Recipes for cakes or biscuits that are dead quick and easy

[Zog]

I'm going to try and stop buying cakes and biscuits and start baking every other day . I'm after recipes that can be made and in the oven in 10 minutes or under.

Any recommendations?

Nigellas fairy cakes:
125g each of SR flour/ caster sugar/ butter
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp milk

Bung it all in the food processor apart from the milk and whizz till smooth. slowy add milk till dropping consistency.

Divide into 12 cake cases and cook at Gas mk 6 for 15 - 20 mins

Dead easy!

Good resolution!

Simple plain biscuits that the kids love....

4oz butter
4oz castor sugar
1 egg
8 oz plain flour
pinch of cinammon or mixed spice

Cream butter and sugar, beat in egg, sift in flour and spice. Mix, knead into dough. Roll and cut.
Gas 5 for 10 mins.

It's better if you can reserve the dough in the fridge for a bit before rolling. It sticks less to hands.

Do you have a microwave? I could dig out my recipe for microwave chocolate cake....

Ooh these are great, thank you! I've got a microwave - would be grateful for that recipe too

I have one - not sure if it meets the bill. I will find the full recipe if you want it.

Basically it is for orange biscuits. The mix probably takes 1-20 mins to make (never tried it in the whizzer - could make it quicker), you roll it into a big sausage and chill (at least 2hours). It can be frozen at this stage so once you have made the sausage - you an defrost as needed and the next bit is literally 2 mins and then in the oven. You basically slice circles off the sausage and bake in the oven really quickly (less than 10 mins I think).

Flapjacks? Like cereal bars you buy but much nicer - I add dates to mine, the children love 'em! Just butter, oats, golden syrup and dates or cherries or choc chips, whatever you want to use.

or

Phoebe's Fabulous Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

12 tablespoons (175g) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup (160g) firmly packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup (130g) white sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (170g) rolled oats
1 1/4 cup (160g) plain flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (200g) raisins

Preheat oven to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5.

Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract; beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl combine oats, flour, soda, baking powder and salt. Mix into butter mixture until just combined. Stir in raisins.

Drop the dough by heaped tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving a 2" gap between each mound. [I used a dessert-spoon and made ovals rather than balls (quenelles, if we're being posh) as I heard that this caused the dough to spread less.]

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on sheet for at least a minute before transferring to a rack.

They sound just the thing SMS, thank you

KBear, what proportions do you use for your flapjacks (can you tell I'm a baking virgin? Poor deprived children )

MICROWAVE CHOCOLATE CAKE

180g cooking choc
80g butter
125g sugar
50g flour
3 tablespoons water
3 eggs

Chop up butter and choc. Add water and melt in m'wave for 1 min on max (for an 800 - 1000W oven)
Mix in eggs 1 by 1
Mix sugar and flour together then add to the chocolate mix.
Pour into a greased microwavable dish.

Cook for 6-7 mins on max.

My recipe book is in DTDs bedroom at the mo and they are asleep. Will post the recipe tomorrow sometime - although will probably be evening as we are hoping for a day out tomorrow.

Have a search for Pruni's chocolate biscuits (I'm going to make them this week) and also Miaou's lemon fork biscuits. I'll see if I can do a link for you.

Pruni's chocolate biscuits

Miaou's lemon fork biscuits

By Miaou on Sat 18-Nov-06 09:04:40
This recipe is really quick and easy because the mixture doesn't need rolling and cutting

Lemon Fork Biscuits

6oz butter, softened (I use marg instead and it's fine)
3oz caster sugar (I use granulated if I haven't got caster suger )
grated zest of one lemon
8oz self-raising flour

Cream together sugar, butter and lemon zest then mix in the flour. Form to a soft dough with hands.

Place walnut sized pieces of the dough onto well-greased baking trays allowing room for spreading. Dip a fork in a little cold water and flatten the bicsuits.

Bake at 180c, 355F, Gas 4, fan oven 160c, for 15-20 mins until pale golden. Put on cooling rack.

This recipe works just as well with an orange too and makes about 24 biscuits

I have made these and they are great!

Thanks Mercy, they look perfect and SMS, I'm very grateful.

I did gingerbread today:

8oz plain flour
2 oz butter
2oz soft brown sugar
2 heaped tablespoons golden syrup

1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger in a bowl; melt together sugar, butter, syrup.

Pour the sugar etc into the bowl with the flour etc and mix to a dough.

You're supposed to make 12 gingerbread men by hand but I rolled it out and used cutters instead.

Bake moderate oven 10-12 mins till golden brown.

recipe from The Pooh Cookbook by Katie Stewart.

Chocolate Cherry cupcakes from the Nigella Lawson website ..

Did these with DS this afternoon - DS (nearly 4) did most of the work. Unbelievably easy - very delicious

for the cupcakes:
125g soft unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g morello cherry jam (apparantly you cvan get this in sainsburys, I used a tesco blackcurrant)
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g self-raising flour
12-bun muffin tin and papers

for the icing:
100g dark chocolate
100ml double cream
12 natural-coloured glace cherries

(but we used nutella)

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the heat to melt. When nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted. Now add the cherry jam, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.

Scrape and pour into the muffin papers in their tin and bake for 25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

When the cupcakes are cool, break the chocolate for the icing into little pieces and add them to the cream in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and then whisk ? by hand or electrically ? till thick and smooth. Ice the cupcakes, smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon, and stand a cherry in the centre of each.

Zog, do you do scones? They're probably as quick as it gets and make you feel very domestic goddessy.

I've never made scones . I make fairy cakes (not very quickly), big cakes for birthdays etc and banana and choc chip muffins which are fantastically quick, hence me posting this thread for other ideas. Do you have a scone recipe you could share please?

Treacletart and Kathy, those recipes look delicious

banana and choc chip muffins soudn yummy, where syour recipe???

Will just go and dig it out...

Loads of good recipes here

Scones are easy peasy.

8 oz self-raising flour
1 oz butter
1 tablespoon caster sugar
half teaspoon salt
1 egg
approx 4 tablespoons milk

Sift flour and salt into bowl, rub in butter.
Add sugar. (You could add some raisins or bits of cherry if you want.)
Add beaten egg and milk to mix to soft dough, roll out and cut.

Main thing to remember is to cut them thick enough (at least half an inch) and try to roll them out fairly evenly so they rise evenly (not that it really matters)

Bake in a hot oven 12 mins.

They don't really keep that well so eat immediately or within a day.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

For 12 muffins:

225g SR flour
150g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
2-3 ripe bananas
100g plain choc chips
175ml milk
75ml sunflower oil
1 egg

Preheat oven to 200 deg C/400 deg F/Gas mark 4

Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add sugar and choc chips

Mash bananas in a seperate bowl then add, along with all remaining ingredients

Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined (it's meant to look lumpy and not like normal cake mixture)

Divide mixture between muffin cases and bake for 15-20 mins unil pale golden brown

Cool on a wire rack. Eat straight away (yum) or keep in airtight container for 2-3 days

These are all fab, thank you

My kids won't know what's hit them tomorrow

I don't generally use recipes per se, I just sortof wing it depending on what I have in the cupboard, so:

Basic cake recipe 4442!

4oz sugar
4oz butter
4oz flour
2 eggs

(cream butter and sugar, sieve flour in slowly, adding beaten eggs and mix until smooth)

add raisins/choc chips/1oz cocoa powder/lemon juice and zest/tablespoon of instant coffee mixed with boiling water/vanilla essence/whatever you fancy, bake at about 180 degrees until the cake starts to come away from the sides of the tin and it's boingy in the middle. Cut in two and sandwich together with buttercream/cream/jam/nutella etc.
Makes 1 small cake, double up if you want to make a big sandwich cake. This also works as a basic cake mix for fairy cakes/butterfly cakes.

Rock cakes (really easy)

2 parts flour
1 part butter
1 part sugar
1 part mixed dried fruit or chopped glace cherries
1 egg/ 2 eggs if making lots
milk
orange juice/vanilla essence/spices

Add any spices you fancy to the flour, then rub butter into flour until breadcrumby, add sugar and fruit and mix together. Beat the egg and add, mix together with knife, then add milk and/or orange juice and/or vanilla essence until it's all claggy but not soggy. Then put spoonfuls of it onto a buttered/floured oven tray, giving them a bit of space to expand. Bake for about 15 mins at about 200 degrees or so until light brown.

Ah, I aspire to winging it with baking - I can do it with other types of cooking a la Nigel Slater but cakes and biscuits send me scurrying to slavishly follow a recipe (which normally contain ingredients that I don't have, so I can never bake when I want to IYKWIM)

Zog

Flapjack recipe

100g butter
75g golden syrup
75g soft brown sugar
225g rolled oats

melt first three ingredient together (I put in bowl in microwave for ten second bursts, keep an eye on it), stir in oats (and other ingredients like dates, raisins, choc chips, cherries, whatever you like).

Spread into greased tin (I line it with greased foil then you can lift it off easily without it sticking).

Bake at 180C for 20-25 mins (again, keep watching it).

Let it cool then cut then eat!