Category Archives: cakes

Cakes

Cielaviņa – chocolate & meringue cake

Cielaviņa is a typical Latvian cake that combines crunchy meringue with a tasty chocolate cream. It reminds me of my childhood; when I was little we always bought it from “Staburadze” – a Latvian confectionary manufacturer. But I always wanted to try a home-made version of it and my last birthday seemed to be the right occasion! Now I’m publishing this recipe right before Latvian National Day (the 18th of November). So, try this delicious Latvian cake to celebrate it!

Cielaviņa

Ingredients: Meringue

400g powder sugar
6 egg whites
a pinch of salt
2 table spoons of corn starch
200g hazelnuts

Chocolate butter cream

6 egg yolks
4 table spoons of sugar
40g water
250-300g butter (room temperature)
200ml sweet condensed milk
4-5 table spoons of cacao
a pinch of salt
1-2 table spoons of rum

Chocolate glaze:

100g dark chocolate
50ml sweet cream

Decoration:

50-100g hazelnuts

Fraisier – strawberry cake

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The ”Fraisier” is a French strawberry cake with a sponge base and cream filling. It is light, creamy, and brings a taste of summer. Now it is an excellent time to make this cake! It is important that you use big strawberries, so that you can place them nicely around, building the “wall” of your cake. This fraisier recipe has several steps, but they are all pretty easy. If you have the chance, you can also make much of it in advance. For example, I prepared the sponge cake for my fraisier 2 days in advance.

Le fraisier

Yield: 12-16 portions

Ingredients:

Sponge:

1 tea spoon of vanilla extract
120 g caster sugar
100 g wheat flour
50 g butter
4 eggs

Syrup:

150 g sugar
20 cl water
1 tea spoon vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
the zest of half a lemon

Strawberries and decoration:

500 g strawberries
Some strawberries and almond paste for decorating the top

Cream filling:

25 cl sweet cream
25 cl semi-skimmed milk
2 egg yolks
40 g cornstarch
50 g sugar
2 gelatin leaves (2g each)
1 vanilla bean or 1 cup vanilla extract

Medus kūka

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The Medus kūka or Honey cake cake is a multi-layered cake with honey as its main ingredient – of course. It also has a creamy filling made from sour-cream between the layers. It is a sweet and delicious treat that goes very well served with an afternoon tea. The honey cake is one of the most popular desserts in Russia as well as the sourrounding countries. In Latvia you can find both traditional and very modern versions of the cake, which makes it even more attractive. It is one of my favorite childhood sweets and I’m happy that I finally managed to bake it. I hope that you will enjoy my recipe!

Honey cake

Yield: 12 portions

Ingredients:

Dough:

300ml honey
100g brown sugar
3 eggs
ca. 600g flour – I used whole-wheat flour
120g butter
2 tea spoons baking soda
1 tea spoon apple vinegar

Cream

700g sour cream
500g light philadelphia cream
2 table spoons honey + some sugar
1 tea spoon vanilla extract

You can add some more sugar to the cream if you prefer a sweeter taste. Since I had used a lot of honey and sugar in the dough, I added less in the cream itself.

Pavlova with figs

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Light Meringue cake with fruits

Pavlova is a meringue cake with a crunchy exterior and a soft interior, which is usually topped with whipped cream and berries or some fresh fruits. It is soft, light and very delicisous. Pavlova is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, and got this name after her 1920s tour through Australia. Still, it is unclear where the dessert itself originated from: some argue it comes from New Zealand, others say it is Australin and some even say that it comes from the United States. It is a dessert most identified with the summer time, but is eaten all year round in many Australian and New Zealand homes and has become as well very popular in Europe.

I had wanted to make this cake for a long time, but somehow I was afraid of it being too hard. Now that we have moved homes, I have a new oven and it seems that together “we” can master this elegant and fragile cake very well. I hope that you will enjoy my recipe.

Pavlova with figs

Yield: 5-6 portions

Ingredients:

Meringue

5 egg-whites
270g powder (caster) sugar (minimum 250g of sugar)
1 table spoon white vinegar
1 table spoon maizena
1 tea spoon vanilla extract

Topping

250ml cream
1 tea spoon vanilla extract
1 table spoon of sugar (if you don’t like your cakes too sweet, you can also skip it)
400g of fresh figs
some mint for the decoration

Plum-almond cake

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Sour & sweet cake combination

In France it is very typical to bake a cake based on almond cream or – as it is known here – frangipane cream. One of the most popular is “tarte aux poires”. To make the traditional recipe a bit different, I’ve used plums this time. It gives nice sour taste to the sweet almond cake.

plum-almond cake

Yield: 8 portions

Ingredients:

300g pâte sucrée (sweet tart dough)
400g of red plums
280g of almond cream (frangipane cream)
- 100g butter – room temperature
- 100g grounded almonds
- 100g icing sugar
- 1 tea spoon of cornstarch
- 2 eggs
- 1 tea spoon of amaretto
- 125g of pastry cream

Galette des Rois

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French-style “Kings’ cake”

Between the 6th of January and the end of the month, French bakeries are filled with a special cake called galette des Rois. The cake is one of the ways that French people celebrate the Epiphany –the arrival of the Three Wise men– which happened on January 6th according to Christian tradition. This galette is a cake with a surprise, since there is one lucky charm, la fève, hidden inside. The person that gets the slice with the lucky charm becomes “the king/queen” for the day. French bakeries include a paper golden crown with the galette, which the king of the day is supposed to wear. The epiphany is celebrated in Spain as well in a similar way, by eating the roscón de Reyes (“Kings’ donut or Kings’ cake“) The roscón is a crown-shaped brioche decorated with candied fruits and filled with pastry cream or whipped cream.

There are different types of the galette de rois in France. I’ll share with you the traditional one, which is a round cake of puff pastry with a dense filling of frangipane (almond paste). Next year, I plan to bake –and share with you!– the Spanish version of the roscón de Reyes.

galette de rois

Yield: 8 portions

Ingredients:

2 rolls of puff pastry
100g butter
100g sugar
125g ground almond
2 eggs + 1 egg to spread on top of the cake
2 tea spoons of amaretto or rhum

Two mousse chocolate cake

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A delicious and beautiful cake for times of celebration

Last year I took a patisserie course in Paris and, just before Christmas, I learned this wonderful cake recipe. I made it for my family’s Christmas party last year…and it took me one year to post the recipe online. Actually, I’ve made this cake already 3-4 times since then, including for my birthday, and it is one of my favourite recipes now! It is composed with several different layers, the best ones being combination of white and black chocolate mousses. Go ahead and dare preparing a spectacular and challenging dessert this Christmas!

two mousse chocolate cake

Yield: 15 portions

Ingredients:

1) Custard

140g cream
140g milk
75g egg yolks
40g sugar

2) Chocolate financier

70g ground almonds
50g icing sugar
90g egg whites
25g cream
5g cornstarch
30g black chocolate

3) Crunchy chocolate base

110g pailleté feuillantine (crispy crepe style cookies)
185g praliné paste
75g black chocolate

4) Black chocolate mousse

150g custard
175g black chocolate
225g whipped cream

5) White chocolate mousse

150g custard
250g white chocolate
225g whipped cream
4g gelatine leaves (usually, 4 leaves)

6) Glaze and some decorations

60g water
50g cream
110g sugar
40g cacao
4g gelatin leaves
Additional cacao, golden powder, etc. for decorating

Tarte tatin

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Upside-down apple pie

The “tarte Tatin” is an upside-down pie in which the fruit (usually apples) is caramelized in butter and sugar before the pie is baked. As the base you can use either short-crust pastry or puff pastry. I’ve prepared an apple tarte tatin with well caramelized ‘Golden Delicious’ apples and shortcrust pastry.

tarte tatin

Yield: 8 portions

Ingredients:

250g shortcrust pastry
1,5kg apples (Golden Delicious)
200g powder sugar
130g semi-salted butter

Fudgy chocolate cake with blueberries

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Add some berries to delicious chocolate cake

I think that you may have already noticed that chocolate is one of my favorite ingredients This summer when I visited my family in Latvia, I went to a new restaurant in Jurmala called ¨Legend¨. This is a special place not only because my cousins’s husband, Janis Zvirbulis, is a chef there, but also because the food is delicious. Unfortunately I couldn’t try everything I wanted (yet!), but there is this one dessert that I still have dreams about: a chocolate cake with cream and blueberries on top. Wonderful combinations! I didn’t get the secret recipe but I’ve created my own version of a chocolate cake with blueberries and ice-cream.

fudgy chocolate cake

Yield: 8 portions Ingredients:

200g of dark chocolate
60g unsalted butter
100ml cream
6 eggs
150g sugar
a little bit of salt
one tea spoon vanilla sugar
1 spoon of cacao powder
some blueberries, icing sugar and ice cream for decoration

Mango Charlotte

Charlotte’s story

Charlotte is a very tasty, elegant looking and easy to prepare summer cake that is quite popular in France. Its core is creamy fruit mousse, bordered all around with ladyfingers. It is really a very light cake, and great for pairing with different fruits. I’ve prepared my first version with mango and it came out very well. The second version was with rhubarb and raspberries; that recipe I will share with you another time. For now, enjoy this mango charlotte decorated with raspberries.

mango charlotte with raspberries

Yield: 4 portions

Ingredients:

Mango mousse:

1 big ripe mango – should yield around 300g mango flesh, cut into small pieces
50g + 10g sugar – depends on how sweet you want it to be
4 gelatin leaves
half of a lemon’s juice & and the grated zest (optional)
50g water
100g liquid cream
10-15 ladyfingers
Some fruit for the decoration according to your taste.