Vegan Stollen Rolls (Stollen-Schnecken)

Check out the cute edible gold stars I got. Totally festive, right? Even though it's autumn...

For when Christmas is taking too long to arrive, I like to have something with its characteristic flavours- dried fruit, nuts, marzipan, spices and lots of butter- but enough of a twist that it doesn't make you feel bad that you aren't on winter break yet.

That's why I love these rolls- they really taste like Christmas come early. And, to make the deal sweeter, they're actually vegan! I was skeptical, since butter is one of the predominant flavours in the Stollen that I know and love, but a little butter-vanilla essence (I used Dr. Oetker brand) goes a long way. The copious amount of vegan butter (I used a coconut-oil based brand called Melt that was very nice, but any that's marketed for baking will work)... or just plain baking margarine. After all, my Oma's old DDR cookbooks all call for it in their Stollen, making them inadvertently vegan as well.

These are nontraditional on more fronts than just animal product content, though- they also have a pudding-marzipan filling that tastes creamy and delicious despite being made with soya milk. You can also use almond milk, of course- it might be even better, so long as it's not reduced-calorie/fat.

I have but one warning- even when completely cooked through, the pudding-marzipan filling and marzipan in the dough makes these buns really, really moist- too much for some, I suppose- and you might want to make them a little drier by removing the marzipan in the dough (I went crazy because the blocks I had were getting close to their expiration date, and I didn't want them to go to waste) and not squishing your buns together when baking them like I did. I love it when baked good are really moist, though, so for me it's perfect the way it is.

One more thing- very, very rich. It may be tough to get through even one bun in one sitting. I still think it's worth is, since the taste is glorious. They're not tricky to make, so don't let the long instructions scare you- there's only a few simple components that you need to put together and then assemble. Like flatpack furniture but less aggravating!

Obviously you don't have to make them vegan, especially if the ingredients are hard to find- I had them available and I wanted to play with them and see how good they'd taste in pastry and if anyone would miss the dairy. Nobody did!

Vegan Stollen-Rolls
Makes 9-12
Adapted from Veganer Kuchen

For the dough:
500 g. Flour
150 ml Soya or almond milk
200 g. Marzipan, finely chopped or grated (or use 80 g. sugar)
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
A few drops butter-vanilla extract (or 1-2 Tsp. if it's not the super-concentrated type in tiny glass tubes)
1/2 Tsp. Almond extract, optional
Zest of 1 orange or lemon
2 TBSP Rum, or 1 Tsp. Rum extract
2 Tsp. Stollen spices (or, mix 1/2 Tsp. each cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cardamom)
42 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/2 Tsp. Active dry yeast
150 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter, in cubes

Warm milk and dissolve yeast. Let sit 15 minutes.

Whisk together the flour, spices, zest and vanilla sugar. Add the milk mixture and all the extracts (and rum) being used. Knead until smooth, then add the chunks of marzipan one by one and knead until all are completely mixed into the dough. Repeat with the margarine. 

Let rise in a greased, covered bowl for about 1 hour, or until doubled. After about 45 minutes, begin preheating the oven to 190℃. Then, roll out on a floured surface to form a large rectangle and prepare as in the following filling instructions.

For the Filling:
200 g. Marzipan, finely chopped
2 TBSP Rum, or 1 Tsp. Rum extract
250 ml. Soya or almond milk, plus more as necessary
1 (43 g.)  Packet Dr. Oetker vanilla, almond or cream flavoured pudding powder (or, use corn/potato starch)
1 Packet Vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
100 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter (you can cut this to half or even omit it)

Whisk together pudding powder, soya/almond milk and vanilla sugar. Bring to a boil and let thicken. Stir in the margarine and marzipan and whisk until thoroughly combined. add the rum and more of the milk to thin as necessary to get a pastey, spreadable consistency.

Let cool slightly until just warm, then spread across the dough rectangle, leaving about 1 inch of room on one of the long sides of the rectangle. Finish with the dried fruits, as following.

For the Dried Fruit:
150 g. Raisins, sultanas and/or currants
50 g. Candied orange peel, chopped finely
50 g. Candied citron peel, chopped finely
75 g. Almonds, chopped or slivered
1/4 C. Rum, optional

Cover the fruits with rum, if using, and enough hot water to cover them up in a bowl. Let sit at least 30 minutes, then drain.

Sprinkle evenly across the filling and roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll, finishing so that the long side with the clean edge is rolled up last. Use this clean end to stick the roll together and seal the "seam". 

Using a sharp knife, wire or floss, cut the resulting log into 9-12 pieces. Arrange on a baking tray lined with parchment, or in a greased baking dish.

Bake for about 1 hour, covering with aluminium foil after about 20 minutes to avoid overbrowning. They are finished when they reach 190℉ or 90℃ inside.

To Finish:
50 g. Margarine or vegan baking-suitable butter, melted
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract, or a few drops butter-vanilla extract
Powdered sugar

Mix melted margarine and extract. 

While the rolls are still warm, brush with the margarine mixture. Once cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Rosinenbrötchen mit Quark- Raisin Buns with Quark + Stollen-Brötchen

Plain buns on the left and raisined ones on the right.

In the long list of bread and bun recipes I'm finally getting around to posting, here's one of my favourites- soft, moist, rich raisin buns enriched with fresh cheese. You can use the quark recipe I've posted, or some farmer's cheese that's been processed well in a food processor with some extra butter. 

Many flavours work well in this dough, though I kept it simple- you can add some spices, some citrus zest or use a different dried fruit like cranberries or currants. You can even omit the fruit entirely (I did this with half because not everyone in my family appreciates the deliciousness of dried fruit...). These are one of the things I love to make for important holidays like Christmas and Easter as part of the breakfast menu, but I also love to freeze leftovers to eat later on... they're especially good with butter and jam, but are also delicious on their own. The "Stollen" version I give makes a nice off-season treat when you crave the flavours of Stollen but Christmas is still far off.

Rosinenbrötchen mit Quark
From ketex.de

For the Sponge:
200 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
150 g. Milk, 2 to 3.8%
20 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/4 Tsp. active dry yeast

Mix all well and let rest, covered, for 45 minutes in a warm place.

For the Final dough:
Sponge
300 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
100 g. Butter, at room temperature
50 g. Sugar
100 g. Topfenquark (20% m.f.), or well-ground 12% twarog/farmer's cheese plus 25 g. butter (You can double this quantity for a moister, denser dough- just add about 5 minutes baking time)
8 g. Salt
2 Egg yolks
175 g. Raisins, light or dark
1 TBSP Diastatic malt powder, or honey

beaten egg yolk, condensed milk, cream or melted butter, to brush
Pearl sugar (optional)

Mix all but the butter and raisins and knead until smooth. Add the butter in small pieces and continue kneading until it's incorporated. Add the raisins and once they're evenly distributed, cover the dough and let rise in a greased bowl for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180℃. Form into buns of the desired size (about a dozen works best) and cover. Let rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Brush with the desired topping. Sprinkle with pearl sugar, if you like. Bake the buns for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

For "Stollen-Brötchen":

Add a pinch of saffron to the milk in the sponge and heat until steaming. Let infuse 30 minutes before using.

To the above recipe, substitute a mixture of 100 g. sultanas and raisins, 25 g. chopped orange peel, 25 g. chopped citron peel and 50 g. currants. In addition, add:

1 Sachet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
Zest of one lemon
1/2 Tsp. Mace
1/2 Tsp. Nutmeg
1 Tsp. Cardamom
75 g. Chopped or slivered blanched almonds

To the dough; the spices and sugar in the first steps in making the final dough, and the almonds along with the fruit mixture.

Top the buns with melted butter and pearl sugar.

Carrot-Almond Squares for Easter

I love carrot cake, and it just seems right to have something with carrots for easter. But these squares are nothing like regular carrot cake, apart from the earthy taste of the carrots, moisture from the oil and mildly spiced flavour. Instead, these are more like blondies- almost fudgy because of how moist they are and not as light as a loaf or layer cake. I use almond extract and slivered almonds to complement the almond flour that helps contribute to the texture.

As an added plus, this recipe is really, really easy- even accounting for the sour cream glaze I made as a slightly tangy alternative to cream cheese frosting, it takes hardly any time to make and only really requires a couple of bowls. Perfect if, like me, you still have a lot of easter baking to get through.

Carrot-Almond Squares
Adapted from chefkoch.de

200 g. Grated carrots
125 g. Flour
125 g. Sugar
1 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 Tsp. Cardamom
100 g. Ground almonds/almond flour
1/2 Tsp. Almond extract
125 ml. Oil
2 Eggs
1/2 C. Unskinned slivered almonds to decorate, if desired

Preheat oven to 180℃ and grease an 8"x8" pan well. 

Sift together dry ingredients. Mix with the remaining ingredients in a food processor or by hand until well combined. 

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a fork poked in comes out clean. Let cool before using a knife to cut around the edges and inverting the pan onto a plate to remove the cake.

For the Sour Cream Glaze:
2 TBSP Sour cream
2/3 C. Powder sugar
Drop each of vanilla extract and lemon juice

Blend all until thoroughly combined and pour onto cooled cake. Sprinkle on slivered almonds if using.

Spitzbuben/Jam Sandwich Cookies

This is the ideal jam sandwich cookie. The almond and lemon flavours go perfectly with slightly tart raspberry jam, the texture is soft and just crumbly enough, they hold their shape well so that they look pretty, and are easy to make. A jam cookie runs the risk of being too sweet or getting soggy over time, but these are perfectly balanced. And you can have fun with the shape of the cut-outs, too...

Spitzbuben
From chefkoch.de

300 g. Flour
100 g. Ground almonds
150 g. Powder sugar
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
200 g. Butter
1 Egg
1/2 Tsp. Almond extract
Zest of one lemon

200 g. Raspberry or red currant jam
Powdered sugar

Mix dry ingredients. In a food processor or stand mixer, add the butter in small pieces, along with the egg, lemon zest, vanilla sugar and almond extract. Wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Divide dough into 2 pieces and roll out on a floured surface. Cut into circles, and for half of the circles, make a smaller cut-out window. 

Bake at 180℃ for 10-12 minutes, or until just beginning to brown on the bottoms. Let cool on the sheet.

On the whole halves, add about a teaspoon of jam to each cookie. Place a cut-out cookie on top. When finished with all the cookies, sprinkle some powder sugar on top.

Quarkstollen

This is a really great way to get a nice-tasting stollen when you don't have time to let it rest for the usual 3-4 weeks- for instance, when you're craving stollen out of season, or need to make another at the last minute. While it doesn't have quite the same texture as a yeast stollen, it's still tender and tasty, especially when spices are added. Keep in mind that it doesn't last as long as regular stollen in terms of freshness, so consume soon after baking!

Quarkstollen
Adapted from allrecipes.de

For the Fruits and Nuts:
200 g. Light and dark raisins, mixed
50 g. Candied orange peel, diced
50 g. Candied citron peel, diced
125 g. Chopped/slivered almonds
About 1/4 - 1/3 C. Dark rum, preferably spiced

Cover fruit and nuts in rum and soak overnight.

Final Dough:
500 g. All purpose flour
2 1/4 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
100 g. Sugar
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 1 TBSP homemade
200 g. Butter
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
6 Drops (about 1/4 tsp.) Bitter almond extract
1 Packet of stollen spices, or 1/2 Tsp. each nutmeg, mace and cardamom (optional)
2-3 TBSP Rum or milk
Zest of one lemon
250 g. Quark (I used homemade)

To Finish:
50 g. Butter, melted
1 Sachet vanilla sugar or 1 TBSP homemade
50-100 g. Powder sugar

Preheat oven to 180℃.

Beat butter and add quark. Add the lemon zest, bitter almond extract, and sugars. Incorporate the eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt before adding.

Mix in the fruits and nuts. Add enough rum or milk to make the dough rollable and soft. 

Shape into two loaves and bake for about an hour, covering with aluminium foil if browning too fast. 

Let cool and brush with butter. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar and thoroughly cover in powder sugar. Wrap up in aluminium foil and let rest overnight before cutting and eating.

Marzipan-Stollen (with Milk Roux and Preferment)

I really, really, really love making Stollen. I have many fond memories of doing it with my mother following an old recipe from my grandmother, soaking the raisins and proofing the dough, rolling out the marzipan for the centre and brushing it with butter when it was done. It was a sure sign that Christmas was on the way- Stollen is to be made weeks before, at least three to four, but for us it was usually early or mid-November when we started to give it optimal time to age. Even though there's over a month to the holidays, the fact that there's a stollen in the pantry wrapped up and ready meant the promise of Christmas right around the corner.

The unbaked Stollen, ready to go.

There are many recipes for Stollen, and none are right or wrong- though for my family, the ultimate stollen has got to be a buttery yeast dough full of raisins, currants, citrus peel and almonds, and the marzipan core is a must. I plan to make another batch closer to Christmas with a baking powder-egg-quark dough that's nothing like what we usually have, but there's got to be something traditional there, too- it's Christmas, after all.

Powdered up and ready to lie in wait until Christmas...

While this isn't my Oma's recipe, I think this is an improvement- more butter and less sugar in the dough, with copious amounts of fruit and nuts and lots of different spices. There's a roux in the dough to keep it soft and moist until Christmas, and of course plenty of my beloved marzipan. It's crusted thickly in two types of sugar along with the butter, and is less breadlike and more dense than what we usually have. I think it helps that we didn't use a high-gluten flour this year, instead opting for type 550/all purpose flour, and didn't overdo it with the resting times. I've seen a lot of bread-like stollen recipes, but it just doesn't seem right to me- but hey, to each their own. Stollen is a very personal business.

After baking, I always pick out the burnt nuts and fruits that get totally carbonized on top (it seems you can't avoid that) before brushing on the butter and powdering it up. Next, the loaves get wrapped in baking parchment and aluminium foil and placed in the cabinet above the range for a nice, long time. I'm always a little nervous letting them sit, although I know they've got to- then again, I've heard of fruitcakes that sit for a full year (or more) before consumption. 

And after a long wait... fantastic stollen that's moist and soft but not too much so, crusted in vanillaey sugar and complete with a marzipan centre.

Marzipan-Stollen
Adapted from Hefe und Mehr

For the Fruit and Nuts:
225 g. Mixed yellow, green and dark raisins/sultanas
75 g. Currants
100 g. Slivered/chopped almonds
70 ml. Dark spiced rum
Boiling water, to cover

Mix all and cover with just enough hot water to almost top off the fruits. Leave overnight in the refrigerator to absorb.

(NOTE: I forgot to presoak my fruits overnight, so mine only got about 3-4 hours in the rum mixture... if you want a strong rum flavour, though, go for the full 12-14 hour soak, or add a few drops of rum extracts to the fruits to boost the flavour as a quick fix. I also went a little overboard with the sultanas- but that's a matter of personal taste. The amount given is already very generous.)

For the Roux:
30 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
150 g. Milk

In a small saucepan, cook on medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until 65℃- or until it forms an almost translucent, pudding-like paste. Place in a cool bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let cool to room temperature before using.

For the Preferment:
100 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
100 g. Milk, cold
35 g. Fresh yeast

Mix all and let rise until doubled.

Final Dough:
400 g. All purpose/type 550 flour
5 g. Salt
0.5 g. Each mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom (approximate with the amount on the tip of a knife!)
Half a vanilla bean, scraped
75 g. Sugar, plus one or two sachets vanilla sugar (optional)
Zest of half a lemon (optional)
250 g. Butter
50 g. Candied citron, diced
50 g. Candied orange peel, diced
150-200 g. Marzipan

Cream butter and sugar (including vanilla sugar, lemon zest and scraped-out vanilla seeds, if using). Sift together flour, spices and salt, and add to the butter mixture, along with the roux and preferment. Knead until homogeneous, keeping the dough cool. 

Let rest covered for 30 minutes. In the mean time, shape the marzipan into two long rods.

Drain the fruits and nuts and mix with the diced peels. Knead into the dough until just incorporated, and divide into two parts. Let rest covered and preheat the oven to 200℃.

Flatten each piece of dough into an oblong oval. In the centre, form a dent and place in the marzipan roll, folding the dough over it. Bake right away for 40 minutes, covering with foil if browning too quickly.

To Finish:
50 g. Melted butter
80 g. Superfine sugar
100 g. Powder sugar

Brush with melted butter and coat thickly in sugar. Dust all over with powder sugar once cool (after a few hours, or the next morning) and roll up in aluminium foil. Store in a cool, dark, dry place for at least a week before eating.

Mohnstriezel- Poppyseed roll with Streusel

When I last visited Germany, I took time to have some Kaffee und Kuchen every day (sometimes more than once!). I went to many different bakeries and cafes, some chains and some independent, but there were a few items that were universal to almost every one. Of those, the only one that I wasn't accustomed to from my mother's German cookbooks was Mohnstriezel, a delicious pastry filled with poppyseed and topped with streusel and glaze. It rapidly became one of my favourites, seeing as I love all things with poppyseeds. It's a bit like the Polish makowiec I make every Christmas, but sweeter and with less seasonings distracting from the flavour of the poppy filling. 

The yeast dough is just rich enough without being too soft- once cool, you can slice it quite thinly and eat it out of hand without it falling apart. The poppyseed filling is more custard-like than the ones in the pastries I had in Germany, but it makes a very good contrast to the other ingredients, especially with some plump rum-soaked raisins. The streusel contains slivered almonds for some additional crunch- almonds go together naturally with poppyseeds. Lastly, the glaze gives it an additional layer of texture and sweetness- normally I prefer a simple dusting of powder sugar, but in this case a glaze feels necessary for the complete experience.

It's important to remember that the poppyseeds must be ground- I bought frozen ground poppyseed at Starsky, but it can also occasionally be found in packets or cans (make sure it isn't pre-sweetened). Alternatively, you can mill whole poppyseeds in a spice grinder or other grinder suitable for small particles. 

This cake reminded me of some other recipes for German bakery staples to take note of for the future- an afternoon cup of tea or coffee is much nicer with something sweet.

Mohnstriezel
Adapted from Backen macht Freude

For the Dough:
200 ml. Milk
150 g. Butter
500 g. Flour
1 Yolk
21 g. Fresh yeast, or 2 1/4 tsp. Active dried yeast
75 g. Sugar
1 Packet (2 tsp.) Vanilla sugar
Pinch of salt

For the Filling:
300 g. Ground poppyseed
500 ml. Milk
1 Package Dr. Oetker vanilla pudding
2 Eggs
Zest of 1/2 a lemon
75 g. Sugar
60 g. Cream of Wheat
1/4 C. Light raisins soaked in rum, optional

For the Topping:
1 Egg white
75 g. Flour
75 g. Sugar
75 g. Butter, cold but soft
75 g. Slivered almonds

For the Glaze:
100 g. Powder sugar
1 TBSP Lemon juice
1-2 TBSP Water

Heat the milk until steaming and add the butter to dissolve. Let cool.

Once lukewarm, add the yeast. Mix the flour, sugar, salt and vanilla sugar and pour in the milk mixture. Add the yolk and knead until smooth. Let rise about 1- 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled.

To make the filling, bring 400 ml. of the milk and the poppyseed to a boil, then let cool for 10 minutes. Mix the remaining mix, pudding powder, sugar, lemon zest and eggs. Whisk in and return to medium heat, cooking until thickened. Let cool.

Preheat the oven to 190℃. Roll out on a floured surface into a 40 cm x 30 cm rectangle. Sprinkle evenly with the cream of wheat and raisins, if using. Spread with the cooled filling, leaving a couple of centimetres free around the edges. Roll up and tuck the corners of the dough underneath the seal in the filling. Press the trailing edge of the roll (the exterior edge) against the roll with a bit of egg white to help it seal. Brush the entire roll thoroughly in egg white.

Mix the butter, sugar, flour and almonds in a small bowl with fingertips until crumbly, chilling for 10 minutes if the butter starts to melt or become too soft.  Press evenly onto the roll.

Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce to 180℃ and bake for another 30 minutes. Cover with aluminium foil once golden brown to prevent further browning. Let cool for 15 minutes.

Whisk together the powder sugar, water and lemon juice into a thick but runny glaze. Drizzle over the slightly cooled roll. Let cool another 45 minutes before cutting.

Prinsesstårta

Today was my mum's birthday, and for the third (or fourth? I lose track) year in a row I made one of her new favourites, the Swedish prinsesstårta. I came across the recipe by chance and was instantly taken by the combination of several of my family's favourite ingredients- marzipan, custard, whipped cream and raspberry jam. While it is a bit tricky to assemble, nobody ever complains that my cake is too messy- they're too busy eating it. 

Still, each year's attempt is a bit nicer than the last one. This year I decided to change it up and modify the original recipe a bit. I added some orange extract to the sponge cake, some rum to the jam (to make it more spreadable and aromatic), some fresh raspberries since they're very good this time of year, and some vanilla bean to the custard. I also reduced the amount of marzipan to make it neater and easier to put away into the fridge- yeah, the dome looks cool, but it doesn't fit with any of my cake covers and is very difficult to arrange nicely. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it one day.

I decorated it with a hint of personalization, adding a Moominmamma figure (from the tales of Tove Jansson) to the top of the cake in honour of my mum. I also made a few vines and flowers, and added some toasted almonds around the sides. I think the modifications turned out really well- especially the fresh berries. You can also use strawberry slices very well in here. The only change I'll try next time is adding more custard, since you could always use more of that. 

A previous year's attempt, featuring the full length marzipan coat. Note how I tried to clean up the edges with slivered almonds.

What I find interesting about this cake is its history. It was originally named "green cake" in its late '40s debut, but received a name change in honour of the Swedish crown princesses' fondness for it. They were educated in household management, including cooking, and so would have been making these cakes themselves. There was even a series of cookbooks written by the home economics instructor for the princesses, featuring the royals on its cover, that published this cake for the whole world to make. Neat!

I one day hope to go to Sweden and try out this cake in its nation of origin- until then, I'm happy to make them year after year. 

Prinsesstårta
Adapted from Semiswede
For the Sponge Cake:
60 g. All purpose flour
82 g. Potato starch
1 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of salt
225 g. Sugar, including 1 sachet vanilla sugar (or 2 tsp. vanilla extract)
dash of orange extract or a tablespoon of orange zest (optional)
4 Eggs, at room temperature
Butter and breadcrumbs, to line the pan

using butter, breadcrumbs and parchment cut into a 9" circle, line and grease a 9" cake pan.

Sift together the flour, starch, salt and baking powder.

Beat the sugar and eggs together until fluffy and thick, so that lifting the beater leaves a ribbon of batter in the bowl that lasts a few seconds. It should be pale yellow and very light.

Fold in the dry ingredients one third at a time until completely incorporated. Pour into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes at 180℃, or until golden, in the lower half of the oven.

Let cool and use a knife to pry out. Using a sharp serrated knife or a cake cutting wire, cut the cake lengthwise into three thin rounds and set aside.

For the Custard:
4 Egg yolks
2 TBSP Cornstarch
2 TBSP Sugar
1 C. Milk, preferably whole or 2% with a splash of cream
1 Packet vanilla sugar, or 2 Tsp. sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 a vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise, otherwise another teaspoon of vanilla extract

Whisk together the yolks, cornstarch and sugar and a small bowl. Set aside.

In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the milk to a rolling boil with the scraped-out vanilla bean inside. Let steep for half an hour covered off heat.

Heat the milk back up until almost but not quite boiling. quickly whisk 1/4 of a cup of the milk into the yolk mixture, then another 1/4 cup. Pour the milk and yolk mixture back into the rest of the milk through a sieve and cook, stirring constantly, until beginning to thicken. Remove from the heat and continue whisking until completely thickened.

Add the vanilla sugar and/or vanilla extract. Let cool and cover with clingfilm until ready to use.

For the Whipped Cream:
2 1/2 C. Cold whipping cream
3 TBSP Powder sugar, or more to taste
2 Tsp. Vanilla extract
2 Packets whipped cream stabilizer, optional but recommended (e.g. Whip It from Dr. Oetker)

Beat all on high until very firm peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To Assemble:
3/4 C. Raspberry jam, about 2/3 of a jar (get a whole jar just to be sure)
1/4 C. Dark rum, to thin the jam (optional)
1/2 Pint of fresh raspberries, optional
200 g. Decorating marzipan (300-400 g. will be needed if covering the whole cake)
1 C. Toasted sliced almonds (optional, if using the lesser amount of marzipan)
Food colouring in green and any other desired marzipan decoration colours (pink roses are nice)
Powdered sugar

Mix the jam with the rum, if using.

Layer a slice of the sponge cake by covering it in one third of the jam (and raspberries, if using), then one third of the custard, then about a quarter of the whipped cream. Repeat for the second layer. For the third layer, finish up all the jam and custard, but spread one quarter of the whipped cream around the sides of the cake and the other quarter on top.

Colour about 150 g. of the marzipan green with a few drops of food colouring and knead in. Roll out between sheets of parchment until you have a 9" circle and cut it out. Place on top of the cake. (If you want to cover the whole cake, use 300 g. of the marzipan and roll it out into the largest, thinnest circle possible. Drape over the cake carefully and trim to fit.)

Decorate the cake with the toasted around the sides if only the top is covered with marzipan.

Use the remaining marzipan and food colouring to make decorations, such as flowers, leaves, hearts, stars, et cetera. Stick these onto the cake. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.

Nanaimo Bars for Canada Day

Happy Canada day!

Even if you aren't Canadian, it's the beginning of July, and thus high summer. That's enough reason to celebrate! Still, these bars are a Canadian classic worthy of making in honour of the land of maple syrup and a Tim Horton's on every corner. I've got plenty of beefs with my nation, but those definitely aren't it. 

I saw some pictures of Fourth-of-July themed Nanaimo bars on social media recently, and the irony wasn't lost on me. It seems a bit like making Independence Day clotted cream scones or something. Nah, for me these will always be iconic to Canada, no matter how far away I live from the West coast and the actual city of Nanaimo in British Columbia thereover. 

I've seen these being called New York Squares, but I guess sharing is caring... it wouldn't be fair to deprive the States of these delicious classics, but just remember that you've got Canada to thank for 'em!

As for the actual recipe writer in question, the city of Nanaimo (yes, these bars warrant mention on the official municipal website) traces them back to the early '50s, though the actual inventor is unknown. The earliest mention by name seems to be a recipe from a Nanaimo church-led compilation of housewives' recipes in 1957, where it is submitted strangely enough by an American... yet even before that, a very similar version under the name of London Fog Bars was published in a Vancouver newspaper in 1953, and appeared in a cookbook soon after. The recipe also popped up in New Brunswick, hence some people calling them New Brunswick bars (hey, as long as they're Canadian...)

I'll leave it to you to decide how much of that Wikipedia-gleaned information can be trusted. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm just glad that these delicious bars made their spread into nearly every corner of the nation. I first met them at Loblaw's as a kid, where I was right away smitten with the fusion of subtle toasty graham crumbs, nutty coconut and almonds, vanillaey custard icing and fudgy chocolate topping. I never would've guessed that something so good could be so easily replicated at home, but then again, this recipe was borne from the new '50s genre of easy, nearly instant recipes assembled from newly available commercial components. You don't even need to bake these bars, and most of the ingredients would likely have already been in a Canadian or American housewife's pantry. 

A somewhat neater-looking batch from a previous year.

For the modern baker, the only things that might be tricky to find are the custard powder and, in some places, graham crumbs. For the custard powder, I'd recommend replacing it with full fat powdered milk and a dash of vanilla extract, with some yellow food colouring or turmeric for the signature colour. You aren't missing out if you can't find graham crumbs- they're one of those things that gets excessively modified to stay unstale and nonrancid for months on shelves despite the whole wheat content. I used homemade graham crackers pulverized in a food processor, which I'd highly recommend- yes, making your own graham crackers is an extra step, but it's highly impressive to be able to tell people you made these completely for scratch. And you can keep the leftover crackers or crumbs for future baking in the freezer for several months. They aren't hard to make- I'll put up the recipe soon. You can also use digestive biscuits that have been processed to crumbs if those are available.

One last note- these bars are always  unrepentantly sweet, but a little less so than the originals since I reduced the sugar in the icing. That makes them a bit softer and more sensitive to warmth, but they still hold together nicely. If you want the real thing, add another half cup of powdered sugar to the icing and reduce the cream by a little less than two tablespoons- you can also skip the cream-beating step in that case. Cut these into small pieces if you like, a little goes a long way. Take a bite of chocolatey-custardey-coconutty goodness and think of the ol' Land of the Maple Leaf.

Nanaimo Bars
Adapted from the original Nanaimo bar recipe on the City of Nanaimo website
Makes about 18 bars, or 24 small ones

For the Base:
1/2 C Butter
1/4 C. Sugar
5 TBSP Cocoa
1 Egg
1 1/4 C. Graham cracker crumbs
1 C. Shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 C. Slivered or flaked almonds
1/2 C. Walnut pieces, optional

Grease and line a 8"x8" or 9"x13" pan with baking parchment. Set aside.

Set a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water as a bain-marie. Melt the butter and mix in the sugar and cocoa, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Quickly mix in the egg. Remove from heat and add the remaining ingredients.

Press the mixture into the greased and lined pan in a relatively even layer. Refrigerate until cool.

For the Icing:
1/2 C. Butter, softened
1 1/2 C. Powdered Sugar
2 TBSP Custard Powder
2 Tsp. Vanilla extract, optional
1/4 C. Whipping cream

Beat all of the ingredients together either on high speed in a mixer or in a food processor. If using the mixer, first use the whisk attachment to beat the cream with 2 TBSP of the sugar, then scrape it out and set it aside. Switch to a paddle attachment and cream everything else together, adding the whipped cream last and mixing it in until smooth.

Spread the icing over the cooled base layer with a knife or offset spatula in an even layer. Refrigerate until cold.

For the Topping:
8 Oz. Dark or semisweet chocolate
2 TBSP Butter

In a bain-marie set up as for the base, melt together the butter and chocolate until homogeneous. Take off the heat and let cool until not hot, but still relatively fluid. Spread onto the cold icing layer quickly to avoid the butter in it melting, then refrigerate the finished bars for at least 2 hours before cutting.

When cutting, use a warm knife (rinse it in hot water, then dry it, just before use).

Free-Form Stone Fruit and Frangipane Tart - and All-Star Pie Crust

Hullo and welcome to any readers- I've been procrastinating on creating a blog where I could keep record of all the recipes I've tried, how they turned out, and and modifications I made for a while, and now it seems I'm finally getting on with it. I'm hoping to use this mostly as a personal reference tool that perhaps someone else might also find useful from time to time- an open-access kitchen diary of sorts.

Now then, the recipe.

In case you can't see, the tart barely fits onto a baking tray. Not that I'm complaining.

At long last some half-decent stone fruits are showing up in supermarkets, which is reason enough for me to celebrate- few foods are as miserable as a mealy peach in the middle of winter. If there's good stone fruits, summer is definitely on its way. Normally I'd eat any I buy long before I get a chance to bake with them, but I've wanted to try a free-form tart for quite some time, so I squirreled a few away in the back of the fruit bowl to make something special.

Stone fruits (that is, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, et cetera) all go incredibly well with almonds, so an almond frangipane is the natural accompaniment. I've also added a little vanilla, bitter almond extract (which gives the frangipane that marzipanney almondness that might be too assertive in other uses, but is just right here) and a bit of apricot schnapps. The alcohol isn't strictly necessary, but it reacts with the fatty acids in the butter and almonds to produce aromatic esters, which is why I love baking with it so much- feel free to omit it if you don't like ingesting alcohol, though.

I'm pretty proud of the pastry, too- it's a sort of all-star compilation of all the little things I've learned to do to ameliorate my pie crusts. It's got pastry flour to reduce the gluten (which makes the dough chewy- also the reason you shouldn't work the dough too much), a bit of creme frâiche and apple cider vinegar (acids help to tenderize the dough) and is refrigerated several times while being folded on itself in between, giving it an insane flakiness. And no shortening!

Altogether, the tart is incredibly simple yet insanely good. The juicy fruits, creamy frangipane and flaky crust come together in delicious summery harmony, and it's got that attractively rugged look since there's no mold involved. If you've got any surplus of stone fruit (should there even be such a thing) try this tart out.

I finished this tart at about 4:30. This is all that remained the next morning. Pity the plate wasn't
big enough for the whole tart, but this thing is kind of enormous.

Free-Form Stone Fruit and Frangipane Tart

For the All-Star Pie Crust:

1 C. All purpose flour
1 C. Pastry flour (or alternatively, another cup of AP flour with two tablespoons replaced with cornstarch. A good trick if you don't keep pastry flour onhand)
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1 TBSP Sugar
3/4 Tsp. Apple cider vinegar
About 1/2 C. Cold milk (enough to make the dough hold together)
2 TBSP Creme frâiche or sour cream
3/4 C. (170 g.) Butter, cold and in small cubes

Mix all of the dry ingredients. Add the cubed butter and work with your hands or a pastry cutter to crumble up the butter into pea-sized pieces. Then, use your fingers to squish the bits of butter into flat "leaves". Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Add the remaining wet ingredients, using only so much milk as needed to form a cohesive dough. Work as little as possible and form a singular ball of dough. Flatten into a disk and fold one half onto the other. Again, flatten that and fold it onto itself. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface and, again, fold one half over the other. Flatten with the rolling pin and repeat. Refrigerate another 15 minutes.

For the frangipane filling

2 C. Blanched whole almonds
1/3 C. Sugar
2 Large eggs
2 TBSP Cornstarch
1/4 C. Butter, softened
1 TBSP Stone fruit eau de vie or schnapps, or dark rum
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1/4 Tsp. Almond extract

Toast 1 cup of the almonds in the oven at 180 ℃ for 5 minutes (until just barely browning). Grind both cups of the almonds in a food processor with sugar until very fine. Add the eggs and cornstarch and process until fully integrated. Add the remaining ingredients and process until very smooth.

To finish

About 1 1/2 Lbs. Stone fruits (I used a nectarine, a peach, two plums and two apricots), sliced into relatively thin wedges
1/4 C. Raw cane sugar or demerara sugar
An egg or some milk, to brush on

Preheat to 200 ℃.

Roll out the pastry into a roughly circular shape. spread the centre with the almond frangipane, leaving about three inches bare around the edges. Arrange the fruit wedges in the pattern of your choosing on the frangipane and fold the edges of the dough upwards onto the fruit and frangipane to surround it. Brush the surrounding dough with either milk or a beaten egg and sprinkle with the sugar. Refrigerate the tart (yes, again) for 15 minutes.

Bake for about 45 minutes, and 15 more minutes at 180℃. Let cool for an hour before cutting.