Almond Banana Bread

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Life has been crazy for me (the good kind) so whenever I have actually been at home I have been living out of my freezer (also - Mum, Dad - I'm running out of fancy Italian Pasta...I need to come and visit you soon so I can 'borrow' more from your store cupboard...).
There are exciting things happening in my freezer. There are pasties filled with ragu, there's amazing frozen strawberries for smoothies, there's loads of different kinds of bread and soup...oh, and most importantly, there are coconut and cookie ice-creams. I could probably feed myself for a week relying only on my freezer but the one thing I have been incredibly thankful for whenever I open its door has been this almond meal banana bread that I made a few weeks ago and luckily had the foresight to freeze.
This is a simple unsweetened banana bread which once started it's life as Elana Amsterdam's Paleo Banana Bread. It's still paleo, gluten-free and dairy free but that's not the reason why I like this bread. I am somewhat in love with this bread because it works as a normal bread with cheese or with a bowl of soup (lending an intriguing sweetness to the mix) but if you toast it (which I highly recommend you do, especially if you're defrosting frozen slices) the banana-flavour becomes a lot more pronounced and it is incredibly nice for breakfast with lots of fresh fruit or with my mum's strawberry jam :)

Almond Banana Bread (after Amsterdam)
6 Ripe Bananas, mashed
6 Eggs
2 tbsp Vanilla Extract
100ml Vegetable Oil (I use rapeseed)
400g Almond Flour
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Bicarb

Preheat your oven to 175˚C.
Mix together the bananas, eggs, vanilla and oil using a food processor or your trusty hand-held blender.
Then add the almond flour, salt and bicarb - if you were using a hand held blender, switch to a spatula.
Grease a large bread tin and scoop the batter into the tin.
Bake for 65-70 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. If the top of the banana bread browns too quickly you can cover the top with tin foil.
Allow to cool before removing from the pan - if you take it out too soon it will most likely break into two or more pieces.
Anyhow...you know what works well with banana bread...
Have a fantastic rest of your week! I will be enjoying the heat in London for the next few days.

Bitter Orange & Almond Cake

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Are you hating the holiday season yet? I'm trying to avoid any pre-Christmas annoyance by spending as much time at home or at the gym where I can ignore the fact that the whole world seems to have gone crazy. That and the fact that I didn't and am not planing to make any Christmas cookies this year.
I'm making up for my lack of festive spirit on that front by playing Christmas music pretty much all day long (especially this song) and by making my flat smell of bayberry.
This cake is inspired by Nigella Lawson's Clementine Cake but I wanted bitter oranges and I didn't like the idea of having to remove all the pips in the bitter oranges before pureeing. I modified her recipe and I hope you'll like the new, somewhat less dense version as much as I do.
I made this cake for my team's Christmas party and while I thought it was nice that evening, the leftovers were even better the next day. The orange flavour intensifies overnight so while I'm sure you'll enjoy it the day you make it, if you have the time, make it the day before you need it.

Bitter Orange & Almond Cake
2 Bitter Oranges
1 'Normal' Orange
200g Ground Almonds
50g Coconut Flour
100g Flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 Eggs
180g Raw Cane Sugar
80 ml Olive Oil

Wash the oranges in hot water (even if they're organic and definitely don't use waxed oranges here), then put them into a pot with water and cover with a lid. Bring the water to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so - I doubt 5 or 10 minutes more will ruin this recipe. Take the pot off the heat and allow the oranges to cool in the water.
Preheat your oven to 160˚C and grease and flour a 26cm springform tin.
Once the oranges are mostly cold, juice them and set the rinds of one bitter orange and the 'normal' orange aside. Discard the rest.
Make sure there are no pips left in the orange rinds, then puree the rinds using a food processor or an immersion blender.
Stir the flours, baking powder and ground almonds together.
Whisk the eggs and the sugar until they become somewhat fluffy (they're whole eggs so don't expect too much) then add the olive oil, orange juice and the flour mix. Don't overmix things but try to get things somewhat mixed. Then fold in the orange puree.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes. If the cake starts getting too dark, cover with tinfoil.
When the cake is done, keep it covered with the foil or cover it now. You can wrap it in a tea-towel but if you'll be eating the cake at home then just covering it should do the trick. Wrapping it means you can move the cake sooner if you are waaay to later for a Christmas party though (I'm totally going through a purely hypothetical scenario here).
This cake is lovely on its own but thick double cream or ice cream or custard work incredibly well with the slight bitterness of the oranges.
I hope you have a fantastic rest of the week and hopefully I'll find the time to write a bit more regularly :) My excuse is a good one though...the new layout and organisation of the blog is nearly ready and I should be able to share them with you before this baby turns three in January :)

Mini Chocolate Cakes (avec gooey centre) for Sonja

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Some people have told me that it's the friends you make in college that stay your friends for life. I've met some amazing people both during my time as an undergraduate and as a graduate student, but to me it feels like that diminishes the bond you have with some of your high-school friends. You know, the friends who knew you before you got highlights and lost weight and started using probably too much make-up. Yeah, those friends. My friend Sonja is one of those people I became friends with, let me think...I guess nearly 11 years ago. Even though we haven't lived in the same country for the better part of 8 years now (why do people have to move abroad when I decide to move back?!?!) we've kept in touch (thank you, Skype!). 

Anyhow, it's Sonja's birthday today and a while ago she asked me whether I could write a recipe for her. 

Something with chocolate.

Something 'like those mini cakes [I] used to make, those with the gooey centre' (ok, that was a fairly loose translation of the fb message that started this whole thing).

So let's talk about those mini cakes Sonja was talking about.

They're from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess and apparently I made them when I came back home one summer. I think.

They're pretty much chocolate with some eggs, butter, sugar, and flour to hold the chocolate together and you can even make them after a lacrosse game (only potentially still in your sports clothes) while dreaming of all the things you'll eat afterwards. I obviously didn't do any of that because I'm all grown up and organised and whatnot.

Anyhow, let's make some mini chocolate cakes (a.k.a. mini chocolate-mousse-soufflé thingies with a molten chocolate centre).

Note - the original recipe leaves you with mini cakes, I tend to keep them in the ramekins I use to bake them in and eat them like a chocolate soufflé. If you would rather have them sitting on a plate, butter your ramekins and cut out some baking parchment to line the bottoms. Both versions are super easy.

Mini Chocolate Cakes after Nigella Lawson's recipe - enough for 2 cakes

15g Butter

90g Dark Chocolate (use nice chocolate here since it's the main ingredient)

45g Sugar

1 Egg

Pinch of Salt

1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

15g Flour

Preheat your oven 200˚C and heat a baking sheet in the oven.

Melt the chocolate and set it aside to cool. Beat the egg with the salt until it is somewhat frothy. Cream the butter and sugar, then start adding the egg, followed by the vanilla extract. Mix in the flour until well combined. Add the chocolate to the mixture, make sure everything is properly mixed.

Pour the batter into the ramekins and place them in the oven for 10 minutes. 

Nigella suggests tipping them out straight away and eating them with some whipped cream, unwhipped cream, crème fraiche, crème anglaise or ice cream. I really like them slightly cooled just as they are.

Sonja, I hope this cures any chocolate cravings you might have while writing! I wish I could celebrate your birthday with you!

Zwetschgenkuchen

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Growing up one of my favourite cakes was Zwetschgenkuchen (or Zwetschgendatschi if I was talking to those members of my family that live in Bavaria). A thin yeasty dough topped with handfuls of super-ripe fruit (preferably next to some whipped cream) is my idea of heaven.
Zwetschgen are a type of plum. The problem is that the name doesn't seem to translate well. Just from looking at the fruit it looks a lot like damsons do but not completely so I think they are not quite the same thing. The internet is really not helpful here so here is my own description to add to the confusion:
Zwetschgen are a type of plum that has yellow (sometimes even greenish) flesh rather than the reddish hue 'proper' plums have. Rather than being nice and round like plums, Zwetschgen are more elongated. Their skin is a lovely shade of purple and they contain less water than plums.
So whatever you call this type of plum wherever you are, this is the kind I want you to look for when you make this cake.
Now, why am I even going on about the differences here? I think using the right kind of fruit here makes all the difference beween a really yummy cake and a soggy mess. If the fruit contains too much water it starts seeping out too early and the dough has no chance to bake whereas the juice you see in the picture above only started appearing 5 minutes before the cake was done (I couldn't have hoped for better fruit here). My aunt says the ones too early in the season are useless if you want to bake because they still have too much water in them but since I am still too focused on blueberries and blackberries when the first Zwetschgen start to arrive I am only relaying this.
Anyhow, what else can I tell you? The recipe is my great aunt's and most people in my family use her recipe because it's easy and more importantly - the dough to fruit ratio is perfect (lots of fruit and just enough dough).

I use water for this dough but you could also use some lukewarm milk if you want somewhat creamier results.

Zwetschgenkuchen
300g Flour
28g Fresh Yeast (or 2/3 of a pack of active dry yeast)
1 tbsp Sugar (for the yeast)
1 1/2 tbsp Sugar (for dough)
80g Fat (I use butter) melted and slightly cooled
2 Egg Yolks
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
A pinch of Salt
Zest of 1/2 Lemon
2kg Zwetschgen

 Put the flour into a mixing bowl and crumble the yeast into the middle. Add the first tablespoon of sugar to the yeast and mix with just enough water to make a fairly liquid sponge.  Allow the sponge to bubble up for 20 minutes or so. If you are using active yeast, skip this step, add all the sugar later, and keep in mind that you'll need some water later.

Once the sponge is nice and bubbly, add the remaining sugar, fat, egg yolks, salt, vanilla extract, and lemon zest and knead the dough until it starts having that velvety feel and slight sheen to it that you notice when the gluten bonds are starting to properly develop. If you feel your dough is too dry, add more water, one tablespoon at a time. If you are kneading the dough by hand this will easily take 10 minutes. Don't give up too early because the dough will be a lot easier to handle later on.

Set the dough aside and let it proof at room temperature for about two hours or until it has doubled in size (you could also go for an overnight proof if that makes things easier for you, keep in mind that you'll have allow for the dough to come back to room temperature before baking it).

While the dough is doing it's thing, wash the fruit, then cut it in half, taking out the stones.
Preheat your oven to 180˚C

When the dough had doubled in size, knock it back slightly and roll it out to fit on a full baking sheet. Yes, in case you are wondering, the dough will be fairly thin. It's supposed to be.

Lay the fruit halves on the dough, skin down. You want them to overlap slightly (about 1/4 - 1/3) so you can fit more fruit onto the cake but don't go overboard - I wouldn't overlap more than 1/2 of the previous row, otherwise the cake tends to become somewhat soggy.

Let the cake sit on the counter for 15 minutes or so to allow the dough to puff up a bit more (super scientific descriptions going on today...), then place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the cake for 25-30 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool before you cut it into generous pieces. Freshly whipped cream works incredibly well with this cake and you could also add a crumble topping before baking the cake (but if I'm honest with you I would just keep the cake plain - that way you can focus on the taste of the fruit).

What's your favourite cake?

Chocolate, Pecan & Banana Slices

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I could have called these brownies. But that wouldn't have been a fitting description. You see, last week someone brought some banana brownies along to eat after lacrosse practice and I wish I knew who did...but I seem to have forgotten everything about that day other than how amazing these brownies tasted. In all their gooey goodness.
So the idea of doing something similar was born. But as much as I love proper brownies (especially when they're still slightly warm and come with some ice-cream), I don't find them especially easy to handle or to transport or even especially nice to eat the next day when they have cooled down. This is why I made these, a slightly dryer, slightly denser, fudgier (is that even a word?!?), and infinitely easier to handle cousin of the chocolate brownie :)
Oh, and in case you are wondering why I weigh the banana - I have a tupperware container in my freezer that is home to slices of banana. Whenever I buy too many and they start becoming slightly over-ripe, I just cut them into 1-2cm slices (so they are easier to portion later on) and freeze them. That means when I decide to bake something with bananas or that I want to make banana soft-serve as I am walking up the stairs, I don't have to run to the supermarket but can just use the frozen ones.

Chocolate, Pecan & Banana Slices
125g Dark Chocolate
125g Butter
125g Sugar
125g Flour
125g Pecans, roughly chopped
200g Banana (mashed)
2 Eggs
1/4 tsp Fleur de Sel
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbsp Bourbon (optional)

Preheat your oven to 175˚C and line a brownie tin (something close to 20x20cm will do) with baking parchment.
Melt the chocolate and butter. You can either be old-fashioned and use a bain-marie or, if you're lazy like me, just melt them in the microwave. I don't see why you shouldn't do that because the whole thing is going to be warm later on anyway as it is baking. I put things into the microwave and heat it 30 seconds at a time (shorter intervals towards the end) until nearly everything is melted.
Whisk until you have a smooth texture, then add the eggs and banana. Whisk until the biggest lumps of banana are gone.
If you like bourbon, add some now. I find booze makes everything better and the bourbon works really well with the banana flavour, and the chocolate flavour, and it will work really well with the pecans, too. Just saying...
Stir in the sugar, salt and vanilla extract and make sure things are properly combined until you add the flour.
Once the flour is mixed in, add the pecans and pour the batter into the tin.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out relatively clean - you still want some moist crumbs but you don't want the batter to be relatively liquid anymore either.
Allow the cake to cool for a bit before you cut it into slices - it breaks quite easily while it is still warm.
Personally, I really like these with a glass of milk, or coffee, or tea.

What is your favourite sports-related food? Is there something you can't live without after a competition or do you have a post-training ritual or something similar?

Very Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake

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I have been meaning to post this recipe for ages. Because it is so amazing I made it two weeks in a row (once you see the quantities you will understand that eating one of those loafs in a week is quite a feat) and had it for breakfast most days. And then I had some for dinner a few of those days as well. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the cake freezes really well if you wrap it in tinfoil and then stick it into a freezer-bag.
The reason I am finally getting around to telling you about it is that I was desperate for a pick-me-up while I was icing my possibly slightly bruised cheek the other day (you know, I thought trying to catch a ball with my face would be a good idea...) and after I found a frozen slice sitting next to the ice-pack I was rifling through my freezer for things did look a lot better. You can microwave the frozen cake until it is warm and then eat it with some ice-cream :)
I found this loaf cake in Baked Explorations which, in case I have not told you before, is full of recipes you will try and then bake again and again. 
Anyhow, the original is lovely but I found using yoghurt and dark agave syrup gives it a somewhat more rounded flavour.
It works incredibly well on its own and is really lovely with some almond butter or some cream cheese but it truly shines when you spread some caramel sauce on a slice and have it with some ice cream as a dessert.

Very Dark Chocolate Loaf Cake (adapted from Baked Explorations)
110g Cocoa Powder
200g Flour

1 1/2 tsp Bicarb

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

150g Raw Cane Sugar
1 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
100ml Dark Agave Syrup
125ml Yoghurt
125ml Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Coconut Extract

100g Dark Chocolate (at least 75%)

100g Milk Chocolate (both types of chocolate broken into pieces)

Preheat your oven to 175˚C. Butter and flour a 13x23cm loaf tin (if you don't know your tin's dimensions - that's one for a large loaf)

In a bowl, combine the cocoa powder, flour, bicarb, baking powder, and salt.

In another bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar  until the mixture becomes lighter in colour and somewhat fluffy.

In a third bowl (I promise this one is the last one!) combine the yoghurt, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and coconut extract. Add the dry mix in three or four parts. Whisk about a third of the egg mixture into the batter. Once it is properly incorporated, fold in the remainder of the mixture taking care not to beat all the air out of the batter again. 

Fold in the chocolate and pour the batter into the prepared tin.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until no batter sticks to a cake tester when inserted in the middle of the cake.

Allow the cake to cool for a bit before taking it out of the tin and allowing it to cool completely.

As I said....caramel sauce is the way forward! Oh, and some good coffee doesn't hurt either :)

I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week!

Half-Baked Blueberry Pie

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Are you enjoying the end of a lovely blueberry season as much as I am?
Two years ago this blueberry pie recipe was making it's way around the blogs I was reading. People were raving about how amazing it was. And the trick was that part of the blueberries were cooked (giving you the amazing depth of flavour you get in a baked blueberry pie) and then uncooked blueberries were folded into the cooked mix (giving you the tart, juicy, incredibly fresh flavour you get in those blueberry tartlets). To me that sounded like the best of both worlds. But by the time I had some time to give it a go all I found were super expensive blueberries from Namibia (or wherever they grow blueberries in the winter). And then I forgot about it. Until I was confronted with boxes upon boxes of blueberries. I tried to trace down the blog where I first read about the recipe but I was unsuccessful but I found the post things seem to have originated from (on Shockingly Delicious). And then I changed everything....
I used Elana's gluten-free tart crust recipe but if you don't like almonds, just make a standard one or buy one. For the filling I used ground chia seeds as a thickener because I read about that the other night and wanted to give it a go, but if you can't find any or if you don't like them, the original recipe uses cornflour so just follow that recipe. And lastly, I used agave syrup and stevia as my sweeteners but if you want to use sugar, again, have a look at the original recipe.

Half Baked Blueberry Pie
-Elana's Tart Crust (from Elana's Pantry)
200g Almond Flour
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
2 tbsp Coconut Oil
1 Egg

-Blueberry filling
500g Blueberries
150 ml Water
3 tbsp Chia Seeds
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
Stevia (equivalent to 2 tsp sugar, I find when I use more it becomes too sweet)
1 tbsp Agave Syrup
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp Lime Juice

To make the crust:
Preheat your oven to 165˚C.
Mix all ingredients together. Elana suggest pulsing them in a food processor. I ended up kneading the mix together with my hands because I only have one of those hand blender sticks and while they're amazing for lots of things - pulsing dry ingredients is not their forte.
Pat the dough into a 23cm/9inch flan dish and bake for 10-15 minutes (mine needed the whole 15 minutes).
Allow the pie crust to cool before you fill it.

To make the blueberry filling:
Mix the water, chia seeds, salt, and cinnamon in a saucepan  and bring to a boil. Add 250 g of the blueberries and and heat until the blueberries are heated through. This shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Next you need a hand blender stick or a blender that is ok with high temperatures. Blend the mixture until it is smooth. By doing this you not only get a really pretty filling for the pie but, in my opinion, more importantly the chia seeds end up broken down into little pieces and you are less likely to have chia seeds stuck to your teeth after eating the pie :)
Add the stevia, agave syrup, vanilla extract and lime juice, then fold in another 150 g of the blueberries.
Pour the blueberry mixture into the cold pie crust and distribute the blueberries evenly within the mix. Top with the remaining blueberries (100g), cover with cling film, and refrigerate for a few hours. This allows the filling to become slightly less liquid.

When you are ready to serve the pie, allow it to come back to room temperature and then serve it with sour cream, ice cream or whipped cream (can you detect a trend here?). We had it with sour cream at our lab lunch today and I was a big fan of that combination.

I hope you have a fantastic end of your week!

Maple-Pecan Birthday Cake

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Last week we had a surprise birthday party for Louise and I was in charge of - guess what - the cake.
After spending an evening sitting on my bed with my baking books spread out around me I was honing in on a winner. I wanted something with nuts and I didn't want to make a chocolate cake. In the end I ended up going for the vanilla cake in the Magnolia Bakery cookbook with a maple syrup buttercream and some pecans thrown in.
I don't think I'll ever be a huge fan of layered cakes but there is something special about having a layered cake as a birthday cake.
For any special occasion really.
Perhaps it's that even though they aren't much more work than a loaf cake they do look like you put loads of work into it.
I don't know, does anyone else have an opinion on this?
Anyhow, the cake - make the icing the night before you want to make the cake, that way the icing becomes less grainy (from the sugar) and it'll take less time on the day. That said, this is one of those cakes you can make while still doing work - there's quite a lot of steps but there's time between them so you can tidy your room (probably should have gone for that option), or get some writing done, or read an article, or whatever else you can think of.
Oh, and this is one of those cakes where it is just way easier to use measuring cups, so get some if you don't have them already :)

Maple-Pecan Birthday Cake

Maple Icing
2 cups Butter, unsalted, at room temperature
5 cups Confectioner's Sugar, sifted
11/2 cups Light Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
3 tbsp Maple Syrup

Cream the butter for about 3 minutes (electric mixer...unless you have awesome muscles :) ) then add the sugars and keep the mixer going at a low speed for another 2 minutes.
Now you add the milk and syrup and beat for another 3-5 minutes. You will notice that it's ready when it goes all smooth and creamy and awesome.
Store this icing at room temperature (for up to 2 days) until you are ready to ice the cake.


Cake
11/2 cups Self-Rising Flour
11/2 cups Plain Flour
1 cup Butter, unsalted, at room temperature
2 cups Sugar
4 Eggs, at room temperature
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat your oven to 175˚C.
Grease and flour the side-bits of three 18 cm  cake tins. Cut out baking parchment to fit the bottom of each tin and assemble the tins.
Mix the flours in a small bowl. In your favourite mixing bowl (I don't know about you, but I definitely have a favourite bowl amongst my mixing bowls) cream the butter for about 3 minutes (we're still using an electric mixer for this), then add the sugar and beat for another 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and make sure they are well incorporated into the batter.
Now you add the flours and the remaining wet ingredients alternating (i.e. 1/3 of the flour, 1/3 of the milk, another 1/3 of the flour, etc). Make sure you don't overbeat the batter at this point.
Divide the batter between the tins and bake the cake for 25-30 minutes.
Allow the cake to cool in the tins for the first hour, then give them another hour or so on a wire rack until they are completely cooled.

Assembly & Garnish
11/2 cups Pecans, coarsely chopped, toasted (you can toast them in the oven after you have taken the cake out. At 175˚C this should probably take just under 15 minutes. Make sure you turn them every once in a while)

To ice the cake, brush all crumbs off the cake layers. Then spread some icing between the layers and sprinkle some pecans on each layer (just under 1/3 of the pecans on each layer). Stack the layers on top of each other, then ice the top (if you haven't done so already) and the sides. Sprinkle some more pecans on the top and attempt to stick some to the sides (I am told you can throw them at the side and they will stick to the cake - I seem to be too stupid to get this to work so I tend to just stick them to the side by hand).

Enjoy a tiny slice of this cake (trust me, unless you want to develop type 2 diabetes or something else on the spot, start with a very small piece, you will get a sugar high no matter what) with some coffee or milk and preferably with lots of birthday candles on top :)

Peanut Butter & Coconut Quick Bread

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Jenna at Eat, Live, Run made a peanut butter sandwich bread a while back and I was itching to give it a go.
So when I realized that I could hold the mixing bowl between my knees and that I could hold the electric mixer with my right hand I was completely sold (you know, sometimes it's little things like this...)
I might have been smiling like a lunatic while making it but who cares, I got to bake again!
Anyhow, I used mostly coconut milk because I was too lazy to run to the store to get some more milk. The coconut brings out the peanut flavour in a lovely way and it makes the bread taste really creamy, but I'm sure using just milk would have given me a loaf just as nice.

Peanut Butter & Coconut Quick Bread
3/4 cup Peanut Butter (I used chunky)
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1 cup Coconut Milk
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Baking Powder

Preheat your oven to 175˚C and grease a loaf tin.
Mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.
In a second bowl, cream together the peanut butter and the sugar.
Add the dry mix and the coconut and normal milks, alternating as you go along.
Pour the batter into the tin and stick it into the oven. Give the bread about an hour, then look at it in adoration (you should be able to get it out of the tin after about 10 minutes).
Let it cool a bit further (now I would like to be able to say that I resisted until it was properly cooled, but no, we had out first slices while they were still warm).
This bread is nice on it's own, or with some butter, or some cream cheese, or some nutella, or some mascarpone, or some jam, or...actually, I haven't tried anything else, but any of these are amazing in their own way :)
I hope you have a good week and I will be back with some photos at some point soon.

Rhubarb Tart

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The weather here is wonderful at the moment. It seems we have skipped spring and the weather reminds me more of early summer than of anything else.
So today I put on my most summery pair of jeans and headed out to the garden to cut some rhubarb.
I don't know about you but for me a fruit tart is what makes summer summery. What screams lazy Sunday afternoon like a tart you didn't have to do anything for other than make a quick shortcrust pastry and a simple custard?
I use a 24cm flan dish if you're wondering about sizes.

Rhubarb Tart
200g Flour
90g Butter
Salt
Cold Water
150g Rhubarb
80g Sugar
1 Egg
50ml Single Cream
50ml Milk
6cm piece of Vanilla Pod
Nutmeg

Mix the flour and a pinch of salt. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Then use just enough water to get a stiff dough. In my case I used 5 tablespoons but you might need more or less depending on your flour and the temperature etc.
Cover the dough in cling film and refrigerate it for 15 minutes or so.
Heat your oven to 190 ˚C.
Cut the rhubarb into 1.5 -2cm pieces. Sprinkle the rhubarb with half the sugar and set aside.
Grease your flan dish, roll out the pastry and line the flan dish with it.
Now, I like to partially blind-bake my shortcrust pastry but I've had spectacular tarts and pies that weren't blind baked so go for whichever approach you prefer.
Whisk the egg, remaining sugar, cream, milk vanilla (scrape the seeds into the mix) and nutmeg together.
If you are blind baking your pastry give it 5 minutes or so, otherwise just start filling :)
Spread out the rhubarb pieces evenly in the pastry, then pour the egg mix over the rhubarb.
Bake your tart for approximately 25 minutes or until the rhubarb is nice and soft.
Wait for 10 minutes or so until the tart has cooled down enough so you wont burn your fingers and enjoy it with some freshly whipped cream and some good coffee while feeling the sun on your skin.

A Belated Virtual Birthday Cake

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Last week was Mimi's birthday and since I'm obviously too stupid to pay attention to the Facebook birthday reminders (we all know I would forget everyone's birthday, including mine, if it wasn't for those reminders) I blatantly forgot.

So since I can't really send you a cake in a box I decided to send you a virtual one :) I hope you had a fabulous day with lots of cake and an even better party this weekend!

For those of you who are just here for the recipe ;) this is one of my favourite cakes. It's incredibly simple, really quick (once you've peeled the apples) and it simply tastes amazing.

Apple Cake
3 Eggs
100g Butter
100g Sugar
200g Self-raising flour (when you're using plain flour add 2 slightly heaped tsp baking powder)
3 tbsp Milk
A pinch of Salt
1 tbsp Cointreau
900g Apples (that weight is for before you peel them)
1 tsp Jelly or extra-fine jam

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, grease your trusty 26cm springform tin and sprinkle it with some semolina if you've got some.
Peel and core your apples. Put some music on, this is gonna take some time :) oh, and you'll want to cut them into not to small pieces - the apples from our garden turn into 8 pieces, if you're using bought apples you'll probably get a lot more pieces out of them, though I'm guessing this is not very helpful - go for the thickness of your pinky).
Separate the eggs and beat the egg-whites and the salt until soft peaks form.
Cream the butter and the sugar (give it some time! You will be rewarded texture-wise), then add the egg-yolks one at a time.
Add the flour in 3 parts, alternating with the milk. Once that's done, add the Cointreau and mix it in.
Fold the egg-whites under the mix (I once read that the best thing to do is to properly mix in about 1/3 of the egg-whites and then fold under the rest and that really does seem to make things easier).
We're nearly there :)
Fold in the apples and pour the mix into the waiting tin.
Bake for 45 minutes, then take it out, turn off the oven, brush the surface with the jelly (I used apricot jam, but it's even nicer with -do you want to guess?- quince jelly :) ) and stick everything back into the oven (still turned off) for another 15 minutes to let the jelly dry.
Let the cake cool and enjoy it with a lovely cup of tea.

Sandra's Moving Cinnamon-Nut Loaf

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Yesterday was a gorgeous day. It was warm enough to wear flip-flops, there was the smell of fall in the air, I finally got some work done (thank you Mr Sun for making me happy enough to work and not mind!) and my swimming times moved from 'too embarrassing to talk about' to 'ok...I can work with this'. So what more could I want you ask :) well.....
In order to celebrate my friend Sandra moving I had made a cinnamon-nut loaf which was waiting for me when I got back from the pool. Believe me, very few things have hit the spot that well in a while on the post-workout front. I had thought I hit the jackpot with a tofu and tinned peach concoction but this was in a completely different league. And when I took half the loaf over to Sandra's in the evening it tasted just as good :)
I got the idea from Ree Drummond's post a couple of weeks ago but then decided to use a dough more similar to the Challah dough in Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain.
The second 'rise' happens in the fridge so start the night before and you'll get a fabulous mid-morning treat.
So here we go:

Cinnamon-Nut Loaf
250ml Milk or milk substitute (I used 150ml rice milk and 100ml soy cream), lukewarm
42g Fresh yeast
1 tbsp Agave syrup
250g Kamut flour
150g Spelt flour
50g Corn meal
2 tsp Salt
2 Eggs (at room temperature)
150g + 3 tbsp Butter + some for the tin (also at room temperature)
75g Sugar
1 tbsp Cinnamon
75g Chopped nuts (e.g. walnuts or hazelnuts or pecans)

Make a sponge using the milk, yeast, syrup and a couple of tablespoons of the flour. Give the sponge around 30 minutes then mix it with the rest of the flour, salt, eggs and 150g of the butter.
Knead the dough forever. Nah, just kidding but give it 10 minutes (your arms will thank you). If the dough is still sticky add some more flour (add small amounts at a time) until it's still very buttery and slightly sticky (but not the kinda sticky that sticks to your hands and not to itself). A lot of people make the dough and add the butter at the end but I can never be bothered to wait for that. It does help but if you're doing the kneading by hand that adds at least another 5 minutes to your ordeal so for me the laziness wins :)
Put the dough into a bowl, cover it and allow it to rise until it's doubled in size (that normally takes 2 hrs).
When you come back knock back the dough, put it back into the bowl, cover it and stick it into the fridge overnight.
The next morning, get your bowl, knead the dough for a couple of minutes (cursing because your hands feel like they're freezing off - this is an essential part of making this loaf :) ) and then roll it out into a rectangle (Ree suggests putting your baking tin in front of you so you know what maximum width to aim for). Aim for the dough to be definitely less than a cm thick.
Now you get to relive all those childhood memories, mix the 3 tbsp butter with the sugar and cinnamon and spread the mix over the rectangle (you might not need all of it, just see how it goes). Sprinkle the nuts on top and then roll everything into a sausage (you'll want to roll it tightly, and just to be sure, roll it up so you end up with a roll the width of your baking tin, not the other way around).
Butter the tin and stick the dough roll in. Now you get to wait again (I know! But it's gonna be worth it!). Cover the tin and let the dough rise for another 2 hours or so (it should double in size again, though I always find that hard to judge when you're looking a a dough roll).
Heat your oven to 180 degrees, brush the top of the loaf with some milk or some egg-wash and bake it for 40-50 minutes.
Allow the loaf to cool slightly before you take it out of the tin.
Let it cool completely before you enjoy it with some coffee or a glass of milk.
Oh, and it's especially tasty if you have it in Sandra's new room after helping her move her stuff :)

Margarita-Syrup Cake

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Going back over my older posts I had the realization that I never posted the actual recipe......

While you enjoy the view of the mess that is my kitchen when we're having a baking session.....I found the precursor of this recipe in this amazing cookbook called 'Cook in Boots' by Ravinder Bhogal which is just a pure treasure-trove...the trifle this weekend was from there as well....well the general idea and the amazing custard that goes into the trifle....but i'll save that for another day...
So here we go...

Margarita-Syrup Cake
190g Butter
225g Sugar
350g Yoghurt
3 tbsp Tequila
4 Eggs
Zest of a lime
150g Self-raising flour
75g Semolina (go for the kind that is not too fine but don't go for the kind that is made from durum wheat.....)
75g Polenta
11/2 tsp Baking powder
75g Ground almonds

125g Sugar
Juice and zest of a lime
Juice of half an orange
6 tbsp Tequila
4 tbsp Cointreau

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and get out you 26cm springform tin, you'll want it lined with baking parchment but I wouldn't bother greasing it.

Cream the butter and the sugar together (if you're using an electric mixer that should probably take just under 5 minutes at a medium speed), mix in the yoghurt, tequila, egg yolks and the lime zest and give it another minute till it's all mixed in.
Add the dry ingredients and stir it until it's all well combined.
Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until you have those lovely peaks forming. I find if I add a pinch of salt this tends to be a lot quicker (not sure whether that's just superstition).
Anyhow....mix in about a third of the egg whites into the batter and make sure it's all well mixed in, then you fold in the rest of the egg whites. Apparently, if you mix in about a third of the egg whites with the batter the folding in is a lot easier (seems to do the job for me).
Once you have a lovely batter, pour it into the tin and bake it for something between 50 and 60 minutes.
Once you've taken the cake out of the oven and you are enjoying the most amazing smell in your kitchen you mix the sugar and the juice over a low heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Take the syrup off the heat and add the tequila and the Cointreau and then you poke your lovely cake with a skewer....I know, it's a bit depressing to do that....but you'll get over it the second you pour the syrup over the cake and it all gets absorbed into the cake.
The syrup recipe is a bit more than you need but trust me, there won't be anything going to waste :)

White Russian Flavoured Cheesecake and it's evolution to a Turkish Coffee Cheesecake....

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After the margarita cheesecake session Anna and I were thinking of all the amazing different cocktail inspired cheesecakes we could make....so I got a bit carried away....lots of baking and 4 cheesecakes later I feel like I'm nearing obesity, but the cheesecakes make me very happy.
Anyhow, back to the cheesecake :) we thought that the amazingness of White Russians would go very well with the whole idea of a baked cheesecake, so last weekend I finally got around to giving the idea a go....same recipe as the Margarita Cheesecake but instead of the lime juice and the Cointreau I added 4 shots of Kahlua and instead of the cornflour I used 2 tbsp of Dr. Oetker Chocolate Pudding powder (the best stuff in the world...like ever!!! if you have friends living/going to Germany or Austria get them to buy you some!) and 2 tbsp of normal custard powder.

It worked well...and turned out ok...especially on the second day but it's not quite there yet....it's missing the amazingness of a White Russian (so there will be a second round of that one). I think adding some whipped cream and some instant coffee might do the job...

Having attempted the White Russian-ness I was stuck trying to make a cake for our departmental fundraising coffee morning...the whole coffee-flavour thing hadn't been too bad but I wanted a more indulgent cake than the decidedly puritan product the day before - one late-night baking session later I had an 18cm tin of turkish coffee amazingness in front of me....

Turkish Coffee Cheesecake
I used 1/2 of the margarita cheesecake recipe which left me with lots of leftover filling and some leftover pastry.
Put the filling into ramekins and make mini-cheesecakes for desert the next day.
Instead of sticking the dough into the fridge by itself i put it into a loose-bottomed tin and put the whole tin into the fridge. Thinking about it, one of those aluminium pie dishes for thanksgiving would probably be the best size - they're deeper than my tin so they would probably hold the whole filling without having to bother with the mini-cheesecakes.
Once the pastry was in the fridge I was ready for the exciting stuff.

Make a ganache with:

100g of really good chocolate
1/2 cup of double cream&
1 tbsp of butter (heated up together)
some booze....I put rum in
some syrup if you fancy

Melt the chocolate by pouring the cream and butter mix over it , leave it for about 5 minutes, and then stir it until the chocolate bits are dissolved...then you add the rum if you're putting any in....I only had 80% chocolate which I was worried would be a bit too intense for the cake so I added some golden syrup to make things a bit sweeter.

Let the chocolate mixture cool down for a bit (I put it into the freezer for a few minutes) and then spread about 3/4 of the mixture onto the pastry (this means you have lots of leftover chocolate-amazingness which you obviously have to eat....or make some truffles if you have the energy...I didn't....)
Ok...back to the cheesecake-ness as I said - half the margarita recipe with some extra butter....I used a tbsp more butter than I would have otherwise and then you add

2 shots of of Kahlua into which you mix
2 tsp coffee granules (tiny bit of hot water made them dissolve in the booze)
1tsp cinnamon (though I'm tempted to say that 2 might work even better)

If you're not freaked out by raw eggs like I am try the batter to figure out whether it needs some more sugar. I felt it was fine without any added sugar.
And then the mixture goes on top of the chocolate in the tin (be generous but keep in mind that the thing is gonna rise - so leave some space at the top unless you like cleaning your oven)
In my oven it took about 30 minutes but just look at it and keep testing with a skewer.

Baked Margarita Cheesecake

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One of my favourite kinds of cake growing up used to be baked cheesecake...unlike the tiny versions I've seen in the States and the UK, proper German cheesecake tends to be made in a 26 or 28 cm springform tin (which means you can either invite lots of people for coffee, feed you crazy big family or eat cake for the rest of the week....I always used to love the fact that once my mum gave up on trying to force me and my sister to eat healthy food....believe me...wholegrain shortcrust pastry is one of my worst nightmares...cheesecake on Sundays normally turned into a piece of cheesecake at afternoon tea for the rest of the week....good times...) anyhow...so I hadn't made cheesecake in a while but then my friend Anna suggested making some the other day (it turned into a cheesecake-'Jane Austen Book Club'- evening....)

So we were more or less innocently making a plain cheesecake but I didn't have any lemons around.....but then we found some limes.....you can probably guess where this is going...yes...we might have ended up making margarita cheesecake.....my grandma.....who the original recipe is from would probably disown me if she found out....but OMG....I don't think I've had such an amazing idea in a while....anyhow....here we go:

Baked Margarita Cheesecake

Preheat the oven to 160-180 degrees (my oven is on the hotter side of the spectrum...so whatever you normally use to kinda slowly bake a bigger cake...160 in my case but you know your oven, I don't)

Make some shortcrust pastry using

-250g flour

-125g butter

-65g sugar

-1 egg

-potentially some cold water

rub the butter, sugar and flour together, add the egg (and if you need to the water), wrap it in clingfilm and stick it into the fridge while you make the filling.

Filling

I like my filling quite thick so I tend to use more than what my grandma told me to....so the following quantities are guidelines...use more or less depending on how you like your cheesecake...

-50-75g butter

-125-150g sugar (depends on how sweet you are)

cream the butter and the sugar for like forever....then add

-4-5 egg yolks

and keep beating for another two minutes or so...then we get to the fun part....add

-juice and zest of 1 lime

-some cointreau....we used probably 2 tablespoons....

-some tequila....didn't have any cheap tequila left...but I feel this will exponentially improve the recipe

then add

-2-4 tbsp cornflour or custard powder

-750-1000g quark (if you can't find any use 0% greek yoghurt....it's a bit too moist so either use more, using some more cornflour, or stain it in a colander lined with muslin cloth....) and if you fancy...

- 200g sour cream or whipping cream whipped (whatever the little pots are size-wise....)

once you've combined all the ingredients for the filling take the dough out of the fridge, roll it out and put it into a slightly oiled 26cm springform tin, put the filling in and put it into the preheated oven for 70-90 minutes.

Once it's done, leave it to cool for at least half an hour....otherwise the filling will ooze out slightly....it's gonna taste just as nice though....

Chocolate-Aubergine Cake

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Ever feel like no matter how much chocolate you eat it just doesn't cut it? For me this is the cake for just those moments....Think chocolate mousse in cake form....

I found this cake in Harry Eastwood's 'Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache' but ended up playing around with it a bit...

© Verena Kersken

Chocolate-Aubergine Cake

2 largeish Aubergines (you'll want around 600 to 700 grams overall)

400 g Dark Chocolate (I find anything over 80% gets excessive...lovely when you eat it but don't see the point for cooking...)

75 g Cocoa Powder

100 g Ground Almonds

4 Eggs

300 g Clear Honey

3 tsp Baking Powder

A pinch of Salt

1 tbsp Rum

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and line a 26cm springform tin with baking parchment (or tinfoil if you're really struggling...but you might end up picking bits of aluminium off you cake...be warned).

Next you're gonna pretend the aubergines are your ex or your high-school Latin teacher and puncture their skin with a fork. Put them into a bowl, cover with cling film and put them into the microwave for just under 10 minutes. When you take them out drain the water at the bottom and then let them cool(this is the important bit) before taking their skin off (believe me burning your fingers while skinning aubergines does not make you a happy person...so rather wait 5 minutes too long...and reheat them afterwards....).

Next you want to puree the aubergines either with one of those hand-held stick things or with whatever blendery thing you happen to have (this might take some time...but it'll get there...). Stir in the chocolate and set it aside until the chocolate has completely melted...put it back into the microwave for a bit if you have to....

Admire the velvety-chocolatey-amazingess in front of you!

Combine all the other ingredients and fold in the chocolate aubergine mix - it might take a while to combine....

Put everything into the tin and bake it for about 35-40 minutes (if your skewer comes out clean you'll have done something wrong...) and enjoy while still semi-warm...
If you have leftovers, you can freeze them really well and just microwave them when you need them. Best thing ever after a long day or when you're stuck for desert when you've got friends over.