TheAncientOne´s baking and cooking blog

Hi, I am the Ancient One and I love anime, computer games, and other random nerdy stuff. This is a blog where I cook and bake things mostly from anime and computer games but also other stuff I like.

[theancientcook]

Your blog is amazing!! Ive recently just found it, out of all of the recipes you've made which one do you recommend out of all of them

Thank you so much! ^^ 

If I have to choose just one recipe to recommend would it be the Arrietty soup, since it was my first recipe on this blog and it is my favourite soup ever. 

[theancientcook]

where are you from?

Im from Ikea and Pewdiepie land, aka Sweden

[theancientcook]

Bruschetta fram Stardew Valley

Roasted tomatoes on a crisp white bread.

Long time no see!

It is summer which means more time to play Stardew Valley! cook!

This bruschetta recipe is perfect for summer as an appetizer or refreshing lunch since it is super easy to make. It is a little time-consuming though, so with some forward planning can you have a refreshing and crisp bruschetta that anyone would be impressed by and like. 

There are only 6 ingredients so you probably have most of the ingredients at home already and only need to buy, or bake, a baguette to make it. The recipe is also perfect if you have a day old baguette left after a picnic or something since you toast the bread for the bruschetta.

Recipe for about 6 bruschettas:

Half a baguette

250 g of cocktail tomatoes

two pinches of thyme, preferably fresh but dry also works

a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar

salt to taste  

Start with preheating the oven to 125 °C.

Cut the tomatoes in half and put them in baking dish. Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes and sprinkle them with thyme and salt. 

Then bake the tomatoes in the oven for about 1 1/2 hours or until they get a nice color and are a little bit dry.

When the tomatoes are done, take them out of the oven and higher the oven temperature to 225 °C. Slice the baguette a little bit diagonal in 6 pieces and lay the pieces on an oven rack. Toast the bread in the oven for about 2 minutes on both sides or until they are crisp and golden brown. 

When the bread is done is it time to assemble.

Take a piece of bread and top it with about 6 tomato halves. Now to the most important part, take the sauce that is in the bottom of the baking dish and drizzle that over the bruschetta. This sauce is a mix of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and tomato juice is sweet, tangy and heavenly good. 

Add some basil leaves if you want and enjoy!

Imagine the crunch while you bite into the toasted bread and the sweet roasted tomatoes almost melting in your mouth and then washing it down with a cool glass of rosé wine or coffee... admit that you a drooling right now.

I hope you try this recipe because it is so worth it! I will definitely make it a lot this summer.

 As I said, in the beginning, does summer (for me) mean more time to cook so I hope I can update many recipes on this blog during the summer, so look forward to that! :D 

[theancientcook]

#Farmingfeast Month!

It is a new month and that means a new monthly theme for your cooking and baking!

The fandoom foodies theme for August 2018 is farming! That means food from farming related games, anime, books, k-dramas etc. 

Here are some exaples of farming related games, anime and k-drama that you can make recipes from.

Games: Stardew valley, Harvest moon, hay day.

Anime: Silver spoon, Shota no sushi, Natsuko no sake, No rin, Non non biyori

K-drama: Modern farmer

To participate simply create a recipe post (this can be on a blog, Tumblr, Instagram – anywhere you can type up a recipe with a photo) and share the link on the #Farmingfeast link-up below. Then share your creation on social media using the #Farmingfeast

Note: The recipe post must be of your own creation (meaning don’t link-up to someone else’s recipe). If the food you made is an adaptation or variation from another source, make sure you give proper credit!

For more information about Fandoom Foodies and the monthly themes visit: http://www.fandomfoodies.com/

Now get in to the kitchen and start cooking with your (Preferably) freshly harvested ingredients!

Farming feast link-up: http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=791709

[theancientcook]

August is over and that means that #farmingfeast is over. I just want to say thank you to everyone who participated and I hope that you have had as much fun as I had making recipes to this theme.

Don’t forget to check all the awesome recipes in the link up: http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=791709

[theancientcook]

Pizza from silver spoon

If you haven’t seen the anime Silver spoon have you really missed a great anime, watch it now! Silver spoon is a comedy, slice of life anime about a boy who starts on a argiculture high school. I think it’s really funny, but the best of all, they eat a lot of deliciuos looking food in the anime.

One of the thing they eat are pizza, and everyone is overly excited about it. The pizza is made with vegetables that they have grown on the high school farm, bacon from the pig there and cheese from... lets not talk about that.

I made one pizza with gouda cheese like they used in the anime and one with mozzarella since Hachiken (the main character) said that you should use mozzarella on pizza. My favourite was the one with mozzarella, but both were really good.

Recipe for 2 pizzas:

25 g fresh yeast (or 4 g dry yeast)

2 1/2 dl water

2 msk olive oil

1/2 tsk salt

6-7 dl wheat flour

1 can crushed tomatoes (400 g)

1 tbsp dried basil

1 tbsp dried oregano

3 tomatoes

a hand full of asparagus

4 slices bacon

400 g mozzarella 

3 dl shredded gouda cheese

Note: I use the measurment dl, 1 dl is 100 ml. (1 cup is 2,5 dl)

Note: I like to use just crushed tomatoes and some dried basil and oregano as a base on my pizzas, but you can use tomatoe sauce if you like that better.

Start with making the dough.

Warm the water to 37 degrees celcius. Mix water and yeast in a big bowl of a stand mixer (if you have one, otherwise just mix it in a big bowl) until the yeast has melted.

Add the salt and oil and start mixing while adding the flour, a little at a time until the dough stops sticking to the bowl. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes by hand and 6 minutes using a stand mixer. The dough should be smoth and elastic when it is done.

Cover with a kitchen towel and let is rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours depending on room temperature. 

When it has risen, turn it out and a floured work surface. 

Knead the dough a little to get out the air, then roll it out in a circle, about 3 mm thick.

Slice the tomatoes as mozzarella, cut the bacon and asparagus into smaller pieces.

Spread a layer of crushed tomatoes on the pizza and sprinkle on some dried basil and oregano.

Lay on the bacon, tomato, asparagus and lastly the shredded gouda cheese. I added a little mozzarella too, just to make it extra cheesy.

Bake the pizza on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 5-7 minutes or until the cheese has melted and the crust and cheese is a little bit browned.

Clap yourself on your shoulder for making homemade pizza and enjoy!

[onionchoppingninja]

Pumpkin Steamed Rice from My Time At Portia for #FarmingFeast

Oh wow, another recipe so soon!

My Time At Portia is such a pretty game, you wouldn’t think it was set in a post-apocalyptic world at first glance. Hailed as the successor to Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon, you can get it on Steam, which is why I chose this Steamed recipe for #FarmingFeast month over at @theancientcook with the Fandom Foodies.

(Bad pun, I know)

The in-game recipe calls for 1 pumpkin, 1 rice, and 1 other ingredient. Not meat or lobster meat though, which is a shame, because I had a traditional pumpkin rice recipe calling for dried shrimp.

Anyway, I went with ginger and ‘bladefish’! (Yes, I know they said one ingredient, but anyway you can leave out the fish if you’re vegetarian). This is a pretty simple recipe which can be cooked in one pot or with a rice cooker.

Ingredients (for 2)

¼ of a kabocha/pumpkin

1 thumb ginger

~¼ cup “bladefish” a.k.a whitebait/silver anchovies

1-¼ rice cup (225ml) white rice, uncooked

Dashi (~280ml) or according to the rice cooker

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp mirin

Method

1. Cut the pumpkin into large chunks/cubes.

2, Cut the ginger into slices, or mince it if you want to eat it.

3. Wash the ‘bladefish’.

4. Mix the dashi, soy sauce and mirin in a bowl (and ginger, if you minced it.)

5. Measure out the rice and put it in the rice cooker.

6. Pour the dashi over. (Note: the rice must always be covered with liquid)

7. Put the ‘bladefish’, ginger (if sliced) and pumpkin on top. Set to cook.

8. When done, remove the ginger (if sliced) and mix well with a rice scoop!

Serve and enjoy, restoring 22 stamina in the process. Gift to Emily and Sophie for maximum ‘Like’ points.

++++++

For more fan recipes, follow me @onionchoppingninja!

And check out my: Recipe Archive | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Admin Update: thanks to anyone who has tried clicking on my Amazon Associates link! Unfortunately I didn’t meet the required number of sales so they shut my account.  I mean, they did say friends wouldn’t count towards the sales but I wonder how they knew they were my friends in RL! Maybe there’s a way for them to track through Facebook…

[theancientcook]

Mm, that looks super good! 

[theancientcook]

Carrot cake from Hay Day

For about one year ago, In August 2017 did I post my first recipe on this blog, It is now one year later and this blog has it’s first anniversary! Thank you to everyone who have read and liked my recipes, I never thought I would get over 100 likes on any of my posts. I hope we get another great year with more recipes! <3

To celebrate this anniversary and make another recipe for #farmingfeast did I make a carrot cake from the mobile game Hay Day. I have played hay day for many years now and it is probably my favourite mobil game. My favourite cake is carrot cake since it’s super tasty and moist, has a tangy and sweet cream cheese frosting and is healthy since it contains carrots.

Combining my favourite mobile game and cake is for me a perfect anniversary recipe, I hope you like it to!

Carrot cake recipe:

300g Carrots (ca. 2 big carrots)

200g Walnuts

100g Butter

2 dl Sugar

2 Eggs

2 1/2 dl flour

1 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

Frosting:

200g cream cheese

1dl powdered sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

zest from 1 lemon

Note 1: This is the recipe for 1 cake, on the photos of the whole cake did I use two cakes to make it look more like the one in the game.

Note 2: I use the  measurement dl ( deciliters), 1 dl is 100 ml. (1 cup is 2 1/2 dl)

Start by preheating your oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Grease and flour a baking tin lined with parchment paper.

Melt the butter, peel and grate the carrots and chop the walnuts.

Combine sugar, melted butter and eggs in a big mixing bowl. (If you use vanilla extract, add that too)

In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients, flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt and vanilla powder.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix carefully with a wooden spoon, when just combined add the carrots and walnuts and continue the mix. Be carefull to not overmix!

Put the mixture in the baking tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until a tothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake.

Let it cool completely while making the frosting.

Simply mix together the cream cheese and lemon juice and zest, then sift in the powdered sugar and mix until combined.

When the cake has cooled completely spread on the frosting and decorate with chopped walnuts.

Cut yourself a big slice and enjoy!

[theancientcook]

Complete breakfast from Stardew valley

My first recipe for #Farmingfeast month is a complete breakfast from Stardew valley. It consists of pancakes, hashbrowns, fried eggs and a glass of milk and after this breakfast, You’ll feel ready to take on the world!

This Is a two In one recipe (I dont count a fried egg as a recipe) since you have to make both pancakes and hashbrowns, although It Is pretty easy to make It so I hope you try making it yourself!

The ingredients to make hashbrowns in stardew valley is oil and potato but I added som onion since I think that gives it a better taste.

Ingredients for hashbrowns: 

3 peeled potatoes

1/4 yellow onion

salt to taste

Oil for frying

Grate the potatoes and onion, mix with salt and let sit for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes heat about 1 cm oil in a frying pan.

When the oil is hot att the mixture and fry on medium high heat in 2-4 minutes on each side or until it is crispy and golden brown on both sides.

Done!

Crispy and golden-brown!

The description of panncakes are, A double stack of fluffy, soft pancakes. So this is a recipe for super fluffy and soft panncakes. The recipe in the game is just an egg and wheat flour but you need some more things irl, atleast some milk.

Ingredients for pancakes:

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp vanilla sugar or vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp salt 

1 1/4 cup milk

1 egg

50 grams butter (plus more for frying)

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

Melt the butter in the frying pan you are going to fry the pancakes in. (This gives you butter left in the pan that you can use to fry your first pancakes in)

Add the wet ingedients to the dry and mix carefully, the batter should just be combined, it dosen’t matter if it is lumps. To get soft and fluffy pancakes is it important to not overmix!

Now its time to fry the pancakes.

Heat the pan that you melted the butter in and add about 1/3 cup of batter in the middle of the pan and spread it out.

Fry the pancakes on medium low heat in about 2 minutes on both sides.

Serve with a nob of butter and maple syrup!

To make the fried eggs simply fry two eggs in butter, sunny-side up.

Ingredients for complete breakfast:

1 Hashbrown

1 double stack of pancakes

2 freid eggs (Sunny side up)

1 glass of milk

Put the hashbrown on a large plate.

Add the pancakes on the hashbrown and but the eggs next to the panncakes.

Pour up a glass of milk and dig in to a complete breakfast!

[theancientcook]

#Farmingfeast Month!

It is a new month and that means a new monthly theme for your cooking and baking!

The fandoom foodies theme for August 2018 is farming! That means food from farming related games, anime, books, k-dramas etc. 

Here are some exaples of farming related games, anime and k-drama that you can make recipes from.

Games: Stardew valley, Harvest moon, hay day.

Anime: Silver spoon, Shota no sushi, Natsuko no sake, No rin, Non non biyori

K-drama: Modern farmer

To participate simply create a recipe post (this can be on a blog, Tumblr, Instagram – anywhere you can type up a recipe with a photo) and share the link on the #Farmingfeast link-up below. Then share your creation on social media using the #Farmingfeast

Note: The recipe post must be of your own creation (meaning don’t link-up to someone else’s recipe). If the food you made is an adaptation or variation from another source, make sure you give proper credit!

For more information about Fandoom Foodies and the monthly themes visit: http://www.fandomfoodies.com/

Now get in to the kitchen and start cooking with your (Preferably) freshly harvested ingredients!

Farming feast link-up: http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=791709

[theancientcook]

Get ready for August everyone! I'm going to host the monthly theme for fandom foodies, and the theme is Farming! That means food from farming related games, anime, movies, k-dramas etc. More information will come on the 1st of August, but it is only a couple days left so it is time to start planning out some recipes! #Farmingfeast

[theancientcook]

Poppy Seed Muffins from Stardew Valley

I am back! 

I have been playing a lot of stardew valley recently and cant stop, it is such a great feelgood game. The first sight of the poppy muffin in the game made me want to try and make it myself since it looks so delicious, and it was!

In the game the only ingredients you need for the muffins are flour, sugar and a poppy but I (ofc) added other ingredients and lemon since the combination of poppy seeds and citrus is to tasty to miss.

Lemon poppy seed muffin recipe, makes around 12-15 normal sized muffins

Ingredients

100 grams Butter (melted)

2 eggs

1,5 dl sugar

2 dl milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

4 dl wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

2 tbsp blue poppy seeds

zest from 2 lemons and juice from 1

Start by preheating the oven to 175 degrees celsius. Then line a cupcake tin or baking tray with cupcake cases.

Whisk together egg and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add the melted butter, milk, vanilla essence and lemon zest and whisk until combined.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined, then add the poppy seeds and lemon juice and again, stir until combined.

The batter is quite loose so I recommend pouring it into the cupcake cases. They should be filled about 3/4 way up.

Bake It in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted to the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Done!

These muffins came out so well, they are fluffy, moist and tastes refreshing of the lemon. I could have added more poppy seeds because you don´t notice them in the taste that much, next time I make ill try with 3 tbsp poppy seeds instead of 2. 

I will try posting more recipes and stuff In the future, thank you so much for reading. ^^ Now ill go back to playing stardew valley and make some more muffins there and give them to Penny and Leah...

[theancientcook]

Made Canelés from one of my favorite animes shigatsu wa kimi no uso (your lie in April) Recipe on my blog, link in my bio ^^ #shigatsuwakiminouso #yourlieinapril #Canelé #caneles #canele #canelésdebordeaux #shigatsunokiminousokaori #frenchpastry #french #anime #animerecipe

[theancientcook]

Canelé from Shigatsu wa kimi no uso (Your lie in Aril)

One of my favorite animes is definitely Shigatsu wa kimi no uso, Your lie in Aril. Just watch it, I can´t explain it without crying...

When i watched Your lie in April for the first time i didn´t even know what a canele was. All I knew was that it looks really good, so I really wanted to make some. Caneles is a french pastry that has a thin, crispy, caramelized shell and a rich, moist, custard interior. To make caneles you need special canele molds that preferably should be out of copper, but the copper molds are very expensive (About 20$ for one mold) so i bought a nonstick mold that makes 9 caneles and that worked really good. You can also buy silicone molds but I would not recommend them, they don´t give the same result as copper or nonstick molds.

Recipe for 9 Caneles

1 Vanilla bean

250 ml Milk

100 g Sugar

50 g Flour

25 g Butter

1 Egg

1 Egg yolk

2 tbsp Dark rum

Start by splitting your vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds. I used a pure vanilla powder but i don´t know if you can buy that everywhere so just use a vanilla bean. Pour the milk into a pot and add the vanilla bean and seeds and the butter.

Warm it on the stove until the butter has melted and it almost has come to a boil. Put aside and let cool a little for 2 minutes.

While the milk mixture is cooling, combine egg, egg yolk and sugar.

Now its time to combine everything. This is important to do right so you get the custardy inside of the canele. Throughout this whole step you have to whisk in the egg mixture, otherwise the eggs will cook and it will become scrambled eggs.

Start by adding 1/4 of the milk mixture to the egg mixture, whisking the whole time. Then add the flour and keep whisking. 

 When everything is combined, add the rest of the milk while whisking. 

Add the rum and let it cool for about 20 minutes. Then cover with plastic wrap and let it sit in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours. You cant skip the resting time because it improves the texture and taste. You can keep it in the refrigerator for 4 days, after 48 it is perfect but 24 hours is okay. 

Don´t take out the vanilla bean because it gives more flavor.

After 24-48 hours it is time for the cooking. Preheat your oven to 250 C, this is a really high temperature but that makes the caneles crispy on the outside. Then  brush the molds with soft, not melted butter. This is important and makes the caneles nice and shiny on the outside and make the just slide lout of the molds.

Then take the canele mixture out of the refrigerator, whisk it so everything combines. Then pour it through a fine mesh strainer.

Now fill the molds about one centimeter from the top.

Now it is time to bake them. Put them in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 190 C, without opening the oven, for 40-45 minutes.

Don´t be scared to burn the caneles, 40-45 minutes does not burn them, it gives them a nice even dark color and a crispy caramelized shell.

When they are done, turn the mold upside down on a baking rack and let cool.

I really recommend you to try making caneles because the are soooo good. The crispy shell and the soft inside, it is heaven! 

Did it reach her?

[theancientcook]

Anpan from Clannad

“Anpan! Do you like this school? I really, really love it. but nothing can stay unchanged. Fun things... Happy things... They can´t all possibly stay unchanged. Even so, can you keep on loving this place?”- Nagisa Furukawa.

Clannad has its 10 years anniversary this year! @_@ (memories comes back...) So I just had to bake something from it. And what better to bake then Anpan, the first thing Nagisa said to Tomoya.

All the bread in Clannad makes me really hungry, even Sanae´s bread that everyone thinks are failures. 

I don´t have a own recipe for this since it was the first time I made Anpan. So I will just share photos. I followed Just one cookbooks recipe. Link to the recipe: https://www.justonecookbook.com/anpan/

I really, really love this Anime, and all the flashbacks I got when making this almost made me cry. ;_; But its was very tasty so it was worth my tears.     

This weekend have I spent in the kitchen making Kimchi, Udon noodles and Danmuji. So ill maybe show some recipes with that in the future. ^^

P.S I have now got an instagram account for this blog. :D It is called theancientcook so go check it out is you want. 

[theancientcook]

Made these delicious honey Hotteok (호떡) or Korean sweet pancakes today! ^^ 검사합니다 for the great recipe @sweetthemi1 #sweetthemi #hotteok #koreanfood #koreanpancakes #호떡

[theancientcook]

Hotteok, Korean sweet pancakes

I just wanted to share some pictures on Hotteok (호떡) or Korean sweet pancakes that I made today. ^^

Hotteok is pancakes made of a flour dough that uses yeast and is filled with sugar syrup. It is one of the most common street foods in Korea.

I made honey Hotteok and it was really, really delicious! I used a recipe from a Korean youtuber called  스윗더미 . Sweet The MI. She makes really good recipes so go check her out if you have time. ^^

Here is the link for the honey hotteok recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV26dMCilTw

I just added some walnuts in the filling, but that is optional. You can use peanuts too if you like that better than walnuts.

[theancientcook]

Sweetness and lightning Gohei Mochi

Sweetness and lightning is one of my favorite food animes. It is just so simple and heartwarming. Plus the food they eat looks so delicious.

When I watched it I got really inspired to cook something from it. So I choose to make the Gohei mochi from episode 7. Just hearing the ingredients for it made me drool. xD

Ingredients for about 6 Gohei mochi:

Left over rice, about 2 cups

2 dl Walnuts

2 tbsp White sesame seeds

1 tbsp White miso

2 tbsp Sugar

1 tbsp Soy sauce 

1 tbsp Mirin

You will also need lollipop sticks or chopsticks and a pestle.

Start with covering half of the lollipop sticks or chopsticks in aluminum foil. We are going to gill them later, and you don´t want the sticks to burn.

You can use either lollipop sticks or chopsticks or ice cream sticks, just take what you have at home. I used both chopsticks and ice cream sticks and for me, the ice cream sticks where better and easier to use.

I totally forgot about this step, but in the anime they grind the rice before making it to balls. It will turn out better if you grind the rice so do that and then follow my next step. xD

Form six balls of the rice and put them on your sticks. 

Now it is time to make the yummy stuff! In the anime they say the quantity for the miso, sugar, soy sauce and mirin. So I just guessed how much they used of the other ingredients and tasted and added more until I got this recipe You can do the same thing and adjust it to your taste.

Now back to the recipe. 

Start by grinding the walnuts until the are in small chunks. Then add the sesame seeds and grind until it is well combined.

Then add the miso, sugar, soy sauce and mirin. Grind it until it has formed a paste.

When you have a nice paste is it time to grill the rice.

I grilled my rice over a barbeque since I was going to grill some more stuff and had it warm. But if you have a gas stove you can do like they did in the anime and grill it over the gas. I think it works fine to use a frying pan too, it may even be easier.

The rice should get some color and it should be a little crispy on the outside when it is done.

Then add the paste by using your hands to press the paste on to the rice.

 I should have duplicated the recipe or used less rice since the paste only lasted to cover one side of the rice balls. But I think its tasted good with just paste on one side. ^^

Now grill them a second time. 

The paste should get some color and then it is done!

I think it turned out really good, and it looks almost like the ones in the anime. :D It is a perfect dish to make when you have left over rice or if you have burned the rice and need something to comfort someone... You can serve it as a side dish, snack, or a appetizer.

It is kinda embarrassing that I totally forgot about grinding the rice. >//< It isn´t like mochi if you don´t grind the rice. xD But that is probably why my rice balls just fall apart all the time... So if you make it, don´t forget to grind the rice!

Now im going to eat my Gohei mochi! See ya!