cake 11: lemon-ginger poppyseed cake

for my mums....37TH birthday *shifty eyes* i made her a lemon, ginger, poppyseed cake because, well, she loves lemon desserts! and she puts ginger in almost anything she can, so i added some of that too!

what i did for this cake was modify it from one i found in my cake book. the original recipe is an orange poppyseed cake, but i was looking to do lemon and figured i would just change this one up. here is what you need to make this cake:

- 3/4 of a cup of REAL butter
- 3/4 of a cup of sugar
- finely grated zest of one lemon
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup of flour
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of poppyseeds

the original recipe calls the the zest of 1 and 1/2 oranges but lemons have a more intense flavour than oranges so i only did one. beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest until it's pale and creamy. now beat in your eggs, one at a time.

this is when i decided to add in the ginger. what i should have done was pop the root in the freezer for an hour or so before grating it, but i didn't think of it and just did it from the fridge so when i grated it into the mixture, it was more like mush. not really a big deal because it's being mixed into the batter anyway and it still has the same flavour. so peel off the skin and grate!

giant piece of ginger or miniature grater?

now sift in your flour. i know i always say this, but it's especially important that you sift your flour! due to the consistency of this cake, i would say it's extra important. if there are lumps, it will stay as lumps!

once this is done, fold in all those wonderful poppyseeds! this is my favourite picture from this cake making day!

i put my cake in an 8",  round cake pan and the size was perfect, so i would use that if you have one on hand. make sure it's well greased before putting the batter in. the mixture is rather thick, so you'll have to smooth it out in the pan. put it in a 350℉ oven for.... well, the time is confusing on this one for me. my recipe says 50 minutes, but i checked at 30 minutes and it was definitely done. if it were up to me, i would have been in there less than 30 minutes, probably 25. so watch your cake because all ovens vary. let it cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then take it out to cool on a rack.

next up is the icing, which is fantastic! you need:

- finely grated zest of one lemon
- a 250g tub of mascarpone cheese
- 1/2 a cup of confectioners sugar
- the juice from half a lemon

this is where you will have to grate the zest of another lemon. mix that with your mascarpone cheese and the confectioners sugar and beat it until it's smooth and creamy. "smooth and creamy" never happened for me. mascarpone cheese is very thick. i had never used it before and expected it to be the consistency of sour cream, but it is, in fact, more like cream cheese. very thick. and no matter how much i mixed it, it wasn't creamy. maybe i should have used an actual beater instead of doing it manually? anyway, that's where i modified the recipe a little more. i squeezed some juice from half a lemon and added that in to thin it out. worked pretty well. then i took some segments from the other half and used it to decorate.

spreading it on the cake was kind of hard but i managed with my palette knife thing. and i also used my hands. not going to lie....

the cake was great! it wasn't too sweet, which was nice. i love the little crunch you get from the poppyseed. i would definitely make this again. it's great with tea! (my mum had tea, i was still finishing my wine from dinner, HAHA!)

the final product!

next is Jackie! i'm very excited for her cake. it's.....different. and after that is Matt G! so many cakes in so little time!!!!!

cake 10: oreo cheesecake

this is a cake that i make often enough and it disappears too fast!

this is an important cake because my brother Adam turned 18 yesterday! sometimes i forget that i'm not 18 anymore, so it's shocking that he's so grown up! this is really your typical cheesecake recipe with my own little twist!

what you need:

- 27 oreo cookies (i used a generic brand)

- 4 tablespoons of butter, melted

- 3 packages of cream cheese, 250 grams each

- 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar

- 3 eggs

like i said, very few ingredients, very little time to make it. it's so easy that Chris could almost make it. almost. 

so the first thing you need to do is take 16 of the cookies and put them in a bag and smash them with a rolling pin (i like this part). i like to leave the white icing on the inside because it's an extra substance that will act as a bond for the crust. put it in a bowl and mix it together with the melted butter and then press it into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. originally i had only used 12 cookies to make the crust but when i packed it down into the bottom it didn't cover enough, so i added 7 more. 

take your bricks of cream cheese and plop them in a big bowl, add the brown sugar and mix it. mix it real good. i used a medium-high setting to blend it all together. i mixed it quite a bit actually. more than i usually do. i think it made a big, but good, difference. it tasted a lot smoother and lighter. this recipe originally calls for regular white sugar, but a few months ago (please refer to Chris' cake from march) i used a cheesecake recipe that called for brown sugar and it made it that much better that i think i will be using brown from now on!

add in the eggs, one at a time and blend it together really well. mixing it like hell again, if you so wish. this is where i tried something a little different that usual. instead of crushing the rest of the 8 cookies like i would normally do, i simple cut them into quarters and mixed them into the batter and baked it like that. i would do this again, but use more than 8 oreos. 

so put that in the oven at 350℉ for 45 minutes. it's normal that a cheesecake cracks a little. mine did. it doesn't really matter because it all ends up in your belly! it takes a little while to cool completely, and then you want to refrigerate it for at least 3 hours before serving. 

contrary to what his face looks like in this picture, he was actually quite excited for his cake. so excited, in fact, that he couldn't keep his hand steady so i could take a picture without blur! bahahaha. i'm glad you like it Adam, happy 18th birthday!

cake 9: sunshine cake

this is Ryan's Sunshine Cake! it was super delicious, but the angel food cake collapsed on me. the point is, it still tasted good. first, lets get to the ingredients:

- 9 egg yolks

- 7 egg whites

- 1 1/2 cups of sugar

- 1 2/3 cups of flour

- 3 tablespoons of grated orange rind

- 1/4 cup of orange juice

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

- 2 cups of chopped strawberries

- 1 1/2 cups of raspberries

- 1/2 cup of mango

if you have ever wondered what nine egg shells look like when piled on top of each other, well, there you have it. pretty awesome. first, prep your pan with shortening and flour. in a large bowl, beat together all nine of the egg yolks, half of the sugar, the flour, orange rind and orange juice until it's well blended. 

in another bowl and using clean beaters, beat the eggs whites with the salt until soft peaks form. add the remaining sugar, about two tablespoons at a time, until stiff peaks start to form. 

with a spatula, gently fold in one-third of the egg whites into the yolk mixture. fold in the remaining whites, until no streaks are left. scrape it into your pan and smooth the top. bake it in a 350℉ oven until the top springs back when you touch it lightly, which is about fifty minutes. i will tell you why my cake probably collapsed. firstly, if you see that your cake is getting brown on top well before it's supposed to be done, use tinfoil to make a tent on top to prevent it getting any darker and then continue baking it until it's done. what happened was, while i was checking it, i kind of pushed it back into the oven forcefully, and i think it was just too much movement for an uncooked cake, so it folded on itself, and hence, it was not as tall as it was supposed to be. here is a picture of what it looks like without anything on it.

so as you can see, that's sort of a disaster! like i said before, it still tasted great. now you have to let it cool for three hours. 

the next step is the citrus (lemon) curd. here is what you need:

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup of sugar

- 1/2 cup of orange juice

- 1/2 cup of lemon juice

- 1 tablespoon of cornstarch

- 1/4 cup of butter

this is where i made a mistake! you have to mix all these ingredients in the pan (save the butter) and then bring it to a boil. DON'T TURN ON THE BURNER BEFORE YOU DO THIS! i wasn't thinking and cracked an egg into a hot pan and it cooked the egg instantly. it was one of those moments where i cracked the egg and was opening the shell over the pan, and it was slow motion and i wanted to stop myself, but i couldn't! so, put all your ingredients in the pan, whisk them together, and then turn on your burner and bring it to a boil. let it boil for exactly one minute, constantly whisking. remove it from the heart, whisk in the butter until it's all melted, and then strain it through a fine sieve. this part is crucial, because there will be small pieces of egg in there which you don't want in your curd. once you do this, your curd will look clean and perfect!

put some plastic wrap on it right away and put it in the fridge to cool for at least two hours, but at most, two days. 

your fruit should have been chopped up by now, but if it isn't, GO! a quick tip for all you folks out there: mangoes are impossible to cut! it is the worst job ever. i swear that i will never do it again, it is so not worth it. next time, canned stuff. when everything is ready, spread some of the curd on top of your cake, and then top it with your fruit! 

and there you have it! a delicious Sunshine Cake! hopefully someone reading has learned from my many mistakes with this one. next up is my dad!!!! can't wait!