A new romance and the beginning of a fairytale...

I've been looking for the perfect cake. Not that I could generalize a cake that everyone would regard as the perfect one. I've been looking for a cake, that feels just right at the moment, perfect for this instant, this period of life. Perfect for me I guess, and hopefully perfect for others too. I was thinking about it so hard that this idea just struck me one night before falling asleep. Of course I had to stand up to write it down, I had a feeling that there was something revolutionary coming :)


I love, more than love bananas, so I wanted to bake a cake that would include my favourite ingredient of course. I also adore coconut and strawberries - I decided why not to use them too. With strawberries there comes always the white chocolate - and a touch of lemon to refresh the whole creation :) I wanted this cake to be comfortable and luxurious, decadent, at the same time. And for the frosting it had to be cream cheese, which gives such a lovely soft flavour and a texture.
 

 

Organic cream cheese.

Actually the idea for the decoration came first, the I started to build up the cake according to it, so that it would match the basic idea. The combination of white chocolate, banana, coconut and a hint of strawberry sounded irresistible. And the outcome is such a romantic, fluffy and ravishing cake. I decided to name it the Love Cake, Rakkauskakku in Finnish. I hope that when you taste it you can feel the love you used to make it. Love is the greatest of all. It's at least moderate to bake a cake celebrating it!

And then you see, it's spring. The season of love, new beginnings, new romances that lead into heartbreaking fairytales ot the ones with a happy ending. So, celebrate the beauty of life, the nobility of loving and being loved. Share this cake with your dearest, or bake it to brighten up your days filled of routine. Don't miss the message of love <3 1. Cor. 13:13. Gal. 5:22.
 

" Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony". Col. 3:14.


For the Love Cake "Rakkauskakku"
 

3,6 dl mashed ripe bananas (about four medium sized bananas)
2 tsp lemon juice
4,8 dl wheat flour
2,4 dl organic coconut flakes
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp himalaya salt
1, 8 dl (about 150g) organic butter
4 dl organic brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 zest of a lemon
3, 6 dl organic coconut milk
 
For the filling
 
0,5 dl organic coconut milk
juice of one lemon
1 tsp vanilla sugar
about 2 dl freezed strawberries
1 banana
2 tbsp agave syrup
about 0,5 dl organic peanut butter (I used smooth but crunchy goes perfectly too)
 
For the frosting and decorating
 
2 tbsp organic virgin coconut oil
100 g organic white chocolate with strawberry flakes



2 packages (175 g each) organic unflavoured cream cheese
1 dl icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

one banana
some lemon juice
about 1 dl organic coconut flakes
30 g white chocolate (grated white chocolate flakes to decorate)
 
1. Butter the cake tin with coconut oil, flour it with organic potato starch or equivalent. Heat the oven into 150°C.

Extra virgin coconut oil. 

2. In a bowl, mash the bananas, add lemon juice. Grate zest of one well washed lemon, add to the mixture and set aside. Mix the wheat flour with coconut flakes, baking soda and salt, set aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar with a stand mixer until well mixed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla sugar, mix again.

4. Beat in the flour mixture alternatively with the coconut milk. Save the leftover coconut milk for the dampening of the cake.

5. Stir in banana mixture, mix well. Bake in the oven for about 2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. The baking process is a bit tricky. For the first one and a half hours keep the temperature 150°C, then for the last 30 minutes raise it to 180°C. Don't hesitate to bake it long enough. Be patient, it's worth it :) Put a foil on top of the cake to stop the surface from getting too brown or hard.

6. Remove from oven and let it cool down in the room temperature for 2-3 hours. Put to the fridge overnight, it gets better and more moist. You can also serve it the same day, but I suggest this because it gets better and better in the fridge!


7. Take strawberries out from the freezer half an hour earlier so that they melt a bit. Prepare the filling: mash one banana. Puré the freezed strawberries with a hand mixer. Combine the two mixtures, pour 2 tbsps of agave syrup to sweeten it up a bit.

8. Take the cake from the fridge, remove it carefully from the tin. It should be easy to remove, especially of you've put baking paper on the bottom of the tin.

9. Cut the cake carefully into two halves horizontally from the center. Mix together lemon juice, coconut milk and vanilla sugar, with a tablespoon sprinkle over the bottom and the upper part to give the cake some moisture and flavour.

10. Spread the peanut butter on the bottom, then the strawberry-banana filling. Put the upper part of the cake on top. Don't put too much of the filling, otherwise it comes out from the sides.

11. Prepare the frosting. Take the cream cheese to the room temperature about half an hour earlier, it will make the frosting a bit smoother. Melt the white chocolate together with the virgin coconut oil in a small kettle over a bigger kettle with simmering water. Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Set aside. 

12. Prepare the decorations. Cut one banana into slices. Take about 1 dl of coconut flakes on a wide bowl. Put a baking paper near you so that you can but the dipped banana slices on it to cool down. Dip the banana slices one by one in the chocolate, then dip them in coconut flakes. Let them rest for a while.
 

13. You'll have plenty of the white chocolate mixture left, use it for the frosting. Mix it together with the cream cheese. Add vanilla sugar and then add the icing sugar. Mix until the frosting is smooth. Spread beautifully on top of the cake. Then put the dipped banana slices on top of the cake, making a round around the edges. Grate some white chocolate and sprinkle on the sides on top of the banana slices. 

14. Share with your family, friends...the people you love - or just anyone who might need a slice of pure love :)

Salted caramel chocolate cake

This is the second cake I made on my birthday. It's hard to describe the cake or say anything else about it - it was so good. And it wasn't just good, it was the best chocolate cake I'd ever eaten. Really, all you could do was just sigh when you ate it, it's chcolate heaven. It has everything a chocolate cake should have, and even more. It was perfect. And I have to tell you the story of this cake, it's from a GoodFood magazine, which was the 20th birthday special number. They had arranged a competition in baking cakes for the 20th birthday, and this cake was on the final tree. I actually don't know which cake was the winner, but this really could have been the one.

I think the salty-sweet combination was wonderful (it actually wasn't that evident, you had to taste carefully and then you could notice that ahaa, this cake has a tiny salty flavour). I really loved the moistness of this cake, and at first I was wondering that would it bee too sweet with the caramel filling, but actually it wasn't too sweet at all. Though you can't eat a very big slice, because the cake is so rich and heavy. But my point is you reallly should try this cake. Because it's too good to be true.

Ingredients:

For the cake base:

115g salted butter, plus extra for greasing

225g plain chocolate (70% cocoa)

150 ml milk

225g dark muscovado sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs, separated

150 ml crème fraîche

225g plain white wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp sea-salt crystals

For the caramel filling:

This makes a bit too much, but you can use the leftovers for something else.

450g caster sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

115g salted butter

125 ml double cream

2 tbsp crème fraîche

For the chocolate ganache:

225g plain chocolate (70-80% cocoa)

250 ml double cream

dessertspoon sea salt crystals

For the decoration:

chocolate truffles, about ten pieces (150g)

1. First, make the caramel. Pour 100 ml water into a large saucepan. Add the sugar and golden syrup, gently cook until melted, then turn up the heat a bit and cook until the caramel is dark golden brown colour. Swirl the pan occasionally to prevent sticking but do not stir. It can take 15 minutes to get the right colour, so be patient.

2. Turn off the heat and carefully whisk in the butter in small pieces, double cream and crème fraîche - it will bubble up quite high. Whisk until smooth, then leave to cool until slightly set.

You can make this up to 3 days in advance and chill in the fridge - just gently reheat until soft enough to spread before assembling the cake.

3. Now make the cake. Heat oven to 180°C. Grease a 23cm springform cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

4. Melt the chocolate, butter and mik in a kettle over a low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat, then beat in the sugar and vanilla. Move into a big bowl. Cool slightly.

5. Beat the egg yolks and crème fraîche together, then mix this into the chocolate mixture followed by the flour and baking powder.

6. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until stiff peaks form. Stir a third of the egg whites into the cake mix, then gently fold in the rest along with the sea salt.

7. Pour into a prepared tin and bake for 40-50 minutes until firm to touch and when a wooden stick comes out from the cake clean. Leave to cool for 20 minutes or longer, then remove from the tin and finish cooling on a wire rack.

8. For the ganache, heat the chocolate and the cream together over a low heat until the chocolate has melted. Pour into a bowl to cool. I noticed that the ganache I made become quite thin, and maybe it was because the cream I used wasn't that heavy (it was about 20% fat) so it was quite thin and when I decorated the cake it really spread a lot so I didn't need the whole ganache. Next time when I make this cake I think I'll try turkish yogurt instead of the cream, because the ganache should be thicker and the turkish yogurt is excellent for that.

9. To assemble, slice the cooled cake in half horizontally. Sandwich together with some of your caramel, you may not need it all. It happened to me that I put too much of the caramel and it spread on the sides of the plate I had the cake on, so I really suggest to be careful with amount of the caramel, if you wan't to succeed perfectly.

10. Then, spread the ganache over the top of the cake (and not too much, if it's too fluid it will spread a lot) and decorate with the truffles ( I used Belgian Neuhaus truffles) and sprinkle over some sea salt crystals, if you like.

8. ENJOY!