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Red Velvet Cupcakes

Posted by gmirage1 on Dec 25, 2011 in Baking, Cupcakes, Featured | 18 comments

cuppy

Winter is getting the better of us. We’re becoming much like squirrels…we only get out of the house when need be. That is to go to school and buy food. That is why I am so thankful for the corner shop that sells vegetables and fruits in bulk, they also have meat that I can get for less – well, compared to grocery prices. Most importantly, eggs in abundance. I can get 30 eggs for 4euro whereas 10 eggs at the grocery shops cost 2euro already. The eggs are important for hubby and I, building up muscles from protein, for the macarons that we so love to make and for the cupcakes…for the same reason as the macarons.

redvelvet

There are a number of red velvet cake and cupcake recipes around but I wouldn’t go test each of them as they did here. Though I got to be thankful I know now which recipe I should follow next. These cuppies were made some months ago, unearthed from archives and posted oh so late. ^_^ I anyway hope you enjoy these eye candies. This is from one of my favorite bakers, Stephanie Jaworksi of Joy of Baking.

redvelvet

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for:

Food Friday, Yummy Sunday

Mohr im Hemd

Posted by gmirage1 on Nov 10, 2011 in Austrian, Desserts, Featured | 9 comments

mohr

Mohr im Hemd is an Austrian dessert of chocolate cake pudding served with hot chocolate and whipped cream and most of the time, ice cream. Its basic ingredients are chocolate, bread crumbs, sugar, egg yolks, almonds and red wine and has the shape of a small Guglhupf but the above form is acceptable too. ^_^ Like the plum pudding, it is cooked in water bath, doused with hot chocolate sauce and garnished with whipped cream and some berries of your choice.

Mohr im Hemd means moor in a shirt. The term Moor (black man) is used only rarely, and today – often perceived as negative – because of its colonial and racist partial use. The dessert is so named because the whipped cream is often put on top of or around the cake…pertaining to being worn.

For this post, I don’t have a recipe to share as this was something that son1 asked me to buy prepared, I only did the heating and plating…He loves this dessert to bits and I won’t say no either — you know how I’ve always said Austrian cakes are sour…this one is an exception.

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for:

Food Friday, Thursday Brownies

Simple Carbonara

Posted by gmirage1 on Nov 4, 2011 in Featured, Italian, pasta | 15 comments

I would like to call this simple dish four-ingredient Carbonara but counting everything in – including pasta, there’s actually more and I forgot to include two other ingredients in this photo – parmesan and pepper. So let’s say four-ingredient Carbonara sauce. ^_^ Italian Carbonara doesn’t have cream; that’s what I’ve been reiterating in my posts and I’m sorry I just have to say it again. Then again, it always gets creamier with well, cream…and that’s perhaps what we we’re used to having.

Carbonara sauce has 4 basic ingredients, that’s egg, bacon, cheese and black pepper. Going more particular, the bacon used is either guanciale or pancetta but hey any bacon is ok. For the cheese, Parmigiano-Reggiano/parmesan is preferred but I sometimes use the more similar Grana Padano.

Here’s what you need:

250g pasta of your choice (I often have Spaghetti or Tagliatelle)
100g bacon
100g parmesan
2 eggs
pepper

additional:

olive oil
garlic
onion

To cook, saute bacon in olive oil. Prepare pasta per package directions. In a bowl combine raw eggs, a drop of olive oil, cheese and pepper, mix well.

Put pasta in pan while still hot but remove the pan from heat. Stir in raw eggs mixture with pasta. Season with salt and pepper but I find the bacon salty already so I opt to leave out salt. Top your Carbonara with lots of parsley.

This is where your preferences come in. You can add peas, mushroom, broccoli or other vegetables. I sometimes put in tuna in lieu of bacon. Will have to share that recipe too. Enjoy your meal!

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for:

Food Friday, Yummy Sunday

Trout, Butter, Dill and Lemons

Posted by gmirage1 on Sep 21, 2011 in Featured, Fish | 13 comments

lemon, potatoes, dill, trout

“Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.” - Bobby Flay

My trinity ingredients for fish: butter, dill and lemon. I am most comfortable with that, a sidedish of baked potatoes and steaming rice would suffice whether the fish is seared, baked or pan-grilled.

Sometime ago when the trees where sprouting leaves I bought a Groupon deal for fresh fish market. I went to the market one lovely Wednesday afternoon only to learn that they are open only on Thursdays. I went back again in Summer but they are closed and I was told that they’ll be open again in September. I really looked forward to September then it hit me: that the deal will expire on the 9th, the last Thursday that I could go would be the 8th. So that Thursday I called and said that I’d be dropping by to use my deal. The kids and I went hurriedly but even though I’ve been there twice we got lost and we had to walk about 20 minutes.

When we came, all the fish were caught, I mean bought already. We were told to come back next week since a lot of buyers weren’t able to use theirs.

dot difference

So next week came and I saw to it that we would arrive earlier than we did the last time. Thank goodness there were still a lot of them fish when we arrived. I got us brook trouts and a red-spotted trout, much bigger than what we caught from the rivers of Fürth (story to follow). Sorry, I know fish aren’t the most photogenic subjects but I just have to show this, you could see the pinkish flesh of both.

They’re surely bigger than a ruler size, head and tail not included…What I did for this dish was to stuff the fish belly with dill, sprinkle with salt and pepper, squeeze fresh lemon juice and put lemon slices on top. I put in whole, washed potatoes too and buttered everything generously. Got the ensemble baked and here’s what we got:

throw potatoes in

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for:

Food Friday,Yummy Sunday

S’Baggers – Food Sliding Down

Posted by gmirage1 on Aug 20, 2011 in Austrian/German, Featured, food friday, Food Tour | 14 comments

That’s my naggerder Frankendöner Haweii mid Dibb/Escalope Hawai, seared pork cutlet topped with ham and grilled pineapple. This is what I had during our last semi-rendezvous with the in-laws in Nürnberg, at S’Baggers to be exact.

For the dish, I love that they used fresh pineapple which was thickly cut and I did mention I love this grilled fruit over at my other blog where I already featured the restaurant. Please click here for that related story and to see how they uniquely serve food.

S’Baggers serves traditional Franconian (a historic region in Germany, mostly northern Bavaria and neighboring cities) – all low-fat and low-calorie dishes. That means the use of calorie-less vegetable oil for frying (I think). The kids got Fritters (Baggers) so I’m not so worried that it’s loaded with oil.

Hubby got Barbecue spareribs with a serving of different breads. Since we are entitled to choose our own dip I only got catsup which didn’t go well with my dish, he got cranberry sauce which didn’t go well with the ribs. Solution – exchange of sauces! lol. The cranberry was good for mine but mom-in-law said she wouldn’t want to have her dish and dessert together like that. hihi

A few minutes after and what’s left is a plate of bones! Dessert follows.

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Am Steinacher Kreuz 28

D-90427 Nuremberg

Tel. +49 (0) 911 / 477 90 90
Fax +49 (0) 911 / 477 90 92
Email info@sbaggers.de

 http://www.sbaggers.de

for: Food Friday, Yummy Sunday, Mellow Yellow Monday

Macaron Perfected!

Posted by gmirage1 on Jun 23, 2011 in Baking, Desserts, Featured, Macarons | 12 comments

Finally, I can proudly say that after a lot of trials and using different recipes, we did it! We’ve made macarons and it’s easier than before, they developed lovely feet and were crunchy outside but very soft in the inside. We tried both ganache and confectioner’s frosting for filling…both tasted awesome!

Again, let me differentiate that this macaron is almond cookie as there is macaroon – made of coconut.

for the ganache

We always get excited when we see these cookies develop feet. It’s about the 5-minute mark when they appear and it means that I have to turn the tray – for them to be baked equally on each side.

For this batch I used the following recipe – the site I forgot to bookmark.

Ingredients for the macaron shells:

150g egg whites, aged

100g caster sugar (Superfine Bakers Sugar or Granulated Sugar)

180g almond meal

270g icing sugar (Confectioners’ Sugar or Powdered Sugar)

red food color (powder)

we got feet!

The photo above reminds me of one of the funniest quips I ever read.

“This guy found a bottle on the ocean, and he opened it and out popped a genie, and he gave him three wishes. The guy wished for a million dollars, and poof! there was a million dollars. Then he wished for a convertible, and poof! there was a convertible. And then, he wished he could be irresistible to all women… poof! he turned into a box of chocolates.”

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