The best mistakes...

Every once in a while I will try my hand at something I have never done before. Or I return to something I haven't made in a long time. That this doesn't always work out right was proven to me over Christmas. To be honest, I wasn't going to write this post; I would like you to believe that I do not make mistakes, that I am the perfect kitchen goddess. But, I can't. Because I do mess up from time to time.

It was decided that I was going to make truffles. Chocolate truffles that is. Because it's Christmas. And because we had a surplus of chocolate. Now, I have made plenty of dark-chocolate truffles in my time; at least 20 years ago. It's a lot of hassle and usually the chocolate goes before I even have the chance of saying "Let's make truffles". We only had a little dark chocolate but we had plenty of white chocolate. And so, white-chocolate truffles it was going to be. With apricots and walnuts and marbled with dark chocolate. They were fantastic. Or, at least, they would have been if I had remembered how to make truffles...

I didn't... I forgot that the easiest way is to heat cream and let the chocolate slowly dissolve into it... And I had forgotten that white chocolate has such a high fat content that when you melt the chocolate and add in the cold cream it splits. No matter how much you stir, it splits!

What I was left with was a bowl of a semi-set, glue-y, sticky mess (lumpy because of the walnuts and pieces of dried apricot) in the middle of a pool of oil. Now, if warm eggs split you can bring them back together again by whisking in a tablespoon of ice-cold water. I knew that this wouldn't work with chocolate but I hoped that vigorous whisking with an electric hand whisk would do the job. It didn't. It was fast turning into a day of 'it didn'ts'. Leaving me feeling rather miserable. And then I remembered; heat cream, equivalent to half the content of chocolate, and - once warm - stir in the chocolate until fully incorporated. It worked... And the truffles were beautiful. Or, they would have been if I hadn't incorporated all the oil in as well.

I did... I forgot that it was the fat that had caused it to split in the first place. I didn't remember to just incorporate the solids... Although it didn't split again, I was now left with something the consistency of icing (runny-ish icing, to say the least)... My husband had a brainwave: "Stick it in the fridge and see if it will set solid". I did. It didn't... I was left with... well... with this:

It tastes great. Scratch that, it taste sublime. But it isn't set into something I can turn into truffles. It is sticky, lumpy (still the walnuts and apricots), and the consistency of your favourite brand of hazelnut-chocolate paste.

Forget everything I have just said. I am a true kitchen goddess. There is no need to cry over spilled milk, broken cake or a recipe that has gone wrong. Taste is what matters.
Are you tired of spending a mass of money on chocolate spread? Would you like to know exactly what you give yourself and your children to eat? Are you worn down by all the additives in commercially bought hazelnut spreads? Fear not, you can easily make your own and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Better yet, rather than being stuck with milk chocolate paste and hazelnuts: by making your own, you decide what flavour to use. Everything is possible: white chocolate with walnuts, milk chocolate with Brazil nuts, dark chocolate with almonds, three-chocolate swirl. If you can think of it, you can make it.

Perfect Chocolate Spread

Ingredients:

• 400 gram of your favourite chocolate (milk, white, dark: with or without added flavours) (it can be as expensive, or as cheap, as you like)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 284 millilitre double cream (1 tub)
• nuts and/or dried fruit of your choice

Method:

1. Take a pan and fill it half with cold water and place on the stove, bringing the water to the boil
2. Place a heatproof bowl on top of the pan
• Make sure that the bowl does not touch the water but that it seals off the pan completely - you want the water to stay in the pan and no steam escaping
3. Break the chocolate into the bowl and add the cream
4. Let the chocolate melt as the cream and the bowl warm up
5. In the mean time, chop the nuts and/or dried fruit as coarsely (or finely) as you like
6. Stir the nuts/fruit (and the vanilla extract, if using) into the chocolate
7. Leave the chocolate to cool
• If the mixture is setting too solid, mix in some extra cream once cold

Flavour combinations that will work well:

• white chocolate:
• tart fruit such as apricots, raspberries, cranberries and sour cherries (all dried)
• to keep the chocolate as white as possible, try not to break the fruit as much as possible by stirring it in gently just before you leave it to cool
• ground cardamom
• any kind of nut
• milk chocolate:
• banana, coconut, raisins and tart fruits as above (all dried) (blitz the dried banana to a powder so that you don't break your teeth on it)
• any kind of nut
• for a more adult version: replace up to half of the cream with Baileys or rum
• dark chocolate
• strong flavours such as orange and ginger (both candied) but also sour cherries
• any kind of nut
• spices such as cinnamon or ground ginger
• for a more adult version: replace up to half of the cream with Cointreau, Tia Maria, rum or brandy

Try not to get too many air bubbles into your chocolate as this will decrease the amount of time you can keep it. Leave the chocolate in the bowl or scoop into sterilised jars.

You can use the chocolate spread on sandwiches or you can loosen the paste a little with some cream and use as fillings or icing on cakes and biscuits.

That leaves me just with:

Enjoy!

It just won't be complete without it

Those of you who know me, know that I love bread. Fresh white, still warm from the oven, with loads of real butter; crusty brown with cheese; stale, so that I can use it for bread-and-butter pudding; white or brown, toasted, with marmalade; eggs and soldiers. There is something comforting, homely and wholesome about bread. More so than anything else, in my (not so) humble opinion.

Breakfast, and dinner, just wouldn't be complete without it.

Throughout Europe, you can find festive loafs for all kinds of occasions. Pretzels (Germany) were traditionally eaten at New Year; the dough would contain lemon peel, cut into three even pieces and braided and then shaped into a pretzel shape and baked (no salt on top). Braid (Switzerland), traditionally eaten at breakfast on festive days; cut into two even pieces for a 4-part braid. Easter Bread (Finland), as the name suggests, eaten at Easter; the dough is made with condensed milk and contains dried fruit, citrus peel,

cardamom and almonds and is baked in an enamelled pan. Vasilopita (Greece), traditionally eaten on the first day of the year to celebrate St Basilius; a golden or silver coin is baked inside the dough (whoever finds it will have a year of good fortune). All Souls 'Braid' (Bavarian), eaten on All Hallow's Eve; the dough is cut into thirty-six pieces and shaped into a complex braid before being baked.

This is just a very, very, very small selection and if I were to look at the various 'plain' breads I could fill three posts with just the variations of breads within Germany, where every region has its own breads.

In Germany and the 'low countries' it is traditional to eat Stollen at Christmas and Easter. The bread is chock-full of dried fruits, candied peel, almond paste and wears a pretty coat of icing sugar and slightly browned almond slivers. (As breads go, you could go worse.)

The tradition of eating Stollen at Christmas dates back to the 1400s; it was created for the first time in 1427 at the Saxon Royal Court in Dresden and was made with flour, yeast, oil and water, the result was a 'bread' that was very hard and rather tasteless. In those days the Advent season was one of fasting and bakers were not allowed to use butter. That changed in 1490,

when Pope Innocent VIII allowed the Prince Elector Ernst, his family and household to use butter. If other people wanted to use butter, they could do so but had to pay an annual fee (this fee was used to build the Freiberg Minster. When Saxony became Protestant the ban on butter was lifted. Over the years the hard, tasteless 'bread' evolved into a lighter, sweeter cake with richer ingredients such as almond paste and dried fruits. But the traditional Stollen that is still baked in Dresden is not as light, airy and sweet as copies that are now made the world over.

It is best to bake the bread a couple of days in advance as the flavours will mature a bit and the bread will get slightly denser. Good (finger thick) slices, served with real butter and a slice of good cheese (optional). Grilling or toasting the bread works a treat as the sugar in the almond paste will start to caramelise.

And so, as promised in my blog on 27 October: Tradition, here is the recipe for this tasty bread.

Christmas Stollen

Ingredients:

• 4 teaspoons dried yeast (20 gram) (you can use fresh yeast, you will need about 50 gram)
• 350 millilitre warm milk (45ºC)
• 2 large eggs
• 150 gram icing sugar
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 150 gram unsalted butter, softened
• 700 gram bread flour
• 150 gram sultanas
• 150 gram glacé cherries (quartered)
• 150 gram raisins
• 200 gram mixed candied citrus peel, chopped small
• 400 gram almond paste

Decoration

• icing sugar to dust
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon, mixed in with the icing sugar (optional)
• toasted almond slivers for garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Add the yeast to the warm milk and leave until it becomes 'creamy', about 10 minutes (if you are using fresh yeast, crumble the yeast into the milk and leave until dissolved)
2. In a separate bowl, mix the dried fruit, candied peel (recipe here) and glacé cherries
3. In a large bowl, mix the yeast mixture with the eggs, icing sugar, salt, butter and three quarters of the flour and mix thoroughly
4. In small quantities, start adding the rest of the flour and knead this into the dough
5. As soon as the dough comes together into a ball and is releasing from the sides of the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly flour work surface and knead in the mixed dried fruits
• Keep kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes
6. Oil a large bowl, put the dough in the bowl and turn it around a couple of times to cover it in the oil, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and leave the dough to prove, in a warm and draft-free space, until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour
   
• Grease a baking sheet, ready for when the bread is shaped
7. Take the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly work surface and beat it back, form the dough into a big square
8. Form the almond paste (recipe here) into a roll and put this in the middle of the dough (see right)
9. Fold one half of the dough over the almond paste and press the seam down (traditional, see below for photo)
10. Place the loaf onto the baking sheet, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise until doubled in size, about 40 minutes
11. Preheat the oven to 180ºC
12. Put the baking sheet (with the loaf) into the oven and bake for 10 minutes
13. Lower the temperature to 150ºC and bake for a further 30-40 minutes until the bread is a lovely dark golden colour
14. As soon as the bread is out of the oven, brush with a little melted butter and sprinkle the toasted almond slivers over the (now) sticky bread
15. Leave the bread to cool on a rack
16. Sift the icing sugar (mix in the cinnamon, if using) over the cooled down bread

Variations:

• You can change the taste of the bread by adjusting the quantities of dried fruit, candied peel and glacé cherries to your own taste
• For a fruity burst, replace the raisins with 150 gram dried cranberries
• You can add dried apple and/or pear, replacing the glacé cherries
• For a slightly more 'adult' version, try soaking the dried fruit in either rum or brandy
• Leave the fruit to soak as long as possible, preferably over night, but for a minimum of 1 hour
• drain any leftover liquid off the fruit and add it to the milk in step 3
• If you don't want to use alcohol for soaking the fruit, try using tea but do not use the leftover liquid in the dough
• You can add 2 teaspoons of your favourite 'Christmas' spice(mix), such as cinnamon, to the flour
• Mix even quantities of ground cinnamon, ground ginger and ground nutmeg and about half the used quantity of ground cloves and add two teaspoons of this mix to the flour (I usually make a larger quantity and use this to bake spiced Christmas cookies and spiced Christmas Wreaths)
• If you want to use star anise, add two stars to a pan with 350 millilitre cold milk and slowly bring to a simmer, leave to cool to 45ºC. Remove the stars before you add the yeast (step 1)
• You could use the Stollen as a centre piece on the table:
• Once you have reached step 9, place the 'loaf' inside a greased 'turban' mold and follow the rest of the steps

• After the bread has cooled down and has been dusted with the icing sugar, place on a large serving platter and place a candle in the centre of the bread

As they say in Germany:

Gutten Appetit

or, in English

Enjoy