Friendly Nettle

Christmas cooking is something I look forward every year, that is if I get to cook after all as the competition is usually humongous! Somehow during Christmas everybody wants to become a chef and show off their skills, but this year (even though I had more freedom) I felt like not cooking at all. I just wanted to sit there and rather eat-talk-drink-eat-nap-talk…. how is that possible?

Anyway I had no other option… and I mostly proud of this pie I baked above. It is Slovenian apple, walnut and poppy seed pie. I first got introduced to this pie by this Slovenian friend Maja four years ago (she never gave me a recipe, I had to Google it)  and I really loved it! So there it goes…

SLOVENIAN PIE

For the strudel dough:

• 300 g flour
• 3 tablespoons lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons wine
• 1 tablespoon sugar.
• salt to taste
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing dough

(You can also substitute store-bought filo pastry but I went all the way as I my dad was shopping and I was worried he is going to get something else… but really recommend to just buy the thing as it is really difficult to roll home made dough)

For the fillings:
The poppy seed filling:

• 400 g poppy seeds, ground with a mortar and pestle or very briefly whizzed in a food processor with the steel blade
• 200 g sugar
• cinnamon to taste
• 240ml cup hot milk

The apple filling:

• 500 g apples, grated
• 200 g sugar
• cinnamon to taste
• 1 lemon rind, grated
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

The cottage cheese filling:

• 500 g cottage cheese
• 360ml Creme fraiche
• 1 egg
• 200 g sugar
• 2 tablespoons raisins, soaked in rum
• vanilla to taste

The walnut filling:

• 500 g ground walnuts
• 200 g sugar
• cinnamon to taste

Topping: 1 cup sour cream

Separately for each filling, mix the ingredients well. Grease well (butter is best) a square or oblong ovenproof baking dish or pan.
For the strudel dough: Mix the ingredients in a bowl, knead thoroughly (ten minutes at least) and let stand to relax for one hour. Then roll out and cut into thin sheets the size of the baking container. (Alternately, purchase large sheets of filo pastry to suit your baking dish.)
Place a layer of strudel dough / filo pastry in the bottom of the baked dish. Brush lightly with melted butter. Spread half the poppy seed filling evenly over it. Cover this layer with another sheet of strudel dough and brush the dough with melted butter. Spread this layer with half the apple filling. Cover with another sheet of dough: brush with melted butter. Spread with half the cottage cheese filling: cover with a sheet of dough, brushing with melted butter. Spread with half the walnut filling: cover with dough and brush dough with melted butter.
Repeat this process with the remaining poppy seed filling, apple filling, cottage cheese filling and walnut filling, making sure to brush each layer of strudel dough with the melted butter as you proceed.
Top with a final layer of strudel dough: brush with melted butter. If you like, spread this last layer with 1 cup sour cream (thinned a little with milk, if necessary, to make it easier to spread).
Bake for about 1 hour in a medium oven (175C). Cut into squares and serve

BTW: This Pie is not only for Christmas so you can enjoy it any time!

Rasa

I promised to someone (anonymous) to write a feedback about my previous bake sale, but I took quite a long time as you can see :(. You see…. I got addicted to Sims (literally) and I know that is very sad story, but this was the reason why I took sooo long to write this post (I will write more about this in the minute). Anyway, the bake sale… it was great experience, even though it wasn’t as busy as the previous one  (I blame the rain for that!). But it was still fun as Bekka (my thoughtful helper) managed to keep me entertained at all times!… And, as embarrassed as I am (can’t be more embarrassed after my Sims confession) I did try to dance ballet…

And here are few pics from the actual bake sale as well as new mini bakes, the mini cheesecakes…

Now back to Sims(if you have never played it this might sound like gibberish to you, so I recommend you skip it to the last paragraph)… Initially I got addicted to actual Sims computer game (later I got addicted to the Facebook Sims Social as well) and then only lived “their” life (or shall I say I was creating my own), even at night until 6am in the morning sometimes! I think what got me addicted is that I could achieve everything so easily… So, I have joined culinary career at Little Corsican Bistro where I started as The Kitchen Scullion (apparently the one who gets all the rubbish jobs from Chef) and meanwhile  I was learning recipes (some interesting ones like Goopy Carbonara, Eggs Machiavellian  and Baked Angel Food Cake that I would like to try to make in real life) from books at home so I could get up the level in cooking.  Eventually I became Five-Star Chef earning 350 Simeons per hour and recipe Librarian (???), builded a big house (not so pretty but really practical!), Had five children (long story, but in my defence one was adopted), and became “Filthy Rich” (at least that’s the phrase they use to describe rich people :D). I even bought that Little Corsican Bistro and renamed it to The Friendly Nettle Cafe! So after all this no wonder I got inspired (or shall I say I got carried away) to take similar actions in real life… Last Sunday I popped in to one of my favourite cafes by Cambridge Heath  station to  “join culinary career”…. Turns out they did not have any vacancies, I suppose it is not that easy to get any job in this life :(

To end on the happy note here is the recipe for the best seller so far, the Banoffee cupcakes. After all, this is supposed to be the feedback for my bake sale;)

BANOFFEE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:     300g flour
1tbsp baking power
1 egg
200ml milk
150g soft brown sugar
85g melted butter
2 bananas
150ml double cream (preferably elmlea)
Milk based toffee ( to make it boil a can of condensed milk for three hours) or 4 tablespoons of dulce de leche

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and line 12-hole muffin pan with cupcake cases.
2. Sift flour and baking powder into the mixing bawl
3. In separate bowl beat the egg with milk, than add the sugar, melted butter and chopped banana. Mix it all up and tip it into the flour. After mixing it one more time divide the mixture into the cup cases.
4. Bake for about 25min until cupcakes are risen and golden (I am usually tempted to eat them at this stage… but don’t, you will enjoy it even more with the topping!)
5. So, whip the Elmlea cream. I recommend Elmlea, because it goes velvety (not grainy) and never turns yellow! I know this might sound like I am promoting this brand but it is really good. I give the credit for this discovery to my dear friend Jacqueline who suggested this as I was not happy with double cream I was always using.
6. Pipe (or spoon) the double cream on the top of the cupcakes and follow it by toffee swirl.

Enjoy ;)

Rasa

Here it comes, The Friendly Nettle Icon (see picture above) which is practically me! My friend Vicki drew this in such detail that even the dress and the helmet represents the exact ones I have in reality. And yes I cycle as well and my bike is lookalike to the one drawn!
Thanks Vicki, as a thanks here is the recipe for the chocolate mousse that you always wanted! I have developed this recipe after once eating a nice chocolate mousse tartlet  at Hurwundeki cafe that is located next to Cambridge Heath station in East London (I love their arty antique look and I just found out that they also have a boutique and the hairdressers!). As for the recipe below I usually use pastry to hold the mousse, but since Vicki doesn’t like it I wasn’t dear to add it (she says that pastry is the pointlessly added extra calories). So if you want to use a pastry use a sweet one or use the ramekins (I reused “Gü Puds”, which just show how much I used to be addicted to those desserts as I have sooo many of these little glass ramekins). So here it comes…

VICKI’S FAVOURITE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

Ingredients: 150g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content)

100g unsalted butter
1 egg
30g caster sugar
1 handful of raspberries (or other berries)

1 Preheat oven to 170C
2. Put both chocolate (broken into pieces) and the butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the base of the bowl. Leave it there until everything there are melted.
3. Whisk the egg and caster sugar together until pale and thick and increased in volume. Pour the warm melted chocolate and butter into the whisked mixture and and combine it well.
4. Spoon the mixture into the ramekins (or into pastry if you prefer) and bake them for 8min EXACTLY! (In fact once I forgot to bake it and me with my friends kept guessing why the butter have set on the top…. only later it got to me that I did not even baked it… it was quite embarrassing to admit that to my friends while we were eating it!)
5. Put the pots in the fridge for at least two hours (after cooling it down of course as apparently it would hurt the fridge)

Enjoy!

Rasa :)

I mentioned in my previous post that I will talk more about the other courses I took. Well.. here it goes! As boring as it sounds I did find food safety really interesting as well as challenging. I think if you are hygiene freak please don’t read the rest… And the rest of us who are ok to eat out of date foods sometimes (if they look ok of course!!) and like to taste food with their fingers, welcome to my world ;). Because those are the biggest challenges to me! I remember eating dried mango one day at my work and after offering it to my colleague Puiyi (she no longer works with me) I have been told off that I could have poison her when she realized that it was out of date :&… Well, it turns out that she might have been wrong as now I know (I hold a Certificate of Food Safety) that there are two types of food expiry dates: “use by” and “best by”. I will explain… “use by” is used mainly for meat and dairy and “use by” is for cereals, dried fruits and so many other things which are safe to use after the date, but the quality might not be as good. So if you reading this Puiyi, don’t worry about out of date food as you won’t always get a food poisoning. But if you are still not sure you can always use up many dried fruits or nuts that are about to go out of date by trowing it in the cakes dough like Chocolate Brownie or Carrot Cup Cakes…. Or if you feel more spontaneous or have lots of hope for the rest of this summer (weather wise) you can try to put it into home-made ice-cream… Hmm :b

VERY SPONTANEOUS ICE-CREAM
Ingredients: 5 egg yolks
200g sugar
250g milk (full fat)
250g double-cream
250g yogurt
2 medium sized bananas (mashed)
seeds and nuts of your choice (I used 1tbsp of poppy seeds and 1 tbsp of pistachio nuts)

1.First, prepare egg cream by mixing egg yolks with sugar and whisking until it becomes pale.
2.Put double cream and milk together into the sauce-pan and heat it up, but don’t let it to boil. Then reduce the heat and add egg yolk mixture into the pan. Cook it on the small heat (just in case as it is very important not to get it boiled as then you would get an omelet, not an ice-cream) and mix continuously until it becomes thick (about 10 min).
3. At this stage it is best to cool the mixture down by placing the pot in the cold water as when you get the right consistency it is best not to overcook it.
4. When the mixture have cooled you can add the rest of the ingredients like yogurt, mashed bananas, seeds and nuts. Pour the mixture into the plastic container and put it into freezer.
5. After two hours scrape off the sides of the container and mix it with the fork. Repeat this after three hours and after that you can let it stay there until it is completely frozen or the time when you want to have a cool sweet treat.

Enjoy!

Rasa :)