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 ...
I have been invited to a party. Lovely! It's a popsicle party. Great! Really? I have eaten popsicles before, but never made any. I don't even have any popsicle moulds or something I could possibly use instead ... thinking ... So how could I possible enter this month's Sweet Adventures Blog Hop - Popsicle Party, which the lovely Swah from Love Swah is hosting?
Hm, right ... eh ... well ... eh ... have a look ...
So, how did I manage?
We will see ...
Things don't seem to run quite smoothly lately. Ah, what am I talking about? Quite some long time and things are really out of hand, but I try my best to make this blog still working.
Ah, I really should stop pestering people with that rubbish, so ...
Warning! This recipe is not suitable for everyone as things are going to be a little bit lethal. Maybe that's why I have picked the name. What do I know.
I would be very lovely to get a lot more things from the garden ... at least from some friends' gardens. He he he! Well, I did work for things, too. I got the chance to pick some sour cherries for my own needs, although I didn't know I had any need. Anyways, it would have been a shame to give it all to the birds. So I picked a small bucket full.
Some went to be used as a dessert simply together with some curd cheese. A bag full went to the freezer and the remaining ones went into a jar ...
I should have used cashews. That would have made the whole thing a CCCCC - a Cashew Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake. However, now we deal with it as things are. Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Caramel Cake is just fine. Anyway, the hazelnuts are doing a fab job. I simply had to do it. There was this experimenting mood again. That good spirit, which brings me into a good mood and sometimes something lovely to eat. Let's see whether it worked out this time again.
Ingredients:
200 g whole wheat flour
100 g brown sugar
200 g melted butter
100 g chopped hazelnuts
500 ml chocolate custard
300 g sugar
50 ml water
50 g butter
200 ml cream
A splash brown rum
Method:
I'm trying to combine a few things I read or saw elsewhere. You have to get some ideas somehow.
We start with the base of the cake. Mix the flour with the brown sugar, melted butter and the chopped hazelnuts. You still might try to use cashews, if you like. I won't try. That's not because I don't like cashews, but ... I ... eh ... did something else.
Get yourself the usual round cake tin, lightly oil it and then put in some baking parchment. If you want to make even more sure, oil the baking parchment as well. You never know.
Press the base of the cake onto the baking parchment in the cake tin. It's best not to be fussy and use your hands and just go for it. Level it out all evenly and chuck the tin into the pre-heated oven and bake it for 20 minutes at 180 °C. By the end of that you should have some chocolate custard ready.
Cover the base of the cake with the chocolate custard ad return to the oven for another 10 minutes.
Now it's time for a break. Let the cake cool down completely. That may take a while ...
Just before you think you are ready, we go for the caramel. Somehow I use to make caramel quite often these days. The idea for the following I got during my Christine & Christian adventures and some caramelised bananas. Don't worry, if you wonder what has become of Christine & Christian. It will continue.
However, back to our cake business. We start with the sugar and the water in a pot with high heat. Patiently watch the bubbling and sizzling until the sugar caramelises and starts to turn brown. At this point pour in the cream and the rum. Then throw in the butter and start stirring. Do that for a while until things have calmed down a bit. Reduce the heat to medium for that.
Continue to cook until the caramel something slightly thickens. Are you ready? Pour he caramel sauce kind of thing over the chocolate custard on the cake and spread it out.
It went slightly a bit different as I had imagined. The caramel went solid quite quickly. So working with a spatula wasn't really satisfying.
Cutting the cake into pieces wasn't that easy either. The cover cracks quite easily. You can imagine that a piece of cake has quite some energy in it, for which you really need some time to burn it or use it up. Gladly I hadn't to eat the cake all by myself. I could spread the love and share.
What were the reactions? Delicious, lovely, disgusting. Well, the disgusting part was only because the slices were cut so large and you really can not manage to eat a whole giant piece of that cake. Well, I can, but not everyone is that strong.
In other words the cake is quite sweet. If you like that, then you need a Hazelnut Chocolate Custard Cake. Whatsoever! Although I liked the cake, I wasn't finished yet with achieving my ultimate caramel delight.
The quest still goes on. Therefore watch out for more cake experimenting from the cake lab. In fact I have been doing quite some baking lately. So I guess you have to manage with a few more cakes.
If you have any caramel suggestions for me, I'm happy for it! See thee!
On the 3rd of August 1492 Columbus set sail from Spain with three ships the Santa MarÃa, the Pinta and the Niña to find an alternative route to India. In October 1492 he reached what we know today as ... hm ... eh ... the Caribbean. The conquest of paradise was about to start. At least that's how it is called sometimes.
Enough with history lesson. If you want to know more, read a book. That's still a very good thing to do. But wait, not now. Rather read on first of all. We are having our own conquest of paradise, though slightly different. We are having it for pudding.
This dessert is based on the cocktail called paradise, which is common all throughout the Caribbean ... that is if my Caribbean cookbook is right.
I guessed, we could use this for our Caribbean themed Bloggers Around the World challenge for this month. You have still a few days left to take part as well.
Let's go into some details. However, should it be the case - strangely - that you are not fed up yet with your plans for the new year with having a lighter diet and loosing some weight, then don't read on or ... do so at own risk.
After the recipe, I tell you some random facts about me in connection with the Caribbean.
Ingredients:
Tin of peaches (about 800 g)
4 cl apricot brandy
1 sheet of gelatin
250 g mascarpone
4 cl white rum
4 cl orange juice
2 tbs fruit sugar
Instructions:
Cut the peaches into small pieces, while you pour the juices from the tin to a pot. Add the apricot brandy to this very pot as well. Of course, the small pieces of peach go in as well. Bring it to the boil and leave to simmer.
Meanwhile you put a sheet of gelatin into cold water and let it soak for 7 minutes. Then get rid of the water and put the gelatin to the pot. Keep stirring until the gelatin is dissolved. Then remove the pot from the heat and allow things to cool down.
Now focus on the mascarpone. Mix it with the fruit sugar, rum, and the orange juice. Put it into the fridge.
Once the peaches have cooled down sufficiently divide them between some dessert glasses (4-6 will do). When the peaches are cool enough you can also divide the mascarpone mixture between the dessert glasses and transfer the glasses to the fridge until the desserts have properly set.
You could leave them in over night, for several hours, or just eat one of them without waiting too long.
Alternatively you can even have a paradise cocktail with some ice cubes, 4 cl white rum, 2 cl apricot brandy and 1 cl orange juice. It's up to you.
Here now 10 facts about me and the Caribbean.
- A computer game made me want to go to the Caribbean.
- That visit actually made me learn Spanish.
- I visited the Caribbean several times.
- While going scuba diving I saw fishes being fed with bananas.
- I went on a trip with at least 19 people in a mini van.
- I was invited by locals to a wedding, had lots of sweet cake and had to dance Merengue all night ... strangely all the 'girls' wanted to dance with me.
- Years later I was still remembered by my dancing ... kind of.
- I guess that climate would be better for my chronic illness.
- There was a 'girl' called Betania, well ... eh ... she wrote down a recipe for me.
- History could have gone totally different for me ...
Now you know a little bit more about me. Do you have any connections with the Caribbean?
Well, well, well, well, well, what shall I say? Hopefully more then just 'well, well, well'!
Hm, maybe get it over with? I don't know. I suppose nothing much would be gained with the year being over already. In fact every day is worth to be turned into a good and enjoyable one. There is the saying: "A day without chocolate is a lost day!"
No? There is no such saying? Well, let's have one then and prepare some chocolate cookies ...
Well (to bring it up again), we are using some marshmallows and a few other things as well, namely ...
Ingredients:
100 g butter
100 g sugar
1 tbs peanut butter
A splash of rum (if you like to)
200 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
80 g chocolate
150 g mini marshmallows
80 ml cream
Preparation:
Thanks to Karen, if I may say so, I have now a new way of preparing dough for baking. In fact, now there is one more use for my 'beloved' pan. As far as I am concerned, manufacturers are having a crisis, because I'm not buying, since I have a universal pan I nearly do everything with and no it's chewy marshmallow chocolate cookies.
Therefore I started by melting the butter in the pan. As soon as that has happened I turned off the heat and took the pan from the heat.
Next I put in the sugar, the peanut butter and the splash of rum and starting mixing those things through.
After that the flour and the baking powder followed to be incorporated.
In the next step the chocolate, the marshmallows and the cream were added to get a luvly cookie dough.
Said and done, it's time to place bits of the dough on baking sheets and transfer to the oven for 15 minutes at 180°C.
Reserve a bit of time for cooling after baking and then ...
... well, well, well, have a bit of chocolate by eating those chewy marshmallow chocolate cookies.
If that won't do it, have a look at the December Improv Challenge.
It's time to get serious again ...
Well, that should be enough! Did I mention I got quite a few apples? Yes, I would say so. That was mentioned somewhere around here on this blog already some days ago.
The thing is I love apple crumble and therefore, when I got those apples I said to myself (maybe to others as well) I'm going to have some apple crumble.
Normally this is a standard procedure and there is not much fuss about it. Normally!
You must have gathered by now, that things aren't quite normal around here. Maybe sometimes, but most of the time rather not.
As thoughts were moving through my head ... I could have felt asleep, considering that micro-speed of flow of thoughts ... No!
I wanted to have my apple crumble with some rum this time. Obviously that would mean, it is not for children as you will see in a few seconds ...
What my sick mind suggested to use:
5 apples (in average medium sized)
100 g sultanas
200 ml brown rum
3 tbs fruit sugar
70 g sugar
90 g flour
100 g butter
How I ended up doing (and eating it):
As things start along the road I decided to soak the sultanas in brown rum for roughly about half an hour. The label on the bottle of rum said: 54%vol. (no worries?).
Drowning sultanas don't lend themselves to breathtaking pictures. However, a smell of the rum comes into my nose even while writing this (you will see later on why).
Then I went straight on with the crumbles. Just toss the sugar and the flour together, add the butter to the bowl and rub it into the flour and sugar using that lovely fingers of yours.
Apples are next!
Of course, I don't have to tell you to peel and core them, do I?
Whatsoever, the apples are cut into smaller pieces and go into the ovenproof dish. Sprinkle the fruit sugar over it.
Maybe the sultanas are ready now. What to do now? You could mix in the soaked sultanas with the apples. Said and done. I thought (oh, oh), it would be a shame to let the rum go to waste and ... just poured it over the apples as well (not sure, whether you should try this at home).
Finally, top it with the crumble and let it go to the oven at 180°C for about 40 minutes.
Enjoy the time in between with whatever you do with 40 minutes ...
When the apple crumble comes out of the oven, it's time to eat. Already a strong aroma of rum is steaming towards me from the bowl ...
Well, eh, yes, um ... the rum aroma was quite intense, very strong. That's something for cold days, when you don't have to drive anymore.
I definitely can say, don't eat that apple crumble and drive. After having a good portion of it .... I had this feeling in my head and things were a tiny bit shaky (can be imaginary).
Absolutely, this pudding is lethal and can only be rated 'R'. It is absolutely not suitable for children.
A day later while dealing with the leftover apple crumble, the rum flavour was less intense and it was more enjoyable.
We can conclude as follows: Most probably it would be better to use less strong rum (good thing I didn't use the 80% vol. one ... wouldn't have survived that one) and not pour it over the apples (but not drinking it either) or at least not so much.
What are your thoughts on that?
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