Kitchen shopping in Alsace

Some part of my Summer vacation I spend in the lovely Alsace. We went by car, so it was very easy to fill up the car with kitchen stuff brought in one of the big French supermarkets. I can easily spend hours in such a big supermarket with both food and non-food departments, where you so many interesting things. After the first 30 minutes I "parked" my mother on a bench, as she got tried to looking into cheese, dairy, jam and bakery products.

So what kind of thins could I not live without ?

• French magazine called "Patisserie" full of cake recipes in French full of great looking photos. I assume Google translate can help baking some of these cakes ?
• buckwheat flour, as this is much cheaper to buy in France compared to Denmark
• flour mixture for Kougelkopf cake, a cake speciality from Alsace
• yellow plastic container for storage of lemon and lime
• purple plastic container for storage of onion

• silicone form of miniature kougelkopf cakes
• silicone form for eclairs
• jam glasses in two sizes
• various French jams

Baking event "Rent Mel i Posen" at Miele

Recently I participated in a baking event at the local Miele Gallery showroom located here in Vejle called "Rent Mel i Posen". I find it useful and also very interesting from time to time to get a professional approach to baking, as bread baking is still an area, where I can learn much more. 

Before we started on the actually baking process, we got three introductions: one on the Miele ovens, one to the flour produced by Mejnerts (including the usual "female approach" on "how good we are behaving and becoming CO2 friendly" !!!) and finally from the baker on using sour doughs/yeast, raising time and the baking process.

The bakers had brought two different dough with them, which they would baked in different Miele ovens (I did not get a clear picture with me from this part of event). Meanwhile, we were divided into group of two persons, which would make the same doughs, which we later would take home with us.

Also the event managers were very good in interacting with us during the dough preparation, where we could plenty of questions and get some more finger touch feeling on, when the dough was kneading enough in the kitchen stand-alone mixers. 

While we were making the various dough we were also served wine and water, which we could enjoy during the dough preparation.

We had approx 2 hours, where we could make various doughs. Afterwards we would take the doughs home with us.

After the baking of the breads and snacks, we would sit down to enjoy the baked goods together with sausages and cheese, which we would have the finished talk around bread baking.

We finished of with taking home all the prepared doughs, any open leftovers of the various flours used. We also got a "goodie-bag" with different flours, dry yeast and a small recipe booklet.

I also managed to get some of the used sour dough from the baker, as my own attempt on making sour dough has not been very successful. The sour dough from the baker has a very fine apple-like flavour, so now I am doing my best to keep this new room mate happy feeding it with flour and water every second day.

I had a great evening :-) so I will for sure come bake for another event in the Miele kitchen.

Pizza inspiration

Recently I had this unusual very great tasting combination on a pizza eating at a cafe:

• Brie cheese
• mozzarella 
• red onions
• apple slices
• lingonberry jam

Hopefully this can bring some inspiration as well to your kitchen :-)

Impressions from extended week-end to Switzerland

Christmas decoration

I have decided to share my impression from an extended week-end visiting a very good girl friend in Switzerland with you just in form of the various pictures, which I took in this connection.

Funny fountain in Basel

Enjoying Apfel Strudel outside in sunshine on a November day

Visiting Läckerli huus in Basel, where you can buy such a wonderful spice cake as well as a ginger bread house for assembling at home.

Old-fashion mail box

Kitchen lamp created from kitchen equipment

Have a look at these fantastic kitchen lamps created from kitchen equipment - I saw these lamps in a kitchen equipment shop located in Postgasse in Bern.

Spaghetti for the big family

Ready to bake mixed for sables, muffins or scones

Ready to bake ginger bread biscuits incl form and decoration - so you have no excuse this for not baking your own Christmas cakes

Wonderful sugar flower made from real flowers like violets and lavenders

Cake-style decoration for your Christmas tree

Food inspiration from Samsø

During my visit to Samsø I picked up the following ideas as inspiration for future activities in my little kitchen:

• the use of liquorice pieces in cookies. This idea is very interesting, the structure of liquorice was maintained in the cookies, but the actual flavour was not easy to detect. Perhaps the liquorice pieces need to infuse the cookie dough night over in the refrigerator ?
• the use of elder flower (visible) in strawberry jam - this gave a nice view in the jam. I did not taste the jam, so how the taste is influence by the addition of elder flower in the jam is unknown to me.
• the use of apricot jam in small croissants - this idea is just great - it is not visible from the outside of the croissant - and the taste of apricot and croissant is quiet good.

By the way are you ready for me to share my special recipe on elder flower cordial with you tomorrow Friday ? If not, please have a look into, what you would needing for it elder flower cordial ingredients.
See you again tomorrow :-))