Orange Cake

Tomorrow (well today, now since it's past midnight) is King's Day here in the Netherlands. Apparently a tradition that is often linked to the color orange, as many are in this country. I'm not so familiar with the holidays, but since we had hallway dinner today (yesterday), we had a theme of orange food.

The moment I heard that, I thought of the jars of candied tangerine zest that I still had from winter break (same as the ones used here). Then my thoughts drifted to candied orange slices, and orange flavored cake in general. So I stopped by the supermarket after class this morning, grabbed a net of oranges, and restocked on self-rising flour.

I set off first by really cleaning one of the oranges (salt or baking soda is really effective). Then I did my best to cut it into evenly thick slices. As I am so not proficient at that, I cut the whole orange, and selected the five best slices. A simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water ratio) in a pot, and those slices, simmering over medium-low heat started the candying process.

I shaved off the zest from most of the remaining, messed up slices, and chopped those up really small. Then I squeezed the juice into a measuring cup to use in the recipe. I wanted to test pairing it with some black tea flavor, so I stuck an English breakfast teabag into some hot water, and topped my orange juice with that.

The base of this recipe is the same as the matcha mochi cake I made a few weeks ago. I replaced the water with the orange juice/tea mix, didn't put in any matcha, but instead threw in the orange zests and a handful of candied orange peels into the dry ingredients, and followed the rest of the recipe, omitting the vinegar, as I deemed the orange juice sufficient. Due to the juice's acidity, I also increased the amount of sugar.

After cooling, I dusted the top with icing sugar, and decorated with the drained candied orange slices. Unfortunately, the tea taste wasn't strong enough to come through all that orange. I'm happy the cake came out fine as I had a couple of mishaps (accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda...)

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 200 g self-rising flour
• 120 g sugar
• 75 g cooking oil
• 175 g orange juice/tea
• zest of an orange
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• icing sugar, for decorating
• candied orange slices, for decorating

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 170˚C.
2. Grease and flour a loaf pan, or line it with baking paper. Alternatively, line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
3. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and orange zests.
4. In another bowl, mix orange juice/tea, oil, and vinegar.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.
6. Pour into prepared pan.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Cool on a grill.
9. Once completely cool, dust with icing sugar, and lay candied orange peels on top.

Apple Crumble Pie Bar

Three apples, sitting in a basket. Getting all wrinkled, and not so fit for eating raw. What to do when short on time? Well my quickest option was probably an apple crumble. But I wanted something a little more solid, so I opted for a kind of bar-version of this apple crumble.

All I did was make half of the crust/crumble mix recipe. I pressed half of that into a loaf pan, spooned in apple mix, and crumbled the rest of the crumble mix on top. After baking about 20 mins and letting it cool, I had something that was both tasty and easy to cut. I still have leftover apple mix (didn't really measure out the ingredients for that, and ended up with too much compared to the crust mix), so I'll have to think of something to do with that.

Tarte Flambée

One Sunday evening, both L and I were uninspired as to what to have for dinner. We could've stuck a frozen pizza in the oven, but we also had (raw) veggies and others still in the fridge. That's when L remembered a tarte flambée (also known as flammkuchen) that a friend had made and sent us pics of.

We decided to be inspired by that, but with what we had on hand. Instead of the traditional bread dough, I cut a large, rectangular puff pastry in half. Then I scored shallow lines about a centimeter in from the edge to form the crust with a knife, and pricked the inside section with a fork.

Instead of a crème fraiche base, I used Greek yogurt on which I sprinkled salt and pepper. Then I laid on thin slices of butternut squash (to quicken the cooking process, I cut them as thin as possible), and brushed leftover gratin dauphinois sauce mix on top. This sauce is essentially heavy cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, to taste. To finish off, I threw on some sliced mushroom.

The whole thing was baked at around 190˚C until the edges were golden, and the squash was cooked.

Coffee Crumble Cake

This cake should rather be named "Coffee" Cake. The intended coffee flavor came out only as a fragrance, overpowered by the bananas I used. But more on that further down.

I wanted to use up some instant coffee my uncle had left here. At L's suggestion that I bake it into a cake, I started looking at recipes for espresso-flavored cake. That's when I came across this recipe by The Vegan and the Chef that seemed promising. I started measuring out ingredients, already mixing the flax egg and blending oats into flour, etc. When came the time for the wet ingredients, I realized I didn't have applesauce. Oops.

I do have apples. But at the moment, I did not want to deal with cooking them into an applesauce just to make this cake. I vaguely recalled that mashed bananas worked the same way -- albeit with less liquid -- so I too the 2 overripe bananas and got to work, adding in about 1/4 of hot water to mimic the moistness brought by applesauce.

*Update* After letting the cake sit for a night, the coffee flavor really came out above the banana!

Due to a lack of almond flour, I changed it all to oat flour. I was also too lazy to actually measure the butter required for the crumble topping, so I did it by eye. A lack of almonds turned me to the jar of walnuts I have. I additionally opted out on the vanilla and almond extracts. Last change was to use buttermilk, which I had on hand, rather than the almond milk and vinegar mix.

Next time, I'll use applesauce to preserve the coffee flavor of this cake.

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RECIPE (adapted from The Vegan and the Chef)

  Ingredients

     Cake batter

     Dry ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup oat flour (~1 cup of dried oats, blended until fine)
• 1 tbs instant coffee powder
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

     Wet ingredients

• 1 flax egg
• 1 tbs ground flax seeds
• 3 tbs warm water
• 2/3 cup almond/soy milk*
• 1 tsp vinegar*
• 1/3 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

     * use 2/3 cup of buttermilk instead, if you have that on hand

     Crumble topping

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 5 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped

  Procedure

    Cake batter

1. In a small bowl, make the flax egg by combining the ground flax seeds and the warm water. Set aside
2. If using almond/soy milk and vinegar, combine in another bowl and set aside 10 mins.
3. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
4. In a mixing bowl, whisk together all remaining wet ingredients.
5. Add in the flax egg and milk/vinegar mix or buttermilk.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Pour into prepared pan.

     Crumble mix

1. Mix brown sugar, flour, and instant coffee powder.
2. Rub in butter to obtain a mix like wet sand.
3. Mix in chopped nuts.
4. Spread in even layer on top of cake batter in the tin.

     Baking

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. Bake for 1h15 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
3. Cook on a rack before unmolding.

Matcha Cake with Mochi

Have any of you ever had some snacks and then left them aside and ended up forgetting about them? That's unfortunately what happened to most of a pack of small filled mochi. These were red bean, taro, and black sesame mochi. By the time we remembered them, they were dried out and pretty unpleasant to eat.

In an attempt to save them, I tried lightly microwaving one to see what would happen. The result was edible, and had somewhat caramelized and become crunchy at the edges. Not exactly what I preferred as a mochi. The next solution I could think of was to bake them into a cake.

In order to find a flavor that would match all of the filling flavors, I opted for a matcha cake. Unfortunately, for me, the matcha flavor was not nearly as strong as I had hoped. The good side, however, was that the mochi were revived, which made it really pleasant.

Out of the mochis that remained, there were 5 taro ones, 4 black sesame ones, and one red bean mochi. Therefore, I put all five taro mochis on one side of the cake, and the rest of them on the other side, with the red bean mochi in the middle. In order to differentiate, I sprinkled the top of the black sesame/red bean side with black sesame seeds.

The recipe was adapted from Guai Shu Shu. If you want to add mochi, pour about 1/3 of the batter into the pan, then put the mochi in, before pouring the rest of the batter.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 200 g self-rising flour
• 90 g sugar
• 75 g cooking oil
• 175 g water
• 2 tbs matcha
• 2 tbs vinegar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• Sesame seeds (optional)

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 170˚C.
2. Grease and flour a loaf pan, or line it with baking paper. Alternatively, line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
3. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and matcha.
4. In another bowl, mix water, oil, and vinegar.
5. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.
6. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Cool on a grill, then enjoy.

Vegan Banana Waffles

I have been so busy of late with academics that I barely had any time to bake. These waffles date from a February weekend brunch with my cousin L, when I had ripe bananas to deal with (yet again).

First up was the batter. I adapted a recipe from Minimalist Baker, which resulted in my first time using ground flax seeds as an egg replacer. I had conveniently just gotten a jar of flax seeds from a friend, so I measured out 1 tablespoon of flax seeds and ground them with a mortar and pestle. Mixed it with some water and set it aside to do its thing. After adding the rest of the ingredients, I got a thick yet runny batter.

After heating the waffle iron, I poured the batter in and let it cook. I had some mishaps with a couple of almost burnt waffles, but otherwise, they were pretty good! The only adjustment I made from the recipe, if my memory works properly, was that I did not add any chocolate chips.

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RECIPE (adapted from Minimalist Baker)

  Ingredients 

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup oats
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk (I used soymilk)
• 1 flax egg
• 1 tbs ground flax seeds
• 2 1/2 tbs water
• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

  Procedure

1. Prepare the flax egg by combining the ground flax seeds and water in a bowl, stirring, and setting aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas with the baking powder using a fork.
3. Add milk, flax egg, and mix.
4. Mix in salt and oats.
5. Add flour until just combined.
6. Let batter rest while preheating the waffle iron.
7. Spray the iron with cooking spray or brush with oil.
8. Pour in batter and cook according to waffle iron instructions.
9. Remove and enjoy~