Hubby Bakes! - Le pain d'épices de reim

Le pain d'épices de reim  in english "spice bread",according to wikipedia "it is sometimes loosely translated as ginger bread. Again,the husband came home with baking ingredients,he said he'll bake a french bread which is his favorite childhood food when they used to live in the french speaking part of switzerland,in Moudon.




It looks easy to bake,it took him maybe 15min. or less to do all the work then 1hr in the oven.On the photo above it's wrapped to keep the moist of the bread.




The 4-spice






Ingredients


450g Chestnut honey, dark, liquid

25 cl of milk, lukewarm

100g butter, melted

150 White flour

300g full corn flour

1 Tbs. Bicarbonated baking powder

30g brown sugar

1 Egg

1 pinch of salt

2 Tbs.olive oil

1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon

Fresh Muscat (freshly grated)

Ginger Powder

Cloves Powder

Anise, ground

Butter for the form.

Preparation:


Mix all the ingredients into a dough, pour into a greased Loaf pan 170 ° C bake for about 45 minutes an wrap overnight to keep the moist. So easy right?

Red velvet Cupcake

One lazy rainy sunday ,we were all at home and i thought of trying to bake red velvet cake for the first time,good thing i had all the ingredients at home but not enough for a cake so i just did cupcakes.

Ingredients:

3 large egg whites

red food coloring- paste form (that i bought in backeria.ch)

1 half tsp.vanilla extract

200 g flour

200 g sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp cocoa powder ( we just have nesquick available and it was fine)

1/2 Teaspoon salt

55 g butter

120 g butter milk

For the frosting:

270 g cream cheese, (cream cheese) 19° c.

100 ml. Double creme

200g. Mascarpone cream cheese 

1 cup confectioners sugar

Preparation:

Before you begin:

Set out muffin dish and Preheat oven to 175 ° c..

Dough preparation:

In a mixing bowl, mix butter at medium speed ,put the flour mixture  ( sifted flour,cocoa powder and salt) 

then put buttermilk and stir on medium level until everything is moistened then put the egg mixture slowly (egg, red food color and vanilla extract)

mix baking powder to 1 tsp. vinegar  together and mix it with your finish dough and about 2/3 dough, fill each muffin cups quick and bake 20-25 minutes,let it cool 10 minutes on a wire rack.

Cream cheese frosting:

Mix The mascarpone cream cheese and the normal cream cheese together until smooth.Then put the double cream and confectioners sugar and cool it in the fridge.

Decorate the Cupcakes with the frosting using pastry bag or pallet.

I use one extra cupcake as a topping using cheese grater.

It was quick and simple recipe,i don't usually follow what is written online because of too much extra ingredients and dificult procedures. I just bake the way i want it to be though is really important to follow the exact ingredients i'm always making sure that everything is balance to have that delicious cupcakes.

Hubby Bakes - Apple streusel Cake

In german: Apfelstreuselkuchen 

My husband baked the cake last night ( i was so jealous coz he baked it like a boss, no effort at all!  ;D )

His recipe is so easy,he prepared everything just in 20min.

Ingredients:

4 big apples, diced

For the dough:

250 g flour

125 g margarine or butter

100 g sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 Egg

1 pck. Vanilla sugar

Margarine or butter for the form.

For the streusel:

200 g flour

100 g margarine or butter

100 g sugar

1 pck. Vanilla sugar

Cinnamon

Preparation:

Peel the apples, dice and saute briefly.

Mix the ingredients for the dough. Give the dough in a greased springform pan. Press it lightly. Give the stewed apples on it.

The ingredients for the streusel mix and briefly knead with your fingers until they have become to sprinkles then put it on the dough and the apples. Bake at 175 degrees about 70 minutes.

Super delicious! The best homemade apple streusel that i've ever tasted. 

Perfect for my tea afternoon. Perfect partner with green tea.

How to bake Swiss Butter Zopf

Zopf  is a swiss-german for "knot"

Swiss butter Zopf is a popular sunday bread in switzerland ,aside from cheese and chocolates swiss poeple love to eat bread for brunch. This bread is a very unique because of it's appearance like a knotted hair braid.

I will show here a very easy recipe of Butter Zopf.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Ingredients:

1 kg. white flour

1 tsp. salt

20 gr.yeast

1 tsp.sugar

125 gr.butter (let it sit on a room temp. To make it soft)

7dl  milk

1 egg yolk


Preparation:

*Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. ( better sift first the flour to avoid some hard parts) then put the wet ingredients. ( egg,yeast,milk & butter)

*Knead to a soft dough ,we do it usually by hand so i can't give exactly how many minutes you have to roll it but depends how good you knead the dough until it's good to set aside  (cover the bowl with a cloth) and let it rise until it doubled the size.

*cut the dough to two parts and weave it like a knot and create a long roll size each.

-put the two long dough on cross position

-hold the two ends of the first dough and cross it over then take the two ends of the second dough and same procedure cross it ove

-just repeat until you reach the end of each dough and just simply fold the ends to have a nice zopf form.

Put the finished zopf dough in a tray with backing paper and cover again for about 30mins. After that brush the egg yolks on it to have that brownish shiny look.

Bake for about 45mins. @ 200 degrees celsius.

Just a tip on how to know if your Zopf is perfectly baked,try to knocked on each side of the Zopf and if you hear that string sound like knocking on your door and it's has a hard appearance ,it's ready to eat!

You can eat it with butter and marmalade or with cold cuts. (Ham,pepperoni etc.)

Easy yema cake recipe by ME!

Yema is a popular pastry or dessert in the philippines,that we usually buy in a "sari-sari" store ( a small convenient store).

This recipe is so easy,just make a normal vanilla cake or buy a finished one.

For the ingredients of yema filling

2 tubes or can of condensed milk (250ml. Each)

4  egg yolks

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1 fresh vanilla stem or 1 tsp.powder

Almond slices

100 gr. of butter

100 gr. of peanut

First heat the pan and put the butter ,pour the milk and mix well,put the egg yolks,sugar and the vanilla.

Make 2 parts of the mix condensed milk ,set the other half aside to pur on top of your cake and the other half let it stay in the pan then put the peanuts for the filling and let it cook for 5mins. more.

Cut your cake into 2parts ,the thickier yema cream is for the filling to put in the middle layer of your cake then put the second layer and pour the other half of the yema cream on top and sprinkle the almond slices. That's it ! So easy and not so complicated recipe.

You can partner it with coffee or tea.

Home-made Pizza Roll, Italian Style

One evening my husband (S) decided to do something for dinner,he went home with all the ingredients (last minute shopping) and went straight to our kitchen.

2 Champignon mushroom

1 Red bell pepper

1 pizza ready-to-cook crust

1 can pizza sauce (any brand) 

1 small can tomato puree

1 pack ham (cold cut meat- better rear ham, coz ir's more tastier)

1 small pack mozarella cheese ( or more,depends how much you want)

1tsp. White & black pepper

3tsp. Italian spices mix

1 salted sausage (we used Ticinella Luganighi, we live in Switzerland btw)

First cut the mushroom and the sausage thinly and fry it for few minutes and set it aside...shape your pizza crust to a rectangular form,spread the tomato puree then the pizza tomato sauce ,cheese,bellpepper and the rest of the ingredients.It's  so easy like you're making a personalized pizza but at the end you just need to roll it.

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees celsius.

Then put the pizza and let it sit there for 20mins.

What we did is more italian sausage style. You can also create your own like hawaiian,pepperoni or so...but i'm telling the one that my husband did is super duper yummy,it tasted like an authentic italian pizza ,the herbs helped a lot with the taste also the tomato puree it gives a little sweetness on the pizza which is really good.

And just a tip put some holes on top of the roll to avoid bumps on your pizza roll.

        

Home made Fench Macarons

It was actually my first time to do this yummy french macarons for Christmas eve,after seeing my friends baking homemade macarons, i finally decided to give it a try and it was a succes! so easy as i expected, it wasn't the best good looking homemade macarons but it tasted really good ;)





Ingredients.

*125 g almond meal or ground almonds

*200g cups powdered sugar

*3 large egg whites (they said eggs aged up to 3 days are better but i used just what i got from the grocery,i don't know even know how old they were)

*30g granulated sugar

*some are using 1 teaspoon vanilla extract but i think it's optional.

*food coloring


Materials needed:

*Electric handmixer/beater (i used Philips and it worked perfectly fine)

*sifter

*mixing bowls

*oven tray with baking paper

*pastry bag(round tip)

*kitchen scale

*spatula

*sifter


PROCEDURE

-First measure all the ingredients properly

-sift ground almonds and powdered sugar

-then mix them together in a bowl with the granulated sugar.(some are using food processor but if you don't have just use a normal mixing bowl like what i did ;)

- now put the egg whites on the mixing bowl and beat it on medium-high speed until egg whites become stiff. while doing it put the granulated sugarthen put the color that you want (i used brown color)

-mix the egg whites to make the color even by using the spatula.

-mix/fold the almond sugar mixture to the egg whites

-when it become shiny and creamy pipe out the macarons on the tray with baking paper .

*some poeple are using silicone macaron mat but since you are doing this the first time macaron template is ok for now .What i did ,i draw circles on the baking paper like on the picture below (it's a size of a 5-dollar coin)








-once it's all piped out on ,bang the trys to let the air out.

-to make it perfectly round use the spatula to form and to remove that tip on top of the macarons.

-set the macarons aside for 20mins. while you preheat the oven to 300°f (150°C)

-then bake your Macarons for 14mins.

-Let the shells coolbefore removing them from the baking paper.

-then put your preferred filling,i used Nutella since it was my first time ,i'll try to make my own next time.

That's it! Goodluck and happy baking :)