I thought that I would go healthy this week and make some granola bars. This is my go-to recipe — not too hard that you will break your teeth, but a little soft and definitely flavorful. If you search the site, you’ll see a bunch of variations; this time I decided to go ith apples and almond slices, with a bit of cinnamon and vanilla. Great pick me up afternoon snack!
sweets
Once a year, I make a cake, on Annual Cake Day. It’s not that I don’t like cake, but there are things that I like more, and I am not great at decorating. I know, I say this every year. On Annual Cake Day. Well, that day is today, so here it is: a Winter Magic Torte: Chocolate Rosemary Almond Cake, with Sugared Cranberries. It’s a chocolate cake with rosemary buttercream on the inside, deep rich ganache, toasted almonds and sugared cranberries on the outside. And it came out better than I expected, so at least Annual Cake Day 2021 turned out ok. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Cinnamon Swirl New Year’s Pretzel
(Grosse Zimt Neujahrs Brezel)
Happy New Year! Happy to have 2020 in the rear view mirror and I am hopeful that 2021 may be somewhat better. Here is this year’s Rendition of my annual Neujahrs Brezel (New Year’s Pretzel). A I have explained in the past years, in parts of Germany, it is traditional to bake these large, sweet (that’s not salt, that’s pearl sugar) pretzels. Like in some other places (France, Spain, etc), traditionally a coin or trinket is baked into the treat and whoever find it, has good luck for the coming year. In order not to have dental bills in the coming year (and seeing I am solo), I skipped the hidden coin, but I did “stuff” the inside with cinnamon-paste, so it’s actually a gigantic cinnamon roll masquerading as a pretzel. What’s not to love, right?
2020: THE YEAR OF BANANA BREAD. Unofficial … or was it Official? … Food of the Pandemic. Rivaled only perhaps by our sourdough starters. Who knew there would be so much banana bread in this year? I think that I might have ten new recipes this year alone. And I couldn’t help but make one more loaf just to shut this year down. May there be lots of other recipe in our futures and thanks for being there this year. Tomorrow will be just another new day and we can make and bake and share something new and different.