Maple Almond Muffins

Happy Sunday! I hope you are all having a great weekend!

It’s been a kind of a slow week as we were dealing with very cold and stormy weather, which lead to 3 cancelled school days and exams being pushed forward several times. It was a bit of a mess.

These Maple Almond Muffins are our delicious Sunday afternoon treat, using spelt flour and sweetened with maple syrup. It’s yummy and not too sweet.

 

Maple Almond Muffins

Ingredients:

• 175 g butter, melted
• 180 ml maple syrup
• 4 eggs, yolk and whites separated
• pinch of salt
• 125 g spelt flour
• 150 g ground almonds
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

-Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare 10 -12 muffin tins.

-Mix together the butter and maple syrup. Add the egg yolks one at the time, mixing well.

-In a separate bowl whip the egg whites, with the salt and baking powder, until stiff peaks form.

-Add the flour, almonds and egg whites, a little at the time, and carefully mix under the butter mixture. Mix until combined, do not overmix.

-Fill into prepared muffin tins and bake in preheated 375F oven for 10 minutes then set oven to 350F and finish bake another 20 minutes or until golden brown and tester inserted comes out clean.

-Let cool completely.

Enjoy!

Ursula

 

You can find me on Instagram: littleswisslittlecanadian

 

 

 

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Soft Gingerbread Cookies

Happy First Sunday of Advent!

It is our tradition to light an Advent candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas. Tonight will be our first candle.

We’ve done some decorating today and we had some of these gingerbread cookies for our afternoon treat:) They are so yummy, I’ve used coconut sugar and spelt flour. Needless to say they are almost all gone already! These cookies have a lovely ginger flavor from the freshly grated ginger.

 

Soft Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups spelt flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup coconut sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 4 tbsp coconut sugar

Instructions:

-Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

-Mix together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt.

-In a large bowl cream together the butter and coconut sugar. Beat in the egg, then add the water and molasses.

-Stir in the dry ingredients until well combined.

-Shape the dough into walnut sized balls and roll them in the 4 tablespoons of sugar.

-Place the cookies on prepared cookie sheets, leaving some space between the cookies. You don’t need to flatten them.

-Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. Do not overbake. They will harden still a bit while cooling.

-Makes about 25-30 cookies. Store in an airtight container.

Tip: white or brown sugar and all-purpose flour can be used instead of coconut sugar and spelt flour.

 

Happy December!

Enjoy!

Ursula

 

You can find me on Instagram: littleswisslittlecanadian

 

 

 

 

Cheesecake with Apples and Streusel / Quarkkuchen mit Streusel

In Switzerland you traditionally make a cheesecake using Quark not cream cheese. That is the only way I knew it. The first time I had a New York style cheesecake was when I came to Canada, I did not really like it back then, I found it very “cheese” tasting;) But as with many things, you get used to new flavors and tastes and you start loving it.

I don’t eat so much dairy anymore, also my husband and kids have some problems with dairy, that’s why I haven’t made this in a long time. It’s a recipe from my 1982 Betty Bossi book: Kuchen, Cakes and Torten

This is a very rich, delicious cake. Tastes best after 2 -3 days.

 

Cheesecake with Apples and Streusel

Quarkkuchen mit Streusel

• 250 g butter, soft
• 125 g sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or vanilla extract
• 2 egg yolks
• 375 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder

-Line the bottom of a Springform with parchment paper. Grease the sides.

-In a large bowl stir the butter. Add the sugar, salt and vanilla sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix until lighter in color.

– Mix the flour and baking powder and sift into the butter mixture. Stir until well combined. It will be a soft dough. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

-Take 1/4 of the dough, it will be used as the streusel, and set aside.

-Roll out half of the remaining dough directly on the Springform base. Close the form and use the rest of the dough to form the side crust, all the way to the top.

-Prick the bottom evenly with a fork and refrigerate for another 15 minutes.

 

Quark-filling  

• 3 x 350 g Quark
• 200-250 g sugar
• 1 pk vanilla sugar or 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 50 g corn starch

-In a large bowl mix all ingredients together.

• 2-3 apples, peeled and thinly sliced

-layer apples evenly onto prepared crust. Cover with the filling. It will be very full. Cover with streusel (crumble the remaining dough).

-I put the form onto a baking sheet, there was some liquid coming out while baking.

-Bake in preheated oven 350F/180C for about 85 minutes. You might have to cover it with aluminum foil to prevent to much browning. The filling might seem a bit wiggly still, but it will firm up while cooling. Let cool in form, before releasing.

-Dust with some icing sugar.

-Cover and keep in refrigerator for up to 5 days. Make the cake at least 1 day in advance, it will taste even better after a few days.

 

 

*Quark is available in larger grocery stores here in Canada. In 350 g cups. There is only the 0% fat available. If you are in Europe you can get different kinds, use a full fat and lower fat quark in the mix.

*I sweetened the whole cake with only honey, same amount as the sugar.

 

I hope you try this wonderful cake!

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Ursula