Take a deep breath..

Two once little boys have grown out to two long-legged 11-yr olds, reason for celebration! What elements you need for a birthday party? Come and check with me: chocolate cake, visitors, fun, presents, chocolate, friends to play with, 20 happy people at a dinnertable, good food in huge quantities and ice cream for dessert ! Cake above was W's request, he would have preferred triple chocolate but I opted for two (cake and ganache) and decided to fill with eh.. Creme Chiboust! For the recipe click!


T wished for a similar cake but reversed! Creativity took hold of me and I envisioned a white cake, filled with lime bavaroise and a white chocolate ganache. Sounds good right?

Well, first two components were spot on. Tall cake, great tasting, shape holding, tart bavaroise. Layering the cake went well. White ganache wasn't such a great idea, don't know what happened, I warmed cream, poured it over the white chocolate and stirred to combine, let it cool a bit and poured it over the cake. And the cake cracked. Seriously, we had a St Andreas fault all over the cake, and then some more.. the whole surface of the cake marred and started to crumble... Felt very sorry for T, his cake was equally tasty but looks count as well in a birthday cake. Luckily there was some more chocolate.....

As you can imagine the fountain was a huge success! Although chocolate is said to have a special attraction to women I declare solemnly that the cluster of people I saw gathered around the fountain like it was a free beertender.....was predominantly male! (either small or large). Thanks Larein for lending us the fountain!

Looking a bit tired, dinner is served, almost done! We had Chili con carne, quacamole, sour cream, taco's and flour tortillas and it was yummy!

Stay tuned for some of the other bits and bites I served this day and of course some pics of their kids birthday party!

Gateau St. Honoré - Daring Bakers May Challenge

I fell down the rabbit hole, and the white rabbit looked at his watch and said:
Hmm, so you would like to be a member of the sacred Daring Bakers? Well let's see if you have got what it takes. You are supposed to make a Gateau St Honoré and it should be finished by the 27th May or else..... And then the Queen of Hearts jumped in and cried: Off with her head!

Thus I started my first challenge, by printing the recipe. And reading. Reading again. Lost count of actions. Started counting again. Giggled rather nervously. Put it away, far far away on the high shelve in the kitchen, because you know, it was only the beginning of May, plenty of time left. A couple of days later, recipe divided in what seemed to me logical steps, put in plastic covers.

FYI, a St. Honoré is a base made out of puff pastry, gets its height from piped pate a choux, is filled with Chiboust cream and decorated with filled cream puffs dipped in caramel. Yes please, you might want to read that again.

We are getting there. First try: cream puffs. Done cream puffs before. Made a first batch of cream puffs, filled with whipped cream, kids and husband ate them all. They were good. Made another batch.




Next step, puff pastry. No, I didn't, I legally chickened out. We were left with the choice of making our own or buying the puff pastry, (Helen, thank you for that one). I used store puff pastry, piped puff rings, got confused by the word "concentric" and decided to make one big coiling ring....Wrong!! Why?

Because if you make a coil you don't get to stuff as much of the delicious Diplomat cream in between the coil as you would like to. And eh, it helps that concentric rings probably wouldn't make your half finished gateau look like a dog turd...
Diplomat Cream? Chiboust creme! Oh yes, you would want to get as much Diplomat cream or Chiboust crème in there! (Which IMHO should be banned from the list of edible goods because of it's addictive licking properties). Making the cream was easy, lots of stirring involved and a bit fussing over the quantity of gelatin. I used gelatin leaves instead of powdered gelatin (I am not sure we have powdered gelatin here in the Netherlands, I think we don't), decided to use two leaves and finally added another one. Which I probaby shouldn't have done, it made my cream into a bavaroise.

We had the choice of using any flavor as long as it didn't change the color of the cream, I decided to go lemony and used a very Dutch, very old-fashioned liquor: Citroen brandewijn! I think most of my Dutch readers will recognize this as a staple drink at old-fashioned -birthday-parties. My grandmother and her sisters and friends used to drink this, in tiny cut glasses with a little sugar added. It's basically a lemon flavored brandy/gin reminiscent of the fashionable Limoncella.

It was a happy coincidence I was alone in my kitchen, together with my piping bag and the bowl. Hah who needs company when you have Chiboust crème? I know I don't. Of course by the time the puffs were filled, the gateau was finished, tucked in the fridge and the bowls, counter, tools were licked washed clean, I did feel the weight of my guilt/stomach....
May I remind you that I am usually not enamored by sweet things? NOT!

And then all there was left was making caramel, dip the puffs, and decorate. Simple. Oh yes and maybe make a spun sugar nest. Right.

S P U N ..... S U G A R.

Burned my fingers. Globs of caramel everywhere. Toppling of filled, dipped puffs. Trying to rescue toppling, filled, dipped puffs. Burned fingers again. Used a fork (Wow! Streak of genius!). Another belated streak of genius, I could have set them on their caramelly behinds on a non-stick surface which would have created a flat top. I wanted them coated in caramel, didn't want the flat tops, hence the toppling... No pictures here, wonder why? Moohahaha...

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.

I tried spun sugar.
Let's leave it at that.

No, don't, I tried again, heated the caramel, squeezed the handle of a wooden spoon between the counter and a heavy cutting board, ingeniously located above the opened dish washer door!!! (A fine example of learning by reading!) And swished caramel on forks, back and forth. Globs. Drips.

Let the caramel cool a bit. Tried again. Oh you should have seen me waving my magic wand forks! Muttering all kinds of ugly words under my breath. Finally I gathered what threads I had and kneaded them into some form of nest. I've read you should cut the wires cut off at the bottom of your balloon whisk to get the best device) I didn't. And you know what? Caramel disappears in humid conditions...fast! By the time I was finished I can safely say I was quite clammy which could have effected the status of my sugarspin. So glad I took a couple of quick pictures....

This months challenge was co-hosted by Helene, from the beautiful blog Tartelette and Anita from the equally yummy blog Dessert first, they promised to post the full length recipe so if you would like to recreate, (or just read..hehehe) please take a look there, and don't forget to travel around the other Daring Bakers blogs (you can find all our members on the right) ... which I am going to do right now! Thanks for hosting girls, and for the challenge! I ran out of time and courage this time but I will make my own puff pastry soooon! Promise!

"But in the end, she emerges wiser with the learning involved in each situation. Everyone faces absurd choices in life. If you shrug off these choices as anomalies to your perfect life, you gain nothing. But if you try to learn from these absurdities, you will gain a lot of wisdom".

About Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol

Pizza Calzone

The boys have a friend staying over this weekend, they had the annual sports day yesterday at school (and Timo won a "fair play medal" yippeee!), so when they came home, sunkissed, tired, dirty and very much hyped up, I thought they were in for an easy, child friendly menu.

Decided to make pizza, to be more precise: Pizza Calzone! Fun to make, fun to bake and tomato streaked happy kids at the garden picknick table (do we have to use a knife and fork Mom?). And I made such lovely pictures of them, the dough, the pizzas....of which you can see a prime example at the top of this post. Right! My camera seriously died and forgot to give notice to it's owner.

For the dough I used a tried recipe which can also be found here. Stretched the dough on my hands to a 30cm circle and smeared a little tomato sauce on half of the circle, topped with ham, salami, hided some sauteed greens (leek, onion, bamboo shoots) under a layer of grated aged and mozzarella cheese, leaving a border. Folded the other half on top and sealed the rim by folding and pressing with my fingertips, thus making a pretty border, brushed the top with some olive oil.

Note: Some of you will immediately think of preparing a calzone on the peel/baking sheet.... I was painfully remembered when I stared at my first calzone, all ready, still on the silpat mat. That won't work folks! You can't move a fully dressed unbaked Pizza Calzone to your baking sheet without having some minor shape related injuries..... So one of them was slightly out of it's moon-shape.

And another one: like pita's you would like your calzone to puff and form a nice soft chewy dome. It will! The steam creates a nice dome anyway but it helps if the top layer (the one that folds over) is slightly thinner. The only thing is, I use to pre-bake my pizza dough for a couple of minutes and then top and bake off, to ensure a crisp bottom. As you'll understand this is not possible with a calzone, I baked 6 and two of them had a little bit of soggyness...haven't found a way to prevent that.

I am seriously pissed aggravated that there are no pictures! Really, they looked mighty fine. They did! They puffed. Dome. Melted cheese. Pah!

Livestrong Day with a Taste of Yellow - the round-up

Today is Livestrong Day* and the round up is there for all of us to read and remember. Please take a moment of your time to hop over and at least have a look at the incredible amount of entries and may be click on a few (or all) to know how many of us are affected by cancer. You'll find touching stories of brave men and women, proud daughters and friends and of course a wealth of recipes, all in yellow.

Barbara from Winos and Foodies has spent a lot of time and effort making a line-up with a total of 147!! entries. Amazing job, and a wonderful idea that has touched so many food bloggers around the world. Thank you Barbara!

*LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivor ship issues on a national level and in local communities across the country. LIVESTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16.

Back to green...potted eggs and asparagus

The fact that DH was on a businesstrip to Paris and would not be here to share Mother's Day with us turned out very very positive for me after all! The twins woke me with a little breakfast tray at 8.00 am (told me they couldn't wait any longer)... and we did the usual lazy Sunday things, read books, played games, had a little lunch and around 4.00 the kids cheered: Dad's home!!

Half an hour later I danced around the table as well, my Mother's Day present: 5 of these Le Creuset petite casseroles or in French: les mini cocottes en gres! A different color for each family member. Isn't that totally cute? He had secretly sought out cookware stores in Paris on the internet (thank you Chocolate and Zucchini for providing addresses, his list was made through your post!). On Saturday he went to E. Dehillerin first and then to Mora, oh how I wish I would have been there with him! (Of course to be in Paris with your husband is wonderful but those stores...) I wonder what his colleagues are thinking now...
Anyway, I didn't wait long to use them and the little booklet that came with the casseroles had this recipe:

Oefs en cocotte aux asperges:
(sounds a lot better than baked eggs with asparagus don't you think?)

serves 4
Oven 180C/350F
Fan Oven 170C

250 gr asparagus
butter
4 large eggs
175 ml cream
1/2 ts dried tarragon (used fresh)
1/2 ts dried sage (used fresh)
salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese for garnish (Oops I forgot that one!)

Depending on whether you use white or green asparagus, clean and trim as needed (green ones don't need peeling, just trim away the course ends). Blanch in lightly salted boiling water for 2 minutes (white asparagus need some 5 minutes). Drain and rinse.

Butter the four cocottes (love that, they mean casseroles but you knew that). For ease of handling stand them on a baking tray. Divide the asparagus between the dishes.

Break an egg into each cocotte. Beat together cream, herbs and plenty of seasoning. Pour this equally over the eggs.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cream is bubbling and the eggs just cooked. Garnish the tops with a few shavings of Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

Of course you can use your ramekins for this dish. Equally good. But not as beautiful heehee!!
And for the kids that don't like asparagus...I used carrots. The Husband rocks!!

Date filled pastries or Ba'a'be

Ever since my visit to Vienna, my family is hooked on fresh dates. I brought home a box of fresh dates from Nasch Markt and once home I introduced my parents to really good fleshy dates filled with walnuts. Knowing only the dried out skinny dates sold here in supermarkets they weren't too eager to try. I insisted...they sampled...and were hooked as well. I already knew where I have to go and look for really good dates here in Holland (not in the supermarkets ;-)).
Try to find those carton boxes from Persia/Iraq, (Medhjool!) in whole sale markets or Turkish stores, open the box and check the content, take them home and enjoy! If you grew up on those thready skinny ones you are in for a surprise! A very 70's way of serving dates is to fill them with cream cheese, but I would strongly recommend to just squeeze a walnut in, pop in your mouth. Delicious. Or...wrap some bacon around and grill for a minute or two... heaven!

As it is, crushes on certain kinds of food come and go with my children, and all of a sudden the dates weren't disappearing but instead this orphaned half filled box stood there. I decided to make little date filled pastries.

Ba'a'be or Date Pastries
(Adapted from A Blessing of Bread, by Maggie Glezer)

Pastry:
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 + 2 tbs cold water (85 gr)
1/2 ts baking powder
about 1.3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (250gr + 1 heaped tbs)
8 tbs butter/dairy free margarine (I think the dairy-free is religious based and not exactly necessary for the recipe? I used half butter, half margarine)
2 tbs vegetable oil

Filling:
1 cup pitted soft dates
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

To coat and brush:
1 egg, beaten
Sesame seeds

Make the dough:
Stir the salt into the water until it dissolves. Put the flour in the work bowl of a food processor, add baking powder and pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse until all the flour is coated with the butter and the mixture has a crumbly texture. Pour in oil and salted water and pulse until ingredients form a ball. This is where I added the extra tbs of flour, but be careful, the heat generated by the food processor mixing will warm the butter and thus, soften your dough. Don't be tempted to add too much flour. Your dough ball is very, very soft and supple but still holds together very well. Let this rest (I bagged it and refrigerated) while you make the filling.

Make the filling:
In a saute pan over low heat, heat the dates just until they are warm to the touch, then turn off the heat. Using your hands, knead the dates into the oil in the pan. When the filling is smooth and cohesive, roll the filling up into 16 tablespoon-sized balls with your hands, setting the balls on a plate. You'll end up with a warm, gooey sticky mass and it helps a lot to wet your hands while forming balls. Repeat when necessary.

Shape and bake the ba'a'be: Arrange the oven racks on the upper- and lower-third positions. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200C). Lightly flour a work surface and have more flour available. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper, or oil or butter them. Have ready the date balls, the beaten egg and the sesame seeds. Roll out the dough into an 18-inch-square. Cut out circles of dough, using a 3- to 4-inch-diameter (10 cm) glass, teacup or cookie cutter, cut out circles of the dough. Put a slightly flattened date ball in the center of each and seal the dough around the ball.
Pinching each pastry by the seal, dip the smooth half first in the beaten egg, then in the sesame seeds. On your work surface, with the seeded-side up, flatten each pastry into a 2-inch disk with a rolling pin. Punch a decorative pattern into the pastry with the end of a wooden spoon. Arrange the ba'a'be on the baking sheet, leaving room for expansion.



Bake for about 20 minutes or until light brown. Cool thoroughly on a rack, then store them in a sealed container. Yield: about 16 date-filled pastries.
They will keep for up to 2 days at room temperature (sealed container) or up to two weeks in the refrigerator. (They can also be frozen, in a tightly sealed container, for several months).

Verdict: I like them a lot. At first I wasn't too sure. The pastry, although very easy to work with, seemingly needed the flavour of some delicious filling and the dates, simple as it is, didn't promise to add much in the way of flavour..... I was so wrong! The pastry dough is light and crumbly and sets off the filling beautifully, each of them complementing the other. Absolutely a keeper!

(And if you have the chance read Maggie Glezer's story on Mrs. Horesh from which she learned this recipe, it's fun!)

A taste of Yellow

A little side step from the green I have been feeding you with, but stay tuned there is more green to come.

Yellow is omnipresent at the moment, everywhere you look in blogs yellow is the colour that jumps out. Barbara at winos and foodies started "a taste of yellow" in which she asks all bloggers to participate by making a dish containing some type of yellow food, to commemorate Livestrong Day 2007 on May 16th.

LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivor ship issues on a national level and in local communities across the country. LIVESTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16.

As Barbara states in her post: there isn't a person in the world who hasn't been touched by cancer in some way. I wish it weren't so true.

The quinces above were bought at the Farmer's market last year when they were in season, but proved to be very difficult to work with. Their fragrance when they were still in their bowl so lovely, but once I made quince butter....it all but disappeared, leaving a bland pinkish yellow product. I expected to get a more prominent flavour, resembling the sweet fragrance and was a little disappointed. I definitely will try this again, maybe seek out another variety of quinces. This was the recipe I used then.

Quince jelly-butter with coriander
(for conversions please refer to chart on the right hand side)

1 kg quinces, (scrubbed, in pieces; incl. core and peel)
1 tbs coriander seeds
juice and pips of 2 big lemons
equal amounts of water and sugar approx. 900 grams

Combine all ingredients but the sugar in a large pot and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and let cook for some 1,5 hours. Once the fruit is thoroughly cooked, sieve it through a fine-meshed sieve covered with cheese cloth (or use a jelly bag). This could take a couple of hours to a whole night.
Measure the recovered juice and add sugar. As a rule I use 400-450 grams of sugar to 600 grams of juice. Warm juice and sugar over low heat until sugar has dissolved, on medium to high heat let the mixture cook another 10-15 minutes until a drop forms of your spoon or the internal temperature reaches 105C. Proceed to ladle the jelly into sterilized jars and close the lids. For directions on how to sterilize jars I'll gladly refer you to all information accessible through the internet.

Although I postponed my post then to have a chance to try again, I choose to post it now anyway. Why? Because in ancient times quinces were believed to be a symbol of love, happiness and fertility.

Live Strong!

It is green!

This one shouldn't be too hard. Although I can imagine you will experience some difficulty in explaining why it is green. It is again green and edible. And I tried some of it on toast yesterday night....delicious! I would advice against having a slice of green for breakfast, a bit too loud early in the morning.It's green cheese! Set aside all thoughts of moldy, mushy pieces left in the back of the refrigerator, this is supposed to be green, and a lovely shade at that. In the Northern part of Holland they have their own, I should say language, not dialect and the test case to see if you can pronounce it properly has to do something with green cheese as well.

They say: "bûter, brea en griene tsiis, wa’t dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries". Oftewel: boter, brood en groene kaas, wie dat niet zeggen kan, is geen oprechte Fries. Or in English: butter, bread and green cheese, who can't say that is not a real Fries. The cheese they talk about in this sentence used to be flavoured with parsley.

Back to modern times and modern flavours: the green you see here comes from pesto and the brownish speckles are cloves. Together they make for a tasty treat on toast, I wonder how it holds itself on a grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes.

Green it is!

I've grown something. It's green. It's edible. There is actually something thriving on my windowsill. All the way from seeds to something edible!

For you out there in the know how to grow things and harvesting mounds of lettuce, carrots, beans, tomatoes (oh homegrown tomatoes!) or whatever, it might seem a little feat but for me however this is big. Here you see just how big it is. It took a while to see some sprouting but a friend was so good to tell me I had to make sure there was enough water in the bowl so the little seedlings had some food... Hmm, she was right. Now I may go ahead and actually plant the seeds I bought at the Boerenbond. I bought lettuce, spring onions and cinnamon basil. I hope those will work as well. I also have some strawberry seeds but there is nothing going on in their pot yet.

Have you guessed already what you have been looking at? It's rucola sprouts! And they are delicious in a salad or sprinkled on your cheese/tomato sandwich, or cream cheese spread with rucola...

May the force be with you!

Have you ever heard of the Daring Bakers? This once small group of Daring Baker ladies has grown and grown. They set a challenge each month in which they try to conquer new and unknown territory. Successes and failures, emails flying and always resulting in good spirited fun posts to read.

In the past months I've followed their adventures, reading, laughing and admiring. Then someone asked me to join... And now I am one of them. Proud so I am. Confused too. See? I even begin to sound like Yoda....

Anyway, my first task is to edit my blog roll and add a separate one with the participants (the logo is already there, have you noticed?). Second is to read. All of them. Third is to enter the May challenge. Which is quite a eeh challenge. Which is what this is all about. Right? Right!

In May. Where two of the boys have a two-week break from school. And have their birthdays. The birthday party. Cakes to bake, festive meals to make. Prepare for some other festivities as well. I totally can do that. But mommy I'm scared! Breath. Breath!

I am not allowed to disclose anything about the challenge yet. What I can tell you is that there is one component that scares me. Ahem, only one she says. Trust me, I need all the force I can get my hands on. If you'll excuse me, I am going to dress in white and ready my light sabre....

This wasn't exactly what they said in the mail but it comes close!

Currant rolls - Krentenbollen

A typical Dutch treat called "krentenbollen", which is a silly name because in most of these rolls you never see a currant, raisins are the main ingredient. The inside of the store-bought rolls are often yellow in color, due to an addition of something called "vruchtenbroodpoeder**" a mix of gluten, colorants, aroma's (citrus) and some other additives like dough enhancers and dextrose. I normally never use this which is probably why my younger kids never eat my home-made raisin bread or stollen! :-0 Don't you think it's strange that they favour my home baked bread and other goodies over store-bought but prefer supermarket krentenbollen?

By the way does anyone know why the bakers in Holland pick Wednesday for their krentenbollen promotion day? I know we have Woensdag-Gehaktdag (Wednesday-Ground Meat day) but did you ever notice that Krentenbollen are always on offer on Wednesdays? Strange!
On my last visit to the mill I buckled and bought a package of vruchtenbrood-powder, just to see if it would make a difference.... And yes my friends it did! (Grrr!). This is the recipe I came up with:

Ingredients:
2,5 ts yeast
870 gr ap flour (bread flour)
70 gr vruchtenbrood poeder
2,5 ts salt
40 gr butter
1 large egg
400 gr milk
100 gr water
200 gr mix of raisins and candied fruit (ratio 3 to 1)

Note: usually there is a larger quantity of raisins used, up to 40% of the flour weight but my kids like to, as my mum says: use a bike to travel from one raisin to the other... which indicates that ingredients are not as plentiful as you would like... (In Dutch: "je moet op de fiets van de ene rozijn naar de andere" om aan te geven dat iets zuinig gevuld is)

In the bowl of your standmixer combine all ingredients except raisins and mix on lowest speed untill combined. Switch to a medium low speed and continue mixing until the dough is gathering and forming a ball (approx. 7-10 minutes). It will still cling to the sides a little because I didn't soak the raisins and therefore used slightly more liquid in the dough. (In rising the raisins will soak up some of the liquid) Add raisins and mix for another minute so the raisins are evenly distributed through the dough.

Transfer with the help of a dough scraper onto a lightly oiled work surface, knead by hand for a couple of seconds, it will help to form a ball. Let rest in an oiled bowl and turn to cover all sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled (1 hour).

Tip dough onto a lightly floured or oiled surface and deflate gently, make a business letter fold and divide the dough into equal pieces with the help of your dough scraper. I made 80 grams rolls and got somewhere around 24.

Make rolls by rolling the dough under the cupped palm of your hand, using the pressure between worksurface and your hand to form nice rounded balls, make sure you have enough surface tension, it will help the second rise! Arrange on a baking sheet and cover to let rise a second time, about 45 minutes. (Not fully doubled, they need some ovenspring as well).

Do not preheat your oven but slide the sheet in and set your oven to 230C, set timer for 17 minutes. Oven will heat up while rolls are in, this will leave you with soft rolls. Please make sure you check in time! The rolls will bake into a deep golden brown and rise beautifully.
Cool the rolls on racks and eat as a snack or slice and butter. I like to add a slice of aged cheese as well. And maybe, if you have some left after two days, slice and grill them in your toaster or in a buttered pan....
Enjoy!

PS: I discovered that Nick Malgieri has our Dutch currant rolls covered on his site too!

PS: substitute vruchtenbroodpoeder for:
1 heaped ts of sugared citruspeel, 1/2 ts kurkuma for color, 1 tbs gluten, 1 tbs sugar, 1/2 ts powdered ginger, 1/2 ts cinnamon.

**Ingrediënten: Dextrose (25%), tarwegluten (20%), tarwebloem (15%), melkbestanddelen (15%), bonenmeel (7%), plantaardige vetten (koolzaad) (7%), emulgatoren: E482, E472e, E471 (6%), aroma's (1%), enzymen (1%), kleurstof E101 (1%), meelverbetermiddelen: E300, E920 (1%)