Pasha

Celebrating and enjoying Easter here in Germany as well. And what would an Easter be without pasha! It’s one of my favorite seasonal desserts. And so, from the countless dessert and baking options for Easter, it’s the one I decided to prepare for us. Also some mämmi would be more than welcome, but for some reason it’s not available in our local store…

Anyway, let’s post the recipe for pasha here as well, so I’ll never forget it – and someone else might try it out, too:

Pasha

100 g  Butter
1-1,5 dl  Sugar
500 g  Quark
2  Eggs
2 dl  Whipping cream
1  Lemon – zest and juice
3 ts  Vanilla sugar
1 dl  Crushed almonds

1. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Whip the cream.

2. Stir the quark, eggs, lemon zest and juice, vanilla sugar, crushed almonds and the whipped cream gently into the butter and sugar mixture until smooth.

3. Line a colander with large gauze or coffee filters and place it on top of a bowl. Pour the pasha mass into the lined colander, cover it with clingfilm and let the pasha drain for 24 hours in the refrigerator. You can also place a small plate on top as a weight.

4. On the next day turn the pasha over onto a serving plate and decorate it with lemon, almond, grapes or such. Enjoy!

This serving of our pasha is a bit strange for it doesn’t usually come with a sauce. I just felt that throwing away the drained sweet liquid would be such a waste, so I decided to cook it into a sauce. Hah, tastes ok, but next year I’ll try to find some other use for it.

Also baguette baking is doing better. Finally made some with my sourdough, and yay – they taste like baguettes and have a nice crust. Slashing still doesn’t work out that splendid, but I’ll work on that. Also had a nice structure with some bigger bubbles. I followed the recipe from here – and it was worth the 6 hours of baking.

And next week back to Finland for a while. We’ll see if post anything before that. Happy Easter for everyone for now!

Marika~

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Home made soft cheese

Oh my! Despite the lack of oven, one can still make yumminess. And this one was such! My mom has been telling me for long, how easy it is to make soft cheese at home, but I guess I never tought it would be this easy. But now, once I know the secret, I think my milk consumption is gonna go up with 200%.

Home made soft cheese, small portion

1l                     Milk, with fat or without

1 small ts      Rennet – In the countryside they sell this even in the smallest store, but huh! I live in the centrum now and had to do a bit of hunting to get this, luckily Stockmann sold it to me~

1/2ts              Salt

1. Heat up the milk on the stove, ’till it’s warm (37°C). Watch out that it doesn’t burn.

2. Take the milk aside, and mix in the rennet. Let the mixture stand for about 15 minutes in the room temperature.

3. Having started to thicken, make some cross-cutting in it with a knife and add the salt. Then let it stand for another 15 minutes.

4. Prepare a mold for the cheese – I used a sieve with a wet kitchen towel in it. And place your “mold-system” on top of a bowl.

5.Pour the mixture into the mold (or then try to lift there just the thickened parts if you wish). Place something “heavy” on top, e.g. a plate or a bowl, so that it squeezes out the juices.

6. And place this thing in the fridge – my cheese was fast, so it was ready to be eaten already on the same evening.. ..but you could let your cheese rest over the night.

7. Flip it on a plate and enjoy! Mmm, yumminess. And the rest of the liquid.. ..you can for example make breadrolls out of it, yay!

Marika~

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More than a baker

Besides bread baking, I do enjoy making other food as well. Yesterday I made my first lamb shoulder – and Carlos made some oven veggies to go with it. What a gorgeous meal for celebrating Finland’s Indepence day!

And as a dessert we enjoyed some chocolate-coffee mousse – with hazelnut crocants on the top!

And hohoho – I actually for once also attach a recipe to this!

Choco-coffee mousse to serve 4 ppl

4 gelatine leaves
75g dark chocolate
1dl strong coffee
1 big egg
1/2-3/4dl sugar
2ts vanillin sugar
1,5dl cream

1. Prepare the coffee and place the gelatine leaves into cold water for 5 minutes. Break the chocolate into a pot and pour the coffee on top. Heat up a bit until melted. Squeeze the water off from the gelatine leaves and dissolve to the mixture. Let it cool down to the room temperature.

2. Whip the egg and the sugar. Add the chocolate mixture to this.

3. Whip the cream, spice with vanillin sugar and gently add  to the mixture. Pour into four little cups and let it become stiff. Decorate with hazelnut, chocolate crums or such.

4. Enjoy!

Marika~

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