Make your own muesli

For years and years and years I ate granola with yogurt for breakfast, and it never occurred to me to use anything other than pre-mixed granola. But all that changed about a year and a half ago, and since then I've been waking up nearly every morning and eating this:


What happened a year and a half ago that was so thunderously life-changing? I read Michael Pollan's essay (now a book) in the New York Times - "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto". That essay completely changed the way I thought about food. Actually, 'changed' may not be the best word here, because I simply hadn't thought about food, at least not in depth, before.

It's shocking - I mean, we eat food every day, it's all around us, and yet in American culture at least, nobody actually wants to think about food. We don't ask ourselves "What is it? Where did it come from? How did it end up in front of me? How many hands have touched this? How many machines have manipulated it?" But once you do start asking those questions, once you look at a package of cookies and no longer see them as "Chips Ahoy!" or "Oreos" or whatever they've been branded as, but as a mixture of flour, sugar, chemically treated oil from something - supposedly vegetables?, additives with names too long to pronounce or understand... once you think about how these things were made (what is a corporate cookie factory like anyway?) and how their production is affecting the economy, the environment, the general health of the population, your own health, etc., etc., welllll, it's enough to put you off processed food permanently! At least, it was enough to put me off processed food in the sense of corporation-generated, has ingredients I would never use even if I had access to them, and really doesn't even taste that great - sort of processed food.

Which brings me back to my muesli. I actually don't think pre-prepared granola is all that bad in the grand scheme of things. It generally doesn't have a lot of weird ingredients, it tastes pretty good, and you never really hear about "Big Granola" ruining the industries of small-time oat farmers.

But still. After I read the article, I decided to really clean up my act, and go completely un-processed wherever possible. To be fair, this wasn't all that difficult for me, since at that time I was living in Milan where I had access to a fantastic open-air market and delicious fresh ingredients year-round. But I did make whatever changes I could. Instead of having crackers as a before-dinner snack when I got hungry, I switched to carrots; when possible I made my own tomato sauce instead of using the bottled kind; and I stopped buying pre-packaged granola and flavored yogurt and started making my own muesli mixes with plain and simple whole-milk yogurt.

The best part about making your own muesli is that you can change it every single day. Buy a bunch of stock items (nuts, seeds, dried & fresh fruits), and then just put in whatever you feel like each morning. After extensive experimentation, I have pretty much settled on a favorite mixture, which I'll give below, but I encourage you to play around with your muesli and see what you like best. Admittedly, it's slightly more time-consuming than just dumping a package of granola into a bowl in the morning, but it's also more fun, and it gives you just a little bit more control.


Ingredients:
About 100 g. of plain yogurt
A generous handful of oats
A small handful of linseeds (also called flaxseeds)
A small handful of sunflower seeds
A few almonds
1 banana
In summer: a handful of fresh blueberries and/or raspberries
In winter: a handful of raisins or dried cherries or dried strawberries
In any season: a couple dried apricots or other dried fruit of your choosing

Slice the banana, wash the berries if applicable, and cut up any dried fruit that's bigger than a button (dried apricots, peaches, apples, kiwis, mangos...). Combine all ingredients together, mix well, and eat!

A few notes:
1. I don't generally put in all the fruits I mentioned here - usually I just pick one or two, but I wanted to mention all my favorites!
2. To make this more like granola, you could toast the oats with some honey, brown sugar, canola oil, etc. beforehand. I actually like them plain, but if you prefer yours a bit sweeter, then you can prepare a big batch of oats like this and then just use those each morning.

Casarecce alla maltese

Though I'm just at the start of my Maltese culinary adventures, one thing I have learned about very quickly is the ftira maltija - basically the Maltese sandwich. It's made with ftira, a crusty round bread unique to Malta (as far as I can tell), tomatoes, tuna, olives, and of course capers, which grow wild on the islands. I decided to turn the sandwich into a pasta dish, and the result was quite good, maybe even better than the sandwich!


I used casarecce because I happened to have a bunch on hand, but you could probably substitute almost any type of pasta here. I think both long and short types would work, so spaghetti, farfalle, maccheroni, whatever. The casarecce I used were whole wheat, which I think goes well in this dish, as there are a lot of strong, salty flavors.

Ingredients (per person):
75 g. whole wheat casarecce
1 small yellow onion
1 large clove of garlic
1 small can good-quality tuna
4 large green olives
A handful of fairly fresh capers
Crushed tomatoes/tomato pulp
Extra-virgin olive oil
Oregano
Pepper

First, bring a large pot of water to a boil. While it's heating up, prepare the other ingredients. Peel and chop the onion; crush the garlic, peel it, and then chop it up a bit into even smaller bits; and rinse the olives and capers. Crush the olives with the flat side of a knife to remove the pits and then chop them up. Drain the olive oil from the tuna and break it up a bit with a fork.

When the water is boiling, salt it, and add the casarecce, stirring them every so often to keep them from sticking. After a few minutes, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and when it's hot, add the garlic. After about 15 seconds, add the onion too. Once the onion has turned soft, add the olives, capers, tuna, and tomato pulp, and turn the heat down to low.

When the casarecce are al dente, drain them and add them to the sauce. Sprinkle with oregano and pepper, stir up, and serve warm. Especially serve warm if it's a gray, rainy day like it was here today - in Malta, there don't seem to be gutters, so just a bit of rain makes the streets get crazy flooded!!

Spaghetti with tuna and fresh tomatoes

A simple meal for complicated times...


I haven't updated much recently because, well, I haven't been cooking much recently. Instead, I've been moving to Malta (after a brief stop in New York)! Briefly, I'll be studying at the University of Malta for a year as part of a master's program - not something I would have even suspected one year ago!

Life has been pretty hectic these past few weeks, what with seeing all my friends before leaving the country, moving to a new land, looking for an apartment, etc. It was strange to go for two whole weeks without so much as preparing a sandwich, but now that I'm finally settled into an apartment, I've started cooking again, and it definitely feels good!

Whenever I move to a new place or am dealing with a lot of complicated stuff in my life, I tend to fall back to cooking what I know and love best. This has meant I've been eating lots of spaghetti with tomato sauce and vegetables, but I've also been alternating that with this dish, which is even easier to prepare, and is of course, delicious. If you want to make it, definitely do it soon, before all the good tomatoes vanish!

Ingredients (per person):
75 g. spaghetti
1 small can of tuna, or half a larger can
A couple handfuls (about 10) cherry tomatoes or one large tomato
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Oregano

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and add the spaghetti. While the spaghetti are cooking, wash the tomatoes and chop them in halves, or into small chunks if you're using a large tomato. Drain any olive oil from the tuna can, mash it up with a fork, and add to the tomatoes.

Note that I like to drain the olive oil from the can and add my own because the olive oil used to preserve tuna is generally of a lower quality, and if there's one thing I adore besides really good bread, it's really good olive oil! If you don't care about this, then of course you can just use the same olive oil the tuna came in.

When the spaghetti are al dente, drain them, and add them to the tuna and tomatoes. Add a spoonful or two of olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and oregano, mix up well, and serve!

I've also tried this with sun-dried tomatoes, and it was great, although rather salty. Adding some fresh mozzarella might help even things out a bit - I'll hopefully try that one out soon!

Vols-au-vent - Daring Bakers Challenge

I joined the Daring Bakers exactly one year ago, for several reasons. I loved the idea of a whole bunch of people all baking different interpretations of the same thing at the same time. I wanted to challenge myself with recipes that I wouldn't have thought/dared to have made otherwise. I wanted to improve my baking and expand my repertoire. And a part of me also just wanted to be able to say things like "Homemade puff pasty? Oh yeah, I've done that. No problem!"


This month's challenge - vols-au-vent, which are light-as-air french puff pastries that can be filled with almost anything you desire - was a perfect embodiment of all the reasons I joined the Daring Bakers. It's something I don't normally make (I tried the pastry once before, somewhat disastrously, and likely wouldn't have tried again if not for this challenge), it involves new baking techniques, and it allows for so much creativity.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

It's been fascinating to see what everyone filled their vols-au-vent with. So far, I think my favorite is julieruble's description of her peach crisp vols-au-vent filled with baked peaches, brown sugar, toasted pecans, oats, and warm butter and topped with whipped cream - yum!!

As I was preparing mine for a dinner party, I opted for a savory filling, and roasted some tomatoes with feta, fresh herbs, and lots of olive oil. I had also planned to fill half with a zucchini flan I made, but it turned out that I had more than enough of the tomato-feta dip to fill the 16 pastries I brought, and the zucchini flans looked so cute on their own, it seemed a shame to chop them up to stuff them in the pastry!

Vol-au-vent filled with roasted tomatoes & feta

The day of the dinner party, I was actually fairly sure the pastries would be a disaster. I had run into some issues with the first pastry rolling, and I was afraid the butter had managed to seep into the flour and so all the other rollings would be futile. I warned my friend ahead of time that the pastries, while certain to taste good (with a pound of butter in them, how could they not?), might not look particularly elegant. So I was beyond delighted when I put in the first batch and lo and behold, the little things rose right up!! Pastry magic happening right in my own oven =)

So if I could make them, then I'm pretty sure that almost anyone can, and I have to say that I have rarely felt as excited baking something as I did with these. So, on to the recipe (puff pastry recipe below instructions for making vols-au-vent, my notes in purple):

Equipment:
-food processor (will make mixing dough easy, but I imagine this can be done by hand as well) *I mixed the dough by hand - not a problem, although I may not have mixed it as thoroughly, as I didn't want to get it too warm
-rolling pin
-pastry brush
-metal bench scraper (optional, but recommended)
-plastic wrap
-baking sheet
-parchment paper
-silicone baking mat (optional, but recommended)
-set of round cutters (optional, but recommended)
-sharp chef’s knife
-fork
-oven
-cooling rack

Prep Times:
-about 4-5 hours to prepare the puff pastry dough (much of this time is inactive, while you wait for the dough to chill between turns…it can be stretched out over an even longer period of time if that better suits your schedule)
-about 1.5 hours to shape, chill and bake the vols-au-vent after your puff pastry dough is complete

Forming and Baking the Vols-au-Vent

Yield: 1/3 of the puff pastry recipe below will yield about 8-10 1.5” vols-au-vent or 4 4” vols-au-vent

In addition to the equipment listed above, you will need:
-well-chilled puff pastry dough (recipe below)
-egg wash (1 egg or yolk beaten with a small amount of water)
-your filling of choice

Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

Using a knife or metal bench scraper, divided your chilled puff pastry dough into three equal pieces. Work with one piece of the dough, and leave the rest wrapped and chilled. (If you are looking to make more vols-au-vent than the yield stated above, you can roll and cut the remaining two pieces of dough as well…if not, then leave refrigerated for the time being or prepare it for longer-term freezer storage.)

On a lightly floured surface, roll the piece of dough into a rectangle about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick. Transfer it to the baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the cutting.

(This assumes you will be using round cutters, but if you do not have them, it is possible to cut square vols-au-vents using a sharp chef’s knife.) *I actually didn't have any round cutters, but I found a handy substitute in a cocktail shaker!! It was nice and sharp, and the two circles it gave me were just the right sizes. For smaller, hors d'oeuvre sized vols-au-vent, use a 1.5” round cutter to cut out 8-10 circles. For larger sized vols-au-vent, fit for a main course or dessert, use a 4” cutter to cut out about 4 circles. Make clean, sharp cuts and try not to twist your cutters back and forth or drag your knife through the dough. Half of these rounds will be for the bases, and the other half will be for the sides. (Save any scrap by stacking—not wadding up—the pieces…they can be re-rolled and used if you need extra dough. If you do need to re-roll scrap to get enough disks, be sure to use any rounds cut from it for the bases, not the ring-shaped sides.)

Using a ¾-inch cutter for small vols-au-vent, or a 2- to 2.5-inch round cutter for large, cut centers from half of the rounds to make rings. These rings will become the sides of the vols-au-vent, while the solid disks will be the bottoms. You can either save the center cut-outs to bake off as little “caps” for you vols-au-vent, or put them in the scrap pile.

Vols-au-vent cut-outs

Dock the solid bottom rounds with a fork (prick them lightly, making sure not to go all the way through the pastry) and lightly brush them with egg wash. Place the rings directly on top of the bottom rounds and very lightly press them to adhere. Brush the top rings lightly with egg wash, trying not to drip any down the sides (which may inhibit rise). If you are using the little “caps,” dock and egg wash them as well.

Refrigerate the assembled vols-au-vent on the lined baking sheet while you pre-heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). (You could also cover and refrigerate them for a few hours at this point.)

Assembled vols-au-vent, ready for baking!

Once the oven is heated, remove the sheet from the refrigerator and place a silicon baking mat (preferred because of its weight) or another sheet of parchment over top of the shells. This will help them rise evenly. Bake the shells until they have risen and begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes depending on their size. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), and remove the silicon mat or parchment sheet from the top of the vols-au-vent. If the centers have risen up inside the vols-au-vent, you can gently press them down. Continue baking (with no sheet on top) until the layers are golden, about 15-20 minutes more. (If you are baking the center “caps” they will likely be finished well ahead of the shells, so keep an eye on them and remove them from the oven when browned.)

Remove to a rack to cool. Cool to room temperature for cold fillings or to warm for hot fillings.

Fill and serve.

*For additional rise on the larger-sized vols-au-vents, you can stack one or two additional ring layers on top of each other (using egg wash to "glue"). This will give higher sides to larger vols-au-vents, but is not advisable for the smaller ones, whose bases may not be large enough to support the extra weight.

*Although they are at their best filled and eaten soon after baking, baked vols-au-vent shells can be stored airtight for a day.

*Shaped, unbaked vols-au-vent can be wrapped and frozen for up to a month (bake from frozen, egg-washing them first. See the “Tips” section below for more storage info.).

Michel Richard’s Puff Pastry Dough

From: Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan
Yield: 2-1/2 pounds dough

Steph’s note: This recipe makes more than you will need for the quantity of vols-au-vent stated above. While I encourage you to make the full recipe of puff pastry, as extra dough freezes well, you can halve it successfully if you’d rather not have much leftover.

There is a wonderful on-line video from the PBS show “Baking with Julia” that accompanies the book. In it, Michel Richard and Julia Child demonstrate making puff pastry dough (although they go on to use it in other applications). They do seem to give slightly different ingredient measurements verbally than the ones in the book…I listed the recipe as it appears printed in the book. http://video.pbs.org/video/1174110297/search/Pastry

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups (12.2 oz/ 354 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1-1/4 cups (5.0 oz/ 142 g) cake flour
1 tbsp. salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
1-1/4 cups (10 fl oz/ 300 ml) ice water
1 pound (16 oz/ 454 g) very cold unsalted butter

*I added a spoonful or so of lemon juice, which was recommended to help relax the gluten in the dough, making rolling easier

plus extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the Dough:

Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them.

Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.)

Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that's about 1" thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter:

Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10" square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with "ears," or flaps.

Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don't just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8" square.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the Turns:

Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24" (don't worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24", everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!).

With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn.

Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24" and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough:

If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you've completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns.

The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.

Folded pastry dough

Pearl couscous with cucumber and avocado

Soon I will be leaving California once again, and so it seemed fitting that before I head off on my next adventures, I should make something that features avocado, a fruit that always makes me think of California!


This dish combines avocado with just a few other flavors - cucumber, lemon juice, basil, and dill - and mixes it all up with pearl couscous, which is one of my favorite grains and is ridiculously easy to prepare. In fact, the whole thing hardly takes any time, tastes great, and is very refreshing both warm and cold.

Ingredients (for one serving):
75 g. pearl couscous (also known as Israeli or Lebanese couscous)
1 ripe avocado
1/3 of a cucumber
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh dill
A few spoonfuls of extra-virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Wash the basil and dill. Chop the dill finely, and tear up the basil leaves by hand. Combine the basil and dill with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper; stir; and let sit. You can either prepare everything else immediately, or else let the herb mixture sit half an hour first.

Bring a small pot of water to a boil, and add the pearl couscous. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit 10 minutes or so, until the couscous have soaked up the water. Meanwhile, peel the cucumber, and chop it into thickish wedges.

Chop the avocado into wedges as well. I usually slice the avocado in half, then cut in a checkerboard pattern across each half, while leaving the peel on. After that, I can just turn the halves upside down, push the peel inwards, and the avocado wedges just fall out.

Once the couscous are done, drain any excess water, and combine them with the cucumber, avocado, and herb mixture. Stir well and serve warm, or else refrigerate for later.

Dobos Torte - Daring Bakers Challenge

Since I almost never bake cakes, almost every cake I do make involves some kind of first for me. The Dobos Torte gave me my first experience with a layer cake (and my first experience making sponge cake), and though I envisioned all sorts of things going wrong - layers sliding off each other, a cake leaning perilously to one side - the cake-making actually went fairly smoothly.


The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

The Dobos Torte is a layer cake that interleaves rounds of sponge cake with a rich chocolate buttercream, and tops it all with a layer of caramel wedges.


While the cake is quite impressive to look at, I found that in terms of taste, the easier an element was to make, the better it tasted! The chocolate buttercream was divine, and it was by far the simplest thing to make. The sponge cake, while not bad, didn't really stand out taste-wise, and it sure required a lot more work than the buttercream. Finally, the caramel, which required a fair bit of attention and cutlery skills, ended up being more spectacle than edible. A whole wedge was overwhelming in its sweetness and, perhaps more importantly, much too hard on the teeth! Most people tried a bite or two and then left their wedges to the side while they devoured the rest of the cake.

If I were to make this cake again, I would probably just forget about the caramel and cover the top with shaved almonds or hazelnuts. Actually, I think I would just make the buttercream and forget about everything else =)


Below is the recipe, with my notes in purple.

Equipment

• 2 baking sheets
• 9” (23cm) springform tin and 8” cake tin, for templates
• mixing bowls (1 medium, 1 large)
• a sieve
• a double boiler (a large saucepan plus a large heat-proof mixing bowl which fits snugly over the top of the pan)
• a small saucepan
• a whisk (you could use a balloon whisk for the entire cake, but an electric hand whisk or stand mixer will make life much easier)
• metal offset spatula
• sharp knife
• a 7 1/2” cardboard cake round, or just build cake on the base of a sprinfrom tin.
• piping bag and tip, optional

Prep times

• Sponge layers 20 mins prep, 40 mins cooking total if baking each layer individually.
• Buttercream: 20 mins cooking. Cooling time for buttercream: about 1 hour plus 10 minutes after this to beat and divide.
• Caramel layer: 10-15 minutes.
• Assembly of whole cake: 20 minutes

Sponge cake layers

• 6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups (162g) confectioner's (icing) sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (112g) sifted cake flour (SUBSTITUTE 95g plain flour + 17g cornflour (cornstarch) sifted together)
• pinch of salt

Chocolate Buttercream

• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup (200g) caster (ultrafine or superfine white) sugar
• 4oz (110g) bakers chocolate or your favourite dark chocolate, finely chopped *I used Valrhona 70%, which is my favorite baking chocolate (also good just to eat by itself!)
  
• 2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons (250g) unsalted butter, at room temperature.

Caramel topping

• 1 cup (200g) caster (superfine or ultrafine white) sugar
• 12 tablespoons (180 ml) water
• 8 teaspoons (40 ml) lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon neutral oil (e.g. grapeseed, rice bran, sunflower)

Finishing touches

• a 7” cardboard round
• 12 whole hazelnuts, peeled and toasted *Sadly, it is very difficult to find hazelnuts here, so I had to substitute filberts. I don't like their taste anywhere near as much, but since they serve more of a structural purpose here, I figured it was better than using a differently shaped nuts.
  
• ½ cup (50g) peeled and finely chopped hazelnuts *Due to the above-mentioned scarcity of hazelnuts, I substituted slivered almonds.
  

Directions for the sponge layers:

NB. The sponge layers can be prepared in advance and stored interleaved with parchment and well-wrapped in the fridge overnight.

1.Position the racks in the top and centre thirds of the oven and heat to 400F (200C).
2.Cut six pieces of parchment paper to fit the baking sheets. Using the bottom of a 9" (23cm) springform tin as a template and a dark pencil or a pen, trace a circle on each of the papers, and turn them over (the circle should be visible from the other side, so that the graphite or ink doesn't touch the cake batter.)
3.Beat the egg yolks, 2/3 cup (81g) of the confectioner's (icing) sugar, and the vanilla in a medium bowl with a mixer on high speed until the mixture is thick, pale yellow and forms a thick ribbon when the beaters are lifted a few inches above the batter, about 3 minutes. (You can do this step with a balloon whisk if you don't have a mixer.)

4.In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 2/3 cup (81g) of confectioner's (icing)sugar until the whites form stiff, shiny peaks. Using a large rubber spatula, stir about 1/4 of the beaten whites into the egg yolk mixture, then fold in the remainder, leaving a few wisps of white visible. Combine the flour and salt. Sift half the flour over the eggs, and fold in; repeat with the remaining flour.
5.Line one of the baking sheets with a circle-marked paper. Using a small offset spatula, spread about 3/4cup of the batter in an even layer, filling in the traced circle on one baking sheet. Bake on the top rack for 5 minutes, until the cake springs back when pressed gently in the centre and the edges are lightly browned. While this cake bakes, repeat the process on the other baking sheet, placing it on the centre rack. When the first cake is done, move the second cake to the top rack. Invert the first cake onto a flat surface and carefully peel off the paper. Slide the cake layer back onto the paper and let stand until cool. Rinse the baking sheet under cold running water to cool, and dry it before lining with another parchment. Continue with the remaining papers and batter to make a total of six layers. Completely cool the layers. Using an 8" springform pan bottom or plate as a template, trim each cake layer into a neat round. (A small serrated knife is best for this task.)

A sponge layer

Directions for the chocolate buttercream:

NB. This can be prepared in advance and kept chilled until required.

1.Prepare a double-boiler: quarter-fill a large saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.
2.Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale and thickened, about five minutes. You can use a balloon whisk or electric hand mixer for this.
3.Fit bowl over the boiling water in the saucepan (water should not touch bowl) and lower the heat to a brisk simmer. Cook the egg mixture, whisking constantly, for 2-3 minutes until you see it starting to thicken a bit. Whisk in the finely chopped chocolate and cook, stirring, for a further 2-3 minutes.
4.Scrape the chocolate mixture into a medium bowl and leave to cool to room temperature. It should be quite thick and sticky in consistency.
5.When cool, beat in the soft butter, a small piece (about 2 tablespoons/30g) at a time. An electric hand mixer is great here, but it is possible to beat the butter in with a spatula if it is soft enough. You should end up with a thick, velvety chocolate buttercream. Chill while you make the caramel topping.

Chocolate buttercream

Lorraine's note: If you're in Winter just now your butter might not soften enough at room temperature, which leads to lumps forming in the buttercream. Male sure the butter is of a very soft texture I.e. running a knife through it will provide little resistance, before you try to beat it into the chocolate mixture. Also, if you beat the butter in while the chocolate mixture is hot you'll end up with more of a ganache than a buttercream!

Directions for the caramel topping:

1.Choose the best-looking cake layer for the caramel top. To make the caramel topping: Line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper and butter the paper. Place the reserved cake layer on the paper. Score the cake into 12 equal wedges. Lightly oil a thin, sharp knife and an offset metal spatula.
2.Stir the sugar, water and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. Once dissolved into a smooth syrup, turn the heat up to high and boil without stirring, swirling the pan by the handle occasionally and washing down any sugar crystals on the sides of the pan with a wet brush until the syrup has turned into an amber-coloured caramel.
3.The top layer is perhaps the hardest part of the whole cake so make sure you have a oiled, hot offset spatula ready. I also find it helps if the cake layer hasn't just been taken out of the refrigerator. I made mine ahead of time and the cake layer was cold and the toffee set very, very quickly—too quickly for me to spread it. Immediately pour all of the hot caramel over the cake layer. You will have some leftover most probably but more is better than less and you can always make nice toffee pattern using the extra to decorate. Using the offset spatula, quickly spread the caramel evenly to the edge of the cake layer. Let cool until beginning to set, about 30 seconds. Using the tip of the hot oiled knife (keep re-oiling this with a pastry brush between cutting), cut through the scored marks to divide the caramel layer into 12 equal wedges. Cool another minute or so, then use the edge of the knife to completely cut and separate the wedges using one firm slice movement (rather than rocking back and forth which may produce toffee strands). Cool completely.

Caramel wedges

Angela's note: I recommend cutting, rather than scoring, the cake layer into wedges before covering in caramel (reform them into a round). If you have an 8” silicon round form, then I highly recommend placing the wedges in that for easy removal later and it also ensures that the caramel stays on the cake layer. Once set, use a very sharp knife to separate the wedges.

Assembling the Dobos

1.Divide the buttercream into six equal parts.
2.Place a dab of chocolate buttercream on the middle of a 7 1/2” cardboard round and top with one cake layer. Spread the layer with one part of the chocolate icing. Repeat with 4 more cake layers. Spread the remaining icing on the sides of the cake.
3.Optional: press the finely chopped hazelnuts onto the sides of the cake.
4.Propping a hazelnut under each wedge so that it sits at an angle, arrange the wedges on top of the cake in a spoke pattern. If you have any leftover buttercream, you can pipe rosettes under each hazelnut or a large rosette in the centre of the cake. Refrigerate the cake under a cake dome until the icing is set, about 2 hours. Let slices come to room temperature for the best possible flavour.

I had a bit of sponge and buttercream left over, so I made a mini-slice with 8 layers - easier than making a whole 8-layer cake!

Fusilli estivi con pesto

This is a sort of take-off on caprese - the classic Italian salad of mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Here the basil comes in the form of pesto, which is very useful if you have too much basil to make a normal caprese!


Though I had my own basil plant last summer, this summer I've been moving around/on vacation too much to deal with having plants, so I've just been buying basil at the farmer's markets each week. The only problem with this is that you can't buy basil in quantities smaller than a gigantic bunch, and of course basil only lasts for a few days, so you have to eat it quick!

Since I really can't eat that much basil on my own, I've just been using as much as I need and then turning the rest into pesto. This has led to a bevy of interesting pesto creations for dinner, and so far, this pasta is my favorite.

Ingredients:
75 g. fusilli per person
A handful of cherry tomatoes
Ciliegini di mozzarella (the little cherry tomato-sized balls of mozzarella)
Kalamata olives (I added them to jazz things up, but if you want to keep it simple, they can easily be omitted)
Pesto
A few basil leaves for garnish

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and add the fusilli. Wash the basil, cherry tomatoes, and olives, and chop the cherry tomatoes into halves. Pit the olives, and chop them into halves.

When the pasta is done cooking, drain it, and run cold water over it to cool it. Drain again, and combine with the pesto, mixing well. Add the cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and olives, and mix again.

Serve, adding the basil leaves on top.