Category: Sweet Baking
Coffee Pecan Pie with Mascarpone
This pie can just as easily be made with walnuts of course. It’s a classic with a twist, because instead of making a butter cream, you use mascarpone. It’s a quick option and the taste is great, the mascarpone makes … [...]
Sticky Cinnamon Buns
They are sticky and delicious and they are best when warm and fresh. In Holland we have something called ‘Zeeuwse Bolussen’ made in the province of Zeeland. They are very similar to these cinnamon buns. You can also keep them … [...]
Orchard Apple Pie
We always feel very lucky when we can share in the yield harvested by friends who own trees that bare fruit and nuts. Apples, peers and walnuts, we know what to do with them! Somehow they always taste better than … [...]
Easy Peasy Cheesy Cookies
This recipe is too easy! But the result is fabulously ‘cheesy’. Just take equal parts of flour, butter (in little cubes) and good quality cheddar cheese… [...]
Quest for the Best Speculaas
Like marzipan, speculaas (or speculaasjes as the individual cookies are called) is a cookie highly connected with the feast of Sinterklaas in Holland. The name speculaas has to do with the wooden molds the cookies are made in (we call it a speculaasplank, speculaas comes from the word speculum (mirror)). One of the more famous shapes is a… [...]
Autumn Muffins
It’s these kind of recipes that send out the right kind of whiffs to get me in a cheery autumn mood. All I need then to make me completely happy is a look out of the window onto the trees … [...]
Custard Tarts: one for each hip
When we saw Bill Granger make these on his Bills Food show (broadcast by the BBC right after Saturday Kitchen) Ed started to shout: “I want those!”. Before the program was half finished we were making them ourselves. So if you have some ready made puff pastry lying around, and your eggs look fresh and ready…start making them too. Of course you can also make your own (rough) puff pastry. Before you know it your kitchen will smell like a little French patisserie… [...]
Wonderful Walnut Caramel Pie
This pie has already been called ‘dirty good’! I got this excellent recipe from my dear neighbor. It’s a favorite family recipe from New Zealand and has been for many years. We made this pie on several occasions and each … [...]
Making Marmalade
March 2012 update We won a bronze medal at the Marmalade Awards. Very pleased with this result! [...]
Baby it’s Cold Outside: Come in for some Cardamom Cake
Bake this fruity, spicy cardamom Cake! You won’t be sorry! Especially when it’s cold outside, or stormy. In Holland we have this stormy weather often in late fall and early winter. It conjures up images of people on bikes, leaning forward, trying to peddle against the wind… [...]
Simply The Best Oatmeal Cookies!
This is a our own version of a recipe Ed’s grandmother got when she got her first gas oven in the 1950′s. The recipe was published in a booklet from the gas company. The cookies are very crisp with an intense buttery caramel taste. Perfect as a little treat with a cup of hot cocoa or earl grey tea.
You can conjure up all kinds of variations with this basic recipe… [...]
Apple Pie a la Normande
With this recipe combines the best of two worlds: The buttery, sandy dough of the Dutch ‘appeltaart’ with the filling of a pie from Normandy. So, no cinnamon this time, but you do get the long lingering scent and taste of Calvados… [...]
Arnhemse Meisjes: My Favourite Dutch Cookies
‘Arnhemse Meisjes’ (Girls from the city of Arnhem) are my absolute favorite traditional Dutch cookies in the world. They are flaky, caramel crispy light with a sweet crunch.. These cookies look like they are made from some kind of puff pastry but that’s not the case. Some people make them with ready made puff pastry, but believe me… [...]
‘Beet’ these Vanilla Muffins
Today I made delicious vanilla muffins. Thinking of red velvet cake, I added color by using beetroot puree. The paints of nature can be more intense than any artificial coloring! [...]
Chewy Coconut Cookies
What’s to be done with a bit of leftover flaked coconut and a lemon? I smell cookies! They are delicate and light but are also blessed with the chewy factor. They remind me of my childhood which for baking is … [...]
More Dutch Originals: Hernhutter Cookies
On an early spring break in the province of Zeeland I came across a mold for making ‘Hernhutterjes’. These are a type of old Dutch cookies, or so we believe in Holland. You can see the shape in the picture. … [...]
Goudse Moppen: More Original Cookies from Holland
Are you serious? You’d rather watch reality TV shows than bake your own cookies? Now what is wrong with you? Watching reality TV will make you fat, lazy and depressed! Baking cookies will make you radiantly happy and svelte and loved by your friends! So, what are you waiting for? [...]
Almond Jam Cookies
These are delicate little nibbles. More befitting of the word biscuit than cookie. I think it has to do with the ground almonds, they immediately give these cookies more elegance and refinement. Exactly the kind of delicacy you would expect, … [...]
Making your own Almond Paste
Almond paste, used in Holland in Christmas stollen and speculaas, is deliciously easy to prepare and can be made well in advance because it keeps for a long time in the fridge or even longer in the freezer. Also very good when spread on the base of an apple pie. [...]