Festive fruit cake

For Christmas in Sweden I decided to try a "Fruktkaka" or fruit cake with lots of dried fruit in it. It's a lighter and easier-to make alternative to the British "plumpudding" and heavier more cake-like alternative to the Italian "panettone". You can use any fruit you like (and nuts too such as hazelnuts or almonds if you like) and I included apricots, plums, raisins and figs.

The cake needs a few days to "age" so plan to prepare it ahead of time. I baked it 3 days before serving but it tasted even better 5 days later! Try it and don't forget to share your feedback :-)

Recipe of the fruit cake:

250 g butter, room T
2.5 dl sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
4.5 dl flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
20 dried apricots, re-wetted
10 dried plums
2 dl raisins
2 dl dried figs

Whip up butter and sugar. Add eggs one by one, whipping in between each one. In another bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder. Add cut-up dried fruits and mix with flour: use scissors to chop up apricots and plums. Add flour and fruits to egg mix and incorporate (it will be a thick sticky dough). Transfer dough to a buttered and floured Bundt cake form (2 liters volume - you can also use a standard long cake pan). Bake in the oven 1h15 at 150-160 C.
Flip the cake upside down on a plate and let it cool in/under the cake form. When cool, wrap the cake in plastic foil and let it "age" for a few days (3-5) at room temperature before serving. Decorate the cake with some powder sugar and serve. Enjoy!

Energizing cereal bars

Happy New Year !!! With a new year come new resolutions... and in terms of Laura's Gourmandises I would like to make new kinds of desserts, such as pâte à chou based desserts (chouquettes, éclair au chocolat) but also "healthier" snacks without added sugar to eat as snack or before doing sports.

So my first 2015 recipe is cereal bars with lots of nuts and dried fruit that are just delicious and full of good things :-) They are easy to make and do not require baking. All the dried fruit, seeds, and nuts used here are natural and do not contain any fat or added sugar. Of course you can replace certain ingredients with others if you prefer (pecans instead of walnuts, only raisins or only cranberries) but I find this combination really good.

You can store these bars for quite some time in the fridge (or freezer) in an airtight box and you can wrap them in plastic foil to eat them on-the-go. I had one for lunch while on the slopes in Zermatt, I was good until (almost) dinner. Enjoy!

Recipe for a 25x35cm pan

3.6 dl oats
1.6 dl whole almonds
0.8 dl raisins
0.4 dl cranberries
0.8 dl chopped walnuts
0.8 dl pumpkin seeds
1.2 dl shredded coconut
0.6 dl sunflower seeds
0.8 dl flax seeds, roughly ground in a mortar
0.8 dl honey (liquid)
2.4 dl whole almond purée/paste
0.6 dl apple purée/compote (no sugar added)

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. Transfer clumpy mix to a baking pan lined with parchment paper and flatten with the spoon or your hand (easier). Freeze overnight.
Next day take out of freezer and cut into 6x3 bars (suggested, but you can make them bigger or smaller). Store in an airtight box in the fridge and enjoy bars for breakfast, as snack, or before working out, they're excellent, very filling and a great source of energy!

Intense dark chocolate Brownies

 

People who like chocolate tend to love good Brownies. And I love Brownies, in every way and with any and all garniture. But I especially like rich dark Brownies with walnuts. I tried many different recipes and many different chocolates, with different amounts of sugar and flour as well. In the end I went with this basic recipe and chose to use only 100% cocoa chocolate for a deeper and more intense chocolate taste.

Try it it's easy, quick and delicious. After baking and cooling, I cut the brownies in squares

Recipe for a 23x30 cm pan (9x13 in)

200 g pure unsweetened chocolate (100% cocoa)*
200 g melted butter
4.5 dl sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3.5 dl flour
2.5 dl chopped walnuts (150-200 g)

 

Melt chocolate and butter in a water bath. Beat eggs and sugar until foamy and whitish, add vanilla extract. Mix in melted chocolate and butter. Finally add flour and mix. Add 3/4 of chopped walnuts to batter and mix. Transfer to greased + floured pan (or lined with parchment paper) and sprinkle remaining chopped walnuts. Bake 25-30 min at 175 C.

*I have also tried the same recipe with 160 g chocolate (100% cocoa) and 40 g chocolate (70% cocoa), it is still as chocolaty but maybe a bit less rich: in case you'd prefer that option, lower the sugar amount to 3.5 dl or so since there is sugar in the 70% cocoa chocolate
**You can easily refrigerate or freeze down these brownies for quite some time if you'd like to enjoy them at a later time

American-style Apple Pie

Last weekend was Thanksgiving (even in Switzerland when you have American colleagues) and I was invited to a wonderful Oklahoma-style Thanksgiving dinner, which included turkey, (amazing) corn bread, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, and many many other delicacies. Scott also made pumpkin pies and pecan pies so I brought an apple pie.

I had never made an American-style apple pie so that required some researching and thinking: which apples, which filling, and most (esthetically) important full cover or lattice top? I find Golden apples bake well and have a great taste and texture in cakes. For the filling, I went for a classical sugar-butter-flour filling with cinnamon, butter and a touch of nutmeg. Finally, I chose to do a lattice-top pie because it looks so much better, but is also more work, so you can skip that step if you'd like.

From scratch it took me 4 hrs to make this wonderful apple pie. If you prepare the dough the day before, you can easily save 1.5 hrs. In any case, I advise you to prepare it only a few hours before serving so that it is still lukewarm when you serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream :-)

Apple pie recipe (23 cm or 9 inch pan)

Pâte brisée (shortcrust dough):
320 g flour
1.5 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
185 g cold butter
1.3 dl cold water

Filling:
1.5 kg peeled, cored, thinly sliced apples (approx. 6 apples)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1.2 dl sugar
0.6 dl brown sugar
3 tbsp (30 g) flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Decoration:
1-2 tbsp butter
some milk
some sugar

First prepare the dough (you can prepare it the day before if you want to save time the day of baking). Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Cut up butter in chunks and add to flour. Mix with your hands to make crumbs. Add water and mix fast with a wooden spoon into a dough. Divide the dough into 2 flat disks, wrap in plastic film and refrigerate 2 hours. I had about 660 g dough and made a 340 g disk for the bottom and a 320 g disk for the top of the pie.

Prepare your apples: peel, core, and slice them thinly (approx. 1.4-1.5 kg of prepared apples). Add lemon juice and toss in a bowl. Mix filling ingredients and add to apples, toss making sure every slice is coated with the filling. Set aside for 30 min or so (some juice will come out allowing you to pack more apples in your pie).

Take out the bigger dough disk and roll it out on a floured table to a 3-4mm thick and wider-than-your-form disk: you have 1-2 cm dough extra from the edge of the pie form. Transfer the dough to a buttered and floured pie form, prick it, and refrigerate while preparing the next steps (I put it in the freezer at -4 C to make sure the dough doesn't shrink but I wouldn't do it if you have a colder freezer).

Roll out the 2nd dough ball to a disk (again bigger than your pie form) on your floured table. Slice it into 12 2.5cm-wide stripes. Fill your pie form with your apple mix (don't transfer the juice), pack your apples tightly and form a dome (apples will shrink while baking). Sprinkle the apples with some butter. Transfer your dough stripes to the apple pie making a lattice (place your stripes 2cm appart). Trim the extra length of the stripes and connect the stripes to the edges of the pie. Paint the stripes with milk and sprinkle sugar on the stripes (you can be generous here).

Bake the pie 10 min at 210 C, then another 1hr10 at 175 C (until golden and apples are soft). Serve lukewarm with some vanilla ice-cream.

Pumpkin muffins with oats and cranberries

You must have noticed by now that I like pumpkin and love pumpkin desserts (cake, bread, pie). Because I always make such big batches of fresh pumpkin purée, I constantly search and think of new pumpkin-based desserts to bake.

This time I made pumpkin muffins filled with oats and cranberries, and covered with cinnamon and pumpkin seeds. These muffins are great for breakfast and can be easily frozen down and thawed at a later time. Oats make muffins less cake-like and you can easily replace white flour with wholewheat flour if you prefer a "healthier" muffin. Cranberries make an interesting, slightly acidic contrast with the pumpkin and pumpkin seeds (or pepitas) add a crunchy side to these pumpkin muffins. Try them, I love them as snack!

Recipe for about 16 muffins:

Wet ingredients
1 egg, beaten
1.2 dl milk
4 dl fresh pumpkin purée
100 g butter, melted
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients
1.2 dl brown sugar
5 dl flour
2 dl oats
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of cloves
a pinch of nutmeg
a pinch of ginger
1/2 tsp salt
2.5 dl cranberries

Topping
1 dl roasted+chopped pumpkin seeds
0.6 dl brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients and add cranberries once mixed. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix only until incorporated. Line a muffin pan with muffin paper forms and fill them with dough to 3/4 of volume.
Mix ingredients for topping and sprinkle on top of muffins. Bake approx. 20 min at 190C (until toothpick comes out clean).