Charming Vanilla Birthday Cake

Just a simple recipe for a very charming yet rather uncomplicated birthday cake.

This easy Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Frosting is so simple to make. For that rustic and pretty look, do make sure to decorate the cooled cake with some of that delicious, and equally easy to prepare, vanilla frosting and some pretty seasonal fruits and berries.

Nothing more needed to make me happy on my birthday. Nothing.

Ingredients for the Cake

For the Cake

• ½ stick plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature, plus some for greasing the baking pan
• 1 ¼ cups wheat (plain) flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp  baking soda
• a pinch of fine sea salt
• ½ cup superfine baking sugar (caster sugar)
• seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp pure vanilla paste
• 2 eggs (M), free range or organic please
• 250 ml buttermilk, room temperature

Preparation of the Cake

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius).
2. With a brush, lightly grease a 10-inch (26 cm) round baking pan or springform pan. Then line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. With an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter, sugar and vanilla seeds (or paste) until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
5. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, until combined.
6. Add flour mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with 2 batches of buttermilk. Beat to combine, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
7. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Smooth top with an offset spatula.
8. Bake until cake is light golden and a cake tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
9. Transfer the baking pan to a wire rack to cool for ten minutes, remove baking pan and leave the cake on the wire rack until cooled completely.
10. Meanwhile, make the frosting. NOTE: Be sure to let the cake cool completely before you frost it.

Ingredients for the Vanilla Frosting

• 4 tbsps unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 tbsps milk (I use 3.5 %), room temperature
• a pinch of fine sea salt
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Preparation of the Frosting

1. In a small bowl, beat butter with electric beaters for a few seconds until pale. 
2. Gradually add the confectioners´ sugar, a spoonful at a time, alternating with the milk.  
3. Keep beating until mixture is pale and creamy. 
4. Beat in salt and the vanilla extract. NOTE: The frosting will keep in the fridge for one week. Bring back to room temperature and beat well before using.

This is a moist cake with lots of natural vanilla flavor. The buttermilk in the batter adds a bit of tang and certainly makes sure that this cake does not turn out too dry. Just right. And all that vanilla adds a wonderful warm and sweet vanilla flavor.

Use the recipe as the basis for a range of fabulous celebration cakes, it is easily adaptable. For ideas on how to decorate the cake and to try out some variations on how to decorate this basic cake, have a look in your pantry, at mother nature or the farmers`market.

Enjoy this Charming Vanilla Birthday Cake - whether it is a special day or just because!

And remember that it certainly does not matter whether your cake is a flawless masterpiece or something more friendly and wobbly at the edges. What matters is the offering of something you made simply for the pleasure involved.

"It is a sad kitchen that can’t be used purely for fun sometimes."

French Fridays with Dorie - Gâteau Basque

Today´s recipe for the French Fridays with Dorie group is "Gâteau Basque“. A traditional dessert from the Basque region of France. There are many versions of this buttery tart. But most recipes call for a flaky pastry crust, with or without ground almonds, filled with either cherry jam or vanilla custard, or both.

Since cherry season is all but over here, it was quite the task to find some deep, dark, burgundy-colored cherries for my thick, homemade, Cherry-Vanilla Jam. But we managed to find some - mind you, I could have planed ahead and bought some earlier in the month.  Be that as it may, the first task was transforming the fruit into lovely, not overly sweet, jam, studded with whole fruits and laced with lots of real vanilla using those wonderful and incredibly fragrant, fresh, plump, moist vanilla pods.

While the jam was cooling, I made the buttery pastry for the tart using wheat flour, baking powder, sea salt, really good butter, light brown sugar, white baking  sugar, an egg, and the scraped seeds from a whole vanilla bean  – it is certainly worth making an extra effort and adding fresh vanilla to your recipes, especially when vanilla is one of the primary flavors in a recipe (along, of course, with the butter and the cherries). I also took the liberty and added a pinch of finely grated organic lemon zest to the dough. That always seems to waken up the taste of these buttery tarts.

After the dough has had a chance to cool for a few hours and the jam has cooled as well, it is time to assemble the tart. I took about two-thirds of the pastry, rolled it to about 5mm thick and lined a well- buttered 28cm French tart pan with removeable bottom. Then, I  spooned in the filling, rolled out the remaining pastry and placed it over the top.  All that was left to do was to trim the edges, place in the fridge for a good hour prior to baking and then brush with beaten egg and drag the prongs of a fork over in a tartan pattern.

A caveat or rather word of caution when making a Gâteau Basque - the short pastry often breaks when rolled, but can be patched back together in the tart pan. And another remark - since I used a larger tart pan than the recipe called for and had left some of the cherries whole for jam making, I ended up with a somewhat more "bumpy look" for the tart - according to my whole slew of taste testers, "a delightfully rustic and certainly most delicious, personal touch" - there!

Sometimes all you want in a sweet tart is a clean and quiet flavor, very simple and delicate. And this Gâteau Basque recipe certainly delivers. A nice, simple recipe and not unlike my beloved, traditional Dutch Boterkoek that I posted about two weeks ago –  those that follow my blog know that we always enjoy these kinds of cakes and love to eat them in the late afternoon with a cup of tea (interested, then take a look here).

To see how much the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group enjoyed this recipe, please go here.

For copyright reasons, we do not publish the recipes from the book. But you can find the recipe for this „Gâteau Basque“ on pages 470-2 in Dorie Greenspan´s "Around my French Table".

You can also consult the website of the Museum dedicated entirely to the Gâteau Basque and find a lovely, traditional French recipe here http://www.legateaubasque.com/la-recette-du-gateau-basque-traditionnel.

The Cottage Cooking Club - July Recipes

Today, marks the third month of our international online cooking group, the Cottage Cooking Club.

As a group, recipe by recipe, we are cooking and learning our way through a wonderful vegetable cookbook written in 2011 by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, called „River Cottage Everyday Veg“.

The Cottage Cooking Club online cooking group is meant to be a project aimed at incorporating more vegetable dishes in our everyday cooking. And learning new ways to prepare tasty and healthy dishes, and sharing them with family and friends.

We will make an effort to use as much local, regional, organic and also seasonal produce as is resonably possible. With that goal in mind, during that month of July, I prepared a few wonderful dishes from the book and made my utterly devoted taste testers quite happy!

My first recipe for the July post is the „River Cottage Summer Garden Soup“. How can you not prepare a soup with such a lovely title - no matter how warm it is in my tiny kitchen during the summer months, there was no way I would pass up the opportunity to make this fabulous recipe.

This recipe is most certainly meant to showcase the best summer produce you can find.

The base for my colorful soup was a homemade vegetable stock (yes, it was homemade, for the recipe, please consult page 130). The unbelievably delicious summer vegetables I used for this soup were chopped fennel bulbs, celery stalks and spring onions. Then there were French beans and freshly shelled peas, white courgettes, broad beans, orange, yellow and violet carrots. I replaced the salad that the recipe calls for with baby spinach, used tones of Italian parsley for sprinkling and some fennel fronds as a finishing touch. - A dream in a soup bowl!

I paired this dream with the "Bruschetta with Broad Beans" that we are also cooking this month and the "Radishes with Butter and Salt", a recipe that we made two months ago.

Second up is one of my personal favorites from the book – the "Tomato, Thyme and Goat´s Cheese Tart" – anyone who knows me also knows that I am seriously in love with these kinds of tarts.

When I started my personal series last year cooking my way through this book, I made this recipe using mozzarella and basil (if you are interested you can take a look here) – this time I opted for the goat´s cheese as well as some thyme.

The base is puff pastry that gets „lined“ with garlic – I used two garlic cloves, young garlic, no papery skins yet and sliced them before topping the pastry with it. The rest of the topping is the best seasonal tomatoes you can get your hands on – I opted for large sweet cherry tomatoes and a good-quality goat cheese with just the right amount of saltiness and some fresh thyme from the garden – now I do not know which tart I like better, the Spring Onion Galette (if you are interested you can take a look here) or this one…be that as it may, I have prepared them many times, with variations as to cheese and herbs and they are always a huge hit with all my taste testers.

The third recipe goes so well with these kinds of tarts, especially the Tomato, Thyme and Goat´s Cheese Tart. Another winner, the Marinated Courgettes with Mozzarella.

Again, this is a recipe that I have prepared before and that I like to come back to often.

How can you possibly go wrong with pan-fried (grilled in my case) summer courgettes that you marinate with a fruity olive oil, fresh lemon juice and zest and a bit of young garlic and then gently toss with creamy buffalo mozzarella, freshly ground black pepper and a wonderful crunchy, medium coarse sea salt.

Let me indulge for a second here, I do not know whether you have had the distinct pleasure of taste testing different kinds of black pepper – may I say that I have, and I loved the taste experience. If you happen to have a wonderful spice merchant in your neighbourhood (and who doesn´t), why not buy a different, good-quality black pepper and use it in a recipe like this – just a suggestion. Black pepper should always be bought in peppercorn form and always be ground just before using. There are a myriad of black peppers to choose from and this is a perfect recipe to show off a different kind of black pepper, different from your everyday-kind-of-pepper.

The fourth recipe is yet another recipe where you can really showcase that wonderful summer produce – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall calls this „Shaved Summer Veg“.

You will be required to produce „wafer-thin“ slices of summer veg to prepare this „deliciously crunchy and gorgeously colorful salad“. For the dressing you need English mustard (I have made a habit of always using Dijon mustard in the recipes), clear organic honey, lemon juice, a light olive oil, sea salt and that freshly ground black pepper.

The vegetables I chose were kohlrabi, green and white courgettes, yellow, orange and violet carrots and little red radishes – I could not find fresh yellow beets for the life of me, impossible to get those around here but the colorful carrots and radishes more than made up for that fact. I added some red beet cress though – we enjoy the peppery sharpness of the cress together with the crunch of the shaved veg and that creamy, mustardy dressing.

So, now I am halfway through my recipes this month and I need a short break in order to contemplate the elderberries on my elder bush in our garden. Every time I look at them, they remind me of my beloved grand-mother and her garden and her elder bush and the syrup she used to make every year – it had the most amazing deep-burgundy color and was always kept downstairs (“im Keller“) until winter time when you needed a bit something healthy to boost your immune system. So there it goes – no recipe yet. Not that you really need another recipe though.

Onto the „green recipe“ for the month of July, namely the „Bruschetta with Broad Beans and Asparagus“ (or French beans in my case).

The recipe is for beans or asparagus – alas no more asparagus to be had anywhere – so it was French beans and lovely broad beans (the girls are getting to be real masters at cleaning and prepping them), together with spring onions and goat cheese. Instead of rubbing the grilled sourdough bread with garlic, I carefully sautéed some very thin slices of garlic and added them to the bean-cheese mixture.

No need to say more - we loved this recipe to crumbs and pieces.

The next recipe needed a bit of an experienced fresh-tomato-pasta-sauce-person. A bit. The amount of the tomatoes I used was way more than the recipe for the „Pasta with Raw Tomato“ calls for.

That´s when that lovely thing called „scale“ comes in handy – the 750 grams were quickly doubled at the store – no reason not to, they are abundant these days, so much so, you cannot not buy more than you need.

I used two kinds of tomatoes for the sauce. The bright red ones and my newly-found favorite kind for cooking and for making salads, the zebra tomatoes – these beauties hail from Belgium, Flanders to be exact and I am quite partial to that region anyways. But I digress. The recipe is otherwise quite nice and summery.

You make the summery sauce, using the skinned and seeded tomatoes (a bit of a mess, I must admit), more young garlic, chili, capers, sea salt, black pepper and a ton of torn, fresh basil leaves – I will admit to adding quite a bit of fresh oregano to the sauce  – perfect. By the way, if you can get your hands on the tiny capers called Capperi di Lipari sotto sale, use these but make sure to rinse off the salt and dry carefully before using in this sauce. Lots of fresh herbs and delightfully pungent capers can make all the difference.

Instead of making the „Panzanella“ that most participants had signed up for, I opted for a recipe from last month, the „Lettuce, Spring Onion and Cheese Tart“. After all, we would like to have all thirty recipes done after the third month and this is definitely a recipe that I wanted to try.

Lovely pastry with butter, flour, salt and milk – no eggs. I chose my wonderful French tart pan with high edges – for the more dramatic look, of course.

The filling consists of little gem lettuce hearts – pan-fried. Then spring onions, cheese, fresh eggs, double cream, milk, pepper and salt (I added some freshly ground nutmeg). Definitely the most labor-intensive recipe but also certainly worth making.

I loved the use of pan-fried lettuce – I often throw lettuce in my wok or soup and certainly appreciate cooking with different kinds of salad. I did serve red currants alongside, yes, fruit – it was a wonderful change to the usual side salads these days and it added some wonderful tartness, not to mention color, to the plate – besides, the talented author of this book recently (October, 2013)  penned another wonderful cookbook called „River Cottage Fruit Every Day!“. The recipes in that book combine fruits and berries with savory foods – I have tried a few recipes from that book and love the concept. Oh, the possibilities...

Speaking of savory, one more savory recipe to go. The easy-peesy „Chargrilled Summer Veg“. Of course, I would not be me if I had not made a lot of these before – the proof can be found here. And, yes, I did get a tad inspired by the recipe. You all know that I seem to have way too much time on my hands so I chargrilled white asparagus a while back and made an absolutely delightful Salad of Chargrilled White Asparagus with a Bacon and Caper Dressing with this. I do not think that I need to post a recipe for the dressing – just use your favorite dressing to make your chargrilled veg be part of your summer salads – we all have a favorite, I am sure.

So, in order to gild the lily with all those wonderful recipes, it was time to make some veg ice cream for dessert. I opted for the pea ice cream sans mint (being rather German not British) because I am totally crazy about peas and because two or three of my fellow CCC bloggers had already opted for equally intriguing sounding Chocolate Beet Ice Cream.

Who knew that my kids would absolutely adore fresh summer Pea Ice Cream?! This was the best – although a tad time consuming to prepare because I used fresh peas (no, not frozen, not canned or anything else). Now, I have made this twice – this time I did leave a bit of texture with tiny specks of incredibly bright green peas and served it with champagne currrants and  the best pistachio oil I have ever tasted, ever. And, yes, I use the real pistachio oil, bright green, healthy, and all and from my local oil mill - not the pistachio-infused one. And, yes, I paired oil with ice cream.

We are in love. Unfortunately, none left.

Please note, that for copyright reasons, we do NOT publish the recipes. I would like to point out that you should make sure to follow the rules on this EVEN if you chose to change or adjust an ingredient or two or the title of the recipe. For more information on the participation rules, please go here.

To see which wonderful dishes the other members of the Cottage Cooking Club prepared during the month of July, please go here.

Dutch Boterkoek with Red Currants - Holländischer Butterkuchen mit roten Johannisbeeren

Today I am featuring a Dutch boterkoek, which can roughly be translated as “butter cake”. It can be described as a dense, rich, buttery bar cookie, baked in a round tin, and cut into wedges after baking. In summertime, the Butter Cake is even more delicious paired with a handful of seasonal summer fruit such as red currants. The taste of the good-quality butter together with the sweet almonds is unbeatable in combination with the delightfully tart red currants.

Heute gibt es einen holländischen Boterkoek oder auch Butterkuchen. Man kann ihn als wundervoll buttrig und reichhaltig beschreiben, ein Kuchen, der in einer runden Backform gebacken wird und nach dem Backen in dreieckige Stücke geschnitten wird. Im Sommer schmeckt dieser Butterkuchen sensationell, wenn man ihn zusammen mit roten Johannisbeeren genießt. Der Geschmack der guten Butter zusammen mit den süßen Mandeln ist ein wahres Gedicht in Kombination mit den wunderbar säuerlichen roten Johannisbeeren.

Boterkoek is a traditional Dutch recipe, somewhat of a cross between a tart and shortbread. Since there is quite a bit of butter in the boterkoek and given just how key butter is to the flavor of this recipe, you should really try to use the best-quality and freshest butter you can find.

Boterkoek ist ein traditionelles holländisches Rezept, ein Gebäck, das eine Mischung ist zwischen einer Tarte und Shortbread. Da der Boterkoek eine gute Menge Butter enthält und sich in dem Rezept eben alles um den Geschmack von Butter dreht, sollte man Wert darauf legen, eine wirklich gute und wohlschmeckende Butter zu benutzen.

The Boterkoek makes a wonderful afternoon or even mid-morning treat with a cup of your favorite tea, coffee or hot chocolate.  Since the preparation of the cake is straightforward and utterly uncomplicted to say the least, it is certainly the perfect recipe to prepare at the last minute if you have unexpected guests for example.

Den Boterkoek kann man selbstverständlich nicht nur zum Nachmittagstee, Kaffee oder heißem Kakao genießen, er schmeckt auch einfach wundervoll mal eben so zwischendurch. Da das Rezept für den Boterkoek recht unkompliziert ist, lässt er sich auch mal schnell und ohne große Vorbereitungen herstellen, wenn zum Beispiel unerwartet Gäste kommen.

The boterkoek is usually made in a special round boterkoek baking pan. The butter cake is then cut into wedges, leaving it somewhere between a cake and shortbread. But, because you are probably not likely to find one of these specialty baking pans at your kitchenware store, you can bake the Boterkoek in a regular round baking pan or springform pan. Once the boterkoek has cooled, and you have taken it out of the pan, you can cut into it into wedges or small slices.

Der Boterkoek wird normalerweise in einer speziellen Boterkoek Backform gebacken. Nach dem Backen wird der Kuchen einfach in Stücke geschnitten. Falls man keine spezielle Boterkoek Backform in seinem Backformen-Fundus hat, backt man den Kuchen einfach in einer normalen Springform oder in einer anderen runden Backform. Eine Pie-Form tut es natürlich auch. Nachdem der Boterkoek ausgekühlt ist, kann man ihn dann aus der Form nehmen und in gleichgroße Stücke schneiden.

Dutch Butter Cake (Boterkoek) Ingredients for the Cake 150 grams good quality unsalted butter 200 grams super fine (caster) baking sugar 1/8 tsp fine sea salt a bit of finely grated lemon zest (organic lemon, please) 1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract (you can also use some almond flavor) 1 egg (L), beaten (free range or organic) 200 grams white spelt flour (feel free to use regular AP (plain) or cake flour – most recipes for boterkoek call for AP flour) 1/4 tsp cinnamon ½ tsp baking powder 20 grams flaked almonds handful of fresh red currants, to serve

Holländischer Butterkuchen (Boterkoek) Zutaten für den Kuchen 150 Gramm gute Butter, ungesalzen 200 Gramm feinster Backzucker 1/8 TL feines Meersalz ein wenig geriebene Zitronenschale (von einer unbehandelten bzw. Bio-Zitrone) 1 1/2 TL natürliches Vanillearoma (oder natürliches Mandelaroma) 1 Ei (L), verquirlt (wenn möglich Bio) 200 Gramm Dinkelmehl Type 630 (man kann natürlich auch normales Weizenmehl nehmen – in den meisten Rezepten wird Weizenmehl Type 405 verwendet) 1/4 TL Ceylon Zimt ½ TL Backpulver 20 Gramm Mandelblättchen einige rote Johannisbeeren zum Servieren

Equipment needed round baking pan or springform pan (26 cm) unless you happen to own a specialty round boterkoek pan pastry brush parchment paper

Zusätzlich eine runde Backform oder Springform (26 cm) – wenn Sie eine spezielle Boterkoek Backfrom besitzen, nehmen Sie natürlich diese für´s Backen des Boterkoek ein Backpinsel etwas Backpapier

Preparation Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Lightly grease a boterkoek specialty baking pan or butter another round cake pan (26 cm) and line the bottom with greaseproof paper. In a medium bowl, cream the butter, sugar, salt, lemon zest and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Remove one teaspoon of the beaten egg and set aside in a small bowl. Pour the rest of the egg into the butter mixture, and stir well. Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until you have a smooth dough. Transfer the mixture to your baking pan and press the dough with the palms of your hands into the pan until you have a reasonably smooth top. If you feel that the dough is very sticky, use a piece of saran wrap (cling film) and place it on the dough and then smooth the surface with the back of a cup measure or a large spoon. If you would like to have a distinct pattern on your boterkoek , then mark the dough with the tines of a fork at this stage. Mix the teaspoon of egg with a teaspoon of water, and brush on top of the boterkoek. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds, and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until just golden and firm to the touch. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool for about 15 minutes before unmolding (or the boterkoek will break). Let the boterkoek cool completely before cutting it into wedges (or slices if you prefer).

Zubereitung Heizen Sie Ihren Ofen auf 175 Grad Celsius vor. Die runde Boterkoek-Backform oder eine andere Backform (26 cm) fetten und den Boden mit Backpapier auskleiden.  In einer mittelgroßen Schüssel die Butter, den Zucker, das Salz, die geriebene Zitronenschale und das Vanillearoma miteinander verrühren. Etwa einen Teelöffel von dem verquirlten Ei in eine kleine Schüssel geben. Den Rest vom Ei zum Teig geben und mischen. Mehl, Zimt und Backpulver gut mischen.  Die Mehlmischung zu der Buttermischung geben und gut miteinander verrühren. Den Teig in die Backform geben und mit den Händen andrücken – falls der Teig zu sehr klebt, kann man auch ein Stück Frischhaltefolie auf den Teig legen und ihn dann mit Hilfe eines breiten Löffels oder mit einem Glasboden glatt streichen oder drücken. Wenn Sie ein Muster auf ihrem Boterkoek haben möchten, dann sollten Sie jetzt eine Gabel mehrmals über den Teig ziehen, so dass ein Gittermuster entsteht. Den Rest vom verquirlten Ei mit einem TL Wasser mischen und mit einem Backpinsel den Teig damit bestreichen. Mit den Mandelblättchen bestreuen und ungefähr 25 bis 30 Minuten backen oder solange, bis der Boterkoek eine schöne goldene Farbe hat. Den Boterkoek auf ein Kuchengitter stellen und mindestens 15 Minuten auskühlen lassen, bevor Sie ihn aus der Form nehmen (sonst bricht der Kuchen). Ganz auskühlen lassen, dann entweder in breite Streifen oder in keilförmige Stücke schneiden.

Boterkoek is a really simple recipe with surprisingly good results for something so easy – so go ahead and try this wonderful Dutch treat. And as I already mentioned above, in summertime, the Butter Cake is even more delicious paired with a handful of seasonal summer fruit such as red currants

Boterkoek ist wahrlich einfach und relativ schnell in der Herstellung und es lohnt sich wirklich, diesen wunderbaren Kuchen einmal auszuprobieren. Und, wie ich schon erwähnt habe, schmeckt der Butterkuchen im Sommer geradezu sensationell, wenn man ihn zusammen mit roten Johannisbeeren genießt.

Eet smakelijk!