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If there is a delicacy that everyone loves in the world of sweetmeats, it is cakes. From a delicate sponge cake melting in the mouth or in a crispy basket, with an airy cream or velvety praline, sprinkled with fried nuts or decorated with ripe juicy berries… Sweet fantasies can be listed indefinitely. We offer to focus on the seven most popular recipes of cakes that can be prepared at home.
Dessert from the Queen
Legend has it that Catherine de ‘ Medici had a hand in creating profiteroles. More precisely, her cook Panterelli, who invented the custard dough. However, the first mention of cakes refers only to the XVII century. And the real “profiterole” insanity began in the XIX century. In Europe, this dessert was then considered almost the most popular.
How to make profiteroles at home? Bring to a boil a mixture of 100 g of butter and 200 ml of water. Sift 130 g of flour, beat in 4 eggs, knead the dough. Spread the same balls on a baking sheet with parchment paper, bake first at 220 °C for 10 minutes, then at 200 °C for another 25 minutes. During this time, we will make a cream. Mix 100 g of sugar, 5 tablespoons of flour, 2 yolks and a pinch of salt in a saucepan. Stirring continuously, pour 500 ml of milk, bring to a boil and cook a thick cream.
When the cream cools down, we fill the profiteroles with it using a pastry syringe. For topping, melt a bar of milk chocolate and mix with 1 tbsp. l. olive oil. Sprinkle the warm profiteroles with powdered sugar and pour over the chocolate sauce.
Basket of pleasure
Do you remember the cake baskets with mushrooms and chickens that we all ate as children? We offer you to try an exquisite coffee variation.
Rub 200 g of butter with 2 eggs and 100 g of sugar. Add 300 g of flour with a pinch of salt and vanilla, knead the plastic shortbread dough. We tamp it into metal corrugated molds, put dry beans inside, bake for 10 minutes at 200 °C. When the baskets cool down, remove the beans, pour a little melted chocolate on the bottom, let it completely freeze and spread 1 tsp of jam or jam on top.
Beat the coffee cream from 400 g of 33% cream, 100 g of powdered sugar and 3 tsp of instant coffee. Using a pastry syringe, we put the cream in baskets, sprinkle with grated chocolate, decorate with chocolate drops. For decoration, you can also dip coffee beans in melted chocolate and let it harden.
Coconut Fad
Sometimes you love sweets so much that you are ready to devote your whole life to them. This is exactly what Pietro Ferrero, one of the creators of the Ferrero chocolate empire, did. Once, for a big city holiday, he made chocolate cakes in the form of towers. However, during the night they melted and turned into cakes. The master was not at a loss: I smeared slices of bread with chocolate mass and distributed them to people. And soon after that, he came up with a dessert that does not melt even in the heat. This is how the famous “Raffaello” candies appeared.
How to make Raffaello cakes at home? Bring to a boil 600 ml of 33% cream, melt 400 g of white chocolate, put the mixture in the refrigerator for 5-6 hours. Beat 6 eggs with a mixer with 350 g of sugar into a fluffy smooth mass. Carefully mix 100 g of almond flour and 250 g of coconut chips, bake a sponge cake at 180 °C for half an hour. Now he also needs to rest for 5-6 hours.
Next, we grind the coconut sponge cake into a crumb, mix it with creamy chocolate cream. We make neat buns, put a whole almond kernel inside and roll it in coconut chips. Let them completely freeze, and you can serve them with tea.
Chocolate squared
Of all the American desserts in the world, brownies are the most loved. The cake was born thanks to the Columbian Exhibition of 1897 and a certain wealthy business lady Bertha Potter. She turned to the chef of the gift with a request to prepare a treat that you could take with you and have a snack between viewing the expositions.
And here is the brownie recipe itself. Melt 200 g of real bitter chocolate and 180 g of butter in a water bath. When the mass becomes smooth, pour 180 g of sugar and completely dissolve. Let it cool down a little and one by one vigorously drive in 3 eggs with a whisk. Sift 130 g of flour here and knead the dough so that there is not a single lump left. We spread it in a rectangular shape with parchment paper, put it in the oven at 180 °C for 25 minutes. When the brownie is cool, cut it into squares. For the most sophisticated sweets, you can pour it with liquid chocolate.
Clouds in tubes
Crispy puff rolls with protein cream are a sky-high pleasure for many sweetmeats. Here is a classic recipe for tubes with cream, just like in childhood.
Beat 2 egg yolks with 200 ml of water, pour 250 g of flour with a pinch of salt. Knead the dough, leave it for half an hour and roll out a wide layer. We form a flatbread from 200 g of margarine, put it in the center of the dough, bend the edges from four sides and roll out thinly. We bend the edges again and repeat the procedure 3-4 times. Finally, we roll out the dough into a thin wide layer, cut it into strips 2-2. 5 cm wide. We wrap them overlap on cylinders made of thick foil and bake for 15 minutes at 200 °C.
Now let’s do the cream. We cook a thick syrup of 200 g of sugar and 5 tbsp of water. At the same time, at high speed, beat 3 proteins with a pinch of salt and 1 tsp of lemon juice with a mixer. Combine the strong peaks with the syrup and continue to beat until a smooth, fluffy cream is obtained. It remains to fill the crispy tubes with snow-white cream and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Chocolate kiss
For all its simplicity, meringue is considered an exquisite delicacy, and sweetmeats are crazy about it. To say thank you for this should be the Swiss pastry chef Gasparini from the town of Meiringen. Once he was so interested in whipping egg whites that he was surprised to find an incredibly cool air foam in the bowl. He decided to add some sugar to it and put it in the oven. You know the result.
How to cook meringue in the oven at home? Carefully separate 5 proteins, put a pinch of salt and start whipping with a mixer at high speed. To prevent the mass from settling, lubricate the bowl and nozzles with lemon juice. Continuing to beat, pour 250 g of powdered sugar into one spoon, and then 2-3 tablespoons of cocoa. With the help of a pastry bag with a “shell” nozzle, we put the shaped halves on a baking sheet. We put it in the oven at 120 °C for half an hour, then reduce it to 100 °C and keep it for the same amount.
We break 2 dark chocolate bars into pieces, melt them in a water bath, pour 400 ml of cream 30-33 % and 1 tsp of honey, stir until thickened. You can add a drop of rum or cognac here. We “glue” the meringue halves together with chocolate cream and let them freeze. And before serving, sprinkle the cakes with cocoa.
Lemon tenderness
When the sweetness becomes unbearable, you can bake some delicate dessert with an expressive citrus sourness. A simple and quick-to-prepare recipe for lemon cake is just right.
Grate the lemon zest on the smallest grater, trying not to touch the white part of the peel.
Then we squeeze all the juice out of the fruit pulp. Melt 50 g of butter in a water bath, mix thoroughly with 3 eggs, 170 g of sugar and 200 ml of milk. Add lemon juice and zest here, sift 80 g of flour and pour out 50 g of coconut chips. Mix all the ingredients well.
The resulting mass is poured into a baking dish and put in a preheated 180 °C oven for 40-45 minutes. When the tender lemon pie is completely cooled, cut it into equal portions and sprinkle each with powdered sugar.
Don’t know how to surprise your favorite sweetmeats? Prepare something from our selection of desserts. Even more interesting recipes for cakes at home with photos from our readers can be found on the website “We Eat at Home”. And what kind of cakes do you like yourself? Tell us in the comments about the branded treats that you prepare for family holidays or just like that, for no reason.