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I'm serving up two deliciously naughty bakes this week with my Chocolate & Cinnamon Babka Loaf with a Chocolate & Hazelnut Glazing Sauce and a bit of magic with a Mexican classic, a Chocoflan.

Hi friends!

Happy Thursday once again - how we roll back around here so quickly each week I have no idea but I do love dropping into your inboxes with some delicious goodies to hopefully tempt you into the kitchen for a bit of baking therapy.

I have had a bit of a manic week and VERY much looking forward to slobbing it on the sofa at some point over the weekend. I am here trying to make #slobbysaturdays a thing for myself but if anyone knows how to quieten down that sense of looming guilt which strikes *just* at that moment you start to really get into gremlin mode, please let me know pronto because it is truly ruining it all.

This week so far I have:

• Done half a gym session (it started well and then was interrupted by the tiny diva, his royal furriness Milo king of the castle who demanded belly rubs and attention)

• Filmed a steak masterclass with Waitrose in time for Valentines Day next week (gulp, what do I buy james and also lol at the steak masterclass because I haven’t eaten beef in years – I faked a good yum). Lots of recipe ideas and inspo lurking in those classes so if you did miss it and want to give it a watch, I’ll share a link again tomorrow.

• Walked back from aforementioned masterclass in the pouring rain for 20 minutes as I had no umbrella and ended up resembling a drowned rat (fyi, not a cute look).

• Baked four times. Twice I failed, twice I won. I will happily take a 50:50 success ratio.

• Eaten cake every single day. Truly need to cut this sort of behaviour out (or at least down??). I am all IN on my cake series and for someone who LOVES and LIVES for cake, I have taken myself down a very deliciously slippery slope.

• Accidentally launced a slice of cake at myself and then proceeded to eat it as an apple..because obvi.

• Ate half a babka loaf (and counting). The main bake from this week is just sweet, buttery, sugary, chocolate, bready magnificence. Make it. Bake it. Eat it. Repeat it.

• Had two headaches. If any of you suffers from TMJ please let me know what you are doing to help alleviate the jaw pain because WOW my brain is on the edge of explosion constantly.

• Made both sweet and savoury pancakes ahead of next week for an event I am hosting on Tues. Then proceeded to eat both sets of pancakes for…research.

• Thought about going to the gym, changed to go to the gym, sat on the sofa instead of the gym, daily.

• Wrote another mammoth newsletter which I am sure will send some of you to sleep (ya welcs).

• Failed to do at least 10 things on my daily to do list which now means tomorrow is going to be an epic mammoth of a mountain to climb.

• Discovered a love of cottage cheese and flan (where have both these items been my whole life?). Utterly thrilled to have stumbled on something that I have no doubt will become part of my new hyper-fixation meal (my last which I ate every day for 2 weeks straight was toasted sourdough topped with prawn cocktail, a good drizzling of tobasco and served alongside a big massive jalapeno – don’t knock it)

• Had a meltdown because a pair of jeans no longer fit (we are going with the line of they shrunk in the wash okay?).

• Ignored once again the 137 unopened conversations in whatsapp. You read that correct. 137 conversations. Not messages. Conversations. Baffling as I am sure I only know and like about 5 people in my life??

• Purchased 1kg of pick n mix sweets because I decided to do some online shopping whilst super hungry. DO NOT shop when hungry. You will make stupid impulse decisions. I now have enough chocolate mice, fizzy cola bottles, fruit salad sweets and chocolate jazzies to last me a life time.

SOS send help

So ya know, a week of two halves really. How’s yours been?

P.S. King Milo says hi x

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This week we have the latest cakey installment in my never ending, please let it end, but also what will I do when it does end, series ‘Around The World in 80 Cakes’ – a Mexican Chocoflan: an indulgent one tin wonder which combines a rich chocolate sponge with a caramel topped flan. It’s easy to make but also very easy to mess up so do make sure you check out the in-depth tips in the ‘Rubes Recommends’ section to ensure you too aren’t literally pouring money directly into the bin like I did.

The main bake of the week is the sugary, comforting carb you deserve. We all know cinnamon rolls are great. We all know chocolate is great. But merged to make one big cinnamon roll-esque babka loaf which is drowning in a chocolate and hazelnut drizzle? Now THAT my friends is just outrageously filthy.

The bread in my Chocolate & Cinnamon Babka is pillowy soft and stays fresh for days thanks to the Japanese Tangzhong method which I talk about in depth later in the newsletter. If you don’t know about it, you do now. It’s the secret to super fluffy, super squishy and incredibly moist bread. The only thing I will say about this bake is that you WILL fall in love and there’s nothing you can do about it other than undo that jean button and slice yourself another bite of nice.

And that chocolate and hazelnut sauce drizzled on top? Literal *heaven*.

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I’m not gonna lie – this went horrifically wrong the first time round. I don’t know at which point the cake decided to not play ball but Sunday just was not my day. I was trying to be all efficient. Get ahead of the week, ya know. Make the first full week of feb my b*tch but turns out my over eager desire to please bit me in the ass. I thought it was all going swimmingly until I was trying to turn the cake out and wasn’t immediately hit with the thud of the sponge falling onto the plate.

I shook it. I blowtorched it. I dipped the tin in hot water. I slapped it (did more damage to my hand than anything else). I yelled at it (very affective, not very effective). James offered up his services and I declined (stand by this). I left it (maybe it had stage fright?). I jiggled it. I wiggled it. I did everything I possibly could to remove it from the tin until I heard a squelch and a mild thump. There I was skipping over to the tin, sun was shining, birds were tweeting, life couldn’t have been sweeter – I lifted it up and wow.

This was the wow.

It looks like a car tyre, I am fully aware. This, folks, was my first attempt at the latest cake in my ‘Around The World’ series, a Mexican Chocoflan aka the Impossible Cake.

Contrary to my thoughts, it’s not called that because it is impossible to remove the cake from the tin but more so because of the method. This testing little number is a delicious combo of a rich, moist chocolate cake, a vanilla laden, silky-smooth flan and a caramel drizzle. How you make it followed by how it comes out baked is where the name comes into play. The chocolate batter goes into the tin, followed by the flan mix but comes out of the oven reversed. Similarly done with a self-saucing pudding, the denser layer sinks whilst the lighter cake layer rises.

I honestly could not tell you what went wrong with the first recipe I followed but my second attempt came out far better. As soon as I saw a recipe from Ottolenghi lurking around on google, I knew that was the one I had to follow and it did not disappoint. The below is based off his recipe you can find online but a few little notes before you give this one a go:

1. Do not skip blending the ingredients for the flan. I defied thinking I knew better and well…that’s how you get a tyre for a cake.

2. You MUST use a waterbath to not only cook the flan evenly but also help aid the process of the ingredients inverting.

3. Make sure you cover the top of the bundt tin with foil to avoid any spillages from the water bath but to also help steam the cake.

4. A bundt tin will help ensure an even bake – I haven’t tried to make it without but if you purchase one, I promise there are a tonne of recipes you can use for it after such as my Persian Love Cake, monkey bread (will be showing you a recipe for this soon), marble cake, lemon drizzle – basically any loaf/sponge can be bundt’ed.

It’s rich, it’s moist, it’s caramelly chocolatey goodness. Indulgent with a touch of low key extravagance – a bake to make ahead of time when you’re after something a little special.

Recipe Makes: 1 x 27 cm / 10 inch Bundt Tin

Recipe Serves: 10 to 12

Mexican Chocoflan

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Y O U – W I L L – N E E D –

• Caramel Drizzle

160 g Caramel Sauce

1 tbsp Whole Milk

• Flan

1 x 400g tin Evaporated Milk

1 x 397g tin Sweetened Condensed Milk

120g Full-Fat Cream Cheese, at room temperature

3 Large Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste

¼ tsp Salt

• Sponge

120g Unsalted Butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

250g Plain Flour, sifted

½ tsp Baking Powder, sifted

½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda, sifted

70g Black Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder, sifted

¼ tsp Salt

100g Dark Muscovado Sugar

125g Caster Sugar

2 Large Eggs

200ml Buttermilk

M E T H O D –

1. First up, preheat your oven to 160C Fan/180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

2. Grab yourself a 27 cm / 10 inch bundt tin and liberally grease the base and the sides with some unsalted butter.

3. Pour half the caramel sauce (from the drizzle ingredients) onto the base of the tin and use the back of a spoon to help create an even layer.

4. Place the bundt tin into a larger, deep roasting tin – this will save you from having to transfer a heavy filled tin later.

5. Next up, we are going to make the flan layer. Add all the ingredients to a blender and blitz until completely smooth – this shouldn’t take longer than 30 seconds but do use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides and base of the blender to ensure no lumps. Leave to one side.

6. Move onto making the cake batter by adding the flour, baking powder, bicarb, cocoa powder and salt into a medium sized bowl. Use a balloon whisk or fork to mix together. NOTE: don’t skip this as mixing these ingredients before the rest will ensure you don’t overmix your batter too much later.

7. Into a stand mixer bowl, add the butter and both sugars and use the paddle attachment to beat until light and fluffy. This should take a few minutes on a medium to high speed.

8. Once the butter is light and pale, add the eggs beating well between each additional. Once incorporated, reduce the speed to a medium to low speed.

9. Mix in a third of the flour and half of the buttermilk. Once there are little to no visible flour streaks, repeat twice more. You want everything mixed until its all just incorporated.

10. Transfer the batter to the bundt tin and use the back of a spoon to level out into an even layer.

11. Gently pour the flan mix over the cake batter in the tin (I used a ladle) before covering the bundt tin with a piece of greaseproof paper and then tightly wrapping in a sheet of foil.

12. Add boiling water to the roasting tin – you’re looking for it to come about 2 cm up the sides of the bundt tin before popping in the oven to bake for an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. NOTE: Rotate the tin once after 30 minutes to ensure an even bake.

13. Lift the tin out of the water bath, carefully remove the foil and greaseproof paper and allow the cake to completely cool in the tin.

14. Invert the chocoflan onto a large serving plate. If it doesn’t instantly remove itself, give it a little shake to help coax it out. If that fails, either gently use a blowtorch to warm the top of the tin or add a tea towel soaked in hot water to cover. Allow gravity to do it’s thing!

15. Place the chocoflan into the fridge for at least 4 hours, but ideally overnight to completely chill (I promise the cake tastes way better after a days resting!).

16. Before serving, mix the remaining caramel with the milk to loosen slightly and drizzle over the top.

Now, if there is one thing in this life that I am damn certain about, it’s how to make bloody good cinnamon rolls. Not average. Not nice. Not ‘oh yea, these are okay’ cinnamon rolls. I mean oh f*ck, grab me another, what on earth is this saucy sorcery sorta style cinnamon rolls.

It’s taken time, it’s taken iterations and now my version of cinnamon rolls (inc my plant-based version) are just elite. But…I am not sharing that recipe with you *jusssst* yet. That’s being saved for a little later but for now you’ll get the version where I take the cinnamon rolls, turn them into a babka and then slather the whole thing in a chocolate hazelnut sauce and then inevitably cry because wow.

Just, wow.

Baking bread for me will always be something a little special. Bread was there for me during my spell of unemployment which thoroughly kickstarted a late quarter life crisis. It helped to drag me out of the deep, dark depths of my brain and into a space which felt quiet. A little peaceful. Focused. And something that I hadn’t felt in a very long time: present. Yes, there are absolutely times now which see me feeling like the complete opposite when I am in the kitchen and chaos is engulfing every part of my being but on a whole, I’d choose that every day without a second thought.

When I started baking, I didn’t have any fancy equipment until after Bake Off was filmed. The only equipment I had was an electric hand whisk and well...my hands. Everything I made back then was truly a labour of love. Every bit of bread, every loaf, every attempt at focaccia, brioche, baguette were all kneaded by hand. There’s something about creating and making something with your hands. Instant (which occasionally takes 5 hrs) gratification. Immediate sense of joy. How can you be mad when you’re under the influence of sugar and carbs?

how could you be mad with this?? (unless your GF then totally get madness)

And for anyone after some urgent mild anger management or a free gym membership, may I recommend kneading and slapping dough on your countertop for 15 minutes? The best HIIT workout of your life.

I digress (shock) so back to the main bake – she is a baddie. And by baddie, I mean obnoxiously good. We are going for a long 1^st prove to really build some depth to the flavour to the dough, which is obv great taste wise but also time wise. I know bread can be daunting because of how time consuming it can be but by splitting it up over the course of two days makes it easier to work through, more manageable for anyone with time constraints and allows you to have a life outside of the kitchen.

swirly twirly gorgie gorge

It’s the sort of bake you promise yourself that you will just have one small slither. And before you know it, the slither has turned into a generous slice. The slice turns into a chunk and the chunk turns into you hunched over the sink biting into the loaf like its an apple, crumbs flying everywhere, and self-respect is no longer part of anyone’s vocabulary.

GET INVOLVED.

Recipe Makes: 1 x 2 lb deep Loaf Tin

Recipe Serves: 1 – why try and lie?