What’s the difference between homemade cakes & biscuits and ones you buy off a supermarket shelf, beside taste and price? Ingredients! Ingredients! Ingredients!
Best Before Date – When you purchase your next cake or biscuit ask yourself when was it baked? – it could be 4 months old before you lift it off the shelf. Bought baked goods have a long shelf life due to the large number of chemicals added to delay decay.
Fat used in bought cakes and biscuits is very often the cheaper margarine variety which is called trans fat or hydrogenated fat and occasionally pure butter – all these ingredients contribute to high cholesterol. I tend to use sunflower oil, Flora green tub or low fat spreads that have added water rather than butter and never trans/hydrogenated fat.
Eggs – Eggs used in commercial baking are transported in large vats as liquid eggs – certainly they are not free range or organic which every home baker can choose to use if they so wish.
Salt – there is absolutely no reason to use salt in home baked cakes, however recent research showed that many foods using ‘free from wheat, gluten or dairy products’ contained higher salt levels than their standard counterparts. It’s all about choice – if you enjoy a slice of cake or the humble biscuit – bake your own or be very selective as to what and where you purchase your baked treats. Become familiar with food labels.
There are many ways to bake cakes – rubbing in, creaming, whisking, all in one. The easiest – ‘all in one muffin recipe’ requires very little equipment and very little effort – a large bowl, a spoon, sieve and a muffin tin or even scrunched up greaseproof paper lined teacups will do and a little patience. No excuse not to get baking especially if you have children.
Carrot Cake Muffins
I have reduced the fat /oil content of this recipe and replaced it with natural yoghurt. The only reason I did this was to reduce the calorie content, however if you haven’t an issue with calories use 1 cup of oil and a little warm water to get the right consistency (soft creamy mixture)
Makes 15 Muffins or 36 Mini Muffins
Ingredients
175 grms (¾ cup) sugar
375 grms (1½ cups) wholewheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large grated carrot
2 eggs
50 grms (½ cups) walnuts (Cut into small pieces)
125 mls (½ cup) vegetable oil
2 Regular size Cartons (1cup) natural or Greek yoghurt
Method
1. Pre – heat oven 160c. Line muffin tins with baking cases.
2. Stir together oil, eggs and vanilla essence, use a wire whisk.
3. Add all the rest of the ingredients
4. Stir very gently until all ingredients are mixed.
5. Place mix into the cake cases, I find an ice cream scoop (with moveable bar) excellent for scooping & measuring mixture equally into cases.
6. Place in the pre heated oven for 15 minutes.
7. When cooked, remove from oven. Place on a cooling rack to cool
8. When cold decorate with a dusting of icing sugar, cinnamon flavoured icing sugar or flavoured cream cheese icing. Dust with hot chocolate powder (optional)
9. Serve with afternoon tea or with whipped cream as a dessert
Cream Cheese Icing
100grms Cream Cheese
250 grms Icing Sugar
Pinch Chinese 5 Spice, cinnamon or orange zest.
Method
1. Soften cream cheese in a large bowl,
2. Sieve in ¾ icing sugar whisk until light and fluff, add rest of icing sugar and flavouring.
3. Whisk to the right consistency for piping.
4. Use to decorate cupcakes, muffins and carrot cake.
Sians Plan 