Category: Loaf Cakes

Baking · Cakes · Loaf Cakes · Vegan

Pistachio Lemon Drizzle Cake

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Take the classic lemon drizzle cake to the next level by adding pistachio. This vegan cake is soft, fluffy and a taste of spring.

Spring has arrived, well maybe not in the UK at the moment as we’ve been experiencing a mixed bag of weather after having beautiful weather last month.

The dismal weather tends to make me crave all things spring and summer even more.

A few weeks ago, I fancied baking a lemon cake. I thought about sharing a vegan lemon drizzle cake, but I wanted something slightly different. I’ve always loved adding nuts to cake, before going vegan, this Greek-style Honey Walnut Cake was one of our favourites.

This Pistachio Lemon Drizzle Cake is a fabulous recipe from So Vegan. The recipe was straight forward to follow and the finished bake was everything I’d hoped it would be.

Fluffy, packed with gorgeous lemon flavour and with a nuttiness coming through from the pistachio.

We devoured this cake in record time. It barely lasted two days and there were only four of us in the house! We kept going back for slice after slice…

With Easter this week, this cake will be a delicious addition to your Easter menu served with fresh berries of your choice.

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Pistachio Lemon Drizzle Cake

Take the classic lemon drizzle cake to the next level by adding pistachio. This vegan cake is soft, fluffy and a taste of spring.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings 8
Author What Jessica Baked Next

Ingredients

Pistachio Lemon Cake:

  • 80 g shelled pistachios plus extra for decoration
  • 200 g plain flour
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 150 g caster sugar
  • 1 lemon zested and juiced
  • 80 ml melted baking block/dairy-free spread or vegetable oil
  • 200 ml plant milk I use oat

Lemon Syrup:

  • 1 lemon juiced
  • 70 g caster sugar

Lemon Icing:

  • 100 g icing sugar
  • 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice (add more or less depending on your preferred consistency)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C Fan / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. Grease and line a 900g / 2lb loaf tin with parchment paper and set aside.
  • In a food processor, process the shelled pistachios until they're a crumb like consistency. Set this mixture aside for later on.
  • Place a sieve over a large mixing bowl and sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and sugar. Give these ingredients a quick stir together to combine. Add the pistachio crumbs and lemon zest (zest of one lemon) to the bowl and mix.
  • In a small jug, whisk together the juice of the lemon you zested earlier, along with the melted baking block/dairy-free spread or vegetable oil and the plant milk. Add these wet ingredients to the dry and gently fold together until no lumps of flour remain - be careful not to over mix the cake batter.
  • Pour the cake batter into the loaf tin and bake for 45-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean without any uncooked batter remaining. Test directly in the centre of the cake to ensure it's baked all the way through. Mine took about 55 minutes to bake fully, but all ovens are different so keep checking.
  • Once the cake has baked, prepare the lemon syrup. In a small bowl or jug, stir the lemon juice with the sugar until all the sugar has dissolved. Take a tooth pick and prick holes all over the top of the cake. Pour the syrup over the warm cake and leave it cool in the tin for at least 30 minutes, then carefully remove from the tin and place on a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
  • Now the cake is cool, prepare the lemon glacé icing. In a small bowl, stir together the icing sugar with enough lemon juice until you have a thick but slightly runny icing.
  • Drizzle the icing over the cake as you desire and decorate with an sprinkle of extra chopped pistachios. Allow the icing to set before slicing. Store the cake in an airtight container or a cake plate with a cover for up to 3 days.

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Baking · Cakes · Loaf Cakes

Spice Loaf Cake (AD – Gifted)

What Jessica Baked Next6 Comments

 This moist spice loaf cake is a new family favourite and a wonderful alternative dessert to enjoy over Easter.

I was kindly sent a few of Freshly Spiced’s spice blends to bake with. I wasn’t contracted to write a blog post and all views and opinions are my own.

Happy Friday! I have the perfect weekend bake with this deliciously moist and flavour-packed Spice Loaf Cake.

The lovely people over at Freshly Spiced recently got in contact with me and offered me the chance to try out some of their spice blends in my baking.

With Easter less than a month away now, I’m on the lookout for some new desserts I can serve for my friends and family for when we meet. At this time of year spices are often used in bakes like traditional hot cross buns, I love the aroma the hot cross buns but I’m not overly keen on dried fruit. This loaf cake combines all the delicious spices found in hot cross buns minus the fruit.

I started to brainstorm recipes and remembered spotting a nice cake in SWEET by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh and thought that would be a great bake to showcase Freshly Spiced’s Sweet Spice Blend.

Freshly Spice’s Sweet Spice Blend is an aromatic combination of 9 ingredients (brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, mace, allspice berries and rose petals).

It offers a different take on a mixed spice and creates a unique Middle Eastern mixed spice with hints of Turkish and Indian inspiration. The spice blends all come already toasted, which means these spices will have more of an intense flavour.

The spice blends I received were 100% vegan and gluten-free, which is reassuring if you have certain allergies or an intolerance.

I’m working my way through the Sweet Spice Blend that I used in this cake recipe and cannot wait to try the Turkish Drinking Spice Blend, which I’m looking forward to adding to hot chocolate and I’m excited to taste the Sweet Treat Spice Blend too by mixing that into my morning porridge.

I paired a slice of this loaf cake with Greek yoghurt and fresh blackberries and raspberries, but I also thoroughly enjoyed it just buttered. Either way it’s going to make a fabulous breakfast, afternoon treat or dessert. This cake reminded me of cakes I’ve had before in Cyprus and takes me back to one of my favourite travel destinations.

(Serves 10-12)

Ingredients:

180g butter (salted or unsalted), softened

160g dark brown sugar

160g light brown sugar

Zest from one large orange

3 large free-range eggs

120g sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon mixed spice – I used Freshly Spiced’s Sweet Spice Blend

220g plain flour

3/4 teaspoon salt (only add a pinch if using salted butter)

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (or malt vinegar)

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 190°C / 170°C Fan / 375°F / Gas Mark 5. Grease a 900g/2lb loaf tin and line with parchment paper, set aside.
  2. Place the butter, sugar and orange zest in a large mixing bowl. Cream until lightened and smooth, you don’t want to aerate the cake too much.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the sour cream and vanilla and whisk again until combined.
  4. Sift the mixed spice, flour and salt together into a separate bowl and set aside.
  5. Add the dry ingredients a third at a time along with a third of the egg and sour cream mixture and mix until completely incorporated.
  6. Stir the bicarbonate of soda with the vinegar in a small bowl – it will fizz up a little. Add this mixture to the cake batter and mix until combined. Transfer the cake batter into the loaf tin and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
  7. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack and leave it to cool completely before slicing.
  8. The cake will keep stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Recipe Notes:

  • I used just light brown sugar in my cake, I have written the recipe down as it is in the cookbook using both dark and light brown sugar.
  • This recipe states that the cake should take roughly 50-55 minutes to bake, however mine took about 15 minutes longer – all ovens are different, but this might be not be the case for you.
  • I recommend to leave this cake overnight before slicing as the flavour will intensify.
  • The cake itself is delicious served plain, spread with a generous helping of butter, with Greek yoghurt or with a scoop of ice cream and fresh berries.

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Baking · Cakes · Loaf Cakes

Lemon Loaf Cake

What Jessica Baked Next25 Comments

Welcome spring with this zesty lemon loaf cake that’s similar to pound cake with its buttery taste and texture. This classy cake will make you want to skip dinner and go straight to dessert! 

I love cake and I love knowing even more that there’s a cake for every holiday or season. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate and mint, Christmas is all about candy canes and peppermint everything or gingerbread, whereas in spring and summer we celebrate all the gorgeous fresh berries and fruit that are bountiful.

This year I decided to prepare in advance for Easter and planned to bake a simple lemon cake to welcome the first day of spring in a few days time. This cake is fresh, zingy and will transport your taste buds straight into the new season. You may have figured out my love for anything lemon from my previous recipe for lemon herb rice? Since I shared a savoury recipe showcasing lemon it was now time for something sweet.

My family love serving this beautiful cake with Greek yoghurt and fresh raspberries. Eating cake with yoghurt takes my sister and I back to our childhood as this is something we would always do with leftover birthday cake for breakfast. Cake for breakfast is the absolute best!

If you prefer you can serve the cake with ice cream, pouring or whipped cream instead and top with berries or fruit of your choice. You could also try warming a slice of cake in the microwave, when it’s warm it gets all extra buttery and gooey.

(Serves 8-10)

Ingredients:

Lemon Cake:

230g (1 cup/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

250g (1 and 1/4 cups) caster or granulated sugar

2 tablespoons lemon zest – approx. 4 lemons

4 large free-range eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

210g (1 and 1/2 cups) plain/all-purpose or cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Lemon Glaze: 

100g (1/2 cup) caster or granulated sugar

60ml (1/4 cup) lemon juice

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C Fan / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. Line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with parchment paper and set aside. Toss the sugar and lemon zest into a large mixing bowl. Using your fingertips rub the sugar and zest together for a minute or two until the sugar smells fragrant. Add the softened butter and beat until creamy and smooth.
  2. Next add the eggs one at a time and mix well in between each addition. Add the lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix through. Don’t be concerned at this point if the mixture looks curdled and like it’s going wrong, once you add the dry ingredients it’ll resemble more of a cake batter.
  3. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) on top of the wet mixture and then gently fold through until you have a smooth batter. Be careful not to mix the batter too much.
  4. Spread the cake batter evenly into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 15 minutes. Now reduce the oven temperature to 170°C / 150° Fan / 325°F / Gas Mark 3. Carry on baking the cake for a further 35-45 minutes (turning around halfway through) or until a cake tester when inserted into the centre of the cake comes out completely clean without any uncooked batter remaining. After a total of 60 minutes baking mine took a further 15 minutes to finishing fully baking so my cake was in the oven for a total of 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes – much longer than the original recipe suggested).
  5. Once the cake is completely baked through remove it from the oven and set the tin over a wire rack. Meanwhile make the lemon glaze by combining the sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring this mixture up to the boil and then once it’s boiling turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer for about 2-3 minutes until thick and syrupy.
  6. Allow the cake to sit for 10 minutes then remove it from the tin. Using a toothpick poke holes all over the top and sides of the cake and brush the lemon glaze over all the cake. Leave the cake to cool to room temperature before serving. The cake will store at room temperature wrapped in clingfilm/plastic wrap or in an airtight container for up to 3 days – it may last for longer but in my house cake only seems to last more than a few days!

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Lately I’ve been absolutely loving my new kitchenware from Leila’s General Store. I love this denim apron with its cute pineapple design and I’m also enjoying baking using my silicone spatula. If you like the look of these items you can get a 20% discount using the code “whatjessicabaked” (excluding electronics and gift cards). This discount code is valid until 23rd of April on leilasgeneralstore.com!

Enjoy!

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Baking · Loaf Cakes

Banana Bread

What Jessica Baked Next14 Comments

Fluffy and moist banana bread loaf. A fantastic recipe for using up any leftover overripe bananas. 

Banana bread is one of my favourite things to bake so I was shocked when I discovered I hadn’t yet shared a banana bread recipe with you, I figured it was time to share our family favourite recipe.

This recipe is possibly one of the, if not the easiest banana breads I have ever made. It can be made either one of two ways, using an all-in-one method or with a mixer using the creaming method, it’s totally up to you as both ways produce an amazing, fluffy and soft banana bread.

The other day it snowed and was too cold to go out, so on my day off work I decided to stay in the warm and spend the day doing some baking. After looking in our fruit bowl, I noticed we had a couple of bananas that looked like they’d seen better days. Whenever I have overripe bananas hanging around on the kitchen counter the first thing I will bake is banana bread or some kind of cake/muffin.

To make good banana bread you’ll need to use fairly overripe bananas. Ideally you want your bananas to be yellow and spotty, overripe bananas will add extra flavour, moistness and sweetness to the bread.

With this recipe you can experiment with different add-ins, sometimes I will even add a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips or nuts such as pecans or walnuts to the batter. Today, I just fancied a traditional banana bread that used ingredients that I already had in.

Don’t worry if your banana bread forms a crack down the centre just like mine did, this is a common trait of banana bread and loaf bread/cakes in general. I personally think it makes the bread look lovely and rustic, banana bread isn’t meant to look pretty it’s definitely all about the taste with recipes like this one!

Oh and just an idea…

If you want to put a spin of this classic banana bread recipe, I recently experimented with this recipe by turning it into a traybake. Simply just double the recipe below and spread the cake batter into a lined 9 x 13-inch (23 x 33cm) tin. Bake the traybake for approx. 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the cake is springy to the touch. Then I piped yummy swirls of cream cheese frosting on top of each piece – for the cream cheese frosting see my Carrot Traybake recipe.

I also topped each piece with salted caramel fudge pieces and sliced banana, but decoration is totally up to you!

Ingredients:

100g (4 ounces) unsalted butter or margarine, softened

175g (6 ounces) caster or granulated sugar

2 large free-range eggs, at room temperature

2 large ripe bananas, mashed

225g (8 ounces) self-raising flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons milk

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C Fan / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. Line and grease a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with parchment/non-stick baking paper.
  2. Place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or a handheld electric mixer, beat all the ingredients together for about 2 minutes until well combined. Alternatively, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and smooth for about 2-3 minutes. Next add the eggs one at a time making sure you beat well between each addition. Fold through the mashed banana, flour and baking powder until completely incorporated. Finally add the milk and continuing mixing until the batter is smooth.
  3. Spoon the mixture into the lined loaf tin. Bake for an hour or until golden and well risen. Check the banana bread is cooked all the way through by inserting a wooden skewer or cake tester into the centre, if it comes out clean without any uncooked batter remaining then the banana bread is completely baked.
  4. Allow the banana bread to cool in the tin for about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the tin and leave to cool set over a wire rack.
  5. Once cool, slice the banana bread up. It’s delicious served as it is or toasted and spread with butter. Banana bread will keep stored in an airtight container for about a week.

Recipe Notes:

  • You’ll need to use very ripe bananas to make this recipe. The bananas need to be spotty and turning brown, this will bring extra sweetness and moistness to your banana bread.
  • The butter or margarine needs to be really soft in order to be completely incorporated into the batter. I recommend leaving your butter/margarine out overnight to soften.
  • Feel free to add chocolate chips or chopped nuts if you’d like. You could even decorate the top of the banana bread with nuts or stud with chocolate chips, I’m going to try that next time!
  • Try adding a teaspoon or so of ground cinnamon, ginger or mixed spice. I particularly love adding cinnamon to banana bakes.
  • Remember all ovens bake differently. This recipe requires a full hour baking, check the banana bread after 45 minutes of baking, if it’s colouring too much then cover the top with a piece of aluminium foil to prevent it browning any further. Continue baking for the remaining 15 minutes until the a cake tester comes out completely clean, with no uncooked cake batter on it.

Recipe from Mary Berry’s 100 Cakes and Bakes

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