Chocolate and Coconut Cake with Dulce De Leche and Cashews

A tremendous weight of guilt has been following me around this week because of how dormant mbakes has been recently. Mama and me have just moved into the most spacious flat to ever grace the industrial beast of Bexley known as Slade Green. Moving the contents of a three bedroom house into a flat is not easy, so this ugly cake (which carries with it the most indulgent pairings) was made for the woman who carried flat packs, heavy duty black bags and my ever growing and pointless collection of kitchen ‘bits’ to the second floor. 

And it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Waitrose, who offered to help me put together a cakey so and so for Mother’s Day. They’ve also put together a collection of lovely sweet recipes, Sophie literally turned their Victoria sponge into a berry tree and it was beautiful, I’m positive her mum would have been proud!

This was the last cake I made and shot beside a huge Victorian sized window (tear). The house itself was literally falling apart, unlike this squeaky clean and cream one. The photos oh here might be darker from now on, but behind it all, I think we’ll be much happier. 

If anyone has any tips for shooting in low light I’d be so grateful! 

I’ve had this hazelnut and dulce de leche quadruple layer chocolate cake indexed from the Aussy Delicious magazine for a good year now, but I was pretty sick of hazelnuts after baking this flourless chocolate cake for the fifth time. So I scattered in a good handful of sweet coconut and it added chewiness and taste to the cake likened to a Bounty bar. 

Yes it is just another chocolate cake, but it is positively spruced up with creamy cashews, generous spreads of dulce de leche and a very buttery chocolate icing. Just promise you’ll do a better job at decorating it for Mother’s Day. 

Passionfruit and Lime Curd

Life is a bit hectic at the moment, which might explain the silence around here this week. We’re in the middle of moving to a new flat. I think you might agree that this is can be the most stressful few weeks in life. Moving an oven, beds, sofas, boxes upon boxes of kitchen utensils (I’m that kitchen equipment hoarder person) and other unbearably heavy objects through the most unrealistic spaces is on the horizon and it’s going to hurt.

I hope you’ll be patient and the next time I post I promise it won’t be a condiment. Saying that, this stuff disintegrates on the tongue and has the silkiest feel, shortly followed by the strongest kick of citrus I’ve ever experienced. It thickens up pretty quick, and you wont want to browse through your phone whilst you whisk away because you might just be mesmerised by the most beautiful shades of yellow melding together in the pan.

Passionfruit and Lime Curd

3 passionfruits
Juice of 4 limes, zest of 1
3 large eggs
75g caster sugar
75g unsalted butter

Place the seeded pulp of the passionfruits into a food processor. Pulse 3 times to loosen the seeds from the pulp and pass through a sieve into a small bowl - set the seeds aside. Add the eggs, sugar and juice of 4 limes to a small bowl and mix to combine. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add the passionfruit pulp and egg mixture to the saucepan and whisk continuously until thickened - around 2 minutes. As soon as the mixture thickens, continue mixing whilst it bubbles away for 1 minute, add the zest of the lime and take the curd off the heat. Let cool for 5 minutes and then add the passionfruit seeds. If the mixture is lumpy pass it through a sieve, but if you continuously whisk you should have a smooth mixture. Pour into a sterilised jar, let cool and refrigerate. Lasts for 5 days.

Love Em xx

Silver Dollar Pancakes with Nutella and Raspberries

Most of you may have heated up the non-stick pan by now, but for those 9-5ers who would rather spend the extra hour in bed instead of mixing flour and eggs together before sunrise, I want you to make my rack of hot cakes tonight.  

The name of these has everything to do with the size of the pancakes, they’re tiny rounds, making up about 4 mouthfuls to be precise (I have taste tested this). Of course, you could make bigger rounds, but its Pancake Day so we’re going to celebrate by giving our plates some height. 

A silver dollar pancake is usually made without buttermilk because its meant to be a small and light little gesture. So if you’re a skimmed milk fiend, these would be perfect. 

These are the kinds of pancakes, that, when you give them their first flip, you can see them elevate and then fall back down ever so slightly. That’s the raising agents in the self-raising flour doing its magic, which is crucial here if you want an American style pancake. Which, lets face it, is the only pancake that should be legal on Shrove Tuesday. 

As for every other day of the week, or when you’re strolling down the high street, a crepe from the crepe man with the life size jar of Nutella will do. 

I’ve glued my pancakes together with a slither of Nutella and finished them off with raspberries, below an even thicker slither of Nutella and not least because it looks visually appealing. But because the tartness of raspberries (because they’re so blatantly not in season) contrasted with sweet, sweet and satisfying hazelnut spread works bloody wonders. 

Pancake pairings by other bloggers that you should seriously consider:

Cocoa Nib and Coffee Syrup Pancakes by Sarah from The Vanilla Bean Blog (she went there). 

Cinnamon Pancakes with Coconut Cashew Cream by Sophie from The Cake Hunter-uhuh-uhuh

Honey and Oat Pancakes by Izy over at Top With Cinnamon

Speculoos aka Cookie Butter Pancakes by Hannah from The Littlest Bakehouse mmmmhm

Read on to get the recipe