Srecan Uskrs - Hristos Vaskrese
Pasteria
Nona Italia's Easter Cake
Nona Italia (real name is believed to be Maria) bakes an enormous amount of this gorgeous cake every Easter and gives it out to family members and friends. Although we are not in that circle, we are fortunate enough to be friends with her granddaughter Jodie, who is still to come and give her expert opinion on this cake made with her Nona's recipe (slightly modified).
Pasteria
Filling:
500g over cooked pudding rice (left to set over night)
500g ricotta
120gr caster sugar
blossom water to taste, I put 2 spoons, you can easily pour 1/2 bottle
1 orange, zest and juice
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
11 egg yolks
200g mixed peel
Pastry:
250g plain flour
50g butter
4 egg yolks + 1 egg
Rub butter into flour, add eggs, one at the time and stop if the dough is wet enough ( depends on size, you may not need to use them all) Wrap in a cling film and refrigerate until ready to use, may leave it overnight.
Filling:
Cook the rice, you should need about 250g of raw rice, as it usually double in size, depends on rice, maybe even less as for this recipe you will need it over cooked, until the grains almost disperser. When cooked put in a colander and let it set overnight.
The next day, mix the rice with one half of the sugar, and ricotta with the other. Preheat the oven to 230 C, gas mark 8. Combine rice and ricotta mixture, then add the egg yolks, blossom water, nutmeg, orange peel and cinnamon. Grease 25 cm - 10" tin with butter, roll 2/3 of the pastry and cover the bottom and the side and pour the filling. Use the remaining pastry to roll and cut 10 thin strips, criss cross them over the filling ( five strips horizontally, five vertically).
Bake on high temperature for 10 minutes, then reduse to 180C/gas mark 5 for about 1 hour, or until cake appears golden and firm to the touch.
Serve as small slices when cold.
Easter eggs
Vintage style
We will be colouring our Easter eggs the traditional way today, but I wanted to get a bit playful and decorate a few eggs with pieces of lace and some vintage style paper napkins.
In addition to the lace and napkins, you'll need boiled eggs, a pair of small scissors, and lightly beaten egg whites to make your design stick to the eggs.
Cut the desired design out from a napkin in a single layer, brush some egg white on the eggshell of a boiled egg and let it dry, frame it with a piece of lace. ..
although you can do either - decoupage, or a lace arrangement .
Easter cookies
Classic shortbread
This is the second post in my Easter series. I've spent my time playing like a little child and I've had such a wonderful time baking and decorating these shortbread cookies!
I followed a classic shortbread recipe and made one batch with cornflour, and another with rice flour. Although I used both ingredients before, I'd never used them at the same time and or seen how they compare. Cookie after cookie, I decided that I don't have a preference, as both versions are excellent in their own way - rice flour gives a granulated, crunchy biscuit, while the ones made with the cornflour melt in the mouth. You know what you like best.
Classic Shortbread
Easter cookies
250g salted soft butter
100 g caster sugar
10g vanilla sugar
250g plain flour
125g cornflour or rice flour
Preheat the oven to 170C/340F/gas mark 3 1/2
Cream the butter and sugar, add vanilla sugar, then gradually sift the combined flour and cornflour (or rice flour), mix unitl it binds together, then knead with your hands until smooth, but don't overwork it. Wrap it in a cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll out the dough to 5-6 mm thick, then cut into shapes of your choice. Line the baking sheets with a parchment paper and bake for about 15- 20 minutes. Let them cool for few minutes before transferring them carefully to a wire rack..
For the decoration I used the ready to roll icing, natural food colouring and stencils. Simply roll the icing, stencil it if using a stencil and cut to the same shapes as the cookies. Use a drop of water to put them together. Few cookies I topped with moulded melted chocolate (duck, bird, Easter egg, bow).
Instead of vanilla sugar, you can use an orange zest and pinch of ground cardamom seeds, or lemon zest, cinnamon, even salt and pepper.
Adapted from Bake and decorate by Fiona Cairns
Easter Bread
An attempt to match my Nan's Milibrot
Maybe there are better tasting and smelling Milibrot breads (milk bread that originates from Germany- Milchbrot) that have been made out there, but my Nan's will always be my favourite. So, naturally I tried to replicate what she used to bake without a recipe and without mistakes... and failed every single time. The truth is that even if I succeeded, I wouldn't have known; how can you recreate a memory? I don't think it's possible and yet, it felt that I came very close to my imagined perfection with this "rehearsal Easter bread".
And just when I was proudly enjoying the moment of success and was nibbling through my second slice, I heard my daughter saying - Not bad, but not quite like Nan's. Oops! What I had between two bites , was a moment of clarity and what she said all of a sudden made sense; I shouldn't try to match my Nan's Easter bread, I should patiently wait my turn to create a similar memory for someone instead.
Milibrot - Easter Bread
190 C/375 F/ gas 5
26 cm /10" oiled and floured round tin
550g flour
1 tbsp dry yeast
250 ml warm milk
50 g caster sugar
70 gr soft butter
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
10 g bourbon vanilla sugar ( or vanilla essence)
pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp mahlep powder (optional)
1 egg yolk mixed with a drop of oil to egg-wash
Start by dissolving yeast in warm milk, add a spoon of sugar and couple of spoons of flour, mix and wait for yeast to become active and bubbles appear. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, vanilla, lemon zest, sugar and salt. Beat the eggs with cooled malted butter; add the yeast and egg mixtures and to the flour and mix until you get a very smooth, slightly shiny dough. Cover and leave to rest for half an hour, then knock the dough back, knead slightly and cover to rest until almost triple in size (for about 1 hour, depends on a temperature in your kitchen).
Take the dough out on a floured surface and divide it into 3 equal pieces, each should weight around 300g, roll 90 cm long sausages and make a long plait (because the dough stretches as you go you should end up with 90 cm long plait).
Starting from the middle arrange the dough in circle, cover and let rise until it doubled in size.
Brush with an egg yolk wash before putting into the oven and bake for 35 minutes, or until golden brown in colour.
Chocolate Avocado Cake
The cake that divided the family
I decided to go out of my comfort zone and bake a cake with non-typical ingredient. I didn't roll the dice to decide which one I will use, but it certainly felt like I was gambling with my baking reputation among friends and family that like my baking just as it is, traditional - with little modern twist (their words, not mine). And I emphasize a little.
Avocado was an obvious choice because I wanted to make a somewhat healthier icing and replace butter as the fat. My verdict - beautiful combination of chocolate and avocado! My daughters verdict? - Calpol Cake. If I didn't tell the crowd what gave the cake that gorgeous velvety and silky green colour, I am certain that the cake would of have had a much warmer welcome. But ,with the main ingredient revealed while the cake was still in a fridge,I had a hard time convincing them to even take a bite. Luckily, my sister, who doesn't like very sweet desserts, came to the rescue and we had few bonding, sister to sister talks over this cake.
For the sake of my waist, I will be using avocado the old fashion way- in salads and dips, and postpone my plans to make chocolate- beetroot cake, until further notice!
For those of you out there that are more open minded about what your dessert should look and taste like, here is the recipe:
Chocolate Avocado Cake
200 g dark chocolate
1 tsp coffee powder
200g flour
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
pinch of salt
200 g unsalted butter, softened
4 eggs
100ml yoghurt
For the Cream:
1 ripe good quality avocado
1 tsp lemon juice
250g icing sugar
handful of walnuts, toasted
Preheat the oven to 180 C/gas mark 6, oil 24 cm round tin and lay the bottom with parchment paper.
Melt the chocolate with coffee powder then set aside. Beat the sugar with butter and mix the rest of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Add the eggs, one at the time to the butter mixture until they are well incorporated, then combine the half of the flour mixture, add yoghurt and then the rest of the flour. At the end pour the cooled, melted chocolate and mix to get even smooth texture. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 10 to 15 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool down.
For the cream it's the best to use a food processor or a blender. Blend the avocado with lemon juice until all lumps disperser, then start adding icing sugar and keep blending on a mid to high speed until you get a nice smooth and thick consistency. If it is not thick enough just add a bit more sugar as you go, make sure that you do not put too much as it will firm up in the fridge.
Cut the sponge into half fill with the half of the cream, reserving the other half for the top. Decorate with roasted walnuts.
(Recipe adapted from "Sweet tooth" by"Lily Vanilly)
One year later
One year ago I pressed the publish button for the first time and gave this blog a life. It felt surreal, strange and it was totally out of character, for someone who always has to have a plan, and a back up plan and is constantly two steps ahead. So, you can imagine how confusing it was not to have a clue where I was going or what I wanted it to do with it and no wonder that it took a lot of identity searching, blog research, and more photography related nightmares that I can count to finally feel settled and at home (ishhh).
Do you remember the first comment on your blog? For me, it was awhile before I even realised that the few "visits" that my traffic chart was showing was actually me "admiring" my own work, and when that first word -Yummy- appeared in the comment box, I wanted to go to Bulgaria and thank Yoli in person. She is not visiting, (at least not commenting) any more, but to the girls who helped me to keep going and always put the smile back on my face during the rainy days Lana, Milkica and Petra I own a special thank you.
Few weeks back, I wrote that I recently made a friendship, first on-line, then in person, with a fellow blogger and that she agreed to be a guest on these pages soon, so you could meet this beautifully humble and creative person through her work.
Please meet Lana who made us a proper, English tea party to celebrate!
Mini tarts
Ingredients: 150 g plain flour, 75 g chilled unsalted butter (cubed), a pinch of salt, 1 tbsp water
Put the plain flour into a food processor and add the butter and salt. Whiz until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add a tablespoon of water and whiz again until it just starts to come together. If it looks a bit dry, drizzle in a teaspoon or two more of water.
Tip out onto a board, bring together with your hands and knead lightly to bring the dough together. Wrap in a cling-film and chill for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200 C. Remove the pastry from the fridge, unwrap and roll it out on a lightly floured board until it‘ s about 2 mm thick. Use to line 6 tins, reserving the remainder (wrap and chill this bit as you‘ll need it later for the lattice topping). Prick the base a couple of times with the fork and bake in the oven 10-15 minutes, until the pastry looks dry.
Make the filling ( I used the Sfogliatelle one) and spoon into the pastry cases.
Roll out the remaining pastry on a lightly floured board and cut it into 5 mm strips, long enough to fit across the tart tins. Place on top of the filled tarts and pinch them into the pastry edge. Brush the strips with water and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until golden. Serve warm or cold.
Mini muffins
Ingredients: 225 g self-raising flour, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp ground white pepper, 100 g finely chopped ham, 40 g salted butter, 20 g Cheddar ( finely grated), 1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley, 150 ml natural yoghurt, 1 large egg, 100 ml milk
Preheat the oven to 200 C. Grease the mini –muffin tin generously with butter.
Sift the flour into a medium bowl. Add the salt and pepper, ham, cheese and parsley. Toss everything together.
Mix the cooled, melted butter, yoghurt, egg and milk together in a bowl. Mix dry and wet mixtures together.
Spoon the mixture equally among the grease tin holes and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Leave to cool for a minute or two, then use a spatula to gently prise them out of the tin, and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
Pistachio kisses
Ingredients: 2 medium egg whites, 100 g caster sugar, 50 g dark chocolate, 40 g shelled pistachios
Preheat the oven to 130 C. Line two baking sheets with baking parchment .
Whisk the egg white until soft peaks form. Add the sugar, a spoonful at a time, whisking well between each addition, and continuing to whisk until stiff, smooth and glossy.
Spoon the mixture into a pipping bag and pipe meringue kisses onto the baking parchment. Bake the meringues in the oven for 1 hour or until they come away from the parchment.
Melt the chocolate over very low heat just until melted. Dip the bottoms of the meringue kisses into the chocolate, then roll chocolaty bottom into chopped pistachios.
Adapted from Miss Hope‘s Tea Time Treats. J