Gingerbread Petite Fours

I really wanted to class-up these lovely little single-bite gingerbread cakes, so I called them Petit Fours, if it’s not a celebration you want to serve them at, just call them two-bite Gingerbread Cakes. They are warmly spiced, light, somewhat chewy, little gingerbread cakes with a slightly crispy exterior which makes them perfect for ganache. They are always a hit. I made them for a few dinners over the holidays because the meals are always so filling, it’s nice to have a little something to choose one or four of (see what I did there?)!

Gingerbread Petit Fours

Makes about 36 mini muffins-sized cakes

Ingredients:

• 37 g unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
• 125 g all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
• 3 g baking soda
• 75 mL boiling water
• 4 g baking powder
• 1 g ground ginger
• 2 g ground cinnamon
• Pinch of ground cloves
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 72 g dark-brown sugar
• 25 g egg
• 80 mL un-sulfured molasses
• 9 g finely grated peeled fresh ginger
• 2 pieces crystallized ginger, thinly sliced lengthwise, for garnish
• Chocolate Ganache

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter and flour a mini 12-cup muffin pan, tapping out excess flour; set aside. In a small bowl, stir together the baking soda and boiling water; set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg, and beat until combined. Add molasses, fresh ginger, and reserved baking soda mixture; beat until combined. (The batter will look curdled but will come together once the flour is added.) Add the flour mixture, and beat until well combined.
3. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, filling each halfway. Bake, rotating pan halfway through until a cake tester inserted in the centre of a cake comes out clean, about 10-11 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Invert cakes onto rack to cool completely.
4. Set rack over a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of Chocolate Ganache over each cake, letting some drip down the sides. Garnish with a couple of strips of crystallized ginger. Once glazed, cakes can refrigerated, in air-tight containers, for up to 3 days; bring to room temperature before serving.

Adding a little silver ball on top really classes them up.

Notes:

• You can visit the original recipe here, it makes 12 regular-sized muffin cup cakes.
• These cakes absolutely require the buttering and flouring the pans, without this step, the cakes will stick. I was lazy about 2 months ago and only sprayed the pans and they stuck.
• Seriously only add enough batter to fill half of the mini muffin cups, they will rise beautifully. You don’t want them overflowing on the top of the muffin pan because they will stick.
• These little cakes freeze well before you cover them in Ganache.

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Hummingbird Cake

For special occasion desserts, I like to pop over to my long-time blogging-friend Liz, Skinny Chick Can Bake. Liz has the most beautifully presented desserts that I have seen from a home cook. Most of Liz’s recipes are also unfamiliar to me as I grew up in a European household. A dear friend was turning 70 in September and I wanted to make a special dessert to celebrate the occasion and this beauty did not disappoint. It has a lovely banana flavour but the pineapple isn’t flavour-forward other than providing some added moisture. It reminded me of banana bread but it was much moister than the standard quickbread. And that cream cheese frosting is one that dreams are made of.

Hummingbird Cake

For the original recipe, please click here.

Makes one 20 cm cake, about 16 servings

Ingredients for the cake:

• 400 g flour
• 300 g sugar
• 6 g cinnamon
• 6 g salt
• 5 baking soda
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 375 mL vegetable oil
• 7 vanilla extract
• 540 g mashed bananas (use ripe bananas)
• 228 g crushed pineapple, drained (about 1/2 a container)
• 120 g chopped pecans, toasted for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees

Ingredients for the Frosting:

• 500 g cream cheese, room temperature
• 40 g butter, room temperature
• 10 mL vanilla
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 500 g icing sugar, sifted
• Pecans, for garnish

Directions:

1. Begin by preheating the oven to 350° F and prepare three 20 cm round cake pans by lining with parchment paper and spraying with a non-stick spray.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda together in a large bowl, set aside.
3. Combine the eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla, mashed bananas and crushed pineapple and fold into the flour to make a smooth batter. Pour evenly into the three prepared baking pans.
4. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack.
5. Meanwhile, cream the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and lemon juice and beat well until incorporated. Add the sugar a little at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl frequently until all of the sugar has been incorporated.
6. When the cakes are thoroughly cool, cut the dome off the top is there was one. Lay the first cake on a serving platting protected by parchment (in short rectangles so that they are easy to remove). Spread a thin layer of the icing over the first layer, place the next cake on top and spread again, add the final layer to the top. Crumb-coat the entire cake in a thin layer and refrigerate for 2 hours to set. When the frosting is firm, finish the cake with the remaining frosting or as desired.
7. Decorate the cake with more pecans that have been toasted.

Notes:

• Although the cake has a whopping 300 g of sugar, it is not excessively sweet, it’s the frosting that takes it over the top! I won’t kid you, it is sweet but not as sweet as it was in the original recipe.
• I reduced the butter to about one-quarter of the original recipe, it still made a super-rich frosting.
• Neither our friends nor we like super-sweet desserts so I opted to reduce the sugar from 6 cups to 4 cups in the frosting and added the juice of half a lemon to help cut it even more. The resulting frosting was still sweet but it didn’t make your teeth tingle. If you prefer an even less sweet frosting, I suggest you reduce the cream cheese by one quarter so that you require less the icing sugar thicken it up. As it was, 4 cups of icing sugar to 500 g cream cheese and 40 grams of butter made a light fluffy frosting but it needed refrigeration to keep stiff. It was a hot and humid day when I served this cake and my version of frosting didn’t melt but it wasn’t as stiff as frosting usually is.
• I baked the three layers in a 20 cm (8-inch) round pans because I did not have 9-inch pans as Liz’s recipe calls for (hence the slightly longer baking time as they turned out somewhat thicker.
• The original cake had coconut but I omitted it because our friends do not like coconut.

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Gluten-Free Lemony Polenta Cake

I’ve been baking like a mad woman for our contractor and team. They seem to really like it. I know that JT does! I’ve made tangzhong cinnamon rolls, rice crispy squares, carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake, chewy lime squares cherry squares, chocolate chunk cookies and so on. We put our Keurig just outside the construction zone with fresh Timmy’s coffee but I don’t think they drink coffee! So I added tea, still no takers! The younger guys don’t even smoke! Go figure!

The demo had moved along at a good pace, uncovering a mess of previous badly done renos. Fortunately, not difficult to fix, just annoying that it was done so poorly! The next weeks will tell if we will finish by the deadline of June 1, as we were hoping to have overnight guests on the 5th! Fingers crossed.

Just before we hunkered down, I had my gluten intolerant BFF and picky-eater hubby for brunch. I’d always wanted to make a cornmeal cake so I figured why not now! This one had a gritty texture but not entirely unappealing. I think next time I’ll use a finer texture or I’ll soak the cornmeal a bit.

Gluten-Free Lemony Cornmeal Cake

Makes one 20 cm (8 inch) cake

Ingredients:

• 140 g cornmeal
• 50 g almond flour
• 50 g unsalted butter
• zest from 1 lemon
• 30 mL fresh lemon juice
• 150 g granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 120 mL Greek yoghurt
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 120 mL lemon juice
• 70 g sugar

Directions:

1. Line a 20 cm (8 inch) round cake pan with parchment, buttered lightly. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Whip the butter until light and fluffy add the lemon zest. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add 30 mL lemon juice, yoghurt and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
4. Fold in the dry ingredients and pour into the prepped pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Meanwhile, combine 120 mL lemon juice and remaining sugar and cook on a slow boil until slightly thickened and sugar is completely dissolved. Reserve for cake.
6. When cake is done, allow to rest for 10 minutes, then pour the lemon syrup over the cake.

Notes:

• This cake has a lot of texture, similar to cornbread, it’s not bad, just different.
• The lemon syrup adds a nice amount of moisture and lemony flavour to this simple dessert.

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Lime and Matcha Cheesecake

You may recall that last week I posted a recipe for homemade ricotta from buttermilk and sour cream, well this is what the ricotta became and it was delicious! It was a cake I made for our dear friends Rae and Mon when they invited us for dinner one night in June. Check out the notes, I give some very good tips on how to bake a cheesecake without it cracking!

Lime and Matcha Cheesecake

A KitchenInspirations Original Recipe

Makes one 23 cm cheesecake

For the Crust:

• 175 g graham cracker crumbs
• 50 g butter, melted
• 35 g coconut sugar
• pinch of cinnamon
• 10 g unsweetened coconut
• 1.5 g lime zest (about 1 lime)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Line the bottom of a 23 cm springform pan with parchment grease it well including the sides.
3. Line the outside bottom of the pan with foil tightly. Cover the outside of another, slightly larger pan with foil so that it is water resistant.
4. Combine all of the above crust ingredients and mix until well coated with the butter. This step may be done in a food processor.

Press into the prepared smaller pan and bake for 20 minutes. Cool completely.Decorate with lime zest, matcha powder, coconut and thinly sliced limes.

For the Cheesecake:

• 150 g granulated sugar, divided
• 4 eggs, separated
• 300 g buttermilk, sour cream ricotta (recipe)
• 120 g sour cream
• 3 g lime zest (about 2 limes)
• 50 mL lime juice (~2 limes)
• 15 g AP flour (check weight)
• 5 g matcha powder
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F.
2. Beat the egg whites with 50 g of sugar until stiff shiny peaks form.
3. Beat the egg yolks with 100 g of sugar until they are thick and pale.
4. Add the ricotta and greek yogurt to the egg yolk mixture and then add the lime juice and zest and beat until well blended.
5. Sift the flour and matcha powder into ricotta mixture.
6. Finally, fold the beaten egg whites into the ricotta mixture until well blended. Spoon into the chilled prepared crust.
7. Set the pan into the slightly larger pan with the bottom covered in foil, and set both into a tall-sided roasting pan and pour just hot water into the roasting pan so it goes about half-way up the sides.
8. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the centre doesn’t jiggle when gently shaken. Turn the oven off, allow to cool in the oven undisturbed. Once cool, refrigerate until ready to serve.
9. Decorate with lime zest and matcha. Serve with lime infused whipping cream or with blueberries.

A deliciously flavoured, baked cheesecake.

Notes:

• I always beat my egg whites first so that I don’t need to wash my mixer whisk attachment.
• To prevent cracking while baking and cooling:
• • Set the 23 cm springform pan into a slightly larger, springform pan with the bottom covered tightly with foil to double ensure water-tightness and insulate the sides so that the outside bakes at the same rate as the inside.
• • Set both pans into a high-sided roasting pan.
• • Fill the roasting pan (not the larger springform pan) with hot water to about the middle height of the springform pans.
• Step 3 and 4 may be done in a large food processor, which will result in a smooth cheesecake, otherwise, the ricotta curds will add some texture to the cake.

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Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake is JT’s favourite cake. It’s been his favourite since he was a little kid. In fact, it was our wedding cake! We didn’t have that traditional fruit cake, it was Black Forest Cake all the way. In late February, we were invited to dinner at friends’ and I offered to bring dessert so JT asked me to bake a Black Forest Cake. I chose this recipe because of the unusual cake recipe, to be honest, it turned out a bit dry because I did not soak the layers in the cherry kirschwasser syrup as indicated;  I didn’t want to use the full strength Kirschwasser as there was a teenager but I would definitely do it if I were to bake this cake again, I might even omit the kirschwasser so it’s not as boozy. Or maybe I’ll double it!

Black Forest Cake

For the original recipe, please click here.

Ingredients:

• 70 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 200 g sugar
• 6 eggs
• 150 g flour
• 105 g cornstarch
• 45 g cocoa powder
• 5 g salt
• 250 mL jarred, canned or frozen (see notes) sour cherries, drained, reserving ¹⁄₂ cup cherry juice from jar, plus 16 cherries, to garnish
• 125 mL Kirschwasser

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (I used the convection setting).
2. Prepare two spring-form pans about 20 cm (8 inches) diameter by buttering and flouring the bottom and sides. Cust a piece of parchment to fit the bottom and butter and flour it too.
3. Combine sugar and eggs in the large bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk on medium speed for about 8 minutes or until tripled in volume.
4. Combine the flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt and whisk. Sift into the egg and sugar mixture and fold until combined. Pour in the cooled melted butter and stir until just combined.
5. Pour about half of the batter into each pan and bake for 30-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
6. Cool completely.

Kirschwasser syrup:

Ingredients:

• 250 mL  jarred, canned or frozen sour cherries, drained, reserving 125 mL cherry juice and 12 cherries for garnish
• 30-75 mL kirschwasser (I was making this kid-friendly so I barely used any)
• 100 g sugar

Directions:

1. Combine cherries with the kirschwasser and allow to macerate for 30 minutes. If using frozen cherries, just marinate the cherries in the kirschwasser until defrosted and reserve the liquid as indicated in the ingredients.
2. Meanwhile, combine the reserved cherry juice with the sugar and bring to a boil until sugar dissolves.
3. Drain macerated cherries and add the liquid to the cherry syrup. Set aside. If using frozen cherries, skip this step.

Whipped Cream Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 10 g unflavored powdered gelatin
• 250 mL milk, divided
• 65 g 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 45 g sugar
• 500 mL 2 cups heavy cream, chilled
• 5 mL 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 50-60 g dark chocolate, melted and piped onto paper, see notes below.

Directions:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over 90 mL milk in a bowl; let sit until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Whisk cornstarch and sugar in a medium saucepan and add remaining milk, heat over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly to thicken the mixture.
2. Using a stick blender, blend this thick mixture with the softened gelatin and blend until very smooth (if you choose to skip this step, your whipped cream will be lumpy. You can also press it through a fine seive if you don’t want to blend). Set aside to cool a bit.
3. Beat the whipping cream with the vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk until soft peaks form.
4. Add about ¹⁄₃ of the whipped cream to the gelatin mixture and stir until smooth.
5. Add gelatin mixture to the remaining whipping cream in the stand mixer bowl and whip until smooth.

Assembly Instructions:

1. Crumb-coat the cake with the whipped cream mixture. Place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and drizzle onto parchment like this. Refrigerate the drizzled chocolate on a flat surface until set (you don’t want it super stiff).
2. Add a thicker coating of the whipped cream to the cake and smooth out. Leave enough whipped cream to decorate with cherry florets.
3. Decorate the top of the cake with the remaining chocolate and then add florets, press one cherry into each floret.
4. Lift the hardened drizzled chocolate from the base parchment and carefully wrap all-the-way around the cake; remove the outside parchment slowly. Refrigerate until required.

Notes:

• The whipped cream is a bit like French Pastry cream but not as rich. It is far thicker and richer than stabilized whipped cream. I loved the whipped cream.
• This is not a sweet cake by any stretch of the imagination, but it is flavourful and our friends loved that it wasn’t sweet.
• For the chocolate drizzles, measure the diameter of the iced cake and not the pan, I measured the exterior of the pan and came out too short because I didn’t account for the extra thickness of the frosting. It was easy to fix but why fix if you can do it right the first time.
• Do not skip soaking the cake layers in the syrup, otherwise, the cake is very dry.
• If I were to do this cake again, I would make fewer drizzles on the chocolate wrap so that the creamy texture of the cake below it comes through.

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Orange Cake

Several years ago I had a conversation with a long-time blogger friend, A-Boelyn about our Mothers’ orange cake, it was a recipe I had been searching for, for many years. You see, I had lost my dear Mother’s recipe and sadly it had been my favourite cake. I am certain Mom clipped the recipe from the newspaper (so many of our favourites were found this way) but alas it has been lost for many decades. This recipe was my birthday cake request, time and time again. Its moist crumb and delicious flavour was void of heavy icing, it just showcased the beautiful orange in its glory, and a bit of booze, should you wish to indulge! I no longer recall the exact flavours of my dear Mother’s cake but if I had to guess, this recipe comes pretty close, we Europeans love the use of ground nuts in our cakes! And the flavour of this cake brings me back to my childhood, memories of Christmas marzipan! The texture is not light and airy like a sponge but rich and thick like marzipan. It’s not a cake you want a huge slice of, a small slice will satisfy your sweet tooth and leave you wanting more, and that is exactly what I want of a cake.

Orange Cake

Original recipe by David Lebovitz

Makes one 25 cm (10 inch) cake

Ingredients:

• 3 oranges, zested
• 300 g sugar
• 200 g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 240 g almond flour
• 110 g AP flour
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Prepare a 25 cm (10 inch) springform pan by buttering all sides and lining the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Add the sugar and orange zest into the large bowl of your food processor and process until zest is chopped into tiny bits and thoroughly incorporated into the sugar. Leave the processor because you will use it again later.
3. Beat the butter and sugar-orange mixture until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Add the eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly.
4. Add the flour, almond flour and salt into the food processor and pulse until well mixed.
5. Add half of the flour mixture to the egg and butter mixture and mix until well incorporated. Add the remainder of the flour mixture and mix only until well incorporated. It will be thick.
6. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and using a spatula, spread out evenly.
7. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Spoon the orange syrup mixture over the hot cake until it is all absorbed. Cool in the pan.

Ingredients for the syrup:

• 180 mL orange juice, from the zested oranges
• 75 g sugar

Directions for the syrup:

1. Combine the orange juice and sugar and bring to a boil in a non-reactive pan until the sugar has entirely melted. See step 7 above for directions.

This is an extremely moist and dense cake, it reminded me of orange marzipan.

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The Imposter Apple Cake with Salted Coconut Caramel Sauce

Is it a cake, fruit custard or pie?

I was invited to a BBQ at the marketing firm I work with and, of course, I couldn’t go empty handed! I spotted Lorraine’s recipe for an apple cake she made for Mr. NQN’s birthday and was immediately intrigued. Everyone loves cake and everyone loves apples (I hope) so I dove in head first and made her lovely cake. I modified the recipe to be gluten free (I didn’t know everyone at the BBQ and wanted to be safe and inclusive) and I used coconut sugar instead of superfine white sugar and increased the apple volume because I bought 5!

Thanks Lorraine for this tasty inspiration.

One of those peeler gizmos would have come in handy.

It’s really more apples than cake.

I made JT a tester.

For the original recipe on Lorraine Elliot’s beautiful blog, please click here.

Makes 1 cake, 20 cm (8 inch) diametre. Serves 6-8.

Please click here to print this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 5 medium apples (about 750 g, I used Galas)
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 100 g (2/3 cup) super fine coconut sugar
• 150 mL (5 oz) milk
• 30 g (2 tbsp) butter, melted and cooled
• 120 g (3/4 cup) gluten free flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 50 g (1/2 cup) slivered almonds, toasted (reserve until ready to serve).

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (170° C).
2. Line the bottom of a 20 cm (8 inch) round cake pan with parchment and spray generously with non-stick spray.
3. Prepare a bowl with cold water and 2 tbsp lemon juice, set aside.
4. Peel the apples and slice very thinly using a mandoline. Immerse the slices into the cold lemony water.
5. Combine the eggs and sugar and beat until thick. Add the milk and melted butter and beat until well combined.
6. Sift the flour, cinnamon and salt and add to the wet ingredients. Beat just until combined and lumps are gone.
7. Drain the sliced apples and dry slightly. Fold the apple slices into the batter to coat well.
8. Pour into the prepared pan and bake uncovered for 50-55 minutes or when a cake tester comes out clean.
9. Cool completely before serving.
10. Top with toasted almonds when serving.

Ingredients for Salted Caramel Sauce

Makes 200 mL (3/4 cup) caramel sauce

• 90 g  (3/4 cup) coconut sugar
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• 5 mL (1 tsp) water
• Good pinch of sea salt
• 125 mL (1/2 cup) 18% cream
• 20 g (heaping tablespoon ) butter

Directions:

1. Heat cream and salt in a microwave proof container until very hot but not boiling, set aside.
2. Combine coconut sugar, lemon juice and water in a microwave safe container and mix well (I used a 250 mL (2 cup) glass measuring cup).
3. Microwave sugar mixture for 1-3 minutes in 15-second intervals (45 seconds did it for me) until sugar bubbles up but does NOT BURN, sugar crystals should be completely dissolved and you should begin to see it turn to a darker amber colour.
4. Remove and set on a dishcloth for 30 seconds or until it reaches the colour of dark caramel.
5. Slowly pour in the hot milk, being VERY careful as this will bubble up, whisking to incorporate.
6. Stir well and then add the butter and stir until completely dissolved. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The caramel sauce really makes this dessert.

Notes:

• This is not a very sweet cake and therefore, the coconut sugar caramel sauce is perfect for it.
• Want to jazz it up even more? Add a dollop of cream fraiche or whipped cream on top.
• The original recipe put the almonds on top of the raw batter and bake it altogether, but I found that almonds went soggy after 1 day in the refrigerator so next time I make this tasty cake, I will not add the amonds until I am ready to serve (recipe has been amended with this change).

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Decadent Chocolate, Chestnut, Coffee Crunch Cake

It was somebody’s birthday last month and I wanted to bake a special birthday cake that was not too sweet or too heavy because it’s been ridiculously hot and humid in these parts. I had also just finished baking a mess of macarons so I was still in the meringue-making kinda mood. I found this recipe from Ricardo Larrivée’s of Food Network Canada and was intrigued. Years ago, a dear friend had brought a La Rocca Caramel Crunch Cake to the cottage and it was made with meringue instead of cake and I’ve never quite forgotten how moreish the texture was (think giant macaron!) so I modified Ricardo’s recipe a bit and came up with this decadent Chocolate, Chestnut, Coffee, Crunch Cake.

Makes one 20 cm (8 inch) layered cake.

Original recipe may be found here.

The Cake

Ingredients for the light cake:

• 40 g (1/2 cup) almond flour
• 65 g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
• 30 g (1/4 cup) icing sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 95 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325° F (170° C).
2. Cut four parchment paper circles, about 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter. Spray circles with non-stick spray.
3. Combine almond flour, all-purpose flour and icing sugar in a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
4. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add the granulated sugar one tablespoon at a time until stiff peaks form.
5. Add the almond flour mixture all at once and fold into the beaten egg whites, macrophage-style.
6. Spread 2 circles with the batter right to the edge and bake for 30 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to the touch. If the batter sticks too much to your spatula, spray it with non-stick spray.
7. Cool completely.

Ingredients for the chocolate cake:

• 40 g (1/2 cup) almond flour
• 65 g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
• 25 g (scant 1/4 cup) icing sugar
• 5 g (1 tbsp) cocoa, sifted
• 2 egg whites
• 95 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Combine almond flour, all-purpose flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar in a bowl and mix well. Set aside.
2. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then add the granulated sugar one tablespoon at a time until stiff peaks form.
3. Add the almond flour mixture all at once and fold into the beaten egg whites, macronage-style.
4. Spread 2 remaining circles with the batter right to the edge and bake for 30 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to the touch. If the batter sticks too much to your spatula, spray it with non-stick spray.
5. Cool completely.

Chestnut filling:

Ingredients:

• 100 g (3.5 oz) peeled chestnuts*, roasted
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) milk or cream
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. In a small, narrow container blend the chestnuts with the milk and pinch of salt with a stick blender, until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

Cake assembly:

Ingredients:

• 125 mL (1/2 cup) Chocolate Buttercream
• 125 mL (1/2 cup) Coffee Buttercream
• 200 g (7 oz) Belgian chocolate wafers
• 30 mL (2 tbsp) heavy cream

Directions:

1. Place the chocolate layer first and spread the entire quantity of the chestnut cream on top. Add the white layer and spread the coffee buttercream on it. Add the chocolate layer again and spread the chocolate buttercream on it. Finish the cake with the white layer but place it upside-down so the smooth side is up.
2. Melt the Belgian chocolate wafers the heavy cream to make a ganache, pour over the cake and spread out on top and sides evenly.
3. Refrigerate. Decorate with chocolate curls. Serve chilled (it’s been extremely warm in these parts and the buttercream would melt if served at room temperature!)

Like a Macaron, this cake is best if filled a day or two before serving so that the buttercream has time to soften the meringue cake.

Notes:

• For buttercream, I always use this recipe.
• For roasted chestnuts, I usually buy this brand.
• Use a serated knife to make a clean cut of the meringue.

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Almás Sütemény (Apple Cake)

We had a grand 2-week visit with my Hungarian relatives, enjoying the many things that Toronto has to offer. During the annual street party, our dear neighbour (one of whom we do the Progressive dinners with) asked us all over to their place for a BBQ. I made dessert. I chose to remake the Martha Stewart Apple Cake that I previously posted here. It was so well received that My cousin asked for the recipe, so I will post this recipe in Hungarian for my kin in Budapest (English will follow).

Egy nagyon jó két hétes nyaralás volt a magyar rokonokal. Meglátogatunk mindent ami van Torontoba. Az este amikor az utca ünneplés volt, a kedves szomszéd (akikval közül csináljuk Progresszív vacsorákat) meg hivtak minket egy grillezésre. Én csináltam a desszertet. Úgy döntöttem, hogy meg csinálmon a Martha Stewart almás süteményét, amit korábban irtam rola itt. Annyira szereték, hogy az unokatestvérem kérte a receptet, így én hozzászólom a receptet magyarul (English recipe to follow).

A tasty combo of cake and apples with a good dose of cinnamon. Egy finom torta almával és egy jó adag fahéjjel.

Almás Sütemény

Az eredeti recept it van.

Egy reczept csinál egy 23 cm kerék tepsit ami 8 – 10 cm magas, vagy két 20 cm kerék tepsit de csak 5 cm magas.

Hozzávalók:

• szukor meghinteni a tepsit 
• 195 g liszt
• 12 g sütőpor
• 5 g  só
• 7 g fahéj puder, plusz egy kicsi a tepsinek és a pite tetejére
• 85 g vaj, olvaszva
• 170 g barna cukor, plusz egy kicsi a pite tetejére
• 125 mL tej
• 2 tojás, szobahőmérség
• 2 nagy alma, hámozott és vékonyra szeletelve
• 30 g vaj, plusz egy kicsi a tepsinek és a pite tetejére kis csipetkékb

Utasítás:

1. A sütőt előmelegítjük 200 °C-ra.
2. Ki vajazuk a tepsit egy kis vajal és meghintjük cukorral.
3. A liszthez hozzáadjuk a sütőport, a sót, és a fahéj pudert és alaposan keverjük össze.
4. Egy másik tálban jól megkeverük egy habverővel az olvasztott vajat, a barna cukrot, a tejet, és a tojást.
5. Lassan a vaj keveréket a liszt keveréketel hozá adjuk és osze keverjük.
6. Öntsük a tésztát az előkészített tepsibe és az almát egyenként rendezzük körbe szorokan amíg elfogy (ugy mint a kép).
7. A pite tetejét meghintjük egy kis barna cukral és fahéjjal es kis csipetke vajjal.
8. Sütjük amíg a teteje arany szinu és a gyümölcs meg van fóve, körülbelül 40-50 perc, vagy amíg a sütemény teszter (tiszta fogpiszkáló) a tészta közepének jön ki tisztan.

Perfect for dessert or afternoon tea. Egy tökéletes desszert, vagy délutáni cávéval.

Apple Cake

Original recipe may be found here.

Makes one 9″ deep spring-form pan cake or two 8″ slightly shallower round cakes.

Ingredients:

• sugar for dusting pan
• 195 g flour
• 12 g baking powder
• 5 g  salt
• 7 g cinnamon
• 85 g butter, unsalted and melted, plus a bit more for the pan and cake top
• 170 g dark brown sugar, packed
• 125 mL milk (I used skim)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 large apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 2 mm sliced wedges

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Butter a 9″ springform pan and line the bottom with parchment. Sprinkle with sugar and shake the pan to coat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, milk and eggs.
4. Slowly fold the butter mixture into the flour mixture, just stirring until blended.
5. Spoon the batter mixture into the prepared springform pan, smooth the top evenly.
6. Arrange the apple slices in a circle closely together in the cake batter. Then press each piece of fruit gently down into the batter.
7. Sprinkle over with the 2 tbsp brown sugar and cinnamon. Top the brown sugar by dotting the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over.
8. Bake until top is golden and the fruit has softened, about 35-50 minutes in a convection oven (fan oven for my European friends), or until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Our last lunch together on the back patio.

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An Swedish Spekkoek Lapis Legit (Swedish cake, Indonesian Technique)

I was recently reminded of a project I completed in anticipation of family arriving from overseas. The project wasn’t imperative for their comfort or enjoyment, it was just the impetus I needed to “git ‘er done” as they say!

We’ve lived in our present home for almost 15 years, and ever since the first day we moved in, I’ve wanted curtains on both windows in our living room (or lounge) but we already had perfectly good, and totally lovely curtains on the back sliding doors. To replace perfectly good (and well made, I might add) curtains seemed excessive to me, so we lived with them. For 14+ years. Until I did some math and to my utmost delight , I discovered I could get two for the price of one, out of the generous fabric that the original curtains had. I wanted the dated tabs replaced with a more contemporary and clean look (for the sewers out there, I simply folded the tabs down, behind the top and stitched across. Pull the rod through the tabs to hang. I also added recycled toilet tissue rolls to help hold  the role). The sliding door curtains are functional and we do close them down on the very cold days, but the front ones are just for show! I am just so happy every time I look at them. Of course, I had to do the dining room next…it’s really never ending. While hemming the new dining room curtains, I started thinking about the Indonesian Spekkoek Lapis Legit cakes I made a couple of years ago (here and here), specifically about how I can change it up. My FILs birthday was in mid-May so making a cake for him was the perfect opportunity to experiment. We all love Charles’ Kladdkaka and Tuppkaka so I wondered if I could combine the two delicious cakes using the Spekkoek Lapis Legit technique. It was a huge success and the two flavours went together famously. I made the cake again for JTs birthday in June, by special request.

What project have you put off only to get it done for guests?

These are the very generous old curtains

I changed the rod to something a little more in style with the Craftsman home. I’ve also fixed the hem since this photo!

Kladdkaka

Ingredients:

• 200 g Caster Sugar
• 140 g unbleached Flour
• 50 g Cocoa Powder
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 120 g Butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Prepare your spring-form tart pan with non-stick cooking spray. Line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Add the sugar, flour, cocoa powder and baking powder to the bowl of your food processor. Plus few times to incorporate evenly.
3. In the microwave, melt the butter slowly so it doesn’t overheat. Combine the cooled melted butter, eggs, vanilla and water. Slowly pour the melted butter mixture in an even stream while processing. Mix well, scraping down the sides as required. 
4. Lightly grease a round tin about 20cm in diametre (I used a spring form tin). Spoon the batter into the tin and smooth out to the edges (it is rather thick). Resist the urge to try this batter, it’s seriously good and you will not be able to stop.
5. Set aside while you make the Tuppkaka layer.

Tuppkaka

Ingredients:

• 300g Caster Sugar
• 200g Plain Flour
• 74g Butter
• 2 Eggs, separated
• 2 tsp almond flavouring
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Melt butter and allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Combine the eggs with the sugar and beat well (until thick and very pale yellow). Combine the melted butter with the almond flavouring and water and and mix well.
3. Sift in the flour and stir until entirely incorporated.

Making the layered cake:

1. The first layer is chocolate, use about 1/2 cup of chocolate batter for the first layer.
2. Broil for 2-4 minutes watching carefully so it doesn’t burn. Once it is set and your tester comes out clean, pour 1/2 cup of the almond batter on top and spread evenly (the heat from the chocolate will begin cooking the batter so you’ll need to work fast.
3. Broil for 2-4 minutes until it is set and your cake tester comes out clean. Repeat alternating the flavours until you have used up both almond and chocolate batters, broiling each layer individually.
4. Allow to cool completely before layering the ganache on the cake.

Chocolate Ganache Ingredients:

• 114 g dark semi-sweet chocolate
• 125 mL (1/2 cup) heavy cream

Ganache Directions:

1. Heat cream to almost boiling, pour over chocolate and stir until melted and entirely incorporated and smooth.
2. Pour over cake and smooth top and sides.
3. Refrigerate until set.

Notes:

• Set your oven rack 2nd highest from the top.
• As the cake becomes taller you may need to reduce the broil to low so it doesn’t burn.
• I baked the final layer in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes because it just got too close to my boiler and I was concerned it would burn.

It’s a little like eating chocolate marzipan!

I still need to work on my layers but it tasted darn good!

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Rice Cooker Sticky Toffee Apple Cake

You must be thinking, “why on earth would I want to bake a cake in a rice cooker?” There are a few reasons I can easily think of:

• Maybe your oven is in use and you need dessert.
• Perhaps it’s 40°C inside and you don’t want any more heat in the house.
• Because you can.

I am usually not one who purchases a one trick pony but I received my rice cooker as a gift from my SIL one Christmas many years ago and to be honest it really does make the best rice ever (The Best, Jerry, The Best). But I really do hate the thought of an appliance that only does one thing, taking up space in my already over-crowded kitchen. I’ve seen these rice-cooker cake recipes in the blog-o-sphere for quite some time and have been intrigued by them to the point of almost making one, but never got around to it. But recently I saw something that renewed my interest and during one of our city weekends, I got down to experimenting.

I chose a traditional Génoise batter and apples (because I had an apple in the fridge!). My first experiment was a double portion of the batter, using 4 eggs. Needless to say, it overflowed so I reduced the ingredients by half. Also, for my first experiment I carefully laid thinly sliced apples in a floral pattern in the base of the rice cooker, but the cooking process disrupted the beautiful design so I altered my process. The cake is sponge-like, light and airy. It’s got a very nice texture that would work beautifully with a Crème Anglais or a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Also, I kept the brown sugar caramel volumes the same as the larger overflowing recipe because even though the cake is delicious, it would be even more delicious with some of the melted butter and brown sugar drizzled throughout it.

So next time it’s 1000 degrees and you don’t want the oven on, this 15 minute cake cooked in the rice cooker is for you.

The brown sugar caramelized into a delicious toffee.

 

An Original KitchenInspirations Recipe

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs, separated
• 60 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 60 g all purpose flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1 royal gala apple, cubed
• 112 g brown sugar
• 40 g butter, melted
• 1 tbsp heavy cream

Directions:

1. Combine the melted butter and heavy cream with the brown sugar, pour about half into rice cooker and spread out evenly in the bottom of the pan.
2. Arrange half of the cubed apples in the brown sugar pushing down to spread the brown sugar out. 
3. Sift the dry ingredients together, set aside.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
5. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy and falls in a thick ribbon.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.
7. Sift about 1/3 of the flour into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the remainder alternately with the egg whites, being careful not to deflate the batter.
8. Once all of the egg whites and flour have been folded in, carefully pour about half the batter into your prepared rice cooker bowl and spread out evenly over the apples and brown sugar. Top with remaining apples and then drizzle the remaining brown sugar mixture over the apples. Finish by spreading the remaining cake batter on the previous layer. Close the lid.
9. Bake for 7-8 minutes on the cook setting (mine defaulted to “keep warm” after 8 minutes). Continue on “keep warm” for about 5 minutes and then press the “cook setting” again. Mine reverted back to “keep warm” after 4 minutes. Continue on “keep warm” until your cake tester comes out clean.
10. Carefully remove the rice cooker bowl and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Turn onto a decorative plate. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Notes:

• I have this simple 3-cup rice cooker

May I offer you a slice?

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A Traditional-ish Black Forest Kirschtorte

It was someone’s birthday recently and a very specific request for cake was made: Black Forest Kirschtorte! I haven’t made this cake in quite some time and had forgotten which was my GOTO recipe. So I sat down with my favourite pastry cookbook, Barbara Maher’s Traditional Cakes and Pastries, published by Burlington Books in 1984. Coincidentally, this book was a gift from one of my dearest friends, University Kim (I have two Kim’s so I’ve differentiated this way for years!) she signed it “a friend forever” and she sure is!

I’ve made many successful recipes from this cookbook from the Normandy Apple Tart to Profiteroles (and some that I haven’t even blogged about) and for the most part the recipes were detailed and correct. Not this one.

I usually read through the ingredients to make sure I have everything I need and I skim the directions to make sure I know what I’m doing, which I also did. But when I actually got down to the nitty gritty to make the cake (well into it, to be exact), I noticed that they completely forgot to include the flour in the instructions (actually, in this case it was the almond mix). So I had to improvise and it seems to have worked. The cake is a genoise-style with strong chocolate flavouring from both melted good quality chocolate (I used this one) and cocoa powder. It’s light enough that you don’t squeeze out all the whipped cream when you cut it, but it’s got enough body to hold the drunken cherries. All in all, quite a tasty recipe and it’s Gluten Free! I stabilized the whipped cream so that it lasts a few days, otherwise it will just make the cake soggy.

I cut the recipe down to 1/3 size because we didn’t want a large cake and I added the cocoa powder because we like chocolate and removed flour and bread crumbs ingredients, you can definitely check the original recipe on page 93 in her cookbook. The recipe is a bit different that what you might be used to in North America as the cinnamon really flavours the chocolate beautifully, if you’re not a fan, leave it out!

A deliciously boozy cake

Black Forest Kirschtorte

Original recipe by Barbara Maher’s Traditional Cakes and Pastries, published by Burlington Books in 1984.

Makes one small cake, about 2 cups of batter. Serves 4-7 people.

Ingredients for the cake:

• 42 g ground almonds (not blanched, coarsely ground)
• 1/3 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 tsp ground cloves
• 10 mL kirsch
• 47 g caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp orange extract
• 2 tbsp crême fraiche or sour cream
• 33 g good quality chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
• 2 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
• 2 egg whites

Directions for the cake:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350° F (180° C).
2. Prepare your pan by coating all over with butter and dredge with sugar.
3. Combine the almonds, cinnamon, cloves and moisten with kirsch.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Set aside.
5. In another bowl, combine the sugar and egg yolks and beat until thick, creamy and pale in colour. Add the orange extract, melted chocolate, crême fraiche and lastly the cocoa powder and mix well.
6. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
7. Pour evenly into your prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean and the cake has shrunken for the sides a little bit.
8. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out to a cooling rack.

Ingredients for the cherry syrup and whipped cream:

• about 20 fresh cherries with stems and pits (around 330 g or 3/4 lb). Reserve 7 cherries for decoration, set aside.
• 33 g (1 oz) granulated sugar
• 85 mL (3 oz) red wine
• 85 mL (3 oz) water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 30 mL (5 oz) kirsch
• 1/2 cup whipping cream (35%)
• 1 tsp gelatin

Directions the cherry syrup and whipped cream:

1. While the cake is baking wash, pit and stem the cherries; cut them in half.
2. In a small sauce pan add the sugar, red wine, water, cinnamon stick. Simmer for 20 minutes, add the halved cherries and poach lightly for 10 minutes.
3. Remove the cherries and allow to drain into a dish. To thicken the syrup, bring to a boil and cook down for about 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. Remove the cinnamon stick and add the kirsch, stir well.
4. Soften the gelatin in a very little bit of water (2 tbsp) set aside while you whip cream.
5. In a very cold bowl, whip the cream until stiff peaks form, add the softened gelatin and whip to combine evenly.

Directions to decorate the cake:

1. Cut the cooled cake in half. Drizzle the cherry syrup onto the bottom and top layers and allow to absorb. Spread an even layer of whipped cream and dot with poached cherries. Add a bit more whipped cream on top.
2. Place the top layer down on the bottom layer and drizzle with the cherry syrup (reserve some syrup and poached cherries for serving). Spread the remaining whipped cream on top and decorate with the seven cherries that were reserved at the onset.
3. Serve with cherry syrup drizzled on the plate and some of the reserved cherries.

Happy Birthday!

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Apple Cranberry Cake, an Autumn Celebration

The aroma that wafted through the cottage was intoxicating. Or maybe it was the wine.

My family has always been cake people; JTs family are pie people. I always thought it was the difference between Europeans and the English. We usually had some fruit with or in our cakes whereas JTs family always had some pastry with their fruit. This was never a big deal for us because I’m not much of a dessert eater, but it did pose a challenge because I had to learn how to make a pie! Now that we’re more accustomed to each other, I make a variety of cakes and pies and JT happily samples them.

Recently, my friend Barbara Bamber from Calgary author of Just a Smidgen posted a gorgeous Martha Stewart recipe for a fall apple cake and I was smitten! When I suggested that I bake this cake to take over to my niece’s cottage-fest on our last weekend at the cottage JT was all over it. It’s moist and quite flavourful, the perfect mix of fruit and cake. We served it warm and at room temperature and both were very tasty. Although cake is always considered a treat, this could be perfect as a breakfast muffin, made in smaller portions.

Martha Stewart’s Apple-Cranberry Cake

makes one 9″ spring-form pan cake

Ingredients:

• sugar for dusting pan
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 6 tbsp butter, unsalted and melted, plus a bit more for the pan
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 3 Golden Delicious or Janagold apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 2 mm sliced wedges
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp butter cut into pieces

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Butter a 9″ springform pan and line the bottom with parchment. Sprinkle with sugar and shake the pan to coat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together melted butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, milk and eggs.
4. Slowly fold the butter mixture into the flour mixture, just stirring until blended.
5. Spoon the batter mixture into the prepared springform pan, smooth the top evenly.
6. Arrange the apple slices and dried cranberries as you wish onto the cake batter. Then press each piece of fruit gently down into the batter.
7. Sprinkle over with the 2 tbsp brown sugar and cinnamon. Top the brown sugar by dotting the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over.
8. Bake until top is golden and the fruit has softened, about 35-50 minutes in a convection oven (fan oven for my European friends), or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Notes:

I added cinnamon to the batter, the original recipe did not have it.

Next time I will shroud with foil so that the top doesn’t darken as quickly.

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Gluten Free Cherry Cake

The days are getting shorter and the nights chillier, fall is definitely upon us in Ontario; you can feel it, see it and even smell it. We had a fire last night in our wood burning fire place! I even put closed toe shoes on today. I say it every year: I’M NOT READY!!! Is it just me or do you also feel that time is even a bit faster these days — where did the summer go?
Several friends and family have now gone gluten free, some by choice and some by necessity. Even at our house we try to limit our Gluten intake, so I’m always on the lookout for new gluten free, beautiful and tasty dessert recipes.
My friend Charlie at Hotly Spiced made this wonderful Gluten Free Sour Cherry Cake a while back and I knew I had to make it as soon as I saw her post! Thanks Charlie! The cake is moist, and the texture is perfect. It reminded me a little of a semolina cake, but with a finer texture. I usually have a dislike to the flavour of gluten free flours, so I made a few alterations which worked out famously; I added lemon rind, lemon essence and because I was short on butter, substituted cream cheese for the missing weight — I hope you don’t mind Charlie! It was absolutely wonderful and it’s going on my list of ‘Go-To’ Gluten Free desserts!

I only put 1/2 cup of cherries into my cake, next time it will be a full cup (recipe is adjusted already).

Gluten Free Cherry Cake

Serves 6-8 from an 20 cm or 8″ spring form pan

Ingredients:

• 75 g softened butter
• 25 g softened cream cheese
• 1/2 cup castor sugar (super fine sugar, but not icing sugar)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 lemon rind
• 1/2 tsp lemon essence
• 2 free-range eggs at room temperature
• 1/2 cup GF flour
• 3/4 tsp GF baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 37 g almond meal
• 1 tbsp buttermilk (or cow’s milk)
• 1 cup cherries

Directions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180° C (375° F).
2. Prepare a 20 cm (8 inch) spring form pan by spraying with non-stick cooking spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper.
3. Beat the butter and cream cheese together until they are as white and fluffy as can be (this takes several minutes). Once you’ve reach the light fluffy consistency, gradually add sugar. then add the vanilla and continue to beat until incorporated.  Add the egg and beat in until well combined.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and using a wooden spoon, mix into the butter fluff. Then fold in the almond meal and buttermilk.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.
6. Drain the cherries then scatter across the top of the cake.  (No need to be decorative as they will sink during the cooking process).
7. Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes or when your cake tester comes out clean.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the tin.
9. Serve with dusted icing sugar and cherry sauce (or ice cream, whipped cream etc.

It’s a delicately flavoured moist cake, the sauce isn’t really necessary,
but it’s darn nice!

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Chocolate Fudge Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Thank you all for your lovely words and kind wishes to JT for his recent birthday in June. It was fairly low key because it landed on a Tuesday, but we still went out for a very nice dinner (review to come). The Monday before JTs birthday, he’d made plans with a friend to go out for dinner, which left me with some private time in the kitchen and I knew exactly what I wanted to do: Bake a cake as a surprise for his birthday! But I only had a small window of opportunity to bake, cool and ice it.

JT had walked up to a local place to meet this friend, so he was gone by the time I got home. Good, but I was home a little later than expected having to finish off a few things at work and ride my bike the 8 km home. As soon as I got in, I was immediately racing around in record time to bake this cake. But first I had to find a recipe! Without much time (I was expecting JT back around 8-9) I found this recipe which was called fastest fudge cake (just what I needed) and I was able to easily half the recipe so that I can bake it in a small spring form pan. Just as I was cleaning up and waiting for the cake and ganache to cool, I get a text from JT at 7:30 that he’s one his way home. That means I’ve got 10 minutes tops. Even with this easy recipe, I just barely squeaked by, dumping the barely cooled ganache onto the barely cooled cake and hiding it in the living room credenza! It was a very nice surprise.

A very special little cake. Night pictures suck.

Fast and Easy Fudge Cake

Makes one 13 cm or 5″ cake plus a muffin-sized cake

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 tbsp unsweetened natural cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch table salt
• 1/4 cup  unsalted butter, melted and warm
• 3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• pinch of cayenne
• 1/4 cup orange liquor
• 1/2 cup Ganache

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F  (177°C). Grease the bottom of an 13 cm spring form cake pan and line it with parchment.
2. In a small bowl sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cayenne and salt.
3. In a large bowl, combine the melted butter and brown sugar and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Add the egg and vanilla and stir until well blended.
4. Add the flour mixture all at once and stir just until all the flour is moistened. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.
5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes for a 13 cm (5″) spring form pan. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 10 min. Run a thin knife around the edge and invert the cake (peel off the parchment). Pour the orange liquor over the cake and allow to saturate. Allow to cool completely (or mostly as in my case!).
6. Once cool, set the rack over a baking sheet or foil. Pour the warm ganache over the cake and use an icing spatula to spread it over the top of the cake and down the sides. Let set for about an hour before serving.

Ganache Ingredients:

• 4 oz of dark semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of 18% cream

Ganache Directions:

1. Warm the cream just before boiling point. Pour the hot cream over the finely chopped chocolate and stir until it’s all melted.
2. Allow to thicken (or not) and pour over cooled (or not) cake (place cake on a piece of parchment). Even out. Allow to cool in a cool dark place (like a credenza!).
3. Serve with a sprig of mint over a small puddle of orange liquor.

Would you like a little cake with your mint?

Notes:

• The batter was a bit too much for the pan, it did bubble over a bit, so I was glad I put a cookie sheet under the spring form.
• The cake has a rich, chewy texture with a nice crunchy crust (like brownies).
• The ganache would have been better if it had been allowed to thicken a bit more, but it was still super tasty.
• Recipe updated (May 2016) to reflect correct pan size. To make a slightly larger cake (22 cm or 8″), double the recipe.
• The original recipe in the link makes 600 mL of batter (using only 1/4 cup hot water), the perfect size for an 22 cm or 8″ spring form pan (updated December 2016).

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Deconstructed Piña Colada

Happy Independence Day! Since it’s Thursday, do you take Friday off and make it an extra long holiday? How do you celebrate? Last year we were in Wisconsin at our friend’s lake house (Paul & Ts) and at around 9pm we boated out to the middle of the lake and watched the most amazing fireworks–it was awesome!
Speaking of awesome, if you want your guests to see fireworks in their heads, THIS is the dessert to serve. It’s a perfect summer dessert combining popular tropical flavours: pineapple, rum and coconut. You can’t go wrong, and it’s very impressive making it the perfect dessert to serve on such an important holiday.

Happy Fourth of July!

The first time I saw this recipe was at Jed, the Sports Glutton’s blog and I knew I would make it, I just didn’t realize how soon! We were entertaining my uni BFF and her hubby a while back and I needed a gluten free desert (she is gluten intolerant) and I wanted something that wasn’t too bad for you…so I chose fruit but even better it was sweet, caramelized Pineapple. I loved the grilled pineapple salsa we made for the grilled shrimp so I knew this dessert would be a hit; it turned out so well, JT suggested that I make it for our next progressive dinner, so I did! What was super cool about the latest progressive dinner was that each course had to be made on the BBQ! This is the perfect summertime dessert, not having to heat the house up by turning on the oven — there are better ways to heat things up ;)!

This is the version I served to my BFF for brunch, sadly there was no cake!

So, I present to you, an inspired version of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Since we sliced the pineapple thinner, they didn’t hold their shape, I suggest skewering them as well.

Deconstructed Piña Colada: Grilled Buttered Rum Pineapple with Grilled Coconut Pound Cake

Serves 8 (1 cm or 1/2″ slices of cake, with lots left over)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp powdered sugar
• the rind of one lemon

I

• 1 /4 cup of unsalted butter
• 1/8 cup dark rum
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2 pineapples, peeled and cored and cut into 8 spears each
• 24 smallish strawberries
• 1 Coconut pound cake (recipe can be found here).
• pineapple sage finely julienned (or mint)

Directions:

1. Combine the Greek yogurt, vanilla, powdered sugar and lemon rind and stir well. Refrigerate.
2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and then add the rum, brown sugar and salt and give it a good boil (to burn off the alcohol).
3. Using the buttered rum sauce, baste the pineapple spears and grill until you have achieved grill marks, you can baste throughout the grilling process but make sure you reserve some sauce for drizzling. Keep the grilled pineapple spears warm.
4. Slice the coconut pound cake into 1-2 cm (1/2″-3/4″) slices, brush lightly with the buttered rum sauce and grill until you have achieved grill marks.

Assembly:

1. Place the slice of grilled coconut pound cake on the plate, arrange the spears so that they overlap the pound cake and each other.
2. Add three washed strawberries clustered together.
3. Add a dollop of the Greek Yogurt sauce and finally drizzle with the remaining buttered rum.
4. Garnish with the pineapple sage julienne. Serve immediately.

*Clip art from Microsoft Clip Art.

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Coconut Pound (kilo?) Cake

Happy Canada Day! Today is Canada’s birthday and she’s a whopping 146 (now my birthday won’t seem half bad!). How are you celebrating this auspicious holiday?

Happy Canada Day!*

We’re at the cottage, spending a long overdue weekend with good friends. The redecorating has taken a bit of a back seat due to being crazy busy at work and not being able to take a little extra time up north, so it’ll just get done later. Being at the cottage means everything slows down and it forces you to enjoy the quiet. I usually bring a craft to do or read, which I don’t often get to do in the city. It also forces you to reflect and in reflection I remember some really good times; one in particular is this:

A couple of months ago I received an email from my friend Kristy (Eat, Play, Love, Our family food adventures) that she was coming up to Toronto and did I want to meet her? WHAT? Of course I want to meet her, who wouldn’t? Kristy and Mike have an incredible blog where they actively involve their two beautiful children, Mr. N and Miss. A; I particularly love that they do that because it’s how I became interested in cooking.

At first I was going to keep Kristy all to myself and not share the adventure, but then I felt that would be selfish so I emailed Barb (Profiteroles and Ponytails) and that got me thinking…what about Kelly (Inspired Edibles), she’s not far from Toronto and she might also be interested, and that’s where it all started. You already know that I’ve known Barb for many years and we’re very good friends with she and her husband — Barb’s blog is a lovely presentation of easy, family friendly recipes. Kelly is a fellow Ontarian, up in Ottawa (only a four hour drive away) and she runs a fantastic blog focusing on health and nutrition. Kelly and I have emailed once or twice before so I didn’t feel awkward in presenting the invitation. Without hesitation both ladies jumped (and I mean JUMPED) at the offer and boy am I glad because it was an incredible night of camaraderie, friendship, good conversation and few very hearty laughs! Thank you ladies for making the evening.

We started at a the classy Roof Lounge at the top of the Park Hyatt in Yorkville; it was as if we’d known one another a lifetime, the conversation just flowed and it was so easy to talk to everyone. We then made our way to Bar Mercurio our favourite Italian restaurant. JT and I have been dining at Bar Mercurio for quite some time and they know us by name so I knew were would get the royal treatment, and we weren’t disappointed. We had a complimentary dessert platter of biscotti and complimentary Lemoncello. Of course, I forgot to take photos early in the evening when there was still daylight, but fortunately Barb and Kristy both brought their iPhone 5s and the very lovely Omar obliged us with a photo. Thank you ladies again for a wonderful evening, I hope we can do it again soon.

It’s a shame you can’t see our lovely shoes!

Complimentary Biscotti always hits the spot.

Of course, one very popular topic of conversation was food and I happened to mention that we’re doing another progressive dinner on our street and that this time our theme is the BBQ, which means that every part of this meal must be grilled. I volunteered for dessert, because I love the challenge. This Coconut Pound Cake is one component to this very delicious dessert, but I won’t spoil the surprise!
I did alter this recipe to make it slightly healthier, by cutting the butter in half and replacing it with puréed apple (or you can use store bought unsweetened apple sauce). It worked out very well indeed!

Preparing the cast iron pan for the BBQ

I photographed the batter so you could see that the apple purée did not affect the texture

Baking on the BBQ

Cooling the pound cake. Or do I call it the kilo cake?

Coconut Pound Cake

Serves 10-12

Original recipe from Epicurious, I made some adjustments to make it a bit healthier (original recipe had 1 cup butter in it)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 cup of apple purée – see note below
• 1 cup sugar (reduced from 1 1/2 cups)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened flaked coconut (6 oz) (original used sweetened)

Directions:

1. Preheat the BBQ to 325°F. Turn off 1 burner completely.
2. Prepare1.4L pâte terrine enamelled cast iron pan with non-stick cooking spray (or you can use a 9″ by 5″ by 3″ loaf pan) and line it with parchment leaving ‘handles’ on the long sides.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, set aside.
4. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes with a stand mixer or 8 to 10 minutes with a handheld. In small increments, add the apple purée and beat an additional minute it two until full incorporated (don’t worry if it looks separated, just beat a little longer on a higher speed and it will smooth out).
5. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in extracts. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just combined. Fold in coconut gently but thoroughly with a rubber spatula.
6. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing top. Bake in a BBQ on a warming rack in the back with the burner directly below turned off until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2hours.
7. Cool cake in pan on a rack 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around edge of cake, then invert onto rack and cool completely.

Notes:

• In order to reduce the butter, I used baked and puréed apples. Peel and core two apples, cut into small cubes, microwave in a heat proof glass bowl with 2-3 tbsp of water until very soft. Purée with an immersion blender until smooth. Push through a fine sieve. Cool and use as directed in recipe above.
• Cake may be made in advance and stored in an air tight container in the refrigerator until required.
• Cut slices may be frozen for future use (this is what I did)

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The Easiest Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookie EVER!

Happy Mother’s Day to all! Hope it was lovely.

JT and I babysat my 13 year old nephew, Jack and my 10 year old niece, Annie on a recent weekend while their parents went to the Caiman Islands for a benchmark birthday party! We had a great action packed weekend filled with a visit to the High Park Zoo, bowling at Lucky Strike, cake decorating and cookie baking. Jack had his head burried in his laptop or smart phone at any given time; surprisingly he was not playing games, but monitoring a help desk he set up.

At the zoo, we were very lucky to see the 1 month old baby Wallaby, hoping along side of Mama (he/she even crept back into Mama’s pouch)! And we reacquainted with the Lama that was born last year. Lots of great things to do at this quaint little zoo — chickens to hold, bunnies to pet and Capybaras to feed, and best of all, it’s FREE! If you’re in Toronto, take the kids to High Park, in addition to the zoo, there is an amazing Jamie Bell Adventure Playground that was recently rebuilt due to vandals burning it to the ground (hundreds of volunteers and a celebrity contractor rebuilt the castle, click here to read the article).

The baby Wallaby and Mama drinking water. Shortly after this photo, the baby crawled back into Mama’s pouch.

Annie feeding the baby lama. He had such an adorable face.

He really was having fun, even though he hid it well.

But even after bowling, the weekend wasn’t complete without some quality kitchen time. We wanted to take a cake over to Grandma and Papa’s as a get well gift for Grandma who recently had an operation, so I baked two vanilla slab cakes (well, that’s not the fun part) and Annie cleverly decorated both, one as a gift and one for dessert over the weekend — which was thoroughly enjoyed!

Getting ready to decorate the cakes.

With everything going on, I didn’t have time to make the icing, but the cake was home made.

This cake was for Grandma and Papa.

This one was for us!

We ate al fresco all weekend, which was a HUGE contrast to this past weekend when it SNOWED! Yes, you read that correctly!

We also baked the easiest Peanut Butter Cookies we’ve ever made and I thought I would share them with you because they are gluten free!

The Easiest Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies EVER (recipe from Kraft)

Makes about 24 medium-sized cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter (UPDATE) I made these cookies again using all natural peanut butter and they turned out perfectly. I won’t be buying Kraft again for this easy and tasty cookie. Take into consideration how oily the natural pb is, the last batch I made (2015) was excessively oily so I upped the sugar to 3/4 cup).
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• Optional 24 milk chocolate wafers

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together until well blended (no need to drag out the hand mixer, just mix well with a spoon).
3. Roll into 24 balls and place on parchment paper about 4 inches apart. Flatten with fork (or with a flatten with a milk chocolate wafer pressing it into the cookie).
4. Bake 20 minutes or until lightly brown. Do not over bake. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and transfer to wire racks. Cool completely if you can resist eating.

Cookie making is serious business.

Batch one, traditional peanut butter cookie.

Annie claimed that we had mice because the cookies kept disappearing.

They were so successful, we made another batch the next day.

Delicious PB and Chocolate, what’s not to love? I didn’t have quite enough Kraft PB so I used a couple of tablespoons of natural crunchy PB I had on hand. Next time, I’ll try it all with the natural stuff.

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Appelkaka, A Swedish Apple Cake

Last week I needed a dessert for my pie loving in-law family and I was lucky enough to find Charles‘ beautiful Appelkaka, a Swedish apple cake. I knew JTs family would like it because they are pie people and apple is one of their fav’s. We’re all trying to cut down our carbs, so when I saw this cake is made without the traditional pastry, I decided to make it. Of course, things don’t always go as planned, so when I started out to make the cake, I gathered all my ingredients. Apples: check. Sugar substitute: check (I had one diabetic and one hypo-glycemic in the house). Bread crumbs: wait…does that package say Parmesan Bread Crumbs? Oh my. Change of plans. Nix the bread crumbs and get out the food processor and pulse 120 g of Oats a few times, I wanted some texture, so it wasn’t pulsed to a smooth powder, but almost. And there we had it. When I changed up the bread crumbs to oats, I thought I’d change up the method as bit as well. I hope you don’t mind Charles, it turned out quite successful and the plates were licked clean. Thanks again for a lovely Swedish dessert.

A quick taste of spring, and then it snowed.

I think they may have retreated back into the ground.

A delicious combination of apples, almonds, oats and cinnamon

Serves 8-10, depending on the slice size

Ingredients:

• 6 or 7 large Apples
• 4-6 tsp Stevia (I had organic stevia powder at home, so I just used that. I think it was this brand – no weird aftertaste)
• 120 g Oats, pulsed a few times in a food processor (not quite 100% powdery but close)
• 50 g almond meal or roughly chopped almonds
• 60 g unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• Splash of lemon juice
• Sliced almonds for garnish
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp stevia
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Pre heat the oven to 395°F. Line a 10″ spring form pan with a little parchment (my pan didn’t have tall enough sides, so I had to make my sides out of parchment).
2. Peel and coarsely grate the apples and splash a bit of lemon juice into it so it stops them from discolouring.
3. Mix the pulsed oats, cinnamon, almonds and butter until it resembles a coarse meal.
4. Take about 1/3 of the oat mix and press firmly into the bottom of the spring form pan. Add about 1/2 of the grated apples on top and sprinkle with another third of the oats. Finish with the remainder of the apples and press firmly down. Sprinkle the final third of the oat mix on top, just like a crumble.
5. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the apples are soft.
6. Garnish with sliced almonds and serve with Greek yogurt, flavoured with a tsp of stevia, lemon zest and a small splash of pure vanilla.

A very tasty appelkaka

Laura, Brady and Brian

Our Easter Lunch, complete with the wonderful Beef Tenderloin.

Dan, Joan, Dad and JT

Beef Tenderloin with a port sauce.

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Indonesian Spekkoek Lapis Legit (Thousand-Layer Spice Cake)

A mildly spiced layered cake

My friend Genie (Bunny. Eats. Design) in New Zealand very kindly invited me to participate in a new forum called Our Growing Edge which will be held monthly. It’s content will be defined by our cooking bucket list, so to speak — things that we want to conquer or need to conquer and upon our success (or failure!) we will create a post and link it to her page for the month. This is rather exciting because we all have our arch nemesis in cooking. Please click on over to Genie’s lovely blog (particularly on Tofu Tuesday’s when she showcases her most adorable flop eared bunny).

In early January, my friend Sam (Sweet Samsations) posted a recipe for an Indonesian cake I had never heard of, which is not rare in this very large world of ours, but what caught my eye was the huge quantity of eggs used in this cake, Sweet Samsations uses 30 – THIRTY; I even found one that used 45 eggs! I just can’t imagine buying that many eggs for one recipe. But it is a beloved cake that’s for sure so I knew I had to look around and find a recipe with a more reasonable egg content because I HAD to make it. Fast forward to late January when Genie asked me to participate in Our Growing Edge, I knew what I wanted to make: Indonesian Spekkoek Lapis Legit. Now to find the time to bake it because it’s quite labourious as you bake each layer individually over the other in the same pan.

I landed on Food Network’s Emeril Lagasse’s recipe (didn’t make sense to me either) because his cake only used 12 eggs, and 12 is easily divided into two; I found my recipe, only 6 eggs! I did a quick assessment of the baking container that Emeril’s recipe used and determined that if I halved his recipe it would fit snugly into my 4″ x 6.7″ loaf pan. I didn’t get as many layers as I had hoped, but it still looked nice and it still had good flavour. Emeril suggests to decorate with powered sugar, and I added candied orange peel as garnish. I will serve it with the orange syrup that was the left over from candying the peel.

Serves 4-6 depending on how thick you slice it

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground mace
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp anise extract
• 170 g (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp confectioners’ sugar
• Candied orange peel as garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat the broiler (I have this range with two ovens, I used the larger oven with the rack in the lower middle so it’s not too close to the broiler).
2. Butter the bottom and sides of a 4″ x 6.7″ loaf pan and line with buttered parchment paper. I left enough of the parchment to go past the top of the pan, so I could use it to lift the cake out when it was done.
3. Combine the nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, mace and ginger and set aside.
4. Weigh your empty bowl, write down the measurement. In this bowl, cream the softened butter, 1/4 cup of sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add the egg yolks one at a time and beat until smooth. Fold the flour into the batter with a rubber spatula.
5. In a clean bowl with clean beaters, beat the egg whites with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until stiff and shiny but not dry. Fold the whites into the egg yolk mixture, being careful not to over-mix. Divide the batter between 2 bowls. Add combined spices to 1 bowl and stir well.
6. Weigh your bowl with the cake batter. Subtract this new weight from the old weight so you know how much your batter weighs and divide in half. Put your second bowl on a scale that can tare and zero it out. Pour half the batter into this bowl (you can see exactly when you reach half on the scale).
7. Mix the spices into the second batter along with the anise extract.
8. Pour 4-6 tablespoons of the batter into the bottom of the pan and spread out evenly. Sammy suggests to pre-heat the pan, which I didn’t do, but I suspect it makes spreading the batter much easier since my subsequent layers spread easier on the hot layer.
9. Bake in a hot broiler for 2 minutes. Watch carefully.
10. Pour 4-6 tablespoons of the spiced batter, spreading it over the first layer to form a thin second layer. Place the pan under the preheated broiler for 2 minutes, or until the layer is firm and very lightly browned. Continue until you have exhausted both batters. Emeril noted that the cake typically has between 12 and 15 layers — I ended up with 10, not bad for a first timer!
11. Allow  the cake cool on a wire rack, turn out onto a cutting board and even up the sides by cutting clean new edges.
12. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar and garnish with candied orange rind.
13. Slice thinly and serve warm or at room temperature with additional orange syrup, if you so desire.

I should have made the layers much thinner

It’s quite a show stopper!

My notes:

• It’s a mildly spiced cake with a predominant butter flavour, I think I might increase the spices a bit more if I make it again because I thought it tasted a bit greasy.
• The butter really does need to be soft so it makes a lovely smooth batter.
• Many Indonesian bakers suggest to press down each layer after you bake it, although I did that, mine bounced right back.
• It’s a very rich cake so you needn’t cut large pieces.
• Next time I may try chocolate and vanilla layers or even vanilla and espresso flavour!

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My first guest post and Hungarian Cherry Squares — Cseresznyés pite

Hungarian Cherry Squares (Cseresznyés pite)

I am rather thrilled and honoured that my good friend Charles of Five Euro Food has kindly asked me to guest post. Charles has been a valued commenter on my blog for over a year now, and as most of you know, he takes his time to formulate interesting and thoughtful remarks; his comments are a joy to read and sometimes even have a bit of a chuckle over. Thank you Charles, your friendship is cherished, I hope to do your guest post right.

In keeping Charles’ tradition of a little peek into living in Paris, I will give you a little peek into living in Toronto and a lovely Hungarian family recipe. I ask that you head on over to Charles’ blog to check out our little adventure, but I will share my recipe here as well. I belabored over which recipe I would share as Charles’ guest post, because he takes so much time to photograph and document his recipes so well; I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and bite off more than I can chew (pardon the pun) so I hope you enjoy it. This recipe is a cherished favourite for my family (my brother always asks for it when I visit and now that my dear Mom is gone, it is up to me to carry on the tradition).

Cherry Squares

By Éva Hársfai-Robinson (1936-2005)

Makes 1 pan 9” x 13” about 20 squares

Cost: ~€0.31 ($0.40) each piece

Preparation time: ~40 minutes

Calories: ~120 calories per piece

Ingredients:

• 1 jar pitted cherries 500 mL to 700 mL, drained but reserve liquid
• 3 eggs separated
• 120 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125 g caster sugar
• 250 g flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• About ½ cup milk – or use reserved cherry liquid (if you use the reserved liquid your squares will be a bit pink)

Directions:

1. Grease and flour 9” x 13” x 2” baking pan (22cm x 33cm x 5cm).
2. Preheat oven to 350° F (175°C)
3. Drain cherries, liquid reserved (you can use this as your liquid or make a delicious sauce or use it in soda as flavouring!)
4. Whip egg whites until a stiff but not dry (should be able to stand in a peak) – no need to wash the beater if you do it in this order, if you cream the yolks first, then you must wash the beater and dry thoroughly).
5. Cream egg yolks with butter and sugar until light and fluffy (should be a lighter shade of yellow).
6. Sift flour, baking powder and salt – dry ingredients.
7. Alternating dry ingredients with the milk (or reserved cherry liquid), fold into egg yolk mixture.
8. Fold beaten egg whites into the mixture.
9. Pour into greased pan. Note the dough should be quite thick, should have to spread it into the cake pan, it should not pour by it self.
10. Dot with cherries throughout (you may want to give each cherry a squeeze as you dot so ensure there are no pits!).
11. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes (test with toothpick to make sure it’s done).
12. Cool in pan (don’t cut until it is entirely cool otherwise it will become ‘bacony’ or szalonás, as the Hungarians put it).

• Creaming the butter, sugar and eggs together takes patience
• I start out lining up all the cherries, but then I have to fill in the spaces so I can use up the whole jar!
• The cherries behave as they wish, so there is no point in lining them up anyway

They are moist and not overly sweet.

A short note: This was my very first guest post ever, and I am delighted that it was for Charles’ Blog. I have a new found respect for Charles’ blogging, over and above my original respect, which was plenty! The extra effort Charles puts into this blog is unparalleled, the ingredient shot, the video, the working shots etc., make this blog ever so wonderful to follow but impossible to follow in its footsteps!

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Kladdkaka (Swedish Sticky Chocolate Cake)

There were too many candles to put on the cake so I just used one

It was JT’s birthday last week. It’s just the two of us, so we usually keep it low key, but we do like to fancy it up with the food. Lobster was on sale at our local market so we took advantage and bought two for his birthday dinner. We love lobster and rarely indulge due to its rich and pricey nature so a birthday celebration is the perfect time to take advantage of this delicacy. We dined in our outdoor dining room under the early evening sky. It was wonderful.

JT didn’t mind, because this entire cake was his. Of course, he didn’t eat it in one sitting 😉

When I asked what JT would like for dessert he said cake. Now that stopped me in my tracks because he is more of a pie person than a cake person. But then again, I had just shown him Charles’ recipe (Five Euro Food) for Kladdkaka and he knew I was dying to make it so he said ‘cake’ or kaka in Swedish. He is so thoughtful and generous. Oh, but wait…this generosity may have some selfish motivations ;-)!

Night-time photos are not the best

I knew I would like this dessert from the name alone. Kladdkaka. Kladdkaka, kaka, kaka, kaka, kaka, Kladdkaka. Giggle, giggle, giggle. But I digress; I knew I would like this dessert because I LOVED his Tuppkaka dessert (that, for the record I have now made about 6 times). Plus Kladdkaka is very easy to make, one bowl is all you need. In fact, I was lazy and made the entire cake in the food processor. I didn’t even bother to change the blade to the plastic ones. Just processed away. The cake has an intense chocolate flavour without being sweet; don’t be too afraid of the sugar quantity, you need it to mellow the bitterness of the cocoa powder. Next time I think I’ll add a tbsp of espresso powder and a good pinch of cayenne pepper! I may even try to make this gluten free, using almond flour instead of white flour. Stay tuned.

Caster sugar is plain sugar that is much finer than regular sugar but not as fine as powdered sugar. It is supposed to melt a lot easier. I just put my regular sugar in the food processor with metal blades and I pulsed it until it looked significantly finer than original but now powdery.

Kladdkaka

Such a moist and chocolatey cake, but not as sweet as you would think

adapted from Charles at Five Euro Food

Ingredients:

• 200 g Caster Sugar
• 140 g unbleached Flour
• 50 g Cocoa Powder
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 120 g Butter
• 2 eggs
• 75 mL milk*
• 1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam, heated until runny

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Add the sugar, flour, cocoa powder and baking powder to the bowl of your food processor. Plus few times to incorporate evenly.
2. In the microwave, melt the butter slowly so it doesn’t overheat. Add melted butter and vanilla to the food processor in an even stream. Mix well, scraping down the sides as required. Lightly beat the eggs and add to the chocolatey mix until a smooth thick batter forms. *the batter was a little thick (like dough) so I added a little milk to it.
3. Lightly grease a round tin about 20cm in diametre (I used a spring form tin). Spoon the batter into the tin and smooth out to the edges (it is rather thick). Resist the urge to try this batter, it’s seriously good and you won’t be able to stop.
4. Take a knife and draw a spiraling circular pattern into the cake top (dig in about 1/2cm). Using a fine tip cake decorator, squeeze the slightly warm but runny seedless raspberry jam into the cut pattern. Don’t worry about how it looks on top, it will be dusted with confectioner’s sugar so it doesn’t matter. I wanted the raspberry jam to seep into the cake, which it did very nicely.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes before removing and allowing to cool for ~10 minutes before carefully removing from the tin. Try not to over-bake the cake. If you do, all delicious gooeyness may be lost!
6. Serve with fresh raspberries and whipped cream, or just on its own, for a gooey, chocolatey delight!

Thanks Charles for another winner — hope you don’t mind my creative license!!

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Armenian Nutmeg Cake

I saw this recipe on a few blogs because it was the daring bakers challenge (on Lorraine’s blog here and Sawsan’s blog here) and I was immediately drawn to it. I love spice cakes and combined with nuts and rose petals? I just couldn’t resist. Poor Sawsan had an issue with her cake, but I loved that she posted it anyway! It’s a very tasty cake and I will more than likely make it again.

We were having friends Rae and Monica over for dinner and they like dessert (but not rich chocolate, for some reason) so I am always on the lookout for something new to try. Lorraine topped her cake with a gorgeous combo of pistachios and edible rose petals…OMG so lovely, and she also made a light syrup to drizzle over it, which I also did. Unfortunately I did not have edible rose petals nor pistachios so I used dried cherries and mixed nuts. I also added a bit of cognac to the honey drizzle for some adult effects!

Now I must digress for a moment and talk about that jar you see in the background. It is a jar or Turkish nuts (variety) in honey. My friend Barb of Profiteroles and Ponytails gave it to me last year and I have hesitated to open it because of my previously bad behaviour (I devoured the last jar in a matter of months, just standing at the pantry and spooning copious amounts into my mouth); so I stashed it at the back and immediately forgot about it. We were out for dinner with Barb and Carol, a good friend from out East when I remembered that I had the jar in my pantry. I mentioned I was going to bake this cake and we all agreed the nuts would be exceptional on the cake as décor, texture and flavour. Carol asked how I used up my first jar: I said I stood in front of the pantry and ate it by spoonfuls until it was no longer. I don’t think she believed me, but it’s true!

It’s like ruby jewels decorating the cake

Recipe adapted from these lovely and talented ladies: Lorraine’s blog Not Quite Nigella and Sawsan, Chef in Diguise

Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (240 ml) milk
• 1 tsp baking soda (bi carb of soda)
• 2 cups all-purpose (unbleached) flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
• 3/4 cup butter, cubed, chilled
• 1 to 1-1/2 teaspoons freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped
• 1/4 cup Turkish nuts with honey (or just 1/4 cup nuts and 1/4 cup honey)
• 2 tbsp cognac (you can also use rosewater instead, however I find the flavour a little too strong, plus I prefer booze ;-))

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 340°F. Line a 10 x 5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper on the base and sides. In a cup mix the baking soda and milk and set aside. In a large food processor add the flour, baking powder, brown sugar and butter and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Place half of the above mixture in the base of the pan patting it down with fingers to make a base and set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg and nutmeg for 2 minutes until fluffy and pale. Add the vanilla and the milk and soda mixture and whisk until combined. Then add the remaining half of the flour and butter mixture and mix until smooth (you can still use the whisk for this as it is quite liquidy still). Pour on top of the base crumbs and then sprinkle the walnuts on top (my walnuts baked right into the cake, they actually fell into the centre, so I will suggest you fold the walnuts into the cake. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean – many have found that while the top looks cooked, the batter is runny underneath so try the skewer in several places.
3. When cake is ready, remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan (thank you Sawsan for your experience). While doing this, heat nuts and honey mixture gently and add the cognac. Pour the nut and honey mixture over the top of the cake allowing the honey to soak into the cake. Sprinkle the chopped dried cherries over the cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The walnuts fell into the batter during baking, so I suggest folding them in.

I used the loaf pan because I knew I wanted a certain sized cube as a small portion. I dressed each portion individually for my dinner party. I froze the remainder of the cake.

The jar has the nuts layered in a beautiful pattern.

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Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars

My SIL’s mother, Lea was one of my Mom’s dearest friends (JT’s Mom was her other dearest friend but sadly she passed away quite a few years before my Mom). Lea recently had hip replacement surgery and is recovering slowly, and when I spoke to her, I detected quite bit of frustration in her voice. She has 6 grand children and she likely feels like she’s missing out on quite a bit of action! So, to help cheer her up, I decided to bake her some brownies, but not just any brownies, but Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars! Now who wouldn’t cheer up with a big, fat bucket full of Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars? Frankly, she wouldn’t expect anything less from her good friend’s daughter; my Mom always had food whenever there was a visit!

Chewy, chocolatey and peanuty. I know you want one!

Year’s ago JT was in NYC on business (why wasn’t I with him you ask aghast? I’m still asking myself that same question) and he bought me a Hershey’s Chocolate Cookbook as consolation (huh, diamond tennis bracelet would have done the trick!). Believe it or not, I have not made a single thing from that book. Why, you might ask? Although the book is FILLED with wonderful delectable sweets, it is by far, the most unhealthiest recipes I have in my collection and therefore put it aside for the ‘right moment’. And the right moment is upon us, because as we all know ‘cheer’ is nothing without copious amounts of calories and fat.

So join me in wishing my SIL’s Mom a speedy recovery so she can get back to baby-sitting those rug-rats ;-)!

Small, bite sized little morsals

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1-1/4 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter (I used all natural, unsweetened)
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter chips
• 3/4 teaspoon shortening

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.
2. Stir together the melted cooled butter, sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla in large bowl. Add 2 beaten eggs; stir until blended.
3. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add to egg mixture, stirring until blended. Spread in prepared pan.
4. Bake 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, stir together sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter, remaining beaten egg and 1 teaspoon
   vanilla extract. Pour evenly over hot brownie. Set aside 1 tablespoon each milk chocolate chips and peanut
   butter chips; sprinkle remaining chips over peanut butter mixture.
6. Return to oven; continue baking 20 to 25 minutes or until peanut butter layer is set and edges begin to brown.
7. Cool completely in pan on wire rack.
8. Stir together remaining milk chocolate chips, remaining peanut butter chips and shortening in small
   microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at MEDIUM an
   additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth when
   stirred. Drizzle over top of bars. When drizzle is firm, cut into bars. Store loosely covered at room temperature.
   24 to 36 bars depending on the size you cut them.

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