Category: cooking

This is a typical sweet from Portugal too and I wanted to make it for some time, and this was triggered by chance via this video. And then I checked this one for getting an idea about the quantities

Ingredients

• 300g maria biscuits (dont try to hard biscuits…)
• 150g dark chocolate chopped
• 50g cacao powder
• 50g pistachio chopped
• 70g butter

Process

• Smash the biscuits, but dont make it powder!
• Add the pistachios
• Melt the chocolate and butter
• Add to the biscuits
• Mix well, like a dough
• Pour the mix over clean film, try to roll like a chorizo
• Let it cool down in the fridge.

Then you can decorate it like a salami if you wish

Obviously, it doesn’t look like in the videos (although it was tasty). My main mistake was using oat biscuits that are quite hard.

I was curious about this cake and tried it.

Ingredients
800g Cooked chickpeas (2x cans)
200g peanut butter
120ml maple syrup
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2g salt
100g chocolate 90% chopped roughly

Decoration
150g melted chocolate 90%
150g peanuts crushed

Process:

• Pre-heat oven at 190C
• Put all ingredients together but the chopped chocolate in a food processor.
• Once it is all mixed (it is like a very dense peanut butter), add the chocolate chips and mix with a spoon.
• Pour the mix into a mold of 25x10cm with parchment paper.
• Bake at 190C for 40-45m
• While it cools down, prepare the decoration. Melt chocolate using “mary bath” (you can add a bit of butter to make more glossy).
• Add the crashed peanuts to the chocolate and pour it over the cold cake. Spread in all sides.
• Let it cool down again.

Before getting into the oven

After letting it cool down:

To be honest, it is not very sweet. I used 90% chocolate but still is tasty. So you can put a bit more maple syrup and 70-80% chocolate.

It goes great with a glass of milk or even whipped cream!

This cake is a protein bomb!

Last Saturday while walking in the neighbourhood, I saw quince and decided to buy some to make membrillo, as it has been a long time since last time I did it. And I noticed I didn’t have a recipe for that online. I used to follow the recipe from this book, but honestly, it was never like the one my mum used to make when I was a kid.

So I decided to find a video and try again as I don’t have the book with me. A decided for this one as I liked her video about Tortas 🙂

Ingredients

• 4 quince/membrillo – 850g aprox after boiling
• 500g sugar
• Juice from one lemon
• 1 or 2 glass jars. Cleaned with boiling water

Process

• Peel the quince, remove the core as it bitter. You will think that you are removing a lot but that is how it is. Chop in pieces
• Put the quince in a big pan/pot. I don’t have express cooker. Cover in water and boil until it is soft. Use a knife, you should cut through the quince with ease.
• Drain the quince and weight it. Mine was 850g so I added 500g white granular sugar. Some other recipes add 1:1 quice/sugar but I didnt want to add that much.
• Add the juice of one lemon
• With a hand mixer, make a pure .

• Then starts the longest part. At low heat (use a glove!!!) start stirring the mix until it gets a dark orange color. Be sure it doesn’t stick! Keep in mind that it has a lot of sugar… and it is like molten lava when cooking! At the beginning the mix is white/yellow-ish, I think after 1h, it started to change the color and it is when you have to be very alert and stir often (each minute) to avoid burning.
• When you use the wooden spoon to make a line and it doesn’t come together, it should be ready

• Remove from heat and poor it in glass containers if possible, if not plastic.
• Let it cool down during the night at least.

And this is the result from this morning. This is like it was when a kid!!!!

This video is really good too: it uses the skin!! I will do the same next time

Second visit to KEIT: This time I tried “Weizenbrot” . Ingredients: Natural sourdough, red wheat, whole grain rye, wheat 550, water, thermal salt. Again, amazing bread!

Bäckerei Siebert: This is a very German bakery. There was a queue when I got there and it was going to close soon I think. I bought some pieces of cake and a small black brot. Maybe arriving earlier I could have seen a better selection of bread. My german is still pretty bad so I kind off pointed to the things I wanted to try without being too sure. One was carrot cake, other cherry cake, and the other not sure. They were tasty anyway.

Bäckerei Kädtler: via link. This is a kosher bakery. I got a bit late as is far from home, and it was nearly empty! So I only tried three biscuits. They were nice (nothing crazy) and not very sweet so I liked that. So need to get there first thing in the morning to really taste the good stuff.

Hacker Bäckerei: This was a visit just by chance after trying Kadtler (above). I was in the area, checked google maps, the pictures looked nice, went for it. It was a blast! I didn’t try any bread, nothing caught my eye but I tried two “cakes”: Splitterbrötchen (slivered rolls ) and Apfelsandkuchen (sand apple cake). The first one is like a slightly sweet/soft bread. And the second was a big piece of cake! and tasty! Really happy with the discovery. Later I checked in the internet about the place and has interesting reviews. link1 and link2. This a proper East Berlin bakery. I need to come back earlier and try other cakes and bread (sourdough). As I got pretty late the backerei was pretty low in product. It closes at 12:30 I think so that is a signal that is a very local shop 🙂 So next time I need to get there first thing in the morning. (I found this video by chance!!!)

I want to eat more broccoli. And this is a new recipe:

Ingredients:
1 head of broccoli
2-3 pieces garlic
small piece ginger
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar (brown if possible)
olive oil
1 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water
1 tsp sunflower oil
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Boil 1.5 litres of water in a saucepan
2. Remove the florets from the broccoli head. Be sure the head is cleaned.
3. Blench the broccoli in the boiling water for 30-45 sec. Just to see how it gets a bright green color! Remove from water and pass it via cold water. Set aside.
4. Grate the garlic and ginger.
5. Prepare the sauce by combining together soy sauce, sugar, oil, corn starch and water. Set the sauce.
6. Heat up a nonstick pan to medium heat. Add a bit of olive oil.
7. Cook the broccoli for 2-3min each side. Until you see a bit of char. Put aside
8. Clean the pan, and put at medium-low heat, add olive oil and paprika (replacement of chili oil). Mix clean so it doesnt burn.
9. Add the garlic and ginger. Gently cook for 2-3min
10. Add the broccoli and turn the heat to medium. Sauté for about 1min
11. Add in the stir fry sauce and if you have a lid, place it immediately so you can steam the broccoli steam for about 30-45 seconds. If not, just toss the broccoli so it gets the sauce spread in all bits.
12. Plate the broccoli and garnish with white sesame seeds

I haven’t done this for a long time so it was due. I used to use his book quite often. Recipe:

Ingredients:

100g nuts (I used sunflower and pumpkin nuts)
5 large eggs
300g feta cheese – crumbled
50g grated cheese
oregano
1 lemon zest
olive oil
1 knob of butter
500g fresh spinach
1 x 270g pack of filo pastry
cayenne pepper
nutmeg for grating

Process:

• Preheat the oven to 200°C
• Toast the nuts in a large ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat until golden.
• Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl add feta, grated cheese, oregano and pepper
• Add the toasted nuts and mix.
• In the same frying pan, add a bit of olive oil and add half the spinach. Stir until wilted.
• Add the lemon zest, grated nutmeg and piece of butter to the spinach.
• Add the rest of spinach. Stir until all is wilted.
• Then add the spinach to the egg mix. And clean the frying pan.
• Take a piece of ovenproof paper roughly 1.5 bigger than your pan. Pass it through water so it is wet.
• Lay it out on a clean work surface, rub lightly with oil and flatten out again.
• Keep adding sheets of file on top of the ovenproof paper. Add a bit of oil and other spices in each layer. The idea is to cover the frying pan later. I used 6 layers in total.
• Move the ovenproof paper and filo to the frying pan. Pour the egg/spinach mix. Add a bit more grated cheese.
• Close the pie folding the edges (as it should be 1.5 bigger than the pan).
• Fry at medium heat the pie so the bottom is crunchy. 1-2 minutes. Dont burn it!
• Add some spices and olive oil on top.
• Then move the pan to the oven for 20 minutes aprox or golden and crisp.

Quite happy with the result:

I have already a banana bread recipe that I like quite a lot but decided to try a new one. video. recipe. I adapted it to my kitchen because sometimes I think some vegan recipes use ingredients that too difficult and expensive to find… I didnt do it vegan, just used normal low-fat cow milk.

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas, mashed
125ml coconut oil, melted (pretty sure you can use any non-flavour oil)
125ml milk
6 tbs dried coconut
6 tbs dried cranberries
6 tbs almond flakes
Half handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds
240g white flour
1 tsp baking powder
125g coconut sugar (or any brown sugar)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch of fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
40g dark chocolate: chopped as chips

Topping
1 Banana, sliced length-ways
4 tbs maple syrup

Process:

• Pre heat your at 180C and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
• Mix your mashed banana with milk, cranberries, seeds, coconut and melted coconut oil.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, coconut sugar, spices and chocolate chips.
• Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until well incorporated. Do not over mix.
• Pour the batter into the tin. Then lay the sliced banana on top and drizzle over a little maple.
• Bake for 45 minutes aprox.
• Check it after 35 minutes, if you can see it getting too caramelised on top, cover it over with foil and leave to cook for the remaining time.
• Once golden on top leave it to cool down.

Not bad result! I am not sure the coconut oil or the coconut sugar gives any flavour although it smelled a bit of coconut while baking. Go soft with the cardamon, it can overpower the rest of flavours!

I forgot that I didnt have a recipe for my croissant here.

These are my best croissants eve! Important to use strong white flour (14% protein)

Ingredients:

• 500g strong white flour (14% protein)
• 12g fine salt
• 55g sugar
• 40g soft butter
• 15g instant dried yeast
• 140ml cold water
• 140ml milk
• 280g unsalted cold butter block
• 1 egg for glazing

Part-1

• Place flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and combine.
• Add the yeast to the flour and mix
• Add the butter and crumb through with your fingers.
• In another bowl, add water and milk.
• Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the liquid.
• Mix together until all of the dry ingredients are incorporated. Dont overwork it
• Push down the dough so it is spread out in the bottom of the bowl.
• Cover and place in the fridge for 8-12h
• Using baker paper, make a 20x15cm aprox “envelope”. The block of butter should be inside. With the rolling ping, flat the butter out as it fills the envelope.

Part-2

• Take the dough out of the bridge and place it onto a lightly floured surface.
• Roll it out to form a square that fits your butter envelope.
• Then roll each side out so you have 4 thin sides and slightly raised square center.
• Place the butter in the center, then start by pulling the top side of the dough across to totally encase the butter. Next pull the bottom flap up until the top edge. Then bring the two sides flaps across.
• Tap the dough gently with the rolling pin to seal the dough laps.
• With the seam running top to bottom, roll the dough out into a rectangle, roughly 1/2 pin wide and 1 +1/4 pin long.
• Brush off any flour and fold the dough in thirds. This is a half fold.
• With a sharp knife, cut the seams so you have only layer of dough.
• Wrap the dough in film and put in the fridge for 1h to rest.
• Make two more half folds. So take the dough out of the bridge, with seam running top to bottom, roll the dough in a rectangle and fold in thirds.
• After the last fold, put back in the bridge for 12h.

Part-3

• Take the dough out of the bridge and place onto a lightly floured surface, seam running top to bottom. Roll into a rectangle roughly 1/2 pin wide and 1 +1/4 pin long. The dough should be 4mm thick aprox.
• With a sharp knife, trim the sides to be sure you have a perfect rectangle.
• With a sharp knife, make triangles. The base of each triangle should be roughly 4 fingers wide. Cut a small slit about 1/4″ long at the base of each triangle.

• Gently stretch your triangle out, then roll up your croissant making sure the tails on the bottom of the rolled up croissant.
• Place onto a tray lined with baking paper leaving enough space to prove.
• Put the tray into the oven, just lights on. They should double in size.
• Once they are ready, whisk up the egg and brush over each croissant
• Preheat the oven at 210C.
• Place the tray in the oven and lightly spritz the oven chamber with a water spray. That makes them super crunchy and give a nice color.
• Bake until golden dark. You may need to turn the tray. It should be around 20 minutes at least.

This is the result.