Menu for Hope 6 and Cranberry Apple Spice Cake

There’s only 9 days left on Menu for Hope people!! The great news is that, as of this morning, it’s already raised over $12,000. But I’m hoping that we can do WAY better than that! Spread the word! Shout it from the roof tops! Blog! Tweet! Facebook it! Whatever you do, make sure people know about it.

And hey, if you’re not a baked goods fan (although I do think that makes you certifiable) there’s a whole bunch of other stuff you can bid on!! We’re thinking of spending a few days in Paris for our honeymoon, before heading to a little chateaux somewhere with yummy food and vineyard tours so here’s a few of the items I’m going to bid on…


EU02 – Tour of France wine – An afternoon of tasting French wines? Yes please!
EU03 – Wine and cheese lunch - my two FAVORITE things! Mmmm, French cheese…
EU05 – Cooking Class in Paris – oh yes. That sounds INCREDIBLE!
EU19 – Personalised one-day Paris Itinerary. Ooo, I really want to win this one.
EU31 – Market Tour and Cooking Class in Burgundy – ok, so I’m actually DESPERATE to win this one!
EU34 – Private Chocolate Tour and Tasting in Rococo Chocolate in London. I know, it’s not France, but this chocolate is A-MAZ-ING.

But then there’s this one, this one, this one and this one too! Argh, I’m so torn! I have no idea how I’m going to narrow it down. Oh well – maybe I’ll just have to put a ticket on each. It is for charity, after all...

So basically, if my entry doesn’t float your boat, PLEASE don’t let that stop you from helping to support this fantastic cause. It’s only about £6.20 (US$10) for a ticket - that's the price of a cocktail in London.

There's also a great new widget to make donating even easier - just click on this link.

But to hawk my entry a little, Here’s a little something to whet your appetite. This beauty not only tastes delicious but lasts really well. Actually improves in flavour if left until the second day so will be perfect for me to post to wherever you are!

Festive but (unlike most festive treats) it’s not crazy heavy or crazy sweet. Moist, spongey and filled with tart cranberries and apples. Practically a health food! Ok, that might be stretching things a little too far, but it can’t be as bad as a mince pie.

Cranberry Apple Spice Cake

Adapted from Joy the Baker

375g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups (375ml) flavourless oil (sunflower, vegetable or similar)
3 large eggs
300g caster sugar
110g brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 tbsp rum, bourbon or other spirit you have on hand. Or orange juice if you’re out of the hard stuff!
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tart apples (granny smith, bramley, something along those lines) peeled, cored and cut into little cubes – about 1/4 “
1 cup (probably about 125g) fresh cranberries, very roughly chopped. You could swap in dried fruit like raisins or apricots if you can’t get fresh cranberries.

Preheat the oven to 350F or 180C or Gas Mark 4.

For this, I used a bundt pan as, on a whim, I bought one recently. It does look super cute in a bundt pan but this could equally make 2 loaves or a 7” square tin. Whatever you choose to use, butter and flour the tin (or line with greaseproof paper) and knock the excess flour out.

Then – easy as anything – in one bowl, mix up the oil, eggs, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, alcohol and vanilla. In another, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Then fold the flour mix gently into the oil mix, until only just combined. Remember, overmixing once the flour is in there develops the gluten and leads to rubbery cakes! Yuck.

Carefully fold in the fruit before transferring the mixture to the prepared pan. Bake for about 1hr 15mins until a skewer comes out clean. Then leave in the tin to cool for 30 mins before transferring onto a cooling rack to finish cooling. As I baked mine last thing at night, I actually left it in the tin to cool with a tea towel over the top and it was absolutely fine.

Dust with a light snow of icing sugar before serving.

Rosy xx

Menu for Hope 6 and HOMEBAKED GOODIES FOR 1 WHOLE YEAR!!!!

As I may have already mentioned, I love the blogging community. There’s so much community spirit and just a whole tonne of love (in baking form) going around. I’ve met some absolutely incredible, like minded people who have fast become firm friends and who make my days that little bit brighter with their blogs and stories of their culinary adventures! So imagine my joy when I discovered that there’s a way that my little blog could help feed the world! Ok, so that’s a slight exaggeration, but when I heard about Menu for Hope 6 I knew I just had to participate.


So this is the deal. Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising campaign, hosted by Chez Pim, which raises money for the UN World Food Programme, helping to feed hungry people worldwide. Isn’t that just about the best cause ever?? Specifically, it’s the Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative. P4P enables smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to the World Food Programme’s global operation. P4P helps farmers improve farming practices and puts more cash directly into their pockets in return for their crops. This will also help buoy local economy by creating jobs and income locally. We food bloggers understand the importance of buying locally and supporting our local farms, P4P helps do the same for farmers in low income countries around the world. All about building sustainable communities. For more information, check out their website http://www.wfp.org/purchase-progress.

This year, in all my Christmas-induced enthusiasm, I decided to donate a bid item! So. Here goes. It is…(Drum roll please)

A box of home baked goods delivered to you every month for a year! Yes, that’s 12 batches of delicious home made cakes and treats, chosen by you, delivered to you every month for ONE WHOLE YEAR! I’ll even pop in the recipes so you can recreate them. That’s a whole lota love in homebaked form.

You could either choose to have 12 regular deliveries or it could be grouped into fewer, larger deliveries if you prefer (Christmas or Easter pressies, maybe?). I will personally deliver the items if you live in London and will entrust them to the Post Office for the UK and the rest of Europe. Ooo, or you could even make this a present for one of your bestest friends or family memebers! That would be SUPER sweet.

As for what the baked goodies are, the only limit is your imagination. Well, and the post-ability and perish-ability! So what floats your boat? Tickles your fancy? Gets your tastebuds a-tingling?

Some gingerbread maybe?

Maybe your sweet tooth craves vanilla fudge?

Or chocolate biscotti?

 

Maybe this delicious apple and cranberry spice cake is more your cup of tea?

Or how about brownies? Oh, how I love these babies...

Maybe a touch healthier, could do some of this pecan almond granola…

I could go on forever about possibilities… Handmade chocolates, pistachio cardamom shortbread, fudge, chocolate buttercrunch toffee, muffins, marshmallows, ginger chewies…. The list goes on. And those are just if I have to post them! Imagine if you’re in London. Cupcakes, lemon tarts, rich iced chocolate cakes or moist coffee cake to really give you that morning coffee kick!

Or, if you just can’t choose, you could make it a surprise! I’ll pick something lush each month to bake and send to you. Do mention if you have any major dislikes or allergies though!

So I’m REALLY hoping that this has got you oh so excited about Menu for Hope and just about falling off your seat wanting to know how you can help a great cause and (finger’s crossed) win a whole heap of baked treats. You’ll be about the most popular person in the office – should you choose to share of course. Me, I’d probably just spend a Sunday afternoon with some cheesy chick flicks and a mountain of cake… But hey, I’m just a little selfish like that.

So, what you need to do now is…

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list (yep, there’s LOTS of other super exciting prizes to choose from!)

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation*.

3. Please specify which bid item you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code - for my item, it’s EU13.

Each US$10 (about £6.20 at the moment) you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of US$50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 (chocolate basket! YUM!) and 3 tickets for EU13 - 2xEU01, 3xEU13.
4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.

5. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

Important things to note:

This runs from TODAY (14th December 2009) to CHRISTMAS DAY (25th December 2009) with the lucky winners being announced here on 18th JANUARY 2010.

We don’t touch any of the money – through using the Firstgiving website, they do all the collection and payment processing and then at the end of the event, transfer the proceeds to the World Food Programme in one lump sum. For more details, go to Chez Pim’s website. Or ask me a question! We want to be as transparent as possible in our fundraising.

If you’re not in Europe, not to worry! This is a global fundraising event and all the other areas that are covered are listed here.

Phew! That’s one monster post. Although I’ve tried my absolute best to cover all possible questions, I’ve probably missed something, so do feel free to ask me a question, either in the comments or pop me an email on rosy@rosylipsandlavender.com. And go! Get some raffle tickets!!! Share that Christmas spirit. Here's to a super successful Menu for Hope 6! And do please check out all the other super cool bid items here. Many thanks to David and Sara for hosting for the UK and Europe.

Love Rosy xx

* Please note that Firstgiving only accepts credit cards. This is due to the international nature of this fundraising event - I'm hoping that this isn't a problem for too many people and apologies if it is! I have spoken to them about making it debit card accessible but it doesn't look like its going to be possible for this year's event.