Rhubarb and strawberry crumble

Crumble is not exactly an estonian dessert, to be honest. But we have a similar cake, called Purukook, that has a crumbly top. Plus, strawberries and rhubarbs are the most common cake material during the summers here. This must be one of the last cakes I make from the rhubarbs of my garden this year. Strawberry season is still going on. I am planning to eat as much as I can until I don´t want to see them anymore :). For the crumble you need:

100 ml of oats

100 ml flour

100 ml brown sugar

30 ml almond flakes

pintch of salt

6 tbs butter

200 ml strawberries (quartered)

200 ml rhubarbs (cut in pieces)

150 ml sugar

1 tsp grated lemon peel

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tbs flour

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Mix together the oats, flour, almond flakes, brown sugar and salt. Add butter, rub it in the dry mix until small clumps form.

Fore the filling, mix all the ingrediences together and let it stay until juices start to form.

Preheat the oven to 190 degreees. Butter six ramekins. Divide rhubarbs and strawberries to ramekins. Cover every ramekin with crumb mixture. Bake until the crumble is golden and the filling is bubbling out, about 30-40 minutes. Serve with whipped cream!

The inspiration for this crumble came from Pittsburgh Hot Plate blog! Thank you!

Maasika-rabarberi krõbedik

100 ml kaerahelbeid
100 ml jahu
100 ml pruuni suhkrut
30 ml mandlilaaste
suts soola
6 spl võid

200 ml maasikaid
200 ml rabarbereid
150 ml suhkrut
1 tl sidrunikoort
1/2 sidruni mahl
1 spl jahu
1/2 tl jahvatatud kardemoni

Sega jahu, kaerahelbed, mandlilaastud ja pruun suhkur. Lisa või ja näpi ta kuivainete sisse.
Täidise tegemiseks sega kõik koostisained kokku, lase seista kuni tekib mahl.
Määri kuus ramekini võiga kokku ja jaga täidis nende vahel ära. Kata iga vorm puruga ja küpseta eelkuumutatud ahjus 190 kraadi juures, kuni pealt on kuldpruun ja täidis äärtest välja mullitab. See võtab umbes 30-40 minutit. Serveeri vahukoorega!

Another rhubarb tart, this time on oatmeal base

Here is another great recipe for rhubarb season. I love the light pink swirls, that are hardly visible through the curd cheese (or sieved cottage cheese, if you like) and sour cream mixture. The base (the recipe for which is taken from a great estonian cooking site http://www.perenaine.ee/) adds an extra touch with the interesting texture that comes from a quite a big quantity of 4-grain flakes in it. You need:

For the base:

80 gr butter

60 gr sugar

1 egg

1,5 dl 4-grain flakes

1,5 dl flour

1 ts baking powder

Filling:

200 g curd cheese (or you can use sieved cottage cheese instead)

150 gr sour cream

1 egg

50 gr sugar

4 medium sized rhubarb stalks

100 gr sugar

To make a batter for the base, mix soft butter with sugar, add an egg (room temperature) and mix until smooth. Mix together the dry ingrediences and add to the batter mixture.

Peel the rhubarbs, cut to about 5 cm pieces and put them on a baking tray. Cover with 100 gr of sugar and bake in an oven with 180 C until soft. Remove and break the rhubarbs gently with a fork (not making a puree of them). Mix curd cheese (or cottage cheese) with sour cream. Add the egg and sugar.

Butter the baking mold (with a diameter of 24cm). Cover the base and sides evenly with the base batter. It is easy to do that with wet hands. Mix the baked rhubarbs to the curd cheese mixture and pour it over the base. Bake in the oven of 180 degrees for about 40 minutes or until slightly golden on top and crunchy on the sides. Serve, when it has cooled down!

Rabarberi kohupiimakook 4-viljahelbe põhjal

80 gr võid

60 gr suhkrut

1 muna

1,5 dl 4-viljahelbeid

1,5 dl jahu

1 tl küpsetuspulbrit

Täidiseks:

200 gr kohupiima

150 gr hapukoort

1 muna

50 gr suhkrut

4 keskmise suurusega rabarberivart

100 gr suhkrut

Sega taigna tegemiseks pehme või suhkruga. Lisa toasoe muna ja sega ühtlaseks. Sega omavahel kuivained ja isa taignasegule.

Koori rabarerid, lõika umbes 5 cm tükkideks. Pane ahjupannile ja kata 100 gr suhkruga. Küpseta 180 kraadi juures kuni rabarberid on pehmed. Võta ahjust välja ja suru rabarberid õrnalt kahvliga katki, ilma neid püreeks tegemata.

Sega kohupiim ja hapukoor. Lisa muna ja 50 gr suhkrut.

Määri 24 cm diameetriga vorm võiga, kata vormi põhi ja ääred ühtlaselt taignaga. Seda on hea teha märgade kätega. Lisa kohupiimasegule küpsetatud rabarberid ja vala koogipõhjale. Küpseta 180 C ahjus umbes40 minutit, või kuni kook on pealt õrnalt kuldne ja ääred on krõbedad.

The easiest rhubarb tart

Another cake with rhubarbs, this time it is a really easy and quick one. It´s more beautiful, if you use the rhubarbs that are red all the way through, the ones that have seen a lot of sun! So probably not the first rhubarbs of the spring.

You need:

500 gr puff pastry

300 gr of curd cheese (or replace it with ricotta)

3 tbls icing sugar

4-8 rhubarbs

4 tbls sugar

a bit of vanilla extract or vanilla seeds

Heat up the oven to 200 degrees C. If you use thick rhubarbs, peel them, if you have young and thin ones, it is not that important. Cut the rhubarbs to about 5 cm pieces. Bake them in the oven, covered with sugar, for 10 minutes. Remove. Mix together curd cheese (or ricotta), icing sugar and vanilla. Cut the puff pastry to about 7-8 cm wide pieces. Make a shallow cut about 1 cm from each edge. Bake the pastry in the preheated oven until it is possible to remove the upper layers of the middle part of each piece. Now you have something like "little puff pastry bowls". Fill them with curd cheese (or ricotta) mixture and set the rhubarb pieces side by side on it. Bake until the edges are golden brown.

Lihtne rabarberi-kohupiima pirukas

Eestikeelse retsepti leiad siit!

Rhubarb season in Estonia - cake of (happy) tears, our family´s style

The cake of tears (pisarakook) has thousands of different recipes in Estonia. The base and the filling may be different, but the one certain thing is, that the cake is covered with a layer of slightly baked meringue and when it cools down, beautiful little tears appear on top. Well, as rhubarbs are my favourites and as they always are the ones announcing the beginning of summer that we have waited for so long, then it is a cake of happy tears.

Here comes a recipe from my mom. She is the kind of person, who can take a look at what´s in the fridge and bake wonderful cakes. But this one is written down to be shared with all of you. You need:



200 ml sour cream
200 ml sugar
350 ml flour
1 ts baking soda
4 medium sized egg yolks

300 ml rhubarb (peeled and cut to little pieces), if you want, replace some of the rhubarbs with pieces of strawberries

4 egg whites
appr 100 ml sugar



Mix sour cream and sugar together. Add egg yolks and mix until smooth. Mix flour and soda and add to the sour cream mixture. Test the thickness of the batter putting a piece of rhubarb on top of it - if it doesn´t sink, the batter is ok, if it´s sinks, you should add a bit more flour. Butter a round baking tray with a diameter of around 27 cm (if you have smaller tray, you should reduce the quantity of batter also, otherwise the base will be too thick). Pour the batter to the tray and cover evenly with the pieces of rhubarb (and strawbrries). Bake in preheated oven of 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes.



While the cake is in the oven, whip the eggwhites until they reach soft peaks. Add the sugar and whisk until they reach stiff peaks.

Remove the cake from the oven and turn up the heat to 225 degrees. Cover the cake with the meringue. Return the cake to the oven for about 3 minutes until some of the meringue starts turning slightly golden. Remove from the oven and let it cool down. The cake should have beautiful little teardrops on top of it when it has cooled down!

Rabarberi pisarakook meie pere moodi

200 ml hapukoort

200 ml suhkrut

350 ml jahu

1 tl soodat

4 keskmise suuruseg munakollast

300 ml kooritud rabarberi tükke (või asenda osa soovi korral maasikatega)

4 munavalget

ca 100 ml suhkrut

Sega hapukoor suhkruga. Lisa munakollased ja sega ühtlaseks. Sega sooda jahusse ja lisa taignale. Testi taigna paksust visates ühe rabarbritüki taignale - kui see ära ei upu, on kõik ok, kui upub, tuleb veel veidi jahu lisada. Määri 27cm läbimõõduga vorm võiga kokku (kui sul on väiksem vorm, tee ka tainast vähem, kuna muidu saab koogipõhi liiga paks). Vala tainas vormi. Puista ühtlaselt rabarbritükke peale. Küpseta eelkuumutatud ahjus 180 kraadi juures 30-40 min. Samal ajal vahusta munavalged pehmeks vahuks. Lisa suhkur ja vahusta edasi, kuni moodustub tugev vaht.

Tõsta kook ahjust välja ja keera ahju kuumus 225 peale. Vala munavalgevaht koogile ja silu ühtlaseks. Pista umbes 3 minutiks veel ahju, kuni pealispind hakkab õrnalt kuldses minema. Tõsta ahjust välja ja lase jahtuda. Koogi pinnale peaksid moodustuma kaunid pisarad.

Traditional oatcookies with chocolate-hazelnut twist

Oatcookies are the kind of cookies that every mom in Estonia has made when children have wanted something sweet. They´re quick and easy to make. This time I added a special twist to those traditional cookies, to make them more festive. Hazelnuts and dark chocolate are both also very estonian things. In fact you can pick hazelnuts from the forest everywhere in Estonia during autumn. So, if you´re in a hurry, you want something sweet, but at the same time healthy, here it comes. You need (for two big bakingtrays):

500 gr of oatflakes (preferably not the instant-porridge ones)

250 gr sugar

200 gr of butter

200 gr wheat flour

6 eggs

50 gr of hazelnuts

100 gr ofdark chocolate

Mix sugar with butter. Add eggs, one by one, mixing constantly. After the eggs, sift in flour and mix in the oatflakes. Mix through. Cover the bakingtray with bakingpaper and put spoonfuls of cookiebatter on. Push a hazelnut or two to every cookie and pinch the batter to cover the nut. Bake in preheated 180 C oven for about 20 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and let it cool down. Melt the chocolate on bain-marie and cover every chocolate with a teaspoonful of melted chocolate. Sprinle some chopped hazelnut on top. Serve when the chocolate has become hard again.

Kaerahelbeküpsised metsapähkli ja tumeda šokolaadiga

500 gr kaerahelbeid (mitte kiirpudruhelbeid, kui võimalik)

200 gr võid

250 gr suhkrut

6 muna

200 gr jahu

50 gr metsapähkleid

100 gr tumedat šokolaadi (nt Bitter)

Sega või ja suhkur pehmeks vahuks. Lisa ükshaaval munad, pidevalt segades. Sõelu sisse jahu, lisa kaerahelbed ja sega korralikult läbi. Kata ahjupann küpsetuspaberiga, tõsta sellele supilusikatäied küpsisetainast. Suska igasse taignakuhja pähkel või kaks. Näpista tainast pealt nii et pähkel saab kaetud. Küpseta 180 kraadises ahjus umbes 20 minutit või kuni küpsised on ilusti kuldsed. Lase jahtuda. Sulata šokolaad veevannil ja tõsta igale küpsisele teelusikatäis šokolaadi. Puista peale hakitud metsapähkleid ja lase šokolaadiglasuuril tahkuda enne serveerimist.

Muffins for every season – red currant for summer, cherries and chocolate for winter

I think that the most wonderful time for baking fresh muffins is summer – you walk in your garden and pick what is ripe – currants, gooseberries, apples, raspberries and you bake. But it is also great to make some warm and sweet muffins during the cold winter, cherry and chocolate ones being my favourite. The main recipe is the very similar and easy to make.

For the Red currant and vanilla muffins you need:

2 eggs
1,5 dl sugar
2,5 dl wheat flour
1 ts baking powder
1/2 vanilla pod
150 gr thick sour cream
50 gr unsalted butter, melted
200-300 gr of red currants

Whip the eggs with sugar, scrape in the seeds of the vanilla pod. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add sour cream, melted butter and dry ingredients. Mix until even. Mix in the currants carefully. Divide the batter to the muffin pan and bake in preheated oven with 225 degrees for 15 minutes.

Punase sõstra-vanilli muffineid:
2 muna
1.5 dl suhkrut
2.5 dl nisujahu
1 tl küpsetuspulbrit
½ vanillikauna
150 g paksemat hapukoort
50 g ehk 0.5 dl sulatatud võid
200-300 g punaseid sõstraid (lisasin ka veidi musti sõstraid)

Vahusta munad suhkruga kohevaks, kraabi sisse ka seemned vanillikaunast. Sega kuivained omavahel. Sega munavahu hulka vaheldumisi hapukoor, jahtunud sulavõi ja kuivained. Viimasena lisa sõstrad. Jaota tainas muffinivormidesse. Küpseta 225kraadises ahjus umbes 15 minutit.

For the Cherry-dark chocolate muffins you need:

2 eggs
1,5 dl sugar
3 dl wheat flour
2 ts baking powder
Pintch of salt
75 gr chopped dark chocolate
100-130 gr frozen cherries
2 tbs brown sugar
0,75 dl rapeseed oil

Mix the frozen cherries with brown sugar and put aside. Whip the eggs with sugar. Mix together dry ingredients, chopped chocolate, halfmelted cherries and at last the oil. Quickly mix the batter until even and divide into muffin pan (fill appr 2/3 of every muffin hole). Bake in preheated oven under 200 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

Kirsi-tumeda šokolaadi muffinid:
2 muna
1.5 dl suhkrut
3 dl nisujahu
2 tl küpsetuspulbrit
noaotsatäis soola
75 g hakitud tumedat šokolaadi
100-130 gr külmutatud kirsse
2 spl fariinsuhkrut
0.75 dl rapsiõli

Sega kirsid fariinsuhkruga ja pane sulama. Vahusta munad suhkruga. Lisa omavahel segatud kuivained, hakitud šokolaad, poolsulanud kirsid ja õli. Sega tainas kiiresti ühtlaseks ja jaota ettevalmistatud muffinivormidesse (täida vormid umbes 2/3 ulatuses). Küpseta 200-kraadises ahjus umbes 20-25 minutit.