On Dorota’s blog it’s called “brownie for kids”. It’s nothing like a brownie, but it’s very quick and easy to make, it’s light, delicious and I was able to recycle one of 2 remaining  chocolate Easter bunnies. Not much mess in the kitchen either, even though a 4 year old enthusiastic helper was involved in the making of it.

110 g of butter, melted, 110 g of chocolate added to it, I used 80 g of milk bunny and 20 g of dark chocolate., nicely combined till a thick, silky sauce appeared. 2 whole eggs gently whipped by hand with 90 g of sugar ( 110 in original recipe). Butter and choc mix added. 110 g of plain flour with 0,5 tsp baking powder added.  100 g of chopped walnuts. Into a lined tray, sprinkled with flaked almonds and into the oven. 170 degrees, 25 minutes.  Will be fab with black coffee. 🙂

Life is treating us so well lately, that at the end of the day, when the Child retires upstairs, one simply wants a mug of steaming tea and a slice of a fabulous cake.  Custard slice delivers. It’s not particularly challenging, it was the first time I’ve made custard with gelatine though. One thing- it’s quite difficult and messy to eat. Puff pastry looks great, but without a serrated knife one curses like a trucker.

Shop bought block of puff pastry, about 500 g, ready rolled out, divided in two, both sprinkled with icing sugar and flaked almonds- the almonds are a great idea, baked, they tasted great. They need to  be pressed gently into the pastry, then secured with baking paper, a heavy tray on top and into the oven for about 30 mins, 200 degrees, best to keep an eye on the edges, easy to burn.

In the meantime, the custard. I soaked 1,5 gelatine leaf, gently whipped 3 egg yolks and then added them to a mixture of 750 ml of milk, 250 ml of double cream, some vanilla paste, 100 g of corn flour, 25 g of custard powder( a first for me again, never bought it before), 100 g of sugar. All this, plus the yolks gently heated up, stirring all the time until nice and thick. Off the heat, gelatine in.

The baked pastry needed to be trimmed a little in order to fit in the tray nicely, custard onto it, pastry on top. Chilled for about 4 hours and was ready to eat.

I have to say that the custard when tasted still warm did not wow me. Not sure if it was that powder that made it taste artificial and cheap, but those hours in the fridge changed the taste for the better.  Nice one from goodfood.com. 🙂

First harvest of rhubarb from my garden this afternoon, as I craved a cake. Quickly looked through Dorota’s ideas, found what I needed, dug up some raspberries from the freezer and was ready to go. Relatively quick and very tasty cake to go with tea.

I used about 200 g of rhubarb, did not peel it, as fresh and young, chopped in small pieces. 100 g frozen raspberries, crumbled, no need to defrost.

For the cake- 1 whole egg and 1 yolk whipped up with 4 tbsps of sugar until pale and fluffy.  2 tbsps of ground almond and 3/4 glass of plain flour, a sprinkle of baking powder, some vanilla extract and then 60 g of melted and slightly cooled butter all added in and briefly combined. Onto the small tray with baking paper, flattened, fruit generously on top. And then a delicious crumble made of 90 g of ground almonds, 50 g of melted butter, 50 g of sugar, some if which was vanilla sugar. I ended up adding a sprinkle of flour to make it more crumbly.

Baked in 175 degrees for about 30-35 minutes, kitchen smelled like heaven.

This is the kind of baking I love- when Florek comes home, sticks a knife through the cake even before dinner and after dinner picks up that knife again. It will not last very long. Yum. 🙂

My lovely child has just turned 4, so a cake has been baked according to her very brief brief- the cake is to be green, end of.  I bought some matcha and was going to make a matcha sponge with some kind of strawberry topping. And then Dorotka published her latest entry in the blog and that was that. Matcha stayed in the jar, I purchased fresh baby spinach and got to work. From the whole portion in Dorota’s recipe I baked 2 separate sponges, used them both, but one was a bit too high, so I took 1cm off the top, cut 4 small bases with rings and I’m glad I did, cause my photos of the birthday cake were rubbish, while the mini ones I’m happy to show off.

So, for the 4 layer cake( 2 sponges and 2 mousses) I used 5 whole eggs, separated, whipped the whites with 6 tbsps of sugar, yolks in., one by one.  A puree of 120 g of baby spinach and 150 ml of sunflower oil was made, I pushed it though the sieve too, as it was not fine enough. Added into the airy egg mixture. 260 g of plain flour, 1 tsp of baking powder. Into the oven, 35 minutes in 160 degrees.

When baked and sliced, some lime juice was used to moisten the cakes.

650 g of fresh strawberries quickly cooked with 2 tbsps of sugar, blitzed into puree. A strawberry jelly in. All cooled till it begun to set and then 450 ml of cream got whipped and the strawberry mixture added.

Fun to bake, fun to assemble. Finished off with chopped pistachios and crumbs from the green cake.  The Child enjoyed the mousse the most, left the green base behind, unaware of the spinach content.  Not a piece was wasted by our guests. 🙂

Just the look of it on mojewypieki.com made me want to eat it right away. My kind of cake, light, moist and delicious. All I had to do was to obtain some marzipan paste, which in Winchcombe is not easy. Co Op had some, but not the most astonishing quality one could ask for, it had to do today though, as I wanted cake!

For a small cake in my square tin I melted 100 g of butter, which sat waiting alongside 100 ml of milk. 2 small eggs beaten with 4 tbsps of sugar and some vanilla sugar until pale, light and fluffy. A zest and juice of 1 lemon added ( this is the only amount I kept unchanged, all other ingredients cut by half for a small cake, lemon must be quite strong for me). 60 g of grated marzipan in. 150 g of plain flour and 1 tsp of baking powder. All combined and into the tin, oven ready at 160 degrees for about 30 minutes. Finished off with a simple lemon icing – lemon juice added to icing sugar till a runny glaze appears.

I love it. There is a risk it might be all  gone this evening. 🙂

Excellent. One of the best so far. I’ve just had one and might have another, but maybe after dinner. 🙂

I’ve searched mojewypieki.com for something nice, midweek and not too expensive, as I happened to have some decent pears in the fruit bowl, that’s what I picked. I’ve managed to make the batter and put them in the oven while chatting with Mum- about cakes, of all things! Izzie got a birthday party invitation, which made her think of her own birthday in 2 months and a possible GREEN cake that I will be required to make for her. ( Spinach??????) 🙂

The batter for muffins took 250 g of plain flour, 2 tsps of baking powder, 100 g of caster sugar ( original recipe called for 150), 50 g of brown sugar( 75 in Dorota’s). 1 tsp of ground ginger, I added a tsp of ground fresh ginger too, that paid off with a nice zing of ginger instead of some traces of it. Then 140 ml of soured cream, 125 ml of oil, 1 tbp of honey and 2 whole eggs. When all the ingredients combined nicely in kitchen aid, I added 2 peeled and chopped pears, filled the muffin cases and sprinkled them with brown sugar. they baked in 190 degrees for about 25 minutes. Excellent!

Something for the coffee this weekend. Easy, quick, delicious, even more so the next day.  Copied all the way from mojewypieki.com.

3 eggs, separated, whites whipped with a touch of salt and 50 g of sugar. Yolks added. 3,5 tbsps of plain flour, 2 tbsps of potato starch, 1/4 tsp of baking powder. 1 tsps of instant coffee.  All this poured onto a  very flat baking tray, 190 degrees, 8 minutes. Rolled when hot with the help of a cloth.

The cream could not be easier to make. 250g of mascarpone, 120 ml of double cream, 3 tbsps of Baileys, 1 tsps of instatnt coffee again, 2 tbsps of icing sugar all kitchen aided together till nice and thick. My personal touch were the raspberries left from breakfast right onto the middle,they cut through the sweetness really nicely.  And after a couple of hours in the fridge it was ready to eat. 🙂

Every now and then I manage to produce something that makes me really chuffed and puts a smile on my face for a long time. I attempted this lovely calorific bomb yesterday and initially decided it’s as good as the one at Maslanka’s. Shortly followed by a conclusion that it’s actually better. Florian agreed, which is always nice.

For the base and the” roof” I used the ready made French puff pastry brought from Polish Biedronka. Baked it in 180 degrees, initially under another tray to keep it nice and flat, removed the tray after 12 minutes and continued without for another 13 minutes.

Made the cream no. 1 by whisking 2 whole eggs with 2 tbsps of plain flour and 2,5 tbpsp of potato flour with about half a glass of milk, while the other full glass of milk with 4 tbsps of sugar, vanilla sugar and vanilla paste were being brought to a boiling point. Egg mixture added, then onwards like with custard. The recipe for that is from mojewypieki and only that. The slightly cooled cream went onto the bottom layer of the baked pastry, then whipped cream, top layer of the pastry, icing sugar, fridge for 2-3 hours.

Absolutely love it. 🙂

I loved the way they looked on mojewypieki.com, had to make them. It’s a bit unfortunate, that the strawberries are rubbish at this time of the year- they taste like they’re imported from another planet. They can’t really be replaced with any other fruit and equally can’t be made in May, so the whole thing do look better than they taste.

First the brownies. 100 g of butter, melted, 100 g of dark chocolate, chopped, in.  2 whole eggs lightly beaten, 160 g of sugar- I did half and half caster and brown. 3/4 tsp of baking powder. All ingredients combined, spooned into the silicone mould for round cookies, filled them up to 3/4 and baked for about 10 minutes in 180 degrees. I must say they were delicious when freshly baked, but after a couple of hours in the fridge with the cream and strawberries they lost the appeal substantially. Still, nice after quesadillas and empanadas we had this evening with Lisa and Andy.

Just finishing the first piece. Excellent crumbly pastry, the filling as lemony as it gets, I think a touch more sugar would not hurt it, which is unusual for one of Dorotka’s recipes. Very good dessert though and not too complicated.

I had the pastry done by the time I had to get Izzie from playgroup, part one ( Father Christmas was to make an appearance today, so at 1.30 she went back in). 195 g of plain flour, 2 tbsps of icing sugar, 115 g of butter, one egg yolk, 2 tbsps of lemon juice and a splash of water to bind it- the pastry rested for 30 minutes in the fridge, then blind baked in 190 degrees for 15 minutes, minus the beans for another 5.

Filling, perfect if one’s dieting 🙂 . 5 whole eggs, 120 g of sugar, 2 tsps of potato flour, 200 ml of double cream, lemon rind of 2 lemons and 150 ml of lemon juice- all well combined and poured into the prebaked pastry. 30 minutes in 180 degrees.  Must have paid attention to it every few minutes in order not to brown it too much, the pastry edges needed to be covered with alu foil.

Overall, 8 out of 10 I’d say, maybe a touch less lemon juice or more sugar.