A cake with a crunchy, zingy top; perfect with a cup of tea.
Flavoured sugars
You can flavour caster sugar to use in cakes, baking, biscuits or desserts. It’s really simple to do, so I want to share with you some easy flavours to make.
Take a clean Kilner jar.
Fill it 3/4 full of caster sugar.
VANILLA SUGAR
Vertically slice 4 vanilla pods, leaving the vanilla seeds inside.
Add these to the jar, top up with caster sugar, seal the lid and shake well.
Shake every few days and leave to infuse for a couple of weeks.
Use as needed and top back up with sugar, shake as before.
You will find that the sugar sticks together to start with as it draws the moisture out of the vanilla pods. Keep shaking and be patient with it!
ORANGE & CLOVE SUGAR
Using a potato peeler, peel the zest from an orange, place it onto a baking tray in an oven at 100C for an hour until dry.
Allow to cool.
Add the orange peel and 8-10 whole cloves to the sugar.
Top up, seal and shake well.
Shake every few days and leave to infuse for a couple of weeks.
Use as needed and top back up with sugar, shake as before. Make sure to pick out the cloves from your baking.
LAVENDER SUGAR
Pick fresh, clean lavender flowers. Ensure that you haven’t used any pesticides nearby.
Shake off any insects etc.
Place somewhere warm until dry.
Remove the flowers from the stalks and add these to the jar, top up with caster sugar, seal the lid and shake well.
Shake every few days and leave to infuse for a couple of weeks before using.
Sieve to use as needed, returning the flowers to the jar and top back up with sugar, shake as before.
You want the ratio to be about 98% sugar to 2% lavender.
Ndali vanilla gift swap
1. Biscuits
2. Cake/cupcakes
3. Sweets
4. Preserves
Vanilla & Elderflower Drizzle Cake
175g Butter
175g Caster sugar
3 Eggs
150g Self raising flour
75g Ground almonds
5ml Baking powder
5ml Ndali vanilla powder
30ml Belvoir Fruit Farms Elderflower Cordial
70ml Milk
FOR THE ELDERFLOWER DRIZZLE
60ml Belvoir Fruit Farms Elderflower cordial (undiluted)
60g Granulated sugar
1. Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3.
2. Grease and line an 8″ deep round tin with baking parchment.
3. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs, flour, almonds, baking powder, vanilla powder, elderflower cordial & milk and beat until smooth.
5. Pour into the tin and bake for 45-50 mins until a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean.
6. Just before the cake comes out of the oven, mix together the ‘drizzle’ cordial and sugar.
7. As soon as you remove the cake from the oven, leave it in the tin and prick it all over with a skewer. Slowly pour the ‘drizzle’ all over the cake, allowing it to soak in.
8. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin, then carefully lift out onto a serving plate.
I chose to decorate mine with small, white fondant flowers cut & bunched to look like the head of an elderflower surrounded by some green leaves.
Enjoy with a glass of cold, sparkling Belvoir Fruit Farms Elderflower cordial, or a lovely cup of tea.
This is a lovely, delicately flavoured & moist cake that, due to the addition of ground almonds will easily keep for a few days. If you’re lucky and it doesn’t all get eaten very quickly that is!