Walnut filled crescent rolls

Now, that I finally have some free time, I can start baking more complicated pastries too, and these crescent rolls are always a huge hit around Christmas time. I saw a very good recipe on a blog for this lovely cake but I wanted to make a sugar free version so I modified it a little. I substituted sugar with xylitol and liquid sweetener. Just a note: they can be made with poppy seed filling as well.

Ingredients for the pastry:

• 40 dkgs of sifted plain flour 
• 16 dks of cold butter 
• 6 dkgs of xylitol
• half a coffee spoon of baking soda
• half a coffee spoon of dried yeast
• two big tablespoons of sour cream
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons of milk

Ingredients for the walnut filling:

• 50 dkgs of ground walnut
• 10 dkgs of xylitol 
• liquid sweetener according to taste
• zest of one lemon
• 2 packs of vanilin sugar
• rum flavour

For the eggwash:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg white

The first step of making the pastry is mixing the flour with the baking soda and the xylitol. Separately, mix the milk with the yeast. Cut the cold butter in pieces and crumble it with the flour, then pour the milk into the bowl, add the egg yolks, the salt and the sour cream. Start kneading the dough. At first it will fall apart but if you keep kneading, in the end it surrenders and sticks together. Let it rest for half an hour in the fridge, wrapped into kitchen foil. 

For the filling you have to grate the walnuts. Mix the milk with the xylitol, the vanilin sugar and lemon zest,s start heating it up and when it comes to a boil, add the walnuts. With a wooden spoon keep stirring it until it becomes a thick filling. While stirring, you can add more sweetener and the rum flavour.  I advise you to make it two grades sweeter than you want it to be in the end because it looses its sweetness when cools down.

Divide the pastry into 24 equal pieces and form little balls from the pieces. One of the biggest advantages of this pastry is that it can be rolled out very well and thin. Place a portion of the filling in the middle of the rolled out pastry and just wrap it up so that it has a crescent roll shape. When all of them are done, give them an egg wash, first with the yolks. Let it dry and then give the rolls a wash again but now with the egg whites. Again, let the egg dry and then put the rolls into the oven, at 190 degrees until they become golden brown.

Upgraded sugar free fruit cake, presents itself as a birthday cake.

I deleted the previous fruit cake recipe, because this is practically the same, except for being better because I made the bottom crust of the cake as well. And we managed to take a picture of it this time :)

 Its the same thing as muffin dough, a bit changed, so that it wont be too heavy or light either. Its about the half of the normal amount that I would use for cupcakes.

Ingredients for the bottom crust  (12 slices):
It contains some sugar just because I wasn't sure it would work out without it, but it can absolutely be left out!

• 13 dkg-s of wheat
•  2 eggs, divided
• 10dkgs of sugar, or sweetening instead
• half of a packet of baking powder
• a little bit of vanilla flavour
• about a half dl of milk

Mix the sugar with the egg yolk and the milk and add the vanilla flavour. Mix the flour with the baking powder. Add the flour to the moist ingredients, and stir it with a whisk. It has to be like a cream. Beat the egg-white and add it to the rest, stir it with a spoon. Pour it into the frame, and bake it for 20 minutes at most, at 165-170 deg. Mine became a bit downy, so i cut off those parts :)

Ingredients for the cream:

• 8 dls of yoghurt
• sweetening
• the grated skin of one lemon
• the juice of half of the lemon
• raisins according to taste
• 1 packet of gelatine sheets
• some of the strawberries, chopped

Mix the yoghurt with the sweetening, the lemon juice and the lemon skin. You can add the raisins and the strawberries. Disolve the gelatine sheets in hot water, and add it to the youghurt. Pour it onto the bottom of the cake and let it cool for an hour in the fridge.

Trick: If you put some apicot jam mixed with gelatine onto the bottom of the cake, it wont get soaked.

Fruits:

• strawberries, banana, orange
• 2-3 dls of orange juice
• another packet of gelatine sheets

The cream in the fridge in an hour hardens just enough that we can put the fruits on it. I put a layer of bananas under the strawberries, and it spiced it up really good. If we have everything we wanted on it, pour the previously heated orange juice, which contains the disolved gelatine already. Put it back to the fridge, until the whole stuff hardens perfectly.