Holunder Küchle

In spring, elderflowers can be found all over Vienna. I myself usually cycle to Donauinsel to search for them since I believe them to be less polluted there.

While preparing syrup from elderflowers is very popular, it is not known as widely that you can also fry and eat them. The dough is easy to prepare:

dough for 2 portions:

10          elderflower umbels

1            big egg

100 ml    milk

3 tbsp     flour

a bit       baking powder

a bit       salt

(some     rum)

oil (neutral in taste, e.g. sunflower)

Do not wash the elderflowers, but free them from any animals residing in them by gently shaking them. 

Mix the ingredients for the dough in a big bowl. In a pan, heat ca. 2cm of oil. Dip the flowers first into the dough and then fry them in the oil until golden brown.

After removing from the pan, drain any excess oil with some kitchen towel. Serve while still hot and decorate with some icing sugar.

Meraner Torte

Ingredients:

Dough:

150 g    butter at room temperature

150 g    sugar

7 g       vanilla sugar

3          egg yolks

100 g    flour

1 tsp     baking powder

80 g      rasped chocolate

150 g    rasped hazelnuts

3          egg whites

Creme:

250ml   milk
1          Dr. Oetker "Tortencreme"
250g     butter
170g     icing sugar
100g     melted chocolate
(1 tbsp  rum)

Decoration:

some    apricot jam

125g     hazelnuts

200g     sugar

Preheat the oven to 165 C. 

To prepare the dough, whisk the butter until foamy. One by one, whisk in sugar, vanilla sugar and egg yolks. Stir in the flour after mixing it with the baking powder and also add the chocolate and hazelnuts. Beat the egg whites until firm and then carefully add to the rest of the mixture. Add the dough to a greased baking pan and bake for ca 50-60 min.

Once the cake has cooled down, use a large serrated knife to cut the cake in half horizontally.

Prepare creme as instructed, and do not forget to add the melted chocolate. Add rum to taste.

Cover the lower half of the cake in apricot jam and then add 2/3 of the chocolate creme. Place the second half of the cake on top.

Evenly cover the surface of the cake with the rest of the chocolate creme, decorating the border as you wish. I decided to further decorate the cake with some noisettes caramélisées, which I prepared according to a recipe by Christophe Felder.

Bake the hazelnuts for ca. 10min in the over, until slightly toasted.  Carefully insert a toothpick  into the hazelnuts. Prepare a block of polysterene that you will need to dry the hazelnuts.

Prepare a bowl with cold water which is big enough to take the saucepan in which you will prepare the caramel. Add half the sugar to the saucepan and melt it over medium heat. Constantly stir with a wooden spoon to avoid the sugar to burn. Once melted, add the remaining sugar and continue to stir. Reduce the heat to low and keep stirring until the sugar has reached a fluid, medium amber caramel. Then, remove the pan from the hob and let it cool in the cold water for a bit to keep the caramel from darkening further. Be careful not to leave the pan in the water too long to prevent the caramel from hardening.

Let the caramel cool a bit and then dip the hazelnuts, one by one, into it. Check if the caramel has already reached the right consistency: As you pull the hazelnuts from the caramel, the sugar should form long drops. Insert the other end of the toothpicks into the polysterene to hang down. The caramel will drip from the hazelnuts, forming wonderful, tearlike shapes. 

Let the caramel harden and then very carefully remove from the polystyrene. Be careful not to break off the tips.

Use the hazelnuts to finish decorating the cake.

Sweet swirl bread

I recently found a recipe on Joy the Baker that looked so delicious that I could not wait to try it: a sweet swirl bread with plenty of berries and cinnamon. The first try of preparing this proved to be quite challenging in terms of assembly of the swirl bread. Luckily, I had my mum around and could therefore rely on another two helpful hands.

The swirl bread was an explosion of flavours stemming from the different kinds of berries I used and the yeast dough - I will definitely want to prepare this recipe again soon!

Ingredients:

Dough:

175 ml      lukewarm milk
1 pack      yeast (or half a cube of fresh yeast)
1 tbsp       sugar
1             egg yolk
40 g         melted butter
270 g        flour
1 pinch     salt

Stuffing:

50 g          melted butter

30 g          brown sugar

1 tsp         cinnamon

some        vanilla extract

400g         mixture of berries of your choice (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, redcurrant... whatever you feel like!)

Finish:

1             egg yolk

               icing sugar

               butter and flour to grease the form

In a bowl, mix the yeast with the sugar and stir in the lukewarm milk. Then add the egg yolk and melted butter and stir carefully. Allow the mixture to rest for 5 minutes. Add the flour and salt and knead the dough until smooth and slightly damp (ca. 10 minutes). If the dough turns out to be too sticky, add some more flour. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a large, greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towl and let the dough rest in a warm place for ca. 1 hour (until it has doubled in size).

Once the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 190 C (convection oven). Whisk together the butter, sugar and cinnamon for the filling. Grease a round baking pan with butter. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a rectangle on a floured working top. Evenly spread the cinnamon filling on the dough, leaving a clean border around the edges of about 2 or 3 cm. Distribute the mixture of fresh berries on top of the cinnamon filling. 

Now comes the hard part: roll the dough into a roll along the long edge. The roll will be lumpy due to the berries inside. Using a sharp knife, cut the roll in half length-wise, leaving one end uncut by about 3 cm. Carefully place the cut parts to face upward, revealing the inside of the roll.

Under lots of swearing about the softness of the dough or with the help of a friend, start breading the two parts of the roll by carefully lifting the left strand over the right strand. Repeat this until you reach the end of the roll. Seal the two parts by pressing them together. Then shape the dough into a circle, pressing the ends together.
For way more artistic photos on the assembly of the wreath, please head over to Joy the Baker!

Using a cake lifter or someone's help, transfer the wreath into the prepared baking pan. Brush the wreath with egg yolk.

Bake for 20-25 min until golden brown and bubbling. Allow for ca. 1/2 h of cooling before decorating with icing sugar and serving.

Serve with some fresh berries if wanted. Enjoy!

Speculaas

Do you know this phenomenon that one moment you did not even know that something exists and the next moment you cannot wait to try it? That happened to me when my dear friend Marina gave me some wonderful wooden Speculaas forms from Brugge (Belgium). By chance, I then still saw more forms in Zaanse Schans (Netherlands) and right away decided to complement my little collection of forms by a oh so Dutch windmill.

Aside from being utterly beautiful per se, I had no clue how these molds work... luckily, the internet knows an answer to everything! First, the molds have to be coated in a bit of oil, afterwards they should be sprinkled with a generous amount of flour. This will keep the speculaas dough from sticking.

Which takes us to the speculaas dough. I used the following recipe:

225g       flour
115g       butter (room temperature)
110g       brown sugar
7g           baking powder
3g           baking soda/ natrium
30g         butter milk
7g           speculaas/ gingerbread spices
1 pinch   salt

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and the spices in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until slightly foamy. Add the buttermilk and mix until smooth. Add the flour mixture and knead into a ball. Use some more flour if the mixture is too sticky or butter milk in case the mixture is too crumbly. Cover the ball with cling film and let rest in the fridge over night.

Once the dough is ready, you can start to prepare your speculaas biscuits. Start by preheating the oven to 175 degrees. Then take the dough out of the fridge and press a small amount of it into a flour-covered mold.

With confidence and in one go, cut away the excess dough with a very sharp knife. Tap the biscuits out of the molds. Use your fingers or a blunt knife in case the biscuit got stuck in the form. It needs a few tries to figure out a technique to get good results. A cold dough and generous use of both flour and swear words have proven to me to be helpful. While you work on a form, let the rest of the dough rest in the fridge. If wanted, you can cover the back of the cookies in almond flakes or almond slivers. Unlike shown in the photos, the best moment to do this is while the biscuit is still in its mold.

Finally, place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake for ca. 15-18 minutes at 175 degrees. Towards the end of the baking time you'll start to notice the typical smell of speculaas. Keep a close eye on the biscuits at that moment so they do not get too dark. Remove the biscuits from the oven when done and let cool on the baking tray until they firm up. Once cool, you can enjoy your crunchy speculaas with a nice cup of coffee or tea!

Framboisier

About a year ago, my cousin offered me an amazing book on Patisserie, by French patissier Christophe Felder. His recipes are full of butter, eggs and sugar, therefore they all boil down to a direct injection of calories but also to utter bliss. Here is one of his decadent and utterly delicious creations:

Ingredients for the "Framboisier":

Ingredients for the almond hazelnut dacquoise (ca 30cm x 20cm):

230 g   ground almonds

70 g     ground hazelnuts
300 g   egg whites (ca. 10 medium size eggs)
280 g   caster sugar

Ingredients for the pistachio paste:

20 g         pistachios
1/2 tbsp   almond syrup

Ingredients for the buttercream:

Italian Meringue
40 g      water
125 g    caster sugar
70 g      egg whites (ca. 2 eggs)

Egg Yolk Buttercream
5           egg yolks
240 g    caster sugar
100 ml  water
360 g    butter (softened)

Additional ingredients:

400 g    fresh raspberries
some     raspberry jam
              icing sugar

Recipe:

Dacquoise:

• Preheat oven to 80°C. 
• Line two 20cm x 30cm b aking trays with baking paper.
• Separate the eggs. Makre sure to set aside 5 egg yolks for the butter cream.
• Using a food processor, grind the almonds and hazelnuts (if bought in whole). Mix well.
• Beat the egg whites at medium speed with two tablespoons of sugar until they hold soft peaks.
• Add the remaining sugar and whip the egg whites until they firm and glossy.
• Using a spatula, gently fold in the nut mixture.
• Thinly spread the daquoise batter onto the two baking trays.
• Bake for 15-30 min, until lightly brown, springy to the touch and not too sticky anymore.
• Let the dacquoise cool before peeling off the baking paper.

Pistachio buttercream:

Pistachio paste:

• Grind the pistachios finely using a food processor.
• Add the almond syrup and process until a thick paste forms.

Italian meringue:

• In a small, heavy saucepan, bring the water and 100g of the sugar to a boil 
• Using a sugar thermometer, cook the sugar syrup until the thermometer registers 118°C. 
• In the meantime, beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar at medium speed until they hold a soft peak
• Pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the egg whites. 
• Beat another 10 minutes (ca), until the mixture has cooled to room temperature. 

Egg yolk buttercream:

• Whip the 5 egg yolks at low speed.
• Meanwhile, in a small, heavy saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil and simmer until the mixture has reached 118°C. 
• Pour the sugar syrup into the egg yolks mixture. Beat the mixture at high speed until pale yellow and forming a ribbon.

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the soft butter until smooth. Add the yolks mixture to the butter, and beat on low speed. 
• Finally add the Italian meringue and continue beating very slowly not to destroy the airy nature of the mixture.
• Add the pistachio paste and whip at low speed until very smooth.

Assembling the Framboisier:

• Cover one layer of the dacquoise evenly with the 2/3 of the pistachio buttercream.
• Arrange the raspberries on the cream 
• Cover with the remaining cream.
• Top with the other dacquoise layer. Press gently.
• Cover the dacquoise with some raspberry jam (optional) and refrigerate at least one hour.
  
• Remove the cake from the fridge about half an hour before being served. 
• Just before serving, decorate with icing sugar.

Recipe: Christophe Felder, "Patisserie"