Happy Birthday Cake: chocolate-orange cheesecake

Hello world!  Did you miss me?  I sure missed you :) A great many things have been going on in my life during the last months (very exciting times!) and I’m afraid I neglected the blog a little bit because of all this excitement…  More than a little bit actually.  In fact so much that I even forgot to celebrate its first anniversary…  That's right, my dear people, the blog turned one!  And as every proud mother I'm thinking to myself "wow, they grow up so fast...".  

Bottom line is: it’s high time to celebrate, so here we are: starting the 2014 blogging year with a birthday cake!

NOT a traditional layered birthday cake though!  To tell you the truth I hate traditional birthday cakes.  I really dislike the soft sponge cake, made unappetizingly soggy by means of some kind of suspicious liquid.  Equally, I am not a fan of butter cream fillings, because they usually are tasteless and remind me of nothing else than butter itself.  To be honest, I’m even not a huge fan of whipped cream (many of you might be frowning now).  Yep, you heard me.  

Instead, I like my cakes dense, solid, heavy and rich.  None of that fluffy-soggy-airy stuff.  That’s why I prepared a properly rich chocolate orange cheesecake – a much worthier birthday cake in my book.

The divine combination of chocolate and orange flavors is something I only recently discovered.  I would have never guessed they go so well together!  I heard of the match before, but it always seemed a bit weird to me, if anything.  Yet once I tried it - I was sold.  And determined to convince everybody else to try out this great combination.  

Somehow the vibrant, citrussy orange zest sparkles (figuratively and literally) in the deep smoothness and earthiness of dark chocolate.  It gives a surprising, yet fantastic twist to chocolate, and brings out qualities you would have never associated with it.  Zest is very powerful, and adds much more flavor than juice.  It's so fine, that you don't taste its texture - a great advantage to me, as I wouldn't like to chew on bits of orange peel while eating a cheesecake.  Despite zest being so fine - or maybe because of it - it conquers the entire cake with its sweet and fresh flavor.

This cheesecake perfectly captures the happy marriage of chocolate and orange.  It is quite heavy, rich and very smooth.  Almost like a cheesecake ganache.  A generous piece can satisfy even the most fervent chocoholic.  The digestive-almond crust works as a perfect background - it does not overpower the chocolate/orange flavor, but just gives a nice crunchy variation in texture, and adds a roasted, nutty aftertaste.  I highly recommend using dark chocolate here, because it will deepen the flavor and work better with the orange.  If you want to make the cheesecake a bit lighter and less dense, try replacing half of the cream cheese with mascarpone.

I waited long before trying out this recipe - do not make the same mistake.  Just imagine sliding your fork into this dense, smooth texture and experiencing the intense, zesty richness of every divine bite...  Need I say more...?

DIRECTIONS:
Recipe adapted from Dorotus’ blog.

Ingredients:

•                180 g dark chocolate digestives

•                60 g almonds

•                80 g butter (melted)

•                600 g cream cheese (room temperature)

•                3 eggs (room temperature)

•                180 g dark chocolate

•                zest of 2 oranges

•                150 ml cream (room temperature)

•                140 g of brown sugar

•                small shot of Cointreau (30 ml)

Directions:

•                Crush the biscuits in a food processor, or by hand (you can put them in a ziploc bag and crush with a rolling pin).  Chop the almonds finely and roast in a dry pan, until golden brown.  Add to the digestives, then add the melted butter.  Distribute evenly on the bottom of a round baking tray (lined with parchment paper and 24 cm in diameter), and push down with your fingers or the bag of a spoon.  Let cool in the fridge.

•                Preheat the over to 160°C.

•                Melt the chocolate au bain-marie (glass bowl over a pot with boiling water).  Let cool down a bit.

•               Mix the cream cheese, egg, sugar and cream until smooth.  Add the Cointreau and cooled down chocolate, and mix again (don’t over-mix).

•                Pour mixture over cooled biscuit bottom. Bake for around 90 minutes.  Let cool and put in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

Bon appetit!

Pecan pie & small pleasures in life

What I liked the most in the movie "Amélie" (or "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain") was the admiration for small pleasures in life.  I have a list of quite a few of such small pleasures, that make a grey day just a bit more colorful.  The silky milk foam on a expresso-enforced latte, sprinkled with cinnamon or nutmeg.  A long bath, with aromatic bath salts, relaxing music, candles and a glass of wine.  The smell of fresh hay.  Curling up near a heater with a good book, watching it rain cats and dogs outside.  Melting chocolate au-bain-marie and making swirls with the spoon in the glossy mixture.   A cup of hot lemon & honey tea when you have a cold.  Waking through fresh, virgin-white snow.  The radio playing your favorite song and you singing as loud as you can with it.  Kicking off your shoes on this first warm spring day and feeling the grass under your bare feet.  The smell of freshly roasted nuts...   

Speaking of freshly roasted nuts -- the unquestionable stars of this pie are the dashing pecans.  And pecans are your typical top-knotch stars: expensive, luxurious and a tad mysterious (is the pronunciation "pee-kahns", "pi-kahns" or "pee-cans"?!).  I didn't grow up with pecans -- we always had walnuts instead.  The nuts are very similar in appearance and taste, yet still different.  Pecans are much softer in flavor and physical characteristics, more buttery, a tad sweeter.  They are the more sophisticated brother of walnuts -- the star of the family.

This pecan pie is unique in flavor, thanks to the golden syrup -- there is nothing like it!  It's quite sweet, but absolutely divine, so you can't stop eating it (you have been warned).  The rich taste of crunchy roasted pecans is elevated by the honey-like, rich filling, and perfectly completed by the shortbread crust.  Serving the pie with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream is a must for me - as it balances the sweetness with a fresh, milky touch.  Nothing left to say but: enjoy this divine pie!

INGREDIENTS

Base:

• 185 g flour
• 50 g fine sugar
• 125 g cold butter, roughly chopped
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp ice water

Filling:

• 300 g pecans (or walnuts)
• 6 egg yolks
• 175 g golden syrup (I tried honey & molasses mixed half-half: works very well too)
• 100 g dark brown sugar
• 90 g butter (melted)
• 80 ml cream

DIRECTIONS:

• Mix all the ingredients of the base in a mixer (or knead by hand) until the dough forms a ball.  Butter a tart form (preferably with removable bottom) and distribute the dough evenly, also on the sides of the form.  Refrigerate for approx. 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Remove the base from the fridge and punch little whole in the bottom with a fork.  Cover with parchment paper and put ceramic balls on top (you could also use beans or rice) - this will prevent the base from rising.  Bake for around 15 minutes, remove the paper and bake for another 5 minutes.
• Roast the pecans in a dry pan, until fragrant (watch out not to burn them).  Put the nuts on the pre-baked base.
• Mix all the ingredients of the filling until they form a smooth mixture.  Pour over the nuts.
• Bake for approx. 30 minutes (same temperature).  Let cool and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

The recipe comes from the Polish blog Moje Wypieki.

Bon appetit!

Plum Cake & how to enjoy Autumn

Autumn rarely gets the credit it deserves.  People tend to favor hot summer days, crisp winter snow or the fresh spring breeze.  Nonetheless, autumn is the most picturesque season - that is if you're lucky enough to get some sunshine and a clear blue sky.

On sunny autumn days, Mother Nature paints the most colorful and elaborate pictures.  Bright reds dancing with yellows and oranges, mosaics of all sorts of leafs covering the ground, and the contrast between already bare, sad tree branches, and the still covered die-hards.  Such days are a huge inspiration to me - I just can't resist grabbing my camera, and going out for hours and hours of exploring, admiring and capturing this dazzling, flamboyant beauty.

These pictures were taken in November in Philadelphia, where I lived at the time. I'd been wanting to capture the autumn colors for a while, and when the right sunny weekend came, I ventured on the quest. I was so hungry for nice shots, that I walked and walked for hours, not even noticing I spent almost an entire day taking pictures. A day very well spent, in my book ;-)

But even when it's gloomy and rainy outside - autumn has its charms. Don't you ever feel like not doing anything particularly "ambitious" on a free day? Just curling up under a blanket, with a good book in one hand and a cup of hot lemon & honey tea in the other. In my always-busy-and-hectic-every-day-life I truly long for such cosy moments of peace. 

However, I find you can only enjoy such days when it's pouring with rain and gloomy outside. Nice weather lures me out: I want to go running, cycling, taking pictures: OUT. But when it's cold and wet, I feel absolutely no urge to go outside. Watching the rain fall and hearing the wind blow while you're sitting next to a heater (nice & cosy; dry & warm) makes you feel so safe and peaceful. Autumn is great for such slow-paced and easy-going moments.

The great thing about autumn is also the produce available during this season. Fragrant apples, pears and plums, fresh walnuts and hazelnuts, chestnuts, and let's not forget Queen Pumpkin. With such delicious fruits and veggies at hand, the range of autumn recipes is endless. Hearty soups, warming you up on cold, long evenings; roasted root vegetables; purées, mashes and stews of all kind.  And of course, the many great desserts: pumpkin bread or pie, plum crumbles, upside-down pear cakes, caramelized apples, cranberry cheesecakes... this divine list goes on and on.  This recipe is one of my favorite desserts during plum season.

This plum cake is the definition of what I know to be good old-fashioned, home-made cake.  Simple, not too fancy-schmancy, but so delicious and homey.  The cake is moist, because of the the huge amount of added fruit, not too sweet, and topped of with a delicious crumble.  You can add almost any type of fruit to the cake - also frozen if you prefer (no need to defrost beforehand).  The recipe is foolproof, and always works.

The cake stays fresh for quite a few days, which means you can make a bigger batch at once, and enjoy it longer.  We all know, the world looks a little bit better with a piece of cake in your hand.  So go ahead, bake the cake and enjoy this beautiful autumn season!

CAKE INGREDIENTS (all at room temperature):

• 200 g butter
• 160 g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 200 g flour
• 40 g potato starch or 1 package of pudding powder mix (vanilla flavor, approx. 40 g)
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• a pinch of salt

CRUMBLE INGREDIENTS:

• 150 g flour
• 100 g cold butter
• 50 g powdered sugar

ALSO: 

• 800 g plums, halved and pitted (other fruit will also work, e.g. peaches, strawberries)

DIRECTIONS:

• Preheat the oven to 175ºC.
• Sift the flour, pudding powder and baking powder.
• Mix the butter in a mixer until light and fluffy.  Keep on mixing and add the sugar and salt.  Add the eggs, one by one, mixing after every addition.
• Add the dry ingredients to the butter mix, and stir them in with a spatula until just combined (don't over-stir).
• Line a baking tray (20 x 30 cm) with parchment paper.  Transfer the batter onto the tray, even out.
• Distribute the plums evenly on the batter, skin side down.
• Prepare the crumble by quickly mixing the ingredients by hand.  Sprinkle on top of the plums.
• Bake for approx. 45 minutes.  Test if the cake is done wh a woden skewer / matchstick - if they still come out wet, bake a bit longer.

The recipe comes from Dorotus' blog (modified by me).

Bon appetit!

Easter memories & chocolate almond mazurek

Traditions.  Customs.  Family rituals.  I was brought up with tons of those, especially customs that apply during holiday season.  When it comes to such traditions I feel very lucky to be Polish, as we have plenty of really cool customs that have been cherished and nurtured for centuries.  I cannot imagine how plain and boring Easter holidays would be without them.  They are what glues families together, what accounts for hundreds of memories, and what makes home feel like home.  And as all great things -- they come at a price: lots of hard work and planning (a big chapeau bas for my Mum).  But they are totally worth it!

The profane traditions obviously evolve around food.  There are plenty of traditional dishes, such as the "white borscht" (barszcz biały or its variety żurek) -- a sour rye soup with white sausage, potatoes and eggs), white sausage served hot, baked pâté and slow-roasted meats, the famous Polish vegetable salad and various egg dishes.  There are also plenty of traditional desserts such as the babka (sweet yeast bundt cake, sort of like the Italian panettone, but less buttery), traditional cheesecakes, mazurek (see below) and a curd cheese dessert called pascha [pass-hah].

Traditional Easter activities include painting whole egg shells (you make holes on both sides of a raw egg, and blow the egg white and yolk out), preparing a basket with symbolic Easter foods and having it blessed in church on Holy Saturday, or abundantly spraying each other with water on Easter Monday, a day we call śmigus-dyngus or lany poniedziałek (both names basically signal you will get soaking wet that day).

And let's not forget the tradition cultivated at every holiday season -- eating as much as you can, and then some.  No wonder the most frequent commercials on Polish TV during this time promote anti-acids and indigestion pills.

One of the most traditional items on the Easter table in Poland is a cake called "mazurek" [mah-zoo-reck].  There is no one type of mazurek -- it varies greatly depending on the regional customs, family recipes, and simply your own taste and imagination.  Nonetheless you will definitely know one when you see it.  

You can recognize a mazurek by the following: (i) it is very very sweet, and thus is served in small pieces (exceptions apply -- for example my brother has no problems at all with eating huge chunks of it), (ii) it has thin layers: usually a pastry bottom topped off with a luscious sweet layer, (iii) it is flat and short in height (iv) it is hard and crumbly, yet sticky, and (v) it is both simple and fancy - simple in structure, and fancy in decorations.  The latter include the word "Alleluja" written in icing or chocolate, and candied / marzipan eggs, bunnies or flowers.

Mazurek is often made with shortcrust or ground almond pastry, sprinkled with lots of dried fruit and nuts, and abundantly covered with colored icing, chocolate, fudgy caramel or smooth marzipan.  And last, but not least -- it is insanely delicious! 

Left: two marmalade / icing mazurki, middle: chocolate almond mazurek, top right: caramel fudge mazurek, bottom right: babka.

This chocolate-almond-raisin mazurek has been on the Easter table in my family since I remember.  It has the best, signature shortcrust pastry -- very similar to the one I use in the poppy seed almond cake and Christmas cookies.  The pastry is so fragile and crumbly that you have to be careful when transferring the cake from tray to platter, as it brakes easily.  I remember this once happened to my Mum when I was a kid, and she had to make a new one totally last minute.  She was bummed of course, but the rest of was could not have been more happy -- somebody had to eat the broken chunks of the shortbread.  And it was incredibly delicious on its own!

The shortbread is covered by a layer of melted chocolate, with a bit of butter added for increased smoothness and glossiness.  You can add raisins or chopped nuts to the chocolate or leave it plain.  The top layer is a traditional decoration with peeled almonds -- the perfect finishing touch.  Feel free to let your imagination run wild and be creative!

BASE

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 200 g of good quality butter
• 100 g of sugar
• 3 egg yolks, boiled (boil whole eggs and get them out) and crumbled (it's best to pass them through a sieve)
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence or scraped out vanilla seeds from 1 bean)
• Natural rum aroma
• Pinch of salt

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 1-2 cm high edges (the base will better hold the chocolate 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 35-40 minutes until golden.
• Let cool entirely.

CHOCOLATE ALMOND RAISIN LAYER

Ingredients:

• 300 g of good quality dark chocolate
• 200-250 g of good quality milk chocolate
• 50 g of butter
• 200 g of big golden raisins, rinsed and dried
• 200 g of whole peeled almonds

Directions:

• Roast the almonds for a few minutes in a hot dry frying pan, until golden.  Let cool.
• Melt the chocolate and butter au bain marie (in bowl over a pan with boiling water).  Add the raisins and stir thoroughly.
• Spread the chocolate mixture evenly over the baked shortcrust bottom.  Decorate with the roasted almonds.

Bon appetit!

Merry Easter & chewy cranberry chocolate cookies

Aah, the holiday spirit!  Streets covered by a white fluffy blanket, snowflakes dancing playfully in the air, frosty wind biting you in the nose and cheeks, and colorful store window decorations announcing the holiday season.  ♫ It's beginning to look a lot like Christm... ♫ NO, WAIT A MINUTE!  It's not December, but nearly April!  

Spring has officially -- or at least theoretically -- started, and we shouldn't be listening to the jingle bells ring, but rather make sure we have enough chocolate eggs in store.  Nonetheless, somehow I am more inclined to go Christmas tree shopping than to pick up some fresh daffodils to decorate my house for the upcoming celebrations.

I don't remember it ever being so cold during Easter time.  Certainly not in the US, not in Belgium or the Netherlands -- not even in Poland.  Clearly I am not the only one who is surprised by this cold spell, as lately weather is literally the only thing people can talk -- or in fact complain -- about.  

You hear it on the news, read it online, talk about it with your colleagues while getting coffee, or use it as a solid conversation starter during conference calls.  Hell -- even the people you meet in the elevator (that usually seem particularly intrigued by their shoes and keep staring at them -- barely noticing you) become disturbingly chatty and complain about yet another snowfall last night.

I decided to make the most of it by posting this great cranberry chocolate cookies recipe.  Theoretically, these cookies fit better in the Christmas season than Easter, but when you look outside the window it is really hard to tell one from the other.  Besides -- who is to say you can only bake Christmas cookies during Christmas?

Call me eccentric (the more diplomatic word for "nuts"), but I often like to do things that normally would be considered unfitting for the circumstances at hand.  Singing Christmas carols while sunbathing near a pool in mid-August, eating ice-cream during a walk in a snow storm or starting a meal with dessert.  It's not that I don't like singing carols at Christmas time. It's just that I like singing them so-oo much, that I can't wait a whole year before I can do it again.  And why would I?

Similarly -- why would you wait with baking these cookies until next December?

And they are totally worth it!  The cookies are as good as oatmeal cookies can be.  Tangy from the cranberries, sweet and luscious from the milk chocolate, incredibly chewy and finished off with crispy almond flakes.  Let's not forget the cinnamon flavor that will fill your entire house when you're baking these. Mmm - holidays in your kitchen!

So go ahead and have yourself a merry little cookie!

The recipe comes from Dorotus' blog, slightly modified (mainly through the addition of almonds, and increasing the amount of cranberries).

Ingredients:

• 170 g of flour
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 140 g of oats
• 150 g of butter (soft, at room temperature)
• 150 g of light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 180 g of fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
• 200 g milk chocolate, roughly chopped
• 70 g of almond flakes

For the decoration:

• 70 g of milk chocolate, roughly chopped
• 50 g of almond flakes

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).  Line 2 cookie trays with parchment paper.  
• Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.  Add the oats and combine.  Set aside.
• Mix the butter with the brown sugar and vanilla extract.  Add the egg and mix again.
• Add the butter mixture to the flower mixture, combine.  Add the chopped cranberries, chocolate and almonds, combine.
• Scoop small amounts of the dough on the baking tray, leaving enough space between the cookies as they will melt and expand.  
• Bake for around 15 minutes, checking often towards the end to see if the cookies don't burn.  Let cool on the tray.
• Melt the chocolate au bain marie (over a pan with boiling water).  Toss the almond in a dry hot frying pan for 30 second or until golden.
• Decorate cookies with the chocolate and sprinkle with almonds.

Bon appetit!