Grandma's Bundt Cake

I'm not sure if any other cake evokes more emotions than bábovka (bundt cake). Every family has its own recipe which is, of course, THE recipe. 

I actually dislike the typical bundt cake because it's too dry. But for the old time's sake (hey, grandma!) and because I got a new cool bundt cake form, I decided to make the old school dry cake which must be eaten while sipping some hot beverage. 

Ingredients:

•  4 eggs (separated)
• 150ml sunflower oil
• 100ml water
• 250g sugar
• 250g flour
• 4 tea spoons cocoa powder

1) Mix the egg yolks and sugar till the mixture pales.

2) Slowly add water, oil and flour.

3) Beat the egg whites till stiff peaks (some people need a pinch of salt to make it happen but if you have a clean bowl, they will do the trick on their own) form.

4) SLOWLY! fold the whites in the mixture. As you can see, there is no baking soda or anything to help you. If you fold in the whites gently, the air bubbles will stay in the cake, help it rise and be more sponge-y. That's actually what makes this cake magical.

5) Divide the mixture into two bowls and add the cocoa powder in one of them. Sloooowly. ;-)=

6) Either butter your pan or spray it with some oil and pour in the mixtures as you want. 

7) Put it in a preheated oven and bake for about 50 minutes at 180°C.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Uh oh. Someone has forgotten to post her creation while it was seasonal. But hey, pumpkins are still in the shops so you can make it even in winter. Though the taste won't be as good as in autumn. So you should probably wait. Sorry.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups shredded pumpkin
• 2 cups flour
• 5 spoons honey
• 1 cup sunflower oil
• 2 handfuls chopped walnuts
•  2 eggs (separated)
• salt
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 2 tea spoons baking powder

1)  Use the egg whites with a pinch of salt and beat them till soft peaks form.

2) Mix all other ingredients and then slowly fold into the egg whites.

3) If you don't have a non-stick bundt mold, use butter and flour to coat the entire surface (inside of course) of it and then pour the mixture in it.

4) At first, bake it at 200°C for 10 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 170°C and bake for about 50 more minutes.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Oh my God, this one is so difficult (and by difficult I mean you can't put everything in one bowl and mix it like I normally do)! But my mom loves it and requested it for her Name Day (yup, we celebrate it -as good excuse to drink as any, right?). So I slaved in the kitchen to come up with a teeny tiny cake which sends everyone into a state of bliss. Well, not everyone, it serves about six people but what the heck, let's do it.

You'll need:

• 4 egg yolks
• 2 eggs
• 65g granulated sugar
• 32g cocoa powder
• 16g potato starch

• 65g sugar
• 60ml water
• 25ml amaretto

•  160g bitter chocolate
• 50g butter
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 250ml heavy cream

 1) Take the eggs and yolks with sugar from the first part and whisk them above boiling water. It must remain luke warm - you don't want an omelette here! It should become light and full of bubbles. Gently fold in the dry ingredients (as you can see, the bubbles are the only thing giving this light texture so fold really carefully, you don't want to burst them and have very flat and dense cake). Bake for about 15mins at 180°C. Then let cool down and later cut in half.

2) Boil the ingredients from the 2nd part for about 2 minutes and set aside.

3) Mix the butter and chocolate by melting them above boiling water. And set aside.

4) Whisk the eggs and yolks with sugar till you have a foamy mixture.

5) Add 1/2 of the boiled sugar/amaretto SLOWLY to the foamy mixture you've just created.

6) Pour this egg mixture in the melted chocolate and put in the fridge to cool.

7) Pour the second half of the sugary "syrup" over the two halves of the cake.

8) Beat the heavy cream till soft peaks appear and beat it in the choco mixture you take out from the fridge. 

9) Assembly the cake, let it cool in the fridge for a couple of more hours and celebrate that you've achieved level one in French cake making. Yeah, this is what kids make in France ;-)=

Now I see I've also sprinkled it with cacao powder. Do whatever you fancy...

Orange Black Tea Cupcakes

These are so good! So moist and soft and citrusy and... well, just make them and you'll see. This batch makes about 20 muffins so bear that in mind.

You'll need: 

batter

• 400g flour
• 3 tea spoons baking powder
• 250g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 125ml oil
• 125g butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 table spoons poppy seeds
• 3 table spoons orange curd
• 2 table spoons juice from orange (I'm not saying orange juice because I don't want you to buy that thing, squeeze it out yourself!)
• zest from 1/2 orange
• 360ml milk
• 4 tea spoons black tea leaves

topping

• 1/2 orange zest
• 1 tea spoon orange juice
• 1 tea spoon milk/tea concoction from above
• 250g cream cheese
• a bit of black food color
• poppy seeds for decoration

1) Bring the milk to a boil and then set aside. Put the tea in and let it do it's business for about 15 minutes. Then take the tea out.

2) Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add the wet ones and combine.

3) Bake at 180° for about 20 minutes.

4) Mix everything for the topping.

5) Smear a little of the cheese mixture onto your muffins and sprinkle with poppy seeds. You can double the mixture if you feel adventurous - I was afraid everyone would be wary around that dark color so I created just small blobs.

Blueberry Ice Cream

How else to say goodbye to the summer holidays than making ice-cream? Among seasonal fruit it's basically the only food I live on during summer so I thought I'd make my own. And boy, it's heavenly! The preparation is a bitch since I don't own any fancy ice cream makers and had to do all by hand but the result. Ohhhhh, the result... :-)=

You'll need:

• 2 cups blueberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 table spoon lemon juice
• 2,5 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• a pinch of salt
• 3 egg yolks
• patience

1) Take 1/4 sugar, blueberries and lemon juice - bring it to a boil in your saucepan and then mash them and run through the strainer (I didn't want any big parts in it so that's why).

2) Put 1 cup of cream aside.

3) Take the milk, cream, sugar and salt and put in a sauce pan till the sugar dissolves - when the steam is rising from the mixture, pour a little over whisked yolks and then return it with the yolks back to the burner. Mix. Always stir. Add the blueberry puree. Stir till the back of a wooden spatula holds the mixture and if you run your finger over it, the not wiped part holds in place... Oh, I'm bad at describing, I know. But I know what I'm doing. Google word NAPPANT if you don't know what I mean. 

4) Let the mixture cool down and then put it in the freezer. It's better to put it in a wide container because you'll need to break it afterwards.

5) When it's completely chilled, take it out and break it to pieces and let it start melting - just a little. Add the rest of your cream and with the use of hand mixer, incorporate. Pour into any container and put it back to the freezer. 

6) Mission accomplished! ;-)= 

Apple Cake

This one is super easy. I had a lot of summer apples at hand (I have no idea what the kind is actually called but they are called summer apples in Czech and basically are ready for eating in the summer and don't last very long because they have very thin skin and mushy insides) and just made the recipe from what I could see in front of me.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups peeled and sliced apples
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups sunflower oil
• 2 tea spoons cinnamon
• 2 tea spoons baking powder
• a pinch of salt

• 200g sour cream
• 3 table spoons cocoa powder 
• 1/2 tea spoon stevia powder

1) Mix everything for the batter and pour onto a baking tray. Bake at 180°C - the time depends on the thickness. I was done in 40 minutes. 

2) Mix the topping part and smear across the cake when it's cooled down. 

Blueberry Cheesecake

It wouldn't be me if I didn't make a cheesecake with whatever ingredient I obtained, right? So naturally, I've made a blueberry one. It's awesome.

You'll need:

• 150g christmas cookies
• 80g melted butter

• 600g cheese (I grabbed curd and mascarpone)
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg 

 

• 2 cups blueberries
• 2 table spoons corn starch
• 1 table spoon water
•  1 table spoon lemon juice
• 50g sugar

1) Let's start with the base. You know the drill - crush the biscuits till powdery, pour butter in them and when the mixture is moist, press to the bottom of your pan and bake at 180°C for 10 minutes. I chose christmas cookies because I thought they'd go well with blueberries and because while I'm sick of cinnamon and other festive spices in winter, I love them in summer.

2) Put everything for the blueberry layer in a pan and boil. When it starts to thicken, set aside and let cool down a little.

3) Mix the cheese layer and if you find it not sweet enough, add more sugar. I wanted to have a slightly sour cake so that's why I used so little sugar.

4) Pour 1/2 of the cheese mixture over the bottom, then pour 3/4 of the blueberry mixture over it, then add the rest of the cheese mixture and on top of it all add the blueberries again.

5) Bake for about 40 minutes at 150°C.

Blueberry Balls

A friend gave me this recipe. I'm not sure if she just wanted to laugh at me or if she was serious and actually enjoyed it. Maybe it was that time in the month when she was cooking it. I didn't know it would sent people into diabetic comas, I realized that after tasting it.
But I told you I had so many blueberries I could do whatever I wanted with them! So I made the blue balls :-D= I think this is one of the sweetest things I've ever created. It is so sweet your feet will clench in fists :-D= So bear that in mind if you want to recreate that.

You'll need:

• 300g white chocolate
• 3 table spoons heavy cream
• 5 table spoons butter
• 4 table spoons blueberries
• sugar for rolling it in

1) Melt the chocolate and add the cream to it.

2) Heat up the butter a little.

3) When both of these things are room temperature, pour them together and add the blueberries - you can crush some to add blue tint to it. Mix well and put it in the fridge for about two hours.

4) Roll balls or any shapes you want from the mixture and then roll them in sugar (I am an idiot and didn't have icing sugar so I had to go with crystal and therefore added an unwanted crunch to the balls). Be fast about it because your body temperature will melt it.

5) Store in the fridge.

Millet Flour Cake

I had no idea what I was doing. I just had some exotic ingredients and wanted to used them. So I experimented a little. And it turned out OK. Well, not OK, it was actually good. 

You'll need:

• 1 cup millet flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup amaranth flakes
• 2 table spoons butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup dry goji berries soaked in prickly pear liqueur 

• 200g cream cheese
• 5 table spoons nutella
• strawberries for decoration

1) You know how it is - just mix everything together and wait a little - oats and amaranth tend to soak some of the milk up so you want to let it sit for a little while and then either add a little bit of milk or send it to the oven (180°C, 35 minutes). As you may have noticed, I didn't add any baking powder because I wanted my cake to be flat and dense but you can do whatever you want.

2) Mix the cheese and nutella and wait till you can decorate your cake. ;-)= 

Zucchini Cake

This monster looks gross as a whole, I know, but don't judge the book by its cover, alright? This tastes so good! It's moist, it's sweet and sour at the same time. I just love it. And it's got chocolate in it, so... 

You'll need:

batter

• 130g dark chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 80ml sour cream
• 110ml sunflower oil
• a pinch of salt
• 300g flour
• 2 tea spoons baking soda
• 40g cocoa powder
•  110g butter
• 200g sugar
• 1 big shredded zucchini

topping

• 300g ricotta
• 50g sugar
• a handful of raspberries

• extra: rasbrerry jam 

1) Melt the chocolate.

2) Mix all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix the sugar with soft butter so that it looks lighter, the start adding the eggs and later the chocolate (it must be out of the heat some time, you don't wanna cook the eggs). Then add the dry ingredients and lastly add the zucchini.

3) Bake at 180°C about 40 minutes (it helps if you put the batter into two baking pans).

4) Mix the ingredients for the topping - you can crush the raspberries a little since you want to get it a nice pink tint. 

5) Assembly the cake - a cake layer, raspberry jam, another cake layer, topping. Or anyway you like it, really ;-)=

 

Blueberry Cupcakes

It's summer. And summer means I can gorge on blueberries. So in the next few weeks you'll see how delightful that can be. Of course, I usually devour most of them fresh and raw but since this year I've got a ton, I had to make something out of them. The first and easiest were these muffins:

You'll need:

batter

• a cup of blueberries
• 200g flour 
• 200g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 120g butter
• 2 tea spoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

topping

• 300g cream cheese
• 50g sugar (or more if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup blueberries plus some for the top

1) Mix everything for the batter - add the blueberies last and fold them gently in so that you don't crush many.

2) Bake for about 35min at 180°C.

3) Mix the cheese with the sugar and blueberries - this time you want to crush some of them so that they the cheese gets a nice purple tint. 

4) When the muffins have cooled down to room temperature you can decorate them with the cheese mixture. 

Avocado Cake

I love avocados. It's their season since the prices are dropping and I can't resist that. I think I will turn green very soon from overconsumption. But that's OK. As long as I'm happy, why should I care about what I look like, right?!

This time I tried to do something unheard-of. All the dishes I prepare from avocados are savoury. But this beast (I know, the shape isn't the best) is sweet. Now I can have avocados in every part of my meal plan... :-)=

You'll need:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 ripe avocado ( I even tried 2 once and it turned out to be too glue-y)
• 2 eggs
• 2 table spoons coconut oil
• 1 tea spoon baking soda
• 2 table spoons cocoa powder

1) Mix everything (not the cocoa) together till incorporated well.  Then take a half of the batter and put the cocoa in it.

2) Pour into you baking pan and bake for 40minutes at 180°C.

Nutella Cheesecake

Oh, it's summer holidays! I'm writing this in advance and now I put in the date of publication and realised this would be my first holiday recipe. 

It deserves something special then. So, this is gonna be a little price-y but I can assure you everyone will leave the table with a blissful smile on their faces. It's just heavenly good.

And if you put some extra effort into chopping your strawberries, it will look awesome. No one will say anything bad about it. There is nothing dull about it. It's just wonderful. And since it's summer, this cake is perfect. It's from the fridge. You only need to bake the crust and that's it. I must say I was afraid of the gelatine part since my experiments with it didn't always end up successful in the past but here it worked out and I'm glad.

You'll need:

• 900g cream cheese (or combo of your favourite kinds of cheese you usually use for baking)
• 230g sour cream
• 305g sweet condensed milk
• 380g nutella
• 14g gelatine + 60 ml water
• 1 table spoon vanilla extract

• 150g cocoa biscuits
• 80g butter

•  strawberries (as many as you want)

1) Let's make the bottom crust first. Make crumbs from those biscuits and pour melter butter over them so that everything is moist and you can press it to the bottom of your pan easily. Bake at 180°C for about 10 minutes. Then let cool down.

2) Mix all from the filling part with the exception of gelatine and water. When it's incorporated well, put the gelatin in the water, stir. Then put it in the microwave for about a minute (it will get foamy). Stir again till the foam goes down. Repeat the process once more. Then it's ready to be incorporated into the cheese mixture.

3) You can chop some strawberries that will go inside.

4) Cover the sides of your baking pan with baking paper or some kind of foil - it will be easier to get the cake out later. Pour in some of the mixture so that the bottom is covered. Then put in the strawberries (you can press some slices to the sides of the pan, it will look fancy) and then pour in the rest of the cake mixture. 

5) Leave in the fridge overnight. 

 

Rhubarb Strawberry Pie

It's the rhubarb season again! Yay! I love its sourness. I always try to bake something from it and always am confronted by my mother about its preparation. 

All over the internet you see pinkish/red rhubarb in recipes and in pictures of how to make something. Which means people don't peel it in order to get that nice reddish tint. 

But it drives my mother crazy. Whenever she sees my reddish rhubarb creation I get a lecture on how I should always peel it otherwise there will be funny thread-like pieces hanging from every bite. But guess what. It doesn't happen. The baking is obviously good enough process to take care of it. It cuts easily and no awkward pieces are hanging anywhere. So go for it, folks, you want some colour in there! But just in case you are the annoying peeler in your family, add in some strawberries to really have it red ;-)=

You'll need:

crust

• 320g plain flour 
• 230g butter (cold is good)
• 120ml cold water
• 1 tea spoon salt

filling

• 3 cups diced rhubarb
• 3 cups chopped strawberries
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1 table spoon lemon juice

topping

• 1 beaten egg
• some granulated sugar

1) Take a fork and try to incorporate butter pieces into the flour with salt. When small crumbs appear, add in the cold water. Then use your hands to incorporate it even better, divide into two pieces, wrap it in a piece of foil, and put in the fridge for a couple of hours. 

2) Mix everything in the "filling" part and let the fruit lose some juice. Which means set it aside for an hour or so and mix every now and then.

3) Roll out the dough so that you can put it in your baking pan. When the first part of the dough is on the bottom and sides, pour in the filling (you won't need all the excess juice/water) and then prepare the second part of the crust - whichever design you fancy.

4) Smear the crust with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

5) Bake at 180°C for about 50 minutes. (or less, you will want the crust golden brown)
 

Rice Flour Cake with Strawberries

This was an experiment because I bought a bunch of weird kinds of flour to try to bring more healthy stuff into our lives. I feared of failing but disturbingly enough my family liked it. Those rigid dinosaurs who like the old-school stuff and cringe when I say "tofu" or other nasty words like that liked it. That's something. 

This cake has very interesting texture. It's moist and heavy and holds together just fine but once you get it on your tongue you feel like it's falling apart into tiny sand-sized pieces. So funky. 

You'll need:

• 1 1/2 cups rice flour
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tea spoon baking soda
• 2 tea spoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs

• strawberry jam
•  100g cream cheese with some sugar 
• strawberries

1) Mix everything for the batter together and bake for about 45 minutes at 180°C. Have the cake pan covered for the first 30 minutes or so so that it doesn't get too brown.

2) When cooled down, cut in half and smear it with jam. Use the cream and strawberries to decorate the top.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

I'm not a fan of peanut butter to say the least. It's a foreign substance my taste buds can't figure out and no, the taste cannot be acquired. However, when in moderation it can actually be very good. Just like cilantro. I hate it and try to put it in my guac to get used to it but it will never work, I just know it. So peanut butter is something similar. It only works in small doses. This cake is proof of it. Cheesecakes rock and PB can't ruin the impression. On the contrary - it makes it less sweet which is great.

You'll need:

• 180g biscuits
• 1 large table spoon melted peanut butter

• 200g cream cheese
• 200g sour cream
• 1 egg
• 150g peanut butter
•  1/2 cup sugar

• 100g dark chocolate
• 2 table spoons peanut butter
• a handful of chopped peanuts

1) Make crumbs from the biscuits and wet them with melted peanut butter. Press onto the bottom of your cake pan and bake for 10 minutes at 180°C.

2) Mix the cheese, cream, peanut butter and sugar. If you like the taste, add the egg. If not, add what you miss first and then add the egg. Pour onto the cooled crust and bake for 30minutes at 180°C.

3) Melt the chocolate over boiling water and add the peanut butter. Pour over the cooled cake and decorate with peanuts. 

3 Ingredient Cookies with 3 Ingredient Filling

In my struggle to find healthier alternatives to snacks (because I just can't imagine living without sweet dishes) I browsed the organic isle in a supermarket and found a lot of types of flour which are not so typical. So this time I'm using rice flour because why not...

Ingredients (for 10 filled cookies):

cookies

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup rice flour
• 1/4 cup cranberry maple syrup

filling 

• 125g curd cheese
• 3 table spoons chopped dry cranberries (but if you have fresh one, then go ahead)
• 2 table spoons cranberry maple syrup

1) Mix everything for the cookie dough. It will become less and less sticky so that you can roll the dough into small balls which you put onto a baking tray and flatten with something so that they are disc-shaped.

2) Bake at 180°C for about 13 minutes.

3) Chop the cranberries into tiny pieces, mix with the cheese and syrup. Taste it and if you think it's not sweet enough, just our in some more syrup.

4) Since these are basically biscuits, spread the filling onto them and then let them be for a while (you can leave them in the fridge overnight so that they soak up the moisture and won't break your teeth) ;-)=

Carrot Cake

There are gazillion recipes out there for the best carrot cake and I think I've found one which tops the list. It's so moist and the cream balances it out into smoothness. 

You'll need:

• 500g finely grated carrots
• 400g sugar
• 320g flour 
• 4 eggs
• 250ml sunflower oil
• 4 tea spoons baking soda
• 100g chopped walnuts
• 1 table spoon cinnamon
• 1/2 tea spoon ground nutmeg

• 250g curd cheese
• 200g ricotta
• 4 table spoons sugar (add more if you want it sweeter)
• 1 table spoon turmeric (I was going for yellow color but it didn't turn as yellow as I wanted)

1) Mix everything for the batter till incorporated well and pour into your baking pan.

2) Bake for about 1 hour at 180°C.

3) When it's cooled down, prepare your cheese mixture and slice the cake in half and put the cheese in and then onto the top.

4) To make it look fancier, use some of that shredded carrot to decorate.

3-Ingredient Cheesecake

I'm not sure if you have noticed but the Internet was all over this Japanese dessert some time ago (or maybe it is still "in" when this post comes to my blog). Maybe the Net was just spamming me with it since I write about food, I'm not sure. But if you've seen it, here you can see how it turned out. It looked so simple I had to try it. And I must say the Internet is easily amused. I'm not.
I get it, in a crooked universe where everybody is on a diet, a crust from flour seems too evil to eat but what about those three bars of chocolate?! ;-)=

The cake is featherlight and it's like eating a cloud - that's really awesome. But honestly I couldn't help but notice the egg flavour. It's too much for me. If I wanted a fancy sweet omelette I'd ... I dunno what I'd do because I'd never want a sweet omelette. 

Ingredients:

• 250g cheese (cream cheese, curd cheese, you choose)
• 6 eggs
• 300g white chocolate

1) Melt the chocolate over boiling water and wait till it cools down a bit.

2) Separate the eggs and beat the whites till foamy (that consistency before soft peaks).

3) Mix the room-temperature cheese and chocolate. Then add egg yolks. Gently mix in the whites last.

4) Prepare a glass bowl (use baking paper for the bottom and the sides). You'll also need a baking tray with raised sides - you'll put the bowl with the cake mixture in the middle and pour boiling water around onto the tray. 

5) Bake for about 20 minutes (depends on how large your glass bowl is). The cake should rise and get brown-ish on the top and if you move it, the centre of the cake shouldn't move anymore.

6) Let cool down before your attempts to remove it from the bowl.

Mole's Cake

I asked my brother what kind of cake he'd like for his Birthday and he came up with the mole's cake. When we were younger there was a boom of those "add milk and you have it" cakes from the box. And our mom kept buying the mole's cake. It's not that good if you ask me - too much whipped cream but since my very original brother, whose son is watching the adventures of Mole (a very popular children's cartoon character) by the way (and I definitely didn't connect these two things together) wished it, so be it. But not from the box! From the real ingredients. I was afraid it wouldn't work out but look! ;-)= Better than from the box, that's for sure.

You'll need: 

cake mix

• 100g icing sugar
• 180g flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 10g baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 100ml sunflower oil
• 125ml milk
• 1 shot of rum

filling

• 3 bananas cut in half (you cut the long side)
• 400ml heavy cream (40%)
• 40g icing sugar
• 80g shredded chocolate (or chocolate chips)

1) Mix everything for the cake mix and pour it into your lined or buttered cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 180°C. Let cool down.

2) Whip the cream with sugar and chocolate so that it's very stiff.

3) Hollow the cake so that you only have about 5mm at the bottom and the sides are intact. Break the stuff you have taken out into small pieces, you'll need it. 

4) Put the halved bananas onto the bottom of your cake. Add the whipped cream so that you create a dome-shaped heap. 

5) And the messy part begins - take the crumbs and try to cover all the cream.