Friday quickie: Super-easy asparagus pie

If you have been following the oh-so-dramatic story about the incident the ladies at my letting agency refer to as Firegate, you know why I ended up with a bit too much puff pastry on my hands. However, the fire did mess with my cooking plans in general, as I was simply too exhausted and stressed to worry about cooking last week. Ok, I might just have used it as an excuse to pig out a little... But the only thing which helps after a major chock is unhealthy food. Everybody knows that. Right? It's not like I'm just making this up to put off going back to my healthy eating routine.

So, one of the things in my fridge which had started to look a bit worse for wear was two bundles of asparagus. And asparagus is one of those expensive foods you just can't let go to waste. Although, over here, asparagus isn't even that expensive. But in general, I think it's wrong to let food go bad, you should try to use it all up. Of course if it has already gone bad, bin it. There is no point risking food poisoning. Talking about food poisoning, I gave myself the worst case of that a few years ago. I was sick for days. Which of course could mean it wasn't food poisoning after all, as food poisoning is supposed to wear off in about 12 hours or so. I think it was from a yoghurt and mint dressing I had left in the fridge for a day or two too long. And oh my, how sick I was. I won't go into more details than that, but just imagine the worst food poisoning you can. And then multiply that by ten.

If you have something in your fridge which is about to go off, and that same day you run into a recipe on Pinterest with that same ingredient, it's food kismet. You just have to cook that. Especially if you happen to have all necessary ingredients at home so that you don't even need to drag your sorry butt to the grocery store. I ran into this recipe from Martha Stewart which featured not only asparagus, but puff pastry as well. And I have seen similar pies before, and have wanted to try it out. And I even happened to have some grated cheese in the freezer waiting to be used up. All the pieces just fell together, so who am I to resist. On a totally unrelated note, I think all my jeans have magically shrunk in the wash. Even those that haven't been washed. Maybe the smoke somehow made them smaller?

Rustic asparagus pie (Serves 4-6):
500 g puff pastry
125 g grated mature cheddar (or some more fancy cheese if that strikes your... well fancy)
300 g asparagus
oil to drizzle on top (I used my garlic infused virgin rapeseed oil)
ground black pepper to taste

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle if you are really anal, or into a nice irregular shape if you are more into the whole rustic look. The original recipe said to first bake the pastry for 15 minutes, then add on the rest of the ingredients and bake for another 20-25 minutes. I was in quite a hurry when baking my pie, so I ended up doing everything in one step with no fussing about with pre-baking and stuff. I just rolled out the pastry, sprinkled cheese on it, and lined up my asparagus. Then a drizzle of olive oil and some pepper, and into the oven it went for about 30 minutes. Obviously the looks differ quite drastically from Martha's version...

The verdict:
Well, by comparing the pictures of mine and Martha's pie, you can see how one of them is clearly more relaxed and at ease with the world. I have to admit, the true reason for the rustic look is that I was in a crazy hurry when I made my pie. I didn't quite have time to wait for the pastry to thaw properly, which is why I wasn't able to roll the pastry as thin as I wanted. And so I ended with up with this giant cheese and asparagus puff. But I thought it actually looks quite funny! It's more like an asparagus galette. Very rustic, that is the word you are looking for. Not ugly! Rustic!!

How about the taste? If you don't like puff pastry you won't like this. Because it's basically puff pastry with cheese, with a few stalks of asparagus thrown in for good measure. It's not health food, obviously. It's fat topped with fat topped with a few green stalks. But then again, if you don't like puff pastry, what's wrong with you? It's one of those things everyone claims not to like, but secretly love. It's very wrong, but oh so right. And the flavour of asparagus does come through nicely, so it does count as a proper asparagus pie in my opinion. Of course there are ways of making one that contains about 99% less fat, if you make a proper quiche type of pie, but for a Friday quickie that doesn't require you to get any bowls dirty, just a rolling pin and your fingers, I think it's more than adequate. And I admit to eating two pieces of it as soon as it came out of the oven. It's better warm than piping hot, you could eat it cold but I like the flavour of asparagus better when it's warm. I'm really into this puff pastry phase right now. I just bought an cast iron skillet, and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival. And the first thing I will make? Yes, you guessed right. And I promise to share the results with you, no matter how disastrous. 

Operation smoke smell removal

Last week on the night between Monday and Tuesday at 1.22 am, I woke up to the fire alarm. Which in my building usually means that someone got home from a night on the town, decided to make themselves a toast. We have ridiculously sensitive smoke alarms in the building I live in, and they usually go off at the first molecule of burned toast. This happens regularly. There are no words to describe how annoying it is. Sometimes when I cook so that I'm using both my oven and hob, the apartment just gets so hot it sets off the heat sensors. Even with all (i.e. both) windows open. And nothing burning. Just from the water vapor from boiling stuff and the heat. Which again, I think is inhumaine conditions to live (i.e. cook) in. But believe me, no matter how annoying it is to have to run down all 52 steps of stairs to turn off the alarm, that is nothing compared with what it feels like when the alarm goes off because of an actual fire. 

In this case, my downstairs neighbour had been smoking inside, then set off to paint the town red. Leaving the smouldering cigarette butts to set fire to the apartment. Did I mention, it is strictly prohibited to smoke in the building (the whole building is owned by my letting agency, and therefore all tenants have the same rules to follow). And ironically, only a few weeks ago, there was a letter sent to all tenants about complaints of someone smoking in the building, and that this has to stop immediately. Well, clearly it didn't. It's one thing if you make the choice of ingesting toxins through a burning stick, but seriously, go outside and do it. At least then it's only you who are suffering the consequences, instead of risking the lives of a building full of people along with all their earthly possessions. Just thinking of this still makes me shudder with anger. If I ever run into that guy in a dark alley, let's just say some parts of his anatomy will be running a very high risk of being very violently pulled off. Ok, that might be just a bit over the top, obviously I woud never hurt anyone (consider that a legal disclaimer...) but boy am I angry at him.

So there we were, thankfully everyone accounted for, huddling outside in the street, clutching our computers and watching a horrible cloud of smoke pouring out of the burning flat. There were three fire trucks and probably a dozen firemen. It looked really bad, we were afraid the whole place would burn to the ground. Also, note to self, if fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night, grab something warm to wear. Thankfully I had at least grabbed my coat and a pair of warm shoes, but a girl from downstairs had only thrown a coat on what appeared to be a pair of very skimpy jammies, as her legs were totally bare. At that point I was very thankful for sleeping in a pair of jammies with full length trousers and a long sleeved top. I did make quite a fashion statement standing there on the street in my cow jammies and trench coat.

To make a long story short, we stood there freezing for over two hours while the firemen slaved away at saving our building. After a while the amount of smoke started to decrease and eventually stopped completely. And after what seemed like an eternity, one of the firemen came over to us to inform us about the extent of the damage. The firemen were able to contain the fire to the apartment where it started, which was obviously an incredible relief to us all. And after another hour or so of airing out the worst of the smoke, the people living on the two lower floors were let back in. Me and my next door neighbour however, were not that lucky. Because we live on the top, all the smoke had accumulated in our flats. So there was no way we could sleep there that night.

I asked if I could go up and grab a few things, and I was allowed to do that. The hallway looked like a bomb had exploded, well at least a smoke bomb. There were black markings all over the carpets and floors, and water was dripping from the burned flat to the hallway below. And when I got up to my flat, the smell was horrible. Not just the overwhelming stench of smoke, but a sharp, toxic smell of burned plastic. I grabbed a few things as fast as I could, leaving all (two) windows wide open into the night as I asked the fireman if I could lock the door behind me. Which I was allowed to do, leaving feeling very lucky everyone was unhurt but at the same time worried about how much smoke damage my possessions, particularly my expensive dresses and shoes had sustained. Luckily Best Friend lives literally around the corner, so there I was, past three am, clutching my bag which was stinking of smoke and hoping Best Friend would answer her phone. "Sorry to wake you, but my house was on fire, and I'm not allowed to go back tonight. Can I crash at yours?".

Funnily enough, after describing the main events of the dramatic night, I fell fast asleep in Best Friend's warm apartment, under a huge down duvet, and slept without waking until the morning. Then Best Friend fed me and gave me clean clothes, and off I went to face the damage. I sent off an email to my various bosses to say that I have to sort out the damage to my apartment, and thankfully they were very understanding.

Walking in to the building was like walking into a war zone, in the daylight the stairwell looked even more horrible than it had the night before. And the smell in my apartment was absolutely nauseating. I must not have been thinking completely clearly (well, after a night of quite a shock followed by only three hours of sleep it might be expected that your thought processes are just a tad muddy) because the first thing I did was to do my dishes and wash my bathroom. My only thought was that I would have been mortified if someone from the insurance company had walked into the horrible mess that was my apartment and seen my dirty bathroom. Then I wiped off the worst of the dirt from the firemen's boots off the floor. There wasn't much more I could do, so I left the windows wide open and headed into town to get a few hours of work done from an internet cafe. It felt like a huge relief to be able to breathe in fresh air as I got out of the building.

Now, a week later, the smell is almost gone from my apartment. I currently have three air freshers and a reed diffuser scattered around the apartment, and have been burning scented candles almost every night. The windows stayed open all day and all night for the first four days. Sleeping was a bit chilly, but I think that really helped get the smell out. And I have been trying to cook a lot. Foods that would spread a nice, warm scent which would drive away the disgusting smell of smoke. Which is where today's post comes in. Is there any other scent that is as soothing and enjoyable as cinnamon rolls baking? That was my only thought, I had to make cinnamon rolls. However, in my rather exhausted and stressed out frame of mind, I couldn't imagine making a proper proofed dough, as it involves quite a bit of work as well as a lot of waiting. Back home, you can buy all sorts of ready made doughs and buns in the frozen food section, and just whack them in the oven for that lovely baked at home smell. In this country however, nothing like that exists. Or at least I haven't managed to find any ready to bake cinnamon buns. 

Wow, are you still reading? Ok, at this point I should probably reward you with the actual recipe. After all that word vomit above, the point was that I needed to make something resembling cinnamon buns, and to do it with minimum effort. The only thing I could come up with that was readily available from any grocery store (because this was in the middle of the week, so I didin't have time for a 40 minute track to the nearest supermarket, but had to come up with something I could get from one of my five (!) local tiny grocery stores) was puff pastry. Puff pastry cinnamon rolls... hmmm... I was skeptic to say the least. It seemed a bit like sacrilege. But then the thought of the smell in my apartment versus the scent of newly baked cinnamon rolls was the deciding factor. What the heck, I'll  go for it. If they taste totally vile, I'll just bin them, at least the apartment would smell nice. So I whipped up a cream cheese and cinnamon filling and tried it out. 

Super quick cinnamon rolls (makes about 12 rolls):

250 g ready made puff pastry

100 g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia Light)

2 tbsp light muscovado sugar (or more, depending on the level of sweetness you want)
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tbsp cinnamon

1 egg for the egg wash
icing sugar for dusting

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Mix cream cheese, sugar, cardamom and cinnamon until smooth. Roll out the puff pastry to a rectangle, spread the filling on the pastry, leaving a few centimeters of one long side of the rectangle free of the filling. Use a fork to mix the egg to make the egg wash. Brush some egg wash onto the filling free part of the pastry, this will help seal the buns (although as you can see from the picture below, I didn't use quite enough egg was to keep the rolls sealed). Roll into a firm log finishing at the side with the egg wash. Slice the log into individual buns, about 3 cm thick. Place on a baking sheet, brush with egg wash and bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool, and dust with icing sugar. 

The verdict:
It's probably not fair to call this a recipe, as it's more of an assembly of pre-prepared ingredients. But desperate times (like a fire, or any other desperate need for cinnamon buns) calls for desperate measures. I would love to say that the buns spread a wonderful scent which drove away the smell of smoke from my flat, and then I just threw them in the bin, I mean who would eat sugar and fat rolled in puff pastry... Of course that's not exactly how it went. The wonderful scent of cinnamon buns did fill my apartment for a while, and although unfortunately not removing the smell of smoke completely, did do the trick. And as soon as the buns had cooled enough to not mortally wound me, I inhaled several of them before even sitting back down on the sofa. And they did taste heavenly. Obviously, they cannot be compared to real cinnamon buns, as there is nothing as comforting as traditional soft cinnamony buns. But for an emergency bun-a-bies, they actually did the job really well. Just think, from puff pastry to ready made buns in about 30 minutes. How's that for a quick cinnamon bun fix? One technical note though, I would make sure to bake the puff pastry until baked quite well. I usually like my puff pastry a bit under done, but in this case, you want the pastry to be really flaky and well baked. So make sure to bake it until it's a deep golden colour, but obviously get it out before the edges of the buns turn dark brown.

I enjoyed my bun substitutes with some leftover cream I had in the fridge and some chocolate spread. Yes, that disgusting thing you buy from the supermarket which tastes of cheap chocolate and horrible unhealthy fats. But in my defence - my flat almost burned down. I wonder how long I can use that as an excuse to eat absolutely disgusting things? And actually, I would think using the chocolate spread as a filling in the buns would work really well. Maybe sprinkle a few chocolate chips on as well. Or maybe make lemon bun substitutes by doing a filling of soft cheese and lemon curd. Why not go totally crazy and mix some roasted strawberries or some other fruit with the cream cheese. I guess that would result in some kind of weird Danish pastry bun... Just use your imagination, it seems like puff pastry is an empty canvas for a food obsessed mind. Oh, and my local grocery store only had a huge pack of puff pastry available, so expect puff pastry to star in a few future blog posts, although it's something I almost never use. Which you wouldn't believe if you knew what is coming up next. Well, I guess you just have to wait and see. Until then, be careful with any open flames!

Roasted Figs and Quorridge

I'm always on the lookout for new ideas for brekkie. Muffins, scones, home made bread, french toast, omelettes, smoothies... But sometimes you want something really different. Which is where this lovely post from Joy the Baker comes in. I immediately fell in love with the idea of roasted figs. Figs are amazing, and seem to be so juicy and ripe at the moment. Yesterday I was strolling through the marketplace and the figs just kept calling out to me; "Take us home and make something amazingly good out of us". I totally fell in love with roasted strawberries earlier this year, so I thought roasted figs must be really tasty as well.

I'm sure roasted figs go together lovely with oatmeal. However, I have been making a lot of refrigerator oatmeal during the summer, so I thought something slightly different might be nice. My bootcamp nutrition plan had cooked quinoa as one breakfast option. I hardly ever used to eat quinoa for breakfast, partly because the bootcamp morning quinoa was served with rice milk, which I think is vile. But after finding this recipe on Eat Yourself Skinny, I thought quinoa would make a great porridge with the right spices. And because fall is so clearly here with crispy cold evenings and even the first signs of Christmas appearing (they are selling tickets to our traditional Christmas lunch at work...), I thought some warm spices such as cinnamon and cloves would make a tasty quinoa porridge. 

This could make a great weekend breakfast recipe, but to be quite honest, it's so quick and easy that you could even manage it on a weekday morning. Get out of bed, turn on oven, splash ice cold water on your face, blow your nose to get the smoke and soot out of your nose. Oh wait, that could just be the small minority of people in this world living upstairs from a flat that burned to a crisp. Anyways, after making sure your nose is smoke free, use 10 seconds to cut the figs in half, another 30 seconds to sprinkle with seasoning, and pop into the oven. Measure quinoa and spices into a pan, add water, let bubble away while getting dressed. Add milk to the quorridge, slap on that make up, remove figs from the oven, skip doing your hair and just tie it back in a ponytail. Because who has time to bother with the hair, really... Serve your brekkie, check what's going on in the world (i.e. Facebook), enjoy your hot spicy porridge while having a glance at what horrible disaster awaits you in your inbox, get so lost in the amazing flavour of roasted figs that you almost miss your bus. What a perfect start to a morning!

Roasted figs and quorridge (serves 2):
4 figs
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp pomegranate balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar

90 g (1/2 cup) quinoa (dry weight)
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
3/4 cup milk

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Cut the figs in half, and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic. Sprinkle the sugar on top. Roast for 8-10 minutes.

Measure the water, quinoa, spices and sugar in a pot and heat until water is boiling. When the quinoa has absorbed most of the water, add half of the milk and let boil gently until the milk is absorbed. Keep adding milk in small quantities until the quinoa is cooked to your liking. Serve with the roasted figs, drizzling the syrup that has formed on the bottom of the roasting tray on top of the figs.

The verdict:
I'm in love with figs. They are so juicy and sweet just as they are. But roasting them just takes them to a completely new level. They get soft and mushy, and even sweeter. The balsamic adds a nice little sharpness to the flavour. And the quorridge. That certainly is a winner! Cold, crisp fall morning, and all those lovely spices. They make your kitchen (or all of your tiny little shoebox of a studio) smell like fall, gingerbread, sweet buns and all wonderful things. Obviously you can use any spices you like. But I thought ginger, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon would be perfect and very seasonal. Candied ginger might also be worth trying. Or maybe boiling the quinoa with prunes and raisins, a bit of cinnamon. That would also go perfect with the figs. And the great thing, roasting the figs will work perfectly when the best fig season has passed, and the figs are no longer juice dripping ripe. I made a batch and ate half one morning, and re-heated the rest in the microwave the next morning. Admittedly the texture of the figs is not quite as perfect when re-heated, but still very nice. And very practical. It's not like you have time to cook brekkie every single morning. Like those mornings when you have to spend 20 minutes in the shower to get the smell of smoke out of your hair. Oh wait, so that's not what normal people do every morning? Only the people who live in a flat which smells like a smokery. That's probably not a real word. Well, smells like whatever that place is called where things like hams and bacons are smoked. Oh, and if you think this moaning about the fire is getting a bit old. But it's not every day you almost lose all your worldly possessions because your neighbour is too ignorant to put out his cigarette. Which he was not allowed to smoke inside the flat in the first place. But everyone got through it unhurt, as did my shoes. So I will be complaining about it until kingdom come. But I promise, there will always be a delicious recipe attached to my moaning. 

Almost healthy Friday quickie

Well it's been a while since my last Friday quickie. Mostly it's because I haven't eaten in on a Friday for ages. Fridays used to be mine and Best Friend's grocery shopping day, we would head off for our half hour trek to the big Tesco, use at least another half hour, often even more, to browse our way through every isle, and then trek back with a weeks worth of groceries. Carrying it all back home was never an enjoyable task, but gossiping about everything that had happened that week or planning the weekend used to make the trip go quickly. Then when I got home, I cooked something simple but delicious and spent the rest of the night on the sofa.

These days, we spend Friday afternoon crawling around in the mud and grass, do our burpees, press-ups, running and all sorts of other crazy exercises at bootcamp. If we are lucky it isn't raining, but last week we got soaked both during the morning and evening bootcamp. Yes, we are hard core that way, we enjoy bootcamp twice every Friday. And Mike, our trainer, has a very special treat for us to finish off Friday's bootcamp. Two minutes of burpees. When you have pushed your body to the limit for a full hour, those two minutes feel like they are never going to end. Point of all of this, after getting drenched in sweat and sometimes rain as well, then chilled until freezing while walking home through a pitch dark field (we have to carry bike lights to find our way, it's really that dark), the last thing on my mind is to cook something. I jump straight into a hot shower, stand there for ages until the feeling has returned to my frozen toes and then wrap myself in layers of fleece. Boiling the kettle and filling my fluffy pink hot water bottle. And grabbing whatever I can find in the freezer to eat. Gastronomy be damned, after that sort of workout you just need calories in any form or shape they happen to be most quickly available. 

And I have to admit, this week's Friday quickie is a bit of a cheat. Because I prepared the figs earlier, and only quickly heated them up today. But it's the thought that counts, in theory it's still a Friday quickie, as I'm eating it on a Friday and it was very quick to prepare, even if I technically speaking didn't prepare it all on a Friday. And it follows the rules of Friday quickies, it only has a few ingredients. Simple but oh so delicious! The figs were inspired by a pin I ran into on Pinterest which led me to this blog post about figs. Figs and goat's cheese are quite a classic combination, I decided to roast my figs instead of having them fresh, although they were so lovely soft and ripe that I'm sure they would have been absolutely delicious fresh as well. I'm just on a bit of a roasting fad, and I wanted proper food, which to me means it has to be served hot. It only seemed appropriate to serve the figs with a side dish which has been prepared by oven roasting as well. I haven't used kale much, but I fell in love with the idea of kale chips when I saw the beautiful photos on White On Rice Couple. Well, obviously I first saw the photo on Pinterest, but I probably didn't need to mention that, now did I?

Roasted figs and chèvre (serves 1):
4 figs
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp whole grain mustard
black pepper
100 g chevre
handful of pecans

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Cut figs in half, and drizzle with olive oil. Spread mustard on the figs and sprinkle with a touch of black pepper. Cut the chevre in eight pieces, and top each fig half. Pop into the oven until the goat's cheese has turned golden on top, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with finely chopped pecans.

Salt and pepper kale chips (serves 1):
100 g kale
1 tbsp oil (I used my smoke infused virgin rapeseed oil)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Spread the kale onto a roasting tin. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss. Roast for 6-8 minutes, until kale is crisp. The kale will burn very quickly, so keep an eye on it for the last few minutes. I know my baking time is shorter than that indicated in the original recipe, I guess it depends on your oven and kale. And after the fire in our building the other day (the flat underneath mine burned to a crisp...) I didn't want to over-roast the kale and risk setting off our super sensitive smoke detector as that would probably cause one or two heart attacks with the neighbours.

The verdict:
First of all, if you want to have enough kale to actually make it all the way onto your plate, you need to cook more than one serving. I hardly had any left over for a picture as I ate it right off the roasting tin. It's just that good. No, actually it's even better. I had no idea I liked kale so much. I might have slightly over salted the chips, but that just made them a bit more chip-like. Maybe next time I should drizzle some malt vinegar on them as well. 

Figs and goats cheese are a classic combo. And there is of course a reason why they are a classic, because they go together like... well like figs and goats cheese. The sweetness of the figs and the savoury cheese. I'm just crazy for figs right now, so stay tuned for more fig goodiness soon.

Dark Knight cake

Some blog posts just end up a a bit more extensive than others. Writing this post has actually taken quite a while, and I despaired about ever finishing it. There are so many photos, and even though I don't do anything major to the photos, it takes a fair amount of time to get them through the image processing I use to make the photos. However, last night all of a sudden I got over two extra hours of photo processing time as I was sitting outside my building watching firemen trying to put out the fire in the flat below mine. Thankfully they were very good at their job and managed to save our building from burning down to the ground, and I got my photos edited giving me a chance to finally finish this post. This is something I'm very excited to share as I'm a little bit proud of it.

When I was in high school, me and a friend used to bake birthday cakes for our friends. We would get our inspiration from our friend's hobbies. Once we made a guitar cake for a friend who was a musician, and we made a cake with a druid in a big cape for another friend who was into medieval live roleplaying. One friend who really liked Queen got a cake with the lyrics for We Will Rock You on it, and we actually set it on fire as well. Intentionally that is. Back then, making cakes was much more of a challenge than it is today. We didn't have access to all the colourings, ready made icing, flower moulds, candy melts or other things that you take for granted nowadays. So we really had to be a bit more inventive to do our cakes.

I still like to do cakes, but I do feel like a bit of a cheat as everything is so much easier with the ready made fondant icing. You can even buy it coloured if you don't want to go through the trouble of dying it yourself. I usually try to at least colour the fondant myself to get a bit more of a home-made feel. Obviously if I was doing a cake for a really important occasion I would probably use a ready coloured fondant just be sure it's even and that I would get exactly the colour I wanted.

One very important aspect of the cake making is the planning. First you need to come up with a theme. I try to go for something I know the recipient likes. A hobby, music, movies, even a photo. There are sites online that lets you order your photo printed on icing, so all you need to do is slap the picture on top of a cake, and you will instantly impress with an awesome and very personal cake. After I have decided on a theme, the next step is to  browse recipes and cook books to decide on what type and flavour of sponge to make and what type of fillings to use. I'm not a huge fan of the UK/US type of cakes which are very dry in my opinion, just a sponge with usually some jam in between. Having grown up with the Finnish cream filled and covered cakes, that's the type of cake I like the best. They are so much more moist and flavourful, although a bit more challenging to assemble as you don't want to over-moisten your cake which will lead to a soggy cake which leaks liquids.

This cake was for a friend who really likes the Dark Knight movies, so the theme for the cake was really easy. Also, I have wanted to make a cake with black fondant icing. A while ago, I bought a selection of gel colours. A red, a yellow and blue were obvious choices, but I contemplated for a while whether to get the black or not. In the end I bought the black colour too, but until now, I haven't had any use for it. So I was very excited to see how it would turn out. The next choice was which flavours to use. I knew I wanted one of the filling layers to be lemon, as the recipient of the cake really likes lemon. But what else? I love lemon liquorice, so I thought liquorice would be perfect as it would also make a pretty black and yellow layering. 

Making cakes requires quite a few steps and a lot of time. I try to start a day or two ahead by making the sponges, as they keep well in the fridge over night. And of course you can prepare the patterns for the decorations well ahead of time. I currently don't have a working printer so I use parchment paper to copy the picture right off the computer screen. For this cake, I used the image here as a model for the patterns. Also, I think the cake is best to eat the day after assembling it, as the flavours have time to balance and the sponges have time to really suck up all the moisture and become wonderfully tasty and moist. You can add the fondant topping the day before serving, it will stay pretty as long as you cover your cake with some whipped cream to isolate the cake from the fondant. You can also bake the sponges and fill the cake the previous day, and finish the decorations the day of serving. Any leftover cake will keep in the fridge 2-3 days, and leftovers can also be frozen. Let the cake thaw slowly over night in the fridge. The fondant won't necessarily stay pristine through the freezing, so be prepared for a somewhat weird looking cake. But it will still taste very good. Also, the amounts for the ingredients are not very precise (apart from the sponges) as you can taste your way to the amount of flavouring in the filling you think is appropriate. So consider the amounts I have given more of guidelines than strict rules, and remember to taste frequently along the bake.

Dark Knight cake (serves 8-10):
Sponge (recipe makes one sponge for a 19cm round cake mould, you need two sponges like this for the cake):
2 eggs
flour equal volume to the eggs
sugar equal volume to the eggs
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
zest of half a lemon
1 tsp baking powder
black and yellow food colouring

Filling:
200g cream cheese
300+150ml double cream
2+1+1 tbsp icing sugar
1.5 gelatin sheets
juice from 1 lemon
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Liquorice sauce (I used a Finnish salted liquorice-liquorice sauce)
1/4 cup Tyrkisk Peber liquorice candy crush (seems like you can't buy the candy crush from Amazon, but you can get the candy, and crush it yourself)
1/4 cup Salted liquorice vodka (Salmiakki koskenkorva)
Black and yellow food colouring
2 tbsp Lemon curd (stay away from the cheap stuff!! My favourite is Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Lemon Curd)
Yellow and black food colouring

Decoration:
1 pack (500 g) fondant icing (ready to roll). You can buy a white one and colour yourself, or you can buy white and black icing to avoid messing around with the black food colouring. 
Black and blue food colouring
Silver lustre
Brush, sharp knife, patterns for the decoration

The howto:
Sponges:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Butter your cake mould. Even if it's a silicone one (guess how I know...). Get three identical glasses. Break the eggs in the first glass. Fill the second glass with sugar to the same level as the eggs. Add the vanilla sugar, and grated lemon zest. Use your fingers to rub the zest into the sugar. In the third glass, measure flour to the same volume as the eggs and sugar. Add baking powder to the flour. Using a handheld mixer, mix the eggs and sugars until light and fluffy, about seven minutes. Very gently fold in the flour, and any possible food colouring. Pour into the prepared cake tin. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes. For this cake, you need to make one yellow and one black sponge. Let the sponge cool completely.

Cut sponges in half, i.e. so that you end up with four layers of sponge. That way the cake will have three layers of filling. As the yellow cake was a bit thicker and provided a bit more substantial layers, I decided to arrange the sponges with a yellow one on the bottom, then two black ones and finish with a yellow one. For the filling I decided to do the bottom and top filling layer using liquorice filling and the middle one with lemon filling.

Filling:
Put your gelatin sheets in cold water to soften. Whip 300ml of double cream with 1-2 tbsp icing sugar until it forms soft peaks. Take 2/3 of the cheese into one bowl for the liquorice filling and 1/3 into another bowl for the lemon filling. Mix in 2/3 of the whipped cream to the liquorice filling and 1/3 into the lemon filling. Then add the flavourings. I added about half a cup of the liquorice sauce, taste your way to a flavour you are happy with. Add a few tablespoons of crushed Tyrkisk Peber crush and black food colouring until you are happy with the flavour and colour. Mix until smooth. Add 2-3 tbsp of lemon curd to the lemon filling, again tasting until you are happy with the flavour. Add yellow food colouring and mix until even. Chill the filling in the fridge while you prepare the gelatin.

To melt the gelatin sheets, take a small amount of vodka (1-2 tbsp), and heat it until hot but not boiling. Take the pan off the stove and add in one gelatin sheet. It should immediately dissolve into the liquid. You could use gelatin powder as well, but I have had problems getting it to dissolve completely, especially in very small amounts of liquid, whereas the gelatin sheets have always worked very well for me. Add the gelatin into the filling by pouring in a very thin stream and mixing constantly.

For the lemon filling, squeeze the juice from one lemon into a small pan, again heat until hot but not boiling and take off the hot plate. Add the half sheet of gelatin and gently mix, the sheet of gelatin should dissolve immediately. Again, add to the filling in a very slow stream, constantly mixing. 

Assembly:
To make the liquid to moisten the cake, take about 1/4 cup of vodka and mix with an equal amount of water. Add a tsp or two of icing sugar if you want it a bit sweeter. Using a spoon or brush, moisten the bottom sponge layer using a third of the liquid, and add half of the liquorice filling, add the next layer of sponge, again moistening and add the lemon filling. Add the next layer of sponge, moisten and add the rest of the liquorice filling. Top with the last sponge layer. Put cake into the fridge to rest while preparing the next steps. Whip 150 ml cream with 1 tbsp icing sugar until it forms soft peaks. Add black food colouring and any possible flavouring you want, I added a bit of lemon extract. Spread a thin layer of whipped cream all over the cake using a palette knife or spatula. This will be the base for the fondant icing. Put the cake back into the fridge and prepare the fondant icing. 

Finishing:
If you are dying your fondant yourself using black food colouring, cover your working surface with cling film as the black colour leaves heavy stains. Set a bit of white fondant aside to make the decoration. Pat the rest of the fondant into a disc about twice the size of your hand. Using a toothpick or something similar, get a generous amount of black colouring and fold into the fondant. Keep working the fondant until the colour is even, adding colour if needed. Add some icing sugar to your hands and the fondant if it starts to stick. Set aside enough black fondant to make the Dark Knight logo. Coat the working surface with icing sugar, and roll the rest of the black fondant into a round disc, large enough to cover the cake generously. While rolling, make sure to move the fondant around, adding icing sugar as needed so that it doesn't stick to the surface. You can wipe off excess icing sugar later if it leaves white marks on the icing. Transfer the icing onto the cake using the rolling pin as an aid. Smoothen the surface using your hands, and cut off the excess fondant.

Roll out the white fondant, and use your parchment paper pattern and a sharp knife to cut out the pattern for the decoration. While rolling out the fondant, make sure there is enough icing sugar to keep the fondant from sticking to the work surface, and keep moving the fondant after rolling it to make sure it's not sticking. You can carefully use a wide knife to unstick the pattern if it has lightly stuck to the work surface while cutting out the pattern. Use a wide knife, transfer the pattern onto the cake. Roll the rest of the black fondant and using the parchment paper pattern and a sharp knife, cut out the Dark Knight logo. Brush lustre on the logo. Make sure you buy an edible lustre, as some colourings are only meant to be used for flowers and other decorations which are not going to be eaten. Place the logo on top of the cake. Add blue food colouring into a very small amount of water, and using a brush, paint blue lines around the logo. The finishing touch to the cake will be a thin ribbon of black fondant to cover the edge of the fondant at the bottom. 

The verdict:
I think the combination of liquorice and lemon is a great one, although the recipient found it a bit surprising and getting better as the flavours had more time to balance. Using lemon juice instead of the Salmiakki vodka for moistening the cake would probably tone down the liquorice flavour a bit. This made me think of a lemon filled liquorice candy from my childhood, and I think it turned out absolutely perfect. 

Whether or not you like the totally fat free sponges is a matter of taste really. I think for the "Finnish" type of cream filled cake they are perfect as they mop up the moisture that is added to the cake in the form of liquid as well as any liquid in the filling, keeping the layers of the cake very pretty and producing a soft, moist and very tasty cake. However, I can understand some people find them too light, and certainly they are not robust enough for building very high cakes. But for me that is the traditional birthday cake sponge. Of course the recipe will work just as well if you make any other type of sponge you prefer. 

All in all, given the huge amount of time I spent on making the cake, I think it turned out rather good both texture wise and especially in the flavour department. I admit not everyone will find the liquorice and lemon filling a bit odd, but I thought it was quite heavenly. And the cake looked rather nice, both on the outside, but particularly on the inside where you could see the different levels clearly forming pretty layers of yellow and black colours. When it comes to fondant icing covered cakes, only your imagination sets boundaries to what you can do.

Like warm apple pie

It's fall. There is no denying it, the leaves are turning bright reds and yellows. The air is crisp. The weather feels cold and damp at six am when I'm heading off to bootcamp with Best Friend. Nothing beats the feeling of lying down in the muddy grass doing whatever crazy torture exercise our trainer Mike has come up with that morning. Superman bananas maybe... But as I recall from last year, I shouldn't complain about a bit of humidity and chill. It's getting down in the snow to do press ups that is the real bitch. Ice cold and soaking wet.  And dark. All you can do is hope you won't place your hands down in a place where a dog has gone to meet a call of nature... Hopefully it will be a while before we are in that situation.

Looking at Pinterest, when it comes to recipes, and particularly American recipes (as most pinners seem to be American) fall means two things. Apples and pumpkin. As I don't think pureed pumpkin is available in the UK (I might be wrong, but I haven't seen it anywhere) that excludes more than half of the baking recipes on Pinterest right now. And that's good actually. I have to admit I don't know what pumpkin pie tastes like, I have never had it. In theory I don't think it sounds very appetising, but I might very well be wrong. Anyways, the point is that a huge amount of recipes are totally unusable for me. Which is a good thing really, as I'm suffering from recipe overload. But how about them apples? Oh mine... Apples and fall, yes please! When I was growing up, we had several apple trees in our garden. And the apples were so lovely. In fact, many people I knew back home used to have lots of apple trees in their garden which produce more apples than anyone could use, and people would just try to give away the apples to anyone who would take them off their hands. Oh how I would kill for those apples now that I'm stuck with the store bought ones. 

So right now is the season for apple recipes. Cider apple pie, apple crumble, apple cheese cake, apple bread, apple pie bars, caramel apple pizza... You name it, I'm craving it. Check out this link for a bunch of amazing looking apple desserts.

Above everything else, I'm craving hot apple pie. But being on a diet (well, in theory I'm trying to, but currently failing miserably), baking a whole apple pie makes me feel really guilty. And the other day, there I was, once again browsing the kitchenware section in Tk Maxx, eyeing up all the silicon moulds and cake stands I would buy if I had the money and the storage space. And I saw these darling little tart pans. So I thought a few tiny little apple pies could not hurt anyone. Teeny tiny little packets of yummyness. Flaky crust and warm spicy apple filling. Talk about self deception. After watching the episode of Great British Bakeoff where the contestants had to do a lattice crust, I wanted to try that. I found a good tutorial online for doing the lattice here. Although obviously with the tiny pies, there is not much of a lattice to work out. If you like your pie to have some other decorative details, have a look at this link for further inspiration. To make my ultimate apple pie, I used several recipes for inspiration and ended up with...

'So teeny tiny that they are almost not there' apple pies (makes four single serving pies):
Butter crust with almonds from SimplyRecipes:
1 cup all purpose flour 

1/4 cup almond flour

113g butter cut into cubes

1/2 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)

1 tsp brown sugar

3-4 tbsp ice water

Confession: I definitely didn't prepare the pastry according to the instructions. If you are less lazy than me, please see the original recipe for a nice and detailed description on the method. What I did was the following: Mix flours, salt, sugar and butter in food processor and pulse. At this point my dough already stuck together in one big lump, and I didn't need to add any water at all. Also, one thing that keeps confusing me is the amount of flour. The recipe I used, says 1 cup flour. Which according to various websites is between 110 and 130 g, probably depending on the flour. However, when I measured the specific cup of flour I used for this dough it was actually 150g. So my dough might have more flour than what was intended. Still, my dough turned out very soft, probably because I used spreadable butter instead of regular butter. I then left my pastry in the fridge over night.

Buttermilk pie crust from Completely Delicious:
1 1/4 cups (157 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp sugar 
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
1/4 cup (60 ml) buttermilk, cold
1-2 tablespoons vodka or water, cold

Please see the link to the original recipe for really good instructions on how to properly prepare the flaky pie crust. This involves using a rolling pin to roll the butter into the dough. I was lazy and just added flour, sugar, salt and butter in the food processor, pulsed a few times, added buttermilk and pulsed a few more times. I didn't need to add any other liquid. Chill in the fridge wrapped in cling film.

Filling:

2 apples
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp chopped pistachios

2 tbsp light muscovado sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tbsp cornstarch

milk for brushing the crust
caster sugar for sprinkling

Prepare the dough for the crust in good time ahead of baking. I left mine in the fridge over night. Prepare the filling. Peel apples, cut into quarters and remove seeds (I used my fancy apple wedge cutter, it's genius). Cut into cubes or slices. Mix the sugars, spices and cornstarch and toss with the apples, raisins and pistachios.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Roll out half of the crust and transfer to the tins, with overhang over the edges. Add filling to the pies. Roll out the other half of the crust to make the top or cut into strips for the lattice. Weave the lattice over each pie, and then fold the excess dough over the ends of the lattice to form a pretty edge for the pies. Brush with milk and sprinkle caster sugar on top. Bake for 20 minutes or until pies are golden. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

The verdict:
The truth is, as much as I love baking, my technical skills are absolutely rubbish. I'm pretty sure my pie crusts would get a really bad bashing from Mary and Paul. But to be completely honest it's not like I wouldn't know how to do it, it's just that I'm way too lazy to  do most of the things correctly. If I can prevent having to work a dough with my hands and on the table, I will. Too much mess to clean up. I prefer to mix everything in my food processor. You have probably picked up my love for simple, all-in-one-mixing-bowl recipes. And I know that my shortcuts won't produce perfect pastry as the butter is not incorporated in the proper way to give the pastry the flakiness it's supposed to have. But I'm also not a very fussy pie eater, I'm happy with any crust as long as it tastes nice and doesn't get hard as rock. And both crusts turned out pretty damn good in my book.

Another thing I'm not sure about is the correct fat to use. Some people swear in the name of a mix of butter and shortening. I know I have ranted on about this before, I'm not a big fan of shortening. Vegetable fats are naturally oils, not solids. So why should they be chemically modified to be that way? It's completely unnatural... So it's all butter all the way for me, which will mean the pastry will chemically be different from using a mix. But I'm happy to sacrifice some flakiness for having proper natural ingredients. So I tried two different all butter crusts for my apple pies. Although I have to admit I'm not sure if the spreadable butter is somehow chemically modified compared to proper hard butter, that would explain why the crusts turned out texturally so different. Although part of the difference probably comes from the all wheat versus mix of wheat and almond flour as well. 

To be completely honest, the reason I did two different crusts, is only part to be able to compare crusts. The real, honest to god reason for doing two different crusts, is that when I tried the almond flour one, I realised I only have spreadable butter at home. I thought it would have to do, so I went on with it. However, the dough did turn out to be really soft, and I realised there is no way I could do a lattice crust from that dough. So I had a look around for other possible recipes, and remembered that Completely Delicious had a post on flaky crust which was made with buttermilk. And I'm fascinated with buttermilk at the moment. For me, until a while ago, I always thought buttermilk was the same thing as piimä, which is the Finnish word for fermented cow's milk. After a bit of research on the subject, I learned I'm not completely wrong, as piimä in English is called cultured buttermilk. And the Finnish word for buttermilk is kirnupiimä, so you can see my confusion. And I'm pretty sure you can't buy buttermilk (the regular one) in stores back home, whereas cultured buttermilk is really common and available in any small grocery store. Whereas in the UK, I don't think there is any cultured buttermilk to be had. That's ok though, I never used it back home either, so it's one of those things I don't miss from back home. Anyways, the lack of buttermilk in Finnish grocery stores is the explanation for why I wasn't familiar with it until I moved to the UK. After making buttermilk pancakes for breakfast a while ago, I've been keen to use buttermilk in other things as well. So I was excited to try the Completely Delicious pie crust. And I thought, using the same apple filling for both crusts would give me a perfect opportunity to compare pastries. I don't have a favourite recipe for pie crust, so I'm hoping this experiment would help me find a good one. I have to admit, I often cheat and buy ready made pie crust dough. Back home there are have several types of pastry which are sold frozen. One amazing pastry which goes perfect especially with berry pie is rye flour dough. A really good pastry for savoury pies is a potato and rye pastry. I should actually try to make a rye pastry for a berry pie sometime. Anyways, with these two pastry recipes, which are so ridiculously easy to prepare in the food processor, I will never need to buy ready made pastry again.

Ok, so finally to these particular pies. The buttermilk crust was definitely much easier to work with and easy to roll into a thin crust. The almond crust was tearing really easy, and also really hard to work after being out of the fridge for more than a minute or two, so it was impossible to get a thin crust. The tearing was probably due to less gluten because some of the flour was replaced by almond flour, whereas the softening issue was due to using spreadable butter instead of the proper one. But it turned out to be amazingly crumbly and delicious, so it was definitely worth that extra work. The almond flour also gave the crust nice added flavour. 

The pie filling was wonderful with warm spicy tastes going together perfectly with the apple. I admit adding raisins and pistachios made this a bit less of a traditional apple pie and more of a strudel wannabe, and might be a bit of overkill. But you know how crazy I am about raisins. Actually, for a while now I've been contemplating whether I'm a raisin or a sultana type of person. And despite being a huge raisin fan, I think I like sultanas even more. In this recipe, the raisins add wonderful sweetness to the filling, whereas the pistachios bring that nice little extra crunch. Next time maybe I'll soak them in rum first and make an apple and rum and raisin pie... Actually there was a bit of pastry dough left over, maybe just enough to make one more mini pie, maybe I should get some raisins soaking over night and try that tomorrow. Except whoopsie, I think I ate all my left over raisins while baking. So much for that idea then. 

The summary of a crazy long rant is that the apple pies turned out amazing. Not to mention the scent they left in my tiny excuse for an apartment. All my clothes will now smell of apple pie, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I was convinced the buttermilk crust would be clearly superior to the almond flour one, but to be quite honest, it was really hard to compare them. Or to pick a favourite. The almond flour one was crumblier whereas the buttermilk one was flakier. The buttermilk crust gets points for being much easier to work, but I think the almond flour one was my favourite when it comes to flavour and texture. Too bad I didn't have any ice cream with my apple pies, but I have to admit I had no problems eating them just as they were. Now that my craving for apple pie has been satisfied, I can move on to some other apple delicacy. I'll keep you updated!