Equipment: January 2015

Recipe reminder (yuvetsi)

What I am cooking today?
The DIVINE "Yuvetsi" as my kids call it ... Don't queue outside my door, nothing will be left once the troops will come from school, so try it yourself :)

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Healthy (?) cookies today! I had some left overs of oat flakes from a visitor and I was thinking what to do with that. Until I have seen in the package a recipe for cookies... The ones that know me, can predict the rest :) I was waiting the opportunity to try it. And guess what? I did it!
I cannot say that I am thrilled but they have a nice surprising taste of sesame that I love and a friend of mine that was passing by could not wait them to get out of the oven and found them delicious. Your turn now...
Ingredients (for about 30-40cookies)
250 gr of margarine
2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 cups of oat flakes1 cup of black sugar
4 spoonfuls of brandy
3 teaspoons of baking powder
some orange zest
some cinnamon
vanilla

Procedure

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees of Celsius and fan.

Melt the margarine, add all the ingredients and mix well. Make balls with your hands, flatten them and put them in an oven dish tray. Bake for about 20min. Enjoy!

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Recipe reminder (spetzofai)

What have I cooked for yesterday? Spetzofai...
I had almost forgotten the impact that this dish has to my non-Greek friends, they become addicted! Reminder then for this heart-warm dish and special tribute today that is a pretty cold one and there is still snow around.
Find all the details here: http://vivianiscooking.blogspot.fr/2014/03/spetzofai-weird-name-greeek-taste.html

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Evi's cake!

Let's start 2015 with a recipe that a dear friend Evi sent to me. Evi with Natalia (if I remember well :) tried this recipe, liked it and sent to me photos from the result yesterday to publish in my blog. Evi says that it's a tasty one and worth to try it but I am very busy right now so until I will give you my personal opinion here's the recipe in case that you are anxious to try for yourselves (send me photos if it's the case). Please Evi comment this post and give more information directly :)
Thanks for sharing girls!
Btw, looking for this recipe I came across with Nanaimo bar recipe that I would definitely would like to try!!! Google it and see what I mean *slourp*

Ingredients:

2 boxes of biscuits "petit-beurre" or similar
200ml of milk

For the white cream:
800ml milk
80gr semolina
4 spoonfulls of sugar
vanilla
4 egg whites+4 spoonfulls of sugar

For the yellow cream:
1lt of milk
80gr custard powder
7 spoonfulls of sugar
4 egg yolks
80gr butter

For decoration:
Chantilly

Procedure:
For the white cream:
You boil all the ingredients (apart from the last ones) for 10min in medium fire and stir vigorously. You whisk the egg whites with the sugar in a thick marengue and you add at the end to the mixture and stir well. You take out of the fire and you let it cool.

For the yellow cream:
You boil the milk apart from some small quantity in which you mix well the rest of the ingredients (leave the butter) and pour it eventually to the boiling milk. You stir vigorously until it starts to thicken. Take it out of the fire and add the butter and mix and melt completely and homogeneously. Leave it to cool.

Start building your cake making:

a layer with biscuits that you dip in some milk
a layer with the white cream
a layer again with biscuits dampen with milk
a layer with the yellow cream
a layer with biscuits that you will break
Chantilly decoration (according to your style :)

You put it to the fridge to cool for a few hours... Have a closer look to the result:

P.S: I did my best given my heavy program to translate the recipe, correct some mistakes and adapt, but please Evi give us feedback from your experience, ok?

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Vivian's king's cake or "Vassilopita" in greek

In Greece, the 1st of January we make our favorite cake or a special recipe from our region and we hide inside a coin (covered with aluminum foil, of course :) and we call it "Vassilopita". It's the equivalent of the "king's cake" or the "Galette de roi" that we find in other christian countries for the Epiphany.
We gather in family and share the cake and the one that will get the hidden coin will be the king of the year, aka the lucky of the year...
I will share with you the recipe that I adopted since the birth of my daughter, that is a very fluffy cake scented with orange zest and rich in ground almonds. You can make it all year through but it has some luxury touch that makes it a good candidate for a special occasion :) Here it goes...

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of self raising flour
1 cup of margarine or 50-50 with butter
1 3/4 cups of sugar
4 eggs
250gr of strained yoghurt
100gr ground almonds
2 teaspoons of baking powder
zest of an untreated orange
Decoration: 100gr of chocolate and smarties or similar

Procedure

Preheat the oven at 180 degrees of Celsius.
Start by softening the butter in the microwave oven. Add progressively and mix using a mixer, the sugar, the eggs, the flour, the yoghurt and the rest and leave the almonds at the end to mix with a spoon.
Empty in a buttered round oven tray for cakes (30cm of diameter) or any other combination like I did today.