Simple chocolate cake

This is a lovely moist chocolate cake we made with my little one for her big sister's birthday. It's fairly quick and easy. And absolutely delicious!!

 Ingredients:
6 eggs, separated
6 heaped tbsp. flour
6 even tbsp. sugar
1 generous pinch of baking soda
for the cream:
2-3 tbsp. custard powder
1 pint warm milk
6 tbsp. sugar
100 gr butter
1 heaped tbsp. cocoa powder

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Line a round cake tin with baking parchment. For the sponge beat the egg white until very stiff (you can upturn the bowl and it still stays in). In a separate bowl beat the egg yolk with the sugar. Add the flour and baking soda. Fold in the egg white. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 20-30 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean.
For the cream prepare the custard following the instructions on the box/ sachet. In my case I needed 1 pint milk and 2 tbsp. sugar, made a paste then added the warm milk and gently boiled the mixture stirring all the time until it thickened.
Beat the butter and remaining sugar in a separate bowl. Add the cocoa powder. Mix with the cooled custard and fill the sponge.
Refrigerate for a few hours and then it's ready to serve!

Yumm yumm!

A twist on the pancake mix

If you like pancakes but hate the standing in front of the hob for endless hours and flipping pancakes this recipe is for you. It uses a basic pancake mix with added yeast but is ready so much faster!

First of all you have to make a thick pancake mixture. I suppose you can use pretty much any recipe, I used my usual one, only adding more fluor and less milk.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
appr. 250 gr flour
400 ml milk
1 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt
7 gr dried yeast
oil for greasing the tin
for the topping: coarsly ground walnuts, caster sugar

In a little warm milk dissolve the yeast and leave it stand until frothy. Meanwhile mix the rest of the ingredients well. Add the yeasty mixture, mix again. Leave to stand for about half an hour or so.
Pre-heat the oven on the highest temperature. Grease a tin well with the oil and put in the oven. When it's hot pour in the mixture and sprinkle with the walnuts and caster sugar. Bake for 15 mins or until the top is golden and the cake leaves the side of the tin.

 And you can cut it up and serve hot! With some home made apricot jam, yumm!

Oh, yes. Yours will be probably higher than this as I had two hungry little girls eagerly waiting for this so I didn't leave the yeast long enough to dissolve properly...

Pancake Tuesday recipe III. and IV.

  

Another pancakey dinner! :) But be warned, it's really heavy and filling!

 Meaty-mushroomy pancake bake

Ingredients:

2-3 tbsp oil or a generous knob of butter

1 packet (250g) mushrooms, chopped

salt, pepper

100-120g smoked meat, chopped

large bunch pasrsley, chopped

2 hard boiled eggs, chopped

1 cup grated Cheddar

1 egg yolk

3-4 tbsp soured cream

1 pinch nutmeg

10-12 pancakes

 Sautee the mushrooms in a large frying pan, adding salt and pepper.

 Add the smoked meat, eggs, parsley and stir.
 Spread the filling on a pancake and top with another pancake.

 Roll up the double pancake.
 Cut it in 3 pieces and stand them up in a greased ovenproof dish.

 Mix the yolks, nutmeg, soured cream and half cup of cheese and spread on top. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Cook in a pre-heated (200 C) oven for about 20-30 mins or until top is golden.

 I whisked the remaining egg yolk and mixed it with some salt and cheese, poured over and put back in the oven for another 15 mins. Just didn't want to waste the white ;)

And for the desert:

Triple layered cottage cheese pancake bake

I love pancakes filled with cottage cheese! As my Grandma used to make it - a tub of cottage cheese, 1 egg yolk, sugar (I added 3 tsp) some raisins and lemon zest. (These are best cooked in the oven afterwards, but if you eat them raw do so straight away and use only the freshest eggs!)

 As my friend's Mum used to make it - 1 tub cottage cheese, 3 tsp sugar, 3 tsp soured cream, raisins, lemon zest.

Or as I make them when I'm in a hurry (you know, kids screaming for more pancakes, you are tossing them with one hand and spreading the filling with the other while making more cottage cheese filling with the third...) - cottage cheese, sugar, lemon zest. 

I thought, it would be nice to eat them all together :) So. I made 9 pancakes. Filled three with first variety, 3 with second, 2 with third (ran out of cottage cheese :O ) and a final one with Nutella :D

Then mixed 1-2 egg yolks, 100 ml cream, 3 tbsp warmed honey and a generous tsp cinnamon.

 Then I put the pancakes in layers in a loaf tin. Poured some sauce over each layer and tossed a handful of walnuts on toop.

 

Put it in the oven at 200 C for 15 mins and slice & serve. It's even better when cooled!

Pancake Tuesday recipe II. and our Mummy and Daughters aprons

When I was a kid I used to play a lot with the girl next door at my parents' weekend house. Her
Mum made ther most delicious pancake cake ever!
Now I tried it too and it is just...hmmmmm....

 Ingredients:

4 eggs, separated

50g butter + extra for frying

100g flour

250ml milk

pinch of salt

vanilla sugar or brown sugar for sprinkling (or cinnamon & sugar)

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. It helps if you have a working food processor... (sigh)

 In a separate bowl beat the butter and egg yolks. I melted the butter previously and let it to cool a bit and worked like a treat, made it a lot easier to get it fluffy.

 Little by little add the flour, milk and salt.

Finally fold in the egg whites.

 Melt some butter in a frying pan and add a laddle-ful of the mixture. Cook until the bottom is light brown and the top is bubbly and set. DO NOT flip over!
Slide the pancake onto a plate with the pale side up. Sprinkle with some brown sugar (or vanilla sugar/ cinammon sugar etc.). 

Repeat until you run out of the mixture. Put the last pancake on top wit the brown side upwards.

Serve sliced with some custard or vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream... But be quick, it disappears all too fast!! 

I managed to finish the Mummy and Daughter aprons today. So my little girls can don an apron each when helping me! And I have a matching one too :) 

Choosing the fabrics and applique pattern

Our muffins!



The cut pieces for the apron, ruffle and tie







I ruffled the apron then sew on the tie




Then pin and sew on the applique




Making the ruffle. So easy!




Pinned on the ruffle and sew it on

 I used an awesome tute for making the ruffle.

And voila!

They came out pretty cute :) But I think I still need to practice a few things... Like applique...

Passion fruit slices

The other day my husband came home with a pack of passion fruits. 'They were half-price in the shop. Can you make something from them?' Hmm, to be honest this was the first time we bought them ever. So. Two was eaten on the spot. Just for the taste. :P I had two left and after some searching on the net I found a recipe.
So the girls and myself donned the aprons and baked it!

Unfortunately we couldn't make the icing as I ran out both butter and passion fruit but it was very tasty nevertheless.

Almond biscuits

These are absolutely gorgeous with a cup of coffee, they melt in the mouth :P

 Ingredients:
250g margarin
550g flour
200g sugar
100g ground almonds
50g coarsly ground walnuts
2 egg yolk
1 egg
1/2 lemon grated zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
cooking chocolate, cream for decorating

 Rub the margarin and the flour, then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Put in the fridge for 30 mins or more. Then roll out on a floured surface. Cut out circles and roll them up to crescents or cut out different shapes. My girls love this bit! :D

 Put in a pre-heated (180 C) oven and bake for 15 mins or so. Leave in the tray to cool.

 Melt some chocolate and a few tbsp cream over boiling water and dip in the biscuits to decorate.

Enjoy!