you had to go.
After all, perhaps all I needed to do to appease the chocolate gods and restore me to health was a sacrifice?
It is a one bowl recipe and doesn’t even require a mixer of any sort! Easy!
Hide your eggs in the brownie batter (and relieve your lovely weekend memories of easter eggs hunts!)
then bake, bake, bake, my pretties!
Just 12 minutes is all it takes
And then enjoy the warm, gooey, melty centre.
Good lord, these are tasty and last for days as all they need to restore gooey-ness is to be nuked for 30 seconds in the microwave. And, even better, they used up two packets of small easter eggs and make great gifts for morning/afternoon teas.
So, my lovelies, now that I have helped you with your easter egg excess, are you able to help me with my predicament? Do I just need to bite the bullet and eat all the chocolate in order to re-store my factory settings? This blog has documented my love of chocolate over the last two years and I refuse to believe that this is a permanent state of nonchalance re: chocolate. Send me your solutions!
Easter Egg Brownie Bites – Adapted from this recipe from taste.com
Ingredients
150g unsalted butter
100g dark choc easter eggs
100g Lindt milk chocolate easter bunny, chopped.
1 packet mars bar easter eggs
1 packet malteser easter eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup plain flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Method
1. lightly grease your mini muffin pan (1 1/2 tbsp capacity) and heat your oven to 160 degrees celsius (fan forced)
2. place butter, dark chocolate eggs and chopped up bunny into a microwave safe bowl and nuke them all on 50% power for 2 mins. Make sure that you pause every 30 seconds to stir your chocolate around, you don’t want to burn it!
3. Stir in sugar and leave to cool slightly
4. mix in the flour then eggs making sure that you incorporate each ingredient properly
5. spoon the mix into your muffin pan. As there is no rising agent in this mix you can safely fill them almost to the top of the hole, just remember that some of the batter will be displaced by the egg when you insert it
6. unwrap your easter eggs and push them into the centre of each hole making sure to cover the top of the egg with batter
7. bake for 12 mins
8. eat while still warm!
Note: these will store for a few days if left in an airtight container. If you want to heat them up again (which I highly recommend) you just need to pop them under the grill for a few mins or put them in the microwave for 30 seconds
So im a Dessert Whore. I proclaim my love for one dish before quickly moving on to professing my undying love for another. Does this make me insincere? NO! Rather, I like to think of myself as a Mormon husband in the world of baked goods, collecting my many wives as I go but never neglecting to care for the wives I have already accrued. Who says I can’t have my cakes and eat them?
I was on the hunt for something truly spectacular. After all, the Mothership was turning the big 6 0 and that only happens once. It was my chance to show her how grateful I am for her putting up with me and my messiness for the past twenty something years. Now, you may not know this, but the Mothership does not run on fuel, she does not have a flux capacitor, she isnt solar powered. No, the Mothership runs on chocolate. A truly ingenious invention! Therefore, the birthday cake I was to make had to be something chocolaty in the extreme.
Does this look chocolaty enough? No? Appearances can be deceiving…
