Tag Archives: Vanilla

December 28th, 2014

Little Baked Apples with Marzipan Ice cream and caramelized Almonds

Bratäpfelchen mit MarzpianeisOn the first christmas day we met with my family at my sisters place. To reduce the work for her (and because I like to do it) I offered to make dessert. For a long time I was lacking a good idea. But when I was decorating our flat with my Christmas apples I knew what to cook: Mini baked apples with ice cream. In our childhood my mum always bought marzipan ice cream (shaped as christmas tree) for us. And so I knew the flavour for the ice cream as well: Marzipan! Inspired by Michas cream cheese ice cream I created a new recipe and it is perfect for christmas time because you can make it in advance, freeze it and serve it directly from the fridge. Due to the high amount of invertsirup and cream cheese it will be soft and perfect  to eat!

And the combination of cold ice cream, hot apples and crunchy almonds was the perfect end of a delicious Christmas meal!

Continue reading

December 27th, 2014

Panettone (pure Sourdough)

Panettone (2)

When I bake my Sourdough Pandoro with the special (not sour) sourdough called sweet starter last year I knew already that I would have to make my own Panettone recipe for the following christmas. Similar to the Pandoro recipe I planed to build the dough in some steps so that the yeasts in the sweet starter would get used to sugar and fat which would help to let the dough rise fast. The sweet starter I kept during 2014 alive and baked rather a lot of different breads with him.

On 22. December I refreshed the sweet starter tree times to make him strong and fast rising. He was so strong and fast rising that he only needed two instead if three hours to double his volume when I started the sweet starter for the Panettone at the 23. in the morning. And even the sugar and the butter in the following first and second dough did not slow him down, and tripled its volume in 90 minutes instead of 2 hours. But anyway the third (and last) dough had to take 3 hours for rising because I had to run some errands. Coming home again I formed the Panettone (Susans Tip to grease hands and counter with a lot of butter is really helpful!) and during forming I calculated: I’m now two hours earlier then planned… but it will need about 12 hours at least to proof… and at seven in the morning I’m normally already awake. So there is no problem at all…

Panettone (3)At five o’clock the next morning, on my way to the bathroom, I quickly checked the Panettone in the kitchen. And turned the oven on. Ten hours were what they needed to reach the rim of the form. And who needs sleep?

One hour later the panettone was already hanging between two chairs and I crawled back into bed to have another little nap. Later that day we took some pictures and sliced one cake. And it was so delicious: soft and fluffy, the crumb could be teared into long strands, flavours of orange and vanilla and subtle, but complex notes from the sweet starter. And it keeps fresh for a long time, we eat one with my family on the first christmas day, and had some on second christmas day as well and it still tasted like freshly baked. It is a fussy cake and I could less sleep then normal but it is worth everything! It is the perfect christmas cake!

Continue reading

September 13th, 2014

Autumn Streusel cake with Powidl

Herbstlicher StreuselkuchenWhen August changes into September it marks the beginning of autumn for me.

Now I start to search for my scarfs for the already cool, misty mornings and in the evening I will lit the first candles when the light goes down. Saying goodbye to the summer is not so hard for me, especially when between the cool morning and early evening lies a sunny, golden day. And when I can spent the light filled afternoon with a cup of hot tea together with a pieces of streusel cake filled with the autumn flavours of plum sauce and hazelnuts, then I will welcome autumn light-hearted!

Continue reading

July 27th, 2014

Alsacian Kougelhopf

Gugelhupf

Nearly a year has passed since our visit in Alsace in our summer vacation. One of the souvenirs  I brought home after two splendid weeks in france was a clay baking form for Kougelhopf. It is sitting on my kitchen cabinet since then, waiting for me to create a recipe for Kugelhopf.

This weekend I finally found the time to study different Kougelhopf recipes. But I did not like them, all of them use a lot of yeast and give the dough no time to rest properly to develop a good flavour. And I wanted a recipe which uses a preferment for better taste and longer shelf life! And so I decided to use my own interpreation with a sweet starter which helps to rise the buttery dough without using a lot of yeast.

The cake is more time consuming then other recipes you may find in the web, but it develops a fine complex flavour and light and feathery crumb. I imaging that even my alsacian great-grandmother would have enjoyed it!

Continue reading

July 13th, 2014

Quark Blueberry Pastry

Quark-Blaubeer-Teilchen

It’s berry season! After we spent the last weeks with cooking red currant, raspberry and strawberry jam we turned our attention to the blueberries. Beside of cooking jam I set some aside to use them for a little weekend treat. Together with some quark I baked quark blueberry pastries.

For the dough I used my sweet starter which was just freshly feed. But like for this Sonntagszopf you can use Lievito madre or a biga instead. What ever you choose as a preferment, it will be delicious!

Continue reading

July 6th, 2014

Red Currant and Chocolate Cake

Johannisbeer-Schokoladenbiskuit-SchnitteThis year is a great year for berries. In my parents garden the red currants bushes bent down under the load of ripe berries. Two weeks ago I picked enough berries to cook enough red currant jelly for the coming year and it you could hardly see that I take any fruits. And so I picked another 2 kilogramm berries in betweeen two thunderstorms last Friday afternoon. The most of the currants are cleaned and froozen, the rest I used for baking a cake.

I found the recipe at Chili & Ciabatta, but due to the leftover in my baking drawer I changed the dough already a lot, adding grounded almonds and chocolate. And the for the vanilla creme I go for a different recipe because I do not use gelatine.

And even if the recipe is a different one in the end, the cake tastes fantastic. A sweet vanillacreme is balanced by the tarte red currants and with chocolate you can never do wronge!

Continue reading

May 18th, 2014

Rhubarb and Custard Streusel Cake

Rhabarber-Pudding-Streuselkuchen

Some recipe ideas develop spontaneously. Like the idea for this cake. It started when my favourite colleague asked me if I had a good recipe for a rhubarb streusel cake. Instantly the custard streusel cake come to my mind. Rhubarb and vanilla pairs so greatly and so I suggested to add another layer to the custard streusel. My colleague liked the idea as well and after a short discussions we decided that the rhubarb should be slightly cooked and then bound with some starch like a custard. When I bought my groceries this evening, I saw rhubarb in the fruit section of the supermarket and decided that I had to bake this cake as well. And I’m happy that I did it, because the combination of rhubarb, custard, streuel and a fluffy yeast dough is really divine!

Continue reading

April 20th, 2014

Colomba pasquale

 

Colomba (2)When I baked the little Colombinas about five years ago I was already searching for the traditional paper mold for Colomba pasquale. But I had no luck finding one neither in the “real word” nor in german onlineshops. And so I finally give in and bought a silicon mold, ignoring my dislike of this kind of baking molds. And the mold was delivered just in time, so the only thing I had to was to refresh my sweet starter and start baking.

Raisins and candid orange peel would make my beloved one rather unhappy, so I choose semisweet chocolate drops and chopped candid almonds instead. The fits well with my first colomba memory, when some years ago a former colleague brought back a big, chocolate filled colomba after visiting her parents in Italy. The dough for the dove is similar to my pandoro recipe, but this time I kneaded the butter into the dough. The dough was easy in handling and after baking I was able to unmold the colomba without any problems, much to my relief.

After cooling down we cut the dove and the first bite of it was pure delight. The crumb could be torn into long strands and was as light as a feather, and the combination of chocolate and candied almonds is great, too! This colomba is a real dream dove!

Continue reading

March 23rd, 2014

Custard Streusel Cake

Pudding-Streuselkuchen

 

I posted already about my favourite Streusel cake recipe. Could a better recipe exist?

Yes.

It exists!

Add a layer of creamy vanilla custard  between dough and streusel and you will get the best streusel cake ever!

I found the inspiration for this on Juttas Blog, who discovered the pudding streusel cake at Dampfi kocht und backt. I used my streusel cake recipe (which works greatly with sweet starter instead of pâte fermentée, too) but added a layer of homemade custard. And this mixture of soft custard and crisp streusel is just divine!

Continue reading

February 25th, 2014

Apple Pear Jelly with Vanilla quark

Apfel-Birnen-Grütze mit Vanillequark

Last weekend was the christening of my sweet little nephew. To help my sister I volunteered to prepare the desert and bake a cake. For 18 adults and 9 children I prepared two different desserts (at the end I made about 58 small Glasses with Dessert what was a little bit to much): a creamy chocolate custard and a apple pear jelly with vanilla quark.  I was inspired by a recipe I found at Lecker.de but because I do not like their recipe so much I changed it a lot.

I reduced the amount of sugar and cream and increased the amount of quark, and for the jelly I decided to cook the apple and pear pieces separately and seasoned them with a little bit of Tonka bean which underlines nicely the flavour.

It is a delicious recipe which can easily prepared the day before!

Continue reading