Chef Brain: Episode 9 Birthday Cake Recipes

It’s double trouble in today’s episode of Chef Brain…

In today’s episode we’re celebrating not one, but TWO birthdays in the Fresh Farm: Chef Mimi and Chef Patrick! They might be a year older, but that didn’t have any effect on their competitive spirits which were fired up when they were faced with their most exciting challenge yet: to create a birthday cake that reflected each others character and foodie tastes.

They were given the staple ingredients for a basic cake – eggs, butter, flour and sugar –  and allowed to go wild with three random ingredients. With Chef Mimi being the in-house baking expert (and having cooked for and impressed a baking legend – watch the episode to find out who it was!), Patrick was under a lot of pressure. But against the odds, was he able to pull the cat out of the bag with his unusual bake? Take a look to find out…

COURGETTE AND LIME CAKE WITH A CREME FRAICHE FROSTING

Ingredients

• 1 courgette
• 1 lime
• Creme fraiche
• Icing sugar
• Oil
• Self Raising Flour
• Sugar
• 6 eggs

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees. Grate the courgette and then drain out most of the liquid by squeezing it in a teatowel. Grate the lime zest.
2. Mix the courgette together in a bowl with the eggs, oil and three quarters of the lime zest.
3. Gently fold in the self raising flour and baking powder.
4. Pour into 2 round cake tins (lined with baking paper) and bake until a skewer comes out clean, 30 mins. Leave to cool on rack.
5. Meanwhile, mix the creme fraiche with the icing sugar and a squeeze of lime juice. Pop into the fridge.
6. Once the cakes are completely cool, sandwich them together with half the creme fraiche icing, then spread some on top. Sprinkle over the remaining lime zest and enjoy!

Yoghurt Coffee Cake

When we asked Patrick about the inspiration behind his cake, here’s what he had to say:

“So basically I never make cakes. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. That’s why I am falling back on an old favourite: The Yoghurt Cake. This one is so easy to make it’s like falling off a log backwards. I used to make one every day when I was doing a ski season in Switzerland and if you need to whip something together for a surprise visit from Aunty Mabel, or Mimi, then this is the one for you. And because Mimi is such a hard-working chef I’ve put coffee into it to put a pep in her step. The beauty of this is that you can use the whole thing using a yoghurt pot as a measuring cup. Easy right?!”

Ingredients:

• 250ml Vanilla yoghurt
• Chopped Walnuts, a large handful
• Instant coffee
• Olive oil
• Melted Butter
• Sugar
• Flour
• 2 eggs

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees.
2. In a bowl mix one pot of yoghurt then use that pot to make the following measurements (and add them to the bowl too): 1 pot of melted butter, 2 pots of sugar, 3 pots of flour and then add 2 eggs.
3. MIx everything together thoroughly and add in chopped walnuts.
4. Separate the mixture between two baking tins and pop them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, until you can stick a knife in the middle and the blade comes out clean (i.e. the cake is cooked all the way through).
5. To make the icing, put the sugar in a blender and blend it until it comes out like icing sugar, then combine this with butter and espresso to make the frosting. Sandwich frosting between each one, then frost the top and scatter over more walnuts.

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