Old fashioned blueberry semolina cake with blueberry vanilla glaze

Simple cake for a cosy weekend tea time :) This a hard combination to resist - juicy blueberries in a moist yoghurt cake. Well... just try it yourself!

Ingredients:

80 grams plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
200 grams fine semolina
160 grams caster sugar
150 grams yoghurt
3 eggs
⅔ cup melted butter, cooled
half of vanilla pod (keep the rest for the glaze)
300 grams fresh blueberries

Sift the flour, baking powder, semolina and caster sugar together and place in a bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and yoghurt.

Pour the eggs mixture along with the melted butter into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add the blueberries and fold through very gently.

Pour the mixture into the cake mould and bake in a pre-heated 170°C oven until golden and cooked through - about 40-50 minutes. Also you can bake it in a muffin pan or individual cake pans. If so adjust the baking time to 20-30 min. 

Remove from the oven and let the cake sit in the mould for about 5 minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool.

For the blueberry glaze:

2 tsp blueberry juice (from fresh or frozen blueberries),
half of vanilla pod,
1 tsp lemon juice,
icing sugar to the right consistency (about 3/4 cup)

To make blueberry juice mash the blueberries in a medium sized bowl releasing lots of dark blue juice. Remove the blueberry skins from the juice and discard.  Add lemon juice and vanilla seeds, then add icing sugar until right consistency. Pour the glaze over cake.

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.

Strawberry jam with vanilla and pepper

I like jams with whole berries. And I often use berries from jam in desserts and for cake decoration. Today I tell you how to make strawberry jam with vanilla and pepper. Fantastic jam with beautiful vanilla flavor, perhaps the most delicious jam I've ever tried.

1 kg strawberries
1 vanilla pod
5 peas of black pepper
800 gr. sugar
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tablespoon vodka


Grind the black pepper in a mortar, cut the vanilla pod into 4 pieces, scrape the seeds out. Clean strawberries, put them in the pan, sprinkle with sugar. Add vanilla seeds, vanilla pod pieces and pepper.
Put on the medium heat, bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes. Leave to cool, keep in a cool place for a couple of hours (or overnight), to allow berries to soak in syrup.

Pour the vodka and put the pot on low heat. Bring it to boil, skim the foam. Cook for 5-10 minutes (depending on the variety of strawberry, if more juice was formed it need more time to boil). Remove from heat. Remove vanilla pod pieces. Cool and pour into sterilized jars.



Enjoy!