Lemon Cake with Raspberry/Blueberry Jam and Vanilla Custard

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGELICA'S HANDICRAFTS - ONE YEAR HAS PAST!

Oh, I can't believe that the blog turns one year this weekend! It has been a wonderful year and I have blogged about many new projects. This year has made me realized that I actually can finish things and not just start them! As you probably have experienced this year I try to do different projects from week to week so you readers get variation. I hope you have enjoyed the past year's posts and keep coming back and always feel free to give me a comment :) As a birthday present for the blog I have started a Instagram profile today named angelicashandicrafts where I will start posting pictures of projects and other things regarding the blog - I hope we meet there!

For this week I made a birthday cake for my blog, I wanted to make it in many layers and I wanted to make all the parts by myself and not use any semi-manufactures.
The cake contains three layers of filling; two layers of homemade blueberry/raspberry jam and one layer of homemade vanilla custard.

Lemon Cake with Blueberry/Raspberry Jam and Vanilla Custard

Garnish
5 dl whipped cream
Red food coloring
Sprinkles

Homemade bluberry/raspberry jam
250 grams frozen raspberries
250 grams frozen blueberries
1 deciliter sugar
Sheet of gelatin (optional)

1. Let the berries thaw and become soft in a sauce pan on medium heat while stirring. 
2. When the berries are soft you can use a spoon or a masher to crush the berries.
3. Add sugar and let the jam simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. If you want you can add gelatin sheet, follow the instuctions on the package.
5. Put the jam into the fridge to cool completely.

Vanilla Custard
2 deciliter milk
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

1. Put all the ingrediets, except for the vanilla sugar, into a sauce pan.
2. Whisk until you get a smooth batter.
3. Heat on low to medium heat while you continue to whisk constantly until the custard is firm and fine in texture. The custarn must not boil!
4. Stir gentley and add the vanilla sugar.
5. Let the custard cool and keep it in he fridge until making the cake.

Lemon Cake (make TWO of this!)
3 eggs
2 deciliter sugar
1 deciliter wheat flour
60 grams potato flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Juice and grated lemon zest of 1/2 lemon

1. Put the oven on 175 Celsius.
2. Grease and bread a spring form diameter 20 cm.
3. Whisk the eggs and sugar until the batter is light and white.
4. Mix flour, potatoflour and baking powder and then stirr it into the egg batter.
5. Add the lemon juce and the grated lemon zest into the batter. 
6. Pour the batter into the spring form and bake in the loer part of the oven for about 40 minutes (but use a test stick to see when it is dry.
7. Let the cake cool in the form and then take it out and let it rest on a grid.

Assembly the cake
1. If the two lemon cakes are rounded on top, even out with a knife. Cut both cakes in two so you get a total of four cake layers.
2. Put the first cake layer on a cake stad or a plate and spread half of the blueberry/raspberry jam on it.
3. Add the next cake layer and spread all of the vanilla custard on it.
4. Add the next cake layer and add the rest of the blueberry/raspberry jam on it.
5. Add the final cake layer.
6. Whip 5 the cream and add a few drops of red food coloring to make it pink.
7. Use a spatula to spread a layer of pink cream all over the cake.
8. Use a piping bag to make decorations on top and cover the cake with sprinkles!

Tip: I made the jam and the vanilla custard the day before I made the cake - good to divide the various stages and not do everything at once!

Semlor

So, my dear friends, it is time for the special day, Fettisdagen (Shrove Tuesday), tomorrow and of course I want to give you my recipe of these lovely pastries we eat like crazy here in Sweden this time of year: Cardamom wheat buns filled with almond paste and whipped cream!
The recipe for the buns is very easy, it takes quite some time to let the buns raise but they will be worth the wait! The filling is quickly managed, especially if you use ready almond paste from the store like I did. However, if you don't have the possibility to buy almond paste, I will give you a recipe for it in this post too.

Cardamom buns filled with whipped cream and almond paste

Buns
640 grams flour
112 grams sugar
112 grams room temperatured butter
15 grams powdered cardamom
3 grams salt
280 grams milk
1/2 egg
25 grams fresh yeast

Filling
Whipped cream 
Almond paste 

Almond Paste
This recipe gives 100 grams almond paste
75 grams of almonds
2 bitter almonds
3 deciliter icing sugar
1,5 tablespoon water

1. Boild the almonds and the bitter almonds in water a minute until the shells will begin to loosen.Rinse the almonds with cold water and remove the shells.
2. Dry the almonds.
3. Mix the almonds together with sugar in a food processor until you get a flour.
4. Add water and mix until it gets a smooth texture.


Garnish
Sieved icing sugar

1. Put all the ingredients in room temperature for a couple of hours before baking.
2. Use a baking machine and just put all the ingredients into the bowl without heating or sifting and led the machine work the dough for about 20 minutes on low speed. 
3. When the dough is ready you will be able to take a piece of dough between your hands and make a thin membrane that will not crack. If you are kneading my hand you will have to knead for about 40 minutes.
4. Without letting the dough raise you make buns (60 grams each) of it and put them on a baking tray. Make sure you give them space so they will not raise into eachother.
5. Boil water and put the pan with the water in the bottom of your cold oven. Put the trays with the buns. The water will evaporate and it will me warm and moist into the oven while the buns raise. Let the buns raise to double size, it took about 90 minutes for me.
6. Get the trays out of the oven and put the oven to 200 Celcius.
7. When the oven is heated, bake the buns for about 5 minutes until the buns have a nice golden color.
8. Let the buns cool on a grid.
9. Whip the cream until the texture is good enough to pipe it.
10. Mix the ready made almond paste with a spoon of water and use a fork to make the texture smooth.
11. Cut off the top of the buns so you get a little hat.
12. Put the almond paste on the cut surface and this is a matter of taste how much you want to put on.
13. Now it is time to pipe the cream on top of the almond paste. Try to cover on the sides som the almond paste doesn't show.
14. Put the little hat on top and sift powdered sugar over.

Double Caramel Cookies

Happy 4th Advent! Today we light the fourth candle and counting down to the big holiday!
Christmas means good things to me and one good thing I really craving for during this time of year is caramel cookies. I remember this type of cookie from my grandmother on my fathers side who baked them around Christmas. Unfortunately I can't find the original recipe that she used but I made the conclusion that she probably used a shortcrust pastry and a classic caramel cream. So I took a chance and I think I nailed it! I almost always search in my "Sju sorters kakor" recipe book to (translated "Seven cakes and cookies" - a classic Swedish home baking book). Here you can find the Swedish version at Adlibris online book store. I also found on Adlibris homepage the English version Here
I used the shortcrust pastry ingredients from "Chess-cookies" from an earlier post :)

 

Double Caramel Cookies (approximately 70 cookies)

Shortcrust pastry
1 deciliter sugar
200 grams butter/margarine
4 1/2 - 5 deciliter flour
2 teaspoon vanilla powder

Caramel cream
2 1/2 deciliter cream
1 deciliter sugar
1/2 deciliter syrup
50 grams butter/magarine
1 teaspoon cocoa

Put the oven to 175 Celcius if you have a convection oven and 200 Celcius if you use an ordinary oven.
Mix all the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry and work fast with your hands and fingers to make a pastry that hold together but is not sticky.
Divide the pastry into four parts and roll each part into a roll with a diameter of 2 cm.
Lay the rolls on a plate and let them get cool in the refrigerator while you prepare the oven plates and cover them with baking paper.
Cut each roll in about 0,8 cm slices and lay them on the baking paper. The cookies will not flow out so much when you bake them so you can position them with a 2 cm distance. 
Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for about 8 minutes, but since all ovens are different the time can differ but I would say that you should not wait longer than 10 minutes.

Now to the caramel cream. Mix all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan (strain the cocoa in a sieve to avoid lumps) and let the mixture reach the boiling temperature.
Lower the temperature and let the mixture simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do the "caramel-test" by let a drop of caramel fall into a glass of cold water - if the caramel drop gets hard and doesn't dissolve in the water the caramel is ready.

Let the caramel cool down and then use a snall spoon to spread little caramel on the downside of a cookie. Then put an other cookie on top and push the cookies together so the caramel squeezes out to the sides. 

Tip: When the cookies are cooled down and ready, restore them in the fridge. When it is time to serve, just put them out in room temperature for 10-15 minutes and they are ready to eat.


Happy baking!

Candy cake filled with strawberry jam, banana and vanilla cream

It was my birthday a week ago and my husband's birthday is next week so we did what we always do this time of  year. 1 birthday + 1 birthday = One cake and one birthday party! This year we made a candy cake with NonStop chocolate lentils and sweet jelly raspberrys. I really like how the chocolate lentils make the cake sparkle of colors!
Inside this cake of happiness we find three soft sponge cake bases holding up layers of thinly slices of banana, vanilla cream and strawberry jam.

Sponge cake bases
4 eggs
2 deciliter white sugar
1 deciliter flour
3/4 deciliter potato flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Put the oven to 175 Celcius.
Grease and bread a baking pan approximately 26 centimeter in diameter.
Whip the eggs together with sugar until you get a white fluffy mixture.
Mix flour, baking powder and potato flour and pour the flourmixture into the egg/sugar mix. Be careful and be sure to turn the flour gently into the egg/sugar mixture. It is important that the fluffy texture is maintained.
Pour the finished batter into the bakinf pan and bake it in the lower part of the oven for about 40 minutes.
When the cake is baked you need to take it out of the baking pan and let it cool on a oven rack.
When the cake is room temperature you divide it with a knife into three layers.

 Topping
2 deciliter whipped cream to cover the sides and the top
Non Stop chocolate lentils
Sweet jelly raspberrys

Filling
2,5 deciliter vanilla cream you can whip
2 bananas
2 deciliter strawberry jam

See the little picture at the right.
The darker yellow parts represents the sponge cake layers.
The red area is only strawberry jam.
The light yellow area is whipped vanilla cream
(approx 1 cm thick) + a layer of very thin slices banana.