Spiced Apple Cake

With pear. Because the power of pear is totally underestimated. And dates come to think of it, because dates are totally awesome as well. It adds up to a totally fruity cake. With some walnuts sprinkled on top I think it looks like a totally ‘rustique’ cake for some reason.



Let me tell you a secret: the cake tastes wonderful and I know you can’t wait to try it. It almost tastes healthy with all the fruits in it. Personally I think this is a way better alternative to apple pie. Then again, I’m really no fan of apple pie.



Apple Spice Cake
Ingredients:
225 grams self-rising flour
3 spoons wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
175 grams dates
75 grams (palm) sugar
1 tablespoon apple (and pear) sauce
120 ml apple juice
2 eggs
90 ml sunflower oil
2 apples or 1 apple and 1 pear or 2 small apples and 1/2 a pear
1 tablespoon walnuts

1. Start with preparing the ingredients: chop the dates and the walnuts, grate the apples and pear and make the apple & pear sauce if you didn’t want to buy a whole jar for 1 spoon. (See recipe below)
2. Sift the self-raising flour, baking powder and cinnamon together. Add the wholemeal flour.
3. Mix the sugar with the apple sauce. And then add the apple juice, eggs -lightly beaten-, sunflower oil and grated apple and pear.
4. Finally add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
5. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper or butter it in. Spoon the mixture into the tin and sprinkle it with chopped walnuts.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes in a preheated oven on 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit.



And? Are you getting excited as well? I should definitely try a recipe like this with only pear. That's all I have to say about it. Awesome cake. It will be made again!

Oh yes! For the apple and pear sauce! Here it goes:

Apple sauce
Ingredients:
Diced apple and/or pear
Juice and/or water
Sugar

1. Put the apple and pear in a pan in a bottom of juice. Make sure you have more fruit than juice. Make sure you always have a little bit of juice in your pan so the fruits don't burn.
2. Put the lid on the pan and leave it on the fire to simmer.
3. After a while check and stir, add more juice and leave again if necessary. Use a fork to mash the fruit and add some sugar to taste. And voilà! Super easy, super quick apple sauce!

Edit: Want to see more recent pictures of this cake? I'm showing them off in this post!

Orange cranberry cake

I’ve got to admit I LOVE cranberries. I’m totally addicted to them, but they’re so expensive! So every once in a while I buy a package of cranberries and think of something to do with them. This time It was orange cake. Orange and cranberry isn’t a bad combination right? That’s exactly what I thought, so I searched all my books for a recipe for orange cake. Here’s what I ended up with:



Ingredients:
125 grams butter
145 grams sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons orange zest
2 eggs
185 grams self-raising flour
125 orange juice

1. Cream the butter by beating it with an electric mixer for half a minute. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and mix again.
2. Add the orange zest and the two lightly beaten eggs and mix again.
3. Finally sift the self-raising flour into the bowl and add the orange juice and mix everything thoroughly.
4. Grease a cake tin or line it with greaseproof paper. Spoon the batter into the tin.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave the cake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

You could always add lemon zest and juice in stead of the oranges. Would also work wonderfully with cranberries. Or how about swap the cranberries for raisins? Or when we’re changing it anyway: how about an orange flavored cake with a lot of dried fruits and nuts in it? I’m thinking this definitely isn’t a bad idea!
I should write more of these ideas down on a To-do list. I always forget.

Pineapple upside-down banana cake

Since I have Thursdays and Fridays off, I’ve been feeling the need to bake during these days. Not only to get through time, but also because I NEED to have something sweet to eat and there’s nothing in the house and I could bake cake so much better than anything from the supermarket and there are so many delicious recipes I have on my bookshelf and somewhere on my laptop that I just have to try and because the world would probably end if I didn’t back and oh! So many reasons why I should just totally bake again!



One thing I noticed when I baked this cake is that somehow I always seem to have batter left. When I make a recipe for 12 cupcakes, I end up with 14 and when I made this cake I ended with a cake and 4 cupcakes. Perhaps it’s because the recipe is for http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifa round cake tin and now a brownie tin, but still, how do I do this?

Ingredients:
1 can sliced pineapple
Batter of banana lemon cake

1. Drain the juice from the pineapple, or slice the pineapple when you’re using a fresh one.
2. Make the batter for the banana lemon cake
3. Grease or line a baking (brownie) tin and cover the bottom with pineapple. Spread the cake batter over it. You can use the remaining batter to make cupcakes.
4. Bake the cake in a preheated oven of 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit.



And Behold! You have created a banana cake that could have dropped out of heaven! Seriously, that´s how I felt. Every time I make a cake with this texture I get totally exited and I need to go all around the house to show everyone how wonderfully my cake turned out. This cake is definitely the best banana cake I´ve made so far.



Also, the upside-down part turned out pretty nice too! I’ve been wanting to try an upside-down cake for a while, simply because I think it’s a brilliant idea. There’s one small downside to this though: I remembered why I really don’t like pineapple. I keep eating it again and again, somehow convinced I could like it, but I just don’t. I’m leaving that part out next time! Also, I might consider adding something else instead. My mom accidentally poured some coffee over a piece of cake which I ate later on, and it really wasn’t that bad. So perhaps a banana-coffee cake is up next.

Quiche with potato pastry

I think this is the longest period without me posting anything! Criminal! And I’m so sorry, but I’ve been up to a lot lately and just haven’t found the time. For one, I’ve had a little baking obsession again lately. It’s called quiche. We never really have quiche at home at all, and maybe that’s one of the reasons I like it so much. It’s a whole dinner with all of the goodness you need in one massive cake! And it’s so yummy filling too.



Unless you make mini ones. For a party. Which are just as lovely, but this cute lil’ thing isn’t exactly what I’d call a meal.



I felt like an industrial mini quiche-maker. What a pain to fill all those little cups with pastry.

Ingredients:
Pastry:
115 grams potato (1 medium sized potato without skin)
225 grams flour
115 grams butter
1/2 egg

Base filling:
5 1/2 eggs
250 ml milk
150 ml (double) cream
Salt & pepper to taste

Filling 1: (Smoked salmon quiche)
250 grams smoked salmon
2-3 tablespoons dill

Filling 2: (Spinach quiche)
5-10 mushrooms
250 grams spinach with cream (freezer-style)

Filling 3: (Cheese quiche minis)
Cheese, diced
Dried parsley


1. Cut the potato into dice and cook it in water. The cutting is only to speed up the cooking process. Take off the fire and drain from water when done.
2. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour with a fork until you get the consistency of breadcrumbs.
3. Add half an egg and rub this in with a fork again.
4. When the potato has cooled down, mash it (with the useful fork) and knead it into the flour mixture. Knead several times until you get a firm dough.
5. Line a tin with grease proof paper or rub it in with butter and press the pastry into the shape. Take a form to prick holes in the base and leave in the refrigerator.
6. Put the eggs in a bowl and beat gently. Beat in the milk and cream as well.
7. Prepare your filling of choice by chopping it into small chunks and cook it if necessary. Leave to cool and finally add your filling to the egg base. Pour the filling into the pastry base.
8. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave the quiche in the oven for around 30 minutes, or until the pastry is brown and the egg of your filling is set.



Note: The egg tends to increase in size in the oven, but deflates again when taken out. So always leave an edge of pastry above the filling and don’t panic when you see your quiche exploding in the oven. It’ll turn out fine later. Also, always cook vegetables for the filling before adding them to the quiche, but never add them hot to the egg-mixture. This will cause the egg to set before you put it in the oven. I prefer boiling the vegetables in water to cook them, because the quiche will be a lot less fat than when they’re fried in oil.
On another note: If you want to add cheese on top, try to add it in the last 5-10 minutes of the baking time, since it burns easily. Also, use slightly stronger cheese than the one you really like. I am absolutely no fan of old or medium cheese, and prefer Babybel above all, but when you use cheese to cook, you simply won’t taste any of the younger cheeses in your dish no matter how much you put into it.



I really hope you enjoy it! It's really lovely and in my opinion quite easy to make as well. And now I've written all that I have the urge to invent a new type of quiche. There are so many things I could put in the quiche! I have to try them all!