Daring Bakers' January 2012 Challenge - Scones

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

I managed to find British strawberry jam, but unfortunately no clotted cream...

Now, I've written about scones before on my blog, but thought this would be an interesting opportunity to test a new recipe variation. I liked the idea of getting more layered scones, but unfortunately it didn't work out as expected. My scones looked and tasted pretty much the same as always (which isn't a bad thing!). Maybe I used too much flower. It couldn't have been the recipe as it seemed to have worked for many other Daring Bakers. Details can be found here. I used the basic recipe with the addition of ca. 20g of brown sugar.

Ah well, the scones were delicious as always. Thank you for hosting our January challenge, Audax!

Williams Crown and My First Blogging-Anniversary

Wow - it has already been a year since I started this blog! Time really does fly…

I've decided to celebrate this anniversary by pouring myself a cocktail. And not just any cocktail, but the Williams Crown!

Great cocktail - even without foam...

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend with a friend in the beautiful Hotel Post in Tyrol. Apart from enjoying some relaxing SPA-treatments, we also discovered a great new cocktail. While chatting to the Chef de Bar Oliver, he mentioned he had created his own cocktail recently. Obviously, we had to try it, especially since it contained Williams, one of my favourite spirits. The cocktail was delicious with an intense fruity smell and taste despite being light in texture - very drinkable (read "dangerous")!

Oliver was kind enough to share the recipe with us, so I can share it with you. It contains to the Fizz-family. To accommodate modern restaurant hygiene regulations it is made with soda water only, leaving out the raw egg white that would traditionally be included. The raw egg white does not alter the taste of the drink, but makes sure that there is a nice foam on top of the drink. To be honest, Oliver's version had a nice foam layer on top even without the egg white, unlike mine - maybe the soda water I used did not contain enough carbon dioxide. But enough moaning about no-foams, here is the recipe:

4cl Williams (since this component gives the main flavour, it is advisable to use a decent brand)
2.5cl Pear Juice
dash Soda Water (I used ca. 4cl)
dash Sugar Sirup (recipe can be found here, I used ca. 2cl)
dash Lemon Juice (I used ca. 2cl)

Shake everything hard for about 30s in your shaker with ice and strain into nice glass decorated with a slice of pear. To get all the flavour into the drink, pour some additional soda water (I used ca. 4cl again) into the shaker to rinse it and to get the rest of the aroma into the glass.

Cheers! To another year of blogging!

Daring Bakers' February 2011 Challenge - Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen.  She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

All the information about the challenge can be found here.

I felt neither too creative nor too adventurous this month. Also, March 1 is the birthday of a close friend and his favourite dessert is the classical panna cotta, so I decided to stick with the basic recipe for vanilla panna cotta and raspberry gelée. I couldn't obtain powdered gelatin so I used sheet gelatin instead. Here's my recipe variation:

1st Layer of Panna Cotta

120ml of whole milk
360ml of whipping cream
20ml of honey
1 tbsp of sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
4 sheets of gelatin

2nd Layer of Panna Cotta

120ml of whole milk
360ml of whipping cream
40ml of honey
1 tsp of sugar
1 vanilla bean
4 sheets of gelatin

I let the sheet gelatin soak in cold water while preparing the rest of the panna cotta. In a pan I combined the milk, cream, honey, sugar and salt. I added the seed from the vanilla bean and the empty vanilla bean and let everything simmer for 15min while whisking frequently. I removed the pan from the heat and added the gelatin after squeezing the water from it. Then I strained it to remove the vanilla beans and other vanilla bean particles and poured the panna cotta into prepared glasses. For the second layer I let the panna cotta cool to room temperature before layering it on top of the raspberry gelée.

Raspberry Gelée

250g of frozen raspberries
60ml of freshly squeezed orange juice
60g of brown sugar
2 sheets of gelatin

I let the gelatin soak in cold water. The raspberries, orange juice and sugar were puréed in a blender. Since the raspberries were not completely defrosted yet, I had to warm up the fruit purée in a pan to bring it to room temperature. I squeezed the gelatin and let it melt in a little pan before adding it to the raspberry purée and layering everything on top of the panna cotta.

I liked the end result. Although, for my taste, the panna cotta should have had a softer texture. While preparing the raspberry gelée, I had the impression, that I didn't use enough gelatin. It took a long time for the gelée to set and I was relieved that pouring a second layer of panna cotta onto the gelée was possible without any trouble. But when I sampled the end result I was delighted to find that the gelée almost turned into a purée again, therefore mixing all the better with the panna cotta.

For the Florentine Cookies I tried to stick to Mallory's suggested recipe but could not find dark corn syrup, so I used half honey, half molasses instead. Also, I reduced the sugar to 130g because some other Daring Bakers mentioned in the forums that they were quite sweet. I loved the chewy texture and the caramel flavour of the cookies. To coat them with chocolate, I poured a spoonful of chocolate on a parchment paper and pressed a cookie with the flat side down onto the chocolate. Unfortunately, the caramel flavour was a bit overpowered by the chocolate, but I still liked the cookies. 

Oh, and in case you are wondering about the decoration in the background of the picture: carnival season is about to start in Switzerland :-)

Cheesefondue

For the last few weeks it has been pretty cold, wet and dark in Zurich. There's only one good thing about this weather: it's Fondue-time!

Ingredients per person

1 tbsp of corn starch
5 cl of Kirsch
1 clove of garlic
1 dl of dry white whine
1 dash of lemon juice
200g grated cheese (e.g. half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois)
freshly ground black pepper
200g white bread, cut in dices (I like it with a lot of crust, e.g. Baguette)

Dissolve the corn starch in the Kirsch. Put the mix aside for the moment.

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub down the Caquelon (Fondue pan) with it. Bring the white wine to a boil together with the garlic and the lemon juice. Add the grated cheese and let it melt, stirring constantly in a figure 8.

As soon as all the cheese is melted, add the corn starch-Kirsch-mix and bring everything to the boil until the cheese and the wine have combined. Keep stirring all the time. Season with black pepper.

Keep the Fondue warm over a Rechaud (small burner) and dip the bread cubes in the cheese.

E Guete!

Scones

I love scones. Whenever I spend some time in the UK or Ireland I eat as many as possible. Well, obviously not as many as possible - that would cause serious problems with my wardrobe... Notwithstanding my love for fresh, warm scones with clotted cream and jelly, it took me until the beginning of this year to find out that I could make them at home. For some strange reason I just thought it was a really tricky recipe. So I was very surprised, when I learned about how easy it actually is and that it only requires ingredients, that I have in my cupboard most of the time. So now the only problem is finding the clotted cream in Zurich...

 

This here is a basic scone recipe. I like them plain, but you could easily add raisins or chocolate chips or dried fruit. A word about the sugar: I like to use brown sugar, but of course you could also use white sugar. Also, an interesting thing happens when you lower the sugar amount to 30g: the taste of the scones will be on the verge of sweet to savory, so I imagine they would go great with e.g. gravad lax.

225g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
0.5 tsp. salt
40g sugar
40g butter, cold and in pieces
1 egg
100ml milk

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Add the butter pieces and grind it together with the butter (ideally using cold hands) until you end up with an even, crumbly, dry mass.

In a separate bowl mix together the egg and the milk and then add it to the flour-butter-mix. Quickly blend all the ingredients, trying to knead the dough as little as possible. It doesn't matter if it still looks uneven, as long as the wet and dry ingredients are combined.

Sprinkle a little flour on the working surface and lightly flatten the dough to about 2cm. Cut the scones using a round cookie cutter of about 4cm diameter.

Bake the scones in the middle of the oven for about 12-14min until golden brown.

Eat directly from the tray, with a little clotted cream and jelly. Or, if you're more disciplined than me, let them cool down until lukewarm and serve on a nice plate. Of course, you can also let them cool down completely, but scones are best eaten when really fresh, so don't wait with eating them for longer than a day or two.

Since clotted cream is quite hard to find here in Zurich (or ridiculously expensive) I usually use double cream (fat content of about 50-60%) and beat it until fluffy.

The jelly in the picture is crab apple jelly (not homemade). I believe traditionally it should be strawberry jelly, but I didn't have that in my cupboard at that moment. And at least I bought the crab apple jelly in Edinburgh, adding a real Scottish component to my Sunday breakfast.

Tiroler Cake

The Tiroler Cake is one of the most popular cakes in Switzerland. It's really easy to make and has a rich hazelnut flavour with the occasional chocolate chip.

 There's loads of recipes on the internet. I've used this one:

125g butter (room temperature)
4 egg yolks
1 pinch of salt
150g sugar
120g flour
8g baking powder
200g ground hazelnuts
50g chopped hazelnuts
150g chocolate chips
4 beaten egg whites

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

In a big bowl beat the butter until it is lighter in colour and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at the time, then add salt and sugar. Sift in the flour and baking powder and add the ground hazelnuts, the chopped hazelnuts and the chocolate chips. Mix everything together. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

Pour into a buttered loaf pan (25-28cm length) and bake for 50-55min. After cooling, the cake can be easily stored for a few days.

Whisky Cream Liquor

While I love whisky in all its variations, I only learned recently, that it's really easy to make whisky cream liquor at home. I found this recipe at the cooking event of my local soccer team.

Whisky Cream Liquor

yields about 5dl of liquor  

125 ml light cream (fat content of about 25%)
125 ml milk
125 ml whisky
1 tsp cocoa powder
100 g powdered sugar
2 tsp instant coffee

Whip the cream lightly until creamy (but not stiff). Add the remaining ingredients and mix everything together. Cool in the fridge for a few hours before drinking. Filled into decorative bottles, this liquor makes for a great small present.