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Recipes

Foodie Friday: Buche de Noel (Christmas Log)

Foodie Friday

Buche de what you say? Also known as a Yule or Christmas Log, this is a traditional dessert served at Christmas in Europe. Brought to us by Beko, if you’re looking for something a little bit different to the standard fruit cake, trifle or pavlova to serve on Christmas Day, this dessert is it!

Christmas Log

Ingredients

Cake

  • 240ml milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 250g whole wheat flour
  • 200g honey
  • 20g cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • Pinch of salt
  • 60g coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1⁄4 cup of desiccated coconut

Filling

  • 240g cream cheese
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 50g Greek yoghurt
  • 80g honey
  • 20mL milk

Frosting

  • 240g chocolate
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extra
  • 55g coconut oil
  • Pinch of salt

Method

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180C.

Step 2: Grease a rimmed 35 x 45cm pan with coconut oil. Line with non-stick baking paper and grease lightly again.

Step 3: Sprinkle a clean rectangular tea towel approximately 10 x 15 inches with desiccated coconut and set side.

Step 4: In a bowl, whisk the eggs with vanilla, coconut oil, honey and milk. Add flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder and baking soda into the egg mixture and whisk until smooth.

Step 5: Transfer the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes.

Step 6: While the cake mixture is baking, blend the filling ingredients together in a food processor.

Step 7: Once the cake is cooked, allow it to cool in the pan for 3 minutes and then invert onto the prepared tea towel dusted with coconut. Carefully peel off the parchment paper and with a sharp knife, trim 1⁄2 cm of the cake from all the edges.

Step 8: Working from the long side, fold the excess inch of the tea towel over the edge of the cake and carefully roll up and then unroll. This will help the cake become flexible and less likely to break. Gently and evenly spread the cream cheese filling onto the cake.

Step 9: Re-roll and place seam side down on a serving platter. Cut both ends off for a smooth finish and cut the roll in half diagonally.

Step 10: Place chocolate in a saucepan, add milk, coconut oil, vanilla extract and salt and stir until the mixture is melted and has a smooth, shiny consistency.

Step 11: Frost the cake logs and garnish with desiccated coconut or cherries as desired.

*Don’t be afraid to add your own Aussie flair by including mangoes in the cream, or garnishing the cake with macadamias.

Categories
Recipes

Foodie Friday: Gingerbread Cookies

Foodie Friday

It’s really starting to feel like Christmas (with trees and decorations appearing and the end of the work year imminent), making it the perfect time to start baking some classic Yuletide treats. Brought to us by Beko, these traditional cookies are a great one to make with kids and a fabulous way to kickstart the festive season.

Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients

  • 310g whole wheat flour, plus more for work surface
  • 80g melted coconut oil
  • 160g molasses
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • Pinch of salt

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  2. Combine flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, cloves, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine coconut oil, molasses and the eggs. Whisk until the mixture is combined.
  4. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and stir until combined.
  5. Get the kids to divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a round disc about 3cm thick and wrap it in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours, or overnight if possible, to make the dough easy to use.
  6. Get the kids to help again by flouring the benchtop. Roll the dough until it is 1cm thick.
  7. Cut cookie shapes and place them onto a baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, then let them cool on a cooling rack.
  8. Let the kids decorate the gingerbread cookies as desired.

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Appliances

Beko Indyflex 60cm cooktop makes paella (or a hell of a lot of bacon) real easy

I don’t know about you but every day when I get home I lament the fact that it is terribly difficult to cook a good, big paella on my current cooktop. OK, I don’t, but some people might. And not just paella; other dishes that require large amounts of ingredients, or even just those that you have to cook for a large party. The Beko Indyflex 60cm cooktop (HII 64500FT to give it its full name) could be the answer to your dramas.

beko indyflex cooktop

It could also be the answer if you wanted to cook a hell of a lot of bacon at once, which I do, often and continually. That would be one amazingly mighty bacon sandwich, all of which would be cooked perfectly at the same time. Living the dream, I am.

Categories
Appliances

Beko InnovaChef makes the oven smarter

Smart fridges. Whatever happened to those? When I started out as a technology journalist all those… seven years ago, LG was trying to convince everyone that these were the way of the future. They looked the part too, with big colour screens attached that could connect to the internet and do all this funky stuff. Well, Beko has a similar idea with the InnovaChef, but instead of being a fridge, it’s an oven.

BEKO INNOVACHEF OVENThe idea with a smart fridge is that you could potentially keep track of what is in your fridge and when you needed to buy more of it. Sure, you could do that with your eyes as well, but this is, well, cooler. With the Beko InnovaChef, it’s all about loading your recipes to your oven via USB and using the step-by-step recipe guides that come with the oven. OK, you could read a cook book instead, or use your tablet or smartphone which most people probably do, but that’s not the point.

Categories
Appliances Kitchens

Beko enlists architect and designer Patricia Urquiola for Cast line

The kitchen just got a little bit more stylish with the news that Beko has partnered with architect and designer Patricia Urquiola to create the Beko Cast line. The Urquiola name may put the same expression on your face as someone asking you the square root of pi (it’s 1.772453851 by the way) but think BMW, Alessi, Louis Vuitton and Kartell as she has added her design touches to products for all of those brands as well. Some of her work is even in MoMA.

013 INT_Patricia Flyer Yeni Tasarim.indd

With Beko, Urquiola has created some pretty stylish items that would go well in most modern kitchens. There are six appliances in the range all around the cooktop and oven category. Each appliance uses simplicity as the cornerstone for the design and then adds touches of modernism such as tinted glass doors without handles or simple stainless steel or cast iron elements for emphasis.