Christmas cookies

This post marks the end of the most wonderful time of the year.  At least for now.  Next Christmas you can expect to be overflown and overwhelmed by new holiday recipes, as it just happens to be so that I'm a huge fan of that season.  But first - a last glimpse of this year's cookies.

Of course you can bake these cookies at any time of the year - just use different shapes of cookie cutters (you can also use a glass with a thin edge, and make round ones).  
They are simply sooo delicious -- light and crumbly, but very rich in flavor -- and easy to make.  Once you try them, you'll want to bake them all the time!

These cookies were my favorite when I was a kid (not only because they are so good).  Cutting out the various shapes, punching tiny wholes, threading the baked cookies with a golden ribbon, and hanging them on the Christmas tree - it was all part of the holiday experience!  Definitely a fun way to spend in the kitchen if you have kids (or are a big kid yourself).

The cookies are made out of the very best shortcrust pastry -- the same one I use for the poppy seed almond cake, and many other cakes.  This time I added some lemon zest to the dough, which gave extra freshness and flavor to the cookies.  I sprinkled the cookies with coarse sugar and used egg whites as glue.  You can also add orange or grapefruit zest to the dough, or decorate with almonds, walnuts or icing (the latter - once the cookies are baked).  The sky is the limit!  They are bound to turn out great no matter what :-)

Before & after

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 200 g of good quality butter
• 100 g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence or scraped out vanilla seeds from 1 bean)
• Zest of 1 lemon (optional)
• A few tbsp of coarse sugar (optional)
• 1 egg white (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
• Roughly chop the butter (makes it easier to kneed the dough) and put in a bowl with the rest of the  ingredients, except for the coarse sugar and egg whites.  Kneed the dough until it forms a uniform ball (I did it by hand, but you can of course use a food processor).
• Put the dough in the fridge for an hour or two, or in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
• Take out of the fridge/freezer.  Using a roller, roll out the dough until it's around 2 mm thick.  Cut out shapes.  Take the left-over dough, form a ball, and repeat the process.  Do so until there is no more dough left.
• Line a baking tray with parchment paper.  Put the cookies on the tray.  Punch small wholes with two toothpicks (if you want to hang the cookies later).  Sprinkle with the coarse sugar, top off with a bit of egg white (the latter is not necessary as the sugar will hold anyway).
• Bake for around 10-15 minutes until golden.  Monitor the baking closely, especially towards the end, as they cookies can burn very fast.

Bon appetit!

Poppy seed and almond cake

There are cakes, and there are cakes.  What is this hardly enlightening statement trying to convey?  Well, there are cakes that are pleasantly decent: tasty, good or even delicious (after all - who doesn't like a solid cake, right?).  But there are also cakes, though very few, that are simply irresistible: so heavenly, exquisite and unforgettable that they are a class of their own, and often remain a family treasure for generations.  Indeed, they can even revolutionize lives! 

This poppy seed almond cake has been in my family for three generations: my grandma made it, then my mum, and now I'm making it every Christmas period.  Rumor has it, that when my parents started dating my dad gave a piece of this cake to my mum, and by doing so won her heart.  If that's not revolutionary, I don't know what is!

So why is this cake so extraordinary?  Well, imagine the most delicate, buttery shortcrust pastry bottom, topped off with a 6 cm thick layer of smooth, rich and fluffy poppy seed mixture, flavored with the best honey and almonds, packed with raisins and walnuts -- and finished off with a layer of golden baked almonds.  Need I say more?

Nonetheless, some of you may be a bit surprised and thinking "who in the right mind puts this much poppy seeds in a cake?!  Aren't poppy seeds supposed to be sprinkled scarcely on bread and eaten in small amounts?"  Mind you, when I was growing up in the Netherlands and told my friends of the various Polish poppy seed cakes, they all thought I was some kind of opium addict (I'm not kidding).  But please be assured -- you will not become a drug addict by eating this cake (though you will most definitely get addicted to it).  When properly prepared and ground, poppy seeds are soft and fluffy - not at all like those whole seeds sprinkled on bread.

But no pain, no gain: such an exquisite treat comes with a price.  Not only do you have to prepare the shortcrust pastry bottom, whisk eight egg whites, and prepare the poppy seed layer.  Before you do all this, you also need to cook and grind the poppy seeds.  Twice!  This has to to be done in order for the poppy seeds to become soft and flavorful -- as opposed to hard and grainy, like sand.  

Since making the cake requires so much work, it's good to make a family event out of preparing it: the men can grind the poppy seeds and/or mix the butter, sugar and eggs for the top layer (traditionally with a wooden spoon, which requires a great deal of strength -- though nowadays this can of course be done in a food processor).  The women can prepare the shortcrust pastry, decorate the cake, and do what women do best: supervise and give orders ;-)

Below is a brief picture summary of the process (specific directions below). 

BASE

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 200 g of good quality butter
• 100 g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence or scraped out vanilla seeds from 1 bean)
• Natural almond aroma (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Roughly chop the butter (makes it easier to kneed the dough) and put in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients.  Kneed the dough until it forms a uniform ball (I did it by hand, but you can of course use a food processor).
• Line a big square baking tin with parchment paper (also on the sides and sticking out of the tin - it will help lift the cake out of the tin once baked).
• Distribute the dough evenly in the tin, forming 2-3 cm high edges (the base will better hold the poppy seed layer).  Punch holes with a fork on the bottom of the cake.
• Put the tin in the fridge for an hour or two, or in the freezer for around 30 minutes.
• Take out of the fridge/freezer and bake around 20 minutes until golden.

POPPY SEED LAYER

Ingredients:

• 500 g of good quality poppy seeds
• 300 g of good quality butter
• 150 g of (brown) sugar
• 4 large tbsp of honey
• 5 eggs
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tbsp of breadcrumbs
• 200 g of whole peeled almonds
• 70 g of raisins
• 70 g of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Natural almond aroma
• A splash of milk (optional)
• 1 tsp of sugar (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC (or just leave it on after baking the base).
• Rinse the poppy seeds (not easy!), put in a big pan with filled with cold water, bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 minutes.  Turn the heat off and let the seeds cool down a bit.  Strain the poppy seeds thoroughly (again - not easy!).  Try to get all the water out of there - you might need to strain twice or three times.  Once you got rid of the water, grind the poppy seeds twice with a grinder.  
• Wash the raisins and put them in a small pan, adding a splash of milk and some sugar to taste (1 tsp).  Bring to a boil, let simmer for a couple of minutes.  Strain.
• Mix the butter, sugar and honey in a big bowl until the mixture starts getting white and fluffy.  One by one, add 5 egg yolks (keep the whites in a separate bowl for later), mixing after each yolk. 
• In a separate bowl whisk 8 egg whites (5 from the yolks + 3 additional ones) until completely stiff.
• Add the ground poppy seeds to the butter/sugar mixture and stir thoroughly.  Add the bread crumbs, strained raisins, chopped walnuts and almond aroma.  Mix thoroughly.  
• Fold in the egg whites to the poppy seed mixture - one spoon at a time, mixing very gently to retain the lightness of the egg whites.
• Spread evenly over pre-baked shortcrust bottom.  Decorate with almonds.
• Bake for around 30 minutes.  Let cool down completely before taking out of the tin.
• Sit down and have a drink, because you've really deserved it!!!

Bon appetit!

In the beginning was THE CAKE...

... and what a cake!  Rich and moist, aromatic like spiced gingerbread - yet with a distinct dark chocolate flavor.  And let's not forget the exquisite ginger ale icing, which finishes off the cake perfectly.  An ideal treat to have on a cold winter afternoon with a cup of strong black coffee (...while sitting in a comfortable armchair, enjoying the cheerful crackling of the fireplace and watching snowflakes cover the winter wonderland outside -- but let's not get too carried away).

I decided to add this chocolate gingerbread to this year's Christmas repertoire as an experiment.  At first it was received with a bit of skepticism (also by myself), but turned out to be a favorite among the other holiday treats.  I will definitely make it again next year.  

The recipe is a slightly adapted version of Nigella's Chocolate Gingerbread.

CAKE

Ingredients:

• 175 g butter
• 175 g dark muscovado sugar
• 200 g golden syrup
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tbsp warm water
• 2 eggs
• 250 ml milk
• 275 g plain flour
• 40 g cocoa
• 200 g chopped bitter chocolate

Directions: 

• Preheat the oven to 170ºC.  Line the bottom of a round baking tin (23 cm in diameter) with baking parchment.
• Melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup and ground spices in a big pan.  Take the pan off the heat.
• In a separate cup, dissolve the bicarbonate in warm water. 
• Add the milk, eggs and dissolved bicarbonate to the butter/sugar mixture and whisk together.  Add the cocoa and flour and stir thoroughly.  Finally add the chopped chocolate and stir again.
• Pour the mixture to the baking tin.  Bake for about 50 minutes, let cool.

ICING

Ingredients:

• 250 g icing sugar
• 30 g butter
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 60 ml ginger ale
• 50 g of roughly chopped walnuts

Directions: 

• Melt the first four ingredients in a a small pan.  Let cool and thicken a bit, and pour over cake.
• Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

Bon appetit!