These tiny treats may have not the fanciest look, but believe me, they are addictive. This is how they disappear.
I found the recipe while looking for an Auntie Anne’s copycat and was not disappointed by the result. You can find the source I used as a basic here.
But I changed the style of a normal sweet pretzel slightly: First, as a tiny-things-lover I made small bite-sized dough buns which make you take one after the other until the bowl is empty. Second, I soaked these little babies with a mixture of milk, and sugar. This made them heavenly moist and sweet.
Don’t believe me? Try a bunch of them yourself.
Sweet Pretzel Bites
pretzel dough:
500 ml (2 cups) milk
1 1/2 tablespoons (2 packets) active dry yeast
6 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp butter, melted
540 g (4 1/2 cups) flour + some more if the dough is still sticky and for dusting the surface
2 tsp fine salt
5 tbsp baking soda
500 ml (2 cups) warm water
for the milk sauce:
2 tablespoons butter, melted
5 tbsp powdered sugar
150 ml (2/3 cups) milk
Heat the milk in a small pan until it reaches about 45°C (110°F). Stir in the yeast and let it sit for about 3 minutes. Add the butter and sugar. Add the flour about 1 cup at a time and the add the salt. This works best if you use the kneading hooks of a handheld or stand mixer. If the dough is still sticky afted adding all the flour, you should use some more, but only until it stops sticking to your handy while you knead it.
Let the dough sit in a warm, moist place for about one hour.
Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Knead the dough with your hands on a floured surface and divide it into 4 pieces. Roll a kind of sausage out of each quarter and cut it into bite sized pieces (about 2,5 cm/1´´ length).
Place one baking sheet on your pans. Mix the baking soda and water in a bowl. In another shallow dish, combine milk, sugar and butter for the sauce.
Dip each little bun in the soda mixture, then set it on the baking sheet and bake for about 6-7 minutes until golden brown.
After taking them out of the oven, dip each pretzel bite into the milk sauce and then let them cool on the counter (if you can resist eating them). You might have some sauce leftover, which should be used for soaking.
Enjoy the goodness with your friends and family!
Yuuuuum! I finally made a real cake this weekend and had a blast while doing so (and while eating it).
This new combination of lychee, hibiscus and a little vanilla transformed my fluffy and light cake into a juicy tropical flavor bomb.
The basic is a fluffy sponge cake, soaked with the juice from the canned lychee.
Aaaand on top of it, you form a dome of beaten heavy cream and curd with a spoon. It feels great to just dig in and have a spoonful of this cake. (It should not contain that much fat because of the skinny curd and the sponge cake. – Just sayin’.) I put a little orange food coloring into the cream to make the optical effect more intense and decorated the whole thing with coconut flakes, one hibiscus flower, white chocolate and rose petals. But this is not really nessecary.
Luchee Hibiscus Dome
sponge cake layer:
85 g (2/3 cup) flour
2 eggs
110 g (1/2 cup) sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
cream layer:
250 ml (1 cup) heavy cream, beaten
1 pckt. instant yoghurt/curd powder vanilla
500 g (18 oz.) curd (0,2 % fat)
1 can lychee, drained
juice from 1 can lychee
4 hibiscus blossoms in sugar syrup
powdered sugar, to taste
Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°C).
Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl with a mixer until the mixture is all light and fluffy, for about 90 to 120 seconds.
Stir in vanilla.
Mix baking powde and flour and sift the dry ingredients over the egg mass.
Stir again on medium speed until the flour is incorporated – do not overbeat.
Pour the dough into a slightly greased round pan with 26 cm (10´´) diameter. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until a toothpicker comes out clean. Let the cake layer cool on the counter.
To prepare the cream, beat the heavy cream until stiff. Then add the vanilla powder (I used ‘Paradise cream’) and stir. The cream will become thicker, but that is exactly what you need to get a steady dome.
Purée the drained lychee fruit and stir it in the cream, add the curd. Chop the hibiscus blossoms and stir them in. You can add some orange food colouring to for an optical effect.
Stab a couple of wholes into the sponge layer by using a fork. Soak it with most of the lychee juice from the can. Now place the cream on top of the cake. You get a kind of dome by putting one heaped tbsp in the center after the other. Decorate and let set in the fridge for about 2-3 hours
I thought it would be fun to make a new category on this blog, which gives the readers an insight into my life. The category ‘diet week’ does not contain the aim to lose weight, but to discover new ways of eating and personaly for me, to get back the joy of eating which was destroyed by my eating disorder.
I felt very uncomfortable in my body, so I decided to make a start from point zero. To achieve this effect, I fasted for four days, which means that I only fed myself liquids, such as tea or juices. I cheated the last day by eating some spoons of rice, but nevertheless, I got the effect I wanted – a healthy curiosity about what the world of food might offer.
There are a lot of people complaining about vegans and their way of life just because they ‘Can’t imagine living this way.’ I think this is the wrong way to deal with people on a diet and it is not impossible at all to live the vegan lifestyle. So for a whole week, I kept the rules and actually liked it. There are so many substitutions for eggs and dairy products that it is not difficult to change e.g. youghurt for soy yoghurt. The only thing I missed a little was cheese and milk chocolate, but it was bearable. It was really easy to prepare all the meals like soy scallop or falafel.
Since I do not like the taste of Tofu, I did not have it in my nutrition. Wanna know, what I ate the whole week? Here is the list.
Day 1:
soy yoghurt blackberry
honeydew
noodles with tomato zucchini sauce
apple
apple pie cookies
bread
salad
Day 2:
apple
cornflakes
soy rice pudding
melon
cookies
sandwich with vegetable burger
couscous salad
Day 3:
soy rice pudding
pineapple
soy cocoa
baked sweet potatoes
baguette
apple
Day 4:
oatmeal with soy milk
oatmeal cookies
orange
apple
chili con seitan
Day 5:
chocolate flakes
soy scallop
soy yoghurt raspberry
apple
oreos
bread
baked peppers
Day 6:
apple
orange
oreos
bread
pumpkin soup with coconut milk
grilled zucchini
falafel
hazelnuts
Day 7:
apple
bread
soy cocoa
almonds
semi-sweet chocolate
The evening of the 7th day I quit the vegan diet by eating some ‘milinki’, a Bulgarian bread-like food containing milk. I think I will consume some vegan products more often from now, e.g. the soy cocoa which was really yummy. Hope you liked this post and look forward to seeing more diet weeks.