food.

documenting my meals and baked goods

[ambermakesbread]

we’re barbecuing tonight, so I’ve made honey roasted carrots and a potato salad to go along with the meats. for dessert I’m going to go a bit rogue and make an apple and cherry crumble :-)

[ambermakesbread]

First loaf of bread in a while, this time made using fresh baker’s yeast!

[ambermakesbread]

Made pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and a side salad for dinner tonight and it was so good that I already can’t wait to have it again

[ambermakesbread]

I’m planning a little dinner party for some of my friends (I’ll be doing most of the cooking, but another friend is hosting!) so I thought I’d roughly write out my plan to share with you all :)

Tomorrow I’ll start with getting the groceries. I’m planning on making a lasagna, a focaccia, and some ricotta dip made from homemade ricotta. One of my local stores has a few ingredients I’ll need for those dishes on sale, so that’s where I’ll do my shopping. I’ll also, in the evening, mix up the focaccia dough which will do a slow rise overnight in the fridge.

On the day itself I will made the ricotta first, as that takes some time to cool down. While that’s cooling I’ll start on my tomato sauce, which I’m making from scratch. Once the ricotta is cooled I’ll make that into a dip by adding seasonings and herbs, and put it aside in the fridge.

By then my focaccia dough will probably be ready to be shaped and be set out for its final rise. Once that is complete, I’ll bake it off and set it aside to cool all the way.

I’ll then finish my tomato sauce, and let that cook until an hour before I want to leave. At this point in time I’ll also make my bechamel sauce. I’ll then layer my lasagna, covering the top of it with grated cheese.

I’ll wrap everything up, and leave for my friend’s house. There, I’ll bake my lasagna!

[ambermakesbread]

I bought a steaming basket (for baozi) and some cheesecloth (for ricotta) today and I'm so incredibly excited to actually use them!

[ambermakesbread]

Creamy leek soup

This was such a lovely dinner. Savory, hearty and warm, this leek soup paired perfectly with some homemade cheesy breadsticks. Soup is one of my favorite meals, so I can assure you I have tried many different types. And I assure you that this one is more than worth the effort to make!

Ingredients

2 leeks, cleaned and sliced into rounds

1 large white onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

olive oil, about a tablespoon

2 large starchy potatoes, cut into small cubes

A litre of chicken (or vegetable) bouillon

A heaping tablespoon of french mustard

100 ml of creme fraiche, or 100 ml of cream

salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and any other seasonings you like

Method

In a large soup pot, sweat your onions in olive oil until they start to soften, about 3-4 minutes.

Once the onions have softened, add in the garlic. Cook for another 30 seconds, making sure the garlic doesn’t burn.

Add in the sliced leeks, stirring briefly to incorporate it with the onions and garlic.

Add in the bouillon and cubes of potato, stirring to incorporate.

Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and any other types of seasoning you’d like to include. (Personally I enjoy a bit of paprika powder)

Bring to a boil, and then let softly simmer for 20 minutes or until the vegetables have softened.

Stir in the creme fraice/cream and the mustard.

Blend the soup, returning it to another pot if needed. Taste the blended soup to see if the seasoning needs to be adjusted.

Serve with breadsticks, and enjoy!

[ambermakesbread]

Speculoos cookies with white chocolate chunks!

To be honest, I rarely make cookies. They’re one of the very few types of baked goods I don’t love. I still like them from time to time but usually they’re just not worth the time to bake them.

These though were super quick and easy, and ended up being delicious! I myself didn’t even use “proper’ speculoos, and instead got some of the store brand stuff. It tastes just as delicious, but is a lot cheaper!

Ingredients:

300 grams of speculoos paste (or any other off brand cookie butters)

80 grams of AP flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

A generous pinch of salt

100 grams of white chocolate, chopped into chunks

1 egg

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius (355 degrees Fahrenheit), and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix together the speculoos, flour, baking powder, egg, salt and cinnamon.

Once the ingredients form a dough, mix in the chocolate chunks.

Form the cookie dough into 8 decently sized balls, laying them down spaced out from each other on the baking sheet.

Bake the cookies for ten minutes. Once they’re done, take the baking sheet out of the oven but don’t take the cookies off for at least 10 minutes. Once they’ve firmed up a bit, move them onto a wire cooling rack.

Enjoy!

[ambermakesbread]

Can you believe it? I actually made a loaf of bread for once! This blog was supposed to be a strictly for posting pictures of bread, but since then it’s diverted to be for any type of baked good I make. I have to say, it does feel good to go back to my roots haha.

This particular loaf is a Jalapeño and cheese one. I believe you traditionally use cheddar cheese for this bread, but since that’s really hard to come by in the Netherlands I just used Gouda. The loaf had a wonderful spicyness, without being overwhelming, and made for some incredible sandwiches!

This was my first time baking bread in a Dutch oven. It was a little difficult working with such a heavy cast iron pan, but I’m super pleased with my results! The oven spring on this loaf, although not very neat, is much better than what I would usually get. It also created a wonderfull crusty texture!

[ambermakesbread]

How’s the social distancing treating you all? I’ve been staying inside as much as possible, and that means I have to keep myself busy. Thankfully I have a ton of recipes I want to try out, and I suspect those will keep me busy for quite a while haha!

This particular project is a Chicago deep dish pizza with sausage. My little brother really wanted to try this out, so I made it for him two nights ago. I used a recipe from Binging With Babish, and followed it as closely as I could (that is, without using onions and having to make substitutes for the sausages he uses because they don’t sell those where I live). I have to admit that this dish wasn’t really for me. The sauce was delicious and the dough was really fun to work with though!

[ambermakesbread]

Sometimes it’s good to start over. In this picture you can see two attempts at making a choux pastry for Paris-Brest. For my first try, which is the bottom one, the pate au choux was way too loose. The pastry also baked weirdly, and got brown way too fast. Because of this it was still partially raw on the inside.

I was considering giving up but then I decided to try again. With a few tweaks to the recipe I ended up with a way better pate au choux. They baked up wonderfully, and I’m so much happier with them! I’m so exited to open them up and fill them :)

[ambermakesbread]

I baked a cake! It’s a little wonky and ugly, but it was delicious so I’m just going to ignore it’s appearance haha.

It’s a hazelnut cream pie, with layers of hazelnut merengue and whipped cream. I decorated it with nougatine (small bits of peanut coated in a layer of crunchy sugar) and roasted hazelnuts. The whipped cream was a little messy to work with, but it’s the best I could do since most of my family doesn’t like the coffee flavored buttercream that’s usually used to make this cake.

This cake was another prime example of me stress baking, as it was made only hours before I had to hold an important presentation. Thankfully the presentation went well, and I got to enjoy a nice piece of cake after it! :)

[ambermakesbread]

Do you ever get really stressed out and instead of doing anything productive to help with that, you just hyperfocus on recipes that use a specific type of dried chili?

[ambermakesbread]

I’m planning for a Christmas potluck type of breakfast I’ll be having with school, but I keep expanding the amount of dishes I want to bring, whoops.

I got a request to make my pesto rolls, so I’ll definitely be bringing those, but I didn’t just want to bring the same old thing year after year. That’s how I came up with the idea of making merengue cookies, as I can made those a few days in advance if needed. But then I started thinking about what I could do with the leftover egg yolks I would have, and I decided to make profiteroles with pastry cream filling.

Now I’m seriously wondering if it would be socially acceptable to show up with three different baked goods.

[ambermakesbread]

Tonight I made pizza in my new oven for the first time. Before we had our kitchen remodeled we used to have pizza night every Friday, but being without an oven put a stop on that for a few weeks. Today I finally had the time to restart this family tradition, and made a total of three pizza’s! This one was mine, I topped it with chorizo and onions. (My favorite combination!). I was so pleased with how the crust baked up, it got all nice and crispy without burning. It sure was a success to me :)

[ambermakesbread]

Finally cooking again! We’ve been having a major kitchen remodeling for the past month or two, so I haven’t been able to bake or cook at all. The kitchen still isn’t finished but we now do have an oven. I’m making use of it tonight by making a nice quiche, and some wraps for my little brother. The quiche has leeks, bacon and cheese which I think will be a good combination. We’ll be having the quiche with a homemade chicken Caesar salad. I have to say, I’m quite happy with tonight’s spread of dishes :)

[ambermakesbread]

I’ve just started looking into making mead, and the whole process of it is so damn fascinating. It looks really simple, but the whole fermentation thing is really cool. The only experience i’ve had with fermentation has been through bread, and that has always turned out pretty great for me. Somehow that makes me think i’d do pretty well in making mead. 

The only problem now is that i’ll be underage for another 3 months or so, so i’m not sure if my mom would be okay with me brewing alcohol in her home haha. For now i’ll probably just stick to reading recipes and watching videos. It’s a project for the future, i think.

[ambermakesbread]

These cream puffs/profiteroles/soesjes (or whatever else you want to call them) are always such a crowd pleaser. They’re basically just a vessel to eat whipped cream, and who doesn’t like whipped cream? I also think choux pastry is just so much fun to work with, and it always turns out great.

I filled these cream puffs with fresh whipped cream and topped them with a sprinkle of powdered sugar. I, as always, baked way too many so I ended up sharing them with my neighbors. They all said that they were delicious, which definitely made my day :)