My homemade nutella was so successful that I ate some with a slice of whole wheat bread every morning. Yeah, every single morning! And now that I hit the bottom of the jar, I made some more. But this time, not just hazelnut butter. I’ve made 4 different nut butters, following the same process.

The darker one in the photos is walnut cocoa butter. It’s quite dark because I’ve put a lot of cocoa powder. The second dark one is the hazelnut cocoa spread.

The lighter ones don’t have cocoa butter in them. The darker one is the almond butter. It looks a bit dark though, because I didn’t peel off the skins. And the lighter one is peanut butter.

These things are so easy to make and have only three ingredients: nut + honey + cocoa (optional). Just process the nut until it becomes creamy and add honey and cocoa if you want.

I love my breakfasts!

I’m recently obsessed with chickpeas. I always find myself eating something that is made of chickpeas. One example is hummus. The other one is leblebi. And now I have my own homemade leblebi, which was easier to make than I expected.

Leblebi is a Turkish snack, and it’s simply roasted chickpeas. It’s traditionally made by roasting the chickpeas two or three times and resting it after each time for days, which is a complicated process, so you basically buy it from your grocery. But there are two easy ways to make it in your home: using the oven or using the pan. I tried the latter one. I boiled some chickpeas, and I put them in a pan with oil, sea salt and black pepper. Than I sauteed them for about an hour in low heat, and I got some crispy leblebi, which are different from the storebought ones, since they are roasted in special ovens. But if you want to have your leblebi that taste closer to storebought ones, you can roast them in your oven for an hour.

Sauteeing the chickpeas:

Finished:

You may notice in the photos that I FORGOT to peel off the chickpea skins. That’s no problem for me, but you can sure peel them off..

Storebought leblebi:

Comparison:

And what about the leftover chickpeas? I made some chickpea burgers, similar to the ones that I made last year. This time, I processed two cups of chickpeas with 1 teaspoon of tomato paste, couple of walnuts, 2 tablespoons of wheatberries, some sea salt, some black pepper and some nigella seeds. Then I made patties and covered them with some whole-wheat flour..

… and I made a delicious sandwich! You cannot see it in the photo, but I also drizzled some aceto balsamico over the top. Yummy!

I’m still trying to adapt my new life. In case you don’t know, I have recently graduated and started to work, which primarily means waking up early to me. What I do in the mornings is basically waking up at the latest time possible, and trying not to be late. It means also that I generally sacrifice my breakfasts in order to sleep five more minutes. In such cases, when I was late for school, I used to eat whole grain cereals with oatmeal and low-fat milk. But it’s always nice to invent new things, since I don’t like to eat the same thing every morning. One solution I found was the oatmeal energy bars. And this is the second solution. Homemade Nutella! Well, I have to warn you, it of course does not taste like original creamy yummy Nutella, but if you’re like me and do not want to always eat full-of-additive food, then this is the simplest and the most delicious solution. Yes, I told that it does not taste like Nutella, but it has a very rich and distinct taste (and of course a very rich hazelnut smell!!).

The process is very simple. You basically put some roasted hazelnuts into food processor and process, process and process (you have to be patient and watch the hazelnuts turn into dust and then cream) until you get your homemade hazelnut spread. Well, mine does not very creamy, that’s because I wasn’t patient enough to process my hazelnuts more than three minutes. The best thing is, like almond milk, you can make this spread with any nuts you can imagine: walnuts, pistachios, sunflower seeds or almonds.

After you get your spread, add some sweetener. I added some honey, and of course cocoa powder. And here’s my first homemade Nutella! Remember, for darker and creamier look, just process more and add more cocoa powder. Enjoy!

Well, the actual title of this post should be “Sour Cherry Chocolate Chip Honey Semolina Muffins”, which would tell more about the ingredients, but it was so long that I sticked with this one. Since the freezer is full of sour cherries and we can’t eat them raw with sick stomacks (we all have gastritis & reflux in family), it’s better to use them in desserts. This is yet another semolina muffin recipe, if you remember the one with apples. I really like to put semolina in muffins, because semolina gives a nice texture and I think it increases the nice smell I get from the muffins (and I don’t know why).

This recipe also uses honey; because I don’t want to use too much processed stuff in my recipes, and sugar can easily be replaced with honey in cakes, and it also makes them moist, which I do like. So, enjoy!

Sour Cherry Chocolate Chip Honey Semolina Muffins

makes 15 small muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup semolina
• ½ cup honey
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 cups sour cherries (or 1 ½ cup pureed sour cherries)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda + 2 teaspoons baking powder (or 4 teaspoons of either one*)

* Actually, it does matter which one you use. The difference is, baking soda needs some acidic compound to rise; while baking powder also has some acidic salts to do that. So we add 2 teaspoons baking soda, which will be activated by sour cherries, and 2 teaspoons baking powder for the rest. Why 2 teaspoons? I don’t know, I just made it up. Maybe the sour cherries are enough to activate 4 teaspoons of baking soda. I don’t care about these things for these messy kind of recipes, where the taste is more important than the looks. By the way, I learned these stuff from Robert Wolke’s “What Einstein Told His Cook“. GREAT book, it has lots of useful information about food and cooking.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Beat the eggs with honey and olive oil and sour cherries. Add ther dry ingredients and pour the batter into muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes.

(And I said I will try to post twice a week… Well, I’ll try next time…)

The second best thing about summer for me is definitely ice cream (The first one is summer vacations, of course). And when we have a lot of fresh sour cherries the garden, it would be shame not to use them in a recipe. So, I decided to make some ice cream with them. But sour cherries, as you know, are a bit “sour”, and I didn’t want to use a lot of sugar to make them eatable, so instead, adding some peaches not only made me put less sugar in it, but also gave a distinct taste to the ice cream. I also drizzled some homemade sour cherry jam before serving.

This is a very easy recipe, and I don’t remember the exact measurements. But it was roughly as follows: I pitted a cup of cherries and mashed them along with two peaches. Then I pureed them using a strainer and chilled the puree in the freezer for two hours. At the same time, I heated 1 ½ cups of half-and-half with half cup of sugar and let it cool in the refrigerator. Then what I did was to put the puree and milky mixture in an ice-cream maker! Actually, what I should do was to mix the puree with ¼ cup of icing sugar at the beginning and after that mix it with half-and-half, but we have no icing sugar left in the country house, so instead I used half cup of regular sugar and since it hs big grains that cannot dissolve in fruit puree, I heated it with half-and-half.

OK, though I love only “real” ice cream (I don’t like frozen yogurt, milkshake, etc.), but there’s something that changed my mind. Now, I have a new favorite ice cream, which is not really ice cream at all. It is the recipe I found in Choosing Raw. It is “Banana Soft Serve”, but I call it “Fake Super Ice Cream”. It is simply made by putting frozen banana slices in a food processor (not in a blender, it won’t give the same results, as Gena says) and wait until you get a smooth cream, and that’s it. What you get is like banana ice cream, and I added a bit more taste by mixing it with some chocolate chips and honey. Try this, I swear it will be the healthiest and yummiest solution to your ice cream cravings!!

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/sour-cherry-peach-ice-cream-and-my-new-favorite/feed/ 0 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/almond-milk-mini-fat-free-donuts/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/almond-milk-mini-fat-free-donuts/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:55:08 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=545

Wow, is that my blog? When’s the last time I posted here??

After my epic macaron fail, I’d been denying to post any recipes and that wasn’t the only reason. I was so busy with my finals (I graduated by the way!) and then my getaway to Bodrum -such a nice vacation!. Then I started to work and I’ve been trying to adapt this crazy lifestyle since then. I wake up at 7 am. YEAH 7!! Now you may say “What’s wrong about 7? We all wake up at 7.” But remember, for the past 4 years, I was a college student, and I was trying to schedule my classes no earlier than 10 am . If I had to take a class at 9:30 am, I was usually skipping it. Well, things have changed. Now I don’t have the excuse to “skip” the work, obviously. So, I wake up at 7, go to work and come back home at 7 pm, which means I have little time to eat my dinner, do some other things and finally cook for the blog. Actually, I don’t have time to cook. Then I decided to plan my days and I think I’ll cook for the blog 2 days a week, because I really want to improve this blog. The thing is, I don’t really plan the recipes (that’s why it is kitchen “impromptu”) and I don’t bother much about the photos. I just take them, without using any setting, which makes the photos, I think, poor. See, I’m quite lazy..

I’m planning to go on like this for now, but I definitely have some future plans about this blog. In the future (who knows when), the blog will surely remain “impromptu”, but not that much. At least, I will try to pay more attention to the photos.

Anyways, there are two recipes I made during the past couple of months, but I’ll post them soon because I can’t find their photos. But today I’ll give something different.

I’m lately obsessed with those “raw food” and “vegan” food blogs. Not that I’m a vegan (I love meat!!) or a raw food eater, but I like to (and try to) eat healthier. I try to use less sugar and fat in my recipes, avoid white flour, etc. Then I saw these beautiful fat-free vegan mini-donuts!!! Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? But it requires soy milk as the dairy substitute, and I have to say that I HATE soy milk, tofu or other soy-related products. Also in Turkey, you cannot really find non-GMO soy products, and even they’re non-GMO, there’s a lot of controversy about soy out there. So, I decided to make the cutest little donuts with almond milk.

Nut milks are very good alternatives to soy milk, they are proven to be healthy (no controversial issues) and they also taste good. I decided to start with almond milk, and save some of them for the donuts.

You can find the recipe here, and the blog has really cool recipes. I added some of the raw food blogs in my “Links” bar, so you can check them out. I added almond milk instead of soy milk. Since these donuts are fat-free, they taste different than classic donuts, but in the photos they look like cupcakes, which is also not true, because they definitely don’t taste like cupcakes. Actually, they do have a really unique taste closer to donuts. Also, don’t mind my hole-less donuts, I just don’t have donut molds. Well, to be honest, nobody can say these are actually donuts by looking at the photos. Sorry :/

And the almond milk? It’s the easiest thing to make. Soak 1 cup of fresh almonds for a few hours or safely, overnight. Then, blend it in the food processor along with 3 cups of water  (2 for a thicker, creamy milk). By the way, you don’t need to peel off the skins. Finally, get rid of the almond particles using a fine mesh strainer and ta-ta! You have 3 cups of fresh almond milk! If you think it’s tasteless, you can add a tablespoon of honey. You can make this milk with any nuts, or make some mixed nut milks which is what I plan to do next.

This time, I was sure to succeed. I bought Ogita’s book “I Love Macarons”, which is said to be the one of the best guides to make macarons and I really loved it, because it gives you a lot of different macaron options based on a “basic” recipe. It also has some very detailed instructions and I read all of them carefully to finally make some “real” macarons. OK, this is my third trial by now, and I have the worst looking macarons ever! They’re even uglier than the macarons I made by whisking the egg whites using my hand. Yeah, the macarons didn’t crack as the previous ones, but I couldn’t make the foot, or “pied” as the French call it. Ogita says if the batter is too dry, you cannot make the foot; but I don’t even know how I got the batter that dry. I didn’t even whisk the egg whites too much (that can make it dry). And what is worse, according to Ogita, my “things” are not even called macarons because she says: “Without it [pied], the pastry cannot be called a macaron.” So, I just call them macaron-ish-s or (non)macarons! Though these things taste good, in terms of looks the result is a big epic FAIL..

Whisking egg whites with granulated sugar. Everything seems to be normal:

Almond, powdered sugar and black tea:

Blending the two mixtures:

I’ve waited for 45 minutes and couldn’t see the macaron shells:

Crossing my fingers to see the “pied”:

I put them in a box anyway, because they were still delicious:

Da-da-da-daaa! Here is a recipe that I made up. I was actually going to bake some vegetables, and decided to make the dish more fun by adding some cream in it. And then I told myself “Why don’t you add a little bit of mustard?”.  And guess what! It was super-delicious and it was really easy to prepare, so I think I’ll put this recipe to “Ulya’s favorites”.

Baked Zucchini & Eggplants with Mustard Cream

Ingredients:

• 3 eggplants
• 3 zucchinis
• 1 onion
• 1 cup cream
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 2 cloves of garlic
• extra-virgin olive oil
• pepper
• salt
• some cheese to sprinkle on top (like mozzarella)

Directions:

Slice the eggplants and zucchinis to thin stripes. Put them in a mid-sized tray, and sprinkle with sliced onions, and some mashed garlic. Add some salt and pepper.

In another bowl, mix cream and mustard. Pour this on the vegetables.

Bake the vegetables for about 20 minutes in the oven preheated to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F). After 20 minutes, sprinkle the tops with some grated cheese, and bake for another 10 minutes.

With the leftover vegetables, I made some pasta. I simply baked one diced eggplant and one diced zucchini along with some diced potatoes. Then I sautéed them with little oil and added to my pasta. Yum!

I said I won’t be posting dessert recipes for a while, but these cookies changed my mind. Sinem made those for our project visit to Istanbul, and we all enjoyed them during the flight and at the hotel. Normally, I’m not into those buttery chocolate chip cookies, but these were quite yummy that we all got the recipe from her.

Sinem’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Women’s Weekly

makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 75 gr (2.6 oz.) butter
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¾ cup chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together sugar and butter until the mixture becomes creamy, then beat in the egg.

Add the other ingredients.

Drop 2 tablespoons (or ½ cup, if you want bigger cookies) of dough on a parchment paper. Be sure to have space between the cookies.

Bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes. Time depends on your preference. If you want crispier cookies, bake for 15+ minutes. If you want smoother cookies on the inside, bake less.

Woaaa! Long time, no see my dear blog. I don’t know what happened to me, I just want to sleep all the time. I actually made this recipe about a week ago, but I was so lazy to post it. But that’s enough. From now on, I’m focusing on my blog. So, I’ve promised to make some savory recipes, and this is one of them.

For the New Year, I bought myself a lot of cookbooks, and one of them is called “Cooking Light Way to Cook”, and it’s really an interesting one. It’s just the book I’ve ever wanted. All kinds of recipes (from salads to desserts) in a healthier way! And I found the pizza dough recipe from that book.

About the sauce, it is a recipe that I made up myself. It is actually another version of the sauce in my bruschetta pizza recipe. This time, I added some flaxseed in it (I always find something interesting in the kitchen and if appropriate, add use it in my recipes).

Thick Crust Whole-Wheat Pizza

adapted from Cooking Light Way to Cook

1 big or 2 small pizzas

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 2 ¼ cups whole-wheat flour
• ¾ cup warm water
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons honey
• salt
• any other herbs you want

For the sauce:

• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon pepper paste (optional)
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoon water, depending on the thickness
• 2 tablespoons flaxseed
• 1 clove of garlic
• pepper
• salt

For the topping:

• 150 gr. (5.3 oz.) mozzarella, or any kind of cheese that can melt

Directions:

Mix honey, water and yeast and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Knead 2 cups of flour with yeast mixture. Add the remaining flour after 3 minutes.

Coat the dough with some olive oil (not to make it dry) and rest it for about an hour in a warm place.

Using your hands (it doesn’t have to be in a perfect shape), make 2 mini pizzas (or 1 big pizza). The thickness depends on you, but mine was about 1 cm (½-inch) thick.

In a food processor, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and spread it over the top. Be sure to leave some empty space on the edges (I actually made the dough a bit thicker on the edges). Sprinkle the tops with grated cheese.

At this stage, you can wait for 30 minutes to make your pizzas more spongy (that’s what I did). Bake the guys for 10-15 minutes in a preheated oven (250 degrees C – 500 degrees F).

I was also hoping that it will help me save a lot of time making cakes and other pastry. But, I was such a fool to assume that KitchenAid will solve all my problems. Well, here’s the result:

What is that? I mean, they are as bad as my first macarons. I couldn’t create the “perfect foot”, although the consistency is okay. I managed not to crack them by resting the meringues for 1.5 hours to harden its shells, but what about the foot? It is not evenly distributed. The macarons were also stuck on the baking tray, and I couldn’t pick the macarons off. I thought I didn’t bake them enough, but when I rebaked them, they started to crack, so I stopped. And the baking temperature was OK too,  it was 160 degrees C (325 degrees C).

Anyways, I’m done with all this drama.. Let’s move on to the good news. 10 out of 25 macarons came out clean this time. What a success! Well, it’s at least better than the last time. And what’s more, these macarons taste SUPERB!!

I swear this is my last chocolate post and I’m not going to make any chocolate recipe for a very long time! I know I’ve been obsessed with chocolate recipes recently, and it has two reasons. First of all, I have been consuming a lot of chocolate these days, and don’t know why.  Secondly, chocolate making is easy in terms of ingredients; you just melt some chocolate and pour it in molds. Actually, the reason I’m always making desserts rather than savory dishes is that. I always have sugar, flour, eggs, and milk at home, which are the basic things for pastry. Anyway, this is a recipe from Making Artisan Chocolates, which is like my artisan chocolate Bible. It’s originally “turtle tablets”, but I don’t have molds for tablets, I changed the recipe and make little molded chocolates, which have caramel filling. And I used brown sugar when making the caramel, because I didn’t have any white sugar left.

I think I’ll stop with desserts for a while, and put only savories to the blog..

Caramel Chocolates

adapted from Making Artisan Chocolates

makes 25-30 chocolates, based on mold size

Ingredients:

• 500 gr (17.5 oz.) dark chocolate, melted
• 55 gr (2 oz.) brown sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons warer
• ½ cup heavy cream, warm
• 280 gr (10 oz.) white chocolate, melted
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Put the sugar and water in a pan, and melt the sugar in medium heat. Wait until the mixture comes to boil, and the color turns darker, which takes about 10 minutes. Take the pan from heat.

Add the warm cream and salt to the mixture. Note that the cream should be warm! Otherwise, when you pour the cold liquid into a very hot sugar mixture, bad things can happen, and I don’t even want to think about that. (I’m quite afraid of boiled sugar!)

Pour the mixture into melted white chocolate, and combine until it gets creamy. Let it cool in room temperature.

Now, it’s time for molding! Take your chocolate molds. If you don’t have any, you can use little silicon cake molds. You have to coat the molds with melted dark chocolate. There are some methods for doing this, like pouring chocolate in the molds and turning them upside down to remove the excess chocolate. Well, since I am quite messy, I didn’t even want to try this method. So, I found a solution. I simply wore plastic gloves and I dip my finger to melted chocolate. Then, I smeared the chocolate to molds with my finger. Here are some shots:

When you finish coating, let the chocolates chill in the freezer for 5 minutes. You have to do this at least 3 times, or until you are sure that you get a thick enough chocolate layer.

After that, fill the molds with the caramel mixture using a piping bag, and finally cover the top of the molds with dark chocolate again. You can flatten the tops by using a spatula. Let them chill for 10 minutes.

Take the chocolates out from the molds, and keep them in the refrigerator. That’s it! And try not to mess the kitchen like I did…

Note: As you may have noticed, the chocolate filling does not look like caramel. This is because I didn’t boil the sugar enough (since I’m afraid of getting burnt!).

Last week, I was in Italy and I bough a lot of chocolate from Torino after they told me that the city is famous for its chocolate and grissini. So to finish all the chocolates (about 400 grams (14 oz.)), I decided to use them for my mother’s birthday cake. However, some of these chocolates had red pepper in it, so I made a spicy cake.The chocolate cake recipe was taken from a pastry chef, so I cannot give it, but it is very similar to a sponge cake. Anyway, you can use any chocolate cake recipe you want. After layering the cake, I poured some milk on the layers to make them moist, and spread some “crème patisserie”.

For “crème patisserie”, I used this recipe, and I added 1 cup of crushed and spiced almonds. To make them, I simply mixed the almonds with red hot pepper, salt, cumin and black pepper.

Finally I decorated the cake with chocolate ganache I made from the Torino chocolates. I heated 200 gr (7 oz.) heavy cream, and mixed it with 400 gr (14 oz.) dark chocolate, and some of them had red pepper. To make the ganache lighter, I mixed it with some whipped cream, and decorated the cake with whipped cream also.

Well, I know the eclairs in the photo do not look nice and cool, but their taste is inversely proportional to how they look.. Really.. The reason for their bad appearance is due to a little accident. After I finished making my tiny eclairs, the plate they’re on fell off to the kitchen table and their chocolate glaze was all over the place.. I think I’m never going to make some good looking food..

In fact, nothing can make me sad about these eclairs, because it’s my third trial so far, and the first two were a complete disaster. I tried to play with the “choux” pastry recipe, put whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, tried to change the amount of butter, and the dough didn’t rise. So, this time I didn’t take any risk and made my “pâte à choux” directly from here. The directions there were also very useful.

Anyway, after making my little choux pastries, I filled them with pastry cream. Well, I cannot give you the recipe, because I took it from a pastry chef, but you can use this recipe, which I used before. The tricky part is, when I was making the cream, I added 2 tablespoons of honey by decreasing the amount of sugar, and after the cream is chilled, I added 2 mashed bananas into it.

Finally, I poured chocolate glaze on them. The glaze is very simple to make, melt the chocolate and add some melted butter (If you melt 2 units of chocolate, add 1 unit of melted butter).

There are some white and dark chocolates waiting to be used in the kitchen for about a month. Actually, it’s a miracle that these chocolates can survive in the kitchen for a long time. In short, it was the time to use them. So, what I did was quite impromptu, I brushed my chocolate molds with white chocolate, and filled with some nice dark chocolate with almonds. But it was too “plain”. So what should I do to make these boring chocolates extraordinary? I simply added some red hot pepper on tops, and make these chocolates reaally hot!! Enjoy!

Spicy Chocolates

makes 12 chocolates

Ingredients:

• 100 g (3.5 oz.) white chocolate
• 100 g (3.5 oz.) 70% dark chocolate (preferably Mexican)
• 100 g  (3.5 oz.) heavy cream
• powdered red hot pepper
• chopped almonds (optional)

Directions:

In a pan, bring heavy cream to boil, and remove it from heat. Add the dark chocolate and stir until it is completely melted.

Let the ganache cool in the refrigerator. Add almonds to the ganache if you want.

Brush the chocolate molds with white chocolate, and let it chill in the freezer for 3 minutes. Continue this process a couple of times. By the way, make sure that all sides of the mold are covered with chocolate.

Fill in the molds with the dark chocolate ganache using a piping bag, while leaving some space at the top. Let the molds cool in the freezer for 15 minutes.

To the top of the molds, pour white chocolate to complete the white chocolate shell. Flatten the molds with a palette knife. Let them cool for another 10 minutes in the freezer.

Finally, sprinkle the tops with powdered red hot pepper. Keep the chocolates in the refrigerator.

Oh, no! Chocolate and orange cake again????? I know, but I think they’re the best couple ever.. Whenever I make something with chocolate and ask myself “What else can I add?”, the mantra repeats in my mind like “orange, orange, orange, orange”. Well, I know it’s not creative at all, but there is a plenty of orange on the kitchen table at this time of the year, and I just can’t resist them!

This time, I tried a recipe from “The Essence of Chocolate” by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. It was supposed to be a “one-pot sour cream cake”, but I changed the recipe slightly, and the result was not a “moist” cake as described in the book, but a normal cake. I think if cooked it less, then I could get a moister cake. Anyways, here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

Chocolate Orange Cream Cake with Orange Sauce

adapted from The Essence of Chocolate

makes 1 big cake, 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 100 g (7 oz.) butter
• 50 g (3.5 oz.) dark chocolate
• ½ cup orange juice (or juice of 1 orange)
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

For the sauce:

• ¾ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• zest of one lemon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Melt the butter, chocolate and orange juice in a pan, and stir well.

Remove the pan from heat, add the sugar and whisk.

Add the dry ingredients and continue whisking.

Add the egg and sour cream, and mix well.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups or into a little pan.

Bake for 15 minutes for cupcakes, 20 minutes for the pan.

For the sauce, sinply mix all the ingredients in a food processor. This way, the orange zest will infuse better to the mixture.

Serve the cake with its sauce.

No, I don’t like jellies. And no, I didn’t like this one too. But the difference of this jelly is; it has agar agar in it rather than gelatine. Agar agar is a gelatinous “thing” made from seaweed, and commonly used in Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. I first saw them in Luxiare as jello shots. So just for curiosity, I ordered some agar agar from the internet and tried to make something with it. Well, I’m not going to give the recipe, because I don’t like jellies! Simply, it has some water, brown sugar, cinnamon, star anise, cloves and some black pepper seeds in it. And I also put some diced oranges and clementines, as seen in the photos (The orange things at the bottom!).

At least they look good.. OK, they don’t even look good… But I’m still working on making better tasting jellies!

What I like most about truffles is, they are easy to make and you can let your imagination do the rest! The last time I made truffles, I followed the recipe, but this time it was a real impromptu. I made two types of truffles: hazelnut and white chocolate dip truffles and dark chocolate raisin cocoa dip truffles.

You can add whatever you like to your ganache: candied orange peels, candied gingers, raisins, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, some orange zest, lemon zest or some red pepper.

Black and White Truffles

makes 20 truffles

Ingredients:

• 200 gr (7 oz.) dark chocolate
• 200 gr (7 oz.) heavy cream
• handful of chopped hazelnuts (for white truffles)
• handful of raisins (for dark truffles)

For dipping:

• 100 gr (3.5 oz.) white chocolate, melted (for white truffles)
• ½ cup chopped hazelnuts (for white truffles)
• 100 gr (3.5 oz.) milk chocolate, melted (for dark truffles)
• cocoa powder (for dark truffles)

Directions:

Heat the cream in a pan until it starts to boil.

Remove the pan from heat, and add the dark chocolate. Stir well until all the chocolate is melted.

Divide the ganache into two parts. Add hazelnuts to the first one and raisins to the second. Spread each part thinly to a pan with parchment paper on bottom, and let them cool in the refrigerator for an hour.

Take a piece from the ganache with a little spoon, roll with your hands and form little balls, and dip each ball to 1- white chocolate, 2- hazelnuts or 1- milk chocolate, 2- cocoa powder.

Keep truffles in the refrigerator.

Every new year, I make the same old gingerbread cookies. This year has no difference too! The only little difference is the recipe I used. There was an old recipe I used to make every year, and I really don’t know where I found it. But this year, I decided to use the recipe from Joy of Baking and changed a bit, and the results were interesting. I got some very spicy and crispy cookies and everyone liked them!!

Since photos are enough to tell everything, I won’t talk too much this time. Enjoy!!

Gingerbread Cookies

adapted from Joy of Baking

makes “a lot” of cookies (I made 4  pans of thin cookies with this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup molasses
• ½ cup butter
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ¾ teaspoon ground baking soda or baking powder
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• pinch of salt

For the frosting:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Mix together sugar and butter. When you get a smooth cream, add the egg and molasses.

Add the dry ingredients to this mixture, knead the dough well and form a ball.

Let the dough rest for a couple of hours (I made this step faster by making 3 little patties and keeping them in the freezer for 30 minutes. But be careful not to forget the dough in the freezer!!!!)

Roll out the dough in preferred height. (Mines were ¼ inch-high). If the dough is too sticky, add more powdered sugar (a trick I got from Cafe Fernando)

Cut the dough with your favorite cookie cutters. By the way, heat your oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Bake the ginger cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are brown.

For the frosting, beat the sugar and milk until it gets smooth. With a piping bag, decorate your cookies. I also used the leftover ready-to-use frosting from project proposal cookies I made (You know I don’t prefer ready-to-use stuff!!! I only used the leftovers to finish them!!!)

It’s been a long time since my last post, I know.. But I was very busy with my midterms, quizzes and projects, and I didn’t even have time to sleep and thought I was going to die because of headache. Anyway, I’m better now, and am here with an incredible recipe: apple meringue cake!

This apple cake was inspired by my French teacher’s mom’s cake. Well, a month ago I ate that apple cake, and it was crispy on the top, which was a very unusual thing for an apple cake. I did not ask what her mother used for the cake, but I kept thinking about this cake. And I concluded that the “thing” on the top of the cake can only be egg whites. So, I tried to reinvent the cake and came up with a slightly different than I imagined, but an ammmazing thing! (The crispy layer in the original cake was thinner than in my cake, and my cake was juicier than the original cake) Enjoy!!

Apple Meringue Cake

Merengue adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

• 4 apples (I used 2 red, 2 green apples), grated
• 1 egg + 3 egg yolks
• 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• pinch of salt

For the top:

• 3 egg whites
• 130 gr (4.6 oz.) powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C (320 degrees F).

In a bowl, mix together eggs, sugar olive oil and yogurt. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda, and mix well.

Add grated apples to the mixture and blend.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until “snowy”. Without mixing too much (don’t let the egg whites dry!), add the granulated sugar and cinnamon to egg whites.

In a mid-size pan, pour the cake mixture (it should be a thin layer, otherwise the cake won’t cook on the inside) and on the top of that, spread the meringue mixture.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until both layers are cooked.

Being a senior year in college, I have to make my senior project (obviously). Our team is doing a “green” project for Unilever’s Heartbrand (ice-cream), and we have a project proposal meeting tomorrow. Since we are the host of this meeting, we thought it would be nice to serve some treats, other than the usual ones bought from a patisserie.

So, we decided to make some savory and sweet treats for the participants: the sweets are mini cupcakes and sugar cookies, and the savories are two types of cheesy canapés. We made all of them so improvisational that they don’t have any recipe. So, you have to enjoy the photos only..

Making Sinem’s cupcake base:

We filled the cupcakes with ready-to-use cake filling (Normally, I never use ready-to-use stuff, but we had no time!):

Decorating the cupcakes with an impromptu frosting (it has melted chocolate, whipping cream and some cake filling):

Sugar cookies from Joy of Baking:

Mozzarella, tomato and basil canapés on Wasabröd crispbread:

Herbed mild cream cheese canapés with olive & walnut topping:

And the leftovers:

I don’t know how to name these muffins. The idea popped into my mind while I was trying to sleep (I think a lot about these kind of unnecessary things before I sleep). I thought about putting a layer of sugary-apples between the muffins, and make some apple “layer” muffins. Enjoy!

Apple Layer Muffins

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 ¾ cups whole-wheat flour
• ¾ cups brown sugar
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

For the apple layer:

• 3 apples
• 5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Dice the apples. Add lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon, and blend well.

In another bowl, mix together eggs, sugar olive oil, yogurt and vanilla. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and finally baking soda, and mix well.

Prepare the muffin cups, and pour one layer of muffin mixture, then the apples, then the muffin mixture again to each of the cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cooked.

These bars are like granola bars, but they’re also like fruit&nut bars. So I call them just “oatmeal bars”.

I don’t like those granola bars with a sharp honey taste and lots of oatmeal. And I wanted to make something for the late mornings, when I’m late for school and don’t have time for breakfast (Actually, I’m “always” late for school, but that’s another story). These bars are something that you can just take (and your tea mug) and leave home.

Nutty Oatmeal Energy Bars

makes 12 big, 20 small bars

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oatmeal
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• ½ cup honey
• ¼ cup pistachios
• ¼ cup hazelnuts
• ¼ cup almonds
• ¼ cup raisins
• ¼ cup chocolate-chips (use ½ cup for sweeter bars)
• 1/3 cup flaxseed
• 5 tablespoons coconut flakes
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder or baking soda
• ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 155 degrees C (310 degrees F).

Chop the nuts coarsely.

In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, whisk together the egg, oil and honey.

While stirring the dry ingredients, pour the egg mixture onto them.

Pour the mixture into a mid-sized pan and press the tops by using a spatula to make it firm.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked.

Cut into squares (or bigger rectangles), and store in an airtight container.

You’re probably thinking right now that I’m obsessed with chocolate and orange. Well, that’s true, but in this case I used these two ingredients just because I had to. I wanted to make a cake, and searched the kitchen. There were only oranges in the fruit case, and I found some bittersweet chocolate, all-purpose flour, and one egg. I took a risk to make a cake with just one egg, but I thought the chocolate would do the same job as eggs and hold the cake. The cake was delicious, although it falls apart easily because of the lack of eggs. I think, you can get the best results by using two eggs, but I haven’t tried it.

Why hypnotic? Because there is something strange with this cake that you cannot stop eating it. It is probably because of the melted chocolate, but I named it “hypnotic” anyway!

Chocolate Orange Cake

makes 16 pieces

Ingredients:

• 1 egg (2 eggs is better for holding the cake, but I did’t try it)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I haven’t any left. But, use whole-wheat please!!)
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup olive oil
• 50 gr (1.75 oz) bittersweet chocolate, melted
• juice and zest of 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 teaspoons baking powder or baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together egg, oil, sugar, melted chocolate and orange juice.

Stir in vanilla, flour, salt and orange zest, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda (powder) into the mixture and stir.

Pour the mixture into a cake mold and bake for 40 minutes, or until cooked.

Decorate the cakes by spreading melted white chocolate (with orange zest) on tops.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/chocolate-orange-cake/feed/ 0 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/cezerye-turkish-delight-with-carrot/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/cezerye-turkish-delight-with-carrot/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:15:08 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=146

Well, I’ve decided to put some recipes from Turkish cuisine, and started with something I really love to eat: “cezerye”. Cezerye is like Turkish delight, but is made from carrot. It is not something you cook at your home, you usually buy these for the religious festivals. I’ve never made these jelly-candies before, and when I found this easy “cezerye” recipe today, I decided to try it.

Cezerye (Turkish Delight with Carrot)

adapted from a Turkish recipe

makes 9 pieces

Ingredients:

• 400 gr (14 oz) carrots, grated finely
• 200 gr (7 oz) brown or regular sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100 gr hazelnuts or walnuts, chopped coarsely (optional)
• water (about 1 cup)
• coconut flakes (to cover)

Directions:

Put the carrots and sugar into a pan. Add water, and cook in medium heat, until the carrots start to melt and the mixture is thickened. In the recipe I found, it is written that “thickened” here means; when you take a piece from the mixture and round it between your thumb and your forefinger, it stinks to one finger only. Complicated!

Add the optional nuts to the mixture at this point. By using a plastic spatula, spread the mixture in a tray with parchment paper (I used a little box with foil). The thickness of the mixture should be about 1 cm (~0.5 in).

Allow the mixture to thicken more in the refrigerator for an hour.

Using a wet knife (to avoid the cezerye stick to it), cut 1 x 2.5 cm (~0.5×1 in) rectangles, and cover them with coconut.

Store the cezerye in the refrigerator.

My artisan chocolate making attempts are continued! I really liked the Earl Grey taste in my previous hand-dipped chocolates, so I used tea again in these truffles. I also added orange zest to strengthen the orangey flavor. Unfortunately, I messed up the kitchen again, but I am happy now eating my truffles and drinking my holy Early Grey tea!

Truffles with Orange and Early Grey Tea

adapted from Making Artisan Chocolates

makes 20 truffles

Ingredients:

For ganache:

• 100 gr (3.5 oz.) 60-70% bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 100 gr (3.5 oz.) heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons Earl Grey tea
• 1 orange’s zest

For dipping:

• 100 gr (3.5 oz) milk chocolate, melted
• cocoa powder

Directions:

In a saucepan, mix heavy cream and tea, and cook until it gets to medium-heat. Wait for 5 minutes to allow tea give its flavor.

Stir the mixture through a strainer into a bowl with chopped bittersweet chocolate and the orange zest, and mix until you get a smooth ganache.

Freeze the mixture for 30 minutes, or until hardened.

Using a spoon, take small pieces of ganache, and form 20 ganache-balls using your hands. Freeze for another 30 minutes.

By using a fork, dip each truffle in melted chocolate, then in cocoa and be sure all parts of the truffles are covered with cocoa. Place the truffles onto a parchment paper, and keep them in a cool place.

OK, I know I’ve made a lot of muffins recently, but I love to make them. I am experiencing the results of adding honey to my muffins. Well, as far as I noticed, honey makes the muffins look smoother and the edges brown as if you brushed it with egg yolks. Even though my mom claims that the vitamins in honey are vanished when heated, I think it’s still better than processed sugar, which makes these muffins healthier than my carrot cakes. You obviously cannot get the same taste, but you save calories (6 tablespoons of sugar is about 400 calories, while 3/4 cup sugar required for the carrot cake recipe is 600 calories) And this lighter version tastes “acceptable”. In fact, my aunt thinks these taste better than my regular carrot cakes.

Carrot Muffins with Honey

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup low-fat milk
• 2 cups carrots, grated
• 6 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil and honey.

Stir in vanilla, flour, and spices, and mix well. Finally, add the baking soda (powder) and stir. Add the carrots.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for 25 minutes, or until cooked.

This is another impromptu cake I just made up and it didn’t disappoint me. I came by some ripe bananas in the kitchen the other day, and decided to use them in what I do best: muffins! I also added the chocolate chips I’ve recently bought from the coffee shop (I usually use chopped chocolate instead of chocolate-chips, but the girl in the coffee shop insisted me to buy them and I gave it a try). I didn’t want to add sugar to the cake, so I used honey. I don’t usually use honey in my cakes, but this time it really worked and the muffins were neither too sweet nor vapid. This has become one my favorite muffin recipes.

Chocolate-Chip Banana Muffins with Honey

makes 20-24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3-4 tablespoons honey
• 4 tablespoons yogurt
• 3 (200 gr. – 7 oz.) bananas, mashed
• 50 gr (1.7 oz.) bittersweet chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Mix together eggs, honey, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla in a bowl.

Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda, and mix well.

Finally add the bananas and chocolate chips, and mix until you have an even mixture.

Pour the mixture into muffin cups, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until cooked.

It was another boring night with nothing to do, and apples on the kitchen table. So, it was a “must” to take a risk and make something totally improvisational. I mixed everything that comes into my mind to make a cake, and this is the result. Try!

Semolina Muffins with Apple and Coconut

makes 24 muffins

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup milk (I used low-fat)
• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups semolina (you can use 2 cups flour and 1 cup semolina instead)
• 3 apples, grated
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 lemon’s zest
• 4 teaspoons baking soda or baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

In a bowl, beat together eggs, milk, oil and sugar.

Stir in vanilla, flour, semolina and coconuts, and mix well.

Add cloves, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Then, add the apples and pour the mixture into muffin cups.

Before cooking the muffins, sprinkle the tops with lemon zest, and bake your muffins for about 25 minutes.

]]> http://kitchenimpromptu.com/apple-and-coconut-semolina-muffin/feed/ 1 http://kitchenimpromptu.com/bruschetta-pizza/ http://kitchenimpromptu.com/bruschetta-pizza/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:28:16 +0000 ulya http://kitchenimpromptu.com/?p=98

My homemade refrigerated pizza stock is over now, and I am too lazy to make new pizzas (Waiting for the dough to rise is nervecracking!) And yesterday, when I needed something that can satisfy my usual “pizza-cravings”, I made these bruchetta-pizzas, and they require bread instead of pizza dough. This quick dish is also my parents’ favorite for a Sunday brunch at home.

I didn’t use too much cheese for the topping, but for a more pizza-like taste, you can double the amount. Enjoy!

Bruschetta-Pizza with Thyme, Olive and Walnuts

2 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of whole-wheat bread
• 1 large tomato
• 80 gr. (3 oz.) mozzarella (you can double it if you like your pizza cheesy)
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste* (optional)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon water
• handful of walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic
• 5 green olives
• fresh thyme
• pepper
• salt

* Tomato paste (“salca” in Turkish) is a commonly used ingredient in Turkish cuisine. It is basically concentrated tomato puree. Follow this link for more information, or order from Amazon.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (390 degrees F).

Mix all the ingredients (except bread, mozarella and the olives) in a food processor. This will be the pizza sauce.

Place bread slices in a pan. Spread the pizza sauce on the slices evenly. Sprinkle the tops with mozzarella and sliced olives. Place a few pieces of fresh thyme for a better look & smell.

Cook for 10 minutes (or until the cheese is melted) in the oven.