sweet potato pie

Baking a sweet potato pie was one of my goals for November and I'm happy to report that I baked one last week. Here's a bit of a background story: Until a year or two ago, sweet potatoes were hard to find in Germany. But last year supermarkets all over my city started selling sweet potatoes directly imported from the US. I couldn't be happier because I love them - oven baked sweet potatoes with a hint of butter, sweet potato bread/soup/pie/... sigh. They seem to be fool-proof and almost impossible to prepare in a non-tasty way.

I used this awesome recipe by Joy the baker. I went easy on the sugar but apart from that I followed her instructions blindly. The result is great - the buttermilk crust is perfect and the filling is moist and yummy. It took a while to make but only because there is some waiting time in between the steps (waiting for the dough to cool in the fridge, cooking the sweet potatoes, etc.) and you can use the time to knit or, in my case, study.
So if you've been intimidated by the thought of baking a sweet potato pie from scratch just give it a try! The result is amazing and well worth the effort. Also, it is unlike anything you can buy in Germany (and probably the rest of Europe?) so it's a fun way to impress your tea time guests ;)

chocolate almond slivers

I needed a gift for my grandma the other day. She's one of the people who always claims she has everything and doesn't need anything (new). Of course I couldn't show up without a little something to her birthday party so I made these super quick and easy chocolate covered roasted almond slivers.

The key to making tasty chocolate almond slivers is good chocolate. I made a batch with milk chocolate and a batch with dark chocolate. Here's how I like to make these:

Ingredients:
100gr chocolate
100gr almond slivers
patience

Directions:
1) Roast the almond slivers in the oven at 200°C (390°F) until they're brownish, tossing the almonds occasionally so they roast evenly and don't burn. It took about 10 minutes in my oven. 2) Wait for the almonds to cool. 3) Melt the chocolate. Add the almond slivers to the melted chocolate and stir. 4) Using a teaspoon, make little piles of chocolate covered goodness on a baking sheet. 5) Wait for them to dry. I made these in the evening and got to taste them first thing in the morning. Tasting these is a great way to start your day.


ps: Thank you so much for all your nice comments on my last post. I have the best readers and I'm really grateful for your support!

baking days // feeling blue

I was asked to make blue muffins for our model united nations society info meeting tonight. First I wanted to make blueberry muffins and dye the dough blue but then I decided to make rocher-chocolate muffins topped with dyed coconut flakes.

A friend came over to help me bake them and we've had a great time. Whenever I use food dyes it reminds me of a kid's birthday party. Dying the coconut flakes was super easy; first we tried to put them in a ziplock bag and shake it well but that didn't work at all. Thankfully my rookie Julia is a paramedic so we always have a big box of disposable gloves. We ended up mixing the coconut flakes and the food dye in a small mixing bowl. It worked great and thanks to the gloves out hands don't look like we're auditioning for the Blue Man Group ;)

We added tiny flags with our club's name (MUNSG = model united nations society Göttingen) to add a fun little detail. Beside the blue coconut flakes, of course…

This was a fun little project (it took us about an hour, including cleaning up our colorful mess) and hopefully our new(& current!) members will like them. Next challenge will be transporting them to campus… on my bike. We'll see how many coconut flakes will be left by the time I get there ;)

one hell of an apple pie

I love having friends over for coffee and cake. It's always nice to have an excuse to bake something and it's not too much of a time commitment. Another bonus is that I get a clean apartment out of it.
Yesterday, I've had some friends over for some relaxed knitting time and I made an apple pie. I think I pretty much figured out the perfect apple pie. Next time I make it I'll take some notes and post the recipe here. Want a little hint? Rum raisins! Yum!

I'm enjoying the last couple of lazy days before classes start next week. I can't wait! So far I have about 13 classes that I really, really wanna take. Getting this number down to a reasonable 5-6 will be tough. I'm really thankful that I have two more years of uni so I can hopefully take all the classes I'm passionate about.

baking days // pumpkin pie

I love fall for so many reasons, but one of the most important ones is that it's pumpkin season!
One of my favorite childhood memories is carving pumpkins with my family. So when I saw the first pumpkins at the supermarket I couldn't resist buying one (or two...). The other one is dutifully acting as my new door stopper. Don't ask.

There's no such thing as 'canned pumpkin' in Germany so I had to make it from scratch. The pumpkin puree is super easy to make: wash and cut your pumpkin into pieces (I used a Red Kuri Squash (Hokkaido) because you can eat everything - including the skin!), boil it with very little water on medium heat for 15-20 mins. Next puree it with a hand blender et voilà, you've got delicious, homemade pumpkin puree!

I ended up using four different recipes because most (American) recipes just said "mix the canned pumpkin with ___ and pour into store-bought crust" - what!?!? Does that count as 'baking' in the US?!
Anyway, I made the pie from scratch including the pie crust etc. and it was really good. Though I have to admit that it was the first time I've had pumpkin pie so I can't really tell how good it was in comparison to other pumpkin pies...

Does anyone know how to prevent the filling from cracking after baking?

yeast dough tips

A friend asked me to share my 'yeast dough secret'. Many people seem to have trouble making yeast dough so I thought I'd share what I've learned over the past years. There are a few things you should know about baking with fresh yeast but it's not rocket science - just give it a try, the outcome is really worth it!


Tip #1: Prepare your ingredients
All the ingredients you use should be at room temperature when you add them to the dough. If I'm baking spontaneously, I put the ingredients in the oven at a very low temperature (~95°F/35°C) for a couple of minutes. You don't want them to be much warmer than that, otherwise you'll kill the yeast.

I usually use fresh yeast and mix it with lukewarm water/milk and some sugar until the yeast is dissolved. Let it rest until bubbles start to form - it usually takes 6-10 minutes. If you don't see any bubbles, throw the mixture away and start over. Your yeast was probably too old or your liquids were too hot. Now you can add your yeast mixture to the other ingredients and mix them together.

Tip #2: Be patient
Patience is a virtue you really need for yeast doughs. Knead your dough until it's elastic. From my experience, you can't really knead the dough too much. I usually let my kitchenaid do its magic for 5-10mins, depending on how patient I am on that particular day :)
Patience is also needed when the dough rises. I let it rise twice - after I've kneaded the dough, I put it in the oven (it's the only warm place in my apartment) at a very, very low temperature (approximately 95°F/35°C) until the dough has doubled in size. I like to cover the bowl with a (damp) dish cloth to prevent the dough from drying out. It usually takes 30-45mins but the time can vary depending on your oven, how old the yeast is, etc.
Once it has doubled in size, I knead it with my hands and form it into whatever I want to make. Next, I put it back in the oven at the same temperature to let it rise again.

After 15 minutes in the oven the bread looks like this:

Isn't it like magic?

Tip #3: Brush your dough
I like to brush the dough after it has been formed and risen twice with a whisked egg. The egg gives your bread/buns/... a golden color after baking. It's also helpful if you wanna sprinkle your dough with e.g. almonds, sugar, etc. to make the stuff stick to the glue.

Tip #4: Trust your instinct
Whatever recipe you look at, there will be huge differences in baking time. From my experience, those baking times are never exact. Maybe my oven is very different from all the others, but I have learned to trust my instincts when it comes to the baking time. Yeast bread is very forgiving if you leave it in the oven for too long. My 'golden rule' is that when the crust is golden, the bread is done.
The 'trust your instinct' motto also applies to the texture of the dough. If you're kneading the dough with your hands, it's very easy to feel whether it's too sticky (add more flour) or too dry (add more liquids).


If you cut into the bread, it's easy to see that the bread has been in the oven long enough. See that fluffy, perfect texture? Yum!

See? It's not rocket science. As long as your yeast forms bubbles and you don't let it rise in a spot that's too hot you're on the safe side. Have fun and don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

a piece of motivation

I bake when I'm stressed. And when I'm bored. Oh and also when I need an excuse to procrastinate studying. So basically I bake a lot. Most of my friends are done with their exams already and I get several texts saying 'bbq tonight?' or 'wanna go to the lake?' because the weather has been perfect lately and it seems like all my friends are either on vacation or spend every day outside doing fun stuff.
Being stuck inside to study all day can get quite depressing so I decided to bake a cake today just because I was craving a piece of homemade cake.

So I baked a cake. All for myself. Haha, kidding. I'll share, of course. We have a family barbeque planned tomorrow evening and I'm sure my study group won't mind either if I bring a couple of pieces to the library tomorrow.

This cake was a first because I never managed to get the cake out of the ring cake mould I have. It's one of those wobbly silicone moulds and the cake usually breaks into pieces when I take the mould out of the oven. I love my silicone cupcake cups but for cakes I prefer steel pans. I don't know what went wrong this time (or rather what I did wrong the last 85 times I used the mould and ended up not having to cut the cake because it was in pieces already) but I don't mind having a cake that's still in one piece after cooling off :)

sunflower seed bread

I'm the kind of person who studies at home whenever possible, because my brain only seems to function if it has a constant supply of energy. As in there's no way I can study without food and a variety of drinks on my table which kind of makes it impossible to study in the library for more than a couple hours.
So I've come up with a rewards system to keep myself motivated to study because the prospect of spending the next 10 hours at home studying isn't very motivating to me...
So it's usually revise one chapter or one past exam (usually 1 1/2 to 2 hours) and then take a 15-30min break to re-watch another episode of parks and rec, talk to my roomie or bake something :)

Baking bread is great because it forces you to take breaks; e.g. this bread takes about 10mins to prepare the yeast dough, then let it rise for ~45mins, then add the other ingredients, let rise for another hour, preheat oven, wait 15mins for the oven to preheat and put bread in the oven, bake for 50mins, done.
So bread baking isn't only a great activity to help you structure your day of studying at home, but it also gives you the feeling of having done something productive and it saves you a trip to the supermarket.

For this bread, I made a simple yeast dough (with warm water, not milk) out of one pound of flour, added some roasted sunflower seeds and two tablespoons of olive oil et voilà, you get a super fluffy and tasty sunflower seed bread.

ps: I just realized that our kitchen looks kind of easter-y because the candle holder looks kind of like an egg and my fluffy bum bunny somehow ended on our kitchen table. whoops. I might have to pick some flowers to add a little summery feeling to our kitchen!

around here

The other day I started some spring cleaning in my kitchen. I didn't take any pictures yet but my kitchen shelf is super clean and organized now. I bought some ikea food containers when we were at the h+h to store expensive yarns (I don't want any moths among my fibers...) but as I was reorganizing my baking ingredients they came in pretty handy to store nuts and cupcake decorations etc. Guess I'll have to buy some more containers for my yarn next time I'm at ikea.

During the spring cleaning I found three opened packages of walnuts. Whoops, I didn't know I have that many! Naturally I wanted to get rid off the two halfway empty bags so I decided to make walnut bread!
I didn't find any recipe that matched the ingredients I had at hand (it was about 9:30pm and I had no desire to leave my warm and cozy apartment just to get some walnut oil) so I had to improvise.
I ended up using four different kinds of (mostly whole wheat) flour (all aaaalmost empty bags!), dry yeast, water and oil, some salt and many chopped walnuts. I just mixed all the ingredients together and added olive oil until the dough felt right. I might buy walnut oil to taste the difference but the result with olive oil was pretty damn good, too!

Next time I make it I'm gonna write down the ingredients I used and put it into my 'approved recipes' book. I love baking bread and finding new recipes/combinations that work is so much fun!

Besides my bread baking adventures I don't have much to share. I'm working on a big and exciting project that is taking up much of my time and energy but it's probably gonna be a couple weeks before I can share the exciting news. Spring has finally arrived in my bedroom; the orchid I bought when it was pretty much dead started to bloom in my favorite shade of pink.

My kitty wasn't very convinced when I started exchanging my winter clothes for summer clothes. She prefers using the opportunity to sleep in my closet instead. Well I guess she's right and I can wait a little longer... if you follow me on instagram (@froggeddesigns) you might have seen that the clothes to yarn + fabrics ratio in my closet is almost 1:1. Luckily there's a lot more space in my yarn boxes now than it was last year. But I'm looking for projects to use up some of my worsted weight leftovers. Any pattern recommendations?

pre-easter breakfast

We don't have any specific plans for Easter yet, because my dad is having a hip replacement surgery the day after tomorrow. Which basically means we don't know yet whether he'll still be in hospital in Hamburg or in rehab somewhere in Northern Germany. So our Easter plans are basically nonexistent at this stage and wherever we end up being for the Easter weekend, there probably won't be an oven to make fresh buns.

So we decided to make a pre-Easter breakfast with cute bunnies, eggs and of course a braided yeast bun (it's one of the traditional German Easter foods). I made the yeast dough yesterday evening and put it in the fridge overnight. This morning I formed some bunnies and the bun and let it rise a second time while the oven preheated. I love yeast dough for obvious reasons - it smells and tastes delicious, it's super easy to make if you stick to the rules and you can prepare it the day before.

Braiding the bun is probably the most relaxing task baking has to offer. The fresh smell, the soft feel of the dough, ... I could do nothing but braid dough all day and be the happiest person on earth :)

I still have to work on my bunny faces. I only had huge raisins so the their eyes turned out way too big. Also the almond whiskers break super easily and several bunnies ended up one-eyes :( (not to mention that some look rather like bears or cats than bunnies...).

Well, I'll practice again next year :)

What do you usually bake/cook/eat for Easter? 

Favorite Baking Tools

I love baking. And I have a weakness for cute kitchen tools. You probably spotted some of the things I'm about to share in my kitchen tour post last year but I had some people ask for reviews so here we go:
my must-have baking tools

These reusable muffin cups are rad! I've had them for about half a year and I've used them at least 20 times since. They are really convenient because you don't have to worry about greasing your muffin pan or buying expensive paper liners. Nothing sticks to them and once you're done you can simply put them in the dishwasher - no hassle at all. The ones I bought are from a French company (sorry, I don't know the name) are really great because they are pretty thick so they keep their shape (my parents once had some really thin ones that didn't work well.)

Eeeeek, here are my favorites: my beloved kitchenaids. I bought the stand mixer(color: raspberry ice) last summer from my first paycheck. Probably the best investment of that year! I bought it in a bundle with the slicer/grater attachment (the one for the US market is slightly different but I'm sure it works just as well!) as well as the glass bowl. I love the additional bowl because I often need two separate bowls for one recipe and it has a lid! So whenever I make a dough that needs some alone time in the fridge I use the glass bowl.

The only additional thing I bought for the stand mixer is the flex beater. It's probably the best invention after the stand mixer itself. No more stopping to scrape the bowl and it feels like mixing ingredients is much faster and more thorough than before. Oh and the best thing? It's dishwasher safe! :)

I got the blender pretty spontaneously in Denmark. I was in a huge houseware store and there it was, the perfect green blender. My parents have the older model so I knew about how versatile and awesome it is. So the green one was a sample and it was on super sale. They had like 10 different colors and the only one on sale was the one I wanted. Perfect, right?

I didn't mind it being a sample at all because obviously it wasn't used and it looked perfect - no scratches, no flaws, not even fingerprints! So I dragged it to the checkout (that thing is heavy - I'm glad we didn't fly to Denmark otherwise I couldn't have bought it) and the cashier went to get the original packaging. Ten minutes later and she comes back - without the packaging. Apparently the store lost it. Or at least it wasn't where it was supposed to be. So I almost lost my nerves because the warranty leaflet and everything is in the packaging. And how on earth was I supposed to drag the thing back to the car that was parked about 5 miles away?!

The cashier apologized and told me to hold on a minute. Two minutes later she comes back - with another green blender in its original packaging, still sealed. And she offered it at the same price as the sample. I think I smiled for the next 10 hours straight. Dragging it back to the car was a pretty intense workout but so worth it!
I use the blender all the time. To make powdered sugar, to chop nuts, to make soups and pesto, to make smoothies and milkshakes... the possibilities are endless!

I've had about three different thrifted scales before I finally was willing to pay for a digital scale. It was really frustrating having an inaccurate scale or one that has a bowl on top, thus I couldn't put the kitchen aid bowl on it and always had to fill the ingredients I wanted to measure into three different bowls.
Not to mention that weighting yarn is useless if there's a +/- 30g accuracy.
I'm super happy with this one - you can change between oz and g which is really useful if you have a mix of American and European cookbooks like I do :)

Last but not least, measuring cups. I got the blue ones at winners (the Canadian version of Ross / TJ Maxx / ...) and the ceramic ones are from Anthropologie. I compared my teaspoons to the teaspoon measuring cup and my regular teaspoons only hold like 1/2 the amount the measuring cup does. So yeah, I always thought tsp/tbsp measuring cups were useless and I only bought them because they were only $2 and hand painted and so cute. Turns out it was a pretty food investment :)

So what are some of your kitchen must-haves? Anyone else who gets super excited about colorful kitchen tools and appliances?

ps: this is not a sponsored post and I'm not trying to advertise for any companies. I'm just sharing my experiences and opinions on products I like.

a birthday cake or two

My parents had the wise idea to get over with all our family's birthday within three months of the year. My sister is first, then two days later my mom. In April it's my birthday and four days later my brother's.   And then it's my dad's birthday in mid May. So we usually only get to celebrate three birthday parties, because my sis and my mom and my brother and I usually throw one together.
The best part? All the cake!

My grandma always bakes a cake of our choice for each birthday and I've adapted the same habit. So this is the cake I made for my mom this year:

A chocolate hazelnut cake that's kind of a family recipe. Someone's cousin's wife (?) gave it to my grandma who gave it to my mom and me. It takes longer to make than an average cake because you have to grate most of the ingredients (I'm so, so thankful for the KitchenAid shredder attachment!) but investing some time in this cake really pays off. I don't wanna know much many calories there are in one slice but it's so worth it.

I'm not very good at decorating cakes - especially compared to awesome and talented bakers like Esther. Apparently the chocolate cooled down too quickly because there were air bubbles all over the cake. Oh and covering a whole cake in melted chocolate will end up in a huge mess, no matter how careful you are ;)

My sister asked for a cherry cheesecake. I didn't get to take any better pictures because it was gone so fast...

Baking Days // blood orange muffins

I have a confession to make: I'm a stress-eater. Whenever I feel overwhelmed I check the kitchen for anything edible. My favorite kind of stress-relievers? Homemade food. Since baking is kind of my thing I usually make a quick cake or oatmeal cookies. Just half an hour in the kitchen works wonders. So yesterday I made couple of quick blood orange muffins.

Fun fact: it was the first time buying/touching/eating a blood orange. Crazy, right? I've had blood orange juice once or twice but I don't remember it to be special; but these oranges? Oh my, I think I'm addicted! Each and every one looks different on the inside. And they're awesome for food photography purposes. I always love trying new fruits and vegetables :)

The recipe I used (from here) is very easy and quick; you just need two mixing bowls and a couple of ingredients - no fancy kitchen appliances!

These colors... yumm!

Simply mix all the dry ingredients together; in a separate bowl, mix the liquids together and combine everything. Mix with a spoon...

... pour the batter into muffin cups...

... and enjoy :)

So what kind of stress relievers work for you?