make life sweeter!

Finally I made macarons :) and all because they were last month's Daring Bakers Challenge. Like the last few months I'm late in posting but this time I did actually finish the macarons on the 27th but still had to make the filling, fill them, photograph them and blog about them. And that took till now ;)
Though I love the look of vibrant colours in macarons, I didn't think it fitted the lebkuchen flavour I had in mind. I was inspired by the shops here in Austria that carry about a zillion different types of lebkuchen towards Christmas...yum! The filling was a simple dark chocolate ganache which was a delicious match for the spicy taste of the macaron shells.
I baked the first batch as the recipe stated but drying the shells in the oven didn't work out well for me. The shells sunk in while they were waiting for the oven to reach 190 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately they didn't magically rise during baking. Besides that problem, the shells browned too much because of the high baking temperature. They did develop feet but they didn't look like they were supposed to. The next two batches I went with one of Tartelette's recipes: air drying the shells for 30-60 minutes and baking them at a lower temperature. The first of these batches I should have baked a little longer but the second came out more or less perfect...I was happy :) The lebkuchen spices were delicious and the ground spices made the macarons browner than I antipated.
All in all making macaron's wasn't difficult and I even got the feet the first time round. Not sure if this was beginners luck or not but we'll see how future batches will turn out. Next time I'll try a more vibrant colour :)

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I did a trial version of this month's Daring Bakers challenge half way through the month. I made 3/5 of the recipe (as in I used 3 eggs instead of 5). This was plenty to fill two 15 cm (6 in) springform pans. I baked them less than the designated 25 min but this turned out being too much. The inside was still moist but the sides were pretty crumbly and dry-ish. I used bittersweet chocolate with a 56% cocoa content but I thought the end-result turned out on the bitter side. In sum: I wasn't swept off my feet.
So at the end of the month I repeated the recipe and this time only used 2 eggs and baked it in a small square baking pan. I used the same bittersweet chocolate but only used ⅔ of it. For the remaining ⅓ I used milk chocolate. This time I tried to get it out of the oven when it had the right temperatur. It turned out somewhat higher but at least high enough to not pose a salmonella risk and not too high to make it dry. The combination of bittersweet and milk chocolate was just right, not too bitter, not too sweet. This version was much better than the one I made earlier in the month.
To accompany the cake I made Arabic coffee ice cream aka coffee and cardamom ice cream. This was so good I only ate 1/3 of the slice of cake and continued with just the ice cream. Didn't want to spoil the ice cream experience by eating the cake ;) And I'm not even an ice cream person! Coffee ice cream used to be my all time favourite but now it's definitely Arabic coffee ice cream.

You can find the recipe for the flourless chocolate cake on the blogs of this month's hosts: Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.



Arabic coffee ice cream

350 ml (1 ½ cup) heavy cream
150 ml (⅔ cup) milk
4 cardamom pods, crushed
2 ts Turkish coffee (or coffee ground to a powder)
4 egg yolks
100 g (3 ½ oz) sugar

Bring the cream, milk, cardamom and Turkish coffee to a boil. Turn off the heat and allow to steep for 30 minutes.
Mix the egg yolks and the sugar until smooth.
Bring the milk and cream mixture to a boil again. Temper the egg yolk and sugar mixture with some of the hot cream and milk. Add the mixture to the hot milk and cream whilst stirring. Allow to cook gently for 2 minutes whilst still stirring.
Strain the custard through a fine mesh sieve and allow to cool down. Don't forget to stir whilst it is cooling in order to prevent the development of a skin. Chill the custard in the fridge. Churn in your ice cream maker. Put the ice cream in your freezer.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

(in case you're wondering half way reading this if I realize that my post is called Mustacudos de muez - Walnut cookies flavoured with cinnamon and orange....I do ;)

I rediscovered some cookbooks that have been on my bookshelves for years and years. Two books on the French kitchen written by Julia Child. Back then I didn't even know who Julia Child was and wasn't very interested in the French kitchen. It was sort of a surprise that I had books by Julia Child on my shelves, never knew it. Anyway, one of the books is on lunch dishes and in this book I found the spinach quiche I wanted to make some time ago. A doesn't like savoury pies and tarts so I haven't made anything of the sorts in over 9 years. Making the dough for this quiche the French way with lots and lots of butter was trickier than I imagined. I thought rolling the dough between baking parchement would help like it does with sweet shortcrust dough but it didn't work that well. I wasn't able to roll it out to the desired thinness of 3 mm and ended up having a much thicker crust. Of course I was pressed for time when I baked it (had to be ready for lunch with the in-laws) so I didn't blind bake it long enough (did I mention that I forgot to prick the bottom with a fork?). If I would have been baking in a more relaxed fashion I would have been smart enough to blind bake it some more to compensate for the thickness. So after blind baking I pricked it with a fork and returned it to the oven. Of course the bottom puffed up enormously. Also the sides puffed up, well not really up, more inward. Looked pretty though in the oven, like a big flower ;) This time I did bake it longer than Julia said. After taking it out of the oven I just pressed the bottom down with a crème brûlée dish. The tart shell didn't look all that pretty, though it did improve when I baked it with the filling (which was really delicious btw). Not being happy with the crust (looks and done-ness) and the lack of time to make pictures I decided not to feature this recipe on my blog. Maybe in the future, who knows. So instead I'm giving you the very last recipe that I made for my Middle Eastern themed birthday party: Walnut cookies with cinnamon and orange. The cookies are very easy to make, naturally gluten-free and delicious :) It's another recipe from Claudia Roden, this time from The Book of Jewish Food. According to Claudia the cookies are made by Turkish Jews, I presume for Passover as they don't have any flour in them.

Mustacudos de muez - Walnut cookies flavoured with cinnamon and orange (from the Dutch version of The book of Jewish food by Claudia Roden)

makes about 16

250 g (9 oz) walnuts
90 g (3 ¼ oz) sugar
1 egg
zest of ¾ orange
1 ts cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a baking sheet with baking paper or grease the baking sheet.
Process all ingredients in the food processor until a medium coarse paste. Roll into walnut sized balls with wetted of greased hands.
Bake the balls for about 25 minutes.

The spinach quiche I wanted to bake last weekend will be baked next week. I was too busy and tired to make it. But I did manage to bake something and I liked the smell and even the taste :) It's a spice cake I sometimes make. Even though it was delicious it didn't look anything as pretty as the one I baked here. I did use a different recipe so probably that was the reason behind it. I won't be sharing the spice cake with you because the pictures would have been too ugly ;)
What I do want to share with you is this simple and healthy sweet I made for my birthday party some month's ago from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Don't you just love sweets with only 3 ingredients?

This is my entry to Suganya's Vegan Ventures.

Apricotina (from the Dutch version of The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden)

makes about 50

1 ½ tbs pistachio's, finely chopped
1 ½ tbs caster sugar
500 g (1 lb) dried apricots
some tbs icing sugar
more icing sugar
pistachio's

Mix the chopped pistachio's and the caster sugar together, set aside.
Process the apricots in a foodprocessor.
Add some tablespoons of icing sugar. Knead by hand until well mixed (wet your hands a bit from time to time to prevent sticking).
Roll the apricot puree into a small ball, press in the middle with your finger in order to create a depression to put a little bit of the pistachio mixture inside. Cover the filling and roll into a ball. Roll the ball in icing sugar and press a pistachio into it. Repeat with the rest of the apricot puree.
Allow to dry for a night.

Before I went to Croatia I promised you the recipe of this cake. Sorry it took so long to finally post about it. Anyways...I kept on seeing this ricotta honey cake in this fun little baking book called Bake It. It looked so delicious that I had to try it out. Also a great way to use up the kg of ricotta that was left over from my birthday party. I was planning to make cheese filled kadaif but the kadaif dough I bought was off even though the use by date was ok. I guess it's wasn't properly stored at the store. Luckily the ricotta's use by date was somewhere in September so I wasn't pressed to use it immediately.
So I finally make this cake and I don't like it :( It's probably just me being difficult so I'm going to give you the recipe regardless.
It was both the taste and the texture I didn't like. I guess the texture had a lot to do with ricotta being the main ingredient. It was the first time I baked with ricotta, even had ricotta. I think the only ricotta I've eaten was inside tortellini. And maybe the fact that I made the recipe gluten-free by using cornflour instead of regular flour had a little bit to do with it too....I don't know.
The honey I used was too heavy, I'm not much of a honey connaisseur so when I read thyme honey in the supermarket it sounded delicious. I did have a little taste and thought it was good but quite heavy but thought it would be ok in the cake...it was not :( The cake was totally edible but just not my cup of tea. Can't win them all ;)
ps I made half the recipe but I thought the nectarines we're a bit too big for the slices of cake. The recipe below is the original size.

Honey ricotta cake with sauteed nectarines (adapted from the Dutch version of Bake It by Murdoch Books)

makes a 18 cm (7 in) cake

1 kg (2 lb 7 oz) ricotta
175 g (6 oz) mild honey
seeds of 1 vanilla bean
60 ml (¼ cup) lemon juice
2 lemons, finely zested
4 eggs, lightly beaten
35 g (1 ¼ oz) flour ( I used cornflour)
2-3 nectarines, in 8 slices each
1 tbs butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 18 cm (7 in) springform and dust with flour.
Puree the ricotta in a food processor. Add the honey, vanilla bean seeds, lemon juice and zest, and eggs. Mix until well blended. Add the flourand pulse until just blended.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared springform and bake for 1 hour or until lightly golden brown and somewhat soft in the middle. Turn off the oven, open the oven a tiny bit and allow the cake to cool in the oven. Chill the cake in the fridge before taking it out of the springform.
Sautee the nectarines in the butter for 1-2 minutes.
Serve at room temperature with the nectarines.