Raspberry Charlotte Cake

This perfect cake has only perfect advantages :) perfectly literally! :) It is perfect for a gift, it looks gorgeous, tastes wonderfully, it is extremely easy to make and doesn't require using an oven :)

The recipe, slightly changed, comes from this website.

Notes:

• Prepare this cake at least an evening earlier as it needs to stiffen in the fridge for a good few hours.
• Please note that You need to use 16cm springform cake pan, unless the cake will be destroyed.
• Make sure your springform pan is perfectly clean and do not use baking paper, as it will stick to the raspberry foam, get moist and after all, you'd end up with another cake layer, made of baking paper.

Ingredients:

• 200 g of Savoiardi/ladyfingers (around the cake)
• red, forest fruit (top)

Raspberry mousse (bottom):

• 350g of raspberries (fresh or frozen - if so, defrost)
• lemon juice from 1/2 of lemon
• 1/3 glass of sugar
• 2,5 teaspoon of powdered gelatin
• 200ml of 36% cream, cool

Raspberry cream:

• 250g of mascarpone cheese, cool 
• 150ml of 36% cream, cool
• 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar
• 1,5 teaspoon of powdered gelatin + 30ml of hot milk
• 150g of raspberries (fresh or frozen - if so, defrost)

Preparation:

Raspberry mousse:

• Take a pot, put raspberries, lemon juice and sugar inside. Bring to boil, stiring from time to time.
• Sieve, to get a mousse without small seeds. 
• Dissolve gelatin in a small amount (a tiny little bit, just to cover the gelatin) of boiling water, stir so that it melts completely. 
• Bring the mousse to boil again and add previously prepared gelatin. Stir precisely. Set aside, it needs to cool down completely.

When cooled down:

1. Prepare a clean springform cake pan and keep it handy.
2. Beat 36% cream for around 5-7 minutes with a mixer (till the whipped cream is stiff). Stop mixing and slowly, spoon after spoon, add cooled down mousse. Stir gently, till it all links.
3. Pour the mousse to the springform. Cover for with foil and put in the fridge to let it stiffen for few hours.

When ready, prepare raspberry cream::

1. Take a small bowl/pot, put 30ml of milk inside, heat till hot. Add 1,5 teaspoon of powdered gelatin and stir till it melts completely. Set aside so that it cools down.
2. Take another bowl suitable for mixing and put mascarpone, 36% cream and powdered sugar inside. Beat till stiff. Add raspberries and cooled down gelatin(melted in milk). Mix till everything links.
3. Put on the top of the cake, distribute equally all over. 
4. Cool down in the fridge for another few hours.

Finishing:

1. When stiff, take out from the fridge. Using a knife, cut the cake around, very close to the sides of the springform, to make taking it out from the springform easier. 
2. Take ladyfingers, stick them around the cake (the mousse is sticky, ladyfingers will stick easily).
3. Take a ribbon, decorate the cake with it, tying it around the cake.
4. Decorate the top of the cake with (preferably) forest fruit.
5. Store in the fridge.
6. Bon Appetit! :)

Semifreddo cake a'la Tiramisu

A few days ago, I was asked to prepare a Tiramisu... of course I will do it! my pleasure! But... it's summer.. it's so hot outside... and Tiramisu has a lot of cream which tends to melt... I found a brilliant, refreshing and delicious solution... ;) 

Recipe comes from: http://www.kwestiasmaku.com/desery/semifreddo/torcik_semifreddo/przepis.html but there are a lot of my private changes, as this recipe skips some more or less obvious activities. 

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs 
• 1/2 glass of sugar 
• 250g of mascarpone 
• 4-5 drops of vanilla extract 
• 1 teaspoon of lemon peel 
• 1-2 packagings of ladyfingers 
• 50-70 ml of chocolate/amaretto liqueur or a couple of drops of almond extract 
• cocoa and instant coffee (for sprinkling every tier) 

Optional ingredients - for a strawberry sauce: (I skipped that part and added caramel sauce): 

• 500 g of strawberries (either frozen or fresh) 
• some sugar for the taste* 
• 1 teaspoon of corn flour melted in 2 tablespoons of water 
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice 

*start from 2 tablespoons, taste, add more.

Preparation:

Strawberry sauce:

1. Defrost strawberries if frozen. Put in a pot, add sugar, boil for 7 minutes. Sieve. 
2. Add flour, boil, add lemon juice, boil. 

Semifreddo:

1. Take a loaf pan, put baking paper inside, so that some of it sticks out of the loaf pan. Put it in the freezer. 
2. Peel the lemon, squeeze, to get the juice, put aside. 
3. Separate egg yolks from whites, put in two different (quite big) bowls. 
4. Mix yolks with sugar on the highest rotation power of the mixer, till it gets smooth. 
5. Keep mixing - add mascarpone, vanilla extract and lemon peel. 
6. Beat the whites (around 7 minutes) 
7. Add whites to yolks. Stir gently. 
8. Take the loaf pan out of the freezer. 
9. Put the first tier of ladyfingers inside. Add some liqueur/almond extract*. Put some cream, sprinkle with cocoa and instant coffee. 
10. Repeat all the steps from 9 - ladyfingers, liqueur/extract, cream, cocoa+coffee. 
11. Put the foil on the top and put the cake into the freezer for at least 8 hours. 
12. Max 30 minutes before giving the cake to your guests, take as many portions as you need and put them in the fridge. The rest of the cake remains in the freezer. 
13. Add some sauce if you wish - caramel, chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, etc. 
14. Bon Appetit!

Tiramisu

Gourmet sensation. Always, in every variation :)

Recipe from this website, but changed, to fit a springform pan.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 packs of ladyfingers
• 300 ml of strong espresso
• 120 ml of Amaretto syrup
• 8 egg yolks (in a room temperature)
• 8 tablespoons of sugar
• 500 g of mascarpone (cold)
• cocoa (bitter one, for baking), to sprinkle the tiers and the top

Preparation:

1. Prepare yolks. They need to be in a room temperature.
2. Take a bowl. Prepare espresso, mix with Amaretto syrup in the bowl. Cool down.
3. Take a metal bowl, put yolks inside, add sugar and using a mixer, mix on its highest rotation for at least 8 minutes till you get thick, fluffy and light substance.*
4. Using a tablespoon, add one of mascarpone to yolks, mix (average rotation) till smooth, then add another, etc. till all the mascarpone is added. This cream needs to be thick and fluffy.
5. Take a springform pan, ladyfingers and all the bowls. 
6. Take 1 ladyfinger, put for 2 seconds in coffee-Amaretto mixture(2 seconds for both sides of a ladyfinger**), put in the springform pan. Repeat till you get one full tier of ladyfingers on the bottom of the springform pan.
7. Sprinkle it with cocoa, using a sieve.
8. Put the yolks-mascarpone cream on it (do not worry that cocoa mixes with the cream)
9. Put another tier of ladyfingers, cocoa, cream.
10. Repeat all the steps, till all the ingredients are gone. The top is the cream and cocoa.***
11. Put in the fridge for at least 3 hours (entire night is perfect, especially if the cream isn't thick enough)
12. It may stay in the fridge for few days. But I don't think it will ;)
13. Bon Appetit!

* This is the most important part of making a good Tiramisu. While beating, it is advisable not to move the mixer too often. Beaten yolks need to be thick, fluffy, bright. If they aren't - add special powder that will stiffen, consolidate it (in Poland - śmietan-fix). If you don't have such powder and the cream is wet, with water and is more like a liquid (which is bad) you can either use it - but then Tiramisu needs to stay in the fridge for the entire night (even though it won't fully fix it, there will be a problem with taking it out of the springform pan and cutting a decent piece to put on a plate) or prepare the cream from the very beginning - advisable. 

** It needs to be done quickly, otherwise ladyfingers will crumble.

*** It is possible to make 3 tiers out of this recipe. But I do not recommend it. With 3 tiers, there are too many ladyfingers and too little cream. 
It is better (both if it comes to its appearance and the easiness of taking it out) to finish on 2.

Summertime cheesecake

A very tasty mix of 2 recipes + my own creativity :) 

Fresh, light, non-baking cake, perfect for a summertime coffee in a green, blossoming garden.

One recipe comes from this website and just the 'appearance' idea from this one.

Ingredients:

• 4 packagings of ladyfingers
• 2 tins (400 g each) of coconut milk
• 1 kg of creamy quark (the one for cheesecakes)
• 1/2 - 3/4 glass of sugar
• 6 teaspoons of gelatin
• strawberry jelly
• strawberries, blueberries for decoration

Optional ingredients:

• 80 ml of Malibu liqueur
• whipped cream

Preparation:

1. Take a spring pan. Grease it, put baking paper on the bottom. Put some ladyfingers on the bottom (only one tier).
2. Open the tins with the coconut milk. Fill the entire glass with part of it and the rest of the coconut milk pour to the bigger bowl, add quark, sugar and liqueur. Stir.
3. Take the glass with coconut milk and pour it to the pan. Add gelatin and heat on low heat, stiring all the time till the gelatin melts. Do not boil.
4. Take a big bowl, put the coconut milk with gelatin inside and partially add the mix from the other bowl with quark, stiring all the time so that everything links. Pour it to your springpan with ladyfingers on the bottom.*
5. Put it in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. Keep checking what's going on. If ladyfingers are on the top, using a spoon, plundge them in. The quark-substance gets thicker.
6. Leave the cake in the fridge. Prepare the jelly as the packaging says. 
7. Stir, cool it down, so that you get cold liquid.
8. Pour the jelly on your cake. Leave, so that it solidifies. (Keep checking by shaking gently the spring pan)
9. Put the fruit on the top. You can add whipped cream on the top as well.
10. Keep in the fridge, so that it completely solidifies (5 hours - entire night)
11. After that time, open the sides. If the cake is sticky - then just stick the ladyfingers. If not - apply some whipped cream on the sides and then stick the ladyfingers.**
12. Bon Appetit :)

* Don't worry if ladyfingers don't stay on the bottom after adding quark-substance.

Malakoff Cake

Deriving from Austria, this cake isn't as hard as it seems to be. Mostly, because it doesn't require turning on the oven even for a single second ;)

Personally, I wouldn't call it a gourmet sensation, but it is, indeed, very tasty and its appearance is impressive on the table.

The recipe comes from this website.

Ingredients:

• 25 dag/250g of ladyfingers 

Filling: 

• 1/2 jar of black currant/raspberry jelly 
• 1,5 glass of milk 
• 1 vanilla pudding 
• 4 tablespoons of sugar 
• 25 dag/250g of butter 
• 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar 
• 10 dag/100g almond flakes (the original recipe requires roasting them, but I skipped that part) 

Punch:

• 1/2 glass of white wine 
• 50 ml of rum 
• 2 teaspoons of sugar 

Decoration:

• whipped cream 
• whatever you want - you can use ready-made chocolate decorations, chocolate biscuits, (candied) cherries, blueberries, etc

Preparation:

1. Prepare the pudding (boil it with milk and sugar, as the  recipe on the packing says), cool it. 
2. Take a food processor, put the butter and powdered sugar inside and mix. Without stopping add one tablespoon of pudding, then another, till you mix all the pudding with butter and powdered sugar. 
3. Mix all the ingredients of the punch (use any container you want, even a glass)
4. Prepare a springform pan, cover the bottom with ladyfingers (preferably only one tier). Impregnate these ladyfingers with your punch. (1-2 teaspoons of punch per 1 ladyfinger is much enough, you'll see in what way your ladyfingers will react on 1 teaspoon of the punch - be careful not to make a mush)
5. Take the currant/raspberry jelly and using a spoon, put some spoons of the jelly on a different parts of the ladyfingers, then link so that it covers the entire surface of the cake.
6. Take the cream, prepared in the food processor, put a thick filling of it on the jelly. Don't worry if your jelly mixes a little with the cream. It is very hard to avoid it. If the entire surface is covered with cream, sprinkle it with some almond flakes. 
7. Repeat points 4-6(ladyfingers, jelly,cream, flakes) till all the ladyfingers are gone. (save some cream for the side of the cake)There should be 2-3 tiers. The last tier are almond flakes. 
8. Put your cake in the fridge.
9. When the cake (especially the cream) gets harder (after some time, 1-3 hours) take off the side and use the rest of the cream on the cake's side. Then sprinkle cake's side with almond flakes. 
10. Decorate the top of your cake with anything you want - biscuits, chocolate decorations, whipped cream, etc
11. Keep the cake in the fridge.
12. Bon appetit :)