Butter cake (like the ones grandma used to make)

Let’s take a sweet turn on the simple recipe subject: a delicious and tender cake, that goes wonderfully with a cup of tea or coffee – making it could not be easier: you just throw all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix well; no elbow grease needed – the electric mixer will take care of that for you.

The icing here is completely optional – you can go for a dust of icing sugar – but I wanted the cake to look exactly like the ones my grandmother used to make when I was a kid. :D

Butter cake
from Modern Classics Book 2: Cookies, Biscuits & Slices, Small Cakes, Cakes, Desserts, Hot Puddings, Pies & Tarts (Morrow Cookbooks)

Cake:
½ cup + 1 tablespoon (127g) unsalted butter, very well softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 ½ tablespoons (218g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 ½ cups + 1 ½ tablespoons (225g) all purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder, sifted
¼ teaspoon baking soda, sifted
pinch of salt
½ cup (120ml) whole milk, room temperature

Icing:
1 cup (140g) icing sugar, sifted
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice or water

Preheat the oven to 160°C; butter a 20cm (8in) round cake pan, line the bottom with baking paper and butter the paper as well.
Place the butter, vanilla, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and milk in the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat on low speed until combined.
Scrape the sides of the bowl, then beat in high speed until the mixture is just smooth.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until risen, golden and cooked through when tested with a toothpick. Allow to cool in the pan, on a wire rack, for 5 minutes, then carefully unmold onto the rack. Let cool completely.
Make the icing: place the sugar in a small bowl and gradually add the juice/water, mixing until smooth (add more liquid if necessary). Drizzle over the cake.

Serves 8

Tomato, arugula and grana padano tart and a Sunday miracle

A miracle happened in my house last Sunday – I said I was going to make this tart for lunch and Joao said he was going to eat it, too. :D
After lunch, he said the tart was delicious, which made me both surprised and happy – those of you with picky eaters at home know the feeling... :)

It’s a very simple recipe, with almost no cooking involved, but I had to share it with you.

Tomato, arugula and grana padano tart
from Australian Gourmet Traveller

Grana padano pastry*:
1 cup (140g) all purpose flour
100g chilled unsalted butter, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup (34g) finely grated grana padano – or use parmesan as in the original recipe

Mustard dressing:
½ tablespoon olive oil
juice of 1 lime
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Topping:
500g mixed baby tomatoes, such as yellow grape, cherry and baby Roma – halve the larger ones and leave the small ones whole
1 small bunch of arugula
shaved grana padano, to serve

For grana padano pastry, process flour and butter in a food processor until fine crumbs form. Add grana padano, process to combine, add 2 tablespoons (or more) iced water, pulsing to form a dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface, knead lightly to form a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled (1 hour). Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 35cm-diameter round and line a lightly buttered 24cm-diameter tart pan, trim edges and prick base with a fork. Freeze for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter the shiny side of a large piece of aluminum foil place it, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. Fill with baking weights/dried beans. Bake pastry until light golden (15-25 minutes), then carefully remove paper and weights and bake until golden and crisp (5-10 minutes). Set aside to cool completely.
For mustard dressing, whisk ingredients in a large bowl to combine, season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.
Add tomato to dressing, toss lightly to combine, then transfer to pastry case. Toss the arugula leaves in the dressing too and place some leaves over the tomatoes (you’ll serve the remaining leaves with the tart slices). Scatter over grana padano shaves and serve immediately.

* I kept the pastry in the freezer (well wrapped in plastic) for 1 week; thawed it in the fridge overnight before using – it worked perfectly.

Serves 4 as a light meal – the hubby and I ate the whole thing and there was nothing left. :D

Rhubarb and vanilla crumble

If you read this post the fact that I burned my tongue eating this crumble will come as no surprise. :D

I made the crumble before the tartlets, and my curiosity for the rhubarb flavor would not be stopped by a piping hot bowl of dessert, right?

Just so you know it, it was all worth it. :D

Rhubarb and vanilla crumble
from Simple Essentials Fruit

850g rhubarb, trimmed and chopped
¾ cup + 1 tablespoon (162g) demerara sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped with the back of a knife

Topping:
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (150g) all purpose flour
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (78g) caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, cold and chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Combine the rhubarb, sugar and vanilla bean and seeds in a bowl. Transfer to a 6-cup (1.5l) capacity ovenproof dish. To make the topping, combine the flour, sugar and butter in a bowl and rub with your fingertips until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Pile the mixture on top of the fruit and bake for 50 minutes or until the topping is golden and the fruit is soft.

Serves 4 – I made 1/3 of the recipe above and used a 2 ½ cup (600ml) capacity bowl

Chock-full of chocolate chip cookies

Yes, people, chocolate chips again – the person behind this blog has serious problems trying to control herself sometimes, and that can result in the purchase of a 2.5kg (over 5oz) bag of chocolate chips. So get ready to see loads of chips around here (luckily the chocolate is excellent and I can melt it to make brownies and such). :)

Speaking of control – or the lack of it – buying a huge bag of chocolate chips is nothing compared to watching 36 episodes of my newest favorite show in 2 weeks – hadn’t things like WORK gotten in the way I could have done that in 3 days. :D

Chock-full of chocolate chip cookies
from The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook

1 ¼ cups (175g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup (88g) packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons (72g) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups (24 oz/672g) semisweet chocolate chips – I used chips with 70% cocoa solids

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until smoothly blended, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until blended, about 1 minute – the mixture may look curdled, but that’s OK. On low speed, add the flour mixture, mixing just until just incorporated. Mix in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
Use a tablespoon to drop heaping spoonfuls of dough ( about 3 level tablespoons each) onto prepared sheets, spacing the cookies 7.5cm (3in) apart (I rolled into balls and pressed slightly before baking).
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time until the edges are lightly browned and the centers are golden, about 15 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack with a wide metal spatula (cookies will flatten slightly as they cool).
Cookies can be stored in an airtight container, at room temperature, for up to 3 days.

Makes 27 cookies - I halved the recipe, used 2 leveled tablespoons of dough per cookie and got 17

Lemon-poppy seed cake with vanilla-cream cheese frosting and 4 years of blogging

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! You guys are the best! ♥

I turned 32 a couple of days ago, and this blog turns 4 today – for this double celebration I baked a lemon cake (and please let’s pretend you are surprised with the flavor choice). :D

Lemon-poppy seed cake with vanilla-cream cheese frosting
slightly adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes

Cake:
3 cups (420g) cake flour*
2 cups (400g) caster sugar
4 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 cup (2 sticks/226g) unsalted butter, room temperature, coarsely chopped
grated zest and juice of 1 large lemon
1 ¼ cups (300ml) buttermilk
5 egg whites
1/3 cup (80ml) water

Vanilla cream cheese frosting:
2 vanilla beans
5 cups (700g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
224g (8oz) cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup (226g/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter three 20cm (8in) round cake pans. Line the bottom of each with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper.
Combine the flour, 1 ¾ cups (350g) of the sugar, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on low speed to blend the ingredients and break up any lumps, about 30 seconds. Add the butter, lemon zest and 1 cup of the buttermilk to the flour mixture. Beat on low – be careful, the flour may fly everywhere – until completely mixed. Raise the speed to medium and beat for 1-2 minutes to lighten and aerate the batter.
In a medium bowl, combine the egg whites with the remaining ¼ cup buttermilk; whisk to blend thoroughly. Add this mixture to the batter in 2-3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating only enough to incorporate. Divide the batter among the prepared pans.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes.
While the cakes are cooling, make the lemon syrup: in a small nonreactive saucepan, combine the remaining ¼ cup (50g) of sugar, the lemon juice and the water. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Turn out the cake layers onto wire racks and generously brush them hot lemon syrup over the warm cakes to moisten evenly. Let cool completely.

Make the frosting: split the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the sugar with the back of a knife. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Continue to beat until very fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and beat well.

Assembling the cake: place one cake layer, top side down, on a cake plate and spread about a fifth of the frosting over the cake to cover evenly. Repeat with the second cake layer + another fifth of the frosting, then place the third layer on top. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting. Garnish with whatever strikes your fancy.

* homemade cake flour: 1 cup (140g) all purpose flour minus 2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons corn starch

Serves 12-16 – I made the exact cake recipe above but only 2/3 of the frosting and it was enough to fill and frost the entire cake