Carrot cake

The carrot cake is probably the best one my dad can do. It is an all-time-favourite and perfect for any aniversary!Ingredients:
400g fresh carrots
8 eggs
275g sugar
400g almonds
50g cornflour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 organic Lemon zest and juice
250 icing sugar and lemon juice for the icing
100g pistachos, marzipan carrots, flowers and other decoratives

Instructions:
Peel the carrots and grate them finely. Preheat the oven at 180°C and seperate the eggs into two bowls. Mince sugar and egg yolks very well until you end up with a foamy mass. Add the carots carefully. Now add flour, 250g almonds, lemon zest and juice and cinnamon to produce a smooth mass. Butter a 24 or 26 cm diameter springform pan.
Beat the eggs until very stiff and add the rest of the almonds before mincing in the egg yolk mass. Put the mass into the pan and bake for about 60-70 minutes.
Let cool down completly and prepare the icing by mixing lemon juice and icing sugar. Cover up the cake totally and decorate as you whish.

Sweet turquoise macarons

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
25g granulated sugar
175g icing sugar
100g very finely grounded almonds
food colouring (I prefer powdered colouring, but liquid is fine)

2 small egg whites
85g sugar
170g butter
1 vanilla pod
(If you want you can add one droplet of mint extract)Instructions:
The day before separate the egg whites from the yolks. Store the whites at a cool place. The yolks you can toss.
Whip the whites to a foam and add the granulated sugar. Continue to whip until the mixture becomes glossy. Add icing sugar and almonds and carefully fold the egg mixture over it with a rubber spoon. Repeat the process not more than 40 times. Using a pastry bag pipe coin-sized puffs onto parchment paper. The shells should now rest for 30 min to harden a bit. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 140°C. Bake the shells for 20-30 min an let cool down.

For the filling whip the egg whites in a bowl over simmering water. Add the sugar and continue to stir until the sugar is dissolved. Take away from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla seeds.
When cooled down a little put on teaspoon of filling between two shells. You can store the macarons in the fridge for no longer than 5 days.

Zwetschgenknödel - damson dumplings

Ingredients for 25-30 dumplings:
1 kg Potatoes
250g Flour
70g Butter
30g Semolina
2 Eggs
Salt
1kg damsons
15tsp+ brown sugar

Instructions:
Cook potatoes and meanwhile slice the damsons and remove the stone. Mash the potatoes well while still hot. Add butter, flour, semolina, eggs and a pinch of salt. Make a nice smooth dough. Its best now to form a role and slice it into slices (25-30). On each slice put to half damsons and half a tsp sugar. Wrap the plum well with the dough, it is important that the dumpling is closed completely. Put them into lightly salted simmering water for about 5 minutes. They should float on the water when ready to take out. Serve with sugar and melted butter. :)

Pumkin Soup

Ingredients:
2 big carrots
2 leeks
half a Hokkaido pumpkin of middle size
3 tbsp Olive oil
50 ml Orange juice
Salt
Pepper
Curry powder
1-2 L vegetable broth
Instructions:
Clean, peal and cut the vegetables into cubes. Heat the oil in a big pan and add carrots, leeks and pumpkin. Saute shortly, than add the broth and let simmer for half an hour.
Now take a immersion blender and blend the soup. Add Curry powder, pepper and salt and taste. Serve the soup hot with parsley, pumpkin seed oil or breadcrumbs.

Grießflammeri

A classic desert (semolina pudding), served cold with fruits. Perfect for the coming spring and the summerlike temperatures!
Ingredients:
1L Milk
90g Semolina
10g Polenta
100g Sugar
1 Vanilla pod
50g starch
600g Strawberries
Instructions:
Freeze Strawberries over night. On the next day let the melt slowly to room temperature.
Boil 900ml milk combined with sugar sugar. Mix Starch and the rest of the milk very well. Add polenta to the boiling milk, stirr very well. Now add the starch-milk mixture and stirr again very well for 2 minutes. Take away from the heat and fill into forms. Let cool for 3 hrs.
Arrange the Grießflammeri with the strawberries and serve.

Gnocchi With Basil

Gnocchi is of course a famous Italian dish. This version is with fresh basil.
Ingredients (serves 4):
800g floury Potatoes
+/- 300g flour
1 handful basil leaves
1 Egg
1 egg yolk
salt, muscat, pepper, olive oil
Instructions:
Boil potatoes in well salted water until very soft (just before they fall apart).
Squeeze them through a ricer or use a fork. Add the eggs and 250 g flour. Combine well and add more flour. The dough should not stick on your fingers.
Chop basil into small bits and mix under the dough with salt pepper, muscat and a little olive oil.
Now form the Gnocchis and do not pile them on top of each other! Use flour to make sure they don't stick on your plates. Let them rest for 1 hour.
Boil water and add salt. Add the Gnocchis and cook until they rise to the water surface. This only takes a cupple of minutes.
Serve immediatly with Pesto or pine nut butter.

Crostini

Crunchy outside, fluffy inside and topped with delicious italian food! - Crostini!

Ingredients:

1 Ciabatta (with Olives)

300g Mozzarella

1/2 Thai chili

Pesto (see recipe)

Pine nuts

Salt

Pepper
High quality olive oil

1 garlic clove

Instructions:
Cut ciabatta into 1,5 cm thick slices. Cut carlic into 2 halfs and rub onto the bread. Drizzle olive oil over it and put on a roast. Bake for 5 minutes in a preheated oven at 245°C.
Make little pieces out of the Mozzarella and put them on some ciabatta slices. Drizzle olive oil over it and some very small pieces of the chili. Salt and pepper the Mozzarella. On the rest of the bread slices put Pesto and some nuts.
(If you whish you can add some tomato slices as decoration)