June Harvest No 1: Rhubarb!

I know Calgary probably has one of the shortest growing season, and I am sure a lot of you harvested their first vegetables and herbs in April/May already.
We are still waiting for most things to be ready for harvest. Mostly what we planted and what is ready now is greens, such as fennel greens, dill, kale or spinach.

Therefore it just fills me with pride and joy to walk into our garden and pick something more substantial that I can actually cook with rather than just using it for salad, such as rhubarb.

Don't get me wrong, salad is great.
But rhubarb? That's about child hood memories of grandma's rhubarb crumble or rhubarb compote with vanilla ice cream.

Wil is already thinking about making rhubarb wine (as well as saskatoon berry wine, dandelion wine, elderflower wine etc.).

We'll see how that works out.

I'll go for the compote and cake for now!

Chocolate-Juniper Cake with Milk Jam Crème Fraîche

I made this a while ago because I thought spicing chocolate cake with juniper would make quite an interesting combination.
I found the recipe on "Bon Appetit"-blog, and yes, their photos are much nicer than mine, I know.

However, as predicted it tasted very unique (lots of gin/juniper flavor going on) and/but really good.

Original recipe found here!

Aside from the fact that I learned that chocolate and juniper are indeed a good match, this recipe also taught me something else, which is:

WHAT TO DO WHEN CAKE TURNS OUT DRY INSTEAD OF MOIST AND JUICY!

Just cut it up, throw it in the freezer. Then pull it out, roll it in sugar, place it in a hot frying pan and sear it from each side until the sugar has caramelized. 

Et voilá: dry cake turns into moist cake with a little bit of a crunch from the caramelized sugar.
It's fantastic!

I will definitely do this from now on!

Anyway, here is the recipe:

For the cake

Ingredients

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 2 teaspoons (heaping) juniper berries
• 225g or 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 335 or 1 2/3 cups sugar plus more for coating
• 75g or 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 175ml or 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 165ml or 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs

Special equipment:

A spice mill - I just used mortar and pestel and crushed the juniper berries with some sugar

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Coat a 33x23x6cm/13x9x2" glass baking dish with nonstick spray. Line bottom with parchment paper; spray parchment and set aside. Toast juniper berries in a small skillet over medium heat until aromatic, 2–3 minutes. Let cool. Finely grind in spice mill (or mortar and pestel)

Sift flour, 1 2/3 cups sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and ground juniper berries into a large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, oil, eggs, and 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. water in a medium bowl. 

Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Pour batter into prepared baking dish; smooth top.

Bake cake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 35–40 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Cover and chill in freezer until frozen, about 2 hours. 

DO AHEAD: Can be made 3 weeks ahead. Wrap in 2 layers of plastic; keep frozen.

Unwrap cake and invert onto a work surface; discard parchment. Using a long serrated knife, trim cake to form clean edges. Cut cake in half lengthwise, then cut each half crosswise into 3-3,5cm/1 1/4-inch–wide bars.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour a layer of sugar onto a plate. Roll each bar in sugar, coating completely. Working in batches, caramelize cake in skillet, turning with tongs to brown evenly, about 30 seconds per side per batch (be careful; the sugar burns quickly). Serve warm, with Milk Jam Crème Fraîche.

For the Milk Jam Crème Fraîche

Ingredients

• 475ml or 2 cups whole milk
• 130g or 1 cup sugar
• 240g or 1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

Preparation

Bring milk and sugar to a boil in a medium pot over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar (take care that milk doesn’t boil over). Reduce heat to low. Simmer gently, whisking occasionally, until milk is thick, turns light reddish-brown, and measures scant 1 cup, 40–45 minutes. Transfer jam to a heatproof jar; let cool. 

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover; chill. 

Or you could also simply use sweetened condensed milk.

Whisk together 1 Tbsp. milk jam and crème fraiche in a small bowl. Add more milk jam to taste to sweeten, if desired.

Note

As mentioned earlier, the cake turned out a little dry. Don't know if it was my fault and I baked it too long, or that's just the way this one is supposed to be...maybe in order o not fall apart when searing (?). 

But, yeah, freezing it, rolling it in sugar and searing it certainly did the trick.

This can probably be done with any other cake that's too dry, and it even gives it a little bit of a wow-factor.

I mean...fried and caramelized cake...could be worse.

On an unrelated side-note:

Wil and I spent our Sunday in the garden today and prepared it for the upcoming growing season.
Our onions, garlic and chive bed is going to be quite impressive, and the rhubarb is on it's way, as well.

And we found our first violet. Looks a little rough...but hey.

Pumpkin Pie and Northern Lights

As you all know from one of my earlier posts I made a ton of pumpkin puree the other day.
In order to give all that left-over puree a good home I decided to be a good North american immigrant and bake a classic pumpkin pie.
Therefore I dug out a pretty good recipe on the internet, for both, a crunchy pie crust that won't get soggy and a delicious pie filling and topping.
I altered the pie filling and topping a tiny little bit, and it turned out delicious!

For the pie crust you'll need:
(the pie crust can be made two weeks ahead)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/4 cup (or more) ice water

Combine first 3 ingredients. Add butter. Using your hands, knead everything until crumbly. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup ice water; mix until dough is even, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. For two 12-inch round crusts, divide dough in half. Roll out each dough half on floured surface to 12-inch round. Wrap each crust in plastic, then foil, and freeze. Thaw in refrigerator overnight before using.

When preparing the crust, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Transfer crust to 9-inch pie dish. Fold edges under and crimp decoratively. Evenly prick crust with a fork several times. Freeze crust 20 minutes. 

Line crust with nonstick foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until crust is set, about 20 minutes. Gently remove foil and beans. Return crust to oven and bake until partially cooked and golden brown around edges, pressing down on crust with back of spoon if bubbles form, about 15 minutes. Cool crust on rack. Maintain oven temperature.

For the pie filling of one 30cm/12inch pie crust (which will fit into a 20-24cm/9inch pie dish) you'll need:

1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• a dash of allspice
• a dash of ground nutmeg
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Whisk brown sugar, eggs, sea salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, allspice, nutmeg, lemon juice and cloves in medium bowl. 

Add pumpkin and cream and whisk until well blended and smooth.

Pour filling into crust. Bake pie until filling is firm, covering crust with foil collar if browning too quickly, about 30 minutes.

For the topping I used roasted and ground pumpkin seeds and some leftover dough for decoration.

But as the original recipe suggests you can also use walnut pieces or any other nuts...

Sprinkle topping evenly over top of pie. Reduce oven temperature to 160°C/325°F; continue to bake pie until filling is set and slightly puffed in center, about 15 minutes longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. 

Serve!

Note:

I know it's not as orange and bright colored as the pumpkin pie fillings you get when using canned pumpkin puree. But it tastes way better, and you actually know what you're eating...

PS:

We saw Northern Lights over Calgary last night! So beautiful...

Tarte Tatin with Whisky Apples and Blackberries

Our last trip to the woods didn't really work out the way we thought. 
Due to a lack of rain and high temperatures we hardly found any mushrooms. 
What seemed to become a rather disappointing trip turned into a quite successful day otherwise.

We went home with a basket full of wild carrots, Canadian golden rut, sea buckthorn, blackberries 
(so sweet, and definitely the best blackberries I ever had!) and apples, 
that we stole picked from trees near the forest...and at least a few mushrooms.

Wil made a weirdly delicious cold carrot dill soup for which he used the wild carrots 
and our homegrown dill seeds for flavoring 
(the carrots we picked were to hard and chewy to eat, but very aromatic!). 
We used the golden rut for tea. Not sure what to do with the sea buckthorn, yet. 
It's still sitting in the fridge waiting for something to happen...

But with the apples and the blackberries I decided to make my first Tarte Tatin. 
And let me tell you, that was not that easy. 
I probably didn't choose the best recipe... 
But I'll do it again. It turned out pretty well!

Ingredients 

200g flour

50g sugar 

100g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

1 dash of salt

1 dash of cinnamon

plain flour for dusting

150-200g blackberries

1,25-1,5 kg apples (e.g. Cox orange or Granny Smith)

2 Tbsp Whisky

2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

150 g sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

75 g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

For the shortcrust quickly mix flour, sugar,butter flakes salt and cinnamon until it comes together in a dough. 
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Peel apples, remove the cores and cut each into 8-12 wedges. 
Put the wedges in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. 
Add whisky and cinnamon.

Take a heavy-bottomed pan and evenly sprinkle the bottom with sugar. 
Place on the hob over medium heat, turning the pan frequently and making sure the sugar doesn't burn. 
Let the sugar caramelize. It's about right when it turns golden brown. 

Remove from heat and place one half of the blackberries over the bottom of the pan. 
Arrange the apple wedges on top of them and place the other half of the blackberries on top of the apple wedges. 

Dot the butter flakes on top.

Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour and roll out your shortcrust until it's big enough to cover your tarte pan. 
Carefully lay the shortcrust over the top of the pan.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.

Using oven gloves take a plate that is larger than the tarte pan and place it on top of the pan.

Holding the plate and the pan firmly together, quickly and carefully flip both, so that the pan is on top and the plate is on the bottom. Slowly remove the pan. The tarte should be left on the serving place with the fruits on top.

Let cool down for a few minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice or custard.

PS: 

I will try a different shortcrust recipe next time. The dough was really hard to roll out. It was very crumbly, which is a common problem with shortcrust, I know. But still, I had better ones before. Even though it tasted really good.

The reason could also be that I used whole wheat flour with the regular flour as well...

I saw on some websites that you can also just use a cast iron pan for it. I'll do that next time, as well!

You don't necessary need to marinate the apple wedges in whisky. It still tastes really good without it.

Perfect Lava Cake

This post makes me really happy. Some of you may remember that in one of my first blogposts I attempted to bake a warm chocolate soufflé with a liquid inside. 

Well, looking back now I have to admit that didn't work out that well. 

Even though it was still a tiny bit liquid inside, it simply wasn't chocolaty enough.

Good, but not good enough... I know, I kind of raved about how good it was. 

But let's face it: It was my first blogpost, I was all excited and proud. But with a little bit more experience, I can only recommend you to FORGET ABOUT THIS RECIPE! 

I found a lava cake recipe that is way better and easier to prepare. And I can guarantee you that it will stay perfectly liquid inside, if you follow my instructions.

What you need:

6 eggs (medium-sized, at room temperature)

225g / 7.6 oz refined sugar

90g / 3 oz flour

170g / 5.7 oz bittersweet chocolate 

(good quality, like Valhrona or Lindt, with at least 60% cocoa)

170g / 5.7 oz butter

some butter and sugar for the soufflé cups

Directions:

Preheat oven to 160°C/320°F.

Using a hand blender mix eggs, sugar and flour in a large bowl.

Melt chocolate and butter over a bain marie (bowl in a hot water bath). 

Slowly add the chocolate-butter to the egg-sugar mix while blending.

Butter the cups and sprinkle with sugar.

Fill each cup to about 2/3 or 3/4 with the chocolate batter (the lava cake won't rise that much).

Place cups on top of a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. 

My lava-cake needed much longer. Could be because I have a gas-oven where the heat does not circulate that evenly. I did one test cake and checked after 8 minutes for the first time, and then every 2-3 minutes.That way you get a good idea of how long they need to bake.

You can tell the lava cakes are perfect, when the edges are firm, but the center is still runny. 

Take the cakes out of the oven, carefully run a knife  around the edges to loosen the cakes from the cups.

Invert the cakes onto plates, garnish if you like and serve immediately!

Notes: 

• I served hot cherry-elderflower sauce with mine!

• To make it a little less sweet, try using brown instead of refined white sugar. I haven't done tried that before, therefore I don't know if it'll work, though...

Camembert Tarte with Pears

With the change of the seasons the smell of change is in the air and this means busy, busy times over here in Berlin. That's why I haven't been cooking much new stuff lately.

But I thought I share this nice recipe here with you. I made the tarte shortly after the calvados chicken (previous post) cause I had plenty of cidre left. And there is some of it required in this tarte, as well.

I found the recipe in the lates issue of Lust auf Genuss mag, again.

I love tartes and quiche and savory cakes! They look pretty, taste good and are so French!

Also camembert in combination with apples and/or pears is so, so good, 

and the tarragon (I LOVE TARRAGON!) is so aromatic and adds a wonderful flavour to it. 

What you need:

either a square (28x12cm/11x5inch) or round (∅28cm/∅11inch) tarte baking tin.

250g / 2 cups all-purpose flour

salt, pepper

75ml / 1cup water

50g / 2oz. cold butter

dried pulses for blind-baking

2 sprigs tarragon

3 pears (à approx. 100g / 4oz.)

1-2 tsb lemon juice

250g / 9oz. Camembert 

200g / 7oz. sour cream

4 Tbsp cidre (alternatively apple juice)

2 eggs

Directions:

Mix flour with 1/2 tsp salt. Cut the butter in flakes and mix into the flour.

Add 75ml water and, using your hands, knead everything to a smooth dough.

Form the dough to a ball, wrap it up in plastic foil and cool in the fridge for at approx. 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Grease the baking tin.

On a floured surface roll out the dough so that it is a little bigger than the baking tin.

Place the dough in the baking tin and press on the edges. Prick the bottom with a fork several times.

Cover the bottom with baking paper and place the dried pulses on top of it.

Pre-bake/blind-bake in the middle of the preheated oven for approx 15minutes.

Take the dough out of the oven, remove the pulses and baking paper and let it cool down.

Pull off the tarragon leaves from the sprigs. Wash the pears, halve them, remove the cores and cut them along their length into thin slices. Sprinkle the slices with lemon juice.

Remove the rind from the camembert and cut the cheese into slices.  Mix sour cream, cidre, eggs and tarragon leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Place first the pears then the camembert slices on the bottom of the pre-baked dough. Pour the egg-tarragon-cream over it and let the tarte bake in the middle of the oven for about 20-25minutes.

Last but not least, let the tarte cool down for 5 minutes before serving.

Et voilà!

Even though this tarte is more of a savory meal, the pairs add quite a bit of sweetness to it. Therefore you're actually best to have it for dessert, paired with a nice digestif or dessert wine.

PS: 

I thought the dough tasted pretty bland. Next time I definitely would add more salt and some sugar to it, and maybe use whole wheat flour. I could have also baked it longer...both just the dough, 

and the whole tarte.

The other thing was that it was far too much egg-tarragon-cream for the tarte. It almost felt like a quiche.

I'd rather pour less over the dough or use a bigger baking tin. Maybe it works better with a square one. 

Last but not least, I would always recommend to take nicely riped camembert. It's harder to remove the rind, cause it's so soft. So what you don't get removed I would just leave on. But I was thinking that a second strong cheese would be a nice addition, as well. I was thinking about grated gruyere or parmesan to sprinkle on top...

Coffee banana muffins with dark chocolate chunks

I made these coffee banana muffins with dark chocolate chunks a while ago,
but didn't have the time to write about them, yet.

If you happen to have over riped bananas at home that you don't feel like eating anymore,
don't throw them away!
You can make great banana bread with those.

I decided to turn the banana bread I usually make into muffins and brought them over to our friends Anna and Beau who were having some friends from Edmonton staying at their house.

Because our friend Anna is allergic to nuts and Wil isn't such a big fan of walnuts I replaced the walnuts with dark chocolate chunks. 

No matter if you decide to make the banana bread or muffins, the recipe stays the same. Only the baking time is different.

What you need:

3 ripe bananas

200g dark chocolate chunks or 100g chopped walnuts

3 Tbsp strong coffee (warm not hot!)

110 g margarine

190g brown sugar

1/2 package of vanilla sugar

2 large eggs

300g all purpose flour

2Tbsp baking powder

1 dash of salt

Preheat the oven to 170ºC.

Remove the skin, then mash the bananas with a fork until mushy.

In a large bowl mix margarine, eggs, coffee, sugar and vanilla sugar with the mashed bananas and with a handmixer whisk everything until smooth.

Mix flour, salt and baking powder.

Slowly add the flour mix to the other ingredients and whisk everything well for about 2 minutes.

Mix in the dark chocolate chunks/chopped walnut.

Pour the batter into either a greased muffin or cake tin. The batter will rise in the oven. Therefore each muffin form only needs to be filled half way.

Bake the muffins for approx. 20 minutes.

The banana bread will need approx. 50 minutes in the oven.

Let everything cool down for a bit, then serve!