recipe: semolina lemon cake.

I picked this recipe from a cooking magazine focussed on recipes for losing weight.  And although the amount of sugar puts weight-losing qualities to question, this is still a great and simple recipe for a five o’clock dessert.

You’ll need:

• 100 g semolina
• 1 large egg
• pinch vanilla sugar
• 100 g sugar
• 1 lemon
• Optional: berries, nuts, and cocoa (can be quick, like Nesquick), for decoration

Method:

Juice the lemon.  I used an antique (well, anything older than 52 years old is considered antique by law where I live) citrus juicer I inherited from my grandmother.  Who inherited it from her mother.

This thing deserves a better picture.  Maybe when there’s decent light.

Anyway, so you juice the lemon.

Mix the juice with semolina flour and half the sugar.  It should be a bit crumbly, but also paste-like.

In a separate bowl, beat egg and remaining sugar, and vanilla sugar.  It should be a touch foamy.

Pour egg mixture to semolina mixture.  Mix together.

Pour into a baking dish.  Since the amount of batter is pretty small and I don’t have a small dish, I used silicone cupcake forms.  It only filled five of them.  It doesn’t raise much, if at all, so you can make them pretty full.

Bake for 30 minutes at 150C.

And since it’s my life’s goal to win a kitschy food decoration competition, this is what I did to mine after taking them out of the oven.

I haven’t actually tried them yet (just made them less than two hours ago), but they smell amazing, and the batter was tasty (though very, very sweet.  Maybe next time I’ll lower the amount of sugar).

I’ll try to veganise them next week.  Since it’s semolina-based, leavening shouldn’t be an issue.

[Note:  Nesquick is not sponsoring this post.  Nestle has never heard of me.  If they were to hear about me, they wouldn’t like me, because I generally avoid Nestle products.  It’s just that Nesquick was the first thing to come to mind when I thought of quick cocoa mixes.  Darn corporations and their endless money.]

[Note 2: I used Brumi. … They’re not sponsoring this post either.]

recipe: quick potato pancake.

Quick and very satisfying, this is a variation on a traditional Belorussian dish known as draniki.

You’ll need:

• 2 large or 3 medium potatoes
• 2-3 eggs (I used 2)
• oil for frying

Method:

1. Peel potatoes and grate them into a bowl.
2. Beat eggs into the potatoes.  Mix thoroughly.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.  The original recipe doesn’t call for it, but I added a pinch of salt and pepper anyway.
4. In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium fire.
5. Pour potato & egg mixture.
6. Fry for 10-15 minutes, flip.  (Note:  If you have trouble flipping, you should probably let it cook a bit longer.)
7. Fry on the other side for 10-15 minutes.
8. Serve hot, plain or with sour cream.  Can be kept in the fridge and eaten as left-overs for next day.  Better reheat!

I’d say it feeds two kids, or one adult.

I sincerely wanted to take a picture of the entire thing, but brother stole it from under my nose.