Homemade naan bread and hummus

Remembering that you have everything you need for throwing together a quick naan bread and hummus can really make a difference in your Sunday. It doesn't take more than an hour including the kneading, blending and baking. This is the type of food that will make you lick your plate after finishing because it's just so goooood! 

Ingredients for 4 pieces of naan bread:

• 250 grs of bread flour 
• 200 mls of greek yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of warm water
• 1 tablespoon of dry yeast
• two pinches of salt
• a pinch of sugar
• a pinch of ground cumin

Mix the flour with the rest of the ingredients, and keep kneading until you get a flexible but not sticky dough. Set it aside to rest until you prepare the hummus.

Ingredients for the hummus: 

• 1 can/bottle of chickpeas
• 100 grs of sesame seeds
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• lemon juice
• 1.5 tablespoons of greek yoghurt
• salt
• ground cumin
• 1 small clove of garlic

One very important ingredient of hummus is tahini, a paste made of sesame seeds. It's very easy to make at home. All you need to do is to throw the sesame seeds into a dry pan and keep stirring frequently so that it doesn't burn. When that's done, you just need to grind it and add the olive oil and the lemon juice so that it turns into a paste. You will have to blend the chickpeas as well in another bowl (add some of the brine too to make it creamier), and then you can combine the two. Add the lemon juice, the smashed garlic, the yoghurt (you can leave that out if you want) and the cumin. Give it a good stir and let it rest until you bake the bread. 

Get your dough and knead it once more, then cut it into 4 equal pieces. Try to roll them out as much as you can with a rolling pin, or your hands, as you would do with pizza dough. It's the type of dough that can easily be shaped by hand, very easy to handle. Heat up a dry non-stick pan and place the first piece of dough into it, give each side a couple of minutes and then let the bread cool down. I usually serve the hummus with some yoghurt or sour cream, sprinkling some more ground cumin and Spanish smoked paprika on top.

Rum and coffee walnut cake - small sized

While most people bake bread on the 20th of August in Hungary (festival of the new bread amongst other things) that's when I usually get the walnuts out of the freezer. The reason behind is that I have a granny who celebrates her birthday today and she likes walnuts. It's a small cake, although everything depends on how big of a sponge cake you manage to bake.

Measurements are for a 18cms wide cake ring. Sponge cake is made of 5 eggs, which will rise quite high in this small ring but I think 5 eggs should be enough in case you want to make a bigger cake as well. You should have a bit more of walnuts than necessary for the filling so that you can decorate your cake with it at the end. 

Ingredients for the sponge cake: 

• 5 cold eggs, yolks and whites separated
• 100 grs of caster sugar 
• 130 grs of plain flour
• 1 coffespoon of vanilla extract or flavour

Separate the cold eggs to two different dishes. Start whisking the whites, gradually adding the caster sugar, this will make your whites be very stiff when done. You'll know they are beaten properly when you take the beater out and you can see stiff peaks. Then mix the yolks with the vanilla extract and pour the mixture over the whites. 

You will have to use a spoon to mix it, never a hand whisk. Sift the flour into the mixture, again gradually, and keep stirring carefully until you get a consistent mixture. Bake it for about 20-25 minutes at 170 deg Celsius, with the fans on. Make sure you bake it properly, you don't want an unbaked centre. 

The filling will consist of two parts, one is a traditional walnut filling that you would use for Christmas cakes, the other half is vanilla custard. 

Ingredients: 

• 200 grs of walnuts
• 100 mls of milk
• 100 grs of caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon of rum flavour
• zest of half a lemon
• a couple of drops of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of instant coffee
• 400 mls of milk for the custard
• 1 pack of custard powder, vanilla flavoured
• sweetener or sugar for the custard, according to your taste 

We will start by roasting the walnuts in a dry pan just until they start to smell really good, we don't want to burn them. When that's done, move them to a plate so they cool down more quickly. 

When they are cold, you will need to grind them. In the meantime pour the 100 mls of milk into a smaller pot and place it on low heat. Dissolve the coffee and the sugar in the milk and bring it to a boil. That's when you can add the walnuts, but you will have to give it a good stir too. Add the lemon zest and the tiny bit of juice as well. Cooking time is about 10 minutes but keep stirring otherwise it will stick to the bottom of the pot. After the 10 minutes have passed, let the mixture cool down. 

All you need to do now is to prepare the custard and let that cool down as well. The final step is mixing the two parts together in a mixing bowl. Don't forget to taste! :)

Frosting for the top of the cake:

You need one tablespoon of instant coffee and just a tiny bit of hot water, so that the coffee dissolves. Then add some caster sugar, keep stirring it and keep adding the sugar until you get a frosting which can be easily spread on top of the cake. 

Cut the sponge cake into 4 layers, and fill it with the walnut cream. You will have enough left to cover the cake from the outside as well. Then you can sprinkle the extra ground walnut on the side and the top of the cake. If you guys know a better way to spread the frosting on top of the cake then don't do what I did because the ground walnut on the top kept sticking into it. I somehow managed to spread it all over the top but it doesn't look so nice. You can also place full walnuts on top of the cake which you previously dipped in the frosting and the ground walnut.

Coffee cream cake with berries - sugarfree!

Another one of my cakes that you can make completely sugarfree if you want, but it works with sugar just as well. All the sugar I put in this one was two packs of vanilla sugar but you can leave that out and substitute it with xylitol.

I baked a sponge cake in a medium sized cake ring, the recipe is in one of the previous posts, in case you need a bulletproof recipe for a sponge cake. This one is made of 7 eggs, containing only xylitol and the above mentioned vanilla sugar that can be left out.

Ingredients for the coffee cream:

• 500 grs of mascarpone
• 400 grs of whipping cream 
• 1 pack of express gelatine fix
• 1 cup of coffee brewed in half a cup of water
• liquid sweetener 

Fruits on top: blueberries, raspberries, red currant and blackberries but obviously it's up to you what you want to decorate your cake with.

Whip the cream and carefull whisk in the mascarpone, add the coffee and the sweetener and give it a thorough stir. It probably won't be thick enough so you will have to use the gelatine fix. Just pour it in and mix the whole cream again thoroughly. Taste it, make sure it's sweet enough and that you don't need to add more coffee.

Cut the sponge cake in three layers, and top the bottom layer with the coffee cream, lots of it! :) Sprinkle some of the red currant on top of the cream and cover it with the next layer of sponge cake. Do it all over again, then place the last layer on top.

Cover the whole cake with the leftover cream and arrange the rest of the fruit on top, any way you like. I would recommend putting the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours, so that it can set and the sponge cake can absorb some moisture from the cream.

Tortilla wraps with tuna and chicken seasoned with herbs

I like wrapping things in tortillas because there's no limit to the versions that you can come up with. There is only one trick to it: you have to warm the tortillas up otherwise they will break. I don't recommend microwaving them, it's a lot better if you throw them in a dry and hot pan, and give each side no more than 30 seconds. It's healthier and they will taste even better. If you don't know how to wrap a tortilla, you might find this link useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GOnGbTHqN8  

 6 tortillas (25 cms in diameter) should easily serve 4 people.

Ingredients for the tuna filling:

• 1 can of tuna in brine
• 2 tablespoons of mayo
• juice of quarter of a lemon
• salt
• freshly ground pepper

Drain the tuna and with loosen up the chunks with a fork, add the mayo and the lemon juice, the salt and the pepper and give it a thorough stir. You want to taste it and add more lemon juice or salt, if needed.

Ingredients for the chicken:

• one chicken breast fillet
• salt
• freshly ground pepper

Slice the chicken breast up any way you like really, I cut it into thinner slices, and cook each side for only a couple of minutes so that they don't become dry. Don't forget to sprinkle some salt and pepper on top of each side.

Ingredients for the sauce with herbs:

• 3 tablespoons of sour cream
• 1 tablespoon of mayo
• 1 handful of chives
• 1 handful of thyme
• a bit of parsley
• salt
• freshly ground pepper 

Chop all of the herbs fine, the thyme leaves you only need to pick from the stems, and add everything to the mayo and sour cream. Add the salt and the pepper, stir it and then taste!

There's only one thing left to do: fill the tortillas and wrap them up. What I added to the one with chicken was iceberg salad, ruccola, cherry tomatoes cut in halves, finely chopped spring onions, some cheese and of course the sauce. The one with the tuna also had some ruccola in it, along with spring onions, tomatoes, cheese and I tried one with sauce in it, it was awesome!

The secret to the perfect apple pie and its recipe

It's not hard to make a good applie pie, you only have to pay attention to a couple of minor details. Based on my experience with different kinds of applie pie I can say that there are 3 very important characteristics that make an apple pie the best one you can make:

1. The filling has to be sweet and sour enough at the same time. There's nothing worse than when you can't taste the apples because the whole filling is just too sweet. 

2. You mustn't overcook the apples for the filling. It has to be soft and it has to have the right texture for a filling but you mustn't cook it until it all falls apart. 

3. The crust needs some whole grain flour in it, it will taste a lot better than when you only put plain flour in it. 

And of course you always have to apply the golden rule: lots of filling, with a thin crust! :) 

Ingredients for a medium sized pie:

• 300 grs of plain flour
• 100 grs of any kind of whole grain flour
• 50 grs of fresh yeast
• 150 mls of milk
• 100 grs of granulated sugar
• 100 grs of cold butter
• 1 coffe spoon of ground cloves
• 1 egg for the egg wash

•  3 kgs of apples approx., mix sweet and sour kinds if possible
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons of xylitol
• zest of one lemon
• juice of 1,5 lemons
• two handfuls of raisins
• 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

 It's best to prepare the dough first and while it rests you can make the filling. Measure the two types of flour, mix them with the cloves, also add the butter, crumble it into the flour mixture. Heat the milk up a bit, not too hot though, and add a bit of sugar and the yeast. You have to let it rise, then you can add it to the flour mixture. When that's done, you can just be lazy as I usually am, and throw the whole thing into the machine so that it kneads it instead of you. If you don't have the possibility, you will have to go in and do it with your hands. You can add warm water if it's not sticking together but in the end it has to be a flexible, easy to handle dough, so if it's too sticky just add some more flour. Put it away until you make the filling so that the yeast can do its job. 

For the filling you will have to peel the apples and grate them. When that's done, you will have to squeeze the juice out of the apple (by the way if you drain it in the end you get a pure, 100% natural apple juice and it's delicious!) which you have to put into a pan along with the raisins, the cinnamon, the lemon juice, the lemon zest and the sugar (and the sweetener), on low heat. Let it cook for about 15 minutes, give it a good stir every now and then and taste it, that's very important. You can add more sugar/sweetener or lemon juice if needed. When done, let it cool for a while. 

 All you have to do now is get your rolling pin and roll the dough out so it can fit into the tin of your choice, lined with baking paper. Add the filling and decorate it in any way you want! It needs about 20-25 minutes at 180 C in the oven.

Salmon & lemon spaghetti in 15 minutes

This might be the quickest spaghetti recipe I ever tried, it's very minimalistic but if there is salmon involved, there is never need to add so many other ingredients. 

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of salmon fillet, about 100 grams, without skin
• 1 thicker spring onion
• 1 big handful of whole grain spaghetti
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream
• salt and a bit of oil 

While you wait for the water to boil, slice the spring onion fine and start cooking it in a saucer pan on low heat with only a bit of oil. Once you got started on the onions, you can prepare the salmon. It needs to be cut into small cubes (if there are any fish bones in the fillet you will find them when cutting it up), and thrown into the pan with the onions. 

Give it a good stir, then add the lemon juice and sprinkle some salt on the pieces. They need only 5 minutes to be fully cooked, then you can stir in the sour cream and add the drained spaghetti.

Dried fruit and chocolate milk loaf

This milk loaf is basically another version of this recipe, so I will write the recipe down now, which I didn't do the first time I uploaded it on the blog. It's a bit time consuming but definitely worth the effort.

 Ingredients:

• 350 grams of  plain flour
• 100 grams of whole wheat spelt flour
• 50 grams of fresh yeast
• 70 grams of butter
• 100 grams of caster sugar
• 1 egg for the dough
• 1 egg for wash 
• 200 mls of lukewarm milk
• all kinds of dried fruit
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• zest of one lemon
• zest of one orange
• 2 tablespoons of rum
• 100 grams of dark chocolate 

Measure the two types of flour for the dough and then mix it with the sugar. Then you can add the butter and the yeast, cut into pieces, and crumble it into the flour. Add the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the egg and the milk. Give it a good stir with a wooden spoon and when it starts to combine well, keep kneading it with your hands. It has to become this soft but not sticky dough, so you can add a bit more flour, if needed. Place it in a bowl, cover it and let it rise for about an hour. 

In the meantime mix the dried fruit with the rum, so they can soak it up and be even more delicious ;) Also, line a middle sized cake ring with parchment paper. When the dough is double its original size, give it another round of kneading, and then cut the dough into 8 pieces. What you need to to with each of them is stretch them out with a rolling pin so they are more or less 10 cms wide and  25 cms long and have a rectangular shape. Then fill the pieces with the dried fruit and the chopped up chocolate. Then roll it up starting from the longer side of the rectangle, and roll the whole thing up so it's shaped like a bun. 

 

 

Place each of these in the cake ring, next to each other so that there's not space in between the buns. When you have all of them inside the cake ring, give the whole thing a good egg wash. Bake it in the oven at 180 C for about 45 minutes. When done, take it out of the ring, let it cool down and ice it with icing sugar dissolved in a bit of cold water.