Chocolate cake with fig jam and mascarpone frosting

Chocolate cake with fig jam and mascarpone frosting

I love Harry Eastwood's cake recipes. Almost every cake contains some vegetable - either courgettes, aubergines, butternut squash or others.

In this one I used Harry's recipe for a chocolate sponge with butternut squash, but the rest is my twist - jam from fresh figs and mascarpone frosting.
However Harry's original recipe sounds great and can be found in a Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache book which I thoroughly recommend.

Ingredients:

For the cake
3 eggs
200 g peeled and grated butternut squash
120g rice flour
160 g caster sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
80g ground almonds
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate soda
1/4 tsp salt
125ml buttermilk (easy to make - pour a tsp of lemon juice into a glass followed by 125ml of milk, let it stand for at least 10-15min)

For the fig jam
5-6 well ripen figs quartered
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1-2 tbsp sweetener of your choice - sugar, honey, agave syrup or I used sumac syrup


For the mascarpone frosting
250g tube of mascarpone cheese
2 or more tbs cocoa
2-3 tbs icing sugar
1 generous tsp vanilla paste
1 tbsp milk

Let's do it:
Preheat the oven to 180C fan assisted, you will need two 18cm loose bottom tins - greased with a little of vegetable oil and lined with a baking parchment.
In a large bowl whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, I used a helpful hand of my husband and this took around 8 minutes. Next beat in butternut squash and add all remained ingredients: flour, cocoa, ground almonds, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and lastly buttermilk. Mix well to ensure that all ingredients are well incorporated.
Pour the mixture to both tins, make sure that it's roughly the same amount of it and evenly spread. Bake for 30 minutes both tins should be on the same oven shelf.

Once baked remove from the oven and let them cool completely.

Fig jam - place figs in a saucepan, stir the pomegranate molasses and the sweetening agent. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Turn off the gas and let it cool completely.

Mascarpone frosting: place mascarpone in a big bowl and sift icing sugar and cocoa powder, add milk and vanilla paste and stir well. If you prefer the frosting sweeter or more chocolaty add more icing sugar and/or cocoa powder respectively, but remember to sift it to the mixture.

Assemble the cake only when all ingredients are completely cooled. Enjoy!

Bank Holiday weekend wine discovery

It's the weekend and it's bank holiday weekend! Hurrah:) and I am drinking good stuff! It is incredibly exciting to discover a new grape, new wine which turns up to be amazing:) We went on a stroll down King's Road and reached World's End when you can find Vivienne Westwood boutique shop with a big clock going very fast anticlockwise and next to it there is a wine shop Blanco & Gomez where the wine was discovered, wine merchant's website

Godello is a grape from the north of Spain, the wine is very elegant almost creamy but also have a slightly mineral note. Disadvantage as always the same - it's almost £30 but then again you only live once;)


Happy Bank Holiday!

Hairy bikers inspired post war eggless cake

I needed to bake and I needed to bake something quick and easy. I made up my mind and then a disaster struck. Hubby ate all eggs! What do I do? Egg-less cake was the answer. I like this recipe as it's easy, almost effortless but I adapted to it suit my vision. Nevertheless inspired by Egg-free sponge cake by Hairy Bikers

Egg-free cake with blackcurrants and almond flakes

Ingredients:
175g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
70g margarine/ soft butter

60 g light brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
125ml milk
50ml double cream
small punnet (approx 120g of blackcurrants)
almond flakes

Let's do it:
Preheat the oven to 180C (fan assisted) and grease a tube cake pan- round or a spring cake form (circa 20-25cm) 
With a hand mixer beat margarine/ butter with sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Add a little flour and milk, keep beating and adding little flour and then little milk at a time until well combined. Add cream and more milk if batter is too thick. Transfer to the baking form and arrange blackcurrants and almond flakes on the top, bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. 

Siciliana la dolce vita!

Gambino wine tasting menu

I'm back older and wiser after a long break...Perhaps not so much wiser but definitely older, last Sunday I celebrated my 40tieth! Hubby planned a secret birthday-trip-treat:)
For weeks he was showing me photos of places that could be anywhere in this world, gave me conflicting tips including: take your swim-suit, next Friday (one tip every Friday!) he said take your walking boots and fleece. I pretended that I don't care and whatever but it was a torture not to know:)))
Turned out it was Sicily:) La dolce vita and 5 happy sweet full of wonderful food, wine, desserts days! Can I please be back there? This is a message to the universe! Please hear me!

Everything we tasted was so wonderfully full of flavour, simple non-pretentious and made you want more! Wine was great, but we enjoy trying all sorts of fortified wine and here malvasia stands out for me but also passito was amazing.
Cannolo became my favourite treat of every day:) Among many other treats:) But la dolce vita is a commitment:)

Here are two shots from Gambino vineyard. Beautiful place run by a charming and committed family. Wine tasting is 4 wines but they leave bottles on the table and offer you to drink as much as you like. Wine is accompanied by a platter of local cheese, vegetables, delicious bread. And on top of that my fellow coutrywoman works there, thank you for everything Hanna! Na zdrowie! Cin cin!

Me in Gambino enjoying myself a lot:)