Tarte Cholera (leek-potato-apple-cheese pie)

I discovered the Tarte Cholera in one of my favorite mountain huts and I've been trying to come up with a recipe matching as closely as possible as the one I had there.

The Tarte Cholera is a specialty from Haut-Valais and is composed of ingredients that every household used to have in Winter a long time ago, even at times of pandemics, hence its reference to cholera (well so says the legend).

I am not sure there will be a "Corona" tarte or pie in the future, so in the meantime I will continue to bake this pie and share the recipe with you :)

Recipe & ingredients:

1 portion pâte brisée (pastry dough):
240 g flour (white or whole-wheat)
120 g cold butter
1 pinch salt
1 dl cold water

Filling:
300 g leeks
200 g onions
4 potatoes (medium-sized)
2 apples
200 g raclette cheese (I use Bagnes cheese)
salt, pepper, nutmeg
some butter

Prepare the dough 1 hour or more before you want to use it (I make it the day before). In a bowl mix flour and salt, then add butter and make crumbs with your hands. Add water, mix with a wooden spoon, and make a ball quickly. Flatten the ball a bit (into a disc), wrap it in plastic foil and refrigerate >1 hr.

Slice up leeks and onions. Warm up some butter (20-50g) in a pan, add leeks & onions, add some water, salt, pepper and nutmeg, and let simmer at medium heat (with lid on) for 10-20 minutes (until transparent and soft). Remove lid and let water evaporate.

Peel and slice potatoes (quite thin), throw into boiling water, let them cook for about 3-4 minutes, and then throw into cold water. Remove the water and put aside.

Peel and slice the apples into thin slices (as for the potatoes).
Grate or cut the cheese into thin slices.

Prepare a pie form with butter and then flour (about 26cm in diameter). Roll out the dough onto a floured table, transfer to the pie form, and prick the dough with a fork. Bake in the oven 12 minutes at 225 C.

Make a thin layer on the bottom of the pie with 1/3 of the potatoes and apples.
Add the mix of leeks and onions on top. Then cover with raclette cheese. Finish with a nice-looking layer of potatoes and apples. If you want you can finish the pie by brushing the potatoes and apples with some rapeseed oil or butter.

Bake the pie in the oven for 30 min at 200 C.
Serve luke-warm with a nice green salad.

Saffransbullar (Lussekatter) for Swedish Christmas time

Saffransbullar or lussekatter, literally translated mean saffron buns or lussi cats, are small soft buns made with saffron and raisins. In Sweden we eat them on Saint Lucy's day (December 13) and also for Christmas, and of course anytime before and after that. They're great in the afternoon for coffee/team time, but also for breakfast... and they're especially delicious straight out of the oven !!!

Recipe for 30-40 buns

200 g butter
5 dl milk
1 g saffron pistils
1 pack fresh yeast (40-50 g)
a pinch of salt
1.5 dl sugar
3 tbsp tepid water
2 eggs
16 dl flour
optional: 1.5 dl raisins
a few raisins**
1 egg

In a sauce pan melt butter, add milk and bring to 37 C (finger temperature).
In a mortar grind the saffron pistils with a cube of sugar. Add this to the butter-milk.
Break down yeast in a big bowl, add salt, sugar, and tepid water. Swirl gently to dissolve the yeast a bit. Add the 37C milk-saffron mix and both eggs, mix with a wooden spoon.
*if you want to add raisins to the dough do it with the flour
Add flour slowly bit by bit while mixing with your wooden spoon (save about 1 dl flour to work the dough later one). The dough should be sticky and start to detach from the bowl wall. Cover the dough with a cloth and let rise for 1.5 hours (I usually place the bowl in the oven to make sure the dough doesn't feel  draft or cold).

The dough should have at least doubled in volume (see pictures). Prick it 2-3 times with a wooden fork. Work the dough on a floured surface. Divide it into 2 parts, which you then divide into 4 parts each. Divide each of the 8 parts into 4 small dough bits, that you then roll and form into S shapes (see picture). Decorate each bun with 2 raisins and let them rise again for 10 min under a cloth. Paint each bun with lightly beaten egg. Bake in the oven 7-8 min at 260 C in the middle top area of the oven. Let the buns cool under a piece of cloth so that they don't dry.

**I soak my (very) dry raisins in (elderflower) syrup before using them so they're a bit more moist...

Fondant chestnut-chocolate cake

In the Fall, I love to eat chestnuts: in soups (with butternut squash for example), roasted (heissi maroni), with meat (glazed chestnuts), and also in pastries and cakes. I find that chestnut and chocolate go really well together - actually my favorite crepe comes with chestnut cream, melted dark chocolate and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. So I decided to embark on a chocolate-chestnut cake and I topped it off with some melted dark chocolate... it was really good. The challenge is to hit the right balance between chestnuts and chocolate, you can of course adapt it according to your taste!

Recipe for the chestnut-chocolate cake

500 g chestnut purée (73% chestnut)
75 g dark chocolate (72% cocoa)
125 g flour
100 g sugar
4 eggs
155 g butter
1 tsp baking powder

In a bain-marie melt chocolate and butter together. Mix and add chestnut purée, mix.
In a bowl beat up eggs and sugar until whitish and foamy. Incorporate the chestnut chocolate mix. Add flour and baking powder, mix. Transfer to a greased and floured spring form (24 cm).
Bake 35-40 min at 180 C.
*Optional: top it off with some melted chocolate and whipped cream
Recipe for the chestnut-chocolate cake

500 g chestnut purée (73% chestnut)
75 g dark chocolate (72% cocoa)
125 g flour
100 g sugar
4 eggs
155 g butter
1 tsp baking powder

In a bain-marie melt chocolate and butter together. Mix and add chestnut purée, mix.
In a bowl beat up eggs and sugar until whitish and foamy. Incorporate the chestnut chocolate mix. Add flour and baking powder, mix. Transfer to a greased and floured spring form (24 cm).
Bake 35-40 min at 180 C.

Butternut squash cheesecake

I've had it on my to do list since a few years to try and make a pumpkin cheesecake: that's finally done! I love to eat pumpkin in the fall, especially in desserts. I've baked in the past pumpkin cake, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread... and I always used the "muscat" pumpkin, which is one of the common pumpkins you find in grocery stores and that is easy to cook and tastes very good.

This time I decided to change and use the butternut squash variety instead, which has a nuttier and sweeter taste than the muscat pumpkin. For this cheesecake, I used gingersnap cookies instead of the usual digestive biscuits or graham crackers and mixed them with pecan nuts. Adding some winter spices - like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves - to the butternut squash turned this cake into a wonderful matching of the base with the filling along the lines of sweet, nutty and spicy.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Recipe: Butternut squash cheesecake (24 cm form)

Base
350 g gingersnaps (or similar cookies), crushed
150 g melted butter
1.2 dl chopped pecan nuts

Filling
700 g cream cheese, at room T
2 tbsp cornflour
2.5 dl sugar
3 eggs
400 g (fresh) butternut squash purée*
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Mix crushed gingersnaps, melted butter and chopped pecan nuts in a bowl. Transfer to a 24 cm-springform. Flatten the dough on the bottom and on the sides of the form. Place in the fridge.

In a bowl beat cream cheese, sugar and cornflour until soft. Add eggs one by one, mixing in between each one of them. Add butternut squash purée and spices, mix. Transfer the batter onto the cake base, even out the surface.

Bake 15 min at 225 C. Then lower the temperature to 175 C and bake for another 55-60 min. Let the cake cool down at the room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight) before serving.

*Butternut squash purée:
Bake butternut squash in the oven on parchment paper until soft. Then peel it and mix it until obtaining a homogenous purée.
You can of course replace the butternut squash with a pumpkin!

Revisited Rhubarb Tiramisu with Amaretti

In the Spring and early Summer, my absolute favorite fruit is rhubarb. Every year I try to come up with or find new rhubarb recipes. A friend of mine mentioned making a tiramisu once with amaretti: I then thought the sweetness of amaretti could match and complement pretty well the sourness and tartness of rhubarb. I mixed and matched those two ingredients, turned the rhubarb into a compote, and added a nice "lighter" mascarpone cream (read fewer egg yolks, more egg whites).

The revisited rhubarb tiramisu with amaretti turned out to taste even better than expected! It's crunchy (you can add as much amaretti as you want actually, I like my dessert with quite a lot of it), a bit sour and bitter, sweet, and fluffy! This makes for an easy Spring or Summer dessert :-) And you can use the leftover rhubarb compote for breakfast with granola and eat the leftover mascarpone with amaretti alone. Any combo is good!

Recipe for 8 Rhubarb Tiramisu portions

Mascarpone cream:
500 g mascarpone (room T)
6 eggs (4 yolks, 6 whites)
4 tbsp sugar

Rhubarb compote:
500 g rhubarb
50 g sugar

200 g Amaretti biscuits

Wash and chop up rhubarb into 2 cm pieces. Place in a sauce pan with sugar, let it sit for about 20 min. Heat up and bring to a boil on mid-high heat, then let simmer until the rhubarb is soft and undone. Put aside and let cool down.

Separate egg yolks and egg whites in two different bowls.
Beat up the egg whites, put aside.
Beat up the egg yolks with sugar. Add mascarpone, beat until smooth. Carefully incorporate the egg whites with a spatula.

Roughly crush most of the amaretti biscuits (save a few whole ones).

In 8 transparent glasses / cups, layer rhubarb compote, amaretti (don't be shy with the amaretti here, your dessert needs to be crunchy too), mascarpone, amaretti, compote, amaretti, mascarpone, amaretti. Top it with a whole amaretti biscuit for decoration. Prepare right before serving.

Enjoy!!! (you may want to bring some extra amaretti to the table, they match rhubarb and mascarpone really well)... (and you may want to prepare some extra dessert too as it is so good :-p )

Banoffee pie (banana+toffee+whipped cream+pecans cake)

My British friend and colleague told me that her sister's favorite birthday cake was Banoffee pie. Having never lived in the UK or read a British cookbook I asked her what that could be. Bananas, toffee (read gooey caramel), pecans, whipped cream... ok I was sold. She brought it to work one day and it tasted even better than it sounded.

I mixed and matched a few recipes I found online and made a banoffee pie for my guests last weekend. It actually requires no baking in the oven and no eggs like most cakes do: it's basically just chopping and mixing stuff, making caramel, layering and cooling down steps. You can make it ahead of time, I actually thought that the cake tasted even better half a day later :-)

Recipe for a banoffee pie (24 cm)

Base:
225 g digestive biscuits
100 g pecan nuts
125 g butter, melted

Toffee (caramel):
100 g butter
100 g sugar
400 g unsweetened condensed milk

Topping:
3-4 ripe bananas
3 dl whipping cream
a few pecan nuts

*Pre-work suggestion: toast/roast your pecan nuts in a pan or in the oven before using them, they'll be more crunchy and the flavor is great.

Crush to crumbs the digestive biscuits in a bowl. Chop up the pecan nuts and add to the crushed biscuits. Add melted butter, mix and then transfer to a 24 cm spring form. Press the biscuits down with your hand or with a spoon and create a small edge too (so that the toffee does not flow out). Put the spring form with the biscuit base in the freezer.

In a pan, melt butter and sugar while stirring. When the sugar has dissolved in the butter, add the condensed milk. Bring to a boil (on medium heat) while stirring continuously. The toffee will thicken and darken and smell of caramel. When it has thickened, take it off the fire and let it cool down a bit. Spread the toffee on the frozen biscuit base and then refrigerate for 30 min or so.

Slice the bananas. Whip the cream. Place the bananas tightly in a circular fashion on the toffee base. Spread the whipped cream on top and decorate with pecan nuts. Refrigerate until serving.

Buttermilk pancakes with blueberries

Pancake stack #1

Pancake stack #2

Every Monday should start with pancakes for breakfast! That's what I thought this morning after I made my first batch of buttermilk pancakes.

Somehow I often get pancakes for breakfast or brunch when in the US but never thought of making them myself. This morning I had loads of blueberries and half a liter of buttermilk so I said, let's try! And I did not regret it :-)
The batter takes 5 min to prepare and each pancake stays in the pan for about 3-4 min... so it's pretty quick and it's a great way to start the day (provided you go spend those extra calories afterwards :-p ).

Blueberry buttermilk pancakes are a great classic with maple syrup and next time I'll make them with chocolate chips!

Recipe for 10 buttermilk pancakes

2 eggs, lightly beaten
4.8 dl buttermilk
4 tbsp melted butter
4.8 dl flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Topping:
blueberries or chocolate chips
lots of maple syrup
some butter

Mix wet ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl mix dry ingredients. Whisk both mixes together until barely incorporated (there will be small clumps).
Heat up a pan/griddle, brush some butter on it and pour about 1-1.2 dl of the batter onto the pan. If you wish to, add here blueberries or chocolate chips. Let it grill for about 1-2 min on medium heat (until the corners look cooked and bubbles pop on the pancake) and then flip, let grill for another 1-2 min until golden on both sides.
Serve as a stack of 3-4 pancakes with lots of maple syrup  and some (whipped) butter too. Enjoy ASAP (they're best straight from the pan and warm).