Lemon Curd

I can run out of pretty much everything in the kitchen, even the basics like sugar or flour, but vanilla and lemons are always in stock. Especially lemons, I probably go through 2 kg of lemons a week; there is always a slice in my glass of water, and as far as I am concerned  they make everything taste better, fish, pasta, salads, soups, pastry, desserts, drinks, even bread. 

It's my dream to have a garden with vegetables and herbs, my favourite fruit and edible flowers - to take a walk through the garden in the morning and decide what to cook based on what's fresh and catches my eye (no, it's not my aim to become the female Nigel Slater, although I like the way he cooks). A Lemon tree is definitely going to be there, kept in a wooden barrel, like in my grandparents house, so it can be moved indoors during the winter.

 To make sure that it will not remain just a dream and wishful thinking, I decided that I am not going to wait for the perfect circumstances to start growing that garden of mine - so far I managed to make a nice collection of herbs, raspberries are blooming, my nasturtium, borages and carnations are slowly growing as are my courgette and tomato plants. I'm a long way from the allotment/orchard of my dreams, but it feels good to know that I started and that I will not be mumbling to myself while paying for a handful of organic edible flowers at the local market. 

 So, until further notice, I'll keep relying on (super)markets to get my lemons. I am not complaining, just wishing that there were more opportunities I get some juicy Sorrento or Amalfi lemons. When I do, I like to make a jar or two of lemon curd, which is almost a dessert on its own.

Lemon curd

Makes 500g

4 unwaxed lemons

200g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter

3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk

Put the lemon zest, juice, the sugar and butter into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir until all of the butter has melted. 

Whisk the eggs and egg yolk and add to the lemon mixture, keep whisking until well combined, then cook for 10 minutes, or until the mixture is creamy and thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Set aside to cool, covered with cling film. Spoon into sterilised jars and seal.

Too sterilise jars, wash them in very hot soapy water, place onto a baking tray and place into an preheated oven to 160C/325F/gas3 for 15 minutes.

Keep it refrigerated, and I'll be back with couple of simple ideas how to use it.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Pão de Queijo

Daring Baker's Challenge for May 2014

 This month's Daring Bakers' Challenge took us on a trip to beautiful Brazil! Renata of Testado.Provado & Aprovado taught us how to make Pao De Queijo, tasty cheese buns that make the perfect snack or treat, and that will make your taste buds samba!

These are definitely gorgeous bready-chewy cousins of French gougères. I made a huge mistake by halving the recipe. I choose to do it on a day when both my daughter and husband were at home all day, and the smell from the oven made them come to the kitchen and literally wait for me to get them out. Five minutes later, they were gone as would have my second batch been if I didn't put my foot down - picture taking first,  finishing them off, second.

So it was, I transferred them to the plate while still steaming hot and managed to take a few shots. The fortunate facts are that they are best eaten fresh from the oven, that I still have half of the packet of tapioca flour and that they are really easy to make. If you can get your hands on tapioca, or sour cassava flour, please try them. I arranged a few chive flowers around them but my intention is to mix cheese and chive next time - and to quote Ina Garten - it's going to be so good!

Pão de Queijo
(makes 80 bite size balls)

500 g tapioca starch
250ml whole milk
40 gr butter
1 tsp salt
250 gr grated cheese  (Monterey Jack, Cheddar, or similar, I used  Comté )
1 to 3 large eggs
Preheat the oven to  400F/200C/gas 6

Heat milk, butter and salt until start boiling, pour over tapioca and mix it. You will not have enough liquid to form the dough, it will be lumpy, sort of dry mixture, keep breaking down the lumps, until it cools down to warm.
Beat the eggs lightly and start adding one at the time, until the dough comes together and becomes pliable, but still a bit sticky. 
Prepare the baking tins by greasing them and lining with parchment paper and start rolling the balls. I used watermelon round spoon dipped in water. Don't arrange them to close to each other, as they puff up quite a bit during baking.
Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes. Don't over-bake them as they will get hard and bitter.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Sweet Cherry - Coffee Cake

18 May -World Baking Day 

I wasn't convinced that orange has a place in this cake. My initial thought was to leave it out completely, then I decided to go half way and keep the zest, and leave the candied oranges out. That also meant that I broke my own rule not to change the recipe before the original was tested and tasted. I am glad I did, and I am glad that I did it half way, creating rule number two along the way - follow you own instincts!

This was a compulsory bake; I found myself home alone last night sitting comfortably reading a book, when the image of this cake popped into my mind. I saw it a while ago and didn't think much of it. So I kept reading and a few pages later I realised that all I was getting from that book was a picture of the cake. The oven went on at midnight and I was heading to the local fruit and veg market first thing in the morning to get some more fresh cherries to arrange for picture taking. 

And to make the whole experience even more peculiar, when I switched the computer on  and  stared browsing the net while waiting for the pictures to download, I realised that the World Baking Day takes place on Sunday 18 May 2014. This is, as it turns out my contribution to the celebration, this cake fought for its place and deserved to jump the queue in the draft box. 

Maybe it wasn't the greatest baking challenge I have ever done, and it that sense not in-keeping with the spirit of the Day, but the fun part of baking through the night  I definitely fulfilled.

Sweet Cherry-Coffee Cake

300g self raising flour
80g melted butter
70g caster sugar
200g ricotta cheese
90 ml natural yoghurt
1 egg yolk
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 orange, zest only
1tsp vanilla extract

Filling:
4 tbsp cherry jam
150gr fresh cherries
2 tbsp cornstarch
60 gr ricotta

Glaze:
200g icing sugar
50g caster sugar
1tbsp strong instant coffee
2 tbsp warm water

Preheat oven to 180C, mix ricotta, yoghurt, sugar, all but a spoonful of butter and egg yolk until smooth.Add flour, baking powder, orange zest, vanilla and bicarbonate of soda, make smooth dough and roll out into a rectangle about 30x40 cm, then brush it with the remaining butter.

Slice the cherries, pat them dry and coat with cornstarch, spread the jam over the rolled dough, leaving a  couple of centimetres border at the furthest edge, scatter cherries then ricotta over, roll to make a cylinder. Measure the length of you baking dish and adjust the length of your roll accordingly. If you are using a fluted ring, place it cut (end side) side up. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until well risen and golden brown. Leave it in the tin for  5 minutes, then take it out and place it on a rack to cool down.

In meanwhile make glaze: whisk the ingredients and drizzle thickly over cake.

- A sidenote from her daughter -
My mother, in all her modesty, appears to have *forgotten* to mention that today, May 18th, World Baking Day, also happens to be a shared celebration, her birthday.
For those of you who venture onto this amazing blog, I'd like to ask you to join me in wishing this amazingly inspiring, yet crazy woman a happy birthday.
Mother, you truly are incredible.
All of my love, pride and joy
xx

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Swiss Triangle Bread

Hello Sourdough!

I am really not too keen on club cards and memberships. In fact, the only membership card I've got is the library one - and the only (and unofficial) club I wanted to join was the sourdough owner's one. Well, I am in - finally! Sourdough and I were in disagreement for such a long time. It was going on for so long that I got frustrated and proclaimed it to be my biggest kitchen nemesis. No wonder it refused to work with me. I tried every trick in the book, took so many tips, watched so many videos and on reflection, probably tried a tad too hard and had been a bit too impatient and pushy. I should have remembered that the simplest way is always the best, as it was - when I came across the recipe from Thekitchn I knew instantly that it was going to work. Five days later, I made my first sourdough bread, no, not this one, that one along with the first batch of this bread and the photo instructions was amongst my lost pictures. 

Why and how I knew that it was going to work? I think I realised what I was doing wrong, or rather not doing at all - too vigorously beating the mixture every time I fed it and while i was using equal parts of water and flour before, this recipe required 2  more spoons of flour than water, which for me made sense, since I always thought that my starter was to runny.That was almost a month ago, as I didn't want to brag about it before I made sure that I will be able to keep it alive - so far so good - let's not jinx it! Made few good bakes with it - buns, fougassa, grissini  and  they are all coming soon! 

 Back to this bread, when I saw the picture for the first time, I was so intrigued to figure out how it's formed - and to my surprise it's so simple and obvious even from that small picture on the blog where I found recipe.

I used it as a guide line only, as it requires biga style starter, rather then the sourdough. 

Since I forgot to take pictures this time, I'll try to be very descriptive, and hopefully my description combined with the linked picture will make it clear enough to follow.   

Swiss Triangle Bread

150g sourdough starter* room temperature
Main dough:
170 g flour
80g water
1tsp malt extract
2 gr fresh yeast
1 tsp salt

*If you don't have a sourdough starter, mix 75 g water with 75 gr flour and 0.5 g fresh yeast;leave it at the room temperature for couple of hours, then refrigerate for about 8 hours (overnight) bring  it out to a room temperature for  2-3 hours and it's ready to use then.

Combine all the ingredients for the main dough with the starter ( dissolve the yeast in warm water first if not using fast action) and knead into a smooth dough; leave it to rest for half an hour, knead again, let it rest for 15 minutes, then form a ball, and give it slightly triangle shape. using your rolling pin, roll out the corners of the triangle thinly, not too long, just enough to flip them back onto the top of the ball. Before folding the tips  back, brush them with oil . Let the dough rise for at least one hour, then bake on 240C/464F/gas 8 in a  preheated oven for about 23 to 40 minutes.
This post has been submitted to YeastSpotting

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Bougatsa

Creamy Semolina Pie

I used the Greek name for this creamy semolina pie, but I could've easily given it an Austrian, Hungarian, Serbian, or even a Turkish equivalent. They each have their own versions of this dessert and the differences between them are often minor, and yet sometimes the regional recipes in two different countries are more alike then ones from neighbouring counties in the same country. This is a simplified version of Bougatsa, as it's traditionally made with home made filo pastry (which I have every intention of making some day) and often with an egg custard, all depends who you ask, and which part of Greece you are in. 

By making this pie, I just wanted to fulfil an urge of eating something from my childhood, which was far away from Greece, but very close to Austria and Hungary and I did it by baking one of  the Greek classics. Food doesn't care for borders.

Although the simplest way to enjoy the creaminess of this pie wrapped in a crispy filo-pastry is to dust it generously with icing sugar and cinnamon, I always liked it fridge-cold ( it was my ice-cream substitute, which, funnily enough was never my favourite dessert, even when I was a child) topped with blueberry jam and some fresh berries.
Gosh, I so sincerely hope that I don't have readers from  the Greek community for this post!

Bougatsa - Semolina Pie

400g filo pastry
120g sugar
90 g fine semolina
pinch of salt
1 tbsp soft unsalted butter
1 packet bourbon vanilla sugar
750 ml milk
120 g unsalted butter
icing sugar and cinnamon to dust

Oven temperature 200 C/400F/gas 6
Round 20 cm baking tin

Combine the sugar and milk and bring to simmer, gradually add the semolina and pinch of salt and cook for couple of minutes until the mixture thickness, but not too much.Take it off the heat, add tablespoon of butter and the vanilla. Cover the surface with non-stick paper and leave to cool completely.

Melt the remaining butter and brush the baking tin, set the rest aside. You will need 10 layers of pastry for the bottom and 10 for the top. If your pastry sheets are large enough, cut them accordingly. Since you need just a squarer cut for the top, I suggest you divide every sheet in 2:1 ratio, two thirds for the bottom layers, one third to form ten layers square for the top.

Brush the layer generously with butter and lay it in the tin with the edges overhanging, then repeat with another 9 sheets changing the angle slightly with every new layer. Fill the tin with semolina mixture over the filo. Trim the rest of the filo pastry into square big enough to cover the middle part of the tin, brush each layer with butter and place in the centre over semolina mixture. Fold the overhanging edges towards centre, trim if necessary and brush with butter. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until golden in colour. Allow to cool  and serve warm, or cold.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Chocolate Almond Tart with Fleur de Sel

With the weather improving and more sunny days coming our way, without even realising, I started inclining towards easier to make and often lighter recipes. I am not sure that all butter puff pastry with chocolate qualifies are 'light', but surely the beautiful simplicity and deliciousness of this Martha Stewart recipe counts for something.

For a split of a second I considered making my own puff pastry, but being in an easy going mood I dismissed the idea immediately, and I reached for a packet of all butter store bought one instead, something that I also hadn't tried before but had wanted to put to the test for some time. And since the chocolate is the main component here, I made sure that it was one I kept for special occasions. If you don't like the idea of eating salty chocolate, leave the salt out, but be warned, you will lose on taste as the salt compliments the toasted almonds perfectly! 

 Chocolate Almond Tart with Fleur de Sel

340g all butter puff pastry

50g chopped dark chocolate

honey for drizzling

Sea salt for sprinkling

2 tbsp chopped toasted raw almonds

1 egg for egg-wash

1 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven 180C and toast the almonds for up to 10 minutes, then set them aside to cool down. Turn the oven up  to 230C/450F/gas 8. Roll the pastry out into a 25x25cm,( about 10") then fold the edges inwards to form 2,5 cm (1") border. Pierce centre of the pastry with fork, brush the edges with beaten egg, sprinkle with sugar, then freeze for at least 15 minutes. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. Take it out and press the centre down, cover it with chopped chocolate, drizzle all over with honey and sprinkle with sea salt flakes. return to the oven for couple of minutes, or until chocolate melted. Sprinke with chopped almonds and cut into squares. Serve with some ice cream, or drizzle with more honey:)

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Fresh Strawberry Scones

Since I haven't had enough time to go through and edit my baking photos lately, they were stored on the SD card for the safe keeping, or at least I thought so. To my disbelief, the minute I plugged the multi card reader into the computer, all I was able to do was watch them disappear into thin air, one by one, all 200 of them. Even my husband didn't manage to recover them all, in fact the majority are gone. I must say, it took a few days to get over the fact that the record of almost a months worth of baking was gone in couple of minutes.

The hardest part was that my daughter's birthday cake was amongst them, and it's very unlikely that I will make the same cake again any time soon;  it will also take some time before I decide to go for chicken and chorizo pie again. Strawberry scones however, could be thrown together in no time, (from start to finish 40 minutes including picture taking and tasting of course) and  the obvious choice to start my attempt to recreate at least few "lost" bakes.    

When I made the first batch a few days ago, I used self-raising flour and milk and with one photo recovered to prove it (the bottom one), I thought I should take the silver lining approach to the situation and test the fresh strawberry - buttermilk version this time round. I have been using the same recipe for ages and it's always to make the cheese scones, by far our favourite, and never bothered to make the plain or sweet version. But something that I saw recently sparked the idea of incorporating the fresh fruit in the scone dough. Eureka! I wasn't' the only one-  of course that someone came up with the idea, way before I even found out the scones existed. never mind, I didn't discover the new way to bake scones, but I still liked the idea.

Fresh strawberry scones

makes 10 -12

230g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

55g butter diced

25g sugar

100g fresg chopped strawberries

125ml milk + 1 spoon for glazing

strawberry jam and whipped cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 220C/428 F/gas 7, and  grease a baking sheet

Mix the dry ingredients,then rub in the butter , until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.Stir in the strawberries and add the milk. Work the dough very lightly, turn it onto a floured surface and pat the dough  out with your hands until around 3 cm thick. Cut the 5 cm circles and place them on the baking sheet leaving a little space between them. Brush them with few drops of milk and bake for up to 10 minutes , or until well risen and golden brown.

The result- I like the texture and the taste, but they failed to rise enough, which made me wonder if my self raising flour let me down, or a pinch more of baking powder would do the trick? My gut feeling says a bit more of baking powder, not too much, maybe 1/4 to1/2 tsp.

Fresh strawberry buttermilk scones

Makes 18 to 20

500g plain flor

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tsp cream of tartar

2tsp sugar

50g diced unsalted butter

30g  chopped lard

300ml buttermilk

Follow the instruction from the above recipe. 

They have risen very well and had beautiful grainy texture, but ever so slightly soda after taste spoiled the perfect moment a bit ( if I am been picky), but nothing that a dollop of cream and spoonful of freshly made strawberry jam, couldn't fix and  I wouldn't mind making them again.   

Recipes adapted from Bread by Anne Sheasby and Nigela Lawson respectively.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad