2nd Blogiversary and Cake

A long long time ago ...

... eh ...

... about two years ago I started blogging with Cooking Around the World. Who would have thought I would be still doing it today!? What has happened in those two years? Where have I gotten myself to and where will this be going?
Questions and still more questions. I think what we need right now is not answers, but cake ...

Without a cake we cannot celebrate properly. That is a Sachertorte, originating from a recipe that was created in Austria ... quite some time ago. It's named after Austrian Franz Sacher, who lived in the 1830s. Whatsoever, it's one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. In other words, a worthy cake for my 2nd Blogiversary.
I reckon we just need some flowers then ...

Good, now we are ready. So, come along and have a piece of cake ...

It's useless to resist - Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...

... "It's useless to resist." ...

... "I am your father!" ...

... "No, no, that's not true. That's impossible!"

CUT! CUT!

Let's start over: A few weeks ago in a small, normal kitchen ... It's useless to resist. No, not the dark side. No, rather the dark chocolate of those Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies. I'm your cookie. Yes, it is true, it is possible. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Just have a look at the list of ingredients first and you will see ...

Ingredients (get them and join):

200 g icing sugar

200 g butter

25 g cocoa powder

60 g macadamia nuts, chopped up

300 g flour

100 g dark chocolate, broken or cut into chunks

Method (no tricks, no nonsense):

Carefully melt the butter in a large saucepan. Then take it from the heat and stir in the sugar and the cocoa powder.

Add the macadamia nuts and incorporate them as well.

It's time for the flour then. Sift it in if you like or ... just go for it.

Finally give in to your feelings and use the chocolate chunk to make the cookie dough complete.

Did I say finally? Well, must have been for the cookie dough. 

Almost there! 

We only need to put small pieces of the dough on baking trays that have baking parchment on them and then put the whole lots of them into the oven for 15 minutes at 180 °C.

After a bit of cooling down ... for the cookies ... but if preparing them was too much hard work for you, you might cool down as well.

Said and done! Now it's useless to resist those lovely Double Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

On the other hand you might reconsider your strategy. While Wookies might pull out the arms of innocent droids when they loose, you might let the cookies win anyway, but they might change something in connection with your body, if you eat them all at once on your own ... Don't ask!

Well, as far as I can see it, it's May the 4th. Does this have anything to do with Star Wars? Or with cookies? 

Don't have a bad feeling about this. Remember, if you go and make those cookies now, the 4th will be with you ... always!

Alternatively, you can put the cookies into your cookie jar and eat responsible. Well, this month's Tea Time Treats from Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked is about that Eh, not necessarily about eating responsibly - we are doing that anyway ... most of the time - but the theme is rather: The Biscuit Tin and Cookie Jar! Biscuits and Cookies. So for sure you find also some alternatives as to cookies at Lavender and Lovage, who is hosting Tea Time Treats this very month.

So ... have a look around and join forces for that ...

The Show must go on - Fougasse de Chocolat et Fraise

Maybe you have been hearing me talking about cooking through a complete book with all it's recipes. As far as I noticed I have been talking about it since I started the blog and ... it hasn't materialised. But ... I might start one day!
On the other hand, if you have read posts on this blog also in the last year, you might have noticed that I started to bake myself through a book, namely Secrets of a French baker. I haven't even finished that. In fact, I haven't done much for it, either. However, it's mostly bread in it and each recipe takes several hours to complete. It's good exercise, though, because a lot of kneading is involved. 
It happens to be the case at times, that I like to join blog challenges. There is an ongoing one done by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked. It's called Tea Time Treats. This month Lavender and Lovage is hosting and ... très bien ... the them is: Ooh La La! French Tarts, Cakes, Bakes and Pastries.

That is a perfect opportunity to let the show go on and do another recipe from that book: Fougasse. That is a kind of bread with a lovely filling. While the book is suggesting 7 different savoury fillings I decided to go for sweet one with chocolate spread and strawberry jam. I would have loved to add some fresh strawberries from the garden, but obviously it isn't the time yet.
Somehow I managed to do something wrong while preparing the bread, but I don't take the blame all on myself. The recipe - strangely - didn't state what to do with two ingredients and as I didn't bother to think about the recipe and simply went step by step, well, I didn't use the one tbs of soft butter and 3 tbs of milk powder.
I only did as follows:
Sift 225 g of strong baking flour and 225 g of spelt flour together with one and a half tsp of salt into a bowl. Then added a sachet of dried yeast and added bit by bit 240 ml of lukewarm water. I used a hand mixer to ... eh ... mix it. Then I used my hands to make a solid ball of dough. I left it on the kitchen work surface for 10 minutes and did something else.
I did my exercise by kneading the dough for over 15 minutes.
Then I carefully made a half flat half ball kind of object and placed the dough like this into the bowl, covered it with a wet kitchen towel and left it for 45 minutes. I went to do something else. Can't remember what!
I might have read something or just checked things on the computer, but who knows or cares.
I took the dough again and divided it into two balls, which I placed one a floured kitchen towel and covered with the other still wet kitchen towel and left the dough again for 25 minutes, while doing something else. In between I noticed I forgot to roll the bowls in coarse sugar. So I tried to fix it and continued  to wait for the 25 minutes to end.
Now I started to heat up the oven to 220 °C. The two dough balls were flattened and stretched to two rectangular dough pieces.

On one side of each rectangular dough piece I smeared first some chocolate spread and then some strawberry jam. On the other half I made five incisions respectively. After that the sides with the cuts went over the chocolate jam and I tried my best to seal the bread. Then I transferred the breads to a baking tray and brushed them generously with some egg wash. Finally I sprinkled sugar on top and put the tray for 20 minutes into the oven.

They came out like this. I expected the incisions to be open, but maybe it was better that way so there was no chance for the filling to seep out at all cuts.
First of all I thought to do some arranging and get a nice picture. I put the breads on a wooden chopping board and started thinking ...

... but to no avail. I got no idea on how to do it. Therefore I simply cut them open ...

As you see ... eh ... you see quite some bread and not so much filling. Maybe flattening the dough a bit more and adding more filling would have been something. Nevertheless the fougasses tasted lovely ... maybe that would be something for a chocolate lover.
Well, I'm not promising now, that the show will go on and you find a bread here on my blog every week, but still I will be trying the remaining recipes from that book ... one day ... one day ... in the future.
Oh, well, I have to leave soon for the airport. Just managed to finish the post. Fine, I still have a few more minutes ...