A bit of patience, lots of luck and a Daring Baker's nutmeg cake

Two days I was contemplating - I would need to bake a cake - what I didn't know then was whether the occasion will be a happy one or a sad one. It all started in 2009 when I first saw the live translation of the New York City Marathon and decided that one day I will run it. At that point I hadn't even run a marathon - neither home, nor abroad but a dream was born...but the NY marathon isn't like any other one and one cannot just apply for it - there is a lottery and only a selected few get a spot. I applied in 2010, had to wait for half a year just to get to know that I wasn't picked while my dad got a spot. Another half year of waiting, applying for a second time, another half year to get the results - results I got to know yesterday.

 It said "Congratulations - You're in!" and I don't think I remember too many other occasions in my life when I felt so happy and excited. A smile wide across my entire face and gratitude for the luck. This meant that I needed to make a cake to celebrate - and what better option that to do the Daring Baker's challenge!

This month it was all about Armenian sweets and having had the option between Nazook and a nutmeg cake I of course chose the cake option.

Armenian nutmeg cake (Daring Baker's)
Ingredients:
- 240ml milk
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups brown sugar (which I had run out of so used the white sugar)
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cups butter
- 1/2 cup walnuts

Preparation:
(1) Mix the flour, sugar, nutmeg and baking powder in a bowl. Add chunks of the butter (at room temperature) and make crumbs.

(2) Mix the egg in a separate bowl, add the milk.

(3) Press half of the crumby mixture at the bottom of the baking pan.

(4) Add the milk mixture to the other half of the crumb mixture and mix well. Pour the mixture in the baking pan over the pressed crumb mixture. (Here I also added 2 tbsp of blueberry flour in hopes to get some colour in there)

(5) Sprinkle the walnut pieces over the mixture and bake at 175 degrees Celsius for 30-40 minutes (I ended up baking it for 55 minutes until it was fully baked)

The cake freshly out of the oven...is very fluffy and fragrant and seems like this recipe is going to be a keeper. A keeper for me to bake and others to eat as I now have an incentive one like never before to be in the best form possible when November arrives - a 42.2 km run through the streets of New York City.

Ending the Easter holidays on the sweeter side....Fraise Exotique

The four days of Easter holidays went by like a whirlwind of events. As usually what I was awaiting as four days of good sleep, studying, quality training and Easter celebration turned out to be a much more chaotic chain of events. It all started on Friday with a long bike training ride together with the team and my determination if not being able to hold the pace for the whole session then at least do the same distance. I managed to keep the pace for more than an hour and then deciding to go on my own speed but instead of turning back home I in fact did follow them neglecting the fact that on my way home I would have headwind all the way. This meant that I cycled 55km in 2 hours to the city by the seaside, took a look at the sea and then started my way back against the heavy winds which meant that it required 3 hours to get home. Overall did 107km in 5 hours and had a wide smile across my face for the remainder of the day.

Then the Sunday the actual Easter day I had to go to work unexpectedly meaning that I didn't get to do any of the celebration stuff but even though I wasn't too excited about that I knew that on Monday we would have family at our house for celebrating my grandfathers 81st Birthday, thus after work I had to get started with making the cake. I had already chosen to make the Fraise Exotique as presented on Evan's Kitchen Ramblings blog but must say I was a bit stressed as my relationship with gelatin is still quite wobbly thus a cake that is almost a no-bake one meant if I couldn't befriend the gelatin on this day I would have a sweet soup instead of a cake...

Apparently there was no cause for me to be worrying. There is still definitely room for improvement regarding the presentation of the cake but the taste was simply stunning. I myself eat a whole piece (which I normally don't do), all of the guys requested a second serving and even my little cousin who usually doesn't eat any cake as he is not a sweets type of person and is quite a picky eater was jumping up and down and requesting a second piece surprising his parents.

  
Fraise Exotique (as presented on Evan's Kitchen Rambling blog)
* I made 1.5 portions of the recipe
Spiced macerated strawberries
Ingredients:
- 45ml water
- 45ml sugar
- 1/2 of vanilla pod (seeds scraped)
- 1 star anise
- 12 strawberries

Preparation:
(1) Each of strawberries is cut breadth-wise in 3 slices. The water, sugar, vanilla pod and anise are boiled together until the sugar has been dissolved. Leave the mixture cool, then add the strawberries making sure that they are covered with the mixture and leave them to macerate for several hours (I left mine to macerate overnight).

Almond biscuit sponge
Ingredients:
- 45g egg
- 32g powdered sugar
- 38g almond flour
- 62g egg whites
- 30g caster sugar
- 27g cake flour

Preparation: 
(2) For the sponge whisk together egg, powdered sugar and almond flour in a bowl. Make a meringue from the egg whites and caster sugar, then fold it in the previous mixture. Finally fold in the cake flour. Pour the mixture in the cake pan you are planning to make the cake in and bake at 230 degrees Celsius for ~6minutes or until golden brown.

Vanilla white chocolate mousse:
Ingredients:
- 60g egg yolks 
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped
- 425ml whipping cream
- 275g white chocolate
- 7.5g gelatin

Preparation: 
(3) Whisk together egg yolks and vanilla pod seeds until thick and pale. Heat 170ml of whipping cream until boiling, then pour in bit by bit into the egg yolk mixture. Add in softened gelatin and then the melted chocolate. Whisk the remained of the whipping cream until stiff peaks and fold in the mixture.

Strawberry soaking syrup
Ingredients:
- 30ml leftover syrup from macerated strawberries
- 80ml strawberry puree
- 15ml kirsch

Preparation: 
(4) For the soaking syrup mix together all the above mentioned ingredients.

For the decor
Ingredients:
- macerated strawberries
- mint leaves
- vanilla pod
- star anise
- neutral glaze (as I don't know if one can find something like this in Latvia, I used the remainder of the soaking syrup, add some kirsch and gelatin)

Assembly of the cake:
- Put the sponge at the bottom of the mouse ring (I also baked the sponge in this ring)


- Soak sponge in the soaking syrup and pour the white chocolate syrup over


- Freeze until firm, then pour over the glaze and decorate with macerated strawberries, mint leaved, vanilla pod and star anise.

Hope everyone had wonderful Easter holidays...

Recovery with cinnamon-apple muffins...

This would kind of be the perfect picture that sums up how I feel today....

Up until last week I thought that I was the only one missing my time spent in the kitchen as there simply isn't enough time in a day to do all the things I want or have chosen to do. But apparently my family misses me working on the electricity bill as well. I went grocery shopping last one evening with my dad and with a sad voice said "maybe I should take some cookies as there hasn't been anything sweet at home for several days...can you please choose something nice?". I tried my best at making a choice from the packaged ones but still had to listen in the evening "that they only work in times of absolute despair".

Even though I had promised myself to study the whole weekend after being done with the trainings, this afternoon I couldn't get any more formulas in my head and so decided to bake something. But apparently every time I chose a recipe, there were some ingredients missing at home.

This morning I went for an early bike ride for the first time with my new bike and me being the inexperienced  cyclist that I'm combined with my enthusiasm as I had finally gotten my bike meant that I dressed much too lightly for the -2 degrees that awaited me at 8am.

 My new training buddy

 My determination got me through the whole 50km of cycling but when I arrived at home I was shivering, so when seeing that we had some apples left at home I jumped at the idea of throwing together some cinnamon apple muffins....to me they are the perfect comfort food.

Cinnamon-apple muffins
Ingredients (makes 24 large muffins and 24 mini muffins)
Batter:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
- baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 eggs
- 75g butter
- 1 tsp cinnamon

(1) Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. In another bowl mix melter butter with buttermilk and eggs.

Apple filling:
- 1,5 apples (chopped)
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 cup raisins
- rum essence
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

(2) In a saucepan melt the butter, add the chopped apples and make sure they are covered in butter. Add the sugars, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg and rum essence and heat for about 5 minutes.

(3) Add the apple mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into a muffin pan that is lined with baking cases.

Crumble topping:
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp flour
- 4 tbsp brown sugar

(4) Mix all the ingredients and use as topping for the muffins.

(5) Bake at 180 degrees Celsius 18 minutes for the large muffins and 12 minutes for the small muffins.

P.S. I rarely actually eat what I bake, but I must confess that this time I ate even 2 and would probably eat more if there was some space left...

Running into the spring together with caramel macarons

 Two days ago it seemed like wishful thinking from the part of the others - people walking without coats, some in sweaters while the thermometer still showed no more than +5 degrees Celsius and every evening I would hesitantly give in the cold wind and trade my outside run for a treadmill and staring at my own reflection in the window, but yesterday I came out of the gym my head full working like a computer trying to remember my training times, counting the pages I have to read for the exam and what not and it suddenly hit me - it's here. I have no idea when it came as in the morning it definitely was still no where in sight but somehow it had crept up - SPRING had arrived.

It's not that I don't like winter cause I do, but no matter how much I love the snow and everything that comes with it one kind of gets tired of the early dark evenings, the tucking in the numerous layers of clothes and the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. Thus when March comes, every year I'm quietly waiting for the spring to come - the air, light, colors. So this morning I decided to accept the offer to wake up before 7am on a Sunday morning to go to the seaside for a run....

...then a swim practice with the team which was followed by a highly needed nap :))

 As it's Sunday and I'm keeping up with my exam preparation schedule I decided to give myself the treat to spend some time in the kitchen this evening. And what else to make than macarons. After having read the Evan's Kitchen Ramblings blog post on salted caramel macarons I knew that as soon as I get the chance I will try my hand once more in making caramel. Up until now it hasn't really worked out that well but as this is a Pierre Herme recipe, I decided to give it another shot.

 

The caramel did turn out good, for the first time it did not taste as if had been burned and the butter cream had the right consistency to be a filling for macarons. The only problem is that they aren't going to become a favorite in my home....it's something like "it's edible but the lemon curd ones are definitely better but leave them together with wine they go down quite well". I'm starting to think that I've some seriously spoiled people around :)


Salted caramel filling (Pierre Herme recipe)
Ingredients:
- 200g sugar
- 222g whipping cream
- 42g salted butter (A)
- 96g softened butter (B)

(1) Heat up the whipping cream. In a saucepan melt 100g of sugar, then add the remaining 100g and allow the sugar to caramelize until it is in dark amber color. Take the pan off from heat and add the butter (A), mix well. Return the mixture back on the heat and slowly add the heated whipping cream. Continue heating until the mixture reaches 108 degrees Celsius.Take off from heat and pour into a shallow dish, let it cool.

(2) Beat the butter (B) for a few minutes, then add the cooled caramel in several additions. Now it's ready to be piped into the macaron shells.

For the macaron shells I still used the proven recipe as described here.

Magnetic storms in the kitchen...

The last few days/weeks I have had some tough time in the kitchen. As long as I make some tested recipes it is all fine - everyone happy. This was the case with my mum's name day celebration at work and home - I made some muffins, some tart, brownies, lemon curd - everyone liked them. But when I start to experiment, then the hell breaks loose and there's just a disaster in the kitchen - this was the case with my banana muffins and with the crepe cake. Thus currently I'm a bit hesitant to try anything new...

 Lemon tart with cherries on mum's name day

Nevertheless, I did agree to take on an order to make a somewhat special Birthday cake - this was meant to be a 1st Birthday cake but not for one kid or even two, but for 16 kids. Although from one point of view it was great that I got to do pretty much what I liked with the cake as long as it was a 2-storey square cake with 16 muffins and colourful, it is a bit intimidating to try and "guess" what the client would be happy about, especially in this case when there are 16-families and there are boys and girls, meaning that the cake needs to be neutral enough for both genders...finally after some thought I decided to go with the green/yellow colour as a basis and use a toy-theme. So this is what I came up with...

It was lemon-biscuit cake with a vanilla cottage cheese cream and home-made apple-cranberry jam filling. While the 16 muffins were pear muffins so that the little ones can have a bite as well. As per the request of the client I tried my best to avoid the artifical agents as some of the kids are allergic. All in all this has also been by biggest cake is terms of time as I spent ~3 hours baking all the biscuits/muffins and ~8 hours decorating the cake. And even though I think it is far from perfect I am pretty pleased with the result and hope that the kids and their parents will like it too :))

Daring Baker's come with some Jamaican flavours...

I'm not sure there is enough enthusiasm left in me to write something as the weekend was full of trainings as was this evening - one could definetly sense that the triathlon season is approaching. But I did promise to myself to participate in the Daring Baker's challenges as much as possible thus here I'm as I so often do - baking the challenge at the very last moment. This month's challenge was "quick bread" and if my understanding was correct then the only mandatory item was the making of a quick bread in either a loaf pan or a muffin pan and we could use any source of recipe.

The past week a work colleague of mine returned from a vacation in Jamaica and while we were talking about the country, people, weather and food he mentioned that one of the most favorite things he ate there was a dark banana bread. I was immediately all ears as to me it seemed very curious how a banana bread can be dark. Thus he threw a challenge at me, that I could try to create the recipe for the authentic Jamaican banana bread and he will be the tester. So considering that the DB required to bake bread, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to try the banana bread.

Apparently there aren't that many recipes in the Internet, so I just chose the one I though could result in something tasty and then after getting the review from my colleague will know how much off it is and what are the things missing/too much so that I can continue experimenting.

Jamaican Banana Bread (from www.myrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp cream cheese
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 cups flour
- baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup mashed bananas
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tbsp dark rum
- 1 tsp lemon rind
- 2 tsp lime/lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/4 cup coconut flakes

Topping:
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tsp butter
- 2 tsp lime/lemn juice
- 2 tsp dark rum
- 2 tbsp chopped walnuts
- 2 tbsp coconut flakes

(1) Beat 2 tbsp butter with the cream cheese. Add the sugar and then egg. Mix well.

(2) In a seperate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. In a third bowl combine the mashed bananas with milk, rum, lemon rind, lemon juice and vanilla extract.

(3) Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with banana mixture. Stir in the walnuts and the coconut flakes.

(4) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for ~50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes and then remove from the pan.

(5) Meanwhile combine the brown sugar with butter, rum and lemon juice in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in the walnuts and coconut flakes and spoon over the loaf.

Family gatherings and a splendid lemon tart

During the years that I lived abroad one of the things I missed the most were our family gatherings - the ones where the largest part of the whole family gathers at someones house and when me, my brother and cousins were still smaller we would relentlesly play hide-and-seek, hiding in all the possible closets or painting ourselves as superheros thus inevitably smearing the face colors on either the sofa or in the towels, while now it means that there are always a lot of conversations that normally start out as a simple chats but so often turn into heated discussions about politics, history or something else. In addition, taking into account the fact that most of the family members that come from my dad's side of the family are stubborn and love a good discussion, it is almost impossible to convince someone in favour of your view. While for my mum and in fact for most of the people who aren't born into the family it always sounds more like fighting. But for us it's fun. It's a challenge.

Pierre Herme Meyer Lemon tart

 

The truth is that we still play hide-and-seek as not every-cousin has already grown up...

This Saturday evening was going to be this kind of an evening as we were invited to the birthday celebration of my god-parents. I consindered this being a good reason for me to spend some time in the kitchen and bake something. As I had gotten my hands on some fabulous lemons, I decided that I want to make a lemon tart - one of the things I had never tried making before. I was a bit nervous about the outcome as first I had never tried the recipe before and second as I was quite short on time, but the outcome was superb - the cream is absolutely lovely. And there is no way it could not be like that considering the amount of butter that goes into it...I must admit that at one point I was a bit hesitant of actually adding all that butter into the cream, but then knowing that up until now there has not been a Pierre Herme recipe I had made that I didn't like, I just went with it and knew that I will only eat a teaspoon of the cream so that I actually have a fair chance of getting into my triathlon team's training form once it arrives, and then I will just enjoy watching others eat happily not suspecting the caloric surprise that's in the tart. There's just one life - it should be enjoyed! Even if it just a teaspoon :))

Pierre Herme's Meyer Lemon Tart.
Pate Sucree - ingredients.
- 150g butter
- 1 egg
- 30g ground almonds
- 1/2 vanilla bean (scraped)
- 250g flour
- 1/2 tsp salt

(1) Mix together butter, ground almonds, sugar and vanilla bean seeds until well combined. Then add the egg.

(2) Combine flour with salt and add to the dough in three additions. Watch out not to overmix the dough. Form the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refridgerate (in the recipe it requires to be left in the fridge overnight but as I had time issues, I left it in the fridge for only ~3 hours).

(3) Remove the disc from the fridge, roll it onto a well floured surface, then line the tart pan with the dough and put it back in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours (I left mine for an hour).

(4) When ready to bake, put parchment paper on top of the dough and fill the bottom with either beans or if you have with the special weight balls for baking. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for ~20 minutes, then take off the weights and bake for another 5 minutes (until golden brown).


Lemon cream - ingredients.
- 4 eggs
- 240g granulated sugar
- 160g fresh Meyer Lemon juice
- zest of the lemons
- 300g unsalted butter (room temperature)

(1) Run the lemon zest together with the sugar. Then in a double boiler combine sugar, eggs and lemon juice. Whisk constantly until the mixture reaches ~85 degrees Celsius.

(2) Strain the mixture and let it cool until ~60 degrees Celsius. Then put it in a blender and start adding cubes of butter. Run the blender until the mixture becomes airy, light in colour and is creamy.

(3) Pour the mixture into the tart and refridgerate.