Cake #53 - Blueberry Raspberry Almond and Cake

Monday Mood Cake - Blueberry Raspberry Almond Cake with Orange Syrup. 

Colours and vitamins for dullness and lack of energy.

I am grateful for the work projects I am asked for every now and then, and I am grateful for them being very short-term ones. I am grateful for not working permanently and full-time as with this family I have my hands full 24/7. And I am not even talking about my cakes and cats yet. 

I have 8 years of working experience as a project manager in a multi-project environment, leading project teams with 5-50 people. I used to be good at both time management and risk management. 

So I should have known better. 

What comes around, goes around. Due to the latest work project, I am here now, catching up with all outstanding stories and recipes for this blog with a dull mind and no energy. 

My resource management skills have never been good. Especially weak they are now that I am both the baker and the writer. The baker has been successful, the writer has got lost.

But. I am calling my inner poet in a minute, and I believe she will appear any time soon. In the meantime I will bake another cake. To be put in the queue. 

If the all the cakes in the queue for the blog had not been eaten yet they would sure be blaming me for poor project management. Fair play.

Click here for recipe for Blueberry Raspberry Almond Cake. I followed the recipe with the exception that I used 125 g blueberries and 125 g raspberries on top.

Cake #52 - Cloudberry and Cream Cake

Sunday Traditional Cake - Cloudberry and Cream Cake.

Cloudberry is one of the yummiest berries I know. They taste kind of  earthy but very sophisticated at the same time. Cloudberry is rare and therefore the berries are very expensive. In Finland fresh cloudberries would cost about 25 €/kg at a market. Even jams are dear; this jar I bought in Finland in the summer is one of the affordable brands and still it was about 5€ for 400g (of which berries 35%).

I had the idea that cloudberries grow only in the Nordic countries and Northern America so I was surprised to read that there are cloudberries in Northern Ireland, too. Well, that is north. 

Fresh cloudberries may not be that easy to find, but besides jam there is cloudberry liqueur, cloudberry cider, cloudberry sweets, cloudberry suryp and even Lumene cosmetics where cloudberries have been used. Just google cloudberry products and see where you could get a taste of it. It is worth to pay a little extra.

Not sure if I would exactly taste this one, though:

Cloudberry and Cream Cake

4 large eggs
200 ml granulated sugar
300 ml self-raising flour
100 g butter, melted
50 ml cream

400 g cloudberry jam (or fresh cloudberries)
500 ml fresh cream, whipped

1. Preheat oven to 175C / 350F and grease and flour a Ø 23 cm cake pan.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.

3. Fold in flour together with melted butter.

4. Pour into pan and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

5. Let cool completely before filling and decorating.

6. Slice the cool cake into three layers.

7. Mix a tablespoon of cloudberry jam with 200 ml of water and moist the layers.

8. Spread some jam and whipped cream on each layer.

9. On the top layer spread jam and then pipe the sides of the cake with whipped cream.

10. Let set in the fridge an hour or two before serving.

Cake #51 - Gorgonzola Gingerbread Cake

Savoury Saturday Cake - Gorgonzola Gingerbread Cake.

The combination of blue cheese and gingerbread may sound unusual and weird but there is true harmony in that. In Finland, especially around Christmas time, gingerbread cookies topped with Aura blue cheese is a usual canape served together with Glögg (Nordic mulled wine).

Unfortunately, in Ireland you cannot get Aura cheese anywhere (of Irish cheese Cashel Blue is the best!) but you can get the Nordic type non-alcoholic Glögg in Ikea. - Is it the season yet? Better be as I really should visit Ikea next week for some bakeware. 

By baking this cake I wanted to take a step towards Christmas. Only 66 days to go!!

Gorzonzola Gingerbread Cake

150 g soft butter

50 ml soft brown sugar

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

400 ml plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground nutmeg

50 ml milk

200 g Gorgonzola cheese, crumbed

1. Heat the oven to 175 C / 350 F and grease and flour a 1 kg / 2 lbs loaf 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 Gorgonzola crumbs on the base and pour the rest of the dough evenly into the pan so that it covers the cheese.

9. Bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes.

10. Let cool before removing from pan.

11. Enjoy with Glögg, coffee or tea.

Cake #50 - Apple and Chocolate Cake

Friends First Friday Cake - Apple and Chocolate Cake.

That Friday I just wanted to make my baking simple to enjoy some time with my daughter - watching a movie on the sofa and having some coffee and cake, to be precise. I admit making it simple is not always easy for me, especially what comes to baking and cooking so I did need to psych myself a little.

The best things in life are simple. No.

Enjoy the simple things. No. No. 

Yes, everything is simple. It's people who complicate things. A bit better.

Make it simple and go and have a shower. Yes!

So I baked a simple apple cake and then went to have a shower. While in the shower, my daughter who thought a simple apple cake is just not good enough, had in style decorated the cake with chocolate and sprinkles. Such a sweetheart with a sweet tooth she is. 

Apple and Chocolate Cake

200 g butter
250 ml granulated sugar
3 eggs
400 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 ml cream
2 cooking apples, finely chopped

Melted white and milk chocolate to decorate.

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350 F) and grease and flour (I use dried breadcrumbs) a 2-litre 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 with the cream and mix well.
6. Fold in the chopped apples.

8. Pour the dough into the pan.
9. Bake the cake in the oven for 35-40 minutes and let cool on a rack before removing from the pan.

Cake #49 - The Paw II

Thursday Cat Theme Cake - The Paw II.

When I baked The Paw I wrote: The kitten's way to the house is through the man's stomach.  

How right I was. The first paw was not quite enough but this second one must have left a pawprint on The Husband's heart as we have now an adorable kitten in the house. She has black paws and a black nose, too - to go with the black-hearted husband.

I used my Tiger Cake recipe to bake this cake except I used 2 tbsp of licorice powder and 2 tsp of black food colouring instead of cocoa powder.

I may not bake another paw cake for a while as The Paw has always a reason, you know.

Cake #48 - Apple Crumble Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Apple Crumble Cake.

Big, green and sour Irish cooking apples and black and sticky vanilla pods make the perfect taste combination for an autumny and rainy day cake. 

When I think about Irish desserts, Apple Crumble is the one to come into my mind first. When I think about Irish weather, rain is to come into my mind first. When I think about Apple crumble and rain, I remember a very rainy autumn some years ago when my older daughter had just started first year in secondary school and in home economics class the first thing they cooked was Apple Crumble. And then she used to make Apple Crumble daily, weekly... very often! Too often, maybe?

One very rainy day a little while ago I realised nobody in the house had made Apple Crumble for ages. That older daughter of mine has finished her school and is busy with other things than cooking and baking, but there is hope next year when my younger daughter goes to secondary school and absolutely wants to take home economics as one of her optional subjects. I bet the first thing they will make is Apple Crumble!

In the meantime I will keep baking this absolutely yummy Apple Crumble Cake. - You can find the recipe for the cake here.

Cake #47 - Crowned

Tuesday Humour Cake -  Crowned.

On Tuesday afternoon I spent an hour and a half at the dentist's to get my root canal treatment finalised and a new crown put on the tooth. Unlike this crowning cake I baked, my dentist's creation in my mouth looks great. But he is a professional, duh.

My cake is very simple and humble indeed. I did not sprinkle any golden dust on it, nor did I dance on rose petals in my kitchen while baking it. No cannons were fired, no trumpet fanfares played. Not that I would not have deserved all that! I did buy myself two flower bouquets, duh.  

Only because I had earlier been requested for a crowning ceremony cake I felt obliged to bake one. Skip the ceremony but bake the cake, duh. And I decided to bake an effortless soft cake which I would not have to chew much with an aching jaw. So I made this simple sponge, cut it in half, filled it with bananas, strawberries and whipped cream, and topped it with whipped cream. No recipe, duh.

Soft and effortless to eat. And I even felt a sudden urge to sing:

"I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world

Tooth in plastic, it's fantastic!"