Iced honey mascarpone and almond cake with fig salad

This is my new favourite - awesome almond cake with figs - absolute divine.  To be honest I'm not a big fun of mascarpone and also I don't like honey, but in this cake I love them. Try it with a glass of a sherbety, grapey Moscato.
You’ll need to start this recipe at least a day ahead. Recipe adapted from Gourmet Traveller Magazine.

Ingredients:
12       figs, quartered
125 gm       raspberries (optional)
1 tbsp       amaretto
To serve:       honey

Almond dacquoise
200 gm       unblanched almonds
6       eggwhites
110 gm (½ cup)       caster sugar
60 gm       icing sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
50 gm       plain flour

Honey mascarpone
3       egg yolks
110 gm       honey (I used 50 gm honey and 60 gm brown sugar)
750 gm       mascarpone (I used 400 gm mascarpone and 500 ml whipped cream)
60 ml (¼ cup)       amaretto




1     For dacquoise, preheat oven to 150C. Process almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Whisk eggwhites in an electric mixer until soft peaks form, add caster sugar and whisk until thick and glossy. Fold in icing sugar, then almonds and flour and spoon into a piping bag. Trace three 18cm circles onto baking paper-lined oven trays. Pipe dacquoise within template into circles, bake for 15 minutes or until just golden, cool on trays for 5 minutes, then turn onto baking paper sprinkled with icing sugar and cool completely.

2     For mascarpone, combine egg yolks and honey in a heat-proof bowl and whisk over simmering water for 7-8 minutes or until pale and thick. Transfer to an electric mixer and whisk until cold. In a bowl, gently mix amaretto and mascarpone, then fold in egg yolk mixture.

3     To assemble, place a dacquoise circle, trimming edges to fit, into a baking paper-lined 20cm springform pan, spread with one third of mascarpone all the way to the edges and down the sides, then top with another circle. Repeat with remaining mascarpone and dacquoise, finishing with a layer of mascarpone and freeze overnight.

4     Fifteen minutes before serving, remove cake from freezer and place in refrigerator. Combine figs and raspberries in a bowl, drizzle with amaretto and stand for 10 minutes. To serve, remove cake from pan, arrange fig salad on top and drizzle with honey.

Melon salad with honey and ginger

Last days of summer. I can even feel the autumn breath and this feeling inspires me. I love autumn - no more crazy hot days, plenty of fruits and veges, my figs in the garden are almost ready and sky at night is full of stars ...
Melons are in season now too. I'm not a big fan of ginger and I don't like honey at all, but in this salad they make quite a beautiful composition. Recipe adapted from Gourmet traveller magazine.

Ingredients

(Serves 6)
175 gm (½ cup)  honey
2 tbsp finely chopped glacé ginger
1 vanilla bean, split
500 gm watermelon
500 gm  rockmelon
500 gm  honeydew melon
To serve: vanilla ice-cream

1. Combine honey, ginger and vanilla bean and ½ cup water in a small saucepan and simmer over low heat for 8 minutes or until reduced by half. Cool to room temperature.
2. Peel melons and remove seeds, then cut into 3cm cubes. Combine melon and syrup and stand for 30 minutes to marinate. Serve melon salad with scoops of vanilla ice-cream.

Simple & delicious: Figs, goats cheese & honey

Recently, I was really surprised, when I found a few ripe figs in our garden. That's a quite unusual for this time, but what a pleasure to enjoy this simple light salad for lunch!

So, there's no recipe, just a couple figs drizzled with liquid honey and 3-4 tablespoons of fresh goats cheese on top of it. So simple, so good!

I'm desperately waiting for rest of our fig harvest. So many ideas in my head.