Purple rain...

by Karolina, 28th October 2012

"Autumn had come, giving not a damn for the inconvenience it caused"- these words by Andrey Kurkov say it all...

The short days have come bringing the chill with it. Beautiful Indian summer is over and rainy, grey time had taken over :(

To fight cold weather blues I made these...

Purple madeleines with a hint of lavender.

As a base I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe for madeleines. After all if you learn, learn from the best!

However I was making violet madeleines, so I infused the butter with little bit of dried lavender and for the colour I used a few drops of coloring. I didn't want to have just one plain colour. So I added tiny drop of colouring when the dough was already in the madeleine pan and then swirled it using wooden stick. Like this I got pretty purple swirls.

I'm really happy with the result. I got nice fluffy madeleines with hint of lavender which reminded me of summer and quite quirky look :) Together with nice cup of tea made be forget the weather outside - so definitely reccomended.

And how do you like my madeleines?

What is your way to beat autumn blues? I'd love to hear from you!

Eat a cake and have a cake

by Karolina, 30th August 2012

I found this great recipe on Pinterest and was totally sold straight away - quick , easy and relatively healthy (as for a cake, of course).

Recipe comes from Crumb (lovely blog btw, you should check it). Any changes or suggestions by me in the brackets, in Italics.

Yoghurt cake with fruits

Ingredients

1/2 cup plain whole-milk yogurt

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 cup canola oil (I used vegetable oil and olive oil and both worked well)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp grated lemon zest

1 cup fresh red currants (or other fruits - I made as well versions with raspberries, blueberries and even apricots)

 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (I'm in metric system - 180 C worked great). Lightly grease and flour the cups of a mini-loaf pan (or a jumbo muffin tin, if you prefer).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together yoghurt, sugar, eggs and oil until smooth and well blended.
3. Add flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest, and stir until the batter is smooth and silky. Pour into the prepared mini-loaf tin, dividing evenly between the cups. Scatter berries on top of the batter, using around 2 tbsp per loaf.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges are pale gold and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the centre of one loaf. (If using a muffin tin, you may need to add another 5 minutes of cooking time.)
5. Let cool on a rack for 20 minutes in the pan, then turn out and let cool completely before serving.

This cake is my new hit. It's fluffy and light but definitely satisfying any sweet tooth.

Huge advantage - it's quick and easy! Seriously, you can wipe a batch in a few minutes. 

And last but not least....it's one bowl mix. No extra washing up! Yay! :)

 

It's even good the day after....this is, if it would make it to the next day :)

Cool Brittania, part 2

by Karolina, 15th June 2012

This is the last post from my Diamond Jubilee inspired posts. I can't promise thought that it's the last of Britain and British  in here :) 
Today... tea cake :) Literally a tea cake...

Recipe for this cake is from Moje Wypieki blog with small changes (see my notes)

Lady Grey tea cake

Ingredients:

• 200 g flour
• 50 g potato flour (note: you can use maizena or cornflour instead)
• 150 g caster sugar
• 130 g butter or margarine
• 4 eggs
• 4 tbs milk (note: I usually need more0
• 2 ts baking powder
• 1 ts vanilla extract
• 3 ts dry Lady Grey team - about 2 tea (I usually use 2 teabags of Earl Grey)

* note: cake on the pictures is made from 2/3 of the above ingredients. I made smaller version (ran out of eggs :))

Method:

• Beat butter/margarine until fluffy. Add sugar and keep mixing. Add eggs - one by one while mixing
• Flours sift together with baking powder and mix in tea. 
• Add to butter mix alternating with milk, while mixing. Add vanilla extract and mix.
• Butter bundt cake form  and fill 3/4 with the cake
• Bake around 30-40 minutes in 190º (first 15 minutes in temperature 160ºC).
•  Take out, cool and Enjoy :)

I really like this cake as it's not too sweet, moist but not heavy. And best of all - nobody can guess what's the secret ingredient :) I had once professional chef asking me what was inside - because he couldn't put his finger on this specific taste.

To make this cake little more dressed up for the occasion I added Union Jack bunting.

This bunting took me less than 10 minutes to make. I printed some Union Jack pattern, cut triangles from it. Glued triangles to get double-sided bunting :)  Then glued triangles together and to the wooden skewers. Ta-da! :)

So I leave you with this lovely tea cake and (with the special dedication to all my British friends) - Land of Hope and Glory from last year's Proms.

Enjoy!