Cooking: Radish creme soup

At some point I realized, that there is too much radish ready for harvest at the same time, as I have been a gardening noob and planted them all at the very same time. So you might not be surprised that I got into a little trouble 😉 So yes, I needed to get “rid off” them in some nice way, because just having radish as a side dish to my breakfast every day neither was enough, nor was fun anymore at the end.

Search machines quickly helped me, so this recipe that I found on the German website Chefkoch was somehting that I wanted to try – and that even though I am everything but no fan of soups – but I simply couldn´t imagine that you could possibly still taste the radish in a creme soup.

What I can tell you: you can, and it´s easy to actually influence how much you can taste it – just make sure you do not use too much onion, otherwise it will just taste like onion. The more of the radish you actually cook in the broth to which later on the rest of the ingredients is added, the softer the radish touch is.

If you add more raw radish at the end and after the cooking but of course before the liquidizing, the stronger the taste is. Also, I added far more radish to the recipe than it was written there, because I wanted a strong taste – also added a few just sliced radish at the end, to give it something where you still had to chew and not just something to drink.

The preparation was easy and rather quick, the ingredients are nothing too fany or hard to get, and also not expensive – so overall quite a recipe that you can do during weekdays, too. The amount of everything for the two portions on the website…well, it was more than two portions for me, and even two portions as such are too much for a single person, even if you love eating and are a good eater.

Conclusion? Perfect soup, also tastes when it´s not fully hot anymore and so it´s a good dinner or lunchtime for spring and also summer, when the radish is growing and you are longing for something light to eat!

Recipe:

https://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/2551031399396028/Radieschensuppe-mit-Frischkaese-und-Kresse.html

Baking: Wild garlic bread

It´s been a while that I´ve been baking this bread with wirld garlic – also because it´s been a while since wild garlic was actually on fleek and the thing to collect in one of our parks. Yes, it indeed does grow in one of our parks, simply because it´s a bit like a little forest.

I always enjoy collecting things like wild garlic, because it´s there en masse and I also totally enjoy ppl wondering what on earth I am doing there. No, the latter I do not enjoy but no can do, most poeple don´t even know how wild garlic looks like.

Because I had too much fun collecting the garlic, my handblender died on me and I had to go and borrow one from my neighbor – how awkward! nah, in the end not awkward but it was so annoying, and time consuming. In the end I had to make some wild garlic pesto as one part that was needed for the bread.

The bread itself was rather easy and quick to make, nothing too fancy in the making and the dough itself was a friendly one without making troubles. I always just forget that some kind sof dough need to rest for whatever feels like years and that again and again detroys my whole timeline that I planned. So instead of getting it done all quick, it´s resting and watching the dough grow.

On the ready made dough you have to then spread the pesto and roll the whole thing and throw it into the baking form – nothing tough, and the real work is sone quickly and all you gotta do in the end is wait and enjoy the amazing smell that is coming from the oven.

And then take it out of the oven, let it cool down a bit and then enjoying it – I am so in love with this taste and smell, the combination of the abit sweet dough and the pesto filling…a dream that I would love to be enjoying all year long but I used up all of my wild garlic already 😦

Original recipe:

https://www.smarticular.net/baerlauchbrot-rezept-backen-selber-machen/

Baking: Brioche-Brownie-Babka with caramelized cinnamon-pecans

It´s already been a while since I´ve actually been baking this babka, but somehow I´ve been sharing so many food things that I couldn´t go all in and give you all things I baked within a week 😉 And hey, even though that Easter is just a week ago, there´s always time and space in the belly for a good cake!

But as I´ve also wondered at first – what on earth is “babka”? Basically it is, as simple as that, a sweet braided bread, originally coming from Jewish culture mostly from the area of Poland and Ukraine, but also in israel, as I found out. So that´s about the meaning of it, so nothing too extraordinary, just sounding fancy for the most of us I guess.

I am a lover for chocolate things in cakes, and the few nuts that I am actually allowed to eat (due to allergies, I am grateful for these tiny things!) I am just loving, so this combination was a nice new try for me. And let´s put it this way, it´s become messy and chaotic, because at times baking and me are not going well together.

The normal dough was not the problem, also the chocolate spread wasn´t the problem, the caramelized pecans were a problem though for me.. A HUGE problem. Not in regards of making those, but in regards of: how on earth am I supposed to not eat them all up and keep them for the cake? I really struggled.

But talking about struggling…I know I am not talented in baking things, but when it comes to braiding the dough, I am out. I am just too dumb for that, I cannot get it into my head and when you have some sticky filling like the chocolate part here on top, it makes it extremely messy and I looked liked I had showered in the filling. At least it was extremely tasty, but I was happy when I had it all stuffed into the baking form – not exactly satisfied with the looks, but it was a first.

The baking then was easy, but I was surprised how much the dough kinda exploaded and had been growing during the time in the oven, which made it really tough to eventually get it out for the baking form.

But all that counts is that it tasted great, and my colleagues as well as my neighbors (and me) loved it. Some even came by and asked if they could have a second round, and it´s exactly such moments why I am doing all this baking. Giving some fun to myself whilst baking and some joy for those enjoying it.

So clearly I am gonna do it again, just wait for it until I exercised my braiding skills with dough a tiny little bit more often.

Original recipe

Brioche-Brownie-Babka mit karamellisierten Zimt-Pekannüssen

Baking: Spicy bunny head bread rolls

Just in time for Easter and for you to maybe give it a tiny little try, aswell – I´ve tried these amazingl cute bread rolles in shape of a bunny head on Sunday, because the recipe came online on Saturday and I still needed to rush to the store to get the missign ingredients, as usual.

If you´re not into spicy things, maybe don´t even read further OR simply adjust the recipe, I am sure it also tastes amazing without adding the chili flakes to the cheese filling.

You just gotta be a lover for cheese, the rest is out of question because they just taste amazing – and it´s hard not to eat all of them at once, especially when they´re still warm. But also when cooled down, so good – I enjoyed them with a slide of salmon.

And as usual, I forgot that some of the yeast doughs need a loooot of resting time, so when I quickly wanted to bake them for brunch, I had to first face the 2h of waiting time for the dough to grow. The dough itself is easy peasy, nothing special and nothing which I wouldn´t have done before.

Also the stuffing is easy, I mixed it earlier so that it can all suck up the chili taste a bit more – just be careful with the chili, depending on the spiciness of the one you have you should use less than in the recipe.

I was really gad that the dough wasn´t sticky at all, and cutting it into pieces to make sure the bread rolls (the normal ones) and the bread rolls with the ears have all more or less the same size was a tad annoying, simply because I cannot guess at all how heavy a certain amount of dough is. I feel clueless and without my scale I would´ve been lost.

The filling of the dough balls felt easy, but as I had to face later on, I should´ve been more careful a bit and make sure that the bottomside was closed enough because otherwise the cheese-fillin gis gonna float outside of the sough quicker than you can count till three when in the oven.

Overall I was really surprised how easy everything was and how smooth it went, I expected some kind of drama but nothing happened. Only the shaping of the bunny ears was taking a while because somehow the perfectionist inside of me simply was never happy with the result – and I kept repeating and repeating and in the end it worked out well, and I am happy with the result.

So yep, it´s easy and so worth the work – not only for easter.

Original recipe:

Oster-Snack-Board mit Eiersalat, Käse-Hasenbrot, Deviled Eggs, Bärlauch-Quark, Spargeltaschen und mehr

Baking: Pull apart bread with broccoli pesto

As I had grown tired of the sweet stuff and was clueless about what I could be having for dinner next, I was browsing her blog and stumbled across her recipe for a pull apart bread with broccoli pesto.

I am a huge fan of pesto and love Brad in general and had never baked pull apart bread yet, so this really sounded like an amazing thing to do. Oh and, have I mentioned the lots of cheese that you need for it? I just LOVE cheese, especially parmesan is a huge love of mine.

Creating the dough isn’t hard, it just needs terribly long to rest and that’s something I had totally forgotten about and thus was slightly annoyed. The rest of the work was a sticky thing to do, but rather easy. Especially stacking up the layers of dough, cheese and pesto felt like an impossible thing and as you can see, it’s not looking as fab as on the blog because I maybe just stacked it too accurately. No idea, the thing that counted is that it tasted awesome and it really did.

I really enjoyed the pesto taste, and having it rest for a night in the fridge was a good idea because the garlic properly infused the whole pesto. I actually enjoyed the taste so much that I did another round of pesto to put it into the freezer to enjoy later on.

What I can totally recommend is to accompany the pull apart bread with some light salad when enjoying it, it matches nicely! And I cannot wait to do it again, it’s made me addicted and I couldn’t keep my hands off it…

BTW, talking about baking fails in all of my blog entries so far somehow: I used my new baking tray for this recipe and well, less buttering would’ve also done the trick and would’ve prevented me from needing to clean my oven afterwards. But looking at how many calories this pull apart bread has, some work was probably a positive thing.

Faltenbrot mit Brokkoli-Pesto: Würziges Zupfbrot

Baking: Lemon cake with lemon curd and shortbread

Last time baking for a tiny while, I really fell in love with it but it’s just so time consuming that I need to relax instead.

I’ve once again seen the cake on Instagram and knew this was gonna be one that I had to be baking because fresh and sweet is a nice mixture of tastes for a cake. And what can I say – clearly a cake suitable for spring, too.

The cake is not hard to bake, if you’re not a dumb idiot like me and don’t read properly. Me and cream or pudding has always been a Problem because Intend to throw in the butter early or it’s burning already before.

Today I managed to throw it in too early and then was like „damnit, too early“. So I threw away this try and had to do grocery shopping first because I ran out of several ingredients due to this fail. In general I was surprised how many ingredients I just had in the amount that I needed and not a single gramme more.

So if you’re good at reading, this cake is actually not hard to make and having a little taste of the dough and cream that’s left over is also so tasty, simply because the lemon makes everything tasty.

Just sucks that you have unused lemons left and also the egg white (the latter one I used for my lunch, but the leftover lemons…no idea) as I am a fan of using up everything. But this cake is clearly worth the hassle of wondering what to do with unused lemons, I can tell you!

Oh and one last thing, besides telling you it tastes AMAZING and fresh – make sure you got enough space in your fridge, because it has to go in there for a while at the end of it. This step actually makes it even more of a spring and summer cake!

Original recipe

Zitronenkuchen mit Zitronencreme und Butterkekshaube

Baking: Salmon-basil pizza

Let´s be honest – I´ve had enough of sweet stuff for a bit, so I instead decided that one Friday to join the “pizza friday” and since I am totally clueless about who would be cool, I was happy that “Das Knusperstübchen” again just had that solution for me and I only had to run into the store to collect the ingredients all together. So maybe, with another pizza friday ahead tomorrow, also a little inspiration for you 😉

I had to adjust the recipe a tiny little bit to my liking, and also not use all fresh ingredients and instead some frozen ones because n all stores I checked there was no fresh basil – it was really upsetting me because fresh basil just tastes soamazing and is nearly a must for proper self-made pizza! As I am still counting calories I was a tad shocked how much this recipe has, but hell, you gotta treat yourself sometimes!

The cream got a tad too much of garlic as I increased the amount, and I felt like smelling like a walking garlic piece after having finished it. I prepared the whole thing spread all over the afternoon and stored it in the fridge in between to have the garlic soak in better with the tomatos and the cheese topping.

And to b honest – not all of the cream actually ended up on the pizza dough, because it tasted so good as a stand alone that I caught myself walking to the fridge and enjoy a spoon full of it again and again and it was really tough to not eat it up before it ended on the pizza.

In combination with the dough and then the salmon, all together, it was already amazing and then topped off with the pine nuts – oh so good! I gotta admit I kinda got hooked on it and already am thinking about doing it again, if it wasn´t so heavy I´d eat it several times a week because I am so in love – but it clearly is a good thing to have as an end of a stressful week at the job. And afterwards you just drop onto the couch, feeling full and extremely happy!

Original recipe

Pizza mit Lachs Basilikum oder Liebe auf den zweiten Blick

Baking: Cinnamon-Apple Swirls

The latest temperatures, snow..it all makes me feel like needing to be baking with winter vibes. And what´s more winter than cinnamon? Yup, nothing. Together with some fresh taste of apple and in shape of swirls, you just cannot do wrong. Unless you wanna lose weight like I want, because when the whole apartment smells so amazing from your baking like it did with these, it´s terribly hard not to eat all of them immediately!

And it´s been of course another weekend – and even though I always have plenty of things to do, I felt like baking again. It´s become a standard-thing, my poor poor weight! So I rushed to the store and got some new butter and yoghurt because I don´t exactly have those on store, maybe I should change that now with my baking fever.

This recipe was even quicker than the one from last week, simply because the rolling and cutting isn´t that complicated and a challenging finger work compared to the one last week 😉 But it again was just so tasty, and to be honest – even the dough already is tasty, at least for me (I´ve always loved dough, from childhood days on) and half of the sugar-cinnamon mix I already enjoyed before having spread it onto the dough.

Downside of using such? Easy: your kitchen looks like there was an explosion of sugar and cinnamon, smells nice but is terrible to tidy up when everything is as crammed as it is in my kitchen.

So in the end, the cleaning is gonna take longer for me, than the whole baking process from quick mixing and getting the dough ready (once again without yeast, so q quick recipe!) to taking them out of the oven.

And this time I am not gonna be sharing those – all for me. All for my wonderful curves, for now! Maybe next time I will be sharing, let´s see, let´s see!

Original recipe:

Apfelschnecken ohne Hefe mit Joghurtteig

Baking: Cinnamon wheel cake

Initially I had planned to be posting this already last week, but then I forgot about it because I was so busy enjoying the cake that my mind went blank – or something like this 😉

Anyways, weekends have become baking days for me during Corona and then longer this madness lasts, the more I really feel that massive urge to be baking every weekend. So this weekend it was cinnamon swirl cake – and a really quick one because you are able to bake it without yeast, so no waiting and sitting around whilst the dough is growing.

As usual, sticking fully to a recipe didn´t work – I am a sucker for cinnamon, and as I knew that my colleagues also are, I used twice as much or even more cinnamon as indicated in the recipe – and everyone was totally in love with it at work, I had no worries that I would be left sitting on the cake, it was gone by the end of the day and that though 99% of the people are working at home. So if you´re into cinnamon and winter feels, add more, it doesn´t do any harm!

What did harm was the annoying fact my butter that I had to spread onto the dough just wasn´t soft enough – a problem I always tend to have because I forget to put the butter outside or even put it onto the heater so it gets softer. And that happens every damn time and when you´re an impatient idiot like me, you still try and spread it 😀

Anyways, for me the most tricky part was actually the putting together of the dough-stries because they were flexible, and then sticky, and gaaaaah. I hated that part and this actually took most of the time as the rest really is so quick. But as you can see, I managed just fine – and didn´t freak out, even though I was close to it.

Conclusion?
My colleagues told me to bake it again, I guess that´s the strongest “will do again” reason ever 😉

Original recipe:

Zimtschnecken-Kuchen ohne Hefe: Riesige Zimtschnecke schnell gemacht

Baking: Focaccia with Salmon

Finally I´ve had a weekend where I really felt like cooking and baking, and thus the recipe in the mealplan of the Instagram account just came right in time on the Friday evening, so that I was able to go and raid the supermarket to go and bake this foccacia on the weekend.

I´ve never been baking any sort of focaccia, so I was really curious how it was gonna work and also taste, especially due to the amount of olive oil that you were supposed to be using for the dough. I am not much of a fan of olive oil (yes, I use it for cooking but really little amounts only), and I have to say you really do not taste the olive oil as much as I had feared.

I changed the spices a bit, instead of only rosemary and thyme I also added some chili, simply because I wanted it to have a spicy touch and it was a really good choice – though a little less would´ve also don ethe job well I guess.

The dough really is sticky, and I felt a bit like it was a fight to make sure it was not sticking to the fingers, even though I had covered those in olve oil. My skin simply seems to suck up any kind of dough it touches, I have no idea why.

The rest of the baking is rather more of a waiting than a baking game – and that´s been a bit of a turn-off, because first you wait 10min for the water-honey-wheast mix to grow, then 90min for dough, then you add the oilive oil with spices and then it needs another 30min of just sitting there and then you just shove it into the ove.

I am really happy I started early, otherwise this dinner would´ve ended up being a tasty midnight snack instead – I wouldn´t have said no to it, but yeah – I am more into short and intense baking rather than a waiting game, but the outcome really was worth it!

Instead of the dip in the recipe I used simple and bought herb butter, and in combination with salmon it was just SO tasty, yet really heavy!

If you have leftovers like I had (the portion from the recipe is for two good eaters of three not so good eaters, I´d say), you can simply do it like I did and use it as a bread roll, slice it and top it with whatever you feel might be fitting – I can recommend avocado and salmon!

Original recipe:

Focaccia mit Graved Lachs: ein Silvester-Snack