Choco Coco Cupcakes

It's been a while, hasn't it? Today, I bring you cupcakes.

Now, my dad loves coconut. But my mum doesn't. So, since it's my dad's birthday next week, I decided to bake him something with coconut. Last week, I stumbled across a likely looking recipe. It's for a Chocolate coconut cake, that's described as being like a certain chocolate bar... which happens to be one of dad's favourites!

Now, due to the fact that mum doesn't like coconut, I decided to bake this as cupcakes instead of a single round cake, and I did a trial run today, to see which tins I would need and how much this mix would make. This was a very good thing as I ended up with a full 24 cupcakes! I also made a few changes to the recipe to work with what I had. So without further ado, here is my take on Choco Coco Cupcakes!

Ingredients:

• 300g ground almonds
• 100g desiccated coconut
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 175g softened butter
• 250g caster sugar
• 200ml coconut milk
• 75g dark chocolate (55-70% cocoa)
• 3 eggs

To make the cupcakes:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line  a total of 24 muffin or cupcake cups with paper liners or grease them with butter. 
2. Mix the almonds and coconut with the cocoa powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. Heat the coconut milk in a pot until it starts to boil, then take off the heat and add the chocolate, letting it melt under occasional stirring. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the mix.
4. Cream the butter with the sugar until pale and fluffy. Slowly add one egg after the other, beating well after each addition.
5. Once the eggs are mixed in, slowly add the chocolate coconut milk mixture and stir well, then add the dry ingredients and stir until well incorporated.
6. Divide the mix between the cases and bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
7. Leave to cool on a wire rack in the tins for 10 minutes, then turn out and leave to cool completely before decorating.

To decorate the cupcakes: 

 

For the Coconut Crumbles:

• 75g caster sugar
• 35ml water
• 75g desiccated coconut

1.  Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with parchment.
2. Dissolve the sugar in the water over a medium heat, then bring to the boil and boil for 1 minute.
3. Put the coconut into a heat proof bowl and pour over the syrup.
4. Mix well then spread out on the baking tray.
5. Bake in the oven for 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it browns evenly.
6. Remove when the coconut is pale golden but still white in some places.
7. Leave to cool on the tray, stirring occasionally to break it up into smaller pieces.

For the chocolate ganache:

• 200ml coconut milk
• 200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa or more)
• 50ml coconut flavour syrup (I used Monin)

1. Heat the coconut milk in a pot until boiling.
2. Take from the heat and stir in the chocolate until compeltely melted and mixed in.
3. Add the coconut syrup and stir again.
4. Leave to cool at room temperature for a glaze, or chill in the fridge until spreadable.

Spread or drizzle the ganache over the cupcakes, crumble over the coconut and enjoy!

Elisenlebkuchen

I've been making Christmas cookies again in recent weeks, and today it was the turn of Dad's favourite ones. After posting a picture of the finished cookies to FB, I realised that I hadn't actually shared the recipe on here yet.

So without further ado, here it is:

Plums in Red Wine Preserve

Wow, I hadn't realised it's over a year since I last shared a recipe on here! I guess it's mostly due to me moving town, to a place with a much smaller (and badly laid out) kitchen. I haven't really found the time to experiment and cook as much as I used to.

But, today I bring you a recipe for plums in red wine, which I learned at a preserving class about a year ago. I only got one small glass from our course batch, but they went down a treat with my family, so today I made a batch for the larder. They're ideal over any kind of dairy based dessert such as icecream, yoghurt or even waffles, but last Christmas we had them over spiced panna cotta (from the Hairy Bikers' Christmas cookbook), and the combination was fantastic.

They're pretty quick to make, so give them a go. This recipe fills around 3-4 jars, depending on the size (the recipe says 3 jars of 500ml, but I didn't have those handy).

Enjoy!

Cookie Experiments

I've been experimenting with cookie recipes recently.

It all started when I went through my baking supplies and discovered the dried strawberry bits I'd bought last year. I decided that they would make a great addition to cookies, so taking Joy the Baker's recipe for Cappuccino Cookies as a base, I set about creating a recipe for Strawberries & Cream Cookies.

I replaced the extra egg yolk with a tablespoon of cream and slightly reduced the amount of sugar to compensate for the lack of bitter coffee in my version. In the end, they were still a touch too sweet for me, and the salt levels also needed adjusting, but overall I was quite pleased with my changes.

Today, I thought it might be a good idea to use the same base recipe to attempt one of my baking holy grails: Chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Taking my experiences with the strawberry cookies as guidelines, I reduced the sugar further, and then replaced 45g of flour with cocoa powder. I also reduced the amount of salt by half to just half a teaspoon. The result was exactly what I was looking for, a tender cookie that isn't too sweet with plenty of chocolate chunks, which if baked just right stays soft in the middle with a crunchy edge. Perfect.

Plum Season I: Plum Cake

Yesterday, I made the first plum cake of the season. My parents got a bag full of plums from a friend on Tuesday, way too many to eat, so I offered to take them off their hands and make some cake.

Now, German plum cake is a strange beast. It's usually made as a tray bake and the base is most commonly a yeast dough. On top of that, the plums are arranged tightly and upright in more or less neat rows, and quite often, that's all there is. The only variation that's common is a kind of streusel topping, called "Datschi". Often, these datschis are made as individual servings as small hand sized "flatbread", with the plums less neatly and tightly stacked. My favourite recipe however combines the two into one large streusel traybake.

Zwetschgendatschi
(adapted from Basic Baking by Cornelia Schinharl and Sebastian Dickhaut)

for one large baking tray, you need:

Yeast dough:

• 350g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 50g sugar
• 150-180ml milk
• 30g fresh yeast (about 7g dried)
• 50g softened unsalted butter
• 1 egg

• 2kg ripe plums

Topping:

• 130g cold unsalted butter
• 100g flour
• 100g ground hazelnuts
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 130g brown sugar

1. Crumble and rub the fresh yeast into the flour in a large bowl, until well distributed. If using dried yeast, stir it into the flour.
2. Add the salt and sugar and give a quick stir to mix it in, then rub the soft butter into the flour.
3. Warm the milk to lukewarm and add to the flour together with the egg. If you want to prepare the dough in advance, leave the milk cold and proceed with a cold mix, leaving the dough to rise in the fridge (overnight for example).
4. Knead the dough well until it becomes stretchy and doesn't stick to the edge of the bowl.
5. Cover the dough and leave to rise for an hour in a warm place (or overnight in the fridge).
6. While the dough is rising, it's time to prepare the plums. Wash them and slit them down one side to take out the stone. Don't cut them all the way through, leave them slightly attached on one side, like an opened book.
7. Butter a large baking tray (ideally one that's at least 1.5-2cm/half an inch deep) or line it with baking paper.
8. Knead the risen dough briefly, then either roll it out or simply use your fingers to press it out into all corners of the tray. The dough will probably be very thin, depending on the size of your tray, but that's okay, because it will rise again. Mine is usually less than 5mm in most places.
9. Cover the dough again and set aside for 15 minutes to rise again.
10. For the topping, you need to cut the cold butter into cubes.
11. Either in a food processor or by hand, combine all topping ingredients until you have a crumbly mixture.
12. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
13. Arrange the plums upright on the dough, pressing them gently in a little bit.
14. Bake in the middle of the oven for at least 35 minutes (possibly more, mine usually needs at least 50-60 minutes), until the edges are a deep golden brown and the topping is starting to brown.
15. Leave to cool and enjoy with a big dollop of whipped cream.

I had more than the 2kg of plums the recipe required, so I made a double batch, and ended up with one tray and two tart-sized cakes (only one of which I baked straight away, the other one I've frozen raw, as an experiment).

Making a Virtue of Necessity...

Public holidays in Germany can be a challenge for the impulsive cook. All shops except bakeries and travel essentials at stations and airports are closed, meaning you have to either plan ahead, or make do with the contents of your cupboards. Sometimes this can lead to quite satisfactory results.

Today, I had the urge to bake or cook something to serve me as packed lunches for the rest of the week, or failing that, at least a sweet treat. At first, I thought about making cupcakes, but as they don't keep well, I eventually decided on something savoury. Lasagne and other pasta bakes had to be ruled out, as I'm out of cheese, and most other recipes were ruled out for similarly lacking ingredients.

A raid of the fridge and cupboards came up with a pack of low-fat cream cheese (just gone past its sell-by date but still sealed and looking fine when I opened it), 2 eggs and some onions, as well as staples such as milk, butter and flour. After begging a friend for her shortcrust recipe (thanks, Natalie!) and making sure it didn't use egg to bind, I had quickly settled on a simple onion and cream cheese tart. Adding a bit of thyme from my herb pots (a sprig of lemon thyme and a few more of regular thyme) turned it into a very satisfying lunch, and there's plenty left for me to have at work for the rest of the week.

Onion tart with cream cheese and thyme

Pastry
225g flour
100g cold butter
1/4tsp salt
40-60 ml cold water (just enough to bind)

Filling
200g cream cheese (mine had 17% fat)
2 eggs
splash of milk
6 medium onions
salt
pepper
fresh thyme (6-8 small sprigs)

Method

• First, slice the onions and gently fry in a little olive oil on a low heat with a pinch of salt until soft, sweet and lightly browned. Preheat the oven to 200-220°C.
• For the pastry, sift together the flour and salt into a food processor and add the cold butter in small chunks. Whizz together until it resembles breadcrumbs, then slowly add the water until the dough starts to come together. Roll out the pastry and line a 22-24cm round tin.
• Once the onions are cooked, turn off the heat. Beat the eggs briefly, then mix well with the cream cheese and enough milk to give a runny consistency like buttermilk. season well with salt and pepper, and mix in the thyme.
• Fill the uncooked pastry case with the cooked onions and pour over the egg mix.
• Bake in the middle of the oven for 25-35 minutes, until the filling is set and starting to brown on top.

Miniature "Hexenhaus" (Gingerbread House)

For all those who never get around to making a proper gingerbread house, I have a solution: the miniature "Hexenhaus" - no baking required, and easily devoured.

 

Baking Adventures: Brötchen (Rolls)

One thing I love about German bakeries are the plain crusty rolls, the Brötchen, that you can get absolutely everywhere. And for a plain white yeast dough product, there are surprisingly many recipes as well as preferences by the consumers.

Now me, I like mine to have a definite taste, a crunchy crust, but a soft and almost doughy inside that's still satisfying and not completely consisting of air. You know, the kind of Brötchen I remember from my childhood, that taste good enough to eat plain and dry, just tearing off pieces and stuffing them in your mouth.

They are surprisingly hard to find in bakeries though, these days.

Cooking Adventures: Turkey breast stuffed with feta and macadamias and served with rice

Yesterday, I cooked dinner for my parents, just because I felt like it. Living on my own means I don't get the chance to cook properly near as often as I'd like, so every few weeks I invite my parents over for dinner on a Saturday or Sunday, and make a proper meal.

Most times this means lasagne, as I like to freeze the leftovers for quick weekday meals. But since my freezer is currently full to the brim, I thought I'd try something different, something I made once a few years ago.

I'm not usually big on poultry, but I like it once in a while, especially if it is stuffed with some kind of delicious filling. When I was in Australia over Christmas a few years ago, the friend I stayed with made us turkey stuffed with macadamias and cranberries. I tried making this myself when I got back and it's a very delicious roast for a crowd.

Another recipe that I got from a cookbook by Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden also fills poultry with macadamias, but this stuffing is less sweet with feta, onions and bacon instead of the cranberries. It's also a recipe for 4 rather than a crowd, so this is what I chose to make yesterday.

Struwen

It's Good Friday today, and I am currently in the process of making Struwen. Struwen are a traditional Good Friday recipe where I live. They are essentially slightly sweet yeast pancakes with raisins.

Originally they were a proper Lenten dish, containing none of the forbidden ingredients such as butter or eggs, but over the years, probably even centuries, they have grown into a quite luxurious treat. ;-)

Bread Adventures: Wholewheat Bread with Oats and Seeds

I think you've noticed by now that I'm a big fan of Rachel Allen's books. This recipe is from her as well.

A friend asked me the other day for a recipe with a high wholemeal content, and I wasn't sure my usual recipe would work with more than 50% wholemeal flour. So I had a look through my books and stumbled upon this recipe for a wholewheat loaf with oats and seeds, which is from Rachel's Favourite Food at Home.

A lot of wholewheat breads can be very dense and crumbly, but this one is surprisingly light. It is a bit crumbly, but that's probably partly due to the sunflower and other seeds, not just the flour type used.

Cooking Adventures: Lasagne

I've just finished portioning the leftovers of a big batch of lasagne, and because this batch turned out really well, I thought it best to write down what quantities I used so I remember for next time.

This makes a very big batch, would easily feed 8-10 I'd say.

I usually share it freshly baked with my parents and then have around 8 portions left for the freezer, but I make those smaller on purpose so I'm not tempted to overeat. ;-) Which is very easy with this...

Baking Adventures: Christmas Cookies - part 1: Speculatius

This weekend I got properly started with the Christmas baking. I made some Lebkuchen last weekend, but that was just a short prelude to this weekend's proper baking. And I'm not done yet either, but I'm finally getting into the spirit of things, even if it's much later than usual for me, as I've been known to start planning my Christmas baking in late September!

This weekend, I made two kinds of Christmas cookies: Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars) and Speculatius. I made the cinnamon stars yesterday and forgot to document them, so I'll report on that at another time. However, although I prepared the Speculatius dough yesterday, I didn't get around to shaping and baking it until today, and this time remembered to take pictures.

I've been making Speculatius using the traditional wooden models for over ten years now, but especially in recent times I haven't made them every year, as I always struggled both with the consistency of the dough and the shaping with the wooden models.

Baking Adventures: Panda Cookies

So the other day, a friend linked me to this site which has a recipe and instructions for bread where each slice looks like a panda face.

I liked the idea. A lot.

But I thought: panda bread, hm not sure what to do with that. It's obviously a sweet dough too, so...

Then I thought, hey how about cookies? I want to bake cookies anyway.

So that's what I did.

I picked a recipe for German black-and-white-shortbread style cookies, which works along a similar principal to achieve a patterned effect, and simply coloured a portion of the dough with green food colouring paste (I'd meant to use matcha as in the original, but simply couldn't find any affordable stuff).

The result is looking pretty good.


But now you're probably interested in the recipe, right?

Leftovers Adventures: Mashed potato

Today for lunch I had baked potatoes made from new potatoes that were on the larger side.

I overestimated my stomach's capacity, and had one good-sized potato left over.

So I decided to make some mashed potato with it for a small dinner.

I microwaved the potato (skin still on) for a minute until hot, peeled it, then added a dash of cream and some salt and mashed it all up. I wanted to add some butter but didn't have more than a quarter teaspoon left.

Then I remembered that I still had some homemade herb butter (my bbq staple: unsalted butter mixed with some salt and fresh-frozen provencal herbs from the supermarket) in the fridge that needed eating as well.

Well what can I say? The result tasted amazing. The herbs really complemented the slightly sweet note from the baked potatoes, and the butter enriched it just enough without making it too greasy.

I would post a picture except it's all gone already!

I will definitely keep this trick in mind for the next time I want mashed potatoes (I usually make them from baked potatoes anyway, because I like the slight roasting flavour this gives to the potatoes).

Baking Adventures: Raisin Buns

I mention in my blog info that a recipe for raisin buns was my first foray into experimenting with recipes.

Taking and combining two different recipes as the basis (one I liked the texture of the result, the other had the better tasting buns), I eventually arrived at what I consider the perfect raisin bun:

• 100ml warm milk
• 42g fresh yeast
• pinch of sugar
• 60g melted butter (unsalted)
• 500g plain or strong flour
• 1 level teaspoon salt
• 60g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 200g raisins
• zest of one lemon

You also need for the glaze:

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon milk

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk with the pinch of sugar and the melted butter.
2. Briefly mix together flour, salt, sugar and eggs, then add the yeast mix.
3. knead thoroughly for at least 10 minutes.
4. Add the raisins and lemon zest, then leave to rise in warm place for an hour or so until doubled in size.
5. Preheat the oven to 160°C(fan assisted oven).
6. Knock back the dough and shape into buns or braid into a loaf and leave to rise again until doubled.
7. Mix the egg yolk with the milk and brush the dough with the glaze before baking.
8. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-35 minutes depending on size. Loaf may take longer.
9. Cool on wire rack.

These freeze really well. Place in freezer bags when still a little warm, fasten tightly, and place in freezer when cool. Deforst in a low oven (around 100°C) or simply at room temperature.

Bread Adventures: The recipe

Anne asked me for the recipe I used as the base for my herb bread, so I thought I'd share the story as well as the recipe.

It started out with a simple recipe for a basic white loaf. I had found it last year, tried it a couple of times and was very happy with the results. Then one day I wanted to make the bread and had just started, when I realised that I didn't have enough strong flour. It was either very early or very late, with the shops closed, but I'd already crumbled up the yeast into some sugar water, so I couldn't really stop. So I had a rummage in my cupboard, and luckily I still had some left over extrastrong flour (type 1050) and some wholemeal as well. Together they were just enough to make up the required amount of flour. So I mixed all the flours, then kept going with the original recipe, hoping that it would turn out passably.

Well, the result was not just passably, it was pretty nice. A brown bread that tasted like shop-bought brown toast, only better and more... substantial. I had been looking for this kind of recipe but had found it completely by accident.

Rabbit: The Aftermath

The rabbit dinner worked out a treat, despite a few complications due to the size, or lack of size, of my oven.

I wanted to serve the rabbit with oven roasted, herbed potatoes, but couldn't fit the roaster and the potatoes in at the same time, so had to settle for simmering the rabbit over two flames of my hob rather than just sticking it in the oven.

But from the beginning:

Bread Adventures: Oregano and bacon breads

My brother asked me to make him a batch of bread dough today, because he's off cycling and having a bbq with friends. He plans to wrap the dough around sticks or branches and bake them over the hot coals.

I did this for him last week too, using a basic white loaf recipe from Rachel Allen's Bake, which I have altered slightly by replacing part of the strong flour with extra strong bread flour and wholemeal flour (1 part each of wholemeal, plain, and extra strong) to make a tasty and slightly healthier brown bread.

Then my brother suggested adding some diced bacon to one half of the dough, and some fresh herbs to the other. He wanted to use basil, but I used oregano, as it has a more intense flavour that I think stands up better to the kneading and baking process.

I don't know what he thinks of it yet, but I sneaked a bit of the herby dough for a roll for myself, and must say I'm very pleased. Now I'm tempted to whip up a whole batch of it, some to eat today and the rest for freezing.

The Beginning: Rabbit

Hello and welcome.

After several years of keeping my baking and cooking adventures offline (okay, mostly offline, I've posted the odd recipe and pictures elsewhere before), I finally thought it was time I kept a better record of my kitchen adventures.

You can find a short bio on the side of this blog, but right now I want to get straight to the point, that is, into my kitchen adventures:

This Easter, I'm planning to cook rabbit for the first time. I bought it fresh from the market this morning, and it's currently chilling until I need it tomorrow. The recipe calls for it to be marinaded with herbs (thyme, oregano, sage and rosemary) and citrus zest and juice for a couple of hours (I'll start that tomorrow morning), and then slowly stewed with tomatoes. I'm going to serve it with new potatoes roasted in some olive oil and with the leftovers of the herbs.

I'll see how it goes.