This Year's Raspberry Cream Cake

My family loves raspberry cream cake, and we used to get delicious ones at a local bakery. The last one we got was overpriced and underwhelming, so we've sworn off them and I occasionally remember to make one, usually when local raspberries are in season. I used to want to recreate that bakery cake, but I always end up making something completely different. That's okay, because I can still remember the other cake fondly while I'm gorging on raspberries, cake and cream. This one was exactly like the fraisier I made for the July Daring Bakers' challenge. Okay, not exactly. I used raspberries, skipped the almond paste and soaking syrup, and added lots of lemon zest to the cake batter. The verdict? Delicious.
Here's the link to that recipe because I'm far too lazy to type it up.
:)

Update: I am still not home! I'm enjoying my last week in Ecuador, and thinking of all the things I'll miss and making plans to return. I know my last post said I was on my way, but that was a mix-up on my part. I had lots of auto posts scheduled but the death of my computer while I was here buggered that up a bit. Anyway, enjoy some cake and I'll see you in a week or so!

Raspberry and Honey Cranachan

This is my last auto-scheduled post, and I should be on a plane home by the time this is posted. I can't wait to get back to my own kitchen to bake up some Thanksgiving goodies!

I used red and golden raspberries, along with tayberries

Funny name, isn't it? Now, if I was one of those bloggers that did tons of research into how foods got their names, I'd have a story to tell. But I'm not that person. What I can tell you is that this dessert is Scottish and delicious. When I went to Edinburgh for work, this was one of the things on my to-do list. I wasn't sure how to pronounce it, but I knew that any combination of raspberries, cream, whisky and oats was bound to be amazing. I tried it in a few places just to confirm, because I do believe in some kinds of research. I even ate this combination atop hot oatmeal at a very cool spot at the Edinburgh Farmers' Market called Stoats Oats. It was a porridge bar where you could get any number of interesting toppings on your bowl of oatmeal. It was July, but freezing and pouring rain, so this was a Saturday morning treat. Here's the link to the breakfast dish, but I recommend you have the dessert version. This would also be delicious with stewed rhubarb (of course!) or other berries or cherries in season.

Raspberry and Honey Cranachan
Source: River Cottage Every Day
Serves 4
50 grams rolled oats
2 tablespoons whisky
250 ml double or whipping cream
2 tablespoons honey
250 grams raspberries

1. Warm a small frying pan over low heat. Add rolled oats and stir until they are golden and toasted. Watch carefully as they burn easily. Transfer to a plate to cool.
2. Stir the whisky and cream together and whisk until it holds soft peaks. Lightly crush a few of the raspberries so their juices run. I didn't crush them enough, so my cream was pale and full of whole berries. Not as pretty, but tasty. Fold all the raspberries, honey and oats into the cream, spoon into small glasses or bowls and serve immediately.

Berry Galette

Do you have a dessert that you make regularly? Or do you flit from one recipe to the next? I do a bit of both but more often I make something for a while, then completely forget about it. This galette is a good example of that. I've been making it since Baking with Julia was published in 1996, but these days I am always trying something new and it got pushed aside. What a shame, as this is a beautiful dough to work with, even if you are not fond of making and rolling out pastry. It comes together quickly in the food processor and stays soft enough to roll easily, even right out of the fridge. Fill it with any sort of berries you like (except strawberries--too watery), stone fruit or even pineapple chunks. 

Galette Dough

From Baking with Julia, contributing baker Flo Braker

Makes 2 large or 8 small

3 tablespoons yogurt/buttermilk/sour cream

about ⅓ cup ice water

1 cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 6 to 8 pieces

1. Stir the yogurt and ice water together and set aside. Put the flour, cornmeal sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse 8 to 10 times, or until the mixture is speckled with butter pieces. With the machine running, add the yogurt mixture and process just until the dough forms soft, moist curds.
2. Divide the dough into 2 or 6 pieces and press each into a disc. Wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. It can also be frozen and thawed in the fridge.

Berry Galette

½ recipe galette dough

1½ cups mixed fresh berries (I used raspberries, blackberries and blueberries)

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter (I usually omit this, preferring to serve it with scads of whipped cream)

1. Preheat oven to 400℉/200℃. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about ¹⁄₈"/0.3cm thick. The dough is soft and easy to roll, but lift and turn it and add more flour if necessary so that it doesn't stick. Transfer to the parchment lined baking sheet.
3. Place the berries on top and sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon sugar. Fold the uncovered border of dough up over the edge of the berries, allowing it to pleat. Dip a pastry brush in water and coat the edge lightly, then sprinkle with sugar (I used a mixture of coarse decorating sugar and chopped pistachios).
4. Bake the large galette for 35-40 minutes, and the smaller ones for about 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and crisp and the berry juices are starting to run. Place the baking sheet on a cooling rack and cool for about 10 minutes before sliding it off the parchment to continue cooling.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature. This is best the day it is made.

See you on the 14th for my Daring Cooks' Challenge reveal! 

Citrus-berry terrine

Not sure what I can tell you about this, except that it was delicious! I made a half recipe sometime back in June, with oranges and an assortment of berries and enjoyed it for dessert with whipped cream, for breakfast (it's just fruit after all) and probably for lunch too, as I needed to clean out the fridge before leaving town. I may even have had it for a midnight snack if the photos of it sliced are any indication. So, you get the big picture and the end piece, okay? 

This is a French Fridays post--we don't publish recipes. Thanks to Laws of the Kitchen for being in a much earlier time zone--I was avoiding packing last night and saw her post, which reminded me to put my own up.

Lemon Mascarpone Layer Cake

Have you been over to my place for dinner yet? You should come. The food's good and so is the conversation. It's the getting there that's a struggle. You see, preparations for a dinner party follow a very predictable course chez Mary. Basically a dinner invitation means I want to cook up something I've never made before. I am not one of those people who goes for the tried and true. Once I finally decide on a menu, I procrastinate extensively. The day of the dinner party dawns, and is usually spent in a frenzy of cooking, cleaning, shopping, and just lying around, hoping it all magically gets done on its own. As the afternoon progresses, I look at the clock, wondering if there's anything I can skip. That is why you should never look in my closets. The laundry might fall over and smother you. As the minute of the guests' arrival approaches, I usually jump in the shower and then panic when I realize I've forgotten something crucial, like cleaning the bathtub. What? Well, you never know. The consummate hostess is prepared for everything. 

Last month I had the pleasure of welcoming some good friends from Australia, along with their son and his grandmother, for dinner. I used to work with L in Toronto, where we also had some fun kitchen adventures. I'm giggling remembering the Benriner episode, the double cardamom shortbread fail, and the pumpkin ravioli. Oh, and cringed when I remembered T eating the whole cayenne pepper I had forgotten to fish out of a curry. L and T had also been my guests many times in Toronto and knew the drill. They used to pace outside on my driveway, waiting for the appointed time, not knowing what they'd find if they showed up early. Smart people! I don't mind lateness too much, being chronically late myself, but I think being early is insufferable for all involved.

Anyway, they were most considerately 90 minutes late, and I was pretty well ready when they got here. I had even managed to get a photo of the cake, even though it was a grim, grey and rainy day. L is a photographer, so I stressed about this a bit. We had a simple, but delicious menu of orange and olive salad, chicken, spinach and tomatillo tacos, refried black beans, and this cake. The only thing that wasn't homemade were the corn tortillas, and they were awful--soggy and falling apart. Next time I will be better prepared and make them myself. Ha! No really. I actually had to run to the store to get them, with not much time to spare, and some jerk yelled at me because my umbrella and his wife's caught, soaking us both. 
The cake was nice, but I think it could have been better. The frosting, with the mascarpone and lemon curd was delicious--creamy and not too sweet. The cake seemed a bit floury and didn't rise as much as I would have liked, meaning I couldn't divide the layers. That meant there was a tiny layer in the middle where the syrup didn't reach. I don't think anyone else noticed, but it bothered me. Also, the cake wasn't as lemony as I would have liked. Next time I make this, I'll use a genoise from The Cake Bible and add use passionfruit curd instead of lemon. The raspberries were my addition, and I loved the texture and tart, winey flavour they added.

This cake had a lot of components, but it didn't take that long to put together. Or maybe I was just running on warp speed. Start the day before your dinner party, as the finished cake needs to sit overnight.
:)
Cake recipe after the jump!

Quest for rhubarb, and a crisp

I went to 8 stores in one day and all I brought you was this lousy picture. Sorry. The day the April recipes were announced I started looking for rhubarb, as I'd already been craving it for a while. I went to half a dozen stores, but no luck. I didn't worry too much, as I still had a week before leaving town, The next week the quest started in earnest. I tried everywhere but the closest I came was a shelf labelled 'rhubarb' in the freezer of a health food store. Even the fancy fruit store didn't have any imported rhubarb. What to do? Skipping the recipe was out of the question. I almost bought a jar of rhubarb jam, but worried that it'd be too sweet. I finally found a $7.00 jar of Bon Maman rhubarb compote, which didn't look like much, but was only lightly sweetened.

Of course, nice strawberries were out of the question--I didn't even bother looking for those. I don't love cooked strawberries anyway, so I used frozen raspberries instead. I halved the sugar in the filling and doubled the rhubarb, making the filling a tart contrast to the sweet topping. The bits of candied ginger in the crisp part were a nice touch, but I did find the filling a bit gloopy from the cornstarch. I'll reduce that next time. I ate this for breakfast, dinner and dessert for the last week before my trip and I can't wait to get back home to my oven to make more!

Thanks so much to Sarah from Teapots and Cakestands for choosing this recipe. She'll have the recipe on her site. As always, you will find links to all the takes on this recipe at the TWD site.

The Daring Bakers make crostata

This month's challenge was to make a crostata dough and fill it with our choice of anything at all. Time ran out on me, as it usually does, as I really wanted to make a savoury one. I did manage to make 2 small crostate, but I'll definitely have to come back to this one, especially as I still have some of the pastry in the freezer. The first one I made, shown above, was blind-baked and  filled with passion fruit curd and topped with raspberries. It tasted like summer, which is a treat, considering it's been alternating between freezing rain and snow here for the last 24 hours. You can find the recipe for the passion fruit curd here. 

The other one I made was filled with homemade applesauce and fresh blackberries. I find that a very English combination, but it was fantastic in the pasta frolla crust. I actually liked the crust better in this one--it was not as crisp and flaky, but very tasty from the filling. I topped it with a lattice and sprinkled it with raw sugar. I served this with whipped cream on the side, but it didn't need it at all. I had some warm and some cold and liked it both ways. 

Before topping and baking

Blog-checking lines:
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.

After a bite or two

Full challenge PDF here. Thanks for a great challenge, Simona! Take a look at the Daring Kitchen to see a slideshow of all the lovely crostate this month.

Raspberry shortbread, or maybe cake?

• I don't love cranberries.
• I don't need a big, possibly dry cookie thing hanging around.
• I haven't got any soft butter.
• It gets dark just after 4:00, thanks to Daylight Savings, or Standard Time, or whatever it is. I am living in the wrong place to take photos after work.
• My oven is horrible.

These were just some of the excuses I came up with for not doing this week's recipe.

• And why do cranberries have to be in everything at this time of year?

That was just me whining a bit.

Then I got over it, softened accidentally melted some butter, and perused my jam cupboard. I have half a dozen types of homemade jam, but decided to make a quick raspberry sauce to keep with the red theme. I added the zest and juice of an orange, some sugar and boiled it till it thickened a bit. I quartered the recipe and made 2 little cakes. I ate one right away, and it was good, even though it got a bit too dark around the edges, and the 'jam' was too runny to fit much in the crust. I may have to experiment with other types of jam. But not cranberry--you turkey lovers can have it. You know you're going to need it.

Thanks for the pick, Jessica! I'm glad I got over myself and made it. :)
Oh, and there's an interview with Dorie on Leite's Culinaria. Check it out. Here's the link.

Raspberry cream cake

Yikes, where have I been? Well, I moved, meaning that all of my stuff is packed. I put it in storage, so I'm not sure when I'll see all my favourite kitchen tools again. Sniff, sniff. Right now I'm in Toronto for the month, working. I am staying in a lovely condo downtown, and, while the kitchen is nice, no normal person has as much kitchen gear as I do. That said, I may still try to throw a few things together while I'm here. I made this cake in the week between my move and coming here. I was staying part of the time at my mother's, and part of the time at a friend's place. I made this at my mother's for my family, as we all love raspberries and cream. 

I used to get a raspberry cream cake for my birthday every year from a local bakery in my family's small town. One year, though, we were really disappointed. The cake was tough and the cream tasted fake. We (I) complained to the bakery, but they said there was nothing wrong with it. Needless to say, we never got another one. I had forgotten about it, but decided to try my hand at it, as it really is quite a simple cake. The bakery cake was different from this one in that it had a layer of cooked raspberries separate from the cream, but I didn't want to cook the lovely fresh raspberries I had picked up at the market. 

I made an angel food cake using this recipe, minus the ginger. It shrank a bit in the last few minutes of baking, but was moist and fluffy and sweet, and, really, what else do you want from an angel food cake? I cut the top inch off and made a tunnel. After eating the cake scraps, I filled the tunnel with a mixture of mashed raspberries and sweetened whipped cream. I put the top back on and iced it with more whipped cream. It was light, yet very creamy, sweet and tart all at the same time. These pictures are all of different slices of the cake, which was just an excuse to eat more of it!

This cake must be chilled, and the filling needs a few hours to set for the neatest slices. It keeps for about 2 days, but after that the filling started to weep a bit. Not that that stopped us from eating it. 

Rhuberry raspbarb crumble

Did you know that buckwheat and rhubarb are related? Not sure where I learned that, but when I saw this crumble using buckwheat and almonds I knew it would have to wait till rhubarb season. It was worth it!
Since I am down to the green rhubarb I added a handful of raspberries to the filling for their gorgeous colour. This is a super simple recipe, and it was so delicious--very tart fruit with a sweet topping. I bet it would be lovely with cream or ice cream, but I enjoyed it all by itself. The topping is more sandy than crisp, so I may add a handful of oats next time, or just squeeze it together so it's chunkier.

Here's my take on the recipe linked above, from Cannelle et Vanille:

Preheat oven to 350℉/180℃. Line a baking sheet with parchment, unless you like cleaning up boiled-over fruit goo. 

220 grams rhubarb, sliced or diced

80 grams raspberries (I used frozen)

1 teaspoon vanilla or extrait antillais (vanilla, tonka bean, sapote, mace)

50 grams sugar

10 grams cornstarch

Mix together and divide amongst small ramekins. I got 3 using these amounts. Remember that the rhubarb will slump dramatically, so fill them to near the top.

Combine in a food processor

50 grams buckwheat flour

50 grams almond flour (I used sliced almonds and saved some to sprinkle on top)

50 grams sugar

a pinch of salt

Add 50 grams of cold, unsalted butter, cut in cubes, and process until crumbs form, but it should not come together!

Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes, or until fruit just starts to bubble over. Let cool for at least 10 seconds before devouring.