Happy New Year and Bonbon project 2.0

The New Year has come. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their beloved ones, friends, colleagues, whoever, with whom you could cook, bake, eat perfect foods together and had a great time.

For Xmas this year since I am a gourmand and have this gastro blog, I didn't have another chance but only prepare eatable presents for everyone, my family and friends also. I prepared a lot of delicious things already before xmas, in all December but from all I loved making bonbons. It has endless number of variant and who doesn't love chocolate. The bonbon as xmas present proved perfect choise. All my family was struck dumb by the small sweet surprises which is always the best proof for me. :)

Right before Christmas I  bought a new bonbon silicone chocolate molds what I needed to try immediately. Of course! 

I made 4 different kind of bonbon with different fillings or design:

1. Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam (I have prepared this before)

2. White - dark chocolate striped bonbon

3. White chocolate bonbon filling with sour cherry jam

4. White chocolate bonbon filling with orange dark chocolate cream

1. Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam 

Ingredients (15 pieces):

15 dkg dark chocolate (minimum 60%)

For the filling:

4 tablespoon cream 

10 dkg white chocolate

4 coffee spoon yoghurt 

1 lemon's zest

+ home-made sour cherry jam

1. For first step let's prepare the filling. Melt the white chocolate with the cream above medium heat, stirring constantly. When the cream is solid, set aside to chill. When it's cold (after 5-10 minutes), addmix the yoghurt and lemon zest. Set aside again until preparing the chocolate shell in the forms. 

2. Melt the 2/3 of chocolate slowly in another saucepan stirring constantly. When it's completely melted, take from the cooking-stove, turn the rest of chocolate into the melted chocolate and stir until they get melted as well. 

3. Wih the help of a paint brush (Yes, you can use what we painted in elementary school with if we haven't purchased a professional bonbon brush yet) grease the holes of bonbon form. Hold toward the lights to see whether you haven't left any small hole anyway the filling runs out through it. Place the form in the fridge to congeal. If you want to play it safe, grease again with the chocolate (as I did also for the very first time).

4. When our chocolate shells chilled, place some white chocolate filling with a small coffee spoon, then some jam but leave some millimetre place for the feet of bonbons to close them. Pull down the unnecessary chocolate with a spatula so the feet of bonbons will be nice and plain.  

5. When we are ready witht the filling, put them back inthe fridge for minimum 1 hour then carefully turn out the bonbons from the form and you can taste them immediately. 

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Colourful tiny cakes in winter - vegetable-cheesy quiche

I prepared these colourful small quiches for a Saturday breakfast since I needed to try my newly bought pie forms. For the dough I used again the recipe of, Michael Roux from his book Pastry: Savory and Sweet. You can make 6 quiche (baking in 10 cm round shape form)  from the below ingredients.

Ingredients:
For the dough: 
250 g flour
1 egg
150 g soft butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon cold milk (I used yoghurt instead of milk) 

For the filling (what I prepared this time):
2 db triangle cheese
2 smaller red pepper
1 medium-sized onion
olive oil
salt, pepper, nutmeg
1 egg+ 2 egg yolks 
2 dl cooking cream
3-4 tablespoon chopped parsley

1. Knead the linzer pastry as usual. In a big bowl crumb the flour with the butter, add the caster sugar, vanilla sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest, mix the ingredients and knead the pastry by hand very quickly. Put it in the fridge for about 1 hour but at least for 30 minutes to chill.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C and to prepare the basket forms, oil them properly in order the pastry not to get stuck in them. Roll out the pastry and cut it with a pastry cutter then arrange the pastry into the forms. Bake them in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. When they are ready take them out and let them cool.

3. While the baskets are in the oven, let's prepare the filling. Peel and chop the onion, sauté with olive oil in a small saucepan then add the sliced red pepper. In another bowl mix the egg with the cream and cheese, sprinkle with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and finally mix with the vegetables.

4. Fill your chilled baskets with this filling then place back to the oven for another 15 minutes. 

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Kladdkaka - The famous Swedish chocolate cake

We arrived at the next stop of our series about Swedish desserts, the kladdkaka.

The Swedes has many national day around the year when they celebrate the day one of their national desserts such as kanelbullens dag (the Swedish cinnamon rolls) on 4th October or Fettisdagen (the Fat Tuesday) when the whole Swedish nation eats semla or like today, on 7th November when everyone bakes kladdkaka at home. 

The word "kladdkaka" means sticky cake. This cake is the first dessert what the Swedish children learn to bake from their parents. It's similar to the American brownie but the kladdkaka's middle is more soft and sticky because of the chocolate. Generally it's served with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. 

You can find kladdkaka in almost every café and restaurant all around Sweden, somewhere it's good, somewhere it's better but unfortunately you can meet with less good one also, whose middle is not soft - which is essential for kladdkaka. In addition like every other Swedish cake, the kladdkaka has also frozen version as well therefore who is too lazy to bake, they can also buy a quite delicious cake in the supermarket. Since it's as quick as lightning to prepare and doesn't need any special qualification or practise, it's hard to find an excuse why you couldn't bake it at home.

Like every dessert, million different kinds of kladdkaka exist but all consist butter, cocoa powder, flour, egg but with different rate. Moreover, kladdkaka has improved variant as well, which is added vanilla or chocolate in, but the result is always very similar.  

From the million versions I chose the famous kladdkaka of Leila Lindholm from her book, A Piece of Cake.

Ingredients:

50 g butter
1/2 dl oil
2 egg
2 dl castor sugar
1 dl brown sugar
2,5 dl flour
4 tablespoon good quality cocoa powder (I use only Holland!)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt

butter and flour to grease the form
50 g dark chocolate (min. 70%)

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.

2. Melt the butter in the microwave oven or in a small sauce pan then add the oil. 

3. In a big bowl whisk the eggs and the castor and brown sugar with a hand mixer till foamy then addmix the oily butter. 

4. In another bowl mix the dry ingredients, the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder and stir into the egg mixture. 

5. When it's ready pour in the prepared, buttered and floured about 24 cm round cake pan with removable bottom and sprinkle with some breaken chocolate pieces. 

5. In the middle of the oven bake the cake for 25 minutes. When you will stick a knife in it, don't surprise, it'll be sticky a bit because of the melted chocolate on its top. 

Serve with freshly whipped cream. 

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Bonbon project 1.0 - Bonbon filled with lemony white chocolate cream and sour cherry jam

The long weekends always give a handle to try those dishes, cakes and recipes we have deferred for a long time. I also devoted partly my weekend for this vagary. On the one hand these wonderful bonbons were prepared on Saturday, and yesterday ginger-cinnamon Williams pear jam. Wowowowow!! Even I made both for the first time but I wanted to create something special and unique and to be "very unpretentious" I think they turned out well.  

I stated that I still need to improve related to bonbon (I would like if my bonbons were sooo shiny as the most delicious ones are) in technics, variations, tastes, forms but what is essential that 8 from 10  bonbons  came out in one shape from the form. The other reason why I needed to try to make them is that in 2 weeks I will need to prepare in Stockholm and at the time I won't be allowed to make lame bonbons. :)

My mum has bought the forms for me a few weeks ago in Lidl, but in Hungary you can buy also in Butlers, Tescoma products can be bought in almost all kitchen utensils store, in almost every big shopping mall (in Budapest: Allee, Westend, Aréna) and online on the Hungarian website: Gasztroshop, Sodrófa.hu. For the persons who lives in Sweden (;-)) the FikaMera is a very useful web store!!!!! Soon I will also purchase the ingredients only from here. 

For start I wanted to try only one portion, the important for me was to see how to use the chocolate, how to temper then how to grease the form with the melted chocolate to make equable thick chocolate layer then in the end if I reached the last step without any big mistake how to conjured the bonbons out from the form without breaking. In short, to know all of this above, I turned in to the blog of Praliné Zsuzsi, and Csak a Puffin, to learn the basics and get inspired. In this way I reached to the lemony white chocolate and sour cherry jam filling. 

I aim at summarize the most important things what a starter bonbon maker should know before starting a bonbon project.

Ingredients (10 pieces):

10 dkg dark chocolate (minimum 60%)

For the filling:

2 tablespoon cream 

5 dkg white chocolate

2 coffee spoon yoghurt 

1/2 lemon's zest

+ home-made sour cherry jam

1. For first step let's prepare the filling. Melt the white chocolate with the cream above medium heat, stirring constantly. When the cream is solid, set aside to chill. When it's cold (after 5-10 minutes), addmix the yoghurt and lemon zest. Set aside again until preparing the chocolate shell in the forms. 

2. Melt the 2/3 of chocolate slowly in another saucepan stirring constantly. When it's completely melted, take from the cooking-stove, turn the rest of chocolate into the melted chocolate and stir until they get melted as well. 

You can read about the different way of melting and tempering of chocolate at Praliné Zsuzsi's blog.  She says, either to melt above  boiling water or in microwave oven but the most important thing is to measure with chocolate tempering thermometer, because if for instance we overheat the chocolate it can happen that our chocolate won't be shiny.

3. Wih the help of a paint brush (Yes, you can use what we painted in elementary school with if we haven't purchased a professional bonbon brush yet) grease the holes of bonbon form. Hold toward the lights to see whether you haven't left any small hole anyway the filling runs out through it. Place the form in the fridge to congeal. If you want to play it safe, grease again with the chocolate (as I did also for the very first time).

(If your chocolate has congealed, melt it again.)

4. When our chocolate shells chilled, place some white chocolate filling with a small coffee spoon, then some jam but leave some millimetre place for the feet of bonbons to close them. Pull down the unnecessary chocolate with a spatula so the feet of bonbons will be nice and plain.  

5. When we are ready witht the filling, put them back inthe fridge for minimum 1 hour. (or for a whole night), then carefully turn out the bonbons from the form and you can taste them immediately. 

How long are 10 binbons enough for you?

The chocolate shell was perfect, the cream was softly lemony, and with the sourish cherry jam they became a very special couple. 

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Apple-cinnamon muffin with walnut crumb

I'm already in Christmas mood, especially when the cinnamon apple started to flavour from the oven. These muffins are simple (the recipe can be sum up in 3 steps) but delicious, soft and very Christmasish :)

Ingredients (6 pieces):
1 egg
1,5 dl yoghurt
3,5 dkg butter or marge
12 dkg flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
8 dkg sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 middle-sized apple

For decoration:
1 handful walnut + 1 tablespoon sugar

1. In a big bowl mix the egg and yoghurt. In another one mix the flour with the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, sugar then add the egg mixture and grated apple to this.Mix all the ingredients properly.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C. 

3. Spoon the dough into the muffin paper lined forms, sprinkle with sugar-walnut mix and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes.

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