Week 2: Recipe 4: Lemon Cakes with Syrup

Recipe 4 of the 52 Recipes a Year challenge, and it occurs to me that I gravitate toward baking. Perhaps it's the December spirit lingering, but I find there is nothing like sharing a homemade treat wih family and friends. The fact that there is always a pack of flour in the house (leering at me), may have something to do with it. It's just too tempting to get my bake on.

Hence, these lemon cakes. 

Counting in the Fall Baking Challenge, these little cakes were among the best pastries I've made so far, which was a surprise. Since they look like muffins I expected the dough to be airy and the flavour mild (bland), but the lemon flavour was strong and the dough was substantial and tastefully sweet. (I must admit I did tweak the recipe a bit.) In short, these cakes are basically slices of pound cake disguised as muffins. As for the raspberries and the whipped cream, they were an okay but unnecessary addition. The whipped cream (unsweetened) added little to the texture of the cakes, which were moist enough to enjoy without additions, and the sour raspberries clashed a little with the sweet dough. Perhaps blackberries would have been a better choice. (Tweaked) recipe below, serves 6.

Ingredients:

• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 100 grams flour 
• 1 tsp. dried yeast
• 50 ml milk
• 2 whisked eggs
• 40 grams full-cream butter
• 100 grams sugar
• 50 ml orange liqueur
• 125 ml whipping cream
• 125 grams raspberries
• pinch of salt 
• 50 ml water

Directions:

1.  Mix lemon zest, flour, salt, yeast, milk, eggs, butter, and 60 grams sugar. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let batter rise in a warm place for 40 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 200°C or 390°F. Scoop batter into muffin molds. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix lemon juice, liqueur, 50 ml water, and the rest of the sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and let simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.
4. Take cakes out of the oven and put them in a deep plate. Pour hot syrup onto them and let cool 1 hour. While they cool, pour syrup onto them a few times more.
5. Beat whipping cream until stiff. Serve cakes with wipping cream and raspberries.

Week 2: Recipe 3: Vol-Au-Vents with Minced Meat and Onions

My third dish for the 52 Recipes in a Year challenge are these vol-au-vents. 

Since they are filled with a mixture of minced meat, onions, and bell pepper, they are more sausage rolls than vol-au-vents, but what's in a name? Seasoned with worcestershire sauce and powdered paprika, they're a simple but tasty treat to have for lunch. Recipe below (serves 10).

Ingredients:

• 10 puff pastry sheets of about 10 x 10 cm (about 4 x 4 inch)
• 1.5 onion, shredded
• 1 green bell pepper, shredded
• 3 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp powdered paprika
• 1 whisked egg 
• 300 grams of minced meat
• baking parchment

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 200°C or 390°F. 
2. Mix meat, onion, bell pepper, worcestershire sauce, and powdered paprika. 
3. Cut the corners round off the puff pastry sheets. Scoop a bit of the meat mixture onto the center of the sheet and fold. Press the edges together and brush some egg onto the dough. Bake for 25 minutes, turn halfway.

Bon appetit. 

Apple-Blueberry Crumble

This Apple-Blueberry Crumble was a first for me. In the Netherlands, our 'crumbles' contain a crust, filling, and crumble on top, usually dusted with some powdered sugar. So when I got this recipe I thought it was quite interesting to see the British variety of 'crumble' is basically the best part of the pie: the filling and the crumble, without the crust. Seems like someone had their priorities straight. I had to give it a go, and it turns out this apple-blueberry crumble is nothing short of a tasty mess.

The crumbs are sweetened with vanilla and sugar, and the mixture of apples and blueberries gives the 'filling' a sour-sweet flavor. To my taste, the sweetness of vanilla and the sourness of the berries contrasted a bit too much. Perhaps apples and pears would have been a better choice, but that's not to say the apple-blueberry mixture didn't work alright. My brother-in-law tested it and gave a thumbs up, and I had two scoops of it.

To conclude, the recipe categorizes this dish as a dessert. While that's not a stretch, to call it comfort food would do it better justice. It's really the sort of food to munch on when you're binge-watching the Gilmore Girls in your PJs. It's messy, tasty, and easily eaten out of the baking dish. (It's also tempting to take a bite from in passing, simply because it doesn't require slicing.) 

Now, on to the recipe, which serves 8:

Ingredients:

• 3 apples
• 150 grams blueberries (deep-frozen)
• 200 grams self-raising flour
• 150 grams sugar
• 3 tbsp oatmeal
• 175 grams cold butter
• 1 vanilla pod 
• Optional: 8 scoops of vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 190°C or 375°F. Peel apples, remove core, and dice. Mix apple dices with blueberries and spread out onto the bottom of the baking dish.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, and oatmeal. Dice butter and add. Scrape seeds from vanilla pod and add. Knead with fingertips into a crumbly dough. Scoop onto the fruit.
3. Bake for 35 min. in the center of the oven. Can be served hot (with a scoop of vanilla ice cream) or cold.