Poached Apricots with Orange and Rosemary

About two weeks ago the first apricots appeared in our local organic supermarket. And last week, I came up with yet another great use for them! It’s one of those desserts that can take care of themselves while you’re calmly enjoying your main course. Well, almost: if you’re short-term memory is nearly as good as mine, you might need an alarm, or your poached apricots might turn into mashed apricots…

Combining orange and rosemary with apricots results in a fresh and pleasant taste that goes perfectly with the decadent sweetness of the honey-sweetened sour cream. I prefer to use sour cream instead of heavy cream, and not only because I prefer the taste. It also spares you one extra step: no need to whip the cream! Just add honey to the sour cream and stir – that’s it.

This recipe gives four smallish portions! For a vegan version, use non-dairy sour cream flavoured with vanilla and agave syrup, for example.

For the apricots:

• 600g apricots


• 3 Tbsp sugar


• 100ml water


• 50ml Cointreau


• 1 rosemary sprig


• 3 long stripes of orange peel (1/3 of one orange or so)

For the cream:

• 150g sour cream


• 2 Tbsp honey

This is how to do it:

1. Halve the apricots and place them in a heavy pan in one layer.

2. Add the rosemary twig and orange peel stripes. Sprinkle the sugar on top.

3. Pour the water and Cointreau on the apricots. They should be completely cover – if not, add more water.

4. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and let simmer, cover, about 10 minutes, or until the apricots are softened but not turned into a mash yet. Then remove from heat, divide on 4 serving plates (the juice, too!), and serve with a generous dollop of sour cream sweetened with honey.

 

P.S. This dessert is also safe for kids. Thanks to the cooking, there’s no alcohol left in the final product :)

Orange and White Chocolate Ice Cream

Here's the ice cream recipe I promised yesterday! I love the combination of white chocolate and orange, there's something royal in it. (Not everyone shared my opinion, though, but most did!)

I've been making ice cream for some time now, but so far I've never tried recipes involving egg yolks. I've thought they're not necessary - if you buy ice cream at the supermarket, there's no egg in them either! (But some artificial thickening agents to compensate, I guess...). But now that I gave it a try, I do understand there is a clear advantage when using eggs in ice cream: the texture is much creamier, even after two days of freezing.

For about 5 smallish servings you need:

• 3 egg yolks


• 100g sugar


• 50g white chocolate


• 300ml milk


• 200ml heavy cream


• 1 Tbsp dried orange peel powder (if you don't have any, try grated orange zest instead!)

First, choose a baking bowl that you can use for a hot-water bath. Then, place yolks and sugar in the bowl and mix until pale yellow. Scald 150ml milk and beat it to the yolk-sugar-mixture. Now heat the custard in hot-water bath, constantly stirring, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Be careful, it overcooks easily! Remove from the heat and add the rest of the milk, cream, melted white chocolate, and the orange peel powder and stir until well combined. Chill for a couple of hours.

Prepare the ice-cream according to the instructions of your ice-cream maker. Serve with rhubarb tarte Tatin, for example!

P.S. To make orange peel powder, I dried peels of organic oranges in the oven, at 50 C. It took about 24 hours for them to be totally dry - and during that time, there was a heavenly smell at hour house! Then I asked a friend to grind the dried peels into powder (I don't have any machines at my kitchen, besides ice cream maker, coffee grinder, espresso machine, water boiler, and an old hand mixer...). I warmly recommend!

Orange Drink, Swedish Style

On normal days, I only serve water at the mealtimes – and between. But there are special days, and for those, one needs special drinks as well. This fresh and not too sweet orange drink definitely is one of my favourites! The idea comes from Flickorna Lundgren, the most unique coffee shop experience I’ve had the pleasure to have!

I drastically reduced the amount of sugar, though, and left the additional citric acid away. Citric acid is used to improve the taste and make the drink last longer – but if it already tastes perfect and is consumed within 3-4 days anyway, why use it? ;)

What you need for about 1 liter:

• 1kg organic oranges (this time, I used blood oranges)


• 500g sugar


• 500ml water

First, boil water and dissolve sugar in it. Let cool. Wash the oranges and remove their zest with a potato peeler. Squeeze the juice of the oranges. Set the zest, juice, and water-sugar-mixture in a bowl and cover. Place in a cool place and let stand for 1-2 days.

In the meantime, make sure no one in your family throws away your drink-to-be! Wouldn’t be the first time ;)

Then, run the drink through a sieve to remove the zests. Bottle the syrup and keep chilled. To serve, use 1 part orange drink, 2-3 parts water. Or how about a glass of prosecco with a splash of orange taste?

Lemon Clementine Cake with Chocolate Icing

This recipe comes from Ottolenghi’s and Tamimi’s book Jerusalem, and I tried it for the first time during my No Cost Food Week. Now it has become one of my favourite cakes: it’s chocolaty and fruity at the same time, and it keeps very well at least four or five days in the fridge.

The problem is to find organic clementines from which it’s safe to use the zest. If you can’t find any, you can use orange as well, but the result is (at least in my opinion) a little bit less delicious. Oh, and I obviously reduced the amount of sugar compared to the original recipe. I’m not a fan of overly sweet stuff – in case you are, feel free to use more sugar!

For one cake you need:

• 200g butter


• 200g sugar


• grated zest of 4 clementines and 1 lemon


• 250g ground almonds


• 5 organic eggs


• 120 g whole-grain (spelt) flour


• pinch of salt

For the syrup:

• 80g sugar


• juice of 4 clementines and one lemon

For the chocolate icing:

• 90g butter


• 150g dark chocolate


• 1 Tbsp honey


• 1 Tbsp cognac

Set your oven to 180 C. Mix together butter (cut in small cubes) and sugar until fluffy. Add the grated clementine and lemon zest. Then add the eggs, one by one, and keep mixing. Combine together flour, salt, ground almonds, and add into the butter-sugar-egg-mixture. Oil a round cake form (mine has a diameter of 24cm) and pour the batter in it. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick comes out clean, or about 25-30 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the syrup: combine sugar and juices in a pan and bring to a boil. When the cake comes out of the oven, sprinkle the syrup evenly on it. Let cool down in the form about 15 minutes, then remove and place on a serving plate.

Now it’s time to make the icing: place butter, chocolate, honey, and cognac in a pan and heat slowly until all ingredients melt. Stir carefully with a wooden spoon. You can also do the icing in the microwave oven or in bain-marie – less risk of burning it!

Spread the icing evenly on your cake. Decorate with long strips of (organic!) orange zest. Mine looked more like carrot peels, but it looked kind of cool anyway!

If you have time, cool the cake well before eating it – our unanimous opinion was that it tasted clearly better when cold!

Orange Chocolate Cookies

I have to apologize - these are no Plätzchen! But I was craving for something with chocolate to finalize my Christmas cookies selection, so I came up with these quadruple chocolate cookies with lot of orange in them. Besides, the recipe is 100% vegan  - it’s always good to have at least one vegan (and thus also lactose free) option when receiving guests :)

For about 25 small cookies you need:

• 125g vegan margarine


• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• 1,5 tsp baking powder


• 3 Tbsp sugar


• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder


• a pinch of salt


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 1 tsp dried orange peel powder


• 3 Tbsp candied orange, in small cubes


• 100g vegan chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used a mixture of rice milk chocolate, vegan white chocolate, and dark chocolate, about 35g each)


• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice


• about 100g dark chocolate with orange flavour for the coating

Combine all dry ingredients in a baking bowl. Add margarine, cut in small cubes, and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Add orange juice and work the dough into a ball. With your hands, take about walnut-sized pieces of dough and form them into round cookies. Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) about 15 minutes, or until firm from the outside but not too dry form the inside.
Let the cookies cool on a rack. In the meantime, melt the orange-flavoured chocolate in bain-marie or in the microwave. Dip one side of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place on a plate. Let dry before eating or storing!

Greek Christmas Cookies with Orange and Honey

I love cookbooks where every single recipe works. Recipes from My Greek Kitchen written by Rena Salaman is one of those rare books: you choose any recipe and can be sure that the result is perfect. After a Vanillekipferl disaster from the previous days, this was the book I needed now. I chose these traditional Greek Christmas cookies flavoured with orange, honey, cinnamon, and brandy - a heavenly combination!

These cookies are made without eggs and butter, so apart from honey, they’re vegan. For a 100% vegan result, either leave the last step out (they taste great even without), or make a syrup using agave syrup instead.

I made one small change to the recipe, though: instead of walnuts, I used pecans. Walnuts tend to get rancid very easily, whereas pecans keep better, so I rarely buy walnuts.

For about 35 cookies you need:

• 150 ml olive oil


• 95g sugar


• 1 orange - juice and grated zest


• ½ tsp baking soda


• 350g flour (I used spelt 630 this time)


• 1 tsp baking powder


• pinch of salt


• ½ tsp cinnamon


• 4 Tbsp brandy

And for the syrup:

• 150ml water


• 100g sugar


• 250g honey


• 1 tsp cinnamon

• plus some walnuts or pecan nuts, chopped coarsely

Mix olive oil with sugar. Add zest, brandy and baking soda to the juice (it will foam a bit, that’s normal). In a baking bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, then add oil-sugar mixture and juice mixture. Mix the dough with a wooden spoon until it’s smooth. Then form small balls (mine were 20g or so) with your hands and place them on an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Press them down gently with a fork and bake about 15 minutes in a preheated oven (180 C), or until pale brown.

When your cookies come out of the oven, it’s time to prepare the syrup: combine water, sugar, cinnamon, and honey in a pan and bring to a boil. Let simmer over a low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Drop a couple of cookies at a time in the syrup (my pan fit 8 or so at a time), let them simmer for 1-2 minutes and then remove with a skimmer onto a plate. Top with crushed nuts while the cookies are still sticky!

These cookies are quite sweet, so they taste great with a strong espresso.