Hot Milk Sponge Cake and See You Soon!

I feel that reached this point it would be more honest and straight forward to take a break from my blogging life. Although I enjoy cooking and sharing what I do with my dear ones, I do not feel the need of blogging about it. I am just not inspired!!

Do not get wrong! My free time at home has reduced by a factor of a 1000! My loving horse Oberon gets the largets part of my free time and my desire of having my appartment almost perfectly tidy the rest of the time ...

Do not think I will be gone forever .... my closest friends know that I "disapear" from time to time but I always come back.

It feels that I need the time for me. And my new ME loves myself and has promise to take care of me. So there you go!

Thanks so much for being there, for sharing with me your comments and experiences, for being so nice and supportive. I will see you very soon!!

The recipe is from "The Amish Cook´s: Baking Book" which has got all my attention in the past weeks . I highly recomend it!! The cake was yummy and fluffy!

I hope you like it!

Apple and Sage Cake

I had some beautiful sage in the freeze and considering how complicated is to find sage I though I should do something different.

I always had sage in a “salty” way: in the turkey stuffing, with pasta, pumpkin soup …. When I found this recipe from Chef Tim LaBant I was very curious to see how sage would work in a sweet cake.

The result is great. The taste of the sage works beautifully. The texture is juicy and rich, thanks to the grated apples.

I highly recommend it if you want to try something different. It’s always nice to “experiment” with new flavor combinations!

I hope you like it!!

Ingredients

Makes one 22-by-33 cm cake

Unsalted butter, for cake pan

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups raw sugar

3/4 cup canola oil

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups shredded Granny Smith apples, peeled

1/4 cup loosely packed sage, finely chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Butter the baking pan and line with parchment paper; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, and oil. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt; mix until well combined. Stir in apples and sage; mix until well combined.

Pour batter into baking pan and transfer to oven. Bake until a cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely.

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Honey Frosting

Pumpkins were never a big thing to me until I went to school to US. Pumpkins are not very popular in Spain, except from Cinderella´s one. It was when I worked in NYC, when I learn how much you can do with pumpkins. Even going to Starbucks and get a Pumpkin Spice Latte!!!

The flavor of the spices with the pumpkin is kind of unknown in Spain. Whenever I bake with pumpkin I get some looks saying: You said you are baking with what?.

After they try the pie or the cake their reaction is always “surprise”. My friends and family do not expect the delicious taste and always come back for more!!

This fragrant pumpkin spice cake is very easy to make. The recipe is from John Barricelli. His book “ The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook” has great simple and tasty recipes.

I hope you like it!

Ingredients

Cake

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon pumpkin-pie spice (or 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/8 cloves)

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

15 ounces (425 gr) pumpkin puree

Honey Frosting

1/2 cup (125 gr) unsalted butter, very soft

8 ounces (225 gr) cream cheese, very soft

1/4 cup Honey

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch ( 23cm) baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin-pie spice. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, butter, and pumpkin puree until combined. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture, and mix gently until smooth.

Turn batter into prepared pan, and smooth top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake 10 minutes in pan, then turn out of pan, and cool completely, right side up, on a rack.

Make Honey Frosting: In a medium bowl, whisk butter, cream cheese, and honey until smooth.

Spread top of cooled cake with honey frosting.