mobile minds archive

Monday, May 31, 2010


Short trip to the south
Lately an invitation for a short trip to Croatia was a very welcome change to this
never coming summer of 2010 and I accepted it with joy.

Nevertheless I´m not a real fan of the croatian mentality because of the missing friendliness and the missing of the typical "savoir vivre feeling" of the south like in France or in Italy. The little apartment in Novi Vinodolski we lived in had a wonderful balcony with a fantastic viewand a very nice little garden cultivated by an astonishing, very nice old Croatian lady. Every morning I went into the little garden and harvested a few leaves of her laurel and grated
them between my hands. What a wonderful light but though intense smell!





The cuisine of Croatia
There are not so many dishes and recipies the Croatian cuisine is known for, but a few very tasty ones I would like to mention here.

Honey
What I really liked is the honey of the region around Senji. It is full of taste and comprises all kinds of mediterranean aroma like rosemary, sage and laurel. They also have a very tasty sheep cheese there. Both you can by on sundays at the little market stands besides the country road to Zagreb.

Red wine
In addition we tasted avery smooth red wine in Croatia. It came from the well known vineyard Dignac (founded in 1902)from the peninsula of Peljesac. It is made out of the Plavac-Mali and has a deep, intense and clear tasteof berries and a fine tannin.
Furthermore I fell for the brand logo of Dignac: a little drawn donkey.

Favourite vegetables
My very favourite vegetable of the Cration region is a kind of chard. It is nearly as fine as
our spinach, comes fresh from the fields and has an awesome taste. It is served together with fresh boiled potates (cut in little pieces) out of the pan .

Fresh sea food
And the best thing they serve with these vegetables are fresh grilled calamari covered with lots of fresh garlic pieces:-)
If you sit there in the shadow of the summer midday heat, eating this very fine dish, accompanied by a glass of fine white wine the happiness of mediterranean lifestyle arrives quickly.

The mountains of the outback of the caost of Croatia with their wonderful views inspire you to savour all the tastes of the mediterranean south as well as to dance a little tango:-)




dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds




Monday, May 10, 2010


Soft dark chocolate cake:
the brown birthday kick

Chocolate cakes are offered in a huge variety of form, consistency, quality and taste in my urban district in Berlin Mitte. Starting with the classic chocolate brownie and the monster brownie from Synthia Barcomi (they also sell a lot of other tasteful chocolate bombs:-) you can continue with the chocolate coconut cake from Café Napolionska at Kastanienallee and move further down Weinbergsweg to the lovely Café Fleury, where you can get that flat chocolate cake with its intense smell of dark chocolate and its smoth taste nearly like a dough. If your baking level is slightly over beginners, fine chocolate cakes are really easy to make. One of my favourites is a very simple but really nice one, called the brown birthday kick with a wonderful taste of dark chocolate.


Ingredients (all organic)
3 fresh eggs
160 g of fine brown sugar
160 g butter (warm, soft, not out of the fridge!)
100g grouded almonds
120 g of flour
40 g dark organic cacao powder
1 teespoon of baking powder
1,5 bars of dark chocolate (70%)

Cake glaze
200 g of powdered sugar
100 g of dark cacao powder
a bit of water, added carefully sip by sip

Melt the chocolate slowly in a water bath. Stir eggs, butter and sugar for a while until it a creamy consistency is created. Mix cacao powder, flour, almonds, baking powder and add it step by step carefully to the dough.
Wait until the melted chocolate cooled down a bit and add it then also to the dough.
Put the dough into a cake pan and bake it at a temperature of 175 degree Celcius round about 40 minutes. Then switch off your baking oven, open it a bit and let the chocolate cake rest another 10 minutes in there.
Afterwards cover the warm cake with the cake glaze. That is important to keep the soft consistency and the full chocolate flavours.

Variations
A very nice taste variation of the brown birthday kick is to add another bar of chocolate, crunched into little peaces. Furthermore you can enhance the flavour of the dark chocolate with a fresh aspect by adding the peel of one or two oranges, cut into very little pieces to the dough and to the coke glaze.


And never forget: chocolate makes you feel happy:-)
dolce vita ahoi • monika ebert • mobile minds


about mobile-minds

My photo
berlin
gaumenperlen - a label by mobile minds, monika ebert::: gaumenperlen is a diary about affairs of the heart. I´m addicted to delicious food, unique and extraordinary places as well as valuable things, fine arts, design, music, tango argentino and interesting people. The focus of this diary is food. Delicious food is much more than nutrition, health or prestige. it is the basis of your body& soul, it is at the core of your way to think, to live and act, it is your attitude towards nature. For me cooking is a wild, joyful, creative process with the objective to share the result in the end. This process is surrounded by a bunch of exciting encounters - nevertheless where I am:: at the markets, talking to producers, at the book stores, in restaurants, in my kitchen. That´s why I love cooking and travelling.