Bacon Hueva-/Quesadilla

Remember the 'huevadilla' ?

I must admit I forgot about it for a while myself, but now it's back.

And how! ..in the shape of a hearty breakfast: bacon, eggs, cheese, beans and all.

Ingredients:
- 50-60 g (2 oz) thinly sliced bacon
- 4 wheat tortillas, ~ 22 cm (8-9 inches) diameter
- 4 eggs
- cheddar, grated
- 1 avocado
- pico de gallo
- refried pinto beans



The pinto beans were refried and left over low heat while preparing the rest.

Thinly sliced bacon was fried crisp, then removed from the pan and cut in smaller pieces. The fat was poured off (and saved for other cooking purposes).

Over medium heat a tortilla was placed in the pan. Grated cheddar was put in wide ring along the rim leaving a spot for 2 eggs and half of the bacon bits in the middle. This was topped with another tortilla and left on medium heat for a few minutes - it was flipped over when the eggs were sufficiently set to do so without making a mess of it.


When suitably done on both sides, it was removed from the pan and cut in slices to be served with avocado wedges and crude salsa on top and refried pinto beans on the side.

This I'll do again for sure.

Almond-paste Rolls

When I first started baking egg-free treats I thought I would need to bake and bring for work more often than turned out to be the case. In fact, now I've been here for 2 years and the position is over, so there will be no more group meetings for me to which I have to bring egg-free baked goods. This leaves me with a surplus of ideas, so if I find the time the series will continue on this page.

These rolls are based on a recipe I got from my mother when I first told her I needed egg-free cake recipes. I baked them recently for one of the last work-related occasions: the celebration of the acceptance of my latest paper.

For these rolls I used an almond paste not sold as marzipan^[1] but I think marzipan should work quite well also.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (8.8 oz) margarine
- 2 dL (⁴/₅ cup) milk
- 50 g (1 ³/₄ oz) fresh yeast
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar (+ extra for sprinkling)
- ¹/₂ tsp salt
- 500 g (1.1 lb) flour (+ extra for rolling)
- 250 g (8.8 oz) almond paste^[1]
- 1-1.5 dL (²/₅-³/₅ cup) heavy cream (for brushing)


The margarine was melted over low heat, then milk was poured in and heating on low was continued until the mixture was lukewarm. The milk-margarine mixture was transferred to a bowl and fresh yeast was stirred in followed by sugar, flour (in portions) and salt. This dough was set aside to rise for half an hour.

The risen dough was parted in 4 roughly equal portions, and each of these were rolled to a circle some 24-25 cm (10 inches) in diameter. Each circle was divided into 8 triangular slices. Each triangle was added a thin layer of almond paste and rolled.

The rolls were placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and allowed to rise an additional 15 minutes before brushing with heavy cream^[2] and sprinkling with granulated sugar.

The rolls were baked 225 C (450 F) until golden (12 minutes) and transferred to a grid to cool.


The rolls were quite popular - more have already been requested...

^[1] The almond paste I used is 50% almond, 50% sugar - marzipan is often a different composition (usually less almond and more sugar).
^[2] If you are not in need of strictly egg-free rolls, you could certainly brush with a lightly beaten egg in stead of heavy cream.

Russian Tea Cakes

This is how it happened: We were getting close to the day that it would yet again be my turn to provide some egg-free baked delicacies for a work gathering, when suddenly Mrs. Throat-Erator tugged my sleeve and said: "Please make these so I can bring some to work for my birthday". I checked the recipe .. no eggs required. Then I checked with my boss about the detail of the nut allergy: "I'll survive pecans". And so I decided to make a large batch of cookies.

Ingredients:
- 760 g (~24 oz) margarine
- 860 g (~30 oz) flour
- 140 g (~5 oz) powdered sugar + more for rolling
- 3 tsp vanilla sugar
- 3 tbsp water
- 350 g (~12 oz) pecan nuts^[1]

The margarine was worked into the flour using the hands - the resulting mixture was quite sticky. The vanilla sugar, powered sugar, water and chopped pecans were worked into the dough - which was still rather sticky.

The dough was rolled into balls of about 2.5 cm (1 inch) diameter - in the end the cookies were a bit on the large side of what I'd expected, so I guess I'll aim for smaller somewhat balls next time, say 1.5-2 cm (³/₅ - ⁴/₅ inch) instead. The balls were placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and flattened slightly - to about 1 cm (²/₅ inch) thickness with the bottom of a drinking glass (this required a little patience and practice since the dough tended to stick to the glass). I got some 80 cookies out of this batch.

The cakes were baked at 162.5 C (325 F) for 25 minutes, then moved to a rack to cool.

The cool cakes were rolled in powdered sugar - and mighty delicious.

Since these go both by the name of Russian tea cakes and Mexican wedding cookies, I don't really know if they are truly Russian (or Mexican) - both seems unrealistic. But I do know that they go very well with tea, and I find them most appropriate since I'm currently drinking mainly Russian tea.

^[1] You'll find these cookies made with hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, macadamias... you name the nut, basically. I think I'd like to try some other nuts in this recipe one of these days.

Shrovetide Buns (Egg-free)

While it is pointless to whip up an egg-free dough for a bun filled with an egg-based custard, it makes sense if you remember that Shrovetide buns can also be jam-filled. For these I used extra margarine as well as extra milk to make up for the missing egg in the dough.

This is a wee bit late for the season this year, but here goes anyway..

Ingredients:
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) margarine
- 1.5 dL (²/₃ cup) whole-milk
- 50 g (ca. 2 oz) fresh yeast
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 400 g (14 oz) wheat flour
filling:
- ca. 200 g (7 oz) raspberry jam
glazing:
- powdered sugar
- optional powdered cocoa
- water

The margarine and milk was heated on low heat in a small pot until the margarine had melted, then transferred to a large bowl and allowed to cool until lukewarm. The fresh yeast was crumbled into the lukewarm milk-and-margarine, then the sugar was stirred in followed by the flour. The dough was kneaded for some minutes, then covered and left to rise for 1 hour.

After rising, the dough was rolled out to approximately 40 x 45 cm (ca. 15" x 18") and cut in 12 pieces. A largish tsp of raspberry jam was placed in the middle of each piece of dough and the dough was folded around the jam and the resulting buns were placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. The buns were then covered and left to rise on the sheet for 45 minutes.

The buns were baked for 10 minutes at 225 C (450 F) - and it appears I need to improve my technique for closing the buns as some jam ran out onto the baking sheet during baking.

The buns were served with a freshly applied glazing made by stirring together water and powdered sugar - approximate amounts (for one bun): 1 tsp water + 6 tsp powdered sugar (for a nice chocolaty variation substitute 1 or 2 tsp of the powdered sugar with powdered cocoa).

Buns (Egg-free)

Continuing the egg-free baking theme I wanted to have an egg-free version of my basic bun recipe. To achieve this goal, I needed two slightly different egg-substitutes: some extra liquid for the dough (I went for soured/thickened milk) and something for brushing the buns immediately prior to baking (I went for whole milk). As an aside I felt like using whole wheat flour - and so it went..

Ingredients:
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) margarine
- 5 dL (2 cups) milk
- 50 g (2 oz) fresh yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1.1 kg (2.4 lbs) whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2.5 dl (1 cup) A-fil^[1]
- 130 g (4.5 oz) flax seed
- 100 g (3.5 oz) sunflower seeds
- a little whole milk for brushing
- poppy seeds for decorating

The margarine was put in a small pot together with the milk and heated on medium-low heat till the margarine was melted. This mixture was transferred to a large bowl and allowed to cool to lukewarm before adding crumbled fresh yeast and sugar. The first half of the flour was stirred in, followed by the salt, thickened milk, flax seed, and sunflower seeds. The rest of the flour was added little by little and kneaded into the dough until the dough had the right texture (I aimed for neither sticky nor crumbly). When enough flour was added the final dough was kneaded for an additional couple of minutes before shaping 32 buns and placing them on baking sheets lined with baking paper - with good distance between them. The shaped buns were covered with a cloth and left to rise on the baking plates for 45 minutes.

The risen buns were brushed with a little whole milk and sprinkled with poppy seeds before being baked in the middle of the oven at 200 C (400 F) for 15-16 minutes. After baking the buns were immediately moved from the baking plate to a grid for even cooling.

This worked quite well.

^[1] Lactobacillus acidophilus-fermented milk.

Cinnamon Rolls (Egg-free)

Now that I'm living in Sweden I partake in 'fika' on a regular basis - to fika is to sit down with friends/colleagues/whoever and have some coffee and cake (although in my case it's tea and cake as I don't drink coffee). The majority of my fika experiences take place at work, and a substantial part of them occur at our weekly group meetings, for which we take turns at bringing bread and/or cake. It's sort of an unwritten rule that it should be home-baked, but that should be doable for someone like me.

Then my new colleagues told me about the tricky bit: our boss is allergic not only to nuts, but also to eggs. Off the top of my head I couldn't think of a single cake recipe in my repertoire that didn't include eggs - although after thinking a bit more about it I came up with one. Naturally, I felt compelled to overcome this challenge. Upon researching the subject, I found that there are in fact lots of recipes for baking without eggs on the internet. Never-the-less, I will post about here about my experiences with it.

For the first round, I chose the perhaps most quintessentially Danish/Swedish cake: the cinnamon roll. These are ubiquitous (if in somewhat different versions) in both Sweden and Denmark.


Ingredients:
dough
- 50 g (2 oz) fresh yeast
- 5 dL (2 cups) milk
- 125 g (4.4 oz) margarine
- ½ tsp salt
- 125 g (4.4 oz) sugar
- 5 tsp cardamom
- at least 900 g (2 lbs) flour
filling
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) margarine
- 12 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 6 tbsp cinnamon

The milk and the margarine was mixed in a small pot and heated on low heat until the margarine was melted. The lukewarm mixture (let it cool for a little while if too warm) was poured over crumbled fresh yeast before adding sugar, cardamom, salt, and flour. The dough was kneaded for some minutes until smooth. The dough was covered and left to rise for a couple of hours (this was definitely plenty of time - if allowed to stand until the volume has doubled it should be sufficient).

While the dough was rising, the filling was made by mixing all the ingredients on low heat and then cooling the mixture to get a dark brown paste - if it's too runny it will cause problems later.

The risen dough was rolled out using a little little extra flour. The filling was spread evenly on the dough and then it was rolled into a log. The log was sliced and the slices were placed on a sheet of baking paper.

Tip: to prevent the rolls from uncoiling the outer end was stretched slightly and placed under the roll.

They were baked at 200 C (400 F) for 13-15 minutes.

Served warm - they can easily be frozen and re-heated in the oven. For the luxury version, they can be decorated with a frosting made from water and powdered sugar.