first home made cheese

in Belize.





I already made cheese in Germany. It was easy to get all ingredients I needed. I could order the rennet and starter or edible mold cultures online. I could get fresh milk and heavy cream in every shop (and I could be sure that they're not spoiled when I open them at home).

Here it is a little different. To get decent and affordable milk for making cheese is not so easy. (Now I found a place but I have to pay 12BZ /gallon).

10 days ago I started and today was "the big day" - I took them out of my special fridge (not warmer than 60°F and not cooler than 56°F).

They look like edible mold cheese - and they taste like cheese... but unfortunately the milk had to less fat - so they taste like diet-cheese.

Next time I'll add heavy cream. But I'm so glad that it worked out. :)))))

Stollen

This is a traditional German christmas cake.



It's made with raisins, candied orange and lemon zest. I put theese three ingredients in a little bit of Belizian Rum and let it soak for 24 hours. Another important ingredient are almonds.

The bad thing about the Stollen is, that it has to sit for three weeks after baking . So it can develop the aroma.

Vanilla Crescents

Even though it's not cold here, no Christmas markets are around, Christmas decoration is poor and I have no "Christmas feeling"... today it's 1st Advents Sunday and this means, I need to have some Christmas cookies.



Like every year I started with vanilla crescents. They are my favourite cookies. I love the taste of vanilla with almonds.

CU Pat!

A good friend of mine will leave Belize and I don't know, when and if she'll come back to visit us. So I decided to organize a "farewell coffee".

Since I know (I hope that I don't confuse it) that she likes the cherry cake - I baked one, especially for her.

Pat - I hope we'll see you soon back in Belize!!!

little chocolates with marzipan

This is my first try to make some little chocolates (pralines).

They have a "heart" of marzipan and are covered with semi-sweet chocolate.

for chocolate lovers

Chocolate-Pear Muffins with caramalized Walnuts

I found this recipe in another food-blog and the pictures made me, to bake them.

It's a little bit time-consuming to prepare the muffins - but in the end, it's worth it. The pears and the melted chocolate make them so sappy and the walnuts give them crispy bits.

This is definitely a keeper.

French Baguette

I don't need much more on a Sunday Morning.

A warm baguette and a cup of coffee. I would certainnly prefer a Cappuccino or a Latte Macchiato... you see, there's still room for improvement. ;)

real lemon

A friend of mine gave me a wonderful present today. Real lemon!

Usually you can get tons of lime here but it's almost impossible to get a lemon. And a lot of people even didn't realize that these two citrus fruits taste totally different.

I scratched of the zest, so I can use it for my pastries. The lemon juice is perfect for fish dishes or salad dressings.

lemon zest

potato calzone

I got this special recipe from a friend. She was so kind to translate it from Italian to German, so I could at least understand how to prepare the calzone even if it was impossible to get the Italian cheese and ham.

Next time when I cook/bake it again, I'll use blue cheese instead of mozarella and bacon instead of ham.

croissants

I love the smell of a freshly baked croissant. It reminds me of the little coffee-shops and bistros. In Germany I loved to sit there, enjoying a pain au chocolat and a latte macchiato, watching people passing by.

Today I enjoyed a croissant and a coffee, sitting on our veranda with nice friends, watching birds flying over our property.

It was almost like in the old days. ;)

Nordic Ware

is my favorite manufacturer of baking pans.

They have a huge variety of different designs and the quality is just awesome.
The cakes don't stick and they are so easy to clean.

I just got a new pan for two little cakes. The perfect size for a little afternoon coffee. :)

Happy Halloween!

Cheese crackers in "halloween-style" :)

marzipan-lime cookies

I found a recipe for marzipan cookies on the internet and since my friends from France brought me a lot of marzipan when they visited us, I decided to bake these cookies.

When I ate one of them I found them a little bland - so I decided to cover them with a lime icing. The combination of the sweet marzipan and the fresh lime is juicy.

plum-cinnamon gelato with rum - caramelized pecan nut gelato

While it's getting cold in Germany and it's freezing in the night, I started with frozen desserts :)

It's not so easy to get proper ingredients for gelato and to find some heavy cream is like looking for snow in the desert. So I had to be creative - and I think I was successful.

My first two different varieties are "plum-cinnamon with rum" and "caramelized pecan nuts".

Here we go!

Finally we moved in our house :)

Now I can start again with baking. I also can use some of my cake-pans which were hidden in the container for more than a year.

I also brought some ingredients for special pastries from Germany. Today I baked pretzel and pretzel rolls.

last baking...

... in the little cabaña. In two days we move into our house. This means - no more baking on the little porch, no more crawling into my cabinets (because stuff I need is always somewhere in the back)... and... MOST IMPORTANT - I can use my food processor for kneading the dough.

These rolls are the last baking stuff which I baked in the cabaña. They are for a good friend. She ordered some "Semmeln" - I hope she'll like them.

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Spinach Quiche

...with cheese and ham.




It's perfect to serve it with a glas of Chardonnay.



Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

cheese savories

This is the first time I made real puff pastry here. It's a real hassle to prepare this dough. The butter is melting between your fingers while you take it out of the fridge.I made cheese and bacon straws.

Another variety of cheese savories I baked yesterday were theese cheesy pigs.

The cheese is already mixed in the dough. I sprinkled them with salt, caraway, poppy and sesame seeds.

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Party Rolls with Bacon

When you have a barbeque in Germany you mostly offer also different varieties of bread, baguette and rolls. One of my favourite little "party-rolls" is with bacon. You can also bake them with onions, olives, caraway or poopy seeds... it's just a question of your taste.





Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Happy Birthday

Today is the birthday of a very good friend... and this was her birthday wish.

Enjoy it Jana and have a nice day!

Veggie Bread

with carrots and zucchini.

This is a real healthy start in the day. It's a sappy bread with a totally different taste you expect from a bread.

I was a little doubtful if vegetables and bread could match. But after the first slice, I can approve that this is really delicous.

It fits perfect to cheese (whenever you can get decent one in Belize... please let me know).

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Orange-Amaretto Cake with caramalized Almonds

On our property we have at least 40-50 orange trees. Unfortunately they don't bear any fruits so far because they have been covered with vines for several years.

Nevertheless I thought that it was the time to bake a cake with oranges. I decided for a bundt cake and combined the fresh oranges I got from the market with Amaretto liquer. After the cake was cooled down I put caramalized almonds on top.

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Pine-Coconut Yeastbun

I was asked if I could bake the "sweet bread" also with pineapple. So I decided to combine this tropical fruit with grated coconut.
Because the pineapple is so sappy it could happen that the pastry will stick at the pan. To avoid this, I greased the pan and covered the bottom with bread crumbs.


Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Plum Cake with a sour cream - vanilla topping

I got big semi sour plums in Spanish Lookout and decided to buy some pounds of them.
One part I used for a plum jam and the other part was for a cake.

I baked a plum cake with yeast dough, covered with a sour cream-vanilla mixture. The original recipe asks for a heavy sour creme, but I could not get it here. So I added a little bit of creme cheese in the mixture.

At the time unfortunately I only have a gas oven which heats only from underneath. So the bottom of the cake becomes very dark until the topping is firm.


Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Franzbrötchen

...there is no way to translate this into english. :)

A Franzbrötchen is a small, sweet pastry, baked with butter and cinnamon. It's commonly found in northern Germany, especially in Hamburg.

I had to fold and roll the dough several times in succession and coated it with butter. After the dough is prepared and finally putstreched to a thin layer, I mostened it with lime juice and spinkled it with a melange of brown suggar an cinnamon.



I rolled it up, cut in into slices (each about 1.5 inches - 4 centimeters thick).



In the end I pressed a handle of a wooden spoon in the middle, so the filling oozed out sideways.



A good friend of mine told me that she only will visite me, when I can bake this pastry. So... this is the second time I made them and I think she can book her flight now.


Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Soul Food is more....

...than only cookies and cakes.




Sometimes it's something hearty you would like to eat and can't get it here. In my case it's gherkins. In some stores you can get pickles but they taste totally different like the ones you can buy in Germany.



To cut a long story short - I got some cocktail gherkins at Farmers Trading Center (FTC), bought dill seeds, white pepper, bay leafs and white whine vinegar and preserved the gherkins. The recipe says that they can last 6-12 month. I think we'll eat ours in less than 6-12 weeks ;)


Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Marzipan Apple Cake with a nut base

Thanks to two friends (thanks Anna and Rita) I got marzipan from Germany.
It took me a while to decide what to bake with it. Finally I choose an apple cake with a nut base, covered with a marzipan topping.

Next time, when I'll bake this cake again I'll fold in the whipped egg white in the marzipan-suggar mixture to make it more fluffy.



Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

danish pastry with cherries

In Germany you can buy little danish pastries in every bakery. Mostly they are stuffed with fruits, pudding or marzipan.

The special thing with these pastries is the dough. Between the single sheets of the yeast-dough are several layers of pure butter. It's a particular technique how to prepare the dough.
The main problem here is that it is way to warm. So while preparing I had to hurry up and put the dough several times in the fridge to cool it.
When the dough is baking it rises high and it's like puff pastry.

I stuffed the pastries with cherries and to give them a special taste I added a little cherry brandy.











Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Mango-Apple Tartlet

We're in the last days of the mango season. Therefore it's no question that I used them for my first cake after a 4 week break for the Monday Club.

I mixed the mangoes with apple and sliced almonds and added some cinnamon and lime.

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.

Plum Pie with Streusel

For some German recipes it's inevitable to have some sourly tasting fruits.

To find them somewhere is really a big challange.

I was so glad when I got some little plums at FTC. One portion I used for the mango jam and the other portion was just enough to bake a plum-pie with streusel (I was surprised to learn that this word is used in the English language as well).

Thanks for being interested in my blog - the kitchen fairy.