Well, a sandwich cake made out of a breadloaf is a must have in Finnish graduation party. Somehow wierdly I really like these cakes, even if they aren’t exactly the hottest trend in high cuisine.. For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, a sandwich cake is kind of giant sandwich, made out of a breadloaf, filled with different kind of spreads and mayos and moistened with milk. Wild decoration with roses made of rolled ham and flowers cut out of tomatoes are also quite common, with lots of piped cream cheese as icing.
My friend Linda wanted to have a sandwich cake for her graduation party, in exchange of fixing some handles for my new kitchen. I was in a hurry and made this cake very fast, without thinking too much. That’s why I don’t have any pictures that would make it clearer how it actually is made.. The cake got a good reception at this Finnish – Swedish party where I brought it, and disappeared in twenty minutes. No one complained for it not having any meat in it!
Sandwich Cake with Avocado and Beetroot
Two loafs of bread
2,5 dl oat milk for moistening
Avocado spread
3 avocadoes
juice of one lemon
salt to taste
2 cloves of garlic
a pinch of black pepper
Beetroot Spread
600 g cooked beetroots
1 dl cooked chickpeas
1 dl coconut milk
1/2 dl olive oil
salt to taste
2 tblsp rasberry vinegar
a small handful of fresh basil
Icing
750 g soy cream cheese, natural
Cooking water that was lef from the beets, enough to dye the cheese pink (about a desiliter).
I started with the bread. It’s good to have a breadloaf that’s fairly firm, and of that type that has been baked in a tin. I cut out all the crusts and sliced the bread diagonally in three layers, like with a cake. The I made the fillings, by blending the ingredients with a hand held mixer.
Then I assembled the cake. I moistened the layers readily with oat milk, since it’s important to moisten this type of cake enough. I put the avocado spread between the first and the second layer, and the beetroot spread between the second and the third. I had two loafs of bread, so I made the cake into a kind of cross shape, because this way it fitted in my cake container. You can see the picture. Then I put the cake in the fridge to wait for the following day. And I mean, you can not make a moistened cake the same day you are going to eat it, it won’t be any good. Always start the previous day! This stands for the sweet cakes as well.
The next day I had about an hour to decorate the cake: so in fast forward mode I mixed the soy cream cheese with the beet cooking water, so that I got a nice colour and so that the mixture had a good consistency for piping. Then I made a piping device out of a plastic bag, and hastily piped the cheese on the cake. I decorated the cake with stripes of cucumber cut with a cheese – slicer, some radishes cut to flowers and some spruce year growths and lemon.
Filed under: Salad | Tags: avocado, pomegranade, raspberry, Salad, spring equinox, vinaigrette, walnut
There is an old story that tells about the Spring Equinox: Hades, the god of Kingdom of Death, stole the beautiful maiden Persephone down to his realm to be his wife. Meanwhile her mother Demeter, who is the Goddess of Earth and all living things, made everything barren and dry in her mourning. Finally Persephone was allowed to return to stay in in the Land of Living every half of the year, and her returning was the coming of the spring, when her mother made all flowers bloom in her wake.
So since now it is the time of Spring Equinox, I wanted to make a salad to celebrate the oncoming Spring, even if the land is here in the North not quite blooming yet… This salad is very sweet, like the Maiden Persephone is sweet returning from the Land of the Dead, and the first signs of spring are sweet to the soul.
Salad with caramelised walnuts and rasberry vinaigrette (2 – 3 portions)
150 g of different kinds of salad (I had chicory, radicchio and corn salad)
1 apple
1 avocado
1 pomegranade
1 half of a cucumber
1 1/2 dl alfalfa sprouts
spring onions
Caramelised walnuts
70 g walnuts
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp muscovado sugar
1/4 tsp chili powder
Rasberry vinaigrette
1 dl rasberries
1 dl olive oil
2 tbsp rasberry vinegar
1 /2 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard
First I prepared the caramelised walnuts. This I did simply by adding all the ingredients for the caramelised walnuts on a frying pan, and frying them for about 5 minutes, or until the sugar was caramelised. This means it becomes sort of syrup – like. The sugar burns easily so I tried to concentrate. Then I poured the mixture onto a pan that was covered with baking parchment to let it cool down.
Then I made the vinaigrette by mixing all the ingredients with a hand held mixer. I suppose in order to be very gourmet you should actually puree the rasberries using a sieve, so that you’d get rid of the seeds, but who cares?
Then I chopped all the other ingredients for the salad and took out the seeds from the pomegranade, being careful not to take out any of the white skin that is inside the fruit, since it is very bitter. Then I assembled the salad by mixing all the ingredients and the dressing.
Goddess of Cake 