28/12/2020

Healthy doughnuts - no frying!

 Hello, 


I am a big fan of doughnuts: with jam, chocolate, vanilla cream or confectioners sugar. They remind me of childhood and playful afternoons with friends, when grandma was baking doughnuts for us.

But I also tried to find a more healthy way of baking them and I found one: in the oven, no frying! 

So here it is the recipe: 

Ingredients: 

3 cups flour 

2 yolks 

100 ml milk 

10gr yeast

6 spoons sugar 

3 spoons oil 

flavours (vanilla) 




For the dough, mix all the ingredients and leave it in a warm place to have time to rise. 



This dough was a bit more than I expected ;) 

Time for the work with the roller pin. Roll the dough in a layer of 1cm thickness. Then use a glass to cut the doughnuts. 


Place the doughnuts on baking paper in a tray and leave them again for 30min or so to rise up. 


Once they look puffy, it s time for the baking: 180 degrees C for about 10-12min. 
when they are done, they look like this: 

You can cover them in confectioners sugar and/or fill them up with jam or chocolate.  
More healthy and no more trouble with the frying. 





Enjoy! 

22/11/2020

Cinnamon rolls - yummy choco

Who doesn't like a cinnamon roll? why not bake them yourself instead of buying them? this recipe for the beloved cinnamon rolls comes with a twist: chocolate ganache. 

 Ingredients: 
 dough: 
 350-400 gr flour
 2 eggs 
 100 gr butter 
7-8 spoons of sugar 
50 ml milk
10 gr yeast
filling: cinnamon,  jam, coconut flakes, raisins and/or cranberries 
ganache: 1/2 dark chocolate, 2-3 spoons of butter, 1 tea spoon cacao, milk

For the dough: yeast mixed with warm milk, flour, sugar, eggs, butter and a pinch of salt. Knead for 10 min until the dough does not require more flour, then leave the dough in warm place until it doubles the volume. 



When the dough is ready, then you need to use the roller pin to flatten it, until it is about 1cm thick. 
Cover the dough with butter, then cinnamon, sugar. Or with jam and dried fruits. 



Then roll the dough and cut it in equal parts, either with a knife or with a thread. 
Lay the rolls one by one in a baking tray which was previously prepared with butter. 
Put the tray in oven and leave it on a very low setting of heat for the rolls to raise again. 





Bake for 15 min at 180 degrees C. 


For the ganache, you need the ingredients listed above. It is made in the bain-marie method so the chocolate does not stick. Low heating, mixing till the consistence is like a sauce. 
Then pour it on the rolls when they are not so hot anymore - about 10 min after you take them out from oven. 

They look like this and they taste fantastic! Enjoy! 






27/09/2020

Autumn joy: Plum cake



Hello :) 

Autumn is just an amazing season, with the richness of goodies we can find and  the mild days to bask in the sun. 

So for those quiet moments when you just crave for something sweet here is a quick and easy recipe for plum cake: 


Ingredients: 

5-6 plums 

5 eggs

100 gr (1 cup) of flour 

10 spoons sugar 

vanilla sugar or essence 

4 spoons oil (sunflower) 

1 tablespoon of baking powder 

Baking time: 25-30min; Prep time: 15 min


Wash and cut the plums into small piece and then cover them with 2-3 spoons of sugar. 

Eggs are whisked with the rest of sugar until they triple the volume. Then you can slowly add the flour and incorporate it into the eggs mix. Now it is the time to add the oil and the baking powder too. 

On the tray for baking, lay a thing layer of oil and then flour. Add a first row of fruits and then the batter. Add the rest of fruits and the rest of batter and it's ready to go into the oven.

The oven needs to be preheated at 200 degrees C. 

I baked it for 25-30 min at 200 degrees C and then just checked it with a toothpick.  


The result is amazing: a soft and extremely flavoured cake, the nice aroma filled the whole house. 

Enjoy! 











27/07/2019

Tomatoes soup - a delicious recipe

hello,

Long time has passed since I posted here. well, now the time has come for a new recipe, something light for summer days, because it can be served both cold and hot - the one and only Tomatoes soup!

this soup has so many recipes and ways to cook it, but I'd rather use fresh tomatoes and keep as much as possible from the fruit itself. Yes, tomato is considered a fruit :)

Ingredients: 
2 kilo tomatoes
celery
2 onions
1 carrot
1 parsnip
1 spoon of olive oil
spices (pepper, salt, thyme)
1 glass of water
cooking time: 1h 

First, we make a soup using the vegetables listed above. In the same time, we need to prepare the tomatoes: we want them without peels and any hard part found inside. for this we have two options: either we boil them in hot water until the peel is cracking or we put them in a tray in the oven till similar result is obtained.




Then in  separate pot, we fry the 1 onion in olive oil and then add the peeled and cut tomatoes. We add a bit of water - 1 glass - and let it boil about 30min until all the flavours are mixed.
We add the vegetable soup over tomatoes and boil for another 10min, adding the spices too. At the end, we add some thyme.

It can be served with toasted bread with garlic.
It is so tasty that I usually go for the 2nd bowl :)


Bon appetit! 

14/09/2016

Black currants cake

Hellooo :)
Today I am presenting you a delicious cake - easy to bake, but amazingly tasty.

I love forest fruits and this time of year, you can find them in every supermarket. Black currants for this cake - very smooth taste, so you won't need much sugar.

Ingredients: 
 250gr black currants
200 gr flour
4 eggs
vanilla sugar
sugar - 1 glass - I guess 100 gr or less
rum essence




The process - is the same, shown in many other posts.
The result is extremely delicious!

till next time, kiss, kisses 


09/07/2016

Sour cherries cake

Hellooo :)
What could be more unplanned than to receive sour cherries in a tram ride? Yesss, that's how I ended up with about 2 kilos of sour cherries, from a very kind grandpa :P

So who said work is over after work? For me not.

I had to bake this cake with these gorgeous sour cherries.
So here is what you need:

- 400 gr sour cherries, seedless
- 150 gr sugar
- 250 gr flour
- 5 eggs
- vanilla sugar, rum essence, cinnamon
- 75 gr butter
- baking powder



Well, the process is known - separate the yolks from the whites, add the sugar, and blend them well, till they are foam.
the yolks with the rest of sugar, essence, baking powder, butter, flour- mix them
Then the 2 bowls, mix them together, gently.


This time, I am going to show you how I prepare the tray, with no baking paper - you need a bit of butter, which you use to grease the tray, then you add flour and try to make it cover all the corners too :) 


The tray with the cherries in the preheated oven: 


 And that's the final result, the cut result, since I didn't have patience anymore to wait for it to cool down:



The taste was delicious, judging by the great feedback I got from my colleagues at work. 
Try it for yourselves ;) 





28/06/2016

Asparagus, bacon & mushrooms snack

Hellooo :) 
Today I wanna share with you my latest kitchen product - a very fast, easy to prepare, delicious snack: asparagus rolled in bacon, with mushrooms. 


Ingredients: 
500 gr asparagus 
250 gr mushrooms
200 gr bacon
2-3 cloves garlic
cheese - optional
salt, pepper
baking paper
preparation time: 10 min
cooking time: 10-12 min


Sooo, first, the asparagus should be cleaned - google how to do it, if you are not sure, because asparagus is such a delicate vegetable, it would be a waste of money to spoil it. 


Second, you only need to cut the mushrooms and garlic into pieces. Then you lay down the garlic pieces on the bacon and you roll it around the asparagus sticks. Garlic inside :P 
Lay down all the asparagus sticks in the tray and shove it in the oven for 10-12 min, at 200 °C




When it is done, you can add cheese (I used 2 types of cheese, that explains the green colour - it was cheese with basil), turn off the oven, and let the cheese melt couple of minutes. 
Then it is ready to be served, with a glass of wine, of course :)))

Bon appetit! 




28/03/2016

Stuffed peppers, yummy ;)

Hello, dears! Stuff peppers are one common dish in all Balkan countries, but there can also be different variations of the recipe. 
For the following recipe, the cooking time takes approximately 1h and 20min so the peppers get soft. 

The ingredients: 

- 6 big peppers
- 600 gr ground meat - mixed pork, beef) 
- 100 gr rice
- 1 egg
- 200 gr sour cream 
- 200 gr tomato sauce/puree
- 1 onion
- 2 carrots 
- spices: salt, pepper,paprika, dill, parsley


We prepare all the ingredients, wash and cut the peppers, taking out the seeds, grate the carrots and cut the onion. The rice also needs to be boiled, not completely though. 




We mix the carrots, onion, meat, rice and spices in a large bowl. At the end, we add the egg and we continue to mix for a short while.
Then the fun part begins: stuffing the peppers :)



For the sauce in which peppers will boil, we need to mix the sour cream, tomato sauce, salt and pepper.


We arrange the peppers in the pot and we add the sauce:



We cook for at least 1h, on low fire. To see if they are ready, just take one pepper out and check under the "lid" :)

We served ours next to a very fresh salad, with dressing made of yogurt and a bit of oil olive ;)

Bon appetit! 







13/03/2016

Kiwi cake

Helloo! It's time for something sweet and easy to bake, especially during weekend. 
I bought some kiwi recently and since they were taking awhile to get ripen, I decided to bake something with them. 
So here is the cake I made with them, and also a vanilla pudding. 


Ingredients: 
- 1/2 pack of butter - 100gr
- 200 gr flour
- 100 gr brown sugar
- lemon essence
- baking powder
- 8 medium size kiwi 
- 4 eggs

For pudding - yes I cheated: I bought an already pack but to make it better, you can add some butter, brown sugar, and of course milk - 0.5l. 



As usual, separate the egg whites from yolks and mix well in 2 bowls. Also I peeled and cut the kiwi into smaller pieces. 




For the dough part, mix everything and carefully add the egg whites at the end. place the baking paper in the tray and pour the dough easily, adding the fruits. 

I pre-heated the oven at 150 °C and the cake was baked at 200 °C during 1h.
And the result looked like this: 



Or like this, when I finally took it out: 




I couldn't help it and ate a piece immediately :) 







Bon Appétit!