Kristin's Cookbook Project

As I had some dark chocolate I wanted to use up, I made chocolate scones based on a recipe from a cookbook called "Sjokolade" (Chocolate), but I'm unsure who the author is though. Chocolate and scones, what could go wrong? Not much really, as it was a fairly easy recipe to make, so I'll most certainly make it again some time. The only thing I did differently from the actual recipe was that the scones was supposed to be cut into squares, but I decided cutting them into those "pizza slice"-slices instead. Regardless of shape, they tasted good, which is the most important thing.

When it comes to cakes, I can't deny I've got a weak spot for chocolate (alright, I like chocolate in general), so I couldn't quite resist making a marble pound cake I found in the cookbook named "From Dill To Dracula" by A. M. Ruggirello. The recipe itself was one of the easier ones in my opinion and although it was very much similar to other types of marble pound cake, it had lemon zest in it, which was a nice change. An added bonus for me, as I'm rather terrible when it comes to cake decorating, there's no need for frosting and/or other "fancy" stuff. At least it shows that cakes don't need to be a daunting project.

Sometimes a pizza is in order, and I found a fairly easy recipe for pizza with fresh tomatoes in the Norwegian translation of 500 Pizzas & Flatbreads by Rebecca Baugniet, so I had a go at it. As mentioned, it was a fairly easy recipe to follow, and I got three pizzas out of it. They may not have been perfectly round, but that's on me, not the recipe. Something else that I really enjoyed, was the fresh tomatoes in it, both as a topping and in the actual tomato sauce. I didn't have any fresh basil around, so I had to use died instead, but it tasted good anyway. Yes, the pizza was something of a Pizza Margherita, with thin Italian crust. Although I'm one of those who enjoy spicy hot foods, I do enjoy food with fresh and simple ingredients too. As this is a vegetarian pizza with few ingredients, a lot of them basic ingredients, it's a fairly cheap dish to make too.

As it's autumn and soon Halloween, I couldn't resist trying a recipe or two from some of my more spooky cookbooks. Yesterday, I ended up making English rolls from the cookbook Food To Die For by Amy Bruni because of my urge. The recipe was fairly easy to follow, with basic ingredients most people have in their house, which is always a bonus. The end result was anyway some tasty rolls and I'd love to make them again some time.

Alright, I do have a weak spot for something so simple as a good chocolate cake. So when I was craving said chocolate cake, I pulled out the I Heart Soul Food cookbook by Rosie Mayes and made buttermilk chocolate cake. As we don't have what Americans would call buttermilk, I had to substitute it with what we Norwegians would call "skummet kulturmelk", which has the closest consistency to buttermilk, but fortunately it went well, especially as there's cakes here in Norway that's made with "kulturmelk" anyway. I'm by no means a skilled cake decorator, so I was worried for a second when it came to the frosting, but thankfully I pulled that one off okay I think. Overall it was a good and flavourful chocolate cake (added bonus with the coffee in the batter AND frosting), and it wasn't one of those dry cakes either. It's honestly no fun eating a cake that's dryer than Sahara.