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!

Maki rolls

“I’ve never seen kids eat this much sushi!”, proclaimed a waitress once in a sushi restaurant. Indeed, my two little angels had eaten a total of 38 pieces, which is more than many adults manage. When heading out, they were still complaining that they’d wanted more - and I had a sudden flashback of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant..!

So you might understand the need for making sushi at home. I used to buy fresh salmon and tuna, but nowadays I make mostly vegetarian sushi. (Today I used a bit of canned Follow Fish tuna.) Their clear advantage over non-vegetarian ones is that you don’t have to worry about whether the fish is fresh enough to be eaten uncooked. I mainly make maki rolls, although I’ve tried avocado and omelet covered nigiris as well. Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite easy and fun! But still time-consuming…

First, you need to cook sushi rice. My normal portion is 500g uncooked rice. It makes sense to follow the recipe of the package you’re using, because the amount of water may vary from one brand to another. For the rice I normally use, 650ml water is perfect (for that half a kilo of rice). Wash the rice thoroughly until washing water comes out clear. Then drain the rice, place in a pan and cover with the required amount of water. Bring to a boil, let boil over a low heat for some 10 minutes or until water is absorbed. You don’t need to stir the rice at all. Then set aside and let rest for another 10 minutes or so before transferring onto a deep big plate to be seasoned.

For the seasoning, I use 50ml rice vinegar, 1 tsp sea salt, and 2 Tbsp sugar. Many recipes suggest more salt, but since soy sauce has quite a lot of salt already, for me that’s just enough. I mix the ingredients well, sprinkle over the rice, and stir with two wooden spoons or spatulas. Then the rice still has to cool before you can actually start making the sushi.

For a regular maki roll, take a nori sheet cut in half and place it on the sushi mat. Then wet your hands well and cover the nori sheet with a thin layer of rice, leaving about 1cm on the top end free (see the picture to get the idea). In the middle of the rice, use your finger to “draw” a fine horizontal line with wasabi (don’t exaggerate, it’s hoooot!) and on top of the wasabi, place any filling you’d like: cucumber, cut into thin, long sticks; carrots, cut into even thinner sticks; avocado, cut into thin sticks as well. You have to find the right balance between too little and too much filling; in both cases, it’s hard to roll it properly. Wet the not covered part of nori with water, using your fingers again. Then place your thumbs under the bamboo mat, hold the filling with the rest of your fingers, and slowly start rolling the mat towards the other end, then move your right hand on top of the mat to help in the rolling. Once you’ve reach the other end, roll the maki inside the mat under the palm of your hands a couple of times forth and back - be careful not to crush it! - and then open. If all went well, you should now have a beautiful roll waiting to be cut - if not, don’t worry - it took me quite a long time before I started mastering the right technique. And as you can witness, not all come out perfect even now.. There are great tutorials on youtube - or even better, maybe you know someone who could show you? That’s how I learned it.. (Thanks, Salla!)

Now you just need to cut the roll into 6 pieces. Choose a really sharp knife - it’s best to have several so you can try just which of them works the best. It's essential to wet the knife! First cut the roll in two pieces, and then each half still into 3 small ones. Voilà!

For inside-out rolls, you need to cover your bamboo mat with some plastic wrap. Place the nori sheet on a plate and cover it with rice, using wet hands. (You don’t need to leave that 1cm uncovered.) Then turn the nori sheet around and set it, rice side down, on the plastic-wrap covered bamboo mat. Place filling in the middle and roll as described with regular maki rolls. Inside-out makis are somewhat easier to roll, but they are very sticky, so be careful when cutting them! Before cutting, you can sprinkle some black and/or white sesame seeds on top.

Serve your makis with wasabi, soy sauce, and pickled ginger.

So today when the kids asked: “What?! Did you make so little sushi?” I could answer: "Obviously there’s more waiting in the kitchen!" I’ve finally learned my lesson.

Blondies

Everyone knows brownies, but who has tasted blondies? Blondies are brownies’ blond siblings, baked with white chocolate and pecan nuts instead. They are miraculously simple and quick to bake, and totally irresistible! I got the recipe from a book called “New York - les recettes culte” that I bought last May when visiting France. I highly recommend the book! The only thing I changed here was the amount of sugar - I’m not a big fan of overly sweet stuff, and even with this new reduced sugar amount, they are quite on the sweet side… For a non-dairy version, opt for margarine instead of butter and look for white chocolate made with rice milk.

Dry ingredients:

• 300g wheat flour


• 2 tsp baking powder


• ½ tsp salt (again, if you’re using salted butter, you’ll need less salt)


• 80g white chocolate (or even 100g)


• 100g pecan nuts

Liquid ingredients:

• 150g butter


• 8cl neutral tasting oil (sunflower or such)


• 250g sugar (I use a mixture of brown and white) + 2 tsp vanilla sugar


• 2 eggs

Set your oven to 190 Celsius. Start by combining all dry ingredients in a baking bowl. Then melt the butter in a pan, set aside and pour the oil in. Mix well, then add sugar and eggs and beat for two minutes or so. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry mixture, mix thoroughly, pour the batter on an oven pan covered with a baking sheet - mine is 24cm wide and 30cm long, but that’s a bit too big - a square 24cm pan would be ideal. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until nicely brown and evenly cooked. Let them cool before cutting them into squares.

Blondies taste excellent with coffee at any time of the day - and what’s more amazing: they stay fresh and crunchy for days and days! Having some guests over next weekend? No problem, bake some blondies, enjoy them during the week and you will still have them fresh and ready for the weekend! If you can resist eating them all, that is...

Salmon Pastries

We’re on the road quite a lot, and when travelling, I prefer taking a packed lunch with us instead of always ending up eating fries, or Pommes as they call them here in Germany. These small salmon pastries my Mom used to bake when I was a kid are ideal for that purpose! I don’t feel good about eating fish, so I bake these quite rarely these days, make sure I buy organic stuff with a WWF label on it - and keep telling me it’s still a better option than buying our kids some Schnitzels that they’d insist on having with their Pommes anyway. Later I’ll post a vegetarian version with potato filling which I love just as much but that the kids unfortunately won’t eat...

Here’s what you need for some 20+ pastries:

Dough:

• 250g butter


• 250g quark


• 260g wheat flour


• 2 tsp baking powder


• ½-1 tsp salt (depending if you’re using unsalted or salted butter)

Filling:

• 200g smoked salmon


• 2 boiled eggs


• 1 raw egg


• 2 Tbsp chopped dill


• salt (and pepper, if you like) to taste

In a baking bowl, combine butter with flour, baking powder and salt, working them with your fingers until crumbly. Then add quark, mix thoroughly and put the dough into the fridge for the time you prepare the filling - which won’t take long, if you’ve boiled the eggs already. Just peel the boiled eggs, chop them together with salmon, then mix all the ingredients of the filling together. Note: if the salmon is very salty, you don’t necessarily need any extra salt.

Now, take your dough out of the fridge, roll it out and take out circles with a round mold - ideal diameter is 10 cm. On each, set about 2 teaspoons of filling in the middle (don’t worry, you’ll quickly learn how much is the ideal amount.) Wet the edges slightly with water (use your fingers or a small brush). Then fold the pastries to enclose the filling, and finally seal the edges with a fork (see the photo for an idea of how to do this.) Brush with egg or milk and bake in a preheated oven in 225 degrees for some 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let them cool on a rack.

And then it’s time to pack everything else together and head for an adventure! Have a nice Sunday everyone! The picture below is from our latest adventure in the mountains.

Sourdough Bread

I’ve always liked baking my own bread. It reminds me of my grandmother and her delicious bread, baked in a real wood-fired oven. Too bad I never discussed baking bread with her - and now it’s too late.

What I don’t like about most self-baked bread is the yeasty taste: on the day you bake it, it tastes good, but the next day it’s just dull and yeasty. I’ve tried all kinds of ways to avoid that - using a poolish or a quick starter, baking “no-knead bread” - the latter tasted excellent but somehow I never really learned to manage the thing quite properly; it was a horrible mess, with flour and dough everywhere.

When a friend of mine told me she’s got her own sourdough starter and that she could not only bring some to me but also teach me how to take care of it and bake with it, I was more than thrilled! This happened almost a year ago, and I’ve been baking ever since. Sourdough bread is better than anything you can find in even the best bakeries, plus you get to eat it still warm! And obviously, the ingredients cost next to nothing. You can make endless variations, like my favourite sweet bread: Lemon Bread (a post will definitely follow), or sweet Italian panettone-like bread (yes, I will post about it as well). Plus you can give some of the sourdough to your friends and have a lot of fun baking together and sharing ideas and experiences.

This is my basic sourdough bread recipe, just as I learned it from my friend. It’s called 1-2-3, because you need 1 part of starter, 2 parts of water, and 3 parts of flour, plus 2% salt of the flour weight. My regular bread takes 150g starter, 300g water, 450g flour (mixture of rye, spelt, and wheat is my favourite), and 9g salt.

First, you mix water and flour in a big bowl and let it stand for 20-30 minutes. Then you add the starter and salt, and then knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough feels like bubble-gum. You cover the bowl with a damp baking towel, let ferment for 6 to 12 hours, after which you just toss the dough into a cast iron pot or any round ovenproof pot with a lid, close the lid, put the pot in a cold oven, set the temperature to 225 degrees - and wait. This is the hardest part! I suggest you wait 40 minutes, then take the lid out and bake some 20 minutes more. Oh wait, now comes the even harder part - you’ll still have to wait at least one hour before you can cut the bread and eat it. But it will be worth it...

Did I tell you already that I’m somewhat impatient? Sometimes I just don’t seem to have time to let the dough ferment that long, like today. That’s when I add a bit of dry yeast in the dough (with the salt and starter), but just really a tiny little bit, like ⅓ tsp. That will make the dough rise quicker but won’t affect the taste. A nice trick for the hasty baker!

Pasta with Tomato Sauce

It's amazing how good the simplest dishes can taste if you make them out of premium-quality seasonal veggies. One great example is tomato sauce for pasta: it may taste good when you use canned tomatoes, but there's no comparison to the one made with seasonal fresh ones. I'm lucky to live practically next door to an organic farm that sell the best beefsteak tomatoes ever this time of the year. They're great for salads, ratatouille, and for all kinds of tomato-based sauces. I first cooked this sauce last summer, and it was a success! My family wouldn't believe me when I told them what was in it. "There must be something else! It can't be that simple!" Oh yes, it can..

So, for four hungry people you'll need two medium-sized onions, about 1 kg of tomatoes (I used to of those giant ones, each one weighing a bit less than 500 grams), 2-3 garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and any herbs you might want to use - my favourite ones being parsley, basil and oregano. This time I used rosemary from a friend's garden.

Sauté the chopped onions in olive oil over medium heat, then add garlic, and after a while peeled, chopped tomatoes and salt and pepper. You can add herbs already at this point - it's up to you! Then let simmer over medium or low heat for at least one hour, and serve with your favourite kind of pasta, topped with some Parmesan cheese and herbs.

The taste is slightly different if you're using butter instead of or in addition to olive oil. It's worth giving it a try!