Baking

Mandarin-lemon pudding

 There are so many recipes in this world, including pudding recipes: some are baked, another prepared with gelatin and then cooled in a fridge.. and then I’m feeling stuck and really don’t know which one to try. 🙂 I like easy-to-make recipes like this one – baked pudding. It has the amazing mandarin-lemon flavour and bright tasting. The pudding is good on its own, but I also prepared a simple citrus sauce, that I made for this peach pie, and it was absolutely delicious! 🙂
 Any favourite pudding recipes, guys? I’d like to hear which one do you like and cook.
Mandarin-lemon pudding

Baked mandarin-lemon pudding

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
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For the citrus sauce recipe click here.
 
Ingredients
2 medium eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of nutmeg, optional
50g white sugar
zest from 1 mandarin +1/2 lemon
100ml full-fat milk
50g plain flour
1 tsp melted butter, for greasing
Preparation
  1. Beat eggs until pale and fluffy.
  2. Add vanilla, nutmeg, sugar, zests and whisk for a few minutes.
  3. Pour in milk.
  4. Sift in flour, whisk to combine.
  5. Grease tins with butter. Divide the batter between tins. Optionally sprinkle with citrus zest.
  6. Bake in preheated 200C oven for 18-20 minutes. Then reduce to 190C and bake for 7-10 minutes more.
  7. Serve warm with sauce. Enjoy!
Adapted from Russian telecast “Cook with A.Zimin”

Almond and ricotta cake

 One of the great part of food blogging is that you can discover new and interesting recipes almost every time you open your browser; you can see what bloggers cook and enjoy in different parts of the world, and of course try to prepare those amazing international recipes at home. So, when I saw the ricotta-almond cake that Margherita shared at her blog, I immediately saved it and decided to make it the other day. The cake turned out really moist and very nutty. I even could say that you can feel more nuts than ricotta, but it’s not bad at all (especially if you love lots of nuts in baking). Moreover, orange zest gave a fantastic aroma to the cake. The only thing – it was a bit too sweet to my taste, so I will reduce the quantity of sugar next time.
Almond ricotta cake
And I didn’t wait for an hour before unmolding the cake, about 20 minutes was enough to get it cool and enjoy with a tea. 🙂
A slice of almond-ricotta cake

Almond and ricotta cake

  • Servings: 8-10
  • Difficulty: easy
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*Was a bit sweet to my taste, next time reduce sugar to 100g
For 20cm spring form tin
Ingredients
250g ricotta
180g ground almonds
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp lemon juice
a pinch of salt
90g butter, soft (at room temperature)
120g white sugar*
zest from 1 orange
3 egg yolks
some almond flakes
orange zest, for decor, optional
Preparation method
  1. In a bowl, stir ricotta with ground almonds. Set aside.
  2. Beat egg whites with lemon juice and salt until steady peaks. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, blend butter with sugar and orange zest until creamy. Mix in egg yolks, one at a time.
  4. Stir in ricotta mixture.
  5. Carefully fold beaten egg whites into ricotta mixture.
  6. Line the baking tin with greased parchment. Pour in batter. Sprinkle with almond flakes and orange zest.
  7. Bake in preheated 170C oven for 50 minutes or until golden.
  8. Let it cool in the tin for 20-30 minutes and then carefully transfer to a serving plate.
Enjoy!

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

 Hello to you, to a person who is reading this post or just glancing at photos of this moist and delicious cake with creamy filling, that was topped with aromatic spiced plum slices. The cake itself is a sponge cake, which is very simple to make and for that you need only four ingredients. I also added a drizzle of honey to the batter, honey gives a nice golden color to the cake and of course incredible flavor!
Sponge cake with plums and tvorog cream
 It has been ages since I made any layer cakes, so I decided to experiment with the cream. Tvorog is a dairy product, that used very often in Russian cuisine in such dishes like syrniki, sweet bakes and many other. Thus I took tvorog, mixed it with sugar and whipping cream, and I guess the cream became very Russian. 🙂 But I didn’t stopped there and added also gelatin to the cream. Honestly, it was my first attempt adding gelatin to the cake cream (with the exception of using it in panna cotta). I wasn’t sure that it would dissolve completely in the cream, and I beat it with electric blender. I love the result – cake was super tasty as well as the cream, and it’s gone very fast, especially if you serve it with some poached plums on a side.
 If you have any tips and advises how to add gelatin to a cake cream, please do share with me! I’d like to know and learn how to use it properly.
Sponge cake with poached plums

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

  • Servings: 6-8
  • Difficulty: moderate
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Using gelatin in the cream is totally optional (it just makes the cream more thick); you can easily omit it.
Ingredients
Sponge Cake
3 large eggs
100g white sugar
1/3 tsp runny honey
110g plain flour
100ml plum syrup (liquid form poached plums)
1 tbps cognac or other aromatic  alcohol, optional
poached plums, for decor
Cream
220g tvorog (Russian cottage cheese)
150g icing sugar
200ml whipping cream (35%)
8-10g powdered gelatin
50ml cold water
Method
  1. For the cake, in a large bowl beat eggs with sugar until pale and increase three times in size. Add honey and beat a little bit again. Sift the flour and carefully fold into the egg mixture with spatula.
  2. Grease 20cm cake pan with butter, sprinkle with flour and pour the batter. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 40 minutes.
  3. Leave the cake to cool in a pan for 20-30 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack or plate and leave to cool for 4 hours or overnight. Cut the cake into two layers. Brush each cake with the mixture of plum syrup and alcohol (if using).
  4. For the cream, soften tvorog with a folk or electric blender. Add icing sugar and beat until combined. Add whipping cream and beat again.
  5. Dissolve gelatin in cold water and leave for 10 minutes. Add to the cream and beat again.
  6. Spread about half the cream on one of the cakes. Layer the second cake, and spread the remaining cream on the top and sides. Decorate with poached plums.
Spiced poached plums
5-7 soft plums (about 200g), sliced
80g white sugar (or more to your taste)
250 ml water
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
2 cardamom cloves
Method
  1. In a small pan, add plums and sugar. Add spices and cover plums with water. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to boil, then reduce to low-medium heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until plums are soft. Leave to cool.
Enjoy!
Sharing with Angie FF#105 and co-hosts Lily and Julianna.
Sponge cake with tvorog-cream&poached plums

Salted peanut cookies

 I love shortbread cookies, there are almost thousands possibilities of flavours that you can add: mandarin, lemon or orange zest, vanilla or cinnamon, cardamom and etc. I stumbled upon this recipe a long time ago on one Russian website that content was about news, conferences for chefs and there were some recipes as well. I don’t know why I haven’t tried this recipe earlier, because these cookies are amazing! They have the right shortbread cookie texture – not too crumbly neither hard, simply divine! 🙂SPCookies

Salted peanut cookies

  • Difficulty: moderate
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I mix all ingredients with my hands. You may do it with electric mixer, but don’t overmix.
Ingredients
75g butter, cold
50g caster sugar
1 medium egg
lemon zest from 1 small lemon
120g plain flour
30g salted peanuts, chopped
Method
  • Cut butter into 1cm cubes and bring to room temperature. Divide the egg into yolk and white.
  • On a flat surface (you can do it in a large bowl too), mix butter with sugar until just coarse crumbs.
  • Add egg yolk, half of egg white (keep the rest) and lemon zest. Mix to combine.
  • Mix in flour. Combine the dough. On this step you may think you need to add extra flour, stop, no need to add extra flour or overknead the dough; after resting it’ll be perfect. Cover the dough in a plastic wrap and put in a fridge for 40-50 minutes.
  • Once the dough is cooled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into 5mm thick disk. Cut out cookies any shape you like. Carefully transfer cookies on a lined baking tray. Brush with remaining egg white, sprinkle with peanuts.
  • Bake in preheated 180C oven for 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden.
Enjoy!

Potato pizza-pie

 One day I decided to make a savory potato pie, but to use potato in the crust instead of filling. I imagined myself a good fluffy pie with a creamy filling of fried mushrooms, onions and something else. When I made and rolled out the dough, I realized that it looks more like a pizza not a pie. 😀 However, the potato crust suit nicely to all these colorful ingredients which I used, including some cooked fish leftovers. Grilled bell pepper and bright spring onion gave an extra kick to this pie. Honestly, I was surprised how good and delicious the pizza-pie turned out. 🙂
Potato pizza-pieI’m co-hosting FF#104 with lovely Hilda@alongthegrapevine (she is so creative and has lots of unusual recipes on her blog); so, I’m inviting everyone to join, we share many delicious food there, and you can chat with other foodbloggers and of course don’t forget to like and say “wow, yummy or just hi”! 😀 Read the guidelines here. Happy cooking! 🙂

Potato pizza-pie with fish, bell pepper and mushrooms

  • Servings: 4-5
  • Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

Crust

200g/2 medium potatoes
1 bay leaf
20g butter
1 medium egg
sea salt, to taste
2-3 Tbsp grated parmesan, optional
~150g plain flour
Filling
100-150g cooked fish fillet leftovers (I used sea bream)
a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, optional
1 meduim red bell pepper, grilled or roasted, sliced
150g mushrooms
1 large red onion
a bunch of spring onion or chives, chopped
100ml double cream or 30-35% fat cream
Other
1 tbsp olive oil+1 tbsp butter, for frying
sea salt, freshly ground white pepper
Method
  1. Clean, peel potatoed, cut into fourths. Put in a pan along with some salt and bay leave, cover with water and boil until ready. Drain. Add butter, season with salt and mash potatoes. Stir in egg. Mix in parmesan, if using. Sift the flour into potato mixture, combine into a soft dough (add some more flour if the dough is too wet).
  2. Grease the baking paper (to suit your baking tray). Roll the dough out on this paper. Put in a freezer for 5-7 minutes (or in a fridge for 15 minutes).
  3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Slice mushrooms and onions, fry on a medium-high heat in a mixture of oil and butter (you can do it in a one large frying pan, but don’t mix it-put side by side and fry). Stir 1/3 of the cream into mushrooms, and season to taste. Set aside.
  4. Add some butter into the same pan and chopped spring onion (reserve some for garnish, optional), saute for 2 minutes on a low heat –  you only need to soften the onion.
  5. In a bowl, mix fish with the remaining cream, sautéed spring onion and nutmeg, season to taste.
  6. Sprinkle crust with breadcrumbs. Bake it without filling in a preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes.
  7. Spread onion, fish, mushrooms and pepper slices over the crust. Bake for 15-17 minutes more.
  8. Sprinkle with remaining spring onion (optional). Serve warm.
Enjoy!

I’m also sharing it with Saucy Saturdays, Foodie Friends Friday, Foodie Friday

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