2018 new trend!

The first moment I saw I told to myself I had to make it! It’s the new sable cake with a mascarpone cream and lots and lots of decoration... you already know what am I talking about, right?

Well, since we’ve just moved in it’s the best excuse to start inviting people for dinners, housewarmings or parties. And so I got my first chance to make the new cake hehe (every occasion is good to celebrate it with a cake)
Our first guests were no others than my old colleagues from Punto, I’ve spent a lot of time with those crazy guys and I gotta admit that I do miss them a lot, every single one of them gave me plenty of moments I’ll never forget, plenty of Dutch slang, plenty of pintjes, and plenty, pleeeenty of coffees. After two years and a half I decided it was about time to start my career as chef, and so I put and end with my career as barista. It was really difficult to leave that family but I knew it was my moment to move on, and so I did it, leaving all those awesome people behind, but hey don’t forget we leave just 20min away! That’s a remark, if you didn’t notice it ;p

So when I invited them over I thought to myself, hey let’s try out that cool cake you’ve seen on the internet running around! The rest of the menu was well thought through and with Dario’s help we ended up with the winning menu. Everything went great and I was really waiting to see their faces when the get to see the dessert. I gotta admit, it was good for being the first one but it could’ve been better, don’t get me wrong, I really liked it but like always you get better the more you practice.

It’s a very simple cake where the fun part starts when you free up your imagination and the decoration just flows, prepare your table with tons of sprinkles, merengues, flowers, buttercream, glitters, chocolates,...whatever you have in mind that can top up this beauty.



Ingredients


For the cake

-300gr flour
-200gr cold butter
-50gr coaster sugar
-25gr fine sugar
-1 egg
-1ts vanilla

For the mascarpone cream
-500gr mascarpone
-500gr heavy cream
-200gr coaster sugar
-vanilla

Method

We’ll start by making the cake, in your bowl start by adding the flour, sugars and the butter cut in
dices and let your mixer run till it’s well combined and a bit sandy.
At that point we add the egg and start mixing again.
If you’re gonna use your hands it’ll be just a bit more work but at the end you’ll get a smooth dough as if it was made with the stand mixer.

Once your dough is ready, let it rest for about 30min to 1hour in the fridge.

Meanwhile let’s make the mascarpone cream, which is as easy as to combine all your ingredients and mix well. It looks in the beginning that it won’t get that thick but keep on mixing for about 5min and you’ll get the right consistency. Introduce it in your piping bag, I used a 16mm round nozzle to pipe out the cream on top of the biscuits.

Time to heat on the oven at 180 degrees centigrade and when it’s ready set your cakes, that you previously rolled out to 1mm thick and cut it with the shape you wanted in this case I made two “P’s” and two “T’s”. And put them in the oven for about 20min, always check them before cause you don’t want too-tanned cookies 😜

After that it’s just time to let your creativity flow with as many sprinkles and flowers as you have at home.

After all this I would like to thank you guys for coming, it was really nice for us and I hope you really enjoyed the night. You’re always welcome and I wish you all the best. Special mention to my boss and friend Kris, as I’ve always said, it was an honour working with you.

Lots of birthdays

And we start the new year in a new apartment!

Dario and I we’ve just moved in together in what we called “the best apartment ever”, he is so happy he even runs around the house. We have so much light (if we’re lucky and get a sunny day...), big rooms and awesome kitchen (I’m definitely in love with the kitchen cause it has its own wine rack), with two small balconies and plenty of room for our guests, that means now you don’t have an excuse to come visit us!

Back to the cakes, the first one I’m making is for Lucia and I was wondering why shouldn’t I try some good old flavors like peanut butter and jelly, let’s do a bit crazy. Since Dario hung up the US flag on the kitchen wall, all those memories come back to me. And Pjb is definitely one of the most common things in America so I decided to give it a try and make a three layer cake, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla and spice it up with some homemade peanut butter and some berries jam.  

For the cake:

- 4 eggs 

- 200gr flour

- 200gr sugar

- 6gr baking powder    

- 40gr water

- 20gr oil 

(-20gr cocoa powder; 180gr flour)      

For the Italian merengue:

- 4large eggs 

- 350gr sugar

- 75ml water 

- 1 pinch salt 

- 450gr unsalted butter 

- 1tsp vanilla extract 

Method:

I made two vanilla cakes and a third chocolate one. We separate the egg whites from  the egg yolk and beat the whites with half of the sugar till it's stiff, then set them aside in the fridge while mixing the rest of the ingredients. 

First put in your mixing bowl the egg yolks, sugar, water, oil and vanilla extract, mix until well combined and then sift in the dry ingredients, flour and baking powder, and the cocoa when making  the chocolate cake. 

Once everything is ready add the whites we previously whisked and do this slowly cause you don’t want to break them, so grab an spatula and carefully integrate them in your batter. 

Your cake moulds are already buttered and floured and your oven preheated at 180 degrees, fill up your moulds and introduce them in the oven for at least 50min. Always check your cakes after 45min, maybe you’ll need to add some time up or maybe your cakes will be ready, every oven is a different world but more or less at the temperature should take you around the 50min.

For the Italian merengue (since I discovered preppy kitchen’s recipe I always make it, soooo good) #preppykitchen it’s really simple and everybody loves it. 

We beat the egg whites with 75gr of sugar till you get those peaks of it.

 

In a saucepan we make the sirup by melting the rest of the sugar with the water let it melt and reach around 115 degrees centigrade.

Then while the mixer is running slowly drizzle the syrup into the egg whites and let it turn till your mixture’s temperature has lowered up to around the 37 degrees centigrade.

Now cut your room temperatured butter into small cubes and add them one by one until your merengue has a smooth texture. Adding color is up to you ;)