Risalamande

Today’s recipe is a rice pudding served with warm cherry sauce at Christmas time in Denmark. Apart from flaked or chopped almonds, one whole almond is added to the rice. The person, who finds the almond, should save it discreetly until everyone finishes the desserts. Only then, the almond is revealed and the person receives a little gift.

Now, you might wonder why I make a Danish Christmas dessert at this time of the year. It’s all cause of Kiiri, a Polish girl, who has organized a food blog event featuring Scandinavian recipes.

I didn’t follow a particular recipe for this pudding. Reading dozens of recipes on food blogs and other food pages, I have noticed that all of them call for the same ingredients: milk, rice, whipping cream, almonds, vanilla and a little bit of sugar. The quantities of the ingredients have varied from recipe to recipe, but that was actually a good thing as I could adjust them according to my taste. Also, the method of cooking the rice was different in different recipes. Old recipes asked for bringing the rice to boil, removing it from the heat, wrapping the pot in newspapers and blankets and leaving it this way for about 2-2.5 hours or until the rice is cooked. More modern versions just simmer the rice on a very low heat for about 1 hour. Since I have a “keep warm” function on my cooker, I decided to make use of it. I cooked the rice on a low heat for 10 minutes, brought it to boil, removed from the heat and left the pot with the rice covered on the “warming center” on my cooker for about 1 hour.

Making the cherry sauce was a little bit more complicated. Danish people often buy ready sauce, but since I had a bag of beautiful frozen sour cherries at home I decided to make my own sauce. I don’t know whether my sauce is similar to the Danish one or not, but together with the rice it tasted truly delicious. And I was the lucky one who has found the almond :-)

Risalamande

Serves 4

4 cups full-fat milk
1/3 cup (65 g) short-grained rice
½ vanilla pod (reserve the other half for the sauce)
1 cup whipping cream
3 tbsp caster sugar
65 g almond flakes
1 whole almond

1. Split half of the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds.
2. Place the milk and vanilla in a heavy-bottomed pan. Bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat. Add the rice gradually stirring constantly.
4. Increase the heat and bring to a boil again.
5. When the milk boils, reduce the heat, cover and simmer on a very low heat for about 1 hour or until the rice is cooked. Stir from time to time, making sure that the rice doesn’t stick too much to the bottom.
6. Leave to cool completely.
7. Whip the cream together with sugar. Fold the whipped cream and almonds into the rice. You can add more sugar or more almonds if you wish. Serve with warm cherry sauce (recipe below)

Cherry Sauce

1 ½ cup (about 185 g) frozen cherries*
½ tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp sugar
½ vanilla pod
1 ½ cup water + 2 tbsp cold water
1 heaped tbsp potato starch (corn starch can be substituted)

1. Place the cherries in a medium saucepan. Add lemon juice, sugar and 1 ½ cup water. Add the vanilla pod. Simmer until the cherries are tender.
2. Combine the potato starch with 2 tbsp cold water.
3. Bring the cherries to a boil. Remove the vanilla pod from the pot. Reduce the heat, and , stirring constantly, slowly pour the water with the starch. Simmer for a few minutes until the sauce thickens slightly.

* I used frozen sour cherries in this recipe, but regular sweet cherries should work as well.

Print the recipe

Recipe in Polish:
Risalamande (duński deser ryżowy)

Financiers aux framboises...

I wanted to bake something more ‘autumnal’ today, but when I saw the recipe for raspberry and pistachio financiers, I just couldn’t resist them...

Financiers, also called friands are little almond tea cakes originating from France. I already posted a recipe for them once here. Unlike Donna Hay’s recipe which I had used back then, this recipe doesn’t use baking powder at all. The cakes come out even more delicious. Soft, delicate, spongy, just wonderful!!! Traditionally, financiers are baked in oval or rectangular molds resembling bars of gold, but since I don’t have them (yet), I used other molds instead.

The recipe comes from one of my favorite French food magazines Cuisine Gourmande.

Use real butter (no margarine) in this recipe. Cooked until golden brown it will add a light nutty flavor to the cakes. The raspberry - pistachio combination is truly delicious, but feel free to experiment with other fruit/nuts. The cakes taste delicious plain as well.

Raspberry- Pistachio Financiers

Makes 12 cakes

125 g raspberries
1 tbsp unsalted pistachios, shelled
125 g butter
100 g icing sugar
30 g flour
90 g almond meal
3 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (180°C). Grease 12 friand molds or other molds you use.
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan; heat over low heat until it turns nutty brown and some of the milk solids separate. Leave to cool.
3. Sieve flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Add almond meal and stir to combine.
4. Add egg whites, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Add cooled butter and stir until the ingredients are well combined.
5. Spoon the batter into prepared molds. Press a few raspberries and pistachios into each cake.
6. Bake for 15-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool before unmolding.

Print the recipe

Przepis po polsku:
"Finansjerki" z malinami

Easter Braided Bread

This bread is something my family is always looking forward most on our Easter table. I made it first a few years ago using a recipe from a magazine – I can’t remember now what exactly was the magazine. The bread is truly wonderful, tender and fluffy; filled with a whole range of grains it’s just a wonderful combination of textures and flavors.


Easter Braided Bread

600 g flour
20 g fresh yeast (also known as compressed yeast or cake yeast)
2 tbsp sugar
1- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
375 ml (1 ½ cup) slightly warm water

100 g carrots, grated
2 tbsp pistachios, chopped
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon lemon juice

4 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds

3 tbsp finely ground almonds
1 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Crumble the yeast in a large bowl. Add 100 g of flour, 1 teaspoon of sugar and all the water. Stir to combine. Cover with a dishtowel or plastic wrap and set aside for 30 min.
2. In a big bowl combine the remaining flour, sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Fold in the yeast mixture; knead to form dense, smooth dough. Cover the bowl with a dishtowel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for another 30 min.
3. When the dough’s doubled in size, knead for 1-2 minutes, then divide into three equal parts.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 C (390 F).
5. Combine the grated carrots, pistachios, lemon juice, and ginger together. Add to one part of the dough, knead until the carrots are incorporated. Add more flour if sticky.
6. Knead the second part of the dough with poppy seeds and sunflower seeds and the third part with ground almonds and sesame seeds.
7. Roll each piece into a long strand. Lay the strands side by side and gently braid them.
8. Place the woven dough in a wreath shape on a greased cookie sheet, tucking the ends under. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.
9. Brush with water. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Przepis po polsku:
Wielkanocny warkocz

Granola with Cashew Nuts and Cranberries

I can't imagine a day without having breakfast in the morning . I'm always very hungry when I wake up and can't wait to eat something tasty. One of my favorite breakfast recipe is homemade granola. It's not only healthier than cereals from a grocery store, but also tastes better. What I like most about homemade granola though is that you can add whatever you want to it, the number of possible combinations is countless. The inspiration for today’s granola comes from Design Sponge blog. I've made a few changes to the original recipe, but the result remained the same, amazingly crunchy and absolutely delicious:)

Notes to the recipe: The original recipe, which can be found here , was made with honey, not maple syrup. I used maple syrup as I think it pairs better with cranberries, but you can, of course, use honey if that’s more convenient for you. I didn't want my granola to be very sweet, so I didn't use much sugar. Feel free to add more sugar if that suits your taste. I like this granola most with plain soy milk, but you can have it with regular milk or yoghurt as well.

Granola with Cashew Nuts and Cranberries

3 cups rolled oats
1/4 raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup raw cashews
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F).
2. Combine all the ingredients, except for cranberries, in a large bowl.
3. Spread out on a cookie sheet.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes, stirring and turning occasionally, until toasty golden brown.
5. After baking, allow to cool thoroughly. Stir in the cranberries. Store in an airtight container or glass jar at room temperature.

Przepis po polsku:
Granola z orzechami nerkowca i żurawiną

For those who like almonds...

There was Grandmother’s Day in Poland last Monday, and I wanted to bake something for my grandmother for that occasion. I had spent hours looking through cookbooks and cooking magazines to choose the best recipe. Finally, I opted for friands recipe. I decided to make these little almond cakes as the recipe resembled pear and almond cake I had baked a week before. The cake was absolutely delicious, so I thought that another recipe with almonds would be a perfect choice. Well, it wasn’t. Not that the cakes were not good, they were delicious, both I and my husband absolutely loved them. They were soft, they were spongy, they were moist and… they did taste almonds…but when my grandmother tried one, you could see from her face she didn’t share my love for these cakes. At first, I couldn't understand why, but then it reminded me that my grandmother did not like almonds. She had mentioned it to me a few weeks before Christmas when we talked about almond flavor in poppy seeds cake, but I totally forgot about that. So, if you do not like almond flavor either, forget about these cakes, you wouldn’t like them. But if you’re (like me) a fan of almonds, I suspect you’ll love them. They’re simple, but absolutely delicious, perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or any other time of the day.

The recipe was adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. I altered the recipe slightly by adding vanilla sugar to the batter and reducing the amount of icing sugar. I also beat the egg whites slightly, even though the recipe didn’t ask for that. I didn’t have friands molds, so I baked my friands in muffin pans, I turned them upside down after baking as they looked nicer this way. I baked my friands plain, but you can top them with some fruit before baking. I suspect they would be delicious with raspberries, but feel free to use the fruit you like most. Also, if you don’t have almond meal, you can make your own by processing whole almonds until finely ground. Since my friands were meant to be a gift, I decorated them with icing and sugar flowers, but I think they would be better without the icing, served with a dash of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Friands
(adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2)

125 g butter
1 cup almond meal
1 cup icing sugar
16 g vanilla sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
5 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350° F)
2. Grease 12 friand molds or muffin pans.
3. Heat butter in a saucepan over low heat, whisking frequently, until golden brown.
4. Place the almond meal, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, flour, and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg whites with a fork, then fold them into dry ingredients.
6. Add the butter and stir to combine.
7. Spoon 2 tbsp of the mixture into each mold.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springy to touch but moist in the centre.

Przepis po polsku:
Friands (Migdałowe babeczki)