Wednesday, December 29, 2010

World's Best Carrot Cake and Apple-Almond Wreath



I'm probably the worst blogger in the world--it's been almost 2 months since my last post. But I do have some stories saved up, so I'll deliver them one by one even if they are now ancient in internet terms of time. 

For our housewarming party in October I decided to try some new recipes from Leila Lindholm's cookbook A Piece of Cake. My sister first found the book about a year ago and was raving about the recipes ever since she made the hazelnut cookies for Christmas last year. I was lucky enough to receive the cookbook for my birthday this year. With one exception I've loved everything I've made from it so far. 

I decided on making carrot cake since I love carrot cake and hadn't made it in a long time. The apple wreath took a little longer to decide on because I still greatly respect yeast doughs with their being so temperature sensitive. Turns out the carrot cake definitely could be the world's best carrot cake. The lime cream cheese icing is the cherry on top with its fresh and tangy flavor beautifully complementing the carrot and spice flavor of the cake. It's a perfect recipe for those who hate raisins and nuts as this recipe contains neither.

The World's Best Carrot Cake
3 eggs
240 g sugar
180 g flour
1 teasp. vanilla sugar (I use vanilla extract)
3 teasp. baking powder
1 1/2 teasp. cinnamon
1 teasp. ground cardamom
1/2 teasp. powdered ginger
Pinch of salt
150 ml sunflower oil
270 g grated carrot

Lime-cream cheese icing
60 g butter at room temp.
240 g powdered sugar
1 teasp. vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
zest from 1 lime
100 g cream cheese

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F).
2. Beat eggs and sugar till light and frothy.
3. Mix all dry ingredients and stir into egg and sugar mixture.
4. Add sunflower oil and grated carrots.
5. Pour into a buttered 24 cm (9.5 inch) spring form pan (I didn't have the right sized pan, so I used a loaf tin).
6. Bake on rack in middle of oven for about 55 min until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool.
7. For icing mix all ingredients until smooth.
8. Pour icing onto cooled cake. 

I was really surprised how well the apple-almond wreaths turned out. And in retrospect the recipe wasn't hard at all. I will definitely try some of the other variations for yeast pastries that Leila has in her book. For the apple-almond wreath first prepare the basic yeast dough recipe. 

Basic yeast dough 
Makes 2 wreaths
1 tablesp. cardomom seeds (she calls for black, but I used green seeds)
300 ml milk
50 g fresh yeast
120 g sugar
1/2 teasp. salt
150 g butter at room temp.
1 egg
660-720 g flour type 550

1. Crush cardomom seeds with a mortar and pestle and heat with milk until lukewarm.
2. Dissolve crumbled yeast in a bowl with the milk, sugar, salt, butter and egg.
3. Add flour in several portions and work into dough until smooth.
4. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise to double its size for 45-60 min.

Apple-Almond Wreath
1 recipe of basic yeast dough
1 whisked egg 
1 handful of sliced almonds

Filling
200 g butter at room temp.
80 g brown sugar
1 tablesp. cinnamon
200 g grated marzipan
2 ripe, grated apples

1. Prepare basic yeast dough according to recipe.
2. Mix butter, sugar, cinnamon and marzipan until creamy.
3. Divide the dough in half and roll one half into a rectangle 30 x 20 cm (12 x 8 inches) and 1/2 cm (1/5 inch) thick.
4. Spread half of marzipan over dough and cover with half of the apples.
5. Roll the dough lengthwise. Prepare other half of dough the same way.
6. Place the wreaths into 24 cm (9.5 inch) buttered spring forms or just place onto trays covered with parchment paper. 
7. Make diagonal cuts into the wreaths 1 cm (1/3 inch) apart and pull every other cut slightly apart. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for about 1 hour.
8. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
9. Brush whisked egg onto wreaths and cover with sliced almonds.
10. Bake on racks in the middle of the oven for about 20 min. 

Monday, November 1, 2010

Good Food in Sorrento and Napoli

I should have written this post ages ago. Now Napoli and Sorrento seem so far away. But it's really only been a few weeks since we visited Southern Italy. We flew to Napoli and then headed straight down the coast to Sorrento. We spent four nights in a wonderful villa in the neighboring village of Sant' Agnello, a good choice since Sorrento is quite full of tourists. The last night of our trip we spent in Napoli and we were glad it was only one night since it's not a beautiful city. If they fixed it up a bit, it'd do wonders as the architecture is quite nice. Just the paint is chipped and old, and there are piles of trash everywhere! Funny thing was that the trash didn't smell even though it was still reasonably warm weather. 

I was honestly quite disappointed by the food in Italy. Generally speaking, that is. This is due to the fact that I (or should I say we?) have been putting Italian food on a pedestal, which at one time was probably well-deserved. Not anymore. Italy is also jumping on the bandwagon of the fast life, which immediately shows effects in food and how it is prepared and what its ingredients are. Hence, not all mozzarella is bufala (the kind made from buffalo milk), not all tomatoes are vine-ripened, not all basil is freshly picked. Wouldn't it be nice if it was? 

Luckily I was still able to find some gems on our trip. For example the Trattoria da Emilia in Sorrento (Marina Grande, 62). This charming restaurant on the harbor is just what I like: unpretentious, friendly and serving simple, fresh and delicious food. We started off with salads: mixed and caprese (but not with bufala), then we had gnocchi alle vongole (gnocchi with clams) and calamari fritti (fried calamari). Everything was quite good even the red house wine we ordered. 





We ate at this trattoria once more since we liked it so much. The second time aroudnd we had cozze (mussels), spaghetti pomodoro (spaghetti with tomato sauce) and assorted fried fish. This meal was delicious as well. At this point I have to go off on a tangent about one of the worst food words for me. It is indeed the mussels, cozze. The reason this word is so bad is that is sounds exactly like the German word "Kotze", which means vomit. Not exactly a word I like to associate with food even if consumption of cozze may sometimes lead to Kotze. Ugh, enough of that. 




Unfortunately we didn't find any more gems in Sorrento, on the island of Capri, or along the Amalfi coast (I'm sure with more time, we would have found something!), but they did serve pretty good pizza at Sant' Antonino in Sorrento (Via Santa Maria delle Grazie, 6). 

In Napoli we fortunately found some good food at Gran Caffè Gambrinus right near the Palazzo Reale, where we ended up for lunch. The thing I noticed right away was that we were surrounded by German speaking people, not exactly what I like to hear when on vacation (to those who don't know: I'm German-American and may speak freely about both Germans and Americans!). But that's just how it is with Gran Caffès that make there way into every tourist guide. The worst part was when the 5 German ladies at the neighboring table started arguing with the waiter about who had paid what. In the typical German manner each lady had paid for her own coffee and cake (instead of having one person pay the bill and figuring it out later) and in the end there was confusion about one piece of chocolate cake not accounted for. That was a real German-tourist-on-vacation-moment that made me wince and sink deeper into my chair. I wish I hadn't witnessed that. So glad Swiss Germans, who do share some similarities in behaviors with Germans, are not afflicted with that characteristic. Anyways, back to the important part, the food! It was expensive but we had a really good caprese (this time with bufala!) and a good pizza. For drinks I had their lovely caffè freddo con panna which was like a sweetened coffee sorbet topped with whipped cream. Delicious! And mister had caffè nocciola, which was pretty good but you could tell the hazelnut flavor wasn't coming from real hazelnuts. There it was again: my disappointment with the declining food of Italy...





The day of our departue we had all morning and some of the afternoon to wander the streets of Napoli. We ended up having lunch in the Galleria Umberto at Fratelli la Bufala. There we had a pizza reale and gnocchi with tomato sauce and bufala. YUMMMMM!!!! 


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Patty Pan with Cherry Tomatoes and Macaroni





Simple food is really the best! I've recently gotten into the good habit of going to the market on the Basel Marktplatz to buy my fruits and veggies. They are much fresher and taste much better than those from the supermarket (of course!). The other benefit is that I come across produce you wouldn't necessarily find in the supermarket, such as the patty pan. I knew patty pans from California, where they are readily available in the supermarket, but had rarely seen one in Germany or Switzerland before. Until I went to the market. And these aren't just your regular patty pans. These ones are really big. By the way, here in Switzerland they call them Patissons.

Over lunch break I went to the market today and bought such a beautiful pale green patty pan. At first I was skeptical because it was so big and I was worried that its size meant it was old and it would be soft inside, but the lady at the stand assured me it would be fine. I also bought some cherry tomatoes, garlic and parsley. So for dinner I whipped up a nice meal with the loot from the market. 


Recipe for 2
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large patty pan, chopped into large cubes
Hand full of macaroni
2 tblsp. chopped parsley
1 tblsp. chopped basil
Salt and pepper
1/3 c cream
8 cherry tomatoes
Grana padano, grated

Heat olive oil in a pan and add the garlic. Once the garlic starts turning color, add the patty pan cubes and enough water to cover them half-way. Bring the water to a boil and then let the patty pan simmer until almost done, so still firm not mushy. Stir frequently. Add the macaroni and extra water if needed to cook the macaroni. When the macaroni are almost done, add parsley and basil, salt and pepper. Stir to mix. Once macaroni are done, add cream and let cook for about 2 minutes until the cream has thickened a bit. Serve with cherry tomatoes and grana padano on top. 

Monday, August 16, 2010

Best Places to Eat in Ireland


It's time to finally write about the other culinary gems we found in Ireland. Although, we didn't actually find them. I had read about all but one of them. Doing my research really paid off!

Blackberry Cafe in Thomastown
This was a really cute place that served light lunches and pastries. We had brown bread with goat cheese and onion jam served with mixed salad. For dessert I had a scone with raisins that came with the oligatory salted butter and raspberry jam. Everything was very good. I'd even go so far as to say that the mocha I had was the best one I had ever had! So smooth with just the right amount of chocolate in it. 




I'd read about the Ballymaloe Cookery School several years ago and knew that at least I'd have to stop by the café if I couldn't take the time to take a class (or afford to stay overnight at the house). As the name suggests, you enter the small café through the shop. The shop is packed with various attractive kitchen gadgets that I had to peel myself away from in order to not end up with excessive amounts of luggage (I had made a larger  purchase at the Nicholas Mosse Pottery the day before). The café was full when we arrived, but we luckily only had to wait a few minutes before we got a free table. We had a reuben sandwich and an onion and brie tart for lunch (served with delicious white and brown bread, and salted butter, of course) and Austrian cheesecake and raspberry chocolate tart for dessert. Everything was outstanding! In Cork I ended up buying Darina Allen's new cookbook Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why. I've already tried some of the recipes and hope to make many more!





Farmgate Café in Cork
The English Market in Cork didn't end up being quite what I had in mind when I read about it. Somehow I had pictured a more open space. Nevertheless we ended up getting a great light lunch at the Farmgate Café. Since we knew we'd be having a huge meal at Cafe Paradiso that evening we decided to share the grilled Ardsallagh Goats Cheese Salad made with mixed leaves and veggies and tossed in a honeyed dressing. It was very fresh and yummy.



Petit Delice in Cahersiveen (the only place I hadn't read about in advance)
Unfortunately the day we drove the Ring of Kerry it was raining so we didn't have a good view and we didn't stop much on our drive from Sneem all the way up to Kilrush. But we decided to get a bite to eat when we arrived in Cahersiveen. We walked down the main street and happened upon Petit Delice, a French bakery. We ordered a raisin roll and a white chocolate brownie and both were very, very good.





Tea room at Burren Perfumery
I had read about the perfumery and was keen on visiting it although the day we were in the Burren it was raining hard and any detour seemed to prolong the misery of driving in the rain on a narrow road with tall hedges fit for 1.5 cars max. But I'm glad we stopped because we had a wonderful lunch there: plates of mixed salad (green, carrot, and potato) with hummus followed by a delightful brownie made with Green & Black's organic chocolate. The whipped cream that came with it was the perfect complement. It was one of the best brownies I have ever had and, believe you me, I've had many! 



Queen of Tarts in Dublin (Cow's Lane branch)
On our first day in Dublin we stopped here for lunch as it was right around the corner from the Dublin Palace. We had sandwiches (roasted veggie, and ham and cheese) and then we each had a dessert with a delicious cappuccino: hot blackberry and apple crumble, and Bailey's chocolate chip cheesecake (Bailey's not as in the liquor). Between the chocolate chip cheesecake and the crumble, the cheesecake definitely won. We liked it so much that we returned to the branch on Dame Street two days later to share another piece of it, but, strangely, it wasn't nearly as good as the first. I'd be willing to give it another try, though. 







Chaper One in Dublin
This was the most noteworthy place we ate at in Dublin (it ain't got that Michelin Star for nothin'!). It was extremely good and the photos I sneaked on my iPhone just don't do it justice. So you'll have to eat there if you want to see the food. It was so, so, so, SO good!!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Café Paradiso in Cork


Ireland is not known to be a culinary highlight, but if you spend time researching you can find some gems. Of all the places we ate at the two weeks we were there I would have to say that Café Paradiso in Cork was my favorite. I knew about the café well before ever planning the trip as I had bought one of Denis Cotter's, the owner's, cookbooks called "Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me...". So it was a given that I would have to visit the café when in Ireland. It turns out that they also have two rooms above the café to rent so we went ahead and got their midweek special which included two nights' stay with two breakfasts and one dinner.

Café Paradiso is a vegetarian café that focuses on serving regional, seasonal produce. All the food we had at Café Paradiso was very fresh and tasted amazing. The flavor compositions of each dish were astounding and the presentation of the food was beautiful. On top of that the staff was always friendly and the atmosphere of the café was relaxed. The name Paradiso is well deserved.

Breakfast is only served for the overnight guests so when we got to the café the first morning we were the only ones there. A table by the window was set for us and the Irish Times was waiting on the table next to ours. We got to choose two courses each, but I could unfortunately only handle one. Here's what we got for the first breakfast.


Obligatory toast, salted butter and jams


Macroom oatmeal porridge with whiskey sultanas, cream and brown sugar


Yoghurt with fresh cherries, honey and granola


Poached eggs with warm sungold tomato and avocado salsa, spinach and toast

For dinner we could also choose as many courses as we wanted. We made sure to only have a light lunch that day so that we could enjoy all the food we wanted in the evening!


Dinner snacks: pumpkin seed crisps, olives and spiced cashews


Roasted baby aubergine with chilli, cardamom and honey marinade, sugar snaps and sesame-yoghurt dressing


Vegetable sushi with tempura of carrot and scallopini squash, pickled ginger, wasabi and a dipping sauce


Deep-fried summer squash flowers with Knockalara sheep's cheese and caper filling, panfried courgettes, grilled polenta and a tomato, oregano and citrus broth


Risotto of fresh peas and broad beans with Oisin goat's cheese, roast beets and lemon parsley oil


Strawberry trifle with lemon mascarpone cream and pistachio praline

For breakfast the next day we tried two new dishes from the menu.


Panfried king oyster mushrooms with chives, sour cream and grilled sourdough bread


Buttermilk pancakes with vanilla mascarpone cream, strawberries and maple syrup

I urge everybody who goes to Cork to visit this café!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Paris for Sweet Teeth

Finally I have made it back to Paris after 18 years! Wow, that just made me feel old...Anyways, let's get back to the subject here. My sister and I got to spend three nights in Paris with our beloved aunt. In anticipation of the trip I went nearly crazy ploughing through books and guides and blogs trying to figure out which patisseries and chocolate shops we would have to visit (since there's nothing else to do in Paris, right?). I spent hours putting together a list and then marking the addresses on the map. The good thing about all that extra work was that once in Paris there was no "uh, where should we go now?". It was more like "well, we could walk down this street a couple more yards and then turn left and check out this place...".

Here are my favorites, all of which have multiple branches in Paris and all of which are meticulously kept. Some department stores, such as the food court at Galeries Lafayette or publicisdrugstore also sell the products of these shops.

Pierre Hermé

We visited the branch on rue Cambon, right near the Jardin des Tuileries. They sold macaroons, chocolates, teas and other goodies, but no pastries. Although none of us three are really big fans of macaroons we decided to give Pierre Hermé a chance and bought a jasmine, a chocolate and an apricot-pistachio macaroon. We ate them later back at the room and all three of us were pleasantly surprised. We all agreed that the chocolate macaroon was the best, but that the delicate flowery taste of the jasmine macaroon was also very good. The apricot-pistachio one was too sour for our taste. On the last day we went back to Pierre Hermé and got some chocolates to try on the train ride back to Switzerland. We got Chloé (raspberry), Infiniment vanille (vanilla), Azur (lime and yuzu), Almera (almond with orange flavor), Ouvre-toi (sesame) and pietra (hazelnut praline). All six chocolates were fantastic. Next time I go to Paris I definitely want to try the pastries, which they carry at the rue Bonaparte branch.

Jean-Paul Hévin

Right near Pierre Hermé we visited Jean-Paul Hévin on rue Saint-Honoré. On the ground floor was the shop and on the first floor the salon du thé, the tea room. We only saw the shop, but I'd like to visit the tea room next time. The shop sold macaroons, pastries, chocolates and other goodies like chocolate covered nuts. We decided to get two pieces of cake, one with chocolate ganache and raspberry and one with chocolate ganache and tonka bean. We tried the cakes later back at the room. Both were outstanding in terms of quality, although the raspberry cake could have had a little more raspberry flavor in my opinion. The tonka bean cake was great because of all the different textures it had. It had the chocolate creaminess of the ganache, the light cakiness and a crunchy layer of nuts. However, I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the tonka bean as it has a sort of oily vanilla taste, the oily part being the problem. Next time I'd like to try the macaroons and the chocolates.

La Maison du Chocolat

At the rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré branch they sell chocolates, chocolate pearls for making hot chocolate, chocolate bars, and also macaroons and refrigerated desserts. They also had a freezer for ice cream, but it was empty. Maybe they only make it in summer. We tried a variety of chocolates: orange (I don't recall the name), Petit Rocher (almond and hazelnut), Anastasia (almond and hazelnut praliné), Cannelle (cinnamon), and Zagora (mint). We liked all of them. The mint was especially surprising because it tasted more like spearmint than peppermint, the usual mint flavor used in chocolates.

For more info check out these books:

The Patisseries of Paris by Jamie Cahill and Alison Harris

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

Paris kulinarisch: Einkaufen und geniessen by Pierre Rival and Christian Sarramon