Cheese tart with plums

Cheese tart with plums

A combination of delicate ricotta, mascarpone and plums... Can one think of anything nicer for an autumn afternoon? At least not as far as I am concerned:-)















"Cheese tart with plums"

Dough:

- 1and 2/3 glass wheat flour
- 60 g sugar
- 150g butter, cold, diced 
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp cream

Blend into dough and leave in the fridge for an hour. 

Filling:

- 250g mascarpone
- 300g ricotta
- 160g sugar
- 3 tbsp honey
- 3 eggs
- 0,5 kg large plums, stoned

Place the dough in a baking tin and bake in 180 C for ca. 20 minutes. Prepare the cheese filling while the dough cools down. 
Blend together the cheeses, sugar, and honey. Add the eggs and (optionally) 2 tbsp wheat flour. Spread the cheese mix on the tart, decorate with plums and bake for another 30 mins. 

Cheesy Leek Cakes

Easy and tasty cakes for breakfast... can be frozen too. Pop in the toaster and it will be ready!

















"Cheesy leek cakes"

- 250g self-raising flour
- 100g butter
-1 leek finally chopped
- 70 g cheddar grated
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp milk or more if needed
- a pinch of chilli powder

Put the flour and chilli into a large bowl. Add a cold butter, lightly rub it and add the leek, a cheese,  the beaten egg and milk.
Prepare  a floured surface. Roll the dough and cut out circles.
Heat a frying pan and cook the cakes  till golden on each side.

Beef in a good sauce

Beef in a good sauce

I bought some beef for my youngest. Ecological one. I nearly fainted at the cashiers when he claimed not to like those healthy meats. After his declaration my dislike of the raw pieces reached its peak, especially that I am not a fan of meat myself. Sill, I found in my notes a beef sauce that was called by the master chef (Kurt? Ernest?) a base sauce. If this one is basic, then what does the special one look like.:-)











"Beef in a good sauce"

- 1/2 kilo of good beef, diced
- oil
- 2 shredded onions
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 3 peppers of different colours cut into strips
- fresh cucumber cut into strips
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1/3 jar of Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp spirits
- 1/2 lemon
- 22% cream
- dill (optional)

Fry the beef briefly in a pan, put aside in a bowl. Heat the oil in the pan, add onions, garlic, peppers, and tomatoes. Cover.  After a while add the cucumber, mustard, spirits and juice of one lemon. Finally, pour in two cups of cream and dill. Put the meat in the sauce and braise. Really tasty!

"Power liqueur"

Bartletts are my favourite pears. Large, juicy, their juice running down your fingers. I used to love taking them to school as packed lunch, even if the risk of finding them squashed to a pulp was high...
It is just lovely to keep their flavour and aroma in a transparent bottle:-) Best soak them in spirits slightly diluted with water, but it is a bit too strong for me. I prefer to use pure vodka, possibly strengthened with spirits.













"Power liqueur"

- a few pears without stalks, but not peeled or seeded to make the aroma richer
- unflavoured vodka
- a vanilla stick cut in half
- sugar

Place the pears in a glass jar. Cover with alcohol up to 2 cm above the fruit. Add vanilla stick and close well. Leave in a warm, bright place for a few months, until spring if possible. Remove the alcohol and save it, mix the fruit with sugar and leave for two weeks and then mix the resulting juice with the alcohol you removed earlier. Filter into the bottles and wait till new pears ripen. It is worth it!
One more thing: cut the pears with a plastic or silver knife, this way they will not darken and your liqueur will retain a nice colour:-)

Simple yeast buns with cheese

Simple yeast buns with cheese

How to force a young person to eat some cheese, eggs, flour and some milk? The best way is to bake buns. Sunny, round, aromatic...he'll even take some to school without as much as a blinking of an eye. Pity I was left with the rest of them:)))

- 3 glasses wheat flour
- 1 glass milk
- 25g yeast
- 1 egg
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 butter, melted

Prepare the dough with warm milk, yeast, and 1 tbsp sugar. Place the remaining ingredients in a bowl or a mixer. Add the expanded dough, work till it does not glue to the hand. Then add butter and leave to rise.

The filling:

- 400 g minced cheese
- 1/2 glass sugar
- a few drops of vanilla flavour
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 soft butter

Whisk all together, preferably in a mixer. Roll the dough until 1 cm thick. Cut out circles, using a cup for example. Dimple each one and place some cheese in the middle with a spoon.
Place the buns in a baking tray lined with paper, wait for 20 minutes till they rise. Put into an oven preheated to 180 C and bake for ca. 20 minutes. 

Dessert raspberry cake

Dessert raspberry cake



Why "dessert"? Because it is best eaten warm and its consistence resembles pudding a bit... Theoretically other cakes are eaten at the end of a meal as well, but I am able to have them after, before, and sometimes if more and more rarely- instead:-)
By the way, instead of raspberries you may use blackberries or currants. 












"Raspberry cake"

- 3 eggs
- 1/3 glass brown or white sugar
- 1.5 glass milk
- 1/2 glass yogurt
- 1/2 glass wheat flour
- 1/2 kilo raspberries

Preheat the oven to 180-190 C. Line a small baking tray with baking paper. It is fairly important as the cake will be slightly liquid. 
Blend eggs wit sugar in a pot. In the other blend milk, yogurt, and flour. Add the fruit, stir. 
Pour the fruit mixture into the tin and pour the egg mix on top. Bake for circa 40 minutes with a fan so that the crust does not burn. 

Simplest plum cake

Simplest plum cake

I was down yesterday. Simply, humanly down. The world was all wrong, people bad, everything distorted. With the last spark of common sense I remembered the words of the Working Woman from "The 40year-old Guy" ( Polish cult film), that the best thing for troubles is plum cake. Naturally, in my state I was not up to making a yeast dough, so u took the easiest way out. Perhaps it was not as great as the yeast one, but after the first bite- it helped!
PS. And today, when the sun shines, it is a perfect combination!:-)








"Plum cake"

- 225 g flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 140 g sugar
- 90 g soft butter
- 1/2 glass of milk
- 1 egg
- canelle and sugar to sprinkle
- halved plums, with stones removed

Blend butter and sugar in the mixer, add the flour, baking powder, butter, milk, and the egg. 
Butter the tin well, pour in the dough. Smooth and decorate with plums skin  down. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 40 minutes in 180 C. You may sprinkle with almonds towards the end of baking.