Cleta's Baklava Cake

Cleta brought this to our Ceramics Class potluck, and it was a hit!

BAKLAVA CAKE

Keeps well at room temperature up to 3 days if it lasts that long!

350 degree oven.  Spray a bundt pan thoroughly.

BAKLAVA TOPPING: 1 cup nuts, chopped* 

1/3 cup brown sugar 1 Tbsp. corn syrup ☹

1/4 cup butter, melted 1 tsp cinnamon

CAKE BATTER: 1 box vanilla cake mix*

3 eggs 1/2 cup oil of choice

1 cup water 3 Tbsp. sour cream**

HONEY GLAZE:*** 1/4 cup honey 1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp lemon juice 1-1/2 Tbsp. warm water

Cake:  combine in a large bowl and mix according to pkg. directions.

Prepare the Baklava Topping and spread even in bottom of bundt pan.  Then pour the cake batter over.  Bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack for 10 minutes. At the 10 minutes, invert the cake onto a platter.  Should the Baklava Topping not come out in one piece, with your fingers gently remove from pan and fit back onto cake. 

Combine the Honey Glaze ingredients.  Whisk together until you have a pourable consistency and drizzle over top of cake.

Notes:  * I used a mixture of walnuts, almonds and pistachio 

** or full fat, non-flavored yogurt 

         *** Using powdered sugar will give the glaze a whitish finish when dry. And thinking this could be overly sweet and I wanted a shinier finish, I used the glaze recipe below…

1/3 cup honey 2 tsp lemon juice

1 Tbsp. water 1/2 to 3/4 cup regular sugar

You may want to poke holes into the cake so that the glaze seeps in.

There are many similar recipes on Pinterest.

Cleta's Almond Float

Cleta brought this almond float topped with a strawberry puree to ceramics class this week!  How awesome is that! 

Cleta's Pineapple Cake

Cleta gave me a whole pan of this super ono pineapple cake.  It was like a pan layered manju with pineapple filling.  The recipe is from Mochi Mommy and is actually called One Pan Taiwanese Pineapple Cake.

Thank you, Cleta!!

Ingredients

Pineapple Filling

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 20 oz cans crushed pineapple
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup maltose 

Crust

• 1 cup room temperature unsalted butter 
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 egg beaten

Instructions

• In a strainer, drain the cans of crushed pineapple. Gently press the crushed pineapple against the sides to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
• In a large skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Add strained pineapple, sugar, and maltose. Cook over medium heat until all ingredients are dissolved and all the liquid is evaporated, about 5-10 minutes. Pineapple mixture should turn a golden brown and have no liquid left bubbling at the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and line a metal 9x9" baking pan.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, baking soda, and salt until light and fluffy.
• Add sweetened condensed milk and flour and gently mix until a dough forms. Divide dough in half.
• Press half the dough into your prepared baking pan until dough is evenly flat.
• Gently spread about 1 1/2 cups of the pineapple filling over the dough (you probably will have about 1/2 cup of pineapple leftover).
• With a large piece of plastic wrap, gently flatten out the remaining half of the dough into a roughly 9x9" square. Transfer flattened dough to your pan, placing it on top of the pineapple filling and gently pressing the dough until it touches the edges of the pan.
• Brush the top of the dough with the beaten egg (you may not need to use the whole egg) and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until crust is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Allow pastry to cool completely before slicing into rectangles. Leftovers keep in an airtight container in the fridge for three to five days.

Manju!

Wendell went to Kauai recently for a softball tournament and came home with some Lawai manju.  I've been craving it ever since and even wondered if we should go to Kauai to pick up more.

And so I started looking up recipes.  I decided on Keeping it Relle's Sweet Potato Manju recipe because it was "simple" and used a lot of buttah.  Plus, she did a YouTube video showing how to make them.

 

You don't have to put them on a wire rack to cool, but I did because . . . 

   

this is what they looked like just out of the oven!!  Whaaaat??!!  I thought I would need to drain them, but eventually the melted butter disappeared and I guess was absorbed into the manju.  I figured that the next time I make this I would use 2 sticks of butter instead of 3, BUUUUT it turned out so ono that I think I might just stick to 3.

You can find the recipe on YouTube just below the video.  I used one can of Koshian instead of sweet potato and ended up with 20 pieces instead of 18.  My bake time was about 10 minutes longer than stated.  Also, the recipe calls for 4 egg yolks, so I used the whites to do the egg wash instead of wasting another whole egg.

Colin's Almond Float

Colin and Cy made this almond float using a Hawaiian Electric recipe.  Cy said that it was super easy.  Colin actually didn't want any fruit in his.  Cy opted for just mandarin orange.

 

Ingredients:

• 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
• 3 1/4 cups water
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon almond extract
• 2 cans (1 lb 4 oz size) lychees, including liquid
• 2 cans (16 oz size) fruit cocktail, including liquid
• 2 cans (11 oz size) mandarin oranges, including liquid
• Maraschino cherries

Directions:

1. Soften gelatin in 1/2 cup of the water.
2. Heat the remaining 2 3/4 cups water, evaporated milk, milk, and sugar; stir until sugar dissolves.
3. Add softened gelatin; mix well.
4. Cool.
5. Add almond extract.
6. Pour into a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan and chill until firm, about 2 hours.
7. Cut gelatin into cubes; carefully place in serving dishes.
8. Add desired fruits with liquid.
9. Garnish with cherries.

Makes 20 servings.

Bread Pudding

Do you remember the meatballs I made with Ikea sauce added in?  Well, the sauce called for heavy cream of which I used very little.  

So I followed an All Recipes recipe and made bread pudding so that I could use up the rest of the heavy cream.  I used leftover sourdough bread that Geri made and added diced up apples which Kai is somehow not too interested in anymore.

 

I had it with a "little" ice cream!  Hoo hoo!

  

 

Ingredients

• 6 slices day-old bread, torn into small pieces

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

• ½ cup raisins (Optional)

• 2 cups milk

• ¾ cup white sugar

• 4 large eggs, beaten

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Gather all ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Place bread pieces into an 8-inch square baking pan. Drizzle melted butter over bread and sprinkle raisins over top.

3. Whisk milk, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, and vanilla together in a medium mixing bowl until well combined.

4. Pour mixture over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until all bread is covered and soaking up the liquid.

5. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown and the top springs back when lightly pressed, about 45 minutes.

Chrissy's Banana Bread

I used up all of the Chrissy Teigen banana bread mix that I found at Ross, so I decided to try and make it from scratch.  You can find more in-depth (and funny) instructions at Chrissy's blog here. 

It came out similar (moist and ono), but just as with the mix I upped the temperature to 350 degrees and baked for longer than instructed.  And for sure, you could use less sugar.

 

• 2 cups mashed very ripe bananas

• 4 eggs

• 2⁄3 cup canola oil (or melted butter), plus a little more to grease the pan

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little more for dusting the pan

• 2 cups sugar (or half brown sugar, half white sugar)

• 1 (3.5-ounce) box vanilla instant pudding mix

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

• 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

• 1 (3.5-ounce) bar dark chocolate, chopped into chunks (or anything you love—peanut butter chips, nuts, etc.)

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1. Preheat the oven to 325°F.

2. In a large bowl, combine the mashed bananas, eggs, and oil. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine well BUT GENTLY.  Fold in the coconut and chocolate chunks.

3. Grease and flour a Bundt pan. Pour the batter into the pan. (This can also make two 8 × 4-inch loaves, but it’s so much more moist in one Bundt pan!) 

4. Bake until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 55–60 minutes.

Apple Custard Cake

Last week Wendell handed me the Crave section from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and pointed to Mariko Jackson's Invisible Nashi Cake recipe.  He said, "Since you've been into baking recently."

I read the article and said, "Hmmm, I'd probably want to do it with apples instead of Asian pear."  A few days later he came home with 2 pounds of apples.  😁

Mariko called it a "golden, custardy cake", and I wasn't sure what to expect.  It turned out to be much like an apple bread pudding . . . ono with a dab of whipped cream.  Main thing, Wendell loved it and ate two pieces right away.  Thank you, Mariko.

 

 

 

Ingredients:

• 3 nashi or Asian Pears (over 2 pounds) (or if you're like me, apples)

• 3 eggs

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup whole milk

• 1 cup flour (can be gluten-free blend)

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a bread loaf pan (should be at least 3 inches deep on the inside) by laying a piece of parchment across the bottom and letting it overhang on the long sides of the pan (like a sling). Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs for 2-3 minutes, until the color has lightened and it flows like a batter. Add the butter, salt and milk, and whisk until uniform. Whisk in the flour and baking powder just until combined. If the flour is gluten-free, whisk in the flour first thoroughly, and then stir in the baking powder. Gluten-free flour has a tendency to be grainy unless you let it soak a bit before baking.

Peel nashi and cut into quarters. Cut the core out of the quarters with a flat cut so the edge is straight. Thinly slice the fruit. It shouldn’t be paper thin, but as thin as you can get it by hand without a mandoline. As you cut the fruit, add the slices to the batter and fold them in to prevent them from browning from sitting exposed to the air.

Once you have sliced and added all of the nashi, you’ll transfer them to the bread pan, overlapping the slices in layers and try to line up the straight sides with the edges of the pan. The pattern really doesn’t need to be perfect. Pour the rest of the batter over the top and tap the pan on the countertop a couple of times to allow it to settle down between the cracks. Bake the cake for an hour and let cool without removing it from the pan for at least 90 minutes. You can serve the cake at room temperature or store in the fridge and eat cold.

Makes one 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch cake.