Anyone have a nice affordable cake recipe. Something that goes nice with custard?

[ChristmasMonkey]

We usually have apple crumble but finding it expensive

Apple crumble is the cheapest of the cheap to me because I have a bramley apples tree. Could you ask around? Lots of people will have far more apples than they can eat wrapped in paper right now.

Otherwise, school dinner tray bake sponge must be about the cheapest cake to make. Basic sponge recipe with water icing on, sprinkles if you have them and want that authentic school dinner finish.

A cake will be more expensive than a crumble, and doesn't go with custard!

School dinner cake goes with custard. As does a McVities Jamaica ginger cake.

I'm a bit of a connoisseur of cake and custard.

How about this?

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/lemon-drizzle-sponge-pudding

Or this?

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/coconut-mango-sponge

I could happily have custard alone!

Hairy Bikers Easy Ginger Cake is brilliant, easy, and great with custard as well as cold. Pretty cheap as it uses marg not butter and only 1 egg

My mum used to do a microwave jam or golden syrup sponge as a quick cheap weekday pudding.

Just a microwaveable basin, a good splodge of jam or syrup in the bottom then a basic sponge mix dolloped on top (2 eggs, 4oz sugar, 4ozself raising flour and 4oz butter/marj) microwave for about 3 mins, check its bouncy on top and if not give it another 30 sec- 1min.

Perhaps try a jam steamed pudding. If you don't want to make it you can get ones in the supermarket that you heat in the microwave.

A basic sponge is marg/sugar/eggs/flour. You can replace the marg with vegetable oil. You can jazz up this basic mixture...with..

Lemons
Apple and cinnamon
Cocoa powder to make a chocolate cake
Chocolate chips

What do you have in your cupboards?

Microwave instant pud. Use 1 egg and 50g each SR flour, sugar and marg/butter. Mix well in a microwave proof bowl so not melamine. Add mixed spice or ground ginger if you want (or choc chips!) And then microwave 2.5 fo 3 mins depending on wattage. Serves 2 or 3. Multiply mixture for more servings and increase microwave time to match.

I drag the mix to one side and add a tablespoon of golden syrup before putting mix back and cooking.

You can microwave your custard first while doing the mixing so you can serve immediately.

not that I have done this a lot

I made this the other day, DCs loved it. Mil used to do it when DH was little. Cheap, quick, tasty enough.

Basic sponge mix with desiccated coconut and jam

Sigh. *2.5 to 3 mins

Oh and I even made it gluten free using GF flour and it still worked.

I'd echo @FatAgainItsLettuceTime a microwave syrup (or jam) sponge is about as cheap and quick as you can do. If you want something more cakey then a spiced apple cake is easy using any old apples and a bit of cinnamon in a basic sponge recipe - not much cheaper than a crumble though I'd imagine.

And cross post with, oh, about half of you! 😁

I make a sponge in the microwave with jam, syrup or use cocoa to make a chocolate one.
Quick and easy.

And if you have your oven on bung a rice pudding in.
2oz pudding rice
1oz sugar
1pint milk
Knob of butter
Nutmeg

Mix in ovenproof bowl. Sprinkle with nutmeg
Cook on low heat, 150c, 2 hours or until rice is cooked.

Jam tarts

Sick some sultanas or raisins and add. Leave it uncovered so it forms a skin (best bit).

Other thought, if it's the fruit that you're finding expensive then one of the things we do is to chop up and freeze any fresh fruit that's gone past it's best from the fruit bowl.

Might only be 1 apple but it gets chopped up and chucked into a Tupperware box in the freezer. Once there's enough in there it can be made into a smoothie or crumble. Usually ends up being a mix of apple, plum, nectarine and berries.

An apple cake served warm goes very nicely with custard. You don’t need as many apples as for apple crumble - just a layer of slices in the middle of two lots of ordinary sponge mix. (I always use Stork for Cakes). Under layer of sponge probably a bit bigger - the apples do tend to sink a bit.

The rice pudding recipe above can be measured using a tablespoon - 2tabs pudding rice,1sugar.
can use same measurements for semolina or tapioca (if you can find any!)

Microwave sponge with syrup and sliced banana in the bottom is lovely with custard.