I never stop wondering why everything is so disorganized in local kitchen equipment stores. I’ve been looking for a very simple thing – muffin tins with matching paper liners. As a result, I’ve got tins of three different sizes (and all of them are too shallow) plus two packs paper liners that match none of these tins. Great. I’m hoping that if I continue collecting mismatched moulds and paper liners, someday one of the liners will fit in one of the moulds. Until then, I managed to squeeze some very nice liners with floral pattern into my six medium-sized moulds. That looked far from perfection, but better than nothing. The rest of the forms I just greased with butter. So in the end I got a batch of cakes of assorted size and style… and I liked it! Looked kind of informal. A friend of mine once said that although I try hard to put things in order, chaos is my true element. So this time I was in my element, you know :) Now I’m thinking of baking this as one big cake. I think it should look lovely with that colourful marble pattern inside.
I’ve got to say huge thanks to Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen for her post on Apple Yogurt Muffins, which inspired me to make yogurt muffins with fresh summer berries. The recipe worked out great for me, I just substituted margarine for oil and added more sugar (the original recipe highlights that the muffins are meant to be not too sweet).
Aaand then I had fresh berries in my muffins. Two handfuls of tiny sweet strawberries, juicy blackcurrants and tender raspberries that swirled into a beautiful pattern of pink, red, and purple inside these moist, buttery cakes. I loved how the heavy strawberries sunk to the bottom of my mini muffins and coloured them fluorescent pink. The muffins tasted best about an hour after I took them out from the oven – still warm and spreading a lovable sweet smell all around the house, but they were also good this morning when I grabbed a couple before going to the swimming pool. I’m definitely going to bake this as a single loaf on the weekend, when my sister returns from her trip around Central Europe! Thank you Patricia for the great recipe and inspiration!
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The idea of making mini omelettes with cheese filling belongs to Mom. She invented the recipe when we were baking Rhubarb Meringue Tartelettes and she had to use up a leftover fresh egg. She slightly whisked it with a fork, added a slice of cheese, and baked it in a spare baking mould. I didn’t taste this spontaneous omelette, but it looked good! So today we made a more sophisticated version of it – with salty crumbly caraway cheese inside and tiny chanterelles on top. Provided you have some cooked chanterelles in your fridge/freezer, these fine little omelettes are made in 30 minutes from start to finish. Nothing too complicated or expensive, and yet this will definitely surprise your family or guests.
Oh and by the way, I’ve had another bowl of wild strawberries today. Life is better than I expected :)
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Midsummer (Līgo/Jāņi) is probably the most favourite and significant holiday for Latvians. It’s celebrated on 23/24th June when the night is so short that there’re only a couple of really dark hours. It’s not as evident as the famous Saint Petersburg’s “white nights”, but still enough for birds to confuse day and night: sometimes you can hear them sing or make noise after midnight. I’d say it’s even a little bit disturbing that the sky almost never turns black in June – I keep waking up at night because of that eerie blue glow coming through the curtains.
On the shortest night of the year, everyone heads out to the countryside, drinks gallons of beer, barbecues, eats traditional cumin cheese (Jāņu siers, see picture), makes (or tries to make) bonfires and almost certainly soaks in the rain, because it typically rains on Midsummer. The cities become absolutely deserted! All guys named Jānis wear heavy oak leaf wreaths and all ladies named Līga wear wreaths of flowers/oak leaves. If you see an oak leaf wreath on a car – there’s certainly a Jānis in it! Oh and there’s also that ancient tradition of searching for the mythical fern blossom, which is believed to have magical powers. Actually the fern blossom quest means more than just that – to give you a hint, a lot of children are born 9 months after Midsummer night :)
Even though I don’t celebrate Midsummer, I couldn’t miss the chance to buy some of that special cumin cheese and use it for some crescent rolls. I first saw garlic crescent rolls on a Slovak Christmas table and copied the recipe from Stano’s Mother. With some tweaking and the addition of some fresh dill this could make a lovely Midsummer snack, I figured. And with cumin cheese these rolls turn into a truest Midsummer treat! They pair perfectly with beer, cider, and fresh vegetables, and they’re easily transportable, in case you’re going to have a picnic. For the garlic version, there’s a lot of garlic odour while baking, but ready crescent rolls are just slightly garlicky. And they look so plump and appetizing!
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Rhubarb… it’s finally here. I’ve been drooling over all the gorgeous rhubarb desserts in your blogs and magazines since late April I guess, but it was only last weekend when I first saw rhubarb on the market. Of course I grabbed a large bunch of crunchy rhubarb stalks, and the next day we were already baking these tartelettes. Mom first came up with the idea of a rhubarb pie, but then we thought we’d try our new individual baking forms, so we decided on shortcrust tartelettes with rhubarb filling topped with soft meringue. This is actually a mini-version of the Raspberry Meringue Pie that we made last summer - my favourite pie ever. It’s super-versatile – you can use strawberries, blackberries or any other berries for the filling, or rhubarb, in our case. The tart rhubarb center hidden between a sweet shortcrust base and a sweet whipped meringue brings you a pleasant surprise. This is a fool-proof recipe; the hardest part is to prevent the cracks on top of meringue, which is achieved by first cooling the meringues in the oven with oven door open, and then gradually transferring them to a cooler place. I skipped this step because the sun was setting and I was in a hurry to take the photos. So, our tartelettes look pretty rustic with these cracks on top… but there’s certain charm in this, don’t you think?
The sad thing is that I don’t have that sweet tooth any longer, and while I really like the combination of sour/sweet flavours and soft/brittle textures in these tartelettes, I can’t have more than one at a time. You should know that ONE tartelette (cupcake, piece of cake, whatever sweet) used to be NOTHING for me. I could live on sweets for days. So I’m really surprised by this change and still can’t get used to it.
Another problem that seriously irritates me lately, is that there’s no decent street food in Riga. No take-away pizzas, no hot/grilled sandwiches, very poor choice of take-away drinks. I’m fed up with store-bought croissants and muesli bars, also because I’d prefer something savoury for lunch. It’s really a problem to have quick lunch in Riga, even if you work in the historical centre of the city, like I do. I recently discovered a place where you can have sushi or hot bento lunch in less than 15 minutes – that’s the only place in the Old Town which is fast, affordable and good-quality at the same time. Arghhh.
And, last but not least, I would like to say huge thanks to Barbara Rolek of Eastern European Food @ About.com, for listing our blog on her Eastern European blogroll. Check out Barbara’s latest Eastern European Beet Recipes!
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I have no idea of how this happens, but when I look through my blog archives I see we’ve been baking and cooking a lot of sweet dishes recently. I really have no idea why we’re doing this, because when I eat out, I almost never order a dessert these days. I used to have a super sweet tooth, but lately my food cravings have changed and I have eaten no chocolate bars since my birthday, which was in January. I didn’t try the chocolates my parents brought from Venice. I didn’t eat any truffles offered at birthday parties. The only thing I still like is hot chocolate, especially half-and-half dark and white. In fact, I just don’t see chocolates as something edible any longer. They just bring no emotion to me - I stay impassive even if I feel the smell of my one-time favourite milk chocolate. Strange, isn’t it? Instead, I’ve been enjoying savoury foods like pizza, lasagna, polenta, and huge bowls of fresh salads. Perhaps the organism is running out of vitamins and asking for something healthier than sweets. I drool over your rhubarb and asparagus recipes guys – I’m so impatient for fresh greens and berries.
But, while I day-dream about fresh vegetables, my hands do quite the opposite thing. They leaf through recipe books and magazines, pick sweet dishes and cakes, and cook them. Yeah… they lead a pretty independent life!
Today’s cherry cake was actually Mom’s idea. She found the recipe in her notes, it had been copied from some newspaper, the title of which, unfortunately, we can’t recollect now. The cake is something similar to cobbler or clafoutis; berries are covered with cottage cheese and semolina batter, but you don’t turn the cake upside down when ready. Of course I’d prefer fresh cherries to canned, but welcome to reality girl :) The weird thing about this recipe was that the cake baked for an hour and 20 minutes instead of 25 minutes!! The recipe didn’t mention how hot the oven should be, but we decided to cook it on a low heat so that the cherries wouldn’t burn… as a result the cake was ready in more than an hour!
Before I go to have a slice of this mild-flavoured, moist cake and a glass of milk, I just wanted to ask: what are your spring food cravings? I’m really curious to know!
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Interestingly enough, all of my best friends are Tauruses. Three of my best friends plus my boyfriend, to be more precise. That’s why I’ve spent all my free time at birthday parties recently (makes me feel very popular, hehe). One of my friends is mastering Ayurvedic cooking by the way, which is much more diverse than I used to think. I should ask her to write a guest post about that delicious zucchini and pea soup she made for her birthday! It was so healthy and colourful – I loved how the soup sparkled with yellows and greens when I added a spoonful of sour cream into it!
So, as you might have guessed, I’ve been so busy going out that I haven’t really cooked anything worth displaying here. Instead, Mum cooked her great and simple sponge cake with apples and cinnamon. One of our family all-time favourites, it’s easy and cheap to make. A slice of apple sponge cake with a glass of milk (or baked milk, which I’m a huge fan of) – that’s a real comfort food, don’t you think so?
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