Bright Day Banana Muffins

These are THE muffins for me. I've been baking them for so long I could probably make them with my eyes closed! And yet, every time I make them, it comes as a surprise how good they taste. It's a bit like bread with butter - you just don't get tired of it! I got the recipe from a kitchen-wizard cousin of mine some years ago. I ended up losing the original recipe (a long story...), but this is how I make them:

Dry ingredients:

• 230g flour


• 75g sugar


• 1,5 tsp baking powder


• a pinch of salt


• a bit of cinnamon


• a hint of nutmeg (be careful, too much will ruin the muffins)

Liquid ingredients:

• 100g melted butter


• 1 egg


• 100ml milk


• 2 bananas, mashed with a fork

+ some extra butter (melted, 20g or so), cinnamon, and sugar

Combine the liquid ingredients with the dry ones and stir well. Pour the batter into a muffin pan (this dough makes 6 muffins). Bake 20 minutes or so, the move the muffins on a plate. When they are still hot, brush them with melted butter and sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on top. Serve as a part of brunch - or on any other occasion!

P.S. This morning I tried them with whole-grain spelt flour - and started wondering why I didn't start using whole-grain years ago...

Sunday's a Brunch Day

Today was Parliamentary elections day here in Germany. As foreigners, we were not allowed to vote, but why not use this special day as an excuse for having a bit fancier brunch? So this morning we enjoyed freshly baked bread and scones, sweet whole-grain pancakes, cheeses, veggies, fruit, coffee, and Mimosas. Brunch is by far my favourite meal - you can serve it practically any time, and there’s nothing you couldn’t serve as a part of it - it’s a total carte blanche! I love having a lot of variety - warm stuff, cold stuff, something sweet, something salty, something crunchy, something fresh.. And of course, great coffee!

During the following week, I’ll be posting my best brunch recipes - maybe next Sunday, you’ll be serving some of them yourself! So stay tuned…

I like to start my brunch with a fresh drink, so today I’m sharing the recipes of my two preferred brunch drinks with you: the classic Mimosa, and pineapple juice with fresh mint.

For the Mimosa, you’ll need

• the juice of ½ orange per serving


• about 6cl of your favourite champagne or bubbling wine per serving

For the pineapple mint juice, you’ll need (for about 6 servings)

• 1 pineapple


• 20g fresh mint


• 300ml water


• possibly some sugar or agave syrup

The night before, remember to put all ingredients in the fridge and to fill your ice-cube maker! For the Mimosa, squeeze oranges, divide the juice into glasses, and fill the rest with champagne. Serve immediately!

For the pineapple mint juice, peel the pineapple and cut it into cubes. Wash the mint. Combine pineapple cubes, mint, water - and sugar or agave syrup if you prefer it a bit sweeter - in your mixer and pulse. (It will be a bit foamy, that’s ok!) Serve with ice cubes.

Pizza with Smoked Tofu and Pineapple

I’ve eaten a couple of times in a vegan restaurant in Stuttgart, called Coox&Candy. Once I happened to eat there on a Tuesday, pizza day. We just couldn’t get enough of their vegan pizza with smoked tofu and pineapple! Since they are a vegan restaurant, their pizza includes a special type of cheese, which they also sell to take away. I immediately bought a package of No-Muh-Cheese (the spicy one) and was ready to try my first vegan pizza. It was a success! Unfortunately, we live in a small town where there are no vegan cheeses available (yes, one could buy it on the internet, but somehow I’m not that deep in the world of internet shopping just yet), so today I used a local cheese from our organic farm instead. This time, I wanted to try whole-grain spelt flour in the dough, and it was really tasty (according to my hubby, it was the best pizza ever, but he was so hungry I’m not sure if he can be trusted ;) ) - in the future, anyway, I’ll be using only whole-grain flour in my pizza dough.

This recipe yields 2 big pizzas - that’s usually more than enough for us 5.

Dough:

• 250ml water


• 12,5g fresh yeast or half a package instant yeast (that would be about 5g)


• 1 tsp salt


• 2 Tbsp olive oil


• 1 Tbsp sugar


• about 450g flour

Tomato sauce:

• 1-2 onions, peeled and chopped


• 600g tomatoes, peeled and cut into cubes


• 2-4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped


• olive oil


• salt, pepper, and oregano to taste

On top:

• 200g smoked tofu in thin slices


• 5 Tbsp chopped pineapple


• grated cheese of your choice

Preparing the sauce

Begin with the tomato sauce: sauté onions in olive oil, add garlic, continue frying for 2 minutes or so, then add tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano. Bring to a boil and let simmer over medium heat for about 30 minutes, reduce heat and let simmer over a low heat for about one hour. (If you’re in a hurry, feel free to reduce cooking time - and if really in a hurry, just take one can of tomatoes, and purée it with salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, and olive oil.)

Preparing the dough

To prepare the dough: measure the water in a baking bowl, throw in yeast and stir until dissolved, then add salt, oil, and sugar, stir again, and then add as much flour as you need to get a good dough. Then knead for a couple of minutes, cover the bowl with a cloth, and let ferment for an hour or so.

Depending how quick you were, you now have some time to do other stuff - go for a walk, read a book, call a friend.. But if your memory is as good as mine, it’s better to set an alarm, though!

Once your dough and sauce are ready to go, set your oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Knead your dough so you get the air bubbles out, divide into 2 pieces, and roll them both into a square a bit smaller than the oven pan you’re using. Transfer onto the pan, bake in the oven for 5 minutes or so, take out, and then cover each pizza with a layer of tomato sauce, tofu, pineapple, and finally cheese. Put back in the oven for some 15-20 minutes more, or until nicely brown and crispy.

Serve with a side salad - und ein kaltes Bier!

Potato and Celeriac Gratin with Porcini Mushrooms

It was love at first sight. As soon as I opened the New Vegetarian Kitchen by Nicola Graimes at a shop in Frankfurt Airport, I knew I couldn’t walk away without buying it. And it was the right decision, although it meant an even heavier bag to carry around. (Will I ever learn to travel light?!) Every single recipe I've tried has worked perfectly! One of my favourite recipes to try on one of these cold and windy autumn days is a gratin with potatoes, celeriac, porcini mushrooms, and lots and lots of cream.

For 3 hungry people you'll need

• 20g dried porcini mushrooms


• 30g butter (or vegan margarine)


• 1 tbsp olive oil


• 3 garlic cloves, sliced


• 300ml heavy cream (or any vegan cream - soy, rice, oats.. just make sure it isn’t sweetened!)


• 4 tbsp milk (or soy/rice/oats milk)


• 300g celeriac, peeled and cut into small cubes


• 550g unpeeled potatoes, sliced


• salt and black pepper to taste

First, set mushrooms in a small bowl and pour 100ml boiling water to cover them. Let them simmer for some 10 minutes, drain, but reserve the water for later use. Chop the mushrooms (I use scissors). Heat the butter and oil in a large skillet and fry the garlic slices for about one minute, then add mushrooms, potatoes, and celeriac, and fry for a couple of minutes more. Then add all liquids (including soaking water from mushrooms), and salt and pepper. Let simmer over a low heat for some 20 minutes, then transfer into a baking dish, and cook in a preheated oven (200 Celsius) until the top is golden brown - this takes about 20 minutes as well. Serve hot with with a green salad and a glass of red wine! You also might want a slice of bread to wipe all that delicious sauce from your plate. With vegetarian dishes like this, who needs meat, anyway?

The only downside is that it’s very difficult to take a picture of this dish that would do it any justice!

Easy Whole-grain Cookies

Yesterday I had afternoon tea at a friend’s place. She a great baker, and this time she had made some pear muffins. I realized that all of those delicious things she bakes have something nicely rustic about them - and I found out why: she only uses whole-grain spelt flour she’s milled herself! (It seems to be very common here in Germany for people to have a small grain mill at home.)

Now I was curious - would it really work with something I’d normally never bake with whole-grain? So I took a basic cookie recipe, you know the one with butter, sugar, salt, and flour, and started baking, with 100% whole-grain wheat. And it did work -  so well that I ended up eating half of the batch in one go.. I'll definitely try more whole-grain baking in the future, and maybe even get one of those grain mills so I could always bake with fresh flour!

For 10 cookies, you’ll need:

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


• 150g whole-grain wheat (or spelt) flour


• 40g muscovado sugar (if you want it sweet, feel free to use more)


• a pinch of salt


• 2 Tbsp cold water


• + some extra sugar/cinnamon and sugar/vanilla sugar

Make the dough: In a baking bowl, cut the butter/margarine in small cubes. In another bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt, then pour over butter cubes. Work with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Then add the water, stir, and let the dough rest for some 20 minutes in your fridge - unless you’re in a hurry.

Work the dough into a long, round “log”, about 9cm long and 5cm wide. Using a good knife, cut the log into 9 round cookies. Take an apple corer and cut a small hole in each cookie - the “holes” can be used to make one more cookie! (Goes without saying -  you can also skip the whole hole part, and just have 9 hole-less cookies instead.) Sprinkle some sugar (or cinnamon and sugar, or vanilla sugar) on top, and bake in 200 Celsius for some 15 minutes. I like mine really well done, but they get bitter if they burn even the tiniest bit, so I need to spend the last couple of minutes glued to my oven to get it perfect!

Let your cookies cool on a rack and serve with your favourite warm drink. I prefer to eat them when they’re still a bit warm - what about you?

P.S. My next post will be something salty again.. so stay tuned!

Sweet Italian Fruit Bread

When I was on my first Inter-rail in Christmas holidays back in 1996, I travelled light, only with a 30 liter backpack or so. (Ok, most of my stuff didn’t fit in, but luckily my bf had a slightly bigger bag that could fit in the rest! How convenient.. ) So, it was quite impossible to do any kind of shopping, there just wasn’t any room left for any new treasures - except for a huge Panettone, which I hung to my backpack. It must’ve looked quite funny, the Panettone being almost the size of my bag..!

So you get the picture - I kind of like Panettone. The disadvantage is that you only get it around Christmas time - which, luckily! extends nowadays from early October until the end of January, at least. And the other downside is that it’s very difficult to bake at home. The owners of a local Italian restaurant told me they’d never even want to try such an impossible thing themselves. All the recipes I’ve seen are so complex and time-consuming I’ve decided to give them a try in some quite distant future.

Last time I was in Italy I happened to buy a book called Croissant e biscotti, written by an Italian baking celebrity Luca Montersino. I found an interesting recipe for a sourdough-based chocolate and nut bread that, unfortunately, didn’t work at all (by all means, do try it - the picture looks great!) - but that gave me an idea: why not try the same method, only replacing chocolate and nuts with sultanas, candied lemon and oranges, almonds, lemon zest, and vanilla? After a partial disaster, the second loaf turned out perfect! It would be pretentious to call the result Panettone, so I call it Sweet Italian Fruit Bread instead - until I coin a better name for it. (Suggestions are welcome!)

So here’s how you proceed to get a loaf of it:

Beat together 3 eggs and 130g sugar until fluffy, then add 250g sourdough starter and wheat flour each, 6g salt, 5g fresh yeast, zest of 1/2 lemon, 2 tsp vanilla sugar, 100g candied orange, candied lemon, sultanas, and chopped almonds each, and combine well together. Then add 125g melted butter, stir well, and let ferment for some 8-10 hours in a warm place (25-30 degrees). Transfer into a proofing basket, let ferment another hour or two. Bake in 225 degrees for 10 minutes or so, lower the temperature to 190 degrees, and bake until well done, about 45 minutes. Let it cool on a rack and decorate with some confectioners’ sugar.

This bread is great for Italian-style sweet breakfast - any time of the year! Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do...

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I’ve been a fan and a regular baker of muffins ever since a cousin of mine served Bright Day Banana Muffins for breakfast once I was visiting her back in the 90’s. I’ve tried many, many different kinds of muffins after that, but nothing seemed to be of any serious challenge to these legendary Bright Day Banana Muffins, until... Recently, I discovered this recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins in a cookbook called “New York - les recettes culte” (yes, do buy the book, it's worth every cent! and no, I don't get paid to say so!). There’s something almost otherworldly in the ingenious combination of tastes and structures here.

For 12 muffins you’ll need (and don’t even consider making just half of the dough to make 6 muffins, you sooooo will regret it!):

Dry ingredients:

• 320g wheat flour


• 3 Tbsp poppy seeds


• ½ tsp salt (if you use salted butter, a bit less is needed)


• 3 tsp baking powder

Liquid ingredients:

• zest of 1 lemon


• 150g sugar


• 125g melted butter (or margarine for dairy-free)


• 2 eggs


• 3 Tbsp lemon juice


• 20cl natural yoghurt (or soy yoghurt for dairy-free)

Fruit:

• 100g peeled and grated apple


• 100g peeled pear, cut into small cubes

Icing:

• 125g confectioners’ sugar


• 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Oh, how I love to bake muffins! The procedure is always the same: combine dry ingredients in a baking bowl. In another one, mix together the liquid ones. Then pour the liquid ones onto the dry ones, and stir until well combined. Then add fruit and stir again. Pour the batter into a muffin pan and bake in a preheated (190 Celsius) oven for some 25 minutes. Take the muffins out of the pan, let them cool a little bit and then brush with the icing (another technique is to dip them upside down in the icing - for me it didn’t work, it was just a mess..). Oh, and for the icing you just need to combine sugar & juice - if it’s too stiff, and a bit more juice, and if it’s too liquid, add a bit more sugar! Decorate with poppy seeds and serve with your favourite coffee or tea!

PS. I've started to replace the apple by pear, so I use 200g pear instead. And when buying poppy seeds, do make sure that the expiry date is a long time ahead; otherwise the seeds might have an unpleasant rancid taste!