Basics: Pâte Sablée

You may have noticed it has been a bit quiet on my blog lately. Sorry to keep you all waiting so long! I was trying out recipes for the cake/tart/pie competition I posted about earlier (in Sleen, Drenthe). I was completely blocked creatively, and when I finally came up with something, it didn't turn out great. I had to think of something different, and luckily patissier Christophe Michalak provided me with some much needed inspiration (not that he was aware in any way). I will be competing with a strawberry and pistachio tart called "Nutty About Strawberries", and it is absolutely DELISH. For those of you who want to get a taste, I will be at at Festival der Zoete Verleidingen in Sleen, the 7th of August. The competition starts at 14:30 but there is plenty to see and taste beforehand. For those of you who can't make it, don't fret! I will post the recipe on my blog later this week. Thanks for your patience!

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Mini Pink Cakes (Roze Koeken)

Every nineties kid in the Netherlands will feel a sudden wave of nostalgia seeing these pink cakes. Chances were that as a Dutch kid, you were watching a children's show called Villa Achterwerk, which featured a female presenter who was quite addicted to roze koeken - albeit larger ones than these. When my friend Nadine posted these mini cakes on her blog it made me feel sentimental about the time where I would wake up at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning to sneakily put my (ridiculously large) tv in my room on so that I could watch the show (all the while making sure my parents wouldn't wake up). I'm sure I wasn't the only one doing that!

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Orange Napoleons (Oranje Tompoezen)

If you have been watching the football World Cup at all, you'll know that the Netherlands has been doing pretty well.  Everybody but the coach and the team itself was skeptical at first, but "Oranje" started off pretty amazingly by beating Spain 5-1 and since that moment, Orange Fever (Oranjekoorts) has kept our country in its unfashionably colored grip. I have been watching pretty much every and any match and I have yelled at the tv a couple of times (okay, maybe more than a couple of times..). I guess you could say I'm a fanatic supporter! But then again, most Dutchies are. We are famous for our crazy, orange supporter outfits:  guys in Dirndl dresses, girls in beer dresses. None of the regular fashion rules apply during national football games. And what we do in fashion, we do in food as well. Every orange occasion calls for an orange foodstuff. Orange pudding, orange potato chips, orange liqueur ánd the most popular and ultimate of orange foods: the Orange Napoleon. And so it came about that I baked these before today's match instead of buying the gelatine-laden "tompoezen" that can be found in the supermarkets. Let's be honest, who wouldn't prefer a homemade Napoleon over a supermarket one (soggy bottoms, anyone)? 

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