Savoury mini cakes

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And my baking spree continues ...

As I am going to pack bentos again this week, I baked a few savoury mini cakes. These are just the right size to pack in a lunchbox or a picknick but you could as well savour them as an appetizer with a drink.

These two recipes come from the book Mini Cakes from Ilona Chovancova.

The first one are Mini Cakes in Breton Gallette style.  The original recipe asked for smoked bacon and gruyère but as I didn't have any, I substituted them with cooked ham and comté cheese.

Ingredients for 4 to 6 cakes :

* 80g buckwheat flour

* 40g all purpose flour

* 2 eggs

* 80g grated comté cheese

* 7cl milk

* 7cl olive oil

* 1/2 sachel of dry yeast

* seasoning (salt, pepper)

* 80g diced cooked ham

* 1/2 leek

Cut the leek in small rings and then in smaller pieces.  In a bowl, lightly whisk the eggs with the oil and milk. Add the 2 flours, the leek, the diced ham and the cheese.  Season to taste.  Add the yeast.

As soon as the yeast has been integrated into the mixture, pour it into your previously greased cake moulds and put it in the preheated oven at 180C.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Proof the baking by inserting a wooden stick into the cake at the end of the baking. If it comes out clean, the cakes are ready.

The second cakes are Pattypan Parmesan cakes. The original recipe used potimarron, (a type of squash I was unable to find the English name of), but as I had still a pattypan squash laying around since Halloween, I decided to use that one instead.

Ingredients for 4 to 6 cakes :

* 1200g all purpose flour

* 2 eggs

* 70g grated comté cheese (originally gruyère)

* 7cl milk

* 7cl olive oil

* 1/2 sachel of dry yeast

* seasoning (salt, pepper)

* 100g pattypan squash

* 100g grated parmesan

* 3 sage leaves

Grate the flesh of the pattypan squash.  Press it in your hand in order to get rid of the excess liquid. Chop up the sage leaves. In a bowl, lightly whisk the eggs with the oil and milk. Add the flour, the cheese and the sage.  Season to taste.  Add the yeast.

As soon as the yeast has been integrated into the mixture, pour it into your previously greased cake moulds and put it in the preheated oven at 180C.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Proof the baking by inserting a wooden stick into the cake at the end of the baking. If it comes out clean, the cakes are ready.

Daring Bakers - Dutch Crunch Bread aka Tijgerbrood

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Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Since the challah baking had me on a roll, I decided to tackle this challenge from the Daring Kitchen as well :o)  Dutch Crunch Bread, known as Tijgerbrood (or Tiger Bread), has been a very popular bread type around here for the past few years. And I have to admit that I always buy this type of bread as I like its crunchy crust and I find it stays fresh longer than the other breads available in the grocery stores.  I thought it was a special type of bread, but thanks to this challenge I discovered that using this topping can make any bread special.

Because the challenge also consisted of making a sandwich, I choose the Soft White Rolls recipe supplied on the Dutch Crunch Challenge Sheet.  Next time I will double the ingredients though, because I was left with too much topping for the amount of dough, this recipe yielded. I am sure than I could have topped a dozen rolls. 

The rolls right out of the oven looked fabulous and I found it hard to resist the urge to sink my teeth into this crunchy goodness.  Nevertheless I waited because I wanted to use these tijgerbroodjes for a tuna burger.

And this was the final result.

The recipe for the tuna burger was taken from Burgers Faits Maison from Sandra Mahut, which I tweaked slightly.

Ingredients (for 2 burgers)

* 1  large can of tuna in brine (net weight 220g)

* 1 garlic clove, diced

* 1 small onion, diced

* 1 cm of fresh ginger, chopped 

* 1 Tbsp of chiseled coriander leaves

* 1 Tbsp of sesame oil

* 1 Tbsp of sesame seeds

Mix all the ingredients of the list. Form 2 balls and flatten them in not too thick patties. Fry them slowly in a hot skillet with sesame oil. When they are golden brown, sprinkle them with sesame seeds.

Dared to bake Dutch Crunch Bread. Challenge completed !

Daring Bakers - Honey & Chocolate Chip Challah

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May 2012’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

I never made bread before, except in a breadmaking machine, which doesn't really count towards making your own bread.  But it is something I have been longing to try for a while.  My grandfather used to make his own bread and I remember how as a little girl, he would give me a piece of dough to play with and shape as I wanted.  Then it ended up under the cloth with the two loaves and although I was told not to touch them while they rose, I couldn't help but take a peak every now and then.  Even to this day, I never cease to be amazed by the miracle of rising dough.

For this challah, I opted for one of the recipes mentioned on the Daring Bakers Challenge Sheet, the Honey White Challah taken from Tammy's Recipes.  Because I planned to use it as a breakfast bread, I added half a cup of chocolate chips to her recipe and I also halved all her quantities as we don't eat enough bread around here to make two loaves.

Braiding the bread turned out being trickier than expected. My problem was actually to shape the 6 different strand rather than the braiding itself.  So the braids ended up too short and thick, and as a result the challah looked a bit ... well, let's call it rustic :o)

 Tastewise, it is really taste although, being the sweettooth that I am, I might increase the honey for my next attempt as I would have appreciated the extra sweetness.

Dared to bake Challah. Challenge completed !

Daring Bakers - Empanada de atun

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This past week, I have been nosing around the challenges on The Daring Kitchen and quite a few on there have caught my eye, making my baking fingers itch.

Tonight I decided to try my hand on a Daring Bakers Challenge from September 2012 : the Empanada Gallega.

[Although this is posted way after the closing challenge date, I am still adding the blogchecking lines to this post should someone do a google search on them.]

Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished!

I have made empanadas before (with various stuffings), but up to now I have only used ready made doughs.  To make it more of a challenge, I wanted to make them from scratch this time and I used the recipe for wheat dough from the September 2012 Challenge Page. 

My personal tuna stuffing is fairly similar to the one suggested by Patri. I only reduced the amount of oil by 1/4 cup and tweaked the ingredients a bit.

For my tuna stuffing I used :

* 1 large red onion, diced

* 2 sweet red ramiro peppers, diced

* 3 garlic cloves

* 2 hard boiled eggs

* 200g of tomato frito
* 1 Tbsp olive slices (leftover from Friday's pizza making)

* seasoning of salt, pepper and nutmeg

I had some issues with overstuffing some of my empanadas (making them burst while baking), but overall they came out rather nice.  If next time I remember to prick the dough, before putting them in the oven, they will even be better :o)

Dared to bake Empanada de atun. Challenge completed !

Berberechos a la cataplana

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[First published on Bento Bliss on January 21, 2012]

 

During grocery shopping yesterday, I came across a little box of cockles in the seafood aisle and I knew immediately what I would make for starters on Friday night : Berberechos a la cataplana, or Portuguese cockles.  [Although it is originally a Portuguese dish, I gave it a Spanish name as (a) I don't speak Portuguese but do speak the language of Cervantes and (b) I put Spanish chorizo in this dish].

I am sure that there are as many versions of this dish as there are cooks in the world but this is how I made them.

Ingredients (for 2 servings): 

* 1 Tbsp olive oil

* 330g fresh cockles (strange quantity but that was the contents of the box)

* 4 shallots

* 4 garlic cloves (you can use less, but we love garlic over here so always use a lot)

* 50g diced chorizo

* 50g smoked ham

* chiseled coriander

* a pinch of chili powder (the original recipe would call for a tsp of piri piri or tabasco)

How-to :

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the diced garlic and shallots, until they are soft but not coloured.

Add the ham and chorizo, season with a bit of chili (or tabasco if you prefer) and cover. Let simmer a bit, shaking up the pan every now and then.

Add the cockles and the coriander, cover and let simmer for an additional 5/6 minutes, shaking up the pan again.  As soon as the cockles have opened up, the dish is ready.

Peas & Ricotta Moelleux

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[First published on Bento Bliss on April 8, 2010]

A moelleux is a cake with a soft core. The most famous example would be a moelleux au chocolat, a chocolate cake with a gooey centre.  This cake is a savoury variation of that concept, although the core is clearly not runny like the chocolate version. The recipe for these cakes can be found below.

These little moelleux can be used as accompaniment to a main dish or can be packed as a savoury treat for a lunchbox or picknick.

Ingredients for 9 moelleux:

* 100g (frozen) peas
* 140g ricotta
* 3 eggs
* 20g grated cheese (gruyère)
* 60g all purpose flour
* 25 cl milk
* 40g demi-sel butter (i.e.lightly salted butter)
* salt & pepper

Cook the peas in salted boiling water for 10 minutes.  Drain and mash them and mix with the ricotta.

Preheat the oven to 210°C.

In a bowl, wisk the eggs as it to make scrambled eggs.  Add progressively the sifted flour, while mixing with a fork.

In a pan heat the milk with the diced butter.  When the butter has melted, pour the warm milk in the bowl with the egg/flour mixture. Mix and add the peas/ricotta mash.  Mix again and season with pepper.

Pour the dough into 9 individual recipients, sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes (according to the size of your molds).

Let them cool slightly before taking them out of the molds.

Baileys Cake

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[First published on Bento Bliss on March 29, 2010]

Because no meal is finished without dessert, I made a Baileys & Mascarpone cake.

I saw the recipe for this cake on Miriam's blog, The Winter Guest, and as I had leftover mascarpone in the fridge, I decided I'd give it a try. After all, anything sweet AND containing Bailey's can't be anything but delicious.

The mascarpone was storebought but I will be making my own next time, because it seems rather easy to make (have a look at the link Miriam referred to in her post).

Miriam used agave syrup in her recipe but because I never encountered that type of syrup while shopping, I asked her if I could replace it with sugar. She advised me to increase the sugar amount to 200g, as the syrup sweetens more than regular sugar, and add an additional 80g of vegetable oil to the batter to make up for the syrup's liquidy.

The kitchen smelled deliciously of Bailey's (attracting all kind of curious houseguests to the kitchen) and the taste of this cake is simply divine. I think I will leave it in the oven just a bit longer next time (there will be a next time for sure!), because when the wooden testing stick came out clear, I took it out of the oven immediately for fear of the cake becoming too dry and just a bit less moist would have been better. In my rush to get it out, I managed to burn my arm but it's nothing I won't survive. This delicious cake was worth any blister :o)