Sam's Kitchen

Tag: dessert

• Citrus and Apple Rose Tea Cake

  Posted at 4:40 pm by samskitchen, on May 7, 2016

  

  It’s Mothers Day tomorrow. A wonderful day that gives us the opportunity to thank our Mothers for all they gave and are still giving us, make them feel special, loved and cherished. A day to celebrate motherhood, give gifts of love and receive them back. Share the joy and pride of being a mother with our mothers, grandmothers, sisters and girlfriends. It’s the day that celebrates giving life!

  This rosy cake is for all you darling Mothers and Mothers to be.
  Wishing you all a day filled with love and happiness, and may you all feel cherished and appreciated. Happy Mothers Day!!!

  

  

  

  The cake is made with both lemon and orange zest and juice and has a delicious citrus aroma and taste. The texture is light and soft.
  Tastes exceptionally delicious served warm with a generous dollop of double cream.

   

  Ingredients

  200g butter cubed and brought to room temperature
  200g caster sugar
  4 eggs room temperature
  1 tbsp orange and lemon zest mix
  1/2 cup orange and lemon juice mix
  1/4 cup milk
  350g self-raising flour
  1 cup almond meal ( ground almonds )
  4 apples halved and cored

  To Serve  

  Icing sugar
  Double cream or thickened cream

  Method

  Preheat oven to 175C.
  Line and grease a 24cm round cake pan.

  In a bowl of a stand mixer beat butter and sugar until white and creamy.
  Add eggs one at a time ( ensure eggs are at room temperature ), beat for 1 minute with each added egg.
  Add self-raising flour, almond meal, lemon and orange zest and juice.
  Fold gently with a spatula.
  Pour the mixture into prepared cake pan.

  Slice apples thinly using a mandoline or a very sharp knife.
  Place in a bowl, add lemon juice and enough water to cover the top.
  Microwave for 1 minute on high or till apple slices are pliable.
  Drain and leave to cool.

  Arrange apple slices into different size roses. To make roses, swirl one apple slice into a little tube and place it into the cake batter, then keep adding one “petal” at a time till the “rose” reaches the desired size.

  Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes or till middle is set and a skewer comes out clean.

  Dust with icing sugar if desired.
  Serve warm with double cream or thickened cream.

  

  

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  Posted in Sweets | 21 Comments | Tagged afternoon tea cake, apple cake, apple roses, baking, beautiful cake, cooking, dessert, easy recipe, morning tea, mothers day, recipe, sweets, tea cake

• Hazelnut and Chocolate Biscuits

  Posted at 10:52 am by samskitchen, on March 27, 2016

  

  Happy Easter to all you lovely folk! This is what my inner Easter Bunny brought us this Easter – four ingredient chocolate cookies; made with just hazelnuts, egg whites, sugar and cocoa. They are light, a little bit chewy and have a yummy chocolatey – nutty taste.

  

  And they make the perfect foodie gift!

  

  Ingredients

  3 large egg whites
  300g icing sugar sifted and extra for coating
  350g hazelnut meal ( ground hazelnuts )
  4 tbsp dutch cocoa ( or any other good quality unsweetened cocoa )

  Method

  Preheat oven to 160C.
  Line a cookie tray.

  In a bowl of a stand mixer beat the egg whites to a soft peak stage, then gradually add the icing sugar and continue beating for a few minutes. The mixture will resemble a soft runny marshmallow.

  Sieve the cocoa and mix with the hazelnut meal, gradually add it to the egg white and sugar mixture while folding in gently. You will end up with a soft cookie dough.

  Roll out 26-28 little balls (about the size of a walnut) and roll them in icing sugar.

  Place them on a lined cookie tray and bake in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven and move to a cooling rack.

  Cool, and enjoy. They go beautifully with both coffee or tea.

  

  The mixture will resemble a soft runny marshmallow.

  

  Sieve the cocoa and mix with the hazelnut meal and gradually add it to egg white and sugar mixture while folding in gently using a spatula.

  

  

  

  Roll out 26-28 little balls and roll them in icing sugar.

  

  Place them on a lined cookie tray and bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.

  

  Remove from oven and move to a cooling rack.

  

  A perfect yummy gift 🙂

  

   

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  Posted in Sweets | 5 Comments | Tagged afternoon tea, baking, biscuits, cookies, dessert, easy recipe, glutenfree, hazelnuts, nut cookies, recipe, sweets

• Pear and Almond Chocolate Cake

  Posted at 3:35 pm by samskitchen, on March 26, 2016

  

  For the pear and chocolate lovers a little easter treat – Pear and Almond Chocolate Cake. With a light texture, not overly sweet and a distinctive chocolate taste it’s a pure indulgence served warm with a big dollop of double cream or vanilla ice-cream.

  I would highly recommend using only ripe pears or poaching the greener pears for a little while before baking or you are likely to end up with undercooked pears and clashing textures of soft and luscious cake and harder pears. So if you bought green pears, simply leave them on the kitchen counter for a few days until they ripen and before using them.

  Using good quality chocolate is essential as it is going to directly affect the taste of the cake. Try using chocolate that has at least 55% cocoa for a more distinctive and richer chocolate taste.

  I coated the pears in demerara sugar for their big granules and effective look, but using white or brown sugar is perfectly fine.

  Sprinkle the cake with few pinches of sugar just before serving it.

  

  

  

  

  Ingredients
  
  3 ripe pears
  120g unsalted butter cubed
  150g good quality dark chocolate
  4 eggs
  1 cup brown sugar
  1/3 cup plain all purpose flour
  2 cups almond meal
  2 tbsp dutch cocoa
  1 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp vanilla essence
  1/3 cup demerara sugar

  Double or thick cream, or vanilla ice-cream to serve

  Method

  Preheat oven to 175C.
  Grease and line a 22cm round cake pan.

  Peel, halve and core the pears.
  Cube the butter and break the chocolate into small pieces, then place them into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1 min or till the chocolate has melted, stirring every 30 seconds to prevent burning the chocolate.

  In a bowl of an electric mixer beat the eggs and sugar till thickened and has reached a creamy consistency  5-8 minutes on high.

  

  Sieve in the flour and baking powder into the eggs and sugar, using a spatula gently fold in.
  Add the almond meal and cocoa in 2-3 batches folding in gently.
  Pour cooled chocolate and butter mixture along with vanilla essence and gently fold in.

  

  Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.

  

  Coat the pear halves in demerara sugar and arrange them on top of the batter.

  

  

  Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes. Remove from oven and cool in a pan. Serve warm with a good dollop of double cream.

  

  

   

   

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  Posted in Sweets | 11 Comments | Tagged almond cake, almond chocolate cake, baking, chocolate cake, dessert, easter, Easy, pear and chocolate cake, recipe, sweets

• Cookies and Pistachio Dark Chocolate Rocky Road

  Posted at 4:04 pm by samskitchen, on November 8, 2015

  

  Ah oh, Christmas is almost around the corner and it’s time to get edible Christmas goodie gifts ready!

  Get started with this yummy – easy to make Rocky Road :).

  

  I made a big slab of this yumminess yesterday.

  

  Cut them into squares and wrapped in cellophane to give as gifts.

  

  Ingredients

  250g marshmallows cut in half ( I used kitchen scissors )
  1/2 cup lightly toasted pistachios, roughly chopped
  1/2 cup lightly toasted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
  1/2 cup dry cranberries
  2 ( 55g each ) chocolate coated bars of Turkish delight cut into bite size squares
  1 cup butter cookies or any other cookies of your choice roughly chopped into bite size pieces
  2 ( 200g each ) good quality dark chocolate bars
  2 tsp peanut or canola oil
  Extra chopped pistachios for topping ( optional )

  Method

  Prepare a lined with a cling film tray or any square or rectangular dish at about 5 cm dip.
  Break chocolate into a small pieces, place into a heat proof bowl, add oil and melt over a double boiler or in a microwave. If melting in a microwave stir every 30 seconds to avoid over drying.
  In a very large mixing bowl mix all dry ingredients together.
  Pour melted chocolate over the dry ingredients mixing spontaneously till all covered in chocolate. Move the mixture into the prepared tray. Spread evenly gently pressing into place. Sprinkle the top with extra chopped pistachios and refrigerate for 2 hours or till set. Enjoy with coffee, tea or just by itself as a naughty snack 🙂 xx

  The little fingers photobombing was completely unexpected, but it was so cute that I decided to use this picture here. My little cheeky assistant is always there with me 🙂

  

  

  

  

  

  Line your tray with cling film to make it easy to remove once Rocky Road is set

  

  

  

  Perfect edible Christmas gift!

  

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  Posted in Sweets | 6 Comments | Tagged chocolate, dark chocolate, dessert, marshmallows, recipe, rocky road, sweets

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• Follow me on Insta for more foodie inspirations :)

  Beautiful pasta sheet decorated with garden herbs and flowers. Shot a while ago on my old Nikon D7000. For pasta: 3 eggs, 330g 00 Flour, pinch of salt. Whizz in a food processor to a crumb, tip onto a bench and using your hands bring together into a stiff dough. Wrap into cling film and rest for up to an hour. I divided mine into four pieces. Laminated each piece of dough prior rolling out. Once rolled out, layer one flat sheet of dough into a bench, placed flowers and herb leaves on and covered with second sheet. Pressed gently using a rolling pin, then let through pasta machine. Cut into long strands to make linguine, use for lasagne or make dumplings, ravioli. Inspiration came from @twiggstudios 💕#pasta #foodphotography #recipe #food52 #thefeedfeed #stilllife #margaretriverfood #perthfood #lifeandthyme #f52grams

  Sometimes hidden from me in daily custom and in trust, so that I live by you unaware as by the beating of my heart, suddenly you flare in my sight, a wild rose blooming at the edge of thicket, grace and light where yesterday was only shade, and once more I am blessed, choosing again what I chose before. Author-Wendell Berry My heartfelt thanks to the South African Master Chef Australia fans for all your lovely messages of support 🙏 💝💐 #poetry #stilllife #foodphotography #lifeandthyme #wildroses #f52grams #margaretriver #photography #poetry #wendellberry

  Recipe 💝. Badam Kurabye, scented with rose they remind me of rose flavoured Lokum 💕. They are very much like Italian Amaretti biscuits but with pistachios, ground rose petals and rose water. When I first moved to Australia and lived in the East suburb of Perth, I used make and sell very similar cookies to a coffee shop in Mount Lawley. The coffee shop was called Soho and a very kind relative who was a regular in the coffee shop organised the biscuit deal ( I was very shy and a hard core introvert and there was no way I could’ve landed it on my own 😆). With the suggestion of the same relative we named them Azerbaijani Delights. I made and sold cookies to the shop for a few months up until we moved to the south. I still make the cookies quite often, also I don’t go into the trouble of shelling kilos of almonds 😆. Preheat oven to 150C fan Line a large cookie tray with baking paper. Whisk 4 egg whites and 380g of sugar until mixture reaches soft-medium peaks (2 min on low, 2 min on medium, 2-3 min on high), add 1 tsp or to taste rose water and whisk until incorporated. Using a spatula gradually add 450g of almond meal (ground almonds), 50 g ground pistachios and 1-2 tbsp ground dry rose petals. Shape into 30g balls and roll in icing sugar. Slightly flatten and using a wet finger make an indent in the centre, sprinkle with extra rose petals and chopped pistachios. Leave a few cm space between each cookie so they don’t bake into each other and bake for 12-15 min. Move to a cooling rack. Once cooled store in an airtight container. They last at least 1 week. #biscuits #f52grams #recipe #foodphotography #foodstyling #margaretriverfood #lifeandthyme #perthfood #beautifulcuisines #thefeedfeed #food52 #azerbaijanicuisine

  Recipe Alert 💝. Yesterday, I made our first batch of ice-cream this summer. Normally I make ice-cream for the kids a few times a week, but this summer for some strange reason I kept finding reasons not to make it, but yesterday I literally forced myself to get the ice-cream churner out and make that custardy base. It takes literally minutes to make it and the hardest part is the waiting for it cool down, then the churn and another couple of hours of waiting for the ice-cream to set completely. I use the most basic recipe and it never fails me. There are 2 egg yolks and 1 egg in it, 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of thickened cream, 100g sugar, vanilla extract or seeds scraped from one pod. Bring milk and cream to an almost simmering stage, and while waiting for them to heat up, mix the egg, egg yolks and sugar to a creamy paste. If using vanilla pod, cut it in half, scrape the seeds off and add to milk and cream while they heat up, add the pod too as it holds a lot of flavour, also the pod can be washed, dried and reused again, blitzed with sugar into a sweet vanilla powder, the options are endless... Once milk and cream are hot, add them gradually to the egg and sugar all while whisking continuously. Then move the mixture back into a pan and cook over a low-medium heat stirring continuously with a wooden spoon or a spatula. Thermometer would be very handy here, as the temperature hits 82C remove from heat and immediately pour through a sieve to a large bowl, cover with cling film so it touches the top of the custard (this will prevent a skin developing on top of your custard) refrigerate for two hours or until chilled, then churn in an ice cream churner. If you haven’t got an ice-cream churner then you might like to freeze your custard and then blitz it in a food processor but I haven’t tried this method yet so not sure how well it works. Also, if you haven’t got a thermometer you still can make it, just check your custard by running a finger over a wooden spoon or a spatula that you are using and if the appeared line holds itself then your custard is ready. 💐 #icecream #honey #foodphotography #margaretriverfood #perthfood #stilllife #food52 #lifeandthyme #f52grams

  Summer and its glorious gifts. We have been given figs the other day, the most gorgeous, giant and shiny to the point of resembling a wax work figs. I wasn’t sure what would they taste like or what colour is their flesh. Also, there was a different picture in my mind before I cut into one and tasted it. It tasted very much like a Turkish variety that grows in our garden, as sweet as honey, but the size!, the size threw me off! I have never seen figs as big as these! The figs came from @tartsandpies garden (your figs are glorious! 🤗) Thank you Teesh @maladumplings for sharing them with me and the kids and for the fabulous time together with @casscharlick (sans the drive around searching for the escapee dog 😆) 💝 #foodphotography #stillifephotography #margaretriverfood #perthfood #lifeandthyme #f52grams #beautifulcuisines #figseason #australiafood #localproduce

  There is something ever so soft Even magical I would say About being wrapped in those balmy hues of sun setting light. I did spend a little fortune on those pretty flowers and aren’t they just so pretty?! #stillife #foodphotography #margaretriverfood #lifeandthyme #flowers #f52grams #stillifephotography #perthfood #peaches

  2018 has drawn to an end. It was a year of many lessons. My dearest people, I’m wishing you all a wonderful New Year, and may you all reach tranquillity in your minds and hearts 🙌. 2019 I’m looking forward to you 💐 Happy New Year 🎇 #newyear #foodphotography #stillife #margaretriverfood #perthfood #f52grams #lifeandthyme

  Khinkali. One of the traditional Georgian dishes. Georgia just like my home country Azerbaijan is a part of Caucasus region. As most of my ancestors come from Caucasus, I feel a little closer to home every time I make a dish from places of my roots. There is a lovely story about how Khinkali originated. It was in early period after the Persian war. They were made for a wounded soldier by a very creative maiden who only happened to have a handful of ingredients in her little mountain hut; flour, meat, onion, garlic and a handful of dried herbs. As the soldier struggled with weakness and would have had a hard time to eat any heavy food, she decided to grind the meat with onion and garlic, add herbs and wrap the filling into a dough made with just flour and water. An voila!, it was a success! That’s how Khinkali dish was born. So here I am, in the role of the mountain maiden with a basket of Khinkali kneeling in front of my imaginary soldier. A side note; tradition calls to eat Khinkali only with your hands as eating them with cutlery is deemed highly inappropriate. I will post the full recipe to my highlighted stories tonight, once kids are in bed. #khinkali #georgiancuisine #caucasusfood #dumplings #foodphotography #stilllife #sbsfood #food52 #f52grams #margaretriverfood

  Chicken and Oranges 🍊 with my favourite Pomegranate Molasses and Plum Jam. Inspired by one of famous Azerbaijani dishes Chicken Levengi. This morning my kids requested a sticky chicken for dinner and instead of sticking to the old favourite I decided to let my imagination come up with something new. Hopefully it will taste as good as it smells 😋. Will let you all know in my stories how it turns out. #chicken #sundayroast #foodphotography #christmascooking #margaretriverfood #azerbaijanifood #food52 #thefeedfeed #f52grams

• samskitchenblog.com

  • One Pot Chicken and Wild Rice Bake July 2, 2017
  • Chocolate and Hazelnut Babka April 16, 2017
  • Lamb and Quinoa Tabouleh with Tangy Pomegranate Molasses Dressing January 17, 2017
  • Minty Avocado Choc-Chip Ice Cream January 15, 2017
  • Thai Fish Cakes January 7, 2017
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