Evil chocolate cake Redux

This was formerly, Mint Chocolate Cake with Strawberries and whipped cream. After moving here, the recipe had to be adapted to unavailability of fresh strawberries and dark chocolate. The result.

Cinnamon Raisin Scones

Yes. Really. Like Gerald Durrell and Enid Blyton.

I grew up hearing/reading about these things, and never et a one, even when I visited old Blighty. This week a friend got me into a baking mood, so I made Mushroom and Potato Quiche, and now tried scones. No idea if this is what they should be like, but melikes! also, SUPREMELY unhealthy!

Veggie Cheese Pasta

Random recipe I keep making up as I go along, but figure I should write it down.

• Pasta
• 2 bundles of spinach, shredded
• 10-15 cloves of garlic, depending on how you like it, crushed
• 100 g cheese of choice (you can tone it down or up), grated
• 1 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1 bag mushrooms, sliced
• 2 small peppers (I like red and yellow), diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 300-500 ml milk, depending on how you want the sauce
• 2 tbs butter
• 4 tbs flour, pref wholewheat
• salt to taste

Boil pasta according to directions.

Fry onions and garlic in olive oil till onions are translucent. Add spinach, basil, oregano and salt. Cover and cook till the liquid dries up. Set aside to cool. Cook peppers and mushrooms till liquid dries up, if you like put some garlic in too! Salt to taste. When the spinach mixture has dried, puree it.

White sauce: Melt butter in a pan and cook flour in it until it smells like it's cooked - a bit like pie crust. Slowly stir milk in till lumps disappear. Add salt to taste. As it comes to a boil, stirring occasionally, add grated cheeses. Once it boils, turn off

Add spinach puree. Stir in veggies and pasta. Serve!

Apple Cake

The sister brought me a bundt pan, so I've been going a leeeetle nuts. Heh.

• 2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
• 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 200g flour (wholewheat always works best)
• 100g melted butter
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200 ml milk
• 150g sugar (brown for preference)
• 1 tbs sugar for caramel

Heat over to 250C. Beat eggs and sugar together. Add melted butter. Add milk, and then flour, cinnamon and baking powder. Beat till you see bubbles in the batter. Sprinkle sugar in the bottom of the bundt pan, and sprinkle some water on it. Heat over medium flame till sugar caramelises. Put apple pieces in the bottom, and pour batter on top. Bake for 30 min or so, test with knife. I didn't caramelise the sugar first, so it result was less than lovely. This recipe is also a good basic cake recipe!

Honey Spice cake with Caramel frosting

For the cake

• 2 eggs
• 3 cups wholewheat flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon (toss 2 cloves in when you grind if you can)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbs butter (salted)
• 1 tbs orange zest
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey

Preheat oven to 250C. Combine butter and zest in a saucepan over medium heat, until butter sizzles. Beat eggs and sugar together till fluffy. Add honey and then butter-zest mixture. Keep whizzing. Add milk. Now mix all the remaining ingredients in a bowl and fold them into the wet mixture, by hand. (This bit I forgot, maybe that's why I ended up with something resembling dough?) Bake in greased pan for 30-40 min. Remove from pan and cool.

For the icing

• 1/4 cup butter (salted)
• 1/3 cup milk (original called for heavy cream, none in house, I v lazy...)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup icing sugar (I used powdered white sugar and it's a little too sweet)

Mix butter, milk and brown sugar in pan over medium heat. Keep stirring as you bring to a boil. Once it's bubbling nicely, take off fire and set aside for 5-10 min. Whisk in the icing sugar. Pour over cake, and put in fridge to set.

The cake is from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and the icing from Taste and Tell.

Both have been slightly adapted.