In mojewypieki.com I found a tempting recipe for Raffaello babeczki kinda things. Nearly made them long time ago, but when ordering Raffaello from Ocado I found out a box costs £5, I thought I’d wait till I go to Poland. Sure enough, same big box of lovely coconutty balls in Biedronka were 13 PLN.

Last night when checking up the recipe again I read the comments underneath, some saying the white chocolate cream was far too sweet. The alarm bells went off in my head, remember 3BIT cake from the same website that ended up in the bin, due to sugar overload.

I ended up making the muffin bases nearly exactly the way recommended in the recipe, if  I had checked I had enough desiccated coconut and some kind of coconut liqueur- it would have been exact.

Kitchen aid whipped 150 g of soft butter with 120 g of caster sugar, 3 whole eggs went in, 120 g of plain flour plus 1,5 tsp of baking powder. 70 g of desiccated coconut recommended was replaced by 20 g of coconut and 50 g of ground almonds.

This amount made me 12 large muffins, which baked for over 20 minutes in 180 degrees.

When cooled I spooned out some holes, filled with strawberry jam( next time it will be raspberry and fresh raspberries, for the tang), 3 small blueberries in top. Then the Dr Oetker chocolate cream, finished with toasted desiccated coconut and a Raffaello ball on top.

Very pleasant, not too sweet. Next time I think I’ll try some kind of white cream, but for now some of these will travel to Swindon tomorrow.

Recipe taken from mojewypieki.com. Baked, rested, placed on a chopping board in the evening sun, sprinkled with icing sugar. What’s not to like 🙂 ?

For the basis of the tart I used a tall glass of plain flour, 4 tbsps of icing sugar, 1/4 tsp of baking powder, 90 g of chopped butter, a splash of cream, 2 egg yolks and some cold water to bind it together.  When ready, it chilled in the fridge for 30 minutes, while I peeled and chopped my rhubarb, about 3 pieces of it, roughly 350 g. I quickly pan fried it with 3 tbps of sugar- not enough, I later decided,  then drained.

The oven was ready waiting at 180 degrees, so I coarsely grated  the pastry onto the bottom of the tin, flattened with fork and baked till lightly golden for about 15 minutes. Then some jam went on, strawberry was recommended in the recipe, I used what  I had the remains of in the fridge- pear and some blueberry too. Then the rhubarb, some raspberries for colour, then a bit of breadcrumbs and finally, what we call in Polish “kruszonka”. A delightful, crunchy topping, a bit like on a crumble, but better. And kitchen aid makes it perfectly. 90 g of flour, 50 g of sugar, some vanilla paste and then 60 g of hot, melted butter.

The tart baked in 180 degrees for about 30 minutes. When done, some icing sugar and ready to be devoured. 🙂

In the recent GF it stands as a “Queen of hearts” cake, but theirs has hearts on top, mine has flowers, due to not having a heart shaped cutter.  I baked the base last night, this morning made the mousse and the rest, then spent 30 minutes cleaning the kitchen. This cake belongs to the “Lots of pierdolenie” category, should one like that exist. 🙂

So, for the base;5 egg yolks got beaten with 160 g of caster sugar. A zest and juice of 1 lemon added( can’t taste any, to be frank),85 g of self raising flour, 25 g of ground almonds and a tbsp of poppy seeds, all taken care of by the kitchen aid. The egg whites whipped separately got added later, to loosen up the mixture. It all baked for about 25 minutes in 180 degrees.

This morning sliced horizontally, strawberries placed tightly around the edges, then all covered by the mousse. For the mousse I blitzed 400 g of strawberries with about 5 tbsps of sugar- less than in the recipe, I though 200 g was a bit mental.  I then passed it through a sieve to have it nice and smooth. Warmed up, melted 4 gelatine leaves in. Whipped around 350 ml of cream and added the strawberry mixture. And finally the top layer, which took a lot of time. I drew a template dividing it into 16 small squares, cut through some and filled in with strawberry jam. Sprinkled the other ones with icing sugar. Set in the fridge for a couple of hours.

The cake’s light, refreshing, easy to eat. It will be great in summer. Dustin has just licked the remains from Florek’s plate. 🙂

From mojewypieki.com.  I like Jaffa cakes,  but this recipe I had to try- the chocolate mousse on top and fresh orange in the orange jelly must have been money. :-).

I made the sponge the usual way, 4 eggs, 4 tbsp of plain flour, 2 tbps of potato flour, a tsp of baking powder all for a large sponge. When cooled, 2 orange jellies went on, but made with 750 ml of water, not with 1 l, as the packets suggested. The jelly was already in the process of setting when I poured it onto the sponge layered with chunks of fresh orange- what a lovely treat, next time I’ll use even more.  I left it all overnight to set and then made the mousse. 200 g of dark chocolate melted above boiling water with 30 g of butter, 3 tbsps of orange juice. 3 eggs, separated, whites whipped with 50 g of sugar, yolks slowly added to the chocolate mixture and whisked in. When the whites are ready, half of them go into the chocolate mix to loosen it, then also 100 ml of double cream, whipped. And the rest of the egg whites.  All this sets in the fridge overnight and right before serving, a generous sprinkle of cocoa goes on top. Excellent. 🙂

Delice, I say, not a gateaux, as they called it in the recipe in the latest GF.  I liked the look of it, I liked the idea of using poppy seeds  in something other than cheese biscuits.  So I made half a portion, but I used the regular sized tin, which made things complicated when trying to slice it in layers.  I managed, in half, not 3 layers.

So, the baking bit; 100 g of melted and cooled butter, 2 whole eggs Kitchen Aided with 110 g of sugar, then the butter got poured in slowly, then 110 g of plain flour and 1/2 tsp of baking powder. My own( 🙂  and rather decent oven baked it for about 22 minutes in 180 degrees.

While it baked, the buttercream happened; 25 g of toasted poppy seeds, 100 g of soft butter, 175 g of icing sugar, zest of half a lemon, 1 tbp of lemon curd and a splash of milk all Kitchen Aided.

A bit of lemon syrup, too; juice and zest of 1 lemon, 25 g of sugar and a splash of water or limoncello, which I hate, so obviously had none at home.

Once I managed to slice the cake, I soaked the base with the syrup, then onto it went the buttercream, the cake and on top the fondant icing, made of 200 g of icing sugar, juice of half a lemon and a touch of yellow food colouring.

It sat in the fridge( my own, awesome, massive fridge, that has space for everything!!!) for 4 hours and set beautifully, cut without effort. Florian pigged 3 slices in no time, I’m finding it quite sharp, maybe too much syrup? Maybe 3 layers would have made it different. Nevertheless, it’s very good. 🙂

The second thing baked in my -finally- own kitchen. Not too many posts lately, as we were busy making a house into a home. Now I have a big, comfortable kitchen, decent oven, a quiet one and with light inside( so far it was a small torch to check what’s going on inside..:-).

On Saturday I discovered I lost a bit of weight, all my nice skinny jeans fit again, but I still crave sweet stuff, home baked stuff, especially in the afternoon, with a cup of tea or in the evening, when Florek’s home and we’re watching something.

These cookies are the result of such craving- I want something, quick look at mojewypieki.com, to the kitchen and within 50 minutes I have cookies. Izzlett was aslepp, that helped, must be said.

I used 125 g of cold butter, 60 g of icing sugar, 110 g of plain flour and ground almonds( some of them were flaked almonds, which adds a nice, crunchy texture, I love it), an egg yolk, half a tsp of vanilla paste, half a tsp of baking powder and a touch of salt and Kitchen Aid did the work. Dorota recommends chilling it an hour in the fridge, I threw it on the freezer for 15 minutes and it worked nicely.

Chilled dough gets formed into small balls, just like kluski slaskie, with a small hole in the middle, which I filled with jam. Good tip from Dorota- a home made jam, not a shop bought jam, which boils over and spills, as shown on the lower photo. The only home made jam I had was the last jar of my my mum’s pear jam. I made a few with strawberry Bonne Maman’s as well.

The cookies baked in 170 degrees for about 12 minutes. They taste especially nice about 20 minutes after baking. Yum.

Ewa’s coming to town on Saturday, so I made sure there’s something sweet in the fridge. Looking at the picture, that’s what a cake for a diabetic looks like, yeah? 🙂 By Oluta MD, hhheheehehe. 🙂

Cocoa sponge cut in two( for cocoa sponge usual recipe, one tbsp of plain flour replaced with a tbsp of cocoa), covered by toffee cream from Delecta, covered by raspberry jelly with frozen raspberries. Great idea, razzies cut through the sweetness very well, the whole cake eats lightly.  A layer of sponge on the jelly, more cream, chocolate ganache. Toasted almonds. Done. 🙂

I’ve made myself a cake yesterday, making sure it will not be too sweet and will be enjoyed and not binned, like the last one.  I baked a sponge of 2 eggs, cooked off a chopped  up  apple and threw half of a packet of strawberry jelly, left to cool. I whipped Advocaat Torte Cream, of Delecta, yes, I know, easy and I might have tried a bit harder, but it is a tasty one. On the layer of sponge, cut in half I put some cream, then the apple and jelly, then the sponge, the cream and a bit of chocolate ganache on top. Random amount of cream with random amount of chocolate all warmed up made a lovely cake topping.  Although my birthday is today, we cut the cake last night and enjoyed it, it is moist, not too sweet, moreish and yummy. I’m 38 today and said goodbye to all my age demons a little while ago. A little demon called Pizion helped there. 🙂

Mary Berry’s.

Hers, of course looked much more pretty, mine looked ok, but tasted great, that was our dessert on Christmas Eve this year.

For the base I used 150 g digestive biscuits, 25 g plain chocolate, which I melted with 50 g of butter. Whizzed it all in a blender, pressed onto the prepared lined tin and prepared the filling.

300 g white chocolate buttons, melted above the boiling water, 400 g of Philly, 150 ml soured cream, 2 eggs,  1 tsp vanilla extract all went onto the bowl of the KA, plus about 6 ginger stem balls, roughly chopped.

Baked in 170 degrees for about 45 minutes,  ended up looking like a giant soufflet, but it set in the end.

Right before serving I decorated it with some whipped cream, chocolate and icing sugar. The ginger bits in it- genius.

Merry Christmas!