Cakes

Winter Orange Cake

Hello everyone! Hope you had wonderful and joyful winter holidays! As you may know from my previous posts, me and my husband have been to Russia, and it was a memorable and great trip. We celebrated New Year and Christmas eves with the whole family, met with friends, and had lots of fun with a snow: throwing snowballs, rolling and tumbling around, and exploring virgin and deep snow on foot! Once we almost were frozen to the bones, because it was -30C/22F (and the phone told me it was felt like -40C in the night)! But wool socks, mittens, fur hats and thick coats do wonders! 😀

So, I was torn by what recipe to start 2015 with. I decided to warm up cold days with a superb and fantastically delicious winter dessert -an orange cake. Oranges and mandarins may not be the most obvious fruits in baking, but for me it symbolizes the winter season. The smell of mandarins rind always brings back my childhood memories, when my parents bought them for the New Year eve. The cake is moist, bright, tangy, and delightful in both taste and texture. It is also great any time of the year. 🙂

Winter Orange Cake

Servings: 6-8
Time: 1 1/2 hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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You can use fresh orange slices as is, or cook them in a sweet water (1 cup water+1/3 cup sugar) for about 20-30 minutes on a medium heat – it helps to get rid of orange bitterness.

Ingredients

2 small oranges or 1.5 medium size, sliced

3 Tbsp demerara sugar

160g butter softened

120-150g golden caster sugar, depends on your taste

3 heaped tbsp orange jam (or fine-cut marmalade)

3 eggs, beaten

160g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/3 tsp baking powder

40g almond powder (ground almonds)

1.5 medium-size oranges or 2 mandarins, finely grated zest and juice

Glaze:

3 heaped tbsp orange jam/marmalade

1-2 tsp orange-flavoured liqueur (Grand Marnier or Cointreau), optional

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease the 18cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Sprinkle the base with demerara sugar. Arrange orange slices on the base, making overlapping layer.
Beat the butter and caster sugar until pale, mix in marmelade and beaten eggs. Fold in flour, salt, baking powder, almonds, orange or mandarin zest and juice.
Pour the batter into tin. Bake in the oven for 45-55 minutes, until golden and firm to touch.
Allow to cool for a few minutes at room temperature.
Meanwhile, make a glaze by warming 3 Tbsp jam and liqueur (if using) in a small pan with a little water.
Carefully turn out the cake onto a serving plate, while it’s still warm. Prick holes in the cake. Spoon glaze over the cake.
Serve warm! Enjoy!

Adapted from Jamie Oliver magazine/issue 26

Cottage cheese and cranberry pie

Winter holidays are almost here and I can’t wait to celebrate! Holiday preparation is already well underway and it can be stressful, but I love this hustle and bustle season: frenzied shopping, decorating homes and work places, buying delicacies and champagne, choosing and wrapping gifts for family and friends. I’m absolutely absorbed in the planning of New Year dinner. Shopping list is written, salads and starters are chosen, goose and turkey are waiting in the freezer. And certainly I couldn’t forget about desert. For me it’s an important and sweet part of the dinner. Any festive dinner should be finished with a perfect cake! Have you chose the one? What will be the sweet star on your table? Will it be traditional cake or pudding, that you make every year or a fancy cake, that you’ll order from a restaurant?

This year I’ll be making the vanilla cheesecake with cranberry or red currant compote. It sounds simple, but that’s exactly what we need this winter – delicious, smooth and tender cake. 🙂 But if you’re tired and bored from all traditional desserts, why don’t you try my festive cake recipe. It seems similar to cheesecake, but I used tvorog (cottage cheese) and sweet condensed milk, and its taste and structure became different. Bright cranberries on the top make this milky and sweet cake absolutely festive! Definitely all guests’ eyes will be on this cake!

If you noticed cranberries are small, because it’s Russian, they are smaller and juicier compare to American cranberries. Needless to say, you can use any cranberries you can find, or frozen cherries are also great here.

Cottage cheese and cranberry pie

Servings: 6-8
Difficulty: moderate
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A new take on the vanilla cheesecake, this cake will go down well on any occasion.

Ingredients

Crust

260g flour

160g butter

1 small egg

2-3 Tbsp caster sugar

1 egg yolk for brushing the pastry crust, optional

Filling

450g tvorog/cottage cheese

3Tbsp cream cheese, optional

3-4Tbsp sweetened condensed milk

2 large eggs or 3 small

2 tsp granulated sugar (or omit it and add more condensed milk)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp cognac or brandy, optional

3 Tbsp ground almonds

100-150g cranberries

almond flakes, for decoration

icing sugar, for decoration, optional

Preparation method

Make the cake crust. Cover and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out 3mm thick and cut a circle larger than 20cm (approx.26-28cm) baking pan. Bake blind in preheated 180C oven for 20 minutes. Then remove the weights, optionally brush with egg yolk, then return to the oven and bake for 5-6 minutes more.
Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl beat eggs with condensed milk and sugar if using until the mixture is pale and sugar almost dissolved. Add vanilla, cognac, cream cheese and mix.
If the cottage cheese is very crumble first mash it with a fork, then add to the filling mixture along with ground almonds, and stir to combine. Taste, add more condensed milk if it’s not enough sweet.
Pour the filling into pastry crust. Arrange cranberries on top, and decorate with almond flakes.
Reduce the heat to 170C and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the filling is set.
Let it cool in the baking pan for 10 minutes, then carefully take out and put on a serving plate. Sprinkle with icing sugar, if desired.
Enjoy!

Spiced Plum Cake with streusel

What could be better than a moist and sweet cake that takes minutes to put together? I always like to explore different butter cake recipes; I’ve tried to use different types of flour, with milk or yogurt.. Actually, most of the recipes turned out good. But for the seasonal autumn recipe, I decided to add spices and crunchy streusel to make it more rich. Spiced plum cake with streusel topping The cake is warmly spiced, plus ripe plums make it more soft. It is so delicious and yet so easy. Perfect as a midday treat! It’s also good and tasty on the next day, in case if you got any leftovers, though it never lasts long. 🙂 It goes really well with a dollop of mascarpone. You can sprinkle the cake with icing sugar, or pour over a maple syrup, but for me the cake has enough sweetness.

Spiced Plum Cake with streusel

Servings: 6-8
Time: 45-50mins
Difficulty: easy
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* In stead of store-bought almond powder, I suggest to buy whole almonds, dry-roast them and then blend into powder. Walnuts are also nice and can be used instead of almonds.

Ingredients

7-8 plums, firm but ripe, pitted and cut into fourths or sixths (I used dark and yellow plums)

110g butter, at room temperature

70g brown sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

100g plain flour

20g cornflour

50g almond powder*

1/2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

1/2-1/3 tsp cardamom, finely ground

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg, finely ground

1/6 tsp cloves, finely ground

60g yogurt (I used lowfat, but full fat is ok too)

Streusel

40g wholewheat flour or fine oats

15g butter, soft

20-30g demerara or white sugar

1-2 Tbsp walnuts or pistachios, roughly chopped

For serving

mascarpone or whipped cream

maple syrup, if desired

Method

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 18cm cake tin (you can use 10-15cm cake tin also, the cake will be higher; or 20cm round tin is ok too).
Cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time (don’t over-beat, just stir to combine).
Mix together flours, almond powder, salt and all spices. Add to the egg mixture a little bit at a time. Finally add yogurt.
Spoon mixture into the cake tin. Individually place plums at an angle to make rings, using gentle pressure to push them slightly into batter. Leave about 2cm between each plum.
For the streusel, mix the butter into flour. Add sugar, nuts and combine until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the cake.
Bake for 45-50 minutes. Once baked remover from the oven and allow to cool 10 minutes before serving.
Slice and serve with a dollop of mascarpone or whipped cream. If it’s not enough sweet, pour over the cake maple syrup.

Enjoy the cake with a nice cup of hot tea!

German Cheesecake – Käsekuchen

October 9, 2014
milkandbun
49 comments
baking, cheesecake, dessert, food, food blogger, food photography, food styling, fromage fraise, German cheesecake, photo, photography, quark, recipes, sweet

Last weekend I went shopping to the local supermarket and found a dairy product which was new to me – fromage fraise (quark). So, I bought the quark in the hope of finding a recipe and use it somehow. I was browsing the net, when stumble upon the info that Germans making their cheesecake version and using quark; even though I use Jamie Oliver’ cheesecake recipe most of the time, I decided to try new recipe without hesitation. And what do you think! The cheesecake turned out golden and very fluffy, but after setting in the fridge it fell down.. The texture was creamy and tender, and it reminded me the bake with cottage cheese from my childhood. So, if you are not fun of heavy and over-sugary cheesecakes, it’s your option! I will make it again for sure.

German Cheesecake - Käsekuchen

Ingredients for 22cm baking pan

Crust

170g all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla sugar

1 Tbsp granulated sugar

70g butter

1 egg

Filling

600g quark

3 eggs, separated yolks and whites

150g granulated sugar

80g butter, at room temperature

1/2 lemon, grated zest, optional

180ml heavy cream

vanilla bean, seeds

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp lemon juice

a pinch of salt

Method

Crust. Sift the flour in a big mixing bowl, add baking powder, salt, vanilla, sugar and mix. Add butter and egg, knead until smooth. Cover the dough and keep in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Filling. Beat egg yolks with sugar and vanilla until pale. Add butter, lemon zest and beat again. Add heavy cream and quark and stir to combine. Beat egg whites with salt and lemon juice until stiff; then gently fold into the quark batter along with cornstarch, adding a little at a time.
Line the baking pan with paper. Roll out the dough into 30cm circle, or simply place it in the baking pan and press it, pushing it up the sides to make a rim.
Pour the filling over crust and smooth with spatula.
Bake in preheated 160C oven for 45-55 minutes until the top is golden and the filling set. If the top browning too much, cover with a piece of foil.
Cool the cheesecake at the room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for 3-6 hours or overnight.

Enjoy!

Jam Cake

September 14, 2014
milkandbun
28 comments
cake, cooking, dessert, food, food and recipes, food photo, food photography, jam cake, photo, photography, plum cake, plums, recipe, Russian, Russian recipe, sweet

This cake is well-known in my home-country, and it’s quite popular among village people, or at least who prepare homemade jams. Oh, we love make jams in Russia! Nothing can beat a real homemade jam, jam for which you picked up fruits or berries yourself in the garden or forest during summer. And like everything is done at home the taste of every jam in every home is unique. When it is dark and dank outside, or even when it’s a snowstorm during cold Russian winters, it’s such a great pleasure to be at warm and cozy home, sip a hot herbal tea with a spoon of jam, or spread it thickly over a piece of bread.

Many Russian grandmothers used to make this cake, mainly when was a cup of jam left, and nobody wanted to eat it up. Among such ladies was grandmother of my classmate, she used to make delicious cake with strawberry jam!

The cake recipe is very easy and quickly to prepare, you need only few ingredients and patience while it cooks, and the result is sweet and tasty cake! Ability to use any jam is excellent, every time you’re getting new-flavoured cake! Isn’t it cool?