Showing posts with label Cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cake. Show all posts
26 April, 2010
Orange Sponge Cake
03:27 | 
Posted by
W
We never say "sponge cake" anymore, well people I know don't. Every cake has to have a flavor, description, and plenty of thick icing; but what happened to simplicity? Perhaps we as Americans have lost our appreciation for this basic cake amongst the corn-syruped and chocolate dipped sweets that modern chemistry has afforded us, perhaps we have been over sugared?
Within England it's referred to as "sponge" and is common as a tea snack, a popular choice is Victoria Sponge, a sponge cake with jam layered in the middle. Sponge cake is at it's simplest a fluffy cake which can be eaten alone, or due to it's appropriate absorbency, is perfect accompanied with creme or fruit. The fluffiness of this cake comes from the presence of beaten egg whites within the batter; the cake maintains it's body despite the low proportion of flour by having less fats to soften its structure; this cake uses no yeast, and is one of the earliest non-yeasted cakes.Adapted from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" I present: Gateau a l'Orange
Procedure:
What you will need:
- Spring form pan or small greased 9 inch pan.
- whisk or electric beaters
- 2 mixing bowls
- a way to grate an orange
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 eggs separated
- zest of one orange
- juice of 3 oranges
- pinch-o-sal
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1 tbsp of extra sugar
Procedure: Whisk 1/2 cup of sugar with eggs yolks until mixture thickens to a slow stream when falling from the whisk. Add zest, juice, and salt to the mixture and beat until foamy. Slowly beat in the flour to avoid lumps.
In a separate bowl whisk sugar, salt, and egg whites together until still peaks are formed.
This will take awhile and probably hurt your forearm.Fold the egg-white mixture into the batter one forth at a time using a wooden spoon or another flattened implement. Folding the delicate egg-whites into the heavier batter helps the egg-whites maintain their structure.
Folding is achieved by sweeping the bottom of the batter to the top slowly until mixture is incorporated.
Pour mixture into greased pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, but start checking at 15. The cake should be puffy and lightly browned.
The book says to cook for 30-35 minutes, mine baked for 18 and burned slightly. Perhaps my oven is too hot, but I would suggest vigilance.
Orange Butter Glaze
What you will need:
- whisk
- saucepan
- basin of cold water
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- zest of one orange
- juice of 2 oranges
Beat all ingredients together in saucepan before heating. Once everything is incorporated heat on low or over a double boiler until mixture thickens to the consistency of honey. The mixture is at the optimum temperature when it is too hot for your finger tip.
Heating slowly prevents the eggs from scrambling.
Once temperature has been reached remove from heat and place the bottom of the saucepan in the basin of cold water. Continue to whisk for 4-5 minutes until the mixture thickens.
Cut the cake in half horizontally and pour glaze on the exposed part of both halves. Allow to set and reassemble. You can also take a small layer off of the top and pour the glaze over the top.
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26 February, 2010
Gluttony and Alcoholism: The Grapefruit
Pink is such an odd color for the grapefruit. It is not a girly fruit; there's nothing feminine about the slight bitterness that reaches around and slaps the sweetness right off of your tongue (or perhaps there is). The name itself even seems confusing; it's nothing like a grape, which is itself a fruit. Apparently the name grapefruit came about as they grow in clusters, much like grapes do...I'm pretty sure that's where the similarities end. This being said, I love grapefruit. They are so much juicier than oranges and thus, if you like to juice, are much more appealing and economical than oranges. I don't mind the bitterness either, you kind of warm up to it after awhile. So with a large bag of grapefruits and nothing better to do I set off, to drink and eat some cake.
- 1 part sky vodka
- 1 part fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
- 1 part La Croix pamplemousse water
- grapefruit slice
Now onto the cake. I'm going to be honest, I have a minor thing for this food blog, Chocolate Dust. I do, I like the fact that it's in Croatian, I like the fact that the english directions leave so much to wing, I like the difficulty of the recipes and their international flare. I might have a foodblog crush and I might just start writing my recipes in random languages, so look out for that. So I found this recipe on the blog, that the author had for a dark chocolate orange cake, sounds awesome right? Yes. It does. But I didn't have dark chocolate, I had white chocolate. I didn't have oranges, I had grapefruits. Yes, thats what I did, I made a white chocolate grapefruit cake, similar enough right? Well, kind of.
White Chocolate Gapefruit Cake
cake
- 350g white chocolate
- 175g butter
- 70ml grapefruit juice
- 250g almond meal
- 5 eggs
- 100g sugar
- 2 tsp almond extract
Melt white chocolate on double boiler, adding in the butter and almond extract. Stir until fully melted and then set to the side. In a separate bowl mix together the almond meal and flour. Separate the eggs and mix the egg yolks with 20g of sugar and add into the cooled white chocolate. Slowly add the chocolate to the flour mixture, as well as the grapefruit juice. Beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar until white, and fold into batter. Pour into 2 9-inch pans and bake for 12 minutes at 350F.
filling
- 1 cup organic sour creme
- 1/3 cup sweetener
- 1 tsp almond extract
Let the cakes cool in and mix sweetener with sour creme and almond extract and spoon between the layers. Place in freezer.
icing
- 300g white chocolate
- 100ml half and half
- grapefruit zest
Melt chocolate in double boiler and slowly add the half and half to the mix.
Add the half and half in spurts and stop if the ganache starts to thin too quickly. You may not use all of the half and half.Once melted allow to cool and then pour over chilled cake, top with grapefruit zest, chill.
This cake went over pretty well, though it was no honey cake. It's dense and tart and, though a seemingly odd combo it worked by countering the overwhelming sweetness of the white chocolate.
24 January, 2010
Adventures in Eastern European Cooking pt.1
Eastern Europe is really making a comeback, fashionably speaking. Perhaps it's just because I'm dating a Romanian and my new landlord is Polish, but I feel like the whole former Soviet Block is so 'in' right now, do you know what I mean? Perhaps it's due to my new found knowledge of Ceauşescu and appreciation for the rapper Ombladon that I feel immersed in this harshly accented and ever so sexy culture, but not wanting to be one to deny a fascination I've run with it.
Boil 400 ml milk and quickly remove from heat. Mix flour and 200 ml milk and carefully in a small bowl then pour it into the boiled milk stirring continuously. Return mixture to medium heat and cook until it thickens to consistency of béchamel sauce. Remove from heat and add pine nuts and almond meal. In a separate bowl mix butter, powered sugar, and vanilla together. When the milk and nut mixture has cooled mix in butter mixture and allow for it to chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
So on to the cooking! My first attempt was kind of a fluke; I was bored and went "Tastespotting" for the most difficult and time consuming recipe I could find without needing special baking equipment. Some people turn to the drink when upset or bored, I turn to the spatula. This excursion took me to a lovely Croatian Woman's Blog titled Chocolate Dust. Where I found a recipe for "Medena Pita" or Honey Cake; a cake made of honey flavored flat cookies layered with a nutty creme. It met my criteria, so off I went to baking. Of course I couldn't just follow a recipe, so I've varied it a little bit.
Medena Pita
The cookie dough:
2 eggs
100g sugar
4tbsp oil
4tbsp honey
450g flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together. Mix eggs with sugar, add oil, honey with flour mix. Dough will be very soft. Trace bottom of casserole dish onto wax paper and cut 4 pieces to that size. Divide into 4 equal parts; roll each piece to fit the wax paper keeping the edges from breaking apart. Bake each layer in preheated oven at 350F just for a few minutes, until the edges get
golden, but biscuit is still light in color. Cool them on a rack. Be very careful removing them from the pan as they will be very very soft until fully cooled. Once finished with the four cookie sheets place to the side.
The Creme:
600 ml milk
150g powdered/confectioners sugar
1/2 cup flour
70g crushed pine nuts
30g almond meal
100g butter
2 tsp almond extract
Boil 400 ml milk and quickly remove from heat. Mix flour and 200 ml milk and carefully in a small bowl then pour it into the boiled milk stirring continuously. Return mixture to medium heat and cook until it thickens to consistency of béchamel sauce. Remove from heat and add pine nuts and almond meal. In a separate bowl mix butter, powered sugar, and vanilla together. When the milk and nut mixture has cooled mix in butter mixture and allow for it to chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
In a casserole dish place a cookie on the bottom, and layer 1/4 creme on top. Repeat with the rest of cookies adding the extra creme on the top of the cake. Cover and allow to chill in refrigerator. You can top it with marzipan, extra almond meal, or white chocolate.
My cake is somewhat messy because I didn't do the casserole dish measuring part, which I have now added to the instructions and would definitely do next time. Alin ate all but one piece of the cake (which was gifted to Diane).
"This is my favorite cake ever; it's not too sweet."-Alin
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