Vanillicious.com – Easy Desserts

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:

Click here to read up this recipe!

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!

Crème Pâtissière

Crème pâtissière is basically a custard with some added starch (flour and/or cornflour). It is a rich, flavoured sweet pastry cream that is commonly used as a pastry filling. Good examples are fruit tarts, cakes (napoleon cake), cream puffs,  and when mixing the creme patissiere with freshly whipped cream, it can be used as filling for eclaires, bee sting cake and much more. It can also be baked as a pastry filling.

It is very simple to make, and the most important tip for a successful result is to keep stirring, vigorously! This is in order to prevent the egg yolks from being scrambled and leaving small lumps in the creme.

Another advice – I like to use it almost immediately. I let it cool down for 10-15 minutes, then use it. Otherwise it becomes a little too thick to work with it effortlessly.

Click here to read up this recipe!

Strawberry Trifle

This dessert was created when I ruined a perfectly baked white chocolate and coconut cake, that was meant to be a surprise for my friend’s parents. It just flipped out of my hands (with some help, of course), and smashed on the work surface in my kitchen. For a minute or two I was staring at what used to be a perfect cake and turned into uneven and messy cakes chunks and crumbs moments later. Something I will never serve, not even to my biggest enemies…

When I came back into my senses I knew immediately I’ll have to bake another one. And then I realized we can always enjoy those chunks and crumbs with vanilla ice cream (did I mention we always have some in the fridge?).

Few hours later I figured I can turn it into a trifle, a very easy dessert to make!The traditional recipes require a sponge cake, but honestly, I think my cake made this trifle taste so much better!

You can have your trifle with your favourite fruits and/or berries and have as many layers as your serving bowl can hold. So basically, you can use this recipe as a general guideline on how to prepare your own trifle. You can also scatter some fresh fruit between the layers.

A quick note: I manged to prepare 2 trifles (one for ourselves and one for a dinner party we were invited to. It involved loads of compliments) with half the amount of the original recipe as published here in the blog. Needless to say I was snacking around with it as well. But only a little (I had desserts to prepare!). Anyway, what I’m trying to say is the amount of cake you’ll need for this recipe depends on the size of your serving bowl and the number of cake layers you prefer.

Click here to read up this recipe!

Berry fool

Fool is a British summery dessert (though I don’t see any reason why one should not have it all year long), which is probably hundreds of years old. This amazingly elegant, simple and delicious dessert is basically made by a sweetend fruit purée, stirred and folded into whipped double cream (single cream when it’s not available, or when you want your dessert less fatty, of course).

The name fool is derived from the French word foulé, which means crushed, and refers to the crushed fruit. In the following recipe I’m using mixed berries. My favourites for the purée are blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrant, redcurrants and strawberries. Though it can be made with any berry or berries of your choice. Remember to serve in sophisticated looking glasses (ice cream or wine glasses), just to make it look even more delicious than it already is, and top with some fresh berries!

Click here to read up this recipe!