Vanillicious.com – Easy Desserts

Cheesecake with Crumble Topping

In Israel we have a holiday that is being traditionally celebrated by serving dairy foods. I call it the Cheesecake holiday,whereas the official name is Shavuot. I’m really not into religious at all, so I’ll spare you the story behind this holiday. If you really want to know what it’s about, you can always waste your time reading the wikipedia article. I’m more into the foods, and if there’s a cheesecake holiday, then hey, I’m in! Even if the explanation for it is too religious. Also, being able to say “In Israel we have a cheese cake holiday” sounds pretty cool for a middle eastern country.

I’ve been wanting to make this cake for a while now, but never really got to it. Now that Shavuot is approaching, I figured it’s time!  It literally takes a few minutes to prepare the base and crumbs (plus 15 minutes baking), and a couple more to assemble the filling ingredients and whip the cream. So don’t feel intimidated by the relatively lengthy looking instructions.

Some tips before you start:

• The most efficient way to line the dough in the tin: I suggest you line the tin in baking paper, plce the dough on top of it, cover with another baking paper and roll into the tin shape using a rolling pin
• Full fat cream cheese should have 20-30% fats; Low fat cream cheese should have up to 6% fats.
• Using icing sugar while whipping the cream will thicken the whipped cream even more. I would highly recommend not to substitute it with a normal sugar.
• Before spreading the filling, attach stripe(s) of baking paper to the rim of the tin, so the mixture won’t attach to the it. This might destroy the perfect edges of your cake, though I guarantee it will taste the same. The hight of the stripe(s) should be the hight of the tin rim, and in order to attach it to the rim, just wet your hand, move them over the inside of the rim. The the baking paper will then stick to the rim with the help of the water.
• The cake has to stabilize overnight in your fridge. You could also freeze it, but you will have to transfer it to the fridge 3-4 hours before serving. Alternatively, you could leave it on the kitchen counter for 2 hours if the weather allows. It is not recommended for summer days, though.
• Once the crumble has cooled completely, it is advised to keep it in an airtight container and scatter it right before serving. That way the crumble won’t become moisty from the fridge. However, having the leftovers in my fridge for 2 more night didn’t seem to have a negative effect on its freshness.

Happy Cheesecake Holiday!

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Berry Yeast Pastry

I once stayed at a pretty luxurious hotel and out of the amazing variety of morning cakes and pastries, I had a weakness to a relatively simple, not too sweet berry yeast pastry. It was so simple: a glazed yeast pastry baked with some berries on top of it. Luckily (or not), they didn’t have it every morning, so I could taste other great morning pastries they had. But this was definitely my favourite. Now that I master the art of making yeast dough, I had to use a little bit of imagination and create my own berry yeast pastry. And believe me, it didn’t require too much imagination or skills, because it’s that simple. Some notes:

• The amount of berries for the pastry is simply as many as you like it to be!
• Take the berries out of your freezer only when you’re about to use them. They have to be completely frozen when you stick it inside the dough, moments before you bake the pastry so they won’t mash when squeezed inside the dough.
• When working with a sweet yeast pastry, I sometimes dust my work surface with icing sugar rather than flour. There’ll be no complaints if the dough is just a little sweeter than it supposed to be (which is not too sweet anyway!).
• You can freeze the baked pastry and warm it up again in your oven when necessary.

Click here to read up this recipe!

Poppy Seed Tart

Sadly, I grew up in a country with no real poppy seed tradition, and the only traditional poppy seed pastry contained a relatively disgusting poppy seed mix. Also, as a kid, the sight of that dark and unfamiliar filling inside my favourite shortbread-like filled cookie didn’t really help. So I gave poppy seeds up for almost 30 years! How sad! Luckily, my mom’s cheese cakes and vanilla roulades made up for it and I didn’t feel deprived, haha.

I re-discovered the poppy seeds and the great flavour, scent and crunchy texture they add to pastries and desserts, when I first visited Hungary, and ever since I’m trying to get more and more of it every time I visit. I’m Looking forward to the next visit, so I can try some more local poppy seed delicacies. In the meantime, I’m trying every recipe I find in order to make up for the lost years. Click here to read up this recipe!

Apple Blackberry Tart

A great tart that can contain any seasonal fruit of your choice. I present a recipe combining apple and blackberries, but there are other interesting combinations that go very well together, such as nectarines and raspberries, pears and blackberries, pears and plums, apples and plums and more. Click here to read up this recipe!

Jamie Oliver's Party Cake

Few weeks ago I was invited for a festive brunch at friends’ house (I think it was more like a mansion), and there were loads of great sweet treats. I was tasting almost all of the served dessert, yet,the most impressive item I had was a chocolate cake with cream filling and strawberries, made by a teenager. I’m telling you, if this is heaven, I promise to be good for the rest of my life!

She forgot the name of the cake, but she said the recipe is from Jamie Oliver’s The Return of the Naked Chef . I assumed the recipe can be found online pretty easily, even without knowing its name. How wrong was I! Then I figured that once I know the name of the cake, I’ll just find it online. And that’s exactly what i did. Last week, after a long day at the office, I found myself heading to a book store. I went up the stairs to the 2nd floor, where the cooking books can be found, and started looking for the book. Since it’s a Jamie Oliver book, it wasn’t too hard to find. It was hard, though to remain focused while surrounded with all the cooking book, so I spend quite a while at the store. And yes, of course I found that the amazing cake that made me perform this enquiry is simply named Party Cake. When I was home I found the recipe on one of the discussion groups on Jamie Oliver’s official website, and nowhere else! Mission accomplished! Or at least the first part of it!

After reviewing the recipe, I couldn’t help it and decided to modify it, but to be honest – I always do.  So I decided to make the base of the cake a little more moisty than it was supposed to be. I also decided to exchange some of the cream with mascarpone cheese, since it goes very well with strawberries.

A quick note: I admit this cake might take a little longer than the usual sponge cake, but it’s worth every minute of your time! But still, even though the recipe and instructions might look long, the cake is very simple to make and will take less time than you would think! Unless you bake for fun, then I say: take your time, and enjoy every moment, like I usually do!

A few tips:

• The base: Cut the cake horizontally only when it has cooled completely. By then it is less likely to break. And of course, you’re less likely to burn your fingers!
• The cream filling: If you can’t find mascarpone cheese or if it’s over-priced (which is a good enough reason!), you can stick to the original recipe and whip 500ml of double or whipping cream (the latter consists less fats).
• Start whipping the cream and cheese for the filling and assemble the cake when the base has cooled completely.
• The berries for filling: I couldn’t find fresh raspberries at the store the day I was shopping for the cake, so I got some blueberries instead. I also added some frozen raspberries to the filling, and it was as good.

So here’s my version of Jamie Oliver’s party cake:

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Vanilla Raspberry Roulade

This is a cake my mom used to make during my childhood.  She always made two of them at the same time – one filled with vanilla cream and the other was chocolate. And they were pretty simple, there was the base and the cream, nothing else. Honestly, back then it was more than enough, especially since my mom never baked creamy cakes, so it felt like a special occasion when she decided to prepare the roulades!

When I started preparing the roulade myself (one at a time, since I have only 1 oven tin, while my mom used to have two!), I realized how simple it is to make. Much simpler than the cheesecake and sponge cake she was baking on (almost) a weekly basis. Yes, I really mean it. Actually, it’ll even take you longer to read through the recipe then prepare it.

Since I like berries so much, I added raspberries to the original vanilla filling. These can be replaced with any other berry of your choice. If you choose to fill with strawberries, you should slice or dice them first. You can even spread raspberry jam (or any other jam) or berries purée instead of the raspberries.

And if you prefer to keep it classic – base and cream, I say – go fo it!

I hope you’d enjoy it as much as we did!

Click here to read up this recipe!

Lemon Berry Cake

Remember my berries obsession? I didn’t bake with berries for a while, and today I bought some frozen berries, which means I’m the proud owner of 1kg of frozen berries. Berries to bake with! And perhaps snack the blackcurrants while I bake, because they are such a great snack when they are frozen or semi-frozen (not when thawed, though..)

What makes this cake so special is the combined flavours of the lemon and berries. If there’s one thing I learned since I started baking (for the sake of argument, right?), it is that the flavours of berries and lemon go so well together. Even when I prepare a home made berries yogurt (with store-bought natural yogurt!), I add some freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice. It blend so well together and the lemon enriches and strengthens the berries flavour.

A few notes regarding the ingredients:

• I actually prefer to use limes (zest and juice) instead of lemon just because I think the cake looks more interesting with the tiny greenish hints in it. If you decide to replace the lemon, make sure you use two limes, because in baking, size (and measurements) matters!
• Frozen berries are perfectly fine for this cake. I think fresh berries should be used only when they suppose to keep their original shape and when they are not supposed to be baked. A good example is berry tarts or tartlets.
• In my opinion, the best berry-mix for this cake is raspberries, blackberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants. Though once I had a mix that contained cherries as well, and I discovered they can go pretty well in this cake, too. If you prefer, you can omit the blackberries, which are (relatively) the sweetest (or less sour) berry in this mix.

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Vanilla Yeast Swirls

Or: Are you Brave Enough to Bake with Yeast?

I keep reading and hearing that baking yeast cakes are not for amateur bakers or beginners. Even people that bake on a regular basis avoid these type of cakes. I agree that some yeast dough can require some time and a little more skills (but only very little), when making the dough. But when it comes to the basic dough, it’s (litterally) a piece of cake. When preparing the dough, the most complicated part is kneading it. If you have a good mixer, you’re not even going to do that! So what so complicated about yeast dough?…

Another thing about yeast cakes is that you can’t be spontaneous about it, because it has to rise for several hours. Therefore, when you plan to bake a yeast cake, take into account that it will probably take at least 6 hours from the moment you start mixing the dough ingredients until you take the cake out of the oven. It usually depends on the type of yeast you’re using – fresh or dry, when dry usually takes longer to rise (from my experience), and how warm is the room where you let the dough rise.

I got the idea for this delicious yeast cake from Kugelhopf, a cake with Eastern European origins. I’ll tell you all about Kugelhopfs on a later post. Anyway, the swirl cake I made has a modern twist – its shape and filling. The shape came from a cake I noticed at the local supermarket, and as for the filling – I filled it with creme patissiere and coconut. Though you can replace the coconut with other dried fruits of your choice (e.g. apricots, raisins), chocolate chips or jams if that’s what you prefer. The good thing about these type of cakes is that you can make it as interesting as you like, and there are endless options as to how to fill your swirls. So it’s basically up to you and your preference – If you’re more of a chocolate person, you can also spread chocolate paste or Nutella instead of vanilla etc.

By the way, the yeast pastry part in this recipe is the same as published on my Sweet Yeast Pastry post. The difference is that I use only half this portion for the Vanilla Yeast Swirls.

Click here to read up this recipe!