Friday 28 February 2014

Cheese cake



Last week was my friend Nithra's birthday. Unlike me she doesn't have a sweet tooth though, so I was thinking cheese cake, literally. Stack a variety of cheese: goats cheese, Brie, flavoured cream cheese, blue cheese and hard cheese. Dress it all with fruit and nuts et voilà: ready is the non-bake savoury cheese cake. Just add some wine and Bon appétit!

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Filo pastry roses



Happy new year to you all! I hope you had a great start in the new year and Hello to 2014! We finally have a kitchen as we have finished our extension and all building work is done so we are off to a good start. Hooray! We had to make do with a make shift kitchen in a section of the living room consisting of a camping cooker and the fridge freezer during the first stage of work. It was like camping with the plastic crockery, foldable chairs and one-pot-wonder-foods. well, minus the insect bites and the open fire (though we were close to using the fireplace to cook in...). We are quite keen campers so no hardship there but it was restrictive and baking certainly wasn't an option. So now having a kitchen again is such a luxury. I am still getting to grips with my new oven though. It doesn't seem to bake as evenly as I had hoped but I am glad to have an electric one again and bye bye to the gas oven. Hopefully no more burnt baking paper and chargrilled cakes.
I remember my grandma used to say that you will have a close relationship with your oven as a baker and now I know what she means. I am still figuring out which settings are best for what type of dish and if I can go with the recommended temperature in a recipe or if i should over or under compensate. So here is one of the first batches we made. Filo pastry with a nutty filling twisted to little roses and baked like a cake which you can serve individually.


FILO PASTRY ROSES

Filo pastry
butter
ground hazelnuts
honey
icing sugar
chopped pistachios

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Melt the butter and brush some over one sheet of filo, then cover with a second sheet. Brush with a some more melted butter. Dust with icing sugar and ground hazelnuts. Squeeze some honey on top and fold over twice by a third, then roll up and twist to shape the roses. Repeat until all filo sheets have been used up. Place all roses next to one another in a round cake tin. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden and done. Finally dust with icing sugar and serve.

Sunday 2 February 2014

February





Ice cold days and citrus sunshine.