Raisin & curry brioche with honey butter and ham – or an overdue Happy Easter

This is the traditional brioche with a little East feeling. And I wanted to say Happy Easter to everyone with this recipe, but I missed it! Sorry! I hope you had a great Easter holiday!

Raisin & curry brioche with honey butter and ham

For the raisin & curry brioche:

-          500 g flour

-          80 g sugar

-          1 tsp. salt

-          ½ tsp. curry powder

-          1 pack yeast powder ( 7 g )

-          250 - 300 ml heavy cream

-          2 eggs (at room temperature)

-          zest of an orange

-          1 big handful of raisins

-          1 egg (for the top)

For the top:

-          butter (at room temperature)

-          honey

-          dried ham

1. Knead all the ingredients for the brioche, and then allow the dough to rise. Separate the risen dough into 3 pieces, and roll them with hands into strips. Braid the strips together. Set aside to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Glaze it with the egg and then bake it in the oven (preheated to 170 C).
2. Mix the butter with the honey, spread this mixture on the brioche slices and then put slices of dried ham on it too

Hot bean cream with beer – For men

We always make salads and women just love them. But what about men? This recipe is exactly for them! Beer, tortilla, bean, onion, chili! 

Hot bean cream with beer

Ingredients:

For the hot bean cream with beer:

-          1 can of chick-peas (400 g)

-          1 can of beans (400 g)

-          3 tomatoes (peeled and seeds removed)

-          3 spring onions

-          200 ml brown beer

-          1 clove garlic (mashed)

-          1 tbs. Tabasco sauce (to your taste)

-          Chili (to your taste)

-          coriander (little)

-          salt

-          olive oil (if it is needed)

For the tortilla chips:

-          8 tortillas

-          Olive oil (little)

Preparation:

1. Boil the brown beer for half a minute, then purée it with the other ingredients using an immersion blender.
2. Cut the tortillas to triangles. Glaze them with olive oil, and bake them in the oven.

Salted Chocolate Cake – as my Mother does it or not exactly?

You know how these things work! Mothers and Grandmas bake the best cakes in the world. This is the cake my mother always bakes whenever we celebrate birthdays or Christmas. This is my all-time favourite. I do it with a tiny modification: I add salt to the chocolate cream. I think it works nicely, but if you want to bake the original version, just leave the salt out, but I have to add that my Mother also liked it the way I baked.

Salted Chocolate Cake

For the walnut sponge:

-          8 eggs

-          8 tbsp. sugar

-          5 tbsp. bread crumb

-          6 tbsp. ground walnut

-          Pinch of salt

For the chocolate cream:

-          3 eggs

-          210 g sugar

-          3 tbsp. cocoa powder

-          ½ tbsp. salt

-          200 g butter (at room temperature)

+ ground walnut

1. For the sponge: Beat the egg yolks with the sugar with an electric mixer, then stir the bread crumb, the ground walnut, the salt and the previously whipped egg whites into it.
2. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Butter the cake pan, and then sprinkle it with flour. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake it until it turns golden brown.
3. For the chocolate cream: Beat the egg yolks with the sugar with an electric mixer. Then cook the mixture above steam until it thickens. Add the cocoa powder and the salt. Wait until it cools down to 30°C, and then stir the butter into it with an electric mixer.
4. To assemble the cake, first cut the sponge horizontally into layers. Then spread a part of the chocolate cream on each of the layers and sprinkle the cream with ground walnut. Sandwich the layers and finally spread the rest of the chocolate on the sides of the cake too. Put the cake in the fridge for 3 hours.
5.  

Corn and mango muffins – Another sweet thing with vegetables

No, these are not muffins with corn flour; they are made with real corn! The idea came from the habit that we use coconut milk, olive oil and sesame seeds together in salty dishes very often. So why can’t we use them in sweet things? It sounds strange at first, but it does work.

 

Corn and mango muffins with sesame seeds or with pistachio and pineapple heavy cream

Ingredients:

For the Corn and Mango muffins:

-          2 eggs

-          100 g brown sugar

-          80 ml olive oil

-          165 ml coconut milk

-          200 g boiled corn

-          200 g flour

-          2 tsp. baking powder

-          Pinch of salt

-          1 mango (cut to cubes)

To the top:

-          Sesame seeds or whipped heavy cream and pineapple jam and pistachio

1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar with an electric mixer. Pour the oil gradually while stirring it continuously. Add the coconut milk, the corn and the salt to the batter, then purée it with an immersion blender.
2. Sieve together the flour and the baking powder. Stir them with the batter, and then fold the mango cubes into the mixture.
3. Fill the cavities of the muffin pan with the batter.
4. Sprinkle them with sesame seeds and put in the oven. Or simply bake the muffins; wait until they are at room temperature. Mix whipped cream with pineapple jam and add this on the top of the muffins. Finally sprinkle them with pistachio.

Carrot Thick Soup with Chick-Peas – If it’s snowing

I know it’s spring, but now in Hungary it has been snowing heavily for a few days. So here is a soup which is ideal in this cold weather.

Carrot Thick Soup with Chick-Peas

Ingredients:

-          1 kg carrots (peeled and chopped)

-          4 tbsp. olive oil

-          Salt

-          1,5 tbsp. honey

-          Pinch of Chinese five-spice mixture

-          Pinch of cayenne pepper

-          3 cloves of garlic (mashed)

-          140 ml vegetable or chicken stock/water

To the top:

-          yoghurt

-          yellow chilli (chopped)

-          coriander (chopped)

-          chick-peas

-          pepper

1. Roast the carrots in the oil, sometimes stirring them. Add the honey, and then caramelize it. Mix the five-spice mixture, the cayenne pepper and the mashed garlic to the carrots, too. Pour the stock or water to the carrots, and cook until carrots are tender. Purée the soup with an immersion blender.
2. Put yoghurt, yellow chilli, coriander, and chick-peas on the top of the soup.

Pina Colada cake – Or my new cake rack

I have got a new cake rack from Etsy! And I’m in love with it! I wanted to bake a dark-bright cake to photograph it on my new cake rack. I’m horrible, am not I? I don’t want to bake a simple lamington or coconut balls, but something that only looks like them. So here is the cake with pineapple, coconut and rum, inside a brownie! I hope you like it!

 

Pina Colada cake – Rum flavoured brownie with pineapple jam and shredded coconut

Ingredients:

For the jam (not all will be used in the recipe):

-          1 pineapple

-          3 tbsp. sugar

For the Rum flavoured brownie:

-          100 g milk chocolate (melted above steam)

-          75 g melted butter

-          2 eggs

-          100 g brown sugar

-          100 g flour

-          50 g cocoa powder

-          Pinch of salt

For the Chocolate glaze:

-          9 g dark chocolate

-          3,5 g gelatine

-          35 g rum

-          20 g cocoa powder

-          21 g heavy cream

-          65 g sugar

For decorating:

-          Shredded coconut

1. Cook jam from the pineapple and the sugar. (It is optional whether you purée the pineapple completely with an immersion blender or you leave tiny bits of the fruit in the jam.)
2. For the brownie, blend everything with a food processor. Then preheat oven to 170°C. Butter the muffin pan, and then sprinkle it with flour. Fill the cavities of the pan half full with the batter. Then put some jam on it, and pour the leftover batter so that it would cover the jam filling. Bake it for 15 minutes.
3. Boil the rum, the cream, the cocoa powder and the sugar while stirring the mixture continuously. Then remove it from the cooker and dissolve the gelatine (that has been soaked in cold water for 2-3 minutes previously) in it. Pour this hot mixture on the chocolate, and blend it with an immersion blender until you get a shiny glaze. Use it about 3-5 minutes later.
4. Pour the glaze on the top of the cakes, and sprinkle them with shredded coconut.