Tag Archives: sweet

Sunny peachy-nutty cake

Days go by and summer is slowly coming to Dubai, winter doesn’t want to give up though, giving us some cloudy days sometimes but its days are counted…

One lovely morning I was at home, and looking at the dull skies, I decided to make something special for the afternoon tea, something sunny, sweet-smelling and new, a cake that I’ve not tried before, and it should be fruity.

I have to say that I do not normally know what I’m going to cook this or next day, I’ve never have a master plan for a week ahead, and prefer to be inspired by details around me, whatever I see, read about food or trying something myself, rather than be organized in the proper food-blogger way 🙂

So, I went to a grocery to look for an inspiration. One important and remarkable thing about buying food in Dubai is that large groceries and markets here do always and really inspire me; we have no such variety of fruits in Russia, and every time I go for a shopping, whether it is some oranges for a morning juice or avocados, I never know from which part of the world these fruits or veggies would come from. And that day was not an exception. Without even roaming between fruit rows I remarked some nice peaches shortly after I entered the shop, and once I came closer and took a couple of them in my hand, I already decided that it’s going to be a beautiful peach cake!

Peaches always remind me of summer, they share the same bright and yellowish colour of the pulp with the sun, giving the cozy feeling of warm and sunny days.

At home I cut one fruit and tried it. I was slightly disappointed that the peaches weren’t as juicy as I expected, but that turned into fantastic peach cake in the end… 😉

Ingredients for the cake:

Peaches* – 4 big

Eggs, at room temperature – 3

Yoghurt -150g or 0.6cup

Sugar* -100g or 0.5cup

Butter, cut into small cubes – 130g or 0.6cup

Self-raising flour – 150g or 1cup (or 1 cup plain flour + 1 tsp baking powder)

Cornmeal – 2 Tbsp

Whole walnuts – 130g or ~1cup

A pinch of salt

Lemon zest – 2tsp

Orange zest – 1tsp

Ingredients for the mandarin sauce:

3 big mandarins*

2 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp water

2-3 Tbsp icing sugar

1 Tbsp cognac (or brandy, or Grand Marnier) – optionally

*Really good substitution for peaches are nectarines!

*I used only 100g of sugar and that means the cake won’t be sweet,

I suggest sweeten it with 150g or 3/4cup of sugar.

*I used mandarins, just because :D; oranges go well here too, as you already guess.

The cake preparation:

In a bowl beat the butter and sugar together;
Stir in one by one eggs;
Add yoghurt and citrus zest, combine;
Ground the walnuts, add to the batter and mix;
Sift the flours and salt into the batter mixture;
Grease the baking dish with butter or oil. Pour the cake batter into it;
Cut the peaches into wedges and stick into batter;
Bake in preheated oven 210C/400F for 45-60 minute;.**
Meanwhile prepare the mandarin sauce for the cake;
Let the cake cool a bit. Pour the mandarin sauce over it.

Mandarin sauce preparation:

First of all, squeeze the juice out of mandarins;
Combine citrus juices, water and sugar in a small saucepan; bring to boil;
Reduce heat to low, add cognac and simmer for 10-12 minutes;
Remove from the heat and cool.

**When I’m using a glass dish for the cake, it takes me little bit longer to bake it.

Thus after 40 minutes, pls check the cake is done or not yet.

To check the cake’s readiness – tuck into a toothpick, if it comes out dry – the cake is ready.

The final result overcame all my expectations – the cake tasted fantastically! The peaches became tender and even more sweeter, and because they were not so juicy they kept their integrity. Needless to say about aromatic mandarin sauce.. I’ll definitely be making it again!

I also suggest to sprinkle some icing sugar on the top along with the citrus sauce.

P.S. Several days back I didn’t even know that there is such type of flour as ‘cake’, thanks to dear fellow-blogger Suzanne, now I know about it and adding cornmeal everywhere…Haha

Hey, are you still here? 🙂 Go and bake the cake!

Have a sunny and bright day, guys!

Khvorost

Khvorost is a traditional Russian crispy sweet which made out of dough, shaped into twisted ribbons and deep-fried. The name means ‘brushwood’, it was given because of similar look to a real brushwood and a sound ‘crack-crack’ when you bite the crunchy sweet khvorost. 🙂

Khvorost was very popular in the 18-19th centuries and commonly eaten among petty bourgeois, shopkeepers, clerks and students, who could gather and spend a little amount of money on this crunchy treat.

When pastry and confectionery industry progressed after 1930-50th, bringing more sweet products such as caramel candies and variety of cookies the khvorost itself became less popular.

Ingredients

3 egg yolks

1 Tbsp sour cream

100 ml full-fat milk

2 Tbsp cognac (or vodka)

pinch of salt

500g flour (white, all-purpose)

icing sugar for dusting

sunflower oil for deep-drying

Method

Whisk well egg yolks with sour cream, milk, cognac and salt. Adding the flour gradually to the egg mixture, knead a dough until soft, cohesive and no longer sticky (thus don’t add all the flour at once, or even add some if needed).

Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a towel or plastic wrap, let it rest for 20-30 minutes.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to 1cm/0.4″ thick. Cut strips (2-3cm/1″ width and 8-10cm/3-4″ length), make a small cut in each strip and fold one edge into it.

Heat the oil in a large pan and cook khvorost on both sides until golden (1-2 minutes). Ready ones set on a paper towel to get rid of fat excess.

Sprinkle with a good quantity of icing sugar.

Sugar is not added into genuine classic khvorost dough , that helps to make it more fluffy; thus sprinkle lots of icing sugar or pour some honey over ready ‘ribbons’ .

Enjoy with a cup of black tea or milk, or leave some for the morning coffee! 😉

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Linzer cookies

I do love shortcrust pastries! It’s versatile, great choice of fillings allows your imagination run wild. 😀 Thus, is easy to guess that I’ve made so many shortbreads as well, some of them were not good and too crumbly for me, but I keep on.

Linzer cookie is two nut-flavored cookies are sandwiched together with a jam, originally it was a torte, named after the city of Linz, Austrian. Do you know that such round-shaped cookies are called “Linzer eyes”. What a pretty name! 🙂

Based on different recipes, I used following Linzer cookie recipe:

Ingredients

100g (1/2 cup) white sugar

1 egg

120g (1/2 cup) butter, cut into small cubes, room temperature

200g (1 1/2 cup) all purpose flour

90g (1 cup) almond meal

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp lemon zest

50g (1/3 cup) or less powdered (icing) sugar

50-60 ml (1/4 cup) Raspberry jam

Method

In a bowl on a table cream butter and sugar. Add the egg, vanilla and mix.

Finally, beat in the ground almonds.

Stir together dry ingredients in a bowl and add to the batter and blend.

Form into disk, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line baking trays with parchment paper.

Roll out pastry to 25-50mm (1/4-1/8 inch) thickness.

Cut out the cookies (if cookies are too soft-chill it again for 10-15 minutes).

Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool.

Spread 1/2 or 1tsp jam on the bottoms of solid cookies. Sprinkle the cut-out cookies with icing sugar, place them on top and sandwich them together.

The assembled cookies can be store in an container (in the refrigerator), or I keep them without jam, in a jar, and assemble when it’s needed 🙂

Enjoy! Cookies are sooooo good! 😀

*You can cut out any shape, and use your favourite jam.

**In case if the pastry turned out too crumbly and difficult to roll it out, add 2tbsp of cold water, usually it helps me 🙂

P.S. You can click on all photos to have a look it in full size.

Winter cake with red berries

Red berries and cheese make this cake a frequent guest on my table during the winter. 😀 It looks gorgeous and tastes delicious! Perfect for holiday season!

INGREDIENTS

100g butter, very soft at room temperature

150g Philadelphia cheese or smooth cottage cheese

120-140g sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

130g self-raising flour (or plain flour+ 1tsp baking powder)

2tsp mandarin or orange zest

1tsp lemon zest

200g mix of cranberries, redcurrents and raspberries, fresh or frozen (no need to defreeze)

50-70g flaked almonds

METHOD

Beat the cheese, butter and sugar together.

Add eggs to the batter mixture, one at a time, beating rapidly.

Stir in mandarin&lemon zests.

Sift the flour and mix to combine.

Finally, carefully stir the berries into the batter.

Sprinkle the cake with flaked almonds or your favorite nuts.

Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F during 35-40 minutes.

Bon appetit!

Adapted from this source.

Russian pryaniki – gignebread

Today is Christmas in Russia. I wish wonderful and magical day to all Orthodox Christians!

Pryaniki were ones of the favorite treats in Rus’ (old name of Russia). The name was given for it’s spicy aroma and taste. They are similar to gingerbread cookies, but often made more thick.

Pryanik was the symbol of holiday, because ingredients weren’t cheap and used daily. It’s been baked for the Christmas, Easter, weddings and birthdays. There were quite a lot ceremonies and traditions about pryaniki.

In 9^th century, first pryaniki were called “honey bread”, they were baked from rye flour with honey and berry juice, honey contained the half of all mixture. Later wild flowers and spices were added in a pastry.

In 7-8^th centuries, when exotic spices were brought from India and Middle East to Russia, pryanik was named “pryanik”. Spices for pryaniki were called “dry perfume”, among which black pepper, orange and lemon zest, mint, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, anise and clove were most used and favorite.

In 17-19^th centuries, baking of pryaniki was widely-spread craft. In every area people baked their special pryaniki according to traditional recipes; preparation’s secrets were passed on from one generation to another.

Ingridients:

For the pastry:

100-120 ml honey

300g flour

1 tbsp butter

1 egg

1/3 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp spice mix*

50ml water

1 tbsp cognac, brandy or vodka (optionally)

For the frosting:

1 egg white

150g icing sugar (powedered sugar)

*Spice mix:

1/3 tsp powdered coriander

1/3 tsp cinnamon

1/6 tsp nutmeg

a pinch of cardamom

a pinch of clove

a pinch of allspice

Honey and water heat in a pot (turn the heat off before the mixture begin to simmer). Take the pot away from the heat, add half of the flour (sifted) and mix intensively until smooth.

Cool the mixture until room temperature.

Then add the egg, cognac, spices, soda and the remaining sifted flour. Mix the pastry well during 15 minutes; it should be soft and tender.

Roll out the pastry in 5-6 mm/2 inch sheet and cut out any shape you like.

Bake in preheated 200C/400F oven for 15-18 minutes.

While the pryaniki are cooling, prepare the frosting. Beat well egg white, add sugar and beat again untill smooth. Put the ready frosting in a bag and decorate the pryaniki.

Enjoy with a cup of hot tea or a glass of milk. 🙂

Keep the pryaniki in a box, it can be stored during long time.