Cherry cake with dried fruits

Basically this is Mrs. Lipton's most excellent cherry cake or at least a version of it, since I put more cherries and some dried fruits in it this time. It tastes very different so I decided to publish it again as a different recipe. It's quite tempting, it was still warm when I tasted it and it was already really good, so I'm not sure there will be plenty left for tomorrow... :)

Ingredients:

• 20 dkgs of butter
• 20 dkgs of sugar
• 4 eggs 
• 20 dkgs of flour
• one teaspoon of baking powder
• 10 dkgs of grated almonds
• 250 dkgs of sour cherries
• 2 tbslpoons of brown sugar
• zest of one lemon
• candied orange zest
• raisins
• candied lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon 

Stir the soft butter with the sugar until it's fluffy and add the eggs too, one after the other, and keep stiring it meanwhile. Then add the flour and the almonds too, plus the lemon and orange zest and raisins that you previously mix with the flour, give it a good stir, then add the cherries without the seeds. Put it in the preheated oven at 180 deg Celsius for an hour.

Turkey breast with sun dried tomatoes and chili

This absolutely improvised turkey breast "stew" was made together with the above detailed rustic rosemary bread. I can't figure out why these dishes are always the best, the ones that you didn't even plan on making... Well, all the more reason to just cook all the time :)

Ingredients, serves 2

• 40 dkgs of turkey breast fillet
• 1 can of chopped tomatoes
• 5-6 sun dried tomatoes
• half a can of sweet corn
• 1 teaspoon of chili powder
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin
• 1 onion chopped fine
• 3 cloves of garlic
• a bit of mexican seasoning

Chop the onions fine and start frying them in a bit of oil, they have to be brown. Meanwhile you can cut the turkey breast in smaller pieces, and then if the onions are done, add the meat. Cover it with a lid for 15 minutes and then remove the lid. Fry it until there isn't any water left under it. Add the seasoning and keep cooking it. Then you can add the tomatoes and the sweet corn, cook for another 5 minutes. If it's too sour, you can add a tiny bit of sweetener or sugar.

Rustic rosemary - garlic bread

 

The original idea of this bread is not my own, Jamie made something like this in Jamie at home, and it made me think that I could do a different version with more herbs and not only with plain flour. I'm sure it's totally different than the one he made, but it is really delicious. Not very complicated, can be easily made in the oven and even if you don't have anything else to eat, it's perfect for lunch or dinner. 

Ingredients for a big oven pan

• a total of 75 dkgs of flour, the percentage of plain and whole grain flour depends on your taste
• 420 mls of warm water
• 2 packets of dried yeast
• 3 teaspoons of salt
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• one big handful of chives
• a couple of thyme springs
• 5-6 springs of fresh rosemary
• 4-5 cloves of garlic chopped
• olive oil

Measure the flour and mix it with the yeast, the sugar and the salt plus the finely chopped herbs. If you are using a break baking machine, you only have to pour the flour in and then the water and the machine will do the rest. If not, make a whole in the middle of the flour for the water and then you can start kneading the dough until you get a flexible but soft dough. When it is ready, let it raise until it becomes double the original size. Line some baking paper into an oven pan and roll the dough to the size of the pan, lay it onto the pan and sprinkle the olive oil, the garlic and the rosemary leaves onto the dough. Then press your fingers into the dough all over the surface, but not all the way in, just make little "craters". Then put it in the oven at 200 degrees and bake it until the top becomes golden brown. 

Post Mother's day lunch

We  had a postponed Mother's day lunch this weekend, the menu was green asparagus rolled into bacon, mushrooms stuffed with apples and smoked cheese, roasted chicken breast and spicy potato wedges baked in the oven. It was surprisingly quick to make and it even took less time to eat it all. I am too tired to upload the recipes tough but here are some pictures... :)

Milk loaf with dried cranberries

When I first saw the Hungarian edition of BBC Good Food magazine, I immediately subscribed for a year. I am over the moon about the recipes, all of them are great and they even work, as you can see on the pictures. The only thing that is different about the cake that I made is that it doesn't have any pistachio on top of it because I didn't have any at home. But it has tons of dried and candied fruits in it, and despite the fact that it was the first ever milk loaf that I made, it turned out really good. I won't write down the recipe here because it's in this month's Good Food magazine but if someone wants it, just write me in the comments and then I will type it down for you! :)

Salmon patties with spicy mashed potatoes and spinach

I have wanted to try out fish patties for a long time, and I still had two pieces of salmon left in the freezer from Christmas so I thought why not cook an Easter Monday celebratory lunch? I think it was a wise decision, surely I will make fish patties in the future too because it was absolutely delicious. To be honest the potatoes started out as the recipe from this month's Good Food magazine's recipe, where you have to make a spicy mixture and then fry the pieces of potato in this mixture but I overcooked them and in the end it became a mashed potato dish, but at least now I can call this recipe my own :)) I won't write down a recipe for the spinach, it's very easy, you just need some fresh of frozen spinach leaves, cook them in a pan until the water disappears and then season it with salt, some ground nutmeg and garlic.

 Ingredients for the fish patties:

• approx. 20-30 dkgs of fresh salmon
• a handful of chives
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 smaller cooked potato
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of fish seasoning
• a little bit of grates parmesan cheese 
• salt, pepper
• 3 tablespoons of flour

In a saucer pan start steaming the fish in a bit of water and oil, don't forget to cover the pan. You only have to cook it until it cooks on the inside too, don't dry it out. Then get a fork and cut the fish in a couple of bigger parts, so that it can cool down and take the bones out, if there are any. Then let it cool down completely. Meanwhile chop the chives fine and put it into a bowl together with the fish, which you have to mince with a fork until it completely falls apart. Add the potatoes too, smash the pieces with a fork, then add the lemon juice, the cheese,  the seasoning, some salt and pepper and mix it until it becomes a completely solid mixture. Taste it, add more salt or anything that it needs and then add the egg too and give it a good stir again. Then form little patties from the mixture, roll them into the flour and on a bit of oil fry them (not deep frying, just on a bit of oil), until both sides are golden. 

Ingredients for the mashed potatoes:

• 4-5 bigger potatoes
• 1 bigger onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of caraway seeds
• half a tablespoon of chilli powder
• half a tablespoon of smoked paprika
• salt and pepper

Cut the potatoes in pieces and cook them in salted water. Meanwhile chop the onions and the garlic fine and start frying them in a pan. When the potato is cooked, pour off the water and add the potatoes to the onion mixture. Start giving it a stir, the potatoes will fall apart but that's good. Let it fry on the bottom for a while, then give it a good stir and again let it fry for a little while, so that there will be soft and crunchy parts in the end. At some point add the chili and the paprika powder too, and salt, if neccessary. 

Black-forest cake in a bowl

I was in the mood for something with whipped cream today, originally I wanted to make a cake that can be cut into pieces but in the end we decided to just throw every ingredient into a big bowl and see how it turns out. It's completely sugar free, the sponge cake was made with xylitol and the custard has sweetener in it. This huge bowl was almost half empty when I started to give "samples" to everyone so I guess it was a successful try...:) This dessert can be improved yet, maybe next time I should put the layers into a flat dish, what do you guys think? 

Ingredients:

• 10 dkgs of plain flour
• 6 eggs
• 10 dkgs of xylitol
• 10 dkg of grated almonds 
• 1 teaspoon of rum flavour
• 2 tbl spoons of cocoa powder
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 1 packet of vanilla custard powder
• 1 packet of chocolate custard powder
• 1 l of milk
• a big can of sour cherries or 30 dkgs of fresh or frozen sour cherries (without the seeds)
• 4 dls of sour cherry juice
• 2.5 tablespoons of gelatine
• half a litre of whipped cream

Separate the eggs and beat the whites up with the xylitol until it becomes white and hard. Whisk the soft butter and the egg yolks together and add the mixture to the whites. Carefully mix them together. Then mix the flour with the cocoa powder and sift it into the bowl, add the grated almonds, give it a good stir until it becomes a solid dough. Lay some baking paper into a roasting pan and pour the mixture in it. Bake it at 180 deg Celsius until nothing sticks to the needle that you stick into it, then take it out and cut it into pieces so that it cools down quickly. 

Meanwhile in half a litre of milk cook the vanilla custard and int he other half the chocolate custard. Add the gelatine to the cherry juice and bring it to a boil, then take it off the heat and let it cool down a bit. Lay some sponge cake on the bottom of the bowl and then add the other layers of custard, sour cherries, the cherry jelly and other layers of sponge cake. When it's done, top it up with the whipped cream and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.