Sticky Chai v.1

Ingredients: 
100g black Ceylon tea
15g cinnamon sticks
5g whole clove
20g vanilla powder
5g turmeric powder
15g dried ginger
5g aniseed
3g licorice root
5g whole green cardamom
10g black peppercorn
5g coriander seed
200g yellow box honey

Break the cinnamon sticks in half, and pull them apart.

Crack open the cardamom pods, and extract the seeds from the pods -- keep the pods.

Break up the slices of dried ginger -- pull apart with your fingers or chop.

Pour all the dry ingredients into a bowl, then pour the honey on top and stir. Everything should be moist with honey, without dry spots. Put into a jar and leave it in a dark and cool cupboard for 2 weeks.

Notes: 
I am making my own Sticky Chai because I find the original one to be too sweet, not spicy enough and lacking in licorice/aniseed flavor that Matthias so loves.

I did not mix this by hand. I recommend using your stand mixer on the lower setting, with a dough hook. It is less work to clean the dough hook and bowl than to do this by hand.

Using the dough hook also minimises the crushing of the spices. While some crushing is ideal (that is why I pull apart the cinnamon sticks), I suspect that crushing or grinding the mixture down may cause some of the spices -- particularly the clove and the star anise -- to taste too bitter in the final product.

I only used yellow box honey because it was cheaper. Any regular honey will be fine. I plan on making a batch with maple syrup at some point, but with less of the aniseed.

Tasting Notes: 

Makes for a very mellow, and mild chai. I have to add some fresh ground pepper and chopped ginger to give it even the slightest kick.

Maple Cake

Ingredients: 

4 egg whites
50g sugar

50g flour
20g sugar
100g milk
1 egg yolk
maple extract
vanilla bean paste -- optional
pinch of salt

50g flour
1/4tsp baking powder

Dissolve sugar in warm milk. Whisk milk into first 50g of flour, followed by egg yolk, extract, and salt.

Beat egg whites until stiff with the sugar. Pour milk mixture in while whisking, then sift into flour.

Divide into 12 cupcake forms and bake at 160C.

Notes: 
The cupcakes did not open up, and were too chewy. I think that was too much milk for 12 cupcakes. I am going to increase the egg yolks and decrease the milk.

Fennel and Potatoes in Cream

Adapted from Food52

Ingredients: 

1 fennel head
5 potatoes

black pepper
2tsp coarse salt
1 bay leaf
200g milk
200g cream

Chunk up the potatoes.

Cut off the fronds and other dark green bits of the fennel for another use. Quarter it, cut off the hard rooty bit, and pull it apart. Slice them into roughly the same dimensions as the potatoes.

Pour the rest of the ingredients into a pan, and warm up on low heat. Stir, then add the potatoes and the fennel.

If the milk does not submerge the vegetables completely, cover the pot. Keep an eye on it because milk has a tendency to bubble up and out of the pan and it is a terrible mess to clean up.

Cook for about twenty minutes, or until tender. Taste for salt.

At this point, you can drain the vegetables, reserving the milk liquid for another use. You can serve the vegetables at this point.

You can also portion them out onto gratin dishes and broil them until crispy. I recommend brushing a bit of oil over the top to help it crisp up faster.

Notes: 

You can swap out the fennel for leeks, if you like, or the potatoes for another root vegetable. Parsnip would probably work well.

For flavor, you can add a clove of garlic, garam masala, chilli flakes, amongst other things, to the milk. But if you use fennel, I actually suggest adding fennel seed instead, because I am afraid the garlic etc will over power the fennel.

Next time, I will probably not use cream. It is not necessary.

You can use the milk after that in a roux-based sauce. I plan to fry up some steak in butter, use that to make a roux and dump in the milk after that.

Green Tea Ice Cream

Ingredients: 

27g matcha powder
180g condensed milk
450g heavy cream -- 40% fat

Dump everything into a mixing bowl, and whip until stiff.

Please keep an eye on the mixture as it whips up pretty quick if your cream is cold.

Scoop into container and freeze for at least 6 hours.

Notes:

I assume that you will not be able to resist having a taste of the mixture before it freezes. The matcha powder, before freezing, will be a touch too much, but it will smooth out after freezing.

You can also put this into an ice cream maker, but I do not have one.

I am going to try this recipe for condensed milk soon, with the coconut sugar.

Soft Chocolate Cake

Ingredients: 

45g egg yolk
195g whole eggs
135g sugar

45g cocoa powder
50g flour
45g sugar
40g heavy cream
60g milk

50g flour
1/4tsp baking soda

Dissolve sugar in cream and milk over gently heat. Whisk into flour and cocoa powder. It will be a stiff paste. Cover.

Whip eggs up with sugar until you can draw an initial over the top before it begins to disappear.

Whisk in cocoa paste.

Whisk in flour with baking soda.

Bake at 160C in a 25cm round tin.

Notes: 

Need to adjust cocoa and flour ratios. Cocoa powder can be reduced 30g, I think.

Matcha Cake

Ingredients: 

250g egg whites
200g sugar

80g all-purpose flour
10g matcha
100g milk
50g cream

80g all-purpose flour

Sift the first 80g of flour with matcha. Warm milk and cream together, then stir into matcha-flour mixture. Make a smooth batter.

Whip egg whites with sugar until stiff peaks.

Whisk matcha mixture into egg whites.

Sift second 80g of flour and fold through.

Bake in 25cm round tin at 150C.

Notes: 

Next time, I will put some off the sugar into the matcha mixture instead. It should help keep the matcha mixture more liquid and increase the volume of the egg whites a bit.

This is a slight modification of the Coffee Cream Cake, which should really be called the Latte or Cappucino cake. I removed the egg yolks because I think they will get in the way of the matcha flavor.

Tasting Notes: 

Soft, moist and redolent of matcha. I am definitely on the right track.

The texture could be finer and more even, but I put that down to the matcha mixture not being as smooth as it could be.

I am going to reduce the amount of flour in the wet mixture a bit further, to make it smoother and easier to incorporate into the egg white.

Coffee Cream Cake

Ingredients: 

100g all-purpose flour
150g heavy cream
60g milk
10g instant coffee powder
5g coffee extract

10 yolks + enough egg white make up 440g
200g sugar

100g all-purpose flour

Warm up the cream and milk. Dissolve the instant coffee powder and then stir in the coffee extract.

Whisk the coffee mixture into the first 100g of flour. It should be a smooth batter that looks rather like soft and melty chocolate ice cream.

Beat the eggs and sugar on low speed over a barely simmering water bath until very light and thick. If your eggs are fresh, it should take at least 10 minutes. Eggs that start from cold and are not particularly fresh will take at least 15 minutes.

Stir some of the egg mixture into the coffee mixture to loosen it up, then dollop it into the rest off the eggs while whisking.

Whisk in the second 100g of flour a spoonful at a time.

Pour into a 25cm square tin (lined on the bottom), and then bake at 150C until a skewer comes out clean.

Notes: 
I forgot to loosen up the coffee mixture, but you should do that. Makes it easier to get a batter that does not streak.

I want to try this with only egg whites, partly because I have a surfeit of them and partly because sometimes I find that you get a cleaner flavor. Matcha will probably be the first one I try.

I split up the flour for textural reasons, but it is also far easier to get a mixture that can be whisked into the eggs this way.

You can split the recipe into 2 8 inch round tins or 2 7 inch square pans.

Tasting Notes: 
The coffee taste could be stronger, but the texture is really quite good.

I think you could quite easily skip the coffee and just use vanilla extract, or put some powdered spices like ground cinnamon into the cake.