Well I’m experimenting with a new kanafa recipe and haven’t perfected it yet so I diverged and made many kanafas!
Also work has been crazy busy!

Kanafa with khashkawan cheese – perfect texture but still on the salty side

Pistachio kanafa bil smeed (my experiment) with ricotta cheese – strange after taste

Pistachio kanafa bil smeed with akawi cheese – something happened to the cheese! I need to rework something there.

Kanafa with creamy ricotta filling (adapted from a book) with honey sugar syrup – loved it and will post its recipe.

So here’s a slideshow of some of the kanafas I made

This time with nabulsi cheese. I used the same recipe as here but instead of the akawi cheese, I used nabulsi.

As with akawi cheese, you need to soak the cheese 3-4 hours, changing the water every 30 minutes.

I personally prefer it with akawi or even ricotta cheese but it wasn’t bad. Actually most people liked it.

The night before Ramadan I already knew I was going to experiment with this idea.

With the help of my mother and her suggestions, this is the result…

What you need:

• 1 packet phyllo pastry
• 1 stick of butter (100 grams)
• 5 apples (I used gala) peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• cinnamon powder

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt a large  knob of butter and add the apples, brown sugar and a few pinches of cinnamon powder, approximately 2 teaspoons. Mix through.

Cook apples until they’re soft but not mushy, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celcius.

Remove the pastry from its package and cover with a wet towel to avoid drying. I used a terrible pastry brand last night. It was dry even before I worked with it! I forgot the name of the brand but it’s black. So don’t use that.

Use one sheet at a time and cut them into squares, about 6 inches. Melt the remaining butter and brush the square sheet with butter, a sprinkling of brown sugar and a pinch of cinnamon and then add another sheet on top and repeat.

The portions are individual so the number depends on how many guests and how much apple mixture you have.  Spoon some of the apple mixture in the middle and pull the edges of the pastry together and carefully twist the ends to form a pouch.

Place the pouches on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes.

Want to take a peek inside?

Crunchy on the outside and soft and sweet in the inside, my perfect kind of dessert!

Enjoy!

So many ideas, so little time and so little energy. I will try my best to make something at least every 2 days. I hope my laziness disappears and my love of the kitchen kicks back in!

Until then, Ramadan Mubarak and happy Feasting.

With love,

The Oven Experiments team

I went down to the kitchen determined to make a plain cookie but then I saw a bowl of dates leftover from lunch earlier and remembered that I still have a large container of oats. And this is when I decided  to make oats and dates whole wheat cookies. I didn’t change much in the recipe except for reducing the amounts of sugars (brown and white) as the dates are sweet enough.

I made my first batch, just added a handful of oats and chopped whatever dates I saw in front of me. I made them thick and when they baked, they were almost cake-like and the baking powder after-taste was overpowering.

For the second batch, I measured everything correctly, reduced the amount of baking powder and made them smaller and thinner.

Dry mix:

• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (coarse salt)

Wet mix:

• 2 sticks cold butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped dates

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and prepare two baking sheets covered with parchment paper.

Sift all the dry ingredients, except for the oats. Mix the dry ingredients and the oats with a whisk to blend.

In a bowl, using a paddle attachment, mix the butters and the sugars until creamy…

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing in between each addition. Add the vanilla and then the flour mixture on low speed for 30 seconds only.

Scrape the mixture down using a spatula and add the chopped dates. Mix with either the mixer on low speed or simply combine with the spatula.

To make it easier for you and to have a consistent size for the cookies, I rolled the dough in a log with the help of a sheet of parchment paper.

Cut the log into about 20 slices and place them on the two baking sheets.

Bake for 16 minutes. Rotate the sheets halfway.

Freshly out of the oven and let’s see a close up of the insides of a warm cookie…

I made this from start to end in less than an hour. It’s the perfect treat for unexpected guests or just because.

Enjoy!

photo credit: Noaf Nackshabandi

If you like a no non-sense apple pie, then this is the recipe you want.  A thick flaky pastry encases a generous amount of apple filling that becomes slightly ‘jammy’ after baking.  We use a little bit of sugar here since we want a pie that is not overly sweet.  Besides, apples have enough natural sugars, which condense and give the pie a natural sweetness.  And, by no means waste time trying to make the top crust look perfect.  Unevenness and imperfections will give the pie a rustic look, which is very becoming of this old-fashioned dessert.  If you still feel you need to fuss about something, then go out and find yourself a presentable deep 9-inch pie pan.

Pastry

• 2 ½ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup/2 sticks/200 grams butter
• 5 tablespoons ice cold water
• 4 sheets of parchment paper cut into 12-inch squares

Combine the flour and salt in a food processor and pulse 3 times, to mix.  Cut the butter into spoon size pieces and add to the processor bowl with flour.

Pulse 15-17 times, until the mixture is fine and powdery and no large pieces of butter remain visible.

Scatter the water on the mixture and pulse 5 times.  The dough should hold together if you gather it in your hand.

Divide the dough in half.  Gather 1 dough portion into a ball on a parchment paper and cover with another paper.  You’ll end up with a ball of pastry dough sandwiched between 2 pieces of parchment paper.  Do the same with the other dough portion.

Now bring your roller pin over your first dough ‘sandwich’ and roll out into a 12-inch circle.  This method is absolutely mess-free and fool-proof.  From time to time, you will need to peel of the top paper to gather and even out the edges of the dough into a neat circle.  Do the same with the other half.  Refrigerate both discs of rolled out pastry dough for at least 1 hour.

While your pastry is chilling, prepare the filling.

Filling

In a big mixing bowl mix:

8 cups thinly sliced pared apples (see image below); ½ cup sugar; ¼ cup flour; ½ teaspoon nutmeg; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; dash salt.

Assembly

Take your prepared pastry discs out of the fridge.  They will feel rock hard, but they’ll soften in minutes.  Take one pastry disc and peel of a sheet of paper from one side.  Place the pastry face down into the pie pan and peel of the top sheet of paper.

Make sure you carefully press the pastry into the edges and sides of the pan.  Pour the prepared apple filling in.  Take 2 tablespoons of butter cut into small pieces and scatter them evenly over the filling. Take the other disc and remove the paper from one side of the pastry and place it face down over the filling.  Peel of the paper from the top side. Now crimp the edges of the bottom and top pastry discs together to seal.

Egg Wash and Sugar Sprinkle

In a small bowl, mix 1 egg and a pinch of salt with a fork.  Take a pastry brush and lightly brush the egg wash over the top pastry.  (You’ll end up with left over egg wash; so instead of throwing it away, make yourself a scrambled egg.)  Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over the crust.  With a sharp knife make small slits around the top pastry to allow the steam to escape during baking.

Baking

Bake 50 minutes in 200c degree oven in the lowest rack in the oven. The top crust should be golden brown and the juices from the filling should bubble through the slits.

Eating

photo credit: Noaf Nackshabandi

You might be tempted to try your pie right after it comes out of the oven.  But you do need to wait until it cools so the filling sets and is not too hot to eat.  Enjoy!

My mother, on the other hand, loves it and always has. Three mother’s days ago, I decided to change the routine and make her marrons glacés instead.

When I had my BDesserts business I got some of my supplies from a local company that imports French products called FAMECO and they sent out recipes on a monthly basis and one of them was how to make marrons glacés. It seemed fairly easy and it was. This is when I had my first bite as an adult and fell in love with it.

I made it again yesterday and this what you need:

1 tin of 1000 grams of chestnuts in syrup available in Kuwait from here or you can also try here.

And

500 grams of icing sugar mixed with 150 ml water  and the seeds of 1 vanilla pod in a pan over low heat until sugar melts. Take off heat. Cool the sugar syrup until the temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, heat oven to 105 degrees Celcius and prepare a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.

Dip the chestnuts in the sugar syrup and place on baking sheet. Bake for 90 seconds only!

Place the baking sheet in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

drying and looking beautiful!

Two hours later…

Unwrapping…

This makes a fun and personalized gift idea. It is so simple to make. I’m sure even a novice baker can do it!

Enjoy!

My cousin’s birthday was last weekend and I wanted to be the cake person! I already knew that I was going to have a simple chocolate cake with whipped white chocolate ganache filling and white buttercream as frosting. I have done this combination many times, which is inspired from November’s Jude cake, but little did I know that I would find ready-made marzipan at Sultan. And oh the excitement! I was going to make made-from-scratch marzipan for a certain somebody’s birthday later this month so initially I bought the packets for that project.

I baked my chocolate cake, whipped my filling and frosting and it was time to decorate. My cousin (sister of the birthday girl) and I thought this cake needed something extra! Our initial plan was to use a very small piece of the marzipan and roll it out into a square to write the birthday message but then because I had some time and still energy and enthusiasm we decided to cover the entire cake with marzipan. I took my red food coloring and put two drops in the marzipan dough and rolled it out thinly (too thinly we later found out). Placed the rolled out marzipan on the ready cake and decorated with white chocolate and dark chocolate. It was SO much fun!

Here’s the cake all lit with squiggly candles…

And an inside look…

I still need to practice on marzipan and eventually start making my own! But this one is so easy to use and it’s not ridiculously sweet. It actually complemented the cake.

P.S. If you want the recipe for this cake, let me know in the comment section below.

**UPDATE**

Cake Recipe (take from Little Cakes from the whimsical bakehouse):

Preheat oven 175 degrees Celsius and butter and flour a half sheet pan or a brownie pan.

Mix on high speed 1.5 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup cocoa powder until light and fluffy. Add one at a time 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Sift 2 3/4 cups cake flour*, 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1.5 teaspoons salt.

Add low speed alternate between dry ingredients ad 1.5 cups buttermilk.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

* Substitute for cake flour: For every 1 cup cake flour = 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tablespoon cornstarch (cornflour)

Whipped White Chocolate Ganache Filling:

Chop 225 grams White Chocolate (I recommend Green and Black’s)

Heat 1 litre whipping cream right before boiling. Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Leave it for 5-10 minutes and then mix until all chocolate pieces have melted. Refrigerate or freeze until cold and then whip it.

Buttercream Frosting:

Beat together in an electric mixer using the flat beater 6 cups icing sugar, 2 sticks room temperature butter, 5 tablespoons milk and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Add more milk if you need to thin it out. I never really measure the milk afterwards because I like my frosting more creamy.

Tips:

1. Bake cake a day ahead, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate it.

2. Make the frosting and filling the day of .

3. After filling the cake. Freeze the cake for at least 30 minutes before putting the first layer of frosting

4. If you’re not going to use marzipan, make sure to have the first crumb layer and then freeze it so that the final layer of frosting comes out clean with no crumbs in sight!

A Princess Cake

According to The Moment Blog by the New York Times, it’s a Swedish specialty cake with “sponge cake topped with a layer of raspberries, the raspberries topped with vanilla cream, the pastry cream topped with whipped cream and the whole shebang royally enrobed in a thick cloak of green marzipan.” Umm Yum?

I was in Sweden this summer and I didn’t see this cake anywhere! So how come my Swedish friend?

A delightfully, refreshing Moroccan orange salad with sugar, cinnamon and mint! And my addition of roasted thin shavings of almonds!

While I was leafing through my copy of Flavours from Arabia, published by Thames and Hudson,  I found this simple orange salad recipe. I got my copy from our al-Maidan Cultural Centre shop in case you want to grab a copy of your own!

First you need to prepare the dressing:

• Juice of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoons orange blossom water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cinnamon stick

Bring all the ingredients together in a small sauce pan and heat until you reach a simmer. Leave the dressing to simmer for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat to cool.

Peel 6 oranges using a sharp small knife. I’m in love with my ceramic knives. They do a fantastic job! Then cut the oranges into thin slices and arrange in a deep platter.

Grab a handful of sliced almonds and lightly toast them in the oven for a few minutes.

When the dressing has cooled, spoon it oven the oranges and then add the almonds. Using a sifter or ideally a shaker, sift both cinnamon and icing sugar over the oranges.

Wash and dry a handful of mint leaves and roll them up. Taking a sharp knife, cut into thin strips (julienne). Scatter over the oranges and enjoy it as a starter for your next gathering or have it as an afternoon treat!