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GERMANY Stollen I got this recipe from the Steiners who are German. This dessert is one of the many varieties of fruit cakes, and like most fruit cakes it is common during Christmas. It was perfect that I made it for a Christmas Eve party. All the ingredients seemed normal except for the cream cheese added to the cake. Later I was talking to my previous German teacher and she said that one thing common in Germany is a yogurt, dairy substance called quark. I think it would probably be more traditional to put this in instead of the cream cheese. We did not have cardamom seeds so I estimated that it would equal about ½ teaspoon of crushed cardamom. Also I put in dried cranberries instead of currents, just as Mrs. Steiner does. It calls for brandy and I decided to put it in which somehow added to the flavor. I know some other recipes called for candied citrus peel which I did not put in because I could not find it, but Whole Foods (which have a lot of rare ingredients) had a whole candied lemon. The one strange thing about this dessert is that it gets fold with one side going slightly over the middle so that when the smaller side folds over the first fold it does not cover the whole top. I am not sure why they do this but it is interesting. This cake/bread came out to be delicious and nice and moist which was awesome. Everybody, including myself, enjoy it.
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GREECE Baklava Although it is easy to make, this dessert is time consuming. The thin sheets of Phylo dough, in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, must be layered. This involves a coating of butter between each and a layer of nuts and sugar between every three layers or so. This takes a lot of time and patience. I learned that it is important to cut anything using phylo dough before one puts it in the oven. This then prevents the top layer from cracking. After it is removed from the oven the honey and spice syrup is poured over it. The syrup soaks in, saturating the dessert with sweetness. Baklava is delicious, I had no idea I liked it so much. This is also the first dessert I took up to the girl’s dorm and one girl commented, “this is the best baklava I have ever had!” I know that I will make this again in the future.
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HOLLAND/NETHERLANDS Gemberkoel (Ginger Cake) I made this cake with some of my friends. It was mainly a lot of shredded ginger, sugar, flour and spices mixed together and baked. It also called for ginger syrup. I had no clue what this was and I could not find any so I went online and found a recipe for it. You take ¾ cup of sliced ginger, 1 cup sugar, and 2 cups water and cook them over the stove for about 15 minutes. I simmered them for longer though so it would get thicker. When the cake came out of the oven, it looked like ginger bread, but it tasted more strongly of ginger then any ginger bread. My mom and Lizzie Bastian thought it was too spicy, but everyone else especially my brother liked it (Tristan ate about half of it). I do not know if I will make this again, but if I do, I will put less ginger in.
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HUNGARY Hungarian Shortbread I had this recipe since the fall but am only now making it in the spring because of the rhubarb it calls for. Rhubarb is a vegetable practically the same as celery only red/pink. It also had the taste of a sour apple and a little earthy. Its season is in the spring and that is the only time it is available in the stores, so when I went to Whole Foods and found it I was super happy to finally be able to buy it. Unfortunately, I did not get enough so I ended up spreading raspberry jam on the other half which I think tasted even better than the rhubarb. It was a bit less sour. For the dough, I thought it was interesting how it is supposed to be grated but worked well. It made the shortbread light and crumbly. It was so delicious and super buttery. I actually managed to take this dessert up to the boy’s dorm. They all loved it; one boy said that he ate about five! I am so glad that I was able to bring it to them.
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ICELAND Vinarterta This dessert apparently is traditional to have during Christmas, so it was perfect that I made it three days before Christmas. It was essentially cookie dough patted flat and cooked. I took each ball and patted it flat on an upside down and well buttered round cake pan and then baked them. Meanwhile I chopped up the prunes, which are dried plums. They are black and looked a bit like animal feces; thank goodness they did not smell like it. Then I cooked them in a sauce pan. There was no juice coming out so I added ½ a cup of water which worked well. Also I added the cinnamon to the cookies instead of to the prunes but it was fine because the taste would still exist. When the big cookies were cooled down I stacked them placing a layer of the prune past between each layer. It looked nice and surprisingly tasted good. The cookies had almond extract in it so I could defiantly taste that and the prunes mainly tasted sweet.
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IRELAND Brambrack This is a traditional Irish cake served for holidays or on Halloween. Often symbolic objects are placed into it like a coin. Although I did not make this on Halloween I did make it in the month of October. It is a dry cake batter that is more dough like than cake like, and it contains dried fruit. I was afraid the batter was too dry but the cake ended up working great. I cooked it in and angle cake baking pan which worked well, except for the fact that I think the center may not have cooked all the way. I did not really like it that much, but that is because I generally do not like fruit bread/cake which is what this was. I took it up to contemporary church and the people there seemed to enjoy.
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ITALY Gelato Al Caffé (Coffee Ice Cream) I chose to make this because I love gelato and on almost every street in Italy there is at least one gelateria. Thus, I thought it would be a good dessert to make. I mixed up the ingredients at home and then lugged the ice cream maker, ice and salt up to my grandma’s house for pizza. It definitely is tiring to crank the handle of the ice cream maker to churn the ice cream, but it was totally worth it. I was not sure how much of a difference there would actually be between this and ice cream, but when I scooped it out there was a difference. It looked like and tasted like gelato, it was denser than ice cream. I think one of the differences is that there is more milk versus cream in gelato than in ice cream. It tasted so delicious and we all loved it. I will make this again for sure.
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LATVIA Apple Slice Cake This dessert is flattened dough with sliced apple and cinnamon sugar sprinkled on it that is then baked. This was another vague recipe but I managed just fine. It says to prepare the dough without a starter; I do not know what that means so I just mixed everything together. For the milk I heated it up a bit and then put the yeast in so that it would begin to expand. Then I kneaded the dough, and let it sit for about half an hour. Next I rolled out the dough and had to put it on two cookie sheets for it to fit. I put the apples and sugar on top of it and put it in the oven. I heated the oven to 350˚ and baked it for about 40 minutes. The top sheet was fine but the bottom sheet got burned on one half which was too bad. The cake was delicious. The dough was not too flavorful but the apples were nice and sour. They had the texture of dried apples from being baked but they were delicious. I took this up to the girl’s dorm and to school and everybody loved it. This was the last dessert I made for this project and I think it was a great one to end with.
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LITHUANIA Aguonu Sausainiukai (Poppy Seed Cookies) Poppy seeds are used quite a lot in Lithuania because they have and abundance of them. These cookies were quite simple. The recipe calls for poppy seed filling. I never knew such a thing existed but it does and I found it in the baking aisle with all the other fillings in cans. I cooked the first batch a bit too long so I cooked the rest for only 15 minutes. They were quite spongy, like little cakes. They were tasty and had an underlying poppy seed flavor. I took them to contemporary church where people really enjoyed them.
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LUXEMBOURG Crème Caramel (Caramel Custard) This was a simple dessert to make. I made the custard and then instead of putting it in individual moulds, I put it in one round pan. I suppose I could also have put them in a cup cake pan but this was easier and looked nice. I cooked it in the oven and then made the caramel sauce over the stove. It took a long time for the sugar to melt which was weird. I eventually turned up the heat and that got it melting faster. When the custard was finished, I poured the sauce on it and it oozed over the entire custard, giving it a nice even coating. It tasted good, it was a bit sweet but that was probably because I tried it in the morning. The sauce was nice and thick, and the custard was like pudding. It was solid and more condense than pudding, but it could mush on the roof of my mouth. My dad took it to work with him and lots of people seemed to enjoy it.
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MACEDONIA Pear and Fig Strudel This dessert surprisingly has no sugar added to it. It is essentially layered sheets of phylo dough with bread crumbs in between and then only one layer in the middle of pulverized figs mixed with chopped up pears. There is honey, and hazelnuts then sprinkled on top. I personally do not like figs or pears so I do not enjoy this dessert much. However, my mom who does not like figs really likes this dessert as does the rest of my family.
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MALTA Prinijolata This is a traditional carnival cake served in almost every sweet shop during the carnival season. It is made to look like a snow capped mountain and an important ingredient is pine nuts. This recipe calls for a Madeira cake which is practically the same thing as a pound cake. I almost made the mistake of baking the Madeira cake in a loaf pan but then realized it needed to be round. Also it says to bake it for an hour, I baked it for about 45 minutes. While this baked I made the cream. For beating the egg I placed the bowl in a warm bowl of water which worked fine but I think it might have meant to put it in a pot of water over the stove. It still worked and the egg whites stiffen much faster than if they are not warm. It says to put half a tumbler of water in and I discovered that a tumbler is just a glass with no handles. I ended up putting in half a cup of water but ¼ a cup would have worked fine as well. I just used a bowl for the basin. I cut the top layer off of the cake and placed it upside down in the bottom of the bowl. Then I spread the cream over it and repeated this process. I ended up having about 5 slices of cake instead of 12 but it was fine. Then I refrigerated it. When I took it out of the mould the cream had hardened and some of it had seeped into the cake making it quite moist. I iced the cake and then sprinkled it with cherries, pine nuts and chocolate shavings. For the cherries I could not find them candied so I just used dried cherries. The cake looked great and tasted amazing. It was nice and sweet, the cake was moist and it was just fantastic. If I ever choose to make this cake again I could literally bake it in any type of pan because the cake would be just as fine in any shape. I took it to the boy’s dorm and they all loved it.
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Madeira Cake
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NORWAY Rossets This is the first dessert I embarked upon. I made it with my cousin Jency and her grandma, who happened to have the kit for it. This dessert calls for special Molds that are dipped into batter and then deep fried. I think that it would be possible to use cookie cutters and attach a handle to them. Then a kit would not be necessary. The dessert cookie texture is light and crispy, similar to that of a potato chip. They also do not have much of a flavor at all. We even made the chocolate batter, but it was still not too flavorful. There is only the slightest difference between the two. In my opinion I prefer more tasteful desserts, but they were nice looking.
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POLAND Polish Tea Cookies My dad always makes these cookies for Christmas but I never actually made them. Because I have already had them and know how they will turn out, it was extremely nice and relaxing to make them. It is a quick and simple process. First the buttery dough is made, rolled into balls and placed in the oven. After five minutes the balls are taken out and get a thumb print indent in them. Then they bake for ten more minutes. After cooling a dollop of raspberry jam is placed in the indent. They are extremely delicious, probably because of the butter and jam. These will always be made again and again for sure.
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PORTUGAL Pudim De Noses (Walnut Pudding) This was quite simple to make. I blended the walnuts up in the blender and then mixed it into the eggs and sugar and I added about ½ a teaspoon of cinnamon. I did not have a mould so I poured it into a round pan. I had to make this twice because the first time I totally ruined it. I filled a large sauce pan with water and place the pan with the pudding in it. It did float but as soon as the water simmered it boiled over into the pudding. This resulted in the pan sinking to the bottom of the sauce pan. This next time I made sure to place the pan in a frying pan and even put it on mason jar lids so it was fully above the water. It took a long time for the pudding to cook and I had to keep adding water so it could continue to simmer but making sure that it was not too much water. Finally it was finished and I let it cool. I did not like it much. It was sweet and just weird. It was more like cake than pudding but it was still not cake. My dad took it to work and people seemed to enjoy it, one person was actually from Portugal and he told my dad that it was exactly like a Portuguese pudding. I must say it is reassuring when a person from that country says that what I have made really is from that country.
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