Protein Packed Post-Run Flapjacks

I've been training seriously for the last 4 months to get in shape for a half marathon. The big day is coming up and I've been preparing as much as possible. Eating well, staying hydrated, training regularly, and I'm now as ready as I will ever be. I've just been laying hands on the last couple of details, and started planning my post race recovery snack. I went to a sports nutrition shop and asked for recommendation. They ended up selling me an overpriced flapjack (or granola bar as it's called in the US). When I came back I thought that I could have done my homework properly and have made it myself. Next thing I'm in the kitchen mixing it up and here's my own version of a protein packed flapjack and the nutritional table I've worked out:

1 Serving (100g)       

Calories                329  

Fat                       19.6g

Potassium            95mg   

Carbohydrate      31.4g 

(Fibre)                   6.1g  

(Sugar)                10.0g  

Protein                11.3g

                                                                                

Ingredients:

200g   Almonds w. skin, blended into a course flour

250g   Oats blended into a course flour

250g   Roasted Peanuts, blended into peanut butter (just keep blending in the food processor)

1dl      Maca Powder (Some "super-nutritious" Inca Plant. Can be left out)

400ml Almond Milk (or regular milk if you want)

1 tbsp  Honey

2 Banans, mashed into a pure

Pinch of Salt

150g Dark Chocolate

Turn on the oven for 130ºC. Then start by making a course flour of the almonds in a food processor. Do the same to the oats. Mix them in a bowl with the maca powder and a pinch of salt. Keep chopping the peanuts in the food processor until it turns into peanut butter. Plob it into the oats. Blend the bananas. Add them to the mixture too. Heat the almond milk and dissolve the honey in it and pour it all into the mix. With a spoon or your hands, mix it all together to a paste. Put the paste into a ovenproof tray lined with baking paper. Press it out as flat and even as possible. Bake for 25 minutes.

 When the time is up, break the chocolate into smaller pieces and place them on the hot "cake". Leave for five minutes while they melt. Distribute it evenly with a spatula. Let the whole thing cool off completely until the chocolate sets. Just before it sets completely, cut into 15 similarly sized flapjacks. 

Here's the irresistible homemade flapjack, void of strange additives but packed with proteins and carbohydrates to rebuild and refuel your muscles after a hard workout.  

Boston Cream Cake

This is just a very quick recipe for Boston Cream Cake. It takes very little time to prepare and is made with ingredients that we usually have in our kitchen, with the exception, perhaps, of the cake base. Here's what you need:

1 Cakebase

Filling:

3 Eggs

6 tbsp Sugar

2 tbsp Corn starch

1/2 tbsp Butter

250ml Cream

250ml Milk

1 tsp Vanilla

Pinch of salt

Ganache:

110g Dark Chocolate

120ml cream

1 tsp butter Pinch of salt

 Beat eggs, sugar and corn starch in a bowl until fluffy.

 Heat up the cream, milk and butter till it just starts to boil. Turn down the heat, add the egg mixture and stir while cooking for about 1 minute. It should start to become thicker. Add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Let it cool down completely.

 Pour one half of the mixture over one layer of a cake base. It should be thick, and not too liquid. Don't let it go all the way out to the edges. Put another cake layer on top. Gently press it and the cream will start reaching the sides. Pour the other half of the filling over and repeat with the last layer of cake.

 To make the ganache, bring the cream to a boil add the butter and pour it over the chocolate cut in smaller pieces. Let it sit for a minute, then stir until smooth. Add a pinch of salt.

Pour the ganache over the cake and spread it gently to the edges until it starts dripping over. Let it cool down completely before serving. 

Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie

Rhubarb and strawberry pie is really a pie of transition. There is a small overlap at the end of the rhubarb season when the first strawberries start coming out, and that's about now. So it's time to get cooking. I was inspired to this pie filling by the wonderful people at joyofbaking.com. If you are not familiar with that page but like baking, bookmark it now. You will come back, I guarantee that. I just made a few spice adjustments to their version. But really, it's a straight forward recipe, so I doubt anyone can really patent it. And then I made my regular pie dough.  To make the dough, make sure all the ingredients are well chilled. If you have a food processor, this is the easiest way to do it. Just whiz the butter and cold flour together until it has the consistency of wet sand. The slowly pour in the water while the machine is on. As soon as it forms to a ball stop, divide the portion in two two pieces (on which is 1/3 and one which is 2/3). Shape like a ball and wrap them in cling film and put the in the fridge for at least an hour before. Alternatively, make the dough with a fork and some elbow grease. Just make sure the butter never gets too warm. You'll need:

Pie dough:

280g flour

1tsp salt

150g cold butter

5-6 tbsp ice cold water

Filling:

500g Strawberries

500g Rhubarb stalks

150g Sugar

3-4 tbsp cornstarch (sifted)

1 tsp Chinese five spice

1 tsp vanilla powder

1 tsp orange flower water (optional)

Wash the stalks and cut them in equally sized pieces of about 2 cm long. Half the strawberries. Sprinkle the orange flower water over.

 In a separate bowl, sift the corn starch and mix in the sugar, five spice and vanilla. Mix well, reserve 2 tbsp and sprinkle the rest over the strawberries and rhubarb and give it a good toss. Set it aside in the fridge while preparing the dough.

Roll out the bigger ball until it's big enough to fit inside the pie form and go up the sides. I usually do it between a piece of oven paper and some clingfilm lightly dusted with flower. this makes it easier to lift it up into the pie form. Dust the base with the remaining two tablespoons of the sugar mix. 

 Put in the strawberry and rhubarb filling. Roll out the smaller ball of dough. Cut it into strips and start getting creative with your weaving. Turn on the oven at 200ºC. While the oven is getting hot, place the pie in the fridge. Brush the top with milk and then bake for about 45 minutes. Let cool down completely before cutting into it. And by completely, I almost mean over night.

As it's such brilliant weather I decided to add a scoop of my homemade ice cream on top and splashed it with some of the juices from the pie. Just heavenly, I have to say. 

Blackberry Pie

Hold on, no wait. Not the phone, the actually berry (or rather an aggregated fruit). This is from a harvest I made of wild blackberries on an outing during the summer, which I quickly paid the highest honor these berry can receive by baking them in to a pie. I think I picked some 200-300 grams but I'm not sure. If you still have blackberries on your blackberry tree/bush, don't pick them now, because according to old folktales the Devil has pissed on them after the 11th of October. The dough is my standard dough which you can see how to make on my (quite similar) blueberry pie recipe. You'll need:

Pie dough:

280g flour

1tsp salt

150g cold butter

5-5 tbsp ice cold water

Filling:

Your harvest of blackberries (let's say +/- 250g)

5 tbsp cornstarch

1/2 cup of sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla powder

Juice of 1/2 a small lemon

Here's my harvest, not too much but someone had beat me to the tree so I had to do with what was left. Put the oven at 220º.

Mix the berries with the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon. Crush about half the berries with a fork and mix it well together so you don't have any lumps of cornstarch. Set it aside while you prepare the dough. This will allow the sugars to dissolve and mix in with the juices of the berries.

Use about 2/3 of the dough for the base and prick some holes at the base of the pie and pour the filling in. Shake it a bit to make sure it's well distributed.

Roll out the remaining dough and make a "lid" for the pie. Prick some more holes in the lid.

Bake at 220º for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 170 and continue baking for about 20-30 minutes or until the crust is golden. Let it rest for at least half an hour before cutting into it. This will allow the starches to set and your filling won't run out. Serve warm, for example with a bit of ice cream on the side.

Tarta de Santiago (Dedicated to my sister)

Hi. It's been a while. I've been setting up a new computer and working quite hard lately so I haven't really had much time to blog. But I'm back with a very easy cake recipe dedicated to my sister. Whenever she's in Spain to visit me she usually asks for Tarta de Santiago which is a traditional almond pie from Galicia in the North of Spain. We've usually bought it but one day surfing the net I came across the recipe which turned out to be really dead simple. And not only that, it's also an officially regulated recipe by the Consejo Tarta de Santiago, which provides the one and only acceptable way to make it. For example it states that you have to use 1 of 6 sorts of Spanish almonds for it to be a true recipe. The only "free choice" you have is about the seasoning and how coarse you want your almonds.

Here's what you need:

250g sugar

250g almonds (ground finely to a flour. You can do it n a food processor)

5 eggs

Optional:

Shredded lemon zest from 1/2 a lemon

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

A bit of butter for the form

Icing sugar for decoration

A cut out Santiago cross (click the link and print)

Preheat the oven at 200ºC. Mix the sugar and the ground almonds with the lemon and cinnamon. Just use a fork to make sure all the sugar is evenly distributed.

Mix in the 5 eggs until it's homogeneous. No need to over mix or blend.

Grease a spring form with a bit of butte and dust it with flour. Pour the cake batter in. Bake at 200ºC for 40-50 minutes until the top is golden brown.

Take it out and let it cool down completly before cutting the sides loose.

Place the cut-out Santiago cross on top and sprinkle it with icing sugar.

Carefully remove the cross and enjoy.

Roscón de Reyes (Out of season cooking 2)

For the Three Wise Men celebration in Spain it's the tradition to share a ring shaped cake, the roscón de reyes, with a small figurine or a bean in side. Who ever finds it is crowned king for the day (at least within the family and as long as they don't break their teeth) but will also have to pay for the cake next year (no one ever seems to remember this though). As the cake can be quite expensive for what they are, I thought I'd dabble with it myself and found the home-made version far superior to any one I'd ever tried. So here goes:

Ingredients:
650g Bread flour (high percentage of gluten)
250 ml. milk
25-30 gr. fresh yeast
120 gr. sugar
120 gr. soft butter
2 eggs
1 extra egg yolk (Keep whites for brushing the roscón at the end)
2.5 tbsp. orange blossom water (the secret ingredient which gives the roscón its special taste)
3 tbsp. contreau or rum
Shredded peel of 1 lemon and 1 orange (not the white part, only the outside)
Decoration:
Candies fruit
Sugar
1 egg
A heat resistant figurine or bean
Filling:
Whipping cream
Sugar
Vanilla

In a bowl, add 50 ml of lukewarm milk, 3 tbsp flour and the crumbled fresh yeast. Cover it and set aside for 1 hour for the yeast to get going.

After an hour, add the rest of the ingredients with the soft butter at the end.

Knead well, and by well I mean 10 minutes. Add a little flour if too sticky, but remember it should be rather wet and just slipping off your fingers. I've used a dough hook on my mixer with great results. This allows the dough to be wetter and ultimately more humid.

Place it in the bowl, cover and set aside to rise for 2 hours. It should have doubled by them. Punch the dough down lightly, but don't let it deflate completely. Separate it in two.

Make a ring by making a whole in the middle. Carefully stretch it out evenly and and tuck it under itself to stretch the surface. Remember to make the centre whole big as it will keep growing during the final rise and baking. Stick the figurine in some where from underneath so it isn't seen. Cover for 1 more hour to rise. Beat the extra egg whites with a bit of milk and brush it on the cake. Decorate with candied fruit and sugar.

Place a bowl with water at the base of the oven for humidity and bake the cake in the middle of the oven at 180ºC for 20-25 minutes or until it's golden brown on the outside. Take it out and place it on a cooling rack for at least 20-30 minutes. The cake is still baking on the inside so don't overbake it.

Whip some cream with some sugar and vanilla. Cut the roscón open and add the cream.

5000 Visits - Best cheesecake ever to celebrate

As I'm about to have my visit #5000 I thought I'd celebrate with my favourite cake - Cheesecake. I know 5000 might not be that much (and half of them are probably myself), but for a small independent blog that started just as an extension to some recipes I posted on Facebook, I'm quite content. And to say thank you to everyone who has ever visited Skytte's Kitchen, I'd like to invite you for a slice of cake... if you make it yourself, obviously. I have tried various recipes for cheesecake, all good, but some a bit heavy, others a bit flavourless. But then I tried making a cheesecake I saw on Alton Brown's programme Good Eats, and bam! there was the perfect combination: Light (in texture, not in calories), creamy, flavourful. Try it out, you won't regret... Start by turning on your oven at 150ºC.

Ingredients:
Base:
35 Biscuits (Graham's, Marie, or Digestives)
120ml Melted Butter
1 tbsp. White Sugar
Cake:
350ml Sour cream
570g Philadelphia Cream Cheese
240 ml Sugar
80ml Cream
1 tbsp Vanilla
3 Egg Yolks
2 Whole Eggs
Topping:
Any jam of your liking

Start by crushing the biscuits finely. I used to put them in a plastic bag and hammer them with a rolling pin. The result is what you see in the picture: lots of big chunks. It's OK, but since I've got a food processor, It seems to do the job even more finely and leaving less a mess. Mix it with the sugar and the melted butter until it has the consistency of wet sand.

Get out your spring form, fold up a piece of baking paper and cut it at the radius of the form.
Unfold it and stick it to the base with a bit of water or butter. Cut a long strip for the sides. This will make it so much easier to remove the cake once done.

Put the biscuit mix in, hammer it down with the base of a glass so it's firm and equally thick all over. Bake it for 10 minutes at 150ºC.

Meanwhile, pour your sour cream into a bowl. Mix it for a minute at mid speed just by it self. this will help loosen it up.

Add the cream cheese and the sugar. Mix it well, first at slow speed, then at medium until smooth. Scrape down the sides and mix a bit more.

In a second bowl, mix the cream, vanilla, yolks and eggs. If the eggs are small, add another yolk. Beat well until smooth, light and creamy.

Pour half of the egg mixture into the cheese, mix and scrape down the sides. I keep insisting on scraping down the sides and bottom as you might have lumps of unmixed cheese. Then add the rest of the eggs and mix.

Pour over the baked biscuit base. Tap the whole thing lightly against the table so the bubbles will flow to the top. Reduce the heat of the oven to 120ºC. According to the original recipe you have to place the cake in a bain-marie. I don't have another recipient which is big enough to hold the spring form. If you do, great. Just make sure your spring form is water proof, or you'll have a soggy base. Bake at 120º for 1 hour. Then turn off the oven but leave the cake inside for an hour more. If you're a perfectionist the centre should have reached (but not surpassed) 65º. Take the cake out and let it cool down completely! It might seem a bit soft but that should all be good once it settles.

Spread out any jam of your liking on top, remove from the spring form, peel off the baking paper on the side and cut it with a clean knife. To get perfect slices every time, clean the knife and dip it in warm water between each cut. The result should speak for itself.

Short recipe for short bread

Keeping it simple --- and delicious. A quick and easy recipe for short bread. I'm using Dulce de Leche as my caramel filling, which is a reduction of sweetened milk. It has a very nice toffee taste and you'll probably be able to find it in your supermarket. If not, check out if there's any Latin-America food shop in your area. They will have it for sure. If not, you can try and make your own toffee by melting sugar, adding butter and cream, or boiling a can of Condenced Milk (pinch the seal, place in bain marie for 60-90 minutes, the whisk it), but that's an entire different post. The rest is very easy.

Ingredients:
Base:
170g butter at room temperature
50 grams sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
210 white flour
1/8 tsp table salt
Topping:
400g Dulce de Leche
170g Dark chocolate
1 tsp butter

Beat the softened butter with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour until it just sticks together like a ball.

Roll it out on a piece of lightly floured baking paper. It should be about 0,5cm thick. Bake for 20 minutes at 170ºC.

Let it cool down for a few minutes. Spread out a layer of Dulce de Leche.
Chop and melt the chocolate slowly with the teaspoon of butter. Microwave is good for this, if you do it in short intervals, stirring it between each blast. Careful not to over heat the chocolate. You just need it to melt, no more. Spread it out over the Dulce de Leche. Let it cool down. Before the chocolate hardens too much, cut it in squares with a sharp knife.

Keep them in the fridge so the chocolate is nice and crunchy when you bite into them. But be warned: They are highly addictive.

Mother-in-law's Lemon Sponge Cake

This recipe has been handed down through my girlfriend's family for generations and is a one tasty sponge cake with a hint of lemon and olive oil. What I particularly like about it is the simplicity of measuring everything. You start out with a cup of yoghurt and then the same cup is the measuring cup for everything else. I guess you can also substitute the olive oil for neutral oil, and/or the lemon for vanilla, cocoa powder etc.

Ingredients:
1 cup of youghurt
1 cup olive oil, mild in flavour
2.5 cup sugar
2.5 cup flour
3 eggs
1 sachet bakingpowder (16g)
Peel of one lemon, finely shredded or chopped

Here's the end result, so you know what to look forward to.

Mix all the ingredients by using the yoghurt cup as measure.

Add the flour, sugar, eggs, lemon (I tried with lime, which wasn't as good) and baking powder.

Blend the ingredients together until you have a smooth dough.

Wipe a springform pan with a bit of olive oil, then dust it with flour. Pour the dough into the form and bake at very high heat for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature and bake for another 10-20 minutes. Check if it's done by inserting a toothpick in the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean it is done.

Let the cake rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting into it. It will deflate a little. Enjoy