Hummingbird Cake

I sometimes make cakes for other people's birthdays, and I usually do what they request, which is more often than not very simple cakes - ordinary cake layers, perhaps some mashed banana or vanilla custard and then whipped cream. That's like the very basic Swedish birthday cake.

And I'm pretty bored with it. Nor do I like it that much. I'll keep making them for my husband (who's even happier if I decorate it with gummy bears) but for Titus this year, I wanted to make a high, American-style cake with frosting.

Hummingbird cake kept popping up - in cookbooks, on blogs - and I couldn't ignore it any longer. It's similar to a carrot cake, but has pineapple and bananas to keep it moist, rather than carrots. It's absolutely delicious. And should you have leftovers, they'll keep well in the fridge.

Hummingbird Cake

450 g all-purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
225 g white sugar
225 g brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
250 ml neutral oil (sunflower or canola is good)
250 ml (about 250 g) crushed, fresh pineapple
4 large bananas, mashed (about 450 g)
250 ml walnuts, toasted and finely chopped (about 120 g)

Mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Beat both sugars with the eggs, until really fluffy. Add vanilla, oil, crushed pineapple and banana. Stir in the flour mixture, and finally, the walnuts.

Divide in two well-greased cake tins, about 20 cm in diameter. Bake at 175°C until they're no longer sticky inside - about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely, on a rack.



Frosting:
170 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
600 g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 vanilla bean - the scraped-out seeds
200 g confectioner's (powdered) sugar

Whisk all ingredients to a smooth and fluffy frosting.

Frost in between the cake layers, and all around the cake, when the layers are completely cool.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kolibritårta

Cake for Midsummer's Eve

Today, I'm blogging at Sweden.se about a classic Strawberry Cream Cake - perfect for Midsummer's Eve!

Strawberry Cream Cake

Annamaria's chocolate cake

Happy Easter everyone! I'm happy to be back home, after an awesome vacation. My parents have a house in Spain, near Torrevieja, and that's where we went. (My parents joined us, too, for most of the time - it was great to get to spend some time with them.) It's lovely down there - very still and peaceful, and of course warm and sunny. Foodwise... a bit good, a bit not so good. (For example, the whole debate about organic food and additives must have not made it to Spain.) Anyway - we cooked a lot, since Titus was with us and that meant it wouldn't be so easy to eat dinner at restaurants all the time. I made an awesome paella, and dad made mussles in a creamy wine sauce with cilantro. More on the food when I've downloaded the photos from my camera!

We came home to find that winter has finally gone away, and spring is here. That means, among other things, that I have to get rid of my backlog of wintery posts really, really fast, in order to get to all the nice, spring-y food! Will make that my mission in the next few weeks.

Today, a chocolate cake originally from a Swedish food blog that's sadly not updated anymore. This cake was the runner-up to "best chocolate cake in Sweden" a few years ago, and I can well believe that!

However, believe me, this is rich. And I don't use that term lightly. Despite that, serve it with some whipped cream - it goes so well with the creamy chocolate truffle, and the crispy peanut butter cake layer.

Annamaria's chocolate cake

Bottom:
6-700 ml (about 2 1/2 cups) cornflakes
140 g golden syrup (try to find this, don't substitute corn syrup. If you must, substitute honey or agave syrup, but you might have to change the quantity.)
250 g peanut butter

Truffle:
175 g milk chocolate
275 g dark chocolate
100 ml full-fat cream
100 ml milk
50 ml pistachios, unsalted

To decorate:
Some extra pistachios

Start with the bottom. Use a springform pan with a loose bottom, and place a baking sheet in it. Crush the cornflakes slightly. Melt syrup and peanut butter in a saucepan, and add the cornflakes. Stir. Press an even layer into the pan and place in the fridge.

When the bottom is completely cool, make the filling. Coarsely chop both chocolates, and melt in the microwave. Heat the milk and cream and pour over the chocolate. Stir until completely mixed and smooth. (Use a stick blender if you'd like - I used a simple spoon and that was fine.)

Chop the pistachios and add to the truffle.

Pour the chocolate mixture over the bottom and sprinkle with the extra pistachios. Place in the fridge for at least five hours or overnight. Keep in the fridge until right before serving.

Recipe in Swedish:
Annamarias kladdkaka

Lemon Mango Mousse Cake

Let's be frank: this is not my simplest recipe. Yes, it's long. Yes, it's detailed. Yes, it's a bit fussy. It's however NOT difficult, not hard at all, so don't be intimidated. You can do it! It's very tasty - and it's gluten-free, by the way.

I made it for Easter, and because of that, I chose a mango compote to be the filling. I imagined an oozy, egg yolk effect that didn't quite happen, but it was delicious anyway. Next time, I'll double the cake and the mango filling, to make two cakes instead of one. The lemon mousse recipe makes a LOT so you'll end up with one very high cake.

And you need to plan ahead. The mango filling needs to be frozen beforehand, so it's best to start that two days before serving the cake. The chocolate cake layer needs to cool before it's time to fill it, and the whole cake needs to be in the freezer for at least a few hours. So, my suggestion is to do the mango filling two days ahead, and the rest of the cake the next day, one day before serving. It keeps well though, so you can make it much more in advance.

On the actual day of serving, just thaw it in the fridge for a few hours, and decorate.

Special equipment needed: A 22-cm springform, plastic wrap, a 24-cm springform, overhead plastic, tape, a sugar thermometer, a microwave... and a stand mixer is helpful.

Oh.. and this cake uses Kesella which is a quark, 10%-fat. I imagine you could use something else - ricotta maybe? - but I can't vouch for it.

Lemon Mango Mousse Cake

Mango Compote

250 g mango, cubed
150 ml sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 gelatin sheets

Soak the gelatin in cold water for at least five minutes. Place mango, sugar and lemon in a saucepan and cook for ten minutes. Mix, using a blender or a stick blender, until smooth. Add the gelatin, stir until it's dissolved and pour into a plastic-lined springform tin that's about 20-22 cm in diameter. Freeze.

Chocolate cake

4 egg yolks
45 g sugar
4 egg whites
90 g sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder

Beat egg yolks with the 45 g of sugar until very fluffy. Sieve the cocoa powder and stir in, carefully but thoroughly.

Beat the egg whites until foamy. Gradually add the 90 g of sugar and beat into a shiny meringue. Fold into the chocolate batter. Pour everything in a lined 24-cm springform tin. Bake at 175° for 12-15 minutes. When you remove it from the oven, cut to loosen the cake from the side of the tin, then leave it to fall. (It will - completely.)

Lemon mousse

5 egg yolks
3 lemons (preferably organic and unwaxed)
4 gelatin sheets
600 ml cream (full-fat)
210 g sugar
85 g water
600 g kesella (quark)

Clean the lemons. Zest the peel, and juice them. Set aside 3 tbsp of the juice. Mix the rest, along with the zest, with the quark.

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water. Beat the cream into soft and foamy peaks. Beat the egg yolks until foamy, preferably in a stand mixer.

Mix sugar and water (those 85 g) in a small saucepan and heat until it's exactly 122°C. Pour this hot sugar syrup over the foamy egg yolks, while still beating them, and keep beating on medium speed until the mixture is at room temperature.

Remove the gelatin from the water and place in a small bowl with the 3 tbsp of lemon juice that you set aside earlier. Heat on low effect in the microwave - for just a few seconds - until the sheets have melted. Add this to all the other ingredients - the egg yolk mix, the cream and the quark.



Assembly:

When the cake is completely cool, remove it from the tin, clean and dry the tin, and place the cake back again. Tape overhead film to the inside of the tin, to make a collar that goes a few cm higher than the tin itself.

Pour about 1/3 of the mousse onto the cake. Carefully place the frozen mango compote, and cover with the remaining lemon mousse. Place the whole cake in the freezer overnight (or for at least a few hours.)

Remove from the tin while still frozen - you might have to heat the tin itself gently, a hair dryer is great idea. Peel off the overhead sheets, and move the whole cake to a serving platter.

Thaw in the fridge for at least two hours, but preferably longer.

Recipe in Swedish:
Citronmoussetårta med mangokompott