Easy applesauce cake and a leaven

I baked this cake a couple of weeks ago, but I had conveniently freezed it for future famines... like those that happen at my home at anytime. But look at this cutie, say something to him, goo-goo sweetie... I found the recipe in an American website, but due to my famous organizing skills I forgot to record the name of the source when I copied it... I apologize for that, careless, careless. It's a very easy cake, because it doesn't use yolks beaten with sugar nor egg whites.

Back to the point, I was the proud owner of an applesauce surplus. I had woken up one day with the inevitable need to make applesauce with 2 pounds of apples. Yeah, pretend you never do pointless things. I love applesauce, I often eat it as part of my breakfast, but this was too much for me.

Allright, I decided to put my surplus to good use and invest it in this very promising cake. Here goes the recipe:

Applesauce cake

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
  
• 2 cups applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Heat the oven to 350ºF (180 ºC) if conventional type and to 340ºF (170 ºC) if convection type. Butter and flour a couple of loaf pans. Sieve the flour in a bowl with the baking powder, the baking soda, the salt and the cinnamon. In another bowl (a big one) or in the blender bowl mix the eggs, sugar, oil, applesauce and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients on the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly to avoid any lumps. Pour this concoction in the pans never going above 2/3 of the height (better leave plenty of room than have the cake overflowing) and bake it for 50 minutes. After this time check for doneness with a knife or something similar and take it out. Leave it to cool in the pan, the consistency is quite soft when hot.

The amounts are enough for 2 loaf pans and 4 cupcake molds...


The essential to this is that I found it one of the best cakes I've ever tasted, very humid and tasty, I guess because of the applesauce. Nevertheless I didn't find the applesauce flavour to be very evident. On the other hand the flavour of the extra virgin oil I had used for vegetable oil was indeed VERY evident. I used a delicious Spanish oil from Badajoz, the oil I use for everything at home. I order a large amount once a year and have it immediately delivered. This oil has a relatively strong flavour when uncooked, but it is a lot softer when cooked. I love it and I think it gave the cake a very characteristic and wonderful touch.

Some changes I made to the recipe: I used less sugar and didn't add the cinnamon, I thought it a bit risky with my kids. I could have taken it out of the oven a bit before the end of the 50 minutes, because you can see the crust is a bit too toasted. Next time I will keep an attentive eye on it. And instead of the baking soda and the baking powder, I used my secret weapon: chemical leaven prepared at home, according to this. I will never reveal the secret composition, unless you force me to... alright, if you insist...

Chemical leaven:

• 1.3oz cream of tartar
• 0.6oz baking soda
  

You love this straightforward amounts, don't you? I was sure. They can be multiplied to obtain a measurable amount for mortals. The ratio given by Spanish pastry chef Paco Torreblanca is 1.9oz of mixture per 2 pounds of flour. In spite of the proportioning, I can assure it works beautifully. Ever since I use this secret formula I've had no cakes sinking, but maybe it's a coincidence... Yes, I belong to Cakesinkers Anonymous... everybody has a past.

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Raw sweets

I'm going to tell you about the two cooking courses I recently attended at La cocina de Babette, that I mentioned in my previous post. I got to know this school via Ibán's blog (a well known amateur baker in the Spanish-speaking bread-baking blogosphere), when he announced that he would materialize in Madrid and would give his worshippers a course on festive breads (I believe this happened last november). That was something not to be missed, so there I went. There I met Bea, "chief" of the school, an artisan bread enthusiast and also of those less beaten tracks on cooking (please forgive my English, sometimes I don't seem to find the right words). Being that I was happy with the "bread experience" I decided to repeat it when Bea announced that they would give a course on "guiltless desserts" and another on "guiltless chocolate". It's already sometime since I'm trying to eliminate common sugar from the sweets I cook, though it's not always an easy task. Besides I hate to try and substitute another sweetener for sugar to end up with a non-edible mess and be forced to throw a large amount of food in the garbage. That's the reason why I experiment less than I should.

The courses were given by a very nice couple, Gabi & David, whose target was to teach us to prepare uncooked pies and chocolates, everything raw and hardly heated. In short, these guys are what is called raw vegans. The courses were very interesting, we prepared pie bases with nuts, dried fruit and coconut oil, cashew nut-based sweet sauces, pie fillings with sesame and carrot, we used agave syrup as the only sweetener, prepared an avocado-based chocolate mousse... well, uncommon and new uses for known foods and also foods I'd never tasted before, like carob flour. All the products they use are organic, because they advocate you should use the freshest and most natural produce, untreated and unprocessed, they even prefer untoasted cocoa! Undoubtedly this is the way to keep the nutrients in your food at its purest. Raw vegans defend that all food qualities are best taken advantage that way and that it's best for your health. I think this is difficult to refute, it sounds logical, doesn't it? Though that doesn't mean we like everything raw, we're definitely not educated for that. This movement asserts that this is the perfect diet for humans, the primitive diet followed when humankind lived in the forests and fed only on the Earth's produce, the only diet to which the human body is perfectly adapted regarding evolution.

I have no pictures of the sweets I brought home because I didn't manage to take a single decent photo at the school (the camera is a bit new for me and it's got a lot of personality of its own). Furthermore the little pies, chocolates and the like didn't last too long when I arrived back home... ahem. Even my eldest liked the avocado, buckwheat and carob flour truffles... If I'd told him what they were made of, he'd vomit. Kids... you've got to lie to them once in a while.

I guess you're wondering: What's the point of the peas picture here? Well, they are here because regarding peas I'm completely raw vegan: I love them raw, straight out of the pod like my mother taught me. If you try them, some good quality ones of course, you'll agree. Like eating Nature's little pills. Come on, what are you waiting for?

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Japanese grater

Last weekend I attended 2 consecutive cooking courses at La cocina de Babette (meaning Babette's kitchen), an "alternative" culinary school based in Madrid. But I'll talk about this later on, I haven't had the time to aprehend what I learnt.

Well, the thing is that this school has a shop with organic and uncommon food and also beautiful and uncommon kitchen gadgets... Allright, I confess: I spent an obscene amount of money on some tasty organic untoasted cashew nuts, some delicious organic cocoa butter and some aromatic organic coconut oil. Very sad, I agree. Besides half of the cashew nuts are already gone, pity that my eldest child likes them so much. Who said children should be taught to eat everything? Nonsense. Would you give caviar to your kids? No? Huh, that's better.

Stop beating around the bush. The subject of this post is that I also bought a gorgeous japanese porcelain grater for ginger, garlic and other things. I found this information in the web, at this website (sorry, in Spanish):

Oroshiki (下ろし器) Porcelain grater for the preparation of ginger, fresh wasabi, white turnip and other vegetable's pastes. The metallic graters, called oroshigane, are increasingly used though they lack charm and transfer some metallic taste to the vegetables.

I was struck by an arrow, it was love at first sight. You must admit it's soooo cute. Furthermore you can gather the paste with a brush, how posh. I love the kitchen tools that are simple, well designed and pretty at the same time. Also I have put it to the test for cleaning, and it's very easy to clean just by placing it under the sink tap, something very convenient if you grate garlic. I'm sure you must have cursed garlic some time in your life if you have used one of these gadgets, to hell with them (apologies to all garlic press makers out there).

Mmmm... love is a many splendoured thing...

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Savoury cake with chickpea flour and chorizo

I'm getting hooked on this blog... another addiction, ooooh.


For the wonderful "merienda" (*) of last saturday I made two savoury cakes, a very common dish in some areas of France. People here are always surprised when I bake this kind of cake because it's not known at all in Spain. I found the recipes in a little French book on "cakes", they give them the English name in France, this one. Sorry, it's in french of course, I haven't been able to find any translation. One of the recipes is made with... ¡chickpea flour! Yes, it caught my eye when I read the book. Before falling asleep I usually read cookbooks instead of best-sellers, it's wicked of me, I know.

These savoury cakes can be eaten cold, slightly warmed in the oven or even sliced and toasted. In French "boulangeries" they are sold in wedges or slices... yummy.

To cut a long story short, I chose the chickpea flour and chorizo cake and also another one with cheese, hazelnuts and green olives for my "merienda"... Chickpea flour is more widely used in Andalusia than in the bleak dry plateau where I live... It is used there to coat fish and shellfish before frying it and also for the incredible "tortitas de camarones", a kind of crispy pancake made with tiny shrimps. Surprisingly enough this post includes another gluten-free recipe. Here's the recipe for the first cake:

Savoury cake with chickpea flour and spicy chorizo

• 200g (7oz) chickpea flour (organic is best!)
• 4 eggs (organic too if possible)
• 10cl olive oil (Spanish is best :-))
• 10cl milk
• 4 tsp baking powder
  
• 100g (3.5oz) spicy chorizo (the best you can find, it really makes a difference)
  
• Salt (I put two generous pinches)
• Herbes de Provence (I forgot them, getting old)

Heat the oven to 170 ºC (340ºF, slightly more if your oven is not convection-type). Mix the eggs, oil and milk and add the sieved flour with the baking powder. Mix well and add the salt and herbs to your taste. And lastly add the diced chorizo.

Pour the mixture in a buttered and floured loaf pan. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes (be careful, maybe less is needed, mine came out a bit dry, keep an eye on it). This cake tends to develop a crust very quickly, so the recipe suggests to cut the surface with a knife after 15 minutes (don't worry, it doesn't deflate, at least mine didn't).

After 40 minutes you can check if it's done with a knife or any other sharp kitchen tool. If the knife comes out clean, the cake can be taken out of the oven and be left to cool in the pan.

Even though the cake picture is rather... eeeh... poor, you can see it shows a very spring-like yellow color... nice. I don't think the chickpea flour gave it a very sharp or special taste, at least I don't really notice it. In fact I have found at some websites sweet cake recipes with chickpea flour, like these brownies. I've got to try them some day.

If you bake the cake in advance I advise you to reheat it a bit before eating or even better, slice it and toast it. This really makes it release its aroma...

(*) Merienda is Spanish for end-of-afternoon-beginning-of-evening-snack which turns into some extravagantly copious meal when you gather friends or relatives or both. Typical Spanish, to stuff yourself I mean.

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Chestnut and ricotta cake, sugar-free and gluten-free!

Although I'm a cookbook-holic I don't know if I own 101 cookbooks like this girl (excellent blog on vegetarian cuisine though I'm not a vegetarian) because I've never counted them, but I must be getting close. It's a long time since I have this book of desserts and sweets by an Italian author, but I believe this is actually the first time that I cook one of her recipes. This cake or pie or whatever you want to call it caught my eye, I found the ingredient combination quite unusual. Besides it's got chestnuts in it, which I love, and very little sugar, another advantageTo make things more difficult and get off the beaten track, I've substituted fructose for the sugar to make it tolerable for diabetics (at least some types) and good for anyone who wishes to stay away from a curved profile ;-). And last but not least, is gluten-free so that gluten-intolerant persons can it eat. I already have some celiacs among my friends so this is something I often keep in mind.


Here's the recipe:

Chestnut and ricotta cake

Adapted from a dessert book by Annalisa Strada

Ingredients:

• 220g (7.8oz) chestnut flour (I actually used dried chestnuts, because I've never been able to find this kind of flour in Spain)
  
• 300ml (1,2 cups) milk
• 400g (14oz) ricotta cheese
  
• 60g (2.1oz) fructose (for those who prefer sugar anyway: 90g, 3.2oz)
• 2 tablespoons sweet wine (any muscat wine type will do)
• 100g (3.5oz) dried apricots (the original recipe includes candied fruit, but I prefer dried fruit, any of your choice)
• Lemon peel
  

The directions in the recipe tell you to mix the chestnut flour with the milk and let it soak. I believe you can make your own flour by milling the dried chestnuts in a powerful mixer, as directed by Spanish chef Abraham García. In my case I just didn't dare to do it, it gave me the creeps to put them inside my beautiful and beloved mixer, dried chestnuts are very hard. Therefore what I did was leave my plump chestnuts from Orense to soak in water overnight. I could have soaked them in milk but I had a lazy day... The day after I boiled them in milk, like half an hour, not to soften them completely and I finally put them in my blender where I boiled them and grinded them a little further (I have a special kind of blender which can heat up too) up till a potato mash consistency. In the end I think I overdid it and got it a little bit too thick. Never mind. Leave it to cool.

Mix the cheese lightly with the fructose (or sugar) just to blend, nothing special. Add lemon peel to your taste, the sweet wine and the diced dried apricots. I used the apricots because I love them, but also to try to get rid of the apricot "consignment" I store in my pantry ever since Christmas, beside dates, currants and other dried fruits to be used up in all kinds of sweets, breads and other dishes. I freaked out estimating my quantities.

Then you start laying your cake in a buttered dish, it doesn't need to be very deep. As a guide I used a rectangular oven dish of about 30 x 25 cm (12" x 10" approx.). First spread the chestnut cream. As I said before I had a rather thick chestnut cream, so I was forced to compact it with my fingers because it would nicely get stuck on all my scrapers. Spread the cheese mixture on top of the chestnuts, this is a lot easier to do. And then put it 50 minutes in the oven heated to 170 ºC (170ºF) (if your oven is not air-convection type, increase the temperature slightly).

After finishing I connected the grill for a while to get the surface to brown more homogeneously, because after 50 minutes the edges were quite crisply toasted but not the center. I guess fructose has something to do with this, maybe it doesn't caramelize as completely as sugar. Take it out of the oven and let it cool in the baking dish. For presentation the cheese side must be up, sprinkle some powdered fructose or sugar on top to your liking. The consistency of this pie is not completely hard, I had to unmold it putting 2 palettes underneath and carefully elevating it. It got some cracks here and there, but nothing important.

Result:
I tried a little bite after sprinkling it with sugar and I really liked it, only I don't know if I am to be trusted, because I love anything with chestnuts in it. Things I have to correct next time:

• Maybe I put a bit too much lemon, it was quite "lemony", although the combination of the chestnut cream with the dried apricots and the cheese was excellent.
• I would increase the amount of sweet wine, it can hardly be noticed.
• The chestnut cream should be more a little more fluid, I suspected from the beginning it was a bit too dry. The final result was good, but being so solid made it more difficult to smooth it and fill the gaps properly. When it is more fluid it should be easier to smooth it and make a homogeneous base.
• For the recipe quantities the baking dish should be smaller than mine, so that both layers of cheese and chestnut are thicker and more visible. This would allow you to have thicker bite-size servings.
  

I hope my guests tomorrow like this cake as much as me... I'll ask my partner to hide it till then :-).

(Note: any good milk whey cheese can be susbtituted for ricotta because it seems the making process is quite the same, check here. So don't go over the top searching for ricotta if you don't have it at hand. Ricotta sounds more fashionable but...)

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Is this me?

I'm an English into Spanish translator, who was a chemist for 15 years before actually becoming translator. I'm from Madrid, Spain, and at present I live in a small town North-West of Madrid with my family. I don't know if my chemist past has something to do with my present love for cooking... when I was in college a common way of teasing Chemistry students was to call us cooks... Absurd as an insult.

No, I believe my liking for cooking originates from my family, mostly from my mother and my paternal grandmother. My development has been slow though; I'll never be able to say, like I've seen in some other blogs, that I started to cook as a child... I was a late bloomer.

I have a partner who witnesses undisturbed how I stuff the house with loads of kitchen gadgets and artifacts and mountains of cookbooks. I will soon ask for his canonization. I'm also a mother of two boys that don't care for my cooking at all. Too bad for them. But still I've got some hope.

And in case you were interested in knowing why on earth I started to write this blog, I'm afraid I can't satisfy your curiosity, as I haven't got the faintest idea. I must admit it was a brilliant decision though, as I have a grand time cooking and photographing my dishes. I'm even learning XML, something I never even thought I would know how to pronounce...

Come on in and make yourselves comfortable, we can cook together.

(On a side note: as you might have noticed, English is not my mother tongue... please bear with me.)

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