Orange-Almond-Olive Oil-Cake

One of my absolute favourite cakes! It's slightly bitter from the orange and lemon rind, not too sweet, but stays perfectly moist for days. Not everybody will like it, as it is not very sweet and has a sharp citrus taste and an underlying bitterness.

 

I love it. I made it several years ago, then again this week and before it was even finished, I decided that I would have to make it again. Very soon.

 

This is the recipe that I used, with the slight change of using two medium oranges and a little more almonds (about 190g instead of 170g). To adjust for the increased amount of orange pulp, I added a little more flour. Also, I had to bake it much longer than indicated in the recipe, but that's completely normal with my oven.

Not a carrot cake...

Daring Bakers' January 2012 Challenge - Scones

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

I managed to find British strawberry jam, but unfortunately no clotted cream...

Now, I've written about scones before on my blog, but thought this would be an interesting opportunity to test a new recipe variation. I liked the idea of getting more layered scones, but unfortunately it didn't work out as expected. My scones looked and tasted pretty much the same as always (which isn't a bad thing!). Maybe I used too much flower. It couldn't have been the recipe as it seemed to have worked for many other Daring Bakers. Details can be found here. I used the basic recipe with the addition of ca. 20g of brown sugar.

Ah well, the scones were delicious as always. Thank you for hosting our January challenge, Audax!

Williams Crown and My First Blogging-Anniversary

Wow - it has already been a year since I started this blog! Time really does fly…

I've decided to celebrate this anniversary by pouring myself a cocktail. And not just any cocktail, but the Williams Crown!

Great cocktail - even without foam...

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend with a friend in the beautiful Hotel Post in Tyrol. Apart from enjoying some relaxing SPA-treatments, we also discovered a great new cocktail. While chatting to the Chef de Bar Oliver, he mentioned he had created his own cocktail recently. Obviously, we had to try it, especially since it contained Williams, one of my favourite spirits. The cocktail was delicious with an intense fruity smell and taste despite being light in texture - very drinkable (read "dangerous")!

Oliver was kind enough to share the recipe with us, so I can share it with you. It contains to the Fizz-family. To accommodate modern restaurant hygiene regulations it is made with soda water only, leaving out the raw egg white that would traditionally be included. The raw egg white does not alter the taste of the drink, but makes sure that there is a nice foam on top of the drink. To be honest, Oliver's version had a nice foam layer on top even without the egg white, unlike mine - maybe the soda water I used did not contain enough carbon dioxide. But enough moaning about no-foams, here is the recipe:

4cl Williams (since this component gives the main flavour, it is advisable to use a decent brand)
2.5cl Pear Juice
dash Soda Water (I used ca. 4cl)
dash Sugar Sirup (recipe can be found here, I used ca. 2cl)
dash Lemon Juice (I used ca. 2cl)

Shake everything hard for about 30s in your shaker with ice and strain into nice glass decorated with a slice of pear. To get all the flavour into the drink, pour some additional soda water (I used ca. 4cl again) into the shaker to rinse it and to get the rest of the aroma into the glass.

Cheers! To another year of blogging!

Daring Bakers' March 2011 Challenge - Meringue Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Details to the recipe can be found here. I pretty much stuck to their suggestions, because chocolate and nuts is a great combination - no need to change anything… Well, ok, I used hazelnuts instead of walnuts, left out the cinnamon and used fresh yeast instead of dried yeast. But for the rest of the recipe I followed their suggestions and I'm really glad that I did because the dough turned out beautiful - very soft, silky and smooth. The taste of the finished cake was great as well. The cake was firm, but still soft and moist from the meringue. It wasn't too sweet - which I liked - and the chocolate chips and hazelnuts added a nice contrast.

It's a great cake for Sunday brunch or afternoon coffee and it's not complicated to make. I'll definitely have to put it on my list to bake again!

Daring Bakers' February 2011 Challenge - Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen.  She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

All the information about the challenge can be found here.

I felt neither too creative nor too adventurous this month. Also, March 1 is the birthday of a close friend and his favourite dessert is the classical panna cotta, so I decided to stick with the basic recipe for vanilla panna cotta and raspberry gelée. I couldn't obtain powdered gelatin so I used sheet gelatin instead. Here's my recipe variation:

1st Layer of Panna Cotta

120ml of whole milk
360ml of whipping cream
20ml of honey
1 tbsp of sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
4 sheets of gelatin

2nd Layer of Panna Cotta

120ml of whole milk
360ml of whipping cream
40ml of honey
1 tsp of sugar
1 vanilla bean
4 sheets of gelatin

I let the sheet gelatin soak in cold water while preparing the rest of the panna cotta. In a pan I combined the milk, cream, honey, sugar and salt. I added the seed from the vanilla bean and the empty vanilla bean and let everything simmer for 15min while whisking frequently. I removed the pan from the heat and added the gelatin after squeezing the water from it. Then I strained it to remove the vanilla beans and other vanilla bean particles and poured the panna cotta into prepared glasses. For the second layer I let the panna cotta cool to room temperature before layering it on top of the raspberry gelée.

Raspberry Gelée

250g of frozen raspberries
60ml of freshly squeezed orange juice
60g of brown sugar
2 sheets of gelatin

I let the gelatin soak in cold water. The raspberries, orange juice and sugar were puréed in a blender. Since the raspberries were not completely defrosted yet, I had to warm up the fruit purée in a pan to bring it to room temperature. I squeezed the gelatin and let it melt in a little pan before adding it to the raspberry purée and layering everything on top of the panna cotta.

I liked the end result. Although, for my taste, the panna cotta should have had a softer texture. While preparing the raspberry gelée, I had the impression, that I didn't use enough gelatin. It took a long time for the gelée to set and I was relieved that pouring a second layer of panna cotta onto the gelée was possible without any trouble. But when I sampled the end result I was delighted to find that the gelée almost turned into a purée again, therefore mixing all the better with the panna cotta.

For the Florentine Cookies I tried to stick to Mallory's suggested recipe but could not find dark corn syrup, so I used half honey, half molasses instead. Also, I reduced the sugar to 130g because some other Daring Bakers mentioned in the forums that they were quite sweet. I loved the chewy texture and the caramel flavour of the cookies. To coat them with chocolate, I poured a spoonful of chocolate on a parchment paper and pressed a cookie with the flat side down onto the chocolate. Unfortunately, the caramel flavour was a bit overpowered by the chocolate, but I still liked the cookies. 

Oh, and in case you are wondering about the decoration in the background of the picture: carnival season is about to start in Switzerland :-)

Daring Bakers' December 2010 Challenge - Stollen

Christmas is over and it's time for the monthly Daring Bakers' Challenge.

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

In Switzerland, Stollen (or Christstollen, as it's usually called here) is pretty common in December and it's among my favourite Christmas food, even though I usually try to find a variation without candied fruit peel (I'm just not very fond of that stuff). I don't remember if I've made Stollen myself before. If I have, it must have been years ago, but I certainly didn't realise / remember that it was such a simple procedure. And the result was amazing. I loved this recipe so much, that I decided to make a second Stollen and give it away as Christmas gifts. Also the fact that I cut up the first one quite quickly and started to eat it before I could take a picture may have had something to do with it...

Anyway, the recipe can be found here. I used fresh yeast (about 30g) instead of the dried yeast and I substituted dried raisins with dried cranberries and the candied fruit peel and cherries with roughly chopped dried apricot (which, in my opinion, give a nice counterbalance to the sweet dough and sugar coating). Also, I reduced the vanilla extract to 1 tsp. and the lemon extract to 0.5 tsp. Following Audax' recommendation I added a few strings of marzipan (storebought, due to lack of time).

Thanks for a great recipe, Penny, I will certainly add it to my repertoire of homemade Christmas goodies!

Cheesefondue

For the last few weeks it has been pretty cold, wet and dark in Zurich. There's only one good thing about this weather: it's Fondue-time!

Ingredients per person

1 tbsp of corn starch
5 cl of Kirsch
1 clove of garlic
1 dl of dry white whine
1 dash of lemon juice
200g grated cheese (e.g. half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois)
freshly ground black pepper
200g white bread, cut in dices (I like it with a lot of crust, e.g. Baguette)

Dissolve the corn starch in the Kirsch. Put the mix aside for the moment.

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub down the Caquelon (Fondue pan) with it. Bring the white wine to a boil together with the garlic and the lemon juice. Add the grated cheese and let it melt, stirring constantly in a figure 8.

As soon as all the cheese is melted, add the corn starch-Kirsch-mix and bring everything to the boil until the cheese and the wine have combined. Keep stirring all the time. Season with black pepper.

Keep the Fondue warm over a Rechaud (small burner) and dip the bread cubes in the cheese.

E Guete!

Raspberry Chocolate Tarte

Another recipe that I've adapted from the great Ms. Humble's blog. I realised later that I've made a similar tarte several times before from the book "Verrückt nach Schokolade" (Crazy about Chocolate) by Trish Deseine. Whenever I made it I used store bought crust without chocolate because I was too lazy to make my own. When making this tarte I realized how easy it is to make my own shortcrust pastry and I'll probably never use store bought again.

Raspberry Chocolate Tarte
a variation of Ms. Humble's Bittersweet Chocolate Tarte

Shortcrust Pastry
150g powdered sugar
40g cacao powder
55g ground almonds
190g flour
1 pinch of salt
100g butter, cold
1 large egg

Line a big tarte pan (28cm diameter) or four small tarte pans (10cm diameter) with baking parchment or butter them.

Sift together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut the cold butter into little pieces, combine them with the flour-mix and rub everything together with your fingers until it is well mixed (at this stage it resembles grated cheese a little). Add the egg and quickly combine all the ingredients.

Press into the tarte pan and put in the freezer for at least two hours.

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Place a piece of baking parchment on the crust and add baking weights (dried beans will do an excellent job). Bake for about 10min, remove the weights and bake for another 8min until the crust is dry and light in colour. Cool on a wire rack.

Ganache Filling
300g dark chocolate, finely chopped
360ml heavy cream
a handful of fresh (or frozen) raspberries

Heat the cream to a simmer over medium heat (be careful not to let it burn) and pour over the chopped chocolate. Mix until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth.

Scatter the raspberries on the crust, then pour on the ganache and let the tarte cool for at least an hour.

Butterscotch Cookies

After a longer period of non-baking and a lot of hen night organisations and wedding preparations I couldn't wait to hit the kitchen again. Also, after almost a year of helping organizing this big event I felt a bit lost in the aftermath. And what better comfort could there be than cookies fresh from the oven. So I decided to try this recipe from Not So Humble Pie.

Butterscotch Cookies with White Chocolate Chips
adapted from Not So Humble Pie
 

175g flour
0.5 teaspoon baking soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
250g brown sugar
170g margarine, room temperature
1 teaspoon molasses
30g butter, room temperature
1 egg
seeds from one vanilla pod
225g white chocolate chips (or white chocolate, roughly chopped)

Preheat the oven to 175°C.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl cream the butter, margarine, molasses and sugar together for 3-4min either using a handheld mixer or a stand mixer. The mixture will be light in colour and fluffy.

Add the egg and the vanilla seeds and continue beating until well mixed. Add the flour in several parts, mixing each portion until well combined.

In the end, mix in the chocolate chips.

Prepare a baking sheet with baking parchment and - using two teaspoons - place little heaps of dough on the parchment, leaving lots of space in between each ball (about 5cm).

Bake for 12-15min. Take out and eat immediately (or let them cool and share with your friends at work).

Scones

I love scones. Whenever I spend some time in the UK or Ireland I eat as many as possible. Well, obviously not as many as possible - that would cause serious problems with my wardrobe... Notwithstanding my love for fresh, warm scones with clotted cream and jelly, it took me until the beginning of this year to find out that I could make them at home. For some strange reason I just thought it was a really tricky recipe. So I was very surprised, when I learned about how easy it actually is and that it only requires ingredients, that I have in my cupboard most of the time. So now the only problem is finding the clotted cream in Zurich...

 

This here is a basic scone recipe. I like them plain, but you could easily add raisins or chocolate chips or dried fruit. A word about the sugar: I like to use brown sugar, but of course you could also use white sugar. Also, an interesting thing happens when you lower the sugar amount to 30g: the taste of the scones will be on the verge of sweet to savory, so I imagine they would go great with e.g. gravad lax.

225g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
0.5 tsp. salt
40g sugar
40g butter, cold and in pieces
1 egg
100ml milk

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Add the butter pieces and grind it together with the butter (ideally using cold hands) until you end up with an even, crumbly, dry mass.

In a separate bowl mix together the egg and the milk and then add it to the flour-butter-mix. Quickly blend all the ingredients, trying to knead the dough as little as possible. It doesn't matter if it still looks uneven, as long as the wet and dry ingredients are combined.

Sprinkle a little flour on the working surface and lightly flatten the dough to about 2cm. Cut the scones using a round cookie cutter of about 4cm diameter.

Bake the scones in the middle of the oven for about 12-14min until golden brown.

Eat directly from the tray, with a little clotted cream and jelly. Or, if you're more disciplined than me, let them cool down until lukewarm and serve on a nice plate. Of course, you can also let them cool down completely, but scones are best eaten when really fresh, so don't wait with eating them for longer than a day or two.

Since clotted cream is quite hard to find here in Zurich (or ridiculously expensive) I usually use double cream (fat content of about 50-60%) and beat it until fluffy.

The jelly in the picture is crab apple jelly (not homemade). I believe traditionally it should be strawberry jelly, but I didn't have that in my cupboard at that moment. And at least I bought the crab apple jelly in Edinburgh, adding a real Scottish component to my Sunday breakfast.

Tiroler Cake

The Tiroler Cake is one of the most popular cakes in Switzerland. It's really easy to make and has a rich hazelnut flavour with the occasional chocolate chip.

 There's loads of recipes on the internet. I've used this one:

125g butter (room temperature)
4 egg yolks
1 pinch of salt
150g sugar
120g flour
8g baking powder
200g ground hazelnuts
50g chopped hazelnuts
150g chocolate chips
4 beaten egg whites

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

In a big bowl beat the butter until it is lighter in colour and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at the time, then add salt and sugar. Sift in the flour and baking powder and add the ground hazelnuts, the chopped hazelnuts and the chocolate chips. Mix everything together. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

Pour into a buttered loaf pan (25-28cm length) and bake for 50-55min. After cooling, the cake can be easily stored for a few days.

Bailey's Chocolate Muffins

A few days ago, I tried out a recipe for homemade whisky-cream-liquor. Instead of drinking it all by myself, I've searched the internet for other uses. I found this simple recipe for Bailey's-Muffins on kochbar.de:

260g flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tsp baking powder
75g chocolate chips
50 g walnuts, roughly chopped

1 egg
80 ml sunflower oil
100 ml Bailey's (or homemade whisky-cream-liquor)

100g sugar
2 tbsp instant coffee powder

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare a muffin tin with paper cups.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

In a separate bowl mix together the wet ingredients with the sugar and the coffee powder.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients, mix quickly and spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Bake immediately for about 25 min.

Actually, I tried something new with this recipe, because it was the first time that I froze the muffins before baking. Just make sure, that there's enough space in your freezer before starting and that you line the muffin tray with paper cups. After mixing everything together fill the batter into the paper cups and put the whole muffin tin into the freezer. After the muffins are frozen you can take them out of the tin and store them more conveniently in a plastic dish or bag or something similar. To bake just put the muffins back into the tin and put them into the preheated oven. Add about 5 min to the total baking time.

Whisky Cream Liquor

While I love whisky in all its variations, I only learned recently, that it's really easy to make whisky cream liquor at home. I found this recipe at the cooking event of my local soccer team.

Whisky Cream Liquor

yields about 5dl of liquor  

125 ml light cream (fat content of about 25%)
125 ml milk
125 ml whisky
1 tsp cocoa powder
100 g powdered sugar
2 tsp instant coffee

Whip the cream lightly until creamy (but not stiff). Add the remaining ingredients and mix everything together. Cool in the fridge for a few hours before drinking. Filled into decorative bottles, this liquor makes for a great small present.

Lime Cookies

I just love lemon and lime dishes. I discovered this recipe on one of my favourite blogs (Not So Humble Pie). It is a simple recipe, it can be prepared in advance and the taste is just fantastic! The acidic lime-flavour really comes through and the texture is light and crumbly. Might just be my new favourite cookie. And luckily I still have half of the dough in the freezer so I can make a new batch in an instant...


Lime Cookies

175g butter (room temperature)
60g powedered sugar
zest of 2 limes
2 Tbsp of lime juice
0.5 Tbsp concentrated vanilla extract
275g flour
20g corn starch
0.2 Tsp salt

Using a hand held mixer beat together the butter and powedered sugar until it is fluffy and becomes whitish. Add the lime zest, lime juice, vanilla extract and salt and continue to beat for a few moments until everything is mixed together nicely.

Combine the flour with the starch and sift into the bowl with the butter mix. Carefully blend everything with the hand held mixer until the dough comes together.

Form a roll of about 3-3.5cm diameter (easier if you part the dough into two portions) and chill it in the fridge for at least an hour. As mentioned before, the dough can also be frozen.

Pre-heat the oven to 170°C. Cut the roll into 5mm thick pieces and bake for about 15 min.

The cookies can be sprinkled with powedered sugar, but I prefer them without extra sugar (except for the pictures).


Oh, by the way - this is what happens if you mess up the whitebalance on your camera...