Chocolate Guinness Cake

As I am sure you will probably recognise, this cake is Nigella Lawson’s chocolate Guinness cake. It is fabulous and proves its worth time and again. So why am I blogging about someone else’s famous recipe? Well, partly because it is so good, but also because I have had two recent commissions to make it. The first was for an 80^th birthday for a man who is Guinness mad and the second for the canteen where the market is held.

Whenever there is a celebratory event in the calendar the canteen likes to offer something different to the usual biscuits so the market bakers take it in turns to offer up cakes that they have on their market stalls or bake for commissions. In a couple of weeks I will be supplying the canteen for a combined Mother’s Day and Red Nose Day event. That’s on top of baking for the stall, so it’s going to be a very busy Wednesday and Thursday! In addition to this cake I will also be baking date and walnut, fruit loaf and banana & pecan loaf cakes for the canteen.

Anyhow back to the Guinness cake. It looks great, tastes amazing and is easy to make.

Ingredients – for the cake

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

75g cocoa powder (I always use Bourneville or Green & Blacks)

400g caster sugar (I always use unrefined golden caster sugar)

142ml sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (It’s definitely worth paying for good quality vanilla extract. I use Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract.)

275g plain flour

2½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Ingredients – for the topping

300g cream cheese (I use mascarpone)

150g icing sugar

125ml double cream

Method

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/gas 4. Grease a 23cm/9” loose bottomed round cake tin and line it with baking paper. I would advise using a springform tin as it makes it so much easier getting the cake out.

Pour the Guinness into a large pan and add the chopped butter. Heat it until all the butter has melted. Just a tip here – I don’t let the Guinness get too hot because you are going to be adding eggs to it later and you don’t want them curdling. Once the Guinness has just started to give off wisps of steam I take it off the heat and keep stirring it as the rest of the butter melts.

When the butter has melted beat in the caster sugar and cocoa powder until the mix is nice and smooth.

In a separate bowl beat together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract. When it has all been blended beat the cream, eggs & vanilla mixture into the pan mixture.

You should have a nice rich, dark brown, sweet smelling soup in the pan now. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into this and beat everything together until smooth. Pour the batter into your tin and place on the middle shelf of your oven. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. It is ready when a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

This is a very runny batter and I always have a little dribble of mix leaking out of the tin, don’t worry about it, but do make sure you have some silver foil on the bottom of your oven to catch it.

When it is done your cake will have cracks in the top, don’t worry you are going to cover those with the fabulous topping and nobody will ever know, what’s more when they taste the cake they certainly won’t care!

Leave it to cool completely in the tin before you take it out. I normally put it on the side to cool overnight and remove it the following morning. You risk breaking the cake if it is not totally cold.

For the icing – add the cream cheese to a large bowl and beat until smooth. Sift in the icing sugar making sure you get rid of any lumps and beat it into the cream cheese. Lastly beat in the double cream. I usually pour the cream in slowly and constantly beat at the same time. Once everything is fully combined use a spatula to liberally cover the top of the cake. Stand back and admire your handiwork!

Update – the feedback from both the birthday celebration and the canteen was a very definite thumbs up. In fact the market feedback was so good I am now going to see how well the recipe fares being turned into muffin sized individual cakes so that I can sell them on the stall. I might need to adapt it a bit so I’ll keep you posted.

6th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment August 1915

When you read through the entries for August you will see that the 6^th Battalion (6^th Btn) was broken in with a relatively easy July compared with what was to come. August was a different matter and saw the battalion locked in several engagements with heavy fighting and increased loss of life, the 10^th August in particular saw 94 men killed in action on a single day.

August 1915

1^st – 4^th August – the battalion were bivouacked in Mudros. On the 4^th August they boarded onto the HMT Osmanieah and sailed at 9.30am arriving at Anzac Cove at 11pm. Once the men had disembarked the battalion marched south eastwards through the night to Victoria Gully.

The HMT Osmanieah was a passenger liner requisitioned as a troop ship in 1914. A mine just outside the harbor at Alexandria sank the ship on 31^st December 1917 with the loss of 28 lives.

Figs 1 & 2 - Anzac Cove above and HMT Osmanieah below.

5^th August – the men of the battalion were tasked with improving the terraces on the slopes of the gully.

6^th August – there was heavy Turkish shelling of the gully. The battalion left bivouac at 10.45pm and marched to Chailik Dere arriving at 4.30am on the morning of the 7^th.

7^th August – the men marched up the Chailik Dere and were ordered to join the 39^th Infantry Brigade arriving with them at 2.30am on the 8^th.

8^th August – the men were ordered to follow the Royal Warwick Regiment and at 9.30am, advanced up Ashyl Dere to join in with the ongoing attack there. However when they arrived the attack had ceased in the night. This is just one instance of lack of communication that is seeded throughout the Gallipoli campaign. Bearing in mind the amount of marching the men had done and the lack of sleep they would have had they could have rested before advancing up the Ashyl Dere if it was relayed that fighting had ceased.

Once there the various companies of the battalion were deployed to take up positions. The entrenchment of the men was delayed and the process interfered with for over three hours due to naval searchlights from allied ships lighting up the area.

9^th August – At 1.30am orders were given to creep up the hill and attack the Turkish encampments. The battalion joined forces with the Gurkas and also the Royal Warwick Regiment. Initially the various detachments were able to take ground away from the Turks but due to the delayed arrival of support troops were unable to hold onto the gained ground and were pushed back.

The 6^th Btn South Lancs lost 34 men in that one encounter.

10^th August – the battalion, along with the Ghurkas and the Royal Warwick Regiment came under sustained heavy bombardment and then heavy rifle fire from the Turks. At 4.45am the Turkish army doubled their attack and regained a large part of, what had become known as, Ghurka Hill. The cause became lost and eventually the 6^th Btn, Ghurkas and R. Warwick Regt. all retreated (or ‘retired’ as the war diary calls it) back to the second line.

The battalion suffered very heavy casualties on this day losing 94 men from the rank of Captain down through to Private.

11^th August – the regiment received a new commanding officer in Major G. Mott and relieved one of the lines held by the 14^th Sikhs.

12^th August – the battalion consolidated their position. Water had by this time become very scarce and had to be rationed. The men also had to contend with a serious outbreak of fever amongst the ranks.

13^th – 15^th August – the battalion held their position in the trenches. On the 15^th they came under heavy Turkish machine gun fire resulting in more casualties.

17^th August – the battalion received its first set of reinforcements of 450 men, some from Mudros and some directly from England. In the evening of the 17^th with reinforcements in place the 6^th Btn were sent back for a very well earned and no doubt much needed, albeit brief, rest period. Rest Gully as it had been christened was an area where a temporary field hospital had been established and where several field ambulances were stationed. No doubt wounds were treated and the men tried to relax as much as possible from those incredible nighttime marches and the fighting they had endured in the preceding days.

19^th August – the battalion was back out again to relive the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in trenches on the Argyl Dere.

20^th – 23^rd August – rejoining forces that had been deployed elsewhere in the preceding few days swelled the regiment.

24^th August – the regiment was relieved by the Royal Warwick Regiment and the 6^th Battalion went into Brigade Reserve allowing the men time away from the front lines.

25^th – 31^st August – the battalion remained in Brigade Reserve and received a new commander, Major Fairlie, the previous commander having been removed from position due to injury. Also over these few days the battalion was consolidated (merged) with the 6^th Loyal North Lancs Regiment in order to increase its strength.

The battalion lost men almost every day during the month of August. At the end of the month’s diary the recording officer stated that, out of the 700 men in the battalion on the 1^st August, nearly 500 men were either killed, missing or wounded by the end of the month.

Acknowledgements – all credit goes to Stephen Nulty who transcribed the battalion’s war diary and www.prescott-rollofhonour.info where the transcription is lodged.

Traditional Tea Loaf

A mug of steaming tea with a slice of tea loaf decked with a spread of rich creamy butter is the mainstay of a Sunday afternoon for many people. If it’s miserable and rainy then even better as it adds to the comfortable indulgence of the cake. This tea loaf is certainly a best seller on the market stall and to keep an interest I vary it quite a bit. The cake and the recipe are so versatile that it is easy to adapt the basic recipe.

This recipe is quite fruit dense, which means the cake stays moist and in fact many people report back that they forego the butter as the cake is so good on its own. It will keep for many days in an airtight tin and the added bonus is that if you don’t cover it with butter………there’s no added fat in the recipe!

Ingredients

4 tea bags

300ml boiling water

500g mixed dried fruit

125g light brown sugar – I use unrefined caster sugar

250g self-raising flour

½ teaspoon of ground mixed spice

1 medium beaten egg

Method

Place the tea bags in bowl and pour over 300ml boiling water. Leave to steep for 10-15 minutes, remove the tea bags squeezing them out so you don’t lose any of the flavour.

Add the mixed fruit to the tea and mix it about with a spoon so all the fruit is broken apart and coated in tea. Mixed fruit can often stick together in clumps when you tip it out of the bag and that’s what you don’t want. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it to steep over night, but if you can’t do that and want to get on with your cake leave it for a minimum of two hours. Covering the bowl is particularly important if you are using an aromatic tea – you don’t want all those lovely scents being lost over night.

Preheat the oven to 180C, 160C fan, 350F or gas 4.

Sieve the flour, caster sugar and ground mixed spice over the fruit, then add the beaten egg. 

With a wooden spoon mix the whole lot together. It might take a minute or two to come together but just keep at it. Once everything is mixed transfer to a lined 2lb loaf tin. I always divide mine down into two 1lb loaf tins though as the smaller loaf size is preferred on the market stall.

Level the top and place on the middle shelf of your oven. Bake for approx. one hour. I check my 1lb loaf tins at about 50 minutes. When a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean it’s done. Leave to cool in the tin for 10minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

This cake is always better a couple of days after it has been baked and if you can resist I would always recommend you bake ahead of when you want it. My market stall is on a Friday so I bake the tea loaves on Wednesday.

Note on dried fruit variations

You can vary the fruit. I have one lady who hates mixed peel so her cake is just a mix of currants, sultanas and raisins. I have also used dried blueberries and dried cranberries to give it a different twist. I have yet to use dried figs and apricots but they are on the cards. I am allergic to cherries so they never enter on my radar but you could also use dried cherries in there too. Whatever the dried fruit combo just make sure you have 500g to throw in.

Note on tea variations

This cake is traditionally made with a good strong black tea, but you can so easily vary it. How about rooibos tea bags to give it a slightly smoky flavour? It lends itself very well to Earl Grey tea with its aromatic bergamot flavouring. One of the best selling variations I have done is to use Lady Grey tea so that the whole cake has a subtle faint underpinning taste of orange. I am yet to try green tea in the mix.

You can play for ages coming up with various fruit and tea combinations so try it out and let me know what you think works.

HAPPY BAKING!

6th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment July 1915

The official war diary for the 6^th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment is held at the National Archive in Kew, UK. It is available for public viewing as are many other regimental war diaries. If you have a relative you would like to know more about and you know their battalion or regiment it would be worth you checking the National Archive catalogue to see if that regiment’s war diary exists. War diaries list the day to day happenings in the regiment – where they were deployed, the skirmishes and battles they were involved in, weather conditions, day to day problems like interruptions in the supply chain and also the casualties the battalion suffered each day.

As you will know by now the above named battalion is Basil’s battalion and I thought it would be interesting to let you know the sorts of conditions and events he would have borne witness to between July 1915 and his death in April 1916.

July 1915

After basic training, the Prince of Wales volunteers had sailed on the 13^th June from Avonmouth on the HMT Ausonia (a Cunard ship that had been commandeered as a troop ship, it would later be sunk by a German U-boat in May 1918). The battalion landed at Mudros on the Isle of Lemnos (a Greek island in the northern Aegean sea) on the 2^nd July. The men were involved in the unloading of the ship before going into bivouacs on the slopes of a hill overlooking Mudros. They killed time here for a few days and were charged with getting ready to move out a.s.a.p. during the night of the 5^th July. However, at the 11^th hour the order was cancelled and the men did not move out until the following evening.

7^th July – the battalion arrived at West Beach on the Gallipoli peninsula at 2.00am. The Gallipoli campaign had been underway since April 1915 so Basil would have been landing in a region where battles had already been undertaken.

8-10^th July – the battalion men were involved in marches to various trenches where they received instruction and were employed in fatigues to the various regiments already based there.

11^th – 17^th July – the battalion moved up to the front trenches taking over from the 1^st Lancashire Fusilliers who had already been engaged there for some time. The front line trenches were subjected to heavy bombardment by the Turkish troops, but the 6^th battalion was not sent into any engagements during this time. The war diary lists that the battalion suffered six casualties. On the 17^th the men were stood down and transferred out of the trenches west to Gully Beach where they rested.

19^th July – the battalion was moved up the Gallipoli peninsula towards the front line trenches and relieved the 126^th Brigade, 42^nd Division at Krithia Gully ravine. There were no specific engagements made by the battalion while it occupied Krithia Gully although the men were subject to enemy fire and suffered the loss of two men.

28^th July – the battalion was relieved by the Lancashire Fusilliers and moved back to rest lines. Whilst in the rest lines they were subject to “…a good deal of annoying shelling.”

31^st July – the battalion was gathered at Y Beach on the Gallipoli peninsula and moved back to Mudros in two groups.

Map source - Wikipedia 'Landing at Cape Helles'

Moving up from beach positions the terrain changes a lot to rock strewn, dusty scrubland with a lot of ravines and gullies. Digging trenches to augment some of the natural cover was difficult and arduous. Equipment and supplies all had to be moved by men and donkeys. The postmortem of the aftermath of the entire Gallipoli and Mesopotamia campaign flagged up that the various army divisions were ill equipped for the entire engagement. It’s no wonder that it culminated in defeat and abandonment.

From Basil’s perspective I would love to know what a naïve 17 year old who had never left Salford would have made of such a dramatic change in his circumstances. Sadly we’ll never know what his first impressions were.

Acknowledgements – all credit goes to Stephen Nulty who transcribed the battalion’s war diary and www.prescott-rollofhonour.info where the transcription is lodged.