Living the Life

I haven't been blogging for a while, but I'm back! I've baked a lot of American recipes in the last year and a half and started to miss our own local baked goods. For christmas I received a book called Koekje, which translates to English as Cookie. It contains 100 Dutch cookie recipes, 50 are classics and 50 are more contemperary. One of the recipes I made from this book is Nougatientjes or Amsterdamse Koggetjes. I have always known them as nougatientjes. The recipe dates from 1935 when the Dutch Pastry Bakers Association held a contest to come up with a new cookie, it was probably mister Dorssen who won with the Amsterdamse Koggetjes. The catholic and christian bakers were members of different associations and couldn't use the name Amsterdamse Koggetjes, so they baked them as Nougatientjes. Both names are still in use. Ingredients: For the Nougat: 75 grams caster sugar 25 grams water For the Dough: 160 grams white soft sugar 200 grams soft unsalted butter 2 tablespoons...

Made it back safely after a fabulous cruise! Our luggage decided to stay away a day longer but apart from that everything was great. This week's Tuesday With Dorie recipe was picked by me! The first guy who joined the group finally got his pick :-) I choose the Linzer Sablés, so far I've enjoyed the European style recipes more than the American, maybe because I'm European and my tastebuds are more used to those treats? Anyway, I love the way they look with the jam peeking out of the little hole. I made mine with raspberry jam which I passed through a sieve, after heating it up, to get rid of the seeds. They were very easy to make and the taste of the cookies comes close to " speculaas ", must be the cloves. I'm pleased with my choice, it's not my favorite recipe but I would make it again. Here is the recipe: When I was a kid, the main street in our neighborhood boasted a bakery every two blocks. We always had freshly made bread from the baker closest to o...

One of the blogs that I enjoy a lot is Bakerella , I discovered her site a long time ago when I was looking into red velvet cake, she had a recipe on her blog for Red Velvet Cake Balls which looked so different that I added her to my rss reader and follow her posts all the time. One of those posts was a recipe for Oreo Truffles, which uses ingredients that are a little more over the counter here in Holland. except for the white chocolate bark that my friend in the US sent to me, thanks K.!!! I made only half a recipe, with all the TWD recipes and good food aound here, 36 Oreo Truffles isn't a thing I want to have in the fridge, calling my name every time I open the door :-) The recipe is fairly easy, the tricky thing is to get a nice coating of bark on the balls, which I got the hang of in the end. The truffles are very rich, I might make them smaller next time, I would also experiment a bit with them, like adding a splash of Cointreau orange liquor to the oreo/creamcheese mixture...

This week in Tuesdays with Dorie , French Chocolate Brownies, a recipe picked by Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook . Up till now I have only made one other brownie recipe, Sacher Brownies , but I did ate them a few times when I was in the States and I really like them. This recipe is great! Great taste, nice consistency, the occasional rum raisin, the odd top, just great!! Nothing much was new in this recipe, the flambeeing I did already for the raisin snails, all the other stuff was pretty straight forward. The only scary moment was when I wanted to check if the cake was done and I inserted a small knife, part of the top collapsed, later when I checked the Problem and Question section at the TWD site I found out that happened to all of the other bakers too. My trusty tasters loved this one too, H. thinks this is the best Dorie recipe so far! Next week's recipe will be La Palette's Strawberry Tart, choosen by Marie of A Year From Oak Cottage . French Chocolate Brownies - makes 16...

Last week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie were the Traditional Madeleines , but the next recipe in the book is Earl Grey Madeleines. I love Earl Grey tea and not the artificial stuff but the higher quality loose tea leaves. I normally steep it for three minutes and add a splash of milk, how English :-) So I made Dorie's recipe to see if they would be a nice match with my tea. For me they didn't disappoint, my trusty taster liked the traditional ones better, but she's not to crazy about the tea either. I really liked the subtle flavor of the tea coming through, I will definitely make these again!! Earl Grey Madeleines (from Baking: From My House To Yours ): Ingredients: 5 tbsp unsalted butter 2 tbsp Earl Grey tea leaves 3/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder pinch of salt 1/3 cup sugar grated zest of 1/2 lemon 2 large eggs, 2 tbsp honey 2 tsp vanilla extract powder sugar for dusting Preparation: Melt the butter and add the tea leaves. Stir to combine and allow the tea to...

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was picked by Madam Chow of Madam Chow's Kitchen . When I read the recipe and saw that it uses the same brioche dough as we made for the Brioche Raisin Snails I was thrilled and scared at the same time, the dough is fabulous, but if you don't have a Kitchen Aid but just a cheap hand mixer it's quite a challenge. I decided to make the dough this time by hand because I think my mixer wouldn't survive another round with the brioche dough. The dough came together by hand a lot easier than I expected, I had to use some elbow grease but I would do it again this way. You need only half of the brioche recipe, I used the other half for more Brioche Raisin Snails because my brother keeps asking me to bake some more. I made seven buns, the rest I froze for a later date. We all thought that these buns were nice but way too sweet for our taste. When I make the remaining ones I won't use the pecan honey glaze but drizzle over the glaze that...

Another Tuesday, another Tuesdays with Dorie , this weeks recipe, Traditional Madeleines, was picked by Tara of Smells Like Home . When I got Baking, this was one of the recipes I put high on my list, but since I didn't have a Madeleine tin I never got to it. So when Tara picked it for this week I had an excuse to get the tin for these classics little cakes. I made the batter a day in advance and let it rest in the fridge. When I baked them I got a nice hump on all of them, I also buttered and floured the tin well and had no problem with the Madeleines sticking to the tin. The verdict on these cakes? I love them, they are moist and lemony. Now that I have the tin I will try some of the others in the book too, the Earl Grey Madeleine just moved up a couple of spots on my "to bake" list. Ingredients: 2/3 cup all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt ½ cup sugar Grated zest of 1 lemon 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract ...

Florida Pie was this weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie and was picked by Dianne of Dianne's Dishes , thanks for picking one of my favorite American desserts! I've been to Florida quite a few times, the first time was about 25 years ago and that was when I first ate Key lime Pie. Whenever I see it on the menu I have to try it and I made it a few times here at home too. I never did the meringue on top though, so that was the new thing for me. I left the coconut out because I couldn't find any sweetened coconut flakes here in the village and didn't feel like driving 10 miles for just the one ingredient. The pie was very easy to make, I used digestive biscuits instead of graham crackers which aren't for sale in this part of the world but taste almost the same as a base for the pie. Dorie uses more crumbs for the base than my old recipe but it was way better, so this one is a keeper. The filling is pretty straight forward too. For the meringue I made sure there was a...

This weeks recipe, peanut butter torte, was picked by Elizabeth of Ugg Smell Food . Here in the Netherlands we really like peanut butter, we don't put jelly on it, but just put it on a slice of bread with some butter. The major brand is Calve which is made less than 20 km from my home, they have been making peanut butter for almost 125 years now. This is the stuff I grew up on! So instead of buying a jar of Jif at the import section of the supermarket I used my favorite local brand, which tastes better also of course ;-) I didn't have enough oreo crumbs to get up the full 2 inch, but the result was that you get a nice layering if you see it from the side. It was my niece's 12th birthday last week so I made this torte to go with the coffee. Everybody liked it, but we all thought that it was very rich, which makes a lot of sense if you look at the ingredients. (I cut a slice of torte for the picture when the chocolate ganache wasn't fully set, that's why it isn't ...

So you are back from a great trip through Mexico and it's starting to look like summer, what do you make to make you stay in the garden a little more pleasurable than it already is? A frozen strawberry margarita! Ingredients: 1 shotglass Tequilla Silver 1/2 shotglass Cointreau 1 shotglass Rose's Lime Cordial/Juice 1 shotglass lime juice 9-10 frozen strawberries enough ice to fill your margarita glass three quarters sugar to coat the rim of the glass Preparation: Put your sugar on a plate, moisten the rim of your glass with lime and put the rim in the sugar. In a blender or food processor blend the remaining ingredients until a you get a thick slush. Pour into your glass and serve.

Another Tuesday another recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie, this week selected by Leigh of Lemon Tartlet . She choose the Gooey Chocolate Cakes and what a good choice it was, we all loved them here! They were very simple to make, I also made the creme anglaise to go with it. The cakes and the creme anglaise complement each other nicely, as Dorie says, these cakes aren't meant to be served alone. As a lot of other members of the TWD group, I didn't have any chocolate oozing out, but it was close, they were very , very gooey. Ingredients: 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 4 ounces coarsely chopped, 1 ounce very finely chopped 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature 6 tablespoons sugar Preparations: Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter (or spray - it's easier) 6...

People who know me or follow my blog know that I have a big interest in the food from the Southern part of the US. I love to travel around there and I love the food! I've spend there quite a lot of time but never ran into Red Velvet cake which is a Southern classic. The first time I heard of it was from our friend in Chicago, she made it and told me about it, I was intrigued, cake colored red with food die... and it has cocoa, very weird. I wanted to bake it but as it is with some recipes it just didn't happen. Over the last few months I ran into various blog postings were people made Red Velvet cake or cupcakes. I bookmarked some recipes, Joy the Baker has a nice one , Paula Deen also has one but I used a recipe I found on Elise's blog Simply Recipes . I choose this one because it looks very authentic, it has vinegar which makes the red even redder and it has butter which I like better than the vegetable oil Paula Deen's recipe calls for. So yesterday I made and taste...

Today, for the first time in a week or two, the weather was nice enough to light my weber kettle grill. There was a little wind, but that has never stopped me from grilling something. Every once in a while we eat fish, not as often as we should, but we do our best. During summer my supermarket sells cedar planks to use on the barbecue and I always stock up on them. Barbecue is not as hot here in Europe as it is in the US so when ever I see something like that, I get a lot of them because you never know when it's sold out and if they will restock them. The cedar plank gives a nice flavor to the fish, protects it from the heat and you'll have no fish sticking to the grate. My recipe for cedar plank salmon is Mediterranean inspired but a cajun style would work fine too. Ingredients: salmon fillet (enough for 4 people) 1/2 cup olive oil 1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice 1 teaspoon oregano 1 teaspoon thyme 1 food grade cedar plank Preparation: Soak the cedar plank for at least 2 hour...

Yesterday when I was making tiramisu , my brother walked in with a bunch of banana's that were a little too ripe for regular consumption. He brings them so I can make the roasted banana ice cream that he loves and with that I can make a mean banana milkshake that he loves even better! But since I was already working on a dessert I decided to make Banana Muffins, so I jumped on the net and ran into this recipe , later I realized that I made 2 recipes on the same day from Michelle's Sugar & Spice blog! I'm not a shareholder, it's all a coincidence :-) I ended up with 20 muffins, I have only one muffin tin (hey, muffins aren't that big on this side of the pond) so I had to gamble on how much to put in each liner. The smell while they are in the oven is fantastic, and they turned out nice and moist, great banana flavor! Next time I'll add some walnut or pecans to a few for a nice banana-nut muffin. Banana Muffins Adapted from: Giada De Laurentiis Ingredients: 3 ...

I made chocolate mousse last week and flan for Tuesdays with Dorie, so why not go on with making famous desserts? I had this one in my "recipes I want to make" folder for a few weeks, tiramisu is a dessert we all love here, but I've never made before myself. I found this recipe on Michelle's Sugar and Spice blog and was intrigued right away, did it mention Kahlua??? Yes, it did! We love Kahlua a lot here! On our last trip to Mexico we brought back Kahlua Especial, which is a little less sweet and has a little higher alcohol percentage. Beautiful to use in a great dessert like this. It was very simple to put this recipe together, it's not so simple to stop eating from the mascarpone mixture while constructing it :-) Not that it would matter since it can feed an army!! Next time I really have to scale it down to maybe one third, that would still be very ok for 5 or 6 people. Everybody raved about it! The smallest of the trusty tasters wanted seconds, no idea how...

I was very pleased with Steph's (of A Whisk and a Spoon ) choice for this weeks Tuesdays With Dorie . I love flan and made it before . This one went pretty smooth too. I only used the wrong knife to cut the flan loose from the mold which resulted in "debris" on top of my flan. The looks didn't interfere with the taste! Which was fabulous, just like the ones I ate in Spain and Mexico. I got mixed reviews from my trusty tasters, but that wasn't the flan's fault. One thought it was eggy, but it was the first time he ate it and trust me, it tasted like it should. Others didn't care to much for it, but they had the same reaction with my other flans :-) Ingredients: For the Caramel 1/3 cup sugar 3 tbsp water squirt of fresh lemon juice For the Flan 1-1/2 cups heavy cream 1-1/4 cups whole milk 3 large eggs 2 large egg yolks 1/2 cup sugar 1 tsp pure vanilla extract Preparation: Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line ...

Second Easter day, yes, here in Holland we celebrate this holiday for two days, so I decided to do an American style breakfast for the family. I love the breakfasts they serve in the South so I made sausage patties, bacon, scrambled eggs and biscuits. I also tried to make gravy, to go with the biscuits, but failed completely on that one :-). Since most of the things I made from Dorie Greenspan's, Baking, from my house to yours turned out very well I used her Basic Biscuit recipe, in the book she gives little pointers on variations, for this one it's Buttermilk Biscuits which you get by replacing the milk by buttermilk and the addition of 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. I used my food processor for this recipe, since I didn't want to overwork the dough and a food processor does a great job here. The biscuits turned out fabulous, high and flaky, just like the ones we got in those little mom 'n' pop places in the South! Basic Biscuits Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour...

Parfaits are a kind of mousse ice cream that don't need churning, so you can make it without an ice cream maker. This one is made with advocaat , a liqueur made with eggs, sugar and brandy. Advocaat here in Holland is very thick compared to the version sold in a lot of other countries, some brands you can get hardly out of the bottle. Advocaat has a kind of old fashioned image here, as it's drank, or rather eaten with a spoon, by old ladies, served in a wine glass, topped with whipped cream. My taste team liked the parfait a lot, it's light, not to heavy on the alcohol and very smooth, great dessert for the first day of Easter! Ingredients: 250 ml whipping cream 50 grams caster sugar 1 sachet vanilla sugar 1 egg yolk 100 ml advocaat Preparation: Beat the whipping cream with the vanilla sugar to stiff peaks In an other bowl beat the egg yolk, caster sugar and advocaat until frothy. Fold the whipping cream through the advocaat mixture, don't overwork it, you want to leav...

The newspaper said that it will be the coldest Easter in 40 years and when I looked out of my window this afternoon, I saw snow! So no spring dish this time, but hot chocolate and not your regular one! Oh no, one made from scratch! Last year on our trip through Mexico I picked up a bag of cocoa beans in Oaxaca, so I could show my niece what chocolate is made of. But what do you with it after that? So they ended up in the back of the pantry. Then last week I ran across a post on the Last Crumb blog where Rose made a chocolate bar from cocoa beans. I knew right away what to do with my cocoa beans! Make hot chocolate with them just like I had at the 20 de Noviembre market in Oaxaca. At that market you can buy bars of chocolate that are used to make the famous Mexican hot chocolate, but there are also places where you can have them grind up your own favorite blend of cocoa, canela (real cinnamon), sugar etc. A lot of the vendors inside the market sell their own blend, and it doesn't ...