Stout & Pepper Cake

Ingredients:

• 250g Caster sugar

• 125g Salted butter

• 2 Tablespoon black treacle

• 400g Plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 Teaspoon black pepper (2 if you really love Pepper)

• 1 Teaspoon ginger

• 1/2 Teaspoon ground cloves

• 250g Dried mixed fruit

• 3 Eggs

• 1/2 Pint of stout

Method:

Pre heat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 7’’ cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Melt the butter, sugar, and treacle together in a pan.

Put the flour, baking powder, spices, and fruit, into a bowl and mix together. Add the melted butter, eggs, and stout, and mix well.

Pour the mixture into your greased and lined cake tin and cook on the lower shelf of your oven for 1 - 1.5 hours, until a skewer can be cleanly inserted and removed from the centre of the cake. Best serve with a pint of stout or afternoon tea.

Lemon & Nettle cake

Ingredients:

• 1L jug full of young nettle tops

• Juice and rind of 2 large lemon

• 200g butter

• 200g caster sugar

• 3 eggs

• 300g self raising flour (sieved)

• 1 tsp baking powder (sieved)

• 1 tsp ground mixed spice

Method:

Stick the nettles into a saucepan, and cover with hot water. Boil for 3 minutes.

Drain the nettles and put them into a food processor, along with the juice and rind of the lemon. Blitz to a fine pulp.

Cream together the butter and sugar and break in the 3 eggs. Add the nettle/lemon and mix well.

Finally add the flour, baking powder & mixed spice, and mix well, until fully incorporated.

Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin and cook in the centre of a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for 60-70 minutes, until a skewer can be cleanly inserted into the centre of the cake. If the cake is browning too much, cover with a piece of lining paper.

Apple & Mead cake

Ingredients:

• 150g Butter

• 150g honey

• 2 eggs

• 225g plain flour (sifted)

• 1 level tsp baking powder (sifted)

• ½ tsp salt

• 70 ml mead

• ½ a dessert apple, sliced into thin wedges

• 1 ½ tsp of demerara sugar

• ½ tsp of cinnamon

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Beat the butter, honey & eggs together in a bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, salt & mead. Mix well.

Spoon into a 7½ inch round cake tin and arrange the apple slices in a circle on top of the cake. Mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the cake mix.

Cook for 40 - 45 minutes in the centre of the oven. Cover with greaseproof paper if it starts to brown too quickly.

Drizzle with a little honey and leave to cool for 15 minutes before slicing. The cake will continue to cook during this time.