Uri Scheft’s Challah

May 31, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 12 Comments

I’m a sucker for beautiful bread, and Israeli-Danish baker Uri Scheft makes some of the most beautiful bread I have ever seen. I found a Google Books preview of his recent book, Breaking Breads, and his challah – OH THE CHALLAH – is so lovely I could weep. It reminds me of some rare and mysterious sea creature. Seriously, go look at it right now. Page 41. I’ll wait.

[…whistles, twiddles thumbs…]

Anyway, when Israel was announced as the Around the World in 12 Plates destination for May, I knew immediately that I would be making Uri’s challah. So I did! I’ve made challah before and gotten fancy with the braiding, but this time I got extra fancy with both the braiding AND the garnishing, because challah is a special occasion bread, after all.

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Greek Kataifi

April 30, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

Greek kataifi is a cousin to baklava, a similar combination of chopped nuts and crispy dough soaked in syrup, only instead of being made with thin, stacked sheets of phyllo dough, kataifi is made with what is commonly described “shredded phyllo”: fine strands of dough wrapped around a nut filling like a little bundle of hay. Only when I decided to make kataifi for this month’s Greek installment of Around the World in 12 Plates, I discovered that kataifi dough isn’t shredded phyllo at all, but actually something quite different.

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Chocolate-Covered Digestive Biscuits

April 24, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

You know when you go to the store to buy cookies, and come home with said cookies plus ingredients to make other cookies? Yeah, that’s how these chocolate-covered digestive biscuits came about (in line with my resolution to bake more cookies), but because they are made with nothing but regular pantry staples, the only ingredient I had to buy was the chocolate (which is normally a pantry staple for me, but I’d eaten it all).

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Dorie’s Cocoa Linzer Cookies

April 19, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

I should really bake more cookies.

They are basically the perfect baked good: portioned as a single serving (not that it stops me from eating five in one sitting), endlessly variable in flavour, texture and shape, and they can be a simple or as complicated as you could possibly want. Yet other than the annual Christmas cookie madness and the occasional (and necessary) batch of chocolate chip, I don’t actually bake cookies very often. So I set out to remedy this, and my solution was these pretty little cocoa linzer cookies.

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Crescia al Formaggio {Italian Easter Cheese Bread}

April 14, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

Every Easter for the past six years, I’ve posted a recipe for hot cross buns, so rather than post version number seven this year, I decided to branch out and explore another kind of Easter bread: the Italian Crescia al Formaggio, an egg-rich bread loaded with parmigiano reggiano and spiced with cracked black pepper.

I’ve been on a bit of a bread baking kick lately (by which I mean I’ve made bread twice this month, but that’s twice more than I have any other month in the past year) and I’m reminded of why I love it so much. Homemade bread rocks. Taking flour, yeast, and water (and in the case of Crescia al Formaggio, some butter, eggs, and about $10-worth of imported Italian parmesan cheese – it’s a special occasion bread for sure) and turning it from raw ingredients into a gorgeous loaf of delicious bread is like having a super power. And no, I’m not hyperbolizing (much).

Crescia al Formaggio in particular is pretty spectacular: instead of kneading the high hydration dough with a dough hook, you beat it with the paddle attachment of an electric mixer until it is shiny and stretchy, giving it an amazing light and fluffy yet chewy and shreddable texture. Combined with the savoury, umami-rich parmesan, the end result is a loaf of bread that slices like a dream and makes the best toast imaginable. And though I’m still going to make a batch of hot cross buns this year (I have my eye on Aimee’s maple version), if you were to present this bread at your Easter breakfast table instead, I am quite sure that no one would be complaining….

Brazilian Bolo de Rolo

February 28, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

When Gabby announced that February’s Around the World in 12 Plates destination was Brazil, I quickly realized that I knew absolutely nothing about Brazilian cuisine. I ended up on a Wikipedia page listing common Brazilian foods so that I could figure out what to Google, which is how I found out about bolo de rolo, a jelly roll-like cake from the Pernambuco state of Brazil, traditionally filled with guava paste and boasting EIGHTEEN extremely thin layers of rolled cake. As soon as I read that, my Daring Baker’s heart leapt and I knew I had found my recipe for this month.

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Blue-Barb Custard Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust

February 23, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

From the depths of winter, I am particularly grateful to my past self for having cut up and frozen the bag of rhubarb that I recently unearthed from the back of my freezer. My normal go-to for rhubarb is a crisp or crumble of some kind, but I remembered the custard-topped rhubarb pie I’d seen Julie make. Rhubarb and custard are a classic pairing, and this particular pie combines them with a cinnamon and brown sugar-kissed oatmeal cookie crust. So basically all the best parts of a rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream – aka frozen custard – composed in a such a way that when you cut slices you end up with these lovely layers.

Blue-barb Custard Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust | Korena in the Kitchen

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Hong Kong Style Pineapple Buns

January 31, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

I’ve been feeling a little bereft after the disbanding of the Daring Kitchen last month – those challenges have been a constant in my life and on this blog for the past six (!!) years, and they always provided me with that nudge to get in the kitchen, make something, and post about it, no matter how busy or unmotivated I might otherwise be. So, I’m pleased to have found a new monthly challenge to take part in, hosted by Gabby, aka The Food Girl in Town. Myself and eight other bloggers will be cooking, baking, and eating our way “Around the World in 12 Plates” (or ATW12P), expanding our horizons and learning about other cultures through my favourite medium: food! Each month will feature the cuisine of a different country and our task is to do some research, choose a recipe (or several), and make something we haven’t made before. I am all about baking, so that’s how I’ll (most likely) be participating.

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Oliebollen {Dutch Doughnuts}

January 9, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

Oliebollen | Korena in the Kitchen

Made from a yeasted dough filled with apples, raisins, and currants, these little deep fried balls of delicious known as Dutch oliebollen were the December Daring Kitchen challenge, and yes, as per usual, I’m several weeks behind. I’m actually a little sad to be posting this challenge, because it is the very last one: participation in the Daring Kitchen has been on the decline for the past few years, so the group is shutting down and it’s time to move on. Since joining the group in 2011, I have made so many delicious desserts and baked goods that I never ever would have tried on my own, from the Mawa cake to the Esterhazy torte, homemade phyllo pastry to ensaimadas, sfogliatelle ricci and lobster tail pastries to Armenian nutmeg cake and nazooks. Not the mention the Battenberg cake, povitica, and sourdough bread, which started a whole other sourdough journey. The Daring Kitchen was one of the main reasons I started this blog, so while I understand and support the reasons for ending the challenges, it’s a little bittersweet.

Oliebollen | Korena in the Kitchen

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Zimtsterne {Cinnamon Stars}

January 1, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

I woke up this first morning of 2017 to a pretty dusting of snow outside, which reminded me of these snowy white meringue-topped Zimtsterne cookies that I promised to post about before the New Year… oops. That strep throat I mentioned in my last post has hung on through two rounds of antibiotics and also morphed into laryngitis and a fun nighttime cough, rendering me unable to speak above a whisper and totally unmotivated to do anything but binge watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix. But sickness aside, these cookies are worth knowing about, so here they are!

Zimtsterne are a traditional German Christmas cookie made of meringue and ground nuts, usually almonds and sometimes hazelnuts, cut into star shapes and topped with more meringue. This particular recipe comes from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss (which I got for Christmas after having lusted after it for months!). The literal translation of Zimtsterne is “cinnamon stars”, but a more accurate one would be “finickiest cookies in the universe” because – well – they are: the dough is sticky and soft and challenging to work with, you have to cut out hundreds* of individual cookies and frost each of them by hand, and then you have to dry the cookies overnight before finally baking them while keeping the meringue on top from browning. I managed to come up with a few techniques to make things a little easier, which I will share below, because while these cookies are certainly a project, they are also worth it: nutty, chewy, not too sweet, lightly spiced, and easy to eat by the handful if you’re not careful. Definitive proof that the Germans know their Christmas cookies!…

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Uri Scheft’s Challah

Greek Kataifi

Chocolate-Covered Digestive Biscuits

Dorie’s Cocoa Linzer Cookies

Crescia al Formaggio {Italian Easter Cheese Bread}

Brazilian Bolo de Rolo

Hong Kong Style Pineapple Buns

Oliebollen {Dutch Doughnuts}

Zimtsterne {Cinnamon Stars}

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