Rosenkohlsalat mit Birne und ZimtBrussel Sprout Salad with Pear and Cinnamon

Nach Weihnachten und Silvester, der ganzen Völlerei möchte man sich wieder auf gesunde und leichte Kost besinnen. Also manche Leute. Es ist nicht so als würde ich Salate nicht mögen. Sättigende Salate aus vielen verschiedenen Komponenten und wenig Blattgrün finde ich sehr lecker. Das Problem ist nur, dass es mich alte Frostbeule nicht wärmt. Das gute an diesem Rosenkohlsalat mit Birne: er ist warm! Der Nachteil: ihr müsst die Blättchen vom Rosenkohl abzupfen!

Ja, ihr habt richtig gelesen! Und nein, ich bin nicht bekloppt!

Rosenkohl ist wirklich nicht mein Lieblingsgemüse, was kurios ist, wenn man weiß, dass ich es als Kind wirklich gerne gegessen habe (normalerweise ist es immer umgekehrt). Aber sobald man sich die elende Sisyphusarbeit macht und die Blättchen abzupft wird er richtig lecker!

Ich liebe diesen Salat, weil er so gut schmeckt, ich kann euch gar nicht beschreiben wie gut! Die Birne ist essentiell hier. Wenn sie in der Pfanne zerläuft und den Rosenkohl umhüllt bringt sie eine wunderbare aromatische Süße mit sich. Der Zimt verleiht dem ganzen eine herrliche Würze und es ergibt sich mit der erdigen Note des Rosenkohls eine tolles Aromenspiel!

Rosenkohlsalat mit Birne und Zimt 

Vor zwei Jahren: Dulce de Leche Cheesecake mit Fleur de Sel

Vor fünf Jahren: glutenfreie Nanaimobars

After the gluttony of Christmas and New Years Eve people want to concentrate on healthy, light food. Ok, some people. It’s not that I don’t like salads. I love salads that have a lot of going on in texture and where only little leavy greens are involved. The big problem with salad is that they are cold. Not good for someone like me who is freezing a lot. The good thing about this brussel sprout salad with pear and cinnamon: it’s warm! The downside: you have to pluck the leaves of the brussel sprouts!

Yes, you heard right! No, I’m not insane!

Brussel sprouts are not my favourite vegetable, which is funny, as I liked eating it as a child (normally it is the other way round). But as soon you are done with the sisyphus work of plucking the leaves of, the salad is extremly good!

I love this salad, because it tastes so incredibly good, I cannot describe how good! The pear is essential here. When it melts in the pan it coats the brussel sprouts and leaves a wonderful aromatic sweetness. The cinnamon warms, too and spices things up! All this combines very well with the slightly earthy taste of the brussel sprouts.

Rosenkohlsalat mit Birne und Zimt 

Two years ago: dulce de leche cheesecake with fleur de sel

Five years ago: gluten-free nanaimo bars

Birnen-Vanille-TarteVanilla-Pear-Tart

Birnen-Vanille-Tarte

Diese Tarte habe ich nicht nur für uns, sondern auch für das wiederbelebte Event der Hüttenhilfe gebacken. Das Event heißt Fremdkochen und geht über 2 Monate, in denen man seine Rezepte/Bilder einreichen kann. Der Witz an der Sache ist, dass man sich ein Rezept aus einem anderen Blog sucht und das nachkocht/nachbäckt. Natürlich braucht so ein Event immer ein Motto und das ist diesmal „Tartes“. Perfekt, da ich Tartes sowieso überalles liebe.

Birnen-Vanille-Tarte

Schön finde ich, dass man einen Lieblingsblog fördern kann und man auch den ein oder anderen „neuen“ Blog für sich entdeckt. Denn der Blog, von dem das Originalrezept stammt wird selbstverständlich verlinkt.

Ich habe mir diese Birnen-Vanille Tarte rausgesucht von Simone von Pi mal Butter. Einer meiner absoluten Lieblingsblogs, seit dem ich ihn kenne. Das Originalrezept hörte noch auf den klangvollen Namen Mascarpone-Tarte mit Pastis-Vanille-Birnen und Zitronenthymian. Da ich aber hier und da ein paar Änderungen vorgenommen habe, habe ich auch gleich den Namen geändert.

Birnen-Vanille-Tarte

Und jetzt mal im Ernst: Diese Tarte ist der absolute Oberhammer! Das ist die beste Tarte, die ich jemals fabriziert und gegessen habe. Der Teig ist so schön mürb und blätterig (auch wenn ich mit ihm im ungebackenen Zustand gekämpft habe), und die Birnen, die Birnen! Herrlich vanillig, karamellig, weich, ach ein Traum! Die Creme auf der die Birnen liegen ist auch nicht zu verachten. Frank war ganz begeistert davon, dass man eine so leckere Creme aus Crème fraîche, Quark, etwas Zucker und Vanille herstellen kann. Obendrauf noch ein bisschen dickflüssiger Karamell… was will man mehr?

Ganz klare Empfehlung von mir: Nachbacken! Es lohnt sich. Aber sowas von.

Birnen-Vanille-Tarte

Vor einem Jahr: glutenfreie Donuts

Birnen-Vanille-Tarte

 

Vanilla-Pear-Tart

I made this tart not just for us, but also for revitalised Event of the Hüttenhilfe. The event’s name is „Fremdkochen“ (in English something like „cooking unfamiliar“)  and takes 2 months. The root of the matter is cooking/baking a recipe from another foodblogger. Of course you link the original recipe with your duplicated recipe. On this way everyone discovers new blogs and supports their favourites. The theme of the event is „Tarts“ until the end of October. And that’s just perfect, as I love tarts!

Vanilla-Pear-Tart

I picked this vanilla-pear-tart from Simone of Pi mal Butter. One of my absolutely favourite foodblogs, since I know it. The original recipe answered to the sonourous name of mascarpone-tarte with pastis-vanilla-pears and citrus thyme. But since I made some adjustments, I changed the name, too.

Vanilla-Pear-Tart

So for serious: This tart is the bomb! The best tarte I’ve ever baked and eaten. The dough is perfectly flaky and tender (although we’ve had some battles to fight before he was baked), and the pears, the pears! So full of vanilla and caramel flavour and perfectly mellow. Not to mention the cream, on which the pears are laid on. Frank was overwhelmed by a cream, which consists only of crème fraîche, quark, some sugar and vanilla. To top it all with some thick caramel… can there be anything more charming?

My distinct recommendation: Bake it! It’s worth it. Totally.

Vanilla-Pear-Tart

One year ago: gluten-free Donuts

 Vanilla-Pear-Tart

 

Vol au Vents mit BirnenkompottVol au Vents with pear compote

After one week I can finally reveal the secret I had to keep: Last weekend I made puff pastry for the first time of my life for the first challenge I did for the Daring Bakers. And it really was a challenge!

Whilst rolling out the first two turns I only thought „Oh no this won’t work! It looks terrible!“. But hey, after that I thought „hm does’nt look that bad“. Ok so I was satisfied until I baked them. They didn’t get really high. Maybe I should have chilled the vol-au-vents another time before baking. But I didn’t had the patience to try it again.

What I really liked was the filling. I made some pear compote with german William’s Christ, brown sugar and cinnamon. It’s so autumn. For me it’s feeling like autumn, although it’s still very warm here in southern Germany and the sun is shining almost all the time.

The September 2009 Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vol-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

vol au vents with pear compote

 

Recipe

Vol au vents

from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan

Yield: 1- 1,5 kg dough

Ingredients:

  • 354 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 142 g cake flour
  • 1 tbsp. salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
  • 300 ml ice water
  • 454 g very cold unsalted butter

plus extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the dough:

Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them.

Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.)

Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporate the butter:

Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with „ears,“ or flaps.

Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the turns:

Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!).

With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn.

Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough:

If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns.

The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.

Forming and Baking the Vol au Vents:

In addition to the equipment listed above, you will need: -well-chilled puff pastry dough (recipe below) -egg wash (1 egg or yolk beaten with a small amount of water) -your filling of choice

Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

Using a knife or metal bench scraper, divided your chilled puff pastry dough into three equal pieces. Work with one piece of the dough, and leave the rest wrapped and chilled. (If you are looking to make more vols-au-vent than the yield stated above, you can roll and cut the remaining two pieces of dough as well…if not, then leave refrigerated for the time being or prepare it for longer-term freezer storage. See the “Tips” section below for more storage info.)

On a lightly floured surface, roll the piece of dough into a rectangle about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick. Transfer it to the baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the cutting.

(This assumes you will be using round cutters, but if you do not have them, it is possible to cut square vols-au-vents using a sharp chef’s knife.) For smaller, hors d’oeuvre sized vols-au-vent, use a 1.5” round cutter to cut out 8-10 circles. For larger sized vols-au-vent, fit for a main course or dessert, use a 4” cutter to cut out about 4 circles. Make clean, sharp cuts and try not to twist your cutters back and forth or drag your knife through the dough. Half of these rounds will be for the bases, and the other half will be for the sides. (Save any scrap by stacking—not wadding up—the pieces…they can be re-rolled and used if you need extra dough. If you do need to re-roll scrap to get enough disks, be sure to use any rounds cut from it for the bases, not the ring-shaped sides.)

Using a ¾-inch cutter for small vols-au-vent, or a 2- to 2.5-inch round cutter for large, cut centers from half of the rounds to make rings. These rings will become the sides of the vols-au-vent, while the solid disks will be the bottoms. You can either save the center cut-outs to bake off as little “caps” for you vols-au-vent, or put them in the scrap pile.

Dock the solid bottom rounds with a fork (prick them lightly, making sure not to go all the way through the pastry) and lightly brush them with egg wash. Place the rings directly on top of the bottom rounds and very lightly press them to adhere. Brush the top rings lightly with egg wash, trying not to drip any down the sides (which may inhibit rise). If you are using the little “caps,” dock and egg wash them as well.

Refrigerate the assembled vols-au-vent on the lined baking sheet while you pre-heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). (You could also cover and refrigerate them for a few hours at this point.)

Once the oven is heated, remove the sheet from the refrigerator and place a silicon baking mat (preferred because of its weight) or another sheet of parchment over top of the shells. This will help them rise evenly. Bake the shells until they have risen and begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes depending on their size. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), and remove the silicon mat or parchment sheet from the top of the vols-au-vent. If the centers have risen up inside the vols-au-vent, you can gently press them down. Continue baking (with no sheet on top) until the layers are golden, about 15-20 minutes more. (If you are baking the center “caps” they will likely be finished well ahead of the shells, so keep an eye on them and remove them from the oven when browned.)

Remove to a rack to cool. Cool to room temperature for cold fillings or to warm for hot fillings.

Fill and serve.

*For additional rise on the larger-sized vols-au-vents, you can stack one or two additional ring layers on top of each other (using egg wash to „glue“). This will give higher sides to larger vols-au-vents, but is not advisable for the smaller ones, whose bases may not be large enough to support the extra weight.

*Although they are at their best filled and eaten soon after baking, baked vols-au-vent shells can be stored airtight for a day.

*Shaped, unbaked vols-au-vent can be wrapped and frozen for up to a month (bake from frozen, egg-washing them first).

After one week I can finally reveal the secret I had to keep: Last weekend I made puff pastry for the first time of my life for the first challenge I did for the Daring Bakers. And it really was a challenge!

Whilst rolling out the first two turns I only thought „Oh no this won’t work! It looks terrible!“. But hey, after that I thought „hm does’nt look that bad“. Ok so I was satisfied until I baked them. They didn’t get really high. Maybe I should have chilled the vol-au-vents another time before baking. But I didn’t had the patience to try it again.

What I really liked was the filling. I made some pear compote with german William’s Christ, brown sugar and cinnamon. It’s so autumn. For me it’s feeling like autumn, although it’s still very warm here in southern Germany and the sun is shining almost all the time.

The September 2009 Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vol-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

vol au vents with pear compote

 

Recipe

Vol au vents

from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan

Yield: 1- 1,5 kg dough

Ingredients:

  • 354 g unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 142 g cake flour
  • 1 tbsp. salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
  • 300 ml ice water
  • 454 g very cold unsalted butter

plus extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the dough:

Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them.

Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. (Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh.)

Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporate the butter:

Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with „ears,“ or flaps.

Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the turns:

Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!).

With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn.

Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough:

If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns.

The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it.

Forming and Baking the Vol au Vents:

In addition to the equipment listed above, you will need: -well-chilled puff pastry dough (recipe below) -egg wash (1 egg or yolk beaten with a small amount of water) -your filling of choice

Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.

Using a knife or metal bench scraper, divided your chilled puff pastry dough into three equal pieces. Work with one piece of the dough, and leave the rest wrapped and chilled. (If you are looking to make more vols-au-vent than the yield stated above, you can roll and cut the remaining two pieces of dough as well…if not, then leave refrigerated for the time being or prepare it for longer-term freezer storage. See the “Tips” section below for more storage info.)

On a lightly floured surface, roll the piece of dough into a rectangle about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick. Transfer it to the baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the cutting.

(This assumes you will be using round cutters, but if you do not have them, it is possible to cut square vols-au-vents using a sharp chef’s knife.) For smaller, hors d’oeuvre sized vols-au-vent, use a 1.5” round cutter to cut out 8-10 circles. For larger sized vols-au-vent, fit for a main course or dessert, use a 4” cutter to cut out about 4 circles. Make clean, sharp cuts and try not to twist your cutters back and forth or drag your knife through the dough. Half of these rounds will be for the bases, and the other half will be for the sides. (Save any scrap by stacking—not wadding up—the pieces…they can be re-rolled and used if you need extra dough. If you do need to re-roll scrap to get enough disks, be sure to use any rounds cut from it for the bases, not the ring-shaped sides.)

Using a ¾-inch cutter for small vols-au-vent, or a 2- to 2.5-inch round cutter for large, cut centers from half of the rounds to make rings. These rings will become the sides of the vols-au-vent, while the solid disks will be the bottoms. You can either save the center cut-outs to bake off as little “caps” for you vols-au-vent, or put them in the scrap pile.

Dock the solid bottom rounds with a fork (prick them lightly, making sure not to go all the way through the pastry) and lightly brush them with egg wash. Place the rings directly on top of the bottom rounds and very lightly press them to adhere. Brush the top rings lightly with egg wash, trying not to drip any down the sides (which may inhibit rise). If you are using the little “caps,” dock and egg wash them as well.

Refrigerate the assembled vols-au-vent on the lined baking sheet while you pre-heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). (You could also cover and refrigerate them for a few hours at this point.)

Once the oven is heated, remove the sheet from the refrigerator and place a silicon baking mat (preferred because of its weight) or another sheet of parchment over top of the shells. This will help them rise evenly. Bake the shells until they have risen and begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes depending on their size. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), and remove the silicon mat or parchment sheet from the top of the vols-au-vent. If the centers have risen up inside the vols-au-vent, you can gently press them down. Continue baking (with no sheet on top) until the layers are golden, about 15-20 minutes more. (If you are baking the center “caps” they will likely be finished well ahead of the shells, so keep an eye on them and remove them from the oven when browned.)

Remove to a rack to cool. Cool to room temperature for cold fillings or to warm for hot fillings.

Fill and serve.

*For additional rise on the larger-sized vols-au-vents, you can stack one or two additional ring layers on top of each other (using egg wash to „glue“). This will give higher sides to larger vols-au-vents, but is not advisable for the smaller ones, whose bases may not be large enough to support the extra weight.

*Although they are at their best filled and eaten soon after baking, baked vols-au-vent shells can be stored airtight for a day.

*Shaped, unbaked vols-au-vent can be wrapped and frozen for up to a month (bake from frozen, egg-washing them first).