Baguette, or French for Bread

Don’t even think of baking a baguette if you haven’t got a masonry oven at your disposal.

Unless you’re as stubborn as I am and want to try it anyway.

In which case you should read this post, because I’ve discovered an easy and foolproof way of baking delicious baguettes, even in an electric oven.

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of baking baguettes in a masonry oven. The oven hadn’t been used in the past 25 years or so, but it was in a perfect condition to provide me with the most perfect bread ever.

Only, I was a perfect analphabet with masonry ovens!

My first attempt resulted in a charred baguette in less than 5 minutes in the oven.

My second attempt resulted in a pale loaf although it had been 40 minutes in the oven. Still, it looked and tasted awesome, resembling nothing you can bake in a normal oven.

And then the weekend was over, and I had to return to my own kitchen and my electric oven. Maybe next time, I’ll learn to master that old masonry oven where my grandmother used to bake her bread for about four decades..

In the meantime, I’ve now learned to bake decent baguettes even in my electric oven. You just need to make a few special arrangements.

If you have a pizza stone, use it. If you’re like me and don’t possess one, use a normal oven tray but heat it in the oven for about 10 minutes so that it’s piping hot when you place your baguettes on top of it! That way, the baguettes keep their form and the oven spring is spectacular.

This recipe is based on Sébastien Boudet’s recipe. It’s baked with pre-ferment, so that the baguette doesn’t taste like yeast nor like sourdough starter (nothing wrong with the latter but somehow it doesn’t fit to baguette, in my opinion), and with an excellent crust and inner structure.

Here’s what you need to make two long baguettes or three shorter ones:

Pre-ferment:

• 500ml cold water


• 500ml all-purpose flour (do try replacing about 1/5 of the flour by rye flour, for an extra tasty baguette)


• 1g yeast


• 1tsp stiff sourdough starter

For the final dough:

• all of the pre-ferment


• about 300ml all-purpose flour


• 14g salt (about 2 tsp)

Combine water, starter, and yeast in a baking bowl. Stir, then add the flour and stir until you get a dough almost like a thick pancake batter. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let stand for about 12 hours in room temperature.

Next day, the pre-ferment should be bubbling nicely and smell…delicious! If not, something went wrong (too cold? too much draft?) and you have to start over. (This never happened to me, so it’s very unlikely it will happen to you, either!)

Now, add the salt and the rest of the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until you get a smooth and elastic dough. Cover it with a damp kitchen towel and let ferment for about 8-10 hours more (I do this overnight). In the morning, the dough will have at least doubled in size. Now it’s time to set your oven to 300C and start shaping your baguettes. (In case you’re baking in a masonry oven, you have to start heating the oven a couple of hours earlier, of course!)

Pour the dough onto a floured baking surface. Beat the air out, then divide the dough into three parts, and let them rest for about 5-10 minutes. Now, place the pizza stone or your oven tray in the oven so that it will be ready to receive your baguettes.

Then roll each part out into a rectangle as long as you want your baguette to be, and roll it into a tight roll, a bit like when you’re making cinnamon rolls! This is of course not the only way to shape a baguette, but that’s the one that works the best for a beginner as myself: it's the easy way to get an evenly-shaped baguette that holds its form!

Bake your baguettes on the pre-heated oven tray in 275C for about 20 minutes, or until well baked but not burned.

Let cool on a rack and serve with lots of salty butter or good olive oil!

And start planning how to get a masonry oven of your own ;)

Börek with Spinach and Chanterelles

I got acquainted with börek at a Turkish friend's place - she served me an unbelievably delicious dish called börek. Then I ate another, very different kind of Turkish dish made by another friend - and surprisingly enough, it was also called börek. So I suppose there are very different varieties of this iconic Turkish dish!

This is my first attempt to make börek. Most of the vegetarian recipes I found combine spinach and feta, but I wanted to try out a 100% vegan version. I initially thought of using tofu, but somehow it would have been too obvious - and then I found frozen chanterelles at the supermarket. Chanterelles are my favourite mushrooms by far. They are just incredibly tasty, and combine perfectly with spinach (oh well, is there anything spinach would not combine with?!).

To me, this is a perfect kind of vegan dish. It's extremely rich and tasty, and really doesn't feel like substitute to anything - it stands on its own. It's proudly vegan!

For four people you need:

• 4 large sheets of filo dough (about the size of a A3-sheet)

For the filling:

• 2 Tbsp olive oil


• 1/2 of a large onion or 1 small onion


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 700g frozen spinach


• 200g frozen chanterelles


• 2 tsp grated lemon zest


• 3 Tbsp almond cream


• a pinch of grated nutmeg (or a bit more if you like!)


• salt and pepper to taste


• lots of chopped fresh parsley (or other herbs of your liking)

For the brushing:

• 50g vegan margarine


• 125ml olive oil


• 4 Tbsp almond cream


• 1-2 crushed garlic cloves


• salt and pepper to taste

Begin with the filling: heat the oil in a heavy pan and sauté the onion 3-4 minutes. Then add the garlic, stir 1-2 minutes, and then add the frozen spinach and mushrooms. Let melt and then simmer over a low heat for a couple of minutes. Add lemon zest, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and stir. Sprinkle with the chopped herbs and set aside.

Then make the liquid for the brushing: combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat until the margarine has melted. Set aside.

Now, place one sheet (I used double sheets...) of the filo dough on the bottom of a lasagne form. Brush it evenly with the brushing liquid. Spread 1/3 of the filling over the filo dough. Repeat twice. Place the 4th sheet on top of the last filling layer and brush it with the remaining brushing liquid. If there's not enough left, make quickly some more.

Bake your börek in the preheated oven (200C) until it's crispy and golden brown, or about 30 minutes. Serve either hot or at room temperature with a green salad, for example!

 

 

 

 

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...

Bacon and Eggs, Vegan Style

When I was a kid, we used to have porridge for breakfast every single morning, except for Sundays, when we got bacon and eggs: one fried egg and two slices of bacon per person. It felt so special!

Maybe that nice memory of those special breakfast moments was the reason I was sure I'd never be able to become a vegetarian - I thought I just loved bacon too much.

But I was wrong - I haven't even thought of bacon for many years now. Until a couple of weeks ago a friend made breakfast pancakes with bacon - and I got an idea: why not use Liquid Smoke to create "bacon" out of thin aubergine slices?

Today I finally tried out that idea, and it worked much better than I'd never imagine! It looks like bacon, it smells like bacon, it tastes like bacon. But it ain't bacon ;)

I also tried to make "scrambled eggs" out of silken tofu and turmeric. It turned out really good as well - apart from the soy taste, of which I'm not a big fan.. (I know, at some point I'll get used to it.)

For 4 people you need:

• 1 large aubergine, cut in thin slices lengthwise


• 1/2 cup olive oil


• 2 Tbsp soy sauce


• Liquid Smoke to taste (I used 1/3 tsp)


• salt and pepper to taste


• 400g silken tofu


• 100g smoked firm tofu, cut in small cubes


• 1 Tbsp olive oil


• 1/2 tsp turmeric


• salt and pepper to taste


• a handful of fresh parsley

Set your oven to 250C. Place the aubergine slices on a baking tray. Combine olive oil, soy sauce, liquid smoke, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Brush the aubergine slices with the oil mixture and bake in the oven until they start to get some colour. Be careful - they burn quite easily!

For the "eggs", use your hands to squeeze the silken tofu until its texture resembles scrambled eggs. Add the turmeric and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. Then, heat the oil in a heavy pan. Fry the smoked tofu cubes until golden brown, or 2-3 minutes, then add the silken tofu, and fry until all of the silken tofu is hot. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and parsley - and serve right away with the "bacon"!

Easy Cake Decorating Ideas: Princess Cake with a Heart

Today, for once, we had a very late breakfast and a late lunch, so I'd thought we'd survive until dinner without having to eat any snack in between. How wrong I was! Around 4PM I started to crave something sweet, and inspired by our ladybird cake experience yesterday, I decided to bake a quick princess cake. Less than one hour later, we were devouring this raspberry-flavoured treat!

I'm not a big talent in cake decorating, but this one is really easy to make. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's more important how a cake tastes than what it looks like :)

This time, I wanted to try baking the cake with whole-grain flour, and it worked very well indeed. A small step towards a healthier treat...

For one cake you need:

• 4 eggs


• 100ml sugar


• 200ml whole-grain wheat flour


• 1tsp baking powder


• 75ml milk


• 75ml raspberry juice


• 100ml raspberry jam


• 200ml heavy cream


• 200g marzipan


• a few drops red food colouring


• 1 tsp powder sugar

This is how to do it:

Preheat the oven to 175C. Beat the eggs and sugar in a baking bowl and add sifted flour in which you’ve added the baking powder. Stir gently with a wooden spoon until the flour is well combined with the rest. Pour the batter in a round cake form and bake until golden brown, or some 15 minutes.

In the meantime, beat the cream until soft peaks form. Take about half of the cream and mix it with the raspberry jam.

When the cake is well baked, remove it from the oven and let cool, then remove from the form and cut horizontally into two pieces either using a sharp knife or a string.

Place the bottom half on a serving plate. Moisten with half of the milk and half of the raspberry juice. Spread the cream-raspberry-filling on the bottom half, then place the upper half on top and moisten with the rest of the milk and raspberry juice. Spread the remaining cream evenly on top of the cake.

Roll the  marzipan between two layers of cling film into a disc just a bit bigger than the cake’s diameter. From one corner, take out a heart with a cookie cutter. Trim the rest of the marzipan if needed. Place the disc carefully on top of the cake and fold to cover the sides as well (I wasn't very careful enough today, and the marzipan broke in two places...). Sprinkle with powder sugar. Colour the heart with few drops of red colouring. Place the heart in the middle of the cake and enjoy!

 

 

Easy Cake Decorating Ideas: Ladybird Cake

One of the first baking books I ever got was called Tule mukaan (Come along!). Recently, as I was going through it I saw that I had marked some of the recipes with a mysterious "B" - and I suddenly remembered that it stood for Birthday - things I wanted to serve at my birthday party. (Which I never did - my Mom would always bake her traditional cream cake - not bad, either!)

Among the recipes marked with "B", there was this ladybird cake. Back in those days, there wasn't coloured marzipan available, so the recipe tells you how to colour marzipan with red food colour, only available at the pharmacy back then. Maybe that's one of the reasons I never actually baked the cake myself...

Now the same cake was the first thing my kids wanted to try out from that book. They don't like marzipan, so we opted for red sugar mass - but I'd definitely use marzipan if I was only baking for myself. The cake tasted surprisingly good: fresh and tasty. Too often, this kind of cakes are just too sweet to my taste, but not this one! As far as I know, ladybirds don't have tails, but we had to add one more lolly so that all the three kids would have a lolly of their own.

For one cake you need:

• 4 eggs


• 100ml sugar


• 150ml all-purpose flour ( I used 1/3 whole-grain)


• 1 tsp baking powder

 

For the filling:

• 100ml heavy cream


• 100ml apple sauce (not too sweet)


• 1tsp vanilla sugar

 

For the topping:

• 100ml apple sauce


• one package of red sugar mass (I didn't take the reference of how many grams that was...)


• 2 liquorice bars, cut in 1cm pieces


• 2 lollipops (we had to use 3 - see above)

 

• Plus about 150ml milk for the moistening of the cake

This is how to do it:

Preheat the oven to 175C. Beat the eggs and sugar in a baking bowl and add sifted flour in which you've added the baking powder. Stir gently with a wooden spoon until the flour is well combined with the rest. Pour the batter in a round cake form and bake until golden brown, or some 15 minutes.

In the meantime, beat the cream until soft peaks form. Add vanilla sugar and the apple puree into the cream.

When the cake is well baked, remove it from the oven and let cool, then remove from the form and cut horizontally into two pieces either using a sharp knife or a string.

Place the bottom half on a serving plate. Moisten with about 75ml milk. Spread the cream-apple-filling on the bottom half, then place the upper half on top and moisten with the rest of the milk. Spread the 100ml apple puree on top.

Roll the sugar mass (or marzipan) between two layers of cling film into a disc just a bit bigger than the cake's diameter. Place the disc carefully on top of the cake and fold to cover the sides as well. Decorate your ladybird with the liquorice bar pieces (the dots) and lollies (the antennas).

I bet the cake gets even better if you let in stand in the fridge overnight. We had to eat it right away, though, so I can't tell for sure...!

P.S. In the original recipe, the middle part of the cake was cut out to make the ladybird oval instead of round. We didn't do that - we preferred to have a bigger cake ;)

 

Finnish Sweet Buns, or Pulla

A lot of things have happened in my kitchen since my last post.

First of all, at about 7PM on Christmas Eve, just as I was baking some Christmas loaves, my oven and stove suddenly broke. I had to wait five days until we finally got them repaired! In the meantime, I did a lot of microwave cooking - I had no idea the device could be used for so many different purposes. I even baked a sourdough loaf in microwave oven... (I do NOT recommend it, though; but microwave bread is anyway better than no bread at all...). Anyway, I wasn't very convinced - and will continue to use my microwave oven mostly to melt butter and chocolate :)

Secondly, the warehouse where I've got a lot of my family's stuff stored is going to close next month. So I spent one entire day going through many things I haven't seen in years, thinking what to keep, what to give away or sell, and what to put straight to the garbage. One of the nicest surprises were my old cookbooks, from about 30 years ago! I was super happy to be able to give them to my kids.

It seems that those old recipe books have not lost their interest... During the two past days, my kitchen has been under the invasion of cute halflings dressed in aprons, baking the most delicious findings from those old books! Like these traditional Finnish sweet bun "boys" (pullapoika) from yesterday.

For the dough you need:

• 250ml hand-warm milk or water


• 25g fresh yeast


• 100ml sugar


• 1 tsp salt


• 1-2 tsp cardamom


• about 700ml all-purpose flour


• 100g softened butter (f0r a vegan version, use margarine)

To decorate:

• raisins


• almonds


• 1 egg (for a vegan version, use vegan milk for brushing)

The method:

Crumble the yeast and place in a baking bowl. Pour the hand-warm milk in the bowl and stir until dissolved. Add sugar, salt, and cardamom. Then, add flour gradually stirring with your hand until the dough is smooth but still sticky. Lastly, add the softened butter and knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic. Add more flour if needed. (My halflings didn't knead the dough at all, yet their buns turned out perfect. Just telling you this in case you're feeling lazy ;) )

Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let ferment until doubled in size, or about 1 hour.

Pour the dough onto a baking surface and beat the air out of it. Shape as you wish, decorate with raisins and almonds, and proof about 15 minutes. Brush with egg and bake in a preheated oven (200C) until your buns are golden brown.

Sweet buns are best eaten when they are still a bit warm - is there anything better in this world than warm home-made pulla?

The Last Stretch: Raspberry Truffles and Soft Toffee Candies

I bet a lot less sweets would be eaten if everyone made their own candy: first, it takes quite a lot of time, and second, you really get to see what goes in them! The amount of sugar and fat is just beyond imagination.

But hey, it's Christmas, so we don't really care! (Do we ever? ;) )

Anyway, today I made the last stretch to complete my reverse advent's calendar and prepared two different sweets. First, raspberry truffles that featured in the Finnish Elle magazine a few years ago, and second, soft toffee candies from a really old cookbook I've lost a long time ago. Luckily, a friend still has a copy and e-mailed me the recipe!

To make about 25 truffles you need:

• 300g semi-sweet dark chocolate (I used a 66% one)


• 25g butter


• 25ml heavy cream


• 100ml frozen or fresh raspberries


• 1 Tbsp sugar


• plus cocoa powder, for dusting

And this is how to proceed:

Place the chocolate, butter, and cream either in bain-marie or in a micro-wave-proof bowl. Heat the mixture so that the butter and chocolate melt. Stir well. In a small saucepan, bring the raspberries and the sugar to the boil. Let boil 2-3 minutes or until the liquid has almost disappeared (especially frozen raspberries contain lots of water!). Pour the raspberry mixture into the chocolate mixture, stir, and let cool in the fridge until it's hard enough to handle.

Then, take small teaspoons of the mixture and form into balls. Cover each truffle with cocoa powder ( I rolled them in a small bowl containing cocoa powder). Place your truffles on a plate and let cool again, either in a cool room temperature or in the fridge. Store in a tin box - but not for a long time! Truffles have to be eaten within 2-3 days ;)

And this is what you need to make about 50-60 small toffee candies:

• 100g butter


• 200ml molasses


• 200ml heavy cream


• 300ml sugar


• 1 Tbsp cocoa powder

This is how to proceed:

Melt the butter in a heavy pan. Add molasses, cream, sugar, and cocoa powder. Stir well and bring to the boil. Let simmer over medium heat for about 35 minutes. Stir once in a while - especially towards the end.

Pour the toffee-to-be on a large plate covered with a parchment paper. Let cool in room temperature until the toffee is hard enough to be cut in pieces. You can also cool it in the fridge to make things go faster - my fridge was full of Christmas food and my balcony full of snow, but I wasn't in a hurry. (I wrapped the gifts in the meantime!)

Toffee candies should be wrapped individually in small (tin) papers, because they are somewhat sticky.

Now my advent's calendar is accomplished, and I wish you all a merry Christmas!

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 17: Chocolate Yule Log

Today, I didn't bake anything for my reverse Advent's calendar.

Instead, I finally made one of my dreams come true: I baked a real bûche de Noël, or a Yule log! (How cool that the word yule exist, by the way - just like jul in Swedish!) Theoretically, I could have kept it for our Christmas dinner - according to some recipes I read, a Yule log can be frozen up to three months.

But this one is going to a very special purpose: a class I'm teaching is going to eat it tomorrow - it's their last French class before their Christmas holidays... Hope they'll be as thrilled as my kids who got to eat the test version today - and made me promise we'll have one for the Christmas dinner as well ;)

At the same time, I got the chance two other things I had never done before: making a real ganache and butter icing - how can I have missed these two this long?! Well, now I know how to make them!

The following recipe is for one log. It's adapted from this recipe - I browsed a lot of different ones, and somehow this seemed perfect. And it was...

I made double this portion, and used about 1/4 to make a small test version, and the rest to build a very big log! I'd say one portion is big enough for 10 people.

I had some serious problems in getting the Swiss roll done properly: it broke in several places when I tried to roll it in. Luckily, everything is covered with that butter icing, so no-one will see that. Anyway, I'd be thankful for some tips about how to make a perfect Swiss roll!

This is what you need for the Swiss roll:

• 4 eggs


• 3/4 cup sugar


• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour


• 1/4 cup cocoa powder


• 1 tsp baking powder


• 3 Tbsp melted butter

For the ganache:

• 180ml heavy cream


• 180g dark chocolate (about 60% or so)

For the butter icing:

• 1 cup butter, softened


• 1,5 cups confectioner's sugar


• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder


• + a bit of heavy cream, if needed

For the decoration:

• marzipan figures


• confectioner's sugar

First, prepare the ganache. Bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan, remove from heat, and add the chopped chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts. Place in a cool place - this time of the year, even my room temperature was cool enough! Fridge is not a good option, though; try a cold-water bath instead if your house is warmer than mine. Let the ganache-to-be stand about one hour. Then beat the mixture until it gets fluffy and somewhat less dark. This took about 7 minutes with my spiral whisk!

Then it's time to prepare the Swiss roll. Combine flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside. Beat the eggs and the sugar in another bowl until the mixture is pale and thick. Add sifted flour mixture and the butter and stir until well combined. Pour the batter on an oven tray covered with a parchment paper. Leave a margin on all sides. My cake was about 35cm times 25cm.

Bake in a preheated oven (200C) about 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. In the meantime, place another parchment paper on a baking tray. Sprinkle some sugar on it. Once you take the cake out, reverse it immediately on the sugar-covered parchment paper. Remove the original paper and roll the cake in, starting from the side closer to you. (Like I told you, mine broke in several places. I have no idea what went wrong!) Let the cake cool while you prepare the butter icing.

Soften the butter and beat it until it gets creamy and fluffy. Then add sifted confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder, and rub them in the butter. Add some cream if needed (I didn't need any, but then again, I just couldn't use all of the sugar amount either! It felt horribly over-sweet as it was - with maybe 3/4 of the sugar amount of the original recipe!).

When the ganache and the butter icing are ready and the cake has cooled to room temperature, it's time to build the log. Roll the cake out again, spread the ganache evenly on top of it, and roll in again. Spread the butter icing on your log and, using a small spatula, create a wood-a-like surface (this was really easy with the butter icing! I just love it!). Decorate with any marzipan figures you like, and sprinkle with some confectioner's sugar. We want some snow for Christmas, don't we?!

I made my marzipan leaves and mushrooms myself. I had planned to buy them, but, well, maybe I just don't know the right places to go in Helsinki - or there aren't any available. At least I couldn't find any. So equipped with some natural-coloured marzipan and a bottle of green and red colour I managed some mushrooms, green leaves, and red berries.

The log can be kept 2-3 days in the fridge (if it fits ;) ), or frozen.

P.S. You can flavour the ganache and the butter icing - next time, I'll use some coffee in both! Or how about orange? Or - well, just consult your Flavour Thesaurus for further ideas!



 

Day 16: Zedernbrot, or a Happy Marriage Between Lemon and Almond

The first time I tasted these very lemony, very almond-y Christmas cookies was at a friend's place. They were made by her mother-in-law, and the recipe was top-secret. I managed to convince my friend to convince her mother-in-law to give me the recipe, and the plan worked!

But here's the thing - I lost the paper on which the recipe was written.

The other recipes I've found give a good result as well - like this one I posted last year. This year, I used 100g roasted ground almonds and 100g plain ground almonds (last year only roasted almonds because that was the only organic variety I could find). I also reduced the amount of lemon juice, because last year the dough was a bit too liquid.

And I decorated my Zedernbrot cookies with some finely chopped candied lemon peel!

 

Day 15: Linzer Cookies

Ten days to go, and I still hadn't baked almost any of the iconic German Christmas cookies - Zimtsterne, Spitzbuben, Zedernbrot, Linzerschnitte...

So now it was time to get back to the track. I decided to bake Linzer cookies, the recipe of which I was almost sure I already shared last year - but I didn't... So now it's time to share it!

These sandwich cookies taste a bit like gingerbread but they are much softer! Fill them with any red jam that you like - my favourite is a mixture of raspberry and redcurrant jam.

This is what you need:

• 150g softened butter


• 50g sugar


• 1 egg


• 150g all-purpose flour


• 75 ground almonds


• 75g ground hazelnuts


• 1/3 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp cinnamon


• 1/4 tsp cloves


• 1/4 tsp cardamom


• a pinch of ground nutmeg


• a pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)


• red jam (raspberry, redcurrant...) for the filling


• some confectioner's sugar to decorate

This is how to proceed:

Beat butter and sugar until the mixture is creamy. Add the egg and stir until well combined. In another bowl, combine all the other dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-egg-mixture and stir until you get a smooth batter. It is a bit liquid at this point, but don't add any flour!

Let the dough rest in the fridge about 2 hours.

Now, preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the dough out and cut hearts (or other forms of your liking) with a cookie cutter. Bake the cookies until the start to get some colour.

Once out of the oven, let the cookies cool down. Then spread jam evenly on the flat side of half of the cookies. Sandwich with the rest of the cookies. Sprinkle with some powder sugar and serve!

If you're planning to keep the cookies longer, do the sandwiching part only just before serving them.

Day 14: Orange Cookies with Almond and Rosemary

Ever heard of the Flavour Thesaurus? If not, do take a look at it! It's a great source of inspiration, suggesting which flavours pair well one with another. And it's an entertaining read, too!

So I had already decided to adjust my Rum Raisin Cookie recipe and to use homemade candied orange peel instead of raisins, and I was exploring the different options of other ingredients to go with. Rosemary seemed a good candidate, due to its fresh taste and the small surprise effect it would create.

And it sure was a good choice! This recipe will yield about 25 incredibly tasty cookies!

What you need:

• 100g homemade candied orange peel, cut in small cubes


• 50ml Cointreau (the alcohol will disappear during the cooking, but if you want, replace with orange juice)


• 1 Tbsp orange syrup (from the candied peel)


• 3 twigs of fresh rosemary


• 100g butter, softened


• 50g sugar


• 1 egg


• a few drops of vanilla extract


• 50g ground almonds


• 200g all-purpose flour


• 1/2 tsp baking powder


• (a pinch of salt, if you're using unsalted butter)


• plus some confectioner's sugar

Preheat the oven to 175C. Combine the candied orange peel, Cointreau, orange syrup, and two of the rosemary twigs in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat, and cover until the rest of the dough is done.

Beat the softened butter and the sugar in a baking bowl until white and fluffy. Add the egg and the vanilla extract, stir well, then add the almonds and the flour in which you've mixed the baking powder (and the salt, if using). Add the orange peel mixture (remember to remove the rosemary twigs!) and stir until well combined. The batter should be soft but not too liquid - add more flour if needed.

Use a teaspoon to place small heaps of batter on a baking tray covered with a parchment paper. Leave some space between the cookies as they spread a bit in the oven. Now you need the third twig: hide one rosemary leaf in each cookie! Bake them until golden brown, or about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and serve immediately - or hide well ;)

 

Day 13: Saint Lucy's Buns

Yesterday I didn't bake anything for my reverse advent's calendar. The reason is - I had the honour of doing the catering for my godson's birthday party! So I spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking and baking for the big event.

But around midnight I prepared the dough for today's project. I wanted to bake Saint Lucy's buns, which are a tradition in Sweden - and increasingly so in Finland as well. I've baked them a couple of times, only this time I wanted to use sourdough starter only instead of yeast. The result was incredibly soft and tasty - my starter seems to be in good form again!

Traditionally, these buns contain saffron which lends them a very beautiful yellow colour. Well, I had forgotten to buy saffron, and by the time I wanted to make the dough, it was already too late to buy any. So mine were white this year.. but very tasty nonetheless (and much cheaper, of course ;) ).

This is what I needed for 13 buns:

• 100g stiff sourdough starter


• 250ml liquid (I used a mix of water, cream, and quark)


• 50g sugar (this is very little, and the buns were just slightly sweet - feel free to add more)


• 1/3 tsp salt


• 100g butter, softened


• 1 egg


• 0.5g saffron (which I had forgotten to buy...)


• about 400g all-purpose flour

Combine all ingredients in a baking bowl. Knead until the dough is smooth, or about 10 minutes. Cover with a damp kitchen cloth and place in a warmish place overnight (or about 8 hours) to ferment.

When the dough has more or less doubled in volume, place it on a baking surface and punch the air out. Divide the dough in about 13 parts. Roll each part about 20cm long and form buns in a shape of S.

Place the buns on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Cover with a kitchen towel and proof about 20-30 minutes. Brush the buns with egg yolk and decorate with raisins (place them deep enough so that they don't burn!). Bake in a preheated oven (220C) about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Enjoy your buns just as they've cooled enough!

I froze five of my buns for Christmas.. let's see if they are still so soft when defrosted ;)

P.S. After having read the story of Saint Lucy in Wikipedia, I can't look at these buns without thinking that those two raisins symbolize the poor girl's eyes.. a very macabre story indeed!

 

Day 11: A Total Panforte Disaster

Panforte was among the new recipes I wanted to try this year. It's a traditional Italian Christmas cake, combining candied fruit and different kinds of nuts with honey, sugar, and spices. As the name suggests, it's very rich - and it keeps well, even several months.

I had a stash of different nuts I had bought still back in Germany, and I thought this would be an ideal purpose for using them. I had read that the traditional panforte from Sienna combines 17 different ingredients, because the city of Sienna has 17 districts.

So I chose the following 17 ingredients: pine nuts, pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate, cocoa powder, flour, sugar, honey, butter, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, cloves, and Cointreau and adapted my recipe from that of Nigella.

All seemed to be perfect - the batter, the smell, and the taste and texture of my panforte just after I'd taken it out of the oven (I made four small ones and thought we'd eat the first one right away). It was like chocolate fudge and different nuts married with ginger bread! Heavenly indeed...

...until the disaster happened: as soon as the three other panforte cakes had cooled, it became clear that they could only be eaten by a robot or anyone else having their teeth replaced by chain saws.

I even tried to soak one of them in hot water with some honey in it, but the only thing that happened was that some of the chocolate dissolved in the water - and the panforte itself was still totally inedible (at least for a human being with a normal set of teeth).

The mistake might have been that I kept the panforte too long in the oven  - although they were still very soft when I took them out; anyway, too many precious ingredients are now on their way to a landfill site for me to try panforte any time soon :(

 

Day 10: Anisplätzchen, after all!

I had planned to bake something completely different today, but in the morning, I found myself looking for Anisplätzchen recipes - remember those famous German aniseed cookies that even the professional bakers might not get right?

The recipes didn't look too complicated, just that they advised to beat the batter 45 minutes with a kitchen machine, which I don't have, so I had some doubts whether I could manage to make the batter just with a spiral whisk.

Maybe I had beginner's luck or maybe these cookies are not that hard to make after all, because they turned perfect the first time! Or maybe I have to thank the Finnish weather conditions - dark, cold, extremely windy ;)

This is what you need to make 17-20 small cookies:

• 1 egg


• 75g confectioner's sugar


• 1 tsp ground aniseed, plus some entire seeds to decorate


• a few drops vanilla extract


• 75g all-purpose flour


• a pinch of baking powder

This is how to do it:

Combine sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and ground aniseed in a baking bowl. Turn your TV on, sit comfortably on your sofa, take a deep breath - and start beating. I did this for about 30 minutes. The mixture should be fluffy, creamy, and honey-like. (Honestly speaking - I think mine was all that even after 10 minutes, but I continued beating, just to be sure!) Now add the flour in which you've added the baking powder and stir until well combined.

With two teaspoons, place small drops of batter (about 1 teaspoon) on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. My initial batter was too liquid - the eggs I use are rather large - so I had to add more flour at this point. The batter should be firm enough so that the cookies don't go totally flat! Sprinkle the cookies with some entire anise seeds.

Let the cookies dry 6-12 hours in room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 175C and bake the cookies until they are hard but not yet getting any colour. If you've done everything right, a miracle will take place: those initially quite flat cookies will rise and get what the Germans call Füßchen, or "small feet".

You can't imagine how happy I was when I took a look at my cookies after 10 minutes or so and saw that the miracle had indeed happened...

Now I'm sipping some coffee with two different aniseed cookies and can't decide which ones taste better :)

 

Day 9: Aniseed Cookies

Last year a friend of mine told me that if I wanted some real challenge in my Plätzchen baking, I should try Anisplätzchen - they are almost impossible to bake right, even if you're a professional baker; whether they succeed or not depends namely on the humidity of air, among other things.

The seed of this challenge got planted in my brain, but I don't feel up to it just now. Maybe next year...!

But I wanted to try something with aniseed, and luckily there is a variety of other Christmas cookies that feature this little liquorice-tasting seed!

This seemed an easy recipe, and it was. The only tricky part is when you take the cookies out of the oven: you have to be really quick to stretch them over a spoon to get the right shape. They are elastic only about 1-2 minutes once they're out, after that they harden and can't be shaped any more.

For about 35 cookies you need:

• 2 eggs


• 120g sugar


• 1 tsp ground aniseed


• 60g all-purpose flour


• a pinch of salt


• entire aniseed seeds to decorate

Preheat the oven to 200C. Combine eggs, sugar and ground aniseed in a baking bowl. Beat until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Then add sifted flour (in which you've added the salt) and stir until well combined. Place small drops of about one teaspoon on a baking tray, covered with parchment paper, and bake in the oven about 7 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown in the middle and a bit darker from the sides.

While the cookies are baking, take out as many tablespoons as you have cookies in the oven. Once you take the cookies out, you need to be fast: with each spoon, take one cookie from the baking tray (be careful, don't burn your fingers!) and stretch in on the outside of the spoon. Place on another tray and let cool completely. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Enjoy with a glass of mulled wine, for example!



P.S. As you can see in this picture, I also baked some rum raisin cookies today.... They are my son's all-time favourite cookies!

Day 8: Little Josephines

Last weekend I baked two Chocolate Mousse Cakes, so I had a lot of egg yolks that I had to use as soon as possible. Luckily I didn't have to wait long to get an inspiration.

In the morning I was reading one of my favourite baking books Underbart är gott, and happened to see an interesting recipe that only required four ingredients: egg yolks, butter, marzipan, and almond flakes. That sounded so crazy I just had to try these little cakes called Josephines. I was almost sure this could only result in a disaster - I mean, what kind of a batter would you get using only those ingredients?!

But weirdly enough, the batter was smooth and the Josephines themselves.. well.. I feel like repeating myself, but they are like almonds gone to heaven!

I don't think they will keep well, though; they are very moist - maybe in the fridge they'd keep up to a week or so, but I think I'll make a second batch just before Christmas and serve these first ones asap ;)

For 10 small-cupcake-sized Josephines you need:

• 300g marzipan


• 170g butter


• 90g egg yolks


• about 10g almond flakes


• plus some extra butter for the forms

This is how you make them:

Grate the marzipan into a baking bowl. Add softened butter and stir until well combined. Then add egg yolks and stir again until smooth. Prepare the cupcake forms: I suggest you use silicon ones - I tried in both silicon and aluminum ones, but although I had buttered the aluminum forms really well, the Josephines wouldn't come out of them well. Place some almond flakes into each form, then fill with batter and bake in a preheated oven (150-170C) about 15 minutes or until well set.

Let the Josephines cool before taking them out of the forms.

Serve immediately!

P.S. I have no idea where the Swedish name Josefiner comes from: a quick Google search in English and French didn't result in any similar recipes... so I'll call them Josephines until I find out what they really are called in English :)

 

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!

Day 6: Panettone

My first contact with panettone was back in 1996 when I was interrailing in southern Europe during the Christmas holidays. In Italy, I bought a huge panettone to take home with me and tied it to my tiny backpack, to the amusement of many co-travelers. But it certainly was worth the trouble!

Ever since, I’ve been a regular user of those mouth-watering Italian Christmas cakes. About two years ago, I realized that it would theoretically be possible to bake one at home, but I still didn’t dare trying it myself. “It’s just too complicated, it’s better to buy one”, advised even the owners of an Italian restaurant back in Germany.

I decided that this year it was time to make my own perfect panettone. Not a "fake one" like I’ baked before - sweet bread with the same flavours as panettone – but a real one.

And judging by everything else but the taste, I’ve managed it this time. (I’ll only be able to taste my panettone tomorrow, but I’ll let you know how it was as soon as we’ve had breakfast!)

The recipe I used is based on this Italian recipe. My Italian is far from being perfect, and I understood roughly half of what I read. I even tried Google translating it into Finnish – which only resulted in the best laugh I’ve had in a long, long time. (It seems that the machine translation has only developed in quantity, not in quality since the time I was studying :) )

This is what you need for 1 big panettone (about 1300g) or two small ones (about 650g):

For the first dough:

• 60g very stiff sourdough starter, refreshed three times with the same flour you’re going to use for your panettone


• 1g fresh yeast, dissolved in 90ml water


• 75g sugar


• 70g egg yolks


• 240g flour (I used a mixture of Italian flour type 00 and all-purpose flour)


• 85g butter

 

For the second dough:

• all of the first dough


• 40ml water


• 80g egg yolks


• 2 Tbsp sugar


• 2 Tbsp orange syrup (from the homemade candied orange peel)


• aromatic butter - made with 90g butter, melted the previous day together with 1 Tbsp honey, 1 vanilla pod, and the grated zest of 1 organic lemon and 1 organic orange, then stored in a cool place


• 120g raisins


• 60g homemade dried orange peels, in small cubes


• 2g salt (4 if using unsalted butter)


• about 200g flour (the original recipe said 60g, but I needed a lot more)

First of all, you need to make sure your sourdough starter is ready for the job! Refresh it on the first day three times, first at about 7AM, then at noon, and still at 4PM or so. Use the same flour as you are going to use for the panettone – special panettone flour seems to be available, but not here, so I used a mixture of all-purpose flour and Italian flour type 00. Make sure that your starter at least doubles in size between the feedings. The original recipe said it should triple – mine the most certainly didn’t; then again, I couldn’t control the temperature – it should have been 28-30C, and even in the warmest and most draft free spot in my kitchen, the temperature must not have been more than 25C. The starter should also be stiffer than usual - for 100g of starter, I used 100g flour and 40ml of water for the first feeding, then 100g flour and 70-80ml of water for the second and the third one.

During the first day, prepare the candied orange peels (use this recipe, only cut the peels into small cubes, instead of long stripes) and the aromatic butter for the second dough.

At about 7 or 8 PM, prepare the first dough. Combine all ingredients of the first dough in a baking bowl and knead about 10-15 minutes (I don’t have any kitchen machine, so I knead by hand). Then cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and place in a warm and draft free place and let ferment overnight.

In the morning, check that the dough has at least doubled in volume. (If it hasn’t, too bad – my guess is that you’ll have to start all over again!) Mine had, so I proceeded to the second dough.



Add all the ingredients of the second dough into the first dough (remember to remove the vanilla pod from the aromatic butter!) and knead again about 10-15 minutes. Let the dough rest about 1 hour in a warmish place (about 25C). In the meantime, prepare your panettone papers: I didn’t have any, so I looked for instructions for making my own. This is what I used to make mine, and it worked well! Thank you, Chef in disguise!

Then place the panettone in the panettone paper. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and proof until doubled in size, again in a warmish and draft free place. This took about 8 hours.

Heat the oven to 190C and bake the panettone about 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160C or so, and bake until well baked. Panettone tends to burn on top, so keep an extra parchment paper on hand – if needed, just wet it and cover the panettone with it.

Take the panettone out and let cool enough that you can touch it without burning.

Now comes the weirdest part: one way or another, you should be able to hang your panettone upside down for the next 12 hours or so. The best way to do this is to wash well 2 knitting needles for each panettone, push them through it and place on top of a bowl (or on top of four glasses turned upside down, like I did). Be careful if using metal needles like I did: they get very hot!



Some recipes said you could eat your panettone right away, others instructed to wait a couple of days. Well, I don’t care, I the most certainly will try the first one tomorrow!

Sweet dreams :)

7.12: And here's the final product: