International House of Baking

Biscotti - Better Than...

2008-12-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like a nice dry biscotti with your afternoon coffee.... I had never made biscotti before, but figured I would give it a try. And am I glad I did! It's a very easy cookie to make, better than storebought, everybody I served them to loved them...and then they stay fresh for a long time, if they last that long, that is!
I found a recipe on Martha's website for Pecan Cranberry biscotti and since the Holiday is right around the corner, I thought that would be perfect.

Ingredients (Found on Marthastewart.com)
1 1/2 cups pecan halves, toasted (half of them finely chopped, the rest left whole)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup dried cranberries

In one bowl add the dry ingredients and mix well. Mix the eggs, yolks and vanilla well together and add the dry ingredients. Mix well until the dough is sticky. Then add the cranberries and nuts. Knead the dough slightly and shape as a long flat log. Then place the log gently on a prepared baking sheet. I used a baking sheet lined with parchment, but a greased baking sheet would work too. Bake in a 350 degree over for around 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.
Let it cool a few minutes, so you can handle it. Reduce the over to 275 degrees.
Once the log has cooled, you want to slice the log on diagonal into 1/2 inch thick slices. Place on the pan again, now with the cut side down. Bake another 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes you want to turn every single biscotti, so the other side can be toasted too. Bake the other side another 20 minutes.
While they cool on a wire rack, you want to make yourself a nice steamy hot cup of cafe latte, cappuccino or whatever coffee you best like! Take your freshbaked biscotti and dip it on the coffee and enjoy!

Individual Chocolate Lava Cakes

2008-11-12T06:36:00.000-08:00

Here is a dessert that will knock the socks of every chocolate cake fan! Individual little chocolate lava cakes...yum! It's lava cake, because when done right, the center resembles liquid lava...just the chocolate kind.

Start by spraying your ramekins with cooking spray and give them a light dusting of cocoa.

In a glass bowl take 2 oz of bittersweet chocolate and 4 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter and melt it over a water bath. Stir often and make sure the chocolate does not get too hot. Let the mixture cool at room temperature.
In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 eggs and 1/3 cup sugar until light and frothy. Now gently fold in the chocolate/butter mixture. Then you want to fold in 1/4 cup flour, in two steps. You don't not want to overwork the batter, so the eggs will collapse.
Divide the batter among 2 ramekins (if they are big, or 4 smaller ones like on the picture below)

Bake at 450 degrees for around 10 minutes... You want the top of the cake to be just firm when lightly touched, but you do not want to bake them too much, because then the middle will be too baked and you will not have the lava effect.

Serve them with a light dusting of confectionery sugar.

Zucchini Frittata

2008-08-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

One of the vegetables I have growing in my garden this year is zucchini, so it's fun to make as many dishes as possible. Here is what half of the first zucchini was used for.
A frittata is basically a little thicker omelet, sometimes prepared in a frying pan, sometimes baked in the oven. This one I decided to bake in the oven. I took 6 eggs, whisked them together added 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 2 tbsp flour, grated zucchini, green peas, a few chunks of spicy cooked sausage and a few shakes of parmesan. I mixed it all together and poured the mixture in a greased oven proof dish and baked it for 35-40 minutes at 450 degrees.

This is a dish you can serve morning, lunch or dinner.... Just pair it up with whatever sides go with the type of meal. It's even good cold the day after!

Oven Baked Pork Chops

2008-08-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share the very simple and delicious recipe with you. I grew up in Denmark eating a lot of pork and this recipe is one of my mother's. It's always good, its easy to prepare on a week night and fancy enough to entertain with. Here is what I do!

Fry the pork chops until golden in a frying pan, don't worry about cooking them all the way through, you will put them in the oven, so here you are just looking for some nice color. Season both sides with salt and pepper. Then place them in a ovenproof dish.

On the same pan, take a diced up green bell pepper (red or yellow would work great too!), a small piece of diced onion and some mushrooms. Saute on the pan until softened, season to taste. Please the vegetables on top of the pork chops. Take one can of tomatoes (diced or sauce works best) and 1 cup of half and half. Bring it to a boil, season with salt, pepper, lots of paprika and herbs de Provence, (if you don't have herbs de Provence, a mix of dried thyme, basil and oregano would work great also). Pour the tomato sauce of top of the pork chops and vegetable. Top it of with a few slices of bacon. Bake it in the over for around 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Serve it with rice and you are all set! This is a dish kids and grownups will love!

Cream Puffs with Strawberries

2008-08-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

There is no question about it... California fruit tastes better! So after picking up a big bucket of delicious red strawberries, I wondered how to incorporate them into a light summer dessert. Cream puffs of course!

The dough for cream puffs are very simple, they are just a few things you need to have in mind, inorder for them to stay puffed!

Take 2 dl water and 100 gr butter, melt it together in a small pot. Then add 1/2 tsp sugar. Graudally add 100 gr flour. Whish until combined and heat well through. Take the pot of the heat and let cool for a few minutes. You do not want to mixture to be to hot, since you now need to add the eggs and if the mixture is too hot, you might scramble to eggs. Add one at a time a total of 3 eggs. Then take a tablespoon of the dough and spoon it onto a floured baking sheet. The recipes will make around 12 cream puffs. Bake at 390 degrees for about 25 min. Make sure you do not open the oven door the first 15-20 minutes. This might cause them to collapse.
I served these witha filling of my favorite vanilla custard and the sliced strawberries.

Cooling Down with Key Lime Pie

2008-08-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

The summer has been real hot here in Pennsylvania, so as an cooling desert treat, I decided to fry a Florida favorite, the Key Lime Pie!Start out with a simple baked pastry shell. You could here opt for the easy version and buy a store bought already baked shell, though I must say if you make it yourself it will taste much better. I normally use my food processor for mixing the ingredients and that makes it really fast. In this recipe I added 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/3 cup butter in the food processor, I pulse it five time, so the butter was incorporated into the flour. It will resemble a coarse crumble. While pulsing add 1 tbsp of cold water until a dough is formed. I added 4-5 tbsp of water. Make sure you do not over mix. I like to prebaked the pastry shell 10 minutes lined with foil and then 5 minutes without, until the shell is golden brown. This way you will prevent it fall sliding down the sides, but still get a nice golden shell.Now for the filling! One of the most important ingredients is of course key lime juice. Again you can buy bottled lime juice, but it's just not the same as freshly squeezed. This recipes requires 1/2 cup of lime juice, which is quite a few limes. Luckily my husband was the right man for the job and after squeezing 6 limes he had measured 1/2 cup. Do not strain the juice, the pulp will only add an extra lime taste.
In a bowl mix three egg yolks, gradually add 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk, add the lime juice and three tbsp water, mix well and the mixture will thicken. Pour the mixture into your baked pastry shell and bake at 350 degrees for around 25 minutes. There are too ways to finish off your key lime pie, with meringue or whipped topping. In my family there was no question about it... I had to finish it off with whipped topping.
This pie is perfect way to end any summer meal... Sweet, tart and cool all in one!

Mixed Berry Pie

2008-07-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law is a great cook, and when visiting her this weekend she made one of her most popular desserts in the family... a mixed berry pie.

This pie really tastes fabulous and looks extravagant, but yet easy to make.

My mother-in-law start out with a simple pastry shell that she prebaked and cools. While the shell cools of she makes the vanilla cream or custard. For my favorite recipe on vanilla custard click here. Let the custard cool off and fill it into the pie shell. Top the pie off with your favorite mixed berries. You can use both fresh or frozen. To add the final touch and crunch, sprinkle slivered almonds around the edge of the pie.

Spiced Bananabread

2008-06-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

In these warm summer days, bananas go ripe very fast, sometimes too fast some might think. But not IHOB, because in my world a few over ripe bananas, is the perfect excuse for making a banana bread.
This recipe I found on Baking Bites's website. To me it sounded to be the perfect mix of bananas and spices, so I had to try it out. Though I did put my own little spin on it.

Ingredients:

2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon (sub for 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

pinch freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 cup brown sugar1 cup banana, mashed (about 2 large)

1/2 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

Combine the ingredients as you normally would and pour then the batter in a lightly greased loaf pan.

Bake the bread at 350 for around 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

The bread came out really good and perfect as a morning treat. By using all whole wheat flour is was probably a bit more dense, so more break-like, but it was gone very fast, which I take as a good sign!

A cookie that is good for you....!!!

2008-05-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Browsing through various baking sites, with a huge craving for cookies, I stumbled upon one intriguing good for you cookie, on a very good baking site, http://www.verybestbaking.com/. Nestle's own website....where else to find the prefect chocolate cookie. With the bikini season right around the corner, I figured I would give it a try.

Chocolate-Oat Cookies

Adapted from verybestbaking.com

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flout
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate morsels

When making cookies you first want to cream the butter and sugar. Then you want to add the egg whites one at a time, the applesauce and then the flour mixed with baking soda and salt. Once that is combined, add your filling to the cookie, in this case chocolate, nuts and oats. Stir it well together and your cookie batter is all set!
I like my cookies not too big, so I placed around 2 tablespoon of batter on a baking pan, lined with parchment paper. Don't worry about getting them round and flat, they will flatten out by them selves.
Bake at 375 degree for around 9-13 minutes, depending if you like your cookie chewy or crunchy. I found that I like to bake them 10 minutes. But this you need to try out for your selves, because it all depends on the size of your cookies and your oven.
This batch will make around 40-50 cookies, but the good thing is that they freeze very well and in my opinion tastes even better frozen!

Spinach Quiche

2008-05-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

After living a year in France right after high school, I not only learned French, had the greatest time, but I also learned to make Quiche. I have now adapted to recipe to a low fat version, but the basics are still the same.
For the dough I take 1/2 stick butter, 1 cup flour and 4 tbsp cottage cheese (fat free works fine) If you have a food processor, you can take the cold butter and flour and quickly pulse it to a coarse grind. If not just cut the butter in smaller piece and mix with the flour. Add the cottage cheese and knead until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for around 30 minutes. A cold dough is much easier to roll out...

While you waiting for the dough to be cold, start preparing the filling. Today I am making a spinach quiche, one of my favorites! Dice up a small onion, 2 cloves garlic, crushed and saute them in a bit of olive oil. Take 2 packages of frozen leaf spinach, defrost them and add them to the pan. I prefer using leaf of cut spinach, I find that chopped spinach does not give quite the right texture or flavor. Let it saute for around 10 min, so most of the water has evaporated. Season the mixture with a bit of salt/pepper and nutmeg. Spinach and nutmeg goes very well together, but add only a bit, since nutmeg has a very fragrant flavor.

Once you have place the dough in your favorite baking pan, blind bake it for around 10 min at 350 degrees. Pour the spinach filling to the crust. Whisk together 3-4 eggs and 1/2 cup milk and season with salt and pepper. On top of the spinach add some shredded cheese, for this one I used some cottage cheese and sharp cheddar. Then you want to gently pour in the egg mixture. Bake for around 40/45 minutes at 350 degrees, until the eggs mixture has set and the quiche is golden brown.

Bon Appetit!!

Birthday Cake a la Danois

2008-05-07T16:47:00.001-07:00

Once again a birthday is celebrated in my home. This time the birthday child really likes strawberry, so I needed to make a festive cake with lots of strawberries!
For the cake I whipped together 4 egg and 100 g sugar, once it is fluffy and white, gently fold in 100 g flour mixed with 1/2 tsp. baking powder. Pour the batter into a jelly roll pan and bake at 390 degrees for around 20 min.
While it is baking you want to prepare the vanilla custard, that will be the first layer of your cake. I made on batch of my standard custard, as I made for the Strawberry Pie earlier. Let the cake and custard cool to room temperature. Then spread out the custard on the cake in a even layer. Add on slice strawberries to cover the complete cake.
For the final touch I used whipped cream to create the Danish flag! You can of course adapt this to any flag you like... Add a few blueberries to the top right corner and you have the Stars and Stripes.

Easy Chocolate Roll

2008-05-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

Jelly Rolls are a really easy cake to bake and something you can whip up in a flash, if you all of a sudden get unexpected guests. I decided to make a chocolate version, since we in my household really like chocolate!
The batter is not only easy, it is also lowfat, since it does not contain any butter. Just take 3 eggs, 120 gr sugar, 30 g flour and 2 tsp dutch cacao powder. Beat the eggs and sugar until airy and almost white. Mixe the flour and cacao powder and gently stir it into the eggs mixture. Pour the batter in a jelly roll pan and bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degree.

Let the cake cool for a few minutes and then flip it onto a sugar dusted parcement papir. When it has cooled complately you can add the filling.

You can add your favorite filling, for this roll I whipped up some heavy cream with a small splash of vanilla. You want to coat the cake evenly, but leaving 1/2 inch of the sides free, becuase the filling will be pushed out a bit when you roll it.

Roll it firmly together, but without pushing all of the filling out the sides. I refrigerated this cake for around 1 hour before serving, just to get it completely set and nice cold.

Served with a few sliced up strawberries; it's the perfect dessert.

Birthday Chessecake

2008-04-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

In my house it is not a real birthday without a birthday cake. So last Saturday, I was celebrating a good friend's birthday, he is a big fan of cheesecakes so I decided to venture out in making a chocolate marble cheesecake.

The crust was a mixture of 1 1/2 cup grahamcrakers, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/4 cup chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup melted butter.
Mix all the ingredients for the crust together and press it onto the bottom of a spring form pan. You also want to make sure the crust is about 1-2 inch up the edge.
For the batter take 3 packages of cream cheese ( I used 2 package of low fat and one regular) and cream it well in a mixer. You want to make sure that it is room temperature, it just makes it easier to smooth out. Then add 1 cup of sugar, 2 tblsp flour, 1 tsp vanilla and 1/4 cup of milk, I used non fat. Mix it all well. Stir in 3 eggs, one at the time. Divide the filling into two bowls, and add 4 ounces melted semisweet chocolate into one half.

Pour the white filling into the crust, then the chocolate filling.

To create swirls, use a thin metal spatula and gently swirl around the filling.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes until edges appears set when gently shaken. Cool completely before serving. I actually made this the evening before, and it worked great.
Since this was a Birthday Cheesecake, it of course need to be decorate with candles and flags. Hip hip Hurra and Enjoy!

Indian Chapati

2008-04-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

I really like Indian food and especially the breads that in my mind should accompany each spicy meal, even if you are using knife and fork...
Chapati are a very easy bread to make, because all you need in flour, water and salt. For one batch that made around 6 chapatis I used 1 cup of water, 1 tsp salt and then added enough flour to make a nice dough, around 2 cups.

Since there is no yeast in this dough, it does not need to rise, which again makes it really fast.
Take is small piece, in the size of a walnut and roll it out to a thin circle. You want it fairly thin, like you would a pizza dough.
To bake/fry it place the dough on a dry hot pan. You want to turn as soon as you see small bubbles form. When it pops up, squeze it flat until done.
Keep them warm on a plate under a towel until serving.

I had these together with a nice spicy chicken curry... Highly recommended!

Cinnamon Rolls - My style

2008-04-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

With a kitchen Aid stand mixer in the kitchen it has never been easier to make dough. It's so easy and fast. Dissolve the yeast as you would normally on lukewarm milk, add the butter. Beat it together with the dough hook attachment. While miking slowly add the flour and with minutes you are have a great dough! As fast as that!

Let the dough rise in a warm spot in the house, for around 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.

After kneading the dough for around 5 minutes roll it to a big rectangular piece. Instead of the traditional butter and cinnamon mixture, I took 4 tbsp of applesauce, 2 tbsp brown sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon, mixed it together and then spread it evenly on the dough. For a little crunch I sprinkled some chopped walnuts also.
Then you want to roll it together as tightly as possible. And the cut them into the desired thickness, I like to cut them into inch sized pieces. Line them up in a greased baking dish, but not too close, since they do rise a lot.

The applesauce filling worked really well, it was moist and sweet. Definitely I low fat version I would do again.

After baking I drizzled a bit a frosting on them them. I just mixed confectionery sugar and water until a came together in a thick paste. It's simple and adds a great sweet touch to it.

Let them cool of as long as you can wait......

Strawberry Pie

2008-04-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Fruit pie is always a successful dessert in my house and a very easy one too. One of my favorites is strawberry pie.

I start out with a simple pie crust. My recipe is a family recipe, that has been passed down for generations.

Roll out your dough and line a pie dish, depending on the crust you might need to spray the dish. To avoid bubbles on the crust I poke small holes with a fork. Bake it until it's light golden, around 20 minutes at 350.

The filling of the cake besides strawberries is a vanilla custard creme. I made this one of 1 egg, 1 cup of milk, 2 tbsp of cornstarch, 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Whish all the ingrediens together and then slowly bring it to a boil. You want to make sure to whisk continuesly, so the custard does not burn. Once it has come to a boil and has the thickness you like, take is of the heat and let it cool.

Once the custard has come to room temperature spoon it onto the baked and cooled pie crust. Then you want to add the fresh strawberries. I like to slice them and line them up nicely, but you can decorate it however you like. Sometimes if the strawberries are small, it looks nice to keep them whole. To finish of the pie I glazed the pie with a clear gelatin glaze. In my opinion it just make a nice finish to the pie, but you can definitely leave that part out.

Tres Leche Cake

2008-03-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

Tres Leche Cake is a milky, rich and moist cake, that originates from Mexico. I had never heard about this type of cake before, so when Alton Brown on his show Good Eats created this cake, I was intrigued and of course I had to try out the cake for myself. I found the recipe on Foodnetworks home page and I was ready to get baking.

The base of the cake is a simple white cake. When I make these types of cakes I always make sure to mix butter and sugar until fluffy, before adding further ingrediens. Then, one at a time I add the eggs. When that is well mixed, I fold in the dry ingrediens. This way you get a fluffy and perfect cake every time.

When the cake is baked, you have to let it cool for around half an hour. Then either with a fork or a skewer poke holes all over the cake. When the cake is completely cold pour over the glaze. After the cake has been in the fridge overnight all of the glaze absorbed. The glaze gets perfectly absorbed in the white cake creating a super moist and delicious cake.
I served the cake topped with whipped cream and a chilled glass of sweet white wine!

Apple + Oat Muffins

2008-03-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

I really like making muffins, because you can mix in whatever ingrediens you feel like that day and then they are super fast to whip up.
Yesterday I wanted to make a healtier version muffin, after eating too much over Easter, I figured it was the only way to go.
When making muffins you want to make sure you have two bowls ready, one for the wet ingrediens and one for the dry.

In the dry bowl I mixed together:

1/2 cup regular flour
1/4 cup old fashioned oats
3 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt

In the wet bowl I beated together with a whisk:
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
4 tbs unsweetened applesauce
1 tbs canola oil

Then I simply added the dry ingrediens to the wet and stirred it all well together.

As muffins rise quite a bit, you only want to fill up the paper cups 1/3 of the way. Since I used old fashioned oats, these muffins has a nuttier and more grainy feel to it, making them, in my mind perfect both for breakfast and a long side your afternoon tea. With the added applesauce they keep nice and moist for a couple of days, if you store them in a airtight plastic container/bag.

Getting started...

2008-03-17T13:15:00.001-07:00

I am not a big fan of clogging my kitchen with too many kitchen gadgets, though I must admit some things are very nice to have and certainly makes baking much easier.

My favorite machine is my Kitchen Aid stand mixer! It is such a versatile tool and if you take good care of it, it will last you a lifetime.

I will continously talk about my favorite tools, but for right now, let's leave it at the Kitchen Aid and let's get baking!

Welcome To the International House of Baking!

2008-03-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

This blog will be my forum to share with you all of my baking concoctions.

Here at IHOB I will be baking treats from all over the world, everything from elaborate birthday cakes to simple bread baking. I will also share with you ideas and tricks on how to improve your baking, make it look fabulous and make it better for you.

So, stay tuned and let's get baking!