ANYTHING GOES FOCACCIA

You have to admit there is nothing like baking bread to get those juices flowing. I just love making this flat bread/focaccia, mainly because it is so easy to make, a crowd pleaser at any party, and guaranteed to disappear from the plate immediately. You can make it as simple as you want withh only a little olive oil and salt or add what ever you feel like, garlic, rosemary, onions, caramelized onions, olives, ricotta, even tomatoes or all of the above.Go for it!

At Shirley's birthday party we popped this bread in the oven and 15 minutes later served it with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.. I know that's so retro but still the plate came back CLEAN. There are many focaccia recipes, this one I found to be the easiest to remember.

Focacia

400ml of warm water

1T yeast

1/2 tsp sugar

31/2C flour

1 tsp salt

Olive oil

salt (I used Fleur de Sel Guerande)

What ever topping you wish

I make everything in my KitchenAid and attach the dough hook.

Preheat oven to 400F

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand for about 10 minutes

Add flour and salt and mix with dough hook for about 3 minutes on medium and then on low for about 4 minutes while scraping down the bowl.

Dough will be a little sticky, if it is too sticky add a little more flour.

Rub a clean bowl with olive oil ,place balled dough into it, cover and place in a warm place and let rice for about11/2 hour.

When doubled in size take out of bowl and press into a rectangular pan.

Sprinkle with olive oil, and desire topping.

Let rise again, about 10 min.

Bake in 400F for about 15 minutes or until bottom and top are golden.

FRANKFURTER KRANZ TORTE

Happy Birthday Shirley, a beautiful 85 young sweetheart, cherished mother of my best friend Cindy and surrogate mother to all of Cindy's friends. She deserved a special cake and a favorite celebration cake in our house is this German Frankfurter Kranz Torte. The origin comes from the city of Frankfurt Germany and Kranz means wreath, henceforth, I baked it in a bundt cake form. It does take a little time to assemble but well worth the effort.


Frankfurter Kranz Torte

1/2C butter
3/4C sugar
3 large eggs
rind of 1/2 lemon
3/4C sifter flour
1/3 C Corn Starch
2 tsp Baking Powder
1&1/2 C Butter cream frosting (recipe follows)

Praline, made with
1 T butter
1/4 C sugar
1 C blanched and chopped almonds or hazelnuts


Pre-heat oven to 350. Cream butter & sugar until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time incorporated them into the mixture. Mix in lemon rind, sift flour, cornstarch and baking powder and gradually stir into batter. Pour into a ring cake mould and bake 45 - 60 minutes. Cool thoroughly. Prepare frosting and praline.

Praline:

Melt butter and sugar in a frying pan. When browned add nuts and pour onto a buttered plate. When cooled take a rolling pin and further crush the praline into smaller bits.

German Butter Cream Filling:

Six lg egg yolks at room temp.
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C water
1/2 T cornstarch
1/4 C soften butter
3-4 T flavoring to taste (vanilla, rum etc)

Over very low heat cook sugar, water and cornstarch until dissolved. Bring to a boil. Syrup should be 238F on a candy thermometer. Whisk egg yolks. VERY SLOWLY STIRRING CONSTANTLY in a thin stream add syrup to the egg yolks. DON'T do this quickly or you will scramble the eggs. Beat until mixture is smooth and creamy. Cool thoroughly. To make frosting beat soften butter to the cream mixture adding 3 or 4 tablespoons of your desired flavoring.

To Assemble Cake:

Cut cake either in half or 3 layers, lightly spread butter cream on each layer. Assemble layers and cover entire cake with remaining butter cream. Slowly coat outside butter cream layer with the candied nut praline. Refrigerate cake but take out 30 Min's prior to serving.

STRAWBERRIES & BAILEYS IRISH CREAM CHEESE TART

Another retirement party! So far three principals, a director of elementary education at the board office, and a dear teacher colleague and friend. I t has been a busy week, another school year over and new adventures for the future. So far the weather is beautiful, although rain was predicted, but in honor of our friend's retirement, the pool party will go on without a hitch.

Strawberries are in their prime,and sooo sweet, so why not try this beautiful tart that combines everyone's favorite ingredients, strawberries, Baileys Irish Creme and of course cream cheese. I originally saw this recipe a few months ago on Nicole's site Baking Bites.com and made a few adjustments ,so that it would fill my ten inch tart pan. So if you have a smaller tart pan do check out her site for the original recipe.

Crust (I did not double this, it was fine for the 10 inch pan, it will be thicker for a 9 inch pan .)

2C all-purpose flour

3T sugar

2/3C butter

1/4C ice-water

In the food processor pulse the first 4 ingredients until mixture is crumbly.

Stir in water, adding an additional tablespoon if necessary, until dough comes together.

Press dough into a disk and refrigerate 30 minutes. Roll out and press into your tart pan. Freeze for at least another 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place aluminum foil on top of pastry. Fill foil with weights ( beans, or rice) and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Remove foil and weights and continue to bake until golden brown. 20-25 minutes

Cool completely.

Filling

I needed to double the filling recipe, so use your judgement.This is the DOUBLED recipe.

2 8- oz cream cheese, softened at room temperature

1 cup powdered icing sugar

4 T Irish Creme (or 2tsp vanilla and 4T milk)

Strawberries cut in half.

Melt 4 ounces of chocolate in a double boiler or microwave.. Pour into crust. Spread evenly to coat the bottom . Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Beat cream cheese , powdered sugar and Bailey;s until smooth. Pour into cooled crust. Top with sliced berries melt remaining chocolate and drizzle over the berries.

Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Enjoy!

HAPPY RETIREMENT!

SMOKED SALMON on PUMPERNICKEL

I love it when Ron makes me lunch, he is a good man ,I guess I'll keep him a little longer. (ha, seeing that we will be married 33 years in July).Seriously though, he is always concerned that I get my veggies and my protein. So voila, a lovely mache salad with a smoked salmon,red onion,boiled egg with capers, and dots of mayo on pumpernickel bread. Yum

BAUMKUCHEN TORTE

Heidi, is my middle sister who loves to bake. She is quite good at it, and her cakes are delicious. Our mother was German, so tortes, were the only cakes we knew growing up. No store bought cakes for our birthdays, but delicious butter cream tortes that were lovingly created by her. Her reference , when she needed one, was a soft covered book called,"Backen Macht Freude", from the Dr. Oetker Backbuch series.

When my older sister Christel came for a visit, Heidi took the opportunity to make a Baumkuchen Torte. The literal translation means Tree Cake, as in the rings of a tree when you get a cross section to see how old a tree is. Heidi doubled this recipe,and made it in a square cake pan, cause we love our coffee and cake, but I will give you the single recipe that you make in a round springform. It takes a little preparation and baking time but well worth the effort.

Baumkuchen Torte

250 g. butter or margarine

250 g. sugar

1 pkg. Dr. Oetker vanilla sugar

2 eggs+4 yolks

1-2 T rum

150 g. flour

100 g. cornstarch

9 g. backing powder (3 teaspoon)

4 egg whites

Glaze(white)

175 g. icing sugar

2-3T hot water

1 walnut size pat of butter (melted)

Glaze (dark)

1 t. of white icing mixture

1 tsp of cocoa ( a drop or two of water to get the same consistency)

Beat butter and gradually add the sugar, vanilla sugar, 2 eggs and 4 yolks and the rum.

Sift with flour, cornstarch and baking powder together and gradually add this to the batter, mix well to incorporate the ingredients.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, carefully fold into the batter.

In a greased and floured springform, make your first layer.Approximately 3-4 T of batter should cover the base. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven,8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.Continue in the same way for the second layer. Repeat this process until you have 7-8 layers. When done cool cake before frosting. I can bake this cake in my oven without making any adjustments, but depending on your individual stove , if you feel that your first layers are browning too quickly, by all mens, adjust your rackes, raising them as you get closer to the last layers. Or place a bowl with water on a lower rack and proceed with the baking of the layer by placing the springform on the rack over the water bowl.

Whisk the whit icing in a bowl and set aside a tablespoon of icing for the dark icing. Cover cake with icing sugar. Take chocolate icing ,and put in a small plastic baggie. Cut the tip off the corner, and proceed to make rows of chocolate circles on the top part of the cake. With a clean knife, run it through the circles to make the design. Remember to clean the knife before making the next ray dissection.You will need to work quickly as icing wants to set.

Panko Halibut

Ron and I like to pick up our fresh fish from the Pelican Fish Market. When time allows we like to have lunch at their attached restaurant. They have the best calamari crispy but not greasy. That day I had ordered a Talapia breaded in Panko and fell in love with this Asian bread crumb. Panko is a Japanese bread crumb, coarse and jagged- edged it is made from the soft tender centers of the bread rather than the crust. They are lighter than traditional western bread crumbs and maintain essential crispiness longer and contain less salt and calories. The best part is that they absorb far less grease than western bread crumbs and taste yummier.
So the halibut we purchased to b.b.q. I now decided to ,"Panko".
I pre -heated the oven to 400 degrees, I did not want to fry these beautiful halibut pieces, as everybody is trying to eat healthier, so I lightly coated a backing sheet with olive oil and placed it in the oven to heat up, while I prepared the fish.
1. Coat fish in flour seasoned with salt and pepper.
2.Dredge fish in an egg and water mixture.
3.Lastly coat in Panko bread crumbs.
I then lowered the heat to 350 degrees placed my halibut pieces on the heated baking sheet and lightly sprinkled Olive oil on top of the fish. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.
Wow, the results were fantastic, light , crispy and with a fraction of the calories than pan frying them! I highly recommend the Panko bread crumbs.
In Ottawa I have not found them at our local Loblaws, but as mentioned the Pelican carries this product and possibly other fish markets may carry them also.

Just a bit of info

I thought maybe it was time to explain a few things about this blog. It is very evident that I am not a professional photographer nor do I own an expensive camera, or have ever even shown an interest in even taking pictures. I love to eat ,therefore ,I have to cook, on occasion I bake, but in truth my sister Heidi loves to bake, is extremely good at it and will always do the baking for any celebration/holiday, so I defer to her ,mainly because she does it so much better than I do. I am also no computer wiz, and when things go wrong I ask the hubby,( who also is no computer wiz) to help me out ,which is often!! As a result, my blog is not very slick and beautiful looking, (like some of the food blogs that I have been reading), but I am willing to learn, and hopefully will improve as time goes by.
I started this blog more as a record of some family recipes, for my kids, and other reasons that I will post at a later date. The food is REAL, not staged and many times prepared and presented the way my family likes to eat it. Thus, many vegetables are over cooked, not the most nuticious way of eating or preparing them, but that is how they like to eat them, and for dietary reasons find them easier to digest, so after many attempts to get them to eat them differently, I have for the most part given up .This is not an excuse , just an explanation for not making the photos look ,"their best." But as I have said , I want to keep it real, and hopefully you will still enjoy the posts.