Archive for the ‘Cakes’ Category

I think the thing that I love the most about baking is seeing someone enjoying what I’ve made. Nothing comes even remotely close to this satisfying feeling, not even solving a really frustrating bug at work. I really love my job, and there are times that I think I’ll enjoy doing it forever, but lately I’ve come to think that baking is something that I like even better. That’s why I love sharing the stuff I bake so much.

Each Purim, we have this great custom of exchanging food related gifts with each other (in Hebrew it’s called “Mishloah Manot”). Usually the gifts contain cookies, Haman Ears and all sorts of goodies one can think of. Usually I make them for our families, but this year I decided to play “The Cookies Game” - it’s a game organized by a food forum I participate in. You need to prepare your gift, containing various sorts of cookies, and the game’s manager sends you a name and address to send it to, but doesn’t give away the forum nick name of the person you’re sending it to.

I’ve made:
- The wonderful white chocolate and cranberries cookies I’ve posted about a few weeks ago.
- Haman Ears using my white chocolate and Irish Cream dough.
- Nutella filled rolled cookies.
- Coffee and milk chocolate cookies. Neta, a very good friend of ours brought them to me a couple of weeks ago, and I absolutely LOVED them! I asked for the recipe immediately and decided to make them for the gift. I don’t yet recommend the recipe, though, because mine came out a bit different - some of them were great but some of them were really hard. When I asked Neta about it, she said she also gets inconsistent results with this recipe, so until I research it a bit further I don’t recommend it.
- My mom’s and Avi’s all-time favorite cookies - maple pecan cookies wrapped in a serious coat of powdered sugar. I like them better without the powdered sugar, which is a bit too sweet in my opinion. This time I also improved the recipe a bit, cause the dough was really hard to work with because it fell apart all the time. I added 2 Tbsps of milk, and it sorted things out.
- A wonderful and so easy to make cream and dulce de leche cake. Originally it was supposed to be with nutella, but there was too much nutella in the cookies as it was, so I decided to go with something a bit different. The recipe is from Pnina T, a wonderful virtual friend of mine from an Israeli food forum.

I made them all, wrapped them up nicely and safely, and sent them. Of course I made similar things to mine and Avi’s families. Unfortunately, the person I’ve sent it to didn’t contact me since she got it, last Friday. Hope it wasn’t because she hated the cookies

Coffee and chopped chocolate cookies / Adapted by my friend Neta from an Israeli food forum
Makes about 50 medium sized cookies

Ingredients:
100 gr butter, soft
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp coffee
a pinch of salt
100 gr white/milk chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup pecan nuts, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 356°F (180°C).
2. Beat butter and sugar together until a light cream is formed. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
3. Stir in flour, baking powder, coffee and salt and mix.
4. Fold in the chopped chocolate and nuts.
5. Roll balls of the dough and flatten them with the center of your palm. Place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for about 15 mins, or until golden. Let cool for several mins. on the tray until moving them.

עוגיות קפה ושברי שוקולד / עיבוד של נטע, חברה שלי, מפורום אורט
עבור כ-50 עוגיות בגודל בינוני

רכיבים:
100 גרם חמאה, רכה
1 1/4 כוסות סוכר חום כהה
1 כפית תמצית וניל
1 ביצה, טרופה קלות
1 כוס קמח לבן
1/2 כוס קמח חיטה מלאה
1/2 כפית אבקת אפיה
1 כף נס קפה
קורט מלח
100 גרם שוקולד חלב/לבן, קצוץ גס
1/2 כוס אגוזי פקאן, קצוצים גס

הכנה:
1. מחממים תנור ל - 180 מעלות.
2. מערבלים חמאה וסוכר במיקסר באמצעות וו גיטרה במהירות בינונית עד לקבלת תערובת תפוחה ואורירית. מוסיפים את הביצה ואת תמצית הוניל ומערבבים עד לקבלת תערובת אחידה.
3. מערבבים פנימה קמח, אבקת אפיה, קפה ומלח ומערבבים.
4. מקפלים פנימה שוקולד ואגוזים.
5. מגלגלים כדורים מהבצק, משטחים אותם מעט בעזרת מרכז כף היד, ומניחים אותם על גבי תבנית מרופדת בנייר אפיה.
6. אופים כ - 15 דקות, או עד להזהבה. מניחים להצטנן מספר דקות בתבנית לפני שמעבירים.

Maple pecan cookies / Slightly adapted from Carine Goren’s recipe
Makes about 50 cookies

Ingredients:
200 gr butter, soft
1/4 cup demerara light brown sugar
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
200 gr pecan nuts, chopped

powdered sugar, for coating

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 338°F (170°C).
2. Beat butter, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla extract and milk until a light mixture is formed.
3. Add the flour and salt, mix just until a uniform dough is formed, add in the nuts, and mix shortly.
4. Refrigerate for 30 mins.
5. Roll small balls and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake about 20 mins, or until golden.
7. When cool, roll the cookies in a bowl with powdered sugar.

Note: If you don’t intend to roll the cookies in powdered sugar, add 1/4 cup more sugar (1/2 cup total).

עוגיות מייפל פקאן / עיבוד קל למתכון של קרין גורן
עבור כ - 50 עוגיות

רכיבים:
200 גרם חמאה, רכה
1/4 כוס סוכר חום בהיר, דמררה
2 כפות סירופ מייפל
1 כפית תמצית וניל
2 כפות חלב
2 כוסות קמח
קורט מלח
200 גרם אגוזי פקאן, קצוצים גס

אבקת סוכר, לציפוי

הכנה:
1. מחממים תנור ל - 170 מעלות.
2. מקציפים חמאה, סוכר, סירופ מייפל, תמצית וניל וחלב במיקסר עם וו גיטרה במהירות בינונית עד לקבלת תערובת אורירית.
3. מוסיפים קמח ומלח, ומערבלים מעט, רק לקבלת בצק אחיד. מוסיפים את האגוזים ומערבבים קלות.
4. מקררים את הבצק 30 דקות.
5. מגלגלים כדורים קטנים מהבצק ומניחים על תבנית מרופדת בנייר אפיה.
6. אופים כ - 20 דקות, או עד שהעוגיות מזהיבות.
7. לאחר הצינון, לגלגל באבקת סוכר.
הערה: אם אתם לא מתכוונים לגלגל באבקת סוכר, תוסיפו עוד 1/4 כוס סוכר (כלומר סה”כ 1/2 כוס סוכר).

Nutella and Cream cake / Adapted by Pnina T from Carine Goren’s recipe
I substituted the Nutella with the same amount of dulce de leche
For 1 English Cake mold
 
Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten
250 ml heavy cream
a pinch of salt
90 gr sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (140 gr) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp full of Nutella

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 329°F (165°C).
2. Mix cream, salt and sugar until the sugar melts.
3. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Sift in flor and baking powder and mix slightly, just until incorporated.
5. Place the mixture into a greased mold.
6. Heat shortly the Nutella or dulce de leche in the microwave, pour it on top of the cake and using a knife, create a marbeled pattern.
7. Bake for about 40 mins, or until golden. 

עוגת שמנת ונוטלה / עיבוד של פנינהט מפורום מתכונים של תפוז למתכון של קרין גורן
אני החלפתי את הנוטלה בריבת חלב
לתבנית אינגליש קייק אחת

רכיבים:
2 ביצים
1 חבילה (250 מ”ל) שמנת מתוקה
קורט מלח
90 גר’ סוכר
1 כפית תמצית וניל
1 כוס (140 גרם) קמח
1 כפית אבקת אפיה
2 כפות גדושות נוטלה

הכנה:
1. מחממים תנור ל - 165 מעלות.
2. מערבבים שמנת, מלח וסוכר ביחד טוב, עד שהסוכר נמס.
3. מוסיפים ביצים טרופות ותמצית וניל.
4. מנפים קמח ואבקת אפיה לתוך המסה ומערבבים עד לקבלת תערובת אחידה.
5. מעבירים את התערובת לתבנית משומנת.
6. מחממים במיקרו את הנוטלה, ויוצקים מעל העוגה. מעבירים סכין ליצירת דוגמת שיש.
7. אופים כ-40 דקות, עד להזהבה.

Peace in the Middle East… What a dream.. Unfortunately peace is quite far away from us right now, so until it’s reached, I’m going to settle for a piece (of cake, of course)  in the middle yeast

Wednesday evening (that’s when I finished baking the cakes in this post) I was the happiest in quite some time. In a minute I’ll tell you exactly what made me so joyful, but first I want to share with you a new theme on my blog that was born out of this happiness. Those of you who visit here often know that my grandmother was a great cook. Unfortunately all her recipes were lost when she passed away, and nowadays I try to recreate some of the great recipes she was using to make her fabulous dishes. So from time to time, whenever I try to make one of the dishes she once made, I’ll post about it using this sweet logo that Avi designed for me (many thanks, baby!)

and all these posts will be tagged under ”Grandma’s Kitchen” tag.

So about Wednesday evening - the cakes came out of the oven, I waited “patiently” for like 10 minutes (that’s the longest I could bare waiting), and then took a knife and sliced me a piece. I couldn’t believe my mouth! It tasted exactly (or if not, then very very close to that) like me Grandma’s heavenly “Cozonac” - a Romanian yeast cake they make on Holidays. The funny thing is that I didn’t even try to make one! I used an Israeli recipe for yeast cakes, that was recommended by a very talented foodie friend of mine - Sivan, whom I’ve “met” in the various Israeli food networks. I think the secret to the divine taste is simply (and please don’t laugh) the lemon zest. So simple and yet it gives the dough such a great aroma!

Every time I make a recipe that I don’t make that often, I try to experiment with it as much as I can. This time I tried a shape that I’ve never tried before, and various fillings. I tried to shape all of the 4 yeast cakes that the recipe yielded into a Krantz shape (this word origins from the German word for “crown”). You do it by simply rolling the dough to a log after filling it, cutting it vertically in the middle into two halves, leaving them attached in one end, in order to keep it all together. Then you take the two halves and wrap them around each other to form the shape of  a screw. After the shaping, the dough should look like this:

The fillings I used were Nutella spread, which is always my favorite filling for just about any pastry… I used also Halva spread on top of which I scattered chocolate chips - I really loved it, Avi took it to work and even people that don’t like Halva really loved it. It didn’t do the trick on Avi, though, who really dislikes Halva in desserts.

The third filling I used was the traditional filling for the Romanian Cozonac - walnuts, which was a really goood one.

The last filling was dulce de leche. The latter was too liquid for the Krantz shape, and so all the filling drained down to the bottom of the pan… The looks of it were quite unpleasant, but it tasted great!

Yeast cake / Adapted from my friend’s (Sivan) recipe
Makes 4 english cake molds (30 X 10 cm each)

For the dough:
1 kg all-purpose flour
50 gr fresh yeast (or 20 gr dry yeast)
150 gr sugar (if you don’t prepare the sugar syrup use 170 gr)
200 gr butter, softened but not melted
10 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of one medium sized lemon
150 ml lukewarm water
150 ml lukewarm milk (30 secs in the microwave will do it)

For the glaze:
1 egg, beaten

For the sugar syrup:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Put all the flour in the mixer bowl. Make a starter dough out of the yeast, 1 tsp of the sugar and 1/4 cup of the water. Leave to ferment for a few mins. Place the starter in the mixer’s bowl along with the flour and cover it with flour.
2. In a separate bowl mix sugar and eggs and add them to the flour. Add to the flour the rest of the ingredients, except for the water and milk. Start kneading the dough and add the water and milk through the kneading process. Continue kneading until a soft and non-sticky dough forms (I do it for 10 mins total). Cover the bowl and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
3. Divide the dough into 4 parts, roll out each one of them and fill with the chosen filling (Nutella, Halva spread, Dulce de leche, the suggested walnuts filling or any other filling you can come up with). Roll the dough to a log after filling it, cutting it vertically in the middle into two halves, leaving them attached in one end, in order to keep it all together. Take the two halves and wrap them around each other to form the shape of a screw (as demonstrated in the picture above). Let rise until doubled in size.
4. Brush with the beaten egg, and bake in an oven preheated to 356°F (180° Celsius) for 35 mins, until golden-brown.
5. In the mean time prepare the sugar syrup: cook the sugar and milk on a medium flame until boiling point is reached. Cook for 5 more mins and take off the flame. After taking the cakes out of the oven, cool them for 5 mins, and brush them with the sugar syrup.

For the walnuts filling (sufficient for 2 cakes):
300 gr walnuts, coarsely chopped
3 egg whites
200 ml (yes, ml) powdered sugar

Directions:
Beat the egg whites, gradually adding them the sugar, for 3-4 mins, until soft peaks form. Fold in the walnuts and spread the mixtures onto the cakes.

עוגת שמרים / עיבוד קל למתכון של סיוי מפורום מתכונים של תפוז
חומרים ל-4 עוגות בתבנית אינגליש קייק (בגודל 30X10 כל אחת)

לבצק:
קילו קמח
50 גר’ שמרים טריים (או 20 גרם שמרים יבשים)
150 גרם סוכר (אם לא מורחים בסוף סירופ סוכר צריך קצת יותר, הבצק עצמו לא היה מתוק מספיק, בפעם הבאה אנסה עם 170 גרם)
200 גרם חמאה או מרגרינה רכה - לא מומסת
10 כפות שמן
1/2 כפית מלח
4 ביצים בטמפרטורת החדר
2 כפיות תמצית וניל
גרידה מלימון בינוני אחד
150 מ”ל מים חמימים
150 מ”ל חלב חמים (30 שניות במיקרו יעשו את העבודה)

לציפוי:
1 ביצה, טרופה

לסירופ סוכר:
1/2 כוס סוכר
1/2 כוס חלב
1 כפית תמצית וניל

הכנה:
1. בקערת המיקסר שמים את כל הקמח, מכינים ראש עיסה מהשמרים כפית מהסוכר ורבע כוס מהמים מניחים לתסיסה של כמה דקות. עושים גומה בקמח ומוסיפים את ראש העיסה, מכסים בקמח.
2. מערבבים בקערה נפרדת סוכר וביצים, ומוסיפים לקמח ובנוסף גם את החמאה, המלח, השמן תמצית הוניל והגרידה. מתחילים ללוש תוך כדי הוספת המים והחלב לפי ספיגה עד ליצירת בצק רק ולא דביק, מכסים ומתפיחים עד שהבצק מכפיל את נפחו.
3.מחלקים ל-4 כדורים ומרדדים כל כדור - מורחים בנוטלה, שוקולד השחר, ממרח חלבה, ריבת חלב וכיד הדימיון, מגלגלים לרולדת וחורצים לכל האורך ומבריגים את שני החלקים שנוצרו למעין צורת בורג. מניחים בתבניות ומתפיחים עד כמעט הכפלת הנפח.
4. מורחים בביצה ואופים ב-180 מעלות כ-35 דקות או עד שמשחים.
5. בנתיים מכינים סירופ סוכר - מרתיחים על האש וכשהעוגות יוצאות מהתנורף מצננים למשך 5 דקות ולאחר מכן מורחים אותן בסירופ בנדיבות בעזרת מברשת.

למילוי אגוזים (מספיק ל - 2 רולדות):
300 גרם אגוזי מלך קצוצים גס
3 חלבונים
כוס של 200 מ”ל אבקת סוכר

הכנה:
מקציפים את חלבון הביצה לקצף יציב אך לא נוקשה, מוסיפים בהדרגה את אבקת הסוכר תוך כדי הקצפה. מקפלים פנימה את האגוזים ומורחים את התערובת מעל העוגות.

So we’re 2 months into the strawberries season and I haven’t prepared even one single dessert using them! I did discover several great places to buy beautiful and relatively cheap strawberries, and actually that’s one of the few benefits of my college moving from the lively center of Tel Aviv into the also-lively center of Jaffa… So until now I only bought them for us to eat straight up, or sometimes with a little sugar scattered upon them. But last week I decided to use them for preparing a sweet goodie. I also decided to combine this with making my first ever mousse cake.
Mousse cakes are something I wasn’t technically able to prepare for a long time, since I didn’t have a proper mixer. Since I bought the KitchenAid last September, I’ve been planning to prepare one, but the chance hasn’t come up, and truthfully, I was also a little scared of trying it.

Looking for interesting recipes of strawberry mousses, I’ve found Martha Stewart’s recipe for strawberry mousse cake that looked promising, so I decided to take the recipe of only the mousse from it. I combined it with an improvised base made of biscuit crumbs, butter, lemon zest and strawberry puree. For the topping I planned to use Martha’s white chocolate ganache, but Avi doesn’t like eating big amounts of white chocolate, and since there was also white chocolate in the mousse, I decided to use milk chocolate. So far so good. But when we got to the store to buy that milk chocolate - I thought to myself - why not make it even more special and use one regular milk chocolate bar and one Nougat filled milk chocolate bar? This was the crucial mistake that made the topping of the cake lumpy (pieces of the nougat that didn’t dissolve well, I presume), instead of it being silky-smooth, the way ganache should be…

To sum up the whole story: the mousse was really tasty and had a great creamy texture, and there was just the right amount of each ingredient in it - the strawberries were very noticeable but didn’t overwhelm it, the amount of sugar was just accurate, and the white chocolate was barely noticeable taste-wise, but contributed to the great general texture. The biscuit base was also wonderful - the lemon zest and the strawberry puree really gave it a good twist. The only thing to improve is the ganache - next time I’ll definitely make it using white or dark chocolate.

Strawberry and white chocolate mousse cake / Mousse adapted from Martha Stewart & Self recipe for the base
For a(half-sphere) mold with at least 1.6 liter capacity

Ingredients:
For the base:
130 gr petit-beurre biscuits
70 gr butter, melted
2 Tbsp strawberry puree (from the mousse)
the zest of half of a medium-sized lemon

For the mousse:
450 gr (1 pound) strawberries, hulled and halved
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
230 gr (8 ounces) white chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/4 tsp unflavored gelatin
2 cups (480 ml) heavy cream
2 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar

For the ganache:
2/3 cup (160 ml) heavy cream
340 gr (12 ounces) white chocolate, finely chopped
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
whole and halved strawberries, for garnish

Prepare the mousse:
1. Puree halved strawberries in a food processor. Stir in 1 tablespoon lemon juice; set aside.
2. Melt chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring until smooth; set aside.
3. Put 1/4 cup cool water into a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over top; let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir 1/4 cup cream and the confectioners’ sugar in a small saucepan; bring to a simmer over medium heat. Add gelatin mixture, and stir until gelatin has dissolved. Pour into bowl with the melted chocolate, and stir until smooth. Reserve 2 Tbsp of the strawberry puree for the base, and whisk the rest of it into the bowl with the chocolate.
4. Put remaining 1 3/4 cups cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until medium peaks form. Whisk one-third of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the remaining whipped cream using a large rubber spatula. Move into the half-sphere mold and refrigerate 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare the base:
1. Measure the diameter of the mold that contains the mousse. Measure it at the mousse’s level (and not at the top of the mold), in order to know which diameter should the base have. With the mold I used, the diameter was 20.5 cm. I used an adjustable cake ring, adjusted to 20.5 cm, for forming the base’s shape, it’s also possible to use a regular round pan of the matching size.
2. Smash the biscuits to crumbs using a food processor.
3. Transfer the crumbs to a separate bowl or continue working in the food processor’s bowl (to save the wash of one more dish ), and add the melted butter, lemon zest and the 2 Tbsps of strawberry puree. Mix all the ingredients well together.
4. Lay the base mixture out on the bottom of the chosen pan (if you chose to use a ring, its bottom should be sealed with aluminium foil), tighten it using a spatula or the bottom of a clean glass, and put in the freezer until the mousse comes out of the fridge.
5. After the 1 hour has passed, take the mousse out of the fridge and the base out of the freezer, and place the base on top of the mousse. Press the base gently, to attach it to the mousse. Put the mousse in the freezer.

One hour and a half before serving it, prepare the ganache:
1. Bring cream just to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Pour hot cream over the chocolate in a medium bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. Stir in salt and lemon juice. Let stand until ganache is pourable and has cooled slightly.
2. Take the half-sphere mold out of the freezer, put the bottom of it in a bowl with boiling water (the water must not touch the mousse at all) for 2-3 seconds only, then turn the mold upside down and support the base of the mousse with your hand. Give the base a little push, and the whole cake will easily pop out of the mold into your hand. Place a rack on top of a big baking pan, and place the cake on the rack.
3. Pour ganache over top of cake, allowing it to drip down sides. Refrigerate assembled cake 1 hour before serving. Using 2 large spatulas, transfer cake to a serving platter. Garnish with strawberries.