Cakes #214 and #215 - Traditional Easter Cakes

Traditional Easter Cakes.

#214 Kulich
#215 Pasha

Both of these are traditional Easter cakes in Finland and both are Eastern / Russian / Orthodox origin.

There are several recipes and variations to make these and families have often their secret recipes, too.

To make the Kulich, I used this recipe.

For Pasha, see this recipe. Pasha is best when made of quark (I recommend not to use any other cheese!), which is widely available in Ireland, too. Even Tesco has their own brand quark.

Cake #213 - Rhubarb Cake

Friday Treat - Rhubarb Cake.

This was meant to be a Rhurbarb Tarte Tatin. Let's just call it a Rhurbarb Cake as I did not want to flip it up-side-down because it wouldn't have stayed in one piece.

Beautiful new season Irish rhubarbs! Still young so not too sour or bitter. Absolutely yummy and juicy.

Rhubarb Cake

Pastry

400 ml plain flour

200 g butter

200 ml icing sugar

3 egg yolks

Filling

500 g rhubarb

150 ml sugar

100 g butter

1. Preheat the oven to 250 C.

2. Mix flour, cold butter and icing sugar until crumbs. 

3. Add egg yolks and mix well.

4. Form a ball of the dough, wrap it in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

5. Peel and slice the rhubarbs.

6. Caramelise 100 ml of the sugar on a hot pan.

7. Place the rhubarb slices on top of the caramelised sugar, sprinkle the rest of the sugar and the butter on top. 

8. Bake in the oven until the rhubarbs have softened a bit, about 10 minutes.

9. Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll into a circle of the size of your pan. 

10. Place the pastry on top of the rhubarbs and put back into the oven.

11. Turn the heat down to 220 C and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

12. Serve warm with whipped cream.

Macaroons

Wednesday Experiment - Macaroons.

Something spring green for Easter.

There are dozens and dozens recipes for macaroons. I am still looking for the fool-proof one so I am not sharing any recipe in the blog yet. Although I do believe that when you make macaroons, there is a lot of luck involved, too.

This time I made three batches. Using exactly the same recipe and doing everything exactly the same way three times. Still, the first batch turned out just about perfect, the second not quite and for the third everything came out cracked.

If you have a fool-proof recipe, please share it with me!

The fillings were perfect, though. The brown one is half and half melted milk chocolate and cream cheese, the green one is half and half lemon curd and cream cheese with a drop of green gel food colouring.

Round Donuts

Wednesday Experiment #2 -  Round Donuts. (as I normally bake just the ring sugar donuts)

The ones with lime green icing are plain, pink ones are filled with raspberry jam and whipped cream and purple ones with blackberry jam.

This was about playing with colours, too, as I recently bought some new pastes and wanted to try them.

For recipe, see my recipe for Sugar Donuts in this blog. Just make balls instead of rings.

Cake #212 - Bunnies and Bananas Swiss Roll

Bunnies and Bananas - Chocolate Swiss Roll with banana, whipped cream and chocolate bunnies.

Although it is nearly Easter, the cracked egg look on the cake is not deliberate...

Bake a Swiss Roll base, like this one. For the filling, chop two big bananas and mix them with 200 ml of whipped cream. Spread on the base and roll. Decorate with chocolate bunnies like I did or cover with whipped cream - like I should have done to hide the cracked look...

Yummy and so easy!!

Cake #211 - "Dublin Donut", v. 0.1

Dublin Donut, v. 0.1.

A dear friend suggested that I should start baking Dublin Donuts - whatever they may be, it is to be developed. A giant donut cake was probably not what she had in mind, but this is what I started with. Giant 'Dublin Donut', filled with lemon curd and whipped cream.

V. 0.2 will certainly be and look something totally different...!

You can find this recipe for a giant donut sponge here. My daughter is lucky to have one of those silicone moulds to bake a giant donut cake but, to be honest, I am not a friend of silicone moulds. This worked out quite well, though. What comes to creating a Dublin Donut - I do have an idea now. 

To be seen within a few days!! Stay tuned!

Cake #210 - Blackberry Cake

Friday Feast - Victoria Sandwich with Fresh Blackberries and Cream Cheese and Whipped Cream.

Victoria Sandwich

Sponge

200 g soft butter

200 g granulated sugar

4 eggs

200 g self-raising flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp cream or milk

Filling

200 g fresh blackberries

200 ml fresh cream, whipped

200 g cream cheese

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

icing sugar

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 F) and grease and flour a Ø 24 cm cake pan.

2. Mix together the dry ingredients.

3. Cream together butter and sugar.

4. Add eggs and mix well.

5. Add the dry ingredients and cream or milk.

6. Pour the mixture into the pan. 

7. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until solid in the middle.

8. Let cool completely on a rack.

9. Whip the cream together with sugars and beat in the cream cheese until smooth.

10. Cut the sponge in half.

11. Spread the cream cheese mixture on the bottom layer, then place the berries on the cream.

12. Place carefully the other half of the cake on the filled half. Do not press - otherwise the cream and berries will come out...

13. Finally, sift icing sugar on top.