Brownies

I found a good brownie recipe. I used this recipe when baking a cake. Actually, I then reduced the amount of sugar, as the rest of the cake was so sweet. But maybe it was not necessary?! Still unsure.
Remember though. If you want to make a cake out of it, you need to be on the clear side that it is not really easy to keep it "whole". The brownie seems to have a tendency to go into pieces, really. Next time, I think I will do a caramel whip and make a cake out of it that I freeze. Then I will decorate it with caramel sauce.

Ingredients

175gr unsalted butter
225 gr dark chocolate
180gr caster sugar
3 medium eggs (separated)
65gr plain flour
50gr chopped pecan nuts

Instructions

Heat the oven to 180degrees Celsius.

Use a pan of 20cm to 26cm. If you do it in the smaller pan, it will be a more chubby and soft cake. So after I have tried the large pan, I do recommend the small one... ;)
Butter the pan and cover it with a baking sheet. It will make it much easier to get the brownie out of the cake.

Melt the butter. Add the sugar and wait until it has melted. Add 175gr chocolate and melt it in the mixture. Cool down the mixture.
Mix in the egg yolks. Add the flour. Also break the chocolate into small pieces and add it to the mixture together with the nuts.
Whip the egg whites. Mix some of the whipped egg whites in the chocolate mixture so that it gets somewhat fluffy and somewhat easier to mix with the egg whites. Then put the chocolate mixture in the bowl with the whipped egg whites and mix them together lightly so you do not loose the air in the whites.

Dough after adding the egg whites 2013-10-19

Bake for about 35-40 minutes until the top is crusty. I think if you are using the 26cm pan, you can actually have to take it out already after 30-35 minutes.

Baked brownie in the pan covered with baking paper 2013-10-19

You can freeze the brownie and it will still taste good afterwards. I have only eaten it cold, but it is supposed to be good warm with ice cream, too.
It gets a really funny bubbly surface... See... :)

Bubbly surface of the brownie cake 2013-10-19

Coffee swirl cheesecake

Some days, some decisions are tougher than others... I was up for a huge challenge. Decide what cheesecake to bake for the Christening of a baby. Well, not any baby... Just a specific one, a real cuty. The kid of two classmates of mine. Ok, former classmates of mine to be completely honest... Done studying since a couple of years back without being too specific... ;) Anyway, let us come to the point.
Point is... among all potential flavours and recipes there are for cheesecakes, how the hell do you come to the best choice? So... obviously doing a pre-taste of a few different ones and ask somebody to taste. The more people, the safer the choice. To do the pre-baking efficient, I tried to bake ONE cheesecake with different flavours and use the same basic recipe. And if you think that was an easy task, you are definitively wrong. How do you think you can efficiently keep the fillings separated from each other? As far as I know, you can't. So no picture of the trial cheesecake. Looked like crap. But gave a good idea of what people liked! The cheesecakes on trial were raspberry and white chocolate flavour, coffee flavour and a Nutella flavour. Most people preferred the raspberry one. The coffee one became somewhat too strong (too much coffee) and Nutella ones were undecided. Different opinions across the board. But one good idea by an original friend. Why not have two layers? One coffee layer and then the "regular cheesecake" at the top. Swirls that had appeared in the parts where the different cheesecake flavours merged gave the idea and they were deemed cool by my friend.

Coffee swirl cheesecake 2013-10-26

So here is the final recipe!

Ingredients

Crust
250gr digestive cookies (if you live in Sweden, go for the Göteborgs Original ones. Far better than what you will get when you use Original Americal McVities!)
150gr butter

Filling
2 eggs
180gr caster sugar
400gr Philadelphia cheese
1 tbs Espresso Nescafe
1 tbs hot water
Less than 1/2 tbs coffee powder (for decorative purposes)

Instructions

Heat up the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. I use the fan in the oven for more even heat.

Crumble the digestive cookies. I use a food processor with blades. Melt the butter. Please, make sure you do not heat it up too much, otherwise the crumble may become completely fluid. I promise you... ;)
Add the melted butter to the crushed cookies and mix until you get something you can actually cover a springform pan. As I am lazy and don't like to have my dough stick to the pan, I do put a baking sheet on the bottom of the pan and then also butter in the pan. Then put the crumble mix in it evenly. I always try to avoid getting too thick corners. Bake the crust for about 6-7 minutes.

Whisk eggs and sugar. Add Philadelphia cheese until incorporated. On the side mix both kinds of coffee with the water. Then add it to 2/3 of the mixture.

Put the mixture with the coffee at the bottom of the pre-baked crust. Add the remaining 1/3 of the mixture without any additional flavouring at the top. Do it carefully and try to cover the coffee completely.When you have done it, you can try to swirl a little.

"Raw" coffee cheesecake after having swirled the two mixtures together 2013-10-23

Or you don't... It's a free world. But fact is, I do think it will be very difficult to keep a clean cut in the two layers. And then it won't be a coffee swirl cheesecake any longer. Bake for 30 more minutes or so (maybe some additional 5 minutes can be needed).

Baked coffee cheesecake with swirls 2013-10-23

Cool to settle. I have personally only eaten cheesecakes one day after I have baked them, so they have always got one night in the fridge to settle. Unsure if it is necessary tough. It also keeps very well in the fridge so you do not need to eat it up in one shot. No excuses... ;)

If I had had some coffee beans, I would have probably distributed a couple of those in the middle or on the side for decoration purposes. Or if I had had some time to waste, I would have done some out of chocolate and sprinkled it over the cake in the middle or on the side for the same purpose. But now I had neither time nor coffee beans so it had to do without any decoration.

Lemon lime pie

My neighboor, my lovely neighboor, had baked for her birthday party. Cakes were baked. I was invited over on a regular Friday evening to actually help out clearing out the rests... What a good way to conclude a boring Friday evening. By the way, guys, who ever has rests to be cleared out, I am always willing to help out and prove myself a helpful person as usual... Anyway, back to the story. My lovely neighbour had baked this lemon lime pie and a huge amount of different chocolate cakes. Which, of course, were also very good. But this one just kind of stuck out.

So when I was asked (ok, I actually asked, to be really honest with you) to bake for two friends' baby's Christening, this one was an obvious surprise addition to the predefined cakes. And as I had no cream left at home, I actually did the final baking when at the venue. Quick recipe if you ask me. Just count with some lead time as the crust needs to be in the fridge for about half an hour and then you need the pie to bake for 30 more minutes. And do not forget it needs to cool down first to stabilise, too. Which might also take some 1,5-2 hours... Total lead time 3 hours?! Working time. Maximum 30 minutes.

So here you get the recipe. It is very very easy to do, so even I succeeded!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of this. I think I will have to bake it soon again and complete this post with some pictures.

Ingredients

Crust

180gr (3dl) flour

36gr (3 tbs) caster sugar

125gr butter

1 egg yolk

Filling

3 eggs

180gr (2dl) caster sugar

2dl heavy cream (36%-40% fat)

18gr (2 tbs) flour

Lemon  zest from 1 lemon

Lime zest from 1 lime

Lemon juice from 1 lemon

Lime juice from 1 lime

Decoration

Powdered sugar

1/2 sliced lime

Instructions

Mix flour and sugar. Put the butter in in small pieces. Butter should be taken out of the freezer some minutes earlier, but it should not become too soft. Mix quickly with your hands until you get a crumbly mixture. Add the egg yolk and mix until you get a dough.

Distribute it in a buttered springform pan and cool in fridge for about 30 minutes.

Heat up the oven at 200 degrees Celsius.

Whisk eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add lemon and lime zest and juice and mix together. Then add flour. When mixed in, add cream and mix until incorporated. It should not be too fluffy so after you start adding the other ingredients in the egg and sugar fluff, make sure you do it quickly and don't mix too long.

Put in crust and bake all together for 30 minutes.

Cool down the cake, which will allow the filling to settle.

Decorate with slices of lime and sprinkle powder sugar at the top of it. The original recipe recommends to serve with whipped cream. So unnecessary if you ask me!!!!

 

Basic yellow cake

I have actually used this cake recipe nearly every time I actually have baked a cake in the last years. I think it works. And it tastes good, too. If you ask me...
I normally pick it down from the wilton.com home page, but every single time I wonder: "Do I have it among my recipes?", then, of course, I don't find it and at the end of the story I find myself fighting with American measures... So now, now let us do something against this...

Ingredients

375gr sifted flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

390gr sugar

75gr butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

300gr milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 175degrees Celsius. Grease bottom and walls of a pan (26cm diameter) or two (20cm diameter). Line with baking paper.
Sift flour, salt and baking powder and set it aside.
Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

19/10-2013 Butter and sugar when fluffy...

Add one egg at the time and then add the vanilla and keep beating the mixture. I think it is smart not to add too cold eggs. It mixes much better.

19/10-2013 After having added the eggs

Add milk and the flour mixture alternatively until everything is incorporated. When this is the case, just beat one more minute.

19/10-2013 With flour and milk added

Then the batter is ready to be distributed into the pan(s).
I personally try to use special ribbons wetted with water to cover the external part of the pan so that the cake does not blow up in the middle. It is always good if it can stay flat at the top rather than getting bumps.
Bake for 30-35 minutes when in the small pans and 45-48 minutes when in the large one.

The cake is ideal for decorating. It can be prepared in advance and frozen as it is! When you need to set the cake, you can actually do it before it is completely defrosted as it will be easier to decorate when it is a little frozen.