cookbook addict

This bread is gaining popularity online so I thought I'd give it a go too, as I try to bake my own bread once in a while. I never manage to get a good crust unless I bake in a cast iron pot, but we don't mind softer crusts either. While I do enjoy toasted English muffins and the German industry produces quite acceptable substitutes, I thought this muffin bread sounded fun to try. Note that it has to be toasted otherwise it doesn't taste so good, but that is also the case with actual muffins. It was nice and made quite a good toast, but to me it didn't taste like an English muffin, more like a cross between soda bread and milk loaf, which is no bad thing but the name is a bit misleading. I followed the recipe and made one very long loaf that lasted a few days without going stale. I will make it again using a little less soda and one rise in the tin. It's quite fast so is a good solution if you don't have a lot of time to bake but still crave homem...

This cake has made me so proud! It has put a smile on my face every time I passed it by and people have commented so kindly on it that all the effort and backache that went into it were worth it. Not least of all it was declared by Maya, the birthday girl (7), her new favourite cake, because she loved the taste of it too. This cake is both incredibly pretty and delicious. Rainbow cake slice Now, for details. I made the white cake recipe called Parfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan in Baking : From My Home to Yours . Because I do not like to waste, I used the leftover egg yolks to make a half recipe of yellow cake from The Joy of Cooking for the yellow and orange layers. Pastel rainbow cake, unadorned White and yellow cake concepts are American. White cake using only egg whites and yellow cake, well, you've guessed by now. I added a hint of vanilla to everything, the icing is similar to Billy's vanilla buttercream , which I have used successfully before on cupc...

Everybody knows cinnamon buns but Sweden has a long tradition of spicing things up with cardamom. These vega buns are nice and buttery, golden and spicy and hail from one of my latest cookbook acquisitions, Under the Walnut Tree by mother and daughter food writers Anna and Fanny Bergenström. I am told that Anna is THE culinary writer in Sweden. This book is wonderful, very thick and rich of hundreds of recipes from Sweden, France, South America and other places. Each chapter covers one of their favourite ingredients, from avocado to chocolate, cardamom, tea, tomatoes, etc. If you had just one book and this was it, you could happily cook from it forever, daydream about the pictures and gain knowledge from the intros. It's that kind of book. The buns will be wonderful when autumn and winter come, but since the weather is decidedly un-summery, and I needed a project for the end of the afternoon to dissipate the black cloud on my mind, I found them quite perfect even right n...

Have you noticed how food blogs go through phases of given ingredients? Brown butter and Bourbon seem to be pretty popular these days. In an attempt to stay hip I bought a bottle of Four Roses the other day, not sure if this or Jim Beam, or even Jack Daniels would be better. The Four Roses came with a minor discount, and it reminds me of an old commercial that ran in cinemas when I was young. Also you can't beat the roses on the label. It's only when I came home that I realized the Irish whisky (Bushmills) that W. favours has a much better aroma. As for brown butter, I always assumed it was very unhealthy, since it's basically one step short of burnt butter, supposed to clog arteries for, like, ever. But in the spirit of research, I gave this recipe a try. This cobbler is a cross between a pie and a cake. Usually, cobblers are made of stewed fruit covered unevenly in American biscuit- or scone-like dough. This one has a few extra steps and looks rather improbable before ...

Même recette en français By now I guess no one still expects me to keep up with my self-imposed one blog post a day June challenge. No one had noticed I guess! It's silly because I have been rather excited about my food this month and tried new recipes and been eating very well. But finding time and the inspiration to write up is another thing. Oh well, I guess no one really wants that anyway. My time gets sucked up by Instagram, which I have just installed and tried using. It's been available for Android phones for two months but I was ignorant of that and still used Picplz. Only picplz is now closing down so it's been my cue to at long last use the real thing. I am also catching up with Mad Men, thankfully while it's the European championship, so apologies for preferring the company of Jon Hamm to yours, my dear but invisible readers. But I think everyone agrees that a blog post about some baking is always exciting. So here goes for today's snack.  ...

In the Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook, there are a couple of savoury recipes that have caught my eye. One of them is the kimchi blue cheese croissant, but it requires a lot of commitment, to quote Chritina Tosi, it's not for softbodies. I'm pretty sure it's delicious, since I love blue cheese and I like kimchi. I recently bought a jar of it, probably because in a corner of my mind, I am planning to make the recipe soon. Another one is this bagel bomb recipe, because 1) it's relatively easy and 2) it involves cream cheese, scallions and bacon. What more do you need? It makes a great snack or savoury breakfast, it's great as an accompaniment to soup or salad, you could even make it with kids. To start, you need two things : the "mother dough", the basic bread dough used for all the other recipes in the book (croissants, bun pie, etc.) and the cream cheese plugs, which are the frozen centers of the buns. For the mother dough recipe click here and scroll ...

I've made plain banana breads, banana bread with chocolate bits, or with peanut butter, vegan banana breads, I've even developed my own low-fat recipe for the book, I have tried many variations, from soft and moist crumbed to rich and dense, and now I think I've finally found the best recipe for it, not low-fat but with a rich buttery taste -without being greasy or too rich. It's Mark Bittman's recipe, the man who introduced the world to the no-knead bread. I think banana bread is what I bake most often, after brownies. It's the perfect treat for any occasion and any time of the day and it's not usually too heavy on butter or oil. Sometimes I just wish some of our bananas (always fair-trade and organic) were left to go very brown and unedible, even by me -and I like my bananas with brown spots- just so I can justify baking it. There's something very comforting about it, its smell, its taste, its homely look. I may have overbaked this one a little ...

English text in purple!   Après avoir abusé de crack pie, et après un court séjour en Bavière, pays des saucisses et des bretzels, il est temps de revenir à des nourritures plus équilibrées. Je ne sais pas pourquoi mais j'ai toujours l'impression que les pâtisseries végétaliennes sont meilleures pour la santé et font moins grossir que les autres. C'est peut-être hypocrite de se voiler la face comme ça, mais bon, parfois les illusions ont du bon. En tous cas, on ne maltraite pas les animaux, c'est déjà pas mal de leur foutre la paix de temps en temps. After I ate too much crack pie and after a short trip to Bavaria, the land of sausage and pretzels, it is time to go back to more healthful eating. Somehow, vegan baking always seems more virtuous and lesss fattening than regular baking. I may  be a hypocrite or putting my head in the sand, but sometimes illusions are good. At least animals haven't been hurt to produce the recipes and it's not such a bad thing t...

Every country has its kitchen bible, the book that taught housewives how to cook and fashionned the way generations have eaten since WW2. In the US, you have The Joy of Cooking, in the UK, Delia perhaps, in France Ginette Mathiot and Françoise Bernard are the top contenders. Luxemburg is no different. Except the name of the lady probably never made it past the border. Ketty Thull was a domestic science teacher and her book is the bestselling cookbook in this country. It's been republished many times and she even has streets named after her. PS : got this mint copy of the JoC for $5 in New York! I had my eye on this book with its cute play kitchen on the cover, and was super happy to receive it as a present from my friend Diane and her husband Claude, my reference in all things Luxemburg. Villmols Merci! This book has advice on nutrition and every recipe anyone ever needed. My friends said their mums cooked only from it so it's stuff they grew up on. And as you would expec...

Hay fever allergies : check. Hormone-laden days : check. Sick baby : check. It's been a pretty good fucked up week so far. Sorry about the language. Let us not dwell on the negative, there are worse things in life than not getting enough sleep and feeling like a wired zombie with a blocked nose and itchy eyes. But there are better, happier days too. Like the days when you are planning a cozy tea time with lots of dainty goodies to share and you look at your freshly planted spring flowers and rejoice about the new season because the trees haven't started releasing their f...ing pollens yet. For those days, I have made good use of this book : Ladies, a Plate by Alexa Johnston.* I'm sorry this post has started with bad language because there's nothing bad to say about this book, it is a treasure of old-fashioned, in a good way , recipes from New Zealand housewives who published them in community cookbooks, books sold to raise funds for local projects. And ...

I hope to get a bit more regular on this blog. I have made a few things since last year but it seems too much for a single post. Let's focus on the now and then. Today we're going to celebrate the third birthday of a little neighbour so I've made her an elephant. It's my third and it's true that the more you make something the easier it becomes. This one has less faults than its two predecessors. I have used fabric from Tilda, I think they're so beautiful, and the pattern is from this book , which is a great book for beginners. I received two Japanese pattern books this week and am planning on making this skirt first. I have long wanted a denim skirt with a pleat at the front, I'm thinking of making it all denim.     For the sweet tooth, here's a little pic of Jamie's baked chocolate tart out if his first book. Mmmhhh, so good! The recipe is here . I used "only" 100g butter, but it is very rich all the same. I used to make it often when I f...

We have put up our Christmas tree. It is a jumble of tinsel, tiny wooden figures and felt trees, and now thanks to Nikolaus, Kinder chocolate Santas. Just the way we like it. Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, Saint Nicolas, Kleesche,  the model for Santa Claus and a beloved figure in our area (Northeastern France, Germany, Benelux countries) is celebrated on December 6. The night before, children put their shoes out for him to fill with sweets, chocolates, little presents as well as something for him to drink and nibble on, and some snack for his donkey. I must say I don't relate so much to this tradition but I like to embrace it as it makes the children happy. In Luxemburg, Kleesche is often accompanied by his dark friend Houseka, whom we call Père Fouettard in French, who is supposed to come and spank/club naughty children. He certainly frightens smaller children but since his threats never come true, his educational value is low, ha ha. Today is also the second Sunday of Advent so we have ...

Instead of telling you all about my failure to finish those projects I was talking about here , I'll tell you about some good things. Baking cakes for teatime has to be the most relaxing activity. Here is a favourite of mine, already blogged about, but worth every post it can get. Olive oil and orange juice cake with pine nuts, only good things in there and a delicate cake, both dense and light, plain but delicious. It is dairy free too, if you know someone with dairy allergies. It's the olive oil and orange juice cake with pine nuts from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. I love baking cookies and biscuits too, but it's more time-consuming than cakes, so I do it less often these days. Browsing the web for Christmas ideas, I found out that the vegan punk girls' cookie book was out at last. Yay! So to be patient until next month, I set out to bake the PB chocolate pillows featured on their website, the Post Punk Kitchen. They looked so delicious with their little bellyful o...

We had exceptionally beautiful warm weather all September, but this week has been wetter and grayer, the leaves seem to turn more quickly to shades of orange and yellow and brown, and we're beginning to spend more time indoors (coughing and nose-blowing too). And so it is that I have been busy in the kitchen and at the sewing machine yesterday. We were out of everything for breakfast and I had been eyeing a pumkin scone recipe so I got to make it. I use potimarron, I think it's called Hokkaido squash, it is a small variety that has a dense flesh with a hint of chestnut flavour (hence the name). It is ideal for all recipes calling for pumpkin or butternut, and you can cook and eat the skin too -less waste, more vitamins, and above all by my book, less work! These scones were a bit dense, but nicely flavoured with a hint of cinnamon, and smeared with Nutella, they were quite easy to eat but dunk anything in Nutella and we'll eat it. Though perhaps not bacon or sausages... I a...

Today, I felt the urge to MAKE something. Usually I bake something sweet, and lately have taken up machine sewing (although since coming back from my holidays I haven't sewn much -no time!). But I have eaten too much cake this week, and don't have any fabric suited to the new season, apart from some uninspiring dark denim. So I turned to bread, because nothing beats a fresh slice with some good butter. I remembered a wholesome and tasty loaf I baked from this book a while ago. And I also happened to have all the ingredients on hand, being a bit of a hoarder, some of them had to go soon, already past their sell-by date. I thought this recipe was interesting enough to share with you and revive this blog, so here goes : 2 cups warm water 2 packages instant yeast (I used a package destined to 500g flour) 1/4 cup molasses 1/4 c. brown sugar 3 tbsps vegetable oil 1/2 c. nonfat dry milk 1/2 c. toasted sunflower seeds 1/2 c. toasted wheat germ 2,5 tsp salt 4-5 c. wholewheat flour Diss...