Minta Eats

I have stopped buying plums. No, I’m not sick or mad. I just have another wonderful source of those great late-summer fruit – garden by the house my Mum’s company is in. In the garden you can find five or six different varieties of plums. Small “węgierki”, perfect for jams and big Parisiens, sweet and gold inside. And others which names I don’t know (yet;-). So today I came back home with ca. 3 kilos (!) of perfectly ripe plums). With the aim of baking a good ol’ plum cake. It is easy to make (especially if you have some KitchenAid-like helper;-), great for five o’clock tea, for chatting with friends, for sweet breakfast. Yum.

Dimply Plum Cake (adapted from Dorie Greenspan “Baking: From my home to yours”)

Ingredients (for small, 19 cm springform; I have used 28-cm form and doubled the ingredients)

1 1/2 cups  plain or all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt
75 g  butter
100 g brown sugar
2 eggs,
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
8 plums cut in half and pitted
optionally: 1/2 spoon of orange zest and 1/4 teaspoon of powdered cardamon

Preheat the oven to 175C. Grease and flour a round cake form. In a bowl beat butter with sugar till pale and smooth. Add eggs, one at a time and mix well. Add vanilla essence and give it another stir. In a bowl mix all dry ingredients and add them into buttery-eggy mixture (not everything at one time, but part after part). Mix until just incorporated. Pour the batter into prepared form, place halved plums on the top (skins down) and put into hot oven. Bake for 25-35 minutes, till golden.

Dimply Plum Cake

Recently I was to write a story about preserves. But the story had to be written so, that even men would be keen on reading it. You know, jams and marmelades are more girly/granny/mummy thing. Not a man thing. But as I was making my research I found out a whole new world of preserves. Tangy orange marmalade from England (in Poland marmelade is a terribly sweet thing from no-name fruit), cherry confiture with a kick from Polish monks living in Tyniec near Cracow (check this site for more information), wonderful jams preserves with spices, nuts and other surprises from Spizarnia, created by Beata Martynowska or the preserves form forgotten fruit like sea-buckthorns berries or rowan berries from Fungopol. Really, there is a whole universe of original , exotic tastes which are rooted in Polish culinary tradition. Just waiting to be discovered and eaten with morning toasts.

More on strange preserves here (in Polish) in the story published in Rzeczpospolita: Konfitury z innej beczki

And here’s an interview with wonderful Ms Hanna Szymanderska, the person who knows everything about Polish culinary tradition.

Are you a peach person or a nectarine person? I’ve always perceived myself as the latter one. Though I have grown up in a house with garden with 10 or so peach trees of different varieties, they have never been my favourits. Definitely  I was more keen on huge plums, golden inside and sweet as honey. And nectarines, but those I had chance to eat only when on holidays in France with my parents – believe me, 20 or even 15 years ago nectarines were hardly to be found in Poland. I like their “bold” furry less skins and crunchy, still hard center. My best are the white nectarines, not so popular yet beautiful with pink blush inside and delicate flavour. Now they are nearly as popular as peaches so I devour on them as much as I can.

Yet, despite my nectarine orientation, yesterday I have bought some peaches. Nice looking ones, rather big, still hard with orange-pink skin and deep yellow center. I bought them …well, I don’t know exactly why but I knew that I can use them to something delicious. For example – late summer, buttery cake with oatmeal and vanilla.

Ingredients

3 big peaches, still hard
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup oats
100 g butter
1/2 vanilla pod
150 g brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt

Grease 20 cm in diameter spring form and sprinkle with crumbs. Wash peaches and cut them on half, than again and again to receive 8 pieces from one fruit. Beat the butter with sugar, add vanilla beans removed from the pod. Add one egg after one, mixing the batter simultaneously . Sift in flour and other dry ingredients, mix well and pour the batter into the prepared form (if it’s to dry you can ad some 2-3 spoons of yogurth). Top with peaches and bake in 180 degrees Celsius for 45-50 minutes.

First, there are strawberries. After few months of gray days and cold weather, with oranges and last year’s apples I wait for those red little ones as impatiently, as small kids wait for Christmas Eve. In highest point of my fruit desperation I buy those from Argentina or other exotic place, which only look like strawberries but taste like water (ok, red-colored, sweetened water). After obvious disappointment I try to wait for the first REAL strawberries made in Poland. And then I eat them and eat them…and wait so for the first cherries to arrive. (Beware! Digression: When I was 4 or 5 I came up with a great (or at least so had I thought) that if I will pick up unripe cherries and put them aside in a dosh, they will ripe like for example hard pears are getting softer after some time on the table. So I picked a nice bowl of cherries and put them under my desk And forgot about them absolutely. Four weeks after I made a quite interesting discovery, founding nice colony of white mold.)
Now, after straws, raspberries and apricots I awaited pears. Though the arrival of pears means, that Autumns is standing by the corner, I was really happy to find brand new, hard as rock yet sweet pears on my small market. And I have bought 3 kilos of them. So without moral dilemmas I could use them to make a moist, vanilla scented pear cake:

Ingredients:
4 hard pears, peeled and sliced
2-2,5 cups flour (I have used 2 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of quick oats)
150 g butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1,5 teaspoon baking powder
1 spoon vanilla essence or beans from half of vanilla pod
1 cup natural yogurt
pumpkin or sunflower seeds to sprinkle, if you wish

Heat the oven for 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a 25 cm spring-form and cover with breadcrumbs or semolina.
Beat the butter with sugar till fluffy. Add eggs, one after one. Add vanilla essence or beans and yogurt. Sift in flour with baking powder and mix well.
Add slices of fruit and pour dough into the form. Sprinkle with some pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Bake for 45-60 minutes (check with toothpick if its OK). Cool on wire rack.

Despite it’s not even late August, the weather today is rather October-ish, I must say. 18-something degrees Celsius, no sun at all, gray clouds, even more gray sky and totally gray rain. To survive this weather You need something very sunny and summery and comfy. What You say for simple pie with plums, hint of brown sugar and cinnamon and some extra – French white nougat with almonds. I say yes!

Ingredients:
250 g flour
75 g + 1 spoon brown sugar
150 g butter
2 eggs
pinch of salt
pinch of cinnamon
1 kg sweet, ripe plums
75 g nougat with whole almonds

Turn on the oven for 190 C.

Mix flour with sugar and salt, add cold butter cut into pieces and eggs. Mix quickly (if You work with short pastry to long, flour will release its gluten and the pastry will be chewy instead of crisp and flaky). Form dough into a bowl, wrap in cling foil and pt into fridge for hour or more.
Meanwhile wash the plums, cut them on halves and remove stones. Mix with one spoon of brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut nougat into small pieces. Grease the baking sheet You will bake your pie on.
Take the chilled dough and roll to 0,5 – 1 cm thick. Transfer the pastry onto the baking sheet, cover with nougat crumbs  and plums (skins down).
Bake for 20-25 minutes. Put on rack to chill and for juice to set.

After few absoltuely summerish days the weather has decided to remind us what the rain is. No sun, just some dark clouds and rain. There are two good things about such a weather thugh. Well, even three. irst – I don’t need to water my plants (my dear daisies, I love You). Second – no more fighthing with that stupid cotton-like thing from the poplar threes. I haven’t told You but since week or soo I am using my vacuum cleaner at least 4 times a day. FOUR TIMES! One person is even suspecting that iI have some kind of OCD. I hope not..but really I cannot stand eating, sleeping, breathing and drinkig those cotton. I think that it would be much better idea for a really really scary movie than all kinds of bloodsucking spiders from Pluto or 30-meter-long man-eating sea cucumbers. So – coming to the point at last – when it rains, all cotton is washed down and don’t fly inside my home. COOL!
And the third thing great about rainy days is cake. Any cake You want. The simpliest, no-fuss, mix’n'bake cake. With strawberries. Here’s what I’ve made today.

My Strawberry Cake:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat brans
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
100 g butter, melted
2/3 – 1 cup of plain yoghurt or buttermilk (You must add 2/3 first and see how the flour will absord the fluid)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
500 g starwberries, washed and cleaned

Heat the oven for 180 C.
Mix all dry ingridients in a big bowl. Beat eggs with buttermilk and ,elted and cooled butter, pour into the bowl and mix quite well.
Pour the mixture into a prepared pan (I’ve used a bit to big one here, the 20 cm diameter one would be great). Put strawberries on the top (don’t give too much of them dough, I think You won’t mind eating some fresh fruit waiting for the cake to bake .
Bake for approx. 40 minutes, till golden brown on the top.

Last night we had here a real springtime storm -with thunders and warm rain. So today everything is fresh, more green and happy. Especially my ruccola growing in the window boxes. Maybe it’s because of the weather, but this Saturday seems to be very lazy. Everything seems to go a bit slower and the thing You want most is to lay down with book and cuppa tea. Or bake some spring cake. What You say on buttermilk cake with rhubarb? I’ve made this using a recipe for the Raspberry Buttermilk Cake from the Smitten Kitchen.

Easy peasy Rhubrab Buttermilk Cake:

Ingridients:
2 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup whet brans
1 cup sugar (I used brown)
3 eggs
1 cup of buttermilk or plain youghurt
1/2 cup of oil or melted butter
4 staks of rhubarb
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
pinch of salt

Wash and trim rhubarb stalks, cut in 1 cm pieces, put into a bowl and sprinkle with 3-4 spoons of sugar and lay aside.

Turn the oven on, 180 C.
Mix the eggs with sugar, add buttermilk and vanilla essence. Add all dry ingridients and mix well. Pour the bater into a form, scatter drained rhubarb pieces over the top and sprinkle with some sugar. Bake for 40-60 minutes, till golden on the top.
After cooling down sprinkle with some honey or icing sugar.

Those beauties come form one of my favourite blogs: La Prochaine Fois.

It’s being run by Cathy – art student from Texas. As You may guess, Cathy’s two big passions are food and art. And here’s a great example of mixing those two. Rings, bracelets and necklaces from the dried fruit were made as an art project, exploring issues of preservation, the permanence of memory, and the definition of jewelry.

Image from laprochainefois.blogspot.com

She writes:

The dehydrator is my new favorite toy. With it, I began to dry fruits and incorporate them with my work in metal. And what better way than to combine two things I love: jewelry and food. No more cheerio necklaces, I wanted something better! These rings are completely edible, except for the silver part of course.