Tag: dessert

  • Tres leches carrot cake

    Tres leches carrot cake

    Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com

    October, November and December are definitely some of my favorite months of the year – they’re just so festive! We kick things off with Halloween, then glide into Thanksgiving, then wobble into Christmas. The year is winding down, people tend to be in a good mood, and there’s lots of good food and drink to go around. I love the autumn/winter holiday season and everything that goes along with it, mostly because it’s the coziest time of year. There’s nothing quite like getting tucked into a nice cup of tea watching classic holiday movies on Netflix over the weekend, while admiring a decorated Christmas tree and wrapping presents. That my friends, is the definition of a perfect weekend. Well to me, at least, because I’m old now! 😊

    While Jonathan was out and about last Saturday I went to pick out our Christmas tree (meaning: I went without him as I always want a bigger tree than he’d approve) and I’m quite proud of myself! I didn’t pick one that would have to be cut down to actually fit in our living room…! It’s gorgeous of course, and I’ve been lovingly admiring it as much as possible.

    The weather almost always dictates what I’m in the mood to cook, and this past few weeks I’ve been craving one thing: cinnamon! I’ve been in a bit of a bake-y mood lately, too, so decided to try my hand at carrot cake. I’ve followed recipes in the past and they always come out…. OK, but nothing special. I’m particular in that I realllllly can’t stand dry cake. My worst nightmare would be in cakeform, as a fruit cake ::shudder::

    Carrot cakes are special because you cannot really mess them up, and they have vegetables in them so they count as healthy 😉

    Because I was worried that they might come out a bit dry, I’ve added an additional step to make sure they were nice and moist, without being gross and gooey. Hence the “tres leches” in the recipe name. Keep reading for steps to making the easiest carrot cake ever, gauranteed to wow any carrot cake lover (or hater, for that matter).

    Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com

    Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com

    Tres leches carrot cake | seefoodplay.com
    Wet ingredients:

    • 6 tbsp vegetable oil
    • 2 tbsp yogurt
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 tsp vanilla
    • 1 cup grated carrot

    Dry ingredients:

    • 1 cup flour
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 tsp baking soda
    • 1 tsp baking powder
    • 1/2 tsp salt
    • 1 tsp cinnamon
    • 1 tsp ground nutmeg

    Tres leches sauce:

    • 4 tbsp Condensed milk
    • 4 tbsp Heavy cream
    • 4 tbsp Whole milk

    Instructions:

    1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius, and prepare your baking dish using parchment paper or butter.

    2. Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

    3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mixing until completely combined.

    4. Pour the batter into your baking dish, and bake for about 15-20 minutes (depending on your oven and baking dish).

    5. Once cooked through (ie, when a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean), remove from oven and allow to cool down for about 30 minutes.

    6. Meanwhile, combine the condensed milk, heavy cream and milk in a small pot and heat on a low until the mixture is uniform and heated up (doesn’t need to come to a boil).

    7. Pour the milk mixture onto the cakes, leaving them to rest for about 15 minutes (or until the sauce is absorbed into the cakes) before serving, topped with a bit of whipped cream (optional).

  • My birthday…and chocolate cake

    My birthday…and chocolate cake

    birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com

    This Saturday was my (31st….) birthday, and it was fabutastic. Yes, new word, that’s just how awesome it was. I had a few annoyances throughout and somehow managed to actually cry at one point, but all in all, it was one of my best birthdays yet! All of the credit goes to my husband, though, and he really hit a home run this year. Thanks to him, I have a few new London travel tips for you to check out — well worth it! Also — keep reading for another amazingly easy cake recipe!

    Jonathan planned out my day, from start to finish, and I am still impressed by how perfect everything turned out to be. My Type-A self had a hard time not knowing what we were going to be doing at all times, but I quickly let go and am so glad I did.

    When Jonathan said we had to be up and out of the flat by 6.30am I thought he was joking (again, this was Saturday…), but when we were up and out by 6.45 (getting out of the house always takes us ages) I knew he meant business with the “Day of Birthday Surprises” 🙂

    Our first stop was for breakfast at E Pellicci, a tiny little hole-in-the-wall cafe serving up full English breakfasts (including a vegetarian option). Their cappuccino’s were everything you might possibly need that early on a Saturday morning, and the food was delish. Okay, Jonathan…. I see you.

    Next we popped down to Oxford street to wander around a bit and to do some shopping. London is pretty awesome first thing in the morning, before all the tourists are milling about; there’s something really special about a big city like London with no cars or people around. When we travel, we try to make it a point to get up before the sun comes up to go out and explore: it’s a magical sleepy point in the day when everything is just a little bit more beautiful — I highly recommend giving it a try! So I guess we were tourists in London for the morning 🙂

    After our Big Adventure visiting London, we headed back East to get some real shopping in: I needed new shoes (I’m using the term “need” quite loosely, here), so off to the mall to pick those out we went. I ended up getting an amaaaazing pair of Nine West black pumps for 75% off (um, hello? I’ll take that deal any day), so that alone made my day a sucess. But it wasn’t over yet…!

    We had just enough time to come home to change and get ready for our night on the town, and this is where things got even more special.

    Jonathan must have spent countless hours researching (and apparently my love of Tripadvisor rubbed off on him) until he found the perfect spot for dinner: The Sixtyone. Our food was exquisite, from the beginning to the end! We both love our grub, so I don’t take it lightly to say that this is one of the best meals I have had in a restaurant in a long time. We got fish and lamb, and both were cooked to perfection, and even our cocktails were out-of-this-world amazing. Check out the addresses below!

     

    E Pellicci
    Full English breakfast & Italian classics
    332 Bethnal Green Rd, London E2 0AG, England
    +44 20 7739 487

    Westfield Shopping Center (Stratford)
    uk.westfield.com/stratfordcity
    Montfichet Rd, London E20 1EJ
    020 8221 7300

    Sixtyone Restaurant
    sixtyonerestaurant.co.uk
    61 Upper Berkeley St, London W1H 7PP
    020 7958 3222

    Now onto that cake recipe I promised you. Okay so first of all, I need to confess: I originally wanted to take a bunch of photos during the day to add them to this post, but as usual, I’m terrible at snapping shots so only had one sad little photo of my Birthday Dessert graciously offered to me by the Sixtyone staff:

    birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com

    Then I started thinking — I should post a picture of my own cake that I’ve baked (because I’m so good at baking…). I’ve been playing around a bit with my Easiest Chocolate cake recipe for a while, trying different variations, mostly for when I’m in the mood for something fluffier. You guys… trust me when I tell you: this cakey cake recipe is so easy, so fast, and so perfect for a birthday cake celebration for two…! It came out so good I couldn’t believe that I made it, totally from scratch, in less than 30 minutes all together.

    Baking isn’t easy for me, so I need my recipes to be fool-proof (times ten). Given that, I’ve kept the quantities as uniform as possible — nothing is worse than when a recipe calls for 1.5 cups of this, 3/4 cups of that, 2 tbps of another thing, sprinkled with 1.5 tsps of that one ingredient you already forgot you needed…! So, here’s my take on the classic chocolate cake — whether you’re a super-star when it comes to baking, or (like me) need to keep it simple — this recipe will not let you down.

    birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com birthday chocolate cake | seefoodplay.com

    Ingredients:

    • 1 egg
    • 1/2 cup milk
    • 1/2 cup oil
    • 1/2 cup cocoa
    • 1/2 heaping cup flour
    • 1/2 heaping cup sugar
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder

    Instructions:

    1. Combine the egg, sugar, milk, and oil whisking for about 1 minute
    2. Next, whisk in the flour, sugar, baking powder and cocoa powder
    3. Whisk for another minute or two until everything is nice and smooth
    4. Pour your mixture into a small buttered baking pan (this fills two 5 inch spring form pans, which are what I use)
    5. Bake on 190degrees (celsius) for about 20-25 minutes
    6. Once cooled, finish it off with your favorite icing, and enjoy your teensy weensy perfect-for-couples birthday cake!

    *Note: this cake mix fills two of my pans, but would also work quite well in cupcake tins – I think it would fill about 5 cupcake molds.

    **Note: I had two molds, so I made the cutest little two-layer cake ever, but you could just serve this as a single layer cake for one person, too!

  • Perfect-every-time caramel cream sauce

    Perfect-every-time caramel cream sauce

    Perfect caramel sauce | seefoodplay.com

    I’ve been trying to enjoy this Fall-like weather as much as I can, and nothing reminds me of Fall more than a rich and creamy caramel cream sauce. This is one of those recipes that I like to use when I don’t necessarily have time for a big fancy dessert, but still want an impressive end to a meal. Almost everyone loves caramel sauce, and you can serve it over fruit for a very simple snack or dessert. Spring might not be here just yet, but I’m making the most of it! If it continues like this, then I’ll have to bust out my copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte recipe…! In the meantime, I’ll settle for caramel covered apples 🙂

    My first attempts at making caramel sauce were major fails, and I think it was because I was so intimidated by the mere idea of it! Boiling hot sugar, and a recipe that can go from perfectly golden to horribly burned in a matter of seconds…um hello?! Scary city. But then last year I got the bright idea of serving a dessert for Thanksgiving Dinner (recipes to come, so keep an eye out for that!) that called for a caramel crème sauce. And I needed enough of the stuff to make desserts for 25 people. Yes, I’m crazy. I considered buying it pre-made for about two seconds, before coming to my senses. If you usually buy this instead of making it homemade, then stop right there! This recipe is for you. It’s easy but does require a bit of patience! But it is oh-so-so satisfying when you serve it up and hear “wow – you made this yourself!?” – totally worth it!

    First of all, I need to preface this recipe by telling you that there are two ways to make caramel sauce: the wet method and the dry method. I don’t personally like the dry method because it results in a flavor that I don’t really care for, and I find it more difficult to work with. If you want to try the dry method, then there are lots of recipes out there to try: like here.

    My method, however, is pretty hard to mess up (yes, even for absolute beginners) and produces a thick and smooth, slightly-salty caramel crème sauce.

     

    Perfect-every-time caramel cream sauce
    Recipe Type: Dessert sauce
    Author: Veronica | seefoodplay.com
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    This is an easy totally fool-proof method for making perfect (every time) salted caramel cream sauce.
    Ingredients
    • 1 cup of sugar
    • ¼ cup of water
    • ½ cup of heavy cream, room temperature
    • ½ teaspoon of sea salt
    Instructions
    1. Add your sugar and water to a small saucepan, and heat on low until the sugar is dissolved.
    2. Once the sugar has completely dissolved, increase the heat slightly (to medium), until the sugar and water comes to a slow boil.
    3. Continue to cook your sugar & water, and after about 5-10 minutes the color will go from completely clear to a slightly yellow color, then a darker golden color.
    4. Once your sugar is a golden-yellow color (or darker if you prefer a richer sauce), remove immediately from the burner.
    5. Now, slowly whisk in your heavy cream. The pot will bubble up quite a bit – don’t worry, this is normal! Just keep whisking and make sure it doesn’t overflow.
    6. You should now have something that looks like a caramel cream sauce! Sprinkle your sea salt into the mix, and store in a container of your choice. I use Korken jars from Ikea.

    Notes:

    • Resist the urge to stir – this isn’t necessary!
    • The time it takes for your sugar to turn golden depends on the amount of water used, and how high your burner is turned on. I prefer the low & slow method because I’m less likely to burn the sauce, but you can use a higher heat to accelerate the process. Just keep a close eye because it takes literally 5-10 seconds of too much heat to totally ruin your sauce!
    • Don’t freak out, because this will bubble like crazy when you add the cream! If it looks like it might overflow, just blow on it and the bubbles should go down.
    • If you have clumps of crystalized sugar in your sauce, just pass it through a fine sieve and filter them out.