eggfree

I have decided to have two more cakes for Christmas dinner - one with almonds and dried fruit and the other one a chestnut and chocolate cake.

The chestnut cake had the classic Mont Blanc dessert as an inspiration; Mont Blanc consists of meringue, whipped cream and chestnut puree and sometimes chocolate, it is also naturally gluten-free. The taste of chestnut is something I wanted to include in our Christmas desserts, but I did not want to make Mont Blanc, although it is very tasty. Thus the idea for a chestnut cake was perfect. The taste is somewhat sophisticated, I would say, and very rich, a small piece of this cake goes a long way in satisfying the need for something sweet with chocolate.

My other cake is a simple one with dried fruit and some almond flour; I can not think of Christmas without a  fruitcake. This cake is not overly sweet since I did not use all that much sugar in it and the texture is very dense because I did not whip the eggs together. My choice for the fruits was some golden raisins, some dates and lastly some dried apricots, which work well together, but any kind of dried fruits would do.

Now I have my desserts planned out for Christmas, we are going to have three cakes, these two and the Galician almond cake, gingerbread ice cream and cardamom ice cream, then some cheese poached in cream with cloudberries and maybe some cloudberry quark - quite simple, but sweet, easy and tasty.

A Chocolate and Chestnut Cake

This is a naturally gluten-free and egg-free cake; you could use a dairy-free margarine instead of the butter to make this dairy-free.

I did not use any sugar in this, but you could add some sugar for some sweetness. The chocolate was 70%, for a rich chocolate flavour, but anything above 50% will work. My chestnut puree is sweetened and flavoured with vanilla, if you have something without vanilla, add 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the cake. The rum can be left out, or you can use some other kind of alcohol to flavour this with.

A Chestnut Cake Recipe

serves 10 and takes 10 minutes to make, but has to be cooled in the fridge for at least 5 hours

-250 grams or 9 ounces chocolate

-2 cups or 5dl chestnut puree

-200 grams or 7 ounces butter, which should be rooms temperature before you start

-2 tbls dark rum (optional)

Grease a cake pan with butter.

Place the chopped chocolate into a bain marie, which means that you should take a bowl and place it on top of a saucepan which has water in it - make sure that the bowl does not touch the water - and place the saucepan on medium heat.

When the chocolate has melted, take the bowl away from the saucepan, add the butter into it and let the butter melt, you don’t have to do anything; it will melt by itself into the chocolate.

Add the chestnut puree and the rum, mix them together. Taste the mixture to see if you would like to add some vanilla or maybe sugar.

Pour the mixture into the greased cake pan.

Let it cool in the fridge for at least 5 hours, or overnight.

Serve with some vanilla flavoured whipped cream and crushed meringues or with some ice cream.

A Gluten-Free Fruitcake

You can make this dairy-free by using a dairy-free margarine, or leaving the butter out altogether.

Fruitcake recipe

Serves 10 and takes 20 minutes to make and one hour to bake

-1 cup or 2,5 dl fruit jam, I used French apricot jam which is really thick and has a lot of flavour, you can also use sweet fruit juice, but use a bit less of that

-3 cups or 7,5 dl chopped dried fruit, I used half dates, 1/4 golden raisins and 1/4 dried apricots

-4 tbls water

-8 eggs

-1 cup or 2,5 dl unrefined sugar, brown sugar or honey, white sugar is to plain in this

-2 flat tbls ground cardamom

-2 flat tsp cinnamon

-5 heaping tbls melted butter (optional)

-2 cups or 5 dl almond flour (ground almonds)

Preheat an oven to 150 C or 300 F.

Grease a cake pan with butter.

Place the dried fruit, water and the jam into a saucepan on medium heat and let them melt together.

When the fruit has gone soft add the eggs, sugar, melted butter and the spices. Mix together.

You will end up with a rather gooey mess.

Mix in the almond flour and pour the batter into the cake pan.

Bake for approximately 1 hour. You can take a toothpick and test the cake to see if it is done. I used the same apricot jam to glace this with. If you want to, you could also make small holes in to the cake and then add some brandy to it.

Serve with some coffee - I love this cake with some coffee.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Gino - the dessert - might not say much to people outside of Sweden; it is something of a Swedish speciality from some time ago and holds a tiny bit of nostalgic value. The ingredients are simple and it is very easy to make, but the end result does taste like something more complex and refined than what it basically is - a white chocolate gratin.

In my memories Swedish food culture is laden with sugar, this is my most prominent food memory from the days when I lived there as a child, there was sugar in almost everything, even in bread. I can not say that understand the major sweet tooth Swedes have, even though I spent so many years of my life there, but it is only fitting that they eat such sweet foods because it reflects their nature.

Swedish people are very open, sort of soft spoken and friendly; a stark contrast to their neighbours to the east, which is us, the Finns, who are best described as reserved, quiet and maybe even grim.

I have many fond memories of my time in Sweden, even though my Finnish nature sometimes felt out of place surrounded by the joyful and eager to talk Swedes. It is only fitting that I sometimes make Swedish foods and remember how nice it was living there; now I am surrounded by my own kind of people, reserved and quiet, even though I feel at home, still I sometimes miss the other countries I have lived in, Sweden maybe the most.

Gino is one of those foods I associate Sweden with.

There are a lot of different Gino recipes out there, some are more complex - one for example even has a sauce made out of passion fruit and creme fraiche - but the original one uses bananas for a white colour, strawberries for a red colour and kiwi fruit for a green colour, these resemble the colours of the Italian flag. Grated white chocolate is used on top of the dessert. It is usually served with some good quality ice cream, but I like to have it with some plain Greek yogurt; I need the tartness against the sweetness of the white chocolate.

For a dairy-free variety you could use a dairy-free white chocolate, which is quite good if it is made with cocoa butter; I think it is important to use a high quality chocolate whenever possible since those vegetable oils, in cheaper chocolates, do not give the same pleasure, because the fat does not melt the same way in your mouth. The melting of the chocolate combining with the flavours is behind the pleasure of chocolate.

A Gino Recipe

-50 grams or 1,8 ounces of white chocolate per person

-1/2 -1 cup of chopped berries of fruit per person

-1-2 tbls sugar per person

-1-2 tbls desiccated coconut or almond slivers per person (this is optional and is used for the crunch)

- good quality ice cream

Preheat an oven to 225 C or 440 F.

Mix the sugar with the fruit.

Take a baking dish or individual ramekins and place the fruit into it.

Grate the white chocolate and sprinkle on top with the coconut or almond, if you are using them.

Place the Gino into the oven and bake for 7-10 minutes depending on your oven, be very careful so that the white chocolate does not burn; it should have some colour, but it should not burn.

Serve with some ice cream.

Popularity: 7% [?]