Foodie adventures: Matcha marble cake

If you are following my blog for enough time, or my Twitter - I am @boiledwords there too - you may be familiar with my big love for matcha. If you know me in real life, this fact is part of my unauthorized biography. I got this healthy habit after spending one full year in Japan, when I fell in love with the many cakes and cookies and icecream and latte. And this is not only because I really love the vivid green colour, but for the special taste, a little addictive for me.

Last December, I decided to go a bit further with my love, meaning to start preparing my own matcha-based recipes. As in many other cases, I didn't realize until I tasted the final product how easy it is in fact to turn your matcha dreams into reality, without waiting for hours until the closest Japanese deli opens for a bit of green tea cake.

Naming this new baking installment was a bit difficult, but after inappropriately calling it brownie, I realized that I actually used the recipe for marble cake, only using intensively matcha instead of the classical cocoa.  

The ingredients used are, as follows:
3 cups white flouer
15 gr. backpowder
1/4 cup white sugar
2 big eggs
1 pinch of salt
1 full teaspoon matcha dissolved in 250 warm water
Heat the oven at 250C
Mix all the ingredients well, until you have a compact paste. Add more water - or 1/2 cup milk of you feel like the flour is too persistent.
Preparation time: 15 minutes

Bake the cake at 200 C for around 45 minutes. Let it rest for another 30 minutes.

Your cake is ready to be tested. You can have it with a cup of - green tea - or with some warm milk. I particularly loved that it is not very sweet, almost the same taste like my beloved Japanese green tea cookies. 

It is easy to prepare and, except the matcha which might be expensive, doesn't require a top-end investment - calculating for Germany, maximum 5 EUR. 

This matcha marble cake will soon become a food staple in my house!

Stay tuned for more delicious matcha recipes soon! 

Recipe of the week: Apple mousse Emmental scones

Breakfast is my favourite and sometimes most consistent meal of the day, and I keep trying to find easy - as usual - but satisfying recipes. As I love the sweet-sour combination, this recipe of Apple mousse Emmental scones is everything I need in the morning, besides the big mug of Turkish coffee. 

It can be done fast, with relatively few ingredients.

It serves 3 hungry breakfasters or one hungry breakfaster for 5 mornings.

Ingredients:

300 gr. white floor

1 tablespoon backpowder

1 teaspoon salt

100 gr. butter

200 gr. Emmetal cheese. Alternatively, other yellow cheese sort can be used as well

2 full tablespoons sunflower seeds

4 tablespoons apple mousse

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking: 20 minutes

Add the floor, poweder and salt and let to rest for around 5 minutes. Add the butter and mix, preferably with the hands, followed by the seeds, the Emmentaler finelly cut, and the apple mousse. 

Heat the oven at 250C. Pour the mixture in muffin forms and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes. If you want them less burn, do it for only 15 minutes.

I wanted them more crunchy so the result was a biscuit feeling. The salt of the cheese is mixing very well with the natural sweetness of the apples. You can have them for tea or coffee, as an afternoon snack or a child school treat.

A new homemade bread recipe on the table

True is that for too many reasons, in the last months, I did not cook or bake as much as I wanted to. Being productive in the kitchen for me means that I am completely at peace and balanced and able to focus only on the ingredients I have in the front of me and the tasty ideas tempting me in my brain. Instead, I was more focused on other non-foodie projects and some family issues that had to deal as soon as possible. But as I should also eat from time to time, little by litttle, the hunger won over the lack of interest for anything food. 

As I usually make my own bread, I wanted this time something special, and eventually looking much more like a high-end product of patisserie. After browsing a lot of recipes from books in different languages, I decided over one miking corn and white flour and relatively easy to achieve. 

First, I started by mixing for 2 minutes 100 gr. corn flour with 400 ml. warm water. Meanwhile, I dissolved 20 gr. yeast in one glass of warm water. Added 1 kg. white flour over the corn flour mixture, plus the yeast. For taste, I also added 1/4 tablespoon kitchen salt. I added the white flour little by little, while kneading it with a big wooden palette till it turns into a dough. You can also use a mixer - which does things faster, but I am still very much into hand kneading.
After the dough is ready, I let it to raise for 2 hours, covered by a clean cloth. 

After that, I kneaded it by hand again, with the hand previously wet with oil (this is a tip shared by one of my baking friends on Facebook, while I was looking for the recipe and it worked out perfectly and left my hands perfectly cleaned; as a tip, olive oil does better to the skin than any hand cream) and kneaded it again for 3-5 minutes. When necessary, add more flour, for an easier kneading.

When everything is ready, I painted the bread with the content of 2 yolks. I spread some za'atar and sesame seeds for the artistic impression.  

Baked for 40 minutes in the oven at 120C. At the end of the process, it not only looks good, but also tastes great, what I really appreciated, the crust was both delicate and with a good taste. (If you want a stronger crust, you may need to bake probably 60 minutes).

Compared to the local bread variants on the market, this corn bread is original, delicious and tempts you to eat it all at once. In terms of baking lessons learned, I was more than happy with the results, as for the first time in a long time, my dough both looked and tasted almost perfect!

Bon Appétit!

Baking forms, anyone

How could a cake look beautiful, spectacular and perfect without the help of a good baking form? And how my cakes will look good without the flawless Kaiser baking forms?

Sometimes I am amazed about how much the German industry of the cooking support was developed, but a short history of the local cooking will answer a lot of questions. The German cuisine of sweets is very rich in various baking solutions and thus you need the right utensils for succeeding your recipes. 

foto credit: Kaiser

On their website you can find the following variants of baking forms, many of them dedicated for special occasions: heart shaped, apple shaped, round and rectangular, for beginners and professionals. For each product, there were given nice names: Noblesse, Balance, Inspiration. Most are provided with a 10 years warranty and a recipe booklet. 

The company producing it is called Original Kaiser, created in 1919 by Wilhelm Ferdinand Kaiser and has been certified with DIN ISO 9001. 

"Classic" sponge cake

This is a recipe I gently adapted from Classic Kosher Cooking, by Sara Finkel (p.216)
Ingredients
6 large eggs, room temperature, separated
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar

1 cup cake flour, sifted
1 teaspon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract - I used 2
the 1/4 cup orange juice from the original version was skipped, maybe the next time; the same with the grated rind of 1 orange.
I was adding little by little sugar, while beating egg whites and lemon juice for maybe 3 minutes. Separately, I beat the yolk. I added the baking powder, the salt and the vanilla extract and then mixed with the yolk mixture. Beat together for another 6 minutes.
The whole combination was poured into a pan greased and then baked in a preheated oven - 150C - for around 50 minutes, until turned brown.
I am planning to serve it with some slices of mango and papaya. And definitely will try it once again. It looks puffy and soft.

PS: What about the post-Hanukka diet? Maybe the next week...Promise

Ready for professional muffins (P)

At the end of the last year I was offered the occasion to write about the CSN Stores and to chose some products to test and write about after. My choice was Lust auf Muffins. The products arrived, are in my kitchen, waiting for me to finish the busy schedule to breath deep and cook some tasty muffins. Soon, this dream will become reality, count on me!