Foodie Penpalls
This month I got a lovely package from Jenni (http://jensfoodandphotos.blogspot.co.uk/) out Scotland. I was so delighted, especially with the mini cupcake wrappers, they are absolutely adorable.
The oatcakes, digestives and crisps dissapeared quite quickly into my partners tummy!
The tea I will keep for the weekends so I can sip away from it on a quiet sunday morning.
Oh I so love this foodie penpall, it feels like its Christmas everytime I receive a food package!
Thank you so much Jenni!
Love,
Stef
Cookie monster cake rawrrr....
Cake I made for my godchild Matthias
Pirate cake for the kid of one of my colleagues
Ok this one might need a bit of an explanations...
My fiance and me have spent the last winter season working in the french alps for a British chalet company.
Every day we did our best to impress the guests in our chalet with our cooking skills and sometimes we did get special requests for a birthday.
Well this one was requested by a man whom wanted to surprise his 40 year old wife with a boob cake for her birthday (god forbid if my man ever wants to surprise me with a cake like this!).
Since it was for a woman I did try to make it as classy as possible and the customer was very pleased indeed!
After high school came university and in the end it took me till I was 24 years old before I inscribed myself into a full time year course.
I never stop being amazed at how this simple pastry turns into such a golden delicious air balls!
In Belgium we traditionally fill them with patisserie cream which is like a thick custard.
I do warn you these things are lethal, it is simply impossible to stop after one, you would just keep eating them!
Ingredients: (makes about 35 puffs)
- 120ml whole milk
- 120ml water
- 115g butter
- 1/4 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 140g plain flour
- 5 large eggs of 6 medium eggs
- Preheat oven to 180C°
Bring water and milk to a boil in a pan with the butter, salt and sugar. Boil slowly until butter has melted.
Remove from heat and immediately pour in the flour and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for several seconds to blend thoroughly.
Then beat over a moderately high heat for 1 to 2 minutes until mixture begins to leave the side of the pan and form a mass. You know it is good when you got light crust on the bottom of the pan. This means the mixture has 'dried' out enough.
Remove pan from heat and make a well in the centre of the mixture. Break one egg into the centre of the well and beat thoroughly until blended. This will look weird and a bit curdle at first, but stick trough it will all come together.
Continue with the remaining eggs, beating them in one by one until combined and smooth.
You could also use a hand mixer for this if you want to give your biceps a rest!
Place a grease proof baking sheet onto a baking tray.
Spoon mixture into a piping bag and then squeeze into mounds, about 4cm in diameter onto the baking sheet.
Space the mounds about 6cm apart to allow for spreading.
Dip a pastry brush into the beaten egg and flatten each puff very slightly with the side of the brush avoiding dripping egg down the puff onto the baking sheet.
Put the tray {or trays!} into the upper and lower thirds of the preheated oven.
Bake for about 30 Min's (depending on oven!) until puffs have risen and are golden in colour. ~They should be firm and crusty to the touch.
Remove from oven and pierce the bottom of each puff with a sharp knife to let the steam out. This is mighty important because otherwise your choux buns will get soggy very quickly.
Put the trays back into the oven and leave to bake for an other 10minutes. Remove from oven and put puffs onto a cooling rack.... et voila!
Fill the puffs with cream patisserie or whipped cream of even ice cream or savoury fillings, you can experiment to your hearts content!
I tend to fill them with cream patisserie and dip them in a good quality chocolate ganache (melt 200g milk chocolate with a dash of cream). YUM!
To Freeze
Puffs freeze perfectly. When cool place into a freezer bag or box.
When you want to use them just put the frozen puffs onto a baking tray and heat in an oven at 180C° for 3 - 4 minutes.
One of my favourite things in life is patisserie cream! This basically is a thick custard to fill fruit tarts with, choux buns, eclairs, puff pastry, ...
I just could eat it all the time, gooey vanilla loveliness, yum!
A typically Belgian way is to eat it cold with crumbled speculoos biscuits on top.
Ingredients:
- 1L of whole milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 250g caster sugar
- 100g vanilla pudding powder
Bring 3/4l of milk to the boil. In the meantime you whisk the eggs, sugar and the vanilla powder with the remaining milk, so you got a lump free mixture.
Once the milk boils, add the boiling milk to your mixture (NOT the other way around), stirr well and pour it all back into the cooking pot.
Put back on the stove on a low heat and keep stirring till it has the consistency of vanilla pudding.
Pour in a bowl and cover with cling film immediately in contact with the cream, this to avoid that a skin forms.Leave to cool in the fridge for several hours.
It seems there is all over Europe a bit of a hype going on about this typical Belgian caramelised biscuit. I guess you could compare it with gingerbread biscuits that are made around Christmas time in the UK.
In Belgium it is a national sport to eat them all year round and especially dipped in a cup of coffee.
Beside the classic biscuit from Lotus Bakeries, you can now also find Speculoos paste, which is like a spread to put on a sandwich and just taste so divine!
We also got Speculoos Ice cream, Speculoos cheese, Speculoos pate, whatever you can think of we probably got a Speculoos version of it!
Since I am living in the town where the factories are that produce these heavenly biscuits, I had a got at making my own version.
And you know what? They didn't turn out half that bad :)
Recipe Speculoos Biscuits
Makes about 30 regular sized biscuits
Since I am living in the town where the factories are that produce these heavenly biscuits, I had a got at making my own version.
And you know what? They didn't turn out half that bad :)
Recipe Speculoos Biscuits
Makes about 30 regular sized biscuits
- 100g Soft butter
- 250g plain flour
- 250g Casonnade sugar (can’t really find that in the UK, so replace with dark muscovado sugar.
- 3g Bicarbonate of Soda
- 3g Speculoos spices (is mix of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper and ginger)
- 3g Salt
- 1 egg
Mix everything together and leave the cookie dough overnight in the fridge, so the flavours can mature.
Cut out in any shape you like and bake for about 12 min on 180C°.
Enjoy!
Last month I joined the Foodie Penpalls Network. For more info check the link in my menu.
Basically every month you get somebody assigned where you send a food related package to.
You in return will receive a package from an other person that got assigned to you.
It seems like a fun way to get in contact with other people whom are as passionate about food as I am!
The package can contain products that are typical for your region or your ethnicity, products to make a certain dish with and so much more if you let your imagination roam free :)
On the last workday of this month I will publish what I had gotten from the person whom I was assigned to.
Thank you so much Carol Anne from http://thisisrocksalt.com/ for starting up this wonderful network in Europe!
I just can't wait!
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