Botanical Linens and Prints & Seasonal Baking Recipes

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Seasonal Baking Recipes

About Tilly

Welcome to Tilly’s Table — here you’ll find seasonal baking recipes, Australian-made table linens and prints, and other good things for your home and table.

Hello! I’m Tilly – a cook and photographer based in the Blue Mountains, Australia, with my husband and two small children. Here, in between chasing kids around, I photograph food and flowers and write seasonal baking recipes for my website and online store. My photographs are available as greeting cards, limited edition prints and luxurious table linens via my online store, and I share seasonal baking recipes and family stories via my monthly newsletter. So, please pull up a chair, let me make you a cup of tea (wouldn’t that be nice?) and have a look around…

Feeling Social

A cake and an anniversary. We celebrated our seve

A cake and an anniversary.

We celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary today in the only way we know how: with cake and chaos! The past seven years have flown by in a whirl of babies and baked-goods. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I baked my grandma GG’s sponge today - seemed fitting. She liked a good cake, and a good party.

Happy anniversary S. Here’s to the next seven (or fifteen if you go back to when it all began.) x

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 26},

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 26}, Strawberry Streusel Cake.

When I was an exchange student in Germany, my lovely host-mum used to go to the local bakery almost everyday and bring back cakes and pastries for afternoon tea. My favourite was always the streuselkuchen – a yeasted dough topped with a sweet crumb topping. Sometimes it had fruit between the dough and crumb, but often it was just plain. Either way, it was frighteningly easy to eat.

This cake is somewhat simplified version of streuselkuchen - a simple melt and mix almond cake base with a layer of fresh strawberries, then scattered with a crumb topping. It’s also rather easy to eat and perfect for afternoon tea. Happy Friday folks. Hope your weekend is full of good things. x

Strawberry Streusel Cake

Streusel topping:
60g butter
55g caster sugar
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Cake:
125g unsalted butter, melted
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
150g almond meal
165g caster sugar
375g strawberries, hulled & quartered

Preheat oven to 170°C fan-forced and grease and line a 22cm round springform tin with baking paper.

Place streusel topping ingredients into a small mixing bowl and use your fingertips to work butter through the sugar and flour until mixture resembles large breadcrumbs. Set aside.

Place melted butter, eggs and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl and whisk to combine. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour and baking powder, before stirring in salt, almond meal, and caster sugar.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the melted butter and egg mixture, stirring gently to just combine. Scoop batter into lined baking tin and smooth the surface before topping with strawberry quarters.

Sprinkle streusel topping over the strawberries and bake for 55-60 minutes or until cake is cooked through and crumble topping is starting to colour. Serve cake warm with ice-cream or cream (or both!).

Any leftover cake will keep happily in an air-tight container in the fridge for 2-3 days, just warm slightly before serving.

Nanna’s Rainbow Cake. I was delighted to be ask

Nanna’s Rainbow Cake.

I was delighted to be asked to share a recipe and memories of my Nanna’s rainbow cake for this month’s @womensweeklymag. It was a real honour to contribute to such a well-loved, iconic Australian publication. Thank you @fabdallaoui for making it happen.

You can find the recipe and story in the October edition of The Australian Women’s Weekly. My Nanna would be so proud. x

Monday: a beautiful mess. (Although to be honest,

Monday: a beautiful mess.

(Although to be honest, Mondays at our place are usually more of the latter, rather than the former - but it’s nice to dream.)

And tea, always tea. x

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 25},

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 25}, Sour Cream Cake with Strawberry Jam Buttercream.

Ah, Friday, how I’ve been waiting for you. Glorious spring weather has returned to the mountains and we spent all day outside today - sipping tea and eating cake in the sunshine, playing ‘nature explorers’ (very involved, I’m still not sure of all the rules…), and painting some backgrounds for a new set of cards.

We’re all a bit weary now, but in a nice way. There’s pizza in the oven and Prosecco in the fridge. I do like Fridays. x

Sour cream cake with strawberry jam buttercream.
Ingredients:
125g unsalted butter, softened
220g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
3 eggs
200g SR flour
Pinch of salt
200g sour cream

60g unsalted butter, softened
60g sour cream
200g icing sugar
1 tbsp strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C (fan forced) and grease and line 3 x 18cm sandwich tins.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter, caster sugar and vanilla until very light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well in between.

Add 1/2 the flour and salt and stir gently to combine. Add sour cream, stirring again, before adding remaining flour and mixing to a smooth batter.

Divide batter between 3 sandwich tins, smoothing tops and giving each tin a tap on the bench to get rid of any air bubbles. Place in preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or so, or until risen and cooked through.

Allow cakes to cool in tins for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack and cooling completely.

Whilst cakes are cooling, make strawberry buttercream by beating softened butter and sour cream together until smooth. Add icing sugar and mix again until smooth. Stir in strawberry jam and then beat icing for a minute or two until light and fluffy.

When cakes have cooled place one cake on a serving plate. Top with 1/2 the strawberry icing, then another cake. Spread on remaining icing, then top with last cake layer. Dust top liberally with icing sugar before serving.

This cake is best eaten within a few hours of assembling or at least the day it’s made, store any leftovers in the fridge.

A very nice tea towel… I thought it was Friday

A very nice tea towel…

I thought it was Friday yesterday. I kept saying to people, “Golly, it’s been a long week!” So surely, it follows that today is Saturday, right? Alas… Wednesday.

Ah, well. In the meantime I’ve got a lovely bundle of these very nice tea towels on my website - just in case you need something nice to look forward to in the mail.

Tea towels feature one of my original photographs taken here in the mountains, and are printed and made with care in Melbourne. (Shop link in bio.) x

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 24},

The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 24}, Citrus Madeleines.

We woke today to a deliciously sunny morning. O flung the door open, took a big sniff and declared, “It feels like we’re on holiday”, and I knew exactly what she meant. The air was warmer, softer, and it smelt like spring - like longer days, like eating outdoors, like gatherings with family and friends (ever hopeful!).

We spent most of the day pottering outside: picking daffodils; climbing trees; and sitting on the verandah in the sun eating madeleines. After a bit of a weary week, it felt good. Madeleine recipe below if you need a little sunny citrus (cake) in your life too. x

Citrus Madeleines:
125g unsalted butter
60ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tbsp marmalade
Zest 1 lemon (or bergamot)
2 eggs
110g caster sugar
150g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

220g icing sugar
30-40ml (1 1/2-2 tbsp) citrus juice (lemon or bergamot)

Place butter, milk, vanilla, marmalade and zest in a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stir gently and heat until butter has melted. Take off heat and allow to cool slightly.

In a medium mixing bowl, place eggs and caster sugar, whisking to combine. Add flour, baking powder and salt and whisk to a smooth batter. Whisk the melted butter mixture into the batter, then cover and place in the fridge to rest for an hour or so (or up to 2 days).

When batter has rested, preheat oven to 170 degrees C (fan-forced) and grease and flour 2 x 12 hole madeleine tins. Spoon generous teaspoonfuls of batter into each hole (you want them about 2/3 full).

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until madeleines have risen and are deep golden around the edges. Whilst cakes are cooking, combine icing sugar and citrus juice in a small bowl. Mix to a lovely, smooth drippy glaze - you want it quite thin, so it delicately coats the madeleines, so add a little more juice or icing sugar accordingly.

When cakes are cooked, allow to cool for a minute or two in the tins, then remove one by one, spooning a little glaze over each. Place on a wire rack with a tray underneath, to catch the drips. Allow glaze to set (or not) before eating with a pot of tea or coffee.

Today we needed all the flowers, all the blossom a

Today we needed all the flowers, all the blossom and all the cake. Thank goodness for the start of spring, for sunny weather, for bottomless cups of tea and gardens to pick flowers from. Oh, and also thank goodness for choux buns (plural).

The choux recipe is a very good one from @bakedbybenji (on her website). Worked a treat. I followed the recipe for the choux and craquelin but swapped the hazelnut filling for rose water cream and strawberry jam as requested by O. Really rather good. And I should know, I tested rather a lot. Turns out whipped cream and choux are extraordinary easy to eat. Take care everyone and eat the buns, eh? x

Featured Products

Tea & blooms — Tea Towel

Rosy posy plums — Tea Towel

Egg shells — Tea Towel

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Seasonal Recipes

TillysTable_SugaredCitrusCake_2021-07-17_9015 — Sugared Citrus & Semolina Cake
A simple, sturdy drizzle-cake that can be made with whatever citrus you have on hand. I’ve made versions with lemon, lime and bergamot (after impulse buying a glorious box of bergamots online…) and all work beautifully.
10. September 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_PistachioCake_Cover2 — Pistachio & Rose Cake
The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 22}, Pistachio and Rose Cake.
20. August 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_burntbutter5 — Burnt-butter sheet cake with blackberry buttercream
The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society {edition 15}, Burnt-butter Sheet Cake with Blackberry Buttercream.
25. June 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_brownies3 — Sour cherry & Shiraz brownies
Years ago, when I ran a cake stall at the Bondi Farmers' Market, double chocolate brownies were my best seller. I would make trays and trays of them on Friday night and inevitably wish I had made one more tray when they sold out early the next morning.
31. March 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_doublechocloaf — Double chocolate loaf cake
Welcome to this week's meeting of 'The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society'. It seems only fitting that this week I give you a chocolate offering - the proximity to Easter and the weather positively demand it - and who am I to stand in the way of chocolate cake?
26. March 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_HotCrossBuns — Apricot & sultana hot cross buns
It's a slippery-slope that first hot cross bun of the season. A steep descent towards carbohydrate-induced haze, but one I happily slide (earlier, and earlier) each year.
23. March 2021/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_browned_butter_cake — Browned-butter cake with cumquat glaze
Introducing 'The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society' - a club for connoisseurs of uncomplicated bakes, simple cakes the general appreciation of pausing daily for tea and cake. Sound good?
11. March 2021/by Tilly Pamment

Tilly’s Table Lime drizzle — Semolina & Lime Drizzle Cake
Our lime and lemon trees are laden with fruit at the moment. This is making me feel quite smug - as I can duck out to the courtyard and pluck a few juicy limes or lemons whenever the fancy strikes. O is making the most of it, managing to consume her own weight in fresh lemonade most days, and Kip is not adverse to eating them straight from the tree...
25. September 2020/by Tilly Pamment

TillysTable_madeleines3 — Mandarin & Earl Grey Madeleines
In an inverse relationship to their size, small cakes hold a big place in my heart. For me, there is just something immensely likeable about them. Maybe it has something to do with nostalgia and the fact that they so easily transport you back to childhood - when the ultimate treat was a cupcake with pink icing, or better yet, a butterfly cake - or maybe it is that being small in size you feel less guilty about eating them and can therefore eat them without constraint...
5. July 2020/by Tilly Pamment

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