Strawberry coffee cake & some other cakes

Since April of this year i have joined The Home Bakers. Whe are baking every three weeks but i have been missing out on some bakes or i made the cake but didn't had the time to post my findings on my blog. The idea is whe bake all the recipes from one book and whe started with Coffee cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas. So starting this post with this Strawberry coffee cake.

Our seventh bake together was picked by Alice from I love.I cook.I bake. She chose this delicious cake and for the recipe you have to go to her site. She used blueberries instead of strawberries, like to see wat the others made of theirs go to the home bakers page.

I decided to make only half of the cake so i needed only half of the ingredients. Baking my coffee cake in a round 9-inch pan. The batter was easy to make but a little tough. So spreading it out on the bottom was not going very well. Then on to that layer i putted all my strawberries and then the second layer of batter but it seemed more like dough. Baking it 180C for about 30 minutes. The cake rose above the pan but after cooling down it was collapsed. The taste is really great, but next time i will not put my strawberries in 1 layer but mix them a little more trough the batter. I especcially liked the cruch of the brown sugar on top.

Pear pinwheel and Hazelnut cake

Almond-crusted butter cake



































 

Sun-dried tomato-pistachio polenta cake

This is our 8th bake together (Though i already missed out on some bakes)with The Home Bakers, and it is my time to pick a recipe from coffee cakes(the book whe are currently baking from). So since nobody had chosen a savory cake yet, i thought i should do so.  This recipe looked very appealling to me and i love sun-dried tomato's. It is baking in the oven right now,  and i am curious how it will be.

I made only half the recipe and baked it in small ramekins, so i ended up with five individual small cakes. Bud i did keep the 1/3 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes:-).The smell is great and the taste is seriously awesome "I think". I almost regret i made only half the recipe. Baked the cakes in only 20 minutes because of the small ramekins i used and didn't use the optional water. But putted in 1 extra teaspoon of the oil from the sun-dried tomato's.

Here is the recipe from the book:

Sun-Dried Tomato-Pistachio Polenta Cake

 

Makes one 9-inch cake
Serves 10

This savory tomato herb bread has a delicious polenta and nut crunch in each golden slice. Nicely moist, with a fine, crumbly texture, it is excellent warm or cold. Serve it for an Italian-style brunch, lunch, or buffet party. It is also an ideal complement to a Caesar salad or a lentil or bean soup for a light meal.

• 1/3 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons hot water (optional)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1-3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup finely ground polenta or cornmeal
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup buttermilk or low-fat plain yogurt
• 2/3 cup (2-1/2 ounces) unsalted pistachios
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan or pie pan.

If the tomatoes are dry-packed, cover them with the hot water and let steep for 5 to 10 minutes to soften.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk or an electric mixer until light. Blend in the oil, honey, and herbs. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, polenta or cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir to blend. Stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture alternately with the buttermilk or yogurt in 2 increments. Beat until smooth. Stir in the tomatoes and any liquid. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the nuts and 2 tablespoons of the cheese for the topping and stir the remainder into the batter. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan and sprinkle evenly with the reserved nuts and cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then unmold right side up on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into wedges.

Blueberry streusel coffee cake - THB

I started a new baking challenge with The Home Bakers six weeks ago hosted by Joyce of kitchen flavours. Read all about the home bakers and feel free to join!

Our third bake together is the Blueberry streusel coffee cake as seen on the cover of the book, it is chosen by Chaya of Bizzy bakes. You can see the original recipe here.

This cake was easy to make. I really liked it but most of the people that got to taste it liked the streusel topping most of it. Lucky for me that blueberrys aren't hard to get overhere, but some other participants could not get them easily. The dough was made with all purpose and whole-wheat flour so it would be great in the morning as a breakfast to.

Instead of using half a cup of granulated sugar i only added a quart cup of sugar, because the topping would be very sweet also. Eating the topping together with the cake was just the right amound of sweetness for me.
Used yogurt and not buttermilk just because i had it in my fridge.
Blueberry are easy to get fresh or frozen, i used frozen blueberries. Instead of 2 whole cups i only added 1 and a half cup because my boyfriend doen't like blueberries.

Baking this cake i bought myself a 8 inch springform baking pan. Where if the cake was ready i could easily slight the cake from the bottom and that worked verry well.





About The Home Bakers

We are a group of home bakers who share the same passion in baking and we love collecting cookbooks! Most of us would probably have tried out about 2 or 3 recipes from some of the books that we own and these books somehow got pushed back till later or kinda forgotten, as we collect more cookbooks along the way! So at THB, we will bake from one cookbook only, until every recipe has been baked. This will not only fully utilized your cookbook to the maximum, but it will widen your baking skills, and learn more about baking as we share our experiences together. Come join us as we venture into the exciting world of baking right in our own kitchen haven. The challenge of The Home Bakers is to complete every recipe from one chosen cookbook. This will be an easier challenge if we are baking and sharing our experiences together. There's always something new to learn about baking.

The Chosen Book
We are currently baking from "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas, who has written more than 50 cookbooks. "Coffee Cakes" is a beautiful cookbook with various bakes covering Sunday Brunch Cakes, Everyday Morning Cakes, Savory Picnic Cakes, Bundt Party Cakes and Delectable Dessert Cakes, a total of 60 wonderful recipes. Just by taking a peek at this book, would make you want to bake each and every recipes!

Apricot-Pistachio-Lemon coffee cake - THB

The past three weeks went very fast, so its time for our second baking job with The Home Bakers. The Home bakers are a new baking group that will bake from just one book only untill it's finished. Whe started out three weeks ago with the first recipe from Coffee cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas. Feel free to join in....

So this time Chris fom Yummy bakes got to pick a recipe; Apricot-pistachio-Lemon coffee cake.

I didn't feel like baking a hole cake for just the two of us so i made only a quart of the original recipe, that you can find here. I didn't have a small bund pan so i chose to pour the batter in to six smal souflle dishes/ ramekins that are about 2 inch wide and baked them for 20 minutes at 175C. 

My small individual cakes came out perfectly and tasted very nice. I think i really like apricot and pistachio together! Because it already are small round cakes i didn't need to cut the cake and that is where i got lucky with my choice of small cake pans.  The others baking this cake along with me had some difficulty with cutting the cake, because it gets crumbly because of all the apricot and pistachios in it.

There is a variation on this cake in the book: Cherry - hazelnut cake;

Follow the original recipe, substituting 1¼ cups dried cherries for the dried apricots and ¾ cup toasted and skinned hazelnuts, whole or chopped, for the pistachios.

I really liked to made the variation to but i could't find any dried cherries:-(

Come back here on the 18th of may then where baking a Blueberry streusel coffee cake.

Dutch "Boterkoek" for my 2nd blogiversary!

Dutch butter cake/cookie "boterkoek" is an easy recipe made with real Butter. It's a real rich, dense and buttery cake ofcourse, and is traditionally baked in a 20-24cm(8-9,5 inch)  round pan. This is the classic version but there are more version, this varieties are filled with almond paste, apricot or ginger. This cookie is mosthly eaten during coffee or thea- time in the netherlands.

Dutch butter cake"boterkoek"

Makes 10-12 portions

250G( +8 oz) Soft real butter

250G All-purpose flour

250G Sugar

2 Eggs

50G Almond flakes

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180C (355F). Butter or grease your cake pan and line with parchment paper, if you don't have a round cake pan you can use a square brownie pan instead.

Whisk the butter and sugar together in the mixer (or by hand), put in 1 egg and the pinch of salt. Add in the flour and mix untill the dough forms a soft ball. Spread the dough ball equaly in your lined baking pan. Cover the douch with some eggwash of the other egg and sprinkle with the almond flakes.

Bake for about 25 minutes untill its golden brown.

Chocolate cake with icing

Tessa says,"This is exactly the kind of chocolate cake i loves as a child. Sometimes i make this just chocolate, sometimes halved and filled with not-too-sweet raspberry or strawberry jam or puree and a few dollops of cream(and then i don't ice it). If you like, you might also add some chopped nuts in with the flour or scatter some over the top."


Chocolate cake with icing
Tessa Kiros, Apples for jam(page. 311)

Cuts into 10-12 slices

180g (6½ oz) butter
50g (1¾ oz) Dark semi-sweet chocolate, broken up
30g (1 oz) unsweeted cocoa powder
3 eggs, separated
180g (6½ oz) caster sugar
125g (4½ oz)/1 cup) all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons milk

Icing:
80g (2¾  oz) butter, softened
60g (2¼ oz) confectioners (icing) sugar
30g (1 oz) unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons milk
2 generous teaspoons golden syrup

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F/gas 4). Butter and flour a 24cm(9½ inch) springform tin. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, then add the chocolate and cocoa and stir until melted. Remove from the heat. Whisk the egg whites in a bowl until they are creamy and stiff. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they are foamy, then beat in the sugar. Add the chocolate mixture, a bit at a time initially to acclimatize the eggs. Next, sift in the flour and baking powder and mix well. Add the milk and mix until smooth.
Carefully fold in the beaten whites, trying not to deflate them, and gently mix until they are completely incorporated into a fluffy but dense mixture. Scrape out into the thin and bake for about 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the tin before moving to a serving plate.
For the icing, whip the butter with the icing sugar until fluffy. Whisk in the cocoa a bit at a time so that it doesn't fly everywhere. When it is completely incorporated, add the milk and golden syrup and whisk until very smooth. Spread it over the top of the cake with a spatula, using swift smooth strokes. I like it not completely smooth but in chocolate waves.

Halloween Spice Cake

So this week it's this month's Potluck again over on IHCC, We can make any recipe we like as long as it is one from Giada. Since i don't have any cookbooks of her i'm depending on her recipe's online. The site of the Foodnetwork is in Halloween spirit, since it is less then a week till the day. So i thought it would be nice to cook up something special for the holiday, found't this great recipe for this delicious spice cake.

But what kind of day is Halloween? We don't celebrate halloween over here in the Netherlands, but you here a lott about it in american movies and Tv-series. Lets find out..(overhere)



Ingredients
Butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting
Directions
For the cake: Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.

In a large bowl, beat the sugars, oil, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla extract to blend. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just blended. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake for 10 minutes. Unmold the cake and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into slices for serving.

Dutch "Ontbijtkoek"

My first post on my blog...
And its a real Dutch delicacy "Ontbijtkoek" (literally translated it means Breakfast cookie.

Dutch people love it, and we eat it al day long(not only at breakfast time). There are also a lot of variations on this cake. I made mine plane with nuts on top.

Ingredients
250 grams Brown sugar
100 ml water
2 eggs
2 tbl spoons of Spice mix(see below)
1,5 tbl spoon honey
250 grams Flour
1 tblspoon baking powder

150 grams various nuts

Spice mix(in dutch"koekkruiden")
30 grams cinnamon powder
10 grams clove powder
10 grams nutmeg
5 grams white pepper
5 grams anise
5 grams coriander/ketoembar

Just mix al ingredients wel.


Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C (356 degrees F) with rack in center of the oven.
Butter and flour, or spray with a nonstick vegetable/flour spray, a 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pan.

Mix baking powder with the flour. In another bowl mix the sugar with the water, eggs, spicemix and the honey.Add the dry ingredients to the water/egg mixture and beat until incorporated. Immediately pour into the prepared pan. Top of with the nuts ore anything else.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 - 55 minutes, last 10 minutes at 130 degrees C(266 degrees F). Get the cak out the pan and wrap it in aluminium foil to cool down, so it crust stays soft and sticky.