Lemon Vanilla Cheesecake with Blueberry Cassis Coulis

Cheesecake is a divine invention: tasty crust, yummy creamy filling, and berries to boost the whole thing into a blissful combination of textures and flavors!

Too bad it always contains so much lactose that even a tiny little bit gets my stomach upset.

Oops, did I just write always?

Then I made a mistake! Namely, if you use vegan cream cheese instead of a dairy one, even people like me can enjoy cheesecake without a tummy ache.

This is what you need for about 8 servings:

For the crust:

• 120g vegan margarine


• 80g gingerbread cookies


• 80g ground almonds


• 5 Tbsp rolled oats

For the filling:

• 675g vegan cream cheese (I used Tofutti, the only brand available in Finland)


• 100ml vegan natural yoghurt


• 100g confectioner’s sugar


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• grated zest of 1 organic lemon

For the coulis:

• 200g frozen blueberries


• 50g sugar


• 50ml crème de cassis liquor

Start with the blueberries: combine the berries and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil. Let simmer uncovered over a medium heat until most of the liquid is gone. (Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the crème de cassis liquor. It will come later in the picture!)

In the meantime, prepare the crust. Using a bread knife, crush the gingerbread cookies into fine crumbs. Combine the crumbs, almond meal, and rolled oats in a baking bowl, then add the softened margarine and work with your fingers until the mixture is homogenous. Take a round form (mine has a diameter of 26cm) and press the dough evenly on its bottom. Chill while you prepare the filling.

To make the filling, combine all ingredients in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer until the mixture is creamy and smooth. Pour the filling on the crust and chill for about one hour in the freezer. The cheesecake should be really cold but not frozen!

Now back to the coulis. When the blueberry jam is thick enough, remove it from heat and let cool a bit. At the time of the serving, it should be still warm to create a perfect contrast with the chilled cake. Just before serving, combine crème de cassis liquor and the blueberry jam in a cup and spoon over the cheesecake.

Enjoy with a good coffee!

Vanilla Almond Pancakes

As far as pancakes are concerned, I used to have a strategy: whenever I was craving for them, I would send my little sister to ask our Dad to bake some - and he would never refuse. Had I asked directly, the answer would have been no, most of the time. (My sister was really thin as a kid, so I guess my parents were just over happy that she would spontaneously want to eat something...)

For about three years now, I've tried a new dairy-and-egg-free pancake recipe every now and then, and failed miserably every single time. They'd be sticky, impossible to fry; they'd taste like soy or some other unpleasant ingredient; their consistency would be like rubber; well, you get the picture.

Until Santa brought me a new vegan cookbook, the Vegan Love Story. A very recommendable book indeed! It features a pancake recipe that immediately caught my attention: no dairy-free-milks nor egg-substitutes needed, just basically water and flour. Simple and ingenious! I substituted part of the flour by almond flour, and the result was the best-ever vegan pancakes that even my son adored.

To make enough pancakes for 1 hungry or 2 moderately hungry breakfast eaters:

• 50g almond meal


• 125g flour


• 2 tsp sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• a pinch of salt


• 3/4 tsp baking powder


• 150ml water


• 1 Tbsp sunflower oil, plus some more for the frying

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add water and oil and beat energetically until you have a smooth batter. Let the batter stand for about 10 minutes - just enough time to make some coffee ;)

Fry your pancakes over a medium heat until both sides are golden brown. Make sure that they are well cooked from the inside as well - if not, reduce the heat.

Serve with your favourite accompaniment - I opened a jar of home-made wild raspberry jam for the occasion!

P.S. Who would invent a method to make even the first pancake turn out perfect?! Mine didn't, as you can see from the pic... it never does...

Day 18: Stars, Moons, and One More Log

Today, I baked two of the most beloved Plätzchen: Vanillekipferl and Zimtsterne. Vanilla crescents and cinnamon stars, that is! For the stars I used the recipe from last year, but for the vanilla crescents I tried a traditional German recipe that I couldn't make work last year. Only this time, I was equipped with a special form for this kind of cookies, and that made all the difference; the cookies turned out impeccable!

So here's the recipe to try if you've got that Kipferl form at your disposal:

In a bowl, combine 100g ground almonds, 50g sugar, 150g all-purpose flour, 8g vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt (if the butter you're using is unsalted). Add 150g butter cut in small cubes, and rub the flour in the dry ingredients until you can form a ball with the dough! Take small amounts of the dough (about 12g) and form long sticks. Bend them to fit in the Kipferl form. Bake in a preheated oven (150C) about 20 minutes or until well cooked but not brown yet. Let the cookies cool a bit and very, very carefully transfer them on a serving plate. They break very easily at this point! Sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on top and enjoy one of the best things ever invented in Germany ;)



In addition, I felt confident enough to make one more Christmas log; the feedback this morning was overwhelmingly positive! This time, I added 1 Tbsp extra strong instant coffee in the butter icing - sublime! I also used potato starch in the batter instead of all-purpose flour (a bit less than half the amount) and the Swiss roll came out just the way it should. I was planning to freeze the log, but my kids convinced me to serve it tomorrow for their dad's birthday. Oh well, maybe I'll have to make a third one this year..

 

Day 7: Greek Almond Stars

This is a recipe I’ve wanted to try for a long time, and I’m glad I finally did! These almond stars, flavoured with brandy and vanilla, are among the prettiest cookies I’ve ever baked! They are very tasty and easy to make.

The original recipe is from Rena Salaman’s The Greek Cook. I had to change the measures a bit - especially the amounts of sugar and flour. Here’s my version:

For the dough you need

• 225g butter


• 125g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 2 egg yolks


• 3 Tbsp brandy


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 160g ground almonds


• 350g all-purposed flour


• a pinch of salt (only if using unsalted butter)


• plus about 100g confectioner’s sugar for dusting.

Set the oven to 175C. Combine softened butter, vanilla sugar, and sugar in a baking bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until creamy and white, then add the egg yolks and stir until well combined. Add the brandy in which you have dissolved the baking soda. Lastly, add almonds and flour and work the dough with your hands until you can form it into a ball.

Roll the dough about 1cm thick (the original recipe suggested 2,5cm but for me it was just too much and my cookie cutter is only a bit less than 2cm deep…). Use a cookie cutter to cut small stars. Bake the cookies until they almost start to get some colour - be careful, they burn very easily!

Once out of the oven, sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on top. Take a big plate and sprinkle its surface with confectioner’s sugar, too. Let the cookies cool a few minutes, then transfer them on the plate and dust them with more confectioner’s sugar so that they are totally white.

Serve your stars with a cup of strong coffee!

Pastéis de 4114 km de Belém

All my friends know how good I am at keeping secrets. Not very good, I’m afraid. In fact, I suck at it! So no way I’d be able to keep the recipe of almost perfect pastéis as a secret for two centuries… even two days would have been tough!

So here you have it, the not-so-secret recipe of mine. It's quite complex, though, so please ask if you've got any problems at any point!

It is mandatory that the puff pastry be homemade. But don’t worry, I suck at making puff pastry almost as badly as at keeping secrets. And yet I managed to do it – for this purpose, the dough just doesn’t have to be perfect (like, say, for croissants, which I’ve failed miserably every time I’ve tried to make them so far). Any attempt you make will be good enough for pastéis!

I used 1/3 whole-grain wheat and 2/3 all-purpose flour, but for a more traditional result, use only all-purpose. Not everyone is a fan of whole-grain like myself! And not everyone has as good flour as I have, and even I am tragically running out of it. (Time to visit Germany to get some more?!)

For about 30 pastéis you need:

For the dough:

• 400g flour


• 225ml warm water


• 200g butter


• (1/4 tsp salt but only if using unsalted butter)

For the filling:

• 12-14 egg yolks (reserve the whites to use for some other purpose)


• 200g sugar


• 4 Tbps cornstarch


• 1,2 liters heavy cream


• zest of one organic lemon, cut in long stripes


• one vanilla pod

First, make the filling. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring constantly. This tends to burn really easily, so don’t even think of leaving the custard, even for two seconds! Let cool completely and make the dough in the meantime.

To make the dough, place the flour in a baking bowl. Make a hole in the middle, pour in the warm water, and work the dough with your hands until it’s smooth. Always start with a bit less water and add more if needed. It should be firm and smooth at the same time.

Now roll the dough out to a rectangle a bit smaller than an A4 paper. Smear half of the dough with softened butter. Fold the unbuttered half over the buttered one. Now, turn the dough 90 degrees and roll it into a long rectangle. Fold in three parts and let rest in the fridge for about 10 minutes. Repeat this rolling-out-and-folding-in-three still twice. Don’t worry if some butter comes out – just make sure to use enough flour so that the dough doesn’t glue to the baking surface!

After the last fold, let the dough rest in the fridge some 10 minutes and roll it out into a rectangle as thin as you can. Then, roll the dough in just as when you’re making cinnamon rolls.

Now comes the hard part: cut the rolled-in dough into pieces of about 1,5cm thick and place each in a buttered pastéis form or a muffin form. Take the form into your hands and with your thumbs, work the dough gently so that it in the end covers the sides of the form as well. (This might sound complicated, still hanging there?) It’s important to find the right amount of dough: it should be very thin but not break. Once you’ve done a couple of them, you’ll find the ideal amount of dough!

Then return to your filling. Remove lemon zests and vanilla pod (which you can use 2-3 times) from the custard. Fill the dough-covered forms with the custard. Bake in a pre-heated oven (250C) for about 10 minutes or until your pastéis get brown spots but don’t burn (which happens very easily, so don’t leave them unattended in the oven!). I’ve been told that the real pastéis get baked in 400C, but even 300C was way too much for my oven and my pastéis. Remember to place an extra tray on the bottom of your oven to catch any extra butter that might drip during the baking.

Serve your pastéis warm or cold, with or without some cinnamon on top!

P.S. Of course,  you can use ready-made puff pastry – but it just won’t be the same…

P.P.S. Needless to say, the distance between my new home and  Rua de Belém, 84-92 is 4114 km!

 

Easter Bunny's Favourite Cookies

I’m back, folks! With a lot of new energy and loads of new recipes and ideas.

Every year we’re asked to bake something to the Easter Market that my kids’ kindergarten organizes. This year I volunteered to bake Easter Bunny Cookies, among other things. Unfortunately, the recipe I got from another Mom last year somehow got lost in the meanwhile (what a surprise!), so I had to come up with a new recipe. I decided to combine all of my favourite cookie flavours in one, and here’s the result: almond-lemon-vanilla-butter cookies!

I baked the cookies with whole-grain wheat flour. Not just because of the health benefits, but because I’ve found the perfect whole-grain flour! It’s organic; it’s ground with a special lava-stone mill that grinds it really very fine, so that the texture is just like all-purpose flour; and it tastes WONDERFUL. Not “I-know-this-is-healthy-so-I-decide-it-tastes-good-although-it-actually-tastes-like-hay” kind of wonderful, but really delicious! Now if you don’t find that kind of whole-grain flour, I suggest you either use all-purpose or a mixture of whole-grain and all-purpose.

For about 60 small bunnies you need:

• 250g butter


• 300g flour


• 80g ground almonds


• 90g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 1 tsp baking powder


• a generous pinch of salt (less if using salted butter)


• grated zest of an organic lemon


• 2 egg yolks (keep the whites to make a Pavlova, for example! Recipe will follow…)


• 3 Tbsp cream

First, cut the butter in small cubes and place the cubes in a baking bowl. Add lemon zest. Combine together flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, almonds, and baking powder. Pour the flour mixture in the bowl. Work butter and the flour mixture with your fingertips until the texture resembles fine crumbles. Then add egg yolks and cream and work with your hands to form a ball. Add more cream (or water) if needed. Place the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Set your oven to 200 C. Roll the dough out about 4mm thin and cut out cookies using a bunny-shaped cookie cutter. Place the cookies on a oven tray covered with a baking sheet. Bake about 8 minutes or until golden brown.

For an even prettier result, decorate your cookies with sugar cookie icing!

Vanillekipferl - the Recipe That Worked

As the title suggests, I had some problems finding a good recipe for little vanilla crescents - to the extent that I was about to declare the word Vanillekipferl as my new least favourite German word (the current one being Mittelohrentzündung). These originally Austrian delicacies look very innocent, but it’s very hard to find a balance between a tasty one and one that is possible to bake. Either they’re too dry and tasteless, or they spread too much in the oven (like in the picture below), or they won’t hold together after baking and crumble all over.

With my fourth try I finally managed to bake the perfect ones and I’m happy to share this recipe with you. Note that most recipes use ground almonds instead of hazelnuts - to my taste, the ones with hazelnut have much more flavour! But if you want, you can replace the hazelnuts with ground almonds.

For about 40 crescents you need

• 200 flour (I used 100g whole-grain spelt, 100g all-purpose flour)


• 100g hazelnuts, ground


• 1 pinch of salt


• 80g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 100g butter or margarine (I used a mixture of both)


• 1 egg (small/medium)


• plus some vanilla flavoured powder sugar for dusting (I just mixed together powder sugar and vanilla sugar, but the best result you get if you split a vanilla bean, place it in a glass jar with sugar and let stand 24 hours or so)

In a baking bowl, combine flour, hazelnuts, salt, sugar, and vanilla sugar. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour mixture. Work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly, then add egg and work the dough until it forms a ball (if not, add a tiny bit a water until it does).

Now most recipes tell you to let the dough rest for one hour, two hours, or even overnight, but I didn’t feel it made any difference whatsoever. So just form tiny crescents (mine were about 12g each) with your hands - this is actually the hardest part! Place the cookies on an oven tray covered with a parchment paper.

Bake in a preheated oven (180 C) 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are pale brown. Let the crescents cool 2-3 minutes, then transfer on a plate, using a spatula. Dust generously with vanilla-scented powder sugar.

I’m intrigued to see how well these keep. Hopefully very well: I’ve got hundreds of them - most of those from batches that look horrible but taste delicious :)

The vanishing Vanilla Biscuits

These biscuits, or Little Vanilla Crescents, are from Recipes from a Provençal Kitchen, a book I received as a gift some 15 years ago. The author claims that they are so good that one has to eat them all straight away, and that is indeed the case! This is the recipe of the vanishing Vanilla Biscuits! You will want to do two doses, one for the guests, another one for you!

You need:
- 210g butter
- 210 g flour
- 100g ground almonds
- 50g sugar
and some sugar and vanilla sugar for the topping.

Mix together all the ingredients with your fingers until a dough forms. Let the dough rest in the fridge for some 15 to 30 minutes. Then take small (about 25 grams) amounts of the dough and roll between the palms of your hands so as to form sticks about 6 cm long. Bend them slightly to form crescents, set on a baking tray covered with a baking sheet, and bake in about 200 degrees C for some 15 minutes. Be careful not to let them gain any colour - they should remain pale. When the crescents are still warm, roll them in a mixture of sugar and vanilla sugar and place on a serving plate. This is the tricky part - the biscuits crumble easily when they are warm, but the sugar won’t stick to them if you let them cool too much.

Enjoy the biscuits, they won't last long!