Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

It's been a while since my last peanut butter post but lately, I've been having a craving for it. So I went and bought a jar of peanut butter, took one of my new beloved cookbooks off the shelf and made some cookies. Watch out guys! Peanut Butter is back! And it joined forces with cocoa powder. A combination which gives these cookies an oh-so heavenly full flavor. They have a crackling sugar coat and a wonderfully dense texture... with crunchy peanut pieces here and there. I give up - peanut butter won me over yet again.

Recipe
(from: The Hummingbird Bakery - Home Sweet Home)

170g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
115g butter, soft
120g crunchy peanut butter
120g caster sugar, plus 40g extra for rolling
90g soft light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line two or three baking trays with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter and both sugars with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well, scraping down the bowl as you go. Add the vanilla extract, mix again. With the speed on slow, add the dry ingredients and mix until combined and the dough is formed.

Put the extra caster sugar in a small bowl. Roll the dough into 4-5cm ball (I made them a bit smaller) and roll each ball in the caster sugar to coat. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking trays, keeping them about 4cm apart. Flatten a little with your hand.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until the cookies have a crusty surface and have cracked. They are rather soft when you take them out of the oven, but the get more firm when cooling down. Don't overbake - as ususal, I overbaked the first batch, they were much too hard after cooling down.

Pea Soup with Mint

I don't know whether I should trust that sunshine yet... Well, I won't say much about the weather anymore. I've been reading my past ten posts or so and it's something like "Yay, the sun is shining!" alternating with "Oh, it's cold and gray!". Anyway, this delicious soup here's got the color of spring: green. And the mint is the little something that turns it from ordinary into special.

Recipe
(from: Tibits at Home)

2 onions
2 twigs of peppermint, washed and chopped
400g frozen peas
200g potatoes, peeled, cut into 1cm dice
3 tablespoons olive oil
700ml vegetable stock
50ml heavy cream
sea salt
pepper

In a large pan, heat olive oil. Gently roast the onions together with the peppermint. Then, add potatoes and peas. Roast for about 5 minutes. Add the vegetable stock and let simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

Then, purée. Strain trough a fine sieve if you want to (I didn't). Add cream and bring to a boil again. Take away from the heat. Season with salt and pepper. Decorate with some mint leaves. You can serve this soup hot or cold.

Rhubarb Jam with Dried Apricots

"Bye bye wintercoat"... Ok, guys, I take it back. It's April 20, early in the morning - and it's white outside! But even snow can't bring me down these days. My holidays just started and I'm looking forward to a relaxing week. Be sure I'll be spending some time in the kitchen, too. There are lots of bookmarked recipes lying on my bookshelf, waiting to be tested. But first, here comes the recipe for the rhubarb jam I made two weeks ago.

Recipe
(original in German: here)

125g dried apricots
2 dl water
750g rhubarb
1kg jam sugar
juice from one lemon

Soak the apricots in 2dl water for at least 6 hours (or overnight). Then, drain and cut into small pieces. Keep the water.

Wash the rhubarb and cut into small pieces. Put into a large pan. Add the apricots, the water, jam sugar and the lemon juice. Bring to boil and then, let simmer for about 4 minutes while constantly stirring.

Test whether the jam has reached the desired consistency by putting a little drop of it onto a plate. If it's not flowing anymore it's fine. Otherwise cook a little longer.

Fill the boiling jam into cleaned, preheated glasses and seal them. Then turn them upside down for about a minute (kills the fungus spores) and then turn around again and let cool.

Lemon Cake

Now there we go! Sunshine - all day long! Bye bye winter coat! I spontaneously thought that lemon cake is just the right choice for such a day. So here it comes without further ado, an easy, no-fuss recipe from Trish Deseine's wonderful and always reliable I love Cake.

Recipe
(from Trish Deseine - "I love Cake")

50g soft butter
150g sugar
2 eggs
125ml milk
150g flour
1 sachet baking powder
1 lemon, grated zest and juice (and juice of one more lemon)
2 teaspoons sugar for the glaze
(icing sugar for dusting if you want to)

Grease a cake tin of about 22-25cm and line with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 170°C.

In a bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric hand mixer until fluffy. In another small bowl, mix eggs with the milk and beat with a fork. In another small bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

Now, add egg-milk-mixture and flour to the butter-sugar-batter, in small batches, alternating. Keep beating until you have a smooth batter. Add lemon zest. I also added a bit more lemon juice.

Fill the batter into you prepared tin and bake for about 45 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven. Now,  mix the juice of one lemon with the remaining sugar and soak the cake with it. If you like, you can also dust it with icing sugar. I made this pattern by cutting out little butterflies from a parchment paper. Then I covered the cake with the parchment paper and dusted with icing sugar.

Raspberry Oat and Nut Bars

I spent most of this Sunday in the kitchen... Spring still seems a long time coming. It's grey and cold and I think we're all longing for sunlight. Well, at least, baking never fails to cheer me up. Actually, I wanted to bake a rhubarb cake today, but sometimes, I spontaneously change my mind and somehow, I ended up with these nutty fruity chewy gooey bars. I used the rhubarb to make jam instead (recipe to be posted soon). But first, here comes the recipe for this wonderful treat. WARNING: These bars here have absolutely nothing to do with healthy granola bars. They're awfully sweet and sticky - and awfully good!

Repice
(from: Ottolenghi - The Cookbook)

Base:
120g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g unsalted butter
60g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
80g whole rolled oats

Filling:
220g raspberry jam

Topping:
50g flaked almonds
70g pecan nuts, roughly chopped
70g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
70g Brazil nuts, roughly chopped (I had none, so I used macadamias instead)
100g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
40ml milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Lightly grease a 20cm square tin (I used my brownie tin) and line with parchment paper.

To make the base, sift together flour and baking powder. Add the butter, sugar and salt and rub everything together with your fingertips to form crumbs. Stir in the oats. Spread this mixture over the base of the prepared tin; don't press down too much, so the base remains light. Bake for about 20 minutes or until light brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool a little, then spread with the jam.

For the topping, place the nuts into a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat up the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla essence. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then pour the mixture over the chopped nuts and stir together. Pack the nut mix evenly over the jam and return to the oven for 30 minutes, until the nuts have turned a nice golden brown.

Leave to cool, then remove from the tin and slice into bars or squares.

Chocolate Muffins

I found the perfect pastime for this grey and rainy (even snowy...) Easter weekend: I added a recipe index to my blog! I have now successfully sorted, listed and linked all my sweet recipes. Check out the new buttons just below my blog-header! And, since today the sun is shining, I finally get to go out for a walk! So I'll add the list of savory recipes later this week. I also intend to add a new "about" section and a list of useful links... But, one thing at a time. For now, I give you the recipe for these chocolate muffins I made for my family. And you can also see the result of Friday's egg-coloring session. Aren't they beautiful?! Almost too pretty to eat.

Recipe
(from: Trish Deseine - I love Cake)

225g soft butter
225g sugar
4 eggs
225g flour
4 teaspoons cocoa powder, dissolved in 4 teaspoons hot water
1.5 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a muffin tray with paper cases.

With an electric hand mixer, mix all the ingredients for the dough in a large bowl until well combined. Fill the muffin cases with the dough. Now, here comes the thing: the recipe is actually intended for about 20 cupcakes... However, I somehow ended up with 12 muffins because they rose much more than I expected... If you intend to bake cupcakes and decorate them with chocolate glaze, don't overfill the cases! Trish writes in her book that you should fill about two thirds of the paper cases, I'd say, you could even fill them with a little less dough. As you can see, I overfilled them a bit, so I skipped the whole glaze and just left those cupcakes as they are and called them muffins ;-) I am going to give you the recipe for the glaze anyway, so you can choose what you like best. I just dusted them with icing sugar and cocoa powder.

ingredients for the glaze:
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
100g butter
4 teaspoons water

Melt chocolate and butter either in a small saucepan or over a hot water bath. Stir well so that you have a smooth mixture. Let rest for a few minutes until it is a little thicker. Spread on your cupcakes.

Happy Easter

The choice this Easter seems to be between rain and snow. Sun - definitely no option... So I enjoyed the lively and colorful afternoon yesterday all the more. Evelyn had spontaneously invited me to come with her to her sister's where the whole family and friends get together to color Easter eggs. Since I knew there was going to be a bunch of children, I decided to bring along something for the kids. But, safe to say, even the adults loved those cute little bunny cookies. A big thank you goes to Sibylle, Evelyn's lovely sister. I had such a good time!

Recipe

(from: Swissmilk)

for the dough:

250g butter, soft

125g icing sugar

1 sachet vanilla sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 egg

400g flour

Beat the butter with an electric hand mixer until soft and creamy. Add icing sugar, salt and egg. Beat until the batter is pale. Sift in flour, beat shortly and then, form a ball of dough with your hands. Cut the ball into quarters, flatten each quarter a little, cover with cling film and let rest in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line two baking trays with parchment paper. Roll out your dough until it's about 5mm thick (it's best if you let it come to room temperature again after cooling, you can roll it out much easier this way). Cut out cookies with a cookie cutter of your choice and place on the baking tray. Cool again for about 15 minutes.

Bake for about 8-10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack before glazing.

for the icing:

150g icing sugar

about 3 tablespoons lemon juice (I had no lemons so I took water)

food coloring, if you like

In a small bowl, mix icing sugar and lemon juice. Add food coloring. Glaze the cookies with a pastry brush or dip into the glaze face down and then put on your wire rack. Sprinkle with sugar pearls.

Banana Crumble Muffins

I need some color to lighten up this grey Sunday. Although, every now and then, it seems as if the sun may break through the clouds. We'll see... Anyway, these banana muffins topped with cinnamon crumble totally made my day! Well, it's all about crumble here lately, but who could ever get enough of that?

Did you know that you can freeze bananas? So next time you have some overripe bananas lying around in your fruit basket and don't want to eat them anymore, peel, cut them into pieces, put in a bag and freeze. You can't eat them anymore after defrosting, BUT you can use them for baking! I got Yvette van Boven's new book last Friday and when it came to deciding which recipe to try first, I immediately went for this one since I remembered I had some bananas in my freezer. 

Recipe
(from Yvette van Boven's Home Made - Sommer)

for the muffin dough:
3 ripe bananas
150g sugar
1 egg, beaten
75g melted butter
200g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch of salt

for the crumble:
75g brown sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon cold butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a muffin tray with paper cases (the recipe makes 12 muffins).

In a bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Add sugar, egg and melted butter and beat with an electric hand mixer until fluffy. Add the flour, salt and baking powder and beat until well combined. Fill the dough into your prepared muffin cases.

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the crumble and rub with your fingers until you have a crumbly mass. Spread on top of your muffins. Bake for about 20 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Pear Crumble Cake

I thought spring was on its way... and all of a sudden, it snowed again yesterday. I just glimpsed out of the window and it's white outside... and it's cold. That means winter coat all over again... Well, the snowing might explain the headache I've been having since the beginning of the week. Thank God I had enough cake leftovers from the weekend! Next to my cupcakes, I also baked this cake. It has a wonderful crust, is topped with crumble and slivered almonds and it has a soft filling of pears with vanilla... perfection... That one definitely goes on the list of cakes that I'll be baking again!

Recipe
(from LE MENU 1/2 2013)

for the dough/crumble:
300g flour
a pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
180g sugar
180g butter, cold, cut into pieces
1 egg, beaten
2-3 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons sugar
30g butter, cold, cut into pieces

for the filling:
about 800g pears, peeled, cores removed, cut in thin slices
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
2-3 tablespoons almond slivers
icing sugar for decorating

For the dough, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Add the 180g butter and rub into the batter with your fingers until you got a crumbly mixture. Take away 1/4 and put into another bowl, set aside. Add egg and milk to the remaining 3/4s of the mixture and form a smooth dough, don't knead. Add the remaining sugar and butter to the other 1/4 and rub with your finger until you got crumble. Put the crumble into the refrigerator.

Press the dough into you prepare baking tin, either a square tin of about 23x18 or a 22cm diameter springform pan. Also form a rim of about 4cm with the dough. Perforate the dough with a fork. Put it into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

In a bowl, mix pears, melted butter, sugar and vanilla seeds. Fill into your prepared cake tin. Spread the crumble over that and top with some almonds slivers. Bake for about 50-60 minutes. Eat warm or cold. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Ricotta Vanilla Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

Well, sometimes you have to work on a Sunday afternoon. But that doesn't mean that you can't have cake. I brought these cupcakes to the office today as a sweet motivation for our team. The recipe comes from the lovely Fräulein Klein. Check out her cute bunny ear decoration! Since it's not easter yet, I decided to cover my cupcakes with a buttercream frosting with a sour twist.

Recipe
(slightly adapted from Die wunderbare Welt von Fräulein Klein)

for 12 cupcakes:
175g flour
2 eggs
100g sugar
125g butter, soft
125g ricotta
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped out seeds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line muffin tray with paper cases.

In a bowl, beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the eggs and continue beating. Add the vanilla seeds, lemon juice, milk and ricotta and mix well. Add flour and baking powder.

Fill the dough into your paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Scroll down for the frosting recipe.

Frosting:

(slightly adaped from Tarek Malouf - Süsse Sünden)

500g icing sugar

160g soft butter

50ml milk

lime, grated zest and some juice

In a bowl, beat icing sugar and butter on low speed. Slowly add milk and keep beating until you have a soft and fluffy batter. Add lime zest and a splash of juice. Beat well. Spread on your cupcakes with a palette knife. Decorate with sugar pearls if you like.