Sour lemon cake – Donna Hay challenge #2

It is time for the Donna Hay challenge #2. This time Simone chose a photo taken by Con Poulos and featured in Donna Hay magazine 44 from 2009. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the challenge is simply about trying to replicate a photo from Donna Hay magazine, you can read more about it on Simone's blog.
How do you take your photos? Are you organized? Do you have an exact image in your mind before you take a picture? How long does it take you to shoot a photo? 5 minutes? 15 minutes? 1 hour? More?
I always feel that I could shorten the time by preparing myself better. I try working on my organization skill, but there are still a lot of things to be done.
This time I prepared my props ahead, but I spent ages trying to drape the black sheet that was my background the way I wanted. I was doing it for so long that it started getting dark. So I quickly made some icing. I knew I would have only one opportunity to drizzle the icing over the cake nicely. The icing was quite thick so I added a little bit of water, and then a little bit more, and I ended up with too thin icing. I wish I were a wise girl who always has a back-up cake (or even two), the icing would  look so much better!

I must admit I'm happy with the result, even though a huge amount of the icing ended up on the sheet. I didn't find a round, dark plate or a cutting board, so I went with something that wouldn't attract your attention too much. I must  admit that a better-looking bundt cake would be nice. You can see how nicely the light plays with the cake in Astrid photo. And yes, it's very different from the original one, but it is still the same lemon cake against a dark background.

But let's get back to the cake itself. It's very simple, delicate, lemony and delicious. Even people who usually don't like lemon cakes thought it was delicious.

Sour lemon cake
For a 2-litre capacity Bundt pan
Cake

• 220 g butter (melted) 
• 330 g caster sugar
• 2 eggs 
• 120 g sour cream 
• 60 ml lemon juice 
• 2 Tbsp lemon zest (finely grated) 
• 300 g all purpose flour (sifted) 
• 2 tsp baking powder (sifted) 

Lemon icing

• 320g icing sugar (sifted) 
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice 
• 2 tablespoons water (boiling) 

Preheat the oven to 160°C (I baked the cake in a fan oven and the temperature was OK, so if you are baking it in a standard oven you may increase the temperature to 180°C).
Place the butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, lemon juice and zest in a bowl and whisk to combine (you can use a mixer).
Add the flour and baking powder and whisk until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a greased Bundt pan and bake for 40-45 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in it comes out clean). Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack and take off the pan. Let it to cool completely.
To make the lemon icing: place the icing sugar, juice and water in a bowl and mix to combine. Drizzle over the cake.

Witch's fingers - Halloween recipe

Halloween is not popular in Poland. The media do what they can, but it is hard to change traditions. We celebrate All Saints' Day on 1st of November. We visit the graves of our dead and bring candles and flowers. Cemeteries look beautiful then, but it's the day of thoughtfulness. Even radio stations play only nostalgic and melancholic music.
So this year it will be so different. I can't wait to see Halloween in Ireland. All my friends say it is the nicest holiday here.
I got myself into the Halloween mood and prepare some food.
Witch's fingers are the first recipe I tried. They are so creepy and funny. It's good to have some artistic talents when making them, but even when you are lousy like me, you can still have great fun.

Witch's fingers

for 90 cookies

• 225 g soft butter
• 3/4 cup icing sugar 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 2/3 all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup almonds (whole or cut in half, depending on how thick you want the nails to be)

Notes: 1 cup=250ml

Put all ingredients, except the almonds, in a bowl and knead them (you can use a food processor).
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Scoop one heaped teaspoon of the dough and shape it into a finger (it should be skinner than yours, because they will spread during the baking process). Press an almond into the end of each cookie to form a nail.  Squeeze in the centre of the dough to create a knuckle shape. To make knuckles creases simply cut the dough a few times with a knife.

If the dough gets too sticky, put most of it into the fridge or even freezer and work with a few pieces of it.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden.

If nails fall off, reattach it with a jam (red one will be perfect).

Transfer the cookies onto a wire rack to cool. Be careful they are very fragile.

Grandma's cookies

I love recipes with a story. They are more interesting, more real and taste better. OK, maybe that's just my imagination ;) 

This is quite an old recipe. It comes from the magazine "As" from the year 1937. I like to imagine that my grandma was baking cookies from this recipe. I can't ask her, but I know she would like them.

I found the recipe in Agnieszka's Maciąg's book "Smak życia" ("The Taste of Life"). The book was one of many wonderful surprises. I bought it in a bargain bookstore. I wasn't really convinced, but its layout was nice. Agnieszka is a model and journalist and I'm really suspicious when it comes to stars' cookbooks, especially ones written by slim, beautiful women. It's hard to believe they actually like to eat. But luckily the book turned out charming. Simple recipes with interesting introductions and beautiful photos. I use many recipes out of this book, but I must admit that the cookie recipe is my favourite.

I took these cookies for the Irish food photography workshop.

Grandma's cookies
for 30-40 cookies

• 100 g granulated sugar
• 200 g cold butter, diced
• 300 g all purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp sour cream

For sprinkling

• 24 almonds, chopped finely (ground ones will be ok too)
• granulated sugar
• 1 egg white, beaten

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl whisk together the sugar and flour. Add the butter and sour cream. Knead the dough quickly.
Roll it to 1-cm thickness. Cut the cookies with a cutter or glass and place them on a baking sheet.
Using a pastry brush, brush the cookies with the egg white. Sprinkle the cookies with the sugar and almonds.
Bake for 12 minutes or until golden.
Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Bread for Toast

Toast is very popular in Ireland. You can find 4-slice toasters and a cute toast stands - this always confuses my boyfriend: "who uses them?" he asks. And surely you'll have no problems finding bread to make toast in the stores.
But I must admit I don't like this bread. Most of it is scam (not only in Ireland, but everywhere). There you go, I said it.
It's not like I don't like toast, I really do: it's nice and warm, I love it just with a butter. It is delicious with cheese or with sweet jam.
But most bread consists only of air, tastes like paper, or contains too many artificial ingredients or additives. Who needs soya in a bread? I don't think it is done properly.
So I made bread for toast myself: it's beautiful and delicious. It's easy to cut. When you toast it, it's crispy outside and soft inside, it has a nice texture, it doesn't consists only with air and it's easy.
The recipe comes from a beautiful blog "Pracownia wypieków".

Bread for Toast

• 310-320 g water
• 20 g fresh yeast or 1 tsp dried yeast
• 540 g strong flour
• 1 Tbsp butter (a spoonful)
• 1 Tbsp powdered milk (a spoonful)
• 1,5 tsp salt
• 1,5 tsp sugar

Notes: My resting times were longer than the times stated in this recipe. If you have a warm kitchen, this times should be OK; if your kitchen is quite cold you might need to extend the times or put the dough into a cold oven and just leave the light on: this is enough to raise the temperature by 2-3°C. And if during the baking your bread is getting golden too quickly, cover it with kitchen foil.

Dissolve yeast in the water. Add all remaining ingredients. Knead the dough. You can use a mixer. I kneaded it with a hand mixer for 5 minutes.
When the dough is smooth, put it into the lightly oiled bowl and leave to rest for one hour.
Form a long loaf and put it in an oiled 30cm-long loaf pan. Spray the top of the dough with oil, cover it with cling film and let it rest for 40-60 minutes (dough should double in size).
Preheat the oven to the 190°C/180°C fan. Fill a pan with very cold water or ice cubes and put it in the bottom of the oven.
Take off the cling film and put the bread in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. If after this time bread has golden colour, take it out of the pan, put it back in the oven and bake it for another 10-15 minutes. The bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Let it cool on the cooling rack.