Fruit Cake

I was thinking to give you today a great fruit cake recipe. It's called this way because you can use what ever fruits you wish. This is what makes this a great desert for every season, as you can use the fruits you find in the market.

Ingredients:

- 4 eggs

- 200g sugar

- 8g vanilla sugar

- one pinch of salt

- 125g plain yogurt

- 80 ml sun-flower oil

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 250g all purpose flour

- 10g baking powder

- 500g fruits

Turn your oven on to heat up while you prepare the mixture.

Mix together in a bowl the eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and the pinch of salt. Add the yogurt, oil and vanilla extract and mix after each.

Use a separate bowl to sift the flour and baking powder. Add it to the wet ingredients and mix together.

Put a sheet of baking paper on your tray, or grease it and dust it with flour. Pour the mixture into the tray, level it with a spatula and put the fruits on top.

Place it in the oven at 180ºC and bake it until it turns brown.

Dust with icing sugar after it cooled down, cut into pieces and serve it.

Tips:

- this cake is great with fruits that are a little sour, because you will experience a nice sweet and sour contrast taste

- you can use sour cherries, apricots, plums, and so on

- if you use big fruits, like apricots or plums, cut them into smaller pieces

- cut the cake only after it turns cold, or while is slightly warm

- dust it with sugar after you cut it, this way the sugar won't melt and it will give the cake a nice look

- you can cut the sugar amount to 150g; it will still be sweet

- use only plain yogurt, or the taste won't be the same.

                                                  

                                                                                                    Bon Appétit!

Blueberry and Chocolate Muffins

I haven't met anyone yet who does not like muffins. They are fluffy and moist and using blueberry and chocolate makes them just heavenly. You can use as much blueberry and chocolate as you please, as my quantities for these two ingredients are here just as a guide.

Ingredients:

- 3 eggs

- 100g granulated sugar

- a pinch of salt

- 1 small plain yogurt (125g)

- 70 ml sun-flower oil

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 210g all purpose flour

- 10g baking powder

- 30g chocolate

- 200-300g blueberries

Turn on your oven to be well heated when you put the muffins in.

Mix the eggs with sugar and salt until it triples its volume and turns white. Add the yogurt, oil and vanilla and mix shortly after each.

Use a separate bowl to sift the flour and baking powder and mix them well with a spoon. Add them to the wet ingredients and mix well.

After this point you need a spatula to incorporate the chocolate, chopped in small pieces, and the blueberries. Do this process carefully or the blueberries will break and color the mixture.

Use a 12 servings muffin tin in which you place the special muffin paper cups. With a spoon fill 2/3 of the cups. If you are not using paper cups you need to grease and dust with flour all the servings of the tray.

Bake them at 180ºC until they turn brown.

You can dust them with icing sugar, or just eat them as they are.

I love these muffins because they are really moist and not reach in sugar. If you want it sweeter you can add more sugar while preparing them, but I recommend you do them like this as they have less calories and you can eat more  :) .

I hope that you will like them as well.



                                                                                                              Bon Appétit! 

Fluffy Crepes

            From time to time we need something for our sweet tooth. This is why I want to teach you today how to make some fluffy perfect crepes that are really great and even healthy.

            Ingredients:

            - 300g sifted flour
            - 900 ml liquid (450 ml buttermilk + 450 ml mineral water)
            - 3 eggs
            - 30-45 ml rum essence (depending on how much you like it)
            - 3 tablespoons melted butter
            - 1/2 teaspoon of salt
            - 1/2 teaspoon of sugar 

           Making crepes is very simple, fun and really tasty. You need to put the eggs in a bowl with the salt and sugar and start mixing them until they turn into a fluffy cream, doubling their size. Now add the melted butter (make sure it's not hot, or it will cook your eggs and they won't taste good anymore) and the rum essence. Mix for a few seconds, and then add the sifted flour and the liquid. Hold a paper towel over the bowl while mixing everything together because it will splash all around due to the liquid.

          The mixture has to stay in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. This way the mixture sets and your crepes won't shrink while cooked.

           It is very important to use a pan created especially for making crepes (pancakes) because this pan won't let the mixture stick. This way you will make perfect crepes from start to finish, and you will also use a small amount of oil while cooking them (about 1/4 spoon of oil), or even no oil at all (if your pan is a really good one). Use a full ladle (even a ladle and a quarter) of mixture to make thick crepes that will be way tastier and fluffier than the really thin ones. Cook them on both sides in a well-heated pan.

          To keep them low in calories you should fill them with home made jam in which you put a really small amount of sugar when you make it.

          I can recommend you the plum jam with no sugar added. Really ripe plums are filled with a natural sweetness so it doesn't need any more sugar. Take the kernel out, cut them in 4 and put them in a large pan (the ones that have a really thick bottom so the jam won't burn) on the slow fire. Boil them until they start to melt and the sauce thickens a little (when you pass the spoon through the mixture the sauce sticks to the spoon).

         Don't add any sugar to the jam. If the plums are well ripe it will taste like you've added sugar to it.



         So, there you have it. A guilt free wonderful dessert that will make you forget you are on a diet. Just like anything else, eat in moderation. If you make thick crepes, you will get about 12 - 13 crepes, just enough for 3 - 4 people. Hope you enjoy them :)

                                                                                                          Bon Appétit! 

Strawberry and Cheese Cream Cake

           The other days I have attended a family birthday where I was asked to do one of my delicious cakes. The instructions were simple: to be fresh, with berries, and low in sugar. The sugar part wasn't hard to do as I am a fan of low sugar desserts. 

            So, I thought that the perfect recipe would be a vanilla cake, with cheese cream from the Red Velvet Cake, berries (as I was asked) and of course, some delicious chocolate.

Ingredients:

Sponge cake:

- 4 egg yolks

- 4 egg whites

- 170g of sugar

- 230g all purpose flour

- 1 sachet of baking powder (8g)

- 1 sachet vanilla sugar (8g)

- 1 vanilla pod

Cheese Cream:

- 360 ml sweetened whip cream

- 250g Mascarpone cheese

- 250g Quark cheese

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

- 80g icing sugar

Syrup:

- 300 ml water

- 2 tablespoons of sugar

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Decoration:

- 300g dark chocolate (about 50% cocoa)

- 20 ml of milk

- different berries

            You should know that you will get a very big cake fitted for a big anniversary. If you want a smaller cake just adjust the ingredients to fit your needs.

            Mix the egg yolks with 2/3 of the sugar and the vanilla sugar sachet until they become creamy, turn white and increases their volume. Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of boiled water while mixing them, to melt the sugar faster and make the mixture rise.

            In a different bowl, mix the egg whites with the rest of the sugar like in a meringue. Again, you can add 1 or 2 tablespoons of boiled water to help melt the sugar faster.

            Bring the two mixtures together and add the sifted flour, baking powder and the vanilla beans. Mix it well so that the flour incorporates into the mixture.

            Coat the tray with baking sheet and pour the mixture in. Put the tray in the preheated oven and bake it for about 25 minutes at 180º C. Test it with the knife to see if it is ready (the knife has to come out clean), or just bake it until the top gets a golden-brown color.

            Now you can take care of the cream that will be ready in minutes, which is perfect because it has to sit in the refrigerator to cool down to be easy to work with.

            Mix in a bowl the Mascarpone and Quark cheese until you get a smooth paste. If you can't find Quark type cheese, you can use any other smooth cream cheese (which will be perfect as it is a little salty and it will make the filling taste even better). Add the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and mix it again to incorporate all in.

             In a separate bowl whisk the whip cream. Combine it with the cheese cream, cover it with a plastic foil and put it in the refrigerator.

            When the sponge cake cooled down, put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. This way it won't crumble when you cut the layers. Prepare the syrup on the stove and use it warm (or completely cold).

            Take the cake out and cut it into as many layers as you wish, but just make sure they are not too thin or too thick. Use the cake tin ring to assemble the cake. Put inside the ring a layer of cake, pour syrup with the spoon until its as moist as you want it, add a layer of cream cheese and sprinkle over it strawberries cut in quarters and whole raspberries. Put another layer of cake, and repeat the procedure... syrup, cream, fruits.

           You can use the top layer of the cake if its not too uneven, but turn it upside down, this way the layer will seem even. After you put the last cake layer, cover it with cream and place whole raspberries, one next to another, and whole strawberries (use small ones, slightly bigger than the raspberries). After you covered the entire cake, sprinkle some blueberries and redcurrants. Place the cake into the fridge for at least 1 hour, so the cream will set and not run once the ring will be taken off. Save some cream to put around the cake once the ring comes off.

           Put the milk and chocolate in a pan and melt it over a low heat. Stir constantly so it doesn't burn. Once the chocolate seems to start melting, take the pan from the fire and continue stirring until is all melted.

            Let it cool down a little and then spread it over a baking sheet in a thick layer. Take the cake out of the fridge, take the ring out and put the remaining cream all around. Place the baking sheet around the cake, with the chocolate facing the cake, brush some colorless gelatin over the top fruits so they won't oxidize, and put it back in the refrigerator. Leave it over night and take the sheet off the next day. Do it slowly and carefully to don't tear the chocolate coat which should remain sticked on the cake.




           That's it. I know it sounds like a lot of hard work, but it's actually not that hard. The only problem would be that you can't have it in the same day.

           If you want to ease things up a little, change the chocolate coat with chocolate cigarillos, which is way easier and you will be sure that nothing will go wrong with that

           I hope that you enjoyed today's sweet tooth and maybe it will inspire you to create something easy, but which looks complicated, for your next event.

                                                                                                              Bon Appétit!