Gingerbread

Don't go thinking this is a recipe for real German gingerbread, because it's not. This is a recipe for the German interpretation of Finnish gingerbread, it isn't the thick,almost cake like gingerbread covered in chocolate. It is still really delicious though, and it still rises up like the German gingerbread do. Since this recipe isn't for gingerbread men( and I don't  own a gingerbread man cookie cutter) I made heart shaped ones. I also use a straw to poke holes near the top of the hearts so they can be hung up on a Christmas tree, edible decorations are always the best, and you don't have to bother with storage and cleaning afterwards(apart from the possible crumbs) This is yet another recipe from one of my countless Christmas recipe books, this time I think it was 'Koestliche Weihnachtsbaeckerei'

Not German-Not Finnish Gingerbread

• 250g (3/4 cup) honey
• 250g (1&1/4 cup)  brown sugar
• 150g (3/4 cup) butter 
• 500g (4 cups) flour
• 2 tablespoons gingerbread spice OR your favorite combination of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
• 2 tablespoon dutch cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons rum

Method:

1. On medium heat melt together the honey,brown sugar and butter, let cool once sugar has melted.

2. In a large bowl whisk together the flour,spices,cocoa powder.

3. Mix together the flour and honey mixture, then add the egg, baking powder and rum.

4. Place the dough in an air tight container and let it rest overnight, at room temperature.

5. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F.

6. Roll out the dough as thin as you like-if you like thin crisp geinger bread, roll it out thin, if you like the thicker variety roll it out thicker. I roll mine about 4mm thick. Cut out using your favorite (or seasonal) cookie cutter

7. Bake f0r 15-17 minutes until lightly darkened around the edges. 

If you feel like it you can decorate them with royal icing and pipe initials,decoration or whatever else. 

Advent Cookies

Today is the first...
day of advent. I was thinking instead that I would have a different cookie everyday instead of having a chocolate. Mostly the chocolates in the advent calendars are all the same, but if you made a differen tocokie for each day of advent there would be some change. Since it's around christmas time anyway it's time to get cookie baking anyway. These are one of my favorite cookies, super nutty and crumbly on the inside, light and vanilly-sugary on the outside.





Vanille Gipferl
Adapted from Koestliche Weinachtsbaeckerei

• 180g all purpose flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g ground hazelnuts
• 70g sugar
• 200g (1 cup/2 sticks) butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 egg
• 5 packets vanilla sugar 
• 50g powdered sugar

Method:

1. Combine the flour,ground nuts,sugar,butter and eggs until a dough forms.

2. Place the dough into the fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Cut the dough into equal sized pieces, then roll each piece into an individual log, the end smaller than the middle. 

4. Pre-heat your oven to 180C

5. Form the dough into a crescent shape, transfer onto a baking sheet then bake for 10-15 minutes. 

6. Place cookies on a cooling rack, and cover in powdered sugar and vanilla sugar.

 In cause you can't buy ground almonds or hazelnuts, you can just use your kitchen machine to grind them up, I did it this time and they had quite large chunks of nuts, which I didn't really like, so if you can you should try and get pre-ground nuts.

Another attempt at Granola Bars

So after my first granola bar failure ( because all I got was something that resembled granola) I tried two recipes and they both turned out amazing. Except that one of the recipe was super soft ( more like a fusion of granola bars and banana bread- amazing combo) and the other was super crisp and crunchy, like a nature valley bar. The great thing about making them yourself is that you can add whatever you want: if you don't like raisins, don't put raisins, if you love walnuts add a load of walnuts! Either way you can do whatever you want with these two recipes, one actually requires some granola so you can use whatever  granola you like best, I used the same recipe as in the last 'granola bars' recipe. The oatmeal square recipe is one of my new favorites, it is unbelievably simple to make, and so versatile, the recipe comes from 'Cookies' by the cook's encylopedia's collection.
Oat Squares (Crispy Granola Bars)

• 55g (4 tablespoons) butter
• 1&1/2 tablespoons Molasses
• 65g (1/3 cup) brown sugar
• 90g (1 cup) rolled oats
• 1/4 cup nuts,dried fruit, or anything else you feel like adding, about a small handful

Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C

  1. Either in your microwave or in a pot on your stove, melt the butter,molasses and sugar. 

2.Add the oats and nuts or dried fruit of your choice. 

3.Put the mixture into a 8x8 inch tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Once cool, cut into squares.

Banana Bread like Granola Bars:

(Adapted from Williams Sonoma's 'Kids Cookies')

• 40g (1/3 cup) all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 ripe banana
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1&1/3 cup granola (weight depends on your granola)

Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C

1. Mash the banana in a bowl, using a fork then add the brown sugar,oil,honey,egg white and vanilla an mix until they are thoroughly combined.           

 2. Beat in the flour, baking soda and cinnamon until thoroughly combined. 

Fold in the granola, then pour the mixture into a 8x8 inch square baking pan.Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden brown After taking it out of the oven, let it cool then cut into 16 squares.

Pumpkin Pie

I think I set a new World Record-
for the world's thinnest pumpkin pie. Not something exactly to be proud of and not something I was planning on making Thanksgiving. It happened through two fatal moments: 1 being that I wanted to half the recipe because we were only three people (thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here, it isn't even a holiday) 2 I wanted to use my new tart (it wasn't even a pie dish!) dish, which is a lot bigger than the one I planned on using in the first place, which was about half the size. So I don't know about getting in the World book of Records but it still tasted amazing (although I really can't remember the last time I had some real pumpkin pie.) It's pretty rare to find Pumpkin pie let alone pumpkin puree, and if you tell someone the pie, a dessert even, they give you the weirdest look ever. Like pumpkin really? Anyway I didn't really use a specific recipe, all I used was a simple recipe but changed the spices, because apart from the fact that they don't sell pumpkin pie mix, I think it's so unnecessary.
So here's what I used:

• 100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
• 12 ounces evaporated milk
• 15 ounces pumpkin puree
• pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger

The recipe in itself is easy: just mix all the ingredients until well combined. Your supposed to pre-heat the oven to 425F/220C , then turn it down fifteen minutes after you put it in the oven, then bake ate 350F/180C for another 40 minutes. Turns out if you pie is really really thin like mine was, most of that time is completely unnecessary.

So really, I can't be expected to be able to make a good pumpkin pie, because I just can't remember the last time I had one. And it's not like I'll be running into any in Europe anyway. Still tasted delicious though- that's what counts right?

Pain au Chocolat et Croissants

French Friday 

I have been meaning to make croissants for a while now, and I haven't been afraid of making them or anything, I just haven't had enough time (although really they don't take that long to make.) These did not turn out how I wanted them to, how they were supposed to, but in the beginning it looked like it was going pretty well- and it was! But then I proofed the croissants while I was making the pain au chocolat and baked them at the same time (cause I was stupid enough to use  my oven as a proofer) which means that the croissants had proofed so much that they fell in on themselves. I got this recipe from a youtuber called nunusciuciu : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqv14cDy98Q and I think the fact that mine went all wrong has more to do with me than the recipe.
Ingredients:

• 130g icing sugar
• 100g butter+250 g
• 500ml milk
• 20g salt
• 3 eggs
• 1kg flour+200g
• 50g fresh yeast
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Method:

1. Melt 100g of the butter, then let cool slightly
2. In your mixer combine the melted butter,eggs,milk,sugar,salt and vanilla.
3. Crumble in the fresh yeast and mix thoroughly.
4. Then add the flour and mix until a dough forms.
5.  Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let proof in a warm place.
6. Combine 250g butter with 200g flour and place in the freezer.
7. Roll out the frozen butter-flour mixture to a small rectangle.
8. Roll out the dough to a rectangle about three times the size of the butter-flour square.
9. Place the butter-flour square in the middle of the dough rectangle and fold the dough over(so it looks like and envolope.
10. Roll it out to twice the size, then fold into three.
11. Roll it out triple the size then roll into three again. Repeat.
12. Roll out the dough to about 1cm, and cut lengthwise so you have long rectangles, then cut vertical so you have rectangles.
13. You can now either leave it as a rectangle to make pain au chocolat or cut each rectangle in half diagonally so that it makes two triangles.
14. Roll the triangles up from the wide end to make croissants. In the rectangle put a strip of chcolate on both ends of the rectangle and roll towards the middle until both meet. Place seam side down on the baking sheet.
15. Let the shapes proof for 1-2 hours until risen.
16. Bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Potato Waffles

Waffle Wednesday
When I was a kid my grandmother used to make me bavarian potato pancakes. I loved them but we never had any at home but I loved their unique taste and then I started wondering if I could make them into waffles. The same way people keep changing cake recipe into cupcake recipes, to make them the same kind or a classic flavor just in cupcake version. So I decided to make Reiberdatschi (that's what the potato pancakes are called) as waffles, and they turned out amazing! I didn't even need a recipe because it's one of those recipes where you have a lot of free room, to add ingredients, make mistakes and it's the easiest thing to make. All you do is throw some potatoes,eggs,garlic, oinons and flour in a blender-and it's ready.
Reiberdatschi Waffles

• 750g Potatoes
• 1 onion (medium)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• pinch of salt

Method:

Pre-heat your Waffle iron

1.Peel and cut the potatoes into 1-inch squares.

2. Peel and cut the oinion and garlic.

3. Place the potaoes,oinion,garlic eggs,flour and salt in a blender and blend until completely combined. (it's doesn't have to be perfectly smooth)

4. Generously oil your waffle iron and add one cup of the mixture.

Vanilla Blue Oreos

So it's another monday and it happens to be my birthday too. I love birthday cakes but this year I didn't feel like having one ( I didn't want to make my own, and I didn't get one) and since I did want to make myself a homemade recipe and I love oreos - I just decided to make them. And let me tell you they are way better than the store bought kind, although they are not exactly the same thing. Since I was making them myself I could color them so I added some blue coloring and they turned out gorgeous. The first batch turned out way to fat so they look a lot more like whoopie pies than they do like oreos. I found this recipe at Handle the Heat, although I have the feeling that most oreo recipes originate back to Smitten Kitchen. 
Oreos (from Handle the Heat)
For the cookies:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 large egg

Filling

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 375F

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until just combined. 

2. Add the egg, and mix until light and fluffy.

3. Then add the flour,baking soda,baking powder  and cocoa.

4. Form the dough into little balls, and then flatten them out well.

5. Bake for 7-8 minutes, then lay them on a wire rack to cool.

6. In a large bowl mix together the butter,sugar and vanilla. Tint it a pretty color too if you want. 

Cake Pops

I have heard of them, read about them, seen them but never tried any. Cake Pops. I was first super-happy about making them but the longer I was making them the weirder it felt. I made cupcakes instead of cake because I thought it would take less time to bake, although really it didn't. Then came the weird bit, uncasing all the cupcakes, crumbling them all up, making frosting (which was sane), and then mixing it all up into this mass of cake and frosting. When I finished that I just kind of just stared at the brown sticky lump in my bowl. After I got over the fact that I entirely destroyed a dozen cupcakes, and ten mushed it all together. Then I rolled them all into little spheres, stuck popsicles sticks into them and dipped them into dark chocolate. I used my favorite chocolate cake, and vanilla cupcake recipes. I only used half of each recipe.

Chocolate Cake-(from the back of a hershey's cocoa box)

• 225g (2 cups) sugar
• 165g (3/4 cup) cocoa powder
• 1&1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1&1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• (1&3/4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs 
• 125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
• 250ml (1 cup) boiling water

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C

1. Sift the flour,cocoa,baking soda and powder,salt and sugar into a large bowl.
2. Add the eggs,milk,oil,vanilla and whisk thouroughly until no lumps remain.
3. Slowly add the boiling water and whisk until blended, don't worry if its really thin, it's supposed to be like that.
4. Bake in a cupcake tin for 20-25 minutes.

Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes:

• 225g (1&1/2 cups) self-rising flour
• 200 (1&1/4 cups) all purpose flour
• 200g (1 cup) butter
• 450g (2 cups) sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method: 

Pre-heat your oven to 350f/180C

1.  Cream together the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs, one at a time.

2. Then add the flours in thrre additions, alternating with the milk, then add the vanilla extract

3. Bake for 15 minutes until light brown.

Chocolate Buttercream

• 100g (1/2 cup) butter
• 200g ( about 2 cups) powdered sugar
• 50g (1/3 cup) dark chocolate,melted and cooled
• 2 tablespoons milk

Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, then add the melted chocolate.

Mix together until the buttercream and chocolate are completely blended, and no streaks remain. (although if you're making cake pops it doesn't matter too much)

 Vanilla Buttercream

• 100g (1/2 cup)butter
• 200g (about 2 cups) powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the milk and vanilla extract.

How to make Cake Pops:

1. Crumble the cupcakes into a bowl, but make sure to take off the liners. ( I use silicone, so that there's no wasting of paper,because they're not going anywhere)

2. Add the buttercream then mix together thouroughly, until it turns into one mixture.( no spots of just buttercream)

3. Then take spoonfuls of of the mixture and form into balls. 

4. Cool in your fridge for 30 minutes then poke popsicle sticks in the center of each cake ball. 5.Cool in you fridge for 30 minutes, while they are in the fridge melt the chocolate of your choice, then dip each cake pop in chocolate and sprinkle on colorful sprinkles. 

Since tomorrow is my birthday I thought it would be cute to use a cake pop (or ball because I took out the popsicle stick) instead of a slice of cake and stuck a candle in it. Nowadays anything with a birthday candle stuck in it, looks like a birthday cake, and the cake pop tasted just like a a slice of cake anyway.

Popcorn Caramel Salee

French Friday 
You might be wondering since when caramel popcorn is french, but if you think about the caramel part of caramel popcorn I'm sure you get why. Caramel essentially is not hard to make, but knowing when it's done is, either way for me it doesn't matter because I entirely messed it up anyway. I had a recipe on a postcard that I got from the Frankfurt book fair, and it was a caramel popcorn recipe that required butter,sugar,salt and condensed milk. I decided to make a simple caramel like I made when carmelising the pumpkin seeds, and left out the condensed milk, turns out I should have left out most of the butter too. After getting the butter out of the pan it turned out really well though.

Caramel Popcorn:

• 1/8 cup dried corn (for popcorn)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 100g (1/2 cup) sugar (such as caster or brown)
• 10g butter
• pinch of fleur de sel 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

1. In a large pot heat the vegetable oil on high for about 2-3 minutes, then add the corn kernels and cover with lid, allowing a space for ventilation. 
2. When the popping sound stops, take off the heat.
3. Pour your popcorn into a large bowl, then return the pot to the heat and add butter and sugar, melting on low.
4. Once the sugar has melted wait for it to turn an amber color, then take off heat, quickly add the fleur de sel and baking soda and pour over popcorn. Use a spatula to evenly distribute over the popcorn.
5. Lay the popcorn out in a single layer on a baking sheet, then if it's all stuck together,break it up.

Homemade Vanilla Ice-Cream

Make yourself some ice-cream. Go on, you know you deserve it, for something you did right. I love ice-cream, and luckily for me, so do a lot of other people on this lovely planet. If you've ever heard of Ben & Jerry's ice cream you probably love how lush and creamy it is. (if you haven't you're missing out on something) Although I am super lucky that they sell their products internationally (I can go to the store and buy it!!) it's usually hard to find more than 5 flavors. So the answer to every food item when you can't buy it: Make it yourself! And Ben & Jerry's made this a lot easier for people like you and me, they made a cookbook, which I absolutely adore. It's small, colorful and cheap even (hint,hint, gift idea) and has soooo many recipes that you won't be running out of ideas anytime soon. I started by making french vanilla then, covered some hazelnuts in dark chocolate, got some caramel and voila, new ice-cream flavor.
So here's the basic recipe:

• 2 eggs
• 150g (3/4 cup) sugar
•  500ml (2 cups) heavy cream
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

1. Whisk the eggs, until light and fluffy for about 3 minutes.

2. Slowly sprinkle in the sugar, and whisk until fully incorporated.

3. Add the milk,cream,vanilla extract and the vanilla bean, (cut the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the pulp) whisk until fully combined.

4. Then pour into your ice-cream machine and churn according to manufactures instructions.

 I didn't really measure out how many hazelnuts I used or how much ice-cream I had, I simply wanted to use what I had leftover from serving it to my friends (with the chocolate cheesecake)

For the one in the picture, just melt a little chocolate in your microwave, then add nuts of your choice and stir. Lay them on a piece if foil to cool and then add them to your ice-cream, and top with some caramel because that way it'll taste really good.

Custom Cake Making

 Things never seem to turn out as I want them to. Maybe it's because I've never made fondant before. Maybe it's because I wasn't careful enough. I wanted to make a a round pokeball cake. Perfectly spherical because I picked up a semi-spherical cake tin at the last flea market. Then I noticed that making a whole sphere is way to much cake, but that didn't change the fact that it needed over an hour to bake, and I was freaking out that it was burning. Then came the fondant: sticky, then too hard, then speckled with chocolate buttercream that  I had spread on the cake. I would love to say I fixed it, It turned out okay, or that no one will notice. All I can hope for is that it will taste good. One part of the cake did work out: The food coloring ( I just acquired black food coloring) which contrasts with the yellow of the cake to look a bit like pikachu. The recipe for the cake is from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, and it really is an old-fashioned favorite recipe, when my mother tried it she said it tasted just like what her grandmother used to make. (and she never says that when I make something)

Traditional Vanilla Birthday Cake:

• 200g (1cup) butter,softend
• 380g (2 cups) sugar
• 4 eggs
• 210g (1&1/2) cups all-purpose flour
• 210g (1&1/4) cups self-rising flour
• 250ml milk (1cup)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 350F/180C

1. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorperated.

2. Add the milk, alternating with the flours. Then add the vanilla extract.

3. Bake for 1 hour and ten minutes (if you are baking it as a whole batch in a semi-sphere) If you bake it in 3 normal 9-inch baking pans, bake for 20-25 minutes.

Chocolate Buttercream:

• 400g powdered sugar
• 200g butter
• 150g chocolate, melted and cooled

Method:

1. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar.

2. Then add the cooled chocolate and mix until combined and no streaks remain.

Fondant:

• 450g powdered sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon glucose
• Food Coloring

Method:

Combine all the ingredients and use an electric mixer to combine until a ball forms.

Roll it out using cornstarch-This is important or else you'll end up with cracks and holes in the fondant like I did!

It looks quite awful as you can probably see from the picture. And it isn't just a cake with imperfections that only the cake maker sees because they made it. The dark chocolate butter cream blotches really show from far away. Not that it  matters too much because people are always glad when you bake something for them. No matter how ugly this turns out I'm sure my friend Olivia would have been glad to get a cake anyway. (No matter how bad you are at baking, people will appreciate it-don't forget) Next time I'll know what to do so it doesn't end up like this. 'Experience is the name people give their mistake'-Oscar Wilde

Oatmeal Quince Waffles

Waffle Wednesday
I have been wanting to make oatmeal waffles for a while now. Then my mother asked if I could make waffles with quince in them, and I thought 'why not just  make a quince-oatmeal waffle? Chances are you don't have a  quince tree in your backyard ( I don't) so I also tried a plain oatmeal recipe which was amazing!!
Sadly I didn't make that recipe up by myself, its from Marna Heitz at allrecipe.com. The Quince waffle came out a bit soft, they weren't as crunchy on the outside as they could have been.  The oatmeal waffles are really tasty and I think they would go great with anything, sweet or savory, I think they would be awesome with blackberries in them. ( I ended up becoming addicted to this recipe and make it all the time, so I did make some with blackberries in them, only to notice that as much as I would like to love any form of heated fruit I don't. But if you do go ahead and give it a try add berries to the batter or pour warm fruit compote on top.)

Quince Waffles:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup yoghurt
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup grated quince (about three quince)

Method: 

Pre-heat your waffle iron

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the buckwheat flour,oats,baking powder,cinnamon,salt and all-purpose flour.

2. Add the milk, yogurt,eggs and mix to combine, then add the quince.

3. Pour the batter into your waffle iron and bake for 3 minutes. 

Oatmeal Waffles:

• 1&1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 1&1/2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar

Method:

Pre-heat your waffle iron

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats,baking powder,cinnamon and salt.

2. Then add the milk,eggs,and sugar and whisk until well blended. Then add the melted butter, and combine.

3. Bake in your waffle iron for 3:30 until golden brown.