The health kick 2014

I've been sticking to all my New Year's Resolutions in 2014. (like blog more) And it's time to start the last one. The ultimate health kick. I've been training really hard with physio, and dare I say it, it has been going 'ok'. (we don't use the w word, that's jinxing) And last Friday I squatted 62,5kgs. It was one of the best moments of the last 2,5 years. Undoubtedly there is a setback on the horizon, but right now I can look up. And it seems unfair to my body to ask it to perform at the peak of its ability and then feed it crap non-stop. So no more, fruits, veggies, nuts and fish are my future.

And yippe, you all get to enjoy it too! (run while you can ;-))

Lets get Silli!

For Christmas this year, I got such an awesome gift. It's sillicone paste to make your own moulds and it's aptly called 'Silli'. 

It's from Sillicreations and yes, you can buy it too at www.sillicreations.com!

My first mould was a shot glass, so in the future I can make a Ferran Adría dish that asks for a shot glass made out of ice.

So this is how it goes

You take equal parts of white and green paste

You kneed it

Until you have a clump of an even colour

Mould it around whatever you are using

And leave it for three hours. (NO PEAKING!)

Then de-mould and let it set for three more days.

And then use it!! 

The next step for me will be Legos. Because I can! :-)

Tennis doesn't need David Attenboroughs

There are a lot of things that bother me about tennis commentating a lot of the times (aside from those precious few exemptions), but I won't list them all. After all it is easy to sit on the sofa and tell people how much they suck at their job. I'll spare that energy for the actual tennis.

Today I don't want to rant about commentators harping on about their former careers, or their obvious drooling over or attacking of some players, today I want to address the one thing that bothers me most about tennis commentating: narrating.

I am not watching a nature film where I need David Attenborugh telling me that what the birds are doing is actually flirting, neither is it such a high pace sport that I can't see what is going on. It is tennis, I can see when a player hits the umpteenth double fault and considering I am the proud owner of a seemingly functioning brain (shush, that joke is too easy) I know that that is not helpful for a player to do. What I would like to see, or actually hear, more in tennis commentating is actual commentary. And no, I don't mean 'she/he sucks for double faulting', that's what we have twitter for. Give me some insight, is a player dropping their shoulder too much during the toss? Is their service motion abbreviated? Could they change their grip. 

A part of this commentating would also be the commentators knowing the rules. Yesterday one of my British Eurosport commentators was sure Falla was footfaulting, because his knee (his KNEE) crossed the centre line during his service motion. Don't go about guessing, read the rulebooks. Of course there are fuzzy implementations, especially with hawk-eye and hindrance rules (ahem), but don't get it so obviously wrong.

A good example of two sports I enjoy watching in part thanks to their commentating are international rugby on the BBC (and I do mean the actual commentating, not the post game analysis) and speedskating on the NOS. It isn't always perfect, and sometimes there is mindless babble, but most of it is explaining why things are happening as they happen. And yes, the occassional 'that is SNESATIONAL' is more than welcome. If a 10 kilometer skating race can be made riveting by explaining why someone is skating so well and how that compares to skating less (that's 13 minutes of 400m laps, it's rarely edge of your seat stuff all the way), and simply watching a rugby match can teach you the (often complicated) rules, without turning into a lesson, surely tennis commentators can bring some insight during matches.

Lindsay Davenport and Jason&Robbie are great examples of commentators who bring that in tennis, they add to the tennis viewing experience. May more commentators take after them in 2014!

Recipe time! Ultimate cookie recipe time!

Yes, I finally got up from the sofa to grab my recipe binder to bring you the recipe of my divine cookies!

Thanks to my lovely friend Mimi, I know have a photo of the store bought cookies as well!

Just so you know where the inspiration came from!!

Cookies (makes about 100)

420g plain flour (3 cups)

2 teaspoons baking powder

200g granulated sugar (1 cup)

225g butter. Cold and cubed.

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla aroma or extract.

Preheat your oven to  and cover your baking tray(s) with baking paper

Sift the flower with the baking powder and set aside. Mix the sugar with the butter until nice and creamy, add the egg and the aroma and mix until incorporated. Add the flower and mix until just combined. Gently knead until you can form a nice ball. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Roll on a lightly floured surface until about 4mm thick. (the thicker the dough the longer it needs to bake and vice versa). I used a shot glass as a cookie cutter, because that seemed like the ideal cookie size to me, but you can use whichever you like! Place your cookies on the baking tray(s) and place them in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking.

Bake for 10-15 minutes (oven and cookie thickness dependent) until lightly golden brown.

Remove tray from oven, leave cookies to cool for a few minutes and then place them on a cooling rack. (they need to cool down completely before putting the icing on).

Frosting (for about 50-60 cookies)

300 grams white chocolate (chopped)

170 grams butter

1 sachet vanilla sugar

Powdered sugar (to consistency)

Milk (to consistency)

Melt the chocolate, let cool slightly. Cream the butter and add cooled chocolate, add vanilla sugar. Mix at low speed. Then bit by bit add milk and powdered sugar until you reachyour desired consistency. For this recipe, I left the frosting on the firmer side. (When I tried piping it, it burst my piping bag, that firm, I could mould it into balls with my hands).

Decorate cookies

Candy balls (or as we call it in Dutch 'disco')

Cookies

Frosting 

Roll little balls of the frosting and press them out to discs on the cookies, press the cookies (frosting side down) into the disco et voila!

Super Secret Recipe Secrets

Earlier I made a photo post about my gingerbread villa. Today I share my super secret adjustment to the Adriano Zumbo recipe I used.

(I made twice the amount for the villa and a windmill)

85g butter, coarsely chopped,

100ml light corn syrup

85g fine caster sugar

35ml milk (I used low fat)

240g flower

5 1/2 tsp speculaas spices (ahaaaa!!!)

3/4 tsp baking powder

(Icing: 80g icing sugar, 1/2 lightly beaten egg white)

Preheat oven to 180C. Sieve dry ingredients into a bowl, set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan on low heat, add cor  syrup and milk. Stir tocombine and hear till 43C. (about 2 minutes, but you'll want to use a thermometer).

Add milk-butter mixture to the dry ingredients, stir to combine.

Kneed to a dough you can shape into a disk. Refrigerate at least 2hrs. 

Roll out the dough on a flowered surface, anywhere between 3 and 6 mm. (it'll depend on what you are building really). Place on baking sheet covered with baking paper (or whatever you have that fits your fridge) and refrigerate for half an hour. 

Bake for 20 minutes (max), until golden brown. Let cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Do not startconstructing until completely cool. 

To make the icing, combine egg white and icing sugar and whisk until smooth. Use a piping bag with a very small nozzle. 

As you saw in the ingredient list,I use asuper secret ingredient called speculaas spices. 

I generally don't like gingerbread but speculaas spices consist of much the same spices, just different ratios. We also use the spices to make (the name gives it away) speculaas. More on that later.

Speculaas spices: (this should make more than enough)

Cinnamon powder: 15g

Ground nutmeg: 2g

Ground cloves: 2g

Powdered ginger: 1g

Ground cardamom: 1/2g (a pinch)

Ground white pepper: 1g white pepper

You can leave out the white pepper for a softer flavour and the cloves can be replaced by ground mace.

Le Whoops..

Went to visit my parents and forgot my iPad which pretty much holds all my recipes, so blogging was not happening! 

But now the theme fits the title; le whoops. This Christmas I decided to bake my own Stollen. (or as we call it in Dutch kerststol or kerstbrood (simply, Christmas bread) When I was younger my grandmother always brought Stollen from Germany when she went to visit the Christmas markets. Sadly this tradition has long since ended so now we buy from several stores. However, since I was baking my behind off, I decided 'Lets make something complicated you never tried before!'. 

You might have guessed. Disaster. I followed an old recipe and as usually happens when I follow a recipe, it all went to hell in a hamdbasket. My dough didn't rise, didn't bake and then Iover baked it and it went crumbly.

But.. It tasted divine. Luckily for me, we eat the same bread for Easter, so take II will come sooner than later

(still looks half decent, no?!)

Chocolates. A mess but a great gift

This year for Christmas, I decided to not only give regular gifts. I decided to make my parents and brother boxes of chocolates. Because who doesn't need extra time in the kitchen?

I had to work a ton in the week before Christmas so it turned into 6 o'clock wake ups to crank out chocolates before work, which aided in the making of a GINORMOUS mess

(Art really.)

I made 6 varieties of chocolates and I got more excited about every variation as I tasted them. (I can't possibly give away chocolates without trying them! And eating the 'damaged' ones. Obviously)

The six varieties were:

Hazelnut praline.

Amarula.

Malibu and coconut.

Mango and red pepper.

Dulche de Leche.

Popping candy.

The popping candy chocolates were an absolute nightmare to make. But oh my goodness WHAT fun! I felt very cheffy! (my brother was disappointed I didn't make the popping candy myself, but then again he didn't have to deal with my moods after four 6 o'clock mornings. (and yes, it led to me having a nervous breakdown over damage to the gingerbread windmill I transported over 200km to my parents. Distraught doesn't begin to describe how my poor, sleepdeprived self felt.)

I must say, I am happy how the chocolates turned out. And I am a little bit in love with seahorse shape! 

The Ultimate Christmas Cookie. ULTIMATE!

I put away Christmas today, and now I'm sad. But old habits die hard, so Christmas gets put away on Three Kings. (Felices Reyes Magos if you are celebrating).

I also put away my recipes, which wasn't smart, but it means this post will be photo heavy and recipe light. And by light I mean, you'll have to wait for it.

Every year for Christmas and Easter I buy a pack (or three) of the same cookies and devour them all far too fast. Sadly I can't find a photo of these cookies, but hopefully come Easter I'll remember to update this post. Anyway, this year I decided to make my own! Be ause nothing tastes better than homemade cookies. And so I baked cookies. A lot. Of. Cookies. 120 to be precise. I didn't eat them all, I promise, I gave loads away! And they were received well. I mean, it's one thing liking your own cookies, it's another for others to like them! (my dad says I'm never allowed to eat the store bought ones again)

The proces and result: (I really thought I had more photos)

When gingerbread turns candy

For the first time ever, I decided to make a gingerbread house. And of course, I decided to go crazy and alter the recipe (as I am generally not very fond of gingerbread) and design my own templates. I have to say, when crankiness over all the work had subsided I felt super proud of the result! 

And since I've had some instructions on how to better use my camera, here's a bit of pic spam!

I will post my super secret recipe in a later post.