Skubaniec Cake

Skubaniec is a delicious Polish crumb cake with fruit and meringue. The first time I've had Skubaniec, was in Weranda Caffe, which is one of my favorite cafés in Poznań, Poland. Served with strawberry sauce, sprinkled with nuts and decorated with fresh lemon balm leaves, the cake tasted absolutely awesome!!! A few weeks after my last visit to Weranda Caffe, I found my mother’s recipe book by chance and, surprisingly, a recipe for Skubaniec cake in it. Since that time, I’ve been baking the cake constantly experimenting with different kinds of fruit.

My favorite fruit combination so far has been raspberry and rhubarb, which I've made lately here, in Québec. In Poland, it was nearly impossible to buy fresh rhubarb and raspberries at the same time, so I've never tried such pairing before. I could have probably used frozen raspberries, but simply never thought about that. If like me, you've never had raspberry and rhubarb pairing before, try it, it's a delightful combination of flavors!!!

As I said, you can use any type of fruit you want in this recipe. Both fresh and frozen fruit will work well. The original skubaniec recipe calls for cocoa in one part of the dough, but depending on the fruit I use, I often skip on it. I think in case of some fruit, the cake simply tastes better without it. In Poland I usually use Kasia margarine in this recipe; here I made the cake with soy margarine, but butter will work fine too. Use what's more convenient for you.

If you ever happen to be in Poland, don't forget to try homemade Skubaniec cake in Weranda Caffe, here's the address:

Weranda Caffe
ul. Świętosławska 10
Poznań

Skubaniec (Raspberry Rhubarb Crumb Cake)

For the cake:
5 egg yolks
250 g margarine or butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
1 cup sugar
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the fruit filling:
700 g rhubarb
300 g raspberries
½ cup sugar

For the meringue:
5 egg whites
pinch of salt
2 tbsp potato starch
3 tbsp sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C).
2. Wash the rhubarb, then trim and cut into 1.5 cm pieces. Place in a bowl and cover with half a cup of sugar. Set aside.
3. Combine the flour, baking powder and sugar. Using your fingertips, rub the margarine into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add egg yolks and form a dough.
4. Tear 2/3 of the dough into small pieces, scatter evenly at the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch (22 x 32 cm) baking pan. Reserve the rest of the dough, preferably in the fridge.
5. Strain the rhubarb, then sprinkle together with raspberries over the dough in the pan.
6. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, gradually add the sugar and potato starch and continue beating until glossy. Spread the meringue over the rhubarb and raspberry mixture, then scatter with pieces of the remaining dough.
7. Bake for about one hour.

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Recipe in Polish:
Skubaniec z malinami i rabarbarem

Sardinian Ricotta Cake

This is definitely the best plain cake I’ve ever tried, light and spongy with intense lemon flavor; the use of ricotta cheese in the batter provides a nice smooth texture and adds a little bit of richness to the cake. Delicious and so easy to make. The cake originates from Sardinia island in Italy, but I've found the recipe for it on Le Chou de bruxelles food blog in French here. Hope you’ll try it!!!

Sardinian Ricotta Cake
300 g flour
300 g sugar
300 g fresh ricotta cheese
3 eggs
1 lemon, zest and juice of
16 g (3.5 teaspoon )baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F)
2. Place ricotta and sugar in a large bowl. Crush with a fork until smooth and creamy.
3. Stir in egg yolks, lemon zest, flour and baking powder.
4. In a mixing bowl beat egg whites until stiff peak then gently fold them into the batter. (this might be a little difficult as the batter is rather thick if so add lemon juice)
5. Place the batter in 22 cm baking pan.
6. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely.

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Recipe in Polish:

Sardyńska babka z ricottą

White Truffle Cake

I made this cake first for my husband’s birthday two years ago when he wasn’t my husband yet. He loved it and asked for it again this year. This time I’ve decided to improve the recipe slightly by adding vanilla seeds to the truffle. The result was absolutely delightful!!! I’ll never make this cake without adding vanilla again. If you don’t have vanilla bean, use vanilla extract instead, but do not skip on it. This is sooooo much better with vanilla in it!!! Even though the main ingredient in this cake is white chocolate, the cake is not over-sweet. The sponge cake is fluffy and tender with a subtle taste of white chocolate, while the truffle resembles a cheesecake and combines two wonderful flavors –delicate sweetness of white chocolate and intense vanilla flavor.

White Truffle Cake
Recipe source: Bellefontaine, Jacqueline Chocolate, adapted

For the sponge cake:
2 eggs
4 tbsp caster sugar
5 ½ tbsp all purpose flour
50 g (1 3/4 ounces) white chocolate, melted

For the topping:
300 ml (1 1/4 cups) heavy cream
350 g (12 ounces) white chocolate, broken into pieces
250 g (1 1/4 cups) cream cheese or quark cheese
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

To make the sponge cake:

1. Grease an 8 inch (20 cm) springform pan and flour the base.
   
2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and superfine sugar with an electric mixer for 10 minutes, or until the mixture is very light and foamy and the whisk leaves a trail that lasts a few seconds when lifted.
   
3. Sift the flour and carefully fold in with a metal spoon.
   
4. Fold in the melted white chocolate.
   
5. Pour the mixture into prepared pan and bake in a preheated oven at 350 F (180 C) for 25 minutes or until springy to the touch.
   
6. Cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Return the cold cake to the pan.

To make the truffle:

1. Place the cream in a pan, stir in vanilla seeds
2. Bring to a boil, stirring to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
3. Remove the pan from the heat, add the white chocolate pieces, and stir until melted and combined.
4. Allow to cool, then stir in the cream cheese.
5. Pour the mixture on the top of the cake and chill for about 3-4 hours.
6. Remove the cake from the pan and transfer to a serving plate. Decorate.

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Recipe in Polish:
Torcik z białą truflą

Coconut and Apricot Cake

This is a fabulously easy and quick cake to make; you just put all the ingredients to a bowl, mix them with an electric mixer, stir in the apricots and raisins, and the batter is ready to go to the oven. It all takes only about five minutes. The cake is long to bake, but this is actually a very pleasurable experience as, while in the oven, the cake perfumes the entire house with a wonderful coconut scent. It comes out from the oven extrememly moist, tender and very fragrant. The use of coconut milk adds a depth of coconut flavor which, I suspect, couldn’t be achieved by desiccated coconut alone. The recipe for this delicious cake comes from a Polish food blog (some posts also in English) White Plate written by Liska. The original recipe in Polish can be found on her blog here. Enjoy!!!

Coconut and Apricot Cake

200 g unsalted butter, softened

3 eggs

150 g caster sugar

100 g desiccated coconut

50 g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

150 ml coconut milk

200 g dried apricots, roughly chopped

100 g raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F (150 C)
2. Grease 20 cm springform pan.
3. Using an electric mixer, mix all the ingredients, except raisins and apricots until smooth.
4. Stir in dried apricots and raisins.
5. Pour into the pan. Bake for 1 ½ hour.
6. Let cool before removing from the pan.

Przepis po Polsku:
Ciasto kokosowo-morelowe

Lemon White Chocolate and Pistachio Cake

This is a wonderful cake, light, tender and very moist. The sweet taste of white chocolate is a perfect complement to the refreshing flavor of the lemon. Besides, white chocolate pairs incredibly well with pistachios; It makes just a perfect combination of textures and flavors, elegant and absolutely delicious!!!

The inspiration for the cake comes from Chatelaine magazine, the August 2007 issue. In the original recipe (which you can find here), it was actually called a loaf and was made without chocolate at all. Since I wanted to make a cake rather than a bread, I decided to add some white chocolate to the recipe. It adds extra sweetness and provides a little bit of richness to the cake.

Note's to the recipe: I like pistachios with white chocolate most. If you aren’t into white chocolate much, you can use milk chocolate instead. If you decide to omit the chocolate completely, add 1/2 cup of sugar more to the batter for the right sweetness. This cake will keep well at room temperature 1 day, refrigerated up to a week or frozen up to 2 months. Enjoy!!!

Lemon White Chocolate and Pistachio Cake

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 lemon
1 cup (250 ml) coarsely chopped shelled pistachios
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup for the glaze
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup (150 ml) milk
100 g white chocolate, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Grease lightly a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a medium bowl stir flour with baking powder and salt. Grate peel from lemon, then stir in. Coarsely chop nuts.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth.
4. Gradually beat in 1 cup (250 ml) sugar until well mixed, 2 minutes.
5. Gradually add the eggs and beat well until light and fluffy.
6. Add the dry ingredients alternating with the milk.
7. Add chocolate and nuts and mix until ingredients are just combined. Do not overmix.
8. Pour batter into pan, bake until deep golden brown and a cake tester or skewer inserted into centre of loaf comes out clean, about 50 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, squeeze 3 tbsp (45 ml) juice from lemon into a small bowl. Stir in 1/4 cup (50 ml) sugar. It won't completely dissolve.
10. When loaf is baked, remove pan to a rack. Using a cake tester or skewer, immediately poke several holes in top of loaf. Brush or drizzle half of lemon glaze over hot loaf. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove the loaf. Carefully turn upside down. Evenly brush or drizzle remaining lemon glaze overtop.

Przepis po polsku:
Ciasto cytrynowe z białą czekoladą i pistacjami

Banana Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

The recipe for these tasty banana cupcakes comes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. As most of Nigella’s recipes, these are incredibly easy and quick to make. They’re best warm, either fresh from the oven or heated in the microwave. When they get cold, the only thing you can actually taste in them is banana. The other flavors are barely palpable even though I’ve increased the amount of dried cherries (the recipe below includes the change). Heating brings the subtle flavor of chocolate and cherries out of the cupcakes and makes them taste really delicious!!!

Banana, Dried Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 12-14 cupcakes

125 g unsalted butter
200 g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
4 tbsp sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
300 g plain flour
80 g dried cherries, roughly chopped
50 g white chocolate, roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) / gas mark 4
2. Grease or line 12 muffin cups.
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then, off the heat add the sugar, vanilla and bananas, mashing them with a fork in the pan.
4. In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs a fork, add the cream, then fold them into the melted butter, sugar, and banana mixture.
5. Add the baking soda and the baking powder and stir in.
6. Add the flour, cherries, and white chocolate. Mix gently with a spoon just until the ingredients are combined.
7. Spoon into the muffin pan filling ¾ full. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top.
8. Remove the cupcakes in their paper to wire rack and leave to cool lightly.

Przepis po polsku:
Bananowe babeczki z suszonymi wiśniami i białą czekoladą

For those who like almonds...

There was Grandmother’s Day in Poland last Monday, and I wanted to bake something for my grandmother for that occasion. I had spent hours looking through cookbooks and cooking magazines to choose the best recipe. Finally, I opted for friands recipe. I decided to make these little almond cakes as the recipe resembled pear and almond cake I had baked a week before. The cake was absolutely delicious, so I thought that another recipe with almonds would be a perfect choice. Well, it wasn’t. Not that the cakes were not good, they were delicious, both I and my husband absolutely loved them. They were soft, they were spongy, they were moist and… they did taste almonds…but when my grandmother tried one, you could see from her face she didn’t share my love for these cakes. At first, I couldn't understand why, but then it reminded me that my grandmother did not like almonds. She had mentioned it to me a few weeks before Christmas when we talked about almond flavor in poppy seeds cake, but I totally forgot about that. So, if you do not like almond flavor either, forget about these cakes, you wouldn’t like them. But if you’re (like me) a fan of almonds, I suspect you’ll love them. They’re simple, but absolutely delicious, perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or any other time of the day.

The recipe was adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. I altered the recipe slightly by adding vanilla sugar to the batter and reducing the amount of icing sugar. I also beat the egg whites slightly, even though the recipe didn’t ask for that. I didn’t have friands molds, so I baked my friands in muffin pans, I turned them upside down after baking as they looked nicer this way. I baked my friands plain, but you can top them with some fruit before baking. I suspect they would be delicious with raspberries, but feel free to use the fruit you like most. Also, if you don’t have almond meal, you can make your own by processing whole almonds until finely ground. Since my friands were meant to be a gift, I decorated them with icing and sugar flowers, but I think they would be better without the icing, served with a dash of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Friands
(adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2)

125 g butter
1 cup almond meal
1 cup icing sugar
16 g vanilla sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
5 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350° F)
2. Grease 12 friand molds or muffin pans.
3. Heat butter in a saucepan over low heat, whisking frequently, until golden brown.
4. Place the almond meal, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, flour, and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg whites with a fork, then fold them into dry ingredients.
6. Add the butter and stir to combine.
7. Spoon 2 tbsp of the mixture into each mold.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springy to touch but moist in the centre.

Przepis po polsku:
Friands (Migdałowe babeczki)

Autumn Hazelnut Cake

Hazelnut was the first nut I’ve had in my life. When I was 2 years old we had a hazelnut tree in our garden. One of my earliest childhood memories is the one of my grandfather picking up a nut from the tree for me. He was choosing the biggest and the most beautiful one and it made me feel so special… When I was three we moved out from the house and I have never seen a hazelnut tree again, but my love for hazelnuts has remained unchanged.

So, when I saw the recipe for a cake with hazelnuts and pieces of dark chocolate on Every Cake You Bake blog, I couldn’t wait to try it. I made the cake last Friday and it turned exactly as I had imagined - extremely moist and fluffy with a wonderful hazelnut flavor. The combination of flavors and textures in the cake is just perfect.The pieces of chocolate taste absolutely sensational when they melt in your mouth and the apples add extra moistness to the cake.

The recipe originally comes from an Austrian leaflet and was called Autumn Apple and Nut Cake, but since the cake has strong nutty flavor and the apple flavor is very subtle, I’ve decided to change the name. I also altered the recipe slightly by reducing the amount of sugar (the original called for 250 g ).

Autumn Hazelnut Cake
(adapted from Every Cake You Bake blog)

6 eggs, separated
250 g unsalted butter or margarine
200 g sugar
250 g all purpose flour
1 packet (16 g) vanilla sugar
3-3,5 teaspoons baking powder
120 g hazelnuts
100 g dark chocolate
2 apples peeled, cored, and cut into cubes

Preheat the oven to 140°C (280 F)

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add the sugars and beat again until mixture comes together and is no longer crumbly.
Add the flour and baking powder and stir with a spoon until well combined. Then, stir in the apples.

Put all the nuts into a food processor and grind up without turning them into a powder.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff peaks. Fold in the chocolate pieces and ground hazelnuts. Gently fold the egg whites mixture into the batter.

Pour the mixture into the greased and floured springform pan and bake for 1 1/2 hour.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

I’d been asked to make a cheesecake for a family feast. I wanted to make something different from traditional heavy cheesecakes we usually eat in Poland. I opted for a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Combining raspberries and white chocolate always tastes heavenly. So, does in this cake. The sweetness and mildness of white chocolate balance perfectly with the tartness of the raspberries. The only thing I would change is the crust which turned out rather tough. I think it would work out better without white chocolate addition. I’ll try that next time.

The recipe originally comes from The Australian Women's Weekly 'Cheesecakes, Pavlovas & Trifles' but I’ve found it translated into Polish on Galeria Potraw which is my favorite Polish food forum.

Some minor changes I’ve made to the recipe:
1. I added vanilla sugar to the cheese.
2. I substituted digestive biscuits with Petit Beurre ones (they’re easier to obtain in Poland).
3. I baked my cake for about 60-70 minutes instead of 90 minutes as the recipe says.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

FOR THE CRUST:
200 g digestive biscuits
90 g white chocolate
80 g unsalted butter

FOR THE FILLING:
½ cup cream (30% fat)
200 g white chocolate
250 g mascarpone cheese
250 g quark cheese
¼ cup caster sugar
1 pouch vanilla sugar
3 eggs
2 egg whites
250 g raspberries

Line the bottom of 23 cm springform pan with aluminum foil. Using a food processor or blender, process the biscuits to fine crumbs. Melt the chocolate and butter together over low heat, stirring constantly. Combine with the crumbs. Press into the bottom of the springform pan with the back of a spoon. Put into the fridge for about half an hour to set.

Preheat the oven to 160C (320F).

Put the cream in a heavy-bottomed pan. Bring to boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Break the chocolate into little pieces and add to the cream. Stir with a spoon until the chocolate and cream are smooth and the chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool slightly.

Beat together the mascarpone cheese, quark cheese, sugar and vanilla sugar until smooth, then add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate mixture beating until well-combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites to sniff peaks then fold into cheese mixture.

Pour the cheese filling into the chilled biscuit base. Gently press 250g of the raspberries into surface. Bake for 1-1 ½ hours. Cool in oven with door ajar. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Przepis po polsku:
Sernik z białą czekoladą i malinami