As some of you may know, baking is not the only thing that I do. I also photograph.
I have flown to Toronto a few times since my sister lives there. This is a great place to be and as for photography, it provides you with an amazing light and subjects like architecture, patterns and people. I added TO Stories and Algonquin to my website.
TO Stories looks at contemporary solitude.
Algonquin documents an unusual space: Algonquin Park. Frightening, magical and wonderful.
The Food Camp Cilento was a great experience, with many interesting people sharing the same passion, cooking together and hanging out. I’m very much looking forward to a Food Camp 2012!!! Cheers Florian!
Here is a quick roundup of the remaining events
Radicchio braised in balsamic vinegar and honey. As it became quite bitter we added butter.
Some of us cleaned the squid…
Appetizer, grilled bread and lard.
The table was set every evening. A group went truffle hunting and came back with a whole bag full and crazy stories… Right: eggs with truffle.
Stevan Paul from NutriCulinary made a roast and stuffed it with truffles and pine nuts.
Torsten Goffin and I made a tart using figs in red wine, wild fennel, ricotta cheese, honey and lavender.
We had lunch at the farm, then were shown how to make buffalo mozzarella, which wasn’t as I expected it to be. Very superficially explained, they add rennet (enzymes) into the buffalo milk, which coagulates it; then slice the coagulated milk, put it into a machine, then into hot water to melt it into the mozzarella texture and shape it using their hands.”
Giuseppe di Martino moved us all with his passion for pasta. His pasta brand “Pastificio dei Campi” is the preferred pasta of some of the top chefs in Italy and increasingly in the whole world. We won’t see pasta the same way ever again!
The pasta box shows the farmers who cultivated the wheat, the people who packed the pasta and where the wheat field is located, thanks to GPS coordinates on the box. Giuseppe is revolutionizing the production of pasta giving it a personal touch, with a highly qualitative production chain.
The pasta on the left, prepared with meat, vegetables and mozzarella. On the right with sea food.
The last evening was a pasta night. We made Tagliatelle, Farfalle, Orrechiete, Gnocchi and Raviolis.
Truffles and handmade Tagliatelle.
Handmade raviolis on the left. On the right, Torsten Goffin from Glasklare Gefühle prepared a truffle-buffalo butter.
Tasty fluffy gnocchi. Parmesan tiles.
We made Orecchiete and some mixed the ink into the dough and made black Farfalle.
If you wish to have more insights and impressions about the Food Camp and you speak German, check out the following blogs:
Paul Fritze from Einfach Lecker Essen
Stevan Paul from NutriCulinary
Torsten Goffin from Glasklare Gefühle
Nata from Pastachiutta
Ina from Little Jamie
Still from the Rose Bakery book “Breakfast. Lunch. Tea”. You should try making the pistachio cake. Look at the recipe on SISTER Magazine. It’s so delicious it’s hard not to take another piece. But once you know how much butter there is, you think twice about it……..
Last weekend I baked two recipes from the book Rose Bakery “Breakfast . Lunch . Tea” which I purchased last year in the shop as I was in Paris. I love this book!
Have a look at it, it’s been published in the online Magazine SISTER Magazine. I met one of the sisters, Thea, in Berlin last October and accepted to contribute to their project.
The second week is already almost over.
The first week was nice and relaxed, whereas the second one was harder and the tempo has increased drastically.
We made pate à choux a couple of times, for me more than that, because even though I thought I was good at it….I had to start again twice. Same thing with the crème pâtissière, thank God we tasted it before putting it into the tarte. It wasn’t sugar we used, but salt!!!
Then came the butter cream for the Moka cake (with coffee), which I also made by hand once before and it went fine. Let me tell you that when you have the pressure of not finishing last, you don’t always know what you are doing, especially something that you’ve never made that way before.
We made a sweet dough, a Flan tarte, choux à la crème (whipped cream), éclairs filled with crème pâtissière and white glazing, choux with crème pâtissière and glazed with caramel, a génoise for the moka cake, 3 kinds of brioche……basically it’s been full of surprises.
It can be frustrating at times, but it’s like some people feel with their kids – when the pastries look at you and smile, give back to you all the love you put into making them…..it’s wonderful and you feel fulfilled!
The ingredients: flour, eggs, salt, sugar and baking yeast. Do not mix the last 3 ingredients next to each
other for that the sugar and salt would burn the yeast. Mix with the mixer, when the dough doesn’t stick
to the bowl, add the eggs. Once it’s homogenous and flapps against the bowl it’s done (20-30min)
The Chef rolls the Brioche in both hands…Make them nicely round by making the dough flat with the palm
of your hand. Stretch a corner and fold it back in the center of the circle (see pic. below). Repeat the action several times.
Then with your hand, roll the dough to form a ball. Form with the palm of your hand by gently forming a
skittle (pic.3). Place in brioche form and with one finger press the head down whilst turning the form.
Brioche with chocolate chips. Bottom left the “Navettes”. Brioches bake 10-15 min on 180c°. Glaze with
egg and milk.
Making pâte à choux and éclairs. Make sure the dough isn’t too fluid. As a tip, for the éclairs, with the
horn’s edge in flour, mark the baking tray to give you an indication of the size. Very helpful indeed!
Making choux glazed with caramel and choux à la crème with whipped cream. The caramel cooks until 160c°,
watch your hands whilst turning the choux on itself after dipping it into the caramel….HOT!
Making a Moka: Génoise has to be fluffy. Make a butter cream and add coffee to it, keep it in the fridge.
Then make a syrup with water and sugar, add strong coffee. Slice the génoise into 3 and with a brush soak
each layer with the coffee syrup and butter cream.
Butter cream and almonds on the side. You can also make a writing canvas out of almond paste.
It’s up to you.
Making caramel deco is great. It’s not as easy as it looks but the results make the whole difference on a
dessert.
All content and photographs © Fabienne Dauplay
After our stay in Bolzano we made our way to the Cilento region, where Florian Siepert from Foodtri.ps organised the Food Camp Cilento 2011. For lunch we made a stop in Tuscany for some homemade Spaghetti Bolognese (which, as I learned later, isn’t proper for that you should use bigger pasta in order to stick to the meat sauce) and a Spritz at Il Conte Matto in Trequanda.
We spent 5 days in at the very nice Hotel Antonietta in San Marco di Castellabate which embodies the beautiful stereotype of how I imagine Italy: hills, sea, olive trees, warm nights, loud teenagers on the piazza and drunk Germans (I was among them) also on the piazza! Florian had organised for us to use the Hotel kitchen, so we cooked and ate on the premises.
We tasted wine from local vineyards, one we bought wine from, Bruno De Concilis, a Miles Davis fan who named his sparkling wine after him but spelled it backwards.
We were shown how to make ricotta cheese, foccacia, figs bread by Giovanna and Laetitia at the Agriturismo Corbella in the National Parc of Cilento.
We took part in making buffalo mozzarella at the Barlotti Farm, where we enjoyed our lunch at the farm while breathing through the mouth as the breeze would bring the smell of the stables towards us.
The trip also included visits to a local oil producer Olio Torretta, to the amazing pasta maker Guiseppe di Martino in Gragnano, who passionately talked about pasta and who produces 5 stars pasta, delivering to starred chefs. Thanks to him I will never see Pasta the same way.
Some of us went squid fishing and octopus hunting.
In a word, it was a fantastic, rich trip and great food topped with an amazing group.
To avoid overloading you with photos and text, I’ll split up the trip in several Posts.
On the way from Bolzano to Tuscany.
Lunch at Il Conte Matto, homemade Spaghetti Bolognese and Aperol Spritz.
The first day at San Marco, we went food shopping at the Santa Maria Market and bought enough to feed more than 45 people for the evening. At the hotel, once everybody arrived, once the introductions were made and the groups formed (to decide who cooks what and when) we were to meet in the kitchen and start cooking.
After the shopping in Santa Maria, we headed back to the hotel where we prepared a meal for the whole group. Here, cleaning the fish, which we stuffed with herbs and grilled. It turned out to be a bit of a disaster.
Some cooked in the kitchen, some on the roof top of the hotel…la dolce vita!
The antipasti group, on the left with Natalie Simons from blog Pastasciutta. They prepared delicious grilled vegetables and bruschetta.
Homemade pasta with clams and herbs.
Homemade orrechiette, fusilli, tagliatelle or linguine aren’t a secret for us anymore. We got to taste fried pizza dough with roasted tomatoes, braised salad with olives, figs bread, ricotta cheese with bays or confit orange, marinated fresh figs in wine and chickpeas in chocolate and bay leaf. The warm breeze, the beautiful landscape of the National Parc, the setting of the place almost made us forget the shooting noise in the background from the bore hunting.
There we are, all packed ready to go to Italy for 5 days of Food Camp, cooking, drinking, visiting local food and wine producers….(I’ll talk about that in a next post)
But before we drive all the way down to the Cilento area, we are stopping in Bolzano in South Tyrol first to visit friends and discover the area. It happened to be the perfect transition before going to Italy without speaking Italian. In Bolzano you can speak both German and Italian.
The amazing panorama view over Bolzano from the Gasthof Lipp.
Typical soup of the area, the Frittaten Suppe, a consomme with crepes / pancake.
Bolzano’s main productions are apples and wine. I’ve never seen so many apple fields in my life.
Specialty of the area and what has become my favorite summer drink, the “Hugo”: Prosecco (Italian sparkling wine), sparkling water, Elderflower syrup, a few mint leaves, a slice of lemon and ice cubes. It is delicious, refreshing and pretty addictive. We also had foccacia with roasted tomatoes, crunchy, juicy, lovely!
If you fancy ice-cream visit Paolo Coletto, the owner of the “Officina del Gelo Avalon“.
He is an institution in Bolzano and has been making ice-cream since 30 years. His talent and love for quality products, he inherited from his mother who gave him her 6 ice-cream recipes. Today he’s created hundreds of them, using mainly local as well as organic ingredients. Even the cups he uses are not made of plastic but out of corn starch. He is passionate and evolves all the time.
This is one of the best ice-creams I have ever had, the flavours are “real” and intense, the texture is very creamy. We stayed and chatted with him for quite a while, the guys were waiting outside, getting impatient.
Paolo IS a character, travels a lot to India and south east Asia, is inspired by his Guru and says that each time he comes back from one of his trip, he is different, he has changed and therefore has to change the recipe of his ice-cream.
Locals chilling while eating ice-cream. In the cup: chocolate and cream of milk
“I am Ice” fits pretty well to his philosophy inspired by his Guru.
The shop. The flavours lit are available.
All Photographs and content © Fabienne Dauplay
Düsseldorf and Cologne lie very close to each other in Western Germany, in the Rhine region. We happen to have friends in both cities, Doris and Malte from the Bionics Systems in Düsseldorf, Martina and Tilman from the Büro für Brauchbarkeit in Cologne, all involved in Design and new media. Check out their work.
Cologne is a great city although it is known in Germany for not being the prettiest, for it was badly bombed during WWII. Still, there are very nice areas and this mix of styles makes the charm of the place. The aesthetics of Cologne is somewhat balanced by its locals. The Rhinelanders’ friendliness and humor are legendary (I know a few of them and I can only agree), a characteristic which makes the stay there even more enjoyable.
I’ve discovered Düsseldorf a bit more this time and found its architectural development very interesting – some parts of the city are like in Cologne, some others like in Hamburg. The Medienhafen (media shore) was designed by Frank Gehry (of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum fame) is worth seeing for the buildings and to enjoy a nice walk by the river.
For the food, our friends in Düsseldorf took us to their local cafe, “Bar Apartment“, in Fürstenplatz. If you like to have breakfast or lunch enjoying a local flair, this is the right spot. The place opened in August 2008 and is owned by Evelyn Wodniok (see picture below) and Mirko Gathge. The vintage designers’ furniture provides the cafe with a lounge-homy feeling. The food is simple, freshly-made and is perfect for a light lunch. We had Portuguese sandwiches with salami and salmon, the Greek, fennel-walnuts and potatoe salads. Artworks are hanging on the wall, they organize exhibitions approximately every 2-3 months.
Portuguese salami sandwich and the very popular rhubarb juice and sparkling water, a rhubarb-Schorle
They only accept cash
Fürstenplatz 5
40215 Düsseldorf, Germany
tel: 0211 38735366
Open
Weekdays 9am-2pm; Weekends 10am-2pm
Back in Cologne we met our friends for dinner at this “new” burger place “Freddy Schilling – Hamburger Manufaktur“. Burger places have bloomed during the last few years in Berlin. I’ve tried a few of them and I gotta say, this one here is really good. I’m no beef fan so I had a veggie burger, although the meaty burgers looked and tasted, so I hear, delicious. One of the specialty of the house are the “Rosi’s”, baby potatoes cooked in butter and rosemary.
They do not sell any alcohol so in case you need to use the loo, try somewhere else. No loo, no alcohol license.
Bruno’s Brenner, BBQ/hot burger and the Freddy’s Favorit, classic burger
Tante Tatjana’s Burger here with the famous and unforgettable rosemary potatoes
Anna’s Alternative, veggie burger also with the rosemary potatoes. There isn’t actually a burger like you
would expect. It’s only vegetables.
Kyffhäuserstrasse 34
D-50674 Cologne
Tel: +49 (0)221 / 16 95 55 15
Fax:+49 (0)221 / 16 95 55 16
kontakt@freddyschilling.de
Open:
Monday to Thursday 12:00 – 22:00
Friday and Saturday 12:00 – 23:00
Sunday closed
“A Summit on Small Business and Sustainability: Hello Etsy” was taking place in major cities in the USA, in London, Paris, Brussels, Helsinki but also in Berlin.
This was a great event this week end at ewerk in Berlin: a gathering to get tips and tricks on how to grow a small business in sustainable ways.
I am certain that many of the ones who attended the event will agree that this has been a wonderful source of inspiration as well as motivation to see the number of people who want to get out there and be in charge of their lives, to hear the various stories of entrepreneurs and the challenges they faced but succeeded. We had the chance to listen to (among many others) Chad Dickerson CEO of Etsy.com, the hilarious and so British founder of the Idler Tom Hodgkinson, Emma Jones from Enterprisenation.com based in the UK supporting small businesses, Rachel Bremer on good PR and Eleanor Mayrhofer on project management.
There was such a positive energy that I’m sad it is already over!
But I’ll stop writing and will post some pictures so that you get an idea of the event. If you are interested, you can also watch the sessions on Live streaming videos on their website.
The Food, here the Lunch box was organized by Johannes Emken from Organiced Kitchen in Berlin
Organizer of the event – Matt Stinchcomb. Tom Hodgkinson, author of the books How to Be Free
and How to Be Idle
Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy.com
Emma Jones, founder and CEO of Enterprise Nation
The Control Room
Amina Moreau on Photography
Eleanor Mayrhofer on Project Management
Chilling out on the roof
All the images above © Fabienne Dauplay
I’ve been thinking of a refreshing recipe – an ice-cream using mascarpone for its creamy texture and to try something different than cream, some candied walnuts and caramelized figs. So there I am surfing on the net in search of inspiration.
There are countless recipes, as you can expect. I was in luck and found these:
http://www.foodiesite.com/recipes/2002-10:masicecr
http://www.walnuts.org/walnuts/index.cfm/all-recipes/maple-candied-walnuts/
I combined them and slightly changed the ice-cream one. It uses 500g mascarpone.
I used 250g mascarpone and 250g fromage blanc 20% (Quark in German).
It isn’t difficult to make, but as it is my first time making ice-cream, and that, without an ice-cream machine, it’s taken me ages.
If you don’t have an ice-cream machine make sure you are at home for a few hours to ensure the stirring of the ice-cream (every 30min) during the freezing process.
I also opted for a simple way to candy the walnuts. Of course you can always make a syrup, roast the walnuts and make a praline. See how much time you have. One is quick and easy, the other one, not so much!
Makes 1L ice-cream
500ml Milk
6 Egg yolk
250g Caster sugar
2 Vanilla pods (I use Madagascar Vanilla)
250g Mascarpone
250g Fromage blanc 20 % /curd cheese
1. Pour milk in a sauce-pan with 2 vanilla pods. Split them in half and grate the vanilla with a knife. On low-medium heat bring to a simmer.
2. When the milk starts to simmer, take it off the heat and remove the pods. Let cool 10 min.
3. In a bowl mix the egg yolk and sugar until white and fluffy, then pour the hot milk gradually while mixing.
4. Place the mixture back in a saucepan on medium heat. Using a spatula or a wooden spoon constantly stirring, gently thicken the cream. Make sure it does not boil otherwise the eggs will cook and you’ll get scrambled eggs. When the cream coats the spoon, it’s done.
5. Let cool on a iced water-bath.
6. Add the mascarpone and the quark 20%, whisk until homogenous. Pour the mixture into a plastic Tupperware or a metal box and place in the freezer.
7. Wait for 30 min, stir well using a whip. Put back in the freezer. Stir the cream every 30 min for 3 hours to ensure the mixture does not crystallize.
65g Walnuts
4 Tbsp (65g) Maple syrup
1. In a bowl mix the walnuts with the maple syrup.
2.Place on the baking paper and bake on 200c° for 12min, stirring twice until the walnuts are brown. Then let cool.
3. Once it has cooled, crush the walnuts.
6 Figs quartered
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tsp Fleur de Sel
The juice of a lime
1 Tbsp water
1. In a frying-pan on medium-high heat, bring 2 Tbsp sugar and the lime juice to a boil and starts getting brownish.
2. When it starts bubbling set aside. Put the figs quartered in the syrup.
3. On low heat let the figs cook in the syrup. Add the butter and water, let cook further (10min). Then set aside and let them cool.
After an 1,5 hours of stirring the ice cream, it should still be creamy enough for you to stir. Add the figs as well as the candied walnuts. Stir well and place the dish in the freezer. You’ll have to stir a few times more before it can rest.
Pan-roast the figs the same way than for the ice-cream, add some rum and flambée them, sprinkle the dessert with candied walnuts, enjoy!
