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.

Cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake - THB

A new baking challenge with The Home Bakers. Starting today with this delicious cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake!





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!

So a few weeks back i stumbled up on this site and as a cookbook addict it seemed nice to join in a club where whe would make every recipe from just one book(and didn't already started baking/cooking). So i ordered the book immediatly. I finally received my copy of coffecakes last week ans started baking last saturday. The recipe for this first time baking together was picked by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours who also is the creative mind behind The Home Bakers.

She chose to make this Cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake and the recipe can be found at her blog, Right here.

The preparation of the cake wasn't very difficult to me, but i had some questions about how to put in the cheesecake filling? Because in the picture in the book the filling is actually INSIDE the cake and mine isn't(like you can see in my picture). In the recipe it is descriped as "Spoon half of the chocolate mixture into the prepared pan. Carefully spoon the cheesefilling over.Spoon the remaining chocolate mixture over and smooth the top." Naive as i am thinking the cheescake would end up nicely in the middle of the cake! Does anyone of you has any recommendations or tips how to get it in the middle of the cake the next time i would bake this cake?

Also i had to alternate two ingredients; The first one was the canola oil because its not a common product in this little corner of the world i substituded it for the exact amound of sunflower oil. The second where the walnuts i substituded them for pecans just because i had them in my pantry.

The baking time of 1 hour and 15 minutes my cake really needed that time to be ready, but after 45 minutes i coverded the cake pan with thin foil because the bottom was getting a litlle dry. Then when i removed the cak pan after 15 minutes waiting to cool down, i saw that the cheesecake filling didn't and up in the middle of the cake and i was a little bit dissapointed. But when i served this as a dessert that evening for my guests they loved it! and ofcourse i did too. The bottom became a little dry but the rest of the cake tasted even better the next day....

 Next time we will be baking a Apricot-Pistachio-Lemon Coffee Cake, so come bake here to see that on the 24th of April!