Buttercrunch Almond Tea Cake

Now how's that for a cake for ya??

I'm a gadget woman, and very much so. Not that I have huge kitchen to actually accommodate all of the stuff, but I love having TONS of different things - like a collection of different cake tins - this Bundt one, a swirly one, cookie cutters, muffin pans, silicone moulds... I could go on! Guess cake tins are not really gadgets - they're necessities, aren't they?

Anyway, my current favorite is the aforementioned Bundt cake tin, also used for the blueberry adventure recently. It's funny how a lot of us think "who is reading this blog? Is anyone actually reading it?". Well, it turned out, that Lisa Yockelson, the author of Baking by Flavor, a FABULOUS book on baking, and a definite star in my cookbook collection read my entry on her Blueberry Tea Cake - and commented on it! Yowser! Someone is actually reading this!

So I thought I'd do another cake from her book, all in her honor. Who am I kidding, I needed cake!! The buttercrunch chapter had so far been left untouched, so that was what I dug into. Now, the one thing that troubled me about her reading the entry was of course - the copyright thing, as we've already discussed elsewhere. This time around, I'm gonna go with the "no-recipe-just-tempting-photos" and comments. Even though it might be legal to reproduce the ingredient list, my conscience just tells me it's not right - and this is actually a book you would want to own anyways! (And no, she did not promise to pay me anything for saying that!;-))

The Buttercrunch Almond Tea Cake is a really nice, fine-crumbed cake with PLENTY of - in my case - Daim chocolate! If you don't know Daim (the American equivalent would be Heath bars, which I don't know!) they look like this:




It's basically chocolate-covered caramel, which then melts into the batter and makes for crispy, chewy little specks in the batter - I tell you, yummy! The batter also contains a lot of spices, nutmeg, all-spice, and I really love how that enhances the taste and makes for a really nice cake in itself as well.



And it ended up like this:


It seems that even though I make sure to toss the chocolate with a bit of flour, they still end up in the bottom - any idea as to what else could be done to make them stay equally distributed in the cake? It was nice nevertheless...

Update!
LINK to the recipe - all legal matters aside, but seeing it's already out there, who would I be to deny you the pleasure?!?

One more UPDATE!
I was told the link didn't swork, so putting all shame aside, here it is:

THE Recipe!

10-inch Bundt pan
nonstick cooking spray for preparing the cake pan

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups unsifted bleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsifted bleached cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
8 packages (1.4 ounces each) milk chocolate-covered toffee (Heath Milk Chocolate English Toffee Bar) chopped into 1/4 inch chunks
1/4 cup slivered almonds, lightly toasted and cooled
½ pound (16 tablespoons or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar, sieved if lumpy
4 large eggs
1½ teaspoons pure almond extract
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk blended with 1/4 cup light (table) cream
Confectioners' sugar for sprinkling on top of the baked cake (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare the Bundt pan. Set aside.

Sift the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and allspice onto a sheet of waxed paper. In a medium-size mixing bowl, toss the chopped toffee and almonds with 1 tablespoon of the sifted mixture.
Cream the butter in the bowl of a freestanding mixer - moderate speed for 3-4 minutes. Add granulated sugar and beat for 2 minutes, add the light brown sugar and beat for a minute longer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Blend in the almond and vanilla extracts.
On low speed, alternatly add the sifted dry ingredients in three additions, with the milk-cream blend in two additions. Stir in the chopped toffee. Spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour - until risen, set and a wooden pick inserted in the cake withdraws clean. Cool on a rack for 5-6 minutes, then invert onto another cooling rack. Let cool completely, and dust with confectioners' sugar.

Taken from Baking by Flavor by Lisa Yockelson

- also, I'll just let you know that soon there'll be a new volume out by miss Yockelson, called "Chocolate, Chocolate". Oh my. It's already on my wishlist!

He did it again...

PRETTY!

Strawberries - What Remains of Summer

There was a glutton of the sweetest tasting strawberries at the market a week or so ago. I don't know where they came from, I mean, it was the middle of September. But they were there. I couldn't help myself. It's been a really bad summer for strawberries here in Denmark, waay to much rain, not that much sun - and I'm a girl that relishes the moment were the first strawberries are there - you never know exactly, but one day they're there, if you're really lucky still warm from the sun, the smell oh-so-sweet and the color, oh that dark, juicy red.

Naturally, I had to try and save some of that late-coming summer. I ended up with a strawberry tart and three (count them, 3!) jars of strawberry jam. And that doesn't count the ones that jumped in my mouth while making all of this...

Strawberry tart - adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb Tart from How to be a Domestic Goddess



It's basically a cream cheese filled pie crust topped with (in the original, stewed rhubarb) - it wasn't sweet enough for me here... And I don't know why, but I'm just not big on tarts. It's like the crust gets too cloying and fat and flaky and... ugh. No, I'm not good with them, but I'll keep trying, okay?

Strawberry Jam with Balsamic - also a Nigella Lawson-inspired recipe...

It made for a waaay too runny version, and very sweet as well - but I like the idea of adding balsamic...



It'll work, but as you can tell, there's a lot of syrup - I'll boil it down some more, but I think this is a general problem with strawberry jam - too much liquid, even though I don't add water... Anyone with a great recipe?



I just realize... I should have put the jam on the tart! Ha! That would've hit the spot! Ah well...

Lillies, beautiful lillies

How could I not love him?

SHF:ISTBE # 1: White Chocolate

A whatta?! You might say - but hey, it's just short for the newest IMBB?-spin-off - Sugar High Fridays: the International Sweet Tooth Blogging Extravaganza! as proposed by our very own Domestic Goddess, Jennifer. As the inventor of this very short-named event, and host this time at least, Jennifer decided our first endeavour should be in: white chocolate - that chocolate that's not really chocolate, yet at least as addictive as the dark kind! Personally, I can't wait! So come on and join the fun! Anyone and everyone is welcome!

for further info, go to Jennifer's page...

Croque Monsieur our way

My boyfriend and I haven't been that good at eating dinner together - with the both of us working in the restaurant business, him as the owner and working chef at two cafe's, me at first full time waitressing, then after I started studying, about once or twice a week (who am I kidding - more than that - too much, granted!)

Anyways, hopefully, that's going to change. M., the boyfriend, just said goodbye to the business, hoping to engage in a more 9-5-style of living, with actual sitting down with the loved ones for dinner. As it is, well... I'm still working, but that's only - ONLY! - because I haven't started school yet. For now, that means that the meal mostly shared together at our house is breakfast - brunch you should probably call it, considering it is very seldom eaten before 11 o'clock.

Because of that, we have a rather elaborate repetoire of brunch-dishes we do on a regular basis. Yes, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, soft-boiled eggs, omelets - name an egg-dish and I'm pretty sure we've tried it! We are big egg-fans, even considering the sad state of eggs in this country... Why can't we all have nice, fresh farm eggs like Jeanne? One of the not-so-eggy-things we enjoy every now and then is the Croque Monsieur, as pictured above. I'm a cheese-lover, but there always seem to be small stumps left in the cheese-box after a while, and they're perfect for stuffing between two slices of bread, fried and eaten - preferably with an egg on top, of course! ;-)

What we do is spread two slices of bread - one with ketchup, one with Dijon mustard - put thin slices of cheese, like Gruyere or whatever is lingering at the bottom of that box, but something that has a somewhat pronounced taste - on one of the slices, top with the other - then fry in (a ridicously large amount!) of butter. Okay, if you don't do it every day, then butter is alright! To save a bit on the calories I usually just fry the croques till nice brown and crusty, then finish the cheese-melting part in the oven.

You can add ham, tomatoes, ketchup - eat with fried bacon on top, fried egg, scrambled egg - we usually do a tomato salad with a nice vinegary (sherry or balsamic) dressing to eat with it - admittedly, I do need something to lighten it! Serve with coffee, tea, OJ - and, erhm... need I say more?

Raspberry Jam

There was an abundance of raspberries at the market the (hmm, not sure you could call it a market, but it's the best I have!) the other day - naturally, I had to buy a lot and make jam! There's nothing better stirred into yoghurt or Tykmælk in the morning. I almost never use jam on bread and therefore use a method introduced to me by Nigella Lawson - hands-free raspberry jam on p. 346 of her How To Be A Domestic Goddess. While I at first thought the recipe made for a very sugary version, I've grown to like it like this (I do have a sweet tooth!) - raspberries can be so tart, and I add no other sugar to my morning meal. It does look rather runny as well, but that's taken care of once you've stirred it through the first time you open the jar.

The recipe is not really a recipe, more of a direction: take equal amounts of sugar and raspberries, put them in two separate bowls. Put them in the oven at 180 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes - take them out, pour the sugar into the raspberries, stir through - and you have jam!

IMBB? # 8: Raise Your Spirits High! Chocolate Bailey Truffles

The Is My Blog Burning?-events are probably one of the major reasons I ventured into food blogging land myself - I found it ever so entertaining to read about the adventures of so many people, acting on the same topic, be it soup, tartines, a cakewalk (darn, I had to miss that!), rice, fish, grilling and dumplings. Naturally, I had to participate in it this time, the 8th. time around! Hosted by the lovely Donna at There's a Chef in my Kitchen with the innovative theme: Raise your spirits high! Rules are easy: use spirits, wine, beer - something with an alcohol-content! - and tell all about it!

So of course, when I first started thinking about what to make, my mind went absolutely blank - guess that just has to happen! Then slowly, but steadily, ideas started creeping in on me - or well, rather, I stumbled across them in my cookbooks and magazines! Barolo risotto with radicchio - Vodka & Herb Gnocchis - Crepe Suzette?! - Bailey Chocolate Truffles... Hey, wait, did I just see Bailey and chocolate in the same recipe? That HAS to be good!

For a while I've wanted to try my hand at home made chocolates and seeing how I love Baileys - how could I not? The fact that you didn't have to temperate (is that what it's called in English? You know, the process that makes sure your chocolate stays shiny?) the chocolate also appealed to me... Therefore I bring to you:

CHOCOLATE BAILEY TRUFFLES
recipe adapted from Morten Heiberg

Ingredients:


1 ½ dl. whipping cream (38% fat content)
50 g. glucose
200 g. chopped dark chocolate (66%)
½ dl. Baileys
200 g. white or dark chocolate, melted, for coating
Icing sugar or cocoa powder for rolling the truffles in



Put the chopped dark chocolate in a bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the glucose and whipping cream to a boil. When it reaches boiling point, pour one third of the cream/glucose over the chopped chocolate, stirring with small, but steady movements in the middle of the chocolate. Gradually add the rest of the cream/glucose mixture, all the while stirring - the chocolate will (hopefully?) melt completely, creating what is known as a ganache. When the ganache is about 35 degrees celsius, mix in the Baileys. Leave to cool (my recipes says you can't put it in the fridge to cool, but I don't think it'll ever set if you don't! So I did! Heh!)

Result:



Not quite as smooth as it should have been I think, but it would have to do - afterall, it is first time around!

The ganache is to be cut up in small pieces, about 2 x 2 cm, coated with the melted chocolate (white or dark as you prefer) I started out with the white, but alas - dipping the ganache in melted chocolate made the ganache melt, so I ended up with a weirdly colored white chocolate, which tasted really nice though! On to the dark chocolate - the ganache probably still melted a bit, but I couldn't tell, so I pretended it didn't! After the dipping, you throw the truffle in cocoa powder or icing sugar and leave it there for a while to harden. I put half in cocoa powder, half in icing sugar, but the icing sugar made for a weird looking result - dirty snow kinda, so I ate those before I had a chance to take a picture! Cooks priviliges, eih? For keeping, again, the recipe said DON'T put in the fridge - I did. Just left the truffles in the cocoa powder, in a box, in the fridge - and took some to my Mom's for coffee this afternoon. They went down well!



Rich, smooth and with a nice Bailey aftertaste, although not too overpowering... Definetly not the last time I'll do my own chocolates! And I'd say they lifted our spirits pretty well up there...

Now, can't wait to read what everyone else has been up to...

Wine note # 1

My boss at one of the restaurants I work at - and have been working at for quite some time now - convinced me that we have to make a wine geek out of me... Hence the formal title of the entry. Well, that and the fact that WWWBW is closing in on me, I thought I'd make an extra gesture and taste some other wine!

It has to be said that boss-man is SERIOUS about wines - he's the kind of guy that'll make your head spin talking about terroir, this or that fields, merchants etc. etc. - at the same time he's the type of guy that will open a bottle of 1969 wine at 2.30 in the morning "just because this is excactly what we need now!" As you might imagine I consider myself lucky indeed for having a teacher like this.

We started out in Franken, Germany. Some place to start, eih? The thing is, we do a wine menu at the restaurant and naturally, I'd have to learn about those first - the star tonight being a "2002 ’Sommerhäuser Reifenstein’, Riesling Kabinett halbtrocken, Schloss Sommerhausen".

And now, a word of warning: I am NOT, and I stress, NOT a wine-knowing woman. Believe me, I love a nice wine as much as the next guy, and having sampled a bit here and there (an evil you can hardly avoid working in the restaurant business for 4 years) I have an idea of how I'd describe a wine - I've just never actually done it in public. I know that Bourgogne is a region in France, that Germany is making it's way in the whites these years and that you should use a clean glass when sampling - but I'm doing this to learn more. Please correct me if I make serious mistakes!

Anyway: My breath was almost gone from just saying the name, but it dissects down to: vintage: 2002 ( I bet you got that one right?) Sommerhaüser - the city (cool name!); Reifenstein - that's the field; Riesling - the grape - and then it got tricky.

Kabinett halbtrocken - okay, so there are different classifications according to when you harvest the grapes - kabinett is the early harvest, then comes spätlese, then auslese - what it tells you is how much sugar is in the grapes, hence (supposedly) something about how sweet the wine may be. Kabinett is the drier version, auslese (or to be excact, Berenauslese, but we'll return to that in another session) the sweetest. That said, there are different sub-groups: trocken (dry) and halbtrocken (half-dry), so if you have, say, a Spätlese halbtrocken, it might be just as dry as a Kabinett. Well, at least I think that's how it was?

Schloss Sommerhausen - that's the producer. This is what the bottle tells you - and this is what boss-man told me - as Clotilde so cleverly said in her WWWBW-intro the other day, this is probably what is going to make you REMEMBER the wine: the story:

Schloss Sommerhausen is a family-run business, that for the last decade or so relied more on the improving and making of new vines, rather than actually selling wine. Martin Steinman, the son, grew up and took an interest in the wine and all of a sudden started sending out these amazing Rieslings - in the words of boss-man he's an up and coming star, and that at the tender age of 29.

As for the wine itself - there's no mistaking it, it's a riesling. It's slightly acidic, balanced by a alcohol content of (I think?) about 11%, and a quince-lemon taste. The minerally thing you might find in some (French, Alsace) rieslings is not really present here, because the terroir of Franken does not matter that much to the vines - it's just not distinctive enough to impart a flavor.

I'm really looking forward to doing this - I've never actually sat down and tried to put the words that sprang to mind when drinking a wine on paper - or should I say screen - but I think it works! Can't believe I missed the first wine-blogging event... ah well! I'll be there for the next!

picture of bottle to come...

Right - Yours? Mine? Yours?

I'm having a bit of a problem with the whole copyright thing - conscience and all, little angel vs. little devil on my shoulder - and realize I should take a stand as Heidi has done. While I see that a lot of the fun about keeping up with the various food blogs around here is getting some new, actual recipes in ones book, to me it's just as much about being inspired and awe-struck about the imagination, talents or cookbook collection of others.

As it is, I'm the proud owner of a decent amount of books myself, some of them the regular, popular ones (Nigella, Jamie Oliver etc.) a couple of fancy ones (French Laundry for one - a book I absolutely ADORE by the way!) - and of course, a vast collection of Danish ones, none of them translated, I think... The thing is this: when a recipe is in a cookbook, and is copied into a blog, step by step - I guess that's not actually allowed to do, is it? Would it be enough to just write where it is from, copyright him/her?

And what do I do when I've tinkered with a recipe/several recipes to the point where you could hardly tell what was theirs and what was mine? A tart dough from that book, but with whole wheat flour instead of wheat, the filling from the recipe in the magazine I bought the other day..., the egg-mixture substituted with a bit of cream and creme fraiche, 'cause hey, I was out of eggs...

As well, I should think that posting a recipe or two from a particular book could probably make way for a sale of the book - I know that reading the before mentioned Heidi's blog, as well as others, has put an extra book or two on my amazon wish list, even all the way to the shopping basket! Is it all just really simple and am I the only one mixed up here? I've seen so many different takes on it around here, so I'd really like to hear your oppinion on this one... Ball's in your court!

Can I make dinner?!

Yay! I had an evening off, and was stumbling around at the local Irma (grocery store, but one of the nicer ones) trying to figure out what to put on my plate. It's like once you get out of the habit of making dinner on a daily basis, you just keep wandering around, loking at what might be really nice produce - and nothing springs to mind. Guess it happens to people that make dinner on a daily basis as well, but you know what I mean - I know I'm not the only one! Still, it's just agonizing when the only thing you want to do is make yourself something really nice - and you're just BLANK!

Then I found this really nice jar of pickled cucumbers. No, I'm not pregnant - at least I don't think so?! - but I've always had a thing for these - crunchy, sweet-sour and savoury. Mmm. And -swish!- there it was! The image of a bean salad with pickled cucumbers I have actually made a couple of times, but with a twist: I knew there was spinach in the fridge at home... What's good with spinach? Ah yes, eggs... coarse grain mustard... garlic, lots of garlic...



The fridge was also hiding some parsley, harissa, and in a bowl on the table top was an avocado I've been trying to ripen - now it was! Can of borlotti beans, salt, peber, a spoonful of creme fraiche, stir it - and serve it! I enjoyed it with an episode of "Everybody loves Raymond" - ah what a night!

A cake tin and some blueberries...

My Dad and his wife recently brought me back this Bundt cake tin

from a trip to Bayreuth - the city of Wagner operas and, apparently, some really nice kitchenware shops. Yes, I had to be nerdy enough to have this as my "wish list item no. 1". I've been longing to use it, but haven't had the time for devoting myself to the kitchen and finding the recipe to inaugurate the tin.

The other day I went with my boyfriend shopping, and stumbled upon some beautiful blueberries that I just HAD to buy - so I did. And then they just sat there in the fridge, calling out to me every time I opened the door - "Use me, use me!" Admittedly not that many times, seeing that I haven't been home too much.

Finally, one night we finished early and I jumped eagerly into my kitchen, my, for the moment favorite baking book "Baking by Flavor" in hand and thought: how hard can it be? Blueberries and my tin - there must be something in here... I love the lay-out of the book - each chapter is devoted to a particular ingredient, like butter, buttercrunch, ginger, vanilla - and blueberries! Now, I've already tried a couple of recipes and they are divine - some are kind of labor intensive, but I don't mind that if the results are as these! Really had to get used to the cup-measurements, but I'm getting the hang of it.

There it was: Blueberry Tea Cake, on p. 178. I had all the ingredients. Was it an omen? I thought so. Yummy in my tummy... I did the mixing


the pouring -

the putting it in the oven -

the taking it out of the oven -




the unmoulding -

ET VOILA!



And it was GREAT! There's nothing like ending the day with a piece of home-baked cake - is there?


Blueberry Tea Cake from Lisa Yockelson's Baking by Flavor

(I should probably add that this is not an exact transcript - miss Yockelson is very instructive in her recipes and well... This is merely my take on it. I'll republish as soon as I have the time to give the exact instructions!)

10-inch Bundt pan

3 cups bleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/4 cups fresh blueberries
3 tablespoons moist, dried blueberries
½ pound softened, unsalted butter
2 cups vanilla-scented granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup thick, cultured sour cream
3 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 F/175 C. Film the inside of the Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray or butter.

Sift the 7 first ingredients into a bowl. Toss the blueberries, both fresh and dry, with a tablespoon or so of the sifted mixture.
In the bowl of a free-standing mixer, cream the butter, first for a couple of minutes alone, then add the sugar in three additions, beating for a minute between each addition. Beat in the eggs, one at the time. Blend in the vanilla extract.

On low speed, alternately add the sifted dry ingredients and the sour cream, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk and beat on low speed for 1 minute. Stir in the blueberries. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth over the top to give an equal surface.

Bake for about 50 minutes, or until risen, set and a wooden pick comes out clean. Let the baked cake rest for 5 to 10 minutes on a cooling rack before unmoulding. Let cool, and if you want, dust with confectioners sugar for a dramatic effect!

WWWBW - Spanish red

I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna start being serious about drinking wine! Oh the horror! :-)

No, what I meant to say was, lately, a lot of people - okay, maybe just boss-man who thinks we have to make a wine-geek out of me - have been insisting I should try and do something more out of the wine I drink than just, well... drinking it. And with this World Wide Wine Blogging Wednesday - this time hosted by Alder at Vinography - being all the craze around the blogs, I thought, what the heck, I'll do it! I'll buy one, I'll try describing it - heck, I might even snap a photo! Who knows, BF might even join! And have fun, too!

Flødeboller

I've been forced to do this. My newly found friend and fellow blogger, Oslofoodie, has been going on about these, flødeboller from Summerbird, driving me to a level of must-have-now that I've been trying to resist for the last couple of days. But then today, I passed Amokka, a coffee-shop and what did I see through the window? There it was, a tall, dark-chocolate smothered creature, revealing no secrets, but I knew, oh I knew what it was hiding under that chocolate layer - a feathery light, sugary and slightly sticky, gooey heart and a base of marzipan. You shall be mine, I thought - or well, maybe 6 of you shall be mine is more like what I thought...



This is him - her - well, you get it. As it happened, just a couple of weeks ago, I was clearing out some of all my food magazines and stumbled across a recipe for these. Now, I've never actually tried making them, so I give no guarantee for the recipe - I know the instructions are not very thorough, but it's what I have:

Flødeboller:

½ dl. water
150 g. sugar
75 g. glucose
½ vanilla pod
100 g. pasteurized egg whites
1 tabelspoon sugar
200 g. Summerbird marzipan (or any other nice brand)
400 g. really good dark chocolate

Boil water, sugar, glucose and vanilla (split the pod and scrape out the seeds) without a lid until you reach a temperature of 117 degrees celcius. It'll take about 25 minutes. Whisk the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until almost stiff. While still beating, slowly pour the sugar-glucose-mixture into the egg whites. Keep whisking for 8 minutes. Cut the marzipan for the base, about 5 cm. in diameter, 3 mm. thick. Using a piping bag, pipe the egg white-sugar mix onto the base. Let rest for at least 6 hours at room temperature.
Put the flødeboller on a rack and cover with melted chocolate. Let cool.

They're a very Danish thing, these. Come to think of it, it is kind of weird eating egg whites with sugar. But they are oh-so-good!

I'm full, said the fridge

And indeed it was. My boyfriend, the ex-restaurateur/chef did a bit of catering this weekend, and our poor fridge was just about to burst! As you can probably tell it's not the biggest fridge in the world. Oh how I dream of the days when I'll own that 2-door HUGE specimen with walk-in freezer et all!

Besides from getting to help him with the preparations (washing salad and herbs, preparing risotto, making bread dough ya-da ya-da) I benefited a bit from the ordeal as well - a new wheat sour dough has been brought to life! Okay, it is yeast-based, so not authentic sour dough - but I've tried the natural air-borne yeast method a couple of times and have come to the conclusion that I'll kill it in a matter of no time because I never get to use it enough. Ah well. On to sour dough adventures!