My Grandmother has this great recipe….

Willkommen in Deutschland!

OK, it’s not my Grandmother’s recipe, however, this is an authentic German Grandmother’s recipe from my lovely German friend’s Grandmother! Apparently she makes this cake quite often and knows the recipe by heart so was able to recite it to her over the phone when I asked her for it for my blog.

This recipe is fantastic, and although I have not tried Streuselkuchen before, I got much praise from my German friend who said that I had done her Grandmother proud!

Streuselkuchen is a traybake cake. The base is a bready, semi-sweet, yeast dough, this is covered with pureed apples, and these apples are covered with ‘Streusel’. Streusel is probably better described to you and me as being the crumble on top of an apple or rhubarb crumble. Essentially butter, flour, and sugar rubbed together to make crumbs, these are sprinkled on top of the apple puree and give a lovely, crispy, buttery sensation in the mouth.

This cake would be fantastic for afternoon tea, a casual dessert, and a great way to feed lots of kids.
The only thing that I did that made it not 100% authentic was that I made it in a roasting tin as opposed to a Swiss roll tin. The result was a base that was slightly thicker than it traditionally would be. Nonetheless, it was all gobbled up and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.

Here’s how I made it:

Yeast Dough:
500g flour
300ml milk
1 package of dry yeast
2 soup spoons of sugar
1 pinch of salt
50g butter

Apple Puree:
1.5 Kilo’s Sour Apples (Granny Smiths, Brambles etc.)

Streusel:
100g Cold unsalted Butter
200g sugar
200g flour

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Start by making the yeast dough.
• Melt the 50g butter in a pan and allow to cool.
• Gently heat the milk in a pan and dissolve the sugar, followed by the yeast.
• Sift the flour into a bowl, and sprinkle in the salt.
• Stir in the milk and yeast mixture, followed by the melted butter.
• Leave in a warm place until double in size.
• Now to make the apple puree.
• Peel and chop the apples into smallish pieces.
• Put them in to a large saucepan with a few drops of water or lemon juice.
• Allow to stew on a low heat, with the lid on, until soft and pureed.
• In the meantime, make the Streusel.
• Sift the flour into a bowl.
• Stir in the sugar.
• Chop the butter into 1 cm cubes and rub into the sugar and flour mixture.
• It should resemble breadcrumbs.
• When the dough has doubled in size, spread it out over a Swiss roll tin.
• Cover this dough with the apple puree.
• Sprinkle the Streusel on top.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes.
• When it’s ready, the base should look like it is cooked though and the streusel should be lightly browned.
• Chop in to squares and serve cream on the side.

Guten Appetit!
 
13 down, 14 to go….

Baklava; 1, Miss. E.U.; 1 Million!!!!

Extremely happy to finally cross this one off my list!!!

At last I have gotten the hang of making Baklava. It has been haunting me ever since the last disaster, but having been invited to a Greek dinner party a few weeks ago, I was encouraged to try again, and try again I did…this time with results!!

Similarly to many of the sweets on this list, I found simplicity is the key to a good Baklava. Well, simplicity and also good organisation. There are relatively few ingredients required for Baklava, but you must work quickly so as to ensure the pastry does not dry out.

There are many shapes that Baklava can be made in to and as you can see from the photos, I made two. Surprisingly I found the rolled up Baklava easier to make, and maybe it’s just me but I think they look more impressive.

It is absolutely imperative to taste the sugar syrup and make sure it is pleasant before using it. You want it to taste sweet and delicious, but not sickeningly toothache sweet. I think this may have been one of the biggest problems with my previous attempt.

Ok, these are really pretty good and were a hit at the dinner party I brought them to. And if I may toot my own horn...I was told they were the best Baklava one of the guests had tasted outside of Istanbul!!

Here’s how I made them, and this recipe makes a large batch of the square or diamond shaped Baklava and the remainder of the ingredients are used to make the rolled up Baklava.

• 1 packet phyllo pastry.
• 300 g Unsalted butter
• 100 g Walnuts, ground.
• 300 g Almonds, ground.
• 150 g Pistachios, ground.
• 500 g Honey (experiment with different types of honey!).
• 500 ml Water.
• 50 g Sugar (Caster or Granulated).
• 1 Tablespoon mixed spice.
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon.
• Rosewater/Orange Essence or Oil (Optional).

- Remove the pastry from the fridge or freezer and ensure if it was frozen that it is completely defrosted. Do not remove or open the packet or it will dry out.
- Preheat the oven to 150 C.
- Mix together the ground Almonds, Walnuts and about half of the Pistachios, leaving the rest of the pistachios for decoration.
- Add the sugar, Cinnamon, and Mixed Spice to the ground nuts and combine.
- Melt the butter and allow to cool slightly.
- Lightly brush the entire brownie pan with the melted butter.
- At this stage, ensure you have everything you will need at hand and ready to start making the layers of Baklava.
- Take the defrosted pastry out of its packet and roll it all out flat on a flat surface.
- Place your pan on top of the pastry and cut the pastry out to size. You may get several cuts from the pastry, depending on how large your pan is.
- Put all the remaining pastry back in the packet and return to fridge.
- You may cover the pastry that you are going to work with now with a damp tea towel or just work quickly.
- Lightly brush the top side of a layer of pastry with the melted butter.
- Place this in the pan, butter side up.
- Continue this for about ten layers.
- Cover this layer with about a third of the chopped nuts mixture, making sure the pastry is completely covered.
- Brush another layer of pastry and place this butter side up on top of the chopped nuts.
- Continue this until it is has about five layers of pastry on top of the nuts.
- Cover again with about a third of the nuts.
- Butter and layer another 4 or five layers of pastry on top of the nuts.
- Cut the entire dish with a very sharp or serrated knife in to the shape you would like – diamonds, squares etc.
- With the remainder of the ingredients, you can make the rolled Baklava.
- Lightly butter a deep baking tray or roasting tin.
- Butter a layer of the remaining pastry .
- Butter another layer and place it on top of the first layer.
- Place a two centimetre wide, one centimetre high layer of the chopped nuts about three centimetres away from the edge of the pastry.
- Roll the pastry up in to a roll and place on to the buttered pan.
- Continue this until all of the remaining ingredients are used up.
- If you wish, cut the rolls to the size you would like them to be.
- Place the two trays in the oven and bake until completely golden (about one hour).
- Combine the honey and water in a saucepan.
- If you like you can flavour it with a tablespoon of rosewater or a few drops of orange oil.
- Gradually heat until the honey and water is completely combined.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- When the Baklava is golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool only slightly for about 3 minutes.
- Pour the honey syrup over the hot Baklava, ladle by ladle. Depending on how large your dish is, about two and a half ladles should be ample for the deep dish pan and about one ladle shout be enough for the rolls.
- Sprinkle the top of each piece of Baklava with a little bit of ground pistachios.
- Leave the Baklava for several hours whilst it absorbs the Sugar syrup.
- Once the sugar syrup has been absorbed, it will be ready to eat!
- Enjoy and impress your friends!!

12 down, 15 to go....

France: Douze Points.

Well, well, well, top marks for France!!! These Madeleines are just fantastic!!

I’m very happy with my metal Madeleine pan. It’s already slightly tricky to get in the oven without burning your fingers, so I can imagine how difficult a silicone pan could be to get in without making a mess!

Putting my seldom used French to good use, I’ve translated a really authentic French recipe for Madeleines from this website: http://www.750g.com/fiche_de_cuisine.2.123.1918.htm. Each batch yields about 36 Madeleines and they are so good I’ve baked over 100 already! The large yield from this recipe may make you think you should make a smaller batch or even buy several pans. I’ve always been taught to put any cake mixture into the oven as soon as the mix is wet but the beauty about this recipe is that the Madeleine batter is required to rest in the fridge for a minimum of two hours. It is possible to bake them sooner, and they will taste fine, but trust me in that they improve greatly with the rest. Furthermore, they are so easy to make and can be made the night before, rest in the fridge overnight and be ready for a very quick and tasty breakfast or brunch.

Getting back to the equipment, it is not absolutely necessary to purchase a Madeleine pan, albeit pretty as they may be - you will get a perfect result making these in a cupcake tray!

Here’s how I made them:

- 225g Plain Flour
- 175g Caster Sugar
- 100g Unsalted Butter
- 1 heaped teaspoon Baking Powder
- 4 eggs
- Pinch salt
- Zest of one Lemon (optional)

• Melt the butter and let it cool slightly.
• Crack the four eggs into a large bowl.
• Add the sugar and whisk until all the sugar is dissolved and it looks a little frothy.
• Mix the flour and baking powder together and sift into to the egg and sugar mix.
• Mix this all together with the salt and lemon zest.
• Stir in the melted butter.
• Cover with Clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least two hours.
• Preheat oven to 220C.
• Butter the pan, and then dust with flour (shaking off any excess).
• Fill each mould three quarters full with the Madeleine batter.
• Bake in the oven for eight minutes
• Allow to cool, enjoy!!

Good music to eat Madeleines with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-7vv8F6XBE in fact anything by Jacques Dutronc seems to work well with Madeleines as does Carla Bruni!

Bon appétit!

11 down, 16 to go…

Au Française!

 Next stop on the culinary express; Madeleines!

It would appear that Madeleines rose to fame due to Proust namedropping them in his ‘Remembrance of Things past’. The quote goes: “I raised to my lips a spoonful of the cake . . . a shudder ran through my whole body and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place." Essentially he eats a piece of Madeleine and it instantly takes him back to his childhood. This scene has been parodied many times in various mediums. Most notably for me was when Tony Soprano takes a bite of a cured meat and is instantly flooded with childhood memories.

There are numerous sources out there on how to make an authentic Madeleine. I’ll get to that in my next post, but for now I’m going to talk about baking utensils. This is the first time that I’ve had to acquire a Madeleine pan, and in my entire window shopping, the most common pan I came across was these multi-coloured Silicone pans that seem to have become very fashionable. On several occasions, whilst browsing through the homeware departments I very nearly picked one up. However, after a bit of research I became more dubious and opted for a metal one. The main reason why I went against Silicone for my Madeline pan was because of the probable wobble factor when putting it in the oven. Silicone kitchen utensils do have their uses, and would probably be just fine for a baking tray or a larger cake mould but the balancing act of getting a soft pan filled with liquid into the oven just seems unnecessary to me. There were suggestions of placing a metal baking tray underneath the Silicone Madeline Pan, but I think this may alter the cooking time, and as the tray would be cool, could even distort the final result and colour. I think I made the right decision, but we shall see what the final result is.

Altogether now On Y Va!

Oh yes please…

Researching Apple Pies has got me thinking about what makes a ‘good’ apple pie. If you come from Europe, Australia or North America, you’ve probably been raised on one form of Apple Pie or another and what I’ve concluded is that there is no one thing that makes a great apple pie and that really it’s all down to personal taste, what you’ve grown up with and nostalgia.

This Apfeltorte is very different from Mum and Dad’s Apple Pie; a fantastic deep filled, tangy pudding, laced with cloves and served with lashings of pouring cream. Yum!

Albeit a far cry from my nostalgia of Apple Pie, Apfeltorte is really and truly fantastic. The buttery short crust pastry stays crisp and the Granny Smiths keep the dessert tart without feeling like a heavy winter Apple Pie.

A word about the pastry… This is a great recipe for short crust pastry that I’ve been using for a few years. Try to keep everything as cold as possible when making it. Don’t worry about it too much but don’t make it over a preheating oven or beside a radiator! It’s a fantastic pastry for making Mince Pies too!

It’s a very sophisticated sweet, just light enough for Summer, and would be perfect as an alternative to a tea cake or could be made into miniature tarts, just lower the baking time slightly.

Here’s how I made it:

- 230g Flour
- 130g Unsalted Butter diced
- 1 level tablespoon Icing Sugar
- Salt
- 1 Large Egg yolk
- Cold Water
- 1 Kg Granny Smith (or similar) Apples
- 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 50g unsalted butter

 Shallow cake tin, about 22cm in diameter.

• Sift the Flour, Salt and Icing Sugar into a bowl.
• Put the diced butter in to the bowl and rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Remember to keep a very light hand here, don’t let the butter melt in your hands and try to get plenty of air in to the mix. This step can also be done in a food processer.
• In a measuring jug, whisk the egg yolk and fill with cold water up to the 50ml level.
• Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the Yolk/Water mixture.
• Bring this together slowly with your hands.
• Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface and knead lightly for a few seconds.
• Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for a minimum of 20 minutes.
• In the meantime, peel, core and slice the Apples.
• If you are worried about them turning brown (whilst waiting for your dough to chill), cover them with a little bit of lemon juice.
• Preheat your oven to 200C.
• Lightly grease your tin with butter and then lightly dust it with flour.
• When your pastry is cool enough, roll it out to fit your tin.
• Fill the pastry with the Apple slices.
• Mix the Granulated Sugar and Cinnamon together and cover the apples with it.
• Dot the tops of the Apples with the remaining butter.
• Place in preheated oven and bake for about half an hour or until pastry is brown and apples are just soft.
• Allow to cool slightly.
• Serve with cream, ice-cream, mascarpone, or whatever you like……


10 down, 17 to go…

Luxembourg…

Well this Apfeltorte has in many ways been the most difficult recipe to put together. Mostly because, countless countries have their own version of what “Apple Tart” is, and indeed some countries even have several.

It would appear that Luxembourgian Apfeltorte is a tart as opposed to a pie and the apples are arranged in a decorative fan-like way on top of the pastry with no additional pastry on top.

In traditional British Isles’ Apple pies, cakes and tarts, one would usually use a very ‘tart’ or sour apple such as a bramble, however I would imagine that the Luxembourgian Apple Tart is somewhat influenced by the French ‘Tart Tartin’ or similar. Therefore I have chosen a slightly sweeter apple (Granny Smith) in making this sweet. The Granny Smith is still fairly sour yet it has a sweeter aftertaste than the Bramble or ‘Cooking Apple’.

There are countless types of pastry that can be used in making an Apple Tart, but judging from the pictures of Apfeltorte I found on google.lu I have decided to go for a sweet shortcrust pastry that hopefully will turn out nice and crisp.

Number 10, lets go!!!

What a fantastic Finnish!

Ok, sorry about the pun … Really though, the Finns did not let me down!!!

Again, like with the Kanelbulle, the Cardamom makes a really nice twist to these buns. They are somewhat like a Cardamom flavoured Scone, not only because of the lashings of strawberry jam and cream, but also because they are only slightly sweet and a little bready.

There are no real hints or tricks to this one, except for, like with most yeast-doughs, it is advisable to leave yourself plenty of time to make these as getting your dough to rise may take longer than expected, depending on how warm your home is.
 
Here’s how I made them:

- 600 ml Milk.
- 6 sachets of Dried Yeast (7gm each).
- 150 gm of Granulated Sugar.
- 1 Kg Plain Flour.
- 2 Eggs.
- 10 gm Salt.
- 2 Tsp of ground Cardamom.
- 200gm Butter.
- Strawberry Jam.
- Marzipan.
- Whipped Cream.

• In a large saucepan warm the Milk and the Cardamom over a gentle heat.
• Dissolve the sugar and allow the milk to cool until it’s tepid.
• Pour the yeast in to the Milk and Sugar and allow to completely dissolve.
• Melt the butter and allow to cool slightly.
• Add roughly half the flour and milk well.
• Add 1 egg, mix well.
• Add rest of the flour and the salt and turn the dough out on to a work surface and knead.
• Bit by bit add the now cooled and melted butter to the dough whilst kneading.
• Put the dough back in the saucepan, cover with clingfilm or a cloth and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
• Preheat the oven to 200C.
• Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
• When the dough has doubled in size, divide in to balls, roughly the size of a scone and place on the baking tray.
• Whisk the remaining egg and brush the top of each Laskiaispulla with this.
• Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden.
• When cool, slice the top off each Laskiaispulla, fill with Marzipan or Strawberry Jam, and plenty of whipped cream.
• Dust with Icing sugar.

Email me your photos of anything you bake from this blog and I’ll put them up!!! eukitchen@gmail.com

9 down, 18 to go…..

Can you say Laskiaispulla?!

After my first taste of something sweet based on Cardamom (see Kanelbulle), I’m hopping over to Sweden’s friendly neighbour to see how Laskiaispulla fare. I’ve always considered Cardamom to be a spice solely reserved for savoury food but over the past several weeks I’ve grown accustomed to the combination of this spice with sweet. This has mostly been due to visits to my local Swedish Bakery/Café Peter’s Yard, which I must mention again because they really have fantastic produce!

Laskiaispulla are basically a Cream Bun, made with a wheat and Cardamom dough, filled with Strawberry Jam or Marzipan and always plenty of whipped cream. It’s again similarly to the Kanelbulle a yeast-based dough so at the moment it’s going through the proofing process in my warm kitchen.

I’ll let you know how they turn out very soon!

10 out of 10 for Sweden!

Well….. Kanelbulle are fantastic. Essentially they are a Cinnamon bun made with a bready and not too sugary cardamom dough and really - they are just dreamy!

This recipe yielded 42 Kanelbulle, so lots of people got to try them and I got much approval from flatmates, friends and work colleagues. But that said they are relatively small buns so don’t be put off by the large quantity.

Nib/Pearl Sugar is the sugar used in Sweden to decorate these buns. It’s the same sugar used to decorate certain types of Belgian waffles. I would have made these buns sooner but found it relatively difficult to find the sugar until the lovely people at Peter’s Yard, http://www.petersyard.com/ Swedish Bakery donated me a bag of the stuff. If you can’t find this sugar, you can sprinkle any kind of sugar you like on top or slightly crumble up some white sugar cubes to give a similar effect.

Here’s how I made them:

• 450 ml milk
• 250g unsalted butter
• 1 kg Flour
• 300g Sugar
• 2 level tablespoons Cinnamon
• 2 level tablespoons ground Cardamom
• 5 sachets (7gms each) of dried yeast
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon Water
• Nib/Pearl Sugar or sugar cubes.

- Heat 300ml of milk and 150g of sugar in a large saucepan.
- Turn off the heat and add the 5 sachets of dried yeast to the milk and allow to ferment.
- Melt 100g of the butter with the remaining milk and the cardamom
- Allow to cool slightly and add to the milk/yeast mixture.
- Bit by bit add the flour to the milk mixture and bring together to form a soft dough.
- Lightly knead on a slightly floured work surface then return to the saucepan, cover and leave in a warm place until it’s doubled in size.
- Cream the remaining sugar and butter and cinnamon in a bowl.
- On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out in to a rectangle that is about 3mm thick.
- Spread the Cinnamon and Sugar mixture all over the dough.
- Tightly roll the dough in to itself like a spiral.
- Cut the dough in to 3cm slices and place in to cupcake cases (spiral side up).
- Arrange cases on a baking tray.
- Cover with cling-film and leave to prove again for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Preheat the oven to 220C.
- Once the buns have risen, whisk the egg with 1 tablespoon of water.
- Brush the buns with this egg mixture and sprinkle nib/pearl sugar or slightly crushed sugar cubes on top.
- Bake in oven for 5-7 minutes.

8 down, 19 to go……

Next stop: Sweden.

For my next sweet I will be cooking Swedish Kanelbulle which are Cinnamon Buns made with Cardamom dough. In Sweden they are topped with Pearl/Nib Sugar which looks like the coarse sea salt that you have on top of pretzels. I’ve been keeping an eye out for this sugar but can’t seem to find it in any shops here in Edinburgh. However the lovely people at Peter’s Yard Café and Bakery donated me a big bag of the stuff so we shall have Kanelbulle very soon!

http://www.petersyard.com/

Hope you all had a fantastic Queen’s Day!!

Well it took three days, several attempts and it nearly didn’t happen but I finally made Tompoezen!! This is all largely due to the support and some translations from my lovely Dutch flat-mate! :D (Thanks!)

Tompoezen are two layers of puff pastry, filled with pastry cream, topped with a layer of simple icing (usually pink, but orange for Queen’s Day) and served with fresh cream.

I expected the puff pastry to be the most difficult part, but it turned out to be very easy although time consuming. The part I struggled with the most was the pastry cream. It took me a few tries to get it right and I very nearly threw in the towel and put this up:

With a bit of motivation and a good translation of this Dutch recipe on youtube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lk9EVEsWvc which is worth watching to get an idea of how these are made, and is also quite entertaining even if you don’t speak Dutch: I finally produced a worthwhile batch of Tompoezen and learned how to make two bakery staples on the way.

I found a very good puff pastry recipe on this website which gave a really fantastic, delicious result! http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/restaurant/techniques/pastry.html Ignore any recipe that goes beyond butter, water, flour and salt as its ingredients. Making your own puff pastry is very time consuming, and the only real trick is to make it in a relatively cool room. You don’t need to make it in a walk-in freezer but don’t make it with the heating on and if you just so happen to have a slab of marble handy, refrigerate it and roll the pastry out on that. All that said, frozen puff pastry works perfectly well and is usually of pretty good quality, I just feel like I wouldn’t be learning all that much about cooking if I bought ready made ingredients.

The pastry cream proved to be the most difficult part for me to get right and took me three attempts to get it in the end but I eventually figured it out.

Anyway, here’s how I made the Tompoezen:

• 400gm Puff Pastry (homemade, chilled or frozen)
• 1 Litre of milk
• 200 gm White Sugar
• Vanilla extract
• 100gm Cornstarch
• 3 egg yolks
• 200 gm Icing Sugar
• Pink or Orange food colouring.

- Bring 950 ml of milk, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 100 gm of white sugar to the boil and then turn it off.
- Whisk together 3 egg yolks, 100g cornstarch, 100g white sugar and 50ml of milk.
- Whisk the egg mixture in to the milk mixture and turn the heat back on.
- Keep stirring the mixture on a medium heat and allow to thicken.
- Turn off the heat and let it cool.
- Preheat oven to 200C.
- Roll out the pastry so it is about 3mm thick and cut it to fit a baking tray.
- Lay the pastry out on the baking tray.
- Pierce the pastry all over with a fork (this prevents the pastry from rising too much).
- Bake pastry until golden brown (about 10 minutes).
- Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before cutting in to 4x7cm rectangles.
- Prepare icing by mixing 200gm of icing sugar with 2 tablespoons of water and some pink or orange food colouring.
- Spread a thin layer of icing on half of the puff pastry rectangles.
- Pipe a thick layer of pastry cream on to the other puff pastry rectangles.
- Place the iced layer on top of the cream layer.
- Serve with whipped cream!

7 down, 20 to go......

Time to get ready for Queen’s Day.

Well it’s Queens Day eve here in Scotland and I’m getting everything ready for making Orange Tompoezen tomorrow!

Tompoezen are a Dutch sweet, similar to the French Mille-feuille. They consist of two layers of puff pastry filled with custard and topped with a pink icing, but on Queen’s Day (30th April) they have an orange icing.

I’ve prepared a batch of puff pastry that is sitting in my fridge and hopefully I’ve made it correctly… Puff pastry is notoriously difficult to make. So far, I’ve found it very time consuming but I think that the ‘trick’ to it is to follow the instructions very, very carefully. Tomorrow I’ll see if it turns out ok and if I’ve made it wrong, well there are plenty of frozen packets of puff pastry waiting in my local supermarket – so never fear, there will definitely be Orange Tompoezen tomorrow!!

I’m a little bit lost for words….

This cake is incredible!!! So simple yet very, very delicious!! It’s fairly light – probably because there’s no flour in it. Although it is mainly made with Almonds and Sugar, it’s not too sweet and the almonds are not overpowering.

It’s so easy to make and I’d really recommend giving this one a go!!

Having researched several Spanish websites and blogs, I translated the recipe from this popular blog: http://www.javirecetas.com/tarta-de-santiago/

And here’s a picture of St. James’ Cross to cut out a stencil:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2v921hs.png

You will need a cake pan which is about 22cm in Diameter.

Here’s how I made it:
• 250g Ground Almonds
• 250g Caster Sugar
• Zest of 1 lemon
• About 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
• 5 large eggs
• Icing sugar for dusting

- Preheat the oven to 175C.
- Grease cake pan with unsalted butter or vegetable oil.
- Mix Almonds, Sugar, Zest and Cinnamon together in a bowl.
- Make a well.
- Put the eggs in the centre of the well and stir the mixture together.
- It should fairly wet so don’t be tempted to put some flour or more almonds in.
- Pour the mixture into the greased cake pan.
- Bring the temperature of the oven down to 170C.
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.
- Whilst it’s baking in the oven, cut out a stencil of Saint James’ Cross.
- The cake should look golden brown and be a bit crunchy on the outside – don’t worry; it will be fantastic and moist on the inside!!
- Remove cake from oven.
- Place the stencil on top of the cake and dust with Icing Sugar.
- Remove the cake from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.
- Enjoy!!!

6 down, 21 to go…..

¡Viva España!

Today I’m baking Tarta de Santiago or St. James’ Cake! This is an almond, lemon, and cinnamon cake from Galicia in the Northwest of Spain.

Like most of the sweets on this list, there seems to be dispute as to how to make a ‘true’ Tarta de Santiago. It would appear that there are two ways to make this cake; one way is to make a pastry and top it with a filling, the second is to make one homogenous cake mixture and bake that. Putting my Spanish to good use, I researched this cake on various Spanish blogs and websites. Most of these websites used the latter method of making it, but I also discovered another dispute about this sweet. The cake is made with ground almonds, sugar, eggs, cinnamon and lemon zest however some recipes include a small amount of flour. There’s an argument out there that a true Tarta de Santiago contains no flour, so the cake presently in the oven is flour-free!

The cake is dusted with icing sugar with an imprint left on the cake from a cut-out of St. James’ cross, so I guess I’d better start making one!

What a pretty cake!

Well it wasn’t the easiest cake to make, mostly because finding a recipe in English was rather difficult. Again I had to improvise from the recipe pamphlet I have from the European Union. It didn’t give oven temperatures, or times but I think I figured it out.

This cake is very, very sweet! I think a small piece with coffee in the morning is perfect.

The result is almost like a sweet pizza, and so similarly to savoury pizza, the toppings you choose really make or break this cake. You could even omit the fudge topping I used here and substitute with chocolate sauce, caramel or jam!

Here’s how I made it:

Pastry:
• 250g Flour
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 100g Icing Sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 180g Butter
• 2 Egg Yolks

Topping
• 1 Litre of Milk
• 400g Icing Sugar
• 100g Butter
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tablespoon Caramel

Decoration
• Flaked Almonds (Toasted)
• Dried Apricot
• You can decorate this cake with whatever you like; Walnuts, Sweets/Candy, Chocolate Syrup, Dried Fruits etc.

- Sift the flour and 100g of Icing Sugar into a bowl.
- Add the Caster Sugar and salt.
- Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs.
- Make a well.
- Put the two egg yolks in the centre and mix it with your hands.
- If it needs it you can add a little milk or some egg white. (I had to use roughly a tablespoon of each as the pastry was too dry.)
- When it becomes a dough similar to a biscuit or shortbread dough, cover it and leave in the fridge for about 1 ½ - 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 200C.
- Take pastry from fridge and roll it out a little to fit a small baking tray – the pastry should be about 1cm thick.
- Place in oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown
- In the meantime, place the milk and 400g of icing sugar in a large saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly.
- When it starts to boil, take it off the heat and stir in butter, vanilla and caramel.
- Bring back to the boil, constantly stirring, for about 10 minutes.
- Allow to cool.
- It should be quite thick and spreadable when it’s cool. If it is too runny, boil it again for another few minutes.
- Spread the topping all over the base.
- Decorate as you like.
 
5 down, 22 to go.

Polish Easter Bread

Mazurek is a traditional Easter sweet cake or bread from Poland. Strictly speaking tomorrow morning I’ll be making a Mazurek kajmakowy which is topped with a fudge icing and then various fruits, nuts and sweets but Mazurek may be topped with numerous different combinations of toppings such as the Royal Mazurek, which is covered with different jams and conserves.

As the Mazurek entered into the Sweet Europe initiative was the Mazurek kajmakowy, I will be making that, although the Royal Mazurek does sound tempting!

It’s too late to start baking this cake now so I’ll be getting up fairly early to bake it fresh for breakfast.

Another one bites the dust!

Finally, after the disastrous Baklava, I can strike another recipe off the list!

The Mliako S Oriz was a great success, and a perfect midnight snack. I adapted the recipe from the pamphlet I have of recipes from the Sweet Europe initiative. This is a very sweet pudding, sweeter than the rice pudding my Mum used to make for me when I was a kid, so I would probable use about 50g less sugar next time. That said, this quick, simple recipe is very delicious and the cinnamon makes a lovely contrast. I used long grain rice but I think short grain rice would give an even nicer texture. To use Basmati rice would be a big mistake. Please don’t be tempted to substitute with this, it’ll taste funny.

Here’s how I made it;

• 300g Rice
• Water to boil it in
• 1 Litre Milk
• 200g Sugar
• Powdered Cinnamon

- Boil the rice in water until just tender and strain.
- Bring the milk to the boil and then add the cooked rice
- Stir in the sugar
- Bring the mixture back up to the boil and then let it simmer
- Continue stirring the rice on a medium to low heat, until a lot of the milk has absorbed
- Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of cinnamon

It’s really very easy to make and you will usually have the ingredients lying about the kitchen. Remember to keep stirring the pudding so it doesn’t stick, and don’t let it boil.

4 (finally) down, 23 to go!

Midnight Munchies!!!

Time for an impromptu cooking expedition to Bulgaria!!

So it’s 1:30 in the morning here in Edinburgh and the boyfriend and I have hankering for something sweet. Having raided our bare cupboards, I’ve found all the ingredients to make the Bulgarian Mliako S Oriz. It’s a relatively simple rice pudding topped with cinnamon. It should be quite easy to prepare but I'm very bad at cooking rice. Hopefully we won’t have another Baklava disaster...

Wish me luck!

Baklava: 1, Miss EU: 0

The results are in. It may somewhat look the part but this is hands down the worst Baklava I’ve ever tasted. Now where did it all go wrong?

We’ll start with the recipe I used and go from there.

WARNING: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT THIS RECIPE – IT’S NASTY!!!

• 1 packet of phyllo pastry
• 175g Unsalted Butter
• 400g Pistachio nuts finely chopped
• 100g Walnuts finely chopped
• 300g Caster Sugar
• 300ml Water
• Juice of 1 lemon

- Preheat oven to 150C
- Defrost pastry and cut to shape of baking tin
- Melt butter
- Lightly grease baking tin
- Place a sheet of pastry on the bottom of tin and baste with butter
- Continue this for roughly 5 layers
- Cover the top layer with about ½ the chopped nuts
- Place another layer on top of the nuts
- Baste with butter and continue for another few layers
- Cover the next top layer with almost all the remaining chopped nuts (keeping a few for decorating at the end)
- Place another 4 or 5 basted layers of pastry above this and don’t forget to baste the top layer.
- Bake in oven for ¾ - 1 hour until slightly golden
- In the mean time make the syrup by combining the sugar water and lemon juice in a pan on a medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the syrup looks clear
- Allow the syrup to cool
- When the baklava is ready, remove from oven and chop in to whatever shapes you wish
- Pour the syrup over the hot baklava
- Allow to cool and soak up the syrup for about 2 hours before serving
- When cooled, sprinkle with remaining chopped nuts

Well the final result tasted really, really bad. This isn’t just a case of me trying to recreate some of the fantastic Baklava I had in Melbourne, oh no, this is unfortunately quite inedible. The Syrup was a huge downfall of this sweet, it tasted very artificial and the juice of a whole lemon was far too much. I think I used too much syrup as it was quite soggy also. But the syrup was not the only problem with this recipe; something just didn’t taste right about the whole thing. Perhaps it needed more butter and I think the layering of 4-5 sheets of pastry and only 2 layers of nuts was all wrong. Some recipes include cinnamon and sugar with the nuts so I think I may try this next time. Also many recipes use honey in the syrup which is definitely going to be included in my next attempt.

It’ll be a while before I try to make it again. I don’t think I can even look at a piece of baklava without my stomach turning.

So for the time being, it’s game on baklava!

Pastry or Politics?

Today I’m cooking Cyprus’ Baklava, in fact it’s already in the oven!

In trying to find an authentic recipe for Cypriot Baklava, I came across too many debates as to the origin of this sweet and not enough cooking of it. I’ve decided to make a fairly basic recipe, mostly consisting of pistachio nuts and omitting the ever tempting rosewater or orange blossom which some chefs add as it doesn’t seem to be absolutely authentic. It would appear that sprinkling the Baklava with more chopped pistachios after it is made is custom in Cyprus so I’ve reserved enough pistachios to do just that.

Baklava as it turns out is not so difficult to assemble (I shouldn’t speak too soon as it’s still in the oven), but I believe there is a fine art to getting a perfect consistency which is not too oily or syrupy…

The first time I remember trying good Baklava was in the Prahran Market in Melbourne. The deli owner assured me that it would be the best Baklava I had ever tasted and boy was he right! It was so light and dreamy, unlike some of the sticky, greasy muck that I had tried before. How will my attempt turn out?!? We’ll just have to wait and see. Watch this space.

Sweet, simple and dangerously easy!

A little taken aback by how easy these little pieces of delight were to make!

From the few websites that I could find in English that described these biscuits, I found that they were supposed to be soft and chewy and that’s exactly how they turned out.

Now for a few words about the ingredients….

I spent a bit of time in a local food store deciding which type of Scottish oats to go with. They need to be rolled oats but this shop had ‘Jumbo Rolled Oats’ as well as Porridge oats (which are also rolled but a little finer). I bought the Jumbo Oats as I thought they would add a bit more texture to biscuits and it proved right. I have no idea which oats would be more traditional in Estonia but I’m sure that any type of rolled oat will do just fine.

In Irish and UK recipes, unless stated, butter is usually implied to be salted. Again, I was not sure what was typical in Estonia so I made them with slightly salted butter. I reckon unsalted or slightly salted is the best butter for these biscuits.

The eggs I used were medium, organic, and free range. I ended up using all 300 grams of the oats, so perhaps if you use large eggs, you may need more oats. I do always buy free range eggs and when possible organic because I have found that free range/organic eggs produce better results.

The sugar I used was Caster Sugar. I did this to avoid a grainy sugary biscuit. It mixed perfectly with the eggs with a slightly fluffy result.

In total the recipe yielded exactly 20 delicious biscuits (several were eaten before I managed to take a photo). 8-10 minutes was just right for my oven, they should look slightly golden brown when they’re done.

The whole batch took less than an hour to make from start to finish including washing up, so will definitely be making these again next time I want to whip up a quick batch of bakery goods!

3 down, 24 to go!

Let’s all go to Estonia!!

Alright, I took a bit of a break there over the weekend. This baking thing is a lot of fun but it is taking its toll on our bodies - Cavities, Kilos and Sugar rushes!!!

I’m ready to get back on track and today we’re going to Estonia!

Estonia’s Kaerahelbeküpsised are essentially an Oatmeal Biscuit. Scotland is famed for its Oats so let’s see if they make a tasty treat…

Finding a recipe for these biscuits has been rather difficult. I have a leaflet given out by the EU with a recipe for each sweet so I’m going to use the recipe from there. Without that document, this project probably wouldn’t be possible as some of these recipes are very difficult to find. However, it only gives a very basic description on how to construct these sweets, so it will play a very small role in attempting the dreaded Sakotis!!!

It seems that there are numerous types of Kaerahelbeküpsised - Chocolate, Fruit etc. I’m going to make a plain Oatmeal and Sugar as per the recipe on my leaflet…

The recipe is as follows:

· 2 Eggs

· 100g Sugar

· 100g Butter

· 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

· 250-300g Oatmeal

- Preheat oven to 200 C.

- Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

- Melt butter.

- Beat the Eggs and Sugar together in a bowl.

- Add slightly cooled melted butter to the eggs and sugar.

- Add Vanilla and Oatmeal to the mixture, stir well.

- I’m assuming here, that the mixture should resemble a sticky flapjack-type mixture. Add 250 g of oats, and if it needs more keep going but don’t go past 300g.

- With a teaspoon, take a heaped spoonful of the mixture and shape small, round, flat biscuits with it on the baking tray.

- Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

- Let cool on a wire rack.

Let’s go!!

Fantastic Result!!

So I'm really, really happy with this one.

I've been looking forward to learning how to make shortbread in Scotland and the result from this recipe is pretty good.

Flatmates and Boyfriend approve!

I took some advice from three sources; BBC Food Website, Delia Smith online, and the Home Baking Cookbook, published by Parragon, and here's the recipe I came up with.

• 125g / 4oz Slightly Salted Butter
• 55g / 2oz Caster Sugar
• 180g/ 6oz Flour
• A little extra Caster Sugar

- Preheat oven to 190C.
- Soften the butter with a wooden spoon in a bowl.
- Add the 2oz of Caster Sugar and cream the two together.
- Sieve the flour in to the mix and start to bring it all together into a light paste.
- It will start out looking like breadcrumbs but don't worry, it will all come together eventually.
- Place the dough on to a slightly floured work surface.
- Make in to a long rectangular shape, about 1cm high and 5cm wide.
- Cut the dough in to 10 to 12 rectangular slices.
- Prick with the tines of a fork for decoration.
- Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
- Remove from oven and dredge with Caster Sugar.
- Cool on a wire rack.

2 down, 25 to go....the countdown continues.

Number two

So after much careful consideration, I’ve decided what will be the next recipe – Shortbread!

This may seem like I’m going in order of difficulty or in order of what I’ve made before, but let me assure you, I’m pretty nervous about this one! For two weeks now I’ve been living in Scotland – the land of Shortbread and this makes me a little bit anxious about getting it right…

When I was a kid I remember making something quite similar to Shortbread – essentially a butter cookie, but there seems to be a lot of conflicting arguments out there as to what makes authentic shortbread.

I’m going to try and recreate what has always been shortbread to me. A very buttery and crisp biscuit mass produced by Walkers.

Unlike most of the other recipes on the list, I know what this one should taste like, so I’m going to have to keep making it until it tastes just right.

I think I’ll make it with a recipe from the BBC website. They give it as 3 parts Flour, 2 parts Butter and 1 part Caster Sugar – that sounds pretty buttery to me! And then dredge it with Caster Sugar when it comes out of the oven which is what a lot of other recipes are recommending.

Here.....we.......Go!!!

Success!

Neither the recipe nor the oven let me down!!!

Flatmates and Boyfriend approve.

Here’s my Mother’s recipe. It yielded 17 scones this time but usually makes about 15…

The measurements are in imperial – sorry about this, usually everything I cook is in metric, but my Mum learnt this recipe from her mother and, well, it was all imperial back then so I guess that makes them more authentic!!

· 1 Lb. Self-Raising Flour

· Pinch of salt

· 1 oz. Caster Sugar

· 3 oz. Butter

· 2 Eggs

· 7-8 Fl. Oz. Milk

· 1 or 2 Handful of Sultanas

- Preheat oven to 250 C.

- Sieve Flour and Salt in to a bowl.

- Add sugar

- Rub in Butter. Do this with a light hand and try to get as much air in to the mix as possible.

- Add Sultanas

- Make a well in the centre

- Break the eggs in to a measuring jug and whisk.

- Fill with milk up to the 300 ml. mark.

- Pour in to the centre of the well, bit by bit and mix by hand.

- Keep the jug and don’t wash it yet.

- Turn mixture out on to a lightly floured work surface.

- Gently roll out – you can just flatten it lightly by hand.

- Cut out scones with a glass or cutter.

- Put a little bit more milk into the jug.

- Use this milk to brush the scones to give them a glaze.

- Place scones onto a lightly floured baking tray.

- Bake in oven at 250 C. for 5 minutes.

- Turn down heat to 230 C. and bake for about another 10 minutes.

- Do not cook for any more than 15 minutes. Every oven is different so keep an eye on them for the last 10 minutes. If they look and smell done, then they probably are.

- Cool on a wire rack.

- Serve warm with butter, jam, cream….

1 down, 26 to go…

27 Recipes

So the sweets are as follows:

• Austria – Gugelhupf
• Finland – Laskiaispulla
• Ireland – Scones
• Portugal – Pasteis de Nata
• Slovakia – Orecovy Zavin
• Estonia – Kaerahelbeküpsised
• Italy – Tiramisu
• Malta – Imqaret
• Greece – Vasilopita
• France – Madeleines
• Slovenia - Prekmurska gibanica
• Spain - Tarta de Santiago
• Luxembourg – Apfeltorte
• Hungary – Dobos Torta
• Denmark – Wienerbrød
• Sweden – Kanelbulle
• Netherlands – Tompoezen
• Cyprus – Baklava
• United Kingdom – Shortbread
• Latvia - Rupjmaizes kartojums
• Czech Republic – Kolach
• Poland – Mazurek
• Romania – Cozonac
• Germany – Streuselkuchen
• Belgium – Waffles
• Lithuania – Sakotis
• Bulgaria – Mliako S Oriz

Some of the sweets I have been made before; Tiramisu, Scones, Cozonac, Shortbread. Others I have eaten and always wanted to know how to make; Waffles, Gugelhupf, Madelines, Pasteis de Nata.

Seeing as I'm Irish and I've baked them a million times before, I'm going to start with Scones. I have my Mother's recipe which is pretty good and definitely traditional. Hopefully they'll turn out o.k., although I haven't baked them in a few years and I have to guess the temperature of the oven in this flat as the numbers seem to have worn off.... Fingers crossed, they'll be Fantastic!!!

Welcome to The European Union Kitchen!

Just over ten days ago this Dublin girl moved to Edinburgh to find work and start a new life. I’m living in a flat in old town with a Bulgarian, a Dutchwoman, and Irishman and a Norwegian. Since I arrived I’ve been doing a lot of baking, what with it being Easter and all. Last Monday was Hot Cross Buns, Wednesday was Cinnamon Buns, Friday was Biscotti di Prato (I had intended to make more Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday but felt like something different), and Saturday was learning to make Cozonac with my Bulgarian flat mate’s Bulgarian girlfriend.

Cozonac is a delicious Bulgarian and Romanian cake which is eaten at Easter. Having eaten my fair share of this scrumptious treat, I decided to do a bit of research about this famous Bulgarian cake that I had never heard about.

On Europe day 2006, Austria (then president of the EU) held a party in 27 cafes across the 25 member states and the two countries that would join in six months time. Each country was represented by a typical sweet or cake in a presentation called 'Sweet Europe' and Romania was represented with Cozonac. Flicking through all the desserts, I saw some old favourites. Ireland was represented by scones – a childhood classic, The U.K. with Shortbread and Italy with one of my favourite desserts; Tiramisu.

There are however plenty of sweets that I’ve never even heard of before. Dobos Torte from Hungary; a five layer chocolate and butter cream extravaganza topped with caramel slices and sometimes coated with hazelnuts or chestnuts –YUM!! Lithuania certainly impressed with its spiky Šakotis, which looks like it would be frighteningly difficult to cook in my oven….

The plan is to attempt to bake every single treat on that list, thus improving my culinary skills and learning a thing or two about the other nation-states that I am so proud to be unified with. This is all obviously influenced by the Julie/Julia Project and Film, a fantastically funny and successful attempt at cooking every recipe from ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in one year. I have absolutely no intention on setting myself a time limit to cook these sweets. My waist couldn’t handle it and I wouldn’t like to feel under pressure to find a spit-roast oven to cook my Šakotis, it’s not worth compromising the quality of the puddings with inferior equipment or ingredients. Also I’m cooking the sweets in no particular order. The European Union’s motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’; so I’m going to incorporate that in to this project by cooking the dishes in a completely random order
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I’ll keep you posted with how I get on, where I get the recipes from and whatever disasters that may arise...