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...

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...

This is a Dutch classic, poffertjes are mini pancakes baked in a special "poffertjespan". The first recipe on how to make these little fellows was published in 1746. For us this is not breakfast food, we eat them for lunch or dinner, that's what we also do with pancakes by the way! Poffertjespan Ingredients: 125 grams flour 125 grams buckwheat flour* 300 ml lukewarm milk 1 egg 10 grams yeast pinch of salt 75 grams melted butter confectioners sugar butter Preparation: Mix and sift the flour and buckwheat flour into a mixing bowl. Dissolve the yeast in a some milk. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the milk with the yeast in it. Put the salt at the outside of the flour. Slowly stir the flour into the milk and slowly add the rest of the milk. When well combined add the lightly beaten egg. Cover the bowl with cling film and let the batter rest at a warm place for 45 minutes. Heat up the poffertjespan and brush a little of the melted butter in each hole, ...