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.

Homemade Nutella

Everyone who knows me, also knows that my chocolate-obsession
is rooted in a life long addiction to nutella.
Living in the GDR as a child, my Dad would sometimes buy forbidden products
from the capitalistic West as a special treat.
I learned at a very young age that Nutella has to be seen as a reward and special gift
for living in a communist prison.
And so my chocolate/nougat-obsession began...

I'm pretty picky about Nutella substitutes and plagiarism and never found an alternative chocolate spread that gets even close to the original.
That's why I was pretty sceptical about making Nutella style chocolate spread myself.

But the fact of doing it myself was pretty exciting,
even though it didn't turn out to be exactly like Nutella in the end.
This doesn't mean it was bad.
Just different...
I will definitely try making it again some time and vary a bit with the ingredients.

As it was my first time I pretty much followed the instructions and did it like this:

Roast  

200g of hazelnuts 

until golden brown (don't burn them!)

Mix them in a blender until they turn to hazelnut butter. Be patient this will take a while!

It will look like nothing is happening but if you keep going  all of a sudden the mass will turn creamy and buttery!

In the meantime melt 

250g dark chocolate 

in a hot water bath, by putting the chocolate in a small saucepan/bowl that is sitting/swimming in a bigger bowl with hot simmering (not boiling!) water.

When the chocolate is melted add one  

can of sweetened condensed milk. 

Stir until even. I scraped out 

1 vanilla bean 

and added that to the chocolate mix, as well. Pour in the hazelnut butter and combine everything. You may wanna  

add some  hot milk (about 125ml, but you'll see how much you need),

as well, in order to liquify the spread and make it smoother and creamier.

Pour everything in a

preserving jar 

and let cool down to room temperature.

Serve!

PS: I found the original recipe here.
Next time I will use a some milk cocolate, as well, and more hazelnuts.
I also will roast the hazelnuts longer.
I was just scared to burn them...But they could have spent a little longer in the pan.
Maybe some roasted almonds, as well.
Oh, and I will probably add some vanilla extract.
It's more intense than the vanilla bean which I can hardly taste...

Cinnamon Rolls!

Yesterday was Wil's first Berlin art opening at Staatsgalerie.
For this very special occasion and also because I have been promising it to quite a bunch of people i decided to make some cinnamon rolls.
From what I heard people liked them even though they were cold by the time the opening started.
I like this recipe a lot because it is just plain and straight forward without any weird ingredients or extras.

Here is what you need:

For the dough -

20g fresh yeast

1 tsp salt

250 ml warm milk

85g melted butter

125g sugar

2 eggs

500g bread flour (best for yeast!)

For the cinnamon filling - 

125g brown sugar

2½ tbsp cinnamon

85g soft butter

For the icing - 

125g soft butter

375g confectioner's sugar

35g cream cheese

½tsp vanilla extract

a dash of salt

First in a big bowl mix yeast with warm milk, sugar, melted butter and salt until smooth.

Add the eggs then the flour and knead the dough on lowest speed for at least 3 minutes.

Increase the speed and knead for another 5 minutes.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and placed at a warm spot let the dough rise for approx. an hour.

Don't worry if it takes longer. It will rise eventually...

In the meantime you can prepare the cinnamon-sugar mix for the filling such as the icing.

For the filling mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. 

Set aside.

For the icing whisk soft butter and cream cheese with confectioner's sugar, vanilla extract and a dash of salt until everything is thick and creamy. I honestly find 35g of cream cheese is not enough. You can add more of that and less sugar if you like. You can be quite flexible with the icing...
Refigerate.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Place the dough on a floured worktop and knead it with your hands.

Roll it out on the floured worktop to a size of approx. 50-55cm length, 40cm wide and 0.5cm thick.

Equally first spread the 85g of soft butter then sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mix over it.

Start at the longer end (55cm) and roll dough up.
Cut the roll into equally-sized 4.5cm wide pieces. 

If these seem too big for you, just cut them smaller.

Place the small rolls with the swirls facing the top on a baking paper covered baking sheet or in a greased baking pan.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

They should be soft and chunky.

Therefore better check after ten to make sure they don't turn too dark and crsipy.

While still warm spread the cream cheese icing over the buns so that each is covered with it.

Enjoy best while warm!

PS:

These buns are indeed sweet.

Therefore I use less sugar for the yeast dough, about 100g instead of the recommended 125g. 

They are still really, really sweet after that especially because of the icing...

Hefezopf (braided sweet yeast bun)

Baking with yeast has always been like Russian roulette for me.
Sometimes the dough turned out perfectly soft and fluffy, but more often it was tougher than concrete.

Luckily the April issue of German food magazine Essen&Trinken has a special on how to make the perfect Hefezopf and therefore how to work the evil yeast dough.

The Hefezopf recipe is fantastic.
Besides the ingredients all you need is a stand mixer or a well trained biceps and stamina.

Ingredients:

250 ml warm milk

20g fresh yeast

75g sugar

1 large egg

1.5 tsp salt

500g bread flour  (NO all-purpose flour!)

75g soft butter

coarse sugar

flour for the worktop

Crumble the yeast into a bowl and mix with sugar and some of the warm milk until smooth.

Whisk the egg. Put aside 3 Tbsp of the egg-mix and set cool.

Add the rest of the egg and milk such as salt and flour to the yeast,sugar, milk-mix and knead it with the dough hooks attached to the stand mixer (hopefully) on lowest speed for approx. 3 minutes. 

Increase the speed and knead for another 5 minutes. 

Cube the butter.Thoroughly knead butter cubes into the dough. 

On highest speed knead another 5 minutes.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and in a warm place let it rise for about an hour.

On a lightly floured worktop knead the dough with your hands and divide it into 3 equally sized pieces.

Cover them up and let them sit for 10 minutes. 

Roll them out into three strings of approx. 40cm of length, very loosely braid them and put the now "Hefezopf" on a baking paper covered baking sheet. 

Again cover the whole thing and let it sit and raise for another 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas 3).

With a brush apply the remaining egg-mix on the Zopf, sprinkle it with the coarse sugar and bake it for 25 minutes. Check after 15minutes. You might want to cover the Zopf with tinfoil to prevent it from getting too dark.  

Best when served warm on a sunny afternoon!

PS: Here are a few tips and tricks on how your yeast dough turns out perfectly (also found in Essen&Trinken magazine).

1. Only use warm milk. Hot milk kills the yeast bacteria. Using cold milk will only extend the time for the dough to rise.

2. You have to be patient. If the dough hasn't doubled its size after one hour, let it sit a bit longer  (I waited for two hours) 

3. Use bread flour. It contains more gluten than all-purpose flour and by retaining gas it helps the dough to rise.

4. Use fresh yeast.

5. Knead excessively and passionate!

Panna Cotta with Rhubarb Sauce

Yesterday we had friends over for dinner.
After we all were stuffed from the "main course" (we made burgers again) I was happy that everyone of us still had a little room left for dessert.
The burgers were already quite rich  so I originally intended to prepare something light for dessert.
Well, since Panna Cotta is based on cream and sugar it cannot really be considered as being especially light. But with all that delicious fruit sauce it doesn't seem to be heavy at all!
See? You can actually trick yourself!
I can't promise you that you can trick your scale or your skintight jeans with that, though...

Panna Cotta is very easy to make.
It doesn't require many ingredients or complicated techniques.

All you need for 4 servings is:

four small bowls
500ml cream
50g white sugar
1 vanilla bean
2,5 leaves gelatine

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for about 5-ten minutes until soft.
Slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon.
Pour the cream into a saucepan and mix in sugar and vanilla seeds.
add the scraped out vanilla bean, as well to for additional flavor.
Bring the cream to a boil. Then let it simmer (not boil anymore) for about 15 minutes or until the sugar has dissolved. Whisk occasionally.

Remove the cream from heat and also remove the vanilla bean.
Now squeeze out the excess water in the gelatine leaves and add them to the cream.
Whisk until the gelatine has dissolved.

Now pour the cream into four small bowls or cups, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours.

In order to unmold the Panna Cotta briefly dip the bottom of the bowls/cups into hot water.
Run a thin knife around the edge of each bowl/cup to losen the cream from the inside.
Place a plate topside down on top of each bowl. Invert the cream onto the plate and shake gently to release it. Then carefully lift off the bowl.

You can also just eat it out of the bowl, of course!

For the rhubarb sauce cut 500g of rhubarb into 2cm thick pieces.
Place the pieces in a saucepan.
Add approx. 100g white sugar, 4 Tbsp of water and 1 Tbsp of vanilla sugar and bring to boil.
Let it boil for about 5-10minutes (depends on how soft you want your rhubarb to be).
If the sauce is too thin mix a teaspoon of starch in a small bowl with water and slowly whisk in the starch-water mix into the rhubarb sauce. This will thicken the sauce.

Serve the rhubarb sauce with the Panna Cotta.

Hot Rice Pudding with sugar&cinnamon

When I was a kid once a week my grandmas would cook a "sweet lunch" for me.
Rice pudding was one of my most favorite dishes.
Here is the recipe for how my grandmas used to make it for me.
It's rich, hot, creamy and definitely not recommendable if you are trying to lose weight.

Here's what you need:

250g round grain rice (risotto, Italian rice)
900ml whole milk
100ml cream
1½Tbsp vanilla sugar
pinch of salt
butter
white sugar
cinnamon

Directions:

Mix milk and cream with vanilla sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil (be careful not to have it boil over). Stir in the rice and let it all boil for a maximum of 2-3 minutes.
Turn off the heat and cover the saucepan with a lit.
Let the rice sit and soak for at least 30-40 minutes (depends on the rice!) but until the rice is soft and there is no spare milk left over. It should have a heavy and creamy texture.
Stir every five minutes!
If the rice got too cold or there is milk left over but the rice is already soft you can also turn on the heat again to fasten up a little.

Carefully melt some butter (depends on how much you want) in a pan until golden brown.
Mix sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.

Sprinkle the sugar&cinnamon mix and pour the brown butter over the rice pudding.
Serve hot!

PS:

• Of course you can also eat it cold. But it is so much better when served hot!
• Some people like to add grated lemon zest to their rice. I never liked that so much and preferred the recipe to be as simple and pure as possible. But that's just a personal thing.
• You can also serve it with hot and thickened cherry sauce.
• And yes, you don't necessarily need the cream. Just milk (1ltr.) will be just fine...

German Sweet&Sour Eggs

Sweet&Sour Eggs ("Süß-Saure Eier") or "Mustard Eggs" ("Senfeier") is a typical East German dish. 

I remember mentioning it to people from the West who just cringed because the name suggests something rather gross than tasty.

But it is delicious!

The description "sweet&sour" refers to the sauce with which the eggs are served.

It's a roux-based sauce containing vinegar and mustard for a sour note and sugar that adds the 

sweetness to it.

What you need:
6-8 large eggs
60-80g butter 
approx. 3-4 Tbsp all-purpose flour
¾-1 ltr. cold water and milk (e.g. ¼ milk, ¾water)
white wine vinegar
white sugar
1-2 tsp mustard
150-200g smoked bacon cubes
salt, pepper
chopped chive or parsley for decoration

Directions:

Fry smoked bacon cubes in a pan until brown.
Prepare a roux; melt butter in a saucepan. Whisk in flour until crumbly.
Now slowly pour in the water-milk mix and continue to whisk.
If the sauce gets too thick add a bit more water or milk.
If it is too thin just mix some flour with water in a small bowl and pour this mixture into the sauce.
Now season with whit wine vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and mustard.
Start with 1tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, one tsp salt and one tsp mustard.
You will probably have to add more.
But you rather start with small amounts and try in between before adding more.
Your goal is to have a sauce that is sweet and sour at the same time.
You can taste the mustard such as the vinegar, the salt and the sugar without having one ingredient covering up the others.
Now add the bacon cubes and chive or parsley.
In the meantime boil the eggs for 6½-7 minutes (depends on the size of each egg).
The egg yolk should still be soft inside.
Chill them in cold water for a moment.
Then peel off the eggshell and add the eggs to the sauce.

Serve with potatoes.

The very best CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!

Ok. After all this hearty and meaty posts I thought it was time for something sweet again:

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

German cookies are usually hard and rather crispy.

I always preferred the soft and chunky American cookie version and kept searching for the perfect recipe.

And here it is (approved by several Northern Americans)!

What you need:

240g all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

150g margarine (butter makes cookies crispy!)

115g white sugar

115g firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla extract

300g dark chocolate chunks, or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180°C.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Set aside.

In a second bowl, cream the margarine with white and brown sugar until smooth for about 2-3 minutes. 

Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix well.

Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly.

Stir in the chocolate chunks/chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto baking paper covered cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

Cool the cookies for a few minutes before removing them from the sheets.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!