Yesterday I have done this recipe of homemade bread , which is my favourite. You can’t even compare a bread that is homemade with what you can find in today’s shops. Is healthy and nourishing.
Ingredients:
500 gr white flour
350 ml milk
20 gr fresh yeast or 7 gr dried yeast
10 gr of salt
10 gr of sugar
First you need to warm milk (to not be hot). Add yeast and sugar in it ,stir and leave it about 5-10 min or until yeast is activated .
In a wide bowl put rest of ingredients. Add milk with yeast and mix it with a spatula until all ingredients are mixed . After that on a clean work surface add a little bit of oil and kneaded until dough is elastic an a little sticky . Alternatively if you have one of those lovely big mixers and have the option for dough , do it like that. Now in a clean bowl add a little bit of oil , shape the dough like a ball, cover the bowl with a clean towel or cling foil and leave it to rest there for about an hour . Prepare 2 medium trays, you can either grease them with oil all over inside(this is how I do it) or you can use baking paper . After that split in half and do it like that:
Put the dough in trays , cover the trays and leave it double it’s volume . Do not escape this steps , are really important for a good bread .
Now is also important how we bake them . Preheat your oven to 200 degrees, put the trays on the middle shelf and leave them at this temperature for 20 minutes , than lower the heat at 180 degrees and leave it for another 15 min minutes . Take it out from the oven , spread a little bit of water on it and cover with a clean towel.
To keep it fresh for longer keep it cover all the time or in a plastic/paper bag.
This is one of my favourite cakes. What can go wrong when you combine chocolate cake with walnuts. I am not a master when it comes about aspect but I believe that I am a master when it comes about taste. This recipe is done by me except of walnut filling .
It is a cake that requires time and patient but I promise you, is all worthen.
In order to make batter you need the followings:
100 gr flour + 50 gr. semolina
6 eggs
150 gr sugar
25 gr cocoa
4 spoons of sunflower oil
2 sachets of sugar with vanilla
You also need to make a syrup for cake which consist in 6 spoons of sugar , 40 ml rum essence and 500 ml water. is not necessary to respect the quantities , you adjust it exactly how you like it (less sugary, more rum flavour etc.)
For walnut filling you will need the followings:
150 gr walnuts
30 ml water
110 gr sugar
1 egg
90 gr sugar
25 gr cornflour
250 gr milk
130 gr butter
For decoration :
120 gr chocolate
80 ml double cream
1 spoon of butter
a pinch of salt
a little bit of walnut filling
Now let’s start ! As I said you will need some time to make it .
To start the batter, you will need to put eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar flavour in a bowl and whisk them together for about 10 min or until it doubles volume. After that with a spatula you will need to incorporate rest of the ingredients. Do not rush , otherwise the egg mix will lose it’s airy structure .Just put 2 spoons of from rest of the ingredients at time and with circular moves always go up and down. When the mix is ready pour it in a round medium tray or in a square one , it doesn’t matter depends what shape you like and put it in the pre heated oven(180 degrees) for about 30-40 min. Check with a toothpick , if the toothpick comes out clean than is done. Before you fill it leave it to totally cool down.
Batter
In order to make walnut filling , first you need to bake walnut for about 10 min at 200 degrees or until you start to feel that sensational smell of baked walnut (I love it!) and is a little bit brownish.
After is baked in a small pan you put the water and sugar and leave them until it gets to boiling point ,add the walnut and stir for about 30 sec no more than a minute. Put walnut on a baking paper , spread it and leave it to totally cool off.
In another small pan add the egg and sugar mix them and then add the cornflour ,mix again and add the milk. Put the pan on a medium heat and stir continually until it thickens and became like a pudding. Take it out from heat and add 65 gr of butter , mix and than leave it to cool totally. Put a lid over the top or kitchen foil.
Now the magic moment when everything comes together 🙂
All you left to do before you start to assembly the cake is to mix the cream with 65 gram of butter (needs to be room temperature) and with walnut paste. You need to use a mixer for this.
I know , was a long journey until here but hey , you are about to taste something amazing!
Cut the cake leaf in half and start to add syrup(all ingredients needs to e mixed together until sugar is melted , make sure water is cold) little by little with a spoon on bot sides . Don’t pour it all from once as the cake leaf will be very soggy on one side an dried on another so make sure you cover every single part of it , specially on edges. You can stop pouring syrup in the moment when we you feel cake leaf damp on the other side . Put the cream in the middle (leave a little bit for decoration if you want ) and bring the other side on top.
Now you can prepare chocolate for decoration , which is very easy to make . Put double cream in pan and heated until is very hot , take it from heat and add rest of ingredients , stir well and pour it over the cake. Use a demoulding knife if you have if not with a normal one drag the chocolate mix until you cover all cake. Now if you have a kit for decorations you can use rest of the cream .
Can you imagine this world without potatoes? I don’t !
But there were times when nobody except Peru knew about about potatoes existence . That’s right ! Potatoes were imported from Latin America, more specifically from Peru . Thanks to Spanish who imported potatoes in 16th centuries , we can enjoy them in every shape or form in our days.
There are 5000 species of potato ! (just found out too , jeeez!) I have cooked only with white potatoes, red potatoes , sweet potatoes and baby potatoes . Did you cooked with other types of potatoes ?
This is how their flower and plant look like:
Potatoes are composed from 79%water , 17% carbohydrates and 2% protein . They also contain vitamin B6 and vitamin C . After cooking they are loosing a big part of vitamins .In UK National Health Service (NHS) are not considering potatoes as counting or contributing towards the recommended daily five portions of fruit and vegetables .
You can cook them in soooo many ways . They can be cooked fancy or very simple. I like to keep it simple . For example: baked potatoes with red onion salad (just red onion , sunflower oil and salt) with a cheddar cheese and homemade bread , yam yam . Or just wedges made in oven with salt, pepper, oil and paprika etc How do you like them most ?
Did you know that potatoes can be used for other things other than eating them? for example:
potatoes are used to brew alcoholic beverages as vodka
they are also used as fodder for livestock
potato starch is used in food industry as thickener and binder for soup and sauces, in textile industry as adhesive and for the manufacturing of paper and boards
they are also commonly used in plant research
They are so popular , more popular than anything in this world . Just imagine McDonalds without French fries or fish without chips or shepard’s pie without mash etc.
Good morning! I was thinking what to do for breakfast and I remembered this tasty recipe.
Ingredients:
– 8 potatoes
– 2 eggs
– 2 spoons of plain flour
– 1 teaspoons of bicarbonate soda
– salt and pepper
First you have to peel and grate potatoes on the small part of grater. After that you need to drain the potatoes as they will leave a lot of liquid (don’t worry if they will have a brown/pink colour, it will be white again when you cook them). After you have drained them you can add rest of ingredients and mixed them with your hand.
Put a pan in medium heat and add a spoon of oil. When pan is hot enough you will need to take the mixture with a spoon and put in the pan ( you also need to flatten it a little bit just to look like an American pancake). Cook them through on both sides until they are nice and brown/golden on both sides. When you take them out put them on a paper towel as they will take all the oil in the pan. Every time when before you put a new series in the pan , you will need to add a spoon of oil.
They can served immediately with a dollop of Greek yogurt or sour cream. To make it even tastier you can make garlic sauce with sour cream or Greek yogurt.
I started to cook since I was little and have a passion for doing it. I must say that I was lucky enough to grow up in countryside somewhere in Romania and back than everything had real taste and texture.
I have this passion from my mother and grandmother. I have learned from them that you can make a meal and invent recipes from whatever you have left in your cupboard/fridge. I had probably invented some recipes in my lifetime 😋
This blog will contain recipes, tips and personal opinion about different products and how we can be healthier if we cook at home.
Betty Carzon 