Your tastiest, easiest, most reliable "no fail" bakes please!

[Chipotlejars]

Hello I am currently in a holiday cottage abroad where we go every year. Limited kitchen equip but have electric hand whisk and some baking tins.

I am in desperate need of your ideas for "no fail" but tasty baking recipes please because we have been coming here for so long that we now entertain lots of locals to "English tea"; which they seem to like as everyone buys their cakes from the local patisserie, so a home made effort is really appreciated!

Trouble is I am running out of my usual limited repertoire and the cake baking is starting to take up too much time as everything takes longer in this very rustic kitchen! So far I have done lemon drizzle, coffee and walnut, sultana slab tray bake, scones, Nigella Christmas muffins, and two varieties of apple cake.

Please can you help? Any ideas would be very much appreciated because I have now drawn a blank.

PS There are of course lots of ideas on the web but I haven't much time to seek out the good recipes and don't really want to risk something going wrong!

mars bar slab:

www.kidspot.com.au/kitchen/recipes/mars-bar-slice-1

Fay Ripley's bakewell cake. I'm not much of a baker but this always comes out great, and is delicious.

Oh these sound like just the sort of thing! Simple but moreish! Thank you!

no problem! hope they turn out okay x

A simple Victoria sponge! Tasty and easy.

How about scones? They're simple but delish when they're freshly baked. Don't need to have clotted cream, regular double cream whipped up and some jam, bosh.

brownies

Lush. And forgiving

Mary Berry’s banana loaf goes down well in this house and it is a chuck it all together and shove it in the oven job !

Oh I second scones, different kinds as well. Love a cheese scone.

Also rock buns seem to go like nothing else here. Hot from oven and I can get rid of two trays in a few minutes (farm lots of people in and out etc).

Victoria sandwich.
Grease and Line 2 x 6 or 7” tins with baking parchment
Oven onto 170 fan

200g stork sb (or shop brand)
200g caster sugar
200g plain flour
15g baking powder
4 large/extra large eggs.
Vanilla extract (optional).

Put everything in a bowl. Using a hand whisk mix together for a good 5 mins . Split between tins . Put in oven. Check after 18 mins. Can take up to 24 mins depending on oven.
Remove from tins, take parchment off bottom as soon as they come out of oven.
Sandwich together with jam. Sprinkle with sugar.
You can put buttercream in too and regular (glacé) icing on top.

It’s never ever failed me. Ever.

Egg Free choc chip Banana Bread on all recipes. 3 bananas (exact size unimportant) everything else as per recipe but I usually add some cocoa powder instead of some flour. No failures just use a loaf tin liner as it can stick. Much more consistent and forgiving than anything traditional I've tried!

Sorry to be responding so late to all these suggestions!

That's very interesting about the egg free recipes! And I did wonder about a Victoria sponge - but they make feather light sponges here filled with cream and strawberries and icing sugar - so I was a bit worried about the comparison! Brownies should have occurred to me of course as well as banana bread. Cheese scones would definitely be a talking point!

Also thought maybe a Swiss roll might be a good idea?

Sorry, meant of course to say thank you for all the ideas; meant to say that first not last!

Chocolate concrete, jam tarts, maids of honour, line and ginger cheesecake.

Lime bloody autocorrect

There's a Welsh light fruitcake that's called a "never fail cake" (in Welsh though!), which is lovely. You melt the wet ingredients and sugar together, add the fruit, eggs and flour and bake it, and it always works. It's best if you can buy crushed tinned pineapple for it though.

Is that Barabrith by any chance Polkadots? Don't remember it containing pineapple though!

Puff pastry for maids of honour might be a step too far but I'll have a think about short crust pastry recipes thanks Play.

Nope (although that is nice too!). It's called cacen byth yn methu. Here's a version of it.

Chocolate orange cake:

Weigh your eggs then whisk them (I usually use 3 large)
Butter
Flour
Caster sugar all weigh the same as eggs.
2 tsp baking powder
2 level tbspn cocoa powder
Zest and juice of an orange

Combine butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
Slowly add eggs until combined
Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder into the egg mixture and gently combine.
Add orange zest and the juice, tsp by tsp to taste (I usually use about 3-4 tspn) and gently combine.

Bake at gas mark 4 for about 25-30 mins

Decorate however you like.

Fantastic! Thank you Polkadots that's the sort of simplicity I am after tbh ie not creaming method! Will add Barabrith to list too! (Which I have just discovered means "mottled".)

Sorry Bunty crossed post. I see that is creaming method but it's nice to have a variety of recipes to fall back on depending on time factor and that sounds delicious!