Samstag, 28. April 2012

Banana Cake

Hi guys!


I have to admit, I'm seriously addicted to Donna Hay's recipes. This week, I've been cooking up a storm. I treated myself to some blueberry muffins and made vanilla cupcakes while I was babysitting two adorable 4 and 7 year-olds. Both recipes are from Donna Hay's "A Cook's Guide". The blueberry muffins are a slightly altered version of her raspberry and white chocolate muffins that you can find on her website. 


I also found the recipe for last week's basic scones by accident, so here it is: http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/sweets/cakes/basic-scones


This week, I decided to try her banana cake recipe as I love every pastry with banana in it, I'm surely going to make some banana and cinnamon muffins pretty soon. Again, I got the recipe off her website: http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/sweets/cakes/banana-cake


Here is how mine turned out:




You're only a couple of steps away from your perfect cake:
1) Mix the butter and sugar and whip until getting lighter in color
2) Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well.
3) Add flour and baking powder and beat until combined
4) Stir in the cinnamon, sour cream and mashed banana
5) Pour the dough into a tin and bake


I used a KitchenAid to whip up the dough and followed her instructions. Beating butter and sugar for some time until it gets lighter and adding the eggs one after the other ensures you are ending up with a very fluffy dough and cake in the end. By stirring in the sour cream and banana at the end with a wooden spoon rather than using the machine, you'll make sure your dough does not loose its fluffines. I used a bunt cake tin which worked perfectly, but I know it's rather uncommon in the U.S. Donna uses a fluted ring tin. This is how the dough looked before baking:







The cake was good after exactly 40 minutes of baking. 







While the cake was cooling on a wire rack, I combined the cream and sugar to make the caramel sauce. I kept stirring after I had increased the temperature, otherwise the caramel would have run over the pot. My caramel sauce turned out  lighter, but I assume it would be darker when cooked on higher heat, as I was rather careful not to burn the sugar. My brown sugar wasn't exactly dark brown either which might have added to the color as well. Here is how it looked in different stages of the process:



sugar and cream cooking


The finished hot caramel sauce


Have fun trying and let me partake in your experiences in the comment section! Thanks! 



Montag, 23. April 2012

Scones

Hi guys! 


I originally was going to try and use as many different authors as possible and I promise I will eventually, but as I've been getting to know Donna Hay's recipes only recently I am pretty tempted to try a few of her recipes. I've been buying two of her books last week. The first one is "A cook's guide" and the second "fast, fresh, simple". Both are really great to look at as the all of the recipes in "fast, fresh, simple" come with beautiful pictures that makeup i want to start cooking right away. So for now there are going to be quite a few recipes from Donna Hay on this blog. 


I am always trying to find recipes from the books that are available on her website, because I feel like there's not much of a point in talking about recipes that are hidden in some pricey cookbooks. 


This being said and explained, here's today's recipe: Basic Scones. You can find the recipe on Donna's website following this link:


http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/sweets/cakes/date-and-orange-scones 
The link is for a recipe for date and orange scones, but the basic dough is almost the same (the recipe on the book calls for 250ml of milk instead of 350ml and adds 2 teaspoons baking powder), so if you spare the dates and orange rind, you'll end up with basic scones. 


This is how mine turned out: 







My experience has been thoroughly positive. It took about 20 minutes to make the dough and cut the scones. I used little rounds of 6cm that are normally used to help arrange food on a plate and it worked really well. The book says the yield will be 12, I ended up with 14 regular (6cm rounds, 2cm thick) and a smaller scone as I didn't want to throw the remaining dough. Again, it's only a few easy steps to wonderful fluffy scones. 


1) Combine the flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl 
2) Cut the butter into small pieces ( I opted for thin strips) as it's easier to combine and mix into the flour mixture using only your fingertips. It won't look anything like dough at this point. 
3) Form a well in the centre and pour the milk in. Use a knife to stir the milk in the batter, while trying not to form lumps. 
4) Dust your work surface with a bit of flour and knead the dough until it's just combined. 
5) Roll the dough and cut it into pieces as directed.


My result: the recipe instructions have been pretty easy to follow and I was definitely glad Donna is offering tips and tricks as she says in the book that it's crucial to treat your dough as softly as possible for getting best results. The scones were done in 18 minutes, some of them didn't turn as brown as others, though. I love to eat mine with a bit of cream cheese and jam, but they're just as great for dipping in coffee, tea or a hot chocolate.


Have fun trying and please let me know how your efforts are turning out!

Mittwoch, 18. April 2012

Caramelised Zucchini Pasta

Hi guys!


I've been quite busy searching websites and looking up cookbooks every free second last week, because I want my first "real" post to be about a recipe I like a lot for the season and I can share with you. My winner is: Caramelised Zucchini (Courgette) Pasta by Donna Hay. 


I've only recently come to look up her website and I find it really nice. You can find a lot of recipes that are sorted in three general categories, "Recipes", "Menus" and "Kitchen Basics". "Recipes" is further divided in "Mains", "Fast Food" and "One Pot" to name a few. In each category, you are going to find the recipes sorted by ingredients like "meat", "pasta + rice" or "salads". I find this very organized presentation of the recipes extremely helpful as it allows you to look up specific recipes that match your mood fast. 


But let's get to the main part...


This link will lead you to the recipe:
http://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/mains/pasta-rice/caramelised-zucchini-pasta


And this is how my attempt ended up:




I found the instructions very easy to follow. They are precise and their progression is logical.
It's basically four steps:


1) Start boiling water, add salt when it's boiling and throw in your pasta.
2) Slice the zucchini, chop up your tomatoes and grate the parmesan
3) Heat a little bit of olive oil in a pan, add garlic and zucchini and cook until they're soft. Throw in the tomatoes at the end, so they're getting warmed
4) Combine the pasta with the vegetables, add parmesan and mint leaves. 


I managed to chop the veggies while my pasta was cooking. When you combine the pasta with the vegetables, parmesan and mint leaves at the end, make sure your pasta and your vegetables are warm, but not very hot anymore, otherwise your parmesan will form lumps. You are going to want to avoid that. The recipes says the dish serves 4, but I found the amount sufficient for 5 or even 6 people, depending on how much everyone is eating. Active and total preparation time will be approx. 15 minutes.


My result: I love the way the dish looks like, the green and red of the zucchini and the tomatoes are an instant humor uplift. The mint leaves add a nice freshness as well as a little acidity, so don't omit them. Donna Hay's ready-for-summer-dish is definitely going to be on my menu a lot.


Have fun trying and please let me know about your experiences in the comments!







Donnerstag, 12. April 2012

Little Introduction

Hi there!

This is really exciting because it is my first blog. I'm going to explain real quick what motivated this blog and tell you a few basic things about myself. My name is Charlotte, I was born in Germany, but am living in Switzerland now. I'm 21 years old. I started cooking by myself about 5 years ago. My mother is a great cook, so freshly prepared meals have been a part of my life for as long as I remember. 

My interest in cooking started with observing my mother in the kitchen preparing our meals. I would lean on the kitchen counter and ask questions about ingredients and herbs for seasoning. Soon I was chopping greens next to her, absorbing more and more of her explanations. The following step involved lots of cookbooks as I started to scan through a lot of ours at home and also started buying books and magazines. 

As I was  trying some recipes, I would frequently notice that some recipes would not work as they should. Amounts of ingredients were too small or too big and time specifications most often would not be enough. As I am not a professional chef I don't chop ingredients quickly, but I don't take too much time, either, so I started being a little frustrated whenever time specifications would not be working for me. 

This leads me to my motivation for starting this blog. As I believe there are many of you at home cooking for family or friends, I think a lot have come across this "problem". I generally like recipes with time specifications, because I often need to plan my meals in advance and knowing how much time I need to prepare my food is very helpful. I also love trying new recipes, discovering new combinations and broadening my mind - at least if the recipes work. This is why I have created this blog. I will share my favorite recipes with you as well as recipes I've tried   that ended with a small disaster.  

Cooking and baking are great ways to act out your creativity - let's get started!