This is the best cake I’ve made for a while! Seriously! And it is not even that impromptu! I planned it the day before, and except for the unsuccessful glaze, which was an epic fail and was overly sweet. This cake is so amazing itself that it does not need any glaze or topping. So, I’m not going to talk much today, but I advise you to get some non-GMO cornmeal, make your own shredded coconuts and try out this recipe immediately! Then, if you are sure not to fail like me, you can put some lemon whipped cream or lemon glaze on top.

Lemon Coconut Cornmeal Cake

makes 20 pieces

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (or a little less)
• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 2 cups shredded coconuts (make your own)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
• zest of two lemons
• 4 teaspoons baking salt
• a pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, sugar, salt, lemon juice and lemon zest.

Mix in flour. Then add baking powder. Finally, mix in shredded coconuts.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked.

I love grained photos in winter!

Today, I have a very interesting and very impromptu recipe to share. So, I knew I had to bake something, so I looked at the fruit bowl and saw that we have some tangerines, apples, pears, a quince and some oranges. I decided to make apple and pear cake by using my beloved Carrot Cake recipe as the base. And since I came by this deliciousness today, I decided to lay some pears on the bottom of the cake mold.

Then, I decided to double my carrot cake recipe, since I know that it doesn’t yield much. But, doubling came with pain..

After sifting a cup of whole-wheat flour, I realized that I don’t have any more flour left, and still 3 more cups of flour to add. So, instead I added a cup of rice flour, a cup of processed oatmeal and a cup of processed almonds.

I put 1/3 of the batter to muffin cups, and 2/3 of it to a cake mold. But, since I used a deep mold, it took the cake an hour to bake. So I really recommend baking this recipe in a shallow pan, as I usually do. Nevertheless, the cake turned out to be amazing. I could totally taste the almonds and apples and pears and cinnamon!! Yummy!!

Pear Apple Cake with Mixed Flours

makes 2 batches of cake

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 cup oat flour (or simply processed oatmeal)
• 1 cup almond flour (or simply processed almonds)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 5 cups coarsely grated pears and apples
• 3-4 pears to lay on bottom, sliced and dipped into honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• a pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flours, and cinnamon, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

At this stage, don’t worry if the mixture is not so liquid. It should be something between cookie dough and cake batter.

Add the grated fruits and form an even mixture. Don’t worry again that the fruits are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Option 1- Take two shallow pans. Lay the bottoms with sliced pears. Divide the mixture into two and pour inside the pans.

Option 2- Simply pour the mixture into muffin cups and out the sliced pears on top.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked.

Although I’m not an oatmeal-for-breakfast person, I try to eat oatmeal regularly, because it’s healthy for you. It’s high in fiber and complex carbohydrates. Besides, it’s low in fat, so you can add in as much healthy fats as you want (in my case, mostly peanut butter). But, as I said, I’m not a fan. I find it somehow disturbing to eat because of its slimy texture when cooked. So to make the oatmeal more interesting and healthier, I do the following..

First of all, I don’t cook my oatmeal. Instead, I use a popular technique: overnight oats. I mix 1/4 cup oats with 1/4 cup milk. then I add 1/2 teaspoon spice of my choice, 1 tablespoon flax seed and some stevia or honey for sweetening. I put this mixture in the freezer and let the oats soften in milk over the night. When I wake up, I add a blob of nut butter, a blob of jam and 2 tablespoons of granola.

Last week, I made myself an oatmeal bowl with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and peanut butter.

And today, I had my oatmeal with 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, a blob of coconut butter and a blob of my beloved rose jam:

Did you know that when I was a child, I didn’t like to have breakfast? I used to only drink a glass of milk in mornings, and then crave for the entire day. Then when I was a freshman in university, I used to eat fatty pastries every morning with a big cup of sugared tea. Yuck!

But now, I’m older and I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and not only it keeps you full for hours, it is also helps you maintain your healthy weight. I can easily say that when I don’t have breakfast, I tend to binge on any food I can find that day.

So, breakfast is good for us and we have to have it everyday. But it’s not easy huh? For some people, having a breakfast early is not tempting. My sister, for example, cannot have breakfast very early. That is of course not true for me. But I have another problem. Since I like to sleep, and am therefore usually rushing for work in the mornings, I definitely don’t have time to have a decent breakfast. Fortunately, these two breakfast preventive situations have one single solution: “pre-made breakfast”.If you don’t like to have breakfast early, just prepare it in the morning. Or, if you are like me and don’t have time to eat, just prepare it and eat on the way or when you arrive at work. But preparing takes a lot of time too, what if we don’t have time for that? Well, you can make some of the work the night before, and just assemble or cook in the morning. That easy!

Today, I’m starting a weekly challenge: “Pre-made Healthy Breakfast Challenge”, or simply PHBC. For one week, I’m going to have a different healthy breakfast every day, and post it here with recipes. And believe me, they are all too quick to prepare since I’m a lazy person.

And I’ll probably take the photos using Instagram or Hipstamatic. I just don’t have time for taking DSLR photos in the morning!

So, we start with pancakes…

Did you see Katie’s vegan red velvet pancakes? Oh, they are so good! So yesterday, I decided to have them for my next breakfast, and prepared the batter before I sleep. I changed the recipe a little bit, made the batter, put it in a container, put that in the freezer and slept.

When I woke up, I took out the batter, and saw that it was thickened too much. So I added a little bit of milk and cooked the pancakes. Then I spread some rose jam (killer!!!) and my homemade peanut butter on top. I put my pancakes in a container and eat them on my way to work.

Also, I managed to grab the leftovers of my sister’s lactose-free milk:

Day one completed!

Overnight Chocolate Pancakes with Peanut Butter & Rose Jam

adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie

makes 2 pancakes

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon oatmeal
• 1 tablespoon flax seed
• 1/2 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon stevia (or 1 tablespoons honey or any other liquid sweetener)
• optional: 2 teaspoons chocolate nibs

For topping:

• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon jam (I used rose jam but blackberry jam works the best)

Directions

Mix all the ingredients, and store them in the refrigerator overnight.

On the morning, if the batter is too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons milk. Then, cook both sides in a lightly oiled pan for 2-3 minutes.

Spread peanut butter and jam on top.

Put them in a container and take to work!

If you follow this blog, then you probably know about my “famous” carrot cake, my all-time favorite cake! But, the fact is that this cake is not so healthy to eat every time. So, I tried to came up with a healthier one, using honey instead of processed sugar. But the result was not as I wanted to get. The unique taste of my “famous” carrot cake was gone.

So, for the last time, I gave it a one more try and I got really nice little carrot cakes. To make them interesting, I used both orange and purple carrots. This recipe uses milk and yogurt instead of olive oil to make the cake more protein-rich. And everybody seemed to like it. They didn’t understand it was  made with honey. But nevertheless, I still have to say that nothing can beat my original love. It still tastes so unique!

Carrot Cake: Third Version

yields 20 servings / 100 calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup dry oats
• 1/6 cup low-fat (high-protein) milk
• 1/6 cup yogurt
• 3 cups COARSELY grated carrots (I used 1 1/2 cups orange and 1 1/2 cups purple carrots)
• 3/4 cup honey
• 2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, milk, yogurt and honey.

Stir in vanilla, flour, oats and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

Add the carrots and form an even mixture. Don’t worry that the carrots are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan (you can also pour the mixture into muffin cups) and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked.

Finally, I found my lost brownie recipe! I actually found it by chance in my wallet and I don’t know how it got in there.

Anyway, this recipe is originally from my recent favorite book, and after some modifications, I came up with my own.

WARNING: Don’t be fooled by the photo. These brownies my not look appealing to you, but they are extremely chewy! To make them even more chewy, I used some whole-wheat cereals instead of walnuts. So, if you don’t want to be on the high-chewiness side, just use some walnuts, hazelnuts, or simply nothing.

Extremely Chewy Olive Oil Brownies with Whole-Wheat Cereal

adapted from The Pocket Cookbook

yields 16 servings / 180 calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter (I used my homemade butter)
• 80 gr (2.8 oz.) dark chocolate, melted
• 1 cup whole wheat cereal (optional)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• zest of 1 orange
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix the eggs, sugar, olive oil, vanilla extract and melted chocolate. Set aside.

Mix the dry ingredients and add them to wet ingredients.

Spread the batter into a baking tray, and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

Yesterday night was interesting. After a tiring work day, I went to the groceries and aimlessly wandered around the sections. When I went to the fruits&vegetables section, I randomly chose 3 things: some mushrooms, 4 slices of pumpkin and 2 purple carrots. Why? I don’t have any idea. But I have some guesses:

• I bought mushrooms because I haven’t eaten them for a while.
• I bought pumpkin because I saw a pumpkin bread recipe today in a blog, and I had been thinking about it since then.
• I bought purple carrots because I had never seen them before, and they looked interesting to me. Are they carrots at all? They are probably parsnips, but I can’t really tell the difference between them. If you have any ideas, please enlighten me! Google doesn’t give any results for neither purple carrot nor purple parsnip.

So, when I got home with my three random ingredients, I decided to put the mushrooms away for a while because they didn’t look interesting to me near the pumpkin and purple carrots. They will be my dinner for today, though. In case you want to know, I’ll roast them in the oven with some olive oil, onions and ground thyme.

But, what about pumpkin and purple carrots? Well, I had planned what to do with the pumpkin earlier, when I saw the pumpkin bread. I was going to make some sweet pumpkin muffins. Then, I changed my mind and decided to make some pumpkin and feta cheese muffins. Why? Again, I don’t know, I wanted to make something different. But after making them, I remembered that I saw these muffins in 101 Cookbooks. Anyway, mine is different, but the idea is the same.

And purple carrots? It was pretty straightforward to me, because purple carrot is still a carrot (or parsnip, I don’t know), and carrots are meant to be in a carrot cake. So, I decided to make some purple carrot muffins!

So, what I basically did was to use my famous carrot cake recipe for base. I actually use this recipe for all my cakes and put the desired fruit/vegetable instead of carrots. It’s my ultimate cake base that I’m very proud of!

For pumpkin feta muffins, I excluded the sugar from the recipe and instead of 3 cups carrot, I put 3 cups boiled and mashed pumpkin. I also added about 100 gr (3.5 oz.) crumbled feta cheese and some salt to make the muffins savory. The rest of the recipe is the same, and the result was a nice breakfast cake.

For purple carrot muffins, I used my exact carrot cake recipe, and I really liked how purplish my muffins turned out! But my purple carrots were purple on the outside and white on the inside, so when peeling the carrots, I tried not to peel off all the purple areas, because purple muffins was exactly what I wanted to get.

Since purple carrots taste a little bitter than regular carrots, I suspected that the muffins may not have that unique “carrot cake smell”. But no, they actually did! It was a real carrot cake with a slight different taste that is unnoticeable. So, go ahead and do it, why not use different colors when there are different color options?

Here’s my morning snack for today:

By the way, I roasted the remaining sliced pumpkin and made a really simple pumpkin soup. The recipe is coming soon..

Yeah, ı was supposed to celebrate my first year with carrot muffins but I was late, I had tons to do. So these are the late celebration (1 year 1 month=1.08 years) muffins that I decorated with whipped cream and cinnamon carrots & “1″s. Just enjoy the photos…

First, I baked the cakes using my “famous” carrot cake recipe:

Also, I prepared a “1″ and a carrot shaped mold:

Then I spread some whipped cream on tops:

Finally, I made my carrot and “1″ decorations!!

And, of course I ate immediately!

Another week has ended, so has my sister’s birthday celebration. She’s been suffering from gastritis recently, so she cannot eat chocolate, spices and a lot more things. I also had gastritis two years ago, so I can understand how she feels, and I decided to bake her a birthday cake, which is almost guilt-free for her. It’s an apple cake with some nice homemade whipped cream. I said it’s almost guilt-free, because I added some cinnamon to the cake (honestly, I cannot think of an apple cake without cinnamon!).The recipe is originally from Martha. I adapted the recipe and increased the amount of eggs, decreased the sugar (as usual). The original recipe called for buttercream as decoration, and I replaced it with my homemade cinnamon whipped cream with a hint of cream cheese. Why not buttercream? Because we don’t use buttercream in our cakes in Turkey. It’s just heavy and fatty for our taste. I once made some cupcakes and decorated them with buttercream, and everyone told me that the cupcakes were uneatable and the only thing they ate was butter. So yeah, whipped cream is just better for me.

There’s one more thing to add. I used 200 ml (about 1 cup) of heavy milk to make my whipped cream. But I could definitely add more. The secret of this cake is this cream. So, I think using 400 ml (2 cups) of heavy milk will do wonders. Enjoy!

Apple Birthday Cake

adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 – 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (depends on the consistency of the batter)
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2 apples (I used Starking), diced
• 1 apple, coarsely grated
• 1 carrot, finely grated (optional, you can use 1 coarsely grated apple instead)

for the whipped cream:

• 400 ml (2 cups) heavy cream
• ½ – ¾ cups powdered sugar (depends on your sweet tooth level)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cream cheese

Directions:

For the whipped cream put your elecric mixer’s bowl to freezer and let it chill for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together egg, oil and sugar. Add the apples and the carrot.

Stir in flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder.

Pour the mixture into a round cake pan. If the pan is too small, use two small pans instead. Because if you put a lot of batter to the pan, it might not cook inside.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If the insides don’t cook, cover the pan with aluminum foil and increase the heat to 180 degrees C ( degrees F)

Take out the bowl from the freezer. Put the heavy cream, powdered sugar and cinnamon to the bowl and beat for 3-4 minutes in the electric mixer. Add the cream cheese and mix 30 more seconds. Let it cool in the refrigerator.

When the cake cools down, separate it into two layers. On top of the first layer, spread some whipped cream and put the second layer. Decorate the whole cake with the remaining whipped cream. Store the cake in the refrigerator.

I love autumn. I love it because me, my sister and my three cousins’ birthdays are in this season, so there are lots of celebrations to make. The first one to celebrate is my birthday, and it was on the last Saturday.

As usual, I wanted to make my own birthday cake. This time, I was hoping to make something that does not only taste good, but also looks good. Well, it was not a disaster, but you know I don’t have the ability to make cakes that look storebought.

This time, I planned everything beforehand. I drew some sketches and decided to make a cake with coconut butter and pineapples.

This idea of a “tropical” cake came from the coconut butter I made last week. I have been seeing some recipes made with coconut butter for a long time. Katie uses it a lot for example. So I looked through the internet and see if I could buy it in Turkey. But, no. It’s not sold anywhere. So I decided to make it myself. There are actually a lot of bloggers who made their own coconut butters, and the idea is easy, just like making nut butters: process some dried coconut flakes in the food processor for about 10 minutes. Good.

But, my 400W Tefal mini-rondo couldn’t process that longer and I had a thicker coconut butter instead. So I blended it with some water (coconut milk can work well) and also added some honey to taste. But it wasn’t something that you can spread on your bread. I don’t know, maybe my version was too thick, but it also tasted heavy that I cannot eat by itself. While I was thinking about my birthday cake, I thought “Why not? You cannot eat that thick coconut butter anyway. Just use it!”

For the cake, I used a recipe that I took from a pastry chef (so I shouldn’t share it with you!).  I bake the cake two days before my birthday.

One day before my birthday, I assembled my cake. I layered the cake and moistened the layers with some milk. Then I made some dark chocolate ganache and spread on each layer. On the first layer, I spreaded the coconut butter on the ganache. And on the second layer, I put some diced pineapples on the ganache again.

To cover the cake, I made a whipped cream by mixing the regular whipped cream with some of my coconut butter and diced pineapples.

As you can notice from the photo, the cake doesn’t look that perfect, because 1- I have problems with layering the cakes perfectly and 2- I have problems with covering the cake with whipped cream. No problem, I always have some impromptu solutions.

So, I decided to make two little cakes instead of one big. I had two square-shaped cake cutters, and cut the cake with them (My mum and I finished the leftover cakes later).

Onto these two cakes, I put some easily-made-yet-looks-professional decoration. I melted some chocolate and transfered it to a small piping bag I made by rolling a parchment paper. Then I drew the decorations on a parchment paper. After chilling the decorated chocolate for 5 minutes, they were ready!

(Sorry about the bad flash photography, I took the cakes out to the restaurant we celebrated, and it was all dark.)

Few weeks ago, when I was on my regular grocery shopping ritual, I bought some rice flour. I have never experimented with this flour, and thought it would be nice to use it somewhere, and if I am gluten-intolerant, it would be nice to experiment it before. Here are the two recipes that use rice flour. The first one is “banana cocoa rice flour pudding”, and the other one is an unbelievably tasty impromptu dessert that I want to talk about. I call it simply rice pudding cake, but there’s more than that.

Yesterday, my mum and my sister wanted some pudding. I, as usual thought that  is a boring idea and told them that we should make some more interesting dessert. Then mum said “I bought peaches, and you can make some peach pudding”. Then the idea developed, and by the end of the next ten minutes, we agreed on making some sponge cake, on top of that some pudding, and on top of that, peaches and leftover bananas.

In short, I made a cake (not gluten-free!!) Then, I made rice flour pudding and poured it over the cake. After that, I cooked some peaches and bananas with little butter and sugar, and put it over the top of my dessert. Result? I wasn’t expecting such a good taste (because it somewhat looked boring and tasteless to me), and when we tasted it we were literally shocked. It was unbelievably good!. I mean, really good! And the good thing is, it can be modified easily. Actually the next thing I’m planning to do is making some carrot cake and pudding and using apples on top. Well, I don’t know, there are hundreds of options. Enjoy!

Rice Flour Pudding

Ingredients:

• 500 ml low-fat milk
• 35 gr rice flour
• 40-50 gr sugar
• 1 small banana
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
• some diet cookies (or gluten-free, if you wish) for serving
• coconut flakes for serving

Directions:

Mix milk, rice flour, sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl and heat them while stirring.

When the heated mixture thickens, add mashed bananas and stir for a minute or two.

Pour the pudding in cups filled with some diet cookies. Sprinkle coconut flakes on tops.

Impromptu Rice Pudding Cake

Ingredients:

Cake

• 2 large eggs
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup low-fat milk
• 1 ½ – 2 cups flour (depends on the thickness of the batter)
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt

Rice Pudding

• 750 ml milk
• 80-100 gr sugar
• 35 gr rice flour
• 10 gr starch

Fruits

• 2 peaches
• 1 large banana
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2-3 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

First, prepare the cake batter. Mix the eggs, milk and olive oil. Add the dry ingredients and pour them in a small/medium pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

For rice pudding, mix all the ingredients and cook until the mixture thickens.

And for cooked fruits, simply sautee the sliced fruits with butter and sugar.

Now, assemble the dessert. Pour the pudding over the cake. Then, spread the fruits on top. Finished!

Ok, so I was wrong about nut butters. In fact, it was a big mistake to eat nut buttered breads every morning. Result? Pimples on my face! I think my face couldn’t tolerate such amount of nut butter. I don’t know, I gave up eating them for now.

But now I have a new candidate! These breakfast muffins are nutritive yet not so fatty as nut butters. My mom really love them, so do I, which is an unusual thing because I normally don’t like savory muffins that much, but they have potatoes and goat cheese in them, and I’m a huge potato lover- who doesn’t like potatoes anyway? So, here’s my updated breakfast. Enjoy!

Breakfast Cake with Potato and Goat Cheese

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup mashed potatoes*
• 1/2 cup low-fat milk
• 50 grams goat cheese
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Salt

* I mashed the potatoes with one tablespoon of milk, half tsp allspice, half tsp curry and some pepper.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Beat the eggs, add milk and potato purée and mix them.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients and add it to the liquids.

Mix a little until you get an even enough batter.

Pour the batter in muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

Well, the actual title of this post should be “Sour Cherry Chocolate Chip Honey Semolina Muffins”, which would tell more about the ingredients, but it was so long that I sticked with this one. Since the freezer is full of sour cherries and we can’t eat them raw with sick stomacks (we all have gastritis & reflux in family), it’s better to use them in desserts. This is yet another semolina muffin recipe, if you remember the one with apples. I really like to put semolina in muffins, because semolina gives a nice texture and I think it increases the nice smell I get from the muffins (and I don’t know why).

This recipe also uses honey; because I don’t want to use too much processed stuff in my recipes, and sugar can easily be replaced with honey in cakes, and it also makes them moist, which I do like. So, enjoy!

Sour Cherry Chocolate Chip Honey Semolina Muffins

makes 15 small muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup semolina
• ½ cup honey
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 cups sour cherries (or 1 ½ cup pureed sour cherries)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda + 2 teaspoons baking powder (or 4 teaspoons of either one*)

* Actually, it does matter which one you use. The difference is, baking soda needs some acidic compound to rise; while baking powder also has some acidic salts to do that. So we add 2 teaspoons baking soda, which will be activated by sour cherries, and 2 teaspoons baking powder for the rest. Why 2 teaspoons? I don’t know, I just made it up. Maybe the sour cherries are enough to activate 4 teaspoons of baking soda. I don’t care about these things for these messy kind of recipes, where the taste is more important than the looks. By the way, I learned these stuff from Robert Wolke’s “What Einstein Told His Cook“. GREAT book, it has lots of useful information about food and cooking.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Beat the eggs with honey and olive oil and sour cherries. Add ther dry ingredients and pour the batter into muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Last week, I was in Italy and I bough a lot of chocolate from Torino after they told me that the city is famous for its chocolate and grissini. So to finish all the chocolates (about 400 grams (14 oz.)), I decided to use them for my mother’s birthday cake. However, some of these chocolates had red pepper in it, so I made a spicy cake.The chocolate cake recipe was taken from a pastry chef, so I cannot give it, but it is very similar to a sponge cake. Anyway, you can use any chocolate cake recipe you want. After layering the cake, I poured some milk on the layers to make them moist, and spread some “crème patisserie”.

For “crème patisserie”, I used this recipe, and I added 1 cup of crushed and spiced almonds. To make them, I simply mixed the almonds with red hot pepper, salt, cumin and black pepper.

Finally I decorated the cake with chocolate ganache I made from the Torino chocolates. I heated 200 gr (7 oz.) heavy cream, and mixed it with 400 gr (14 oz.) dark chocolate, and some of them had red pepper. To make the ganache lighter, I mixed it with some whipped cream, and decorated the cake with whipped cream also.

Oh, no! Chocolate and orange cake again????? I know, but I think they’re the best couple ever.. Whenever I make something with chocolate and ask myself “What else can I add?”, the mantra repeats in my mind like “orange, orange, orange, orange”. Well, I know it’s not creative at all, but there is a plenty of orange on the kitchen table at this time of the year, and I just can’t resist them!

This time, I tried a recipe from “The Essence of Chocolate” by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. It was supposed to be a “one-pot sour cream cake”, but I changed the recipe slightly, and the result was not a “moist” cake as described in the book, but a normal cake. I think if cooked it less, then I could get a moister cake. Anyways, here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

Chocolate Orange Cream Cake with Orange Sauce

adapted from The Essence of Chocolate

makes 1 big cake, 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 100 g (7 oz.) butter
• 50 g (3.5 oz.) dark chocolate
• ½ cup orange juice (or juice of 1 orange)
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

For the sauce:

• ¾ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• zest of one lemon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Melt the butter, chocolate and orange juice in a pan, and stir well.

Remove the pan from heat, add the sugar and whisk.

Add the dry ingredients and continue whisking.

Add the egg and sour cream, and mix well.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups or into a little pan.

Bake for 15 minutes for cupcakes, 20 minutes for the pan.

For the sauce, sinply mix all the ingredients in a food processor. This way, the orange zest will infuse better to the mixture.

Serve the cake with its sauce.

It’s been a long time since my last post, I know.. But I was very busy with my midterms, quizzes and projects, and I didn’t even have time to sleep and thought I was going to die because of headache. Anyway, I’m better now, and am here with an incredible recipe: apple meringue cake!

This apple cake was inspired by my French teacher’s mom’s cake. Well, a month ago I ate that apple cake, and it was crispy on the top, which was a very unusual thing for an apple cake. I did not ask what her mother used for the cake, but I kept thinking about this cake. And I concluded that the “thing” on the top of the cake can only be egg whites. So, I tried to reinvent the cake and came up with a slightly different than I imagined, but an ammmazing thing! (The crispy layer in the original cake was thinner than in my cake, and my cake was juicier than the original cake) Enjoy!!

Apple Meringue Cake

Merengue adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

• 4 apples (I used 2 red, 2 green apples), grated
• 1 egg + 3 egg yolks
• 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• pinch of salt

For the top:

• 3 egg whites
• 130 gr (4.6 oz.) powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C (320 degrees F).

In a bowl, mix together eggs, sugar olive oil and yogurt. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda, and mix well.

Add grated apples to the mixture and blend.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until “snowy”. Without mixing too much (don’t let the egg whites dry!), add the granulated sugar and cinnamon to egg whites.

In a mid-size pan, pour the cake mixture (it should be a thin layer, otherwise the cake won’t cook on the inside) and on the top of that, spread the meringue mixture.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until both layers are cooked.

Being a senior year in college, I have to make my senior project (obviously). Our team is doing a “green” project for Unilever’s Heartbrand (ice-cream), and we have a project proposal meeting tomorrow. Since we are the host of this meeting, we thought it would be nice to serve some treats, other than the usual ones bought from a patisserie.

So, we decided to make some savory and sweet treats for the participants: the sweets are mini cupcakes and sugar cookies, and the savories are two types of cheesy canapés. We made all of them so improvisational that they don’t have any recipe. So, you have to enjoy the photos only..

Making Sinem’s cupcake base:

We filled the cupcakes with ready-to-use cake filling (Normally, I never use ready-to-use stuff, but we had no time!):

Decorating the cupcakes with an impromptu frosting (it has melted chocolate, whipping cream and some cake filling):

Sugar cookies from Joy of Baking:

Mozzarella, tomato and basil canapés on Wasabröd crispbread:

Herbed mild cream cheese canapés with olive & walnut topping:

And the leftovers:

I don’t know how to name these muffins. The idea popped into my mind while I was trying to sleep (I think a lot about these kind of unnecessary things before I sleep). I thought about putting a layer of sugary-apples between the muffins, and make some apple “layer” muffins. Enjoy!

Apple Layer Muffins

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups whole-wheat flour
• ¾ cups brown sugar
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

For the apple layer:

• 3 apples
• 5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Dice the apples. Add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon, and blend well.

In another bowl, mix together eggs, sugar olive oil, yogurt and vanilla. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and finally baking soda, and mix well.

Prepare the muffin cups, and pour one layer of muffin mixture, then the apples, then the muffin mixture again to each of the cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cooked.

You’re probably thinking right now that I’m obsessed with chocolate and orange. Well, that’s true, but in this case I used these two ingredients just because I had to. I wanted to make a cake, and searched the kitchen. There were only oranges in the fruit case, and I found some bittersweet chocolate, all-purpose flour, and one egg. I took a risk to make a cake with just one egg, but I thought the chocolate would do the same job as eggs and hold the cake. The cake was delicious, although it falls apart easily because of the lack of eggs. I think, you can get the best results by using two eggs, but I haven’t tried it.

Why hypnotic? Because there is something strange with this cake that you cannot stop eating it. It is probably because of the melted chocolate, but I named it “hypnotic” anyway!

Chocolate Orange Cake

makes 16 pieces

Ingredients:

• 1 egg (2 eggs is better for holding the cake, but I did’t try it)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I haven’t any left. But, use whole-wheat please!!)
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup olive oil
• 50 gr (1.75 oz) bittersweet chocolate, melted
• juice and zest of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons baking powder or baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together egg, oil, sugar, melted chocolate and orange juice.

Stir in vanilla, flour, salt and orange zest, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda (powder) into the mixture and stir.

Pour the mixture into a cake mold and bake for 40 minutes, or until cooked.

Decorate the cakes by spreading melted white chocolate (with orange zest) on tops.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/chocolate-orange-cake/feed/ 0 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/honey-carrot-muffin/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/honey-carrot-muffin/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:25:28 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=127

OK, I know I’ve made a lot of muffins recently, but I love to make them. I am experiencing the results of adding honey to my muffins. Well, as far as I noticed, honey makes the muffins look smoother and the edges brown as if you brushed it with egg yolks. Even though my mom claims that the vitamins in honey are vanished when heated, I think it’s still better than processed sugar, which makes these muffins healthier than my carrot cakes. You obviously cannot get the same taste, but you save calories (6 tablespoons of sugar is about 400 calories, while 3/4 cup sugar required for the carrot cake recipe is 600 calories) And this lighter version tastes “acceptable”. In fact, my aunt thinks these taste better than my regular carrot cakes.

Carrot Muffins with Honey

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup low-fat milk
• 2 cups carrots, grated
• 6 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and honey.

Stir in vanilla, flour, and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda (powder) and stir. Add the carrots.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

This is another impromptu cake I just made up and it didn’t disappoint me. I came by some ripe bananas in the kitchen the other day, and decided to use them in what I do best: muffins! I also added the chocolate chips I’ve recently bought from the coffee shop (I usually use chopped chocolate instead of chocolate-chips, but the girl in the coffee shop insisted me to buy them and I gave it a try). I didn’t want to add sugar to the cake, so I used honey. I don’t usually use honey in my cakes, but this time it really worked and the muffins were neither too sweet nor vapid. This has become one my favorite muffin recipes.

Chocolate-Chip Banana Muffins with Honey

makes 20-24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3-4 tablespoons honey
• 4 tablespoons yogurt
• 3 (200 gr. – 7 oz.) bananas, mashed
• 50 gr (1.7 oz.) bittersweet chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together eggs, honey, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla in a bowl.

Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda, and mix well.

Finally add the bananas and chocolate chips, and mix until you have an even mixture.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cooked.

It was another boring night with nothing to do, and apples on the kitchen table. So, it was a “must” to take a risk and make something totally improvisational. I mixed everything that comes into my mind to make a cake, and this is the result. Try!

Semolina Muffins with Apple and Coconut

makes 24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup milk (I used low-fat)
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups semolina (you can use 2 cups flour and 1 cup semolina instead)
• 3 apples, grated
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 lemon’s zest
• 4 teaspoons baking soda or baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, milk, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flour, semolina and coconuts, and mix well.

Add cloves, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Then, add the apples and pour the mixture into muffin cups.

Before cooking the muffins, sprinkle the tops with lemon zest, and bake your muffins for about 25 minutes.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/apple-and-coconut-semolina-muffin/feed/ 1 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/raspberry-cakes-white-ganache-trials/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/raspberry-cakes-white-ganache-trials/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:06:28 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=67

I spent my whole Friday trying to make some flavored white-chocolate ganache. I made chocolate macarons using David Lebovitz’s recipe, and used fig and orange flavored white ganache to assemble the macarons (I simply added 1 orange’s zest orange flavored one, and 2 mashed fresh figs for the fig flavored one).

And as usual, there was some leftover ganache, and I made these mini raspberry cakes to use it. I also flavored the ganache with ground cinnamon. I liked the results, the cakes were delish and they also look good, huh?

Heart-Shaped Raspberry Cakes with White Chocolate & Cinnamon Ganache

makes 2 cakes

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups raspberries (I used frozen)
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

For the ganache:

• 80 gr. (2.8 oz.) white chocolate
• 40 ml. (1/5 cup) heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together eggs, oil and sugar in a bowl. Add vanilla extract, flour, salt and baking soda and mix well.

Process the raspberries in a food processor, and add into the bowl.

Pour the mixture into a mid-size pan (Don’t worry at this stage that the mixture is not enough. It will rise). You can pour the mixture into heart-shaped molds (I cooked them first, and cut them in heart-shapes).

Bake for 40 minutes, or until it well cooked.

To make white-chocolate ganache, heat the cream until slightly hot. Remove the pot from heat. Add white chocolate, which are divided into small pieces. Make sure that the chocolate is totally melted, by stirring. After that, add the cinnamon. Mix well, and let cool in the refrigerator until hardened enough.

Assemble the two pieces of cake with ganache.

It was only three years ago when I first started cooking. I started with simple vegetable dishes, and moved to desserts as I gained some confidence. And the very first cake I made was from a carrot cake recipe I found in AllRecipes. However, my first carrot cake was very sweet, greasy and topped with an ugly cream cheese frosting  that I couldn’t make properly.

Gradually, I modified that carrot cake recipe (actually changed it totally), substituted some ingredients, decreased the amount of sugar and oil, and came up with a unique carrot cake recipe. It soon became the favorite dessert in the family because of its spongy texture and different taste.

This is my first post in this blog, so it would be a shame not to begin with my “famous” carrot cake. Enjoy!

Carrot Cake

makes 25 pieces

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/4 cups (use 1 ½ cups if you like it sweeter) brown sugar
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 cups carrots, grated coarsely (look at the picture below)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• a pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flour, and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda into the mixture and stir.

At this stage, don’t worry if the mixture is not so liquid. It should be something between cookie dough and cake batter.

Add the carrots and form an even mixture. Don’t worry again that the carrots are too much. They will dissolve after cooked.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan (you can also pour the mixture into muffin cups) and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked.

Note: Instead of 3 cups of carrots, you can add 2 cups of carrots and 1 cup of blueberries, and you get a fantastic variation!