Junglefrog Cooking » sweet

Rhubarb souffle for April in Paris

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:42:33 +0000

Monthly mingle; April in Paris

Alors, j’taime Paris… My love affair with France dates back from when I was a little kid. My parents always went to France on holidays. When we were big enough to ‘survive’ the long trip from our home to Bretagne, we went there every year. I must have been 13 or 14 when I entered for the very first time. We went to places like St. Malo or Boules (it was called differently but can’t think of the actual name now!) as long as it was close to anything resembling water. My nickname in those days was ‘waterrat’; if there was water around, you would find me in it. So any camping we would go to would have to be by the seaside or a large lake (we went to the Dordogne a couple of times too)

In fact, I received my very first kiss in France. I was 15 years old, very tall and very slim (tall I still am, but not sure where the slimness went..lol) and very blond. We went on holiday that year with friends from my parents who had two kids (they had more kids, but only two came on that particular holiday) and both of them were boys. The youngest of the two was my little sisters age but the oldest of the two, R. was a little older then me and quite handsome too.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

I was already feeling those famous butterflies in my stomach every time he walked close to me. At some point we were visiting rather boring caves somewhere close to Paris and R. and I stayed a little bit behind. He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “Have you ever kissed?” He asked me. I squeaked something that must have sounded like ‘no’. ‘Would you like me to show you how to kiss?’ He proceeded asking, at which I squeaked ‘yes’ and that’s how it happened. I received my very first French kiss in France. How fitting! I can’t say I totally enjoyed the experience but we got to practice that entire holiday so we did get quite good at it.

Of course we never wanted our parents to find out what was going on, so we had a lot of fun hiding our ‘activities’ from our folks. I’m pretty sure that they knew what we were doing behind the tents but at the time we were totally convinced we were being secretive and no one knew we ‘were in love’. It was fun while it lasted and it was really only a holiday fling, but fun non the less.

The theme of this months Monthly Mingle brought back all those memories from years past. Made me think about how I love Paris and France in general. Yes, the french can be obnoxious and arrogant at times, but quite honestly I’ve never had a lot of trouble with that. O I now remember a funny story about my Parisian boyfriend too! I’ll save that for another day!

This months mingle is hosted by my dear friend and fabulous writer Jamie from Lifes a Feast. She is an American but has been living in France for a rather long time, so this theme could have come from no other then her! Check out her post about the Mingle and her own entry here, which looks pretty amazing too. The Monthly Mingle is an invention from my other friend Meeta from What’s for Lunch Honey, where a new theme is picked every month. it’s been too long since I last participated as I love the mingle, but couldn’t skip this one, now could I?

Couldn't resist playing with the lensbaby ofcourse

To fit the theme I chose rhubarb and blackberry souffles with a crumble on top. I originally saw this recipe made during an episode of Masterchef Australia and was planning to make it. So when I saw this months theme I just knew it had to be these babies. What can I say? Totally delicious, fluffy and worth making! I was a little afraid the mixture might be too liquid but it worked brilliantly. I didn’t have icecream and whipping cream but that would be fantastic with this dessert.

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

Print recipe

Serves	6
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Serve Hot
Region	French
Website	Masterchef Australia

Ingredients

500g rhubarb (cut into 2 cm pieces)
140g sugar
150g black berries
4 egg whites
75g sugar

Crumble

75g flour
50g butter
50g brown sugar
pinch salt
50g rolled oats
50g hazelnuts (roughly chopped)

Directions


Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the rhubarb with the 140 gr of sugar in a pan, add a splash of water, cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for a while.
Crumble

Make a crumble by adding the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it with your fingers till it resembles a rough crumble. Put the crumble on a baking tray, spread it out and bake for about 5 minutes until light golden brown.

Butter your ramekins twice. Butter once and then put in the fridge for 5 minutes, butter again and put a tsp of sugar in the ramekin. Turn it around so the sugar coats all the sides of the ramekin well and tap out the excess sugar. Put aside until ready to use.

Once the rhubarb is cooked but still has some chunky bits in it, add the blackberries. You can use frozen blackberries if you cannot find fresh. Add a bit of lemon zest in the pan as well. Put some cornflour in a small bowl, add water and whisk until smooth. Add this bit by bit to your fruit mixture until it is thick enough. It should become a thick puree. Leave to boil for another 1,5 minute to cook the cornflour. Then put your fruit puree into another bowl and stir to cool it down for at least five minutes.

Take 4 eggwhites and add about 1 tbsp of sugar to it and start whisking until it becomes soft and glossy. Add 75 gr of sugar and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Don't overwhisk it.

Put 1/3 of your fruitpuree in a bowl and add about the same amount of eggwhites to it and carefully fold until combined. Repeat this until it's all incorporated. Take your ramekins and with spoon pointing downwards fill all your ramekins up till the rim. Smooth the top with a knife and run a finger along the side of the ramekin to make sure nothing sticks at the sides as that will prevent your souffle from rising.

Put the ramekins in the oven for 6-7 minutes, take them out (they should have risen about 1-2 cm at that stage) and add some crumble on top. Not too much as that will weigh it down but just eough to give it a bit extra. Bake for another 3 minutes and you're done.

Creamy rhubarb tarts and an old story

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:00:35 +0000

Creamy rhubarb delicious

Those of you who know me a little better or those of you that have followed me a little longer, might know that I have not always been in the same profession. Lord knows I have had just about as many different jobs as anyone wants to have when I was younger. I made it my pride to be a job-hopper. The longest position I had been in for the first 10 professional years of my life was maybe 2 years.

However, one of my most memorable jobs must have been starting out as a student nurse all those years back in 1982. I was 19 at the time and as green as grass. My parents have always been fairly strict. I went to parties at our local high school but that was about the experience I had with ‘disco’s, partying and the like”. In that day and age it was a rule that you had to live in the sister-flat if you started your education. It’s all changed nowadays but when I started out you had to study for three months, then do an internship at a hospital, go back to school and then work some more. The majority of the time was spend in the actual hospital that hired you as a student.

Delicious creme fraiche

I was a very shy girl when I went into that sister-flat but I did meet a lot of nice people pretty quickly, some of which are still my friends today. We all had a tiny room of 2 x 3 meters which was our home. Put a bunch of girls together in a house and you’re bound to have mayhem so there had to be rules. No men were allowed in the house after 11 pm. No booze was allowed in the rooms. And we had a very very firm mentrix overseeing us all. Let’s call her mrs. S. She was pretty terrifying and she either liked you or she hated you. It doesn’t take a lot of guessing finding out in which category I was placed.

My friends all had boyfriends and our rooms where situated close to one another. I was – having grown up in a protected environment – still a virgin so it soon became a bit of a joke, me being the ‘eternal virgin’… (hey, I was almost twenty years!) It didn’t really bother me a lot to be honest so I just joked along with the rest of them.

My room was the only one facing the hospital. So if you would be working in the surgical ward we all worked in, you could literally look into my room. Not a good thing when you have someone like Mrs. S watch your every move like a hawk.

The boyfriends of my friends would drop in to the flat to see if there girlfriends were home. Remember this was the age before we all had Iphones to register our every move, so without a phone in the room, it would always be easiest to drop by and see if someone was home. Quite often they were gone, so the guys, whom I had met and got along quite well would drop in to my room for a cup of tea and a chat before saying goodbye again and moving on. This would always happen during the day. Broad daylight so my curtains were mostly open. No reason to sit in the dark, right?

Imagine my surprise one day when I got back from work, still in my uniform and pretty tired, when Mrs. S was waiting for me in the hall. “Come with me young lady.” She said in her usual aggressive and scary voice-tone.

My mind started racing and thinking what on earth I could have done wrong this time while I walked with her to her office. She opened the doors and imagine my surprise when my parents where sitting in her room. I was a little shocked, not knowing what to think but I was gestured to sit down and shut up.

Mrs. S. then proceeded in explaining, in front of me and my parents, that she was very concerned about my behavior. I had a lot of male visitors, I drank booze in my room on many occasions and I sometimes got home at 6.30 pm. In short, she was basically saying I was some sort of whore and she had alerted my parents to this fact. I was completely and utterly stunned. The only part of her story that was true was the last part; I did get home sometimes after having been out really late. We would go dancing for the entire night with friends and come home, well yes, very late. But we were young, living on our own for the first time, so who could blame us right? Wrong…

I stammered and I stuttered which I am sure convinced her and my parents of my obvious guilt. The fact that I blurted out that I was still a virgin was obviously just a tactic trying to get them of my back. I did not drink alcohol at all at that time. I hated beer and thought wine was just mediocre, so I didn’t drink, but I did have the occasional beer in my tiny fridge for when I had visitors. It appears mrs. S was close friends with the headnurse of the ward where I worked who -clearly – could spy and look into my room. She must have seen the guys coming over and having a tea (not whiskey).

One of our fellow students who had a room next to mine, M., was a very timid and weird girl. But she was high on the list of favorites of mrs. S. so I did not have the heart to tell her that M. was the one who brought in all those bottles of booze (which she probably found empty at some trashcan)!

I got a really serious warning that afternoon. If I would not get my act together I would be thrown out of the program altogether. I was so mad you can’t believe it. Being caught is one thing, but being blamed for something you obviously did not do, was beyond me. My parents, unfortunately, believed mrs. S and it is still the reason why they look at the friends of that period with mixed feelings. They still think I did all those things. And they blame my friends for that… Ridiculous but true. Not that we ever talk about it, but I just know.

My friends and I; well we had a really good laugh about it later on and they had something else to tease me about.. Thanks goodness for friends!

And why o why you wonder, does this have anything to do with these lovely and creamy rhubarb tarts? Well, mrs. S was a regular horrible old tart. So guess how I was reminded of this story… So before you’re completely nodded off, have a look at this delicious and simple recipe!

Creamy rhubarb tarts

Print recipe

Serves	4
Prep time	20 minutes
Cook time	25 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Dessert
Website	BBC Good food

Ingredients

4 sheets puff pastry (we have squares here that are already the right size)
1 egg (beaten)
1 tablespoon cane sugar
1 tablespoon creme fraiche
2 sticks rhubarb (thinly sliced at an angle)
2 tablespoons icing sugar

Directions


Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Thaw the puff pastry squares if you have them or if you're using a block of pastry roll out and cut into the desired shape. You can use round or squares

Lay your pastry on a baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and brush the edges with the whiskes egg. If using squares score a border of 1 cm on the inside of the pastry not cutting all the way through. Whisk your creme fraiche and the cane sugar together and spread a thin layer at the bottom of the tarts. Lay out your rhubard slices neatly within the borders of your cuts. Use whatever shape or pattern you want.

Bake the tarts for 20 minutes until puffed up and golden. Leave to rest for a few minutes and eat warm with either some extra of the creme fraiche or a scoop of icecream

Note

Totally loved this recipe. The rhubarb is still quite tart so it's best eaten with something like the creme fraiche so I made some extra as it goes together brilliantly!

Apple sauce

Simone (junglefrog) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:19:37 +0000

Apple sauce

Sometimes I seriously wonder if there is something wrong me. If I was maybe born with that famous ‘hole in the head’… Or maybe I actually think that there are 48 hours in each day (wouldn’t that be awesome by the way??) but noooo, that is all not true. I’m mean; yes I am slightly mad and yes, I am sometimes very delusional and yes I’ve managed to create yet another blog. Tsssk, I can hear you think.. Why would that be of any use?

It’s gone live today and if you cannot contain your curiosity; it’s called Beetroot and Halloumi and the idea is to make this a foodblog but centered around healthy food and healthy living.. BOOORRRRINNNG I can hear you think.. Maybe… I need to get better at controlling my healthy I think and thought this would be a cool way to keep the focus while in the meantime still eat ~~unhealthy~~ different dishes here on Junglefrog Cooking. Obviously there is no way I’m gonna abandon this baby so rest assured that will still be there. And I might over time decide that it was a bad idea and that nothing good has come of it, but for now I’m happy with it. It’s not exactly the way I want it to be yet. I hate having to search for a new theme and then installing it, spending time on it; only to find out it’s not exactly what it claimed to be. O well… it’s up and it’s working more or less. It looks ok-ish too. Still a bit empty since you see a lot of posts on the front page. And even though I think I’m superwoman, I cannot turn out twenty posts in one day.

The recipes will eventually be different from the ones featured here but in order to fill it up a bit I will use some of the recipes I’ve made over the last couple of years. The healthy ones ofcourse only!

Now talking about this delicious and plain applesauce. You would almost wonder why you would even need a recipe for that. Well you don’t really but I’m gonna share it with you anyway. It’s delicious, fragrant and anything a good apple compote should be! For the last bit of winter and now please let’s get on with spring already!

Apple sauce

Print recipe

Serves	4
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	30 minutes
Total time	45 minutes
Meal type	Condiment, Side Dish
Misc	Child Friendly, Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
By author	Simone van den Berg

Ingredients

500-1000g apples (I used a variety of different apples)
4 pieces star anise
3-4 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
1 cup fresh orange juice

Directions

Peel and core all the apples and cut them into chunks. Don't make them too big or it will take too long to cook. Put all the apple cubes in a large saucepan, add a little bit of water and the orange juice to the pan, add the cinnamon sugar and star anise and bring to the boil. As soon as it's boiling turn the heat down to a simmer and leave it simmering for about 20-30 minutes. Check regularly to see how you're apples are doing.
If you like the sauce to be smooth leave it fairly long, but if you like bits and chunks in the sauce then make sure you don't boil it too long.

Note

If you do not have cinnamon sugar (which is basically sugar with cinnamon added in it) you can ofcourse use regular sugar and add one or two cinnamon sticks in it.

Lemon poppyseed cupcakes and a love story

Simone (junglefrog) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:00:43 +0000

Valentine or Easter cupcakes..

I was madly in love. Madly in love with a tough biker guy called Paul. He was blond, tall and handsome and every time I looked into his eyes I sort of felt my butterflies dance. I had met Paul through a mutual girlfriend called Agnes. At the time I was still working as a nurse and had just discovered the joys of going out, disco’s and staying up far far too late. I was a little older then twenty at the time.

For the life of me I cannot remember what Paul did for a living or if he was still a student but I did know that I was head over heels in love with this guy. So when he asked me to go on a tour around the Ijsselmeer I did not hesitate and jumped at the chance. My friend Agnes would join too together with Paul’s friend so that would be a fun event…. or so I thought.

The day was of to a bad start, so maybe that was the beginning of the inevitable end. It was cold, windy and it looked liked it would rain. My hair was long and curly at the time, but what I had not thought about is that I would have to wear a helmet for the entire day. Sitting on the back of a motorbike riding for the entire day, holding on for dear life as the wind threatened to throw us of course. On top of that; they had not exaggerated when they said they would go for a bike ride… I cannot remember that we stopped at all during the entire ride from hell.

But ok, all in the name of love and I was snuggled up close to Paul, feeling all freezing cold but thinking it was for a good cause. By the time we came back home and I finally managed to get of that damned bike I was as stiff as a 50-year old lady (O, I should REALLY not make that comparison at my age!!!) my hair was as flat as a pancake and static too and my back was not happy…

Paul laughed and took me closer in his arms. I snuggled up against him and then he kissed me… A warm, wet and sloppy kiss. Like being kissed by a dog but then worse. Seriously. I almost recoiled… Have you ever had that before? Madly in love, one kiss and the love was over, completely, totally and forever irreversibly over? That was THE worst kiss I ever ever received in my entire life. It was gross and disgusting and I seriously had to keep myself from running away. Maybe the day was never meant to be a good day, with the way it started but to this day I am not sure Paul ever realized what hit him.. lol…

I can’t even remember how we said goodbye. I might have mumbled something and sort of half ran into my house, shutting the door firmly behind me, leaving a somewhat surprised Paul behind. Poor guy… I mean, I couldn’t possibly shatter his self esteem and tell him that he was the world worst kisser, now could I? But since there was no other explanation, I just chickened out and left him to figure it out for himself.

Now how’s that for a romantic Valentine story to warm your hearts on this cold cold winter day?

As for this recipe; what can I say? It’s absolutely delicious and a perfect treat but I have to say that it does look more like Easter cupcakes then Valentine cupcakes. But that’s good! They can be used on multiple occasions! I was also having cupcake photography block.. Too many cupcakes in too short a time… O well it’s the taste that counts! And for a bit more romantic recipe you can check here.

Lemon and poppyseed cupcakes

Print recipe

Serves	12
Prep time	40 minutes
Cook time	25 minutes
Total time	1 hours, 5 minutes
Allergy	Egg
Meal type	Dessert, Snack
Misc	Child Friendly, Pre-preparable
Website	BBC Good Food

Ingredients

175g self-raising flour
50g almond flour
175g caster sugar
2 lemon zest (of two lemons)
3 eggs
100g natural yogurt
175g butter (melted and cooled a little)
Sprinkled to decorate

Icing

225g butter (softened)
400g icing sugar (sifted)
1 lemon juice (juice of 1 lemon)

Icing (Optional)

few drops of yellow food coloring

Directions


Heat the oven to 180 C and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake or muffin cases. Mix the flour, sugar, almond flour, lemon zest and poppy seeds together in a large mixing bowl. Beat the eggs into the yogurt, then tip this into the dry ingredients with the melted butter. Mix together with a wooden spoon or whisk until lump-free, then divide between the cases. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a skewer poked in comes out clean - the cakes will still be quite pale on top. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then carefully lift onto a wire rack for finish cooling

To ice, beat the softened butter until really soft in a large bowl, then gradually beat in the icing sugar and lemon juice. Stir in enough food colouring for a pale yellow color. Then spoon the icing into a piping bag with a large star nozzle.

Pipe the cakes and sprinkle with sprinkles of your choice

Spiced nutty apple-pear cake

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:00:51 +0000

Pretty bundt cake

I made this pretty moist and delicious bundt cake this afternoon. It came out of the oven around 4.30 pm, then had to cool and by the time I wanted to take a photo there was no light left whatsoever. That meant having to wait either until the next day or find an alternative solution. I still had this one daylight lamp that I took out of the studio at some point, used once, didn’t like it and tossed it in a corner to get dusty. Enough with the lazy and comfortable daylight! Time to get cracking on some serious stuff..

I’ve received many a question from people desperate to find out how to work with lighting in the night or for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, in the wintertime when light fades after 3 pm. I’ve written something about it before which you find here but thought I could do a little more research myself so why not share? As I said; I never use this lamp as it’s just not the same but in case of emergency, you would have to do with what you got right? So for today I dusted of my daylight lamp, took it into our kitchen and started moving it around.

Position of the lamp

As you can see I positioned the light to come from the right and back and from above a little bit. The lamp has 5 separate bulbs I can turn off individually, so I turned three of and left two burning as it was far too bright, causing burnout and heavy shadows. With a little less light it started to look a little better. I had only one light, so you can see that there is quite a bit of shadow in front of the cake. In order to fill that up a bit I used a silver reflector (you can also use foamboard, aluminiumfoil or something similar) to bounce a bit of light back to the front of the cake. In the two photos below you can see the difference with or without the reflector.

With or without reflector

You can tell that there is a big difference here. You can still tell that these are shot with artificial light but the result is acceptable and you can actually use this. Now what is most important I find when working with lights is the direction of the light. That is also true for daylight but that can be a bit more forgiving. I’ve taken two shots where I changed the position of the lamp and see what happens.

Ok first of all; what I like, might be something else from what you like, so it’s in the end all personal preference but to me the photo on the right is boring and lacks something. I turned the light more towards the table coming more from straight above almost (not quite) which made the light a bit flatter and shadows less pronounced.

I will be doing more tests with other lights that anyone would have in their home. Just to see what the issues are and how to possible solve those (or not). These lights are the easy ones since they are daylight balanced and need limited tweaking when it comes to color. In general for shooting at night, it is extremely helpful to use raw instead of jpeg. It gives you more control over the white balance so you can correct it later where needed. For now I will leave you with this delicious bundt cake!

Apple pear and nut bundt cake

Print recipe

Serves	8-12
Prep time	15 minutes
Cook time	1 hour
Total time	1 hour, 15 minutes
Allergy	Egg, Peanuts, Tree Nuts
Meal type	Dessert
Misc	Pre-preparable
Website	Epicurious

Ingredients

1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks, softened)
3 eggs (large ones)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pears (peeled, cored and cut into small pieces)
2 apple, Golden Delicious (peeled, cored and cut into small pieces)
1 cup Mixed nuts (coarsely chopped)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions


In a small bowl put the cranberries with a bit of warm water and let them soak for at least an hour. Drain, discarding the water and set aside. Position rack in the middle of an oven and preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly butter the bundt tin, then dust with flour, knocking out the excess.

In a large mixing bow or bowl of electric mixer, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Add brown and granulated sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla. Using electric mixer, beat on high speed, scraping down sides of bowl with rubber spatula as needed, until batter is pale and smooth, about 3 minutes for handheld mixer and 2 minutes for standmixer. Stir in apples, pears, nuts and cranberries. Spoon into prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake until a wooden pick or skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake. About 1 hour. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert and unmold onto rack and cool completely. Cake can be made up to three days in advance and stored at room temperature wrapped tightly in plastic wrapp

Junglefrog Cooking » sweet

Rhubarb souffle for April in Paris

Rhubarb and blackberry souffle with crumble

Ingredients

Crumble

Directions

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Creamy rhubarb tarts and an old story

Creamy rhubarb tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Apple sauce

Apple sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Note

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Lemon poppyseed cupcakes and a love story

Lemon and poppyseed cupcakes

Ingredients

Icing

Icing (Optional)

Directions

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Spiced nutty apple-pear cake

Apple pear and nut bundt cake

Ingredients

Directions

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