Cake twenty-seven alias Bread one - Multigrain Dove

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This is my favourite bread and the shape I like most: It’s a must on my Easter table, dove is in fact a symbol for this day: we do have a ‘Dove’ cake in Italy just as we have ‘Panettone’ for Christmas.

Whether you use a bread machine or not you need a few hours before your bread is ready. I don’t have a bread machine although I’ve been thinking to buy one for some years. In fact it’s quite practical and saves a lot of your time: you don’t need to knead your dough more than once which is in some cases hard work. When you make bread the old style, I mean without a bread machine, you need a whole morning considering rise and knead times - I’m speaking of yeast bread of course! Anyway I think you should try and I'm sure you'll love it! 

50 g buckwheat 

80 g pearled barley

50 g sunflower seeds

10g dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

180 ml warm milk

60 ml warm water

235g white plain flour

180g wholemeal plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons olive oil 

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon milk, extra

2 teaspoons sesame seeds, extra

Place buckwheat, pearled barley and sunflower seeds in small heatproof bowl, cover with boiling water, cover and stand 30 min. Then rinse and drain well.

In the meantime combine yeast, sugar, milk and water in small bowl, whisk until yeast is dissolved. Cover and stand in warm place about 20 min or until mixture looks frothy. 

Put flour and salt into a large bowl, add grain mixture, oil and yeast mixture. Mix to a soft dough. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead well until dough is smooth and elastic (about 10 min).

Place dough in large greased bowl, cover and stand in warm place about one hour or until dough has doubled in size. 

Turn dough onto a floured surface, knead until smooth. Divide it into 3 pieces, shape each piece into a 30cm sausage. 

Plait sausages and place dough into a greased loaf pan.

Cover, stand in warm place about 30 min or until risen.

Brush dough with combined egg yolk and extra milk. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake at 200° for about 45 min

also visit: 
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/07/cake-twenty-seven-alias-bread-one.html

Cake twenty-six Sicilian Cassata

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It’s a cake which steals a lot of your time and patience of course. It’s not too difficult to make, anyway: you need some practice to get to the right combination of good taste and elegant decoration but it’s well worth a try! 

Consider one day to bake and assemble it, then another day in the fridge before decoration and a couple of days before eating so that all the flavours can harmoniously blend in.

Step 1 - Sponge Cake

6 eggs, separated

250 g sugar

250 g flour

Beat yolks and sugar with electric mixer until thick and foamy. Fold in flour. In the meantime beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gently fold a little of the beaten egg whites into the batter to lighten it and then add the rest of the whites folding just until incorporated. Do not overmix the batter or it will deflate. Pour mixture evenly into a 20cm-round tin and bake cake at 180° for about 30 min.  or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 

Immediately turn cake onto a wire rack prepared with baking parchment to cool.  

Step 2 - Ricotta filling

1 kg fresh ricotta

250 g sugar 

100 g chocolate, chopped 

Should ricotta be too wet, place it on a colander for about 30 min. Then whip ricotta and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended and smooth. Fold in the chocolate. Refrigerate.

Step 3 - Marzipan

200 g marzipan 

green food colouring

Knead marzipan and some green food colouring until you get a vivid green and the colour is uniform.

Step 4 - Cake assembling

sponge cake

green marzipan 

some vermouth 

ricotta filling 

plastic wrap

Line a 30cm frying pan with plastic wrap. 

Roll out a 10cm wide marzipan stripe. Line the side of the pan as in photo. Cut the sponge cake into 1cm thick slices and use them to line the base and sides of the frying pan. Sprinkle some vermouth over the slices until they’re moist but not wet. Spread ricotta filling evenly over cake base. Top with remaining cake slices and sprinkle vermouth over cake. 

Refrigerate for at least one day.

Step 5 - Royal Icing

2 egg whites

375 g icing sugar

some lemon juice

Whip egg whites and sugar with an electric mixer until hard peaks form. Pour in some lemon juice.

Step 6 - Cake assembling

Cake in the frying pan

Royal icing 

Candied fruit: cherries, citron, a tangerine, or any fruit of your choice.

Turn Cassata onto serving plate. Discard plastic wrap.

 Decorate the cake to your taste. Refrigerate for 3/4 hours at least.

also visit:

http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/06/cake-twenty-six.html