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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!

Midweek Raspberry Dessert

I made this dessert less than for 15 minutes! Needless to say, it’s a perfect treat for busy days. Don’t know about you, but I need something sweet after the main course! 😀 I really miss pies or danishes, if I don’t eat them at least once a week. Exactly the same situation was yesterday – the pantry was full of my fav dark chocolate, but I wanted a pie or cake!

I’m a huge fan of Jamie Oliver and even consider him as my virtual mentor! 🙂 Might you’ve seen food-videos with him and another young guy – Donal Skehan; they both provide inspirational ideas and recipes. I love raspberries! So, I chose this recipe, but adapted it, and made chocolate crust. And wow! Tartlets tasted soooo good! Reach chocolate crust along with tender berry filling gave the brilliant result! Yum!

Ingredients for two 11cm/4inch baking tins

85g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

30g fine sugar

60g butter, cold and cubed

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp ice cold water

120g raspberries

50-60g strawberries, cut

130-150ml creme fraiche

1 tsp icing sugar

Method

In a bowl or food processor combine the flour, cocoa and baking powder, sugar and butter until it forms a dough.
Press the dough with your fingertips into baking tins. Put in a fridge for 30 minutes.
Mix together berries, creme fraiche and icing sugar; then spread over the dough.
Bake in preheated 210C/410F oven for 15 minutes. Then lower the heat to 150C/300F and bake for 20 minutes more.

Enjoy!

Prune Cookies

It’s autumn somewhere.. and time to harvest or buy beautiful apples, plums and pumpkins, make tasty preserves, and bake! Perhaps you will be surprised but I wish tomorrow (or even a whole month) would be grey and cheerless here! We I mean myself and some of my friends got a bit tired from burning sun this summer, and few days back a little miracle happened here – it was raining! Yay! But only for an hour or so. 😀 To be honest, when I lived in my hometown I didn’t like the beginning of autumn; rains were too often, boots and trousers caked with mud was a normal thing!

Autumn here is a totally different season! October is the beginning of a large influx of tourists amazing weather in Dubai, temperature goes down and days become cooler, people become happier; it’s a season of barbecue in parks, outdoor cafes and long walks. Not to mention the fact that I’m going to bake more cakes and pies, and fill my home and blog with quintessential autumn flavours. 🙂
This cookies recipe is super easy, tasty and suits autumn mood! The main secret ingredient is prunes (dried plums) soaked in a cognac, and I can easily say that these cookies become my favourite!

Prune Cookies

You can use dark chocolate with hazelnuts or plain milk chocolate, or even omit it.

Ingredients

8-9 prunes

50ml cognac

50-60ml water

1 Tbsp brown or muscovado sugar

50g butter, room temperature

2 Tbsp brown or dark muscovado sugar

1 egg

100g flour

1/3 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

40g dark chocolate (70-80% cacao), roughly chopped

40g roasted walnuts, finely chopped, optional

Method

Into small pan add prunes, sugar and water. Bring to boil, add cognac and boil for 5-7 minutes more. Remove from the hob and let cool. Roughly chop prunes.
In a mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar, then mix in egg. Add 2 tsp syrup from prunes.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the mixture into batter and combine.
Carefully fold into batter dark chocolate, nuts and chopped prunes (without syrup).
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

The recipe adapted from Russina tv-show “Edim doma”

Scallops. Impress your guests!

Hey guys! Excluding this awesome, simple and yet satisfying recipe, I have a question for you. Have you ever gone out from your comfort zone? Are you doing anything unusual or off-limits during the week or month, that people usually don’t expect from you?

Can you take a bicycle instead of car and go to work? Or can you stop eating desserts just for a week? Or may be say ‘yes’ to green tea, even if you never drink it, instead of your fav coffee? Can you stop drinking cola (I hope you don’t drink it at all)?

Or may be to call a person, who is really dear to you, and you’ve been shy to speak to, and invite him/her for a dinner? 😉

Start from simple things, try out new recipe! Prepare this amazing and delicious appetizer! Impress yourself and only then others! 🙂

Scallops with avocado puree and strawberries

Servings: 2
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You can serve tender scallops with strawberries or just with sauce. A glass of bubbly or chilled white wine would be perfect here!

Ingredients

6 scallops

1 avocado

60-80g cream cheese

2 tsp lemon juice

8 strawberries

2 Tbsp finely chopped coriander

1-2 Tbsp olive oil, for frying

sea salt, white pepper

Sauce:

60-80ml dry white wine

1 tsp garlic puree (roasted garlic is great here)

1 tsp finely chopped coriander

1 Tbsp butter

Chop and blend avocado, add cream cheese, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Cut strawberries into small cubes, mix with fresh coriander.

Season scallops with salt and pepper, fry in the piping hot pan 2 minutes on each side.

In the middle of serving plate, arrange avocado puree, top with strawberries; then arrange scallops.

If you don’t like avocado, you can serve scallops simple as is with a sauce. In the same pan, where you fried scallops, add wine and deglaze the pan’s bottom. Add garlic, coriander, season to taste and bring to boil. Add butter, mix well and cook for few minutes more. Pour the sauce over the scallops.

Enjoy!

Dubai Eating Out

Last year I’d been invited to the pre-opening culinary evening of new Spanish restaurant in Dubai. Spanish waiters were greeting guests with aromatic red Sangria at the entrance and that promised a good evening ahead. The restaurant’s ambience was very welcoming and relaxed. I was very excited and anxious to try out Spanish dishes! We had tried few tapas (appetizers), cold tomato-cucumber soup-Gaspacho, Spanish pudding and another famous dessert – churros. And of course, an icon of Spanish national cuisine – Paella! The young Chef was preparing saffron seafood paella just in front of my table! Can you believe, they have bringing the rice for paella straight from Spain! And not only rice, among others stuff is sherry vinegar, sausages, wine… Thus, I’d tasted the real taste of Spain being outside the country! Besides the dinner, there was a drawing, and my husband was extremely lucky that day and won the main prize – the voucher for a dinner. So, we had a chance to dine there one more time.

One of the distinctive features of the restaurant is a large open kitchen and bar, counter seating and tables are laid around it. We sat near the kitchen, where the chef was preparing food in front of us. While waiting paella, we were served complimentary crusty bread on a wooden board. The waiter explained that we should rub bread with garlic, tomato and season to taste. A good and aromatic starter!

The main dish – paella was flavorful, but overly salty. I almost wanted to scream ‘stop!’ at chef, when I’d seen how much salt she added in a huge paella pan.

Spanish Paella

Aromatic and fresh Spanish food

Enjoyable dish was churros with Nutella dip. They remind me Russian khvorost.

To sum up, I’d like to say, that the food tasted really good (but too salty), the decoration is impressionable and fresh for Dubai, and staff is friendly, but.. The paella’s potion is a bit small for such pricy tag! Compare to other Dubai restaurants, where almost everywhere the potion is big enough to share. So, this Spanish restaurant could be visited once to try paella or churros, and don’t’ forget to ask about ‘paella of the day’, it’s two times cheaper.

I’m little bit late to Fiesta Friday this week, but I’m very chirpy to be part of it, and hope there is some food left.. 😀 Enjoy the weekend, bloggers!