Cake #60 - Raspberry Mascarpone Cake

Monday Mood Cake - Raspberry Mascarpone Cake.

"I'm in the mood for love...."

Raspberry Mascarpone Cake

Base
2 large eggs
100 ml granulated sugar
150 ml self-raising flour
50 g butter, melted
25 ml cream
1 tsp red food colouring

Filling
150 g Mascarpone Cheese
3 eggs
50 ml cream
100 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 g raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 175C / 350F and grease and flour a Ø 23 cm cake pan.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.

3. Fold in flour together with melted butter, cream and food colouring.

4. Pour into pan and bake in the oven for 15  minutes.

5. Mix together all ingredients for the filling and pour on the cake base.

6. Put the cake back in the oven and bake another 15-20 minutes until the filling is set.

Cake #59 - Mud Cake

Sunday Classic Cake - Mud Cake with Pomegranate Seeds.

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.” 

― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

Chocolat is a marvellous movie! Not only does it bring together Johnny Depp and chocolate but is also a brilliant story. If you feel dull on a Sunday, bake a chocolate cake and sit down to watch Chocolat. 

Recipe is from here. I did not make any ganache but sprinkled some pomegranate juice on top of the cake, then dusted it with icing sugar and decorated with pomegranate seeds. The cake was served with vanilla ice cream while watching Chocolat for the 109th time (or so).

Cake #58 - Goat Cheese and Parma Ham Cake

Savoury Saturday Cake - Goat Cheese and Parma Ham Cake with Black Olives and Ramiro Peppers.

Perfect Saturday lunch cake. For the family, that is. Was.

I had planned to go shopping on Saturday so I thought I would be smart and make lunch aka my daily cake before going. So I did bake a cake. I tasted a tiny piece of the cake to check if it was good. It was. So off I went. When I came back I was super hungry because I only had had a small latte in Starbucks. And the tiny piece of cake before I left. But there was no cake left. There was no cake left. Two of them say they had never liked goat cheese until now. So I guess I should be happy? I should be happy there was no cake left for me?

Goat Cheese and Parma Ham Cake

Dough
300 ml lukewarm water
25 g fresh yeast (or 7 g fast action dry yeast)
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
800-900 ml strong white flour
50 ml olive oil

Filling
150 g goat cheese
100 g parma ham
100 g black olives
2 Ramiro peppers
oregano, basil and black pepper
olive oil
fresh basil to decorate

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. Add salt and sugar and mix well.

3. Start adding flour gradually.

4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add olive oil.

5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. 

6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.

7. Preheat the oven to 175 C / 350 F.

9. Oil a Ø 30 cm cake pan.

10. Divide the dough into two and roll both into pan-size discs.

11. Put first layer into the oiled and place half of the fillings on top.

12. Place the second layer on top of the first layer and the rest of the fillings on top of that.

13. Drizzle some olive oil on the cake and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.

14. Enjoy while still warm.

Cake #57 - Pink Ribbon

Friends First Friday Cake - Pink Ribbon.

This cake is for breast cancer awareness and you, my friends, whose lives breast cancer has affected. I wish you well, I wish you strength! 

October is breast cancer awareness month in Ireland and world-wide, too,  and the Pink Ribbon is its symbol. Therefore this cake.

I made a basic sponge (same recipe I used for example for the Victoria Sandwich), which I filled with whipped cream and strawberries. The icing is white chocolate with some yellow and light brown food colouring and the decorations are made of pink sugar paste.

Cake #56 - Cat Pancakes

Thursday Cat Theme Cake - Cat Pancakes.

I saw this video a while ago and thought why not try making some cat pancakes...

Once you get going, it is not that difficult to make cat shapes just using a piping bottle. To get more detailed faces I would definitely need a better pancake pan and more practice with the hob and temperatures. I also learned that the batter should rather be runny than thick and the piping nozzle rather small than big.

How about a pancake selfie next time?

My Pancake Batter

500 ml milk
3 eggs
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
200 ml plain flour
3 tbsp melted butter

Mix all ingredients together and let the batter set for about half an hour before frying your pancakes.

Cake #55 - Blueberry and Yogurt Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Blueberry and Yogurt Cake.

I know a lot of people who are afraid of making a cheesecake because it would be lumpy. So they never make any cheesecakes at all. 

Do you suffer from gelatinephobia? Why? Just be precise when measuring your ingredients. And patient when mixing them. - Practising (and failing) a couple of times helps, too.

When I made this cake I was thinking about being precise and especially giving precise instructions to others.

Some years ago we had an au pair. Besides childminding, she did some housework. Every week she was supposed to hoover the whole house so we had agreed that on Thursdays she would hoover downstairs and on Fridays upstairs. After some time I started paying attention to the stairs as the carpet on them looked very dirty. Sand, biscuit crumbs, hair... 

But of course -  we had never agreed anything about hoovering the stairs!

Be precise. 

Why did I remember this just now? Because on the day I made this cake, this former au pair of ours was coming over for dinner. We hadn't seen each other for six years. She is studying nursing, she has a family and she is doing well. And I am confident that she can see the stairs now, too. 

Blueberry and Yogurt Cake

Crust:
200 g Nice bisquits, crumbed
100 g butter, melted

Filling:
300 g Greek yogurt
150 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
6 gelatine leaves
100 ml blueberry juice
3 egg whites

125 g fresh blueberries

1. Mix the bisquit crumbs and melted butter.  Press the mixture into the bottom of a loose base cake pan, base covered with baking parchment. Let the crust cool and rest in the fridge while you make the filling.
2. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.
3. Mix the yogurt, sugar and vanilla sugar.
4. Heat up the blueberry juice and melt the soaked gelatine leaves in the hot juice and pour the smooth liquid into the yogurt mixture together with the blueberries (leave some for decorations!). Mix well.

5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them very gently into the yogurt mixture trying to keep it ‘airy’.
6. Pour the filling on the crust and chill in the fridge for at least four hours until firm.
7. Remove the firm cake from the pan very, very carefully on a serving plate and decorate it with blueberries.

Cake #54 - Pizza

Tuesday Humour Cake - Pizza.

I admit, this is one of my non-planned, hastily made creations. When it is 9 p.m. and there still is no daily cake ready nor a weakest idea what to make, it is the best to let the last minute panic solve the problem.

For me it means spinning around in the kitchen, looking into cupboards and opening the fridge door for the fifth time with a slight hope that some idea would just jump onto my pan right there... Nope. Not yet. But I trust I always spot something to give me the inspiration. Something.

This time it was these pizza mesh sheets in the cupboard the door of which should not be opened but I did open it anyway.  It is just when you open the door all the little plastic containers and their lids fall down and then the cat catches the cap of your Bubble which also fell on the floor and then you see what a mess the cupboard actually is and you want to close the door but you cannot because the things that fell out do not fit in there any more and... No. I did not end up organising the cupboard. This time. I just took out the mesh sheets and decided to make a sweet pizza. 

Sweet Pizza 

Dough
200 ml lukewarm water
20 g fresh yeast
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
500 ml strong white flour
3 tbsp sunflower oil

Filling

Red jam 

Cream cheese

White chocolate

Ground almond

Pink sugar paste or even Chocolate Salami

Fresh mint

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. Add salt and sugar and mix well.

3. Start adding flour gradually.

4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add oil.

5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more.

6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.

7. Divide the dough into two and roll two round pizzas, about  Ø 30 cm.

8. Preheat the oven to 250 C / 480 F.

9. Spread jam on pizzas and add a few spoonfuls of cream cheese.

10. Bake in the oven on the mesh sheets for 5-7 minutes.

11. Add the rest of the fillings. If you add grated white chocolate right after you have taken the pizza out of the oven it will melt a little and look more like melted cheese.

12. Fool you family and leave the pizzas on the kitchen counter together with a bottle of garlic sauce.