tray bake cup cakes with cream cheese and lemon icing

I’m not a big fan of baking. I think it has something to do with the amount of cleaning and fiddly business that goes with it. There’s a lot of measuring this and weighing that, and this makes me completely obsessive. I find myself glued to the recipe, completely paranoid that I’ll miss a step. It completely freaks out my inner child and crushes the wild abandonment that usually accompanies my cooking.

That said, the picture on the box of Nomu’s (yes, those are the folk from the spices and other yummies) new recipe cards had me completely floored! I just had to make those delicious looking vanilla sponge squares. They were thrilling my inner child more than freaking her out. I just had to try them!

So here they are with a few twists and tweaks, enjoy.

Hot milk tray cake with cream cheese and lemon icing

(Okay, so the tweaks are as follows: I used spelt flour instead of wheat flour and I replaced their vanilla butter icing, which I am sure is divine, with cream cheese icing with a hint of lemon).

1 ¼ c hot milk

1 t vanilla extract (Nomu makes a good one)

150g unsalted butter

4 eggs

2 c castor sugar

2 ¼ c white spelt flour

2 ¼ t baking powder

1 punnet fresh raspberries (or berries of your choice)

makes about 40 small squares.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 33/23cm cake or roasting tin with baking paper (this is vital with such a large cake, you don’t want it sticking anywhere). Heat the milk, vanilla and butter together to just below boiling point. Remove from the heat and set it aside. Break the eggs into a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk the eggs with an electric beater until they are pale and fluffy. Sieve the flour and baking powder together and carefully add to the batter, mixing on low until smooth. Add the milk mixture, still mixing, until smooth again. Do not worry (I did) if the batter looks very thin, it will work! Pour the batter into the prepared tin, do not worry (I did) if it is close to the rim, it won’t overflow while baking. Place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. If you have an oven with a fan, it will be more on the 30 minute side, if not, then more to 40 minutes. Once a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean, it’s done. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. 

Cream cheese and lemon icing

1 X 250g block cream cheese

50g butter

1 c sifted icing sugar

2 t vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

Pop the cream cheese and butter into a bowl and beat with an electric beater on high until creamy and wellcombined. Tip in the icing sugar, vanilla and lemon zest and beat for another few minutes until beautifully creamy. Spread the icing evenly over the cooled cake. Cut the cake into squares and dot over the raspberries.

  P.S. I used washi tape to make the flags and bunting ;)