Croissants From Scratch

Well, since the June Daring Bakers Challenge, I've been planning to repeat the attempt at making laminated pastry and this week-end the opportunity arose.



I scoured the web for recipes and there is a lot of variations on the theme. I decided to go with the recipe from Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef. And for the first time ever, I used the imperial weight setting on my kitchen scales, I just couldn't be bothered to check the conversions given in the book. I used the small batch recipe that would result in 15 croissants.

For the butter block, I had to add some flour, just like for the Danish braid. And this is my first failure - I didn't mix it in well enough, there were still a few lumps of butter in it, but I was worried that mixing by hand would warm the butter too much, so I left it at that and just formed it into a square and put in the fridge, just to be on the safe side, while mixing the dough.

I also mixed the dough by hand, it took me ages to dissolve the dry yeast in the milk. The recipe calls for fresh yeast, but I didn't have any.

Once I'd added all the flour, the dough was more a paste than a dough, extremely sticky, so I added some more flour. Not much, still I think the dough went a bit too stiff and it said it should be soft and not rubbery. Also it was not to be overdone!

Anyway, I rolled it out, placed the butter block onto it and folded it in. I think the consistency of both was similar, but there were those butter lumps that hadn't been softened...

So once I started doing the turns, the word lumpy would be the best description to it - all those butter lumps that I hadn't softened up were indeed too hard and went through the layers and squirted out from everywhere.

The book also said 3 single turns only in total, whereas most other instructions I'd found called for 6. I noticed that with each turn, it seemed that the butter lumps dispersed, so I did 10 single turns in total yesterday.

Finally this morning, after oversleeping, I rolled out my laminated dough to the specified size. I couldn't find a ruler, so guessed on the measurements. I cut the dough into the triangles and started rolling. Well the dough mostly insisted on sticking to the baking surface and I had trouble rolling the croissants into a recognisable shape - mostly they ended up looking like hedgehogs.

They rose a bit, but not very much and I should perhaps have left them for longer. All in all I got 21 pieces.

At this point I was hungry and sick of the whole thing, so I didn't bother with egg wash, but brushed with milk. The book said this is how it's done in France.

I baked them in the oven for 17 minutes at which point they were well brown on top, but probably not entirely baked inside.

Still, left them to cool a bit and had them for an extremely delayed breakfast (almost noon!).



The taste was the right one, but the texture wasn't and given my alterations to the recipe, perhaps it's no wonder. Very fatty of course, but fairly edible with a dab of Nutella.

I'll leave the laminate doughs for a few months now I think, it's such a big effort and the final result is not really as expected, I need some time to recover from this failure.

I was planning to make some cinnamon buns today as well, but half the day is gone, so I'll leave that.

On a different note, we barbecued yesterday and Lundulph got to try out his new barbecue wok. It worked rather well - got all veggies done nicely and also the king prawns I'd bought especially for this occasion. It's a uni-tasker, but a useful one.

Chicken Do-Piaza

Now that I work long hours as does Lundulph, we end up eating salad many evenings during the week, but occasionally it's nice to have a cooked meal and chicken do-piaza is a very quick dish to make.

I originally got it from Mridula Baljekar's Fat Free Indian Cookery, which is sadly out of print now but seems to occasionally come up on Amazon.



Over the years, I've made changes to the recipe and here is what I did today.

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts (300 - 400 g)
4 tbsp blended ginger
4 large cloves of garlic
4 pieces of cinnamon stick about 5 cm long
6 cardamom pods
6 cloves
4 bay leaves
2 large red onions
1 tsp turmeric
1 - 2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
4 tbsp plain yogurt
225 g boiled and blended onions
2 tsp salt
3 tbsp tomato puree
300 ml beef stock
1 tbsp plain flour (optional)
8 large button mushrooms
2 bell peppers
1 head of broccoli
2 large tomatoes
2 -4 green fresh chillies with stalks intact
6 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves
a handful of Thai basil leaves (optional)

Method

1. Clean, trim and cut the chicken breasts into bite sized chunks and place in a large non-stick wok or pan.
2. Add the ginger, press in the garlic, add the cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, cloves and bay leaves. The cardamom pods should first be bruised by placing them on a chopping board and hitting them with the end of a knife handle. Not too hard, or the whole thing will explode and spread the seeds all over the kitchen, just enough to crack the pod.
3. Stir around, while heating up over medium heat and cooking until the chicken is browned, about 7-8 minutes.
4. Add the sliced red onion and keep stirring for another 3-4 minutes until it releases its juices.
5. Add the turmeric chili powder, ground cumin and coriander and stir vigorously for about 1 minute to mix and release the aromas.
6. Add the yogurt and stir in. It'll melt and go thin and help distribute the spices more evenly.
7. Add the boiled blended onions and leave to simmer for 5 minutes.
8. Stir in the salt, tomato puree and beef stock and bring to the boil. If you want a thicker sauce, add the plain flour. Once boiling, reduce the heat and leave to cook uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
9. Peel and dice the mushrooms, wash, trim and dice the pepper and wash and cut the broccoli into small bite sized florets.
10. Half-way through cooking, add the vegetables.
11. While the dish continues to cook, dice the tomato and chop the coriander and Thai basil. Just before taking the curry off the hob, add the tomatoes, the whole chillies, the coriander and the Thai basil and stir in.
12. Serve with naan bread or rice.

Because I cook Indian food quite often from this cookery book, I buy about 1 kg of fresh ginger a couple of times a year, spend an evening in front of the telly peeling it, then blend with a dash of water. I then distribute the pulp into ice cube trays and freeze. Each ice cube is about 1.5 tbsp and generally I go for one large clove of garlic for each ice cube of ginger.

The same goes for the boiled blended onions - I get a larger amount, boil with a couple of bruised cardamom pods, then blend with a little of the water. Then I distribute it into 225 g portions and freeze.

On the whole it may seem like a complicated dish, but it's easy and very quick if you line everything up ready to add.

And the best thing of all - no fat, besides what's in the yogurt and the chicken! And it becomes even leaner if you use turkey instead.

Tunnbrödsrulle!

Tunnbrödsrulle translates directly to thin bread roll and constitutes of thin soft bread rolled up with a couple of spoons of mashed potato, a sausage, ketchup and mustard in it. This is the basic form. Optionally onions, salad and pickled gherkins can be added.

I love Swedish thin bread and I still haven't found a recipe that's close enough to the ones sold in the shops. They tend to be used like tortillas, but unlike tortillas they are very tender. Not a hint of chewiness. I think they have yeast in them and are flavoured with anise seeds.



This is the standard thing to have after a night out in Sweden. Or a luxury cooked meal as a poor student. There's a place in Stockholm that used to make them with real mashed potato - as opposed to the mix the powder with water stuff. I have many fond memories of this dish and I try to have one every time I go to Sweden, for old times' sake.

I even introduced Lundulph to this delicacy a few years ago.

At my last trip to IKEA, I bought some tunnbröd -Swedish soft thin bread, which is what you need and on my way home today, I got some jumbo Frankfurters from the supermarket, along with crème fraîche and a bag of potatoes claiming to be perfect for mashing.

Now, for the mashed potato, since I tried Delia's recipe, I don't make any other type. But I do tend to be very generous with the crème fraîche. The potatoes too ages to boil, and once they were done, I put them through my potato press to get a smoother texture than I tend to get when I use the whisk.

I grilled the Frankfurters, I think they taste best grilled, though you can go for boiled in Sweden if you prefer that. There's also a choice of chorizo and cabanosse.



And then it's put together.

1. Place the thin bread on a piece of baking parchment.
2. Place a couple of spoons of mashed potatoes in the middle and stick the sausage into the mash.
3. Squirt some ketchup and mustard over the sausage and mash.
4. Add shopped onions and what ever else you'd like.
5. Fold up the bread along with the baking parchment. The paper helps hold the thing together.
6. Ready to eat.

Lundulph said that my photo set-up looks rude. And looking at the photos, he's right. Well, so what, it was ever so tasty, but I need to get hold of larger thin breads.

Be warned though, this is extremely filling. Lundulph had two and is regretting it now - no room for dessert.

Falukorv with stir fried vegetables

Well, one of the advantages of my new job is that every now and then I end up very near an IKEA store, like last Friday and I took the opportunity to check out the Swedish food shop. I spotted this wonderful Swedish sausage called Falukorv - "Falu" as from the city of Falun and "korv" as in Swedish for sausage.

This is something I haven't had since school and then I always loved it (though would never have admitted it, as no one else claimed to like it). And so I bought one. Traditionally they used to be wrapped in a bright red skin and used to be huge and shaped like a horse shoe. Nowadays they've been spruced up - for starters they aren't as large, so you don't have to keep eating it for a week. Second, the skin was orange and had flowers printed on it. This refers to an old Swedish children's song - "Jag vill ha blomming falukorv till lunch, mamma!" basically a child asking for a flowery falukorv for lunch, because it doesn't like any other food. In addition, they also support the BRIS foundation. This is Barnens Rätt i Samhället translating to Children's Rights In Society.

This week-end we also went and spent some of the vouchers we got for our wedding (despite having said that we didn't want any presents). So now we have fancy new everyday cutlery that we're both happy with (so far Lundulph has used his ones from the days before we moved together and I've used the ones I inherited from my parents). And I have a new set of pots from Tefal - compact ones, where the handles fold to one side and take up a bit less space.

Today I tried the large one out by stir frying some vegetables, a bit inspired from having had lunch at Wagamama yesterday. Actually we were supposed to barbecue, to try out Lundulph's new unitasker - a wok-shaped colander that can be used to "stir-fry" vegetables and prawns over a barbecue. But the Sunday rained away, so we had to change our plans.

I peeled the bright skin off the sausage and cut it in 1 cm thick slices. It has sufficient amount of fat in it, not to need additional oil for frying in a non-stick. It's enough to just brown the sides.

For the stir-fry, I had an aubergine, a courgette, half a leek, 2 bell peppers, 1 chili, 6 mushrooms, about 20 leaves of Thai basil and a couple of tablespoons of sesame seeds. I fried them in toasted sesame seed oil and added some Japanese soy sauce. The cutting in strips was made very quick with using my Alligator cutter, that I got from my Mum a few months ago. This is yet another unitasker that I'm slowly getting used to, as it's quite useful for chopping vegetables quickly. It sort of works, if everything is needed in julienne form...

Anyway, the cooking part was very quick on both sausages and stir-fry, which was the main idea I think, we've been shifting furniture around today and sifting through a lot of our things and throwing away quite a lot, while keeping an eye on the Wimbledon tournament and time flew by and suddenly we were hungry. I had some left-over rice in the fridge, so that made the carb part of our meal.

The stir-fry tasted very much like a Ratatouille with a hint of Thai basil. The falukorv was saltier than I remember it, but very tasty. The chili was not noticeable, despite being labelled as very hot. We had to add a couple of drops of Cajun sauce (can also be used as rocket fuel) to give it a bit of a kick.



For dessert we're having biltong - I found a small bag in the larder. Must remember to put it on my shopping list.

The Daring Bakers' Challenge for June 2008

Gosh how time flies - it's been a whole month since I last blogged. But I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks and I've started a new job, where I'm still settling in, so I haven't had any time for culinary adventures.

This month's challenge was Danish Braid and after reading the recipe, I was well excited - I've been wanting to try and make puff pastry for ages - my first and only attempt was when I was in Munich for my exchange year over 10 years ago and I misunderstood the recipe and only did two folds and didn't bother with chilling sessions in between. Needless to say, my croissants were anything but.



I took time to look at the recommended links in the challenge description to make sure I get things right this time.

So my first surprise was that there was yeast in the dough - from my browsings this isn't needed and I was wondering if all the butter wouldn't ooze out in room temperature while the braids were rising. In my case it most definitely did.

Also it shouldn't have mattered if the butter was soft or hard. I followed the instructions and had it soft.

I also didn't manage to make the braid on the following day, but had to keep the dough in the fridge for 3 days.

And to make a long story short, the dough smelt wonderful, the braids turned out really pretty and rose well too, while the butter oozed out on the baking sheet. I baked anyway and the result, although still pretty, was heavy regular bready thing with filling. No flakiness, no lightness.

My joy over this challenge dropped well below zero when I tasted the thing. Greasy and heavy and I decided never to do this one again.

Having looked at a number of fellow Daring Bakers - some had similar results to mine, judging by the photos. Others had was was intended - with obvious lamination and rising and all that.

So even better planning next time - Saturday to make the pastry, Sunday to bake it. Use cold butter, because to some extent I think the butter may have become incorporated into the dough, but some definitely just oozed out, so not sure what to do about that.

Another thing that seemed odd is that the other Daring Bakers seemed to have nice white pastry, where mine was well yellow. Did I use too much orange juice and zest? It sure smelt of Christmas while I was doing the turns.

For the filling, I could have made the apple stuff that was recommended, but given the option of using jam as long as it was home made, I seized the opportunity to use up some of the quince jam I made a couple of years ago. It also had the advantage of being fairly jelly-like and the chances of it running over should thus be minimal. Plus we're not big jam eaters in our house, which is why even smaller quantities last years.

Anyway, I feel I should give this anther go, just to be on the safe side. And here is the recipe (taken from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking):

Ingredients

Dough (detempre)

1 tbsp dry yeast
1.2 dl full milk
0.8 dl caster sugar
zest from 1 orange
0.75 tsp ground cardamom
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
0.5 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large chilled eggs
0.6 dl orange juice
5 dl strong flour
2.7 dl plain flour
1 tsp salt

Butter block (beurrage)

226 g cold unsalted butter
0.5 dl plain flour

Egg wash

1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

Method

1. Prepare all ingredients and mix the two flours and the salt. In a mixer, combine yeast and milk on low speed.
2. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract and seeds, eggs and orange juice.
3. Increase the mixer speed to medium and add the flour a little at a time. Mix until the four is incorporated. If it seems too sticky still, add a little more flour.
4. Transfer the dough to a suitable container if needed, cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
5. In the mean time, combine the butter and the flour in a mixer and beat on medium for 1 minute. Scrape the sides, then beat for another minute or until smooth and lump free and set aside at room temperature.
6. After the detempre has chilled, take out of the fridge and turn out onto a lightly floured surface, then roll into a rectangle of 45 x 33 cm and about 1 cm thick. If the dough is sticky, keep dusting with flour lightly.
7. Now divide in your mind the long side into 3 parts of 15 cm width. Spread the butter over the middle and one of the side parts as evenly as possible, going all the way to the edges.
   
   
8. Starting with the butter-free part and fold over the middle to cover the butter. Then fold the other side part on top of that, making sure to keep the edges and corners as straight as possible. This is turn 1, so either mark the dough with a poke or keep a tally on a piece of paper. Place the dough on a baking sheet, cover with cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
   
   
9. Then turn the dough rectangle carefully out onto the lightly floured surface, preferably so that the short open ends are to your left and right. Roll the dough again to 45 x 33 cm and 1 cm thickness.
10. Once more in your mind divide the long side into 3 equal parts and fold one side over the middle, then the other on top of that. This completes turn 2, so poke two fingers into the dough or add to the tally, place on the baking sheet, cover with cling film and place in the fridge for another 30 minutes. Note that because the open ends from turn 1 were folded, the butter is now well sealed into the dough.
    
    
11. Repeat this two more times, then leave the dough in the fridge for at least 5 hours, but preferably overnight.
    
    
12. If the dough won't be used within 24 h, it's best to freeze it wrapped tightly in cling film. Defrost slowly in the fridge.
13. The above quantity makes two largeish braids, so line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
14. Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out to 33 x 60 cm rectangle. Then cut in the middle of the long side to make two pieces of 33 x 30 cm rectangles.
15. On each, mark lightly three 10 cm wide strips, then cut the two side ones into 2 - 3 cm wide strips perpendicular to the middle strip, but leave 5 cm from the bottom and top edges.
    
    
16. Put a jam of your choice in the middle strip, then fold the top and bottom "flaps", then start folding the side strips, alternating left and right.
    
    
17. Repeat with the second rectangle, then transfer to their respective baking sheets.
18. Whisk the egg wash lightly and brush the two braids gently.
19. Spray or brush two pieces of cling film and cover the two braids, then cover with towels and leave to rise for 1.5 - 2 h in room temperature, until doubled in size and light to the touch.
20. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 (200 degrees C), then bake in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes. Then reduce the heat to gas mark 4 (180 degrees C), turn the baking sheet so that the side of the braid that was towards the oven door now is on the other side and bake for another 15 - 20 minutes or until golden brown.
    
    
21. Take out and bake the second braid.
22. Leave to cool a bit at lest before serving, or serve at room temperature.
23. The cooled braid can be frozen.

As you can see, I didn't do the first turn very well and some butter squeezed out from the open ends. And even in the second turn, I didn't do too well - I'd managed to trap some air in the first turn, and rolling in the second turn made them burst and more butter squirted out. At the fourth turn, I'd got the hang of things and it looked very nice and tidy indeed.

You can see all the burnt goo around my finished braid - some of it was quince jam, most of it was grease.

One very clever thing I spotted on Gretchen's blog Canela & Comino was how she's done the edges - she'd cut out a wedge from each end flap, so that it would fold a lot easier, not become too thick relative to the middle of the braid and also it looks rather esthetically pleasing, I think.

I might not bother with the orange zest and juice next time either.

Home Made Pasta

This is something I've been looking forward to making pasta for ages and I was so very happy to find durum wheat flour a couple of weeks ago in our local farm shop. The recipe I'd chosen was the one from my Cordon Bleu book, and had saved three eggs, that were required.

Sadly the recipe was completely wrong. In fact, it repeats the recipe once for manually mixing the dough and once for mixing it in a food processor and there's a typo in the second one, asking for a whole tablespoon of salt. But the worst part was that it called for 2.5 cups of flour for 3 eggs and 2.5 cups is 5.9 dl. I had large eggs and used 6 dl flour - about half the 1 kg packet. Lundulph looked at the book's own conversion table, which would have amounted to even more flour.

And so, my pasta dough never became a dough, at best it looked like polenta. I tried a rescue by adding more olive oil, but that didn't help much and I ended up throwing it all away.

A quick glance at the flour packet listed an almost identical recipe, but half the amount of flour. 250 g flour to 3 eggs. This sounded a lot more likely.

So I'm a bit sad now, but such is life. I'll buy more eggs and try again soon. I wanted to notify the publisher about these mistakes, but there does't seem to be anywhere to do this.

Otherwise, we've been living on salads lately, so that's the main reason for me not blogging.

Opera Cake - Daring Bakers May 2008 Challenge

Well, this is my third Daring Bakers challenge and the best one so far, I think.



Though part of the reason for this is that the quantities of the previous challenges were way too big for me and Lundulph, we just finished the cheesecake pops the other day and most of the perfect party cake is still in the freezer. So this time I decided to reduce the recipe to a third of the original size. This produced a decent sized cake, that would serve 8 - 9 people.

The Opera cake is a layered cake with buttercream and ganache and a glaze on top. The sponges are called joconde and are moistened by a flavoured syrup.

So without further ado, here it is - light coloured Opera cake.

Joconde Ingredients

2 large egg whites
10 g granulated sugar
75 g ground almonds
1.2 dl icing sugar
2 large eggs
20 g plain flour
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled + some for the baking sheet

Joconde Method

1. Preheat the oven at gas mark 7 (220 degrees C).


2. Line a deepish sheet with baking parchment and brush with melted butter, not forgetting the sides. A 27 x 31 cm baking sheet gives a 1.5 cm thick joconde.


3. Beat the egg whites to soft peak stage, then add the granulated sugar and continue beating to hard peak stage. Set the meringue aside.


4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ground almonds, icing sugar and eggs until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes on high.


5. Switch to low speed and add the flour, whisk just long enough to incorporate it.


6. Gently fold in the meringue, follwed by the butter.


7. Pour into the baking sheet and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes.


8. Unmould immediately onto another piece of baking parchment and remove the parchment the joconde baked in. If it's a bit sticky, wet it with a little bit of water. Leave the joconde to cool.

Syrup Ingredients

30 g water
20 g granulated sugar
1 tbsp flavouring of choice, I used vanilla extract

Syrup Method

1. Stir together all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil.


2. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Buttercream Ingredients

35 g granulated sugar
20 g water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
70 g unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tsp flavouring of choice, I used dark rhum

Buttercream Method

1. Combine sugar, water and vanilla extract in a saucepan and bring to the boil on medium heat. Continue until the mixture reaches 107 degrees C. It's a very small amunt so may be difficult to measure. 107 degrees C is just under the so called thread stage, so this could be used instead of thermometer. The original recipe calls for 124 degrees C which is just over soft ball stage. Remove from the heat when the desired temperature has been reached.


2. In the mean time, whisk the egg at high speed until pale and foamy.


3. Reduce the mixer speed to low and very slowly pour the hot syrup into the egg foam, avoiding pouring it directly onto the whisks themselves, or it'll fly off to th sides and go solid.


4. Increase the mixer speed to high again and continue to whisk until smooth and satin looking and cool to the touch. With such a small quantity this shouldn't take long at all.


5. Once again reduce the speed to low and carefully incorporate the soft butter, a little at a time.


6. Go back up to high speed and beat until thick and shiny, then add your chosen flavouring and beat for another minute.


7. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm it up for spreading. Stir occasionally.

When I made this, as soon as I started to add the butter, the whole thing collapsed and went rather lumpy.



When I took it out of the fridge, it had released some liquid as well.



White Chocolate Ganache/Mousse Ingredients

70 g white chocolate
2.4 dl + 3 tbsp double cream
1 tbsp liqueur of choice, I used amaretto

White Chocolate Ganache/Mousse Method

1. Melt the chocolate and the 3 tbsp cream in a saucepan on low heat, stirring until the chocolate has melted completely and the mixture is smooth.


2. Take off the heat, stir in the liqueur and set aside to cool.


3. In a separate bowl, whip the 2.4 dl cream to soft peaks stage.


4. Gently fold in the whipped cream in the the cool shocolate mix to form a mousse.


5. If it's too runny, refrigerate for 30 minutes to make it firm.

This is the first time I've made ganache or mousse and I generally don't like amaretto, the only reason I used it was to echo the flavour of the joconde. I wasn't sure if it would work at all with white chocolate. As it turned out, it was a very good combination.

Glaze Ingredients

140 g white chocolate
1.2 dl double cream

Glaze Method

1. Melt the chocolate and the cream in a bain marie, whisking until the chocolate has melted completely and the mixtue is smooth.


2. Leave to cool completely. If it still feels too runny, refrigerate for 15 - 20 minutes.

Because of the buttercream not being enough, I was a bit worried that the same might happen with the glaze, so I made the double of the above listed dose. This turned out to be a miscalculation on my part, since there was loads left over. It's ever so tasty of course and can be used for other things too.

Cake Constructon

1. Cut the joconde into three equal sized parts.


2. Place one part on a cake plate and moisten with one third of the syrup.


3. Spread the buttercream over the joconde and place the second joconde part on top, moistening with the second third of the syrup. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.




4. Spread half of the ganche/mousse over the second joconde, then cover with the last part of the joconde, moisten with syrup and spread the second half of the ganache/mousse, then refrigerate again for about 1 hour.




5. Finally pour the glaze over the cake and smooth with a spatula, then refrigerate to firm up the glaze.




The original cake should have two layers of buttercream and one layer of ganache/mousse, but because my buttercream curdled, there was just about enough for one layer. The mousse was quite sufficient for two layers, so this worked out nicely. Unfortunately, the glaze was way too runny and most of it disappeared down the sides of the cake and I managed to scrape off most of it away. Perhaps I'd used more cream in the glaze than the recipe called for, I didn't measure it too precisely. Also the idea of the cake is to see the layerings, so it would be a good idea, after the cake has been completed, to trim the sides to enhance this effect. To cut the cake, a large, sharp knife should be heated up a bit. This will ensure there is no smudging between the layers. The knife can either be heated up under the hot water tap, making sure it's completely dry before cutting, or over the flame of the gas hob, taking care not to overheat it, or it'll melt the creams of the cake.

The above recipe yields 7 - 9 portions and combines nicely with tangy fruits like physalis. Because there was barely any glaze left on the cake, I used it as a sauce. This was before I'd refrigerated it and realised that it firmed up quite nicely.

Most of the parts I made a day or two in advance as constructing the cake takes quite a few hours as well. It's best served chilled.

Mrs W's Spicy Lamb Kebabs

A few weeks ago, Mrs W published this recipe and I got sold on it straight away.

Yesterday we had our second barbecue and I spent quite some time preparing for it, this last week has been stressful and I needed to relax and what better way than by preparing lots of food?



So the main thing was of course Mrs W's spicy lamb kebabs. I'd ordered a butterflied leg of lamb from the local butcher and I got to see him prepare it, it's quite a skill. He also kindly used a special stapler to puncture lots of holes everywhere, so that marinade could soak in better. Very nice. At home, I removed as much of the fat as I could, then diced it, stirred in the spice mixture and put it in the fridge. I realised only yesterday morning that I'd forgotten the olive oil, so I quickly added it then and decided to keep my fingers crossed that it would work.

On Saturday morning, I sliced the aubergines and sprinkled with salt and pepper and lined them up on a baking tray. I put a small bowl upside down under one end of the tray, so that any liquid that the aubergines would produce would gather in the lower corner. On the skewers I added figs as per the original instructions and they worked ever so well. The glazing didn't go thick, but maybe that's because I might have screwed up the proportions a bit. There was plenty left over as well.

Mrs W also recommended couscous or quinoa to go with the lamb and I decided on couscous, mainly because I'd never made quinoa before and couscous is very quick to make. I made 250 g couscous and stirred in 2 tbsp olive oil. When it had cooled down, I chopped about a handful of fresh coriander and stirred in. This worked out very nicely.

In addition I also made a green salad and this time I mean really green. Green peppers, unpeeled cucumber, parsley, peppermint, dill, iceberg lettuce and lime. Wonderfully tangy. All cut into small pieces, the lime peeled as well. And I got to use the parsley and mint from my new herb garden - an old set of stackable strawberry pots that I've put on the patio.



Then Lundulph said that we can't entertain without crisps and dips. Now I thought the lamb kebabs and aubergines and couscous were very Middle Eastern in style, so I thought I'd get matching dips. The hummus on offer in the supermarket didn't look too nice and I decided to make my own. Also I thought I'd try my hand at "сух таратор", that is suh tarator literally meaning dry tarator - like tarator but with strained yoghurt and with pickled gherkins instead of cucumber. Sadly it turned out I didn't have gherkins, like I thought I did and so only put dill in the strained yoghurt.

I'd never strained yoghurt before. I had two jars of my home made stuff, which isn't too sour. I put my large sieve over the wine bucket, then lined it with three layers of cheese cloth and poured both jars into it, about 1 litre in total. And it started dripping. I put the whole setup into the fridge, because it was taking time and I worried that the yoghurt would turn into cheese. Must remember for next time, do one jar at a time, smaller portions take less time.

If it sounds like I've been busy, then it's because I have. But it was great fun to do. And I remembered to soak the bamboo skewers for hours and still they caught fire, mostly at the end where we'd threaded the meat, I guess the fat that stuck is what made that possible.

Of course we also had dessert. I took this opportunity to make the Daring Bakers May challenge, so I'll blog about it when the time for that comes. All I can say is that it was delicious.



Finally, Lundulph had bought some nice chicken breasts for backup. We didn't use them, but I marinated them in the left over glaze for the lamb kebabs and have frozen them now. I think it will work out nicely in future barbecues - if the weather keeps up like it has this week, we're bound to eat more grilled things this Summer.



But the lamb recipe is a keeper and I'm very grateful to Mrs W for this. Sorry for the lack of photos, but we were busy eating and licking our fingers.

Пърпорени чушлета

The title would be pronounced as purporeni tchushleta and is something my Mum does regularly. It roasted chillies layered with fresh parsley and garlic and topped up with equal parts of water and vinegar. They are then left for about a day, then the water/vinegar mixture is drained and the jar is topped up with olive oil. The word purporeni is an onomatopoeic on the sounds the chillies make as they are being roasted.


As they are not peeled, they need to be washed and dried before roasting. Also I recommend using milder varieties of chillies. This one was a first for me and the chillies I got were rather hot, so we're working our way though the jar slowly.


Basically they are served as side dish and are eaten along with the main food, by people who fancy an extra kick of spicy heat. It's also a good way of preserving them. The garlic and the parsley are tasty as well and the vinegar too, becoming infused with the roast chilli flavour. Sweet chilli varieties are good this way too and work like any other pickle. The roasting enhances the flavour I think.



I'd been meaning to make these for quite some time and finaly had the pepper roaster out last week, when I made kyopoolu. And apologies for not posting sooner, this past week has been a bit busy.

My Beloved Electrolux Assistent

I spotted this in an entry on The Fresh Loaf and wanted to share it. It's an old demo video from Electrolux about their Kitchen Assistent machine. I know it's old, because it has two buttons at the front. My Mum's used to have two buttons, one broke and my Dad mended it somehow with a switch. See one button would set the speed and the other would switch on and off. Mine only has one button - speed and on/off combined.

And I've learned something new - I'd never used the dough hook before, but will give it a try. The lady in the demo used it for a rye bread, so I take it it's for heavier doughs.

I'm getting the double whisk next, as my electric hand whisk is coming to the end of it's life and is struggling even with lighter batters these days. Or maybe I'm imagining, but I've had it for some 9 years already.

The pasta attachment seemed also very interesting, especially since I found durum wheat at my local farm shop, I've been dying to try and make my own pasta.

Daring Bakers April 2008 - Cheesecake Pops

Part two of the challenge, many apologies for the delay. Here is the final result:



So, my cheesecake pops were frozen solid today, I didn't need to have worried about them at all. And the bamboo skewers stuck firmly into them too.

After I made the caramel walnuts the other week, I realised that making lollies requires some sort of holder to hold up the sticks, so I invested in a couple of circles of florist's dry Oasis - a dry spongy material used for floral arrangements and worked very nicely to stick my pops in while the chocolate was to set. The dry variant is a bit dusty, so I wrapped it with clingfilm and made sure to wash my hands, no idea what it's made of.

I melted half the amount of chocolate with half the amount of vegetable fat, mainly because I wasn't sure all would fit into my bain marie bowl. I'd also bought a (for me) large amount of sprinkles. I always look at them in the shops, wishing I could buy them and not really having a reason to. So I was rather miffed when last Friday I joyfully walked up to the isle where they are kept only to find that there were only Barbie themed ones! Though a little bit of digging around at the bottom shelf uncovered a dusty container with "no artificial colourings" sprinkles. So I bought one Barbie and the dusty one. Luckily I had some candied violets at home.

And so, with the chocolate ready melted and all my sprinkles lined up, I took out a few pops at a time from the freezer, unwrapped the cling film and dipped in the chocolate. Which set oh so fast and the sprinkles so didn't want to leave their containers. The round pops were the best for dipping, the square ones needed a bit of help with a spoon.

Also keeping in mind that a lot of Daring Bakers had had trouble getting the sticks to stay, I wanted to make sure to cover the pops completely with chocolate, once it set, I reckoned it would keep the stick in place.

Looking at the photo, I realise that I should not be let loose on innocent pops with such a big choice of sprinkles. I just try to put on as much as possible. Silly. Half way through the dipping, I got the idea to dip in dessicated coconut, which worked out OK (taste remains to be found out). Then I thought why not try sesame seeds and ground almonds, but neither looked very attractive, so I only made one of each.

Still, this month's challenge was a very good one and I'm definitely repeating this. Some lessons learned for next time:

1. Cut the bamboo skewers in three, the sticks were a bit too long.
2. Bake the cheesecake a bit longer still.
3. Leave the cheesecake in the freezer overnight.
4. Roll smaller balls of cheesecake
5. Plan decorations in advance and dip the pops rather than sprinkle on them. Try toasted chopped hazelnuts and candied rose petals.

Also work out a way to store them in the fridge, today I placed them as close as I could on a couple of plates, placed a piece of kitchen tissue on top and covered with cling film. Hopefully the sprinkles won't go too soggy.

This was a great challenge! I had a great time, and I'm sorry that I didn't make the pops earlier.

Müsli bar challenge finshed

The other day I made the third batch of müsli bars for Lundulph to take with him on his way to work. All according to the third version of the müsli bars. The second batch was done in a rush and I'd forgoten the honey and also I kept the bars in the oven too long and they went very dry.

This time, I remembered the honey, baked them for an hour and a half which dried out the surface, but left them fairly soft inside. Since I'm freezing them, they don't need to be completely dry.

I've also worked out a method on shaping them. The muffin tins are just too big. Instead I use my ice cream scoop to get 6 - 7 scoops onto a piece of cling film. I then roll it up into a sausage, compressing the mixture as much as possible. I use the empty cardboard roll of a kitchen paper roll, put the müsli sausage with the clingfilm into the cardboard roll and compress it even further. I then take the müsli sausage out and leave it to cool, after which I slice it with a serrated knife and then bake on low to dry out the pieces.

From the standard recipe, I got 7 of the sausages, so not too bad. In the old days when Lundulph would eat breakfast at home, we'd get through one batch in 2 weeks. I regret a bit that I thew away the dough hooks of my electric whisk, they would have been handy to mix the mixture for the müsli bars.

Daring Bakers April 2008 - Cheesecake Pops

Once again, despite no lack of enthusiasm, things got in the way and I left the challenge to the very last minute.

I wasn't able to find cream cheese, and looking around on the internet, it seems to be uniquely American and the closest to it in Europe is mascarpone. So that's what I bought. Quite lucky really, because just when I was in the shop, I realised that I'd forgotten to look up the equivalent, so just went for the mascarpone. Pot luck!

But here it is, Daring Bakers April 2008 Challenge which is Cheescake Pops from the book Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor. The hosts this month were Elle & Deborah. The recipe was originally given in American quantities, but I have re-calculated in metric.

Ingredients

1.125 kg mascarpone
4.75 dl granulated sugar
0.6 dl plain flour
0.25 tsp salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla extract
0.6 dl extra thick double cream

400 g dark chocolate
2 tbsp baking margarine

sugary decorations in various shapes and colours

Method

1. Select two oven safe pans, one should be able to fit into the other and there should be room for water - this chesecake needs to be baked in a bain marie. My smaller pan is 32 cm x 22 cm x 5 cm. The original recipe called for a round non-spring form of 10" (25.4 cm) diameter.
2. Place the larger pan in the oven and preheat on gas mark 3 (160 degrees C). Boil up some water in the kettle to have it ready for the baking.
3. Combine the mascarpone, sugar, flour and salt in a bowl, whisking at the lowest setting.
4. Add the eggs and egg yolks, one at a time.
5. Finally add the vanilla extract and the cream.
6. Grease the smaller pan and transfer the batter into it.
7. Place the smaller pan into the larger, preheated one and pour hot water into the larger one, until it reaches at least half way up the sides of the smaller pan.
8. Bake in the middle for about 60 - 80 minutes, until the cake goes firm and light golden.
9. Let the cheesecake cool to room temperature - I speeded this up by resting the pan on ice blocks. Then I put it in the freezer for it to firm up further for about 4 hours and 30 minutes.

Then I cut it up into small-ish pieces and threaded on bamboo skewers, that I'd cut in half. At this point, things became a bit more difficult than I'd expected - either the cheesecake hadn't baked sufficiently and was too gooey in the middle or four and a half hours in the freezer wasn't enough or both. I started cutting in squares, but the knife had a lot of cheesecake stuck to it and their shape was ruined. So I took out the outer ones that were in a decent-ish square form and the rest I rolled into balls with my hands. Had to give up on the very last one, it was just too loose and creamy. At this point also the skewers didn't want to stay in either and so I decided to wrap each in cling film and leave in the freezer overnight, hopefully they'll go firmer and I'll dip and decorate them tomorrow. It's getting late and it's a school night.

Tomorrow I'llmelt the chocolate over another bain marie, this time on the hob. Mix in the margarine with the chocolate - this makes it easier to use apparently. Then I'll dip the cheesecake pieces into the chocolate, shake off the excess and sprinkle with the decorations.

Finally they need to chill for at least 24 h before serving. The should also be stored in the fridge.

By the time the cheesecake had finished baking, it had swollen up to be slightly above the edge of the pan, but not in any danger of overflowing. Once it started cooling, it sunk back into the pan.

If you are using a round cake tin, the main reason for not using a springform is that these often leak and there's danger of it doing so in the bain marie. Though some of the fellow Daring Bakers have used one anyway and it had worked out fine. When you first start whisking the batter, it'll be fairly thick and in my case at least a bit lumpy, but as soon as I added the eggs, it went nicely smooth.

Lundulph got to lick the bottom of the bowl and said it tasted like custard.

Here are the pops just before I put them back in the freezer:

Alternative Sushi

After having fun and taking part in Art You Eat in March, I was completely set on keeping it up along with the Daring Bakers. But when the theme for AYE #3 was announced, I got a bit of a mental blockage - what to do with local produce that looks nice? I think I make fairly good food, but plating has never been my strong side, as most of the photos on the blog can tell. So over the next few days I kept scratching my head and unable to think of anything at all that would fit.

Luckily I got inspired when we were invited to Fred & Ginger the following week for a sushi night. Now I'd done a Japanese dinner party many years ago with a friend of mine and we'd spent some 8 hours preparing all the food. Obviously we'd missed one of the points with a sushi night - that the guests help with the "making of".

Anyway, it was nice and there were other things to eat as well, since I'm not a big fan of seafood and fish, I made a veggie sushi roll. Still the seaweed was fishy tasting.

And here's where I got the idea - sushi made with local ingredients. Local in this case being UK.

Now as far as I know, rice is not grown on a commercial scale in this country, if at all. So this would be the first thing to substitute - wheat. In Bulgaria wheat is boiled whole, then mixed with spices, sugar, breadcrumbs and fruit and served in church at special holidays. And when while wheat is boiled, it swells and bursts and releases loads of stickiness, so this should work out fine.

Next thing to change was the nori (dried seaweed). I'm not aware of an equivalent thing in Europe, but in addition to keeping the sushi rolls together and providing some flavour, it also gives a nice colour. Lundulph suggested cabbage. I wasn't convinced, but didn't have a better idea so that's what it was going to be.

Third thing to change was the fish. I'll repeat once again - I don't like fish much. Also not sure what fish would be available, if any, the coast isn't that close and our local river has probably more shopping trolleys than fish in it. So it was going to be chicken and beef, cut in thin long strips and quickly fried.

So with a shopping list of the above and the generic item "colourful vegetables" we went to our local farm shop. It's very posh, always crowded on week-ends and has lots of interesting things that are extremely tempting to buy.

The first thing I spotted was gigantic spinach leaves and with them the nori problem was resolved. But the red cabbages looked nice too and I put one in the shopping basket as well. On to herbs - all the fresh ones were from Guernsey and that didn't feel local enough, so I let them be. The meat was very local indeed, but they didn't have the right cut for what I needed. I got a bunch of carrots and cucumber, both locally grown and rather pathetic looking I might add.

Further into the shop I spotted packets of various grains. They had them all except wheat. The closest was spelt wheat and having had good experience with it in baking, I thought I'd use that just as well.

There was a plethora of sauces and chutneys and I should have taken time to pick some nice local ones out, but I didn't unfortunately, rooting for the jar of horseradish sauce I had in the larder.

And so, please find the majority of the ingredients:



The friendly butcher explained that the beef was from Scotland and the chicken from Norfolk. It could probably have been a bit more local than this.

First thing was to wash all vegetables and let them dry, particularly the spinach.



The next thing to do was to boil the spelt wheat and the packet recommended 1 part spelt wheat with 3 parts water per volume. Or stock. I opted for stock to get some flavour, since I wasn't going to marinade the meat. Vegetable stock from Oxo. The packet also recommended simmering for 1 hour and 30 minutes. I boiled some water in the kettle, measured up 3 dl spelt wheat and rinsed it. Then into a pot, crumbled 5 Oxo cubes over it and covered with 9 dl boiling water and left it to bubble under cover. About an hour later, the spelt wheat tasted rather nice and salty, but there was still plenty of liquid left, so I left it on. 15 minutes after that and it was beginning to burn, so I took it off the heat and drained it.



To make sure I also spread it onto some kitchen paper. In hindsight, this was not necessary, but wasted valuable time scraping it off. Hopefully not too much paper was left in the spelt wheat after this.

I then cut the carrot and cucumber in strips and dug out one large onion from the onion jar as well. Finally I cut the beef and chicken in long thin strips and fried them in a bit of grapeseed oil. Here, everything's ready to roll:



And at first it looked like it would work:



But the spelt wheat was just not sticky enough and disaster struck:



At this point Lundulph came home from work, sniffed from the kitchen door and joyfully proclaimed that it smelt very nice and that he was hungry. So a quick rescue was needed. I skipped the spelt wheat and rolled up the vegetables and the meat - beef in the spinach leaves and chicken in the cabbage leaves. By the way, the cabbage leaves were quite hard and I used tooth picks to keep them in cone shapes. For the spelt wheat, I put cling film in a ramekin, filled it with the spelt wheat and pressed it in, then pulled out the cling film a little, tipped the whole thing onto the middle of the plate and pulled off the ramekin while holding on to the cling film. Once the ramekin was removed, I removed the cling film. Saved on washing the ramekin. I really should invest in some metal rings for shaping purposes, I really should.



And some close ups.





Now the horse radish sauce - I really should have made my own. I bought the jar earlier this year with the intent of trying it out. Well, it was a disappointment - it tasted like mustard but had a sort of fibrous texture. Maybe it had gone off, though it was well within it's best before date.

So we ended up having sweet chili sauce as is traditionally used with spring rolls. Which made a world if difference taste wise, especially the beef "wraps".

I'm not sure if should post this for AYE #3. It was tasty but only because it failed miserably and I gave up and reached for the exotic dipping sauce. Not local at all.

I complained abut the lack of stickines of the spelt wheat to my Mum and she reckons that I should have used regular modern wheat, which is stickier, especially when overcooked.

In theory, though, all ingredients can be provided locally and later in the year, peppers and fresh herbs would also have been available in the garden, to add flavour. I still need to think about dipping sauces to get the sweet, hot and tangy edge to things.

Rabarberkaka

I don't think rhubarbs are as popular in Sweden as they are in the UK. In Bulgaria these are called ревен (pronounced reven) and are mostly used as a medicinal plant.
We have rhubarbs in our garden and last year I harvested and froze them and talking to my Mum about what to do with them, she sent me a recipe of a rhubarb cake that she'd had at a friend's house and that she thought was really good. A Swedish rabarberkaka that is. So finally I made it today. In fact I was planning on making it on Wednesday already and had defrosted the rhubarbs, but other things got in the way. I've only had rhubarb cake once many years ago and remember it as very yummy and not enough for seconds.

Ingredients

150 g unsalted butter
250 g fresh rhubarbs
2 tbsp potato flour
3 eggs
3 dl granulated sugar
50 g finely chopped almonds
2.5 dl plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
butter and flour for the cake tin

Now I had 400 g of rhubarbs, which is 1.6 times more than the original recipe, so the amounts I used were

240 g unsalted butter
400 g thawed rhubarbs
3 slightly heaped tbsp cornflour
80 g ground almonds
4 dl plain flour
1.6 tsp baking powder
5 large eggs
5 dl granulated sugar
butter and ground almonds for the cake tin

I also haven't been able to fin potato flour yet, so used cornflour instead.

Method

1. Melt the butter on low heat and set aside to cool.
2. Cut the rhubarbs into 1 - 2 cm chunks if using fresh ones and mix well with the potato flour/cornflour.
3. Butter a cake tin and cover with ground almonds. For my amounts I used my large 13" round tin. Set the oven to pre-heat at 175 degrees C or between gas mark 3 and 4.
4. Blend the almonds, flour and baking powder thoroughly.
5. Whisk the eggs and sugar into a pale and fluffy cream. Then slowly add the butter.
6. Now gradually add the almond flour mixture. The resulting batter should be fairly thick and look a bit lumpy from the almonds.
7. Finally add the rhubarbs and stir in carefully with a spoon.
8. Transfer the cake batter into the cake tin and level off the surface as much as possible.
9. Bake at the lowest level in the oven for 2 hours and 15 minutes and cover with tin foil if it starts going dark.
10. Serve with custard or vanilla ice cream.

We are going to have it with the clotted cream I made a few days ago. This will run out a lot quicker than the cake, but I have some nice fresh custard to continue with. I think we'll need to invite the neighbours over to help us with the cake, it's very big.

The original amounts should bake in 60 minutes, but since I almost doubled the amount, baking took a lot longer. It seemed ready after 2 hours, but I gave it 15 minutes extra to be sure. Test the usual way by sticking a skewer through the middle and checking that it comes out clean.

It turned out to be very tasty indeed and was very nice with the home made clotted cream.

Kulfi

I've read about the Indian type of ice cream some time ago and it seemed very intriguing and after my second attempt at clotted cream, I couldn't find it in my heart to throw away the leftover milk. So it was the perfect opportunity to try out this delicacy.



I'd never had this at Indian restaurants, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I used the recipe from my Classic Vegetarian Indian Cookbook. Now remember that I used Jersey milk (fat content 4.5%) that had been mixed with some 280 ml extra thick double cream (48%), then left to stand for 12 hours, then kept in a bain marie for some 3 hours, then cooled down and kept in the fridge for over 48 hours. I will try this out with regular milk and see if it performs as well.

Ingredients

4 cardamom pods
0.5 tsp ground saffron
1 litre milk
8 tsp caster sugar
crushed raw pistachio nuts

Method

1. Peel the cardamom pods and grind the seeds.
2. In a pestle and mortar, grind the saffron.
3. Place the milk in a dish of at least the double volume of the milk and bring the milk to boil on high, while stirring almost constantly so that no skin forms and the milk doesn't burn to the bottom.
4. When the milk boils, reduce the heat to medium and add the saffron. Keep stirring until the milk is reduced to abut 400 ml, i. e. less than half it's original volume. This can take some 40 - 60 minutes.
5. At some point, the milk will quite markedly go thicker, the consistency should be a bit like Bechamel sauce. Take it off the heat and stir in the sugar and the ground cardamom.
6. Leave to cool completely or dip in cold water while stirring, to speed things up.
7. Place paper muffin cups in a muffin tin and distribute the kulfi into them. 1 litre resulted in 5 and a decent amount of licking the bowl.
8. Cover the surface with crushed raw pistachios and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

The kulfi is traditionally placed in special conical moulds, but I don't have these and the book suggested using muffin tins instead. These I have, but they are non-stick and I didn't want to scrape the tin while struggling to get the kulfi out. So I put paper muffin cups in the muffin tin.

After the freeze, the kulfi had expanded, but placing the muffin tin under a hot tap for a couple of seconds loosened things up.

I'll come back with an update on how it works with regular milk, that hasn't gone through the clotted cream making stage. Stirring for about an hour sounds tedious, but it's really not too bad at all.

We had some for dessert today and it was very creamy and smooth and tasty. Perhaps reduce the amount of cardamom. And I'd like to try out some other flavours as well, I think vanilla and cinnamon would work very nicely too. It could perhaps do with a little bit more sugar, but both Lundulph and I thought it's nice when it's not too sweet.

To serve it, because the kulfi hasn't been churned, it should be cut up into pieces, to make it a bit easier to eat.

Lundulph didn't want me to do this entry because he was worried that a restaurateur might steal the recipe. He thought it was very tasty indeed.

Clotted Cream, take 2

The other day I attempted making clotted cream again. This time I looked through all the bottles of Jersey milk and picked the one that had about 10 cm of cream at the top. I also bought a small tub (280 ml) extra thick double cream.

I followed the procedures as before, but I stirred in the milk into the cream and got it thoroughly mixed. I also skipped the metal plate and put the pyrex dish straight into the bain marie. And I checked with a thermometer and I was right, the milk got up to around 75 degrees and it needs to be 82.

Given my readings about milk lately and some experimentation, this may well be the cause of some of the problems. Also I'm sufficiently removed from dairy farms not to be able to get hold of fresh milk anyway. Our local dairy ships the whole lot to a far end of the country where it's made into fancy ice cream that's shipped back and sold at the local cafes.

But the extra cream made a difference - I now got about 2 dl and it sure tasted nice. So next step will be to not bother with milk at all, but go straight for the extra thick double cream (about 48% fat content). After skimming it off, the remaining milk still seemed to have quite a bit of fat in it and I really didn't want to throw it away. So tonight I'm making kulfi, which is an Indian ice cream. It's all very exciting and I'll blog about it tomorrow.

In the mean time, I'll be thinking happy thoughts at not wasting food.

Caramel Walnuts

I'm not sure what to call these. Lundulph suggested toffee walnuts, as they are on the same line as toffee apples, but it's not toffee, it's caramel. He also suggested we call them caramel walnut kebabs, because the walnuts are on a skewer, but it sounds too silly. Pops, I suppose, but it's a bit too American for me.

Anyway, I had these delicacies in 1991, when I went to Vienna for a week. They had them at a stand outside the St Stephan's Cathedral and luckily I discovered them on the very first day. Needless to say, I kept going back every day for more.

The concept is very simple, but it does take a bit of an effort to do it, the steps are fiddly.

First I cut a number of bamboo skewers in half. Then I threaded six walnut halves on each. This is difficult to do on the walnut halves in the shops that I normally frequent. Now sadly I have not come across fresh walnuts yet, the best I could do was Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Serr Walnut Halves. They seem to be a bit fresher than most. In Bulgaria, fresh walnuts from this year's harvest are sold on the food markets and they have a quite distinct flavour - fresh and moist and a bit greenish as if still alive growing on the tree. A bit chewy perhaps. And this would make skewering the halves very easy. And the walnut halves I used were sort of in the right direction. I tried with some of the ones I use for müsli and out of the 10 I tried, 8 broke. Either way, patience and care is required.



Once all the walnuts were on the skewers, they are to be covered with light caramel. And here I discovered that I have a slight fear of caramel. I've done that to glue gingerbread houses together and always ended up with horrid burnt stuff. But now that I have my Cordon Bleu book, I followed the recipe for caramel and it worked out perfectly, I don't think I've ever managed it so well.

Although the book recommended to use the old fashioned ways of determining the stage of the caramel, I was not in the least tempted to dip my fingers in boiling sugar. Luckily, my trusty sugar thermometer came in handy. Normally I use it when I make yoghurt, he, he. For caramel, a heavy sugar syrup is to be made.

Ingredients

2.5 parts granulated sugar
1.5 parts water

Method

1. For the caramel, use a stainless steel saucepan with a thick bottom. Take a second, larger saucepan and place the smaller one inside, then pour water into the larger one, about half way up.
2. Take out the smaller saucepan, put the caramel ingredients inside and put on the hob and bring to the boil. If you have a sugar thermometer, put it in as well from the beginning.
3. If you have freezer blocks, put one or two in the water in the larger saucepan and have some ice cubes prepared in the freezer. This is to prevent the sugar from going too hot and burning.
4. Once the sugar has dissolved and the syrup is transparent and bubbles, turn down the heat to low and leave to simmer, swirling the saucepan every now and then. It will take about 30-40 minutes for the water to boil off, but it gives more control over the caramel.
5. When the sugar temperature reaches 160 degrees C (almost in the middle between the markings for "hard crack" and "caramel"), it should have started to go a bit golden in colour. Put ice cubes in the larger saucepan, take the sugar off the heat and straight into the larger saucepan. This will stop the sugar temperature from rising further.
6. Now hold a walnut skewer over the caramel and with the help of a wooden spoon, drizzle some of the caramel over it, turning it around to get caramel on all sides.
7. Put aside on a piece of aluminium foil to set and continue with the next skewer.
8. You need to work fairly fast, but if the caramel starts setting, just reheat it again, with the thermometer in the saucepan and stirring around to get all parts to dissolve. Don't forget to plunge the caramel saucepan into the iced water again.

Once they are set, the skewers should be stored in an air tight box, as the caramel will pick up moisture from the air and may go soggy.




Lundulph and I had one each for dessert after dinner tonight and it was rather nice. The originals from Vienna had been completely dipped in caramel, but this worked out very well too. Now that I have made the caramel successfully, I'll be experimenting a bit more with that.

Fusion once more

Having kept a number of vegetables in the fridge for days with the (good) intention of making either a soup or roasting them, I finally got my act together and did the latter last night.



Ingredients

2 small red onions
1 big clove of garlic
3 medium sized carrots
5 large Jerusalem artichokes
3 small courgettes
5 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tbsp dried rosemary
salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel all vegetables, dice the onion and press the garlic into a deep baking pan.
2. Slice the carrot thinly, the Jerusalem artichokes and courgettes a bit thicker and add to the pan.
3. Drizzle the grapeseed oil and add rosemary, salt and pepper and stir well to get everything nicely coated.
4. Roast in the oven for 40 minutes on gas mark 6 (200 degrees C), stirring a couple of times during the roasting.

The fusion part comes from adding some Swedish meatballs halfway through the roasting. They were straight from the freezer, but that worked out fine. And I served with brown penne pasta, which I sadly also put too much olive oil into.

So overall, it tasted greasy, but not unpleasant. Could have used a bit more salt too, we tend to be on the careful side with salting in an attempt at eating healthily.

Today is Friday and so we'll be having a nice big salad and sujuk with a nice rakia too.

Dorie's Perfect Party Cake - DB March 2008

Well, this is my first Daring Bakers challenge. And yes, I did leave it to the last minute, but I've been busy with other things.



I didn't make the finals on Art You Eat either, but thanks to all other participants, I have plenty of new ideas that'll keep me going for a while. That was great and I'd like to try more of that.

But back to the cake and the Daring Bakers challenge. It certainly was a challenge for me - the cake batter is different to what I've done before and I'd never made butter cream before either. Also I haven't seen such a thing as cake flour in the UK, so I used plain flour and used Ulrike's metric conversion as a basis.

Ingredients

Cake

300 g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
300 ml full fat milk
4 large egg whites at room temperature
300 g granulated sugar
2 tsp grated lemon zest
115 g unsalted butter at room temperature
0.5 tsp lemon extract

Butter cream

200 g granulated sugar
4 large egg whites at room temperature
60 ml lemon juice
1.25 tsp liquid vanilla extract

Finishing

120 g raspberry preserve
1 dl dessicated coconut
1 dl coconut flakes
200 g fresh raspberries
1 tsp lemon zest

Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
2. In a second bowl, whisk together the milk and egg whites enough to mix them together.
3. In a third large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together. The sugar becomes moist and wonderfully fragrant.
4. Add the butter to the sugar, a bit at a time and whisk it in with an electric whisk. There may be need to get your fingers dirty here too, my whisk wasn't very good at the start.
5. Add the extract, then a third of the dry ingredients, whisking all the time.
   
6. Then add half of the milk-egg white mixture, then another third of the dry ingredients.
7. Finish with the last half of the milk-egg white mixture and the last of the dry ingredients and continue to whisk until the batter is smooth.
8. Divide between two cake tins - 22.5 cm/9" diameter and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C (gas mark 4). The sponges should take about 30 - 35 minutes. Leave to cool when ready.
9. For the butter cream, make Swiss meringue with the sugar and egg whites, by whisking them together over a bain-marie until it's nice, firm and glossy.
10. Remove from the heat and continue whisking until the meringue cools down. Then add the butter to it, a bit at a time, still whisking, until it's completely incorporated. Then continue whisking for about 10 minutes until the butter cream is smooth and thick.
11. Add the lemon juice gradually and finally the vanilla extract.
12. Slice the cake sponges so you have 4 cake layers. Spread a thin layer of raspberry jam and a thin-ish layer of butter cream between each sponge layer, leaving about a quarter of the butter cream for decoration.
    
13. Cover the assembled cake with the butter cream and decorate with the coconut, lemon zest and fresh raspberries.

On the whole, this was a very tasty cake, but with the butter cream it felt a bit rich. Also making it took most of yesterday, there are many turns to do for the butter cream and I'm not sure the 10 minutes of whisking made any difference.

And it didn't help that I didn't have 9" cake tins. I have one 7.5" and one 13" and I wasn't sure if I should use either of them. And because I didn't want to buy new cake tins, I bought cake liners at the right size. Unfortunately they didn't stay in shape too well and I ended up with two oval cake sponges and so my original design had to be drastically altered.





This was interesting, but I'm not sure it was worth all the effort it took. I'd never made sponge cake with egg whites only and also butter cream was a new thing too. Also I really liked rubbing the sugar and lemon zest together, the smell was so wonderful, and I have three new things I've learned from this challenge.