Cake #103 - Confused Santa

Tuesday Humour Cake - Confused Santa.

I am not a great fan of cake pans with a specific shape like this Santa as I find them quite limiting - a Santa is a Santa is a Santa - but when I saw this pan at TK Maxx and it was only 5.99€ (and I do not have any Christmassy cake pans) I thought I would buy it and see if it is of any use. More than once, that is.

And I did come up with something at least.

Like all dull people know there is no one and only Santa in the world so I get the freedom to dress the Santa different ways - like wearing boxer shorts with pink hearts. Be aware - you never know where the inspiration for the next Santa cake will come from. 

Oh, if you happen to wonder where the inspiration for this Santa came from, it is just imagination. It is.

Cake #102 - Lime and Poppy Seed Cake

Monday Mood Cake - Lime and Poppy Seed Cake.

Poppy seeds reflect the dozens (hundreds and thousands) things I want and plan to do by Christmas. Better not even try to count them. Just take reasonable-sized bites one at a time and remember there is only one Lime.

This turned out a very refreshing cake indeed! Effortless recipe and affordable ingredients, especially when you buy (bulk) poppy seeds in oriental shops and avoid over-prized top-brand ones. 

You can find the recipe for this cake here. I used limes instead of lemons.

Cake #101 - Spicy Advent Cake

Sunday Traditional Cake - Spicy Advent Cake aka Revamped Spicy Christmas Cake.

With this cake I am again back to my favourite warm spices - ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and cloves. 

Traditionally this cake is baked in a bundt cake pan and served plain, but this time I have made it round and decorated it with Physalis peruviana - which I have always found a fascinating fruit. It is beautiful and it is versatile as it goes well with both sweet and savoury cakes and dishes.

I find the various names for the fruit and etymology behind the names fascinating, too. Physalis, Cape gooseberry, goldenberry and ground cherry are the ones I had heard before. But there is more. In Finnish the fruit, for some reason, is very often called and sold as Ananaskirsikka which translates to Pineapple Cherry. The fruit has definitely nothing to do with pineapples (well, as much as pineapples have with pines and apples, I guess) but I can easily refer to cases where people have found the taste similar to pineapple.

As a non-native English speaker I sometimes end up in funny situations if I do not know some term in English and then I hastily try to translate something from Finnish - or try to use other languages I know as a source. Or even when I know but I just cannot get it. Like simply trying to find the logic why grape and grapefruit mean two totally different things. Grapes are berries but then they are defined to be fruit, too. Could not either of them just be renamed to avoid confusion? Not that I would ever have tried to make a glass of juice by juicing just one grape, or decorate a cake with 40 grapefruits. But there is always a risk those things could happen!

Spicy Advent Cake

Sponge
3 eggs
150 ml granulated sugar
150 ml (dark) syrup
150 g butter, melted
450 ml plain flour
1,5 tsp bread soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cardamom
150 ml fresh cream

1. Preheat oven to 175C / 350F and grease and flour a Ø 20 cm cake pan.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.

3. Fold in flour, spices and bread soda together with melted butter, syrup and cream.

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

5. Let the sponge cool a little before removing from pan.

6. Spread icing on top and decorate with physalis (or other decorations of your choice).

Icing

150 g cream cheese
100 g soft butter
300 g icing sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Beat all ingredients together but do not over mix as the icing will get too runny. (should this happen, add more icing sugar and place in fridge to set for an hour before spreading on cake)

Cake #100 - Sandwich Cake

Savoury Saturday Cake - Scandinavian Style Sandwich Cake with Smoked Salmon and Prawns.

Cake #100. Already. How time flies when you enjoy what you do.

I have never had a project plan for any of my 365 Cakes / 365 Days cakes. Thoughts and ideas, yes, but each and every cake have developed in my head usually during the very day I have made them. Sometimes it has been an ingredient I have based my choice of cake on, sometimes it has been a more or less brilliant idea or inspiration - or just pure perspiration. 

And I am letting the fun continue like this. During this cold season I do not even expect much perspiration.

***

A sandwich cake is a very Finnish (or Scandinavian) thing. At least it used to be. No party is / used to be a good party without a pompous sandwich cake - whether it is a fishy one or a meaty one.

Making a sandwich cake is not really baking (unless you bake the bread yourself) so unfortunately I do not have a recipe for this as such. I just compiled the cake of slices of toast (both white and brown, crust removed), spread cream cheese mixed with chopped pickled cucumber and smoked salmon on the bread, piled the slices into the shape of a cake, and then topped it with cream cheese. After all, it is mainly about the decorations which on this cake were smoked salmon, prawns, cherry tomatoes and fresh dill. I could have used ham instead of salmon and prawns. I could have used olives and liver pate in the filling. It is important, though, that the filling is at least a little moist.

What comes to a sandwich cake, all choices are yours. Just do not think it is complicated - it is like making your favourite sandwich triple-sized and decorating it festively.

Cake #99 - Rainbow

Rainbow Cake to celebrate the Finnish Parliament approving same-sex marriage on Friday, 28th November, 2014, as the 20th country in the world.

Hurray!

The recipe for this cake is from here.

Cake #98 - Irish Winter Cats

Thursday Cat Theme Cake - Irish Winter Cats.

Gingerbread Cheesecake with Shortbread Cookies Covered with Milk Chocolate.

I love mixing together ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger and cloves, and spicing cakes with that combination which is warm, earthy, cosy, welcoming and Christmassy, too.

My younger daughter loves mixing together cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom pods, fresh ginger, bay leaves and orange slices to cook a lovely fragranced simmering pot for Christmas. She pours the liquid into beautiful little jars which she places all around the house for us to enjoy the fragrance and for the cats to knock over.

So on lazy days and busy days, on good days and bad days, on sunny days and grey days - let there always be spices to taste and to smell as it brings harmony and warmth. Just remember to hold your cats tight. Your ginger coloured cat may not want to smell like ginger, too.

The recipe for the shortbread pastry is from here. As you can see above, the first cookies kind of expanded so I had to add some more flour to get the right consistency. The proper final cookies I covered with milk chocolate before sticking them onto the cake.

Note to self: Always bake a test cookie in the oven before making and baking a larger batch! There are differences between plain flour A (used in the original recipe) and plain flour B (you are using) no matter how carefully you weigh and measure your ingredients. Ovens are different, too.

Irish Winter Cats
Gingerbread Cheesecake with Shortbread Cookies Covered with Milk Chocolate.

Base
2 large eggs
100 ml granulated sugar
150 ml self-raising flour
50 g butter, melted
25 ml cream
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground cardamom

Filling
200 g cream Cheese
3 eggs
50 ml cream
100 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50 g raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 175C / 350F and grease and flour a Ø 20 cm cake pan.

2. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.

3. Fold in flour together with spices, raisins, melted butter and cream.

4. Pour into pan and bake in the oven for 15  minutes.

5. Mix together all ingredients for the filling and pour on the cake base.

6. Put the cake back in the oven and bake another 15-20 minutes until the filling is set.

7. Let cool before removing from pan and decorating.

8. Place shortbread cats and Christmas trees on top of the cake and sprinkle with a little icing sugar. The Irish winter cats do not usually get very snowy... 

Cake #97 - Lemon Polenta Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Lemon Polenta Cake of Unwaxed Lemons.

Fallon & Byrne is my absolute favourite food browsing shop in Dublin. I say browsing because most of the stuff they sell is very expensive and I hardly can buy anything I would like to buy. So I browse instead. (And drool.) Every now and then I do buy something little - or something special for some special occasion.

For example.

Unwaxed lemons. Perfect for baking and cooking when you need to grate the rind, too.

Chanterelles. When they happen to be fresh.

Fresh artichokes. When it is the season they are good and affordable.

Veal. Good quality. For Vitello Tonnato a few times a year.

Raspberry vinegar. For cooking and baking.

Escargots. The whole family loves them and this is the only shop in Dublin I have been able to buy them. Except last time I went there they did not have any cans at all!

And many other seldom needed groceries. If I bump into a new recipe I want to try and there is some ingredient I know I will not find in my usual shops, Fallon & Byrne is the place where I go first. 

If I am not lucky I can at least get some unwaxed lemons for 70c each and bake a cake.

Click here for the recipe.