Chocolate layer cake

 

One of my brother’s friends is having a birthday party tonight. Every guest is supposed to make  something sweet; of course my brother took the easy route by asking me to bake something. He said I could make whatever I wanted. It can get a bit overwhelming, when you get complete free range like that, can’t it? There are so many things I want to bake, and sometimes it’s hard to decide. Especially when you’re not the one who will be doing the eating. What if my brother’s friends – and the birthday boy! – don’t like what I chose? In the end I decided to go with chocolate. Because, honestly, who doesn’t like chocolate? I’m very pleased with the end result and, to be honest, slightly bitter that I have to give this whole cake away without being able to have a taste!

I took this Devil’s Food cake recipe from this post; I decided to go with a vanilla butter cream instead of the meringue frosting they used. I got some inspiration for the decoration from this lovely post but ended up using (store bought) meringue to top off the cake instead of piping even more butter cream on top of the ganache. I was afraid it’d be a bit of a butter cream overkill!

Oostvlaamse Vlaai

 

 

 

Oostvlaamse Vlaai is a local desert or snack that can kind of be compared to a bread pudding – you use a lot of (stale) cookies to make this. In this particular vlaai went a lot of gingerbread, very hard (and stale) speculaas and some macaroons. This gets seasoned with a lot of cinnamon and orange peel. You add a dark syrup and brown sugars to give the vlaai a dark brown color. This gets eaten with a cup of coffee, or people also like to spread it on bread.

Pear Pie

 

 

Are you guys watching The Great British Bake Off this season? I haven’t seen all the episodes but I’m liking what I’ve seen! I promise I do more with my life than just watch TV (I promise) but this recipe just happens to be one from a TV show again. Except this time I got it in a book – from the show. The Great British Bake Off: How to turn everyday bakes into showstoppers – wow, that’s a mouth full! Anyway, I was in the mood to bake and came across this recipe. The combination of pear and marzipan (almonds) is a great one, and I kind of just really wanted to try that fancy leaf-edge this pretty pie has. I served it with sweet whipped cream and it was pretty amazing!

Ricotta and cherry pie

Ricotta pie. It’s kind of like cheesecake, but with ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese. I must admit that the only reason I made this was because my mom came home with a really big container of ricotta cheese –  and when life give you lemons, you make lemonade. So when your mom gives you ricotta you bake a pie, or something. That being said, this cherry and ricotta combo was definitely worth the try, even though I’m still more of a fan of the cream cheese cheese-cakes. Still nice though!

There’s some lemon-zest in the pie crust, which gave it some zing – and the ricotta (when baked) came out really mellow and just yummy with a great texture. (This recipe comes from the Foodies special magazine, from 2011!)

Apple pie!

 

I’ve heard a couple of my friends say it before. “Oh, I can’t really bake.” And then they add, as if it’s some sort of shameful afterthought: “Except for apple pie or something.” I’m a firm believer that apple pie should never ever be a shameful afterthought. ‘Cause let’s be honest: what’s more comforting than a slice of apple pie? Not many things are.