Posts tagged recipe
flammkuchen
Like I promised, I'm giving you the recipe for flammkuchen. You will thank me. As will your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children, and your children's children's children's children. I'll stop now. You get the point...this stuff is delicious. Not to mention it's so easy.


Above is what you're gonna need for the dough...bread flour, whole wheat flour (I ground my own, but regular store bought whole wheat flour is fine), salt, water, and butter.


Start out by melting some butter. You can definitely use a microwave to do this step, but since we don't have one (by choice ;)), I put it in a cast iron pan over medium heat. 


To mix everything together, I used our Kitchen Aid fitted with the hook attachment. If you don't have a Kitchen Aid, you can use a food processor or any other kind of mixer. Or, if you really want to, you can knead it by hand.





Pour in some bread flour...


...whole wheat flour...


...salt...


...water...


...and melted butter. Lock the mixer, and turn it onto the lowest speed. Let it knead for about 10 minutes.


After it's done kneading, it should look something like this. At this point you can cover the bowl with a clean towel and do something else, or go straight to rolling out the dough.


Lightly flour two pizza pans or baking stones (this recipe makes two)...


...and take half of the dough and place it in the middle of the stone.


Roll it out completely so it reaches the sides (I could have rolled it out bit more). It's going to be pretty thin. The dough is now done and ready for toppings!



Above are the ingredients needed for the toppings. Salt and pepper, two medium sized onions (or one large onion), garlic, sour cream, and fried bacon. Bacon that's a bit burned. Ahem. That was not intentional.


Slice the onion into rings...


...and place in a medium sized pan with butter over medium-low heat. 


You want the onions to get nice and caramelized, a good 20 minutes. It'll look like this when they're ready.



Plop some sour cream in a bowl...


...and add some garlic (crushed with a garlic press), salt, and pepper and mix completely. And like a dunce, forget to take a picture of anything except the garlic.


Take your rolled out dough, and spread half of the sour cream on it. Add onions and bacon - repeat with the other flammkuchen.

Pop it in the oven...and die when you see this.


Yum.

Flammkuchen
Yields two (More than enough to feed our family of six, if that helps you)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

For the dough
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 5 tbls butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups water

Using a Kitchen Aid mixer (a food processor or mixer will work as well) fitted with the hook attachment, knead for 10 minutes.

For the toppings

- 2 cups sour cream
- 2 medium sized onions 
- 1/4 - 1/2 bacon, depending on preference
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 clove garlic

Saute onions in a medium sized pan with butter over medium-low heat until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Set aside. Fry bacon until crispy. Set aside. In a medium sized bowl, place 2 cups sour cream. Crush garlic with garlic press, add salt and pepper to taste.  

Bake for 10-15 minutes. 

-carlotta
strawberry shortcakes
I'm trying my hand at food blogging. I'm probably not going to do it very often (There are 25 photos in this post...that's a lot of work to sort and upload!), but I'd thought it'd be fun to try out.

This was the first time I've had strawberry shortcakes (That I can remember)..,but we had strawberries that needed to be used, and my mom spied this recipe in a magazine - so strawberry shortcakes it was!

Note: The recipe I used is based on this one - I've made some changes, though.
Pour in some flour in a food processor...
Add part of the sugar...

The baking powder...
And the salt. Blend it all together in about five one second pulses - make sure it's completely mixed.

(I'm sticking a "Read more" in here...otherwise this would take up waayy too much space on the front page of my blog)


Next comes butter. Yummy goodness. Chop it all up into cubes and put everything into the food processor - which still has the flour in it.
Once again, blend in five one second increments, until the butter resembles large peas.

Note: I over mixed it a bit, but it turned out fine.
Remove the mixture from the food processor, and move to a lightly floured surface. Roll into a ball...
...and flatten to about 1 1/2 inches thick. Cut in half, then crosswise forming square biscuits. Be an idiot and forget to take a picture of this step. Transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet (I used a baking stone and completely forwent the parchment paper), and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

While the dough is chilling, we can get started on our strawberries. Get a whole mess of 'em and throughly wash the berries. Remove the stems and quarter.
Now we get to add sugar (Or as Lilly calls it - soo-gah) to the strawberries. Yum. Me likey. Set aside for about 30-45 minutes so the juices can be released. Make sure to sneak a couple, too ;)
Get your dough from the refrigerator and beat an egg (and forget to take a picture of that too). Brush the egg onto the top of the biscuits. 
Then sprinkle some sugar on top. Bake the biscuits - while they're baking we can get started on the whipped cream.
Pour some heavy cream in a medium sized bowl.
The recipe called for vanilla extract, but we happened to have some vanilla beans, so I used those instead. Just slit the bean lengthwise, and get the yummy seeds from the inside.
Dump some sugar in with the vanilla and cream...
...then beat the heck out of it (until peaks form) with a handheld electric mixer. 

When the biscuits are done, assemble the shortcakes - cut the biscuits in half, and fill with strawberries and cream.
Then die of deliciousness. 

Strawberry Shortcakes

For the biscuits

- 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 5 tablespoons sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
- 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
- 1 large egg, beaten

For the filling

- 1 pint fresh strawberries
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
- 1 vanilla bean

Preparation

Biscuits:

Place rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. If using baking sheet, line with parchment paper - if using baking stone no preparation is necessary. Place flour, four tablespoons sugar, and salt in food processor. Using on/off turns, process to blend. Add butter, and once again, use on/off turns until butter resembles large peas. Add cream, using on/off turns until moist clumps form. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and roll in a ball; flatten into an approximately 8x4 inch rectangle (about 1 1/4 inches thick). Cut in half lengthwise, then crosswise, forming ten square biscuits. Transfer biscuits to prepared baking sheet or stone and chill for 20 minutes. 
Brush top of biscuits with egg and sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake until biscuits are golden-brown and tester inserted horizontally comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool.

Filling:

Wash strawberries, remove top, and quarter. Mix strawberries and two tablespoons of sugar in a medium bowl. Let sit for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
Slit open the vanilla bean lengthwise and remove seeds from inside. Using a hand held electric mixer, beat cream, vanilla seeds, and remaining one tablespoon of sugar until peaks form.
Cut biscuits in half, divide strawberries, and spoon a dollop of whipped cream on top of berries. Cover with the top half of the biscuit. 

I hope this wasn't too long...but I had fun pretending to be a food blogger. ;)

-carlotta
mother's day & truffles
Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers! You guys do SO much...much more than what meets the eye. On the (rare) occasions my mom goes out of town, I'm the one who does pretty much everything, and I've experienced how stressful it can be! Between dressing kids, cooking, planning, organizing...there an incredible amount of tasks that moms do everyday without complaint.

My gift to my mom was truffles.
These truffles are extremely decadent. I used this recipe, but I created my own concoction to roll them in - some ground coffee beans, cocoa powder, and some vanilla sugar (heavy on the coffee beans to make the flavor really come out). I tried a small one before giving them to my mom (Ha!)...I really had to restrain myself from eating all of them. Whoever thought of mixing chocolate and coffee together was an absolute genius. 
Contrary to popular belief, truffles are incredibly simple to make. Basically all you do is bring some heavy cream to a simmer, pour over some chocolate, and add a bit of vanilla. That's it. (Just FYI, this recipe isn't very sweet at all - the main sweetening comes from the chocolate. Of course you could always add sugar if you would like to.)
The best thing about these is that they taste very sophisticated and elegant...you could serve these are at a party and people would think that you're a master chef when all you did was pour some cream over chocolate. Excuse me while I devise a plan to get some of my mom's. :)

Here's to all the wonderful mothers!

-carlotta
cinnamon coffee cake
Ever since reading this post at Everyday Musings, I craved coffee cake. That delicious blend of butter, cinnamon, and sugar...mmm. 


Yesterday I decided to satisfy my craving, and made a sour cream coffee cake using this recipe

(For future reference, half way into making the cake I realized we didn't have enough sour cream, so I used regular yogurt, and it turned out fine. So, while writing this post, I realized that I couldn't really call it "sour cream coffee cake", as I didn't use sour cream so I renamed it "cinnamon coffee cake".
The only thing I would do different in the recipe is reduce the salt. I just used a pinch...the 1/2 teaspoon they call for would be way too much.)


By the time it was done baking, the whole house smelled of cinnamon and sugar. I had to leave to babysit literally right as it was done, but it took everything in me not to have a piece right then and there.

I have since then tried it...I think it tastes a little like a snickerdoodle cookie in cake form. It's very moist and light, though.

Go make it. Now. :)

-carlotta