Vanillicious.com – Easy Desserts

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!

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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.

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Vanilla Biscuits

A simple, basic cookies recipe, that can never be wrong. These cookies can be served as is, but can also be served in more interesting manners:

- You can serve the cookies with dips, such as lemon curd, smooth Berries Purée, cream cheese frosting, vanilla custard, chocolate genache and more.

- You can make sandwich cookies, by filling them with one or more of the above dips. This might take a little longer than just serving along with some dips, but this suggestion (and the following one) is a nice exercise in relaxation, creativity and can be a lot of fun, too.

- You can coat or decorate the cookies with a simple flavoured icing. Just mix icing sugar with a little bit of naturally flavoured liquid, such as freshly squeezed lemon juice, raspberry juice (that’s a good use for the liquids from frozen raspberry packs). If you wonder how much liquids, I can just say I always start with one tbsp, and add as much icing sugar as it can absorb. The ratio can be more that 1:3 (liquid:icing sugar) and the texture – a little bit thicker than a double cream. Once mixed, set aside for 15-20 minutes before applying on the cookies.

Few tips regarding the preparation:

- The easiest way to prepare the dough is by using a food processor. It’s OK if you don’t have one, just use your fingers. It’ll take few more minutes, but will end up with the same cookies.

- If you shape your cookies in different sizes, I recommend you’d bake them in more than one batch. In each batch bake the shapes that are similar in size.

Happy baking and decorating!

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Vanilla Puff Pastry Cases

Here’s another idea for a quick treat for a cold, wintry weekend.

I prepared these treats as personal cases. If unavailable, can be replaced by a 23cm loosed bottom flan tin, though not too recommended, because when you’ll divide into individual slices, they might not hold the filling. But hey, it tastes exactly the same, and besides, that’s what I used to do until I bought those useful babies!

Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did!

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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.

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