Tahini Honey Cake - (An Almost Failure)

Tahini/Tehina/Sesame sauce is such a modern ingredient nowadays, generously used in various sweet and savory combinations, not only for the classical salad. It has a heavy dense texture and adds an aromated note of originality to any meal, especially a cake. And I am not talking only about halwa.

However, it seems that in my case things take longer as expected when it comes to success in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago, I tried my own variant of tahini cake, which didn't came together well. Maybe because it was too much oil and too much tahini, and something was so wrong that even after 2 hours the entire composition was still in a liquid form.

But I am not someone to give up too fast, therefore, on the occasion of the Jewish High Holidays, besides my classical honey cake, I wanted to improve the initial tahini cake recipe and adapt it for the usual list of ingredients served on this occasion. The result was much better, although it did not look very good for the picture - the upper side went a bit burned as I had to keep it in the oven for over an hour. However, it baked well and had a deep nutty honey taste. Most probably, a third time will even better - at least visually - but until then I am happy to share this successful attempt.

Ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups white flour

- 19 gr. baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 cup white sugar

- 75 ml. honey

- 3 medium-sized eggs

- 100 ml. tahini

- 2/3 cup cold milk

- 1 teaspoon grounded cardamom

- 100 gr. butter for the pan

Directions

Preheat oven at 250 C. Grease the pan with butter.

Add the ingredients, one by one, first the sold one, followed by the liquid, while mixing well every time. Pour the content into the pan. Wait a couple of minutes and then bake it in the oven. 

To be served morning, with the hot coffee, or as a companion to the afternoon tea.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: Over 1 hour. It depends a lot of the kind of oven you have, but generally, one hour is the minimum time requested for achieving a proper baked texture

Serves: 9

Bon Appétit!

Playing with sauces

The winter is having an ugly, cold and unexpected comeback and I don't dare to stay outside for too long. But that's all for the good, because I can finally test some ideas that I wanted to try for a long time. And this is how I open a new chapter of my cooking experience: sauces.

We have pasta very often, but from time to time we are having enough and an improvisation is necessary. As I recently read a whole book dedicated to sauces, by Peter Auer, I decided to use the knowledge not only for improving my German, but also for a different cooking experience. 

Predictably, my pasta needed a creative tomato sauce.

From a recipe shared on page 94 in the book, I created my own combination:

9 little tomatoes

7 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

4 scallions, finely chopped

2 slices of ginger, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon chilli powder from a package generously offered by Spice Kitchen UK

1/4 veggie margarine

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 big spoon of oil with parsley

Add the tomatoes to boiling water and let them together for around 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, add all the ingredients in a pan and mix them slowly. 

After 5 minutes only, the kitchen will smell beautifully and the appetite will increase accordingly.

Add the tomatoes and mix up for another 10 minutes.

It serves two hot portions.

Lesson learned: probably more water would have add more fluidity to the entire composition. But it tastes good and the result was highly appreciated. 

Tahini sauce is one of my obsessions after I ate to a good restaurant a proper fish soaked in a similar but even more delicious sauce. I carefully selected ingredients and check for recipes and I finally produced my own version:

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 slice ginger, finely chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon cumin from the package generously offered by Spice Kitchen UK

1 cup of tahini pasta

1 tablespoon olive oil

In a pan at a maximum temperature, mix all the ingredients and stir slowly for around 10 minutes. 

It serves 2 and it more than delicious.

Lesson learned: as in the previous case, I felt the lack of water and probably a new version will be tested soon, as this is one of those recipes to fell in love to. 

Bon Appétit!