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.

Making yoghurt!

One of the first things I realized after moving to Canada was that it seems to be incredibly hard to find good yoghurt here. 

Whether you look at the dairy section at Coop, Sobeys or Safeway, most yoghurts here either have 0% or 1% fat. 

You can even get Greek Yoghurt with 0% fat (???). That, my dear friends, is not yoghurt. This is bullshit.

Well, I can hear you saying: But we do have 10% Greek Yoghurt, as well! 

That is correct, but have you risked a look at the ingredients list? 

Most of them are made with skim milk (powder) and other awful things. 

No whole milk or cream at all! 

I even once bought a vanilla yoghurt that didn't have vanilla aromas in it, but caramel flavoring (???).

Ok, yoghurt should always, ALWAYS be made of whole milk, means the fat content should be at least at around 3.5%.

I read that you can use milk powder to thicken the yoghurt and make it creamier.

I prefer letting the culture grow for longer, straining it and/or replacing parts of the milk with cream.

Homemade yoghurt can be a bit runnier, indeed. But it's still yoghurt and tastes fantastic.

Making your own yoghurt is fairly easy. And no, you don't need one of those bulky yoghurt machines to do it.
All you need to do is to make sure that you follow the instructions correctly, that your preserving jars are clean and sterilized,
and that you use exceptional good yoghurt and whole milk.


For 1l of homemade yoghurt all you need is:

2-3 tbsp plain yoghurt made of whole milk
1l whole milk
preserving jars

Sterilize your preserving jars and the lids by putting them in a sink with boiling water.
A few minutes should be ok. You can also wait until the water has cooled of a bit.
That way you don't burn your hands. Let them dry completely.

Heat up the milk to about 35-38°C/95-100°F.

Then stir in the yoghurt.

Fill everything in the preserving jars, close the lids and put the yoghurt at a warm spot for at least 8 hours.
I usually let it sit for about 24hours. That helps making the yoghurt firmer and thicker.
You can wrap the jars in a towel and put it next to the heater or even put them in your bed with a hot-water bottle next to it.
Just make sure that the yoghurt doesn't get hotter than 50°C/122°F!

Once you have yoghurt, you may want to strain it (not always necessary) to get rid of surplus whey,
in ordert o make the yoghurt firmer.
Let it chill in the fridge for a couple of hours and it's ready to be enjoyed.

Eat it plain or add fruits, granola, sugar or maple syrup...whatever you prefer!

The yoghurt cultures you grew by making your own yoghurt will last 5-7 yoghurt-making sessions.

Notes:

As you can see, making yoghurt is really easy. Still, sometimes it just won't work, for a reason. Could be the milk, could be that the yoghurt you bought wasn't fresh enough, the jars were dirty or something went wrong with the temperature. I don't know.
Just try again! I promise it works.

Instead of using store bought yoghurt you can use yoghurt cultures.
They come in a bag, are usually more expensive, harder to get (I saw them on ebay), but the result may be firmer and more dense and intense...

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...

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!