G&T cake

i love me a good g&t, and some years ago, i made a gin & tonic sorbet. of late, i've been trying to make the perfect gin & tonic cake. naturally, to do so, i turned to pinterest. and i looked at this recipe, and this one (which is more or less the recipe i made the first go i had at it), and this one and also this one. but that first attempt was a bit dry and a bit too heavy, so when it came time to try again, i mixed them all up in my head and made this one, and it was good (i think the baking powder helped):

the cake

1 C (250 grams) butter
1 C (fill up a 250ml measuring cup if you're doing metric) granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 C (fill that 250ml cup twice) cake flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 C gin
2 T finely-chopped rosemary
2 T finely-chopped lemon zest (juice the lemon(s) and reserve the lemon juice)

cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs and then add the dry ingredients, adding the gin after the first cup of flour and adding the rosemary and lemon zest at the end.

bake in a loaf pan at 350°C/180°F for approx 40 minutes until done.

while it's baking, make the syrup to pour over it:

the syrup

1/2 C gin
1/2 C tonic
1/2 C sugar
3-4 juniper berries
a sprig of fresh rosemary

bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved, then turn it off and let it cool/steep until your cake is done. let the cake cool for about 15 minutes. take a chopstick or maybe even a small-gauge knitting needle and poke holes all over the cake, taking care to reach all the way to the bottom. then carefully pour the syrup over the entire cake. let the cake cool all the way before frosting.

the frosting

1 C powdered sugar
2 T lemon juice
zest of one lemon

mix together. if the frosting isn't the consistency you desire, add a splash of gin. spread it over the cake and decorate with slides of lemon or lime and a sprig or two of rosemary and enjoy!

the perfect mother's day cake

it's a very good year for rhubarb. we've got a double row of it and it's almost literally coming out of our years. we've picked a whole wheelbarrow full twice and you can't scarcely see it. it hasn't made a dent. these are very old rhubarb roots that we moved to another spot when we moved here four years ago. we divided a bunch of the roots at that time and it obviously made the rhubarb very, very happy, as it's thriving incredibly. i find myself thinking up ways of using rhubarb. i've made 6 bottles of cordial so far and should make about 10x more (seriously, i could probably do this in commercial quantities if i had the time). so in honor of mother's day on this rainy sunday afternoon, i turned to my mom's recipe for rhubarb coffee cake to provide us some comfort and to use up a bit of that rhubarb.

i had a conversation with husband about why it's called a coffee cake, when there's no coffee in it, but i explained that it's because you eat it with your afternoon coffee. i think for me, coffee cake is also darker and deeper than normal cake. in this case, the recipe calls for brown sugar, rather than white and i think that lends to the deep coffee cake goodness. i think it also has to do with not having frosting per se. so a coffee cake is a simpler cake.

mom's rhubarb coffee cake

Cream together:

1/2 C butter

2 C brown sugar

3 eggs

1 C buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

Add:

2 C flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

3 C rhubarb, cut into small pieces (between 1/2" and 1", depending on how thick your rhubarb is).

Pour it into a buttered/floured 9x13 baking pan and sprinkle with:

1/2 C sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

Bake at 180°C/350°F for 30-35 minutes.

Serve with coffee or even a cup of tea. Enjoy.

what to do when your tree only produces a dozen plums

we have a rather ancient plum tree in the garden. it wasn't doing very well, so a couple of years ago, husband severely pruned it back. at first, this appeared to make it very sad. but now, the procedure has quite literally borne fruit and there were plums on it for the first time since we've lived here. they weren't many (only about a dozen), but they were beautiful and sweet. so i knew i had to do something special with them. then a friend posted this recipe for a gingery plum cake on her facebook wall.

i'd been in the kitchen all day, making chutney and raspberry jam and pickles and lasagne and bread when i decided i'd better make the cake before the plums went bad. it was late in the day and i didn't want to make a grocery store run, so although i didn't quite have all the ingredients, i knew i could improvise.

plum gingerbread cake

1 dozen plums, halved and de-stoned
3 spoonfuls of sugar
butter for greasing the pan

the cake:
175 grams butter
100 grams brown sugar
3 discs of palm sugar
80 ml golden syrup
80 ml molasses
2 large eggs
200 ml milk
300 grams flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. cardamon
1/4 tsp. allspice

preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. grease a square pan with butter and line the base of it with baking parchment. butter the paper and sprinkle with sugar. arrange the plums prettily in the bottom with the cut side facing the sugar.

melt the butter and the two kinds of sugar and the syrup in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth and all of the sugar is melted. (this is where i went wrong. i was doing about 12 other things and didn't pay very close attention. my mixture went to a rather rolling boil and began to show early signs of turning to caramel. this, as it turned out, was a very good thing.) remove from heat and allow it to cool for 10 minutes or so before stirring in the eggs. alternate the dry ingredients and milk and mix to a smooth batter.

pour the batter carefully over the plum and bake for 45+ minutes. you can turn it out of the tin if you're serving to guests and want to be fancy, but you can just as well leave it in for easy storage.

notes: do let that sugar-butter mixture get a bit caramel-y, you won't regret it. you can use 175grams of brown sugar, i just didn't have that much left and had some of those palm sugar discs languishing in the cupboard. i also didn't have enough golden syrup in the cupboard, so i topped it off with some of my precious molasses, which made the cake even more like a proper gingerbread, so that was a good thing. 

i can safely advise eating it for breakfast with a bit of cream poured over it. if you serve it as dessert, it would go very nicely with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream. it was a very worthy recipe for my precious plums.

chai cake

i've been trying to devote my fridays to finishing projects that i have underway. but it seems that every friday, when i should be sitting down to do that, my mind wanders off to something new. today, i had a hankering to make a cake. sabin and i have been watching ultimate cake off, with the ambitious 5' tall structures of cake and fondant, but i wanted to do something a bit more simple. but still with a twist. i decided to make a chai cake.  and i began searching for recipes online. the more i looked, the more i thought that i could come up with something myself. so i embarked on an experiment.

we love chai and we love loose-leaf tea. however, our favorite chai is only available in a grocery store called Irma, that doesn't exist in this part of denmark - it's apparently a "city" grocery store and we live in the countryside. just this week, i had run out of that precious elixir, but i still had some of this:

it's a pretty good instant chai mix (tho' a bit sweet for my taste as a drink), that you mix with hot water. i thought it would taste delicious as a cake.  i started with a martha stewart butter cake as my base - martha knows her cakes and they always have lots of real ingredients - like butter and loads of eggs and they never call for a box cake mix (very surprising how many cake recipes out there do).

chai layer cake

250 grams butter (i always use salted because i think it tastes better, but you can choose) (that's 2 sticks to y'all in the US)

2 C organic sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 and 1/3 C of flour

1 T. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2/3 C instant chai mixture

1 C (250ml) milk 

cream the butter in the mixer using the paddle. slowly add the sugar until it's a creamy, light yellow. mix in the four eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg. meanwhile, combine the flour, baking powder, chai mixture and salt. add the vanilla to your egg mixture. begin to add flour and milk alternating each until it's all combined in a velvety dough.

butter and flour two round (9"/23cm) cake pans. i lined the very bottom with baking paper for ease of removal (i just trace around it with the pan and cut it out to fit it perfectly). i never used baking paper when i lived in the US, but i have to admit i don't know how i did without it!  i really highly recommend it.

bake the two cakes at 180°C/375°F for 30-40 minutes (again, my oven is faster than others, but you know yours best). take them out and leave them to cool. 

i would have liked to get creative on the frosting (something maple came to mind), but my family loves a good, classic vanilla buttercream, so i pleased them.

classic buttercream frosting

250 grams butter

500 grams powdered sugar

1 tsp. real vanilla

2 T milk

cream the butter, then slowly add the powdered sugar and vanilla. add only as much milk as you need to make a creamy, spreadable consistency. this can differ based on the weather (i swear). chill for a few minutes (up to 15) in the refrigerator, then spread on the cooled cakes. 

we didn't decorate or anything, we just ate thick slices with a steaming mug of tea. it tasted great, but i would say it was just a tad on the dry side, but that was undoubtedly because i baked it a bit too long. better to under bake just a titch than overbake. again, i make the mistakes so you don't have to!  enjoy!

bûche de nöel or how to look good this christmas

last year, about this time, i made a reference to nigella's fabulous bûche de nöel, without sharing the recipe with you. since i spent my morning making a double one to take to sabin's school play this evening and had a chance to photograph the process, i thought i'd share it with you now...just in time for you to look positively heroic this christmas. because this cake is a veritable masterpiece when it's done and it's dead easy. plus it doesn't contain any flour, so even those who live the gluten free life can partake.

as usual, i couldn't leave even the goddess-like perfection of nigella alone and i have made a teency weency adjustment to the recipe.

nigella's bûche de nöel a la julie

the cake:

6 eggs, separated

150g sugar

50g cocoa powder

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3-5 teaspoons of powdered sugar to decorate

the icing:

175g good quality dark chocolate, chopped
250g powered sugar

225g butter

1 T vanilla extract

the extra julie touch:

1/2 liter of cream, whipped

preheat your oven to 180°C/375°F.

whisk the egg whites until they are thick and and beginning to peak, then add 50g of the sugar and keep whisking 'til stiff peaks form. if you're like me, you let your kitchenaid do this bit while you're working on the next part.

whisk the egg yolks and the rest of the sugar until they are a creamy pale yellow, add the vanilla, whisk a bit more, then sieve the cocoa powder in and mix it well.

put a big dollop of the egg white mixture into your chocolatey egg yolks, mixing well, then fold the chocolate mixture carefully into the rest of your egg whites, taking care not to lose too much air.

pour the mixture into a swiss roll tin lined with baking paper. a little trick to keep the baking parchment from rolling up on you while you're trying to pour (seriously, why isn't part of pregnancy the growing of a 3rd arm - wouldn't that be handy?), you can put a little dab of butter in each corner and stick the baking paper to it.

bake for about 20 minutes until it looks done. i realize this sounds vague, but trust me, you'll be able to see when it's done.  remove it from the oven and let it cool very briefly (and i do mean very briefly) before turning it onto a new piece of baking paper and peeling off the baking paper backing.

don't let it get too cool before you do this, or you'll have trouble getting the paper off without taking quite a lot of cake with it. trust me, i've made the mistake so you don't have to.

while it's cooling. melt your chocolate in a double boiler (or in a metal bowl over a pan of boiling water, like i do).

put the powdered sugar down in your food processor and whip it up to get rid of any lumps. then add your softened butter and let the food processor do the work for you. add the vanilla once the butter and sugar are well-mixed.  once the chocolate is melted and cooled down a little bit (so it doesn't melt your butter), add it to the butter/sugar mixture and again, let the food processor do the work for you.

while it's doing the work, let your kitchenaid whip up some cream for you - but do keep an eye on it, you're not making butter here (again, i've made the mistake so you don't have to).

put the cake on a good work surface and spread a thin layer of the chocolate icing on top. on top of that, spread a good layer of whipped cream. it hit me today, when i was a little concerned about not having enough of the chocolate icing (i was making two cakes and doubled the icing recipe, but it didn't look like enough), that you could use the hazelnut goodness of nutella here on the inside, just to add another note to the cake. i did, however, have plenty of icing, so i needn't have worried.

i found the cake too heavy and dense the first time i made it, without the whipped cream, tho' nigella's original recipe doesn't call for it. i find it makes it lighter and more sort of dreamy and delicious.

let the baking paper help you carefully roll the cake up. then carefully cut each end at an angle (strangely, i failed to photograph this bit), so you can place it beside your main "branch" as smaller "branches."

place the cut ends at angles against the main cake - my cake here is actually two cakes, so yours will be half the size of this. spread the remainder of the chocolate icing over the cake, covering and using extra bits to stick your branches on. use a spatula and a toothpick to make it look like the bark of a tree.

dust it with powdered sugar so it looks like new fallen snow and decorate around it with greens and pinecones gathered outdoors.

it may sound a bit fussy, but you'll be amazed how easy it really is.  and your friends and family will never know (unless you tell them). so you can act like you slaved all day and get people to fetch you glasses of wine while you relax.