Author: Ester van Boesschoten

Kringelen Cookies

Posted on by Ester van Boesschoten

One of my favorite things to do is visit second-hand bookstores looking for old recipe books. I found this book in sunny California. Finding a Dutch cookbook in America is rare, so I just had to buy it. 

 

I recall my mom having this cookbook at home when I was young, but I never had Kringelen cookies, so this recipe intrigued me. The combination of cinnamon and lemon sounded delicious. I added some vanilla and salt to the recipe to add more flavor.

 

The trickiest part was figuring out the oven temperature to bake them. The recipe said to bake them “in a somewhat warm oven”…. So after making the dough I had to do a couple of trial bakes to determine an exact temperature. I played with different shapes of the cookies, making both donut and pretzel shapes. Forming the dough in a log and cutting round cookies gave the best end result.

I hope you will enjoy this easy and delicious recipe as cub as we did.

Print Recipe

Kringelen cookies

Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time17 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: cookies
Keyword: cinnamon, cookies
Author: Ester van Boesschoten

Ingredients

  • 3 Cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 Cup unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 1 egg at room temperature
  • 2 Tsp cinnamon
  • 1 Zest lemon
  • 1/2 Tsp salt
  • 1 Tsp pure vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Measure flour, salt, cinnamon and the zest of the lemon. Add into a mixing bowl and whisk together.
  • Add the softened butter and sugar to a bowl of a stand mixer. Cream together on medium high speed for about 5 minutes, until it is fluffy, airy and lighter in color. Make sure to incorporate all the sugar.
  • Add the vanilla extract, egg. Cream together until well blended.
  • Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet until incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix.
  • Turn out the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently form the dough into a disk. Cut the dough into 4 quarters.
  • Form each quarter shape into a round log shape about 1-11/2“ diameter cylinder.
  • Wrap your dough in plastic food wrap and twist the ends so it is airtight.
  • Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. This allows the dough to set and hold its shape nicely when baking.
  • Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
  • Remove dough logs from the fridge and unroll on a cutting board. Using a dough scraper or sharp knife to slice the log into ¼” – ½” thick cookies. Arrange them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet with about 1” of space on all sides.
  • Bake for 15-17 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the bake. They should come out with a golden ring around the edge and be firm to the touch, with just a bit of give in the center. 
  • Use the dough scraper to transfer them to the cooling rack. Let sit until completely cooled

Notes

*Inspired by: Amsterdamse huishoudschool from CJ Wannee.

Whole Wheat Bread

Posted on by Ester van Boesschoten

 

After relocating from the Netherlands to the USA, over 10 years ago, I found it really hard to find good bread. They were all way too sweet for my preference. 

We quickly bought a bread machine, which did the job well until our little family grew and needed more than what the bread machine typically made. So I started baking them by hand and went looking for a good bread recipe. With a lot of trial and error I found a recipe that worked for our family. This recipe is a combination of many recipes I have baked. I kept a little notebook where I added things, modifying it till we enjoyed this final result. It is pretty diverse. You can add as much or as little rolled oats and whole wheat flour as you like. It all depends on your preference. As long as you carefully add the flour in the end, keeping a close eye to see when the dough is just right. It takes some practice to learn the right consistency but you will get it! 

*Dough after the first rise

*Dough after the second rise

 

 

Print Recipe

Whole wheat bread

Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time35 minutes
Cuisine: Bread
Keyword: Bread, sandwich bread, Whole wheat bread
Author: Ester van Boesschoten

Ingredients

  • 2.5 Cups lukewarm water (90-ish Farhenheit) plus more if needed
  • 1.5 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 2/3 Cup raw honey
  • 1/4 Cup coconut oil in liquid form
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 3 Cups whole wheat flour
  • 3 Cups bread flour more if needed
  • 1 Cup Rolled oats *

Instructions

  • Combine the water, honey and the yeast in a mixing bowl. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
  • After 10 minutes add the rolled oats and other preferred ingredients like chai seeds etc. Add the coconut oil and salt too. Mix this in gently.
  • Add one cup of wheat flour at a time while the mixer is on. Adding in the next cup of flour after the previous one is completely incorporated into the dough. Next, add the bread flour one cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the mixing bowl and doesn’t stick to your hands. It should not feel too dry. If you have added too much flour and it feels dry, don’t worry, just add a little extra coconut oil or warm water. You want the dough to be stretchy and slightly tacky.
  • Once the dough has the right consistency knead it for 10 minutes with the machine or by hand.
  • After 10 minutes, cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour and 30 minutes. You want it to rise until it is doubled in size in a warm draft free location.
  • After the first rise, cut the dough in half on a dry floured surface. Shape each half of the dough into loaves and place them in oiled bread loaf pans. 
  • Cover them with a clean dish towel and let them rise for around 1 hour and 15 minutes or until they doubled in size.
  • Preheat your oven at 350 Fahrenheit.
  • After the second rise, place your loaves in the warm oven and bake them for 30-35 minutes until they are nice golden brown. The should sound hollow when you knock on the bottom. 
  • Take them out of the loaf pans and butter the top right away. Let them cool completely.

Notes

* The rolled oats you can add as much or as little as you prefer 1/4 cup-1 cup

Lemon cake

Posted on by Ester van Boesschoten

Started with the recipe from baking the goods: lemon olive oil cake. My batter was super thin and dripping out of my pan. So had to open the oven way to many times to clean up and place something under it to catch the drip. Also took the cake out of the oven way to soon so it was still a bit wet and dense. Regardless I loved loved the taste! Started to look online for more recipes for lemon cakes. After searching and looking at different recipes I tried again.

This time I used butter instead of olive oil. And more baking powder. The smell out of the oven was amazing! When it was time to take the cake out and cut it I was super happy with the end results. 

Hope you all enjoy baking this one too. 



Ingredients

  • 175 gram unsalted butter, very soft. And some extra for greasing the tin.
  • 250 gram cane sugar
  • 1 lemon
  • 3 large eggs, at room temperature 
  • 250 gram cake flour or regular flour
  • 3 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 115 ml milk, at room temperature 

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven at 350 F. Prep a loaf pan with butter. Then cut a long strip of parchment the width of the loaf pan. Press the paper into the loaf pan so it covers the base and the sides. 
  2. Put the soft butter and sugar in the mixing bowl.
  3. In a mixing bowl, sift and add the flour, baking powder. Wisk in the lemon zest.
  4. Mix the butter and sugar till the sugar is fully incorporated in the butter. After that add one egg at the time and mix well after each egg.
  5. When everything is well combined mix in the flour mixture in 3 additions. 
  6. Add the milk and the juice of the one lemon and mix until it is incorporated.
  7. Pour the batter in the prepared loaf pan.
  8. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  9. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then remove from the pan and sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.
  10. Enjoy!