Cake #27 - Pear and Oatmeal Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Pear and Oatmeal Cake.

I got a 1 kg bag of pears for 49 cents. Gotta love these offers:  Aldi "Super 6" and similar promotions in Dunnes Stores and Tesco. And now even in my local Londis they have (bags of) fruit and veggies for 49 or 69 cents. With these prices we never run out of vitamins! Plenty of carrots to be put in the sons' lunchboxes, bags of spinach and kale for smoothies to be made by the daughters, apples to take to the teachers and potatoes for the rainy day.

Apples and oats go well together so why not combine pears and oats to make a cake. This time I simply googled for a recipe and found this Pear Oatmeal Cake from The Australian Women's Weekly website. I followed the recipe with a few exceptions:

- I used 4 fresh pears instead of canned ones.

- As I did not have syrup from canned pears I added 100 ml of apple juice to the dough. I did not heat the juice with the oats but added the oats simply together with the flour and soda.

- Also, I only used white self-raising flour.

And it worked great! This is definitely one of the tastiest cakes I have made during the past month. The ginger makes it sophisticated in a way and pouring some dark baking syrup on top just before serving gave the cake some extra moist. Maybe it would have been more moist with the canned pears - but, again, why to use canned fruit when you have fresh ones.

When I had got the cake fresh from the oven and poured some syrup on top I suddenly smelled a wet dog in my kitchen. Now that I finally got used to the smell of my herb pots and have stopped blaming the cats, another pet episode comes up? - We do not have a dog but there is one or two daughters in the family who would love to have a dog. So it was time to get suspicious again. Any little wet dogs smuggled into the house? Wardrobes, check. Toilets, check... No barking, it was my healthy cake and the combination of its earthy aromas this time... 

Cake #26 - Haggis

Tuesday Humour Cake - Haggis.



On the eve of the Scottish independence referendum I am sitting at my dining room table in Ireland and enjoying a piece of Haggis. Which is actually this ugly cake I made of sweet bun dough, Nutella and nuts. 

I have enjoyed real Haggis in Edinburgh some years ago and it was delicious. At a restaurant on the Royal Mile the Haggis, together with neeps and tatties - turnip and potato - was neatly put on my plate and probably had never been even close to a sheep's stomach. A tourist version, clearly, but still delicious.

Whatever the voting result in Scotland is, something will change in the United Kingdom as a nation and in people's minds. Chain reactions expected? Will Northern Ireland be the next?

I am not taking sides in this but I can easily visualise a map in my mind. On that map the independent Scotland has cast off the rest of Britain and is floating on the Atlantic Ocean. The winds will then decide where it will end up...

Haggis Cake

300 ml lukewarm milk

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

100 ml sugar

½ tsp salt

1 egg

100 g melted butter

about 800 ml plain flour

200 g Nutella

100 g chopped nuts

1 egg

1 egg for glazing

(silver food colouring)

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.

2. Add sugar,salt 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. Preheat the oven to 200C / 390F.
8. Mix together Nutella, nuts and egg.
9. Roll dough into an oval shape, about 10 mm thick.
10. Spread the Nutella filling in the middle.
11. Roll the cake carefully into a sausage shape and make "knots" in boths ends.
12. Let the cake rise for about half an hour.
13. When risen, cut a hole in the middle of the cake so that part of the filling can be seen.
14. Glaze the "Haggis" with egg and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
15. When cooled down, brush the "knots" with silver food colouring.
16. Listen to bagpipe music and have a slice of Haggis with your Scottish Blend (tea, that is)!

My Haggis Cake turned up too flat. I expected it to rise more in the oven but it didn't. The shape should have been more like a ball than a flat tyre. (Maybe somebody ate all the delicious liver and other intestines when I was not watching and that is why I got such a flat Haggis?) 

- Flat or not, I do recommend this recipe, especially if you are a Nutella fan! Just leave out the Scottish flag.

Cake #25 - Battenberg Cake

Monday Mood Cake - "Girly" Battenberg Cake.

After a nice weekend with a friend, girl friend, I still felt girly on Monday. Seeing and touching numerous princess dresses in numerous shops (like in the Disney Store in Dublin where my friend looked for a dress for her 5-year-old daughter) made me feel a little sad, too (in a good way, though - you know what I mean), because my younger princess just turned 12 and has a good while been interested in teenage stuff rather than princess dresses. At her age I still played with my Barbies.

Inside we can still be princesses. As long as we like. And what the best, we can always bake and eat as many pink and glittery cakes as we like. Even when I am in an old folks home I would love to eat pink cake - mashed, maybe, but still pink and glittery. 

Darn, now that I write this, I remember recently buying some edible gold dust and I could have sprinkled some on this cake! Better save it in case they run out of glitter in the old folks home as the golden olden years may come sooner than I ever can imagine.

Battenberg Cake

250 g butter

300 ml granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

3 eggs

500 ml plain flour

1,5 tsp baking powder

100 ml cream

1 tsp red food colouring

Raspberry jam

300 ml icing sugar + 2 tbps water

Red food colouring (or red and blue to make the icing purple)

Marshmallows, sprinkles, gold and silver pearls, gold dust...

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 F) and grease and flour (I use dried and ground breadcrumbs) two loaf pans.

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.

6. Divide the dough in half and colour the other half with red food colouring to make it pink.

7. Pour the dough into the loaf pans.

8. Bake in the oven for 35-30 minutes until solid in the middle.

9. Let cool completely on a rack.

10. Remove the loafs from the pans and cut off the crust except leave on the ones to be the bottom of the cake.
11. Cut the loafs into long rectangles of equal size. I was able to get 9 to make it a 3 x 3 cake.
12. Take 2 tbsp of raspberry jam, add 2 tbsp of water and heat up in the microwave for 30 seconds or so, then mix well. This will be the "glue".
13. "Glue" together your rectangles and press the cake gently but firmly on each side to make the parts stick together.
14. Mix the icing of icing sugar, water and food colouring and spread evenly on the cake.
15. Garnish with "girly stuff" and enjoy in a girly company wearing a crown! (a Burger King one will suit fine)

Cake #24 - Victoria Sandwich

Sunday Classic Cake - Victoria Sandwich.

I walk on the beach. I can feel that the summer is gone but the wind is not harsh yet. It is gentle. Like the sand I walk on. All sounds are gentle, too. A distant dog barking. A child playing with water. The soft and gentle wind on my hair. I can smell the sea and I can hear it, too. The sea is saying me something. I walk closer to hear.. and I hear the sea saying me gently:

- It is time to go home. Go home. Go home and bake a cake...cake...cake....

In the village, before going home, I go to the little flower market to see if they have any raspberries. None. But they have fresh strawberries. Tiny and so sweet. Perfect shape, each and every strawberry in the box I buy. I pay and say thank you, and when I am at the gate I turn around and say to the man at the market:

- It is time to go home. Go home. Go home and bake a cake...cake...cake....

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

400 g fresh strawberries

300 ml fresh cream

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

icing sugar

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 F) and grease and flour (I use dried and ground breadcrumbs) 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 35-30 minutes until solid in the middle.

8. Let cool completely on a rack.

9. Whip the cream together with sugars.

10. Cut the sponge in half.

11. Spread half of the whipped cream on the bottom layer, then place the strawberries on the cream and on top of the strawberries the rest of the cream.

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

13. Finally, sift icing sugar on top.

14. Stay home and eat the cake, cake, cake...

Cake #23 - Brie and Thyme Cake

Savoury Saturday Cake - Brie and Thyme Cake.

I had recently bought a few pots of herbs - parsley, basil, thyme and coriander. The smell of them now fill my kitchen and, unfortunately, not always in a good way. For some reason placing a pot of thyme beside a pot of basil has created an odour similar to cat pee and as we do have two cats I may have blamed the poor felines once or twice - although they are two responsible and mature adult cats who never pee in places where they should not. At least I believe so. Or want to believe so.

Now I wanted to use the thyme for something. My sons see red when they see green. Not that they would be colour-blind but they just hate fresh herbs. So no lamb stew with thyme,  too obvious. Pizza with thyme? No. 

Then I got the idea of hiding some thyme inside a cake together with some junks of Brie cheese. I combined some basic recipes and managed to create a savoury sweetish cake which I will definitely bake again some time! Yummy in everybody's tummy.

You can enjoy it with slices of parma ham and olives to get the savoury taste come through. Or you can enjoy it with some apple sauce or black cherry jam to jump to the sweeter side. 

Brie and Thyme Cake

150 g soft butter

100 ml demerara sugar

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

400 ml plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

50 ml milk

250 g Brie cheese, sliced 

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped

1. Heat the oven to 175 C / 350 F and grease and flour a Ø 24 cm springform 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 milk.

6. Pour half of the mixture into the pan. 

7. Place the Brie slices on the dough, add honey drop by drop and then sprinkle the chopped thyme.

8. Pour the rest of the dough evenly into the pan so that it covers the cheese slices.

9. Bake in the oven for about 40-45 minutes.

10. Let cool before removing from pan.

11. Serve with meats and olives as a savoury snack or with jam as a sweet one. We enjoyed the cake for brunch.

Cake #22 - Banoffee

Friends First Friday Cake - Banoffee.

This week's Friends First Friday Cake I made for my Finnish friend Ella who came to visit for the weekend. Lots of girltime - shopping in Dublin, walks on the beach, talks on the sofa...

My sincere apologies for not updating this blog for two days.

So, besides not posting anything here, I tried to plan my weekend cakes quick but tasty. Friends First Friday Cake was to be served as dessert on Friday evening so I made a more dessert-like one - Banoffee, that is. No baking and, yes, it is cheating to use a can of caramel sauce instead of cooking the sauce yourself... Earlier that day I had baked 26 donuts and for a moment I thought I would call the neat pile of them a cake but that sure would have been cheating!

Banoffee

200 g Digestive Cookies, crumbed
100 g butter, melted
can of caramel sauce
3-4 bananas
300 ml  fresh cream
50 g milk chocolate

1. Mix the digestive cookie crumbs and melted butter.  Press the mixture straight on the serving plate, using a springform pan as the frame.
2. Spread the caramel sauce on top of the base.
3. Slice the bananas and place on the cake.
4. Whip the cream and spread to cover the bananas.
5. Last, grate the chocolate and garnish the cake with it.
6. Remove the springform pan frame around the cake and serve immediately. Do not refrigerate more than a couple of hours as the bananas start turning black very quickly.

Cake #21 - Hidden Cat & Mouse Cake

Thursday Cat Theme Cake - Hidden Cat & Mouse Cake.

- How can you fit a cat and a mouse in da gaff? 
- No way - the cat will eat the mouse. 

- How can you fit a cat and a mouse in da cake?
- Very well, and then you can eat it all!

I have earlier 'revelead' how I made my Hidden Cat Cake and with this cake I used exactly the same recipe. Now I only wanted to make two hidden creatures inside the cake so I divided the first dough in half to get two different colours. The dough for the mouse I coloured with 1 tbsp of licorice powder (I bought it in Finland in the summer) and the cat dough with 2 tbsp of cocoa powder. To bake, I divided the cake pan in half with a piece of foil and it worked great!

Not only is the cake about cats and mice but also about the licorice people and the chocolate people. There are so many people who do not like licorice - and I am not even going as 'extreme' as salty licorice!! - but have I ever heard of anyone who would not like chocolate? I do not think so...

Now, with this cake, I was able to please both the licorice people and the chocolate people. I did not cut my slice in half, though. Best of both worlds!