Clara's cookies (aka nutella filled cookies)

Clara, a good friend of mine from Spain, told me last time we met that she had tried this recipe (spanish only) but that she had swapped the chocolate chip cookies with nutella, and the results were amazing. She also told me that she had changed the method a bit to fill the cookies with the nutella instead of making a swirl or coating them with it. My cookies were not as good looking as hers but they were amazing too ^^ The trick appears to be to be generous with the nutella ;-)

This recipe yielded 16 cookies as they taste better if they're not too big.

Clara's cookies:

Ingredients:

100g brown sugar
40g white sugar
110g unsalted butter at room temperature
230g plain flour
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
Nutella at room temperature

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Beat together the sugars with the softened butter till well mixed. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat again until you have an homogeneus paste.
3. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Slowly add the flour to the butter mixture until well combined.
5. Wrap the dough with cling film and let it chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
6. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it till it's around 5mm thick. With a cookie cutter, or something similar, cut round shapes from it. Gather the scraps of dough together, roll it again and cut additional cookies out.
7. Fill the cut out cookies with a teaspoon of nutella each and close them over it.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-12 minutes till they are light brown (be careful not to overbake them).
9. Remove he cookies from the pan and let them cool on a wire rack before storing them in an air tight container.

Chocolate chip yogurt cupcakes

(Sorry for the quality of the photo, I couldn't find my camera and had to take it with my phone).
Last year I discovered The Great British Bake Off thanks to a coworker and I've been looking forward to this year's edition ever since I finished watching all the seasons I missed. Now, every Wednesday, you can see me drooling in front of my TV and also eating something sweet to cope with all the longing for cakes and tarts and pies and...well, everything baked, that I get after watching all those gorgeous creations made by amateur bakers (not that I'm surprised that somebody can be so good without being a pro after following dailydelicious for so many years). In this state of mind I decided yesterday to bake some cupcakes so that I had something to go with the program ^^ The chosen ones were these cupcakes from Happy Flour basically because I already had all the ingredients except for the chocolate rice, that I substituted with milk chocolate chips.

This recipe yielded 8 cupcakes but between my boyfriend and I none were left this morning ^^U The cupcakes were really tasty and we specially liked the way the yogurt flavour mixed with the chocolate.

Chocolate chip yogurt cupcakes:

Ingredients:

60g white sugar
40g unsalted butter
110g all purpose flour
110g plain yogurt
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
60g milk chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
2. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder together and set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream butter, salt and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Slowly beat into the butter mixture the egg and the vanilla essence until well combined.
5. Fold in flour and yogurt alternately until well combined.
6. Finally add the chocolate chips.
7. Line a muffin tin with paper casing and spoon batter into it until 70% full.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden.
9. Remove he cupcakes from the tin and let them cool on a wire rack.

Pear cake

Now, when the Christmas holidays are over and I'm stuffed with Christmas sweets, it's the time to think about eating healthy and slim down all the weight gained thanks to my mom's delicious cooking :-) But I still want to bake and eat cakes! That's why I chose to make this delicious fruity cake which relies on the natural sweetness of pears rather than using lots of sugar. This cake is moist, fragant and guilt-free (not that I ever feel guilty for eating anything delicious but...).

The recipe is an adaptation of this one. Basically, I skipped the lemon juice and the liquor and added some almond extract.

Ingredients:

30g white sugar
55g unsalted butter
75g all purpose flour
500g pears (gross weight)
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Melt the butter. Leave aside to cool a bit.
3. In another bowl, mix together the flour and the baking powder and then add the sugar.
4. Mix the butter and the eggs and then add the flour little by little to the butter, mixing well between additions.
5. Peel, core and dice the pears. Add them to the butter and flour mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into a non-stick muffin pan and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden (I made mine very thin to get more of them so they only stayed in the oven for 12 minutes).

Turrón chip cookies

And again another recipe with turrón ^w^ This time I used a basic recipe for chocolate chip cookies and replaced the vanilla extract with almond extract and the chocolate chips with turrón chips.
I made these cookies for a charity baking sale and they had a good acceptance :-) People said that they tasted kind of like marzipan, I guess that's because of the almond extract...

Ingredients (for around 30 cookies):

200g white sugar
100g unsalted butter
150g soft turrón (Spanish almond nougat)
220g flour
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Cream together butter, sugar and salt.
2. Beat the egg and then add it to the butter. Then add the almond extract and beat until well mixed.
3. In another bowl, mix together the flour and the baking powder.
4. Add the flour little by little to the butter, mixing well between additions.
5. Chop the nougat and add it to the dough (similar to when you add chocolate chips).
6. Allow the dough to rest for at least 15 minutes in the fridge. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 170ºC.
7. Line the baking tray with kitchen foil/waxed paper/silicon matt (whatever you prefer, just make sure that the cookies won't stick later). Take the dough out of the fridge and make little balls with it. Put them on the tray about 4cm (2 inch) away because they will grow thanks to the baking powder.
8. Bake them for 12-15 minutes or until golden.
9. Allow them to cool in a wire rack. When they're cold store them in an airtight container.

Turrón cheesecake

Another recipe of my invention! This is the second one after the honey and walnut biscotti and is basically a twist on the traditional NY Cheesecake. My recipe substitutes half of the cream cheese with the spanish soft almond nougat and changes the kind of sugar used to muscovado. Also, I refrained from using vanilla essence because I didn't thought that it would suit the flavour of the turrón.

I got this recipe right on my first attempt (incredible, I know!) though it makes a rich and heavy cake so it's advisable to either eat only a small portion each time or use half of the ammounts (quite difficult when it comes to the eggs but I used 3 medium sized eggs so you could try with 2 small sized ones).

Ingredients:

200g digestive cookies
175g muscovado sugar
75g unsalted butter (melted)
300g cream cheese
300g almond nougat (turrón) from Jijona
200ml soured cream
50g flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
50g milk chocolate (to decorate)

Method:

1. To make the base, crush the digestive cookies with a food processor until they're fine crumbs, or put them in a sealed plastic food bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
2. Add 25 grams of the sugar, the salt and the melted butter. Mix well and press it into the base of a 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
3. In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, remaining sugar, almond nougat (cut in small pieces) and soured cream until smooth.
4. Add the eggs one by one, ensuring that each of them is well mixed before adding the next one..
5. Fold the flour into the mixture to form a smooth batter.
6. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Take the cake tin out of the fridge and spoon the filling over the cooled base.
7. Bake the cheesecake for 45-60 minutes until it's set at the edges and just wobbly in the middle. If the cake is getting too brown in the top cover it with foil.
8. Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin and then unmold it and store in the fridge for at least three hours.
9. Melt the chocolate over a water bath (or in the microwave, but veeeery carefully) and spread it over the cooled cake. Leave the cake in the fridge for another 15 minutes or till the chocolate hardens.

Meringue cake: Pavlova down-under style

I made this cake last summer but I completely forgot about it until today, and I only remembered because I saw the photographs while preparing another post (that now I´m going to delay till next week ^_^U)

The recipe comes from Audax Artifex's blog and I've had it in my bookmarks ever since the post was published. The cake was as soft and cotton like as I was hopping it would be and the fresh fruits (kiwi and banana in my case) add a nice touch to it though it could have been better without the wipped cream. Because the original post is waaay more complete than anything I could make (especially cause I've forgotten the amounts in grams that I used) I won't repeat the recipe here but encourage you to check the original one. The only thing that I can add is that it's delicious and makes a great summer dessert ^w^

Spanish almond nougat cookies

It's traditional in Spain to eat turrón in Christmas. The typical turrón can be of two varieties: Alicante or Jijona, being the Alicante type the hard kind and the Jijona the soft and chewy kind. The name of turrón can be translated to English as almond nougat, which is especially accurate for the Alicante variety, though I have used the Jijona variety for my cookies. The one I've used comes from last Christmas' leftovers which my boyfriend brought to UK on January ^·^U I don't like that type and my boyfriend seemed to have forgotten about its existence so I decided to turn it into delicious cookies. And delicious they are, indeed! My boyfriend devoured them and said they were the best ones I've made so far! ^o^

I found the recipe in this blog but it's in Spanish and I changed one or two things so I'm posting the new recipe below, enjoy!

Ingredients:

100g butter at room temperature
70g sugar
300g almond nougat (turrón) from Jijona
300g flour
1 egg

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. In another bowl, mix together the nougat and the egg to form a paste. It can be done either by hand with a fork or with an electric mixer.
3. Mix together the butter and the nougat until well combined.
4. Add the flour to the mixture to form a soft dough. Split in two and wrap each dough with cling film. Allow to set in the fridge for at least two hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 175ºC. Prepare the baking trays with a non-stick surface (baking paper).
6. Shape one of the doughs into a cilinder and store it in the freezer while you shape the other dough. Store the second dough in the freezer while you cut the first dough into slices of about 5mm thick and line them in the baking tray. Repeat the process with the second dough.
7. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes or until they begin to brown. Switch off the oven and let them rest inside of it for another 3-4 minutes.
8. Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool before storing them in an airthight container. The cookies will taste better and their texture will improve after one day, so try to be patient! (though it's difficult ^^).

My version of cottage pie

As the title of this post says, this is not the traditional British cottage pie, but a version I made because I didn't have some of the ingredients ^.^U Basically, I replaced the beef stock with tomato sauce and added a leave of laurel and some pimetón (spanish paprika). Anyways, the result is delicious so I'll be sticking to this recipe in the future.

I decided to try this traditional British dish when I was trying to decide what could I make with a package of ground beef, if meatballs or a hamburger. Then it hit me that I hadn't baked anything in a long time due to the lack of appropiate equipment, but a cottage pie only requires an ovenproof recipent (which I had bought that very same day). By the way, I don't have an electric mixer yet and I didn't have a whisk or a mixing bowl till last week because my boyfriend and I have moved to another apartment -_-U In the other we could use the owner's tools but this one comes with just the very minimum furniture which means no plates, no glasses and, of course, no mixing bowls.

Ingredients:

450g minced beef
1/2 big onion
1 big carrot
50g peas
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove of garlic
400g tomato sauce
4 big potatoes
4 tablespoons whole milk
2 tablespoons grated cheese (I used mozzarella)
10g butter
1 leave of laurel
salt, black pepper and pimentón

Method:

1. Add one tablespoon of oil to a saucepan anf fry sighly the beef, just until its brown. Take the meat out of the saucepan and reserve.
2. Mince the vegetables. Add two tablespoons of oil to the saucepan (don't take out the sauce left when cooking the meat) and fry the onion, garlic, carrot and peas. When the onion begins to cook add the tomato sauce, laurel leave, the reserved beef and salt and pimentón to your preference (be careful with the salt). Cook until the sauce reduces.
3. Meanwhile boil the potatoes until they're soft. Take them out of the water and let them cool sightly before peeling them.
4. Mash the potatoes and mix them with the cheese, butter, milk, salt and black pepper.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC. In an ovenproof dish put the beef and then spread the potato mash over it.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the potato mash begins to brown. Take the cottage pie out of the oven and serve immediatly.

Layered chocolate chip cookies

As soon as I saw this post I knew that I HAD to try this recipe but for some reason or another I have postponing the moment. The main reason was that I was kind of unsure about making cookies with such a huge amount of sugar. I finally settled that it was best to do only half of the recipe and to cut down the sugar being used.
The original recipe calls for dark brown sugar but I didn't have any of it and instead I had a package of muscovado sugar therefore I substituted it. Another change that I made has to do with the number of layers, even though the original recipe states that 3 layers of cookie shall be made (with chocolate between them), due to the amount of dough that results from making only half of the recipe I only used 2 layers (it was like a cookie sandwich). The last change has to do with the type of the chocolate: the original recipe uses semisweet or bittersweet chocolate but I used milk chocolate (which I prefer).

The resulting cookies were a bit too greasy but delicious anyway. Next time I'll be cuting down the amount of butter to 100g to seen how the come out.

Ingredients:

140 g all-purpose flour
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon salt
115g butter, at room temperature
75g muscovado sugar
50g granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
85g milk chocolate, chopped into shards

Method:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
2. In another bowl, cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Then, add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating until combined and then add the vanilla.
3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating just until incorporated.
4. Divide the dough into two equal portions and shape each into a ball. Then wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
5. Unwrap the dough and place one on a lightly floured work surface. Shape the balls into equal rectangles (don't make them too thin, its better if they're thick). Sprinkle the chocolate evenly over one of the rectangles and top with the second piece of dough. Dust the top piece of dough lightly with flour, then use a rolling pin to gently roll the stack of dough and chocolate into a 4cm thick rectangle. Use a round cutter to cut as many rounds as possible from the dough and transfer the rounds to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps of dough together into a 4cm thick mound and cut additional cookies out (most of my cookies were made from these scraps as I only managed to get 5 cookies in my first cut).
6. Cover the baking sheet loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate the unbaked cookies for at least an hour. The original recipe states that the more time they spend in the fridge the better they taste when baked but I couldn't wait so I juste left them an hour.
7. Preheat oven to 190ºC. If you're going to bake all of the cookies at once, separate them onto a few baking sheets, leaving at least 5cm between them because they'll spread a lot.
8. Bake for 14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are set (rotating the baking sheets halfway through if you're baking more than one sheet of cookies). The centers will still seem really soft and underbaked but they'll set up as they cool. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes before removing them to the racks to cool completely.

Chocolate torte soufflé

Actually, I made this cake last year but I completely forgot to upload the recipe -_-U

This recipe used A LOT of eggs so its packed with calories (yummy calories ^^). The cake had a very rich flavour and an airy and soft consistency that I loved. The original is here and uses Frangelico but I ommited it because I don't drink alcohol and my parents don't drink this tipe of liquor so I didn't want to buy a bottle just for the cake. Also, this recipe was enough to fill a round 22cm cake pan and a rectangular 15cm large bread pan so next time I'll be doing half of it.

Ingredients:

120g unsweetened chocolate, chopped
150g unsalted butter, cubed
7 eggs, seperated yolks and whites
170g caster sugar
1 pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 150ºC. Line the base of a 22cm springform baking pan with aluminium foil, grease the pan well with butter and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk the chocolate and butter together over low heat until a smooth mixture forms. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Add 110g of sugar to the yolks, whisking well until the mixture turns thick and pale yellow. Gradually add the cooled chocolate mixture to the yolks mixture, whisking until combined.
4. Using an electric mixer, whisk the egg whites together with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 60g of sugar and beat the egg whites till they hold their shape but are not dry.
5. Fold the egg whites in three batches into the yolk mixture only until just combined.
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for an hour before lowering the oven temperature to 120ºC and baking for an additional 30 minutes. When the cake is done baking, turn the oven off and leave the cake in the oven to cool, leaving the oven door slightly ajar until the cake comes to room temperature.

Honey and walnut cookies

Today I'd like to introduce you to the easiest-to-make cookies you could ever think of. They only have a few ingredients and 3 steps (4 if you count melting the butter as a step).

I found the recipe here long ago when I was searching for a honey and walnut biscoti recipe (until I realised there existed none). The original recipe calls for one large egg but I forget to use it and the cookies are still amazing, which makes them even better (one ingredient less, yuhu!).

Ingredients:

125g plain flour
70g butter, melted
100ml honey
30g chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Method:

1. In a bowl mix all the ingredients until smooth. Let the mix sit for five minutes so it hardens and meanwhile preheat the oven to 190ºC.
2. With a spoon plop dollops of the mix about 5cm apart on a foil-covered cookie sheet (or baking tray). Bake for 13 minutes or until they're light brown.
3. Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool before transfering them to storage.

When taken out of the oven the cookies are very soft but don't be scared because they won't break (they're are tougher than they seem ;-D). As they get colder they also get firmer but I prefer the texture they had when I first ate them still warm, they remind me of a cake ^^

Apple tart

It looks like it has been quite a long time since I wrote my last post -_-U Well, I could use a long range of excuses, being the first one that I've moved to London, but they would sound a bit lame. Anyways, i'm back to baking (at last!) so I'll try to update this blog more frecuently.

My latest bake has been an apple tart for my boyfriend. I made it for Valentine's day because it's his favourite dessert (and besides, he doesn't like that much red colored desserts nor sugar hearts XD). It took me a little more than I expected to roll the pastry dough because I'm quite clumsy with the rolling pin but I somehow managed to make it look neat.

The recipes I used come from a book called Step-by-step baking and they're a mixture of two different ones with a little "personal touch".

Here come the recipes I used:

Ingredients for the pastry crust:

150g plain flour, plus some extra for dusting the surface when rolling
100g butter, diced
50g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Method for the pastry crust:

1. In a bowl, rub the flour and the butter together to form fine crumbs.
2. Add the sugar and the cinnamon to the crumbs and mix.
3. Beat the egg yolk separately and then add it to the crumbs and mix until well blended.
4. Form a dough (if it's too dry add a little water), wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC and meanwhile roll out the pastry to form a 3mm thick circle.
6. Line a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin with the pastry, trimming any excess pastry that may hang down from the border of the tin.
7. Prick the pastry base all over with a fork and then put over the pastry a piece of baking parchment (covering the base of the pastry).
8. Fill the base of the baking parchment with baking beans (I don't have baking beans so I use raw chickpeas) and bake it for 20 minutes in the preheated oven.
9. Remove the beans and the paper and bake for 5 minutes more. Take out of the oven but not out of the tin and let it cool.

Ingredients for the crème pâstissière:

100g caste sugar
50g cornflour
2 eggs
400ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for the crème pâstissière:

1. Beat the sugar, cornflour, eggs and vanilla extract in a bowl.
2. Boil the milk in a heavy saucepan and take it off the heat as soon as it bubbles.
3. Pour the hot milk into the egg mixture while whisking (if you stop whisking the eggs will begin to cook and thus to harden).
4. Put the mixture in the saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. When it thickens, reduce the heat to low and keep whisking for 2 minutes more.
5. When the cremè is done (it must be thick but not set) transfer to a bowl and cover with cling film until it cools completely.

Ingredients for the assembling of the tart:

1 pastry case
1 bowl of crème pâstissière
2 small apples (I used Royal Gala)
juice from 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons apricot jam

Method to assemble the tart:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Beat the crème pâstissière and spread it over the pastry case.
3. Peel (I didn't peel them because I though that they looked prettier with their reddish peel on) and thinly slice the apples (I found easier to slice the apples when I didn't core them, but instead I took a whole apple and sunk the knife into it following its lenght and then I sunk the knife parallely to the prior cut but about 2 mm away) and arrange them over the cremè. Brush the apples with the lemon juice.
4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the apple slices have softenedand are starting to turn pale golden.
5. Warm and sieve the apricot jam and brush it over the top.

My boyfriend loved the tart though he said that the apple were sightly uncooked. I guess I'll have to practice more with my new oven. It's a gas oven and I'm not used to this kind but here, in UK, everybody seems to have very old appliances and prefer gas ovens to the electrical ones (and I don't get why seeing that electricity here is cheaper than gas -_-). To be honest, our home right now is old and outdated, so I'm not sure if I can apply what I'm seeing here as a general rule (though I'm looking for another apartment and all I've seen so far are gas ovens). Thank God we're moving next month! (to another house, not back to Spain T_T)

Walnut and honey biscotti

This is my very first recipe. And with that I mean that this is the first recipe thata I have ever created, so I'm feeling quite overexcited all over it ^o^ I've looked it up in the internet to be sure that there's no oder recipe similar to mine and therefore I can proudly state that this is my original creation. Ok, there's people who do that nearly everyday but, as it's the first time that instead of following a given recipe step by step I've adventured through an unknow path, I'm feeling great about it.

It all started when I saw dailydelicious' post about nutty biscotti and I thought: "Hey! I've got some walnuts in the kitchen! I could make some walnut biscotti". My parents are eating 3-4 walnut on daily basis because they've been told that the walnuts are good to prevent heart diseases, thus in my mind I was going to make some "healthy" biscuits ;-) As the walnuts pair wonderfully with honey, I decided to incorporate some to the recipe. Therefore, I had to take out some sugar, adjust the amount of flour, adjust the baking time... After my second attemp I got them right and then I looked again to the original recipe and said: "Hell! What I did has nothing to do with this!... OMG!".

So...here it comes!:

Ingredients:

250g all-purpose flour
20g corn flour
100g walnuts
70g white sugar
50ml honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 dash of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170ºC.
2. Toats the walnuts in the oven for 10 minutes. Take them out and let them cool but don't switch .
3. Mix together the honey and the sugar. Then add the egg and beat until well combined.
4. In another bowl, mix the flours, the salt and the baking powder. Add it to the wet ingredients and mix through until there are no lumps.
5. Knead the walnuts into the dough. At this point you'll need to use your hands to do the kneading because the dough is very dense.
6. Divide the dough in two and roll them until each part is about 1ch high and 5cm wide. Put them in the baking tray.
7. Bake them for 20 minutes at 170ºC.
8. Take them out of the oven and lower the temperature to 150ºC. Slice the dough into 1cm wide slices.
9. Bake the biscotti for 15 minutes. Take them out from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack.

Maple syrup butter cookies

This cookies were super delicious!!!
They're melt in the mouth cookies with a nice maple syrup flavour that makes them way better than the old vanilla ones. And the recipe is super simple, as they are your typical butter cookies.

I found these little treasures in dailydelicious while browsing through the blog after quite a long time without having a look at anything food-related in Internet.

I don't know why, but I've been feeling lazy since last spring. Fortunately this lazyness seems to be over and my baking lust has returned although I don't know when I'm going to recover my blogging lust -_-U, so this time I'll just post the pictures and the link to the recipe. I followed it step-by-step so there's nothing new I should be telling about it.

Cinnamon bread

A friend of mine passed me the link of this wonderful bread, from the Pioneer Woman.

My bread was a bit too dry because I got impatient while kneading the dough and thus I added more flour than the necessary, but it tasted great anyways. Toasted or not it's a yummy breakfast and it looks soooo good... ^^

Ingredients:

75g white sugar
85g butter
245ml whole milk
415g all-purpose flour
2 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
75g white sugar + 2 tablespoons cinnamon + 2 tablespoons melted butter

Method:

1. Melt butter with milk. Heat until very warm, but don’t boil. Allow to cool until still warm to the touch, but not hot.
2. Sprinkle yeast over the top and stir gently. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.
3. In another bowl, mix sugar and eggs until combined.
4. Pour in milk/butter/yeast mixture and stir to combine.
5. Combine the flour and the salt and add half of it to the liquid mixture. When combined, add the other half and mix well.
6. Knead the dough for at least 10 minutes. If it's too sticky add 30g flour and knead for another 5 minutes (the dough ought to be a little sticky after the kneading).
7. Heat a metal or glass mixing bowl so it’s warm. Drizzle in a little olive oil, then toss the dough in the oil to coat. Cover bowl in plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for at least 2 hours.
8. Turn dough out onto the work surface. Roll into a neat rectangle no wider than the loaf pan you're going to use.
9. Brush the dough with 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon together, then sprinkle evenly over the buttered dough.
10. Starting at the far end, roll dough towards you, keeping it tight and contained. Pinch the seam to seal.
11. Smear a loaf pan with softened butter. Place the dough, seam down, in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 2 hours.
12. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
13. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes on a middle/lower rack.
14. Remove from the pan and allow bread to cool.

Chocolate and almond cookies

These cookies were originally a variation of someones I made some time ago (the chocolate and walnut cookies). The recipe is also for chocolate and walnut cookies, only that it comes from a different cookbook. This recipe is from Chocolate Basics: 80 Recipes Step-by-step (in spanish Recetas básicas de chocolate). I simply LOVE this book! It's got step by step photographs and explanations, which makes the recipes look less scary :-) Indeed, I find myself willing to attemp some layered cakes, which is something I usually don't dare to even give a second glare.

I made these cookies for my boyfriend's birthday, as one of his presents, because he loves the cookies this way, chewy rather than crunchy (I prefer them the other way ^^U). These cookies taste really good and are super easy to make, just as they seem in my book!

Ingredients:

200g white sugar
100g butter
150g chocolate with almonds
220g all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170ºC.
2. In a saucepan, melt butter and let it warm.
3. Add the sugar and the salt to the butter mix until well combined.
4. Mix in the egg and then the vanilla extract until well combined.
5. In a bowl, mix the flour and the baking powder and the add the flour to the butter.
6. Chop the chocolate and add it to the dough.
7. Let the dough rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
8. Take a small amount of cookie dough onto your palm and roll into a ball.
9. Put the balls onto a baking tray and press them slightly.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until the borders brown.
11. Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack.

Arroz con leche

"Arroz con leche" means literally "rice with milk" and is typical from the spanish cuisine. I've done this dessert many times, but yesterday was the first time that I made it with freshly milked milk. My boyfriend's mother got me some from a neighbourg of hers who has a cowfarm :-) There's no comparison to the making it with the brand one that you buy in supermarkets. The result has a way richer flavour and is cooked faster than with the watered product that is sold in the stores.

You need patience to make the arroz con leche because it's a slow proccess. I usually need around 45 minutes to get the desired texture of it, but if you like it more liquid it'll take less, of course. Anyway, the result it's well worth of your time ^^

This recipe has the proportions I prefer of milk, rice and sugar, but some people may prefer it denser or sweeter or the contrary. I got these proportions after trying many times, so finding the ones that fits your taste better its just a matter of trial and error. With this recipe you get 3 servings (I allways make it for my parent and I ^^U).

Ingredients:

75ml milk
80g rice
60g white sugar
1/2 lemon's zest
1/2 cinnamon stick
Cinnamon powder (for decorating)

Method:

1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with the lemon zest and the cinnamon stick until it boils.
2. Add the rice to the milk and stir regulary over medium heat until the rice is cooked.
3. Add the sugar to the rice with milk and keep stirring regulary until the milk becomes denser.
4. Remove the cinnamon stick and the lemon zest and serve the arroz con leche in individual platings decorated with some cinnamon powder.

April 2011 Daring Baker's Challenge: Maple Mousse served in an edible container

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

First of all, things keep going as I mentioned last February, wich means that my job is still like hell T_T At least it looks like this situation is coming to an end (because so does the project). Thus I'm leaving the chatting till then and I'm making this post in a hurry -_-U

I admit that I didn't embrace this challege as much as I should, partly because the maple syrup is very expensive in here and partly because I'm quite tired when I get home to be in the mood for making mousse.
I made the edible containers with chocolate, following the instructions of this web. They were kind of a mess because some of the balloons were so glued to the chocolate that I almost broke the vessels.

Here come the recipe of the Maple Mousse:

Ingredients:

240ml pure maple syrup
4 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon unflavoured gelatine
360ml whipping cream

Method:

1. Bring maple syrup to a boil and then remove from heat.
   
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
3. Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, and stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
6. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.
7. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

February 2011 Daring Baker's Challenge: Panna Cotta with Orange Gelée and Nestle Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Well, this month I managed somehow to complete the challenge just in time. It's not like I'm gonna start complaining about my job now (yes, it is XD), but these past weeks have been hell for me and the pleople I'm working with in my current project. There are just too many last-minute-super-urgent-changes to be able to cope with and finish in time.

While preparing for this month's challenge I had to face some problems regarding the ingredients needed for the florentine's cookies: as far as I'm aware you can't find in any regular (spanish) supermarket neither dark (or light) corn syrup or quick oats. And I didn't had time to go browsing specialized stores in search for some ingredients that I'm not likely to use again in a loooong time. So I substituted the dark corn syrup with honey and the quick oats with all-bran cereals :-)

As for the fruit gelée, I chosed an orange gelée because I had some at home and I think that the orange flavour is a great counterpart to the honey-ish flavour of the panna cotta.

Here come the recipes I used:

Ingredients for the Orange Gelée:

1 big orange
60g granulated sugar
45ml water
1 and 1/2 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin

Method for the Orange Gelée:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over water.
2. Peel the orange and cut it in small pieces. Place the orange and sugar in a small saucepan and simmer until sugar has dissolved.
3. Now mix the gelatin into the orange mixture and stir until gelatin has dissolved.
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool (close to room temp). Put it in the bottom of a glass (or reserve for layering it into or above the Panna Cotta).

Ingredients for the Panna Cotta (I made half of the recipe):

120ml whole milk
1/2 tablespoon unflavored powdered gelatin
A pinch of salt
360ml whipping cream
40ml honey
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

Method for the Panna Cotta:

1. Pour the milk into a pot and sprinkle gelatin evenly and thinly over the milk (make sure the pot is cold by placing it in the refrigerator for a few minutes before you start making the Panna Cotta). Let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
2. Place the pot over medium heat on the stove. Heat this mixture until it is hot, but not boiling, about five minutes (I whisk it a few times at this stage).
3. Next, add the cream, honey, sugar, and pinch of salt. Making sure the mixture doesn't boil, continue to heat and stir occasionally until the sugar and honey have dissolved 5-7 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, allow it to sit for a few minutes to cool slightly. Then pour into a glass.
5. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.

Ingredients for the Florentine Cookies (this is my adaptation):

100g unsalted butter
160g all-bran cereals
150g granulated sugar
95g all purpose flour
60ml honey
60ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of salt

Method for the Florentine Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Prepare the baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.
2. Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then remove from the heat..
3. To the melted butter add the all-bran, sugar, flour, honey, milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.
4. Drop a tablespoon full, 75mm apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are set. Cool completely on the baking sheets.

I'm happy with the Panna Cotta even though it didn't set completely, but still it had some consistency, which is not that bad taking into account that this was my first attempt! ^^

The florentine cookies were a nice surprise despite all the things that could have go wrong! Looks like my substitutions didn't mess anything up. On the contrary, they're delicious! Really crunchy and with a nice honey scent that matches with the Panna Cotta ^o^

Roscón de Reyes

The roscón de reyes is the typical spanish cake eaten the Epiphany day, which marks the end of the Christmas celebrations. It's eaten for breakfast with a cup of hot cocoa and whoever finds the bean or figurine hidden inside of it must pay for the next year's roscón.
The roscón is aromatized with orange flower water and citrus zest (usually orange and lemon zest) and decorated with candied fruits.

Every year on the 5th and 6th of January there are long queues in front of the bakeries in order to get freshly baked roscones and thus, when one of my friends told me that she was trying to bake her own cake but was having some trouble with the raising, I suggested her to come to muy home and give it a try together :-)
I love baking, that's obvious, but I've never baked before along with somebody else and I'm happy that I finally did it! It's waaaaay more fun!
So, my friend came home on the 5th in the afternoon and we finished by the evening-early nigth ^^ It looks like her problem had something to do with the way the recipe indicated how to deal with the yeast, but it's solved now. The resulting cake was fluffy and tasted nicely even though we didn't add much orange flower water.
We made 2 cakes out of the recipe, one for her, one for me, but the original recipe is meant to be for making a cake enough for four people.

Ok then, here's the recipe for a four-people roscón (or 2 smaller ones):

Ingredients:

20ml lukewarm water
4g active dry yeast
40g melted unsalted butter (you can use salted butter)
a pinch of salt (skip this if you're using salted butter)
50ml milk
250g all-purpose flour (and 50g more for kneading)
40g sugar
1/4 teaspoon orange flower water
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange
1 bean

For decoration:

Candied fruits
40g sugar
Water (the ammount depends on how you want the sugar to be on the roscón)
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Method:

1. In a small bowl, pour the warm water and sprinkle it with yeast and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
2. In another bowl mix together the egg and the sugar until well combined.
3. Then add the milk and the orange flower water to the eggs and mix until well combined.
4. Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and, again, mix until well combined.
5. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt and orange and lemon zests.
6. Then stir in the yeast and the egg-milk-butter mixture. The dough should be very soft but don't worry, we're going to incorporate more flour while kneading.
7. Dust the counter with the rest of the flour, transfer the dough to the counter and knead the dough for 5 minutes to form a soft and sighly sticky ball. When the dough comes together, put it back in the bowl and cover it with plastic or a tea cloth and let it raise for 1 hour in a warm place.

8. After the raising the dough will stick to the bowl. Punch the dough down and roll it to form a ball. Then push your thumb through the middle of the ball to make a hole. After this begin to roll the dough around your wrist to widden the hole (like a hula hoop) and get the traditional look of the roscón (something like a huge doughnut). Transfer the dough to an oven rack.
9. Hide inside the dough a bean or a ceramic figurine. Brush the dough with the egg and decorate with the candied fruits and the sugar-water mixture.

10. Proof for approximately 1 hour at room temperature, or until about 1 and 1/2 times its original size.
11. Preheat oven to 180°C.
12. Bake the roscón for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

13. Transfer to a cooling rack. Wait until cooled before serving.

This picture was taken on the Epiphany breakfast, see how fluffy came out the cake? ^^