Brownies with chocolate chunks and nuts

I've tried so many brownie recipes already but it doesn't keep me from trying new ones. This weekend I tried a recipe off  the BBC food website (follow this link). I used the base recipe and then added what I wanted. That's the cool thing about brownies. You can add whatever you want just not too much so the brownies don't fall apart from the weight of things like chocolate chips and nuts. I added the pecans and white chocolate mentioned in the recipe, but did not add the milk chocolate. Instead I added dark chocolate chunks, some hazelnuts and some shredded coconut. The brownies turned out heavenly.

The Dogs Restaurants in Edinburgh

Ever since I started reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club series, which takes place in Edinburgh, I've been wanting to visit the Scottish capital. I finally had the chance to do just that. Scotland really is a beautiful place and is beautiful thanks to the frequent showers that like to surprise innocent tourists such as myself. One minute the sun will be shining, the next minute a cloud dark as slate will pour its insides out right over your head. It could happen that you'll be standing in the rain on one side of the street and the people on the other side of the street will be enjoying the dry sun (that's an adapted quotation from a Scotswoman). 

My favorite restaurant experiences are when I randomly come across a restaurant, decide it looks good judging by the exterior (yes, looks do count!) and the menu, and it turns out to be good! This was the case with the group of restaurants The Dogs, Amore Dogs and Seadogs in Edinburgh. What I like about the three restaurants is that they are minimalist but still stylish and the food is unpretentious, fresh, and delicious. Amore Dogs and The Dogs, both located on Hanover Street, were on our way from town to our B&B so we passed them a few times and finally decided to eat at Amore Dogs, the Italian restaurant of the Dogs restaurant group. 

At Amore Dogs my friend and I both went for the coley (a.k.a pollock) with olive crushed potatoes and lemon and caper sauce. It was very good. For dessert I chose the chocolate, pear and almond cake. Little did I know that it would be served with balsamic vinegar caramel sauce. I took one taste and twisted my face. I'm not one for mixing flavors generally associated with savory foods with sweet foods. Otherwise, the cake was outstanding offering the perfect amount of chocolatiness and sweetness. As we were leaving I asked the waitress for a business card and she explained that there were two other restaurants belonging to the same owner: The Dogs and Seadogs. The Dogs is located right next door to Amore Dogs, whereas Seadogs is located within walking distance. 

Since we enjoyed Amore Dogs so much, we decided to try The Dogs the following evening. The Dogs was the first of the three restaurants to open up and features Scottish cuisine. My friend and I once again ordered the same thing: fidget pie with boiled cabbage. The fidget pie was described as gammon, pots, apples, sage, onions & cider. I had to ask what gammon and pots were. "Gammon" is ham and "pots" are potatoes. Talk about comfort food! It was very, very good. Along with my meal I decided to have Crabbie's, an alcoholic ginger ale or ginger beer as they call it in Britain. At first I found it a little watery, but after a while the ginger flavor lingered and it became quite tasty!

Of course you can't go to Britain without eating fish and chips! So that's exactly what I had on our last night when we went to Seadogs. You could choose between coley, haddock, smoked hake, rainbow trout and whitebait for the fish and beer batter, oats or grilled for the way the fish was cooked. I chose haddock in oats. The fish was very good and I really liked the oat batter because it didn't seem as greasy as beer batter although it must have been fried as well. The mushy peas that came with the fish were also very good. The first time I'd had mushy peas was at a pub in Ireland last year and they were absolutely hideous. For dessert my friend and I couldn't help trying the raspberry and whisky trifle. It turns out there are lots of different kinds of trifle. I thought trifle always had sponge cake in it, but this one didn't. And I also thought trifle always had fresh fruit in it, but this one had a raspberry jello in it. The sweetend whipped cream on top and the vanilla custard sauce (which I assume had the whisky in it, although I couldn't taste it) were delicious. The raspberry jello on the other hand was a new thing for me. It didn't taste like much on its own. Nevertheless the dessert was very good. 

Next time I'll also have to try Underdogs, the bar located beneath Amore Dogs.

Eiskaffee at Teufelhof Café in Basel

Currently I'm addicted to "Eiskaffee" at Teufelhof Café. There's always some sweet thing I'm addicted to - cheesecake at Tibits, Schoggiweggli (a sweet bun dotted with chocolate chunks) at Bachmann and on and on... 

Mostly known in German-speaking countries, Eiskaffee is a type of ice cream sundae that usually consists of two scoops of vanilla ice cream, espresso in the best case or regular coffee in the worst case, and a topping of whipped cream. My favorite Eiskaffee in Basel is served at Teufelhof Café. It's my favorite because they use home-made vanilla ice cream, which is by far much better than most store-bought kinds often used at other cafés. 

The Teufelhof Café is one of my favorite places to go because due to its location slightly off the main shopping streets it's usually not crowded on a Saturday afternoon when I like to go and they have nice outside garden seating as well as cozy inside seating with comfy chairs and stylish marble tables. 

Buttermilk Pancakes

One of my favorite things about holidays and having guests over is that I get to eat things for breakfast I normally wouldn't eat because I don't usually take the time to make something elaborate. On Good Friday I decided to make buttermilk pancakes from Denis Cotter's brilliant new cookbook "for the love of food." They didn't quite turn out as aesthetically pleasing as the ones we had at his restaurant Cafe Paradiso last summer (this was probably due to my frying pan and not having the temperature of my stove under total control). Nonetheless they were delicious and very easy to make, and have definitely made my list of favorite recipes. Can't wait to try another recipe from this lovely new cookbook. 

for 4-6

260g/9 1/2 oz plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda 

2 1/2 tbsp caster sugar 

1/2 tsp salt

450ml/16 fl oz buttermilk

4 tbsp sunflower oil

2 eggs, separated

clarified butter, for cooking (I used regular butter)

to serve

fresh fruit

honey (I prefer maple syrup!)

lightly whipped double cream

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and salt together into a large bowl. In another bowl, stir together the buttermilk, oil and egg yolks. Stir this liquid into the dry ingredients, without mixing too much. 

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, and fold them into the batter. 

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Brush it with clarified butter and add separate tablespoonfuls of the batter to the pan. Fry the pancakes until lightly colored, then flip them over to cook the other side until they become light and fluffy. The pancakes can be served immediately or kept warm in an oven at low heat. 

Serve 2 or 3 pancakes per portion, with fruit, honey and lightly whipped cream. 

Apple Berry Crumble

What better way to spend a Sunday than making a crumble? I had some apples and frozen berries that I wanted to use up so I tried my first recipe from Cooking with Apples and Pears by Laura Washburn. I made a slightly different version as I had some slivered almonds I wanted to use up and instead of the fresh blackberries I used frozen mixed berries. It turned out really well and due to the slivered almonds the topping was a little crunchy, which I really liked. 

4-6 servings

900g apples, peeled, cored, cut into small pieces

450g blackberries

50g sugar

For the crumble

80g oats

140g flour

80g light brown sugar

80 g ground almonds

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

150g butter, cut into pieces

Preheat the oven to 200°C (390° F).

Mix the apples, berries and sugar in a bowl and put this mixture into a buttered baking pan.

For the crumble mix oats, flour, sugar, almonds and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the butter and rub into mixture until you get coarse crumble. Top the fruit with the crumble and bake 35-40  minutes until the crumble turns golden brown and the fruit bubbly. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream made with vanilla extract and powdered sugar.