Baking

Very Chewy Pecan Brownies { Brownie Quest }

- Tobia Leave a comment

Hey there,

That I am a chocoholic is no secret. That I love me some brownies isn’t either since I started the brownie quest. The brownies were much needed the morning after I was laid off work. And not even I can eat an entire pan on my own and they were sitting on the counter for three days with temperatures high in the 30ies. The last bite was still so moist and yummy! I say that’s making it a contender and a reason to pass on this recipe!

chewy pecan brownies

What you need for those Chewy Pecan Brownies:

♥ 200 g dark chocolate
♥ 250 g butter
♥ 300 g sugar
♥ 4 eggs
♥ 125 g flour
♥ 1/2 tsp baking powder
♥ 45 g cocoa
♥ a handful pecans, shredded

very chewy pecan brownies

1. Preheat oven to 160°C

2. Melt butter and chocolate and let cool.

3. Combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Add chocolate butter and nuts.

4. Fill dough in a greased or with baking paper lined pan (20×20 cm).

5. Bake for about 30-35 minutes.

So what is your favorite brownie recipe? Lets hear it!

Happy baking,

Tobia

Kermakakku – Finnish Sour Cream Cake

- Tobia 7 Comments

Today we celebrate!
Mr. ♥ and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary today. Oh what a great day we had a year ago. Curious? Read more here.

And for every celebration you need a cake! A Kermakakku!

Kermakakku - Fisnish Sour Cream Cake

Now you might wonder why I baked a very unspectacular cake?! It’s a Finnish cake. So what, you might wonder…
A year ago we were surprised with a really great and amazing gift: a surprise honeymoon to Finland. To the arctic circle with ice hotel and glass igloo and reindeers and huskies! It was a great trip. And today we start a tiny trip to Finland by having cake.

Kermakakku - Fisnish Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 cup(s) sugar
470g sour cream or clotted cream (1 pint)
2 3/4 cup(s) flour
1/2 Tsp cardamom
1 Tsp cinnamon
1/2 Tbs baking soda
1/2 Tsp salt
2-3 drops almond flavor, alt. 3 Tbs amaretto

Kermakakku - Fisnish Sour Cream Cake

Directions:

1. Cream the eggs, sugar, sour cream, almond, and ground cardamom.

2. Sift together the flour, salt, soda, cinnamon and mix with egg mixture.

3. Butter a tube or Bundt pan and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

4. Pour batter into pan.

5. Bake at 350° for 1hour or until toothpick comes out clean.

6. Cool before removing from pan.

7. Sprinkle turned out cake with powdered sugar.

Kermakakku - Fisnish Sour Cream Cake

Now make this cake and come back next Saturday and I take you on a trip through Finland’s north.

Happy baking,

Tobia

Yummy Pumpkin Guglehupf :: Thanksgiving

- Tobia 4 Comments
fall dessert pumpkin gugelhupf craftaliciousme seeking creative life

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and friends of this American Holiday.

Now comes another story of my year in the USA. If you are here to get the recipe you could skip ahead but I dare you not to.

Thanksgiving made me forget about my vegetarianism!

When I came to the US in ’99 I was a vegetarian going on 9 years. I never really cared much for meat. Most the times I didn’t like the taste. So it was no big deal to me to skip the meat. Honestly though it wasn’t merely about the animals. Of course I felt sorry for the coneys my grandpa farmed and which ended up on the table every holiday. And when I started back then it was a big deal to me. But it was never the main reason.

So coming to Idaho did change me quite a bit. Soon after I arrived you could see me hunting, climbing hills up and tracking down quail or going fishing. I loved to be outside and enjoyed the countryside, lots of family vacations were based on hiking and so I felt happy. And it was all about the American way of life for too, right?

I was also impressed about the attitude of the Idahoians (is that even a word). They hunted because they ate the meat. Elk hunting was to have meat for winter! If you didn’t shoot one – tough luck. They knew about wildlife, didn’t shoot the young ones and observed a lot. During hunting season lot of people at school were missing but that was just the way it was. It was a healthy way and I didn’t vehemently condone hunting and eating meat. It changed my attitude.

So it was all the American experience right? And Thanksgiving was around the corner. This was to be the time for me to eat meat again. And it was delicious this turkey! It was so delicious that I ate turkey at every house I came by. All this turkey eating resulted in me receiving a smoked turkey in the mail a year later back in Germany.

But you might wonder now what with the pumpkin gugl? Well pumpkin pie is just as important as the turkey. And I hated it! Yes I did hate pie!

pumpkin gugelhupf_

But a couple weeks I gave pumpkin pies second chance when being in Munster – but what can I say… Not my kinda pie. But I was intrigued with pumpkin and pie and veggies in sweet stuff.
So I looked at my go to carrot cake recipe and made something up on the go. And this will be my pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving!

But now let’s bake! Get the following ingredients:

5 egg yolks
250 g sugar
250 g almond (grinded)
250 g mashed pumpkin
100 g flour
3 tsp baking powder
1-tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
5 egg whites
1 pinch of salt
icing sugar

1. Combine egg yolks and sugar into a bowl and beat until foamy. Then combine almonds and pumpkin mash.

2. Add flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and baking powder and combine well before mixing into punmpkin-sugar-mixture.

3. Whip egg whites and salt until foamy. Fold into dough.

4. Grease pan with butter or oil and coat with flour. Fill dough into cake pan. Bake at 175-200°C for about 50 min. Don’t forget to proof dough throughout with a wooden stick.

5. Let coal and remove from cake pan. Sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy your Pumpkin Gugl.

How to do mashed pumpkin:
Cube pumpkin and boil in water until soft. Blend it well and let cool before using. You can add a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon already.

Maple Cream Cheese Pie – Hello Fall

- Tobia 4 Comments

I am not the biggest fan of cheesecake. I would always prefer a chocolate or a coffee cake with streusel. But this one – ohhh myyyy. This is such a great combination. Really yummy with a pinch of fruity taste and then comes the herb punch. Love it.

maple cream cheese pie

Even though this recipe is THAT good I’ve included everything I am not the biggest fan of. Now tell me I am a wiz, huh? I’ve got this bag of musli in the storage I am pretty pretty much sure I never bought. But then I am the only one eating musli… So I was more than happy coming across this post by Rike. A few days later I read Maike’s cake recipe. Then my boss mentioned she loved cheesecake and I figured why not try out this recipe that was forming in my mind anyways. I made up the final recipe on the go never ever expecting it to be so great…

Well I can go on rambling how great it is but you are here for the recipe right?!

So here we go! You need the following ingredients:

  • 100 g white chocolate
  • maple syrup
  • 100 g cookies or zwieback
  • 100 g musli
  • 200 g cream cheese
  • 100 g butter
  • 250 ml whipped cream
  • 1/4 cup sugar

Lets get started:

Melt the butter and let cool a bit while you crush up your cookies/zwieback. Now combine well. Prepare a tarte or brownie pan by laying out baking paper. Press cookie crumple to pan so its all packed (if it’s too crumbly add maple syrup) and put into the fridge for about an hour.

While its cools do the cream. Melt chocolate over hot water and let cool bait before adding cream cheese. Whipp the cream and add sugar. Fold into chocolate-creamcheese mixture. Add maple sirup to your liking.

Now put into fridge (least 4 hours) and go watch Gilmore Girls or sleep or take a bath or what ever keeps you from eating this darn good cake.

I’ve decorated mine with nectarines and decadently poured some more maple syrup.

maple cream cheese pie

So what you think? Are you giving it a try? And is there a cake you don’t love?
Love reading from you.
Cheers, Tobia

When grandpa counts blueberries
* blueberry cream cheese cake *

- Tobia 4 Comments
blueberry cream cheese cake

Uups, I kinda got lost in my real life but I am back with a story and a recipe…

Back when I was a child we were all (my cousins, sisters, parents and grandparents) eagerly waiting until the first blueberries where ripe and could be picked in the forest. It was such an effort to actually have an entire glass full and when we picked them they usually didn‘t end up in the jar. So in the end only my grandpa worked while we were goofing off in the forest looking here and there and turning every leaf around and being awed by nature. He could tell you if they where bigger than last year or not. We never believed him but asked how he knew. He actually counted them. Yes he did. He always knew how many blueberries fitted in a jar. It‘s not the only thing he did count – mushrooms, walnuts, potatoes… – he always told you what he harvested or picked in the forest. I guess that comes with working in the tax office – it must be a habit to count everything and make statistics.
Edit: While eating the cake he told me that a glass jar of blueberries usually holds 800 berries. Wow!

My favorite times are sitting at grandmas table and having my most favorite meal „Hefeklöse mit Blaubeeren“ yeast dumblings with blueberries. Oh what memories. My sister and I fought big battles who could eat the most dumblings and who ended up with the darkest and bluest tongue. I always won the tongue contest. And knowing how much time my grandpa put into the picking of the blueberries it‘s amazing how many times we had blueberries at my grandmas.

blueberry cream cheese cake

So when I had a day off and it fell right on my grandpas 89th birthday it didn‘t really take me too long to figure out what kinda cake I was going to make. It needed to be soft (chewing is an issue) not to sweet (diabetes) and something special (HA blueberries).

I ended up mixing together three of my recipies. I am a bit proud how it turned out.

blueberry cream cheese cake

So here it is: Grandpas special Blueberry Cream Cheese Cake

First of all I am giving away my aunts secret and best recipe for any biscuit dough there is. I never use any other:

125 g butter
125 g flour
125 g sugar
2 eggs

Mix all together and make sure there are no lumps. Put in a round cake pan (diameter 28 cm) and bake 15-20 min (circulating air mode). Let the biscuit cool completely and cut lengthwise into half so you end up with two cake bases.

For the cream cheese filling:

400 g cream cheese
600 g yoghurt
200 g whipping cream
150 g sugar
12 squares of gelatin, white

Combine cream cheese, yoghurt and sugar until you have a smooth mixture. Prepare gelatin according to instructions on the packaging and fold into cream.

When the cream starts to set fold in whipping cream. Now spread half of the cream on top of one of the cake bases. Put the second cake base on top and repeat the cream spreading process. Now it needs to get into the fridge for at least 4 hours – better overnight.

Now lets get some color into the cake and prepare the Blueberry Topping:

1 jar of blueberries
6 squares of gelatin, red

Heat up the juice of the blueberries (if using fresh ones use approx 500 ml of red juice of your choice) and add spices of your liking. I used a vanilla pod and a pinch of cloves. Let simmer for about 20 min and then cool off – you could easily leave it overnight so the juice can soak up all the spices.

Now prepare gelatin as said on packaging instruction using the blueberry juice. Once it starts to set add the berries and wait just a bit longer until the juice mixture can still be poured but is almost set. Add on top of your cake. Make sure to use a cake ring otherwise the blueberries are everywhere but your cake ;-) Let cool until mixture is completely set.

 

blueberry cream cheese cake

I know it‘s a bit of an effort to make this cake but it is so worth it. And you can buy the blueberries if you want. I did.

blueberry cream cheese cake

Let me know how you cake turned out. And did you ever go blueberry picking or am I the only one with such an childhood memory?