Pumpkin!

Ever wondered how to make pumpkin puree?
No?
Tough, because I'm going to tell you.

First, you take a pumpkin (insert gasp).
Remember the tiny butternut pumpkin I was super proud of? Well, he's going to be my victim for this demonstration.

Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F).
Cut the pumpkin in half, and scoop out its guts the gooey and stringy stuff.
(Only three tiny seeds in my tiny pumpkin)

Now put your pumpkin halves cut side down onto a baking tray. (You can omit the parchment paper)

Bake until the skin is wrinkly. Now stab the pumpkin! If it still moves, put it back in the oven. If the knife goes in easily, it's ready.

Let the pumpkin cool. Then flay that poor sucker. You should be able to easily pull off the skin.

Use either an immersion blender or food processor to make the puree. And now you're done! If you're not using the puree any time soon, just pour it into a zip lock bag and freeze.

Tip: You can put the pumpkin puree onto some cheesecloth and squeeze out the excess water. I never do though /shrug

Thank you, my dear tiny pumpkin, you were delicious!

Christmas cookies all year round!

Well, you'll be able to use the cookie recipes I'm about to post for Christmas '14! Or just whenever you like, because these cookies are de-li-cious!

My sister helped me with this year's Christmas baking, which was a first. I made the dough, and she did the rest :3

This is the first time I'll be trying to add cup measurements as well, if anything is false, blame the Internet, not me!

Vanillekipferl
280g (1 ½ cup) flour
200g (7 ounces) butter
100g (¾ cup) ground walnuts (you can substitute for almonds, although the cookies will be dryer)
80g (¾ cup) powdered sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
additional powdered sugar and vanilla sugar

Quickly mix together the ingredients to form a dough (yes, just throw everything together), wrap it in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for about two hours.
Preheat your oven to 170°C (338°F).
Form the Kipferl by rolling pieces of dough between your hands (or on the table) and put them on a parchment covered baking sheet.
Bake about 15 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
Sprinkle powdered- and vanilla sugar over the cookies while they're still warm.
Let them cool and then stuff your face.

Zimtsterne
250g ( 2 cups + 1 tbsp) flour
125g (1 stick) butter
125g (1 cup + 1 tsp) powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
dash salt
1 egg
1 egg yolk
125g (1 cup) ground hazelnuts
additional flour for rolling out the dough
powdered sugar and lemon juice for the icing

Quickly mix together the ingredients to form a dough (once again, just throw everything together), wrap it in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 160°C (325°F).
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out stars. (Yes, you can see a few snails in the picture, it was a joke because Zimtschnecke (cinnamon snail) is the German word for cinnamon roll)
Place cookies on parchment covered baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until they turn golden brown.
After the cookies have cooled completely, mix powdered sugar with a bit of lemon juice, and either cover the entire top of the cookie, or just drizzle some over it.
Now stuff your face.

Fortune Cookies
2 egg whites
½ tsp vanilla extract (or vanilla sugar)
3tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
60g (½ cup) flour
1 ½ tsp cornstarch or potato starch
dash salt
115g (½ cup) sugar
3 tsp water
optional: food colouring

Preheat your oven to 150°C (300°F).
In a medium bowl, lightly whisk together the egg whites, vanilla extract and oil.
Sift in the flour, starch, sugar and salt and add water.
Beat until you have a smooth batter.
Now you can either leave it at that, or divide the batter between bowls and dye them all a different colour.
Drop a spoonful of batter onto a greased cookie sheet, then spread the batter with your spoon. Repeat one more time. (Start with 2 cookies, and once you've got the hang of it, you can do more)
You can now decorate the cookies like you would normally do with royal icing.
I folded my own little piping bags and made polka dots and stripes, but there really is no limit to what you can do :3 Just remember that you'll be folding them, so maybe don't paint Mona Lisa, because she won't be recognisable.
Bake the cookies for 14 minutes, or until the edges turn golden, and the cookie is easily removable with a spatula.
Take a cookie, and flip it over. Lay your fortune or message onto the cookie, then fold it in half. Quickly, but gently, pull the edges of the cookie over a mug or glass, then put it into a cup of a cupcake tin, so it won't lose its shape.
Yes, the cookies will be hot.
Really hot.
Ouch.

It's December, let's bake!

Cooks, Bakers, everyone who loves to create edible wonders, meet your Lord and Master: my grandma.

I know, I know, everyone says that their grandma is the best cook in the history of ever, but I'm pretty sure that mine actually is. Like I said in one of my first posts: she makes vegetables taste heavenly. End of discussion.

A few weeks back, my grandma had an arm surgery, and she's still feeling pain when gripping stuff, or kneading dough, so for the first time ever, I helped her do the Christmas baking.
Mind you, we didn't bake as much as she usually does (so many different cookies!), but I call four Stollen and three batches cookies (and lunch) a success none the less.

Sadly, I only have some medium quality pictures and no picture of the end result of the Stollen, or the cookies, but I'll share the recipe anyway.

You must know, I think Stollen is one of the most disgusting Christmas foods ever invented. My dad on the other hand can't have Christmas without them. So I'll let you decide if you want to try making one or not.

The recipe I'm about to share was from a magazine or cookbook, redone by my great grandma, redone by my grandma.

Warning: lots and lots of pictures.

Weihnachtsstollen
(makes two)

1kg flour*
250ml milk
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp flour
100g fresh yeast
350g butter (melted)
125g sugar
750g candied orange and lemon peel, walnuts, raisins, almonds, glacé cherries, etc.
2 packets vanilla sugar
rum
rum extract
almond extract
lemon zest or lemon sugar
nutmeg
salt
more butter (melted)

First, warm up the milk and pour half of it into a big bowl. Add the yeast, 1 tsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of flour, stir, to break up the yeast. Then let it sit somewhere warm until it has risen quite a bit. (This mixture is called 'Dampfl', btw)

Then add:

 flour

 sugar

 a bit of salt

 lemon zest or lemon sugar (1 packet)

 vanilla sugar

 a tiny bit of rum extract

 a bit of almond extract

 some nutmeg

 some rum

 the remaining milk

 and the melted butter

 Now stir!

 Stir some more!

 Doesn't my dad look dashing in my grandma's apron? /cackles
Anyway, start kneading that dough! Or if you're lazy, let your Kitchen Aid knead it for you.

 If the dough is too hard to knead, add some more milk.

Besides kneading, also try slamming it onto the table a few times.
No, really, do it.

 When you're finished kneading, put the dough back into the bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm place.

 Dough after it has risen.

 Divide it in half, and knead it one or twice, before rolling out each half.

My grandma put her rolling pin into the oven for a moment so it'd get warm. No idea why, but do it anyway.

The shape doesn't have to be even, just see that it has the same thickness all over.

 Add the filling (the nuts, raisins, candied peel, etc., which were soaked in a bit of rum)

 Spread it evenly.

 Unlike the picture, fold over a piece of the left and right side first, and only then start folding or rolling up the whole thing.

 Fold fold fold

 foooold

 Now take your rolling pin, and press it down at the middle, flattening half of the roll you just did.

 Brush melted butter all over your Stollen (it acts as glue)

 Now fold over the dough...

 ...like so! Yes, that part in the front is supposed to stick out like that. That's the way the Stollen is shaped.

 Now carefully lift it into a buttered pan.

Once again cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rise.

Now this is where my father left, so no more pictures after that.

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

When the Stollen has about doubled in size, put it into the oven and bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Brush the Stollen with melted butter, right after you take it out of the oven, and sprinkle with icing sugar.
Let it cool for a bit.

Put a piece of parchment onto a cookie sheet, and turn over the pan, letting the Stollen fall out.

Turn the Stollen back over (since it just landed on its sugary side), and do the same with the other one.

Now flip the parchment over the Stollen, and put them in a plastic bag (while they're still warm).

And that is it!

Now you only have to wait for about two weeks until you can have a taste.

Wait.

What?

Yes, you heard me correctly. You have to let the Stollen rest for at least two weeks.

It has to do with flavour and other stuff...which I don't know about.
But grandma says do it, so do it.

Until my next post!

 * my great grandma noted on the recipe that she used half and half, meaning one half 'griffig' flour and one half 'glatt'. I tried googling for an equivalent of that in English, but let me tell you, flour is confusing. But you can of course just use 1kg of normal all purpose flour.

One month til Christmas...which is why I'm posting Halloween stuff

Reeeeally late with this one, but I have an excuse! I was sick!
And I am forgetful.
Anyway, have my Halloween post!

So, last post, I told you about the Witch Doctor I was making (the one with the Tiki mask), and here's how he looks as a whole:

 

After making the mask, I started by plopping some chicken bones into a cup full of hydrogen peroxide. I left them there for about a day, not longer, because I didn't want them to get too white.

(I was too lazy to make bones. Plus, these look nicer)

 Then I sculpted a skull out of air drying clay and put it into my mini oven so it would dry quicker. Because if you leave everything to the last minute, like I always do, you can't wait for everything to dry naturally.

 And here are some pictures of the Witch Doctor in the making.

 

 The base is made from wood, wood glue, and some screws here and there.

 Then I added some news paper and lots of tape~

 After that, I added some of my fail paper mache clay (which is my enemy. If you are better at making paper mache clay than I am, you can use it for the whole thing), to form that nice little belly. Then some tissue to get an even coloured, wrinkly skin, and voila, you have a naked dancing chicken.

 Some paint and a hula skirt (which was super simple to make and took way less material than I thought it would) and the body is finished! I then glued on the mask, made another skirt, but didn't tie it together, and pinned it to the back of the mask.

 

 Here we have my mum, sneaking to our neighbour's window to scare her 8D

 And this is me. I already have a pumpkin kind of shape, so going as a pumpkin person was ideal~ Clothes and mask (and witch doctor) were, like always, made last minute, but still I like how everything looks. (although I had wanted to have orange arms and legs as well, but sadly no time for that)

And that's it! 

We had friends and their little ones over, and because they were dressed up as the Weasleys (Arthur, Molly, Ron and Ginny) my sister had a little event for them, where they had to practise spells.

It was cute :3

And that's what happened on Halloween~

Yes, Halloween in Vienna is boring (we had one group of Trick or Treaters...ONE!), but it was nice anyway.

Still I hope that next year, we'll be at Disneyland again 8D

Until the next post!