Summer Cake with Strawberries, Lemon and Yogurt

In summer, waking up in the morning to warm sunshine and a blue sky feels so good. But it feels even better when you know that there's a freshly baked strawberry cake waiting for you to eat it for breakfast. Well, I must correct myself: not only for breakfast, but all day long. Seriously, this cake is perfect at any time. Serve it with a spoonful of lightly sweetened plain greek yogurt on top and there you go - the most delicious summer dessert of all time!

Strawberry Summer Cake

batter
150gm butter or margarine, at room temperature
150gm white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
a pinch of ground nutmeg
a pinch of ground cinnamon
3 eggs
zest of 1 lemon (about 2 tsp)
280gm regular white flour
2 tsp baking powder
130gm plain yogurt or buttermilk

+ about 300gm of fresh fruits, cut in halves or pieces or slices - I was using 1 large nectarine cut in thin slices and about 20 large strawberries cut in halves. What kind of seasonal fruit you add totally depends on your taste. blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, pears, apricots, nectarines, kiwi, rhubarb - add anything you wish.

Preheat your oven to 200 C. Line a medium size round baking pan with baking paper but do not grease the sides of the pan. Place soft butter, sugar, lemon zest, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl and beat using a hand mixer on high speed until fluffy for about a minute. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. In another bowl sift together flour and baking powder and sieve it over the wet mixture, quickly beating it in. The batter should be very dry and sticky. Now add the yogurt or buttermilk and quickly beat it in as well making sure that everything is well incorporated. Now the batter should be extremely fluffy, light and smooth. Put the batter into the lined baking pan spreading it evenly. Arrange all the pieces or slices of fruit on top of the batter and lightly press them in. Now prepare the crumble mixture...

crumbles

30gm butter or margarine, at room temperature

30gm sugar

50gm regular white flour

a pinch of salt

Combine the ingredients for the crumbles in a bowl and beat using a hand mixer on low speed for about 10 seconds, just until the mixture is lumpy and crumbly, and arrange the crumbles on top of the cake onto the fruits. Put everything in the oven and bake for about 45 minutes until done and nicely golden. Let it cool completely and then remove the cake from the baking pan. Enjoy ...

Simple Oatmeal Yogurt Cookies

Honestly, this needs no introduction. These cookies are extremely easy to make and they're perfect for breakfast, just have them with a cup of simple hot coffee or (if you are into yogurt like I am) cut some fruits that you like in small pieces, mix them with half a cup of plain yogurt and crumble some oatmeal cookies on top, and voilà - another delicious breakfast is ready!

Simple Oatmeal Yogurt Cookies
makes about 2 dozen medium size cookies

1 cup simple white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tabsp butter
3/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup yogurt

1 1/2 cups oats (any kind you like, I was using quick cooking oats. Use old-fashioned rolled oats if you prefer cookies that are more crispy and chunky)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. Cream together butter and sugar using an electric mixer on high speed. Add the egg and yogurt, mix well. In another bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt and sieve the dry mixture over the wet mixture, mix everything together. Now fold in the oats. For one cookie drop about one tablespoon of the batter on the lined baking sheets (or about one teaspoon of batter for smaller size cookies). When dropping the small portions of batter on the sheet, make sure to leave some space in between as the cookies will slightly spread while baking. Bake for about 10 - 12 minutes until nicely golden and done. Enjoy.

Semolina Flatbread

As you may already know my all-time favorite is yeasted dough. Though I love bread and especially baking bread by myself, I mostly use it for sweet things e.g. buns, brioche or challah. My friendship with yeasted dough began with cinnamon raisin buns which are - honestly - the love of my life. Eating them warm when they're still fresh from the oven makes me weak. I could literally eat them all day long. 

This time I came up with an non-sweet recipe with yeast dough: arabic semolina flatbread. Coming from a country with an extreme arabic and jewish influence, flatbread has always been sort of a must-have on our table. No matter if plain or spicey, thick or thin, crispy or soft, chewy or oily, it is usually eaten with everything, either with meat or rice and vegetables. And soaking a piece of flatbread in a left-over salad dressing or sauce is just culinary heaven! Seriously, who needs meat when there's flatbread and salad dressing?

This recipe for semolina flatbread is very easy, no dough braiding, no swirling, no complicated forming. But the result is stunning. An extremely soft and fluffy inside and some toasted sesame seeds on top. The semolina goes just great in flatbread, as it gives a slightly cakey consistency to the bread and a nice yellow color. 

Semolina flatbread

20gm fresh yeast (or 2 tsp dry active yeast)
175ml warm water
250gm semolina
250gm white flour
1.5 tsp salt
125ml olive oil
1 egg (for brushing)
3 Tabsp sesame seeds (for sprinkling)

Crumble the fresh yeast into the warm water, stir a little bit and let sit for a few minutes until the mixture starts to become light and bubbly. In a large glass bowl, sift together semolina, flour and salt. Add the bubbly yeast mixture and olive oil, gently mix using a wooden spatula or spoon. If the dough seems to be dry, add a little bit more water, if it seems too wet, add some sieved flour. Now remove the dough from the glass bowl and start kneading it on a slightly floured surface for about 2 - 3 minutes until it becomes very soft and elastic. Put it back in the glass bowl, cover with a kitchen towel or a plastic wrap and leave it at a very warm place for about 60 - 90 minutes until the dough has doubled in size. Meanwhile line two large baking sheets with baking paper. Remove from the glass bowl and knead again for about 1 minute. Devide the dough in two parts. Place each part on a lined baking sheet and roll it out using a rolling pin or simply your hands. The dough should be 2 - 3 cm high/thick (about 1 inch). (It doesn't have to look perfectly even, the more natural and messy it looks, the better it will taste...) Leave the two baking sheets at a very warm place again for about 30 minutes until the dough has slightly risen. Preheat your oven to 200 C. Beat the egg and brush the top of the risen dough. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for about 30 minutes until nicely golden. Serve warm or cooled, both versions are delicious!

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies with Lemon & Raisins

The next batch is baked. And again: it's oatmeal cookies! My constant posts about different kinds of oatmeal cookies might be irretating or even annoying and I apologize for that, but I can't help it. Someday I might even write a book called 'Confessions of an Oatmeal Cookie Addict'. 

These cookies contain a little bit more sugar than I use in general which is a big minus for this recipe, but the extremely chewy consistency mixed with a fruity lemony taste as well as some raisins remains just unbeatable. I'm definitely adding this recipe to my list of favorites (which is probably endless) but nevertheless, I'm going to reduce the amount of sugar the next time.

Chewy Oatmeal Lemon Raisin Cookies
makes about 4 dozen medium to big size cookies

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups oats
1.5 cups sugar (as already said, for me 1 cup or even 3/4 might be enough, use as much as you wish)
3/4 cup oil
1 cup apple juice (or any juice you like)
a pinch of salt
2 tsp of finely grated lemon zest
200gm dark raisins

Line 3 - 4 baking sheets with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 200 C. (Yes those are baked at a very high temperature which gives them nicely crispy sides and a soft and chewy inside.) Whisk together flour and baking powder. Add the sugar, oil, apple juice, salt and lemon zest. Whisk well until incorporated. Now fold in the oats and raisins and mix well. For each cookie drop about 1 tsp of cookie batter onto the lined baking sheet, if you want medium size cookies. Use about half a teaspoon of batter for smaller cookies. Continue to drop the batter on the baking sheets leaving some space in between as the cookies will slightly melt and spread while baking. Bake for about 10 - 12 minutes. After 10 or 12 minutes they might still look undone but please do yourself a favour and don't leave them in the oven for longer than this, you don't want to end up with burned cookies that taste like wood. 10 minutes are perfectly fine. 

Enjoy them with some coffee or tea (I dunked them, as always...)

Simple Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (Eggless)

You definitely don't want to live without the experience of eating a fresh and still hot cookie with big melted chocolate chunks in it. Go one step further and sprinkle the top of the cookie dough with some sugar before baking, for a sweet and crunchy sugar crust. Then make yourself a cup of hot strong coffee or tea and dunk your fresh from the oven chocolate chip oatmeal cookie in it. If you think I'm overdoing it, you're mistaken. This can enormously sweeten up your life. And that's what cookies are made for, right?!

This is the first eggless oatmeal cookie recipe that I've ever tried. I'm actually not into eating vegan at all (I'm sorry, beef steak is my passion...) but I got this recipe from a very good friend of mine who is vegan. And since I needed to indulge my passion for oatmeal cookies I just had to bake them right away. As already said, they turned out really good, seriously. Although I - for some reason - prefer baking cookies using eggs, this is still a very simple and delicious recipe and I'm definitely going to bake these again as soon as possible.

Simple Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (Eggless)
makes about 20 medium size cookies

1 c sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch salt
2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c apple juice (or any juice you like)
2 c oats
100gm chocolate chips (or just regular chocolate, chopped in small pieces)

Preheat your oven to 150 C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients, just throw everything together and whisk well until you have a very sticky and lumpy dough. Drop tablespoons of batter on the lined baking sheets (I used between 1 and 1.5 tablespoons of dough for each cookie). Bake for about 25 minutes until done and nicely golden. Enjoy warm and fresh from the oven or completely cooled.

Optional: To get a nice sugar crust, sprinkle the top of the cookies with a little bit of sugar before you place them in the oven.

No-Yeast Plum Rolls

I admit it. Baking these plum rolls, I failed. Yes, they are very delicious and yes, they're full of fruity flavours but - they don't look nice. To be more exact, it was a complete mess. I know that the taste is much more important than the look but still, I wanted to have pretty and yummy plum rolls. No chance. Those were yummy but so not pretty. The sides of the rolls look smashed while the juice of the plums spread between the rolls while baking so it somehow looks like soaked. Horrible. But hey, you can't have everything in life, right?! Since they still tasted good after all I'll just have to make something up to bake beautiful and delicious plum rolls. And I've learned one thing from this, namely how to cover up something baked that turned out unpretty: Dust it with about a ton of icing sugar so that the whole mess is hidden under a thick layer of sugar and unrecognizable to anyone. That's it. You live and learn.

 

No-Yeast Plum Rolls

dough
150gm yogurt
50gm vegetable oil
100 - 150gm sugar (depends on whether you use sweetened or unsweetened yogurt)
1 tsp salt
1 egg
400gm flour

In a large bowl mix together yogurt, oil, sugar, salt and egg. Sieve over the flour and mix well. Knead the dough until it becomes very smooth and elastic. Roll out very thinly on a lightly floured surface or on a sheet of baking paper.

filling
2 cups plums, in very small pieces or slices
1 tsp cocoa powder
1 tsp sugar

Preheat your oven to 175 C. Combine the ingredients for the filling and arrange on top of the rolled out dough. Roll in the dough together with the filling inside and cut in 12 equal pieces/small rolls. Line a medium size round baking pan with baking paper and place the small plum rolls in the baking pan. Bake in the preheated oven for about 40 - 50 minutes until done. Let cool completely and dust with some icing sugar.

Carrot Cake #2

And here comes another attempt. Which - honestly - turned out as delicious as the first one (recipe here). I'll call this one 'my favorite fluffy carrot orange cake' and the other one 'my favorite moist carrot cinnamon cake'. Both oranges and cinnamon are excellent together with carrots and add that little something to a carrot cake. This time I was using a lot of freshly grated orange zest which gives the carrot cake not only a nicely fruity flavour but also a very intense orange color. And it's definitely 34510379582 x healthier to use natural products as food coloring than chemical substances, right?!

Extra Fluffy Carrot Orange Cake
makes two loaf cakes

2 cups white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
4 cups finely grated carrots
zest of 1 - 2 oranges (depends on how fruity you want your cake to be)

Line two medium size loaf pans with baking paper. Preheat your oven to 150 C. Place sugar and eggs in a large bowl and beat using a hand mixer on high speed until extremely foamy and light, for approximately 3 - 4 minutes. Add oil, orange zest and carrots and gently fold it in. Sieve over the flour together with baking powder and quickly beat in just until incoporated. Fill the batter in the prepared loaf pans and bake for about 1 hour. Let cool for a few minutes and then remove the cakes from the pans. Let cool completely.

Optional: Dust with some icing sugar.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Remember the chocolate-filled oatmeal cookies I posted some days ago? They made me an oatmeal-cookie-addict. It's actually quite hard to believe since I had never been into baking cookies that much. That has changed now. I've already tried a few batches of different cookie recipes, I've just taken two sheets of freshly baked cookies out of the oven and - guess what?! - there are a lot more recipes and pictures to come. If you have any great oatmeal cookie recipes you'd like to share with me, feel free to comment or post a link to your recipe. I would gladly appreciate it!

So here comes another delicious recipe. It uses simple vegetable oil instead of butter or margarine and less sugar, which makes these cookies a bit more healthy than regular butter cookies. Also they turned out really rustic and chunky having crispy sides but a very soft and chewy inside, which I absolutely love as it makes them perfect for being dunked into my morning coffee.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
makes about 4 dozen medium size cookies

3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg 
zest of 1 lemon
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup raisins
4 cups rolled oats
sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat your oven to 175 C. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. In a large bowl whisk together oil, sugar, egg and lemon zest. Sift together flour and baking powder and add to the wet mixture while whisking. Fold in raisins and oats and mix until well incorporated. Drop about one tablespoon of cookie batter (or about one teaspoon if you prefer smaller cookies) onto the lined baking sheets leaving some space between the cookies as they will slightly melt and spread out while in the oven. Smooth the top of the cookies using a teaspoon or leave them just like that if you prefere the messy version. Sprinkle the top of the cookies with some sugar if you want (and I bet you want) a slight sugar crust. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes until nicely golden. Let cool completely and store the cookies in a dry and airtight box. Enjoy ...

Red Wine Kugelhopf

A lightly pink color because of the red in the wine, a very fluffy consistency because of the alcool and an amazingly fruity flavour in the cake because of the fruity wine. I wouldn't advise you to eat this cake for breakfast (well, you could try, hehe...) but it's perfect as an afternoon tea cake. I think that a slice of this cake would be even more delicious if served together with a tablespoon of lightly sweetened whipped cream on top. I definitely have to keep that in mind the next time I bake this cake. So here comes the recipe for you to try it ...

Red Wine Kugelhopf (Eggless)

250gm regular white flour
15gm baking powder
100gm sugar (add more if you want a very sweet taste)
250ml red wine
6 Tabsp vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 175 C. Grease a kugelhopf baking pan with soft butter or margarine. In a large bowl combine the sugar, wine and oil and whisk well. Sieve over the flour together with baking powder and quickly whisk it in. Fill batter into prepared pan and bake for about 50 - 60 minutes until done. Let cool completely.

Optional: Dust with some icing sugar, if desired.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Cupcakes

Look at them, aren't they just lovely? Kind of childish and girly. They remind me of a kids party with a lot of baked stuff, colorful jellies and many sweets. But no. No kids. And no party. It was just me and some friends having mokka with some sweetnened condensed milk cupcakes. Originally, the recipe that I was using was meant to be for a pound cake.  Fabulous but so easy. The batter was very soft but at the same time very fluffy and spongy and went excellent together with the rich and heavy frosting. I'm definitely going to use this recipe again, probably trying a simple sweetened condensed milk pound cake next time.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Cupcakes
makes about 10 regular size cupcakes
cupcake recipe (slightly changed) taken from J's Kitchen

cupcakes
100gm soft butter or margarine
40gm sugar
2 eggs
120gm flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
200gm (1/2 can) sweetened condensed milk

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line 10 regular size muffin moulds with paper cups or line a 20 x 20-cm cake pan with baking paper. In a large bowl cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat in. Add sweetened condensed milk and beat well until incorporated. In another bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt, sieve over wet mixture and beat in quickly just until everything is combined. Pour into prepared muffin cups or baking pan. Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes (or for about 40 minutes if you bake a cake) until nicely browned. Take out of the oven, remove from the pan and let cool completely.

frosting
250gm curd cheese or cream cheese
2 tsp corn starch
1/2 cup powdered sugar

In a large bowl beat together the ingredients for the frosting using a hand mixer on high speed until everything is well incorporated and the mixture is very fluffy. Frost the cupcakes.

Optional: Decorate with some jelly fruits if you want. Enjoy :)

Oatmeal Plum Streusel Breakfast Cake

When I know that in my kitchen there is some kind of fresh streusel cake that I plan to eat for breakfast I, actually, can never wait until breakfast. In some cases I can even predict that a cake like this will never see tomorrow. Because it's is so good. It's a perfect mixture between cooked oatmeal and a fruit salat combined in a cake with streusels on top. Not too sweet. Not too heavy. But too yummy. 

And another good thing about this cake is that you can add to it whatever you wish. You could add some spices like ground ginger, nutmeg or cinnamon to make the cake more cozy. Or you might even want to replace the plums with any fruits you like, depending on the season, like cherries, apricots or figs. It's up to you.

Oatmeal Plum Streusel Breakfast Cake

batter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup milk or water
2 cups flour (if you want the extremely healthy version of a breakfast cake, use whole wheat or whole spelt flour. I was using regular white spelt flour.)
2 cups oats
2 tsp baking powder
+ about 2 cups plums, in thin slices (I added frozen plum slices to the batter, but I think fresh plums would be perfectly fine too)

Preheat the oven to 175C. Line a approximately 8 x 12 inch - baking pan with baking paper. Whisk together sugar, eggs and salt. Whisk in oil and milk. Add the dry ingredients and whisk well until you have a thick and moist mixture. Gently fold in about two thirds of the plums. Pour the batter in the lined pan and smooth the top. Arrange the remaining plums on the top. Now prepare the streusel mixture...

streusel
60gm sugar
60gm very soft or melted butter
100 - 150gm white flour (it depends on what consistency you want the streusels to have, I wanted them to be very crumbly, not soft, so I added much more flour)

Combine the ingredients for the streusels and make the mixture very crumbly using either a hand mixer on low speed or your fingers or a fork. Arrange the streusel mixture on top of the cake. Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for about 55 - 65 minutes until done and nicely browned. Let cool for a few minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely.

Simple Banana Yogurt Bread

It's quite weird but I absolutely hate bananas while I absolutely love banana cake. Well, I know that's not normal, but come one... we all have strange quirks we can't get rid of. Face it. I hate bananas. I love banana cake.
But a moist banana cake with some yogurt added to the batter is even better. Although I'm still not entirely sure why those kind of recipes are called 'banana bread' instead of simply 'banana cake', I don't mind at all as long as the so-called 'bread' is delicious. Just as the Spanish proverb tells us 'If there is no bread, cakes will do.'
 

Simple Banana Yogurt Bread

1 cup sugar
2 Tabsp butter
2 eggs
3 cups white flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 mashed bananas combined with 2 cups of yogurt or instead use 2 cups of bought banana yogurt (containing real bananas or banana flavour)

Preheat your oven to 180C. Line a loaf pan with baking paper. Cream butter and sugar together using a hand mixer on high speed until very fluffy. Add the eggs and beat in. Add the mashed bananas+yogurt or the banana yogurt and beat in as well. Sieve over flour, baking powder and salt and quickly beat in just until incorporated. Do not over beat. Pour the mixture into the lined loaf pan and bake for about 45 - 55 minutes until done and the top of the cake is golden brown. Let cool completely.

Optional: Sprinkle the top of the cake with some melted chocolate or dust the cake with some icing sugar.

Chocolate filled Oatmeal Ginger Cookies

  

- It's builder's tea. We dunk biscuits into it.

- Dunk?

- Means lowering the biscuit into the tea and letting it soak in there and trying to calculate the exact moment before the biscuit dissolves, when you whip it up into your mouth and enjoy the blissful union of biscuits and tea combined. It's more relaxing than it sounds.
(Quote taken from the movie 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel')

Everytime I eat cookies together with some black tea or coffee I think of this quote. My favorite ones to dunk into tea or coffee are oatmeal cookies. And my absolute all-time favorite ones to dunk into tea or coffee are chocolate filled spicey cookies. It's so simple but so delicious so that you just have to try this recipe, you won't regret it!

And oh! before I forget, here's another lovely quote I absolutely adore from the same movie:

- Everything will be allright in the end. So if it is not allright, then it is not yet the end ...

Chocolate filled Oatmeal Ginger Cookies

(makes about 1 dozen big double-cookies or about 2 dozen small double-cookies)

dough

1/2 cup butter or margarine, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cups oats

2/3 cups white flour

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of ground nutmeg

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

Preheat your oven to 200C. Line 4 baking sheets with baking paper. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, just until incorporated. Sieve over flour together with baking powder, salt and spices, add oats and mix everything well until you have a thick but still soft mixture. (You might want to add a little bit more flour if it seems to you that the dough is too sticky.) Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface and cut out the cookies using a drinking glass or a cup of the size you want your cookies to be. Place the cookies on the lined baking sheets and bake for about 10 minutes until done and nicely browned. Let cool completely before filling them.

filling

about 100gm melted dark chocolate (it depends on how much filling you want to have between two cookies, if you want them to be less-sweet, reduce the amount of chocolate. If you want the extreme sugar shock, use a lot of sweet milk chocolate instead of less dark chocolate. It totally depends on your taste. You decide.)

Take two completely cooled cookies and spread some melted chocolate (about 1-2 tsp) on one and then simply stick the two cookies together. Continue to fill the remaining cookies until everything is used up. Place the filled cookies on a wire rack until the chocolate is completely cooled.

Enjoy with a hot cup of tea or coffee. And don't forget to dunk them into it.

Yogurt and Berry Muffins

Everytime I have left-over food in my kitchen I try to use it up as soon as possible (and that's only one of many extremely economical habits of mine ...) For that I immediately look for a suitable recipe and this, mostly, leads me directly to smittenkitchen. If you have the same passion of scanning and stalking cooking-baking blogs for yummy recipes, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. In her most diversified blog Deborah shares a lot of ordinary and extraordinary recipes and each is followed by an amusing story and beautiful photography. That's where I got my yogurt and berry muffins recipe from. I was actually reading through her post of a lemon yogurt anything cake with the intention of baking a fresh yogurt loaf but then I thought 'why not use the same recipe for some lovely muffins?' - Yogurt makes your muffins soft and berries make them fruity, combine those ingredients with a lot of love and voilà - breakfast is ready.

Yogurt and Berry Muffins
recipe (slightly changed) from smittenkitchen

1.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain yogurt (if you use sweetened yogurt, you might want to reduce the amount of sugar to about 1/2 cup)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1.5 cup redcurrants (or any other type of berries), fresh or frozen and thawed

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line 12 muffins moulds with paper cups or one loaf pan with baking paper. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl whisk together yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and oil. Sieve the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and whisk well just until incorporated, try not to overmix. Gently fold in the berries. (In Deb's recipe it says to mix the berries with another tablespoon of flour before adding them to the batter mixture, but I skipped this step because I don't mind the berries sinking to the bottom of the muffins. Do whatever you wish.) Fill the batter in the prepared muffin cups (or loaf pan) and bake for about 25 minutes (or 50 minutes for a loaf cake) until done. Let cool completely and dust with some icing sugar if desired.

Cheese filled Sesame Strudel

I like yeasted dough so much. Every single day I have to eat something made with yeast, no matter if it's something sweet, e.g. cinnamon rolls or something savory, like fresh bread or buns. The taste and the consistency of a baked yeast dough is simply my favorite. 

This is why I'm here to share with you one of the best savory strudel recipes on this planet. The inside contains a lot of cheese and many herbs (almost any herbs or spices can be used) while the top of the strudel is brushed with fresh olive oil and a lot of sesame seeds. This strudel is perfect either for breakfast, for lunch or for dinner, and it can be served as a side dish with meat or as a main course with a simple salad and a spicey dip.

Cheese filled Sesame Strudel

dough
500gm white flour
20gm fresh yeast, in crumbles or small pieces
2 tsp salt
300ml warm water
3 Tabsp olive oil
1 egg
2 Tabsp sugar

Combine the crumbled yeast, sugar and water in a glass bowl and set aside for about 5 minutes until the mixture is very foamy and light. In a very large glass bowl sift together flour and salt. Add the egg, oil and the yeast mixture. Mix well using a wooden spoon or spatula slowly adding the flour from the sides of the bowl. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead for about 2 - 3 minutes until you have a very soft and elastic dough. Place in the glass bowl again and let rise at a very warm place for about 1 - 1.5 hours, until doubled in size.

filling
200gm Greek white and crumbly cheese (or use any other cheese you like, fresh mozarella will be perfect as well)
1 cup cottage cheese or farmer's cheese
2 Tabsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tabsp coriander leaves, chopped
1 Tabsp chili sauce (I was using ajika / aджика / aџьыка, which is a very hot and spicey Caucasian red paste)
1 tsp salt
a pinch of pepper
1 tsp majoram, dried

+ about 2-3 Tabsp olive oil for brushing
some sesame seeds (about 2 tsp)
some coarse salt (about 1/2 tsp)
some black cumin seeds (about 1 tsp)
some ground dried rosemary (about 1 tsp)

Mix the Greek cheese using a fork until very crumbly. Add the cottage cheese, parsley, coriander leaves, chili sauce and as much salt, pepper and herbs as desired, mix well. 

Now fill the yeast dough: Roll out the dough very thinly in a square shape, arrange the filling mixture on top. Roll the dough in and form a strudel. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper and place the strudel on it. Brush the strudel with some lukewarm water (about 2 Tabsp) to make sure that the top of the strudel won't become dry but stays moist and wet. Let rise again at a very warm place for another hour.

Preheat your oven to 175 C. Brush the completely risen strudel with olive oil and sprinkle the top with sesame seeds, salt, black cumin seeds and rosemary. Place in the oven and bake for about 30 - 40 minutes until nicely browned.