So very heiter: Rebecca's lemon drizzle cake

What never fails to make me feel heiter? My sister-in-law’s lemon drizzle cake. We had it at our wedding, her wedding and at several other family celebrations. It felt like the best choice to celebrate two milestones earlier this month too: it was my 35th birthday and heiter turned 6, hooray!

After posting a photo of the cake on social media two weeks ago, many of you asked if I could share my version of the recipe with them so I thought I’d make a little blog post out of it. Hope you’ll find it useful!

Be heiter,

Katharina x

Ingredients for the cake mixture:

200g unsalted butter or a dairy-free/vegan alternative - make sure it’s soft but not runny

250g (caster) sugar

3 medium eggs, at room temperature, beaten - vegan alternative: 3 tbsp chia seeds plus 9 of water

finely grated zest of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

250g self-raising flour (if you can’t get hold of self-raising flour, use normal flour and add 2 tsp of baking soda or powder)

1/2 tsp baking powder

100ml (plant) milk, at room temperature

Ingredients for the original topping:

100g (caster) sugar

juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

finely grated zest of 1 medium unwaxed lemon

Ingredients for my cream cheese topping (see photo):

100g icing sugar

400g cream cheese (or a vegan alternative)

juice of 2 medium unwaxed lemons

optional: flowers or blossoms to decorate

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/gas 4.

• In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the soft butter, sugar, eggs (or the chia seed-water-mixture) and lemon zest.

• Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl, then add the milk.

• Beat with a wooden spoon, electric whisk or food mixer until all ingredients are thoroughly combined and smooth.

• Transfer the mixture into a prepared square tin that is lined with baking paper or greased with oil or butter. Alternatively, you can use two round tins. Spread the mixture evenly. Bake in the oven until the cake is golden brown (for about 50-60min, with two round tins it might take less time).

• Meanwhile, make the topping.

• For the original topping, mix the sugar with the lemon juice and zest to make a runny glaze. As soon as the cake is done, remove it from the oven and stand the tin on a wire cooling rack. Prick the top of the cake with a cocktail stick and then quickly spoon the lemon topping over so that it trickles down into the holes. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the tin.

• If you’d like to go for a cream cheese topping, I recommend leaving the cake out to cool over night. Remove the cake from the tin and it on a chopping board or cooling rack. Carefully (and evenly) pour the juice over the top of the cake so that it becomes more juicy and let it stand for a bit. In the meanwhile, mix the cheese (or vegan alternative) with the icing sugar. Before you serve the cake, add the cream cheese topping on top of your cake and spread evenly. If you used two round tins (rather than one square one), use some of the topping on one of the cakes and spread evenly. Sandwich the second cake on top and finish the now two layered cake with the rest of your topping. If you’d like, you can decorate your cake with blossoms or flowers.

• Enjoy!

Words & image: Katharina Geissler-Evans, heiter magazine

Vareniki: Eastern European dumplings

Katia Wlodarczak from Gourmant Pixels chose this recipe for heiter because it is a wonderful way to bring people together. The act of making food with family and sometimes even friends is a mindful process that creates a feeling of togetherness. It brings up conversations, unites and is therefore, a very heiter activity. Katia previously shared her Vareniki recipe as part of the #CookforUkraine initiative that was organised by Ukrainian chef and activist Olia Hercules and Russian origin chef Alissa Timoshkina. Read more about the initiative and how you can support it under this post.

Vareniki dumplings can be filled with a variety of ingredients, below are some of Katia’s favourites.

10 servings - total qty of 200

Prep time: 1 h (when done by a small group of people)

Resting time: 30 min

For the water dough you will need:

• 700 g typo 00 flour or plain white, plus extra for dusting

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

• 200 ml water

• 1 tsp salt

Fillings:

COTTAGE CHEESE (as previously shown in our e-zine: sign up for our newsletter to receive all e-zines for free)

• 300 g cottage cheese, ideally Twarog (can be bought from any Eastern European shop, tends to be drier than English cottage cheese, which makes the difference)

• 1 egg, lightly beaten

to serve:

• a good knob of butter

• soured cream or thick Greek yogurt

• berry compote, shop bought or home made

MASH POTATO AND CARAMELISED ONION

• 400 g potatoes, peeled and chopped

• 2 tbsp sunflower oil

• 3 medium to big chopped onions

to serve:

• a good knob of unsalted butter

• a handful of chopped dill or other herbs

• soured cream or thick Greek yogurt

• freshly ground black pepper

CABBAGE - SAUERKRAUT

• 400g home made or quality shop bought sauerkraut

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil

to serve:

• a good knob of unsalted butter

• a handful of chopped dill or other herbs

• soured cream or thick Greek yogurt

• freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1) To make the dough, sift the flour into a medium size bowl. Make a well in the middle, add the eggs and mix everything in the well. Gradually add water until well combined and ready for kneading.

2) Knead the dough on a well-floured surface until it stops sticking to your hands. You are looking to get a firm and elastic dough. This might take on average 10-15 min. Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 min.

3) In the meantime, prepare the fillings:

a - FOR COTTAGE CHEESE FILLING - mix the twarog and egg, add salt and pepper to your taste

b - FOR POTATO AND CARAMELISED ONION FiLLING - boil and mash potatoes, add salt and pepper to taste. While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the caramelised onions by frying them in a little bit of sunflower oil, then reduce the heat and leave them to sweat until soft and start to brown. When the mash is ready, mix with the onions and cool the mixture before handling.

c - FOR SAUERKRAUT FILLING - fry sauerkraut in a little bit of sunflower oil, adding black pepper to taste. Cool to handle.

4) When ready, take the dough out of the fridge and divide it into 3 pieces. Flour the work surface and roll out the first portion of dough (for best results use a pasta machine) to get a thickness of about 1.5 mm. Using a small glass or round cookie cutter, cut out discs (about 6 cm diameter). Pop 1 heaped tea spoon of filling into the middle of each circle and seal by folding in half creating half moon dumpling. Pinch the edges together so that the filling cannot come out. Place each dumpling on a well floured surface (tray, chopping board) and make sure they don’t touch each other.

5) Repeat the process with the other two portions of dough.

6) If eaten immediately, bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the vareniki in batches. Boil them for a couple of minutes, or until they float to the surface. Use a sloted spoon to laddle the vareniki into a big bowl, add the knob of unsalted butter and serve in the middle of the table to share. Serve with the toppings mentioned above.

7) We tend to make a bigger batch of vareniki to be able to freeze some for later. Pop them into the freezer (still on a tray). Once frozen they can be transferred into freezer bags. When desired, just add them to boiling water and cook according to above instructions (no need to defrost).

8) The modern version of vareniki can be seasonal and contain any sort of filling including Halloween leftover pumpkins and/or similar. Don’t shy away of getting creative with your dumplings!

Katia Wlodarczak is a Russian food and product photographer living in the UK. She has recently shared several Eastern European recipes to join #CookForUkraine and show solidarity for the Ukrainian people. Find out more about her work on Instagram @gourmandpixels and her website www.gourmandpixels.com.

#CookForUkraine aims to increase awareness of the humanitarian crisis the world faces right now, as well as raise the funds needed to aid children & families in Ukraine who have been displaced by the current situation. 

Since its inception, hundreds of people from different backgrounds and nationalities have reached out and shown their solidarity by joining this initiative – including top chefs, award-winning food writers, restaurant owners and home cooks – cooking, baking and sharing Ukrainian and Eastern European inspired dishes at their restaurants with their guests, at home with their friends and across social media with their family and followers. 

You can donate directly here or host a supper club or bake sale to raise funds for #CookforUkraine. Or if you are unable to donate, simply share the news of this initiative by sharing the Just Giving link on your social channels and hashtagging  #CookforUkraine.