Junglefrog Cooking » cakes

Carrot cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:52:51 +0000

Lovely and moist carrot cake

I’ll let you in on a little secret; up till not so very long ago I always thought that carrot cake wasn’t real. That it didn’t really exist other then in a stupid joke that I heard when I was a kid. The joke was about a bunny going to a bakery asking for a carrot cake, which they didn’t have. He came back every day asking for that same cake, until the baker felt sorry for the bunny and made him one. So the next time the bunny came and asked for the carrot cake he proudly said that yes he had made it especially. At which the bunny looked at him and said; ‘Do you hate it as much as I do?”

Admittedly a very very bad joke really but it sort of stuck with me. And the fact that it was a cake with vegetables in it, had me convinced that it was an actual joke and not real.

I’ve never told anyone about this until now. Of course I’ve known for a couple of years now that carrot cake is in fact a very real thing. My mistake is probably also due to the fact that I don’t think it is very popular here in the Netherlands or maybe I just haven’t seen any. Fact is that up until yesterday I had never tasted one! It was just one of those things that didn’t occur to me to make. But when I wanted to try out our new oven yesterday and I ‘bumped’ into this recipe on the Good Food website which was a makeover to make it more healthy I figured it was a sign.

So the very first thing out of our brand new oven is this carrot cake. And I can tell you now that I will definitely be making it a few more times! This is good, seriously good. I haven’t checked against a regular carrot cake recipe why this one is considered to be more healthy apart from the fact that it uses wholemeal flour instead of plain flour and the frosting is made of cream cheese combined with quark which gives it a lovely acidity.

And am I glad to be back cooking and baking! I seriously missed it!

Carrot cake

Print recipe

Serves	16
Prep time	30 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 30 minutes
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
Website	BBC Good food

217 kcalories, protein 4g, carbohydrate 31g, fat 9 g, saturated fat 1g, fibre 2g, sugar 21g, salt 0.52 g

Ingredients

1 medium orange
140g raisins
125ml rapeseed oil (I used sunflower oil as I couldn't find rapeseed)
115g wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (plus a pinch)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
140g dark moscovado sugar
280g carrots (finely grated)
2 eggs
115g self raising flour

Frosting

100g light soft cheese (I used philadelphia light)
100g quark
3 tablespoons icing sugar (sifted)
1/2 teaspoon orange zest (grated)
1,5 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions


Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. For the cake, finely grate the zest from the orange and squeeze 3 tbsp of juice. Pour the juice over the raisins in a bowl, stir in zest, then leave to soak while you make the cake. Lightly oil and line the base of a deep 20cm square cake tin. Mix the flours with 1 tsp baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.

Separate one of the eggs. Put the white in a small bowl and the yolk in a large one. Break the remaining whole egg in with the yolk, then tip in the sugar. Whisk together for 1-2 mins until thick and foamy. Slowly pour in the oil and continue to whisk on a low speed until well mixed. Tip in the flour mix, half at a time, and gently stir it into the egg mixture with a rubber spatula or big spoon. The mix will be quite stiff. Put the extra pinch of baking powder in with the egg white and whisk to soft peaks.

Fold the carrot, raisins (and any liquid) into the flour mixture. Gently fold in the whisked egg white, then pour into the tin. Jiggle the tin to level the mixture. Bake for 1 hr until risen and firm or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin 5 mins, turn out onto a wire rack, peel off the paper, then leave until cold.
Frosting

To make the frosting, stir the soft cheese, Quark, icing sugar and orange zest together - don't overbeat. Stir in the lemon juice. Swirl the frosting over the cake and cut into 16 square. This cake is even better if left well wrapped for a day or two before icing and eating. Will keep up to 5 days uniced in an airtight tin, or in the fridge if iced.

Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:44:01 +0000

Pavlova with cream, pomegranate and cranberry sauce

You did not think I would get rid of my cranberry sauce so easily now did you?

It’s actually quite funny how you sometimes start baking and then have leftovers that turn out to be made into something far superior then your first recipe. I had one of those days today; it was about time to decorate the Christmas tree so I figured I could combine that with some Christmas baking in between. We’re thinking of doing creme brulee as the dessert for Christmas as it is supposed to be fairly easy and at least you can prepare it up front.

Pavlova

I had thought to make three recipes; creme brulee, banana-cinnamon bread and to get rid of all the leftover egg whites also a pavlova. As it turns out my creme brulee was less then successful as I let the cream get too hot resulting in curdled cream and for some reason my banana bread broke when taking it out of the tin.. But the pavlova…. the pavlova was even better then I thought it would be. I was a little worried it would get half brownish as my oven is really not the best anymore but for once everything went according to plan and my pavlova came out looking as gorgeous as I had wanted it to look.

Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

Print recipe

Serves	6
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 15 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Dessert
From book	Modern Classics

Ingredients

4 egg whites
225g sugar
6 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon white vinegar
250ml whipping cream
1 pomegranate seeds (seeds from one pomegranate)
cranberry sauce

Directions


Preheat the oven to 150 C. Whip the eggwhites in a grease free bowl until soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar until the meringue is glossy.

Put the cornstarch through a sieve and fold it into the eggwhites together with the vinegar

On a baking tray lined with baking paper make a circle of about 18 cm wide of the meringue and put it in the oven. Turn down the oven temperature to 120 C and leave it in for an hour. Turn the oven off and let the pavlova cool in the oven completely.

Once cooled you can top the pavlova with whipped cream and as I did with pomegranate and cranberry sauce.

Note

I wanted to keep the topping of this recipe in red but you can ofcourse add whatever you like on top of the pavlova. Raspberries, blueberries, passionfruit or mmm, warm cherries!

All in all I still don’t know what to do for Christmas dessert. I mean this looks pretty good right, but I’m just afraid it will be too heavy after a big Christmas meal. I want something fairly light and fruity I think… Sigh… back to the drawing board. O of course; the creme brulee is still an option. Just need to redo that one and make sure it doesn’t curdle this time. In terms of looks however, this is a real winner!

Pavlova goodness

Chocolate marquis – the less simple chocolate cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:53:43 +0000

Chocolate marquis with figs

I have visions of salads… lovely green salads with maybe just a tiny bit of nuts and a little bit of salty blue cheese and a gorgeous dressing. Salads that make me feel light and most of all healthy. Salads that give me the feeling that I am on the right track, that I am doing something right for my body… As you can probably tell by the brownish colors of the photo above this has nothing to do with salad. Nothing whatsoever. But it’s true, after making all that chocolate (first the arretje nof and then this chique version of arretje nof) I feel much more like having a salad then like having another piece of chocolate cake.

Gizmo doesn't mind another chocolate cake

I actually made this chocolate marquise on the same day as the Arretje Nof cake but we had our friends from Belgium coming over so I figured something a little more fancy then that would be in order. Plus I always love ‘baking’ something new. But then this is technically not baking as it is cold too. While this involved a lot more work then the Arretje Nof cake, I actually like that one better. This was good but just not as good…Funny how that works. Plus it’s double the amount of work, so you can probably guess which one would be my favorite. I’m thinking that the basic chocolate cake can be spiced up a little instead of making this one, but it does have some potential so I figured I would share the recipe with you and as you can tell; Gizmo seems to like it!

Chocolate marquis

Chocolate marquise

Print recipe

Serves	10-12
Prep time	40 minutes
Cook time	2 hours
Total time	2 hours, 40 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
From magazine	Delicious magazine

Ingredients

225g tea biscuits (You will use 150 gr for the bottom and 75 gr for the filling)
40g butter (melted)
200g dark chocolate
200g butter
2 eggyolks
275g sugar
3 tablespoons kahlua
75g toasted flaked almonds
60g dried figs (chopped)
60g raisins (chopped)
50g double cream
150g milk chocolate

Directions


Prepare (can be done one day in advance); Crush the 150 gr of the biscuit in the blender or foodprocessor and mix with the melted butter. Put the ring of a round caketin (20 cm in diameter) on a plate or board covered with baking paper. Divide the cookie/butter mixture in a fairly thin layer and distribute over the bottom and press firmly with the back of a spoon. Leave to set in the fridge.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate au bain marie and stir til it is smooth. Whisk the eggyolks and the sugar into a very thick grainy mass and spoon them through the chocolate mixture and add the kahlua. Spoon in the almonds, the figs, raisins and the remaining 75 gr of the biscuits (crumbled). Divide the mixture across the bottom on top of the biscuit/butter mix.Smooth the top.. Leave to set in the fridge

Put the cream in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Take of the heat and put the milk chocolate in and stir until it is melted. As soon as it has the consistency of thick yogurt, divide a thin layer on top of the marquise. Leave to set in the fridge for 2-4 hrs. Take the cake out of the fridge shortly before serving. A trick to get the outside ring of is to use a hairdryer to heat the outside of the ring, so the chocolate will release easily.

Note

While certainly a tasty cake; I thought the ratio of biscuits vs the butter for the bottom didn't work so well. My bottom could have done with a little more butter (now how wrong does that sound??)

Instead of using the figs you can use any other dried, confit fruits you like. Or replace the kahlua here for cognac, rum or any other liquor you like

In the meantime; I am fed up with chocolate so I will be moving on to healthier dishes really really soon! What are you making for Christmas dessert?

Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:03:46 +0000

Isn’t it funny how certain foods can transport you right back into your childhood? When I was a little kid I already loved to bake, but we never really got much further then the standard (but tasty!) apple pie and this Arretje Nof.. Now as far as I have been able to tell, this is a very typical and old fashioned Dutch cake. We used to make it for just about every kids party and I loved making it, as it was soooo simple and soooo good. I hadn’t thought about arretje nof in ages but when I was looking for Christmas desserts I ran into another recipe which reminded me of arretje nof. So I said something to Tom about it and he looked at me with one of those blank stares… “Arretje.. who???”

Kids heaven

Turns out he never even heard of this!! So naturally I just had to make it again. It had been roughly 30 years ago that I last made this famous Dutch chocolate cake and I was a little curious where that weird name came from, which is also impossible to translate by the way…

Apparently Arretje is the name of a cartoon character that was invented by the Dutch Oil Factory (Nederlandse Olie Fabriek) later to be known to many as Calve. Arretje, a brave little Turkish boy, born and raised in Baghdad was featured in a series of 5 little booklets around the year 1926 (!) and was a big hit. In those books the company was only referred to with the letters NOF, so before you knew it; Arretje was called Arretje Nof.

I haven’t been able to find out why then this cake was called by that name but my guess is that it might have had something to do with the original ingredients which were deepfrying oil and I am guessing that mr. Calve produced that in those days.

I am happy to report that the frying oil has been replaced by butter, although technically I am not sure how much more healthy that is. This is a delicious cake and Tom had to agree even though he keeps calling it my Ivan Rebroff cake. It doesn’t require any baking; a few hours in the fridge is all you need and you can be sure that kids will absolutely love it (and so will grown ups by the way!) It’s almost like a firm chocolate mousse cake with crunchy biscuits in between. It’s about time that Arretje goes international!

Arretje Nof

Print recipe

Serves	12
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 15 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold

Ingredients

4 eggs
250g sugar
125g cacao powder
375g butter (melted)
275g biscuits

Directions


Let the butter melt very slowly on low heat. Break all the biscuits in small pieces. Line a cake tin with baking paper.

Mix the eggs and sugar together. Carefully add the cocoa powder through a sieve into the egg/sugar mixture. Pour in the melted butter. Do this one step at the time to make it easier to incorporate the butter into the mix. As soon as the butter is entirely incorporated into the mix add the biscuits and stir everything together so all biscuit pieces are coated with chocolate. Put everything in the cake tin

Put in the fridge and leave to stand at least 4 hours or preferably overnight to become solid enough to cut.

Note

You cannot substitute the butter in this recipe for oil as it is the butter that makes the cake 'set'. So substituting for oil will mean that the cake will never set and you'll have a liquid cake

Simple but so good!

Mascarpone raspberry trifle

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:00:27 +0000

Christmas dessert made easy

Noooo!!! I can hear you exclaim out loud in utter confusion… Did I not say yesterday that I was gonna be good and losing weight and blablabla?? True, so true… but you see.. this was already made when I wrote that. And I am not gonna eat it all myself! What’re you thinking? Ofcourse I will share.. Gizmo a little bit, Tom a little bit and ok, I will bring the rest to my parents… Did I not warn you there would be unhealthy recipes abound here in the coming weeks? I do need to do some sort of Christmas testing so that means actually making it or I will not be able to tell if I’m making something good or not so good.

Creamy goodness

Now this mascarpone raspberry christmassy trifle is definitely good. But it can definitely be better. (which is why the testing is necessary you see..) It was lovely and creamy but I thought the flavors were a little flat. It needs a bit of extra punch and the cranberry sauce that I am pouring over in the first picture is definitely doing the trick (btw, that is THE ultimate cranberry sauce.. Sharing the recipe for that later!) but I think it could do with some extra oomph to make it the dessert I had thought it would be. For starters; I will be adding maybe a bit of lemoncurd in the cream. That will make the taste a bit fresher. Adding some limezest in their too. On top of that I think that soaking the lady fingers in a bit of diluted limoncello sounds like a brilliant plan to me. You have to be careful though since limoncello tends to get too alcoholly when used in desserts so taste carefully before dipping your fingers. (don’t taste too much or you won’t be able to tell the difference!)

with toasted almonds

On the outside; let’s be honest. Those silver pearls look great but are a nightmare for your teeth, so I would advise against using them (we took them of before actually eating it!) although I heard there are softer varieties now. I think adding some meringue crumbles on top would be brilliant or amaretti cookies would be lovely here too. Basically; go wild… I am giving you the base recipe below but please do give it a little more punch. I’ll add the suggestions in the notes!

Mascarpone raspberry trifle

Print recipe

Serves	8-10
Prep time	30 minutes
Cook time	4 hours
Total time	4 hours, 30 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Cold
From magazine	Olive magazine

Ingredients

2 sheets gelatine
300g raspberries
600ml double cream
250g mascarpone
1 vanilla pod (seeds reserved)
75g icing sugar
150ml dry sherry
12 sponge fingers/lady fingers
toasted flaked almonds (to decorate)
edible silver balls (to decorate)

Directions


Rinse a loaf tin approx. 21 cm long x 8 cm wide x 7 cm high with cold water and line with baking parchment. Try and not get too many wrinkles in the paper. I cut out the corners so I could smooth it down the sides easier. Leave a little overhang on the sides so you can fold it in later.

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.

Put 125 gr of raspberries in a bowl and mash them with a fork. Put in a sieve and with the back of a spoon push it through, discarding the seeds.

Take 450 ml of the cream and whisk this into almost stiff peaks. Whisk the mascarpone with the vanilla and sugar. Fold the mascarpone into the cream until smooth. Drain the gelatine and dissolve it into 2 tbsp of slightly cooled boiled water. Stir 2 tsp of the gelatine mix into the puree and mix the rest with the cream. Spoon some cream into the tin to make a layer, about 1/2 cm thick. Drizzle with a third of the raspberry puree. Dip 2 sponge fingers in the sherry and put them in the tin against one side, end to end. Repeat with two more fingers on the opposite side of the tin, and finish with 2 more sponge fingers down the centre. Spoon more cream over the fingers and between the gaps. Push half the remaining raspberries into the cream in lines between the fingers. Drizzle with puree and repeat with the remaining fingers, cream, raspberries and puree. Fold over the baking paper and set in the fridge for at least 4 hrs. (I found 4 hrs not enough so best to leave it overnight or use one gelatine leaf extra) To serve, whip the remaining cream to soft peaks. Turn the terrine out upside down onto a platter. Top with cream and scatter with almonds and silver balls

Note

If you find that taking it out of the tin you see the lady fingers, you can put some cream over the outside to smooth it out.
In terms of the cream itself I would suggest adding maybe some spoons of lemon curd in and dipping the lady fingers in a diluted limoncello.
Another great option would be to use amaretti cookies and dipping the fingers in coffee/amaretto mixture; getting a bit of a tiramisu like flavor. Crumbling meringue on top will also look really nice.

gorgeous trifle

Junglefrog Cooking » cakes

Carrot cake

Carrot cake

Ingredients

Frosting

Directions

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Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

Pavlova with pomegranate and cranberry sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Chocolate marquis – the less simple chocolate cake

Chocolate marquise

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake

Arretje Nof

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Mascarpone raspberry trifle

Mascarpone raspberry trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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