My 365 Cakes in 365 Days Challenge

My cake challenge 365 Cakes / 365 Days ended successfully on 22 August! This blog has not been up-to-date for some time but at least I have posted all pictures in The Cat Hairy Baker facebook page.  

This blog has indeed been very quiet for a looong time.That is why I was so amazed when I bumped into this feature by Paul McLoughlin on Savour.ie a week ago! And so amazed I was that I finally finished my 365 Cakes in 365 Days video and uploaded it into Youtube today. If nothing else, please enjoy it for the time being.

PS I haven't stopped baking, I still bake nearly a cake a day. The posts may make a comeback or not in the future. To be seen. In the meantime I would like to wish you all Happy Christmas Time!

Dublin Donuts v. 1.0

Dublin Donuts, version 1.0.

TBC.

Cake #218 - Orange Madeleine Cakes

Easter Monday Treat - Petites Madeleines à l’orange.

Madeleine Cakes have become one of my absolute favourite quick treats. They are effortless but still sophisticated and so tasty. This time I spiced the batter with grated orange zest and fresh orange juice.

Orange Madeleine Cakes (makes 24)

2 eggs
100 ml sugar
150 ml plain flour
3/4 ts baking powder
2 tbsp fresh orange juice
2 tsp grated orange rind
75 g butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 200 C and grease Madeleine moulds.
2. Beat together eggs and sugar.
3. Mix flour with baking powder and add to the egg-sugar mix together with melted butter, orange juice and rind.
4. Fill Madeleine moulds about 3/4 full and bake in 200 C for 8-10 minutes.
5. Remove carefully from moulds and sieve icing sugar on top. Serve fresh

Hot Cross Buns

Traditional Irish Hot Cross Buns.

Recipe is from here and there is a bit of history and tradition explained, too!

Cake #217 - Smoked Salmon Cheesecake

Savoury Easter Feaster - Smoked Salmon Cheesecake.

Smoked Salmon Cheesecake

Base
200 g Finncrisp Original Sour Rye Crisp Bread, ground
100 g butter, melted

Filling
400 g cream cheese
200 g creme fraîche
100 g smoked salmon, finely chopped
1-2 pickled dill cucumbers, finely chopped
lemon pepper, black pepper
6 gelatine leaves
juice of 1 lime
2 egg whites

Garnishing
100 g smoked salmon, lime wedges, fresh dill

1. Mix the breadcrumbs and melted butter together and press firmly on the base of a springform pan covered with baking parchment. Put in the fridge while you make the filling.
2. Soak the gelatine leaves in water for 5 minutes.
3. Mix together cream cheese, creme fraîche, chopped salmon and pickled dill cucumber, and season with pepper to taste.
4. Heat the lime juice together with the gelatine leaves in microwave so that the gelatine leaves melt. Add to the cream cheese mix.
5. Whip the egg whites until stiff and  fold them very gently into the cheese mixture trying to keep it ‘airy’.
6. Pour the filling on the crust and chill in the fridge for at least three hours until firm.
7. Remove the firm cake from the pan very, very carefully on a serving plate and decorate it with smoked salmon strips, dill, lime wedges, red onion...
8. Serve with salad as appetizer or enjoy with your afternoon coffee or even brunch.

Cake #216 - Ferrero Rocher Cake

Sweet Easter Feaster - Ferrero Rocher Cake with Nutella Cream.

Ferrero Rocher Cake with Nutella Cream

Sponge
175g self-raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
150 g butter, melted
150 ml milk
2 tbsp syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C and grease and flour a 22 cm cake pan.
2. Mix together all ingredients and beat well.
3. Pour batter into pan and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

Filling and Garnishing
300 ml fresh cream, whipped
4 tbsp Nutella
1 tsbp sugar

50 g chopped and roasted hazelnuts
Ferrero Rocher Chocolates

To compile
Cut the cool sponge into two halves. Mix together the whipped cream, Nutella and sugar and spread 1/3 on the bottom layer. Place second layer on top. Cover cake with the rest of the Nutella cream. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on sides and place Ferrero Rocher chocolates on top.

To make the Happy Easter sign, melt some dark chocolate and pipe the text with white chocolate.

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.

Cakes #208 and #209 - Buns and Bananas

#208 Dallas Bun Boston Cake* (and some Dallas buns).
#209 Spicy Banana Bundt Cake.

*sweet buns filled with a mixture of quark, syrup and vanilla - and a cake made of the buns. In Finland those buns are called Dallas buns and a cake made of sweet buns (they can be cinnamon buns as well) is called a Boston cake so the sweet bun cake must therefore be called Dallas Bun Boston Cake...

***

Dallas Bun Boston Cake

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

Filling (simply mix all ingredients together)
200 g quark
100 g butter, melted
50 ml dark syrup
100 ml granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
2 tbsp plain flour

1 egg for glazing

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 cake 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. Line a springform pan ( Ø 28 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.
8. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 0,5 cm thick.
9. Spread the filling evenly on the base.
10. Roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut it into slices of about 5 cm / 2" long.
11. Place the slices in the pan, side by side but not too tightly to leave some room to rise.
12. Let the cake rise for about half an hour.
13. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
14. Glaze your cake with egg and bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes.
15. Let the cake cool completely - it is easy to remove the cake from the pan either by removing the sides of the springform or just carefully lifting the baking paper together with the cake.

***

Spicy Banana Bundt Cake

150 g soft butter
200 ml granulated sugar
50 ml soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 soft (overripe) bananas, mashed
100 ml corn flour
400 ml plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bread soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 175 C and grease and flour a 2-litre bundt cake pan.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, bread soda and spices in a bowl.
3. Cream together butter and both sugars.
4. Mix in eggs and vanilla extract.
5. Add the dry ingredients together with the mashed bananas and mix well.
6. Pour into the pan and bake about 1 h in 175 C.
7. Let cool completely before cutting into slices.

Cakes #206 and #207 - Chocolate Feast

Tuesday Chocolate Feast!

#206 White Chocolate Mud Cake with Almond.

#207 Marble Cake.

***

 White Chocolate Mud Cake with Almond

150 g butter
100 g white chocolate
250 ml caster sugar
125 g ground almond
½ tsp baking powder
3 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Melt butter and chocolate together and beat in sugar.
3. Fold in the flour mixed with baking powder and eggs.
4. Pour into cake pan and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes so that the middle of the cake is still a little moist.
5. Let cool in the pan before placing the cake on a serving plate.

***

Marble Cake

300 g butter
400 ml granulated sugar
4 eggs
600 ml plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
150 ml cream

100 g dark chocolate
3 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 175 C and grease and flour  a 2-litre bundt cake pan.
2. Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl.
3. Cream together butter and sugar.
4. Mix in eggs.
5. Add the dry ingredients together and the cream and mix well.
6. Melt the chocolate.
7. Take about 1/3 of the cake mixture and fold in the melted chocolate and sieve in the cocoa powder.
8. Fill the cake pan with the plain and chocolate cake mixtures alternately to get the marble effect. If you want to create a proper marble effect take a skewer and swirl it around the mixture in the pan.
9. Bake the cake 50-60 minutes in the oven and let cool on a rack before removing from the pan.

Cake #205 - Salted Caramel Chocolate Cake

Sunday Treat - Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream.


Salted Caramel Buttercream

250 ml granulated sugar
60 ml water
120 ml cream
175 g butter, cubed
sea salt to taste, I used about ½ teaspoon

1. Mix sugar and water in pan and heat over low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, then allow to come to a boil.
2. In another pan, heat the cream, but do not boil.
3. Cook the sugar syrup until it turns into caramel. Once you are happy with the color of the caramel, take it off the heat and immediately whisk in the hot cream.
4. Add the butter, one cube at a time and whisk until the caramel thickens.
5. Transfer the caramel to a bowl and place in the fridge or freezer to chill.
6. Once chilled, use a mixer to whip up the caramel. Because there's a lot of butter in it, it will double in volume and lighten in color (like buttercream). Fold in sea salt flakes with a rubber spatula.

Chocolate Sponge

175g self-raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp soda
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
150 g butter, melted
150 ml milk
2 tbsp syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C and grease and flour a 22 cm cake pan.
2. Mix together all ingredients and beat well.
3. Pour batter into pan and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
4. Let cool and fill and top with the salted caramel buttercream.
5. Garnish with fresh strawberries or fruit of your choice and grated chocolate.

Cake #204 - Chocolate Madeleines

Saturday Dessert - Chocolate Madeleines.

I am fascinated by these little cakes and the shape of them. They are pretty, they are small - I could easily eat them all...!

Chocolate Madeleines (makes 36)

200 ml plain flour
100 ml unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt
4 large eggs
250 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
175 g butter, melted

1. Sift together flour, cocoa and salt.
2. Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and whisk until thick. Fold in flour, then melted butter.
3. Butter the madeleine pans, then spoon in the batter, filling each about three fourths full.
4. Heat the oven to 200 C.
5. Bake the madeleines for about 7 minutes and turn them immediately from the molds.
6. Enjoy fresh.

Cake #203 - Strawberry and Lemon Cake

Friday Strawberry Dream,
shortbread and sponge cake, filled with home-made lemon curd and Finnish Fazer lemon flavoured white chocolate mixed with whipped cream. Fresh strawberries and lemon meringue sprinkles on top.

A summer cake. Fresh. Colourful. Worth developing a little further. Stay tuned for upgrade to next level...

Cake #202 - Raspberry Mud Cake

Raspberry Mud Cake,
made of Fazer raspberry flavoured dark chocolate.


Raspberry Mud Cake

200 g Fazer Raspberry Dark Chocolate (or dark chocolate and a few drops of raspberry extract)
200 g butter
3 eggs
200 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
250 ml plain flour
125 g fresh raspberries (and more to decorate)

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Melt chocolate and butter.
3. Beat together eggs and sugar.
4. Mix together flour and baking powder and fold into the egg and sugar mix.
5. Fold in chocolate and butter and then carefully the raspberries.
6. Pour into pan and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
7. Let cool before removing from pan.
8. Serve with ice cream and fresh raspberries.

You can find the original recipe in Finnish on the Fazer website.

Cake #201 - Birthday Cake

A small surprise birthday cake with Minecraft theme for a friend of my son's.

***

Sponges are coloured with different shades of blue food colouring. Filling is vanilla buttercream and topping is rolled sugarpaste cut into squares.

Cake #200 - St. Patrick's Day Sandwich Cake

St Patrick's Day Sandwich Cake.

Compiled of slices of white and brown toast, filled with garlic&herbs cheese, pickled dill cucumber and ham, and decorated with spinach, carrot and Tayto's cheese&onion crisps.

Cake #199 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

***Happy St. Patrick's Day!***


The recipe I used is for this Rainbow Cake.  Using food colouring I just created different shades of green for the six layers. The filling and topping is vanilla buttercream and the decorations green and orange sprinkles.

Cakes #197 and #198 - Saturday Treats for the Family

Saturday Treats for the Family.

#197 Raspberry, Blueberry & Yogurt Cake.

#198 Apple & Almond Cake.

Again I was googling for recipes and found what I wanted to match the ingredienst in my pantry / fridge.

You can find the recipe for the Raspberry, Blueberry & Yogurt Cake here. (I used 100 raspberries and 100 g blueberries instead of just raspberries)

The Apple and Almond Cake is made using this recipe by Mary Berry.

Both were very yummy and sophisticated cakes. Even The Husband who is not really a friend of almond essence, liked the Apple and Almond Cake!

Cake #196 - Mississippi Mud Cake

Friday with Mississippi Mud Cake. A family favourite.

Mississippi Mud Cake

200 g butter
100 g dark chocolate
150 ml water
300 ml caster sugar
300 ml plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Melt butter and chocolate together and beat in sugar and water until smooth.
3. Fold in the flour mixed with cocoa powder and slightly beaten eggs.
4. Pour into cake pan and bake in the oven for about 50 minutes so that the middle of the cake is still a little moist.
5. Let cool in the pan before placing the cake on a serving plate.
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Fresh fruit and berries go well with mud cake, too.

Cakes #193, #194 and #195 - Midweek Madness!

Midweek Madness!

#193 Chocolate Temptation with White Chocolate Buttercream and White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate

#194 Raspberry&Vanilla Boston Cake

#195 Carrot Cake with Mascarpone Icing


Chocolate Temptation with White Chocolate Buttercream and White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate

Base
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp soda
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
150 ml sunflower oil
150 ml milk
2 tbsp syrup

1. Mix together all ingredients for base and beat well. 
2. Divide the batter into four bowls and into first batch add 1 tsp cocoa powder and mix well. Into second batch add 2 tsp cocoa powder and mix well and into third batch 3 tsp cocoa powder and mix well. Leave the fourth batch as it is.
3. Grease and flour four 20 cm cake pans and preheat the oven to 200C.
4. Bake bases in the oven for about 15 minutes and cool before removing from pans.

Filling
100 g white chocolate
100 g butter
300 g icing sugar

Melt together chocolate and butter and sieve in icing sugar carefully and mix well. Add more icing sugar if needed to get a good consistency.

To compile and decorate
spread icing on each cake layer. Pipe melted white, milk and dark chocolate on top and sides if you wish. Let cake set for an hour before serving.

***

Raspberry&Vanilla Boston Cake

Dough
See my Boston Cake recipe here. Follow the recipe carefully but instead of filling the cake with cinnamon and butter, spread vanilla creme and raspberries on the rolled base.

Filling

Vanilla Creme

400 ml milk

3 tbsp sugar

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp corn flour

3 tsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix all ingredients together except vanilla in a saucepan.

2. Heat over medium heat until the mixture thickens but does not boil.

3. Let cool down and add vanilla sugar/extract.

200 g raspberries (fresh or defrosted from frozen)

***

Carrot Cake with Mascarpone Icing

The recipe for this delicious cake is by Mary Berry, you can find it here. To decorate the cake, I shaped some fruit-looking-things of sugar paste.

Cake #192 - Apple, Halva & Yogurt Cake

Monday Own Recipe - Apple Cake with Greek Yogurt and Pistachio Halva.

Apple Cake with Greek Yogurt and Pistachio Halva

Base
100 g soft butter
100 ml granulated sugar
1 egg
250 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Filling
3 medium-sized apples, sliced
100 g pistachio halva, crumbed
250 g Greek yogurt
2 eggs
50 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Beat together butter and sugar.
3. Add egg and mix well, then add flour together with baking powder.
4. Spread batter on the bottom and the sides of the cake pan.
5. Place sliced apples on base.
6. Mix together all ingredients for filling and pour on top of apples.
7. Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes.
8. Let cool before removing from pan.

Sugar Donuts

Saturday Night Sugar Donuts.

Can you eat one without licking sugar off your lips until you are finished...?

Sugar Donuts  (makes about 30)

5 dl lukewarm milk
50 g fresh yeast (or 2 bags / 15 g fast action dry yeast)
100 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
150 g melted butter
about 1 kg plain flour

2 litres oil for deep frying
sugar for coating

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 so the donuts will be fluffier.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Divide the dough into 25-30 little balls.
8. To get ring donuts, make a hole in the middle of each ball by stretching the sides
9. Leave the rings to raise for about half an hour.
10. Heat oil in a thick pan (unless you have a deep-fryer) until it is 170-180 C. (I do not have a thermometer so I just check the temperature with a piece of toast - when it takes about a minute for the bread to become golden brown, the temperature is fine).
11. Deep-fry your donuts in oil about 2-3 minutes per side and put on plate covered with kitchen tissue so any extra oil will come off.
12. When the donuts have cooled down, dip them in sugar so that they become fully coated. I usually put sugar in a paper bag (an empty flour bag works great - I always save them for this purpose), then put two or three donuts in the bag together with the sugar and shake well.
13. If you do not eat your donuts the same day, do not coat them with sugar but freeze them right away and coat only after defrosting.

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.