team edward. scissorhands.

so i'd never thought i'd say this, but i've made an obcene soup. pretty undexpected.

 
had a friend over for lunch and i was going to make borscht  (tough without a recipe, so don't kill me for not making a proper borsjtj. could have called it beetroot soup but where's the fun in that?) but although it turned out very nice i couldn't get over the feeling this soup gave me.. it was rude?!


so why obcene? well. the color. bright red that mostly resembles blood. if i were to throw a halloweenparty i'd serve this as a starter. though i'd probably exclude the garlic. any non sparkling vampire whould love this soup (sans garlic as said) i can't really explain. but yeah, the f* you of soup somehow.


now to begin with, i burnt the unions. so back to the choppingboard. then we had some wine and everything went smoothly from there. (don't worry, it was after twelve, and i needed wine for the soup) so it really is a no noncense dish, though keep an eye on the unions...this made a big batch, so i had it for lunch a day later with some fresh out of the oven home baked baguette. which was really nice.

 the recipe.
(i made this as a midweek dinner so measurments are approximated)
beetroots about 7 small (this made quite a large batch so might want to add/subtract depending)
celeriac about 6*6*4 cm (6 long, 6 wide, 4 deep)
2 average sized potatoes
one small (half of a larger one) onion
5cm leek (white part)
3 cloves of garlic (my friend has a cold)
splash of wine


chop up the onion, leek and garlic, and pan fry on medium heat. (whatch so it don't burn) when it's softened add the wine. remove the pot from the stove and add the vegetables, peeled and cut into slices, pour on water, barely covering the veggies. put it to boil and let simmer. now depending on size and ehm. freshness? of the beetroot, boilingtime ranges from 30 to 60 min. (i also added i think 2 bouillion cube (stock cube for all you non americans :)


but season to taste, i used a fairly slage splash of wine, since i wanted that aciddity, but balsamic vinegar or lemonjuice whould also have sufficed. when the beetroots are ready, use a blender to mix it togeather. if needed add more water. serve with sourcream or creme fraiche, and some nice bread. (vodka on the side is optional, but might improve the taste)

so i just have to explain. i'm not going to make any grand cakes or macaroons or anything to difficult in the future, see this is my stove.

jupp. plus i haven't learnt it yet with the temperatures and such so everything i make is an adventure. but hey. at least i can get some exitement for free.

Autum is here

Time for a new post, yesterday I made my first tarte tatin ever.
But I'll get back to that in a moment first I have some news, because of lack of time (and more importantly money) I've put the daring bakers challenges on ice, I know it's sad because it's fun and rewarding to participate but as I said can't do it at the moment.

So how come I can post other recipes then? Well it's easy, I love to bake and therefore I always have certain ingredients at home but the challenges often require special ingredients and time. And since I'm finishing my university degree I don't have a lot of spare time or money...

Enough about that back to the tarte, I got both the inspiration and the recipe from Masterchef Australia but I adapted it somewhat.

Apple Tarte Tatin

Serves 2 (or 4 depending on how much you want, I ate 3/4 last night...)

4 Summer red apples (or any tangy cooking apples of the season, I would avoid any mass produced variety like Granny Smith or Golden delicious and get a locally produced apple instead)

1 tbs lemon juice (or enough to coat all the apples and prevent them from browning)

1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar

20g unsalted butter, chopped

Ready-rolled puff pastry sheet

Cream, to serve

1. Preheat oven to 220C (200C fan-forced)

2. Peel apples, cut into quarters, remove cores (cutting each quarter at the core so it has a "flat" side), and toss the quarters in a large bowl with the lemon juice.

3. Using a 20cm frying pan as a guide cut pastry into a round slightly larger than the pan, prick with a fork.

4. Melt butter in a 20cm non-stick frypan (I used a iron skillet) over medium-high heat. Cover with the remaining sugar. Cook over medium-low heat, shaking pan occasionally to spread around any dark spots that appear, until a rich caramel forms.

5. Place apple quarters into pan, rounded side down, arranging them around pan. Cut remaining apple to fill gaps. Cook the apples over medium heat for about 10 minutes until caramel is bubbling up in the pan, shaking pan occasionally to prevent burnt spots (watch out and rather than burning the apples take them of before the 10 min are up).

6. Lay the pastry over the apples, tucking any protruding edges around edges of pan.

7. Place the pan in the oven, cook for about 25 minutes (the time depends on what kind of pastry you use mine was done after 10 minutes in the oven), or until the puff pastry has risen and cooked. The pastry should be dry and flaky. Stand tarte in pan for 10 minutes (try and twist/spin the tarte in the pan and if it twists it's not burned to the bottom of the skillet) before carefully turning out onto a serving plate. Serve with cream.



Like the custard maniac I am I would recommend you serve it with a vanilla custard sauce.

Chocolate bananacake

Herbert is probably going to kill me for posting this recipe, she hates bananas and I really do mean hate, but I'm going to do it anyways.

The first time I tasted the cake was when Annabell brought it for cake-day at the university and it tasted like banana-split, one of my favorite desserts. However I didn't get the recipe so I searched the net for a similar one and found it on http://www.matklubben.se/recept/choklad-_och_banankaka_63106.html, so I'm hoping it will turn out like Annabells cake because that was the best banana cake I've ever tasted.


Chocolate banana cake
120 g room temperature butter
1 1/2 dl sugar (preferably unrefined sugar)
3 eggs
3 ripe bananas
3 1/2 dl flour
1 1/2 dl cacao
2 tsp baking powder
100g dark chocolate

Whisk butter and sugar until fluffy, then ad one egg at a time. Cut the bananas into the batter and whisk until smooth (you probably wont get it totally smooth but give it a try) then ad all the other ingredients and whisk until smooth and blended.
Pour the batter into a greased dish and put in the oven (175°C) for 30 min-1 hour, depends on the dish (mine was in for approximately 45 min).
Take it out and let it cool.



Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana

She's gonna kill me for that one as well, because she's the on who saw/found it first, but I think it fits with the recipe, so tough luck :)

So after trying the cake last night I've come to the conclusion that you should ad one more banana, cut down on the cacoa so that you have 4 dl flour and 1 dl cacao, and watch out the cake is very heavy and is easily over cooked. As I've written before mine was in for about 45 min and 30 min would have been better however the cake is good either way you make it.

Custard school

Right now I'm listening to a lecture about solid waste management (not so fun) and as a precaution (so I don't fall asleep) I'm posting my recipe on custard, since Herbert neglected to post it.
The reason for that might be that I don't really use a recipe, I just throw stuff together and it becomes a great custard. But I will try to explain whats in it;

about 1-1 1/2 dl milk
about 1-1 1/2 dl whipping cream
1 egg yolk
2-3 tbs cornflour
2-3 tbs sugar (or as much as you like)
1-1 1/2 tbs vanilla sugar (or essence)

Put everything except the vanilla in a saucepan and bring to a boil, when the mixture boils it will thicken fast so turn the heat of when the first bubble appear (remember to stir the entire time or it'll burn).
When the custard has reached the wanted thickness you remove the pan from the hot plate and stir in the vanilla sugar and let it cool down.

As you might have noticed it's not really important whats in but how the result turns out so go into the kitchen and experiment!

an austrian princesse

so lets start off with a bit of a history lesson; in sweden we have this gateau that is pretty much our standard-cake when it comes to celebrations and such. it's called a princess-cake and the name derives from an old cook-book called "the princess's cookbook" published in the 1930s, written by a former teacher of the royal princesses Märtha, Margareta and Astrid. the cake was first dubbed as green cake but thanks to it popularity among the princesses, it got renamed. it's made with a layered spongecake, filled with rasberryjam, custard and whipped cream and covered with green marcipan lid. * that was the princesse- part.

now to the austrian. the sacher- torte is made as two dense layers of chocolate-cake, with a filling of apricotjam and chocolate-ganasch topping. it originates from the the hotel sacher in vienna, austria in the 1832. **

now to the fun part. MY gateau. a mix between the princesse and the sacher, a dense chocolate base, with apricot and orange jam (jupp, i changed it. how rude!) another layer of cake, naja's custard, again- cake. and then whipped cream with chocolate shavings (stracciatella-style) and to top it of a cover of BLUE marcipan. the recipe is adapted from the cookbook "vår kokbok" (rabén prisma)

(made this one into a mini-gateau so for a standard size, 21 cm pan, double all amounts)

Cake

75 g dark chocolate 75%
75 g margarine or butter
1 dl sugar
2 eggs
3/4 dl flour
1 ml baking powder (or 1/4 tsp)

oven 175 degrees celsius

pre-heat the oven, melt the chocolate in the oven or nuke it. grease and (meh. can't find the proper word.. bread? you know what i mean..breading?! what do you expect really? i'm swedish and i'm blond *ahem* life is hard for me.. so. breading the pan. applying breadcrumbs to a greased pan. there. happy?)

beat softened butter and sugar together,

then add one egg at a time.

now the batter will look iffy but adding the melted chocolate will fix that so blend that in and finally mix in the flour and baking powder and

you'll get this fluffy, rich batter that resembles chocolate mousse. (hehe, swedish chef reference. get it? chocolate moose)

pour into a springform pan and bake for ca 25 minutes (for regular size 30-35 min)

the cake should be slightly gooey in the inside. let it cool before cutting it into three layers. on the first add the jam (a rather thick layer, about 0.5 dl), then cake, custard, cake.

for the final layer whip 2 dl cream (you could use some more cream , if you want a thicker layer, see the finished cake) and grate 20 gram of dark chocolate (80 %)

blend together and spread evenly on top of the cake

and some on the side to make the marcipan stick. now, the cream should be stiff so it'll hold for the marcipan, but for the sides i added some custard, which is why it looks different, mainly because i wanted to be sure that the cream would cover the entire cake.

to make the marcipan top, make an approximate circle on a baking sheet,grate the coloured marcipan (or paint afterward) evenly in the circle

then place another sheet on top and use a rolling pin to even it out. (oups over-using the word even)

place it on the cake and

sprinkle some caster-sugar.


i made the pattern with a stencil cut from a regular paper, you could use a paper doily. a quick tip- if the paper is to stiff and sticks out, spray the paper lightly with water so it's moist then place on the cake. for spreading the sugar, use a meshed tea infuser, which i find is easier to use then a strainer.

smaklig spis!

* i knew most of this but used wikipedia for safety. it was nothing new.
** same thing here.

Let them eat cake!

My family (and I) love cheesecake, they even get the occasional withdrawal symptom. This cheesecake is quickly becoming my signature dish mostly because I despise having to make the same thing more than once and with cheesecake you can experiment and do loads and loads of things.

The recipe I'm using is adapted from the book "Desserts", Parragon Books Ltd and it's almost impossible to mess up.

Cheesecake
(originally a manhattan cheesecake, this one I made without the crème fraiche layer)



For 8-10 portions you will need:

6 tbs butter
200 g smashed up digestive crackers
sunflower oil for the dish
400 g cream cheese
2 large eggs
140 g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
4 1/2 dl crème fraiche

Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs, spread the mixture into a dish with removable sides (if you're not using oven paper you should brush the dish with oil before pouring the crumbs in).
Whisk cheese, eggs, 100 g of the sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla until smooth, pour it onto the crumbs and bake for approximately 20 min or until firm in the middle of the oven on 190°C.



Once it's done, take it out and let to cool for 20 min but leave the oven on. While the cake is cooling down prepare the next step by mixing the crème fraiche with the remaining sugar and vanilla. Pour the mixture onto the cake and bake for 10 min.
Let the cake cool down and put it in the fridge over night or at least for 8 hours.

When it comes to the topping you can do many things, this time I used store-bought jello (the kind you just ad water to), and I added some food-coloring to one of them to make some contrast and since Herbert is a vegetarian I also made a quick blueberry jam;



You take about 2 dl blueberries and ad as much sugar you want (depend on the sweetness of the berries) and about 1 - 1 1/2 tbs cornflower and bring it to a boil and then let it simmer until you get the consistency you want.



I have to warn you though, I find this batch a little small for 8-10 people because if you're in the mood you can probably eat the whole thing with only three partners in crime.

Vacation

So I haven't posted the recipe from the challenge yet but it's coming, if you can't wait go to http://thedaringkitchen.com/ where you can read more (the recipe is also there).
The reason for my tardiness is simple I'm not at home so much right now and we just had a party for my nan who turns 80 on the 16th august.

Been nursing a hangover for about two days, but getting better so to spoil it I'm heading to the pub tonight. Will be posting again soon.