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!

How my French improved, I’m so proud. :-)))

Moka and her boys are in Winchcombe for Christmas.  I made a galette with some frangipan, no photos, as there was no time and somehow it did not happen, but there was some puff pastry left and some frangipan, so Moka made it into 6 delightful things. Apart from frangipan she added some thinly sliced apple and some roughly chopped chocolate. Brushed with egg and baked till golden. Delicious when eaten warm. 🙂

One of Florek’s favourite sweet treats. Every now and then he picks it from the shelf in Sainsbury’s, so I thought maybe I can make it.  Found a recipe in February’s GF, bought another tin to make it more convenient and made it this afternoon. I have to say I’m not stunned by the taste, but I like the way it looks plus the man is happy, so mission accomplished.

It took a long time to prepare the square tin, line it with kitchen foil divided in half, then lined again with baking paper. But it was worth it, the sponges  baked at the same time and came out easily.

For the sponges KA mixed 175 g of soft butter and caster sugar, 3 eggs, 50 g of ground almonds, 140 g of self raising flour, 1/2 tsp of baking powder and same amount of almond extract(£4 for a tiny bottle, not a great value for money). Half of the mixture went into one side of the tin, the other half was mixed with Dr Oetker’s pink food colouring and went into the other half. It all baked for 30 mins in 180 degrees until the stick came out clean.

Once cooled, I cut them into 4 long, exact, rectangular cakes, brushed them generously with warm apricot jam and placed on a ready rolled white marzipan, also brushed with apricot jam. Finally, more marzipan went onto the cake, tightly,a bit of crimping around the base and that’s that.  Sugar galore.

From mojewypieki.com. I was drawn by stunning pictures of the cake, that somebody commented on as being too perfect and photoshopped. Nonsense, great food pictures are essential, I wish mine were equally good. But at least they’re mine. 🙂

For the base I used 75 g of crushed Oreo biscuits and 1 tbsp of melted butter, all blitzed, pressed onto the bottom of my small, round tin and chilled, while I made the filling.  Kitchen Aid has made a lovely mass out of 360g of Philadelphia cheese, 125 ml of double cream, 5 tbsps of sugar, 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk, a tsp each of potato and plain flour and some vanilla paste.  Poured it all onto the base, pushed some quartered Oreos onto it and into the oven in 150 degrees for 50 minutes.

After about 2 hours of leaving the cheesecake in peace I whipped some cream with icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon and decorated the top, plus some extra Oreos and white chocolate hearts. Lovely, sweet, indulgent.