Double Trouble?

This has been the first weekend in a very long time that I really could just be, relax, watch some dancing from the TV, read a little, and, finally, bake! I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to try out a banoffee recipe featured in out main newspaper's food&wine-section in September. The recipe is really very easy, but as it includes three hours of waiting for the condensed milk to turn into fudge, it is not something to do in a hurry. Today I finally could make the banoffee, or rather, as you see from the picture above, I made two small ones. The recipe is made for one cake using a 24 cm springform cake tin. I only own a larger one and two little ones, so, I opted for identical twins. :) Now I'm sitting here typing 1/4 of a cake in my tummy and with a happy smile on my face. :) This recipe is a sure winner!

Banoffee

For the base:
250 g Digestive (or oatmeal) biscuits (using oatmeal biscuits you get a firmer base, but I opted for Digestives)
100 g butter or margarine (I used saltless butter)

For the topping:
1 tin (397 g :)) condensed milk
3 average sized bananas
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 dl whipping cream
(1-2 Tbs sugar for the whipped cream)
(some instant coffee or cocoa powder for decorating)

1. Remove any paper labels from the condensed milk tin. Fill a large pan with water & bring to boil. Immerse the tin into the water and let boil in low temperature for 3 hours.

Now you may for example take a good book & catch up on your reading, watch a DVD, or -if you are so inclined- do some house cleaning, as long as you check the pan every now and then & add water so that the tin stays immersed.

2. While the milk is still boiling crush the biscuits into a fine, sand like consistency. Also, melt the butter or margarine. Mix the melted butter/margarine with the biscuit crumbs.

3. Cut a circle (or two if you are making small banoffees) from the baking paper to cover the bottom of the tin. Spoon the butter/biscuit mixture into a 24 cm springform tin (or into two 14 cm ones). Press tightly with a spoon. Put the tin(s) into the fridge for a while.

4. After 3 hours take the milk tin from the pan. Let cool a bit. Open and voilà! You have a tin full of lovely fudge/toffee!

5. Take the cake tin(s) from the fridge. Top the cake base(s) with the fudge. Put back into the fridge to let the fudge settle a little.

6. Meanwhile whip the cream. Add some sugar, if you like. I usually never do, as I prefer the whipped cream without any sweetener.

7. Cut the bananas into slices (about 1/2 cm or even a bit thicker is fine). Springle with some lemon juice to prevent them from darkening.

8. Take the cake(s) from the fridge. Carefully remove them from the tins. Add banana slices on top. Save some for decoration. Then on top of the bananas add a layer of whipped cream.

9. Decorate with some banana slices (and some cocoa or instant coffee powder).

10. Yummy, yummy, yum!

Fair-ly Good

In October the annual Helsinki Book Fair took place in the Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre. For four days the largest hall of the centre was filled with various book-related stalls. About 77 000 people visited the fair. That was a new record! In addition to the book fair there was also a music fair and a food and wine fair. Being a librarian I spent a good amount of time at the book fair (if you want to read more about the book fair & see two pictures I took there, go over to my book blog), but, of course, I also wanted to visit the food and wine fair. And I was not dissapointed! I found some new specialist stores I want to visit later and ended up buying three bars of fine Belgian chocolate and a nice tin of macha. I have wanted to try baking with macha for some time now (I just love the colour! :)) and now I finally found some. I would love to hear of any great macha recipes, if any of you know any?

Otherwise my life this autumn has really been about work and dancing. Autumn somehow always is the busiest time at work, and I and Mr. Dance Partner also had the Finnish 10-Dance Championships to prepare for. The championships were held here in Helsinki on October 31st, and I am very happy to tell you that we won the senior class for the third year in a row! :) Below is a picture of us after the competition.

And I hope to be back with a recipe next week.

A Little Heart to Heart

I have a confession to make. I am, once again, going through a "I am not cooking anything much" -period. It comes and goes, and it is largely due to being very busy with work and with my dancing. The little extra time I have, I've spent with shortening my ever expanding to-be-read -list of novels rather than in the kitchen. And I know it will continue like this for at least some more weeks. So, don't expect me posting very often on Cinnamonda for the next month or two...

Luckily on Sunday I managed to bake a cheese cake, though. And now I'm sitting here pondering whether I should go and fetch myself another slice of it. I already ate one just minutes ago. :)

This is, maybe, the most simple cheese cake in the world, but with the right pastry as a base, it is very, very tasty! I used frosen shortcrust pastry, but feel free to choose your favorite shortcrust pastry recipe for this cake.

Pear and Vanilla Cheese Cake

Shortcrust pastry (enough to cover a 27 cm pie tin, plus some extra for decoration)
1 large pear, peeled and thinly sliced
200 g vanilla flavoured cream cheese
1 egg
0,5 dl sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 Centigrade.
2. Roll out the pastry and lift it into the pie tin. It should cover also the rim of the tin.
3. Add a thin layer of pear slices.
4. In a large bowl combine the cream cheese, sugar and egg by mixing well with a spoon.
5. Pour the cheese/egg/sugar mixture on top of the pear slices.
6. Using two heart shaped cookie cutters cut three larger and three smaller hearts from the left over pastry. Place the hearts on top of the cake as decoration. See the picture below.
7. Bake in 200 C for 30-35 minutes.
8. Let cool a bit.
9. Serve warm or cold. It is extra good with a teaspoonful of sweet cherry jam. :)

And just for your information, I did go and eat another slice while I was writing this. :)

A Little Celebration

Lately I have not had much time for cooking or baking. Summer holidays are over, my dance training is again in full swing :), and I have tons of books I want to read waiting for their turn, so I've spent any little free time I've had reading.

Yesterday I and Mr. Dance Partner had our first competition after the summer break. It was a smaller national competition, 17 couples, and standard dances only for our class. I am very happy to tell you that we won! :)

To celebrate a little I wanted to bake something good just for myself today. Earlier this week David Lebovitz posted a recipe that caught my eye, and I decided to try that one out. Of course, my local supermarket did not have ricotta, green garlic or fresh thyme and I was too lazy to go to another store, so I opted for some feta & little mozzarella balls, little yellow onions and dried thyme. I also added some cherry tomatoes to the recipe. Otherwise I more or less followed the recipe David posted. I must say the tart turn out great! It is very tasty and was very easy to make, without a doubt a recipe I want to use again and again.

Please go over to David's site for the Herbed Ricotta Tart recipe.

Ljubljana: The Central Market Place

I spent last week vacationing in Slovenia. It was my second visit to that beautiful country. You will find some pictures of my first visit to Ljubljana here. This time I spent a few days in Ljubljana and a couple more in Portoroz on the west coast. The weather could not have been much better. Sun, sun and more sun, and temperatures around +30 degrees Centigrade! :) I took tons of pictures, though many of them are tennis pictures (I timed my vacation so that I could watch the Banka Koper Slovenia Open women's professional tennis tournament in Portoroz), but there are more than enough of more touristy shots, too. Cinnamonda being a food blog I thought to start with sharing with you some pictures I took of the central market place in Ljubljana.

The central market is situated quite near the most important square of the city, the Preseren's Square (Presernov trg in Slovene), and the famous landmark Triple Bridge (Tromostovje). Actually, from Preseren's Square you cross the Triple Bridge, turn left, and there you are on the market place. The actual outdoor market is situated between a beautiful market hall building designed by the famous Slovenian architect Joze Plecnik and the Ljubljana cathedral. On the market, not only food products, but also clothing, some arts and crafts, and souvenirs are sold. There is also a milk automat on one side of the market place!

About the pictures:
Above: a melon stand at the market. Aren't those watermelons beautiful!
Below:
1. Part of Plecnik's colonnade and market hall seen from the Triple Bridge.
2. The market hall seen from the other side. Each door hides a little shop or cafe. Some of the shops are specialized in selling horse meat.
3. The market place in the evening. The Roman Catholic Cathedral can be seen in the background.
4. Some tables folded away for the night.
5. At the end of a market day. Products on sale or perhaps a resting place for the vendor?
6. Apples on sale.
7. The market place seen from the castle mount.
8. The other end of the market hall seen from the Dragon Bridge (Zmajski most).

Who Needs a Knight in Shining Armour?

Sometimes things don't work out the way one wants. This time it was nothing major, just a Boston cake (a kind of cinnamon bun cake) that ended up all lopsided and funny looking. I really love Boston cake! Every time I bake one it brings back memories of my maternal Grandmother and my Mother. My Granny was a great baker, my Mom really did not like cooking or baking that much, but they both could bake a great Boston cake. And it was fun, as a little girl, to help either one to spread out to dough, butter it, then sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon, and finally to roll it. I especially liked to roll the dough! Next to eating the cake (always with a class of cold milk), rolling the dough was the best! :) So, I wanted to share with you my Boston cake recipe, but, well, my poor little cake really was no showcase! It tasted great, but looked a little sad, and all too shy to be photographed. :)

But, but...

After two days of eating my way through my lopsided cake I realised that there was another recipe I could share with you all. And a lopsided Boston cake, or any yeast-based sweed bread, f. ex. challah, or even toast would be perfect for this recipe! I desided to use the rest of my cake to make some Poor Knights, a really tasty Finnish dessert, and the perfect way to use any left over white bread. (And it does not matter, if the bread has dried up a little, actually dry bread is preferred for this recipe.)

Poor Knights

Makes a nice dessert for 2, or a big treat for 1.

4 slices of sweet bread, or white bread like toast
1 egg
some milk
cinnamon & sugar
oil/butter for frying

1. Break the egg into a shallow bowl/soup plate and mix it slightly. Pour some milk into another bowl/soup plate. Take some cinnamon & sugar & mix them on a plate. It is useful to arrange these plates into a row for step 3.
2. Warm some oil (I used rapeseed oil, the traditionalists would ude butter) on a pan.
3. Take one slice of bread at a time & using your fingers put it into the egg mixture, so that both sides get a thin egg coating.
4. Repeat with the plate with milk.
5. Repeat with the plate with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.
6. Fry in the pan from both sides.
7. Serve the Poor Knights warm with some (strawberry) jam (and whipped cream) -and a class of cold milk :)

ps. And just in case it you need it, Poor Knights are the perfect comfort food!

On the Art of Doing Nothing

Hooray, hoo-ray it's a holi-holiday!:) I cannot help it, the old Boney M -song has been playing in my mind these past few days. :) I am on VACATION!! For four whole weeks!

The Rules of Vacation are:
1. Put your planner somewhere where you cannot see it. (If after four weeks you do not remember where it is, you have had a really good vacation!)
2. Do not make any plans.
3. Do things you enjoy doing.
4. Carpe diem!

This far I have followed the rules to the point, and I am planning... ups, no plans...I mean, I am going to continue to do so. I have been reading an excellent book (The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters), doing some fun cooking and baking, playing some tennis, and in general doing nothing special. I had dance practise today, but for the next three weeks, I will also have vacation from dancing. For the next two weeks, to be exact, I hope to continue on these lines, doing nothing special. Isn't that a lovely thing to look forward to! No plans, nothing you have to do, nowhere you have to go! Bliss!:)

Free from my usually crazy schedule I spent yesterday evening baking something I had wanted to try to do myself for some time now. I baked Alexander pastries, or rather Cinnamonda's version of them. Alexander pastry, or Aleksanterinleivos in Finnish, is a rectangular pastry with two, thin layers of cake, raspberry jam in between the layers, and pink sugar icing. It is the first pastry in Finland ever to be named after someone, in this case Russian Emperor Alexander I, who in 1809 also became the first Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Finland. He was supposed to visit Helsinki in 1818, and the pastry was created in his honour. In the end he visited Helsinki a year later. By the way, our main shopping street here in Helsinki is also named after him. But back to the pastry! It is still a very popular pastry here, available all around in cafes and pastry shops, and pastry counters in most food stores. It is also a very sweet pastry, perfect for someone with not only one sweet tooth but a whole set of sweet teeth! Even yours truly cannot eat many Alexanders in a row, and I have been known to wolf half a litre of ice cream or a large chocolate bar in no time!

I used my baking these pastries as a way to work towards finally emptying the freezer (I'm almost there now!) and instead of raspberry jam, which I did not have, I made some apple purée using up the frozen apple slices I had in the freezer. Also, I only had very little pink icing sugar left, so I opted for using white and making a marble effect with the little pink sugar I did have. I used 400 g white and 75 g pink icing sugar, but that was too much, therefor I have reduced the amounts for the recipe. If you want to bake traditional Alexander pastries use raspberry jam instead of apple purée and pink icing sugar only (or colour you sugar pink). One way to colour the sugar is with raspberries as in this more complicated recipe I found in the Nordic Recipe Archive.

Alexander Pastries

Makes 10

For the pastry:
200 g soft butter (or margarine)
1 dl sugar
1 egg
4 dl wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

For the filling:
About 2 apples, sliced
Some sugar (according to your taste)

For the icing:
300 g white icing sugar
50 g pink icing sugar
ca. 1 dl water (or water mixed with some lemon juice)

Let's start with the filling:

1. Put the apple slices into a small pan. Add some sugar.
2. Cook the slices in their own juices until they are very soft.
3. Smash the slices with a spoon.
4. To make the purée finer pour the smashed slices into a food processor and pulse twice, that should be enough, and voilà, we have purée!
5. Let cool before use.

Then let's move on to the pastry:

1. In a bowl mix butter and sugar with your fingertips.
2. Add the egg. Mix some more.
3. Mix the flour and baking powder together in another bowl.
4. Shift the flour/baking powder mixture into the batter and mix quickly.
5. Cover with cling film and let rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile heat the oven to 175 Centigrade.
7. After half an hour take the batter out and spread it evenly onto a baking paper covered baking pan. The easiest way to spread the batter is to cover it with some cling film and then use a rolling pin. It should end up thin, only about 1/2 centimetres thick.
8. Bake in 175 C for about 15 minutes.
9. Let cool completely.
10. Cut the pastry into two halves.
11. Spread apple purée onto one half. Lift the other half on top.

Now is time to prepare the icing:

1. Pour the white icing sugar into a large bowl. Add some water, one tablespoon at a time, and mix, until you have a pourable, but not too runny, icing. Do the same with the pink sugar. With the pink sugar, you will need very little water, so be careful. It might be wise to use a teaspoon, when adding water to the pink sugar.
2. Pour the white icing on top of the pastry, covering the top completely. Using a piping bag make a pattern of crossing lines on the white icing. Using a fork draw a zig zag pattern on the pink lines to make them more marblelike.
3. Let the icing harden overnight.

(First thing:)) next morning:

1. Using a sharp knife cut the sides of the pastry, so that you get clean, straight, icing-free sides. (And some nice extra pieces of pastry for the cook i.e. yourself ;))
2. Cut the big pastry into 10 little pastries.
3. Brew yourself a nice cuppa tea. Put one Alexander (or maybe two) on a plate next to your tea, and...
3. En-JOY!

As I have been hopping back and forth between food and book blogs these past few days, I thought to share with my food blogging friends this info I found about The Spice of Life Challenge. It is a reading challenge that encourages participants to read books about food, be them cookbooks, nonfiction or fiction. Maybe some of you would like to join the challenge. It surely sounds like fun.