Blackberry Coconut Cakes

Lately I came across a number of recipes that call for a combination of blackberry and coconut. This pairing sounded a little odd at first, but as unfamiliar as it was, it had a hint of intrigue in flavor and texture. I first tried a blackberry coconut tart, then some blackberry coconut popsicles. After my initial success I decided to try something a little more challenging.

The recipe came again from one of my favorite German patissiers Bernd Siefert. I really love his cakes, and have baked several of his recipes over time, some of them I already blogged about, like the Strawberry-Raspberry Charlotte, the Chocolate Berry Tart and the Strawberry-Champagne Cake. One day I really have to take a trip up to his cafe.

This cake consists of two layers of coconut sponge, filled with blackberry-coconut mousse. The sponge cake itself is not very thick, so it's a little difficult to cut it into two slices. Alternatively you could bake them separately, each with half the batter. The mousse really gets its flavor boost from the lemongrass. The longer you steep the lemongrass in the coconut milk, the more intense it gets.

White Chocolate Coconut Cheesecakes with Passionfruit Glaze

We had beautiful Easter weather today and a lovely day spend with my family. My niece was hunting for Easter eggs outside as we had a beautiful brunch with quiche, my brioche bunnies, colored eggs, carrot muffins and much more. This was followed by a long walk in the blooming forest and a lovely advocaat-chocolate cake from my aunt in the afternoon. As this wouldn't already have been enough we then had an amazing dinner with beef tenderloin, fresh spring carrots and potato gratin. So, we are very happily stuffed right now.

I still wanted to show you these mini-cheesecakes I made two days ago. They are flavored with coconut and have a beautiful passion fruit glaze. When I look at them they just scream sunshine.

If you cannot find quark you should really try to make some yourself. It's really easy and also tastes very good. You can put it on top of baked potatoes or even spread it on your sandwich, and of course make all kinds of German cheesecakes with it. Meeta has a great and simple recipe on her blog which I used often, when I was still living in Canada.

I wish you all a very Happy Easter and hope you found lots of chocolate eggs!

Triple Coconut Cupcakes

I have been noticing that coconut cupcakes seem to be awfully popular around Easter. I don't know why, but I guess it's probably because coconut shavings make very cute Easter egg nests. So I am going to give this idea a try.

I call this Triple Coconut Cupcakes, because they are not only coconut cupcakes with coconut buttercream, they also hold a little surprise inside. I put some Raffaellos inside each of them, those really addictive coconut confections.

You can decorate them for Easter with some jelly eggs with matching cupcake liners, or just with coconut shaving all year round. They are very rich and a real treat for coconut lovers, like my husband.

Carrot Cake and Carrot Cupcakes from Miette cookbook

Last fall I was in San Francisco for a short visit. San Francisco is a place which will always be in my heart, since I lived there for a while. It is such a great place, with wonderful people and awesome food. I try to go there as often as I can, so I was very happy when we managed to stay a week in San Francisco on the way to our honeymoon in Hawaii.

One of the places I always wanted to visit in San Francisco is the Ferry building, since I have never been to its indoor market. It is not as big as the Pike Place Market in Seattle or Granville Island in Vancouver, but it has some great shops and a very good selection. The prices are pretty steep, but it is also at a premium location.

The place I was most curious about was the famous pastry shop Miette. It is renowned for his charming interior design and beautiful pastries. I really loved that store, the wallpaper, the cake stands the set-up; it's just totally cute. We were having some cupcakes, and they were equally delicious. If I would open a pastry store I would want it to look like this one.

So, as soon as I got home I got the Miette cookbook. It fits perfectly to the shop design in color and layout. There are many recipes I would like to try, but after all the Christmas baking it took me until now to make something out of the book. The first thing I made is the carrot cake plus some carrot cupcakes. I have some carrot cupcakes posted before, but these ones were even better. I really liked the addition of coconut. Since I only had my small muffin tin available I also made a small mini cake.

Daring Bakers: Graham Crackers and Nanaimo Bars

It's Daring Bakers time again. After not participating last month I was excited what the new year would bring. The challenge consisted of two parts, first we would make homemade graham crackers, either regular or gluten free, and second use the graham crackers to make Nanaimo bars.

I always wanted to make my own graham crackers, and they turned out really good. I made the regular version, since I don't know anybody with food allergies. This is a really nice recipe, which I will use again as a cheesecake base in the future.

Well, to say the least I wasn't really excited to make the second part, the Nanaimo bars. Living in Vancouver for a couple of years now I have seen them around in several places, but never had the urge to try them. They just didn't appeal to me, but I still wanted to be a good sports and make them. Well, you always have to try everything at least once, right. Unfortunately, my intuition was right and I didn't really like them. Of course I knew they would be sweet, so I already used less than half of the sugars, but I also thought the butter-cream in the middle level was just too heavy. My Canadian sweetheart said they were better than all the other Nanaimo bars he tried before, but he is also not a fan of them.

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Coconut-Almond Macaroons

These little treats are perfect as a small gift to bring to a Christmas party . They are not your average coconut macaroons, since they also have a great almond taste. The roasted nuts give them a crunchy texture, but at the same time, the condensed milk makes them chewy. I made them for the first time and was pleasantly surprised at how good they are. My first batch is almost gone, so I guess I have to make some more soon.

The condensed milk used in the recipe is the sweetened type you get in North America, it is also used to make Dulce de Leche. It is not what we know in Germany as "Kondensmilch". It is a lot thicker and also sweet. The correct translation would be "gezuckerte Kondensmilch".