Chocolate Ganache

Have you ever heard of Annabel Langbein aka the Free Range Cook? She’s this Australian lady who pretty much grows everything in her garden and who makes fantastic food using whatever she grows. Of course you can’t grow a cow or a pig so she gets her protein from farmers markets and friends. If you watch her show her food looks so easy to make, you can easily copy after watching the show.

What she has, is considered one of my dreams…to have a great big garden with all kinds of fruits, veggies and herbs.

I love to see her disapear in her garden and come out with all kinds of veggies and fruits. So far I’ve been able to grow is some viges, blueberries, grapes and a couple of herbs; nothing comparing to what she gets out, but it’s a start.

This year my peony bush finally bloom! I bought this tiny little sprig and finally after 2 years it gave me 7 flowers in total.

Isn’t it pretty?

It’s overpowering my grapetree right now so I’ll have to do something about it this weekend. I grow it right in front of the house so it’s the first thing I see when I leave the house. One of my neigbours even complement me on it. She loves passing by and see the flowers blossem a bit day by day.

Anyway the other day she made chocolate ganache in her show. Her recipe was just too easy: equal parts of whipping cream and dark chocolate. She used 500 ml cream and 500 grams of chocolate. And she always uses the best chocolate she can find. Since I don’t really taste the difference between high quality chocolate and cheap stuff, I go for the cheap stuff. Maybe when my taste buttons develops more I’d switch to the high end stuff.

All you’ll have to do is cook the cream till you see little bubbles form on the edge of the pot. Then take it off the fire and put all the chocolate in.

Let it sit for a couple of seconds and then mix it all together till it’s one smooth and shiny mixture.

Pour it in a jar and store it in the fridge. How simple is that?

This ganache is a great base for chocolate truffles which I, just like Annabel, also ended up making.  

Easy apple pie cheese cake

I've been IMA for so long it feels quite weird to start blogging again. But I noticed that I've missed it so I'll try to post more frequently.

I hope to be able to persuade you to make this. It's a real "Dutch" treat. Or at least I think it is a Dutch treat since I've never seen it made like this anywhere else.

This cheese cake is not your traditional cheese cake, but it’s a nicer “lighter” version. Normally I would make it with quark, which is a slightly thicker version of yoghurt, but it works with yoghurt as well. And you can make it in any flavour you like. All depending on what flavour yoghurt or quark you have.

I’ve been wanting to make this for a while now, but somehow it wasn’t the right time. Now that the expiration date is coming closer I didn’t had a choice. Either I use the ingredients or I had to through them in the garbage. So I gathered all the stuff and just got started.

For this super easy cheese cake I used:

-          500 grams of Dutch spice cookies (speculaaskoekjes)

-          75 grams of butter

-          300 ml of whipping cream

-          500 ml of apple pie yoghurt

-          5 tablespoons of sugar

-          6 sheets of gelatine (= 9 grams of gelatine powder)

-          Juice of half an orange

I stared with crushing the cookies with my pestle. It takes quite some time to crush them so if you have a food processor…use it!  

You can use any cookie you like. I know that some people like to use Graham crackers, but I like to use a cookie that already has lots of flavours so I don’t have to add any extra. I think ginger cookies will work as well.

While I’m working hard on the cookies I headed some butter in the microwave, only for 30 seconds. Just enough to make it melt.

Then I added the butter to the cookie crumbs and mixed it together till all the crumbs are coated with butter.  

I poured the mixture in a big cake mould and started to press it with a glass to make it all stick together and to make a smooth bottom. This will go into the fridge while I prepare the rest of the cake.

I mixed the whipping cream with 5 tablespoons of sugar till it was nice and firm and set it aside.

In the meantime I soaked the gelatine sheets in some cold water till they feel rubbery. I heated the juice of ½  an orange and dissolved the gelatine in it.

Then it was time to mix the yoghurt with the orange/gelatine mixture. And when that was well mixed I added the whipped cream and mixed it for just another couple of seconds.

The whole mixture went on top of the cookie bottom and back in the fridge so it could set.

It set perfectly! The bottom was nice and thick and worked so well with the light and fluffy yoghurt.

I normally make it one day ahead so all the flavours can combine. Since I used a big cake mould there was plenty to share with my neighbours.

As you can see I like my cake plain, without any decorating. I figured there are a lot of calories in the cake already so I don't have to add any extra. And I don't feel too guilty taking another slice...

Next time I would make it in a glass so everyone can have their own individual servings. Give this cheese cake a try. You'll love it!