Cake #185 - Käsekuchen

Monday Mood Cake - Käsekuchen, German style cheesecake made of quark.

Quark is one of my favourite dairy products. In Ireland you can find it at least in Tesco and Dunnes Stores. It can be used the way you would use cream cheese or you can use it in batters or you can make delicious desserts of eat. Or it it plain with fruit and berries. It is nearly fat free if you are careful with your calories intake...

There are various recipes for this German style cheesecake, Käsekuchen. For this cake I used this recipe except I did not separate the eggs, nor did I put any berries into the filling.

I decorated the cake with fresh raspberries and piped milk chocolate. More raspberries to be served with and oh so good it was! 

Cake #183 - French Chocolate Cake

Saturday Surprise - French Chocolate Cake.

Continuing with my (not deliberate) French theme, after Tarte Tatin and Petites Madeleines, I made a French Chocolate Cake. French Mud Cake, I would say.

You can find the delicious recipe here.

Cake #182 - Petites Madeleines

Thursday Experiment - Madeleine Cakes, aka Petites Madeleines.

À la recherche du temps perdu. - In Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time book series they often enjoy Petites Madeleines. I saw Madeleine pans at TK Maxx and could not resist. Based on the delicacy of my first cakes, the pans will definitely be used every now and then!

There are various recipes for Madeleines - I wanted to start with lemony ones, and oh so good they were indeed!

This recipe I used is on BBC Good Food and it is by Michel Roux.

Cake #181 - Tarte Tatin

Wednesday Experiment - Tarte Tatin.

I bought a proper cast iron frying pan today and wanted to test it. Worked out nicely!

Tarte Tatin

Pastry

400 ml plain flour

200 g butter

200 ml icing sugar

3 egg yolks

Filling

5 big apples, I used Bramley cooking apples

50 ml lemon juice

150 ml sugar

100 g butter

1. Preheat the oven to 250 C/ 500 F.

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 cut the apples into slices and squeeze the lemon juice over.

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

7. Place the apple 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 apples 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 apples and put back into the oven.

11. Turn the heat down to 220 C /425 F and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

12. Let cool a few minutes.

13. Take a serving plate and carefully flip the cake pan and the plate so that the pan is on top, then lift off the pan. 

14. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Cake #180 - Oscar Gala Dress

Monday Mood Cake - Oscar Gala in my mind. Cake inspired by dresses in last night's Oscar Gala.

Bake a Naughty Chocolate Fudge Cake , pipe some whipped cream on sides and on top and add colour by cutting a few pieces of fruit and place them nicely. There are days you badly need a cake like this. Whether you want to eat it after all, or not.

Cake #179 - Galatopita

Sunday Classic  - Galatopita, Greek Semolina Pancake, served with whipped cream, pistachio halva and physalis.

This traditional Greek pancake is very similar to the traditional Åland Island pancake both using semolina as the main ingredient!

You can find the recipe for Semolina here.

Check out this Åland Pancake recipe, too!

Cake #178 - Tie Dye Cake

Saturday Surprise Cake - Tie Dye Cake with shortbread base and almond and raspberry filling.

One night I was dreaming of a tie dye cake so I had to try out and make one...

Tie Dye Cake

250 g butter

125 ml granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 tsp vanilla sugar

1 egg yolk

500 ml plain flour

Filling

1 egg white

120 g ground almonds

1 tbsp granulated sugar

200 g raspberry jam

Yellow Icing

500 ml icing sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice (add more if too thick)

some yellow food colour to get the shade you like

Tie Dye

100 ml icing sugar

a few drops of water

black food colour

1. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract and mix well.

3. Add flour and mix just enough so the batter is smooth.

4. Put the batter in the fridge to rest for ½-1 h.

5. Preheat the oven into 200 degrees C (390 F)

6. After the batter has rested, divide it into two balls. Roll both into 24 cm in diameter round cakes and place one in a cake pan lined with baking parchment.

7. Whip the egg white with sugar until stiff and carefully fold in the ground almond.

8. Spread the raspberry jam on top of the cake base and on top of that the egg white-almond mixture.

9. Carefully lift the other rolled layer on top of the first one.

10. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

11. Let cool completely, remove from the pan on a serving plate and then mix the icings.

12. First spread the yellow icing evenly on top of the cake, then pipe the black icing in circles  and by using a cocktail stick make the tie dye patterns.

13. Let set for a few moments before serving.