Danish style cocoa and rum balls

I will be off to Finland tomorrow to spend Christmas with my family. I still have a few posts prepared for next week, so there will be more posts, but then I will probably be quiet for a few days and just relax at home. What are your Christmas plans this year?

Now to this sweet recipe. Every time I go to Denmark or Sweden I just have to have these cocoa and rum balls. They are so tasty and incredibly filling, as they are so dense. It's good that you don't manage to eat too many of them, as they are full of butter and sugar.

I thought that these balls would be a nice idea for Christmas as well. There's no baking involved, it's all very simple to make. I adapted my version from Kim's recipe for Cocoa oat balls Havregrynskugler at the Nordic Food & Living blog.

Danish style cocoa and rum balls

Adapted from Nordic Food & Living blog's recipe

Ingredients

For the dough:

280 g oat flakes

225 g soft butter

200 g sugar

6 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tsp almond extract

4 tbsp coconut oil

4 tbsp rum

For decorating:

Desiccated coconut

Hazelnut crunch

Cocoa powder

Method

Just mix all ingredients into an even dough, and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Then shape balls from the dough.

Roll the balls in desiccated coconut, hazelnut crunch and cocoa powder, or in anything else that you can think.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Southbank Winter Festival

Last weekend I visited the Christmas market / Winter Festival by the Southbank Centre in London. I also went to their usual street food market, which is always nice.

I always like coming to this area, but before Christmas there's a special atmosphere, tasty food, nice drinks, good street music and jolly people. There was even a spectacular sunset to behold towards the Houses of Parliament.

Here are some photos I took there. Have you been to lovely Christmas markets and fairs this year?

Chestnut and squash balls

Here comes another Christmas recipe, but slightly different to the regular vegetarian roast dinners. These are chestnut and squash balls, which were marvellous in crusty bread with spicy sauces, cheese and baby spinach. Chillies are not usually used in my Christmas cooking, but maybe I have been wrong, as this combination was really lovely. 

These sandwiches could be something to serve for guests or just to have a pretty ultimate Christmas roll for work lunch. Of course these balls can also be served with salad or vegetables or anything else you can think of.

Chestnut and squash balls (about 16 balls)

Ingredients

1 small onion squash

Olive oil

1 cup cooked black badger peas

240 g cooked and peeled chestnuts

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp sea salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

Breadcrumbs for coating

2 half ciabattas or baguettes

Tomato sauce

Chilli pickle

Baby spinach

Havarti cheese

Method

Cut the squash into cubes, roast them in the oven, and mash when cooked.

Purée the cooked black badger peas and crush the chestnuts coarsely.

Chop the onion and garlic finely and cook in the pan until soft.

Purée the cooked black badger peas and mic with the onion squash mash. Also add in the chestnuts by breaking them, but not fully mashing.

Season the mix and shape balls from it. Coat them with breadcrumbs.

Bake the balls at 200 C for about 25 minutes until crispy.

Serve them for example on ciabatta breads with tomato sauce, chilli pickle, baby spinach and cheese.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Butterbean, red pea and lentil curry

It's a huge honour for me to be hosting My Legume Love Affair cooking challenge edition #102 this month. Today's recipe is my entry for the challenge and it's quite full of legumes. It contains butterbeans, red fox maple peas and red lentils all cooked together with some warming curry flavours. These different pulses give it a really nice texture and of course it's high in protein too. I served the curry with yellow rice and it was just the perfect dinner. This is my kind of dish especially in the winter, and it's vegan.

Butterbean, red pea and lentil curry

Ingredients

1 can / 240 g butterbeans

1 cup cooked red fox maple peas

1 cup cooked red lentils

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

4 small red chillies

2 cm fresh ginger

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp garam masala spice mix

200 g vine tomatoes

160 ml coconut cream

1 tsp turmeric

1 tbsp ground fenugreek seeds

1 tbsp curry leaves

2 tbsp tomato purée

Bunch of fresh coriander

Yellow rice on the side (turmeric, cloves and onion seeds)

Method

Chop the onion, garlic, chillies and ginger finely. Start cooking the onions in vegetable oil until browned. Then add the garlic, chillies and ginger.

Mix in the garam masala and cook for a couple of minutes.

Chop the vine tomatoes coarsely and add them to the pan. Cook them down under the lid for about 10 minutes.

Then add the coconut cream to the panfollowed by the seasoning and the cooked beans, peas and lentils.

Let simmer and the flavours blend until you are happy with the dish.

In the meanwhile prepare the yellow rice by cooking some basmati rice with turmeric and adding cloves and onion seeds to it for serving.

Serve the curry with the rice and enjoy!

So here is my My Legume Love Affair post for December. The event was originally created by Susan from Well Seasoned Cook and now hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen with monthly variating co-hosts. Please do take part, if you have the possibility, it's great fun!

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

Brazil and macadamia nut buns

Any nutty baking is nice for Christmas, and these nutty buns are just perfect for it. These are slightly naughty with a buttery filling, but not too sweet and very hard to resist. My partner's colleagues seemed to clean these away as if there was no tomorrow. I'm sure that these are very pleasing for many different occasions.

I adapted my nut bun recipe from the Pähkinäpullat recipe that I found in a Finnish magazine Kotiliesi. These could be vegan buns, if you don't use butter for the dough and filling.

This recipe makes about 12 buns.

Brazil and macadamia nut buns

Ingredients

Bun dough:

250 ml hazelnut milk

2 tbsp dry yeast

1 egg

1 dl sugar

½ tbsp vanilla sugar

½ tbsp ground green cardamom seeds

1 tsp salt

7 dl wheat flour

100 g butter or margarine

Filling:

1 dl macadamia nuts

1 dl brazil nuts

50 g butter or margarine

½ dl sugar

1 egg for brushing

Method

Mix the dry yest with the lukewarm hazelnut milk and then mix in the other dough ingredients. Let the dough rise for at least 30 minutes.

Prepare the filling by chopping the nuts into coarse pieces. Mix the soft butter or margarine with the sugar.

Roll the bun dough out, about 2-3 cm thick and spread the filling onto it. Roll the dough and cut into pieces. Place the pieces into muffin cases and let rise for further 15 minutes under a tea towel.

Brush the buns with egg and bake at 250 C for about 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Swiss cheese fondue

A friend of mine got me this chocolate fondue set for Christmas last year, but it hasn't been used until now. And for its actual purpose as a chocolate fondue set it will probably never be used in this household, as we are just crazy about cheese. So I thought it would be actually nice to make a Swiss style cheese fondue and eat it with a good baguette.

A while ago I was watching the BBC programme Great Continental Railway Journeys by Michael Portillo, the episode where he travels in Switzerland (Zermatt to Geneva, series 5), which motivated me even more to finally use the fondue pot. Portillo ate fondue on a train in Switzerland and that was just magnificent. What amazing train catering! I hope to be able to do that one day, but this time it was just in our living room, which was maybe easier than on a moving train.

Before making the fondue I consulted several traditional recipes and made my own recipe based on them, which can be found below. This worked very well, the cheese mixture stayed smooth and it was easy to dip the bread in there. The hint of white wine was very nice. I chose the combination of Gruyere and Emmental cheeses, as both are my favourites, and they did work very well in this.

Swiss cheese fondue

Ingredients

200 g Gruyere cheese

200 g Emmental cheese

200 ml dry white wine

1 tsp corn flour

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

1 garlic clove

2 small baguettes

Method

Grate the cheeses.

Heat the white wine gently in a saucepan at low heat and then stir the corn flour in. Stir it so that it's smooth. I decided to use a whisk for all stirring to make sure, that the mixture stayed smooth at all times.

Then add the grated cheese gradually by whisking it in. Keep the heat low throughout. There should be light bubbling, but no boiling.

Season the mix with a sprinkle of ground black pepper.

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with garlic before pouring the cheese mixture in.

Cut the bread into small cubes.

Light a small candle underneath the pot and start dipping.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Roasted pepper and cashew tart

This week continues very warm, and today it's even rainy. Of course now that it's Saturday! What are you planning for the weekend? I changed my plans for today last minute due to the miserable heavy rain forecasts. Tomorrow should be sunny, so maybe that'll be okay. I think I will mostly stay at home today and maybe cook something Christmassy and have mulled wine.

I made this roasted pepper and cashew tart a while ago while planning nice things to cook for my family at Christmas. I think that all sorts of tarts and small savoury bakes are perfect for Christmas. After that I might not want to see puff pastry for a while, but now it's all tasty and good. I used a large amount of different peppers in this dish, and the sweetness of the roasted peppers was just beautiful. The cheese and cashew additions were perfect as well. If you would like more kick to this tart, you can also roast some large chillies and sprinkle them on the tart. So here comes my recipe.

Roasted pepper and cashew tart

Ingredients

6-8 peppers in different shapes, sizes and colours

Olive oil

3 small shallots

2 garlic cloves

Salt and ground black pepper

Handful of cashew nuts

200 g grated Emmental cheese

320 g puff pastry sheet

Method

Cut the peppers into generous pieces and brush them with olive oil. Roast the peppers in the oven for at least 30 minutes or until fully roasted.

Chop the shallots and garlic finely and cook them in a pan in olive oil until soft. Season them with salt and pepper.

Also lightly toast the coarsely chopped cashew nuts in a dry pan. They will toast some more during the baking.

Spread out the puff pastry sheet and place the shallot mix on it, followed by the cheese, roasted vegetables and cashew nuts.

Bake in the oven at 180 C for about 20 minutes until the pastry has risen and is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog