paradise cake

 

This is the recipe of the great pastry chef Maurizio Santin, a cake so soft and fluffy taht neither kids nor adults would resist.

Ingredients for a pan in 8 cm high and 22 cm in diameter: 

300 g butter

300 g caster sugar

200 g of yolks

150 g flour

150 g potato starch

120 g egg whites

1 lemon

It's a cake made without baking powder, its extreme softness is obtained only by whisking the egg whites until stiff and the butter whisked until you have a cream. 

The butter must be very soft, at room temperature. Knead in the mixer with a whisk, or in a bowl with electric beaters until you have a smooth texture (it takes 5-6 minutes, make sure to remove the butter from the sides of the bowl, mix and continue beating). Add the egg yolks one by one, by inserting the following only when the former is well incorporated. Pour gradually 250 g of sugar, continuing to whip at medium speed. Finally, add the flour and potato flour sifted together,  by lowering the speed. Now put the grated lemon peel.

Whip the egg whites with a few drops of lemon juice, then add the remaining sugar (50 g). With a spatula pour them gently into the mixture obtained previously 

Butter the mold and instead of flour use brown sugar on the edges and at the base of the cake, you will obtain a delicious crunchiness. Pour the batter in the mold and bake at 170 degrees for 40 minutes.

Tips for cooking: after 40 minutes my cake was not ready yet, you must do the toothpick test; so I put an aluminum foil over the cake, and continued for another 25 minutes at 160 degrees. Remove the sheet and bake for 5/6 minutes further until golden brown.

Let it cool before unmold, turn it upside down on a serving dish so that the top is perfectly smooth. Sprinkle with powdered sugar ... and enjoy it!

pistachios plumcake and the sea at Colosseum

Last week there was a storm in Rome and I was at the Coloseum to get to work. Under the Coloseum there was a sea, yes you read well a sea, real waves of water like those at the sea.

comfort food .... or biscuits!

You cannot ever deny friendship to a cookie, it's a sweet with a few claims, requires no saucer nor fork, does not dirty and you should not be hungry to eat; like when you were a child and took in your little hands your first cookie and chewed it slowly more to pamper you than to taste its flavor; and more than any other sweet has the power to bring you back in a nano-second into the perfumes and flavors of your childhood. And, as it's said now, it's the ultimate comfort food for me, it's perfect after dinner, for breakfast, as a snack food like no other, except maybe the chocolate when you need it, it cannot be replaced with no other. These biscuits are the result of a surplus of short pastry I made for the tart I prepared for my Friend Diana.

the French "quatre-quarts" with blueberries, grapes and chocolate pastilles

Quatre-quarts, ie in the French pastry the same weight of the 4 key ingredients to make a cake: egg-flour-butter-sugar (180 grams). This cake is suitable to be filled in with fruit, jam, chocolate, whatever we like. In the book "sweet and savory cakes" Ilona Chovancova gives a lighter version, which I filled with...what I had: grapes, blueberries and chocolate pastilles from Ecuador. It's a delight to be savored in small bites, because like all the French pastries, it's superb, but it should be granted sparingly. My motto is: less but good!

marble plum-cake

Whites Cake

White Cake

Sunday morning, the typical slowness in the last free hours before a new week starts... I try to concentrate on a movie, but it's impossible, I try then with a book, nothing to do.... it's too much difficult in these sunday hours with reduced consumption of neurons; I have taken to reading one...two...three recipes...till I get inspired and begin lazily to pull out first the flour from the cupboard then the balance, the oranges and the butter...that must be soften; thanks microwave I've abandoned my rolling pin to soften the butter!

Jam Tart

Several years ago I found out this recipe for jam tarts in the magazine "The Italian Kitchen" and I've never forgotten it. It is practically perfect, here are the ...

                


Ingredients

• 300 g flour
• 150 g soft unsalted butter
• 150 g sugar (half white, half brown)
• 1 egg
• grated lemon peel
• 2 amaretti or digestives
• 60 almands finely minced
• salt

METHOD


Preheat the oven to 190°


1. Sift the flour and make the fountain, put in the center the sugar, egg, the minced almonds, the lemon peel and a pinch of salt; melt these ingredients very well till you get a smooth paste. Leave it for 30' covered with greaseproof paper. If you are in a hurry put it in freezer for 10 minutes. 
2. After this time take the paste and work it few minutes to make it soft again (if necessary add a pinch of flour). Put the paste on a baking-pan, already covered with butter and flour (or if u prefer with greaseproof paper ), crumble over the 2 buiscuits, spread your favourite marmelade and garnish as you like with the left paste. 3. Cook it for about 50 minutes.

Here in this photo the quantities are double and then I decorate the tart with some caramel.

the tart of Luca Montersino

This is a wonderful recipe to make the tart because the recipe is of Luca Montersino: here the ingredients for a grat pie of 30 cm diameter.

pastry by Luca Montersino



• 200 g icing sugar
• 500 g flour
• 300 g softened butter
• 80 g egg yolks
• lemon zest
• 2 g di salt
• 1/2 vanilla Bourbon

1. With the sifted flour make the fountain. In the middle put the egg yolks, sugar, seeds of the vanilla, lemon zest, salt and knead well without taking the flours in the sides. So you prepare the egg batter.
2. Add now the butter and mix well, without taking the flour until it will be well absorbed and becomes a smooth dough.
   Begin now to take the flour from the sides and knead until it forms a ball. 
3. Flatten with a rolling pin and put between two sheets of baking paper; store in the fridge for 2 hours or in the freezer for 15 minutes.  
4. Before you lay the jam on the top, make some little holes on the pastry and crumble over 2 digestive biscuits. Decorate with slices of almonds. Bake at 190° for about 50 minutes.

Serve: 15 slices

delicious cookies

Yesterday free day, iuhhhh into the kitchen to bake cakes. Delicious cookies....as L. Montersino's pastry.

Make about 50 cookies:

• 200 g icing sugar
• 500 g four
• 300 g soft butter
• 80 g egg yolks
• 1 untreated lemon peel
• 2 g salt
• 1/2 Vanilla Bean
• 2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Add the soft butter and mix it very well only to the egg batter, Begin to take sides with the flour and knead until it forms a ball around.. For chocolate chip cookies. Flatten with a rolling pin and place it between two sheets of baking paper, put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours to rest for 15 minutes in the freezer or if you have a hurry (I have done so yesterday)
 5. After this time, pick the dough and flour on work surface snervatelo (working to make it malleable again) by mixing one or two minutes until it just becomes elastic. Roll out biscuits and trained many of the shapes you want. Bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until sides are golden brown. These I have decorated with lemon icing, melted chocolate to 70%.

  in the oven .................




Method:

1. With the flour make the fountain. In the center put the egg yolks, sugar, seeds of the vanilla, lemon zest, and salt, and knead the mixture without taking the flour at the sides.
2. Add the softened butter and mix it very well only to the egg batter without even taking the flour until it forms a smooth dough.
3. Begin now taking the flour and knead till it forms a ball.  For one third of the dough add 2 tablespoons sifted cocoa powder. For chocolate cookies.
4. Flatten with a rolling pin and place it between two sheets of baking paper, put it in the refrigerator for 2 hours to rest or for 15 minutes in the freezer  if you have a hurry (I have done so yesterday)

5. After this time, pick the dough and flour on work surface and mix one or two minutes until it just becomes elastic. Roll out the pastry and make the shapes you want for your cookies. Bake at 180° for about 20 minutes or until sides become golden brown. These I have decorated with lemon icing, and melted chocolate . 



in the oven...........................





paradise cake

Sunday morning, beautiful numbness, sweet idea to make a cake "soft and fluffy like clouds" said Ale. Here it is. 

torta paradiso

I got this recipe from a more famous foodblogger than me, http://www.lacilieginasullatorta.it/ : the only variation is about cooking time, I  found it too short. Easy recipe but can easily come out wrong as all simple things. Even in this recipe I have heated the eggs with the sugar to 45 degrees according to the method Montersino, before whipping them. 

Serves: 8/10

Ingredients:

• 300g starch
• 200g icing sugar
• 200g soft butter
• 6 eggs
• 1 sachet baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt

Method.

1. Heat the eggs with sugar over low fire up to 45° always whisking, then pour into an electric blender and mix with a pinch of salt for about 15 minutes till you earn a very frothy cream like this:

2. Add the softened butter and continue mixing with the electric blender. Add by hand the starch sifted with the baking powder stirring gently from bottom to top with a spatula to get a homogeneous mixture. Pour into a greased mold covered with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven at 160° for 20 minutes and 180° for 30 minutes, make toothpick test. Let cool and sprinkle with lots of icing sugar.


 

torta paradiso



plum cake with white chocolate frosting

The secret not to make all choccolate drops fall in the bottom of the cake, you can find here in the point 3 and can be used in any other vs. recipe.


Ingredienti: 

• 150 g butter
• 250 g sugar
• 125 g chocolate drops 
• 125 g yogurt
• 350 g flour 00
• 3 eggs 
• 50 ml milk 
• 12 g baking powder
• 12 ml of rum
• 100 g white chocolate (for the frosting) 

Preheat oven to 170°.

1. In a bowl whisk very well the softened butter, sugar and and 25 g of yogurt using a wooden spoon. It must become a creamy.

2. Add a little at a time: the sifted flour, the eggs, milk, and the remaining yogurt; mix everything thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

3. In another bowl mix together the remaining flour (50g) sifted baking powder, chocolate drops and rum. Add them to the mixture stirring gently.

4. Pour the mixture into a mold for plum-cake, the size of 25x8 cm. Bake for about 50 minutes . It should be golden on the surface. Let cool.

5. In the meanwhile in a small saucepan melt white chocolate in a double boiler, let cool for a while; put hte plum-cake on a serving plate and decorate the top with the white chocolate frosting. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

If you prefer the chocolate drops cab be replaced by whole pistachios (same weight, same method).

plumcake con glassa al cioccolato bianco

Serves 8/10