English Tea and the carrot cake

Each nation has it's traditions and customs. England can be associated with many symbols, but when it comes to cooking traditions and food, first comes English Tea, fish & chips and the carrot cake.

English pastries are completely different from our traditional polish cakes, cheesecakes and yeast-cakes. I grew up on my grandmother's cakes, baked according to traditional old Polish recipes which were sometimes very time-consuming but full of sweet teast, aroma and calories :)

English bakings are different. The cakes are simple, easy and quick to prepare and sometimes very sweet and full of chocolate. During my stay in London I had the pleasure to taste some specialties from which one I liked the most. Well I had to like it couse that was the favourit cake of my youngsters.

This carrot cake is an exceedingly good cake. It's delicious, it works and it's better than any other carrot cake I've tried. I normally bake this in a square or round cake tin.

Ingredients

•      2/3 cup of flour
•      1/2 cup of  sugar ( You can use white sugar, caster sugar or brown sugar)
•      1 teaspoon baking soda
•      3/4 teaspoon baking powder
•      1 teaspoon cinnamon
•      1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
•      1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
•      1/4 teaspoon salt
•      1/3 cup oil ( sunflower oil, canola oil )
•      2 eggs, beaten
•      1 cup chopped walnuts
•      half a cup of chopped, drained pineapple (canned or fresh)
•      1 cup grated carrots on a medium-mesh
  
   
  

  
  

  Let's do it

  Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
  In one large bowl beat together eggs with oil, if you want you can add vanilla extract for extra flavour.
  In other bowl mix  the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and cinnamon, spices.
  Now just mix together the content of the two bowls and add carrots, wolnuts and pineapple, stir with a spoon. Scoop the mixture to prepered cake tin ( 20 cm, lined with greaseproof paper)
  Bake for about 40-45 minutes.
  
  
  

  Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 300 g creamy cheese ( in the original recipe is used philadelphia cheese but you can also use mascarpone instead, if you don't like the taste of philadelphia cheese) 
  •  6 tablespoons of butter at room temperature 
  •  1 cup icing sugar, sifted ( I used less, its up to you how sweet you want the cream)
  •  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    
    
  
  Mix all the icing ingredients together and spread generously over the top of the cake. Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts. 
  
  
  

  

  
  
  
  Now enjoy Your cake, it was easy - wasn't it?
  
  

   

 

Calzone, dumpling in Italian way...

Who likes pizza ?!?! Well I do and I guess that many people like it too. As we all know this is the most well know Italian dish. But today It won't be about the pizza, although I have to confess that I've discoverd a very good recipe for pizza dought- but about it maybe another time.

We, Poles have ours dumpling and Italians have CALZONE. The easiest way to describe calzone - It is a kind of pizza folded in the shape of dumpling. The best thing in this dish is that the filling is up to you.
You can fill your Calzone with leftover veg from the night before, or with various things that need using up, mixed with lovely tomatoes and some melting mozzarella. Great served hot or cold. I would only suggest to not making the filling to moist, cause the dought can be to soaked.

Here is how my calzone looked like:

and of course the recipe

Calzone dought:

•       450 g of wheat flour, for pizza I use flour 650 it's called bread flour
•      1 teaspoon of salt
•      2 teaspoon of dry yeast (8 g) or 16 g of fresh
•      2 tablespoons olive oil
•      250 ml of warm milk
•      a pint of sugar
  
  Sift the flour into a bowl, add salt, and dry yeast (if you use fresh ones, you need to make the leaven). Ad milk and olive. Knead the dough until it is soft and smooth; it takes about 10 minutes, and trust me it's better to knead it longer than shorter. Lay dough in a bowl, oil so it won't dry out, cover, and leave it in a warm place. Let it rise for about 90 minutes, until almost doubled.
  
         
  
  
  
  When dough is ready, knead the dough again, separate it into 4 equal parts. Roll parts out into thin circles on a lightly floured surface. Fill each circle with cheese and any filling you wish, the edges spread with water, and fold over, securing edges by folding in and pressing with a fork. Brush the top of each calzone with egg and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
  
  Bake at 200 C degrees for about 25 minut until strong browning.