Great Cricket Tea Challenge: the cakes

Posted in Cricket, Great Cricket Tea Challenge.

If you’ve seen episode 2 of our Great Cricket Tea Challenge, you’ll know that Great Habton made the judges' favourite cake.

(And if you haven’t seen it, you can catch up now by heading to our Great Cricket Tea Challenge website).

We’ve asked Great Habton – and the other teams, Corbridge, Hyde and Rocklands – to share their recipes with Yorkshire Tea drinkers. You can see them all below.

Great Habton’s winning Lemon Cake

1 lime
3 eggs, separated
2tbsp lemon juice
85g/3oz potato flour
140g/5oz caster sugar
280ml/half pint cream
115g/4oz lemon curd

Line and grease a 6" (15cm) cake tin
Dust with icing sugar and flour
Separate the eggs
Beat the sugar, egg yolks and lemon juice together until creamed
And potato flour and beat well
Beat egg white in a separate bowl until it peaks, then stir this into the cake mixture
Place in a preheated oven at 180C/Gas 4 for 35 mins
When it’s cool, cut it in half.
Spread lemon curd on each half, dollop on a layer of the cream (which you have whipped) and replace the top half. Dust with icing sugar.

Corbridge’s Banoffee Pie

For the base:
100g butter, melted
250g digestive biscuits, crushed finely

For the caramel:
100g butter
100g dark brown soft sugar
397g of condensed milk

For the top:
4 small bananas
300ml carton whipping cream, lightly whipped
grated chocolate
20cm loose-bottomed cake tin, greased

Grease 12 cup mini sandwich tins (loose bottomed tins from Lakeland work perfectly)
Tip the biscuit crumbs into a bowl, add the butter and mix in.
Spoon the crumbs into the bases and chill for 10 minutes.
Melt the butter and sugar into a non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring all the time until the sugar has dissolved.
Add the condensed milk and bring to a rapid boil for about a minute, stirring all the time for a thick golden caramel. Make sure that you really boil the filling for at least 1 minute to be sure it sets to a perfect squidgy caramel.
Spread the caramel over the base, cool and then chill for about 1 hour, until firm or until ready to serve.
Chop the bananas into small pieces; fold them into the softly whipped cream and spoon over the bases. Decorate with the grated chocolate.

Hyde’s Grasshopper Cake

250 ml/9fl oz Milk
1tbsp lemon juice
280g/10oz self raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp bicarb of soda
100g/3 1/2oz softened butter
225g/8oz caster sugar
2 eggs
100g/3 1/2oz melted plain chocolate
25g/1oz grated milk chocolate

Frosting
200g/7oz softened unsalted butter
250 ml/9fl oz double cream
400g/14oz sifted icing
1 tsp peppermint extract
few drops green food colouring.

Bake the sponge mix for 1hr 15mins at 160C/gas mark 3.
Leave to cool while preparing the frosting.
Slice the cake horizontally and sandwich the two halves with half the frosting,spread the other half over the top and sides, sprinkle with grated chocolate and enjoy.

Rocklands’ Mini Victoria Sponges

Makes 12
125g self-raising flour
125g margarine (room temperature)
125g caster sugar (or vanilla sugar)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream together the margarine and sugar. Fold in the flour and the other ingredients, mixing well.
Grease the mini Victoria sponge tins, dust them liberally with flour and shake off any excess.
Bake at 170C for 12 minutes, or until sponges have risen and are detached from the side of the tin, and the top quickly springs back when pressed.
Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then carefully loosen the sides of all the cakes and turn out onto a cooling tray.
When cooled, fill the vanilla sponges with homemade crab apple jelly with blackberries, strawberry jam and vanilla butter-cream, or fresh strawberries and cream.

Variant: Lavender sponges

For Lavender sponges replace caster sugar with lavender sugar, and don't add vanilla extract.
Fill the lavender sponges with homemade orange jam and vanilla butter-cream or fresh raspberries and white chocolate cream.

To make lavender sugar
To make lavender sugar, you need a glass jar, caster sugar and dried lavender.
The jar must be washed out and clean.
For every 100g of sugar you need at least one tablespoon of dried lavender.
Mix the sugar and lavender together with the correct ratio according to the amount you wish to make.
Seal the jar and shake well.
Shake the jar every day, the sugar will be ready in about a week.
If you prefer a stronger taste simply add more lavender when you make it next time.
Use the sugar as it is or if you prefer sieve it to remove the lavender.

To make dried lavender
Cut the lavender before it is in full bloom. This ensures that the dried buds will retain their fragrance/taste for longer, and it also means that they won't fall apart as they dry.
Loosely tie together so that when it's hung up to dry air can circulate around the flower heads so that they don't rot, or go mouldy during drying.
Hang the lavender, above Anna's Aga and it will be dry in two to three days. Or just hang it in a dark dry place for about a month with the flowers pointing toward the floor.
When it's fully dried rub each head between the palms of you hands to remove the small buds. Be careful to remove the dried husks as these don't look nice in your cake. You can also pull out the buds with tweezers.
Once you have a nice pile of buds you can make your sugar.
Pop the ingredients into a large bowl and mix to a soft batter with an electric hand whisk.

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