The Olive Sparrow

A little taste of home

This time of the year is when we eat traditional Fastnachtschuechli at home in Switzerland. They are sold in all the local grocery stores and are only available in February and March (if my memory serves me right).

Fastnachtschuechli are to celebrate carnival Swiss-style. I miss this time of the year very much, as Halloween just doesn't capture my heart the same way. I loved the lightheartedness of the Swiss celebration.

This year I decided to start a tradition of making the Fastnachtschuechli (can you tell I love saying it... Giggle), on family day , our mid February statutory holiday.

Yummy....

A fun Challenge

My niece is turning 11 tomorrow. When I met my husband she was a scant 5 months old. Over the years she has spent many sleep-overs at our house and I love her like my own daughter. She is my girl-energy, my connection to the young women generation.

This is L. in 2008, the year we started a tradition:

Crazy-cakes for her Birthday at the beginning of February. This one was a very healthy, all organic vanilla-flavoured Gugelhopf, covered in a totally insane, and of course totally unhealthy amount of candy and blue-dyed, organic lemon icing. Inspired by Tessa Kiros' "Apple For Jam" cookbook- the Pandoro Birthday Cake on Page 417.

As you can see, it was swiftly munched up. 

Resulting in a pack of high-sugar strung children. Huxley was a sweet 3 and 3/4 in this shot.

The cake was such a hit with L. and her friends, that it started this crazy cake-making tradition. 

For the past two years we made a pop-rock cake with white chocolate. (It was eaten too fast for me to even take a picture). This idea came through a word game (don't ask...)

A few weeks back, in mid-january, I got a call from L. asking me if I would possibly be able and willing to please make her birthday cake again. I immediately said "Sure thing! Count on me!". Upon which followed an e-mail with this:

 

First I swallowed hard a few times - I am no cake decorator, I can bake an edible concoction, bake a cake with no recipe, but looking pretty - not so much. Could I possibly tell my niece that it was not possible? I would have felt bad. So some R&D was in order. After spending upwards of 5 hours zooming around the world wide web and hence taking a theoretical crash-course in cake decorating, I decided that it should be doable (somewhat). I had made plain marzipan many times and growing up in Switzerland, marzipan was sold in every bakery shop in the shape of cute animals and fruit. I learned about fondant, how to make it, how to apply it to a cake and how to make animals out of gum paste. I looked up addresses of suppliers in Toronto. Luckily just before I got into the car to buy me some gumpaste, I read a comment that called it edible, yet not palatable. So back to the idea of marzipan I went. 

L. came by for a visit a couple of weeks ago and we dyed the marzipan with gel food colours (something rather against my eating philosophy, but hey, can't always be perfectly adhering to my life manifestos.) Yesterday I baked a simple vanilla cake from a PC' Choice Organics cake mix (I needed to recoup some time, and considering how much other stuff was going into the cake I figured it wouldn't make a huge difference). I baked 2 8" vanilla cakes with some added white chocolate chips. Once cooled, I  added some butter-cream frosting, sprinkled the bottom layer with fancy white chocolate chunks put the second layer on it. The whole cake was then heavily frosted with all the butter-cream frosting I had left (this is why the cake looks so soft and cushy, rather than tall and hard-edged (note to self, add less butter cream next time). After I made the marshmallow fondant, L. helped me dye it to just the right shade of pink. 

This is what the final result looked like:

Some detail shots: 

L. made the bowl and the sleeping bag by herself. I helped with the pillow

L.'s slippers, with flowers of her own design

I made this little marzipan bear

This box is what L. left with:

Home-made too. 

 

Here is the note I got from my Sis-in-Law today:

Thank you so much Monika!!!! Your cake was amazing to look at and soooooo delicious! The girls loved it! That was very generous of you. As usual, L. was the belle of the ball with such an amazing cake and got to show it off ...I took the paper off of it as soon as we got home and it sat in front of them for 3 hours before they got to eat it! Thank you...

I can go to bed and sleep well, then worry about what I might need to create to trump this years cake...

Recipe Links

Marshmallow-fondant

Best butter cream Frosting  

Instructions to apply fondant: youtube, search for: applying fondant.

What this exercise has taught me is that no matter how challenging something looks, with dedication, RESEARCH, patience and courage, anything can be accomplished. And no, I won't be studying cake decorating and no!, I also won't be for hire to make cakes... (not to worry hubby!).

 

"Guetzle"

Having left the country of my birth - Switzerland - at the young age of 19, most of the traditions that I crave are traditions of my childhood. Sadly though, many of these can't be replicated here in Canada. Mostly due to the fact that you need crowds of people celebrating together - the Swiss are not culturally inclined to congregate in groups outside of Switzerland though, so I am missing out on much.

Some of the festivals that I really loved where the National Day celebrations on August 1st - big bonfires, rockets, crackers, sausages over the open fire (veggie sausages i.e. Quorn sausages would do quite well for that too). I also love Advent celebrations. Ah.. the memory of the smell beeswax candle dipping that was open to the public during late November and early December still brings a smile to my face. Somehow though, Advent is just not activily celebrated here. I am also in my most busy Olive Sparrow time during the fall and Advent, so mostly I also lack the time to fully immerse myself into the quiet time of preparing for the bit day.

The one tradition that I insist on honing here is to "Guetzle" (this comes from the word "Guetzli" - which is swiss-german for cookie) - so "Guetzle" is specifically used in Advent when one is baking a myriad of different Christmas cookies. My hips don't need a lot of cookies to keep their svelete shape, our family is small, I work by myself - yet "Guetzli" baking I want to do. I usually make upwards of 15 + different types.

About 5 years ago, my husband and I started to give my home-made cookies to his clients as a small gesture of thank you. We also gift neighbours, friends, my galleries that are in town, a few of the people in the public housing complex in our neighbourhood and often a spontaneous selection of people dropping by our house over the holidays. 

This year I made 50 baggies of cookies, each weighin about 1/2 lb. So this years output was around 25 lbs. Plus about 2 lb for us to have at hand for guests staying here. 

Many of the recipes I use are very old, traditional swiss cookies, combined with a few new ones I just like trying out. I also make some chocolate truffels every year, this time around I gave white chocolate ones a go - they are okay, but I don't think I will attempt them again for a while because the chocolate didn't firm up properly and I had to improvise with additions of cashews - they taste okay, but are not what I had in mind.

Another favourite is the Basler Läckerli - a ginger-bread-type with lots of dried fruit and candied peels - this year I added some of the sour cherries from our tree and I love the bit of tartness amongst all the honey sweetness. Nidelzältli are my sons favourite - cream, sugar and a bit of vanilla - essentially a soft granular fudge. There are also Brunsli - chocolate and almonds with eggwhites, rolled in sugar when rolling out - yummy... Chräbeli are my best friends grandmothers recipe - a traditional Anis cookie and the same dough that is used for Springerle (which I make with a lovely angel mold). Nusspraline - walnuts, coffee and icing sugar, not baked, but left to dry, then glaced with more coffee and icing sugar. 

The essential Swiss Christmas cookie is the "Mailänderli" (Milano cookie) - a shortbread cookie with an egg-wash

Here is the recipe from my mothers home economics cookbook from 1948:

500 gram all-purpose flour (but you can also put part spelt or whole wheat in it)

250 gram sugar

250 gram butter

3 eggs (+ 1 egg yolk)

finely grated peel of 1 organic lemon

___

Put flour, butter, sugar, eggs and the lemon peel into a large bowl and knead well, but not too long (so that not too much gluten develops).

Put dough into fridge for a few hours or overnight

roll out on a little bit of white flour

use your favourite cookie cutters to cut out shapes

transfer shapes to baking sheet (I always use parchement paper, not buttered)

brush egg-yolk onto each cookie

bake at 350 fahrenheit for about 12 - 15 minutes until the egg yolk has gone a beautiful colour.

Let cool and enjoy!

I love cutting out tiny cookies, so that each one is one bite. Takes a bit more time, but looks so pretty. As children, this was our standard cookie that we could help with. (the dough also tastes amazing - my son says so as well.)

On that note, I am now going to work on a few more dolls that have to be finished in time for Saturday. 

 

Lucky Finds

Had a very lucky day at Chez-V V (okay it is Value Village - we say it with a french accent ouround our house - honouring hubby's french-canadian heritage).

I've been looking for a creamer for some time. We already have the "Cookie-Jar", some mugs and Huxley's special secret jar in this old Sears series. They are actually made in Canada. 

Our cookie-jar is where we keep candies and other treats in. The cookie-jar is never empty, yet because it is always here, although out of reach, it is not a big deal and sometimes weeks go by when Huxley requests nothing. 

Growing up there was a drawer in our living room that was always full of cookies and chocolate (normal for Switzerland.. giggle.. I don't know). I never craved sweets, yet knew that if I desired a little something I would not be denied. Hubby and I decided that although we eat very healthy, we would not outright deny our son his treats -- all with the intention that he would not need to gorge himself on this "outlawed" food the minute he gets his own allowance. 

One could argue that it goes against our ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet, yet we talk about our choice of not needing meat in our diet, and so far he has clearly stated that he did not even want to try it. Who knows what he will do as he gets older. For now, the cookie-jar and the vegetarian diet are working for us.

The six little dwarfs.. waiting to help out at the next party.

The 6 little dwarfs. These just make me giggle.

Diversions

Three new cookbooks have been added to my permanent cooking library this past week. Didn't plan it that way, alas I'm in heaven:

I still remember getting Heidi Swansons first book "Super Natural Cooking" about 3 or 4 years ago and virtually reading it cover to cover. I'm an avid follower of her blog 101 Cookbooks, and of course had to get her new book the week it came out. She did not disappoint with this follow-up book..

 

Plenty I saw a few weeks ago in my amazon recommendations and after a quick peek through put onto my wishlist. Didn't want to rush it... then I saw the book, leafed through it and went straight home to order it.. I already made the sweet-potato cakes (pg. 32) from it and wow.. they were absolutely delicious... I'm planning on making the cover-picture egg-plants for our easter lunch. A gorgeous book, unusual recipes and just vegetables.. 

 

 

The Blue-Chair Jam Cookbook promises to be a great inspiration during the jam-ing season. There are a lot of marmalade based recipes, with lots of citrus fruit, probably a few to many for my taste, however, the book just looks so wonderful on top of my Hoosier cabinet that I will still make many of the recipes from it. Must read it thoroughly when I have a chance, as it has lots of in-depth information on fruit cooking in general.

Yummy! yummy in my tummy!...

 

Here a little something we like to make:

1. Organic Hazelnut butter (or almond, macademia, walnut, peanut) (about 250 grams (half a large jar)

2. A handfull of chocolate chips (depending how chocolaty you'd like it)

3. 1 teaspoon Virgin Coconut oil (this is our magic ingredient)

Put into microwave oven for about 2 minutes (or heat in water bath on stove-top) 

Stir vigurously

Put into fridge to let set - Bingo.. homemade Hazelnut-choclate spread, also known as Nutella

 

Enjoy and do let me know how you like it...

 

 

Harvesting...

Last fall was a very busy time, so much happening, so little time and then the ground froze on me. I panicked, as I didn't have a chance to harvest our Jerusalem Artichoke. I thought that maybe we would get a January thaw, but no such luck.

On Thursday, I saw a squirrel dig in the grass and decided to see what's happening in the back yard to get it so excited.. lo and behold, much of the ground is thawed. So I pulled on the sunchoke plant (they are annuals), and it came easily out of the ground, not many artichokes though. When I pulled out the next plant however, I found a few chokes in the soil.. I went and got the shovel.. and here my dears is my harvest:

I haven't weighed it yet, but I guess it's around 3kg.

This is from 6 plants. I had put them in the middle of the garden. Not knowing how exactly they would do in my space (it was my first time trying them), I regretted that decision, as they blocked all the light from my swiss chard harvest (i.e. there was no swiss chard harvest last year). This year they are going against the back fence, to block the view and to let them have fun and expand.

My husband was worried if the chokes would taste okay after being frozen in the ground, and they did. It was after reading in many places that once you plant them, they are very hard to get rid off, that I decided that the tubers must likely be okay to stay in the ground during the winter.. now on to preserving and cooking them.. yummy!... 

If you cook with them and have a favourite recipe, I would love to hear about it.