thepassionatecook

Passion fruit curd

   This little number has been causing quite a stir lately... it all started with rather excessive birthday celebrations throughout the month of January, one of which being a breakfast with 12 amazing girlfriends at my place. The amount of food we had was nothing short of decadent, not to mention the copious amounts of bubbly consumed - but you only turn 27 once, right?

After smoked salmon generously scattered with red onion and capers, crisp-toasted bagels brimming with thin slices of pastrami and a chunky tartare-style sauce, sinfully creamy oeufs en cocotte with ham, cheese and thyme-scented mushrooms and a refreshing fruit salad with ginger and mint you would think the ladies would gracefully skip dessert? Yeah, not MY friends... they know good food when they see it and happily indulge in it. That's why I love them!

So my friend Vera had agreed to bring dough for waffles and (wo)man the iron (champagne-glass in hand, of course) - and they sure were delicious... but (sorry, my dear!) it was a rather inconspicuous-looking kilner jar filled with a thick, yellow substance that completely stole the show. People had been having a hard time identifying its contents - was it my famous home-made mayo? or vanilla custard? - until someone finally was brave enough to stick their finger in. The "oh my God"s and ecstatic moaning that followed were undescribable... and I don't think I have ever had so many requests for a recipe before in my life - and not just that, some ladies actually resorted to hefty bribes!

Said kilner jar ended up in one of my friends' fridge and her seven-year old son licked it so clean it could have gone straight in the cupboard without washing. Since that day, this little guy has been following my elder son around at school, trying to talk him into inviting him to ours for a sleepover ("and tell your Mum to make that delicious thing she put on the waffles the other day") - Max being completely ignorant about the whole affair... he hasn't even tasted it, refusing to eat any sweets that don't have insane amounts of chocolate in them!

So here you have it. I am letting my secret out of the bag. We're talking curd here. Not the traditional lemon curd (which I also love), my version is made with passion fruit, one of my favourite, favourite fruits of all times. It alo involves a neat technique for removing the black seeds without losing most of the flesh and juice. So do read on, do try it - you'll be forever hooked like my friends here. A couple of eggs, some sugar and butter and the priced juice is all it takes... plus 15 minutes whisking in a bain marie - but no sweet without sweat, right?

Glühweinbirnen mit Roquefort-Eis und karamellisierten Pekannüssen

Ja, wenn's bei mir mal wieder einen Beitrag auf Deutsch gibt, dann kann das nur eines heissen: ich habe die grosse Ehre, auch heuer wieder bei Zorra's Kulinarischem Adventkalender (mit Wettbewerb!) mitzumachen! Nachdem ich letztes Jahr eine Reihe Canapes vorgestellt habe, die mit wenig Aufwand viel Aufhebens machen, so ist es heuer ähnlich: so kurz vor Weihnachten kann ich Euch nur ein Rezept antun, das erstens leicht zu meistern und zweitens gut vorzubereiten ist.

Wie vielleicht der eine oder andere von Euch mitverfolgt hat, hat sich bei mir im vergangenen Jahr so einiges getan... welche Auswirkungen das auf meinen Weihnachtsfrieden haben sollte, konnte ich bis vor ein paar Wochen nur erahnen. Weisse Weihnachten sind bei uns eh schon lange kein Thema mehr - schon in meiner Jugend hat sich spätestens am Tag vor Weihnachten immer Tauwetter eingestellt... aber bei durchschnittlich 32C (im Schatten, nicht neben dem Kachelofen!) habe ich heuer lange gar nicht kapiert, dass jetzt dann bald Advent ist, geschweige denn, dass auch nur ein Funken Weihnachtsstimmung aufgekommen wäre. Und bemüht hätte ich mich wirklich redlich: die obligatorischen Kekse, das Basteln, Besuch am Weihnachtsmarkt (in Spaghettiträgerkleid und Sandalen!), seit Wochen pausenlos Weihnachtsmusik in voller Lautstärke... und Glühwein.

Jawohl! Glühwein kann man ganz gut auch bei Sommerhitze geniessen, wenn's denn sein muss... zwar nicht heiss, aber man sollte gar nicht glauben, wie lecker der auch "on the rocks" schmeckt. Eine weitere Variante des kalten Glühweingenusses findet sich im vorliegenden Rezept.

Für mich war Weihnachten schon von jeher kein Konsumzirkus - und obwohl ich schon seit Jahren nur mehr zu den sprichwörtlichen "heiligen Zeiten" in der Kirche anzutreffen bin, ging's mir bei diesem Fest immer um mehr als einen dicken Mann im roten Pyjama, um mehr als einen Haufen Geschenke. Die Weihnachtsstimmung kommt bei mir in Abwesenheit von Schnee und Kälte, Weihnachtsmärkten mit Punschständen und Maronibratern eigentlich nur auf, wenn ich intensiv Zeit mit der Familie verbringe. (Zugegebenermassen hatte ich auch mal eine Phase als Teenager, wo ich Weihnachten am liebsten mit den Obdachlosen am heimatlichen Bahnhof verbrachte hätte, aber das ist eine andere Geschichte).

Weihnachten ist Familienzeit. Schon die Adventzeit wird bei uns zelebriert mit tag-täglichem Zusammensein, sei es beim Basteln, Singen oder Keksebacken. An den Weihnachtstagen selbst ist keine Ausrede blöd genug, das gemeinsame Essen weiter und weiter hinauszuzögern... ein paar knackige, gewürzte Mandeln frisch aus der Pfanne zu einem Glas Sekt, ein Amuse-bouche hier und ein Canape dort, ein Granite als Gaumenerfrischer... und dann braucht's ja wohl dringend noch eine überleitung vom Käse zum Dessert oder umgekehrt!

Meine Glühweinbirnen mit Roquefort-Eis sind da genau das Richtige - wer's nicht als überleitung zwischen zwei schon an sich dekadenten Gaengen will, hat hier ein Mittelding zwischen Käsegang und Dessert gefunden, ähnlich einer Birnen-Blaukäse-Napeolon, die ich auch gerne serviere. Dies hier hat den Vorteil, dass die einzelnen Arbeitsschritte unglaublich einfach sind (vor allem, wenn man eine Eismaschine besitzt), und dass ausserdem alles bereits Tage im Voraus zubereitet werden kann.

Und nicht vergessen: nach Einlegen der Birnen den verbleibenden Glühwein unbedingt einmal auf andere Art servieren... über ein paar Eiswürfeln in einem Longdrink-Glas und dabei bitte ein paar Tropfen Weihnachtsstimmung gen Singapur blasen! Ich warte hier einstweilen auf die Ankunft meiner Eltern aus dem verschneiten Europa und dann kann auch für mich endlich Weihnachten kommen!!!

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN UND EINEN GUTEN RUTSCH INS NEUE JAHR!!!

Auch dieses Jahr gibt es wieder einen Wettbewerb bei dem es insgesamt 10 Preise - gesponsort von Betty Bossy, Braun, Cupcakes-cupcakes.de, Deutsche See, Kuhn Rikon, MySwisschocolate.ch, Senseo und Trisa Electronics - zu gewinnen gibt. 

Buchteln mit Vanillesauce (Sweet dumplings with crème anglaise)

If it wasn't for this round of "Waiter! There's something in my...", I would be one thing short on my list of ways to spoil my husband rotten. You should think that after almost twenty years of knowing him, I'd have a rather good grasp of what he does and does not like, but that couldn't be further from the truth, it appears. In the past few weeks, there have been two occasions where he expressed his undying love, unfortunately not to me, at least not directly. The present dish, which constitutes my entry to this month's edition with the theme of "hot puds", is apparently one of his absolute favourite Austrian desserts - and that is something special, seeing that Austria is dessert heaven and the sheer variety of sweet options is, I think, unsurpassable.

Buchteln are made all year round and unlike many other traditional dishes which are available in countless variations, these are served pretty much the same all over the country. As many of our desserts, they have their roots in Bohemian cuisine. They are oven-baked dumplings, made from a yeast dough, sometimes served plain, but more often than not filled with Powidl, an incredibly thick plum jam. They can be eaten cold, but I prefer them straight from the oven, when they are still fluffy as a goose down pillow, and the best way to enjoy them is with a piping-hot vanilla custard, home-made of course.

If you wanted to sample this delicacy on a trip to Austria, you'd probably have a hard time finding them on a menu - they're something that is made at home, and at home only. The only famous exception is the Café Hawelka in Vienna, a quirky home-style coffee house near St. Stephan's Cathedral, which over the decades has attracted many writers, artists and great thinkers, among them Nobel-prize winner Elias Canetti, HC Artmann, Oskar Werner and Andre Heller, known for his performance art lately showcased in the show Africa Africa which is still touring the globe. Is probably fair to say that this is the closest Vienna comes to a bohemian hang-out. No surprise then that they should serve the ultimate Bohemian dessert... but wait. They don't just serve them. Punters hang out here a whole evening long, knowing that smack bang at 10 pm the kitchen doors will swing open and out will come a massive pan of steaming hot yeast dumplings - and they'll literally be gone within minutes.

The Café itself attracts an illustrious crowd and the owner himself, charming and quite a character, has been the life and soul of this place ever since it re-opened in post-war Vienna - so the Café Hawelka has become a crowd-puller and its Buchteln the most famous of them all... although some argue that since the passing away of Mme Hawelka in 2005 they don't taste like they used to. Tourists rarely find their way here and it may lack the grandeur of many other Viennese coffee houses, but the Café Hawelka is very much a well-kept secret and (or maybe because of this very fact) it is one of my favourite places to be in Vienna. Especially at 10 o'clock at night...

And if you've just gotten in the mood and want to share your own, favourite hot dessert, why not send me your post - I am attempting to publish the round-up in the next week, so you've got a few days....

WTSIM copycat: Mixed berry tart courtesy of Lucullian Delight

This round of WTSIM Andrew is hosting is a bit of lazy one... not only because we don't even have to come up with a recipe ourselves, but merely re-create one recipe out of a previous edition, also because I am incredibly late, which is not entirely my fault, seeing that Andrew emailed everybody and their dog about what my challenge would be, but forgot to include ME in the email ;-) and by the time I realised, I was already swamped with other things, like deadlines for articles for National Geographic and assignments to be handed in at uni - not to speak of the dreadful weather outside which really didn't have me storming out to get summery berries!

So, my challenge was berries. Great theme for winter, thanks Andrew! ;-) But the tart I chose could have easily been done with frozen berries as well, so should please both hemispheres. I had a really tough time choosing... for the longest time, I thought I'd explore one of the savoury recipes from Foodblogga or Exceeding the speed limit - I have never paired pork with berries, even though one of my favourite poultry dishes is quail stuffed with raspberries. But in the end, I couldn't resist Ilva's glorious photography... and since I know I can always trust her recipes (with a delay in posting such as mine, I could not afford the recipe not to turn out), it was settled: I would be making a mixed berry tart with a rosemary crust.

Now, I am usually quite lazy when it comes to making tarts, I know the dough is quickly put together, but it's more the fact that I am too impatient to spend an hour pressing the dough into the fluted tin and hope that everything will be nice and even, I am a perfectionist that way, I can't deal with bumpy bottoms and need a nice crust:filling ratio. But the idea of putting rosemary into the dough seemed like such a great addition, so I conceded. While I was making it, I thought I should have added more of the herb, but as it turned out, the 1 tsp does give it a nice and subtle hint of rosemary without being too much in your face.

Although I didn't follow the recipe by the book, I didn't end up writing the recipe down, so please, refer to Ilva's original recipe - her pictures are much better than mine and it's always good to get things straight from the source, so please head over to Lucullian Delights and try this delicious tart for yourself!

Mojito Cheesecakes

When life hands you lemons, my daughter would say "give them back and say: I want the Jonas Brothers!".
When life hand you limes, the answer is simple and a wee bit more grown-up: make mojitos! I don't often drink cocktails, haven't been for a long time, anyway, what with nursing two children and rarely getting a night off, but now that I've got my body back to myself, I can drink whatever I please... and there's going to be rather a lot of mojitos made this summer, believe me!

Of course, I am a bit of a light-weight and drink them very weak, but that doesn't distract from the flavour too much and the pleasure lasts for longer. In fact, this incarnation of mojitos in cheesecake format can do entirely without the alcohol... I found them in an issue of delicious magazine and there's a fabulous line-up of summer recipes by Tom Aikens - sticky pork ribs, tuna teriyaki burgers and for dessert: mojito cheesecake. What a wonderful grown-up menu for a garden party!

When I saw the recipe, I knew this was just the thing to make for this month's Sugar High Friday, brainchild of the lovely Jennifer aka Domestic Goddess, and this instalment is hosted by the equally talented Helen of Tartelette. Actually, I lie: I had made them already, not one to resist anything dreamed up by the gorgeous Tom, so this was a great opportunity to for once take part in a food blogging event that I am not organising myself... life's just too busy at the moment!

Cheesecakes are always wonderful in themselves, but even more so when they're as light and tart as this one. Tom makes them with mascarpone and cottage cheese, I tinkered a bit, using up what I had in the fridge: a combination of quark, mascarpone and crème fraîche... still worked a treat! Served straight from the fridge in mini tumblers, they make for excellent finger food at any summer party, a sweet, yet refreshing dessert that nobody in their right minds is going to refuse!

Chocolate cakes with chilli vanilli bananas

Excuse the radio silence, nothing's wrong, on the contrary, I just spent a fantastic week in Morocco, Marrakech, to be precise.
Wonderfully exotic, definitely a destination I would recommend. Unfortunately, I missed out on a cookery session with the cook of the Riad we stayed at (which I can thoroughly recommend not only because the place is absolutely beautiful and has its own spa/hammam, but also because the local food we had there surpassed everything we ate elsewhere, even the top restaurants in Marrakech, Dar Moha and Le Tobsil, both of which lie in spitting distance of this boutique hotel.)

I had read before that Morroccan food was best enjoyed in someone's home and it proved true, this was not a private home, of course, but the small size of the Riad (read: boutique hotel) allowed for cooking like you would at home. And this woman certainly knew her stuff! Alas, I was not meant to be learning how to prepare a wonderful tagine au poulet et au potiron because I was hugging the toilet pretty much constantly on that last day... not quite sure where I got it from, I very much doubt that it was food poisoning, as I had been extremely cautious, not eating from stalls, only bottled water, etc - I suspect I might have picked it up when I bought spices at the market where a lovely vendor insisted he needed to spead something that looked like chalk and a bit of spit on the back of my hand. And of course I know about the right hand - left hand rule in these countries, but when someone reaches out for your hand, you can't very well say "No, because I know exactly where that's been!", can you?

But on to more pleasant things. Just before we whizzed off, I finally found some time to cook again after all the studying I've been doing. God knows the family deserved a little treat after all those long nights and weekends spent without me and resorting to either quick fixes or even (shame on me!) the odd take-away. High up on my pile of "recipes-I-need-to-try-some-time-soon" was an issue of Wienerin Kochen Spezial and it contained an intriguing dessert. Now, readers of this blog will know that I cannot resist chocolate, but I've recently developed a craving for gooey steamed puddings as well. Imagine a combination of the two and you'll know why nothing could keep me from making this.

The combination of the chilli and the vanilla reminded me of the rather short-lived fame of a certain pop-duo in the 80s - would this dessert live up to its name or would it all be a load of hot air? The little chocolate puds were as indulging as I had imagined and felt incredibly light at the same time. The chilli-vanilla-banana combo was interesting and certainly edible, but not something I'd rush to make again tomorrow. It looks dramatic, though, and they are gluten-free chocolate cakes and can be conveniently prepared ahead, so once again, I am torn - I might make it again for a dinner party just for the show effect and feel as fake as Milli Vanilli...

I have noticed over years of buying "Wienerin Kocht", then called "Wienerin Kochen Spezial" and now sold as "Wienerin Food & Style" that their publications can be a bit hit and miss - in the last issue my Mum brought, I didn't earmark a single recipe, the one I took these chocolate cakes from has another fifteen or so in there to try... look forward to roast onions filled with polenta and truffle, jerusalem artichoke soup with langoustines and morrels, fried pears with chocolate pesto and roast beef with plums - I just hope I the recipes are as good as they sound and I manage to present the dishes half as beautifully as they do in the magazine - but there you go, something to look forward to before I become too entrenched in uni work again ;-)

Lemon mergingue pie... the Daring Bakers are at it again!

When I joined the Daring Bakers in September I was slightly worried that the challenges put forward might be too tasking to fit into my crazy schedule, but so far, the hosts have been very benign. The good thing also is that so far, I haven't had to make anything I didn't enjoy, so of course I approached it with a bit more enthusiasm than I would, say, beetroot tartlets.

This month's challenge was lemon meringue pie - I have actually made one before, albeit with a completely different recipe. I also had the problem of the meringue sweating not even an hour into its short life, which didn't matter taste wise, but wasn't a pretty sight. Not this time. The pie held its shape for hours (well, until we couldn't hold back any more and had to polish it off) and I was thoroughly impressed as my daughter declared her love for it - anything involving lemon and peel is not necessarily something that ranks high up the list of children's favourite food, but maybe that's just a sign of her growing up.

Jen's (Canadian Baker) recipe was very different from what I used the first time round and I have to say I enjoyed it much more. My original version used tons of eggs and cream for the filling, whereas this pie here works entirely with water, cornstarch and lemon juice and, well, some sugar and some yolks. But it's such a lean version it's almost too healthy to eat... tastes much lighter and before you know it you've had three slices and you don't even worry about it ending up on your hips. Definitely a keeper!

PS: The below recipe is almost a straight copy from the challenge, with the cup measures converted into metric weights. Also, my meringue was brown after just 6 or 7 minutes, so I have adjusted the time accordingly.

Roast hazelnut & muscovado torte with vanilla icecream

Anybody up for dessert? You know, more often than not, I am. It doesn't matter whether we've just been served the lean cuisine that is customary in the first few weeks of the year when we still keep (and remember) our New Year's resolutions or whether we've indulged in a multi-course meal like the one I enjoyed at Chinese extraordinaire Hunan the other day (of course, in true foodblogger fashion, Jeanne and I went overboard yet again on our first meeting of the year and were eating like it was going out of fashion...) I really think that I can count the occasions where I refused dessert on the fingers of one hand!

Why, you ask? Although I am far from being a size 0 (and have no desires whatsoever even to become one), I have never struggled with my weight (ok, ok, I have: gaining 25 kg in the first few months of my exchange year in Mexico was a big shock to the system, but the pounds dropped as soon as I was back in my natural habitat) so therefore, you can't put my appetite for dessert (or a  generous second helping of whatever I enjoy) down to an exuberant physique. But I'll let you into a secret: one of the biggest advantages of being Austrian is a rather amazing anatomical peculiarity: we are born with two stomachs.

Yes, you read that right. Two stomachs. (And before you ask: no, we are not direct descendants from cows). One stomach is for general food and the other is for desserts. It's as simple as that. I bet you would agree that that's a great advantage. But even though I am blessed to always be able to enjoy dessert, even I, on occasions, don't fancy a dessert laden with chocolate and caramel (which under normal circumstances would have me in raptures). Sometimes, I need something lighter. Not necessarily something fat- and sugar-free, diet-friendly and healthy. Just a little lighter.

Like this fabulous tart I discovered in a cookbook a little while ago. I never followed the Great British Menu series on television, but when I got the cookbook, I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of recipes in it. This one was created by Sat Bains, who I believe ended up winning the starter with his 60-minute egg and frozen pea sorbet. A lovely prepare-ahead dessert that is easy to make and dressed to impress. The original recipe calls for home-made yoghurt sorbet which I was too lazy to make, but you can serve it with any icecream you like - even a spoonful of clotted cream would do nicely. I've made three desserts from the book so far and have earmarked tons of other recipes, they're not necessarily what you'd whip up on a weeknight as most require some advance preparation, but they're all impressive recipes that will challenge you to go out of your comfort zone a bit... which is exactly what we need every once in a while, don't we?

(Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Henrik - I doubt you'll read it, seeing that you're just turning one year, but it deserves a mention anyway ;-))

Bostini Cream Pie: a Daring Bakers' challenge

Sometimes I curse myself for my own ignorance. When I read about the DB's October challenge, I had never heard of a Bostini Cream Pie before... and glancing (at irritably quick speed) through the recipe I couldn't really picture this dessert at all. Mary was raving about it and I had no reason to doubt her tastebuds, but I did. For a whole month. It was a combination of my own ignorance, the fact that I wasn't sure what the whole dessert should look like and the fact that the sponge recipe contained oil (!) and orange juice (!!!!). Cup measures don't come natural to me after years and years of baking and living in an "imperial" country, and I am still not instantly converting cups to metric. Plus oil in baking is unheard of where I grew up so I heard alarmbells ringing all over the shop. I just didn't warm to the recipe at all. Which is why I kept pushing it out. Until the very last moment.

With a big weekend behind me, it was only this morning that I (still somewhat reluctantly) trod down to the kitchen, rolled my sleeves up and got my hands dirty. Minute by minute my mood changed as I realised there was barely 20 grams of oil, the grated orange zest gave off a beautifully fresh smell and the vanilla custard thickened nicely... already, I thought that the recipe "wasn't that bad after all" - but when I slid the first spoon into my mouth and tasted that slightly warm custard with the incredibly soft, fluffy and moist sponge on top, complemented with some smooth and creamy chocolate sauce on top, I was in heaven. It must have been in that very moment that the skies opened up and after a week of miserable rain sent down all the sunshine they had stored up for all that time. Beautiful. Spoon-lickingly good.

Using one of the few wild cards this month's host gave us, I halved the recipe. I am also giving you metric measures, but the instructions are as per Mary's original challenge. And, always looking for new finger-food ideas, I tried my luck at presenting this (as I now know) amazing dessert on individual spoons, rather than in a bowl. The sponge is hard to cut neatly, but then who needs neat when the taste is gorgeous.

I curse my ignorance. For had I trusted Mary like a usually do, I would have had a chance to eat this dessert every day since the 1st of October. But tomorrow, I'll have to move on to other (no doubt amazing) things. For once, I intend to complete my challenge at the first opportunity that presents itself. Just so I don't miss out on any finger-lickingly good moments of dessert heaven again.

Raspberry napoléon: a contribution to WTSIM... layer cake!

Another month has come and gone and took me completely by surprise - I know, I know, I should have had enough time to learn to count to 31, but with so many things happening at once, it is not surprising that I should lose track of dates. It was only late last week that I realised that both my entries for WTSIM, this month hosted by Andrew of Spittoon, and my second Daring Bakers' challenge were due on that same weekend... what with having my parents around for a week's visit (and why do I always think having them round would give me more time, rather than less?), an interview at the college I am about to sign up with, and a long overdue lunch with my  foodblogging friends Jeanne and Xochi at Petersham Nurseries, it is not surprising that I should struggle to keep up with it all. Because after all, as much as they might like it, man can't live by cake alone!

So it is only at the very last minute that I am submitting my layer cake for this instalment of "Waiter! There's something in my..." - a theme that I even sort of suggested to (Andrew would call it forced upon) this month's host. I have to say that all intentions I had at the beginning of the month of making a mightily complicated Dobostorte succumbed to a reality check on Saturday evening... and I opted for a quick fix of raspberry napoléon, which must be one of the easiest cakes to put together if you a) buy, rather than make, your puff pastry and b) possess a Thermomix which whips up the crème pâtissière in a matter of six minutes.
And delightful it was, too. Or so they say, as I didn't even have time to eat it, busying myself with tomorrow's Daring Bakers' challenge...