Biochemist's Cookbook

Bacon broccoli pie

2012-02-23T15:00:00.000+02:00

Recipe from my head.

You will need:

pie crust (I used an additional 1dl of oats this time too)
170 g bacon
400 g fresh broccoli
2 eggs
2 dl cream (15%)
120 g créme fraiche
150 g grated cheese (mozzarella-emmental)

What to do:

Prepare the pie crust, line a pie dish with it, and let it chill in the fridge while you deal with the fillings.

Cut up strips of bacon into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Fry them on a dry pan. Once they look done, transfer them to a plate with some paper towels that would soak up the extra grease
Cut up broccoli into smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Spread the fried bacon and broccoli over the pie crust. I did a layer of bacon and covered it up with broccoli, but that's just my preference.

In a small bowl, break the structure of the eggs with a fork.
Add the créme fraiche and the cream, and half of the grated cheese, and mix well.
Pour the eggy-creamy mixture over the pie.
Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top.

Bake at 175 C for 30-35 minutes.

Chocolate banana cake

2012-02-19T10:00:00.000+02:00

My mother had kindly asked me to bake a cake for her. She wanted to take it to work, but wasn't confident enough in her own baking skills. I decided to go with chocolate cake, because most people tend to like those. Chocolate banana seemed like an even better option. Apparently the cake was a success - yay for that. Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking.

You will need:

2.5 dl sugar
2 dl all-purpose flour
0.75 dl cocoa powder (the unsweetened kind)
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 medium-sized banana
1 egg
120 ml water
60 ml milk
60 ml oil

And for the chocolate frosting:

100 g bittersweet chocolate (mine was 52% cocoa)
1 dl heavy cream

What to do:

Combine the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa powder, vanilla sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt) in a large bowl. Sift the flour and cocoa powder so that there are no clumps.

In another bowl, mash the banana with a fork, then add the rest of the liquidy ingredients (egg, water, milk and oil).

Pour the liquidy ingredients to the dry ones, and stir/whisk until homogeneous. The batter will be quite thin and pourable.

Line a cake tin with baking paper (or just grease it), and pour the batter into it.

Bake at 175 C for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool down on a wire rack before frosting.

Chocolate frosting and finishing touches:

Break the chocolate into pieces and place them in a bowl.
Heat the cream in a medium-sized pot, and bring to the boil. Remove from heat immediately, and pour over the chocolate.
Stir until all of the chocolate melts and the frosting becomes smooth.

Let the frosting cool down, then pour it over the cake.

Decorate with banana chips or slices of fresh banana, or chocolate shavings, or whatever you feel like! I went with dollops of whipped cream.

Blog challenge

2012-02-16T19:41:00.002+02:00

Piparipulla challenged me to list 4-5 blogs that currently have less than 200 followers. Firstly, thank you Piparipulla for listing my blog :)

And here is my list, in alphabetical order:

All four blogs are lovely and I wish the bloggers all the best :)

Meatballs with mozzarella filling

2012-02-15T16:00:00.000+02:00

This is the first time I attempted making marinara sauce. And actually used white wine for it. I'm not sure the wine I used was appropriate though - I didn't do any research regarding the wine, and didn't want to ask for help at the liquor store. It was tasty though, and that's all that counts. Recipe adapted from "Meidän keittokirja".

For the meatballs:

400 g minced meat (I used beef)
4 tbsp breadcrumbs
1.5 dl milk (can be substituted with water)
1 egg
half an onion (finely diced)
salt and pepper to taste
125 g mozzarella (diced)

For the marinara sauce:

half an onion (finely diced)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped/squeezed/grated)
400 g crushed tomatoes (the one I used was basil-flavored)
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 vegetable stock cube
1 dl white wine
2 tsp honey (can be substituted with sugar)
red pepper and salt to taste

What to do:

Combine breadcrumbs and milk, and wait for about 10 minutes. The breadcrumbs will swell up and absorb most of the milk.
Add minced meat, season with salt and pepper, and mix.
Finally, add the egg and onion. Do not mix the dough too much!
Take a bit of meatball dough, place a small piece of mozzarella in the center, and cover it up with the dough. The piece of mozzarella should be completely covered by the meatball dough.
Repeat this procedure until you run out of meatball dough.

Fry each meatball on a frying pan, on medium heat, in a bit of oil or butter. After about 5 minutes, flip each meatball and fry the other side for another 5 minutes. They do not need to be cooked through at this point.
Transfer the meatballs to a baking tray (or an oven-proof dish) and bake in the oven at 175 C for 10-15 minutes.

Now for the sauce:

Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan, and fry the onion and garlic until golden brown.
Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, vegetable stock cube and white wine.
Season with red pepper, salt and honey.
Let the sauce simmer on low heat for at least 10 minutes, preferably longer. Stir the sauce occasionally.

Serve with pasta! Add a green salad to be extra-healthy :)

Coconut macaroons

2012-02-12T11:00:00.000+02:00

Depending on their consistency, macaroons can be either like small cakes, or meringue-like cookies. This recipe is an example of the latter. They are delicious. Crisp on the outside, and a little chewy on the inside. All in all, a great snack for coconut-lovers. Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking. There is a very nice and helpful video of the recipe there, by the way.

You will need:

2 egg whites (room temperature)
100 g sugar
pinch of salt
0.5 dl all-purpose flour (recipe called for cake flour, but I ignored that)
100 g coconut flakes
2 tbsp vanilla sugar

This amount of dough was enough for 9 fairly large macaroons.

What to do:

Combine the egg whites, sugar and salt in a heatproof bowl.
Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk the ingredients until you get a creamy mixture that is warm to the touch. It should also be "springy" - if you dip a finger in it and lift it up rapidly, the mixture should get lifted up as well.
Remove the batter from heat and stir in the flour through a sieve.
In a separate bowl, mix the coconut flakes with vanilla sugar.
Add the sweetened coconut flakes to the batter and mix well.

The batter looked just like rice porridge at this point!

Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate for at least two hours, until firm.
Place small mounds of batter onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving plenty of space between each. Use an ice cream scoop, or just a regular spoon.

Bake at 175 C for 15-20 minutes, until the surface becomes golden brown.
Remove from the oven, and let cool for about 10 minutes on the baking tray, then transfer each macaroon to a wire rack to finalize the cooling process.

Quick word of advice

2012-02-10T18:59:00.001+02:00

Never use salted butter to make cookies. Ugh, those sure tasted strange :S

Oh, and just to clarify - I did not do this on purpose. I only realized that the butter was salted when I tasted a freshly-baked cookie. My first baking failure in aaaages :(

Potato pancakes

2012-02-09T13:00:00.000+02:00

I had some left-over mashed potatoes, and didn't know what to do with them. I decided to try making potato pancakes. It turned out to be very simple, and fairly quick as well. The only time-consuming step was frying the pancakes, but for that I blame my small frying pan! I found the recipe online.

You will need:

5 dl mashed potatoes
1 egg
salt
butter for frying

What to do:

Combine the mashed potatoes with the egg and mix well. Season with a bit of salt.
Use a spoon to shape pancakes on a frying pan: place small dollops, then flatten them. Fry in a bit of butter (feel free to use oil, but butter tastes way better :P) for 2-3 minutes, then flip each pancake and fry the other side. If the pancakes are too large, it will be difficult to flip them!
The Nordics would serve this with lingonberry jam, but I went with a bit of bacon and broccoli.

Jambalaya

2012-02-06T12:30:00.000+02:00

"Jambalaya is a Louisiana creole dish of Spanish and French influence. It is traditionally made in three parts, with meats and vegetables, and is completed by adding stock and rice. It is also a close cousin to the saffron colored paella found in Spanish culture". (Wikipedia) I don't think my attempt was all that close to the authentic jambalaya, so I guess this is like a Nordic version of it :)

You will need:

70 g bacon
450 g chicken fillet (cut up into bite-sized pieces)
1 onion
400 g crushed tomatoes
5 dl water
3 dl rice
salt, red pepper, chilli powder
200 g frozen pea-corn-bell pepper mix
180 g frozen shrimp

What to do:

Cut the bacon strips into smaller pieces. Fry them on a dry frying pan. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Fry the chicken fillet pieces in the bacon grease until they get some color.

Dice the onion and add to the frying pan. Cook until it softens and becomes slightly golden.
Season with salt, red pepper and chilli powder.
Add the crushed tomatoes and water, bring to the boil, then add rice. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until the rice is cooked.

Add the frozen shrimp and pea-corn-bell pepper mix. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve with a green salad (data not shown)

Runeberg's torte

2012-02-03T10:00:00.000+02:00

To quote Wikipedia: "Runeberg's torte (Finnish: Runebergintorttu; Swedish: Runebergstårta) is a Finnish pastry flavored with almonds and rum." These muffin-like pastries got their name from the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, whose poem "Vårt land" (English: "Our land", Finnish: "Maamme") became the Finnish National Anthem. Legend tells that the pastries were created when Runeberg was craving something sweet, and his wife Frederika used the ingredients that she had at her disposal to bake some pastries. They are eaten on Runeberg's birthday, February 5th, which is a flag day in Finland. This was the first time I baked Runeberg's tortes myself, and yes, it was a success! Recipe adapted from Pirkka.

You will need:

1 dl almonds
1 dl oatmeal cookies
100 g butter/margarine
1 dl sugar
1 egg
1 dl all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom
0.5 dl cream or milk
raspberry jam

For decoration and moistening:

1 dl water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp rum (can be substituted with a few drops of rum essence)
1 dl icing sugar
a few teaspoons of lemon juice or water
some more raspberry jam

With this amount of dough, I was able to make 9 medium-sized tortes.

What to do:

Grind almonds and biscuits in a food processor.

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar with a hand-mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue whisking.
Combine flour, baking powder and cardamom in a separate bowl, then add them to the creamed mixture and whisk some more.
Finally, add the almond-cookie crumbs and cream. Don't mix the dough too much.

Traditionally, you're supposed to use tall aluminum cups for these, but I didn't have any and didn't feel like buying them, so I just used regular muffin cups. Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way with the dough.
Make a small hole in the middle of each muffin (use your finger, or a spoon dipped in water)
Place about half a teaspoon of raspberry jam into each hole.

Bake at 200 C for 13-15 minutes, until the surface gets golden brown.

Finishing touches:

Bring 1 dl of water to the boil. Dissolve 2 tbsp of sugar in it, and flavor with rum. Baste the muffins with this mixture (use a basting brush) immediately after taking them out of the oven.
Place a dollop of raspberry jam in the middle of each torte, and allow them to cool down on a wire rack.

Measure the icing sugar to a bowl, and add drops of lemon juice or water, while mixing, until the icing becomes somewhat runny, but not too much so.
Decorate the tortes with the icing: carefully "draw" a circle around each dollop of jam. I just used a spoon, but if you feel like being extra careful - pour the icing into a plastic bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze the frosting little by little.

Happy Birthday to Mr. Runeberg!

Ham-mushroom pie

2012-01-31T19:00:00.000+02:00

Yummy yummy. That's all I have to say about this dish. Recipe modified from the Pirkka monthly recipe brochure thingy.

You will need:

Pie crust (this time I also added 1 dl of oats to the dough, just for fun)
200 g ham of choice
200 g fresh mushrooms
3 eggs
2 dl cream (the one I used was 15% fat)
150 g grated cheese (mozzarella-emmental)

Prep time: about half an hour (less if you use a ready-made crust!)
Baking time: 30-35 minutes

What to do:

Prepare the dough for the pie crust, and line a pie dish with it. Make sure to line the sides as well! Let it be in the fridge while you deal with the fillings.

Cut up the ham and mushrooms into pieces.
Break the structure of the eggs with a fork, add the cream and about half of the cheese, and mix. Season with a bit of black pepper.
Spread the ham and mushrooms over the pie crust. I did this in layers - first ham, then mushrooms. Just do what feels natural.

Pour the creamy-cheesy mixture over the filling, then sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

Bake in the lowest level of the oven at 200 C, for 30-35 minutes.

Orange muffins

2012-01-28T10:00:00.000+02:00

It's been far too long since I last baked muffins. The inspiration to use orange zest came from the cookbook "Meidän keittokirja", but the recipe for the dough is what I always use for muffins. The recipe for frosting is adapted from Joy of Baking. So yes, quite a mix of everything. My original plan was to cover the top of each muffin with the frosting, but after decorating two muffins, I realized there wouldn't be enough of it. That's why the rest of the muffins just got a small dollop of frosting in the center, and some got a few extra dollops. They're still cute though :)

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine (room temperature)
1.5 dl sugar
2 eggs
3.5 dl all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 dl milk
zest of one orange

And for the frosting:

50 g butter/margarine (room temperature)
1 dl icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp milk

Prep time: about half an hour
Baking time: 15-20 minutes per batch
Makes 14 large muffins

What to do:

Beat the butter and sugar together using a hand mixer, until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.
With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Finally, add the orange zest and fold it into the dough with a spatula (or a spoon).

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the dough, about 3/4 of the way. Bake at 200 C for 15-20 minutes.

Prepare the frosting:

With a hand mixer, beat the butter until soft and fluffy.
With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the icing sugar and vanilla sugar.
Add the milk and beat on high speed for about 5 minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy.
Add more milk or icing sugar, if the consistency isn't quite right.

Decorate muffins with frosting. I used a frosting syringe for the purpose, with a tip that looks like this:

Beef wok with roasted cashews

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000+02:00

Remember my chicken wok with roasted cashews? Well, after I made that, I was left with half a package of shallots, half a package of bean sprouts, and half a package of cashews. So, as a way of using up all of those ingredients, I decided to try the recipe with beef instead of chicken. The only modifications I did was leaving out the chicken stock and increasing the amount of soy sauce and ground ginger. It was tasty, although I prefer the chicken version.

You will need:

300 g beef cut up in strips (I have no idea what type of beef I used, some fillet)
4 shallots
1 bell pepper
1.5 dl bean sprouts
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp corn starch
1 tbsp oil
2 tsp ground ginger
1 dl cashew nuts

What to do:

Roast the cashew nuts on a dry frying pan. Roughly chop and set aside.
Fry the beef strips on a dry frying pan until brown. Season with a bit of salt.
Roughly chop up the shallots and the bell pepper. Add them to the frying pan along with the bean sprouts. Cook for 5-10 minutes.
Dissolve the corn starch in a tablespoon of water. Add the soy sauce, oil and ground ginger. Pour the resulting sauce into the frying pan. Cook on low heat until the sauce thickens.
Serve with rice and a generous sprinkling of roasted cashews!

5 Dreams

2012-01-22T20:24:00.001+02:00

My makeup blogger friend Serafia tagged me in this thing, so I guess I gotta do it. The idea is to list five things that you would buy if money wasn't an issue. I'll start with items related to cooking.

1. Soft ice cream machine.

Oh yes. It would be awesome. I have no idea where these are sold, or if they are sold at all, but if I had a ton of money - I'd totally find out!

Soft ice cream machine

2. Blender.

A bit more down-to-earth than the first one. But I really really want one. This isn't just a money issue though, I also don't have space in my kitchen :(

Blender

3. Food processor.

Because I can't stand chopping onions. I can just barely get through chopping one, because my eyes water so horribly. This problem would be gone forever if I had a food processor. And it'd generally make cooking easier. When I googled for images of food processors, I found two kinds - the ones with the blades, and also the ones with whisks. Now that I think of it, I'd want one of those too (the lady from joyofbaking.com always makes baking look so easy and neat when she uses one of those). And since it apparently also goes by the name "food processor", it doesn't need a separate point. So yes - I want both kinds of food processors!

Food processor #1

Food processor #2

4. Lots of traveling, to various destinations.

I've never really been that much of a materialist, and I ran out of ideas for cooking-related items. This would actually be #1 if money wasn't an issue. I'd take off on an adventure, and explore places I hadn't been to before. Maybe I'd get recipe-ideas along the way :)

5. A good camera.
I love taking pictures of scenery and silly buildings, especially when traveling. My Canon PowerShot A590IS has been through a lot, and has served me well, so I'm generally happy with it. However, when I see pictures taken with a proper digital SLR, I have to say that they are better. I don't know if it's the colors, or the focus, or something else entirely - but they just seem to be closer to reality. I'd want to actually take the time to learn how to use one of those fancy cameras first - because I think that simply owning one isn't enough, it also has a lot to do with the user.

So there you have it - five dreams, not in order of preference. I don't want to tag anyone, so whoever wants to make a list of their own is welcome to do so. It's quite fun to read other people's lists though - so link me up! Or post a comment with your list, that's perfectly fine too :)

Blueberry pie

2012-01-20T11:30:00.000+02:00

I baked a simple blueberry pie for my parents, in honor of Sunday. Recipe modified from Pirkka.

You will need:

2.5 dl all-purpose flour
0.75 dl oats
0.5 dl sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
100 g butter

And for the filling:

8 dl (400 g) frozen blueberries
200 g Philadelphia cheese
1 egg
0.75 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Prep time: about half an hour
Baking time: 25-30 minutes

What to do:

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Add the egg and mix.
Melt the butter and let it cool down a little. Then add it to the dough and mix well.
Line a greased pie dish with the dough. Press it up the sides of the dish too.
Combine the Philadelphia cheese with egg, sugars and lemon juice and mix until homogeneous.
Add the frozen blueberries to the filling, mix quickly, then pour over the dough.

Bake at 200 C for 25-30 minutes. Wait for the pie to cool down before serving.

Coq au vin

2012-01-17T13:00:00.000+02:00

Another dish prepared during my Christmas holiday. Just like the sautéed reindeer, this wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be. And took a lot less time than beef bourguignon, which is basically the same thing but with beef instead of chicken.

You will need:

500 g chicken fillet (in bite-sized pieces)
3 dl red wine
1 dl water
1 chicken stock cube
3 bay leaves
1 tsp thyme
3 cloves of garlic
100 g lardons (we used bacon)
1 leek
100-150 g fresh mushrooms (regular Champignons are good)
1 tbsp all-purpose flour

What to do:

Lightly fry the pieces of chicken in a bit of oil/butter. They should get a bit of color, but don't need to be cooked through at this point.
Transfer the chicken to a large saucepan, add the red wine and water, and bring to the boil. Turn to medium heat and add the chicken stock cube, bay leaves, thyme and chopped/grated garlic.
Fry the lardons and add them to the stew.
Roughly chop the mushrooms and leek, fry until the mushrooms look cooked and the leeks are soft, then add to the stew.
Dissolve the flour in a bit of water, and add to the stew while mixing. Cook for 10-15 minutes more, until the stew thickens.
Serve with rice or potatoes. We cheated a bit and served it with fresh white bread. I think it felt less heavy that way (there was quite a lot of meat), although white bread isn't exactly light either. But it also offers the possibility of getting all of the sauce remaining in the plate by soaking the bread in it. Some may find that gross, but I think it's yummy :)

This picture was not taken by me. The photographer in question asked me to point out that the wine in the glass is the same wine that was used for the stew - which is the way it should be done.

Ginger cookies

2012-01-14T11:29:00.000+02:00

When I'm sad - I bake. Cookies tend to be most appropriate for this purpose, because I usually have all the necessary ingredients at my disposal. After a quick search of the World Wide Web, I settled on making these ginger cookies. They are large and soft, and quite irresistible. Recipe modified from allrecipes.com

You will need:

150 g butter (room temperature)
1.5 dl sugar
1 egg
0.5 dl light syrup
4 dl all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

This amount of dough was enough for 11 large cookies.

What to do:

Using an electric whisk, beat butter and sugar together.
Add the egg and syrup, and whisk some more.
Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gradually add them to the creamy mixture. The dough gets very thick, so use a spoon or a spatula.
Shape the dough into balls and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving a few centimeters of space between each ball. I am now a proud owner of an ice-cream scoop, so this step was very easy :)

Sprinkle each ball with sugar and cinnamon.
Bake at 175 C for 10-15 minutes, until the cookies are puffy and golden brown. Allow them to cool down before removing from the baking tray.

Chicken wok with roasted cashews

2012-01-10T15:00:00.000+02:00

I'm still not entirely out of vacation mode, and I thought that making a proper dinner would help with that. I guess it did, a little. I can't remember where this recipe is from, it's been in my "to-do-pile" for a long time, hand-written on a piece of scrap paper. The reason I wanted to try it is simple - cashews. I <3 them.

You will need:

1 dl cashew nuts
450 g chicken fillet (in bite-sized pieces)
1 bell pepper
4 shallot onions
1.5 dl bean sprouts
3 dl chicken stock
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp oil
1 tsp ground ginger

What to do:

Roast cashews on a dry pan. Roughly chop and set aside.

Fry the chicken pieces in a bit of oil until golden brown (in a wok or a regular frying pan). Season with salt and red pepper.
Roughly chop the shallots and the bell pepper, and add them to the frying pan along with the bean sprouts. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Dissolve corn starch in a spoonful of chicken stock (in a bowl), make sure it doesn't form clumps. Then gradually add the rest of the liquids, and the ground ginger.
Pour the sauce to the frying pan, and cook on low heat until it thickens. When you're satisfied with the amount of liquid left - consider it ready.
Serve with rice, and a generous sprinkling of roasted cashews.

Caramel cookies

2012-01-06T13:45:00.003+02:00

Very easy to make, sweet and crunchy cookies. Just cause I felt like baking something on my day off. Happy Epiphany everyone! Recipe is from "Meidän keittokirja".

You will need:

100 g butter/margarine (room temperature)
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp light syrup
2.5 dl all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
nib sugar for decoration

What to do:

Beat the butter and sugars together with an electric whisk.
Add the syrup and whisk some more. Mix baking powder with flour, and start adding it to the dough while whisking. When the dough gets too thick, mix it with a spoon or spatula.
Shape the dough into long bars, place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Flatten the rods with your hands, and sprinkle some nib sugar on top.

Bake at 175 C for 10-15 minutes. Cut diagonally into pieces about 2 cm thick.

Sautéed reindeer

2012-01-05T10:00:00.000+02:00

Ironically, this dish was prepared just a few days after Christmas. Poor Rudolph. Sautéed reindeer (poronkäristys in Finnish and renskav in Swedish) is a traditional Nordic stew. Funnily enough, I'd never tasted the dish before, and I definitely hadn't cooked one either. I liked it though, and it wasn't as complicated of a dish as I was expecting it to be. Also, the mashed potatoes that were prepared as the side dish were so decadent with fatty milk, a couple of tablespoons of butter and grated cheese. Drool.

Picture taken with my camera - my apologies for the quality

You will need:

Reindeer meat (we bought 250 g of frozen meat)
150 g chantarelles (now is not the season, so we used chestnut champignons)
1 large onion
2.5 dl cream
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
salt and pepper

What to do:

If you're using frozen meat, defrost it first. This was in thin strips - ready for use. Fry it in a bit of oil until cooked through. Set aside.
Chop the onion and mushrooms. Fry them in the meat juices left on the frying pan, until soft.
Dissolve flour in cream, watch out for clumps!
Then add the meat and cream to the pan and fry for a bit longer. Season to taste.
Serve with potatoes - either mashed or just simply boiled.

A bit more about Swedish cuisine

2012-01-02T17:52:00.003+02:00

So I have now returned from yet another of my Swedish holidays. This time I was actually there for Christmas, which isn't celebrated in my family and is normally a very boring couple of days. I knew I would be spending Christmas Eve with "my Swedish family", but I knew very little about what we'd be eating. I'd expected a lot of fish, and possibly ham. Those two guesses were correct. The first course consisted of several types of pickled herring, boiled eggs and some sort of Christmas bread (vörtbröd, a type of rye bread). Then there was salted salmon (gravad lax), served with lemon. It's a good thing I like fish, because otherwise I think I would've had some problems :D

Pictures of aforementioned dishes, NOT taken by me, but found on the internet. I didn't want to take pictures at the dinner table, that would have been rude.

Gravad lax

Pickled herring

Julskinka - the Christmas ham

For the main course we had thinly sliced ham with "brown cabbage" (brunkål, cabbage cooked in syrup and spiced in some traditional way), and assorted fresh vegetables. From what I understood, the Christmas ham is sold frozen after being boiled for some time, so it's basically cooked through. It just needs to be defrosted and baked in the oven for a few hours. It is traditionally served with mustard.

Brunkål

Finally, we ate rice porridge with plum sauce for dessert. The tradition is that there is one almond in the porridge, and whoever gets it is the one who will get married next. Strangely enough, everyone got at least one almond in their portion :D But some had far better poker-faces than others. The leftovers of the rice porridge were used the next day to make a traditional Danish dessert - Ris a la Malta (Risalamande in Danish, which means "rice with almonds"). It is basically rice porridge mixed with cream, vanilla sugar and some more almonds, and served cold. We had it with strawberries. I was somewhat skeptical about this dish, but it was tasty!

Ris a la Malta

Moreover, there was hot glögg ("mulled wine" in English) and gingerbread cookies. Nothing new there - both of those are essential elements of Christmas in Finland too. However, something totally unique to Swedish cuisine is Julmust. It is a carbonated beveraged similar to coca-cola, and it is only sold around Christmas and Easter (but it is called påskmust then). I must've consumed a few liters of that stuff during my stay, it's so goood :D If Wikipedia is to be trusted, julmust might be sold in IKEA's around the world. I'll have to keep that in mind ;)

That's Swedish Christmas in a nutshell, I guess. It was somewhat festive, but not overly so, and very merry indeed. Just as it should be! Hope ya'll had a good one as well!

Chicken with mozzarella and tomato

2011-12-29T13:00:00.000+02:00

Quite a simple dish that doesn't require much work, but takes a while to cook. I had three fillets of chicken, which I seasoned with salt and red pepper. Then I sliced some mozzarella and tomato (in circles) and placed those on top of the chicken fillets - two pieces of mozzarella and one piece of tomato per fillet. I baked it in the oven at 175 C for about an hour and served it with rice. Also, I had some tomato and mozzarella left over, so I made a simple salad with balsamic vinegar.

Tomato soup

2011-12-27T10:00:00.000+02:00

I was craving some cozy food (it's so cold in my apartment during the winter), and what's better than tomato soup. The recipe is modified from "Meidän keittokirja".

You will need:

1 onion
4 dl water
1 vegetable stock cube
500 g of tomato sauce (pressed tomatoes? I still don't know what it is in English..)
2 tbsp tomato purée
1.5 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cloves of garlic
salt, pepper, basil
(sour cream/creme fraiche)

This makes about a liter of soup, so two plate-fulls.

What to do:

Peel and finely dice the onion. Cook it in a saucepan in a bit of oil until golden brown and soft.
Add the water, vegetable stock cube, tomato sauce and tomato purée and bring to the boil
Mix the flour with a bit of water, then add that to the soup and mix well. This is the dangerous step where if you mix the flour with too little water, or don't mix the soup well, you'll get disgusting clumps of flour. So make sure the flour-water mixture is quite liquidy.
Cook the soup for about 5-10 more minutes, season with garlic, salt, pepper and basil.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche and some bread!

Christmas treats - the 2011 edition

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000+02:00

I wrote about joulutortut (Christmas stars, the pastries that are traditionally served on Christmas in Finland) last year. I made them this Christmas season on several occasions. When a few of us made them at work, there was a sort of exchange of knowledge - I learned how to make angel-shaped pastries, and taught others how to make flower-shaped ones. I also tested the apple-cinnamon jam, and although I think it is tasty, it does not compare to the plum jam. The apple-cinnamon pastries were so ordinary, whereas the plum jam pastries taste like Christmas.

Note the angel-shaped pastry in the center (it's upside-down though, but rotating the picture made it look weird)

I also made some gingerbread cookies using ready-made frozen dough. I want to try making the dough from scratch someday, but I didn't have the time or energy this year. Maybe next year! I decorated the cookies with frosting made of icing sugar, and I didn't bother MacGyver'ing a dispenser of some sort. So I just used a spoon, and that's why the cookies look like they were decorated by a five-year-old :P But I got to use my amazing cookie shapes!

The hedgehog is totally my favorite :)

I'm going away for a week, but don't you worry - I've got some posts scheduled for then. This post is actually also scheduled, I wrote it almost a week ago. I wanted to make my absence as discreet as possible. And I'll be back in January, hopefully with more recipes to share.

Meanwhile, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Christmas cheesecake

2011-12-20T16:30:00.000+02:00

Another weekend, another Christmas party. There's just no end to them - I even have two in January! :D But I don't think I'll be baking for those. I'd promised to make a cake for this one though, and I was inspired by Kinuskikissa to make a Christmas-themed cheesecake. I didn't want it to be overly gingerbread-flavored though, so I slightly modified the recipe.

I apologize for the poor quality of this photo

You will need:

225 g gingerbread cookies (the store-bought ones work just fine)
80 g butter/margarine
5 dl heavy cream (~30% fat)
200 g white chocolate
400 g vanilla quark
6 sheets of gelatin
0.5 dl water
a few gingerbread cookies for decoration

CRUST

Crush the gingerbread cookies and melt the butter/margarine. Mix the two together, and lightly press the mixture evenly over the bottom of a cake tin (the kind with detachable sides is the most appropriate). Line the bottom of the tin with baking paper, and brush the sides with oil - that way the filling won't stick to them at all.

The gingerbread cookies that I used. Apparently 5 cents was donated to charity - yay for that!

FILLING (no pictures of the process - but it's all fairly simple and straightforward)

Whisk the cream in a large bowl using an electric whisk, until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.
Break the white chocolate into pieces and melt it over a water bath or in a microwave. Wait for it to cool down a little, then mix with vanilla quark.
Mix the chocolate-quark into the whipped cream.
Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for about 10 minutes. Heat 0.5 dl of water in a saucepan until it boils. Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatin, and dissolve it in the hot water. Wait for it to cool down a little.
Pour the gelatinous water into the filling while constantly mixing (I used an electric whisk at this point, so that the filling wouldn't get runny and liquidy)
Pour the filling over the crust. Allow to set in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

For decoration, I crushed a few gingerbread cookies and sprinkled the crumbs over the filling. Then I placed three whole gingerbread cookies in the center. My original plan was to make a toffee-flavored topping, but I didn't have time! I think that was actually a good thing though, because there was so much filling. The five of us couldn't quite finish the entire cake, there was a bit less than a quarter remaining. But it was tasty!

Fudge (white chocolate-lime)

2011-12-16T11:22:00.000+02:00

This was my first attempt at making fudge. It was for a Christmas party, and seemed like an appropriate snack to bring. After browsing the net for fudge recipes, I got quite frightened and intimidated, because it seemed like the success rate for homemade fudge is not very high. However, I was not totally discouraged! Although I ran into some problems already during the preparatory stage. I read that it is important to use real butter, and not margarine (because margarine does not harden as well as butter). Well, due to the popularity of low-carb high-fat dieting (aka "karppaus"), there is currently a shortage of butter in Finland. I have quite strong opinions about that diet, but I will restrain myself now. Luckily, there was still some butter at my grocery store, so the fudge-plan was materialized. And I must say it was successful. The fudge was very sweet though, but I guess that was to be expected :)

Recipe from Kinuskikissa

You will need:

50 g butter (NOT margarine)
1.5 dl sugar
1 dl heavy cream (the one I used was 30%)
100 g white chocolate (in chips)
zest of 1 lime

What to do:

Combine butter, sugar and cream in a saucepan. I read somewhere that it's better to use a large saucepan when making fudge, because then the heat is more evenly distributed (due to a large surface area) and that speeds up the process.

Bring to the boil, then cook at low heat for 10-12 minutes. Stir constantly. The mixture should be bubbling a little, but not rising too much. It will begin to thicken after a few minutes, and finally get to the consistency of custard.

Remove from heat. Add the white chocolate chips and lime zest and mix. Then pour the mixture into a tin/dish lined with baking paper and allow to chill in the fridge.

I read through the comments of the recipe, and several people mentioned that when they added the chocolate to the mix, it caused the grease to separate. No one could come up with an explanation for it, and perhaps it depends on the type of chocolate. The same thing happened to me! The mixture was very oily on the outside. Unfortunately, I don't know how this affects the taste of the fudge (if at all), because I've only made it this one time.

Tortilla - Spanish potato omelet

2011-12-13T18:00:00.000+02:00

The Spanish potato omelet, which is not to be confused with the Mexican maize tortilla, is something that I've wanted to try for a while now. Sadly, I've never tasted an authentic tortilla, so I can't vouch for this being close enough to "the real thing". But I sure thought it was tasty! The recipe is from the cookbook "Meidän keittokirja" (Finnish translation of the Swedish "Vår kokbok").

You will need:

3-4 medium-sized potatoes (~300 g)
1 onion
4 eggs
1 dl grated cheese (I used Edam)
salt and pepper

This makes two large, or three medium-sized portions.

What to do:

Peel the potatoes and the onion, then dice finely. Fry in a bit of oil or butter at medium heat, until they soften, then season to taste. Use a small (diameter ~20 cm), shallow frying pan.

This step took forever! I don't know what I did wrong, maybe the heat was too low, but the potatoes just wouldn't soften. Then again, maybe it was supposed to take this long, the recipe wasn't very clear...
In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a fork, just to disrupt their structure. Then add the fried potatoes and the grated cheese, and mix everything well.
Pour the mixture back onto the frying pan and let it be until the bottom becomes light brown in color.

Place a large plate on top of the frying pan and hold it tight, then flip it over so that the omelet ends up on the plate. Slide it back onto the frying pan and let it be until it's cooked through.

Serve with tomatoes and olives to keep it vegetarian, or if you want a meaty option - some ham!

Quark pie (rahkapiirakka)

2011-12-08T16:00:00.000+02:00

I guess this is sort of a Finnish equivalent of cheesecake (correct me if I'm wrong), but instead of cream cheese, quark is used. Quark is apparently a type of fresh cheese, thank you wikipedia. And it is not to be confused with the elementary particle :D The recipe is from some cookbook that I borrowed from the library ages ago, copied the recipes that I liked on pieces of scrap paper, and completely forgot to write down the name of the book.. I think it was some Finnish recipe book, but that's all I remember.

You will need:

pie crust
250 g quark (probably could be substituted with cream cheese)
0.5 dl ground nuts (I used almonds)
0.5 dl sugar
2 eggs, separated into yolks + whites
1.5 dl heavy cream (the one I used was 30%)
zest and juice of 1 lemon

What to do:

Prepare the pie crust from scratch, or use the ready-made frozen kind. Line the pie dish with the dough, poke some holes in the bottom with a fork, then allow to chill in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

FILLING:

In a large bowl, combine the quark, nuts, sugar and the egg yolks.

In another bowl, whisk the cream until it has the consistency of whipped cream.
In a third bowl, whisk the egg whites into a stiff foam.
Add the whipped cream to the quark mixture, and mix well. I used an electric whisk for this.
Then add the lemon juice and zest and mix some more.
Finally, fold in the egg white foam. Carefully, with a spatula or a spoon, to keep the filling light and frothy.

ASSEMBLY AND FINISHING TOUCHES:

Pour the filling into the pie dish lined with pie crust.

Bake at 200 C for about 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 175 C and bake for another 30-35 minutes. The surface should gain some color, and the filling needs to cook through.
Sprinkle with some icing sugar for decoration, and voilá.

This pie was almost a complete disaster, I had so many problems with it. First of all, I misunderstood the recipe and when separating the yolks from the whites, I discarded the whites. Because I thought I only needed the yolks. So then I had to take two new eggs and discard their yolks. Also, my original plan was to make 6 small pies using my brand-new tart dishes. That sort of failed because I didn't realize the filling would rise in the oven as much as it did - most of the small pies look a little ugly :/ The only pretty one is in the first photo of this post. Luckily, I only used about half of the dough and filling for the small pies, and had enough for a medium-sized pie. That one turned out great, and it's in the rest of the pictures. But yeah, a lot of hassle over such a simple recipe :D

Creamy chicken with mushrooms and broccoli

2011-12-05T13:00:00.000+02:00

Can you tell I've been really into broccoli lately? :D It's just so tasty! The measurements here are far from exact, and that's because I just used as much as I thought would be a good amount. This dish doesn't quite qualify as "quick and simple", although it's not very time-consuming - I cooked it on a weekday, after a 10-hour work day.

You will need:

250-300 g chicken fillet
100-150 g fresh mushrooms (I used Champignons)
150-200 g fresh broccoli
2.5 dl sour cream/creme fraiche/something of the sort (I used mushroom-flavored Creme Bonjour)
2 cloves of garlic
salt and red pepper

What to do:

Cut up the chicken fillet into small pieces. Do the same for mushrooms and broccoli.
Fry the mushrooms and broccoli in a large pan until both seem more or less cooked. Be careful not to overcook the broccoli though! Set aside.
Fry the pieces of chicken. Season with red pepper and a tiny bit of salt (the sour cream that I used was quite salty on its own).
Add the mushrooms and broccoli to the chicken, then add the sour cream. Grate the garlic cloves and add them as well. Mix everything together. If it's too thick - add some water and mix well.

The Creme Bonjour thing that I used. Also, note my awesome nail art :D

Serve with rice!

Muesli cookies

2011-12-02T14:00:00.000+02:00

I felt like making cookies some evening last week. These proved to be yummy - something between chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies. The recipe is modified from Mansikkamäki.

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine
1 dl sugar
1 dl brown sugar
2 eggs
4.5 dl all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1.5 dl syrup
100 g dark chocolate, in chips
1 dl almonds (or other nuts), finely chopped
6 dl oats (that seems like a lot, but bear with me)

Makes about two dozen cookies (fairly large ones)

What to do:

With an electric whisk, beat the butter and sugars together until soft and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add them into the dough along with the syrup. Mix until homogeneous. Finally, add the chocolate chips, nuts and oats. The dough should be very thick, yet sticky.

Place dollops of dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake at 180 C for 10-15 minutes, until the cookies get some color on them. Allow the cookies to cool down before transferring them from the baking tray.

I wanted to make muesli bar-like cookies, but they didn't keep their shape very well. So the second batch ended up being traditional round cookies.

Baking supplies FTW

2011-11-28T14:30:00.000+02:00

Woo, fun baking supplies I bought at IKEA. Can't wait to make animal-shaped cookies :)

Cookie shapes (or pastry cutters, as the website claims) "Drömmar": hedgehog, squirrel, snail, moose, fox and bear cub (I think)

"Snödriva" baking cups of assorted sizes:

Oh, and I've also updated the blog layout a little bit, and added two new pages (links in one of the boxes on the right) - one with a bit about me, and one with a list of recipes to date. With links to original posts. And it's in categories. And also alphabetized. Cause I'm nothing if not organized. I will try to remember to update that list whenever I post a new recipe. There is also a search box now, which I haven't tested, but I guess it should work. Lemme know if something (or everything) doesn't work, and I'll see what I can do about it!

Bulgur with beans and broccoli

2011-11-24T21:02:00.000+02:00

I usually don't have time to cook proper food during the week nowadays, so I try to get by on food left over from the weekend, eating out, or just making something quick and simple. This dish belongs to that last category. It takes less than half an hour to prepare, it's tasty, and it's way healthier than fast food. I think in the future I might write more posts about dishes like this, which I collectively refer to as "lazy cooking". They will bear the label "quick and simple".

You will need:

2 dl bulgur (couscous works well too)
400 g kidney beans
some broccoli
frozen mix of peas, corn and bell pepper

What to do:

Cook bulgur: bring 5 dl of water to the boil, then add 2 dl of bulgur and cook at medium heat for 10-15 minutes (until the water has evaporated and the bulgur is fairly soft). Add a generous scoop of butter and season with some salt.
Drain kidney beans and fry in a bit of oil. Chop broccoli into small pieces and add to the frying pan along with the frozen peas, corn and bell pepper. Or any other vegetables, really.
Mix everything together and ta-daaa - dinner is ready.

Meatballs

2011-11-21T16:00:00.000+02:00

I had some time on my hands this weekend, so I actually made myself a proper dinner. However, I didn't feel inspired enough to make anything new and exciting, so I went with a safe choice - meatballs. I know of two good ways of eating meatballs: a) with mashed potatoes, brown sauce and lingonberry jam ("the Swedish way"), and b) with spaghetti and tomato sauce ("the Italian way"). This time I chose neither of those, but baked potatoes in the oven (as wedges), and had broccoli and tomato on the side. This way was quite good as well :)

You will need:

400 g beef mince
0.5 dl breadcrumbs
1 dl water/milk/cream (I used milk)
1 egg
salt and pepper

I got 28 meatballs out of that, but it all depends on what size you want them.

What to do:

First of all, I peeled 1 kg of potatoes, chopped them in wedges and placed in an oven-proof dish. I drizzled oil over the potatoes and seasoned with some salt and red pepper, and baked at 175 C for about an hour.

To make the meatball "dough": mix breadcrumbs with milk, and allow them to soak a bit. Then add the minced meat, egg, and seasonings and mix well. Shape small balls, coat each of them in a bit of flour or breadcrumbs, then fry in a bit of oil/butter.

Healthy alternative: place the meatballs on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 200 C for about 20 minutes.
Cooking the meatballs in the oven would ensure that they remain round, while cooking them in a frying pan is a bit more challenging. I never have the patience to turn each meatball enough, so they always turn out a little angular :(

Chocolate chip cookies

2011-11-19T14:00:00.000+02:00

I can't believe I've had this blog for over a year and still haven't posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's about time I made things right. Also, I had some chocolate laying around and wanted to put it to good use :) The recipe is adapted from Joy of Baking.

You will need:

100 g unsalted butter/margarine
0.75 dl sugar
0.75 dl brown sugar
1 egg
2.5 dl all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g chocolate in chips (I used more or less equal amounts of white and dark chocolate)

This amount of dough makes roughly 20 cookies.

What to do:

Beat the butter and sugar (both white and brown) with an electric whisk until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and beat well.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Combine with the other mixture until a thick dough is formed. Finally, add the chocolate chips and mix.

Place scoops of dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure to leave plenty of space between the scoops, because the dough spreads quite a lot. (It would've been very handy to use an ice-cream scoop for this, but since I do not own one, I had to manage with a good old spoon)

Bake at 200 C for 10-15 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown around the edges. Allow them to cool and harden before removing from the baking tray.

Mushroom bacon pie

2011-11-16T16:33:00.000+02:00

I love love love mushrooms. And I also love bacon. So when I see recipes combining the two, I almost always set them aside for testing. This recipe for a mushroom bacon pie is adapted from Kinuskikissa. Unfortunately, I didn't have the correct mushrooms (because I don't go mushroom picking myself), but it was good with plain old Champignons as well.

You will need:

pie crust
250-300 g of mushrooms (I used Champignons)
1 onion
1 red bell pepper
1 dried chilli pepper
170 g bacon

2 eggs
2 dl cream
120 g sour cream
2 dl grated cheese (I wanted to use Emmental, but ended up using Mozzarella)

What to do:

Prepare pie crust according to instructions, or use frozen ready-made pie crust.
Finely chop the onion, bell pepper, chilli pepper and mushrooms. Cut the bacon into smaller pieces. Fry everything in a large pan, until the liquid that's given off by the mushrooms more or less fully evaporates.

Break the structure of the eggs with a fork, add cream and sour cream, and mix until homogeneous. Add the grated cheese and mix.
Pour the mushroom-bacon filling onto the pie crust, then pour the egg-cream mixture over the filling. Sprinkle some cheese on top.

Bake at 200 C for about 35 minutes. If the surface starts getting too brown, cover the pie with aluminum foil.

Mud cake

2011-11-13T12:59:00.001+02:00

Father's Day was celebrated here today. I checked Wikipedia, and apparently it's just the Nordic countries that celebrate it on the second Sunday of November. For the majority of countries, Father's Day is in June. We don't really celebrate it in my family, but I made a cake for my dad anyways. He loves chocolate, so I went with a mud cake. And it was good. Perhaps a little too doughy in the center, but otherwise tasty. I'm not sure where the recipe is originally from, I stumbled upon it in my recipe book when I was looking for a different recipe :D

EDIT: I had a leftover piece of this cake in the fridge overnight, and it was even better the next day! The gooey center had solidified nicely, so it wasn't too runny for my taste anymore :)

You will need:

150 g unsalted butter
200 g dark chocolate
4 eggs
2 dl sugar
2.5 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
icing sugar or cocoa powder for decoration

What to do:

Cut the butter into chunks, break the chocolate into pieces, and combine in a bowl. Melt over a water bath until smooth and chocolatey. Let the mixture cool down.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs (room temperature) and sugar into a white foam.

In a third bowl, mix the wheat flour with baking powder and vanilla sugar.
Carefully fold the melted chocolate into the foamy mixture. Be quick about it though, because the chocolate is probably still quite warm. Finally, add the dry ingredients and mix well. The dough should be thick and gooey.
Grease a baking tin and coat with flour. Alternatively, line with baking paper, but I didn't bother this time.
Pour the dough into the tin and bake at 200 C for 20 minutes. Let the cake cool down, then decorate with icing sugar or cocoa powder. Or something fancier if you feel like it.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there! And not just the Nordic ones :)

Moccha squares

2011-11-11T14:00:00.000+02:00

This recipe is very similar to that for the nougat bars, but I increased the amount of dough, and made a coffee-flavored frosting. Moccha squares are very popular in Finland - they're kinda like the equivalent of brownies. But far less chocolatey, and not gooey (mmm, I should make "proper" brownies someday). But I digress. This almost ended in a disaster - I somehow got some of the frosting on my camera! Luckily nothing was damaged and it still works fine, phew.

You will need:

200 g butter/margarine
1.5 dl sugar
3 eggs
4 dl wheat flour
4 tbsp cocoa powder (I only had the sort of cocoa powder that's meant for making chocolate milk, which resulted in a fairly light dough. I think it'd be better to use the dark unsweetened cocoa powder)
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 dl milk

For frosting:

50 g butter/margarine
5 tbsp strong coffee
4 dl icing sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar

What to do:

Whisk the butter and sugar into a light foam. Add the eggs one by one, whisking after each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Gradually add them in along with the milk, continuously mixing, until a thick dough is formed.

See how light the dough is??

Pour the dough into an ovenproof dish lined with baking paper. Bake at 200 C for 10-15 minutes.

Prepare the frosting: measure the coffee, butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder into a saucepan and melt everything together. Let it cool down a bit, so that it thickens, then pour over the baked and cooled crust. Decorate with chocolate shavings or sprinkles!

By the way, today's date is 11.11.11 - would've been an awesome birthday, or wedding day, or something :)

Minced meat sauce

2011-11-09T18:00:00.000+02:00

I was going to call this "Bolognese sauce", but then I realized that I have no idea if this is anything close to what real Bolognese sauce is. So I went with the safe title of a minced meat sauce. Maybe someday I'll find an actual recipe for Bolognese sauce, but this is just my way of doing it.

You will need:

1 large onion
3 large fresh mushrooms
400 g beef mince
500 g tomato sauce (the liquidy tomato purée)
2 fresh tomatoes
garlic
salt, pepper, basil

What to do:

Finely chop the onion, dice the mushrooms and tomatoes.
Fry the mushrooms in oil (or butter, or a mixture of the two), and set aside
Brown the onion in a bit of oil, then add the beef mince and fry until it is cooked
Pour in the tomato sauce, mix, and let simmer for 10-15 minutes
Add the fresh tomatoes and garlic, season with salt, pepper and basil
Serve with pasta!

Nougat bars

2011-11-06T12:56:00.002+02:00

This is yet another recipe by Kinuskikissa. I made these once before, back when this blog did not exist, and they were so good that I decided to make them again. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the bars once they've been cut, but maybe I'll add one someday! And Kinuskikissa has some very nice pictures on her website.

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine
1 dl sugar
2 eggs
3 dl wheat flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 dl milk

~1.5 dl Nutella
50 g of nougat (that's one bar of Marabou Dubbel Nougat)

What to do:

Whisk the butter and sugar into a light foam. Then add the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Gradually add them along with milk, until a thick chocolatey dough is formed. Pour the dough into a ovenproof dish lined with baking paper.

Bake at 200 C for 10-15 minutes, check for readiness with a wooden stick or a fork.
Spread a generous layer of Nutella over the still-warm surface. Melt the nougat and drizzle it over the surface. Chill in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Cut into squares before serving.

Goat cheese tomato soup

2011-11-03T20:24:00.000+02:00

It's getting closer and closer to winter, which means it is starting to get cold and dark, and at times like these I start craving soups. And hot chocolate. Here is a recipe for the former. It's not adapted from anywhere, I just went with "what felt natural".

You will need:

1 onion
1 L tomato juice
1 vegetable stock cube
150 g goat cheese
garlic
salt, pepper, basil

This is a fairly quick soup to make, although I have no idea if it gets better when cooked for a longer time..

Finely chop the onion and lightly brown it in a large saucepan
Pour in the tomato juice, and throw in the stock cube. Cook for 10-15 minutes
Add the goat cheese in chunks, along with garlic and seasonings
Purée the mixture until smooth using a hand-held immersion blender

Bread (simple, using yeast)

2011-11-01T21:34:00.000+02:00

I didn't have any bread at home, and instead of going to the store, like a normal person would do, I thought "Eh, can't be bothered, I'll just bake some". For some reason that seemed like a far more convenient option. Especially since it's cold and dark outside. I googled for recipes, and went with the one by Myllyn Paras (a Finnish food company), just scaled it down because I didn't feel the need for making 4 large loaves of bread :P

You will need:

25 g yeast
3.5 dl warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp syrup
7-9 dl wheat flour
20 g butter

Prep time: 20 minutes + half an hour to rise
Baking time: 25-35 minutes

Dissolve yeast in warm water, add salt and syrup. Gradually add flour, while mixing first with a spoon/spatula, and once the dough gets too thick, proceed by kneading by hand. Add melted butter when the dough is close to ready.
The dough is ready when it no longer sticks to the bowl, or to your fingers. However, it should still remain soft and sort of fluffy.
Cover the dough and leave it in a warm place until it roughly doubles in size.

Transfer the dough into a bread tin, or just place it on a baking tray. Shape it however you like, sprinkle with a bit of water, and let it rise some more (while the oven is preheating, for instance)

Bake at 200 C for 25-35 minutes, until the surface turns golden brown.

White chocolate carrot cake

2011-10-25T22:05:00.000+03:00

I used to be very skeptical with regard to carrot cakes. And I don't really like white chocolate. However! This white chocolate carrot cake is AMAZING. Yes, in capital letters. I took this to work today, and it got a whole lot of praise. The cake was rich and moist, and the frosting wasn't too sweet. I'm definitely starting to gain a reputation of the baker in our group, not that I mind :) I got this recipe from a friend (who crushed my skepticism towards carrot cakes once and for all) almost a year ago, and I'd been meaning to try it ever since. I'll definitely be making this again sometime.

Heaven on a plate is what this is

You will need:

3 eggs
1 dl oil
150 g Philadelphia cheese

3 dl wheat flour
2.5 dl brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla sugar
100 g white chocolate (cut up in chips)
3 dl thinly grated carrots (about 2 large ones)

75 g white chocolate (melted)
150 g Philadelphia cheese
3 tbsp icing sugar

Prep time: 30-45 minutes, depending on how fast you grate carrots and chop chocolate
Baking time: 20-30 minutes

Whisk (with an electric whisk) the eggs, oil and Philadelphia cheese into a loose foam. Mix dry ingredients and white chocolate chips in a separate bowl.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the foam, all the while whisking until a rather gooey dough is formed. Then add the grated carrots, and mix it all up with a spoon/spatula. The dough does not look very appetizing at this point, but it does smell (and taste) nice, so that's a relief!

Line an ovenproof dish with baking paper and pour the dough into the dish. I used a rectangular dish because it's easier to transport, but a round cake tin would work fine too. Bake at 200 C in the middle level of the oven for 20-30 minutes. Test readiness with a long wooden stick or a fork.

Prepare the frosting: melt the white chocolate and mix it with Philadelphia cheese and icing sugar. I tried doing this with a spoon at fist, but it's just a whole lot faster and easier with an electric whisk.
Wait for the carrot cake to cool down, then spread the frosting. Cut into squares (unfortunately no picture of that!)

Goat cheese tomato pie

2011-10-22T21:20:00.000+03:00

Goat cheese seems to be one of those ingredients that totally divide people's opinions. Some say it tastes like wool and/or goat's sweat, others think it's amazing. I belong to the latter category. This is the first time I actually had goat cheese in my possession, so I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Goat cheese tomato soup is awesome, but I didn't feel like making soup. So I settled for the next best thing - pie. I didn't follow a recipe or anything, just used common sense and hoped for the best :)

You will need:

pie crust (either freshly-made, or frozen)
300 g goat cheese
2 tomatoes
2 dl cream
2 eggs
basil and salt

This took me about an hour to make, and I even made the pie crust from scratch!

Arrange slices of goat cheese on top of the pie crust

Slice the tomatoes, and arrange those on top of the goat cheese. Whisk the eggs with a fork, add cream and continue whisking until slightly frothy. Season with salt and basil. Pour this mixture over the pie. Bake at 225 C for about half an hour (test the filling with a fork to make sure it's done).

Apple pie with a hint of lemon

2011-10-17T20:58:00.000+03:00

I had a reason to celebrate, so I made a pie this weekend. Decided not to go for "yet another cheesecake", although this does contain Philadelphia cheese, so maybe by some definitions it is also a cheesecake. But whatever, it was tasty. Recipe more or less directly from Kinuskikissa

Almost forgot to take a picture of the finished pie!

You will need:

300 g Digestive cookies/biscuits
125 g butter/margarine

200 g Philadelphia cheese
2 dl cream (the fatty kind that can be used to make whipped cream)
juice of one large lemon
2.5 dl sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 eggs
3 large apples

I think I spent about an hour on this, not counting the baking time, but I was quite slow crushing the cookies (I really need to figure out a good way of doing that, or then buy a food processor...)

CRUST

Crush the cookies, melt the margarine, then combine the two. Line a greased pie dish with the crumbs.

FILLING

Mix the Philadelphia cheese with cream. Add the cream in small portions - it will be much easier to get a smooth mixture that way. Then add the lemon juice, sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs, and mix well. I used an electric whisk at this point.

ASSEMBLY

Peel the apples, remove the cores, and thinly slice. Arrange the apple slices on top of the crust. Then pour the filling over the apples. Bake at 200 C for 45-60 minutes. If the top starts looking too brown, cover with aluminum foil.

Chocolate panna cotta

2011-10-05T22:01:00.000+03:00

A friend of mine had a housewarming party on Saturday and, being a good hostess, she served some snacks and then white chocolate panna cotta. It was so delicious I had to ask for a recipe. And I made it today, but using milk chocolate. The measurements given here make two large portions, or probably four smaller ones.

I sprinkled these with some cocoa powder later, because a bit of decoration never hurt anyone :)

You will need:

2 gelatin sheets
2 dl cream (I used the fattiest one I could find, which was 30%)
0.5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar (unless you want to go through the trouble of using real vanilla...)
200 g chocolate
2 dl orange-flavored yoghurt (OR unflavored yoghurt + orange zest)

Prep time: about half an hour, and a few hours in the fridge

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water
Mix cream, sugar and vanilla sugar in a sauce pan and cook for about 10 minutes while stirring. Take off the heat

Squeeze the water out of the gelatin, and dissolve it in the hot creamy mixture. Break the chocolate and stir it in as well. Finally, add the yoghurt. Distribute into cups or other dish(es) of choice and let the panna cotta set (about 2 hours in the fridge is enough).

Moccha cheesecake

2011-09-26T22:11:00.000+03:00

Whoa, it's been a while since I've made anything worth blogging about. There just hasn't been a reason or occasion to bake, and I've been too busy to cook properly. But yesterday was my mom's birthday, so I got to make a cake :) Originally I'd planned on making a lemon coconut cake, but wasn't sure if it would survive a night in the fridge. So after a long consideration I decided to make a no-bake cheesecake, because those can definitely be made the night before. The lemon coconut cake is just gonna have to wait. This recipe is by Kinuskikissa. The cake was definitely a success, even though chaos reigned in my kitchen (I should really buy more bowls :P)

You will need:

200 g sandwich cookies (Domino)
50 g butter/margarine
1 bar Daim bar

2 dl coffee
2 dl milk
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp starch
0.5 Daim bar

6 gelatin sheets (although I have a feeling that 5 would've been enough)
0.5 dl coffee
200 g Philadelphia cheese
1 dl sugar
4 dl cream

I used the remaining 0.5 Daim bar and a few crushed Domino cookies for decoration, but of course that's just one way of doing it

It took me about an hour to make this (being a fan of late-night cooking, I started around 10 pm and was finished a bit after 11), then I let it be in the fridge overnight and took care of the decorations in the morning. I find that more convenient than having to start from scratch in the morning, but that's just me.

CRUST

Crush the domino cookies and the Daim bar. Melt the margarine, mix it all together in a bowl. Lightly press the mixture evenly over the bottom of a cake tin lined with baking paper. For more detailed instructions, see my previous cheesecake post.

COFFEE KIISSELI (whatever that would be in English..)

In a saucepan, mix the 2 dl of coffee with milk, sugar, starch and half a Daim bar (crushed). Cook on a hot stove while constantly stirring. The mixture will be runny at first, and then suddenly thicken. Heat it until large bubbles appear and burst once, then remove from heat.

Take 1.5 dl of this stuff and set it aside for later.

FILLING

Combine the rest of the coffee kiisseli with the Philadelphia cheese and 1 dl of sugar. Mix until smooth.
Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for about 5 minutes, then squeeze out the excess water and dissolve them in 0.5 dl of hot coffee. Slowly mix into the cream cheese coffee filling, while stirring.
Finally, whip the cream in a separate bowl and carefully fold it into the filling.

Pour the filling over the cookie crust, and while you do that, throw in dollops of coffee kiisseli (the 1.5 dl that was set aside earlier). Afterwards, swirl a knife in the filling to even it out a little. The point of this is to have small chunks of coffee flavor among the otherwise creamy filling.

Allow the cheesecake to set (a couple of hours in the fridge are probably enough), then remove it from the cake tin and decorate. Last but not least - EAT IT.

Snickerdoodles

2011-09-08T10:00:00.000+03:00

I saw the recipe on Joy of Baking, there's even a video tutorial for these.

"Snickerdoodles, also called Snipdoodles or Cinnamon Sugar Cookies, have been around since the late 1800s. They probably originated in New England and are either of German or Dutch descent. Unfortunately there is no clue as to how they got such a peculiar name." (Joy of Baking)

I haven't baked cookies in a while, and this recipe just looked so easy that I had to try it out. I halved it though, and replaced vanilla extract with vanilla sugar.

Crispy on the outside and just a little soft on the inside!

You will need:

125 g butter/margarine
1.75 dl sugar
1 egg
2.5 dl wheat flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

0.75 dl sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Prep time: about 20 minutes + an hour or two for the dough to cool
Baking time: 8-10 minutes/batch

With an electric whisk, beat the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the egg, and beat well. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder and vanilla sugar. Then add those to the other mixture and continue beating until you get a smooth dough. If the dough is soft, refrigerate it for an hour or two, until firm.

In a shallow bowl (or a deep plate, depending how you look at it), mix the 0.75 dl of sugar with cinnamon. That will be used for coating. Shape the dough into small balls, then roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar coating. Place the coated balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper, making sure there is plenty of space between each ball. Then, using the bottom of a glass, gently flatten each ball. Bake at 200 C for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are light golden brown.

Tagliatelle with mushrooms and bacon

2011-09-04T20:32:00.000+03:00

I had quite a lot of free time on my hands today, so I actually put some effort into dinner. Not too much though, because I have a bit of a flu, so my sense of taste is slightly dulled down. That is one of the reasons I hate being sick - not being able to taste what you're eating just makes me sad.

So what did I end up cooking today? Tagliatelle with mushrooms and bacon. I cut 125 g of bacon into smaller pieces, and roughly chopped 250 g of fresh mushrooms. Fried the bacon until crispy, then set the bacon aside and fried the mushrooms in the bacon grease. I didn't use any spices, not even salt, mainly because I don't know what spice would go with bacon. I should really educate myself on the use of spices :P

Bacon tip: start with a cold frying pan. The bacon will get heated more gradually and release more fat as the frying pan gets hotter, which will make it nice and crispy.

Quite an easy dish, and tasty! Let's face it - bacon is delicious, and so are mushrooms.

Chocolate muffins

2011-08-30T18:49:00.000+03:00

Kinuskikissa has some awesome recipes, and this is one of them. I love the idea of having a piece of chocolate in the middle of the muffin, it's like the best thing since sliced bread. I made these muffins using Marabou Daim chocolate earlier this summer, but didn't take pictures. They were so good I wanted to make them again, but this time tried Marabou Digestive chocolate. It's got little cookie pieces throughout, which give it a nice crunch. But yeah, any chocolate will do, and the flavor of the muffins will change accordingly :)

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine
1.5 dl sugar
2 eggs
3.5 dl wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2.5 tbsp cocoa powder
1.5 dl milk
200 g chocolate of your choice

Prep time: 20-30 minutes
Baking time: 12-15 minutes

Finely chop half of the chocolate bar. Save the rest for later.

Whisk the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs one by one. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Whisk them into the buttery mixture little by little, along with the milk, until homogenous. Finally, add the chocolate chip and fold it in with a spoon or spatula.

Take 12 muffin cups and put a generous helping of dough into each. Then put a piece of chocolate in the middle, and cover with another spoonful of dough. The cups should be filled about 3/4 of the way. Bake at 225 C for 12-15 minutes.

Decorate with icing sugar or whipped cream. Or make frosting if you're feeling fancy!

Chicken with stir-fried vegetables

2011-08-28T19:35:00.001+03:00

Lately I've been very lazy with cooking dinner. But today I decided it was time to get myself together and make an effort. This is the result.

As always, presentation is not my strong suit...

You will need:

300 g chicken fillet, cut into small pieces
1 bell pepper
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
some Chinese cabbage (I think I used about 100 g, although I'm not sure)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 dl chicken stock
1 tsp wheat flour
1 tsp ground ginger
salt, red pepper, chili powder and/or other spices

Cooking time: about half an hour all in all

Chop the bell pepper, onion and Chinese cabbage however you prefer

Fry the chicken pieces in a bit of oil, when they're cooked through, season with a bit of salt, red pepper and chili powder. Then stir-fry the vegetables quickly in a wok pan, just long enough for them to soften a bit.

Mix the wheat flour into the chicken stock, add that to the vegetables along with the soy sauce, garlic (I grate it, because that's easy) and ground ginger. Finally, add the fried chicken and wok everything for a few minutes.

A little bit about Swedish cuisine

2011-08-27T19:28:00.000+03:00

I've spent quite a lot of time in Sweden, but this is the first time I feel like writing about the strange food I ate there. Overall I don't think I ever had a bad meal in Sweden. The closest I've gotten to traditional Swedish food was during Easter (they eat different types of herring on most of the religious holidays, but I actually quite like herring, so that was okay).

During my vacation in August, I spent a few days in Gothenburg, and was introduced to a local specialty. It's called "hel special" (whole special), and there is also a variation of it - "halv special" (half special). It's basically a hot dog, but they put a few scoops of mashed potatoes on top. The whole special has two sausages, and usually shrimp salad. That sounded a bit too extreme for me, but I did try a half special. It was a bun with one sausage, a pretty large portion of mashed potatoes, a pickle salad thing, and ketchup+mustard. It was very filling, I barely finished it! And although it looked strange, it was pretty tasty. I don't think I'd eat it every day, but I'm glad I tried it, it was a new and unique experience :)

That was a whole lot of mashed potatoes...

I've heard that you can get french fries as a pizza topping in Sweden, but I haven't seen that myself yet, and have no pictures to prove it. I think that's a bit too bizarre though.

Red currant pie

2011-08-20T13:19:00.001+03:00

I've been home after my holiday for a few days now, so I guess it's time for a new post! The day before I left, I was visiting my parents and I wanted to bake a pie. They have several red currant bushes in their backyard, and they don't know what to do with all the berries, so I decided to use them. The cream cheese topping is quite sweet so it cancels out some of the sourness of the red currant. However, this pie was still a bit sour, so it's not for everyone. At least my brother couldn't eat it because he hates red currant :D

Doesn't look that pretty, unfortunately :(

You will need:

100 g butter or margarine
1 dl sugar
1 egg
2.5 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder

3-4 dl red currant
250 g Mascarpone cream cheese
1 egg
0.5 dl sugar

Prep time: about half an hour
Baking time: 30-40 minutes

Whisk the margarine and sugar together, then add the egg and continue whisking. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl, then add to the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Line a greased pie dish with the dough.

All the pictures are taken with my phone, so the quality is quite bad...

Whisk the Mascarpone cream cheese with the sugar and egg until a homogenous mass is formed. Pour the red currant over the dough, then pour the cream cheese topping over it.

Bake at 200 C for about half an hour, and once the top gets some color on it, cover the pie with aluminum foil, otherwise it will burn! Mine did a little...

Hooray hooray, it's a holi-holiday!

2011-08-06T15:16:00.000+03:00

My 10-day holiday started yesterday, yipee for that, I feel like it's well-deserved and very much needed. Tomorrow morning I am flying out to Southern Sweden and I'll be there up until the 15th, so no blogging until then.

Meanwhile, I'd totally forgotten to write about the awesome ice-cream that I had during my previous visit to Southern Sweden. That particular brand of ice-cream (Otto Glass, formerly known as Åhus Glass) is famous in that area, and it was really amazing. They sell the actual ice cream in supermarkets, but that's not the right way to enjoy it. The small kiosk in Åhus (I think there are two all in all, but I might be mistaken) that we visited had a very long line of people, and the delicious smell of fresh waffles was filling the air. The waffles are made on the spot, and there is a wide variety of ice-cream flavors to choose from. I can't remember exactly what we took, I think I picked brownie and blueberry, after a very long consideration.

Definitely some of the best ice-cream I'd ever tasted :)

French market

2011-08-02T20:11:00.002+03:00

Starting today, and for the next two weeks, there is a French market in my town. It was organized by Team Fantastique, and here's what their website says:

"We only bring what is the best of Continental produce, the best of French Charcuterie, Dutch and French Cheeses, German Sausages, a great variety of garlic and vegetables, Moroccan Terracota, Italian Leather and a host of other delights to tempt the most discerning of palates and purses! We have biscuits from Brittany, olives from Europe’s sunny south, delicious French honey and jams, jewellery from Paris, and much, much more! We have the finest mobile Boulangerie in Europe, we bake on site, so wake up to the aroma of fresh baked croissants, pain chocolate and patisseries!"

I went there with a few friends today after work to see what all the fuss was about. The square was buzzing with people and there were quite long lines to the tent where French crepes and Spanish churros were sold. We got a crepe each (they were tasty), but decided that queuing for churros would be too much for one day. I was also very tempted by the fresh baguettes and croissants, as well as the various types of goat cheese. I bought a few pieces of fudge: butterscotch, marzipan, milk chocolate and coconut ice. They were all yummy, marzipan was a bit strange, and butterscotch was definitely my favorite. The coconut ice wasn't really fudge, it was basically sweetened coconut flakes shaped into a cube, half of which was colored pink. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, and they are all gone now :)

Chocolate cheesecake

2011-07-29T19:26:00.001+03:00

It was my dad's birthday a few days ago, and so a perfect reason to make a cake! I'd been meaning to experiment with a cheesecake for ages now, but never got around to it until now. I found this recipe in a Finnish blog. It wasn't too difficult to make, just required a lot of dishes and made me want to move to a place with a bigger kitchen :P The end result was great - the cake was just big enough for 11 people, and everyone really liked it.

You will need:

175 g sandwich cookies (Domino in Finland, Oreo in the US)
50 g butter/margarine
250 g Mascarpone cream cheese
5 dl cream
100-120 g milk chocolate
100-120 g dark chocolate
5 sheets of gelatin
2 tbsp strong coffee
1 tbsp sugar
berries and/or fruit for decoration (I used cherries)

Prep time: 30 minutes - 1 hour + a few hours that it takes for the cake to set. It's more convenient to prepare the night before and leave in the fridge overnight.

FILLING:

Melt the chocolate over a hot water bath. For chocolate-related tips, click here. Let the melted chocolate cool down a bit, then mix it together with the Mascarpone cream cheese.

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for 5 minutes. Make some coffee. Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatin, and dissolve it in 2 tbsp of hot coffee, then slowly mix it into the cream cheese-chocolate mixture.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream with sugar until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream. Mix it with the rest of the filling: first add half of the whipped cream, mix well with an electric whisk, then add the other half and carefully fold in with a spatula.

CRUST:

Crush the cookies and melt the butter, then mix together. When it comes to crushing cookies, don't overdo it. If the crumbs are very small, the crust will be hard and difficult to cut. Because sandwich cookies contain a rather soft filling, they are easier to crush if they'd been in the fridge for at least a few hours.

ASSEMBLY and DECORATION:

Use a cake tin with detachable sides (like this one). I lined the bottom with baking paper, and the sides with cling film, but that's just me. I think baking paper can be used for the sides as well.

Lightly press the cookie crumbs evenly over the bottom. I did this step before making the filling, so that the crust has some time to solidify. I don't know if it's necessary though.
Finally, pour the filling on top of the crust and distribute it evenly. It is quite thick, so it won't even out on it's own!

Cover the cake with cling film and refrigerate for several hours, preferably overnight. Once the cake has set, remove it from the cake tin and decorate. I used chocolate shavings and fresh cherries.

Only the three cherries that are in the middle haven't been pitted :)

Blueberry pancakes

2011-07-23T21:05:00.000+03:00

It's been a while since I made these pancakes, and I didn't remember to take pictures of the process. But they were tasty, so I might actually end up making them again at some point and editing this post. Oooh, I'll totally try this recipe with fresh blueberries :)

You will need:

3 eggs
2 dl milk
200 g sour cream (kermaviili)
0.5 dl oil
5 dl wheat flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 dl blueberries

Preparing the batter doesn't take long at all, but frying the pancakes is a bit time-consuming, so make sure to reserve at least an hour for that.

Mix the eggs, milk, sour cream and oil with an electric whisk. Mix the dry ingredients separately and add them to the batter. Mix well, then add the blueberries.


Taken with my phone, hence the bad quality

Fry the pancakes on a frying pan, in a bit of oil. If you have a special pancake-frying pan (like this one, for instance) - use that. We used a regular frying pan, and made fairly large pancakes. Fry each pancake for about 3 minutes on each side - they should get some color on them, and also be cooked through (although I quite like them gooey on the inside :P)

While you're frying the pancakes, cover the ones that are ready with a lid, or some aluminum foil. That way they won't get cold as fast.

Serve with maple syrup, whipped cream or ice cream!

Olive-feta buns

2011-07-18T20:44:00.005+03:00

Picnic with friends tomorrow, and I made buns for the occasion :) The recipe is from the book "Leivo herkkuja helposti". I didn't have enough time or patience to make small and cute-looking buns, so they ended up being quite large. Hopefully they taste good though!

You will need:

50 g fresh yeast or 1 sachet of dry yeast
6 dl warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
12-15 dl wheat flour
4 tbsp oil
200 g feta cheese
100 g black olives

Prep time: about 1.5 hours (including the time it takes for the dough to rise)
Baking time: 15-20 minutes per batch

Dissolve yeast in water, then mix in sugar, salt, flour and oil. Knead the dough until it pretty much stops being sticky. Let the dough rise for about half an hour.

What you see here is a bowl that was way too small for the purpose. Oooops.

Make buns of a desired size - I made 10, but 12-14 would have been more optimal with this amount of dough.

Dice the feta cheese, and slice the olives, then push the pieces into each bun. Let the buns rise for 20-30 minutes.

Baste the buns with water, sprinkle some salt and rosemary on top if you wish. Bake each batch of buns separately at 200 C for 15-20 minutes. Wait for the buns to cool down before serving.

Strawberry pie

2011-07-17T22:23:00.000+03:00

My parents had trouble finishing 5 kg of strawberries, so I baked a pie when I was over at their place. I forgot to take pictures of the whole preparation process, so all I have is a picture of the finished pie. This recipe is pretty straightforward and fool-proof though :)

You will need:

2.5 dl wheat flour
0.5 dl sugar
1 tsp baking powder
50 g melted margarine
0.5 dl milk
about a liter of strawberries

Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Baking time: 20-25 minutes

Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl, then add melted margarine and mix. Take about 0.5 dl of this mixture and save it for later. To the remaining portion of the dough, add milk. Line a pie dish with this pie dough.
Rinse the fresh strawberries and remove the leaves. Assemble them on top of the pie dough so that there are no large gaps. Sprinkle the crumbly dough mixture over the berries, bake the pie at 200 C for 20-25 minutes.

Ta-daa, bad quality picture taken with my phone

Rhubarb-strawberry pie

2011-07-10T21:50:00.001+03:00

Yep, it's another rhubarb pie! This time with strawberries :) The recipe is from Pirkka, and it's easy as pie :P

You will need:

500 g rhubarb (I didn't weigh it, just took as much as I thought would be enough)
1 liter of fresh strawberries
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp starch

2 dl oats
1 dl wheat flour
3 tbsp sugar
0.75 dl melted margarine

Prep time: about 15 minutes
Baking time: 15-20 minutes

Rinse and peel the rhubarb, then chop it into small pieces. Rinse the strawberries and remove the leaves. Cut the berries into small pieces, for instance quarters.
Mix the strawberries and rhubarb in a large bowl, mix sugar and starch together, then sprinkle over the strawberries and rhubarb. Mix well, and pour into a pie dish.

Mix the dry ingredients for the dough - oats, flour and sugar. Then add the melted margarine and mix until you get crumbs of dough. Sprinkle that over the rhubarb-strawberry filling.

Bake at 200 C for 15-20 minutes, until the dough has gotten some color.

Goes very well with vanilla ice cream :)

Baking tips Part IV: chocolate

2011-07-04T20:14:00.001+03:00

The last post in the series of baking tips (for now anyways) - about chocolate! The info is from the book "Leivo herkkuja helposti" and wikipedia :)

Both chocolate and cocoa powder are among the most basic ingredients in baking. Chocolate is produced from the seeds of the tropical cacao tree, aka cocoa beans, which on their own have an intense bitter taste. The cocoa beans undergo several phases of processing, the end result of which is the so-called chocolate liquor. This mass can be further processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter - the main ingredients of chocolate. Unsweetened chocolate, which can be used in baking, contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions, and nothing else. Chocolate that is mainly sold in stores is sweetened with sugar.

There are three main types of chocolate, all of which are commonly used in baking:

Dark chocolate does not contain milk, and its cocoa content is high - at least 50%, usually 70-80%. The sweetness of dark chocolate ranges from "semisweet" to "bittersweet", and it of course depends on the sugar content.
Milk chocolate is produced by adding milk in the form of milk powder, liquid milk, or condensed milk. Varying amounts of sugar are added as well.
White chocolate does not contain any cocoa solids, only cocoa butter, as well as milk and sugar. Some (including me) do not consider white chocolate to be "real" chocolate :P

Chocolate tip #1: when baking, only use the sort of chocolate that you would not mind eating on its own (if for no other reason than being able to eat the leftover chocolate ;))

Dark chocolate

Chocolate tip #2: chocolate is stored in a cool dry place. Do not store chocolate in the fridge or freezer, because it might absorb moisture.

Milk chocolate

Chocolate tip #3: melting chocolate is easily done using a water bath. Break the chocolate into pieces and put them in a bowl (preferably not a plastic one), and place the bowl in a pot containing hot water (2-3 deciliters should be more than enough). The water should not touch the bottom of the bowl, and it should not be boiling. So basically the chocolate is melted by the steam. Avoid getting water into the chocolate, because even a drop of water will make the chocolate turn grainy!

White chocolate

Chocolate tip #4: melting chocolate can also be done in a microwave, and some say it is the easiest way. I suppose it is, but make sure to set the power to low and check on the chocolate at 30 second intervals. Turning chocolate into charcoal is not pretty. And the smell is absolutely horrible :S

After writing this I started craving chocolate, and I'm not even that much of a chocolate freak :)

Rhubarb-apple pie

2011-07-02T22:53:00.005+03:00

Another rhubarb pie recipe. It's based on a recipe from the Pirkka magazine, but it turned out I didn't have enough rhubarb, so I added 2 apples for good measure :)

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine
1 dl sugar
1 egg
3.5 dl wheat flour
1.5 dl oats
1 tsp baking powder
0.25 dl water

rhubarb (once again, I have no idea how much I used. I should really buy a scale :))
2 apples
1 dl sugar
1 tbsp starch
1 tsp cinnamon

Prep time: about an hour
Baking time: 20-25 minutes

Whisk the butter and sugar with an electric whisk, then add the egg all the while mixing well. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then mix them into the butter-sugar-egg mixture along with the water. The dough should be slightly sticky and quite solid. Let it be in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Peel the rhubarb and chop it into small pieces. Remove the apple cores and chop the apples into pieces of a similar size to the rhubarb. Sprinkle the sugar, starch and cinnamon over the rhubarb and apples, then mix. I didn't bother using a bowl for this, but just did it in the pie dish. Less dishes to wash! HA!

Take the dough out of the fridge, roll it out into a circle, and use it to cover the rhubarb and apples. I don't own a rolling pin (crazy, I know..), so I flattened the dough out with my hands, and it worked out fine. Bake the pie at 200 C, at the lowest level of the oven, for about 20 minutes.

Let the pie cool down, then serve it with vanilla sauce or ice cream!

By the way, is it only me, or is there something wrong with the new text editor...? It takes me forever to get the pictures in the right places, and they're still not aligned as well as I'd like them to be. Grrr, how annoying...

Baking tips Part III: cakes

2011-07-01T20:33:00.001+03:00

More from the book "Leivo herkkuja helposti".

There are three main types of cakes, each of which has its own specificities:

Sponge cakes: eggs and sugar are whisked into a firm foam, after which flour and baking powder are added through a sieve and mixed in carefully. Many layered cakes (for instance the cake I made on Mother's Day this year) have this sort of base.
Cakes that are made using eggs, sugar, melted butter/margarine, flour, baking powder and sometimes milk. The dough is prepared in a way similar to that for sponge cakes. Personally, I don't think I've ever made a cake like this... Maybe someday.
Cakes the main ingredients of which are butter/margarine, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and possibly milk. The butter and sugar are whisked into a fluffy mixture, eggs are added one by one, and then the dry ingredients along with milk. The tosca cake that I made for my graduation was this sort of cake, and this is a good dough for muffins as well.

Cake tip #1: use room temperature ingredients for best results.

Cake tip #2: to get a very good egg-sugar foam, whisk the eggs a little bit before adding the sugar. Then whisk until you can write the infinity sign (or the number 8, whichever way you look at it) with the beaters. However, if you whisk for too long, the airiness of the foam disappears and the cake might end up being flat and dense.

Cake tip #3: avoid mixing the dough too much after adding the flour, because it might result in a flat and dense cake, as opposed to a light and airy one.

Cakes are fun to bake, and you get to be creative with the decorations :) Here are some pics of cakes that I've blogged about:

Sponge cake with fruit and cream

Upside-down cake

Tosca cake

Sponge cake with berry and cream fillings

Tosca cake

2011-06-17T17:23:00.000+03:00

"Tosca cake is a popular bakery item both in Sweden and Finland. It is a buttery sponge cake topped with a thin layer of brittle, caramelized almond, sugar and butter mixture " (Nordic recipe archive)

There is a background story to why I made this cake. I graduated last week (I now have a Master's degree :)) and I promised to arrange coffee and cake for everyone at the research group where I work. The reason my co-workers wanted me to do that is because I did the work for my Master's thesis with them - so it wasn't just an excuse to get cake :P Originally I was going to make a cheesecake, because it would've taken less time, but there are two pregnant women in the group, so I decided to abandon that plan (the cheesecake recipe I found requires egg whites, and pregnant women should avoid eating raw egg). Finally, I found a cake recipe that seemed fairly easy, yet not too plane - Tosca cake by Kinuskikissa, which I modified a little. I was a bit worried about the topping, because it seemed too runny, but everybody loved the finished product, so I guess it's safe to say my experiment was successful :)

You will need:

150 g butter/margarine
1.5 dl sugar
2 eggs
3.5 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 dl milk

100 g butter/margarine
1.5 dl cane syrup
150 g almond flakes
1.5 dl cream

It took me about an hour to make this, and I had it in the fridge overnight, even though a couple of hours would have been enough.

Whisk the sugar and butter into a more or less homogeneous greasy mixture. Then add the eggs one by one, mixing well (with an electric whisk or food processor). Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then mix into the greasy mixture along with the milk. Don't add all at once - but little by little, all the while mixing well.

Grease a cake tin and line it with baking paper. Pour the dough into the tin, bake at 200 C for 20-25 minutes, until the dough gets some color. Check that it is cooked through with a wooden stick.

While the cake is in the oven, prepare the tosca topping. Put the butter, cream, cane syrup and almonds into a cooking pot, heat the mixture and cook it for about 10 minutes.

Let the dough and the topping cool down (do not remove the dough from the tin yet). The topping should thicken at this point, but I think I didn't cook mine for long enough, cause it remained fairly runny.. Pour the topping on top of the dough, and let the cake be in the fridge for at least a couple of hours before serving.

Baking tips Part II: pies

2011-06-08T22:35:00.001+03:00

More tips from "Leivo herkkuja helposti". This time about pies. Part I was about yeast dough, and there will still be at least two more similar posts, maybe even three! Yippee, right? But I digress.

Pies can be either savory or sweet - but the dough is basically the same for both types. The main ingredients are wheat flour, margarine or butter and cold water. Using margarine makes the dough more flaky than when butter is used. In addition to these ingredients, the dough for sweet pies usually also contains egg yolk, some sugar, and sometimes almond flour.

Baking tip: use cold ingredients and work fast - mix the dough quickly. If you use your hands to mix the butter with the flour, the dough might become sticky and tough. If you own a food processor - use it, because it bypasses this problem, and will save some time as well.

After you've prepared the dough, let it be in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably overnight. Line a pie dish of your choice with the dough. Make some holes in the dough with a fork and bake it before adding the filling.

Baking dish tip: ceramic dishes are good if you're planning on serving the pie straight from the dish, otherwise metallic/teflon ones are better, because the dough does not adhere to the surface.

Picture from an old post of mine

This isn't the only way of making pie dough, but I guess it is the more traditional one. I browsed through my old blog posts, and I only used this type of dough for the savory pies. The sweet pies that I have baked in the past year or so have all had different types of dough, none of which were prebaked before adding the filling.

That's all the tips I have concerning pies. Nothing too mind-boggling, but it's good to mention the obvious things every now and then.

Baking tips Part I: yeast dough

2011-05-31T20:48:00.003+03:00

I borrowed a book from the library ("Leivo herkkuja helposti" by I. Hovig, N. Hensley, J. Hensley and P. Lowe, Otava 2005) and in addition to recipes it has some useful baking tips. I decided to use those, coupled with my general knowledge, to make a separate blog post for each type of dough. First up - yeast dough.

The main ingredients needed to make yeast dough are liquid (usually water or milk, but can also be beer or juice), yeast, salt and flour. In addition to these, some recipes require oil/butter/margarine and sugar.

Yeast can be either fresh or dry. Fresh yeast is typically sold in 50 g packages, while a package of dry yeast usually corresponds to 50 g of fresh yeast. Dry yeast can be stored for up to a year in the appropriate conditions (room temperature, low moisture), whereas fresh yeast has a much shorter shelf life and needs to be stored in the fridge. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is a live organism that needs the right conditions to grow and divide. The perfect temperature for yeast is 37 C, which is around body temperature, and that is why it needs to be dissolved in liquid that is lukewarm. Dry yeast needs to be "woken up" from its hibernation with moisture and warmth, so in this case the liquid needs to be slightly warmer (around 40-45 C). But make sure the liquid isn't too hot (over 50 C), because it will kill the yeast!

Yeast tip 1: Dissolve the yeast in a small amount of liquid first, and then add the rest of the liquid - it will dissolve much easier and will not contain clumps!
Yeast tip 2: If you only need 25 g of fresh yeast, cut the cube diagonally from corner to corner - much easier and definitely more accurate!

Salt helps the dough to rise, and is therefore always included in the recipes that are based on yeast dough. Glucose is the main energy source of yeast, which is why when sugar is added, yeast cells grow and divide, producing more carbon dioxide and therefore making the dough rise more and faster. Sugar can be replaced with other ingredients rich in glucose, such as honey or syrup.

Fat, in the form of oil, butter or margarine, makes the finished product softer and prevents it from crumbling. However, if too much fat is used, it will make the pastry heavy and dense. Using oil or liquid margarine is very convenient because they are easy to mix into the dough. Margarine or butter, on the other hand, need to be melted before use.

Various seeds, nuts, herbs and spices can be used to give a unique flavor to the bread. Grated cheese not only flavors, but also moistens the bread. Eggs are often used when baking sweet pastries - they become lighter, softer and more porous.

The reason flour is needed in yeast dough, is that it contains gluten - a protein that makes the dough tougher and keeps the gas bubbles intact as the dough rises. There are many different types of flour - wheat flour in its many varieties is the most common one. The finer the flour, the better the dough rises, although rough flour (e.g. graham flour) is rich in fiber and generally more nutritious. People who have celiac disease react badly to gluten, and the only currently available treatment is a life-long gluten-free diet. Keep that in mind when baking for a large group of people (especially if you don't personally know all of them) - it is important to find out about things like that well in advance. The same goes for lactose intolerance and food allergies.

Good to know: one kilogram of flour requires roughly 7 dl of liquid; 1 dl of wheat flour weighs 60 g.

Dough Tip 1: When adding flour to yeast dough, never add the amount stated in the recipe all at once - add a bit at a time until the dough reaches the right consistency.
Dough Tip 2: Before you begin kneading the dough, spread some oil on your hand - it will prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers!

Simple rhubarb pie/crumble

2011-05-27T21:42:00.003+03:00

There was quite a lot of rhubarb left over after I made the pie on Sunday, so I decided to make another one on Monday after work. I don't consider this a pie though, cause the dough goes on top of the filling. It's a paistos, but as far as I know there is no word for that in English. Maybe "crumble" is close enough. I got this recipe from a friend, and I don't know where it's originally from.

You will need:

Rhubarb (again, no idea about the amount..)
1 dl sugar
cinnamon

2 eggs
1 dl sugar
1.5 dl wheat flour
0.75 dl oats
1 tsp baking powder
50 g margarine (melted)

Cooking time: about an hour (including baking time)

Wash and peel the rhubarb, then cut it into chunks. They can be quite large. Spread the chunks of rhubarb in an oven dish, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Whisk the eggs and sugar into a foam. Mix the dry ingredients together, and carefully mix them into the foam along with the melted margarine. Spread the dough somewhat evenly over the rhubarb. It doesn't need to cover it entirely.
Bake at 200 C for about half an hour.

Serve with ice cream or vanilla sauce! In my opinion this pie is at its best when it's hot and makes the ice cream melt.

Rhubarb pie

2011-05-22T20:23:00.003+03:00

Summer is here, and that means sunny weather, ice cream, fresh fruit and yummy pies, among other wonderful things. My parents have rhubarb growing in their backyard, so I volunteered to make rhubarb pie to help them deal with the rhubarb overload. The recipe is from Kinuskikissa. Eating rhubarb without milk is bad for you (everybody knows that, not just biochemists :P), and this pie has a filling made of vanilla sauce and white chocolate. This means that the pie can be eaten just like that, and there is no need for having ice cream or other milk products on the side.

Ah, summer is finally here

You will need:

150 g butter or margarine
1 dl sugar
1 egg
2 dl wheat flour
1 dl oats

about 120 g vanilla sauce powder (I used 2 baggies of Blå band vanhan ajan vaniljakastikejauhe)
4.5 dl milk
100 g white chocolate
200 g rhubarb (not entirely sure about the amount, I think I used about 6 sticks)

Cooking time: all in all about an hour (including baking time)

Prepare the dough: whisk the butter and sugar, then add the egg, flour and oats, all the while mixing thoroughly. I was making this at my parents' place, and they don't own an electric whisk, so I used their food processor, which was so much more convenient!
Line a greased pie dish with the dough. The dough is quite sticky, but cooling it in the fridge makes the spreading process a lot easier. It doesn't need to look perfect anyways, cause let's face it - it's just the dough.

Prepare the vanilla sauce: dissolve the powder in cold milk, whisk until it becomes thick and homogeneous, then leave in the fridge for about 10 minutes (it will get even thicker)
Crush the white chocolate into small pieces (or melt it), add to the vanilla sauce and mix
Spread the mixture over the dough

Wash the rhubarb, and peel the top layer off. Cut into thin slices and spread over the vanilla sauce filling.

Bake the pie at 200 C for 30-35 minutes. Cover with tin foil once the top gets some color in it, otherwise it might burn.

Cake for Mother's Day Part II

2011-05-10T20:22:00.007+03:00

Mother's Day was on Sunday, and I decided to bake a cake for my mother, just like I did last year. This recipe is more or less from the Pirkka magazine. I made the cake the night before and just finished it off with the topping and decorations on Sunday morning. It was a little time consuming, but worth it, cause it turned out great, and my mommy liked it :)

You will need:

4 eggs
1.5 dl sugar
1.5 dl wheat flour
0.5 dl potato starch
1 tsp baking powder

For filling #1:

0.5 dl water
0.75 dl sugar
400 g frozen berries (I had a mix of strawberries, raspberries and black currant)
1.5 dl potato starch
0.5 dl water

For filling #2:

2 dl cream
250 g curd (quark? rahkaa anyways)
0.5 dl sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

For the topping:

2 gelatin sheets
4 dl cream
1 dl sugar
1 dl boiling water

Some milk (about 1.5 dl) to moisten the base with
Almonds (flakes, lightly roasted in a frying pan or oven) or other decorations

It took me 1.5 h to make the base and fillings and assemble the cake, and an additional hour in the morning to make the topping, decorate the cake and so on. So definitely not a recipe for busy people!

Whisk the eggs and sugar into a firm white foam. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and add them into the foamy mixture through a sieve. Carefully mix the dough until homogeneous, but avoid disrupting the airiness of it.

Pour the dough into a round baking tin (volume 3 L) which is greased with margarine and lined with breadcrumbs (or baking paper). Bake at 175 C (lowest "shelf" in the oven) for about half an hour. The top should turn slightly golden. Test that it is cooked through with a wooden stick. Wait for it to cool down a bit before taking out of the baking tin.

Filling #1:

Mix water, sugar, and frozen berries in a cooking pot and heat (mixing the whole time) until the mixture reaches the consistency of runny jam. Remove from the heat.
Dissolve the potato starch in water and add to the jam while mixing. The filling will become thicker; heat it up again for about a minute, then let it cool down.

Filling #2:

Whisk the cream until you feel confident in referring to it as "whipped cream", then mix in the curd/quark, sugar and vanilla sugar.

Assembly:

Cut the base of the cake (which should have cooled down by now) into three layers and begin the assembly!
Moisten each layer of the base with milk before spreading the fillings
There should be a layer of each filling between the layers of the base. So kinda like a three-layer sandwich.

After this I covered the cake with cling film, placed the baking tin over it (to make sure it keeps its shape, because I'm paranoid like that), and left it in the fridge overnight

Topping and other finishing touches:

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water, whisk the cream into whipped cream.
Melt the sugar in a cooking pot (steel, not teflon) until it's a golden liquid, then add boiling water and mix until it's a clear solution. Don't let it boil too much, remove from the heat every now and then.
Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatin sheets and dissolve them in the hot sugar solution
Wait for the solution to cool down (but not too much, because the gelatin might begin to solidify too early!), then add it to whipped cream and mix. Whisk some more if it seems too loose.

Cover the cake (top and sides) with the resulting caramel-ly whipped cream and decorate with roasted almonds and/or whatever you feel like. Keep in the fridge for at least an hour so that the gelatin in the topping takes full effect. Keep refrigerated until serving.

Happy belated Mother's Day!

Chicken pasta with assorted vegetables

2011-04-11T21:06:00.007+03:00

This was just me trying to be creative by basically combining a bunch of stuff that I had in my fridge. Other vegetables could easily be used instead, I just happen to like broccoli and bell peppers. And feta cheese is good with anything. :P

You will need:

250 chicken fillet cut up into bite-sized pieces
250 g of fresh pasta (if that's what it is in English..)
1/2 red onion
1/2 bell pepper
some broccoli
some green beans
2 garlic cloves
spices (I used salt, red pepper and chili powder)
some feta cheese

Cooking time: about half an hour

Cut up the vegetables however you like - I was aiming for having roughly similar-sized pieces, although it was difficult to achieve with broccoli

Fry the chicken in a bit of oil in a frying pan or a wok (for a healthier alternative, bake in the oven), add spices and garlic (grated or finely chopped) at the end.

Once it is cooked through, transfer the chicken into a separate dish. Fry/wok the vegetables in a bit of oil.

Cook the fresh pasta (in boiling water for about 3 minutes), drain, and, if you're unhealthy like me, add a bit of butter and salt.

Combine all the ingredients together and mix. Serve with feta cheese!

Oven-baked pancake

2011-04-08T21:57:00.003+03:00

Traditional Finnish cuisine, often served with pea soup, but I prefer it as a dessert. The measurements given here make a fairly small pancake, and a double dose should be enough for a standard baking tray.

You will need:

2 dl of wheat flour
0.75 dl of sugar
0.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp vanilla sugar
0.5 tsp salt
1 egg
4 dl of milk
50 g of butter or margarine (melted)

Cooking time: about an hour (including baking time)

Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the milk and egg, as well as the melted butter/margarine once it has cooled down. The batter should be quite runny and without any major clumps.

Pour the dough into a dish lined with baking paper and bake at 220 C for about half an hour or 45 minutes

Serve with jam!

I think I might've used 100 g of butter accidentally, and the pancake turned out crispy on top and quite greasy... Oops. It still tasted good though! :P

Ice cream goodness

2011-04-08T20:35:00.005+03:00

Basically vanilla ice cream with some cookies and chocolate sauce. What's not to like? I didn't use any measurements, just made four portions into tea cups, so that's why this recipe does not include measurements.

You will need:

Vanilla ice cream
Cookies (I used Digestive, but any oatmeal cookies would do)
Some unsalted butter or margarine (melted)
Chocolate sauce
Sprinkles or other fun decorations

Crush a few cookies and mix with melted butter (there should be just enough butter to make the crushed cookies sticky, but not overly greasy) and put some of the mixture into a dish of choice. I used tea cups, but a large cake could also be made this way. Put some ice cream on top of the layer of crushed cookies. The ice cream is a lot easier to manipulate if it is a bit soft and not completely frozen.

Decorate with chocolate sauce, sprinkles, or anything you find tasty and/or pretty. If it was summer, I would've used fresh berries - nom.

Cover with some cling film and keep in the freezer for at least an hour (unless served right away) . Take out to room temperature at least an hour before serving so that the ice cream is nice and soft.

Mediterranean-ish meatloaf

2011-03-24T21:01:00.004+02:00

A way easier and less time-consuming alternative to meatballs!

Presentation isn't my strongest suit :P

You will need:

400 g minced beef
1/2 onion (finely chopped)
1 dl breadcrumbs
1.5 dl water
1 egg
salt and pepper
200 g feta cheese
some olives

Prep time: about 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

Mix the breadcrumbs with water and let them swell up
Add the minced meat, chopped onion and egg, season with salt and pepper

What you see here is way too much onion. I ended up removing like half of it

Mix everything into a homogeneous mass, and spread it into a roughly rectangular shape in an oven dish lined with baking paper

Crumble the feta cheese with your hands (or use a knife if you're civilized) and spread over the meat. Add olives.

Pull the long edges of the baking paper towards one another, so that a roll is formed with feta cheese and olives inside the meat. Place the roll so that the seam is on the bottom.

Bake at 200 C for about an hour. Unwrap the meatloaf and ta-daaa, ready to serve. Goes well with mashed potatoes.

Tuna pie

2011-02-13T20:16:00.004+02:00

Recipe modified from Kinuskikissa. Felt like making a savory pie one day, and this seemed like a relatively easy one. I wasn't too pleased with the result, mostly because of the cream cheese, but it was alright.

You will need:

Either prepare pie crust, or use frozen ready-made dough (400 g). I did the latter :P
1 onion
3/4 dl of uncooked rice
2 cans of tuna (in oil)
200 g flavored cream cheese (I used pepper flavor, which wasn't the best choice, IMO)
100 g of a mixture of peas, corn and bell pepper

This didn't take long to prepare, less than an hour, if I remember correctly.

Finely chop the onion and brown it in a bit of oil. Cook the rice, drain the tuna.
Mix all the ingredients together.

Line the pie dish with the dough and fill it with filling

Bake at 200 C for 30 minutes.

Apple muffins

2011-02-13T20:02:00.004+02:00

Recipe modified from Kinuskikissa.

You will need:

200 g margarine
2.5 dl sugar
2 eggs
6 dl wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 dl milk

1 apple
1 dl sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Nib sugar

Prep time: about half an hour
Baking time: 20-25 minutes

Whisk the sugar and margarine, then add the eggs one by one

Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then add them in to the buttery mixture along with the milk. Mix the dough well.

Peel the apple and remove the core, cut into small pieces. Prepare "filling" by mixing the apple pieces with sugar and cinnamon.
Mix the filling into the dough, fill muffin cups with the dough about 3/4'ths of the way. Sprinkle some nib sugar on top of each muffin. Bake at 175 C for 20-25 minutes (longer if the muffins are large).

Cheesy macaroni casserole

2011-01-22T22:14:00.004+02:00

Might as well post another one now that I'm here...

You will need:

400 g minced beef
1 large onion (100 g)
3 tbsp tomato puree
Salt and pepper
1.5 L water
2 tbsp vegetable stock concentrate (or whatever it is)
400 g macaroni
150 g processed cheese (Koskenlaskija)

Takes about an hour to prepare, and makes at least four portions

Finely chop the onion. Brown the minced meat in a hot pan without any oil, then add the onion and let it soften. Mix in the tomato puree and spice with salt pepper

Bring the water to the boil, add the stock concentrate, macaroni, and the meat mixture. Cook for about 6 minutes. Cut the cheese into pieces and add them in as well. Mix until the cheese has melted. Add salt if needed.
Pour the mixture into an oven dish and bake at 200 C for 30 minutes. Let the casserole be for about 10 minutes before serving.

Christmas cookies

2011-01-22T21:39:00.003+02:00

First post of 2011! I was going to post this before Christmas, but didn't have the time until now. This recipe is from the Pirkka magazine, for the most part.

You will need:

200 g soft apricots
200 g chopped almonds (or other nuts)
200 g dark chocolate
6 dl wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
200 g butter
2 dl sugar
2 eggs
4 tbsp light syrup

I can't remember how long it took me to make these, but the dough needs to be in the fridge for at least an hour before baking, so it's convenient to prepare the dough way in advance.

Chop the apricots and chocolate; mix wheat flour with baking powder and spices; beat the sugar and butter with an electric whisk, then add eggs one by one, continue whisking.

Mix everything together into a thick dough
Take a large piece of clingfilm, place some dough in the middle and pull the film over the dough. Then thin out the dough until it looks more or less like a baguette. I made two of those, but it might be easier to make several smaller ones. Refridgerate for at least an hour, preferably longer.

The dough should harden, and become easy to cut with a knife. Make the slices about 1 cm thick, and place them on a tray lined with baking paper. Leave space between each slice, otherwise the cookies will adhere to one another in the oven!
Bake at 175 C for 15-20 minutes, until the cookies get some color on them.

Tadaa - Christmas cookies. Although there's nothing particularly Christmassy about them. So they can basically be eaten all year round :D

Christmas treats

2010-12-23T18:00:00.005+02:00

It's Christmas time, and that means yummy pastries and cookies served with hot glögi, enjoyed in good company :)

Joulutortut that I made for a Christmas party:

Frozen puff pastry dough
Plum jam
Egg
Icing sugar

Very easy to make. Just wait for the dough to soften, cut each piece in half to make squares, cut each square as shown in the picture, and fold the corners. Use a bit of water to make sure the corners stick to the center. Baste each pastry with egg, put a dollop of plum jam in the center, and bake at 225 C until golden brown. I made three different types of these - two kinds of stars, and flowers:

Sprinkle some icing sugar on top, and tadaaa!

My friend and I also made gingerbread cookies and a gingerbread house for that Christmas party. Didn't take any pictures of the cookies, but here's the awesome house:

I think we went a bit overboard with the frosting.. :D

Cinnamon buns

2010-11-21T18:39:00.003+02:00

There was finally an occasion for me to bake something! It's about time. Cinnamon buns for a surprise party. I prepared the dough, and a friend helped out with the second part of the recipe - shaping and baking of the buns. We got a lot of compliments for these, so go us! Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures of the process until we were close to finished. I'll update this post if I make these again sometime.

End result: some look a bit funny, but all are equally delicious

You will need:

5dl milk
50g fresh yeast
1 egg
1dl sugar
1.5tsp salt
12-14dl wheat flour (I actually have no idea how much flour I used, because I lost count)
150g butter or margarine

About 100g butter or margarine
1dl sugar
cinnamon
1 egg
Nib sugar

Prep time: about an hour
Baking time: 10 minutes/trayful of buns

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm milk. Add sugar, egg and salt, and mix well.
Start adding the flour and mix well after each addition. When the dough gets too thick to mix with a spatula, start kneading it, and keep adding flour. Add soft (or melted) butter (150g) and continue kneading and adding flour until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl. The dough should be quite soft though.
Cover the bowl with a towel and let it be for about 20 minutes. The dough should double in size.
Take about half of the dough, knead it a bit more, and roll it out into a large rectangular sheet. Butter it and generously sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
Roll the sheet (along the longer edge) into a roll and slice it so that each slice is wider on one side. Turn each piece so that the narrow side is facing upwards, then press down at the center - the sectional areas should move upwards (yeah, pictures would really help the explanation :/). Do the same with the other half of the dough, then let the buns rise a bit. Alternatively - just slice the roll into even slices and turn them sectional area upwards.

The two ways of shaping cinnamon buns

Lightly beat an egg with a fork and smear each bun with the egg. Sprinkle some nib sugar on top and bake at 225 C for about 10 minutes, until the buns turn golden brown.

Oatmeal cookies

2010-10-05T19:17:00.003+03:00

I had a few guests over last week and wanted to bake something quick and simple that wouldn't require any fancy ingredients. Oatmeal cookies are perfect for such an occasion :)

You will need:

100g butter (I used 1dl of liquid margarine, but everything tastes better when you use real butter :P)
1.5dl sugar
3dl oats
1tbsp wheat flour
1tsp baking powder
1 egg

Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Baking time: 8-10 minutes

Melt butter in a saucepan and add sugar. Mix until the sugar dissolves more or less completely.
Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then pour the mix into the saucepan and stir well. Finally, add the egg and mix (make sure the mixture has cooled down a bit before adding the egg!)

Using a spoon, make little "puddles" of batter on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Make sure there is at least a couple centimeters of space between each cookie-to-be. Bake in the middle section of an oven preheated to 225 C.

Roll cake base

2010-09-30T14:11:00.003+03:00

This is the recipe I use whenever making roll cakes, but it's also usable in e.g. tier cakes. This recipe is for a dark base (chocolaty because of the cocoa powder) - a light base can be made in the same way, just without cocoa powder (obviously).

You will need:

4 eggs
1.5dl sugar
0.5dl wheat flour
0.5dl cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder

Prep time: about 15 minutes
Baking time: 6-10 minutes

Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs and sugar into a thick foam - it should be possible to "draw" a figure that doesn't immediately disappear on the surface of the foam.

Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a separate bowl and carefully add the mixture to the foam, through a sieve. No clumps of dry flour should remain, but the dough should be as airy as possible.

Pour the dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 225 C for 6-8 minutes. The base burns easily!

Flip the base onto another piece of baking paper (sprinkle some sugar on it first) and remove the baking paper attached to the base right away.
Wait for the base to cool down before adding the filling.

Upside-down Cake

2010-09-30T14:04:00.009+03:00

It was my mom's birthday last Saturday and I was in charge of making a birthday cake. After a lot of thought and consideration I decided to make a modified version of Kinuskikissa's strawberry cake. Since the strawberry season has already ended, I had to improvise a bit and used kiwi and banana. This was my first attempt at making a cake that uses gelatin, so I wasn't too sure about it and bought a frozen cake at the store before heading over to the birthday party. It turned out I was worried for nothing - the cake I made was yummy and nobody even touched the emergency frozen cake :D So wohoo - another small victory for me.

You will need:

Dark roll cake base

6 gelatin sheets
4dl vanilla sauce that can be whipped into a foam (no idea if the "vaahtoutuva vaniljakastike is just a Finnish thing, but plain whipped cream would probably do the trick too..)
200g of curd (vanilla flavored)
4 bananas, mashed (roughly 4.5dl)

4 kiwis for decoration

Prep time: about an hour, but probably varies (I didn't time how long it took me to make this, but it would've been smarter to make the cake on the previous day and let it be in the fridge o/n)
Time in the fridge: at least 3 hours

Prepare the dark roll cake base and let it cool down a bit
Using an electric whisk, whip the vanilla sauce into a thick foam, then add the curd and mix well
Mash the bananas into a homogeneous mush, pour about 1.5dl of it into a cooking pot and add the rest to the filling
Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the 1.5dl of banana mush on the stove and once it's hot, take the gelatin out of cold water, squeeze excess water out of it, and mix it into the hot banana mush. Mix well, so that the gelatin dissolves completely.

Add the gelatinous banana mush to the filling little by little and mix well.

Take a large bowl (about 3L volume) and line it with saran wrap. Peel and thinly slice kiwis, then line the bowl with the slices. Pour a bit of filling into the kiwi-lined bowl.

Cut out an appropriately sized piece of the roll cake base and place it on top of the filling. Pour some more filling, then another piece of roll cake base, and so on until you fill the entire bowl. Finish the cake with the roll cake base, cover with saran wrap and let the cake solidify in the fridge for at least 3 hours. NOTE: the roll cake base should've been moistened with milk, but I completely forgot to do that. No one noticed though :P
Take off the top layer of saran wrap, place a serving plate on top of the bowl and turn the bowl upside down. Take the bowl and saran wrap off, and you should be left with a pretty awesome-looking cake.

NOM.

Muffins with a hint of mint chocolate

2010-09-21T19:32:00.008+03:00

Now that summer is over, it's time to start baking again! Yay! This recipe is from Kinuskikissa's blog, all I did was leave out the cocoa powder and frosting..

You will need:

150 g margarine
1.5 dl sugar
2 eggs
3.5 dl wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 dl milk
about 250g of minty chocolates (Pätkis Mini Bites)

Prep time: about 15 minutes
Baking time: 15-20 minutes

Using an electric whisk, beat margarine and sugar into a white foam, then add the eggs one by one and mix thoroughly
In a separate bowl, mix the wheat flour together with baking powder
Take about half of the minty chocolates and cut them into small chunks

Add the flour/baking powder mixture to the dough little by little, along with the milk, and mix well. Finally, add the chopped up chocolates and mix.
Fill muffin cups about 1/4 of the way with the dough and place a minty chocolate (or half of a minty chocolate, as I did). Add a bit more dough to cover the chocolates and bake at 225C for 15-20 minutes

They'd be even tastier with some sort of frosting, but I was too lazy to make it, and the muffins were tasty on their own! :)

Apple Tart with Cream Cheese Topping

2010-07-11T11:41:00.004+03:00

My parents were moving last weekend, so my mom asked me to bake something. They had quite a lot of people helping so I baked this tart and a Swiss roll. Everybody really liked both and they were eaten very fast, with no leftovers or anything. Here's the recipe for the apple tart (courtesy of Pirkka).

You will need:

2.5dl of wheat flour
0.5dl of sugar
1tsp of baking powder
1 egg
1dl of liquid margarine

2-4 apples (preferably sour)
0.5dl of sugar
1tsp of cinnamon

200g of cream cheese
1dl of apple juice
1 egg
0.25dl of sugar
1tsp of vanilla sugar

Prep time: about half an hour
Baking time: 35-40 minutes

Mix the wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, egg and liquid margarine together until homogeneous. Place the dough onto a pie dish (26-27cm diameter) and gently press it down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the dish.

Peel the apples and remove the seeds. Cut into thin slices and place them on top of the crust. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon

In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese with apple juice, sugar, vanilla sugar and egg. This is much easier to do with an electric whisk, because cream cheese doesn't mix too well with liquids.
Pour the mixture over the apples and bake at 200 C for 35-40 minutes, until the surface of the tart is slightly golden brown.

Cheese Twists

2010-07-11T10:48:00.009+03:00

Very easy to make, especially if you buy ready-made dough, like I did :D

You will need:

Packet of frozen puff pastry (500g)
1 egg
100-150g of grated cheese

Prep time: 10-15 minutes (not counting the time it takes for the puff pastry to thaw)
Baking time: 15 minutes (varies depending on the size and thickness of the twists)

Let the puff pastry thaw for about half an hour, then cut it into long strips about 1 cm wide
Place the strips onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and thin them out using your fingers (or use a rolling pin, if you wish). The thinner the strips the better!
Lightly whisk the egg with a fork and brush the strips of pastry with it, then generously sprinkle with cheese
Shape the strips of pastry into twists - hold on to both ends of a strip and twist, then press the ends down on the baking paper so that the twists don't unwind

Bake at 225 C for about 15 minutes, the twists are ready when they are golden brown

Mine turned out quite large, so I had to cut each twist into three pieces. I know for next time to make them shorter and thinner.

Stuffed bell peppers

2010-06-22T20:03:00.004+03:00

My mom makes the best stuffed bell peppers, but this is a different recipe. It's a bit less time consuming, or at least I think so. I used 5 bell peppers and that wasn't enough, so I had quite a lot of stuffing left, and ate it for lunch the next day. It actually was pretty good even without the peppers :D

You will need:

2dl of rice
2tbsp of oil
5dl of water
1/2 vegetable stock cube
5 (or more) bell peppers
150g of ham, chopped into small pieces
some peas, corn and mushrooms (either fresh, canned or frozen..)
4dl of grated cheese (emmental or mozarella)
salt and pepper

Prep time: about half an hour, depending on how long it takes for the rice to cook
Baking time: 20 minutes

1. Heat up the oil in a large cooking pot. Add the rice and let it get slightly translucent, then add water along with the stock cube. Let the rice cook for about 20 minutes, until it's done

2. While the rice is cooking, rinse the bell peppers, cut off their tops and remove the seeds. Alternatively, just cut the peppers in half - it's easier to remove the seeds that way.

3. Mix the ham, peas, corn and mushrooms with the cooked rice. Also add 2dl of grated cheese and mix well. Add salt and pepper, if needed.

4. Fill the peppers with the stuffing and sprinkle some grated cheese on top. Bake at 225 C for about 20 minutes. Serve with some mashed potatoes or salad.

Banana-Pecan Pie

2010-06-14T20:44:00.004+03:00

Yummy and easy to make - what could be better? Recipe from Pirkka magazine.

You will need:

125g of pecan nuts
2 bananas
2 eggs
2dl of sugar
2.5dl of wheat flour
1stp of baking powder
1tsp of cinnamon
1tsp of vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt
1.5dl of liquid margarine

Prep time: about 20 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes

1. Roughly chop the pecan nuts and thinly slice the bananas

2. Beat the eggs and sugar into a thick foam using an electric whisk

3. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and carefully fold the mixture into the foam
4. Set aside about a dl of pecans and add the rest into the dough along with the liquid margarine
5. Pour the dough into a greased pie dish, cover with banana slices and sprinkle the remaining pecans on top
6. Bake at 175 C in the lowest level of the oven for about 30min
7. Let the pie cool down, then sprinkle a bit of cinnamon and/or cocoa powder on top

Goes great with vanilla ice cream!

Leek and potato soup

2010-05-15T18:31:00.005+03:00

Recipe from nowhere in particular. Just felt like trying something new.

You will need:

500g of potatoes
200g of leek
100g of onion
2tbsp of butter
8dl of vegetable stock
100g of herb-flavored cream cheese
salt and pepper

Cooking time: about 40 minutes

Wash and peel the potatoes, peel the onion
Chop the potatoes, onion and leek into smaller pieces
In a large cooking pot, warm the chopped vegetables in butter

Add the vegetable stock and let the soup simmer until the potatoes are soft
Blend the soup into a soft homogenous puree and bring to the boil again
Add the cream cheese and mix the soup until it melts completely
Add salt and pepper to taste

Spice quick bread

2010-05-13T14:46:00.006+03:00

In Finnish this is called "maustekakku" and the best translation I could come up with is "spice quick bread". It's a lot like banana bread. I got the recipe from a friend.

You will need:

2 eggs
2dl of sugar
1,5dl of yogurt (I used vanilla flavored)
1dl of liquid margarine
3dl of flour
1tsp of baking powder
1,5tsp of ground ginger
2tsp of cinnamon

Prep time: about 10 minutes
Baking time: 45 minutes

Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs and sugar into a white foamy mixture
Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl
Add yogurt and margarine to the foamy mixture, then mix in the dry ingredients
Grease the bread tin and pour the dough into it
Bake at 175 C for 45 minutes

Cake for Mother's Day

2010-05-09T21:27:00.001+03:00

So today is Mother's day and, being the good daughter that I am, I decided to make a cake for my mom. I wanted to make something fresh and not too heavy so I chose a simple layer cake with creamy filling and fresh fruit. This was actually the first time I've made a layer cake from scratch so it's a good thing it was a pretty easy cake to make. Everyone who tasted it today thought it was yummy, and most importantly my mom loved it, so yay! :)

You will need:

4 eggs (at room temperature!)
2dl of sugar
2dl of wheat flour
1tsp of baking powder
2dl of milk + 2tsp of vanilla sugar

For the filling:

4dl of whipping cream
250g of curd
0.5dl of sugar
1tbsp of vanilla sugar
1 banana
2 kiwis
several slices of pineapple (either canned or fresh)
several slices of peaches (either canned or fresh)
some fresh strawberries

Cooking time depends entirely on how fast you are at decorating cakes - it took me about 1.5 hours, but I think I was pretty slow :P
Also, the amount of fruit you will need depends on how much fruit you want to use for decorations, and of course, feel free to use any fruit you like!

Beat the eggs and sugar into a white foam
In another bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together
Sift the flour mixture into the foam and carefully mix
Pour the dough into a greased cake tin and bake at 225 C for about 10 minutes
When the dough is ready, flip it onto a large plate and let it cool
Prepare the filling: whip the cream with sugar and vanilla sugar until it is thick. Carefully mix in the curd
Peel the kiwis and the banana. Thinly slice all the fruit and set aside some of it for decoration
Cut the cake into two layers and set the top one aside. Moisten the bottom layer with milk sweetened with vanilla sugar (do not use more than a deciliter)
Spread some of the filling onto the moistened layer, then the fruit, then a thin layer of filling and cover with the top layer
Moisten the top layer with the sweetened milk and decorate with the remaining filling and fruit. Feel free to be creative! :)

Happy Mother's day to all the mothers out there!

Oladyi with apples

2010-05-02T19:54:00.001+03:00

Oladyi are one of the several Russian variations of pancakes - they are smaller than pancakes and quite thick. The batter is usually made using buttermilk, but here I used milk. They are good plain (in which case it really is better to use buttermilk) or with fruit, berries or perhaps even nuts.

You will need:

5dl of wheat flour
2.5dl of milk
25g of yeast
2 eggs
2tbsp of butter
1tbsp of sugar
0.5tsp of salt
2-3 apples

Prep time: about 30 minutes
Frying time may vary

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk. Add eggs, butter, sugar and salt.
Mix in the flour (little by little) and place the batter in a warm place for about 15-20 minutes.
While the batter is rising, peel the apples (optional) and cut into small pieces.
Mix the apples into the batter and fry on a hot pan in a bit of oil: shape small thin ovals and fry for 1-2 minutes on each side.

Oladyi make a lovely breakfast or brunch, but could be eaten any time of the day, in my opinion :)

Lemon sponge cake

2010-04-23T15:34:00.001+03:00

Sponge cakes are pretty easy to make and (most importantly) don't require any fancy ingredients. I guess you could say that they are also low-fat, since no butter/margarine is used, except for greasing the cake tin. The only "demanding" thing is that it's important to not disturb the cake while it's in the oven to make sure it rises properly. To be on the safe side, I leave it be in the turned-off oven (with the door open) when it's done and take it out when it's cooled down a bit.

You will need:

3 eggs
2,5dl of sugar
1,5dl of wheat flour
1,5tsp of baking powder
1 lemon
some icing sugar for decoration

Prep time: 10-15 min
Baking time: 25-30 min

Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs and 1dl of sugar into a white foam. Zest and juice the lemon.
In another bowl, mix the baking powder with the wheat flour. Carefully mix into the foamy mixture, along with the lemon zest. The dough should remain airy but there shouldn't be any clumps of flour, like so:

3. Pour the dough into a greased cake tin (mine was 24cm in diameter)

4. Bake at 175 C for 25-30 min, let it cool down a bit and make some holes in it with a fork .

5. Dissolve the remaining 1,5dl of sugar in the lemon juice and pour the syrup over the cake
6. Decorate with icing sugar, or however you like!

I should've waited a bit before decorating with the icing sugar - it dissolved in the syrup almost immediately :(