The Ex Expat

14 May 2013

As I mentioned in my previous post, we went on a train trip last week. The boy and I were off to visit my sister in rural Saxony for the long holiday weekend. The first day was a washout, just pouring with rain from morning till night, but the rest of the time was mostly golden sunshine and we really lived up the life in the country - fresh laid eggs for breakfast, rabbits to play with (they’ll make a nice roast in the Autumn, but the boy doesn’t know that!), gathering wild flowers, and making dandelion sirup!

We put the boy to work gathering dandelions - unfortunately he was so proud of the first one he picked, that he just went around showing off his flower and wouldn’t pick any more :)

Luckily there were two pairs of adult hands to help pick the bowls full of dandelion heads that we needed to make a big batch of sirup.

Ingredients

To make about 2 litres of sirup, you need:

• 3 large handfuls of dandelion petals
• 1 litre of water
• 1 kg of sugar
• 1 lemon

Directions

• First you need to pull all the petals off the dandelion heads (as demonstrated above) and discard the green leaves. Tip: this is a lot easier if the petals aren’t wet and keep sticking to your fingers!
• Place the petals in a large saucepan, along with 1 litre of water and the juice of 1 lemon for every 3 handfuls of petals.
• Bring the water to a boil and leave to simmer for 30 minutes, then take the saucepan off the heat, cover with a lid and leave to infuse overnight.
• The next day, strain the mixture through a muslin, discard the petals and bring the infused water back to boil along with 1 kg of sugar per litre. We used brown sugar because it was all we had to hand, but to retain the golden yellow colour of the sirup you need to use white sugar (ours turned out a lot darker).
• Leave the mixture to bubble away for 15-20 minutes to thicken. The longer you leave it to cook, the thicker the sirup will be.
• While the sirup is still hot, fill it into clean glass bottles. Once it’s cooled down, it makes for a refreshing drink when added to mineral water and is great for boosting your metabolism.

By the way, the photos in this post were edited with the new ‘A Beautiful Mess’ photo app for iPhone, my favourite app of the moment!

28 March 2013

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! 
One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons.
One a penny two a penny, hot cross buns.

One of the things I miss about the UK at Easter time is eating hot cross buns. There are two major obstacles - firstly, they are not sold in Germany. Secondly, even if we were in the UK, I don’t know if anywhere does gluten free versions. So I set about baking some myself. The recipe is a combination of several different recipes I found online.

When setting out to bake these, keep in mind that while they only take about 15 mins in the oven, there’s a total rising time of 2.5 hours involved, at different stages, so it’s something best reserved for baking at lazy weekends.

Ingredients

• 500g gluten free bread flour (e.g. Schär or Dove’s Farm)
• 1 sachet dry yeast (ca. 7g)
• 50g muscovado sugar
• 250ml lukewarm milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 50g softened butter
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 100g raisins
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 tablespoons gluten free plain flour
• 3 tablespoons water

Directions

Step 1- Making the yeast mixture (30 mins rising time)

• Combine 100g of the bread flour with all of the yeast and 1teaspoon of the sugar, then mix in the milk.
• Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes until the mixture has risen and looks spongey.

Step 2 - Making your dough (1 hour risin time)

• In a separate bowl, combine the remaining flour with the salt and rub in the butter.
• Stir in the mixed spice, the remaining sugar and the raisins.
• Add the beaten egg and the yeast mixture and stir together to make a dough. The dough should be not too dry and not too sticky. Adjust with a little more flour or milk if necessary.
• Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
• Clean and lightly oil the bowl, then place the dough back in it, cover it with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size.

Step 3 - Making the buns (1 hour rising time)

• Once it has risen and doubled in size, knead the dough again for about a minute, then cut in to 8 equal pieces and shape each piece in to a bun.
• Place the buns on a baking tray lined with grease proof paper, cover loosely, e.g. with a clean tea towel, and leave to rise for another hour. The buns should feel slightly puffy when touched.

Step 4: Ready to bake

• Pre-heat your oven to 200°C (or 180°C for a fan oven).
• To make the crosses, mix the plain flour and the water in to a paste. Cut a tiny corner off a plastic food bag, fill in the paste and pipe crosses on to the risen buns.
• Bake the buns for 15 minutes. If you’re using gluten free flour, they probably won’t go golden on top so make sure they don’t burn.

Step 5: Ready to eat

• To make a glaze for the buns, mix together another tablespoon of muscovado sugar with a teaspoon of milk.
• Brush the glaze on the buns when you take them out the oven.
• Serve warm with shavings of butter and a nice cup of tea.

I found that these don’t rise as well with gluten free flour as they do with regular flour, so they’re a little more dense, but they’re still really tasty!!

25 January 2013

Today is Robert Burns Day, also known as Burns Night, the day when the life and works of Scotland’s national bard get celebrated. Of course, we’ll be celebrating tonight too. Sadly, it’s the second year running that we’ve been unable to convince any of our German friends to join us for a haggis supper - and this in a nation obsessed with sausages, which really isn’t that much different from haggis when you consider what goes in them - but the boy loves haggis and one of our best friends is over from Scotland too, so we’re good.

Of course, no dinner party is complete without a good dessert, so let me recommend my Cranachan recipe to you that I posted last year: a heavenly combination of whipped cream, oats, whisky, honey and (Scottish) raspberries. Omnomnom…

And it’s been a while since I posted a play list, mostly because my external hard drive, which housed my iTunes music collection, died and I just haven’t found the time to re-rip all my CDs. But no Scottish celebration without some music, so here’s a little collection of both Burns’ songs and other Scottish tunes to get you going:

Track listing:

1. Slave’s Lament - Chantan
2. Charlie Is My Darling - Eddi Reader
3. The Soldier’s Return - Emily Smith & Jamie McClennan
4. Wild Fiddler’s Rag - Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley*
5. Om my luve’s like a red, red rose - Davy Steele
6. Ye Banks and Braes - The Cast
7. Thaney - Malinky*
8. Three Craws - The Singing Kettle*
9. Hamnataig - Fiddler’s Bid*
10. Willie Stewart/ Mollie Rankine - Eddi Reader
11. A Man’s A Man For A’ That - Emily Smith & Jame McClennan
12. Auld lang syne - Ronnie Browne

—————

* These four tracks are not Burns songs, although Thaney is also sung in Scots and Three Craws is a traditional Scots children’s song. The Wrigley Sisters are from the Orkney and Fiddler’s Bid from the Shetland Islands, neither of which were traditionally Scots speaking.

7 December

Following on from the success of the scrumptious Octoberry Cheesecake, here’s another guest post from the husband. You can find further seed snack recipes of his under Open Source Snacks on Github.

Ingredients (makes 1.5 cups)

• 0.5 cup pumpkin seeds
• 0.5 cup sunflower seeds
• 0.5 cup sesame seeds
• 2 tbps margarine
• 2 tbps maple syrup
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

• Pre-heat the oven to 150°c (302°f)
• Mix everything together in a tray with sides
• Roast for 10 minutes
• Shake the tray
• Roast for 10 minutes
• Shake the tray
• Then either:
  • Roast for another 10 minutes or
  • Switch off the oven and leave the seeds in while it cools
• Take the seeds out, spread them on a cool tray
• Once cooled, put them in plastic tubs
• Eat.

5 December 2012

One of those quintessentially British things that for me belong to Christmas, are peppermint creams. Every recipe I found online included raw eggs, but I wanted the boy to be able to eat them too without risk, so I tried my own egg free variation. They were super simple to make, and the boy gave his thumbs up on the taste test ;-)

Ingredients

• 500g icing sugar + extra for dusting
• 2-3 tablespoons double or whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon peppermint essence

Directions

• Combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix together in to a stiff paste. You don’t want the mixture getting too wet, so start off 2 tablespoons of cream and add another if necessary.
• Dust your surface with icing sugar, then roll out the mixture into a long sausage about 2-3cm in diameter.
• Cut it into slices about 0.5cm thick with a knife.
• Place on a baking tray lined with grease proof paper.
• Use a fork to press a pattern into the top of each peppermint cream.
• Place the baking tray in the refrigerator until the peppermint creams are set. After that you can store them in a container, but still keep them refrigerated.