Surprisingly summer has come to Denmark for one or two days this week. Finally the rain was gone, the wind turned warm and the sun was shining for more than 5 minutes. While living in Poland, I remember being so tired of warm and sun during summer time. Now when I am here in Denmark I really cherish the moments when the temperature rises and the sun is shining. After all they do not happen very often. I should really get used to this already! Anyway. There is no summer mood without a summer cake, so the moment I realised how warm and sunny it was, I was on my way to the kitchen with a new recipe in mind. Thanks to Lisia Kawiarenka I had the recipe for a lovely lemon tart. It turned out extremely good! It is officially the best cake I have ever made. I made some adjustments to have the cake not only gluten but also lactose free and I am very happy with the result.
By the way, I found these amazing weights at my grandmother's basement and I just fell in love with them. When I am visiting again, I definitely need to dig deeper in all the old and vintage things that are hidden in my grandparent's basement..

Ingredients:

Pastry (for a 24 cm baking form)

60 g of corn flour

40 g of potato starch (any starch would work)

30 g of buckwheat flour

30 g of amaranth flour

¾ teaspoon of guar gum

a pinch of salt

115 g of lactose free butter

3-5 tablespoons of cold water

Filling

¾ cup of sugar

lemon zest (from 2 lemons)

1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar

¼ cup of potato starch (any starch would work)

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

1 ¼ cup of lactose free yogurt

½ cup of lactose free cream 36%

¼ cup of fresh lemon juice (from 1 big lemon)

a pinch of salt

Preparation:

1. Mix all ingredients for the pastry in a bowl and knead until nice and smooth. Once it is ready, put it in the fridge for 30 mins to 1 hour.

2. Take out the pastry and put it on the baking form. Everytime I do the cake, the pastry is rather sticky so I don't even try to roll it out into the form. I simply take small pieces of the pastry and consequently cover the whole form with it, by hand.

3. Puncture the pastry with a fork and put in the freezer for around 30 mins. Putting it in the fridge won't hurt either, if you have no space in the freezer (which is almost always in my case!)

4. Set the oven to 200 degrees, cover the pastry with baking paper and put for example lentils or beans to have some weight over the cake, and bake for 20-25 mins. Then remove the baking paper with lentils/beans and bake for another 5 mins.

5. Remove from the oven and let it cool for a moment, while you prepare the filling. Also, decrease the oven temperature to 165 degrees.

6. Mix sugar with lemon zest and vanilla sugar in a bowl. Add flour and salt.

7. Slowly add one egg (and additional egg yolks) after another mixing gently (low speed on the mixer) until it gets smooth.

8. Still mixing, add yogurt, cream and lemon juice and mix together to get a nice smooth mixture. It will be very liquid, but that's just how it should be, so no worries!

9. Pour the filling in the form with the pastry and put in the oven for 40-50 mins. If kept longer, the filling starts to crack a little, but it's still delicious so it's not a big issue.

10. Let the tart cool for a while before serving.

Chocolate & Coconut birthday cake! (Gluten free + Lactose free)

First it was my boyfriend sister's birthday, then it was finally his turn to get his own cake and some birthday presents. This cake was again a trial and error process. If I were to do it again I already know what should be different. However my boyfriend was truly happy about this cake and before I even noticed, it was already gone. 

While looking for all ingredients for the cake I came across these adorable popcorn boxes. I couldn't resist them so I had to include them in the photos. Another thing I was very excited about were the roasted coconut flakes. I have never tried it before, but the minute I saw it on the store's shelf, I could already imagine it as the cake's frosting. Eventually, I came back home with the package of the roasted coconuts, lactose free cream cheese, cocoa powder and a blurry idea of what I will do with all this. In the end, I decided to bake a sponge cake with added cocoa powder, use the cream cheese and some powdered sugar for the cream, add some homemade cherry jam and finish off with the roasted coconut flakes.

Ingredients:

Spong cake (16 cm baking form)

3 eggs

130 g of sugar

0,3 cap of corn flour

0,3 cup of potato flour

3 tablespoons of cocoa powder

(Baking this sponge cake once was enough to have 2 layers for the cake)

Frosting

300 g of cream cheese (lactose free)

150 g of butter (lactose free)

3/4 cup of powdered sugar

100 g of roasted coconut flakes

Additionally

~ 5 tablespoons of homemade cherry jam 

Preparation

Sponge cake

1. Preheat the oven to 160-170 degrees, then cover the bottom of the baking form with baking paper. (Sides should not be covered)

2. Separate egg whites from egg yolks. Start mixing the egg whites until they get thick. Gradually add sugar and then the egg yolks (one by one, while mixing). Keep mixing until the batter is smooth.

3. Add flour and the cocoa powder to the batter and mix together either using a spoon or with a mixer at the lowest speed.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared baking form and bake for 30-40 minutes. (Avoid opening the oven door while baking)

5. Once the cake sponge is ready, take it out from the oven and carefully throw it (in the form) down to the table from the height of approximately 50-60 cm. This will make the cake flat and well shaped.

Cream and Frosting
1. Beat the butter until it is light and creamy. Then add powdered sugar and keep on mixing until it gets smooth. Beat in the cream cheese afterwards and put the ready mixture in the fridge for a while. It will thicken and get more stiff, which makes it easier to distribute it on the cake afterwards.

2. Spread a thin layer of the cream on the cake layers using a spatula. Refrigerate for around 15 minutes. (I also put some homemade cherry jam in between the two layers of the sponge cake, again, to make the taste of the whole cake more characteristic and interesting). In the end, spread the remaining frosting all over the cake and cover with the roasted coconut flakes. 

Summer fruit tart ( Gluten free + Lactose Free)

While spending two weeks back at home I could finally relax and enjoy the summer weather. Sitting for hours in my garden, drinking strawberry smoothies and reading was my daily routine. I miss this already, now when I am back in Denmark, writing this post! This tart here was a result of a lazy afternoon spent with my mom and my grandma. With 30 degrees outside, we were sitting in my grandma's backyard, chatting and breathing in the hot but still fresh summer breeze. 

The institution of a grandma in Poland is very special I must mention. A grandma is almost always the most important person in the family, who with all her experience can advise everyone on everything. Or at least she is very much convinced about it. But most importantly a grandma will NEVER let her kids, grandkids, friends or even strangers walk away without forcing them to eat a full meal, huge dessert and to drink a cup of tea. And a cup of tea can never be drunk alone... you need a piece of cake to it, or two pieces, or three. "Look at you! You are way too skinny!" And there is no way out, no excuse. But the truth is, no matter what grandma prepares, it tastes amazing. So even if you are not hungry, you would eat it all.

Sitting and chatting, I started to look around and I noticed these beauties. The watchful grandma's eye immediately spotted my interest and 2 minutes after she handed me over the two big jars so that I could fill them in with the redcurrants. And so I did, so now it was the time to think about what I could do with them. My mom came up with an idea to bake a tart, so once we got home we heated up the oven and less than an hour later we enjoyed this delicious tart, sitting in the garden (again!).

Ingredients 

Pastry (for approximately 20 x 30 cm tart)

110 g rice flour

20 g amaranth flour

20 g potato flour

110 g butter (lactose free)

60 ml of cold water

Filling

(Any kind of fruit could be used in any amount to be honest)

I used:

1 liter jar of redcurrants

a couple of blackcurrants

a couple of raspberries

2-3 teaspoons of cane sugar

3-5 spoons of honey

Preparation

1. Heat up the oven to 180 degrees.
2. First add all ingredients for the pastry and mix them together in a bowl. Knead until the batter gets smooth.
3. Cover a baking form (of any kind) with baking paper and put the batter on it. You could roll it out on the baking paper, I just spread it quickly with my hands and shaped into a rectangular. Not to lose too much of the juice from the fruit later on, I marked the edges and raised them a little.
4. Puncture the pastry with a fork and put in the fridge for around 30 minutes. After that, bake it for 10 minutes.
5. In the meantime, put the redcurrants in a bowl, add some cane sugar and 4-5 spoons of honey. The redcurrants are rather sour, so it really is necessary. Mixt it together and put aside.
6. After 10 minutes of baking take out the pastry and cover it with the redcurrants, add other fruit as well and put again in the oven for the next 15-20 minutes.
7. Serve hot or cold, in both cases it tastes amazing.

(The photos were taken with my phone, so unfortunately the quality of them is not really good, but I could not resist posting them anyway)

Pasta with Turkey and Spinach (Gluten free)

It was one of those days, when I was absolutely exhausted, hungry and cold (yes, cold! Summer in Denmark is a rather abstract expression). The inside of my fridge was staring at me with the ironic look of a small piece of turkey ham, eggs and some milk. Obvious sign that I really need to go out and buy some groceries. And I cannot use the fact that it is raining as an excuse anymore. It has been raining for the last week. Non stop. 

After taking out the turkey ham and eggs out of the fridge I attacked the freezer and found some spinach. Lucklily I tend to buy a lot of frozen vegetables and fruit, almost as if I was preparing to survive a month without leaving my apartment. It happens to be very useful. 

Equipped with some of the basic ingredients I started to heat up the frying pan, look through various spices and to finally prepare some dinner. After no more than 30 minutes I was already finished and I my dinner turned out really tasty.

Ingredients

500-700 g of frozen spinach leaves

3-4 shallots

a small pack of turkey ham 

(I used a ready one from the store, but I think chicken would also be fine here)

gluten free pasta

eggs (1-2 for each portion)

dried garlic

salt

pepper

dried parsley
coconut oil for frying

Preparation

1.Boil some water for the pasta, and cook it following the instructions from the package. I used gluten free pasta.
2. In the meantime, warm up the frying pan and put some coconut oil on it.
3. Fry the cut shallots until they turn golden, then add the spinach and fry it together for a longer while. Add the spices (dried garlic, salt, pepper, tiny bit of chili pepper). Mix together and fry, then put aside for a moment.
4. Cut the turkey ham into small pieces and fry it well. I didn't use any oil to do so, but it required some more mixing while the ham was frying, to avoid burning it. Once it is fried, put aside.
5. Finally put some oil on the frying pan and break the eggs on it. Add some salt and pepper and fry for a moment.
6. On the plate, put some pasta, shallots with spinach, the turkey ham pieces and finally cover it with the fried egg. I spreaded some dried parsley all over the dish to get even a better smell and taste.