Tag Archives: delicious

Black Forest Pancakes

When I decided to make chocolate pancakes, I didn’t expect them turn out so good and delicious: a pure indulgence! I wanted to serve them only with a black-cherry jam. But when I stumbled upon a pack of mascarpone in my fridge, that I wanted to use somewhere else, the decision came itself – use it as a topping! Mascarpone worked perfectly as a cream and cherry syrup (I mixed jam with some water to make it thinner) sucked into pancakes very well, like into a sponge cake. All ingredients worked more than good together, dark chocolate and fresh cherry on top added a nice and charming touch as well. Plus, the taste reminds the famous cake – “Black Forest”. It’s my husband’s favorite cake, so he was on a nine cloud! Honestly, these are highly recommended pancakes!

Black Forest Pancakes

Servings: 3
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

200g sour cream

250ml full-fat milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp white sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

20g butter, melted

270-300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

5-6 tsp unsweetened pure cocoa powder

40-50g dark chocolate (70%cocoa), chopped

sunflower or any veg oil for frying

For serving

200g mascarpone

2 tsp maple syrup or pure honey, optional

100g dark cherry jam

70ml warm water (or more to make it thinner)

1-2 tsp lemon juice, optional

Garnish

some chopped dark chocolate

fresh cherries, optional

Preparation method

In a large bowl, beat eggs with with sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk in butter.
Pour in milk and sour cream, stir all together.
Sift flour along with baking powder, soda and cocoa into a batter. Whisk until combined. Fold in chopped chocolate.
Heat large frying pan on a high heat, pour in some oil. Using large spoon, pour in batter. Cook each pancake until bubbles appear on top, then flip and cook on another side.
For cheery syrup, in a small saucepan, bring jam and water to gentle simmer. Simmer on a medium-low heat for few minutes. If it’s too sweet, stir in lemon juice. Add more water to make it more thin, if desired.
In a serving bowl, stir together mascarpone and maple syrup or honey.
Serve pancakes with mascarpone and cherry syrup.

Enjoy!

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

Hello to you, to a person who is reading this post or just glancing at photos of this moist and delicious cake with creamy filling, that was topped with aromatic spiced plum slices. The cake itself is a sponge cake, which is very simple to make and for that you need only four ingredients. I also added a drizzle of honey to the batter, honey gives a nice golden color to the cake and of course incredible flavor!

It has been ages since I made any layer cakes, so I decided to experiment with the cream. Tvorog is a dairy product, that used very often in Russian cuisine in such dishes like syrniki, sweet bakes and many other. Thus I took tvorog, mixed it with sugar and whipping cream, and I guess the cream became very Russian. 🙂 But I didn’t stopped there and added also gelatin to the cream. Honestly, it was my first attempt adding gelatin to the cake cream (with the exception of using it in panna cotta). I wasn’t sure that it would dissolve completely in the cream, and I beat it with electric blender. I love the result – cake was super tasty as well as the cream, and it’s gone very fast, especially if you serve it with some poached plums on a side.

If you have any tips and advises how to add gelatin to a cake cream, please do share with me! I’d like to know and learn how to use it properly.

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream and poached plums

Servings: 6-8
Time: 4hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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Using gelatin in the cream is totally optional (it just makes the cream more thick); you can easily omit it.

Ingredients

Sponge Cake

3 large eggs

100g white sugar

1/3 tsp runny honey

110g plain flour

100ml plum syrup (liquid form poached plums)

1 tbps cognac or other aromatic alcohol, optional

poached plums, for decor

Cream

220g tvorog (Russian cottage cheese)

150g icing sugar

200ml whipping cream (35%)

8-10g powdered gelatin

50ml cold water

Method

For the cake, in a large bowl beat eggs with sugar until pale and increase three times in size. Add honey and beat a little bit again. Sift the flour and carefully fold into the egg mixture with spatula.
Grease 20cm cake pan with butter, sprinkle with flour and pour the batter. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 40 minutes.
Leave the cake to cool in a pan for 20-30 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack or plate and leave to cool for 4 hours or overnight. Cut the cake into two layers. Brush each cake with the mixture of plum syrup and alcohol (if using).
For the cream, soften tvorog with a folk or electric blender. Add icing sugar and beat until combined. Add whipping cream and beat again.
Dissolve gelatin in cold water and leave for 10 minutes. Add to the cream and beat again.
Spread about half the cream on one of the cakes. Layer the second cake, and spread the remaining cream on the top and sides. Decorate with poached plums.

Spiced poached plums

5-7 soft plums (about 200g), sliced

80g white sugar (or more to your taste)

250 ml water

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

2 cardamom cloves

Method

In a small pan, add plums and sugar. Add spices and cover plums with water. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to boil, then reduce to low-medium heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until plums are soft. Leave to cool.

Enjoy!

Sharing with Angie FF#105 and co-hosts Lily and Julianna.

Sponge cake with tvorog-cream&poached plums

Salted peanut cookies

I love shortbread cookies, there are almost thousands possibilities of flavours that you can add: mandarin, lemon or orange zest, vanilla or cinnamon, cardamom and etc. I stumbled upon this recipe a long time ago on one Russian website that content was about news, conferences for chefs and there were some recipes as well. I don’t know why I haven’t tried this recipe earlier, because these cookies are amazing! They have the right shortbread cookie texture – not too crumbly neither hard, simply divine! 🙂

Salted peanut cookies

Time: 1hr 30min
Difficulty: moderate
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I mix all ingredients with my hands. You may do it with electric mixer, but don’t overmix.

Ingredients

75g butter, cold

50g caster sugar

1 medium egg

lemon zest from 1 small lemon

120g plain flour

30g salted peanuts, chopped

Method

Cut butter into 1cm cubes and bring to room temperature. Divide the egg into yolk and white.
On a flat surface (you can do it in a large bowl too), mix butter with sugar until just coarse crumbs.
Add egg yolk, half of egg white (keep the rest) and lemon zest. Mix to combine.
Mix in flour. Combine the dough. On this step you may think you need to add extra flour, stop, no need to add extra flour or overknead the dough; after resting it’ll be perfect. Cover the dough in a plastic wrap and put in a fridge for 40-50 minutes.
Once the dough is cooled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into 5mm thick disk. Cut out cookies any shape you like. Carefully transfer cookies on a lined baking tray. Brush with remaining egg white, sprinkle with peanuts.
Bake in preheated 180C oven for 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden.

Enjoy!

Potato pizza-pie

January 29, 2016
milkandbun
44 comments
Blogging, cooking, delicious, DIY, fish and bell pepper pie, food, food photo, food photography, food styling, My Life, open pie, pizza, potato crust for pizza, potato pizza, recipe

One day I decided to make a savory potato pie, but to use potato in the crust instead of filling. I imagined myself a good fluffy pie with a creamy filling of fried mushrooms, onions and something else. When I made and rolled out the dough, I realized that it looks more like a pizza not a pie. 😀 However, the potato crust suit nicely to all these colorful ingredients which I used, including some cooked fish leftovers. Grilled bell pepper and bright spring onion gave an extra kick to this pie. Honestly, I was surprised how good and delicious the pizza-pie turned out. 🙂

I’m co-hosting FF#104 with lovely Hilda@alongthegrapevine (she is so creative and has lots of unusual recipes on her blog); so, I’m inviting everyone to join, we share many delicious food there, and you can chat with other foodbloggers and of course don’t forget to like and say “wow, yummy or just hi”! 😀 Read the guidelines here. Happy cooking! 🙂

Potato pizza-pie with fish, bell pepper and mushrooms

Servings: 4-5
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

Crust

200g/2 medium potatoes

1 bay leaf

20g butter

1 medium egg

sea salt, to taste

2-3 Tbsp grated parmesan, optional

~150g plain flour

Filling

2 tbsp homemade breadcrumbs

100-150g cooked fish fillet leftovers (I used sea bream)

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, optional

1 meduim red bell pepper, grilled or roasted, sliced

150g mushrooms

1 large red onion

a bunch of spring onion or chives, chopped

100ml double cream or 30-35% fat cream

Other

1 tbsp olive oil+1 tbsp butter, for frying

sea salt, freshly ground white pepper

Method

Clean, peel potatoed, cut into fourths. Put in a pan along with some salt and bay leave, cover with water and boil until ready. Drain. Add butter, season with salt and mash potatoes. Stir in egg. Mix in parmesan, if using. Sift the flour into potato mixture, combine into a soft dough (add some more flour if the dough is too wet).
Grease the baking paper (to suit your baking tray). Roll the dough out on this paper. Put in a freezer for 5-7 minutes (or in a fridge for 15 minutes).
Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Slice mushrooms and onions, fry on a medium-high heat in a mixture of oil and butter (you can do it in a one large frying pan, but don’t mix it-put side by side and fry). Stir 1/3 of the cream into mushrooms, and season to taste. Set aside.
Add some butter into the same pan and chopped spring onion (reserve some for garnish, optional), saute for 2 minutes on a low heat – you only need to soften the onion.
In a bowl, mix fish with the remaining cream, sautéed spring onion and nutmeg, season to taste.
Sprinkle crust with breadcrumbs. Bake it without filling in a preheated 180C oven for 15 minutes.
Spread onion, fish, mushrooms and pepper slices over the crust. Bake for 15-17 minutes more.
Sprinkle with remaining spring onion (optional). Serve warm.

Enjoy!

I’m also sharing it with Saucy Saturdays, Foodie Friends Friday, Foodie Friday

Beetroot dip with coriander crackers

This is an extremely delicious beetroot dip that is super easy to prepare and is a crowd-pleaser. The bright beetroot dip can be made as a tasty and healthy appetizer for either home-parties or just your family, especially if you serve it with lots of homemade coriander crackers. Appetizer made from scratch adds a special touch to any kind of gathering. 🙂 It’s also a healthy snack anytime – just spread it over toasted bread, or use it as a wrap filling.

You can make the dip even without cheese, but I like it this way more. Also try to add feta or other soft white cheese instead of cream-cheese, walnuts is a another good substitute for pine nuts.

Beetroot dip with coriander crackers

Difficulty: very easy
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Keep covered in the fridge up to 3 days.

Beetroot dip

Ingredients

150g cooked beetroot (boiled or roasted), chopped

1 small garlic clove, minced

1/2-1 tsp cumin, crushed

1 tbsp EV olive oil

2 tbsp Philadelphia cheese

1 tbsp parmesan, finely grated, optional

1 tbsp pine nuts, lightly roasted

sea salt, freshly ground pepper, to taste

Put all ingredients, except the pine nuts, in a small bowl of blender and blitz until smooth. Season to taste, add pine nuts and pulse a couple of times to keep some nuts pieces; if you like more smooth-pulse again.
Garnish with pine nuts and some grated parmesan, if desired. Serve with crackers or toasted bread.

Coriander crackers {Make approx 18 crackers}

Ingredients

130g plain flour+some for kneading and rolling

1/3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fine salt (want less salty, add less salt)

some freshly ground white pepper

1 tsp whole coriander seeds, crushed or ground

1/2 tsp cumin seeds, ground

40 ml EV olive oil

40 ml water+1/2 tsp white sugar

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, b.powder, salt and all spices. Mix in olive oil.
Dissolve sugar in water and pour into dough, knead the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and keep to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.
On a lughtly dusted surface, roll the dough (approx 3-4 mm thick) and cut into 5×5 cm squares.
Transfer to a lined baking sheet and bake in preheated 190C oven for 15 minutes or until golden-brown.
Cool&Enjoy!