Easy but gorgeous cakes

[SugarPlumpFairyCakes]

I have developed an interest in baking. I am very amateur.

Please give me your best / glamorous / most delicious cakes that are not beyond a beginner.

I know I can follow a recipe but I’d like foolproof tried and tested from any keen bakers please.

This:

https://ottolenghi.co.uk/pages/recipes/clementine-almond-syrup-cake

It's incredible

Paul Hollywood's carrot cake -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/paul-hollywoods-ultimate-carrot-cake/amp/

Absolutely delicious and Im not a very good baker at all!

https://www.janespatisserie.com/2015/08/28/chocolate-fudge-cake/

this is a great recipe. Lots of good stuff on this website as well

The sponge part of this but make it in 2 tins and just do chocolate buttercream frosting. The custard wasn't worth the effort. Brooklyn Blackout Cake » Hummingbird High

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/celebration_chocolate_18175

This cake is excellent and very doable. I usually switch out for chocolate buttercream but I am sure this would be fine as well.

Good thread idea! I’m very amateurish at baking but I once managed to produce a good rainbow cake. I covered it in icing and covered that in sprinkles. I’m useless at icing and the sprinkles make it look good.

malt loaf (works with non-dairy milk if you want to make it vegan /allergy friendly)
2 cups of SR flour
1 cup of dried fruit
1 cup of dark brown sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup of milk
1 (generous) tablespoon of treacle

mix all the dry ingredients together
heat the milk (don't boil) and dissolve the treacle in the milk
mix everything together and bung in a loaf tin. Bake for 1hour 180degrees.

not glamourous but tasty and keeps really well so good for lunch box snacks.

School cake - I always follow the same basic sponge recipe (weigh 4 large eggs in shells and then use the same weight each for self raising flour, caster sugar and butter).

Cream butter and sugar.
Add in eggs and mix again.
Fold in the flour with a large spoon.
Add 1tsp vanilla extract.

Bake for about 35 mins. I always listens to my cakes - if they’re still fizzing when you put them to your ear, the mixture is not quite cooked yet).

Cover with icing and sprinkles!

This is an easy cake with a striking appearance. Really tasty too

https://www.mybaba.com/lorraine-pascales-crouching-tiger-hidden-zebra-cake/

Can’t do links, sorry , but Mary Berry’s lemon drizzle cake is foolproof and perfect .

Nigella Lawson's Clementine Cake. Takes time, but no effort (blitz in a food processor, stir things together, dollop into tin, into oven), tastes amazing, looks amazing with some ready-seeded pomegranate on top. I make it every Xmas, and I once sent it via the post to a pregnant coeliac friend (its accidentally gluten free), who got a bit teary-eyed about it (pregnancy hormones + cake deprivation). There is a chocolate version too if chocolate orange is your thing www.nigella.com/recipes/clementine-cake

Bero milk chocolate cake - it's foolproof. It was one of the first recipes I made on my own as a child and it's also blooming delicious.
https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2021/03/old-fashioned-milk-chocolate-cake.html

Oh wow. So many. Thanks very much.

Listening to fizzy cakes. Who knew.