torta con amaretti & banana bundt cake

torta con amaretti has been in the making for a long time*. i got the recipe almost a year ago when we were in malcesine and staying at the hotel internazionale. they had a nice breakfast buffet that always included something sweet.

one morning during our stay in the hotel i decided to have a taste of this particular tart, and after the first bite i knew that, while i don't enjoy amaretti, certain someone would love the tart. he did, so much so that i ended up asking claudia (her family runs the hotel) for the recipe. she says, modestly, "oh, i just whip it up".

a few days later she did give me the recipe, which goes:

ripieno
200g ricotta
1 uovo
2-3 cucchici latte
200 g amatetti (bisquit)
50 g zucchero

impasto
300g farina
100 g zucchero
1 bustina lievito
100 g burro

mettere in forno a 160C per 45 mins

i had assured claudia that i would know what to do if i just got the ingredients...

...measuring everything was the easy part...

...the machine did all the hard work, mixing the dough...

...at this point i was a bit hesitant as i had no clue as to how the dough (=crumbs?) should look.

went ahead by mixing the filling...

...well, the machine did.

i chose a loose-bottom tart pan that was closest to the size of claudia's tart and divided the dough in half, pressed the first half on the tart pan...

...spread out the filling (the aroma of amaretti was substantial!)...

...spread rest of the crumbly dough on top and baked in 160C for 45 mins. i have no idea if i should have done something else with the dough, like press it into two disks, or something...

...the baked tart smelled amazing.

i have to say that while i don't enjoy amaretti, nor almond liquor, this one was very tasty. i took some to work and it disappeared pretty fast, certain someone still loves it. i will make this another time, but in a square loose-bottom pan and cut smaller "slices" as they would make great tiny mouthfuls "of something sweet" with coffee, or as dessert. one thing is for sure, if you love amaretti, you will love this tart. i managed to do it with a finnish-italian dictionary, it goes to show that this is a fool-proof recipe. there are, however, several recipes (both in english and in italian) for this kind of tart if you wish to have a more detailed recipe.

banana bundt cake from myllyn paras (recipe in finnish). i baked this recipe for the first time at my brother's house a while back. they had a pile of bananas that were badly bruised, i knew none of the kids (including my brother) would eat them, and as it's always better to bake a cake than to toss food...

banana cake is always best when done with very ripe bananas. in addition to this recipe being very forgiving as to measuring (gotta love that!) it requires minimal mixing, hardest part is probably mushing the bananas.

you'll need

5 dl all-purpose flour
2 dl sugar
2 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 dl cream (i used sour cream)
3 eggs
2-3 dl mushed bananas (2 to 3 large ones)
1 ½ dl liquid margarine (you can use melted butter but cool it before adding to batter)


start by preparing a 2 liter bundt pan. don't even think you might get away with a smaller pan, because you won't. i've had my share of banana vulcanoes in the oven, they are such a mess and the smell isn't nice. use a large pan, ok?

i couldn't find cinnamon (tragedy!) so i used the spice tree's sweet mystery dessert mix that has cinnamon in it.

next mush the bananas, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then add the liquid ones including the bananas and mix well...

...and pour into the prepared pan and bake in 175C oven for 50 to 60 mins. now, if i hadn't cleaned so many burned banana vulcano lava-blobs (all that burned batter on the bottom of the oven is wasted cake!), i'd think the pan was too big. don't make that mistake...

...see how much it rises? most banana cake recipes call for baking soda, which i think is the main culprit for the volcano effect, but baking powder can be potent too. cool the cake in the pan for the first 15 mins.

then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely, with the pan on. the cake keeps well and will improve spending a few days in the fridge (wrapped tightly). sprinkling of powdered sugar will make the cake festive.

(* long time because i "lost" the recipe, or rather, misplaced it. i was looking for it several times and was always sure that i had put it in one particular cupboard with other recipes on the wait list. but it was nowhere to be found, until a few weeks ago when i was browsing thru martha's cooking school looking for something completely different and found the recipe between the pages of that book. how it ever got there...)

fish, fish, onion tart.oh, ice anyone?

now that the lake has been free of ice for some weeks, my parents are back to fishing. water temperature is at refreshing 6 degrees C. there has been a lot of fish, (european) perch here, keeping themselves fresh in a fish-trap (katiska in finnish).







the other day we talked about my mummi (dad's grandmother) and a perch dish that she used to make eons ago. i don't remember ever eating that particular dish, but i took my parents word for the dish being very good. we had plenty of the fish, some bacon and butter and that's all what's needed.

i started by layering the fish, bacon and butter in a small dutch oven...







...topping everything with bacon, and some more butter. somehow i think that the amount of butter i used wasn't even close to what mummi would have used.

placed the pot on hot stove until everything started heating up, approx 10 mins. then put the lid on and placed the pot in the oven (approx 200C, hard to be sure on wood-burning stoves) for 4 hrs.







this certainly isn't a looker, but it was so tasty and actually better once it cooled to room temperature. dad said it needed salt, i hadn't added any while preparing thinking that there'd be salt in the bacon. this was so good on slightly dried rye bread, with some more butter!

the bones and what-not had melted into mush and though you can see the tiny fish bones, they were so tender that i didn't bother picking anything off, just spread it over the bread.







this big boy (a zander) got caught tuesday...







...and we had it for lunch yesterday, with warm german potato salad. some of my aunts and uncles were visiting at the cottage on tuesday, i made burgers with caramellized onions, the potato salad and crepe suzettes for dessert. and flambeed for the first time ever! and no one took any pictures of it! i was surprised as to how good the crepes actually are, i might have to make them again, soon...with pics.







there were plenty of left-over onions (picky eaters...), i decided to make an onion tart of them. i had caramellized a full kilo of thinly sliced yellow onions over low heat in "some" butter for an hour. as the filling was going to be smooth and soft (added some chanterelles and cream cheese to the onions) i wanted the crust to be little hardier.

i ended up using 6 dl all-purpose flour, 1 dl rye flour, 1 dl rolled oats (long cooking ones), 220 gr butter and one egg. first mixed the dry ingredients and butter, ideally that should be done with pastry blender but as there was none (and no machine) i used my fingers, and mixed in the egg. placed the dough in the fridge for an hour before rolling it, the placed the rolled dough in the fridge for another hour before blind-baking it for 20 mins in 200C oven. spread the filling (approx 4 dl in total) and baked for another 20 mins, for the last 5 mins oven turned off. could this be my own, very first pie crust recipe? i'm tempted to try adding more rye flour for a more robust flavor...







with green salad and tomatoes the tart made a nice late dinner.







the weather was acting up all day yesterday, rain and shine, rain and shine. around 6 pm it started raining again, heay, the rain got icy really fast, and i thought why this shower of hail didn't come on tuesday, we could have had ice in our drinks!







15 mins later all was quite and sunny again.

salmon and asparagus tart, from delicious, my way

as i've mentioned, i've taken a habit to mark interesting recipes in the magazines. the may issue of delicious got 5 marks (so far..). i tried the salmon and asparagus tart from the article cost-conscious suppers the other night. well, i read the recipe and made do with what i had...







i used puff pastry instead of shortcrust, cold smoked salmon instead of salmon fillet and red for yellow onion, but the rest of ingredients were close enough to the original recipe.







did my blind baking, dutyfully...those peas must have been in the oven for a dozen or more times...







sauteed the thinly sliced onion and let cool a bit before placing on the base along with the sliced salmon.







blanched and halved the asparagus as the sprigs were quite thick.







on the left, that's how the tart looked in the magazine. on the right, my puffed version.







i my mind i imagined how nice a salad of mixed greens with lemon vinaigette would have been with this. but i was lazy and ate it as is...delish!

i still have to figure out what the system of posting recipes online is for the magazine. there are quite few online, maybe it was just me not finding this one, yet.







ps. as i write this i'm pissed off (pardon the expression) beyond belief at my doctor, the surgeon. although i fully agree on his reasons for wanting to try a new procedure on my wrist, i would have appreciated him telling me that this procedure is, in fact, so new that there isn't a license (in finland) for its use yet. since january, they've (the hospital) been telling me that my surgery will take place latest june, by midsummer.

had i not called them on monday, i would have waited and waited, until august, if not longer, to hear anything from the hospital. i have tried to live with the pain, reminding myself that people live with more devastating conditions, but that helps only so far. i can see how the nagging pain seeps into my behaviour and i become nasty, and i don't like it. i have pain-killers but they have their side-effects.

it's infuriating not having been able to plan anything for early summer and now this will continue for i don't even know how long. like, when do they get the license? how long it takes before my surgery takes place after that? will it be august? october? december, worse yet, next year??

yesterday i spent an hour, in vain, trying to find out which institution grants those licenses. from the hospital, i was given the phone number for my doctor but so far i have resisted the urge to call him, i don't think anything constructive would come out of my mouth right now. i might email him, next week, when i'm in a calmer state of mind...

i won't even start on what i think of my supervisor who couldn't be man enough concerning his issues about the timing of my leave. he knows who he is.

strawberry meringue tart

sorry for the absence. i tried to blog but it is just too hot, my fingers get sticky and stuck on the keyboard. not to mention the fact that my brain boils and nothing coherent comes out...

since strawberries have been all over the place last week (and we got company coming yesterday) i finally decided to try the strawberry meringue tarts from anna olson's cookbook fresh.

i was aiming for this (picture from the book)







for the crust, flour, unsalted butter, white vinegar, egg yolk, cold water







the dough looked a bit sticky but wasn't...







...easy enough to roll into a log (kept mine in the fridge overnight)







i was quite hesintant to make these as it required heating the oven twice, first for the crust and then the meringue. the indoor temperature at 9.00 am was +25C, which made rolling the dough a bit challenging. the recipe says it makes 6, well, i got 7 and i thought my crusts were a bit on the thick side. i think this recipe might actually make 8, and there would be enough filling and meringue for 8, as well







pricking before oven







at this point the smell was amazing. there is something in the baking buttery smell...







the filling, i first quartered the berries, added only half the sugar the recipe calls for (it was still quite sweet, almost too sweet for my taste, if you can believe!), then strained the juices after 20 mins...







..and cooked the juices with cornstarch to thicken...







...cooled the thickened juices before folding the berries in







i had plenty of filling for 7 tarts (in fact, had to eat the rest as is because there was too much of it...) at this point the tarts went into the fridge to cool







the meringue then, i almost used only four egg whites but for some strange reason i did as the recipe said (which later proved would have been a good idea, one should learn to trust instincs again)







on a hot day i do appriciate my machines







i did my best to use all the meringue i had, and ended up with these humongous meringue clouds on the tarts. i did consider piping the meringue to make it look prettier but it was too hot to fuss like that...







this might have been the prettiest, not too shabby compared with the picture from the book, if i say so myself.







will i make these again? definitely, maybe with other berries (raspberries might be equally tasty). but, i will aim for 8 crusts as there is plenty of filling and meringue for at least that amount. i did check my tins and they were the 9cm like the recipe in the book calls for. fortunately i have a set of 12 tins so one or two extra won't be a big deal

bakeathon

little niece had her birthday last weekend. i had promised to bake "something" for the party. here is what i started with, i think there were 5 eggs left when i was done...







i did the baking at my parents' apartment as my brother had house guests for the weekend. my mom uses the kitchen at the apartment next to never as they spent most of their time at the cottage. knowing this, i should have prepared better, like bring cup-measures and the likes with me...i'm no math-genius and converting american recipes and cups to deciliters is very exhausting, and you never get it right anyway.

there is a little shop in helsinki that i've been avoiding on purpose, it's called bake and party. they have almost anything you might need when baking. i wasn't going to buy "anything" but then...well, you all know how that happens. i got this, among other things, wilton cake pan that i thought would make a lovely cake for little niece's birthday







i rarely use this pan spray but this time it seemed like a good idea to do it...more on that later







strawberry cake

now, my sister-in-law had a recipe for a strawberry cake...you can find it here. i had doubts as to would that recipe be enough for the pan and decided to double it...besides mom had said that the pan would take an 8-egg batter.

i'm not going to bother you with all the messy details my oh-so-brilliant ideas. let's just say they didn't exactly work wonders on the first try at this cake. however, i didn't have to call the fire brigade and that's always a good sign, isn't it?







this baby here is the second try at the recipe, isn't it pretty? also, this time i used oldfashioned butter to grease the pan...







perfect, if i may say so







i thought that the filling in the recipe lacked something (taste and color). i added half a bag of blueberry-raspberry pudding-mix and got pretty pastel pink filling with berry taste, how clever of me! as i had messed up quite enough by this point, i tried to make sure that i got the filling right as it needed to settle overnight in the fridge (how fortunate that mom's fridge was almost empty).

i had to build the cake upside down in the pan as the recipe calls for using a springform pan. the whole pan was clingfilmed and placed in the frigde with a little payer to saint honorius







then on the big day, ta-daa! i made martha's swiss meringue buttercream and i won't tell you how much butter i needed to make enough frosting for this cake...it could have used a bit more as you can see on the next picture.

i took one third of the buttercream and crushed a handfull of dried strawberries (i happened to see them at the store and decided to try them in the frosting). they are very dry and crumble almost to powder, very handy, you get some color and taste.

now, you really don't need to take a closer look at the cake, i happen to think it looks rather cute, from a distance. it is quite obvious that i need to practice my piping







see what i meant? the sides could have used a bit more frosting. by the time this cake was all done, i had 30 mins to deliver to my brother's house (and there was still something baking in the oven)...it was rather hectic as i had been baking all day saturday and sunday until late afternoon...







biscotti

that there is the biscotti recipe from jamer peterson's baking. i've made biscottia few times and there is always something that make me think they could be better. i wanted to try this recipe to see if the fault had been in the previous recipes or could (gasp!) it be me!







peterson's recipe called for hazelnuts and dried cranberries, i replaced those with a nut-mix







after the frist bake, looking good so far...







one of the logs sliced quite nicely, the other was all nuts and crumbles (that my dad seemed to enjoy nevertheless!)







will i bake biscotti again? hmm, i might, when it's winter, and dark and cold and you need something with your coffee...to me, these just aren't very summery






ham and bell pepper rolls

saw the recipe for ham and bell pepper rolls in the latest issue of maku -magazine. decided to make a batch eventhough my sister-in-law said that she'd make another kind of savory bites for the party.

i used cream cheese with herbs instead of one with horse-radish in it, some of the gang are a bit gastronimically challenged...







minced ham, red bell peppers and parsley go on top







and then you roll it like you would when making cinnamon rolls







these got an egg-wash before baking in in 225C oven







these will most probably get another try, with a bit more cream cheese in the middle, i'm thinking of adding chili on top as well







macaroons

for the last year or so everywhere you'd look you would have seen macaroons, in magazines, books, cafées. to me they are party bits and that's why i wanted to make some for little niece's party. and because they are pink, that is, if you make them pink, you could make them any color you choose.

these pictures are from the first batch when i still was a macaroon virgin and didn't know what i was doing. first mistake (or my bad...) was to choose macaroons recipe from peterson's baking, but more on that later...

half the egg whites were combined with almond flour, the other half were whipped to stiff peaks. the latter portion got some pink food coloring. the have warnings all over the place not to use too much coloring, that made a bit too cautious with, could have used quite a bit more to get the kind of pink i ws looking for







filling the pastry bag for piping the batter onto baking sheets







one thing i learned was this nifty trick to keep the parchment paper in place while piping, blob some batter between the paper and the baking sheet in the corners and paper won't move







so far peterson's recipe is working...







...but then, this is how they looked after i did everything the recipe said should be done, not pretty, not pretty at all! not sure if it was the oven (too hot) but all three sheets were off, if not too brown (macaroons shouldn't be brown!) then deflated. i was desperate.

also, by this time it was close to mid-night and i thought best to stop. the neighbours mightn't have enjoyed me using kitchen appliances at such a late hour







who else but martha to the rescue. before going to bed i had done some research and decided that the macaroon recipe in martha's baking handbook looked like it would work better than my previous attempt (martha's recipe here).

aren't these pretty? not as pink as i would have liked them to be 'cause i was still scared of the food coloring...






see, even the not-so-good ones looked better than...







...the miserable ones with peterson's recipe. these tasted kinda ok, at least the jar became empty as if my magic when i left on the counter...







some were filled with strawberry jam (not a good idea, made the macaroons wet and nasty), most were filled with the same swiss meringue buttercream that i used to frost the cake






pulla

i also baked some pulla. i used the trusty recipe on every flour package in finland. saveur magazine resently featured pulla on their pages, the recipe looks weird to me, sorry saveur, but i think your version of pulla is americanized. however, the magazine does have good instructions on how to braid the dough into a loaf (looks similar to challah).

anyways, made two different kinds, these with cinnamon & sugar







and these with vanilla pudding. my brother told me they both passed the test...(if his kids knew how pulla my brother eats when the kids are sleeping...)







shrimp asparagus tart

once i was on a roll nothing was stopping me, two hours to the party and i'm still starting something new...i must confess i cheated a bit here and used frozen pie crust that got shrimp, asparagus, minced bell pepper ('cause there was some left...)







and a mixture of 2 dl sour cream, one egg, 2 tbsp cream cheese with herbs and black pepper on top. the mixture was poured on the other fillings and topped off with grated mozzarella







this one wasn't a hit with the (gastronimically challeged) crowd so i got to take it home with me. it was so good, even cold.

i also made another tart with ham, mozzarella, tomatoes with a similar sour cream filling on (frozen) rye pie dough. this version was accepted by the above-mentioned crowd...no picture of the ham version (no time, or maybe i forgot?)







by the time i got the ham tart out of the oven i had to dash to my brother's house to bring all the goodies there, barely made it in time. between the shower and changing i managed to whip up a card to the birthday girl. have a go at guessing which color we both love?