Saturday, August 10, 2013

Melon and yogurt chilled cake

This summer I've spent some weeks in the middle of nowhere beautiful Saxony. There is one nice German tradition that is followed almost religiously in the State of Saxony: the Kaffee und Kuchen time, which is nothing less than time for coffee and cake, always cake, and takes place at around 4 pm.

So if they like cake, I'm gonna give them cake! Whatever it takes to improve cultural understanding between people. It also helped that I found this juicy and fresh cake on Lecker Bakery, the summer special edition of the cooking magazine. Just perfect for the hottest summer days!


Ingredients
For the cake
100 g sugar
80 g wheat flour
3 eggs

For the filling
300 g natural yogurt
150 g cream
1 small Galia melon
70 g sugar
8 gelatin sheets
juice and zest of one lemon

For decoration
1 piece of water melon, 2 kiwis

Directions
For the cake: Preheat oven to 175 °C. Beat eggs with sugar at least five minutes until light and fluffy. Sift flour over the mixture and mix carefully. Butter a spring form pan (22 cm), pour the mixture and bake for 30 minutes. Remove and let cool on a wire rack.

For the filling: Put gelatin sheets in cold water and let them soften for 5-8 minutes. Cut the Galia melon in half and use a melon baller to make as many melon balls as possible, reserve for later. Take the rest of melon fruit and grind it with sugar, zest and lemon juice to obtain a puree. Take out the gelatin sheets from the water, press well draining them and put in a saucepan over medium heat to melt. Do not boil! Add two tablespoons of the previous melon puree and stir well. Add now to the rest of the melon mixture and finally whisk in the yogurt. Put in the fridge to cool for half an hour, until the mixture begins to set. Meanwhile whip the cream and add to the yogurt mixture.


Cut now the cake in half, horizontally, and place the base in a cake ring (or a spring form without the removable base if you do not have a special cake ring). Put half of the melon balls we had reserved. Cover with half the yogurt cream. Put other half of the cake on top, press slightly and cover with the remaining cream smoothing the surface. Cover the ring or pan with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill for about two hours. An hour before serving the cake, transfer to freezer and chill.

Before serving, make more balls with the remaining fruits (watermelon, kiwi) and decorate the cake.