Stöllen

I love Stöllen.  I think it is extra special because we only eat it at Christmas time.  I guess if we had it all the time, the magic could be lost.  It was towards the end of November, a month before Christmas I decided that the time to bake Stöllen has arrived.  I baked it twice for home and once for my daughter's school so far.

I was chuffed to be asked for the recipe by a couple of mothers who got to taste it.

I used to bake Stöllen with marzipan in the middle, but I realised last year that I didn't really enjoy eating the intensely sweet bit in the middle.  So this year, I mixed plenty of almond flakes in the dough instead of marzipan.  I much prefer it, but if you like your marzipan, there is nothing stopping you from putting some in there before the second proofing.

180ml Milk

7g Dry Yeast

410g Plain Flour170g Softened Butter

80g Brown Sugar

1 1/2 Eggs

3g Salt (if using unsalted butter, add 8g of salt)

1 tbs Mixed Spice

1 tsp Ginger Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

125g Mixed Dry Fruit 

125g Flaked Almonds

Mix all the ingredients together until well combined.

You don't have to knead it much.

Don't be alarmed, it is meant to be a sticky and messy dough.  

Leave it to proof for 90 minutes.

You can either make one big Stollen or two small ones.

The bigger one takes longer to bake.

If making two small ones, divide the dough into two equal portions.

Use plenty of flour on the bench and roll each one out into a thick disk.

Fold over and let the dough proof for 60 minutes.

Bake in the preheated oven (180 degrees celsius) for approximately 30 minutes (35 minutes if baking one big stollen).

Every oven is different, so you need to see if the stollen looks nice and golden all over before you take it out of the oven.

When they are still hot, brush with a generous amount of melted butter (not included in the recipe above) all over and dust icing sugar on top.

Paris-Brest with raspberries

We had friends over for dinner last night and this picture above is actually the dud version of the Paris-Brest I baked yesterday.  I have a tried and tested (dozens of times) recipe for choux pastry.  For some reason, I decided to try this other recipe I found in a book given to me by a friend yesterday.  The ratio of flour to  egg seemed a little odd to me, but I persisted.  The result was that the choux pastry puffed up briefly, but then collapsed once the oven temperature was lowered and never recovered.

I baked a second one using my usual recipe and fortunately that one worked much better.

I really need to learn that I need to stick with the trustworthy recipe when I'm entertaining!


Anyway, the inspiration for this dessert comes from this amazing dish I ate at Bistro Moncur almost 10 years ago.  It was actually an eclair which was crispy, with beautiful custard, buttery almond slices with the best raspberries I ever tasted in my life.

With a scary amount of egg yolks that went into the custard and the two batches of choux pastry I made, I lost count of the eggs I used yesterday.  Best not to think too much about it really.

The one I served last night looked better and had golden almond slices scattered in between and on top, but the flashlight really didn't do it justice.

Even though I used the raspberries, it still tasted pretty good.
My only regret is that it took me almost 10 years to recreate it.
It won't take that long for my next one : )

Macadamia & White Chocolate Cookies

I have a weakness for these cookies.
The crunchy oily macadamia nuts and the guilty pleasures of the white chocolate mixed with buttery cookie sweetened with brown sugar.  How could you resist them?

For these cookies, I find the chocolate buttons are too small.
The white chocolate bits need to be chunky enough to sink your teeth into.
So, I recommend buying a block of chocolate and roughly crack it into chunky, yet manageable bits.

100g butter (personally I like using salted butter)
100g brown sugar
1 egg
200g self raising flour
30g coconuts

Macadamia nuts (roasted for 7 minutes)
White chocolate chunks


Oven 170 degrees celsius
Bake for approximately 10 minutes or till golden

The real sausage rolls

I baked these sausage bread rolls for lunch last week.
I was planning to bake bread rolls, cook sausages and salad originally.
Then I thought, why not bake them together?
I would do anything to reduce the amount of washing up : )

The sausages were Germanic smoked type, so they just needed to be reheated while the bread dough around them were being baked.
I don't think you can do this with raw sausages.

My German mother in law liked them very much.

The trick is to roll out the dough in a long triangle shape, then place the sausage on the wide end of the triangle and roll up towards the pointy end.

These were baked in the 180 degrees celsius oven for approximately 20 minutes.

Strawberry and Ganache Tart

My husband was watching Jamie Oliver on TV one night and said to me the next day.

"When are you making that thing with the orange?"

He is not exactly articulate, my hubby.  However, he has trained me to guess what he wants to say and after a quick scan of my brains, I worked out he was talking about the ganache dessert Jamie made with mandarins and biscuits.

If all he wants is just the gooey ganache, I decided that I could make something even better by baking a tart case and pouring the ganache in it to set.

Over the years, I have tried numerous chocolate tart recipes.
I have come to a conclusion that the ganache tart is by far the best and also quicker to make.

Yum. Got to love the srawberry season.

Bithdaycakes

It was my daughter's birthday the other day and I have baked cakes for three separate celebrations.

The one above was the one we took to school.  Of all the chocolate cake recipes I have baked in my life, I would have to say the stout chocolate cake one is the best.  Recently I have revised the recipe which uses treacle dissolved in hot water instead of stout which works just as well if not better.

This is a beautiful moist cake and all it needs is some whipped cream with a little bit of acidity from berries.

The second one I made was for the home celebration.
I made a disc of raspberry mousse which was sandwitched by sponge layers.  
Please don't ask why I'm not showing a close up photo of it.....

This is the joint birthday cake I made on the weekend for my daughter and her friend who has her birthday in two weeks.

I wish I had just a few more strawberries to complete the line of chocolate dipped berries.
Because the chocolate was stuck on the plate, I could not even rearrange them : (


In a couple of days, I will be baking another birthday cake.
This time it will be for my father in law.

Potato, Rosemary and Cheese Bread

On the weekend, I had some families over for an afternoon tea.
Usually, I would bake a couple of cakes as well as biscuits for an occasion like that, but I knew that all the kids were going to attend a birthday party in the late afternoon and that they were most certain to overdose on sugar in those two hours.
That is why I baked only one cake and a couple of snacking bread.

For this one, I cubed and boiled some potatoes till just tender.  Once the potatoes were drained, I drizzled some extra virgin olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and a little salt over the potatoes, mixed them well and set aside.

I rolled out the bread dough, placed the cubed potato in a line at one end, sprinkled grated cheese all over, then rolled the dough from the potato end.  I then placed this roll on a baking tray lined with silicon baking sheet, shaped it into a horseshoe, snipped along it with a pair of kitchen scissors to create vents, and let it proof for 45 minutes or so before baking it in the 180 degrees celsius oven till golden brown. Approximately 30 minutes, but it depends on your oven.  Make sure the cheese is molten and bubbling.