recipe

Cardamom Pound Cake

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I recently made an excellent cardamom pound cake. Half way through modifying a recipe from the book Sweet, I realised I’d already created a cardamom cake recipe, based on some other cake. But this one might actually be better. Rich, moist, and flavourful—what more can you ask for in a cake?

I now need to make both versions for side-to-side taste tests. Anyone want to join me for cake?

Here’s the new recipe so you can test them too.

110 ml milk
6 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
300 g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
200 g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp cardamom
250 g butter, very soft, cut in chunks
1 cup shredded coconut

Whisk together the milk, eggs, vanilla and lemon zest in a medium bowl.

Sift together the flour salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Add the sugar and cardamom. Add the butter and half the egg mixture and combine with an electric mixer until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Mix 1 minute more, then gradually add the remaining egg mixture. Stir in the coconut.

Spoon the batter into a greased 23 cm Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans. Bake 40-45 minutes at 195℃.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

Parsnip Cake

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

As spring nears, we’re working through the winter vegetables still in the garden. At this point, the remaining parsnips that I planted last spring are monster roots weighing in at nearly 1.5 kilograms. It’s past time to eat them.

So, when I found a recipe for parsnip cake, I had to make it.

The recipe was in the book Sweet, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh (I seriously recommend this book, if you don’t already have it). Like many of Ottolenghi’s recipes, it includes flavour combinations and spices I don’t normally work with.

And as with most of Ottolenghi’s recipes, I didn’t have all the right ingredients to make the recipe as it was written, but with a few substitutions, I ended up with some delicious cake. As I often do, I baked the cake as cupcakes—they’re so easy to snag for lunch boxes, and they encourage us to eat less cake, because you can’t cut a big piece like you can with a proper cake.

I love the flavour combinations in this cake—parsnip, orange , nutmeg and aniseed. It’s a fantastic combination that I’m not sure I’ve ever used. 

Here’s my version of the Ottolenghi/Goh recipe:

150 g walnuts
450 g grated parsnip (the original recipe says this is 3 large parsnips, but it was only 3/4 of one of my parsnips)
100 g raisins
finely grated zest of 1 orange (approx. 1 Tbsp)
3 eggs
225 g caster sugar (I would cut this down next time—they’re quite sweet)
280 ml vegetable oil (I would cut this down next time—they’re a little too greasy for me)
190 g all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground aniseed
3/4 tsp salt

Toast the walnuts in the oven for 10 minutes at 170℃. Cool and then coarsely chop. Combine the walnuts, parsnip, raisins and orange zest in a large bowl.

Beat eggs and sugar together in another bowl until thick and creamy (about 2 minutes). While beating, slowly pour in the oil until it is all combined. 

Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, aniseed and salt in a bowl. Add these to the egg mixture and beat until combined. Fold in the parsnip mix.

Spoon the batter into cupcake tins (greased or lined with papers), and bake about 25 minutes at 210℃.

I found that these cupcakes didn’t rise much—the batter is mostly fruit, vegetables and nuts. If their flat look bothers you, I’d recommend topping them with a cream cheese frosting that includes grated citrus zest. I didn’t make special frosting for mine, but I had a little left over from a previous cake, and it was delicious on the cupcakes. It wasn’t at all necessary, however—they were fantastic with no embellishment at all.

Blackcurrant Twists

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Things are slow in the garden during these rainy, dark, cold weeks of winter, and there’s no better excuse to bake.

Over the past three weeks,I’ve baked spice cake, blackcurrant pie, raspberry studded pound cake, molasses crinkle cookies, and lemon chocolate chip cupcakes. 

And two weeks ago, I went overboard on Sunday breakfast. Saturday evening, I made up some blackcurrant twists, which rose in the fridge overnight, to be baked Sunday morning. Half of the twists went into the freezer, to be baked last Sunday morning before I went off to the Tamariki Book Festival. (Because I couldn’t miss my Sunday morning baking just because I was working all weekend, now could I?)

The twists were excellent, and the dough froze well. But they were very messy.

The recipe I was loosely following said something vague like “Twist each strip into a knot.” Um … sure. A twist and a curl, and I called them good enough. All the while, blackcurrant jam was spewing out of them, and I was wondering whether there’d be any jam left inside by the time they baked. 

I wisely baked them on parchment, rather than directly on a tray, because the jam did continue to ooze out. But there was plenty left inside, and those gooey baked jam blobs that escaped were delicious!

I thought they looked a bit rough, coming out of the oven, but my husband loved their rustic look. (he didn’t see the beautiful buns pictured in the online recipes…) Regardless, they really were yummy.

Here’s my variation, based on a couple of online recipes:

Dough:
1 1/4 cup milk
60 g butter
scant Tbs yeast
1 large egg
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups regular flour
2 cups wholemeal flour

Blackcurrant jam:
2 cups frozen or fresh blackcurrants
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp water

Filling:
25 g melted butter
1/4 sugar
1/4 brown sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Make the dough: Bring the milk nearly to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and add the butter, stirring until melted. Allow to cool to lukewarm. Add the yeast and allow to sit until it begins to foam. Then beat in the sugar and egg.

In a bowl, combine the flours. Add the milk mixture and stir until it comes together in a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Place the ball of dough in a greased bowl and cover. Allow to rise about 2 hours, until doubled in bulk.

While the dough rises, make the blackcurrant jam: Combine fruit, lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan. Cook on medium heat until it just begins to thicken. In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and water, and then add to the blackcurrants. Cook, stirring, for a few more minutes, until it thickens. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Once the dough is risen, roll it out on a floured surface into a large square (about 45 cm on a side). It will be quite thin.

Melt the butter for the filling, and spread the dough with it. Combine the sugars and cinnamon, and sprinkle over the butter. Then spread the whole thing with blackcurrant jam (I used ALL the jam, but if you want less messy buns, you could use less).

Fold the dough into thirds, like a letter. Then cut the folded dough into 12 strips with a sharp knife (Yes, jam will spill everywhere. You can lick it up later, I won’t tell anyone). Give each strip a twist, and then coil it into a knot and set it on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Cover with plastic wrap and allow the buns to rise 15-20 minutes (or put them into the fridge to rise overnight). Bake at 190℃ (375℉) for 16 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes before eating. If you’ve refrigerated or frozen your buns before baking, allow them to warm up on the kitchen bench for about 30 minutes before baking. Frozen buns require a few extra minutes in the oven.

Walnut Acorn Cookies

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I was perusing my favourite cookie cookbook, The Gourmet Cookie Book, the other day, looking for inspiration, and decided to make a recipe I hadn’t tried yet. I’m not sure why I’d overlooked these cookies before. Maybe because they look like a lot of work, dipped in chocolate and nuts.

I had no idea what I was missing.

These buttery, nutty nuggets are not only cute and delicious, they’re really not much work to make.

And they seem to get better as they age (though I know they won’t last long—they’re too tasty).

They’re made with English walnuts, but as I was savouring one with a cup of tea this morning, I thought they’d be spectacular with black walnuts. Unfortunately, I can’t test the theory, since black walnuts aren’t available here. I’ll have to let my readers in North America tell me.

Here’s the recipe as I made it. I made a few adjustments from the original, because I like whole grains in my baked goods.

For dough:
1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
1 cup wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
220 g (1 cup) butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

For decoration:
225 g (8 oz) dark chocolate, melted*
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

Sift together flours, baking powder and salt. Beat together butter, brown sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Mix in the flour mixture on low speed, then stir in the walnuts. 

Form 2 tsp of dough into an egg shape and arrange them 2.5 cm (1 inch) apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 190℃ (375℉) for about 10 minutes, until lightly browned on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

Once cool, dip the end of each cookie in melted chocolate and then in chopped walnuts. (It helps to have the chocolate and walnuts in the smallest possible bowl they’ll fit in, so they’re deep enough for dipping.) Set on a sheet of baking paper to set.

* I found the proportions off on the recipe—using 2 tsp of dough gave larger cookies than the recipe called for (or maybe my idea of 2 tsp is different … I ended up with 3 dozen instead of the 4 dozen the recipe said it made), so I used less chocolate—only 100 g. But I had just barely enough walnuts for coating.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Winter has definitely arrived this weekend, with squally rain, and chilly winds. The mountain passes have been closed by snow, and no doubt we’ll see some stunning snowy peaks when the clouds finally lift.

In response, I’ve been craving dense, high calorie food (never mind the fact I’ve been indoors most of the weekend and don’t need high calorie food in any way). 

Yesterday, I was contemplating today’s breakfast, and imagined pumpkin spice sticky buns. Was there such a thing? And if not, could I invent it?

The answer was, yes! I found several variations online. In my usual fashion, I mixed and matched, picking aspects I liked from a number of recipes to come up with my own take on the dish. 

The outcome was quite tasty. Here’s my recipe.

Dough:
3/4 cup milk, warmed to about 43℃ (110℉)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
2 cups high grade (bread) flour
2 cups wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp salt

Filling:
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbs cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup chopped walnuts

Glaze:
1/2 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
2-3 tsp fresh lemon juice

To make the dough, combine milk, granulated sugar and yeast in a small bowl and let sit until foamy. Combine pumpkin, melted butter and egg in a medium bowl. Combine flours, spices and salt in a large bowl.

Combine the yeast mixture with the pumpkin mixture and beat until smooth. Pour this mix into the flour, and stir until a dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Allow to rise in a greased, covered bowl for 1-2 hours, until doubled in bulk.

Roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 35 x 40 cm (14 x 16 in). Spread the dough with the softened butter, leaving a narrow strip of dough on one of the shorter sides free of butter. Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle over the butter. Sprinkle walnuts on top.

Starting at the buttery short edge, roll the dough into a log, pressing the unbuttered edge firmly to seal. With a sharp knife, slice the log into 12 rounds.
Place the rounds in a well-greased baking tin 23 x 33 cm (9 x 13 in)*, cover with a damp towel, and let rise about 30 minutes.**

Bake at 180℃ (350℉) for 25 minutes, until nicely browned.

Make the glaze by mixing lemon juice, a little at a time, into the icing sugar until the mixture is thick and pourable. Drizzle over the still-warm buns.

*Knowing this recipe makes enough for 2 breakfasts for my husband and me, I divided my rolls, arranging them into two 25 cm (11 in) round pans. I slipped one pan into the freezer, to bake another week.

**If you want to have these for breakfast, cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Allow to stand on the kitchen bench for about 30 minutes to warm up before baking.

A week later … PS: the buns I put in the freezer for a week were every bit as delicious as the ones baked right away. I moved them to the fridge the night before, then let them sit out for 45 minutes before baking. They took about 5 minutes longer in the oven than the first batch, but otherwise, you’d never know they had been frozen. Yum!

Oven Fried Zucchini Sticks

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Many years ago, I posted a blog titled 50 Ways to Eat Zucchini. Since then, I’ve gotten much better about my zucchini planting—I plant half as many as I used to. Of course, that still means we have too many. We’re currently giving away 5 to 10 kg of zucchini a week, eating it in every dinner and baking it into desserts.

I don’t mind having too much zucchini. It’s a versatile vegetable that can be grated into all kinds of dishes (chilli, pasta sauce, enchiladas, burgers …) or featured in beautiful slabs or rounds (zucchini and tomato tart, grilled zucchini, frittata …).

One of my favourite ways to eat zucchini is as breaded, oven fried sticks. These tasty ‘fries’ take a little work, but are well worth the effort. I fill a large jelly roll pan with them, and they vanish, even when it’s just my husband and me for dinner.

I don’t have a set recipe, but here’s an approximation of what I do:

2 small to medium sized zucchini
1 egg
1 cup bread crumbs
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chipotle
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dry oregano
small handful of fresh parsley or basil, finely chopped

Cut the zucchini into thick sticks, about the length and thickness of a finger. Whisk the egg in a small bowl. Combine all other ingredients in a separate bowl. Generously oil a large baking sheet.

Dredge each zucchini stick in the egg, then the breadcrumb mixture and set on the pan.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 200℃, until browned and cooked through.

Serve hot, with your favourite dip, if desired. We love chipotle mayonnaise with them, but they really need no further embellishment—they’re delicious as is.

Cake Season, 2025

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

Those of you who have followed my blog for years will know that the first three months of the year are birthday months in my family. For years, I called it crazy cake season, because I would obsess over birthday cakes all month, and spend literally weeks designing and making crazy birthday cakes.

Like the octopus:

The geode:

The peripatus:

An alpine botanical scene:

And many others.

But now that the kids are adults, the crazy cake season is far less crazy. It still involves cake, of course, but the cakes are more subdued and geared toward adult tastes.

This year, my daughter said ‘surprise me’ when I asked about her cake preferences.

So, faced with a kitchen full of beautiful ripe peaches from our trees, I made her a three-tiered peach upside down cake using my favourite upside down cake recipe, from King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking book. 

The cake recipe is meant for nectarines, but I’ve also made variations of it with pears, lemons, peaches, and plums, and it’s fabulous.

I recommend reducing the sugar in the batter, because it can be overly sweet, with the gooey fruity sugar that soaks in from the topping. I also adjust the spicing to suit the fruit and my own tastes. And I always use more fruit than the recipe suggests. 🙂

Here’s the original recipe:

Topping:
3 Tbs butter (43 g), melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 large nectarines
2 tsp lemon juice

Batter:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbs (57 g) butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar (I use 1/2 cup)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/2 cup milk

To make the topping: Place the melted butter in an ungreased 8-in (20 cm) square baking pan, tilting to coat the bottom evenly. Mix together the brown sugar and spices, and sprinkle evenly over the butter. Slice the fruit (either peeled or unpeeled is fine) 1/4-inch (half a centimetre) thick and arrange the slices in the pan on top of the sugar and butter. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Set aside.

To make the batter: Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light in colour and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Stir in half the flour mixture, then the milk. Add the remaining flour mixture, stirring until the batter is evenly moistened. Gently pour the batter over the fruit in the pan.

Bake at 375℉ (190℃) for 45 minutes or until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool 5 minutes in the pan. Then invert the pan onto a serving platter and let sit for 1 minute before removing the pan. Serve warm, with whipped cream or ice cream, if desired.

We enjoyed our peach upside down cake with homemade peach ice cream, made by my husband.

Sorrel Salad

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I love sorrel, with its succulent texture and bright sour flavour, but I don’t often think to use it. I occasionally use it to fill out early spring salads, when the lettuces aren’t quite big enough to make a full salad, and that’s generally about it. 

But last night I wanted a salad to go with quiche. The spring lettuces are long since bolted, and the fall lettuces are still baby seedlings, so I turned to sorrel, this time to make the bulk of the salad.

I got inspiration from a few different sorrel salad recipes, but then simply used what I had on hand. The result was a spectacular salad—one I will definitely make again.

Here’s my ‘recipe’, for what it’s worth:

1 handful sorrel leaves, chopped into thin strips (maybe 2 cups, chopped)
1/4 cup walnut pieces, toasted in a 190C oven until aromatic and beginning to darken
6 small olives, chopped (I used my own olives, and they are quite small. If you’re using big commercial ones, you probably don’t need more than 2 or 3)
6 cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters (I would have used a lot more tomatoes, but this was all I had)
1 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1 small clove of garlic, crushed
dash of salt

Whisk together the oil, vinegar, crushed garlic and salt in a small bowl.

Place all the other ingredients in a bowl, and toss with the dressing. If you want a little less knock-your-socks-off fresh garlic flavour, strain the garlic out of the dressing first.

The (not quite) Perfect Icing, Part 2

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I took another step on my quest for the perfect carrot cake icing on Sunday. This variation on cream cheese icing is made into a fluffy confection with the addition of quite a lot of cream, slowly beaten into the already fluffy cream cheese. 

I had my doubts. I’m not overly fond of a straight whipped cream topping. Would the cream cheese flavour come through enough? Would there be enough tart zing to it to offset the sweet?

The answer was no. 

Don’t get me wrong, this icing is GOOD! There’s enough cream cheesy goodness to give it body and depth of flavour. And the addition of cream means it gets away with having half as much sugar as other cream cheese frostings. The texture is divine—smooth and creamy, with a lightness you don’t often get in a cream cheese frosting. It’s delightful on the lemon and blackberry cupcakes I used it on. 

But is it the perfect carrot cake icing? Not quite.

So, the first icing was great on flavour, lousy on texture. This one is amazing for texture, not right for flavour. I can work with that. Trial number three will be a fusion of the two, hoping for that perfect balance.

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. 😉

Meanwhile, I do recommend frosting #2. I think it would be spectacular on chocolate cake, and absolutely stunning rolled up in a bûche de Noël. Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a go:

170 g cream cheese
3/4 cup icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar), sifted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup heavy cream

Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. With the mixer on low, slowly pour in the cream. Then turn the mixer on high and beat until stiff peaks form.

Because of the quantity of cream in this frosting, I recommend storing cakes with this frosting in the fridge.

Cardamom Coconut Pound Cake

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I love cardamom, but I don’t use it very often. Inspired by the book, A Whisper of Cardamom by Eleanor Ford, which I checked out of the library last week, I decided to use it more frequently.

I’ve made Coffee Cardamom pound cake before (from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh), and that was my first thought. But I didn’t have the instant coffee the recipe calls for, and anyway, coffee wasn’t what I wanted. I considered chocolate cake with cardamom, which would be good, but wasn’t really what I wanted either. 

What about coconut? Maybe with a spark of lemon to brighten the flavours? I decided to give it a go. Starting with a vanilla pound cake recipe, which I only loosely followed, I added lemon zest, cardamom, coconut, and a lemon glaze. The result was quite lovely. Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a go.

2 1/2 cups wholemeal (whole wheat) flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground cardamom
250 g (1 cup) butter
1 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 cup yogurt
2 tsp vanilla
grated zest of one lemon
1 cup coconut

For the glaze:
1/4 cup lemon juice
3/8 cup granulated sugar

Combine the flours, salt and cardamom in a medium bowl.

Cream together the butter, sugars and baking powder in a large bowl until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Add the flour mixture alternately with the yogurt. Stir in the vanilla, lemon zest and coconut.

Bake in a greased bundt pan at 180℃ (350℉) for 55 minutes to an hour. Remove the cake from the oven and let sit in the pan for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a rack. 

To make the glaze, combine lemon juice and sugar in a small, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for about 30 seconds, and then stir until the sugar is dissolved. Brush the glaze onto the warm cake until it’s all absorbed.