Muesli: Great Vegan Porridge with Grains, Nuts and Fruit

As the Orthodox have the Quadragesima now, half of my family went vegan for these forty days. Because of that now we have to think of new for us and interesting meals to keep us full: full of energy for the day and full of needed minerals.
Today I started my day with homemade muesli. As muesli are dry you should definitely add something liquid to them and drink a lot of water or other liquids during the day.

This recipe makes about 2-3 portions


For your muesli you need:
2 handfuls of oatmeal flakes
- You can also use any other cereals you have or like
1/2 handful of different nuts (I had almonds and hazelnuts)
Dried or fresh fruit you like (I had raisins, dried kumquat and papaya)
One big orange
One banana

Now the making. Everything is very simple. Take a food processor, put your cereals and other grains in, add nuts and dried fruit. Now, if you have a sweet-tooth, add about 1/2 handful of dried fruit, if not, I advise to put either just about 4-5 pieces of dried fruit or fresh fruit afterwards. Blend everything, so that oatmeal is more like powder and your nuts and fruit are in smaller pieces - much easier to chew this way. Put the mix in a deep bowl.

If you want to store your muesli and not prepare every single morning, use airtight jars, do not blend your cereals and grains, but definitely blend the nuts and see to that your dried fruit are in easy to chew pieces. You can also add chocolate chips if you like it sweeter. Store in a dark and cool place.
Now, we surely would want to add some liquid. But if you're vegan, no dairy products are good enough for you. So I decided to go for fruit as they are. Take a your food processor again, take a banana, peel it, cut for easier blending and put it in. Take your orange as it has lots of juice inside and tropical fruit go oh so well together, especially banana and citrus fruit, peel, cut it in 4 and each piece in 2 again. If there are any seeds, take them out. Put the orange in the processor too. Blend a bit roughly as I did, then you'll have the pulp to taste, or blend it well into a homogeneous mass. Pour your fruit mix over the grains. Add some fresh mint to everything that won't go into the bowl and have a great smoothie to drink. ^^

Have a lovely breakfast!

Riin.

GU: Little France in Riga

Last Sunday me, my mom and my lovely little red-haired sister went for some family time in a new french-style pastry-shop in Old Riga called GU.

It's a new shop and a real discovery for everyone, who is searching for a nice quiet place with a touch of Parisian charm.
The atmosphere is created by the smell of good pastry, coffee, French music playing and a homely feeling in general. The kitchen is quite interesting, the oven and the table are right where the counter is, so you can sip on your coffee or tee and watch cakes being baked at the same time. And they have a piano in the corner giving it all even more an air of a very nice and friendly home, as well as magazines to read while your enjoying your morning croissants. The owner is French, so you also might get a chance to practice your language skills a bit.

As for the pastry, I enjoyed it a lot too. Not too sweet, with a balanced flavor. The apple claufoutis was quite like the apple cakes our grandmas bake.
So a positive review from me.

Riin.

A Cup of Tea in a Lovely Place

Some small-talk won't hurt anyone, right? ^^
The moment I came to the conclusion I want to learn more about pastry, dessert and cooking as such, because this has been one of my hobbies for quite a long while now, I've started noticing coffee-shops and everything they serve in a different light.
So now I carry my photo camera with me where ever I go and take photos of places and food I like.
I thought it would be nice to keep track of those places here, so whenever I have something to say I'll be posting those reviews under the tag * Tea Time: Nice Places in Riga and Abroad.

So, here are some photos from a really lovely pizzeria in Italy, Rome. Don't really remember the name of the place, but sure it's in Trastevere, somewhere along the Viale di Trastevere not far form the bridge.

Chocolate madness - Very chocolaty cake for my friend

Okay, took me while to post something new here, but I hope I'll overcome my laziness and will write something more often in this notebook.
Now, I finally remembered that I had some photos of an experimental cake I made for my chocolate-loving friend for her birthday. That happened quite a while ago, but I think I can still recreate the whole story now.

Here's the result I got, maybe not the most beautiful one, but sure was tasty ^^

So, for this cake you need:

For the batter:

9 eggs

2/3 + 2/3 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (I had vanilla sugar)

4,5 tsp baking powder

Some boiled water

For the filling and decorations:

500 g ricotta cheese

250 ml sweet cream

500 ml cherry compote with cherries (or other fruit)

400 g of dark chocolate (70%)

A pinch of salt

Confectioners sugar

Cocoa powder

Some marzipan bars

First I started with the marzipan decorations. I did those the night before to be sure I have them ready the next morning. Here is where you can go all out artistically. ^^ I did a little bit of cheating here. Instead of making marzipan myself (the nuts are quite expensive) or buying marzipan paste for modelling (not so cheap too), I just bought marzipan bars with different flavors. The bars had chocolate glaze, but it was really easy to chip the chocolate off with a knife. And some chocolate crumbs are no problem, the cake will have plenty of chocolate in it. So, I took some baking paper and made some flowers and leaves and small round balls from the leftovers on it, it's like playing with modelling clay (by the way, the best modelling clay for little kids there is, if they swallow it - no problem at all; and can be colored too, but be aware that marzipan is made from almonds and lots (!) of sugar). Now, the marzipan in bars was a bit too soft and runny to keep the form of heavy flower petals, so for white marzipan I added some extra confectioner's sugar and mixed it in, the brown leaves and balls were made with adding some cocoa powder. If you are sure your fridge has no odors that might stay in the marzipan, you can leave the decorations overnight in an open bowl, they will dehydrate a bit and will keep the form better. Or just cover the bowl with film or put it in an air-tight container when you put your decorations in the fridge.

Now baking the shortbread for the cake. This recipe isn't exactly what you usually use in the cakes, but it needs very little of ingredients and no butter at all. 

Preheat your oven to 180 C. I used a silicone mold, so it needed no smearing or whatsoever.

I had two chocolate and one vanilla shortbread for this cake.

For the vanilla one:

Mix in a deep bowl: 2/3 cup of flour (sieve it), 1,5 tsp of baking powder and 1 tsp of vanilla. Crack in a separate bowl and mix with a mixer or whisk 3 eggs well with 1/3 cup sugar. They should have plenty of air in them. Then add the eggs to the flour mixture, mix everything well too, so that the batter has lots of air in it. 

For the chocolate one:

Mix in a deep bowl: 2/3 cup of flour, 2/3 cup cocoa powder (sieve them) and 3 tsp of baking powder. Crack in a separate bowl and mix with a mixer or whisk 6 eggs well with the remaining sugar. They should have plenty of air in them. Then add the eggs to the flour mixture, mix everything well too, so that the batter has lots of air in it. Split the batter in two - this one is for two layers.

Make your batters separately or if you have enough forms and space in you oven - all at the same time. ^^

Having air in the batter it's one of the key points here, otherwise the cake won't rise well and won't be very fluffy. The batter should be liquid, if not - add some water, but not too much. Don't put too much sugar in even if you have a sweet-tooth. The cake will be very sweet itself, and this batter has a sugary crust if you add too much sugar - we don't need it to be very crusty in this cake. Pour the batter in your form and put it in the oven for about 8-10 minutes (this time did well for me). But still, check on the cake every now and then, every oven is different, if you keep it in the oven for too long you'll get a cookie, not a shortcake. Especially the one with cocoa, it's a bit heavy in a way and bakes differently from the vanilla one.

When your layers are baked, cool and cut off every excessive part. I made an almost square one out of round, because the round was too big and I used the edges for tasting the result.

Now, while the the layers cool off we move on to the filling.

I had some ricotta cheese in my fridge, so I used it as a cheese-cream for the filling. As the cake is quite sweet, you don't really need to sweeten your ricotta. I added just a little bit of sugar and a little bit of sweet cream to the ricotta cheese and mixed it all well.

Get the cherries out of your compote and get all the excessive liquid out (do it thoroughly), or it'll ruin your filling. Cut the cherries in halves.

Leave some sweet cream for melting the chocolate, take all the rest (your sweet cream should be cold, as well as your instruments - bowl and whisk), pour the cream in the bowl, add a small pinch of salt into it to help whipping (you don't want your whipped cream to be salty, so a small pinch) and whip the cream to stiff peaks.

Assembling the cake.

Take the surface you'll be serving or transporting it in, because after the assembling the whole thing might turn out very heavy.

Take the chocolate shortcake, smear it with ricotta cheese (have your ricotta divided at least in half), put the cherries on ricotta cheese.

Cover with a chocolate shortcake (or a vanilla one, if you like - then the next layer is chocolate). Smear ricotta and put cherries.

Cover with a vanilla shortcake.

Cover sides to even them out with whipped cream, use a knife. Put a layer of whipped cream on top to even it out too.

Put your cake in the fridge while you prepare the chocolate.

Cut the chocolate in small pieces for faster melting.

Heat water in a pot, put a bowl with chocolate over the water. Add some cream and melt your chocolate. Watch the temperature or you'll spoil the chocolate.

You can also use a microwave oven for some seconds or add some butter if you have no cream, but watching the temperature and the process is much more difficult there.

And avoid rapid temperature changes if you reheat your chocolate, it'll loose it's gloss.

When melted pour the chocolate on the center of the cake and spread it out evenly over the whole surface.

When the chocolate has set a bit put marzipan decorations on and put the cake back to the fridge while you clean up and get dressed for the tea party.

Enjoy!

Riin.