I like Gugelhupf

Gugelhupf , Gugelhopf  kuglóf, kuglof, kouglof, guguluf, and even bábovka,  babka are all names for a cake, a  southern German, Austrian, Swiss and Alsatian certain type of marble or Bundt cake (thank you Wikipedia).

This cake is made of soft yeast dough and it typically (and importantly!) contains brandy, rum or cherry liqueur.

There are many recipes for this cake, here is one of them:

• 560gr (4 cups) flour
• 25gr (1/2 cubes) yeast
• 240ml (1 cup) milk, at room temp
• lemon zest
• vanilla extract or ground beans
• 3 eggs
• 220gr (1 cup+1 tbs) sugar (you can go up to 250gr if you prefer sweeter cakes)
• 100gr (2/3 cup) raisins
• 50gr (1/4cup) candied orange peel, chopped
• 1/4cup brandy or rum
• 75gr (3/4 cup) almonds, chopped or almond slivers
• 200gr butter  (4/5cup), at room temp
• 1/2 tsp salt

Place the dried fruit in a bowl with the rum and set aside. Mix the yeast into the flour in a mixer fitted with a spiral hook. Add the sugar, eggs, milk lemon zest, vanilla and rum from the dried fruits (without the fruits) to the flour and mix until a dough is formed. Add the soft butter and the salt, mix for 5 minutes, to get a nice sticky and soft dough. Put in nuts and dried fruits, then mix until they are combines.

If you choose to use a typical babka/ Gugelhupf mold, you will need to generously and carefully (!) butter the pan. I use a silicone mold, which usually works great. Put some almond slivers on the bottom of the mold (which becomes the top of the cake).  Place the dough in the mold (this recipe should fill 2/3 of a big mold, don’t fill a mold more than 2/3). Let the dough rise, while covered in nylon or a wet towel until it reaches the surface of the mold. Bake at 180°C for 40min.

Let the cake cool down and carefully release it from the mold. Let it cool before you slice it otherwise it will get dry too fast.

Enjoy this not too sweet cake as breakfast or afternoon coffee/ tea time.

Comments and commentaries:

• This cake doesn’t stay fresh for long. Eat it or freeze it while fresh (I think up to 2 days  without freezing is okay).
• You cannot let it rise in the fridge over night. It just didn’t rise for me. It has, however, risen after I took it out of the fridge so preparing the dough in advance does work (I guess it will hold about a day).
• Of course it can be bakes in small molds, made with different dried fruit or chocolate etc. Do whatever you like. I like it best with citrus flavors.

Fluffy, dark and handsome

This is the recipe for  best chocolate mousse.

When it comes to chocolate, chocolate mousse in this case, I live by two rules:

rule #1: Bitter chocolate= better mouse.

rule#2: Bitter stays bitter. i.e. no addition of milk or cream= better mousse.

• 250gr chocolate
• 30gr butter
• 160ml juice, water or liqueur, or a mix of them
• 4 eggs, separated
• 50gr of sugar (or less if you use sweet liqueur)

Melt the chocolate, butter and liquids over a ban-marie or in the microwave. If using liqueur ad it after everything has melted. Add the egg yolks, and let it cool to room temp.

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks are beginning to merge, add the sugar and beat until you get a stiff  peaks.

Fold a third of the egg whites into the chocolate (that should be cool by now, otherwise bad things will happen). Then transfer the fluffy chocolate mixture into the egg whites bowl and fold until you have a unified mixture.

Put the mousse in the refrigerator (covered or in a box) for at least 4 hours.

This mousse is really intense and super tasty if you use good chocolate. prepare to be amazed !

Old fashioned

Peter pan doughnut shop, Brooklyn, is where we discovered these. They are good and easy to make. They have a cake like texture. We like them.

Old fashioned doughnuts:

Since you cannot keep fried goods for too long I will give the extra small amount here, but you can double it etc..

• 175gr flour (1 1/4 cups)
• 4-6gr (~1tsp) baking powder
• pinch of nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 15gr butter (1tbs)
• 45gr sugar (1/4 cup)
• 100gr sour cream (~2/3cup)
• 1tsp lemon zest
• one egg yolk
• oil for frying

Mix the flour, nutmeg, salt and baking powder, set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar to get a sandy texture (~1min), add the egg yolk and beat until combined and fluffy (1min plus). Mix in the sour cream and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredients. Mix until combined well, cover in a nylon wrap and put in the fridge for 30min or over night, or somewhere in between.

Roll the dough to ~1-1.5cm thick. Cut circles out of the dough using a cookie cutter, and make one hole in each using a smaller cookie cuter (of course you can cut to any other shape…).

Heat the oil for deep frying. I recommend putting the doughnuts in oil that it is not too hot- they need to be baked on the inside before they get brown on the outside. You can of course fry the doughnut holes as well.

When the doughnuts are all nice, puffy and brown take out of the oil and lay them on blotting paper. Soak a bit of the oil from each side and let the doughnuts get to room temp (yes it is allowed to eat them while hot, but confectioner sugar doesn’t work well on hot cakes… so if you want to serve them wait a bit).

My choice of topping was cinnamon with confectioners sugar. You can go for any other glaze or topping obviously…

• 1tbs confectioner sugar
• 2tbs ground cinnamon

Mix, and sift on top of the room-temp doughnuts.

Serve, eat or give away, but most importantly, enjoy.

Comments and commentaries:

• These doughnuts are not sweet (almost) for themselves, which is why sugar toppings go well here. We like to eat those for breakfast, as they have  more of a coffee cake type of texture and sweetness. If you want them dessert or kids’-birthdays kind of sweet I recommend adding more then 5gr of sugar (maybe 10gr..).
• These doughnuts keep rather well, so if you make them in the morning they are still quite fine in the evening (I don’t recommend keeping them more than a day..). However, you can also keep the dough more then 12 hours and just fry the exact amount you need each time (I don’t recommend keeping the dough more than 2 days).

Spaghetti fagiolli e cozze

Spaghetti with white beans and mussels!

You can use dry spaghetti, but here we use only fresh home made pasta, so, lets get started!

• 2 eggs
• 200gr pasta flour (preferably Italian)

Mix and kneed well (~10min). The dough should be elastic but not sticky.  Cover in nylon wrap and leave in the fridge for 20min or more.

Roll out the dough using a pasta machine until you reach the desired thickness of dough. Cut the dough to the desired length (don’t make it too long! it is not fun to eat spaghetti that is too). Transfer the dough through the spaghetti cutter in the machine.

For the sauce:

• White beans soaked in water for 6 hours
• 6 tomatoes, cut to cubes (~2cm big)
• mussels (~10 per person)
• olive oil
• garlic
• onion
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup white wine (1/4 cup vodka should also work perfectly)

Cook the beans until they are soft but not falling apart (time depends on how long the beans were soaked and how old they are, but it won’t be less than 30min).

In a large pan or a sauteuse pan put the olive oil and saute the onion and garlic (i.e. let them ‘sweat’, not fry). When they are soft, add the tomatoes and then the wine. Season to taste and cook for a short while, until consistency and taste are to your liking.

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of salted boiling water.

Wash the mussels, put them in the tomatoes sauce and cover for 3-4-5 min, until the mussels have opened. There is no need to wait too long; mussels that didn’t open by now will not open, and actually you don’t want them open (they were dead before you cooked them). Completely closed mussels (post cooking) are not good to eat.

Add the (al-dante) cooked spaghetti to the sauce and toss a little.

Serve, with a side bowl for shells and a glass of wine for pleasure, to some soon to be very pleased friends or family.

No need for Parmesan, but chopped parsley or basil would not hurt.

Pockets full of meat

Shishbarak in yogurt, recipe from Aharoni’s pasta book:

We used this dough:

• 1 egg yolk
• 250gr (~1 and 2/3 cups) flour
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1/2cup (~120ml) water

Kneed all the dough ingredients together for 5-10min, cover in nylon wrap and set aside for about half an hour. The dough should be elastic and not too sticky, but not dry. Dough made from only water and flour can also be used.

Filling:

• 400gr ground meat, preferably lamb or beef with lamb’s fat
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1tbs sweet paprika and some spicy paprika
• 1/4tsp cinnamon
• Chopped parsley
• Chopped mint
• Salt and pepper

All you need to do is mix all the filling ingredients together and season to taste. Then you need to roll out the dough thinly and cut to squares. Put one tsp of filling in each square, fold and close tightly.

Like this:

Cook in salted boiling water, and transfer to the sauce, or set aside until serving. Pre-cooked filled pasta, ravioli or dim sum or anything else is easier to keep than non cooked because the filling is moist and cause the uncooked dough to stick to the surface. So if you make ahead I think cooking should be part of the ‘ahead making’.

Sauce:

• 40gr butter
• 3 garlic cloves
• 400gr sheep’s milk yogurt (yes, any other kind of yogurt will do)
• some paprika or spicy pepper sauce

Slice and fry the garlic with the butter, add the yogurt and season with S&P. Turn off the heat, add the cooked ‘pockets’ and cover them with the yogurt and serve with paprika on top.

Happy Rosh Hashana !

Happy Jewish new year

May we all have lots of  ’Prrrr…s’ and sweets and no ‘Grrr…s’ and bitters

Gourmeow

Beet ‘n’ easy

Sweet ‘n’ easy first course.

Wash the beets carefully and peel them. Put in an oven pan with olive oil, salt, pepper and spices to your choice (here- marjoram) and put also some water in the pan- I found that otherwise the beets become very dry. Put in an oven set for 200C until they become soft (i.e. you can easily make holes in them with a fork). You can keep the roasted beets in the fridge for a while, but I find them most delicious freshly baked.

Cut the beets in half and serve with some fragrant cheese (we used Gorgonzola) and also something sweet if you have- we used quince in syrup (home made). The flowers and greens are garden cress which are edible (lightly sour) and pretty.

The Katayef

Katayef/ Quataief/Atayef.. is a kind of Arab sweet treat.

It is tasty -and sweet- like hell (yes, hell is sweet)!

You must make it fresh, or at least finish making it right before serving, but the work is quite easy and shouldn’t take too long.

you will need to start preparation about two hours in advance though.

I will give a recipe for a very small amount (note picture- these are all of them).

• 120ml (1/2cup) water
• 70gr (1/2 cup) flour
• 5gr dry yeast, which is 1/2tbs, which is about 15gr fresh yeast
• 10gr (1/2tbs) sugar
• 10gr (1/2tbs) semolina
• pinch of salt
• 12.5 gr butter, melted

Mix all the ingredients and set aside for 1-2 hours, in room temp (unless it is 100C.. then you can put it in the fridge), covered with nylon wrap.

We did a pistachio and walnuts filling, I saw recipes with pecans instead of pistachios. Obviously you can put whatever you want  inside. Even cheese.

• 50gr pistachios
• 50gr walnuts
• 50gr brown sugar
• 4gr (1/2 tsp) cinnamon

Chop the nuts, add the sugar and cinnamon.

Syrup and we are done…

• 200gr sugar (1 cup)
• 120ml water (1/2cup)
• some lemon and lemon zest, to taste

Dissolve the sugar in the water in a sauce pan over a medium heat, bring to the boil and turn off the heat.  Note that the syrup doesn’t have to be hot when you use it, the pastries do.

 Now, after the batter has risen you need to make little pancakes. Take a nice full tbs of the batter and fry it as flatly as you can on a frying pan with some butter. Note: they should not be as thin as a crepe, just make it even, with not ‘hills’ in the middle, but don’t make them thick like pancakes . Fry only one side of the pancake/ crepe like ‘pastry’ and make sure it stays a bit sticky (but not ‘raw’) on the non-fried side. Take out that pancake and put it in a plate, non fried side up. put some filling (the nuts) in the middle, fold in half and try to close it as much as you can (if the batter was not dry on the non-fried side it should stick, right?). Do the same with the rest of the batter, adjusting the size to fit your needs… you can make ahead up to this stage.

Instructions are not clear enough? Here, tutorial.

Now, fry again in semi deep oil (canola or such), and transfer from the oil to a paper towel to the syrup.

We are done. You should serve them now.

Now.

Important note! This recipe looks a bit long, but the preparation is really easy and quite fun. Try it!

Miss Crunch- type II

Some more dry cookies, this time made with butter!

I found this tasty and interesting recipe for dry cookies in ‘Great Cookies’ by Carole Wolter.

Rosemary hazelnut biscotti:

• 190gr four
• 3gr backing powder
• 1/4 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 1/2tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 120gr butter, soft (room temp.)
• 1/2tbs orange zest
• 80gr sugar (you can use less)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts (you can use un-toasted as well…)

Strain the flour, backing powder and salt. Add the rosemary and pepper.

Whisk the butter, sugar and orange zest in a mixer with a peddle attachment, and scrape the bottom of the bowl when needed. Add the egg while the mixer is on high speed. Scrape the butter from the sides and bottom of the bowl and make sure the egg is incorporated well  with the butter. Lower the mixer’s speed and add the dry ingredients mixing until combined (don’t mix for toooo long). Add the hazelnuts and mix a tiny bit more just to incorporate them in the cookie dough.

Wrap the dough with a plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for about 1 hour- until it is firm and comfortable to work with.

On a floured surface roll the dough to a 3-4-5cm wide snake (or log if you prefer..).

Place the ‘logs’ on a baking sheet covered baking pan and bake at 180C for 25min until golden brown and firm.

Let the baked snakes cool and then slice to 1/2cm thick slices (you can do a diagonal cut to get longer cookies). Bake 7-10min at 150C, until the cookies are golden and stiff.

Let them cool completely before storing them.

These cookies are really crumbly and tasty, and also quite interesting thanks to the rosemary. Easy to make, store well, and they match perfectly with tea or some vanilla ice cream.

According to the book you can keep these cookies for up to 3 weeks. We had them around for a while here… they were kept quite well indeed actually.

Miss Crunch – type I

You know those cookies that go perfect with coffee or tea, crunchy (and dry)? Those that leave crumbs everywhere? Biscotti or mendelbruit in ‘Jewish’… or just ‘dry cookies’. I love them.

My favorite recipe is from a mom of one of my X’s, and she surely deserves the credits if I still make them every once in a while after.. something like 10 years…more or less. So, thank you Yonil‘s mom!

The recipe is simple as can be:

Dry cookies

• 280gr flour
• 5tbs oil
• 2 eggs
• 160-180gr sugar
• 8gr baking powder (1tbs)
• lemon zest
• 100gr almonds or other kind of nuts
• 100gr raising

Mix all the ingredients except the nuts and raisins together in a food processor/mixer, add nuts and raisins. Mix to get dough.. and roll out  3cm wide ‘snakes’.

Bake at 180C for about half an hour, until the snakes are stiff.

Let the ‘snakes’ cool. After they cooled down cut to 1/2cm thick cookies. Lay the cookies on a backing pan and bake at 150C for 10-15min.

They are ready.

I didn’t have any lemons today, which I consider a must, so I used orange zest and cinnamon (1tsp) and orange liqueur instead. It is definitely best with the lemon zest, but they are definately good with cinnamon-orange seasoning as well.

So, indulge on these cookies with some coffee, tea or an owl…