Rhubarb crumble

Spring is rhubarb season and I love it! Rhubarb is both sweet and sour and makes for nice summery desserts, like rhubarb pie, rhubarb walnut muffins, and rhubarb almond cake. Since a few years now, I make rhubarb crumble, with rhubarb from my parents garden :-), but I never posted the recipe, simply because I couldn't manage to make nice pics of it. I'm still not very satisfied with these pics but I'd like to share the recipe.

This crumble is based on butter, sugar, and flour, like most crumbles, and it also includes pecan nuts, cinnamon, and oats to add some extra crunchy and taste to it. If you have guests over, you can bake it during dinner and serve it (luke)warm with some vanilla ice-cream, like the one from my favorite ice-cream shop in Lausanne, it will taste great!

Rhubarb crumble (for a 20x30 cm dish)

0.5 kg rhubarb, peeled and cut in pieces
2 tbsp white sugar
a few drops of lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest

For the crumble:

3 tbsp (45 g) butter
0.9 dl brown sugar
0.6 dl flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of salt
0.6 dl oats
0.6 dl chopped pecan nuts

In a bowl mix rhubarb pieces, sugar, and lemon; set aside.
In another bowl, mix brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and butter by hand. Add oats and nuts and mix.
Generously butter a baking pan. Add rhubarb pieces (without the juice that came out while sitting) and cover with the crumble mix.
Bake in the oven 45-50 min at 180 C until crunchy and golden.
Let it cool down a bit and serve with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Lemon and blueberry yoghurt cake

In Summer it's nice to eat refreshing desserts, like sorbets, fruity mousses, and fruit cakes with a nice lemonade or ice-tea. It's not quite Summer yet but I felt like making one of those fruit cakes for my friends last week. I came across a lemon blueberry cake which I modified a bit and liked a lot.

The base of the cake is a yoghurt and lemon dough to which you add a lot of fresh blueberries and that you finally cover with a wonderful, sweet lemon glaze. It takes less than 10 min to mix the ingredients and you can easily store it in the freezer. If you're looking for an easy good cake to eat for coffee or for breakfast I recommend you try this recipe!

Recipe for a 30 cm-long cake

4.8 dl flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1.2 dl colza oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2.4 dl sugar
2.4 dl plain yoghurt
1 lemon, juice + zest
3 dl fresh blueberries

Icing:
1.8 dl powder sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

In a bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt. In another bigger bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients and sugar. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated (don't overmix). Finally incorporate blueberries in dough.
Transfer to a greased + floured cake pan. Bake 55-60 min at 175C until done. Let the cake cool down a bit and then remove it from the pan.

Once the cake is cool, prepare the icing. Mix powder sugar with lemon juice to obtain a viscous mix (you may need to add a few more drops). Drizzle the glaze on top of the cake with a spoon and wait a bit for it to harden before serving.

Orange blossom, vanilla and pistachio cake

When I was on holidays in the Middle East, I indulged in a lot of pistachio and orange blossom-based desserts, I love pistachios and orange blossom water. Even when I go to my favorite local gelato shop in Lausanne, I most often pick pistachio and orange blossom flavored ice-cream. Since I like cake very much, I went on to look for and adapt a nice recipe cake that included these ingredients.

This cake has refined flavors, is moist like I like them, and quick and easy to make. It's a great cake to have for an afternoon cake or for dessert with friends as it is very nice looking and colorful. If you like dry cakes with which you can choke this cake is not for you. If you however love moist, juicy, sweet cakes, then try it, it's for you !!!

Recipe for a 24 cm-spring form:

200 g flour
100 g peeled and ground almonds
150 g sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2.5 dl plain yoghurt
1.5 dl colza oil
3 eggs
2 vanilla beans (seeds)

Syrup:
2.5 dl water
2.5 dl sugar
2 vanilla beans (pods)
2 tbsp orange blossom water
a handful of pistachios

Mix all dry ingredients (flour, almonds, sugar, baking soda) in a bowl.
In another bowl whisk together yoghurt, oil, eggs and vanilla seeds.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix. Transfer the dough to a greased and floured spring form and bake in the oven 35-40 min.

When the cake is done, prepare the syrup. Place water, sugar and vanilla pods in a saucepan. Heat up to allow the sugar to melt and then bring to a boil and let simmer until the volume has reduced by one third. Take out the vanilla pods, let the syrup cool down a bit and then add the orange blossom water to it. Unmold the cake and poke holes with a toothpick on the surface of the cake. Pour the syrup evenly on the surface of the cake and decorate with some hacked pistachios.

Focaccia alla genovese

Focaccia is a wonderful, classic Italian bread eaten for breakfast and as snack.  It's moist and chewy, flavored with olive oil and rosemary, smells great and tastes even better. And the big sea salt adds a crunchy side to it that I love.

Focaccia is very easy to make but takes a lot of timing because of all the leavening times. But be patient it's worth it. Try it for yourself!

Recipe for an oven plate-sized focaccia

600 g flour
0.5 dl olive oil
7 g dried yeast (or 25 g fresh yeast)
15 g salt
2 tsp sugar
3.5 dl water (tepid)

Topping:
rosemary
70 g water (tepid)
70 g olive oil
big sea salt

In a big bowl dissolve the yeast with some tepid water. Add the remaining water, olive oil, salt, sugar, and almost all flour. Mix with a wooden spoon and finally work it on a floured table until obtaining a soft dough. Let it leaven for 30 min under a cloth.

Cover an oven plate with olive oil transfer the dough there and flatten it with your hands and with a rolling pin, gently so as not to break up air bubbles too much. Pain the surface with some olive oil and let it leaven for another hour under cloth.

Mix oil, water and salt in a bowl making an emulsion. Make deep holes in the dough with your fingers and cover the dough with your oil emulsion (all of it), the holes should be full of oil now. Sprinkle some rosemary on top and let it sit for another 20 min.

Bake in the oven approx. 20 min at 200 C until golden. Enjoy it warm right away or cold for a later snack!

Eclairs au chocolat, basic and delicious

Eclairs au chocolat are one of my favorite desserts in the category "I cannot make them and have to buy them". I only like the éclairs filled with chocolate pastry cream and I have tried many in Lausanne's bakery shops and abroad - in the US I stopped trying them after finding out that they were often filled with custard or whipped cream, I felt too deceived :-)

After taking the pastry course at Benoit Violier I had decided to practice and replicate what I had learned there, among other things pâte à choux. This weekend I finally went on to try and make this and fill my little choux with chocolate cream to obtain éclairs au chocolat. It was my first time using a piping bag, my first time making pâte à choux (which is unlike other doughs more tricky), and my first time making chocolate cream... I failed a few things on the first round, like making my choux fall after rising, undercooking them, and burning my chocolate cream. But in the second round, I succeeded and made excellent éclairs (and mini-éclairs) au chocolat that disappeared within 10 minutes :-p

Eclairs au chocolat, a French dessert par excellence, can be made within 1 hour if you are well organized. Don't be discouraged by the number of steps in the recipe, every component can be made quite quickly, and the reward at the end is totally worth the effort. Enjoy!

Recipe for many éclairs au chocolat (12 big ones)

Pâte à choux (choux pastry dough)

1.25 dl milk
1.25 dl water
2.5 g salt
5 g sugar
112.5 g butter
137.5 g flour
5 eggs, room T

In a saucepan heat up milk, water, salt, sugar and butter. When butter is melted bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Add flour all at once and mix fast with a wooden spoon. Put back on the fire and continue mixing until the dough is compact and detaches from the sides (this step is to dry or dehydrate the dough).

Transfer dough to a cold bowl and wait 5 min for the dough to cool down a bit. Add eggs one by one, mixing vigorously in between each with a wooden spoon.

Transfer dough to a piping/pastry bag with a round nozzle and lay down éclairs or puffs (as you prefer) on an oven plate lined with parchment paper. For éclairs I suggest making 3 x 10 cm shapes and for puffs something around 3-5 cm.

Bake in the oven 25-30 min at 180 C, until golden brown.

Chocolate pastry cream

30 g corn starch (maizena)
40 g powder sugar
4 dl milk
4 egg yolks
40 g powder sugar
200 g dark chocolate

Chop up or grate chocolate and transfer to a bowl.
Beat up egg yolks and powder sugar until whitish and fluffy. In a saucepan heat up milk, corn starch and powder sugar while mixing with a whisk. Bring it to a boil and then remove from heat. Add some of the milk mix to the egg mix and whisk. Add back to the sauce pan and put back on the fire. Whisk and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and pour on top of the chocolate in a bowl. Mix until the chocolate is melted. Cover the cream with plastic foil and refrigerate for 20 min.

Poke a hole in the puffs or 2 wholes in the éclairs (on the bottom surface). Transfer the pastry cream to a piping bag with a small nozzle and fill the puffs/éclairs via the hole(s) you just made.

Chocolate icing

75 g dark chocolate
75 g liquid cream

Heat up the cream and add to the chocolate. Mix until the chocolate has melted. Dip the upper surface of the éclairs in the glacage and let it dry. Now you can enjoy your éclair au chocolat!

Laura's Gourmandises on Amazon!

Laura's Gourmandises just got published on Createspace and you can find it on Amazon as well!

In this first recipe book, I put together my favorite recipes posted on this blog in 2013 and improved the text and images. The book is available as hard copy or as Kindle edition and you can find it here.

If you like it, share the word!
And stay tuned for a second book with recipes from 2014!

Moist pistachio cake with glazed Bronte pistachios

A few months ago I went to Sicily, where I discovered cannoli, ricotta, granita, but also pistachios from Bronte. Bronte is a tiny village on the southwest slopes of the Etna volcano and is known for its green pistachios. Because they're so good, they're used in almost every dessert in Sicily :-)

Before leaving, I bought a kilo of Bronte pistachios to bring back home for baking. This week I finally used them and made a pistachio cake which was moist and rich in pistachio flavor, with ground pistachios in the cake and glazed pistachios as "icing". The cake is wonderful, I highly recommend you try it if you like pistachios. Enjoy!

Recipe for a 30 cm-long pistachio cake:

For the cake:
250 g butter, room T
200 g sugar
4 eggs
100 g Bronte pistachios*
100 g blanched + ground almonds**
65 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the glaze:
1 dl water
1 dl powder sugar
50 g pistachios

Grind pistachios finely (use a mixer if you have one, I did it by hand with a knife).
Cream butter and sugar (whip them together). Add eggs one by one, whipping in between each egg to make sure each egg gets incorporated. Add ground almonds, ground pistachios, flour and baking powder, incorporate gently and do not overmix. Transfer dough to a buttered and floured cake pan (30 cm long) and bake in the oven 45 min at 175 C. Let the cake cool down for a few minutes and then flip it upside down.

Once the cake is cool, put powder sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil, let some water evaporate to obtain a syrup and then turn off the heat. Add pistachios and swirl a bit. Decorate the pistachio cake with the glazed pistachios and the syrup.

*I kept the thin red skin on the pistachios, but if you want and have the energy you can peel them; also pistachios used her don't have to come from Bronte, they just taste better and sound fancier :-)
** if you want a finer cake you can use almond meal/flour instead of ground almonds