Last Day of Christmas

Ok, I know, it's already gone by but I'm stretching the last day of Christmas to the 6th because today is Epiphany and I haven't made or even eaten any Galette des Rois to share with you. I am consoling myself by sharing my gingerbread house instead, and I feel that requires it still to be the Christmas season, so I declare today the 13th and final day of Christmas.

I made this house a few weeks before Christmas with some friends. We used an Epicurious method which appears slightly involved, but the gingerbread itself was fantastic and we followed our own method with building the house (see the dough and icing recipes below). It was really fun playing at being an architect, wax paper blueprints and all. Next year I am definitely building the mid-century bungalow that I was dreaming of this year.

This year's house itself has been destroyed (by a pair of sugar-high six-year-olds), but the photos remain...



Gingerbread and Royal Icing
(adapted from Bon Appetit, 2000 via epicurious.com)

6 3/4 cups all purpose flour
4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 cups solid vegetable shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup robust (dark) molasses

Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and cardamom into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat shortening in large bowl until fluffy. Add sugar and beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add molasses and beat on high speed until well blended. Add dry ingredients in 4 additions, beating at low speed until dough forms. Chill dough for at least one hour.

4 large egg whites
7 to 7 1/2 cups powdered white sugar

Using electric mixer, beat egg whites in medium bowl until very foamy, about 1 minute. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Beat until well blended. Add remaining cups sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating until well blended after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl occasionally.

Beat icing at high speed until very thick and stiff, about 5 minutes.

Æblewhat?

Æbleskiver (n., pl.)- Doesn't this word sound like something you might call a truant child, skiving off of school? Well it's not. Æbleskiver are spherical Danish pancakes. In English the word is most often written ebleskiver or aebleskiver according to my (mostly) trusty source Wikipedia.

Photo courtesy of Baking With Sourdough Starters

I came across these on Baking With Sourdough Starters via Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen. I just love discovering traditional foods, particularly baked goods, that I have never heard of before, and that fact that these fit so well into the brunch category couldn't suit me more. Just yesterday I whipped up a batch of buttermilk pancakes which were a little too fluffy for my liking. These aebleskiver look just right for me; the way you turn them gradually to make them into a sphere (with a convenient hole in the middle) is so charming. I'm thinking that a traditional prune jam filling would be quite nice... or maybe some custard? Or both...

I'm off to search for an aebleskiver pan online.

Arachnophilia

I love these chocolate spiders (by Not Martha on the Design*Sponge guest blog). Who knew Pocky were so versatile? I was thinking here in the United Kingdom we could substitute Cadbury's chocolate fingers. I bet some black licorice strings would work well too, although they aren't always a hit with the young folks.

The top spider is my favourite as he (or let's call it a "she", since in my mind she is a Black Widow) is so creepy because of the real resemblance to so many spiders I have met in the past, particularly big ones.

Not that any of us need suggestions of more sweets to eat tomorrow.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Deutschland und die Schweiz

Our recent trip to Germany and Switzerland was a welcome chance to re-visit the cuisine of a land often over-looked as being all sausage and fondue, no substance.

The real local market (affordable, shopable, friendly and without 29 different varieties of aged balsamic vinegar or hemp lavender pillows) lives on in Germany. We visited Kaiserslautern's "markt" on a particularly bountiful day in late August. The vendors are professionals who travel from market to market, a different town each day of the week, but who source the majority of their produce, cheese and meat from local growers and makers. The food is fantastic and lacks only pretension.

"Ringing fields cheese" - fresh cheese with wild garlic (aka ramps)

Blackberries from Donnersberg, a local village

Appropriately knobbly celeriac from the region, with greens

Peachy dahlias

"Own produce"

Just when I thought I was getting to know German cuisine I was caught by surprise by the most gorgeous, pillowy mound of yeasted dough with a crisp, buttery underbelly; The dampfnudel. They are panfried and steamed at the same time, much like potstickers. They were being served with vanilla custard, which I should have tried...

Recently I've started to warm to aspic, and that's something I never thought I would say. I love the refined sensibility of these open-faced sandwiches from Confiserie Sprungli in Zurich. The Swiss Fortnum and Mason's trademark is the Luxemburgerli, a puffy, lighter version of the French Macaron. Though I am still dedicated to Laduree's gorgeous sandwiched meringues, Luxemburgli are just as gorgeous and are delicious too.




We were very unlucky to come upon the food emporium H. Schwarzenbach (Munstergasse 19) on a Sunday afternoon when they were most definitely closed. Considering we had just come from Sprungli, that was probably a good thing since we didn't need to eat anything more, but it's definitely on my to do list for my next visit to Zurich. I wouldn't mind having a peek in the flats above either, with such fabulous doorbells they must be beautiful.

KUIDAORE

This is too beautiful not to share. Check out the gorgeousness of KUIDAORE, a new favourite food blog of mine (that's new to me, not new to the world). Joycelyn writes mostly, though not exclusively, about baking and sweet things. Her writing is engaging, her photos are delectable and I imagine her food is both.

Hausgemacht Fro-Yo

For all of the frozen yogurt lovers who were as disappointed with Pinkberry as I was (see the post), I think I may have found a good alternative. Heidi Swanson over at 101 Cookbooks just blogged about a great recipe from David Lebovitz's new book, The Perfect Scoop. It's simple (containing just yogurt and sugar, with optional vanilla) and adaptable, so you can make the frozen treat to your taste at home, which I am going to try as soon as possible. Check out her post for the recipe and gorgeous photograph.

Chocolate-induced stress

Perhaps you have suffered from it too? Chocolate anxiety; that feeling I get when I want to make the perfect creation of chocolatey goodness can’t find the right thing to make. The dreaded feeling happens most just before birthdays or parties. It helps to know that I am not the only one; according to Julia Moskin’s article on brownies in the New York Times, she suffers from the same thing. The quest for chocolate perfection.

I agree with Moskin on many points. I think it’s true that we have become too chocolate obsessed. No dessert menu is complete without death-by-chocolate this or that, or at least one of those omnipresent melt-in-the-middle warm cakes. I like them, don’t get me wrong, but enough is enough. And I am not the first person to feel this way – one-time chocoholic friends have said to me they are now happy to turn away an oozing cake for a fruit tart or crème caramel.

But some occasions still call for cocoa and brownies, as Julia points out, are the ideal fix for the home baker. They are reliable, as long as you get the cooking time right, and they almost always satisfy the desire for a rich, dense, dark chocolate treat. How could you go wrong? Julia takes offense to any additions other than walnuts and pecans. Though I agree that peanut butter, marshmallows and other flavourings are generally over the top, I must say that I often like nuts in my brownies. The bakery at St. John, in London, does a very fudgy version packed with brazils, almonds and hazelnuts (or at least from what I can identify) and it never fails to amaze me how well the flavours and textures meld together. At once dense, smooth, crunchy and soft, the nuts retain some of their natural character since they aren’t crisp and toasted.

My absolute favourite brownie, the one that I recommend to people the most, in fact the one that I make people try when walking past the store no matter what protests they throw at me, is the Boston brownie at London’s Konditor and Cook. This bakery has never failed me – everything I have ever bought there has been scrumptious - but their brownies are more than delicious; they are original and superlative at the same time. They are the best brownies I have ever had and at the same time different to any others I have tried. The key is the Bostonian element: the cranberries. Their occasional tanginess cuts through the richness of the chocolate and brings out the dark flavour at the same time. The cranberries are not overdone, in fact there are only a few in each brownie, but they make all the difference. Unfortunately I have not been able to get my hands on the Konditor and Cook recipe, but I will try. And if I don’t succeed, I will try my hand at recreating them next time the chocolate anxiety comes around. They could be just the thing for it.

Dear Santa...

When I went to Pinkberry last night I felt like a child who didn't quite get what they wished for for Christmas. It's as if I asked for an all-singing, all-dancing battery operated doll and received a "true to life" plastic doll instead. Still a nice present, but not quite the indulgence I was looking for.

Pinkberry has nice wrapping, as I suspected. The store is lit with what look to me like Le Klint pendant lamps, and, as I mentioned before, there are Philip Starck ghost chairs which lend an air of regality. Slightly incongruous were the Alessi kitchen gadgets lined on shelves, although they may have been for sale. I didn't inquire.

The interior design and the quality of the ingredients (fresh, not frozen, fruit and a good choice of other sugary toppings) were betrayed by the presentation of the toppings and the finished product. The fruit is kept in small sunken storage bins just as it might be at a sub sandwich chain. My cup definitely did not look like the perfectly coiffed swirl on the website. As you can see, the fresh, firm berries were jammed on top of the yogurt and had none of the artful placement that was advertised.

But more importantly, how does it taste? Well, it tastes healthy. It has the sourness of a more acidic yogurt and is lacking the creaminess of unctuous Greek yogurt because, well, it's non-fat. The cookies-and-cream and raspberry toppings I had were a perfect crunchy and fresh antidote to the sweet-tart frozen yogurt. Although there seemed to be an equal distribution of consumers of the plain and green tea flavours, we tried the green tea and weren't terribly impressed; it had a loud green tea after taste but was very watery at first.

As my companion said, "it's not as good as ice cream," but the comparison is probably unfair. I wasn't expecting ice cream, but I was expecting something better than other frozen yogurts I've tried in the past, and this just wasn't it. Yogen Fruz is still top of the list. Now they just need to open one in NYC.

Designer "Fro-Yo"

I can’t wait to try pinkberry. A friend told me that it has taken SoCal by storm – to the extent that it is bothering him that people won’t stop talking about it. Apparently everyone says their frozen yogurt 'really tastes like yogurt'. I’ve got to try some. I didn’t even know that it existed, let alone that there are three branches in New York. I already have a soft spot (excuse the pun) for Yogen Fruz, so let’s see how pinkberry measures up. From what I can see on the website the décor is definitely a step up from the Fruz's, including Philip Starck ghost chairs. Not too shabby.