Cake #79 - Wild Mushroom Cake

Savoury Saturday Cake - Wild Mushroom Cake with Red Onions and Grilled Peppers Cheese.

Mystery Box ingredient used: funnel chanterelles (Craterellus tubaeformis).

Funnel chanterelle is one of my favourite wild mushrooms. And they are precious, too, when you know that a dear friend has done all the hard work picking the mushrooms fresh from the forest and drying them and then posting them all the way from Finland to Ireland. That really is a genuine present and much appreciated. Unfortunately I am not the only one in the family who likes them.

So I actually need to share them.  Nowadays even with more people as the extended family - my daughter's boyfriend - likes them, too!


Wild Mushroom Cake

Dough
300 ml lukewarm milk
25 g fresh yeast (or 7 g fast action dry yeast)
1 egg
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
800-900 ml strong white flour
75 g butter
1 red onion, chopped

Filling
30 g dried funnel chanterelles, soak in hot water for about half an hour
170 g Philadelphia Grilled Peppers cheese (or other cream cheese of your choice)
1 egg
100 g grated Mozzarella

1 egg for glazing
sesame seeds
fresh basil

1. Melt butter on a pan, caramelise the red onion in it for about 15 minutes and let cool a little.

2. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.

3. Add salt, sugar and egg and mix well.

4. Start adding flour gradually.

5. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add the caramelised onion and any butter from the pan.

6. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense as the cake will be too dry and hard after baking.

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

8. Line a baking tray with baking paper. 

9. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 10 mm thick and cut it into three equal-sized rectangles.
10. Mix together all ingredients for the filling.
11. Spread half of the filling on one rectangle and place another one on top. Repeat.
12. Glaze the top layer with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
13. Bake in the oven at  180 C / 375 F for about 30 minutes.
14. Garnish with fresh basil and serve when still warm.

Cake #78 - Turkish Pepper and Lime Cake

Friends First Friday Cake - Turkish Pepper and Lime Cake.

For my elder daughter who is the best toilet cleaner in the world!

Mystery Box ingredient used: crushed Turkish Pepper candies.



How can someone like cleaning toilets and be so good at it, too? 

My elder daughter, who is now 19, has probably been cleaning our toilets since she was 10 years old. Not that we would have told her to, she just seems to have an interest and motivation for it. Cleaning the toilets, yes.

The more professional she gets the more demanding she becomes. She tells me what cleaners I need to buy and she cannot complete a task if she has run out of something. 

There is not only the usual Domestos or whatever brand toilet cleaner is the best, but there is a separate spray for cleaning the shower and another one for the bathtub, and there is certain mousse for cleaning the sinks. Then you need wipes and you need window cleaner for mirrors. The colour of the toilet blocks used matters, too. And obviously we need to have lots of spare sponges and rubber gloves.

I do not mind buying the stuff she needs. They are all very affordable and they all leave a nice and fresh smell around (not that disgusting chlorite). 

What will happen the day she moves out? Will any of the younger siblings be willing to take the toilet cleaning responsibilities? I am already getting prepared and saving the shopping lists with the names of all the products with the nice smell. If the rest of us cannot learn to clean the toilets as passionately and profoundly as she does now at least we can get the right fragrances.

Turkish Pepper and Lime Cake

Batter
200 g butter
250 ml granulated sugar
3 eggs
400 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
juice of two limes
50 g Turkish Pepper crush

Icing
300 ml icing sugar
1 tsp black food colouring
2-3 tsp water

3-4 tbsp Turkish Pepper crush

1. Preheat oven to 175 C / 350 F and grease and flour a 1.5-litre bundt cake pan.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and Turkish Pepper crush in a bowl.
3. Cream together butter and sugar.
4. Mix in eggs.
5. Add the dry ingredients together with the lime juice.
6. Pour the batter into the pan and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes.
7. Let cool on a rack before removing from the pan. 
8. Mix the black icing and spread on the cake and then sprinkle Turkish Pepper crush on top.

Cake #77 - 16 Cats

Thursday Cat Theme Cake -  16 Cats. Birthday Cake for my son who turned 16 years.

Mystery Box ingredient used: licorice bars with lemon filling.

A 16-year-old is not quite a man yet but he will soon be. Nearly as tall as his dad, 20 cm taller than me. He can be talkative and again, from time to time, very quiet. He goes to the barber's by himself and decides on his hairstyle. He even changes his socks regularly. His room may not be the tidiest of all but he always knows where to find his glassed. He might have lost his bus card or earphones once or twice but they can be easily replaced. He does not hug but he loves being hugged. He does not show his feelings a lot but he has them, a lot.

He does not cook or bake but he loves my cakes from the bottom of his heart. He actually may be the reason why I started my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge. Last summer when he had his Junior Cert exams I promised to bake a cake each day he had an exam and so I did. I baked seven cakes.  And then he started asking for more.

16 Cats Birthday Cake

You can find the chocolate sponge and ganache recipe here.

I did not put any ganache between the layers, only on top. Between the layers I put banana slices (3 small bananas) and spread caramel sauce and whipped cream.

Caramel Sauce

200 ml cream

100 ml  dark brown sugar

100 ml muscovado sugar

2 tbsp butter

1. Place cream and sugars into a saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugars have dissolved.

2. When the mixture starts bubbling, lower the heat and keep mixing until it thickens. Usually this takes 10-15 minutes.

3. Add butter and let cool down just a little - the sauce spreads better when still warm.

For decorating the cake I chopped the lemon filled licorice bars for the cats' eyes, and to form the ears, I piped melted milk chocolate with a piping pen.

A very nice, rich cake with dark and deep flavours! 

Cake #76 - Bilberry Crumble Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Bilberry Crumble Cake.

Mystery Box ingredient used: dried bilberries.

They may be bilberries but I am not the only one calling them blueberries or wild blueberries. Just the way it was taught in English classes in primary school. Strawberry, raspberry, lingonberry, blueberry... 

Old habits die hard. Maybe I just call it the blue berry, to make it easier.

Bilberry Crumble Cake

Batter
200 g soft butter
200 ml  sugar
3 eggs
1  tsp vanilla extract
200 ml flour
2 tsp baking powder
150 ml Greek yogurt
50 g dried bilberries

Crumble
200 ml muscovado sugar
100 ml plain flour
100 ml rolled oats
100 g butter

1. Preheat oven to 175 C / 350 F.
2. Grease and flour a 1 kg loaf pan.
3. Cream together butter and sugar.
4. Add eggs and vanilla.
5. Beat in flour, baking powder and bilberries together with yogurt
6. Pour into pan and spread evenly.
7. Put all ingredients for the crumble  in a bowl and mix until it is crumbly.
8. Sprinkle on top of the cake.
9. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes and let cool before removing from pan.
10. Serve with Greek yogurt spiced with vanilla and mint.

Cake #75 - Happy Lemon

Tuesday Humour Cake - Happy Lemon.

Mystery Box ingredient used: white chocolate with a taste of lemon.


I love reading quotes. Especially witty ones. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they do not.

You probably know too well this one related to lemons:

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

But how about these ones:

If life gives you lemons, don’t settle for simply making lemonade – make a glorious scene at a lemonade stand.

When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.

When life gives you lemons, ask why not limes.

When life gives you lemons, bite them and make a funny face.

If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.

However, this time I am going to stick to this wonderful quote:

When life gives you lemon chocolate, bake a cake!

***

For the cake I baked two small sponges. The lemon slice is covered with melted lemon chocolate and decorated with yellow icing. The rest is covered with a mixture of whipped cream, cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and yellow food colouring. Simple, fresh taste. Happy Lemon!

Cake #74 - Licorice Rocky Road Cake

Monday Mood Cake - Licorice Rocky Road Cake.

Feeling grateful for thoughtful friends.

The postman brought me a surprise parcel this morning from a dear friend in Finland and it really made my day as the day did not only start as a Monday but the Monday after the kids' mid-term break which is always an extra effort to get things going smoothly again.

The parcel was a really inspirational Mystery Box. To be honest, that friend of mine had hinted earlier that she might at some point send me some dried wild mushrooms she had picked herself but the rest really was a surprise and an overwhelming one, too. Thank you again, Inari!

I have always loved those cooking programmes (for example Chopped) on TV where the contestants open a Mystery Box and then they have to cook something from scratch using the ingredients in the box. Of course they do have access to some basic kitchen cupboard stuff like flour and oil and tomato puree. I find that very entertaining and inspiring, and challenging, too. Not only what the contestants actually end up making but the way they approach the ingredients in the box - if they want to play it safe or take a small or bigger risk.

So now that I got a Mystery Box of my own, I am so going to entertain you by challenging myself and use the ingredients in the box for my cakes this week.

In the box there were the following goodies:

- wild mushrooms (porcinis and funnel chanterelles)
- milk chocolate
- white chocolate with lemon taste
- dried bilberries
- almond crocant crush
- crushed pepper candies
- licorice bars with lemon filling, blueberry-raspberry filling and wild strawberry filling

I decided to start with the licorice bars with blueberry-raspberry filling (the Moomin ones) and wild strawberry filling (the Angry Birds ones) as my elder daughter had some time ago suggested that I should bake a Rocky Road cake with licorice, and these bars looked more than suitable for such a cake!

To make it a cake instead of just Rocky Road, I baked a gooey base first.

After the base had cooled down, I topped it with chopped licorice, mini marshmallows and walnuts and then covered it with milk chocolate and put it in the fridge for an hour to set. 

The cake really turned out nice. Gooey and chewy as I wanted it to be and you could taste the berrylicious licorice well which was my aim. These Finnish licorice bars really rule!

Licorice Rocky Road Cake

Base
150 g butter
150 ml soft brown sugar
100 ml granulated sugar
2 egg yolks
1 egg
100 g milk chocolate, melted
300 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Rocky Road Filling
200 g milk chocolate, melted
100 g (your favourite) licorice, chopped
100 g mini marshmallows
50 g walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C / 350 F.
2. Cream together butter and sugars.
3. Add yolks and egg and mix well.
4. Mix together flour and baking powder and add to the butter-sugar-egg mix together with the melted chocolate.
5. Line a square cake pan 23 cm x 23 cm with baking paper. My favourite way to do this is to wet a piece of baking paper and crumple it into a ball to get rid of the excess water and make it softer so it is easier to line the form.
6. Spoon the batter evenly in the pan and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. The base needs to be left a little sticky.
7. Let the base cool but do not remove it from the pan.
8. Spread some melted chocolate on the base and then evenly licorice, marshmallows and walnuts. Pour the rest of the chocolate on top evenly and press a little.
9. Place the pan in the fridge for an hour before serving.

Cake #73 - Pavlova

Sunday Classic Cake - Pavlova.

Light and fluffy. Elegant. Classy.

The Husband was cooking Chili con Carne for Sunday dinner, and he baked baguettes, too, so I thought I would not bake anything heavy for my Sunday cake. Pavlova seemed like the perfect choice and it was one, too! 

Pavlova reminds me of Pavlov. Which reminds me that I have not told you about the Pavlovian conditioning happening in my family. Nowadays, whenever a family member sees me holding a bowl in my hand (I may be emptying the dishwasher and therefore holding one) they eagerly ask me what cake (note, cake - they always say cake) I am baking today and when it is ready. This did not happen before my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge. I have always baked a lot but not until now the family has been madly interested in my bakings other than the edible results nicely set in front of them, and certainly the default has not been cake, but cookies, buns, donuts.

What will happen after the last cake for this challenge is baked?

The recipe for this Pavlova Cake is from here. Instead of berries, I used canned peaches and pears, and fresh pineapple, pomegranate seeds and bananas.