Category Archives: sweet tooth

breakfast, main dish, meat & fish, sweet tooth

In the summertime…

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*photo from unsplash

…when the sun is scorching down on the earth. When the sky is clear and blue and wide, so far away and seemingly so near. When the noon is burning on our arms and glimmering on the streets. When the middle of the day seems to enclose around endless heat. When the soil is dry and the roses and herbs spread their scent over the gardens in the afternoon and when the evening brings the long awaited relief…

…I will embrace the night.

I will kick off my shoes and open the windows wide. I will rejoice in the wind and dance under the stars. I will listen to the crickets sing, close my eyes and silently cheer for the approaching thunderstorm in the west as the best part of my day begins here, right now. And I will stay up so late that my yawned “good morning” will actually mean “oh, look, it’s noon already” while I will once again realize with a lazy smile that during summer the days are indeed longer but shorter alike, because the nights are so very, very beautiful.

And celebrating that with a thorough brunch on the weekend only feels right.

Chicken and Waffles

Ingredients for 4 portions
(after this lovely recipe—thanks so much to M. for the tip!)

For the chicken: 

  • 2 medium-sized chicken breast (about 500 g)
  • 200 ml buttermilk
  • 2 tbs roughly chopped mint leaves
  • 2 tbs roughly chopped coriander leaves
  • 3 pepperoni
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tsp salt
  • about 50-100 g wheat flour for dredging
  • oil for frying

For the spicy maple syrup: 

  • 200 g maple syrup
  • 1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds
  • 1 tsp freshly ground cumin seeds
  • 1/2 tsp paprika flakes

For the waffles: 

  • 100 g wheat flour
  • 50 g rice flour
  • 1 tbs cane sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
  • 200 ml buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 50 g melted butter, cooled down
  • additional butter for frying the waffles

On the day before:

Cut the chicken breasts in 2 or 4 pieces each. Cut off the stem of the pepperoni and using a blender mix it with the buttermilk the herbs, the garlic and the salt until creamy. Pour the marinade over the chicken in an airtight container and put it into the fridge for 12-24 hours.

Toast the spices for the spicy maple syrup in a pan on medium heat for 1-2 minutes until their scent rises up, add them to the syrup, and set aside to infuse for 24 hours at room temperature.

In the morning:

For the waffle dough mix the dry ingredients and whisk in the buttermilk, the egg, and the melted butter until you have a smooth batter. Cover the bowl and let it rest for about an hour at room temperature. Heat up your waffle iron and prepare the waffles according to its instructions.

Shake off the excess marinade of the chicken, and dredge it in the wheat flour. Fill a pot with vegetable oil about as high as your little finger is long and put it on medium heat. Sprinkle a bit of flour into the oil to check if it’s good: when it sizzles and starts to turn golden and brown it is. Now add the chicken and fry in the oil for about 7 minutes on both sides. When it’s done let it drain on paper towels.

Serve the fried chicken on top of the waffles and drizzle it with the spicy maple syrup.

sweet tooth, vegetarian

Comfort for the heart

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Baking. Butter. Sugar. A dream team in December, when the cold, wet and grey as its grip on us. The world outside has become complete stark during the last past weeks and becomes more and more cheerless with the all surrounding darkness that creeps closer and closer.

With all that it’s time to attend to your heart again and to what it needs most during this time of the year: Warmth. Some rest whenever you can take it. And some endorphins, caused by crumbly shortpastry out of everything that’s good. Carbs, fat, vitamins (almonds!) and sweet things. Add a few lovely spices to that and the soul can smile again – a happy smile, not a creepy one – and make us endure this year’s final spurt much more easily again.

All of that is even better, when the recipe is easily done. And like that it isn’t really that sad, when all the delicious little half moons are eaten up almost too quickly again.

Chaikipferl

Chaikipferl

after a recipe by the lovely Lena

Ingredients for about 40 pieces

For the Kipferl:

  • 150 g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 100 g cane sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 200 g wheat flour
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 1 pinch of salt

For the sugar mix:

  • 80 g cane sugar
  • 1 TL freshly ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 TL freshly ground cardamom
  • 1/4 TL freshly ground cloves
  • 1/4 TL ground ginger
  • some freshly ground pepper

Mix up the butter and the sugar. Add the egg yolks and keep on mixing. Add the flour, the almonds and the salt and knead to a firm dough.

Roll it out into one or two logs that are about as thick as a 2 € coin (or 2 £ coin) and wrap it in cling foil to let it cool down in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (hot air) and lay out baking sheets on two baking trays.

Cut the dough logs into 1-2 cm thick slices and roll them between your hands. They sould be about 5 cm long in the end and a little thicker in the middle. Slightly curve them to get a half moon shape („Kipferl“ in Germany) and distribute them on the baking trays.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes (with the hot air you can bake both trays at once), until the tips of the half moons start to turn slightly brown.

Meanwhile mix the ingredients for the sugar mix.

Let the baked Kipferl cool down on the trays for about 5 minutes, so they won’t crumble apart at once. Place them into the sugar mix and sprinkle them with more oder very carefully turn them around in it.

Let them cool completely on a roast and store them in tin containers.

Chaikipferl

anime, Asian food, geek corner, sweet tooth, vegan

Dango Daikazoku

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Dango Daikazoku

How does one change their fate? And does something like that even exist in the first place? How do you break out of your daily routine? Resign and keep on going, hoping that one day eventually something will change? Or gather all your courage, every tiny piece of it, to step out of the trott and into the scary unknown? Don’t those moments, filled with nervous heart-throbs, guide us most and get us to exactly where we have to go in life? Sometimes all it takes is one single step ahead, no matter how small. And some morning we’ll wake up and will be happy about that one moment when we decided to be brave for a second. 

Dango Daikazoku

For more courage it helps to hum the Dango Song from time to time and to make some of these traditional Japanese sweets out of rice flour, water and sugar for yourself, too. If you have never had some before their consistency and taste might be a little strange at first. But I’ve become to like them a lot. And not just because they remind me of my favourite anime series: Clannad.

Dango Daikazoku

Dangos are easy to make and go very well to a green Japanese tea. And if you’ve ever watched Clannad you might smile happily and at the same time feel a little bit sad while eating them. 

Dango Daikazoku (だんご大家族) – Dango Family 

inspired by Clannad and Clannad After Story

Ingredients for 3-4 dessert portions

  • 100 g mochiko or shiratamako (or some other glutinous rice flour)
  • 2-3 tbsp sugar
  • about 75 ml water
  • food colouring

Additionally

  • a small piece nori
  • red food colouring

Mix rice flour and sugar and slowly add the water while kneading until you have a smooth, firm and formable dough. If you use liquid food colouring you might want to make the dough a little too dry at first so it won’t become runny after dying it. Divide the dough into a few portions and add a little bit of food colouring to each. Devide into smaller portions and use your hand to roll them into balls. 

Pour water in a pot, bring it to a boil and carefully add the dango. Make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot and let them cook until they start to float on the water surface. Fish them out and put them in ice water to stop the cooking process.

Cut the nori into small pieces for the dango eyes and decorate the rice balls with them. Add blushing cheeks with red food colouring if you like, arrange them on a plate and serve with some matcha.

Dango Daikazoku

soul food, sweet tooth, vegetarian

Just for ourselves!

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Donuts

Have you thought about yourself today?

Have you already done something that is just for you? Have you already told yourself: „It doesn’t matter what the others think!“… and did you really mean it?

Have you already treated yourself today? With a calm gaze to the blue sky, a joyous lifting of your arms whilst cheering gladly or maybe rather a nocturnal howling with the wolves? Have you given yourself a small gift today? Just because it’s Friday?

Have you already taken a look deep inside your soul today, to find your greatest wish? Have you done anything for your body today? Have you infected anybody with an honest laugh?

Have you accomplished an irritated look from others with your wonderfully crazy actions today? Have you already beamed so much for joy that sparkling lights surrounded you and almost used up all your energy?

Maybe now it’s time for all these things. Maybe you find your way back to yourself again, to what you really are. To the person that is your existence, without masquerade – without hide-and-seek – your true self!

Maybe a donut will help you with that. A freshly fried, fluffy, vanilla-creme-filled, sticky, sugar-sweet donut! It surely will give you inner calm and it has the secret sugar rush superpower to give you back those pumped dry energy reserves. Wanna bet?

Donuts

Donuts

Donuts With and Without Vanilla Creme Filling and Sugar Icing

Ingredients for about 12-16 donuts

for the donuts (thank you for the recipe, Jens!)

  • 21 g fresh yeast
  • 175 ml lukewarm milk
  • 65 g sugar
  • 420 g flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 35 g soft and unsalted butter
  • 500-750 ml (vegetable) oil for deep frying

for the vanilla creme (enough for 1 whole donut recipe as above)

  • 75 g sugar
  • 20 g corn starch or corn flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 250 ml milk
  • 2 big egg yolks
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 30 g unsalted butter

for the icing

  • 30 g unsalted butter
  • 90-120 g icing sugar
  • 1-3 tbsp milk
  • food colouring (optional)
  • sugar sprinkles (optional)

Donuts

For the donuts put the yeast in a bowl and dissolve it with the sugar in the milk. Let the yeast start running for about 5 minutes.

Add flour, salt, vanilla, egg and butter to the milk mixture and knead for 10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth. Is it still a little too sticky now, add a bit of more flour to the dough. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 60-90 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the vanilla cream: Put sugar, corn starch and salt it a pot and stir until it is mixed up. Add the milk, egg yolks and the vanilla and bring it to a boil. As soon as the first bubbles from boiling start to surface turn down the heat a little bit and cook over medium heat while whisking constantly until the mixture thinkens. Remove the pot from the stove and whisk in the butter. Let the creme cool down to room temperature.

Put the donut dough on a working surface and roll it out until it is as thick as your thumb. Cut out the donuts and if you want to have donuts without filling as well cut out smaller holes in the middle of the donuts. Keep these small balls, they are delicious too! For the donuts themselves I used a glass with a diameter of about 7 cm and for the holes I used a cutter with about 3 cm diameter. After cutting out the first batch knead the rest of the dough, flatten it out again and cut out more donuts. Put the donuts and donut holes on a flour dusted surface and cover them with a clean, dry towel or cloth. Let them rest for about 60 more minutes until they have visibly grown and look all nice and fluffy.

Pour the oil in a pot and heat it up to 150°C (about 325 F). Put a small piece of dough in it: As soon as it has risen to the top and starts to turn brown the oil has the right temperature. If you have one at home you can also use a deep fryer by the way!

Fry the donuts and donut holes from each side for about one minute until they have browned nicely to your liking. Place the cooked donuts onto a paper towel and allow them to cool.

Meanwhile you can prepare the icing: Melt the butter and whisk in the icing sugar and 1 tbsp of the milk. Add more icing sugar or milk until the icing has the consistency you wish: It should be a little bit runny but not too much! Add food colouring to your liking.

Using a pastry bag or something similar squirt the vanilla cream into the donuts you want to be filled. Dip the finished donuts in the icing, turn over and decorate them with sugar sprinkles. Roll the donut holes in icing sugar.

Best eaten fresh!

sweet tooth, vegan

Don’t let go! And treat yourself to a sorbet!

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red currant sorbet

Don’t let go of your happiness! Don’t let it go! Smile at it, whenever you can. Be glad about the little and still so precious things! Take your happiness by the hand and never let it go! Because together you are less alone. Look upon the vespertine starry sky, that twinkles down on us every day and delight in life. Don’t let go of your happiness, cling to it… 

… and treat yourself to a sorbet from time to time! You deserve it.

red currant sorbet

Red Currant Sorbet with Bitter Lemon

Ingredients for about 6 balls of sorbet

  • 500 g red currants (fresh or frozen – you can leave the stems on if you like)
  • 100 g sugar
  • 2-3 tbsp elderflower syrup
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 50 ml water
  • 250 ml bitter lemon of your choice

Put the red currants with the sugar, the syrup, the salt and the water in a pot. Bring it to a boil and let it gently cook under medium heat until all the berries broke open and the liquid is bright red.

Pour it through a sieve and use a spoon to press all of the liquid out. Let it cool down to room temperature and if you are patient enough put it into the fridge for an additional hour or more.

Give the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn according to the producer’s advice or put it into a freezer for a few hours. Divide the sorbet into 1-6 bowls, pour a little bit of bitter lemon over it and enjoy it in the cooling evening heat under a pale blue sky.

red currant sorbet