Little bit of magic for Christmas... or New Years Eve!

I tasted this cake at the time when I was working at the French Patisserie and I fall in love with it. Now when I was looking for something to bake for Christmas I accidentally came across this blog with the recipe! As I was reading I realized that the blog author has experienced the same: first watched it being made on the TV and then later found the recipe in the magazine. I sure agree with Bree that this cake is magical not only because of the taste, but also because of the baking process. You see... the cake base floats up and exchanges with the flan without any mixing! Try it for yourself... it might be too late for Christmas, but there is always time for your New Year's party ;)

  

CHOCOLATE FLAN CAKE

For the cake:

• 120g caramel/toffee sauce
• 75g cup flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 110g bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 85g butter, melted
• 120ml buttermilk
• 110g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

For the flan:

• 2 (395g) cans sweetened condensed milk
• 600 ml whole milk
• 175g cream cheese
• 6 eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Spray a Bundt cake tin with baking spray. Pour caramel/toffee sauce into the bottom of cake pan.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. Place chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl, heat until melted, 2 minutes at 50% power. Whisk buttermilk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla into chocolate until incorporated. Add flour mixture and stir until combined. Pour batter over caramel.
3. Add sweetened condensed milk. milk, cream cheese, eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla to a blender, Blend for one minute, or until very smooth. Slowly pour over cake batter.
4. Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan. Pour boiling water halfway up the sides of the pan and bake for 75 to 90 minutes, or when a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Transfer to refrigerator and chill for at least 8 hours.
5. To unmold, place the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 1 minute. Place a cake plate over the cake pan and flip over. Slowly remove pan and serve.
6. Visit BakedBree for the instructions in pictures.

Gingerbread cookies for snowy weather :)

I am finally almost there! My presents are almost packed, a lot of my knitting projects are over, my baking is coming to the end and the most importantly I am here in Lithuania watching the snow falling down :) (sorry I needed to brag).

Anyway... as I am waiting for Christmas Eve to come I remembered about last years' Christmass and the lovely gift that I received from Liz. That was a little folder with all the American recipes including the gingerbread cookies recipe of course. I baked so many this year!

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

Ingredients:  490g flour
                     1/4 tsp salt
                     1/2 tsp baking soda
                     1/4 tsp ground cloves (I used all spice mix instead)
                     2 tsp ground ginger
                     1 tsp ground cinnamon
                     230g butter, softened to room temp
                     130 brown sugar
                     1 egg
                     90g treacle (if you can't find it you can substitute with more brown sugar)

Whisk together first 6 ingredients and set aside. In a separate bowl cream butter and sugar with a mixer. Add egg and molasses (or more brown sugar); beat on medium until mixture is smooth. Add the flour/spice mixture slowly, blend on low until just combined. Wrap in plastic and chill for an hour. Preheat oven to 165C. Roll out and cut cookies. Place 1/2 an inch apart on an ungreased pan. Bake for 9-11 minutes (be careful not to brown them as that means they are burning). Wait until they are cool and decorate with frosting if desired

Are you feeling Christmasy yet?

I love Christmas! Everything about it! I especially love baking and decorating. Have you done your Christmas decorating yet? I am sure you did! I have seen so many of my friends on Facebook putting all these wonderful pics of their homes which kind of put me under pressure. Because me as always never on time with this. And this is not because I have lack of inspiration, this is because I always run out of time. So here we go, I finally unloaded what was in my head already all made (including baking) and ready to go....

I even knitted this bird shape hanging decoration and if you remember last year's post on Christmas decoration this is exactly the pattern I used.

This bird decoration is not only for Christmass (it is for keeps ;). The knitting pattern for it is coming soon!

Happy Christmas waiting!