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There were those wonderful pear desserts that my Grandma would make when we were coming over for a Sunday dinner. Pears cooked in syrup, served with velvety egg-vanilla cream... Delicious... Grandma knew I and my sister loved them, so mostly there were extra servings waiting for the two of us. I still remember the flavor and aroma of those pears - and I admit that I have never managed to get even close to them with the ones I am making sometimes. And I guess I never will - the dinners at Grandma's, blue chairs that I hated because the textile on them was so rough, old white plates with some floral border, big forks and knives (those I hated just as much as I hated the blue chairs. They were so damn heavy...), all these are beautiful memories of my childhood. You can't compete with memories, can you? So, I stopped trying to reproduce that taste I remember. Let it belong to my Grandma's pears in cream, let it be ever special and ever the best. Let it come to me in memories every time I am cooking pears and the kitchen is full of the cloves' aroma. Good thing there are cloves and they always smell the same...

Pears in Wine
(4 servings)

4 big pears
1.1/2 glass white wine
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cranberry preserve
4 -5 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons sherry
whipped cream and a little bit of cranberry preserve to serve (optional) 

Pare the pears, leaving them whole with the stems attached.
Put all the ingredients except sherry in a skillet, bring to boiling.
Turn down the heat, add the pears and let them simmer for about 40-45 minutes - just until they become transparent at the edges. Get pears out and set them aside to cool.
Add sherry to the syrup, bring it to boiling and let boil for another 20-25 minutes, until it becomes very thick. Pour syrup over the pears, chill thoroughly.
You can serve these pears with whipped cream and a little bit of cranberry preserve, but they also taste very nice just by themselves.

Sugar Waffles from Liege

 

There are some things about Belgium that are really bad, like Belgian drivers and the overall chaos...

But there are also some things about Belgium that are wonderful - like Belgian beers (Kriek being my favorite), Belgian chocolate and Belgian waffless. 

There are many sorts of waffles: with or without yeast, with or without beer, not sweet at all or extremely sweet. One thing they have in common (at least those that I have already tried) is that they are very, very nice. The nicer the colder the weather is and the waffles warmer.

In Belgium you can get waffles anywhere: in a supermarket, at a restaurant, on a street corner. Or you can make them at home - then not only will you get the great taste of waffles, but also your kids, husbands, boyfriends etc. will simply adore you.

Liege Sugar Waffles
(about 20 small waffles)


750 g flour
270 ml lukewarm milk
70 g fresh yeast
3 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
15 g salt
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
400 g very soft butter
500 g pearl sugar

Put all the ingredients except for butter and sugar into a bowl and mix until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl with a towel and place in a warm place to rise for about 45-60 minutes.
Punch dough down, add butter and sugar and work the dough for a short while - only until the butter is well mixed in. You don't want the sugar to dissolve.
Divide the dough into 20 balls (can be less or more - the thing is they have to fit into your waffle iron), place them on a board and place in a warm place to rise.
Preheat the waffle iron - remember not to grease it! When the iron is hot, start frying the waffles: place the dough balls in the iron (possibly two at a time), close the lid and let the waffles fry for about 4 minutes, or until golden brown.
Because of the amount of butter and sugar in the dough your iron will be a total mess at the end, but the waffles are worth it :-)

Valentine's Day

 

 It's not that I am especially crazy about all that Valentine's Day stuff. To tell tre truth, I'm not. All those hearts, cards, sweets and such... They are trashy and meaningless to me, one does not really need those things to show that there are some feelings involved. But on the other hand... any occasion is good to prepare something very special for the other one, isn't it? Let it even be the Valentine's Day.

A few days ago I came across a post on  5 Types of Sugar . I saw a beautiful Valentine's cake there - made of white chocolate, rosewater and pistachios. The combination seemed quite great to me, I decided to give it a try in my kitchen. I already had a recipe for a flourless white chocolate cake, replaced the buttercream with one of my favorite icings to which I added white chocolate and some rose petals' preserve... The result of my kitchen activities was very pretty, very sweet and very tasty as well. Altogether I am very happy with it, I must say. Big thank you to Christy for the inspiration!

White Chocolate Valentine's Day Cake

(one big cake or 5 small ones + some edible leftovers)

for the cake

170 g white chocolate

3 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup sugar

8 eggs, separated

for the icing

1/2 cup milk

1.1/2 tablespoons potato flour

35 g sugar

1 egg yolk

45 g white chocolate

1/2 cup cream (36%)

2 teaspoons rose petal preserve

1 teaspoon lemon juice

chopped pistachios

shredded white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 120ºC.

Melt the white chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring constantly. Set aside.

Place the egg yolks in a bowl and beat well. Fold in the white chocolate mixture.

In another bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks; add the sugar.

Gently fold the egg yolk-chocolate mixture into the egg whites, stir gently.

Turn the batter into a prepared 23cm spring-form pan, bake 75-80 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut around the edge of the pan. Allow the cake to cool to room temperature.

Now you either can keep the cake as a whole, or cut out smaller cakes (knife works the best).

For the icing, mix well milk, potato flour, sugar and egg yolks in a small pot. Bring it to boiling stirring constantly. When the mixture is thick turn off the heat, add the chocolate and stir until it dissolves. Set it aside to cool.

When the pudding mixture is cool whip the cream until peaks are formed. Mix it gently with pudding, adding the rose preserve and lemon juice.

Put the icing over the sides and top of the cake(s). Spread the shredded white chocolate over the sides and put pistachios on top. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

Winter...

 

Winters in Belgium are quite horrible. Usually they are cold, windy and wet. And gray. This year the winter is different: it's snowy, icy and cold. And, of course, gray. As always. Altogether it's exactly as horrible as all the other winters I have seen here.

And it's not that I do not like winters. But I like the pretty winters, the ones that are crispy and white... When the sky is blue and the sun is shining on the tree tops that are covered with snow. Really, winters can be so beautiful in some parts of the world.

And they can be tasty, as well. Apple pies and apple cakes never taste as good as in the wintertime, that's my personal opinion at least.

Luckily they do have apples and cinnamon in Belgium. Not being able to see much of the winter prettiness I can at least get some of the nice tastes of winter. Taking a bite of my apple cake I can close my eyes and ignore the gray weather for a while.

Apple Cake with Nutty Crumble on Top

(proportions for a 30x40cm baking pan)

for the cake:

250 g fine brown sugar

250 g soft butter

4 eggs

250 g flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon very finely chopped candied orange peel

3-4 big apples

for the crumble:

120 g soft butter

100 g fine brown sugar

120 g ground walnuts

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Peel apples and remove the cores. Cut them first into quarters, then into slices.

In a mixer bowl beat sugar with butter until creamy. Slowly add the remaining ingredients, mix well.

Turn batter  into the floured and sprinkled with flour baking pan, spread evenly.

Densely stick apple slices halfway into the batter.

Mix all the crumble ingredients in a bowl until the mixture is forming into little balls. Spread crumble over the cake.

Bake at 180ºC 40 minutes.

Food Is Sexy

Well, food can be sexy, to be precise. It all goes about the right attitude and some little details.
Think, what is this little something that makes a person sexy? Is it just the looks? Somehow, I don't think so... Personally I do not see anything sexy about beautiful people who do not have anything but the looks to offer. To me the most exciting people are the ones who do not show everything on the outside, they just give some hint: "hey, there is something about me you might want to discover". If they are not liars and there really is something to be discovered - they are sexy to me. And if the discovery part can last forever and I never get even close to getting bored and saying "Hey, now I know everything about you" - well, I would call it damn sexy, to be honest. But to be even more honest, if those damn sexy people are handsome at the same time... well, it doesn't hurt at all.
The same rule applies to food - for me, at least. I don't want those perfect supermarket apples of same shape, same size and same color, but with no taste at all. I don't like food arranged on a plate in a fancy way when the fancy look is about the only thing the plate has to offer. You see it, you want to try it, and when you do - there goes the disappointment... What I like - and what I think exciting - is food in which I can taste something new with almost every bite. Food, that does not unveil all of it's secrets until I taste it - and when I taste it I want to taste more, because there still seems to be something hidden... And when the food is looking exciting as well... This is what I call sexy food. Exactly.

Melon and pomegranate salad

(4 servings)

1 tasty melon

1 pomegranate

1 lime, juiced

100ml pale sherry

1 teaspoon castor sugar

freshly ground pepper

Spoon out the melon flesh - you can either have it in little balls or in thin slices (this is how I prefer it).

De-seed the pomegranate making sure that the seeds are clean of any bits of the membrane. Doing this carefully, so that the juice doesn't stain your clothes and half of your kitchen ;)

Put the melon and pomegranate seeds in layers into the serving bowls or glasses and place them in a fridge to cool down nicely.

Before serving mix lime juice with sherry and sugar, pour it over the fruit and top everything with a dash or two of freshly ground pepper.

Enjoy your salad :)