Let Us Eat Cake

[ShaktiGurl]

Originally Posted by carstenb

Just to prove that desserts are really easy - here is something for when you simply don't have time. By the way, kids can make this dessert with a little supervision - they are proud as a peacock when it is served and the guests are told the kids made it.

Dessert when you simply don’t have time!



Heavy cream

Grand Mainer or Amaretto

Chopped semi-sweet chocolate

Slices of banana

A mandarin wedge or the like



Mix the cream with a little of the liquor. Whip it until fairly stiff. Mix in the chocolate and banana. Put in the refrigerator for an hour or so.



Spoon the mixture into some wine glasses and serve with a mandarin wedge on top.

Carsten- tried this last night. Simple. Delicious! I can think of a few varieties of this with berries and other liquors. TY!

[Seaworthy Lass]

You don't need to be a coconut fan to enjoy this cake. Not just a 'boat recipe' (although it's child's play making it and the longevity of ingredients make it exceptionally good for cruising), it is scrumptious enough to be served for special occasions such as birthdays. This cake disappeared very rapidly after candles had been blown out yesterday .

COCONUT CAKE

1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup sugar
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
Rind and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup desiccated coconut
1.5 cups SR flour

Topping:
1 cup sifted icing sugar
2 tbsp coconut milk
Handful shredded coconut
Approx 100 g raspberries

- Whisk first seven ingredients a few minutes by hand
- Gently fold in the flour
- Bake 170°C approx 35 minutes in a 24 cm lined pan
- Cool on a wire rack
- Combine icing sugar and enough extra coconut milk to form a paste that is not too runny
- Spread over cake, sprinkle with coconut and just before serving top with raspberries.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

[Coops]

Originally Posted by Coops

We are going to try this one this weekend.

Choc Honeycomb Slice

Being chocoholics, who isn't?, we are going to use chocolate biscuits and chocolate condensed cream. Crunchies instead of violet crumbles, more malty.

Coops.

Have to tell you, it was bloody lovely. Straight out of the freezer.

Coops.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Chocolate and coffee/brandy round off any dinner beautifully and these treats are so very easy to make.

Use dark, white or milk chocolate, plus any mixture of nuts or dried fruit. If you are adding alcohol, use some restraint as the chocolate can go all grainy.

ALMOND CLUSTERS

200 g chocolate
1-2 cups roasted almonds

- Break up the chocolate into small pieces and place it in something like an icecream container
- Sit this in a basin of hot water (on board I heat up sea water) just long enough for the chocolate to melt, stirring often. Overheating at best will cause choc to lose its silky sheen and at worst will ruin it.
- Stir in the nuts (or dried fruit)
- Spoon small dollops onto a tray lined with non stick baking paper and leave to set.
Refrigeration will usually result in a white bloom, but doesn't affect the taste.

I often half dip strawberries in melted dark chocolate as well, but these ideally need to be made no more than an hour or two before serving as the strawberries spoil quickly once the warm chocolate kisses them.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

[Seaworthy Lass]

Lavender makes an unusual, but lovely addition to all sorts of dishes - icecream, truffles, cake and even tea (I occasionally put a teaspoon of dried flowers into a pot of green tea with a bit of lemon verbena). It can replace rosemary in some savoury dishes.

It is readily available in Greece, maybe less so in the tropics . English lavender gives the best flavour, French looks prettiest for the decoration.

Cupcakes are one of my favourite ways of using lavender in cooking. I use my yoghurt cake recipe as the base, but butter cake would be good too. This morning I substituted some of the yoghurt with leftover light coconut milk and it worked very well. Don't be scared of playing around with ingredients .

LAVENDER CUPCAKES

(Approx a dozen stalks of fresh, unsprayed lavender are needed in total)

1 cup castor sugar
2 heaped tbsp finely chopped lavender leaves

2 cups SR flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
¾ cup Greek yoghurt
½ cup milk (even lighter with juice of one lemon and rest milk)

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar
1 heaped tbsp finely chopped lavender leaves
few blueberries, crushed
approx 2 tbsp boiling water

Decoration:
12 lavender flower heads

- Combine the castor sugar with the lavender, pop into a small plastic bag or sealed container and leave overnight
- Repeat with the icing sugar
- Sift dry ingredients
- Sift the castor sugar and discard the lavender bits
- Whisk liquids with castor sugar
- Very gently fold in the sifted flour and bicarb
- Spoon into a greased silicone 12 hole muffin tin (or paper patty cake holders)
- Bake 180°C 15-20 min (don't overcook as it will dry out)
- Cool
- Ice not long before serving as the colour from the blueberries will leach slightly into the cake after several hours (only as issue with appearance, not taste).

Icing:
- Sift the castor sugar and discard the lavender bits
- Mix blueberries with water (a little red wine also works well instead of the blueberries, or you could use purple food colouring)
- Mix the icing sugar with enough of this liquid to make a thickish paste
- Dollop onto the cupcakes (it will spread)
- Before it has set top each cupcake with a lavender head.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

The flavour of the lavender comes mainly from the icing, it is is very subtle in the cake itself.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone

[NornaBiron]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Lavender makes an unusual, but lovely addition to all sorts of dishes - icecream, truffles, cake and even tea (I occasionally put a teaspoon of dried flowers into a pot of green tea with a bit of lemon verbena). It can replace rosemary in some savoury dishes.

It is readily available in Greece, maybe less so in the tropics . English lavender gives the best flavour, French looks prettiest for the decoration.

Cupcakes are one of my favourite ways of using lavender in cooking. I use my yoghurt cake recipe as the base, but butter cake would be good too. This morning I substituted some of the yoghurt with leftover light coconut milk and it worked very well. Don't be scared of playing around with ingredients .

LAVENDER CUPCAKES

(Approx a dozen stalks of fresh, unsprayed lavender are needed in total)

1 cup castor sugar
2 heaped tbsp finely chopped lavender leaves

2 cups SR flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
¾ cup Greek yoghurt
½ cup milk (even lighter with juice of one lemon and rest milk)

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar
1 heaped tbsp finely chopped lavender leaves
few blueberries, crushed
approx 2 tbsp boiling water

Decoration:
12 lavender flower heads

- Combine the castor sugar with the lavender, pop into a small plastic bag or sealed container and leave overnight
- Repeat with the icing sugar
- Sift dry ingredients
- Sift the castor sugar and discard the lavender bits
- Whisk liquids with castor sugar
- Very gently fold in the sifted flour and bicarb
- Spoon into a greased silicone 12 hole muffin tin (or paper patty cake holders)
- Bake 180°C 15-20 min (don't overcook as it will dry out)
- Cool
- Ice not long before serving as the colour from the blueberries will leach slightly into the cake after several hours (only as issue with appearance, not taste).

Icing:
- Sift the castor sugar and discard the lavender bits
- Mix blueberries with water (a little red wine also works well instead of the blueberries, or you could use purple food colouring)
- Mix the icing sugar with enough of this liquid to make a thickish paste
- Dollop onto the cupcakes (it will spread)
- Before it has set top each cupcake with a lavender head.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

The flavour of the lavender comes mainly from the icing, it is is very subtle in the cake itself.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone

Very pretty! Happy Valentine's Day to you too x

[Seaworthy Lass]

Few people seem to be able to say 'no' to carrot cake . This recipe was adapted from one passed over by NornaBiron. It uses a similarly generous quantity of ginger that makes this cake stand out from the usual crowd. Apart from playing with the other ingredients though (I just can't resist ), I puree the grated carrot with a stick mixer. This saves the effort of grating finely (I have no food processor on board), allows for a shorter than usual cooking time (saving on gas and avoiding unnecessarily heating the boat on warmer days) and most importantly gives the cake the most beautiful bright orange colour.

I usually just dust this with icing sugar, but it makes a lovely special occasion cake when iced, as I did yesterday.

CARROT GINGER CAKE

1 cup firmly packed coarsely grated carrot (approx 2 medium or 250g)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup Greek yoghurt
rind 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla extract
thumb sized bit of fresh ginger, peeled and very finely grated
2 flat tsp ground ginger

1 cup castor sugar
3 eggs

½ cup sultanas
½ cup chopped walnuts
Optional: Handful of crystallised ginger, chopped

2 cups SR flour
1 flat tsp bicarbonate of soda

ICING:
1.5 cups sifted icing sugar
approx 2 tbsp orange juice
few walnuts
rind 1 orange

- Using a stick mixer puree the carrot, oil, yoghurt, orange rind, vanilla, ground ginger and grated ginger
- Briefly whisk sugar and eggs into the carrot mixture
- Stir in walnuts and sultanas and crystallised ginger if using
- Gently fold in sifted flour and bicarb
- Spoon into a 24 cm lined and greased pan
- Bake at 180°C (160°C with fan) for approx 35 min
- If using a small tin or a loaf pan, cooking time will be longer (it also works well made as a dozen muffins cooked for about 20-25 min)
- Ice when cool.

Icing:
- Combine the icing sugar and half the orange rind with enough orange juice to form a thick paste (it will spread too much if not thick to start with)
- Decorate with walnuts, the rest of the orange rind and a dusting of icing sugar.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

[NornaBiron]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Few people seem to be able to say 'no' to carrot cake . This recipe was adapted from one passed over by NornaBiron. It uses a similarly generous quantity of ginger that makes this cake stand out from the usual crowd. Apart from playing with the other ingredients though (I just can't resist ), I puree the grated carrot with a stick mixer. This saves the effort of grating finely (I have no food processor on board), allows for a shorter than usual cooking time (saving on gas and avoiding unnecessarily heating the boat on warmer days) and most importantly gives the cake the most beautiful bright orange colour.

I usually just dust this with icing sugar, but it makes a lovely special occasion cake when iced, as I did yesterday.

CARROT GINGER CAKE

1 cup firmly packed coarsely grated carrot (approx 2 medium or 250g)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup Greek yoghurt
rind 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla extract
thumb sized bit of fresh ginger, peeled and very finely grated
2 flat tsp ground ginger

1 cup castor sugar
3 eggs

½ cup sultanas
½ cup chopped walnuts
Optional: Handful of crystallised ginger, chopped

2 cups SR flour
1 flat tsp bicarbonate of soda

ICING:
1.5 cups sifted icing sugar
approx 2 tbsp orange juice
few walnuts
rind 1 orange

- Using a stick mixer puree the carrot, oil, yoghurt, orange rind, vanilla, ground ginger and grated ginger
- Briefly whisk sugar and eggs into the carrot mixture
- Stir in walnuts and sultanas and crystallised ginger if using
- Gently fold in sifted flour and bicarb
- Spoon into a 24 cm lined and greased pan
- Bake at 180°C (160°C with fan) for approx 35 min
- If using a small tin or a loaf pan, cooking time will be longer (it also works well made as a dozen muffins cooked for about 20-25 min)
- Ice when cool.

Icing:
- Combine the icing sugar and half the orange rind with enough orange juice to form a thick paste (it will spread too much if not thick to start with)
- Decorate with walnuts, the rest of the orange rind and a dusting of icing sugar.

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

It's nice to see a few of my recipes make it to this thread without me having to lift a finger! The icing for this one is even better if you mix Philadelphia cheese with a couple of drops of vanilla essence, icing sugar and a little orange juice. I have successfully baked this cake on the stove top using a pressure cooker (without the gasket and weight) as an oven.

[Seaworthy Lass]

I am back in action . Lack of recipes over the last few weeks are because we were cruising South Australian waters and I only made a few uncomplicated "tried and true" standbys while away (date and banana cake, lemon cake and scone-muffins went down a treat).

Now that everyone's waistlines have receded a little over the break, I am here to tempt you with some more irresistible, but easy to make boat recipes .

Today's cake is orange. Usually I either use orange juice & rind in my yoghurt cake recipe (see post #5 for the lemon version of this) or I turn to a Claudia Rodin recipe that uses 2 whole cooked pureed oranges and ground almond instead of flour.

This morning I experimented with a new version of orange cake. I have had so much success using about a cup of pureed fruit or veg in cake recipes (banana, apple, pear, apricot, beetroot, zucchini, carrot and even prunes), that I tried this with orange today. As I was substituting almonds for part of the flour, I bumped up the eggs. As usual, yoghurt lightens the mix beautifully.

I would call this a huge success; lovely flavour, texture and colour:

ORANGE ALMOND CAKE

2 large oranges
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Rind 1 lemon
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup caster sugar
½ cup thick Greek yoghurt
1 cup ground almonds
1.5 cups SR flour
½ teaspoon baking powder

- Grate orange rind and roughly chop flesh, discarding pips
- Puree orange rind and flesh with oil (makes approx 1.5 cups total)
- In a large bowl using a whisk or fork mix together orange mix, eggs, vanilla, sugar and yoghurt
- Stir in almonds
- Gently fold in sifted flour and baking powder
- Pour batter into prepared tin
- Bake for 35 minutes or until done

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

Warm cake and tea for elevenses :

[bfloyd4445]

what's caster sugar?

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

what's caster sugar?

It is a finely granulated sugar (it dissolves more quickly than ordinary sugar, so it's better for baking). In Australia and in the UK white sugar is available in big and small granules.

I tried to look up what it was known as in the US and found that all white sugar is very fine, so just use ordinary sugar . This is a recipe that would work using half a cup of honey instead, but you would have a denser and darker cake.

[NornaBiron]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I am back in action . Lack of recipes over the last few weeks are because we were cruising South Australian waters and I only made a few uncomplicated "tried and true" standbys while away (date and banana cake, lemon cake and scone-muffins went down a treat).

Now that everyone's waistlines have receded a little over the break, I am here to tempt you with some more irresistible, but easy to make boat recipes .

Today's cake is orange. Usually I either use orange juice & rind in my yoghurt cake recipe (see post #5 for the lemon version of this) or I turn to a Claudia Rodin recipe that uses 2 whole cooked pureed oranges and ground almond instead of flour.

This morning I experimented with a new version of orange cake. I have had so much success using about a cup of pureed fruit or veg in cake recipes (banana, apple, pear, 7apricot, beetroot, zucchini, carrot and even prunes), that I tried this with orange today. As I was substituting almonds for part of the flour, I bumped up the eggs. As usual, yoghurt lightens the mix beautifully.

I would call this a huge success; lovely flavour, texture and colour:

ORANGE ALMOND CAKE

2 large oranges
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Rind 1 lemon
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup caster sugar
½ cup thick Greek yoghurt
1 cup ground almonds
1.5 cups SR flour
½ teaspoon baking powder

- Grate orange rind and roughly chop flesh, discarding pips
- Puree orange rind and flesh with oil (makes approx 1.5 cups total)
- In a large bowl using a whisk or fork mix together orange mix, eggs, vanilla, sugar and yoghurt
- Stir in almonds
- Gently fold in sifted flour and baking powder
- Pour batter into prepared tin
- Bake for 35 minutes or until done

(This has been added to the recipe index in post #1)

Warm cake and tea for elevenses :

That looks, and sounds delicious, will be giving it a go in the stove top oven as the oven is poorly! I'll report back with results.

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

It is a finely granulated sugar (it dissolves more quickly than ordinary sugar, so it's better for baking). In Australia and in the UK white sugar is available in big and small granules.

I tried to look up what it was known as in the US and found that all white sugar is very fine, so just use ordinary sugar . This is a recipe that would work using half a cup of honey instead, but you would have a denser and darker cake.

Thanks. I'd never heard the term but for years I have used little refined sugar. I tend to not use any highly processed product or packaged product if I can avoid it. One of my first lessons as a teenager making pickles was with alum. Everyone used the stuff but no one knew what it really was. I didn't find out until I took Chem 1A. Alum is short for aluminum. I guess they used the abbreviation on the package because they felt to tell the consumer what it really was would impact sales. I made pickles with and without and could tell no difference so never used it after the first time. Now we know aluminum causes Alzheimer's so I don't think it is used anymore. However people still use aluminum coated and uncoated cookware which is even worse than alum.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by bfloyd4445

Thanks. I'd never heard the term but for years I have used little refined sugar. I tend to not use any highly processed product or packaged product if I can avoid it. One of my first lessons as a teenager making pickles was with alum. Everyone used the stuff but no one knew what it really was. I didn't find out until I took Chem 1A. Alum is short for aluminum. I guess they used the abbreviation on the package because they felt to tell the consumer what it really was would impact sales. I made pickles with and without and could tell no difference so never used it after the first time. Now we know aluminum causes Alzheimer's so I don't think it is used anymore. However people still use aluminum coated and uncoated cookware which is even worse than alum.

Hmm... not exactly correct; alum used in cooking is actually hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate - KAl(SO 4)2·12H 2O. This is quite different form pure aluminum which has no use in cooking (AFAIK). It is still approved by the FDA but I do agree with your point that it may not be the best thing to ingest .

[bfloyd4445]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Hmm... not exactly correct; alum used in cooking is actually hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate - KAl(SO 4)2·12H 2O. This is quite different form pure aluminum which has no use in cooking (AFAIK). It is still approved by the FDA but I do agree with your point that it may not be the best thing to ingest .

There are currently, and, have been many other substances approved by the FDA for use in foods that are not in the best interest of the consumer to ingest. At one time radium was approved for some medicines, DDT(dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) was approved to bath in. I'm sure members of this forum can think of several others without much effort. The FDA never bans anything until there is a body count it always caters to corporate profits at the expense of our health. I would never take the word of the FDA on anything. I have a book hiding in my library titled, I think, A Million and one Guinea pigs, written in the fifties that is a real eye opener. Not sure of the exact title, sorry.

Oh, and thanks Wotname for filling in the details I omitted