Soda Bread

Dear all,

This week I have baked something savoury. I wish I had known how easy this was to make before, because it IS easy, and delicious! So today I present you: soda bread.

The good thing about soda bread is, you don't have to let it rise or anything. So little can go wrong, it's amazing. What you do is you just mix the ingredients (flours, soda, buttermilk), gently fold into something that resembles bread, plonk it on a floured baking tray and you're good to go.



Out of the oven these breads come out beautifully golden brown. It's one of those breads with a great crust and soft center. Yum.



By slashing the bread pre-baking you can make the bread look even more authentic. I of course immediately tried two types of soda bread. I made just the regular kind, and a walnut version. See here the results:



And here's my serving suggestion: Nice glass of wine and some garlic butter (though not necessary, it's so good you can eat it just like that!)



XOXO Jennifer

Sarajevo Sweets

Dear all,

Last week I visited friends in Sarajevo so I didn't have any time to bake anything. Intead I present you some Bosnian delights!

On our first morning we were taken to this lovely cafe with home made sweets and huge pots of tea. The awesome design of the cafe was even reflected in the tea pots and cups that were made especially for them:


See here Bosnian cranberry tea and a walnut tea cake type thing (don't remember any names, sorry!).





Having cake was of course inevitable. We were taken to Torte i to which pretty much specialises in cheesecake. This was my brownie cheesecake.
It's a shame I don't have pictures of the other cakes because they were truely to die for!!




One last chocolate stop: a chocolate bar! Here they served chocolate cocktails...



This basically tasted of really sweet melted milk chocolate with chopped walnuts. A little too sickly for my tastes but an interesting experience none the less. And it sure looks good!

xoxo Jennifer

Happy Halloween!

Dear all,

Hope you all had a great halloween, I sure did. I was a pirate this year, arr. This year for the first time I decided to make pumpkin pie for halloween. In fact, I made two. Here they are!

First I made the pastry, with a pretty leaf-pattern rim.



Blind bake...



And fill with pumkpin goodness! I roasted the pumpkin I had and then pureed the lot, added cream cheese, a bit of brown sugar, spices and two eggs. Voila!



It had a surprising but lovely texture (I've never made or eaten pumpkin pie before!). Sort of fluffy but substantial at the same time..









The next day I made another pumpkin pie (me and my dinner parties!) but this time I used a tin of pureed pumpkin. Basically I made it the same way, minus the 2 hours it took me to roast, cool, peel and puree the fresh pumpkin. And for a change I made a plaited rim.



And here is the result. And as for the comparison? Well, I have to say they were both equally yummy, so maybe next time I might just use the cheat method with the tinned pumpkin and save the real pumpkin for some other yummy treats!



xoxo Jennifer