Celebrating Valentine's Day
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Cakes
Liz invited us over one Saturday for breakfast and this is actually my favorite meal of the day and so I bragged I would be able to eat a lot and that she will be surprised.
Liz said her husband would make his famous pancakes!!… the hours got real long until Saturday morning. When we arrived the stack of pancakes was … huge! just amazing, all equal in size all perfect and evenly browned it was unreal! The last time I saw such perfection was on the cover of Linda Lomellino's baking book! And she is a foodstilist! Then Liz made us eggs with asparagus shavings and then she made this cake: Do I have to confess I didn’t get hungry until very late that Saturday?
In order to get such a pretty tray full of elderflowers I roamed the whole neighborhood, dog in the car trunk and stopped whenever I saw the pretty white flowers hanging over a fence low enough to reach them. The dog got nervous in the back, when was it her turn - or never? Then I walked through he woods and vineyards to find a spot for a perfect background - together with Gina who was much less interested in the flower arrangement than I and kept stepping on it!
Please insert the skewer all the way so the yummy lemon juice and elderflower syrup can make it all the way down to infuse the cake. I made two cakes because I wanted to try a gluten-free version. This one is made with almond meal but turned out too moist, which is rare for gluten-free cakes, I need to experiment more and I will share the recipe once it's perfect
Preparation time 20 min
Baking time 45 min
Oven temperature 180°C | 375°F
You Need
225g | 8oz butter, softened
225g | 8oz caster sugar
4 large eggs
225g |8oz flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
zest and juice 1 lemon
100ml | 4floz elderflower syrup
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
Use fresh lemon for a zingy taste
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease a (20cm) round, deep loose-based tin and base line with baking parchment.
Place the butter sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar together. Gradually add the eggs, mixing well between additions and adding 2 tbsp. of the flour with the last egg - this will prevent curdling.
Sift over the remaining flour, and then gently fold in with a spatula along with 2 tbsp. hot water. Fill the prepared tin, level the surface and bake for 50-55 minutes or until it is shrinking away from the sides of the tin. A fine skewer inserted in the center should come out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 min.
Squeeze the lemon juice, then sieve to remove the bits and add the elderflower syrup. Use the fine skewer to prick the cake all over until all the way to the bottom, pour over the syrup then sprinkle over the 2 tablespoons of sugar - it should sink in but leave a crunchy crust. Leave to cool completely, before removing the cake from the tin.
One of my favorite things about Vienna is the abundance of Jewish pastries everywhere (or pastries in general for that matter). I grew up sampling and comparing everything sweet in sight, purely for research purposes, of course. Ever since I was very little I've had an obsession with history and the origins of traditional foods. If we ever meet in person, never strike up a conversation on bagels, because you'll probably have to listen to a monologue for the next hour or so. We've made it no secret that we love Israeli food and Ottolenghi has written several of our favorite cookbooks, but we've never done a traditional sweet pastry (don't worry I've got you covered with a bagel recipe here). So here it is: chocolate babka with hazelnuts (we didn't have any hazelnuts left, so we used walnuts as a prop, and let's be honest they're a lot prettier anyways...). What's your favorite traditional pastry?
Chocolate Babka (recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi)
530g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100g caster sugar
2 tsp fast-action dried yeast
grated zest of 1 small lemon
3 large free-range eggs
120ml water
⅓ tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 2cm cubes
sunflower oil, for greasing
Chocolate filling:
50g icing sugar
30g best-quality cocoa powder
130g good-quality dark chocolate, melted
120g unsalted butter, melted
100g pecans, roughly chopped
2 tbsp caster sugar
Combine flour, yeast, sugar and lemon zest in a big bowl. Add the eggs one by one until well mixed (if you have a kitchen aid, that works perfectly well). Add the water, salt and butter and form to a ball once combined. Put the dough in a warm place and cover it with a damp cloth and let it rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in mass.
In the meantime you can melt the butter with the chocolate and add the icing sugar and cocoa powder to make the filling. Once the dough has risen, roll it out to a rectangle and spread the filling over it (optionally you can sprinkle it with nuts now). Then roll the dough over the longer sides of the rectangle and cut the roll in half. Try to braid the two halves the best you can (it's going to get very messy) and place the braid in a rectangular form. Bake for 30 mins at 190C.
