Kookjegek.nl

Testing Cinnamon rolls

Dennis — Tue, 04 May 2021 15:56:55 +0000

Trying some sweet recipes lately. One of the latest ones was nice take on cinnamon rolls, inspired by BBC GoodFood.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dennis (@kookjegek)

Compared to the original recipe I used a lot more yeast and I didn’t add the caramel. In my honest opinion it was already sweet enough with the icing sugar, lol.

Ingredients (6 rolls)

160 ml milk
7 grams yeast
25 grams butter
250 grams strong bread flour
2 tbsp soft sugar
1,5 apple
10 grams butter
2 tbsp soft sugar
50 grams butter
50 grams soft sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
Vanilla
50 grams soft cheese
50 grams icing sugar

Preparation

First of all warm the milk and add the 25 grams of butter. Put the other dough ingredients in a bowl and add the milk butter mixture to that mix. Knead by hand for about 10 minutes. Let the dough rise for about 2 hours.

Put the apple, sugar and butter in a pan and cook for about 10 minutes.

Soften the 50 grams of butter and add the cinnamon, sugar and vanilla to it.

Mix the cheese, icing sugar and a bit of cinnamon (to taste). Set that aside.

Roll out your dough into a rectangle and spread the cinnamon butter evenly over it. Cover with the apple. Roll it tightly and cut the roll into 6 equal pieces. Put the pieces cut-side up in a baking tray with baking parchment and let it rise for about 1 hour again.

Bake the rolls in the oven for about 45 minutes in a 200C oven or until they are golden brown.

Spread the icing over the cinnamon rolls.

Recipe source: BBC GoodFood

When Belgian bitterness becomes sweet

Dennis — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:13:26 +0000

This recipe always reminds me of my sister. She didn’t like Belgian endive because of the bitterness. Orange braised endive on the other hand is a very tasty dish, inspired by Discover Endive.

In my childhood Belgian endives where always a point of discussion in our house. My mother always served them in a classic way with cheese and ham. But because of the fact they where cooked they always still had the core and the bitterness.

I like the bitterness, my sister didn’t. It was never her favourite dish. Because I like the bitterness I began to wonder if you could keep this flavour and also add other interesting ingredients. I came across the recipe of Discover Endive. Btw, the original recipe is from Wickedgooddinner. The idea of grapefruit and pancetta sounded very good.

I decided to go with orange, smoked bacon and baby argula from my own garden. I was very happy with the end result. It is a great starter and I’m sure my sister would love this dish!

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 Belgian Endives
1 orange
1 garlic clove
1 small piece of ginger
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp honey
125 grams smoked bacon
argula

Preparation

First of all you cook the whole Belgian endives for about 5 minutes in boiling water. Don’t bother cutting them, because you can do that later. In the meanwhile you can cut the bacon in pieces. When the endives are finished you can remove the outer leaves and cut the core into small evenly rounds. Watch out for your hands, this can be hot.

Bake bacon in a frying pan until crispy. When the bacon is in the pan you can go and start to create the honey mixture. This is fairly easy. Just make a mixture of with the juice of 1 orange, chopped ginger & garlic, vinegar & honey in a bowl. Set this bowl aside.

When your bacon is crispy remove it from the frying pan. You can use the leftover fat for the rest of the preparation, so don’t clean it. Add a bit of olive oil and add the endive rounds. Cook about 3 minutes or until they are caramalized. After that remove the endive from the pan. Again, don’t clean the pan. You want to use the flavours.

Add the honey mixture to the pan and reduce the mixture until it gets a bit of structure of a syrup. After that you can add the Endive again and stir it a bit up so that the honey mixture covers the Endive.

Remove the pan from the gas and start assembling. I placed three endive rounds on a plate, added some crispy bacon and also used some fresh baby argula from my own garden.

Recipe source: Discover Endive

Episode of the Madeleine

Dennis — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:27:02 +0000

My list of draft posts is pretty big. So time to recollect those recipes from my memory and write them down. First one is about Madeleines inspired by Dagelijkse Kost.

A while ago I decided to go on the classic road again. It was time to make some cakes from France, in this case Madeleines. These are shell-like shaped cakes made of Genovese cake batter. Suprisingly I hadn’t made these before.

After about half an hour I came to the conclusion that they are really easy to make and very tasty. The only thing you really need is a Madeleine pan and some basic ingredients from your pantry. You just need things like flour, eggs, butter, sugar and flour. Ingredients I always have in store at my house. So this is the perfect recipe as a treat for unexpected visitors.

I dediced to follow the recipe of Jeroen Meus from the Belgian television show Dagelijkse kost. A great show which I can recommend if you know the Dutch language. When I started with his recipe I noticed that his batter is a bit different from the Genovese cake. His batter uses less eggs. I also decided to use less eggs but also less sugar. Instead I added some rum, in my case Havana club Anejo Especial.

Next time I want to use the exact Genoves cake recipe and I am also going to add ground nuts.

Ingredients (about 18 cakes)

150 grams flour
150 grams butter
100 grams sugar
honey
1 vanilla pod
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
lemon zest
Havana club Anejo Especial

Preparation

Put the sugar in a bowl. Siff the flour and baking powder and mix it with the sugar. In the meanwhile you can melt the butter in a pan.

Add the eggs one by and keep whisking until you get a nice batter. After that you can add the melted butter, still keep whisking.

Finally you can add the flavour. In my case this was the scraped seeds from the vanilla pod, honey, zest and some rum. But you can also add things like whiskey and orange. Use your imagination!

I baked the Madeleines in a pan for about 20 minutes in a oven of 200 degrees Celcius. But just keep an eye on them until they are golden brown.

Recipe source: Dagelijkse Kost

Vegi what?!

Dennis — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:47:23 +0000

I got my food mojo back. There, I have said it! It feels liberating. It’s about time for some new ideas and experiments. I started off with some vegi craziness, Gobi Manchurian inspired by Sunshine and Smile.

There are the dishes that make my foodie heart beat faster, this is one of them. When you sent the picture above to a random person chances are that they expect this dish to contain meat. But in fact all this is deep fried cauliflower in a very tasty sauce.

The dish itself is very easy to create. You just need to create sauce and the batter to coat the florets, a peace of cake…

When you create this as a snack for a party you will be the star of the evening. Another tip is to vary with the flavours of the sauce and the batter. I really like my chillies, but I can imagine some people like a bit more of sweetness.

Last but not least. If you are not a big cauliflower fan, you should try this!

Ingredients

1 cauliflower
200 grams of all purpose flour
100 grams corn flour
2 green chili peppers
2 spring onions
small piece of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
chili powder
Sambal daboe daboe
Ketjap Manis
tomato paste
Seasoning like sugar, salt and pepper

Preparation

First start with cutting the cauliflower into florets. I tried to create evenly small florets, snack size. Bring a pot of water to the boil and add your florets. Just blanch them until you are happy with their structure, this depends on the size of your florets. In my case this was after a minute or 3. After blanching put them in ice water.

During the cooling of the florets you can make the tasty batter. I kept the mixture of all purpose and corn flour from Sunshine and Smile, I liked it. Just add the flour into a bowl with some flavour like garlic, grated ginger, chili powder, salt and pepper. And don’t forget the water, this will be the main ingredient for the thickness of your batter. I don’t remember how much it was, but add little by little and you will get to a good thickness. When you finished the batter you can add the florets to the bowl and put it in the refridgerator until you are going to deep fry them.

Now it you will start the part of the recipe which will give you the biggest smile, the creation of the Manchurian sauce. Cut the some ginger, spring onions, green chili peppers and garlic cloves into little pieces and put in pan with oil. Or to make your live easier, put the 4 ingredients together in a food processor. After a couple of minutes you can add the rest of the flavours like Sambal, Ketjap and tomate paste. To make it into a great thick sauce at some leftover corn flour or corn starch together with a bit of water and keep it over the heat four a couple of minutes. Again keep tasting and seasoning. Also add water if you don’t like the consistency of your sauce!

The serving part is simple. Just deep fry the florets until they are golden brown in some sunflower oil. Don’t deep fry them all at once but in batches. After that you can serve them on a plate covered with the nice rich Manchurian sauce and some leftover spring onions.

Recipe source: Sunshine and Smile

The world upside down

Dennis — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:16:37 +0000

Sometimes the simplest ideas are often best. Of course the Tarte Tatin is a great example of that, turning your apple tart upside down. I took a spin on that and made some upside down apple cakes, inspired by Wikipedia.

In my case I needed a quick sweet treat because of the birthday of a dear friend. I decided to go for the classic quatre-quarts cake mixture. So easy to remember and the result is always good.

During my last few creations I actually decided to make them upside down. I already tried it with Conference pears, but this time it was with Belle de Boskoop apples. The result was so good I actually made them again in the same week.

I am really enthousiastic about the flavour combination of the sour apple together with the sweet honey and the cinnamon. Not to mention the addition of the nice vanilla cake. You have to try this one!

Ingredients (makes 6 cakes)

2 eggs
100 grams all purpose flour
100 grams sugar
100 grams butter
baking powder
vanilla pod
milk
honey
1 Belle de Boskoop apple
cinnamon

Preparation

First mix the butter, vanilla pod seeds and sugar together until the mixture is a bit creamy. Add the eggs and keep mixing.

Sift the flour and baking powder (couple of grams) and add it in parts to the egg mix. Keep stirring until you get a nice smooth mix. Add some milk if the cake mixture gets to dry to your likings.

Preheat the oven on about 160 degrees celcius. Grease a muffin tin with some butter.

Add some honey to every muffin hole. Cut the apple in thin slices and devide them evenly to every muffin hole. After that you can cover the apple parts with the cake mixture.

Bake the cakes in the oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe source: Wikipedia

Does appearance really matter?

Dennis — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 07:10:06 +0000

Food is all about senses. Taste and smell are pretty important senses for me. But sometimes I wonder if sight is also important when it comes to food? Sight was also the main reason why I made Chinese tea eggs last week, inspired by Wikipedia

This time it was a really easy DIY recipe. The only thing I did was boil the eggs and gently crack the shells. After that it was basically marinating the eggs with color and flavors.

The end result is really beautiful, the eggs look great. The picture above was after one day of steeping. Wikipedia also suggests two days. So they can look even better if you are a bit more patient.

The taste of the eggs on the other hand isn’t that special in my honest opinion. You slightly taste the spices at the edge of the eggs. But the yolk still tastes the same. Like I said, I only tried one day of steeping. So maybe that will also improve with two days. And besides that I will also suggest to try and experiment with other spices.

Ingredients (4 eggs)

4 eggs
4 grams black tea
1 cinnamon stick
4 star anise
2 cloves
peppercorns
fennel seeds
100 ml soy sauce

Preparation

First boil your eggs for a couple of minutes in a pot. After that remove the eggs from the pot and gently crack the shells of the boiled eggs.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the water in the pot. Add the eggs and simmer for about an hour. This is to marinate the eggs with the spices and tea. After that you can let it cool down.

After that you can transfer it to a container which you can put in the refrigerator. Steep it for about two days

Recipe source: Wikipedia

Sharing sweets

Dennis — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:24:44 +0000

It’s always great to share food with people you like, especially sweets. This weekend I had a good reason to share some sweets, a really nice sunny day at the park. I made some muffins with red currant for this occasion, inspired by Noms I Must

Because I was travelling to another city I was in need of some sweets that were easy to carry. Muffins were perfect for this situation. On top of that they are really easy to make and you can vary with the fruits en spices.

This time I used cinnamon and red currant which added some sourness to the mix. But I still have some leftover strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. So maybe next time I am adding those to the mix with different spices.

Ingredients (makes 6 muffins)

125 grams flour
100 ml milk
75 grams sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 vanilla pod
cinnamon
40 ml olive oil
75 grams red currant

Preparation

First you can make the muffin mixture. Siff the flour and mix it with the sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add it to the flour mixture. Add the egg and milk and whisk it. Finally add the olive oil.

Preheat the oven on about 200 degrees celcius. Grease a muffin tin with some butter and evenly spread the muffin mixture.

After that you can add some fruit to your likings. In my case I added some red currant. Bake the muffins in the oven for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe source: Noms I Must

Still twenty something

Dennis — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:08:45 +0000

A couple of months ago I celebrated my birthday. Not a big party but I had another thing to do. The last few years it was a habit to bring along home made birthday cakes to work. This year wasn’t an exception. I made a Spanish almond cake, inspired by Koken & Genieten

Of course this wasn’t the only cake I made. I also made a mushroom cheesecake with some sour cream on top. This one was pretty hilarious. Some people made the mistake in thinking it was a sweet cake. The confused the sour cream for icing. You should have seen the look on their faces, priceless!

The almond cake was pretty good. I roasted the almonds and added cranberries to the mix. This one turned out to be the party favorite!

Ingredients (serves 16)

150 grams flour
salt
100 grams butter
5 eggs
250 grams sugar
cinnamon
1 lemon
100 grams cranberries
250 grams almonds
icing sugar

Preparation

First you can make the cake dough. Mix the flour, salt and butter. And add one egg. You can also add some water if you think the mixture is to dry. If you have a nice dough you can leave it in the fridge to rest for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven on about 180 degrees. Grease a spring form pan with some butter and evenly spread the cake dough in the pan.

Now it is time to make the mixture. Roast the almonds in a pan. After they are roasted to your likings crush them in mortar or simply use a knife to slice them.

Mix the rest of the eggs together with the sugar until it’s a bit foamy. Add the almonds to this mixture. You can also bring in other flavors to the mix. I used cinnamon, lemon zest and cranberries.

Finally your pour in this eggs-sugar mixture into the springform pan. Bake the cake in the oven for about 35 minutes.

Recipe source: Koken & Genieten

Crunchy inspiration

Dennis — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:41:04 +0000

Always got new inspiration for food. A lot of things can be the trigger. This time it was a new kitchen gadget, a mandoline. A perfect tool for a new DIY project, making potato chips. Inspired by a recipe from The Merlin Menu.

First of all I was really happy with my new purchase. I discovered a great store in the neighbourhood called Potten & Pannen. I decided to buy a Benriner Japanese Mandoline via their webshop. Great service, got hold of it in 2 days. But I also recommend visiting their shop. Lot’s of nice stuff for foodies. And you can easily contact them via twitter.

So I had a nice new gadget. First I tried to make some julienne style carrots, which was very easy with this mandoline. But after that I remembered that I always had in mind to make my own potato chips. I figured out that this couldn’t be that difficult. This was supported by the blog post of Ron Merlin he also stated that you have to try this yourself! So I did…

And it was a great success. The homemade potato chips taste awesome. And really easy to make. Can’t wait to experiment with other flavours and ingredients. I also inspired some other people to make them. Ivo, one of my colleagues, also made them and was very enthusiastic about the result. You can read about it overhere.

Ingredients (serves 1)

2 potatoes
peanut oil
salt

Preparation

Clean your potatoes, but don’t remove the skin. Cut your potatoes in tin slices. I had a thickness of about 1 millimetre. After that put the slices in cold water for about an hour.

Remove the slices from the cold water and let them dry on paper towels. You will see they already got a nice shape.

The final part is frying them. I used peanut oil. Put this in a pan and heat it up until a nice temperature. I didn’t use a thermometer, but I checked with a piece of bread. When you put this bread in and it begins to fry you are good to go.

I fried the potato chips until golden brown, that’s the way I like my chips. At the end added some salt.

Recipe source: The Merlin Menu

Have a break

Dennis — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:48:26 +0000

Working outside the office has been really busy lately. But it also has it pros. You meet new people, see new places and of course I come across different food. For instance, fresh cherries. I used them for cakes inspired by Muffin tin mania.

At the company I was working a colleague suddenly had an interesting question during lunch break. If I would be interested in a kilogram of cherries. His wife worked at a cherry farm and was able to bring them along the same afternoon.

Of course I wanted those! I wasn’t disappointed when I tasted one of those cherries. A lot sweeter than the ones I had before from the supermarket. Back home I decided to use this sweetness and make some cakes.

The idea was to make simple cakes and add some other flavors to the mix. I found a great recipe on Muffin tin mania. But I also used sultana raisins, zante currants and some cinnamon. Not a lot of work, but really tasty sweet cakes.

I was so happy with the result that I decided to share them as a gift at let’s have a break festival. A new place to meet people & food…

Ingredients

40 grams almonds
150 grams butter
150 grams icing sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
150 grams self-rising flour
250 grams cherries
75 grams sultana raisins
50 grams zante currants

Preparation

First of all cut the almonds into small pieces and roast them in a dry pan until golden brown. Put them together with the butter and icing sugar in a food processor.

Add the eggs one by one while the butter mix is still in the processor. After that add the flour.

Pre heat the oven, 180 degrees Celcius. Grease a muffin tin with some left-over butter.

In the meanwhile you can start by preparing the filling of the cakes. I used cherries, sultana raisins and zante currants. So in my case it was removing the stones from the cherries and swelling the sultana raisins & zante currants in hot water.

Put as much of these ingredients to your likings in the muffin tin. Cover it with the butter-flour mix. After that you can put the muffin tin in the oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the cakes are golden brown.

I served the cakes with some left-over icing sugar.

Recipe source: Muffin tin mania