Revani

                               

I loved my family summer holidays when I was growing up. For many years we went to Greece and I have really happy memories from these holidays - we all learnt to waterski, I began scuba diving and we experienced a large earthquake! Greece is such a beautiful country, with some amazing food. So this week I decided to make a Greek cake called Revani. This is a moist and delicious semolina cake flavoured with orange and sweetened with a syrup flavoured with lemon and vanilla pods. 

To make the cake you will need to following ingredients:

5 eggs, separated 

100g caster sugar

50g plain sugar

100g  semolina

pinch of salt

1 orange, zest

50g unsalted butter, melted

50g no-peel marmalade 

For the syrup:

250g caster sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 lemon, zest

vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped out

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a 24cm spring form cake tin and line the sides and base with baking parchment. 

2. Beat the egg yolks and caster sugar in a mixer until light and creamy. While the machine is running on a low speed, add the flour & semolina followed by the salt, orange zest, melted butter and marmalade. Beat until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks and gently fold into the batter in 3 additions being careful not to knock the air out. 

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown. 

5. While the cake is in the oven, prepare the syrup - put all of the ingredients, including the vanilla pods, in a small saucepan with 300 ml water and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat and summer gently for 10 mins. The syrup will thicken slightly but won't be very thick. Leave to cool slightly. 

                     

6. While the cake is still warm and in its tin, cut into triangles. Strain the syrup, removing the vanilla pods, and slowly pour over the cake. 

7. Leave to cool and serve with Greek yoghurt and chopped pistachios. 

The photos do not do this cake justice at all! It was beautifully moist and sticky from the sweet syrup with a subtle orange flavour from the cake. I loved the texture of the semolina, it's so different to a fluffy flour cake. It's amazing how smells or tastes can remind you of happy memories. I'm positive they served this desert in the hotel restaurant all those years ago because the taste was very familiar and immediately transported me back to my Greek holidays.

I asked two of my Greek friends if they would like to try it and give me their opinion, since they know what real Greek Revani should taste like. I was a little nervous but they loved it and said it was exactly how it should be! So it was a successful first attempt at Greek baking - my next challenge will be to make baklava. 

Hannah xx

Blackberry & Cinnamon Yogurt cupcakes with Crumble topping

This weekend has been the hottest of 2014 so far which can only mean one thing. First BBQ of the year and sunbathing! And despite wanting to spend most of the weekend in the garden, I still made time for baking. 

As it is finally starting to feel like summer I wanted to bake something light, summery and fruity. I found a recipe for blackberry & cinnamon yogurt loaf which I thought sounded really nice. However, being an experimental baker, I decided to make a few changes. I didn't want to make it as a loaf so I decided to bake the recipe as cupcakes. Also, the serving suggestion on the original recipe was simply to dust with icing sugar which I thought was a little boring so I decided to add a crumble topping. 

Ingredients:
135 ml sunflower oil
175g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
200g frozen blackberries
125g golden caster sugar
125g Greek yogurt
3 eggs
zest & juice of 1 lemon

For the crumble:
50g plain flour
25g unsalted butter, chilled
15g light brown soft sugar

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line a muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Make the crumble by rubbing the butter into the flour using your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then stir in the sugar.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add the frozen berries and toss to coat. 
4. In another bowl mix together the caster sugar, oil, lemon zest & juice, yogurt and eggs. 
5. Pour into the dry flour mixture and stir well to combine. 
6. Divide the mixture equally between the paper cases, approx. 3/4 full. Then sprinkle each cake with a thin layer of crumble.  
7. Bake for approx. 30 minutes until the crumble has turned golden brown. It's also a good idea to do the trusty skewer test to check that the centre is cooked! 
8. Transfer to a cooling rack. 

Tip: When dividing the mixture between the cases, I ensured that the first dollop of mixture in each case didn't contain any blackberries. This was to guarantee a solid base as I didn't want the juice from the berries to affect the bake. 

I wasn't entirely sure how long these would take to bake, as the time on the original recipe was for baking it as a loaf and thus was much longer. Generally cupcakes take between 20 and 30 minutes to bake. Since these had a high fruit content I thought it was likely to be on the longer side, but I kept checking them and rotating the tray until a skewer came out clean. 

...and 30 minutes later!

Before...

Presentation is almost as important as taste; even if you knew something tasted amazing, would you want to eat it if it looked like a dog's breakfast? Answer, probably not! Since these cupcakes require no icing or decoration, I decided to use tulip paper cases rather than the standard cupcake cases, to make them stand out and look a little bit special. I've never used this type of case before but I think you'll probably be seeing a lot more of them in later bakes because I love them. 

I love the dark purple marbling of the blackberries and the way the crumble separated out as the cupcakes rose. They definitely look better than any dog's breakfast I have ever seen!

YUM!

Hannah xx