Cake #191 - Alexander Cakes

Sunday Family Favourite - Alexander Cakes, shortbread tray bake with raspberry jam and almond meringue filling.

I have made these before starting my cake challenge and written about them in this blog, too. See recipe and story here.

Cake #190 - Tomato Tarte Tatin

Savoury Saturday Cake - Tarte Tatin with tomatoes, caramelised onion and balsamico.

I have to admit, I used ready-made puff pastry. How disgraceful.

I melted some butter on my *still-fairly-new* cast-iron pan, and caramelised 2 medium-sized onions with the butter. Then I placed 4 thickly sliced tomatoes on top of the onions, sprinkled some balsamico vinegar evenly on the tomatoes and added salt and pepper. On top of the tomatoes I placed a round piece of puff pastry and baked the tarte in 200C for about 20 minutes (until the pastry was golden brown). Up-side-down, some rocket leaves and olive oil and - voilà!

Goes as dinner, evening snack, with afternoon coffee.

Cake #189 - Brookie

Friends First Friday Cake - Brookie.

Brownie + Cookie = Brookie.

It was "Dress in blue day". As blue is the new golden brown, or golden brown the new blue or whatever (remember the story about the dress - which people saw either black&blue or white&gold). Let's just eat chocolate with our friends and forget about dresses [which we won't fit in anyways after enjoying a brookie].

The recipe I used is from here. Instead of using small pans,  I baked the brookie as a cake in a 22cmx22cm square pan in 175C for 30 minutes.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream. 

A dangerous treat. You cannot eat only one piece.

Cake #188 - Mini Lemon Cakes

Thursday Inspiration - Mini Lemon Cakes.

I found the cute spring-like yellow polka dot cardboard cake tins at Tiger and they are actually oven-proof (up to 200C). The colour inspired me to bake something - lemony!

I used a basic Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe and topped the cakes with a mixture of lemon juice and icing sugar (with a drop of yellow food colouring) and Lemon Meringue Sprinkles.

Nice and fresh little miniature treats.

Cake #187 - Meringue Overload

Wednesday Experiment - Meringue "Overload", spring and St Patrick's Day in my mind.

Meringue baked on thin sponges, filled and decorated with whipped cream, fruit and milk chocolate.

Meringue Overload

Base

250 g butter

200 ml caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

4 egg yolks

200 ml milk

300 ml plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

Meringue

6 egg whites

400 ml caster sugar

Food colouring(s) of your choice

Filling

300 ml double cream, whipped

2 bananas

Physalis

A can of mixed fruit

Milk chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 175C/350F and line 3 oven trays with baking parchment. 

2. Cream together butter and sugars.

3. Add egg yolks and mix well.

4. Add dry ingredients and milk.

5. Spread dough into three circles about 20cm in diameter on baking parchments.

6. Whip egg whites together with sugar until stiff. Divide meringue mixture into three bowls and add food colouring if you want a multi-coloured cake.

7. Spread egg white mix evenly on top of each base. 

8. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. 

9. Remove from baking trays and let cool before filling.

10. Fill with whipped cream and fruit and decorate with more fruit and piped milk chocolate. 

Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon Bun baking mood!

Every now and then I bake them 'fool proof' - in cupcake cases, that is, so they don't expand too much, collapse or explode.

Best when still warm, fresh from the oven!

Cinnamon buns (makes 12-14)

Dough
300 ml / 1 1/4 cup lukewarm milk
25 g fresh yeast (or 1 bag / 7 g fast action dried yeast)
100 ml / 1/2 cup sugar
½ tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
100 g melted butter
about 1 litre / 4 cups plain flour

Filling 
100 g butter
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 dl / 1/3 cup sugar

Glazing
1 egg

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.
2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.
3. Start adding flour gradually.
4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.
5. 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 buns will be too dry and hard after baking.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 0,5 cm thick.
8. Spread the butter on top and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
9. Roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut it into 12 pieces. Place the buns in (large) cupcake cases.
10. Let the buns rise for about half an hour, then glaze with egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar.
11. Bake in the oven at 220C for 10-12 minutes.

Cake #186 - Pacman

Tuesday Humour Cake - Pacman.

I had been planning to bake this cake a while. The plan was to have The Husband's Pacman coffee mug in the picture, too, but he always forgot to bring it home from the office where he uses it, when I asked for it. And the times he did bring it home, I had already baked something else. The Husband finally suggested I could photograph his Pacman socks, instead, but... Oh, well.

The cake itself is a basic sponge, filled with whipped cream and raspberry jam and the icing is made of white chocolate and butter, with a few drops of yellow food colouring.