And who am I tagging? Abby, Kayte, Phyl, Ulrike, Marthe, Steph, Di, Paul, Joanna, and Audax Artifex.

Appetizers:

Cucumber Crocodile

Watermelon and Mint Soup

Mains:

Rice Paper Rolls with Avocado and Sun-Dried Tomato

Tomato Cantal Tart

5-Color Vegetable Terrine

Desserts:

Frozen Mango Raspberry Terrine

Parisian Fruit Tartlets

]]> http://ap269.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/food-tag/feed/ 2 ap269 Cucumber Crocodile Wassermelonen-Minze-Suppe jacquespepin-ricepaperrolls tomatocantaltart Vegetable Terrine mango_raspberry_terrine-k Parisian Fruit Tart http://ap269.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/bake-kyras-hot-milk-sponge-cake/ http://ap269.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/bake-kyras-hot-milk-sponge-cake/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:13:41 +0000 ap269 http://ap269.wordpress.com/?p=3843 Continue reading →]]>

The 11th recipe I made from Nick Malgieri’s “Bake!” was Kyra’s Hot Milk Sponge Cake. I know, this recipe hasn’t been on the official lineup yet, but let me explain what happened.

The scary E.coli outbreak here in Germany made me eliminate virtual ALL raw fruit and vegetables from our menu for like 3 weeks or so. Means, no strawberries, even though it’s strawberry season here , no tomatoes, no cucumbers, no salad, no peppers, no …, you get the point. We did have washed  (my hands were beet-red from the hot water) and peeled apples and bananas, though. Anyway, my youngest daughter’s birthday was coming up and her biggest wish was to have a strawberry cake. I was paranoid about the E.coli, so I was looking for recipes where the strawberries would be baked, and finally settled on a strawberry muffin recipe. Then, 3 days ago, sprouts were the only suspects left, but I still was paranoid and got all the ingredients for the muffins. After having a chat with Ulrike and Marthe who totally regretted my kids because of me being so paranoid and not giving them raw strawberries even though they’ve never been suspected to carry the E.coli bacteria, I decided to fight my paranoia and make a real strawberry cake. Of course, it was Saturday night, and with all the stores closed here on Sundays, there was no chance I could get all the ingredients for the Bake! Strawberry Cream Cheese Crumble Tart. Thus, I was searching through the book and realized I had everything on hand for Kyra’s Hot Milk Sponge Cake. To make a long story short: I made a half recipe to get one layer, topped it with vanilla pastry cream and placed raw strawberries on top.  Easy-peasy. And yummy. My daughter was happy. So was I. I do have to admit, though, that I’m very alert now to ANY signals our bodies send us.

The 10th recipe I made from Nick Malgieri’s “Bake!” was Cream Cheese Scones. Wow, these were really quick to put together. Only problem – I didn’t have cream cheese, but I DID have cottage cheese and thought I’d give it a try. Worked out perfect . These scones were heavy, but so delicious! We served them with homemade jam – YUM! Others who made these scones: Abby and Phyl.

The 9th recipe I made from the Sweet Tarts and Pies section for the Modern Baker Challenge – Sour-Cream Apple Pie. I sooo looked forward to making this pie because I love apple pie and sour cream. So the recipe sounded like the perfect combination. It called for the Sweet Tart Dough, and making the apple filling, sour-cream custard and the crumb topping wasn’t complicated at all. I should have listened to my instinct feeling when I read the recipe called for Golden Delicious apples. I’m not a Golden Delicious apple person. Not at all! These apples don’t have a character, soft, bland and sweet. I prefer firm apples that are sour and sweet at the same time, but the recipe said Golden Delicious, so I bought Golden Delicious. I should have gone for tart apples. Really! The pie was ok, and to be honest, the hubby really loved it, but I thought it was without character, just sweet… I didn’t even notice the sour cream. So, next time I’ll try this pie with a different kind of apples, because the custard and crumb topping were great!

The 8th recipe I made from the Sweet Tarts and Pies section for the Modern Baker Challenge – Lemony Cheese Tart with Sour-Cream Glaze. You need the Sweet Tart Dough, and the ingredients for the filling are: cream cheese, sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, eggs, egg yolks, and sour cream. For the sour cream glaze, you need more sour cream, sugar and vanilla extract. The filling comes together easily, next time I’ll probably add the lemon juice from the lemon I grated the zest of. The filling is scraped into the tart crust, then I baked it for 35 minutes. While the tart was baking, I prepared the glaze which you spread on the tart when it is done baking. Then, I returned the tart to the oven and baked it 10 minutes longer. My verdict: AWESOME TART!!!!!!! I refrigerated the leftovers and we had them the next day right from the fridge: EVEN BETTER than at room temperature!!!!!! This one is a keeper!

I have to admit I’ve bought a new cookbook. I know, I know, I didn’t want to buy it, but Kayte`s blog posts forced me to! She’s been involved in a challenge called Thirty Minute Thursday, a challenge momentarily cooking through Giuliano Hazan’s “Thiry Minute Pasta” which was set up by Glennis. The dishes Kayte blogged about sounded and looked so delicious that I couldn’t resist: I HAD to get the book. Now, I cooked the first dish from it: Pea Soup with Pasta. A very simple recipe. You need yellow onion, butter, peas (fresh or frozen), salt, pepper, vegetable stock (the recipe says beef bouillon cube), flat-leaf Italian parsley and pappardelle. Definitely a keeper, because it’s yummy, quick and everybody just loved it!

The 9th recipe I made from Nick Malgieri’s “Bake!” was the Best & Easiest Carrot Cake. Phyl picked this recipe, you can find his take on this cake here. I am still not sure what to think about this cake: yes, it was very easy, but is it the best carrot cake? I can’t really compare because I haven’t had much carrot cake yet, and the little I had I can’t remember to compare. The recipe for the cream cheese frosting is a little off, it does taste wonderful, but is way too runny and does not look like in the book at all. Phyl noticed the same thing. Less cream cheese? More confectioners’ sugar? I don’t know why it was so runny… I followed the recipe to the T. As I said, the frosting was yummy. The cake was weird. Maybe it was the combination of lots of cinnamon and carrots which already SOUNDS weird to me? My family loved it, though.

Others who have made this cake: Kayte & Abby.

The 8th recipe I made from Nick Malgieri’s “Bake!” was Danish Apricot Pinwheels. It was my turn to pick a recipe, and as I had been so successful with the Danish Cheese Pockets, I thought I’d try another, more sophisticated Danish version. I decided, though, to use Christel’s Danish Pastry Dough (page 111, with ricotta and baking powder, and without sugar) instead of the Quick Danish Pastry Dough (page 110, with milk, sugar and yeast). Making the ricotta/ baking powder version was much quicker than making the yeasted version, but I DID wonder what the layers would result from because there was no giving the dough a turn involved. The recipe for the almond filling made way more than 12 heaping teaspoons, more like 12 heaping tablespoons, but everything fit into the pinwheels nicely. Instead of apricots (no apricots here yet) I used red plums,  a variation Malgieri mentions, too. Folding the pinwheels was not really that difficult because the instructions and pictures in the book are very detailed. Into the oven they went and were dusted with some powdered sugar after baking. My verdict: they looked really nice, and they tasted fine, but there were no layers at all as in the Danish Cheese Pockets. I’m sure this is due to the different dough. I’ll definitely make the pinwheels again, but will try the yeasted dough then to see if it makes a difference.

The 7th recipe I made from Nick Malgieri’s “Bake!” was Strawberry Chantilly Cake. Kayte had chosen it to be her birthday cake, but here it takes some more weeks for strawberries to come into season, which is why I decided to not make the original recipe, but the Victoria Sandwich variation. I used the yellow-cake recipe for the 2 layers and bought some strawberry preserves – quick and easy! I have to say, though, that I don’t own 2 9-inch round cake pans, but only 1 10-inch springform which is what I used. But I own a cake leveller which is perfect for cutting a springform cake into 2 or 3 layers. This cake was a huge hit here – sometimes it’s something really simple which makes my family happy .

The 7th recipe I made from the Sweet Tarts and Pies section for the Modern Baker Challenge – Breton Apple Pie. I explicitely chose this recipe because NM says this pie freezes well. I wanted to bring this pie to work for my co-workers, and the only good day for bringing in stuff like that is Wednesday, but with my crazy work schedule right now (Mondays 12 hours and Tuesdays 13 hours) I knew I would NOT manage to make this pie on a Tuesday night. Thus, I made it on Sunday and stuck it into the freezer. First I thought this recipe was time-consuming, but it really isn’t. You just should pay very close attention to the apples so they don’t scorch – I almost had a mishap like that. But everything else was easy and rather quick. And yes, this pie freezes well and tastes like fresh when thawed. My co-workers loved it and said I could bring it in again ;o).