Happy New Year and Bonbon project 2.0

The New Year has come. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their beloved ones, friends, colleagues, whoever, with whom you could cook, bake, eat perfect foods together and had a great time.

For Xmas this year since I am a gourmand and have this gastro blog, I didn't have another chance but only prepare eatable presents for everyone, my family and friends also. I prepared a lot of delicious things already before xmas, in all December but from all I loved making bonbons. It has endless number of variant and who doesn't love chocolate. The bonbon as xmas present proved perfect choise. All my family was struck dumb by the small sweet surprises which is always the best proof for me. :)

Right before Christmas I  bought a new bonbon silicone chocolate molds what I needed to try immediately. Of course! 

I made 4 different kind of bonbon with different fillings or design:

1. Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam (I have prepared this before)

2. White - dark chocolate striped bonbon

3. White chocolate bonbon filling with sour cherry jam

4. White chocolate bonbon filling with orange dark chocolate cream

1. Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam 

Ingredients (15 pieces):

15 dkg dark chocolate (minimum 60%)

For the filling:

4 tablespoon cream 

10 dkg white chocolate

4 coffee spoon yoghurt 

1 lemon's zest

+ home-made sour cherry jam

1. For first step let's prepare the filling. Melt the white chocolate with the cream above medium heat, stirring constantly. When the cream is solid, set aside to chill. When it's cold (after 5-10 minutes), addmix the yoghurt and lemon zest. Set aside again until preparing the chocolate shell in the forms. 

2. Melt the 2/3 of chocolate slowly in another saucepan stirring constantly. When it's completely melted, take from the cooking-stove, turn the rest of chocolate into the melted chocolate and stir until they get melted as well. 

3. Wih the help of a paint brush (Yes, you can use what we painted in elementary school with if we haven't purchased a professional bonbon brush yet) grease the holes of bonbon form. Hold toward the lights to see whether you haven't left any small hole anyway the filling runs out through it. Place the form in the fridge to congeal. If you want to play it safe, grease again with the chocolate (as I did also for the very first time).

4. When our chocolate shells chilled, place some white chocolate filling with a small coffee spoon, then some jam but leave some millimetre place for the feet of bonbons to close them. Pull down the unnecessary chocolate with a spatula so the feet of bonbons will be nice and plain.  

5. When we are ready witht the filling, put them back inthe fridge for minimum 1 hour then carefully turn out the bonbons from the form and you can taste them immediately. 

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Kladdkaka - The famous Swedish chocolate cake

We arrived at the next stop of our series about Swedish desserts, the kladdkaka.

The Swedes has many national day around the year when they celebrate the day one of their national desserts such as kanelbullens dag (the Swedish cinnamon rolls) on 4th October or Fettisdagen (the Fat Tuesday) when the whole Swedish nation eats semla or like today, on 7th November when everyone bakes kladdkaka at home. 

The word "kladdkaka" means sticky cake. This cake is the first dessert what the Swedish children learn to bake from their parents. It's similar to the American brownie but the kladdkaka's middle is more soft and sticky because of the chocolate. Generally it's served with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. 

You can find kladdkaka in almost every café and restaurant all around Sweden, somewhere it's good, somewhere it's better but unfortunately you can meet with less good one also, whose middle is not soft - which is essential for kladdkaka. In addition like every other Swedish cake, the kladdkaka has also frozen version as well therefore who is too lazy to bake, they can also buy a quite delicious cake in the supermarket. Since it's as quick as lightning to prepare and doesn't need any special qualification or practise, it's hard to find an excuse why you couldn't bake it at home.

Like every dessert, million different kinds of kladdkaka exist but all consist butter, cocoa powder, flour, egg but with different rate. Moreover, kladdkaka has improved variant as well, which is added vanilla or chocolate in, but the result is always very similar.  

From the million versions I chose the famous kladdkaka of Leila Lindholm from her book, A Piece of Cake.

Ingredients:

50 g butter
1/2 dl oil
2 egg
2 dl castor sugar
1 dl brown sugar
2,5 dl flour
4 tablespoon good quality cocoa powder (I use only Holland!)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt

butter and flour to grease the form
50 g dark chocolate (min. 70%)

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.

2. Melt the butter in the microwave oven or in a small sauce pan then add the oil. 

3. In a big bowl whisk the eggs and the castor and brown sugar with a hand mixer till foamy then addmix the oily butter. 

4. In another bowl mix the dry ingredients, the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder and stir into the egg mixture. 

5. When it's ready pour in the prepared, buttered and floured about 24 cm round cake pan with removable bottom and sprinkle with some breaken chocolate pieces. 

5. In the middle of the oven bake the cake for 25 minutes. When you will stick a knife in it, don't surprise, it'll be sticky a bit because of the melted chocolate on its top. 

Serve with freshly whipped cream. 

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Bonbon project 1.0 - Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam

The long weekends always give a handle to try those dishes, cakes and recipes we have deferred for a long time. I also devoted partly my weekend for this vagary. On the one hand these wonderful bonbons were prepared on Saturday, and yesterday ginger-cinnamon Williams pear jam. Wowowowow!! Even I made both for the first time but I wanted to create something special and unique and to be "very unpretentious" I think they turned out well.  

I stated that I still need to improve related to bonbon (I would like if my bonbons were sooo shiny as the most delicious ones are) in technics, variations, tastes, forms but what is essential that 8 from 10  bonbons  came out in one shape from the form. The other reason why I needed to try to make them is that in 2 weeks I will need to prepare in Stockholm and at the time I won't be allowed to make lame bonbons. :)

My mum has bought the forms for me a few weeks ago in Lidl, but in Hungary you can buy also in Butlers, Tescoma products can be bought in almost all kitchen utensils store, in almost every big shopping mall (in Budapest: Allee, Westend, Aréna) and online on the Hungarian website: Gasztroshop, Sodrófa.hu. For the persons who lives in Sweden (;-)) the FikaMera is a very useful web store!!!!! Soon I will also purchase the ingredients only from here. 

For start I wanted to try only one portion, the important for me was to see how to use the chocolate, how to temper then how to grease the form with the melted chocolate to make equable thick chocolate layer then in the end if I reached the last step without any big mistake how to conjured the bonbons out from the form without breaking. In short, to know all of this above, I turned in to the blog of Praliné Zsuzsi, and Csak a Puffin, to learn the basics and get inspired. In this way I reached to the lemony white chocolate and sour cherry jam filling. 

I aim at summarize the most important things what a starter bonbon maker should know before starting a bonbon project.

Ingredients (10 pieces):

10 dkg dark chocolate (minimum 60%)

For the filling:

2 tablespoon cream 

5 dkg white chocolate

2 coffee spoon yoghurt 

1/2 lemon's zest

+ home-made sour cherry jam

1. For first step let's prepare the filling. Melt the white chocolate with the cream above medium heat, stirring constantly. When the cream is solid, set aside to chill. When it's cold (after 5-10 minutes), addmix the yoghurt and lemon zest. Set aside again until preparing the chocolate shell in the forms. 

2. Melt the 2/3 of chocolate slowly in another saucepan stirring constantly. When it's completely melted, take from the cooking-stove, turn the rest of chocolate into the melted chocolate and stir until they get melted as well. 

You can read about the different way of melting and tempering of chocolate at Praliné Zsuzsi's blog.  She says, either to melt above  boiling water or in microwave oven but the most important thing is to measure with chocolate tempering thermometer, because if for instance we overheat the chocolate it can happen that our chocolate won't be shiny.

3. Wih the help of a paint brush (Yes, you can use what we painted in elementary school with if we haven't purchased a professional bonbon brush yet) grease the holes of bonbon form. Hold toward the lights to see whether you haven't left any small hole anyway the filling runs out through it. Place the form in the fridge to congeal. If you want to play it safe, grease again with the chocolate (as I did also for the very first time).

(If your chocolate has congealed, melt it again.)

4. When our chocolate shells chilled, place some white chocolate filling with a small coffee spoon, then some jam but leave some millimetre place for the feet of bonbons to close them. Pull down the unnecessary chocolate with a spatula so the feet of bonbons will be nice and plain.  

5. When we are ready witht the filling, put them back inthe fridge for minimum 1 hour. (or for a whole night), then carefully turn out the bonbons from the form and you can taste them immediately. 

How long are 10 binbons enough for you?

The chocolate shell was perfect, the cream was softly lemony, and with the sourish cherry jam they became a very special couple. 

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Apple-cinnamon muffin with walnut crumb

I'm already in Christmas mood, especially when the cinnamon apple started to flavour from the oven. These muffins are simple (the recipe can be sum up in 3 steps) but delicious, soft and very Christmasish :)

Ingredients (6 pieces):
1 egg
1,5 dl yoghurt
3,5 dkg butter or marge
12 dkg flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
8 dkg sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 middle-sized apple

For decoration:
1 handful walnut + 1 tablespoon sugar

1. In a big bowl mix the egg and yoghurt. In another one mix the flour with the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, sugar then add the egg mixture and grated apple to this.Mix all the ingredients properly.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

3. Spoon the dough into the muffin paper lined forms, sprinkle with sugar-walnut mix and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes.

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I WON!!!!!!!! Announcement of results of Mindmegette recipe competition

I WOOOOOON!!!!!! I'm soooo hipersuperextremely happy now!!:) 

The result of the Mindmegette recipe competition was announced today which was organized from 25th September to 24th October 2012 by Mindmegette (it operates the largest Hungarian recipe collection) and Lidl supermarket. The full list of winners can be found HERE.

The famous Queen Elisabeth Cake also appealed to the jury so I hope it will become world-famous. And after all you won't try this cake now, it's your own fault then!! :)

I share the recipe again you to take fancy easier to prepare.

Ingredients (for oven pan - 40 cm*40 cm):

For the base:

8 egg whites

8 tablespoon sugar

10 dkg flaked coconut

10 dkg unground poppy-seeds
2 tablespoon flour
1 coffee spoon baking soda

Vanilla cream:
8 egg yolks
6 púpos evőkanál liszt
20 dkg sugar
1 liter milk
20 dkg marge (or butter)

Biscuit layer:
250 g cocoa crisp biscuits

Whipped cream layer:
1/2 l whippable cream
25 g dr. Oetker Whip it! (stabilzer for whipping cream)

How to prepare the base:
In a big deep bwol start to beat the egg whites with a hand mixer, then when it's almost ready, add the sugar spoon by spoon and beat until it's totally hard. Admix the poppy-seeds, the coconut and flour with baking soda carefully.

Smooth the dough in the oven pan (lined with baking paper) then bake in the oven what you have preheated to 180°C beforehand. Pay attention because the dough bakes very quickly (within a few minutes). It's ready when its top is nicely golden brown. Peel the baking paper from it while it's still lukewarm and let it cool while prepare the cream.

How to prepare the vanilla cream:
Mix the egg yolks with the flour till smooth then add the sugar and the milk in a pan. Stirring constantly, cook it to dense above medium heat. Set aside, let it cool then when the cream it's already just lukewarm, admix the marge.

How to set up the cake:
Grease the cream on the coconut-poppy-seeds sponge cake then place the biscuits on it. Wait for a while (until the cream cools) before preparing the whipped cream.

How to make the whipped cream:
I always put the whippable cream in the freezer for 30 minutes before using, so I did the same this time as well. Believe me, it will be much easier to work with it in this way and with using the "Whip it!" you will get perfectly hard whipped cream for sure.

For the whipped cream, beat it slowly until they are foamy, then increase the speed. Add the dr. Oetker whip it! Be careful, and do not overbeat the cream. It is ready when you titl the bowl and the mixture does not slide around. When it's ready, grease the whipped cream on the top of our cake and put in the fridge.

It's expedient to prepare half day before serving. 

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Lemony poppy-seed cake with raspberry cream

Poppy-seed can come any time, in any form and amount. I can always be carried off my feet with poppy-seed. Especially when it's coupled with lemon. 

We had some leftover mascarpone and whippable cream from Mum's birthday cake so we invented that we bake something that she can take to her workplace as well to celebrate her b-day with her colleagues. I haven't baked anything for them for a long time what they remark quite often. :)

Since we didn't have ladyfinger at home, we couldn't make tiramisu. But we had frozen raspberry for the mascarpone, wuuuu how delicious it would be putting it on a special cake base...we were thinking, what kind of cake it could be....Mum said some choco-cocoa cake...I said brownie then...waaaa but it's too sweet....but what should it be then? 

On Monday I have uploaded to Nosalty (a Hungarian recipe website), my recipe of "Poppy-seed cake with cherry marmalade and lemon mousse", which had such a big success (within 12 hours 3.500 people checked it) that I was swooned by happiness. And this time the big idea came.  What would be if we baked the cake base for our raspberry cream. Yes, that's it!!!! This poppy-seed cake is simply brilliant, as it bakes in the oven, the flavour of poppy-seed and lemon mix can be felt all around the flat.  I honestly recommend this to everyone for one or....more trial.

I changed the orginial recipe a bit, you can see now: 

Hozzávalók (kb. 22cm-es tortaformához):

For the cake-base:

3 egg yolks
11 dkg butter
11 dkg sugar
11 dkg minced poppy-seed
11 dkg flour
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1 lemon's zest
225 g plain yoghurt

For the cream: 

10 dkg mascarpone

2 dl cream

10 dkg castor sugar
1/2 small package of dr. Oetker Whip it!

2 handful of fresh or frozen raspberry + some for decoration

How to prepare the cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and butter a 22 cm round cake pan.

2. Mix the soft butter and sugar with a hand mixer in a big bowl within 2-3 minutes. Add the egg yolks one by one to the butter mixture.

3. In another bowl mix the flour with the poppy-seed, baking soda and lemon zest.

4. Add the yoghurt and poppy-seed - flour to the buttery mixture alternately. After we work together all the ingredients, pour it in the buttered cake pan and place in the preheated oven.

5. Bake the cake until it gets golden on the top and when you stick a knife or fork in it and the dough doesn't stick on it. It's worth to keep a check on it several times after 20 minutes. When it's ready, take out from the oven.

How to prepare the cream:

6. While the cake gets chill, let's prepare the cream for the top. Before using, put the whippable cream in the freezer for about 20 minutes (Believe me, it will be much easier to work with it in this way and with using the "Whip it!" you will get perfectly hard whipped cream for sure.). After 20 minutes take it out from the freezer, pour in a deep bowl and start to beat slowly with a hand mixer until it is foamy, then increase the speed. Add the dr. Oetker whip it! Be careful, and do not overbeat the cream. It is ready when you titl the bowl and the mixture does not slide around. When it's ready, grease the whipped cream on the top of our cake and put in the fridge.

7. In another bowl mix the mascarpone with the castor sugar, then the raspberry what you smash with the help of a fork before. When you mixed properly, add the whipped cream carefully, don't break the cream. When the raspberry cream is ready, grease the it on the top of our cake, decorate with fresh raspberry and put in the fridge.

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Choco-banana muffin - by Leila Lindholm

I travelled to Stockholm on 9th October, on Wednesday to spend a long weekend there and celebrate my birthday with Mr. M. Because of this perfect reason (I always find reason of course when I want to buy a new cook book) I surprised myself with the A Piece of Cake book of the already introduced Swedish blog writer-tv-chef, Leila Lindholm. 

The book is supergood, I will introduce it to you tomorrow. Although I have bought the original, Swedish version but I'm sure, that the English edition is also unexceptionable...if someone would take a fancy to this book. 

These small pretty muffins were baked for Sunday breakfast, were ready within 30 minutes with mixing-baking-everything and their marvellous flavor travelled in all the flat.  

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
10 dkg butter
2 bananas
3,5 dl flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoon cocoa powder
5 dkg melted dark chocolate

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C.

2. In a big bowl mix the eggs with the sugar, vanilla sugar and the melted butter. Smash the bananas with a fork, melt the dark chocolate and add them to the egg mix. Mix with hand mixer. 

3. Mix the flour with the baking powder, cocoa powder, then add progressively to the banana-egg mixture.  

4. When it's solid, spoon it to the muffin form which is lined already with muffin paper. Bake in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes, until you stick a knife in the small muffins and the dough doesn't stick to it. 

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My mum's birthday-day cake: Ginger carrot cake with lime mascarpone cream

My mum celebrates her b-day on 24th October. When I was thinking last week about what kind of cake I should bake for her, I wanted to suprise her with what she has never tasted and she keeps after me for it :) In this way my choice became the carrot cake. I used the same recipe as base what I posted for the first time on my blog and Mr. M. loved it also, so I was sure about its success. 

I changed the recipe a bit. This time I used mascarpone for the topping cream, grated lime instead of orange and I addmix half lime's juice to the cream as well.

Happy birthday Mum!!!

Ingridients:

3 eggs
210 ml vegetable oil
30 dkg soft light brown sugar
30 dkg grated carrot
10 dkg chopped walnuts
25 dkg flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ginger
Grated zest of a half lemon

For the top:
10 dkg mascarpone
1 dl heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract or vanilia sugar
10 dkg icing sugar

Grated zest of 1 lime 

1. Peel then grate the carrot, chop finely the walnut.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

3. In a large bowl, stir the egg and sugar with whisk till it gets white then add the oil, grated carrot, chopped nuts and grated zest of a half lemon.

4. In another bowl measure the flour, the bicarbonate of soda, the cinnamon, the ginger stir them and bring the two mixtures together.

5. Pour this mixture into the prepared cake pan , smooth the surface and bake in the oven for 75 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. Allow to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before removing. Cool completely on a wire rack before putting the icing on it.

7. To make the icing, put the cold heavy cream in a mixing bowl. With an electric hand mixer beat the cream. As the cream thickens, add the mascarpone and beat them together in a bowl until combined. Add the vanilla extract or sugar, icing sugar and finely grated lime zest and mix to combine. The icing should be smooth and quite thick. 

8. Spread the icing evenly over the cooled cake, dipping the knife into a bowl of hot water if the icing is hard to spread out. Cut into slices to serve.

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Rum-almond cake pop

My first cake pops are ready. Wuhuu!!! For the first try it's not that bad. I still need to learn and improve a lot of course but they are tiny, sweet, choclish and mine :)

Before looking at what I have created, let's start the cake pop history at the beginning.

Bakerella is the mother the cake balls sticked on lolly pop stick, from who many all over the world adopted and improved it. I reckon it as an incredible idea, because:

- the cake in itself is super delicious
- it's perfect dessert for smaller-bigger party, family gathering, party at work, as present, actually anytime, anywhere for any kind of occassion 

- it's only one bite, most of the times it's just enough
- only the creativity can limit its creation. It can be made from any kind of cake base, can be decorated with anything anyhow
- it's a perfect solution of recycling the leftover, dry cakes.

The Hungarian pioneers of cake pops are Cuppcake Judit and Lilla, who has prepared already the small American cakes, lolly pops...I wanted to say cake pop in million different version.

Who still hasn't known what I'm talking about now, here you can find a video from Bakerella. You can follow step by step how the Master prepares the cake pops.

Ingredients (30 pieces):
For the sponge cake:
6 eggs
6 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoon flour
1 dl oil
1/2 packet of baking powder (5 g)
4 tablespoon cacao powder (Holland)

For the cake pops
+ 10 dkg butter
+ 10 dkg regular cream cheese
+ 2 tablespoon rum

For the chocolate glaze:
+ 15 dkg good quality of dark chocolate
+ sliced almond for decorating

How to prepare the sponge cake:

1. Separate the eggs into yolks and whites. In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until foamy then set aside.

2. In another bowl mix the yolks with the sugar, cacao powder, oil, flour, baking powder then carefully addmix the whip with a spatula (try not to break the whip).

3. Pour it into a baking paper-lined oven pan and in the preheated oven (180°C) bake. When it's ready, take out from the oven, peel down the baking paper, slice up and let it cool, get dry. 

You can also prepare one day before the sponge cake, it will be drier. What's more, if you have some leftover muffin, spice-cake, any kind of sponge cake. 

How to create the cake pop:

4. In a small bowl mix the soft butter with the cream cheese, if it's needed add 1-2 tablespoon castor sugar. 

5. In a big bowl crumble the sponge cake, sprinkle with some rum, then add constantly the buttery cream cheese. It should be not too soft, but not too hard either, anyway it will fall down from the stick. When we knead properly, place in the fridge for 1 hour.

6. Form small balls from the dollop then place again in the fridge for half an hour.

7. Meanwhile melt the 2/3 part of chocolate in a small sauce pan above boiling water then melt the rest of the chocolate in it. 

8. Take the cake balls out from the fridge, dip the stick in the chocolate, stick in the cake balls and turn it in the melted chocolate. Let the unnecessary chocolate drop down. Stick your ready cake pops into polystyrene and decorate as you like. This time I used sliced almond but you can use grated chocolate, sugar decor and you can also turn into melted white chocolate, what you can colour with food colouring as well. 

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Plum linzer tart 2.0 - this time with juicy rosy gage plum

On the day when I published this post's original Hungarian version last Thrusday, I woke up at 5.30 in the morning to bake this cake for my colleague's farewell party and to pack because I have travelled to Madrid in the afternoon.

First I didn't plan to bake because in the previous evening I wouldn't have had time for it but on the way home I saw that at the greengrocery close to my place was still open at 9pm which generally closes at 8pm. I considered this as heavenly sign!! Fortunately I could buy rosy gage plum as well (I regard as real plum only this kind: super juicy so the cake won't be dry with it) Yes!!

I used the same recipe as last time, but the plum is much more delicious and better now.

I had worked till noon then run to home to pick up my suitcase and run to the airport.

I came with Madrid experiences soon. OLLLAAAA!!!

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Vanilla-fruit baskets

Last evening my friend, Ildi and me created these miracle baskets. I filled them with the cream, Ildi decorated. :)

You could meet already a lot of different linzer pastry recipe on my blog. In all of them the rate of flour-butter-sugar was different. This time I worked with the classic linzer pasrty rate, with the 3:2:1 version. And of course, my favorite, the grated lemon zest didn't drop out either. Yammm!

Ingredients:
For the pastry:
30 dkg flour
20 dkg butter or marge
10 dkg castor sugar
1 egg yolks
1/2 lemon's zest

For the vanilla cream:
1 package vanilla pudding (dr. Oetker)
4 dl milk
4-5 tablespoon castor sugar
5 dkg butter

1. Knead the linzer pastry as usual. In a big bowl crumb the flour with the butter, add the caster sugar, vanilla sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest, mix the ingredients and knead the pastry by hand very quickly. Put it in the fridge for about 1 hour but at least for 30 minutes to chill.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C and as preparing the basket forms, oil them properly in order the pastry not to get stuck in them.

3. Roll out the pastry and cut it with a pastry cutter (which fits to the basket forms - I used red wein glass :)) then arrange the pastry into the forms. Bake them in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. When they are ready take them out and let them cool.

4. While the baskets get cool, prepare the vanilla cream. Mix the pudding with the sugar then pouring the milk constantly, whisk to get a lump-free mixture. Cook a very thick cream above medium-heat, stirring it constantly, then set aside and let it cool. When it's lukewarm, addmix the butter.

5. Fill the baskets with this cream, then decorate with fruits.

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Cherry - cottage cheese cake

When I was living in Békéscsaba, in my hometown, we often went to Gyula and always turn into the Kis Kézműves Confectionery where my favorite was the cherry cottage cheese cake. We discovered it about 15 years ago when once we come round around opening hours. We looked at the offers when the still lukewarm, nicely redolent, castor sugar-sprinkled cheese cake was brough from the abck yard. Since we don't like the traditional confectionery meringue cakes (I think who grew up with home-made cakes, couldn't swallow these confectionery cakes), we swooped down on this enticing cake immediately. We got to like it soo much that we invented that we try to prepare this cake at home as well, it can't be soo difficult...we ate it soo many times that we already knew it was made with short linzer pastry, cherry and vanilla - cottage cheese cream.

After some trial the current recipe was born, thanks to mum!!

We celebrated Adrienn-day at the work on Friday, it was evident, I bake something for this occassion.  This summer unfortuntely I hadn't prepared this cake when there was fresh cherry at the markets, but even if there is no cherry-season, we can make it with preserved cherry, it doesn't take away anything from the cake's value.

I don't need to say, it run out within 5 minutes.

Ingredients:
For the pastry:
30 dkg flour
20 dkg marge or butter
10 dkg castor sugar
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
1/2 lemon's zest

For the cottage cheese filling:
3 dl milk
1 package vanilla pudding (I always use dr. Oetker)
15-20 dkg sugar
5 dkg marge
10-20 g vanilla sugar
1 lemon's grated zest
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 tablespoon semolina

+1 bottle of preserved cherry or 70 dkg fresh cherry

How to make the pastry: Knead the pastry's ingredients quickly until you get a solid, easily rollable pastry.  Crumble the flour with the marge, add the castor sugar, the egg yolk, the lemon zest and the salt and knead it till the pastry is nice and springy. Shape the pastry to a round loaf, cover with a kitchen towel and put in the fridge for an hour but at least for 30 minutes.

Prepare a 26-28 cm round and 2cm deep pie plate, oil properly in order the pastry not to get stuck in it. Take the pastry out from the fridge, roll on floured surface and put in a pie plate. Sprinkle a handful of semolina on the pastry, pile the cherry and prepare the below cream.

How to make the cream: Mix the pudding with the sugar then pouring the milk constantly, whisk to get a lump-free mixture. Cook a very thick cream above medium-heat, stirring it constantly, then set aside and let it cool. When it's lukewarm, addmix 5 dkg butter.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

While the ready-pudding cools, in a big bowl mix the cottage cheese with the vanilla sugar, lemon zest, salt, 1 egg yolk and semolina. Addmix the cool pudding. In another bowl whisk the egg white with a hand mixer (if you have some extra 1-2 egg whites - for instance the one which is left since making the pastry -  add also to it, so the cream will be lighter) then carefully addmix to the cottage cheese - pudding cream.

Pour this cream on the cherry then in the preheated oven bake the cake until you can see, the cottage cheese is baked and the top is light brown.

Sprinkle some castor sugar on it before serving.

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Apple pie - as we like

There is one favorite apple pie in every family. Either grandma's or mum's. This is ours. And I guess, some of my colleague's for a while since I baked this for them.

At one time, 2000 BC we had received the recipe from one of my mum's colleague. It was written on a small paper for a long time which we put always to a safe place somehow that it took hours and hours to find it hidden in a cookery book. Learning from the above since I live in Budapest, this recipe is written in a notebook what I got from my best friend for my name day. 

I showed mum these pics in the morning to ask her opinion when she said: "I always say that your pie is more delicious than mine! Sometimes I'm also satisfied with mine but it's not the same like yours. It looks very good, the texture of the pastry seems very short. There is only one problem with it that I can't taste it! You're skillful" :)

Ingredients:

25 dkg flour (I used 12,5 dkg all purpose flour + 12,5 dkg oat flour)

7 dkg fat (you can use butter as well, but the dough won't be so short)

1 egg

90 g sour cream

5 g (1/2 small package) backing powder

oinch of salt

10 dkg sugar (or castor sugar)

For the filling:

kb. 70 dkg apple

cinnamon

10 g vanilla sugar

+ semolina

+ 1 egg

1. In a big bowl mix the flour with the salt, sugar, crumble with the fat then add the egg and knead  with as much sour cream as it's needed to get a not too hard, not too soft dough. Place in the fridge for one hour.

2. For the filling peel and grate the apples, sprinkle with cinnamon and vanilla sugar to taste and set aside until the dough is ready too.

3. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

4. After 1 hour take the dough out from the fridge, divide into two. Roll one of them then place in a middle size oven pan lined with baking paper. Sprinkle some semolina on it (so the dough won't get soaked by the apple) and pile the apple. Roll the rest of the dough and put on the apple. Prick the pie's top with a fork and grease with a beaten egg. 

5. Bake the pie in the preheated oven (honestly I never time, but approx. for 20-30 minutes ), until golden brown.  Sprinkle the top with castor sugar before serving.

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Queen Elizabeth Cake - My favorite

This moment came through as well.

When ages ago I planned to start this blog, I pledged that I will publish this recipe in my very first post.
On the one hand because this is one of my recipes which I have never seen before published neither on Hungarian, nor on international forums. On the other hand this cake is incredibly delicious and therefore I reckon undeserving that this cake hasn't received the deserving attention and place int he world of desserts. I'm sure about everyone will love it, who tastes and hope in a little while this cake will be known as "you know, the Queen Elizabeth Cake by Baklavaria"...daydream is allowable, isn't it? :)

We celebrated my grandma's 83. birthday on Saturday and I undertook the making of her cake this year also. We love this cake soo much in the family, prepare it for family gathering many times, therefore I chose this for the occasion of Saturday as well. We received the recipe from one of mum's colleague in 2005. We needed to change a bit on the original recipe (because the vanilla cream was not enough) but for 7 years now we prepare as follows:

Ingredients (for oven pan - 40 cm*40 cm):

For the base:

8 egg whites

8 tablespoon sugar

10 dkg flaked coconut

10 dkg unground poppy-seeds
2 tablespoon flour
1 coffee spoon baking soda

Vanilla cream:
8 egg yolks
6 púpos evőkanál liszt
20 dkg sugar
1 liter milk
20 dkg marge (or butter)

Biscuit layer:
250 g cocoa crisp biscuits

Whipped cream layer:
1/2 l whippable cream
25 g dr. Oetker Whip it! (stabilzer for whipping cream)

How to prepare the base:
In a big deep bwol start to beat the egg whites with a hand mixer, then when it's almost ready, add the sugar spoon by spoon and beat until it's totally hard. Admix the poppy-seeds, the coconut and flour with baking soda carefully.

Smooth the dough in the oven pan (lined with baking paper) then bake in the oven what you have preheated to 180°C beforehand. Pay attention because the dough bakes very quickly (within a few minutes). It's ready when its top is nicely golden brown. Peel the baking paper from it while it's still lukewarm and let it cool while prepare the cream.

How to prepare the vanilla cream:
Mix the egg yolks with the flour till smooth then add the sugar and the milk in a pan. Stirring constantly, cook it to dense above medium heat. Set aside, let it cool then when the cream it's already just lukewarm, admix the marge.

How to set up the cake:
Grease the cream on the coconut-poppy-seeds sponge cake then place the biscuits on it. Wait for a while (until the cream cools) before preparing the whipped cream.

How to make the whipped cream:
I always put the whippable cream in the freezer for 30 minutes before using, so I did the same this time as well. Believe me, it will be much easier to work with it in this way and with using the "Whip it!" you will get perfectly hard whipped cream for sure.

For the whipped cream, beat it slowly until they are foamy, then increase the speed. Add the dr. Oetker whip it! Be careful, and do not overbeat the cream. It is ready when you titl the bowl and the mixture does not slide around. When it's ready, grease the whipped cream on the top of our cake and put in the fridge.

It's expedient to prepare half day before serving. 

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Plum linzer tart

If we talk about plum season in August, the first thing what I remember is that plum linzer tart which springs from one of our old family cake recipe book with purple cover included 800 salt and sweet recipes. When I was small we opened it many times with mum, we always wrote remarks on the margin next to recipes with our experiences and modifications or with just a simple comment that it's "very delicious" or "don't try it again"! 

A few years ago I borrowed this book from mum and for sure this will be also the first one what I'll put in my luggage when I move to Stockholm. It contains several salt and sweet, basic and special, easy and difficult recipes from all over the world but especially from the Hungarian kitchen.

Since we are in the thick of the plum season, I bought half kilo plum at the fruiterer on the way home yesterday. My day was quite stressful at work yesterday so I was looking forward to arrive home and start to bake which means entertainment for me in the end of the day.

This was my and my colleague's brekfast today.The result was perfect as always, my colleagues seemed satisfied. :)

Ingredients:

For the dough:
30 dkg flour (15 dkg spelt + 15 dkg all purpose flour)
12 dkg butter or marge
5 dkg sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
1/2 lemon's zest
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon rum flavour

For the filling:
50 dkg plum
1/2 lemon's zest
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon castorsugar

+ semolina

1. Knead the short pastry as usual. In a big bowl crumb the flour with the butter, add the castor sugar, vanilla sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest and rum, mix the ingredients and knead the pastry by hand very quickly. Put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes to chill.

2. While the dough chills in the fridge, wash the plums, cut into 4-8 pieces (depend on their size), sprinkle with the cinnamon, castorsugar, lemon zest and mix with a wooden spoon.

3. After 30 minutes preheat the oven to 200°C and as preparing a 26-28 cm round and 2cm deep pie plate, oil properly in order the pastry not to get stuck in it. Cut off a third of the pastry and set aside while you roll out the rest. Roll the dough to 26-28 cm round shape, leaving a slight overhang. Roll it up to the rolling pin and place the dough in the pie plate.

4. Sprinkle some semolina on the bottom of the tart (so the dough won't get soaked by the plum) and pile the plum on the pastry-lined pie plate. Roll the remaining third of pastry to a rectangular shape, with a knife or a pizza cutter cut 1 cm wide pastry stripes and place on the plum in lattice shape.

5. Bake the tart in the preheated oven for 15 minutes with 200°C, then turn to 180°C and bake for another 15 minutes. If the bottom is not baked yet but the top is golden brown, cover the tart with aluminium foil and bake until ready.

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