Pastiera is a traditional Easter cake from Naples, filled with boiled wheat, ricotta, and candied citrus. The wheat provides an interesting texture and also makes the cake quite filling. The candied citron, candied orange, lemon zest, orange blossom water, and … Continue reading Pastiera Napoletana
In Italy, Colomba Pasquale is for Easter what Panettone is for Christmas. Colomba is a sweet bread in the shape of a cross with candied citrus and an almond glaze. It is actually not supposed to be a cross but a dove, since that is what “colomba” means. It takes a bit of good will to recognize the shape of a flying dove. The traditional way of making colomba takes about 24 hours and 5 different rising steps. This recipe requires ‘only’ three, and with a stand mixer it is not a lot of work and just takes time. Continue reading “Colomba Muffins for Easter”
One of the traditional treats for Easter in the Netherlands is a “paasstol”: a bread filled with raisins and almond paste. The same bread is also made with Christmas and then called “kerststol”. Other than the name, there is no real difference. In many cases the filling also contains candied fruits and hazelnuts, but I prefer just raisins. A similar bread is made in Germany and then called “Stollen” (Weihnachtsstollen, Christstollen). Instead of proper almond paste, a store-bought stol will in many cases contain ‘confectioner’s paste’ (“banketbakkersspijs”) which is actually made from beans instead of almonds. It is of course … Continue reading Dutch Easter bread (Paasstol)
For Easter it is a tradition in the Netherlands, as in many other places around the world, to eat lots of eggs. Conor’s post about poached eggs reminded me that I had not yet blogged about eggs sous-vide. Cooking an egg sous-vide was the first thing I tried with my sous-vide water bath about 15 months ago, that was basically the ‘christening’ of the water bath. At 64C/147F The egg whites came out a bit softer than I liked. I needed to go to 67C/152F to get the egg whites just set, but by then the egg yolk didn’t have the … Continue reading Sous-vide egg
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