Archive for September 2014 | Monthly archive page
Mousse cake is one of those desserts that is both indulgently comforting and light. We turned a very Banting-conscious blueberry smoothie into a mousse by adding gelatine – and before you turn your nose up at using gelatine – the texture of this tart is more creamy mousse-like than stiff gel-like! Gelatine is made up of protein, that has been refined from porcine/bovine hide, and adds great structure to jelly, panna cotta, gummy sweets, marshmallows and mousses.
‘Faux biscuit’ base
40g Mixed Nuts 10g Coconut, desiccated 1 tsp. Butter 5 Dates, dried (rehydrated in boiling water)Soak the dates in boiling water for a minute. Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend till crumb consistency is reached. Pour the crumb base into a tray or small springform pan lined with baking paper and press down.We used a 15cm springform pan
Mousse
300g Plain yogurt 250g Blueberries, frozen/ any frozen berries 400 gr. Whipped cream 1 tablespoon lemon juice 120 gr. Xylitol 4 Leaves of gelatine VanillaSoak the gelatine according to package directions. Puree the berries and pass the berry pulp through a sieve. Mix in the yoghurt and lemon juice. Separately whip the cream with the vanilla and xylitol until stiff; and then fold into the berry yoghurt mixture.
Carefully squeeze out the excess water from the gelatine, and heat it in a small saucepan until it becomes liquid. Slowly stir into the mousse mixture. Stir well and quickly so that no lumps arise. Carefully pour the filling into the pan. This mixture made a little extra for tasting! This mixture can be separated into serving glasses for individual portions, and sprinkled with the ‘faux biscuit’ as a topping.
Allow to set in the refrigerator for 4 hours.
We decorated our mousse tart with fresh blueberries and yellow fondant ribbon roses (just for fun!).
For Nicoletta’s 10th birthday, we created a cake in our honour, to be henceforth known as the Nicoletta Cake; hear hear!
This cake was made with 3 tiers of varying shades of yellow sponge cake and iced with buttercream. We made a mini ombre naked cake to accompany our fondant iced creation, to indicate the layers in our Nicoletta Cake.
This recipe is a family favourite, and has been used for all kinds of birthday cakes, Neapolitan cakes, cupcakes and tray bakes. It is fondly known as the “1-2-3 cake recipe”:
250g Butter (room temp.) 1 cup Milk 2 cups Sugar 4 Eggs (room temp.) 1 tsp. Vanilla extract 3 cups Flour 1½ tsp. Baking powderCream the sugar and butter in an electric beater until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating till the eggs are incorporated after each addition. Mix in the milk and flavouring. Add the sifted cake flour and baking powder and mix well (scrape the bottom to make sure it’s all mixed together). Split the batter into 3 and colour 2 of the batters in varying shades of yellow (light yellow and bright yellow).
Spoon each batter into a pan and bake at 180°c for 15-20 minutes, or until golden and the cake tester comes out clean.
Allow to cool while you prepare your fluffy buttercream frosting:
185g Butter (room temperature, and cut into cubes) 200g Icing sugar 1 Tbs. Milk 1½ Tbs. Vanilla extract a pinch of saltWhip butter in a mixer till it becomes very pale and very creamy; the more you beat, the creamier it gets. Add the remaining ingredients and mix slowly. Frost your cake.
Our friend at Love Life Cupcakes helped us out by decorating the cake using White and Yellow Ready to Roll Fondant Icing. The cake was covered in a sheet of fondant and draped with ruffle layers around the cake. Ruffles were created by cutting strips of fondant to build up the layers one by one. The cake was finished with a large yellow and white flower!
Sep 26
Creamy Lemon Bars
Since these lemon bars were adapted from our recipe for lemon meringue, we made this tray bake using a mixture of condensed milk, lemon and eggs on a biscuit base. We adore our lemony treats to be tart and perfumed with lemon zest, so we suggest that you add lemon to taste. The biscuit base was mixed with Nicoletta’s new Lemon flavoured Sprinkle Crunch: crunchy hail sugar shards that were added for extra lemony-ness and texture.
Base
1 packet Oatmeal Digestive Biscuits 3-4 Tbs. Butter, softened 20g Lemon Sprinkle CrunchFilling
2 Tins Condensed Milk 200-250ml Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed (to taste, depending on the sourness) Lemon Zest 4 Egg yolks, separated a few drops of yellow food colour (optional)Blitz biscuits together with the butter, and mix in the Lemon Sprinkle Crunch. Spread and push down the biscuit mixture into a 29 x 29cm baking tray or dish to form the base. The tray should be at least 5mm deep.
Mix the condensed milk with the egg yolks and lemon. Do not whip to avoid the mixture becoming aerated. Pour onto the biscuit base.
Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool.
This recipe is for a deep dish; halve the mixture if using a flan dish.
