cake Cake CAKE...

So we made cake, lots of cake. They were all recipes we had never tried before and liked the look of. Our first being "Maple and Pecan Layer Cake" from the hummingbird bakery book "Cake Days"...

Now this is one of the few recipes that I have ever come across that actually looks as good as the picture in the book, looks so professional! Even cutting in to it looked good as the cake was made up of 3 layes of sponge and sandwiched together with super sweet maple syrup frosting. We made this for a friends birthday and let me tell you it did not last long!!

Next we made "S'moreanne Cupcakes" again from the "Cake Days" book. These scrummy cupcakes consisted of dark chocolate sponge topped with a biscuit and dark chocolate sprinklings and finished with a generous helping of meringue. I think I could have whisked the meringue abit more to make the appearance abit glossier but they still looked pretty tasty...

And finally we tried a "Rhubarb-Crumble Kuchen" which was a recipe from Nigella Lawson's "How To Be A Domestic Goddess" This is a German recipe and in German Kuchen just means cake. To make this recipe you have to make a kind of sweet dough which acts as a base which you brush with a nutmeg and allspice egg mixture finished with lots of rhubarb and some crumble topping. I think this looks really impressive and its a really comfort food treat. The dough makes it stodgy but the sweetness and freshness of the rhubarb lightens it up. 

We ate it with some toffee ice cream. Yum! 

  

And to begin...

In our flat I tend to do quite alot of the cooking as my boyfriend works alot, I love to do it so its not a problem. However the other day my boyfriend decided to return the favour by cooking some yummy food for me. He made spinach and ricotta gnocchi and a leek and goats cheese pie while I tackle a lime and chocolate cheesecake for dessert. 

The gnocchi was amazing! So yummy. As well as spinach it had lots of parsley in it too so it tasted really fresh. We drizzled some olive oil over it and had it with abit of rocket on the side...definitely one to make again I think! 

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipies/461631/spinach-and-ricotta-gnocchi

Next was the Pie. It was made with filo pasty so it should have been quite light. However the amount of goats cheese made it quite stodgy which was abit disappointing. We also felt that something was missing from it,  maybe it needed more seasoning but something was definitely missing from the flavour. Maybe abit of garlic in it would have been nice but im just guessing. 

    http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/260609/leek-and-goats-cheese-pie

Now then the cheesecake...ive made afew successful cheesecakes in my time but I am sad to say that this one just wasnt up to standard. The recipe called for the zest and juice of 6 limes in the cheese mixture. 6! I was dubious but went along with it as I like to follow recipes to the word. Sadly when we tried it after baking it was just too bitter and as there was just so much zest that it had a slightly unpleasant texture too, it was sad. Maybe it could have done with abit more sugar or less lime. Luckily 4 hungry buys came round and ate the lot. Dont think I will be trying this on again in a hurry though.

Sad thing about this recipe is that it came from an amazing recipe book which normally delivers. (try the black and white chocolate cheesecake bars...best thing ever!)

  

Hello

Me and my boyfriend love to cook so we thought it might be a good idea to create a blog to keep a record of 'The Food We Cook'. And if anyone would like to follow us through our culinary triumph and disasters then they are more than welcome.