Tartine Brioche bread pudding

This weekend we set out to make our own bread pudding à la San Francisco's Tartine.
The brioche came from a bakery to save time (... if you live in Munich you can find it at the French stand in the Schrannenhalle or at Brot- und Feinbäckerei Neulinger, but you might have to order it in advance).

We made use of the blueberries that are everywhere right now; I'm assuming because it's summer in the Southern hemisphere.

This recipe would be great with any in season stone fruit or berries though.

The Tartine cookbook is nothing short of incredible and the recipes truly taste like the ones from the original bakery. They aren't incredibly fussy or difficult, but the results are something special.

[Here is Tartine's Savory bread pudding recipe and also their famed Morning Buns recipe, which I think we might try next.]

Paulaner Biergarten Radler Sorbet

In honor of Oktoberfest, and my love for ice cream making, I thought I'd attempt a couple inspired flavors: Radler Sorbet for the end of summer and Beer Ice Cream.

First up is the sorbet...

For this sorbet I created a recipe and illustration inspired by Paulaner's Nockherberg where we often bike for a lazy biergarten afternoon.

A Radler, or 'cyclist', is a biergarten favorite that is a mix of lemon soda and a helles (light) beer. They are refreshing and light.

Here's the recipe I used if you'd like to try it yourself...  

Radler Sorbet:

1 bottle of beer (12 oz.) chilled
2/3 cup lemon-lime soda / sprite
1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp lime juice
lemon zest

Boil the sugar + soda into a simple syrup
Pour the beer into the sugar syrup mix
Add lime juice + zest
Continue boiling for several minutes
Sieve out the zest + chill
Put into the ice cream maker for ~ 30 minutes.

Prost! 

Bangkok Peanut Ice Cream

Stefan chose this flavor, which brought us back to our Thailand travels.

It's reminiscent of Pad Thai with peanut butter, coconut, lemon grass, and ginger with a bit of an unexpected finish - a cayenne kick.

My in laws were also able to visit, so we could share this with them. They seemed to enjoy this unusual flavor, too.

Goat Cheese with Roasted Red Cherries Ice Cream

With fresh cherries all over the city it was no question that our next recipe would be goat cheese with roasted red cherries. I cut the sugar back a bit, because I'm not a fan of overly saccharine things and it's a reality check seeing the exact amount being added. This ice cream still has a very decadent taste and is similar to a cheesecake.

I love ashy goat cheese, so that's what I used. Best of all we were able to share some with Stefan's parents who came up for a visit. My father-in-law preferred this to the Sweet Corn + Blackberries, although they are distinctly different.

I'm already getting anxious to try some Autumn flavors, like cinnamon ice cream with an apple crumble in my Weck jars... or lebkuchen with spiced nuts.

Any other flavor suggestions?

Sweet Corn + Blackberry Ice Cream

We made our first batch of ice cream from Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream's cook book. The book is split into four parts according to season, so I chose to began with Summer's first recipe: Sweet Corn and Blackberry.

The results were absolutely wonderful. We're already looking forward to trying the next flavor, although it takes quite a bit of time to make our way through an entire quart of ice cream.

A variety of her recipes are available online, including the following flavors:

Vanilla Bean
Pistachio
Mint Ice Cream
Cherry Pit Ice Cream
Lemon Blueberry Frozen Yogurt
Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Melon Sorbet
Sour-Cherry Lambic Sorbet

In Munich, we are fortunate to have excellent green grocers (my favorite being Gretel's). We also have the 'egg man' that brings fresh eggs to the city from Niederbayern every Friday, but incredibly these ice cream recipes don't use eggs.

Finding many of the other ingredients took a bit of work. Rather than using cornstarch or corn syrup, I opted to use tapioca starch and glucose.

Tapioca starch or flour can be found at the Asian grocery, while glucose can be found at some pharmacies or it's possible to make with traubenzucker. The glucose helps to add elasticity, but it isn't necessary.

Homemade Glühwein

To start the weekend right how about some glühwein, homemade soup, and cuddling up to hibernate with a good book.

My dear friend Cait sent me the most perfect surprise, the book Just my Type, which is a great collection of stories about fonts. I should have probably waited until Christmas to open it, because it's proving to be a distraction from getting things done and I can't put it down.

I have to will myself out this weekend, because I really want to enjoy the Christmas Markets while they are still here and before the snow turns to slush. We also have to finally get and decorate our tree.

As for the glühwein...I tend to buy the tea bags filled with spices to cheat a little bit, however not everyone has that luxury, so here is a recipe that anyone and everyone can make at home.

I prefer my glühwein less sweet, and I don't add much sugar, although those with a sweet tooth can always add more. It's very forgiving, so you can omit or change spices according your preferences, too.

If you want to make this alcohol-free, or a Kinder Glühwein, simply replace the wine with a combination of cider, cranberry, and or grape juice.

If I really get ambitious I might try to make these glühwein truffels (recipe in German).

Elisen Lebkuchen

Since not everyone is able to make it to Munich for the markets I translated this recipe and made a cute little card to match, so you can have some German Christmas cookies, too.

I've made these several times and Stefan claims they taste like his Oma's, which is clearly a good sign. Best of all they don't have flour or hirschornsalz (baker's ammonia) in them.

The illustrations were so much fun to draw. I'm working on a second edition of my cookbook and debating if I want to do use them as opposed to photos.

I'll post a recipe for homemade glühwein in the coming days as well... homemade is the way to go. The only trouble is it tastes better than most at the Christmas Markets, but the ambiance and warmth keeps drawing me back.

animal crackers

I saw these cookie cutters and instantly loved them. Unfortunately they were only available at Williams Sonoma in the US.

My ever loving sister picked them up for me and I finally got to try them out. I made traditional animal crackers, which were another first for Stefan. My next mission will be making some that are savory.

The results are absolutely adorable.

Tilt Shift

I'm so in love with this website that Rachel posted on her blog. It's called Tilt Shift Maker and it enables common folk like myself, that don't have a specially designed tilt shift camera to create beautiful photos that look like they are miniatures. After I spent way more time than I care to admit using the site, here are a few of my favorites...

Rome + Cairo

East Greenland

Reykjavik

The trick is to find photos where the focus is on the foreground with a large depth of field and it also helps if there is some height. I'd still like to try bokeh.

I really need to decide what kind of camera to get, which was my birthday gift way back in January. Any recommendations?

Black Pearl Cake

I've had this recipe for the Vosges Haut Chocolate inspired Black Pearl cake patiently waiting in my 'recipes to try' folder for what seems like ages. Everyone that reviews it says it's a lot of work, but extremely decadent and delicious. Thankfully Stefan's birthday gave me the perfect occasion to make it.

Typically I try to make things in small portions, so making a cake is more daunting. After halving the recipe it seemed more manageable, especially for the two of us.

It has some interesting ingredients (wasabi, ginger, and black sesame seeds) for a bit of an Asian flair. Even if you don't like wasabi, I'd recommend trying the recipe. You probably wouldn't even guess it was in the cake unless someone told you. As a side note, I doubled the amount since many reviewers suggested doing so. 

The directions are easy to follow and it does help if you make the ganache and syrup the day before to break up the time. I didn't add all of the sugar the recipe called for and it was still delicious. I'll definitely be making this again.

Tortilla de Patatas

My friend Julia, from Spain, invited me over to make a traditional Spanish dish - Tortilla de Patatas (a Spanish potato omelette).

It's slightly comical that she was teaching me how to make a Spanish dish and explaining it in German, but it's nice for both of us to use the German we've been working hard on mastering.

Between our travels and conflicting schedules I think it would be fun to start cooking with Julia and my other classmates (yes, you Cait!). We've all hit moments of frustration here in attempting to create a food from home that doesn't quite work out, due to the different ingredients or kitchen equipment. It would be a great refresher for our German and everyone loves delicious food!

If others would are interested in cooking together I think it would be a lot of fun to make a new cookbook of international recipes - direct from people who come from other places.

I don't know exactly what people would be interested in learning from America, although Andrea expressed in my blueberry muffins after he saw my most recent baked goods cookbook.

We'll see what happens!

So here are a few photos and the explanation of how to make a traditional 'Tortilla de Patatas'.

Julia said she makes this dish once every week or so and that it reminds her of home. She usually serves it for dinner with a salad and she loves making it to take to the biergartens.

The ingredients are simple: potatoes, eggs, onion, olive oil, salt, and the ingredients of your choice. 

Here's how we did it:

• Skin the potatoes
  
• Cut them into thin slices
  
• Cut an onion to taste and add it to the potatoes
  
• Heat some olive oil in a pan on the stove
  
• Add the potato / onion mix and allow them to cook for 20 minutes or until soft and able to be broken up.
  
• Next, the potatoes are added to a bowl and eggs are mixed in. 
  
• In a separate pan, lightly coat it with olive oil and pour the combined eggs and potatoes together on medium-high heat. 
  
• Julia's only secret for flipping the tortilla is using a footed plate that she can hold over the pan to slide it out and cook the other side. 

I added some fleur de sel, since I add it to virtually all foods. That's it - and the results are quick and delicious.

Healthy Cooking

Yesterday I made my favorite sea salt oatmeal coconut chocolate cookies using coconut flour, which is gluten free and high in fiber. The cookies look slightly different than they have when I made them before, but they were equally delicious and healthier than ever.

We are eating fresh fruits and vegetables at every meal, but somehow it doesn't seem to be enough. I'm really trying to learn more about unconventional ingredients that work against peaking blood sugar and are more fiber rich. In addition to the Organic Coconut Flour, I also got some Organic Blue Agave sweetener.

I haven't used the sweetener as of yet, although it can be used in any recipe that calls for sugar. The only struggle is figuring out how much to use since it's slightly sweeter than sugar and comes as a liquid.

Next I may try baked goods with vegetables cooked in.

Christmas cards

I absolutely love sending mail and my list for Christmas cards continues to grow.

For the past few years, I have utilized a service from the US post office called Premium Postcard. What I really love about this, is that you can personalize your cards, create mailing lists, and send them anywhere in the world for the low price of $1.12 each (or less if you buy them in bulk or when they have a sale).

It's also ultra convenient for sending birthday cards and scheduling mailings in advance, because they are sent from within the US, so there's not the additional transatlantic wait time if you're a tad late on remembering.

If you happen to receive this card in the mail you can act surprised! I will leave the message on the back a mystery for you.

Heirloom cookbook

While I was on the internet hiatus I was able to really work on a rather large project.

I decided to make an heirloom cookbook filled with our favorite recipes as well as family favorites from Stefan’s family and mine. I have had this in mind for some time and thankfully I had a large stock of photos that I have taken of various dishes over the years. At the last minute my Grandma gave me some of her recipes that I didn’t have photos for. I improvised by taking images of ingredients and her.

Once I was finished making the book, I decided to add photos of the people that gave me the recipe, as well as little quips about occasions when we eat the particular food or what it reminds me of. After that was completed I added a simplified family tree in the back. It’s rather amazing, but I can track some of my mother’s family back to the 1500’s!

Rather than tackling this again, because it was much more time consuming than I could have ever expected, I will continually make pages of new favorite recipes and combine them for a second book once I have enough.

My sister said the book has already arrived and she said it's absolutely beautiful. She sent me these pictures until I am able to pick it up next month. I'm so excited!

Molecular Cooking Course

Stefan and I attended a molecular cooking course last night, which was very interesting, informative, and delicious. Chemistry has never been a high point of mine, but I love seeing the interesting things the reactions are able to do in the kitchen. As soon as food is involved I'm hooked!

We were the only couple from Munich among the sea of characters. I am certain I took way too many photos and Stefan asked for the chef to repeat ingredients multiple times, but we were there to learn so we took advantage of being students.

The course began with an aperol apéritif. The aperol was dropped to form small liquid filled spheres, which were then covered with an orange juice foam.

What I love about these is that you can use any liquid, alcohol or alcohol free. Also, depending on the width of the syringe you could vary the size. The process of making them was also a lot of fun. These can be used in a variety of ways and even be put into drinks.

The longer it was kept in the solution the thicker the skin of the aperol would be. We were intrigued and it was a great way to start the evening.

Next was a hokkaido pumpkin soup that was changed into solid forms. We enjoyed them with chestnuts and an infused chestnut sauce mixed with olive oil. They were so simple and so pretty.

It was a very autumn type of meal and I loved it. It also gave me something new to do with all of my silicone baking molds.

Not only did we learn how to make foams and spheric creations, but we also learned how to make tagliatelle from liquid, frozen yogurt using liquid nitrogen, low cooked vacuumed packed meat (cooked sous vide), and espumas.

Stefan quickly became a pro at making and cutting the tagliatelle. Depending on how thick the liquid was poured it would create a thin film or a thicker noodle. Again, this could be adapted to making any kind of liquid a solid and slightly gelatin.

The liquid nitrogen frozen yogurt, which was very creamy and delicious. I think watching it be created was a lot of the fun.

This was also one of the points where a pet peeve of mine particularly regarding Germans came out - double dipping. People continually stuck their used spoons back into the bowl, which completely disgusts me. Call me a germaphobic (Thanks Mom!), but I don't understand why it's necessary to contaminate things with saliva when there are plenty of spoons available.

Next was the main course, meat cooked sous vide. I'm not one for meats, although I did try this since it was supposed to be so special. It was very moist and flavor infused, thanks to the lemon leaves and seasoning that it was packed with. I gave the rest to Stefan to finish. The moisture and tenderness was due to the vacuum sealing, so the liquid couldn't escape.

Dessert consisted of fresh mango slices that were covered in our espresso tagliatelle, chili strands, and a coconut milk espumas. It took some time to create, but was also very good.

I really love the versatility and interesting things that we learned to do with everyday foods. It's especially nice that many of the recipes simply call for liquids, which can easily be exchanged to create more variation. I can't wait to learn more about all of this.

Hopefully we'll be experimenting in the near future and will create some fun new fusion meals. It looks like it will be quite some time before we make it to elBulli - reservations for 2009 are already booked.

Edit (May 09): It appears as though Molecular cooking is catching on here in Germany. Since attending this course I have seen several stores carrying the needed mixtures to achieve the interesting results.

Here are a few resources that you may be interested in:
Molecular Cooking + Restaurants Resource
Texture Pro
Molecular Fun (German)
A cook book called 'Alinea' by Greg Achatz (from the restaurant Alinea in Chicago)

Halloween

I cannot believe how fast halloween has crept up. Unfortunately I didn't even get a pumpkin to carve until today. Stefan loves carving pumpkins and I love seeing his inner child get so enthusiastic about it. He didn't carve a pumpkin until he was in college, since it's not a widely celebrated holiday in Germany.

Since I love doing little theme nights I made some finger cookies to enjoy and surprise Stefan with. I had 5 trick-or-treaters, but I was still baking the cookies so I was unable to surprise them. I did however have candies from American for them, which they definitely didn't expect. Their costumes weren't as theatrical as they are in America, but they wore face paints, wigs, and tattered clothes. I was happy just to see some Halloween spirit.

I put several movies out for Stefan to decide that we would watch when he came home. It was Charlie Brown's great pumpkin and Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas to enjoy as we ate fresh pasta.

We also had carmel apple dip and plenty of candy with our finger cookies. I only wish we had more trick-or-treaters!

Birthday gift

I decided a while back to make my Dad a book (probably not a big surprise considering I really love books). I used blurb, which now was new cover wrapped books that are just beautiful and very professional.

The book was based around photos from his visit in March and things that I've learned from him - complete with my own handwriting to personalize it a bit more. If I might say so myself, it's quite sweet. I'm looking forward to giving it to him tonight.

Also, Mieka won't be forgotten - she will get some vanilla ice cream and the remnants of a pretzel I brought from Munich especially for her.

Blueberry muffins

With mass amounts of blueberries comes a variety of blueberry baked goods. Tonight I made some muffins from scratch. I even went all out and made a streusel topping.

Living away from home has definitely taught me how to cook. It's one of the humbling things about living here... I make many mistakes but I can't forget that I am learning everyday.

It's too bad Stefan has to go back to work, but at least I can send him off with a great breakfast.

Copyright ©

Perhaps I should be flattered, however I am somewhat surprised to see my photos on another website with no credit given and no permission asked.

I realize I have been posting photos without watermarks or other distinguishing characteristics, however - I did this because I felt it makes photos less attractive and it would be a tad presumptuous to assume that others would want to use my work.

Evidently I was wrong.

I still retain a copyright to my images and the contents of this blog regardless of if it explicitly is watermarked or not (see copyright at the bottom of the page). Just because some photos aren't marked does not mean they can be taken and used however someone else sees fit - particularly without permission.

I am afraid that I will have to resort to marking each photo with the logo above or something similar so people don't assume my photos are fair game.

My belief is that someone really enjoyed my photos, which makes me happy - that is what I post them for. If you are interested in anything you see here please ask by commenting on any post before you put my things to use!

Thank You!
Emily

If you are interested in making sure your content is not being used elsewhere, I recommend signing up for google alerts and also checking copyscape

Happy 4th of July!

Today is a rough day to be an American living abroad. I get slightly homesick as I think about my own friends and family celebrating with a cookout and enjoying evening fireworks. When things in America slow down and most of the country has the day off it's always a special day.

Today I've been occupying myself with some digital Lomo style photography. I really love all of the effects of Lomo cameras, however I appreciate the control I have over the digital modifications - and I don't have to be patient waiting for film to develop.

The photo above, from the New York Stock Exchange, I took last September and today it looks entirely new and different. It's nice to experiment with my thousands of travel photos and see something new.

While I wait for my family to wake up, perhaps I will make American foods and look forward to an evening with sparklers.