Apple cake knighted with caramel sauce

Photo and the Finnish recipe from here

During the weekend we had those friends visiting, which I mentioned in my H54F post. I am obsessed with offering something self-made for friends, whenever we have them over and this time was no exception. I still had some of those apples left I picked up a week ago and I came across this stunner recipe, so I decided to give it a try.

Oh. My. Word. 

This has to be my favorite apple cake ever. I would not have done anything differently, except make more of it. My friend said that it would also work well on Christmas and I bet it would. Although I don't know a time when this cake would not work. There cannot be such a time. But I'm taking my friend's advice and I will make this cake this Christmas. And probably a lot of other times as well.

Batter

• a scant ½ cup of butter
• a scant ½ cup of sugar (same amount as butter)
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup flour
• ½ tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of cinnamon

Topping

• 1 1/4 cups apple cubes
• 1 cup of créme fraiche
• 2 tsp vanilla-infused sugar (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 1 tsp of potato flour
• ½ cup cashew nuts and almonds
• 3 tbs sugar

Grease the springform baking tin ø 7.5-9 inces. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the room-temperatured butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat all the time. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and add to the dough mixture and stir thoroughly. Spread the dough on the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle the apple cubes on top. Stir in the cream, vanilla sugar/extract and potato flour and pour the mixture over the apple cubes. Sprinkle the almonds, nuts and sugar on top. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes on the lower level. Let cool to almost room temperature, remove the ring and slide the cake onto a plate. Pour caramel sauce over the cake just before serving.

I made the caramel sauce myself, but naturally you can also use store-bought. I bet you already have a great caramel sauce recipe yourself, so I'm not going to try to translate mine with awkward, imprecise measurements.

Double chocolate rolls

I baked these on Saturday. We had the pleasure of expecting friends for several days on a row and I decided that it was the perfect excuse to try out a new recipe. This is from the Leivotaan magazine I mentioned in my last H54F post. These are kind of like cinnamon rolls, but with a chocolate filling instead. My version had about half and half semi-dark chocolate chips and grated white chocolate, the latter which was mixed in with the filling. The recipe called for vanilla sugar but I blissfully forgot to add it, although had some at home. It was delicious even without it.

Double chocolate rolls

20 pieces

150 g / 2/3 cups butter

500 ml / ½ quart milk

50 g / 1 3/4 oz fresh yeast

100 ml / a scant ½ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

1400-1500 ml / 6 - 6 1/3 cups flour

Filling

100 g / 3.5 oz butter, at room temperature

200 ml / a scant cup confectioner's sugar

1 tbl vanilla sugar

200 g / approx ½ pound chocolate, grated

For decoration

1 egg

confectioner's sugar

50 g / 1 3/4 oz chocolate, melted

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the milk and heat up to 37 C / 99 F. Crumble the fresh yeast into a bowl. Pour the warm liquid on top and let the yeast dissolve into it. Add the sugar, salt and then the flour little by little. Knead until smooth. Let rise under a cloth for about 40 minutes.

Make the filling. Mix together the butter, confectioner's sugar and vanilla sugar (and I mixed the grated white chocolate). 

Pour the dough into a lightly floured surface and knead. Divide in two. Roll both pieces into a rectangular sheet. Spread the filling on to the sheets (and I sprinkled the chocolate chips on top.) Roll the sheets of dough. Cut both rolls into 10 pieces and place them on a paper covered baking sheet the cutted side up. Let rise under a cloth for about 30 minutes. Set the oven on 200 C / 390 F.

Brush the rolls with egg and bake in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes until they gain a nice color.

Let cool. Melt the chocolate. Sieve confectioner's sugar on top of the rolls and decorate with the melted chocolate.


For my Finnish-speaking readers:

Pulla suklaalla & vaniljalla

20 kpl

150 g voita
5 dl maitoa
50 g hiivaa
1 dl sokeria
½ tl suolaa
14-15 dl venhäjauhoja

Täyte
100 g voita, huoneenlämpöisenä
2 dl tomusokeria
1 rkl vaniljasokeria
200 g tummaa tai vaaleaa suklaata rouhittuna

Koristeluun
1 muna
tomusokeria
50 g tummaa suklaata sulatettuna

Sulata voi kattilassa. Lisää joukkoon maito ja lämmitä 37-asteiseksi. Murenna hiiva kulhoon. Kaada päälle lämmin neste ja liota hiiva siihen. Lisää sokeri, suola ja vähän kerrallaan jauhot. Alusta taikina tasaiseksi. Anna kohota leivinlinan alla noin 40 minuuttia.

Tee täyte. Sekoita yhteen voi, tomusokeri ja vaniljasokeri (ja minä sekoitin myös valkosuklaamurskan).

Kaada taikina jauhotetulla leivinpöydälle ja alusta. Jaa taikina kahteen osaan. Kauli kumpikin osa suorakaiteen muotoiseksi levyksi. Levitä täyte taikinalevyjen päälle (ja minä ripottelin myös chocolate chipsit). Kääri taikinalevyt rullaksi kääretortun tapaan. Leikkaa molemmat rullat 10 palaksi ja nosta ne leikkauspinta ylöspäin leivinpaperilla päällystetylle uunipellille. Anna kohota leivinliinan alla noin 30 minuuttia. Laita uuni lämpenemään 200 asteeseen.

Voitele pullat munalla ja paista keskitasolla 15-20 minuuttia, kunnes pullat saavat kauniin värin.

Anna jäähtyä. Sulata suklaa. Siivilöi pullien päälle tomusokeria ja kuorruta suklaalla.

Cake, wonderful cake!

Photo from here

Man, did this cake taste good! I made it for a friend's birthday party. I forgot to take a picture of it, but mine looked pretty much the same, except my top wasn't quite as smooth and my filling quite as thick (my vanilla sauce didn't whip well enough). And I didn't have berries on top. It still looked pretty good though. I've never used rye crisp bread in a crust before, but it worked like a dream and gave it a little edge. The quark used in the filling is also probably unfamiliar to many non-Finnish readers. After a little googling, I found various options to sub quark. Mine was by the Finnish brand Valio and their seasoned quark with raspberry and blueberry (or more precisely bilberry). So if you are using self-made or unseasoned quark, you can add blueberries/bilberries and raspberries in it. The jam made of this combination is called queen's jam, but don't ask my why... Maybe the color reminds of regality? Anyway, definitely give a thumbs up for this dessert! Here's the link of the recipe for Finnish speakers, and below is my attempt for translation.

Blueberry cake with rye crisp bread crust

Crust

75 g / 2/3 stick of butter
50 ml / 1/5 cups of brown sugar
100 g / 3½ oz rye crisp bread
2 tbl milk

Filling

5 sheets of gelatin
200 ml / a scant cup of whippable vanilla sauce or cream
400 g / 1 3/4 cup quark, seasoned with blueberries and raspberries
150 ml / 2/3  cup blueberry soup
50 ml / 1/5 cups of sugar
5 tbl lemon juice

Glaze

200 ml / a scant cup of blueberry soup
sugar and pectin
I don't know the measurements, because I use a Finnish product that has both of them, so just follow the instructions in your pectin product, there probably are some for making a glaze.

Instructions:

Use cling wrap to protect the inside and bottom of your springform pan for colorization. Foil the bottom with baking paper as well.

Mix the brown sugar with the melted butter.  Grind the rye crisps into a powder. Mix all the crust ingredients together. Spread the mix onto the bottom of the springform pan. Don't press too hard.

Put the gelatin sheets into cold water to soften.

Whip the vanilla sauce/cream with a mixer. (If cream, season with some sugar and vanilla extract.)

Mix together the quark, berry soup and sugar.

Melt the gelatin in hot lemon juice. Pour into the quark mix slowly, mixing the filling at the same time.

Add the vanilla foam last in the mix.

Pour on top of the crust. Let set in the fridge overnight or at least 5 hours.


Sieve the seeds from the berry soup. Make the glaze according to the instructions on the pectin package. Spoon on top of the filling. Let set.

A sturdy bread

This isn't a new recipe. This is my absolute go-to bread recipe. Only the pan is new. It's the same pan I about at The Knitting Baker's Facebook page (go ahead and click like!) on Friday. I have two silicon bread molds that are losing their shape and I got tired of that and invested 5 Euros to the red bread pan in the back of the picture. And making that bread was the test run for this new pan. Score! I love it how sturdy the bread is!

Another new thing when baking this bread was an invention of my hubby's. The bread seems to need the full 30 minutes in the oven, or it stays a little too moist and slightly doughy and falls apart a little when cutting. The temperature is so hot, however, that the surface of the bread might burn a little, if the bread is kept in the oven for 30 minutes. Mu hubby suggested I'd try the pizza baking "mode" our new oven has. In that, only the lower heat is on as well as is the fan of the oven. So heat comes from underneath the pan but the fan still spreads it around in the oven so that the surface bakes enough too. I also lowered the temperature a tiny bit, because most recipes advise to do that, if baking with the fan on. This turned out to be the perfect solution. No doughiness or falling apart in the bread, but the surface is as it should be and not too dark. Yay!

I share this recipe again, as it's not in this blog yet. So easy and so good! I implore you to try it! I'll also link the Finnish version here.



500 ml of water, temperature 42 C/107 F
1 dose of dry yeast (11g)
1 dl / ½ cup of flakes (I used bran and wheat crush)
1 dl / ½ cup of rye flour
8-9 dl / 3-4 cups of wheat flour (I used a little less, 7-8 dl)
2 tsp of salt
oil or butter for greasing (with silicone molds you only have to grease it the first time you use it and then every once in a while but not nearly every time)
1 tbl of treacle/molasses

Mix the rye flour, treacle, yeast, salt and flakes in the warm water. Let it be for 30 minutes covered with a towel.

Add the wheat flour into the mixture little by little. The dough should not be too hard! Let it rise for 30 minutes covered with a towel.

Grease the mold, if necessary. Put the dough into the mold. Let it rise for another 30 minutes covered with a towel.

Bake in 250 C /480 F for about 30 minutes.

(Try to) Let it cool down and enjoy!

Bread loaf and carrot rolls

During the last week of school I baked for some of my German learners as well as workmates. For my German learners I made a German apple cake (Apfel-Streuselkuchen) in a pie dish (might post a photo and the recipe later). Halving the recipe, I was left with 25 grams of yeast. Yesterday, I used that to make the loaf breads. It was my first time with that specific recipe, and I wasn't sure, if my bread mold was big enough for the dough, so I made 1½ loaves. A little weird, but I know how to work it the next time. I wasn't faithful to the recipe in some of the ingredients either, so I guess I need to have a fresh try with it some time.

I had three carrots too, which I meant to grate in the bread dough. Forgot. So I decided to make a batch of carrot rolls of them. A very good recipe, yummy bread rolls. A pleased husband, eating my carrot rolls. What better way to start a holiday?

Chocolate tosca cake

We recently moved to a new home (again...!) and have had our work cut out for us arranging things and having to buy some new household appliances. One of the things we bought was a new stove. I love my new one and been excited to experiment with its different functions. For example, the pizzas we made in the new oven were crispier like none before! On this long weekend I decided to try out a new recipe and bake something sweet. Browsing through my favorite sites, this chocolate tosca cake caught my attention. The tosca cake is a Scandinavian pastry, basically a sponge cake with an almond praline on top and it's one of my favorite pastries. This recipe, however, gives a little twist to the traditional tosca cake as its tosca is made with chocolate instead of butter. Also the base has a little orange flavor in it. I really liked this, not least because of its chocolatiness :) It was really easy and quick too. The recipe in Finnish can be found on Valio's website where I took it. Below is the translated recipe, hope the American measurements make sense. I would love some feedback whether the recipes sound plausible with the American measurements. I have had to round some corners in them to make the amounts sensible.

Ingredients

4 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

a full 1 1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup butter

1/ cup orange juice

1/2 orange marmalade

Frosting

7 oz semi-dark chocolate

1 1/4 cup sliced almonds

1/3 cup sugar

(1 tbl almond liquor)

1 1/2 tbl flour

1/4 qt cream

On top

crushed pistachios of almonds 

Whisk the eggs and sugar into a light, thick foam. Combine the dry ingredients. Melt the butter and add into it the orange juice and marmalade. Mix the dry ingredients and the orange-butter-combination to the egg-sugar foam. Pour onto a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake in the middle of the oven in 390 F for 15 minutes. Meanwhile make the frosting: measure all the ingredients into a saucepan. Bring it to boil stirring. Remove from the heat. Pour onto the pre-baked cake. Sprinkle the crushed pistachios/almonds on top. Bake for another 5 minutes.