Double oats, Lebkuchen Gewürz secented cookies

My husband took last week a week and a half belated vacation; we resolve to stay at home to make some smalls improvements, once we will take real vacations on January. Yesterday we hosted some friends for a barbecue, so I bake these delicious oat cookies tasted with lebkuchen Gerwurz for the kid eats at afternoon, well, and grows too, they love it, and I confess they are the best oat cookies that I ever tasted. The traditional spice is sold ready made in packets I sold German’s mark Ostmann You can fashion your own concoction. I have a recipe for the spice. It will follow the cookie recipe. I know it is all metric but I use scales to measure baking ingredients so I have never converted them. I am sure there are conversion charts in many cookbooks or on line • 2 sticks butter softned • 1 cup raw sugar cane (or moscabado sugar) • ½ cup white sugar • 2 eggs • 1 1/2 cup flour • 1 teaspoon salt • 1 tsp baking soda • 1 teaspoon Lebkuchen Gerwürz • 2 cups oat meal (I use Quaker Quick.) • 1 cup oat bran • 3/4 cup chopped walnuts Method 1 Cream butter and sugars add eggs and beat well. 2 Sift flour, salt, baking soda and Lebcuchen Gewürz. Add to first mixture and mix well. Add nuts. Add oats last. 3 Spoon out by rounded tablespoonfuls on to greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350°F. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Lebkuchen Gerwürz 50g ground cinnamon 40g ground allspice 25g ground nutmeg 40g ground dried ginger 65g ground fennel 65g ground coriander 65g ground anise 20g ground clover 25 g cardamom Combine ingredients and store in cool dry location. My jasmine tree, every year , in December, just a few weeks to Christmas , bring us more than 40 beautiful flowers . This is the first one , that I share with you, Isn´t it Beautiful?

Almond meringue bars

We are not so far from Christmas and as I love baking I did do some baking. Most of what I normally feature here are simple baked goods. To complicate, is enough with life, isn’t it? And these almond bars were definitely quite simple bursting with flavor. In fact have an intense almond flavor .If you like almonds you love it Quite ideal to enjoy with a glass of chilled Champagne. Almond Swiss Meringue Bars (Adapted from Gourmet magazine Dec 2004) 1/2 cup packed canned almond paste* (about 5 oz; not marzipan), coarsely crumbled 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup sugar 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened 2 large egg, separated 1 teaspoon almond extract 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sliced almonds (about 1 1/2 oz) Pulse almond paste in a food processor until broken up into small bits, then add salt and 1/4 cup sugar and continue to pulse until finely ground, about 1 minute. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch square baking pan, then line with foil, leaving a 2-inch overhang on 2 opposite sides, and butter foil. Beat together butter and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer (preferably fitted with a paddle attachment) or 6 minutes with a handheld. Add almond mixture, egg yolk, and almond extract and beat until combined well, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low, then add flour and mix until combined. Spread batter evenly in pan with an offset spatula. Swiss Meringue 2 egg whites at room temperature ½ cup sugar 1 pinch of cream of tartar 1) Fill medium saucepan 1/4 full with water. Set pan over medium heat, and bring water to a simmer. 2) Combine egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in heatproof bowl of electric mixer and place over saucepan. Whisk constantly till sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3-3 1/2 minutes. Test by rubbing between fingers. 3) Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment, and whip, starting at low speed, gradually increasing to high till stiff, glossy peaks form, about 10 minutes till combined. Brush some of it over the batter and sprinkle evenly with almonds. Bake until top is golden, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack, about 1 hour. Transfer with foil to a cutting board, and then discard foil. Cut into squares I love this mulberry tree and I want to share wih you this beautiful tree

Squash bisqué

Autumn is already coming; I can feel it, especially today, a gray and rainy day. These holydays we decide keep in home. Decorating eggs and buying chocolate ones, are what Easter is about. Right? Those are the exactly things that we do in Easter. No particular Easter cook Just this Squash bisqué

• 2 Sweet Dumpling or other smallish squash 2 tablespoons olive oil 3/4 cup chopped shallots 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 4 cups chicken broth
• 2 bay leaves 1/2 cup white wine 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/2 cup whipping cream Fresh chives (optional) In a 3-quart saucepan heat oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and ginger; cook until tender. Stir in the flour. Carefully add the chicken broth and wine all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Stir in the pumpkin, dried thyme, pepper, and cloves. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Discard bay leaves. Cool slightly. Pour one-fourth to one-third of mixture into a blender container or food processor bowl. Cover and blend or process until smooth. Pour into a bowl. Repeat with remaining mixture until all is processed. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Stir in the 1/2 cup whipping cream. Heat through, but do not boil. Ladle into soup bowls. If desired, swirl a little whipping cream into each serving or garnish with fresh chives.

Happy Easter for all (if you celebrate that Holiday)

Panettone Pudding

You may say: Another Panettone leftover recipe? You provably right… But I baked 2 kilos of panettone. And I still had a half kilo in my pantry and I think in made a pudding. And searching for a new recipe I found Jaime Oliver’s recipe from Oliver’s Twist

I had no words to describe this pudding. Absolutely delicious is the only that I can say, but is more than is. A little bit decadent? Perhaps yes. But I ate without guilty

INGREDIENTS

• 575ml Full Fat Milk
• 575ml Double Cream
• 1 Vanilla Pod
• 4 medium Eggs
• 170g Caster Sugar
• Zest Of 1 Orange
• Panettone (Cut Into Thick Slices & Buttered)

Icing Sugar

Method

1. To start the custard base, bring the milk and cream just to boil in a saucepan.
2. Cut the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds and add to the pan with the zest.
3. Whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale then whisk in the milk and cream, remove the pod shell and whisk together with the eggs.
4. Dip each slice of panettone into the custard and pile into the buttered baking dish.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 160C / 325F / Gas 3.
6. Place the dish in a roasting tin and half fill with hot water, sprinkle with icing sugar and bake for about 45 minutes.

When cooked it will have a slight crust on top but will still be slightly wobbly inside.

Spicy chocolate cake in little sweet boxes

t’s barely a month away or a bit more for Christmas. That, will be, this year .celebrate in my home.

So,I think that treat was perfect for Zlamushka event A spoonful for Christmas

I love to make many sweat treats in Christmas’s eve and also in New Year’s Eve. I usually make them in individual shape, so, that they can be consumed at the end of the night while they accompany with a glass of foamy, coffee or tea .And the individual shape allows that the leftovers can be use 25’s brunch. So, as I have time, I am evaluating some new things, as these sweet small boxes that I made starting from a spicy chocolate cake, filled with condensed milk cream.

For spicy chocolate cake

½ Cup butter

1 ½ Cup sugar

2 Eggs more two yolks

60G melted chocolate

2 and ½ cups flour

1 coffee spoon vanilla essence

1 coffee spoon powdered cinnamon

1 coffee spoon powdered cardamom

1 coffee spoon baking soda

1 coffee spoon baking powder

1 Cup sour (it can sour with some drops of lemon juice) milk

Method

Beat the butter until this creamy one

Add the sugar little by little and to add the eggs one by one

Put the melted chocolate and to continue beating

Sift all dry ingredients and add them to the previous alternating mixture with sour milk

To take to the oven in tin rectangular anointed tin, for approximately 35 minutes to

175 ºC (347F)

Cool down and cut in small squares

It produces 15 squares

For the filler

1 Can of condemned milk

2 Egg yolks

1 Spoonful butter

Mix all the ingredients and take to the heat, spinning until it comes off of the bottom of the pan

Assembly

Fill the cake squares with the condensed milk cream; pass a fine layer of marmalade of your preference stops well to adhere to the pasta to cover cakes.

Stretch the pasta in rectangular and fine form and cover the cakes with the sweet pasta to covered cakes, remove the excesses

Cut in tapes the pasta in the size of the lateral ones and hit on the lateral of the same ones.

With the elastic modeling pasta cut another tapes and press the two extremities in the center forming a bun it. Cuts other fine ribbons and cover the center of the buns to give the termination. As the elastic pasta dries off and it hardens, cuts other tapes and give movement like in the photo. Cut the tips in diagonal; hit those to the buns after dry painting with egg white

Finally put up the bun on top of the cakes.

I paint the buns with non toxic mother-of-pearl color