4 Bites: Three desserts from one basic butter cake batter

Basic butter cake

Makes 20cm cake or 12-15 muffins

200g butter, diced
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
200g self-raising flour, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, incorporating well after each addition.
2. Add any chosen flavours, as below, or try vanilla extract, cocoa to make chocolate cake, coffee to make coffee cake — or both to make mocha, etc. Fold in flour.
3. Pour into a greased, lined 20cm cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Or pour into muffin tins and bake for 20-30 minutes.

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Stonefruit pudding cake

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cut enough fresh peaches, nectarines and apricots to half fill a baking dish (approximately 20 x 30cm). Toss fruit with the zest and juice of an orange, 2 Tbsp honey and some finely grated ginger.
2. Add the zest of 1 lemon and ⅔ cup desiccated coconut to the basic cake mix (above) at stage 2. Fold in the flour and spoon this mix over fruit. Sprinkle generously with slivered almonds.
3. Bake for 30-40 minutes until sponge is golden and cooked through. Serve with cream or icecream.

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Banana blueberry puddings

Makes 12-15

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Fold the zest of a lemon or orange, 2-3 mashed overripe bananas, and 2 punnets of blueberries into the basic cake recipe (top of page) at stage 2, then fold in flour.
2. Spoon mix evenly into greased muffin pans and bake for 20-30 minutes until skewer comes out clean.
3. Cool in pan, then turn out and serve upside down with cream, custard or yoghurt.

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Layer cake

Makes 20cm cake

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Add the zest of 1 lemon and the seeds from ½ vanilla pod at stage 2 of the basic cake recipe (top of page), then fold in flour.
2. Grease a 20cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Pour in cake mix and bake for 45 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
3. Once cold, slice the cake horizontally into three and fill with your favourite fillings. We whipped 200g each of cream cheese and mascarpone with 1 Tbsp caster sugar and the juice of a lemon until smooth.
4. Then we folded a fresh berry compote into half and crushed walnuts (roasted with honey until caramelised) into the other half. We layered the cake with the fillings and topped it with berries and icing sugar.

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