Halloween spider cakes

Needless to say, these disappeared very very quickly...

Makes around 12 really large cupcakes. You'll need:

3oz butter
2oz dark chocolate
1 tablespoon milk
8oz self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
3oz light muscovado sugar
2oz caster sugar
150ml cream

And for the spiders:

12 prunes
24 silver balls
lots of liquorice laces
a little white icing (mix together a scant amount of warm water and lots of icing sugar)

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C, and line a muffin tin with 12 cases.

Melt the chocolate, butter and milk together in a small saucepan over a low heat. Leave to cool slightly.

Mix together the flour, bicarb and sugar (both lots). Then beat the egg and cream together, and slowly add to the flour mixture. Pour over the cooled chocolate/butter mix. It'll look terrible...but don't worry, just stir a little (but not too much).

Spoon into your paper/silicon cases, and bake for about 20 minutes in the oven until they've risen (and they rise a lot).

Leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, spread icing on the top, and assemble your spiders. Eat with gusto.

Grandma's marmalade cakes

Everyone felt a bit rotten this afternoon, so we made these to cheer ourselves up. You can make lots of small cakes (the mixture made enough for 12), or one large one (in which case a 7 in cake tin, or a loaf tin should do the trick).


You'll need:

8oz plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4oz butter, softened
4oz sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons bitter orange marmalade (I used rhubarb and orange, which was all we had left)
grated rind of one orange

First of all, stick the oven on at 180 degrees C (all Grandma's cakes bake at that temperature). Mix the baking powder into the flour, and rub in the butter (or cheat, and do it in the food processor). Stir in the sugar - I used brown, but white caster sugar would probably produce a lighter result.

Beat the eggs and the marmalade together - this looks absolutely disgusting. Add it to the dry mixture - you should end up with a fairly stiff mix. I loosened mine with a tablespoon of milk. Stir in the orange rind, and you're good to go: spoon the mixture into small fairy-cake sized cases (of the paper or silicon variety), or into a big tin (see above).

Bake in the oven until the tops have gone golden brown, and a little bit crunchy. It'll take about 20 minutes if you do the little cakes (and keep an eye on them - you might have to turn them round, and bring them out a little earlier if your oven's fierce). A big cake will take about 1 1/4 hours.

Allow everything to cool in its tin for a 5 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack. They're nicest sprinkled with icing sugar, and would also be good with a blob of creme fraiche and some fruit.

Mini carrot cakes with lemon drizzle icing

This was an an attempt to cheer you up, and distract you from the spots. It seemed to work - you had a ball drizzling the icing everywhere.

Makes about 12 little fairy cakes/cupcakes.

You'll need:

4oz butter
4oz sugar
4oz self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
3oz grated carrot
1 tablespoon raisins

Stick the oven on at 175 degrees C, and line your tins with baking cases (your favourite bit).

Put the butter, sugar, flour, mixed spice and eggs in a food processor, and blitz until everything's well combined and smooth. You could do this by hand - it'll just take longer and need more elbow grease.

Take your blade out of the food processor. Add the grated carrot and raisins, and mix by hand (you don't want to do this bit with the processor, as you'll end up with shredded raisins) to create a fairly sloppy batter.

Spoon the batter into your cases, trying not to drip. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so, until the cakes have risen, and turned golden brown. Take out of the tins, and place on a rack to cool.

For the lemon drizzle icing you'll need:

1oz icing sugar
a little lemon juice

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Add a couple of splashes of lemon juice, and mix to a smooth paste. Thin this with a little more lemon juice, until it drips nicely off your spoon, and can be drizzled dramatically over the cakes, plate and worktop.