Cafeteria in Madrid - first recommendation - Harina

During weekend I went to Madrid to see my friend, who now lives in Madrid.
The city which recieves more tourists in Spain is Barcelona, where we can enjoy sea, mediterranean food, gorgeous builidings, like of Gaudi, Montaner, and I understand why so many tourists visit and of course I love Barcelona, but Madrid has different charm and actually I also love Madrid!

Due to being capital of Spain, I feel Madrid has more sofisticated atmosphere, the way poeple dress, the design of shops, the beauty of parks in the middle of the city. There is more movement and all shops, cafeterias, restaurantes, tapas bars are full of people, Madrid has more energy and liveliness, it is after all capital!

And what I envy more is, there are lots of nice cafeterias! Maybe because of my taste, but I found several, which would have been dangerous for me if there had been in Barcelona or somewhere near my house. I would not be able to resist but drop in so often! And I can imagine the result easily... Maybe I have to be happy not to have them near by???

If you live in Madrid or visit Madrid, please drop in!

HARINA
La Plaza de la Independencia 10, Madrid

The shop is very bright, designed based on the country style on the white colour and offers wide range of tasty artisanal breads made from wild yeast, sandwishes, cakes etc. Buttery crunchy Croissants never let you down! Uhhhhhhhh I want some right now!

Bon Profit!!!

PS　Last night I was so happy to see Barça's victory after having suffered a lot during the last 2 matches. But  Real Madrid trainer and playeres' comment on the news upset me a lot..

I think that Red Card was given not because the referees favored Barça but because Real Madrid lost the spirit of fair play. Especially Pepe is always playing dirty, I did not imagine the referee would give Red Card because it would be tough desicion to take and I expected Yellow, but thinking about all he did, it seemed fair to me. Of course I would prefer Barça's victory against Real Madrid with 12 players to 1 less. But TV was showing several images where they were hitting, kicking and stepping on Barça's players even when they had no ball. I did not see any fair play spirit on their play. And more sad to see is Ramos, he plays so well as a member of Spanish National Team, but changes and plays dirty when he plays as a member of Real Madrid... (At least it seems to me like that)
I would praise for their victory if Real Madrid played fair as before and won, even though I prefer Barça. I hope both team show the spirit of fair play during the next match...

Vegetable Sweets

There is Vegetable Sweets Shop "Potager" in NAKAMEGURO, Tokyo in Japan.

Raising awareness of Health and Diet, Food, which are tasty and also good for the body, like Organic one, Microbiotic etc. attracts a lot of interest and these days we can find several sweets made from vegetables.
But I don't know any other shop apart from this Potager, which provides only vegetable sweets.

We ordered baked cakes, which were of course sweet but modelate and we could enjoy them as sweets but feeling also nice vegetalble taste and they were very popular among my family.
Moreover thinking that they are made from vegetables, we can eat without feeling any guilty, it's nice!

So I also ordered Recipe Book of Ms. Aya Kakizawa, Patissier of Potager, and tried to make some.



This time I chose Red Paprica Tart & Radish Cheese Cake.

The result of Red Paprika Tart was like lemon tart, fresh taste with delicate sweetness.
Actually the cream used to fill the tart was kind of lemon custard cream with red paprika.
But the color was like sobrassada(spanish fresh sausage made from mince meat with paprika pawder etc.), so when Spanish people see this tart, their brain gives the message that this tart is salty and when they taste it, the real taste, sweetness surprise them...（You can see Sobrassada in wikipedia;-)) and I was suggested to use Yellow Paprika or to put one more layer with cream or something to hide the colour.

About Radish Cheese Cake, we could smell fresh radish! even though I baked, so everyone could tell what vegetable I used. Maybe because I grated radish too roughly...
But the taste was quite normal no-bake cheese cake, and appearence also, and I think it is nice to serve it during Summer due to its fresh taste and fresh look. (I thought it would be difficult to find radish during summer but it looks like radish can be harvested several time!)

Currently children's obesity is very serious problem in Spain and there is a tendency to change eating habits. Even if we cannot avoid eating some sweets for break-time snacks, more ocation we can choose these kind of vegetable sweets, better would be for our body.

One day I create my own recipe with vegetables, I will introduce you!

Bon profit!!!

DORAYAKI

If we have "ANKO", we can gratify the sudden desire to eat "WAGASHI" easily♪
So, among "WAGASHI", I made the most easiest one, DORAYAKI and had a happy time with Hot Milk...
(Of course it is nice to have DORAYAKI with Japanese Tea, but I love the combination with Hot Milk, please try!)

The combination of TSUBUAN＆Whipped Cream is very popular among Japanese people and also people in other countries. Some who does not love WAGASHI due to ANKO can enjoy if WAGASHI is served with Whipped Cream.

Photo provided by The Matcha House

If you have SHIROKOSHIAN, you can make MATCHA AN mixing with Matcha.

＜Recipe＞

Egg 　　　 　　　　 2

Sugar              　70g

Honey      　　 　12g
Mirin  　　　　 　12g
Baking soda 　 　4g
Water　　　　　  20g
Flour   　　　　 100g

1.　Mix eggs and sugar in a bowl roughly(just to be mixed, not necessary to be thick and creamy).
2.　Add honey and MIRIN and mix roughly(if you do not have MIRIN, you can add SAKE Spoon1＋Sugar tea spoon 1, if you do not SAKE, you can change to Sherry or White Wine...).
3.　Mix water and baking soda and add to 2.
4.   Add flour to 3 and mix roughly.
5.　Leave the mixture for 30minutes
6.　Using Teflon coated pan, baking small pan cake(around 10cm in diameter) at low heat without any oil.

7.   Small bubble appears on the surface and the surface becomes dried, flip it to bake other side(Side B) for 10 seconds.

8.　Once the pan cakes cool down, fill ANKO, Whipped Cream, Cream Cheese or whatever you like between 2 pan cakes(Side B without colour should be inside touching the filling and Side A which has brown color should be outside).

If you have Electric Hot Plate, you can make pan cake easily but if not, the point to have nice brown colour is not to use any oil on the pan, which means the pan should be Teflon coated. If you have to grease your pan, use as less oil as possible and wipe unnecessary oil with kitchen paper.

Bon profit!!!

PS　I am normally buying MATCHA from The Matcha House because they provide Organic Matcha, which we can enjoy not only the good taste but also the beautiful green colour, the result is so different! As a consequence, when I make some sweets with MATCHA, the staff from The Matcha House offers to take photos. The quality of photos is much better than mine! If you run out of MATCHA, I recommend you to try theirs!

Bitter Chocolate Cake for Adult

Spanish people loves Chocolate!
The most common request I receive from them is cake with Chocolate.
This time I made a Bitter Chocolate Cake for adult using 2 types of garnache cream.

(Everytime I make cake, I feel to buy a flat plate...and always forget it...)

This bitter chocolate is very popular with guys.

If you want to prepare it for kids, I recommend you to use Chocolate with less cacao mass(60% or less) or sweet chocolate.

＜Recipe＞

Egg 　　　 　　　　 3

Sugar              　80g

Flour     　 　 　120g

Cocoa 　　      　20g

 

Ganache 1

Cream       　　  200ml

Choco（70％）　100g

Ganache 2

Cream         　　100ml

Choco（70％）　  50g　

1.　Wisk eggs adding sugar until the mixture becomes thick and creamy.

2.　Add flour and cocoa and mix with the egg mixture.

3.　Put the mixure in the mold and bake it in the oven for 15minutes(180℃)

4.　Take it out from the oven, remove the paper and leave it to be cool.

5.　Cut it into 2 pieces and apply syrup on the surface(Syrup: water 50ml+sugar 30g+liquor 15ml)

6.　Ganache 1: Whip cream, and add melted chocolate and mix.

7.　Ganache 2: Heat cream in a pan and remove it from the heat before starting boiling, and add chipped chocolate and mix until all chocolate is melted.

8.　Spread Ganache 1 on the half sponge and put the another half on the cream and cover the surface with Ganache 1.

9.　Leave it in the fridge for 1/2 hour and cover the cake with Ganache 2.

10. Leave it in the fridge for 1/2 hour or more and serve with cocoa powder on the top.

Bon profit!!!

Brazo de Gitano/Gypsy's Arm

Now is the time for Strawberry.
Whichever shop we go, we can find lots of strawberries and I cannot help making cakes with strawberries because I love strawberries!!!
And normally I make Roll Cake, but this time I tried Brazo de Gitano/Gypsy's Arm, whose origin I do not know about.

Let's enjoy the spring taste!

＜Recipe＞

Egg 　　　 　　　3

Sugar              60g

Flour  　   　　 50g

Cocoa            15g

Milk               30g

Strawberry     10(more less)

Cream           150ml

1.　Wisk eggs adding sugar until the mixture becomes thick and creamy.

2.　Add flour and cocoa and mix with the egg mixture.

3.　Add milk and mix roughly until they are mixed.

4.　Put the mixure in the mold and bake it in the oven for 12minutes(200℃)

5.　Take it out from the oven, remove the paper and leave it to be cool.

6.　Whip cream, spread it on the cake and put sliced strawberries on it.
7.　Spread the rest of cream on the strawberries and roll up the cake.

8.　Leave it in the fridge at least for 1 hour before serving.

（You can put the syrup, like water 50ml+sugar 30g+some liquor 15ml(like kirsch), before spreading the cream, then cake will be moist and nicer)

Bon profit!!!

Banana Tart

I love Banana and think "Banana+Chocolate" is the best combination!
But my husband is not interested in Banana at all, neither with chocolate nor without chocolate...
So I decided to prepare Banana Tart for Afternoon Tea I had during his business trip and of course everyone loved it!

So here is the recipe.

＜Recipe＞

Butter　　　　　　75ｇ(room temperature)

Sugar　　　　　　50ｇ

Egg 　　　 　　　20g（Around Lsize 1/3）

Flour  　   　　 120g

Banana　　　　　　2

Sugar　    　　　 50g

Sour cream    　50g

Sugar　　　　　 30g

Cream  　　　　70ml

Egg　　　　　　100g（Around Lsize 1＋2/3）

Vanilla oil　　  2、3drops

－Tart－

1.　Mix butter and sugar in a bowl until becoming white

2.　Add egg and mix, then also add flour and keep mixing until the dough comes together
3.　Wrap the dough with the film and put in the fridge and leave it for 2 hours-1 night

4.　Take the dough out from the fridge and rolling it out and put it in the mold
5.　Puncturing the base of the dough with a fork and put it in the fridge for 30minutes
6.　Bake it in the oven for 15 minutes(180℃)

7.　Put sugar in a pan and simmer slowly and once becoming caramel, add sliced banana and mix them

8.　Mix sour cream, sugar, cream, egg and vanilla oil in a bowl

9.　Place half of the caramelized banana(7) in the baked tart and pour the cream(8) to cover them
10. Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes(180℃)

11. Once becomes cold, decolate it with whipped cream, the rest of the banana and melted chocolate

（In the photo, I decorated the tart with fresh banana. If you eat soon after making it, you can use fresh banana.)

Bon profit!!!

I would like to express sympathy for the people who suffered and are suffering damage from Touhoku Earth Quake and Tsunami.
From Spain, we keep doing something, like donation or whatever we can do, even it is so small, in order to help the reconstruction.
We hope the situation will be settled down, the nuclear power station problem will be solved, all resources can be engaged in the reconstruction and the people who are suffering can at least return to a normal life, without any shortage as soon as possible...