This month’s Sugar High Friday is hosted by Sarah at The Delicious Life and the theme is Ice Ice Baby. I love ice cream in all variants and shapes so this theme suits me fine.

Cappuccino Ice Cream Cake is the perfect frozen cake to have in your freezer when a friend pops by or when you need a cold delicious treat. It’s super easy to make and you don’t even need an ice cream maker. If you’re planning a 3 course dinner this may be the perfect ending, especially as you can prepare it long before the dinner. I’ve made this ice cream cake a few times and it’s always popular. The original recipe calls for Amaretto but I always use Baileys as that’s what I have at home. Next time I will try with Frangelico which is a delicious hazelnut liqueur. Don’t be too impatient and take out the cake from the freezer before it is completely frozen (which I did once…).

Cappuccino Ice Cream Cake
(recipe from an old issue of Elle à la carte)

bottom:
400 g almond paste
4 eggs
4 tbsp cocoa powder
Lemon zest from 1 lemon

Ice cream:
500 ml double cream
2.5 tbsp Nescafé Espresso
100 ml icing sugar
3 egg yolks
3 tbsp Baileys (the original recipe calls for 2 tbsp Amaretto).

garniture:
grated white and dark chocolate

Pre-heat the oven to 175°C. Grate the almond paste and combine with the eggs, cocoa and lemon zest. Pour the mixture in a buttered spring form (about 24 cm wide). Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for about 20 minutes. Let the cake cool. Remove the rim from the spring form and wash it up. Then put the rim back on the spring form.

Whip the cream really thick. Add the coffee powder and the icing sugar. Add egg yolks and Baileys (or Amaretto). Pour the filling over the cake bottom. Cover with plastic film and put the cake in the freezer.

Take out the cake from the freezer 20 minutes before serving and cover with grated white and dark chocolate.

This chocolate truffle cake is really simple to make and it’s delicious as well. The truffle is creamy and smooth and is perfect to the crunchy nut crust. I think that the crust was a bit too fragile, but nobody else complained. I made it for this year’s Midsummer Eve while Fredrik did the raspberry sauce. The recipe is from a book called Chokladfabriken which was one of my foodie gifts from my dear colleagues when I quit at my old job last year. The original recipie calls for Pecan nuts but as they didn’t have them in my store I used Walnuts instead (which they suggest as a substitution in the recipe). I used my smallest spring form (also from my colleagues) which is about 15 cm wide and 4 cm high, the truffle cake fitted perfectly. But don’t try to use a smaller spring form than that though.

Chocolate truffle cake with Walnut crust and Raspberry sauce

Crust:
70 g Walnuts (or Pecan nuts)
40 g demerara sugar
20 g unsalted butter (room temperatured)
10 g flour

Truffle:
120 dark chocolate
150 g whipping/double cream
20 g eggyolk (1)
50g unsalted butter

Raspberry sauce:
400 g Raspberries
about 30 g icing sugar (how much depends on the raspberries sweetness)

Crust: Coursly crush the nuts and combine them with the rest of the crust ingredients. Press down the mixture in a small spring form and bake in 200 degrees C for 5 minutes. Let the crust cool completely.

Truffle: Chop the chocolate finely. Bring the cream to boil and pour it over the chocolate. Stir until the mixture becomes smooth, add the egg yolk and stir smothly again. Pour the truffle over the cool crust and let the truffle cake rest in the fridge for 2 hours.

Raspberry sauce: Mix the raspberries in a food processor. Add icing sugar a little at a time and taste so the sauce won’t get too sweet.

Photo from Asianinfo.org

Our honeymoon in Japan is getting closer and most of the ryokans and hotels are now booked. We’ll visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Nikko, Nara, Hiroshima, Kamakura and Takaragawa Onsen; it wouldn’t surprise me if we’ll change the itinerary a bit but we’ll see about that. What we need now is restaurant recommendations, we’ve picked out quite a few places from discussion forums and travel books but maybe YOU know about a restaurant or bar that we shouldn’t miss. I would also be glad for recommendations what to buy and bring home to Sweden; food, food appliances and other food related things.

Halloumi skewers, before grilling them.

Anne kindly invited us to her Midsummer party this year. We had a wonderful day and the food was really delicious, even if it was far from traditional Midsummer’s food which I’m rather bored of. Anne prepared most of the food and all others brought different things as well. Fredrik and I brought lime marinated halloumi skewers and a chocolate truffle cake with walnut crust and a raspberry sauce. Thanks again for inviting us, Anne!

I love Halloumi, I just can’t get enough of that squeky delicious cheese, it’s so easy to use and so easy to eat :-) For the party I prepared skewers with marinated Halloumi, pepper and red onion. I burnt them on the barbeque while the guys were drinking beer and watching, but I did get some help in the end though :-) The skewers were great but next time I’ll marinate them a little longer than just 1 hour.

Lime Marinated Halloumi Skewers

(makes far too many. I don’t remember the exact quantities, but you get the point)

Skewers:
3 parcels of Halloumi (a total of about 450 g)
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 green pepper
2 red onions

Marinade:
The juice from 2 limes
The juice from 0.5 lemon
freshly grounded pepper
Olive oil
fresh herbs (I used a herb which I don’t recall, but it tasted and smelled like pineapple!)

Prepare the marinade in a bowl. Cut the Halloumi in cubes and put it in the marinade. Put the bowl in the fridge for a couple of hours. Cut the vegetables and then put everything on skewers (if wodden, put them in water for 10 minutes so they don’t start to burn on the barbecue).
Grill the skewers on a barbecue until they get enough colour.

Yummy! Read more about the different dishes on Anne’s blog.