Brioche French Toast with Pears & Walnuts in Gingered Maple Brandy Sauce

Only when I have company do I ever make something special for breakfast. Yesterday it was Denis Cotter's Brioche French Toast with Pears & Walnuts in Gingered Maple Brandy Sauce from his book For the Love of Food, the second breakfast recipe I've tried from the cookbook after buttermilk pancakes. Absolutely delicious! Although the lime mascarpone was yummy, we didn't feel it added much value to the dish. We were perfectly happy with the toast and the pear sauce. 

For the lime mascarpone

100 g/ 3 1/2 oz mascarpone

100 ml/ 3 1/2 fl oz double cream, whipped to soft peaks

finely grated zest of 1 lime

For the French toast

2 eggs

100 ml/ 3 1/2 fl oz milk

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 vanilla pod, interior pulp only (I used vanilla extract)

4 slices brioche

about 15g/ 1/2 oz butter

For the pears and walnuts in gingered maple brandy sauce

50 g/ 2 oz butter

2 medium pears, cored and thickly sliced lengthways

1 piece of stem ginger in syrup, thinly sliced (I just used ground ginger)

3 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp brandy

1 tbsp chopped walnuts

First prepare the lime mascarpone: beat the mascarpone to soften it and fold in the whipped cream and lime zest. 

Make the French toast: whisk the eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla together in a large bowl. Soak the brioche slices for 1 minute in this egg mixture.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F/ gas mark 4. 

Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Remove the brioche slices from the egg mixture and place 2 of them in the pan. Cook on one side until golden, then turn and repeat with the other side. Repeat with the remaining slices, adding a little more butter if necessary, and arrange on an oven tray.

Place the tray in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Make the pears and walnuts in gingered maple brandy sauce: in another frying pan, heat 15g/ 1/2 oz of the butter over medium heat and sauté the pear slices in it for 5-7 minutes, turning them to color all sides. Add the ginger, maple syrup and brandy, and continue cooking for a further minute.

Remove from the heat and add the walnuts and the remaining butter to give the sauce a pouring consistency. 

Serve 2 slices of toast per portion, topped with the pears, walnuts and sauce poured over. Add a dollop of the mascarpone and serve. 

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I love the combination of sugar, nuts and cinnamon. That's exactly what makes this sour cream coffee cake delicious. I was flipping through The Essential Baker looking for inspiration for an afternoon cake to serve my friends and came across this recipe. I hadn't had coffee cake in a while and it sounded easy to make so I went for it. It did turn out to be very easy and quick to make. And it tastes really good! Guess what's for breakfast tomorrow...

6 ounces (165 g/ 12 tablespoons/ 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350°F (177°C). Generously butter the inside of a 9 1/2-inch (26 cm) round spring-form pan. In a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until it's fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar and cream together well. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the sour cream and vanilla and blend together thoroughly. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Add the salt and toss together to blend. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 3 stages, blending thoroughly after each. 

For the topping, combine the walnuts, sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl and toss together to blend thoroughly.

Transfer half of the batter to the prepared pan. Use a rubber spatula to spread it evenly. Sprinkle half the topping over the batter in the pan. Transfer the remaining batter to the pan and spread it out evenly over the topping. Sprinkle the remaining topping over the batter. Bake the cake for 40-45 minutes until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a rack. 

Moroccan Chicken

I have a new favorite recipe that is easy and delicious. I love recipes that let you just throw everything into one pot et voilà! The recipe is Chicken with caramelized baby onions and honey from the Moroccan part of Claudia Roden's cookbook "Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, & Lebanon". I serve it with couscous: 1 part couscous to two parts water. Put the water into a pot, add salt, freshly ground black pepper and a swig of olive oil. Once it boils, remove from the heat, add the couscous and let it soak up all the water. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes. 

Serves 4

1 pound shallots or baby onions

1 onion, chopped

4 tablespoons sunflower oil (I used olive oil)

good pinch of saffron threads

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 chicken, cut up in 6 or 8 pieces

salt and black pepper

1-11/2 tablespoons clear honey

To garnish: 1/2 cup blanched almonds or a handful of sesame seeds (optional)

To peel the shallots or baby onions, blanch them in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain, and when cool enough to handle, peel off the skins and trim the root ends (I just peeled the shallots by hand). 

Sauté the chopped onion until softened in the oil over a medium heat in a pan or casserole large enough to hold the chicken pieces in one layer. Stir in the saffron, ginger, and cinnamon, then put in the chicken pieces. Season with salt and pepper, and turn to brown them lightly all over. 

Add about 1 cup water and cook, covered, over a low heat, turning the pieces over, for 15 minutes, or until the chicken breasts are done. Lift out the breasts and put them to one side. Add the shallots or baby onions and continue to cook, covered, for about 25 minutes, or until the remaining chicken pieces are very tender. During the cooking, turn the chicken pieces and stir the onions occasionally; add a little water, if necessary. 

Lift out the chicken pieces and set to one side. Stir the honey into the pan. Check the seasoning. You need quite a bit of pepper to mitigate the sweetness. Cook, uncovered, until all the water has evaporated, and the onions are brown, caramelized, and so soft that you could crush them, as they say in Morocco, "with your tongue". 

Return the chicken pieces to the pan, spoon the onions on top of them, and heat through. A few minutes should be enough. Serve, if you wish, sprinkled either with blanched almonds fried in a drop of oil until they are lightly golden, or with toasted sesame seeds. 

Amsterdam: The city of Appeltaart and Slagroom

This time I decided not to research restaurants too much before heading to Amsterdam. I thought for once I'd wing it. Turns out that wasn't such a good idea. I didn't see Mark Bittman's recent article on good Dutch restaurants in Amsterdam till after my stay but he does make a point in that it's hard to find actual Dutch food there. Guess it's back to thorough research for whatever my next trip is. I did, however, find one restaurant before I left for Amsterdam that I would have loved to try but knew I wouldn't feel like trekking out to all by myself as it wasn't anywhere near my hotel: Restaurant de Kas. I love the idea of them using their own grown produce in their dishes to create seasonal and local fare. 

Most of what I ended up eating in Amsterdam was comfort food. I arrived early Saturday morning and was starving by the time lunch rolled around. I decided to go for a pannenkoek (a pancake), which is a common Dutch food, and went to The Pancake Bakery which Lonely Planet and The New York Times both recommend. I went for a pancake with cheese, ham and onions. If you're starving and want to put yourself in a food coma, then that's definitely the place to go!

Although I was stuffed after lunch I decided to go to Villa Zeezicht (Torensteeg 7) to enjoy a piece of their famous appeltaart met slagroom (apple pie with whipped cream). Definitely not the smartest thing to do but I was able to enjoy it nonetheless. 

Appeltaart is available in many cafés. On Sunday I had a slice at Café Nielsen (Berenstraat 19) after eating a veggie sandwich that was good but not special. The apple pie definitely made up for the sandwich. It had tons of cinnamon and was served with a nice portion of slagroom. Although it looks like a lot on the photo, most of it is unfortunately air. A cup of hot chocolate went well with the cake but I could only stomach it because I had spent a few hours at the Tropenmuseum in the morning and had worked up quite an appetite.

Amsterdam really catered to my current whipped cream addiction. Monday morning I went to the Dutch chain Coffee Company for breakfast. I had a fruit and nut muffin (tasted like it had flavorings in it, which I really don't care for, but at least the texture was good) and a panna montata, which is a strong coffee with milk topped with whipped cream. While I was deciding which drink I should get I told the girl at the counter that I really wanted a drink with whipped cream so she asked me whether she should put as much as possible on and I said "yes". She put so much whipped cream on top that by the time I got all comfy at my table it was starting to melt and drip down the side. A little girl nearby was so fascinated by the whipped cream that she kept saying "ijsje", the Dutch word for ice cream. It really did look like an ice cream cone.

Good thing I did decide to do some research on foodie places Sunday night and found out that what I had thought was a jewelry or fashion shop was in fact a chocolate shop selling locally made chocolates: Puccini Bomboni. I bought myself a box of chocolates to try as well as some presents to take back home. The chocolates were very fresh but a little on the sweet side for me. My favorite one was the raspberry. I got marzipan bars topped with almonds as well as chocolate-covered almonds to take home. The marzipan bars were good but the almonds on top could have been crunchier, as crunchy as the chocolate-covered ones, which are really good. 

Chocolate-Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Sheet cake sure doesn't sound fancy but it can taste fancy! When I was looking for a dessert to take to a friend's house for dinner I looked for recipes containing buttermilk and pecans as I had them on stock and came across this yummy recipe on epicurious.com. The chocolate chips in the cake part are a nice sweet surprise to bite into. The cake part could probably use a little less sugar as it's quite sweet. But the recipe is definitely worth trying. It's very easy to make and therefore lends itself to using your imagination with the topping and also with goodies thrown into the cake part. I could imagine adding cranberries to the topping and shredded coconut to the cake part. Delish. Enjoy!

Makes 24 servings

1 cup water

1 cup (2 sticks, 220g) butter, at room temperature (the recipe calls for margarine, but I prefer butter)

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use sunflower)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 pound (about 4 cups, 450 g) powdered sugar

1/3 cup whole milk

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350° F (177°C). Butter and flour 15.5/10.5/1-inch baking sheet. Whisk 1 cup water, 1/2 cup (110g) butter, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Whisk in sugar, flour, salt, then buttermilk and eggs. Spread batter in prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle batter with semisweet chocolate chips. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer cake in pan to rack.

Meanwhile, melt remaining 1/2 cup (110 g) butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Whisk in powdered sugar, whole milk, remaining 3 tablespoons cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Spread frosting over warm cake. Sprinkle with nuts. Cool cake completely in pan. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.) Cut into 24 pieces.