“There are only three things in life that matter – good friends, good chocolate and…
… oh dear, what was that other one?”
Dark Chocolate Orange Yogurt Eggless Cheesecake … does sound like quite a mouthful, but believe me it is A M A Z I N G! Orange and chocolate were made to walk hand in hand, side by side. Baked into a cheesecake, they are even happier! Yesterday I thought of the white, orange and green in my pictures … time to post this special cheesecake!
I was thrilled with the earlier success of the Cherry Yogurt Tart I blogged about not so long ago. Surprisingly enough, it turned out in colours that fitted into the 4th of July, the day I baked it. So, it was posted then. Then a few days later I ventured out in the same direction, now a little more confident.
I added flavours to the recipe, changing it to make it better. A dash of this, a layer of that. Yesterday I noticed that the Dark Chocolate Orange Yogurt Eggless Cheesecake has colours of the Indian flag! So this is for our Independence Day, August 15th, that is today!!
I was quite pleased with how it turned out {… out of the pan too, so cleanly}. It was for the hosts at a party to see off the dear friend who is finally leaving town. The ifs and buts have been going on forever, and now suddenly the time is here. It’s been one goodbye after another. Somewhere deep down we hope we can hang on to the wings of time!Possible that is obviously not …and farewell day looms larger than life. It’s just round the corner. To cut a long story short, I took the cheesecake for the wonderful hosts that night. I was happy they loved it, and thought it was ‘exquisite‘. It’s nice when you bake something for someone and they appreciate it.This is one recipe that just keeps getting better and better. Immense possibilities, and infinite combinations. I was tempted into ‘orange‘ thanks to a few last kumquats hanging on my tree shrub. They are difficult to ignore, the one bright spot of fruit & foliage in the hot summer. It wasn’t long before I was stirring a TINY batch of marmalade.
So many jars of bitter kumquat marmalade later, you just know that if you throw in this and that, you will end up with marmalade. From a few precious kumquats to kilos of them, I have endlessly enjoyed this tart citrus fruit. You would find several recipes with them on PAB.
That ten minutes of baking two ingredients can result in something like this, is quite amazing. This time around I added a layer of dark chocolate ganache between the biscuit crust and yogurt filling. I remember from last time that the yogurt had made the base slightly moist. I baked the base minimally too. It worked quite well. Ten minutes into the oven, cooled and then chilled, these are great make ahead desserts. Whether you like eggs, or you don’t, this is a wonderful fast track and economical cheesecake. Tastes scrumptious too. Flavour it as you like. Or don’t. Doesn’t matter. The heart is good and full of flavour. A little ‘sugar high’ thanks to the condensed milk, but then thats happiness! I made one large cheesecake and a few small ones for home {for a taste check}. Left us H A P P Y! Some things are so worth it … these Dark Chocolate Orange Yogurt Eggless Cheesecakes were just that! Hope you enjoy the recipe. I’ll be working another version sometime soon. Have a Happy Independence Day India!
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Recipe: Dark Chocolate Orange Yogurt Eggless Cheesecake
Summary: This is one recipe that just keeps getting better and better. Immense possibilities, and infinite combinations. Ten minutes into the oven, cooled and then chilled, these are great make ahead desserts. The Dark Chocolate Orange Yogurt Eggless Cheesecake is a wonderful fast track and economical cheesecake. Scrumptious too.
Kumquat, white and dark chocolate shavings for garnish
Method:
Biscuit Base
Mix the melted butter and the crushed biscuits. Turn into the bottom of the prepared tin and press to form base. Chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a rectangular 4″ X 14″loose bottomed tart tin {or a 9″ round loose bottomed tart tin}
Choc ganache
Place chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir well until smooth. Stir in honey and 1 tbsp liqueur {optional}. Leave to cool.
Yogurt filling
Place both yogurts, liqueur and condensed milk in a large bowl and whisk until smooth.
Assembling
Spread the ganache over the biscuit base.
Pour the yogurt filling over the ganache and bake in the oven at 180C for 10 minutes only.
Take out of the oven, allow to cool. Then chill in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight.
“I am putting real plums into an imaginary cake.”
Mary McCarthy
Upside Down Plum Cake … if you are like me, you’ve probably been fascinated with baking cakes for years. I have almost baked every upright cake that caught my fancy, innovating and playing along the way. Almost every cake but an upside down one. For some reason, it never did appeal to me. Until now …
It never caught my fancy because I believed most upside down cakes were pineapple upside down cakes. The colour play was never good enough to catch my attention. Besides, I have never come across a reasonably healthy upside cake that tempted me to pick up my pots and pans.It’s strange that you suddenly can’t get enough of a fruit when you get to the end of the season. What’s not to love about plums, least of all that they are one of the most nutritious fruits around. They are versatile. You could enjoy them endlessly in the raw form, toss them into salads, make crumbles and crisps, frozen yogurt, or maybe a plum lemonade. I’ve done all that.Then a few days ago when I looked at them, a voice in my head said plum upside-down cake. It was the day the baking bug seemed to have hit FB. Everyone was baking something … fig cakes, bread, all good stuff! I was baking too {so what’s new}. That bowlful looked at me. How many could I possibly eat? Still obsessed with baking with fruit, here’s what I did …
I experimented a little here and there, and came up with this. Baking can be so rewarding. I used an all time favourite as a base recipe, the Buttermilk Pound Cake. The Upside Down Plum Cake knocked my breath out when I flipped it upside down. Rustic pretty! Soft, moist, flavourful … some creme fraiche or low fat cream on the side. Better still, some good ole vanilla ice cream.
’twas delicious! Just what I hoped it would be. The luscious deeply coloured and baked plums won me over. They looked moorish, dripping fruit juices right back into the cake, moistening it with beautiful flavours.
The good thing is that while baking the plums release some delicious juices. Once baked, when you turn the cake upside down, these delicious plum juices moisten the warm cake making it heavenly. I’ve used plain flour, whole wheat flour and almond meal in my cake.
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Recipe: Upside Down Plum Cake
Summary:The Plum upside-down cake turned out out delicious … warm, moist, full of flavours, almost like a pudding cake. Healthy & pretty too.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 1 hour, 15mins Ingredients:
Cake batter
70g whole wheat flour
60g plain flour
50g almond meal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vanilla or plain sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
100ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Plum topping
8 plums, halved, pitted
30g brown sugar
15g unsalted butter
15ml cream
Method:
Grease and flour the sides of a 7″ round tin. Line the bottom with parchment.
Plum topping
Place the butter, sugar and cream in a frying pan and simmer until melted. Stir to being together. Place plum halves cut side down and simmer for 2 minutes only. Cool slightly, then transfer to the parchment lined base of baking tin, cut side down. Pour any remaining sauce over the plums.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Cake batter
Sift the flours with the almond meal, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract and almond extract.
With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots. Pour over the plum lined base. Tap gently to even out.
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean.
Allow to cool in tin for 30 minutes, then run a knife around the edges, and in one swift move, turn onto serving platter.
Note: Best eaten the same day. Refrigerate any remains.
“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C.
Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes … the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Daring Bakers challenge so immensely. Everything was good about it. I have to admit that I veered off the basic recipe … but need to blame the treacherous North Indian summer for that!!
Come May and I got a very excited call from local DB Ruchira. “Guess what the challenge is? A Princess Cake! Wheee… I love it!” I was equally thrilled. A Princess cake is junior teens most favourite cake of all time. Years ago I did a recipe testing for Helene of Tartlette which included a Bavarian cream. That was a princess cake of sorts.
To date, it’s been the best ever cake for the kidlet. He repeatedly tells me how good ‘that Bavarian cream‘ was! Talk about love for food and good taste. Everything Helene does has the midas touch. The months challenge was partly inspired by her recipe.
Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers’ host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Prinsesstårta!
A little research revealed that the original recipe was created in the 1930s by a Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, who taught the three Swedish princesses of the time. She published a series of four cookbooks called “The Princess Cookbooks” and in one of the editions, there was a recipe for “Grön Tårta” (green cake). One story is that this later became known as “princess cake” (prinsesstårta) because the three princesses are said to have loved it so much.
Another story is that Ms. Åkerström actually created three very elaborate “princess cake” recipes – a different one for each princess – and that the current version is a simplified combination of all three. That explains the princess connection, but the reason for the cake being green still seems to be a mystery.
I got to the challenge very very late. It was the 25th already. And the weather? Hot as hot can be, threatening to get worse by the minute! It was 46C at 6pm day before. Fry the eggs on the sidewalk hot, maybe bake the poor princess there too! Plans for a Princess cake were rapidly demolished. Yet I am very nostalgic about the Daring Bakers, a journey that has been long and fruitful. I have been with them for 5 years maybe, and it’s the only baking group I have continued with. I owe them most of what I’ve learnt. The journeys been full of ultimate highs, and a few heartbreaks too; entirely memorable.
Besides, the challenge this month was not just one of being a ‘baker‘. Bakers as you know double up quite often as patisserie chefs too. A finger in every pie, and so on! It was a test of skills at many different levels.I had to make something. That came by way of these sweet Princess Cupcakes that I’ve had bookmarked for years! {I baked the cupcakes the previous evening and completed them at the crack of dawn. You can find a few grainy pictures taken in a hurry to guide you through}
The components are quite the same. There is cake, pastry cream, whipped cream, jam and marzipan. A petite version in this blistering heat which hitting 48C is much easier to handle. I had some balsamic cherries from the two ingredient dark chocolate mousse. Cherries make life a lot more worthwhile.
The Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes turned out excellent. The cupcakes are layered about the same way as you would a Swedish Prinsesstårta. In 20 minutes, spared of a power cut, I was past stage one. Cupcakes done! While they baked, the pastry cream was stirred in the Thermomix. 7 minutes to perfect pastry cream!
I made the pastry cream a little thicker as it’s so hot. I didn’t get to the marzipan though I have made it several times in the past. It was far too hot to attempt marzipan from scratch. A special gift from my dear friend and Daring Baker Finla came to my rescue. She sent me marzipan with a truckload of stuff a few months ago. I use it very sparingly and was thrilled to have some on hand for the princess cupcakes.
This was the best part! Such fun dressing the little ones up. I did the flowers and leaves out of trimmings and it reminded me of my first and only fondant cake, theTea Rose Fondant Cake, I made a while ago. The cupcakes were patched together on fast track as everything threatened to melt. The end result isn’t as neat as I would have liked it to be, but the marzipan was going too soft.
Thank you Korena was such a beautiful and eye opening challenge. I intend to make the original Swedish Prinsesstårta once the weather gets cooler. Thank you as always Lisa ofLa Mia Cucina andIvonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for hosting this fab kitchen!!
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Recipe: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes
Summary: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes… the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! Recipe adapted from The Cookie Shop. Makes 5 cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 40 minutesIngredients:
Vanilla Cupcakes {can be made up to 2 days ahead}
100g all purpose flour
85g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
50g – room temp. and cut in pieces
1 egg
80g milk
1/2 vanilla bean
Pastry Cream {can be made 1 day ahead. Only less than half quantity needed}
200ml low fat/single cream
50ml milk
1 egg
50g sugar
12g cornstarch
1/2 vanilla bean
20g butter
Filling
1/2 recipe pastry cream
200ml low fat cream chilled
1-2 tsp sugar
Rum syrup
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon rum
For assembling
5 vanilla cupcakes
1/2 cup pastry cream
sugar syrup
low fat cream, chilled
1/2 cup balsamic cherries {1/2 portion chopped fine}
300g marzipan approx
food coloring
confectioners sugar
Method:
Vanilla cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line 5 cups of a muffin pan, or 5 individual muffin tins with paper liners.
Place milk, egg and 1/2 scraped vanilla bean in a small bowl. Whisk to mix with fork.
Place flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl of electric mixer and pulse to mix.
Add the butter pieces to the flour mixture and process briefly until it resembles coarse meal {the larger pieces should be the size of peas}.
With the processor on medium speed, add the milk mixture in three additions, and beat only until incorporated.
Distribute the batter evenly in the prepared tins. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the cupcakes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before proceeding with the assembling.
Pastry cream
In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat milk and cream just until it simmers.
In a small bowl, whisk together egg and sugar until light and fluffy. Add cornstarch and continue whisking until smooth.
Slowly pour the hot milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture. Whisk until completely smooth and free of lumps. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and place over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking constantly, and cook for another 2 minutes, or until it thickens. Remove from heat and add the butter, whisking well to incorporate.
Thermomix : Place all ingredients in bowl of TM. Pulse at speed 6 to mix for 10 seconds. Then cook at speed 4, 90 C for 9 minutes.
Remove the pastry cream to a bowl. Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Syrup
Place water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and add the rum if using. Let cool completely before using or refrigerating.
Marzipan
Divide the marzipan into 5 portions.
Mix the marzipan with the 4 different coloring and knead until the color is uniform. Leave one natural off-white. If it gets sticky, sprinkle a little confectioner’s sugar. Wrap with plastic.
Assembling
Cut off the domed tops of the cupcakes, and peel off thee liners.
Invert cakes and cut into 3 layers.
Whisk the cream and sugar until soft peaks form.
Brush the layers with sugar syrup.
Over removable bottoms of tartlet tins, start assembling the cupcake layers.
first, a very thin layer of chopped balsamic cherries {or jam/preserve}
over the jam, a teaspoon whipped cream;
cake + syrup;
a teaspoon of pastry cream;
last layer of cake + syrup;
Place a few cherries on top to help build the ‘dome’ if you like.
Whip the remaining cream with the remaining pastry cream.
Cover the whole cupcake with whipped pastry cream, trying to make the rounder the top you can. Refrigerate while you complete the next.
Over a working surface, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, roll out the marzipan.
Put the rolled out marzipan over the cake making sure to cover the entire cake and cardboard. When finished, some marzipan should drape onto the work surface all around the cupcake. There will be folds on the sides. To remove them lift the outside edge of the marzipan with a hand on either side of a fold and, without tearing or stretching, gently pull the marzipan out and down until the fold disappears. {It was too hot for me to attempt this}. Trim any extra marzipan and reserve for flowers etc.
Stamp out flowers, leaves and stems from the trimmed marzipan and place on cupcakes.
Sift a little confectioner’s sugar over the cakes and transfer to the serving dishes or cake stand.
Note: These are best eaten the same day they are assembled.
” Laughter is brightest where food is best.”
Irish Proverb.
Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes with an Irish Creme Caramel Sauce … there’s something incredibly infectious about the green posts that have been falling into my mailbox the past few days. Irish Soda bread, shepherds pie, Irish coffee shamrock cookies, chocolate stout cupcakes, beer battered broccoli, Irish floats, corned beef & cabbage. I had to join in!
Years ago, working for BA introduced us to St Patrick’s Day as we had a sizable Irish crew. The accents always stood out, charming as could be. In 2009, the Irish accent beat its French counterpart as the world’s sexiest, thanks to stars like Colin Farrell and James Nesbitt! How sweet was that.
Loads of green is sweeping the net for St Patricks Day. I had a bottle of homemade Irish creme in the fridge, one that I made a while ago when some liqueur inspiration hit me. I made some kumquat liqueur then too. It’s still sitting in some cool dark place!
Cleaning out the fridge rewarded me with a quarter jar of leftover Irish creme caramel sauce and some almond praline, all from a recent recipe shoot. With a few hours on hand yesterday, I thought I’d put the leftovers to good use. With time limited, I opted to use a recent flourless chocolate cake recipe just because it was in my head.
That Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Gateau served asinspiration for these little cakes. Since I was experimenting with the basic recipe, I made a few changes, including a teeny bit of wholewheat flour to the batter. If you’d like to keep these gluten free, then by all means use the Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Gateau recipe. For 6 small cakelets, just half portions of that recipe will do.
I did an espresso meringue topping, sprinkled over with crushed praline just because I enjoyed doing a meringue topping for the earlier cake. Gave me another chance to experiment. I love the play of textures and colours that different methods bring about. Besides, chocolate is always rewarding to play with!
My touch of Irish green come via mint leaves, and the cakes have the delicious Irish creme stamp all over it. I’ve kept the amounts minimum because of the kids. Feel free to pour another spoon in, or give the caramel a good helping of the same. For the Irish Creme Caramel Syrup, stir your desired amount {upto 1/4 cup} of Irish creme through your to-go recipe of caramel syrup just as you’ve finished making it.
What I loved about these most was the meringue topping studded with crunchy praline. That was literally the ‘icing on the cake’! Do make sure you don’t over bake the little cakes. We want them moist and soft. If they do get a little dry, brush them with a strong coffee solution.
If you are short on time, instead of sandwiching them, you could always serve these with single cream on the side. That would make for a quicker dessert as it’s pretty much together already. A dusting of cocoa, a little dressing up with chocolate shavings, a drizzle of caramel … all done!
Happy St Patrick’s Day to you dear readers.
I love the way food connects the entire globe in such delicious ways!
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Recipe: Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes with an Irish Creme Caramel Sauce
Summary: Irish Creme Chocolate Cakes to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. What’s not to love about these little rustic beauties!
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 45 minutesIngredients:
Dark Chocolate Cakes
4 eggs, separated
100g vanilla sugar, divided 75g + 25g
1 vanilla bean, scraped
125g dark chocolate, melted
1 tbsp Irish Cream {Baileys or homemade}
25g wholewheat flour
1/2tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp espresso powder
To finish
100ml low fat cream chilled
1 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tbsp caramel syrup
1 tbsp Irish Cream {Baileys or homemade}
2 tbsp crushed praline {or chopped roasted nuts}
Method:
Dark chocolate cakes
Preheat the oven to 180C. Oil 6 X 3″ dessert rings and secure the bases with foil.
In a large clean bowl whip the 4 egg whites with 25g sugar until stiff, reserve.
In another large bowl, beat the 4 yolks with 75g sugar until pale, creamy and mousse like, 5-7 minutes on high speed.
Beat in the vanilla bean.
Sift the wholewheat, baking powder and salt over the yolk mixture, and fold in gently.
Gently whisk in the Irish cream and melted chocolate.
Reserve about 1 cup beaten whites, and fold the remaining whites into the batter.
Divide between rings and bake for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile beat the reserved white with 1 tbsp sugar and the espresso powder until stiff. Transfer to piping bag.
Remove half baked cakes from over, gently pipe over a swirl onto each cakelet, sprinkle over with crushed praline.
Continue to bake for another 15-20 minutes, until done. Cool completely in rings.
Assemble
Run a butter knife around the edges to loosed the cooled cakes and demold. Slice each horizontally into two. Keep the pairs together.
Whip the chilled cream with powdered sugar until medium stiff. Sandwich the cakes with the cream and a drizzle of caramel syrup. Top with the meringue halves, and drizzle with a little caramel syrup.
“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
Hans Christian Andersen
A Tea Rose Fondant Cake … inspired completely by Peggy Porschens‘Pretty Party Cakes’. I have had this stunning book by this very talented sugar craft artisit for years. It sits by my bedside and provides infinite hours of eye candy. I didn’t once think I could attempt her beautiful work; until yesterday …
I have long delayed making sugar paste at home. LONG! The one day I saw a fondant cake at The Great Cookaroo, sometime late last year, and I knew she had beaten me to it. Bah humbug! It still seemed pretty formidable to me, even though Ruchiraconvinced me it was quite easy. She made her fondant out of marshmallows.
Sugar Paste icing is a very sweet edible sugar dough usually made from sugar and glucose. It is sometimes referred to as fondant or sugar gum or gum paste. It can be used to cover cakes, mould features and create decorations for cakes and many other uses.
Then a few days ago I met a very talented Amrita at I Bake who commercially does cakes with fondant. She convinced me it was really easy to make at home. The sweet girl even offered to send a batch home for me to work with. Enough! It was time to give fondant from scratch a shot, and was promptly entered as a new year resolution; rather an update of one which has been long postponed.
Seems like flowers are ‘in season’!! A few days ago, I was asked if I’d like to host a floral giveaway for readers of PAB from the beautiful Serenata Flowers in the UK. Serenata Flowers is a gift shop where other then flowers, you can find chocolates and wine too. They are hosting a giveaway well in time for Valentines day.
The prize is a £30 voucher at Serenata Flowers, that should give the winner the chance to choose a nice gift. Delivery would only be to an address in mainland UK , the winner may live outside UK though. All you need to do is visit the site and leave a comment saying which bouquet you like best. The contest is on until the 31st of Jan, 2013, and the winner will be announced thereafter.
It was time to pair real flowers with edible ones, and also time to ‘fondant or sugar paste’! This was my first attempt at working with fondant and I have to say I loved it! The end result wasn’t perfect, creases that peeped through, yet it took me back many years. Back to those play dough times, flowers, leaves, roses …
I loved using the leftover bits to cut out ribbons etc. Later thought I could have done bees and butterflies too. Maybe the next time I feel so inspired, now that I can ‘do it’!! Fondant is therapeutic; makes you rediscover the inner child in you!
See the ‘cake’ platter? I have to confess that it’s actually a salad plate from Urban Dazzle. It’s a classic white, round platter. The interesting bit is the offset centre which gives you a slight forward tilt. It’s a great aesthetic platter to have, and happily one that doubled up as a cake plate as in this case.
Cookies, finger foods, cupcakes, fruit, candy seem like some other fun uses. Until I do salads in it, I’m enjoying its versatility! This Tea Rose Fondant Cake was the best baking beginning to my new year. I love you fondant!!
I learnt something else. Kids never grow up! You should have seen their eyes light up when they saw all that sugary sweet prettiness! I thought they were both way beyond it. Pictures of the cake furiously ‘WhatsApped‘, the urgency to have dinner done, the impatience to cut a slice, the happiness at devouring the cake {the vanilla buttermilk pound cake is wonderful on it’s own}… so worth the effort!
If you don’t want too much sugar overload you could always just do a 1 egg mini cake. The little one came away neatly and looked sweet on it’s own. The fondant recipe is minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker, which the kids gave me us on our anniversary 4 years ago. This was my first foray into the book … and I loved it!
So go on guys. Spread out some fondant if you are so inclined. Otherwise send someone you love a beautiful bunch of flowers from Serenata Flowers. Share some joy!!
[print_this]Recipe: Sugar Paste/ Fondant
Summary: A simple fondant recipe that was silky smooth and fun to use. minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker
Prep Time: 5 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Ingredients:
3 tbsp liquid glucose, warmed {I used Solar, an Indian brand}
1 egg white {or 20g egg white powder reconstituted according to maunfacturer instructions}
400g icing sugar
Method:
Place egg white in a large bowl, whip lightly with fork and then then stir in the liquid glucose. {It tends to harden very fast in winter}
Add the icing sugar bit by bit and gradually work in with a wooden spoon until it begins to form a paste. Gently knead into a ball.
On a very clean surface, knead it until smooth and pliable. Wrap with cling-wrap if not using immediately.
To colour, take small portions, or as required, ans knead in a few drops of the colour as desired. Keep the remaining fondant wrapped in clingwrap at all times.
On a very clean surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the fondant quite thin. Then cut into shapes with plunger cutters or hand make roses.
I fastened the flowers etc with egg white, though the book says to use royal icing.
Recipe: Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream
Summary: A lighter version of the classic pound cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake is sandwiched with a light confetti buttercream, and makes a delicious base for the fondant art.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes {including cooling time, and time to make fondant decorations etc} Ingredients:
Vanilla Pound Cake
240g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
275g vanilla sugar
3 eggs
130ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
To make buttermilk substitute
Take 130ml milk at room temp; add 1 tsp white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready.
Vanilla buttercream
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
225g icing sugar
50g low fat cream
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
2 tbsp rainbow confetti {optional}
Royal icing or egg white to secure fondant flowers etc onto cake.
Method:
Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake
Grease and flour the sides of a 7″ ring tin, or a 4″ round tin. Line the bottoms and sides with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract and scraped vanilla bean.
With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots.
Divide the batter between the two tins.
Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean. {The smaller cake will get baked in 35-40 minutes}
Cool completely, then slice into two horizontally.
Vanilla butter-cream
Beat the butter, vanilla bean and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy.
Gradually add the low fat cream and whip to desired consistency.
You can add more {or less} depending on how stiff you want the butter-cream.
Assembling
Sandwich the cakes with a light spread of butter-cream with the confetti stirred in.
Give both cakes a thin coat of butter-cream to provide a base for the fondant.
Note: Use squeaky clean hands, counter, rolling pin etc when handling sugar paste/fondant as it is white and shows impurities very easily.
Take about 1/3rd of the fondant {If it is too hard, then briefly, heat it in the microwave wrapped in cling-wrap for 10 seconds. {Keep the remaining fondant well wrapped else it will dry out.}
Sprinkle the work surface with icing sugar, and roll the fondant out thin. {I kept it quite thin to keep the sugar intake a little lower}.
Gently transfer it onto the 7″ cake and press into place. I got a few creases but covered most up with flowers and leaves. Handle gently or it will tear. Trim the edges around the base.
Take 1/2 the remaining fondant and repeat with the smaller cake.
Place the smaller cake on top of the bigger one.
Take bits of fondant, one bit at a time, and colour them with liquid colour as desired. Using plunger cutters or your hands, make flowers, leaves, roses etc as desired.
Roll any remaining scraps and using a fluted or plain pastry cutter cut out ribbons to cover up the bottoms edges.
Use either royal icing or egg white to stick the sugar paste flowers, leaves or ribbons onto the cake.
Note: I used the microwave {10 seconds, high} quite often as the fondant kept getting hard as the weather was freezing cold at 6C.
“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C
Lime & Strawberry Cream Cake … a very simple cake made in the Philips AirFryer a few days ago. 15 minutes was all I could manage that day. There have been no desserts of late and the kids were beginning to make strange unhappy sounds. There’s been barely any ‘free time’ what with final exams on for both teens which are well underway. The cake came out surprisingly nice. Didn’t take pictures of it once made as it was slightly domed and I didn’t have time to pretty it up. One bite down and I thought it was really nice.Lime and strawberries pair well. The second round of the strawberry season has finally begun here in North India. Can’t have too much of this delicious fruit.
The sponge was soft but not moist as always because I whisked in the flour instead of folding it in G E N T L Y. So I didn’t get a ‘light as air’ sponge. Still it was quite soft. Interesting!
The easiest way to get cake moist is to give it a good soaking with a simple sugar syrup. Love doing that when I make my pineapple cream cake. If you are doing a black forest cake, you can always reduce the syrup the cherries are canned in, and add a dash of Kirsch or lime juice to it to moisten the sponge.
I thought the Lime & Strawberry Cream Cake was nice enough to share, a quick easy cake, make ahead, light and delicious. A slice was hidden away for a picture opportunity while the rest of the cake was devoured by the happy family. Then late that evening the bell rang. It was the courier with the Samsung Netbook that I had won at the Del Monte recipe contest hosted at Indiblogger. My entry was the Tropical Cream Pie. Much excitement followed and we found a candy pink gizmo. Even though I’m not a pink person, the netbook is really pretty and very handy! I ♥ it!!
Seems to be an early Christmas over and over again. I am feeling quite pampered … maybe too pampered! First the Philips AirFryer, then Finla spoilt me silly, next Mr PAB got me a Samsung S3. My sister sent me more stuff as her better half was visiting … and just when I thought I had everything and more I could ever ask for, PINK came into my life!
December’s here already. A clutch of days to fly through, a year that’s been packed to the gills. So much happening in this foodie world. Oh, I forgot to tell you that I was pleasantly surprised with some fabulous tea from a beautiful tea company in China. Yes China! And yes tea!It’s funny because I am a 100% coffee addict and never drink tea. My first foray into tea was at the Aussie MasterChefs breakfast meet where Sangeeta talked me into sipping some lavender tea. It was wonderful. Then she got me some beautiful green tea from Darjeeling from a recent visit. This herbal and green tea from Teavirve was a nice coincidence. In the bag were samples for green tea, and for Blueberry Fruit Tea and Apple Awakening Fruit Tea. The green tea was similar to others that I have recently sampled, but it was the Blueberry Fruit Tea that was amazing, and stole my heart. Beautiful aromas and subtle flavours of blueberry, black currant, roselle and grapes. The teen is in love with this tea!
The Apple Awakening Fruit Tea is really refreshing too … teasing the palette with an intriguing combination of apple and lemon. With such an extensive selection which can be shipped across the world, Teavirve is a great gifting option. Green, white, black, Oolong, Pu-erh, herbal, fruit, ice, organic, flavoured … the variety is endless.To make the range complete, Teavirve offer a stunning range of teaware too. {They offers worldwide free shipping for orders over $30 … you should check out there collection.}
[print_this]Recipe: Lime & Strawberry Cream Cake
Summary: An almost fatless sponge cake layered with a whipped raspberry creamwith strawberries within … light, moist, flavourful and gone quick!
80g Del Monte rapberry fruit filling {chilled, from feezer}
250g strawberries, chopped, some saved for topping
Method:
Sponge
Preheat oven if using to 180C. If using the AirFryer, you can preheat it to 160C just before you begin folding the flour mix in as it requires only 5 minutes to preheat.
Line the base and sides of a 7″ round cake tin with baking parchment. {Please check first if the tin fits into the AirFryer}
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Reserve.
Beat the eggs with raw/powdered sugar, pure vanilla extract and lemon extract in a big bowl over a pan of simmering water until tripled in volume and mousse like, about 7 minutes. {Thermomix: Butterfly insert, Speed 4, 37c, 7 minutes}
Preheat the AirFryer to 160C at this time …
Gently add the flour mix and fold through, followed by the olive oil and milk.
Transfer batter to prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes in conventional oven, OR 15 minutes in the AirFryer until light golden brown
Cool in tin for 5 minutes, and demold and cool completely on cooling rack.
Raspberry Cream
Whip cream with sugar until medium peaks form. Add the fruit filling and whip again until smooth and firm. Taste & adjust sugar if required. The cream will be thick enough to spread.
Assemble
Slice cake into 2 horizontal layers. If the top is slightly domed, you might like to level it. {Reserve the trimmings and run in processor to make cake crumbs. I left mine domed}
Moisten both the layers with the simple sugar syrup.
Sandwich with about 1/3rd of the whipped cream. Scatter the chopped strawberries uniformly and top with second layer.
Frost the sides and top with the remaining cream. Top with quartered strawberries. Allow it to sit for about 30 minutes for the flavours to mature {chill in the fridge if the weather is warm, else leave on counter}
