Rum&Coconut Cream Roulade

This is a twist on a traditional recipe: the cream isn't just a butter and dessicated coconut mix, but a more healthier, tastier version. We ate this often as a child as it doesn't require any baking, and quite cheap but delicious at the same time. 

Rum&Coconut Cream Roulade

For the roulade (for approx 30cm)

500 g grounded biscuit -I use plain household biscuits in Hungary so if you make it from digestive just cut back a little on the sugar

320 ml milk

20 g butter-melted but cooled to room tempeature

3 tbsp dark rum

3-4 tbps cocoa powder

100 g icing sugar

For the cream

250 g coconut cream (strain the excess juice from the cream)

80 g icing sugar

20 g ground almond

100 g dessicated coconut

3 tbsp dark rum - optional: if you make for adults for the weekend:)

plus some extra dessicated coconut to roll the roulade in

 Put all ingredients for the roulade in a bowl and mix it together until you get a slightly sticky dough. Cover it in cling film and put it into the fridge for 30-50 minutes to rest.

In the meantime you can prepare the filling. Mix all ingredients with a spoon, and place it to the fridge as well.

When the dough is rested, place it on a big piece of baking sheet and roll it to a rectangle shape. It should be thick enough roll without breakage, but if you leave it too thick (like me) you won't have that nice roulade effect. 

So roll it to 4-5 mm thick and spread the cream on top. With the help of the baking sheet roll it tightly and cover the roulade with dessicated coconut. Cover it and leave it to rest for at least an hour in the fridge, then it is ready:)

If you don't eat it at one go, keep it in the fridge...

Gingernuts

My husband commissioned me to bake a ginger biscuit to have a home made alternative to his favourite teatime treat. He loved it when it was still fresh and crunchy, but I loved it when it became soft after 4-5 days in the biscuit tin.

Gingernuts 

Ingredients
350 g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
200 g caster sugar
2 tbsp ground ginger
1 tbsp chopped steamed ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125 g butter
75 g golden syrup
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp grated orange rind

Preheat the oven to 160C and lightly grease several baking sheets.

Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, ginger, steamed ginger and bicarbonate of soda in to a large bowl. Heat the butter and golden syrup together in a saucepan over a very low heat until the butter has melted. Leave to cool slightly, then pour it onto the dry ingredients. Add the egg and orange rind and mix thoroughly to from a dough.

 

Using your hands, carefully shape the dough into 30 even sized balls.

Place the balls on the baking sheets, spaced well apart, then flatten them slightly with  your fingers.

 

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, then carefully transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool.

Lebkuchen Mézeskalács

Recently I started baking again and with the clock change and the miserable windy, wet weather inspired me to bake more and more Christmas goods. I found my old recipe cards I got from my auntie and just the kind of recipe I was after: Lebkuchen. The recipe I got is the one without butter making it lighter and less sinful.
 

Lebkuchen - Mézeskalács

 

Ingredients (makes about 35)

zest of 2 lemon -finely chopped

50 ml Kirsch

2 eggs

50 g honey

200g muscavado sugar

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon of cloves

1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg

1 pinch of black pepper

1 vanilla pod

50 g ground almond

300 g self raising flour

1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

 

80-100g icing sugar to cover the surface

 

 

Place the zest of one lemon in the Kirsch and leave it to soak for 20 minutes.

 

Preheat the oven to 200C and line two baking sheet with baking parchment.

 

Beat together the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl mix together all dry ingredients then add in the egg mixture lemon zest, Kirsch and honey. Form a nice dough and shape it to a 5cm thick big "sausage".

 

Cut it to small pieces and form 2cm small balls with the palm of your hands.

Place them on a baking tray (leave some spaces in between) and bake it for 15-20 minutes.

 

When it is ready take them out of the oven and roll it in icing sugar while still hot.

Leave it rest until next day to soften a little.

 

Ischler/Isler

I fancied some biscuits today and I wanted something "bad" for my waistline(I deserve some Sunday's treat). I haven't had Isler for a while, as you can't really find this in England. Isler is basically walnut/almond biscuit rounds sandwiched together with jam, and covered with chocolate. You can have these shortbread like biscuits in Hungarian patisseries all over the country. They are lush to eat and they can keep for a long time ....if you can resist.

Ischler/ Isler

Ingredients (makes 16)

200 g plain flour

150 g grated walnut/almond

200 g butter at room tempeature

2 egg yolk

100 g icing sugar

pinch of salt

approx 200 g apricot jam/seedless raspberry

200 g dark chocolate

50 g butter

Mix the flour, grated walnut, icing sugar in a big bowl then add the butter, egg yolks and the pinch of salt. Try to mix the dough as quickly as possible to avoid overworking it and melt the butter with your warm fingers. Shape a ball, cover it with cling film and place it to the fridge for at least an hour, but if you leave it to rest overnight that is even better.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. After resting, work the dough for a minute on a floured surface than roll it to 4-5 mm thick. With a 7-9 cm cookie cutter cut out rounds and place them on a baking paper covered baking sheet.

Bake them for 20-30 minutes or until they are golden. Leave them to cool completely. Sandwich two rounds with some apricot jam. Leave the biscuits for a few hours to harden, so the biscuit rounds won't slide on the jam when you are dipping them.

Place a bowl over a boiling water in a heavy based pan and put the chocolate in the bowl stirring until melted. Add the butter, which will give a nice shine to it. Decorate with half walnuts if you wish, but it isn't necessary.

German Gingerbread Man

Although it is only beginning of September, but I had to put on the heating yesterday as the UK weather at the moment pretty bad. Anyway, I was longing for something to warm me up, and I wanted to bake something nice to fill the air with warm spices....My choice was obvious: Gingerbread biscuits. I found this recipe on BBC Good Food, although my mum used to make pretty the same back home, so not sure...maybe we use the German recipe as well. The best thing about this gingerbread that it isn't the crunchy, dry version but the soft, chewy, tender one..Hmmm.

German Gingerbread

Ingredients

100g butter

250g honey

120g brown sugar

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1.5 tsp ground cloves or all spice

1.5 tsp ginger powder

1 vanilla pod, seeds

2 eggs

2 tsp cocoa powder

450g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

For the icing-optional 
1egg whites
200-250g icing sugar
food colouring if you want to colour the buttons etc

In a small pot gently heat the butter, sugar and honey and stir regularly until the sugar has completely dissolved. Leave it slightly to cool.

While this happening, mix together all the other ingredients in a big bowl.

Add the liquid mix to the dry ingredients and kneed it together ( you can use your hands or a kitchen aid machine with kneading hook attachment).

Leave the dough to rest for an hour at room temperature for an hour.

Preheat your oven to 180C.  Roll out the dough to about 1cm thickness and cut out gingerbread man or any other shapes you prefer (if the dough is too sticky kneed in a bit more flour)

Place the cookies on a lined tray and bake for approx 10 minutes (they will be slightly soft to the touch, this is what we are aiming for!). 

Once cooled, you can frost them with icing, sugar pearls or any other kinds of decorations....but it is delicious on its own as well.

Just mix the egg whites with the icing sugar, to get a hard but applicable icing mix and fill your piping bag...the rest is up to you:) My piping skills are pretty bad..as you can see, but it is all down to the taste and that is divine!

I left the little gingerbread man army in the kitchen to write the recipe down to the blog, but when I retruned a few minutes later, I saw my husband playing 'Circus' with them:)

Hints and tips: you can play with the colour-I put in two tablespoons of cocoa powder so I get a little browner gingerbread mans, but if you would like a slightly lighter ones, just add the recommended amout

Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

These gorgeous soft hazelnut biscuits are easy to make and tastes yummy. On the same note I have to mention, this is not a cookie on a person who is on a diet. This is from my fist ever baking book in England, from Donna Hay: Chocolate.

Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

makes about 28

For the cookies
250g butter, softened
175g brown sugar
165g sugar
3 eggs
450g plain flour, sifted
60g cocoa powder, sifted
1tsp baking powder

For the filling
150g dark chocolate
190g sour cream
1cup hazelnut, roasted, chopped

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place the butter, brown sugar and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy. Add the eggs gradually and beat well. Add the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix until combined. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls, place on baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper and flatten slightly.

Bake for 15 minutes of until bases are lightly coloured. Cool on racks.

To make the chocolate filling, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Remove from the heat, add the sour cream and stir to combine. Top half of the biscuits with chocolate hazelnut filling and sprinkle with the nuts, top with the remaining biscuits.

Raspberry Cream Biscuits

The original recipe was with chocolate cream filling but to be honest I prefer the fruity bakes to the chocolatey one. Anyway this biscuit is quite sweet and chocolatey as it is, so with the cold raspberry cream was rather refreshing.

Raspberry Cream Biscuits

For the biscuit

125g  butter, softened

75g icing sugar

115g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

For the filling

200g Raspberries

200g Curd Cheese/Quark * more information in the Tricks and Recommendations

4-6 tbsp Icing sugar

150ml Double cream
1 dream topping

Preheat the oven to 160 C.

Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy.Shift the flour, cocoa and cinnamon into the mixture and mix to form a dough.

Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until the dough is 3mm thick. Cut out 5cm rounds and place on the baking sheets.

Maybe just for me but I couldn’t lift the rounds to the baking sheet, so what I did is cut the rounds, and remove the excess biscuit dough from between the rounds:) and simply lifted the baking paper to the baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Leave to cool for 2 minutes on the baking paper, then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Meanwhile make the filing.

Whip the double cream with the dream topping to stiff peaks, then add the curd cheese, raspberries, and icing sugar and mix them together. If the filling not sweet enough for your taste, add some more icing sugar. Sandiwch the biscuits together in pairs with a spoonful of the raspberry cream. Keep it in airtight container in the fridge, best served after 2-3 hours resting in the fridge.

Orange Biscuits

This is a stress free, very simple recipe. I wanted to have a great biscuit recipe that I can use with my biscuit press and easy to make after work. Then I found this Hungarian recipe. Easy to make, quick and the biscuits are great even after a week(I didn't have the chance yet to test it for any longer period:))

Orange Biscuits

For the biscuits

130g butter

130g sugar

1vanilla pod

2 tbs orange zest

2 tbs orange liqueur or orange juice

1 egg

250g plain flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C. 

Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy with a mixer.

Add the vanilla seeds, orange zest, orange liqueur/juice and egg and mix again.

Fold in the flour then spoon the mixture into the biscuit press and make the biscuits until you have paste left. 

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Hint and tips:

I tried the biscuit press before with no luck. The secret to the biscuit press: you have to use ungreased baking paper, otherwise the mix won't stick on to it. I couldn't find any, as all modern baking papers are "non stick" therefore their coating prevents the baked goods to stick to it-exactly the opposite what you want in this case.

My trick is to put the baking sheets on a tray into the oven and bake them for 30 minutes on 180°C. After a while the non stick coating will disappear and your paper will be a bit stiff and matt-after this "treatment" your baking paper is ready to use with biscuit press.