To ask what your favourite fail safe cake recipe is

[polkadotpjs]

I've made a few chocolate "cakes of disappointment" as we have named them lately. The effort of baking and no nice reward. I've a good chocolate cake recipe but it's a very moist (bleurgh) and more pudding dark chocolate taste and whilst ideal as an adult birthday cake, it's not great for kids

I love a coffee cake but yet to make a lush one, bored of Victoria sponge as I've made so many getting it right during Covid times.
Share some so I can rediscover my love of baking?

Had to make the Tana Ramsey lemon cake recipe today after seeing it mentioned so many times, just having a slice now - it’s delicious!

Dr Oetker’s recipe chocolate sponge (online recipe, not a packet mix) and Felicity Cloake’s perfect Victoria sandwich.

Shreddies malt loaf. Super easy and keeps well.
2 cups milk, 2 cups shreddies, 2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups SR flour, 1 1/2 cups fruit of your choice.

Smoosh shreddies in milk. Mix it all together. Bung in silicone loaf tin or well greased tin. Bake at gas 4 for about 45 mins to an hour or more depending on fruit.

Eat with butter and tea.

Lorraine Pascale ginger and black treacle parkin. Mary Berry easy chocolate cake with milk chocolate ganache. Ruby Tandoh chocolate and coffee birthday cake. I go back to these again and again and they are just divine! Shame about my waistline though

Nigellas chocolate fudge cake never fails - the one that feeds 12 or 1 with a broken heart. And I definitely can't make a good sponge!

Cherry bakewell cake! Bloody gorgeous and I'm a crap baker. I can make this though and it's a bit more interesting that plain sponge. Also the almonds help make it moist. Only good for no nut allergies obvs.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cherry-bakewell-cake/amp

My two staples:

Nigella Lawson gingerbread loaf from her How to be a Domestic Goddess book (I often bake the recipe as muffins instead and slightly reduce the cooking time and it works really well for that too). Makes the entire house smell heavenly whilst it cooks and tastes delicious.

Chocolate cake from my mum's old Stork recipe book from 1950-something...so simple but gets praise every time I make it. I use unsalted butter instead of Stork but other than that follow the recipe faithfully and it's never let me down yet. So easy, literally butter, caster sugar, eggs, self-raising flour, some cocoa powder mixed with boiling water and a spoonful of milk.No frills, no faff, just a really nice cake mix.

WoeWoewoejoy
That's the exact lemon drizzle recipe I was about to suggest

Quite labour intensive but SO GOOD.

This one OP!!

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/dorset-apple-cake/amp

@gospelsinger I love it. I use it for every cake. I often be it in a baking dish so it's like a tray bake. Perfection every time! I just change the flavour. In a baking dish it's more spread out so cooks in half the time!

I like Nigella old fashioned chocolate cake or chocolate Guinness cake. The thing with a victoria sponge based recipe is that some people produce far better ones than others. A recipe like these with more liquid give more consistent results.

I love some of the recipes on here! Can't wait to try them!

From my own cake-files: Tana Ramseys lemon drizzle cake- always goes down well. Lasts about 30 min in a room of hungry soldiers. Mary Berry Sachertorte recipe is my go to fancy choccy cake. Love it as a treat. Also goes fast with hungry soldiers around.

My viccy sponge recipe I think was initially a Delia and it's very easy to scale up. It's 2 ounces each of butter, caster sugar and SR flour to an egg. x2 oz more of each ingredient per every extra egg used. Whack it all in together & whisk, bake at 180 fan. Cracking. I do the same for choccy cake & add a couple of table spoons of cocoa and a bit of milk (I think about 1 tablespoon). Use the same measurements for cupcake mixes, too. Depending on how big a batch I want. The real joy for me is tarting my sponge up with buttercream or chocolate buttercream icing though. I love making butter cream and I get comments on how nice mine is!