Café food

[alliekiwi]

Normally I'm not a café person as - being a cook myself - I tend to find the cakes and biscuits/cookies rather over-priced and overly dry.

However.

I went to a café in Ponsoby (Auckland) on Tuesday and had *the* most delicious lemon cake I've ever had. I think I'm going to be trying lemon cake recipes for awhile just to see if I can match it...although this could also mean a few visits to the café to sample the original.

Anyway, it was very moist, very lemony and topped with a generous amount of lemon curd/honey with a dollop of whipped cream on the side. They'd baked individual little cakes in large cupcake tins - american muffin tins, I suppose.

Oooooooooooh. It was divine.

(And I normally go ooooooooooh only when chocolate is involved.)

Has anyone else come across some wonderful treats at a café?

Allie

[jennieg]

Yeeeeessss....the other day on our way home from holidays we stopped at a cafe in Morrisset, a couple of hours north of here, for morning tea. I had orange and almond cake with orange brandy glaze and cream on the side, yummo. I have had the recipe for a while but hadn't yet made it, I will now. You boil two oranges, skin and all, for two hours, pulp it in the food processor, add almond meal and a couple of other things that escape me now, and bake it.

[jennieg]

I have made the cake and it is very yummy. I didn't do the brandy glaze, just served it with cream (until we ran out) then ice cream. It is really easy if anyone wants the recipe.

[alliekiwi]

Ooh, that sounds fabulous, Jennie. I'd love the recipe, please!

Allie

[jennieg]

It's here, Allie: www.taste.com.au/recipes/10005/flourless+orange+cake

Have you found "the" lemon cake yet? There are a few lemon cake recipes on taste.com.au including Date and Lemon Cake (Maori cake), and steamed lemon cake sounds luscious - could that be similar to the one you tried?

Cheers
Jennie

[Pip Freeman]

Ooooooh yes please Jennie, I'd love the recipe.

Allie, the lemon cake sounds delicious too, I like cooking what we call BUNS, in pretty cases, please let us share the recipe if you find it.

I haven't been in a cafe for ages, but we do have a farm shop and bakery nearby. They cook some delicious cakes and slices, one particularly nice one is lemon drizzle.

[alliekiwi]

Ooh, that orange cake looks interesting, Jennie. Our citrus trees are laden at present, which is a good thing with all the baking I've been doing! I've not yet found a lemon cake like the one I tasted. I think I need to go back to the cafe and try it again. It was a very moist lemon-flavoured madeira-type cake. I'm wondering if perhaps some of the lemon honey had been used as liquid in the making of the cake, and not just on top? It might be worth having a play to see if that is the case.

Pip, do you make old-fashioned sugar buns? They're almost like a scone in texture, but sort of volcano shaped. My dad loved them and we always used to stop at a specific bakery in Oamaru to buy them when we lived in the South Island. They're not the sort of thing that are popular today, though...when the family have stopped being sick of lemon cakes.

We played around with a recipe and put together this (bearing in mind that 1 cup = 250ml or approx 8 fluid ounces):

Sugar Buns

1/4 pound butter
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder

Chill butter, then grate into flour. Mix together well.

2 beaten eggs in a cup
Top cup up with milk

Add a handful of sultanas to dry ingredients

Then mix all together with egg/milk mixture

Put dessert spoonsful onto oven tray. Sprinkle ½ - 1 tsp sugar on top.

Bake at 180 ºC for 10 – 12 minutes

An alternative is to make a small well in the top and put in a teaspoon of jam before cooking. Serve with butter.

[jennieg]

Pip, the link in my post should take you to the recipe - you may have to type the last bit in as it doesn't seem to be all highlighted. Taste.com.au is a very handy site.

[ragdall]

I think this link may work better, even though it looks the same:
www.taste.com.au/recipes/10005/flourless+orange+cake