Happy Birthday Blog Cake

Banks Peninsula Walnut Cake with birthday candle

This blog was one year old yesterday, so I baked it a cake - which just happens to be one of the favourites of the Eco Forester. Its main ingredient is walnuts which come from our huge old tree, although the flavour is surely enhanced by the rum, raisins, treacle and the pinch of cloves which are also in it. The original recipe was one created by Lois Daish for a woman from Wairewa (aka Little River) on Banks Peninsula, just over the (big) hill from me, so it seems appropriate to call my slightly modified version Banks Peninsula Walnut Cake.

I wish I could share a slice with all of the thousands of people who have looked at The Eco Gardener in the past year (there have been 9,320 page views to date) but it obviously wouldn't stretch that far. Nor would I be able to get it to the nine countries (after NZ) which feature in my top ten readers' list over the past year, which in the order from most to least number of page views goes the USA, Australia, the UK, Canada, Germany, India, Russia, Malaysia, the Netherlands.

I am mystified and curious about what Malaysians and Indians find of interest in my blog (although I suspect that the latter was mainly my small friends the Mathias twins following the Adventures of Wilby from their school in Mussoorie). I am equally mystified about why the most popular post of the year (with 60 more views than the next most popular) was the one on gherkins. The # 2 slot was taken by Zucchini Relish, so maybe there is a thirst for knowledge on what to do with cucurbits out there. But since #3 was the post on Roasted Blackboy Peach Chutney, maybe it is preserves that are of interest.

It's all a mystery to me, but it's not at all mysterious why lots of people, all over the world, enjoy home gardening and home-made food as much as I do. So, dear readers - if I can't give you a slice of cake, at least I can give you the whole recipe. Enjoy!

BANKS PENINSULA WALNUT CAKE

Ingredients

1 ½ C walnuts, roughly chopped

200 g butter

100g brown sugar

2 T treacle

2 large eggs

150 g flour

1 t baking powder

pinch baking soda

pinch ground cloves

3 T milk

3 T dark rum

½ C raisins

Method

Grease and flour a 20 cm round cake baking tin.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

Cream the butter, sugar and treacle.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating in well.

Sift in the dry ingredients one third at a time, alternating with adding the milk and the rum.

Add the walnuts and raisins and mix well.

Bake for c. 50 minutes. 

This cake is fine served plain, or dusted with icing sugar, or (as in the picture) iced with lemon butter icing and decorated with walnut halves.