vanevalentine FOOD -

Carmela’s Lemon Loaves: World Baking Day 2013

bakercollage As you may have noticed from all the online buzz, today we are celebrating World Baking Day and I just couldn’t miss the opportunity of joining thousands of baking enthusiasts around the globe for this occasion.
The idea behind this concept is to choose one recipe you’ve never prepared before and bake it on this special day together with friends or family. The World Baking Day organization joined forces with several bakers, hobby cooks, food bloggers, etc., around the world to put together a list of hundred fabulous recipes we could pick from.
While going through the list, I was looking for something compatible with my baking style: easy-to-find ingredients, simple yet tasty and that I could create a sugar-free version of. With this in mind, I came across baking Level 67: Carmela’s Lemon Loaves.
I’m a huge fan of any moist lemony cake and these cute loaves seemed to have those characteristics. I went through the list of ingredients and procedure and clicked with it almost immediately. I could also picture this recipe perfectly working with tagatose in order to replace the sugar. My decision had been made! On top of that, I managed to get in touch via Twitter with Carmela, the author of this recipe and food blogger at Carmela’s Kitchen. She was very sweet, guaranteed I’d love these loaves and she was totally right! They’re chewy, moist and have that rich lemon taste that she wanted to predominate in this recipe. The perfect touch was pouring that syrup on top at the end. I had never created caramel with tagatose before, but it worked out super good! This confirms the fact that this is one of the only sugar replacements that nicely caramelizes.
So here I leave you with the result of my adventure. Thanks a lot to the organization of the World Baking Day for such a nice initiative and, of course, Carmela for being my inspiration today.

Sugar Free Lemon Loaves (sweetened with Tagatose)
Ingredients (makes around 7 mini-loaves, around 10 cm):
300g flour
6 tablespoons Tagatose (Using NuNaturals PreSweet Tagatose)
3 eggs
200ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
125g melted butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
Zest of 2 lemons
For the caramel:
Juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons tagatose

Procedure:
1. Cream the tagatose, eggs and lemon zest.
2. Add the flour and baking powder.
3. Pour in the milk, vanilla essence and melted butter. Mix very well. The resulting batter won’t be very thick, which guarantees a moist cake as a result.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C and bake for 30 minutes.
5. In the meantime, prepare the caramel. Combine the lemon juice and tagatose in a small sauce pot and let simmer for a couple of minutes until small bubbles start to appear. It will gain a caramel-like texture.
6. Remove the loaves from the oven and pour some of the caramel on top.
Find Carmela’s original recipe here.
Hope you guys like it and Happy World Baking Day!!!

Leek Quesadillas (Spelt)

quesadilla001 I’ve been craving quesadillas for almost a week now.
This morning I woke up with tons of energy and inspiration, so I finally got myself to work on them.
I know you can just buy tortillas at the supermarket, which makes your life ten times easier, but I adore the taste of self-made ones and then I can also choose to make them with spelt flour instead of wheat. I hadn’t rolled such a good dough in a long time. Nailing down an even dough ball and then perfectly rolling it out creates a magnificent sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
The combination of leek and cheese is just glorious, so I thought of making it the filling for my quesadillas this time. I just had my boyfriend asking me for more right now!
Not complicated, light and super tasty, this was today’s breakfast at Casa Vanessa. The perfect way to celebrate the start of the week and a new Meatless Monday.
Hope you guys like it!

Leek Quesadillas
Ingredients:
For the tortillas (makes 4 tortillas):
170g (spelt) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup (around 120ml) warm water
For the filling:
Grated cheese
170g leek (chopped into small pieces)

Salt and pepper
Extra flour for rolling the dough
Extra oil or (soy) butter for baking

Procedure:
1. Let’s start by preparing the tortillas: In a deep bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
2. Add the olive oil and half of the water. When preparing dough it’s important to add the water gradually, not all at one time. This way you can calculate during the process if you need to add more to get a nice consistency.
3. Start kneading the dough. You should get an even, non-sticky ball. Cover with a clean towel and let rest for 10 minutes.
4. In the meantime, we can already work on the filling. Chop the leek into small cubes. Heat up a tiny bit of oil (I use soy butter) and saute the leek. Feel free to spice it up with some salt and pepper.
5. Once the dough has rested its 10 minutes, divide it into 4 balls. Sprinkle your working area with some flour and roll the balls into thin big rounds. This will make your tortillas.
6. In a big flat pan, heat up some olive (or butter) and bake the tortillas. Make sure to turn them at least once so that both sides are cooked.
7. Cover half of the tortilla with some of the cooked leek and sprinkle with some grated cheese. Fold the tortilla and put it in a toaster grill. This will melt the cheese and create those nice “burnt” lines on the tortillas.
8. Cut the tortilla into 3 triangles and serve right away.
Buen provecho!
quesadilla002