Cocoa mince pie with custard and yellow plums

Today's dessert: something easy and light but delicious!


55 minutes  + 1 h the dough in the fridge
10 serves
Super easy

Ingredients for the cocoa mince base:

• 225 gr flour
• 50 gr cocoa powder
• a pinch of salt
• 150 gr butter 
• 150 gr sugar
• 2 egg yolks 
• custard
• 8 yellow plums 

Method: preheat the oven at 180º C. In a bowl, put all the dry ingredients together: the flour, the sugar, the pinch of salt and the cocoa powder. Mix them very well. Then, incorporate the butter but it must be soft in advance. Now, mix the butter with the other ingredients making a sandy dough. After this step, make a hole in the middle and put the beaten yolks. The result: a soft dough that must rest in the fridge for an hour. 

After this hour, cut the dough into two parts. Pour some flour in the worktable or over the rolling pin and knead the doughs a little bit. Distribute the doughs all over the moulds that have been previously basted. You can do it  in two 20 cm diameter moulds or  in a 25 cm diameter mould. Distrubute very well the dough all over the moulds. 

Now, put some baking paper on the doughs and put some legumes over it in order to prevent that the doughs don't reach volume once in the oven. Bake them for 10 minutes. Remove the doughs from the oven and let them get cooler. Then, fill the doughs with custard. 

Wash the plums and peel them. Cuth them into wedges and put them all over the custard. Now, you are ready to enjoy!

Sachertorte

Today's recipe: Sachertorte! 

The best thing about this cake is that you always end up as the best guest of the party! Its chocolate glazed is desirable and its filling (homemade apricot jam) is something that comes down from heaven. Don't miss this recipe because it will make your mouth water! 

50 minutos  + 2 h homemade apricot jam

12 serves

Easy

First of all, we should prepare the jam. 

Homemade apricots jam ingredients:

• 500 gr apricots
• 250 gr sugar
• grated rind of half a lemon
• cinnamon stick

Method: Wash up the apricots, peel them and remove the seeds. Once you finish the first step, you don’t need to chop them, just cut them into wedges. In a pot, put the apricots, the sugar, the lemon and the cinnamon stick and cook everything on low heat during 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the cinnamon stick and leave the lemon. Stir from time to time. After 2 hours, remove the pot from the heat and let it get cooler. 

Chocolate cake ingredients: 

• 250 gr sugar
• 250 gr butter
• 6 eggs
• 250 gr dark chocolate
• 75 gr almond flour
• 200 gr flour

Chocolate glazed ingredients: 

• 300 gr dark chocolate
• 100 butter
• 100 ml cream

Method: first of all, we should leave the butter out of the fridge before starting to work with it because it will help us. Once its texture is lighter, we put the butter into a bowl together with the sugar until getting a soft cream using a beater. Taste it: if it does not have a sandy texture , the cream is ready. If not, you should keep beating. Once this step is finished, it is time to incorporate the yolks one at a time. Now,  melt the chocolate. Sit over a pan of barely simmering water, this is called a bain marie, and allow the chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally. Then, remove it from the heat and let it get cooler. After this step, incorporate the chocolate to the creamy dough. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients: the flour and the almond flour. And then, incorporate these two flours to the wet mixture.

Beat the egss white until stiff. Now, incorporate them to the previous mixture with a rolling motion. Open the oven and bake the cake at 180º C for 10 minutes. After these 10 minutes, reduce the heat at 170 ºC and bake it for 30 minutes. NOTE: these are just approximate measures. 

Once the cake is baked, remove it from the oven until it gets cooler. Meanwhile, we can prepare the syrup: 150 gr sugar and 100 ml water. Pour these two ingredients into a little pot and let them boil over a low heat. Now, the cake is ready to cut it into two parts. Soak both sides with syrup and fill just one of the sides with the jam. Close it.

Chocolate glazed method: in a little pot, melt the chocolate over a low heat with the butter until getting a shiny mixture. Now, add the cream. Put the cake over a rack and pour the chocolate glazed over it. Prepare the decoration beforehand. In my case, I prepared little spheres of chocolate with the name "Sacher" on it. If you are going to to something similar, you should put it on the cake once you have poured the chocolate glazed because it is not cold yet. It is time to put the cake in the fridge for 2 or more hours. And it is ready to taste!

Hope you have enjoyed it! 

Rainbow Cake Party!

Yesterday, it was Samia’s birthday, the niece of my friend Alexis.

 Baking her cake was amazing because the Rainbow Cake is the best cake for a birthday party. You have fun when you bake it, you just enjoy because you know children will enjoy too. The result was perfect (I am not saying this because I baked it) but according to the diners the cake was yummy!

The most important thing is that she enjoyed her cake and everything was so good. This cake convinces me again.

Here, I leave you the link of the recipe: Rainbow cake and the result. I hope you like it!

Naked Cake with chocolate and orange ganache

Days before, I baked this Naked Cake for my friend Claudia, she turned 21. I think the result is perfect because the filling is soft and yummy and, of course, chocolate makes it much better.

Naked Cake means that the cake won't be covered by any kind of icing, we just see the filling and the cake decorations. Despite this, these Naked Cakes are getting successful, above all in weddings. I have to be honest and say that the simplicity is, at the end, even more delicious than the rest of the cakes full of different ingredients and icings.

So, now, here we go with the ingredients and the preparation of the cake and the ganache, which will be published aside this recipe. 

Serves: 12

Difficulty: not that difficult

Time: 40 min baking the cake + 30 min ganache + 40 min ganache chilling in the fridge 

Ingredients: 

• 4 eggs
• 200 gr icing sugar
• 150 gr butter 
• 150 gr flour 
• 50 gr cornflour
• 2 tbp baking powder
• a pinch of brown colouring

Preheat the oven at 180 º C. Now, in a bowl we have to mix the eggs with the icing sugar until getting  a soft and a little bit white cream. After this step, it is time to incorporate the butter to the previous mix. The butter should have a very light texture in order to be able to work with it properly. Now, mix well with the rest of the ingredients to have an uniform and shining mixture. In another bowl, it is time to incorporate the dry ingredients: the cornflour, the baking powder and the flour. Mix them very well and pour them into the bowl of the wet ingredients. Now, incorporate the colouring.
It is time to bake the cake. I have used a 20 cm diameter mould because the ingredients perfectly fit in it. Pour the dough into the mould and bake it for 40 minutes. After baking it, let the cake rest until cooling. Meanwhile, we can prepare the ganache (the recipe will be published aside) Once the cake is cool enough, remove it from the mould and cut it into two parts. Fill in with the ganache.

Ingredients of the ganache:

• Chocolate ganache
• 2 oranges
• sugar

Peel the oranges, cut them in sections. In a pan, caramelized them. Remove it from the heating until cooling. Then, fill the cake with the ganache and the oranges sections. In order to incorporate the ganache, you can use a pastry bag to make the cake higher. Now, put the oranges sections and we cover it with the other side of the cake. I put more ganache and orange sections on the top as decoration. Moreover, you can also sprinkle sugar on the top of the cake. 

And that's all, hope you have enjoyed and liked it!