Tag: sweet

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?

Croatian Christmas Bundt Cake (Božićni Kuglof)

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

This cake is perfect for any Sunday family dinner. Although usually made during the Holiday season no one is going to complain if they have a bite or two in the off season. The addition of the apple makes this bundt cake a bit better than the others. Unless you’re a weirdo who’s into dry bundt cakes.

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The combination of nuts and dried fruits I use in this recipe works very well to create a balanced flavor and texture. It received five star rating across the board with all the testers who got to sample it.

Croatian Christmas Bundt Cake cross cut so inside and outside of the cake is visible
Inspiration to get your mouth watery

Traditional Croatian recipe (the way grandma used to make it) has raisins (but who really likes raisins? Zvonimir raises hand, alone.) and arancini. Arancini denominates two different foods, one is what you easily find when you Google it, the other one is what I actually mean here. A dried orange peel covered in sugar, traditional Croatian dessert from the coastal region. Why can’t they just pick an original name? Sigh…

As fun as it would be to rant about language and baking history, you’re here to get your hands dusted into sweet, sweet…

Tools you need

  • Bundt cake pan because you’re making a bundt cake and, well, that’s what you make bundt cakes in 🙂
  • Mixing bowls. Before you can put the ingredients into the bundt cake 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
  • Peeler to peel the apple
  • Grater because it’s one letter away from being great, and you also need it to grate the apple
  • 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

Servings: 6 people

  • 2 tablespoons rum
  • 50 g dried cranberries
  • 50 g thinly sliced almonds
  • 50 g coarsely cut walnuts
  • 1 peeled, grated apple
  • 150 g brown sugar
  • 1 package (9 g) vanilla sugar
  • 110 g all purpose flour (unbleached)
  • 50 g cornstarch
  • 1 package (14 g) baking powder
  • 90 g melted unsalted butter
  • 3 large eggs
  • powdered sugar for coating
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves

Preparation

  1. Preheat the oven to 170 °C (340 °F)
  2. Soak dried cranberries in rum until soft
  3. Mix flour and cornstarch with baking flour and spices (nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves)
  4. In a separate bowl mix eggs with both sugars until foamy
  5. Into eggs and sugar mixture mix in with spatula
    • Dried cranberries with rum
    • Apple
    • Almonds
    • Walnuts
    • Flower mixture and melted butter at the end
  6. Mix well until compact
  7. Oil or butter bundt pan and dust with flour
  8. Bake for 45 min until golden brown. Pro tip: pick with a toothpick and if nothing sticks, you’re golden.
  9. Leave the cake in the pan until it cools
  10. Take the cake out of the bundt pan and dust it with powdered sugar

Wrapping up

If you’re the adventure type who likes to stray from a beaten path, test it with any other nuts or dried fruit as you desire or have available in your pantry.

Let me know in the comments which combinations worked well for you and share this on social media.

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 🙂

Cinnamon French Toast

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

On a cold winter Sunday, you sit in your spot and gaze outside to the fluffy snow falling over the ground while squirrels play catch.
It makes you crave something warm and sweet for breakfast, to help you match that fuzzy feeling you have inside.

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One of the best advantages of living in Canada is having the best maple syrup in the world always handy 🙂 (and if you don’t live in Canada, you can order it online. Ah, the perks of that future we live in…)
And the best way to enjoy it is with French Toast, especially with a touch of cinnamon.

Tools you need

You don’t need many tools for this dish and it’s fairly easy to make. You’ll still want to have some of these handy. It’s true things taste better when we work for them but why work harder than you need to?

  • Frying pan just makes frying things easy
  • Chef’s knife to cut the bread into sticks
  • Tongs are useful to flip the sticks over in a controlled way without chasing them around the pan with a fork or piercing the crust
  • Measuring spoons to, you know, measure things with them
  • Measuring cups. Sometimes when you buy measuring cups, measuring spoons come with them
  • Whisk to mix it all together in a small bowl or a plate

Ingredients

  • 8 slices of toast or any other white bread
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • vegetable oil or unsalted butter for cooking
  • maple syrup for serving

Preparations

  1. Cut bread slices into sticks or leave them in one piece, whatever you prefer. Use old, drier bread if you can. It will soak better and won’t get doughy.
    Bread crust will give them a nice crunch, so don’t cut the crust off.
  2. In a bowl or a plate, whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Dip each piece of bread in the egg mixture, turning to coat it on all sides so that it’s well-saturated with the mixture.
  3. In a separate bowl or plate mix cinnamon with sugar. Set aside for coating.
  4. Fry in a preheated frying pan with 2-3 tablespoons of oil on a medium heat.
    Watch out not to put too many pieces at once, they might stick to each other and loose their crispiness, which is no fun!
    Fry until golden brown.
  5. Coat the frying bread in a cinnamon mixture.
  6. Pour as much maple syrup as you like over the toast just before serving and enjoy!

Pro Tip: serve with maple syrup in a cup on the side and pour it over individual toasts to help them stay crispy.

Wrapping up

Now that you’re here there are two questions left.

  1. What do you like better, crispy sticks or slices with soft core?
  2. Other than maple syrup, what do you put on French Toast?

Bazlamača – Croatian Sweet Cornbread

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Old fashion, almost forgotten Croatian sweet cornbread was a typical Croatian breakfast over the centuries 🙂

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Croatian Northwest cuisine is based on breads, especially corn breads and all related dishes. This cake makes a great breakfast, which you can compliment with jam or fruit. Yum!

Bazlamača - Croatian Sweet Cornbread

Tools you need

  • Mixing bowls. Before you can put the ingredients into the baking sheet, 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.
  • Baking sheets come in different shapes and sizes and it’s good to have a variety available in your kitchen. I used 46 x 33 cm baking sheet which works very nicely with these amounts of ingredients.
  • Kitchen scale because baking is a fine art and perfection is a little bit more reachable when you quantify things
  • Turner spatula like the one in the photo above. You can eat with your hands if you can’t help yourself but it makes plating a lot easier, especially while Bazlamača is still hot
  • 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

Servings: 6-8 people

  • 250 g cottage cheese
  • 75 g sugar
  • 0.5 l of milk
  • a pinch of salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 0.5 l of sour cream
  • 150 g of corn flour
  • 150 g all purpose flour
  • 20 g baking powder

The traditional Croatian recipe (the way grandma used to make it) has much larger measurements since in the old days families were larger. But that’s another topic entirely 🙂

Preparation

  1. Mix both flours with salt and baking powder.
  2. In another bowl mix cottage cheese well with milk, sour cream, sugar, salt and eggs.
  3. Combine the two mixtures and mix until you get a smooth, medium thick batter.
  4. Grease the baking sheet. Pour the batter in and bake at 180 °C until golden brown.
  5. When the cake is done, allow it to cool slightly and cut as desired. Cake’s surface can additionally be sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Wrapping up

I like topping it off with different jams. Other options are honey, custard, maple syrup…

What do you think this would go well with?

Tell us in the comments bellow.

Foodies+ Christmas Recipes from Around the World

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

It’s a fabulous project with amazing people for a worthy cause!

And it feels great to be a part of it. Joined with over dozen people with their Christmas traditions, Zvonimir and I are very happy to present Croatian Christmas to the world 🙂

foodieschristmasrecipesbook

If you ever wondered what different people all over the world traditionally eat at Christmas time, this book is here to answer that burning question of yours 😉
It also gets you head in and hands on to experiencing it. Wanna change things a bit this Christmas? Or just make weekend cuisine memorable leading up to your Christmas traditional? It’s really up to you.

This book is more than a Christmas present or a great cookbook. With all proceeds going to Action Against Hunger, this, more than 400 pages book, with almost 100 recipes from all around the world, is a piece of art with charitable note. Action Against Hunger is a global organization that aims to save the lives of malnourished children in over 40 countries. You can feel a little bit better about yourself while you’re celebrating.

It is a privilege to be a co-author along with great contributors such as Azlin Bloor, Lisa Watson, Nomad Dimitri, Joy Stewart, Shana Shameer and Indrani Sen. Their food knowledge and experience is priceless 🙂

Available on Kindle on your favourite Amazon site: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon AUS.

Book Contents

Supporting Cast
Starters, Soups, Sides, Stuffing, Sauces and Gravies

The Main Performance
We’re not just talking turkey, baby!

La Dolce Vita
Because Life should always be sweet!

Time for a Tipple
Always Happy Hour somewhere, right?

Feeding a Crowd
Canapés and other party food for the planned and uninvited guests!

Gifts from the Kitchen
The way to anyone’s culinary heart!

Menu Suggestions
And Basic Recipes, because we pay attention to detail!

Available on Kindle on your favourite Amazon site: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon AUS.

Bon appétit!

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?

Canada Day Muffins!

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

Happy Canada Day!

What is the #1 thing that comes up in your head when someone mentions Canada? Probably maple (or thank you) 🙂
Our first Canada Day celebration was all about maple (and thank yous).

These muffins were supposed to be cupcakes with maple butter-cream, but some things are just not meant to be. It was like someone was telling us “summer’s here, your summer body is not ready” 😉

The muffins were awesome! Zvonimir ate a couple while shooting this photo 😀 You’re lucky we had some left to show you.
(Z’s note: there was plenty to shoot and that’s where I get inspiration :P)

Fruit Nut Muffin

Fruit Nut Muffins

Ingredients

  • 1 cup chopped dates
  • 1⁄2 cup cranberries
  • 1 cup water
  • 1⁄2 cup butter, cut in pieces
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 teaspoons golden yellow sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1⁄2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions

In a saucepan over medium high heat, combine water, dates, cranberries, nuts and sugar.
Boil for 5 minutes until water absorbs and remove from heat.
Add chopped up butter and stir till butter is melted.
Transfer to large bowl and let cool.
Set oven to 170 °C (350 °F).
Grease and flour muffin cups or use paper liner.
Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir together flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder.
Spoon into muffin cups 2/3 to 3/4 full.
Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Maple! Thank you!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles

Posted on by Jasmina Brozović

When in Rome, ups, Canada, do as Canadians do 😀

Peanut butter is one of the “must eat” ingredients when you come on this side of the world. You fall in love with it over a period of time, but when you eventually do, you make the best of it!

This is one of those ways 🙂

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles

Ingredients

  • 130 g (1 cup) confectioners’ sugar
  • 70 g (⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon) creamy peanut butter
  • 60 g (2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
  • 2 1/2 ml (½ teaspoon) vanilla extract
  • 360 g (2 cups semisweet/bittersweet) chocolate chips or dark chocolate
  • 40 g (¼ cup) roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preparation

In the bowl with an electric mixer mix the sugar, peanut butter, cream cheese and vanilla together on medium speed until combined.

Shape mixture into balls. Place on baking sheet lined with wax paper. Cover loosely, transfer the pan to the freezer and chill for 30 minutes.

When ready to dip the truffles, melt the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Dip each chilled truffle, one at a time, coating in chocolate and shaking gently to remove the excess. (If at any point during dipping, the dough balls become too soft, return to the freezer to chill for 15 minutes.) Transfer to a wax-paper lined surface. Sprinkle peanuts on top of each truffle quickly after dipping each truffle before the chocolate sets.

Once all the truffles have been dipped, store them in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Enjoy!