Sage and Parma ham corn muffins – Donna Hay Styling and Photo Challenge #4

Thanks to Simone we have another Donna Hay challenge. You can read more about it here.
The challenge recipe this month comes from Donna Hay issue 48 and the photo is either by Ben Dearley or William Meppem.
It a last challenge this year. I'm so happy for having the opportunity to take a part in this project. I have learnt so much. It is so different than taking your own style photos. I would say it's like meeting somebody's else vision.
This time I was fighting with a muffins pile, it was so hard to make a pile that doesn't look flat. Also the light on the original photo seems more soft and some of it was bounced into the muffins, I just couldn't get the same effect. And I don't feel Parma ham in my muffins looks so delicious, but practice makes perfect.
Anyway, I liked this assignment mostly because I always adore shots with wider scene, you can see part of the table, a glass, it looks more real and you just want to grab a fork and start eating and I'm always somehow afraid of them, I don't feel they are real enough.

And here is the original photo.

About the recipe. It is super easy, delicious and cute. It will be perfect for a party. Parma ham is quite salty, so don't add too much salt into the muffins.

I want to wish you happy New Year. I hope it will good year for all of us. For me, once again there are some changes coming, hopefully they will be good.

Recipe comes originally from Donna Hay magazine and was presented by Simone here.

Sage and prosciutto corn muffins
Makes 12 big muffins (I got 20 small ones)

• 170 g instant polenta (semolina flour works too)
• 75 g all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 Tbsp sage leaves chopped (I mixed fresh chopped sage with dried one)
• sea salt
• black pepper
• 360 g sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 12 sage leaves (extra)
• 12 slices Parma ham

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan. Place the polenta, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sage, salt, pepper, cream and eggs in a bowl and mix well to combine.
Place extra sage in the bases of 12 lightly greased 1/2 cup capacity (125 ml) muffin tins.
Line each tin with prosciutto and fill with polenta mixture.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked. Turn out to serve.

Polish Christmas traditions

I wanted to tell you a little about Polish Christmas traditions. I know Christmas is over, but so many times I wanted to share how it looks like in Poland, but I never got enough time. It is quite different from Irish traditions.

Polish traditions are not the same in different parts of the country, so don't think about it as a dogma.
Anyway, the most important day for Polish is Christmas Eve (Wigilia). We gather in the evening for a supper. It should be about the time when the first star appears in the sky (or somewhere close to that as during the winter sky isn't always clear ;)). At the beginning the fragment about Christ birth is read from the Gospel of Matthew or Luke. Then we brake off the Christmas wafer (opłatek) and wish each other all the best. As a child I loved to eat the opłatek that left (ok I still do it, it's delicious).

The table should be covered with white tablecloth and underneath it is a hay. We leave an empty dish cover for unexpected guest.
Because Advent - the time waiting for Christmas use to be a time of Lent, so that's why at Wigilia there is no meat or any animal fats. We eat mostly fish and vegetables, typical dishes would be: beetroot soup (barszcz) with little dumplings (uszka), dried mushroom soup, cabbage with mushrooms, dumplings (pierogi) with cabbage and dried mushrooms or with dried mushrooms and a lot of fish, like fried carp (a carp is the most traditional fish for Wigilia), fish aspic, herrings in different kinds of marinates.

For a dessert there would be gingerbread, ginger cookies, or kutia (a dish from wheat, poppyseed, honey, dried fruits, walnuts and almonds). Everything during Wigilia is symbolic, poppyseed means wealth, fish - health. It supposed to be twelve dishes as there were twelve Apostles.

After the supper finally comes Santa and leaves presents (in some homes he actually show up!). Ok, it's not so simple with Santa, depending on the region the presents can be brought by Santa, Angel, Gwiazdor, or Dzieciątko (Child). And if you were naughty you would will get a birch, that's for sure, but luckily I never got one. At midnight we attend to the Midnight Mass. And next days we visit family and eat a lot, mostly cold cuts of meat, salads and warm dishes as bigos, white sausages (biała kiełbasa), or chicken. Desserts are more festive, there are cheesecakes, poppyseed strudels and tortes.
I must say Wigilia at my home never wasn't too strict. We never checked if there were exactly twelve dishes and my mum would allow to eat festive cakes, but we keep most of the tradition I wrote you about. My mum always makes tons of fried pierogi with dried mushrooms. Of course there is always too much food, but I start to think that what are Christmas about. This year we were here in Dublin, we spent Christmas Eve by ourselves and I really tried to make a reasonable amount of food, but somehow we ended up stuffed with food like usual.

I hope you had nice Christmas as we did.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!!

Traditional Polish Cheesecake

One of the most popular cakes in Poland is cheesecake. There are endless numbers of recipes. There are people who like it more moist and some who prefer it more dry. Some prefer it with a base, other without. But a typical Polish cheesecake is made with twaróg (a curd cheese) and bakalie.
TWARÓG - If you are living in Ireland, you will find it in any Polish shop, or even in Tesco or Fresh.  It comes with different fat content - full fat, half fat and non fat. For cheesecakes the best one is full fat.
To use it in cheesecake you need to grind it 2 to 3 times in a meat grinder to make it smoother. You can also find a preprepared grind cheese in shops, but you must be careful, because some of these products are adding butter, sugar and other extras you don't really want.

BAKALIE  - It is the word I miss so much. Bakalie is a mix of raisins, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, candied orange zest, dry apricots and plums. There are no rules on proportions, it always to your own liking. So it is very useful word, you mention to add a handfull of bakalie into a cake or muffins and you don't have to list.

My mum loves cheesecake with a big amount of raisins. As a child I always removed them, now I can take it, but if I am one to decide what to add, I will go for candied orange zest and almonds.

Anyway this cheesecake is really delicious, moist and rich, very festive. Like all cheesecakes it has a tendency to lower itself after cooling down, but it is typical and it tastes delicious anyway, so don't worry. So come one, try it. It is worth it.
Recipe from Moje wypieki.

Traditional Polish Cheesecake
(for a 23x35 baking tin, half of the portion works well with 23-cm spring form )

• 250 g butter, room temperature
• 1,3 kg full-fat or half fat curd cheese, minced at least twice
• 10 large eggs, whites and yolks separately
• 450 caster sugar
• 6 Tbs semolina (Polish - kasza manna)
• 40g custard powder (Polish - budyń)
• seeds from 2 vanilla pods + 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup double cream (30% fat)
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup your favourite dried fruits (raisins or candied orange peel)

Beat butter till light and fluffy.
Add curd cheese slowly, still beating.
In a separate bowl beat egg yolks with sugar till creamy and white. Add to cheesecake mixture and mix just to combine.
Add to cheesecake mixture the rest of ingredients: semolina, custard powder, vanilla.
Mix together till just combined.
Whip double cream.
In a separate bowl whip egg whites.
Carefully stir into cheesecake mixture double cream, egg whites and dried fruits.
Grease a  baking tin and line with baking paper.
Place cheesecake mixture in a tin and smooth down.
Bake at 170ºC/150ºC fan for about 60 minutes.
Cool down with a slightly ajar oven and place in a fridge for a night.
Decorate. Keep in a fridge for max. 5-7 days.
It is easily cut when cold, with a thin, sharp knife. Enjoy!

Jan Hagel - Holiday Biscuit Recipe Exchange

This year I have baked more cookies than usual, but it's Christmas and there are so many people I wanted to share them with. So when Irish Food Bloggers Association mentioned Holiday Biscuit Recipe Exchange I couldn't resist anyway.
I got the recipe from Jennifer, that her mother passed on to her. It is a traditional Dutch recipe called Jan Hagel that Jennifer's mother got from a friend of hers about thirty years ago. It's super easy. There are lots of variations on the traditional recipe, but this is the one that they always make at theirs house.
I totally agree, the recipe is very easy, it takes only few minutes to put it together. Cookies are very soft, delicate and buttery. They are perfect for walnut's lovers like my boyfriend. I was thinking about replacing walnuts with pistachios (I love they colour), but I decided to be traditional this time, but of you want you can try :)
Thank you Jennifer for sharing the lovely recipe with me.

Jan Hagel 

• 225 g unsalted butter 
• 110 g sugar 
• 1 egg, separated 
• 220 g flour 
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
• 1 Tbsp water 
• 60 g walnuts, finely chopped 

Preheat oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan (it's recommend not using the fan setting, but I didn't have choice, my oven is fan only, so I lower the temperature to 160ºC).
Lightly grease a baking tray.
Mix butter, sugar and egg yolk.
Blend flour and cinnamon.
Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture and spread evenly onto the baking sheet, pressing lightly with your fingers.
Beat the egg white with the tablespoon of water until it is lightly frothy and brush it over the dough before sprinkling on the walnuts. Bake for 20-25 minutes until dough looks golden and nuts are toasty. Cut immediately into fingers and allow to cool on the tray.

Pepparkakor

I have opened a little cookie factory. This year we stay in Dublin for Christmas, so I want to send some sweets for our families. I hope they will like it. There are so many fantastic cookie recipes it is hard to decide, but I have noticed that many of my favourite recipes have origin either in Germany or Scandinavian countries.
Pepparkakor come from Sweden and you probably know them from Ikea. They are perfect for using cookie cutters as they don't change shape while baking. I love their spiciness.
Recipe from Moje wypieki.

Pepparkakor

• 150 g molasses (black treacle, sugar beet syrup, date syrup or maple syrup)
• 110 g butter
• 100 g icing sugar 
• 375 g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger (or more if you like) 
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp mixed spice (I added mix of cardamon, ginger, black pepper and nutmeg)

In a small pan heat molasses, butter and icing sugar just to boiling point, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let it cool for at least half an hour (luke-warm mixture is ok).
In a large bowl sieve the flour together with baking powder, spices and salt. Form a hole in the middle and add the egg as well as the molasses mixture and knead together with your food processor - the dough might be very sticky.
Add a little more flour if the dough appears too sticky, you should be able to shape it into a ball.
Tightly cover it with cling film and let rest in the fridge until firm (for about 2 hours).
Cut off smaller portions of the dough and roll it out (the thinner the better) on a lightly floured board and cut into desired shapes. Place on greased baking sheets and bake at 175ºC/155ºC fan for 8 to 10 minutes or until they just start to get some colour on the very edges. Remove from oven and cool on the wire rack.
Keep in an air-tight container. They get better day by day.

Candied Orange Zest

This is one of recipes I have tried because I'm a food blogger and I feel I have to do everything from a scratch ;) But it also annoys me to find artificial ingredients in shop-bought candied orange zest.
The recipe for candied zest comes from Usagi blog. It isn't traditional way of preparing candied orange zest, because you don't boil it in a syrup. You just need to peel oranges, get rid off of the white pith, cover it with sugar and leave it for a few weeks to soften. Apparently the orange zest prepared this way is more fragrant and has nicer colour. And you can always add new layers of it at the top.
I won't tell you that making your own orange zest is a hassle free activity, but you will feel that you have the control of what you eat and your house will smell like Christmas :D

Candied Orange Zest

• oranges (choose fruits that are free of pesticides, dyes, and wax)
• granulated sugar

Wash and dry oranges.
Using a citrus zester, vegetable peeler or small knife peel the oranges.
If there is any whit pith left on the zest, simply peel it with a knife. 
Cut zest into long stripes or small pieces (depending on how you want to use them).
Put a layer of orange zest (not to thick) in the sterilised jar and cover it precisely with a layer of sugar. Press it well with a spoon. Keep going until you run out of the orange zest.
Cover it with a thicker layer of sugar and leave it to rest for a few weeks.