Bint al Sahn or Yemeni Honey Cake

We are baking Yemeni Honey Cake in Food trip. Very thin cake layers and nice honey taste. Cake making is taking time, especially rolling of thin layers, but if dough is enough kneaded, then then it is elastic and easy to handle. The sweetness of cake is regulated with added amount of honey.

Recipe I got here:
http://www.shebayemenifood.com/content/bint-al-

Dough ingredients:
300 g flour
2 eggs
30 ml+ 30 ml water
90 g melted butter
0,5 tsp salt
0,5 tsp dry yeast
30 g melted butter

Black sesame seeds
1 egg yolk for egg wash
Liquid honey for cake

1. Dissolve the yeast in 30 ml water. Mix flour, 2 eggs,  90 g of butter, salt, and yeast/water mixture together and knead for 10-15 minutes by hand or using a mixer. At this point, add the extra water slowly until the dough is soft and smooth but does not stick to your hands. Cover and let dough sit and relax for 10 minutes.
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1. Divide the dough in 10 pieces. Form each piece into a smooth ball with your hands and place on a flat surface and cover with a towel. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.

1. Grease a  round cake pan (diameter 24 cm) and set aside. Take one dough ball and toss it out by hand or roll it out on clean flat surface until it is very thin and you can see through it. Place this layer into the bottom of the pan and drizzle with some melted butter.  Repeat this process for all 10 layers, each time adding a little bit of melted butter on top of each layer, except for the top layer.

1. Brush the top layer with one beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with black sesame seeds. 
2. Place in preheated oven at 200 degrees  for about 20 minutes or until cake is golden brown.

Cover cake with honey and serve cake warm.

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Cheese cake with fresh strawberry sauce

Really tasty cheesecake, what is worth to try. It takes a little time to bake, but believe it is worth to wait the result 😊. 

You need:
100 g Kalev classical biscuits
200 g Kalev digestive biscuits
0,5 tsp salt
40 g sugar
600 g cream cheese (in room temperature)
185 g sugar to filling
20 g flour
200 g sour cream (in room temperature)
3 L size eggs (in room temperature)
1,5 tl vanilla sugar

Crush the biscuits and melt the butter. Mix butter, biscuits and salt. Line a (20 cm ) spring from pan with baking paper and grease the sides with butter.
Press the crust mixture into the bottom and up sides of the spring form pan. Bake in oven at 180 C for 10 minutes and let it cool completely.

Reduce oven temperature to 150 C .
Put pan to the baking bag and cover the sides with aluminium foil, so that the water for the water bath cannot get in.
Beat the cream cheese, sugar and flour some minutes. Add sour  and vanilla sugar and mix in low speed until completely combined. 
Pour the cheesecake batter into the crust.
Place spring form pan inside another large pan and fill with boiling water until spring form pan sides are covered ( three quarter of spring form pan sides).
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Turn off the oven and leave the door closed for 30 minutes. The cheesecake will continue to cook, but slowly begin to cool as well.
Crack the door of the oven for 30 minutes to allow the the cheesecake to continue to cool slowly. This helps to prevent cracking.
Remove the cheesecake from water bath and remove the baking bag and aluminium foil. Keep the cake overnight in the refrigerator before serving.

Decorate the cake with fresh strawberries and serve with strawberry sauce, what is made of crushed fresh strawberries and sugar.

Somali Sambosa

Samosa or sambuus as it is called in Somali is a deep fried triangular shaped pastry filled with meat and spices. It is commonly made for afternoon tea – asariya.

Recipe I got from here:

http://www.somalikitchen.com/samosa.html/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcsn_x93HU

175 g flour
1 tsp salt 
2 tsp olive oil
130 g warm water
500 g minced meat (beef)
One large onion
1 bunch of coriander
1 tsp of curry powder
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying

Samosa filling
Marinate the mince meat with the curry powder. Place in the fridge for one hour.  
Dice the onion and chop the coriander.
Saute the mince in a sauce pan until cooked through.
Add the onion and coriander and cook for a minute or two.
Season with salt.
Let the mixture cool.

Samosa pastry
Place plain flour, oil and the warm water in the bowl and mix until you have a smooth dough
Divide the dough into  3 ball.
Roll three dough balls out flat, each to size of a plate.
Spread a little oil on top of each round and stack them one on top of the other. The oil prevents the  dough rounds sticking to each other.
Roll the stacks to roughly the size of a dinner plate. Cut into quarters.
Fry the quarters on both sides one at a time for a minute on each side in dry pan. Don’t overcook!
When each quarter is dry-fried separate them and wrap with plastic.

How to wrap the samosas
Mix two tablespoons of plain flour with a 60 g of warm water to form a paste to seal the samosa edge.
Form each quarter into a cone shape by folding the sides from the rounded end over each other and seal with the paste. You should have a cone shape with a triangular shaped top that looks like an ice cream cone.
Fill the cone with the mince mixture.
Tuck the pointed top end down over the sealed edges and seal with the paste.

You should now have a neat triangular samosa. Repeat with remaining pieces of pastry.

Cooking the samosas
Heat the oil in heavy shallow frying pan over medium heat. Test the oil with a small strip of excess dough and if the pastry floats up then you are ready to start frying your samosas.
Place several samosas in your frying pan. Turn to brown to a light gold.
Drain the cooked samosas on paper.

Paczki or Polish donuts

This is recipe for traditional Polish donuts, what are very fluffy and delisious. These are prepared from yeast dough, but the preparing method is very different from usual preparing of yeast dough and it also contains special ingredients like spirit. Adding spirit helps to avoid the absorption of excessive oil and helps to form crispy crust.
All this makes from these donuts amazingly fluffy and delicious pastries. 

Recipe I found here:
https://www.kwestiasmaku.com/kuchnia_polska/tlusty_czwartek/paczki_najlepsze/przepis.html

Dough ingredients:
50 g fresh yeast
250 ml milk
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
500 g flour
1 egg
4 egg yolks
50 g melted butter
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp spirit

Vegetable oil for frying
Strawberry jam (without pieces- marmalade) for filling of donuts
Powdered sugar fo covering of donuts

Heat milk to 30 C. Mix yeast, 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of flour with milk. Cover bowl with food film and put bowl into bigger bowl filled with hot water. Let the yeast activate approximately 15 minutes.

At the same time sieve flour into big bowl and mix it with salt and vanilla sugar. Foam the egg yolks and egg with 2 tbsp of sugar into very strong foam. It will take 15 minutes.

Mix egg foam, yeast mix and flour mix into dough. Knead the dough for 15 minutes. At the end add melted butter and spirit. Knead more until the liquids are combained into even dough. Cover the dough with towel and let it raise for 1-1,5 hour in warm place.

Spread raised dough in flat surface covered with flour. Push air out of dough with your hands. Roll the dough into 2 cm thick layer and cut rings (diameter 6,5 - 7 cm) from the dough. Let rings raise under towel for 30-45 minutes.

At the same time heat the oil in fryer or in pot until 180 C. Bake donuts from both sides approximately 4 minutes until these are golden brown. Let donuts cool a little before starting to filling with jam. If donuts are too warm then the jam will flow out of donuts. For filling use long cake tips (designed specially for pastry filling).

Cover donuts with powdered sugar.

Ethiopian flatbread Fatira

In our Food trip we have reached to Africa and Ethiopia. This time I prepared the usual and very popular Ethiophian breakfast Fatira. This flatbread whis is usually served with honey and black coffee.
It is very tasty and crispy nad definitely worth to try. 😊

Recipe idea I got from here and I also made a little manor changes to it:

https://www.tasteatlas.com/fatira/recipe

Ingredients:
260 g wheat flour
100 g water
1 tsp vegetable oil
salt for seasoning
Oil for greasing of dough

Mix flour, water, salt and 1 tsp oil. Knead into even dough. It takes for about 10 minutes for kneading to get even and elastic dough. Share dough ball into 5 even dough balls.
Roll the dough ball as thin as possible- it should be paperthin and transparent.
Grease dough with 0,5-1 tsp of oil and fold it into square.
Cook it in hot and dry pan until done- it will be interspersed with golden and dark small bubbles. Do it the same with all dough balls.

Serve warm with honey and black coffee.

Cake for Mother´s Day

This pink cake with lots of strawberries, merinque and marshmallows is a dream of every mother. 😊 Preparation of this cake is so easy that it can be done by children. And what is also very impotrtant you do not need to bake, everything could be bought from shop.😊

Ingredients:

For decoration:
handful mini marshmallows (pink and white)
700 g fresh strawberries
handful merinque biscuits (pink and white)
30 pcs. Savoiardi biscits
wide pink ribbon

For cake:
1 cake sponge with 3 layers (diameter 25 cm)
200 ml  Alma cream 35% (in toom temperature)
300 g Alma quark cream 3% (in room temperature)
200 g Valio Viola fresh cheese vanilla (in room temperature)
200 g white chocolate
50 g + 75 g sugar
500 g strawberries

Foam whipping cream with 50 g of sugar and add quark, fresh cheese and whip to even cream. Melt chocolate in microwave and let it cool a little and add it to the cream. Mix into even cream. 


Clean strawberries and puree these with hand blender and add 75 g of sugar and mix.

Put first cake layer to cake stand from which you want to serve the cake. Spread strawberry jam to the cake layer and let it absorbe a little, then add cream.
Cover with next cake layer and add again strawberry jam and cream.
Cover with last cake layer and add strawberry jam. Cover the cake bottom and sides with cream. Let the cake stay in freezer for 2 hours.

For decoration put Savoiardi biscuits to the cake sides and  put pink ribbon over the biscuits.
Decorate cake with strawberries, merinque biscuits and mini marshmallows.

Happy Mother´s Day!

Recipe is made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS

Panncakes with, barley flour, pasha quark cream and crispy bacon

Small and fluffy panncakes are extremely suitable for Easter Sunday.  Panncakes covered with pasha quark cream, dried fruits in syrup and crispy bacon.

Panncakes:
3 eggs
100g sugar
300 g Alma pasha quark cream
100 g Alma Eesti butter
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100 g wheat flour
100 g barley flour
vegetable oil for frying

Whip eggs with sugar until you get a strong foam. Mix all dry ingredients together: flours, baking powder and salt. Melt butte and let it cool a little. Add quark cream to whipped egg foam and whip a litte more. Add dry ingredients and mix  until you get a even batter. At the end add melted butter . Cover bowl with food film and let the battter rest for 15 minutes before baking the panncakes. Bake from both sides until these are golden brown.

Dried fruits in syrup:
100 g dried apricots (chopped)
100 g dark small raisins 
1 sta anise
100 g sugar
50 ml water

Soak fruits in water appr. 30 minutes. Drain fruits and put these to the pot together with water, sugar and star anise. Boil in low heat until the syrup around the fruits is shiny and thick.

Cream between panncakes:
300 g Alma pasha quark cream

For serving:
100 g thin slices of raw smoked bacon

Fry bacon until this is crispy.

For serving put between panncakes quark cream, dried fruits and crispy bacon. Make it several times until you get a small tower. 
Bon appetit and enjoy the spring! 😊

Recipe has made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS