rum

sand cake with nuts and a little rum

by Eva on October 25, 2012

This cake was made for traveling. We had been on the road again and I was looking for a treat, that would keep us going behind the steering wheel for so many hours. Although chocolate cake is my favorite, it is not safe for car seats and pants and causes smudgy fingers. Chocolate is a no go, especially if you have a limited amount of pants in your bag and I don’t have to tell you how chocolate cake crumbs look on a bud. I was in need for a good alternative and remembered an old fashioned German recipe, yes ~~stolen~~ borrowed from my mums folder.

This cake is sandy, flavorful and tastes even better every next day. The rum is just there to complete the nuts and I couldn’t t even taste it, though I knew it was in it. If you don’t like it, substitute with what you have on hand. But that’s on your own risk, I wouldn’t change a thing. On the nut side, go nuts with those nuts, swap with whatever you like.

In other exciting news: we are moving again. If I would count the times I moved in the last six years, I would need my second hand. Our road trip was not just for fun, it was also or mainly to experience our future home town. Where to life is our first concern. Oh I forgot to tell you, we are moving to Atlanta, GA. Please help me out with tips for restaurants (yes I already had been to Cakes & Ale, awesome!), places needed to be visited, things needed to be done and seen. So if you have anything to say about Atlanta, please leave a comment, it might be helpful for me and many other readers.

sand cake with nuts and rum

ingredients

125 g / 1 cup all-purpose flour
125 g / 1 cup potato starch (or corn starch)
100 g / 1 1/3 cup ground nuts (I used hazelnuts)
1 tsp baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2 tsp salt
zest of one lime
4 Tbsp rum
200 g / 1 cup granulated sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
225 g / 1 cup unsalted butter
3 large eggs

instructions

Preheat your oven to 175 C / 350 F and grease your Bundt cake pan.
In a small bowl measure and mix dry ingredients: flour, starch, nuts, baking powder, salt and set aside.
In a large bowl cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and mix well after every addition. Add flour mix, lime zest, rum and mix until just incorporated.
Place batter into Bundt cake pan and bake 55-65 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out without crumbs clinging to it.

Number of servings (yield): 12

The hotel we stayed in, was just some blogs away from Piedmont Park. I love to share some snapshots, I took on the green market last Saturday. It was one of the perfect days: sunny weather, live music, amazing vendors with a wide range of choices, families on blankets, enjoying picnics, playing frisbee and meeting friends.

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Brazilian coffee cocktail

by Eva on February 10, 2012

Lately I am a magnet for minor and intermediate disasters, actually I always had been but things are escalating. Sometimes I believe bad things just happen to me but at the end it is how it is, this is me and I should come with a warning. Just a list of last days debacles: I broke three glasses, of cause the expensive ones and every day one because it’s so much fun to clean the floor. If I look on my left hand, I can see two cuts slowly healing, still love sharp knifes. I bought bad milk and realized it too late. Disgusting! My left knee is full off bruises and I don’t even know why. My new pass pics? I am so sorry for everyone who has to see them, seriously I can’t explain how this happened (again). I am going to blush every time I have to fetch it.

These pee-wee accidents are bad, but after all I wish they would triple if it would make the next catastrophe never happen. One of my most enjoyed habits is surfing through the internet, reading blogs, writing emails while sipping hot coffee. Until I missed the coaster and my cup tipped over and suddenly there was coffee all over. The damage was ugly, a pile of unsorted papers (recipes and notes) drenched and forever unreadable, my clothes, pencils and pens etc. Until then my desk had always been a mess, ultimate destination for surprisingly a lot of stuff. The smell of coffee stuck in my nose like the overdose of someone’s intense scent. The odor of fresh made coffee in the morning? Yes me love that. But at this point in time it made me sick, not appealing at all.

And now the worst thing, you might already guessed… A wave of coffee made it into my notebook through the usb ports and the screen went black immediately. Red alert and a panic attack later I got everything under control, after all I am used to deal with situations like this. I like to see things positive, important documents are covered in plastic folders (I know me), my camera had been save and the carpet didn’t get one drop. After a few times waxing my desk it looks like new again, at least how new an old table can look.
Do you know this smart IT guys? Bad haircut and strange glasses? One of them looked at me and said: “You spilled coffee on your notebook? Happens all the time… No you are not a case for the emergency room, you killed this patient anyway, you’ll need an appointment.” They smile and think they are funny. I said something like thank you with a clenched fist in my pocket, the rest of my thoughts never left my brain. Without really knowing I made a comprehensive backup and just lost the lasts days data. And it took just one day to recover my coffee addiction.

Brazilian coffee cocktail
serves 2-3

120 ml / 1/2 cup chilled espresso
60 ml / 1/4 cup rum or cachaca
60 ml / 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
ice cubes
Combine everything in a shaker or ball jar, add ice cubes and shake well. Arrange in glasses and add more ice cubes if desired.
some notes:
More ice cubes means the cocktail becomes more watery. Chill all ingredients and make ahead some coffee ice cubes. Use good quality espresso, just strong coffee isn’t doing the same job.

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chocolate rum cake

by Eva on October 8, 2010

Do you know Dorie? I mean have you heard about Dorie Greenspan’s delicious recipes (or better tried one) or read something she wrote? The first of her articles I read was in an older issue of one of the food magazines which I found on a flea market. She compared three coffee machines with John Wayne’s campfire coffee and made it so interesting and smart that I liked to read it without even needing a new coffee maker.
So I remembered her name as I stumbled over her Baking – From my home to yours in our public library and without even looking in it, I added it to my batch of books. To avoid buying ‘wrong’ books, I like to test it for a while but this is not necessary if you have one of Mrs. Greenspan books in your hand.
This chocolate rum cake is adapted from her Baking – From my home to yours, you can find it on page 278-281 and it is called: Chocolate Armagnac Cake – the cake that got me fired. Her cake recipe has Armagnac, pecans and a story.

Her recipes calls for bittersweet chocolate but I only found semisweet in my pantry. There is not a hugh difference between these two, more important is that you use a good quality chocolate. I was running out of walnuts so I filled it up with hazelnuts. And I wish I would have had more dried plums, the plum pieces in this cake are great. This cake has a brownie texture so it is a little moist, don’t over bake it but it shouldn’t be wet inside.

chocolate rum cake

the original recipe calls for a 8 inch (20 cm) pan,
I used my 10 inch (26 cm) spring form

1/4 cup dried plums
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup spiced rum

200 g / 7.05 oz. semisweet chocolate
110 g / 1 stick unsalted butter
3 tablespoon water

150 g / 2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs (at room temperature)

80 g / 2/3 cup ground walnut and hazelnuts
45 g / 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

for the glaze
85 g / 3 oz. semisweet chocolate
40 g / 3 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoon powdered sugar

Cut the dried prunes into chunks and put together with the raisins and rum for at least one hour.

Melt the chocolate, butter and water in your microwave oven. This takes just a few seconds, be careful not to burn the chocolate. Let cool.

Preheat your oven to 375 F / 190 C. Line the bottom of your pan with parchment paper and butter the rest of the pan.

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolk with the sugar in a large bowl until it turns pale for about 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile put the ground nuts, flour and salt in a smaller bowl and stir.
Beat the egg whites until they are glossy and form stiff peaks. Be careful not to over beat them, they can get liquid again.

Now stir everything together into the egg yolks: use a rubber spatula and start with the chocolate/butter, then the nuts/flour, the drunken dried fruits with the rum and at least the egg whites by using a wire whisk and carefully fold into the mix.

Pour batter into your baking form and bake for about 30 minutes. Cake is done when it passes the toothpick test.

Let it cool for a few minutes before you remove the pan.

To make the glaze let the chocolate melt in the microwave oven for a few seconds. Stir in the butter and the powdered sugar until everything is well combined. Make sure your cake is cool before you glaze it. Pour the glaze over your cake with a spatula and let cool.

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sand cake with nuts and a little rum