A bit later than promised but here it is:
Two weeks ago on Saturday, it was the world's best flatmate's birthday. A quarter of a century old and, may I assure you, she (also affectionately known as Puschel, though only by me) doesn't look a day over 21.
And what better present to give to her than a cookbook. This one to be precise. It's the bakery-related volume of a (I think) two volume cookbook of healthy fast food recipes all wrapped up in pretty pictures and graphics and a very hipster-y layout. A few weeks ago, Puschel came home with the first volume and when she continued raving about how great it was and how great the second volume was, too, the issue of her birthday present was resolved before it had even really come up. Maybe that was her plan all the way. She must've known that I wouldn't be able to resist giving her a cookbook, especially if it was one she specifically wanted. She knows me so well. Sometimes even too well. It's spooky. And not a topic of relevance here.
Seeing as it's nearly Christmas and as I haven't and won't have the time to post the recipes for all the other Christmas biscuits I made, I decided to at least share some pictures with you:
Happy Christmas and merry eating! (Or the other way round, whatever you like best...)
Well, can't keep it from you no longer. Here it goes:
German gingerbread, part two (for part one, see here)
Unwrap the dough and knead it for some minutes. If it's too hard, put the dough into the oven at a low temperature for about five minutes, it will soften.
Roll out the dough (until 0.5 cm/0.2 inches thick), then cut out biscuits (we used hearts, moons, trees, angels and santa clauses). Put them on a baking tray and let them rest for another 1-2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 190° C/375° F. Bake the biscuits for about 20 minutes, checking every 5 minutes or so. They mustn't blacken or they'll taste very bitter.
Remove the biscuits from the oven and let cool. If you want, you can decorate them with chocolate, almonds or whatever you want. I think, they are best when they're pure (and I'm also too lazy to decorate). They'll be quite hard at first but should soften after a few days. If they don't, store them with half a fresh apple. Leave them alone for a few days, they get even better with time.
Xantner Brocken are a speciality from the German town of Xanten. They're real calorie bombs and honestly the best Christmas biscuits I ever tasted. Gingerbread + chocolate + nougat + brittle = heaven.
Nomnomnomnomnom!
Actually, they're not really biscuits. They're more something like pralines or petit fours. Or whatever.
They're delicious, and that's what counts.
Nougat and cream, how could this possibly get any better?
Well, by smearing it on gingerbread!
Xantner Brocken
(Recipe adapted from Brigitte 12/97 (I think))
50 ml/1.75 oz double cream 150 g nougat 0.5 Tbsp rum
125 g/0.4 cups honey 60 g/0.25 cup sugar 60 g/0.25 cup coconut oil 250 g/2.5 cups flour 0.5 Tbsp cocoa 0.5 tsp cinnamon 1-2 tsp rose water 2 tsp salt of tartar/potassium carbonate 1 egg yolk 300 g/12 cups bitter couverture, grated Some hazelnut brittle to sprinkle on top
You need to prepare the filling one day in advance: Pour the cream into a pan, heat it up, add the nougat and stir until it has melted. Cover the pan with a lid or plate, then leave over night in a dry, cool place.
In a medium pan, heat up the honey, sugar and coconut oil, and stir until combined. Remove from heat and let cool. Add flour, cinnamon, cocoa and the egg yolk, and combine. Dissolve the potassium in 1-2 tsp of rose water, then add that to the dough, too. Knead into a smooth dough, wrap it in cling film and refridgerate for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 200° C/390° F. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out until it's about 3 mm/0.1 inch thick. Transfer it to a baking tray, put it in the oven and bake for 7 minutes. Then immediately cut it into squares (2.5 cm/1 inch wide and long).
Now take out the nougat cream you made the night before, add the rum, and beat the mixture with an electric mixer until soft and creamy.
Spread nougat cream on every other gingerbread square, then put another square on top.
In a small pot, melt the chocolate. Coat all the gingerbread parcels in chocolate (it works best if you put them on a fork and pour over the chocolate with a spoon), then sprinkle some hazelnut brittle on top and let the chocolate harden.
And now (I know, it's very hard): Put them away. Let them rest for a couple of days. Trust me. The longer they rest the better they get.
Before we get to all the christmas-y stuff I still have one recipe to post that is connected with a holiday that's not Christmas, but ... Thanksgiving! If you haven't spent all your life in a cave, you know that Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday in November, and that was last week. We don't really celebrate Thanksgiving in Germany but I'll be damned if I pass up on a holiday that gives me an excuse to bake something as delicious as Pumpkin Pie.
This year's pie is even better than last year's, and that's saying something...!
Cut up the butter. Mix flour and salt in a medium bowl, then add the butter. Add a little of the cold water and knead until you have a slightly sticky dough, adding more water or flour if necessary. Wrap up the dough and put in the fridge for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 200° C/400° F, then take the dough out of the fridge, roll it out and put it in a pie tin. (If you're as lazy as me you can skip the rolling out, just put the dough in the pie tin and squish it around until the tin is lined.) Line with aluminium foil and pre-bake for about 15 minutes.
In the meantime, combine the pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, cardamon, nutmeg,
and cloves in a large bowl. Add eggs and beat lightly for a few minutes, then add the cream and combine.
Take the pie tin with the pre-baked crust out of the oven, remove the foil, and pour in the filling. Then cover the tin with foil again and put it back into the oven. Be careful, the filling is very, very thin. I had some filling left over which I poured into a smaller tin and baked with the pie. Served hot, it makes a delicious pudding!
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 25-35 minutes. It's done when a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Let it cool, then cut into slices and eat, preferably while watching the Thanksgiving episode from the first series of Gossip Girl.
Having someone staying for a visit always is a perfect excuse for baking something. Not that I really needed an excuse but it's always nice to have one that you can shove into your conscience's mouth when it starts nagging.
And yes, it's yet another pumpkin recipe. You'll just have to live with it. The pumpkin madness will only continue for a few more days because next weekend it's the first Advent and that means the beginning of christmas biscuit time. Lots and lots of baking. Can't wait.
Back to the recipe. I've been wanting to make pumpkin cupcakes since September but never found a recipe I really liked. This one is adapted from Bake Me Blush and has just the perfect balance of moisture, spices, sweetness and pumpkin taste. Unfortunately, it contains an awful lot of butter and sugar... But it's totally worth it, trust me.
Fresh from the oven, iced and sprinkled. I don't really like those extremely sugary sweet icings, so I substituted maple syrup for half of the icing sugar. The sprinkles were my flatmate's idea, though. Credit where credit is due.
Yum!
I (or my camera) didn't manage to capture the fabulous colour, they look much more intensly orange on the inside. Well, I should say, "they looked". They're already gone.
Pumpkin brown butter cupcakes (adapted from Bake Me Blush)
Makes for 14 cupcakes
For the cupcakes: 165 g/0.75 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for tins 165 g/1.6 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/8 tsp ground cloves 225 g/1 cup pumpkin puree 200 g/1 cup packed brown sugar 115 g/0.5 cup white sugar 2 large eggs
For the filling: 55 g/0.25 cup unsalted butter 60 g/0.5 cup sifted icing sugar (I was out of icing sugar and used normal caster sugar which worked out OK, but I'd still recommend using icing sugar.)
120 ml/0.5 cup maple syrup 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 1 Tbsp milk, plus more if needed Preheat oven to 180° C/325° F. Grease your muffin tins or insert baking cases.
In
a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Cook until butter turns golden brown, stir from time to time. Remove from the heat and let cool.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In
another bowl, mix pumpkin puree, both sugars, eggs, and brown
butter mixture. Add flour mixture and whisk until just combined.
Pour the batter into the muffin tins, filling each almost to the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in
centre comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in
a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and cook until brown. Remove from the heat, add icing sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon milk, and combine.
Ice the cupcakes while still warm and put some sprinkles on top if you feel like it.
Every time I'm ill, I get cravings like a pregnant woman. Friday night, it was herring in dill remoulade, today it's chocolate chip cookies.
After hours of searching, I finally found the perfect recipe on A Full Measure of Happiness. Lauren calls them "Double Trouble Chocolate Chip Cookies" which immediately reminded me of Macbeth and, first and foremost, of the fabulous "Double Trouble" song in the film version of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (the song was in fact inspired by the witches' scene from Macbeth). The last time I listened to it, it got stuck in my ear for several weeks. Am expecting a similar effect this time (not that this is a bad thing, it's an awesome song, after all. And it goes really well with the upcoming Halloween).
I know that bustling around in the kitchen making chocolate
cookies is not exactly the best thing to do when you're ill. But those
cookies are done in a flash, and I was back in bed within 45 minutes,
eating cookies, drinking milk and actually being ... ... cheery! That's
got to be a good thing.
No, they are not healthy and I don't even want to know the calorie amount. But: They're chocolatey (white AND bittersweet chocolate chips) and walnutty and fudgy, and they make you really happy. Even when you're lying in bed with a fever.
Yes, that bowl next to the cookies is a huge cup of milk. Yum!
115 g/1 stick butter
170 g/0.75 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
40 g/0.3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 large or 2 small eggs
125 g/1 cup flour
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
180 g/1 cup chocolate chips (I used a mixture of bitter and white chocolate)
120 g/1 cup walnuts
Preheat the oven to 180° C/350° F and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Mix the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, cocoa powder, and eggs together until combined. Then add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, chocolate chips, and nuts.
Put tablespoon-sized dollops of the dough on the baking tray and smoothe them down. Be careful to leave enough space in between, the cookies will expand quite a bit.
Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes. They will still be a bit gooey. Leave them in the oven for another 5 minutes if you like them crispy.
Let them cool for 15 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.
Eat with a large cup of milk.
And now all together:
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Something wicked this way comes!
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
lizard's leg and owlet's wing.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Something wicked this way comes!
In the cauldron boil and bake,
fillet of a fenny snake,
scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
witches mummy, maw and gulf.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Something wicked this way comes!
Monday was an absolutely awful day for me. I won't go into the details, let me just say that I got into a row with my ex-flatmate, felt depressed anyway, had trouble with our electricity provider and my ex-landlord, and the cold that had already announced itself last Wednesday finally kicked in (yay! (not). I've almost got over it by now). In short: I felt like the whole world had turned on me.
On days like that, for me, there are only two things to do: (1) Make yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate, snuggle up in a blanket, turn up the heat, and watch a movie, (2) get in the kitchen and bake something. Anything. Preferably biscuits or something like that.
I went for option 2 (when you have a cold, milk and chocolate aren't that good, anyway) and decided to make flapjacks. Not American flapjacks which, as you might know, are some sort of pancakes, but British flapjacks, in other regions of the world mundanely known as muesli bars.
The basic recipe is, of course, by Sophie, but I made quite a few modifications. You can really get creative with flapjacks. As long as you get the ratio honey/syrup to butter, and honey/syrup/butter to dry ingredients right, you can use whatever you want.
They came out a little more flat (and as a consequence also a lot more brittle) than I intended them to which, of course, was entirely my fault: It said in the recipe that you should use a medium-sized deep baking tray, and that the thickness of the flapjacks depends on the size of the tray. I ignored this and just spread the mixture on a normal (=large), shallow baking tray, thinking that would work. Well, it didn't. The flapjacks mixture spread about 2 inches on each side, something that a smaller, deeper baking tray would propably have prevented.
No matter how they look, they taste de-li-cious and make a nice snack for breaks between classes. Or for tea. Or breakfast. Or whenever.
Flapjacks
(Basic recipe by Sophie Dahl)
Makes for 12-24 pieces, depending on how large a baking tray you use
2 Tbsp runny honey
2 Tbsp golden syrup
2 Tbsp black treacle (if you don't like it, you can leave out the treacle and substitute 1 Tbsp runny honey and golden syrup respectively)
150 g/2.25 cups butter (Sophie uses salted, I don't)
150 g/1.5 cups porridge oats
75 g/0.5 cup dried cranberries
50 g/0.5 cup chocolate chips
100 g/1.5 cups julienned and flaked almonds, mixed
Preheat the oven to 180° C/350° F.
Grease a medium sized, deep baking tray. Remember: The size of the tray will determine the thickness of the flapjacks.
Melt the honey, golden syrup, treacle and butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. Stir until combined, then remove from the heat.
Mix all the dry ingredients, then add them to the molten butter and syrup.
Spread the mixture onto the baking tray and smoothe it down.
Put into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Cut the flapjacks into pieces as long as they're still hot. Allow to cool, then take them out of the tray and store in a dry, cool place.
They crumble quite a lot which annoyed me at first until I came up with the idea to sprinkle the crumbs on yogurt and have that for breakfast. Yum!
