Black Apple Cake

I'm not very gung-ho on this whole Halloween thing. There are few but very specific things that give me the heebie jeebies. I'm talking creepy dolls (including but not exclusive to ventriloquist dolls, harlequin dolls, marionettes), insects, clay-mation, clowns (this extends to all manner of circus folk) and creepy children. Any of these things in isolation is bad enough. Start combining them, and I'm cowering and hiding for safety behind a baby (This happened with a mime on stilts at a farmers' market one sunny Sunday. I'm not proud of it, but I was left with no other choice). I wouldn't call it fun and I certainly wouldn't call it a "holiday."

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/cm/goodhousekeeping/images/KO/gidget-elton-john-lg.jpg

Then there's the costume element. In Canada we call it "dressing up". In Ireland we call it "fancy dress". In Canada "fancy dress" means dressing fancy. Confusing, right? Long story short, I'm slightly traumatised from rolling up to a "fancy dress" market in a Dublin city centre pub to sell cakes, dressed as Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (tin foil sais and all) only to be the sole costumed vendor among a group of strangers wearing fancy hats. No change of clothes. Nowhere to hide. Making matters worse, I used that very same costume for Halloween and was beaten for best costume by a girl dressed up as a sexy iPhone. 

(I'm also really not into the strange costumes that people dress babies in to pose for pictures, with the exception of this one)

http://www.afewofmyfavorites.com/2011/11/my-favorite-halloween-costume.html

I object. You won't find me baking bloody cakes covered in cobwebs and gravestones with zombies clawing their way out of it. No eye balls. No witch fingers. Not even pumpkins (by virtue of negative association). I'll use the theme loosely and make something that's actually appetizing. This year I dedicated my Halloween bake to a great local coffee shop. Here is my Black Apple Cake, an homage to one of my favorite Dublin coffee shops - the Black Apple Cafe.

The Black Apple Cafe is one of the coffee shops that I am very proud to do business with. It's a family-run spot in Harold's Cross and has become increasingly popular since opening in May 2012. The neighborhood was in need of a friendly, comfortable food stop serving excellent coffee, the best cakes (ahem...) and delicious meals. Black Apple took a brave chance in an area that was previously unlucky for many before them, and I sure think it was worth it. The sausage rolls are unreal. Truth be told, it's the only shop I supply that I actually frequent as a customer. It has a lovely genuine, laid back, warm atmosphere and is the kind of place you can sit down and soften in to. Everyone should have one of these cafes in their life. 

Black Apple Cafe

http://www.blackapple.ie

208 Harolds Cross Road, Dublin 6

Black Apple Cake

Ingredients:

340g Cream Flour

15g / 1 Tbsp Baking Powder

2.5g / 1/2 tsp salt

150g Irish Butter

600g eating apples, like Braburn

180g sugar

100mL milk

3 Irish Free Range eggs

5g / 1tsp Pure Vanilla extract

50g Demerera Sugar

2.5g/ 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Line a 10" round cake tin and preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

2. Peel and slice 600g eating apples. Toss in 180g sugar. Set aside

3. Sieve the flour, baking order and salt. Rub in the 150g butter.

4. Stir in the prepared apples.

4. Whisk the milk, eggs and vanilla to combine. Add to the dry ingredients and apple, and stir well to form a soft dough. Pour into your cake tin.

5. Mix the Demerera sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle on top of the cake and bake for about 40 minutes, until the colour is golden and the cake springs back to the touch. Cool completely.

For the Blackberry glaze, combine 250g sifted icing sugar and 15g / 1Tbsp fresh lemon juice. mix until very smooth. Add 100g fresh blackberries and squish them into the mix, using a fork. Allow chunks of blackberry to remain. Drizzle over the cooled apple cake and top with fresh blackberries. 

Enjoy!

Beer + Cake = Love

A looming VAT return deadline that I’m procrastinating on and a sudden revisit from the summer weather nudged me to finally get back into posting words on this blog. I have just the bind-blow to share with you. Check your judgments at the door. Wait for it… Cake and beer. I’ll let that pairing linger in your brain for a moment. Allow your reaction to gradually shift from, “Huh? That’ll never work,” to “Huh! Who knew that could work?!”

I’m here to tell you that it works. With special attention paid to the prominent and subtle flavours and textures of cakes, and the prominent, subtle, and lingering flavours and fizziness of quality craft beer, you can experience a rarely visited taste combination. And a tasty combination it is.

Photo courtesy of Sharon Gunter of www.gunternation.com

Caryna’s Cakes hosted a Cake + Beer tasting event way back in the summer. The lovely gentlemen of Beoir; John of The Beer Nut and Reuben of A Tale of Ale were kind enough to consult on pairings in advance of the night, and guide the tasting at the event. Their expertise on the brewing process, of Irish craft breweries and tasting delicious beers really elevated the event from, “This tastes good,” to “that is very interesting. This tastes good. I’m learning and drinking beer and eating 5 pieces cake at the same time. Being an adult isn’t that much of a bummer after all.”

Photo courtesy of Sharon Gunter of www.gunternation.com

Lime Coconut Macaroon cake was paired with Dungarvan Helvic Gold & Thyme Infused "Clara con Limón" (which is a spritzer)

I knew what variety or cakes I wanted to bake, although left the final recipes fairly loose until I knew exactly which beers we would be serving. I knew for sure that I wanted to serve nothing less than Irish craft beer. I am in deep love with Irish craft beer. Fittingly, I am also in deep love with cake. It turns out no career would suit me better.

Baked vanilla bean cheesecake was paired with White Gyspy Dubbel 

There were slim pickings on the Google to guide me on how exactly to pair beer and cake. But I knew it could be done. Cuilan and Sally from White Gypsy Brewery in Tipperary showed me that it could be done. It was a taste of his Belgian Dubbel paired with a chocolate raspberry cheesecake that set me off in the first place. It seemed that Caryna’s Cakes and Beoir would be hosting Ireland’s very first ever in the country on the planet Irish Craft Beer and Cake Tasting event. Ever.

Peanut caramel brownie was paired with Dungarvan Copper Ale

The general rule for tasting pairings is to go with either flavor matching (from example, the caramely notes in the Dungarvan Copper Ale complimented the caramel coating on the Peanut caramel brownies) and/or opposites. Here’s what we served:

Thyme-infused "Clara con Limón" with Dungarvan Helvic Gold & Lime coconut macaroon cake

O'Hara's Leann Follaín & Chili chocolate tart

Dungarvan Copper Ale & Peanut caramel brownie

Mac's apple cider & French crepes served with rhubarb apple compote

White Gyspy Dubbel & Baked vanilla bean cheesecake

As my grandfather Gica would say, "It was DELICIOUS." (Food love is in my blood)

Give (a) piece (of cake with beer) a chance.

I'm not one bit ashamed of that.

Caryna

www.carynascakes.com
@carynascakes

Seeking inspiration

Sunday was filled with inspiration. It all began with sausages...

Nothing says "this day is going to be great" than kicking it off with sausages as cooked by an Irishman (I'm handy in the kitchen but I'm plain garbage at cooking sausages. I believe it's a skill born unto you). I put on warm boots and headed for the hills. The Wicklow mountains, actually. We were going to spend the day in Macreddin Village, tasting the many delicious tastes to be tasted at their annual Wild & Slow event. We heard talks by Darina Allen about forgotten skills and Philip McCabe about honey. I came out of it inspired, vowing "I'm going to make jams!" Aidan came out of it inspired, vowing, "I'm going to be a beekeeper!" We ate many kinds of wild game and were inspired to bring some home and experiment with some recipes ourselves. We bought a ton of Irish mushrooms and Irish syrups (I was inspired to drink some whiskey and rose hip syrup before taking to this computer). I went home really believing in my vision for my own little food company.

Here's a lesson for you: Don't open your e-mails on a Sunday evening. Do as I say, not as I do. It was one of those e-mail that bombs in your tummy. The kind that announces a large and unexpected expense. Whatever I spent that day on delicious, magnificent, inspiring Irish food products...well multiply that by X and that's what I have to fork out. That smarts.

I am more active than reactive. I'm plain garbage at negotiations (that skill is born unto you, much like sausage preparation). But I believe hard. I have the gift of making a vision so real in my mind that I can make myself believe that it's already happening. If I focus enough, I am a professional baker. I have a baking company and I work for myself. I can choose to work on projects that continually inspire me. I can take my company in directions that are determined by my inspirations and by sentiment. I bake cake and people eat it. And enjoy it. In business, as in life, it sometimes serves best to focus on the good stuff and pour your energies there. That's where ideas linger, multiply and become inspirations.

Caryna

Calling estate agents

 Wa hey! It's been nearly a year since my last post and I'm ready to go again. I haven't been absent due to lack of interest. Actually, I've been super busy ever since getting my Irish citizenship (wa hey!) and therefore the green light to go full steam ahead with Caryna's Cakes. A lot has changed. Finishing the Baking and Pastry Arts Management certificate left me time to bake for more clients and in theory, more time to sleep and eat (in reality it just left time for more and more clients. Sleep is unfortunately still a privilege and I'm working on allowing myself fewer "meals on-the-go,"a.k.a. baby food in squeeze packs. Sounds gross but surprisingly tasty and mostly convenient).

Selling cakes like a nomadic baker has its perks and drawbacks. I'm itching to settle down and have a dream bakery to call my own. I'm on the lookout for the perfect premises where I can continue to supply cakes to independent coffee shops and make even more fancy occasion cakes. Mostly, I dream of the day I can bake cake and sell cake in the same place, at the same time.

My first stop: Estate Agents. I need options and it seems that the pickin's are slim. Help?


Caryna

Bonus!

For 10 Bonus points, what is this???

Answer: An egg piercer (or Salmonella carrier, as mom called it this morning). It is used to pierce the bottom of a raw egg before boiling it to prevent the egg from cracking while being boiled

The Obscure Kitchen Utensil Quiz

My visits home are wonderful. They always include spending time with my much missed family and friends, lounging on my super comfy couch watching recorded episodes of Ace of Cakes, making up for lost time with comfort foods and ALWAYS involves my mother trying to convince me to take home some of her obscure kitchen utensils.

My mother has the best stocked kitchen that ever was. She has collected a myriad of wooden spoons, kitchen tongs and spatulas over the years (Note: kitchen utensils is not even her official collection. That's confined to Swarovski crystal figurines, chopsticks and straws) and now has drawers overflowing with kitchen loot that she wants to bestow unto me. She wants to pass the obscure kitchen utensil torch.

It usually goes something like this-
I'll be eating my breakfast at the kitchen table and she'll be innocently working at something at the kitchen counter, when her arm juts upwards with something shiny in her hand and she asks loudly and hopefully, "do you need a cherry pitter?" A Yes means triumph. It means the utensil is deemed worthy enough to be shlepped across the atlantic, taking up a portion of my limited luggage allowance. A No means the utensil retreats to the drawer until my next visit, when she will try again. Her persistence sometimes works.

Here is a selection of some random utensils from my mother's kitchen drawer. Can you guess what these are used for?

Answer: 1) sticky rice spoon 2) falafel press 3) chestnut piercer 4) soda bottle gasser 5) ice pick 6) courgette corer 7) tablecloth crumb collector 8) citrus wedge squeezer 9) citrus thick zester 10) crinkle cut vegetable blade 11) crab meat pick 12) egg wedge segmenter 13) walnut pick
14) garlic crusher cleaner 15) olive spoon 16) cheese slicer 17) cherry pitter

Caryna Follow Caryna's Cakes on Twitter Like Caryna's Cakes on Facebook www.carynascakes.com

Stuffed Courgettes, Co-op style

I cook. I clean. I host dinner parties. I sell cake. I cater. I know how to use a chef knife. Kinda. I like inventing menus. Good food is important to me. I like people. I am able to stand for hours and hours on end. So running a cafe once a week should be easy, right? Well, no. It certainly is not.

The Dublin Food Co-op is housed in 12 Newmarket Square, nestled within the parameters of Cork Street, Blackpitts and the Liberties. On Saturdays it is an excellent and rare Organic food market where the people selling food are the producers of that food. There are growers, bakers, dairy farmers and olive oil pressers. There are herbalists, crafters and chefs. There is also a Cafe managed and run by the talented Luca and Aisling who are also behind the ever popular Dublin Flea, For Food Sake events and Chow street food (straight up yummiest falafel in town).

I have been given the exciting opportunity of managing the cafe in the Dublin Food Co-op on Thursdays  for the past 6 weeks, and will continue to do so until then end of the year. I have tendered my proposal to stay on in the new year and have my fingers crossed that I am chosen for the job. So far it had been a rewarding experience and I have learned so much. My Thursdays are long and they are filled with on-the-job self taught lessons. I have refined my menus and plan of attack every week since I started. So far I have learned:

1. Always have soup on the menu. Chili as a main does not satiate the soup yearner's appetite. Although it is soupy, it is not soup.

2.  A flat grill is not a hob. It is very difficult to bring a huge pot to boil on a flat grill. Therefore potatoes must be baked or roasted, not mashed. Learn to work within the limitations of the equipment you've got.

3. Baristas have difficult, skilled jobs. It is really frikin hard to get the milk heated to a perfect foam that has some lift but isn't dry. The day I am finally able to get that milk to the perfect consistency, allowing me to create that milky heart on the top of a cappuccino, is a day I will celebrate. Annually.

4. Make sure the menu is varied. There are lots of vegetables in this world. Make lunch colorful. Some customers are coeliac. Some customers are vegan. Some customers have allergies that were previously unimaginable to me, like broccoli intolerance. For real. Try to have something for everyone.

5. People are hungry at noon. If lunch isn't ready by noon be prepared to pay the price by absorbing grumpiness and attitude. People should not be held responsible for what they do when they are suffering from the hunger grump. I have to make sure that food is ready at noon. I must be in the kitchen as early as needed to ensure this.

6. People love potatoes. I'm not talking exclusively people of Ireland. I'm talking people of the world.

All of the ingredients I use for this cafe are organic and I cook dishes that I love. I might not have ever cooked them before, but I make darn sure before the meal is served that it is tasty and healthy enough to make me happy.

I cook with ingredients mostly purchased from within the Co-op community. They are seasonal, fresh and local. The dry goods are bought from the Co-op shop, the produce is bought from Christy Stapelton's Organic Produce, the cheese and milk are from Moonshine Organic dairy and the coffee, chocolate and olive oil is bought from Lino Olivieri, whose family has made olive oil for so long that his surname is Olivieri.

Here is a well received recipe from last week's menu. It is fast, requires no boiling and contains no broccoli:

Stuffed Courgettes with couscous

Serves 2

Ingredients (all organic):

2 courgettes
100g wholegrain couscous
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried basil (or fresh if you have it)
1 vegetable stock cube
1 leek, cleaned and chopped (using only the white part)
100g emmental cheese, grated (vegans and lactose intolerants can omit this)
olive oil
Salt and pepper
sprig of thyme
1 lemon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Heat some oil in a pan. Sauté the garlic until just fragrant. Add the tin of tomatoes and leeks. Season with salt, pepper and basil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce reduces by 1/3. If the sauce reduces too quickly you can add 1/2 cup water.

Place the raw couscous in a bowl. Boil 200ml water and dissolve 1 stock cube. Pour over the couscous, cover with cling film and set aside until the water has been absorbed.

Fluff the couscous with a fork. Pour the prepared tomato sauce over top and mix in.

Half the courgettes lengthwise and scoop out the seeds

Arrange the courgettes in a roasting pan

Fill the courgettes with couscous. 

Top with grated cheese. Bake until the courgettes are just tender but still vibrantly green, about 20 minutes.

This cheese is cubed instead of grated, as you can see. No big deal

Enjoy these Stuffed Courgettes warm with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon juice, served with a fresh left side salad

Happy Baking, Caryna Follow Caryna's Cakes on Twitter Like Caryna's Cakes on Facebook www.carynascakes.com