The cocoa roll is said to be the perfect creation of the Bakers’ Universe. Its strength lies in its endless shape: we look up to the sky and see the Milky Way swirling in a spiral. We look deep into ourselves and see our DNA twine into a double-helix. Helices are found at the biggest and smallest creations of nature, and the cocoa roll is somewhere in the middle. The cocoa roll is harmony. The cocoa roll has an impeccable shape. It is the gilt edge conceived in raised batter.

Eating cocoa rolls brings people together. We all remember those school lunches and afternoon snack times when we could hardly wait to indulge in that chocolatey heaven. As kids we considered it as a special treat and couldn’t wait to reach the centre of the roll, which was the most chocolatey and sweetest part. You felt like the luckiest person on earth when you met someone who was willing to trade the centre of the roll for the outer layers.

Making homemade cocoa rolls is an activity that kids will love and enjoy for sure. For one thing, they love cocoa and chocolate, and for another thing, the rolling process is fun. They can also learn how to be patient, while the cocoa rolls bake and cool down.

As the name suggests, the classic dessert is made with cocoa. However, there are several other versions that taste just as great. Some people like to make it with cinnamon, strawberry, jam, but savoury versions are also popular, especially the pizza flavoured one.

The recipe of the original cocoa roll:

INGREDIENTS (FOR 12 MEDIUM-SIZED OR 8 BIG COCOA ROLLS):

600 grams of flour

5 dl of milk

30 grams of yeast

50 grams of sugar

10 grams of salt

300 grams of butter  

250 grams of sugar

100 grams of cocoa powder

DIRECTIONS:

Start by heating up the milk to a warmish temperature, add half of the sugar and the yeast, and let it rise for 10 minutes. At this point, you have two options: you can either make the dough as our grannies used to do back in the day, or choose the fast and simple way.

If you’re looking for a challenge, choose the first option, which will give you crispy layers in the end. Start by rolling the butter between two baking sheets and let it cool in the fridge. Then, mix the flour with the remaining sugar and salt. Add the yeast, mix it all together and let the dough cool in the fridge for an hour. After it has reached the temperature of the butter, roll it out, place the butter sheet in the middle and wrap the sides of the dough over the butter. You basically need to wrap it as an envelope and put it into the fridge. You take it out every 30 minutes to roll it and wrap it again. You have to repeat this three times.

If you want to stick to the easier version, then all you have to do is mix the flour, sugar, yeast, salt and butter with your hands and knead the dough. Then let it rise for an hour. After the dough has risen, you roll it out in a rectangular shape. Mix the 250 grams of caster sugar with the 100 grams of cocoa powder and spread the mixture all over your rolled out dough. Before this step, you could grease the dough with some oil or water so that the powder sticks better.

Finally, you need to roll up the dough and cut it into smaller disks. Place your cocoa rolls on a baking sheet, let them rise for some time, and bake them in the oven at 200° Celsius. After they have cooled down, sprinkle them with some powdered sugar for even more sweetness.

Enjoy your meal!

source: Daily News Hungary

How To Make Baked Potatoes

Baked Potatoes Recipe. A classic. So simple to make and so easy to vary. Baked potatoes are packed full of flavour and energy and can be filled with nearly anything that springs to mind. 

Devour our Baked Potatoes recipe. 

Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 2 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Oven Temperature: 180° c  –  360° f

Step 1: You will need…

·       4 large potatoes
·       2 tbsp vegetable oil
·       sea salt
·       4 generous knobs butter, about 2 tablespoons each
·       1 bowl
·       1 fork
·       kitchen roll

Step 2: Preheat the oven

Set the oven to 180ºC (350ºF/ gas mark 4).

Step 3: Wash the potatoes

Place the bowl of potatoes in the sink and rinse them well under a cold running tap, 
turning occasionally to ensure they are thoroughly clean.

Step 4: Dry the potatoes

Put a piece of kitchen roll onto a flat working surface, place the potatoes on top and 
pat them dry with a second piece of kitchen roll.

Step 5: Pierce the potatoes

Take a fork and pierce each potato 8-10 times, all over. This releases the moisture
when cooking and stops them going soggy. Place them into a large bowl, pour over the oil and mix well with your hand.
Sprinkle over a generous amount of salt and mix well once more.

Step 6: Bake

Place the potatoes in the centre of the oven on a wire rack and bake for 1 hour
until they become crispy on the outside and fluffy and soft in the middle.

Step 7: VIDEOJUG TIP

Place a baking tray underneath, prelined with foil to catch any drippings and
to keep your oven nice and clean!

Step 8: Remove from the oven

Remove the potatoes when cooked and transfer them onto a large serving plate.

Step 9: Cut the potatoes

Make a long slit with a large knife across the potato but not completely to the edge.
Then make a slit downwards, to create a cross. Push the potato together to open it up and add a generous knob of butter.
Repeat with all four potatoes.

Step 10: Serve

Your potatoes can be served on their own or with a wide variety of toppings, like grated cheese or baked beans.

Tips from the world:
In the UK, the baked potato is also called a Jacket Potato and its toppings include cheese and beans, but also tuna mayonnaise, chili con carne, chicken and bacon.
In the US they use butter, chives, cheese and bacon bits. The French variant sometimes comes with a whole meat dish.
In Sweden they make baked potatoes with a seafood mix, called Skagenröra. The Trukish ‘kompir’ is the most colorful type of baked potato: the toppings
can include pickles, carrots, mushrooms, Russian salad, sausage slices, sweetcorn to name just a few. Feel free to experiment!

to vary – változatossá tenni valamit
flavour – íz
to spring to mind – eszedbe jutni 
to devour – falni
to rinse – öblíteni
tap – csap
occasionally – egyszer-egyszer/alkalmanként
to ensure – biztosítani valamit
kitchen roll – papírtörölköző
soggy – átázott/szotyogós
to pour – önteni
to sprinkle – szórni
generous – bő(kezű)
wire rack – sütőrács
crispy – ropogós
fluffy – levegős/lágy
to preline – előre kibélelni
foil – (alu)fólia
slit – (be)vágás
knob – darabka
topping – öntet
grated – reszelt

serves: 6-8
preparation time: 1 hour plus freezing time

Ingredients:

• 2 litres good-quality vanilla ice cream
• 50g almonds, toasted and chopped
• 1 pack ready-made caramel Swiss rolls
• 125ml sweet dessert wine (or use cherry juice from tin)
• 45ml cherry jam
• 125ml hazelnut chocolate spread
• 100g glacé cherries, chopped
• half a tin of black cherries, chopped
• 180g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• maraschino cherries, to decorate

Preparation:

1. Line one large round bowl or two smaller bowls with three layers of plastic wrap.
2. Allow a quarter of the ice cream to soften Stir in the toasted almonds and spoon into the lined bowl. Cover with a layer of sliced Swiss roll. Sprinkle with the wine and spoon some jam onto the cake. Place in the freezer until firm.
3. Allow another quarter of the ice cream to soften slightly. Mix the chocolate spread into it and spoon onto the frozen layer. Cover with another layer of cake, sprinkle with sweet wine, and cover with the remaining Return to the freezer and freeze until firm.
4. Allow the remaining ice cream to soften slightly. Add the glacé cherries and black cherries to the ice cream. Spoon onto the cake and then freeze overnight.
5. To serve melt the chocolate and leave to cool. Remove the ice-cream bombe from the freezer and turn it out onto a platter. Remove the plastic wrap. Pour the melted chocolate over the top of the bombe, or slice and serve each portion with a drizzle of melted chocolate. Top with maraschino cherries.

On April 2, 1912, the National Biscuit Company announced to their sales team that they were introducing three “highest class biscuits,” in a grouping they called the “Trio.” Two of the cookies, the Mother Goose Biscuit and Veronese Biscuit, didn’t sell particularly well and quickly disappeared from the shelves. The third, the Oreo Biscuit, did. “Two beautifully embossed chocolate-flavored wafers with a rich cream filling,” the Oreo Biscuit was sold in a yellow tin with a glass cover for approximately 30 cents a pound (about $7.13 today). While it went national in April, it was just a month before that the National Biscuit Company first registered the product with the US Patent and Trademark Office (registration number 0093009). It is commonly stated the given date of registration was March 6th, which is why that is National Oreo Day.  However, a simple patent and trademark search reveals that oft-repeated date is incorrect. In fact, it was actually filed on March 14, 1912 and registered on August 12, 1913.

So how did they come up with the idea of the Oreo?  By using the time-honored business practice of stealing the idea from a competitor and then marketing it better than the original. You see, there was another popular cream-filled sandwich cookie that came before the Oreo, made by Sunshine Biscuits. Sunshine Biscuits was a company run by Joseph and Jacob Loose and John H. Wiles, the former of which were originally part of the great bakery conglomeration of 1898 (the one that formed into the National Biscuit Company).

Wanting a more personal approach to baking and not wanting to be lost in the bakery conglomerate, Loose liquidated his assets and helped form Sunshine Biscuits. (The company actually was the third largest cookie baker in the US when it was acquired in 1996 by Keebler. To this day, the Sunshine brand still appears on Cheez-its, among other products.)

In any event, in 1908, four years before the Oreo, Sunshine debuted the upscale, and soon to be very popular, Hydrox biscuit, which the Oreo was a pretty blatant rip-off of, cream filling, embossing and all. Of course, Nabisco denies this is where the idea for the Oreo came from, but the evidence at hand strongly indicates otherwise.

As for the name, there has never been a firm answer for why the National Biscuit Company chose “Oreo,” though there are several theories. There is speculation that “Oreo” is derived from the French word for gold – “or,” since the original packing was gold and the item was meant to be a “high-class” confectionery. It could also come from the Greek word for mountain or mound – “oros,” since an Oreo is a “mountain” of a cookie. It has also been speculated that maybe it was named for the cookie itself, two “O” shape cookies sandwiching the cream, O-cream-O.

The identity of the designer behind the distinctive emboss on top of each cookie – or what the emboss signifies – has also become part of the Oreo mystery. The first design was simple enough – with the name “Oreo” and a wreath at the edge. In 1924, the company augmented the original design to go with a 1921 name tweak – from “Oreo Biscuit” to “Oreo Sandwich.” The 1924 design added a ring of laurels and two turtledoves. Twenty years later, in 1952, is when today’s elaborate, beautiful, design first appeared.

But what does the design signify, if anything? Historians believe the circle that encases the word “oreo” with antenna-type symbol on top was an early European symbol for quality. Cookie conspiracists believe that the antenna symbol is actually a Cross of Lorraine, a symbol identified with the famed Knights Templar. The “four-leaf clovers” that surround the name could be just that or it could be the cross pattee – a geometric pattern of four triangles radiating outwards that is also associated with the Knights Templar and the Freemasons. It’s up to the individual what they want to believe, but this author thinks the Oreo cookie is a delicious Da Vinci Code style map leading to a treasure buried a thousand years ago… Or as I like to call it, the probable plot to National Treasure 3.

Now, who designed the emboss? Evidence points to William Turnier. However, while Nabisco admits that a man by the name of William Turnier worked for them for fifty years, they deny that he developed the 1954 design. That said, his son and drawn proof indicate otherwise. Turnier joined the company in 1923, working in the mail room. He eventually worked his way up to the engineering department, helping make the dies that made the cookies, the industrial-sized cookie cutters as it were.

So where’s the evidence? In the home of Bill Turnier, William’s son, perched on a wall is a framed 1952, line drawn blueprint of the modern Oreo design. (If you’re curious, Why Blueprints are Blue) Underneath the blueprint, it is written “Drawn by W.A.Turnier 7-17-52,” two years before the design would find itself on the Oreos sold in stores. Despite this evidence, the Kraft (who now owns Nabisco) Corporate Archives only says that Turnier was a “design engineer” and he received a Suggestion Award in 1972 for an idea “that increased the production of Nilla Wafers on company machinery by 13 percent.” So can Bill shed any light on what his father was thinking when he seems to have drawn the design? Not really, though he did admit that the design, while beautiful and resembling more mysterious symbols, probably had nothing to do with the Knights Templar. His father wasn’t a Mason either.

As for the stuff between the intricately-designed cookies, the filling- it was made partially of lard – pig fat – until 1997. In 1994, Nabisco embarked on a nearly three-year revamping process of the filling to take the lard out. In charge of this was Nabisco’s principal scientist Sam Porcello, otherwise known as “Mr. Oreo.” By that point, Porcello was already a cookie legend, holding five Oreo related patents, including Oreos encased in white and dark chocolate. By December 1997, the Oreo cookie was lard-free, but there was another problem – the lard had been replaced by partially hydrogenated vegetable oil; yes, the very much not good for you trans fats. As the Chicago Tribune put it, “Later, research showed that trans fat was even worse for the heart than lard.” Finally, in January 2006, healthier (and more expensive) non-hydrogenated vegetable oil was put into Oreos instead. Today’s filing is additionally made with loads of sugar and vanilla extract creating a cookie that still is delicious, but slightly better for you. Or, perhaps more aptly, less bad for you.

1 kg flour

4 dl powdered sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

 a pinch of salt

20 dkg butter

3 whole eggs

3 dl honey

2 tbsp. cinnamon

ground cloves

To decorate

egg white

6 tbsp. powdered sugar

Preparation

Preheatoven to 160°C. Grease and flour the baking sheet. Mix the powder materials, and crumble the softened butter into the mix. Pour honey, and crack an egg into the middle, then knead it. Pour flour on the pastry board. Be careful, if the pasta is too soft, then it will flow away in the oven. Cut a small piece from the finished dough, and stretch it to be 2-3 mm thick. Cut out the shapes, put them into the baking sheet and bake them for 10 minutes. Spread sugary milk all over the gingerbread shapes, so they will be shiny after baking. The top of the pieces given as gifts can be decorated with icing.

Beat egg white with a pinch of salt, and add 6-7 tbsp. powdered sugar to the airy foam. Put the foam into a plastic bag, then cut one of its corners and decorate through this. The decoration dries in a few hours.

Store the gingerbread in metal containers, and put a slice of apple into it – the pieces will soften wonderfully.

source: dailynewshungary.com

INGREDIENTS

Sponge:

2 eggs

6 dkg sugar

6 dkg flour

½ tsp baking powder

1 dkg cocoa powder

Syrup:

1 dl water

5 dkg sugar

Cream:

50 dkg cottage cheese

1 dl sour cream

2,5 dl whipping cream

20 dkg icing sugar

1 tbsp gelatine

1 pkg vanilla sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

lemon zest

1 tbsp lemon juice

Coating:

10 dkg milk chocolate

10 dkg dark chocolate

2 tbsp oil

BAKING

Preheat oven to 170°. Put parchment paper into a 26-cm springform. For the sponge, beat the egg whites with the sugar. Carefully fold the flour, cocoa powder and the baking powder into the egg mixture. Spread it into the pan, and bake for about 10-15 minutes. For the cream, mix the gelatine with the water, heat it, and set aside to cool. Mix the cottage cheese with the icing sugar, vanilla sugar, vanilla extract, the zest of a lemon, and the lemon juice. Carefully fold the cooled gelatine and the whipped cream into the mixture. Remove the parchment paper from the cooledsponge and pour the sugar syrup on it. Cover it with the cream, then put it into the fridge. For the coating, melt the chocolate with the oil over steam. When it is cooled, pour it on top of the cottage cheese and put the cake back to the fridge before serving.

source: Daily News Hungary

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