Marquesas (Spanish Almond Magdaleines)

Here is a recipe to make Spanish Christmas Sweets. They are called Marquesas and are a kind of Almond Cupcakes, Magdaleines. You can eat them as breakfast, dessert, with a coffee. Hope you like them. Let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

• 100 g iced sugar
• 120 g white sugar
• Grated lemon zest (from 1/2 lemons, only the yellow part)
• 250 g ground almonds
• 40 g self raising flour
• 40 g cornflour
• 10 g baking powder
• 4 eggs
• Iced sugar for decoration 

Preparation:

1. Leave the eggs out of the fridge until they are room temperature (I left them around 6 hours).
2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, cornflour, baking powder, almond, iced sugar, and lemon zest.
3. Put water in a pan and a suitable bowl inside (so the bowl gets warm). It needs to be at a temperature that you don’t get burn (around 37ºC). At this point, leave the bowl above the hot water but take it out of the source.
4. Add the eggs and the white sugar and whisk with the electric mixer for 6 minutes. You’ll see that the mixture start growing and gets whiter.
5. Take the bowl off the pan and continue whisking for 6 more minutes.
6. Once that’s done, gradually add the almond mixture into the eggs mixture and try to mix it until you have a well-mixed batter. Try to mix it by hand and quite slow so the air in it doesn’t go, it will make your cupcakes more spongy.
7. Preheat your oven to 200 ºC. Prepare your muffin tin by greasing it or lining with muffins liners.
8. Fill your muffin tin or liners 3/4 full of cupcake batter.
9. Once the oven is at 200 ºC, reduce the temperature to 180 ºC and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.
10. Dust with icing sugar and leave the cupcakes cool on a wired rack.

Torrijas (Spanish French Toast)

This is a typical Spanish sweet made during Lent but also in Christmas time. They are really easy to prepare even though, it takes some time and are delicious so, prepare yourselves to this wonderful treat.

Ingredients:

• 1 French Loaf (better from the previous day)
• 1 liter of Milk (more or less, depending on the type of bread it would absorb a different amount of liquid)
• 1 Cinnamon Stick
• 1 Lemon Rind (only the yellow part)
• 120gr of Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• Olive or Sunflower Oil, for frying
• Cinnamon powder
• Sugar for decorate or Honey with water

Preparation Instructions:

1. Put the milk to boil with the cinnamon stick and the lemon rind in medium heat for 10 minutes. It's possible that it needs more time, until the milk tastes lemon and cinnamon.
2. Add the sugar and let it dissolve completely. Try the milk. It should be very sweet, nearly sickly, so the bread gets enough sweet. Add more sugar if necessary.
3. Leave to cool and strain to take out the lemon rind and the cinnamon stick.
4. Meanwhile, cut the bread in thick slices, around 3cm, and put them in a deep dish.
5. Cover them with the milk until is completely soaked (this is very important and if not they will be dry). It would be enough soaked  when you take the slice of bread and it looks like an sponge.
6. Beat the eggs and coat the bread slices in them. Be careful as the bread will be very soft and it could break. Use the hands or a spoon to help you.
7. Add a lot of oil in a deep pan and when it's very hot, fry the bread slices. Be careful when turning them around (using a spoon and a slotted spoon) so they don't fall to pieces. When golden brown, put them in a dish covered with kitchen paper.
8. Turn around a couple times in kitchen paper to leave it drain all the oil possible.
9. Once they are cold enough to touch them with your hands, there are different ways to finish them:
   • Mix in a plate sugar with cinnamon powder, coat the fried bread in the mixture.
   • In a small saucepan add honey and a spoon of water in low heat and mix. It would be done when the honey is not stick to the spoon. Coat the fried bread in the honey and add cinnamon powder.
   • Make a syrup with sugar and water and coat each fried slice. Add a bit of cinnamon powder.
10. Put the bread in a dish, trying to separate them enough so they don't mash each other.

I made two, sugar and cinnamon and honey, as each person likes something different. Now you can also start preparing your own French toast in the Spanish way, not only for Easter as they are amazing for breakfast around the different seasons.

Above is a photo of how they should look inside. The inside doesn't look like bread but as a cream.

Farmhouse Apple Cake

Today I'm giving you a wonderful recipe where the main ingredient is the apples. It is really easy and you don't need special instruments or ingredients. Here it goes:

Ingredients:

• 7 tablespoons Butter - recipe said unsalted but I used it with salt and was delicious
• 1/2 cup Whole Milk
• 2 large Eggs
• 5 Golden Delicious Apples
• Juice of 1 Lemon (to avoid the apples getting brown once peeled and cut)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 teaspoons Baking powder
• 1 cup of white Sugar
• 1/2 cup Flour

Preparation Instructions:

1. Put the milk into a cup and add the 7 tablespoons of butter into pieces. Microwave for a minute or two, until the butter is just melted. Set aside to cool.
2. Peel, core and quarter the apples. Slice them into thin slices, 0’5cm thick. Put them in a bowl with lemon juice to avoid them getting brown. Later we will need the apples, but not the lemon juice. Reserve it.
3. Preheat your oven to 200ºC. Butter a spring-form pan. You can also wrap the bottom of the pan with tin foil so it doesn’t leak (depends how liquid it’s the mixture it’s possible that it leaks a little.
4. Beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl with a wire whisk (I used a fork) until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the flour, baking powder and vanilla extract and blend thoroughly. Then add the milk-butter mixture and mix it with the rest.
5. Fold in the sliced apples and pour the mixture into the spring-form pan.
6. Place the pan directly on the floor of the oven for 10 minutes and then decrease the oven temperature to 180ºC for about an 40 minutes more. Check it every ten minutes to see if it’s golden brown. When it is, cover it with kitchen foil so it doesn’t “burn”. It should be in the oven a total of 50-55 minutes.
7. When done, place the cake on a cooling rack and leave there to cool enough to handle.
8. After a while run a thin knife around the cake and remove the spring-form ring. Leave some more time to cool as if you cut it when very warm it could “break” and look a bit messy.

When serving you can also add it some vanilla ice-cream and/or cream plus some caramel, to decorate.

Everybody loved it so I highly recommend it if you are looking for some easy and different cake to prepare.

Mascarpone Cake

The Mascarpone Cake is something that we like to have, not as a dessert but as breakfast or snack, but you can also decorate it with some whipped cream and fruits and have it as dessert for a great meal.

We should also say that, apart from Mascarpone Cheese it has apples and some lemon so it is not as tasteless as you can think in a first impression.

Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients for one cake:

• 250 grams Mascarpone Cheese
• 200 grams Icing Sugar
• 150 grams all-purpose Flour
• 4 Eggs (separated)
• 2 Apples (I use golden apples as are the ones I like the most but you choose)
• 1 Lemon (rind grated for the cake and juice to avoid the apples getting brown once peeled and cut)
• 1 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1 teaspoon Butter

Preparation Instructions:

1. Wash the lemon and grated the rind. Reserve it. (I use only half of the lemon's rind).
2. Make the juice with the lemon and put it in a bowl.
3. Then peel and chop the apples in small pieces so then get soft after baking the cake.
4. Put them in the bowl with the lemon juice trying to cover the apples with the liquid to avoid them getting brown. Later we will need the apples, but not the lemon juice. Reserve it.
5. Separate the yolks from the whites.
6. Mix the yolks perfectly and add the sugar.
7. Once it is completely mixed add the mascarpone cheese, the chopped apples, le lemon rind, the baking powder and the flour and mix until it is an smooth mixture.
8. In a different bowl whip egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
9. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
10. Once done, we add the stiffed egg whites gradually into mascarpone mixture. Mix only enough to blend. Over mixing will deflate the egg whites.
11. We butter or spray a 23 cm round springform pan and add the mixture.
12. Bake until cooked. In my oven this took around 40 minutes.

As every oven is different you should check every 10 minutes inserting a toothrbick in the center. When you take it out it should be clean, not with a little batter clinging to it so it is possible that the cake is golden brown but not cooked enough. In my case after 30 minutes I put kitchen foil above it to avoid the cake getting burnt but leaving it to cook in the inside.

The result is a grat Mascarpone Cake with Apples and a lightly lemon taste. If you prefer it without the lemon taste, do not use the rind.