Tanja's Cupcakes

Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes

2012-08-03T14:15:00.000+02:00

When I was looking for a job for the summer of 2011, I was hoping for something that didn't involve waiting tables or making beds. I put all my hobbies into the application, including baking, but I never even dreamed about actually getting a job as a baker. And then I did!

The farm stand where I worked hired me because I actually like baking. The year before, they hired a girl that hated baking and you can probably imagine what work was like for her. But me, I loved it. I was so excited to work with a huge oven, baking enormous batches of cookies... And even though my job was not what I had expected, I still loved it. No matter how hot the bakery was in August, I always preferred being in there, to being out in the sun.

When the summer was over, I was relieved. It doesn't look like it, but working in a bakery is actually very hard, hot and exhausting. Sometimes, things go wrong and there's no explanation for it. For your cookies and bars to be perfect, everything in the process of making them has to be perfect as well. There's no room for mistakes. Being a baker is a big responsibility. Now that I've seen that, I don't think I will ever look for a summer job in this field again. After all, I'm going to school to become a pharmacist and it's time to start looking for summer jobs in that area. But all the baking I did last year made me less excited to bake at home. Sure, I still do, but sometimes I did it every week. Now, I usually bake only once a month or less. I guess after smelling chocolate and cookies and pies and everything else that usually makes people like the smell of bakeries, I got somewhat tired of it.

I will conclude the series of posts about my American adventure in style - with the recipe that we made in our bakery for the most American holiday ever: July 4. They might look boring, but trust me, this is the best plain vanilla cake recipe I have ever tasted, and I don't even like plain cupcakes! There's just something about the buttercream (which is not even buttercream, but an old fashioned sugar-and-butter frosting) that makes the cupcake taste perfect.

When I was hired, they expected me to bake cupcakes all the time. But baking in a completely new environment, with new ingredients and with new recipes is not easy. I didn't want to experiment because that meant the owners of the bakery would lose time and money if something went wrong. So I just baked the regular cookies and bars because the recipes had already been tested many times before. However, for this particular holiday I came up with a few ideas that we could make, special treats for July 4, in red and blue. I planned on making beautiful pies with blueberries and strawberries, three layer cupcakes in a jar, different frostings, even cakes... In the end, I had to go with the simplest plan: a basic cupcake recipe with very easy decorations. I had always wanted to try Magnolia's recipe, so this was a perfect opportunity.

These cupcakes were made in our bakery on July 3. We worked until 9 in the evening and made more than a hundred. I colored half of them blue and half of them red. After putting a generous amount of buttercream on, I topped the red ones with three blue M&Ms and the blue ones with red M&Ms, so they were decorated in a typical July 4 fashion. Next day we sold more than 80. Success!

This is one of those recipes that you don't try at home because there's so much sugar in it, but you should. You seriously should. You can color the batter or buttercream any color you want, they are made quickly, you can even make them a few days in advance... Perfect, if you're baking for a large group. You won't be disappointed, and they won't be either.

Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcake (from Food Network, adapted from More From Magnolia, makes 24 cupcakes)

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream butter in a large bowl. Gradually add sugar and beat for 3 minutes until fluffy.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with milk and vanilla. Beat after each addition, but do not overbeat. (Optional: add food coloring)
Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Vanilla Buttercream

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

6 to 8 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter, 4 cups of sugar, milk and vanilla until creamy, about 3 to 5 minutes.
Gradually add more sugar, until the frosting has the right spreading consistency.

Look: 4/5

Taste: 5/5

Approximate cost of one cupcake: 0.4 €

Sweet Cupcakes, Boston

2012-08-01T19:15:00.000+02:00

Seven days of New York City later I packed my bags (including the newly bought huge gray suitcase) and somehow made it to Boston. And when I say somehow, I mean it. All my luggage put together was heavier than me, the hostel had no elevator and neither did the subway stations. Fortunately I only had to get on the A or C train and stay on it for 9 stations. My bus stop was right outside the station and there were some very helpful people who helped me carry my suitcases. I love New York!

On my way to Boston I spent almost the entire time on the internet. How awesome is it that you can be on a bus and have free wi-fi? I had never seen that before. It seems like only yesterday I got internet access and cell phones were as big as the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy and now I'm using Skype to call my family from an actual moving bus? Amazing. My parents could hardly believe it, but then I showed them the cars passing our bus.

I came to the bus station in Boston with no map of the city. I thought they would have them at the station... yet I was wrong. Somehow I found out which way to go using my Rough Guide to Boston and got lost three times on my way to the hostel.

This is Berkeley, the street I lived on during my stay in Boston. Doesn't it look wonderful? My hostel even had free popcorn for everyone!

Sometimes I think it might have been better for me to visit Boston first and then proceed to New York. It almost felt like being back in my hometown (which has 5000 people living in it). Boston is so quiet (except for the subway which is really loud) and small and not crowded at all. But in a way it made transition into my back-at-home life easier. But, seriously, you can walk everywhere. Car drivers don't try to run you over. Amazing.

I had four and a half days to spend in this wonderful city. Of course I went shopping first. Then, the mythical Harvard. Taking the Hahvahd tour was the funniest thing ever. Then of course, some Harvard shopping. I had to buy a few notebooks... it says Harvard on them! I also visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Not as spectacular as some other museums, but still worth seeing. Took a picture with the world's largest dinosaur skeleton. Walked by the TD Garden (in case you need a reminder, the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last year and most of the games we watched were played in this arena). Science museum. Observatory. New England Aquarium (where I touched an actual shark!). Museum of Contemporary Art.

Before I go on to the last American bakery I visited, I have to mention my favorite American ice cream. Friendly's. Oh, the things I would do to buy some of it here, in Europe... Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl, Hunka Chunka PB Fudge... Even the flavors sound like poetry to me. There, I'm thinking about it again. Great. The reason why I was mentioning Friendly's is because we went to eat there many times when I was living in New Hampshire, and while I liked their chicken tenders and fries, I adored their ice cream. I even bought it to have at home and sometimes ate it for breakfast.

Ice cream for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. It's just that good.

It was weird when I got to New York and suddenly there were no Friendly's around. But when I came back to Boston I did a Google search and found one of their restaurants nearby. When I got there, they were having a private party and were closed. The manager came out and gave me a free ice cream sundae coupon. I waited there for more than an hour and then went in, ate one whole meal (including an ice cream sundae) and ordered another one just because it was free.

That is how much I like their ice cream.

The only bakery I visited during my six days in Boston was Sweet Cupcakes. Apparently, Katie Holmes and her daughter like their cupcakes. There are four shops scattered all over Boston, and yet they are never there when you're hungry. Shame! I was trying to find other bakeries too, but somehow missed all of them.

I found one of their shops in Cambridge when I was visiting Harvard.

I didn't really get the hype of this little bakery. Sure, you walk in, everything is pink and cute. But the prices are high (more than $3 for one cupcake) and you would at least expect the cupcakes to be big. They are not, but there sure is a lot of frosting!

The gift boxes are not free like in, for example, Lola's in London or Magnolia in New York City. There are regular flavors (like mine, chocolate with chocolate frosting) and specials, according to the month. As you might have noticed, I always stick with the classics. They didn't have a lot of flavors available at the time though. Otherwise, I would have tried Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes. After all, I was in Boston.

You can see from the photo below that I didn't hate the cupcake. I just wish the atmosphere of the shop was more inviting and the prices lower.

Sweet Cupcakes (Harvard Square)
Zero Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Crumbs Bake Shop, New York City

2012-03-23T17:00:00.000+01:00

Have I ever mentioned how I feel about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups?

Well, I LOVE them. I bought one hundred of them just to survive until I can get someone to fly to the States and get me some more.

There are none left.

It was Saturday morning, I was talking to my mother (what would parents do without Skype?) and I got this fabulous idea of going to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre to get myself a cheap ticket for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the musical. To be honest, I don't care about musicals at all. But this one had Daniel Radcliffe in it! This is also the only theatre to give cheaper tickets out to students and other people who have time to wait in line at 10am. Fortunately, not many people know about this... But I did. Because I read the fine print. Always.

Of course, I thought of this no earlier than at 9.30 and by the time I got to the theatre it was already 10.15. I waited... waited... and waited. Luckily, they had twice as many tickets to give out, because there were two shows scheduled that day. Yay! I got a ticket!

I still had the whole day to spend, so I visited the Guggenheim Museum and then went on an Uptown Movie Tour (which is a lot of fun!) and got a Tootsie Pop because I knew the answer to one of our guide's questions: which actor changed his last name to make his own reputation and not to be looked at as Francis Ford Coppola's nephew? It was Nicolas Cage. Yay.

Around five I finished with sightseeing and took the train home to take a shower and change into a pretty outfit. I was going to see a Broadway show after all! It was ten past 7 pm when I finally left the hostel and of course, I got lost. How do you get lost on 45th street? Well, trust me, it's possible. So when I finally got to the theatre, most of the people were already in. I got the Playbill and started reading. Moments later, the show started. And it was awesome! I'm sure every single show on Broadway is, but I'm pretty convinced I chose the right one for me. That was 2 hours of non-stop laughing. It was the best night ever! Even though I was alone and I had no one to talk to, I still had so much fun. After the show, I waited by the back door to see Daniel and maybe get a picture with him, but there were so many people that there was no hope for that. Plus, it was almost midnight and I was alone, so I decided it wasn't a good idea to walk around after midnight by myself. The subway wasn't that scary, because it was Saturday and there were people everywhere, but it was still... a different experience. Here, a photo in case you didn't believe me. Harry Potter was in this musical, I swear!

Next day was 9/11, a very sad (and kind of dangerous) day to be in New York City. The police were everywhere, on the subway (the whole week before), in the streets... I decided not to use the subway or stay in very populated places that day, so I walked. All the way from 103rd street to 59th street - Columbus Circle. It was a long, but very pleasant walk. It was the most walking I had done since arriving to Manhattan. I walked through Central Park and got lost in it. It was kind of fun. I realized I had been missing about 50 streets every day, because I always took the subway from 103rd street to Times Square. There was so much more New York to be seen!

And now: my absolute favorite, most exciting stores I went to in New York City. First stop: the HBO store. Where you can actually buy Tru Blood! Let me write this again. You. Can. Actually. Buy. A. Bottle. Of. Tru. Blood. I know, right? What could be more awesome than that?

Alex Skarsgard. Buying Alex Skarsgard would be more awesome. But he's not for sale.

Second place: the NBC Experience Store. Oh my. Is there anything I don't want to buy? No, there is no such thing. They have 20 different versions of Monopoly! Why? Why would you leave all that awesome stuff behind? Because you're poor, that's why. At least I was able to imagine myself using some of the things and realize I don't really need them. I did, however, buy an NBC Peacock pillow. The same one that I spotted in a 30 Rock episode a week ago. Yes, I'm awesome. I needed that pillow. To use it as, can you believe it, a pillow. On my two flights home. Because it didn't fit into my two suitcases. I bought a peacock luggage tag too. But I don't use it because I'm afraid it'll get stolen.

Third place: Hershey's Store. Wow. The only place I would love more than this is a Nutella store, which I'm still searching for. I don't really like their chocolate that much. I liked the Symphony Bar, and I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. So when I see t-shirts, ice cream bowls and toys, all Reese's themed, I go crazy. I had to buy that bowl, I had to. The funniest thing was the girl at the register asking me if I wanted to buy the special PB cups (they were on sale). Did I? I bought two. They were pumpkin-shaped, people! Pumpkin shaped! (I don't understand, however, why there was a Halloween promotion going on in the middle of September. And no, they weren't about to expire. I checked.)

Just like last time when I went to the US, I had to buy another suitcase because all my new things wouldn't fit in the old one. After a trip to Macy's I realized, once again, that I'm not rich, so I went to Century 21 and bought a huge, pretty, grey, 4-wheeled suitcase for 90$. Instead of 300$! Quite a bargain, if you ask me. So now I own five different sized suitcases. Yes, five! Because four were not enough.

On my way to the south of Manhattan, I found a Crumbs Bake Shop and bought myself a cupcake.

The Crumbs cupcakes are huge, and so is the selection. There are so many flavors, I spent five minutes choosing the right one for me. In the end, I chose Peanut Butter Cup, because it's my favorite candy of all time. Of all time! If I remember correctly, I paid around $4 for it, which is a bargain compared to Magnolia Bakery, since Crumbs cupcakes are about three times bigger. Seriously.

I was carrying my new suitcase with me, so I had to wait until I got home to eat the cupcake. Who cares about the ''no food in rooms allowed'' rule! I dug in with both hands and my face. Frosting was everywhere! Literally. Luckily my roommate was outside somewhere. She would've definitely thought I was crazy.

I didn't like the cupcake very much. First of all, it had more calories than my average lunch (not counting McDonald's food!). Secondly, it didn't taste anything like peanut butter cups, but more like buttercream with one PB cup on top. It was not peanut butter-chocolate-y enough. If I had known about that before, I would have ordered a chocolate cupcake. Oh, well. On top of that, it didn't come in pretty packaging and it was extremely difficult to eat. No one wants to bring their cupcakes home to eat them with a fork and knife...right?

I would still recommend this bakery to everyone, since they have so many flavors and they probably taste delicious. But please, do yourself a favor and order one of their taste packs - they include bite-sized versions of popular cupcakes and you can actually share them with other people. Something you certainly cannot do with a regular sized cupcake.

Crumbs Locations - there are so many! It wouldn't make sense to list them all in this post. Right now you can enjoy their cupcakes in New York City, California, Connecticut, Washington DC, Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts (Boston only).

Magnolia Bakery, New York City

2012-02-20T00:10:00.000+01:00

After three and a half months of my summer work in the bakery, it was finally time to pack my bags and travel to New York City.

Going to New York City from New Hampshire is a long journey (that is, if you're eco-friendly, or in other words, poor). It's a six hour bus ride, but the thing that makes it really lame is that it only takes five hours to get to Manhattan... And another hour to 34th street. I had a backpack, a handbag, a huge paper bag and a suitcase that was about to explode. To top it off, it was already dark by the time the bus got to the station, and it was, of course, raining. Fortunately, all I had to do was to go to the nearest subway station and take one of the trains north. This sounds a lot easier than it actually was. I accidentally took the express train, which didn't stop at my station. I had to get off at 125th street, walk upstairs (why are there no elevators?), walk downstairs again and take the southbound train. This time, the right one!

Somehow, I made it to the hostel. No elevator, of course. I drag all my luggage to the room... and the room, if you can picture it, looks like this: plastic chair - empty space - window - bunk bed - locker. At this point, I started asking myself: did you really have to do this, Tanja? Did you really need this trip to NYC to happen? Can't you just wait until you get a real job, earn some real money and actually afford a hotel when you travel?

No. I just HAD to go sleep in a cheap hostel. I shouldn't say cheap, though. Cheap-er, that's what it was. Being afraid of leaving your valuables in the room while you're taking a shower really is part of the fun.

I woke up next morning, on Wednesday, and had no idea what to do. I had things planned, but when it was time to actually do something, I didn't remember anything. I ended up in Times Square. It was still raining and I felt so small in comparison to everything else in the city... It certainly wasn't what I expected.

Thursday was a lot different. I picked up my New York Pass (a great way to save money) and all of a sudden, everything started making sense. I started the day by going to the top of Rockefeller Center. I took the NBC Studios tour and saw where Saturday Night Live is taped (if you look closely, you can still see tiny bits of Ashlee Simpson's shattered career in the corner of the stage). Radio City Music Hall tour was also interesting, even though we weren't allowed onto the stage. I had lunch at Planet Hollywood, next to some very famous movie costumes (Darth Vader, anyone?), went to Madame Tussaud's Museum and took a photo with Leonardo DiCaprio (finally!), did some shopping, and, in the evening, checked out the view from the top of the Empire State Building.

Friday started with a delicious breakfast at Planet Hollywood. I had pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, which was also the first time in my life I ate pancakes (I had only had crepes before). Next stop was Museum of Modern Art - MoMA, which I didn't really like because... I don't GET modern art. I just don't. Then, I took a tour of Central Park TV and Movie sites (I'm kind of obsessed with celebrities...) and visited the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space museum. Don't look at me like that, it was included in the Pass price!

To make the day complete, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the evening and sat on the stairs afterwards, just like Blair Waldorf and her ''friends'' always did during their lunch hour. It was a warm, perfect summer night and that was the first time I said to myself: I should move here.

You're probably wondering: when do the cupcakes come into the picture? Fear not, they are here. The first cupcake-related thing that comes to my mind when I hear the words New and York is Magnolia Bakery. So I guess it makes sense that it was the first bakery I visited, even though I found it by accident.

Magnolia was made famous by the Sex and the City series. But back then I had no idea what cupcakes were, so I found out about Magnolia later, while looking for cookbooks about cupcakes and baking in general.

In a way, I was worried about going to Magnolia because it's supposed to be very crowded and I didn't want to waste any time standing in line. But then I accidentally found a Magnolia Bakery right in front of the Rockefeller Center, and there were no people inside - meaning, I had to go in and buy a cupcake! I chose chocolate with blue vanilla frosting and paid $3 for it. Not cheap... however, I got it in a pretty paper box in a paper bag. That costs money. So I was perfectly fine with the price. They offer the classics (vanilla and chocolate) every day for $3, while specialty cupcakes cost $3.50 and different flavors are available on different days.

The bakery itself is small and cute, and it can get crowded really fast, so I left as soon as I got the cupcake. And the box. And the paper bag. This ''photoshoot'' took place at a McDonald's restaurant. I ate lunch there every day, so I could save some money to spend on sweets. So healthy! I need to stop doing that.

This was a good cupcake. Nothing special, but good enough. I didn't come for the cupcake anyway, I came for the experience. But I just loved their buttercream! Their cupcakes are not too big, and I hear they're famous for their Banana Pudding. Unfortunately, I read about it a few weeks too late. They have five bakeries in New York City, one in Chicago, Los Angeles and Dubai. If you live nowhere near those locations, you can also order their baked goods online, and they will ship them frozen (within the 48 contiguous states).

Magnolia Bakery Rockefeller Center

1240 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue)

New York, NY 10020

Strawberry Nutella Cake

2011-11-14T18:58:00.001+01:00

I'm sure everyone who writes a baking blog has thought about becoming a baker every once in a while. At least I have. I imagined it would be an easy job, compared to all the studying I have to do for college. No stress, lots of sugar... Perfect! This summer, I had an opportunity to see that it's not that easy.

I started working on May 24. I had a boss who was 4 years younger than me, and on that first ''orientation'' day it was clear that I would not be spending a lot of my time in the bakery during the summer. There were simply not enough customers in the store to have two people working in there all the time. So I had a choice: I could either go home after I wasn't needed anymore and get a mediocre paycheck, or I could work elsewhere, wherever I was needed. That usually meant watering flowers, weeding, planting... At this point I have to add that I don't like touching dirt. Just so you know. But I did anyway. I also sliced peppers and prepared various vegetables for packing. After all, I came to the US to make money, not to sit at home and do nothing.

There is something special about bakeries though. There are flour containers, probably 30 times bigger than the one you have at home, and the number of pans is enormous. There is always a need for more than one spatula and many sets of measuring cups. That was the main surprise for me; I thought a ''professional'' bakery would be using a scale, since cups are not reliable. But the moment I walked in there and saw the huge buckets of white sugar, brown sugar, confectioners' sugar, flour, 10 different extracts and buckets of nuts, chocolate drops, white chocolate drops, mint chocolate drops and peanut butter drops... I loved it in there. We had a gas oven taller than me and a convection oven that could hold ten times as much as my home oven holds.

The sad thing is, I didn't get to bake much. About 80% of the cookies were frozen, we just put them in the oven and baked them. Pies were all frozen. So were breads. The only things we actually made from scratch were bars with a very sweet artificially flavored filling, a few types of cookies, banana bread and, sometimes, gluten free cookies or bars. Not very exciting, but I still got to see what it's like working in an actual bakery.

As promised, today you're going to find out what to do with that extra layer of cake that you weren't able to use in your 5-layer Neapolitan Cake. Or, maybe you're one of those people who like tiny cakes but don't own tiny pans. I have a solution for all of you.

A while ago, when I bought my first cookbook, I found a whole world of pastry tips and piped flowers in it. At first, I didn't think I would ever need them, since I wasn't that ''advanced'', but that changed soon. I started looking for them in stores and online... They were nowhere to be found in Slovenia. I only found small sets of 4 tips and one bag, and I wasn't happy with that. Finally, I decided I should wait until I move to the US and buy them there.

A little more than a month after my move I ordered a big, 55-piece Ateco set from Amazon. My roommates were looking at me like I was crazy, but I knew I would be sorry if I didn't order the bigger set. In fact, the price difference between the smaller and the bigger set was only a few dollars. You've got to love Amazon!

I couldn't wait to finally try them out. My first attempts can be seen in my last post, where I decorated an entire cake with piping tips, because I didn't have enough frosting to cover the whole thing and then pipe a few details. When decorating this cake, one hour later, I was already somewhat experienced and I knew which tip I wanted to try out. The star!

Ingredients

one cake layer

strawberry jam

one small jar of Nutella

frosting (optional)

If you made the 5-layer cake, you probably have one leftover layer. If not, bake one half of a cake recipe, preferably white/yellow cake.

Cut a small paper or plastic circle (I used the top of my oatmeal container, since it's round and it was just the right size) to use as a stencil. Make sure you can fit three of those circles on your cake. Those will be the tiny cake layers. If you can't, make the circle smaller.

Holding the knife straight, cut the three circles (layers) with the help of your stencil. Spread some jam on the first and second layer. Frost the cake with Nutella (or any other frosting you want to make. I used Nutella because the store was too far away) and, if you want, decorate it with leftover frosting from your hypothetical Neapolitan 5-layer cake. Piping stars (or anything else) on it will be easier if you put the cake into the freezer for a bit, so Nutella can solidify a little. Try to keep the cake somewhere cold. This IS Nutella, after all!

Enjoy!

Look: 5/5
Taste: 4/5
Approximate cost: 3$

5-layer Neapolitan Cake

2011-10-31T14:00:00.000+01:00

Every end is a new beginning. It has been a while since my adventurous summer ended. But traveling had to give way to school, which started in October. It's impossible to even try to describe all the things that have happened to me since I wrote that last blog post. There have been good times, and bad times. Over time, bad memories always fade and good memories remain. That's the best thing about life, isn't it?

As I mentioned before, I moved to the United States to work in a bakery for four months, a move almost unimaginable to everyone I know. But I knew I had to do it. I have known since I was sixteen years old. If I didn't go for it, I would regret it later. So I did it.

Words cannot describe how I felt, when the day finally came and I had to say goodbye to my parents and wait for my plane. By myself. When, 16 hours later, I arrived to Boston Logan, I felt alone. I'd never felt so alone in my entire life. I was tired, cold, hungry, I missed my bus... in short, I was miserable.

Then a few hours later my future boss picked me up from the local bus stop. She dropped me off at my new home, and it didn't feel like home at all. It was midnight and everyone was already asleep. The house was not at all what I expected, but I was so tired that I fell asleep instantly.

This was the start of my 4-month work-and-travel visa. And, believe me, it was amazing. After living alone the last 3 years of my life, I suddenly moved to a house with 3 Brazilians, 2 Romanians and 2 Russians! I learned how to weed, plant, set mouse traps, use a can opener (really!). I learned that getting to a doctor can be hard even though you have insurance and that sometimes it's best to just wait for things to get better. I learned how to do grocery shopping once every two, or even three weeks. I even tried being a waitress (there was no choice, lol). I realized that there's nothing you can do in the US if you don't own a car (unless you live in Manhattan, which I'm planning to do anyway!).

I had such big plans for baking in the US. Unfortunately, baking ingredients were not as cheap as I had hoped. It's one thing to look at american prices when you're in Europe and think how cheap everything is; it's another thing to live in America, earn your dollars and then spend them. Therefore, most of my summer baking consisted of baking mixes (America, you made me do this!). And so did this cake.

It's the tallest cake I've ever made in my life. I found the inspiration on Sweetapolita's blog a while ago. Since the only pan I had was a round springform pan, this was the perfect opportunity. I bought three cake mixes: yellow, chocolate and strawberry cake. Plus two cans of frosting, a jar of strawberry jam, eggs and oil. I had one bowl, one spatula and plenty of wooden spoons to work with. That's why I didn't feel too bad for using cake mixes.

5-layer Neapolitan Cake

Ingredients:

your favorite yellow, chocolate and strawberry cake recipe (or cake mix)
strawberry jam
2-3 cups (cans) of your favorite frosting

Bake the cakes. I made 6 layers and only used 5. I baked them in a 9 inch round pan. If you're using a cake mix, bake one half of it in one pan and the other half in another pan. Try to make the layers all the same height (around one inch).
Cool the cakes (I placed them in the freezer). Spread strawberry jam on the first layer, cover it with the second layer and repeat until you get to the fifth layer. (You can layer the colors any way you want to) Cover and refrigerate.
When the cake is completely cooled (after about an hour in the fridge or freezer), frost it with your favorite (or a random store bought) frosting. I used one can of Pillsbury Whipped Supreme (strawberry) and one can of Betty Crocker's Rich&Creamy white frosting.

Altogether, the cake was a success. Considering it only cost me around 10$ (and it was huge!), it tasted amazing. I also got to try out my new set of piping tips, but don't ask me which ones I used, because I have no clue. I randomly took a few out of the box and experimented a little. I must say, I liked the results very much and I'm not sorry I bought the biggest available set of piping tips. In case you don't live with 7 roommates and work with 20 other people, I suggest you make this cake for a party. It really is enormous.

Look: 5/5

Taste: 4/5 (very, VERY sweet)

Approximate cost: 10$

Unless you decided to make a six layer cake (or cupcakes), you probably have one leftover layer. I'll share a way to use it in my next post, along with some more American adventures. Stay tuned!

A Farewell Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

2011-06-21T16:37:00.000+02:00

I've been dreaming about going to the United States since I was, if I remember correctly, 10 years old. At 14, I finally got the chance to go on a trip, for ten days, and see LA, Las Vegas, Miami, Key West and Orlando. But as soon as I was home, I knew I wanted to go back.

It's not that easy, planning a trip from Europe to the United States. First, you need a few years' worth of pocket money and working your butt off. Then finding the flight. The cheapest one, the one everyone is telling you about, that costs 300€ round-trip, of course, doesn't exist. Neither does the one for 500€! At the time when you want to go, the cheapest ticket will probably cost 1500€ and the trip will start somewhere 10 hours away from your home. You also need to get a ticket and the hotel reservation six months before the departure, so it's ''cheaper''. When you don't even know if you'll make it through all the exams at school.

You also need that +1 and they are not easy to find. One has no money, one has a boyfriend, another doesn't have time when you do. To go alone? Well, that's just boring. And I'm not the kind of person to just start talking to people on the street.

And there is no way, that after all this preparation and money, you will experience the true US the way that people that live there do.

That's why I just moved to the United States.

I live in New Hampshire and I work in a small bakery. Dream job, anyone? I will be staying here for four months. Working, working, working, with an occasional day off. Earning my own money for food... and everything else. Buying food. Washing clothes. Watching hockey games (which I don't really understand!). Cashing paychecks. And a lot more.

I've been intrigued by the thought of making a cheesecake for a long time. I did make some small cupcake-cheesecakes, but that's not quite the same. Is there a better opportunity than the one when you're leaving home for a long time?

No.

So I made a cheesecake. Not just a regular cheesecake, but a nine-layer cheesecake. Because I CAN! I bookmarked the recipe that I found on What the Fruitcake?! and I knew it was perfect. I mean, it combines three kinds of chocolate in one cake. How could it possibly be better?

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

Crust

200 g digestive biscuits (I used Leibniz butter cookies)
1/4 cup brown sugar
115 g unsalted butter
2 tbsp cocoa

Blend the biscuits to a fine crumb.
Melt butter and combine with sugar and cocoa. Mix with cookie crumbs.
Press into the bottom of the pan.

Cheesecake

900 g (32 oz) cream cheese

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 cup double cream

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

100 g 70% dark chocolate

100 g milk chocolate

100 g white chocolate

1/2 tsp salt

dark, milk and white chocolate for garnish

Preheat oven to 165°C/330°F (145°C/290°F fan forced).
Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
Wrap the bottom of the pan with two layers of tinfoil (at least 2'' high up the sides). Line the bottom of the pan with wax paper.
With mixer on low speed, cream the cheese until smooth. Add sugar and mix until combined.
Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly before adding the next.
Add the double cream, vanilla extract, lemon juice and salt. Mix until well combined and smooth.
Divide the mixture equally into three bowls.
Melt 100 grams of each dark, milk and white chocolate. Allow to cool slightly.
Mix the dark chocolate into one of the cheesecake batter mixtures and repeat with other two chocolates.
After you have pressed the crust into the bottom of the pan, pour one cup of the dark chocolate mixture into the centre of the pan.
Pour one cup of the milk chocolate mixture directly into the center of the dark chocolate mixture.
Pour one cup of the white chocolate mixture directly into the center of the milk chocolate mixture.
Repeat, alternating the colors in the same order, until all the batter has been poured into the pan.
Place the springform pan into a larger ovenproof pan or dish and place in the preheated oven.
Pour enough hot water into the larger pan to come about 1 1/2'' up the sides of the cheesecake pan.
Bake for about 75 to 90 minutes until it is almost done (firm around the outside but still jiggly in the center when you gently shake the pan).
Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven with the door shut for about an hour.
Remove the cake from the oven and carefully lift it out of the waterbath. Leave it to cool on the countertop.
After cooling, put it in the fridge to chill for a few hours, preferably overnight.
Garnish with chocolate curls.

For a ton of tips and more information about the recipe, go to What the Fruitcake?! - Mandy Mortimer's blog. It is awesome.

I loved this cake. I wasn't a big fan of cheesecake before, but this cake converted me. I ate five pieces, one with each of my guests (just to be polite...) and the last one (at 7 in the morning) was my last meal at home before I flew away. It wasn't really a 9-layer cheesecake, but it was close to that. Probably, if I made more batter and if I warmed it up a little before pouring it into the pan, it would've looked perfect. But I didn't. Lesson learned. It's a very heavy cake, so don't expect to lose weight eating it. :)

Look: 5/5

Taste: 10/5

Approximate cost: 15 €

Daring Bakers' Marquise on Meringue

2011-06-02T17:43:00.000+02:00

Oh no! I missed the posting deadline again! But this time, it was for a good reason. I have some exciting news that I'm going to share with you in my next post (with an appropriate dessert), but before that, here's the (fashionably late) challenge post.

The May 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

Chocolate Marquise

3 large egg yolks
1 large egg
2 tbsp + 2 tsp (40 g) sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp water
chocolate base, warm (recipe follows)
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream
1/2 cup cocoa powder for rolling

In a bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg yolks and whole eggs. Whip on high speed until very thick and pale, about 10-15 minutes.
When the eggs are getting close to finishing, make a sugar syrup by combining sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring the syrup to a boil and then cook to softball stage (235°F/115°C). If you have a cake tester with a metal loop for a handle, the right stage for the syrup is reached when you can blow a bubble through the loop.
With the mixer running on low speed, drizzle the sugar syrup into the fluffy eggs, trying to hit that magic spot between the mixing bowl and the whisk.
When all the syrup has been added (do it fairly quickly), turn the mixer back on high and whip until the bowl is cool to the touch. This will take at least 10 minutes.
In a separate mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Set aside.
When the egg mixture has cooled, add the chocolate base to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Try to get it as consistent as possible without losing all of the air you've whipped into the eggs. We used the stand mixer for this, and it took about 1 minute.
Fold 1/3 of the reserved whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to loosen it, and then fold in the remaining whipped cream.
Pour into the prepared pans and cover with plastic wrap (directly touching the mixture so it doesn't allow any air).
Freeze until very firm, at least 2-4 hours (preferably 6-8 hours).
When you're ready to plate, remove the marquise from the freezer at least 15 minutes before serving. While it's still hard, remove it from the pan by pulling on the parchment 'handles' or by flipping it over onto another piece of parchment.
Cut it into cubes and roll the cubes in cocoa powder. These will start to melt almost immediately, so don't do this step until all of your other plating components are ready. The cuber need to sit in the fridge to slowly thaw so plating components can be done during that time. They don't need to be ready before the cubes are rolled in the cocoa powder.
You want to handle the cubes as little as possible because they get messy quickly and are difficult to move. However, you want to wait to serve them until they've softened completely. The soft pillows of chocolate are what makes this dessert so unusual and when combined with the other elements, you'll get creamy and crunchy textures with cool, spicy, salty, bitter and sweet sensations on your palate.

Chocolate Base

6 tbsp (85 g) bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa)
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp (90 ml) heavy cream
1/8 tsp salt
1/16 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp tequila
1 tbsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp cocoa powder (Dutch-processed)
dash freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp (8 g) butter

Place the chocolate in a small mixing bowl.
In a double boiler, warm the cream until it is hot to the touch (but is not boiling). Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate.
Allow it to sit for a minute or two before stirring. Stir until the chocolate is melted completely and is smooth throughout.
Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.
Set aside until cooled to room temperature. Do not refrigerate, as the base needs to be soft when added to the marquise mixture. If you make it the day before, you may need to warm it slightly. Whisk it until it is smooth again before using it in the marquise recipe.

Torched Meringue

3 large egg whites
1/2 cup less 1 tbsp (100 g) sugar
splash of apple cider vinegar
1/8 tsp vanilla

Combine the egg whites, sugar and vinegar in a bowl of a stand mixer. Using your (clean, washed) hand, reach in the bowl and stir the three together, making sure the sugar is moistened evenly by the egg whites and they make a homogenous liquid.
Over a saucepan of simmering water, warm the egg white mixture. Use one hand to stir the mixture continuously, feeling for grains of sugar in the egg whites. As the liquid heats up, the sugar will slowly dissolve and the egg whites will thicken. This step is complete when you don't feel any more sugar crystals in the liquid and it is uniformly warm, nearly hot.
Remove the mixing bowl from the saucepan and return it to the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk until you reach soft peaks. In the last 10 seconds of mixing, add the vanilla to the meringue and mix thoroughly.
When you're ready to plate the dessert, spoon the meringue onto a plate (or use a piping bag) and use a blowtorch to broil.

I didn't really love the Marquise, but everyone else did, so that balances it out. They're the people who are going to eat it anyway, not me, so I was happy. I thought it was too bitter. Overall, making it was fun, but rolling it in cocoa powder... not so much! It kept melting in my hands. Not my favorite Daring Bakers' challenge, that's for sure.

Look: 4/5
Taste: 2/5
Approximate cost: 5 €

Jamie's Italian, London

2011-05-06T00:26:00.000+02:00

My relationship with Tiramisu is not so great. Sure, first time I made it because it was a Daring Bakers' challenge and loved it. But I've always been afraid of eating raw eggs... And when I made it the second time, well, you can probably guess what happened the night after eating it.

However, every time I ate tiramisu anywhere, it was soaked in coffee. It was even sprinkled on top. I was always so excited because I thought the brown topping would be cocoa, but no... the majority of people think it has to be sprinkled with coffee. (Does it? I don't know. I don't care. I want cocoa powder!)

Anyway, it has now been more than 4 months since I was in London, but I can still remember the heavenly taste of this Tiramisu. I was never a huge fan of Jamie Oliver - or any other chefs, really, because I'm a picky eater and I can never use any of their recipes.

A few days before 31 December, I was in Tate Modern again (they have free Wi-Fi), checking a food-related app on my iPod for the first time. You have to type in an ingredient or a dish and it gives you photos and links to restaurants where you can find those dishes. I typed in Spaghetti Bolognese, and that's how I found Jamie's Italian. I didn't even know he owned any restaurants! We wanted a break from the steady McDonald's diet, so we decided to give it a try.

Since the whole menu is available online, we were able to decide on what we were going to eat before even going. There are 19 locations on the planet, two of them in London. We decided on Covent Garden, since we were going there anyway, but there's one at Canary Wharf too.

Here I should say that I only eat my pasta with the Bolognese sauce or Salmon sauce (which I can only make myself since no one does it better...), so I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese. It was the best I've ever had... (the pasta is homemade too!) But let's not lose time with regular food. You're here because of the desserts, aren't you? Well, they have quite a selection at Jamie's: ice creams, sorbets, affogato, brownies, pannacotta, tarts and tiramisu.

Because of the high prices (5 £ for one serving) we only ordered one tiramisu and split it. It was so tasty... You can actually see the grated orange zest sprinkled all over it! Overall, the tiramisu tasted of mascarpone and oranges with a hint of coffee, and it was very aromatic. More than a half of the dessert consisted of mascarpone, and they even added a generous dollop of it on top. Definitely the best dessert we could've ordered. I mean, I'm definitely not going to order brownies in an Italian restaurant, and I'm not a fan of panna cotta either. Of course, they could've sprinkled some more cocoa on the tiramisu, but that's just my opinion - and you know by now that my opinions are always very pro-chocolate, even when completely unnecessary.

Our budget was limited, but since we really wanted to eat a good meal, we shared one dessert. That way, the final price of the meal was around 25 £, which is still affordable (and good for my figure!). We ate there on the last day of 2010, the 31 December - and came back on 1 January! And we ordered that tiramisu again. We came back and paid 5 £ for it again, that's how good it was!

Jamie's Italian, Covent Garden
11 Upper St Martin's Lane
London WC2H 9FB

While you're at Covent Garden, you might want to pay a visit to Cybercandy (3 Garrick Street), where they sell lots and lots of colorful candy imported from all over the world (USA, Japan, Australia, Canada, even New Zealand), and Paperchase (13 The Piazza), where you can find a huge selection of cute notebooks, address books... and beautiful recipe books! Everyone needs a beautiful recipe book. I bought mine there. If I won the lottery, I would definitely go to Covent Garden and spend a great portion of the money in those two stores. And then, I would go to Jamie's with all my bags from the shopping and order myself two servings of Tiramisu.

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling

2011-04-09T19:39:00.000+02:00

Every once in a while, I start thinking about high (also high in cholesterol, but let's not make it the main point here...), rich cakes. I'm talking about those monster cakes, like 5 layers high. You can see them on blogs everywhere; so moist, chocolate-y and dense. Seriously, haven't you ever dreamed of making one?

These cravings usually happen right before important tests. They start with: ''If I pass this one, I'm going to bake...'' and they usually end with ''and it's going to be at least FIVE LAYERS HIGH.'' But then, when I actually pass this test that I never thought I would, and it's time to make the cake, I start searching for recipes and often find out, how much money this is going to cost me and that I don't even have the proper equipment. I don't know if it's ever occurred to you (to me it hasn't until now), but those monster cakes on other blogs actually have a really small diameter, so making a high cake with the same amount of batter isn't that difficult and ingredient-consuming at all. But guess what? I don't have such small pans. My smallest pan has an 8-inch diameter and I've been watching those tiny pans in the store for a while, but they look like they are made for a child to play with and they cost as much a normal, 10-inch round pan. Which is too much. So I settled with not making sky-high layer cakes.

After going through my Recipes notebook in Evernote (which is an awesome tool for storing recipes), I found this one. It's originally from RecipeGirl, but the yield was too large - I mean, I would love to make a three layer cake, or even a tiered cake, but who would eat it? So I did what I usually do - I only made 2/3 of it. I omitted the corn syrup. I also reduced the amount of sugar in the cake, frosting and puree. I increased the amount of frozen raspberries, because they taste surprisingly good.

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling (makes a two-layer 8-inch cake)

60 g (2 oz) dark chocolate

1 cup (240 ml) hot brewed coffee

1 2/3 cups (375 g) granulated sugar

1 3/4 cups (200 g) all-purpose flour

1 cup (125 g) cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable oil

1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C) and butter two 8-inch cake pans. Line bottoms with parchment paper.
Combine hot coffee and chocolate in a small bowl and let it stand until chocolate is melted. Stir occasionally.
In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, beat the eggs with an electric mixer about 5 minutes, until slightly thickened and lemon colored. Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla and coffee-chocolate mixture. Beat until combined. Add dry mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
Divide batter between pans and bake around 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with a few crumbs on it.
Cool the cakes in pans. After a while, run a knife around the edges of pans and invert cakes onto racks. Carefully remove parchment paper.

Raspberry Filling

10 oz (300 g) frozen raspberries, thawed

some sugar - to taste

1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Puree thawed raspberries in a food processor and press it through a strainer to remove the seeds.
Heat it with the sugar (optional) and cornstarch until the mixture boils, stirring constantly.
Let cool.

Chocolate Frosting

10 oz (300 g) dark chocolate

2/3 cup (160 ml) whipping cream

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1/4 stick (30 g) unsalted butter

Bring cream and sugar to a boil over low heat, whisking until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove pan from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until chocolate is melted.
Add butter pieces and whisk until smooth.
Transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable.

Assembling the Cake

Spread the raspberry filling on the first cake layer. Top with second layer and cover the top and sides with chocolate frosting.

I don't have any photos of the whole cake, because it looks just like any other chocolate covered cake. It's the inside that matters! I love the filling. It has been a week since I made this cake and I'm still thinking about it! It was so beautifully red and the taste was perfect. I've never seen a redder (is that a word?) natural filling. Perfect for Valentine's Day cakes... and anything else.

The cake batter is very liquid. In fact, if you add all the liquids together, you get 2 1/2 cups, which is more than 500 ml! This was the second time I worked with such a liquid mixture - the first time was in Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, and I know now that these cakes have a different texture than the ''solid'' ones. They're softer and very delicate. I like them. The only thing I didn't like was that I could still taste the coffee in the finished product. Next time I'll omit the coffee and maybe just use plain water. Oh, and one more thing. If I ever make this again with the raspberry filling, I'll use one half of uncooked pureed raspberries to spread it over both layers to make them both very moist and a bit more sour. I'll cook the other half and spread it over the first layer, like I did this time.

You can also make cupcakes with the same batter, just like I did. Bake them around 10 minutes, cover them with a spoonful of raspberry filling and a little chocolate. Perfect! If you ever attempt to make this recipe, let me know how it turned out!

Look: 4/5

Taste: 4/5

Approximate cost: 10 €

Daring Bakers' Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T23:32:00.000+02:00

Challenges like this aren't really my favorite. I prefer baking cakes which require frostings, glazes and lots of cream! Dry cakes are more my mother's style. But, it's a challenge and I had to make it. It looks a lot like one of the previous challenges, the Christmas Stollen, but it's much simpler to make and it takes a lot less time too. Although the recipe made enough dough for two coffee cakes, I divided it so I only made one. After all, I don't want any leftovers because I baked too many cakes.

The March 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria's Collection and Jamie of Life's a feast. Ria and Jamie challenged the Daring Bakers to bake a Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Yeast Coffee Cake Dough

2 cups (300 g) flour
1/8 cup (27 g) sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon (3.5 g) active dried yeast
3/8 cup (90 ml) whole milk
1/8 cup (30 ml) water
1/4 cup (65 g) butter at room temperature
1 large egg at room temperature

In a large mixing bowl, combine 3/4 cups (115 g) of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast.
In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter and heat over medium heat until warm and the butter is just melted.
With an electric mixer on low speed, gradually add the warm liquid to the flour/yeast mixture, beating until well blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add the egg and 1/2 cup (75 g) of the flour and beat for 2 more minutes.
Using a wooden spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a dough that holds together.
Turn out onto a floured surface (use any of the flour remaining) and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth, sexy and elastic, keeping the work surface floured and adding extra flour as needed.
Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise until double in bulk, 45-60 minutes. The rising time will depend on the type of yeast you use.

Meringue

1-2 large egg whites at room temperature

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup (50 g) sugar

In a clean mixing bowl beat the egg whites with the salt, first on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high and continue beating until foamy and opaque.
Add the vanilla, then start adding the sugar, a tablespoon at a time as you beat, until very stiff, glossy peaks form.

Filling

I didn't use the filling recipes provided. Instead, I used all the good stuff from the pantry: chocolate, peanut butter, walnuts... A little less than 100 g (about 3 oz) dark chocolate (plus additional nuts or whatever you decide to put in it) is just enough for this cake. I filled one cake with chocolate, cinnamon and walnuts; and the other one with dark chocolate, a few pieces of white chocolate and a few spoonfuls of peanut butter. Make sure you sprinkle about 2 spoons (30 g) sugar over everything, since the dough itself contains almost no sugar.

Assembling and baking the Coffee Cake

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Punch down the dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a 20x10 inch (about 50 x 25 cm) rectangle.
Spread half of the meringue evenly over the rectangle up to about 1/2 inch (3/4 cm) from the edges.
Sprinkle the filling of your choice evenly over the meringue.
Roll up the dough jelly roll style, from the long side. Pinch the seam closed to seal. Very carefully transfer the filled log to one of the lined cookie sheets, seam side down. Bring the ends of the log around and seal the ends together, forming a ring, tucking one end into the other and pinching to seal.
Using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, make cuts along the outside edge at 1-inch (2 1/2 cm) intervals. Make them as shallow or as deep as desired but don't be afraid to cut deep into the ring.
Cover the 2 coffee cakes with plastic wrap and allow them to rise again for 45-60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
Brush the tops of the coffee cake with egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until risen and golden brown. The dough should sound hollow when tapped.
Remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper off the baking sheet onto the table. Very gently loosen the coffee cake from the paper with a large spatula and carefully slide the cakes off onto cooling racks. Allow to cool.
Just before serving, dust the tops of the coffee cake with confectioners sugar.

At the end, I liked this cake. I made it two times! First time, it was finished in the evening when it was already dark, so no photos. I couldn't wait until morning either because everyone expects something baked when they come home. Therefore, I had to make another one. This time, I added chunks of peanut butter, which you can see if you look closely at the first photo. It tasted good, but there's still room for improvement. The final form of the cake is weird, don't you think? The hole in the middle simply disappeared while in the oven and this strange thing came out. But I loved it anyway.

By the way, the dough really was sexy and elastic! Definitely a lot sexier than the Stollen dough.

Look: 3/5

Taste: 4/5

Approximate cost: 3 €

Dinner at Tiffany's

2011-03-26T12:46:00.000+01:00

I'm 20 years old and I haven't watched Breakfast at Tiffany's yet. Shame on me! However, I do know what Tiffany & Co gift boxes look like (which girl doesn't?). I wouldn't mind getting one... Anyway, back in December, when I was in London, I collected every possible flyer about what was going on in the city. I found out about a few skating rinks, because I like ice skating. I don't do any complicated maneuvers, I just like skating in a straight line, there and back. Where I live, one hour on the skating rink usually costs about 2€.

I still can't understand why the same 60-minute hour costs 10 times more in London.

Since my hotel was very close to the Natural History museum, I drove by their skating rink every morning. After seeing the prices, I decided that I'd rather spend that money on food. Or anything else. Unfortunately, it was the same at every skating rink I visited. Which brings me to this cupcake.

There are two reasons for this recipe-less cupcake post.

I have to brag about the official Tiffany's cupcake that I ate in London on 31 December.
I ate too many donuts during the last two weeks... Shame on me. Consequently, now I'm on a ''diet''. Which means looking at pictures of cupcakes is as good as it gets. Not that I can easily obtain cupcakes here; getting cakes and donuts is much easier. Sigh.

Official Tiffany's cupcake, you say? Yes. There is an old, beautiful building in London, called the Somerset House. During the winter, they build an ice rink in front of it. They also build a temporary Tiffany Tuck Shop, which was my main reason for going there. (You don't have to pay the admission price to get to the Tiffany's shop, go figure.) I've never been to a Tiffany & Co store before. Silly me, after I saw someone coming out of it with a cupcake, I thought: if I buy it, I'll get it in a blue Tiffany's cupcake box! I think everyone would predict the same. After all, this is Tiffany & Co.

Yeah. That didn't happen. They had two different sizes of cupcakes; I chose the bigger one because the bow on it was prettier. It cost 2.5 pounds, which is still cheaper than anywhere else. The bow was made of fondant and it was a lemon cupcake, the first I've ever head. I can't say it was good, but it definitely tasted better than all of the overly sweet cupcakes and cakes everywhere else.

Lesson learned. If you buy a cupcake at Tiffany & Co, you won't get it in a blue box with a bow. After all, it's about a hundred times cheaper than the items that usually come in those boxes.

Somerset House

Strand

London, WC2R 1LA

Daring Bakers' Panna Cotta

2011-02-27T17:03:00.000+01:00

I've had Panna Cotta a couple of times in my life. First, when my mother made it and used yogurt in it. It was a sour Panna Cotta. Not cool. Second, when I ate it in a pizzeria. That was good, but nothing so special that I would want to make it myself. Of course, the Daring Bakers took care of that yet again. Here I am, and I can make Panna Cotta myself!

The February 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Giada's Vanilla Panna Cotta

1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 tbsp (7 g) unflavored powdered gelatin
3 cups (720 ml) whipping cream (30%+ butterfat)
1/3 cup (80 ml) honey
1 tbsp (15 g) granulated sugar
pinch of salt

Pour the milk into a bowl or a pot and sprinkle gelatin evenly and thinly over the milk. Make sure the bowl/pot is cold by placing the bowl/pot in the refrigerator for a few minutes before you start making the Panna Cotta. Let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
Pour the milk into the saucepan/pot and place over medium heat on the stove. Heat this mixture until it is hot, but not boiling, about 5 minutes.
Next, add the cream, honey, sugar, and a pinch of salt. Making sure the mixture doesn't boil, continue to heat and stir occasionally until the sugar and honey have dissolved - 5-7 minutes.
Remove from heat, allow it to sit for a few minutes to cool slightly. Then pour into the glass or ramekin.
Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight. Add garnishes and serve.

Nestle Florentine Cookies (makes 2 1/2 - 3 dozen sandwiched cookies)

2/3 cup (150 g) unsalted butter

2 cups (160 g) quick oats

1 cup (230 g) granulated sugar

2/3 cup (95 g) all purpose flour

1/4 cup (60 ml) dark corn syrup

1/4 cup (60 ml) whole milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups (250 g) dark or milk chocolate

Preheat oven to moderately hot (375°F - 190°C). Prepare your baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then remove from heat.
To the melted butter add oats, sugar, flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla and salt. Mix well. Drop a tablespoon full, three inches (75 mm) apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula.
Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are golden brown. Cool completely on the baking sheets.
While the cookies are cooling, melt the chocolate until smooth either in the microwave or stovetop (in a double boiler).
Peel the cookies from the silpat or parchment paper and place face down on a wire rack set over a sheet of wax/parchment paper (to keep counters clean).
Spread a tablespoon of chocolate on the bottom/flat side of your cookies. You can also choose not to sandwich yours, in which case, drizzle the tops with chocolate.

If you noticed that there are no photos of the cookies, congratulations. Yesterday was apparently a bad day for baking. My cookies ended up as a giant liquid blob. The whole baking mat was so greasy that the blob just slided off it. I wasn't going to eat that, especially after it hardened, because I like my teeth the way they are.

There was also a recipe for chocolate Panna Cotta. But I bake everything with chocolate, so I decided to make the classic. I only made a third of it, as usual, but ended up with 4 really small cups. Just the right amount for dessert after a big lunch. We topped the Panna Cotta with store-bought Rote Grütze (a pudding-like dish made of cherries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries...), which was a delicious combination.

I've never heard of Panna Cotta made with honey, and I didn't like its taste very much. I read that it's possible to substitute it with sugar, so I'll do that next time. The cream really brings out the true taste of honey, so if you like it, you'll like the whole dessert too. We definitely liked it and I'm making it again soon, maybe topped with a homemade puree of some sort. Can't wait!

Look: 5/5

Taste: 4/5

Approximate cost (Panna Cotta): 8 €

Chocolate Cola Cake

2011-02-22T13:14:00.000+01:00

Cola? In a cake? I was intrigued when I first found this recipe on The English Kitchen. I had never heard about anyone cooking or baking with coke (except that guy on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares who cooked meat in a cola sauce). I had to try and bake it! And it was weird. Let's just say that might just be the only time you'll ever melt butter and Cola together in a saucepan. Weird!

Chocolate Cola Cake

250 g (1 cup 2 tbs) butter

250 g (1 3/4 cup) self raising flour

300 g (1 1/2 cup) golden caster sugar

3 big tbs cocoa powder, sifted

generous pinch of baking soda

200 ml (3/4 cup) cola drink

75 ml (1/4 cup) milk

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking soda together in a large bowl.
Melt the butter and cola together. Add to the dry ingredients along with the milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix gently but thoroughly.
Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Buttercream Icing

60 g (4 1/2 tbs) butter, softened

200 g (1 1/2 cup) icing sugar

2-3 tbs cocoa powder, sifted

2 tbs cola drink

Beat all the ingredients together until smooth and fluffy. Spread over cooled cake.

Unfortunately, I didn't like this cake. It didn't taste like chocolate (since there was too little cocoa powder in it) and there was no taste of Coke either. I don't know why, but I always expect food with label coke-flavored to actually taste like Coke. But it never does! I especially don't get coke-flavored lollipops. If anyone has a recipe that uses Coca-Cola and the finished product actually tastes like it, please let me know! I'm not done with this project yet.

Look: 4/5

Taste: 1/5

Approximate cost: 6 €

Vertical Layer Cake

2011-02-14T14:32:00.000+01:00

I read so many baking blogs. I love looking at what others are baking and I usually spend a few hours browsing when I find a new blog, getting a zillion ideas every time. So, last week, I found this. Now, I have never piped a design before so I wasn't even thinking about doing the roses. However, the vertical layer cake! Awesome! I knew I had to make it for Valentine's Day.

At first, I wanted to do a chocolate-red velvet cake, so it would be more red and Valentine day-ish. However, since we're not red velvet cake lovers, I decided against it. I thought it would be the safest to use the recipes that I am Baker provided, but there weren't any! So I used the basic white cake and chocolate cake recipes from her blog. Little did I know that I wasn't going to make two, but three cakes.

White Cake (makes one 8 inch - 20 cm two layer cake - from Joy of Baking)

2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter and flour two 8 inch (20 cm) pans.
Mix sifted flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
Beat the butter until soft and creamy. Add 3/4 cup of sugar and beat for another 2 minutes. Add egg yolks, one at a time, and beat until completely incorporated. Add vanilla extract and beat until combined.
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix until incorporated. Then add 1/2 milk and mix until combined. Add half of the remaining flour mixture, mix, add the remaining milk and mix. Now add the remaining 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix until combined. Do not overbeat!
In another clean bowl, whip egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks and gradually add the remaining sugar. Beat until you get stiff peaks (about 3 minutes).
Fold the egg whites into the cake batter. Do not overstir the batter.
Put batter into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry or with very few crumbs.

Chocolate Cake (makes one 8 inch - 20 cm cake, make only half of it! - from the Barefoot Contessa)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

3/4 cups good cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk, shaken

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 extra-large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter 2 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, butter and flour the pans.
Mix sifted flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry with the mixer on low speed.
Add the coffee and stir just to combine.
Pour the batter into prepared pans. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool in the pans for 30 minutes. Then turn them out on a cooling rack to cool completely.

Forget the part about cooling the cakes. Immediately out of the oven, cut the upper crust of both cakes and stack them. Then place them into the freezer. Now you have 5 (or more) hours to proceed to I am Baker and learn how to make the vertical layers.

I should warn you, though, that you won't get the same amount of cake from both recipes. Sure, they both say that they make enough batter for an 8-inch, 2-layer cake, but they don't specify how tall the layers are going to be! I ended up with a whole other 9-inch chocolate cake. Yes, you guessed right, there was too much chocolate cake batter. But I made the best of it. Nom. The best idea here would be to only make one half of the chocolate batter. I'm sure it would be enough.

I made 2 8-inch cakes, but I had to discard the outermost layers because they somehow fell apart. I ended up with two 6-inch cakes. They were small, but delicious and more beautiful that they would've been if I left the outer layer there. It's the first white cake that I actually liked (frosted with chocolate though), and the chocolate cake was really good too. I think I'll make the two cakes again, since they're really basic and simple recipes that produce great results.

To frost the two vertical layer cakes, I used one batch of Nigella's Chocolate Icing, which tastes heavenly. You can use any frosting/icing you want, but I like this one because it uses sour cream, which we always have at home, and it's very easy to prepare. I would've used red buttercream, but I find it too sweet and I don't like using artificial food colorings on my cakes.

I mentioned that I actually made 3 cakes. I was left with so much leftover chocolate batter that I poured it into a 9-inch pan and baked it. I frosted it with a strawberry-chocolate frosting, which didn't taste like strawberries. Apparently, I didn't use enough of them. It's really not worthy of a blog post. I'll try some other time, maybe with raspberries. More of them.

Look: 4/5

Taste: 5/5

Approximate cost: 6 €

Lola's Cupcake Counter - Top Shop, Oxford Circus, London

2011-02-12T15:05:00.000+01:00

Who opens a cupcake counter in the middle of a clothes store? Apparently, Lola's Cupcakes. It looks like the customers were so hungry that it was the only logical move. I guess.

Back in August last year, Top Shop was so packed that I didn't even try to get in. When I came back in December, a few days after the sale had started, it was almost empty. Anyway, I was browsing the store and there they were! Lola's Cupcakes! There aren't many people who could resist the colorfulness of their display. I sure couldn't. (I was secretly hoping I would get the cupcake in one of those blue boxes. And didn't. They serve them on a paper napkin.) You can have any of their 14 flavors in regular or tiny form. Regular cupcakes cost 2.25 £ and tiny cupcakes cost 1.10 £. I already wrote about their Selfridges' cupcake ''bar'' last year.

I had the Rocky Road mini cupcake. I still don't know why, since I hate marshmallows. But it does look good with all that's happening on top of it. I didn't like it though. I give it 2 stars. When did I start giving stars for cupcakes? Oh, well.

I also tried the Chocolate Milk Cupcake, which is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. It wasn't bad, but there was sooo much frosting! Thankfully, I keep a frosting-loving person with me at all times. Otherwise, I would've just thrown it away.

Verdict: if you are shopping for clothes in Top Shop on Oxford Circus and you suddenly get hungry during the 8-hour shopping spree, get a cupcake. I'm not sure who does that, but I guess there is a market for in-store cupcakes, otherwise they would've already closed this cupcake counter. If you're just a cupcake lover and you want to try Lola's cupcakes, you don't have to walk all the way up to Selfridges anymore. Yay!

Lola's Cupcake Counter

Topshop, Ground floor, Oxford Circus

6-38 Great Castle Street,

London W1W 8LG

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cups

2011-02-09T23:59:00.000+01:00

Guess who has just discovered peanut butter! Yes, it's me. After watching one of Nigella's Christmas shows, I decided it was finally time to buy it. Have I ever mentioned how much I love watching Nigella bake? Nom.

These little cups aren't exactly baked, but they're made with sugar. And flour. And butter. So they count. Maybe you still have no idea what to make for Valentine's day. I use Valentine's day as an excuse to bake red things. That way, Valentine's day doesn't use me. Ha! I've got it all figured out. So, if you want to make/bake red things too, this is certainly a recipe you can try. It takes little time and produces beautiful results. All you need is love, red petit four cases... and six other ingredients.

The red cases on the photo are purely coincidental. I actually made these for Christmas dinner and it was the only logical choice between blue, orange, black and red. Nigella used golden stars as decorations. I couldn't get them anywhere, so I used silver nonpareils. So, this year, you don't have to buy expensive chocolates at the store; you can make your own! And they're so good... I divided all the ingredients in half, but if you have a big family or a big stomach, make the whole recipe. They don't taste bad at all! And I like peanut butter now.

Base (makes 48 tiny cups) (from Nigella)

2 ounces (50 g) soft dark brown sugar
7 ounces (200 g) icing sugar
2 ounces (50 g) butter, softened
7 ounces (200 g) smooth peanut butter

Topping

7 ounces (200 g) milk chocolate

3 1/2 ounces (100 g) dark chocolate

decorations

Put the ingredients for the base in a mixer and blend until it looks like sand.
Use one teaspoon of the mixture for every petit four case. Press the mixture down to form the bottom layer.
Melt the milk and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Spoon the mixture onto the bases of the petit four cases.
Decorate the tops with decorations of your choice.

See, I told you it's an easy recipe.

Look: 5/5

Taste: 4/5

Approximate cost: 5 €

Daring Bakers' Joconde Imprime

2011-02-07T22:52:00.000+01:00

You're looking at a piece of the January Daring Bakers' challenge. Yes, I know I'm a week late posting this. But January was such a busy month, especially the last week, and most of the time I wasn't even at home - so I didn't have the privilege of a working oven. But I have some great news. After all the hard work, I passed all my exams, so that's it with school for this year. Holidays 'till October! Yay! I do have some plans for the rest of the year, which include the majority of my bucket list, but more on that later. The important thing is that this is the cake I celebrated with. It's that good!

The January 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Asteroshe of the blog Accro. She chose to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert. It's easier to make than it looks. You just gotta have some courage! And a pastry comb.

Patterned Joconde-Decor Paste (makes two 1/2 size sheet pans or a 13''x18'' (33x46 cm) jelly roll pan; I made only 1/2 of it and there was still way too much)

14 tablespoons (200 g) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (200 g) confectioners' sugar

7 large egg whites

1 3/4 cup (220 g) cake flour

food coloring gel/paste/liquid

***Cocoa Decor Paste variation: reduce cake flour to 6 oz (170 g). Add 2 oz (60 g) cocoa powder. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together before adding to creamed mixture.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (use stand mixer with blade, handheld mixer, or by hand).
Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously.
Fold in sifted flour.
Tint batter with coloring to desired color, if not making cocoa variation.

Joconde Sponge (makes two 1/2 size sheet pans or a 13''x18'' (33x46 cm) jelly roll pan; I made 2/3 of it)

3/4 cup (85 g) almond flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75 g) confectioners' (icing) sugar
1/4 cup (25 g) cake flour
3 large eggs
3 large egg whites
2 1/2 teaspoons (10 g) white granulated sugar or caster sugar
2 tablespoons (30 g) unsalted butter, melted

In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and white granulated sugar to firm, glossy peaks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later.
Sift almond flour, confectioners' sugar and cake flour. (This can be done into your dirty egg whites bowl.)
On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light. (If using a stand mixer use blade attachment. If hand held a whisk attachment is fine, or by hand.)
Fold in one third reserved whipped egg whites to almond mixture to lighten the batter. Fold in remaining whipped egg whites. Do not over mix.
Fold in melted butter.
Reserve batter to be used later.

Preparing the Joconde - how to make the pattern

Spread a thin layer of decor paste approximately 1/4 inch (5 mm) thick onto silicone baking mat with a spatula, or flat knife. Place mat on an upside down baking sheet. The upside down sheet makes spreading easier with no lip from the pan.
Pattern the decor paste - here is where you can be creative. Make horizontal/vertical lines (you can use a knife, spatula, cake/pastry comb). Squiggles with your fingers, zig zags, wood grains. Be creative whatever you have at home to make a design can be used. Or use a piping bag: pipe letters, or polka dots, or a piped design. If you do not have a piping bag, fill a ziplock bag and snip off corner for a homemade version of one.
Slide the baking sheet with paste into the freezer. Freeze hard, approximately 15 minutes.
Remove from freezer. Quickly pour the Joconde batter over the design. Spread evenly to completely cover the pattern of the decor paste.
Bake at 475°F/250°C until the joconde bounces back when slightly pressed, approximately 15 minutes. You can bake it as is on the upside down pan. Yes, it is a very quick bake, so watch carefully.
Cool. Do not leave too long, or you will have difficulty removing it from the mat.
Flip cooled cake onto a powdered sugared parchment paper. Remove silpat. Cake should be right side up, and pattern showing! (The powdered sugar helps the cake from sticking when cutting.)

Preparing the mold for entremets (I used an 8-inch round springform pan)

Start with a large piece or parchment paper laid on a very flat baking sheet. Then a large piece of cling wrap over the parchment paper. Place a spring form pan ring, with the base removed, over the cling wrap and pull the cling wrap tightly up on the outside of the mold. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper overlapping top edge by 1/2 inch. Cut the parchment paper to the top of the mold. it will be easier to smooth the top of the cake.

Preparing the Joconde for molding

Trim the cake of any dark crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape.
Decide how thick you want your joconde wrapper. Traditionally, it is 1/2 the height of the mold. This is done so more layers of the plated dessert can be shown. However, you can make it the full height.
Once your height is measured, then you can cut the cake into equal strips, of height and length. Use a very sharp paring knife and ruler.
Make sure your strips are cut cleanly and ends are perfectly straight. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Once wrapped inside the mold, overlap your ends slightly. You want your Joconde to fit very tightly pressed up to the sides of the mold. Then gently push and press the ends to meet together to make a seamless cake. The cake is very flexible so you can push it into place. You can use more than one piece to wrap your mold, if one cut piece is not long enough.
The mold is done, and ready to fill.

I got the idea for the filling on You Made That? and I liked the amount of chocolate in it. So I made it. I got creative when I ran out of the ingredients though!

Crust (in case you don't make enough cake to cover the bottom of the pan)

100 g (3 oz) biscuits

40 g (3 tablespoons) butter

Blitz the biscuits until crumbly.
Put the crumbs in a bowl and add melted butter. Mix thoroughly.
Tip the mixture into the springform pan and press to create the bottom layer.

Cheesecake Filling and Chocolate Ganache

3 oz (90 g) cream cheese
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
8 oz bittersweet chocolate
2 1/2 cups whipping cream

Whip cream cheese and two tablespoons of sugar until smooth.
Whip 1 1/2 cups cream with two tablespoons of sugar. Fold one half of the whipped cream into the cream cheese. Scoop the mixture into the cake pan and smooth out evenly.
Break chocolate into small pieces and put it into a bowl. Bring 1 cup of cream to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes, then pour it over chocolate and stir until smooth.
When it cools completely, pour a half of the ganache over the cream cheese mixture.
Beat the remaining half of the ganache until lighter brown and fluffy. Scoop it over the ganache layer and refrigerate.
Put the remaining whipped cream into a piping bag and pipe something on top of cake. Refrigerate some more.

Just in case your pan is too high to fill it with this recipe (like mine is) and you don't have any more ingredients at home, you can throw all the cake leftovers in a mixer and mix until you get crumbs. Just because I had so many of them, I added walnuts and they had a nice taste. Then, make another ''crust'' on top of the ganache with this mixture (press it in). Cover with whipped cream.

Or maybe add some butter to hold it together. I didn't and it all crumbled when the cake was cut. But it was good anyway, and I didn't have to throw any cake away!

You could decorate the cake with sprinkles or even fresh fruit like raspberries or strawberries. I decided to leave it as it is. It crumbled a lot when cut, but the taste was so heavenly that it didn't matter. I'm definitely making it again some time, because the outside layer is so sophisticated and elegant. It would make a great birthday cake.

Look: 4/5
Taste: 5/5
Approximate cost: 10 €

The Hummingbird Bakery, London

2011-01-29T11:25:00.000+01:00

I remember the last time I was in London; after studying Cupcake-Top-10 lists, I had so many plans about where I'm going to eat the best (cup)cakes in the world and stuff like that. The Hummingbird Bakery, Primrose Bakery and Buttercup Cake Shop were the three bakeries on my list to visit, and yet I forgot about them completely. There's just so much more to do in London (or anywhere else) than spending time searching for that one cupcake place.

While browsing the (huge) cookbook section at one of the Charing Cross Road bookstores, I think it was Foyles, I found The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, which I never even knew existed. The first impulse was to buy it, but then I didn't, because I had to fly back home with a low-cost airline and the weight of my luggage was already starting to become a problem. But I still read some of it and found out that, apparently, Gwyneth Paltrow loves their cupcakes. It's also the first bakery in the UK that started baking american style sweets - cupcakes, whoopie pies and cakes. I read that one of their bakeries was in Soho, which was close to our hostel, but in the end we didn't make it there because... we didn't look for it. Because visiting one bakery a day was enough.

This time, I was determined to find it. The Old Brompton branch seemed to be close to our hotel, so on one cloudy morning, we started looking for it. From the wrong end of the Old Brompton Road...let's just say that we walked there for 30 minutes, and when we found it, we realized that it was right in front of South Kensington tube station, where we started the search (got on the bus). Oh well. It was a good workout, I guess.

On to the bakery. The place is tiny! There are three tables with two chairs each, and no customer bathroom. (I must add that they closed this branch down in early January for some renovating, so I have no idea what it looks like now.) We sat down and took our coats off. Then waited a couple of minutes. One woman was sitting and eating a cupcake, otherwise, the place was empty. There were 3 or 4 employees standing around, doing nothing, but no one came to take our order! I didn't see any signs that they don't serve food at the tables... I got up, ordered and carried the cakes to our table. I didn't take our drinks though, since I only have two hands... The employee that carried our drinks seemed to be very reluctant about that. Seriously? It's not like you have anything else to do...

I was so excited about my pick, the Chocolate Devil's Food Cake. When we came in, there wasn't any, but they brought a freshly made cake out soon enough. The first bite was good. But then the second, third... I was already in a diabetic coma! Sugar is probably the main ingredient here, I'm not kidding. By the time I reached the side covered in frosting, I was exhausted from eating it. I drank the whole bottle of water while eating because otherwise I wouldn't be able to swallow it. I left the frosting. Sure, it looks good, but I like my pancreas and its insulin-producing ability.

If you're asking yourselves why I didn't order a cupcake, since this blog is called Tanja's Cupcakes, it's because I got tired of bad tasting cupcakes that are never as good as cakes are. Also, there was A LOT more frosting on there. And food colorings. Not cool.

The Red Velvet Cake had too much frosting as well and it was not as cream-cheese-y as Lola's is. The cake was good but dry. I'm not a fan of red velvet, so I can't judge. But the amount of sugar in the frosting was enormous. It probably is like that in every cake.

I haven't read any good reviews of their first cookbook. They sell it in their bakeries, along with diaries, notecards and notebooks. I don't know if the prices are any lower than in other shops. We paid around 4£ for each cake, which is not cheap at all, and were very disappointed by the service and the taste. I don't think we'll ever visit any of the Hummingbird Bakery branches again.

The decorations in the window are beautiful though.

The Hummingbird Bakery
47 Old Brompton Road

South Kensington, London

SW7 3JP

2010: a year in recipes

2011-01-11T19:03:00.000+01:00

It's a bit late to wish you all a happy new year, but still: Happy New Year! Amazing, how quickly 2010 flew by! The fact that it's already 2011 also means that my blog is one year old. Its birthday was on 23 December (and I completely forgot. I'm ashamed). For those readers who haven't been around for long (and to remind those who have) I have made a list of the best recipes I made in 2010. You can't go wrong with them. Seriously. As I'm an amateur baker, your skills are probably better than mine in any case, so making these cakes/cookies should be very easy!

Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

It's the first cake I ever made and I still think of it as the best ever. It's my go-to chocolate cake for any occasion, if I have enough time of course. It does take some time to prepare and bake (and wash the pan if you only have one), but the result is delicious and tiny and so cute! Only for chocoholics though.

Fling (from the Whimsical Bakehouse)

My attempt at chocolate decorating gone a bit wrong. This is the first and only cake I made from the Whimsical Bakehouse cookbook. It uses white cake and my family actually liked it. Just because it has huge chunks of chocolate in it! The decorations are very simple to make if you have a microwave, some piping tips and the right kind of chocolate. I have none of those and I still managed to do it, so it's not that hard.

Chocolate Crinkles

Probably the simplest, cutest cookies in the world. Forget cookie cutters. All you have to do is roll the dough into a ball and roll it in nonpareils. Perfect!

Easy Chocolate Cake

By now, you've probably noticed that I like chocolate a lot. This cake tastes good and takes just a fraction of the time you would need to make the Nigella's version. So I love it.

Cookies and Cream (Oreo) Cheesecakes

I've never tasted cheesecake before these cupcakes, but it sure tastes good. I still think it's the best recipe in Martha Stewart's Cupcakes so far.

Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

Homemade ice cream! Anyone can make it! I needed someone to force me to try it (the Daring Bakers), but since I did, I have made it many times. It's a time consuming and tiring thing to do, but it tastes really good, especially with this cake on top. Chances are, your cake will actually look beautiful!

Crostata

The fruity goodness is just something I can't describe with words. The dough is incredibly easy to make. Then, just take a bag of frozen blueberries or whatever berries you have, spread them on top, and bake it. Yum!

Stollen

I know the season for fruit breads is probably over, but you can still bookmark the recipe for next December. Sure, it uses yeast, but I've made it four times and it was always delicious. It tastes good even after a week, which is great if you don't plan on giving any away, as it's quite huge (it uses almost 1 kg of flour).

I hope this list will keep you busy for a few days until my next post(s). Hint: I was in London and I ate a lot. In the meantime, go bake something! I would, if I wasn't ill and unable to stand, let alone knead. But I guess that's what you get for celebrating the New Year's Eve outside! I had to learn somehow...

Daring Bakers' Christmas Stollen

2010-12-26T13:04:00.000+01:00

I hope you've all had a great Christmas! I sure did. I love Christmas. And that's why I loved this challenge! It really was a challenge, because it involved working with yeast, but I succeeded. It's actually a very easy recipe with a delicious result. I made it four weeks in a row and everyone loved it. I didn't use mixed peel or cherries, but I added more raisins every time. I think I used 250 grams yesterday and it tasted even better. I also used chopped apricots and they tasted great.

The 2010 December Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie's Baking. she chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make Stollen. She adapted a friend's family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart's book...and Martha Stewart's demonstration.

Stollen Wreath (makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves; serves 10 - 12 people)

1/4 cup (60 ml) lukewarm water (110°F / 43°C)
4 1/2 teaspoons (14 grams) active dry yeast or 28 grams fresh yeast
1 cup (240 ml) milk
150 ml (140 g) unsalted butter
5 1/2 cups (770 g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (115 g) sugar
3/4 teaspoon (4 1/2 grams) salt
1 teaspoon (6 grams) cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon or orange extract
3/4 cup (135 g) mixed peel
1 cup (170 g) firmly packed raisins
3 tablespoons (45 ml) rum
12 red glace cherries (roughly chopped, optional)
1 cup (100 g) flaked almonds
melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
powdered sugar for dusting wreath

Soak the raisins in a small bowl, in the rum or orange juice from the zested orange, and set aside.
Pour 1/4 cup (60 ml) warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup (240 ml) milk and 140 g butter over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.
Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add lemon and vanilla extracts.
In a large mixing bowl (4 qt/4 liters) stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests. Stir in the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.
Add in the mixed peel, soaked fruit and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate. Here is where you can add the cherries if you would like. Be delicate with the cherries or all your dough will turn red!
Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter and begin kneading (or mixing with the dough hook) to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes (6 minutes by machine). The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough - a few raisins will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball.
Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly. The raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want (but since the yeast will continue to grow, you have to reduce the amount of it that you add to the flour at the beginning; if you don't, the finished product will have a very yeast-y flavor!).

Shaping the dough and baking the wreath

Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches (40 x 61 cm) and 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick.
Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.
Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.
Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough. Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until 1 1/2 times its original size.
Preheat oven to 350°C (180°C) with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F (88°C) in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the tip with melted butter while still hot.
Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter. Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first. The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.
Let cool at least an hour before serving.

When completely cool, store in a plastic bag, or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.

Look: 4/5
Taste: 5/5
Approximate cost: 6 €

The Original Sacher Torte at the Hotel Sacher, Vienna

2010-12-20T16:30:00.000+01:00

I bet you're wondering what that delicious cake is doing up there! As you might have read in my previous post, I recently (last week) went to Vienna and that is a piece of the original Sacher Torte. I had never been to that part of Austria before and needless to say I was very excited about going. It only cost me 15€ because my school organized it, so it would have been a shame not to go. I have to admit that I had no idea what that city is about. At first I wanted to go to the library and get a guidebook, but I forgot, so I googled 'what to do in Vienna' and was very surprised; I knew the city was expensive but seriously? I know London's very expensive but at least most of the museums are free. In Vienna, you have to pay for everything. I even googled 'what to do in Vienna for free' and the only recommendation was to take a walk. Great.

In case you didn't know, Vienna (Wien) is the capital of Austria and one of its nine states. It has a population of about 1.7 million, which is almost the population of Slovenia. It's very popular around Christmas, because they have famous Christmas Markets (Christkindlmarkt); the biggest one is in front of the city hall. There's really nothing to buy there, to be honest; it's just the Christmas atmosphere that draws people there. But there's one thing hat you must do if you like cakes and you ever come to Vienna: eat a piece of the original Sacher Torte at the Hotel Sacher.

As soon as I figured out where I was (which is not easy in a snow blizzard!) I started looking for the famous hotel. At the beginning of my journey (or should I say odyssey?) I was so lost... but 15 minutes later, I found it. There's some construction going on so I couldn't see the hotel in all its shine, but I found it faster because there was a giant sign in front of it.

You can't actually eat the torte there; you have to go to the Cafe Sacher or the Sacher Stube a few meters to the left of the hotel entrance. I still haven't figured out the difference between the two; maybe the Stube is less classy. I went in there because I was soaking wet from all the snow and I didn't want to embarrass myself.

The inside of the Stube is beautifully decorated and quite small; there aren't many tables. I ordered my Sacher torte (I don't think anyone orders anything else, although they offer other cakes) and a peppermint tea and they brought it right away. I liked it. A lot. Eating it felt special, after all, the recipe has been the same for more than 175 years!

It was invented after Wenzel Clemens Prince Metternich ordered a very special cake to offer his noble guests that night; but the chef was ill, so the 16-year-old apprentice had to invent something. That was Franz Sacher, the man who invented the most famous cake in the world. I have always liked Sacher Torte. My mother used to bake it since we found a recipe in one of the magazines and it was delicious. Its taste wasn't far from the original, I know that now, but the icing was never that pretty. It's also on my to-do list, as I want to bake it in the near future. The Austrians only eat this torte with unsweetened whipped cream on the side, which is unusual here. But if I went to Vienna to eat it, I had to eat it the way it was intended to.

If you don't live near Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck or Graz where the other Sacher Cafes are, you can always order the torte online. The prices are outrageous, just as you would expect, but at least you can try the original. There's also a shop to the right of the hotel, when you can buy the tortes to take home. They offer four different sizes and a few variations on the torte. The 150 g torte (''Lilliput'' version - just so you know how small it really is!) costs 10.50 €, while the biggest one (1.6 kg) costs 39.5 €.

I paid 4.80 € for one piece of the torte and 4.80 € for the tea, so it's not the torte that makes eating there expensive. It's the drinks! I wanted to order water, but I was freezing and I needed something warm. I liked the plates and cups - you can buy those in the Sacher shop as well!

Cafe Sacher/Stube

Philharmonikerstrasse 4

A-1010 Vienna

Streusel Cupcakes (16)

2010-12-12T23:35:00.000+01:00

December is finally here! It's been here for 12 days actually, I just didn't have time to notice. It's a very busy month, as Decembers usually are. First week, there was an exam (which I passed), then the first weekend and making of the Daring Bakers' challenge (which was delicious, but I can't tell you what it is yet), a bit of pre-Christmas shopping (mostly gifts for myself, of course, I deserve them), and a trip to Bologna to see 30 Seconds to Mars live (again!). Yesterday, my mother organized a birthday/dinner party for her friends and I baked the Daring Bakers' challenge again (and it certainly wasn't the last time this month!).

Now this weekend is almost over and another hectic week is on its way. I have two exams scheduled for tomorrow, the drivers' license exam and the french exam at the end of my French I course. On Wednesday, I'm going to Vienna to feel the Christmas spirit and I can't wait, since I've never been there before and I've heard it's beautiful. Plus, I can't wait to try the original Sacher torte! The only thing I'm not looking forward to, is the departure time: 5 AM (oh, how I wish I could teleport). Of course, Vienna is far away and it will probably take us 5 hours to get there. 5 very uncomfortable hours. Then, some more Christmas shopping, maybe even in Vienna (this time not only gifts for me but for other people too), a week of school, Christmas, and the day after Christmas I'm flying off to London! It really is going to be a busy month.

I chose to bake these cupcakes because the ingredients were quite inexpensive and I had all of them at home when I started baking. The photo in the cookbook seemed nice, so I expected the finished product to be nice too! Oh, I was so wrong.

Streusel Cupcakes (makes 24)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C), Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Stir in vanilla by hand. Add flour mixture and sour cream; stir until just combined.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups. Sprinkle half the topping over cupcakes, gently pressing it into the batter. Sprinkle evenly with remaining topping. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.
To finish, place cupcakes on a wire rack set over a baking sheet; drizzle evenly with milk glaze. Glazed cupcakes can be stored up to 3 days at room temperature in airtight containers.

Streusel topping (makes enough for 24 cupcakes)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

Whisk together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt; cut in the butter using a pastry blender, your fingertips, or two table knives until combined but still crumbly. Refrigerate 30 minutes before using.

Milk Glaze (makes enough for 24 cupcakes)

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

3 tablespoons milk

Whisk together ingredients until smooth. Use immediately.

The cupcakes look nice, don't they? But, in the book, they look totally different! I didn't make the milk glaze though, but I really doubt that it would've made such a huge difference. Something was definitely wrong with the topping, because most of it just fell off. Besides, my family and I - we don't like white cake. That's just the way it is. The taste was too salty, the texture... everything was a bit off. Note to self: next time, choose chocolate cupcakes!

Look: 4/5

Taste: 2/5

Approximate cost of one cupcake: 0.30 €

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes (37)

2010-11-30T12:28:00.000+01:00

There is no better way to start baking again than a recipe with four ingredients. Yes, you heard (read?) me right. That's what I love about flourless recipes. I actually made these cupcakes before the Daring Bakers' Crostata, but I didn't have time to write a decent post. Not that I have plenty of time now, I should actually be studying Pharmaceutical Chemistry 2 for an exam on Thursday, but here I am.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 22)

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
6 large eggs, separated, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
ice cream, for serving (optional)

Preheat oven to 275°F (135°C). Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Melt butter and chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over (not in= a pan of simmering water. Stir to combine, then remove bowl from heat and let cool slightly. Whisk in egg yolks.
With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating until peaks are stiff and glossy but not dry (do not overbeat). Whisk one quarter of the beaten egg whites into chocolate mixture to lighten; gently fold mixture into remaining whites.
Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes are just set in centers, about 25 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes (their centers will sink). Cupcakes are best eaten the same day they are baked; keep at room temperature until ready to serve, topped with scoops of ice cream, if desired.

I chose these colorful cupcake liners that just scream Yay! Tanja's baking again! We didn't have any ice cream at home, so we topped half of them with marmalade and whipped cream (second photo) and the other half just with whipped cream (first photo). They were very soft and moist and just melted in the mouth. I definitely encourage you all to try and make them. If you choose to top them with marmalade, use a sour one because the cupcakes themselves are sweet enough. And don't use Nutella, it's too sweet. Since they're best eaten the same day, I suggest you only use half of the ingredients (except if you have a big hungry family). I did and we managed to eat them all.

Look: 4/5

Taste: 4/5

Approximate cost of one cupcake: 0.40 €

Daring Bakers' Crostata

2010-11-27T12:34:00.000+01:00

It's the end of November already and time to post the newest Daring Bakers' challenge! I was really excited when I read the recipe. I decided to fill the crostata with frozen sour cherries, raspberries and blackberries.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi's Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Pasta Frolla

1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon (100 g) superfine sugar or a scant 3/4 cup (90 g) of powdered sugar

1 and 3/4 cup (235 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

a pinch of salt

1 stick (115 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

grated zest of half a lemon (you can also use vanilla sugar)

1 large egg and one large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl

Making Pasta Frolla by hand:

Whisk together sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
Rub or cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.
Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it (reserve about a teaspoon of the egg mixture for glazing purposes later on - place in the refrigerator, covered, until ready to use).
Add the lemon zest to you flour/butter/egg mixture.
Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips.
Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.

Making Pasta Frolla with a food processor:

Put sugar, flour and salt in the bowl of the food processor and pulse a few times to mix.
Add butter and pulse a few times until the mixture has the consistency of coarse meal.
Empty food processor's bowl onto your work surface.
Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten egg and vanilla extract into it.
Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients then use your fingertips.
Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.

Crostata di Marmellata (crostata with a jam filling)

1 and 3/4 cups (600 g) of jam or fruit preserves, whatever flavor you like

Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Take the pasta frolla out of the fridge, unwrap it and cut away 1/4 of the dough. Reserve the dough to make the lattice top of the crostata. Refrigerate this dough while you work on the tart base.
To help roll the crostata dough, keep the dough on top of the plastic wrap that you had it wrapped in. This can help rolling the dough and can also help when transferring the dough to your pan. You can also use parchment paper for this. However, you can also roll the dough directly on a work surface if you prefer.
Lightly dust the top of the dough and your work surface (if you're rolling directly on a work surface) with flour. Keep some flour handy to dust the dough as you go along.
If the dough is very firm, start by pressing the dough with the rolling pin from the middle to each end, moving the rolling pin by a pin's width each time; turn the dough 180 degrees and repeat; when it softens, start rolling.
Roll the dough into a circle about 1/8th inch (3 mm) thick.
If you used the plastic wrap or parchment paper as rolling surface, flip dough over the pan, centering it, and delicately press it all around so the corners are well covered. Peel away the plastic wrap.
Trim the excess dough hanging over the edges of the pan. Press the remaining dough around the border into the sides of the pan making sure the border is an even thickness all the way around.
Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork in several places.
Take the reserved pasta frolla you had cut earlier out of the fridge. Roll it with your pin and cut into strips or use cookie cutters to make small shapes, or roll with your hands into ropes.
Spread the jam or fruit preserves evenly over the bottom of the crostata.
Use the prepared strips or rolls of dough to make a lattice over the surface, or decorate with the cut shapes.
Brush the border and strips of dough with the reserved beaten eggs. You can ass a drop of two of water to the beaten eggs if you don't have enough liquid.
Put the tart in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes, check the tart and continue baking until the tart is of a nice golden hue (it took 35 minutes in my oven).
When done, remove the tart from the oven and let cool. If you have used a tart pan with a removable bottom, then release the tart base from the fluted tart ring. Make sure the tart is completely cool before slicing and serving.

I loved this challenge. I even have a tart pan that had never been used before this, so I was really excited to finally bake something in it. I chose the frozen filling because I thought that using a jam would make the crostata too sweet (I have never made homemade marmalade so I don't have any). I baked it for a long time (about 35 minutes) and it was a little burnt. But just a little.

The crostata was so good that it was gone in about two hours. Nom. I even made another one the following weekend, but instead of making strips to decorate it, I made lots of sheep with my fabulous cookie cutter. It was so cute, but I forgot to take a picture!

The dough can be made very quickly, but then it has to be left in the refrigerator for two hours. After that, I just put it in the pan and rolled it around with a small glass. It's much simpler this way, and less messy. The dough is really thin, so I considered this crostata to be a very healthy snack. After all, it was all fruit! Almost.

Look: 5/5

Taste: 5/5

Approximate cost: 4 €