Sweet Sins

What has kept me for so long...

2010-02-05T13:43:00.006+11:00

Many months have gone by without my usual baking routine - all due to a bun in the oven - pardon the pun..;-)
Only a few days after my last post in May 2009 I found out that I was pregnant. And despite having planned this whole endeavour, the sheer enormity of the fact still hit me over the head, leaving me happy, a little worried, and more than just a little confused. After the initial whirlwind of emotions was over, I frantically started organising some pregnancy-related things, we moved houses, and I worked like mad as long as I still could - not quite the quiet pregnancy that one might imagine.
Once Christmas came round, however, I was definitely ready to put up my feet and enjoy a few weeks of rest with my parents visiting, everyone eagerly awaiting the new family member. Now it's already three weeks to the day that little Sophia arrived in our lives - and again, I ask myself where all the time has gone..;-) Yesterday, I managed to bake some bread for the first time since the birth - I really missed that - but I have a feeling that for a while, my camera will be mainly used to capture Sophia's smile...

Scoring points

2009-05-05T22:18:00.008+10:00

Being married for a little more than a year, I'm trying to do my best and score some good-wifey- points from time to time. Sometimes it's easy to do something nice for my better half (particularly if it happens to fit in with my own plans), sometimes I actually make myself do something I wouldn't have done otherwise. After all, one shouldn't start to slacken just yet!

What's been surprisingly difficult though, is to make his favourite desserts. Bit embarrassing, isn't it? And I'm not talking about several ill-fated attempts to recreate his mom's best cakes (before you ask, my versions were perfectly edible but unfortunately not half as good as the originals). No, his criterion for a great dessert is quite simple yet I'm still struggling to master it: Whatever you do, it must have chocolate - and loads of it!

Thus, I discovered over the course of the last months that whilst I like chocolate as much as the next person, I'm just as enamoured with vanilla, and come to think of it, I really prefer fruity desserts over anything else. Who knew that it would take just one year of marriage to finally figure that one out.

For our first wedding anniversary (the first of the two) I really wanted to get it right. I borrowed a lovely chocolate dessert cookbook from the library with mouthwatering pictures in it and let him choose a recipe - with only very little guidance in getting to the right chapter, of course. His choice was an American classic: Mississippi Mud Pie!

To my great surprise, this recipe isn't quite as chocolatey as it looks so don't hesitate to up the chocolate/cocoa content. And it's rather nice with vanilla-poached pears, if I might say so myself - after all, marriage is all about compromise!

Mississippi Mud Pie

The ingredients

your favourite shortcrust pastry, enough to thinly line a 20cm-spingform pan

1oog butter
50g dark chocolate, chopped
2-3 tbsp cocoa sifted
1 tsp instant espresso powder
2 small eggs
115g caster sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract (I substituted vanilla sugar for part of the sugar instead)

for serving: chocolate curls and pears poached in vanilla-bean-syrup (optional)

1
Butter the tart pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Line it with the shortcrust pastry, making a small rim around it. Chill the crust while preparing the filling.

2
Melt the butter, stir in the chocolate until combined. Stir in cocoa and instant espresso. Set aside

3
Beat eggs, sugar, and salt until thick and creamy. Add vanilla (if using), sour cream, and golden syrup. Stir in chocolate-butter-mixture.

4
Pour the filling into the tart shell and fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius for roughly 25 minutes (check after 20 minutes). It will be done when the filling puffs up and forms a crust. Upon cooling, the filling will sink a little and may crack. On the inside, the filling will be firm but sticky.

The source
Adapted from "Chocolate" by Patricia Lousada

The hint
This pie is quite rich so serve in small doses. We ate it over the course of 3-4 days - texture and taste didn't suffer over time. Once the tart shell starts to soften, slicing will be easier, too.

Hellooo...anyone still out there?

2009-04-01T18:26:00.007+11:00

I haven't been at this place for so long that I hardly know my way around it anymore... Well, I won't bore you with a bunch of lame excuses and only state the most exciting one: an overseas trip, first and foremost to attend the christening of my ueber cute nephew no. 2 in Germany (as aunt and godmother, I did bake a few things but sadly, no pictures), and secondly to visit Cambodia on the way back.

In preparation of our trip, I spent quite some time reading our guide book and agonizing over where to go - quite a difficult question when all you've got is a mere week to cover such an amazing country. Pretty high up on my list of priorities was taking a cooking class in traditional Khmer cuisine. Thus on a very sunny and hot morning, T and I walked towards the aptly named restaurant 'Smokin' Pot' in the laid-back country town of Battambang. None of us had ever attended a cooking class before, so we didn't really know what to expect. However, we had eaten at the restaurant the previous night so we knew that the chef's secrets were worth knowing.

The half-day course starts off with a trip to the market. Like chicks running after their hen, we follow our teacher Vannak - one would be lost without a local in this buzzing frenzy. We see all sorts of oddities like hard-boiled eggs cured in salt and ashes or little tubes filled with fermented fish paste and a whole chili. Cambodians, Vannak explains, like to eat this as a snack while traveling on the bus for example. 'Don't try this yourself', he warns us, 'we Cambodians develop a strong stomach.' Another popular snack that I've also seen in the Philippines, is hard-boiled duck eggs - or to be precise, a hard-boiled duck chick, eaten with a spoon right out of the shell, feathers and all. Needless to say, none of us is keen to try that one.

Back at the restaurant, professional equipment is already waiting for each of us: a big round chopping board, an impressive looking knife, and a pestle and mortar. Whilst Vannak explains the three dishes we're going to make, the kitchen staff washes and trims our ingredients so we won't have to work very hard.

However, Vannak does take his job seriously and from now on tells us in rapid, short commands what to do: 'Skin remove!' - that's for the ginger-like galangal. 'Chop into 3cm-pieces' - that's for the snake beans. And before we know it, we're already pounding away in our heavy-duty mortars to get a smooth spice paste for Cambodia's most famous dish: a mild curry called Amok that we make with fish and vegetables. To my great surprise, once the prep work is done, the actual cooking time is very short. After the fish curry, we also make stir-fried beef - lok lak - with salad and a dipping sauce and to finish, hot and sour soup with chicken. Unlike western cuisine, in Cambodia the soup comes as the last course thus bringing all the flavours together. And there's always room for some soup, Vannak says. However, there's no way I can finish three mains in a row - no matter how good it tastes. So I'm all the more happy when Vannak gives out small folders with a bunch of recipes from his restaurant - we will be able to recreate our Cambodian experience at home!

Bread Dumplings with Mushroom Sauce

2009-01-29T10:00:00.000+11:00

During the last few days, all of Sydney has been suffering under the sweltering heat - even at night, temperatures wouldn't go down. And without a breeze lifting the suffocating blanket of humid hot air, we had to resort to the fan to be able to sleep at times.

Knowing that, bread dumplings with mushroom sauce might not be the dinner of choice at the moment, I grant you that. Admittedly, I made these in the midst of the Australian winter, some time last June, when the cold rain wouldn't stop for days - then these hearty dumplings are exactly what you need.

I was instantly reminded of them when talking to my family about the pretty rough winter they have at the moment in Europe. Usually my family lives in an area of Germany with a moderate climate so cold it might get but not bone-chillingly so. However, this year the temperatures dropped way beyond zero for quite a while. Listening to descriptions of a walk through snowy landscape while wiping away the sweat on your own brow feels quite funny!

So this one is for all the people that are currently shivering in the Northern hemisphere - enjoy and keep warm!

Bread Dumplings with Mushroom Sauce

The ingredients

Dumplings
In Sydney, I usually never have leftover bread rolls (get eaten too quickly) but leftover bread works just as well. Just make sure to cut it finely - you may have to remove very hard rinds - and let it soak long enough.

10 medium-sized bread rolls (about 500g), cut into fine slices
salt
3/8 to 1/2 l milk, warmed
2 tbsp onion, diced
plenty of chopped parsley
1 tbsp butter
4-5 eggs
1 tbsp flour

1
Put the finely cut bread rolls into a big bowl, sprinkle with salt and pour the warm milk on top. The exact amount of milk needed depends on how dry the rolls are. The drier the rolls, the more milk is needed and the longer it will take them to absorb it all. The soaking will take at least 30 minutes. Stir the mixture every now and then.

2
Gently fry the onions and parsley in the butter until softened. Note: If in a hurry, you can skip this step - the dumplings will still taste delicious.

3
Add the onions and parsley to the bread rolls, followed by the eggs and the flour. If your eggs are very big, use only four. Using a bare hand, mix together until evenly combined. If you can still feel lots of hardened bread roll pieces, let your mixture soak a little longer.

The resulting mixture will be quite soft but should not be too soggy. If it is too liquid, the dumplings won't hold their shape. If necessary add a tablespoon of bread crumbs but don't add too much at a time.

4
With wet hands, shape the dough into round dumplings. They should be about the same size to ensure even cooking. Whenever the dough begins to stick to your hands, wet your hands again in cold water.

5
While shaping bring a pot with three liters of salted water to the boil. If you're unsure about the consistency of your dumplings, put only one in the pot, reduce the temperature, and let it simmer for roughly 20 minutes. Check after a few minutes that the dumpling doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot. It will be ready when it floats on top.

If you're happy with the consistency of your trial dumpling, simmer the remaining ones. They need to have enough space to float freely so work in batches if necessary.

6
Lift out the dumplings using a slotted spoon and serve immediately with creamy mushroom sauce or a hearty meat stew.

Mushroom Sauce

Butter
Onions
Parsley
Mushrooms of your choice
Dairy of your choice

There's no recipe - it's your choice if you first sautee onions and mushrooms and then deglaze the pan with cream, sour cream, milk whatever or if you make a roux out of butter and a little flour and then go from there.
Just one bit of advice: I've long tried to make a somewhat diet-friendly mushroom sauce - forget it, it always tasted awful. I think that's one of these cases when you need to use real cream!

The source
Hedwig Maria Stuber: Ich helf Dir kochen

The hint
Making dumplings might sound a little irksome but it isn't difficult at all. I don't even bother making a trial dumpling.

If you have leftover dumplings, you can slice them up, turn in beaten egg and fry until browned. Together with a green salad, it makes for a quick and tasty lunch.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T10:08:00.004+11:00

Have a wonderful Christmas with all your loved ones and try to eat as many cookies as you can - CU again after the holidays!

Biscotti - definitely twice baked

2008-12-22T23:42:00.002+11:00

Twice baked - and I mean it! And that's got nothing to do with the regular procedure to bake them, slice them, and then return them to the oven for added crunch and a golden glow.

Having seen lots of biscotti recipes in blogland, I wanted to know if they were really that good. My only encounter so far had been the rock-hard store bought kind that almost cost me a tooth. So, one of these days, I decided to give them a go. However, these biscuits turned out to be not quite as easy to make as I had thought. Not willing to be conquered by some cookies, I decided to start again a few days later, albeit again with mixed results.

But let's start with the first batch. Emerging from its first stint in the oven, it looked just perfect - from above, that is. Once I had the logs sliced up, I noticed that I almost burned the bottom sides. Cursing under my breath - it clearly must be the oven's fault - I returned them to the heat but carefully laid them out side wise as not to brown the bottoms any further.

For the second batch, I decided to turn down the heat and use the fan-bake setting. But disaster struck once more. When I took the logs out of the oven - pale golden but with darker edges - to be sliced up for the second browning, it turned out that this batch wasn't even done all the way. I quickly returned the uncut logs and peeped anxiously through the oven door. Luckily the baking powder was still doing its job and the logs rose some more. However, a little too much as it turned out. When fully baked, this batch with its cracked surface and less than smooth texture had a rather "rustic" charm to it - at least that's what I think smart people call their baked goods that aren't picture-perfect...

Taste-wise though, I almost preferred the charred batch. The over-the-top caramelization of the crust added more depth of flavour. Therefore, a third batch is in order some time soon - once I'm done with all the Christmas baking - and then with a double-layer of baking sheets!

Almond Biscotti

I started out with a recipe from delicious days and kept to its instructions but made a couple of modifications regarding the ingredients, most notably the addition of maize flour.

The ingredients

90g unpeeled almonds, partly whole and partly chopped
100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
50g lemon caster sugar (in a jar, mix sugar with lemon zest and let it sit for a few days)
2 eggs
5 drops of bitter almond essence
pinch of salt
200g flour
80g fine maize flour

Granola Trifle - by no means a trifle

2008-12-17T18:34:00.001+11:00

As Y has put it so well, I have been on the longest short trip ever - and now that my in-laws are back in Germany and the most urgent of my work projects are finished, I find myself with only one batch of Christmas cookies baked and only one present bought so far - and Christmas is only a short week away...
Anyway, let's get back to the riddle: Tanna was pretty close, however, it's not a pecan, it's an almond! That said, the following recipe contains pecans as well as you can see..;-)

When thinking about the ending year 2008 in food-related terms, one thing comes to my mind: it was the year of the seemingly endless quest to make my own granola. Sounds like a pretty simple affair, doesn't it? Well, I'd better not say how many batches of substandard granola I had to eat before finally coming up with the winner recipe. Not that there aren't enough tried-and-true recipes for this breakfast staple out there. There are plenty and I've googled for them all.

But when something looks so deceptively easy to do, I can't help myself but tinker with every single one of them. Which resulted in many batches of either overcooked, not-so-tasty or just plain bad granola. In the end, I loosely based my recipe on the two granolas you can find at Butter Sugar Flour; and at long last, I finally figured out how not to burn my granola with my very uneven oven, as well as how not to make it either too dry, too wet, too sweet or not sweet enough.

Once that was done, I could finally reward myself with a beautiful granola trifle - inspiration courtesy of Zarah Maria - with homemade quark and store-bought apple sauce. Hey, there's only so much you can do yourself at a time...

My Granola

The dry ingredients

3 cups of rolled oats
1 cup of almonds, partly chopped
1 cup of pecans, partly chopped
2 tsp of cinnamon

The wet ingredients

1/4 cup grape seed oil (or any other oil of your choice)
1/2 cup runny honey
1/2 cup apple sauce
2 tbsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

1
Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl.

2
Lightly heat the wet ingredients in a small pot and stir to combine. Mix into the dry ingredients.

3
Fan-bake at 120 degrees Celsius for an hour until golden and crispy. Don't forget to stir every 10-15 minutes.

Keeps in an airtight container for several weeks.

The source
Inspired by Butter Sugar Flour

CU soon!

2008-11-17T20:13:00.005+11:00

I'm going on a short trip and - of course - didn't manage to put up a new post before that. However, I've got already something lined up for you. Can you guess what it is about..;-)

Time to change...finally

2008-11-07T14:33:00.007+11:00

Had it not been for Nora's comment, I would have promptly forgotten about this blog's third birthday - it does seem to be some sort of recurring theme... Especially when yesterday's post would have been quite suitable to double as anniversary post....ah, never mind!

Being time-poor as usual, any culinary adventure fit for an anniversary was out of the question, so I decided to finally do something about the long-planned make-over of this blog. Yes, that's right, it was planned for a long time with designing new headers, fighting with the template, trying to understand Html and CSS (still not much of an advance in that respect) and all the cursing that comes with it. However, I didn't really like any of my earlier attempts. The day-long shooting for the perfect new header photo somehow never came - and the project was abandoned - shame on me...

So, on a whim, I decided to turn yesterday's cheeseckae photo into my new header and played around with the new blogger-template (luckily it worked out this time). There are still a few odds and ends to fix up - haven't figured out how to change my column width or how to convert to three columns and many more things like that.

However, this blog got new clothes to start afresh into its third year! Feel invited to come along with me and please tell me what you think of the new look!

Delicious Stuff from Delicious Days

2008-11-06T18:23:00.013+11:00

One fine day, about two and a half years ago or so, my friend Nora introduced me to the wonderful world of foodblogs - guess, I've mentioned that fact before, have I? Anyway, what I might not have mentioned is the sad fact that some food blogs come and some go simply because I'm not able to keep up with all of them - no matter how much I'd love to. However, there's one that I clearly remember from this first awakening and that has stuck with me ever since. I'm sure you know this one already: it's Nicky's Delicious Days - a wonderfully written and photographed food blog from Munich.

During my recent trip to Germany, I had the good fortune to meet up with her for breakfast and, it being the final days before the release of her first cookbook, I also had the chance to get a sneak peak into it! I probably asked her all the questions about it everyone was asking as well..;-) Add to this that we happen to come from the same small town in Eastern Bavaria (with lots of regional specialties) plus the fact that we both experience(d) living abroad and you can imagine one lively conversation!

After having seen her book, it was only a matter of days until I could finally go to the bookshop and get it. However, deciding which one of the recipes to make first took me a while. Reading it from cover to cover first (there's not only recipes but lots of stories to go with them, too) and then leaving through it two more times, I finally had made up my mind that it had to be something sweet. Well, maybe not so surprising after all, is it?

Being an avid cheesecake lover, I decided to try Nicky's cheesecake that comes from her favourite cafe in Munich (definitely need to go there next time...) and it was every bit as promised: creamy, moist, and with a little tang from lemon juice. Usually, I would make souffle-like cheesecake batters with stiff meringue that would naturally crack and sink upon cooling. So if I need to get a sturdier cheesecake that will stand up without tasting of flour or cornstarch, that's the way to go!

And in case you wondered, it didn't take me quite as long to determine what to try next..;-) So far, we've had the apple-and-bacon mini-quiches that got rave reviews as well as the goats cheese salad with green nut-dressing - which my vinaigrette-drinking husband (a trait he incidentally shares with Nicky) heartily approved of.

Next in line was the oven-baked pancake with sauteed apples (un-sauteed strawberries and nectarines in our case). Luckily this recipe proved to be even more than foolproof: Running out of time, I didn't make four separate pancakes as specified but dumped the entire batter into my Dutch oven to crisp up on the stove and bake further in the oven while we were wolfing down the main course. Luckily, the recipe stood up to this rather unconventional method and I might have even turned it into something clafoutis-like - lucky me, I've always wanted to try this classic French dessert.

There's still so much more to try...
Sorry, no recipes this time, you might just have to go buy the book!

PS: The original cheesecake recipe isn't crustless but when serving cheesecake with an accompaniment like this strawberry-rhubarb compote, I prefer to have it without the shortcrust.

World Bread Day - German Seed Bread

2008-10-16T19:42:00.002+11:00

People, World Bread Day is almost over (at least on this side of the earth) and I'm loaded with work but didn't want to miss out completely on this event that's created by the lovely Zorra of Kochtopf and that's very dear to me!

So this is going to be a short one. During my recent trip to Germany, I had plenty of stuff on my to-do list. Next to "meet as many friends as possible", there was "eat as many German specialties as you can possibly stomach". What shall I say, I really worked hard on that one...

Of course, one of the most memorable things I ate (apart from an incredible number of sausages and cured meats) was a certain type of bread - full with seeds but not dense and heavy at all. Still chewing, my better half requested this particular loaf to be recreated in Sydney and who am I to deny that..;-)

I started off with this recipe from Petra of Chili and Ciabatta and made the changes following below. For non-German-speakers, just a rough summary of the procedure: let the soaker rest for 3-4 hours (covered), mix the dough, let rise until doubled, degas it while stretching and folding it 2x, shape into a loaf, let rise until nearly doubled, and bake at 220 degrees Celsius.
The dough is relatively moist and rather sticky but not too hard to work with (stretch & fold helps a lot to get a good dough structure). My version produces a soft but hearty crumb (due to the different kinds of grains and seeds) and a compact but rather soft crust. It goes well with honey, jam, and mild cheeses.

PS: The first time I made it with a mixture of sourdough and instant yeast as below, the second time around I used sourdough only but can't remember for the life of me if I therefore upped the amount of sourdough or not. Hence, I need to make it again to find out...

Seed Bread

The ingredients

Soaker:
45g flax seeds
45g rye flour
35g sesame seeds
35g rolled oats
11g salt
206g boiling water

Final dough:
180g water or whey
all of the soaker
250g wheat sourdough, 100% hydration
1tbsp honey
360g bread flour
30g wheat germ
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp malted barley flour
up to 4 tbsp whole wheat flour (depending on the stickiness of the dough)

The source
Adapted from Petra of Chili&Ciabatta

Wedding Wrap-Up

2008-10-10T18:31:00.008+11:00

In case you're currently contemplating to get married - I can honestly recommend doing it not once but twice. But before you cry out in dismay, I'm talking about doing it twice with the same guy..;-)

This April T and I tied the know in Copacabana Beach (not in Brazil but on the lovely Central Coast of NSW) for the first time; and this September we did it allover again in Germany - accompanied by our families and relatives (and again lots of friends) who hadn't been able to come to Australia.

Although the settings of the two weddings could not have been more different (first just a few friends, an outdoor wedding with a barbecue reception and now about a 100 guests, a very festive ceremony in a grand Gothic church, and a four-course-dinner plus a huge wedding cake buffet) a few things remained the same (apart from wearing the same dress twice..;-)

Both times it was a very relaxed celebration - it was all about having a good time with lovely people while eating and drinking as much as possible. Much to my own surprise, it was just as exciting the second time around. Until three days before, I had managed to convince myself that I was a total pro where getting married was concerned so no need for butterflies in the stomach or any such nonsense. After all, we had been legally married for almost half a year already, right? However, shortly before the wedding, we decided to write our own vows just like for the first ceremony and to learn them by heart this time which was enough for me to finally get nervous again...
But most importantly, listening to my man promising to always be my friend, companion, and lover - it was definitely enough to make me get teary allover again...

PS: In case you wonder, what our wedding has to do with the tart I'm blogging about today - my lovely workmates from Sydney had sent me off with a wonderful bunch of flowers. So once I was back in Sydney, I wanted to bake something nice for them. Thinking that I had enough shortcrust pastry in the freezer, I quickly decided on a frangipane tart. However, after defrosting the pastry, I realized that the two portions weren't the same thing - one was a parcel with streusel topping. Hence this rather unconventional take on a frangipane tart which hopefully still qualifies as an entry for Kochtopf's food blog event "Quiche, Tart & Co"..;-)

Note to self: Thou shalt not only label your freezer bags but also read the label before proceeding.

Emergency Frangipane Tart

The ingredients

Your favourite shortcrust pastry to line a 24cm-spring form pan (I use this one)

2 small eggs
50g caster sugar
a few drops of rum essence (optional)
60g marzipan, grated
100g streusel topping (like this one - freeze the remainder for another time)
50g almonds, ground

1 pear, peeled and cut into thin wedges (add more fruit if you like)

1
Either grease your spring form tin or line it with parchment paper. Press the pastry into the tin, forming a small rim (if you happen to have enough pastry, that is...). Prick with a fork a couple of times and fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius for roughly 10 minutes.

2
Using a hand-held mixer, beat eggs, sugar, and rum essence (if using) until pale, thick, and foamy.

3
Add ground almonds and streusel topping and fold in gently. You don't want to destroy the foamy consistency.

4
There are two possibilities for adding the marzipan:
You either grate it into the bowl where it will most likely clump together again - in this case try to mix it in as gently as possible. Or you pour the filling into the tart case and grate the marzipan directly on it (I'll try this method next time).

5
Cover with pear slices and fan-bake for another 30 minutes or until crispy and golden-brown on top.

The source
My own invention - out of necessity..;-)

Here I am again... with Broad Beans!

2008-09-25T23:00:00.004+10:00

Poah, that's been a long absence... Now I'm definitely happily married and will be writing more about our second go once I've got the photos - let me just just say it was w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l! (Meanwhile you can read about our first wedding here.)

After a long but oh-it-seemed-so-short stay, we had to kiss our families and friends good-bye and were off to Sydney. While living in this preparing-for-and-then-getting-married-bubble, one could forget that elsewhere life goes on, you're just too busy to notice. That's also true for the food blogging world - I've had a lot of catching up to do! Always amongst the first to check is Nora's Life's Smorgasbord. I had already eyed her lavender shortbread - full of envy, of course, as I always forget to look out for culinary lavender - no matter how often I've longingly read blog posts about the creative use of this herb.

This time I read loads of stuff about broad beans that sounded utterly appetizing. What's more, Nora said that the season for broad beans is almost over! That's why I decided to do something about it now instead of saving the recipe for later (which usually means much, much later) . Off I went to the shops to buy broad beans, mint, and pecorino, and made myself a simply wonderful dinner. Granted, the whole shelling business does take a while but on the other hand it lifted my spirits to do something elaborate just for myself. With my new/old husband away on a business trip, dinners aren't such an enjoyable thing - however, these broad beans totally made my evening!

PS: Nora provided three different recipes so no need for me to type it down again (I chose Maggie Beers' version with some lemon juice added and some garlic rubbed onto the sourdough bread after toasting - lovely!). I'd rather tell you about the sourdough bread that was just baking away when I read about how to use it for dinner..;-)

Light Rye Sourdough Bread

The ingredients

250g water
360g white sourdough, 100% hydration
300g bread flour
100g rye flour
100g wholewheat flour
1.5 tsp salt (or a little more than that)
1 tbsp whole caraway seeds

1
I used my breadmaker for mixing the dough and letting it rise. The first rising was about 3 hours (the bread maker provided some warmth during the first hour). At the end of the rising time, the dough had a bit more than doubled.

2
Take the dough out of the bread maker and turn onto a lightly floured work surface. I treated it to a round of stretch&fold (for a stronger texture) and then shaped it into a round loaf.

3
Place the loaf seam side-up into a floured proofing basket (or a bowl lined with a floured tea towel). Cover and let rise until well doubled in size. This took roughly 2.5 hours. To be sure, make a light dent into to the surface of the loaf. As soon as the dough doesn't spring back completely and still shows a little dent, the loaf is ready for baking.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven with a baking sheet or pizza stone to 220 degrees Celsius (I usually use the highest setting available as I will always lose some heat during steaming).

4
Carefully unmold the loaf onto a bread peel or an upturned baking sheet (covered with parchment paper or sprinkled with cornmeal). Slash in a criss-cross pattern.
Let the loaf glide onto the hot baking sheet/pizza stone and quickly shut the door. Open once more and splash a cup of water onto the bottom of the oven - be aware of the hot steam! Again, quickly shut the door to keep heat and moisture in.

5
Bake at 220 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes. Then change to 200 degrees fan-bake for a further 15 minutes. The fan will get the remaining moisture out of the oven for a crisper crust. If you want a thicker crust, bake a little longer at 220 degrees before changing to fan-bake.

6
Let the loaf cool completely on a rack before slicing.

The source
Inspired by Dan Lepard's Barley and Rye Bread

Starting allover again...

2008-08-30T04:51:00.003+10:00

It´s all so quiet around here... The reason for this is the fact that I will remember 2008 as "the big wedding year"... About ten days ago, I´ve arrived in Germany, went straight to another friend´s wedding and have been preparing my own, second wedding since then. After the first, rather home-made affair in Australia - this is going to be the full shebang with church, lots of family and friends, and - of course - loads of food and wine!

Luckily, most of the preparations have been taken care of by my parents - thank goodness - so things aren´t quite as crazy around here as one might imagine otherwise. Still, there´s plenty of stuff to do and I won´t be blogging very much until it´s all over. Well, who would have thought...

To top it all off, my husband and I will be attending another friend´s wedding before finally heading home again. And we haven´t even been able to go to all the weddings in Australia and Germany we have been invited to this year!

I wish you all a great time and hope to return to blogging as soon as normal life kicks in again!

BBD#12 - Small Breads

2008-08-01T22:28:00.000+10:00

No, I did not throw my wildly growing sprouts into these bread rolls. Although I admit that I was mightily tempted..;-) However, with friends coming over for dinner the other night, I didn't reckon that I should subject them to an experiment with - at best - questionable outcome.

Oh well, I will come up with something eventually. But this time, I decided to rather go with the recipe of a trustworthy blogger. Having seen intricately shaped sacaduros ages ago at Chili&Ciabatta (and always wanting to make them) plus another deadline coming up all to soon - I was set for another installment of Zorra's Bread Baking Day: Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen had chosen "Small Breads" as her topic. Bread Rolls is something I make far too rarely, so I was pretty happy about this theme!

Alas, as you can see, they don't quite look like Petra's. Due to work, I needed to make the rolls the evening before and rewarm them right before dinner. That's why I decided to leave out the crucial ingredient, stupid me.

When shaping sacaduros, you put a cube of butter with a little flaky salt into the middle and fold thin strips of dough over it. While baking these strips partly unfold and get all nice and crispy, thus revealing their buttery innards. However, I was afraid that it would get all soggy when rewarmed and decided to leave out the butter. Without it, the sacaduros unfortunately turned out rather flat.

On the positive side, I was really pleased with my combination of bread flour and 70 grams of spelt flour for a hearty but still refined flavour.

And in case you're interested, that's what we were using the bread rolls for: mopping up the juices from salmon and vegetable parchment parcels. Made with lemon juice and white wine, there was a lot of nice broth to mop up!

PS: As you know by now, blogging deadlines are not my forte (probably because all my energy is used up meeting professional deadlines...ok, no more excuses). Anyway, today is the national day of Switzerland, and Zorra, missing her homeland, has asked to cook something red, white, or Swiss to celebrate the day. Dutifully, I made rice pudding with canned cherries this week - and took horrible photos of the rather nice rice pudding. That's why I'm posting an old and never published photo of an equally tasty but ultimately more photogenic rice pudding. Enjoy, Zorra!

Sprouting out of Control

2008-07-27T09:43:00.001+10:00

Help! A foreign life-form is taking over my fridge! It might be only a matter of days until it bursts out of the container and decides to invade the next shelf. I don't know what to do with these little critters but still can't make myself throw away something that looks so decidedly alive. Didn't dare opening the lid though - you never know what you might unleash...

It all started with Zorra's Bread Baking Day #11 which made us sprout seeds or grains. At first, I wasn't sure if my rye berries would sprout at all. Then I forgot about the deadline of the event and suddenly these little critters looked like this. I suspected they had started to get mouldy but when inspecting the photos a bit more thoroughly, it just looked like little hairs growing along the sprouts.

With a lot of work looming on the horizon and no idea if the sprouts were still edible or not, I just put them back into the fridge. Being a freelance journalist, I was so busy preparing for and then writing about World Youth Day in Sydney that I again forgot about this little project (sadly, this seems to be a reoccurring theme these days). Now, the last pilgrims have left Australia and these sprouts are still inhabiting my fridge. And I'm still at a loss what to do with them...

Sprouted Rye Berries or how to forget about a deadline

2008-07-07T11:28:00.007+10:00

Sorry - I know this photo is anything but mouth-watering... However, it shows my first ever attempt at sprouting grains. Thanks to this helpful fellow food blogger, I got some much needed advise on this topic. Unfortunately, due to a work project I completely forgot about the little buggers - until they looked like that.

Having first worried about my rye berries not wanting to sprout at all, they obviously proved me wrong about their ability to jump to life when watered. Little did I know that they would even continue to sprout when placed in a dry container in the fridge. By then, the deadline to this food blog event was almost over and I wasn't sure at all if these little guys were still edible. Frankly, this whole sprouting business is still a bit of a mystery to me... However, if you want to learn more about it, have a look at this!

In the end, I decided to give last month's Bread Baking Day a miss - sorry Zorra - but do check all the truly brave bakers who conquered the topic, sprouting and all! I'll be back with the July edition that doesn't scare me half as much as the last one! Maybe I'll finally learn how to bake perfectly crusty bread rolls!

Buttermilk Cake with White Chocolate and Dried Apricots

2008-06-27T18:47:00.000+10:00

Here comes another quick treat with the potential to brighten up a rainy weekend (unfortunately a regular occurrence during winter in Sydney). Basically it's the lucky result after trying to make the best use of a couple of leftovers: A few weeks ago, I had lots of buttermilk after this kitchen project, lots of white chocolate after this daunting affair, plus the weak resolve not to eat too heavy a cake this weekend...

After a quick online research, I used Orangette's version of a buttermilk cake to start out with. The major change was cutting down on the sugar and using more flour and buttermilk at the expense of the butter. Of course I knew that with all my tinkering, the white chocolate would still make for ample richness.

I'm not very experienced in baking with white chocolate and didn't know what to expect. However, this cake exceeded all expectations and proved to be really moreish for everyone who took part in devouring it. The biggest surprise were the white chocolate bits that had touched the pan during baking: They turned into caramelized, crispy, brown bits that were the best part of the cake!

Buttermilk Cake with White Chocolate and Dried Apricots

The ingredients

70g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g granulated sugar
pinch of salt
1 vanilla sugar
3 large eggs
200g unbleached all-purpose flour
½ sachet baking powder (about 1 tsp)
125ml buttermilk
150g dried apricots, chopped
Lots of white chocolate, cut into chunks (at least 150g)

1
Briefly rehydrate apricots in a splash of boiling water. Meanwhile, cream butter with sugar, vanilla sugar, and salt.

2
Add eggs one by one, mixing well in between.

3
On low speed, mix in flour and baking powder. Slowly add buttermilk - the exact amount might vary according to the size of your eggs. The texture of the batter should neither be liquid nor too stiff (I hope that makes sense...).

4
Drain apricots and fold in. Fold in half of the white chocolate. Scrape batter into prepared baking tin, 24 cm in diameter). Sprinkle remaining chocolate on top.

5
Fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius until golden on top and a wooden skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (30-40 minutes).

The source
Loosely based on Orangette's Buttermilk Cake

The hint
I've also made this cake with fresh or tinned fruit instead of the apricots and white chocolate. Whitout chocolate, this cake is wonderfully light and fluffy - and finally counts as diet food which is not a bad thing in this particular case. However, this version is best eaten on the day it is made. Otherwise you could restore moistness by brushing it with a little syrup.

Ideas with Quark

2008-06-23T16:53:00.005+10:00

I guess it's time to see what I do with all the quark I've been making recently... The following isn't so much a recipe but rather an idea that might lead you to think up your own instant dessert. During one of the previous weekends, the urge to have a little sweet bite after dinner was positively unbearable, and I remembered having some chocolate shortbread dough and raspberries in the freezer plus newly made quark in the fridge. Dessert was only a matter of minutes.

I lined my muffin pan with small sheets of baking paper and the dough and (after a brief stint in the fridge) baked it at 175 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven (not fan-forced). Baking time varies according to size. However, once the pastry looses its shine, it's partially cooked so I then gave it another 5 minutes. Of course, these little tartelettes benefit from blind-baking but I simply poked them with a fork to deflate. Almost as pretty..;-)

Whilst the tartelette cases cooled down, I selected a few nice big raspberries to thaw on a paper towel. The others went onto the stove and got cooked with sugar and a splash of white wine to release their juices. One teaspoon of cornstarch, dissolved in some white wine for thickening. And one tablespoon of cointreau to accentuate the fruity taste.

The raspberries filling went into the tartelette cases first, then the quark filling on top. It's not quite stiff enough to allow for proper piping so you might want to add some gelatin. I ended up with the Leaning Tower of Pisa but who cares anyway.
This filling actually benefits from sitting in the fridge for a day to allow the flavours to mellow. When filled the tartelettes will hold up nicely for a couple of hours but we were too greedy to wait very long..;-)

Maybe you want to give these little tartelettes a try during the next weekend? I imagine the quark filling will pair well with any kind of berry or poached fruit combined with plain, chocolate, or a nutty shortbread base.

PS: Due to a lucky coincidence in topic, I just realized that I'm able to participate with my tartelettes in this month's "Waiter, there's something in my... Berried Treasure!" hosted by Cooksister. Well, quark in my case..;-) If you happen to make something berry-related, there's still time to take part in this event!

Chocolate Shortbread Tartelettes with Quark and Raspberry Filling

The ingredients

100g quark
100g fat-reduced cream cheese
1 tbsp fat-reduced cream
1 tbsp cointreau
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
More sugar according to taste

Mix everything together and sweeten to taste. It will be thick but not stiff.

(You see I tried to make a slightly healthy-version that luckily tasted just as delicious as its fatty cousin. However, if you're not trying to shed a few grams, don't hold yourself back!)

200g frozen raspberries
splash of white wine
sugar to taste
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cointreau

The yield

This filling is enough for four muffin-pan-sized tartelettes.

The source

My own invention

Making my own Quark - finally!

2008-06-11T10:36:00.007+10:00

For all my constant whinging about not having German-style quark at my disposal, it has taken only about two and a half years to finally make my own. As usual, once you've started a new kitchen project that turned out much easier than you'd ever thought, you end up asking yourself why on earth... Well, no matter what, all my thanks go to Nora who gave the necessary cheese cloth to me (and it still took me a couple of months)!

Now, however, I definitely caught the quark-bug - pretty much every week since the first time, there's a big jar of milk sitting on my kitchen counter - slowly turning itself into something delicious...

After looking around online for a while, I found this recipe which seemed to be the easiest one. Indeed, all you have to do is throwing the two ingredients together, wait for two days, heat it up a little and then let it drain. Voila, there's no more quark deprivation in this household!

The resulting quark can be used for this cake, or this cake, or maybe this cake... Or add some whipped cream and macerated berries... Or make quark souffles... Or simply use it in place of butter on toast with honey or jam... Its tangy taste will cut down the sweetness of regular desserts ever so slightly, giving it a new dimension in taste without turning it into something too tart. The possibilities are endless!

PS: You will also get a lot of whey that shouldn't go down the drain. After all, it's got all the good stuff in it, calcium, vitamins, you name it. So far, I've mainly used it in place of water when bread baking. However, I'm also planning on trying some of these super-healthy whey drinks. Apparently they're not considered yummy but I want to find out for myself.

Homemade Quark (Curd)

The ingredients

1 litre milk (whole milk or fat-reduced, long-life works as well)
60g buttermilk

equipment:
big jar with lid
fine-meshed sieve (with a hook to rest on a bowl)
cheese cloth
big salad bowl

1
Pour the buttermilk into the jar, followed by the milk (this way, you don't even have to stir it). Cover with lid and let stand at room temperature for 48 hours. The milk will have gotten thick earlier than that but I usually let it sit for full two days.

2
Heat the buttermilk-milk mixture for 1.5 to 2 hours to a temperature of 30-35 degrees Celsius. (This is roughly body temperature, to check without a thermometer simply stick your - washed - finger in and judge by yourself.)

For this step, I use my oven. However, it's pretty off and I have to use the fan-bake setting at 75 degrees Celsius to get the desired temperature - that's why you should check.

After that time, the whey should have separated from the curds and will partly float as a yellowish-greenish liquid on top.

3
Line the sieve with a cheese cloth (I use mine folded four times) and hang it on top of the bowl. There should be at least 5 centimeters of space between the bottom of the sieve and the bottom of the bowl.

Carefully pour the thickened milk into the lined sieve (it'll splatter) and let drain for 2-4 hours - depending on how firm you want the curd to be. In case it's too dry, simply stir back in some of the whey from the bowl.

4
Refrigerate curd and whey. Use within 5 days.

The source
www.marions-kochbuch.de

Best Brioche ever…

2008-05-31T00:00:00.009+10:00

…says Melissa of Traveler’s Lunchbox. And I can’t tell you how right she is. When I saw her recipe for the first time – in August 2006 – I knew I had to make it some day. Due to its rather elaborate nature…well, let’s not make excuses. Fact is that this particular recipe sounded so promising that it would pop up in my memory every now and then, reminding me of “You need to make this”. And this can’t be said of all the recipes I’ve saved over the years.

I’ve always been in love with all sorts of yeast dough, especially when having it for breakfast with a thick smear of butter and creamy honey on top. Funny enough, until today I had never made a real brioche. However, a similar breakfast treat always was kind of a by-product when churning out trays full of sweat yeast dough covered in fruit and streusel.

Only once per year we would eat something bakery-bought that’s similar to brioche – it’s called “Spitzl”, a regional specialty known only in the Upper Palatinate (of course, this is a severe case of "same same but different" as these kinds of sweet yeast bread exist allover Europe - but let's not digress). The sweet yeast bread I'm talking about is rich, soft, and speckled with raisins. It's traditionally a present from godfather or godmother to their respective godchild given on All Saints’ Day. Naturally, the one who got the longest braid (up to a meter or so) would have the coolest godmother or godfather of all.

Whilst I wouldn’t say that the taste of these braids surpassed the flavour of our home-made goods, they had one big advantage: Their texture was singularly beautiful – when pulling apart or biting into it, the bread would separate into long strands rather than small crumbs. For some reason that was unknown to me back then, I was never able to achieve this superior texture when baking at home.

Hence my enthusiasm when I saw Melissa's recipe claiming to have solved the mystery. I followed her instructions to the t which resulted in the most shiny, satiny, velvety smooth, and super-elastic yeast dough I’ve ever made. By the way, her technique of browning the butter with the specks of two vanilla beans filled the entire kitchen with such an enticing smell that I could hardly hold myself back - all I wanted was diving right into that perfumed butter, with a big spoon, that's how good it was.

Luckily, I managed not to do anything silly and, the next day, pulled two shiny, golden brown loaves out of the oven. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me and had to wait a day before taking pictures. As Melissa says, the brioche is best eaten on the day it is made, and the texture will change with time. That's why the photo above doesn't really show these sublime strands of dough anymore. But I swear they were there - just go and try for yourself!

PS: Although this brioche isn't my regular breakfast fare, I wish it was and that's why I submit it to Bread Baking Day #10 - a food blogging event invented by Zorra and this month hosted by BakingASweetLife.

Daring Bakers do Opera Cake...

2008-05-29T00:10:00.006+10:00

...even if it doesn't look like one... Finally, I've been able to participate once again in one of the Daring Bakers' Challenges - and what a challenge! This time, it wasn't nothing less than the classic opera cake that we had to try our hands on. Usually I would shy away from butter cream laden desserts, however, when I saw this challenge I knew instantly who to feed it to. This month, my now-husband was finishing the four-year trial called PhD and I had planned on baking cake for his research lab to eat after the public thesis defence. This super rich recipe seemed to be exactly the thing if you want to feed loads of people (but to be sure I made a red wine dark chocolate cake as well - these engineers can eat a lot).

I started with the joconde two days before - after all, I couldn't risk running late and keeping him awake while trying to finish it. The recipe worked like a charm and now I know which one to choose if I ever try again to make a Swiss roll (my one and only attempt resulted in a totally broken sponge base). The only tricky part was dividing the batter evenly as I didn't have two baking sheets. If trying again, I would probably try to get this unbelievable elastic joconde even thinner for three layers.
To moisten, I used a cointreau-flavoured syrup following the Daring Bakers' recipe.

For the filling I wanted to make a Swiss meringue butter cream, simply because I don't own a sugar thermometer and this variation seemed to be the easiest of butter creams. Luckily, again with a little cointreau as flavouring, it also turned out to be the tastiest butter cream I've ever had (and I normally don't like any of them). This recipe was easy to follow and easy to scale down to 20 per cent which all went on the first layer.

Although I would never want to eat white chocolate on its own, I love white chocolate mousse and the one from the Daring Bakers' recipe was no exception. I doubled the original amounts and used it all to cover the whole cake. As my filling to cake ratio was a bit off the mark, I decided to only pipe some of the white chocolate glaze on top instead of covering the cake or it would have been too sweet for me (besides, my glaze turned out rather stiff anyway).

Only much later (and despite reading the recipe several times) it dawned on me why my concoction wasn't looking like an opera cake at all - I had forgotten to cut the joconde properly to make a smaller cake with three layers! Too bad but I know that I wouldn't have been able to cut dainty, slim slices anyway. While cutting away, T was being questioned by his reviewers and although I was sure that he would pass the whole thing splendidly (which he did), I was the nervous one of us both (so nervous in fact that I couldn't get a decent photo). Well, better this way than the other way round...

Anyway, everyone loved this opera cake despite its homely appearance. Here you can see what it should have been looking like. Check out the recipe at the host's and the two co-hosts' blogs as well as the results of all the Daring Bakers members! This month's DB edition is dedicated to Barbara of Winos and Foodies and her event The Taste of Yellow in order to promote Lance Armstrong's LiveSTRONG foundation - that's why we changed from the traditional coffee-dark-chocolate opera to this light-coloured version!

My first wedding..;-)

2008-05-24T12:54:00.012+10:00

Ok, I freely admit that it took only two requests for me to gladly display some of my wedding photos. It's already one month later and I still can't wipe this big smile off my face..;-)

The only drawback was that none of our families could come down under. However, we'll have another - bigger - church wedding back in Germany in a couple of months. Therefore, with only a couple of close friends, this celebration was quite different from your regular wedding (if there's such a thing at all). I simply loved its hand-made, improvised feel.

Originally we had planned to get married directly on the beach so we booked holiday houses in a lovely small town called Copacabana Beach up the Central Coast. However, due to this year's rather cold and rainy autumn in Australia, the place didn't quite live up to its name and we opted for a more sheltered spot at the local lagoon. It still provides you with a view of the beach and plus the added benefit of an awesome sunset over the lagoon - if you're lucky, that is. Alas, the weather held up only for as long as we were posing for the formal shots. Just before the ceremony was about to start, we again had to swap locations - and the whole bridal party simply jumped the fence (ok, it was only a little wall, about one foot high) that surrounded the veranda of a nearby empty holiday house (we did knock on the window to check though). This lovely veranda provided a roof so we stayed all dry and could have some Sparkling Shiraz while listening to a saxophone player as planned.
We have no clue on whose property we got married in the end but we plan to go back there one day and rent this rather lovely house for an anniversary weekend...

But maybe now I should start from the beginning as our wedding was the affair of a whole weekend: We wanted to get away from Sydney to a more secluded spot and quickly decided on a full weekend - to make it worth it. T and I arrived on the Friday afternoon in Copacabana Beach, frantically collecting keys for three houses and just making it in time to our rehearsal with the marriage celebrant. Then our guests started to trickle in and the celebration began already, fuelled by a whole vat of home brewed beer courtesy of our friends George and Nadia. I kept running back and forth to accommodate all our 30 guests in the different places, we cooked loads of spaghetti to feed everyone - and then I decided that I need to relax and went back to the house I was sleeping in. My friends Romina and Nora took care that I started to relax by giving me a foot massage and hot milo as a night cap - aaahhh, I could have that everyday...

The next day, whilst most of our guests explored the area, went for a run along the beach or simply chilled out, I set to work to assemble the wedding cake, a Black Forest Cake. I had made the genoise two days in advance but it still took me a while to make syrup, cherry filling, and cover it all in whipped cream - I'm certainly no good at cake decorating. Anyway, after that was done, it was time to slow down, let the hair dresser do her thing and have a sip of champagne with my girlfriends. And in case anyone wondered - I did eat something during my wedding day..;-)

In fact, I managed to stay calm most of the time - until about five minutes before T was about to pick me up. What if he didn't like the way I looked (admittedly quite different from my everyday look)? Wouldn't that spoil the whole day or maybe even make him change his mind - well, luckily I only had a couple of minutes to spend on such nonsense... Of course it was all good, and when walking towards the location of our wedding, we had the rare sensation of practically everyone, regardless of age, looking at us, cheering and waving. The people in Copacabana Beach were so nice; some even offered us a ride in their car as it had started to drizzle.

Luckily, our friend Alex who took the official photos, managed to get lots of wonderful shots before it started to rain in earnest. And with a little spontaneity, all was fine and the wedding could go ahead. Afterwards we went back to the biggest of our three houses where the reception was being held. More sparkling red was drunk, lots of nibbles were eaten, and several speeches were given which made this occasion even a little more special for us. Then the main course (different spit roasts, roast vegetables, salads, and jacket potatoes) was being served by the caterer (food was a little so-so, unfortunately, we weren't able to taste-test beforehand and had to trust a recommendation). However, for a sweet-tooth like me this was all being eclipsed by the wedding cake anyway..;-)

The big advantage of a small wedding is that you really get to speak to your guests - so we talked, and ate, and drank until the wee hours of morning. The next day, T and I slept in whilst our guests took care of cooking a big Aussie breakfast on the BBQ for everyone. Then we all helped together to clean-up and the guests started to depart one by one. T and I spent the afternoon with a few friends in one of the surrounding national parks and then headed back to Sydney for a quiet end to our eventful wedding weekend.

I often wondered what would be different after getting married - if anything would change or nothing at all. Meanwhile, my life has gone back to normal but so far, the marital bliss hasn't worn out yet!

PS: Many thanks to my parents who made it possible for us to have not only one wedding but two!

PPS: Several people tried to count afterwards - I think the most reliable number was 30 guests representing 11 different nations (and that's not counting in all the Aussies with mixed parentage) - a lovely mixed crowd - and that's really what Australia stands for, in my eyes!

Time to change...

2008-05-17T13:01:00.010+10:00

... and to catch up on homework - to say the least! Whilst I'm busy pondering about how to give this blog a different look before (hopefully) resuming my usual blogging routine, it's high time that I display all the wonderful badges I've been given over the last few months! This post is going to get a permanent home in the sidebar under "Fame and (no) Fortune".

Just around the time when my blog turned one year old, I got this wonderful birthday present: My dear friend and fellow blogger Nora of Life's Smorgasbord awarded me this yummy badge for being a 'droolworthy blogger'. Thank you, Nora!

Only a little later, I was thrilled to win in several categories of Jugalbandi's Click event: My photo of floating noodles won in 'originality', made the overall second place, and got the much appreciated readers' choice award. I couldn't have been happier about the outcome!

Earlier this year, Margot of Coffee&Vanilla nominated me for the 'inspiring food photography' award, and lucky me - I won the public online poll! Now I can proudly display this lovely badge, makes me want to start baking right now..;-)

Around the same time, I was lucky enough to win one of the host awards at the DoesMyBlogLookGoodInThis competition. Jennifer of Bake or Break liked my soft pretzels, and I'm so glad she did! I just hope to bake more, photograph more, and blog more, so I can enter this amazing competition again.

And last but not least, it's time to proudly display my Daring Baker's badge - check out the amazing number of daring bakers worldwide!

I need to take a break...

2008-03-24T04:52:00.005+11:00

...as you might have guessed by now..:-(

The final weeks before my (first) wedding are full with all sorts of things but not much that involves cooking or baking. Therefore, after neglecting this blog for so long (and feeling really bad about it), I thought I rather let you know why. And I promise to come back on a regular basis once all the excitement is over. Hoping that you will come back, too...

PS: This isn`t me - I just took the photo of a dear friend who got married recently.

PPS: Just to clarify - I have no intentions of marrying someone else after the "first" wedding, it´s just that we´ll be celebrating twice in two different countries..;-)

Yes, my blog looks good in this!

2008-03-10T20:39:00.007+11:00

Folks, I'm feeling a tiny little bit ashamed to put up another post full of self-praise instead of showing wonderful creations coming out of my kitchen. However, let's face it, there isn't much coming out of my kitchen at the moment apart from sandwiches and the odd soup for a bit more sustenance. Considering these culinary deprived times, I'm all the more happy to announce that I've won one of the host's awards at this February's DoesMyBlogLookGoodInThis!

My thanks go to host Jennifer of Bake or Break - I feel very honoured to get this much sought-after badge! Check out her round-up to see more droolworthy pics. Click here to see all the pictures submitted this month. If you'd like to participate next time, Sabra of CookbookCatchall not only is the overall winner but also the host of the March edition.

And in case you're getting a sudden craving for soft pretzels, here's how to make them!

I am inspiring!

2008-03-06T10:27:00.005+11:00

Sounds weird, I know - but I can't help it, I'm so happy about winning the February edition of Margot's food photography contest over at Coffee&Vanilla! Especially with two other very worthy contestants, I wasn't at all sure that I would make it.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me! It's really appreciated! Sometimes, not everything in life works out as planned so getting such a wonderful and totally unexpected surprise is just great!

Thanks to Margot for nominating me and, of course, organizing the event in the first place! Have a look who the nominees for the March edition are and start voting!

PS: Sorry for putting this up so late - instead of myself, I'm blaming a laptop that drives me crazy and life in general...

Focaccia - at last

2008-02-29T17:28:00.011+11:00

Focaccia isn't known as the most complicated bread recipe in the world. Maybe that's the reason why it took me a long time to try for myself. What could possibly go wrong with a straight yeast dough baked on a sheet until golden-brown and crispy? Well, a lot - as I had to find out a couple of months ago. Despite following the recipe of a well-trusted online source to the letter including an overnight rest in the fridge, my focaccia was rather bland with a weird texture and a weird look to it, too.

Not wanting to admit defeat, I decided to forget about this project unti I read the announcement for Bread Baking Day #7 over at Chili&Ciabatta: With the chosen topic of flatbreads, I suddenly felt the urge to redeem myself. And with "The Italian Baker" by Carol Field freshly borrowed from the library, it almost seemed like a hint of fate.

Luckily, this time everything went well and I can report that making focaccia isn't going to give me doubts about my bread baking abilities anymore. Carol Field's recipe yields a tender and crusty focaccia that is perfect for picnics and should you happen to have leftovers, it also makes a very good pappa al pomodoro.
However, I still don't know why it didn't work out the first time...

PS: I so want to participate in Bread Baking Day #7 - a food blogging event created by Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte - but as I'm already far too late, we'll see if Petra can still add me to her round-up...

Herbed Focaccia

The ingredients

2 1/2 active dry yeast or 18g fresh yeast
1/4 cup warm water for dissolving the yeast
2 1/4 cups plus 1-2 tbsp water, at room temperature
2 tbsp olive oil
1kg bread flour
1 tbsp or 15g salt

For the topping:
olive oil, coarse sea salt, herbs

The yield
Makes enough dough for two baking sheets (not completely covered with dough) or three big round focacce

1
Stir active dry yeast into warm water to dissolve. Let stand for 10 minutes.

2
Using a big bowl and a wooden spoon, mix all the ingredients together but hold back a little of the water to adjust dough consistency. The dough will come together as a lumpy mass.

3
Depending on your preferences, either lightly oil or flour your work surface and knead the dough 8 to 10 minutes until velvety and soft. I like to give the dough a 20 minutes break in the middle with shortens the kneading time quite a bit.

4
To test if the gluten is properly developped, I do my own kind of windowpane test. Similar to shaping a pizza, I hold up the dough ball and let it stretch over my hands mainly due to its own weight while rotating it a little bit. That way, the dough gets stretched gently until you can really look through it.
The regular way of doing a windowpane test is pulling off a piece and stretching that until it ressembles a thin sheet of dough. That way, my dough always tears, no matter how long I've kneaded it.

5
For the first rise, put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with foil, and let rise until doubled (1.5 hours).

6
Cut the dough into how many pieces of focaccia you want to make and gently stretch them to cover your prepared baking sheets. Cover the dough with kitchen towels or foil to prevent it from drying out and let rest for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile you can prepare herbed olive oil by heating oil and your favourite mix of fresh or dried herbs until warm. Do not let it come to a boil. Let the herbs steep until you're ready to top your flatbreads.

7
Dimple the dough with your fingertips. These little dips will hold the pools of olive oil, herbs, and salt during the bake. Cover again and let rise until doubled (2 hours).

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, preferably using a baking stone.

8
Using a pastry brush, top the focaccia with (herbed) olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Put into the hot oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. During the first 5 minutes, splash water on the bottom to create steam.

The source
Adapted from Carol Field: The Italian Baker

The hint
If you have to bake both baking sheets at once, make sure to switch them around after half of the baking time is over. Baking several sheets at once without using the fan-bake option isn't ideal though. If one of your focacce doesn't brown well, you can use the grill for the last one or two minutes but you'll have to watch it closely. Otherwise the thinner parts will get very dark very quickly...

Daring Bakers: A Tribute to Julia Child

2008-02-29T17:23:00.008+11:00

It's time for another Daring Bakers' Challenge - this time, just reading the recipe proved to be a real challenge: To reproduce Julia Child's version of French Bread, you have to work your way through not one or two but a staggering 15 pages. Making the bread was a lengthy process, too, that required three rising times. That said, the recipe wasn't difficult at all and the result was well worth the effort. Due to a rather frantic schedule, I made it quite a while ago knowing that there wouldn't be any time for baking adventures later in the month. That hasn't changed yet (not much cooking and even less blogging going on here at the moment as you might have noticed), so please forgive me if I keep this one short. (There's even another bread baking event closing tomorrow where I've participated but nothing's posted yet...)

I'm really glad that our hosts, Breadchick and Sara, chose this particular recipe. Otherwise, I would never have known that simple all-purpose flour makes for such a lovely loaf! What impressed me the most was its keeping quality: Even with no pre-ferment or sourdough involved, it still tasted perfect after two days. I think one of the two loafs made it to a fourth day or so, got turned into toast, and then his life span was definitely over. Despite the long time from start to finish, the recipe doesn't require a lot of work and I quite enjoyed the long kneading time. Usually, I would stop in between and give the dough a rest which shortens the kneading time quite a bit.

I thoroughly enjoyed this bread - keep those bread challenges coming!

You can check out the recipe here and don't forget to visit all (ok, some of the 500something) of the Daring Bakers as well as our non-blogging members.

A Heart for my Valentine... or two

2008-02-15T18:02:00.003+11:00

Celebrating Valentine's Day is not considered a German tradition. In recent years, it seems to have caught on a bit but you probably won't see many of the last-minute, rose-buying, desperate-feeling boyfriends storming into a flower shop. Whilst I understand that many men think it ridiculous to buy completely overpriced stuff just because it's the 14th of February, I still think it's never too late to have a bit more romance in your life!

When I saw Zorra's announcement of A Heart for Your Valentine , I knew that I had to participate. With my boyfriend coming from the Black Forest Area, I also knew instantly what to make for him. The only problem, I didn't have any kirsch which is more or less the crucial ingredient for a proper Black Forest Cake. However, love is all about ignoring little imperfections, right..;-)

With only a cookie cutter in heart-shape, this black forest cake comes in very small portions but it's entirely up to you how many you'll eat...

Zorra is posting the round-up continuously in two parts, so check-out all the wonderful heart-shaped creations!

Black Forest Cake

The ingredients

6 eggs, separated
pinch of salt
175g caster sugar
90g butter
140g dark chocolate, in pieces
150g flour
1 tsp baking powder (optional)
vanilla (optional)

For assembly:
canned cherries (I like to use the juice, too, slightly thickened with cornstarch, and a hint of cinnamon)
whipped cream, sweetened to taste with vanilla sugar

optional:
kirsch for dousing the cake
chocolate shavings

1
Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (no fan-bake).

2
Melt the butter. Once the butter isn't bubbling anymore, add chocolate. Stir until chocolate is melted and evenly combined. Let cool until lukewarm but still liquid.

3
Using a heatproof bowl resting on a hot water bath, beat egg yolks and sugar until pale, creamy and voluminous. This will take a couple of minutes.

4
Using another bowl and clean beaters, beat egg whites with salt until soft peaks form.

5
Sift the flower and baking powder (if using) onto the foamy egg yolks. Pour the chocolate-butter mixture on top. Do not mix at this stage.

6
Add one third of the meringue and stir in to lighten the batter. Lightly fold in the remaining meringue.

7
Pour into a baking pan (26 cm in diametre or a baking sheet) that's buttered only at the bottom. To be safe, use baking paper, too. Bake immediately. A round cake takes roughly 35 minutes, a sheet cake a bit shorter. The cake is done when the top feels springy. Don't overbake or the cake will dry out.

8
Once cooled, cut out little hearts and assemble or fill one large cake with cherries and cream.

The source
GU: "Die grosse Schule des Backens"

The hint
Some recipes specify that you can also add kirsch to the cream. If you want to really taste the kirsch that way, you'll have to add a lot and I recommend stabilizing the cream with gelatin. Many, many years ago, I added too much kirsch, the cream wouldn't become stiff, I kept beating and ended up with kirsch-flavoured butter...

Sorry!

2008-02-09T11:28:00.001+11:00

Not so sure if I really deserve all your nice comments about being a good BBD-host... After reading Helen's comment, I realized that having two different email accounts merged together also means having two different spam folders that should be checked...
At least there's one good thing about it, the list of BBD#6-entries has grown to a whopping 43 posts. ~~I will add the two new ones asap!~~ Sorry about that!

And here they finally are:

Allie of the world is getting better offers an unusual flavour combination with her Pear Buckwheat Bread. The dried pear pieces are re-hydrated in white wine and toasted walnuts enhance the nutty quality of the buckwheat flavour.

Mary of Shazam in the Kitchen tried her hands on bagels, dipped in a rich seed mixture including caraway, sesame, poppy seeds, garlic, salt and pepper.

I'm really sorry for the long delay, guys!

BBD#6 - The Round-Up - Part Two

2008-02-05T20:04:00.001+11:00

After carefully checking my mailbox, I've found some more entries for BBD#6 - 41 altogether! (Please let me know if I still missed something...) The second part of the BBD#6 has a lot to offer and starts off with something that could well be the inofficial logo of this month's theme:

Bron of Bron Marshall took the theme literally and shaped B R E A D using pretzel dough. Needless to say, her letters look as perfect as her pretzels!

Note: I've got one more entry to add!

If you're looking for a healthy alternative to croissants, head over to Baking History and try her Vienna Rolls! Little dots of cold butter are incorporated into the bread dough and make for a flaky, crusty result.

K of Bread/Pain created Syrian-style twisted cracker rings with a nutty sesame topping.

Wanna see a super-cute chubby turtle made out of bread dough and with chocolate chunk eyes? Head over to Marija of Palachinka!

L of Lemonpi opted for pretzels (a choice I can understand very well!). However, she tried a sweet version from Finnland called Viipurinrinkeli - with such a cute name, it's a must-try!

Bread plaits seem to be by far the most popular bread shape and that's exactly what Marta of Los fogones de mi casa created, using an all-purpose flour based dough.

Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas has a Challah recipe up her sleeve that won't let you down - and with a filling of roasted hazelnuts and nutella, I'm sold!

At first glance, Cakelaw didn't think much of the appearance of her filled bread ring. However, its taste won her over. You simply can't go wrong with ham, eggs, cheese, tomato, and olives!

Same with Pam of Sidewalk Shoes: She wasn't happy with her Apple Challah that lost some of its filling during the bake. But who cares when you have such a nicely browned crust to bite in!

Following an old Italian tradition, Elizabeth of Blog from our Kitchen made Occhi di Santa Lucia - an S-shaped bread. Using her Wild Yeast Bread recipe the result went down a treat with lasagne.

More cute animals! Lien of Notitie van Lien not only made chubby little rabbit who could compete with the turtle over the title of the cutest bread animal ever! Lien also made an alligator who lost its dangerous appearance during baking and turned out to be more like a friendly platypus instead. That was still not enough for this keen shaper, and Lien also made an apricot-filled flower bread. Chapeau!

Kelly of Sass & Veracity also likes the way the Scandinavians make their bread: Check out her Finnish Pulla with cardamom!

Pasticcera/Pastry chef of Bella Baita View now living in Italy, decided to use a traditional Pain de Campagne recipe to shape it into two different kinds of epi de ble. One straight, one round, it's hard to say which one I like better.

Crusty, round, with twisted rays - what could this be? Lynnylu of Cafe Lynnylu created the most awesome Pain du Soleil.

Corum Blog can show off with another flower bread - this time using spelt flower which is a favourite of mine. Using different toppings, everyone can have a petal to his or her liking.

Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups recreated a classic, the famous Parker House Roll. She did give it a new twist, though, using a potato-based dough and lots of seeds.

Karen of Bake my Day gets a perfect crust-to-crumb ratio with her crusty epi de ble. It's time to use the scissors more often...

Susan of Wild Yeast certainly knows a thing or two about bread! If you want to know how to shape a perfect Couronne Bordelaise, head over to her blog. And the best part, you can do it without having to buy expensive equipment!

Pam of The Backyard Pizzeria also likes Italian breads: Her pane siciliano is s-shaped and of a lovely golden colour - thanks to semolina flour.

Holly of PheMOMenon stays true to the name of her blog and comes up with a truly phenomenal Kolach. If you like the flavours of orange, pecan, and chocolate, this sweet bread is for you!

For a cinnamon addict like me, these beautifully slashed cinnamon rolls are the perfect afternoon treat! Arden of In the Kitchen with Arden, could you please send me some...?

And last, but not least, there's the Swedish Tea Ring of Tartelette! In fact, she forgot to email me but as I'm checking her blog quite frequently, I was very pleased to see this yummy creation and it shall not go unnoticed!

PS: These are my BBD#6 creations! But you must excuse me for now, I need to get baking...

BBD#6 - The Round-Up - Part One

2008-02-02T18:10:00.001+11:00

Lots of people have been baking and shaping in the last few weeks and I must say it was a real pleasure seeing so many wonderful creations for Bread Baking Day #6 trickle into my mailbox. I received 35 entries from allover the world - thanks to Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte who created this popular food blogging event.

Now I'm absolutely spoiled for choice: Which one of these elaborate sweet and savoury breads should I try to recreate first..? I'm sure you'll see some of these recipes pop up on this blog in the course of the next few months and I hope that you will do just the same. The idea of sharing bread with friends and family is well-known allover the world and sharing bread recipes comes pretty close! There are many variations of braided bread, lots of unusual folding has been done, and even several inhabitants of the animal kingdom made it into this round-up!

The entries will appear in the order of arrival in my mailbox. To avoid an overly long post - and to draw more attention to each creation - I'll be splitting the round-up into two posts. The next one will come up very soon!

Meanwhile I'm looking forward to finding out what the theme of BBD#7 is going to be. Head over to the next host, Petra of Chili & Ciabatta, she'll reveal the secret on February 6!

Nora of Life's Smorgasbord opted for the ever so popular braided loaf: Her version uses potato for a tender texture. A little sugar turns this shiny loaf into a real tea time treat!

Gretchen of Canela & Comino from is a lucky one: With Challah on her must-try list for 2008, her choice for BBD#6 was obvious. That's how to go about new year's resolutions!

The German-speaking blogger-group Huettenhilfe prepared flatbread with herbs. Slashed in a criss cross pattern, this bread has lots of crusty bits to offer.

Petra from Chili & Ciabatta shares her vast knowledge about bread baking with a whole photo series: Learn how to make her beautifully folded Pan de Hojaldre or Pane Sfogliato!

Katie from Apple & Spice offers another tasty afternoon treat: Her Coffee, Almond, and Choc Chip Braided Bread goes down well with a cup of coffee or tea!

Sarah from What Smells So Good? enters the realm of fairy tales with her edible version of "The Prince and the Pauper": Her breadsticks contain peasant ingredients like rolled oats as well as expensive spices like saffron.

Ever wanted to know how to braid using four instead of three strands? With her poppy seed plait, Ulrike of Kuechenlatein shows you how!

There can never be enough recipes for plaited breads with poppy seeds: Patricia from Technicolor Kitchen presents the Brazilian version of this popular loaf which uses condensed milk - very yummy!

Boaz from Folding Pain took up the challenge and entered two different recipes: His sourdough couronne was wonderful already but his whole wheat stars with dried fruits and oats are absolutely stunning!

Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen shows off with her Bratislava Rolls . Dunking these sweet-filled crescents into a cup of tea is highly recommended!

I don't know how to handle a six-strand braid but Chris from Mele Cotte surly does. His sophisticated Challah is decorated with black and white sesame seeds.

Jenny from I'm hungry enters savoury bread to be pulled apart: With this Garlic and Herb Monkey Bread she won't be hungry any longer!

Aparna from My Diverse Kitchen offers a perfectly shaped Onion Fougasse. Well done!

DoriAnn from Baby Steps made - together with her little helper - not one but three Challahs: with three, five, and six strands!

Judy from Judy's gross eats wanted to come up with something unusual and she did, indeed: Her Colomba die Pasqua turned out beautiful!

BBD-founder Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte decided to shape a bread flower using the especially strong Manitoba flour and pumpkin seeds for decoration. As far as centrepieces go, I definitely prefer edible ones!

Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska: Blogger Laurie beats the cold by making the food of her second home, a Greek island, and tapping on the rich culinary traditions of the region. Check out her Algerian flat bread.

Part Two of the round-up will follow soon!

I've been nominated!

2008-02-02T17:45:00.002+11:00

Folks, I feel very honoured to tell you that I'm amongst the three nominees for the February edition of the "Inspiring Food Photography" award created by Margot of Coffee & Vanilla! Each month, she nominates three bloggers whose food photos she likes (people can also suggest nominees to her); and then everyone can vote using an online poll. That's how it works.

Being in a photography competition with Andrew of SpittonExtra and Joycelyn of Kuidaore probably doesn't make me the most likely winner. However, it would be an outright lie, if I said that you shouldn't vote for me..;-)

BBD#6 - Part Three

2008-01-31T21:35:00.002+11:00

In order not to miss my own deadline, I'm finally posting my main Bread Baking Day #6 event: soft pretzels prepared with a lye solution - the way you get them in Germany! Pretzels are a very popular snack allover my home country - no matter if for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack or dinner. You see, the Germans really like their pretzels. There are many slight, regional differences but for me, a five-star pretzel needs to have a very fine-textured, soft crumb that doesn't dry out easily whilst the surface has to be of a shiny, reddish brown colour and needs to be quite crusty.

Obviously, it's one of the typical things that an ex-pat might miss fairly soon because chances aren't very high to get the real thing anywhere outside of German-speaking countries. Luckily, in case the desire for pretzels becomes overwhelming, there is a German bakery in Sydney where one can get a quick fix. Since living in Australia, I twice tried to reproduce pretzels but both times the results had been only so-so. Fresh from the oven, they had been good enough - however almost anything that comes straight out of the oven usually tastes good.

Where would I get a proper recipe? German baking books seldom provide one as no one I know has ever bothered to make them at home. When reading Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread - A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes", I found out that he actually started his career with making hundreds and thousands of pretzels. So he should know what he was talking about, right? Indeed, he does. Using a preferment not only improves the tastes but also the shelf-life quite dramatically. In contrast to pretzels made with the straight dough method that deteriorated fast once they had cooled down, these pretzels tasted in the evening as good as they had during my lunch break. The only thing that hadn't turned out a 100 percent perfect was the crust. It wasn't quite crusty enough but still well above average.

In case you're not too intimidated by handling a lye solution, please give it a try! It's not at all complicated. Most importantly, never touch the lye with your bare skin and give the kitchen a good airing during and after the process. The biggest problem will be to buy the lye. Pharmacist sell it, however, I've always gotten odd looks for this request - like I'm asking for bomb material. I've also boiled a few pretzels in a baking soda solution which is a common replacement. However, it only produced a slight yellow hue instead of the brown colour and the characteristic taste. Next time, I'll just have to improve the crust and I will hopefully get my perfect pretzel!

Jeffrey Hamelman’s Soft Pretzels

I had to convert the recipe and ended up with slightly odd numbers so don't be put off by that. Regarding the yeast, I used instant dry yeast instead of fresh. For the preferment, I've simply used a light sprinkle of yeast. If unsure, you can use a little more than that. The time to ferment will be shortened but if retarding the dough anyway, this should not impart the overall flavour.

Preferment
72g bread flour
47g water
1.5g salt
0.01g fresh yeast

Final Dough
290g bread flour
170g water
5.8g salt
7.1g fresh yeast
18g butter, soft
3.6g diastatic malt powder (I substituted a teaspoon of malt syrup)
121g preferment (all of the above)

Makes about 600g of dough (recipe could be doubled).

1
Mix pate fermentee using a wooden spoon. It should have the rather stiff consistency of finished bread dough. Let stand for 12-16 hours at room temperature. When ripe, the preferment should have doomed and just start to recede.

2 Mix the final ingredients for 3 minutes together, and then add the preferment in chunks. It will be fairly stiff. Mix for another 5-6 minutes. The dough should come off the walls of the bowl.

3
Let sit at room temperature for about two hours or until doubled in volume.

4 Divide dough into pieces of roughly 85g. Shape into cylinders and let rest for a few minutes under a cover.

5
Roll into stretches of 40 centimeters in length with the middle slightly thicker. Quickly pick up the pieces and swirl around into pretzels (or simply fold the dough strands around one another). Press ends into dough.
Note: I didn't manage to get my dough strands as long as that and ended up with slightly chubby pretzels.

6
Let proof for 30-45 minutes or until risen to 75 percent. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow a skin to form.
Note: Hamelman suggests that the pretzels can be retarded overnight. To do this, refrigerate after the first 20 minute of proofing. To accomodate my schedule, I decided to retard the finished dough after step 2 instead of the finished pretzels.

7
Prepare 3 percent lye solution: Put a litre of water into a pot, add 30g of lye and bring to a boil.
Note: Use gloves and take care not to get any lye solution onto your skin. Use a slotted spoon for handling the pretzels.

8
Completely submerge pretzels for about 5-10 seconds. Let drain on the slotted spoon and then transfer to the baking sheet. Quickly slash at the thicker part and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Note: If you don't have a very sharp knife for slashing, rather use scissors instead. The cut won't be perfectly straight (as you can see) but that's better than destroying the dough structure.

9
Bake at 450 F/220 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven for 14-16 minutes.

The Source
Jeffrey Hamelman: Bread – A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes

Lemon Meringue Pie - another Daring Bakers' Challenge

2008-01-28T11:56:00.001+11:00

After having missed the Christmas Challenge of the Daring Bakers - Yule Log - I was really looking forward to joining in the fun with a lemon meringue pie. However, this pie almost wasn't meant to be. At least I've learned my lesson - never start a challenge without proper preparation, e.g. checking your pantry...

The day had started off with lots of running around in the quest of the perfect wedding dress. After several days spent with a fruitless search, I am now fully convinced that either you have to be willing to spend an insane amount of money or that you have to have a terrible sense of fashion in order to simplify this matter. Not to speak of the odd looks the shop assistants give you once you mention that you're about to tie the knot in a mere three months. Getting married seems not to be for the spontaneous at heart.

Still cursing under my breath, I set to work. There was no time to lose as this pie was to be eaten with a bunch of friends at an Australia Day bbq later in the day. However, I wasn't off to a good start. For the first time ever, I had run out of all-purpose flour without restocking immediately. And the level of the sugar jar was crucially low, too. Now one might think that simply going to the shops would be the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, a couple of days ago, my handbag got snatched away and I'm still waiting for the replacement bank card to arrive. Meanwhile, I've got to plan ahead and ask my boyfriend for cash after hours. Needless to say, I hadn't been planning ahead and had run out of cash after buying a shirt for him (the only successful thing to come out of my shopping trip).

Thus, things had to be improvised. Feeling a little bad because following the recipe and learning from the experience is the whole reason for our online baking community, I started mixing bread flour, cornstarch, and sifted whole wheat flour - simply hoping for the best. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of sticking the butter into the freezer so it came out of the fridge still somewhat pliable. This made for a relatively soft pastry so I omitted the ice water altogether out of fear ending up with a floury mush instead of proper shortcrust pastry. Prebaking also didn't work that well with some of the pastry sticking to the foil.

Luckily, when attempting the filling, things finally took a turn for the better. The lack of granulated sugar could be helped with an ample supply of icing sugar; and I successfully cooked the lemon-filling on the stove-top. While waiting for crust and filling to cool, I cleaned the kitchen; and then another obstackle turned up - on my doorstep, literally. Despite Australia Day and despite not being announced at all, two builders stood at the front door, demanding to be let in and to repair our smoke alarm. When the alarm had been checked a week earlier, the guy hadn't bothered to mention that there was something wrong with it and that I had to expect builders turn up basically any time. So, whilst they were busy doing whatever they had to do, I finished cleaning, whipped the meringue, finished the pie, started taking pictures, and we all tried not to feel too awkward and not to be in each other's way too much.

Eventually, I finished the pie and it was very well received at the bbq despite the crumbly crust. The lemon filling was very flavourful, not too sweet and not too tart. Right after cooking, it still had a starchy aftertaste but that vanished once fully cooled and set. The meringue held up nicely for a surprisingly long time; and the only thing I have to improve is making a proper crust. To be perfectly honest, however, if pressed for time and in possession of some good-quality lemon curd, I would probably opt for the short cut I did last month: These tartlettes were made with store-bought butter puff pastry and homemade lemon curd. With only the meringue to prepare, the little beauties took only a couple of minutes to make. However, I'm glad that I did the real thing for the first time - thanks to Jen of The Canadian Baker for choosing such a tasty recipe! Check out the results of the other Daring Bakers here!

Note: After comparing my conversion with the ones The Passionate Cook did, I realized that I used only 250g of flour (which explains that there was no need for any ice water) and I used more cornstarch and more lemon juice for the filling. Considering all this conversion trouble, I consider myself lucky that the crumbly crust was the only shortcoming of this challenge..;-)

BBD#6 - Part Two

2008-01-25T18:15:00.002+11:00

In the last few days, I did some more braiding with a simple bread dough (mostly bread flour with a little rye for added flavor) using some overripe sourdough. As I had thought during the first time, braiding with unfilled strands is definitely easier. The strands keep their shape much better that way. However, I realized that the hardest part starts way before the braiding action: It isn't easy at all to get really even strands in the first place as you can see below. I will practice some more during the next weeks but my final contribution to BBD#6 will be different. Just building up the tension..;-)

How not to shoot a hot beverage

2008-01-23T19:07:00.001+11:00

I knew that this was a tricky one. And I was all the more determined to get it right. After scoring in several categories at the November edition of Click! - a food photography competition created by Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi - I am to be one of the judges for the January competition. With lots of plans I set to work. And surrendered after a full hour of rather unsuccessful shooting.

However, at least I learned several things on the way:

1. If you shoot a hot beverage, it should look like that. In my case, the cocoa pretty soon sank to the bottom and a skin formed on top which resulted in some very honest comments of my friends: "murky brown and boring", "looks like it's from yesterday" - well, I'll spare you the rest. Before I'm attempting hot beverages again, I'll have to buy a microwave.

2. If your main actor isn't visually attractive, don't try to pair it up with something that is. Choosing nice Scottish shortbread fingers alongside murky-brown brew is like starring in a movie alongside Julia Roberts.

3. Trying to create a nice atmosphere with several props is a good idea. However, keep in mind that the main focus of the photo needs to be evident at all times. Juggling things around won't help if you're still stuck with problem no. 2.

Luckily, there's still one week left before the competition closes (30 Jan). I'll try some more - meanwhile have a look at some of my failed attempts...

BBD#6 - Part One

2008-01-19T14:04:00.002+11:00

Two weeks have already gone by since my announcement of hosting Bread Baking Day #6 - it's definitely time to get to work! Being the host of the event, I had decided to make several shaped breads (that means at least two if I wasn't to break the promise I only gave to myself). In the German tradition of bread making, my first contribution wouldn't even count as bread as it's something sweet. However, following the tradition of Zorra's Bread Baking Day, one doesn't have to be too strict with oneself, right?

Therefore, I present something I made for the first time ever: "Mohnzopf" - a braided sweet yeast bread filled with a poppyseed mixture (and marzipan, in this case). In the past, I rarely had Mohnzopf at all and if so, it was always bakery-bought. I liked it but never got overly excited about it. Secretly, I always wondered if there really wasn't more to this old German classic than a "that's okay" verdict. However, now I know that this recipe is just another proof of the well-known fact that home-made goods are simply the best! This sweet bread is very substantial but not heavy enough to prevent you from reaching out for seconds, or thirds, or...

But I digress, back to my theme - shaped breads. Plaiting a three-strands braid isn't especially difficult but I found it quite tricky to handle filled and rather heavy strands. Starting off with a very plump braid, the strands got longer and thinner until I could barely fit the whole thing diagonally onto my biggest baking sheet. At least the braid is tapered consistently... However, I'm planning to do something much more elaborate in terms of shaping for Part Two - stay tuned!

Mohnzopf

I've used my favourite sweet yeast dough. For 500g of flour, use only 2 eggs. You don't want this dough to be too soft to handle.

The filling

I haven't figured out where to get freshly ground poppyseeds in Sydney, therefore I've used a pre-made mix I've imported from Germany myself - you can find it here. It's so sweet that you don't have to use any additional sugar - that's why there is no sugar in the recipe. If you can get freshly ground poppyseeds, you will need to boil it in milk until it's of a thick, mushy consistency like semolina pudding.

250g Mohn-Back (ready-to-use mix)
1 egg, large
1 tbsp desiccated coconut
100g almonds, ground
25g butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 glug of dark rum (can be substituted with milk)

200g marzipan, chopped (optional)

1 egg yolk and a few tbsp of milk for egg wash (optional)

1
Mix everything except the marzipan together; the filling should be of a very thick but still spreadable consistency.

2
Divide the yeast dough into three equal portions and pull gently to shape into long strands. Roll each strand into a very long rectangle and spread with the filling.

3
On one long side of each rectangle, evenly distribute the marzipan pieces. Roll into long strands with the marzipan as the core. Make sure to pinch the seams or the filling will come out during baking.

4
Plait the three strands into a braid and tuck the ends underneath. Cautiously place the braid on a baking sheet prepared with baking paper. Let rise until the braid has grown 1.5x in size.

5
Fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius until golden-brown (in my oven this took barely 30 minutes).

The source
Adapted from "Das Vohenstrausser Kochbuch"

The hint
The poppyseeds can be substituted with hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds.

Bread Baking Day BBD#06

2008-01-06T20:59:00.001+11:00

When moving to Sydney a bit more than two years ago, I knew right from the start that I would have to learn how to make decent bread. After two previous visits down under, it was pretty clear that I couldn't survive on pillowy, white toast alone. Little did I know back then what a wonderful journey in the land of the bread lay ahead of me. Although I bake regularly, I'm still far from mastering this art and there is so much more for me to learn about the combination of such humble ingredients like flour, water, yeast, and salt.

I'm always eager to check out what fellow bakers are doing to turn out wonderful, crusty loaves - and one of my valuable ressources in this matter is Zorra's lovely blog 1x umrühren bitte. Zorra also created the monthly event Bread Baking Day - and I have the honour of hosting the February edition BBD#06!

We've had herbs, spices, and fruit - this time, it's all about the shape. I invite you to share your favourite recipes for all sorts of shaped breads - be it something traditional like a braided challah or a pretzel or something a little unusual like a cut-out sun, letters made out of bread dough or whatever you can think of. Although I'm most interested in hand-shaped bread, you can also use a fancy mold.
The only requirement is that you don't choose a normal loaf shape like batard, boule or baguette. However, round bread rolls count as well as long as they have something unusual like a decorative slashing pattern.

Please post about your recipe and your experiences with shaping between now and 1 February 2008. Make sure to send me an email (eva.schatz at gmail.com) until 1 Feb 08 including the name of your blog, your location, the name of your creation, and a perma link of your post. If you have a photo of your creation, please attach a small version, about 100 pixels in width.
I will be posting the round-up by 5 February 2008.

PS: Due to my Christmas trip I couldn't participate in BBD#05 with its theme of filled breads. However, I did make a filled bread in the kitchen of a New Zealand backpackers accommodation without scales, measuring cups, and modern mixing tools. Luckily, I managed not to botch our only edible Christmas item, so we were able to feast on quark stollen with almond-walnut-marzipan filling during our holiday.
Please check out all the sweet and savoury creations in Chelsea's BBD#05 round-up at Rolling in Dough!

Hiking for Gourmets

2008-01-04T19:16:00.001+11:00

Whilst it is very rewarding to cook up a storm in your home kitchen, I think it's even more rewarding to get something nice to eat while being on a hiking trip.

Rule no. 1: Always have enough food with you! This includes goodies like chocolate, a wine bladder filled with port to sip in the evening, or in case you're on a shorter hike, even a bottle of red wine. Of course, it helps tremendously if you have a supportive ~~boyfriend~~ fiancé who offers to carry the port or the wine bottle.

Rule no. 2: Apart from the above mentioned goodies, make sure that all the food you carry is as dehydrated as humanly possible. Otherwise your backpack will be so heavy that you will reach your destination cursing just as heavily...

While being on our Christmas vacation in New Zealand, we had only planned to do an overnight-hike in the region of Wanaka on the south island. Therefore, we didn't have too many things to prepare and, luckily, our packs weren't particularly heavy.

However, what we didn't know was that the steep climb to reach our destination, the Liverpool hut, was indeed the second steepest climb in the whole National Park. Two thirds of the hike were a rather leisurely walk through a beautiful valley, whilst the last two-and-a-half hours turned out to be quite a challenge. With both hands for support we worked our way up, using trees, roots, and rocks as handles. I was glad to be in the shade of the woods otherwise I would have had to sweat even more.

Luckily, after this ordeal, we were rewarded with the most amazing view down the valley. But I didn't stare in amazement for too long - my growling stomach reminded me of the dinner yet to be cooked.
With roughly 20 people arriving the same evening at the same 6-bunk hut, we had set up camp a bit further away, enjoying our privacy and our space. Whilst many of the hikers I've met so far lived on instant noodles and the like, we truly enjoyed our couscous with mushrooms and tuna, followed by chocolate-covered almonds. After such an exhausting day, this was a real feast!

Couscous, Hiking-style

The ingredients (per person, can be easily multiplied)

100g instant couscous
a good handful of dried and sliced mushrooms (make sure to buy sliced ones as whole mushrooms will have to be cooked for much longer)
85g tuna with sun-dried tomatoes and basil (comes in a foil pouch)
salt, pepper, your favourite spice mix

optional:
instant stock cubes
whole sun-dried tomatoes
powdered milk for a creamier texture
bottle of red wine

1
Let the mushrooms with some water (amount is according to instructions on couscous package) come to a boil and cook until mushrooms are soft and not too chewy. Add the sun-dried tomatoes at this stage, if using.
Don't forget to sip your wine while cooking!

2
Add couscous and let stand until softened. Add more water if needed.

3
Season to taste and stir in tuna. Dig in!

The hint
This also works well with salmon out of a foil-pouch or with dried beef (has to be cooked with the mushrooms to soften). Powdered tomato sauce will make a good variation.

The source
My own invention

Menu for Hope #4

2007-12-13T17:47:00.001+11:00

Working my way through a whole lot of projects before I finally leave for my Christmas break (which is not even 48 hours away, how on earth am I going to finish everything...), I know one thing that's definitely on my priority list: Menu for Hope #4.

I take the reason mentioned above as an excuse not to explain everything in detail as I did last year - Lara of Cook & Eat has done it much better anyway! I'll just say that this is a very worth while way to spend some money during Christmas time supporting people in need: feeding starving children in Lesotho with food produced locally using sustainable farming methods. And to make it even better, it gives you the opportunity to win incredible prizes donated by bloggers all over the world! Please donate now!

Lemon Meringue Tartles - A Sugar Fix, quicker than you'd think

2007-12-11T16:41:00.002+11:00

SHF#38: Fool-proof Chocolate Pudding

2007-12-11T15:44:00.002+11:00

It might not come as a great surprise when I say that I haven't been posting much lately - or cooking for that matter (the "quick, I'm hungry" kind of cooking doesn't count here). However, I didn't want to miss out on this month's Sugar High Friday hosted by Zorra of 1x umruehren. Alas, due to work commitments, there was no way I could possibly make the sticky date pudding that I had already started dreaming of... It's one of the real Aussie desserts and to be found on many a restaurant menu in Sydney. I've had it only once so far and since then, always wanted to recreate it myself. This is what it would look like but it will have to wait until next year.

However, what does one do when coming home from a long day at work and craving for some comfort and food or comfort food so to speak? You skip dinner, of course, it's past 11pm after all, and rather go straight for dessert instead. In my opinion, there's not much a warm, smooth pudding couldn't fix - even if it actually is a custard, technically speaking.
This really fool-proof recipe fits perfectly into Zorra's theme "The proof is in the pudding" or "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", as the original version of the saying goes.

As I've mentioned before, I quite like the ready-to-use custard mixes you can get in Germany and always make sure to take some with me when visiting my family. However, in order to qualify for SHF#38, this one would have to be made from scratch. It's not quite as fast as opening a sachet but it's dead easy nonetheless. And in case I haven't said it yet, it's truly delicious!

Warm Chocolate Pudding (or Custard)

The ingredients

1/2 l whole milk
40g cornstarch
50g sugar
40g cocoa, dutch-processed
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 egg yolk (optional)
1 tbsp dark rum (optional)

The yield
2 big servings or 3 smaller ones

1
Pour 6 tablespoons of the milk (I like to use more) into a mixing bowl. Bring the remainder of the milk to a boil.

2
Add cornstarch, sugar, salt, vanilla bean paste, and cocoa to the reserved milk. Mix thoroughly with a balloon whisk until smooth.

3
Once the milk has reached boiling point, take it off the heat and pour in the cocoa mixture. Keep stirring while doing this.

4
Let the pudding come to a boil once more and let it cook for a minute, stirring all the time. The pudding will thicken quickly.

5
While still hot, whisk in add egg yolk and rum. You need to keep whisking until you are ready to pour the pudding into serving dishes or a skin will form on top.

The source
Adapted from Hedwig Maria Stuber: Ich helf Dir kochen

The hint
This recipe states a lot of cocoa. Unless you're fond of a bittersweet, dark chocolate taste, either decrease the amount of cocoa to 20-30g or add more sugar (can be done at the last step). I've added more sugar but afterwards thought that the original amount is enough.

If you like a lighter texture, fold in a stiffly beaten egg white.

This photo is a Winner!

2007-11-28T10:19:00.001+11:00

The "Droolworthy Blogger" Award must have been a good omen. When entering the CLICK photo competition with this "floating noodles" picture, I was really excited about it but simply hoped for the best. After all, over 70 people had submitted their photos to this month's installment. Little did I know that this photo would be such a winner!

It not only scored second place in the "best photo" categorie but got also elected as most original capture and even won the reader's choice award!

First of all, I would like to thank Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi for hosting the competition, all the judges, and last but not least all the readers who voted for my floating noodles.

Knowing that there are so many talented photographers out there, I can't help but to still perceive myself as a learner. However, this kind of recognition is a wonderful reward and it gives me the feeling that I've learned a thing or two in the meantime!

Please check out all the other winners and have a look for next month's CLICK competition at jugalbandi!

PS: Thank you, T, for helping me decide which photo to submit! I couldn't make up my mind between the one above and this one...

My first "Daring Bakers" Challenge: Tender Potato Bread

2007-11-26T16:11:00.001+11:00

Everyone who is as addicted to food blogs as I am, must have noticed a new group showing up, many months ago. As the word spread across the food blogging universe, the group began to grow and I secretly started wondering if it were possible to join in. It took a little while but finally Nora from Life's Smorgasbord convinced me that we definitely should become part of The Daring Bakers - and a quick look at their official blogroll proved that they are always happy about new members! While starting off with Yvonne and Lis as the founding members about a year ago, the group now has more than 300 members.

In short: Each month, one member chooses a particular recipe (for its beauty, difficulty or both) and the others have to bake it, too, without changing anything so they can compare and discuss their results afterwards. This is not for the ones who can't leave a recipe alone, I'm afraid. So there are some rules to it but in turn you'll get to extend your baking knowledge plus the wonderful support from all the other bakers. Which is not a small thing considering the elaborateness of some challenges like this or that or have a look at this extravaganza!

This month's challenge was not quite as involved (it can be accomplished in one day) and luckily not as calorie-laden (I'm trying to be good, these days): Our host Tanna had chosen Tender Potato Bread . Having baked my fair share of breads in the last two years, I tackled this challenge with some confidence and everything worked out pretty well. Usually, I'm only baking for two people so I halved the recipe as I didn't want to end up with bread going stale (I hope that's not against the rules??). Apart from that, I behaved like a good girl and followed the recipe to the t. In contrast to other challenges this recipe had some room for improvisation, though. The amounts of mashed potato and flour were flexible and I ended up using 290g of potatoe (weighed before cooking) and a little bit less than 500g of bread flour (including the flour for kneading).

In between the kneading phase of ten minutes I decided to give the dough a little rest of 15 minutes so the gluten strands could relax and after that, I didn't have any trouble with the formerly rather sticky dough. "Unleashing my inner baker" I made potato bread pockets with a spinach and feta filling for dinner, and the remaining dough simply got baked in a loaf pan. There's no exact recipe for the filling (I'm so daring...), I just sauteed onions and garlic until translucent, stirred in some spinach, added a splash of milk, and some salt/pepper/nutmeg. Once the filling was cooked, I stirred in a few spoons of sour cream and a leftover eggwhite (hoping that it would solidify the filling but I'm not sure if it really made a difference). I topped the filling with feta chunks - and that's about it!

I really enjoyed this challenge and already look forward to participating next month!

Food Photography - an award and a competition

2007-11-23T15:59:00.001+11:00

There's something I've been wanting to tell you, dear readers, for a long time. It's a little bit embarrassing that I didn't do so straight away. No, it's no embarrassing secret, rather an unexpected honour: Dear Nora from Life's Smorgasbord has kindly given me an award! The "Droolworthy Blogger" Award, to be precise. And to be even more precise, she did it, well, ages ago... Since then, I've been pondering about the ultimate picture to use for a post that would praise my photography skills. If you get caught bragging about yourself, you might want to rise to the occasion, right? Well, to tell you the truth, none of the pictures of the following weeks quite lived up to my own expectations (wrong focus, bad lighting, too simple setting and other things to complain about) and I kept delaying this post until today. Luckily, Nora is still friends with me...

So, in an attempt to come up with something that's at least very fitting (even if not mind-boggling), I decided to blog some photos picturing homemade lemon curd because the respective lemons were given to me by Nora! They were so juicy and fragrant that even T who's not into sweet spreads at all, happily devoured everything. And finally, I'm proudly displaying this wonderful badge on my blog (and on my sidebar once I've figured out how to do this):

This award is to be passed on to five other food bloggers with outstanding food photography. With so many talented photographers out there, this is not an easy task. Although I have a few all time favourites, I thought it might be more appropriate to give it to some food bloggers who are probably not quite as loaded with awards and public recognition but have lovely photos nonetheless. In no particular order:

Kate of Aapplemint

Deinin of Cloudberry Quark

Anh of Food Lover's Journey

Maci of Macikonyha

Rose of 64 Ft Sq Kitchen

Congratulations to all of you!

Last but not least, a couple of days ago, Zorra of 1x1 umruehren bitte who is the host of this month's DoesMyBlogLookGoodInThis (DMBLGIT) Event, asked me if I liked to act as a judge alongside her, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Hedonistin of Low Budget Cooking, and Sandra from Un tocco di zenzero. I happily accepted and really look forward to being a judge! Please check out all the wonderful entries in the DMBLGIT gallery and, if possible, enter the competition yourself. You still have time to do so until 30 November!

PS: The bread is Dan Lepard's Wheat Germ Bread - very hearty and very healthy!

Playing around with Light and Shadow ...and Noodles

2007-11-20T21:50:00.000+11:00

When reading about Anh's quest for the perfect photo picturing noodles, I thought I better hurry or this food photo competition will finish without me... Having not much time left, there was no way I could create a beautiful and elaborate dish as Anh did. Not that I don't eat noodles all the time but so far I could never get these sloppy little bastards to really look good... Or maybe was I just too hungry and started shoveling in straight away? Well, let's not get into details, right?

So I had to come up with something different. Luckily, I had been reading the food photography lessons Nika and Curt are currently putting together - thanks so much for all your effort, guys! In lesson #2 Nika had shown a wonderful picture of a tomatilla plant on a black background. I used her technique: the noodles dangle from a coat hanger on strings that were later stamped out in Photoshop. Playing around with this set-up was great fun, however, I now think that Nika's green plant is more suited to this play with light and shadow than noodles. Nonetheless, I like this picture and I hope that some of the people looking at the click gallery will like it, too!

PS: One of the links was wrong, now you'll find lesson #2!

A little Tart and another Anniversary

2007-11-15T20:21:00.001+11:00

What do you do when you realize that you have never ever celebrated the anniversaries of your own relationship? After all, this is about being with the One And Only, right? There should be something to celebrate, right? Well, I am growing older, ahem, and I tend to forget a little bit here and there. Haven't I said that before..;-) Luckily, my boyfriend is no different in that respect. Not that he keeps forgetting things (big difference between us as he likes to point out) but when it comes to anniversaries he's just your average bloke who doesn't care much about these things. However, when approaching our - gasp - fourth anniversary, I decided that things finally had to take a turn for the better.

So off we went to Sydney's Observatory Hill that overlooks the harbour including Harbour Bridge, lots of boats, lots of lights, and other things necessary for some romantic atmosphere. After eating our way through crispy chicken pieces, Greek salad, foccacia, brie cheese, and hummous, there was almost no room left for dessert. However, who could say no to a creamy coffee chocolate ganache in an almond hazelnut crust? We certainly didn't!

To make the pastry cases I only had to defrost some leftover shortcrust pastry. For the filling, I had been keen for a while to try these tempting little tarts. However, after fully baking my tart shells, I didn't dare baking them again with the filling inside. I figured that halving the dairy components and not using any eggs might give me a creamy consistency that's still sufficiently stiff. With just a little cream and milk, I only used a quarter of the original amount of coffee. This way, the coffee flavour was nice but already very subtle on the second day. Next time, I might go back to only halving the amount of coffee.

These Vietnamese coffee chocolate tarts made for a fabulous ending of our anniversary picnic and will always remind me not to ever forget it again...

PS: I didn't want to prove this particular point any more but I have to add something I ... forgot ...: This tart is my entry for WTSIM#11 "Waiter, there's something in my...topless tart!" hosted by Cooksister!

Happy Birthday!

2007-11-07T11:01:00.001+11:00

Have you ever forgotten your own birthday? Whilst this has happened to me with other people's special days - luckily not too often - so far I was at least able to remember mine. However, it almost happened to this dear blog. Just by chance, I asked myself yesterday when its first anniversary would be. I quickly checked here and - oh my gosh - only one more day to go!

After one year, it's almost hard to believe that there was a life without food blogging. Not that I create something blog-worthy everyday - but all this thinking about food, making food, and photographing food turned out to be much more than a mere hobby. For some people, it might not look like a creative outburst having to wait for dinner whilst I'm busy taking pictures from all angles. However, it gives me an unexpected sense of inner satisfaction when one of my creations not only tastes good but also photographs well. And the best part? Lots of nice people, completely unknown to me, stop by, have a look around and sometimes even drop me a line. This thrill I get when I read new comments, still hasn't worn off. Whenever I'm feeling moody, all I have to do is looking at my stats and smiling at the idea that someone from the Maldives or Ghana or some other very remote place payed my little blog a visit... Nora, I'll always feel indebted to you for introducing me to this new world!

But back to the birthday - there has to be a cake, right? Being only one day ahead of time, I couldn't possibly make a layer cake, try my hands on macarons or do any other fancy stuff. However, I still wanted to do something I'd never made before. One idea popped up in my head that had been lurking somewhere for quite some time: financiers. They're quick to make but still have something mysterious about them. At least for me because in German cookbooks you would never see a cake that doesn't contain any egg yolks, almost no flour (let alone baking powder) but lots of butter, sugar, and almond flour instead. I was a little bit suspicious how such a cake should rise and brown nicely. However, I decided to go with a recipe I had found at Feeding my Enthusiasms - it's originally from David Lebovitz so I figured you can't go wrong with that.

And all my worries proved absolutely unnecessary. After very little work, these tiny cakes began to fill the kitchen with their almond perfume - and they looked so cute with their golden brown tops peeking out of the paper garments. They even made my boyfriend utter an appreciating "hmmmm"...

Exploring Pappa Al Pomodoro

2007-11-01T21:33:00.002+11:00

Okay, this one won't be loved for its looks. It's used to be seen as just some leftovers - thrown together into a pot and forgotten on the stove. Stale bread soaked in tomatoes. Peasants' food.

I've always wondered if there's something worth knowing about Pappa Al Pomodoro. After all, it's still around, and not only in Tuscany. So, when leafing through "Jamie's Italy", I always went back to the page with this tomato and bread stew. No matter how many other (more) beautiful dishes were pictured in this lovely book, it was time to finally find out about Pappa Al Pomodoro.

And I'm pleased to say that Jamie didn't promise too much: The oven-roasted tomatoes provided sweetness and concentrated flavour, the bread made for a smooth and silky texture, and the garlic gave it that little extra kick. Instead of the usual basil, flat-leaf parsley had to stand in and did a pretty good job.

For this recipe it's crucial to use good bread, in my case it was the "Heart of Wheat" Bread by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I left the crust on in order to retain some texture - otherwise this stew could easily turn into baby food. I had to add a little more liquid, it was still not quite as soupy as Jamie's version but never mind. Jamie stresses the importance of using good olive oil for this dish. Whilst I'm not using anything fancy or overly expensive, mine has a nice fruity smell to it that certainly contributed to the overall flavour.

It might not have the looks but this dish has a lot going for it.

Pappa Al Pomodoro

The ingredients

500g ripe tomatoes, preferably cherry tomatoes (cut into pieces if using bigger ones)
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, stalks and leaves chopped (or use basil instead)
2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes (400g each)
500g of stale bread, crust on, torn into pieces
salt and freshly ground pepper
olive oil

1
In a roasting tray, toss tomatoes with some olive oil, the slices of one clove of garlic and a quarter of the herb leaves. Season with salt and pepper and prick tomatoes all over. Roast in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius (or 150 degrees fan-baked) for 20 minutes.
Note: I covered the herbs and the garlic with the tomatoes to keep them moist during the bake.

2
In a big pot, saute the parsley stalks and the remaining garlic in some olive oil until soft but not coloured. Add the canned tomatoes. Fill both cans with water and add it, too. Let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every now and then.

3
Tear the bread into bite-sized pieces and add to the pot. Mix and season to taste. Add the remaining parsley leaves (reserving a little for garnish) and let stand on very low heat for up to ten minutes.

4
Remove the roasted tomato mixture from the oven and add to the pot, scraping everything off the tray. Stir thoroughly and add some more water if necessary (depending on how soupy you like it).

5
Check the seasoning, stir in some olive oil (Jamie suggests 6-7 tablespoons but this seemed too much for me) and serve sprinkled with herbs.

The source
Adapted from Jamie Oliver: "Jamie's Italy"

Cheese Cake, German style, and more Bread

2007-10-22T10:05:00.003+10:00

This years World Day of Bread on 16th October has been a complete success. Zorra of Kochtopf the creator of this blog event had to be really busy: check out her round-up of 184 entries with more than 200 bread recipes from 28 different countries!

And it looks like that this streak of bad bread baking luck has finally left me. Since then, I've been able to make the crusty bread rolls pictured above which was quite a miracle in itself. I started off with a recipe by Peter Reinhart and realized mid-way through that I didn't have certain ingredient. So I switched to a Rose Levy Beranbaum recipe - all the way ignoring the difference between dry active yeast (that's what I have at home) and instant yeast (that's what these guys are using). Luckily, I noticed it early enough and could adjust fermenting and rising times accordingly...

For the ones who were interested in a traditional German-style cheese cake, I've finally managed to inquire about the recipe (after baking I had simply forgot to jot it down). Over the years, I've tried many a recipe for this kind of cake which is one of the most popular in Germany. I've also gotten very good results using a few tablespoons of semolina as a stabilizer but the following recipe is the favourite of my family.

Usually, the recipe calls for rum-soaked raisins which also act as a stabilizer. However, this time we had run out of them - but I'm not fond of raisins anyway. That means, most of the time, two cakes have to be baked to make everyone happy..;-)

Shortcrust Pastry
The ingredients

150g butter, softened
100g sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 sachet vanilla sugar (equals a heaped tablespoon)
1-2 tbsp rum
250g all-purpose flour
1/2 sachet baking powder (equals 7.5g)

1
Cream butter with both types of sugar and the salt until pale and fluffy.

2
Incorporate the egg and the rum, mixing thoroughly.

3
Add flour and baking powder mixing on low speed until it all comes together.

4
Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and briefly knead together. Shape into a ball, cover with foil and chill in the fridge until ready to use (at least 30 minutes).

The hint
This dough will be softer than shortcrust pastry that is made by cutting the butter into the flour. However, it should not be sticky. Don't add anymore flour otherwise you'll end up with concrete and not with a tender crust.

The filling
The ingredients

(suitable for a springform 28 centimetres in diameter)

60g butter, softened
200g sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
4 eggs, separated
1 kg quark (can be substituted with ricotta)
50g all-purpose flour
1/2 sachet baking poweder (7.5g)

If using a springform of 26 centimetres, only change the following amounts:

50g butter
150g sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 sachet vanilla sugar
750g quark

(the amounts for flour and baking powder stay the same)

1
In a dry, fat-free bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

2
In another big bowl, cream butter with both types of sugar.

3
Mix in egg yolks until thoroughly incorporated.

4
Mix in quark. To make sure that everything is evenly distributed, use a spatula to scrape down sides and bottom.

5
Scrape egg whites on top of quark mixture, sift flour and baking powder atop. Gently fold everything together.

6
Butter your preferred springform pan and line it with the shortcrust pastry. I usually don't roll it but rather tear off pieces and press them into the tin. I make the rim by rolling pastry into little rolls and pressing them onto the sides of the tin.

7
Pour in the filling and fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius for up to an hour or until well-set. The crust should be golden-brown and the filling should be speckled with brownish dots.

The hint
After turning off the oven, let the cake rest in there for at least another hour. That way, the quark filling won't collapse as much.

Crusty Bread Rolls

2007-10-21T20:51:00.005+10:00

Maybe it's just me. After my latest attempts at bread making, I should have known to pay attention where attention is due. But no, I did not read the recipe carefully enough and I did not convert the measurements properly. In hindsight, I did just about everything wrong that you can do wrong. However, I was lucky enough not to ruin it this time. Okay, the following is an account of how-not-to-bake.

I started off with Peter Reinhart's Kaiser Rolls. In his book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice", they make a very shiny appearance and simply looked so inviting that I instantly knew which bread rolls to make this weekend. I started on a Saturday night with the pate fermentee. Unfortunately, the book doesn't state the ingredients in grams. Not wanting to convert the whole thing I quickly decided to simply use the included baker's percentage. You can simply read 100 per cent as 100 g of flour and go further from there, right? Well, it's not quite as easy. Just after stirring the pate together, I realized that the baker's percentage tells you about the relation between the ingredients in the entire recipe and not just the pate fermentee.

Pate Fermentee or Biga or whatever

200g bread flour
130g water
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp dry active yeast

Dough

All of the above
230g bread flour
water
salt
1 tsp dry active yeast

Luckily, this time the stars were aligned properly,

High Tea at the Intercontinental

2007-10-19T10:34:00.002+10:00

Sometimes you need a little indulgence... Inspired by Anna's account of High Tea at the Intercontinental Hotel, my dear friend Nora from Life's Smorgasbord and I went there, too. We hadn't been able to meet for quite a while so there was a lot of news to catch up on. And what's better than doing this with a nice pot of tea and some sweet little treats! The Intercontinental Hotel was the perfect backdrop for a cozy yet elegant afternoon and thanks to the Good Food Month we could sample a High Tea tasting plate including a hot beverage for the very reasonable price of 15 bucks.

In comparison to Anna's photo you'll see that they more than doubled the amount of vanilla sauce to go with the muesli slice. Good idea, otherwise it would have been a pretty dry experience. Flavour wise, my favourite was the praline stick (according to Nora, it reminded her of Nutella which I like quite a lot) and the sauces were pretty nice as well. Although I can't say that the sweets blew me away, they served a decent cuppa and the atmosphere in the courtyard was just perfect. We spent a wonderful afternoon and I hope to do something like this again in the near future!

Wanna know more about what's going on during the Good Food Month in Sydney? Check out Anna's round-ups of week one and week two and share the experiences of other food bloggers! Some time this weekend, another summary of the third week will be available at Morsels&Musings.

Baking and Cursing and Baking

2007-10-16T17:58:00.002+10:00

I don't know what I did to deserve this. For months, I've been feeding my little sourdough culture dutifully. I (almost) never poured the surplus down the drain, having found another way to deal with it. Batch after batch after batch, my loaves turned out tasty even if sometimes mal-shaped. And now this. If there are any gods of the crust and crumb, I must have offended them in a really terrible way. At least, this is the only explanation I can come up with after suffering not one but several set-backs during my recent bread baking adventures.

It started off with what seemed to be child's play. One should not have any trouble with reproducing one's own recipes, right? After several trips, I decided not to bother with sourdough just yet. Instead I turned to an old favourite, a buckwheat bread with sunflower seeds. Well, let's just forget about this one, ok? It was the blandest bread I've ever made and I'd like to blame rancid buckwheat flour - but truth be told, I don't know for sure. Maybe, this was just too easy? I set to work with another favourite, my pain de campagne. Well, it could have been okay, if I had been able to properly use my new bread peel which is hand-made by my father (thanks again, Dad!). Instead of sliding the loaf elegantly onto my pizza stone, it stuck to the peel and I eventually plunked it into the oven, top-down of course. The carefully water-brushed side baked to a very, very crusty bottom; and the top with the remaining polenta sticking on didn't bake to anything crusty at all. Needless to say, the bread didn't rise properly.

But the worst was yet to come: my sourdough culture is playing dead! Before leaving for overseas, I had frozen three portions of rye mother. The first one got defrosted and bubbled nicely on my kitchen counter - until I realized that it's getting already too warm in Sydney. The top was mouldy. I took out the second portion. Slowly, I was getting a little bit nervous. After all, World Bread Day was approaching fast - and so far, nothing photo-worthy had happened. I now kept the culture in the fridge but there wasn't much action going on. It smelled sour but that was it. Before feeding it for the umphf-time, I decided to at least try to bake something with some of the culture mixed in. Since the last library foray, I was reading Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Bakers's Apprentice" and if I wasn't able to tackle one of the elaborate recipes, I should be capable of modifying the easiest recipe of the whole book, his light wheat bread. I added 500g of my lazy sourdough culture, added another 150g of bread flour to make up for the increased water content and used an 8g-sachet of dry active yeast for roughly 1.6kg of dough. A little more salt, some pumpkin seeds, olive oil instead of butter, and off you go into the fridge for almost ten hours (instead of rising at room temperature).

At least, this time I got the loaves off the peel properly. However, after baking they stuck so stubbornly to the pizza stone that I almost ruined my new bench scraper trying to remove them. Again, not enough polenta... Currently, the (long ago broken) pizza stone and the baking sheet are soaking in hot water. And whilst my light rye bread tastes quite all right, it simply isn't the real thing. Maybe it'll all work out in a few days. Let me just go and check on my sourdough culture.

PS: This morning, I discovered mould on the second batch of my sourdough culture - while storing it in the fridge. I always thought that the wild yeast inhibits exactly that!?! Something must be seriously wrong with my culture. With now only one last batch waiting in the freezer, I will probably get the opportunity to try Dan Lepard's method of cultivating sourdough - much sooner than I had planned...

Good Food Month: Market in Pyrmont

2007-10-12T19:05:00.001+10:00

Planning is not my strong point, unfortunately. Neither is keeping various things in mind. Sometimes, I secretly wonder why this seems to get even worse lately. However, it is at least a - somehwat meagre - explanation why it took me almost two years to visit the Pyrmont Growers' Market for the first time. After having seen several mouthwatering accounts of the going-ons and with the "Good Food Month" currently running in Sydney, I thought this time it has to happen. To have some company when foraging for food (and in order not to forget it again) I invited two friends to come along.

After a 45-minutes walk we finally reached our destination and I felt instantly overwhelmed by the masses of people. Of course, on a bright, sunny day this was to be expected. Anyway, after a little while I lost all shyness, simply looked over shoulders and peeked with my camera through queues of waiting customers to get shots of all the lovely produce on display.

Remarkably many people had not grocery supplies sticking out of their bags but flowers. They were beautiful indeed!

Pretty soon we all felt pretty hungry. Although the bacon-and-eggs guy was truly impressive with his fast turn-around technique...

...I opted for a nice sourdough roll instead. Can't resist a crusty roll...

...while one of my friends chose a savoury tart to start the day. As you see, my focus was on the sweet ones...

Perousing all the food, it was pretty clear that this market had little to do with the small town farmers' markets I was used to. With plenty of fruit and vegetables stalls and the occasional beekeeper or baker inbetween, these markets are very local. Here in Sydney, the focus was on gourmet fare: smoked fish...

or rare cheeses...

even chocolates...
and unusual honey...

and even christmas cakes...

on this colourful stall:

After a first browse it was pretty clear that I had to prioritize in order not to splash out money triggered by all these visual stimuli. So I concentrated on the really important things and bought wattle seeds (finally, I could get my hands on them), lemon myrtle (its odour slowly permeates my fridge, need to think about proper storage), a jar of blackberry jam (it's a bit weird, looks and tastes more like blackberry honey), lots of fresh herbs and a few other odds and ends.

It was a very enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning. With a little bit of envy we watched the people participating in the slow food brunch, a "Good Food Month" event that took place at the market. However, it was so hot that I wasn't too disappointed to get back into the shade after a while. Not sure how much this canine visitor enjoyed his market stroll in the blazing sun. With roaring breath and sticking out his tongue, he tried to cool down, poor little bugger...

In any case, if my friends happen to remind me in time, I'll go again next month!

Enjoying German Specialties

2007-10-04T19:36:00.002+10:00

After processing all the pictures I've taken while traveling through Germany, I came to realize that I didn't photograph that many meals at all... Anyway, here are a few food related memories. A little bit late, I know - having just arrived in Australia again, I went to Western Australia for work. I was already looking forward to paying another visit to my favourite Australian grocery store as I did last time. However, my only day in Perth turned out to be a Sunday. All I could do was staring through the shop window at the huge bags filled with millet flour, pearl barley, and other hard-to-get foods. Of course, it should be possible to get the same stuff here in Sydney - however, they'll cost me an arm and a leg, I'm sure...

Where was I? You see, no matter how much I've enjoyed the stay in my home country, as soon as I had set my food on Australian earth, the daily life just sucked me in again.

One of the first things I did at home was baking a real German Cheese Cake (pictured above). Made with real quark instead of cream cheese or ricotta, it has a slightly tarter taste and a much lighter texture than American cheese cake. Eating it on a sunny terrace made it taste even better...

After having eaten my way through this and this, I attended the next feast, the wedding of a dear friend.

Another opportunity to indulge in Bavarian doughnuts (a very local food, this version from another part of Bavaria looks slightly different from mine), layer cakes, and God know what else. I'd rather not list all the cakes I've tried and I haven't even said a word about the savoury dishes...

At my parents' place, I used the occasion to watch once again how to make a real Bavarian pork roast. For traditionalists, this is the only way to celebrate a proper Sunday lunch. Whilst I'm not against having something else for lunch, I really enjoy it once in a while. So far, I didn't dare to try my hands on it. Provided I'm still able to decipher my handwritten notes, I'll dare cooking it some time soon. Hopefully, this time I'll be able to take a nicer picture - this one was taken just before shoveling in...

Furthermore, I made some pralines to give away as a birthday present. The cutest ones were these pistachio marzipan hearts - the recipe will follow soon. For some reason I thought using couverture would save me the tedious tempering process. First, I didn't want to go through all this trouble. Secondly, I don't have a candy thermometer. However, this was a misconception and the chocolate coating lost its shine after three or four days. However, they still tasted pretty good; even though I usually don't like marzipan. But who wouldn't love anything heart-shaped?

Back again - with a very festive Lunch

2007-09-20T18:06:00.001+10:00

Even the longest visit at home must come to an end... I've enjoyed my stay back home in Germany thoroughly. One reason was for sure the endless number of feasts and parties I was able to attend. This will be just the first account of many more to come!

I was lucky enough to attend a very festive lunch which turned out to be a wonderful lesson in food styling - amost every dish had edible flowers as a colourful and tasty garnish. I also enjoyed taking pictures in full natural light (with just a little fill-in flash bouncing from above) - a completely new experience...

The feast started off with shrimp ravioli on braised fennel (pictured above).

The second course was a satisfying pumpkin soup garnished with pumpkin seeds and their oil. On the side a crispy grissini wrapped in Parma ham.

The third course was a creamy spaghetti dish with Oyster mushrooms and zucchini (unfortunately, morels hadn't been available as planned).

The main course was roasted duck breast served with crispy potato roesti and chanterelle mushrooms.

The sweet final was white poppy seed mousse served with caramelized apricots.

Truly delicious!

SHF#34 - Going Local

2007-08-28T07:26:00.001+10:00

A long time ago, when I first thought about moving to the other side of the world, my boyfriend would always start to chuckle: "I´d love to see you explaining to some Aussie bloke who never ever left Australia, from which particular, tiny area in Bavaria you´re from!" Well, if there´s one thing I´m getting missionary about then it´s the cultural diversity of my home country. Mind you, I´m not making any judgements - I just love to get to know all these little, graspable things that are part of this very abstract concept of identity. And let me tell you, there´s a lot to be proselytized - not even the people from our neighbouring state (on the Western side of southern Germany) knew enough about us.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to one of the seven districts of Bavaria which is located next to the Czech border: the Upper Palatinate (aka Oberpfalz)!

Ok, I know it´s pretty small. It´s not even an economically important area - once blooming industries like porcelain and lead crystal manufacturing are now wilting; and the long time in the shadow of the Iron Curtain wasn´t a good thing to begin with. There even is a rather mean saying that all the area has in abundance is stones on the fields.

However, with their limited supplies (milk products, potatoes, and apples were a staple) the people from the Upper Palatinate not only managed to get by but also produced some really tasty, hearty country fair.

Whenever there is a feast in this area it won´t be complete without some of the local doughnuts (which don´t have a hole in the middle but a very thinly stretched piece of dough). One of the bigger feasts was the annual church anniversary where the whole village would come together and party for an extended weekend. This occasion would call for another traditional cake, the so called "Church Anniversary Cake" or "Parish Fair Cake" - I can´t even find a proper translation for that one... The pronounciation in my home dialect may seem a bit weird: it´s "Kirbakejchln" (doughnuts) and "Kirbakoucha" (cake).

The doughnuts are very crispy in the middle, buttery-soft in the thicker parts, and not sickly sweet. As a kid, the first thing to do when visiting my grand mother, was looking into her pantry for some of these doughnuts...

Whilst doughnuts are well-known allover the world in some way or other, I bet that this cake with its peculiar yellow colour won´t be know to many people outside my area. The colour of the semolina pudding layer comes from the generous use of saffron. This traditional spice is still rather expensive and that´s probably the reason why people had this cake only once per year. Saffron also makes for a particular taste that I didn´t cherish as a kid (but I do now). You can have this cake to your liking either plain, topped with raisins, with a mixture of brown sugar, ginger bread crumbs, and syrup or with simply everything. Enjoy!

Although I´m pretty late, this is my entry for this month´s Sugar High Friday invented by the Domestic Goddess herself and this time hosted by Johanna from The Passionate Cook. Her theme of local specialties was just perfect for last weekend when I made these things for the 60th birthday party of my father which happened to be on the same day as our local parish party!

PS: Hidden behind the flowers is a traditional plum cake - I told you, I don´t do anything but eating...

PPS: Please excuse the subpar pictures, without the camera I´m used to, I´m pretty hopeless...

Parish Fair Doughnuts

You can use your preferred recipe for sweet yeast dough like this one. The only adjustment for soft doughnuts is to make a very soft dough by adding more liquid including alcohol. For 500g of flour add a shot of rum or kirsch and at least double the amount of milk (depending on your preferences).

After the first rise, roll out the dough to almost one centimetre in thickness on a lightly floured worksurface. Using a small drinking glass, cut out rounds. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled. Now comes the tricky part that I haven´t quite mastered yet: You have to turn and stretch the round piece of dough between your thumbs and index fingers until the middle is like a window pane and the rim is of an even thickness (well, more or less). Deep-fry each round on one side until golden brown, then turn around. It is important that there is no hot oil in the cavity after the turn (otherwise the middle won´t stay yellow). Let cool down on sheets of kitchen towel and serve with lots of icing sugar. The next day, refresh in the hot oven for a couple of minutes.

Church Anniversary Cake

Again, use your favourite sweet yeast dough as a base but make sure that this one isn´t too soft.

The ingredients

1.5 l milk
225g soft semolina
sugar to your liking
0.5g saffron (or a little bit more)
250g butter
5 eggs, separated

2 big pieces of ginger bread
400g light brown sugar
1-3 tbsp sugar beet molasses
250g raisins
rum (optional)

This makes enough to cover two big baking sheets as seen above.

1
Cook a thick semolina pudding, stir in butter, saffron, and sugar to your liking.

2
Add egg yolks. Beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks and gently fold in.

3
Roll out the dough onto your baking sheets and let rise for 15-20 minutes, cover with yellow semolina mixture.

4
Depending on your preferences, either bake plain or with raisins plumped in rum or with a sticky mixture of brown sugar/crumbled ginger bread/molasses or put everything on top.

5
Fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius until the edges of the dough are golden brown.

The source
Adapted from a local cookbook: "Weidener Kuechengeheimnisse"

The hint
Tightly wrapped, the cake keeps very well for several days. The doughnuts can be frozen.

Back in the Land of the Bread

2007-08-24T23:47:00.001+10:00

Dear Reader, you might have noticed by now that it was pretty quiet around here - again. However, this time I´ve got good reason for it: a week ago, I´ve boarded a plane for my annual visit in Germany - and now I´m back in the land of the Bread! Besides catching up with my family and especially my little nephew (an ueber cute, almost three-year-old) I´ve been real busy eating my way through all sorts of bread rolls, pretzels, and cakes, of course...

Surrounded by such an abundance, I won´t spend my time baking bread. Unfortunately, this also means that I can´t participate in the next Bread Baking Day, a food blogging event created by Zorra of Kochtopf and this month hosted by Ulrike of Kuechenlatein. Her perfectly chosen theme is bread with sourdough as the sole leavener. Well, I´ve put my sourdough to sleep in the freezer before I left Australia but I already look forward to seeing the round-up!

However, I still wanted to contribute something. And I´m pretty sure that the following two recipes are going to be helpful for the ones with a somewhat erratic schedule and therefore an underdeveloped sourdough culture. In the last few weeks, I couldn´t bake and feed my culture as often as needed. Whenever I did have time to do it, I could never be sure that the wild yeast would be strong enough to let the bread rise sufficiently. On the other hand, I didn´t want to pour all that sourdough down the drain. Remembering the old-dough-technique, I thought that using some weak, old sourdough plus commercial yeast would hopefully reduce my sourdough surplus as well as result in a bread with the deep flavour of matured dough. I guess I´m not the first one to come up with this idea but I was quite proud of the resulting bread nonetheless... The sunflower seed bread has a hearty taste and pairs nicely with cheese and cured meat whilst the sesame bread makes excellent toast topped with jam or honey.

One thing is important when using old sourdough in big quantities: the dough can get rather soft during the rising process. When I tried this the first time, I had to bake individual little breads in muffin tins because the dough was too soft for shaping and I didn´t want to add more flour. However, this didn´t happen to the breads pictured in this post. Another issue is the amount of commercial yeast that is needed for leavening. I was being cautious and added quite a lot but feel free to adjust according to the liveliness of your sourdough.

PS: It´s too early I know... I just can´t help but announce right now that I´m going to be hosting the Bread Baking Day for next February! Well, it´s early, as I said...

Rye Bread with Sunflower Seeds

The ingredients

150 ml water

300 g liquid rye sourdough (weak)

350 g liquid wheat sourdough (weak)

500 g bread flour

3 tsp salt

1 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar

1 sachet dry yeast (7-8g, equivalent to 2 1/2 tsp)

3 tbsp sunflower seeds (or more), toasted

Toast the sunflower seeds in a dry pan for a couple of minutes until they have a golden brown colour and start to smell nicely. Set aside.

When using a bread maker, first put the liquid ingredients into the pan, followed by the dry ingredients (except the seeds). Make sure to put the yeast on top of the flour where it shouldn´t touch the salt.

Start the dough program. When the bread maker beeps, add the sunflower seeds, reserving a little for topping.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Interrupt the program after the first hour of kneeding and rising. Take the dough out of the pan and shape into a loaf. To do so, either lightly flour or lightly oil your worksurface depending on your preferences. Let rise for half an hour or until almost doubled in height.

Brush the loaf with water several times. If using, dust with flour. Again, brush with water. This results in a sticky surface which will work like glue for any topping. Sprinkle with the remaining sunflower seeds.

Insert the loaf into the oven. Splash a cup of water on the bottom of the oven and quickly shut the door (ideally, splash the water on another baking sheet on a lower shelf). Bake the loaf for roughly an hour or until well risen and golden brown. It should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. To get a nice crust, open the oven door after 45-50 minutes of the baking time to get rid of the remaining steam. Let cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Wheat Bread with Sesame Seeds

The ingredients

100 ml water

350 g liquid wheat sourdough (weak)

1 tsp salt, heaped

3 tsp sugar

300g bread flour

1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Follow the instructions above including toasting the sesame seeds. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for roughly 30 minutes or until well risen and golden brown.

The source

My own creation

Anh's Cottony Cheesecake - Surprise at First Sight

2007-08-04T18:11:00.003+10:00

Finally, finally... Honestly, I feel really bad for making you guys wait such a long time... Should have at least added the link to the original recipe - stupid me... As the title suggests, I saw this cheese cake over at Food Lover's Journey - the lovely blog of Anh from Melbourne. Besides loving all kinds of cheese cakes, I was truly intrigued by her love affair with this particular cheese cake. Wondering if I was to fall in love at first sight, too, I set to work. The only change I made was substituting dark rum for the lemon juice and vanilla bean paste for the black sesame powder (it was late at night and I didn't feel like hunting down this ingredient although I'm pretty sure that it's preferable to the rather well-known vanilla flavour).

For some reason, my computer decided to continually hibernate itself so I had a hard time making sure that I got all the ingredients in the right amounts (nearly forgot the corn flour...). This chaos could have been the reason for not thinking about the right kind of cream cheese to choose. Usually, I have the slightly fat-reduced one for breakfast and that's what I used for the cake, too. However, this resulted in a batter with pouring consistency - I definitely had no need to add any more milk as Anh had suggested in her recipe. And I'm pretty sure that I beat the egg whites until far too fluffy. All in all, the whole thing reminded me of souffle batter - not a bad thing in itself but I started to feel a bit worried - the recipe said it should be like your average cake batter...

Anyway, I poured it into my 20-centimeters spring form pan; the left-overs went into my little heart-shaped moulds. And then the waiting began. One hour and ten minutes is an awful long time when you're desperately wanting to eat this cake... I stared through the oven door and watched the batter rising beautifully, just like a souffle. However, I was pretty sure that this lofty appearance wouldn't last very long and during the last third of the baking time the cake flattened out quite a bit. It was then when I noticed that I had simply forgotten the water bath the recipe had called for...

Despite the fact that I had messed up a lot, the cake soon started to smell wonderful. When I took it out of the oven, I could barely contain my impatience and quickly cut one of the little cakes in half. Due to my greediness, I don't have any pictures... The texture was quite different from the large cake. The small ones had retained their airy structure and with their dark brown edges, they reminded me of Canneles. Mind you, i've never eaten any but they looked exactly like this or like that had there been any chocolate in it. Now I definitely have to try the real thing!

The next day, during a dinner party, I cut up the large cake and got my second surprise. Although the cake didn't have the decidedly cottony texture of Anh's original, it reminded me of another French specialty: Far Breton. I had eaten this custardy prune-studded cake only once in my life while on school exchange in Brittany. However, I loved it so much that I still remember the taste of it. And this cake was a darn good replica!

All in all, this cake was surprise at first sight - and what a good one! Now I just have to find the time to try the original recipes. Besides following Anh's recipe to the letter...

The hint
First, I served this cake with warm berry sauce and slightly whipped cream. However, strawberries marinated in a little sugar and Cointreau were an even better accompaniment.

Dan Lepard's Apple and Oats Bread

2007-07-30T12:21:00.001+10:00

In order to expand my bread baking knowledge I have been raiding the three libraries in my vicinity and thus was able to track down a couple of books I had always wanted to read: first of all, Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" which I read from front to cover with great delight. Finally, I found a book that features many different recipes for rye bread - quite unusual for an English-speaking author. I gladly read about his "less is more" kneading techniques and his way not to flour the work surface but to oil it. It works much better that way for me!

However, before trying some of his recipes, I first had to revive my still frozen sourdough culture. Luckily, the little boys did survive their long sleep in the freezer. However, although feeding them daily in the beginning, I was never quite sure about their potency. Therefore (and because I didn't want to pour excess sourdough down the drain) I upped the amount of sourdough liberally. Not sure if that's what you should do - that's why I've included the original amounts so everyone can decide which way to go.

This Rolled Oat and Apple Bread is incredibly moist although you can hardly guess which ingredients are responsible for its long shelf-life. In case you have trouble finishing a loaf in time - this is your recipe. The slices also make excellent toast. My favourite toppings are either jam and honey or a soft cheese...hmmm...
This bread is also my entry for The Bread Baking Day #2 - Bread with Fruit. This new food blogging event was invented by Zorra and this time hosted by Columbus Foodie.

The second bread baking book I was looking forward to is Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". In the beginning, I felt a bit put off - this much acclaimed food writer is tackling the subject in an almost scientific way which seemed to destroy the whole mystery about bread baking. Stop, stop, stop, I then thought, isn't that exactly what you were looking for? Ah, right... Once I got accustomed to her very thorough way of explaining things I learned a lot about certain details that had always left me puzzled. For example, I now know that fan-baking is entirely wrong for bread because you speedily lose all the self-injected steam and create an environment too dry for your bread. Since I switched to the classic bake setting, my breads finally have a good crust on the bottom (which had always been too soft) and I finally got to enjoy this mysterious crackling sound of the crust as the bread cools down. I believe that's called "the crust sings" and that absolutely describes my feeling when hearing it. Thank you, Rose, now I believe that there's nothing better than a healthy dose of perfectionism!

The third book in my library-collection is Maggie Glezer's "Artisan Baking Across America". I'm not finished yet and haven't tried any recipes but stay tuned!

PS: Being a "little bit" behind with my blogging, I thought I had better include another of Dan Lepard's breads. This chewy rye-based bread is his Five Grain Bread (although it was only a Four Grain Bread in my case). It really reminded me of the hearty breads from home and was eaten in no time...

Rolled Oat and Apple Bread

The ingredients

50g rolled oats
100g boiling water
200g peeled and grated apple (equals one big apple)
75g water at 20 degrees Celsius
250g white sourdough (original recipe: 100g of Dan Lepard's white leaven)
1/4 tsp dry instant yeast (original recipe: 3/4 tsp fresh yeast, crumbled)
300g + 3 heaped tbsp bread flour (original recipe: 250g bread flour)
1 tsp salt (orginial recipe: 3/4 tsp fine sea salt)
rolled oats for sprinkling
(Dan Lepard also suggests an egg wash which I simply forgot but the bread browns beautifully in any case)

1
Pour the boiling water over the rolled oats and let soak for five minutes while preparing the other ingredients.

2
Add the grated apple, the leaven, the extra water, the yeast, and mix everything together with a wooden spoon. Stir in the dry ingredients. (Dan Lepard mixes the dough quick-bread style but I prefer to do it all in one bowl - less dish washing...)
Mix until you have a soft sticky dough. Cover and leave for ten minutes.

3
Rub 1 tbsp of oil onto your work surface and knead the dough for ten seconds. (Between kneading Dan Lepard always returns the dough into the cleaned and lightly oiled mixing bowl - I just put the bowl over the dough on the work surface to prevent the dough from drying-out).

4
Knead the dough once more for ten seconds and shape it into a smooth, round ball.

5
Either return dough to bowl and cover or again put the bowl on top of the dough as a cover. Leave for one hour at 21-25 degrees Celsius.

6
Lightly flour your work surface and shape the dough into a loaf. Final rise: Either leave the loaf seam-side down on a piece of baking paper or put the loaf seam-side up into a proofing basket. Leave for 1.5 hours or until almost doubled in height.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 210 degrees Celsius (conventional). I also like to put in an extra baking sheet to splash on some water at the beginning of the baking process. This helps to create steam for a nice rise and good crust.

7
At the end of the final rise, I like to brush my loaf with lots of water, sprinkle some flour on top, rub it in, and brush with more water. This is similar to a glaze and results in a shiny surface after baking. It also helps to glue on toppings like rolled oats.

8
Bake the loaf in the middle of the oven. Splash a cup of water on the lower baking sheet during the first five minutes. After 30 minutes in total, lower the temperature to 190 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 15-20 minutes. The loaf should be golden-brown, feel light in weight and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

The source
Adapted from "Dan Lepard: The Handmade Loaf"

The hint
This bread tastes best on the second day. On the first day, the crumb is almost sticky with moistness and you can feel pieces of apple. On the second day, the flavours will have combined beautifully. This loaf has an incredible shelf-life and will stay fresh for a week (I store my bread in a fabric bag made out of a tea towel). However, it's also delicious when toasted.

An Interview... and a Banana Cake

2007-07-24T13:08:00.001+10:00

When reading the interview meme over a Tartelette I was instantanously intrigued to get such an interesting glimpse into another person's life - and ultimately I began to wonder what Helen might ask me if I just asked her for an interview... Would it be awkward, would it be nice? Whilst reading through the comments other people had left, I decided to be spontaneous (which I am usually not) and just ask her. And a couple of days later, an email arrived with five questions I've been pondering about since then.

But hang on a minute - and I haven't forgotten about the banana cake recipe I've promised in the last post. This banana cake is very moist due to the coffee and that makes you almost forget about its low-fat character. Almost - I said. Another question I'm wondering about these days: When knowing you eat something is rather healthy (well, as far as cake goes), will you still think it moreish or are you unintentionally inclined not to like it that much? While liking the pronounced banana flavour, I couldn't quite make up my mind on how to rate this cake. My boyfriend wasn't a reliable test person in that respect because he simply complained about the fact that the cake didn't contain any chocolate. In case you're not looking for something healthy, feel free to add tons of chocolate chips!

Now without further ado, an interview by Helen of Tartelette:

1/ Name a few things you miss the most about Germany, food related and not.

Well, I better won't start listing all my friends and family... Apart from that, I very much miss German bakeries with non-pillowy bread, crusty bread rolls, and their non-refined but tasty sweet treats. I really don't need a layered mousse cake all the time... However, this deprivation was the trigger to make my own bread which turned out to be utterly fascinating. I still haven't discovered all the mysteries about sourdough etc. but I'm working on it!

Another thing I'm constantly whinging about is the absence of European-style quark or curd. It's a crucial ingredient of many a cake in Germany as you can see here; and mixed with fruit, a little sugar, and maybe some cinnamon or even cream it's the perfect afternoon snack.

I also had to accept that you can hardly get decent potatoes in Sydney - they're usually very pale, floury, and almost tasteless. And now remember that in traditional German cuisine the potato is omnipresent...

Okay, enough complaining. Apart from certain foods, there's not a lot of things that I really miss. Getting settled in Australia was easier than you might think - after all, most of the Australians have their roots in some European country so I didn't feel very "foreign". In any case, I'm still glad that my boyfriend who lured me down under, didn't plan to do his PhD in Siberia or any other uncomfortable place.

2/ As an expat I encounter many stereotypes about my home country. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions people have about Germany?

Currently experiencing winter in a country without central heating and/or properly insulated houses, I am cold all the time... Aussie friends are usually a bit bewildered about that: "Hey, you're from Germany where you have snow all the time - shouldn't you be used to it?" Well, I admire the Aussies who defeat the cold weather by sheer will power. I have never seen a people so determined to wear shorts and thongs even on a grey and rainy day with only 5 degrees. What makes it even funnier is the fact that there are also people determined on finally wearing a winter coat with a scarf when summer has barely finished. Sometimes you might get sick of wearing shorts and thongs...

Apart from that, Germans are supposed to be always on time - and I'm trying to do my best in showing that we can be just as relaxed as everyyone else on earth..;-)

3/ What is the hardest thing to adjust to when moving from Europe to Australia? The easiest?

This may sound a bit weird but the hardest thing was being constantly confronted with a certain question: "How are you?" This question exists in Germany, too, but is hardly ever used. Usually, only good friends would ask you this and then expect to get a full answer. So you'll start ranting about all the crap that has recently happened in your life. I quickly realized that the girl at the checkout did not really want to know about the state of my relationship, failed job applications or that I gained two kilos in just one week. However, I always felt a bit startled whenever the guy at the meat counter asked how I was doing today. In order to prevent any awkward silence or helpless mumbling on my part, I started to learn a few unsuspicious, short phrases to be thrown in whenever the need would arise. Eventually, I learned to relax. But to be honest, it took me about a year.

The easiest thing was to get accustomed to calling everyone by the first name. In Germany, this is pretty much unheard of. It's an important part of etiquette to address people in senior positions (or simply people older than you) only with their surname. And the day your boss offers you to call him by his first name, is regarded as something really special. However, I really like this custom!

4/ We call ourselves foodies but we all have closet with non foodie items that we use or eat once in a while, be it cake mix, instant mixes, etc...Which ones are yours if any?

I've already admitted here that I'm quite addicted to custard out of a little paper sachet. For me, it's all about instant gratification... Another favourite cheat of mine is a box with spaghetti, dehydrated tomato sugo, including little sachets with herbs and grated parmesan. This stuff can be stored almost indefinitely and is therefore always available - and let me tell you, it's quite tasty, too. Furthermore, it's not even unhealthy compared with other fast food items. However, I've never seen this little box anywhere in Australia - now I have to take care that my cupboard is always well stocked with all four emergency items.

5/ Name 2 ingredients, dishes or items that you have never had but always dreamed to try.

I'm a great admirer of French pastry - especially as I've never been able to make a tart crust that came close to those I've had in France. They're crunchy, nicely browned which gives them a slightly nutty taste, and they won't crumble too much when you bite into it. One day, I'll master it... However, I had at least a taste of it - which is still not the case with Tarte Tatin, another signature dish of France. Currently, I'm only owning a spring form tin but as soon as I have something that won't give way to all the buttery caramel goodness on the bottom, that'll be the first cake to bake!

I'm just realizing that there's a lot of French stuff that I haven't had yet. It's a bit embarrassing but I may be the only food-blogger who has never ever had creme brulee. Whilst everyone is blogging about the newest concoction infused with earl grey tea, lavender or who-knows-what, I'm still missing the original experience. I don't know if it never was on any restaurant menu (that said, I usually have sweet stuff at home) or if I just didn't choose it. One reason might be that I usually try to choose a flavour combination that I can't anticipate at all - and I am able to imagine custard. However, I'm still lacking the whole brulee experience. Look at this wonderful shiny, caramelized surface - let's get cracking!

And who would like to get interviewed next?

DIRECTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW MEME
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2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. Beware, I’m not shy of asking personal questions! Please make sure I have your email address.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Answer as little or as much as you'd like. And don't forget to add the directions at the bottom of your post
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Healthy Banana Cake

The ingredients

2 big bananas, mashed
125 ml strong coffee, cold
75 ml oil
3 eggs
100g caster sugar
100g brown sugar
100g all-purpose flour
200g LSA-Mix (see hint)
1 sachet baking powder

Note: I forgot to mention that I also added some cinnamon, mixed spice, vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt.

1
Mix eggs with sugar and all the liquid ingredients.

2
Fold in flour, LSA-Mix, and baking powder.

3
Spoon the batter into prepared muffin or mini-loaf tin and bake at 150 degrees (fan-forced) until a skewer inserted comes out clean (I don't remember the exact baking time but it was around 20-25 minutes).

The source
My own invention

The hint
LSA-Mix consists of linseed, soy, and almonds that are ground - you'll find it in the health aisle of your supermarket. If not, substitute with ground nuts of your choice.

Meme: 7 Random Things about Me

2007-07-13T13:12:00.002+10:00

Nora from Life's Smorgasbord has tagged me for my first meme ever: I am to tell 7 random things about me - that she doesn't know already. That's a hard one... I thought and thought and thought - and could only come up with food-related things. I wonder why...

1. I have already mentioned how much I love semolina pudding. And I always had a particular notion about how a proper semolina pudding should be like. One time on a holiday, (I was so small back then that I don't remember the following story but my parents take great delight in telling it over and over again..;-) my parents ordered my beloved pudding. The friendly staff of the nice restaurant not only cooked something that was for sure not part of the menu - but they also put a smiling face on it (using chocolate, nuts or something like that). However, this wasn't the semolina pudding I was used to. Therefore, I refused to eat it until they removed the face. You wouldn't call that stubborn, would you?

2. I still remember my first words in English: "One piece of Canadian Bacon, please!" I was 12 years old and spent the summer vacation with my family in the US - it was the first time for me to be outside of Europe. Pretty exciting. However, my English lessons were to start right after the vacation (having started with Latin first) so communication was only possible in a non-verbal way. After having had pizza for lunch in some city along the east coast I still felt hungry and I felt courageous. So back I went to the pizza stall and repeated what I had learned by heart: "One piece of Canadian Bacon, please!" I didn't understand what each word meant but it worked nonetheless. I was sooo proud of my achievement...

3. I've always been quite hopeless with mental arithmetic. So my mum thought that's got to change and tried to train me while simultanously showing me how to bake. It would go like that: "For this recipe you need 375g of flour. If you want to make one and a half times this recipe, how much flour will you need?" Well, what shall I say, I'm still pretty bad with mental arithmetic...

4. My most exhausting cooking adventure happened during a camping trip with my former scouts club (yes, I was a proud member of our local scouts club!). Together with a friend, I was cooking for up to 25 11-14 year-olds. Imagine a makeshift hearth with four wooden beams rammed into the earth supporting two sturdy metal grids: one as a stove top and one for the wood to burn. Each day, with some help from little pyromaniacs, we started a real hell fire. To stand the heat you had to wear sturdy gloves like the ones construction workers have. And when wearing shorts you were in danger to get all the little hair burnt off your legs... One day, we got a bit over-confident and made Kaiserschmarrn from scratch. It took forever - but the kids loved it!

5. One of the most terrible things to try is yak butter tea. Last year, on a hiking trip through Tibet, we ordered a flask in a guesthouse. While secretly being watched by the locals, the men of our party managed to down the stuff. After the first sip, I politely declined. However, I tried it once more: After having reached a pass in 5225 metres altitude, I was pretty stuffed and gladly excepted the bread and the tea cup our local guide handed around. His version was less strong and less buttery - and I was exhausted enough to give it another try. However, I've had my share and will never do it again.

6. Once upon a time, a Black Forest Cake taught me a lesson in humility. It was during my studies and I had promised to make such a cake for my friends. Okay, I did boast just a little bit that my Black Forest Cake was the best ever, for sure. Little did I know that this was to be the first one I would ruin. To make the cream filling extra-tasty, I had added a bit too much kirsch. Therefore, the cream didn't seem to get stiff at all. I kept on beating and beating - until the cream had almost turned into butter. My friends teased me mercilessly - not that I didn't deserve it...

7. The last one is a little bit embarassing but I have to admit that I secretly love a certain type of instant baby cereal/mush/porridge - there's no real word for that in English. To my defence I have to say that I only like the ones of a certain German brand (and I hate all the other brands). When my sister was little and we had the stuff at home, I always ate it after school as a quick snack. And if it's good for babies, it won't be bad for you either, right? Alas, I can't get it here in Australia and I haven't had it in years but I would eat it without hesitating a second...

PS: I won't tag anyone because it looks like everyone has been asked about it already. However, if you read that and you haven't disclosed 7 random things about yourself yet, go ahead!

PPS: The picture above shows a low-fat banana cake - yes, I was trying to be good. The recipe will be coming soon.

Blinis with Smoked Salmon - Disenchanted

2007-07-09T17:42:00.002+10:00

There are things you crave that just seem too dainty to eat in reality. A feast in caviar maybe or those handmade chocolates covered in edible gold leaves. For me, blinis always were associated with the luscious festivities of the Russian aristocracy and not to be eaten by mere mortals. However, it might as well be every day fare for a tsar, I told myself. And vodka didn't have to be part of the game either. Some way or other, I finally convinced myself that blinis could simply be made for dinner - even without an invitation to a Russian palace.

Naturally, it helped that I still had lots of buckwheat flour - the souvenir from my trip to Western Australia. Armed with a cookbook about all sorts of pancakes, crepes, and blinis I set to work. Unfortunately, that book didn't turn out to be very precise. I use yeast very regularly but I still appreciate precise descriptions about the process. For example, it's not very helpful to only state the rising time and not what the dough should look like at the end. How on earth does the cookbook author know about the activity of my yeast, the temperature in my kitchen, and all the other little things that are vital for the process? Well, I tried to use my common sense and things seemed to work out.

That said, from now on I'm definitely over and done with my cravings. Blinis are thoroughly disenchanted. I won't think of them as food only fit for tsars, princes, and other aristocrats. And that's not because I served them with the now ordinary smoked salmon instead of the still rare caviar. Truth be told, my blinis turned out to be a bit bland like boring pancakes and not as finger-licking delicious as I had imagined. Maybe blinis never were that special. Maybe I should just try a better recipe.

Blinis with smoked Salmon

The ingredients

550ml milk
1 tsp dry yeast
100g buckwheat flour
165g all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt (if you like, use a bit more)
3 eggs, separated

To serve:
200ml creme fraiche or sour cream
300g smoked salmon (or as much as you like)
fresh dill, chopped

Serves 5-6

1
Warm the milk slightly and dissolve the yeast in it. You can leave it to rise first or use it right away which is what I did.

2
Add the milk to the remaining ingredients (except the egg whites), stirring thoroughly. You will end up with a rather runny batter.

3
Cover the bowl and leave to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. Note: Unfortunately, the original recipe doesn't state what the batter should look like after the rising period. I decided that it looked okay and well-risen after 1,5 hours.

4
Beat egg whites until very stiff and carefully fold into the batter.

5
Ladle the batter into a greased and heated pan. I used about 2 heaped tablespoons per blini. Cook until dry on one side, flip over, and cook on the other side. Keep warm in a preheated oven, wrapped in foil.

6
Serve with smoked salmon, sour cream, chopped dill, and lots of freshly cracked pepper.

The source
Adapted from Camille Le Foll: Crepes, Blinis & Pancakes with friends

Calming down with Red Risotto

2007-07-05T18:12:00.003+10:00

There are times when everything turns from the well-planned into the unexpectedly chaotic. Add to this friends coming over for dinner and you get me freaked-out. Luckily, my friend Nora from Life's Smorgasbord and her partner weren't expecting a dinner extravaganza - instead, Nora and I had planned to cook together. Nora even brought vital ingredients like readily marinated garlic prawns. Lucky me...

While frantically getting the kitchen into ready-to-use status, Nora contentedly sipped her red wine and chatting with me, she got me cooled down eventually. We managed to put together a very nice three course dinner: Pumpkin Soup, Red Risotto with Garlic Prawns and homemade Vanilla Custard which I had already prepared the night before.

Despite being still not very coordinated, I did not manage to botch the pumpkin soup. Nora who had chosen the risotto recipe, took charge of the main course so I didn't have to do much more than stirring... With some steamed asparagus for added vitamins this risotto proved to be an absolute winner. The amount of tomato paste was just right, not overwhelming, and provided the ideal backdrop for the juicy garlicky prawns. The only thing we changed was adding another half cup of rice and therefore adjusting the amount of chicken stock. The recipe is supposed to be for four people and I was pretty hungry after all that last-minute hurry. With good food and wine and with a little help of my friends I managed to enjoy myself and we all had a wonderful evening!

If you'd like to read Nora's account of our cooking adventure, head over to her post!

"Waiter, there's something in my...dumplings!"

2007-06-30T18:59:00.003+10:00

Well, pear, to be precise. When I read about Johanna's challenge for the June edition of the "Waiter, there's something in my..."-event, I was very happy. I had always wanted to make fruit-filled dumplings (you didn't expect me to make savoury ones, right?) but for some reason never got around to do it. And regarding the chilly temperature this past month here in Sydney, my dumplings couldn't be wintery enough.

The only problem: Plums or apricots are just not in season right now and I didn't want to shell out almost six dollars for a tiny punnet of strawberries (it's still a mystery to me that those always seem to be in season in some part of Australia). However, the pear season is in full swing right now so that was settled eventually. In the beginning I had dreamed of some wonderfully complicated filling like pot roasted pears but in order to get dinner ready at a reasonable time, I simply used big chunks of a very ripe packham pear. With a salad as a starter, these pear dumplings are a substantial meal - and when you only eat two dumplings each, it's no overindulgence. However, I don't want to stop anyone...

Special thanks to my boyfriend who first sneered at the idea of a sweet main meal but then helped me taking really good photos: It was his idea to picture the steam and to let it "snow". Needless to say, he ended up liking these dumplings a lot... The cooking time was just right to get sweet and soft pear centres without overcooking them. The fried breadcrumbs added texture and a nice contrast to the soft but still firm dumpling dough. Can't help it, I want more...

Pear Dumplings

The ingredients

40g butter
250g ricotta
2 egg yolks
1 pinch of salt
250g flour
6-8 tbsp milk

1 large, ripe packham pear, peeled, cored, and cut into six chunks

about 3 litres of salted water

50g butter
100g breadcrumbs
2 tbsp poppy seeds
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of mixed spice
icing sugar for dusting

1
Cream the butter, add egg yolks, ricotta, flour, and salt, mixing well.

2
If your ricotta is rather stiff like mine, you'll end up with a crumbly mixture. Add milk by the tablespoon until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. It will still be rather stiff. If your ricotta is soft, omit the milk.

3
Shape the dough into a thick roll and pop it into the fridge for 30 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the pear.

4
Boil the salted water. Cut the chilled dough roll into 6-8 slices (depending on how big your dumplings are). Flatten each pieces until it's big enough to be wrapped around the pear chunks. Make sure to pinch the seams well (which is a bit easier using naturally round fruit).

5
Carefully put the dumplings into the water and let it come to a boil. Then let the dumplings simmer for about ten minutes. They are ready when floating. Note: Make sure to stir once or twice to prevent them from sticking to the bottom. Otherwise they won't float when ready...

6
In the meantime, melt the butter in a pan. Add bread cumbs, poppy seeds, and spices. Fry until crisp, stirring frequently.

7
Turn the cooked dumplings in the breadcrumbs and sprinkle with lots of icing sugar.

The source
Adapted from Hedwig Maria Stuber: Ich helf Dir kochen

The hint
Makes 6 large dumplings or 8 smaller ones when using smaller fruit. After an entre, serve 2-3 large dumplings per person as main course. As dessert, this is enough for four people.

If you have leftovers, freeze the dumplings and the breadcrumbs seperately. To thaw the dumplings, put into cold water and let come to a boil or use a microwave.

Craving Vanilla Custard

2007-06-27T18:12:00.007+10:00

Sadly enough, there haven't been many posts in this month. Due to a couple of very busy days, I didn't even have time to read my favourite blogs. But even worse, I've even managed to miss the deadline for this month's Sugar High Friday... If I'm very lucky, Jennifer - The Domestic Goddess who not only invented this popular blogging event but also hosts it this time - will have mercy on me - but if not, I can't blame her...

Anyway, I still want to tell a story about one of my all-time cravings. But beware, it's not something very interesting. Most likely, most people will have made something like that ages ago: homemade vanilla custard.
However, when I was little, I thought vanilla custard came out of a box. I did know that milk does come from cows and not from the supermarket (after all, I grew up in a little village and visited said cows almost every evening). But whenever I was craving vanilla custard, my mum would just open a paper package with a flour-like mixture, stir it into milk, and after a little boiling I was a happy camper. Up to today, I still don't know anyone personally (at least in Germany) who would make it from scratch. Although it might be possible that I accidentally made something that qualifies as custard when working on a more involved dessert recipe, I haven't done it consciously - until last weekend.

Jennifer's task to create something that you crave regularly but never actually made yourself was the proper occasion to finally try my hands on my very first vanilla custard. That said, this recipe isn't particularly difficult and it was whipped up in no time. However, I felt a bit timid. Would it be able to stand up against the beloved package mix? Could I - at the ripe old age of 30 - leave my childish custard addiction behind and fall in love with the real thing?

I tasted at every stage, carefully monitoring the changes in texture, colour, and taste. And truth be told, once the egg yolks were incorporated, this custard tasted exactly like the one I was already used to (but I take care to buy the good stuff with real vanilla). Not only taste, even colour and creaminess were exactly the same. A bit startled, I folded in the egg whites. And that's where things started changing. My eggs had been too big. Whilst this foamy feather-light custard was still pretty good, it had nothing to do with my treasured memory. And it was by far too soupy to set and be inverted later (I tried and it resulted in a very unphotogenic puddle on the plate). End of the story: I guess I will still resort to my package mix - unless it's a very special occasion...

Homemade Vanilla Custard

The ingredients
750ml whole milk
100g cornstarch (if you want to invert it - the original recipe stated only 60g)
75-100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 small eggs, separated (If you only have large eggs, use two yolks and one egg white)

Serves 6

1
Whisk cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla bean paste into roughly 150ml of the milk.
2
Bring the remainder of the milk to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and stir in the cornstarch mix, using a wire whisk. Move back to heat and let it come to a boil again. Let boil for at least a minute or until noticeably thickened.

3
Stir the egg yolks into the thickened milk. (I waited a couple of minutes to let it cool down a little bit - didn't want to end up with scrambled eggs). The mixture will thicken a bit more.

4
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the custard.

5
Pour custard into moulds and let cool. Refrigerate until serving.

The source
Adapted from Hedwig Maria Stuber: Ich helf Dir kochen

The hint
Serve with your favourite fruity sauce. I used frozen raspberries heated up in some Cointreau with a little sugar added.

Pia's Plum Tart

2007-06-18T07:41:00.001+10:00

The plum season is gone since quite a while but I still haven't blogged about the latest result on my quest for the perfect plum cake. There has been the traditional one and the not-so-traditional one - both delicious in their own right but both not quite able to satisfy the expectations of my boyfriend. Usually, he's quite happy with the outcome of my kitchen adventures so I was really curious to know more about the superior plum cake of his mother with the mysterious "brown dough" - and I got her recipe.

It turned out that this dough was pretty similar to the pretty famous Austrian Linzer Torte which is said to be the world's oldest known cake recipe. I had never made it before so I was very intrigued and rushed to the store to get ground hazelnuts. I know, the recipe says almonds but that's where the trouble starts. To get the full taste - and the desired brown colour - the almonds need to be ground with their skin on. Unfortunately, the store-bought almond meal is completely white and I don't have a food processor to make my own. That said, the best option is using a manually operated grinder. There you'll get tiny flaky bits (instead of a uniform floury meal) which will improve the texture of all sorts of baked goods, especially flourless cakes.
Anyway, none of those options was open to me so I decided to cheat a bit and used a mixture of 50g of ground hazelnuts and 50g of ground almonds. That way, the dough was decidedly brownish.

However, this story doesn't come with a happy end - simply because I was too impatient. Once the tart started to look done around the edges, I decided that it was fully cooked through even after only half an hour in the oven. When slicing the tart, I realized that I had outsmarted myself: What had looked all right around the edges was completely undercooked in the middle. Luckily, even undercooked, the cake was still tasty albeit not at all crunchy. Now I'll have to wait for the next plum season to get the ultimate plum cake experience... If any one happens to have some plums in the freezer and wants to try this tart, please let me know about the outcome...

Pia's Plum Cake

The ingredients

150g butter
100g sugar
2 egg yolks
pinch of salt
some lemon zest (or vanilla extract, if you prefer)
150g all-purpose flour
100g ground almonds

1
Cream butter with sugar until sugar dissolves. Add egg yolks, salt, and flavouring, mixing carefully after each addition.

2
Add the flour and the ground almonds, while mixing on low speed. Once the dough comes together, shape it into a disc, wrap in plastic foil, and chill in the fridge for an hour (because the dough is quite soft).

3
Press the dough into a buttered 26 centimetres tart form (the dough will still be too soft to roll it out) and cover tightly with plums. If using frozen plums, don't let them defrost or they will get soggy.

4
Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about an hour (and try to be patient - it doesn't matter that the edges of the cakes could get a bit dry and crumbly). Take the cake out of the oven and immediately sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

The source
Pia's recipe

The hint
You can easily double the recipe for a whole tray of plum cake.

Breakfast Rolls with Poppy Seeds

2007-06-13T07:33:00.001+10:00

Whilst I'm frequently baking bread - last time with not so good results but I better be quiet, I'm still chewing on this one - bread rolls are a rare treat on our breakfast table. Mostly because of one reason: If you want to have freshly baked bread rolls in the morning, there's not much sleep to be had on this very morning. Even if you make the dough the night before and leave it in the fridge to rise, you still have to get up early to take it out, let it come to room temperature (well, I usually skip this step), shape the rolls, let them rise again, and finally pop them in the oven. Unfortunately, due to our small apartment, my boyfriend wouldn't get much sleep either. Therefore, I prefer to do the whole process the night before resulting in nice but not quite fresh bread rolls on Saturday morning. Even a quick refreshing in the hot oven never restored the ultimate crunch.

This time however, I had resolved to make Deinin's bread rolls who got the original recipe from Anne. I followed Deinin's adaptations to the letter (apart from accidentally watering down the egg wash resulting in lighter colour) and was rewarded with very tasty, chewy rolls. Half of them got eaten the same evening. The rolls were not overly crunchy but had very pleasing rustic appearance and a good, hearty bite. The other half got devoured the next morning - and miraculously, these rolls hadn't deteriorated at all! I reckon it's due to the butter they contain making for softer rolls with an obviously longer shelf life. I will definitely make them again!

PS: The only thing I wondered about was how Deinin got them big enough to fill them with Caesar's Salad. While having a nice size, mine would not have been up to that task. But maybe I suffer from a streak of bad lack regarding the whole rising business - as I said, I'm still chewing on my last loaf...

Semolina Pudding with Rhubarb Compote

2007-06-05T14:23:00.002+10:00

Another day with another adventure in the grocery store: Doing my daily shopping for one once during the morning, I noticed lots of shop assistants around, filling up the shelves and generally being very busy. I contemplated the possibility to ask for something I've been searching for quite a while - semolina. It looks like I've never grown out of this childhood treat that always comes in handy when I want some quickly cooked lunch that should also satisfy my sweet tooth while not being completely unhealthy. I go through a lot of that stuff.

However, stocking up on it proved to be a bit of a problem. In the supermarket next to our first flat in Sydney, I had figured out after a while that semolina was to be found in the bakers’ aisle, next to nuts and vanilla essence. My other source was small grocery shop run by people from the Balkan. Squeezing myself through the extremely narrow aisles was fun already not to mention all the incredible stuff you could find there: Preserves, canned vegetables, spices and dried fruits unknown to me. Where was I? Right, this shop had the most wonderful semolina that resulted in a very smooth and almost silky semolina pudding. What shall I say – I still miss it.

Now living closer to the central business district, I could choose between two supermarkets but hadn’t found any semolina – despite having asked for it several times. This morning, after hesitating for a little while, I decided to give it another go and approached one of the shop assistants.

"Excuse me, could you please tell me where to find semolina?” I said in my nicest I-don’t-want-to-cause-any-hassle-voice.
His answer was short: "What's that?"
"Ahem, something like cracked wheat?!" Being at a loss for words, it was the quickest reply I could think of, knowing that it wasn’t quite correct. Have you ever had to explain what semolina actually is??
The shop assistant decided to take the reasonable way and took me to a colleague hoping that he would know more about it.
“Do you know where to find semolina?” – still with my nicest I-don’t-want-to-cause-any-hassle-voice.
“What’s that?” Haven’t I heard that one before? After providing my non-appropriate explanation again, the shop assistant led me to the cereal aisle. Standing in front of the boxed breakfast with no semolina whatsoever, I realised that he had just understood the word “wheat”.
And home I went without my beloved semolina.

Okay, just to be fair to the guild of shop assistants, I should mention that shortly after this memorable encounter, I finally got some semolina. In another shop, another shop assistant proved to be exceptionally helpful: She pointed one semolina brand in the health food section and another one next to the chocolate chips – sold out unfortunately.

Semolina Pudding with Rhubarb Compote

I have to admit that I never use a recipe when making this. Using the rule of thumb, I pour some semolina into the milk. If you add the semolina to the cold milk, you’ll never end up with lumps. Stir constantly until it comes to a boil, adding more milk if necessary (it will get stiffer while cooling down). Sweeten to your liking, add a pinch of salt, some vanilla sugar, and dust with cinnamon if desired.

Serve with your favourite fruit compote. I like to caramelize some sugar before adding the fruit. Stir to coat with caramel and depending on the juiciness of your fruits add a little water. Cook until you reach the desired consistency.

This is the ratio for semolina pudding one of my trusted old-style German cookbooks presents (serves 4):

1 litre of milk (low-fat works fine but whole milk tastes better)
100g semolina

To make the pudding bit richer, add up to 40g of butter, two egg yolks, and two egg whites beaten until stiff.

Rescue Mission: Choc Bread Pudding

2007-05-31T22:03:00.002+10:00

When I was planning what to make for a dinner party a couple of days ago, the failed mocha panettone turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The party was sort of an impromptu occasion due to a friend's leaving Australia the next day. While wanting to make something special, I couldn't spend all day in the kitchen on a week night. So I needed quick and easy recipes that still provided an aah&ooh factor. Looking at the big brown loaf of panettone on the dining table, I remembered having seen a recipe for chocolate bread pudding at Anna's Morsels&Musings - this way I would be able to get rid of the bread in the most delicious way!

Luckily, all my dinner guests agreed that this reasoning had been right: The chocolate bread pudding was very chocolatey and moist, but not soggy. The lightly whipped cream and the warm berry sauce gave the dessert a little lightness (not calorie wise, though). The only changes I made to the recipe were substituting dark rum for the Pedro Ximenez Sherry (though I'd love to try that one!) and adding some more milk, another egg, and some cocoa as I was suspecting that I used more bread than Anna. Not to forget the half-hearted try to get rid of some calories by using a mix of milk, evaporated milk, and cream instead of cream only - well, I admittedly had to empty some open jars...
The next day, suprisingly, the leftovers served cold alongside vanilla yogurt and some berry sauce tasted even better.

If you're looking for a fuss-free main course, this parmesan-crusted chicken will fit the bill perfectly. All it requires is a quick brush with a mustard mixture (I was pretty generous with the mustard but it was still not overly noticable - next time, I'd use even more), coating it in grated parmesan and up it goes for a good 15 minutes into the preheated oven. The chicken was very juicy and flavourful with some nice crisp from the cheese. Serve it with baked potatoes and you'll be able to enjoy the evening while the oven does most of the job.

Mocha Panettone...

2007-05-28T14:17:00.002+10:00

...with dark chocolate and pine nuts. Sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, taste wise, the result was nothing short of a disappointment. There had been a little voice inside my head, asking if it really was such a good idea to use instant coffee as the main flavouring. However, the recipe said so - the accompanying picture was appealing enough - and I love these sweet yeast breads.

After the first slice it was already obvious that I didn't want to eat the whole loaf on its own. The coffee flavour was terrible, the texture was rather dry - and the chunks of dark chocolate definitely couldn't make up for that. But I didn't want to throw away the whole thing either. After all, besides the instant coffee, lots of good ingredients had been used to make this rather bland bread. So I had to think of something else to do with it...stay tuned!

Note: So far, it was the first and only recipe from the Bread Machine Kitchen Handbook that wasn't a success. Assuming that no one will want to try this particular recipe, I won't bother posting it.

In the Land of the Burger

2007-05-16T18:33:00.001+10:00

I used to hate burgers. I thought burgers are what the company with the big M is trying to make out of them. Oh boy, was I wrong. Coming to Australia gave me the opportunity to try a lot of new things to eat - and the so far spurned burger was one of them. Of course I do love the traditional Bavarian mini-meat loaves. However, you never eat them inside a roll (potato salad and other salads are the common accompaniments) so you can't call them burgers.

Whenever you want to grab a quick bite in the average Aussie pub - chances are pretty high that some sort of burger is on the menue. And that's where I discovered that I really like them. Of course, the roll could be improved, most of the time. But the burgers are neither tasteless nor unbearably greasy. However, nothing can beat a homemade burger. Having some lamb mince in the freezer that was somewhat too intensely lamb-ish to eat it on its own, I decided to mix it with some beef mince. There was also some leftover feta that needed to be used and that's how this recipe was born. Even my boyfriend was quite happy to get some meat once in a while - so how many birds did I kill with just one stone?

PS: One more bird - this recipe will also be the entry for the Big Burger Ballyhoo over at Freya's and Paul's Writing at the Kitchen Table.

Lamb Burgers with Feta Filling

The ingredients

500g beef mince
300g lamb mince
1 big onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic
½ bunch of parsley, finely chopped
2 small eggs
2 tbsp bread crumbs, heaped
Grated nutmeg
Salt
Freshly cracked pepper
Roughly 150g feta

Oil or cooking spray for frying

Yield: 8 rather big patties

1
In a bowl, knead both types of minces with your hands until smooth. Add all the other ingredients except feta and mix well. Note: Cookbooks usually state that you should fry onions and garlic first but my mom never does it and neither do I.

2
Cut the feta in 8 pieces (I made 8 rather big patties but that’s up to you. Cut the feta accordingly).

3
Flatten a chunk of the mince mix and put a piece of feta in the middle. Cover with some more mince and make sure you seal the sides very well (otherwise the patty will fall apart during frying or the filling will peep through as you can see above).

4
Heat oil in a frying pan over medium to high heat (cooking spray works well, too). Fry patties on one side until well-browned than flip over. When browned on both sides, reduce heat and continue frying until cooked through. This can take a couple of minutes depending on the thickness of your patties. If unsure, just cut into one patty and have a look if it’s still pink on the inside.

The source

My own creation

The hint

Serve hot or cold with pita bread, tomato and cucumber slices, salad leaves, and a sauce of sour cream, salt, freshly cracked pepper and shredded fresh mint. Or serve hot with rice and chunky tomato sauce.

Chocolate Crumble Cake by Mum

2007-05-13T23:46:00.003+10:00

Germany

things like baking powder or vanilla sugar are sold in little sachets. Pretty convenient for the lazy baker who doesn’t want to bother with measuring. But the best part is the recipes on the back. My mom used to collect them (and I do it, too, sometimes). She has quite a stack of them; all bundled up and secured with rubber band. Some are 15 years old – or even older. Looking through them, you can stumble upon real treasures. We’ve got our family vanilla ice cream recipe from one of them (something I hope to make and blog about pretty soon).

Another one is a cake that never failed to impress – the combination of pound cake, ricotta filling, and most importantly the chocolate crumble topping is uncommon enough to spark interest at once. The original recipe didn’t have the filling but a spread of red currant jam instead. That was quite good but my mum came up with the idea of a quark filling that was even better. It pretty much sums up her approach to cooking and baking: nothing fancy-schmancy – just down-to-earth and simply good. Happy Mother’s Day, mum!

Chocolate Crumble Cake with Ricotta Filling

Pound Cake Base
75g butter
75g caster sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (heaped)
1 egg
150g all-purpose flour
50g cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
2-4 tbsp milk

Beat butter until soft, add both types of sugar. Beat until pale and fluffy, the sugar should be dissolved. Add the egg and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and as much milk as needed (the dough should be rather on the stiff side). Spread into a prepared springform pan creating a little rim if desired).

Ricotta Filling
2 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar, heaped
500g Ricotta (should be rather sour, do not use the ricotta for baked cheesecake)
2 egg whites

Beat the egg whites until stiff. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and the sugar until pale and fluffy and the sugar is dissolved. Add ricotta and mix well. Gently fold in egg whites. Spread ricotta filling on top of vanilla dough.

Chocolate Crumble Topping
150g flour
30g cocoa
100g sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar, heaped
100g butter, cold, diced

Mix with your fingers until coarse crumbles form. Do not over mix (otherwise the butter will melt and mixture will get too soft to form proper crumbles). Sprinkle atop ricotta filling.

Fan-bake cake at 150 degrees Celsius (otherwise 170 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven) for about half an hour. If the ricotta filling is still wobbly, bake for another five minutes. Let cool down thoroughly before unmolding. Otherwise the cake might crack.

The source
My mum and a very old vanilla sugar sachet

The hint
If you can track it down, use European-style quark or curd for the filling – that’s what the original recipe calls for.

If using a mini-loaf pan, you’ll have leftover ricotta filling which can be baked separately as little soufflé. The leftover crumble can be frozen.

A new Tart and a new Blog

2007-05-05T12:44:00.001+10:00

I will talk about the above pictured salmon puff pastry tart with mushrooms - later. What I really want to say is that there is a brand new food blog out there. I have not the slightest idea how many there are and how many get started each day - the numbers must be enormous. However, this one is special to me as it is the blog of my dear friend Nora - the one that got me started in the first place! About a year ago, she introduced me to this whole new world that takes up quite a lot of my spare time. Not that I blog all the time (which, sadly, you will have noticed by now) but if you count in all the other reading / photographing / planning / thinking / dreaming of and about food, you will understand what I mean. This whole new world has now a new star - come and check it out at Life's Smorgasbord.

And here comes the tart - I haven't forgotten. Having bought a slab of salmon and thinking about another way than just frying it with rice and veggies on the side, I came up with this really simple but really tasty tart. If you happen to have some frozen puff pastry in your freezer, that's dinner in a breeze.

Salmon Puff Pastry Tart with Mushroom and Cream Cheese filling

The ingredients

1 1/2 sheets of frozen puff pastry
250g salmon
150-200g mushrooms
1/2 package of cream cheese (the slightly fat reduced version was fine)
1 egg
splash of milk
1 tsp dried dill
salt
freshly cracked pepper
lemon wedges to serve

Yield: Serves 3-4

1
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Put the frozen sheets of puff pastry on a prepared baking sheet. I just pressed the edges together to seal it a bit.

2
Cut salmon and mushrooms into bite sized pieces.

3
In a small bowl whisk together the cream cheese and the egg, adding a bit of milk to lighten the consistency. Stir in salt, dill, and lots of pepper. Spread mixture atop the puff pastry leaving a rim of 1-2 centimetres.

4
Spread the pieces of salmon and mushrooms leaving a bit of space in between - this tart doesn't want to be crowded. Bake until the edges are golden brown and the salmon is cooked through, roughly for 20 minutes.

The hint
Serve with lemon wedges and a salad of young spinach. Leftovers are still fine the next day.

Discovering Lemon Curd

2007-05-03T13:54:00.001+10:00

Doing grocery shopping is still kind of an adventure for me - at least here in Australia. Even after one and a half years in this country, I still find some edible things that aren't familiar to me. Or I finally figure out what a familiar thing is called around here. For example, it took me a while to realize that "apple sauce" is no sauce at all but the name for pureed apple compote - something I almost thought wouldn't exist in Australia. Not that it's hard to make it myself but to have a jar of apple sauce in the pantry is not too bad at all.

However, there is a down side to all those discoveries. A long time ago standing in the midst of a normal supermarket, I had come to realize that there is some sort of immanent order in Australian supermarkets that is completely different from German ones. It still happens that I'm walking the aisles back and forth, looking for a certain ingredient (of course looking at the spots where it would be in German supermarkets) - and not finding it at all. After I had eaten the jar of apple sauce a friend gave to me when he left Australia, I haven't been able to buy another one. It's not at the spot for preserved fruits, it's not at the spot for spreads, it's not at the spot for cans - it seems that I definitely will have to make my own apple sauce in the future. And did I mention that it's completely useless to ask any shop assistant? If you're lucky, they will narrow your search down to "look in aisle 2 or 3 but it could also be in aisle 8". If you're lucky, that is.

Anyway, there are also some happier discoveries like lemon curd. I was just looking for some jam and right next to it, I found nice little jars with either pale yellow or flashy yellow content. The label "lemon curd" wasn't familiar to me at all and "lemon butter" was even more confusing. Feeling adventurous, I bought a jar. I wasn't really sure what to do with it but its vicinity to jam and peanut butter pointed at some sort of spread. Well, what shall I say - I tried and loved it! Soon after I had gone through this first jar, I decided to make my own having read frequently that homemade lemon curd is very much superior to the store-bought variety. After checking out various recipes of fellow food bloggers, I quickly settled on this recipe from A Cat in the Kitchen. The changes I made were using only lemons (didn't have any limes) and omitting the zest (the lemons weren't organically grown and I wanted my curd to be completely smooth). Dagmar hadn't promised too much, this recipe was truly foolproof. The resulting curd firmed up nicely without any curdling whatsoever. Its tartness is noticeable but not overwhelming and can stand up against any kind of bread. And when I'm biting into my toast with homemade lemon curd, I can almost pardon the lack of logic in Australian supermarkets.

Bread - and more Bread...

2007-05-01T15:59:00.001+10:00

If you're looking for some inspiration regarding your daily bread, just have a look at the round-up of "Waiter, there's something in my... Bread" at Andrew's SpittoonExtra. I'm a little late in announcing but he was unbelievably quick in putting all the wonderful entries together - well sorted into sweet and savoury ones.

I definitely have to try those Pecan Sticky Buns, and the Pain Brioche sounds like a real challenge. However tonight, being short on time, I'll get my bread maker to whip up a quick Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread for breakfast tomorrow...

"Waiter, there's something in...

2007-04-24T16:06:00.001+10:00

...my Bread!" For the first time ever, I’ve managed to participate in the blogging event “Waiter, there’s something in my…” – a monthly blogging event that is hosted in turn by Andrew of SpittoonExtra, Johanna of ThePassionateCook, and Jeanne of CookSister. Despite a whole lot of interesting topics, there was always something coming that prevented me from taking part – much to my dismay. And I haven’t even mentioned that I also missed out on the last two Sugar High Fridays…:-(

However, since this month’s theme is bread and I’m baking quite frequently, it would have been really weird not to do anything about it. What I like about those blogging events is the opportunity to think the unusual, to try new ingredients or new techniques, and to step out of your comfort zone. Not that I’m doing completely crazy stuff but before SHF#27 I had never thought of making flourless cakes. And one of the monthly food photography challenges made me think about the different shades of white for the first time.

For "Waiter, there's something in my...Bread" I thought I should try my hands on a more involved recipe than the ones I’ve made recently – be warned, this is a 2-days recipe. Furthermore, I wanted to bake something healthy yet delicious: Coarse-grained whole wheat bread with cooked wheat berries, it is! The original recipe comes from the already widely mentioned cookbook “Amy’s Bread”. The leavening is done by a sponge starter which is pretty much the same thing as the poolish I’ve used before. However, there is big difference in texture: Amy’s sponge starter is rather stiff and stringy but not really hard to work with. Her sponge recipe would have been sufficient to make four batches of the bread so I halved the recipe. One part went into the whole wheat bread, the other part into a batch of crispy white bread rolls. The original recipe also calls for chopped walnuts which I omitted in favour of the wheat berries (I tripled the original amount). To be precise, I used cracked wheat and just guessed that it should be the same thing that Amy calls wheat berries. That cracked wheat gave the bread a little bit of extra bite and slightly nutty flavour (even if you can hardly see the grains).

Whole Wheat Bread with Wheat Berries

The ingredients

The sponge starter (I halved this recipe)
1 ½ cups/12 ounces/342g water
¼ tsp dry yeast
3 ½ cups/16 ounces/456g unbleached all-purpose flour

The dough
¾ tsp dry yeast
¼ cup/2 ounces/57g warm water
1 2/3 cup/8 ounces/228g whole wheat flour
1 cup/4 ½ ounces/128g bread flour
2 tbsp plus 2 tsp/1 ounce/28.5g polenta
1 tbsp kosher salt/1 tsp salt, heaped
1 cup/8 ounces/228g sponge starter
1 cup/8 ounces/228g cold water or reserved wheat berry cooking liquid
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp oil
1 ½ cup/9 ounces/256g cooked wheat berries

1
You can cook the wheat berries ahead of time. If using volume measurements, cooked wheat berries have three times the volume of uncooked wheat berries. That means, for 1 ½ cups cooked wheat berries, you’ll cook ½ cup. If you like, cook some more berries and freeze for future use.
Place the wheat berries in a pot and add water until they’re covered at least by 2 centimetres. Let come to a boil and cook until the berries are plump which will take 30-40 minutes. Drain and reserve the cooking liquid.

2
Mix all ingredients, stirring 2-3 minutes with a wooden spoon, until a smooth but stiff dough has formed (this could also be done by a mixer with the dough hook attached). Put the dough into a 2-litre-vessel and cover with plastic wrap. If you want to use the sponge starter as soon as possible, let sit at room temperature until the dough has tripled in volume and just starts collapsing. This will take 6-8 hours. When the sponge is ready, it should be used immediately before it collapses too much. If you want to use the sponge the next day or the day after, put the sponge into the fridge and let it rise for at least 14 hours. When using in a recipe, let the sponge come to room temperature first or use warm water instead of cold water.

3
For the dough, place the yeast together with the warm water into a bowl and stir to dissolve. Let stand for three minutes.

4
Meanwhile, mix all the other dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

5
Add the sponge starter, the cool water, honey, and oil to the yeast water. Mix for 1-2 minutes to break up the sponge. Add the dry ingredients, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon until a shaggy mass forms.

6
Place dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 5-7 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. If the dough seems too stiff, add more cold water by the tablespoon. Form a loose ball and let rest for 20 minutes so the gluten strands can relax.

7
Flatten and stretch the dough into a large rectangle. Put the cooked wheat berries atop and fold together like a business letter. Knead gently for 2-3 minutes until all the berries are incorporated.

8
Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest in an oiled bowl, tightly covered with plastic wrap, for about an hour at room temperature. The dough should start to rise but not double during this stage.

9
Put the dough into the fridge for one night to develop more flavour.

10
The next day, let the dough come to room temperature (about two hours). After that, divide the dough into 2 halves and shape both into round loaves. Place on baking paper and let rise for 2-3 hours or until they’re doubled in size. (Note: I started dividing the dough after half an hour and also shortened the rising time to 1 ½-2 hours. I did this not only because of time pressure but also to get a bit more oven spring. Not sure, if I should recommend it but it worked just fine.)

11
In the meantime, preheat the oven with a pizza stone inserted (if using) to 230 degrees Celsius. This should take about 30-40 minutes. Slash the loaves with a very sharp knife and insert into the oven. Quickly pour a cup of hot water onto the bottom or mist with a plant sprayer and immediately shut the oven door. Repeat this twice during the first five minutes of baking.

12
Bake loaves for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for another 15-20 minutes. The loaves should be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

The source
Recipe adapted from “Amy’s Bread”