Cake #7 - Puss Roll

Cats, cats, cats..! On Thursdays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge I will bake cat-themed cakes. It is not the meaning that the cakes necessarily look like cats as long as they can easily be associated with cats - my cats, famous cats or cats in general - felidae and felis domesticus. 

For my first Thursday cat cake I wanted to make a 'curly-haired copper cat' by experimenting with caramelised sugar. Sometimes a homebaker like me may be busy with other things simultaneously - like getting everything ready for the kids who would be going back to school after the summer holidays the following morning. So I was still up at 1 am trying to finish the cake while checking that the kids' schoolbags were in order. Burning Caramelising sugar in the middle of the night may not be the smartest idea but I did manage to do it great. Or at least fine. Or satisfacto...really. No curls,  but pretty and sharp copper-coloured 'sticks' for the cat's hair and a larger piece of 'lava' for the perfect tail! But the curls will come one day, I promise, and I am dedicated, too, as I am now watching some videos and eventually learning how. Stay tuned!

Puss Roll Swiss Roll

4 eggs

2 dl / 3/4 cup sugar

1,5 dl / ½ cup plain flour
2 tbsp potato or corn flour
3 tbsp dark cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 225C and line an oven tray with baking paper.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and airy.

3. Mix flours, cocoa and baking powder and add to the egg-sugar mix.

4. Spoon evenly on the baking tray and bake for about 15 minutes. Let cool.

Filling

1,5 dl / ½ cup Nutella

3 dl / 1 1/4 cups whipped cream 

Topping

5 dl / 2 cups whipped cream with a drop of yellow food colouring

5 dl / 2 cups sugar, caramelised on a pan on low heat until brown and sticky

After the base has cooled, cut the edges to make the sides even.

After spreading Nutella and whipped cream, make a tight roll.

Take spoonfuls of the caramelised sugar very slowly from the pan to create 'yarn' or 'sticks' and a solid larger spoonful for the tail.

I also made the cat's eyes, nose and mouth of the sugar when it was not too sticky yet.

Cake #6 - Banana Loaf with Oats

My Wednesday cakes during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge will be Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cakes. Not that I wouldn't use natural ingredients as much as possible in my baking already but I will try to create cakes which are even more 'natural' and taste and look good, too, without too much sugar, for example, and especially without artificial flavourings. I have to say I am blessed to have a family with no diet restrictions at all (except the odd 'mental allergies' aka dislikes) and I do not need to take any of that into account in my baking so in my case 'healthy' does not necessarily mean a special diet. 

Personally, my most favourite natural ingredients are fresh berries and, to be honest, I would love to use more berries in my baking but very often the cost limits my choices. (no garden, unfortunately!) Red currants look gorgeous on a cheesecake and they taste gorgeous with a cheesecake but 4€ for a box of 125 g is a bit too much, especially when 125 g is way too little for one cheesecake. Whenever I get red currants (or any of those more expensive berries - let's say sea buckthorns) for a reduced price I do buy them and happily use them - a lot! Plenty of vitamin C and plenty of colour therapy!

This Banana Loaf I baked for my first Natural Ingredient Cake may not count as colour therapy (that's why I have the yellow bananas in the background of the picture because a brown loaf on a brown table looked just... brown!) but for energy boost it definitely does. [ I just had a piece and now I am ready to take my son to the shops to buy him school shoes - he hates shopping] Excellent for brunch, tastes yummy with some butter after toasted...

Use the same recipe and bake as muffins (200C for 15 minutes) which go well in the kids' lunchboxes, too!

Banana Loaf with Oats

300 g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

100 g light brown sugar
3 overripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
100 ml milk
100 g butter, melted

Oats and banana chips

1. Grease a 2 lbs loaf pan and coat it with oats.
2. Preheat oven to 175C / 350F.
3. Mix all dry ingredients together.
4. In another bowl mix together mashed banana (leave a bit lumpy), milk, eggs and melted butter and fold into the dry ingredients trying not to mix to much.
5. Spoon dough into pan.
6. Sprinkle some oats and banana chips on top and bake in the oven for about 35-45 minutes.

7. Let cool before moving from pan and cutting into slices.

Cake #5 - Tribute to Simon

On Tuesday morning I had no clue what my first Humour Cake would be but I strongly believed the idea would pop into my head during the day one way or another. And it did. I was browsing the news and read a piece of gossip regarding the new X Factor UK series 11 which starts this week, and it said Simon Cowell is back judging there. (Yay!) Then I found myself thinking whether or not I should replace my Gary Barlow calendar (hanging on the wall of our downstairs toilet) with a Simon Cowell one and then I finally remembered something from this year's Britain's Got Talent which gave me the idea for this cake... 

(jump to 2:20 if you don't want to watch the whole show)

The cake itself is nothing extraordinary so there is no point giving a detailed recipe. It is a basic sponge filled with raspberry jam and vanilla creme (all home-made, though!). The first layer of topping is made of mixture of white chocolate and melted butter with some icing sugar in it and a drop of red food colouring. The rest is plain icing, parts of which I coloured with black and red food colourings. 

Oh, and then there's chocolate. Curled from a block of dark chocolate with a cheese slicer. The Husband who is a chocolate lover did not want to eat the chocolate-covered parts of the cake. Maybe he does not like his chocolate curled??? 

One Humour, Please!

On Tuesdays The Cat Hairy Baker turns into a Humourist.

The day looks grey, windy and rainy so... one humour, please!

Cake #4 - Lemon Curd & Yogurt Loaf

On Mondays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge I will be baking a Monday Mood Cake. Simply (not that simple...), I pick a mood and turn it into a cake. The mood can then be (hopefully) seen and recognised from the looks of the cake - or it can be tasted. 

To be honest, for the first Monday Mood Cake I took the easy way out. Sour as I am by nature and a proud member of a ladies's club called Club Lemon, a lemony cake was the obvious choice. I was so expecting life to give me the lemons I needed for the cake but as that did not happen (typical!) I had to walk to the shop in rain and wind and buy the lemons myself! That really got me into the perfect mood for something sour...

Lemon Curd and Yogurt Loaf

200 g butter

200 g granulated sugar

3 eggs

200 g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 dl / ½ cup (Greek) yogurt

1 dl / ½ cup lemon curd

Garnishing

Icing sugar, mint leaves, grated zest of lemon, slices of lemon...

To be served with

Lemon curd and (Greek) yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 F) and grease and flour (I use dried breadcrumbs) a 2 lbs loaf 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 with the yogurt and mix well.

6. Add the lemon curd using a small spoon, one spoonful at a time mixing just a little so that there will be lumps of lemon curd in the dough.
6. Pour the dough into the pan and bake for about 45 minutes.

7. Let the cake cool completely before garnishing it.

8. Enjoy with lemon curd and yogurt!

Cat and Hidden Cat

Cake #3 - Boston Cake - Traditional Finnish Cinnamon Bun Cake

My theme for Sundays during my 365 Cakes / 365 Days challenge is classic or traditional cakes. Those cakes may be known world-wide or just locally somewhere. I will definitely make all true classics but I am also willing to try something new and extraordinary as long as I am able to get all ingredients needed and they are reasonably priced - no beluga caviar -topped cheesecakes expected (if such a cake happens to be traditional somewhere)! The cakes may be fancy or they may simple. They may be tied to the season like traditional cakes often are, for example, harvesting - or there may be religious symbolism with them, for example, Ramadan or Greek Goddesses. 

For my first Sunday cake I chose Boston Cake, a traditional Finnish Cinnamon Bun Cake the taste of  which is something very traditional and homey for me. Even as a child I used to bake lots of pulla - sometimes 100 cinnamon buns during one baking 'session'. What comes to Boston Cake, I have no clue where the name comes from - I tried to google it but gave up after an hour as I really didn't find any relevant information. Boston Cake seems to have appeared in the Finnish coffee tables after the war, in 1950's and the fillings can vary -  it may be jam, for example - but the most traditional one is this one with cinnamon-sugar-butter -filling. I decorated my cake with icing - more traditional would have been chopped almonds or simply pearl sugar. The latter I have never seen in the Irish supermarkets - have you?

Boston Cake

3 dl / 1 1/4 cup lukewarm milk

25 g fresh yeast (or 1 bag / 7 g fast action dried yeast)

0,5 dl / 1/4 cup sugar

½ tsp ground cardamom

1 egg

100 g melted butter

about 9-10 dl / 4 cups plain flour

Filling

100 g butter

2 tbsp cinnamon

1 dl / 1/3 cup sugar

Glazing

1 egg

Icing

1,5 dl / ½ cup icing sugar

1 tbsp water

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/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 / 1/4" thick.
9. Spread the butter on top and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

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 200C / 390F.
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.
16. Drizzle or pipe the icing on top of your cake and enjoy fresh (or freeze on the day of baking).

Pull out one bun at a time....

...or cut into wedges.  -There are no right or wrong ways to eat the cake!