Matcha Snickerdoodles
Don’t be turned off by the green- they look a little extreme but if you are a Japanese Matcha lover, you can’t miss these.
Felix hates them but my colleagues tell me they are delicious so we can only deduce that Felix is not a credible judge in this matter.
Try them!
Just keep in mind that the dough needs to sit one day in advance (or at least a few hours), but that actually makes them perfect for a dinner because you can make the dough in advance and then bake them up when you are ready to eat.
- 2 cups flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 ½ teaspoons matcha (divided)
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons honey or agave
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- zest of 1 lemon
- 3 oz white chocolate chopped
- ½ cup white sugar
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and 2 tablespoons of matcha in a bowl and set aside.
- In a different bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter, brown sugar, and honey until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
- Add the egg, egg yolk, and lemon zest, and mix until very pale, about 4 minutes.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and, with motor running, add the flour mixture; mix until no dry spots remain. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, mix in the white chocolate.
- Wrap the dough in plastic and chill at least 2 hours and up to 5 days.
- When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 350° F,
- Whisk the 1/2 cup granulated sugar and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons matcha in a small bowl; set aside.
- Scoop the dough by the scant tablespoonful onto 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing each about 1 inch apart.
- Bake the cookies, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, until bottoms and edges are barely golden and cooked (top will no longer look wet), 8 to 10 minutes.
- Immediately -- but gently -- toss cookies in the reserved matcha sugar and place on wire racks; let cool. Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Mandelsplitter (Chocolate almond drops)
German Christmas cookies part 3: These ones are super easy, and actually don’t require any cooking! They are held together by hardened chocolate, so they are also on the healthier side of Christmas cookies. No flour, no regular sugar.
In fact the only naughty thing in here is the powdered sugar, the rest is arguably healthy.
- 125g splintered almonds
- 150g powdered sugar
- 25g cocoa
- 20g coconut oil
- 2-3 tablespoons of hot water
- Mix the cocoa, powdered sugar, coconut oil, and hot water together. The consistency should not be too liquid (rather on the firm side).
- Add in the almonds, and stir to combine.
- Using two spoons, form tiny lumps, and drop them onto parchment paper.
- Allow to dry and harden for 1-2 hours.
Spitzbuben (Star cookies)
Christmas cookie series: Part II.
Spitzbuben= star cookies.
These are those little jammy sandwiches that give you a lot of flexibility. You can make any shapes you like, and use any jam you like. Although SOME people think they can only be made with apricot jam.
- 300g white flour
- 250g butter
- 125g sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 125g ground almonds
- Mix together the flour, butter, sugar, egg yolks, and almonds (do it with your hands).
- Leave the dough for 1 hour in the fridge.
- After an hour, take the dough out of the fridge, and roll it out with a rolling pin, onto a lightly floured surface.
- Cut into whatever shapes you like, stars, circles, hearts, etc. Lay onto parchment paper and bake for 10-12 minutes at 180c.
- Take out of the oven, let cool one second, spread with a tiny amount of jam, and then make tiny sandwiches.
Vanilla Kipferl (German vanilla sugar cookies)
Part I of the German Christmas cookie series!!
There will be 4 parts to this series. All recipes are property of Felix, as he transcribed them and decorated them at a very young age.
These are very delicate delicious vanilla sugar cookies.
- 300g white flour
- 250g butter
- 125g sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 125g ground almonds
- 2 packets of vanilla sugar
- A few spoonfuls of powdered sugar
- Mix together the flour, butter, sugar, egg yolks, and almonds (do it with your hands).
- Leave the dough for 1 hour in the fridge.
- After an hour, take the dough out of the fridge, and form tiny little horns.
- Bake at 180c for 15 minutes (ish), or until they are slightly golden, but not too much.
- Once out of the oven, throw them 4 at a time, face down, into a bowl filled with vanilla sugar & powdered sugar.
- Set aside and let cool.
Banana Bread with Ricotta
Oh myyyy. This is so so so good. Moist, banana-ey, a teensy bit salty.
You can add chocolate bits if you want, but I did it without.
It disappeared REALLY quickly.
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 3 large ripe bananas, or 4 small ripe bananas
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup whole milk ricotta
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- Heat oven to 350°F and arrange a rack on the bottom. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
- Pour melted butter into a large bowl. Add bananas and mash into a pulp. Add egg and beat until smooth. Add sugar, ricotta, and vanilla and stir to incorporate.
- In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just until all flour is incorporated, don't overmix.
- Scrape batter into prepared pan and place on the bottom rack of the oven.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 55-65 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack and let sit at least 20 minutes before removing from the pan.
Dill & Onion Bread
I’m onto phase 3 of my bread making journey. We’ve moved from no-knead bread, to knead bread, and now a bread cooked in a loaf pan.
This bread is great, but it’s better if you have some attention to detail & patience (I have neither), and chop the onion quite finely.
It’s pretty foolproof otherwise.
Enjoy!
- 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1/2 cup finely chopped onions
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, or 1 tablespoon dried dill or dill seeds
- 2 tablespoons sugar or honey
- 1 tablespoon wheat germ, toasted if you can find it, I used raw
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup large-curd cottage cheese
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
- Combine yeast and water in a small bowl and let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about five minutes.
- Combine flour, onions, dill, sugar or honey, wheat germ and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast along with the cottage cheese and egg. Mix by hand until the dough comes together. Knead for about 10 minutes by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to an oiled bowl and turn it over once to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
- Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan. Gently press the dough down, form into a loaf and place seam side down in the pan. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°f. Brush the top of loaf with the melted butter, and then sprinkle with the additional salt.
- Bake until the crust is deep golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped, about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan to a rack and let cool completely.
Bread Without a Timetable
This is a recipe from Laurie Colwin’s book Home Cooking. I’ve taken the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which conveniently includes pictures. Deb is a bread pro, and let’s be honest I need all the help I can get, visually… before embarking on bread related projects.
The beauty of this loaf is that it’s pretty unbreakable. There is a lot of flexibility built into the recipe, and I’m interested to take the challenge of stretching the limits of what will impact the final product.
Anyways, here goes!
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 1/2 cups wheat flour
- 3/4 cups coarse ground whole wheat flour (I used buckwheat flour, you can also just use wheat flour)
- Heaping teaspoon of salt
- Half teaspoon of sugar
- 1/2 scant teaspoon of active dry yeast. (if you are leaving it overnight use 1/4 teaspoon)
- 1 1/2 cups of liquid (half milk, half water, more or less of one or the other, whatever you like).
- 1. Into a large bread bowl, mix the white flour, wheat flour and coarse ground whole wheat flour , the salt, and the sugar.
- 2. In a separate bowl, mix the yeast with your liquid.
- 3. Pour the liquid into the flour and stir it up. The dough should be neither dry nor sticky, but should tend more toward to the stick than the dry. If too sticky, add a little more flour.
- 4. Knead the dough well, roll it in flour, put it in a warm bowl (although a cold bowl isn't the end of the world). Cover with plastic wrap leave it in a cool, draft-free place and go do something for a few hours, or longer (could be overnight).
- 5. Whenever you happen to get home, punch down the dough, knead it well and forget about it until convenient.
- 6. Sometime later (with a long first rise, a short second rise is fine, but a long one is fine, too) punch the dough down, give it a final kneading, shape into a baguette, slash the top with four diagonal cuts, brush wtih water and let proof for a few minutes (up to 30 minutes is fine). However, if you haven’t the time, it can go straight into the oven.
- 7. You can preheat the oven or put it in a cold oven, it doesn't matters. Bake at 450° f for half an hour. Turn the oven to 425 ° and bake for another 5-20 minutes. (My oven is quite hot, so it came out after 5, but you may need to check yours regularly. Take it out when it sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom, and the top is golden brown.)
Old-Fashioned Gingerbread
Made this for a wonderful weekend in the Ardennes with a great group of friends. Pure heaven.
It’s a firmer gingerbread, not a ginger cake, so keep this in mind. In fact it’s a bit Christmassy, so would be nice to make around the holidays.
Try it hot out of the oven with a giant slather of salty butter.
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1 Egg
- 4 tablespoons buttermilk
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 heaping teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup dried currants or raisins
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. and line the bottom of a buttered 8-inch round tin (2 inches deep) with parchment paper.
- Melt the molasses with the butter.
- Beat the egg with the buttermilk.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Mix in the currants or raisins.
- Add the egg mixture, then add the syrup mixture and mix well.
- Bake 10 minutes in the 375-degree oven, turn the heat down to 325 degrees F. and bake 35 to 40 minutes more.
- A few crumbs will stick to a tester when the cake is done.
Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
Not much to say here. It’s a classic chocolate chip cookie.
I’m unable to find chocolate chips in Belgium so I always wind up chopping up a bar of chocolate instead. Of course I get impatient and wind up with giant chunks of chocolate, but that’s fine, these cookies are pretty adaptable.
- 2 cups/260g all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup/170g unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup/190g packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon/15ml vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 cups/roughly 12 oz semisweet chocolate chips, or a dark chocolate bar, all chopped up by hand
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.
- Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.
- Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time (for giant cookies) or a tablespoon at a time (for smaller cookies) onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
- Bake larger cookies for 15 to 17 minutes, or 10 to 12 minutes for smaller ones (check your cookies before they’re done; depending on your scoop size, your baking time will vary) in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
German Birthday Cake (Marmorkuchen)
So the Germans are very specific about birthdays. It is strictly forbidden to wish someone a happy birthday before the day itself (unless you are actually intending to curse them).
As far as cakes go, there is only one option. There is only ONE German birthday cake: Marmorkuchen.
I made one for Felix’s birthday, and it was apparently absolutely perfect, the right texture, the right taste, the right consistency. Since then I’ve repeated the recipe twice and both times it hasn’t come out ‘just right’ according to the German experts.
I’ve always used the same recipe, so maybe you can help me figure out what I’ve done differently each time.
Regardless, this is basically a delicious pound cake with vanilla and almond extracts, very simple but perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 2-3 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-3 tsp almond extract
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 2/3 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup milk
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 3 heaping Tbsp cocoa
- 3 Tbsp milk
- Cream softened butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs, vanilla and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Add this mixture to the butter mixture alternating with the 1 cup milk.
- In a separate bowl, mix together 3 Tbsp sugar, 3 Tbsp cocoa and 3 Tbsp milk. Add 3-4 heaping Tbsp of white dough to this cocoa mixture.
- Put 1/2 of white dough in a greased & floured bundt pan. Smooth chocolate dough evenly on top. Add the remaining 1/2 of white dough on top.
- Use a fork to fold the chocolate through the white dough.
- Use a rubber spatula to flatten out the top so that it bakes evenly.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 1 hour.
- If you realize that the top is browning too much, cover it with foil. Do not shorten the baking time nor turn the heat down.
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