Travelling to St. Louis and Gooey Butter Cake

Now that went well, did it? Rather not! Or did it? Anyway, a lot depends on your attitude. As to that I rather have a negative one, although I am trying my best  to get rid of it. On that thought, as long as you are still alive and well, you should be happy and consider things to be well.
As to the global picture ... well, this isn't the place nor the time to expound this. After all, this blog isn't called "Problems Around the World", but rather "Cooking Around the World". For that, right here, right now, I am not available for talking about what is going on in this crazy world ... and I don't mean good crazy.
Talking about good crazy would bring us a bit closer to the style of this blog. You haven't read anything good crazy lately around here. Well, that's not my fault, is it?
That won't get us anywhere, looking for the guilty one, who's fault it is. Rather we want to look ahead and concentrate on getting out something positive.
On that note, let me ask about your opinion regarding butter. Do you like it? How would you care for extensive use of it in a cake and then ... call it gooey butter cake?
I don't know about you, but for my ears this has a quite positive ring to it
Now it seems that the US city of St. Louis, Missouri, seems to be a bit famous for its gooey butter cake. Well, there is only one way to find out about it. Does this already sound like bullwhip and fedora hat again to you?
So come along as we not only cook (or rather bake) around the world, but as we actually travel around the world ...

No Need to Argue - Braided Herb and Cheese Bread

If there is one thing this blog and my blog posts are known for, it's the ridiculous thoughts I have time  and again. However, you shouldn't take everything I said so serious. That would just be a disappointment. You know, I am not twenty one anymore and I am not so sure, whether I could or should be dreaming my dreams. Whatever the case, this blog will never be empty or devoid of food and I hope I will not be changing into a food writing zombie (whatever that is). Don't be so sad, though, if I can't be with you all the time. Right now, I am having a good time, it's summer, the sun is shinning and if I look outside it's not the time to watch while the icicle melts.
By now you should have found out, that there really is no need to argue. Nevertheless, I have no idea nor plan how ever I could use the terms Yeats's grave and daffodil lament in any causal sentence here during this blog post, even if I would include an ode to my family.
While I like writing song based blog posts, I would like to dedicate this one to The Cranberries studio album No Need to Argue. But why is there no need to argue? I like to be frank with you. I love carbs, gluten, wheat, yeast, bacon and all that stuff. While I have no problems with others eating gluten free or low carb, you don't need to argue with me about these things, I just love my dough.
For that I have some bread for you with all the lovely things.

Fine, go ahead, start arguing about the quality of the photos. Well, sometimes things are good and sometimes they are not

Ingredients
300 ml tepid water
7 g yeast
tsp honey
300 g flour
200 g semolina
salt
basil, sage, mint, rosemary
200 g mozzarella, grated
125 bacon, cubed
pepper

Method
We start with the tepid water in one bowl or measuring jar, as I usually do. We add the yeast and the teaspoon of honey. Let the yeast do its magic. Meanwhile get a larger bowl for the flour, semolina and a pinch of salt.
Then it's time to mix the yeasty water with the flour and get things together for a dough.

Get your share of food fitness by kneading the dough for a while to release the glutens (here we go). At the same time you fry of the bacon cubes for a while to give them some extra colour and all that you want.
Chop up the desired amount of the above mentioned herbs, chop them really finely. Then you can work them into the dough. Yes more kneading. After that you get 100 g of the mozzarella cheese and knead it into the dough as well. Follows the bacon and even more kneading until you have all the goodies evenly in your dough.
I reckon, it's time for the dough to do its thing and rise. Meanwhile you can ... no need to argue .. do whatever you like. Maybe you could watch an episode of your favourite series. While we are talking about it ... nah ... whatever.
Just get it over with. I suggest one hour. Then separate the dough into three even balls.

Get a baking tray with some baking parchment ready. You might want to heat up the oven to 200 °C.
Turn the three balls of dough into ... eh ... three sausages of dough, just a little longer then your baking tray. After that we can go for the fun part, braiding the bread. In my opinion, with hair this braiding is a bit easier and ... if you really have to ... but then again no need to argue ... if you look at the fotos the braiding didn't work that out that pro on my bread, but this in no way diminished the taste.
Once the braiding is finished ... for good or for bad ... spread over the remaining cheese and add some pepper on top and transfer the baking tray to the oven for 20 - 30 minutes. The bread is looking golden brown and ready for ...

... the time to enjoy. For sure you will find a good way to do so. You will find something lovely to eat on the side.

That whole thing might be a bit dangerous for me as I could go ahead and finish off that bread just that. No need to argue!

Millenium Falcon Salted Caramel Cake

May the fourth be with you!

Again another year has rolled passed. While I don’t care much about any kind of holiday and special cooking and baking for it, I like May the 4th – Star Wars Day, well I like the pun on the phrase “May the force be with you!” Fine, I liked the movies, too.

But that’s it. Ah, well, when I have the chance I bake something … and I reckon, I will go to the cinema to watch episode VIII in December.

However, I am not going to send a model of a spacecraft into space in order to get some attention. Hm …!?! Maybe I could sent a cake of a spacecraft into space …

Anyway, during the weekend I was talking to a friend and he suggested I could maybe make a Death Star cake. Nah, that would be too much work. What about some cupcakes. We arranged some batter and added green food colouring. After baking, the idea was to add some marzipan to make them look like Yoda heads. Well, the cupcakes didn’t turn out that green and the homemade marzipan not that good for modelling, although it tasted very yummy due to the addition of Amaretto.

Then I got an idea for May the 4th …

A rough sketch of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars that would help me the next day to build a Millennium Falcon cake.

We would need a sponge and some sort of filling or topping. I did some more pondering and researching …

I wanted something with caramel and cream cheese. A quick look at the basics again for achieving it and we are off to shopping. Maybe a marzipan cover would be lovely.

Shopping ready! Now, let’s go for it …

Ingredients:
Sponge:
225 g butter
225 g sugar
4 eggs
225 g (self-rising) flour
1 tsp baking powder
Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
Salted Caramel Sauce:
200 g brown sugar
85 g butter
120 ml cream
Vanilla extract
1 tsp fleur de sel (or sea salt)
Buttercream:
225 g butter
115 g cream cheese
Vanilla extract
The salted caramel sauce
400 g icing sugar

Method:
Don’t worry, the sponge is just a standard sponge as you might use for a Victoria Sponge cake as well. So, if you don’t feel like Star Wars, have a normal round one, but …

We feel like Star Wars now. After all, John Williams is assisting us through the whole process. So turn up the volume of your speakers. Yes, it would be best this post comes with a soundtrack,but if you want to hear anything, you have to put on the music yourself.

Fine, “Bake we must!”

Take a bowl, add the butter and the sugar for the sponge and get whisking … until it’s fluffy.

Yeah, I don’t know whether that is fluffy, but that’s the way I’m gonna use it. Crack one egg into it. Beat it. Crack another egg. Beat it again. Next egg. More beating. Last egg. Finish beating. Add the vanilla extract.

Now sift in the flour and the baking powder. Don’t forget a pinch of salt. Incorporate everything to get a smooth batter.

For the baking the oven is heated up to 180 °C.

Line a baking tray with baking parchment and spread the batter on it …

Like this it goes into the oven for 25 minutes.

At this point you could be tempted to start the salted caramel sauce. Don’t do it! see where you can tidy up things while the sponge is baking.

Remove the sponge from the oven and give it time to cool down.

Now you can feel free to start the salted caramel sauce. Get yourself a saucepan and add the brown sugar and cover it all with water. Place the remaining ingredients for the sauce nearby …

Put on the heat … full power … energise!

The sauce seems a bit tricky. Obviously, you can’t see when the sugar starts to get an amber colour, for it already has such. Hear it is, where you need to use the force, you need to feel it. Well, you don’t have to close your eyes for the next step, but if you want it, go for it.

Reach out with your senses and feel the caramel getting ready as the liquid is bubbling away. You will sense a change in the bubbling or a tremor in the force …

When that happens, reduce the heat from full to medium, get a wooden spoon into your right hand … eh … or left hand, if you prefer that. Start stirring.

Throw in the butter. Stir and watch it melt away.

Pour in the cream and watch it distribute, stirring all the time.

Add the vanilla extract and the fleur de sell (sea salt), while you continue stirring.

At this point, I turned off the heat and continued stirring with the remaining heat until the caramel sauce stopped bubbling. Then set it aside for cooling.

Back to the sponge. I cut it into half and placed one piece above the other to follow my Millennium Falcon blueprint to cut it out of the sponge.

Hm … it looked … okay …

That will do. In order to be able to proceed here, we need the buttercream ready.

Another bowl, some more whisking and we are ready …

Add the butter and the cream cheese to the bowl and whisk it together. There goes another bit of vanilla extract.

The salted caramel sauce isn’t that hot anymore, so we can spoon it into the bowl as well and mix it in thoroughly.

Bit by bit we add the 400 g icing sugar. That sounds like awful a lot. No worries! Combine it all well. Ah, that looks like awful a lot of buttercream. Fine, we are going to use it all up anyway.

Spread a layer of … let’s say one third of it … on the bottom sponge …

Carefully place the top sponge … eh … on top of it. No big deal, huh?

Use some of the sponge cuttings to create a satellite dish, a round object placed on a wedge.

It’s time to use up that remaining buttercream and cover the whole cake in it. Give it your best to get the cream on. If you have any cream in undesired places, I’m afraid you have to remove it and eat it up. Well, that’s what I did.

Hm, you get an idea of the Millennium Falcon at this point, but we still can do better with some chocolate buttons and a bit chocolate from a decorating pen …

That’s it. In order for my cake decorating skills to improve, I reckon I have to do a few more cakes. Well … if I get any ideas, that is.

When I was younger … much younger … I never had a Millennium Falcon model, but now I have a Millennium Falcon cake and … the only thing can do with it, is eat it up. However, considering the over 500 g of sugar and the amount of sugar in it, I guess, I have to enlist the help of others to deal with the cake. Otherwise I’ll have a BIG problem.

So, if you are i the neighbourhood anytime soon …

Well, I had a model of a TIE-fighter once. I already thought of making some TIE-fighters with cookies and marzipan or even a marzipan X-Wing, but … that would have been a lot harder.

Speaking of marzipan, there was no room for a marzipan cover here, so I definitely have to make some more cake involving that soon.

For the time being, though, I wish you a lovely day and … if you feel like it … share some of your Star Wars Day creations in below in the comment section.

Otherwise, have a delicious Salted Caramel cake …

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F-Game Toad in a Hole

Lately, around here I am not giving my a-game. I’m not sure, what it would be like, though. No worries!

Anyway, life is like this: sometimes you loose and sometimes the others win. Nah, it's not that bad. Sometimes you simply have other things to do.

Therefore we go right away into food, for at least here we know, that it will go to a meal. Leftovers! There were those pork sausages in my fridge, those tiny ones. Here they are called Nürnberger. I used some of them for my English breakfast some time ago, but what to do with the rest of them.

Now I know, why I put all those knowledge into my head. At some point a bell will ring and I know what to do. So, toad in the hole. I never had. Therefore I never made it before. I now, it involves sausages and … something else.

Now I give you my F-game Toad in the Hole …

 Well, the F-game in this recipe doesn’t refer to it being rubbish. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even think about putting it up here.

No! It’s time for Lord Feta to strike back …

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tsp mustard powder
120 g flour
100 ml milk
Some parsley, finely chopped
Some sage, finely chopped
Salt, pepper
100 g bacon, preferably 10 slices
10 small pork sausages
200g feta

Method:Heat up your oven to 180 °C.

Get yourself an ovenproof dish, 20 x 20 cm will do for this amount of ingredients. Put it aside.

Now get a bowl and mix in it the eggs, mustard powder, flour, milk, parsley and sage. Season with salt and pepper. Pour that mixture into the ovenproof dish.

What a coincidence, the amount of bacon was just enough for the number of sausages I had left. Go for it and wrap one slice of bacon around one little sausages and arrange in the batter in the ovenproof dish.

All done? Proceed with the feta. You can either crumble it into the ovenproof dish or cut it into cubes and scatter them over the sausages in the dish.

Anyhow, put into the oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, you have sufficient time to whip up your onion gravy and get whatever vegetables you want to put on the side ready.

For sure, you have a good recipe for onion gravy and know quite perfectly well how to do it. No?

I took a pan and melted some butter at low heat, tossed in the onion rings of a large onion and let things go until the toad in the hole is almost finish.

To complete the sauce, season with salt and pepper, add a tablespoon of flour and a generous splash of sherry. Briefly cook so the sauce thickens.

The finished dish from the oven could look somewhat like that or when you have a closer look, it will look a bit like this …

Ah, that wasn’t really that much closer. Anyway, plate up. With the right amount of vegetables you could even manage to satisfy four people with that, but than you can’t be as generous with the onion gravy as I have …

However, that was only, because I wanted to have fresh gravy for the leftovers another day and maybe enhance the gravy with some mushrooms then.

If, though, you don’t have four people for tea and decide to have a second go, you can have less or no gravy at all …

You could always have some more peas, though.

Whatsoever, I enjoyed it very much. If you want to have a more traditional version of toad in the hole, I guess, you just have to omit the feta.

In case you want to have a vegetarian version, you could omit the bacon and use veggie sausages or use something completely different, but then again, you might get a totally different dish here. So, why then, not cook something completely different.

#Foodfitness with Beef and Cheese Empanadillas

It is about time I start putting up some more food here on our blog. It has been quite a while of inactivity, which doesn't mean I haven't been active. In fact I have been very active and I have been doing quite some exercise, enjoying it together with my beautiful wife. Life is really good!
Now, though, it is time again for some other kind of exercise again ... food fitness.
Let's have some Spanish food today, which you could also use for a picnic, if the weather so permits.

Ingredients:
450 g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. butter
1 egg
1 tsp. honey
pinch of salt
lukewarm water
1 onion (finely chopped)
some chillies (to your liking, finely chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
500 g minced beef
smoked paprika
salt, pepper
2 tbsp. tomato puree
basil, rosemary, mint
3 spring onions (chopped in rings)
150 g grated cheese (whatever kind you fancy)
30 g sultanas
oil for frying

Method:
First of all we go for the dough, setting the tone for the whole thing, putting some energy in the preparation, for there will be much energy in the consumption as well, although I am not quite sure whether you want to hear it.
Put the flour with the baking powder in a bowl, rub in the butter. Then add the salt, honey and egg. Knead the dough in a fitness-like fashion adding as much of lukewarm water as it needs to bring the whole dough together.
Then let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. In case you also need that rest, I guess you have to give it some more time. Otherwise you can you the time wisely to already prepare the filling.
You start off with the onions in a large pan, let the chillies and the garlic join. After the onions are translucent you can put in the meat and season it with salt, pepper and the smoked paprika. Once the meat has gained sufficient colour you can add the tomato puree and go on frying as long until it is all relatively dry. We don't want the filling too wet to cause any problems.
Just when it is all ready that far, turn off the heat and add the basil, rosemary, mint, spring onions, cheese and sultanas. It might look a little bit like this ...

You have some time for it to cool off a bit. That will be the time to prepare the individual empanadillas and have some extra exercise. If you still feel you need more exercise, do some push-ups, squats or crunches later on, but here we go with good old food fitness ...

Try to make it thin. This way you will enjoy the filling much later when all is finished. Give it your all. You want to feel those muscles in yours so you can actually say you have done some real exercise. Get some round shapes out of the dough for the final empanadillas. We got a special tool for it here so it will work out perfectly with the shape and sticking in the filling.
Give every circle of dough, we had 15 in the end, a teaspoon of filling or a little bit more, as your conscience permits and as you will be able to seal them properly afterwards. We don't want any filling to exit while frying. We only want to let the filling exit in your mouth while eating.

If it looks like this you might be doing it right. To ensure they are securely shut, you can use a fork to seal them well.
Then enjoy the time for frying the empanadillas in sufficient oil and hopefully they are securely shut. I didn't do it so well, when I tried it the other week, but this batch went perfectly well without incidents ... for my wife was helping to make it happen just fine.

Now the only thing that remains is enjoy your empanadillas with some salad and a beer ... any kind of beer. It doesn't need to be Spanish, although I wouldn't mind a bottle of Estrella de Galicia.
We hope you had enough exercise preparing the empanadillas. As for my part I feel like I still have to do some more exercise. These days I am kind of crazy about doing some exercise. That's not bad, after all the body feels a lot better when it is filled with muscles and not with ... anyway, I don't want to suggest anything here, but just that I am always going to enjoy some good food exercise, when it also leads to some tasty results. It would really make me feel bad, if I would put in all the effort in preparing  and eating if it wouldn't be worth it. 
In this very case here of the empanadillas we can assure you that it was absolutely worth it and we are going to enjoy it any time.
We hope you are having a good time and are keeping healthy!

Meat Pie from Scotland - Bridie

Time is always rushing by so fast and ... well ... often I don't know where it went. There is not much you can do about it, but it's better, if you don't feel like your life is just passing by and you are just in a routine and are not trying out new things. Well, this time you might try something from Scotland … Bridie …

Already before I thought about trying it and so I had to do some research and here we go with my results.

Ingredients:
300 g flour
75 g butter
75 g lard
Salt and pepper
A bit of water
500 g minced mead
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method:
First of all we start with the pastry. The flour goes into a bowl with a pinch of salt. Oops, I added pepper here, too. Ah, no worries. Then add the butter and lard. Rub it into the flour. Then add just enough water to bring the pastry together into a nice lump of dough.

Wrap the dough into cling film and put it into the fridge for one hour.

Divide the dough into four portions and roll each one out into a kind of rectangular shape.

Mix the minced meat with the chopped onion and garlic and generously season with pepper and a bit of salt. Accordingly divide the meat mixture between the four dough pieces.

Wet the edges of the pastry with water and fold over the loose end and carefully seal it. Move the two ends of the closed pastry together so that the crimped edge is on the outside. Hm, does this make sense? Have a look …

Make incisions on top of the bridies. Transfer the unbaked bridies to the fridge for half an hour. When it’s almost time, pre-heat the oven to 200 °C. Bake the bridies for 30 to 40 minutes until they have a lovely colour. Luckily, I noticed the auto-correction or otherwise we would have had baked brides. For sure something, we don’t like to have.

Ready for eating. Either eat them just like they are as a snack or with potatoes and vegetables on the side.

Some kind of gravy would be nice for they can be a bit dry. Well, at least I had a glass of cider on the side and a glass of whisky afterwards …

Bridie

So, die Zeit ist abgelaufen. Erst mal komme ich wohl nicht nach Schottland. Aber wenigstens kann ich ein wenig traditionelles schottisches Essen ausprobieren. Hm, Haggis erst mal nicht. Eher diese gefüllten Teigtaschen, die man Bridie nennt. Für solche Sachen bin ich ja immer zu haben.

Zutaten:
300 g Mehl
75 g Butter
75 g Schweineschmalz
Salz und Pfeffer
Etwas Wasser
500g Hackfleisch
1 Zwiebel, feingehackt
2 Knoblauchzehen, feingehackt

Zubereitung:
Erst mal zum Teig. Das Mehl in eine Schüssel geben. Dazu kommt eine Prise Salz … oops irgendwie hab ich auch eine Prise Pfeffer dazugegeben. Was soll’s. Nun noch die Butter und den Schweineschmalz dazu. Das dann sorgfältig ins Mehl massieren. Zum Schluss noch Wasser dazu, so dass wir einen schönen Teigklumpen erhalten. Dieser wandert dann für eine Stunde in den Kühlschrank – eingewickelt in Frischhaltefolie.

Währenddessen könnte man schon mal die Füllung vorbereiten. Keine grosse Sache. Einfach das Fleisch mit der Zwiebel und dem Knoblauch vermengen, salzen und pfeffern und fertig isset.

So, Teig zur Hand, in vier Teile aufteilen und ausrollen, in so ne Art Rechtecke. Die Fleischmasse auf die vier Teigteile verteilen (siehe Foto oben). Die Ränder des Teiges mit Wasser anfeuchten und zusammenklappen, kleben. Wie oben auf dem Foto gezeigt, die Spitzen der Teigtaschen nach innen zusammenschieben und oben am Teig zwei Einschnitte machen. Das ganze geht dann nochmal für eine halbe Stunde in den Kühlschrank bevor die Bridies bei 200 °C 30-40 Minuten gebacken werden.

Das fertige Produkt so als Snack essen oder mit Kartoffeln und Gemüse zusammen, vielleicht noch ne Sauce dazu oder vielleicht auch nen Spritzer Ketchup.

Die Bridies schmecken auch kalt am nächsten Tag oder auch wieder kurz aufgewärmt.

Wheat Tortillas with Mango Salsa

Sometimes I think I need more of a certain kind of food in my life. Ha, you say, when you look at my blog, there is a lot of variation. Fine! At times, though I wish I could have certain things more often. Maybe something like that ...

That was the dish for Mexico I totally forgot to blog for the World Cup. No worries. Yes, at times I wish I could have a bit more Mexican food in my life.
Well then, what do you have to do for these little wheat tortillas with Mango salsa?
Obviously you need to make your own  wheat tortillas.
For that I usually take normal wheat flour, add a pinch of salt and then as much cream as is necessary to make the dough come together. However, it will never be more than 200 ml of cream. Then I never used more than 500 g of flour.
Let the dough rest a bit, then separate the dough into individual portions, roll out little tortillas and dry-fry them.
Make your Mango Salsa with half a cucumber, a hand full of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of fresh coriander, one ripe mango, the juice of one lime, one red chilli, a small red onion and a bit of salt.
It's best to cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise first. Then remove the softer more watery inside with a small spoon. Cut the remaining part into small cubes.
Remove the seeds of the tomatoes and cut into small bits. Finely chop the onion, chilli and coriander. Cut the mango into small pieces as well.
Mix all the ingredients together. Maybe a drop of olive oil will do no harm.
Put a spoonful of the salsa on each ready fried wheat tortilla and enjoy ...

Switzerland - Engadine Nut Pie V2.0

There is a calendar on the wall in the office. It has one large and several small pictures on it for every month. It's Switzerland. What do we see on the pictures? Mountains, trains and cows ... they come to my mind.
Now, what comes to your mind, when thinking about Switzerland. Chocolate? Oh, yes, that's a good one. Swiss bank account? Nah, I don't have sufficient funds to think about that. Neutrality? Well, that doesn't sound to bad. So I try to keep that in mind.
A lot of people, when they travel to Switzerland to the Graubünden area, take the Engadine Nut Pie back home as a 'souvenir'. So far I only have been to the other side of lake Constance, so I could at least have a look at Switzerland from across the lake ... kind of.
Nevertheless, I like to have a take on the Engadine Nut Pie and bring you my version, that is the Engadine Nut Pie V2.0. Not that this is essentially an improved version, but it has some modifications to fit my image of Switzerland in my mind.

I had a look at the basic recipe on the tourist website for Graubünden. Then I went on to modify ...
You know, it's quite easy when you have bits of walnuts from a bag ready for use, but when you have to work yourself through closed nuts and crack them all open to get 250 g of chopped nuts ... eh ... well I stopped 100 g short. I checked also some other recipes. One stated 400 g of walnuts and another one had also some plum jam in it. I looked further and looked, but I couldn't find a version with chocolate in it, but ... come on, Switzerland ... I wanted chocolate in it.
Accordingly, here we go ...

Ingredients:
300 g whole wheat flour (somehow most of the other flour was gone in my pantry)
150 g sugar
150 g butter
2 small eggs
1 pinch of salt

300 g sugar
A few tbsp. of water
150 g walnuts
50 ml cream
100 g plum jam
100 g chocolate, into pieces

Method:
Take the flour, the 150 g sugar, the butter, the eggs and a pinch of salt, throw them into a bowl and have some pastry from it. You work it out. Looks like shortcrust pastry anyway. Nicely bring all the ingredients together.
Have your cake tin ready and put a bit more than half of the dough on the bottom of your oiled cake tin, having the dough going slightly upwards at the side. Spread the plum jam onto the bottom.
Give the remaining 300 g of sugar with the water into a pan at full heat and have some caramel going. Make sure not to stir. When the sugar goes brown and the caramel is coming, toss in the nuts and add the cream. Now you are allowed to stir.
Pour the nut caramel over the plum jam. Afterwards throw the chocolate over it, too.
Finally you have to manage to put the remaining pastry over as a lid. I wasn't very good at it.

Yes, it looked like this after baking. So, put the cake tin into the cold oven and turn up the heat to maximum. After ten minutes reduce the heat to 180 °C and let the pie in the oven for another 35 minutes.
As you see on my photos, the Engadine Nut Pie, I made didn't look that lovely, but ... oh, did it taste delicious. You just have to imagine that touch of plum, the nut caramel and the chocolate. I loved it.

Fine, after the Engadine Nut Pie comes from the oven, you have somehow remove it from the tin and also allow time for cooling down. Then you can enjoy it, too.

What now? I reckon, you had sufficient time to think about what comes to your mind when thinking about Switzerland ...

Look out for more World Cup countries cooking ...

Brazil vs Croatia - Filé à Osvaldo Aranha vs Fritule

Finally, this is the day where the World Cup 2014 in Brazil starts. Brazil and Croatia will kick off in the opening game in São Paulo. Who will win? I don't know and I don't favour any country is this tournament. Whoever wins, wins.
However, when it comes to individual cuisines of the various countries, things are different. There I know what I am looking for, great taste and lovely food.
All that leads us to the Bloggers Around the World: World Cup 2014 Brazil. From today on things get serious. At a day such as this you can share Brazilian and Croatian dishes. Watch out for more tweets or post on the Cooking Around the World Facebook page to find out what you can share with us on what day. Or simply keep up to date the real World Cup.

Well then, today it's Brazil vs Croatia and while it's the opening, I decided to do a food Brazil vs Croatia as well. Since I can't eat two large savoury dishes in one day, I went for one savoury and one sweet.

Let's go Brazil first ...

Filé à Osvaldo Aranha

Ingredients:
Fillets of beef
One onion, chopped up
One beaten egg
Two large knobs of butter
80 g cassava flour
Garlic, finely sliced and fried
Salt, Pepper
Flat leaved parsley, coarsely chopped
One spring onion,chopped in rings
A few potatoes to make potato chips

Method:
Things are quite fast paced here. The fillets of beef need 3-4 minutes on each side a brief time for resting. The potato chips won't take too long, once you have cut the potatoes in shape.
The bit that takes slightly more time is the Farofa. So I decided to start with this one. All the other jobs you can do in between.
Have a sufficiently large pan ready and melt some butter. Then add the chopped up onions and soften them. After that you add the beaten egg and scramble it. Finally you add the cassava flour and season with salt and pepper ... not too much salt.
Stir the whole bit ... eh ... a bit and let it go until it gains some colour.
As I mentioned, the beef needs 3-4 minutes on each side. Use a frying pan for that with some butter in it.
Be careful, when you fry the potato chips. Make sure, you patted the potato bits dry before tossing them into the hot oil.
A general reminder, don't burn anything ... especially not your fingers or any other body parts.

When everything is ready, plate up. The amount of Farofa should be enough for four people. In order to assure that, you can also serve steamed rice alongside. I read, that this is done in Brazil, too. For me, that was fine. I wasn't in need of any rice here.
Anyway, serve he fillet of beef with the fried garlic on top. On the side you put the Farofa, which you garnish with the parsley and spring onion rings. Of course, don't forget the chips and ... whatever drink you need alongside it.
That was a quick and lovely dish. However, I would recommend not to use too much salt on the Farofa and I guess, a small serving of the Farofa is sufficient.

Onward to Croatia ...

Fritule

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla sugar
3 tbsp. sugar
50 g raisins
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. plum brandy (or brandy or rum)
1 sachet of dried yeast (7 g)
500 g flour
Water, if the dough is still too dry (we want it slightly sticky)
Oil for frying

Method:
Let's make the dough for the fritule. Ahem, what else should we be doing?!
Get a large bowl and crack the eggs into it. Add the sugar, including vanilla sugar, and whisk it together. Then add the raisins, lemon zest and juice, vegetable oil and the plum brandy. Thoroughly mix things up ... no ... through.
Combine the yeast with the flour and then add it to the bowl. Bring all the ingredients together. Use as much water to get the right dough, not too dry, but not too wet either, you know. No? You will see, slightly wet that is.
Cover the bowl and leave to rise until doubled in size.
After that make small balls from the dough. Does that not remind you of football a little bit. You could even serve the finished product to the football watching persons in your household ... but don't forget, there is booze in these small donuts.
Yes, we got carried away. we won't have a finished product unless we do some frying for those balls. Have sufficient vegetable oil in a pan for it. The fritule need to have the chance to float in the oil without touching the bottom of the pan.
A sensible thing to do is to put the small donuts onto kitchen paper after remove them from the oil. Later you can put them into an appropriate bowl for serving.

Hm ... eh ... well, it's best to sprinkle them with some icing sugar before serving and you can also use some wooden sticks for people to help themselves to the fritule.

I reckon, as a snack for the game they would just do or ... have them any other time you want. Well, I was satisfied here, too.

What should I say to this? Brazil vs Croatia: 1 - 1. I hope we get some more lovely dishes for Bloggers Around the World during the World Cup.

However, we don't want to focus all our activities just around the World Cup. This post goes also very well to the No Waste Food Challenge, which Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary is managing together with some other lovely bloggers. This month it's Michelle turn from Utterly Scrummy Food For Families (I just love that title).

I was really lucky I still had cassava flour in my pantry or otherwise the Brazilian dish would not have been complete. However, I don't know, why I had cassava flour in the first place. Finally I found a way to use it.

As for the fritule, they were a brilliant opportunity to use the plum brandy on, which I kind of made myself, but never drink from it. So, I could even add this post to the No Waste Food Challenge twice.

Besides all this ... hm ... eh ... whatever ... don't forget to have fun and ... some delicious food from around the world ...