Hot Chocolate & a Video

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Hi there, it's been a while. I moved back home to get some work done, watched my friend Anna marry the loveliest guy imaginable, and then my friend Juliane and I made a video of me making spinach and pomegranate salad and had a blast.

Some of you encouraged me to make some more videos so this week my camera and I shot a video ourselves. Actually...of me and this new thermos flask of mine :)


Anyhow, if you want to cook along with me, I have added the recipe for the hot chocolate I made below. Let me know whether you want me to keep making these videos and if so whether you have something you want me to cook in a video. If you want to make me really happy, you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel or like the video. Or you can send me an email and tell me what you think...you know, real old school.

All right, do you want to make some hot chocolate?

For 750 ml you'll need:
250 ml Coconut Milk
500 ml Water
2 tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
4 tbsp Sugar (e.g. rapadura)
1/2 tsp ground Vanilla Pods or 1 tsp Vanilla extract

Whisk the cocoa powder into the coconut milk, add the water and heat over a medium flame. Whisk in the sugar and ground vanilla pods. Bring the mixture to a boil. I don't have a proper reason for this but this old recipe book I inherited from my great grandma says you're supposed to bring hot chocolate to a boil. Who knows whether you have to actually do that or whether that's a milk thing. Though, if you're going to fill it into a flask then you might as well heat the hot chocolate properly.
Anyhow, I hope you have a fantastic week. I have no idea what I'll be cooking next week, so stay tuned :)

Moving and Banana Muffins

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I'm leaving Berlin in three weeks. This is partly why I have been so quiet lately - I've had way too much to do.

This is the current situation in my living-room.

Up to this morning it looked so much worse but my parents helped me pack lots of stuff this weekend. And I sold my washing machine. After carrying a the beast down four flights of stairs I am convinced I'll never do crossfit - seriously...why would I want to lift crazy-heavy stuff or my own crazy heavy body for fun (and yes, before today I was totally toying with the idea of giving it a go)?!?!?

Anyhow...on the up side - three weeks to go till the rest of my stuff descends upon my parents' house and three weeks to go till I don't have to wear the stupid ankle brace from stupid land anymore. Wanna bet I'll fall down the same set of stairs with yet another box the second it comes off? 

Before I packed up the muffin tins (they're getting a tour of East Germany right now) I made banana muffins. The original recipe was from Felix Olschewski's Urgeschmack Dessertbuch which you should have a look at irrespective of whether you have allergies, are following a Paleo diet or eat pretty much everything. Also, if you don't speak German, buy it anyway and use Google translate. The first half of the book is about ingredients and he discusses their pros and cons in a way I really liked (in two sentences he pretty much convinced me to use honey rather than agave syrup). 

Anyhow, a few changes and 20 minutes (18 of which were baking time) after deciding to make muffins I was staring at these beauties

There are a few caveats though:

If you are looking for super airy muffin-top heavy muffins, make something different, they're quite dense and I doubt you'd manage to get them to overflow properly even if you filled them to the brim.

If you don't like coconut -  don't make them because they do taste of coconut.

If you are baking for a nut-free event - there are some almonds in there.

I'm sure there are lots of other things I could warn you about, the most important one is probably:

These are some of the nicest muffins I've made in a while!

 They are super moist from the banana, they don't have that baking soda taste to them most other muffins have (because the eggs and banana are used as raising agents), and last but not least, since I really like coconuts and bananas they are pretty much my personal version of the ideal food.

All right, you can preheat your oven now :)

Banana Muffins (adapted from Oschlewski)

4 Eggs

2 medium Bananas

50g Chopped Almonds

125g Desiccated Coconut 

40g Coconut Oil (melted)

Vanilla Extract (optional)

Pinch of Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180˚C.

Mash the bananas with a fork, then whisk the mush with the eggs until the mixture is frothy.

Add all the other ingredients and stir until things are just combined. I don't actually know whether that makes a difference for this recipe because I was worried I had combined them for too long and they didn't turn all solid and leathery or however you want to describe the weird state lots of other muffins go into if you over-mix the wet and dry ingredients.

Fill 12 lined muffin tins with the batter and bake for 18 minutes or until they start to brown.

Wait until they are cooled before you eat them. Trust me. It's worth waiting.

How ice-cream made my day

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You were supposed to get a recipe for grain-free 'porridge' but the time since my last post tells you something about my motivation. It's actually super nice but it's kinda boring. That has been a general theme with the food I have been eating. I enjoy what I eat but whenever I ask myself whether somebody else might want to know how to make the same thing I never feel that's the case. I guess red velvet cupcakes are sexier than grain-free zucchini muffins. Please tell me if you disagree but I am currently operating under the assumption that there are enough allergy/paleo blogs around so I don't need to start writing about that stuff.
Anyhow, enough complaining for today. I made ice-cream the other night and it blew my mind. Perhaps that's because it was the firs time I have used anything other than fruit to sweeten my food in a month or so. It was glorious. And I sat around in that haze like a 5 year old who has just stuffed their face with way too much cake and gummy-bears at a birthday party (before the hyperness starts...).
I'm aware the photo doesn't look very exciting. I'm sure the chocolate version of this, which is my next project, will be more photogenic :)
That said, coconut and bananas - winner!

Coconut-Banana Ice-Cream
400ml Full Fat Coconut Milk (the stuff that doesn't come from the dairy alternative section of your supermarket)
2 very ripe Bananas
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbsp Honey (if you want the ice-cream to be super sweet you might want to use more)
1/4 tsp Salt (so the freezing-point is lower)

Whisk all ingredients together.
Done.
Not really, but nearly.
Pour the mixture into a freezer-proof container (e.g. an old 500ml ice-cream tub - hence the quantities) and freeze for an hour or two before scraping down the crystals that have formed on the sides of the container with a fork. Over the next few hours keep coming back to break up the crystals that are forming so you end up with one giant popsicle. Personally, I prefer it slightly thawed because then the banana flavour takes centre-stage but that might just be me :)
This ice-cream goes really well with a cup of coffee after dinner. 
Have a fab evening! I'm gonna eat some more ice-cream.

Baked Coconut Chicken Pieces

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Have you missed me? I definitely missed you but I didn't really have anything to write about. At least on the food front and I wanted to spare you a German-election rant (since when is it ok to base your campaign on 'vote for us cos we are the party of your current chancellor' or 'if you want the current chancellor to be re-elected, then vote for us' (yes, that was actually a different party who pulled that one...) and don't even get me started on the things some of the other parties decided to talk about before the election)...or bore you to death be telling you all about my new haircut (which I love).

So, food - I've been cutting out everything that makes me sick again and while I feel ten times better, I am also keenly aware that most of the stuff I eat these days is not what any of us would consider exciting. At least that was until I had the idea of coating pieces of chicken breast with shredded coconut. Think the texture of buttermilk chicken inside and a crispy coconut layer on the outside. It's like going on a holiday for dinner...well, not really but it's made a huge difference to me actually wanting to eat dinner rather than forcing myself to eat another plate of boring food.
Oh, and it's dead easy to make.
If you are making potato/sweet potato/beetroot wedges to go with the chicken, you can put those in the oven before you start making the chicken, that way they will be done around the same time.
Also, when I talk about coconut milk I talk about the stuff that has coconut and water in it (the kind that normally comes in a tin and if you're lucky in a tetra-pac, not the stuff you buy in the dairy section of the supermarket that is full of sugar and other weird stuff). I buy mine at an Asian market because they sell a brand that has no E numbers or thickeners in it.

Baked Coconut Chicken Pieces
1 small Chicken Breast per portion
Coconut Milk (enough to coat the chicken breast pieces 2 tbsp tend to be enough for 1 chicken breast)
Unsweetened Shredded Coconut (desiccated works just as well)

Preheat your oven to 220˚C.
Cut the chicken breast into chunks the size of a matchbox (I literally can't come up with another description...I've been thinking about this one for 5 minutes...I just cut them in a way that feels natural with the meat I'm working with but that is approximately the size I tend to end up with), put them in a small bowl and cover them with the coconut milk. You don't need crazy amounts of coconut milk here. Put the shredded coconut onto a plate. Here you'll need enough to cover the chicken pieces which varies for me depending on how much coconut milk ended up on the chicken. Start off with three tablespoons and use more if you need to. Transfer the chicken pieces onto the plate and coat them with the coconut. I tend to coat them individually because that way if I run out of shredded coconut I can just pour more onto the plate. Also, I have less of the leftover coconut milk end up on the plate.
Lay the chicken pieces out on a non-stick baking tray or a brownie tin if you're only making one portion and bake for 10-15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Check with the biggest pieces to make sure they're not still raw on the inside.
These chicken pieces go incredibly well with sweet potato wedges and some guacamole but I'm sure you can come up with better combinations yourself :)

Coconut Cocoa Cupcakes

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Hello again :) I must admit the only reason I'm getting my act together so quickly is because I ran into my friend Lea on the subway today and she complained about yesterday's recipe, can I just point out that it tastes rather amazing, but for those of you who don't want a drink that involves cocoa powder and PB2, how about cocoa and coconut in a cupcake?
Rather than giving you a recipe that involves a cake mix, I thought I could share this cupcake recipe with you.
Sometimes I start thinking of flavours and then I can't get them out of my mind.

A few weeks ago that happened with the combination of chocolate and coconut - back in high school we went on a trip to Budapest and I have this vivid memory of going out to this bar where a few of us shared this coconut chocolate milkshake. 

I think part of why it was so amazing was that what I had grown up knowing as a milkshake was banana milk. 

What really got me, though, was how well coconut and chocolate go together. It's one of those combinations that never seems to fail you. Sometimes it can be slightly overpowering. Which is why I made these cupcakes with cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate. If I'm perfectly honest with you, I do actually prefer this combination because it is lighter and if you can be bothered to make some icing for the cupcakes (how about some seven minute icing or some traditional red velvet cake icing?) the icing actually has a chance to add to the overall flavour.

One quick note of warning - if you can't find coconut extract, I'm not sure whether I would make these - imitation coconut stuff is vile. Perhaps you could add more vanilla extract or actually go down the chocolate-chip route. Or just go straight for red velvet cupcakes.
Also, I used coarse grained wheat flour because I like how it handles, for those of you in Germany, that is Spätzlemehl/Weizendunst. If you can't get hold of it the cupcakes will taste just as nice, I just happened  to have some sitting around, and decided that I wanted the cupcakes to have more of a grainy crumb (does that description make any sense to anyone other than me?)

Coconut Cocoa Cupcakes (makes 12)
100g Coarse Grained Wheat Flour
50g Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
30g Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
75g Butter
150g Sugar
2 Eggs
150ml Buttermilk
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp Natural Coconut Extract

Preheat your oven to 175˚C and line a muffin tin with some pretty paper liners. May I recommend Ernie and Bert ones because they go really well with these cupcakes :)
Combine the flours, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl and set them aside.
Cream the butter and the sugar together until the mix goes all white and slightly fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until they are properly incorporated. Add the vanilla and coconut extracts.
Reduce the speed of your mixer (or if you're doing this by hand you'll probably be tired by now anyway) to low and start adding the buttermilk and dry mix. I find this is the easiest if you keep alternating a few spoonful of the dry mix with a  swig of the buttermilk.
Fill the paper cups with the batter and bake the cupcakes for 20-25 minutes depending on your oven.
If yours doesn't distribute the heat evenly you'll want to rotate the tin after 15 minutes or so.
When your cake tester (a.k.a. a dry spaghetti) comes out clean, take them out of the oven, let them cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so and then move them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

As I said, I think seven minute icing would be my first choice for these but they're lovely just plain as well (especially with a glass of milk).

I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week and an even better Pentecost/Memorial Day weekend!

Oh, and before you go, I was wondering - what is your favourite cupcake flavour?

Peanut Butter & Coconut Quick Bread

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Jenna at Eat, Live, Run made a peanut butter sandwich bread a while back and I was itching to give it a go.
So when I realized that I could hold the mixing bowl between my knees and that I could hold the electric mixer with my right hand I was completely sold (you know, sometimes it's little things like this...)
I might have been smiling like a lunatic while making it but who cares, I got to bake again!
Anyhow, I used mostly coconut milk because I was too lazy to run to the store to get some more milk. The coconut brings out the peanut flavour in a lovely way and it makes the bread taste really creamy, but I'm sure using just milk would have given me a loaf just as nice.

Peanut Butter & Coconut Quick Bread
3/4 cup Peanut Butter (I used chunky)
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1 cup Coconut Milk
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Baking Powder

Preheat your oven to 175˚C and grease a loaf tin.
Mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.
In a second bowl, cream together the peanut butter and the sugar.
Add the dry mix and the coconut and normal milks, alternating as you go along.
Pour the batter into the tin and stick it into the oven. Give the bread about an hour, then look at it in adoration (you should be able to get it out of the tin after about 10 minutes).
Let it cool a bit further (now I would like to be able to say that I resisted until it was properly cooled, but no, we had out first slices while they were still warm).
This bread is nice on it's own, or with some butter, or some cream cheese, or some nutella, or some mascarpone, or some jam, or...actually, I haven't tried anything else, but any of these are amazing in their own way :)
I hope you have a good week and I will be back with some photos at some point soon.