Tag: dessert

Mixed Berries Pavlova

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Australians and New Zealanders still argue over who invented this cake.

Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova toured Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. In her honor, they created this famous cake during or after one of her tours.

I guess we’ll never know who really made it first. We can just enjoy the cake 😀

I used mixed berries for this Pavlova. Berries have that sourness and freshness that goes perfectly with sweet meringue. You can use any fruit instead.

Since you only need egg whites for this cake, you can use the yolks to prepare soft and crumbly jam cookies.

Ingredients

For the crust

  • 4 egg whites
  • 200 g (1 cup) granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp vinegar (I used apple cider)

For the cream

  • 600 ml (2 1/2 cup) heavy cream
  • 1 tbsp powdered sugar
  • 300 to 400 g ( 2 to 2 1/2 cups) mixed berries

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 140 °C (285 °F).
  2. On baking paper, draw a circle 18 cm in diameter.
  3. Mix the egg whites until you get a very stiff mixture and little by little add sugar, vanilla and vinegar, and mix until the mixture is firm.
  4. Pour the mixture onto the drawn circle, straighten a little and dry for 60 minutes at 140 °C.
  5. After 60 minutes, turn off the oven and leave the crust in to dry a bit more.
  6. Take it out and leave it for a few hours to dry.
  7. Remove it carefully from the baking paper.
  8. Beat the heavy cream with one tablespoon of sugar and spread over the baked meringue.
  9. Decorate with fruit of your choice and place in the refrigerator to cool well.

What is your favorite fruit to use on the Pavlova cake?

Marble Cake

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

The first print references to marble cake began appearing in the last quarter of the 19th century. One popular variation of this recipe during Victorian times was “Harlequin cake”, which was baked with checker-board patterns. Early recipes use molasses and spices to achieve the dark-colored batter.

Today, we use cocoa and it tastes like a having a piece of chocolate with your sponge cake 😀

This, easy to make, simple cake is usually served around Easter, but I usually make it on the weekends when I don’t plan on baking but still crave something sweet, since all the ingredients are in my staple.

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs divided
  • 280 g (1 1/3 cups) granulated sugar
  • 20 g (1 1/2 tbsp) vanilla sugar
  • zest from one lemon
  • 120 g (1/2 cup) softened unsalted butter
  • 10 tbsp milk
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 280 g (2 1/2 cup) all purpose flour
  • 10 g (2 1/2 tsp) baking powder
  • 2 tbsp cocoa
  • 2 tbsp rum (optional)

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 200 °C (390 °F).
  2. Separate egg yolks form egg whites in two separate bowls.
  3. Mix in self standing mixer or with electric beater egg yolks and sugar until foamy.
  4. Add vanilla sugar, lemon zest and butter. Mix until combined.
  5. Add progressively milk and oil, and at the end alternately mix in flour mixed with baking powder.
  6. Beat egg whites until stiff.
  7. With spatula, mix in egg white mixture in the egg yolk mixture until combined.
  8. Divide prepared batter into two parts.
  9. In one part add cocoa and rum.
  10. Greased pan sprinkle with bread crumbs, pour the yellow batter and then the brown batter.
  11. Bake the cake in preheated oven at 200 °C (390 °F) for 20 min and another 30 min on 150 °C (300 °F) until golden brown.
  12. After the cake is done, cool it off on the rack.
  13. Before serving sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Do you have your go to cake when craving something sweet?

Fig Tartelettes

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

In Croatia, getting fresh produce was easy and accessible. Many of our friends and acquaintances had their own gardens and orchards sharing their produce. I got some fresh figs from Dalmatia as a gift and they ended up in tartelettes 🙂
They were as sweet as honey, and as smooth as butter. Enjoy this easy to make tartelettes recipe and try it out with other fruits if you are not a fan of figs 😉

Ingredients (for 6 tartelettes)

For the shortcrust pastry

  • 220 g (2 cups) all purpose flour
  • 50 g (4 tbsp) granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 130 g (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, diced
  • 1 egg, beaten

For the filling

  • 5-6 fresh ripe figs
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • oatmeal for sprinkle

Preparation

  1. With electric mixer, in a bowl, mix together flour, salt and sugar until combined.
  2. Add butter, and mix until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  3. Gradually stream beaten egg into the flour mixture and knead until the dough comes together.
  4. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface and shape into a flattened disk.
  5. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 25-30 minutes.
  6. While the dough rests in the fridge, prepare the filling.
  7. Mix figs with maple syrup with hand mixer until smooth.
  8. Preheat oven to 180 °C (355 °F).
  9. Butter a six mold muffin pan.
  10. Take the chilled dough, make six equal balls and put each in a muffin mold. Spread the dough in each mold with your hands. Make sure that you covered the whole mold.
  11. Divide the filling so that each tartelette has enough and sprinkle them with oatmeal.
  12. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

This seasonal dessert pairs very well with Chicken Paprikash as main course.

Do you have access to fresh produce for your cooking creations?

Blackberry Oatmeal Squares

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

August screams blackberries! This summer fruit, full of dietary fiber, and vitamins C and K makes it a great choice for making desserts, jams and other sweet goodies.

These easy to make squares can make a quick, healthy, snack for any occasion. You can substitute regular flour and oats with gluten free options according to your preference. For the crunch feeling you may substitute ground walnuts with chopped ones. For that matter, use a nut of your liking. Walnuts are my favorite 🙂

Ingredients

  • 200 g (1 1/2 cup) all-purpose flour
  • 120 g (1 1/2 cup) oats + handful for sprinkling
  • 220 g (1 cup) firmly packed brown sugar + 1 tbsp for sprinkling
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 30 g (1/3 cup) ground walnuts
  • 230 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 300 g (2 cup) fresh blackberries
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar for tossing the blackberries
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 °F).
  2. Cover the baking pan with parchment paper. Spray with non-stick cooking spray or brush with oil.
  3. In a small bowl, toss blackberries with sugar and cornstarch. Set aside.
  4. In the standing mixer bowl combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and walnuts. Mix until fully combined. You can use a hand electrical mixer we well.
  5. Add the softened butter and beat on low speed, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  6. Spoon half of the oatmeal mixture into the prepared pan. Gently press mixture into bottom of the pan.
  7. Top with the coated blackberries.
  8. Sprinkle with remaining oatmeal mixture. NOTE: do not press down on the mixture.
  9. Sprinkle with some oats and sugar.
  10. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown.
  11. Cool completely before slicing.

What else would you use blackberries for?

Strawberry Balsamic Tart with Mascarpone Cream

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Strawberry season is at its peak and there is no better time to share this tart recipe with you. Since my birthday is at beginning of June, I always had strawberry birthday cake as long as I can remember. They bring beautiful memories of my childhood birthday parties and are for sure one of my favorite fruit. I love preparing desserts with them 😀

This simple and delightful tart is perfect for warm spring or summer days. Strawberries and balsamic are epic together, and the addition of fresh basil leaves takes this tart beyond the cake 😉

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Tools you need

  • Mixing bowls in different sizes for all three components: pastry, strawberries and mascarpone cream.
  • Chef’s knife comes handy for cutting the strawberries
  • Cutting board; also useful for cutting strawberries
  • Round tart pan. I recommend two piece pan for easy slicing
  • Measuring spoons because it’s baking, and measuring is the name of the game 😉
  • Measuring cup. See previous point.
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things.
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. Burns hurt and take time to heal. You don’t want to take time off from baking, do you?
  • Whisk to beat the egg.
  • Electric mixer to mix the cream until smooth and fluffy!
  • Spatula for smearing the cream on the tart easily and beautiful.
  • Zester to zest the zest
  • Lemon squeezer to squeeze the… you guessed it, lemons.

Ingredients

For the shortcrust pastry

  • 220 g (2 cups) pastry flour
  • 50 g (4 tbsp) granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 130 g (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, diced
  • 1 egg, beaten

For the balsamic strawberries

  • 800 g (5 cups) fresh strawberries, washed and halved
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 8 fresh basil leaves

For the mascarpone whipped cream

  • 300 g (1 cup) mascarpone cheese
  • 65 g (8 tbsp) powdered sugar
  • zest of 2 lemons
  • 4 tbsp lemon juice
  • 180 ml (12 tbsp) heavy whipping cream

Preparation

For the shortcrust pastry

  1. Preheat oven to 180 °C (355 °F).
  2. Butter a 26 cm round tart pan.
  3. In the bowl mix together flour, salt and sugar until combined.
  4. Add butter, and mix until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
  5. Gradually stream beaten egg into the flour mixture and knead until the dough just comes together.
  6. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface and shape into a flattened disk.
  7. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 25-30 minutes.
  8. Roll the chilled dough on a piece of lightly floured baking paper in a 30 cm circle.
  9. Transfer the rolled dough to your tart pan and press it into the bottom and sides of the pan. Cut off excess dough and prick the bottom with a fork.
  10. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
  11. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

For the balsamic strawberries

  1. Put the strawberries into a large bowl and add sugar and balsamic vinegar.
  2. Bruise basil leaves between your fingers to release the flavor and add to the bowl.
  3. Toss it all together.
  4. Leave it to marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes and then strain.

For the mascarpone whipped cream

  1. In the large bowl mix with electric mixer mascarpone cheese, powdered sugar, lemon zest and juice and beat until creamy.
  2. Add heavy cream and beat on high until you get a fluffy filling.

Once cooled, fill the pastry with mascarpone whipped cream and decorate with marinated strawberries. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving or until needed.

Do you have special cake memories form your childhood?

Istrian Cake with Almonds and Curd

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Although Istria is most famous for its delicious seafood, fish, olive oil and wine, it has a few dessert gems. This Istrian Cake is one of those gems, made from favorite Istrian ingredients such as almonds, lemons and curd. Moist and super tasty traditional cake that you can try in your own kitchen and get a little bit of taste of Croatia 🙂

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Istrian cake with almonds and curd - Istrian region

In addition to the original recipe, after I finished the cake and chilled it, I smeared it with apricot jam and sprinkled with almond shavings. If you cannot get a hold of fresh curd, ricotta would make a perfect substitute.

Tools you need

  • Mixing bowls. Before you can put the ingredients into the round baking pan, you need to mix them somewhere. Mixing bowls to the rescue! Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
  • Round baking pan to make your cake look perfectly round 😀
  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things; alternatively, you can use cups, in which case…
  • Measuring cups. Sometimes when you buy measuring cups, measuring spoons come with them
  • Spatula makes mixing things into other things easier
  • Electric mixer for ultimate combining of your ingredients
  • Zester to zest lemon zest (is there a way to use zest in that sentence again?)
  • Lemon squeezer. You could just use your hands to squeeze lemons if you want to get your hands juicy. Or you could use a lemon squeezer to keep your germs and lemon pits out of the cake. And possibly look fancy while doing it.
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. ‘Nuff said.

Ingredients

  • 250 g (2 cups) curd
  • 250 g (2¾ cups) ground almonds
  • 200 g (14 tbsp) unsalted butter
  • 4 tbsp pastry flour
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 6 eggs separated
  • 250 g (1¾ cups) brown sugar
  • 10 g (4 tsp) vanilla sugar
  • juice of 2 lemons
  • zest of four lemons

Preparation

  1. Combine almonds with ⅓ of sugar, flour and lemon zest and set aside.
  2. In a separate bowl, beat with electric mixer, butter with remaining sugar until sugar is dissolved.
  3. Add egg yolks to butter and sugar mixture.
  4. With spatula in a separate bowl combine curd with lemon juice and honey and mix in to the butter/sugar mixture.
  5. Add almond mixture to curd and butter mixture.
  6. Beat egg whites until stiff and gently stir in with spatula into the rest of the mixture.
  7. Pour the batter into the greased round baking pan.
  8. Bake at 150 °C (300 °F) for 40 min or until the crust gets golden.
  9. After the cake cools completely, smear the apricot jam on top and sprinkle with almond shavings if you wish.
Istrian cake with almonds and curd

Serve chilled 😀

What is your favorite almond cake?

Black Guinness Cake with Cream Cheese Froth

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, I thought I’d share this amazing cake with you! Did you ever try using beer as an ingredient in a cake before?! Done right it tastes amazing, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate this saint than with a beer in one hand and having a slice of beer cake in another (probably on a fork, but really depends on how many other beers you had before) 😀

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Black Guinness Cake with the side of a beer

Tools you need

Springform pan. Perfect shape for your cake in the making.
Chef’s knife. Butter melts faster when cut in pieces 🙂
Whisk for whisking things, as the name implies.
Saucepan for saucing pans heating up beer and butter.
Before you can put the ingredients into the pan, you need to mix them somewhere, mixing bowls to the rescue! Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them.
Measuring cups to measure larger quantities of things than with measuring spoons. (Who comes up with these descriptions?)
Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things.
Spatula to put the froth on the cake and make the whole thing actually look like beer. Important stuff here.
Electric mixer. Mixing is great and all, but doing it by hand can get exhausting. Sometimes you can outsource that work to a family member. Other times you need a bit more power.
Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. ‘Nuff said.
Round serving tray. You can serve a cake on anything, even eat it straight from the pan. It’s round, though, so it’s gonna look best on a round serving tray and there’s plenty to choose from.
Cake stand is a fancier way to display your cake than the serving tray.

Ingredients

Makes 12 slices

For the cake:

  • 250 ml (1 cup) Guinness beer
  • 250 g (1 ⅛ cups) unsalted butter
  • 75 g (¾ cup) cocoa powder
  • 400 g (2 cups) sugar
  • 142 ml (½ cup & 2 tbsp) sour cream
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 275 g (2 ¼ cups) all purpose flour
  • 2 ½ tsp baking soda

For the topping:

  • 300 g (1 ⅕ cups) cream cheese
  • 150 g (1 ½ cup) icing sugar
  • 125 ml (½ cup) whipping cream

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F)
  2. Oil or butter a 23 cm springform pan, dust with flour and set aside.
  3. Pour the Guinness beer into a large wide saucepan, add the sliced butter and heat until the butter is melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
  4. With electric mixer beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and baking soda.
  5. Pour the cake batter into the pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.
  6. When the cake’s cold, place it on a serving tray or a cake stand and start the icing.
  7. Using electric mixer lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, add the icing sugar and then beat them both together until combined.
  8. Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency.
  9. Spread the cream with the spatula on the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous Irish pint.
slice of Black Guinness Cake with the side of a beer

How do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?
What are you favorite St. Patrick’s Day dishes?

Blueberry Cheesecake

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

If you like cheesecake and you like blueberries, you’re going to love this cake.
I feel like all the berries go very well with the cheesecake, but my all time favorite are blueberries 🙂

If you’re used to making cheesecakes, you’re in for a treat. This one comes with a twist. Read on to find out 😉

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Slice of Blueberry Cheesecake

Tools you need

  • Round Baking Pan – perfect shape for your cheesecake in the making
  • Rolling Pin – best tool to crush the cookies 😀
  • Mixing bowls. Before you can put the ingredients into the pan, you need to mix them somewhere. Mixing bowls to the rescue!
    Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them
  • Measuring cups. Sometimes when you buy measuring cups, measuring spoons come with them
  • Lemon squeezer still worth if even for a single tablespoon!
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things
  • Spatula makes mixing things into other things easier
  • Electric mixer. Mixing is great and all, but doing it by hand can get exhausting. Sometimes you can outsource that work to a family member. Other times you need a bit more power.
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. ‘Nuff said.

Ingredients

Unlike other cheesecakes, this one has cottage cheese instead of the cream cheese. It’s less fatty and has more protein. Since fat has more calories than protein for the same weight, this cake will give you fewer calories. You can use cream cheese as well, but it will be greasier, and it won’t add much to the flavor. As a part of Croatian gastronomy heritage, cottage cheese is used in may desserts.

Try this healthier version for maximum indulgence!

For the bottom

For the cream

  • 350 g (2 cups) cottage cheese
  • 2 eggs, divided
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 180 g (7/8 cups) sugar
  • 10 g (0.8 tbsp) vanilla sugar
  • 125 g (1.4 cups) fresh blueberries

For the glaze

  • 200 g (0.8 cups) sour cream with 20% milk fat
  • 60 g (0.4 cups) sugar
  • 10 g (0.8 tbsp) vanilla sugar
  • 125 g (1.4 cups) fresh blueberries

Preparation

Crush the cookies in a zip bag. Melt the butter. Mix the two well.
Put the cookie mixture on the bottom of the round baking pan. Put in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 180 °C (356 °F).

For the cream, mix egg yolks with both sugars and lemon juice with electric mixer on high speed for about 15 minutes.
Separately mix egg whites until stiff.
In the egg yolks mixture add cottage cheese, mix well, then add stiff egg whites and mix everything until blended. Add half of the blueberries and mix them in with spatula.

Put the cream on the cookie surface and bake the cake for about 25-30 min.

For the glaze mix all the ingredients and add the rest of the blueberries.

When the cake is done, pour over the glaze and bake for another 10 min on the same heat.

Cheesecake is best served cooled over night in the refrigerator.

You can serve the cake with vanilla icing and some fresh blueberries!

Top down photo of one slice of blueberry cheesecake

What is your favorite fruit with the cheesecake?

Avocado Chocolate Mousse

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

When I want to make a dessert from the ingredients I have at home I love to experiment. I find my inspiration online, but I always add a pinch of me in the recipe 🙂 In this recipe I added maple syrup, almond flakes and coconut shavings!

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Avocado Chocolate Mousse

Tools you need

  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things
  • Measuring cups to, as well, measure things with them
  • Good food processor will make this dessert creamier and more delicious
  • Serving wine glasses are perfect for desserts in a glass, look very professional 😀
  • Melting chocolate is a quick and easy job for a microwave
  • Microwave bowls because we don’t want to melt the bowl, just the chocolate 😉

I was a bit skeptical about making a dessert with avocados, but it turned out to be very moist and creamy and the taste of chocolate was dominating. Raspberries give it a bit of freshness and almond flakes a bit of crunchiness. The whole deal is a perfect combination. Any berry and nut combination should be good.

Zvonimir really liked it the first time, so I decided to make it again for our friends when they came to dinner.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did 😀

Ingredients

Servings: 4 people

  • 200 g semisweet chocolate or chocolate chips (at least 60% dark)
  • 4 large, ripe avocados
  • 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup almond milk
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 5 teaspoons maple syrup

For serving: fresh raspberries, almond flakes and coconut shavings.

Preparation:

  1. Melt the chocolate in microwave in 15-second bursts, stirring between each until the chocolate is completely melted. Stir until smooth. Set aside and let cool until just barely warm.
  2. Halve and pit the avocados, place them in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the melted chocolate, cocoa powder, almond milk, vanilla extract, salt and maple syrup.
  3. Blend until very smooth and creamy

Serve in glasses along with raspberries, almond flakes and coconut shavings.
You can eat them immediately or keep them in refrigerator for a couple of hours to get thicker consistency.

Which other fruit-nut combination would you try with this?

Lemon Yogurt Cake

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

One of many interesting things I discovered in Canada is a loaf pan. Having a cake sliced like a bread is the best thing since sliced bread 😉

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I love to bake with purpose. Like making a birthday cake for a friend or family member. Or with intention to play with the ingredients I have at home without having to go to the store.

The other day, two lemons were staring at me with their big, yellow, eyes, telling me that they will go to waste if I don’t do something with them soon. And I had some yogurt that felt the same way. About the same time I came across a recipe by Barefoot Contessa on Pinterest and loved the idea so I decided to put a twist on it and make the unexpected trio happy.

The trio reached nirvana, the cake was super moist with sweet and tangy flavor, and it went perfect with a cup of tea 🙂

Tools you need

  • Loaf pan because we’re making a loaf cake 🙂
  • Mixing bowls. Before you can put the ingredients into the loaf pan, you need to mix them somewhere. Mixing bowls to the rescue!
    Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things; alternatively, you can use cups, in which case…
  • Measuring cups. Sometimes when you buy measuring cups, measuring spoons come with them
  • Spatula makes mixing things into other things easier
  • Whisk to mix things together. You could use an electric mixer too but you don’t really need one for this cake.
  • Zester to zest lemon zest (is there a way to use zest in that sentence again?)
  • Lemon squeezer. You could just use your hands to squeeze lemons if you want to get your hands juicy. Or you could use a lemon squeezer to keep your germs and lemon pits out of the cake. And possibly look fancy while doing it.
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. ‘Nuff said.
  • Parchment paper. Although not really a tool per se, it’s used in preparation of this zesty loaf, so you should be aware of it when preparing to make it.
  • Small pot for syrup preparation

Ingredients

Cake

  • 1-1/2 (150 g) cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons (7.5 g) baking powder
  • 1/2 (2.5 g) teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (245 g) plain yogurt
  • 1 cup (192 g) sugar (granulated)
  • 10 g vanilla sugar
  • 3 extra-large eggs
  • zest from 2 lemons
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup (118 ml) vegetable oil

Syrup

  • lemon juice from two lemons minus the 2 tablespoons needed for the glaze
  • 1/3 cups (64 g) sugar (granulated)

Glaze (optional)

  • 1 cup (130 g) powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preparation for the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Grease the loaf pan with oil or butter. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan on the parchment paper and the sides.
  2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into one bowl.
  3. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla extract. You don’t need to use the electrical mixer, hand whisk is perfect 🙂
  4. Slowly whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
  5. With a silicon spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated.
  6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about an hour, until a toothpick placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Preparation for the syrup

  1. Cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear.
  2. Set aside until the cake is baked.

Preparation for the glaze

  1. Combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice and mix well until combined.

Serving

  1. When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
  2. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan.
  3. While the cake is still warm, pick it with the toothpick and pour the syrup over.
  4. Allow it to soak in. Cool it down.
  5. After the cake cools, pour the glaze over (I was too anxious to wait, pressured by those big, yellow, eyes, so the glaze was soaked in as well, ah well… :D)

Enjoy!

4 Shades of Chocolate Cake

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Ever since the book about a rich man with singular tastes and unconventional desires, we started representing things in the number of shades they take. Usually 50. Some things are worth shading and layering more than others. In 4 layers. Which is another even number.

Like this gorgeous chocolate cake that glorifies chocolate as the queen of all sweets.

I got this recipe from my former colleague’s aunt. She baked fabulous cakes for many traditional Croatian events, such as christenings, weddings, Christmas, Easter, anniversaries and birthdays. I was lucky enough to get some of her recipes to share with you 😀

Which makes you lucky also!

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4 Shades od Chocolate Cake

Now that you know what you’re in for, we can get our hands shaded. This recipe comes in two parts, so make sure you read both when getting the ingredients. You wouldn’t want to miss 3 of the 4 shades, would you? 😉

Tools you need

  • Double boiler is a perfect tool for melting chocolate without burning it, unless you decide to use…
  • Mixing bowls to melt the chocolate in the microwave
  • Measuring spoons because it’s baking, and measuring is the name of the game 😉
  • Measuring cup. See previous point.
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. Burns hurt and take time to heal. You don’t want to take time off from baking, do you?
  • Spatula is a baking essential tool for stirring all kinds of goodies
  • Round baking pan because round cake needs round pan 😉
  • Electric mixer mixes everything faster and smoother (unless you have some kind of mixing superpower, in which case, ignore this point)

Ingredients (cake, cream is bellow)

  • 3 eggs divided
  • 150 g (1 cup) chocolate (around 70% cocoa)
  • 70 g (5 tbsp) unsalted butter
  • 4 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp all purpose flour

Preparation (cake)

Melt chocolate with butter with a double-boiler on steam.
With electric mixer beat egg whites until stiff.
Beat egg yolks with sugar until foamy, add melted chocolate and mix until combined.
Add flour and stiff egg whites with spatula and mix by hand until combined.

Pour the batter in a round baking pan 26 cm (10 inch) wide.

Bake in a preheated oven on 160 °C (320 °F).

Ingredients (cream)

  • 500 g (2 cups) mascarpone cheese
  • 2 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar
  • 500 ml (2 cups) whipped cream
  • 100 g (1/2 cup) white chocolate
  • 100 g (1/2 cup) milk chocolate
  • 100 g (1/2 cup) dark chocolate (I used 45% cocoa)

Preparation (cream)

Melt each chocolate with a double-boiler on steam or in microwave.
Beat whipped cream with electric mixer until whipped.
Mix mascarpone cheese with sugar and mix in whipped cream.
Divide the mascarpone batter in three equal parts.
In each part mix in different melted chocolate. Mix each batter by hand with spatula until combined.

On a cooled cake first spread dark chocolate cream, then milk chocolate cream and on top, white chocolate cream.

Chill well, preferably over night.

This dessert tastes extra good after beef stew with polenta so consider making that tomorrow while your shades are chilling 😉

Pro tip: don’t make it hungry 😀

Enjoy 🙂

Puff Pastry Hearts

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

If you think you have no baking skills, but would like to surprise your loved one(s) on Valentine’s day, this may be a solution to your problem(s)! Well, some of them, anyway…

With little time and good will, you could make these and surprise even yourself 😉

Ingredients (love potion #9)

All you need is (time, will and a little bit of love):

  • 1 puff pastry sheet bought in the store (you want this quick, right?)
  • jam of your desire (as tunes to your heart’s rhythm)
  • 1 egg (that’s kind of a standard ingredient in cakes)
  • a bit of dark chocolate to sprinkle the hearts (because love is sometimes bitter-sweet)

Preparation (you’ll have to work for it)

Though not a lot. You need time to invest in other areas after all. 😉

Roll the puff pastry on a floured surface. Make hearts with the larger heart mould. Spread some jam on one heart, cover with another heart.
Press the edges with a fork to keep the hearts closed. Unless you want broken hearts…
Beat the egg and brush it on the hearts.
Place them on a baking pan covered with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven for 10-12 min.

If you desire, melt a bit of dark chocolate on steam and sprinkle with the spoon on the hearts. You can sprinkle them whit icing sugar as well. That’s that bitter-sweet element we mentioned before 😉

I hope you will try to surprise yourself and make some puffy hearts this Valentine’s day :))

Enjoy 🙂

Chocolate Chip Cake

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Are you a fan of chocolate chip cookies? Well, this cake is going to knock your socks off!

It’s moist and spongy, with a touch of cinnamon and crunchy chocolate chips! Simple to make and it doesn’t take much time, which makes it a perfect treat for unexpected guests. I made it for a colleague for her birthday couple of weeks ago and everybody in my office loved it! Now I have to make another batch 😀

Chocolate Chip Cake 2

Ingredients

Chocolate Chip Cake

  • 3 eggs – refrigerated
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 2/3 cup melted butter
  • 1 1/3 cups sour cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or 10 g vanilla sugar
  • 1 bag dark chocolate chips – around 250 g divided in two

Preparation

Mix the eggs with the electric mixer on high speed with sugar and vanilla extract until foamy.
Add melted butter and sour cream and keep mixing until combined.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add flour mixture and mix until combined.

Spray the baking sheet with cooking spray and pour in half the batter. Sprinkle with one portion of chocolate chips and 1 tsp of cinnamon.
Pour the remaining batter and sprinkler with the rest of the chocolate chips and cinnamon.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 min on 350 °F.

Enjoy 🙂

Apple Crumble Pie

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Apples are in season, and that makes perfect timing for all types of apple cakes, tarts, pies, strudels and other apple based goodness… I made mine with maple syrup and it makes all the difference. I am Canadian after all 😀

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Apple Crumble Pie

Tools you need

  • Mixing bowls to mix the dough in 😀
  • Chef’s knife comes handy for cutting the apples
  • Cutting board; also useful for cutting apples
  • Make sure saucepan is big enough for all the apples!
  • Round tart pan. I recommend two piece pan for easy slicing
  • Peeler. Great tool when you need to peel something, like apples 😉
  • Measuring spoons because it’s baking, and measuring is the name of the game 😉
  • Measuring cup. See previous point.
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. Burns hurt and take time to heal. You don’t want to take time off from baking, do you?

Ingredients

For the shortcrust pastry (2x)

  • 220 g pastry flour
  • 50 g sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 130 g cold butter, diced
  • 1 egg, beaten

For the filling

Make two balls of dough with the same ingredients. One ball of dough will be for the bottom of the pie and the other for the top.

In the bowl mix together flour, salt and sugar until combined. Add butter, and mix until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Gradually stream beaten egg into the flour mixture and knead until the dough just comes together. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface and shape into a flattened disk. One ball wrap in transparent foil and refrigerate for 25-30 minutes and the other one wrap in transparent foil and put in the freezer!

Peel, clean and cut the apples into small cubes. Put them in a medium saucepan, pour over the maple syrup, add cinnamon and vanilla sugar. Simmer the apples over the low heat until soft.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180 °C. Butter a 26 cm round tart pan.
Roll the chilled dough from a refrigerator on a piece of lightly floured baking paper in a 30 cm circle. Transfer the rolled dough to your tart pan and press it into the bottom and sides of the pan. Cut off excess dough and prick the bottom with a fork.

Pour over the apple filling. Take the dough form the freezer and grate in on top of the filling. Sprinkle with oatmeal.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the dough becomes golden brown.

Enjoy 🙂

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Zvonimir likes chocolate fruit cakes, so for his birthday I try to combine his love for chocolate with different fruit each year. We already tried orange, strawberries and dried fruit. This year raspberries were amazing and full of flavor, which made my choice pretty easy.

This gluten free, easy to make cake is a great choice for any occasion and you can try it out with different fruit!

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Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

Tools

  • Double boiler for melting chocolate. It makes all the difference between melted and burned.
  • Round baking pan. Perfect shape for your cake in the making.
  • Liquid measure cup, useful tool for liquid ingredients, like water and oil 😉
  • Saucepan comes very handy when preparing raspberry sauce.a
  • Before you can put the ingredients into the pan, you need to mix them somewhere, mixing bowls to the rescue! Make sure bowls you use are adequately sized. There are few things worse than overflowing bowls.
  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them.
  • Measuring cups to measure larger quantities of things than with measuring spoons. (Who comes up with these descriptions?)
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things.
  • Spatula to mix ingredients softly with your hand 😀
  • Electric mixer. Mixing is great and all, but doing it by hand can get exhausting. Sometimes you can outsource that work to a family member. Other times you need a bit more power.
  • Kitchen mittens. Things get hot in the oven. ‘Nuff said.

Cake ingredients

  • 125 g (2/3 cup) semi sweet chocolate ( I do not recommend dark chocolate, it will give you a bitter taste)
  • 125 ml (1/2 cup) oil
  • 4 eggs divided
  • 50 g (4 tbsp) sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Raspberry sauce ingredients

  • 300 g fresh raspberries
  • 10 tbsp (120 g) sugar
  • 125 ml (1/2 cup) water

Preparation

Melt chocolate with oil in double boiler until chocolate melts. Cool aside. Divide the eggs. Mix the egg yolks with sugar and vanilla extract until foamy. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Add melted chocolate to egg yolks mixture and stir with spatula.
Again, using spatula, mix in the egg white mixture gradually into the chocolate egg yolk mixture until combined.

Pour the batter into previously greased 8×2 inch round cake pan. Bake for 20 minutes on 180 °C (355 °F).

Cool the cake on the rack.

Put all the ingredients for the sauce in a small sauce pan (leave few raspberries for decoration) and cook on low heat until raspberries dissolve and the sauce becomes thick. Cool it off.

For serving, pour some sauce over the cake slice. Decorate with fresh raspberries and, if you like, put some vanilla ice cream on the side.

Which fruit would you like to try with this cake?