Christmas Special 2: Peach Trifle

The next day after my Orange Filled Chicken of Forgotten Recipes and my Jacket Potatoe Mash, I was helping with the real big main Christmas Dinner. Since I had a High Tea to arrange for the day after that, me and my forest elf had been busy the whole day making cakes and cake pops and bread and whatnot and didn’t have to help much. I felt obliged to enrich this family dinner with a cranberry sauce, so I did that. After, we still had time to make a quick Trifle. With trifle being one of the easiest things to make, ever! My trifle was non-alcohol though, as I really am NO fan of alcohol, but feel free to add a bit of sweet white desert wine or anything of the likes.
Note: I used something called “eierenkoeken” for the cakelayer, which literally translates to “egg cakes”. It could be a form of spongecake, but you can use any type of cake, ladies fingers and even cookies or brownies. Check out the recipe for eierkoeken here along with a recipe - and pictures - of a Fresh Peach Trifle.



Ingredients:
Cake (6 “eierkoeken” about the size of your hand)
500 grams mascarpone
A lemon
100 ml (full) milk
Two bags vanilla sugar
80 grams granulated sugar
A teaspoon vanilla essence
A can of peaches

1. Before we start making the trifle, let’s prepare the cream. Wash the lemon and grate the peel off. Cut the lemon in half and press the juice out. Add the mascarpone, milk and sugars in a bowl and start mixing. Add the grated lemon peel and about a spoon of the juice (or more to taste), mix once more and let’s start the trifle!
2. For the trifle, start with a cake layer and sprinkle the peach juice from the can over it till it’s wet. Don’t soak it, it kind of ruins the taste in my opinion. If you want to use dessert wine, use that to sprinkle, or mix it a bit with the juice beforehand.
3. Then decorate this layer with peaches, which you will have to slice beforehand (unless of course you like big pieces of peach). After than a nice (thick) layer of cream!
4. Keep repeating these steps (forget step 1) until you’re out of ingredients or your tray is full. You can decorate the top with some leftover peaches.


A picture for the inside, its messy but just to give you an indication!

If you have anything else left, just eat it. Slice yourself a nice piece of cake, dump cream and peaches over it -loads of cream and loads of peach, less cake- and eat it all while you put your Peach Trifle in the fridge to wait till your guests come along, or its dinnertime. As you can see, I completely just imagined this recipe together. The cake I used, was from a trifle my mom made, but she used strawberries. Now you can use any fruit, and canned peaches are a lot nicer and cheaper than strawberries. Also, she used a dessert wine and I don’t like alcohol. I saw the juice left in the can of peaches, and decided on using that the moment I was making it. The cream came from a Tiramisu recipe I’ve been making for Christmas every year, but this year my sister she had a new recipe she wanted to try. She made the Tiramisu and failed – that’s what you get for not letting me do my favourite Christmas dessert recipe. So if you want a sincere truly and only Trifle recipe, you’re in the wrong place. This recipes just looks like a Trifle, but what looks like a Trifle must obviously be a Trifle. Who cares about the name anyway?
Somehow I have this feeling of a deja-vu.
Anyway, for the rest of the Christmas dinner, I managed to get some pictures after we already ate half of it. I was more into the eating that taking pictures, but just to give you an idea!
The Christmas dinner started off with my moms Union Soup specialty –no one can make it better!- or Mushroom Soup, both of which I forgot to take pictures.
Next was the main course in which we just dump all the food on the table and you can pick what you like! A few things we had: starting off with mushroom gravy. I probably ate more mushrooms than gravy, but can’t have a good dinner without gravy.



Next are mushrooms filled with pesto and covered in cheese. I think I remember the pesto tasted a bit cheap, these weren’t bad at all. Does anyone feel a mushroom overload?



This one shows, which you cant really see, something that translates to belgian endive or chicory wrapped in ham and covered in cheese sauce. This is delicious actually, especially my sister loves it. Preferably with small chicories or belgian endives, because they DO taste a bit bitter.



Here we have haricots verts (thin green beans) wrapped in bacon! It’s bacon, it’s beans, I have nothing more to say!



Then last, and actually least for a change, were some simple potatoe swirls. I’ve hereby missed the cranberry sauce, which I should post later and will! And I’ve missed my sisters, although a bit runny, Tiramisu dessert! She ruined the recipe, but she kept the taste she did! Before that though, a picture of crackers you can really easily make with puff pastry and some seeds or cheese and go really well with the soup, or just as something to munch on in between the courses.







One more Christmas Special to go! Up to my High Tea Party!

Christmas Special 1: Jacket Potatoes

AND NOW: for the long awaited Christmas Special!
Ever arranged a christmas dinner? On your OWN? Well, I did this year. Okay, so I DID have a little forest elf in the kitchen to help me, but I still was the one ordering the thing around and having to think of orders it couldn’t screw up. I decided this year I wanted to do a few special things. I never made cranberry sauce, so I that was on the list. And I never stuffed a chicken before, or even ate something other than chicken wings or chicken fillet I think, so that was on the list as well. Last but not least was filled jacket potatoes, because a friend (my guildmaster in WoW to make it complicated) bragged about it and I really want to try this too! Plus I have to make sure that I can cook better than any man! I had a few more things on my list, like making a gingerbread house, but I simply didn’t find time for it. Or had enough of cooking and baking by the time I did. I’m defenitely still making a gingerbread house though, maybe with easter and make some candy chicks and bunneys to go with it. Perhaps make it a gingerbread farm then or shed.
Anyway, let’s start with the first christmas cooking event I prepaired (in short: I made a dinner, helped with a dinner and organised a high tea). The first Christmas dinner I made completely by myself, with help from my forest elf. Preparing this took about a day. I think we started around 3 or 4 and we had to eat a “bit” late. In the end all we ate was stuffed chicken and jacket potatoes, maybe we added some salads or beans. Maybe not the greatest dinner, but it took a lot of time, and it was still delicious!



As for the recipes, I’ve tried looking for the stuffed chicken recipe again, but I’ve completely lost it. I’ll try looking again, but Im afraid since it was just in a magazine its already burned to ashes in our lovely fireplace that keeps people warm in winter. But the recipe for the jacket potatoes was all in my head, and it didn’t go anywhere, so here goes!
Note: the potatoes used in England are a ‘bit’ different from what we have in Holland. There is no such thing as jacket potatoes here, but basically you’re looking for large potatoes that look like they won’t instantly fall apart.



Ingredients:
Potatoes
Butter (spoon or two)
Grated cheese (loads, definitely loads)
Parsley or Basilicum (or both or a handful random herbs)

1. Cook the potatoes! Make sure they don’t fall apart or get too soft, they should be just about or almost right. Perhaps putting them in the oven is a better idea, but this is what I did.
2. Cut the jacket potatoes in half and spoon out most of the inside (without letting it fall apart!) and put all the potatoe mash in a bowl. Put the potatoe jackets in an oven pan.
3. Mash the potatoe mash with butter and all your fancy herbs together. Also add some cheese at this point, so it’s cheesy on the inside too!
4. Then put the potatoe mash back into the jackets and sprinkle loads and loads of cheese over it. Then put it in the oven and leave it till it looks about right. I believe I baked it at around 180-160 degrees Celsius or 320-355 degrees Fahrenheit.

Well there you go! I’m telling you: it’s LOVELY! The cheese does it. Next time I’ll be trying this with a can of tuna through it. It doesnt matter if you end up with a mashed potatoe mix with some cheese over it – like what happened in my case, it tasted good and that’s eventually the point! Or perhaps the point is that we don’t die of starvation...



Don’t you think it’s absolute fail to make a Christmas special at the end of january?

Sacher Torte

I apologize for not posting anything at all lately, even though I have LOADS of catching up to do. For instance all the things I baked with Christmas, including the cooking of a whole christmas dinner. Luckily I got special help with these. The Sacher Torte I'm posting today is made quite recently, although I made an earlier version in October. The first time the icing I made for it completely failed for some reason, but actually I’d rather have that then what I made this time. It looks nice, but the recipe totally failed. I took it out of the oven too soon, didn't leave it in the oven to cool down slowly and it collapsed and it has a consistency closer to cheesecake than to actual cake, but other than that it tastes fine though! At least I know the recipe works when I don't screw it up right?



Ingredients:
100 grams milk and dark chocolate
75 grams butter
115 grams granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1/4 tablespoon salt
65 grams plain flower
Loads of chocolate for the topping, and cream

1. Start off with dubble-boiling the chocolate. When the chocolate is melted, set it aside.
2. Mix the butter in a bowl until it becomes fluffy and add the sugar, mix again, and make it fluffier. Add the chocolate as last, and mix mix mix again!
3. Next, separate the eggs. Mix ONLY 4 of the egg yolks into the chocolate fluffiness one at a time.
4. Now use all 5 of the egg whites and beat them until stiff, adding the salt. (That’s one egg yolk loss here, you can use this for something else or choose to use an egg white less, but Im not sure if the cake fails when you do this though.)
5. Fold a big spoon stiff egg white into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the remaining egg whites in about 3-5 times.
6. Poor the whole mixture into a greased round cakepan (about 18-22 cm) and set the oven to 160 degrees Celsius or 325 degrees Fahrenheit in the meanwhile. When the oven is preheated dump the lovely unbaked cake into the oven -somewhere in the middle- and leave it to bake for about 45 minutes.
7. When the cake is done, leave it to cool slowly (don't make the same mistake I did, it’ll collapse - seriously!) and start making the topping. A real Sacher Torte would require a layer of special made jam, but I haven’t tried that yet. So just melting chocolate in a pan with a few spoons of whipping cream (never more than a forth of the mixture) will do it. Poor it over the cake and leave that to cool again. Done!


It's called a lazy way of icing your cake (sorry!). I used nougatine for decoration!

Our own Sacher Torte that might only go for a Chique Chocolate Cake, but it tastes fine and we enjoy it so who cares about the name anyway? Hopefully the next time I make Sacher Torte (and I WILL make Sacher Torte again) I won’t fail it, the cake nor the icing! I could try the jam on top of it as well. Why is the process of learning things so full of failures sometimes?
I can tell you one thing. The process of making tea is never much of a failure - unless you try to get light teas dark and by doing so make the strongest tea ever! After the last time I’ve been sick I wanted to try loads of teas (it’s all I could get down my throat at that time). I tried liquorice tea, which was actually quite nice. It tasted like the plant rather than the candy. Also tried some fruits and herbs which are all so standard I forgot them in a blurr of standardness. There is one tea I’d love to try though: Blue Mallow Flower Tea. It’s blue tea!! And it turns pink when you add lemon juice! It sounds awesome! So I’m definitely going to find that tea one day and try it! In the meanwhile I’ll move to the next blog to rant on before this gets too long. Should definitely start posting my Christmas dinner!




My first attempt and how the icing screwed it

Bacon, cheese & union muffins - a savoury delight!

So Christmas has passed, finally the busy days are over. And I find myself in the middle of exams. So maybe those busy days aren’t actually over yet, but I’m nevertheless going to take my time writing a bit for my blog. I haven’t written anything in over a month! First time ever I’ve skipped a month, but especially since Christmas I have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s start with something non-christmas dinner like! We don’t do any Christmas presents here in The Netherlands, but I still got a very sweet Muffin Magic book from an even sweeter person! I decided on one of the savoury muffins, since I’ve always liked the idea of making something more savoury. I had an idea of spinach and cheese muffins, but a recipe for bacon, cheese and unions sounded just as great! So here goes!


Sorry about the bad lighting/awful pictures, but it was christmas, and busy and I wasn't so fussed about how this turned out!

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
75 grams bacon lardons
1 smalll union
1 big tablespoon yoghurt
milk
150 grams plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
15 grams grated Parmesan cheese
40 grams Cheddar or any strong cheese
1 large egg
50 grams unsalted butter

1. Start off with measuring the bacon and putting it in a pan with the sunflower oil. Put the pan on a medium to high fire, just make sure you dont burn anything.
2. In the meanwhile start chopping the union into fine bits and fry them with the bacon. Once everything has browned, leave it aside to cool.
3. Put the big spoon of yoghurt, or two, into a measuring cup and add enough milk to measure up to 100 ml.
4. Sift the flower into a bowl with the baking powder and salt. Add the cheese to it, but leave some of the Cheddar aside (to sprinkle on top later on).
5. In a small bowl beat the egg slightly and in another one melt the butter. Then comes the mixing! Make a well into the centre of the bowl with flower and add the yoghurt and milk, the egg and the melted butter and mix. Fold in the bacon and union when everything is thoroughly mixed.
6. Preheat the oven 190 degrees Celsius or 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Place muffin cases in a muffin tray and fill each for about 3/4. Sprinkle the rest of the Cheddar over them. Once the oven is preheated put them in the oven for about 15-25 minutes or until they are golden brown. And done!



I probably always forget to say but this makes about 6-7 muffins or 12-15 mini muffins. And they’re really nice with ketchup actually. Don’t ask how I found this out, weird people give you weird ideas. Hopefully I’ll get to make some muffins with spinach soon, or quiches, but perhaps my next muffins will just be sweet. I’d love to make blue berry muffins, never made that! Crime! But probably next up will be Cranberry Jam (...and jelly (...and sauce too)), because I treated myself to a handy book about food preservation!
So back to studying it is then! Until I decide I can no longer deal with the minds of other, or statistics for now, and I escape into my blog again!