Bircher Müsli muffins

Please tell me when I start to bore you with my yoghurt obsession. It's just that these recipes seem to be haunting me and when something as brilliant as a Bircher Müsli Muffin catches my eye... well you know the rest. I mean Bircher müsli and muffins - two dear things to me - combined into one! I'm in breakfast heaven.





These go great with some cream cheese and a cup of coffee on a weekday morning and stay fresh and moist when kept in an airtight container... and I'll say it just this one time anymore: It's the yoghurt and apple that do it!


Bircher Müsli Muffins (10 muffins)


4 dl (1 3/4 cups) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3,5 dl (1 1/2 cups) untoasted müsli and extra to sprinkle on top
1,20 dl (1/2 cup) brown sugar
0,5 teaspoon mixed spice (I used cinnamon)
1,20 dl (1/2 cup) plain natural yoghurt
0,60 dl (1/4 cup) milk
0,60 dl (1/4 cup) canola oil or basic cooking oil
1 egg
1 apple (preferably Granny Smith)


Preheat oven to 180 °C.
Mix together all the fluid ingredients: yoghurt, milk, oil and egg.
Grate the apple and add to the mixture.
Mix flour and baking powder together and combine with all the other dry ingredients: sugar, müsli and spice mix.
Mix lightly together the dry and fluid ingredients, just until they are combined and spoon the mixture into muffin cups or tray until 2/3 full.
Sprinkle with extra müsli and bake for 20 to 25 minutes and let cool completely before eating. If you can!




Source: http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=645093

Chantarelles with Fettuccine and a chocolate savarin on Sunday

My mother was visiting me for over a week and we ate out a lot. We ate typical german as well as italian and asian food, to name a few. We were both happy with everything Freiburg had to offer, except for one thing, my mom had been craving for since she arrived; simply fresh chantarelles with some speck (bacon) and pepper. She had eaten something like this in a restaurant last time visiting, but this time I had to make it myself since the restaurants didn't have anything like this on their lists. And as dessert... well, a damp, bittersweet chocolate savarin. The king of flourless chocolate cakes.
As a dinner for her last night here, she finally got what she wanted and my dessert fantasy came to life.











Chanterelles and bacon with Fettuccine



250 g Fettuccine
300 g fresh chanterelles
1 large onion
80 g bacon (cut into thin and stringy pieces)
olive oil
fresh parsley
lemon juice
parmesan






Pour water into a kettle (for the pasta) and bring to boil.
Meanwhile cleanse the mushrooms if needed. Cut the onion and sauté on a pan with some olive oil for a few minutes and add the bacon. Add the chanterelles (crumble them with your fingers if they are very big) and some salt and black pepper.
Cook the pasta in boiling water as instructed. Remember not to over cook it!
Add a couple of tablespoons from the pasta water to the mushrooms and stir carefully. Or if you happen to have a white wine bottle open, add that instead of water! Cook the chanterelles only for 4-5 minutes and set aside until the pasta is ready.
Pour the cooking water away, drizzle in some olive oil and combine with the mushroom mixture.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and set the parsley, parmesan and slices of lemon individually to the table so that everyone can season their own portion as they want!



Chocolate savarin (three to four portions)


75 g butter
100 g dark chocolate ( 70 or 75%)
80 g sugar
2 eggs
whipped cream for serving


Preheat oven to 200 °C.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan and remove from the stove. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until it becomes a smooth and shiny mixture.

Add the sugar and eggs and stir again until smooth.
Pour it either into one half liter round mold or, as I did, to three small molds (200 ml each). Remember to butter the dishes first.

The baking time depends a lot on what size molds you are using. 12 minutes was enough for the small ones. A large, 1 liter dish required 30 minutes and half liter mold between 15 and 30 (logically!).
The best way is to test a few times with a toothpick. The consistency should be damp and moist...







...When ready, let cool for some minutes and carefully turn savarins out of the moulds up side down for serving and garnish with whipped cream.

Plumcake allo yogurt

As soon as I saw that this recipe uses yoghurt, I knew I had to make it. Everything with yoghurt and quark and what they do to bread and food in general make me happy at the moment (new recipes are very welcome!!). This Italian breakfast cake was no exception. It represents exactly what it is that I like so much about cakes using yoghurt; they are moist, dense and stay long fresh without drying out and they have a yoghurty sourness which I often crave for. Thank you, Veera from Prinsessakeittiö for the recipe!




The original classic plumcake was made with dryed fruit when they were imported to Europe in the old days. A cheaper version of the cake used plums, and addition to the name have the main ingredients stayed the same.



Plumcake allo yogurt


130 grams powder sugar
2 eggs
120 grams cooking oil (for example rapeseed oil)
400 ml natural yoghurt
zest of one lemon (preferably organic)
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
280 grams flour
1 tablespoon baking powder


Mix together the sugar, eggs, oil, yoghurt lemon zest and vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder together and add to the yoghurt mixture. Stir well, cover with a towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1,5 hours.
Grease a regular loaf pan (I used several small ones) and fill them up to 3/4 .
Bake for 40 minutes at 200 ° C . Let it cool before serving.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

The victory of Obama was a good reason to make these soft and chewy PBJ cookies, for which I had been craving for a long time. The taste brought back childhood memories of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on school lunch breaks and these cookies turned out just as I wanted; soft and chewy from the inside and crispy on the outside.
I also baked a portion without jam and flattened each one with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern.


Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies (makes about 35 cookies)


260 grams peanut butter (crunchy or soft, as you like)
110 grams softened butter
200 grams white sugar
1 egg
45 ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
155 grams flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
your favorite fruit preserve ( I used cherry jam)



Preheat oven to 190 ° C (375 degrees F).
In a bowl mix together peanut butter, butter and sugar. Beat in first the egg, then milk and vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine it all with the peanut butter mixture.

Make small balls (about a tablespoonful) from the dough and place them on a baking sheet. Leave two or three cm space between the cookies, as they will spread.
Press a hole in each cookie with your finger and put some jam into the dented center with a small spoon.
Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, until the edges become golden but the surface of the cookie still has a light colour.
The cookies brake easily when hot, so let them cool before removing from the baking sheet.

A second appearance of The Brioche

I have a memory of bread pudding from a cafe in Helsinki, where I ate it many years ago. I remember the cinnamon and the comforting taste of custard on a wintery day. Eating it was like wrapping myself into a fleece blanket and putting woollen socks on my feet. This tasted at least as good and it didn't even need to be served with whipped cream or ice cream, as many recepies that I browsed through suggest.
This one was made from the left over brioches, I had from Saturday. It was baked in a water bath, so it stayed really moist and had creamy custard dripping between the fluffy and spongy bread bits. I found this recipe from joy of baking and addapted it a bit to suit my needs. I didn't add any raisins or other condiments because I felt like putting something simple and modest in my mouth, but you are free to add for example pieces of apple, banana, berries or sultanas, if you like.
The five brioche buns I had left were enough for this pudding. The quantities for other kinds of breads (for example french bread, italian, croissant or almost anything you happen to have) are below.



Bread pudding (makes about five servings)


about 1 liter (or 5 cups) of bread cubes

Custard:

2 large eggs
100 g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
or 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
5 dl milk


Preheat oven to 150 °C. Grease an oven dish (I used a round dish, 20cm diameter, 10 cm high) and place the bread cubes in the dish.

Prepare the custard: Beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy and thick (about 4 to 5 minutes). Add the vanilla and cinnamon and beat in the melted and cooled butter and milk.
Pour the custard mixture on the bread cubes and press with a fork so that all of the bread bits are covered.

Then place the dish in a larger oven dish and fill the larger one with hot water. The water should be half up-sides of the 20 cm x 10 cm dish.

Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. You can also test it by pressing the surface gently with a fork. If any custard rises to the top, it needs to be in the oven a bit longer.
(After an hour, I turned the oven off and left it in for another five minutes.)

Remove the pudding out of the water bath and let it cool down 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

It can be served hot or cold, with whipped cream or ice cream or with what I prefer - simply a dusting of powder sugar. Yum!

So, this is how they survived before bakeries were invented...!

I am already so used to getting fresh rolls on weekend mornings from the bakery downstairs, that as this Saturday, because of All Saint's day, it was exceptionally closed, I had to make my own bread. It gave me a reason to bake brioche, something that has been on my list for a long time, but what I never actually got to making myself. It just seemed to be to much work compared to the fresh things the bakery has to offer.
Brioche is not the quickest thing to make but now that I tryed it out for the first time, I have to say it was fully worth all the waiting and dough rising. It's best enjoyed with butter and marmelade fresh from the oven, when it is still warm and moist from the inside.







Brioche (makes 12 muffin sized buns)

500 g all-purpose flour
20 g fresh yeast or half tablespoon active dry yeast
200 g warm milk
5 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
75 g soft butter (use the real stuff, not margarine!)
2 eggs


Put the flour into a bowl and make a hole in the middle. Crumble or sprinkle the yeast in it, dependeng on which one you are using, and pour just enough warm milk in to cover the yeast. Then mix the yeast and milk mixture once or twice. Leave in a warm place, covered with a kitchen towel for 15 to 20 minutes, until the surface starts to look bubbly.

Add the rest of the ingredients and knead well, either with a kitchen machine or with your hands until the dough is easy to remove from the bowl and isn't sticky anymore. Add more flour one tablespoon at a time if needed.
Cover the bowl again with a towel and let it rest for one hour, this time not in a warm place.

If you want to bake the brioches in a muffin tray, grease a 12 hole tin with some butter or fill the holes with paper cups. It is also possible to bake them in one bigger springform cake pan or in glas jars, as I did (I just didn't have a muffin tray or paper cups, so I got creative). Anyway, what ever you are using - grease it!

Heat the oven to 200 ° C.

After a hour should the dough be about double sized. Knead it once more in the bowl and then put it on a floured working surface. Cut it into 12 equal sized pieces and set aside a small amount for the small balls put on top of the brioches for their typical look.
Roll the pieces in your hands into 12 same sized balls and place them either in the muffin holes or in a cake pan (leave one or two cm space between them).

Press a small hole on top of each brioche with your finger, roll small balls from the dough that you set aside and place them on the holes.

Brush the brioches either with some egg or melted butter and let them rest for a final 15 to 20 minutes, again covered - this time with foil.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. If they start to get brown too early you can cover them with parchment paper.

When ready, take out of the oven and release them carefully from the tins. These ones taste the best when fresh from the oven, with some butter and marmelade!




Recipe adapted from Designspongeonline.com

The healthiest mousse au chocolat I ever ate

As much as I like chocolate, 99 % chocolate is just too much chocolate. 85 % is the limit and still that is very strong to my taste. I'd been saving a 99 % chocolate bar, that I got for my 24th birthday, for something special and this week I found the perfect recipe for it.
My mother arrived today to visit me for one week (yey!), and I wanted to make her something good. This avocado based mousse au chocolat was perfect since she can't have any dairy products. The avocado adds a soft taste to the bitter chocolate and makes the mousse so silky that eating it was pure pleasure. I had to make some changes to the original recipe which uses cocoa powder instead of dark chocolate. So if you prefer that, just use 3-4 tablespoons of cocoa powder and forget the whole thing with the chocolate melting.

Thank you, Monkeyfood for this awesome recipe! It was the perfect welcoming dessert.






Mousse au chocolat végan - the healthiest chocolate mousse I ever had


1 ripe avocado
40 grams 99 % chocolate (or 0,60 dl cocoa powder)
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
60 ml warm water
powder sugar to taste


Scoop the flesh of the soft avocado into a blender (or a bowl if you are using a handblender) and add the lemon juice, cinnamon and warm water.
Carefully melt the chocolate in a pot (make sure it doesn't heat more than necessry, that is, until it has melted) and add it to the other ingredients.
Blend the ingredients until you have a smooth mixture.
Adjust the sweetness to your taste by adding powder sugar. Some like it more bitter as some enjoy it more sweet!





Source: http://monkeyfood.net/

yes, yes, I know what time of the year it is

For some reason I was craving the whole day for asparagus. Of course I was a bit late - or early with this craving and had to accept that it wasn't possible to find fresh asparagus anywhere. I just had to settle for the preserved ones, which cannot be compared to the real stuff... In this pasta dish it didn't matter so much. Today I enjoyed the idea of asparagus with some creamy pasta and chicken. Quick and delicious!






Farfalle with asparagus and chicken

250 g pasta
150 g chicken breast
150 g preserved asparagus (1 glass jar)
5 tablespoons créme fraiche
1 tablespoon dryed Italian herbs (such as oregano, basil etc.)
olive oil
salt and black pepper

Cut the chicken into small pieces. Cook the pasta in boiling water and heat some olive oil on a frying pan, with a pinch of the herbs, some salt and pepper and cook the chicken pieces.
Cut the asparagus into smaller pieces (about 3 cm).
Drain the pasta and add the some olive oil. Mix in the chicken, the rest of the herbs and créme fraiche. Stir well and cook for one minute. Then add the asparagus and parmesan, stir once carefully and add pepper and salt if needed. Enjoy.

just tea and sympathy... and a Moroccan cake

My friend Lena and I had been planning for a long time that one weekend we would cook together something delicious. Everytime we started to talk about what we would make, the plans became more and more ambitious, eventually to the point where we would have needed one whole day to prepare everything, and as busy people we couldn't find a common time for all this. Finally, we had to admit that we were never going to spend any time together if we don't return to square one and cut back on our epic plans. So, last Friday we ended up simply drinking tea at my place...

...Of course I had to create something. And that something appeared as a simple but oh so delicious Moroccan almond cake. It is flourless and therefore moist from the inside. If you enjoy almonds and the texture of a flourless chocolate cake, you will love this one.






Maroccan almond cake

1 organic lemon
3 egg whites
3 egg yolks
100 g sugar
100g peeled, ground almonds (mantelijauhetta)
hint of cinnamon (less than half teaspoon)
powder sugar for dusting


Preheat oven to 150 °c and grease a 20 cm springform. Grate the zest of the lemon and squeeze 1 tablespoon juice from it.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and mix in the lemon juice.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar into a foamy mixture. Stir in the almond powder, lemon zest and cinnamon. Add half of the egg yolk foam and stir in normally. Fold in the other half carefully.
Pour the mixture into the springform and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Let it cool completely before serving and dust with powder sugar.

Don't be scared when the cake loses a bit of it's volume after it comes out of the oven - it is supposed to sink slightly.

Cauliflower, today is your day

I had a cauliflower hanging around in my fridge. And everytime I opened the door, it would ask me, when and what I was going to be doing with it. I thought it's a nice piece of vegetable and it tastes good, but, that I would like to do something else with it this time than just cook it in boiling water, as I usually do. So, I searched and browsed, and found a recipe for a cauliflower gratin from Chocolate & Zucchini. A gratin! Of course! why didn't I think of that before! Basic in a way and yet I hadn't done it before. And what's so great about this particular recipe is, that it uses Comté - a french cheese which has a great taste and the béchamel sauce adds a nice soft taste to it. I accompanied it with some chicken and green salad. And white wine. I recommend.



Cauliflower gratin ( for four people as a side dish)


One 1,5 kg cauliflower (trimmed into florets)
coarse salt
ground nutmeg
60 g Comté grated
25 g butter (unsalted)
25 g flour
1/3 liters milk
fine salt and ground pepper
2 tablespoons bread crumbs


Cook (or steam) the cauliflower with some coarse salt until soft. Heat oven to 180 °c and transfer the cauliflower into an oven dish. season with a hint of nutmeg and sprinkle half of the cheese on top.

Preparing the bechamél: measure the butter, flour and milk and set aside. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. When it starts to sizzle add all of the flour and stir well with a wooden spoon. Cook for three minutes, stirring constantly until creamy. The mixture should not get colour. Then pour in the milk and whisk well, so that any clumps are not left. Bring the sauce to simmer and cook for a few minutes, stirring the whole time as it thickens. Set aside to cool for a few minutes, then season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Pour bechamél over the cauliflour, top with the remaining cheese and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until well gratineed. Let it rest for 5 minutes before serving.





Source: http://chocolateandzucchini.com