Spring experiments

Hi all! I haven't forgotten about this blog. I've just been crazed with work, my two kids, and two trips to the UK this spring. I keep taking photos and planning to post something, but...

So what have I been up to foodwise?

Well I'm still experimenting with bread. After realizing the error of my ways I have now began incorporating millk into my recipes - both skimmed milk and half-fat milk. It has certainly made the loaves a lot more tasty. I've also been experimenting with making my crusts less like brick walls. It's not easy feeding a 1-year old crusts that she could break those tiny teeth on! So I now brush my loaves with milk a little while before putting them in the oven. I finally used up my linseed, so I can finally put that horrible time behind me. Not a big fan of little seeds in my bread - just big ones like sunflower seed.

I've discovered the oven pancake. Years ago in Oslo there was this great little place called The American Country Corner Café, and they made these pancakes to die for. They were humongous, and 2 pancakes filled you up for 8 hours. I'm not kidding. I've never come across pancakes like them since, and still haven't found the recipe. I remember the owner saying that part of the process was baking the pancakes in the oven. So after much searching, I've found a good recipe online. My husband says that the pancake tastes like scones. I don't quite agree, but it's certain delicious. The recipe says that it makes 16 squares, but I don't know how they do that. It barely serves us four, so I've scaled the recipe up a bit. Here's a link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-Pancake-Squares/Detail.aspx I've used up all my egg substitute now, so I'm going to have to experiment with real egg next time.

I'm continuing trying to be creative about cakes. My son found a recipe for a cake that fascinated him, so when it was time for a family birthday in May, I baked a yellow cake, and frosted it with a great chocolate frosting from an old Betty Crocker cookbook (a '70s edition), and decorated it with Smarties. I was very happy with the product, and my son was thrilled.

If you're wondering if those are regular American pancakes in the photo on top, they're not: they're sveler, a relative. I traditionally serve them on May 17th, Norwegian Constitution Day. They're made of kefir - a type of soured milk and salt of hartshorn.

Boiling water

I came across a really helpful cookbook the other day Hvordan koke vann (How To Boil Water) by Andreas Viestad. I think a lot of you out there know his name - he's certainly known internationally. The book goes through all sorts of basic cooking techniques, and has lots of technical detail. Like - what temperature should water boil at for tea, and how can you tell? The book also has sections on fixing certain cooking mishaps. For someone who didn't grow up in Norway, a section with photos on "How to filet a fish" is very helpful. Then there's the next section: "How to filet a fish quickly". Very amusing. I think I'll be using this book quite a lot.

Here's a Norwegian-language link to the book: http://www.cappelen.no/main/katalog.aspx?f=1006&isbn=8202243181

Hiding the vegetables

My oldest used to eat anything, now he's completely unpredictable, and pretty difficult when it comes to vegetables. So I went to my pile of Practical Parenting magazines, and found a recipe for hidden vegetable tomato sauce. I can't print the recipe, as I assume that it's covered by copyright.

The principle is to chop up the vegetables finely and then puree the sauce after it's done. That way it looks like a plain tomato sauce, and the child is none the wiser. It worked for us. Instead of chopping, I blitzed the vegetables, and I used a can of chopped tomatoes instead of the tomato passata. When it had finished cooking, I think I could have gotten away with serving it as is, as it looked unthreatening, but I didn't take any chances, and went ahead and pureed it.

It certainly made for a much more tasty tomato sauce than the one I usually make, and both kids devoured it.

Wheatgerm and bran bread

When I first started baking bread, it seemed that all my recipes called for wheatgerm and bran. So I bought one packet of each, and guess what? None of the recipes I have used since then call for them. So I'm trying to use them up. I found a nice recipe for wheatgerm bread, which I'll post here next time I make it. But I need to use up my bran! I'm also trying to use up some linseed. My grandmother gave me the seeds, and I'm not a huge fan of overly-seedy bread, so it's taking me time to use up the linseed.

BTW - all my bread recipes yield two small loaves. I use a Tupperware UltraPlus loaf pan (1.9 l) and a metal pan. You need to calculate extra baking time in the Tupperware pan, but it's deeper than my metal pan, which makes for taller loaves.

Wheatgerm and bran loaf

45 g wheatgerm

45 g bran

120 g coursely-ground whole wheat flour

75 g wholegrain

15 g linseed

600 g plain flour

12 g rock salt

30 g walnut oil

1 packet quick-rising yeast

6 dl water

1. Mix wheatgerm, bran, whole wheat flour, wholegrain, linseed and half the water in a bowl, and leave it to rest for 1 hour.
2. After 1 hour, add remaining ingredients to (1), and knead.
3. Leave to rise, shape into loaves, then leave to proof.
4. Bake at 200 C for 45 minutes.

Result? The bread was slightly less dense than the whole wheat loaves I wrote about yesterday. A good bread for spreads, and good flavor.

Definitions

Hvetekim = wheatgerm

Kruskakli/hvetekli: bran

Basic whole wheat bread (2 loaves)

I started baking bread regularly a couple of months ago, and am always trying out variations on a basic recipe.

Whole wheat bread

180 g wholegrain

240 ml water

480 g finely-ground whole wheat flour

420 g plain flour

600 ml water

1 packet quick-rising yeast

2 ts rock salt

1. Mix the wholegrain and water, and leave to soak fo 3-4 hours, or overnight.
2. Mix the remaining ingredients, add to (1), and knead.
3. Leave to rise until doubled.
4. Divide in two, shape into loaves, and leave to proof.
5. Bake at 175C for 1 hour.

RESULT? Nice and dense, but a bit bland. A good bread to eat with soft cheese.

Definitions
Sammalt hvetemel, fin = finely-ground whole wheat flour
Helkorn = wholegrain (just grains)

Let me know if you use different translations for these terms.

Birthday Month is Over

March is finally here! That means the dreaded birthday month of February is over. What do you do when you have birthdays 3 out of 4 weekends, and the ages to celebrate are: 1, 3 and 38? You bake en masse. And you suddenly start experimenting with food coloring. Not to mention fancy cake decorating!

I've baked for years and years, and stuck to fairly simple frosting of cakes. But now that I've got kids, I got inspired. So here's a look at what I did. There's plenty of room for improvement!

1-year-old

Apple cake for the birthday child, followed by chocolate cake for the guests (no photos, sorry).

3-year-old

3 years old and 3 parties: Help!

Party 1: "Sun cake" (butter cake), apple cake, Belgian waffles (Brussels style) and buns.

Party 2: Winnie-the-Pooh chocolate cake, chocolate cupcakes, yellow cupcakes and buns.

Party 3: Sent a batch of Norwegian "sveler" to the child's nursery (no photos).


38-year-old:

Chocolate cake and sour-cream cake with Oreo pieces. Then we suddenly remembered that one of our guests is allergic to chocolate, so we had to quickly whip up an apple cake (no photo).








CONCLUSION:
It was all doable, but I need to practice cake decorating before next February comes around. Maybe get to know Wilton better...