Posts Tagged ‘cake’

Like many other Israelis, we also traveled abroad during this long (and very welcome) holiday season. Only that half of the reasons that made us go were bureaucratic (to issue my Romanian passport), the other purpose was to show Avi where I grew up, and for me to take a trip there, after a long time that I haven’t been. The previous time I’ve been there was in 2001, and the feelings I remained with were ambivalent. I remembered a city full of unfinished buildings that seemed like buildings’ ghosts, I remembered poverty, and I also remembered gloomy people all over. Other parts of the country, mostly the mountain parts, I remembered as so very beautiful and with very clean air. And finally I remembered all the great Romanian food, that I love so much - Supa de Perisoare (a slightly sour meat ball soup) or Cordon Bleu (sort of a schnitzel filled with melting cheese in the middle), or Cascaval Pane (fried Caciocavallo cheese) or Papanasi (wonderful Romanian doughnuts, served with sour cream and jam - divine!).

Before going there I told Avi that he’s gonna taste one of the world’s best kitchens. He really took my word for it, loving my Mom’s food so much, part of it traditional Romanian. When we got there we realized that most of the dishes I told him about contained pork meat, which Avi doesn’t eat… Avi ended up giving Romania “The Schnitzel Country” title, and we indeed ate there some great schnitzels, about one of them I’ll tell you in a future post.
Every trip of ours, deliberately or not, eventually turns out being mostly about food. And of course - so did this one. So those of you who plan on taking a trip there, here are the things, the way we see them.

The first thing I looked for were traditional Romanian restaurants. Actually, most restaurants there are traditional Romanian, except a few ethnic restaurants - we saw 2 Italians and 1 Chinese. A great traditional restaurant we’ve been to several times was “La Mama” (meaning “At Mom’s”), it’s a chain and has several restaurants in Bucharest, and everything we ate there was great. Especially recommended is their wholemeal bread (in the photo below), a wonderful meat balls soup, and an awesome schnitzel topped with corn flakes instead of bread crumbs. You will see mostly locals when you go there, they really love it since the portions are generous and the prices - reasonable.

Another restaurant that I couldn’t wait to get there already was “Carul cu Bere“, a restaurant located in a beautiful gothic building, and that is open for 129 years. I remembered it as a very good restaurant from when I was little. We actually found there a great Romanian eggplant salad and an oh so tasty mamaliga dish, served with cream, yogurt and chees (it was the second time Avi tried to taste and like mamaliga. The tasting part went ok, but he failed to like it, again…). Other than that, the rest of the dishes were pretty mediocre. But I think what dissapointed me most in this trip was to discover that I no longer like the Romanian kebab. I tasted it twice, and it seemed too salty in both.

After fulfilling my hunger to traditional Romanian food, I started wondering where does the pastry world stand in Romania. When we left Romania, in 1989, there really wasn’t much of anything, but the pastry shops there were very good and updated to the current world’s pastry trends. I was dissapointed to discover that the pastry shops there, most of them anyway, are still stuck in the 80s’. One great chain we’ve found there though is called “French Bakery”. We ate a perfect butter croissant and a wonderfully fluffy and rich chocolate chips muffin.

2 Recommendations we have regarding street food are the “Fornetti” chain and the little windows behind them stands a woman selling delightful Romanian doughnuts. On our first day we began seeing a lot of little Fornetti shops, a small line of people standing outside of each one. We didn’t get the fuss, but decided to try it, thinking that if it makes so many people happy, it can’t be that bad. We found there the most wonderful cheese filled puff pastry we’ve ever tasted (better even than the best burekas I’ve eaten in Israel), although there are various fillings, even sweet ones, all of them great!
The doughnut shops I knew from when I lived there back then, their divine taste hasn’t changed, just many various filling options have been added.

Coffee-wise Romania was a bit dissapointing. In other European countries such as Spain, France and Italy, every single espresso we drank was marvelous. In Romania we had a wonderul espresso on our second day there, at “Cafe Geisha”, a small coffee shop designed in a japanese style. We’ve tried in vain to recreate the success again.

I almost didn’t see any ice-cream shops in Romania. In the beautiful old city of Brasov though, I ate a wonderful ice-cream near the black church, a little over-priced but great.

We spent our last day there at Anca’s house. Anca is a very good friend of my Mom. While drinking our morning coffee we saw on TV a live broadcast from a bread market held in a park, not far from where we were. Of course we rushed over there! A lot of stands were arranged all over the park, selling bread and many related products. There was one stand where a lot of people stood in line for. Obviously I joined the line, thinking that the best bread is right there. Was I right! After a short period of about 5 minutes, and 4 RON (the Romanian coin) later, I had a wonderful bread in my hands!

You can find more photos from our trip on Avi’s blog. He wrote one post about street photography there, and there are 1 or 2 more to come.

Yesterday I started my patisserie course! I’m so excited, and it was so much fun, eventhough the whole day was theory only. Next time we’ll start doing the real things! I never imagined a class schedule can be so much fun!

And for dessert, I’ll leave you with a traditional Romanian cheese cake. The cake is very easy to make, doesn’t require a mixer or food processor, you can make all of it with just a wooden spoon. I made it for our good friends - Guy and Lisa, that came to visit.

Romanian Cheese Cake / Recipe from a Romanian recipes site
For a 20X30 cm rectangular pan

Ingredients:
For the dough:
7 Tbsp milk
7 Tbsp vegetable oil
6 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 flat tsp baking soda
350 gr (2.5 cups) all-purpose flour

For the filling:
500 gr ricotta cheese
2 eggs
200 gr powdered sugar
80 gr butter
2 flat Tbsp semolina
20 gr vanillated sugar (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
grated zest of 1 lemon
100 gr light raisins (optional)

Directions:
1. Prepare the dough: in a small saucepan heat milk, oil and sugar. When it starts to boil, remove from heat and let cool until just warm.
2. Move the mixture into a bowl, and add the egg, baking soda and the flour. Mix until a dough is formed.
3. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Roll out both of them on a floured surface into a rectangle of the pan’s size. Don’t worry, the dough is easy to work with.
4. Place one of the dough parts on the bottom of a pan lined with a baking sheet.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
6. Prepare the filling: Melt the butter and cool it until just warm.
7. Add in all the rest of the filling’s ingredients, and mix until a homogenic mixture is formed.
8. Pour the filling onto the dough in the pan, and spread evenly.
9. Using a fork, make holes on the other half of the dough, then place it on top of the filling.
10. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top part turns golden.
11. Cool, powder with powdered sugar before serving.

Even before publishing my previous post I’ve decided that this post is going to be dedicated to Rosh HaShana - the Jewish New Year’s Eve. After all, all of us (ok, let’s be honest, some of us) are looking for the best dessert recipe, one that will be a wonderful ending to the holiday dinner, and will make your guests ask for seconds. I thought really hard about an interesting dessert, one that will be a bit more exciting than the regular honey cake, classic as it may be, but I’m all for innovation. How about you?

It was really hard for me to make up my mind between two ideas I had - one of them was a Mille Feuille - adapted to Rosh HaShana using a honey pastry cream instead of the classic version. Man, this pastry cream was one of the worst things I’ve ever made. Really tried to like it. Honest. Impossible. Which led me to make my second idea - an apple and honey crumble.

The 45 minutes it spent in the oven, I spent on the other side, staring at it and hoping it will turn out fine. I even resisted the 10 minutes after it got out of the oven, letting it cool slightly. And then I attacked it with a teaspoon. What was supposed to be “merely a taste” turned into me eating like a fifth of the whole thing! Those apples, swimming peacefully in an exciting honey-maple-caramel and spiced up just right made me wonder how did I ever prefer the Mille Feuille in the first place. One note, though - as opposed to the classic crispy crumble texture, this one is somewhat softer, a fact that in my opinion only does good to this wonderful pastry. But if you want to be precise - you can call it apple-pastry-over-honey-caramel

Two other benefits for this dessert are that it’s quite light, so it’s a great finale to a big holiday dinner, and also it’s very easy to make, so it won’t take a lot of your time and attention while preparing the rest of the meal.

Some notes and tips about this dessert:

* Apples (and pears, for that matter) tend to change their color and get darker almost as soon as you peel them. For that reason, make sure you’re peeling them just before using them. If you still need to peel them a little earlier, put them in a bowl with 2 Tbsp of lemon juice, stir well, and it will keep them from changing their color.

* Coring the apples (and pears, for that matter) can be quite an unpleasant chore when you don’t have an apple corer. I thereby admit that I’m such a kitchen-gadgets kind of gal, but this one folks, I don’t consider a gadget at all. This is a very useful appliance, and even a must-have if you have to or choose to deal with apples and pears coring quite often.

* When using apples in baked desserts, it’s usually recommended to use the green tart apples - such as Granny Smiths. The reason for that is that their tartness blends wonderfully in sweet desserts (other sweet apples can cause your dessert to turn out too sweet), and also because they keep their shape very well during baking, and don’t get all mooshy.

* If you’re in the mood for a variation - you could substitute half or all the honey with maple syrup. If you’re doing so but are not such a great fan of sweetness, you can reduce the brown sugar added to the apples to 1 Tbsp instead of 2.

* When preparing this dessert in a 24 cm pan, it won’t slice that pretty, and its sliced look will be more rustic and scattered. If you’re looking for the more elegant look, go ahead and prepare it in individual ramekins.

Apples Over Honey-Caramel Pastry / Adapted from a Betty M. Crook recipe
For a 24 cm round pan

Ingredients:
4 Granny Smith big apples, peeled and cored
1/4 cup  honey (see tips for variations)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tsp Vanilla
1 large egg

Directions:
1. Thinly slice the apples.
2. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
3. Place apples, honey, brown sugar, orange juice and spices in a bowl, and mix until blended.
4. In a separate bowl mix all the other ingredients, until a dough is formed.
5. Grease the pan. If you’re using a springform pan, wrap its bottom with a piece of aluminium foil, since the apple mixture is quite liquid, and we don’t want it to drip in the oven or on the floor.
6. Place the apple mixture in the pan and distribute them evenly (add also all the liquids).  Place the dough on top of the apples and make sure it’s arranged evenly - you can help it using your hands or a tablespoon.
7. Bake for 45 mins, or until the top is nicely browned.
8. The recommended serving is with a side of vanilla ice cream. Store it tightly wrapped at room temperature or in the fridge - the choice is yours.

Every Romanian family I know has their own best recipe for a summery and refreshing cherry cake. I think this cake was my favorite while growing up, and my Grandma used to make it just perfect. The problem is that all my Grandma’s recipes were lost when she passed away, long before I started showing interest in baking. For years I’ve been longing for this cake, and also made some tries to recreate it. What can you do, the taste (and smell, for that matter) sense has a very long memory, and thank God for that!

So after trying several recipes that were close but not the real deal, until this one. This one is not only the best recipe I’ve tasted yet for the classic Romanian cherry cake, but also a great base recipe for a simple pound cake. The original recipe is my aunt’s, Suzy, the woman that cooks the closest to how my Grandma used to, and sometimes even better (but don’t you tell anyone!). Oh, the happiness on my face the first moment I’ve tasted it… A stranger (= for that matter, a non-foodie) would never understand…

The original version of this cake, however, was a bit dense and lacked a bit of moist in my opinion, so I tweaked with it a little, replacing half of the butter with oil (an ingredient that gives a great moisture to cakes) and milk. Now I think the recipe is just perfect. The cake has a very rich flavor, due to the egg yolks it contains (continue reading in the tips section how you can use the egg whites) and also due to the lemon zest and juice, that contribute their great aroma to the cake.

Some notes and tips about this cake:

* In this kind of cakes we’re looking for them to be airy and moist. From the moment flour comes in contact with fluid, the mixing action causes a gluten net to evolve, this in turn, will cause our cake’s texture to be elastic. This is definitely a texture we are looking for in yeast cakes, but certainly not in this cake. So you need to pay attention and mix the batter as little as possible.

* When you move the batter into the pan, it will be very short. No worries, it doubles its height while baking.

* Instead of cherries you can use peaches, nectarines or apricots.

* If you want to use also the 4 egg whites that are left after preparing this cake, you can prepare a foam frosting: a little before the cake has finished baking, beat the egg whites with 4-5 Tbsp sugar (I used 4.5) until soft peaks. When the cake is ready, get it out of the oven, evenly spread the foam over it, and place back into the oven for about 8 more minutes, until the foam becomes golden.
If you don’t feel like foam-frosting your cake, you can freeze the egg whites for later use. Don’t forget to mark the number of whites you are freezing and the freezing date. You can use them later for making yummy financiers or cute little meringue kisses.

* If you’re in a miniature mood, you can also make this cake as muffins. The baking time will then be about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out with moist crumbs on it.

Cherry cake / Adapted from my aunt Suzy’s recipe
For a 20X25 cm pan

Ingredients:
100 gr butter, soft
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
juice + zest from one lemon
10 grams vanillated sugar (can be replaced with 1 tsp vanilla extract)
2 cups self raising flour
350 gr cherries, pitted

Directions:
1. If you’re using canned cherries, place them in a strainer for about 1/2 hour, until the liquid drains out of them.
2. Preheat your oven to 356F (180C).
3. In a bowl place butter, oil, milk, sugar, yolks, lemon and vanillated sugar. Mix well until a uniform mixture forms.
4. Gradually add in the flour, while mixing.
5. Grease the pan, scatter some sugar on its sides (to make the crust a bit crunchy) and move the batter into the pan. The batter will be quite low, don’t worry, it’s ok, it will rise while baking.
6. Spread the cherries evenly over the batter, you can give them a little push into the batter, using your fingers. Don’t worry, this cake is strong enoough to hold the fruit on its surface, and it won’t let them fall to the bottom.
7. Bake for about 45 mins, or until a wood toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with moist crumbs on it.

Last week we invited Avi’s Grandma over to dinner. It was also the first time she came to our new home. Avi’s Grandma appreciates food very much. Not so much eating it, as making sure that all her loved ones are being well fed. For instance when Avi and I told her that we were about to move in together, she looked at me, a bit worried, and asked “But, can you cook?”. Before meeting her I was never aware of the fact that people can serve a 6 course dinner - all of them containing meat! Imagine the challenge of making a dinner for her! On the other hand, she is such a wonderful person, one of those who instantly when you meet them you want to call them “Grandma”, that it was worth all the thought I’ve put into it.

It was great having her over, and I think the best thing was that for the first time ever I saw her sitting at the table and enjoying the meal for the whole evening (usually she goes back and forth from the kitchen to the dining table and vice versa). Even when she came to visit us before, she insisted on bringing some food with her, just in case

I made only a 3 course meal, but everyone, including her, were so full after it. I asked Avi if he thought that from now on she’ll make less courses in her dinners, understanding that 6 courses in one meal can kill even a horse. He looked at me amused and said “No, you impressed her so much with your dinner, that now she’ll make even more”…

This cake was the dessert for that evening’s dinner. It had to be a non-dairy dessert, and I also wanted a non-sophisticated but yet flavorful dessert. This cake is truly divine, so moist and comforting! Definitely a cake to keep straightening and straightening until it’s gone.

Some notes and tips about this cake:

* When using bananas in pound cakes, it’s recommended to use the ripest bananas you can get. I like to choose ripe bananas, but ones that didn’t turn all black. I find the black ones a bit too sweet.

* If you don’t have self-raising flour, use all-purpose flour and add 1 tsp of baking powder for each cup of flour.

* Walnuts and/or pecan nuts can be a great addition here. If you want to add them, add 1 cup of them, roughly chopped.

* Dark raisins could also blend well here, place 1/2 cup of them in a bowl, cover with water and let stand for half an hour before preparing the cake. Then drain the water and add the raisins to the batter after mixing the rest of the ingredients. Mix until uniformly blended. If you prefer them alcoholic - you can cover them with brandy instead of water.

Banana, carrot and spices cake / Adapted from Nira Russo’s recipe
For a 24 cm Gugelhupf mold

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1 /3 cups sugar
2 medium sized carrots
1 banana, ripe
1 3 /4 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of ground ginger
a pinch of ground cloves
a pinch of ground nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp orange juice

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 356F (180C).
2. In a large bowl, mash the banana using a fork. Finely grate the carrots into the same bowl as the banana.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients but the flour into the bowl, mix well.
4. Add the flour, and mix just until the mixture is uniform.
5. Pour the mixture into the mold, and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with moist crumbles on it.

This Wednesday was supposed to be a very happy day - it was Avi’s father birthday, and we were all about preparing for it - thinking of what present would make him happiest, and looking forward to the birthday dinner at the great restaurant we were about to go to.

And then I opened the news page as I woke up in the morning, and my eyes instantly filled up with tears. The 2 soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, that have been kidnapped by Hizbullah 2 years ago, have been returned dead. Israel signed a prisoner exchange deal with the Hizbullah a few weeks ago, as part of which Eldad and Ehud were supposed to return home. Hizbullah refused to reveal their condition until the very second their caskets arrived to Israel. It was pretty clear from the strategy they’ve chosen to take that Ehud and Eldad have been dead for a long time now, but a whole nation still refused to believe it, and kept hoping that maybe, in a miraculous way, they’d come back alive. Including me. My heart goes out to their families, whose hope and hearts have been shattered that day.
As all of you regular readers already know, this is by no means a blog that shares political views in any manner, this incident simply hurt me so bad, that I had to share it with you.

After that, it became nearly impossible to feel festive for Avi’s father birthday, but since he loves sweets so much, I was determined to make him a birthday cake. I chose this chocolate and halva mousse cake recipe from Niki B’s food blog, one of my favorite Israeli food blogs. Every recipe of Niki’s that I’ve tried came out just wonderful, including this one. Fans of halva and chocolate will thank you for making this for them, and in fact, even the ones that are not suckers for halva will simply love this dessert, since the halva taste doesn’t take over. If you make just one dessert from this blog - let it be this one, since it’s one of the tastiest desserts I’ve made in a while. I may make this declaration again in the future, and that’s ok, cause it only means that the future one tops this one

Chocolate Halva Mousse Cake / Slightly adapted from Niki B’s recipe
For a 24 cm pan

Ingredients:
For the base:
150 gr Graham Crackers, ground
100 gr butter, melted
zest of half of a medium sized lemon

For the mousse:
2 tsp gelatin powder
4 Tbsp milk
1/2 cup milk
150 gr halva, crumbled
200 gr bittersweet chocolate
500 ml heavy cream

For the ganache:
150 ml heavy cream
150 gr bittersweet chocolate

Directions:
1. Prepare the base: mix the ingredients of the base to a uniform mixture. Spread the mixture out evenly on the bottom of the cake pan. Place the pan in the freezer until finishing making the cake.
2. Melt the gelatin: put the 4 Tbsp of milk in a bowl, scatter the gelatin over it, and let stand for 10 mins. Then heat in the microwave for 30 secs and stir.
3. Melt chocolate, halva and milk until a uniform mixture is formed.
4. Add the gelatin into the chocolate mixture and stir.
5. Whip the cream, and fold the chocolate mixture into it.
6. Pour the mousse onto the base we’ve prepared earlier, and freeze for an hour.
7. Prepare the ganache: heat the cream nearly to its boiling point, pour it onto the chocolate and wait for 2 mins. Then stir until the chocolate melts totally.
8. Pour the ganache onto the mousse, and freeze overnight. Afterwards keep the cake in the refrigerator.

עוגת מוס שוקולד חלבה - עיבוד קל למתכון של ניקי ב
עבור תבנית עגולה בקוטר 24 ס”מ

מצרכים:
לבסיס:
150 גרם ביסקויטים, טחונים
100 גרם חמאה, מומסת
גרידה מחצי לימון בגודל בינוני

למוס:
2 כפיות ג`לטין
4 כפות חלב
חצי כוס חלב
150 גרם חלבה מפוררת
200 גרם שוקולד מריר
500 מ”ל שמנת מתוקה

לגנאש:
150 מ”ל שמנת מתוקה
150 גרם שוקולד מריר

הכנה:
1. מערבבים את מצרכי הבסיס, מהדקים בתבנית ומכניסים למקפיא.
2. ממיסים ג`לטין - מניחים בקערה ג`לטין ו- 4 כפות חלב, משאירים ל- 10 דקות בצד, מכניסים למיקרו ל 30 שניות ומערבבים
3. ממיסים חלב, חלבה ושוקולד לתערובת חלקה.
4. מוסיפים את הג`לטין לתערובת השוקולד ומערבבים היטב.
5. מקציפים שמנת מתוקה, ומקפלים את תערובת השוקולד לקצפת.
6. יוצקים את המוס לתבנית מעל הבסיס, מקפיאים למשך שעה.
7. מכינים גנאש: מחממים שמנת מתוקה עד סף רתיחה. יוצקים את השמנת על קוביות השוקולד ומערבבים לתערובת חלקה.
8. יוצקים את הגנאש על על מוס השוקולד חלבה, ומקפיאים ללילה. לאחר מכן שומרים במקרר.