Kofieebroodje/Dutch Coffeee buns

Time of the month when I am always rushing to finish off the bakes in the challenges that I am a part of. One such event started by Swathi called the Baking partners is one such challenge I always love to attempt, sooner or later. There is so much that I have learnt and experimented in baking just by being part of this incredible group.

Having spent a relaxed holiday in Allahabad, it has been indeed a little difficult to get back to baking and blogging and hence my delay in this month's challenge. This month 2 recipes, a Dutch Apple tart and Dutch Coffee buns which are also called Kofieebroodje were suggested by Kaveri Venkatesh. I was naturally intrigued by the name and expected a good amount of coffee in the bake. To my amazement, there was no mention of it and I very confidently asked Kaveri to rectify the mistake. That is when I was told that these buns are called so as the Dutch love to have them with their cup of Coffee. With Swathi's permission who is always open to experimentation keeping the original recipe spirit in mind, I decided to add some coffee in the  filling. 

Since the original recipe asked for the usage of vanilla pudding which is easily available abroad, many members decided to make their own custard. I went the cheat's way and used the readily available vanilla custard powder in our country and added some coffee to it. 

The outcome was very pleasing and I was happy to create the yummy coffee custard in a jiffy. The original recipe calls for raisins which I have substituted with toasted almonds to go with my Coffee buns. 

This is such a  super simple recipe which yields amazingly   soft buns. Flavour them to your liking, making them sweet or savoury and it will become a keeper recipe for sure.

Recipe Source: The Dutch Table

Ingredients : I used 1/3 of the recipe to yield 10 such buns

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1/3 cup lukewarm milk
• 1 tbsp butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 10 almonds, peeled and toasted
• 2 tsp vanilla custard powder
• 1 tsp coffee powder
• 1/2 cup milk (for the custard)
• 2 tbsp sugar (for the custard)

Procedure : 

In a bowl, add flour, salt, sugar and yeast and mix. 

Add butter and mix.

Add milk little by little and knead the mixture to a smooth dough. If required add a little more milk.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn the dough to cover it with oil on all sides. 

Cover with a damp muslin cloth and allow to double in size for an hour or two in a warm place. 

Meanwhile, make the custard which will be used as a filling.

Take 1/2 cup milk and boil it. Add 2 tbsp sugar to it.

Dilute vanilla custard powder with a little cold milk or even water and add to the boiling milk. Stir well to avoid any lumps.

Dilute 1 tsp coffee powder in some warm milk and add to the custard. Mix well and as soon as the mixture thickens, remove it from gas.

Allow to cool.

Prepare the almonds by dropping them in some boiling water for about 4-5 minutes. 

Remove from heat and drain them.

The skin will now come off very easily just by pinching the ends.

Allow the almonds to dry for some time on a kitchen towel.

Dry roast them on a pan or in the oven.

Allow to cool and chop them in pieces.

Once the dough is ready, roll it roughly to a 9x9" square. 

Spread the coffee flavoured custard all over leaving 1/2" on all sides.

Sprinkle the chopped toasted almonds on it. 

Roll it into a cylinder and cut 1" equal pieces out of it.

Cover them and allow to proof for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Place the rolls on a lined and greased baking tray and brush them with some milk.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or till the buns brown well.

Brush the buns with some butter as soon as they are out of the oven.

Enjoy them warm with a cup of coffee.

Notes:

• You may use any other flavouring for the custard or simply use the variety of custard powders available in the market.
• Add your choice of nuts in it or you may even avoid it.
• For a richer taste, you may make the custard in cream instead of milk.

Happy Coffee buns relishing

Amrita

The Princess cake-Quadruple Chocolate delight

'Every Girl is a Princess to her Father and mother'

The Princess cake or rather The Swedish Prinsesstårta cake couldn't have been challenged at a better time by Korena, our host for this months Daring Baker's. 24th of May was our darling daughter Vaanya's second birthday and this cake was destined to be made for the grand day. Very frankly, one look onto the components and assembly of this cake scares you a lot but this cake is a lot simpler and is an amazing experience to remember for a long time. 

This cake was originally created in the 1930's by a Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, who taught the three Swedish princesses of the time. This was called the Princess cake as it was loved by them a lot. Originally it has layers of light sponge cake, raspberry jam, and vanilla custard/pastry cream, topped with a mound of fluffy whipped cream, covered in green marzipan, and garnished with a marzipan rose.

As this cake was meant for my daughter's(My princess's)birthday I was in no mood to experiment with the flavours. Therefore Chocolate it was for me!! And I love the way Korena called it a Quadruple Chocolate delight!!

Here is the Princess and her cake!

This certainly was not an easy cake to make in terms of the number of components, so I decided to start it all a day before. The assembly took place on the final day, which took me a lot of time because of the unbearable heat and humidity in our part of the world. Plus I was dealing with very heat vulnerable stuff like whipped cream and custard which kept melting away. The homemade marzipan was the worst to handle, it kept breaking and the more I rolled the more stickier it got and the more icing sugar it required!! Not to mention it did not turn out as smooth as the bought one. 

All these problems were washed up in one instance when the cake was brought out for cutting. The collective Wow's by my family made me feel so proud of the attempt. The cake was cut and I rushed to take a pic and while I did so, with my guests waiting very patiently, all the cream and custard melted away!!! So no pretty pics to show you all. The cake was collectively declared a Winner and the best cake I have ever made! Phew! The marzipan was too sweet and heavy for them to handle and it all got collected  on the sides of the plate but the cake was literally polished off with everyone asking for another helping.

My melting layers

Chocolate sponge: I followed my tried and tested chocolate cake recipe 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar(powdered)
• 1 3/4 cups refined flour
• 3/4 cups cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup boiling water

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease and line a 9" round baking tin.

Take a bowl and mix sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla essence. Mix well so all the ingredients are well incorporated. Stir in boiling water (do not worry about lumps) The batter will be quite thin. 

Pour the batter in the prepared tin.

Bake for 40 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool the cake on a rack.

Chocolate Ganache:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup cream 

Procedure:
Bring cream to a boil and pour on the chopped chocolate. Whisk well so that it mixes well and keep aside.

Chocolate Custard:

Ingredients :

• 4 tbsp of Vanilla custard powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cream
• 3 tbsp Sugar(or to taste)

Procedure:
Add milk and cream to a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add sugar and let it dissolve. 
Take custard powder in a bowl and add little cold milk/water to make a paste.
Add this in a stream to the boiling milk and cream mixture. Stir well and let it thicken.
If required add more custard powder, dissolved in cold milk/water.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Refrigerate till further use.

Chocolate whipped cream:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup chopped chocolate, chopped

Procedure:
Boil cream in a saucepan. Add this to the bowl of chopped chocolate, stir well. 
Allow to cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate for further use(at least 2 hours) 

Marzipan:

Ingredients:

• 100 gms ground almonds
• 200 gms icing sugar
• 1/4 cup corn syrup(I substituted with liquid glucose
• 1 tbsp lemon juice or water

Procedure:
If using whole almonds, blanch them in boiling water for a minute and strain them. Rub off their skin and dry them in a kitchen towel. Dry heat them on low flmae very carefully to remove any moisture. Allow to cool and make a fine powder with little sugar in a mixer.
Place ground almonds and icing sugar in a bowl and combine them. Add liquid glucose and lemon juice and knead to a smooth ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate till used.

 

Assembly:

Whip the heavy cream to stiff peaks. Refrigerate till required.

Slice the chocolate cake in three layers and set aside the middle layer for the dome.

Place one layer of cake on a cake board(I used the lid of my plastic container and wrapped it with aluminium foil) 

Spread the chocolate ganache on it (If it has thickened a lot, warm in the microwave for 10-15 secs)

Put in the freezer for 5-10 mins to set.

Spread half of the chocolate custard.

Freeze again for 10-15 mins for it to set.

Place another layer of the cake and spread the remaining chocolate custard on it.

Freeze again till set.(Notice I required a lot of freezing because of the extreme heat and humidity)

Reserve half a cup of the whipped cream and pile the rest into a mound on top of the custard layer.

Shape it in a dome.

Place the final layer of cake on top of the whipped cream. Do not press on top of the cake. Refrigerate for 10-15 mins.

Spread the remaining cream onto the entire cake and the sides. Refrigerate again till required.

Mix some brown food colouring to a large part of the marzipan, reserving little for the decorations.

Dust your work surface with some icing sugar and roll out the brown marzipan enough to cover the entire cake. With the help of a rolling pin, gently cover the cake with the marzipan. Trim excess. Refrigerate the cake.

Make three portions with the remaining marzipan and add red, yellow and orange food colours. Roll out the yello marzipan and with a knife shape a Tiara. Make small balls with the orange marzipan and put as gems on the tiara. Roll out some pink marzipan and cut a heart shape and put in the center of the tiara. 

Roll out pink and orange marzipans and cut round shape for the polka dots and put on the cake.

Roll out some yellow marzipan and cut out a banner. Write message on it with a toothpick dipped in food colour.

Make small balls from the leftover pink, yellow and orange marzipans and put them around the cake at the botttom. 

The lone survivor Piece of the cake

The Tiara for the little Princess

 Happy Princess cake eating
Amrita 

Khubani ka meetha/Apricot Fool

Khubani/Qubani ka meetha is an authentic and very traditional Hyderabadi desert recipe. Made of dried apricots, it is served especially during weddings. Khubani/Qubani is an urdu word which means 'Apricot' and Meetha translates to 'Sweet'. This desert  involves boiling apricots with syrup until they assume the consistency of a thick soup or compote. The dessert is then topped with blanched almonds or apricot kernels, and is traditionally garnished with malai (thick cream from Buffalo milk), and also with custard or ice cream.This recipe was challenged to the SNC north group by Roha of Hyderabadi cuisine. 
I decided to try this classic desert with custard and name it an Apricot Fool.
A fool is one of the quickest, easiest, and most awesomely named desserts that we know. Dating as far as the sixteenth century, a Fool is a classic English dessert and is believed to earn the name from a French word 'fouler' which means 'to mash' or 'to press'. A fruit fool begins by making a puree from fresh, dried or frozen fruit. Traditionally a  fool is a delicious mixture of lightly sweetened and pureed fruit with sweet custard. Modern recipes skip the custard and use whipped cream.

  

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (75-80 gms) dried Apricots/Khubani
• 2-3 tbsp sugar
• 1 clove
• 1 green cardamom
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp vanilla custard powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tbsp sugar (for making the custard)

Procedure:

Wash and soak dried apricots overnight. 

Remove and reserve the liquid for later use(It will have a lovely golden brown tinge)

De-seed and remove the apricot kernel.

Remove the nut inside the seed with the help of a nut cracker or with a pestle. You will find a small almond shaped nut inside which you may blanch in boiling water to remove the skin or keep some just as it is for decoration.

Take a non stick saucepan over medium heat, add the reserved liquid(used for soaking) and the apricots. Allow to boil.

Add clove and slightly crushed cardamom and let it simmer for 10-15 mins.

Add sugar and stir. Mash the apricots and cook till the mixture becomes thick and mushy. This is the apricot compote.

Allow to cool.

Meanwhile, make vanilla custard. Boil milk and add sugar. Take a small bowl and dissolve custard powder with a little cold milk/water. Add this to the boiling milk and stir well. Allow to Cool.

 

Assembling:

Take a bowl/glass and make desired layers of the apricot compote and vanilla custard. 

Garnish with some chopped apricot nut and whole nuts(with skin).

Note:

• Be careful while adding sugar as it may vary with the variety of apricots used or with individual taste.

• You may serve the Khubani/apricot compote with whipped cream, ice cream or even thick cream/malai.

• You may garnish with some almonds and pista.

 

 

 
Happy Khubani Fool Eating
Amrita