TWD 12 - Semolina Bread with Wild Garlic Pesto

I really love this bread.

First I was bit in trouble what semolina is, as some sources told me that it is the German "Grieß", which we have also in Hungary, other sources told me that it is a kind of durum wheat flour.

At the end I chose the "Grieß", although I have never heard from any Hungarian that you can bake a bread out of it. But this is why I like TWD BWJ as you can try a lot of things out. :)))

Chocolate Mousse aka Snickers Cake

New opportunity to bake a cake. :))

One of my dear colleagues, Eleftheria celebrated her birthday on Monday and I baked this Chocolate Mousse Cake a.k.a. Snickers Cake as she asked for a chocolate cake. 

The initial idea of this chocolate mousse cake came from another dear colleagues, Evi. After I heard that the wish is chocolate cake, I immediately thought of this recipe to start the thinking. I also had some left over (approx. 100 g) roasted peanuts from the Hazelnut Biscotti. Tadaaaam. Here comes the Drunken Snickers Cake with just a hint of rum. The cake has 4 parts:

TWD 11 - Hazelnut Biscotti

I have to say I was very excited to bake these Hazelnut Biscottis, as I have been always fascinated by Italian food.

I also have to be honest. I have never tried either biscotti or cantuccini, so I had no idea what to expect.

TWD 10 - French Blueberry Cake

This week's TWD recipe should have been French Strawberry Cake, but I could not find nice strawberries in the shops any more. I am sadly to announce that the strawberry season in Luxembourg is officially over. :((((

Therefore, I made the original génoise recipe, but I made a blueberry cream of my own. :)))

TWD 9 - Oasis Naan with Dried Tomatoes

There was a lot going on lately so I could only write this post now, although I did finished with the Naan in time. :)))

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

I have been thinking about crumbles with strawberry and rhubarb a while now. Of course, in the middle of the strawberry season, I see strawberries everywhere. No need for a lot of time to get inspired. :)))

2-Minute Raspberry Cream Cheese

This cream cheese or rather cottage cheese is just so embarrassingly simple that at first I did not want to put it on the blog. But it was too tasty.

TWD 8 - Pecan Sticky Buns

I do not really know whether it is good to start this with saying that at every step I asked myself: "Why the hell did I even start with this recipe?" Until I tasted it. :)))

I thought that yeast-dough will be the hardest for me, but the brioche dough definitely tops it. At least with the yeast-dough if you knead it for enough time, it will come together and would not stick. This dough was sticky during the WHOLE time. :))) Of course, the result makes me forgot how long was it to make, although I do not really know when will I have so much time again.

TWD 6 - Lemon Loaf Cake with Blueberries

Due to some holiday :))) I kind of missed the previous TWD challenge.

Liebster Award

I was really surprised when I read the comment of Margaret (Shoe in the Road) that she loves my cookies, so she gives me my first-ever Liebster Blog Award. Margaret thank you very much.

Brownies in Eggshells

Yes, you heard it right. I was also surprised when I found it out. If you ask me I think it is an amazing idea, though it is definitely time consuming if you do not have the proper utensils.

I found the recipe on “That Skinny Chick Can Bake” and I (surprisingly) entirely followed her instructions.

TWD 5 - Pizza Rustica with Spinach Cream Soup

It is time for the next Tuesdays with Dorie challenge, Pizza Rustica. However, I have to say that living in a francophone environment for now more than 7 months, for me it was rather a quiche or in other words savory tart, than a pizza. Of course, it is a nice recipe, which is easy to make, but the word pizza for me means the Italian pizza with flat yeast-dough and tomato-oregano sauce.

As usual, I changed the recipe a bit, mainly because the other bloggers/bakes were discussing how good it is with spinach. And I have to say it is really-really good with spinach.

I made the pie oh pizza dough the same as the recipe, only I halved the amount of sugar. I know. I know. The point is to have a sweet tart and savory filling, but I really liked my pie oh pizza dough like this.

However, I changed the filling.

Cheesecake Tartelettes with Maple Syrup

There were multiple coincidences or factors that led to baking this cake.

The first was that I saw only at 2 pm Sunday afternoon that the biscuits I bought were not simple biscuits, but a kind of speculoos with cinnamon flavor and candy sugar. The second was that my only cheesecake recipe also includes sour cream, which apparently I forgot to buy. The third was that I just bought these cute tartelette forms and I wanted to try them out.   So at the end I came up with a totally new recipe.

TWD 4 - Irish Soda Bread with Olives

The next TWD challenge was the Irish Soda Bread.

To be honest I was bit hesitating to bake it as according to the recipe "by the end of the day, it will turn as hard as the Blarney Stone" and my original plan was to make it on Sunday for Monday breakfast.

However, I changed my mind when my husband decided to cook Hungarian ratatouille. 'Cause in any case you need a bread for that.

Red Berries Frangipane Galette

Not that I cannot bake anything without an excuse. Moreover, according to my weight scale, I bake much more I should have. :))

However, we were invited to our friends to visit their new-born (3 months old) baby, I had my excuse. Before the baby has born in December we already had a baby shower, for which I baked danish tea biscuits. This time I was thinking of pies.

Créme Patisserie

The story of today's recipe goes back to 4 September 2011, the day when I arrived in Luxembourg. My husband has already been in Luxembourg for 2 weeks discovering the city and its shops (mainly supermarkets). When I arrived, he surprised me with Strawberry Tartelettes. Despite that he is not really a sweet-tooth, he was surprisingly enthusiastic about these tartelettes. Of course, now I know. These amazingly simple and still overly delicious pastry is the best I ate here. And we already tried a couple of sorts, you can imagine. :)))

TWD 3 - Rugelach

When I saw in the book that the dough contains cream cheese, well I thought "Oh my God!". I mean I could not imagine how the cream cheese will effect the texture of the dough, as I only used it so far in creams.

Rugelach is by the way a Jewish pastry in a form of a roll or crescent filled with nuts and dried fruits. My versions were a bit different. I made two kinds of rugelach.

1) Plum lekvar (jam) with crushed walnut

2) Strawberry-rhubarb jam with dried cranberries and ground almond

Yorkshire Pudding with Vanilla Custard

I am still in Carnival / Mardi Gras mood. :)))

I found this amazing Yorkshire pudding recipe on the blog of duende ("Szellem a fazékban") about a week ago (originally the recipe is from Nigella). It was love at first sight as:

1) You don't need a huge amount of oil to fry them.
2) Easy ingredients, easy steps.

Duende made her version with pomegranate syrup, but my version was made with vanilla custard I have already prepared for the pandoro. This recipe is super easy. Thanks again duende for posting it.

Apple Donuts for Mardi Gras

Oops, it seems we just over Mardi Gras. :)))

I just realized that the Mardi Gras season starts on Epiphany (6th January) and ends on Fat Tuesday. As of Ash Wednesday the 40-day Lent starts that will end at Eastern. So from this Wednesday, there is no more Carnival season. Too bad, I just started to get in a Carnival mood :)))

During thinking about this weekend's Mardi Gras pastry, I remembered that we used to make donuts. However, I also remembered having this burning oil smell all over the kitchen. Sorry if it is a bit of a downer, but that is why I googled through the internet to found my perfect donuts and found fried apples. So I made cinnamon apple rings in american pancake coat.

TWD 2 - Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

Here is the time for the second "Baking with Julia" recipe and as an introduction I should start with saying: 

WOW!!!!!!!

I loved it. It was a melted chocolate bomb with just a hint of almond taste. Both me and my husband loved it. It reminded us of chocolate lava cake or chocolate souffle. Due to lack of deep freezer, we missed a little vanilla ice cream. Maybe next time. :)))

6-Layer Coconut Cream Cake

One of my dear colleagues celebrated her birthday yesterday. I got her invitation a month ago and I was quick to ask her whether I can bake a birthday cake for her. 
 
Of course, she said yes. Especially, as she has never had a marzipan cake before. Her favorite flavor is coconut, so the cake turned out to be a 6-layer coconut cream cake. 
 
Coconut cream was a bit of a challenge for me as I have never made anything with coconut before. Yeah, except coconut balls, but that is mainly chocolate balls sprinkled with coconut rasps. 
 
So I had one month to come up with the perfect recipe. I searched the internet and my cookbooks to find one. 

Cookies for Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I was sure that I wanted to make heart-shaped cookies, but I did not know how to make them special.

I have come across Ali Bee's Bakeshop before, where I saw this amazing technique: "Brush emboidery". Here is a super video tutorial from her. So I decided I gave it a go.

The cookies are again danish tea-biscuits I used for the baby shower cookies, but this time I tried the Wilton recipe of royal icing I found in the meringue powder box. :)))

Pear Frangipane Galette

Frangipane is for a long time now on my inspiration list. It went up on the list, when I tasted Galette des Rois for Epiphany. 
 
Galette des Rois is a puff pastry filled with frangipane cream. For some pic, click here. If you want a good recipe, visit Almond Corner. 
 
However, galette can be made also from Paté Brisée, which is kind of shortbread. You can use any kind of filling you want. All you have to know is that it should be flat, round and the sides should be made by hand. Very simple, very easy. 
 
Last week I came across "Tarte Bourdaloue", which is a typical French tart with frangipane cream and pears. So I got inspired.

Chocolate Cupcakes with "Xmas Crackers"

The idea of a cupcake and "Xmas crackers" (click here if you want to find out what I am talking about) came from the fact that I have been tossing around 10 "Xmas crackers" for a while.

I am, for a long time now, not in a Christmas mood. So it is not surprising that I have not feel like eating them any more. But what should I do with them?

That is when the idea came to bake some cupcakes with them.

Searching for a perfect cupcake recipe I came across the blog of the Cupcake Project, where they recommended Chockylit's plain chocolate cupcake as the best cupcakes ever.

TWD 1 - Pizza loaves

I got very excited when I opened to book and put it on the cupboard. It is time. Time to start.

I was also very nervous as yeast doughs are not my outmost favorite. Based on my previous experience (garlic-cheese crescents and mini chocolate rolls) yeast dough is among the harder ones. I usually bake tart dough, but challenge is accepted.

Tuesdays with Dorie

I have been joined the new round of Tuesdays with Dorie. I am sooooo excited. The book of Baking with Julia just arrived. Wow. A lot of recipes. :))) It will take a long-long time to finish it. 

Never heard of TWD? 

Poppy-seed Dumplings with Baked Vanilla Custard

It has been a long time since I ate poppy-seed dumplings, but finally on this weekend I found minced poppy-seeds.

Oh, yes, it is quite a challenge to find MINCED poppy-seeds in Luxembourg. You either have to go the a mini, but special shop or drive to Germany. Of course, driving to Germany doesn't take that long. 30 minutes and you are there.

I had no intention to make regular poppy-seed dumplings, as a food blogger you have to challenge yourself. I searched on the internet and found that besides me a whole lot of people thinks that vanilla custard and poppy-seed dumplings are amazing together. However, nobody baked the two together. So, here is the recipe for Poppy-seed Dumplings with Baked Vanilla Custard.

Raspberry balls

I got a lovely cookbook as a gift for Christmas. It is called "Mouse in the Soup". The cookbook was written by Canadian food bloggers back in 2006. There are a lot of delicious meals and desserts in it, but one particulary caught my eyes.

It was called: Bombs from a Strawberry Tree by Mijo, who is by the way still an active food blogger. She started her blog 7 years ago. Its's called "I am cooking".