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.