Recipe for a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

My beloved maternal grandmother Senta turned 93 last week. NINETY-THREE. The digits 9 and 3 bother feature in my current age as well, meaning I have known my dear grandma for 39 years in total. She gave birth and raised five children - 4 girls and 1 boy. Now, at the age of 93, her family consists of 5 kids, 11 grandkids, 11 great-grandchildren and one great-great-granddaughter.

She had to feed and raise the kids, run the whole household consisting of cows, sheep, poultry (all that in addition to having to milk all the cows in the big sovhoosilaut or a collective farm). And once the kids were all adults, she regularly had to take care of her 11 grandchildren who spent weeks at the countryside during each summer. A remarkable woman, and it's only recently that her mental and physical health has been failing her. She's a role model to me in so many ways (so is my paternal grandmother Adeele, who'll be 92 in September, but in very different way :)).

Here's a photo of my grandma and our youngest child, taken at the birthday party last week. They're 92,5 years apart:


My grandmother has been living with my parents for a few years now, and my mum asked if I could bring a cake to the party. Of course I could, and I decided to make this layered carrot and cream cheese cake that some of you were asking for and about after seeing it at Nami-Nami's 2013 Easter Brunch (see overview here). Here's the version I made last week, and before you ask, my two older kids were in charge of decorating the cake. That's why all the chopped pistachios ended up the way they did :D

 

The other two photos were made during the Easter, when I baked three carrot cake layers. The recipe below - and the cake for my grandma's birthday - had four cake layers - it's easier and more layers look more festive.

PS I've mentioned my grandma Senta on several occasions. Here's her recipe for an egg and smoked ham sauce, and she's the co-star in my post about the fermented oat flummery. She's also behind every story about Paluküla - the village where I spent all my childhood summers together with some of my cousins.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
(Porganditort toorjuustukreemiga)
Serves 12 to 16

 

Carrot cake layers:
500 g carrots
4 large eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
a pinch of salt
240 g all-purpose flour/plain flour (400 ml)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
100 g vegetable oil (about 150 ml)

Lime and cream cheese frosting:
400 g cream cheese, at room temperature
300 g thick sour cream
100 g caster sugar (just over 100 ml)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
2 limes, zested and juiced

Preheat the oven to 200 C/390 F.

Carrot cake layers: peel the carrots and grate finely.

Measure flour, baking powder and vanilla sugar (if using) into a small bowl, give the mixture a stir.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with sugar, salt and vanilla extract (if using) until thick and foamy. Gently fold in the oil, then the grated carrots and finally the dry ingredients.

Line two large oven sheets with parchment paper/baking paper (mine are about 32 x 35 cm/12 x 14 inches)*. Spoon half of the batter onto one baking sheet, and the other half onto the other.

Bake, one at a time, in the middle of the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, until light golden brown and lightly springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and bake the other carrot cake layer as well.

Let cool completely.

Lime and cream cheese frosting:

Combine cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, vanilla and lime zest and juice in a bowl, and whisk thoroughly (it's easiest to use an electric whisk here).

Putting the cake together:

Cut both carrot cake sheets into two, so you'll end up with four rectangles. Place one carrot cake layer onto your serving tray, spread with one-fourth of the cream cheese frosting. Repeat three more times.

Garnish the cake with chopped pistachios and fresh mint or lemon balm leaves.

The flavour improves if you let it stand for a 3-4 hours in a cool place.

* If you want to bake three separare layers, then I used a 25x30 cm pan (10x12 inches), known as långpanna in Scandinavia. 

A lovely carrot cake with fancy pineapple flowers

See the yellow flowers on the cake? Aren't they just gorgeous? I spotted these over at Axis of Ævil few weeks ago, and decided to use them as decoration for my carrot cake. I finally got my act together and started slicing, drying and bending my pineapple last week. Yep, these are thinly sliced and dried pineapple flowers, which do need a bit of patience to make, but are totally worth it..

And the cake? Well, if you liked my Canadian apple cake (and there were quite a few of you:), you'll like this carrot cake. It is very mild and mellow, no nuts to distract you from the delicate carrot flavour. Just a whift of cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg, that's all.. The pineapple flowers are optional, but highly recommended..

A lovely carrot cake
(Mahe porgandikook)
Adapted from Ruokala.tv (a Finnish website)
Serves 8



For the cake:
2 medium sized eggs
200 ml caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 grams butter, melted
300 ml finely grated carrots (approx. 2 medium ones)
200 ml plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
a generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
a pinch of fine salt

Whisk eggs and sugar until pale and foamy. Add grated carrots and melted butter. Mix the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg, sift into the batter and combine.
Butter a 20 cm springform cake tin, sprinkle with semolina/flour. Pour the batter into the cake tin, and bake at 200˚C for 25-30 minutes, until the cake is cooked (test with a toothpick).
Remove from the tin and let cool.

For the frosting:
100 grams Philadephia cream cheese
50 grams butter, softened
125 grams icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, spread over the cold cake.

For the dried pineapple flowers
NB! You need to do this on the previous day (pineapple flowers keep for a few days in an air-tight container)

1 large pineapple, just slightly underripe

Peel the pineapple and cut crosswise into very thin slices (mandoline would be handy here).
Place pineapple slices in a single layer on parchment-covered baking sheets. Bake in a 110˚C oven for 1-2 hours, until pineapple slices look dry on top. Flip them over and bake for another hour or so, until dry on the other side as well.
Arrange the baked pineapple slices on a metal rack and leave to cool and dry a bit more.
When slices are cool and dry, take a flower-shaped metal cookie cutter and press into dried pineapple slices. Put aside to dry even more.
When the pineapple flowers are dry, but still pliable, then pull the 'flower petals' slightly upwards to give pineapple flowers a bit more realistic look.

Use to decorate the cake.

Holiday baking: Carrot cake cookies recipe

Time to start preparing for the Christmas holidays and I offer you a lovely cookie recipe! Although we'll be mostly eating piparkoogid aka gingerbread cookies here in Estonia, these slightly chewy carrot cake cookies would do just as well.

For over two years now I've been contributing recipes for one of the biggest home and gardening magazines here in Estonia, Kodu ja Aed (that translates "Home and Garden"). Since spring we've been focusing on a specific vegetable both on the gardening pages and in the food section. Carrot happened to be the vegetable of the month in December. December, of course, being the Christmas month, so I was trying to think of recipes that would feel right at the Christmas table as well. I think these cookies fit the bill brilliantly. They are easy to make, go brilliantly with a glass of glögg or mulled wine, they're "healthy" as containing a vegetable (carrot is also providing both texture and flavour), and they are egg-free, making them also suitable for some special diets. Most of all, they have a pretty colour and they taste great. As an added bonus, the kids loved them - something to think about when you've got 3 small ones running around the house!

So when you're planning your next glögg party, think of adding these carrot cake cookies to the menu!

You'll find all of Nami-Nami's Christmas recipes here and a selection of cookie recipes here.

TIP! You could make these cookie more festive by adding a scant teaspoon of mixed spices, gingerbread spice or pumpkin pie spice - all of these would work.

TIP! If you forgot to take your butter out of the fridge in advance, then simply grate the cold butter into your mixing bowl. Instant softened butter! 

Carrot cake cookies
(Porgandiküpsised)

200 g butter, at room temperature (7 oz)
150 g caster sugar (2/3 cups)
200 g carrots, finely shredded (2 medium carrots)
300 g all-purpose flour (2 cups)
1 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
whole almonds

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F. Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, either using a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment of your standing mixer. Add the carrots, then the dry ingredients (flour, vanilla sugar, baking powder, salt). Mix the dough until combined, then take small chestnut-sized chunks of the dough and form into small balls.

Place the balls onto the baking sheet, flattening them with your palm. Press a whole almond onto each cookie.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.  Remove from the oven, leave for a few minutes before transferring the carrot cookies onto a metal rack to cool completely.

More carrot cookie recipes:
Carrot oatmeal cookies by Heidi @ 101 Cookbooks
Chocolate chip carrot cookies by Jeanine @ Love & Lemons
Gingered carrot cake cookies by Michelle @ Brown-Eyed Baker
Porgandiküpsised by Marit @ Magusad fotod (recipe in Estonian)
Porgandiküpsised by Kaare @ Koopatibi (recipe in Estonian)
Porkkanakeksit @ Kotiliesi (recipe in Finnish)

Saffron Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Another cake I made for my dear K's mother's birthday party last weekend* was this saffron carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. A recipe is from the Swedish Arla site (Saffran- och morotskaka) and although I was a bit heavy-handed with saffron (we've got loads at home, and it's not easy to measure out half a gram when our scales only recognise 2 g increments!), the cake was a success. Moist and bright-coloured, with a wee bit tangy frosting.

* We only attended the Saturday party and were surprised to find out that the most famous Estonian composer - probably the only Estonian composer most of you have ever heard of (who also happens to be a classmate of K's mum) - made a surprise appearance at the party on Sunday. If we had only known that before, I would have turned up on Sunday as well :)
Anybody wants to guess who was eating my cakes? The hint I'm giving you is that K's mum turned 72.

Saffron Carrot Cake
(Safrani-porgandikook toorjuustuglasuuriga)



100 g butter, at room temperature
250 ml (a cup) of caster sugar
0.5 g saffron threads
3 large eggs
250 g carrots, finely grated
grated zest of half an orange
300 ml plain/all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

Cream cheese frosting:
200 g cream cheese
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
sugar, to taste
1 tsp cinnamon

Make the cake batter. Mix butter, sugar and saffron threads (powder them between your fingertips) in a bowl and cream until pale and light. Whisk in eggs, one at a time. Add grated carrots and orange zest.
Mix flour with baking powder and fold into the batter.
Pour the batter in a 24 cm cake tin (butter the tin first and sprinkle with fine breadcrumbs or line with a parchment paper).
Bake in the middle of a 175 C oven for about 40 minutes, until the cake is cooked (test for doneness with a toothpick). Cool in a tin.

To make the cream cheese frosting, mix the cheese with vanilla and a bit of sugar, spread on the cake.
Sprinkle with cinnamon.

A Twist on the Carrot Cake: Beetroot & Ginger Cake

My dad doesn't eat cakes. He's got a sweet tooth, alright, but he prefers chocolate over baked goods. He's also not into vegetables so much. His favourite meal would probably consist of roasted pork, pickled wild mushrooms, loads of cheese, all drowned with some Estonian beer. So when my parents came for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake last Sunday afternoon, I didn't tell them that I was serving a beetroot cake*. My mum did wonder what were the ruby pink speckles in the cake, but it was only after they had both eaten a slice that I told them it was a beetroot cake.

Neither one of them batted an eyelid, and both of them promptly helped themselves to another piece.

And I was one happy daughter..

* If you like carrot cake (and I do), then you're bound to like this cake (and I did). Beetroot gives the cake some moistness and sweetness, and you don't have to worry about this tasting musty or whatever else might put you off beetroot. I'll be definitely making this again, perhaps adding finely chopped crystallised ginger or Buderim ginger nibbles to the cake to further enhance the ginger-beetroot flavour combination.

Beetroot & Ginger Cake
(Peedikook ingveriga)
Based on this Pirkka recipe
Makes 12 pieces



4 large eggs
300 ml soft brown sugar, lightly packed
400 ml plain/all-purpse flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp of ground ginger, or 2-3 Tbsp crystallised ginger pieces
300 gram raw beetroot, coarsely grated
175 grams butter, melted & cooled

Whisk eggs with sugar until thick and light caramel colour.
Mix flour, vanilla sugar, ground ginger, baking powder.
Add the melted butter, dry mixture and grated beets to the egg-sugar mixture, folding gently.
Line a 25x25 cm or 25x30 cm baking tray with a parchment paper, pour the batter into the tray.
Bake at 200 C for 35-40 minutes, depending on the size of your tray, until the cake is dark golden brown on the top. Test for doneness with a wooden toothpick- if it comes out dry & clean, the cake is cooked.
Cool a little, then cut into squares.

Serve with a cup of coffee or tea. A dollop of ginger-flavoured whipped cream would be nice, too.

In search of a perfect carrot cake: Sagadi mansion

After a long and leisurely family lunch at Altja, we headed for a dessert some 7 kilometres away. The destination: Estonian National Forest centre at Sagadi manor complex, where the Forest Museum, located in one of the side buildings of the manor also houses a lovely restaurant-café. According to my friend Edith, they do a mean carrot cake at that place.

As we were rather full after our Estonian blood pudding and mash-with-groats lunch, we only ordered what we were looking for - a cup of coffee and a slice of carrot cake.

The coffee was very good, and the cake was tasty and moist, covered with a cream cheese icing and roughly chopped hazelnuts:



I wouldn't go as far as say that this was the best and/or perfect carrot cake - I have few rather tasty versions in my cake repertoir, I must say. But it was definitely tasty, and enjoyed by everyone.

And after a lovely ending to our long and leisurely lunch, we did some shopping in the local handicraft shop. Leaving the shop, we were approached by a quiet old woman, who asked us if we'd like some mushrooms. More specifically, she was wondering whether we'd be kind enough to buy a kilogram of freshly picked chantarelle mushrooms for about £1.50. And how can one say no to such a bargain, especially if I had been dreaming about these mushrooms all day? The rest is history - or should I say - the rest is mushroom sauce and chantarelle quiche?

Sagadi mõisa hotell-restoran
Sagadi küla
Vihula vald 45402
Lääne-Virumaa
Estonia
+ 372 325 8888, +372 515 7788
E-mail sagadi.hotell@rmk.ee

Sugar (not) High Friday #15 (I tried...)

This time the Sugar High Friday is hosted by Becks&Posh, and they've decided to replace the 'high' with 'low'. The task:
is to make a delicious, mouthwatering dessert whilst being a lot more frugal than usual with the fat and the sugar. In fact, try not to use processed sugar at all.

Hmmm. Got that? No processed sugar whatsoever. However, more 'natural sugars', like honey, syrup, sugary fruit etc were allowed.

Inspiration struck me about a week ago on Glasgow-Edinburgh train when I was flipping through the pages of the January issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated. On page 11 it states that
The parsnip's season is November to January, so this is the last chance to get them at their best. Winter frosts will also have intensified their already marked sweetness; in days gone by, this root was used instead of sugar in cakes.

Voila! I like carrot cakes a lot, and if parsnip was used instead of sugar in the old days, I could try to make a parsnip cake which is like carrot cake, but without sugar. I also had a packet of sucrose free ginger (Buderim Ginger from Australia) in my cupboard, and I thought that ginger should work quite well with parsnip. I checked out some of my carrot cake recipes, and eventually decided to make parsnip, ginger and hazelnut tray bake.

Well. It wasn't bad. If I'd be served this, I'd happily finish the piece. But it wasn't blogging-worthily good either, verging on the bland, so I'll keep the recipe to myself this time. It was much nicer on the morning after, when the ginger had had time to depart some of its gingery goodness into the rest of the cake (that ginger was actually delicious on its own as well, I hadn't tried this particular type of ginger previously).

But, to be truly honest, I should have just made the sugar-free Luscious Apple Cake recipe from the very same Waitrose magazine..

Tagged with: SHF # 15 + Low Sugar

(Non-)Canadian apple cake

Photo updated in August 2008. I've also added gram measurements for dry ingredients in addition to volume measurements.

This is my most faithful apple cake recipe – a recipe that has been with me for a lot more than a decade. Despite having tried numerous other apple cake recipes – some fancier, some humbler, some trickier, some simpler – this is the recipe I come back to most often.

In 1978, a book was published in Estonian, called "Maailma toite" or "Dishes of the world". It was a collection of numerous recipes collected from various sources and a small number of pictures. Chapters were listed according to regions or countries, each beginning with a small introductory paragraph about what people eat in the given country. I loved the book – I liked the descriptions of foods from faraway places that I could never visit in person (or that’s how it seemed behind the Iron Curtain at the time), and reading about these foods gave me a sneak preview into the lives on the other side of than notorious ‘invisible but definitely there’ Curtain..

Once I reached my early teens, I had somehow already been bitten by the foodie bug, and I attempted cooking a number of the dishes. Some where huge successes, some were not. I can still remember the reserved enthusiasm that my Austrian carrot pure soup was met with. However, under the section "Canada" I came across a recipe for apple cake – Kanada õunakook. I fell in love with it then and there – and as I said, this has proved to be a long-term relationship. This is the cake that I bake most often. This is the cake that is often requested when we go to visit friends and relatives. This is also the cake that has caused me most embarrassment. I remember early on, my uncle J. had asked me to bring along my delicious apple cake to his birthday party. Somehow I ended up using only a third of the flour in the batter that time, but too inexperienced at the time to see that something was clearly wrong with it. The resulting cake was dense, hard and utterly bitter (the cinnamon overkill) and was sitting still pretty much untouched on the table at the end of the party. Luckily, I seem to have redeemed myself since then and restored my Domestic Goddess reputation.

As I said, this recipe was called “Canadian apple cake” in my book, and that’s how my family knows it back home. During my years in Edinburgh, I’ve shared a kitchen with quite a few Canadians (Hi! Amanda!!! :), and although they all loved it, they couldn’t really see why it was Canadian. Canadian or not, it’s a delicious apple cake..

Canadian apple cake
(Kanada õunakook)



Batter:
300 ml plain flour, sifted (165 grams)
0.5 tsp fine salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
100 ml sugar (85 grams)
1 large egg
50 grams of butter, melted
100 ml milk (100 grams)
ca 2-3 large apples, cored and cut into small cubes

Crumb:
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp butter

Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the butter, milk, and egg, pour into the dry mixture and mix. Fold in the apple cubes. Pour the batter into buttered loose bottomed cake tin.



Mix the crumb ingredients with a knife, sprinkle over the cake.


Bake at 200-210˚C for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is nice golden brown.

Let it cool slightly (although it’s beautiful hot with a cold glass of milk). Sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream, creme anglaise or on its own.

The moist apple pieces in the cinnamonny cake? And the cinnamonny caramelized crunchy topping?

Mmmmmmm!! I just thought of a way to Canadize this cake a bit, and maybe even make it live up to its name. What if I’d replace the brown sugar in the crumb mixture with maple sugar??? There’s an idea for next time...

UPDATES: here are links to some other foodbloggers who have kindly tried - and liked - my apple cake:

4 December 2005: Anne over at Anne's Food

12 December 2005: Drstel at Baby Rambutan

14 December 2005: Zubaida over at Kitchen Culture

16 January 2006: Shalimar over at Wanderlust

16 January 2007: Joey over at 80 Breakfasts

14 April 2007: Nupur over at One Hot Stove

A simple marzipan and gooseberry cake recipe

The gooseberry season has begun and here's one of my favourite cakes for using up those gooseberries (you'll find more delicious ways of using gooseberries at the end of this post). It's a simple sponge cake, made special by the generous amount of sour gooseberries and tiny chewy bits of cooked marzipan.

You'll need a small sheet pan for this cake, about 25x35 cm (10 inch x 14 inch) in size.

Trivia: Did you know that the French call gooseberries the "mackerel berries" (groseille a macqueraux)? Neither did I...

Marzipan and gooseberry cake 
(Tikri-martsipanikook)
Serves about 20

4 large free-range eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
150-200 g marzipan
250 g all-purpose/plain flour (about 400 ml)
a pinch of salt

Topping:
500 ml gooseberries, rinsed, topped and tailed (2 cups)
50 g cold butter (about 2 Tbsp)
demerara brown sugar or pearl sugar

To serve:
icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
vanilla custard/creme anglaise (optional)

 

Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale, thick and fluffy.
Grate the marzipan coarsely (you can put the marzipan into freezer for half an hour to make grating easier), or simply cut or crumble into small chunks. Fold into the egg and sugar mixture.
Fold in the flour and salt, stir gently until combined.
Line a Swiss roll tin (ca 25x35 cm) with a parchment paper or butter generously and dust with flour or semolina.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin. Scatter the gooseberries on top, then sprinkle with sugar and dot with small pieces of butter (feel free to use your grater here again).
That's how it will look:

 

Bake in a pre-heated 200C/390 F oven for about 35-45 minutes, until the cake is golden brown.

Let cool a little, then cut into squares and dust generously with an icing sugar.

Other gooseberry recipes:
Gooseberry tart with a sweetened condensed milk topping
Gooseberry fruit soup aka gooseberry kissel
Carrot and gooseberry jam
Gooseberry chutney
Red gooseberry sorbet
Coconut gooseberry clafoutis @ The Kitchn

Nami-Nami turns 5 today!

This beautiful girl keeps me from blogging more often these days :)

My little foodblog, Nami-Nami, turns five today. It's been five fun years, and although I've been blogging less frequently during the last year or two (I've got a good reason, trust me - see above), I'm still enjoying it immensely and have no plans of stopping in the near future. Hope that you, my dear readers, will stick around as well :)

For those of you who have actually tried some of my recipes - would you mind naming your favourite one?

Here are links to some of the recipes that you've mentioned in the comments:
Canadian Apple Cake (November 2005)
Colorful quinoa salad with crayfish and avocado (February 2010)
Minimalist banana bread (May 2009)
Upside-down onion pie (January 2006)
Blueberry tart (April 2006)
Carrot ragout (December 2007)
Caraway teacake (December 2009)
Spiced rhubarb cake (June 2009)
Warm Ginger and Carrot Salad with Feta Cheese (November 2005/June 2009)
Raspberry focaccia (August 2008)
Mocca cake with toasted almonds (April 2006)
Kama muffins (June 2009)
Kama and mascarpone truffles (September 2005)
Creamy swede and pearl barley (March 2010)
Salmon confit (November 2009)
Toffee apple cake with cranberries (January 2007)
Cranberry upside down cake (December 2005)
Filo tartlets with beetroot and cheese (August 2006)
Plum cake (August 2008)

SHF # 33: Tropical Paradise and my Caribbean Banana Cake

Mary of Alpineberry is hosting the 33rd round of Sugar High Friday and she has chosen Tropical Paradise as the theme. And voila - I've got a delicious cake recipe I made earlier this year that I've wanted to blog about. I haven't been to the tropics myself (yet), so I don't have a first hand knowledge about the true nature of the tropical paradise, or what would the typical dishes be. But bananas are definitely tropical, and the Finnish recipe I used as a basis for my cake was called Caribbean Banana Cake, so that will have to do.

We loved it. The mixture is not so different from my moist rhubarb muffins, so I bet this recipe would work well as Caribbean banana & ginger muffins, too :)

Caribbean Banana & Ginger Cake
(Kariibi banaanikook)
Adapted from Pirkka 5/2004
Serves 12



3 over-ripe bananas
2 Tbsp lemon juice
200 grams sour cream or yogurt
300 ml sugar
3 eggs
400 ml plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 Tbsp Buderim candied ginger nibbles (optional)

Peel bananas and mash bananas with a fork, sprinkle with lemon juice and put aside.
Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and frothy.
Stir in sour cream.
Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger) and fold into the egg mixture together with the banana mush. Stir in candied ginger.
Pour the mixture into a prepared 1.8 litre bundt form and bake at 175 C for about an hour. Test for doneness with a toothpick - it should come out clean and dry.
Cake the tin out of the oven, let it cool for 5-10 minutes, then turn out the cake and cool it completely on a metal rack.
To serve, cut into slices.

Here's a close-up of a slice, where you can see tiny fierce candied ginger pieces:



UPDATE 3.8.2007: Click here for Alpineberry's round-up.

My previous SHF contributions:
# 15 Sugar LOW Friday: Parsnip & Ginger Cake (January 2006)
# 19 Ginger: Chocolate & Ginger Tartlets (May 2006)
# 22 Can You Can? Fake Cloudberry Jam (or gooseberry & carrot jam, if you prefer)(August 2006)
# 24 Little bites of delight: Pierre Herme's chocolate dipped mint leaves, candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate, chocolate disks infused with chilli syrup and covered with candied red chillies, cranberry and almond macarons (October 2006)
# 25 Truffles: Dark Chocolate & Matcha Truffles (November 2006)

BLAST FROM THE PAST
Two years ago I shared a recipe for salmon with a creamy orange and rosemary sauce - a delicious dish, but the post is definitely in need of a new and proper photo!!!

A Weekend Full of Cooking, and a Recipe for Chocolate Brownies

Last weekend I baked no less than four cakes (chocolate buttercream cake with mocha glaze, saffron and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, Manhattan cheesecake, and chocolate brownies), a cookie sheet full of small potato puff rolls, and prepared a festive salmon dish with lime and mustard. These were all for K's mum's birthday parties on the weekend. We attended just the one on Saturday, but were asked to prepare cakes for the other birthday party session as well:) Of course, I also cooked casual meals for myself and K. (sauerkraut soup with chicken drumsticks for dinner last night, and curd cheese patties with apples for dessert; K. made us these pretty curd cheese pancakes for brunch yesterday. We enjoyed the pancakes with some Cherry Republic's Blue Cherry Preserve - a surprise gift from one of my US readers, Ülle.

I love weekends like that.

And it looks like there's something American in the air at the moment. Only recently I found myself making coleslaw in the midst of winter. And two of the four cakes I brought along to K's mum's place were distinctly American - Manhattan cheesecake and Chocolate brownies. It's not surprising, of course, considering that many of my favourite food blogs and daily reads are written by Americans. No wonder then that my culinary mind and appetite lusts after American classics every now and then. However, the brownie recipe I've used for years is from Thorntons, the British high-street chocolatier. I've tried few others, but this is the one I keep returning to over and over again, when I'm craving chocolate. I don't like crumbly and over-baked brownies. This recipe results in brownies with a perfectly chewy-crispy top, and moist-chocolatey inside (even if one cannot really see that on the photo). I love large squares of it when still warm. And when it's cold, I cut it into tiny squares - no bigger than 2 cm - and eat as nutty chocolate candies :)

Chocolate Brownies
(Šokolaadiruudud)
Makes 16



200 g butter
200 g dark chocolate (min. 70%)
3 medium eggs
250 g sugar
100 g plain/all-purpose flour
100 g walnuts, chopped
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp vanilla extract

Line a square cake tin (24x24 cm) with a parchment paper.
Melt the butter and chocolate in a bain marie or microwave. Cool a little.
Whisk eggs and sugar with an electric mixture. Stir in the melted chocolate and butter mixture.
Fold in flour, salt, chopped walnuts and vanilla extract and stir until well combined.
Pour the batter into the tin, and bake in a preheated 170˚C oven for 30-35 minutes, until the cake is chewy-crisp on the top and still moist inside.
Serve when still warm.
Alternatively, let cool in a tin, then cut into (smallish) squares.

Nigella Lawson's Rosemary Loaf Cake Recipe - rosmariinikeeks

Rosemary, you see, doesn't just complement hearty lamb dishes and fruity carrot and orange salads and tender potato focaccia. It's a versatile herb that can also be added to desserts, like this sweet rosemary loaf cake by the original domestic goddess. The recipe is from Nigella's book How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. I've played with the amount of flour - we do not use self-raising flour here in Estonia, so I've had to add baking powder to the recipe. We really enjoyed the cake, even if the idea of rosemary in sweet baking did sound curious in the beginning. But be not afraid - as Nigella herself says, 'there is something muskily aromatic about [rosemary] against the sweet vanilla egginess of the cake'. Exactly.

Nigella suggests you eat this with cold stewed apples. We spooned some softly whipped cream over sliced cake instead.

Nigella Lawson's Rosemary Loaf Cake
(Nigella Lawsoni rosmariinikeeks)
Serves 10



250 g soft butter
200 g caster sugar
3 large eggs
300 g plain/all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) milk

Preheat the oven to 170 C (325-350 F).
Mix flour, salt and baking powder.
Cream the butter until softened, add sugar and cream them both together until pale and smooth and light. Beat in the eggs one at a time, folding in a spoonful of flour after each addition, then add the vanilla extract. Fold in the rest of the flour and finally add the rosemary.
Thin the batter with the milk - you're aiming for a soft, dropping consistency.
Pour the batter into a buttered (or lined with parchment paper) 450 g loaf tin.
Cook for 60 minutes or a bit longer, until a cake-tester comes out clean.
Leave to cool in its tin on a wire rack. When completely cold, unmould and wrap well in foil until you need to eat it.
Keeps well for a few days.

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2013

Another Easter Sunday, another traditional Easter brunch at the Nami-Nami household. We were no less that 25 this time, including lots of kids. The number keeps growing and growing - no wonder considering that our own little family consists of five persons already! Had all the invitees made it, we would have been no less than 36 :)

The weather was bright and sunny, but pretty cold. It was snowing in the morning, and the children actually made two snowmen while playing outside during the afternoon! Not something you associate with Easter Sunday, I'd say, but then Easter was pretty early this year. Still, some of the guests ventured outside for a while and were basking in the sun on our south-facing patio. Very spring-like :)

As always, I tried to devise a menu that'd be light and spring-like, colourful and bright. I outsourced some of the dishes, and prepared some myself on Saturday evening and the rest on Sunday morning. Considering how quickly everything disappeared, we hit the spot (or perhaps I simply didn't make enough food?).

Here's the full menu:



We started - as always - with Mimosa cocktails, this time made with freshly squeezed blood oranges:


Our friends Kristiina and Paavo and their daughter Gretel brought along this beautiful citrus salad. Kristiina simply makes the best salads in our neighbourhood!

There was a colourful dish of fresh trout/salmon, avocados and arugula leaves, drizzled with a lime and olive oil, the recipe from one of the top Estonian bloggers, Mari-Liis:

I made small cucumber bites with herb and garlic cream cheese (a last-minute idea from Annie's Eats):


Small tattie scone buttons with smoked salmon mousse:

Marinated sprats (Sprattus sprattus balticus), bought from the Ristemäe Talu stall at my local farmer's market. A great mix of small fish, herbs, lemon and seasoning:


Another sprat dish, this time a tart using spiced canned sprats in oil on a bed of sautéed leeks and onions - a recipe from another great Estonian food blogger, Sille:

Deviled beet eggs, of course:

A small bowl of tiny chorizo meatballs for all the kids out there:

A big tray of simple roasted cauliflower (two huge heads of cauliflower, olive oil, salt'n'pepper) - not a morsel was left!


And another hit, prepared by our friends Liina and Tauno and involving caramelised onions and fried kid liver and hearts (kid = cabrito = young goat):

The desserts included this really lovely carrot and cream cheese cake with lime:

The traditional paskha, made again by our dear friends Paavo, Kristiina and Gretel:


and a huge pile of Estonian profiteroles aka choux puffs filled with cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk:


I'll try to blog about some of the dishes over the next few weeks or months - and if there's anything that you'd definitely want me to blog about, let me know in the comments. I may not be able to do it this week, but I'll try my best.

What did you eat on Easter Sunday? 

See overviews of our previous Easter brunches:

Easter brunch 2012, featuring crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin, Ms Marmite Lover's focaccia shots, marinated olives, Estonian mushroom salad, cold-smoked salmon, a delicious paskha, cardamon-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, and much more.

Easter brunch 2011, featuring a pretty (imitation) snow crab salad, beet quail eggs, two types of home-made Estonian cheese "sõir", smoked salmon with horseradish dip, wild garlic (ramp) pesto with almonds, crostini with white cheese and red onion jam, puff pastry rolls with feta, white bean salad with  chorizo, Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart.

Easter brunch 2010, featuring spinach and hot-smoked salmon salad with quail eggs, green beans and asparagus, Marika Blossfeldt's quinoa salad with beets and fennel, savory cheesecake with goat cheese and chives, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds, bean salad with lemon and parsley, Baltic herring with cherry tomatoes and herbs, Estonian home-made cheese "sõir", paskha, traditional Simnel cake, and another cake with coconut, lemon curd, elderflower cream and lemon balm.

Easter brunch 2009, featuring bright green pea soup shots, zucchini rolls stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts, figs and mint, peppered beef fillet, marbled beetroot eggs and marbled turmeric eggs, layered surimi "crab" and egg salad, pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar, matcha madeleines, and two different paskhas.

We also hosted Easter brunches in 2007 and 2008, but somehow I didn't document their properly. I can see on Flickr what was on the table back in 2007, but that's about it.

From the (future) archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)

• Easter brunch 2024
• Easter brunch 2022 - just a small family gathering for a change
• Easter brunch 2015
• Easter brunch 2014
• Easter brunch 2013
• Easter brunch 2012 
• Easter brunch 2011
• Easter brunch 2010
• Easter brunch 2009
• Easter brunch 2008
• Easter brunch 2007

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2014

Last Sunday we had a full house again. 28 people, including the kids, celebrating the Spring and enjoying the traditional Nami-Nami Easter brunch. It was a gorgeously sunny and pleasant day, and we ate al fresco.



First, the eggs. To be honest, we only dyed them after the party, but they're still part of the Easter brunch in a way. We used the Estonian way of dyeing eggs with onion skins (read all about it here) for the yellow-brown eggs, and frozen blueberries for the blue eggs. I think they turned out gorgeous, and the kids loved them!


Small rye cups were filled with salmon roe and sour cream (also known as creamy caviar dressing, recipe here).


Smoked fish salad, spiked with some horseradish (I used hot-smoked hake).


Ottolenghi's cucumber and poppyseed salad - always festive, yet simple to make. I omitted the sugar this time and didn't miss it at all!


Marinated fresh sprats from the Ristemäe talu stand at my local farmers' market, Viimsi Taluturg.


Pasta and sausage salad, very Estonian and always popular with older kids.


Puff pastry canapés with sun-dried tomato pesto and black olive filling.


Another view of the table.


Wild garlic is in season, so I made some crostini with ricotta and wild garlic spread, served with Estonian cured pork filet.


I did all the prep work on Sunday morning (the kids make sure we wake up rather early :)). However, I did slow-cook a huge Boston butt (2,5 kg) on the previous day, serving the pulled pork at the brunch. The recipe was adapted from this Finnish magazine.


Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Salmon a la In Sock Monkey Slippers. It was a huge salmon, so there was plenty for everybody.


Green fruit salad looked inviting and spring-like. I omitted the maple syrup, as the kiwis and grapes were sweet enough, and sprinkled some almond slices on top for some extra bite.

Over the years I've got better in delegating. Some friends brought imported strawberries, some oranges for the freshly squeezed orange juice, some brought wine. Some friends volunteered to bring food. And they brought some wonderful dishes.


My friend Liina baked a fantastic mutabak.


Piret brought along a typical Estonian mushroom salad (wild mushrooms, onion, sour cream, seasonings).


Our friend Kristiina makes wonderful salads, here's what she brought along this year.


And her husband Paavo baked a big batch of Swedish cardamom twists.


I had also made a small cake, namely gluten-free buckwheat hearts with mocha glaze. Our son Aksel is somewhat sensitive to wheat (and hazelnuts), so I try to make sure there's something on the table that doesn't make his skin all itchy. (If you need more buckwheat inspiration, then check out my buckwheat recipe board on Pinterest.)


Here's another look at the table:

We drank Prosecco and various wines, cold-brewed hibiscus water (the bottle on the left) and black aronia cordial (the jug on the right). Coffee and tea later.

What did you have for Easter? I'd love to hear more in the comments!

See overviews of our previous Easter brunches:


Easter brunch 2013, featuring blood orange Mimosas, avocado and smoked salmon salad, cucumber bites with cream cheese, small tattie scone rounds with smoked salmon mousse, deviled beet eggs,  chorizo meatballs, a great carrot and cream cheese cake, roasted cauliflower, and much more.
 
Easter brunch 2012, featuring crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin, Ms Marmite Lover's focaccia shots, marinated olives, Estonian mushroom salad, cold-smoked salmon, a delicious paskha, cardamon-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, and much more.

Easter brunch 2011, featuring a pretty (imitation) snow crab salad, beet quail eggs, two types of home-made Estonian cheese "sõir", smoked salmon with horseradish dip, wild garlic (ramp) pesto with almonds, crostini with white cheese and red onion jam, puff pastry rolls with feta, white bean salad with  chorizo, Limoncello, coconut and white chocolate tart.

Easter brunch 2010, featuring spinach and hot-smoked salmon salad with quail eggs, green beans and asparagus, Marika Blossfeldt's quinoa salad with beets and fennel, savory cheesecake with goat cheese and chives, Ottolenghi's cucumber salad with poppyseeds, bean salad with lemon and parsley, Baltic herring with cherry tomatoes and herbs, Estonian home-made cheese "sõir", paskha, traditional Simnel cake, and another cake with coconut, lemon curd, elderflower cream and lemon balm.

Easter brunch 2009, featuring bright green pea soup shots, zucchini rolls stuffed with goat cheese, hazelnuts, figs and mint, peppered beef fillet, marbled beetroot eggs and marbled turmeric eggs, layered surimi "crab" and egg salad, pineapple carpaccio with mint sugar, matcha madeleines, and two different paskhas.

We also hosted Easter brunches in 2007 and 2008, but somehow I didn't document their properly. I can see on Flickr what was on the table back in 2007, but that's about it.

From the (future) archives:

We've hosted an Easter brunch for friends annually since 2007 (I moved back home to Estonia and in with K. from Scotland in October 2006, so it's 'our thing'). I see I have a lot of catching up to do :)

• Easter brunch 2024
• Easter brunch 2022 - just a small family gathering for a change
• Easter brunch 2015
• Easter brunch 2014
• Easter brunch 2013
• Easter brunch 2012 
• Easter brunch 2011
• Easter brunch 2010
• Easter brunch 2009
• Easter brunch 2008
• Easter brunch 2007