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The winter season has a unique charm, albeit with a slight hint of sadness. Sometimes the monochrome landscape outside the window and the longing for summer become unbearable. Fortunately, there is a proven remedy for the obsessive winter blues. Homemade cakes, imbued with a soothing comfort and the warmth of caring hands, will not leave a trace of a gloomy mood. We offer you to try several win-win recipes with rare, but such favorite winter gifts of nature. The KENWOOD kitchen machine will help you prepare treats according to the notes.
Berry memories of summer
Have you already missed the summer? Then bake an open berry pie. It’s not for nothing that fresh-frozen berries are at our disposal all year round. Only we will make the dough not the usual shortbread, but nutty. To do this, chop 200 g of almonds into crumbs. The KENWOOD kitchen assistant with a low-speed grater attachment will quickly and efficiently cope with this task. All you have to do is install drum No. 5 with a fine grater, pour the toasted nuts into it and press the button. Just a few seconds, and you will have a crumbly nut crumb. Combine it with 300 g of flour and a pinch of salt, add 180 g of softened butter, knead the elastic dough. A food processor attachment will help a lot in this. The multifunctional nozzle not only grinds the ingredients perfectly, but also easily kneads the dough with the addition of butter, which is perfect in consistency. Just do not forget to pour 5-7 tablespoons of cold water into the bowl during the kneading process.
The finished dough is rolled into a ball, wrapped in plastic wrap and sent to the refrigerator for an hour. Then we roll it out into a layer slightly larger in diameter than your baking dish. We lubricate it with oil, tamp the dough, cut off the excess at the edges to get smooth sides.
For the filling, it is best to take several types of berries of different colors weighing 300-400 g. After defrosting the berry assortment in advance, dry it and mix it with 2 tablespoons of corn starch. If there is not enough sweetness, add a little sugar to taste. We put the berries in a form with a sand base, put them in the oven at 180°C, bake for about half an hour. Let the pie cool down a little, and you can treat everyone who is nearby.
Mushroom abundance under the cheese crust
Many people associate winter with mushrooms. Why don’t we please our relatives with a fragrant mushroom quiche? Knead the dough for it from 150 g of frozen butter, 500 g of flour, one egg and 100 ml of ice water. You need to do this very quickly with your hands, otherwise the oil will start to melt, and the desired effect will not work. It is much more convenient and reliable to resort to the help of a nozzle-a food processor again. Due to the rapid rotation of the universal knife for chopping and chopping, the dough turns out soft, elastic and durable. It does not stick to your hands at all — it is easy to assemble it in a lump to put it in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. And since the nozzle also saturates the flour with gluten, the finished pastry remains lush and soft for a very long time.
While the dough is “resting”, we will just do the filling. We cut an onion into a cube and 400 g of any wild mushrooms at your discretion. Use the nozzle for dicing, and in a matter of seconds you will get beautiful even pieces of the same size. We heat a frying pan with vegetable oil, fry the onion with mushrooms, seasoning with salt and your favorite dry herbs.
We will also need to grate 100 g of any hard cheese. A low-speed grater-slicer will perfectly cope with this. Use a drum with a large grater to make the cheese chips more appetizing. Gradually bring 300 ml of cream with a fat content of 33% to a boil, remove from the heat, mix 4 yolks, salt and pepper to taste — our filling is ready.
We roll out the cooled dough into a layer 5-6 mm thick, put it in a baking dish, form the sides. Fill the base with mushroom filling, evenly pour cream with yolks, sprinkle liberally with grated cheese. Bake the pie in the oven at 180°C for about 20-25 minutes. Be sure to serve it hot, while the cheese stretches with appetizing threads, and a delicious mushroom aroma spreads everywhere.
Pear-apple delight
Late varieties of apples and pears, dizzyingly fragrant, juicy and sweet, are just asking for a charlotte. To make it a success, you need to prepare an immaculate sponge cake. This means that we can not do without a whisk attachment for whipping. It’s all about a special spherical springy shape, due to which air is actively pumped, and the liquid ingredients are whipped into a silky air mass. As a result, the biscuit dough acquires the maximum possible volume, does not settle during the baking process, and the finished baking turns out lush and tender.
So, we combine 4 eggs and 200 g of sugar in the bowl of the KENWOOD kitchen machine, beat it into a homogeneous foam mass. Without stopping, we gradually pour 130 g of flour and let the dough knead properly. Meanwhile, we peel a dense pear and a larger green apple, remove the core, cut the pulp into thin slices. Here, the help of a high-speed vegetable cutter nozzle will be very valuable. To do this, install a cutting disc with a large grater for fine shredding. He will cope with the task in two accounts, so the biscuit dough will not have time to fall off, and the fruits themselves will not darken.
We lubricate the baking dish with butter, spread a few fruit slices beautifully. The remaining part is carefully mixed into the dough and immediately poured into the mold. Bake the charlotte in the oven at 180°C for half an hour. We open the door at the very end, otherwise the air dough will fall off, and the pie will sag in the middle. When it cools down a little, turn the mold onto a dish so that the fruit slices are on top. Sprinkle the warm charlotte with cinnamon and immediately serve it to tea. Do not forget to put a ball of vanilla ice cream on a plate with a portion of treats.
Muffins the color of the sun
Pumpkin has rightfully earned the title of queen of winter vegetables. Another argument in favor of this is the original pumpkin muffins. To create a special flavor, we will add fragrant spices to the traditional dough. Combine 250 g of flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp ginger and salt, ¼ tsp ground cloves, nutmeg on the tip of a knife in a deep bowl.
Now you need to beat 130 g of butter, 2 large eggs and 130 g of brown sugar into a homogeneous mass. And then we will introduce flour with spices in small portions. To beat the ingredients with a conventional mixer, it will take a lot of time and effort, because it needs to be continuously rotated in the same direction for several minutes. While the nozzle-a food processor will cope with this task much faster. And moreover, without the slightest effort on your part.
We will devote this time to other tasks. For example, we will make a puree from a pre-cooked pumpkin. Entrust this task to a heat-resistant glass blender nozzle. You can put a hot pumpkin in it directly from the pan — a special glass is just designed for high temperatures. Sharp stainless steel blades will instantly turn the juicy pulp into a smooth puree without a single lump. In total, we will need 300-400 g of pumpkin.
The dough in the bowl has already reached the desired consistency, so you can mix pumpkin puree. Last of all, add 1 tsp. vanilla extract. We lubricate the muffin molds with butter, fill the dough for three quarters, put it in the oven preheated to 180°C for 20 minutes. If desired, you can put pumpkin seeds, raisins, pine nuts, coconut chips and everything you want in the dough. Such muffins will fly off the plate even faster.
Winter baking is beautiful in all its manifestations, and it is especially pleasant to fantasize with its recipes. The KENWOOD kitchen machine will help you turn any fantasies into amazing treats for the whole family. Cooking together with this reliable, executive and intelligent assistant is a real pleasure. After all, it easily copes with the most time-consuming and tedious tasks, saving your time and effort. Together with her, it is so easy to feel like a virtuoso chef and really enjoy the process of cooking homemade cakes.