Drum roll please. Special guest post & Maple Pecan cake recipe from Rachel Allen

Earlier this year myself and Izzy won an amazing prize from Plum baby to attend a cookery course run by the very lovely Beverly Glock and one of my favourite chefs Rachel Allen.

It was fantastic and I met some lovely mums including obviously Rachel Allen who is not only a great chef but a genuinely nice lady (and fellow mum) who has very very kindly agreed to share a recipe with us so I’ll stop waffling and leave you to read why Rachel likes this recipe:

Maple Pecan cake – perfect for Thanksgiving

I absolutely adore Maple Syrup, one taste of it always brings me right back to when I was younger and used to visit my grandparents in Canada. Maple syrup and pecans are a classic combination and work particularly well together in this delicious cake… I hope you enjoy:

Ingredients

200g (7oz) self raising flour
1/4 tsp salt
200g (7oz) soft light brown sugar
125ml (4&1/2fl oz) buttermilk
200g (7oz) butter, melted plus extra for greasing
50ml (2fl oz) maple syrup
2 eggs, beaten
75g (3oz) pecans, finely chopped

For the praline:

50g (2oz) caster sugar
50g (2oz) pecans

For the icing:

300g (11oz) cream cheese
25ml (1fl oz) maple syrup
200g ( 7oz) icing sugar, sifted

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/ Gas 4), then butter the sides of the cake tins ( 2 x 18inch) and line the base of each tin with a disc of baking parchment. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and mix in the sugar.
In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk with the butter, maple syrup and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the flour and sugar, mixing together to combine, then fold in the chopped pecans.
Divide the batter between the prepared tins and bake for 20–25 minutes or until golden on top and springy to the touch.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Loosen around the edges using a small, sharp knife and carefully remove each cake from its tin before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling down.
Meanwhile, make the pecan praline. First line a baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment, then place the sugar in a non-stick frying pan or saucepan and scatter the nuts over the top. Cook over a medium heat until the sugar turns a caramel colour.
Do not stir the pan, but carefully ‘swirl’ it to allow the sugar to caramelise evenly and to coat the nuts in caramel. Alternatively, you could just toast the pecans instead.

For the icing: Whisk together all the ingredients until smooth. Place one cake upside down on a plate and spread over some of the icing, so that it’s about 5mm thick.

Place the other sponge on top, right side up, then cover the whole cake with the icing, using a palette knife dipped in hot water to smooth the surface. Decorate with the caramelised or toasted pecans to finish.

Thanks to Rachel for the above recipe which can be found in her new book called Cake, I bought mine from Amazon

You can also watch her new tv show Cake diaries on the Good Food channel, although its worth having a slice of cake to watch it with as you will get hungry!

For all you tweeters you can find Rachel on @rachelallen1 she’s very involved and seems to reply to every tweet she can so any baking questions you have it’s worth asking. She’s also pretty damn good at wordswithfriends 🙂

I will be trying this recipe out next week so I’ll let you know if mine turns out as well 😉