Think about it 2009

The New Year could be these red peppers; fierce, full of flavour, blemishes part of the deal, most of all shining and promising to spice your life.

Wishing you a fantastic year ahead!

Daring Bakers; Lime and Hazelnut Bûche de Noël

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

Their announcement started with the words: the gauntlet is thrown.

You can say that again! I was really eh impressed by the length of the recipe(s) given. Although both lovely ladies ensured us that once we had chosen our flavourings, following the steps in completing the challenge was fairly easy I wasn't convinced. I mean this is December. Right in the middle of all celebrations, cooking and entertaining we were supposed to make an 18 page recipe?

Of course they were right. And I waited until the last possible moment to discover that. Yesterday afternoon I took my first step. My husband warned me to not play with caramel that late at night, so this morning I finished up adding the last layer, and making the icing. Once I broke up the recipes in steps to take (and please go over to Hilda/Marion for the simplified recipe) and organised my kitchen/thinking, it all went smooth from there.

Naaa, you wouldn't believe that would you? 

- Not understanding to line the creme brulee mold resulting in a set brulee which wouldn't come out in one piece? I froze it, dipped the underside in hot water, shook and there it was. Phew!

- Steeped the cream-milk mixture with lime zest.... it would have been so wise to strain it. Believe it would. Beginners mistake!

- Made a nice white chocolate praliné, it firmed up as it should. Then Mrs Clumsy stepped in and almost dropped it while transferring it to the fridge.... grabbing and crushing it in the process. Jigsaw praline in my Bûche.

My flavours and the order of the steps I took:

a) White chocolate cornflakes praliné (nice and crunchy, better than I expected)

b) lime and vanilla flavoured créme brulée (very smooth and silky, great flavour!)

c) Milk chocolate mousse (mmm, not entirely sure about this one, a bit too sweet)

d) Hazelnut-Lime dacquoise (I loved this one!)

e) Lightly salted Caramel ganache insert (caramel! How can this not be good?)

f) Bittersweet chocolate icing (Eeek! I must have done something wrong. Not good.)

The one thing I played with was the Ganache insert which was supposed to be more about chocolate with a caramel accent. I reversed it. Making some more caramel, using slightly less cream and adding just 50 grams of chocolate for firmness and a bit of extra flavour. I wanted oozing caramel in this one!! (Left over stuff is excellent in coffee!)

When having completed yet another DB challenge I go over the steps and think about what I learned and if it was worth it. The problem for me is that I'm not much of a sweet person. I'll pick a nice baguette with cheese or paté or whole rye chicken sandwich over any dessert almost any time. Choose a cheese dessert instead of chocolate mousse. The whole Daring Baker's exercise for me is about mastering (and sometimes failing) a technique, trying to get "behind the scene" and figure out how it's done. I loved to learn how to make a mirror cake, how to make excellent caramel sauce, créme Anglaise, or buttercream and genoise, and get my hands in some magic dough. I will never forget the mindboggling bagels either! 

This one for me was about learning how to make a velvety smooth créme brulée and this dacquoise was an eye-opener! Thanks to Hilda and Marion for yet another challenge!

Can't tell you how it tasted, I sliced and photographed (badly!) while still fully frozen and my tastebuds are not exactly in tiptop shape at the moment. Hope to get better pics tomorrow when it's going to be served. Advil here I come!

Cookie exchange and a little improvisation

A day before our houses were invaded with guests fellow Bread Baking Babe and friend Monique (Living on Bread and Water) and I took a time-out to bake cookies together. Knowing our ability to blab and laugh a day to darkness we decided we would best prepare some different doughs and do a dough-exchange instead of baking cookies.

She prepared Crinkle cookie dough and Peanutbutter pecan chocolate chip cookies, I baked Mandel bread, Cinnamon roll cookies and had dough for lemon-poppyseed slice&bake ready for her in the fridge.

We exchanged doughs. We talked. Had coffee. Talked some more. Ended in the kitchen anyway at lunchtime and browsed a little booklet Monique had with her. Decided to bake. Improvise. We stirred a dough very much like this one. Instead of using a piping bag (which we tried but the dough was far too stiff to be piped) we rolled marble sized pieces of dough, placed them in mini-muffin tins and paper cups.

I'd mixed an equal amount of caramel and sweetened condensed milk and that became the base for the topping. We proceeded to place (carefully; with a keen eye for composition!) various nuts and candied fruit in each and every cup. Sprinkled some tiny sugar pearls on top and in the oven they went. 15 minutes 160C. 

They looked so adorable in their pretty paper cups, we hardly waited for them to cool and sampled.... Nothing! Absolutely tasted like nothing! How could that happen? 

A bit desillusioned Monique returned home with her stash of cookies and dough. I cleaned the kitchen, my dough in the fridge, put the kettle on and nonchalantly grabbed another one of the pretty/non-tasting cookies.

I loved it! Cooled they tasted of almond paste cookies, the caramel came through and the nuts were a welcome crunch! Quickly texted Monique to not throw them for the dogs (aka kids). Lesson learned: not every cookie is great right out of the oven! This one needs a thorough cooling and will keep for a couple of days!

And so this was Christmas..

And what have you done? 

Is it only me? I mean I like cooking, love to have everyone gathered at my house and every year I'm surprised that after these days.....life just goes on! And you know what? They will have to eat tonight as well!

When I woke up this morning and looked back this was my checklist:

- cooking: check!

It all went very well, it was very tasty, hot when needed, enough and not too much. Pic up there is the slow braised rabbit peeking out from under it's blanket.

- family: check!

We were there (eh..that's here), almost all of us who were able too, we missed the ones who couldn't make it but there was lively conversation, laughter and fun. On Christmas Eve there were 12 of us, 2nd Christmas Day we were 7. I'll give you the menu shortly.

- decoration: check!

Even the obnoxious lights in our tree were all adequately doing what they were supposed to do. Each and every year the Husband In Charge of the Lights steps back with a satisfied sigh and gets approx. a week to enjoy his work. Then one of the strings goes out. And another. So we have to replace strings. In a fully decorated christmas tree. Sigh. This year no different. I think it's earth radiation. A sign. Whatever. I used to make all kinds of greenery decor myself and couldn't find the time this year but thanks to Intratuin's Christmas Eve 50% price-off we even had christmas decoration on our dining table (Hah! that's economics girls!!) 

- sappy movies: check!

I was vetoed out of watching Sissi, The Sound of Music... boys! Harry Potter instead and I managed to sneak in a couple of Santa movies.

- cleaning? Check!

I bet you think I'm going to spend my day today cleaning and doing laundry? Nope! Not me! Not because Santa has left some of his elves behind to help me but because we did all that and more yesterday during the day.... Why? Because my SIL called us yesterday morning with the message that she discovered her two kids (elementary school age) had head lice. They slept in our bed Christmas Eve. Yikes. Frenzy! I survived 8 years and 3 kids in school without the nasty little buggers and I was not going to deal with them now! So we cleaned house, beds, throws, clothes, scrubbed and vacuumed. Right now there are multiple garbage bags filled with our duvets outside in the freeze cold. Nice clean house, nice clean beds, all laundry gone. There's a positive side!

(Luckily I do know what to look for, I used to manage the group of parents that checked the kids regularly in school, sort of Head Lice so to speak....)

Met liefde / With love

From Holland, Baking Soda and family wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope you're surrounded by people you love and feel warm, cozy and comfy. (and have access to nice and yummy food. That too!)

Recipe to be found here!

Bread Baking Babes bake a Yule Wreath

I bet you got all your baking scheduled for the holidays, still the Bread Baking Babes would like you to consider this one. It is such a versatile, easy to do-great effect bake that you might as well fit it into your schedule. Either savory or sweet the Swedish coffee ring could be just that addition to your lunch, breakfast or afternoon tea. Cookie Baker Lynn heads of our Kitchen table this month and from her Kitchen came this recipe.

Yule Wreath
(adapted from Betty Crocker's International Cookbook)
1.1/2 tsp instant dry yeast
240 ml cup lukewarm milk
1/4 cup sugar
60 gr. butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
455 gr - 490 gr all-purpose flour

Stir yeast into the milk, add sugar, butter, egg, cardamom, salt and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. (I didn't use all of the flour).

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface: knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Punch down the dough. Roll into rectangle, 15 x 9-inches, on a lightly floured surface.

Spread with your filling to within 1/4-inch of the edges. Roll up tightly, beginning at the wide side. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal well. Stretch roll to make even. With sealed edge down, shape into ring on lightly greased cookie sheet. Pinch ends together.

With scissors or kitchen shears, make cuts 2/3 of the way through the ring at 1-inch intervals. Turn each section on it's side (90 degree turn), to show off the pretty swirled filling. Cover loosely with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray. Let rise until double, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Heat oven to 350 deg. F. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. (If it browns too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil.)When cooled drizzle a simple glaze over the wreath: Mix until smooth: 1 cup powdered sugar 1 Tbsp water 1/2 tsp vanilla (add additional water 1/2 tsp at a time, if necessary). My sweet filling consisted of thinly rolled discs of marzepan, a drizzle of caramel, sprinkling of brown sugar and a mixture of walnuts and hazelnuts on top of that.

I made a savoury one as well, used thin cuts of ham, topped with sauteed lean ground beef seasoned with cumin, pepper and salt, nutmeg (drained to get rid of excess fat), sprinkled some cheese over it and proceeded to shape it in the form of an "S" to celebrate our Sinterklaas evening. Made some changes to the dough, substituted the butter for 3tbs olive oil, used somewhat more liquid and added herbs to the dough itself, omitted the cardamom and left the sugar out but for 1 tbs.

Verdict: I really need to bake this one again, the dough is so easy to work with and possibilities are endless! The kids preferred the savory one over the sweet, and I have another filling in mind... Like to see what my sister Babes baked? Go and have a look here: Notitie Van Lien (Lien), My Kitchen In Half-Cups (Tanna), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn), I like To Cook (Sara) , Grain Doe (Görel), Living On Bread and Water (Monique), Lucullian Delights (Ilva), The Sour Dough (Mary)

Edited for Buddy date: Bake with us and be a Bread Baking Buddy! Submit your entry by sending a mail to Cookie Baker Lynn by 31 December.

Baking Soda gets purple. All over.

They say a car without a top is classy and stylish. A house without it's top is not anywhere near classy and stylish. It's cold. Maybe because it's winter. I don't think people owning topless cars drive it in winter. There might be a reason for that.

Yesterday night this room was wrapped in blue plastic, with the lights on it was a crazy sight from outside. No roof, no windows, no wood, just clear blue plastic. Today they've installed part of the roof already.

Front door is open. Roof is open. No doors inbetween. Nice draft. Wearing purple today. From the tip of my nose down to my thermo underwear, longsleeved t-shirt, fleece vest, bodywarmer, shawl and toes. My hands are a nice shade of pinkish purple.

I'm going to bake. All day. Where's my Carpenters Christmas songs cd?

'Tis the season to be jolly...lalalalaaa lalalalaaaa!!

PS: Did I just say I was cold? You know what's cold? Go over and read why Kansas would like a ticket to Hawai.

Our

.. house used to have two chimneys. Once. Now it has none.
.. family used to have internet access. Once. Now we have none.
.. house used to have designated spaces for its contents. Once. Now it has none.
.. television channels could be viewed. Once. Now we have snow. (We can watch snowy television simultaneously on two sets, both ends of the room. One old, one new. Isn't that fun?)

Christmas is near..

The loss of chimneys might have some consequences for a bearded man dressed in red and white.
The loss of internet access might have some consequences for the peace in our family.
The loss of order might have some consequences for good spirits.
The loss of television reception has above mentioned consequences. All of them.

Christmas is near..

Happen to know if there was a scapegoat among the animals in the barn?

They can't access their school schedules. MOM!
They can't find their board games. MOM!
They can't find their clean shirts. KAREN!
They can't play internet games. MOM!
Their rooms are a mess. MOM!
They'd like to start at 7.30. MA'm?
He can't get to his travel gear. KAREN!
They can't get electricity. MA'm
They'd like coffee at 9.00. MA'm?
They broke two drills on our chimneys. MA'm

I can't upload anything. I need to contact people. EEEH?

There's peace and quiet in the local library.

We're looking towards a television/internet/telephone wizard coming in on Wednesday. I fear total loss of everything by Wednesday night. If the wizard is coming as scheduled and promised.
We're looking at two holes in the roof today, fixed tomorrow... So they say.
We're looking at a major hole in the roof next week. Fixed over the next week. So they say.

There's peace and quiet in the local library. And a coffee machine. Books. Internet access. I think I'm going to stay. At least until Christmas.

Something sneaks up my caramel madeleines

and I'm almost ready to quit! I'd love to show you what I did, but our internet connection is getting worse by the minute. I have accumulated lots of pics; can't upload to Flickr, not to Blogger. Connection switches on and off every other second. Really frustrating. I hope this will get better when we switch over to another provider but that's not going to happen until 10th of December. Until then I'll keep trying to upload pics.... be somewhat silent here and continue having interrupted conversations on Skype. So sorry!! Caramel cake revisited. Yup, I made it again! This time I made cupcakes and twiddled some with the recipe to try and give it more lightness, adapting a very tasty but dense cake to a very tasty and fluffier one. I think that's a European or even Dutch thing with cakes.I didn't alter much, just substituted plain ap flour for self raising flour while keeping the baking powder and that resulted in fluffy cupcakes and some madeleines made with left over batter.
Halved the recipe for practising purposes, this amount gave me 12 medium cupcakes and 9 small madeleines.

Recipe in metric:

72 grams butter
120 gr sugar
1/4 ts salt
half of 1/3 cup caramel syrup
1 egg (european medium)
few drops of orange extract
140 gr. self raising flour
1/4 ts baking powder
1/2 cup milk (room temperature)

Tasted a madeleine myself, presented some to the workers, fused the remaining madeleines with bacon and caramel... match made in heaven!!