Sunday Brunchday - Gluten Free Soft Salty Cake

Here I am with this super simple, absolutely delicious vegetarian salty cake. It was part of our Sunday Brunchday and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I am not one to love savoury salty things in the morning and I notoriously present Mr. Mystery and/or my Brunchday guests with dessert and sweet things galore. 

This morning, I got up bright and early and bakes this simple soft vegetable cake. Throw in a lemon green tea and some fruit and this makes for a super healthy start to your day.

Here's the recipe!

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: around 25 minutes (or until it gets a golden top crust)

Ingredients:

3 medium sized eggs

300 g / 2 1/2 cup zucchini (sliced)

1 small red onion

120 g / 1/2 cup buckwheat flour

30 g / 1 oz rice flour

50 g / 1/3 cup whole almond meal flour

40 ml / a little over 1 oz extravirgin olive oil

90 ml / 3 oz soy milk/lactose-free milk

60 g / 2 oz almonds

50 g / 1/3 cup pecorino romano (if you can't get any, parmesan should be fine as well)

3 tsp baking powder
5 g butter (to grease the cake pan)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1. Wash the zucchini and slice it finely; then slice the red onion.

2. Mix the flours and the baking powder.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the salt and black pepper. Add in the milk, oil, the flours and continue to whisk until you have a grain-free batter.

4. Add the zucchini and red onion and stir the mix with a wooden spoon, folding the batter gently.

5. Butter the cake pan, put the batter in it and smooth the surface. Decorate the surface with the almonds and put the cake in the oven.

6. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the surface is golden, at 200° C / 392° F

7. Take the cake out and wait for it to cool before serving.

Enjoy and do let me know if you liked it!

Kiss and Peace
Miss Sinister

Gluten-Free Rainbow Checkerboard Cake + Easter talk

Easter.

I finally got to unveil my Checkerboard Cake.

I had so much fun making this and honestly, apart for the decorating part, I found this to be very easy recipe.
You can find the recipe over on MyCupcakeAddiction and it's pretty much the ingredients in the first picture at the top x 2 for a full 6 layer cake.
Some worthy advice:
1. Use a pre-made cake mix. Trust me, trying to get a cake just right, rainbow and checkerboarded is too much for any holiday.
2. Mix the batter in a Kitchen Aid. Don't go crazy an play the perfect 50's housewife that can do it all. Also, mix one batch at a time. This should produce 3 layers.
3. Bake the layers three at a time. Remember they take less time to bake because they are thin.
4. I used a simple simple buttercream for the filling (250 g butter + 500 g sugar + about 100 g of cream cheese - all lactose free), put it between the layers a day before serving the cake and wait a hefty 6 hours before thinking that the cake will never hold and hence panic (this is basically what I did)
5. Cover the cake with either whipped cream(Chantilly cream) or buttermilk cream and/or fondant like I did. But make sure you know which one you are using beforehand and be prepared for double or even triple layers before the cake actually is covered. I wasn't hence I panicked yet again.
6. Decorate with simple, potentially pre-made decorations or be prepared to curse every Cake Boss episode you've ever seen. I did that but in the end the cake looked nice.
7. Don't give away the surprise! That's the best part!

I have to say I was super duper proud of myself for pulling off a difficult cake and actually making it gluten-free AND lactose-free much to the surprise of my family.
Mission accomplished I might say.

Easter was fabulous. Lots of Italian food, artichokes in particular, I have been cultivating a deep relationship with this oh-so-Italian vegetable. We had a wonderful time and missed my mom terribly because she couldn't join us. Next week will be Easter Part 2 especially for mom.

Easter was also "Unveiling the New Shoes Day" so tada!
Cue leather lace-ups with a bright white wedge that make me feel like Gulliver in Lilliput, but I have to say they are beyond comfortable. So you should get used to these shoes because you will be seeing me in them quite a lot.

The little monster got in some pics either directly participating or distracting me.

Pink Marylin Monroe print T-shirt

Bershka white jeans

New wedge lace-ups (I have to remember to put the name up)

Little monster

Kiss and Peace

Rainbow Miss Sinister

Easter Ambition - The Checkerboard Cake

With Easter just round the corner here in Italy, I started thinking about food. More precisely, dessert.
My grandma was a pastry chef so every Christmas and Easter was like a sugar bomb exploded in my house. We had elegant eclairs, homemade cookies and biscuits with every possible filling and sprinkling (hello caramel-chocolate cream!), Romanian cozonac filled with nuts, cocoa, turkish delight and raisins (and I kid you not, it had all of this things in it) and finally, the holy grail of my grandma's desserts - the cake.
Ah. I could tell you stories about those cakes that would make you instantly abandon yoga, pilates and healthy eating for a lifelong of ganache, sponge cake and buttercream.
But I won't.
I will tell you that this year I'm going to make a Rainbow Checkerboard Cake like Elise from My Cupcake Addiction to take to my boyfriend's family traditional Easter lunch. No pressure there, right?
Well, since I thought that just the cake alone didn't make for a very complicated task (beware of heavy irony), I want to make it gluten-free, lactose-free and still delicious as hell!
There you go, I just Barney Stinson-ed myself, so I am accepting the challenge!!!!

The video makes it look pretty simple, and I consider myself a rather successful cook, albeit some mishaps here and there.

Take a look for yourselves.

So what do you think?

Can I make it?

Kiss and Peace

Puzzled Miss Sinister