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~

Orange Chocolate Cake

To celebrate a double birthday (early birthdays for my brother and my dad), I made two desserts. Well technically, I was supposed to just make this cake, and my cousin B was supposed to make the apple tart. In the end, she had other stuff to do as well, so she helped me make the applesauce. Then I made the rest of the tart using store-bought puff pastry for the crust. This was also because my dad mentioned preferring it with puff pastry.

While debating what cake to make, I recalled the Black Forest cake I had made. I didn't have applesauce, but I used some my cousin made for the apple tart. I also used a sweetened cocoa powder (like those to mix in milk) as I did not have unsweetened cocoa, so reduced the sugar a lot. Also, instead of using 1/2 cup of decaf, I used about 1/4 cup decaf, and 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice. To add to the orange flavor, I zested an organic orange and threw it in with the dry ingredients.

For decoration, I sliced a smaller organic orange and simmered it in a simple sugar syrup (1 part sugar, 1 part water) until translucent, then drained on a grill. On a whim, I took some chocolate, melted it with a bit of vegetable oil to make it shinier. Then I swiped some leaf/drop shapes on a sheet of baking paper using the back of a spoon, and put it in the freezer to set.

I whipped cream with some icing sugar in it and put it between the two cake halves. Then I spread the rest over the top of the cake, and cut halves of candied orange slices before arranging them on top. With the chocolate, I settled for a flower-like shape, trying my best to keep the chocolate from melting in my hands. I chopped up a bit of a leftover candied orange for the flower's center.

Here's the cake with the candles, as well as a bit of the apple tart. I had planned to try making my own puff pastry, but didn't want to make the effort while having so much to do that day. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera at college, so had to settle with my phone's camera. We had a nice dinner with family, ate the cake, apple tart, and a fruit salad accompanied by some tea, then played games. All in all, it was a great party!

Black Forest Cake (No Liquor)

For a first hallway dinner of the semester, I opted once again to make dessert. As it is still the beginning of the semester, and my workload is still manageable, I decided to make something a little fancier than plain cupcakes or something.

One unfortunate side effect due to my procrastination is that I tend to start baking kind of late. In the winter, this means that by the time I have a finished product, I'm required to take pictures with indoors lights instead of natural daylight. This leads to a lot of pictures that are more on the yellow side... As this cake was eaten about an hour after it was baked, I could not wait until tomorrow to take pictures.

I signed up for dessert, as usual, but this morning, I still did not know what to make. On a whim, I opted for chocolate cake. Then the thought of "Black Forest Cake" popped into my head, so I worked towards that. The chocolate cake recipe is from Minimalist Baker.

After the cake was baked, I cut it in half, and put a layer of whipped cream and a layer of cherries (from a jar of pitted cherries, with the juice thickened with some cornstarch). I closed it off with the second layer, more whipped cream, and 8 cherries I had reserved. The rest of the surface was covered in shaved milk chocolate (all I had in stock), as I did not have time to pipe a pattern with the cream, as I had originally intended.

The cake recipe yielded an extremely moist cake that went well with the cherries. Upon hindsight, the cake would have been much better if the top also had an entire layer of cherries, but I had not purchased enough, so had to make do with what I had. Except for the whipped cream, this cake is vegan.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Chocolate Cake (adapted from Minimalist Baker)

• 1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 2 tsp vinegar (white or apple cider)
• 1 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee (I used decaf)
• 2/3 cup melted coconut oil, or other neutral oil
• 1 packet vanilla sugar, or 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups + 2 tbs flour
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

     Topping

• 1 jar or can pitted cherries
• whipping cream (use non-dairy cream for vegan option)
• icing sugar (optional)
• chocolate

  Procedure

     Chocolate Cake

1. Preheat oven 176˚C.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix almond milk and vinegar. Set aside a few minutes to activate.
3. Add oil, coffee, applesauce, and whisk until foamy*.
4. Sift in flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt progressively while whisking or beating.
5. Taste and add sugar as desired.
6. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 min.
7. Let cool in pan for a few minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.

      * Mine didn't foam up, but still ended up fine.

     Assembly

1. Cut the cake into 2 halves.
2. Whip cream with desired amount of icing sugar.
3. Drain cherries, and reserve some for the topping.
4. In a small pot, mix remaining drained cherries, 1/4 cup of their juice, a sprinkling of sugar, to taste, and 2 tsp cornstarch. Heat until thickened, then cool completely.
5. On the first layer of cake, spread an even amount of whipped cream. Add the cooled cherries.
6. Delicately slide the 2nd layer of cake on top of the cherries layer.
7. Spread with cream. 
8. Place reserved cherries as desired.
9. With a sharp knife or a vegetable peeler, shave some chocolate. Cover the rest of the surface with shaved chocolate.
10. Cut and enjoy~

Lemon Sponge Cake with Cranberry Topping

I rarely start a post with a picture of the slice, but this time, the inside was what was important! For a dinner among friends, I tackled a recipe I found on Indian Kitchen, for an eggless lemon sponge cake. When the cake came out of the oven, I was surprised at how nicely spongy it was.

The yellowish color of the crumb comes simply from the lemon. When we ate it, however, we deemed the cake a little on the dry side. Maybe infusing it with some juice after baking, or baking it for a shorter time would have remedied that.

The topping is a sauce I made with rehydrated dried cranberries and candied orange peels that I had made a few weeks ago. I just stuck a couple handfuls of chopped dried cranberries and some candied orange peels in a pot with some water, and simmered it all until all the dried bits were rehydrated. Then I added a bit of a slurry of cornstarch to thicken it up. After cooling, I topped the cake with the mix.

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RECIPE adapted from Indian Kitchen

  Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/3 cup yogurt
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• zest 1 lemon
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1/4 cup vegetable juice

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. In a bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk yogurt and powdered sugar.
4. Add lemon juice and zest, and oil. Mix well.
5. Add in sifted flour mix, and mix until combined.
6. Pour into prepared pan and bake 20-30 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan for about 2 mins.
8. Unmold and cool on a cooling rack.
9. Top and enjoy.

Lime and Lemon Shortbreads

The end of another short (and unofficial) internship meant another batch of cookies to deliver. I especially wanted to thank the doctor I was shadowing at the time, so I stamped a handful of these cookies with a "Thank You" message with a heart~

I was half tempted to make cranberry shortbreads again, but decided to opt for something different. Part of my motivation for this was that I did not want to deal with creaming butter and sugar. Therefore, I flipped through my "La Grande Imprimerie Gourmande" recipe book, which is full of various shortbread recipes, from the sweet to the savory.

I came across this citrus shortbread recipe that didn't seem like it would be too much trouble. In fact, the only problem was that there was no lemon or lime at home! A quick trip to the grocery store at the end of the road, and that was remedied with 4 untreated lemons and some limes.

I made a single batch of these, intending to make more. However, a shortage of time caught me, and I only managed the one. However, it was sufficient for the doctor and the nurses of the department. Unfortunately, one did not like lemon, so she did not eat any, but I could not have predicted that.

I made a small package with the portion for the doctor, and then put the rest in a small box to leave on the table of the nurses' room. Ingredients lists were stuck on, and a small blue flower.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 small lemon
• 1 lime
• 200 g unsalted butter, softened
• 300 g flour
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 pinch of salt

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 150˚C.
2. Zest the lemon and the lime. Juice them in separate bowls.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and zests.
4. Add 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tbs lemon juice, then the butter.
5. Mix by hand until the dough comes together, without overmixing.
6. Form a ball, and cover it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
7. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thickness.
8. Cut out desired shapes, and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Let cool and enjoy.