All Entries Tagged With: "Cake"
Spanish Almond Cake
Minoo shared this Spanish Almond Cake as one of the dessert in the South Arm Community Kitchen. I enjoyed this kitchen most as I love sweets.
This is a simple and quick cake recipe. It comes handy when you have unexpected guests.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/3 cup oil
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/4 cup ground almonds
- 3 tablespoons slivered almonds
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- icing sugar for garnishing
Source: Minoo
Prep time: 15 minutes; Bake time: 25 minutes; Serve 8
True Confections on Denman, Vancouver
Suanne likes desserts. She likes all kinds of desserts. It does not matter if it is cakes or pastries or ice-cream or cookies … even Asian type desserts like red bean soup. It does not take a lot to get her to go out to have dessert.
She goes for her dessert fix with Polly every Friday. The problem is she has to go according to Polly’s schedule which is only a couple of hours in at noon. The thing is also most of the better dessert places are opened at night.
After the ramen dinner at Benkei, I suggested that we go to True Confections on Denman since we are already around the area. True Confections is one of the places Suanne often says she wanted to eat in.
There are three True Confections dessert restaurants in Metro Vancouver. The other two restaurants are on West Broadway and North Vancouver.
True Confections is known for their cakes which they say is completely made in the restaurant. They also made sure that they do not have fillers, preservatives but uses only fresh ingredients. So yeah, they take their cakes very seriously.
Specifically, they are known for their very tall cakes. Some of their more popular ones looks like it is 9-10 inches tall. The ones you see above are not the taller ones, but you get the idea.
The restaurant was empty on the Friday night we were there. It was the Olympics which drew everyone away to the Olympic zones. We asked the waiter about it and he said it had been very quiet ever since the Olympics started. They had even extended the restaurant in anticipation of more Olympic traffic — but all in vain. I feel for them. If there is anything we could do to help rally people to come to places like this, we would … we should.
There are cakes, premium chocolate cakes, cheesecakes and stuff like pies and tarts. I knew what Suanne wants … cheesecake. We also cannot ignore their tall PREMIUM chocolates cakes too — they look too good to resist.
We got the simple Fresh Fruit Cheesecake which costs $8.25. They call this a Montreal-style cheesecake. We were not sure what that means actually. We did observe that is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Spinach Cake
This is a healthy cake. It has green power. It has the source of Popeye’s power. This cake is great for picky kids who defy vegetables.
The whipping cream makes this Spinach Cake more attractive.
Source: unknown
Prep time: 30 minutes; Bake time: 30 minutes; Yield 1 loaf
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 250g (1/4 pound) spinach, washed, drained
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2.5 cups flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup whipped cream
- 3L Pyrex dish (we used a loaf pan which takes longer to bake because we cant find a Pyrex dish in this kitchen)
Cranberry Nut Loaf
Stella shared this lovely Cranberry Nut Loaf with the members of the South Arm Cooking Club for seniors. She was given a cook book by one of the members of the South Arm seniors titled “A World Community Cookbook’, Simply in Season. This recipe from extracted from this cookbook.
Stella insisted that everyone must try her cake because it is very rare for her to bake. Of course, we will never resist such a healthy cake loaded with flax seeds, cranberries and nuts.
Ingredients
Dry:
- 1 cup (250ml) whole wheat flour
- 1 cup (250ml) all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup (75ml) flax seed meal
- 1 1//2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Wet:
- 3/4 cup (175ml) sugar
- 3/4 cup (175ml) orange juice
- 1/4 cup (60ml) oil
- 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Additions:
- 1 1/2 cups (375ml) sweetened dried cranberries (coarsely chopped)
- 1/2 cup (125ml) walnuts or pecans (chopped)
This recipe yields 1 loaf.
Amish Friendship Bread
Lorna gave me a bag of Amish Friendship Bread starter back in October. Since then, I had made three batches of this Amish Friendship Bread and shared them with 9 friends.
This Amish Friendship Bread is more cake like to me. It is moist and taste very good. The only problem with the recipe is that you’ll end up with 4 bags of starter. You’ll have to share 3 bags with your friends if you decide to keep one for yourself. When I took the starter to the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors to share with the seniors, none of them want them. For those who has so much life experiences, at one point of time, they had tried this Amish Friendship Bread and end up with excess starters that they cant give away as many of their friends already have them. So, I’m going to change the recipe a bit so that I’ll end up with only one starter to keep the bread rolling. I hope it works.
Ingredients:
To be added to the starter on the 6th day:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup milk
To be added to the starter on the 10th day:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I’m going to cut this to 1/2 cup to create only 1 starter)
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I’m going to cut this to 1/2 cup to create only 1 starter)
- 1 1/2 cups milk (I’m going to cut this to 1/2 cup to create only 1 starter)
For the bread:
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup oil (or 1/2 cup oil plus 1/2 cup applesauce)
- 1 cup sugar (I reduced this to 1/2 cup)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon (I leave this for the chocolate marble loaf)
- 1 large box of vanilla instant pudding
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract (I used vanilla)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- optional nuts, dates, dried cranberries, raisins, etc)
- 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (this is my own addition to create a chocolate marble loaf)
For topping (I left this out for my chocolate marble loaf):
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Yavis Club Cheesecake in Union Square, Richmond
It is great working four-day weeks for the rest of the year.
Well, my company is now forcing every employee to clear their accumulated vacation days by the end of the year, saying that if we don’t use it, we will lose it. I used to bring forward 2-3 weeks of accumulated leave every year. So in the effort to clear the days, I decided to take Fridays off for the last 7 weeks of the year.
I did not realize that Fridays are also Suanne’s Cake Meet day with Polly. Suanne was so sweet and decided to spend Fridays with me. So, to make it up to her, I told her I will be her Cake Meet date and we could go to visit the restaurants that are opened in the afternoon and evenings.
We went to Yavis Club which we heard so much of their cheesecakes. The Yavis Club is located in the Union Square (along Capstan Way) in Richmond.
Yavis Club is opened from 6PM to late on weekdays. On weekends, they open earlier at 3PM.
Nanzaro decided to tag along on our Cake Meet date. He is just bored to death at home because, well, he had been “discouraged” from playing the PS3 for some “transgressions” (to borrow the word from Tiger Woods).
The 2 year old Yavis Club is painted in a pleasant combination red, black and white with polished concrete floor. It is spacious in here but it also kind of dark.
The place is very much like a hangout for young Asian girls. We are about the only older customer there. Guys will not be seen in this kind of place if not for bringing their girlfriends here.
As for the menu, it does not have a lot of items but for each item, they have written a story behind it. The menu also described how Yavis came about and that the name is an acronym for “Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent and Successful”. That acronym is based on the book “Psychotherapy: the Purchase of Friendship” by William Scofield.
Every cheesecake house is judged by how well they make their plain no-frills cheesecake. They name their cheesecake “The White Romance” ($5.25)
It was very good. It has the rich smoothness which melts in your mouth. Suanne loves this but I find it a bit too rich for my liking. It is presented with a flower made of fruity sauce outlined with chocolate.
Their other signature item is called the “Rainbow After The Dark” ($6.25). It is actually not a cheesecake in the true sense but instead it is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading
Toffee Apple Cake
Chris shared this Toffee Apple Cake recipe with the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors as dessert. According to Chris, this cake is tops. The best part is we can make most out the local apples in the fall.
This Toffee Apple Cake is very moist and almost custard like. The toffee bits topping add some crunch to it. This is certainly not a dietary kind of dessert. Well, it’s ok to let ourselves indulge for a treat once in a while.
Chris and Paul worked on this dessert. This recipe serves 24.
