Betty Bake in Woman & Home Magazine

I was fortunate enough to be in this months Woman and Home Magazine (November 2017).
The article is on baking and they did a small write up on each woman that was featured. 
I am so thrilled and humbled each time I get to be in the media and want to say a huge thanks to everyone who reads this blog - its because of you that I get opportunities like this. 
Really - THANK YOU!


Woman and Home Magazine wanted a particular pic of me holding one of my baked gluten-free cakes (which I didn't have). So we arranged a photoshoot to create the pic they required and ended up filming our fun photo shoot.

The article is on page 52 of the November 2017 Woman & Home Magazine. 

And we also did a video on the day while photographing myself and the cake. Please take a look at it.

LINK FOR SWEET POTATO CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE HERE

Pink and Chocolate cake

I thought I would share some photos of the birthday cake I baked for my kids 9th birthday in February. I used the all to popular Sweet Potato Chocolate cake recipe (gluten-free) and iced it with a

BLING! Birthday Party with GOLD CAKE

Bling party on www.bettybake.co.za 

BAKED SWEET POTATO CHOCOLATE CAKE (GLUTEN FREE)

I wanted to bake a "healthy" chocolate cake and in cases like that I usually make a Beetroot chocolate cake. But on this very day I didn't have any beetroot in my fridge and so with some tweaking and hoping and substituting this cake was born - Baked Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake.

You know what - it turned out better than my beetroot version ... and so this is the NEW chocolate cake in our house! It is softer and sweeter - even though the same amount of sugar is used. This is because the sweet potato is baked in the oven till caramelized on the edges and it is naturally sweet.   

Not to say the beetroot chocolate cake is no longer good enough, if I can't get sweet potatoes then it will be back on the menu shortly but this cake has really stolen the show.

NOTES*** 
I have made this cake many times over the years - its still a winner and used at every birthday and everything in between! Some things have been tweaked and changed ---

SUGAR: I now use half a cup of sugar instead of a whole cup. But use as much as you think your sugar tooth needs.

WATER: I have found the cake batter has got quite thick and I now add between half a cup to 1 cup of filtered water at the end of the batter if I find its a bit to thick for my liking.

SWEET POTATO: Bake a large sweet potato with its skin on in the oven at 180 degrees celcius (turn half way through baking). Bake until soft when inserted with a knife and the outside yields nicely when pushed with a thumb. Some of the outside may look dark (brown to slightly black in places) on the outsides as the sweet potato caramelizes inside its skin. Allow to cool and then peel and mash with a fork.


INGREDIENTS (BROKEN UP INTO 4 PARTS)

STEP 1:

50g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa dark chocolate)
a tiny pinch of salt
3 Tablespoons of cream (coconut cream or dairy cream - your choice) 

 combine the 3 ingredients and melt in a baine marie - stir until smooth and put to one side.

STEP 2:

1 generous cup /200g/250ml Jaggery or Brown Organic Sugar (READ NOTES about how much sugar I now use*)
3 Free range eggs
100ml coconut oil (melted down to measure)
100ml olive oil

Beat/mix together with a stand or hand mixer in a large bowl until thickened and the mixture has lightened a little

STEP 3:

1 cup /250ml baked and mashed sweet potato (roughly 240g when cooked) *see note above*

add to the egg/sugar mixture above and mix in then add the chocolate cream and mix in until totally incorporated.

STEP 4:

3 heaped dessert spoons of cocoa
1 teaspoon bicarb
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 and a half cups / 375ml Gluten Free flour mix

Gradually add each ingredient above one by one beating after each addition to the mixture. See if you need water - (please see NOTES above the recipe)
Place mixture into 2 buttered/coconut oiled and floured medium cake tins and place in the oven at 155 degrees celcius for roughly 40 minutes - until the cake springs back to the touch and the knife inserted into the middle of the cake come out clean.

 
ICING:
I usually make a chocolate ganache for this cake  - I melt dark chocolate with coconut milk, allow to cool then pour over the cake. or alternatively I blend dates (pips removed) with coconut oil and a pinch of salt for a caramel type of icing.

MOIST CARROT CAKE WITH LEMON CREAM CHEESE ICING

I found this recipe on Nook eatery's website and immediately after changing some things and making it I wanted to share it with everyone. But I have a no stealing recipes policy and so I immediately emailed Jessica from Nook Eatery and said to her I wanted to write a blog post and share my version of the recipe (gluten-free and other tweaks). Jessica was very kind and said sure :) she is lovely, isn't she?
So thanks to Nook Eatery and Jessica for allowing me to take their recipe, turn it upside down and make it my own and share it with you. Some bloggers would argue that I had changed it enough that it could be my recipe now but I got the idea from reading their website and from their recipe - so give credit where credit is due. The bones of the recipe is definitely theirs - but when serving it to family and friends I will claim I made it (baked it) so I get the credit ;)

This carrot cake is incredibly moist and was still moist 4 - 5 days later, so its a great cake for a party or dessert that you can make ahead and keep (especially if you have lots to prepare - the more you can get done in advance the better)
Even though I made the sugar less in this recipe next time I will add even less as I thought it was still to sweet.

Enjoy

INGREDIENTS
225ml Buckwheat flour
400ml Gluten-free Flour (brand of your choice)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarb
2 generous teaspoons cinnamon
3-4 large carrots peeled and then grated (when grated filled up a measuring jug to 500ml pressed down)
4 eggs
1 and a half cups brown sugar (organic if possible)
350ml sunflower oil (or oil of your choice)
zest/ grated skin of 2 small oranges
a handful of pecans (roughly chopped)
a handful of raisins(optional)

METHOD
Place the flours, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon and grated carrot into a large bowl and stir to mix.
In a separate bowl beat the eggs and brown sugar until pale then add the sunflower oil and beat until incorporated
Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until mixed through
Now carefully zest/ grate on fine the rinds/skins of your oranges into the mixture then add the pecans and raisins (if using)
Mix all together and pour into a well buttered and floured tins (i think mine are about 18cm)

Bake in the oven @170 degrees celcius for +/- 40 minutes or the edges start to pull away from the cake tin and is nice and brown on top

Remove from tins and allow to cool
Top and fill with lemon cream cheese icing 

Enjoy the carrot cake :) let me know how it turns out :) 

 

added to Bloom designs link party

VANILLA SPONGE CAKE - GLUTEN FREE & ON YOUTUBE

 After Many hours I finally have a recipe video on You Tube - hooray!

Enjoy the EASY and Gluten Free Vanilla Sponge cake. Feel Free to share this video - go nuts and tell everyone - even your grandma. She'll love it to!...

To go directly to the link and to see it in a much bigger screen go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbt0pfH1_ZM

Thank you to my 2 egg actors who were super cute and very willing to try anything ;)

A BIG THANK YOU to Matthew Mole for allowing me to use his cute and fun snappy song. You can down load his music for free here

And for my husbands patience I owe him another cake ;)

LEMON CREAM CHEESE ICING / FROSTING

Cake garnished with blueberries and dripping smooth lemon cottage cheese icing

It the time of year for festive happiness and Christmas cheer :) and what better to cheer you up than some zesty and sweet icing or frosting for your cakes.
Super easy and simple to make.

INGREDIENTS
Icing Sugar (+/-250 grams)
1 lemon
Cream Cheese or Smooth Cottage Cheese
Milk

METHOD
Depending on weather you use cream cheese or smooth cottage cheese will depend on how much icing sugar you need. Start by placing your cheese (which ever you pick) in a medium bowl. Beat the cheese until soften slightly then sift over icing sugar a bit at a time and mix in until smooth.
Cut your lemon in half and squeeze some of the juice into the bowl - taste and add as much as suits your taste. If your icing is too thick add a little milk until it is the desired thickness. The same applies if it is to runny, add more sifted icing sugar until thick enough.
Then ice / frost your cakes

Happy tea time

enjoy

CHEESE CAKE AND CHERRY, COCONUT TRUFFLES AND SPAR CAPE QUARTER

The SPAR challenge - So I was contacted by SPAR Cape Quarter and they asked me if I would like to do a recipe bake-off of some kind. All I had to do was come up with a recipe or two and they would supply the ingredients. Mmmm now this could be interesting...
The deal was I had to get ALL the ingredients from the Cape Quarter SPAR. Darn it! - there goes Peruvian dark chocolate truffles and any other exotic thing I could think of. Well boy was I wrong! The owners of this particular SPAR decided they needed to have a large variety of imported chocolates *drool* and I decided my husband had to see all this deliciousness with me ;)

So I had to take (drag) him along on a Saturday when he and our daughter could both accompany me. Also I wanted to bounce recipe ideas off the husband (as the recipes were driving me crazy running around my head). Much to his delight - NOT! He kept asking me on the drive there - why is that you need me with again? Its a Saturday you know... Can't you shop on another day? like by yourself? I politely told him I needed him to be with and I just got back blank stares.

AT CAPE QUARTER SPAR....
Walking up and down the many aisles I reached the chocolate aisle - or should I say area. and that was the end of me - blank stare, *drool*.
Husband: Are you talking to yourself?
Me: ignoring husband - you are a pretty chocolate...mmm.
Eventually the husband literally dragged me to another aisle filled with wine and olive oil and shook me...
Me: Yes babe?
Husband: you can't invent a whole recipe out of chocolate you know.
Me: Oh really? watch me!
Husband: you need other things too - like this, this... randomly looking for things, um olive oil!!! (ok he didn't pick olive oil - but he did seem to look at me in a crazy way)


More shopping and aisle walking - clip clop, clip clop..
Husband: why am I here again?
Me: to help me - remember... what do you think? this awesomely huge chocolate - where I take these slabs and just melt them into this giant chocolate so it will "seem" like a recipe? or this other silly recipe of... um milk tart (trying to make it sound yuk and uninteresting)?

The poor man, if you have seen the variety of interesting things they stock - like marmalades from Great Britain and olive oils from various places in the world - you understand how I drove him crazy that day. and so the shopping proceeded:
Me: look babe at the this Marmalade it's from Great Britain.
Husband: Yes honey
Me: and this olive oil it's from Spain
and so the shopping trip went...
Me: look at this.. and that ..and this..
Husband: Yes sweetie (blank stare)
But near the end of the shopping trip when I had eventually talked myself (with the husbands help) out of getting 10 slabs of imported chocolate at R37 a slab -the husband just couldn't understand that spending R370 on 600grams of chocolate (yes they are only 60grams a slab) wasn't decadent AT ALL!!!
I did buy him a cheese cake from the bakery and some camembert cheese and biscuits. He walked out of there a happy man - and my shopping was complete. And Yes I did get some chocolate ;)

*And just so you know - they do stock local ingredients too but clearly I LOVE chocolate!

Lemon Zest Baked Cheese Cake

 

I got the base from the Planet Organic Cookbook by Renee Elliott and Eric Treuille. Cheese cake filling is all mine :)


INGREDIENTS FOR BASE:
150grams Almonds (blend in a processor/electric blender until fine-ish like course sugar)
4 rounded Tablespoons butter at room Temperature
4 Tablespoons Brown organic Sugar (you can use whatever sugar you have - just not icing sugar)
tiny bit of salt

METHOD FOR BASE:
Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer (or by hand) until nicely combined.  Press into a buttered and double lined cake tin and bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 10 -15 minutes. Or until very pale brown. Take out and let stand while you prepare the filling.

INGREDIENTS FOR CHEESE CAKE FILLING:
2 x 250gram cream cheese
250ml cream
4 eggs
1-2 Lemons = of which you will need 4 Tablespoons lemon juice and 1/2 teaspoons lemon zest
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Bulgarian Yoghurt

METHOD FOR CHEESE CAKE FILLING

Beat together the cream cheese and cream until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the bowl every now and then to incorporate. Beating slowly add one egg at a time on slow. Add the Lemon juice and lemon zest and beat in. Add the sugar and beat again. Now add the yoghurt and beat in. Pour onto the prepared base and place on the center shelf of a preheated oven at 180 degrees celcius. Bake for +/- 50 min until the edges have puffed up and started to golden and the center is still a little wobbly. Open the oven and take the cheese cake out and let some heat escape for a minute then place the cheese cake to cool in the oven with the door closed for 30 - 40min. Then place the cheese cake in the fridge for 3 hours or over night.
Garnish as you desire and serve. Best cut with a wet sharp knife.

Cherry and Coconut Truffles

INGREDIENTS
50grams Raw almonds
7 fresh Dates (pips removed)
a generous handful of Glace Cherries (roughly 17) +/- 100grams
50g 70% dark Chocolate (I used Lindt) (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup fine coconut
70- 100grams dark chocolate (or chocolate of your choice)
2 teaspoons sunflower oil
OPTIONAL a few marachino cherries on stalks

METHOD
Grind the almonds until fine in a blender and then take out and set aside.
Place dates in the blender and blend slightly and then add the glace cherries. Blend a bit more and then add the dark chocolate and blend until  very well mixed, chopped and kind of smooth. Add the ground almonds and mix again. Now add the coconut little by little until you reach a pliable consistency. Then roll into balls or mold around marachino cherries.
Melt the chocolate and oil in a baine marie or a glass bowl balanced on top of a pot with a little water boiling below (the glass bowl mustn't touch the water below). Stir until melted. Dip the rolled cherry and coconut balls in the chocolate and spoon over more melted chocolate with a spoon and then place on waxed paper to set. There will be a little melted chocolate left over but if you use less you wan't be able to spoon the chocolate over the balls - so spread the left over chocolate on a separate piece of wax paper and sprinkle with cherries, almonds or raisins or water you fancy in your chocolate and leave to set - break into pieces and enjoy.

Enjoy your lovely cherry and coconut truffles or wrap up and package in a pretty box to make a beautiful and delicious gift.

 
 
p.s placed in the Friday Link up at http://www.whipperberry.com/

CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CAKE

This cake was originally inspired by Ross Burden's Beetroot Choc Cake - having seen it on the internet I gave it a look through and then proceeded to do a re-hash (kind doing my own thing) - Gluten-Free of course 

INGREDIENTS (BROKEN UP INTO 4 PARTS)

STEP 1:

50g dark chocolate (I used 70% lindt)
a tiny pinch of salt
3 Tablespoons of cream

 combine the 3 ingredients and melt in a baine marie - stir until smooth and put to one side.

STEP 2:

1 generous cup /200g/250ml Brown Organic Sugar
3 Free range eggs
180/190ml Sunflower Oil

Beat/mix together with a hand mixer in a large bowl until thickened slightly and the mixture has lightened a little

STEP 3:

1 cup /250ml cooked and pureed beetroot (roughly 450g when raw and peeled)

add to the egg/sugar mixture above and mix in then add the chocolate cream and mix in until totally incorporated.

STEP 4:

3 heaped dessert spoons of cocoa
1 teaspoon bicarb
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups/ 500ml Gluten Free flour mix

Gradually add each ingredient above one by one beating after each addition to the mixture.
Place mixture into 1 buttered and floured  ?? cm cake tin and place in the oven at 155 degrees for roughly 48 minutes - until the cake springs back to the touch and the knife inserted into the middle of the cake come out clean.

 
Ice as desired - I used a chocolate ganache :)

CUPCAKES WITH A HINT OF LEMON

original recipe from here   - thanks to Lana of Lanalou who takes the most gorgeous photos of her once a month recipe (sweet treats) and blogs about it - i make these cupcakes often and use them for all the party cupcakes i make :) I have changed and tweaked the recipe to suit my family  - as we are wheat free and love to use real vanilla from the pod. Ofcourse you can use vanilla essence if you don't have vanilla pods or leave it out if you prefer.

Cupcakes with lemon zest

100g butter
⅔ cup sugar (i use brown organic sugar)
1 cup wheat-free flour (you can use regular wheat self raising flour too just leave out the baking powder below )

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
6 tbsp milk
2 large eggs
pinch salt
1 vanilla pod - seeds scraped out in mixture
1 tbsp grated lemon zest

Mix all ingredients together starting with the butter and sugar - slowly add the rest once the butter and sugar are nicely mixed together,  beat well
Pour the mixture into cupcake cases
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until golden brown at 180°C
 Makes ± 12 cupcakes depending on what size cupcake cases you use
         

Aunty Jenny's Chocolate Cake

This chocolate cake is sooo moist and delicious i just love it! I ve been baking it since a teenager and got the recipe from my friends mom who we all called - Aunty Jenny. She was the best cook (still is a brilliant one) in our church. We loved to go eat at her house and it was always a treat to chat to her in her kitchen while she cooked :) This cake is always asked for by my husband whenever i ask him what cake he would like for his birthday or he'll ask for it sometimes when he just feels like something nice and baked and chocolatey. And so of course I used this as one of the cakes for my daughter's fancy tea party.

The basis of this cake is a good mayonaise -which sounds disgusting to be put in a chocolate cake! I have even had people refuse to try it because they heard mayo is in it! but once they do - there is no turning back and they come back for seconds. It is really that good.
It is better made with a normal (wheat) self raising flour but can be made with a wheat-free flour of  your choice. The cake itself keeps well in an airtight container for 5 or so days. And really is nearly as delicious on the 5th day as on the 1st!

AUNTY JENNY'S CHOCOLATE CAKE
2 cups self raising flour (or wheat free flour)
2/3 cup of cocoa
1 & 1/4 teaspoon bicarb
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 & 2/3 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla ess
1 cup (good quality mayonaise- like crosse and blackwell)
1 & 1/3 cup cold water

METHOD
Sift and combine the first 4 ingredients and set aside.
Beat sugar, eggs and vanilla on high speed for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy
Now beat in the Mayonaise slowly
Beating constantly add the flour mixture and the water alternatively - Beginning and ending with flour
Pour into 2 cake tins (roughly 22cm) greased and floured
Bake @ 180 degrees celcius for 30 - 35 min or until the sides start to pull away from the tin
Cool in tins for 10 min before turning out onto racks
Once cooled decorate as desired

Enjoy


Betty :)