Strawberry & banana pudding cake

This is the cake I made for International Children's Day (1st of June) and it's actually a Fraisier type of cake, adapted to be baby friendly. I got inspired by a wonderful cake I saw on a Romanian blog called Savori Urbane (recipe here) and I decided to bake something similar (at least in aspect, as I changed the ingredients a bit...).
I wanted to prepare a cake just the right size for our family's dinner so I used a cake tin of 10 cm diameter, with a removable ring. I made some more batter though, so apart from the small cake I also had 3 mini-tarts (baked in silicone molds), that we "tasted" the evening before. They were yummy!

So, here's my take on Fraisier cake, baby friendly version. For larger cake tins, just double or triple the ingredients.

Ingredients:
For the base:
2 eggs
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 banana, mashed

For the banana & vanilla pudding:
250 ml milk
1/2 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
1/2 banana, mashed
15g cornstarch
75g butter 80% fat, room temperature

For the filling and topping:
10-15 small strawberries

Method:
Base:
Preheat the oven at 190 degrees C.
Mash the banana, add the egg yolks and oil and mix well. Add the flour and mix some more.
Separately, beat the egg whites until fluffy and add them to the batter. Mix carefully, using a spatula, to keep as much fluffiness as possible.
Pour the batter into tins / molds (I used a cake tin and 3 silicone molds - see some of the cakes in the picture below). Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the surface is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Cut the cake base into 2 layers.

Pudding:
Heat up the milk with the vanilla bean and the vanilla seeds (be careful to remove it from the heat when it starts boiling).
Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks with the mashed banana until they get foamy. Add the cornstarch and mix well. Pour the hot milk gradually (after you removed and discarded the vanilla bean) and mix well.
Put the batter back on the stove and stir continuously with a silicone spatula. Let it simmer for a few minutes, until it gets thick and remove from the heat. Pour the pudding in a bowl lined with cling film and cover with the cling film's margins and let cool (if left uncovered, it will form a crust).
Whisk the butter (room temperature) until it gets creamy and a bit fluffy and add the cold vanilla pudding on top. Continue mixing until you it gets nice and creamy. If the butter starts separating, just continue to mix. It should be fine in a few minutes.

Wash the strawberries, dry them on a paper towel and cut 4-5 of them in halves.

Cake assembly:
Place half of the cake base on a plate, with the ring from the cake tin around it. Cover with a little pudding and place the halved strawberries on the circle, with the cut part outside. Then, fill all the inside with whole strawberries.

 
Pour more pudding into the tin, to cover all strawberries and press with a spoon, so that the cream gets everywhere between the fruit. Place the other half of the cake base on top, cover it with some more pudding and decorate with strawberries.
Let it cool in the fridge for a few hours before removing the ring.
Enjoy!

Sweet potato brownie / muffins / cake

The sweet potato brownie cake has already become a tradition for my older daughter's birthday (coming soon). This time I decided to try it before the actual party, just in case the recipe needed any adjustments (it didn't).

I played a bit with the silicone molds, so I made some muffins, some hearts and a mini layered cake :) The fruit yogurt decoration was very successful (and also the yogurt left in the blender - perfect replacement for an ice-cream).

For these muffins / brownies / cake you will need: 

- 2 medium/large sweet potatoes, boiled and pureed;

- 1 cup flour;

- 1 tsp baking powder;

- 1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts (or ground walnuts if you make it for babies);

- 3 eggs;

- 2-3 Tbsp carob powder;

- 2 tsp ground cinnamon;

- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg;

- 1/2 tsp ginger powder.

To decorate: Greek yogurt / heavy cream / Mascarpone cheese + forest fruit

Mix separately, in two bowls, the wet ingredients (sweet potatoes and egg) and the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, walnuts, carob, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger). Combine the contents of the two bowls and stir well. If the batter is too thick, add a drop of milk (max 50ml). It has to be thicker than the normal muffin batter.  

Pour it in the molds and bake in the preheated oven (180 degrees Celsius) for cca. 40 min (even less if using muffin molds), until it passes the toothpick test.

I decorated the hearts with yogurt mixed with forest fruits and the mini-cake with simple cream. 

Enjoy!

Pumpkin vanilla cheesecake

As I was saying in a previous post, we are not big fans of simple baked pumpkin, but ever since I started to use it for different recipes, I started liking it more and more.
The idea of baking a pumpkin cheesecake came to me after visiting an amazing cake shop in Belgrade (it's called Mandarina and you can find it online here). I tasted more of their cakes, including a delicious pumpkin cheesecake, so I decided to make my own (babyfriendly a.k.a. sugar free) version of it.

For the crust I decided to use the pumpkin gingerbread dough (recipe here): half of it was enough for the cheesecake crust and half of it I made into gingerbread.
For the cheesecake you can use a cake tin with removable base or any round tin (deeper that the tart one). Roll the dough so that it covers the bottom of the tin and a little bit of the walls. Pierce it with a fork and bake it in the preheated oven, for 10-15 minutes at 180 degrees. Remove from the oven and set aside until the filling is read.

Ingredients for the filling:

- 200g cream cheese;

- 200g cream;

- 250g baked pumpkin puree;

- 1 tsp Bourbon vanilla / seeds from a vanilla bean;

- 1/2 tsp grated orange peel;

- 3 large eggs.

Mix all the ingredients in a food processor (or with a hand mixer) and pour the mixture in the cake tin, over the pre-baked crust. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius, in the preheated oven, for 45-50 min, until set (depending on the depth of the tin). Let the cake cool in the tin, then remove and place on a platter.
Enjoy!

    

Blueberry tiramisu, baby friendly

This morning I was looking at the pictures from the last summer holiday and, among the numerous photos of my kids, I found this pretty image of a delicious home-made blueberry tiramisu cake (oh, this little piece would have gone perfectly next to my coffee).

The story of this tiramisu cake started with some blueberries (too many) that I bought from the green market (it was already mid September and I was super excited to find blueberries). Well, after my kids ate a fair amount, there were still enough blueberries left to try some experimental cake recipe.  

Tiramisu had been on my mind for a while, but the challenge was to replace the sugar and the coffee in it so that it would be baby friendly. Instead of ladyfingers I used a walnut cake, cut in rectangles, to have approximately the same size (I got this idea of using a nut cake while I was making tiramisu Montignac after the recipe here). Instead of sugar syrup I used blueberries, the juice from the fruits and water used for soaking the dates.

Ingredients:

For the walnut cake:

- 7 eggs (separate the yolks from the whites);

- 200g ground walnuts;

- 6 dates (soaked in water for a few hours)*;

- a pinch of vanilla.

For the filling:

- 250g mascarpone;

- 250 ml sweet cream;

- 6 dates (soaked in water for a few hours)*.

For the syrup:

- 300 - 500 g blueberries (plus the juice that they leave and the water used for soaking the dates).

*If you want the cake to be sweeter add more dates

Method:

Blend the soaked dates (pitted) until smooth. Mix with the egg yolks until they start to get foamy. Add the vanilla and the ground walnuts and mix well. Whisk the egg whites until you get a strong foam and add it to the walnut-date mixture. Using a spoon, stir gently and briefly (so that it remains fluffy). 

Pour the mixture onto a tray lined with baking paper and level it with a spatula (it will raise a bit while baking so the layer can be pretty thin). Bake in the preheated oven at 160 degrees C, for about 20 minutes (until it passes the toothpick test, just be careful not to burn it as it bakes pretty quickly).

Remove the cake from the tray together with the baking paper and let cool. Cut it in rectangles (to have a similar shape as ladyfingers) or any other shape that you like.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Whisk the sweet cream until firm (but not too much or it will become butter), add the mascarpone and the date paste and whisk a bit more, but only as much as necessary to  mix all the ingredients together.

Pick the tray in which you want to assemble the tiramisu and cover it in cling film (it should be maximum 1/2 the size of the tray in which you baked the walnut cake). Add 2 tbsp of filling and spread it over the bottom of the tray. Add the first layer of "ladyfingers" (the walnut cake pieces) and pour a few tbsp of blueberry juice and date water on top of those. Add a layer of blueberries and a layer of mascarpone filling. Continue with a new layer of "ladyfingers", followed by syrup, blueberries and mascarpone filling.

Depending on your preferences and the size of the tray, you can add as many layers you want. I prefer to have only 2 layers of cake + the subsequent blueberry and filling.

Decorate with blueberries or other forest fruit and enjoy!