Cinnamon toffee cake

Serves: 8-10

This cake is a delight, fluffy and the cinnamon taste is palpable. It can be eaten on its own, with coffee or tea.

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 ½ cup small granule sugar
4 large eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Toffee sauce

½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup liquid cream (can use liquid whipping cream)
Garnish:
A few walnuts

Method:

1) Cake: Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease a round bunt pan or any type of pan you wish with butter, flour it (remove excess flour).

2) Sift in a bowl the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Add sugar, eggs, oil, milk and vanilla. Beat on low speed first then put on medium speed for 3 minutes or until you see the mixture slightly changes color.

3) Put mixture in cake pan and bake for 40-45 minutes. To check if cooked, enter a wooden skewer in cake, if clean then remove from oven. Leave cake in pan for 5 minutes to cool on metal rack then remove it. Leave it to cool completely.

4) Toffee sauce: In a stainless steal pan put sugar and butter on medium heat, let them melt until golden in color (or darker if you wish for a more bitter toffee taste), stir occasionally. Stir in cream; let it simmer on low heat for 2 minutes. Take off heat and leave it to cool for a few minutes.

5) Garnish cold cake with toffee sauce and walnuts.

(Translated) Recipe taken from Manal Al Alam kitchen: Ramdan recipes

Mango Tart

I used a readymade pastry for this tart but I put a pastry recipe if you wish to make it out of scratch. The filling turned out to be really good and can be used for different tart recipes. I chose mangos but you can use any other fruit.

Ingredients:

1 can of mangos or 1 ripe (sweet) mango cut into slices

1 package of short crust

Custard filling

4 eggs yolks
70g caster sugar
3 tablespoons plain flour
300ml milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla essence

Glaze

5 tablespoons apricot jam (can use any jam you wish)
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice or water

Method:

1) Bake the short crust as indicated on package.

2) For the filling: Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and lemon colored. Gradually stir in the flour.

3) In a sauce pan, bring milk and the salt just to the boil then remove from the heat. Whisk into egg yolk mixture, return to pan and continue whisking over moderately high heat until just bubbling. Cook for 3 minutes to thicken. Transfer immediately to a bowl. Add vanilla and stir to blend (cover with plastic wrap to prevent thick layer on top)

4) Put the cool cream in the cool crust. Arrange mangos/fruit on top. Melt jam and juice/water in a pan and brush on top to glaze.

If you want to make your own pastry:

Ingredients:

190g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Grated rind of ½ orange
85g cold butter, cut into pieces
1 egg yolk
3-4 tablespoon whipping cream

Method:

1) Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and orange rind. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the egg yolk and just enough cream to bind the dough. Gather into a ball, wrap in greaseproof paper and refrigerate.

2) Preheat oven to 400F/200C/Gas 6. On a floured surface, roll out the pastry (3mm-1/8 in thick). Transfer to 25cm/10in pie dish and trim. Prick bottom with fork and line with crumbled greaseproof paper. Fill with baking beans and bake for 15 min. Remove the paper and beans. Continue backing until golden, 6-8 min. Let cool.

Taken from Complete Baking by Martha Day

Sfouf

This is a very easy and well-known Arabic dessert. If baked well, it is light and fluffy.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
3 cups semolina
2 ½ cup sugar
2 cups milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ground aniseed
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla or a pinch of vanilla sugar
Pine seeds or almonds for garnish
Tahina/Tahini (a thick paste made from ground sesame seeds) to grease pan (medium rectangular or square)

Method:

1) Grease bottom of pan with tahini/tahina.

2) In a bowl mix all the ingredients together to get a mixture medium in thickness.

3) Spread the mixture in the pan and smooth the top with a spoon wetted with water.

4) Garnish with pine seeds or almonds

5) Bake for about 30 minutes or until the golden brown on top in an 350F/gas mark4/180 C oven.

6) Remove from oven and leave to cool in pan then cut up into desired shape.

Taken from book: Anaheed’s Eastern sweets (translated from Arabic)

Cooked Ashta (cream)

In Arabic sweets usually the ashta (cream) used is store bought because it is easier than preparing it at home but none is available the following recipe is a good alternative. This can be used in any Arabic sweet that requires ashta.

Ingredients:

2 cups/500ml milk
½ cup/60g corn flour
170g thick cream
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Method:

In a saucepan, combine the cream, milk and corn flour. Bring the mixture to a boil until the mixture thickens, constantly stir. Take off the heat and stir in orange blossom water and set it aside to cool.

Atayef bi ashta (pancakes with cream)

Orange Basbousa

Serves 10

Ingredients:

½ cup or 100g butter, melted
400g sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon anis seeds
½ teaspoon ground mahlab
1 teaspoon orange zest
5 tablespoons orange juice
200g semolina, normal (smeed)
200g fine semolina

Syrup:

2 cups or 400g sugar
11/2 cups or 375ml water
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rosewater

Method:

1) Combine butter, condensed milk, baking powder, anis seeds, mahlab, orange zest and orange juice and stir well. Add semolina and stir until well combined.

2) Grease a 28cm x 24cm baking tin, and then pour semolina mixture in the tin. Bake in a 190C preheated oven for 35 min or until it becomes golden in color (well, I opened the grill, the top part of the oven, a bit after baking was finished to get the color needed on the top).

3) Remove from oven and pour the cooled syrup all over (it will be absorbed).