Few people don’t like home-made cakes, but in everyday hustle and bustle it’s difficult to allocate several hours to please the family with a complex confectionery composition. Often you have to be content with ready-made sweets, but very often their taste and composition leave much to be desired. How to make a light cake at home, without spending too much time and energy, we will consider in this article.
Not so scary hell
Considering the beautiful desserts in coffee houses and pastry shops, it is difficult to believe that they can be prepared in a family whirlwind and perpetual employment, but it is not so difficult. Of course, now you can find a lot of cake recipes, consisting of "fish" crackers and condensed milk, which are prepared on the basis of "mixed and laid out", but this can hardly be called a cake.
Here we will consider the simplest combinations of tastes and products that will allow you to be recognized as a skilled housewife and put in a favorable light both to guests and to family members.
Cakes "mixed and baked"
Oddly enough, according to this scheme, you can make a lot of luxurious sweets, which any candy store will envy, while the efforts will be spent ridiculously little. Believe me, making cakes - at home, simply, pleasantly and quickly - is not such an impossible task. Let `s start?
Lavakeik
Otherwise, it is called a fondant. A portioned cake, which is served warm, has a liquid center, which plays the role of sauce.
For a lavakake you will need:
- small eggs - 3 pcs.;
- egg yolks - 3 pcs.;
- sugar - 60 grams;
- butter - 140 grams;
- dark chocolate - 225 grams;
- flour - 100 grams;
- flavoring to taste - orange zest, coffee, vanilla, cognac, liquor.
This is the easiest cake at home. To cook it, preheat the oven to 220 , at the same time melt chocolate and butter in microwave oven until smooth. Add the sifted flour with sugar, eggs with yolks and flavor, mix everything well.
Lubricate 6 servings with butter and sprinkle with a thin layer of flour. Pour the chocolate mass over them and put in the oven for a maximum of 8-10 minutes. The cake will be covered with a thin crust, and the middle will flutter - that's right. Pull out the forms, go with the knife along the sides and put the sweetness on a portioned dish. Serve ice cream and berries.
Brownie
By and large, the same lavakeik, the main difference is in the baking time: here it increases by 2-2.5 times, but already at a temperature of 180 ° C.
In addition, one large form is taken for cooking - you can bake in the same place where the components were mixed (provided the fireproofness of the dishes). Brownies will be a great addition to brownies - add a handful to the dough, after chopping the kernels into pieces the size of a pea.
Curd Salvation
An excellent solution is a curd cake at home - light, fresh, tasty and energy-efficient:
- small eggs - 2 pcs.;
- sugar - 60 grams;
- flour - 60 grams;
- icing sugar - 20 grams;
- pasty curd - 200 grams;
- cream 33% fat - 350 grams;
- white chocolate - 100 grams;
- gelatin - 2 plates;
- fruits according to season and desire.
First, make a biscuit. To do this, preheat the oven to 180 ° C, separate the proteins from the yolks. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until a steady peak, pour sugar in and beat again. The mass should be shiny, strong. Continuing to beat, add the yolks. Pour the sifted flour and gently mix with a spoon until smooth. Put in a round shape with a diameter of up to 25 cm (ideally detachable) and bake until golden brown. Cool without taking out.
Soak gelatin in 50 grams of cream.
Melt the chocolate in a water bath, add it to the curd and mix well.
Without boiling, heat the cream with gelatin until it dissolves. Cool slightly and pour into the curd mass.
Separately, whip 250 grams of cream with powdered sugar until a strong peak.
Add cream to the curd mass, gently mix with a spatula until smooth. If desired, add berries or chopped soft fruits (bananas, peaches, mangoes, etc.) to get a light cake at home with the taste you need.
Put the cream on a biscuit in the form, put in the refrigerator until it hardens (for 2-3 hours).
Garnish the surface of the cake with berries, fruits and grated white chocolate. Walk with a thin knife along the sides around the circumference of the cake, remove the form and serve.
From New York with greetings
Cheesecake is considered a fashionable dessert that came to us from the United States. He is a fellow cottage cheese casserole, but not without sophistication. The main advantage of a cheesecake is its silky creamy texture, which is why most housewives do not even try to contact it, believing that the preparation method is too complicated. However, in practice, everything is different - by and large, this is another easiest cake at home, along with a lavakeik, because it does not require close attention and complex manipulations.
So, the New York cheesecake:
- cookies - 250 grams;
- butter - 100 grams;
- cream cheese - 1 kilogram;
- sugar - 240 grams;
- eggs - 3 pcs. small or 2 pcs. large;
- corn starch - 35 grams;
- cream with a fat content of 33% - 170 grams;
- vanilla extract or vanillin - 1 tbsp. spoon / pinch, respectively;
- (optional) grated zest of lemon or lime - 1 tbsp. a spoon;
- (optional) lemon or lime juice - 1 tbsp. a spoon.
Grind cookies into small crumbs, add soft butter. Put everything in a shape with a diameter of 24 cm, tamp, forming small sides. Put the skeleton in the refrigerator.
* For those who find this layer too fat, we recommend using the biscuit from the curd recipe above as a base. You can even bake a few of these biscuits and freeze them, taking out as needed, since it is easier to prepare a delicious cake at home, having preparations.
Now it's up to the filling. Preheat the oven to 170 ° C. Put all the ingredients in a bowl, knead until smooth.
Pull the mold with the base from the refrigerator, pour the cheese mass into it. Put in the oven, placing a container of water below - we need moist air in the cooking process. Bake an hour and a quarter, then remove the cheesecake from the oven. The middle of it should tremble a little. Let cool for a couple of hours, put in the refrigerator overnight. That's all.
Higher and higher
When it comes to a quick and tasty treat, one cannot help but recall Tiramisu. What is not a light cake at home? Moreover, the taste of this dessert will not leave anyone indifferent. So, the classic Tiramisu recipe:
- fresh eggs - 3 pcs.;
- sugar - 4 tbsp. spoons;
- mascarpone cheese - 250 grams;
- Savoyardi cookies - 30-32 pcs.;
- strongly brewed coffee - 150 ml;
- sugar in coffee - 2 tsp;
- aromatic alcohol (cognac, rum) - 3 tbsp. spoons;
- natural cocoa powder to taste.
Separate the whites from the yolks. Beat the whites with a pinch of salt until a solid, steady peak.
After this, beat the yolks with sugar - until the mass becomes white and airy, and the sugar is completely dissolved.
Add mascarpone to the mixture, mix gently with a spatula until smooth.
Introduce whipped whites into the yolk-cheese mass, slowly, stir smoothly until you get a magnificent, airy cream.
Combine alcohol, sugar and coffee in a separate bowl.
Put some cream on the bottom of the mold. Dip the Savoyardi in coffee syrup for a couple of seconds so that they have time to soak, but keep their shape. Put a dense layer into the mold. On top is a layer of cream again, and cookies on it.
The last step should be cream, sprinkle it through a cocoa sieve. Put in the refrigerator overnight.
Question decor. Mastic
Of course, many housewives want to not only make a delicious cake, but also to decorate it with dignity, but the skillful decor from the pastry shops seems so inaccessible. But this is a fallacy.
In practice, everything turns out to be quite simple, now we will consider how to make mastic for the cake at home.
First, let's figure out what it is.
Mastic is an edible plastic mass. It tolerates staining with food colors. All kinds of flowers and figures are molded from it to decorate the finished confectionery, in some cases they cover the cake completely - to create a perfectly smooth surface.
Gelatin recipe :
- gelatin in granules - 1/2 tsp;
- water - 3 tsp;
- vegetable oil - 1/4 teaspoon;
- lemon juice - 1 tsp;
- powdered sugar - 10 teaspoons (but may need more).
Since making mastic for the cake at home is simple and inexpensive, we advise you to get down to business, to "fill your hand."
Soak the gelatin in cold water until it swells, then warm it up - it is necessary that it dissolves completely. Sift half of the icing sugar onto a clean table or large cutting board. Pour into it all the other components, including the cooled gelatinous mass. Knead until smooth, pouring the remaining powdered sugar. At the exit, you get a soft, pleasant to the touch mass, similar in texture to plasticine. If necessary, at this stage, you can add the desired dye.
Total
Based on the above information, we can conclude: making delicious cakes at home is just the way out for those who want to pamper their loved ones with not only a beautiful, but also a harmless treat. A similar task is within the power of everyone, even hostesses, limited in time. Because the specificity of the recipe is such that it does not require special knowledge, except for basic ones. As for the decor, everything here is also simple - if you don’t have the opportunity or desire to sculpt mastic decorations, then there are a lot of other, no less interesting ways of decorating cakes. It should be remembered that the best is the enemy of the good, and ideally it is recommended to decorate the product with the same products from which they were prepared. In other words, walnut cake - walnut decor, chocolate - chocolate, fruit - fruit and so on. This is important to maintain the organic taste, as there may be a conflict of design and content.
Since it’s beautiful to decorate a cake at home with visual aids, of which there are just a ton today, it’s not so difficult, and with how to bake them, we figured out above, you don’t need to buy a store dessert - you can’t prepare it worse!