Pepa´s Birthday is in May, but last May I was swamped with work and it was just impossible to pull off a big birthday party. We celebrated together at home on the actual birthday and made a cake, but she was asking for a birthday party... So why not make a "Half Birthday Party"? Halloween was the date... So I opened Pinterest and started my mood board... Halloween without scaring all the kindergarten kids... The main thing about planning a birthday table is to check how many stuff fits in your table. I arranged plates around and ended up with 14 dishes. And here I will show you what they were: Here is the Table. It is important to keep the taller plates at the back and the cakes in the middle. I have to accept that I didn't attempt to make my own cakes. I used instant cakes for all these recipes... No room for mistakes. 2 days before the party I baked the cakes for the cake pops. I mix them with frosting, made the small balls and froze them. My favorite cake pops were eyeballs on forks. You can make them with just dipping the cake pops in candy melts or white chocolate and painting the veins with food coloring. The iris was candy melts as well and I added a bit of chocolate glaze to it. For the savory treat, I carved a pumpkin and put inside a plate full with cheese sauce, added nachos and a guac-mayo sauce... I couldn't get the adults away from that corner! The witch cake was supposed to be Witch Pepa. I baked 2 boxes of cake in three forms. Covered it with cheese frosting and started making the witch. The legs were made with the tubes where the rolled fondant came. The legs were my dad's work. He covered them with fondant and colored the rest of the fondant with red color and piped the stripes. Thanks, dad! With the rest of tule from Pepas costume, I made the witch skirt and I added mini marshmallows for the "underwear/skirt" What is a Halloween party without ghosts? For this ghosts, I made cupcakes and added frosting over it. Then I put a mini Chocolate Kiss on it and covered it with a circle of rolled fondant. Then I decorated the eyes and mouth with decorating glaze in black. Worms on earth... I made this 2 days in advance as well. Made some chocolate boxed pudding and put it in small cups, added a gummy work in it and then cover with chocolate powder. I put chocolate in my food processor and done. During Halloween times the store LIDL has red apples... all red. That means they are red outside and inside. The best thing about this apples is that they don't oxidate. I cutted slices of them and added spekulatious cream (you can add peanut butter instead) and paste teeth gummies. If you don't have these apples, you can use regular red apples and don't peel them. And if you don't find teeth gummies (found them in IKEA) just add mini marshmallows. The boxed cakes came with glaze. So I used them to make these monster cupcakes. I dipped them in the glaze and add a decorating eye and then piped the glaze over it to make the hair... these were my favorites. No Birthday is complete without a chocolate cake. And I made this one. I baked two chocolate cakes in 4 forms and made chocolate mousse. The decoration is 2 spekulatius cookies as graves and a twig my mom found outside that looked just like a dead tree. Thank mom! For the third cake pops, I used the chocolate glaze that came in a cake box and then I added some white glaze lines to make these mummies... The eyes came in a decorating set for bees. For the hungry kids, I made vegan sausage mummies. I cut a sheet of dough and rolled it over sausages. Then baked them and added 2 eyes with piping color. They are super simple to make and were gone after a few seconds... I make them for Pepa at home all of the time. My mom made the ghost lollipops... Can you imagine I had only 4 left after the birthday party?? They are regular lollipops covered on a napkin and with 2 stickers on them. For the sugar-free kids, there was some food as well... Mandarines painted as pumpkins are one of the best healthy treats IMHO. And for drinking, besides water, I made a red punch and added some fingers inside. Plastic ones of course. Four the adults was a separate table with chips, punch, gin, and beer... Who says it is not possible to have fun as an adult on a kids party? I love that Kettle Chips make orange and black bags. We were witches and here you can see our costumes... My mom made Pepa's skirt without sewing. Making this all work and look good was hard, but Pepa was a witch as she wanted and she finally got her birthday party...
Thanks, Sophia for grabbing my camera and taking pictures as I was walking back and forth with all the kids and Pepa.
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Ad/Anzeige Quince, quince & more quince. Why I have never eaten this fruit? In Peru, we use it as an "Energy Cleaner". We put it somewhere in the room and it turns black when it converts bad energy into good energy. Either way, enough with my Peruvian Juju. After watching the last Berchtesgadener Milch Video, I decided to make a cake myself using some of their products: Organic butter and Quark (curd). The first thing that got in my head was german cheesecake or crumble pie... so why not mix them both? Ingredients: For the quince compote: 1 kg of quince 50g sugar 2 cinnamon stick 5 tbsp water For the filling: 500g Bio-Quark from Berchtesgadener Milch 2 eggs 1 package Vanilla Pudding powder 50g sugar For the dough: 1 pack Butter of Berchtesgadener Milch 250 g Buckwheat flour 100g ground almonds (if possible roasted) 150g brown sugar Let´s get Quinced! Wash the quince, cut it roughly. Don't worry about the size of the dices, you can re-cut them after cooked and when they are less hard. Put them in a saucepan with the water, sugar and the cinnamon sticks and cook them for about 25 minutes, let them cool. Put all the ingredients together for the dough and shape it into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for one hour. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites stiff. Stir the yolks with the sugar until creamy. Add Quark and pudding powder and mix everything together. Incorporate the egg whites. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease the springform. Briefly knead 2/3 of the dough press it into the springform pulling up the edge. Spread the quince on top and then add the quark mixture and sprinkle with the rest of the shortcrust pastry as a sprinkle. Then bake the cake for about 55 minutes. Did I mention this cake is Gluten-Free??? Sprinkle powder sugar and eat it while it is warm. I had some vanilla ice cream with it and I really loved it! Here is the video I was talking about. I hope you try this at home and don't forget to tell me how was it! Because I come from a country that has unique vegetables and fruits, I make the mistake of thinking I cant find in europe many of my favorite ones. In Peru, mostly sundays, we have huge breakfast that turns into brunch and then into lunch. And one of my favorite dishes of those days are "Pastel de Acelga" or Chard Pie. When I was at my parents hotel last month, a costumer brought me something called "Mangold" in german and OMG! it was Acelga. So when I returned to Berlin, I jumped into the first whole food store and looked for chard. In germany chard is beautiful. It comes in a range of reds, yellow and greens. In Peru it is just dark green. So here is my sunday recipe of Peruvian Chard Pie. I hope you guys enjoy it! INGREDIENTS DOUG: 1 cup flour 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup warm water OR Get a yeast dough from your supermarket. THE FILLING: 1/2 kilo of Chard 1 cup ricotta cheese or creme fraiche 4 tablespoons grated cheese 50 gr feta cheese 4 eggs or the amount of pie forms you will make 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon pepper 1 medium red onion 1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil Salt to taste PREPARATION Mix the flour with the salt and place it on the table, make a hole in the center, incorporate water, yolk, margarine and vegetable oil. Knead and make eight buns, let rest for 25 minutes. Wash, cook and squeeze the chard to remove the water. Cut and fry the onion in extra virgin olive oil, add cooked chard, cheese, nutmeg, pepper and salt. Stretch four small pieces of dough, spread with vegetable oil and place one on top of the other. Put the dough in the base of the pie form, place inside the filling and four eggs. (I used smal forms so I added one egg per form) With the other four pieces of dough, repeat the process of stretching, spread with extra virgin olive oil between layer and layer; And finally cover the chard mix. Sprinkle some sea salt over it. Brush with egg . Bake at 180 ° C for 1 hour (20 minutes for small forms), then serve and enjoy! You can try the same recipe using spinach or Kale, just dont forget to squeeze the vegetables before using. A good tip is to steam the leaves first, let them cool down and then roll them in several kitchen papers until they are dry.
Last december we hosted a Xmas Brunch and some of the guest brought cakes. Julia, a colleague of mine, brought an AWESOME chocolate cherry cake... and it was glutenfree! I asked her if it was possible to get her recipe and share them with you, and she said YES! This recipe is so easy to do and it is delicious... and the longer you wait to eat it, the best it tastes... just like lasagna. Ingredients: 350 gr Sour Cherries from a Jar or 500 g Fresh Cherries without pits 150 g soft Butter 150 g Sugar 4 Eggs 100 g Dark Chocolate, grated 200 g ground Hazelnuts or Almonds Powdered sugar Wash the cherries and dry them. Mix the butter and sugar until is soft and homogeneous.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites and beat the whites until stiff peaks form. Add the egg yolks, chocolate and nuts to the butter mix and then incorporate slowly the egg whites. A small trick from my grandma: Add 2 full spoons of egg whites and stir thoroughly, then add the rest and beat slowly to add some air to it. This will keep your mix fluffy. Warm the oven to 180 degrees. Add the cherries to the cake dough. Butter the cake form and fill with the cake dough. And bake for about 30 minutes. Let it cool and sprinkle with Powdered sugar. Cut, serve and enjoy! Alfajores are cookies filled with "Dulce de Leche" a delicacy peruvians bring as a gift to a person´s bday or as a gift for valentines day. They are very airy cookies as the regular recipe is about 50/50 wheat flour and corn starch. As I cant eat gluten, I decided to give it a try with just Starch and it works great. They were a bit "thick" but practice makes the master... I hope you guys like it! Ingredients: 350 gr Corn starch (Maizena) 100g Margarine 100 g Sugar 2 Eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 can sweet condensed milk Sugar powder Dulce de Leche: Fill a container of water until it completely covers the can of condensed milk. Normally I would take the label, but if case it doesn't come off, just leave it. Lay the can down and don't let it stand, that helps to cook the milk evenly. Let the water boil and then lower to medium heat. Let it cook for 1.5 hours. Let it cool before opening the can and try not open it safely. Stir with a spoon before using it. Cookies: Pre heat the oven to 180C. Sifted the cornstarch with baking powder and add the margarine and sugar and knead using a hand mixer. Beat the eggs with the vanilla extract. Incorporate this mix slowly integrating and kneading . The dough should be very soft , stretch it with a rolling pin and always using cornstarch on the table to prevent sticking. Cut the caps with a 3 cm diameter cutter and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, bake for 8 minutes, they should be cooked but not change color. Let them cool, filled them with dulce de leche and sprinkle with sugar powder. Recipe in my very bad german at the end of this post: Rezept - Peruanische Alfajores
What a better ornament that one smelling like christmas and tasting like liquorice? For some years now I have baked my own tree ornaments, but this year I decided to make a twist on my own recipe: Exchange Ginger for Fine Liquorice Powder. Ingredients: Cookies: 375 gr flour 1 tsp baking soda 3/4 tsp Fine Liquorice Powder by Johan Bülow 1/2 tsp ground allspice 3/4 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp black pepper 115 gr butter at room temp. 115 gr vegetable shortening/fat 100 gr brown sugar 2/3 cup unsulfured molasses 1 large egg Royal Icing: 2 Large egg whites (60gr) 2 tsp fresh lemon Juice 330 gr Powder sugar Preheat to 180C. Sift the flour, Liquorice, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, salt and pepper through a sieve into a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer at high speed, beat the butter and shortening for about 1 minute. Add the sugar and beat for 2 more minutes. Beat in the molasses and egg. Using a wooden spoon or the kneading KitchenAid attachment, mix in the flour mixture. Divide the dough into two and wrap in plastic wrap separately. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Let's roll out the cookies. Start with one part of the dough and keep the other in the fridge. Remove the dough from the fridge for 10 minutes. Place the dough on a floured surface and sprinkle the top of the dough with flour. Roll out the dough 1/2 cm thick. Using a cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and transfer to cookie sheets with baking paper, placing the cookies 1 cm apart. With a straw, make a hole on the upper side of the cookie so you can hang them on your tree. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire racks or plates. Decorate with Royal icing and let them dry for a day before hanging. I really like the explanation for this icing from the Joy of Baking YouTube Channel: Andrea had recently got the celiac diagnosis when Anders' colleagues from Dagbladet were coming over for a long-planned pizza night. Several types of pizzas were to be grilled on a hot stone plate, with different toppings on all of them. In addition we had to figure out how to make a good gluten free alternative for Andrea. We'll give you the recipes for the two different types of dough we made. The sauce and toppings we leave up to your own imagination. The regular pizza dough recipe is as follows. Ingredients 550 g tipo-00 flour 3 dl lukewarm water 10 g salt 35 g fresh yeast 20 g extra virgin olive oil Day 1 Mix 150 g of tipo-00 flour with 1 dl lukewarm water which you dissolve the 35 g of fresh yeast in. Let it rise for 1 hour. In a kitchen machine on low speed add the remaining ingredients, except the oil. Leave the machine to run for 10 minutes. Then add the oil and let it go for another 5 minutes. The result should be an airy and velvet soft dough. Wrap the bowl in plastic and leave it in the fridge overnight for 18 hours. Day 2 Remove the dough from the fridge and cut it into 4 equally sized pieces. Form each element into a round ball. Place the doughs on a baking tray with baking paper. Press them down slightly, cover in plastic and a wet towel. Leave to rise for 3 hours. When your grill is on full speed and the stone plate is blazing hot you are ready to bake. Cover your hands in flour. Take one of the doughs and press it down with your hands. Use only the hands to force it into a round pizza shape. There should be no need for a rolling pin if your dough is perfect. We searched high and low for the perfect gluten free pizza recipe, and in the end we went for a mix of the simplest recipes we could find. The result turned out really nice. Gluten free pizza ingredients 4 dl gluten free flour 2 dl lukewarm water 25 g fresh yeast 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 tsp psyllium seed husks (Norwegian: fiberhusk) 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt Day 1 Mix half of the water with the yeast, sugar and psyllium seed husks. Let it rise for 1 hour. In a kitchen machine on low speed add the remaining ingredients, except the oil. Leave the machine to run for about 1 minute until everything is well incorporated. Then add the oil and let it go for another minute. The dough should be in one piece and stick together fairly well. Wrap the bowl in plastic and leave it in the fridge overnight for 18 hours. Day 2 The next day you do almost the same as with the regular pizza dough, except you have to handle the gluten free dough with more care. You can't roll the elements into perfect round dough. Try to just press them carefully into similar shapes. The same goes for when you want to press them out for baking. Apply more care and know that you won't get a second chance to make the dough stick together. If you want our recipe for red and white sauce, or want to know more about how much cheese and toppings you should put or how to cook the pizzas perfectly, just comment below or write us.
We had some awesome guests over this Saturday, and made them food and cocktails. The theme of the evening was partly Peruvian, including this mango pie for dessert.
This recipe has a history. The neighbor of my aunt back in Peru always asked my aunt for recipes. My aunt would always get slightly incorrect ones in return, because the neighbor wanted to prevent her from copying. The mango pie recipe, however, she would never give away to my aunt, and always made excuses to why. One day while the neighbor was gone, my aunt went over to her house, tricked the maid to let her in and stole the mango pie recipe. She gave the recipe to everyone in order to teach the neighbor to share. My mom got it too and it quickly became my dad's favorite. Mango pie was made every birthday of his from then on. And now, the recipe has made its way to you.
Ingredients
1 can sweetened condensed milk 2 cans of mango 4 egg yolks 4 egg whites 4 limes 2 gelatin plates
Heat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Whisk the egg yolks until they get a creamy consistency and continue to mix in the sweetened condensed milk. Squeeze the lime juice over and stir until incorporated. Whisk the egg whites to firm snow peaks, and fold them into the batter. Butter the oven-proof molds and pour in the egg mix. Bake until the batter is solid, about 15-20 minutes. Allow it to cool down.
Leave the gelatin in cold water for 5-7 mins. Warm the syrup from the canned mangos in a pot. Squeeze the gelatin plates free from water and mix them into the warm syrup until dissolved.
Cut the canned mangos in small cubes. Place half of them over the egg base, and add the other half to the syrup. Fill the glasses with the syrup mix on top. Cool again and serve when it's cold.
The golden trio is cooking up something new. Baking, in fact, this time. Anders Braathen, Stian Floer and Tom Victor Gausdal run the restaurants Smalhans, Hitchhiker, and Strand together. Now they are opening an organic and 100 % pure sourdough bakery at Vulkan, above Mathallen and next to Kontrast. It has been a life long dream for them, and together with master baker Pontus Blomberg they open the doors to their gluten heaven, Handwerk, this Friday the 24th of April.
We snook in for a preview of the baked goods last week, and had a chat with Pontus about sourdough and what makes it special. Pontus had prepared two different types of bread this day, one regular and one made with durum flour. He also had a stack of cinnamon rolls ready, from sourdough of course, which was a great idea for Two Sweet Tooths Eating.
Normally when you bake bread you add already cultivated yeast in order to make the dough rise faster. With sourdough you don't add yeast at all. In stead you give the flour and water time. Time for lactic acid bacteria and yeasts to form, Pontus tells us, which will create the same effect in a slower process.
Except with more time you also get more flavor, Pontus explains. Sourdough bread are more «sour» or acidic, as the name suggest, with more complexity in the taste. The lactic acid bacteria also produce more gas, which gives sourdough it’s characteristic big air bubbles inside. Finally, the high acid level breaks down proteins, which results in weaker gluten. You want those gluten strings weak when you're baking!
There are also health benefits to eating sourdough bread, according to Pontus. It has a lower glycemic index, which means it won’t spike blood sugar as much as regular bread. The digestion is easier, because the digestion process actually starts in the dough, and the fermentation process increases the content of beneficial bacteria for your body as well. Finally, sourdough bread allows your body to take up more of the natural vitamins
Handwerk will serve Smalhans, Hitchhiker and Strand with bread, in addition to other restaurants that are interested to buy them. Regular consumers can buy freshly baked breads and buns of different kinds, some with pistachio cream, Pontus promises. There will also be sandwiches, and Pontus dreams about fermented cabbage as one topping. In addition, Andrea the baker is moving in permanently. She's been hiding in the basement of Smalhans so far, baking those delicious cakes you've seen on the bar counter. Handwerk will be her new base from now on.
We cannot wait until Friday to start buying proper sourdough bread from Handwerk, and we recommend you guys to check it out too!
The 14th of March, or 3-14-15, was the only pi day of our lives. Unless you plan to live to 2115 that is. We could not let the opportunity pass to make a pie this day. Since we had some canned apricots from Gutta på Haugen it was an easy choice to make an apricot pie. Ingredients A big jar of apricots (or 8-12 fresh ones) 6 big fresh plums 50 g sugar 4 tbsp flour 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp salt Juice of half a lemon For the pie crust: 300 g flour 170 g unsalted butter 170 g cream cheese 2 tbsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 3 tbsp heavy cream 1 egg Ready in-3-1-4-1-5...! Start with the pie crust. Mix the dry ingredients in a kitchen machine. Dice the butter and cream cheese and leave them in room temperature. Incorporate them one by one into the flour mix on low speed in the kitchen machine. Stop the machine after the last cube is added. It should look like a crumbly dough. Pour in the heavy cream and let the machine run on slow speed for a few seconds until it is all soaked up. Scrape it out of the bowl with a spatula. Make two equal sized, flat discs from the batter. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. While the dough is in the fridge you can prepare the apricot & plum filling. Cut the apricots and plums in half and remove the stones. Add the lemon. Mix all dry ingredients together and sprinkle them over the fruit, folding them to make sure all sides are covered. Set your oven to 225 degrees C. After at least one hour in the fridge the dough should be ready for use. Dust your kitchen surface with a little flour, and roll the first disc to make it fit a 22 cm (9 inch) pie form. Roll the next disc slightly bigger, about 24-26 cm. If you wanna make a lattice top like us you slice the entire thing with a pizza slicer into about 14 equally sized strips - roughly 1,5 cm each. Fill the pie crust with the fruit filling. Line up half the strips over the pie. Fold half of them back and start making the lattice pattern by folding every other strip back, add a new strip, fold them back, fold the other half back, add a new strip, and so on... Use a fork to pinch the edges down, as shown in the picture. Brush the entire top with 1 whisked egg. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes on 225 degrees C, then reduce to 180 degrees C and bake for another 30-35 minutes. Pay attention; if the crust gets burnt too fast cover it with some aluminum foil.
Happy pi day and enjoy the pie! |
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June 2021
AuthorsI am Andrea, or as my friends call me, Jinx. I am a foodie living in Berlin, eating my way through life. Here are my recipes, cooking events, dining experiences and more... |