Georgina Hayden

Feeding since 1982

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Sweet potato layer cake with ginger frosting

01.08.2015 by georgie // 2 Comments

As much as I’m a little bit glad the festive season is over, I’m not quite ready to let go of all the festive flavours just yet. I love anything laden with spice: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom… and it’s the perfect time of year to eat them. With that in mind I decided to have a little play with a slightly lighter, more interesting spiced sponge – and because, lets be honest, the world and their dog are on diets at the moment so if you can shove a vegetable in a cake it’s healthy, right?

It was my dear friend Laura’s birthday this week, so unfortunately she ended up being my guinea pig. I say unfortunately, but actually I think this cutie went down rather well! My new favourite vegetable cake, it’s really rather nice.

Sweet potato layer cake with ginger and chocolate frosting
Sweet potato layer cake with ginger and chocolate frosting

SWEET POTATO LAYER CAKE WITH GINGER FROSTING

Serves 12

  • 280g plain flour
  • 2 heaped teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 150g butter, at room temperature
  • 150g soft light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 large eggs, free range or organic
  • 260g pureed sweet potato*
  • 100g natural yoghurt
  • A little spiced rum, for brushing

Frosting

  • 150g butter, at room temperature
  • 400g icing sugar, sifted
  • 150g cream cheese
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped stem ginger
  • 75 melted dark chocolate (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180. Grease and line the base of 2 x 6″ spring form cake tins.

Sift together the flour, ground cinnamon and ginger, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the sweet potato puree and yoghurt.

Using a freestanding mixer, or electric hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Stop occasionally to scrape the mixture off of the side of the bowl with a spatula. Add the vanilla to the butter and cream the eggs in one by one. Add the dry ingredients and slowly mix in, until just combined, don’t over work it. Fold in the sweet potato and yoghurt mixture then divide evenly between the two tins. Bake on the middle shelf of your oven for around 35 minutes until cooked through. Leave the sponges to cool in the tins for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Whilst the cakes are cooling make your frosting. Clean your freestanding/ electric mixer and cream the butter until pale and light. Drain any excess liquid from the cream cheese and beat into the butter, only just enough to mix the two together – too much and it becomes runny. Beat half the sifted icing sugar into the mix, and when fully combine beat in the remaining half. When its smooth beat in the chopped stem ginger, with a little of the syrup from the jar and leave to one side. If your frosting has become a little runny, pop in a bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up. If you want to use the chocolate (and it is delicious) swirl the cool but melted chocolate into the frosting and mix together. I keep mine a little rippled so that it has an interesting pattern when I frost the cake.

How you decorate your cake it up to you! Just remember to brush the sponges with a little spiced rum as you go. You can keep it as two cakes, frost them together and coat. Cut the sponges with a round biscuit cutter and make mini layer cakes (I cut rounds from the large cakes, and then slice those in half horizontally to make 4 layer mini cakes – see below). Or slice to two large cakes in half horizontally and create an open sided layer cake. The choice is yours.

* To make the sweet potato puree I peeled a couple of sweet potatoes, cut them into chunks and boiled them until cooked through. Drain and leave to cool and then blitz in a blender with just enough water to puree.

 

Naked cake
Naked cake

 

Categories // Baking & puddings, Cake decorating, Celebration, Vegan and Vegetarian Tags // Baking, Birthday, Cake, Christmas, Ginger, Sweet Potato, Sweets, Vegetarian

A very warming brew

12.29.2014 by georgie // 6 Comments

Well, Christmas has been and gone (hope you all had a good one!) and I’m back on the blog. I’ve missed this place! I thought I might get a chance to share some treats with you over the festive period but alas, it didn’t really go to plan (it’s been a roller coaster of a fortnight). I do have an epic mulled pear frangipane tart to share this week, but for now a simple one, to ease back in.

Today I was on my own for the first time in 2 weeks. It was a gorgeous sunny day and as much as I willed myself to go for a walk I actually quite liked just curling up in doors, it was lovely. Being on my own and a bit chilly made me want something nostalgic though – cue Cypriot tea. ‘What is Cypriot tea?’ I hear you all ask! It is simply tea, made in a teapot, with cinnamon sticks and whole cloves thrown in. (We drink it with milk and sugar- if you like- a bit like a mild chai). I really love this stuff, it’s like a hug in a mug. I need to cut back on the caffeine though, which got me thinking about roobios, and I’m glad to say not only does it work, but its darn delicious. It takes on a different dimension, and I pimped it a little by adding some pink peppercorns (picked by my Yiayia) which adds a wonderful fruity heat to the tea. No word of a lie, this is a truly perfect wintery afternoon brew.

A very warming brew
Hug in a mug

A VERY WARMING BREW

A perfect non-caffienated winter warmer.

Makes 1 teapot

  • 3 roobios tea bags or 2 heaped tablespoons of loose tea
  • A stick of cinnamon (a large one if you have them)
  • 10 cloves
  • 15 pink peppercorns

Place all the ingredients into your teapot and fill with boiling water. Leave to infuse for 3 minutes and then pour! Simple and delicious.

Tea mix
Tea mix

Categories // Breakfast & brunch, Drinks Tags // Christmas, Decaf, Drinks, Fertility, Pregnancy, Tea, Winter

Pete’s triple chocolate orange Christmas brownies

12.14.2014 by georgie // 2 Comments

Today Pete and I got to visit a very special little lady, our friends rainbow baby Robyn. She is a gorgeous little pud, a real miracle baby and it was amazing to meet her. We haven’t managed to spend time with many of our friends kids yet but we’re getting there. And I’m really glad we were able to spend a bit of time with this special bub.

Obviously we couldn’t turn up empty handed (and I’ve promised our friends next time we go I’ll take them some more of my slow cooked ragu), but this time it was all about the brownies. Brownies with a little twist, and these dreamboats were inspired by a festive pile of Terry’s chocolate orange in our local corner shop. Who can resist a Terry’s chocolate orange? (We realise too late that it was 2 for £3. Pete was gutted. I think it was probably a good thing. We’ve got a wedding next week and I’m already concerned about the slinky black dress I’m wearing…). So, armed with chocolate and an appreciation for festive flavours we were on our way. However I got deeply engrossed in an episode of Homeland and my crochet so it was all down to Pete. And with barely any guidance these beauties appeared. Boy did good.

 

Pete's triple chocolate orange brownies
Pete’s triple chocolate orange brownies

PETE’S TRIPLE CHOCOLATE ORANGE BROWNIES

Makes 25

  • 200g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
  • 190g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  • 3 large eggs, free range or organic
  • 250g golden caster sugar
  • 110g plain flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Finely grated zest of an orange
  • 75g white chocolate, chopped
  • Half a Terry’s chocolate orange, broken into segments (alternatively use 75g of chopped orange chocolate)

Preheat your oven to 180/ gas mark 4. Grease and line a square cake tin, around 24cm/ 9″.

Place the dark chocolate and butter into a medium sized pan and gently melt on the hob over a medium-low heat, stirring frequently. Meanwhile whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl or large jug and leave to one side.

As soon as the butter and chocolate has melted, remove the pan from the heat and leave to one side to cool a little. After around 10 minutes whisk in the beaten egg and sugar until you have a glossy mixture. Fold in the plain flour, salt, ground cinnamon and finely grated orange zest with a large metal spoon. Finally stir in the chopped white chocolate and then pour into your prepared cake tin. Top your brownies with the chocolate orange segments, leaving some whole and breaking some up.

Bake the brownies for 20 minutes, until just set with a lovely thin sugary crust. Leave in the tin to cool for at least 20 minutes before turning out. Cut and serve warm with ice cream, or cooled and straight up with a mug of tea. To be honest I think these are even better the next day.

 

Categories // Baking & puddings Tags // Baking, Birthday, Brownies, Cake, Chocolate, Christmas, Sweets

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Georgina is an award winning food writer, cook and presenter from North London.
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Lamb and pistachio kofta with houmous
Hello 👋🏼 just wanted to come on here and say hi and also to apologise. This week has been a bit crappy and I had to do something I’ve never done before, which was cancel a big event. I had been so excited about my talk at @helleniccentre (with the wonderful @toniabuxton . Over 150 people had tickets and the excellent team at @bbcradiolondon were going to have me on to talk about it). But it’s been a bit of a scary week health wise within the family and I had to pull out. I absolutely hate letting people down, I’m a total people pleaser, and this was something I was so excited about. Please know it’s something I wouldn’t do half heartedly - hopefully we can reschedule for a later date. But at the moment I just need to be with these guys.
Yesterday I received a card from a friend who has sent me one every Mother’s Day since I had Archie. It had a pack of wildflower seeds attached and she wrote ‘if you plant these now they might grow in time for Archie’s birthday, to cut and put on his bench’. (Obviously I cried).
Patates antinaxtes! Top 3 potato recipe right here. Pleeeeeease please trust me when I say these taste far better than they look/ sum of parts etc.
45 years! A day late, but yesterday my folks celebrated 45 years of marriage. They’ve been together since they were 17 (17!!!). They’ve stuck by each other through thick and thin and are proper couple goals.
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