Icing is not difficult :)

Between cleaning and making gingerbreads I’ve made house (or church) from icing. I was 'building’ pieces of it for a few days and today they became the church :). The title is criss-cross cause making of the roof wasn’t that easy ;). It wasn’t simple to stick the pieces together cause they are very fragile. But… in the end I’ve made it. I’ve found the idea for that church on some site with christmas things.

Yeast-dough 'people’ of Westphalia

Looking through the old newspaper about cooking I’ve found that nice „people”. I’ve modified the recipe a lot. The dough is elastic, not sticks to hands and is perfect for baking those „people”. I really like playing with yeast dough like that.

400g flour (I used bread flour type 850)

3/4 cup water (not cold)

1/4 cup oli

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp salt

2 tsp dry yeast

Melt the yeast in 1/4 cup of water (in the bowl you will use for making the dough). Add sugar and 2 spoons of flour. When it comes a little floamy add the rest of the ingredients. Make smooth and elastic dough. Leave it to grow. When it’ll be twice as it was, make it again. Now use your imagination and make people from that :). Don’t wait until it grows, grease with egg yolk and bake in 200 degrees until they’re ruddy.

Challah with crumble

My rye sourdough fell off and Katarzyna gave me a bit of her wheat sourdough. I’ve fed it and when it’s grown I’ve baked challah. Well, in fact three challot, and I took one of them to Radom. I’ve strew them with a lot of crumble – that’s what we like most.

CHALLAH WITH CRUMBLE

1 cup wheat sourdough

1/4 cup warm water

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

4 cup wheat flour ( if the dough sticks to your hands you can use more flour, but not more than…)

1 egg for grease dough

Crumble:

50 g soft butter

1/3 cup sugar

wheat flour

Mix milk with water. In the bowl mix together: egg, water with milk (that mixture you’ve prepared), sourdough, olive oil, salt and sugar. While mixing it pour into the flour – slowly, little by little (’little’ is about 1/2 cup). After adding whole flour make the dough until it’s soft and elastic. Leave to grow, until it’s twice bigger than it was. When the dough is ready, make it for a while and form 8 rollers. Make two challot, each one from 4 rollers. Leave your ready challot to grow. While they growing make the crumble. Grind the butter with sugar and add as much flour as it needs to become big crumbles. Grease challot with egg and sprinkle with crumble. Bake them in 190 degrees for about 50 minutes. They should be nice and gold colour.

Crumble with sweet cherries and nectarines

Sweet cherries are one of my favourite fruits. The are great from the branch, in jam and also tasty then they’re hot and covered with crumble :). I’ve made a crumble with sweet cherries and nectarines just to have something sweet to afternoon coffee. Instead of big baking tray I’ve used small ramekins cause I wanted everyone to have his own mini-crumble :).

CRUMBLE WITH SWEET CHERRIES AND NECTARINES

125 g butter (soft)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

500 g sweet cherries

4 nectarines

8 tbsp brown sugar

Clean and stone the sweet cherries. Stone the nectarines and cut into quite big cubes.

The recipe is enough for eight 200ml ramekins

Viennese cookies

Tiny, sweet, with delicate taste of cocoa and cinnamon. Cookie-eaters loved it :). I don’t know why these cookies are called 'viennese’. I’ve found the recipe on rugged, old piece of paper in my notebook with recipes.

VIENNESE COOKIES

250 g butter

125 g icing sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp milk

300 g flour

1 tbsp cocoa

Grind butter until fluffy. Add sugar, cinnamon and milk. When the ingredients are combined – pour the flour and coca.
Cover the baking tray with graseproof paper and form little cookies using the decorating bag (tip – star shaped)
Bake for 15 minutes in 200 degrees.