Zandkoekjes

Zandtaartjes are.. Extremely Dutch cookies. Their name literally translates into 'sandpies'. Because they look like the sandpies you make in the sand pit. You can buy them in the supermarket, or make them at home. However, coming across zandtaartjes tins is not that easy. My mum has a few, but I have been unable to find new ones anywhere. Until I went shopping at the Markthal in Rotterdam (see my post earlier).

With my new tins, of course.. I had to bake. I use a recipe from an old cookbook from my mum (with some adaptions) which has been used so much, it is falling apart and we've had to copy seperate pages.

Ingredients (with my 4cm(bottom)/7cm(top) tins makes about 14)

Flower: 225 grams

Salt: 1 gram (really NO MORE)

Sugar: 112 grams

Butter (COLD): 169 grams

(optional cinnamon to taste or some vanilla sugar)

Mix the flower, salt and sugar together. Cube the butter and add it to the bowl, either use your kitchen machine with the dough hook or quickly kneed with your hands until you get a firm ball. (with your kitchenmachine you may need to kneed the last bit with your hands to create a ball).

Grease your tins (you can use any kind, even a cupcake tin, just make sure you use tins not silicone!!). Fill them with dough for about 80%. Bake in a 160C pre-heated oven for 24-27 minutes (until golden brown). Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes then gently tap them out and leave them to cool on a rack. 

Bossche Bollen

Bossche Bollen. How to explain them. Basically they are ginormous profiteroles, filled with cream and covered in chocolate. Their origin lies in 's-Herogenbosch, and they are balls so.. Bossche Bollen.

The best Bossche Bollen come from bakery Jan de Groot in 's-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch). Take the train, walk out of the train station (main entrance), keep walking and after some 150 meters on your right hand is the bakery. These bollen are legendary, they bake gazillions every day. But since I'm hardly in Den Bosch these days (and no one bothers bringing me one..), I decided tobake my own.

The dough is not that hard, it is fairly similar to profiteroles.

Ingredients (makes 3 bollen):

Water: 125 ml

Butter: 45 grams

Flower: 64 grams

Egg: 1egg and 1 egg beaten.

Cube the butter and place it in a small sauce pan together with the water. Over medium heat, melt the butter and bring to a boil. Keep stirring the whole time, use a wooden spoon. Once it boils, take the pan off the heat. Add the flower and keep stirring until you get one dough ball. Add in 1 egg and whisk until incorporated, then keep on adding egg and incorporating it, u til the dough comes off your whisk in long strands (about half the egg).

Heap three balls of dough onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. Put in apre-heated oven (200C) and bake for 25-30 minutes (until they feel light when you pick themup and are nice golden brown). Remove from the oven, gently prick a hole in the bottom using a piping tip and return to the baking tray, bottom side up and return to the oven (make sure the temperature is turned off). Leave the bollen to dry for about 20 minutes. Then remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a rack. 

In the meanwhile, you can make the filling. I don't like just using whipped cream (and bakery de Groot uses something else as well, not sure what though). So, I made white chocolate mousse. Yes, you read that right.

Ingredients (more than enough for 4 bollen):

White chocolate: 150 grams 

Cream: 250ml

Egg white: 125 ml

Sugar: 75 grams

Melt the white chocolate (au bain marie, in the microwave, whichever you prefer). Leave to cool slightly. Whip the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Whip the crem until stiff. Fold in the chocolate. Gently fold the egg whites into the cream-chocolate mixture. Don't add all the egg white at once but about four portions. When done, place in a piping bag with a regular tip. Place in the refridgerator for about half an hour.

When the bollen are dry and cool, take the piping bag out of the fridge and fill your bollen, use the hole you made earlier. Just keep filling until the filling comes out. Place them upside down (hole up) on a plate and put them in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

You can now make your glaze

Ingredients (enough for 3):

Cream: 50 ml

Dark chocolate: 100 grams

Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a sauce pan together with the cream, on gentle heat melt the chocolate. Be careful to not let the cream boil. Let cool slightly (about 5-10 minutes).

Take your bollen out of the fridge and gently pour the glaze over them. A good cover is required.

Place the bollen back into the fridge to let the glaze set.

ENJOY! (Fair warning, eating Bossche Bollen leads to a mess. The good things in life are always a bit messy, right.. ;-))

Super Foooood!

Is it a cupcake? Nooo. Is it bad for you? Nooo. It is Super Foooood!

These muffins are filled to the brim with all the latest "super foods". I'm not sure about how healthy they are, but truth is, as a breakfast muffin they are really great (leave you full very well!).

Here goes!

Ingredients: (makes 8-10)

1,5 cups of flour (you can use almond flour if you hate yourself and want to go gluten free)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coconut oil (or any vegetable oil)

1/2 cup sugar

1 lemon, zest and juice

2/3 cup of greek yoghurt

1 egg

2 tb  ground flax seed

2 tb ground cocoa nibs

4 tb ground dessicate coconut

2 tb chia seeds

Preheat the oven till 200C.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. Mix the oil with sugar until creamy. Add the lemon and the yoghurt and mix well. Add egg, mix untill well incorporated. Mix in the flour mixture, until just combined. Add in all the seeds and fold through gently.

Fill your muffin tin. If you want muffins till the edge of your liners, fill them 2/3. If you want the beautiful muffin top type muffin, fill till just under the edge of the liners. 

Bake about 15 minutes. Check with a wooden skewer to see if they are done.

Enjoy!

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.

Angry Profiteroles; A Little Piece of Heaven

Yesterday I was baking one of my favourite pound cakes and for some reason it exploded all over my oven and worse still, it tasted horribly. So after ranting about how upset I was about wasting all the ingredients and having to clean my oven, again, I decided to put my anger (crankiness) into something productive and make profiteroles.

I had never made them before in my life and my mother has always assured me, making them is a nightmare. But.. It was oddly easy. I used the recipe from Kookook, a Dutch cookbook with basis recipes and preparation techniques. I think everyone should have a cookbook which covers all the basics. And going back to them, sometimes, is the smartest thing.

(of course, as always, I forgot to take pictures during, so you'll have to make do with the finished result)

Pecan pralinés - A Photo Essay

Really in no mood to type out the recipe tonight, but it will follow later (read: eventually). For now, here aresome photos of my first trip into being a chocolatier!

Pecan praline

Ground pecan praline

Pecan praline ganache - filling

Tempering chocolate (that didn't work, better luck next time)

Chocolate molds

Homemade pecan pralinés

Never buying seabanquet chocolates again

Leftovers or.. Treasure troves?

I've been trying to conserve food in the best possible way as to not waste anything, so my fridge has turned into a ziplock haven. But some things don't ziplock too well. Like soy cream and condensed milk. So I decided to look in my cupboard and see what else I had left I could use with cream and milk. I found half a bar of chocolate and dried coconut. And thus my stracciatella coconut ice cream was born, in short: bounty dark chocolate ice cream: HEAVEN. 

The result was this, and it makes me SO happy! I adjusted the recipe to a perfect mix (to me)

200ml soy cream light

Vanilla bean

150 ml condensed milk

25grams dark chocolate

20 grams coconut

Heat the cream with the vanilla pod, bring to the boil and let simmer for five minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for an hour. Remove vanilla bean and scrape seeds and put them into the cream. Turn heat back on, add condensed milk, don't boil. Turn off heat. Let cool and transfer to a freezer proof container.

Place in freezer, let cool for 30 minutes then stir, place back in freezer for another 30 minutes, meanwhile melt chocolate and let cool till it's still liquid but not warm. Remove cream from freezer and while stirring drip in chocolate. Place container back in freezer for another 30 minutes. Remove from freezer and add coconut while stirring. Place back in freezer and remove+stir at four 15 minute intervals, after that leave to freeze. The result is truly divine!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

For as long as I can remember my dad made ice cream himself. From scratch and when I was a young kid, with no ice cream churner. And so, from a young age I have learned that making ice cream, really is very easy. All it needs is a boat load of love and some patience. I'm planning to share some of my favourites over the coming weeks, but lets start with the most basic of ice creams, vanilla.

This recipe comes from an old eighties cookbook, many times adjusted. It is incredibly low on sugar compared to the original and also less eggy. After all the cream and the flavour are the stars of the show.

Ingredients: 

500ml cream (or 250 cream/250 soy cream light)

1 fresh vanilla pod

2 egg yolks

50 grams of fine caster sugar

Put the cream in a pan with the lengthwise sliced open vanilla pod and gently heat over a medium fire. Bring to the boil and let simmer for five minutes. Turn off the heat and let the mixture sit for a few hours (preferably over night).

Remove the vanilla pod, scrape some seeds out and put them in the cream. Reheat your cream, but don't bring to the boil! Whisk loose the egg yolks and while stirring add three tablespoons of the warm cream to the eggs. Remove pan from heat and add egg mixture, keep stirring. Return pan to fire and gently stir it until mixture starts thickening a bit. Add the sugar and stir until desolved.

Let your mixture cool while stirring occassionally. Pour your mixture through a sieve into a freezer proof container (or your ice cream churner). Put the ice cream in your freezer and stir every half hour until it starts to freeze then four more times every fifteen minutes, then leave to freeze. 

You have just made vanilla ice cream congrats!!

You can also make cinnamon ice cream with this recipe, just replace the vanilla pod with two or three cinnamon sticks!

(photos to follow)

*title of this post blatantly copied from that wonderful Mars ice cream bar tv advert!

Christmas Dessert Madness and Mayhem

This year for Christmas, I said, I'd make the dessert. And of course I had to come up with something ridiculously grand, which I had never done before. What is a fun Christmas dinner without panic attacks and cold sweats?
After much experimenting and seven straight hoyrs in the kitchen prepping on Christmas Eve, I produced a (if I may say so myself) super yummy dessert!

Lime Panna Cotta, Raspberry Sorbet, Lime and Raspberry Macarons and a Raspberry Coulis

Lime Panna Cotta (serves 4-6)

200 g fine castor sugar
200ml semi-skimmed milk
450 ml soya cream light
3 to 4 limes
1 lemon
250 g mascarpone
3 sheets of gelatine

For this recipe I use semi-skimmed milk and soya cream light to ease a little on the load of fat. You can use full fat milk and normal cream, but your dish will be much heavier and of course cooking time will differ.

Put the sugar, milk and cream in sauce pan and bring to the boil while gently stirring. Once the cream mixture is gently boiling, leave it to simmer for an hour to an hour and a half. It will have the consistency of a thick custard. Stir occasionally.
Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water. Meanwhile remove the pan from the heat and stir in the mascarpone, if you have lumps, use a stick blender to remove them.
Juice the limes and lemon, this should give about 150ml of juice. Add a bit to the mixture and mix till you have a smooth mixture and taste before you add more juice. I use about 140ml, but you may want more or less depending on your sweet tooth and/or taste of lemons and limes.
Squeeze the gelatine sheets dry and stir them through your mixture one by one.
Divide the mixture over your panna cotta molds, leave to cool to room temperature and then put in fridge and leave overnignt.

Raspberry Sorbet (serves 4-6)

300g frozen raspberries
1,5 shotglas raspberry vodka (or plane vodka with some raspberry syrup)
Juice of half a lemon
75g icing sugar
75cl water

Leave the raspberries to defrost. Once defrosted, put in a bowl with the vodka and let soak for two hours. Stir occassionally so all raspberries soak up vodka. Drain as much of the liquid as possible (and set aside to mix with some Coke Light later, yumm).
Blend the raspberries with the stick blender and pass the goo through a (plastic) sieve into the pan, pour the water and lemon juice through as well. This makes the passing of the raspberry goo easier and you sieve out any lemon bits as well. (nb. quite a large amount of pitty muck remains). Add the sieved icing sugar and stir. Gently heat the mixture to a boil and leave to boil for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and let cool for five minutes. Pour the mixture into a freezer proof container and leave to cool to room temperature. Put the container in the freezer and stir the sorbet every thirty minutes until it really starts to set. Remove from freezer one minute before you are ready to start plating.

Raspberry coulis (8-10 personen)

250gr frozen raspberries
48ml raspberry balsamic
40 ml water
28 ml lemon juice
(icing sugar/liquid stevia)

Defrost the raspberries. Transfer them to a bowl and pour the balsamic in. Leave to soak for two hours, stir occassionally. Puree with a stick blender.
Pour the water into a sauce pan, pass the raspberry goo through a (plastic) sieve, strain the lemon juice with it. Give it a good stir amd bring to a boil. Leave to boil for ten minutes. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool. Once cooled add icing sugar and/or liquid stevia to sweeten. Do not use powdered stevia as it gives a bitter after taste. Leave for a day, uncovered, at room temperature.

Raspberry macarons 10-20

37,5g aged egg whites (at least 24h, preferrably 48h)
100g fine caster sugar
25 ml water
red foodcolouring

37,5g fresh egg whites
62,5g finely ground almonds
62,5g icing sugar

Make sure your mise en place is complete before starting!
Weigh your almonds after sieving them, you lose quite a bit. Mix the almonds through the icing sugar and add in the fresh egg white, mix till you have a thick paste.

Add water and sugar to a sauce pan and turn on heat, keep stirring till the sugar has disolved. Add food colouring. Don't be afraid to be a little extreme, the colour will fade with following steps and during baking. Add thermometer. When the temperature reaches 100C start whisking the eggwhites. (lowest speed). Once the temperature has reached 121C, turn off heat and gently pour the sugar to the eggwhites while beating. Continue beating until the bowl reaches room temperature.
Divide the almond mixture in three parts and fold it into the eggwhites. Scoop this mixture into your piping bag.
Cover a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone bakingmat. Gently pipe circles mixture onto it. For this recipe I made macarons roughly the size of a euro. Because the macarons were so small, I used a small piping nuzzle for a little more control.when finished piping, gently tap the baking tray on your work bench six times to release excess air. Leave for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 150C. Bake for 15 minutes. At 6/7 minutes, open thenoven door briefly. This prevents your macarons heating up too fast and cracking.
After fifteen minutes your macarons should have a firm top but slightly wobbly foot.
Remove baking tray from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes. Place macarons on roster to let cook and dry further.

Raspberry filling

160g frozen raspberries, defrosted
5 teaspoons fine castor sugar
2 teaspoons corn flour
1 egg, whisked

Blend the rapsberries and pass through a (plastic) sieve into a sauce pan. Add sieved corn flour and sugar, stir in the whisked egg. (if you have lumps, don't be afraid to use the stick blender) heat for five minutes to a boil while stirring. Remove from heat and keep stirring until it thickens. Pour this mixture into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to cool.

Once the mixture is cooled, compose your macarons. Do this close to serving, or your macarns will go spungy.

Lime macarons 10-20

37,5g aged egg whites (at least 24h, preferrably 48h)
100g fine caster sugar
25 ml water
green foodcolouring

37,5g fresh egg whites
62,5g finely ground almonds
62,5g icing sugar

Make sure your mise en place is complete before starting!
Weigh your almonds after sieving them, you lose quite a bit. Mix the almonds through the icing sugar and add in the fresh egg white, mix till you have a thick paste.

Add water and sugar to a sauce pan and turn on heat, keep stirring till the sugar has disolved. Add food colouring. Don't be afraid to be a little extreme, the colour will fade with following steps and during baking. Add thermometer. When the temperature reaches 100C start whisking the eggwhites. (lowest speed). Once the temperature has reached 121C, turn off heat and gently pour the sugar to the eggwhites while beating. Continue beating until the bowl reaches room temperature.
Divide the almond mixture in three parts and fold it into the eggwhites. Scoop this mixture into your piping bag.
Cover a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone bakingmat. Gently pipe circles mixture onto it. For this recipe I made macarons roughly the size of a euro. Because the macarons were so small, I used a small piping nuzzle for a little more control.when finished piping, gently tap the baking tray on your work bench six times to release excess air. Leave for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 150C. Bake for 15 minutes. At 6/7 minutes, open thenoven door briefly. This prevents your macarons heating up too fast and cracking.
After fifteen minutes your macarons should have a firm top but slightly wobbly foot.
Remove baking tray from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes. Place macarons on roster to let cook and dry further.

Lime filling

100cl lime juice
20g fine castor sugar
2 teaspoons corn flour
1 egg, whisked

Sieve the lime juice into a sauce pan. Add sieved corn flour and sugar, stir in the whisked egg. (if you have lumps, don't be afraid to use the stick blender) heat for five minutes to a boil while stirring. Remove from heat and keep stirring until it thickens. Pour this mixture into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to cool.

Once the mixture is cooled, compose your macarons. Do this close to serving, or your macarns will go spungy.


Plate up and enjoy!!

Oliebollen

I have been ignoring the blog,  but it is a new year, so I decided to whipe the slate clean and start again. So here we are. First of all, a happy 2013 to everyone. May it be unforgettable.

For NYE celebrations in the Netherlands we tend to bake. Specifically oliebollen. You see oliebollen-food trucks pop up as early as late November, but the oliebollen eating really builds up post Christmas, with its culmination on December 30th and New Year's Day.
The recipe I have for it was given to me by my mother who got it from a very old trusted cookbook. As far as recipes go, it is singlehandedly the most Dutch thing I know how to make. (since I don't know how to make cheese).

Oliebollen (10-12)

1/2 kilo plain flour
1 sachet of dry yeast (7g)
1/2 litre of luke warm milk (I use semi-skimmed milk)
Salt
Yellow and brown raisins.

Mix the flour with the yeast, give it a good stir with a wooden spoon so all the yeast is properly mixed in. Add milk until the flour is no longer dusting (about or just over half). Add the rest of the milk and a pinch of salt (rather too little than too much, because salty oliebollen are atrocious). Mix until you have a (nearly) smooth batter. Add the raisins as you please, make sure they are evenly distributed.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave to proof for 45 to 60 minutes in a lukewarm spot. (next to a heater or in a oven at 38C)

Heat a pan with sunflower oil or a deep fryer to about 190C (you can test with a small piece of bread). I use an ice scoop to get nice size oliebollen, dip it in water between scoops or your batter will stick to the scoop. Bake 3/4 at the same time.
They are done when they are brown-ish. (note, they brown a little as they cool down as well.)
Serve with a dusting of icing sugar.