(belated) TDW: Mrs. Vogel's Scherben

When I read what we should bake for this week I was excited and more than happy to see that. When I first flipped through Dorie's book I was immediately caught by this recipe. Well, not so much by the recipe as such, but by the name. And also by the picture!

(I borrowed a picture from Stephanie from "A whisk and a spoon" because I coldln't find the original picture from the book in a reasonable time. Hope it's ok!! Stephanie's Scherben look really absolutely perfect, far away from mine, but I wanted to let everybody see why I was so attracted by the looks of the Scherben!)

What I didn't realize was, that Mrs. Vogel's Scherben include frying. I have no fryer and never fried anything before. So I was prepared to skip this one. Honestly, I was just to milquetoasty. (A big sorry goes to Tianna of Spork or Foon?, who chose the recipe - yes, I am also one of the fraidy-cats. But  and I can absolutely understand why she opted for them. Honestely, I had similar considerations despite the fact that counting the recipes left and TWD-participants, it will never be my turn...)
But than Caitlin of Law of the Kitchen came up with the idea of baking the Scherben instead of frying them, and that's just what I did!

The dough is really easy, so easy that it did not even take me more than 10 minutes. If you knew me, you would know that's really, really fast!
I was concerned of the amount of dough. As you can see here, my dough-ball seemed to very small. (see left how small it was. And no, that's not an enourmus gigantic Starbucks-like pot, just an ordinary herb-tea pot)

But the recipe calls for rolling out the dough very thin, so I guess the amount was just right.

As (almost) always, I used spelt-flour and I never had problems with it. (At least I do not think that for my "difficulties"  a.k.a. clumsiness the spelt can be blamed for)


For baking I brushed half of the Scherben with olive oil and the other half with walnut oil. Both are fine, but the pieces with walnut oil taste much better! I thought the slight walnut taste would do no harm, as in the end the Scherben are dusted in cinnamon-sugar, so walnut seemed to me as a good taste-match. And it was.

My first baking sheet was slightly too long in the oven, but the second turned out fine. They just didn't get many of the bubbles dough gets when fried. But that didn't really catch me by surprise... :o]

Tomorrow will be the litmus test, when I bring them to the office, where more or less all my baking-experiments end up. I hope they will survive the night...

Just one last word to the name of the "cookies". Some of my fellow bakers discussed the word "Scherben". I was surprised of the name, but obviously this kind of fried dough (something not very usual in my country; obviously it seems to be an ordinary sweet at fairies and things like that in the US) is regularily called Scherben in Germany. In the book, Dorie tells the story of the Scherben, and it seems like Mrs. Vogel, who "invented" the recipe, used to call them Schneball. Schneball is something I know from the years I was living in Germany.

Unfortunately, I remember them as looking pretty good, and tasting awfully boring, even when they were dusted in cinnamon and sugar or coated with chocolate.

(pictures taken from wikimedia and http://philipp1112.wordpress.com)

After two bites you have enough, because there is nothing interesting more to discover. But in fact, the Scherben do not look like a "snowball" (what is the translation for Schneeball) at all, it seems that just the dough and preparation sis the same. They also do not look like "Scherben", but never mind. In this (compared to the Schnebälle) homeopathic dosis, this sweet is not too bad.

You already guess it - I am not too excited about them. But let'swait for the judgement by the crowd omorrow!

Update: When I had a look at the plate I placed in the common room after coffe-break time I thought: "Well, now it happened. I spoiled them. Simple fried baked dough with cinnamon and sugar is nothing to write home about anymore. One year, even three months ago, my colleagues would have been impressed what I was able to create. But now? They are used to oppulent three-layer cakes, colourful tartes and sophisticated cheesckaes. I spoiled them with too much chocolate, butter and eggs. They don't know the value of the simple things anymore."

You guess it - they left on the plate a lot of the Scherben.

But, today, late in the afternoon, I wanted to go for the rest of the Scherben for a colleague who needed urgently some solace (and what can bring more solance than sweets). But they were all gone!

I don't know what happened. Maybe the Scherben did (contrary to what the recipe says) improve over night (what I doubt, because despite the one or the other gramm of butter or sugar that could possibly be left out, Dorie is always right with her recipes, recommendations and tips and tricks). Maybe yesterday nobody had time for a coffee break (I do mostly not participate because it is an old institution for some of my colleagues who work in my department for several years, and they have their coffee at 1.30 pm, what is way too early for the afternoon break for me!). Maybe they were frantically looking for a treat, and the Scherben were all they found. Maybe my colleagues discovered their humble side over night.

What ever might have been the real reason. By 4 pm the Scherben were all gone, so I guess they were not too bad!

TWD: Tarte Tatin - Happy Birthday, TWD!

Before I present you my result of theTarte Tatinwhich we all did choose together for TWDs 2nd birthday, I would like to thank the founder (Laurie of Quirky Cupcake) of and all the people supporting TWD for having the nice idea to bake together trough Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours, to run the homepage, and to put so much effort into it!
Thanks a lot, and lets head forward to a new year of exiting baking adventures!

For the second birthday, Laurie asked everybody to vote for a recipe, and in the end the match was made by Tarte Tatin (which I heavily opted for myself) and the Coconut-Buttermilk Birthday Cake. Coconut is fine, buttermilk is fine, Birthday cakes are fine - but creamy cakes are not my favourite. And I brought a Tarte Tatin pan back from my last trip to Paris, so I was happy to use it!
Furthermore, Tarte Tatin did appear to me as the perfect choice. Because Dorie Greenspan lives (at least part of her life) in Paris and this tarte is for me one of the most typical french sweets, and her recipes are sometimes very classic/classy, as is this tarte, too.

To spoil the end: I didn't arrive to make a Tarte Tatin. I won't say I made a bad cake (does something like a "bad" cake exist?), but whatever it turned out, it didn't turn out to be a Tatin.
Tant pis.

My Tarte Tatin Pan                                                                                 before baking

and after baking

 I took too many apples, made too high layers, didn't turn the dough deep enough into the pan.

So, what I made is a, uhm, strange kind of an apple tarte. Not too bad, anyways, as caramel sauce and cooked apples are never too bad. But I will have to retry it.

TWD: Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake

This week my first cheescake ever was on the schedule. Well, not the first cheesecake I ever ate, but the first I ever made. (But as I began baking muffins and easy christmas cookies about one year ago, and serious cakes only two month agos, almost every cake and tarte-type is new to me)
Again, as almost every other week, I had some problems with the ingredients, as creamcheese doesn't exist here. After some research I decided to take a bit less than half the needed amount of Philadelphia and complete the rest with with "Topfen" (or "Quark", as it is called in Germany). I guess it did work out s it should, so I will stick to this mixture in the future, if more cheesecakes should ever be on the plan.

This weeks recipe, the Low and Luscious Chocolate Cheesecake, was chosen by the Tea Lady of Tea and Scones. You may find the recipe there or, even better, on page 243 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours.

Preparations - bringing the liquid in the oven,   

and bringing it out of the oven 

 



Inside the test cake                                                                                  And ready!!

I guess I am not too big a fan of cheesecakes. They are ok, but I don't want to take a bath in it. And I am neither a big fan of very creamy tortes, so, the combination of chocolate and cheesecake didn't craze me.
Nevertheless, I really liked the "dough", made of "graham crackers" (again, yes, you guessed it, a problem of ingredients. I took thick round wholewheat crackers that did look like they could do the job of graham crackers.
Despite the little problem that I have no idea what graham crackers could look like. But, again after some research and reading the descirption, I guess my dough was not too far away from what it was meant to be).

So, I don't think that I will do a lot of chocolate cheesecakes again, even though I have to admit that doing it was really as easy as promised and my colleagues where much more exited about it than I.
But I will for sure use the "dough" again!

TWD rewind: Marshmallows

This is a long-term rewind!
I did remember having seen Marshmallows on the "Completed Recipes"-list. In fact, it was scheduled for the week of 15.4.
2008!
It was chosen by Judy from Judy's Gross Eats.

As I am not American, Marshmallows are not part of my (culinary) cultural heritage. The thing most similar to it is "Mäusespeck" (mice ham, in english), this pink and white fluffy something. Children usually like it, and so did I, but I lost sight of them when I grew up. My godchild also liked them a lot when he was younger. But nobody would roast them, put them in hot chocolat or use it for icecream in my latitude.

And for sure I never ever thought it would be possible to to them at home. I thought of Marshmallows as something extremely artificial, synthetic. Something produced in large ugly companies by completeing lots of unhealthy chemistry.

You can imagine my astonishment when I found the recipe in Dorie's book?
Meanwhile I found another one in David Lebovitz' wonderful icecream-book, the Perfect Sccop.

As I had eggwhites left over and one the friends always complains when I bring some examples of my baking adventures for tasting ("I don't like cookies. I don't like chocolate. I hate cakes! You never have something for ME!" - Uhm, pretty hard to do, as she only likes gummy bears and, yes, marshmallows).
So - I made them.
And it was real fun to do!!

When they where "solide" (as solid as marsmallows can and should be) I made rectangles of them, but I also used some biscuit cutters and made a few  pigs and lambs and Eiffel towers.

I loved doing it! It's a bit a mess, but I can imagine that doin it with children is a lot of fun!

TWD: My favourite pecan pie

This weeks recipe was chosen by Beth from Someone's in the kitchen with Brina.

She opted for a pecan pie ("My favourite Pecan Pie", p. 327 in Baking: From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan). In the last weeks I found out that I love pies but I have some trouble getting them right. The dough never does what it should, even if it is a simple, easy dough. For me, something like an easy pie/tarte dough doesn't exist, obviously...
Anyways, I love nuts, so I was looking forward to baking this pie very much!!

As so often, I had difficulties with the ingredients: Corn syrup doesn't exist in Austria (but I found out that it can be exchanged for simple sugar water; I started to use sugar water wiht a bit of agave syrup), and pecans can be bought, but they are very expensive. Therefore, I took ordinary walnuts instead, as they are very similar. Hope it doens't make a difference...

 

So, I prebaked the crust on Sunday and assembled the pie late Monday in the evening. 

Tomorrow (or today for those who are on the strict side...), we have a Christmas lunch for the "youngsters" at the office and I promised to bring pies. I will take the chocolate cheese cake which is scheduled for next week (I know - that's not strictly to the rules, but I will have no time next week and nobody to eat it, so I had to bake it already this week), and two little pecan (walnut) pies. I took half the ingredients and made two small pies.
I have no idea what they taste like. But I stole some chocolate-nuts from the top (some that were  a bit too burned) and they tasted pretty good!

So, cross your fingers for my two pies tomorrow!

TWD rewind: Sablés

I missed the Sablés for TWD last wek due to travelling, and meeting friends, and making holiday, and sleeping long, and... just lazying araund!
But I LOVE Sablés and so I couldn't wait to catch up!
The recipe was chosen by Barbara of Bungalow Barbara, so there you may find it, and also some pretty good looking pictures and variations.

Preparations: roll the log in sugar (and coconut, not pictured), sliding them into the oven, bake with 175°C.

Letting cool them for a while

And already ready. That's it!
 
Increadible.

(The brown edges are the coconut on the second batch)

Ok, I still have to work on the looks, I know, I know. But for today - who cares! I - CAN DO - MY OWN - SHORTBREAD!!!

I never have to go to the store and buy expansive imported stuff anymore!

But wait, that also means that there is no more reason to stay away from shortbread because I would have to go to the store to buy them and there is also no price-barriere any more I could decide not to overcome...
At least, I guess the three-or-more-hours-chill can keep me away from baking (and eating!) them all the time!

Next time, I would use a bit less butter, because they ran a bit out of shape at the bottom while baking and they taste very buttery, so I guess a bit less butter-taste would do no harm. I will use normal and not cane sugar, although I like the slightly brown colour, but it makes the Sablés a bit grainy.
And I will try the savory variations soon!

TWD: Cafe Volcano Cookies

As I was travelling the whole last week I had to skip the Sablés for  TWD. But I am definitely going to catch-up soon, because I love, love, love Sablés! So, even if I didn't make them (yet) thanks in advance to Bungalow Barbara who had the nice idea to choose them! It's not only that I like the taste of Sablés, but it is so easy to play around and try some variations. I have not decided yet, but I somehow often go for the classics, so maybe I will choose the basic type. But as December is not necessarily green and red for me, I will definitely not use coloured sugar!

So - so much for last week. I just finished to unpack my rucksack, it's 0:01 AM, , therefore it is Tuesday - so why not blog straight away...

This week, Cafe Volcano Cookies, chosen by MacDuff of The lonely Sidecar, where pending on the queue!

Preparations

I am pretty sure that what I got out of the oven is not what it should be. Anyways, they tasted wonderful. Very sweet, even though I took a bit less sugar, but still wonderful.

And I can't wait to see all the other's pictures and find out, what they really should turn out! : o]
(What a pitty my time zones forces me to post earlier than most of the others...)

As I bake now with TWD for some weeks I really have to say that all the recipes I tried so far turned out more than fine. And I guess, the same is true for the other recipes. When I arrive to bake wonderfully looking tartes and cookies, tasting incredibly good, a great deal of the credits go to Dorie and her book.
It's no miracle to make good sweets when you can rely on a good recipe!

TWD: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte, revisited

Oh boy, it's still Tuesday, even here in middle-Europe, and I got to give a confirmation of operation!

I made a new dough in the evening. A friend passed by and patiently waited until I did fit the dough in the tarte shell. While it was baking I wanted to present him the remaining failed dough shell.
And - miracles happen - after two days on the sill between the outer and the inner window, the tarte shell was perfect!! So I spread the remaining pastry cream on it, placed the pears and caramelized pistachios on it - and it was perfect!
My friend and I just LOVED it! It did not only taste so wonderful, it also looked great!

 Before baking                                                                                                 The tarte formerly known as Failed

Now, lets hope that the two mini-tartes I baked today for my nice colleague are still well tomorrow. I placed them in the fridge, although the recipe calls for eating them in between 4 hours. But I had to cheat a bit - because I made an easier, safer dough today I had to bake the tarte with the cream and the pears already on it. So, it looks a bit  different than it maybe should, and they have to wait until tomorrow to be eaten. I cross my fingers that in the fridge they won't get too soggy.

TWD: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte

So, first I got to say that this Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte chosen by Lauren of I'll eat you is tasty, tasty, tasty. Just what I like. A tarte dough tasting a bit like shortbread (which is similarly crumbly), poached pears, a colorful and at the same time perfectly taste-matching topping by caramelized pistachios. The pear-pistachio combination is not only an eye-catcher, but also a wonderful combination of tastes.
And now the bad part.

First, again I had to learn the hard way to stick to the recipe. When it calls for poaching the whole pears, don't cut them in slices, only because you think that's easier to handle. The result will be, that the whole fruit is deep red. What is ok, but I sliced only one pear and halfed the other one - and there I saw how it was ment to look like, and what the text mentioned as "you will see how wonderful it looks with the deep red outside and the rosé inside of the pears".

Secondly, I really had troubles with the dough. I could not imagine that it should be that crumbly and not sticking together to one piece. So I filled way too much dough in my little molds. When I baked it, it came up. I tried to give it an emergency relief and put a whole lot of beans on them, and it was a bit better afterwards. But in the end, I do not think that's what it should look like.


It was the first time I made a dough that deviated a bit from the completely easy tarte dough I usually make, and what came out was a slight desaster. And the dough was really not a tough cookie. So I am a bit frustrated.
The dough was too high and thick, there was not enough room to really fill in the cream (I more or less spread some of it as good as possible), and, what was the worst part - it was too hard to cut.

As I said in the beginning, nevertheless I really liked it. It did look ugly when I started to eat it because I more or less had to spoon it out the mold. But it was more than tasty. So I really have to try it again, some other day. When I find enough courage.

I am not going to bring the other second little tarte to the office tomorrow. What is a pitty, because I made it for one of my nicest colleagues, who didn't arrive to get anything I made in the last weeks. And who has to listen to everybody else in the department, still weeks afterwards speaking about the cakes and crumbles and cookies I made (I guess they are, just like me, still surprised that I should be able to bake - that's not the usual image of me...). I have to think about something else to compensate her. And about what to do with the tarte shell, the poached pears and the pistacchio cream...

TWD: All-in-one Holiday Bundt Cake

I am still a cameo-participant of TWD, but never mind, I go on baking and trying to improve my cake-abilities and maybe someday I will do it on the blog-roll :o]!

This week, the fourth of the November recipes was on the schedule, the All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake from pages 186 and 187, chosen by  Britin of The Nitty Britty.

I had some trouble with the ingredients:
I have never ever seen canned pumpkin purree in my whole life, but some other bakers were so kind to help me out and affirm my decision to take self-made purree. I wasn't sure about the consistence of canned purree, but the self-made version turned out to be fine. I just put the pumpkin in the oven instead of cooking it in a pan, as I would usually do, so it didn't get too moisty.
Then, it is really not that easy to get pecans. DM doesn't have them, the usual supermarkets for sure definitely don't have them. But even at the Naschmarkt I didn't find them, what really came as a surprise as usually there is nothing you can't get there. (Maybe I didn't look thoroughly enough?). At my almost last hope, a high-end bio"grocery", they usually sell it - but they ran out of stock. Finally, I found it in a little shop specialized on sweets and decorations for bakers. It the very last minute.
And then again the cranberries. Cranberries are just not very usual in these latitudes. But I found dried ones, and this time not-sugared ones.
I skipped the optional maple-icing, as maple-syrup is again not very usual (though not that hard to get, but still very expensive).

So I had everything together, but I hope I won't have to do such a schlepp through the city every week!
(I won't, at least in December - I already had a look at the upcoming recipes for next month, and I got to say - wow, I am really already looking forward to December!!)

So, here is how it turned out:
As always I made a "real" one, and some little ones for trial and error and tasting. I halfed the recipe but still got a "children-bundt cake" and some made in a mold for brioche out of it.

Here the big one, straigth out of the oven (will it come out of the mold? Will it break? Will it stick to the pan? Panic!)

No, everything went fine!

And here the inside-look and one of the little ones (some I topped with dark cranberry-chocolate. It was ok, but the chocolate would not have been necessary - made me learn to stick to the recipe...)







I know, I know, I still have to  work on the presentation and the looks of my cakes and tartes, but for the moment I am sososo, well, what to say...  proud is not the rigth word, maybe more: astonished, that it is really me who makes these delicious cakes, that I am satisfied with that.

If you want to see what it looks like if really excellent bakers do it, just have a look at some of the other bakers result! Some Most are really just amazing!!