Baking news: home-made petit-beurre cookies

Who doesn’t like the petit-beurre cookies? Light, crisp and buttery, they are one of the favourite “coffee mates” (if it weren’t for the heavenly Speculoos, I’m sure they would have been the favourite ones) that get dipped in that morning/afternoon cup of yours. So it’s no wonder that people keep trying to reproduce their delicate taste and structure at home. I have checked a number of French recipes and all of them are essentially the same: you begin with a generous amount of butter that is heated in a pan with sugar, a pinch of salt and some sort of liquid until it starts to boil. Then you let it cool, mix in the dry ingredients, and leave the dough in the fridge overnight. The next day begins the fun part: rolling, cutting and baking. And tasting. With coffee. Or milk. Or tea. You name it. You want it. You get it!

I followed this recipe replacing powdered milk and water with liquid milk. I also added something like two spoonfuls of shredded coconut because I like biscuits with a little more flavour, and a spoonful of wheat bran to give them a rustic look and a healthier fibre content (that’s where the speckles come from). The flavour still remained somewhat neutral, so next time I’ll add grated orange peel or almond flour and see if they do the trick. As a friend of mine says, I’m hard to please when it comes to baking… Otherwise, these are very good cookies: the texture is there, the taste is subtle and buttery, the kid loves them and I know exactly what they are made from. Hm… I think I’ll go and eat one right now, just to make sure the flavour isn’t there…

Baking News: Mini Fruit Cakes

As you know, my boy has recently celebrated his birthday… which means… birthday party! Which means… cake! Or, to be exact, cakes. One big cake for the home and a multitude of fruit cakes to share with his schoolfellows.

Here’s the big one: I used this recipe for the sponge, layered it with whipped cream, glazed with melted chocolate and decorated with hearts ( his idea). It was the first time I decorated a cake (see those shaky lines?) but everyone was happy all the same!

And here are the fruit cakes! Oh, the taste of them! I’m absolutely making those for my own birthday. And for Christmas. And for all other holidays. And on workdays too. Who cares for cream and pâte feuilletée if they can have a slice of a moist, rich, fruit-filled, orange-scented cake? Certainly not me! I’m a cake girl!

I followed this recipe, using the dried fruit I had in stock (raisins, candied papaya, candied cherries and almond flakes) and making mini cakes in my IKEA mould (the cells are smaller than muffins, 4cm across and straight rather than widening at the top). The only precaution to take while baking this cake(s) is to butter and flour your mould(s) really well – or you’ll curse your head off trying to pull the crumbling b…stards out of their cells (that’s what happened with my first batch: half of the cakes came out broken. Luckily, I still had enough batter and the second batch popped out without any resistance). Except that – they are perfectly perfect. And the crumbs tasted just as good )))

Yummy-yum!

 

 

 

 

Baking news

In case you were missing my food pictures, here’s a little treat for you!

These are tiny-teeny amarettini (Italian almond meringue cookies) and they are delicious. I made them smaller than the traditional amaretti: each cookie is but a single bite of sweet, nutty puffiness, which makes it a perfect match for that cup of espresso! You can check the recipe and how-to right here. I didn’t use the almond extract and Amaretto the recipe calls for, so technically my cookies can’t be called amarettini but who cares? They taste like your sweetest dream and this is what really counts!

Have a good day, kids!

 

Baking news

This is by far the funniest thing I’ve ever baked…

First take a good look…

What are they? Muffins on steroids? Mushrooms? Alien life-forms?

If you’re not familiar with them yet, let me introduce you: these are popovers and they fully deserve their name! Technically speaking, this is liquid batter cooked stiff right in the middle of a supernova-like explosion. The broccoli shape is the fault of the muffin pan and gravity: bake them by zero G – and they’ll probably be round…

Now, how about more pictures?

One just can’t help smiling, right? This is surely going to become my favourite cheer-up recipe (by the way, you can check it here). Make them with kids of any age for an instant mood boost with the bonus of a sugar-free treat. Devour them “as they are” or fill them with cottage cheese, crab salad, jam, dulce de leche or any other mixture that makes your heart go pop for a more substantial, relatively guiltless snack!

The drawback of this recipe? These beauties take a full 40 minutes to bake and they should be eaten hot from the oven, so they’ll probably disappear sooner than you can say “popover” and leave you with nothing but a memory (and a mess in the kitchen). This sort of reminds me of the eternal “housewife’s curse”: you spend your time fighting like crazy against the entropy in your life and all you end up with is more mess… You clean the house – it gets dirty again, you cook the meals – they vanish like they’ve never existed… This is why every housewife needs a camera: to catch those precious moments when the place is clean, the kids happy and the popovers hot, and crisp, and steaming!

That’s all for today, kids! Have a nice week-end and behave yourselves!

Chocolate strawberry roll

Do you want to know what is my favourite to-go, no-fail chocolate cake recipe? Hang on, your curiosity will be satisfied in

one…

two…

three seconds!

Ta-daaam! Meet the chocolate-anything roll!

As you can see, this time it was a choco-strawberry roll, but it can as well be a raspberry, cherry or apricot, or pretty much any fruit you can think of roll, or – in the ultimate chocolat-y effort – a choco-chocolate roll!

The recipe isn’t too complicated and – my favourite part – it doesn’t require any fancy ingredients. If you are ready to sacrifice half a dozen eggs and a chocolate bar, you’re good to go! The video recipe and its text equivalent can be found here.

And now I’ll tell you a tale of trouble with a happy ending. Yesterday, as I was separating the eggs for this cake, an accident (most dreaded by home bakers) happened: a yolk broke and landed in a bowl of whites… I scooped out as much of it as I could but the whites were contaminated. As I had exactly 6 eggs and couldn’t start over again, I decided to continue and beat the whites… only to obtain a foamy, frothy but still liquid consistency – far from the mounting peaks you’d expect… Houston? Heeeelp?

Now comes the happy end: I added a teaspoon of baking powder to the yolk-sugar-choco mixture, folded in the whites, called heaven for assistance and shoved the thing into the oven… Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock… Miracle! The cooked dough looked exactly as it should have!

Moral: ALWAYS separate your eggs ONE BY ONE over a SMALL BOWL and THEN transfer them to the BIG ONE! And in case of emergency, use baking powder!

Good baking, everyone!

Death by chocolate

So, have you been missing my food pictures? In this case you’re going to get your treat right now! We can talk later ;)

All right, now listen (I doubt if you can talk with your mouth watering like this): these are THE. BEST. CHOCOLATE. COOKIES. EVER. Believe me, I’m an expert chocolate cookie eater.

The good news is, you can bake them too. Here’s the recipe and here’s the video showing Martha Stewart making them. Enjoy!

Pistachio and almond biscotti

Guess what? I’ve noticed that food posts make my traffic stats explode every time, which is both flattering and funny: apparently, people are more interested in yummy things, than in knitting, parenting or even style cures, to say nothing of pictureless texts. I blame the modern times for this: everyone is in a hurry and pictures can be consumed on the go, while words need more time and mental effort to be properly digested… Also, you can’t really judge the quality of your text “meal” before you read it, while a picture’s immediateness allows for a simultaneous contemplation-evaluation experience. So, pictures be it. At least, for now.

I made this collage last night – just for you! Enjoy!

If they make your mouth water, here’s the link to the recipe (it’s in Italian, but there are step-by-step pictures). Advice: make sure to beat the eggs and sugar really well, it’ll make all the difference!

A very good week to all of you!

An apple a day…

As you can guess, it’s all about food again! And yummy pictures! In spite of lousy lighting conditions, I  can’t stop photographing, so bear with me…

Today’s “hero food” (that’s what you call your subject in food photography) is… apples! And not just “some kind of” but the sweet, firm, crunchy, juicy Jonagold apples “Made in Belgium”! Local is cool, especially when it tastes soo good!

As I said, these apples are a treat by themselves but if you want to take them one step further, try “pommes au four” (baked apples). Remove the cores, stuff with raisins and nuts, seal with a chunk of cold butter, sprinkle with cinnamon – and into the oven they go! I baked mine at 180°C for about 40 minutes but time can vary depending on the oven. The rule of the thumb is: when they crack, they’re ready. If you’re not sure, poke one with a toothpick: it must be uniformly soft. Pull out of the oven, wait until they chill a bit (if you can) and devour! No guilt, all pleasure – they are 100% fruit, right? Great for kids, too!

Hey, what are you waiting for?

 

Pita bread

I continue my baking/photography series (you want me to continue, right?) with this picture of pita bread. Pitas are small hollow flatbreads, very handy when you want to keep your fingers clean: simply cut them open and fill with your favourite meat, cheese or veggies, cold or hot! Toast them before splitting for a better crunch! Turn them into mini pizzas: cut in half, spread your hottest pizza topping and bake in the oven for a couple of minutes, just until the cheese melts.

Pitas are very easy to make: you’ll only need flour, yeast, salt and water. I also like to add a spoon of olive oil to help them stay fresh longer and a pinch of flax or sesame seeds – to make the taste more interesting. I used this recipe as a starting point and now I just go “by the feeling”. I think every home baker should give them a try at least once, if only to see the dull flat circles turn into nice, puffy pillows: and make sure to stay close to the oven to see the magic work!

And now excuse me, I’m going to toast one of them and eat it with a smear of butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon – yes, I’m as spoilt as that!

She bakes, too…

You should know by now that I’m an incurable knitting addict, but you probably ignore that I have another time-consuming hobby: baking. And if I’ve kept you in the dark all this time, it’s not without a reason… I’m not that shy about my pastries: in fact, I think they’re quite good (and I’m surrounded by people who are of the same opinion). So the problem wasn’t the lack of evidence but rather, the lack of quality pictures thereof.

When it comes to photographs, it’s my strong conviction that only the bestest of the best should be allowed to go public. Mine weren’t good enough, so I began to scan the Web for food photography tips and tutorials and now, after some practice, I like the result a little more. The turning point came when I emailed several pictures of bagels to my Mum: she wrote back saying the bagels looked so great she could actually smell them! Then I knew it was time to come out of the woods and show the world who’s the master!

I’m joking, of course! But it gave me confidence in my photography intuition (I think it’s a bit early to talk about “skills”) and the impulse to go on learning. I have recently enrolled in a photography MOOC, so you’ll soon see more and – hopefully – better pictures on this blog. Wish me good luck!