Wild Blackberry Cobbler

I got a ton of blackberries form my coworker the other day.  I was looking for ideas what to make with them.  I don't often make deserts so I was looking for something easy.  Cobbler!  It is the easiest desert to make and it is delicious.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups blackberries
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup milk

Wash the blackberries and drain.

Mix the dry ingredients together.  Use only 1 cup of sugar for this and leave the 1/4 cup for later.

Melt the buter in the microwave and stir in.  Stir in the milk as well.

Grease the pan (you can use the leftover butter on the wrapper for this), and pour in the mix.  

Sprinkle blackberries on top, evenly. 

Poor the remaining sugar on top.

Preheat the oven to 350F and bake for one hour.

This delicions desert is goot hot or cold and if you eat it hot, you may also add some ice cream on top.

Banana Bread

Banana bread is easy and quick to make, and it makes a great breakfast or a snack. I could really go for some banana bread now, I wish I had some left.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup crushed walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Mix all the ingredients together and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Test with a toothpick to see if the loaf is done. If the dough sticks to the toothpick, let it cook a while longer.

Sacher Cake (Serbian= Zaher Torta, Захер Торта)

Zaher cake is easy to make and it is beyond delicious! That's about all I have to say about it. It is my most favorite cake.


Ingredients:

10 eggs
10 tbsp sugar
250g ground walnuts
250g butter, melted
200g bitter sweet chocolate
1.5 tbsp flour
250g apricot jam

Glaze:
100g bitter sweet chocolate
125g butter
3 tbsp sugar
5-6 tbsp milk


Separate egg whites and egg yolks.


Beat 10 egg whites until they form a hard foam.


Once the white foam is hard, add sugar and egg yolks.


Mix all together.


Fold in the walnuts.


Mix in the flour.


On the stove, melt the butter and chocolate.


Allow this mixture to cool a bit. Then add it to the egg, sugar and walnut mix.


Transfer into the 9" springform. Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes.


Spread apricot jam over the top.



Then spread melted chocolate/ butter mix. Cover the sides as well. Try to make a nice uniform layer.


Refrigerate for the glaze to solidify before serving.



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Strudel with Jam and Walnuts

Ingredients:

Yeast preparation:
2 tbst bread flour
2 tbst sugar
2 tsp active dry yeast
200ml lukewarm milk

Dough:
500g bread flour
1 egg
zest from 1 lemon (grated)
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks of butter, softened

Glaze:
1 egg yolk

Fill:
1 jar jam (17oz/480g)
150g ground walnuts

Warm the milk to be about the temperature of your finger. Mix flour, sugar and dry yeast. Then add milk into it and mix. Allow it to rise (should take about 15 minutes).

Add all dough ingredients and the yeast mix into the mixer. Mix until the dough is uniform.

Transfer the dough onto a clean surface where you previously sprinkled a little bit of flour. Divide the dough into 4 parts.

Stretch the each part of the dough with a rolling pin to about 1/2 cm thickness. Then spread the jam and sprinkle ground walnuts. You can use any jam you like. We had raspberry jam and it worked very well.


Roll it.


Transfer the rolls into a pregreased pan. You can grease the pan with butter, margarine or just oil. Once the rolls are in the pan, apply the glaze.


Bake at 400F until golden brown. This can take 20-30 minutes depending on your oven.


Allow it to cool down, then cut into slices and serve.



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Chocolate Covered Strawberries

I was driving through Gilroy today, and thought I'd stop at one of the street vendors and buy some fresh strawberries. So, I bought a box full of them. They were not only good tasting, but also looked so pretty, I wanted to put them on my blog. So, here is an easy recipe for a good desert.


Ingredients:
semi sweet chocolate chips
strawberries

Wash your strawberries and dry them with a paper towel.

Melt some chocolate in a pan on the stove top, or microwave. Be careful not to burn the chocolate. Use low heat. It is best if you can melt chocolate over boiling water (ex. double boiler), just to make sure you don't overheat it.

Look at these strawberries! They are huge!

When the chocolate is melted, dip strawberries in, and place them onto a tray.

Leave them in the refrigerator for 23-30 minutes before serving in order to solidify the chocolate.

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A double boiler is a great tool to have. It is great for cooking things that cannot stand high temperatures, such as melting chocolate, boiling milk, making fondue, even cooking foods high in vitamins. Double boiler consists of two parts- bottom part is filled with water and heated on the stove top, and top part contains the food item you need to heat (ex. chocolate). Since water will boil at 100C (212F), the top portion of the pan will not experience any temperatures higher than that. This will ensure that your chocolate does not burn, which is easy to do.

Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

I was thinking what to do with all the oranges from my tree.  You will be seeing a lot of recipes with oranges this summer, since I have a lot of oranges to use.  

These chocolate chip orange muffins are just great.  They are very moist and spongy.  Needless to say, I impressed myself again. 

Ingredients:

2 eggs, beaten

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
grated zest of 3 Oranges
200g  dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cups squeezed orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

Pan spray or oil

Glaze:

2 tbsp sugar

1/4 cups squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Beat the eggs first, then combine and mix all the ingredients together, except chocolate chip. When the dough in uniform add chocolate chips.  Do not over-mix.

Grease the muffin pan with Pan or oil.  Divide the dough evenly to fill the pan.  

Bake the muffins at 400F for about 20 minutes.  Test with the toothpick if they are done.  Then poke some holes in each muffin and add glaze over them.

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Strawberry Cake by Svetlana R.

Ingredients:

DOUGH:
5 eggs
7 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp flour

CREAM:
250ml milk
a packet vanilla pudding (4.3g/ 1.5oz)
5 eggs
7 tbsp sugar
200g butter
250 powder sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 package strawberries

DOUGH:

Prepare your baking dish. Place parchment paper on the bottom. Preheat the oven to 390F.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Please the egg whites into a mixing dish and egg yolks into a cup.

Use a mixer to mix the egg whites until a you get a stiff foam.

Then add sugar, one spoonful at the time.

Note: when mixing an egg white, it is important to follow these 3 rules:

1. the mixing dish has to be completely dry

2. do not add sugar prior to forming a thick stiff white foam

3. add sugar in slowly, one spoonful at the time

At this point, add egg yolks, one by one, while mixing continuously. Then lower the mixing speed to the lowest setting and add flour, again one spoonful at the time.

Transfer the dough into the baking dish and bake at 390F until it gets color. This is quick, however you should not open the oven during the baking, or the dough will go flat.

When the dough is done baking, take it out of the pan onto a clean kitchen cloth.

Remove the parchment paper.

Immediately roll in a cloth, and allow it to cool rolled like that.

When it is cooled, unroll it, spread your favorite jam and roll it back (this time roll without the cloth).

CREAM:

You will need to prepare 3 different portions that will form cake cream at the end.

First portion: take 250ml milk and cook it. Add vanilla pudding in it and cook according to the instruction. Do not add more milk, even though it says so on the packet, otherwise your cream will turn out too runny. Leave the pudding aside to cool, but do stir it every once in a while so that it doesn't form skin on top.



Second portion: mix 5 egg yolks and 7 tbsp sugar. Cook it above steam (you can do this by filling a pot with water and then cooking egg yolks and sugar in a smaller pot above it).


Cook until the egg yolks thicken to the point where a wooden spoon you are using for stirring leaves thick streaks on the bottom of the pan. This happens fairly quickly. When this is done, set aside to cool.



Third portion: mix 200g softened butter with 250g powder sugar and 2 tsp vanilla extract. Do not heat butter to soften it, its best to leave it at room temperature a couple of hours before use.

Now take the first mix (pudding), and add second mix (yellow cream), while using a mixer at lowest setting. Then slowly add third mix (butter) in the same way.

It is important that all ingredients are cold, and that they are added in the proper order.

Note: When mixing the cream, make sure you spend enough time and all 3 mixes are smooth and uniform texture.

Cut the roll into sections and arrange them next to each other on a tray.


Add 1/2 of the cream you just made over it.



Then fresh strawberry slices.


Then another layer of cream (use the rest of it) and more strawberries on top.


Cover everything with whipped cream. You can decorate with strawberries if you have any left.

Allow it to cool in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.