Every nineties kid in the Netherlands will feel a sudden wave of nostalgia seeing these pink cakes. Chances were that as a Dutch kid, you were watching a children's show called Villa Achterwerk, which featured a female presenter who was quite addicted to roze koeken - albeit larger ones than these. When my friend Nadine posted these mini cakes on her blog it made me feel sentimental about the time where I would wake up at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning to sneakily put my (ridiculously large) tv in my room on so that I could watch the show (all the while making sure my parents wouldn't wake up). I'm sure I wasn't the only one doing that!
I am feeling less sentimental about the storebought version of these cakes though. They are HUMONGOUS food preservative laden cakes and worst of all: they contain carmine as food coloring. No, I'd rather eat roze koeken which are free from any creepy crawly bits and so I was glad to come across this recipe. I made the mini version, like Nadine did, but you could make larger cakes by using a regular muffin tin. I think these minis are quite cute though and they're versatile because you can play around with the color a bit. You could add blueberry juice instead of raspberry juice for a blue/purplish color for example! They're perfect little bites for a high tea or baby shower!
Recipe Mini Pink Cakes (Roze Koeken)
Yields: 24 mini cakes
Tools: (mini) muffin tin, baking sheet, baking parchment
Ingredients:
Cakes:
100 gr caster sugar
100 gr butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs
80 gr plain flour
30 gr ground almonds
pinch of salt
Glaze:
100 gr icing sugar
2 tablespoons raspberry juice (handful of raspberries)
1. Preheat the oven to 160C/320F.
2. Grease and flour your (mini) muffin tin. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, for about 5 minutes. Mix in the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before moving to the next addition. Scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl after each addition. Sift flour and ground almonds into the bowl and beat until combined. Make sure not to overbeat. If you don't have ground almonds at hand, use plain flour instead.
4. Fill each muffin cup half full using two (tea)spoons. Place a sheet of baking parchment over the muffin tin, then a baking sheet over that so that the cakes do not rise too much. We are not baking cupcakes here! Place tin in the oven and bake cakes for 16 minutes, then remove the baking sheet and parchment and bake for an additional 2-3 minutes. The cakes should be very pale.
5. Once baked, turn cakes out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
6. While your cakes are cooling, make the glaze. Press raspberries through a sieve to obtain their juice. You could also use other (red) juicy fruits, such as cherries or strawberries. Sift icing sugar into a bowl, then add raspberry juice and mix until combined. Once cakes have cooled, ice the tops with about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of the glaze using a small palette knife or two teaspoons. Leave to set, then enjoy!
Source: adapted from Nadine Bakes, who in turned adapted the recipe from Koken met Karin
Labels: Cake, Cakes, Dutch, Easy, Fruit, Koek, Lemon, Mini, Pink, Raspberry, Traditional
