Mocca Brownies

These brownies date back to my childhood and are essential for all Finns. They are there to comfort and to celebrate birthday.

I changed the topping and the sugars by chance as I did not have any confectioner’s sugar or enough caster sugar.

For one panful you will need:

3 eggs and 3 dl sugar (2 dl caster, 1 dl brown), 150 g melted butter, 5 dl flour, 3 tblsp cocoa, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 dl coffee or milk.

Topping: 2 tblsp butter, 3 tblsp cocoa, 2 tblsp coffee, chopped pistachios

Whisk the eggs and butter.

Mix the det ingredients. Mix the cooled butter, coffee and flour mixture to the eggs little by little. Fi not mix too hard.

Pour on a vai g run covered with baking papper. Bake 15 min in 200 C.

Let cool. Mix the topping. Spread it on the cake and sprinkle on the pistachios. Cut to serving side and ENJOY!

Mocca brownies aka mokkapalat

Favourite Mudcake

My cravings for sweet choclaty desserts continue. Yesterday I tried this favourite recipe with a new topping.

For the cake you will need:

100 g butter, 2 eggs, 1 dl sugar, 1 dl flour, 3/4 dl cocoa and 1 tsp vanilla

Pre-heat the oven to 175 C. Grease a cake tin with a removable bottom.

1. Melt the butter.
2. Beat the eggs and sugar.
3. Mix the dry ingredient.
4. Mix in with the eggs and sugar little by little alternating with pouring in the cooled butter little by little.
5. Pour in the cake tin and bake for 20 minutes.

Make the topping.

1. Cook 1/2 dl double cream. Melt 90 g dark chocolate (70%). Pour over the cooled cake.
2. Add some crushed choclate-mint candy.

Healthier Mud Cake

This healthy cake by Catarina König has become my favourite. I have started to bake a small one so that I would not feel that guilty eating up half the cake.

I use a small cake tin with a removable bottom (20 cm in diameter). For this you need: 6 pitted dates, 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp coconut oil, 1 egg, 1 dl almond flour, 1/2 baking powder, 2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1 tsp vanilla and a pinch of salt. Additionally, coconut oil and flour for the cake tin.

Turn on the oven to 175 C.

Take out your kitchen aid and start with mixing the dates, honey and coconut oil. Add the egg and let the machine work for 10 minutes. Mix the dry ingredients and turn them in the cake batter. Pour in a greased form lined with coconut. Leave 1 cm to the sides. Bake in 175 C for 8 minutes leaving it a bit undone as any proper mud cake.

Serve as such or with fruit, berries, icecream or natural yoghurt.

 

Oatmeal Bake

One of my colleagues shared this cake recipe last week and I tried it out yesterday when my sisters were coming over. 

This is really tasty and so easy to make, takes only 15 minutes.

For a panful you need: 200 g butter, 8 dl oatmeal, 3 sugar (I put in 1/3 brown and 2/3 caster sugar, 3 tbsp syrup (I used a mix of agave and sugar cane syrup) and 3 tbsp milk. 

Start with melting the butter. Turn on the oven to 200 C. Mix the dry ingredients, add the syrup and milk, and last the butter. Cover an oven pan with a baking sheet and spread the cake mix on it. Bake for 10 minutes and cut into squares before it cools completely. 

Caramel Ginger Cookies

Today called for a repeat of ginger cookies. These are so quick to make and easy to bake.

For a batch you need 100 g butter, 1 dl brown sugar, 2 tbsp agave syrup, 2 1/4 dl flour, 2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp baking powder.

Mix the butter and sugar. Add the syrup. Then mix together all the dry ingredients and turn them into the butter -sugar mixture.

Roll out to  a thin sheet with a rolling pin. I do put the dough between to baking sheets. Place the sheet on a baking tin and bake in 175 C for ten minutes.

Let cool for a bit and cut with a cutter. Enjoy!

I could eat half of the tin immediately. See how lovely golden brown they are! And perfect on my second-hand give-away China plate.

#42 raw gingerbread cake bites

It’ll be 1st advent this Sunday and tonight half of Finns are out in Christmas parties. We had the company party last Friday, an 80’s one and it’s a cozy evening at home tonight.

I strolled home through the old town after work admiring the lights and decorations. The shopping streets getting ready for the parade tomorrow. Not many customers yet and a handful of tourists with their cameras.

Then it is time for some Christmassy bites. Lovely no-bake cake bites is what I made, the recipe directly from the THursday’s paper made in less than a half and hour.

For a portion you will need

200 g pitted dates, 1 dl oatmeal, 1 dl almond flour, 1.5 tsp gingerbread spice mix

Mix all the ingredients in a food processor and roll small balls usinfpg about half a tablespoon each. I rolled them then in cinnamon and placed in jar.

The bites taste like gingerbread dough that I can never get enough of but it is many times healtheir – sugar, fat and gluten free.

 

#34 Apple Cake with Almond Flour

Apples, apples and apples everywhere. This year the harvest is so abundant.

Friends have come over to pick them and we’ve made juice, cakes and pies, jam and puréed  them, put them into pots with pork and baked with vegetables. This is a new recipe I tried, the almond and the easiness attracted me. This originates @lantlivet, a Swedish lifestyle magazine.

for a cake you need

75 g butter, 1 dl sugar, 1 dl brown sugar, 1 dl flour, 1 dl almond flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 eggs, 2 apples and cinnamon

Peel and cut the apples into wedges. Sprinkle  with 2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp brown sugar. Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Grease a cake tin. Melt the butter. Mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix the butter, dry ingredients and the eggs.

Pour the batter in the cake tin and place the apples wedges on the top. Press them into the batter. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with ice cream. This is so yummy! Even the batter is delish and I’d be happy to eat a bowlful .

#33 Dutch Apple Loaf

There is an abundance of apples again this autumn. I was inspired my one of the breakfast loafs at my hotel in the Netherlands last week and started to google for a recipe. This is not exactly the same but delicious. I have used the recipe at An Italian in my Kitchen blog and changed the amount of apples (from one to five small ones) and changed the whole milk into water. Also mixed white caster sugar and brown sugar.

For one loaf you need: 125 g butter, 1/2 cup caster sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, one egg, 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder,  2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup water, 5 small apples (the size of an egg)

Turn the oven to 180 C. Line a bread loaf with baking paper. Peel and dice the apples. Mix one tbsp of the brown sugar with the apples.

Mix the soft butter and sugar. Add the egg, whisked.

Mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients and the water into the butter-sugar batter.

Spoon into the loaf tin and bake for about 55 minutes.

#Gluten-free Coconut-berry-chocolate Cake

It was my big sister’s birthday last week and I had promised to bake her a cake. A gluten-free one. I started planning and browsing the net for different recipes because I don’t have any gluten-free ones.

First, I settled for a lovely picture of what I thought would be a cherry cake and started baking. In the making of the cake, I realised that it was a French pancake recipe. Then I turned to Pinterest and found these lovely layer cakes @callmecupcake my Linda Lomelino. The recipe sounded good and certainly I can bake a ‘roll cake’, I thought. The chocolate-Nutella cake turned out delicious but it looked like a cake for two and took a lop-sided shape of the Pisa tower! What was wrong? Was the thought of my niece who is to be a bakery chef too much of a challenge that made my cakes flop? Still in the morning of the birthday I did not have a cake ready and it would be humiliating to take her a bakery cake.

It was a Thursday morning, the birthday, and the day for the food section in the paper (Helsingin Sanomat). This time the story would be on cakes! This coconut cake is the recipe from the supplement and by Suvi Ruster. It was a success and the following day I baked another one (with ordinary flows and no chocolate topping).

Coconut cake bottom: 100 g butter, 2 eggs, 1 dl milk, 2 dl sugar, 2 tsp psyllium husk, 4.5 dl gluten-free flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 dl coconut flakes, 1 tsp vanilla, butter for the form.

Berry filling: 5 dl mixed berries, 1/2 dl sugar, zest of a lime, 2 tbsp potato flour.

Chocolate topping: 100 g butter, 100 g dark chocolate and 1 dl cream

Topping: mixed berries and fruit

Turn the oven on to 200 C. Melt the sugar and let cool for a while. Whisk in the milk and eggs, and the psyllium. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes. Mix all the dry ingredients together and whisk them into the butter-milk mixture.

Grease a cake thin with removable bottom and pour in the batter. Pour on the berry mixture and press the berries into the batter. Bake for 30-40 minutes until done.

Let the cake cool and decorate with berries. Pour on the chocolate topping and finish with chocolate candy.

The cake was a success, and actually the “Pisa cake” too. We enjoyed them both with ice cream.

I baked another one the following day for another sister. I replaced the psyllium with oats and used ordinary flour. The filling and topping in both the cakes were black, red and white currants,  raspberries, goose berries and cherries, all from my garden.

#29 No Fat Banana Rhubarb Bread

I am still trying to discover new ways to use rhubarb and the other day I was wondering how it would work in bread like banana bread. After a bit of googling I was convinced that it would work ok, and decided to try this recipe found at Kim’s Cravings (www.kimscravings.com). Thanks Kim for a wonderful recipe!

I’ve modified the original recipe as always, according to the contents of my cup board.

For one loaf you will need

1.5 cup of flour (spelt and graham), 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp all spice, 2 eggs, 1 cup banana (one large, I used a frozen one), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla,  1 cup chopped rhubarb

Line a bread tin with parchment paper and set you oven to 175 C (350 F). Mix together all the dry ingredients.

Beat the eggs, add the smashed (thawed) banana, sugar and vanilla. Turn in the flour mixture carefully and then the rhubarb. Pour into the bread tin.

Bake until done, ca 40 min.