Chocolate Filled Strawberries - the other way!

Since I went to the strawberry field again yesterday, I had the chance to pick some rather big strawberries to finally try out this fantastic recipe for chocolate-filled strawberries (idea from this blog). I used 50 g white und 100 g milk chocolate. Finally -  chocolate strawberries that you can eat without getting your fingers sticky! :-)

Hollerkiachl ("Elderflower Pancakes") with Raspberry Puree

Hollerkiachl are another seasonal and very regional (typical Bavarian) dish made from elderflower umbels that are coated in a pancake batter and baked or fried in oil. You can use the convenient stems of the elderflowers as a handle. Hollerkiachl can also be made with a beer-based batter (German recipe, I'm afraid there is no English one), but I used ordinary pancake batter for the first try - also because I didn't have any beer ;-)

This time, I've found an elderflower tree which was situated in a less dangerous environment (far fewer ants!) and escaped unharmed - that makes the Kiachl taste eben better!

Potato Bread from the Tray

We had potato bread accompanying a menu of 3 courses in a fancy restaurant once and loved it, and while trying to find a recipe for that potato bread, I discovered Chefkoch.de. So this is the very first of many recipes that I got from Chefkoch.de, and a good start it was! The bread is very easy to bake and always turns out delicious for me. You can keep the ingredients on stock, such that you're always prepared for the spontaneous barbecue party on Sunday afternoon when bread is nowhere to be bought - and in addition, I think no other bread better suits a barbecue than this one! I made a little change to the Chefkoch.de recipe, so this is my variant described below.

Sophia's Quick Chocolate Muffins

For our niece's first birthday, I made chocolate muffins with toy building blocks made from edible play do. She didn't eat any of them, however, apparently she's one of these strange children who like only healthy food - no cake! Well, she's not related to me, otherwise it would be even stranger ;-) I used funny colorful paper muffin forms instead of the baking paper squares for a change. They muffin forms are also better for seeing the decorations of top of the muffins!

Bavarian "Bread and Salt"

I love "Bread and Salt" as a present for someone's housewarming party - you can always use it, even if many guests had the idea to give you bread and salt, and the symbolism (the bread stands for food, the salt for wealth) is also nice. The German saying that goes with it is "Brot und Salz, Gott erhalt's" ("bread and salt, may god keep it for you").
If you want to gift-wrap the bread and salt in a traditional way, a wooden cutting board serves nicely, and here in traditional Bavaria, everybody loves a "Royal Bavarian Snack Plate". Since I had seen one of these readymade only once (during Oktoberfest) and I thought it would be nicer still to include the host's name, I made the plate myself this time. The Bavarian coat of arms shouldn't be missing, so I decided to put it on the bread. I baked the bread in the wooden baskets from here, and I included a jar of Rhubarb-Strawberry-Chutney, as we were invited for a barbecue.

Solder-Burning - Herb Garden Markers and Bread Cutting Boards

Sometimes, the baked works of art require an adequately fancy presentation and today I want to introduce one way of creating such a presentation: I call it solder-burning, using a soldering iron to burn shapes into wooden objects. I had the idea when I wanted to make little markers for my herb garden out of wooden popsicle sticks, and some of these popsicle sticks already have this kind of burnt print on them. Since it worked very well with the popsicle sticks and I recently needed a "Royal Bavarian Snack Plate" to present the "Bread and Salt" for a friend, I thought it was a nice idea to also write his name on the board and progressed to the next and rather bigger object - check it out!

Red Wine Cake with Edible Play Do Tokens for the Step Counting Competition

At DLR, we had a step counting competition several weeks ago that was a lot of fun. The goal was for everyone to become a bit fitter, using step counters to see how far (or not far at all) we walk each day - and of course to compete against the other departments while motivating each other to be more active! The competition ran virtually through all German DLR sites from Berlin to Oberpfaffenhofen, and you could look at your progress in the form of these cute tokens. My department didn't win, but since we came first of all the space operations departments, we have definitely earned a cake :-)

Rhubarb-Strawberry-Chutney

The name Chutney comes from the Indian cuisine and refers to a family of condiments,  often involving spices and fruits. Chutneys used to be prepared fresh until the British adopted the custom of preserving chutneys using sugar and vinegar, similar to the principle of preserving jams. With strawberries that you harvest yourself, the chutney tastes especially delicious! 
All  chutneys are a great condiment for grilled meat, but also for cheese and fish or Rice&Curry dishes of the Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine!