Eclairs

 Photo 

Any lover of eclairs will be ecstasy over a homemade one. Today these are filled with cream filling, they can also be filled with sweetened whipped cream. The recipe may seen complicated, because it is long and has 3 parts to it. But it is really very simple and very worth the effort!

Cream Puff Dough: (Makes apx. 10, 2 inch cream puffs. I double or triple this recipe for a group)

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs

Method:

1. Oil, butter or prepare cookie sheet with baking paper. 
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 175 degrees C. 
3. Bring water and butter to boil. 
4. Remove from heat and rapidly stir in flour so that it forms ball. 
5. Add eggs one at a time, stirring well between eggs. 
6. To make traditional eclair shapes, place dough in pastry tube and squeeze onto prepared cookie sheet.  Or drop by rounded spoonfuls on cookie sheet. 
7. Bake apx. 20 -30 min. until golden. 

Cream Filling: 

Ingredients:

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Chocolate variation:

• Use 1 cup sugar, rather than 1/2 cup. Melt 55 g. dark chocolate with milk. Then add eggs- stirring vigorously, and flour. Omit vanilla.

Method:

1. Stir all ingredients , except vanilla together well in saucepan. 
2. Cook over low-medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and beings to boil. 
3. Remove from heat and add vanilla. 
4. Cool to room temperature. 

Chocolate Frosting:

Ingredients: 

85 g. semi sweet or dark chocolate
2 tablespoons butter

Method:

1. Melt over double boiler until smooth. 

Eclair Assembly:

1. When cream puffs are cooled, and filling also then you may start assembly. 
2. Gently cut off top of cream puff, so as to make a lid. 
3. Remove any "extra" of the insides that would keep their from being room to fill. 
4. Add the filling and replace top. 
5. Frost with chocolate frosting. 
6. Enjoy! 

Ieva's Cake

I am determined to bake lots of cakes this year and come up with some new, orginal recipes. Therefore, I must keep track of the one I am making.

This was Ieva's cake.

Chocolate cake
Chocolate Cream Cheese Filling
Cream Filling- chocolate and filling
Nuts

Critic's rating : 

Tea Party - Valentine's Day 2013

This year we had a marvelous tea party with the ladies. Complete with fine dresses, mini size foods and beautiful tea cups.

As always I forgot to take pictures of the food until it was on the table and already in the dissapearing stage- therefore the not so good quality on some of these.

Our menu was:
Curried Chicken Salad-in little baskets
Cheese Salad-
Ham Pinwheels
Chocolate "Potatoes"
Mini-Cheesecakes
Sushi
And more :)

 The cake

 The cupcake favors

 Chocolate "Potatoe" hearts (I don't know why they are called that- but they are yummy)

 The birthday girl

Beautiful ladies!

For more photos click here. 

Houlihan's Baked Potato Soup

I love potato soup. But the best I have ever had was at the restaurant Houlihan's. When we were in college my roommate's Dad used to take us all out there. I have looked high and low on the interent for copycat recipes. I used this one as a base, and adjusted it as is seen below.

Borrowed from here

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds baking potatoes
• 1/4 pound butter
• 2 cups yellow onion, diced
• 1/3 cup flour
• 3 cups water
• 1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup instant potato flakes
• 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups milk
• salt and white pepper to taste
• Bacon, diced
• grated  cheese
• green onions

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degree. Prick washed potatoes and bake until tender all the way through and allow to fully cool. Remove skin and cut into 1/2-1 inch cubes and set aside.
2. Melt butter in a large pan and add onions. Saute for 10 minutes or until the onions are translucent. Add flour a cook for 4 minutes, stirring until well absorbed.
3. In a separate bowl, combine water, stock, potato flakes and seasonings. Whisk thoroughly to eliminate lumps. Slowly add to the onions while stirring constantly. Increase to medium heat and continue cooking until the soup begins to simmer. Add milk and cream and stir until slightly thickened.
4. Simmer for 15 minutes, but do not bring to a boil. Add potatoes and bacon and remove from heat. Top each serving with cheese and green onions.

Donuts

 Our first girl's Bible study/cooking lessons we made these yummy donuts. They turned out far better than I had even hoped, and were so much fun to make. The girl's fancied up the recipe with all kinds of yummy decorations. But my favorite were the plain and simple ones rolled in powdered sugar. I used Alton Brown's recipe and slightly altared it as is seen below.

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 1/3 cup. oil or butter
• 2 T. dry yeast
• 1/3 c. water water
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. nutmeg
• 4 -5 cups Flour (or more depending on your dough)

Method: 

1. Proof the yeast in the warm water. 
2. Warm milk slightly so as to melt butter. 
3. Mix water with yeast and milk together, when milk is warm, NOT hot. 
4. Mix in further ingredients, stirring well. Adding enough flour to make a smooth dough- which isn't too sticky. 
5. Let rise apx. 1 hour. 
6. Roll dough to about 3/8 inch thick. Cut donuts and placed on oiled cookies sheets. 
7. Let rise apx. 30 min. 
8. Heat oil until apx. 365 degrees F. 
9. Cook 4-5 donuts at a time, apx. 1 minute on each side. Should be nice and golden. 
10. Cool and frost as desired. 

Latvian Version:

Virtuļi

 Sastāvdaļas:

• 1 1/2 glāzes piens 
• 1/3 glāzes eļļa vai sviests
• 2 ēdamkarote sausā rauga
• 1/3 glāzes ūdens 
• 2 olas
• 1/4 glāzes cukura 
• 1/2 tējkarote sāls
• 1 tējkarote muskatriekstu 
• 4-5 glāzes milti (vai vairāk, atkarībā no jūsu mīklas)

 Pagatavošana:

Izšķīdina raugu siltā ūdenī. Silda mazliet pienu tā, lai varētu izkausētu sviestu. Sajauc ūdeni ar raugu un pienu kopā, pienam jābūt siltam, nevis karstam. Pievieno pārējās sastāvdaļas, samaisa. Pievieno pietiekami daudz miltu, lai veidotos 'patīkama' mīkla, kas nav pārāk lipīga. Ļaujiet uzrūgt apm. 1 stundu. Izrullē mīklu apmēram 0,7-1cm biezu. 'Izspiež' virtuļus ar caurumu vidū un liek uz ieeļotas virsmas. Ļaujiet uzrūgt apm. 30 min. Uzsilda eļļu (var pārbaudīt- eļļa gatava, ja tajā ieliek koka karotes kātu un tā sāk burbuļot). Var gatavot vairākus virtuļus vienlaicīgi, bet katru vāra eļļā apm. 1 minūti no katras puses. Lai tie būtu patīkami zeltaini. Atdzesē un dekorē pēc vajadzības, patikas.

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