To be honest, at our home everybody is crazy about Nutella and it is really not good how much we eat it. In the morning with bread, then on pancakes, we spread it on everything, and we even eat it with spoon, OMG .
So I started searching for a delicious, and not too sweet chocolate spread. Of course, this chocolate spread is not like Nutella, but it is even tastier for us as we can taste fried hazelnuts and chocolate.
INGREDIENTS :
80 g of sugar
70 g of fried hazelnuts
100 g of chocolate ( 50 % of cocoa )
60 g of butter
100 ml of milk
PREPARATION :
1 . fry the hazelnuts on a dry pan, without fat or buy already fried hazelnuts …
2 . grind the hazelnuts as fine as possible in the blender …
3 . put milk and sugar to boil …
4 . put the pot away from the cooker and add chocolate and stir till the chocolate melts …
5 . add butter and stir till the butter melts completely …
6 . add ground hazelnuts and mix well with hand blender …
7 . put the chocolate spread in a glass jar and let it cool, then put it in the fridge …
NOTE :
I had used various types of chocolate and butter till I found the perfect texture of the chocolate spread and excellent taste – in my opinion; that’s why I want to show you which chocolate and which butter I use to prepare this chocolate spread. It is really important for you to use chocolate with 50 % of cocoa, neither more, nor less than 50 %, otherwise the taste and texture of the chocolate spread will change. In the picture you can see which products I use.
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Winter Magic
This is a special cake, I am really very fond of it. I call it Winter Magic due to its ingredients. It is totally delicious, soft and moist. Its taste is enriched with carob which is a Mediterranean spice, unfortunately it is very seldom or often wrongly used in our cuisine.
INGREDIENTS :
3 eggs
250 g of semolina
100 ml of oil
200 g of sugar
100 ml of milk
1 package of vanilla sugar
1 package of baking powder
150 g of ground almonds
5 pears
100 g of carob
Juice of 1 lemon
a pinch of salt
FOR COATING AND SPRINKLING :
130 g of apricot jam
100 g of flaked almonds
FOR COATING AND SPRINKLING THE BAKING TIN :
butter
flour
PROCEDURE :
1 . preheat the oven to 180 degrees…
2 . mix eggs , sugar and vanilla sugar well …
3 . in the meantime peel, core and grate the pears and leave them aside …
4 . when eggs and sugar are mixed and have become creamy, add milk and oil and mix for ca. 2 minutes …
5 . add all other ingredients except pears to the mixture and go on mixing till all ingredients get homogenous …
6 . add pears to the mixture with light circular movements …
7 . pour the mixture into the buttered and floured baking tin with diameter of 26 cm, and bake for ca . 35 – 40 minutes …
8 . while the cake is being baked, roast flaked almonds on a dry pan, without any fat …
9 . leave the baked cake in the baking tin for 10 minutes, and then take it out …
10 . leave the cake for ca. 20 minutes to get cooled a bit, then stir the jam with a spoon, coat the cake and sprinkle it with flaked almonds evenly …
11 . press flaked almonds with your palm gently to enable them to stick to the jam better …
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Linzer Cookies
During Christmas holidays at our place Linzer cookies are obligatory, besides other biscuits and cakes. But not only during holidays do we love to have our biscuit box full of Linzer cookies. The longer they stay in a well closed box, the tastier and better they are.
INGREDIENTS :
300 g of flour
1 package of vanilla sugar
1 yolk
200 g of cold margarine for cakes
100 g of powdered sugar
jam for filling (at your taste)
FOR DARK PASTRY ADD :
1 tea spoon of cocoa
PREPARATION :
1 . put the flour, vanilla sugar , yolk and powdered sugar in a bowl, cut margarine into smaller pieces and add it to other ingredients…
2 . knead pastry well, so that margarine gets homogenous with other ingredients …
3 . finished pastry is a little sticky. Put the pastry on transparent foil and form it with your hands lightly and then wrap it into the transparent foil …
4 . let the pastry stay in the fridge for ca. 2 hours…
5 . take the pastry out of the fridge ca . 10 minutes before further use, to let it achieve house temperature …
6 . knead the pastry with your hands, sprinkle as little flour on your work top as possible, just enough to avoid sticking the pastry to the work top …
7 . knead the pastry thin, maximal to 0.5 cm …
8 . cut the pastry out with moulds (make sure you have the same number of cut cookies with and without holes) …
9 . line the cookies on a tray covered with parchment paper …
10 . put the cookies in the oven pre-heated to 200 degrees and bake them for ca . 7 – 9 minutes ( it is obligatory to keep an eye on your cookies so that they do not get coloured) …
11 . take the rest of the pastry, form it, roll it out and cut cookies out, repeat this procedure till you have used all the pastry …
12 . baked cookies are still a little soft in the middle, but do not worry, it is OK this way …
13 . put the cookies on another cold tray or on a cooling grate …
14 . put jam in a small dish and heat it well with constant stirring (do not boil it) …
14 . fill the cookies … SEE THE VIDEO !!!
NOTES AND ADVICE :
Do not touch the finished, filled cookies till the jam hardens.
If you want to decorate them with powdered sugar, it is best to do that as soon as you fill them with hot jam, so that hot jam can absorb sugar. In that way your cookies will be decorated with powdered sugar and the jam will look like as if you had not sprinkled it at all.
It is important to roll the cookies out as thin as possible, max. to 0.5 cm so that they are not too thick later when joined together.
In every oven pastry is baked differently, the baking time depends on thickness, pastry has been rolled out to, so take care of your cookies during baking.
When cookies loose their shine during baking, keep an eye on them because now they need just a minute or two to be ready.
When your cookies are cut out, it is best to use a spatula to put them on a baking try, in this way you will avoid deforming them with your fingers.
If the pastry sticks to the spatula or to the moulds, just sprinkle a little flour on them.
The cookies MUST NOT get coloured, they have to remain light.
While rolling the pastry out, try to use flour as little as possible, to avoid spoiling the pastry texture , otherwise you will later have hard and less tasty cookies.
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Christmas Bundt Cake
While you are preparing this Bundt cake, and while it is being baked in your oven, a smell of Christmas will be spreading around your kitchen.
If you like the taste of gingerbread and cinnamon, this Bundt cake will enchant you, especially when you take a cup of warm milk with it.
INGREDIENTS :
200 g of margarine for cakes ( or butter )
200 g of sugar
200 ml of red wine
1 tea spoon of cinnamon
1 spoon of cocoa
1 package of baking powder
4 eggs
400 g of flour
1 package of vanilla sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tea spoon of gingerbread spices (spoon full)
100 g of ground walnuts
FOR CHOCOLATE GLAZE :
400 g of white chocolate
4 spoons of oil
FOR COATING THE TUBE PAN :
margarine for cakes
flour
PREPARATION OF BUNDT CAKE :
1 . margarine a tube pan and put it in the fridge …
2 . preheat the oven to 180 degrees …
3 . mix sugar, vanilla sugar, pinch of salt and margarine well …
4 . add eggs gradually, one by one and keep mixing for ca. 3 minutes
5 . add walnuts and wine…
6 . mix all other dry ingredients and add to the mixture, keep mixing for ca . 1 – 2 minutes …
7 . take the tube pan out of the fridge and sprinkle it with a little flour, and shake out the excess …
8 . pour the batter into the tube pan and put it into the hot oven to 180 degrees for ca. 50 min ( it depends on your oven) …
9 . take the baked Bundt cake out of the oven and leave it aside for 10 minutes. Then get it out of the tube pan to let it cool down …
10 . if wished, you can even the Bundt cake’s bottom …
11 . wash the tube pan thoroughly and dry it well …
PREPARATION OF CHOCOLATE GLAZE :
1 . chop the chocolate …
2 . boil the water and take the pot away from the cooker …
3 . put the bowl on the pot and then add 2/3 of chocolate and oil into the pot and let the chocolate melt …
4 . when the chocolate has melted, take the bowl away from the pot with water and add the rest of 1/3 chocolate …
5 . let the chocolate melt and stir well …
6 . pour a part of chocolate into the tube pan and distribute it evenly across the tube pan and coat the middle of the tube pan with a brush …
7 . pour the rest of the chocolate and repeat the procedure of coating … SEE THE VIDEO !!!
8 . put the Bundt cake back into the tube pan and leave it in the fridge for ca. 4 hours, best overnight…
9 . take the Bundt cake out of the fridge and take it away from the tube pan immediately …
NOTES AND ADVICE :
This way of chocolate melting is very important, so that chocolate can have the right temperature for being used in various cakes.
When 2/3 of chocolate is melted on steam, and then you add 1/3 of chocolate, then the chocolate reaches particular temperature which should be ca . 28, 29 degrees for white chocolate.
When you melt the chocolate this way, you avoid your chocolate to be too thin for further use , you avoid your chocolate to be soaked up into the biscuit and the glaze will stay shiny and it will not become matte.
It is important to take the Bundt cake out of the tube pan IMMEDIATELY after you have taken it out of the fridge, because chocolate gets soft very quickly.
If you have evened the bottom of the Bundt cake and you now have some biscuit left, simply add some apricot jam to the biscuit, little by little, and press it with your hand to get a sticky mixture, out of which you can form nut-sized balls.
If wished, you can roll the balls into coco flower, ground walnuts, almonds, etc. …
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