Kiwi-Coconut Cupcakes

It's been a while since I last made sweet muffins. At the moment I don't really remember why I chose this recipe. I think it was because of the coconut. I have a vague memory of wanting to try out whipping coconut milk as a substitute for whipped cream. Well obviously I didn't actually do that.

This muffins gave me a chance to try out my homemade lime extract. I liked them. They were just a touch too simple for me. When or if I make them ever again I really have to pimp them up a little. Maybe some kind of filling or core or even a different topping. We will see.

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Kiwi-Coconut Cupcakes

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
90 g butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tsp lime zest
2 tsp lime extract
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 kiwi

1. Grate the zest of the lime.
2. Combine in a big bowl the flour, the sugar, the coconut, the baking powder, the salt and the lime zest with a spatula. Form a well in the middle.
3. Melt the butter.
4. Use a whisk to mix the butter, the buttermilk, the egg and the lime extract in a bowl.
5. Peel the kiwi and cut it into thin slices. Leave it for later.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/390°F.
7. Put paper muffin liners into the molds of the muffin pan.
8. Pour the wet ingredients into the formed well. Use the spatula to combine everything.
9. Distribute the batter between the muffin liners.
10. Place one or two of the kiwis on top of the batter.
11. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes.
12. Take the muffins out of the pan and let them cool down on a cooling rack.

Bon appétit!!

Lemon Ginger Honey Tea

This april it's really warm. The sun is shining! The birds are singing! The flowers are blossoming! And I managed to catch a cold. Well done Julia!

All in all it's not that bad. The worst is the sore throat. Especially in the mornings. And this is where this sweet little elixir comes in. Sadly it's not a cure, but it does soothe the throat. And tastes great while doing it.

I'm not going to give you fixed quantities in this recipe. For one it's so simple that it's really not necessary. And for another you can mix it to your taste. Add more ginger if you want it spicier, more lemon for a sour tea and more of the honey if you have a sweet tooth.
By rule of thumb just use about the same amount of ginger and lemon and add the honey until all the gaps are filled.

I would recommend a stronger, darker honey. You wont be able to taste a more subtle honey, like acacia. If you have an older honey that's already crystallized, use it. It takes a little longer but it will dissolve after about a day in the mixture.

The only drawback here is that, if you consider the amount of ingredients that go in, you only get out a small volume of the actual tea. But it's still worth it.
When (not if, cause really there is no if) you decide, that you love this. You'll want to make more. But if you make so much, that it lasts for more than three days. You should sieve out the lemon and ginger pieces. The juice will keep for another two or three days in the fridge.

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Lemon Ginger Honey Tea

Ginger
Lemon (organic)
Honey
Jar

1. Peel the ginger. Cut it into thin slices.
2. Peel of the zest of the lemons. With organic lemons you can leave the zest. Just wash them beforehand with hot water and dab them dry.
3. Cut the lemons into thick slices. Quarter the slices.
4. Layer the honey, the ginger and the lemon. Make a few thin layers.
5. You should add enough honey to fill the gaps.
6. Place the jar in the fridge. Shake it every few hours.
7. The tea is ready after about a day or after the honey is dissolved.
8. Use a spoon to mash the lemons a little to squeeze out more the juice.
9. Pour one or two tablespoons into a tea cup. Fill it with hot water.
10. Enjoy!

Bon appétit!!

Chocolate Pear Turnover

A friend and I were baking cookies. I wanted something special. So I looked through my whole online bookmarks regarding Cookies. It's a long list. And I found these.
These cookies are really prestigious. And they taste great.

Some of the dough was left over. I just made some medallions. They were tasty too. Simple but still good. Because of the cacao the dough is really dark, in taste and color. As soon as I find a good filling I will make my own Oreos with these recipe.

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Chocolate Pear Turnover

Dough

125 g butter, room temperature
200 g flour
50 g cacao
1 egg
125 g sugar

1.  Use a fork to "cream" the butter.
2. Add the flour and the cacao and blend everything with your hands until it's crumbly.
3. Make a well in the middle and add the egg and the sugar. Use your hands to blend the dough until it's smooth.
4. Form a Ball out of the dough and wrap it with plastic wrap. Put it for at least one hour in the fridge.

Filling

400 g pears
1/4 cup water
20 g hazelnuts, ground

1. Peal and core the pears. Afterwards cut them into small cubes.
2. Put the pears with the water in small sauce pan and bring it to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan with a lid and leave it to simmer for about 1 hour. Stir occasionlly.
4. Take of the lid in the last 15-20 minutes. So the water can vaporize.
5. Heat a skillet and toast the hazelnuts in it for about 2-3 minutes.
6. Use an immersion blender to blend the pears.
7. Press the pear mash through a fine sieve. You need about 125 g.
8. Add the hazelnuts and blend everything together with a fork.

To Assemble

1 Egg

1. Put baking parchment on a baking sheet.
2. Unwrap the dough. Roll it out on lightly floured surface.
3. Cut out circles with a 8-10 cm big diameter.
4. Put about 2 tsp pear mash on the circles and fold them to half moons. Use your fingers to squeeze the edges together. If some dough is left over, form small medallions.
5. Place the turnovers on the baking sheet.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/360°F.
7. Whisk the egg in a small bowl.
8. Brush the cookies with the egg wash.
9. Bake the turnover for about 15 minutes.
10. Leave the cookies on a cooling rack to cool down.

Bon appétit!!

Stuffed Puff Pastry Pears

Somehow I got the idea to make stuffed puff pastry pears. I searched for a good recipe on google and pinterest (my usual hunting grounds). But the most recipes asked for gorgonzola and I hate it. So I had no other choice then to make my own recipe.
I had a few ideas of what would go with the pears. I decided on ricotta and parmesan as base. Kind of like tortellini. 
Another ingredient that came up in my search was wulnuts. First I just wanted to put in chopped nuts. My mom owns a thermomix, so I thought I save some time and use it. But that thing really got a lot of power. A few seconds and the walnuts were already ground. But after I thought about it a little longer, I decided that it is even better to also use the ground nuts. That way the walnut taste would be even more intense.
To add a little more flavour I chose rosemary. But I didn't want to leave it whole for two reasons. First it would be rather unpleasant to bite on the leaves. And second the taste wouldn't be intense enough. Well I already knew the thermomix is strong enough to ground the rosemary to a powder, so no problem there. Except that the amount I needed was to slight. The rosemary was just thrown against the wall. The solution was to add more. In the end I ground all of my moms rosemary. Oops. Well at least I've got enough for the next time.

One of the reasons I wanted to make puff pastry pears is because I liked the look of the wrapped pears. I wanted to try my hand at it myself. I am rather satisfied with the outcome. It was easier to accomplish than I thought it would be.

All in all I have to say that the combination worked out rather well. The moist and fruity taste of the pears was a good contrast to the tart flavour of the filling.
I quite liked them and plan to do them again rather soon. I have been told that they are still good on the next day if you heat them in the oven or even over the toaster.
I believe that the pears would be great as an entree.

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Stuffed Puff Pastry Pears

Filling

200 g ricotta
5 tbsp walnuts, ground
ca. 25 g walnuts, whole
30 g parmesan
1 egg yolk
2 tsp rosemary, ground
salt
pepper

1. Chop the whole nuts.
2. Grate the parmesan.
3. Combine the ricotta, the ground and chopped walnuts, the parmesan, the egg yolk and the rosemary in a small bowl. Use a fork to mix everything together.
4. Season it with salt and pepper.
5. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge until you need it.

Pears

4 pears

1. The pears you chose should be ripe but still firm.
2. Remove the stem of the pears. Afterwards peel them.
3. Cut the pears in half lengthwise.
4. Carefully cut out the core. If you can make the hole bigger so you can put in more filling.
5. Use a paper towel to dab of the juice. It will be easier to work with them if they are dry.

Egg Wash

1 egg yolk
2 tsp water

1. Combine the egg yolk with the water and whisk them together.

To Assemble

Water
2 sheets puff pastry, ca. 500g

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/390°F.
2. Put baking parchment on a baking sheet.
3. Put some cold water in a small dish. You will need it to glue the individual puff pastry parts together.
4. Place a pear with the cut side on the puff pastry sheet. Try to place it so that you don't waste to much of the sheet. Cut directly around the pear.
5. Place the pear on another part of the sheet. Cut around it again but this time with a rim of about 1,5-2 cm (depending on how high the pear is).
6. Take the pear of the sheet and fill the hole with the filling. Smooth it out so that the bottom is even.
7. Take the second cut out in your hand and put the pear, bottom up, on it. Fold the puff pastry around the pear.
8. Dab your finger into the water and rund it over the puff pastry that is folded over the cut bottom of the pear.
9. Put the first cut out on the bottom and press it to the moistened pastry.
10. Place the wrapped pear, bottom down, on the prepared baking sheet.
11. Repeat the process with the remaining pears.
12. Cut out leaves out of the remaining puff pastry. Glue them to the pears with the water.
13. Brush the puff pastry with the egg wash. 
14. Bake the stuffed puff pastry pears for 30-35 minutes.

Bon appétit!!

Cherry Muffins with Kernel Brittle

The cupcakes were for my moms colleagues. They have the custom that the "birthday child" brings something sweet to work. And well we didn't have any cake left so I made some cupcakes and muffis.

I made these muffins in the same muffin pan that I used for the Cream Topped Chocolate Cupcakes.
These recipe is just perfect for the pan. They look like little crowns.
Of cause if you use a normal muffin pan, like in the original recipe, than you can put in more cherries.

These are one of my favorite muffins. The cherrys make them so moist and delicious.

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Cherry Muffins with Kernel Brittle

Muffins

300-400 g sour cherries, frozen

100 g sugar

125 g butter, soft

12 tsp brown sugar

16 g vanilla sugar

1 pinch salt

3 eggs

100 g flour

50 g cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

butter 

1. Let the cherries thaw.

2. Butter the muffin pan.

3. Sprinkle a tsp of brown sugar on the bottom of each hollow. 

4. Sift the flour, the cornstarch and the baking powder together.

5. Put the butter, the sugar, the vanilla sugar and the salt in a bowl and blend it with a hand mixer.

6. Add the eggs individually and mix well in between.

7. Add the flour mixture to the batter and blend it.

8. Pre-heat the oven to 175°C/350°F.

9. Dab the cherries dry with a paper towel.

10. Fill the bottom of the muffin pan with one layer of cherries.

11. Fill the pan to 1/2 with the batter.

12. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes. Make the toothpick test, and let them a little longer in the oven if necessary.

13. Put the muffin pan on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes. With a knife carefully cut around the edge of the muffins to loosen them. Take the muffins out.

14. The cherries will be the top of the muffins. If the bottom is uneven cut a little bit off, so it can stand straight.

Kernel Brittle

125 g sugar

75 g Kernelmix (sunflower seeds, pumkin seeds, pine nuts, soy seeds)

30 cm kitchen foil 

oil 

1. Cut off the kitchen foil. Put it on the counter and coat it with some oil.

2. Put the sugar in a sauce pan and caramelize it until it's a light brown color. Pay attention so it will not burn.

3. Add the Kernelmix and stir it rapidly.

4. Swiftly spread the mixture on the kitchen foil. Try to distribute the brittle as thin and as even as possible. You have to work quickly cause the caramelized sugar cools rather fast.

5. Let the brittle cool down entirely. Break it into roughly 1 cm big pieces.

6. Decorate the muffins with the Kernel Brittle.

Bon appétit!!