ARRIVALS AND FIRST NIGHT Brown butter chocolate chip tray bake

The first activity on arrival, after finding out the Wifi code, is popping on the kettle for a cup of tea – with the addition of a slice of home-made cake. Once baked, keep and transport your cake in the tin. This way it will survive the journey and you are guaranteed to have a tin to use during the week.

Makes 12 squares

Ingredients: cake 180g salted butter • 170g caster sugar • 170g selfraising flour • 1 tsp baking powder • 3 medium free-range/organic eggs • 2 tbsp yogurt • 1 tbsp vanilla paste • 200g choc chips, I used a mix of white and dark

Ingredients: icing 40g icing sugar • 2-3 tbsp double cream • 1 dsp cocoa powder

The Field’s

Find more baking ideas on website: Pecan praline chocolate cake / Apple honey and carrot cake / Chocolate and orange fruit cake / Black Forest brownies / Rhubarb brownies / Chocolate chip cookies / Fruit and almond tart

Cake

Heat the butter in a pan until it caramelises (you should see lots of little specks of brown). Take off the heat and pour into a bowl, scraping all the brown bits in. Once cool enough, place in the fridge to harden slightly (about 2 hours). When the butter has become firm beat with the sugar until light and fluffy.

In a small bowl, mix the self-raising flour and baking powder together.

In a small jug, lightly beat the eggs with the yogurt and vanilla.

Add half the flour and egg mix to the butter and lightly beat before adding the rest.

Stir in two-thirds of the chocolate chips and scoop into your cake tin.

Scatter the rest over the top.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin.

Icing

In a small bowl, mix the icing sugar with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the cream – it needs to be just runny enough to drizzle.

Drizzle half the mix over the top then stir in the cocoa powder and a little extra cream and drizzle over the rest.

Leave to harden then wrap.